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thearena2014-09-01 02:16 am
celebrityskinned) wrote in thearena2014-09-01 02:16 am
Entry tags:
I Should Live in Salt for Leaving You Behind [Closed]
WHO| Venus, Alex, Tess and Joel
WHAT| Robocop hunts down a fugitive.
WHERE| Leaving the food court.
WHEN| Week 2
WARNINGS| Combat.
Venus knows she's being followed, and that's why she doesn't go straight back to Kankri with her trove of fried rice from the food court. She already doesn't stay for pleasantries - nor combat - getting in and out as swiftly as she can. It seems that most of the people in the Arena have the same idea, especially with the knowledge that there are guns out there now; no one bothers to stay long or try to collect their allies. People run to the buffets and rush back out with equal purpose.
Maybe if people were going in one by one and lollygagging, she would go on the offensive. The truth is that it's been almost two weeks and she hasn't killed anyone yet, and has found herself quietly relieved when she's seen the mannequins add up in A Touch of Class by someone else's hand. She wants to get to the end, not kill anyone, although she understands that the two often go together. She's always understood this.
Venus takes a circuitous path, through the aisles of various stores, slipping under racks and under tables, doubling back on herself to try and throw the trail. She gets rug burn on her knees, accidentally loses her sunglasses somewhere along the line and decides against going back for them. She wouldn't be short of breath if she weren't doing this already fairly seriously injured. She has the baseball bat in case she really gets put into a corner.
She doesn't realize that other human beings will be that corner until she all but runs into Joel and Tess.
"Heads up, I've got a tail on me," she says.
WHAT| Robocop hunts down a fugitive.
WHERE| Leaving the food court.
WHEN| Week 2
WARNINGS| Combat.
Venus knows she's being followed, and that's why she doesn't go straight back to Kankri with her trove of fried rice from the food court. She already doesn't stay for pleasantries - nor combat - getting in and out as swiftly as she can. It seems that most of the people in the Arena have the same idea, especially with the knowledge that there are guns out there now; no one bothers to stay long or try to collect their allies. People run to the buffets and rush back out with equal purpose.
Maybe if people were going in one by one and lollygagging, she would go on the offensive. The truth is that it's been almost two weeks and she hasn't killed anyone yet, and has found herself quietly relieved when she's seen the mannequins add up in A Touch of Class by someone else's hand. She wants to get to the end, not kill anyone, although she understands that the two often go together. She's always understood this.
Venus takes a circuitous path, through the aisles of various stores, slipping under racks and under tables, doubling back on herself to try and throw the trail. She gets rug burn on her knees, accidentally loses her sunglasses somewhere along the line and decides against going back for them. She wouldn't be short of breath if she weren't doing this already fairly seriously injured. She has the baseball bat in case she really gets put into a corner.
She doesn't realize that other human beings will be that corner until she all but runs into Joel and Tess.
"Heads up, I've got a tail on me," she says.
no subject
When Venus rounds the corner, he just takes a breath and turns back to what he was doing - grabbing some food. "Who'd you piss off this time?" he asks, keeping his voice low, so it doesn't carry beyond the three of them.
no subject
And...that might just be one of the worst things anyone can hear when they're in a place like this, she's assuming. No one wants someone tailing them.
Tess just sighs and keeps her skate at the ready, throwing a look past Venus.
no subject
"Alex Murphy. I think. I may or may not have gouged his wife's eye out." Venus doesn't see the point in not being blunt about this.
She pauses where she is, taking up behind Joel and Tess and bending slightly at the waist as she catches her breath. It's as if she just assumes they have her back for the next few minutes, only for so long she needs to take off again. Using the baseball bat against the floor to prop herself up is slightly more sightly than going hands-to-knees, but it doesn't really matter when she holds her side and winces.
She has a bruise there. It's been getting bigger and darker all week. She imagines that internal hemorrhaging would have killed her at least a few days ago, but she's sure that she has something inside wrong, and eventually her week in jail will catch up to her. She's considered wandering around looking for a mercy kill, anything to deny the Capitol the last word on her jailbreak attempt. She isn't looking forward to languishing and guttering out like the butt of a candle.
"I mean, far as I know no one else has it in for me, but I guess it could be Shepard." Or one of the many, many other people Venus killed in the past. The blessing and the curse of recurring Arenas is that you have time to build a reputation, for better or for worse.
no subject
With enough cooperative Tributes keeping an eye and ear out for Ms. Milo, Alex finally catches her trail again. Once he sees that flash of leggings, a glimpse of her face darting away, he has her. It's not a matter of second guessing, wondering if that was Venus or someone else: he records her face, compares it to the visual logs he compiled. It pings back with a match. That seals it: Alex goes from a walk to a full sprint, legs and arms pumping, the heavy thud of his armored feet announcing that he's about to barrel into the food court.
He charges the group, this big black armored shadow who doesn't stagger when he runs into chairs and tables. They get thrown aside or they get ground under his feet.
Ms. Milo is leaning over a bat, possibly out of breath. There are two other Tributes, only identified in the Gamemaker scoring footage as Joel and Tess. So far he hasn't witnessed any crimes from their end. It's preferable they don't get pulled into this.
"Out of the way. Get down on the floor, Ms. Milo, and put your hands on your head," Alex says, like he's asking her to hold the door open. He continues to barrel at the three Tributes, closing the distance fast.
no subject
"Clara?" he asks, almost incredulous. "That was you?" He fully expects violence. He expects it in self-defense, in protection of loved ones, in necessity. But as much as he denies morality in general, there are lines you don't cross. People who do violence or kill for no reason, for fun, or just because they can, well. He doesn't think highly of those people.
What little respect he had for Venus is quickly vanishing.
Of course, before he can say anything else, a big guy with the look of a soldier or peacekeeper comes barreling in. And Joel suddenly has a choice.
Venus is a friend of Ellie's. He knows that. But this? This has nothing to do with him, or Ellie. This is Venus's own stupidity getting her into this situation, and Joel sees no reason to put himself, Tess, and possibly Ellie too, into the line of fire because of it.
He finds himself snorting faintly at his words, though. The guy is obviously a soldier or a cop. Joel knows he's just going to kill her. Asking her to get down and put her hands up first is just what soldiers do to pretend they still give a damn about things like rights and due process, things that haven't existed in his world in a long, long time.
He holds out an arm, instinctively, protecting Tess, keeping her back. "Good joke," he mutters, "actin' like there are laws in here."
no subject
If anyone went at Joel and tried the same bullshit Venus had done to Clara, Tess would also be on a warpath. She would be out for blood the same way this Alex Murphy man is now.
Alex Murphy, to Tess, is damn intimidating in his armored suit. Far more intimidating than any armored officer back in the zone. But it isn't the sight of him that pushes her to take a step back, nor is it the arm Joel holds out, it's the memory of the armored officers storming into the front lobby of the State House with their guns raised, masked, ordering her to stand down and drop her weapon right before she opened fire. There's a fleeting look of fear that crosses her features and turns her pale, her blood running cold in her veins.
"Joel -" she hisses in warning, snagging him by the sleeve.
[cw: mentions of torture]
Later, she'll wonder what happened in the last few weeks to make her trust so weak, that made putting faith in others so disdainful. Was it as petty as the breakup or as serious as being shoved into a trash bag with duct tape around her ankles, thrashing around and passing out and bleeding in suffocating sweaty plastic while the Peacekeepers beat her until she would have told them anything if only she'd had something to tell?
But now, now she doesn't have even a moment for introspection. She moves subconsciously, self-preservation written harder into her muscle memory than it is into her brain, and ducks and rolls under a rack of clothes. She pops up on the other side and kicks it over at Alex before jumping up on a display table, bat held at the ready.
She's against a wall. She could try and crash her way through Joel and Tess to slow Alex up, and while the thought crosses her mind, she isn't someone who throws others under the bus. She just isn't.
So instead, she chucks the bat at Alex's head and takes a jump, kicking off the wall and praying the ceiling pipe she grabs is load-bearing.
no subject
Alex neatly adjusts his route by a foot, stepping to the side, the bat bouncing off a nearby table.
[ APPROPRIATE FORCE LEVEL - LETHAL RESPONSE ] is queued up despite the fact he has witnesses to police brutality.
He reaches the base of the wall. Taking a beating with the Hummer means he can't simply jump after her despite knowing that it's a distance he should be able to make, easily, under normal circumstances. Alex surges up to grab at her ankle, his human hand curled like claws. Jumping the distances he's used to might be impossible but there's nothing wrong with his weight. If he grabs her ankle, he'll use all his weight against her. The odds of Venus being able to hold onto the pipe with several hundred pounds of cyborg hanging on her are low.
no subject
Venus got herself into this mess. Joel should be more than willing to take Tess and get the hell out of here, find Ellie and hole up somewhere safe. In fact, he would be, except if Ellie knew he left someone she cared about to die, well. She'd be pissed at him. Really, really pissed.
"Goddammit," he mutters, giving Tess's shoulder a squeeze as though to say stay back, get out, and hefting his crowbar in his hands. While the big metal guy seems occupied with his prey, having dismissed the two of them for the moment, he swings the crowbar at the back of his head.
no subject
"What the fuck are you doing?" she snaps, surprised, panicked, when suddenly Joel's hefting his crowbar forward. Tess goes to lunge for his arm in the attempt to pull him back in case Alex retaliates - holy shit, Alex is the wasp nest and Joel's being stupid by aggravating it and hitting at it like a kid would with a god damn pinata.
This can't end well.
no subject
And then she sees Joel deciding - a little late, in her opinion - to throw his gauntlet down. She practically sees it in slow motion, the disaster waiting to happen, the disaster happening and her the catalyst already in the past tense.
"Joel, Tess, you guys run, you don't want any part of this then don't take any!" She drops her ankles and swings, arms windmilling slightly as she lands on another display of clothes. The fabric under her feet slides against the wooden table it's on. She whips the knife from her belt and turns, ready to go for Alex's eyes.
"Hey, you, want to end up like your wife?"
no subject
As it is, he turns in time to see the crowbar in Joel's hands, upgrades him from law-abiding to possible threat (standby) and fixes him with a flat stare.
"Stand aside, sir. Ma'am. Any further interference will warrant physical force." And by physical force, Alex really means breaking Joel's femur, perhaps blowing out Tess's kneecap if she joins in.
He pivots back to face Venus, trying to find her balance on a display of clothes, shirts and shorts spilling onto the floor as the display wobbles dangerously under her weight. The HUD highlights the knife in her hand, identifies it as a weapon. Not close enough yet for her threat to be a possibility, unless she's very good at knife throwing. Alex doesn't flinch at the mention of Clara. The suppression puts him in a good place, makes it so he doesn't get hung up on personal issues, connections. All he sees is Venus with the knife, making a direct threat.
Alex lunges again at Venus - this time he doesn't try to grab her off the display, slamming his shoulder into shelves and sending them slamming into the floor.
no subject
He grips Tess's arm and decides to cut his losses.
"C'mon," he growls, turning to go. His first instinct was the correct one: this isn't his fight.