thearena | I Rise, I Move On [Closed]

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I Rise, I Move On [Closed]

WHO| Venus Dee Milo and Molotov Cocktease
WHAT| Molotov takes righteous revenge on Venus for sleeping with her...not-boyfriend. And being prettier.
WHERE| Near the lake.
WHEN| Week 3
WARNINGS| Divafight and death!

By dint of will, Venus is up and walking three days after her incident with the smilodons. It's not an easy process, and in all likelihood a doctor would tell her that she needs to rest, but laying in a tree with Albert and Jet tending to her like a newborn kitten doesn't sit well with her. She doesn't like having to ask for one of them to carry her down to the ground so she can drag herself off to a bush and pee. She doesn't like only hearing from their reports to her how the landscape is changing, or waiting for Sam and Phil to visit each day to check up on her. As such, she throws herself wholeheartedly into, if not recovery, then forward motion.

By the sixth day, she's walking with barely a limp, bandages wrapped so tight around her abdomen that they might seem to be keeping her insides in. She jokingly refers to them as her 'Spanx', and over Jet and Albert's protests, she goes out to find food and collect water. She carries herself with the sort of battered dignity of a statue that's survived a natural disaster.

She hears Molotov coming. Most people wouldn't have, because Molotov has stealth that most people wouldn't be able to pick up in their entire lives, but Venus is a professional. And Molotov, knowing that, hasn't put much effort into sneaking.

"Should have expected you to show up eventually. You got a moment or am I keeping you from killing more teenagers?"

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Molotov, on the other hand, doesn't have a scratch on her. She's excelled in this Arena, loved every moment, even when the prehistoric beasties started appearing. Her companions haven't been nearly as happy being idle in the cold, but she's content to let the numbers dwindle themselves down a bit while she has her fun in the wilderness and the snow, hunting and climbing trees.

But the time has certainly come to start upping the ante.

Far from sneaking, she's openly sauntering through the snow, far more ready for this than she has been for any other fight that's come to her in the Arenas.

"That depends on whether you've hit twenty yet or not, doesn't it?"

"In that case, I think it depends more on whether you got it in you to take me down."

Venus, too, seems energized by this fight, by her thrumming sense of conviction. She's been certain of so few things in the last year, uncertain of relationships and of love and friendships and most oppressively of all, the morality of killing her way through an Arena, of claiming her right to decide who lives or dies is sanctified by philosophers or God or society. But she's certain now, and that will solidifies in her like an iron rod, sharp as a javelin.

Molotov is, simplistic and jejune as it is, one of the "bad guys", and Venus will be justified in killing her. The mania that fills her brain with spasmodic electricity turns her into some sort of avenging angel, one who can't remember the names of Molotov's victims but also knows it doesn't matter: a hammer doesn't need to acquaint itself with the blood an errant nail drew before it slams it into the wood.

She unzips and shrugs off her parka.

"Hand to hand?"

"I'm not the one limping around like an old man."

Molotov laughs and it's a cold, mirthless noise, her eye glinting dangerously. Venus may see the world in useless black and whites, but Molotov's world is every shade of gray, and this fight is a personal one. It had taken all of twenty minutes to figure out who last Arena's wound had been caused by, once she put the effort in. And looking into who the bitch is had lead Molotov to a lot of interesting information -- the brand, the lost endorsements and modeling (all inferior to Molotov's own), the gossip rag pictures.

The new ones had Brock in them.

That just isn't allowed. Molotov doesn't care if Brock runs around with Capitolite floozies or weaker Tribute whores, but for this pig of a girl to have the gall to so much as lay on finger on her property, her Samson who gave his life for her, who would do it again... well. Sometimes little girls have to learn lessons.

Her own parka is in the snow immediately, but she grins darkly with a shake of her head.

"Your lack of weapons isn't my problem," she says, producing a hunting knife stained with blood, even if it still shines in the sunlight.

"Go figure." She pauses for a moment, squinting into the sun, the glint off the hunting knife, making a calculation in her head. Her face looks like she's reading a book suspended in mid-air before her, before suddenly everything in her tenses and she whirls around with a kick of snow.

Venus runs. It looks, for an instant, like she's retreating, and she's sure that she's got the attention of every Gamemaker camera as they flick over to their favorite diva making a run from her usurper, as they start making their judgment calls before they even see what's coming about who the winner is.

But she doesn't run for cover. Her hands flatten like knives as she pumps her bare arms through the air. She takes a flying leap as she reaches the tree line and squirrels her way up a tree with inhuman speed and surefootedness, and once she's up there she snaps off a branch against her thigh. It isn't a knife, but a shiv is better than fighting Molotov off with fists alone.

Molotov doesn't move, watches all of this happen with an alarming sense of calm, like she already knows what's going to happen. She doesn't, but she can calculate each step about a half-second before Venus can take it.

She laughs at the branch. It's something she's so unafraid of that she can't help but laugh. She waits on the ground, hands on her hips, and calls up into the tree. "Should I wait here while you look for some vines to fashion into a rope, too? You are embarrassing yourself, you know."

"Hold on long enough and I'll carve you a spear to impale you with." Venus doesn't look upset or bothered by Molotov's taunts, instead shooting back with a brash grin. This is the fight that the Capitol's been salivating for, and win or lose, Venus intends to give them a show.

Granted, she'd like it more if she won. Some people deserve to win an Arena and Venus doesn't rank Molotov in that number.

She drops back down out of the tree, knowing that Molotov has the advantage up there. She's heard about the Olympic gymnast backstory, although God only knows how much of that is exaggerated by the Capitol.

"It's okay, I won't make you chase me far."

It's a wise decision on Venus's behalf, because the Olympic gymnast story is probably the only thing they never had to embellish. She can sail through the trees like a bird, uses them as her own enormous set of uneven bars, and she reckons that she has an advantage over almost everyone up there.

"Why, too much of a chicken shit bitch to fight me without a game of chase? I knew you were a little girl, but that's childish even for you. Why don't you just join us adults and fight like you have a set of ovaries in you?"

She's advancing, idly flips her knife in the air and catches it.

"Are you serious? You're the one too scared to take me hand to hand." She twirls the shiv in her hand to get a sense of the weight of it, but then she stops her retreat, holding ground just far enough from the trees that it would be difficult to use them as part of the battlefield.

"Besides, 'little girl'? You really want to be highlighting your old age here in front of the cameras?" Now she takes a step towards Molotov (like two tidal waves seeking to clap over the same sandbar).

"Why would I take you hand to hand? I'm looking for quick, not tedious, and while I'm sure your little tricks are cute, I'd rather not sit through them." She's bored already, although the age joke makes a growl burble up out of her.

"Please, these people are obsessed with beauty, not youth. I suppose that's why I am the one who still has endorsement deals." Molotov smirks, mirrors the step. "Did it sting when even the scar removal creams didn't want to use your face? At least when you were branded, people looked at you."

Her flight across the distance is sudden, filled with handsprings and ending with a butterfly kick aimed at Venus's jaw, the knife not far behind.

Anger isn't an emotion Venus deploys in combat; she isn't a berserker so much as someone who lets her body move away from her like a wind-up toy, leaving her soul intact like some sort of voyeur to her own chaos. She's well sealed away by the time Molotov's taunts start to get brutal.

She drops low, under the kick and the knife, eyes hard and face crooked into a stylish half-smile. She lashes out with an elbow, getting in close to Molotov.

Molotov dodges the elbow by bending backward so that her legs fly up dangerously, into a back walkover combined with more vicious kicking. Landing, she scurries back in the snow and rises, sidestepping slowly like a predator, every fiber of her being now devoted to analyzing and predicting, seeing Venus's moves before she sees them herself.

The silence is deafening until a bird, maybe a hawk, cries out and it echoes in the air around them.

Molotov benefits from distance, with her long legs and acrobatic grace, Venus from close proximity, with her coiled muscle and brute viciousness. The cry of the bird is like a starting gun going off for Venus to try and close the gap between them again, lunging in like a rabid dog, but equally dispassionate as Molotov. Combat is just a business and if they ranked it like Forbes, these two women would be up towards the top.

They would be evenly matched if Venus were in peak condition - Molotov might eke out ahead, but not by much, by experience. But Venus is recovering from a near-mortal injury, and that five percent skimmed off the top is just enough to keep Venus from moving fast enough to land any hits that matter. Molotov's wearing her out.

When Venus runs forward, so does Molotov, in a perverse game of chicken. At the last moment, she leaps to jab her knee into Venus's rib, and at the same time, brings her elbow down on her head. She normally fights with pure krav maga, maybe tossing in some sambo for fun, but now she's throwing everything at Venus.

She uses the moment to convert into a flying armbar, twisting the other woman's arm hard enough to break it as they fall.

It's not the first time Venus has lost an arm in a fight, and Venus will probably reflect later that it's a little fucked up to respond by thinking well at least she didn't rip the damn thing off rather than with panic as her elbow collapses backwards. But she isn't focusing on the pain or even on protecting herself from that blow, instead throwing a hand like claws to Molotov's one eye and biting Molotov's bicep as they fall.

When they break apart again, Venus doesn't bother to pretend her arm isn't limp and unresponsive, crooked inside the flesh and weight like a battery inside an old sock. She doesn't give a break for any longer than it takes to get a single long breath into her lungs.

With that arm broken, Molotov throws a punch hard at Venus's face, more to deflect that hand at her eye than anything else. She comes away with scratches across her eyelid, but her eye isn't totally out of commission. Luckily, her thin jacket, the original one she was sent in with, takes the brunt of the bite, but Molotov can feel the throbbing of bruises to come, possibly swelling.

Venus comes back and it's the broken arm that Molotov reaches for, trying to grab it and fling the girl onto her back, open her up and reveal all the most vulnerable spots. But failing that, Molotov is ready to go after Venus's other limbs, knife in hand and ready to slash at her legs, let her calf muscles roll up like window shades.

Venus manages to protect her stomach, but not her legs. It's not a matter of will or pain tolerance now to keep standing up; she becomes anatomically incapable as she's hamstringed. She topples to the ground, grabbing at Molotov, blood streaming from her face where Molotov hit her.

On her back, helpless as a fish in a net, she continues to thrash with her one good hand, her knees, her teeth, unwilling to go down without every shred of energy funneling into doing as much damage to Molotov as she can. She's never really had a nemesis in the Arena, but now she at least has a grudge.

Now that she has Venus down for good, Molotov backs away a step and takes a breath, hands on her thighs as she watches Venus flail so wildly, so desperately.

She starts to laugh, cruel and hard and vicious.

"I could let you bleed to death," she murmurs, pacing a little. "But that's boring isn't it. No no, I think I have a better idea now. Don't you want to go out with a bang?"

Molotov moves away a bit, picks up a large rock and then comes back. She smirks down at Venus, rock still in her arms.

"Anything you'd like to say?"

Venus stops when Molotov walks away. She knows she's beaten. The numbness is starting to recede and leave her with racking waves of pain that twist her brain up like a wet rag. She breathes deep and it doesn't seem to get into her lungs.

She meets Molotov's eyes; her own are entirely free of tears, because she can handle pain and death and she doesn't even feel fear these days. She bats her lashes, knowing that back home viewers are gobbling this up (and probably making amateur porn knock-off videos).

"Rock my world, bitch."

"God, what a fucking stupid thing to say," Molotov sighs, rolling her eye as she drops the rock on Venus's head, crushing her skull with a gut-churning crunch and a slight spray of blood over the ground and Molotov's boots.

Raking one hand through her hair, she goes and takes a seat on a rock at the lake's edge, peering out over the water. She'd kill for a cigarette right now.

Well. Kill again.

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I Rise, I Move On [Closed]

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and the worst at logging into the correct account

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