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

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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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Maybe if Venus weren't wearing high heels, she wouldn't take a spill flat on her face, in a manner that she's sure will get her the slapstick edit. The package goes flying out of her hands and she turns on Karkat, kicking with her unhandled foot right at his face.

Heel pointed towards his eye, because she's classy.

Eliot rolls to his feet, catching the package as it flies and turns to run. He needs to find Lindsey, Parker, and Anna, make sure they're all right.

Karkat, meanwhile, screams as the heel from Venus' shoe pierces his eyeball.

"Let go!" Venus wrenches out of Karkat's grip and squirms away, finding her feet - and taking Karkat's eyeball with her. It stays pinned to her heel like a globe on a stand, a little trail of nerve gathering dust in the mucus and blood. She takes off, realizing that this package isn't hers anymore.

Edited 2013-06-24 03:16 (UTC)

Karkat screams a second time, even louder, still lying there on the ground, paralyzed by the pain. Eventually his head clears enough for him to push himself to his knees and reach into the neckline of his outfit for one of the scarves he'd asked his stylist to use in the padding for his fake rumblespheres. He takes it, white like the body of his leotard, although not for long, and tries to tie it around the bleeding socket, hands shaking.

Eliot glances behind him at the screams. Then keeps running. There's nothing he can do for the other tribute right now. He needs to get out of here.

"No, you don't!" Venus comes barreling after him, all the more incensed now that her chance at a smooth getaway was foiled. Her arms reach out to grab that sill hair of his.

He twists as she grabs his hair. The heels make it hard to run. He jabs an elbow backward, aiming for her belly.

Venus takes the hit to the gut and yells as the air is pushed from her. She yanks, trying to break Eliot's neck by his hair. Or maybe just scalp him.

Eliot turns as she yanks his hair, meaning she merely pulls his head forward. It still draws a pained grunt from him as he tries to kick her legs out from under her.

Venus screams, not in pain but in frustration, as she keeps her legs steady but feels flesh bruise and bone rattle at Eliot's kick. And then she returns the favor, jamming her foot as hard as she can into his kneecap, her snarl drowned out by the sickening crack of his bone.

Eliot feels both his kneecap and the bone right above snap. The pain robs him of his voice as he falls. He tries to fight through it like normal but he can feel his muscles contracting now that the bone can't hold them in their proper position, pu
lling the bone further out of place.

Venus grabs the package and takes off. She has no need to waste her time killing him.

That scream couldn't have been good news, and as soon as he sees the grey skin and orange horns he forgets about escaping and heads straight for the source. When he finds Karkat he drops his bag and kneels next to him, trying to help him cover his eye.

"Shit, how bad are you hurt?"

But there are still a lot of people around, and most of them alive, so he keeps his dagger close.

"Bitch took out my eye with her shoe," he manages to rasp as Cuthbert ties the scarf in place. He pushes himself unsteadily to his feet. "That's 'bout it, but it's bad enough. Fuck, 'Bert, we need to get out of here. We need to find Signless and the girls."

The weird nonsense-singing that's been present ever since the arena started seems to be getting louder. That's probably not a good sign.

Edited 2013-06-24 19:44 (UTC)

"Agreed. But you'll be no use if you can't see where you're going. Take this." He gives Karkat everything he picked up at the cornucopia. Hopefully Karkat is relatively light, because Cuthbert is picking him up princess style and moving as quickly as he can away from the mess they've made of things in the center.

He saw a glimpse of a couple of trolls before the arena started, but he lost track of them in the fighting, so he's not sure which way to go.

Karkat is fairly solid as these things go, but he's also only about five foot tall, so Cuthbert shouldn't have too much trouble. He clutches tight to Cuthbert's loot--at least one of them was able to get stuff from the cornucopia--and tries to ignore how much his blood pusher is pounding.

He leans his chin on Cuthbert's shoulder to watch behind them. Everything looks weird and flat and off--even more off than it did before they got dumped into this trickster hellhole--and fuck, what are those little brightly colored beasts? Why the fuck are they coming this way?

"Bert," he manages to croak out. "Bert, they're following us. The singing beasts are following us."

"We need cover... but I don't see anything but a damn castle."

He's keeping a eye out for traps, as best he can. He already saw one person caught in one and he doesn't want to be next. There are some massive candy canes that might provide basic cover and he heads that way. There's a couple of grey bodies side by side in the grass, and he almost trips to see them, but only changes the direction he's heading by a small amount so Karkat will (hopefully) miss seeing them.

"If I'm to fight them I have to set you down. Will you stay exactly where you're put?"

Unfortunately, he doesn't change direction fast enough.

"Yes," Karkat rasps out. "Yes, fuck, of course I will. Bert, that was Terezi, Terezi and Redglare, fuck. She's dead, Bert, she's fucking dead, she shouldn't have died that fast, she's culled so many more trolls than I ever did, fuck. Fuck."

To his acute embarrassment, he realizes he's crying from his undamaged eye, staining the white of Cuthbert's blouse with red.

"I know. They'll be back in the Capitol waiting for us when this is over." Bert is still firmly in emotional shut down right now and when he judged that there was nothing he could do for them he simply didn't care.

He sets Karkat down as gently as he can, taking the knife since he has no idea what he's up against with the creatures following him and hadn't gone through the rest of his weapons yet.

"Stay here. See if there's anything else you can use to defend yourself in there, but I'll do my best to keep them away."

The singing is annoying, even for someone usually so immune to it as Bert is. He turns to face the dokidokis following them and in a sing song mockery. "Come and see what I have for thee~"

The dokibeasts hiss at Cuthbert's singing, edging away from the two boys. Karkat has the bag open and he thinks he sees a folding knife in there, but the hissing dokibeasts grab his attention and he looks up at them. "Holy fuck. Do that again."

"Do what?" He waves the knife with no effect and then takes a step forward and sings again. "Come and get me~"

He's a little surprised when the dokidokis hiss again and back off.

"Gan, they don't like being upstaged. Well, I'm certain we can do something about that."

He starts singing a few notes, no words yet, just trying to see how effective it is.

Yeah, okay, that's definitely what's doing it.

Karkat starts singing the first thing that pops into his head, which unfortunately is the opening theme to a cartoon show he used to watch as a tiny wiggler ~~and that Tavros still watched as far as he knew because Tavros was fucking pathetic that way~~. "There is a land that I know, that is true and not just make-believe..."

(Fuck, these lyrics were ridiculous.)

Edited 2013-06-25 02:51 (UTC)

Bert stops singing to turn around and look at Karkat. He wants to laugh, but this is way too serious.

"Don't stop, dear, it seems to be working."

He gathers up their supplies and looks through them briefly. The throwing stars are interesting, and Cuthbert gives one of them a practice throw toward one of the dokidokis. When he draws blood the others turn on it in a rabid pack and Bert takes a startled step back.

"Truly, don't stop. That may be the difference between life and death right now."

"One where friends will defend one another to the end, and you never have to leave!"

Oh fuck. These are probably the most embarrassing lyrics in the fucking world too. Fuck this. Fuck this, fuck the dokibeasts, fuck everything.

"A boy with the love in his heart, 'boldened by the courage in his soul! He will fight for the rights of the fairies and the sprites, a hero among trolls!"

His life is nothing but pain and embarrassment.

"You sitting there watching troll TV, get on up and come with me! Adventure lies and soon you will be, watching Fiduspawn!"

It's at that point he switches to Troll Celine Dion.

Edited 2013-06-25 05:06 (UTC)

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feel free to carry him like a princess (we know you want to)

don't mind if I do

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