Panem Events (
etcircenses) wrote in
thearena2016-03-28 11:13 am
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Strange things did happen here No stranger would it be
Who| All those on the breakout mission and all those being made to fight against them.
What| The liberation of District 6.
Where| District 6.
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| War, violence, death. Please warn for more in headers.
District Six stretches out for miles, a wide expanse of red and brown dirt with only the slightest hint of mountains in the distance. The air is starchy and arid, sucking the moisture right out of the eyes and mouth. The sun pummels down. Everything about the District screams of harshness, of elements cruel in their intensity and exposure being a serious concern. Combatants are advised to hydrate and try to avoid heatstroke in the temperatures rising above a hundred and fifteen fahrenheit.
People in District Six are too poor to consider their safety, already risking it every day in their jobs at the auto manufacturer with huge under-kept machines and toxic exhaust as they build cars and hovercrafts. Though they know they’re the epicenter of another attack, they go back to their assemblylines, under the watchful and paranoid eyes of Capitolite foremen. There’s an anxious air about the place. People drop their wrenches sometimes and make their screws extra tight, as if fortifying the vehicles against the coming storm.
They’ve been told that there are Rebels attacking, and so the residents here have diligently placed landmines throughout the desert; the wind has already erased all traces of where they are. Other than that, there are machine guns at each factory, aimed towards anyone - anyone - who approaches.
Between that, and subservience, there's not much in the way of propoganda. Most of what's done are the chalk drawings of children. A watch. A coin being flipped. A very small arrow with flame.
Vultures circle high overhead.
What| The liberation of District 6.
Where| District 6.
When| This week.
Warnings/Notes| War, violence, death. Please warn for more in headers.
District Six stretches out for miles, a wide expanse of red and brown dirt with only the slightest hint of mountains in the distance. The air is starchy and arid, sucking the moisture right out of the eyes and mouth. The sun pummels down. Everything about the District screams of harshness, of elements cruel in their intensity and exposure being a serious concern. Combatants are advised to hydrate and try to avoid heatstroke in the temperatures rising above a hundred and fifteen fahrenheit.
People in District Six are too poor to consider their safety, already risking it every day in their jobs at the auto manufacturer with huge under-kept machines and toxic exhaust as they build cars and hovercrafts. Though they know they’re the epicenter of another attack, they go back to their assemblylines, under the watchful and paranoid eyes of Capitolite foremen. There’s an anxious air about the place. People drop their wrenches sometimes and make their screws extra tight, as if fortifying the vehicles against the coming storm.
They’ve been told that there are Rebels attacking, and so the residents here have diligently placed landmines throughout the desert; the wind has already erased all traces of where they are. Other than that, there are machine guns at each factory, aimed towards anyone - anyone - who approaches.
Between that, and subservience, there's not much in the way of propoganda. Most of what's done are the chalk drawings of children. A watch. A coin being flipped. A very small arrow with flame.
Vultures circle high overhead.
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"You try for the two," he says in a vague sort of voice, after he's blinked and looked around a little in the direction of that shot. "I'll take the moving one. Can you hear where they are?" Things will go better if the answer is yes. Much better. Maybe he should try shouting something else, lure the others out. Maybe shooting their fellow down will do that well enough.
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Sanctimonious bastards. For the moment, Firo can stop thinking of the rebels as the downtrodden, poverty-ridden people so like those he grew up with. Instead, he mentally sorts them into the company of Edward and Victor—the people who see him only as a villain and nothing more. Just as with those two, it doesn't matter if they're right; he still feels comfortable resenting them.
There’s only one hitch in his expression, though. He hesitates, giving his friend one last long look. “Be careful.” He has to, right? It’s only fair when he tried to make Firo do all that stuff too.
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It happens quickly, as these things tend to. The body falls, and there is a spray of blood. A chain snaps. Something whips around. Roland's head is being held in place because his hair is caught, being slowly but surely tugged under the body and toward the source of a choked and stuttering grinding noise.
Well. Perhaps he could have been a little more careful, just there. Didn't have to step out of cover quite so far. Now, while being held in place as perhaps the clearest living target his enemies have ever seen in their short careers, is maybe not the time to be having those particular regrets.
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"Fuck!" He doesn't waste time lamenting their terrible luck or wondering how it happened--or really thinking at all--he springs up from their cover as well, grabbing for Roland's arm to try to hold him back. It's a good thing that, despite his height, Roland isn't all too hefty, but Firo can still feel that he won't be able to keep it up long.
He's heedless of the danger from their enemies because they're not firing yet. They still have time, and he has to move to make the most of it. And if they do start shooting, then Firo can at least block some of Roland and that'll have to be enough. "Hold on! Can you get yourself out of it?"
At least one of the rebels has recovered and sends a shot their way; it clangs off the nearest machine.
With his free hand, Firo sends an answering shot back straight for the man's body--he doesn't trust his aim to try for any headshots--and the attacker pivots and ducks down as his arm is hit. Not even his shooting arm, though, and Firo growls in disappointment.
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He's grimacing, reaching into a gash the machine made in his enemy's corpse and pushing his fingers in, feeling the squelch of blood and give of skin and fat and muscle under his hand and not thinking much of it. He's thinking of his other hand, which he'll need to use to get enough grip on this damned body and which he has to convince to unlock itself from the grip of the Capitol's gun sitting uselessly in its holster. He's selfishly glad, for a second, that Firo is no gunslinger, so trained to think in a certain way and to notice every part of his surroundings at once, and he hopes that Firo won't notice this particular struggle, either.
The hand which had never needed to lock itself on his gun and which actively shouldn't have, just now, does rise, it shoves itself in a little ways from the other and pulls. The body moves, not enough but almost, and he throws his weight back again in another try at it. "Why'd you leave cover? Get down, for your father's sake get down and shoot from there!"
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He jams his gun back into its holster and goes for his knife instead. The Capitol outfitter had rolled their eyes when Firo insisted on one, but there are things you just can't do with a gun.
"Don't stop. I'm gonna cut it."
His hands have always been steady--just one of the things that made him such a good pickpicket--so he's not worried about cutting Roland even if he's jerking around in his battle with the machine. He stretches up, this time grabbing for where chain and hair knot together, and starts sawing.
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"Do what you like, only stay low, for your father's sake, Firo." Roland puts one hand on Firo's shoulder and one on his head and shoves at him, not away but down.
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“Let go! ‘M almost done. And you're up there!"
He'd promised not to be reckless, but he hardly thinks it counts as being reckless if he's trying to block a friend from getting shot while he's trapped. Besides, just one swipe more and he'll be free!
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"Panem has a word for something like this, don't they," he mutters. "A shitshow?" Those amateurs over there should be dead already. Roland has to admit now, if only to himself, that maybe he shouldn't have taken charge in the first place. Maybe he is so far gone as all that.
"If you have a different plan, I'll follow it. A little more goading and they should break cover and run at us. They're grieving. It won't take much." But it's in Firo's hands, not his. Leaving this to a boy whose first choice would have been to simply run at their enemies - but no. No point in complaining. Roland had his chance, and this is how it has to be.
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He's surprised at being offered the opportunity to direct, but he doesn't argue or waste time thinking about it. He shakes his head, smiling faintly. "We'll bait 'em a little more and take care of 'em when they come at us. Just like you said." No running straight at the enemy for these two. Not yet, at least.
He doesn't fancy himself as good at the manipulation game as Roland, but he's being talking trash since he could talk at all. He may not be particularly clever at it, but he knows how to goad someone. He twists back around to yell in the general direction of their opposition. "With back-up like you guys, it's easy to see why your friend died."
It gets one of them, at least, to unload the last of his ammo into their cover--bang, bang, bang, and then a series of frustrated clicks. All that's left is to confront them head on, and that's what this guy rushes out to do.
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"While this one's busy, Firo!" The man's snarling and yelling in Roland's face and crying but Roland pays that little attention. The enemy in front of him, the machine and its deadly workings behind, those merit some attention but they are not his highest priority just now.
"Careful!" He finds himself adding, though it's completely unnecessary - ought to be, anyway. He isn't sure that it is. Needs to make sure Firo knows. Caution is important.
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He wants to run over right now and pull them both away, but the other enemy is out there and poised to cause trouble. Firo sees her rising from cover as well, and he springs up from his crouched position to preempt her fire. He can't tell if his first bullet hits. But it's somewhere nonlethal if it does, because she darts to hide behind another machine closer to them.
Without taking his eyes off her general area--look he's being careful, unlike somebody--he calls back, "You got it under control?"
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Again, his instinct is to run in there, but he holds back. Instead, he advances more slowly while firing a few shots in her general area. It spooks her, as hoped, and he throws his knife at her shooting hand when she comes out. It's not weighted for throwing, of course, but he can make it work at this range--enough so that she's not going to be picking up her weapon any time soon.
He moves in to grab her--disarmed doesn't mean down--and calls out, "Now?"
Knock them unconscious and leave them here?
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And while Firo does that Roland will just make a few quick moves, spinning the man around now that Roland needs a human shield no longer, and pinning him with his arms behind his back. "Make it quick, if you're doing it. No need for them to suffer more than they have already."
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Questioning wouldn't go over well in such a situation back home, and it nearly catches in his throat. But this is life or death, even if it's the lives and deaths of their enemies.
"Are you--?" Of course he's serious. But does this mean Roland's intending to kill his guy too? "Look, Roland, can't we just knock 'em out and leave 'em here?"
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Roland looks across the room, or tries to, but of course everything's still too loud to be sure. He might've heard something, just now. He might not have. And here they are, arguing over what to do with their captives. Roland's old teacher would either be pissing himself laughing, or he'd clout Roland over the ear so hard he'd be seeing stars.
"If you can tie these two up with their shoelaces, do it. Otherwise we'll have to kill them. Don't hit her over the head unless you're really prepared to have killed, Firo, I've no time to argue."
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And he does. Firo's been scrapping since he could walk, and he knows what a properly-placed, swift punch to the jaw does. He spins the lady around before he can feel bad and delivers one uppercut right on the side of her chin. Going over the back or top of the head like Roland said would just be too rough for his taste; this, apparently, is just fine. He catches her as she falls.
The longterm effects he doesn't even think of. He's done this many times, and his interaction with the opponent always ended when he left them unconscious in the street. If they later died from trauma or suffered bad effects... well, he wouldn't know. Myopic, maybe, but it's how he and his dented moral compass have survived. Besides, he's taken plenty of knocks on the head and he's fine. He's alive.
His tone is forcedly conversational as he unlaces her boots and sets to tying her hands. At times like this, this is his way of showing his irritation. "Were you really gonna kill 'em? I thought I was the bad guy and you were the good one."
As it is, he's not sure what to think about Roland's words on killing. It almost sounds as if he thinks Firo hasn't already done it. He's not sure if he's glad for that or upset with lack of experience it implies. Though he doesn't even know it, this question is his way of trying to sort that out.
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No.
Roland watches Firo knock the woman unconscious, a very deliberate statement, and stills the part of him which wants to treat that statement as he would if it were a 'prentice making it. He sighs, heavily. Firo shouldn't take Roland's command, maybe, but things would come a lot easier here if he did.
"Did you?" It's all the answer Roland's moved to give and it's dry, a flat statement of his own on just how realistic it is, to see things so simple. Once Firo's done Roland takes his own enemy - who has stopped struggling and is now crying, quietly - and knocks his feet from under him, pushing him in Firo's direction. "Finish up on this one. We've work to do."
"That hallway, you said?" Roland's looking at said hallway, hardly looking concerned with Firo or what he's doing at all. "We'll go there once you're done, unless you've changed your mind." Yes, Firo, you don't want to take his orders. He has noticed. "It's as good a place to look as any other."
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"Why would I change my mind?" It's more rhetorical; what he truly wants to ask is why Roland's talking to him like this. If they're really going to quarrel.
Not that they're exactly quarreling. It's the lack of an outward display of anger that really unsettles him. Yaguruma would've at least thrown him on the ground for even questioning directions.
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Firo follows behind him, shoulders squared. Perhaps he's done wrong, but he's not going to hide from it. "If I disagree with your command, I'm gonna tell you."
And why does he want him 'far enough away'? He clenches his fists. "Look, if you want me to fuck off, just say so. But I can't promise I'd listen to that either--somebody's gonna have to pull you outta the next machine you fall in."
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There's a door beside him, which leads most likely to another office. He puts his hand on it, but looks to Firo with his eyebrows raised before doing anything more. It doesn't look like the boy's terribly ready to catch any enemy who might be waiting inside, and faintly, Roland wonders if that's his own mistake there, whether he's driven the boy to that state. Roland knows well the mistakes that can be made in leading men, has a nasty suspicion he might be making more than one of those mistakes here, and pushes on, anyway. Not inside the office though, yet. He tilts his head toward it, meaning his expression to ask whether Firo is ready. With the way the rest of this has gone, who knows how Firo's going to interpret it.
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Incompetent? It takes him a moment to figure out where that came from. "I just meant--" That he had to watch his back. It had been an olive branch, in a way, though not a deftly offered one.
He supposes he can understand why Roland's mad, even though part of him chafes and insists that Roland isn't one of his bosses. He's a cop. And yet... Another part of him concedes that he should've listened. He sighs and points to the door. "You can punish me later if you want. We need to get this done now, so let's go."
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The door opens. Not suddenly, not noisily - although, with all this talking they're doing, he supposes he may as well have shoved it open. He edges inside, looks around, and glances back at Firo, tossing his head toward the insides of the office to direct Firo in, too.
"Punish, Firo?" He mutters it, turning toward a desk and beginning a search through it. "Where in the world did that come from?"
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And possibly your next comment can end this thread, or maybe mine after that?
Yeah, I think that's good!
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