thearena | [Open] Maybe life is like a ride on a freeway

Entry tags:

[Open] Maybe life is like a ride on a freeway

Who | Kurt and you
What | A frightened and off-balance teleporting blue fuzzy dude gets his bearings
Where | Around the village
When | First week
Warnings/Notes | Nada. Will update as needed

At first it seems like a particularly intricate Danger Room session. Kurt had been asleep in bed at the Institute and then the next moment he's being hustled into some kind of plastic tube and being told he has to fight in a death match. This wouldn't be the first time Professor X had gone all out with the Danger Room's holographic projectors, or that Mister Logan woke all the X-Men up at some ungodly hour for his brand of training, but just after they'd saved the world and deserved some rest? And he doesn't feel the tell tale buzz of energy from the projections that usually makes his fur stand on end, nor does he recognize anyone from the Institute here. Except... there's Pietro? Is Magneto at it again so soon?

Unfortunately, Kurt doesn't have any time to figure it out. There's a trumpeted fanfare seemingly from nowhere and suddenly everyone's in motion, everyone running for the large horn of weapons and backpacks straight ahead or instead in the opposite direction. Judging by the looks on these people's faces, Kurt decides that in this case discretion is the better part of valor, or whatever the saying was from history class. He can't remember with the carnage that suddenly is set in motion before him. He may be a trained X-Man, but no one ever mentioned savagery on this level.

With a quick look behind him, Kurt disappears in a puff of smoke from his pedestal with a bamf! and reappears several yards away into the mass of thatched buildings that make up the village. Two more bamfs and Kurt's found himself inside a barn. It was a gamble considering he couldn't see inside before the teleported, but it was one he was willing to take given the state of murder and mayhem outside. Finding it pungent but empty, Kurt stops to catch his breath.

Or try, anyway. He's breathing too hard, his heartbeat is too quick and he can't slow it down because if he's honest he's terrified. He's had training, he's seen fighting, he's gone up against some of the most powerful mutants alive, but it was never like this. Even Apocalypse wasn't like this, despite all the harm he'd set out to do. No one ever died in their altercations with the Brotherhood or the Acolytes or anyone else. They knew they could have, but it had always stopped just short.

He feels sick and shaky, his hands trembling as he finally lowers them from his mouth and attempts to stake stock of the barn with eyes that won't really focus and a brain that won't stop repeating the images of flying blood and sounds of screaming. Because of this, it takes him several minutes to notice the flame of light floating above his head and the moment he does he goes into a panic again, teleporting to different corners of the building in a frenzy to try and outrun it or make it disappear but to no avail. The beacon stays and with the beam of light from it passing through the thatch, it seems it'll give away his position to space, let alone everyone out there with weapons and bloodthirst.

One more frantic teleport and the next thing Kurt knows, the roof is falling down and on his head. With a hoarse yelp he barely manages to avoid it with a dive to the side, tucking into a roll that takes him through the door and out into the dirt street as the entire barn rattles and comes down in a cloud of musty hay and wood.

And still the beacon remains, floating over the flabbergasted mutant's head like a crown of stupidity, grown even brighter since he'd started trying to escape it.

So much for hiding.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From up the street, two people from District 11 are slowly creeping up the dirt path. They appear to be handling this situation quite carefully and with adequate stealth; it's a reconnaissance mission to scout the abandoned village buildings and see if anything's been left behind, and it's obvious from the way these two skilled Tributes are handling themselves that they are well-coordinated and know precisely what they're doing.

"...and the bartender says, 'hey, we have a drink named after you!'" Gary whispers with a completely straight face. He pauses in telling his joke to peek through a window, attempts to wipe off the grime with the rags around his burnt arms, shakes his head and motions to keep walking. "The screwdriver says, 'you mean you have a drink named Murray?' Eh? Eh?"

He's not expecting Haruto to really acknowledge this, at least not positively, so Gary doesn't give him much time to answer. "Okay, okay, here's another one. Uh--"

Nearby, Gary hears the strangest noise. He's not sure how to place it. Like a bunch of puffs of air, one right after the other, only the narrow streets are devoid of breeze. Gary perks up and frowns in befuddlement.

"--You hear that?" His ears betray him and his lack of depth perception makes locating the source difficult, but after a moment's scanning of the area, finding the beacon popping out of the top of the barn is relatively simple. Gary motions toward it with a jerk of his head. "Must be--!"

Suddenly, the barn collapses. The breeze that Gary was missing comes, a gust of displaced air billowing dust from the road. Heightened reflexes kick in before Gary even realizes what's happening, taking him into a diving roll opposite Haruto to shelter behind a nearby overturned cart. For a second he panics, as he thinks that maybe he's accidentally switched his powers on and he'll be punished again--but his adrenaline stays at a level pulse and nothing more. He breathes a sigh of relief, then chances peeking over the edge of the cart to see if Haruto's okay.

Instead, he sees someone lying in the street. He can't really make out who they are from here through all the dust, but the possibility of it being Haruto makes him act without considering the other option.

"Hey!" Gary calls. "Are you alright?"

They are the best scouters, these two. The stealthiest. The most alert. The least conspicuous. If you don't regard, of course, the faintly glowing flame hovering above Haruto's head. The Phantom hidden inside of him is always there and always ready, but not to actually do anything that Haruto wants it to do.

`That joke is awful. Are you despairing yet, Haruto Soma?`

Mostly, it just wants the wizard to give up and let him out.

"No." He doesn't realize at first that he muttered his answer aloud, and it's a few moments after that that he feigns a shake of his head and a groan, because he is obviously complaining about Gary's lousy jokes. Yeah. He looks back over his shoulder, eyes scanning the distance and then scanning the skies, for he's not eager for either of them to wind up ambushed while Gary's whispering crummy jokes. "...hear what?"

With Gary's help he spots the beacon moments before the barn gives way, and then he's mirroring him with a wild dive in the opposite direction to take cover. It's not even a conscious decision at this point. A bad thing is happening and he does not want to be out in the open for it. There's an adrenaline rush of his own, making him momentarily less worried about how painful that dive was for his bad leg. Gary will find him looking spooked and kind of pale, but otherwise okay. "...i-it's fine."

Not wanting to keep staring at Gary in such a rattled way, Haruto's eyes dart towards the collapsed rubble and the light still shining above. Action is an excellent distraction from... from everything else. From doubt and fear and creeping despair. "...they're still alive? They are." And while Gary calls out, Haruto is pushing to his feet and rushing to close the distance. "Hey! Hold on!"

Kurt had been dazed by the roof caving in, due in part to being peppered with detritus as it had come down, some of which had knocked him on the head, but he has enough presence of mind to start scrambling for some sort of cover at the sound of yelling voices even if he doesn't have the presence of mind to teleport again. Maybe he shouldn't, it's how he'd gotten a building falling on him, after all.

He rolls from his back to his hands and knees, lurching on all fours for a large pile of hay and what used to be a support beam. He has some muzzy idea of hiding himself in it or behind it or something along those lines before the newcomers reach him. It could afford him some small protection, right?

Yeah right. But it's all he has right now.

He dives into the hay, wincing as it itches against his exposed face and forearms, his short, velvety fur no help against the onslaught. He's so distracted by it, he doesn't realize his tail didn't quite make it into the pile with him...

As soon as he sees the figure moving and realizes it isn't Haruto (who is looking very pale, now that he thinks about it. Is he okay?), Gary is up and sprinting off after him. A part of him is very excited about this. It's the adrenaline talking, mostly--it's an excitement for the game. They've found someone! Now they need to catch him! It'll be easy with the two of them and Gary's heightened speed and the general chaos of the collapsing building, and then they'll...

...Well they won't kill him, Gary can't imagine doing that. But they'll do something that's generally a good thing for everyone involved. Gary doesn't know what that thing is yet. He'll think of something eventually, he's sure.

"Wait!" The call is pointless, since Kurt obviously isn't going to stop for them and he's nearly overtaken Haruto on the sprint, but it's worth a shot. Gary watches their quarry disappear behind a broken pillar in a puff of hay. Excellent. He makes a quick gesture at his partner to guard the near side while Gary jogs around to the far one and they can narrow down which stack to search.

The dust settles. Faintly, Gary realizes that there's the tip of a thin, blue tail sticking out of one of the larger piles. He makes another, more emphatic gesture at that one and quietly creeps toward it. They could surprise him, he thinks, but the last time they tried that Gary got sliced through the gut, so. Maybe not.

He clears his throat. "...Hey! Uh. Don't freak out or anything," Gary says, in the most reassuring voice he can muster, and passes a brief look at Haruto to get some kind of confirmation that he's doing this correctly. "We're not gonna hurt you, alright?"

This isn't meant to be a competition, but Haruto can't help but put a little extra effort into his run when it becomes obvious that Gary is gaining on him. Some people are better at some things than him, and that's fine, but it's not fine if it's this guy. For some reason. He's not sure why, it's hard to put your finger on the deeper reasons for this stuff when the real issue is that someone needs a rescue and possibly medical attention.

Haruto does nod at Gary's gesture, and stays on the same course. They don't do too bad a job, working together, on the whole. Though this time, he's hoping that nothing tries to stab them or bite them. His run slows to a jog, then a slow walk, and then he's taking a moment to breathe before calling out in kind. "We're here to help. Not everyone's crazy in here." And in an effort to demonstrate this, presuming the guy with the tail (...huh) pops out to have a look, he holds his hands up, palms flat and empty.

"No?" Kurt's voice comes muffled and he coughs right after, spitting straw and being forced to pop back out of the hay.

They both look young, around his age, maybe a bit older. Moreover, they look honest, if Kurt is a good judge of these things. He thinks he is, anyway. And if he's wrong, he can always teleport away again.

"Fine, then. Who are you?" He demands, his accent thick as his nerves remain frayed even as he stands his ground with the other two boys.

Gary follows Haruto's lead and also raises his hands--which is a good thing, because if he didn't have a model to work with, he might have reacted a lot more drastically than he does when Kurt appears fully. He's seen some pretty strange people so far in the Capitol (some artificial, some natural, though they've all fallen under the former umbrella as far as Gary's concerned), but it still catches him off-guard every time when he runs into a form he's never seen before. Some combination of awe at the Capitol's technology when it comes to body modifications and general isolated species confusion, he's not in a position to decide. In any case, that would have been the first thing he asked about if they didn't have a concrete goal to work towards. With it, his only noticeable reaction is a small flinch of surprise.

"Gary Epps, District Eleven," Gary answers automatically, then pauses to give a nod at Haruto. He could stop there and let him do the rest of the talking, but Gary's nervous. He starts to babble. "That's Haruto. Uh, same place. I can't speak for him, but I'm totally not crazy. You're not crazy, are you Haruto?"

Haruto's eyes widen once he gets a proper look at the guy in the haystack, but he's seen stranger. And now certainly isn't the time to be quizzing anyone on it. Thank goodness Gary has not gone and put his foot in his mouth. The foot may be inching ever closer, but it is not there yet, no. He looks to Gary, looks back to Kurt, and nods quickly.

"Not crazy. Not that I last checked. We're just all in this mess together." And maybe he'd leave it at that, but letting Gary ramble and do the explanations may not have the best results. So after a pause to look around and remain sure that they are the only people in the area, he continues. "What's your name? You okay? You hurt at all?"

"Kurt," he replies, moving a little out of the hay and vaguely closer to Haruto than Gary. He seems the more collected of the two. "I don't think I'm hurt, no."

Which is a bit of a lie. He'd gained a few cuts and more bruises than that, but showing weakness here could potentially be fatal and he's not about to end up like those poor people back there, covered in blood both their own and not and screaming as they hit the ground.

Kurt shudders.

"What is this terrible place?"

Gary doesn't take offense to the preference--Haruto is not only more collected, but also isn't covered in burns and missing an eye. Of all the things Gary is most concerned about following his mishap at the Cornucopia, strangely enough, it's his appearance. The adrenaline keeps him from being in too much pain, and his memory is too shot to really ponder over the trauma of it all, but he can stare at his mangled reflection in the hazy windows of the village and feel vaguely mortified by it.

But here he is, fretting over his looks when he was just blown away by someone with a tail and three fingers on each hand. At least Kurt looks natural, however different he is. Gary can't bring himself to make the same assertion for himself. He shuffles anxiously in place, silent until the next question presents itself and he's granted the luxury of focusing on something else.

"The Arena!" Gary answers, with maybe a little more enthusiasm than is needed. "Arena...something-or-other. Numbers. I dunno." He shrugs and passes a helpless smile at Haruto, then continues anyway. "The Gamemakers stick us in a pit for a few weeks and see who's left at the end, they get a prize, everyone comes back and we do it again a few months later. It's a reality television thing. They have us on these teams, uh..." Words, words, why are words so difficult all of a sudden? Gary snaps his fingers and conjures them a few moments later. "--Districts! Yeah, I. Said it a moment ago. There's twelve of them, and they give you one for...whatever reason. I dunno, symbolism I guess. Anyway--" He waves a dismissive hand. "--it's kind of a big deal. Don't worry, it gets better and less confusing when they bring you back to the Capitol. You'll see!"

If Roland were the type to introduce himself via slow, sarcastic clapping, now would be the time. Luckily for Kurt, he isn't, and wouldn't be even if his right arm weren't hanging painful and useless at his side. What Kurt gets instead is a flat, deeply unimpressed look from the tall, lanky man currently standing in the shadow of a nearby cottage. It isn't Roland's most unimpressed look, and it isn't his flattest, but it's definitely up there.

"Careful. These buildings are old," he says after a moment in which the remains of the barn creak, groan, and continue to settle. 'Very mild' may be a description at odds with itself, but Roland's tone manages it.

Of course, Kurt could be forgiven for missing that. The flame hovering over Roland, not so bright as Kurt's but unmistakably there, could possibly be more relevant to him at this point.

It's not as if he'd known. They didn't exactly give him a briefing before he was shoved in peasant's clothes and a plastic tube, just told that he'd be fighting to the death good luck. No one mentioned being sent to the actual dark ages.

The voice startles Kurt and he whips his head up to find its owner, scrambling immediately into a half-crouch with his arms up defensively, the two fingers gracing each hand curled into fists. He stays like that for a long moment, but then the newcomer doesn't attack.

That's... good, right?

"I noticed," he tries with a sort of bravado but it just comes out squeaky and unsteady, betraying just how shaken the mutant is. He clears his throat and tries again, dropping pretense of acting tough but still squared off across from the man and aware of his every move. Just because he hasn't attacked yet doesn't mean he won't, but Kurt decides this is likely one of few chances he'll get for information if they're meant to kill each other.

"What is this mark, do you know?" When not wavering with fear, his voice is soft and carries an unmistakable German accent. It's not too thick to comprehend, but it's impossible to miss.

Roland waits patiently while the boy realizes he isn't going to attack. Not human, probably, but there's enough of that in this place and isn't really worth noting. What is is that this looks like another child - he is not quite surprised anymore to see children shoved into these arenas, but it isn't a sight he likes. Looks no older than fourteen, fifteen maybe. Roland remembers being that age. Hard as he and his friends'd thought they were, and ruthlessly trained as they had been, not a one of them had really been ready to kill.

Which doesn't mean he is going to get too close. He remembers the mistakes of past arenas too well, mistakes that'd gotten both him and the child in question killed. Temporarily.

When the boy finds his voice again - oddly accented but steady, and more admirable for it - the question that comes out is a practical one. A useful one. While Roland is not precisely impressed by this his tone of voice becomes a bit more reasonable, if distant. "The flame? No. In the last arena there was something like this for a time, colored lights over our heads, but far as I know that happened to everyone. I haven't seen nearly enough of these," and here he flicks his working hand upward at it, "for that. If all the tributes had one, there'd be more."

"Haven't seen you before," he adds. "If you're new I'll answer some questions, but we'll have to do it inside. Want to get supplies and be gone before someone else comes by." Roland tilts his head at the house next to him, his brief look at the streets around them not terribly obvious, but there, all the same.

He looks young, but not quite as young as the man addressing him seems to think. Kurt's nearly seventeen, though the rest of his estimation is correct. No matter how much training the mutant's had and how much he's seen, killing isn't something he's ever actually done himself. Even so, Kurt understands the man's hesitation in getting close at all. It's the same one he shares, and staying further than arm's reach is safer for them both.

"Alright, that makes sense." He's hesitant to follow, but it's the most ready way he's found so far to get some answers and if the man tries anything he can always teleport away. "And yes, I'm new. I'm Kurt, it's--"

Nice to meet you stalls on his tongue. They're supposed to kill each other, even if that's not what they're doing at the moment, but it sort of puts a damper on introductions.

He falls quiet, waiting for the other man to move into the house, acutely aware that he does't want anyone he doesn't know well at his back just now.

Edited 2015-06-08 18:07 (UTC)

"Pleasure's mine," he says after a moment, because one of them is in fact used to making introductions in similar conditions. "Roland." And then, because someone has to go first, he heads to the doorway and slips inside.

The first thing he does is hunker in front of the fireplace, poking at it to pick out a couple of the old coals, and slipping them into a fold in the sash around his waist. While he does this his right arm stays where it is at his side, gloved hand laying in a slightly awkward position on the floor next to him. His back isn't quite toward the door, and he glances up to see if Kurt has followed before moving to the little cottage's laundry basin.

"Any knives in here'll be rusted but there might be a couple," he says, waving his left hand invitingly around, assuming Kurt is going to want a weapon, before moving the conversation forward.

"What do you need to know?" It's a vague question, yes, one that casts a very wide net - there is quite a lot, probably, that a new tribute would need to learn about this place. But they've limited time, and exactly how Kurt wants to use that time is the boy's own decision.

Kurt slips in behind Roland, keeping to the edge of the building and watching as the taller man kneels by the hearth. It's then that he notices the man's arm, not moving even as he goes through savaging what he can find. Was he injured in the initial bloodbath? He's about to ask when Roland speaks first, effectively derailing Kurt's train of thought.

"O-oh, I'll look." He moves around, flicking his yellow eyes across the room for any signs of something useful, the irises glowing softly in the dim light. Honestly there's little here that seems of use to him besides Roland as a source of information. At least if the man had meant to attack him he'd have done so by now, and Kurt guiltily thinks that with only one arm he's hardly a match for a trained X-Man.

"Why I - or, I mean, we - were taken, if you know? And why they expect us to kill each other." He's worried the answer will be the same as to why people hate mutants in general; because they're different.

Roland peers into the laundry basin, squinting into the dark, ugly water to give himself time to prepare a response. He knows what he'd say were they back in the Capitol; those truly in charge may be watching everything, but they do not seem to expect their tributes to be grateful. But in front of the cameras that even Roland's well-trained eyes can't spot, their talk here set in front of all the people of Panem's vast and cruel kingdom, the wrong phrase or tone could turn the people within that kingdom against them both.

Well, time to hope this is the sort of child who knows something of subtlety. "We've the honor," he begins, reaching into that water to pull out what seems to be a shirt, "of winning food, supplies, and good standing for our assigned district should we win."

He gives the shirt an awkward, one handed shake and tries to hold it up well enough to judge the state of it. For something that's just going to be torn into strips and braided into rope and cord later, it'll do. He sets it on the ground and folds it over a few times, and begins attempting to tie it around his useless right arm. That's as good a way to carry all this fabric as any.

"And should we lose, and the gamemakers judge us worthy, we awake from our deaths inside the Capitol and prepare for the next arena, and a chance to fight again for the good of Panem." He eyes the boy. If it looks like there's going to be some sort of outburst, Roland intends to interrupt it. Knock that leg of the laundry basin off, probably, that loose one. If they need it, that'll give Roland another chance to warn Panem's newest tribute off saying anything he will most certainly be made to regret.

"As to why-" He shrugs, still watching Kurt closely. "Many of us can fight. Some know how to survive. Some couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map. Why you specifically, I can't say. Tell me a few of your skills and I might be able to tell you which group you fall into. And whether you ought to try a little harder to find yourself a knife."

"So all those people at the beginning, in the village square... they will come back?" That's a relief. With all of the bloodshed he'd witnessed there's a comfort in it not being permanent. It was real, but at least impermanent.

It's easier to deal with that way. Maybe. Or maybe he shouldn't think about it.

"And these Districts, they need the supplies? Why must they have people fight for them? Is there not a central government to provide? You said a Capitol." It doesn't make a lot of sense to him to make people battle for supplies, though if there's a shortage, then that might make sense in a strange sort of way. It isn't as if the American government provides for all its citizens. His people are treated unfairly too.

"I am... I'm a mutant." As if Roland couldn't tell by looking at him. "I can teleport, but this mark appeared when I did so I don't know if I should."

He points to the floating beacon above his head, grown somewhat dimmer now that he hasn't used his powers in ten or so minutes, though it's still there and quite obviously so. "It wasn't there before, I know that. Does it mean you're a mutant too?"

That's a lot of questions in a short period of time, and so Roland prioritizes. The flame first, which was the first thing the boy asked him about but which Kurt apparently only needed time to make sense of on his own. Roland hadn't seen his own appear, and hadn't done anything to warrant it, but he would not be surprised if Kurt's explanation is the right one. The expression on his face as he looks up at that flame suggests that this explanation does make quite a bit of sense, not least because it is a gigantic pain in Roland's ass. A significant disadvantage in exchange for abilities that, even before Panem in his other life, he'd only rarely had cause to actually use. The gamemakers do like that sort of thing.

Once he's had his moment of exasperation he looks back to Kurt, his expression obviously reevaluating the boy a little. He hadn't been able to tell, actually, because it's obvious that the boy is no mutant. At least, not in the sense of the term as Roland knows it. "No. But I don't think you're wrong. My friend Alain had the same sign over him - got hit by lightning at the cornucopia the moment he tried to use the Touch. Whatever your tell-port is you probably ought to have care with it."

"As to the rest..." His hand finally finishes tying that first shirt around his arm, and he reaches back in to fish around for another couple. "The districts get what they need. The Capitol sees to it." Blatant lie. But that is something the boy, if he lives to see the Capitol, will have to figure out for himself.

Speaking of. "They see to bringing us back, too. But I'd take care who you kill, if you decide to go that way. Not everyone who dies in these things wakes up again." With that he takes his attention from the water for a moment to just watch the boy, because though things aren't so bad as they could be it's still a hard thing to hear, especially for a child. He wants to see how Kurt is going to take it.

Used to being evaluated - in class like any normal child, but by Xavier or the other Institute Professors in the Danger Room too - Kurt is very aware that Roland is putting his attention on him. It makes him terribly self conscious, but in this situation he doesn't have time to deal with it. He pushes the feeling down, taking a deep breath to center himself, then wrinkling his nose because a deep breath was, frankly, a bad idea. It sort of reeks in here.

"What is 'the Touch'? Is that your friend's mutant power?" He seems a little preoccupied with that, but mutants on his world are generally pushed into hiding thanks to rampant racism and paranoid hysteria by so-called 'normal' people. Finding other mutants that may actually be friendly is a boon.

But they have other topics at hand, and as Roland implies he may go the way of killing others, Kurt puts his hands up defensively. "No! I wouldn't, not unless they attacked me first. I was always taught never to hurt anyone."

Sort of. Self defense is one thing, saving the world is too, but just out of the blue attacking someone? He couldn't. "But it's good that the Districts get what they need anyway. But I have to wonder why we are forced to fight, then."

It's all very confusing.

"A citizen could explain it to you better. After all, I'm only an offworlder." Roland shrugs the one shoulder that works well enough to do it. The boy's questioning and that's not good - at least, not aloud - but it's better than the outright rejection Roland'd been wary of. So long as he doesn't take too long to for him to catch on to the way things are in the Capitol, he should be alright. "Only remember, the gamemakers and those they serve see much farther than we do. They know what decisions need be made."

That is the most direct warning Roland will attempt on the matter and, once finished, his eyes move back off Kurt and down to the efforts of his hand. "And no, my friend's no mutant either. I suspect that word means something very different to you than it does to me. In other circumstances I might ask after that, and explain the Touch a little more - suffice it to say it's a set of abilities he won't have back inside the Capitol."

He thinks a moment and the hand tying the last of the old, wet clothes around his arm begins to finish its knot. "Before we take our leave of one another, I'll tell you that when you awake in the Capitol and settle yourself, seek out the mentor Signless of district twelve. Tell him of your mutants. Might find the two of you've a lot to speak about." And maybe Signless will be able to find a better way to keep the boy's questions quiet.

And with that, so far as Roland is concerned, his time away from Alain, who is still burnt, broken legged, and for the moment enduring his first arena alone, is nearly at an end. Any more questions will probably have to be asked quickly.

Venus is making no attempt to hide the beacon that shines above her head. In fact, she's hoping it draws people to her, as her goal is to find as many of her allies as she can and distribute the Cornucopia goods she kiped. She isn't long for this Arena and this is the only goal she can find for herself. She feels like a dishrag, no longer soft, no longer clean, suitable only for sopping up an artist's turpentine by now, at the end of her lifespan of practical use.

She's dying. She has been since before she even arrived in the Arena, nursing an internal hemorrhage from that mission against the Capitol, one that she and Porrim and District Five's Stylist have taken great pains to hide behind restrictive, cover-up clothing and makeup, altered schedules and spa days instead of workout routines. Behind coded language and changing clothes in blind spots and wearing an 'exercise corset' rather than letting her abdomen be caught bare. She made a point to trip and fall at the Cornucopia so she has at least some bullshit excuse for the injury.

The beacon appears even before she does near the barn Kurt's teleported to; Venus crawls out of the gap in time and space like a Magic Eye painting moving through time, visually painful and disorienting to anyone watching the space. She has her small pack of supplies, and instantly she casts her gaze around to look for someone to toss them to.

She isn't expecting the person she sees.

"Nightcrawler?"

He expects someone to come at the sound of that commotion. After all, a building falling down isn't exactly an easy thing to miss. What Kurt doesn't expect is someone here who knows his moniker. It has to be another mutant, then, right? One of his friends, thank God! It didn't sound like Kitty but it could easily be one of the other, younger students. At least that means he's not alone here, whoever it is!

Eagerly, Kurt rolls over onto his elbows to take a look at who called him, then scrambles to his feet with a markedly confused expression upon not recognizing in the slightest the woman who knows his adopted name. "Ah... hallo? Have we met?"

He's the same blue-bordering-indigo color, has the same accent, the same two-fingered hands and arrow-ended tail, but this version of Nightcrawler is a pudgy-faced teen with youthful innocence still in his yellow eyes.

And he clearly has no idea who Venus is.

"Nah." Venus pauses and listens, waiting for a thunderclap or the crackle of fire or another building to try to explode around them. When nothing happens, she relaxes a little and looks at Nightcrawler, figuring either time travel shenanigans or an alternate universe version. Someone from just about any other universe might be set aback by seeing someone who's quite the celebrity in their world as a gawky teenager, but Venus is a resident of the 616 and all this is a little old-hat to her. "That's okay. I don't mean you any harm, okay?"

Since Venus has had a lot of time to sit in bed and watch the Games on television the last few weeks, and since Kurt would have stuck out to her as a sore thumb, she's fairly certain that he's just been dumped in either at the Cornucopia or mid-Arena. Probably scared, she thinks. He's just a kid.

She swings a pack off her back, still uncertain if the Gamemakers are going to try and smack her down for her displays.

"Look, I'm a mutant, like you. Teleporter, too." I had your picture on my wall when I was a teenager, she doesn't say, even though it's true. "I'm giving people supplies. Congrats, you're my lucky first customer."

He knows that some of their worst foes have been mutants - Magneto, Mystique, Apocalypse - and so the woman saying she's a mutant shouldn't predispose Kurt to trust her. But he does. He does because there's still a sense of brotherhood he feels with other mutants, the shared experience that implies, and because Charles Xavier had done his work well.

"A teleporter! Wow, I thought I was the only one! Well no, not the only one in the world, but the only one I'd ever met. What's your name? Where are you from?" Kurt seems far more interested in that then supplies.

"Venus. I'm from Georgia. The state, not the country." She takes a step forward and holds out her hand to shake, as if his own three-fingered hand was entirely normal. It doesn't faze her at all - at least he naturally has hands of his own, which her normal form does not. "I can teleport all over the world, but it takes the dickens out of me, so you know, each according to his strengths, each according to her needs."

She puts her pack on the ground and turns back to him, grin wide and guileless and sweet, sharing that same inexplicable bond of secrecy and oppression and fraternity that Charles Xavier inculcated in Kurt. "Damn, you're young. Are you doing school with the Professor? I never graduated but I owe him my life, dead serious."

Kurt just takes the handshake with a sense of relieved glee, not self conscious about his physical differences if she's not going to show any sign of being hesitant about them, but it's the mention of Professor Xavier that really lights Kurt up.

"Yes! I owe him mine, too. I wasn't in trouble like some of the others, but I never would have had much of a life hiding in the mountains with my parents." His adopted parents, his mind supplies, but he ignores the thought stubbornly. Mystique may be his biological mother and that explains some things, but his parents in Germany raised him and love him and they'll always be first for him without qualification.

"I'm a couple years from graduating, but I'm not sure I'll be able to get the actual diploma. Principal Kelly tried to ban mutants from school but the parents said he couldn't do that. He doesn't do anything about the bullying though. We're not supposed to fight back since it will just prove them right, but..." He sighs deeply, but there's something a little lighter in that too, in being able to share the experience and problems with someone who will understand.

"Sounds like you'd get hella cabin fever."

She gives his hand a firm shake. Venus' eyes shutter a little as she feels a surge of pain coming from her abdomen, numbing her very toes, but she keeps that wide and genuine smile on. After so many months - two years now, actually - of being relatively alone as a mutant, of having to explain the backwards prejudice of her world, to have someone who just gets it-

"I see he hasn't had his bright idea yet in whatever world you're from. Back where I'm from, he started a school in his mansion just for mutants, kind of a separatist thing." Someone had tried to debate the morals of that with her once, about quote-unquote segregation, to which she'd thrown a drink in his face in her younger days. "I dropped out of school the first time because of bullies. People like the Professor, with invisible mutations..."

Venus knows that sounds silly coming from her now, with her perfect body from the Capitol, but it seems a distant concern. "There are some things he's just never going to get, but I guess it's better the fewer people experience it."

"Totally! It would have been a complete bummer."

Kurt, for all his being perceptive of people when he's older, as a teenager is just as oblivious as anyone else and doesn't notice the pain Venus is in underneath. He takes the smile at face value and smiles back himself, fangs visible and making his grin a little awkward but lacking in the self-consciousness he usually has.

"It's partially a school already; Mister McCoy - Beast, if you ever met him - teaches us science since he can't at the school, and Logan, Jean, and Scott all teach things about our powers and training with them. Professor X says it's better to learn around other, normal students though." Not that Xavier had used 'normal' as a qualifier for non-mutant students, but that's how Kurt still views them. Friend or foe, even Amanda is something other than himself. Kurt rubs his arm. "He gave me a watch that can change what I look like so I could go to school normally. I know it's like hiding, but..."

He shrugs helplessly. He's blue and distinctly not human-looking and in a society where kids will be cruel to each other for even the smallest difference, he's a rather enormous target.

"But I think he does get it, at least a little bit. He just wants to try and create a world where we don't have to hide."

"Oh, wow. Classic." Venus realizes that that sounds a bit weird, like she's treating Kurt as some sort of collectible from a line of toys or vehicles when he's just a kid, and she feels a bit sheepish.

"Well, a little bit, sure. He can read minds. But there's a difference between wanting to do something about it and really living it, you know?" She purses her lips. "Sorry, I realize that looks douchey coming from someone who looks normal now. Believe me, I used to look weird in ways that made you look like blonde-haired blue-eyed Brad Pitt."

She takes a seat in the wreckage of the barn, resting and wiping her brow.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Open] Maybe life is like a ride on a freeway

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

let me know if this works?

Works for me!

Re: Works for me!

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject