[OPEN] All my friends, I've returned to sister winter.

[futilecycle]

WHO | Sigma and Jet; Sigma and Tom; Sigma and you!
WHAT | Sigma contemplates his time in the Arena, fights a Mammoth with Tom, and is killed by Jet.
WHERE | By the caves.
WHEN | At dusk, beginning of Week 4.
WARNINGS/NOTES | Death. Sigma's last log in the Arena before he moves on to a Capitol position.

FOR TOM & OPEN:

The bitter cold forced Sigma back to where everything had begun.

His first course of action ten Arenas ago had been to seek out shelter and prevent his leaking cybernetic arm from freezing in his body - the people he had met, then, had set in motion an alliance that would form the basis of his strategy. He had appealed to his sponsors and his enemies with sympathy, an old man who took care of the less fortunate when he could barely take care of himself. The longer it went on, the less of an act it became. Sigma had come to learn he hadn't left the Rhizome in the best of places.

His life unraveled itself.

With every passing Arena, Sigma struggled harder to protect those children; after each one of his deaths Sigma swore things would go differently the next time. He had meant to act good on this promise at last, until he saw Eponine's face in the sky the first night of his final Arena. It had a strange sense of finality to it and the last of the joy in Sigma's heart crumbled away.

Tonight, Sigma watches the static landscape from the safety of his shelter in the caves. He cursed his decision to remain in the Games for one more Arena - freezing to death had been the worst of his long line of deaths, by far. Even if the Arenas had, indeed, "returned to their roots," he hadn't expected them to use the same gimmick twice.

The silence was crushing. Things were coming full circle and its familiarity cut too close to the bone. Refusing to complete the cycle, Sigma tore into his backpack and abandoned his hidey-hole, hunting knives brandished, looking for blood.

FOR JET:

A fight with such a terrible beast had sapped the rest of Sigma's energy and he was feeling every year of his age. Cold leached into his bones and sucked out his life; the meager nest of blankets his sponsors had provided him did nothing to prevent the loss of body heat. When Sigma moans in pain, he is hardly aware he had made a sound. His hands hover cautiously over his backpack as he wonders if he'd the strength to resist the temptation to withdraw supplies and start a fire. Tonight the caves were unusually dense with Tributes - by design - and fire would be a beacon for trouble.

Another dull ache pulses through cramped muscles and the pain suppresses his reason.

Sigma makes his choice and sets the wood outside of his cave aflame.

Comments

[metalicarus]

Jet didn't travel far from the caves these days. He had plenty of supplies and with Albert...gone, that meant Jet could stop looking for enough supplies to sustain two people. Normally, that might have meant finding someone else to hunker down with and protect and hunt for, but everyone he would have chosen for that was gone as well.

Felicity and Clem and Terezi were still around somewhere, but if he couldn't find them then maybe they were well hidden and didn't need his help. Instead, he sat in his cave, staring out over the rocks at the others, watching. A light came on in one that was in Jet's line of sight and he momentarily thought to ignore it, night was falling and travelling right now wasn't the best idea. Then again, what did he have to lose and maybe it would end up being someone friendly.

Just in case it wasn't, Jet grabbed his knife, the sharp rock Sam had given him, and a strong stick that had one end sharpened like a spear, weeks had already passed in the arena, and that meant people would be getting more antsy, more willing to attack. Jet himself included. He crept over to a large bolder that he could hide behind and spied on the cave's occupant, wishing he had his cybernetic eyes to see better with. However, in the dim light, he was able to make out a man he recognized quickly enough, Albert had pointed him out to Jet before. Sigma wasn't an active threat in Jet's mind, but based on what Albert had said about him, he landed fairly nicely in the 'wouldn't be so bad to kill' category.

He hesitated, half contemplating returning to his own cave in silence. Sigma wasn't an active threat and most of the people Jet was trying to make win were already lost, so did he really have the reasoning like he had facing Charles? All he had to do was think of those girls who were still somewhere in this place to know his answer. They were all important to him and if he let Sigma go and then he killed one of them later, that would be on Jet. If he killed Sigma, it'd be one less person they'd be competing against.

Jet moved out from behind the bolder and strode towards the cave, waiting till he was just within reach of the fire's glow to pelt the sharp rock into the cave at his target. It wasn't likely to kill unless it somehow hit perfectly, but it would cut and wound and that was all Jet was looking for to start.

[futilecycle]

Sigma was on his knees, by then, crouched near his fire with his head down and lips trembling - when the pointed rock met the side of his face with sudden and enormous force. The edge of the stone clipped against the lens of his cybernetic eye and shards of glass and metal splintered off in a fine rain, joining the rock in its trajectory.

For one second, the cold disappeared.

All Sigma knew was the agonizing void in the side of his face, and with a terrible scream, the old man cups his right eye socket in his hands and falls onto his back, hard. Hot blood leaks through Sigma's gloves and freezes at the surface and he knows at once his superficial temporal artery must have taken the hit. When he tries to cry in outrage, his voice chokes into a sob - a moment passes as the titanic cyborg is nothing more than a dying elderly man alone in the cold.

Then the rage begins to stew and Sigma returns to his senses. His cybernetic eye was his lifeline - the main reason for his high score, other than his arms, inserted after he had paid a great and terrible price: he would not have it taken away again without recourse. Sigma howls in anger and gropes blindly for his backpack, literally ripping the teeth of the zipper from its seam to find his hunting knife. Blinking back the shards of glass that now peppered his organic eye, he rushes towards the mouth of the cave and strains to see who it was that attacked him.

[metalicarus]

The scream rattles Jet's bones, but not his nerves. Killing someone wasn't fun, the list of people he would kill with unrepentant glee was very short and none of them were in Panem. No, killing someone was messy and always left a dark mark on Jet he could feel rather than see, but this was the arena and sometimes you did things less than admirable to either end it faster or afford someone you cared about another day. He just had to hope the people who would care that he was doing this weren't watching.

Sigma came to the mouth of the cave as Jet stepped into the light cast by the fire and he might have just tried lodging his knife into the old guy's skull if it weren't for the fact he had his own knife that made Jet pause. Jet had no idea how good he was with it, if he chose to throw it, Jet needed to be ready to dodge or knock it away with the make-shift spear. If Jet threw his knife and it didn't make it's mark, he'd be left with just the spear and that wasn't appealing to him. Knives weren't guns or even bows, he hadn't perfected his aim with throwing them yet.

And yet, he couldn't do nothing. He kept his knife stashed and swung with the spear instead, aiming to catch some part of Sigma with the sharpened tip.

[futilecycle]

Sigma's real eye is slow to focus in the dim light, but he comes to realize with horror and disgust who it is that attacked him. It was the other cyborg: the very last man who might have an understanding of how much Sigma had suffered these past forty-seven years. Jet, to whom Sigma had raised a glass to toast his happiness. Jet, to whom Sigma had sent a wedding gift that he, himself, had never had the chance to receive. His good will was immediately scorned by Albert, who told him that his present was thoroughly unappreciated, but Sigma held out hope that Jet was still a good person who might deserve to live a long and happy life with the man he loved.

Now Sigma felt nothing but contempt, regretful he had wasted his money and energy.

His hunting knife is a suddenly futile instrument; he had received one because his aim, when thrown with the aid of his telescopic cybernetic eye, was impeccable. Now that it was gone, he may as well be unarmed. He attempts to block, to catch the tip of the spear on the edge of his knife, but misses - instead it embeds itself into his wrist. Sigma's whole body flinches, but he will not die from a wound on his prostheses. He grabs the edge of the spear with his other hand and holds it tightly, trying to wrestle it from Jet. White, oily cybernetic blood leaks from the flesh of his palm and the cuff of his sleeve. There is very little distance between them, now, but the reach of Sigma's arm would not close it. He can only defend himself.

His fury and pride gets the better of him. "If this is how my hospitality is received," Sigma taunts, pained breath rising in a cloud of vapor in the cool air, "I would hate to know how you treat those who truly wish ill upon you and your husband!" He had never wanted a fight with either of them. Sigma grits his teeth and glares accusingly at Jet.

[metalicarus]

The white fluid has a more visible affect on the other cyborg as he comes up short and loses his grip on his spear. That fluid looked no different than the stuff that would come out of Jet if he'd had his own cybernetics and were injured. It reminded him that, baseline, he and Sigma weren't very different and if things were different, maybe they could have even gotten along or been friends. But things didn't always work out like they should.

The minute realization hit that he'd lost hold of another of his weapons, Jet went for his knife and held his arms in, his stance no different now that he was in his eighties than it had been back in the early sixties when he'd been eighteen. Attacking the man as he was, he felt like that same street punk all over again, knifing a guy in an alley just because they were in a turf war.

It wasn't that different.

"Yeah, you would." If this were Kirk or Skull, it would be far more vicious and far more personal. "I don't got anything against you 'cept what I've heard. You're the Capitol's lap dog and you like to pose nice to people who shouldn't be listening to you, but you've never done me harm." Except annoy Albert to the point of ranting off his grievances once, but that wasn't much of a harm. "But this is the arena and you might do harm to someone I care about and I can't let that happen. No offense, but one less person alive is one less for them to deal with."

He shouldn't be talking to him. The guy was going to die, Jet going soft on him wouldn't help and if he kept talking to him, that might just be what happened...but he'd killed so many without looking at them or knowing their names, hell he'd done that just earlier in the arena and it hadn't felt any better. A slightly masochistic part of him told him he probably deserved to feel more guilt for it.

[futilecycle]

Sigma manages to yank the spear away, blade-first, as Jet loses his grip. The momentum and the slipperiness of his blood throws Sigma back somewhat, and the spear runs against the sides of his own arm. He struggles to regain his balance and re-position the spear towards Jet as the other provides his answer.

Somehow, Sigma finds himself satisfied by this explanation, and his hot glare melts into indifference. His opponent's words remind him of his third Arena (the Arena in which everything seemed to come back to), where Sigma had watched their next victor calmly behead a girl who begged for mercy. It had put the fight in Sigma, for he had come to realize that if he did not take the lives of the people he came across, they may go on to take the lives of his own. Clearly, Jet had already worked that out for himself.

The cyborg couple were, on the whole, not foolish men. They would have made valuable allies and friends, in another universe.

Under another set of circumstances - one where Sigma had never intended to serve the Rebellion, at all. It's a deeply ironic thought.

Still, the insinuation about Eponine makes Sigma sick to his stomach. If he were not the only one who loved her, he certainly felt he was the only one looking out for her. His Capitolian morals gained the ire of most Tributes... but what idiot would have the gullible Eponine proclaim Rebellious beliefs in a dictatorship? An idiot like Albert, Sigma wagered. He wanted to see her again, to keep her from being coaxed over to a place that would surely kill her, if she were somehow still alive after her string of disobedience... This desperation throws Sigma forward, spear firmly in his grasp, tip trained on Jet's stomach. He would soon learn how practiced Jet was with that knife of his.

[metalicarus]

For whatever reason, Jet had been expecting a response to his answer, something from Sigma to make it feel like it had been an honest question instead of a ploy to put Jet's guard down like it now felt. Sigma lunged forward and Jet's reaction time had him dodging out of the way of what would have been a very messy stab with his own spear. He wasn't fast enough, however, and the blade caught on his parka and tore into and under it, ripping some of the only skin Jet had left.

A cry tore from his lips, but it turned to anger as he used the flat of the blade to shove the spear aside and whip his arm around to try and shove the blade into Sigma's gut.

[futilecycle]

When his spear nicks Jet's side, time stops, a moment. If Jet had been stunned by Sigma's cybernetic lubricant, Jet's blood is what throws Sigma into a state of shock. They bled red in the same places. Drops of the fluid aerosol with the cool air, the bright colour at contrast with their white surroundings, and it's another bitter reminder of what could have been between them.

This observation may be what costs him the duel.

His weapon is knocked aside and Sigma instinctively hops backwards - with only one eye to watch from, his gaze falls on the oncoming knife a little too late. He can lean just far away enough to avoid certain death, but rather than embedding itself into his body, the tip of the blade now snakes upwards and carves a line a half an inch deep through his abdomen and chest... scraping across his ribs as it went.

His legs crumble beneath him and Sigma is left breathless by the pain. How could a man fight with a spear in his state, his upper body bleeding out? He'd had the bastard, too, which infuriates Sigma the most; if only he'd tried to wrestle the knife away, perhaps Jet would be dead by now. As it stood, Sigma was hurtling at breakneck speed towards the end of a losing battle. His top priority in these situations was always to preserve his own life, even if it made him a coward - Sigma summons the last of his strength and slices the air horizontally with his spear. Pain rips through his body, but the act is necessary: it's a last-ditch attempt to put some distance between them...

...Then Sigma thrusts the tip of the spear in frozen dirt and, bent in on himself, leans against it and forces himself to his feet. It would take too much strength to pull it from the permafrost, and so he abandons the instrument and begins to limp away, gasping with each step, the blood from his chest and eye leaving a trail in his wake. He can only hope the injury he'd left on Jet's waist is somehow worse.

[metalicarus]

It didn't hit exactly right, but it drew blood and that was good enough. Sigma went to his knees and Jet guessed that was the end of it, but it seemed the old guy had one more trick up his sleeve. Jet jolted back away from him and leaned against the cave's entrance as his arm came up to press against the wound. He'd moved too quickly for the cut and pain flared along it, but he didn't get sliced again.

He looked over to Sigma and watched as the older cyborg forced himself back to his feet, pain clear in his movements. The fight was over, he'd die for sure. The question was whether Jet put him out of his misery and risk further harm to himself -it was amazing what strength a dying man could have- or if he left now and trusted time to do the rest. It would probably be kinder to just kill him now. But Now Sigma was retreating further into the cave, back to Jet and it would be so easy to stick his knife into Sigma's back but Jet couldn't. The fight had gone out of him and he didn't want to be that kind of person to someone who didn't truly deserve it. He pushed himself back from the cave wall and took a few staggering steps further in to wrench the spear free and knelt with a hiss of pain to retrieve the rock that lay by the cave wall. He'd need those again, he was sure. Without another word, he turned and left as quickly as he could from Sigma's cave to retreat to his own.

He felt sick and it was a little too easy to shove the guilt away and justify it as he'd done in the past. What was done was done and he couldn't take it back now, just move on from it.

[futilecycle]

The floor of the cave Sigma had taken refuge in was on a slow incline down, and it isn't long after Jet leaves him to his fate that the old man falls onto his stomach, smearing the rock face red as he slid forward. His already gaping wounds split and tear with the friction of his fall and he stays this way, crumpled face-down, blood from his shattered eye pooling beneath the bridge of his nose. He finds he cannot bring himself to move.

Before long, the stream of blood reaches his organic eyelid and freezes it shut, and Sigma gives in to his defeat. When was the last time he'd died alone? If The Games had any benefit at all, it was that they, at least, provided the comfort of company in death. ...And yet, he's certain he has been abandoned more than once. It is not that he doesn't have the memory, for to lose his memories were impossible - it is that he's exhausted, cybernetic oil clinging to titanium and freezing him from the inside out, mind in a fog of pain and fatigue. The memories of an esper are out of order, a deck of cards shuffled and arranged in a deck with no logical progression. He reaches out for one and it is returned to his hand blurred blank.

In his last moments, he is acutely aware of a fear he has felt one hundred hundred times, a fear he had never successfully inoculated himself against. Yet the last flicker of electric activity coursing through Sigma's brain is the thought to forgive Jet, who would take pity on an old man at the end of his struggle. He does not come to a decision in time.

[pimpcanes]

"My, my. You look like you're out on the hunt." Tom emerges from the shadow of a tree and rocky outcropping with the swagger of a person who only was hiding by incident, not by design of fear or shame, as if the shadow wrapped around him while he wasn't looking. He has a knife of his own, which he's tapping against the palm of his glove.

"That was your lass I saw in the sky earlier, wasn't it? Eponine Thenardier?" He slips into a French accent for her name that's both perfect and strange for words that were so often pronounced not with the erudite diction of the upper class but with the soft and familiar vowels of the street. "You shouldn't take it hard. A little slip of a thing like her, she'd be frozen half to death by now, and miserable for it."

He takes a seat on the rocks. If he's looking to hunt Sigma down and kill him, he's not showing it. As usual with him, he doesn't hide that he's a dangerous man, but Sigma knows that. He seems like a man talking to a hostage, in a way.

[futilecycle]

Tom speaks before Sigma has the chance to notice him - before he can place the voice's identity, Sigma rounds on him, the tip of his knife between his fingers and prepared to be thrown. But his hands stall above his shoulder - before long, Sigma's arms drops to their sides. He hasn't struck, not because he does not want to, but because he knows he will lose. Black Tom. He had hoped their paths would not cross until he was free of the Arena. Now Sigma felt obligated to answer for the discrepancy between his high score and his negligible body count - with luck, his 'ally' would not remember his boast, but Sigma knew luck was not on his side tonight.

The comment about Eponine rubs against a raw wound and Sigma's mouth twitches. There's also something about the way he pronounces her name - perfectly, when Sigma's ignorant tongue would stumble through the correct sounds - that makes his hair stand on end. It was always easier to address her as my dear... but what did that say about him?

Sigma stands straight for the interrogation and exhales slowly. He had himself riled up to kill, and it was a slow comedown. "Seems that way, yourself," Sigma answers neutrally. He does his best to keep his temper even. "You are right, of course. My first Arena, she did exactly that and has shown little improvement since. I suppose for her to die so soon is a small mercy, and a lighter burden..."

In all probability, there was a ghost on the other end of the television screen watching now and shrugging off her feelings for him. He had crossed into Pro-Capitol territory and there was no return track.

[pimpcanes]

"I have a woman and a child to take care of here. I'm sure you understand, Dr. Klim." Tom smiles and raises his eyebrows, knowing, so not-judgmental as to be somewhat patronizing. "You tend to collect little families of your own in these parts."

He notably doesn't say that he needs to feed them, because he hasn't been bringing back food, for the most part. He isn't quite the hunter Molotov is, but he's also going after different prey. Molotov's been spending her days finding food for herself, Tom and Arya, while Tom's been actively trying to winnow the competition and take their supplies. With only so many hours in the day and an obscene amount devoted to shoring up for the cold weather and gathering water, keeping each on a separate path has proven the most efficient means of accomplishing both tasks.

He hears a crack in the woods and furrows his brow for a moment, casting a glance over his shoulder before turning back to Sigma.

"And yet here you are out here alone. Could it be that our compatriots have abandoned you even more than they have me?"

[futilecycle]

At the snap Sigma jumps a little too suddenly, flinch written across his face; paranoia firing up worn-out nerves. He trains the knife wedged between his fingers in the direction of the sound - but Tom does not appear to be concerned, and so Sigma forces himself to relax. Caught between two high-scoring veterans, whomever it was would hardly stand a chance... Unless this were an ambush. Either way, he has no choice but to turn his attention back towards their conversation.

It was probably wise that Tom's use of the word 'you' could be interpreted in a general sense, because Sigma was a hair trigger away from a fight. He's also quite surprised to hear Tom admit to building a team. Other than his obvious relationship with Molotov, Black Tom Cassidy hardly appeared willing to lend a helping hand if there wasn't something in it for him. Sigma misunderstands only because he had never asked anything of Howard, Eponine or the Initiate other than their love.

"My previous allies and I have drifted far enough apart in ideology for it to become uncomfortable, you see," Sigma explains. He hopes to suggest the Initiate, who had a Rebellious reputation; the more the Capitol thought their relationship was falling apart, the better it was for him. "And those with whom I do agree would rather not waste their time with words in the Arena. A wise decision, for the most part..." And here they were, as if they were still in the Capitol. In spite of their amicable introduction, Black Tom Cassidy was an unpredictable man and it was unnerving not to know his intentions.

[pimpcanes]

"It's a shame when ideology comes between two people who care for each other." Tom sounds - and is - genuinely sorrowful there, carrying in his words a decade of estrangement from the girl he considers his daughter, and years more of disagreements with the man he once called his partner. "People get far too caught up on the things that don't matter."

Another snap in the woods, and this time Tom actually turns his whole body and peers, trying to see what it is that's making those noises. Trees have been bursting from frozen sap, or cracking under the weight of snow, but this sounds more routine, almost like footfalls. Through the treeline he makes out a dim shape of - an elephant?

"Dr. Klim, we have company."

[futilecycle]

His answer came as a surprise, and Sigma studies his face for sarcasm - he does not find it. He would have expected a pro-Capitolite- perhaps one only trying to fit in and reap the benefits, as he was- to say something more along the lines of cutting out those who did not share their perspective. For a moment something resembling true appreciation for Tom's company is stirred in him, and Sigma wonders if he has misjudged the man, if only slightly. He isn't given the time to pursue that train of thought.

Tom does not need to finish addressing him before Sigma has turned and his knife is sailing through the air. It's a reflex: he has two hunting knives, one to use quickly should he detect a threat, and one other for precision strikes. His first shot is always aimed about a metre off the ground, high enough to hit most people in the abdomen but low enough to catch a mutt in the eye.

This gamble would fail him, today.

His blade sinks into the leg of an enormous beast as an enraged trumpeting fills the air. Sigma can barely register his own confusion as a woolly mammoth comes roaring through the woods, bending the treeline towards them as it went. Jaw agape, Sigma strafes to the right, desperate to get out of its path.

[pimpcanes]

"Good aim," Tom says, sarcastic, knowing that knife would have hit him in the stomach had Sigma aimed it at a different angle, recognizing the skill inherent to the attack. He's already moving, putting distance between himself and the mammoth without turning his back, less rattled than Sigma is (Tom had a teammate once who was a giant humanoid elephant - don't ask). "I think you've just made it mad."

The first order of business is getting away from the trees. Tom has a great fondness for the arboreal, but he isn't naive; a falling trunk will smash him just as easily as it would anyone else. The trees don't hold the same fondness for him.

Higher ground. Tom has his doubts that the mammoth can scale steep terrain. Without notifying Sigma, Tom makes a break for the caves, not to go deeper into them - he doesn't want to be caught inside them should the beast's footfall cause collapses inside, and he has no doubts that the Gamemakers would find that entertaining - but for the rocky face around them.

[futilecycle]

Sigma is considerably unnerved when Tom's response to a woolly mammoth barreling towards them is to joke - a person who did not react instinctively to a threat must have experience locking their humanity away. Regaining his balance, Sigma stares, wild-eyed, at Tom accusingly for the second he can afford. He was right, of course: the mutt was pissed, and Sigma's mistake could cost them both their lives. He does not need a reminder to start sprinting towards the cliffs.

He's able to make it some of the way. Unfortunately, neither climbing nor running were Sigma's strongest suits - wearing weighted steel boots on the moon for 45 years does not give one much practice coordinating their legs. He's a few paces into the cliff face before he places his weight on the wrong side of a rock and slips, landing on his knees before his palms. Adrenaline has him up again quickly, but in the effort not to break his ankles, the old man is quickly outpaced by their pursuer. In spite of the rocky obstacles, it would not need to make the effort for very long to skewer him through the back.

With Tom so far ahead of him, Sigma does not bother to call for aid, knowing there is little to no chance the man would stop. Instead, the cyborg does the only thing he can do if he is to have a chance at all: with the last ounce of his will, Sigma whips around, his last knife in one hand and the other outstretched. He has no choice but to try and catch the beast by the tusk and lunge for the eyes.

[pimpcanes]

Tom is, alas, not that much faster up the slope than Sigma is, mostly due to his bad leg. Climbing has never been his strong suit. He doesn't slip, but he doesn't make all that much better time than Sigma does, and when he chances a glance over his shoulder he sees a display of desperate will that sends a shudder through his very spine.

"Are you mad?" he yells back at Sigma, watching with a sort of stunned horror as Sigma is swept up with the tusk. The mammoth rears back like a horse, the shadow of it crossing across Tom's wide ice-blue eyes. It gives Tom pause, not because it's mad but because it's dramatic, and that's the sort of thing that the audience loves in an Arena.

Furthermore, Tom has always had a penchant for flair.

It's not quite as showy, but when he chucks a rock at the mammoth's face he does have very good aim. It strikes right beneath the beast's eye.

[futilecycle]

Accepting Zero's mantle had always meant committing oneself to madness. Sigma squeezes his organic eye shut as a tusk runs clean through his forearm, hurtling him into the air, inertia resisting the force in the pit of his stomach. Wedged between mangled titanium long bones, the Mammoth cannot buck him off, though each jerk sends a shooting pain down Sigma's back and shoulder. He curves his arm to gain purchase on the tusk and holds on for dear life - short of surviving a few seconds more, this may not have accomplished much.

It's then that Tom throws the rock and the creature relents long enough for Sigma to chuck his knife through the same eyelid. He's unarmed, now, but creating a blind spot would serve to even the odds. With both hands free, he wrenches himself from the screaming beast and is thrown backwards during its throes. In his panic to recover from his fall and escape from being trampled, there's no time to retrieve the knife he'd embedded into the creature's leg - though that could come next, as both the weapon and its wielder were poised at the blind side. Now at a relatively safe distance, Sigma looks to Tom for advice, expression resembling a startled old rodent rescued from the cat's maw.

[pimpcanes]

Tom's face tends to take on some strange cast in the face of danger, when adrenalin flushes him with youth and verve and a quickness that no longer fuels his charm or his pettiness but instead a savage resourcefulness. Tom always looks deadly, but the fever of a threat makes him appear more like a cobra flaring its hood than anything else.

He whips out his own knife, knowing full well that he can't throw it accurately - it's a hunting knife, made for keeping in grip. He'll have to get up close to do any damage with it, and he isn't sure if that's a risk he's willing to take. He chews the inside of his mouth as he thinks, meeting Sigma's face with more confidence than the old doctor has. Then he glances at the caves below them, the crags and the slipping shale under their feet. The tons upon tons of stone that could crack the back of even this monstrous muttation.

Between the two of them, they might be able to do more than simply fend off or escape the beast - they could take it down, bring it to heel or death. And what a show that will be.

"How strong is that metal arm of yours?"

[futilecycle]

Sigma as disturbed as he is grateful to find Tom working out a plan, aware anyone else would have fled as he'd blinded the mutt. He swallows, crouched and ready to run before the adrenaline wound down, fingers digging into the rock until gravel lined his fingernails. He wondered how best to answer him without veering into unnecessary detail (as he was often prone), eyes darting from Tom to the creature and back again.

"It is designed to be stronger than the muscles of most men. It's a titanium alloy," he answers breathily. "Injuring it does my body no harm," save for pathogens crossing the blood-oil interface, but getting an infection was the very least of his problems right now. "What are you thinking?" It's an accusation of insanity, though they had both brought it upon themselves.

[pimpcanes]

Tom doesn't really explain. He more just gestures at the cave and then at the cliffs and hopes that Sigma's clever enough to follow along. He'll break instructions down for Cain but not really for anyone else, and to tell the truth, the accusation of insanity would follow throughout.

"Can it be used as a lever?" Tom's eyes dart around, taking in the geography around them; one of his specialties has always been demolition, although typically it's been architectural, and he's had a Juggernaut on his side. The concepts are largely the same throughout, though.

Tom gestures to a crack in the cliff wall. "How far can you get your arm into that one? I'll lure it if I must, but I need to know it won't be for nothing first."