Moth Delivers a Message [Closed]

[pimpcanes]

WHO| Black Tom and Lord Zed; Black Tom, Gary and Kurt; Black Tom, Dorian, Maxwell and a cameo from Bayard
WHAT| Superpowers showdown, then Gary and Kurt die!
WHEN| Week 3
WHERE| The forest
WARNINGS| Death! And gore!

For a while, Tom lies dormant, like a volcano awaiting the proper tessellation of tectonic plates to erupt. He coils into himself in the trees, inward-focused, self-absorbed on his own grief for Molotov, even as he suspects he'll see her again. With the exception of Arya, he interacts with no one, waiting out the weaklings of the Arena and preparing to assault the survivors of the final week. He outlasts the voices calling people into the woods. He's immune to the bats, which have no interest in his bloodless form.

But he becomes bored, and eventually he pulls himself out of one of the trees he's occupying. It cracks as if all the sap inside has frozen, and he emerges from it neither man nor plant, but some foul combination of the two: barky skin, black sockets for eyes, moss and algae and leaves forming a ruff of hair that extends from his crown down his back. And he tends to his cache of supplies, folded into the knot of another tree, looking over the note that Molotov sent him and wondering when the next time Arya will retrieve the goods will be.

The air is warm again, and he cricks his neck back to look at the sky, appearing more mutt than Tribute. His nostrils flare, pulling oxygen into lungs that have all but collapsed from disuse. With a splintering sound, he opens his mouth and frees his teeth.

Comments

[a_minute_younger]

The distraction is plenty of time for Gary to recover. He comes to his senses slowly, but reacts much faster, rolling sluggishly away from the thrashing branch and staggering to his feet. One hand makes a blind grab for the awful pain in his head and finds his hair matted with blood. He isn't sure how to react to this. Fear? Remorse? Neither of those seem like options that will end well, given the situation.

Oh, right--the situation. Gary blinks away his blurred vision and focuses in on the scuffle in the clearing. He has no real plan of attack, here, but he knows that he doesn't want Kurt to get hurt more than he already is. He'll figure out how to get to that end when he gets there. Meanwhile, he gets there--at a sprint, with a yell and a flying tackle at Tom's side, aiming to wrap his arms around his neck.

[middleversed]

Kurt gets stuck in the sap and if it weren't for the clear and immediate danger, he might have contemplated the ridiculousness of being stuck via sticky sap to the back of a super villain. Blood leaks down his arm, staining his dark fur even darker as he struggles to gain a better purchase on Tom, to at least do some damage before--

Before Gary does something monumentally stupid like throw himself at Black Tom instead of running the other direction as fast as he can.

"You idiot!" Kurt's so angry at Gary's move that he barely feels his wound for a moment, clenching his teeth in frustrated irritation before trying to adapt to the situation, trying to see any way out of this now.

The only thing he can think to do is grab Gray and teleport away. He doesn't want to, doesn't care for the idea of a beacon over his head for the next several hours, but if it's that or die...

[pimpcanes]

Tom hisses and tries to knock Gary away with a backhand that is too slow and too late - but he's literally got his roots down in the ground, and so he leans from the impact but doesn't topple. For a moment he, Gary and Kurt, piled atop each other, stand at an insane angle before Tom straightens up, from nearly parallel to the ground. And then there's a bamfing sound and the stink of sulfur and they're gone.

"Run away, little X-Man..." Tom taunts, looking around for the beacon - but his eyesight in this form is pretty poor, full of more shadows than colors, and so he can't seem to find where they went. He starts to spread his senses out, instead, feeling his way through every leaf and blade of grass.