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

[timetoshine]

She sees him coming and she directs that glare at him as well, even in the face of how he towers over her. But then he sits and she feels more on-level with him even tho it's not a huge improvement.

For one moment she thought about not even looking at whatever weird thing he was doing with his freaky blood but curiosity got the better of her. She shifted to see his words and they made her pause.

She did remember. His bloodshed had been terrifying and also admirable. The kind of thing that she watched with wide eyes while it was happening but turned to nightmares when her eyes closed. She'd admired his strength.

And then he lost it. It was gone, slowly lost over time or gone all at once, but missing now when she looked at him. She saw weakness where he saw strength.

"Yeah, I'm looking at one." Her voice had a venomous bite to it, a hint of betrayal laced through. It sucked when one of your favorites turned out to be a heel.

[carnagecarnival]

He laughs once, a muted thing none more than a breath. Yeah, he guesses she is. Ain't that funny. Ain't that ironic. He can't help but feel fond over put off. He bows his a little to give concession to that all. And slight apology. A rebel laughing in his face would've sent him far over the edge. He makes sure to smooth his face out again quick.

was like you

He remembers. But in a way, he still is. He'll never fully trust, he thinks. He can only go for the eighty or ninety percent at any given time and figure it enough. That betrayal is a burn on him. It will always be there. It may always be in her too, though he can try his best to ease it.

not so rebel.
alien.
protecting family.

A little loophole; it's not his world to rebel against. He considers asking if she'll allow a question, but he imagines that won't go over. He simply skips over that and gets straight to writing, as much a difficulty as the directness is.

why'd you volunteer?

He wants to know what her thoughts are most of all. He wouldn't lie and say it wasn't to find his way in to grip, but he's hardly about to say that either.

[timetoshine]

The 'loophole' made sense with how he was trying to mean it, but he'd been a guest of the Capitol, someone honored and privileged and he'd thrown it back in their faces, that made him a rebel no matter where he came from. But she understood the idea of protecting family, that's what a peacekeeper did.

His question gives her even more pause. She didn't have to answer him, she didn't even have to talk to him, but that flame in her chest had her opening her mouth.

"Because it made my family proud, being a tribute is an honorable thing. The Games are important and so is being a part of them." The mention of her family sends a lance through her brain, the memory of the strain in her mother's face and the devastation in Jaye's. She swept it aside.

She had nothing now but her pride. The least she could do was hold onto it.

[carnagecarnival]

He might've been able to swallow that logic once upon a time. He'd had no problem with the arenas. He'd have had no problem with death and slaughter, with order. He'd done trials the moment he pupated. The Games meant nothing. It only became a problem when they named him a rebel and sullied his pride. It only became issue when he started to motherfucking care.

He nods at her words. He has no trouble grasping this. If he were to be replacing his family with the Messiahs, the Games with the Empire and it's systems, it was all the same.

keeps order
some death for the sake
of less

He writes to show he fathoms, because he remembers that's what he said to himself. It's what he believed with his whole being and in many ways he wasn't actually wrong, considering his world's timelines were set in stone.

to win --To be the Grand Highblood, have it all.
to show yourself more --The voice of the Messiahs, in charge of the empire, highest of the high.
know the feeling --To want it more than next motherfucking breath, to feel it like an itch under skull.

wish it worked for true --He'll never stop wanting it, somewhere inside. And then he goes to rip her dreams apart as he is so often wont to do.

it don't
only a new way
to lose

He stares at her dead in the eyes, the faintest of sparks in him, for she must know that he knows this. It's not a matter of sympathy, of lies to turn her to a side good. He'll never think his own side good. It's the simple selfish truth, the core of the matter, with no reliance on either of them being good people inside; it's a losing path.

[timetoshine]

She doesn't want to, she wants to tear her eyes away and run from this suddenly suffocating corner, but she finds her eyes latched to his like something was forcing them there. She wasn't stupid, she wasn't blind, not to what was right in front of her. Right here in this dark and dreary hovercraft, the end to everything she knew and loved, there was so much confusion and uncertainty, but not in the Initiate. Not about this.

And that terrified her more than the uncertainty of what the rebels might do with her. Her heart screamed with denial, offering excuse after excuse for why he was wrong. But her mind knew he didn't have any reason to lie to her, maybe about other things, but not this. Lying to her about this wouldn't do anything for the rebels one way or another. And it wouldn't help the two of them.

"Why are you telling me this?" She was proud of herself for just a second, her voice held more strength and stability than she was feeling curled up pathetically in a corner as everything fell apart. Wasn't it a terrible thing to not only face your fallen hero, but to have that hero tell you something you couldn't bare listening to?

[carnagecarnival]

Because... not too late

Not too late for her. There's fear in him. There always is, but this he can pin point. He has her here. He doesn't want to lose this. He doesn't want to watch her or anyone turn out like he would.

friends saved
even if it don't look it
much motherfuckin worse was waiting

don't half ass nothing

If she remembers him from the arena, she'll remember him saying something like this

not even saving.

A smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth but nothing forms. This is too serious. Too important.

you got family and loves
do it to keep them
do it to keep yourself
will hurt
will hate it
but least you have a chance.

And then, to look look in her eyes again, he points out one last thing. One last explanation of why. His finger points to a message already written.

was like you

[timetoshine]

She stares at the words sourly. She stubbornly clung to what she knew and believed, but he was steadily picking away at it. Even just that one phrase, 'was like you.' He'd been so much more vicious than she'd been, but she'd tried her damnedest to be that. Now he was de-clawed...but not necessarily de-fanged. She'd been wrong, there was still something in him, something of the person she'd enjoyed watching.

And on top of all that, there was her loved ones. She loved her brothers and father so much, they'd supported her through and through...but a treacherous part of her mind forced the thought 'what if they hadn't thought she could win, would they have celebrated then?' She didn't know if she wanted that answer. Her mother certainly hadn't and Jaye...Jaye. That little mischievous smile she'd get when she was going along with Aemila's ideas, the softer one she'd been giving Aemila more and more before the reaping. The look of horror and sadness and anger all mixed together into betrayal. Jaye wouldn't see betrayal if she could see Aemila here, she'd look relieved. All she'd asked was that Ae came back...and now, maybe, she could.

The sour look dropped as thoughts of her best friend turned something else invaded her mind for the first time since she'd gotten to the Capitol and, with it, her eyes. And still, she gave a small nod, a sign she understood, even if she couldn't swallow all he'd given her to chew on just yet.

[carnagecarnival]

He'd meant to ask who they were, the woman what looked on all making like to be in shock, the girl what was being her age-- his age, back before he spent years here-- and the way she had heartbreak on her face. He looks at her now and he doesn't think he has to. He'll leave that one be. He's sure she'll be doing all a thinking plenty in times mean about it.

He's glad to see she understands. That nod means whole fuck of a lot. It took him lunar cycles to work shit out. Lunar cycles, screaming matches, a whole number of motherfucking murders, rebel accusations... She'll get this. He's sure of that. It's so fucking nice to have done some real and true motherfucking good. He didn't fuck it up and that's a miracle all in its own.

He smiles at her as like the old Initiate wouldn't. Hopeful, gentle, sure, with a nod on back at her. He thinks, hang in there, sister, and he hopes she does. It's broken only by the full body shudder what runs through, a sudden wave like unconscious self-punishment for how much writing and communication he just got done. It rocks him, but it passes. He takes that as his que to go on to kneeling, wiping the blood up off the floor with his sleeve to clean it as best as he can. Soothes is what it does, though he imagines it shatters the good image what he had for a moment. It can't be helped. No matter what shit he had to impart, he's still an Avox.

Once the floor's all done and cleaned, or at least being good enough he can part with it, he goes to rise. He casts one look at her, then at all them others up in the hovercraft. He nods his head at all them others and mouths the words, grow on you. Whether one liked it or not.