The Ψiioniic / The Helmsman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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thearena2015-05-31 03:40 am
biiowiired) wrote in thearena2015-05-31 03:40 am
Entry tags:
Reflex in the sky
Who| The Ψiioniic &: Sam Wilson, Samwise Gamgee, Rose Lalonde, Venus Dee Milo.
What| Blindly taking refuge
Where| The Catacombs
When| May 25 - Jun 02
Warnings/Notes| language and lisping always
He woke struggling in the dirt, bruised and burned and completely surprised to be alive. He'd been flying low when something hit him, like a power surge or accident with the mind honey. He thought he was literally toast when light filled his vision and the skin around his eyes burned. His optic blast had been completely involuntary, necessary to channel off whatever energy that had hit him, and that frightened him. He'd also lost consciousness immediately while flying, also frightening. Luckily, he had been zooming below the height of the village buildings, hoping they'd provide cover from any projectile weapons. He supposed flying out of them into the open fields did him in, but he'd had no choice in the chaos of the Cornucopia.
It was dark. Where the hell were the stars? Did the Gamemakers forget to turn them on, or did they just not bother? Screams in the distance told him there was another big fight erupting. Or the same one? He'd lost time between rocketing off from the Cornucopia and here, but he couldn't tell if it was minutes or hours. He'd assumed it was hours, because he was standing and wading through pitch black velvet unlike any dark season, a tattered monk trying to look for his missing shoe, and why weren't his eyes adjusting....
Oh. Shit.
He could feel the silvery warmth of what he recognized as the Earth's sun. It came from one direction more than any other. He turned to it, his only clue. His eyes were no longer bright red and blue, but completely black staring orbs. His vessels were burned in yellow capillary fractals around them. He tried to remember where he was. Lost time was less an issue so much as the need to get away from the sounds of fighting. He didn't chance flying again. It could have been lightning, but he'd been too low for that....
A: Sam Wilson
He could hear the wind whistling ominously in the cracks of a large door. He remembered the funny black building on the long path. He'd been flying somewhat in that direction and must have fallen nearby. Though he longed to put out tendrils of psi to feel his way there, he was afraid the light would draw enemies. He crawled instead, tripping on his robe in a fashion entirely unbefitting Alternia's most powerful psionic mage. His hands finally pawed at the door. He ripped it open and stumbled through.
His efforts to enter stealthily were in vain. In his haste to find a place to hide, he tripped and fell into nothingness. Then a stone corner jabbed against his body, and another, and he realized with a sinking feeling of dread and irritation that he was tumbling down a flight of stairs. Before he could summon his psi and stop, he touched down on the first landing. Horns stinging from bumps, he felt for the next step with his toes. He was still scared of the other Tributes entering and seeing his light-show. Troll instinct told him to get out of the open, out of the possible light, and get down into something like a cave.
B: Samwise Gamgee & (later) Rose Lalonde
The wall's recesses were low enough for him to feel with his hands. He jumped when he brushed the long, knobbed forms of bones. He reassured himself that the bodies were long rotted away, with no chance for infection or undead tendencies. Trolls weren't in the habit of venerating dead bodies, so this sort of place was foreign to him. Still, trolls had their own ghost stories, and someone put bones here for a purpose, probably to scare. A Tribute probably wouldn't want to look at them, would pass them quickly by....
He was slim enough to tuck himself behind one of skeletons, borrowing rags and dust to cover his robes and orange horns. He tried to imagine what he looked like sharing a bed with a skeleton. It wasn't a picture he wanted to dwell on, but death had touched his life from hatching, from his first vision of doom to his first kill. If these bones were indeed real, then it was about time the dead did him a favor.
He was nodding off to sleep when he heard someone open the door at the top of the stairs. He remained still, controlling his breaths even though his bloodpusher was hammering in his chest. It was inevitable that someone would want to explore this odd little building and the catacombs under it. He'd just have to lie low behind his camouflage and wait for them to leave. And if they stayed.... well, there was either an alliance or an optic blast to be had.
Completely independent to the noises on the stairs, he heard someone screech loud and hard enough to echo through the catacombs. Psii tried not to jump, but his twitch dislodged a few bones from his osseous companion. Ribs clattered to the floor. Damn ghosts at it again. He never liked them in his head, and he certainly didn't like them now. His prophetic voices had been their usual clamorous din from the start, but (strangely) none of them were distinct enough to tell him whether the ghosts he heard now were real. He remained in his alcove, hoping his cover wasn't broken.
What| Blindly taking refuge
Where| The Catacombs
When| May 25 - Jun 02
Warnings/Notes| language and lisping always
He woke struggling in the dirt, bruised and burned and completely surprised to be alive. He'd been flying low when something hit him, like a power surge or accident with the mind honey. He thought he was literally toast when light filled his vision and the skin around his eyes burned. His optic blast had been completely involuntary, necessary to channel off whatever energy that had hit him, and that frightened him. He'd also lost consciousness immediately while flying, also frightening. Luckily, he had been zooming below the height of the village buildings, hoping they'd provide cover from any projectile weapons. He supposed flying out of them into the open fields did him in, but he'd had no choice in the chaos of the Cornucopia.
It was dark. Where the hell were the stars? Did the Gamemakers forget to turn them on, or did they just not bother? Screams in the distance told him there was another big fight erupting. Or the same one? He'd lost time between rocketing off from the Cornucopia and here, but he couldn't tell if it was minutes or hours. He'd assumed it was hours, because he was standing and wading through pitch black velvet unlike any dark season, a tattered monk trying to look for his missing shoe, and why weren't his eyes adjusting....
Oh. Shit.
He could feel the silvery warmth of what he recognized as the Earth's sun. It came from one direction more than any other. He turned to it, his only clue. His eyes were no longer bright red and blue, but completely black staring orbs. His vessels were burned in yellow capillary fractals around them. He tried to remember where he was. Lost time was less an issue so much as the need to get away from the sounds of fighting. He didn't chance flying again. It could have been lightning, but he'd been too low for that....
A: Sam Wilson
He could hear the wind whistling ominously in the cracks of a large door. He remembered the funny black building on the long path. He'd been flying somewhat in that direction and must have fallen nearby. Though he longed to put out tendrils of psi to feel his way there, he was afraid the light would draw enemies. He crawled instead, tripping on his robe in a fashion entirely unbefitting Alternia's most powerful psionic mage. His hands finally pawed at the door. He ripped it open and stumbled through.
His efforts to enter stealthily were in vain. In his haste to find a place to hide, he tripped and fell into nothingness. Then a stone corner jabbed against his body, and another, and he realized with a sinking feeling of dread and irritation that he was tumbling down a flight of stairs. Before he could summon his psi and stop, he touched down on the first landing. Horns stinging from bumps, he felt for the next step with his toes. He was still scared of the other Tributes entering and seeing his light-show. Troll instinct told him to get out of the open, out of the possible light, and get down into something like a cave.
B: Samwise Gamgee & (later) Rose Lalonde
The wall's recesses were low enough for him to feel with his hands. He jumped when he brushed the long, knobbed forms of bones. He reassured himself that the bodies were long rotted away, with no chance for infection or undead tendencies. Trolls weren't in the habit of venerating dead bodies, so this sort of place was foreign to him. Still, trolls had their own ghost stories, and someone put bones here for a purpose, probably to scare. A Tribute probably wouldn't want to look at them, would pass them quickly by....
He was slim enough to tuck himself behind one of skeletons, borrowing rags and dust to cover his robes and orange horns. He tried to imagine what he looked like sharing a bed with a skeleton. It wasn't a picture he wanted to dwell on, but death had touched his life from hatching, from his first vision of doom to his first kill. If these bones were indeed real, then it was about time the dead did him a favor.
He was nodding off to sleep when he heard someone open the door at the top of the stairs. He remained still, controlling his breaths even though his bloodpusher was hammering in his chest. It was inevitable that someone would want to explore this odd little building and the catacombs under it. He'd just have to lie low behind his camouflage and wait for them to leave. And if they stayed.... well, there was either an alliance or an optic blast to be had.
Completely independent to the noises on the stairs, he heard someone screech loud and hard enough to echo through the catacombs. Psii tried not to jump, but his twitch dislodged a few bones from his osseous companion. Ribs clattered to the floor. Damn ghosts at it again. He never liked them in his head, and he certainly didn't like them now. His prophetic voices had been their usual clamorous din from the start, but (strangely) none of them were distinct enough to tell him whether the ghosts he heard now were real. He remained in his alcove, hoping his cover wasn't broken.
no subject
It's the distant scream from behind him that sends him darting forward into the dark, though - between the threat of ghosts who like as not aren't there and the threat of the armed Tributes somewhere behind him, he'll take the ghosts, and at least have his face to whatever's outside if they drive him fleeing from this place.
He's quiet as he creeps gingerly down deeper, his mouth twisting in distaste when he feels broken pieces of bones under his bare feet. It doesn't reek of decay, so much - these bones being all too old to rot - but it smells musty, the air thick and unmoving.
And then that screech rings out, echoing through the hallways, bouncing off every wall, growing distant and more distant, and Sam leaps clear out of his skin-- darts forward on instinct, stumbles, falls to his knees with a grunt, hears the hoarse, frightened sound that comes out of his own throat and echoes on the heels of the scream, and then the clatter of bones falling down, not ten feet away--
--But that's queer, ain't it--? Even in his panicked crawl to the nearest wall Sam knows ghosts don't rattle nothing loose, having no hands with which to do it - and he flattens himself against the wall he finds (suddenly hardly caring what skeleton he's pressed up against), his eyes wide and staring and seeing almost nothing in the blackness this far from the still-cracked door.
"Who's there?" he calls out, his voice sharp to disguise the tremble in it. "Who else is creepin' around in here? Whether dead or not-- speak, or you'll have me to tangle with!"
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He hadn't counted on a ghost outing him so quickly, but there was no point in hiding now. With no time to be respectful, he kicked the rest of his skeleton buddy onto the floor and slid out of his makeshift cocoon carrying a femur for a club. He looked a bit like a gangly, unholy shade, with grey skin, fangs, and bits of dead rags on his hooded robes, but he was still very much alive. And grumpy.
"Shut up, oh my God, jutht SHUT UP!" he yelled in the vague direction of the scream. "People are trying to thleep here!"
He turned black, sightless eyes in Sam's general direction, as if that would help him hear movement better. Now was the moment of truth. He was less vulnerable than he was lying down, but he was still fucking blind.
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This place brought back ugly memories of the last cave he was in, the one belonging to the monster Shelob-- but there hadn't been anybody in that tunnel shouting at invisible things, or swinging a bone around-- or complaining of wanting to sleep.
"Are-- are you-- dead, then?" he asked, in the ringing silence left by the screamer, in the pause before it might come howling back again. "Is it an eternal sleep I've woke you from? Because I'd no mind to-- but, begging your pardon, it's hardly a peaceful place you've chosen to take your rest, if a wight you are!"
His voice was all trembling, his words far bolder than the tone they were spoken in. Psii would likely hear him scrabbling backward in the dust and stones, sliding across the floor and to his feet, and the rattle of bones as he snatched at one of his own, brandishing it before him like it would accomplish anything against something already dead - but not coming forward. Not moving to attack.
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He weighed his options. He could assure this frightened unattacking male of indeterminate species that he was indeed alive, and would he please stop gibbering. Or, he could take on the role he'd accidentally fallen into and tell him that, yes, he was a ghost, so no sense in trying to attack him. Hell, he even had fake fire to make himself look extra ominous. The flaming marker for those with constant powers might actually be useful for once instead of flashy.
"....Becauthe I wath buried here."
He couldn't help laughing. Sometimes it felt good to laugh in the face of death, even if he spent quite a bit of time avoiding it. Psii had half a mind to shamble out pretending he was undead, if it would scare everyone away from his hiding spot. He nixed that idea when he remembered how exactly Dolorosa dealt with the undead. Better to just scare the Tributes who wouldn't butcher him.
"There'th nothing here but boneth. Take thome and make toolth if you really want, I don't give a shit, but get out while you can. The batth don't like Tributeth." That may be due to Psii attempting to catch the winged creatures for food, but details.
The Screamer swooped down to shout in Psii's ear again, and he waved lazily as if shooing a fly. "....Unleth you know how to get thith nutcathe off my back?"
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She's running low on the supplies to hand out to people, and most of her friends haven't been crossing her path. She takes a seat against a wall, listening to the sounds of the ghosts, the rattles of chains, the way the earth itself seems to exhale down here, with the sort of fearlessness that accompanies complete abandon. And she hears someone else, something that sounds more solid but could be a mutt or a Tribute or even something else.
"Hello?" She squints into the darkness, but there's hardly light at all down here. She's barely better than blind. "Who's there?"
Her voice is light and conversational, as if she were answering a doorbell and not in the midst of a death match.
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In another hallway, Psii emerged from his camouflage, scattering more bones. His permanent but useless fire--the one that marked him as someone with passive powers--scattered its light around a corner he'd felt a million times with his hands. He wasn't bumping into this angle of wall like most of the others, no way.
"A giant purple horrorterror with four eyeth and ten wathte thphincterth," he answered sardonically. "Flatulenthe ith a bitch."
He was a tall, gray wight-looking thing, monk's robes covered in dead human rags. A week's diet of bats had left him dull and pallid, but he was a troll, hardy and honestly used to being starved. His once colorful sclerae were now as pitch as the blindness that plagued him. He carried a long femur in his clawed hand, but kept it lowered.
"The Ψiioniic, yellowblood, follower of the Signless. Thee, even if I told you who wath there, it wouldn't matter to you. I don't know you, we're thtrangerth. It'th a thtupid quethtion. What you really want to know ith, will I kill you?"
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It's not necessarily the truth, but Venus is running on a double high right now. She knows that she'll die soon enough, so lengthening her time here is of no concern to her, and with her powers she feels nigh invulnerable. Apathy and might have made her temporarily invincible.
"How long have you been down here? You're starting to look like a damn anglerfish." Venus digs through her pack. "Look, I'm dying. I got maybe a day left in me before I keel over. You want my shit?"
It's not that she cares particularly for Psiioniic - they don't even know each other - but being a sort of Arena philanthropist settles well with her. She finds herself enjoying herself in the Arena for the first time in over a year.
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That, and anyone bold enough to claim he couldn't kill them was someone to be reckoned with. He wasn't going to pick fights blind.
"I'm not a damn fish," he griped. He wasn't like those douchebag seadweller trolls. "Well, you offered firtht, and I'm not gonna thay no. Give me thomething you might not need in the near future. Maybe thomething to help me catch food? The wingbeathtth are getting thmart on me."
He licked his lips, an innocuous tell, but it was accented by his fangs being sharp and, well, there. He was hungry, no denying it.
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She pauses as he licks his mouth; were she not Venus Dee Milo, the Murder Queen, she might be intimidated at the vampiric corpse-looking alien in front of her with his teeth and famished expression, but instead she just, still squinting in the dark, takes a seat on the floor.
"Do you want me to, uh, get you a bat? I can shoot lasers, I mean, it's no big deal..."
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He grinned, preferring to be crass in the face of death. The thought of scavenging had crossed his mind, but never in his life had he gotten hungry or desperate enough. He was more accustomed to being starved in captivity and on the run than he liked to admit. And now, he also didn't want to tempt the Gamemakers into punishing him.
"I can shoot latherth too, but.... well.... thomething tellth me the univerthe—or thith arena—doethn't like that. Every time I do thomething out of the ordinary, everything goeth apeshit. I thought it wath a fluke at firtht, but the batth had impeccable timing, and I thaw thith human girl getting weird thtuff thrown at her when she kept uthing her powerth.... I dunno. If I thought I could uthe my powerth freely, I wouldn't be athking for toolth. I'd jutht fry wingbeathtth midair."
He made a vague gesture with each of his pointer fingers in front of his face to simulate eye lasers. The blonde human girl in his vision had also borne the same unburning fire he had now, flickering like a constant warning. He couldn't see it, but he knew it wouldn't go away.
"Don't do anything thtupid, I'd like to eat batth and not the other way around. Toth the net here. Maybe I can rig it up high and drive them into it. Have you ever eaten batth?"
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She raises an eyebrow when Psiioniic starts talking about that, although most of the expression is lost in the dark. It carries, however, in her voice. "That so? maybe that's why everything lit on fire where I teleported last time. That's...interesting."
Not that it'll stop her for even a moment. Venus isn't planning on lasting long, and as far as she's concerned death by mutt, Tribute or Gamemaker are all equally satisfactory to her plans, all irrelevant to what she does with this last smidgen of life that she's eking out of her broken body.
She tosses the net over. "Nah. Seems you'd need to catch a lot, though. They're tiny little things."
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He chuckled darkly. Eaten alive by a flock of animals wouldn't be the worst death the Gamemakers concocted. Signless told him there had been a giant fucking scalebeast.
He puttered around piles of bones, looking for curved ribs he could jam into the crumbling mortar between bricks. Watching a blind man try multiple times to string a net between these makeshift hooks was probably pretty pathetic, but he didn't want to stoop to asking a stranger for help.
"Thtay on that thide of the net if you don't want them to eat you alive."
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She puts her hands over her bulging, distended, hemmoraghing gut as she watches him. She would politely look elsewhere, or offer to help, but she's injured and he's blind and she figures this is the first kind of courtesy that can be shed upon one's murder match deathbed. "What about stretching the net out over you while you sleep? Then maybe you'll get some bats at night and not have to worry about waking up a human- well, a troll raisin."
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That's why, really, she's felt so tempted to sneak off now and then. It's just that there's so many chance to find things out! There was the castle she found earlier, finally hitting it the night of her first day instead of the immediate investigation she'd wanted, and it proved productive when she not only met a real, live wizard - the Merlyn of legend! - but also gained a pair of knitting needles. She couldn't have hoped for better; in fact, she didn't expect that much.
Now, though, it's the ossuary that's drawn her. It seems more dangerous for the dark and the bones, but Rose has never taken grim as the stay away sign so many do. Still, she keeps her needles out as she ventures down the steps.
Of course, it can't be as simple as that. A screech comes from somewhere further in, lighting up her nerves, and a secondary clatter comes from down nearby. She has two choices: leave, or investigate? She's honestly not eager to find what caused the distant screech, but a part of her protests soundly at the idea of not looking around even a little.
So marshaling herself, she strides down the stairs and around to where she heard the clatter. "Show yourself."
It might sound more threatening from anyone but a young teenager in a wizard robe, or even if she had something different than knitting needles to be armed with, but she's confident enough she can defend herself if she has to.
She just hopes it doesn't come to that.
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She did indeed sound more threatening that she looked, enough to fool a blind man—or a blind troll. The person was not heavy-set, by the sound of her steps, but Psii still believed he was facing a fearless and fully-grown enemy. He was struck with a familiar urge to know whether he would die in the near future. But his visions would not come unless he concentrated....
Psii's second sight was his only sight now. A young human female with short yellow hair and wizard's garb was flying and hurling blast after purple-pink blast at the castle with her magic.... knitting needles? Psii didn't even know wand-like apparatus was a thing here. She also decimated whatever creatures came her way. She yelled in her fury, and he recognized her voice as the one he was hearing now in the present. A bolt of light from the sky, and she fell to her death.
The vision ended, and he turned his attention to the present. She would not leave his spot, so there was nothing for it. He kicked aside his osseous camouflage and dropped to the ground, rolling to a crouch some feet away. He held his hands up, palms forward. The light of his perpetual flame chased the darkness, but he was as blind as ever. He could feel the undercurrent of his power, but he kept his optic blasts reined in, for now. He turned his black eyes in the vague direction of Rose's voice.
"Before you dethide to kill me, let me tell you your future."
That was when the bats swooped down with a hundred unholy screeches.
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A story of her future. Dark eyes, future sight: a blind seer. Perhaps it was only fate that they should meet.
Then came the bats, not the first she'd encountered them, and so not the first she'd figured how to deal with them. With needles swapped to one hand, the other grabbed for his and pulled. "Come on," she snapped, and set to running further into the tunnels. Her needles stabbed up and ahead, scoring wings or piercing small bodies that ducked too low in aiming for the taller troll. She didn't like having to kill things, but it was better than dying early.
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"God they're annoying, you'd think they'd thtay away permanently inthtead of learning the hard way. Every time thith happenth, I eat a little better."
His voice echoed just a little, letting him know that this was one of the larger chambers. The catacombs were quiet except for a few dying bat squeaks. He shook off Rose's hand, still too suspicious of her to stay close for long. He'd rather hear her coming at him this time, especially in a room he hadn't yet mapped out with his hands. He backed a few steps, and several hard, rounded shapes clinked against his back. He put a hand out and felt behind him. His fingers curled into the eye sockets of a skull.
"Oh joy. Hive decorating."
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Letting his arm go freely, Rose instead stepped aside and took to wiping her needles clean against her sleeves. It worked a little less well each time, but the marks at least made warning to tributes who spotted her and bought her a little extra safety. Not yet had she been given need to turn them on a person, and she hoped it would stay that way.
She didn't worry as he moved around. Blind or not, he likely could have killed her by now if he'd intended to, either by throwing her to those same bats or goring her in the back with his horns as they fled. As neither had happened, and with the promise of a prediction still to be told, what worry she might have had easily melted out.
Still, the noise did draw her attention.
"More bones?" It was a bit hard to see in the dark; most of the illumination came from the flame above his head. She lacked one herself, her powers being of the inconstant variety, and setting her wands to glowing wouldn't have been worth another influx of vermin.
But what was that beside him? He looked like he had a number of horns, but had she miscounted at her earlier glance? No... They lay behind, and as she approached she saw more clearly: "Your skull. There's a skull behind you. Your horns--"
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But he's in the catacombs anyway, because it'd be stupid to avoid a place just because it gives him the creeps, when there might be something worthwhile in there. And especially when he's still got a handful of people he's looking for. It's early, so he's not too worried that he hasn't seen Bucky or Steve since the Cornucopia - but worried enough that he's here in the creepy ass catacombs just in case.
He's close enough to the stairs that the loud crashing coming from them makes him tense up, fingers tightening around the rusted metal spike he's got as a weapon as he makes his way back towards them. But he relaxes a little when he sees who it is, wariness turning to concern.
"Psiioniic? Shit, man, you okay?"
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"Human Sam?" There was a tremor in Psii's voice rarely heard if he could help it. He immediately hated himself for showing that weakness in front of so many Panem viewers. Surely the people in Nine were mocking him. Blind, and without Terezi's gift of seeing with her nose, he was basically dead meat.
He swallowed several times. "I could kith your dumb human fathe. Did anyone follow you here?"
He sat up, but made no move to stand, lest he fall again. He turned his head towards the sound of his voice. His once colorful eyes were black as the velvet curtain of darkness that shrouded him. The perpetual flames that marked Psii due to his constant powers of precognition made no difference in his ability to see. He supposed they would only serve to expose his location unless he stayed firmly buried under whatever he could find in the crypt below. That is, if something down there didn't eat him first. He never forgot that time he and the human Gary ran from a cave with an angry bear hot on their heels.
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His tone is light and teasing, the smile on his face matching, but it fades as he gets closer to the troll. The light surrounding Psii doesn't phase him - except to make him a little bit more on his guard, in case someone with much less friendly intentions sees it and comes looking - but he stops short at the sight of the troll's eyes.
"Goddamn, what happened?" he asks, jogging the rest of the way up the stairs. "Okay if I help you up?"
It's the beginning of an arena and he should probably just do it rather than give the guy a chance to protest when he probably needs the help, but a few years of helping disabled veterans has it ingrained in him to always ask before you try to do something for them.
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"I wath flying when thome thort of power hit me. Lightning, thome mage'th blatht, I'm not thure. Then I woke up on the ground. My eyeth hurt, my clotheth were ripped and burned, and I lotht a shoe ath well ath time. I don't remember falling," he finished apologetically. The vessels around his eyes were burned the yellow of his blood, scoring his face with spindly lines. Retracing his memories to another person helped calm him.
The offer to help him up put a (metaphorical) fire under his ass. No way was he going to ask someone to help him when he was capable of standing. He felt along the step and scraped himself to his feet, fingers spread on the nearest wall.
"Altho I'm blind now, tho there'th that," he griped dismissively. "We have to go deeper, it'th too dangerouth out there. Go ahead of me. I'll be a meat shield if anyone catcheth you in the rear. It'th all I'm good for now. Am I thtill on fake fire?" He tried to sound like he was merely inquiring about the weather.
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He grimaces a little at Psiioniic’s response. Great, that kind of thing means either this is a powers arena, or the Gamemakers are already hitting hard. Sam’ll just have to hope for powers arena, at least that means better things for most of his allies.
“Yeah, you are, but don’t ask me why. The Gamemakers must be up to something.” Terezi has one, too, but he and Clint don’t, and Sam doesn’t feel like he has enough information to make any kind of guesses about why, at least not with any confidence. Human versus troll seems a little too obvious.
“And I hope that was a joke that fell even flatter than the first one, man, because there’s no way I’m going along with you being a meat shield.”
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"Didn't you know, I'm only a thecond-clath comedian. Of courthe you need a meat shield. Thtart walking or I'll zap your ath. Don't think I won't. I have my powerth, and I'll keep aiming by touch with my brain until I find thomething rethembling your backthide. You never did thee me in the thpathe arena, did you? I'm quite the shot."
Psii had had his powers then, too. Psii's voice slid from assertive to bleak and back to assertive. Silently he congratulated himself for downplaying his blindness and reminding Sam that he was still Alternia's most powerful psionic mage, all while making butt jokes. He is the smoothest, it is him.
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“Yeah, yeah, I don’t doubt you. And I like my backside unscorched, thanks, it’s one of my only assets. I’m moving, I’m moving.”
He’s also going to sling his arm companionably around Psii’s shoulders. If this is how Psii wants to play it, this is how they’ll play it, but he’s still not going to let Psii be a meat shield for him. And he’s also going to do his best to try to help guide Psii down the stairs.
“Thanks for the heads up, now I know not to let you behind me.”
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Like his quick thinking, kindheartedness, and an easy friendly smile. Psii felt dull and awkward next to him. He wrapped an arm around Sam's waist to steady himself and ease into step with his gait.
"I don't have to be behind you. If I uthe my powerth, I've got 360 degreeth on all axthith. If all elthe failth, I've got handth, too. You should think twithe before letting me in grabbing dithtanthe."
He didn't grab anything though, at least not yet. These things were best done with the element of surprise. He fell silent as they tread further down the stairs. He heard the soft rustling of living things, but he couldn't be sure what they were. Strangely, it seemed to come from above. He leaned close to where he thought Sam's ear was and cautiously whispered,
"Headth up, I think."
no subject
There's a quiet burst of chuckles when Psiioniic warns him about letting him within grabbing distance. "Oh now that's reassuring. Thanks for the belated warning." Joking aside, though, the 360 degree radius of his powers actually is reasonably reassuring - as long as Sam's thinking about him using it on outside threats and not to zap his ass.
"You go grabbing me and no promises on how I'm gonna retaliate."
He falls quiet though, too, keeping an eye out for any sign of something coming after them. At Psiioniic's comment, Sam slows a little, tilting his head up and grimacing.
"I think it's bats."
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He put his free arm out, not necessarily to feel for walls, but to sense more currents in the air. If the bats took flight and were indeed deadly, he should know beforehand and zap them away. He could feel his power thrumming to be let go, but he held it in instead of making a preemptive shield. It would be bright enough to agitate all the bats.
"Jutht don't activate any illuminating toolth and we should be fine. Do you thee any other evidenthe of wildlife in here? I almotht got mauled by a hibernation beatht in a cave onthe..... Thitht hath thtairth, though. It'th not a brooding cavern, ith it?"