Lightning Strikes Twice

[etcircenses]

Who| District 13 Mission-goers
What| Time to rescue what District kids have survived
Where| Near some edge of the arena
When| During Week 4
Warnings/Notes| Please put any necessary warnings in your thread headers.


There were no sign ups involved this time, this was an off-worlder idea which means the off-worlders clearly have every desire to see this through; you signed up with your consent. The mission is to be held in the evening, so the morning is spent preparing, stocking up the hovercraft with medical supplies, arming everyone, donning the now familiar all black attire. When the alert is sent out, it's simply to gather in the hanger and begin loading.

As promised, there's no sign of a 13-issued leader involved, it's on the mission team and it's assigned tactical head to lead themselves; all Webb gives the group is a chipper smile and 'Good Luck.'

The sun is just beginning it's descent when the hovercraft leaves the hanger. The flight isn't nearly as long as the one to District 3, but it's long enough that the sun has dipped below the horizon when the hovercraft stops. Stopping doesn't mean landing, however. The team's resident off-worlder pilot comes on over the speaker with given instructions: time to strap up and get ready to do a little sky-diving.

The plan is simple really. Should the hackers do their job, the storms will do as they're told and strike the dome below the hovercraft all at the same time, breaking the barrier and making a hole big enough for the strike team to carry out the rescue. Hackers strapped in and strike team ready to zipline down, the hovercraft's door opens to the windy outside, allowing a wonderful view of the bright flash and deafening crash a minute later as the weather codes carry out their destruction.

Time to move.

Comments

Ground Team

[etcircenses]

The doors are open, the order is given from the comm unit in your ear and it's time to zip down into the hole in the Arena's dome. Hopefully help has mustered from within and the kids can be found easily, if not it might take some searching and it's well known how dangerous an arena can be even without the Gamemakers watching.

There's approximately an hour's window of time to gather what kids can be found and make it back on board. Extra time can't be afforded, so it would be wise to work fast.

For Sam

[timetoshine]

The crash had woken her up from the doze she'd been snatching. Sleep hadn't been something she felt like she could afford. IT was true that these off-world tributes were more passive than the classic tributes, but she wasn't stupid enough to let that take her guard down.

The crash had her up, knife in hand and foraged backpack over her shoulder. She should run from it, but curiosity has her running towards it instead, the wreckage of the caved in dome has her pausing and her eyes scan the sky where lights can just be seen outside of the barrier. Then the people come down.

She gasps and stumbles back to find a hiding place. These were rebels, they had to be. They might kill her...but what better way to bring herself and her family glory if she could get one of them first? She had to try...it was probably the only way. The thought she might not win after all had already begun to settle heavily in the back of her head.

She waited until she could hear the ground crunch and shift under one of the traitor's weight before whipping out from her hiding place, knife poised to bury itself into her enemy.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

It probably says something about Sam that despite the danger and the time limit and everything else, he's feeling pretty good right now. And really, he knows exactly what that something is - but the benefit of being mission orientated is that he doesn't have to give a shit about that right now. This is what he does, what he spent two years in training and a decade in service doing, he's in his element.

Once he hits the surface of the arena, he's moving quickly. The fact that he's back in the fucking arena registers, yeah, but only dimly. This is pararescue, and he spent far longer in that mindset than he did in the arenas.

So his guard's up, but he's not on the offense, and when a figure darts out at him, he immediately ducks down. Sam rolls to the side, springing back up on his feet and taking a few steps back, hands held up as he scans her over. Aemila, District 2, one of the ones who's actually trained for this, and he might have a fight on his hands with her.

"Hey, slow it down, all right? We're not here to hurt you, we're here to get you out of here."

[timetoshine]

He dodges out of the way and she has to admit to herself that it's impressive and she falters when her knife doesn't hit anything solid. In response, he backs up and so does she, but her knife is still up between them.

"You and the rest of your stupid rebel friends, Sam Wilson?" She remembered him, he'd been alright at first, but there were times when what he did in the arena had been questionable. He'd always been so entertaining and charming outside of the arena, though...she'd kind of liked that charm, someone she wouldn't have minded talking to. But then he'd vanished and now that he was here, well, she wasn't stupid.

"You just broke the fucking ceiling, I know why you're here, I don't want to be rescued!"

OTA

[sizeofyourbaggage]

They've only got an hour, the Capitol's surveillance could come back on at any time, there's no guarantee that any of these kids are going to be willing to just come with them, and there's a whole host of Tributes who may not be on their side - but all of that's in the back of Sam's mind right now.

In and out, avoid discovery, grab the PC and get them back safe, head back out and repeat if he's got time, Sam's got this.

He's got his gear on his back, gun and knife at his hip and within easy reach, as he moves quick and quiet away from the hovercraft and into the arena. They don't have an exact location, so Sam keeps his guard up and his ears and eyes open, scanning for any sign of the kids they're here to pick up - or any sign of the other Tributes or arena obstacles.

[rotor]

Rotor was lucky enough to find an ally in James, someone stronger with more experience who wasn't going to stab a gentle lamb like him in the back to pay him back for his desperate trust. So far, he's survived, into week 4, far longer than he thought he would, and every second he's panicking and close to tears. He almost wants it to be over faster just so he'll not have to feel this terror and panic anymore.

Then something went terribly wrong, and the tightly wound fear set Rotor off sprinting, completely heedless of his protector, aware only that adrenaline is prioritizing getting away. He pays no attention to the direction he's going, blindly running forward, and is that a parachute with a person on it coming into the Arena...?

He knows that if he stops for any amount of time his legs will be shaking too much to support him, and his hyperventilation might even make him pass out. He looks behind him, to the side, then trips and falls on an exposed root. He throws his clasped hands instinctively over the back of his neck and squeezes his eyes closed. Playing dead won't work here, not without a cannon, but he's utterly paralyzed. It's all he can do.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

When Sam hears something crashing down off to the side, he pauses in his tracks. There's a moment where he waits, listening, just in case someone was using that as a distraction for an attack - but when there's nothing, he heads cautiously in its direction.

Only to find one of the District kids huddled on the ground next too an exposed tree root, and Sam winces. He can't quite tell which one this is with the kid's hands over the back of his neck like that, but Sam approaches anyway.

"Hey, brother, you're okay. I'm not here to hurt you."

[cognitived]

There's nothing good about the lighting that hits the dome of the Arena, and Clint's struck with the memory of Thor's last Arena. Of the flash-bang-screech of too much lightening and too little space, of the air going heated and liquid and electrified in his lungs, of the flame that devoured him as he cradled Natasha in his arms. There had been no protection he could offer then, but he'd tried.

Here, now, there's nobody and nothing. Clint is alone, up a tree as he tends to his once again closing wound. It had split open as he'd had to run from the destruction of his safe house, weeping blood down his side as he tugged on goggles and forged forward. Now, it's clotted back together, but that doesn't mean much in the situation he's in. Temple's gift had helped, but now he's almost out and -- well, he already knows how it feels like to burn through with infection. He's not keen on it happening again.

So with the force of that lightening, and the way it nearly blinds him, ears ringing once more, Clint gets ready to move and find another space to hide out.

Clint doesn't trust it, sure that this is another one of the Capitol's tricks, and so he skirts the crash, quiet as a cat as he relies on a lifetime's worth of skills. But despite himself, Sam isn't stealthy enough for a man who spent decades living in the shadows. Clint pauses cautiously, knife in hand, readying himself, when he picks apart the familiar form of Sam's body and stills.

"Sam?"

There's an incredulous note in his voice, even as he very carefully doesn't move, pitching his voice to echo and bounce. If it's not Sam, if it's some trick, he doesn't want to be found just yet.

[sizeofyourbaggage]

When Sam'd sent Clint coded messages through sponsor gifts, he'd hoped that it meant Clint would remember that he wasn't alone, that even though Sam was out of the arena, he'd still figure out a way to watch his back, best he could. And even though this mission isn't about Clint, and Sam had no plans to try to find his partner - there was a part of him that had hoped they'd run into each other anyway. That Clint's curiosity wouldn't let him completely ignore the spectacle that the crash made.

So when he hears Clint's voice calling his name as he moves through the arena in search of another District kid, he stops in his tracks, not bothering to hide the wide grin as he looks around.

"Get your ass out here, cupid, I don't got time to play hide and seek with you."

OTA

[the_marshal]

Back into the arena, for real this time, instead of just in his repeating nightmares. Oddly, it wasn't as bad as Wyatt expected it to be. Maybe it was the clear goal, having something to focus on - something to do besides fight and starve and die; maybe it was the voices in his ears, reminding him that he wasn't alone as he pushed into the greenery.

An hour wasn't long. Not with the arena being as big as it was and there being so many kids to try and find, so he moved at a quick clip and fought against his urge to go quietly. He was not a tribute here. The pack bouncing lightly, gun cradled against his chest, he jogged on, eyes roving, finger resting on the guard of his rifle.

[whenirun]

Char was driven here like everyone else by the weather. She crouched down under some cover to wait out the storm when the lightning went off and everything broke. She stays there, not daring to move when she sees someone pass. Someone with a gun.

She breathes shallowly and stays as quiet and still as possible, her heart thundering in her head. A gun. A gun. The Gamemakers so rarely give out guns because they make it so easy to kill. She can't die. She can't let herself die. She has her family to think about.

Breathe, but breathe quietly. She tenses her legs instinctively to run if the person sees her, as if running has any effect when someone has a gun.

[the_marshal]

Wyatt paused, every several yards to stop and listen. The arena was vast and tribute numbers were still large, he was hoping for some clue as to which direction to head. (And any warning that the Gamemakers beasts might be nearby wouldn't be remiss either.)

As it was, that put him unknowingly coming to a stop right beside Char's hiding spot. Silent, turning slowly, his head tipping as he listened.

"Come on," he murmured softly, in that rough drawl of his. "Where are ya?"

bam

[earthborn]

One hour, one corner of the arena, one big hole, bound to cause trouble. Smart money was on staying the hell away from it, but Shepard had always favored boldness over sanity. Good sense didn't walk you into the jaws of Hell, and timidity wouldn't get you back out again, after all.

Shepard paused, silent behind the bracken, when she heard the oncoming footsteps. Unsubtle, that, with the slight jingle of zippers and snaffles, and the silhouette, as it approached, was all wrong. No tribute ran like that, burdened twice over and noisy, in that distinctive gunman's crouch. And then she caught his face; no mistaking that damned mustache of his.

"...Wyatt?" It could be a Capitol trick, but if so, it was a good one; getting shot wasn't fun, but she'd died in worse ways. Shepard stood up, "What the hell are you doing here?"

[the_marshal]

He reacted more to the movement, the sudden shape coming up in the corner of his eye than to the voice. He'd turned, and the rifle was up and his finger was on the trigger in one fluid motion, blue eyes sighted down the barrel on the figure that was suddenly there.

A heartbeat later, the muzzle tipped down, Wyatt's incredulous - lightly amused expression - softening.

"That mean ya haven't missed me, Shepard?" he asked.

[ormolu]

Gathering firewood was oddly relaxing. She didn't expect to like it, because it was work, and it was scratchy, and the firewood usually had gross bugs all over it. But there was something vaguely like pride when she trooped back to Aang with an arm full of logs, like she was some kind of victorious hunter gatherer. This image evaporated pretty quickly when a storm came rumbling. She decided that the best course of action was to run back to the air temple, as fast as she could.

Then she heard someone approaching. Loudly. And she found out that her previous speed was not as fast as she could go. However, she had never been exactly a runner, and in her hurry to try to beat this stranger and the storm, clumsy feet caught on a large root hidden by leaves, and Aurelia went tumbling to the ground.

There's no time to get up, and there's no point in trying to hide. With bubblegum pink hair, she stood out like a sore thumb--The pursuer had probably already seen her. So she had to turn to her last resort, which had worked out so far. Her hands shot up in the air, face filled with very real terror, because just as she had this entire arena, she had to rely on the other person feeling guilty enough to not kill her.

"Please--Please don't hurt me. Please. I don't want to die."

For Hemlock

[impaledqueen]

Peggy had been afraid that going back into the arena would make her have flashbacks. She had been afraid she would shut down and become a burden on the team. After all, she's fought for her life twice here.

Instead, she responds in a completely different way. It's like she's back there, her focus narrowing down into a pinpoint until nothing matters but her goal. Before, it had been survival. Now, it's finding the kids.

She has a gun and a knife, but they stay sheathed and holstered. She moves away from the group in her own direction so they can all sweep out and cover as much ground as possible in the short time they have.

She keeps her mouth shut but her eyes sharp, tense and ready for anything.

[lockedinthechrysalis]

Hemlock has been hiding out throughout the Arena, sticking to the trees and high places of the forest section. She doesn't know what's happening now, and although she hates to admit it, she's terrified, clinging to a high tree branch in the dark and waiting to see what that thunderstorm might herald.

When she sees the figure approaching the base of the tree she's hiding in, her pulse rises to a desperate thrum, and she knows she has to move. She doesn't recognise the woman in the poor light, but another Tribute means trouble, and her position here suddenly feels very exposed. She shifts upright in the fork of the branches, and moves to climb higher, out of sight and out of the range of any weapons the woman might have.

Unfortunately, it's hard for her to climb silently. The cost of hiding better is the rustling and the soft snapping of twigs, which she prays won't be noticed.

OTA

[carnagecarnival]

Half the time, he thinks he's forgotten what it is to be alien. The other half, he feels nothing but, a foreigner in a land he doesn't understand, with just enough similarities to throw him off. For all he wanted his people safe, for all he wanted Capitol to come on down, for all he wanted motherfucking war... he'd never thought of an end to the games.

There was something inherently natural about the games. Excluding the returning to life and doing it as when they were all of age or well over, rather than just waking up post-pupation, it really wasn't so much an unknown. Rescue is though. He'd never considered rescue in his trials either. He thinks in some ways the trials negated ever wanting for it. If they'd known not what a rescue was just as waking up to the worst, how could they ever need it when they were grown?

But here they are, saving a bunch of children. He ain't fault his matesprit for the idea. He thinks it good, really. He just ain't so good as she, he supposes.

He lands in the arena and is more faltering for his lack of knowing in what all to do. He ain't sure how much he can help, he only knows it's more than anything he could do with a communicator, what with his lacking preach and all. A few on that line get asking how he's doing, but he can no more answer than ask, so he just goes about his way. Maybe if all someone's needing a partner. If not, he's got a sharp eye and night vision.

i wanted to do more with the nerve gas even though i'm on slowatus tl;dr i'm awful

[biiowiired]

It wasn't even the violence that bothered Psii. Even in the wild away from institution and tyranny, trolls were violent to each other, and Psii would rather defend himself than emulate Signless's pacifism. It was the way those Capitolites in power decreed that some should suffer more than others, and the ones who suffered were conveniently not them.

Psii failed to save his District's kid, Irri. He hadn't been able to find him before his demise. This sort of thing was the stuff of Psii's daymares. He hadn't even known the kid, but he felt like he should have done more, somehow. How the hell could he call himself one of Signless's rebels if he couldn't even save one wiggler from the injustice of Panem's caste system? Maybe he should have used his mask constantly to fly around looking for him, dangerous as the resulting fatigue might have been.

For now, Psii was on foot brooding and foraging. His "weapon" was little more than a piece of metal sharpened against a rock and tied to a stick, and his sack was cobbled together from torn cloth. He hadn't gone for the Cornucopia, preferring to pass up that bloodbath this time around. This was his largest arena to date, and like many trolls, he instinctively sought the safety of solitude.

Imagine his surprise when he spotted another of his species in the distance, and it wasn't Karkat.

The Shit! about to escape from his mouth was cut short into a series of rasping throat sounds and fruitlessly mouthing lips. He'd had occasional trouble speaking (and even moving) since he breathed that stupid gas. It was definitely some neurological weapon designed to impede his brain functions. The fact that it still affected him weeks later frightened him. He, the one who always warned people about arena deaths being a dangerous gamble, almost wished he'd hurry up and die stupidly so he could be revived and not have to think about the long-term implications of this disability. He wished he'd learned sign language from Nill when he got the chance.

Perhaps his silence in this moment was for the best; after all, he didn't know if this really was Initiate. It could be a trick to make him call out and subsequently get culled by something disguised as an ally. The Gamemakers had a track record of playing with Tributes' emotions like that. Psii decided to keep as quiet as possible and watch him. Psii could do stealth passably, but he was never a professional Laughsassin. His was the informal schoolfeeding of hard knocks. On his way towards cover, he rustled a few leaves.

bacopa and the steves

[decommission]

The storm has him warier than usual as they pick their way through the ruins of the city. Like every other week, explosions had taken out those sections - they'd seen it from the distance of the forest. Then, that relative safe haven had been taken from them when the dragons began to stir. Like the first day they met, they only just barely made it out by the skin of their teeth.

Water still isn't too much of a problem, he managed to hold onto his extra water and kit - but food's a different story. A different, much more depressing story. He's ignoring the stomach pains when all of the lights go out at once. There's movement in the sky - the blazing forest in the distance highlight dark shapes falling to the ground. He motions to Bacopa to stop, crouching low as he points to the sky.

They should find cover.

[silencedriot]

Bacopa stays close to Steve. She finds comfort and safety in him, even in the Hunger Games. She doubts she would have survived this long without him, nor necessarily he without her. It's the opposite of how the Hunger Games are supposed to work, but she accepts it because this isn't the Hunger Games she knows. She gives him tips about how to take the edge off the hunger pains, to trick his stomach into not hurting him, because she understands what it means to be hungry. She's not sure how much he likes that she knows these tricks.

When he motions for her to stop, she stops and listens. The weather has been terrible, and she's afraid that the Gamemakers are trying to drive them somewhere for a fight. At the very least, she thinks she can trust Steve to protect her if a fight begins.

She scans the ruins and then reaches out to take one of his fingers, tugging it gently before scurrying towards a slab of concrete leaning against what used to be a wall. She doesn't see any undead lurking in it, and she things she and Steve can hide inside.

For Peggy Carter

[decommission]

Bacopa's just agreed to go with the other him, a man whose photo he's seen dozens of times (whose face he doesn't quite see when he looks in the mirror). The actual Steve Rogers. Meanwhile, he's just barely gripping onto the notion that the encounter wasn't a trick, a Capitol fake-out, a test (a failure) - that he didn't just hand off a child to certain death.

He'd walked away in the end, but now he's stopped again - not far from where he started. Uncertain where to go now (or trying to force himself not to go back). He's gripping his hunting knife in one hand, staring in the direction he came from like there's something over there that might tell him what to do next. This is exactly how he got ambushed the week before, right after he found out that James was dead.

[impaledqueen]

Peggy is going back towards the pick up. She's gathered all the kids she can. She steps lightly, hiding behind whatever cover she can get so she can avoid any arena threats, but near the pick up, she catches sight of someone familiar.

Steve Rogers--not the Captain, the one who stays quiet--is just... standing there. She should let him be. The arena puts people on edge and he might attack her, but she had never gotten the chance to say goodbye to him. Her stomach twists, her instincts pulling away from each other, before she calls out quietly, "Rogers?"

To Shep and Terezi

[piroudeath]

Deni has tried her hardest not to be obviously skittish. It has nothing to do with putting on a good show for the cameras (other than doing her best to help her loved ones stay convinced that there's a chance she could make it out of this, especially after making it this far), and instead has everything to do with not looking weak in front of her competition so that she doesn't come across as an easy target.

Despite that, she can't help but jerk awake at the crashing sound, coming close to hitting her head on the roof of the car she ducked into for shelter for the night. After a moment of trying to decide whether it would be safer for her to stay in the car or escape out into the desert, she opts for the latter, running through the wasteland in the hopes that she's heading in the right direction towards the (relative) safety of the middle.

The moment she comes across another person, her heart is pounding in her ears and she isn't sure if it's because she's been running for however long it's been since she started running or if it's the fear that this is how she's going to die, looking like some sort of small, scared animal. She wants to dart off and keep moving, but her feet feel like lead, keeping her where she is.

[earthborn]

Shepard is famous, more than even Panem can simulate, has been for a long time. More than that, she's infamous, known as much for cruelty and death as she is honor and glory. Life, as always, resists simplicity. So, when she steps out into the kid's view, she therefore expects to be recognized.

That's... not necessarily a good thing, after all.

"Hey--easy, easy," The girl looks like she's one sudden movement away from pissing herself, frozen like a rabbit in the sand, "Don't run. If you run, you have to know that I'm gonna catch you. I am not going to hurt you, kid. I wanna help you out."

She held out her hand, slow, easy, reasonable.

"Come with me, if you wanna live."