thearena | [i'm feelin' like a star, you can't stop my shine]

Entry tags:

[i'm feelin' like a star, you can't stop my shine]

Who| Neffa, Enjolras, Beck, Julie, Venus, and anyone else who'd like to run into Neffa!
What| Neffa's gotten separated from Jay; doki-doki battles, minor skirmishes, and headlong sprints across sugar fields abound
Where| Arena 1, around
When| Week 2, even early week 3
Warnings| Just usual arena stuff (violence, etc.) for now!

"Stay here," he'd said. "I'll take a look around," he'd said. "I'll be back in an hour; keep quiet and we'll decide our direction when I come back," he'd said. Well-- it had been an hour, and then two hours, and every stupid chocolate tree and gumdrop meadow looked like every other stupid chocolate tree and gumdrop meadow, and he'd lost sight of the beacon of Jay's blue hair in the distance long ago.

Neffa was lost, stuck wandering in ever-widening circles with blue synthetic dreadlocks falling in his face and his bizarre, sparkling club held ready in sweaty hands. A pouch of food had come sailing down from the sky earlier, with a note from Timaeus; he'd slipped the note pointedly into his pocket, rather than throwing it away (Maybe he'll remember that), and walked tipped to one side now, the better to keep an arm clamped over the pouch slung around one shoulder. It made his gait more awkward, but he wasn't risking a sneak attack on it.

Everything was sticky. There was no avoiding it. Every inch of skin and clothing that had brushed any part of the blindingly bright landscape had come away sugary, and in the persistent sunlight had melted into a coating that he could feel without touching. He'd been ready to club some sense into Jay a few hours ago, but now he found himself wishing more and more desperately to see him again, still sitting beside their comfortingly heavy bag of supplies and looking worriedly out for him. If Jay managed to get their best means for survival stolen....

He readjusted his grip on the handle of the bat. Gods. Was it just him, or was the music getting louder?

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This arena was seriously giving him a headache.

Beck didn't know what was worse: the music that kept repeating itself, or the obnoxiously bright colors of the sky and the candies and the grass. It felt like the settings were burning into his eyes and his ears, and it made it annoying to wander around. It was even hard to sleep...

He hadn't caught an eye of sleep in the past few days. And if he drifted, his sleep was more like extended naps more than anything else. So when he catches movement in the corner of his eye, it scares him half to death. Beck does the most logical thing he can think of, and that's take cover behind one of the obnoxious plants.

The program takes a minute to study the wandering figure...but after a few moments, he starts to relax. It's Neffa, the same User he met at the party. His name was Neffa, right?

So yeah, alliances wasn't the best method to surviving in the arena. But in this case, he'd put that aside.

Beck straightened up, and drew in a little closer to the User. "Neffa?"

If Neffa's gait had been lopsided before, now he was barely walking upright. The bat was still tight in his sweaty grip, but with every step the urge to give up and use it as a support was harder to resist.

He should have been grateful to be alive, really. The pain of breathing would have been bringing him to sobbing if sobbing wouldn't have been more painful than breathing, but pain meant life. His supply pouch might have been lighter and his ribs bruising deep purple-black (he'd had a single look and then resolved not to look again), but he was walking, and he could see, and he'd not lost his weapon.

The problem with pain was that it was difficult to concentrate on anything else so long as every part of him seemed so earnestly to be crying out You're hurt! You're hurt!, as though he didn't know. It was stupid, and unsafe. Save some attention for the outside, he ordered himself blearily, watch for movement, I have to take care of--

--"Neffa"?

He froze. Forced himself to straighten, took as deep an inward breath as he could and tried not to choke on the pain. Now he was paying attention, and now pain was washing away in waves of fear-- and it did not die when the voice attached itself to a moving figure. No. Leave me alone. I have nothing to offer you. I don't want to kill you.

"--Beck." That was the name. From the party, from Timaeus's party. The man from inside the communicator. Neffa took a wary step back, hefting the bat (favoring his left side as best he could). "Don't come nearer. Don't."

Beck was a little surprised (and, okay, a little hurt) when Neffa raised the bat towards him.

The last thing he wanted to do right now was fight. Ever since the Blood Bath, something wasn't right in his head. Sometimes he felt sluggish, sometimes he felt like he could be sick. Beck felt like he couldn't be on his toes properly to fight, and he didn't want to even think about risking it. But at the same time...he didn't think Neffa would hurt him. The User was hurt- he could see that as plain as day. His friend needed help, and he was prepared to give him a little.

Maybe Neffa wasn't in the right mindset, either. He couldn't help himself.

He held up his hands, and tried to give him the best smile he could manage. "It's okay, Neffa. I'm not going to hurt you." Beck did what he was told not to do; he took a step forward.

Logically, Neffa knew Beck had no reason to hurt him - he remembered their conversation, back at Timaeus's party, the drinks they'd shared and the pleasant parting. But Cuthbert had told him a story under the stars and told him he you are a man who remembers the face of his father-- and it was Cuthbert's blow that had Neffa curled around his wound now, desperate and frightened. You couldn't trust anyone to have a reason not to kill you. That was clear to him now.

"Prove it." The bat twitched in Neffa's hands, defensive. "Make me-- make me an offer. Stand there and tell me what you want for my life. Come on."

His voice was hoarse, his sentences choppy, and his backward progress halting - he was seconds from stumbling, he was sure, but there was not enough distance. Not enough to be safe.

It almost sounded like Neffa was delusional. For a moment, Beck was afraid that his friend had been poisoned. He knew that others were poisoned, but he couldn't put a name on who. He assumed that the poisoned would have taken its effect a long time ago, since they were far into the arena. But...maybe his was a little more lax. Maybe things were just starting to take a downturn, because the Gamemakers like to see him suffer.

Beck kept his hands up, taking another step forward. "I don't want anything, Neffa. It's me. Beck."

Another step. And another after that.

"Please, let me help you. I don't want to hurt you."

Neffa laughs, short and breathless and hysterical. "Like hell!" There's no one in this arena who doesn't want something. Assuming otherwise is stupid. Neffa's done being stupid.

For every step Beck takes forward, Neffa takes another halting step backward - and it works well until his back connects with something. A tree trunk? A gingerbread rock? He doesn't turn around to look, and he doesn't much care. Suddenly, there is no longer anywhere to retreat to. Suddenly, he feels trapped.

Panic swells in his stomach, burns through all his limbs like an electric shock. He registers Beck's final step forward, and moves on an instinct he didn't even know he had - the part of his mind still whimpering in pain goes suddenly dead quiet, and he lunges forward with a strangled cry, twisting to raise his bat over his shoulder and bring it around in a wild, panicked swing.

The leg. Go for the leg. Put him on the ground. He thinks he might have shouted something-- a plea, maybe Stop!, maybe Get away from me--! but he doesn't know. A stupid thing to say, anyway - the swing is anything but a warning blow.

Beck honestly can't understand. Was this really how Neffa was in the Arena? Was everything that happened in the boat a joke? He couldn't understand any of this; Users weren't supposed to be this way.

...But with that logic, how could Programs be like this, and that be okay?

He sees Neffa swing the bat, and a delayed sense of alarm swarms through him. Whether it be that he was exhausted, or his head was still swarmy, or he was just a little surprised by one of his friends going after him like that, he didn't know. But he felt the bat collide with his knee, sending a horrible scream of pain up and down his leg. Beck heard himself cry out, a hand clutching at the point of impact as his leg collapsed, and he ended up falling onto the sugar floor hard.

This wasn't safe. He had to get out of here, and just leave Neffa to himself. Beck tried to get himself up to his feet...but ended up falling back down, right back in the position where he started. Any kind of movement made his knee flare up, making him gasp and shuffle backwards as quickly as he could. But even with him dealing with this, and being in the position he was in...he couldn't help but say this. "Neffa, wake up! What's wrong with you?!"

The music was indeed growing louder, and Enjolras would have felt comforted that he weren't the only one to notice such things were it not for his disappointment at finding Neffa. On first seeing the figure in the distance, Enjolras had been hopeful to have found any number of people, none of which were this man. Nevertheless, their proximity was inevitable now. A change of course would be both obvious and potentially make his actions seem more dangerous than they were.

"You look well," he stated tersely, once in earshot. He had an impressive amount of supplies with them that to Enjolras appeared far too much for one person. They made his own Cornucopia-acquired backpack seem less impressive than he'd at first imagined.

Neffa was starting to get good at reading hostility on people. There hadn't been much cause to know the signs of it back home, and so he'd never had to bother - no matter how sour a deal went, the threat of physical violence was barely in the realm of possibility. There were other ways to make displeasure known, and none of them involved murder.

Here, hostility was fast becoming the first thing he looked for in other people - even before supplies, which had been his original standby. Supplies Enjolras had, that was clear from a distance, but Neffa couldn't see if it came with hostility. He wished he'd heard him coming soon enough to take off - but footsteps were masked by the damned singing, such that he caught sight of him only when slipping off unnoticed was already impossible.

He shifted his bat warily into two hands as Enjolras came closer, but it was more a warning than anything. Hostility, in his experience, didn't walk up to a person and start conversation, and it didn't usually look so disappointed to see him.

"As well as can be expected," he replied, equally terse. Lack of direct intent to kill didn't imply that he wanted Enjolras here. "My sponsors have been attentive." Makes one of us, he deliberately did not add aloud.

"So it seems." There was an edge to his voice which betrayed the lack of neutrality despite the words themselves. He didn't miss the shifting of the bat, or the terseness of the reply. These things were to be expected, he figured. From anyone in the Arena, but especially given their tenuous regard (or lack thereof) for one another. Perhaps he was risking too much by this conversation. There was absolutely no telling what this man would do, especially if he felt it might help him with his sponsors.

Enjolras shifted the weight of the pack on his back, leaning heavily on one foot and then the other, as if to say that he was equally prepared for the hardships ahead. "I was fortunate enough to find something useful at the Cornucopia."

Which also implied, perhaps less than subtly, that he would be making his way without the benefit of those sponsors.

"Not a weapon, though?" Neffa asked, raising an eyebrow. He spoke it casually enough, and made no hostile move; but he rather liked how much dialogue the bat added with its presence alone. No need to declare his advantage.

He wondered, briefly, how difficult it would be to kill Enjolras. He didn't like the thought overmuch - he had no real reason to, so far as he could see, and unlike what seemed like half the people in this arena, dislike on Neffa's part didn't translate into any kind of homicidal intent. The fact remained, though, that killing looked good - and as he had no intention of making Enjolras into an ally...

He talked, to cover his sudden queasiness. "I have to say, most people who approach me here don't come just to talk-- but then, it is you we're..."

He broke off. Speaking over the persistent singing had become second nature long before, but he realized suddenly that at some point in the last minute he had been forced to raise his voice. There were fewer than ten paces between himself and Enjolras. That meant the noise was getting louder. ...Closer.

Neffa dared to take a look over his shoulder. Nothing-- but the look he leveled back at Enjolras was equal parts suspicion and mild alarm. You hear it too, yes?

His brows furrowed in response to Neffa's silent question. Of course, he heard the singing, how could he not? it had been a dull murmur moments ago, an annoying hum mere seconds ago, but now it seemed like they could hardly speak, even at a reasonable distance, without having to shout and not even over one another. Enjolras fumbled for the dagger tucked into the sash under his waistcoat, posture shifting in an alert, but not specifically aggressive manner. He still wasn't looking for a fight, and besides, chances are whatever it was that was singing (Could it be called singing? Chanting?) at them was probably more of a threat to both.

"I did well at the Cornucopia," he stated simply, or attempted to, over the sounds of the voices which were becoming more distinct by the second. Enjolras too glanced around their clearing, looking for source of the noise. Finally, at the far edges, half hidden behind a brightly colored shrub he spotted it.

The Doki-Doki looked like some awful chimera, some terrible mix of a cat and a rabbit, with the features of both and neither and eyes too large for it's small oval-shaped head. He pointed to it with the knife, just as it ducked under another pink branch. "There!"

The booster shot has made Venus feel alive again, or, more than that, like a person again. Prior to the shot she felt more of a discombobulated mess of chemicals and molecules than she ever did as dark matter; having physical cells tetheerd together didn't keep her from feelings like she was unraveling, disintegrating, seeping away like water through a coffee filter. She can tell the dosage on her medicine wasn't quite right, because she feels manic now, but it's far preferable.

Right now, she just feels jumpy, and like her thoughts are racing, and like every physical sensation is sandpaper against her skin. She keeps wondering if she could shiver so fast she could be a human buzzsaw and cut right through someone. She would kill for a blade right now, literally. Instead, she just has a prosthetic metal leg, covered with Lin Ayuzumi's dried blood. Venus knows she should probably leave it behind if anyone's going to trust her, but bludgeons are easy to come by around here.

She stops when she sees something catch the light in the distance, pink, sparkly. Not surprising, since everything is pink and sparkly in this horrible live presentation of Neopets Online. But she sees it's a person just beyond the ridge.

"Hello?"

At first, he isn't sure what he heard is a human voice. He's already halted half a dozen times, sure he heard voices under the constant, distant singing, but thus far it's always been his own paranoia whispering in his ear. He turns fully around once-- twice-- before he catches sight of her-- halts and raises the bat in warning, squints in her direction--

--What is she carrying?

He takes a wary step back, torn between the part of him shrieking run run run run run and the part of him that has already botched one transaction and hasn't stopped being thirsty since leaving the gingerbread mountains. Hello, he reasons, is a good word. Neutral, not hostile. Good things can follow hello, even in the Arena.

He swallows-- doesn't lower the bat, but does not turn and run. "Looking for something?" he calls back, as quietly as he thinks he can at this distance, but loud enough to disguise any tremor in his voice (he hopes). An equally neutral reply - please, follow it with something good.

It's not the first time Julie's wished the sandals they fit her with (why the hell had they fit her in this costume in the first place?) were a little bit sturdier. The only upside is the poncho's pretty breathable, which means the sun's not entirely killing her.

Close, though. Days and days without shade was driving her nuts. At least home had buildings. Dilapidated, falling apart, but temporary enough for a nap. She was the kind of person who couldn't sleep even with a wink of light in the room.

So. That'd probably kill her first.

She's shuffling through melting grass as well as she can, hiding her sounds of exertion in her elbow. Not doing much good there -- and then she perks up, hearing a voice. As much avoiding as she's been doing, she can admit that it's... something. And, hey, she's pretty sure she recognizes that one...

Well, why the hell not?

"Venus?" She crests a hill that cuts off anything just above her head. There's a second voice. First thing she notices is the leg, then the body between hers and Venus. So. Glad to know she was right? Yay.

"Uh." She drops her bat from its pre-fight position, the bottom just touching the ground. Two's probably not a good number to encounter. Besides, Venus kidn of made it obvious from before that killing her wouldn't be something she should take personally. After all this time, survival comes first. "I come in peace?"

That's probably not going to work.

"Company," she says, and her voice is a purr. Sex appeal isn't worth much in the Arena - people understandably have other concerns - but it never hurts to feel a man out. "Wasn't sure next time I'd see a brother around here. Here I was thinking I'd be the only one representing."

Her eyes are outlined with charcoal on the top, giving her a smoky, made-up effect. She's painstakingly knit the front of her hair into tiny braids to hide that it's getting gross and greasy. She periodically bites on her lips to redden them. Her zipper on the front of her catsuit is pulled down just enough to reveal the connecter of her bra, but not enough to be obscene. At this point, looking even slightly put-together is going to set her ahead of most of the people she's run into, and a girl has got to work with what she's got.

It's unlucky that the medical withdrawals are giving her sweats that leave disgusting stains along her underarms, and it's fortunate that the audience can't actually smell her (she hopes). She's sure that the combination of body odor and sugar, after over two weeks out here, is noxious enough to be mistaken for an unfortunate mutant power.

"Heads up, we got a white sister joining us," Venus says, grinning and twinkling her fingers at Julie. The girl from the elevator - Venus can't remember her name right now, but she's bad with names when it comes to strangers she isn't trying to get something out of. "That's okay, we're here in peace too. Unless any of us are about to hop into cannibalism, I think we got bigger concerns than each other, right now."

Keep the peace. Venus' thoughts are like a fly trapped against a windowpane, buzzing in a panic, but she keeps it from showing on her body except for the way her fingers drum over the edge of the prosthetic leg, the way her teeth grind in the back.

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[i'm feelin' like a star, you can't stop my shine]

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