thearena | Anybody’s got the power

Entry tags:

Anybody’s got the power

Who| Megan & You! {OTA}
What| Trying to survive and explore the Arena on her birthday.
Where| One of the science labs to start, then onward!
When| Week 1: Specifically December 10th.
Warnings/Notes| ???

So this was what nineteen felt like. It didn't feel any different than eighteen had, but there was the added bonus of being caught up in the spooky arena of death which made things a little weird for Megan. She'd made it to nineteen, at least, and in a place like this, that seemed like something to celebrate.

Armed with her little stash of supplies, she set out in search of food, pleasant company, or something that might give her some cause for celebration. There wouldn't be much, probably, and she was mostly on her own, but it would cheer her up to know that she'd done something for her birthday besides cower and hope to wake up from this sci-fi nightmare. She got lost and turned around somewhere near the science labs, though, and slowly, her quest for a happy adventure seemed to be turning into something from a horror movie. She didn't like the look of the labs, not one bit, but she wasn't sure how to find her way back to where she started. Utterly lost, she decided to take a breather in one of the labs to try to calm down and hope no one else would try to track her down and eat her.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kaito just so happened to be in said lab, leaning up against a wall and breathing a little hard, as if maybe he'd just been running from something. Which was actually exactly what had just happened! His hair was slightly mussed, but when he saw Megan, he bowed low from the waist, performing a little flourish with one hand.

Probably it would have gone a little better if he wasn't wearing a jumpsuit, but that wasn't any fault of his. Right? Right.

"Good morning!" he said brightly. You know, aside from the aliens and lasers and junk.

To say she was surprised by Kaito's sudden appearance would be an understatement. Megan leapt about three feet into the air and hovered there a moment, hand to her chest before she delicately touched down again and bowed in response. Her expression was, shall we say, a little sheepish.

"Good morning!" she answered back. It didn't feel so good, in all honesty, but she'd take what she could get and try to stay on guard, just in case this fellow meant her any harm. "I'm a bit jumpy, aren't I? Sorry. I didn't see you there at first. You startled me."

"No apologies necessary! I shouldn't have startled you in the first place. The people around here seem pretty on edge." UNDERSTATEMENT. A dude had ripped a drawer out of this desk and been about two seconds from braining him with it earlier.

"You know, I seem to be running into a lot of magic users today. I didn't know there were that many of them around." Or at least he assumed the flying and such was due to magic, because he certainly didn't see any wires.

It was an understatement. It was the understatement to end all understatements. It's not like they were in a death arena in outer space or anything. It's not like that was a thing that was currently happening.

"Oh, man. You didn't run into that Chimera guy too, did you?" Megan shuddered, mostly oblivious to how unusual it might be to see a girl with fairy wings. "He's the worst! He's trying to eat people, you know?"

"Chimera guy?" He thought about it for a second, and then his face brightened. "Oh, that guy with the bleach job!"

Kaito gestured wildly with his hands, indicating that whole hair thing Nitou had going on. "With the hair like this, doesn't know what stage magic is? Talks to his stomach?"

Edited 2014-12-24 05:45 (UTC)

"That's the one!" Megan chirped, nodding quickly. "He's a real nutter! You know he's trying to drain mana? What sort of oddball even does that? I mean, really!"

She stopped short then, thinking she may have said too much already. After all, she didn't even know who she was rambling at. "I haven't seen you before. What's your name?"

"Drain mana? Is that what you call magical power?" Despite knowing two actual for-reals magic users, Kaito really wasn't all that familiar with the different terminology. Although there was always video game knowledge to fall back on...

"And he tried it without asking, I presume. Which is really no way to treat a lady." He bowed -- a formal showman's gesture with no hint of the occasional teenage awkwardness that was present during normal conversation.

"Kaito Kuroba, at your service! You probably haven't seen me around because they just dumped me in there. Not my greatest moment."

"His words, not mine." Megan shrugged, pushing her pink bangs out of her face. "It was totally unwarranted, too. I mean, if he wanted a little magic, I surely would've given him some of my pixie dust or something! It's not that hard!"

She smiled though, delighted by Kaito's dramatic little bow. There was something so clever and cute about it. "Oh! Aren't you a charmer. I'm Megan. Megan Gwynn, sometimes called Pixie. It's my second go-round in the Arena, so I can give you the run down if you need."

"That's weird... I thought wizards and witches and so on had their own magic." Pixie... dust...? Did he want to know? Would it be rude to ask?

At the offer of an actual explanation, though, Kaito's face lit up. Well... as much as it could light up, anyway, considering their somewhat awful present circumstances. "Would you? I feel like I came in at the end of a performance without ever seeing the buildup. Which is to say I'm totally lost!"

She just shrugged, not thinking about it too much. She'd encountered too many types of magic and magic users to question or expend thought on how people got their hands on it.

"Well, in case you didn't know, this world is called Panem. It's hard to tell if it's a country or the whole planet, since apparently most of the rest of this planet is either destroyed, uninhabited, or completely out of communication. But on a map, it's a lot like North America, except the coasts are wonky. It's divided up into twelve Districts all ruled by the Capitol. And this?" She gestured at the room their in, meaning the entirety of the arena. "This is an Arena. Basically, there was a war here a long, long time ago, and when the Capitol defeated the Districts in war, they exacted a lasting punishment by drafting District children into an annual battle to the death."

Huh. Kaito had heard some of it before -- kind of hard to miss what this place was called, for instance. The bit about drafting children was not only news to him, but utterly appalling. His expression showed as much.

"...I heard they replaced the folks who used to compete in these games with us. But I didn't realize they made kids fight it out with each other." Go figure. Kaito came from a country that had only known peace for the better part of a century.

Annabeth has been tracking the girl for a good fifteen minutes when she finally stops inside one of the science labs. Careless, she thinks, but not unkindly. She actually looks like she could use a friend, rather than some kind of confrontation, and so when Annabeth approaches her, it's with that sort of thing in mind.

"Hey," she says cautiously. "Are you okay? You seem a bit lost." There. Nice and neutral, not giving away any of her own cards just yet. Because, hahaha, what cards did she even have to play at the moment, other than hand to hand combat. Like that'd be any good against a weapon.

She has been rather careless, it's truth. All that training with the X-Men had been quite centered on combat and fighting and speed. Stealth is not exactly her forte, though with her teleportation and magic restored to her, she's in better shape for this arena than for the last one. Still, she is a bit on edge when Annabeth makes her presence known. Megan reflexively tenses, just in case she's being tricked or something. After that weird guy tried to eat her for her magic, she's more than a little jumpy.

"Yeah, well. It's something of a maze in here." There. That sounds nice and neutral, too. Not at all defensive, not completely giving away that she's going bonkers, wandering in circles. Except that she totally has and she totally is. "I think the word I'm grasping for is labyrinthine. That's a word, isn't it?"

As luck would have it, Ruffnut had stumbled upon a very peculiar room.

It was bare in every way save for a single raised platform in the middle...with a single chocolate cake sitting in the middle and several potatoes laying around it.

The blond viking was standing in the entranceway to the room squinting as she tried to figure out how this could be a trap.

"Oh for crying out loud just roll me in there." a female voice sighed. Viewers at home would recognize it as a slightly more agressive sounding Astrid, one of the vikings who hadn't survived the Cornucopia.

"Oh great idea then you'll bring the cake back to us with the hands you don't have. " countered a more nasily male voice. Naturally this belonged to Hiccup those the shippers at home would debate on if he would ever dare speak to his girlfriend like that.

Somewhere along the way Ruffnut had stumbled upon a pair of personality orbs which hung off her back like a pair of basket balls tied to some wires she'd ripped out of something. A blue eye and a green eye squinted at each other as the voices bickered. This was distracting Ruffnut enough she didn't see Megan coming.

"Is this what it's like to normal people when you here Tuffnut and me fight?" She asked the orbs who both promptly responded with "You stay out of this!"

Edited 2015-01-02 09:24 (UTC)

Megan came around the corner toward Ruffnut and came skidding to a halt when she heard the other voices accompanying the girl. She hadn't encountered any of the personorbs, in fact she didn't even know they existed, so she stood in silent astonishment for a few moments before she cleared her throat and spoke in her cheery Welsh accent.

"'Scuse me, but who're you talking to?"

"Huh?" Ruffnut's head snapped around to look at the girl, sizing her up in case this was impending trouble. "Cool hair." She added absentmindedly.

"She was talking to us!" The Personaorb with a green glowing set of lights for it's single eye called.

We're her friends! The other one added unhelpfully blinking it's blue "Eye"

Ruffnut just shook her head. "My friends got killed on the first day but when I got inside I heard their voices coming out of these things. But my friends are like...really smart usually. So I thought I'd bring them along."

The response sent Megan into a slight panic. What if those people were somehow trapped in the orbs. Or what if... what if they weren't innocent little objects at all? What the heck was going on in this place?

"Are you sure those things are safe? What if they only sound like that to trick you into picking them up? They could be bombs or something."

"Uh..." From the shocked look on her face and the way she looked down at the orbs clearly this had never crossed her mind.

"Of course we're safe! We're your friends Ruff!" The green one barked.

"If anything you're more dangerous to us then we are to you." The other chimed in.

Ruffnut seemed to take comfort in that little bit of praise and looked back to Megan. "Well if it was a trick it was a good one." Turning back to the orbs she added "But if you two are actually bombs and you don't tell me I'm gonna be so mad! You know I love bombs."

"We're not bombs." they responded in unison.

"If anything, I find them even more alarming now," Megan says, unconvinced that the personorbs could be trusted at all. And with Ruffnut's admission of enjoying bombs, she finds herself a bit terrified of the girl herself. Thank goodness she has her powers and her wits about her, in case she has to make a hasty escape. "How did your friends get inside those things? That's kind of ridiculous, don't you think?"

“That…is actually a really good question.” She glanced back down at the orbs expecting an answer but they simply stared back at her.

“If the Capitol can bring us back to life, I guess they could do this too?” She reasoned. All the same she was shrugging off the straps and lowering the orbs to the ground cautiously as if they might explode just to spite her.

“They said they both died out there though.” She pointed towards one of the nearby windows.

”Couldn’t get inside in time.” The blue one sighed sounding embarrassed while the green one growled “Someone ripped my suit open.”

From the puzzled look on her face it was clear Ruffnut still had no idea how that would kill someone. A place without air wasn’t something she was familiar with. Either air was there, or it was water. Sometimes air could be thin like when she and Tuffnut flew too high and got dizzy.

Gary is waiting in the labs. Although 'waiting' might be a strong word to use--he happens to be there when Megan shows up, as he has been for the past few minutes, propped against a wall and trying to gently readjust most of a cake under the crook of his arm. This is particularly difficult to do with only one hand. There's icing everywhere and Gary is starting to get a little frustrated with the whole thing. At least the entry of someone familiar gives him something else to focus on.

"Hey!" The greeting is presented with a grin and an overall friendly air, because Gary remembers dancing with her so clearly they are friends and she won't try to kill him. Oh god, he hopes she won't try to kill him. "Need a rest?"

"Huh?" Megan jumps in surprise, partly over Gary's sudden appearance and partly over the fact that there is icing and cake everywhere. "A rest?" She asks, proceeding with caution, just in case that friendly boy she danced with might suddenly turn on her. "N-no. I mean, I think I can manage. You're a mess. What're you doing with that cake?"

That doesn't sound aggressive so Gary lets himself relax, shoulders sagging in an exasperated huff. "Well I was going to take it with me and save it for later, but I can't carry the stupid thing," he grumbles. "It's all...mushy. It won't stay in one piece."

There's apparently some effort being made with his other arm to try and secure the cake, but it only seems capable of limply twitching at his side. Broken arms are not conducive to carrying things, as he's discovered.

"I would just leave it here, if I knew how to get back."

Her eyes narrow, perplexed by the situation. Clearly there's more going on here that she initially realized. Gingerly, Megan makes her approach. "You could always eat it here, you know. I'm not going to steal it from you or anything, even though it's my birthday and I think it would be pretty neat if you wanted to share some with me. I don't mind the mess, honest. Hey, what's happened to your arm? It looks all... funky."

Gary's expression instantly brightens. "Broken," he says all too cheerfully, before quickly changing the subject to what has him most interested. "You didn't mention it was your birthday! I mean, I was gonna share anyways, but--yeah, holy shit! Take it!"

To assist in the distribution of the cake, Gary starts limping over to the table where he found the cake in the first place. He has to stop every few steps to readjust it, though.

"Broken?" The cake is almost instantly forgotten as she trots after him, desperate to help. "Who cares about cakes and birthdays now, Gary! You need medical assistance! Have you got a first aid kit or anything? I can maybe make a sling out of... I don't know. Some cloth?"

"What? Nah, it's fine!" Gary would wave her away but he's got no arms to spare. He reaches the table and stares at it, pondering how to place the cake on it in a way that will result in the least amount of damage. "I mean, I can't use it anyway, so what's a sling gonna do?" Medical ramifications of improperly set bone be damned, Gary is perfectly okay.

A moment later, he gives up with a shrug and just drops the cake. It lands on the table with a thick splat, still upright but with a significant blast radius of spattered sponge and icing. Perfectly edible, of course, so Gary happily starts cutting out a ragged slice with his hand.

Welp. Nothing to be said or done about it, it looks like. Sighing a little, Megan follows him, waving her hands to get him to stop pawing at the cake with his hand.

"Hold on a second! I've got a knife!" And with that, she closes her eyes and summons the soul dagger from inside of herself, and in that instant, the dagger appears in her right hand. "See?"

"Oh?" Gary steps away, as directed. "Where'd you get--?"

Megan answers that question a moment later when the dagger appears in her hand. Or...something that looks like a dagger, based on the general shape and Megan's warning. Gary's eyes widen.

"Cool!" That seems like the best first reaction to have to someone summoning a knife out of thin air. Implications happen once Gary actually gives himself time to think about the context. "--Are you sure you should be cutting cake with that?" He frowns and waves his hand covered in icing, a vague approximation of the odd aura obscuring the knife. "You might get, like...stuff in it."

Megan just laughs and runs a finger along the metal edge of the blade, careful not to press hard enough to break the skin. "A little frosting can't hurt the soul dagger. It's made of tougher stuff than that. I mean, I can vanquish demons with it. I'm pretty sure it can handle a bit of birthday cake."

And with that, she goes about to slice out a couple of pieces for them both.

Gary is still skeptical, but obviously not enough to think twice about cake. He accepts the slice Megan cuts out for him without pause--just a bit of a curious squint, like he's inspecting it for mold.

"But the real question is," he says, sagely, "can the cake handle the dagger." Then he looks up at her, in complete seriousness. "Have you ever licked it before?"

"Licked the soul dagger?" Her eyebrows raise in skepticism. "Of course not. That'd be like tasting my own soul, I'm pretty sure. And that's a bit too close to auto-cannibalism for me."

These are words that cannot simply be spoken without some kind of demonstration. Gary's eyes widen and he leans slightly forward.

"I dare you."

"You dare me?" She asks, voice jumping up an octave. "Well... I mean, what do I get if I do it?"

"Twenty Assi," he says, without thinking about whether or not he actually has twenty Assi to spare. He should once he shows Marco that hair he got off of Thor. But even without thinking too much about it, Gary decides that the stakes are not quite high enough for his liking. "--And I'll buy you dinner."

Megan stares at him long and hard, black eyes blinking slowly. Then, a slow, mischievous smile spread over her lips. "Alright, you're about to owe me, big time!"

And with that, she very delicately stuck out her tongue to lick the blade.

Gary watches her with sharp, curious eyes, leaning slightly forward so he can see the exact point of contact between the knife and Megan's tongue. He's not sure what he's expecting to happen. Sparks? An explosion? The collapse of reality itself? All interesting to consider, but mostly Gary is thinking about nice places to take Megan once they're both back in the Capitol. That aquarium is neat and probably has food in it somewhere...

She licks the blade. Gary holds his breath.

"...Anything?"

Her lips contorted slightly into a strange, quizzical expression. Then she looked at Gary, black eyes flashing with mischief. "It tastes like... sparkles!"

Gary released the breath he was holding with an airy laugh, which quickly devolved to a hoarse cough when his mangled ribs caught up with him. The thought was too entertaining for him to wait to recover.

"Alright--sparkles. Sparkles for the fairy girl. What do those taste like, unicorn farts?"

Finding food is not Marco's strong suit, and as a growing teenage boy who is going to get his growth spurt any day now, he needs a lot of it. When he finds a bunch of dehydrated foods, it's a little bit of a cause for celebration. Not a big celebration, but a little shimmy across the slick floor of one of science labs when he's sure no one's looking.

Including when Megan walks into one. He pauses from his dance and immediately tenses when he hears someone, heartbeat thumping in his head, breath catching as he prepares to fight-

-and then recognizes the pink hair. A wide grin crosses his face.

"Hey. Hey Megan. How do you feel about powdered milk?"

"I feel all sorts of ways about it." Megan says, eyebrows raised. She hadn't expected to find Marco in the labs, but he's not an unwelcome sight by any means. At the very least, she is certain that she can take him if she needs to. "Why? Have you brought me some as a birthday present?"

"That depends on how many of those 'sorts of ways' are 'ew, gross'. Heads up!" He tosses it towards her, underhand so it doesn't look like an attack even to people in the midst of a death Arena. "Happy totally sucky birthday in a death Arena, Megan!"

She catches it handily, pausing to examine it. "Mm, delicious. All we need is some water and we've got ourselves a frothy little treat. Thanks, Marco. Would you care to share with me?"

"Yeah, you're on your own for the water bit. I haven't seen any all day, although you could probably drink the air in the lower levels. Way gross." Marco grins. "Thought you'd never ask. I want storytime of all your coolest X-Men adventures."

Death-defying feats by yourself are awful, terrifying, nervewracking, the kind that hollow you out and fill you with nightmares. Death-defying feats by other people? Fucking awesome.

Edited 2015-01-03 22:58 (UTC)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Anybody’s got the power

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject