thearena | Arena 15: In The Eye Of The Capitol

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Arena 15: In The Eye Of The Capitol

For the majority of you, this has become a familiar morning routine. Escorts come to pick up their Tributes and Stylists quickly see to setting them up with the bland and thin grey suits, much to most of their dismay. You'll not hear a word said in complaint though. The staff has gotten the threat to them loud and clear. Only the daring will be willing to offer even a mere "good luck". Peacekeepers quickly collect Tributes to send them off into the launch tubes. If you're from the Districts, it may be one of the last things you ever see.

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What everyone rises up to is not much better a sight. It's a war zone out here in every sense. Those native to Panem will recognize the sight before them, having seen it every year in a propaganda tape. The wreckage of District thirteen. The Cornucopia sits at the very center. Offworlders might recognize some of the weapons there, and if not, then they'll certainly be able to spot some familiar scenes far on the outer edges of the arena, perhaps even a beast or two they know well from their worlds.

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It's muddy and damp and there's plenty of wreckage to cut one's self upon no matter where it is Tributes run. The Cornucopia tempts the Tributes in for its bloodbath. Districter and Offworlder alike, there will only be one winner.

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The gong rings out and a voice announces; “The Arena is now open”. The Tributes are free to make their choice; to run or to fight. The Games have begun.

~~~

By the end of the night, one child from each District will have their face shone up into the sky, the first twelve killed at the Cornucopia. Only twelve to go...

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A hulking black beast with rows of sharklike teeth had entered the shop. His milky white eyes scanned the room gleaming wickedly as his skin rippled like ink, shifting with each motion like he was made out of melted tar.

Sandy remained in the back obediently, eyes continuing to scan the supplies for a functional weapon. Anything! Giver her a screwdriver, a broken bottle a broomstick she could snap in half.

Turning her gaze back to Firo she waited to see just how much trouble they were in. From the sounds of the shelves being knocked over...it was a lot.

All Firo wanted to do right now was keep cool and protect Sandy. Surveying their situation, though, he wasn't even sure if he could do the first. He managed to keep his voice down, but his tone was very emphatic when he asked, "What the fuck is that?"

He'd been in a lot of fights in his short life, but the vast majority of his opponents had been humans. Not a thing like that.

His first instinct was still to fight. It wasn't that big, right? But there was a flicker of doubt in his mind that wouldn't have been there a few years ago. It was one thing to charge ahead when he just had himself to look after, but that wasn't the case now.

Well. He'd just have to see how it went. He looked back at Sandy one more time. "If it gets too close, you run, okay? I think this thing might be dangerous." Then, if nothing got in his way, he stepped back into the room with the beast and waited for it to get closer so he could throw a punch.

Hearing his reaction to whatever was in the other room did not comfort Sandy. Her eyes darted to the freezer door and she wondered if it was unlocked, and if them hiding in there would be a death wish.

Oh but now he was planning on fighting it? Well she could stop him...or she could take his advice and run. Running sounded like a good idea.

She followed him to the doorway and laid eyes on the creature feeling her heart drop into her knees.

This thing again...except it wasn't a nightmare anymore, this was the real deal!

"Wait no!" But it was too late. The creature was close and Firo's punch sank into it's soft skin causing it to roar in response and try to bite his hand with it's sharklike teeth.

This thing had haunted her throughout every nightmare she'd had in the Capitol. The monsters from her world that she had sacrificed others to save herself from. The fallen angels.

And now Firo was going to be another victim if she didn't figure out how to kill it once and for all. She had some ideas but limited resources and now the thing was sprouting tendrils from it's back!

He'd expected to hit something hard and tough. Something solid, at least. He gasps and jerks back when the creature's flesh surrounds his fist--and then its teeth. "What--What the hell?!"

He stumbled back, suddenly realizing that Sandy was still nearby. "What're you doing--I told you to leave!"

He sucked in a breath of air. Saying this next part was scarier, in a way, than squaring off against the monster. "You need to go--I don't know how long I can hold off this thing!"

"Yeah no kidding!" She shouted back feeling a rush of unreasonable annoyance. He didn't know it but she had enough history with this thing to know two things.

1. Without super powers they probably couldn't win.

2. It didn't like loud noises.

Limping over to a shelving unit since the beast was now almost entirely focused on Firo, Sandy grunted and threw her good shoulder into the shelves. It hurt and she grunted to that extent but it was enough to send the display crashing over scattering old cans and flimsy metal shelves in a loud angry banging that had the creature roaring in anger.

If Firo could pick up on that maybe they could keep it distracted while they bailed...if not? well at least Sandy was closer to the doors then he was.

Really? There were more important things to worry about in the moment, but Firo's look of consternation at the beast changed to one of plain offense at her comment. He didn't get to wallow in it for long, though, before she had launched her attack on the shelf.

"What the hell did you go and get it mad for?" Sorry, Sandy, Firo hadn't quite grasped the strategy yet. But he did take this as his chance to make his way over toward her, keeping his back to the wall and his eyes on the beast. Whether or not she wanted to leave, he'd made up his mind to shove her out of there if he had to.

[ooc: Sorry for the slowness! Rl's been taking it to me.]

"Loud noises!" She tried to shout over the things roaring voice. "It hates loud sharp noises!" Unfortunately the items they could use for such noises were limited and it was already starting to recover from the sound.

The door was close, she continued limping towards it, shoulder aching from attacking the shelving unit, burns throbbing as some cracked and began to bleed all over again.

At her words, he picks up a fallen paint can and hurls it at the wall. The clanking it makes isn't too impressive, and he's starting to realize just how limited they are.

At least he manages to slip over to her side, reaching for her less injured arm. "Can you run?" Seeing her bleeding and dragging herself along, he kicks himself for not thinking of it earlier. Screaming at her to leave wouldn't do anyone much good if she was too hurt to do just that.

"Come on, I'll carry you if you can't."

She makes an attempt at running and the result is some sort of awkward hobble and skip that gets her to the door crashing through it with a bang and the dull ringing of the bell hanging over it.

"N-not very far." She groaned clutching at the door handle to keep from falling over. Her leg felt like it was swelling up to twice it's size in pain.

He darted through the door after her, trying to hold it shut behind them with one hand. As the thing wandered closer, he abandoned that effort and moved to wrap one arm under hers if she'd let him.

"Don't try. Come on, I can get you like this."

He wasn't very big, but he could drag around guys twice his size. Sandy would be peanuts compared to that.

She didn't fight him. Any little bit of extra force was helpful right now. She did however cry out in pain as she stumbled into him awkwardly trying to let him take charge again. This was not a very good time to be clumsy and in pain!

Meanwhile the Beast was tearing up the inside of the shop. A window shattered as an entire display case came flying out crashing into the street.

"Sorry, sorry." He made a note to give a better apology for the pain he was causing later. If they both got out of this.

Firo knew the creature couldn't be too far behind that shelf. If he could, he tried to lift Sandy up and simply carry her. At least for a short time, it would be easier that way. "Do you know if there's anywhere we can go to shake this thing? Like an alley that's not a dead end? Or anything we can use to bust its head open?"

If they were on the streets of New York, he could've lost the thing no sweat. But this wasn't home, and he hadn't had time to go over every inch of this alien city.

"Round the corner!" She gasped pointing down the street. Sure enough the monster started dragging itself through the hole, glass and steel digging into it's thick black gooey skin. It roared so loud that windows rattled and dust fell from the dilapidated buildings around them.

Another crunch and the screech of twisted metal signaled the beast was free just as they rounded the corner. Wordlessly she pointed to a heavy looking set of metal doors on the ground, propped open leading into a dark hole. Sandy wanted to explain more but she could barely breath at this point the pain was so great.

She wanted to explain that at the bottom there was a dumpster, and if they were lucky it wasn't full of sharp pointy things.

Firo followed, all too content to have someone directing. "Got it!"

The choice of whether to try and take on the thing again or go down with her shouldn't even have been on the menu at this point. But he stopped for just a second, wondering if he could be certain enough in his ability to hold the thing back. Certain enough that he could keep it from slipping by him and going after her anyway. ...Which he wasn't.

"Brace yourself, okay?" With no more warning than that, he made to jump down the hatch, pulling her along if she'd let him.

She let him, and even if she hadn't wanted to she was long past the point of struggling. Down into the darkness they fell landing on thick full trash bags that felt uncomfortably warm and smelled like spoiled food.

As much as she wanted to scream, to cry out in pain as she landed on the burnt half of her body she jammed her good fist into her mouth and bit down till she tasted blood. It did the trick and all that squeaked out was a whimper.

A square of light shone down on them from above, dust and grit fell down into the dumpster with them as the beast thundered around above.

The fall could have been less pleasant. It also could have been a lot more pleasant, and Firo cringed for Sandy when he thought of how much more uncomfortable she had to be. All this crap probably wasn't good for her wounds at all, either.

With the light over them, he wondered if the creature would be able to see them. He tried to pull himself over the trash bags to better shield her.

"You okay? Is this thing gonna stay on our tail?"

He tried to shield his eyes from the debris as he looked up, searching for any sign that the thing was coming after them.

She wished she had an answer for him, but she had no idea if that thing had a strong sense of smell to go with it's apparently sensitive ears. She opted to nod silently at him that she was OK when the tears streaming down her face begged to differ. What's worse is she thought she felt something moving around underneath her. The last thing they needed was rapid attack rats biting at them while they were trying to hide.

Up in the alley above them the beast let out a roar, and from the sound of crashing metal it was knocking over Trash cans and ripping through a chain link fence in it's efforts to find them...but the sounds were getting further away.

Firo waited until the sounds were fainter before speaking again. It felt terrible hiding like a weakling, but it seemed to be the only option.

He exhaled shallowly, not wanting to relish the smell of the garbage. "The hell was that? You'd seen stuff like that before?"

She nodded slowly and focused her attention on him hoping to help ignore the pain.

"The last thing I saw in my world before waking up here, was a monster like that. They were falling out of the sky...like angels. But as soon as they hit the ground I knew we were in trouble. It chased me for blocks...almost got me."

Until she led it into a church full of kids that were slower then she was at least.

"I've had nightmares about it ever since. Sometimes it shows up in the hallucinations the Capitol makes me have, but this is the first time it's been real."

He laughed uneasily. He'd seen some weird stuff in his life, but that was downright creepy. "Like angels, huh?"

"And so now they go all the way and bring it here... How nice of them." He tried to stand up, wobbling on the unsteady surface of trash bags; he held his hand out to her when he was balanced. "Well, you got away again this time, so maybe your luck'll hold."

"You know anything else about how to deal with 'em besides the loud noises?"

She took his hand with her non-burnt one and bit her lip to keep her pain muffled. Grunting and clenching tight as the muscles screamed at her for respite she knew she couldn't afford to give them.

"I don't. There were some books in another arena that were all about my life and how I was supposed to die after dealing with those things...but I never found out how they finally got defeated."

Another fun Capitol trick she'd fallen victim to. The bookstore in the mall arena had been particularly depressing.

Firo waited until she looked stable to let go. He turned in a circle looking for a ladder or a way out, trying to make the most of what light reached them.

Die? That snapped his attention back to her. "You wha--? Probably just tryin' to freak you out. What the hell do they know about the future?"

But it made him uneasy to hear. After all, Phil supposedly also was already dead back home...

"I hope you're right." Because thumbing through those books, most of her closest friends and relations had some very unhappy endings in store for them.

"Hardly matters either way. If I stay here I keep fighting. If I get sent home who knows if I'll even remember any of this. So worrying about it is...pointless I guess." She heaved her way out of the trash she had been sinking into and clutched at the lip of the dumpster trembling as a fresh wave of pain made her almost lose control. It was like a sharp impact to her spine that made her legs not want to work, made her insides quake.

Firo wished he could promise, but that would just be a lie. So he nodded without saying anything further on it.

When in doubt, just don't think about it. Firo was relieved to hear her say something so akin to his usual reaction to any sort of emotional concern--if she could just brush her worries aside, she would be fine, right?

Firo stood nearby, primed to spring to her aid if she needed it. "...Be honest, how far are you gonna be able to go? Maybe we should just stay here for shelter."

They made it away this time, but what about the next? What would happen to her?

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Arena 15: In The Eye Of The Capitol

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No worries~

Thanks!

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And with that little detail, Sandy's username seems much more dark...

Bingo. She doesn't have to outrun the bear, she just has to outrun the other campers

Smart girl

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