thearena | Oh my love, I know you are the Candy Man

Although the mood in the Capitol is...taut, once the Tributes are in the transportation craft, things seem to lighten. The peacekeepers almost seem jovial - as jovial as peacekeepers ever seem. About half the Tributes are checked over and given an injection into their tracking device.

In the underground room, the stylists have all their prep teams running busy, dressing up the tributes in bright costumes, chatting with each other, clearly excited to have so much freedom over what their Tributes are wearing in. Each one is dressed in a personalized costume, elaborate, and entirely soft.

Finally the Tributes are placed on their pedestals and sent on up, all gussied up.

25 - 24 - 23

The light is blinding for a moment, before the candy-colored world around them comes into focus. And it's not just candy-colored - it is actually candy. Some Tributes might be reminded of the game Candy Land, if it was something in their home world. Music plays, scarily cute animals roam, and every thing just looks so gosh-darn happy.

20 - 19 - 18 - 17 - 16

The Cornucopia sits, candy-striped itself, and over-flowing with a generous bounty of food, weapons, and supplies. Even these all reflect the nature of the arena, brightly-colored, and cheerful-looking, just begging to be gathered up.

11- 10 - 9 - 8

They've all been warned not to step off their pedestal early. But as the final number ticks off, those Tributes that had their tracking devices adjusted in the transport suddenly feel a sting starting in their arms. A slightly diluted version of what Ariadne was given the day before is dumped in their veins.

The dilution doesn't help them, of course; it just causes the poison to take effect more slowly.

5 - 4

3

2

1

Go.

The burning is starting for half of them, spreading through their body, lighting their nerves on fire. Within 10 minutes it's effecting their motor skills, causing them to stagger, twitch, to move against their will.

Those who are small fall faster, barely lasting 15 minutes in the bloodbath. The stronger and bigger among them might make it 30 minutes at most.

By the time the bloodbath is over, the Cornucopia is surrounded by corpses. Half of the Tributes have fallen without even a single competitor having to touch them.

[OOC: Don't forget the OOC Arena post, especially those of you running for the Cornucopia. Every Tribute must post to this post. There will be a Cornucopia thread, and anyone else feel free to post as you will. Please add a tag with your character's name.

Those who were poisoned are anyone in group 2. You will have a second post up shortly.]

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The arena is ridiculous and his outfit is ridiculous and Damian Wayne hates everything (but that part's nothing new). The whole Cornucopia thing is suspicious to him so he's content to let everyone make a mess of themselves. He didn't need anything they had to offer him anyway.

It isn't until the Tributes start dropping that he becomes concerned, and that's when he turns back, deciding not to leave the area after all. He didn't recognize anyone in these ridiculous outfits, but he doubted these corpses would be here forever. He decides to try and examine a few before they disappear.

It's not long before things start to make sense and he's pissed. He grumpily makes his way out of here to start familiarizing himself with his surroundings.

Cuthbert already got what he wanted and left, but on his way back in search or some of his cohorts he sees Damian getting up to leave, looking mad. He grips his unicorn blade tighter but allows himself to relax before he crosses paths with this stranger. The last thing he wants to do is start a fight when there's more important matters at hand, but if Damian is going to attack him on sight he's not going to be caught off guard.

"Hile, stranger. If you have a moment to palaver, I would speak with you a spell. When we're done we may leave as friends or enemies, but I'd see us both leave alive."

He holds up his hands, one empty the other with the knife held upside down so the blade runs parallel to his arm. Bert knows they're enemies here, but he's already seen fallen friends with no apparent wounds on them and if Damian knows anything about that it's worth the risk in talking to him.

Damian turns, looking over at the stranger. Truthfully, he's a little suspicious of someone that only wants to talk here, but, well. He's suspicious of everyone, so that's nothing new. Still, despite his frustration and annoyance, he's trying to be a good person here, so he doesn't mind giving Cuthbert a chance.

Although he's unarmed, he doesn't mimic the gesture. It's not because he intends to attack, but rather, that he doesn't want to make it an invitation.

"What is it?"

"You were looking at the bodies left here, and since I doubt you could have killed them all yourself, I think you and I might have a similar suspicion about this."

Bert lowers his hands slowly, it doesn't seem like there's going to be a fight right now, which is for the best. Despite his own age and what he knows about the world, he's less likely to suspect someone younger than an adult.

"I've only been in one of these arenas before, but they never left the bodies there. Why leave them now?"

Normally, Damian would protest and assure him that he totally could have killed all of them by himself if he wanted to, but this guy says something interesting, so he puts aside the childish retort for now.

"Maybe they're trying to scare us into thinking our deaths are permanent." He remembers what Tim said before, about this being a TV show and all that stuff with the interviews. The drama it might cause for some would definitely be in their best interests. But it still seemed strange. Could it really be that simple?

Bert eyes the body for a moment before looking back up at Damian. He really doesn't want to look away from anyone he doesn't explicitly trust so far in the arena.

"Seems a lot of trouble to go through to make a point. None of the bodies I've seen have marks of struggle on them, save one. So this is likely something more serious. What think you?"

He has suspicions about that already, but he's curious what Damian has come up with in his investigation.

"I've been told that our spectators are rather fond of dramatics." Well, he'd been here long enough to have been able to see that even before entering the arena, so he definitely didn't have any doubts about it. But still, it did seem like a bit much. Especially when he didn't believe that they would just stop bringing people back to life all of a sudden. Did they really expect them to believe that?

"Did you see any of them before they fell?" He gestures toward the body he'd just been looking at. ...he won't admit it, but he's glad to be away from it. "Many of them were shaking. Convulsing. There's blood coming from their mouths. They were poisoned."

Edited 2013-07-02 09:00 (UTC)

"I thought as much when I saw a few of them in their death throes. But why poison half of us when we've only just begun to play?"

Bert takes a step toward the body Damian had just been looking at, but doesn't spare it more than a quick glace. He'd seen plenty of them already, and he knew what to expect out of it.

"Mayhap it was a message to those of us left alive. Have you seen any you know among the fallen?" He hesitates to ask the question, not because it's insensitive but because he doesn't want to reveal how many people he was closed to ended up among those quickly deceased.

"Not yet." His answer is surprisingly truthful. Then again, he didn't know many people here to begin with, and there was an even smaller number of people whose survival he was actually interested in. So maybe it didn't count for much. Still, considering how many had already died, he supposed it would be inevitable that someone he knew had been poisoned.

He wasn't looking forward to finding them, though. But as much as he didn't want to, he felt like it might be his responsibility. That aside, he sort of agrees with what Bert says. "With everything else that's happened recently, I wouldn't be surprised. I highly doubt that they're just looking to end this quickly."

Edited 2013-07-07 10:09 (UTC)

"Mayhap we'll never know. But I thank you for your opinion, when we meet next I shall hope you it isn't to put my knife in your gut... and vice versa."

He gave the body on the ground another short look before backing away again. Just because he said this would end amiably didn't mean Damian agreed. He wasn't going to die for something stupid.

"Hm."

A curt nod, and that was it for him. Damian, fortunately, didn't plan to give him any trouble, either. He had other priorities, after all, and killing actually wasn't one of them. At least, not right now.

Oh my love, I know you are the Candy Man

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up for a random encounter?

Absolutely! c:

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