Like I Got the Devil at My Feet [Closed]

[pimpcanes]

WHO| Black Tom, Clint and Sam; Black Tom, Alain and Arya
WHAT| Tom and Arya start thinning the competition.
WHEN| Week 5 and 6.
WHERE| The forest.
WARNINGS| Death.

Were Tom even slightly more self-aware, he might be embarrassed to spend so much time as a weeping willow, moping around wishing he had Molotov to talk to with his long trailing branches and vines drooping onto the ground. He's been doing his best to coddle Arya without stunting that independent streak of hers, to provide her with food and shelter in his lair of the forest, but for the most part he's lonely. Most of the Tributes have been heading towards the castle or the sea, and as such he can't even fritter away his time killing. His powers have made surviving in the Arena easy, but they've also made it boring.

Today he pulls together a new body for himself like twisting a piece of a wet towel upwards out of the mulchy floor of the forest, trailing still those willow vines, wreathed in ivy and even less humanoid than when he first appeared. The hair of moss has become more of a mane, traveling all down his body, giving him a mangy, furry appearance, almost. His eyes glow yellow within deep, dark sockets that seem gouged into the bark-like substance that makes up his skin, and sap drips from his mouth and nose in long, sticky ropes, leaving a sort of snail trail through the forest as he shambles around. The beacon above his head is bright enough to cast a horrorshow light on his already terrifying features, making his brow seem heavy and nose aquiline.

He slouches his way through the woods, muttering out of boredom to himself. He collects his morning star, although the time it'll take to get his body back to something human and that can leave the forest is going to be onerous. It'll take at least a few days to start approximating a person again instead of a beast made of trees with elongated arms and claws. Then again, he has nothing better to do.

Comments

[pimpcanes]

Tom's beacon lights up, but given his current state that may not make him much easier to see. It sits directly above him but with his barky flesh and leaves and moss covering him chin to waist like a heavy coat or a mane, he still is hard to recognize as a being, much less a human. Sam and Clint might see him, but it wouldn't speak to a lack of talent if they didn't.

It's not that he's attacking. His beacon is lit because he's feeling, now. The entire root system of his forest is like a decentralized web of his own nerves, and though he feels it dimly, he can tell someone's moving around out there the way someone feels the impulse to itch when an insect crosses their skin.

He brings a spiky hand up and wipes a string of sap from the gash in his face that makes up his toothy jack-o-lantern mouth. He turns his head to try and see who's out there, stepping on grass and moss and ever so slightly tripping Tom's impossible alarms. His eyes glow, blindly and unalerted, in Sam and Clint's general direction.

[cognitived]

He nods at Sam's words, not surprised but not enjoying it either. His eyesight is sharper, so Clint shifts, focuses as he scans the space before them. Far as he can see, there's nobody there, no deer, or bird, or even a straggling horse. He's about to sign back nothing, when he catches sight of a beacon lighting in the corner of his eye. Clint goes stock still, careful and intent, but as far as he can tell there's nobody there. Behind the tree, maybe?

Sam must have seen the beacon, it's bright as anything in the gloom of the forest, but Clint still gestures. Just in case.

Which is right about when one of the trees he'd been eying moved, and something gleamed, dim like shuttered lamps, straight at them.

"What the hell?" He murmured, softly, bewildered.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Oh yeah, Sam definitely sees the beacon - he just can’t see what the hell it’s pointing at. It’s a Tribute, and a powered one, which hell, for all Sam knows could mean invisibility. That’d be just their luck.

He nods at Clint’s gesture, opening his mouth to reply, then cuts off when he also notices the tree moving.

Shit. Sam ran into something like this before, deeper in the forest. A giant tree with roots that grabbed anything that walked by, and he’s not looking forward to that again.

“Stay close,” Sam mutters, pulling his wand out.

[pimpcanes]

The roots under Sam and Clint's feet suddenly lurch, ripping themselves out of the ground with a crack, not towards them but the way an animal might wrench itself away from someone's touch out of startle. It doesn't take them long to change their attitude, to go from scared wormlike wriggling roots to something more aggressive when Tom realizes it's feet his extended reach is touching.

Tom moves towards them, choosing not to dissemble his body and reappear somewhere else but instead to charge like he's slithering and flowing in slow motion across the forest floor at them. He isn't fast like this, but there's something inevitable, inexorable, about how he approaches, as if his arrival at his destination is already a certainty. Meanwhile, the roots shoot up and towards Clint and Sam's ankles, seeking to bind and drags them down.

[cognitived]

Clint doesn't have the most stable of footing right now. What with his knee being what it is, and the lack of one arm still throwing him off. So the roots tearing away from under neath his feet sends him stumbling, grabbing at a nearby tree to keep from falling. This really just means he's more vulnerable when the roots suddenly wrap around his ankles.

He doesn't make a sound, simply aiming and firing, blasting apart roots and shaking the curling pieces away from his ankles. But Sam gets an acknowledging hum, and Clint does stay close, carefully providing backup.

Tom isn't fast, but there's something about a tree ripping itself up from the ground and coming after them that settles badly. Of course, it's not actually a tree but a Tribute, but right now Tom's more Ent-like than anything. Trust the LOTR jokes to come out in full force, because Clint would really prefer not to fight an Ent. Still, the roots are more than enough, one wrapping around his bum leg and yanking, dragging Clint down with a pained yelp.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

Sam's on slightly better ground there. His balance is excellent, and he's already fought against roots like this, ones that tried to grab him and Bucky and pull them under, and he knows how to use the wand against them.

Not that that makes it any less unnerving when it's clear that the beacon is casting its light on a giant tree - a Tribute that's a tree, of course - and that it's heading right for them.

Right, Sam's new plan is to get the hell out of there. Or at least, it is until Clint goes down, and then Sam's focus snaps back to him. Sam lunges at Clint, but another root grabs him, stopping him up short. For the moment, Sam ignores it, focusing instead on firing his wand at the roots surrounding Clint, trying to give him enough time to get back on his feet.

[pimpcanes]

"Well, well, well." There's a snapping sound in Tom's voice, like wood splitting but actually the dried sap in his throat cracking open so words can escape. He rises, taller, looking as if he's just growing in quick-motion from the ground. "What have we here? A couple fool enough to go wandering in the forest, perhaps?"

He can't help but taunt. It's in his blood, or what passes for it in this state; he is not only a villain but one from a generation where it meant something more than simply merging a proclivity for crime with superpowers. There's a certain panache that Tom loves to indulge in because it makes him feel alive, defined, as if here, in the heat of battle and cruelty, he exists in perfect detail.

Sam interrupts that by having the temerity to shoot him. Tom hisses and his roots jerk back from Clint's leg for a moment, like snakes pulling away as they rear up to strike. Tom lunges forward with claws long and probing, aiming for Sam's guts.

[cognitived]

Clint goes crashing down, head cracking against the forest floor in a way doesn't sound promising. Considerin he's still a mere week away from a relatively bad concussion, this can't be good in any capacity. But his leg is an agonizing mess, and that overwhelms the rest of the pain. He's dazed for a moment, instinctively trying to get away from the danger, but his hearing is shot, ringing and snapping, until the light from Sam firing his wand at the roots grabbing at him snaps him out of it.

Then, and only then, does the world rush back in in a flurry. Clint shoves himself up, groaning, and nearly goes crashing back down as he snaps his own wand up as Tom lunges forward. Lightning laces across claws, as accurate as ever even if Clint is dazedly climbing back to his feet.

There's no way they're running out of here.