thearena | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who| Bucky & Punchy
What| Megaphones and awkward rescues.
Where| Critter Country/NO Square
When| Week the fifth.
Warnings/Notes| N/A?

Bucky'd run out of New Orleans square into the make believe forest that surrounded it, 'cause it seemed like as good a place to hide as any. He was good at hiding, and gee whiz, it did seem like lots of stuff was trying to kill him, and finding a way out wasn't working. He'd figured the whole place went in a circle. And he also figured he could wait here, until someone real mean showed up, and then he could sneak up on them and take their stuff.

Meanwhile, it was good to be quiet for a while.

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Punchy's made himself a megaphone. It's not the frequency-jammer he and Topher were working on, not even close, but Topher's dead. And, Punchy has to admit, the expertise required to do that kind of hack went with him. Piecing together a way to get his voice and not just the prerecorded Disney tapes to come out through the amplifiers took days.

But not, he has it. He walks around, as if unafraid of anything, with his makeshift megaphone, his bandage covering his missing eye, and his shirt conspicuously missing.

"Yo! All the peeps up in here! I got the troof for y'all, and it's a message of peace!"

This guy's crackers, Bucky thinks. It isn't that he dislikes peace, 'cause any soldier would tell you they were itching for the war to end. But you had to fight to get there. And besides, he was good at fighting.

Bucky squints at this stranger, still hidden. (At least, Bucky thinks he's still hidden.) He's so distracted by all that noise that he doesn't notice that something else in the bushes has noticed, too.

"I'm trying to get a combo up in here so we can get some synapses firing all brainstormwise..."

In the bushes, there's a rustle and the snapping of branches as a large black bipedal dog rears to its full height of seven feet. It's comically large nose twitches and its ears perk up as it listens to Punchy ramble.

It moves past Bucky as if it has not even seen him.

Geez louise, what in the quiet blue heck is that thing supposed to be? Bucky has no trouble leaping for the vagaries of his hiding place and running at the thing full bore.

"Hey! Talky-talk! Do you got a weapon on you or are you really that dedicated to your speechifying?" Bucky yells, hoping to give the poor guy a heads up, and maybe distract the big whatsit.

"Huh?" Punchy's head jerks around to see whom he assumes is some brave convert Punchy can lead to safety, only to see a seven foot-tall evil dog bearing down on him. "Whoa, what the shit!"

He ducks back, lands on his hand, and rolls out of the way of Goofy's claws in time to see Bucky running over.

"I think I'm gonna name it Jiminy Crickets," says Bucky, still charging at the thing instead of running away like a sensible person. It wasn't like he expected to stop it, not without a gun or a knife or anything but his hands. But he figured he could take a few minutes to give the other guy the chance to escape.

But Punchy doesn't move to escape. Instead he charges at the thing with Bucky, covering the ground with long, sprinting strides.

"Tag team it!"

"What in Sam Hill are you on ab—"

That, right there, is when Bucky has to duck. Fists full of claws had a way of sticking Bucky's tongue to the back of his throat. But not for very long.

"I don't got any weapons!" He yelled. "This was—" gulp, exhale "— s'posed to be a distracting maneuver."

Punchy, being a moron, goes straight to tackle the rough beast. As in football-tackle.

"We don't ice it, it'll cap someone else!"

Nothing could go wrong.

"Do you got any weapons, or did you throw those away?"

He's getting sharp with his language, but he's not gonna leave this guy to bite it. Go for the eyes, Bucky decides, kneeling down to see what he can swipe of the ground. If you can get the eyes, even dust'll hurt.

"Never had 'em!" Punchy slams into the giant dog, taking them both down - apparently Goofy doesn't have very good balance.

Unfortunately, he still has claws, and he rakes them across Punchy's exposed side. Punchy yells.

"Creesus," says Bucky, seeing them both go down. Seeing the thing's claws touching flesh like that.

The next thing he does he doesn't have words for. Or a plan— come to think about it. Now that Punchy's brought the monster down, Bucky bends his knees just a bit further and jumps. He's got his arms wrapped around its neck, his hands still clutching a fist full of dirt.

Bucky's trying to pull the monster off of Punchy, but the side effect is making it spitting mad.

In a way, Punchy kind of resents Bucky coming in to help him. It's a blow to his ego, a reminder that he isn't the untouchable superhero he likes to think he is.

Fortunately, it's not as much as a blow against him as the claws against his side. He rolls away from the dog, aiming a kick at its pelvis. He's not a violent type, but this isn't a person, nor even a real dog - it's some monster, the type he's allowed to let the full force of his training out on. The kick is strong enough to shatter Goofy's pelvis.

Bucky's still hanging on around Goofy's neck, and he buckles some from the force of Punchy's blow. He's realized he can't snap the things spine on his own, but he's got the dirt in his hands still, and he rubs it deep into the monsters eyes.

It lets out a whine, high[-pitched and sharp, before throwing Bucky off and falling limp to the ground.

Punchy scrambles on up, holding a hand over the gash on his side. He looks at Bucky, unsure whether to be irate with him for helping or grateful.

So instead he just asks, "you all cool?"

Bucky's doubled over for the time being, his hands on his knees. In between pants he can spit out a sentence.

"Yeah, I'm all aces."

Finally, someone who speaks Punchy's language! Punchy wipes the blood on his hand on his pants, which were once pink but now are covered in various fluids and dirt. Charming.

"Breezy. I ain't chuffed none, just a little beat up. What's your handle, dawg?"

Actually, boy-o, Bucky still thinks you talk strange (he's never heard d-a-w-g before in his life). But that's small potatoes compared to the everything of everything else right now. But especially the nearly getting mauled by some sorta souped-up cartoon dog.

"It's Bucky," and for the first time since getting here he isn't sure if the guy means his name or his callsign. Luckily, he uses the same for both.

"Boss name, homie. I'm Punchy." He walks over to the dying Goofy and breaks its neck. "You used to this shizz? That was some jones you got."

He hadn't really thought about it, but no one here seemed to recognize him. That was what the mask was for, he supposed, if you want to get technical. But it always surprises him when that trick works.

"I'm in the service," he says. He doesn't talk about the time he killed a frost giant. That was classified.

"Service gives you game, I guess. I'm more of a stick-it-to-the-Man boss-ass motherfucker, myself." Punchy shrugs. "You got a safe place around here? I kinda made Tomorrowland my pad."

Bucky hasn't settled down, because that seems to him a good way to get caught. Not that he was sure what getting caught meant, exactly— he just had enough paranoid strings in his body to keep himself from being easy to find. If he were gonna answer, he'd consider lying, for all those same reasons.

But he doesn't, because he gets tripped up in the first part of what Punchy says.

"Who's the man?" he asks, with honest curiosity.

"You know. The powers that be. The motherfuckers setting this shit to stage and throwing the mad cash at all this setup." He shrugs, then gestures that Bucky should follow him for safety for the moment.

"You're right. That explains it."

But he did follow, skeptical as he was about that he was really walking to safety. It was good to have someone to follow, he decided. It meant you had someone else to blame if things went southerly.

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