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Who| Alex Rider, R, Eliot Spencer
What| Alex bumps into R and comes out the worse for it.
Where| Near Pirates of the Caribbean ride
When| Late week 2
Warnings/Notes| Not cake (aka death)

Alex had not had very good luck this Arena. In addition to coming out of the Cornucopia empty handed, he's right eye had been injured to the point he could no longer see out of it. A helpful sponsor had sent him a few items, including some medicine, so at least his face hadn't become infected, but the sudden impairment of his vision was costing him dearly. His depth perception was completely gone and that made getting around the overgrown and rundown park more difficult.

Hoping to scavenge some electrical wiring to use as rope from a few of the rides, Alex was poking around what had once been one of his favorite rides, Pirates of the Caribbean. He didn't go very deep into the ride, as he'd noticed some of the unfriendly creatures in a few of the other water features, and he wasn't keen to meet any in this ride.

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This was probably the longest he'd gone without food.

R wasn't sure how long he could keep shuffling on, his mouth dryer than normal. He thought he wanted to lick his lips. R instead shuffled forward and kept planting one foot in front of the other, an awkward lurching step-shuffle-drag. If he stopped, he was afraid he'd sit down and stop. Starve in place. No thanks.

He thought he smelled kinda-sorta fresh blood here. Sniffing, he guessed someone Living might've come this way. Big emphasis on "might". It's not enough to know if that someone came in here and bled out, but R was hungry enough to attack old leftovers by now. The zombie groped his way inside, mouth dropped open in a gape as he sloshed his way deeper and hoped maybe today he'd luck out. A mosquito buzzed him, decided he wasn’t worth biting, and flew away. Moss floated at ankle height in some places, something clanking in the distance and echoing back. If he was another guy, alive and breathing and full of plans, he'd notice it was nosy enough to mask any sounds he made.

R wasn’t that guy.

After a few minutes of plodding forward, he thought he saw someone: a shape, man-sized, all the arms and legs in the right places, looking at some of the rusted machinery. R shambled a little faster now, gunning as much as a corpse could gun, his arm outstretched as he burst out of the shadows at Alex.

“Grrgh!” He moaned.

Alex had just managed to get a decent length of wiring worked free of the machinery when the back of his neck prickled. A millisecond later he heard movement behind him and realized he hadn't been paying close enough attention to his surroundings. Trying to get the wiring out of the machine without depth perception had been a bit tricky.

Dropping the wiring he whipping around, just in time to see someone coming at him. But because he couldn't tell how close the other Tribute was, he muffed his attempt to block the outstretched arm and left himself open.

R grabbed the closest thing, a nice big handful of the other guy's shirt, clawed his hand up, and then got a dead man's hold on his wrist. He jerked as hard as he could and threw his back into it. Was that a pop? Did he dislocate the guy's arm? R wasn't a big fan on hurting people more than he had to, but it happened whether he wanted it to or not. Kinda hard to do the whole undead cannibal thing without hurting someone in the process.

He wished there was a better way.

The zombie lurched toward Alex's thigh and sank his teeth in. After this long going cold turkey with barely even junk food to tide him over, R almost rolled his eyes upward because this was the closest thing to amazing as he could get. Short of, y'know, ripping open his skull and going for the money. Which was more than tempting. R tried to throw his weight against the other Tribute, jaws still latched onto the meat of his thigh like a dog, and hope he cracked his head against something.

It'd be easier to kill him if he was unconscious.

Eliot was just heading back to Anna and Lindsey when he heard the scuffle. Damn, he knew that kid, the young boy with the stance of a spy already. "Hey!" he yelled, pulling out his pocket knife as he ran toward them. It was better than nothing.

Alex yelled as his shoulder dislocated, the old injury from the previous year just adding to the pain. The next thing he knew there was a sharp pain in his thigh and he was being thrown to the ground like a rag doll. Dimly he heard a sharp crack as his head hit the hard concrete. Unlike dislocated shoulders though, Alex was familiar to getting nasty head injuries (a little too familiar really) and the fight to cling to consciousness despite the pain. But it was rather difficult to fight it when the pain was coming from so many directions.

He swore breathlessly as he struggled to pull his leg away, but the other Tribute, whom he vaguely recognized from his District, was locked on. With his uninjured arm he scrabbled for something, anything, to defend himself with.

R’s face flashed briefly in the dim lighting, a corpse-pale face looming up with a broken nose and shattered eye socket. The eye that got kicked out the first week threatened to pop back out again, R too caught up in the moment to care (much. Even he was a tiny bit picky about that kinda thing). Right now, though? The zombie was oblivious to the “hey” behind him as he fell on top of the other Tribute. So what if someone saw? Or if he had backup? Now that R finally drew blood, he was in a one-man frenzy, not caring that his prey still had his arms free to struggle.

The zombie buried his mouth into the open leg wound and jerked out a big bite, blood drooling down his face as he grunted like a happy camper. R dove in for another mouthful.

Oh man.

It was almost enough to drown out the yells, a part of R still wincing when he finally registered them as if they were from away. Oops. Maybe the guy wasn’t unconscious like he was supposed to be. Probably should’ve went for the throat.

Eliot threw the knife as he got closer, careful not to hit the kid by mistake. Dammit, was he... eating the boy? And Eliot thought he'd seen the worst that could happen here. "Leave him alone. Get outta here."

Alex felt his hand close on a piece of metal that had broken off the machine in his hunt for wiring. He swung it blindly, the pain and now the blood he was loosing from his leg making his already impaired vision even worse. He hadn't even noticed yet that someone was trying to rescue him.

"Geroff," he gasped, trying to swing the chunk of metal again.

Getting backstabbed, literally, was enough to distract R. He heard more than felt the thunk of the knife hitting him between the shoulders. R jerked around, eyes fixing on Eliot and he was just forming the thought I'd like to take a chunk out of him too when he was knocked to the side. The piece of metal slammed into him, sending R pitching against rubble. The zombie struggled to get back to his feet.

Eliot slammed into the other Tribute, intending to knock him away from the boy. "Ya wanna eat meat, ya shoulda gone to the damn tea party," he growled.

Alex forced himself into a sitting position, ignoring the way his skull was protesting the movement. Groggily he searched for whoever had just been making a meal from his leg and realized there was now a third party. Unexpected, but welcome as it gave him a chance to scramble back to his feet. His thigh wasn't too happy about the movement though, and the leg of his trouser was quickly turning from green to red.

He kept a firm grip on the chunk of metal and backed up until he had something solid at his back. As much as he wanted to help Eliot, he knew he was just as likely to hit him as hit the Tribute who had attacked him.

Getting tackled was enough to send R crashing further away from his prey. He stumbled and fell back, hard, to the floor, snarling. Is that how they wanted to play it? He wasn't done! R lurched back to his feet, staggering, chewing on that chunk of meat he'd ripped out, mouth open because manners went out the window, and swallowing it.

R gurgled at the two Living, aware he was outnumbered, slower, and the hunger going "so?"

There was something distinctly disturbing about seeing someone else chewing on a piece of his own body. There were few incidents that ranked higher on his 'things that have mentally scarred me for life' list. And what the fuck was with this theme of Alex getting eaten that was starting to form? First the shark, then the mutated turtle, and now one of his own District-mates?

Alex raised his makeshift weapon, pointing it at R.

"You have one chance," he bluffed. "Leave. Now."

Because if this dragged on much longer, Alex had a feeling he was going to pass right the fuck out.

Eliot wasn't too worried about the kid passing out right now. He was too focused on the being that had tried to eat Alex alive. Really, cannibalism was bad enough but while the boy was still alive? He glared at the other Tribute. "Go on if ya wanna live," he growled.

"Can't...hungry," R moaned, looking right at the weapon as if it wasn't computing. It was good advice: beat it, shuffle off, don't come back or I'll blow your head off. Good, life saving advice.

It'd probably help if he had a life in the first place.

R's eye went from the kid he bit to his other friend giving him a death stare here, thinking he looked like he'd go down pretty good too. (Also that he'd put up a bigger fight, too, because the element of surprise was shot).

Hungry? That was not something Alex wanted to hear from a guy who'd just gnawed a piece of his leg off.

"Go find some-" one "-thing else to eat. Buffet is closed and you're outnumbered."

Eliot shoved at R. "Ya heard him," he growled. "Go." He was ready to snap the other's neck if he had to.

The shove shifted R's attention from Alex to Eliot. The zombie turned his back on Alex and made an almost half-hearted lunge at Eliot, groaning and taking a step and then two away from the wounded Tribute.

Despite the blood loss, Alex was still trying to think of a way out of this. One that didn't involve him getting eaten, Eliot getting eaten, or his district mate getting killed (at least not by them). And as he watched R move, he started to formulate a plan. It was clear to Alex that R's logic was simple and straightforward. And he could be distracted, as Eliot had just demonstrated.

There were various techniques to dealing with opponents stronger than you. Either you got more firepower or manpower, or you exploited a weakness that was your strength.

And Alex was pretty sure he'd just spotted R's weakness. Speed.

Shifting his weight onto his injured leg, Alex found it could still hold his weight. He jerked his head at the ride entrance, with the simple implication that maybe him and Eliot should do the leaving instead.

And then he started running.

Eliot nodded to the kid. He dodged the other Tribute's attack and turned to run. He followed the boy, noting the blood trail he left behind. It didn't look good.

R did his best to follow, but it was obvious that even at his fastest lurch he was falling behind. Eventually he faded to just a shape in the distance, doggedly swaying after them, then to a shadow.

Alex didn't pick any particular direction to run in, he just took off. As the deteriorated scenery of New Orleans Square changed into that of Adventureland, Alex kept up a moderately steady pace, telling himself that once they got enough of a head-start they could pause to bandage his wound so R wouldn't have a blood trail to follow. As the first Frontierland buildings began to appear, Alex's strength flagged and he stumbled.

Eliot caught the boy's shoulder as he stumbled. "This should be far enough for now," he said quietly, moving to ease Alex to sit on the ground. "Let me take a look at your leg."

"It's just a flesh wound," Alex quipped in reply as he tried to sit in such a way that didn't jar his leg unnecessarily. When he finally succeeded, mostly through Eliot's assistance, he was a little alarmed at how much blood there was on the leg of his trousers. Now that he thought about it, that probably hadn't been the best skit to quote from.

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Lemme know if you need me to change anything! Do what you want to R, just leave his head intact

Can do

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Did you need R to do anything else or we good?

\o/ shamble away R, your work is done

late tag is late

feel free to mode R being kited away if you need to

kited? what is this slang, it sounds cute XD

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