thearena | What if these men are not meant to die?

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What if these men are not meant to die?

Who| Alain Johns

atouchofka & Altaïr ibn La-Ahad
What| attempted murder
Where| the forest
When| sep 29
Warnings/Notes| attempted murder!

Altaïr was going to stick to his plan this time. Hide, wait out the arena, and only kill those who tried to kill him. It wasn't about getting back Al Mualim's approval by following the Creed to the letter anymore; the old man was back home. It wasn't even about easing his conscience.

When he killed Jack Sparrow, Altaïr saw the sort of man he might become if he continued flouting the Creed, even if he did still question it. He could not afford to kill another innocent again and be no better than the Peacekeepers mindlessly following orders. He was still having trouble asking himself the hard questions about the Gamemakers—whether it was right to kill them, the true purpose of their Games—but keeping to the Creed seemed straightforward enough. He wouldn't be pulling any magical swords from stones this time.

He had gotten some climbing equipment—a good supplement to his abilities—and a winter cloak at the Cornucopia. A tempered metal contraption was the only thing that puzzled him. Altaïr was too curious for his own good, but since there was no one around to ask, he crouched behind a bush and decided to figure it out himself. It had moving parts, and could be folded and unfolded into something easy to hold. It was some sort of weapon, but he wasn't sure what kind. It looked so different from any the Peacekeepers carried... He was familiar with mechanisms like the Hidden Blade, but this was far more complicated than that. He flipped a switch and felt it thrum quietly to life, not unlike the appliances in the kitchen.

He was turning it over to inspect the underside when it exploded from the front in a burst of light and sound. He clutched his chest where the recoil had hit him, making sure he wasn't wounded, and backed slowly away from where he'd dropped the cyborg gun on the ground. He still wanted to puzzle the damn thing out, but not at the cost of his life. That, and he was sure the noise would have attracted attention...

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Alain is disappointed with his haul from the Cornucopia. It isn't that there's nothing of use in it - the rope, for instance, is a boon, and the shield, while unfamiliar to him, is not to be sniffed at - but that there were guns, real guns, in the offing, and he failed to get even one.

Still, since leaving the Cornucopia, he's had the chance to arrange what he did salvage in a way that's easier to carry, and although he left Sam's broken flight pack behind in the ruins of the District, he salvaged a few sharp pieces of metal and some wire from its workings before abandoning it. One of those he's made into a kind of knife, by using a strip of tent fabric to bind one end for a handle. It's stuck in his belt now, as he works his way silently through the woods. His intent is twofold: to lay traps, which he does every half-mile or so, and to try to find Roland, who he lost at the Cornucopia, or any of the District children.

Both intents are forgotten the moment he hears the report. He's on his feet at once, makeshift knife in hand, and hurrying towards the sound as fast as his legs will carry him. That sound was a gunshot, if ever he heard one.

When he approaches, and sees grey jumpsuit through the trees, the young man unslings Captain America's shield and raises it in front of him. It won't stand up to much, he thinks (assuming it's steel), but it's better than nothing if a gun ends up aimed at him.

That's how he'll first come into view, a low-crouched figure in a cowboy hat, with a Captain America shield on one arm and a jagged metal tine in the other.

Time to run.

Altaïr was a more than skilled fighter, but he knew better (now) than to pick a fight with someone he didn't know the capabilities of. Shepard had taught him that the hard way. Rather than be the rash man he was, he found he would prefer to listen to Malik's counsel—even if he was more like a nagging hen than a dai—and show discretion. Better to regain his cover and scope things out for himself before making a move. That shield was very loud; he'd spot the colorful thing from a distance later, no problem.

He took off through the trees, and then up into the trees. His instinct had always been to get higher, more out of reach. Leaping increased his speed, but there wasn't enough leafy coverage to break his pursuer's line of sight here, damn it all. He also needed to practice his climbing more; he was more used to scaling buildings. In fact, he was forced to jump to the ground again when he could not find another branch able to take his weight. He landed in a roll and was up in one fluid movement.

A few more running steps, and his flight was suddenly halted as something snagged his ankle. He tucked his arms in to soften the blow of the ground—Ah, no, he was suspended nearly upside-down, and the trap was tied to a bent sapling. He cursed, the translator mangling the classical Arabic into something stupid about dogs. He didn't waste time looking back, but bent to pull himself up by the remaining length of rope. Now he glared back at Alain, without fear, but also without as much murder as he might have once. Clutching the sapling with one arm and leg, he gave the rope some slack and worked to undo the slip in the knot.

"Why are you trying to kill me? We have never met!"

They were in an arena, it should be obvious why, but Altaïr was never one to listen to authority without questioning it. When anyone told him to kill and didn't give a sound reason, he got uppity. They could be in Masyaf for all he cared. He hoped this wasn't some friend of Jack Sparrow's; he never meant for that murder to happen.

Alain came puffing through the trees a good while after Altair was caught. He wasn't the fastest runner in the world, and he'd stopped to pick up the abandoned gun - at least, he hoped like hell it was the gun. It looked like no weapon he'd ever handled. Still, he cradled it under his arm as he slowed to a walk, surprised and relieved to find that the other man had stumbled directly into one of his traps. Ka, he thought, with a wry little twist of a smile.

"Let go of the rope," he ordered, gesturing with the gun and trying to look as though he knew how to fire it. "As for why I'm trying to kill you... have you forgotten where we are? You are not my ally or my friend, and your life puts theirs at risk. Give me one reason I should not."

It figured that this man would know how to use the gun. Damn, he should have grabbed it. But he hadn't wanted to blow his hand off or reveal his position again.

"I took a vow to stay my blade from innocents, but you are well on your way to becoming guilty!" he snapped, ignoring his question. Then he realized that he actually had time to be angry. This person didn't kill him immediately. He did not let go of the rope, not when he was so close to undoing it that he could stall for time.

"...Because you have not killed me yet. You stopped to talk, instead of finishing me when you had the chance. Either you wish to gloat, or you truly are searching for a reason not to murder someone you know nothing about. There are plenty of other dangers besides me that put your friends' lives at risk."

He chose this moment to slip the knot off and spring away from the sapling. He hit the ground running, remembering to run in zigzags as if from an archer, fully expecting to have his limbs blown off. He was aiming for bushes behind a large trunk regardless. One of those fundamentals training taught him, to break the pursuer's line of sight before hiding. They often ran right past.

Alain cursed, took a split second to look over the gun, and, finding nothing that was obviously a trigger, set off in pursuit. What advantage he had from being used to guerilla fighting in difficult terrain was quickly countered out by his relative slowness, but he continued the pursuit doggedly, even as Altair darted in and out of his line of sight. If I could work this bedamned pistol, he thought grimly, you would be a dead man.

But some part of him doubted it. He had none of the cold fury that was a gunslinger's fuel; that was hard to come by in chasing a man who had done you no wrong, following a battle that need not be fought. And the man was right, fuck it all; right to say there were other dangers, right to say Alain was looking for a reason not to take his life.

And the boy? The voice in Alain's head was cool and steady - Vannay's voice, ever present, ever speaking against the pragmatic and immediate. You swore your oath to him, to try. While this man lives, he cannot win.

The gunslinger tightened his jaw, shifted his grip on the gun, and went on pursuing.

Altaïr did not settle for the rules the Gamemakers handed him. He would find another way to survive without having to kill people he didn't need to. That was what he was trained to do, not to bow to the illusions of the world, but to transcend them. When Altaïr had a target with proven crimes, it was easy for his heart to frost over and to pick up his blade. Not so with everyone else. Even as his targets lay dying, he still granted them the courtesy of hearing their last words.

The chance to get away kept slipping in and out of the realm of possibility, but once he spotted it, he took a sharp turn. Bushes were not as familiar a hiding spot as a cart of loose hay or a curtained rooftop garden, but they would have to do.

If his pursuer got close enough to the bushes, maybe he could surprise him, knock him out, and steal his things. That knife looked handy. Perhaps he should even steal the gun and throw it down an inaccessible shaft. A blade or a bow required intent and skill to eliminate someone in one blow, but a hand-held metal thing that could be accidentally fired and instantly kill someone was not a variable he felt like dealing with today, fascinating though it was.

Alain slowed to a walk as he neared the bushes, pressing his lips together into a thin, hard line. He had lost sight of his quarry, and that was dangerous. Let him go, said one part of him; seek him out said another; all of him knew it was dangerous to linger. He had made himself clear as an enemy, and if the other man was hidden nearby, that made it unacceptably risky to stay in one place too long. Then again, could he afford to risk leading a determined enemy back to the camp he shared with Roland?

Seek him out it was. Giving the gun another cursory examination, and seeing no obvious way to fire it, he slipped off his backpack and shoved the weapon into it, taking out the knife instead. The other man might be fast, but he couldn't be fast and avoid leaving tracks; Alain would search the bushes, and if he picked up the man's trail but not the man himself, take that as a sign to end his pursuit. If the man was still here, though...

Well, the knife was sharp, and it was better to do something than to stand around indecisively. Alain shifted his grip and started towards the bushes, intending to search around and behind them and see what he might find.

Altaïr had been trained to kill someone in one blow from behind. Hidden as he was, Alain would never see him coming, if he wandered close enough. But a thought crossed Altaïr's mind: What if, as he himself had said, they shouldn't be fighting? What if this man was not truly an enemy? The first part of the Assassin's maxim was, Nothing is true. Altaïr should not believe everything the Gamemakers and even Alain himself told him. He should try to see things as they really were.

It was a risk, but he was determined not to break the Creed yet again by attacking someone who should be an ally. He slipped on his mask and used his second sight. Alain was awash in a feeling he could only describe as "blue." Altaïr quickly took it off and felt as if he'd run several laps. This complicated things. Driving the end of his climbing hook into Alain's throat was no longer an option even if he wanted to. He could try to incapacitate him with just his hands, but that required him to wait in the brush until his strength returned....

Alain pressed his lips together, hunkering down to examine the brush. Here. Here, it was disturbed. Not much - his quarry, whoever he was, was remarkably deft - but to a well-trained eye, enough to be clear. And here, too, the curved edge of a bootprint's heel, unmistakable once you knew what to look for.

"I know you're here," he said, aloud, and straightened up. "You have three choices here. You can break and run, and I will follow you. You can go on hiding, and I will find you. Or you can come out and face me head-on, like a man. Your choice."

Altaïr wasn't bothered by the jab at his manhood, though once upon a time he might have been. He knew his tactics; he knew that it was better to wait until his pursuer finished blustering and made a move to either leave or find him.

He saw the man was tracking him; no need to hasten the fight that was already coming. If only this man could use his careful inspection where it really counted and see that Altaïr had no intention of killing him. Altaïr had to wait for his strength to return anyway, before he could do anything. That mask was a double-edged sword.

Alain waited a moment, just to be sure. His head was cocked to one side, as if listening; instinct taught him to reach for the Touch, to grasp for a sense that wasn't there, and as always, it took him a moment to remember that it didn't apply here.

He wasn't idle, though, as he stood there. His eyes darted over the brush, and he considered only a couple more seconds before pulling back Altair's cover.

"You could have gotten away, you know," he said, almost sadly. "You had a start on me, and I never was the best runner."

Alain found him too soon. Altaïr tried to rise, but his knees and elbows buckled. He was as helpless as a wounded bird. Best to save his energy for a haphazard counter from the ground if he needed it. He wasn't even sure he would have time to explain his reasoning. The mask lay untouched. He didn't need it any more, and he knew what might happen if he donned it again. He fixed Alain with a dark stare. I could have killed you if I wanted to.

"I wanted to see you for what you really are. And I did. A pity you cannot see the same. I see you wish to submit to the illusion handed to you, but I also see that you wish to place faith in your own eyes. Do you not?"

"I wish to do many things," Alain said guardedly, "but first among them is to see this world's children to safety. Safety they will best win when those more fortunate are gone." He didn't move to strike, though, although he could see a clear line of attack to Altair's throat. A slash across, and it would be over. But the other man was right: he was an unrepentant killer but not a thoughtless one, and something in him balked at killing someone who was both helpless and speaking such truths.

"What did you do?" he asked at last, pressing his lips together. Clearly, something had happened between Altair disappearing and being found, to make him so limp and weak, and Alain was willing to lay money that it was tied up with the mask nearby. He pointed to it with the tip of his knife, although his eyes stayed fixed on Altair, in case this turned out to be an extended case of playing possum. "What's that?"

"I told you, I saw clearly." But his eyes followed Alain's knife pointing at the mask. He supposed he had to explain. "This is a device that lifts the limits on whatever unusual abilities we might have, but at a cost. You see the effects before you."

He was aware these could very well be his last moments, but he kept the cold sort of calm he'd been trained to have in danger. Losing his own life did not scare him so much as failing to make a difference here.

"The way I saw... it is hard to explain. I see with my other eyes, what is beneath. Not the way things seem to my other senses, but the way things are. You wish to save them, so I saw you as an ally. Our methods differ, but our goal is the same... And when you've killed off half your allies, what then? Where will those children go? Safety is an illusion as well. You cannot protect them if you are blind."

Alain was quiet for a long moment. Then, he lowered his knife, making up his mind. "Give me the mask," he said softly, and held out his free hand. Let me see, then. Let me reach out and touch the truth, and if I am wrong to trust you...

...If I am wrong, then that's a problem for a nearer time.

"I know the eyes you mean," he said, by way of further explanation. "We call it the Touch, where I come from. Brushing up against the true shape of things. Give me the mask, if what you say is true. Let me see for myself."

The presence of that sort of ability in Alain's land was interesting, but first Altaïr had to survive. His first instinct was to refuse, to protect a tool he had claimed as his. But that would be equal to starting a fight he already knew he couldn't win. Alain could take his climbing hook and winter cloak if he really wanted, but instead he asked for the energy-sapping mask. That counted for something.

"I will say that I will lend it to you, though there is nothing stopping you from taking it by force. However, putting it on this moment will leave both of us defenseless in the middle of the forest. Ask yourself, who do you trust to not kill you, me or whatever might have heard all your noise?"

This should go without saying for anyone experienced in traveling in the outdoors, but Altaïr still wanted to pin the noise on Alain. He hadn't crashed through the bushes with a shield.

Alain was quiet. He'd thought of that, but he hadn't thought enough on it. Cort would have your hide if he saw how careless you've gotten, Johns, he scolded himself, and sighed. "Stay where you are," he said warningly, and sheathed his knife, going for the gun instead. With one eye on Altair, keeping his guard up, he started to investigate the weapon.

It didn't take long. It was of a foreign make and style, but a gun was a gun, and Alain was a gunslinger. There was the trigger, something that might be a sight, something else that looked like a firing pin...

He didn't fire it. Flexed his finger on the trigger, made sure he had a clear idea of which way it would fire, then lowered it and turned his full attention back to Altair. "I don't need strength to shoot straight," he said, firmly. "Only my eye and my hand. Give me the mask."

For a moment, Altaïr was concerned that Alain had decided to shoot him in the head to save himself some trouble. Being told to stay still just made him want to move more. Luckily for Alain, he still couldn't do much more than crawl.

"Take it. I cannot stand." It took much to admit he couldn't.

He picked up the mask and gave it a gentle toss. This could mean potentially losing access to his power, if Alain decided to take it, but Altaïr's training had been designed without that in mind anyway. He would rely on good old-fashioned training and adaptation. Al Mualim would be pleased if he could see him now (or perhaps punish him for being caught).

Alain caught it easily, and considered for a moment before settling down with his back against a tree, the gun in his lap. He took a deep breath, then put on the mask.

Ka and khef flooded against him at once, invisible currents in the world. It felt soothing, right, but at the same time oddly overwhelming, like opening his eyes after months in the dark. He watched Altair, using him as something to focus on, to breathe through that first rush of sensing.

Ka flowed oddly here. It wasn't like it should be, like standing in a river. It eddied and ebbed, vague and non-directional. But he'd gained some sense of it in the last Arena, when his Touch had been working, and he had cause to be grateful for that now, because he could already feel the mask sapping his strength. He closed his eyes and quested out, feeling the currents, getting some sense of Altair's mind. Closed, careful... there was kindness there, but steel too, a steel Alain associated with one thing above all others.

"Gods," he breathed, tugging the mask off. "Gods, you're a gunslinger."

"What is—"

Suddenly he didn't want to ask. Alain had discerned something very specific about him that was not immediately apparent. Whatever it was, it was more than just "ally." It was something unusual that was cause for surprise. Alain's ability might be more developed than his own. This would either save a lot of explaining, or be a danger to him.

Ever-conscious of the entirety of Panem listening in, he didn't want them to know more than what had already been said here. His skillset already created rumors. Letting everyone know that he was a terrorist (to the major kingdoms), a savior (to the townspeople he saved), or a mortal enemy (to the Templars, who desired peace through control) was not in his best interests.

"Never mind. Whether you kill or spare me, I will have my answer."

Alain had to think for a moment, even having touched on such a revelation. There were times, he thought, when killing a gunslinger was no less necessary than killing an innocent. If it meant that the children would live, that his vow would stand...

...It wouldn't. In his heart, he knew that. He let out a long sigh, and, with an arm that felt heavier than lead, tossed the mask back to Altair.

"I'm keeping the gun," he said, firmly. "I've wanted a better weapon than knives every moment of the last Arena I was in, and I won't give it up now. But I've no wish to kill you. Give me your word that you won't follow me back to my camp, though, for I cannot speak to Roland's views on the matter."

He began to worry that his gamble had not worked at all when Alain still appeared to be contemplating a decision.

"If you begin to kill indiscriminately, you betray wisdom itself."

He didn't exactly relax when Alain sighed, but he felt the tenseness in his shoulders lessen. He caught the mask on reflex. Good, some of his faculties were returning. He chanced sitting up and stowing it away.

"Have you ever killed a man without feeling anything? I have. I used to be afraid to feel. Even now I wonder if it does not simply bring me more suffering, but I cannot lose any more of my humanity. If I see a way to resolve a problem without bloodshed, I must take it. There are others here who would protect these children as well. We should use that to our advantage and secure safe places for them.

"I would protest the stealing of my weapon, but that thing is more danger than protection. Be sure not to take off any child's head with that."

If the "gun" in "gunslinger" was any indication, Alain had pegged him as a killer of some kind. Unlike a knife, such a weapon couldn't be for anything but killing. To hear Alain speak of him, it sounded like Roland was similarly trigger-happy.

"Roland is a good fighter. I will avoid him."

"I know better than to shoot a child," Alain responded shortly, running one hand down over his face. "I'm no less a soldier than you. I've killed more men than I can count, and taken no more joy than grief in it." There's something hard in his look, belying the softness of his features. "Humanity is the price we pay, we who are the shield of others - we pay it, and pay it, and pay it, so they don't have to. And sometimes, there is no way but bloodshed." He looked down at his hands, shaking and week, and started to examine the gun he held. "There is no safe place for these children. Not here. Not unless we carve one out for them."

Ironic, that they intended to safeguard these children through such violence, that their strict codes were intended to preserve freedom, that their blind faith in this hope was so similar to the blind faith keeping everyone in the Capitol under control. Were they so different from the ones they claimed to fight? Altaïr's existence and the existence of this very conflict seemed to say so.

In trying to find out the motives of his targets, he sometimes found himself feeling sorry for them. He knew this was part of his humanity surfacing. He had no satisfactory answer as to why they must give that up piece by piece. Even if he did, he would be delving further into seditious talk that was sure to get them both arrested.

"Safety and peace, Alain," he uttered the farewell as he rose smoothly to his feet.

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What if these men are not meant to die?

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argh how did i not notice that formatting fail?

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