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

[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."

[the_marshal]

The hair did stand out. An unnatural color in any forest, not just the arena's. Even if he hadn't heard her crashing through the brush like a frightened deer, he'd have had to have been blind to miss it.

He wasn't far behind when she tumbled, and he was already reaching out a hand by the time she'd rolled and thrown up her arms.

"It's alri--" Cut off by her panicked sobs, the hand he was offering turned, palm out, soothing. He shifted the rifle to his hip with his other hand, and crouched, so he wasn't looming over her. "It's alright. I'm not gunna hurt ya. I'm here to help."

[ormolu]

For a few moments, she didn't move, just staring up at him with wide, scared eyes. Despite all pretenses, the hair and the clothes and the fancy living, she is at that moment a terrified child, and the comparison to a frightened deer is pretty spot on. There's no training, no experience for this, she's riding on the pure instincts of survival.

However, Wyatt's words soothe her enough that she manages to look up at him with a pathetic little hiccup. That's when her expression shifts, eyes still wide, but slipping from unbridled terror into unbridled awe. And recognition. Because she's never met the man, but she knew him as well as she knew any tribute in the arena.

"Y-You're Wyatt Earp--! I have your poster!" She whispered it, even as she slowly held her hand out. Unsure of what series of events had taken place to land her with a dead man coming to save her, but willing to trust him. He'd been on TV. He was famous. And he wasn't famous for being mean. "...But you're dead." Slowly, she looked around, eyes still wide.

"Am I dead...?" Of all the people she thought would meet her when she died, Wyatt Earp wasn't high on that list. Not a bad choice, but not where she would've placed her money.

[the_marshal]

He took her hand in his larger, callused one, and stood slowly, pulling gently as he did, urging her up on to her feet.

"Ya ain't dead," he assured, blue eyes flicking over her, checking for obvious injury. "An' neither am I. I've come from District 13. We're here to get ya out of the arena."

[ormolu]

"District 13...?" This didn't do much to dissuade her that this wasn't some weird kind of afterlife, because District 13 was just as dead as he was. "That place is gone...The Capitol bombed it over 70 years ago." But despite her words, she let him pull her up, and made no move to run away. She seemed...in decent health. Better health than a Capitolite in the arena had any right to be.

"But...if you're taking me out of here, I'll go. I don't care where it is." Anywhere was better than here. Somewhere that didn't feel like a countdown until she died.

[the_marshal]

"An' Capitolites never get sent into the arena," Wyatt muttered. "Ain't lyin' grand?"

She seemed healthy enough, though, he decided. Certainly enough that she should be able to make it back to the entrance and the plane without keeling over first.

"Come on." He nodded his head back the way he'd come. "We ain't got a lot of time, so we're gunna have to move quick. Stick as close as can, alright?"