Round One: Mouse vs Claude (D9)

[hesper hart 🐺 d9f]

The tribute stands with bare feet in loose dirt and mud below the dark, damp arena. If they look up, they see light and dust pouring in from the cracks in the wooden flooring. And already, they can hear the cheers, the calls for death. A man-sized bird cage comes to a stop at the ground in front of them and if they aren't wise enough to step in on their own, the peacekeepers will shove them inside. Once the gates are locked behind them, they'll know for sure though: this is officially it. No amount of hope will save them now. Only sharpened steel.

As they rise into the arena, the crowd's applause grows overwhelming in its noise, bleeding into a force of sound like a wall, pushing the tributes further into their cages.

"What an exciting show we have planned for you all today!" A voice the tributes may or may not recognize as belonging to Harlan Godfrey booms over any other voice to be heard.

The tributes will notice that they are standing in a courtyard, with a lush green carpet of grass, and they're surrounded on all sides by a gigantic hedge maze. If the tribute bothers counting, they'll also notice 12 different gates encircling the area, each with a bulky padlock the tributes will be able to make out with ease. As if calling to them, the key ring at their hips grows heavy.

They also notice another cage like their own on the other side of the courtyard, occupied with their own district partner. At the same time, both cages will open. As both tributes climb out of their cages and into the arena, they'll both notice a table nearby, full of rather basic-looking swords of all sorts of different shapes and sizes, though some are obviously missing. They'll also notice a few of those swords have been left lying in random places on the grass, undeniably covered in blood.

"Up next to fight, our District Nine tributes: Mouse McCann versus Claude Èmile!"

---

Weapon: Sword

Mouse Initiative - 31.6
Claude Initiative - 100.18

Retro Engine Link: Here

Reminder that tributes have not been granted any stations for this games including weapon modifiers, accuracy, first aid, or even stealth. As a result, both tributes will need to make non-attack intro posts before they begin attacking. If tributes refuse to fight each other, please let me (Dars) know asap so that I can schedule mutts for your fight. As always, 24 hour posting rules are in effect and will be enforced.

This fight will conclude once either tribute has died, and you both have until Friday, 28th of April at 6 pm pst to finish them yourselves, or mutts will be deployed to finish the job.

[calla]

They'd assigned him another Keeper after the interview.

Looking back on it now, Claude can admit that the Capitol probably didn't take take too kindly to him saying so what straight to Harlan's face. They probably didn't like his maybe there are still rebels out there, and maybe they're finally going to take you bastards down attitude.

They also probably didn't like the way he swore at the crowd in a language they didn't know.

The Keeper's even less amused with it - "Kid, you need to shut up."

"Dégage, salaud." He spits, but after twelve hours of solitary, the venom's significantly waned.

All that false bravado had bled out over the night, he'd broken and finally took the water he was handed, tossing it back without even looking at the Keeper. The whole then to now is a grey-tinged blur, the sound of the crowd cheering fades in and out, he's manhandled into a sheet when he fumbles with his shirt and the tips of his fingers start flipping between numb and on fire.

"'The hell'd you guys even do to me?" He tries to ask the Keeper tying his sash, but she's already standing, ignoring him so swiftly that he's not even sure he's said it.

She steps back while the other one approaches. There are another two closer to the entrance, watching him out of the corner of their eyes like he's about to scream revolution and jump them.

But Claude just leans against one of the pillars, sweating, the sand that falls from the ceiling catches the light and turns a dull sort of gold. The second keeper sets something on his head and then takes him by the arm, yanking him up and away. The momentum of the pull means that his head ends up in one place and his stomach in another.

"Shit- hey, I don't feel so good-" but he's being pushed, jostled into the cage, and the door shuts with a loud clang.

It swings as it rises and makes his gut swoop, he clutches at the bars and presses his forehead against them, a dull ache starting to nestle in between the bouts of nausea. The metal's just slightly warm. It doesn't help. He flinches away from the light when the cage rises, he sways with the movement and then falls directly backwards onto the grass when the door swings open, groaning and muttering the whole way.

He turns, gets his hands on the ground and tries to ignore the way that the whole courtyard spins sideways with the motion. When he gets up he nearly tips sideways again, tripping on the hem of the toga, his bare foot skids against metal, the pain of it stark and sudden and clear - nom de Dieu, someone give this kid a fucking break.

Claude glances down, reaching to clutch at his foot and seeing an already bloodied sword hiding in the grass. He stares at it for a beat.

Then he sidesteps it, looking up - "Mouse." He says, half relieved and half resigned. He steps gingerly on his foot, towards her.

"Do you know what's going o-" And then he remembers, quiet little mouse, he'd laughed about it on the way here - cat and mouse, haha get it?

"Right, sorry."

He squints up at the crowd and eyes the hedges with a stupid kind of hope hidden deep in his chest - that's what the rebels are made of right? There's no one else in there with them, but they're not the first ones. Everyone else has to have gone somewhere.

He staggers over to one of the gates and rattles it, trying to peer through to the other side, "D'you think we have to get through?"

He tries one the keys on his ring but his fingers keep slipping and the keyhole keeps doubling. His left hand is shaking but his right hand is fine, he squeezes them both until his knuckles blanch.

Harlan's voice had clearly said fight, smugly amplified across the arena, and the crowd starts to get unsettled with the lack of action, a few of them start to yell when Claude snatches one of the offending swords from the ground.

"FERME TES GUELES!" He screams, and then hurls it up as hard as he can - towards the Harlan's voice, towards the crowd, anywhere it can reach. It spins pitifully over the hedges and then drops somewhere further in the maze with a rustle and a dulled thud.

He grabs another and uses the hilt to try and bash at the lock instead.

dégage, salaud - go away/piss off, bastard
nom de Dieu - for god's sake/goddman/general god expletive
ferme tes gueules - shut your (animal) mouths aka shut the fuck up <3

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

Her interview was... well. As you'd expect for a girl that does not speak. That man with darkness in his eyes asked a lot of good questions. It was a pity she had no more that a few gestures for him.

Mouse shook her head no -

you don't speak, do you mouse?

nodded her head yes -

but you'll answer my questions?

shrugged her shoulders -

what say your chances of survival
for a tiny thing like you?

stared at her feet -

will anyone miss you?

and stayed utterly silent throughout.

It had earned her a bread roll, at least. She should have shared it with the boy from the train, she knows that - but Mouse is smart, not stupid. She'd snatched at it, rolled through the bars in the cage they kept her in, scoffed it down like the food were air. Tiny little thing, coiled around a single, stale piece of bread. How sad.

How sad that nothing has changed from then, back home, to now.

For all Mouse's quiet, Claude is noise. She quite likes that. Biting down a smile as she huddles in the dark, Claude Èmile yelling in a strange language she doesn't understand but Mouse gets the gist in the way he uses words like knives, his own kind of bravado. Claude reminds her of the boys at the factory back home, one of their surnames meant only for temporarily attachment probably carved into a gravestone by now. Mouse crouches, keeping out of trouble, biting down on the corners of her fingernails until they bleed.

Don't get attached, she scolds herself. You're both dead. Then - but if you're both dead, then what's the harm? Mouse has heard these silent conversations over and over again, a spectator to her own unsure conscious. Her eyes dart back, forth, back, forth, she shuts them.

Opens, dressed in white and purple, no shoes. Mud between her toes. She wiggles them, tries to swallow down the fear thrumming in her throat. Just like home, she thinks - as if that's any way to console a child of this new, terrible Panem. Dust and blinding light, fear as common as breathing. Just like home.

Just like home.

Maybe it's because she's younger, or smaller, or without words, but Claude is the one to spring into action first. He takes charge, questioning everything, coming up with a plan - if you can call wasted anger beating a lock with a blunt hilt of a sword. Mouse rolls her eyes and sighs, walks straight up to Claude and - mindful he's got a bloodied sword in hand - nudges him out of the way.

Her hands work quickly, up into the depths of her messy auburn hair. Mouse feels around her scalp then pulls out a hairpin, almost smiles at herself - how clever. But this is no time for showmance, the last thing she wants to give these people up there in the crowds. Right now she has a task to do.

The tip of her tongue trapped between her teeth, she flattens the pin out of its shape and pries it in to the lock - twisting with one hand, holding the lock steady with the other.

There's always a way. There must be a way. She's done this a dozen or so times: a neighbour's shed when she needs to borrow a tool, the factory offices after dark with the boys keeping watch, a shopkeeper's storage facility when it feels her stomach might turn in on itself. Mouse just needs a moment, two, several, before they release the hounds - or the cat realises it's caged in with its natural pray.

[calla]

Mouse moves him out of the way and tries her own hand at the lock. Claude runs his hand through his hair, presses his fist against his forehead, tries to blink the dizziness away again.

“It’s not going to work.” He says, turning away from Mouse and her hairpin, and then changing his mind and turning back. He says it louder when she doesn’t move - “It’s not going to work.”

It's a slow sort of whiplash that creeps its way over him then, he turns his head too fast and instead of one Mouse, there's three mice.

"We have to-" He makes an aborted, frustrated, sort of gesture.

He's going to be sick, wash his mouth out with soap - "Ciboire."

He squats down to the ground and pushes his knuckles against his eye, rocking on the backs of his heels - think, think. He wants another word with Harlan Godfrey and every other bastard in charge of this shit show.

Selfish little boy kneeling in the dirt, silly little cat trying to fit into the skin of a rebel that's two sizes too small. He played war with all the other kids in the district and never once stopped to think what it meant. He's not particularly brave, and he's not particularly good either. He's only angry, in the way every teenager is with the world, and he's a little foolish.

The way you can tell the real heroes from the fake ones is this: when it comes down to it, the real ones never ever choose themselves.

Claude always thought Cy Adroxis was a hero when he was little, and then he died just like Maman and the rest of the heroes did. It was just him and Papa and Claudius until the Keepers came again. They arrested Mr. Émile and left when they couldn't find his son, then when they found him months later, he never even got a chance to say goodbye.

Now he's here, and his father is probably rotting in a Detention Center, unaware.

"I need to get out of here." He mutters to himself, forcing his head back to look at the sky, just to make the swirling stop.

He weighs his attachments and comes up short, takes all these little pieces of himself - scared little boy, fake little rebel, angry, callous, foolish -

and he does something very terrible.

claude attacks mouse ; sword
2rM_0dqqqDsword
1107 -- Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage

sword

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

It is. That's what Claude doesn't understand - it is going to work. Just like everything had worked, in it's own way, before. Every moment in Mouse's life had somehow, by some fucked up miracle, worked. It's why she's still here, still breathing. Maybe it's why she's here, right now, frowning as she works at this lock that's the most intricate thing she's ever tried to pry open - penance for survival, for beating the odds.

It is going to work, she just needs a little-

See-what? What does she have to see? What can Claude see that she cannot that makes him so quick to give up? Mouse doesn't like quitters any more than she likes men with guns and white uniforms. Her parents were quitters. Often Mouse has wondered if they made it to wherever they were going when they left in the middle of the night. Half her life she has spent spinning stories of them: some where they made it to a place beyond Nine. Others where they didn't make it three streets before being shot in the head, pulled out of the alleys, loaded up on a truck and carried away. In just a few they felt so horribly about abandoning their only daughter that they turned around, only to be arrested moments later.

Mouse had quickly abandoned those lofty ideas. No - the fact of the matter was that she had been left in that house for a reason, and they had left without her. They gave up, and she kept on. Her parent's weren't just quitters: they were cowards.

The sting shocks her and she yelps - it's the most that's come out of her mouth since her name was called across the square of Nine - jumping back in fright. The lock clangs back against the gate and at first she's furious, another betrayal. Cowardly actions, like leaving a little girl tucked up in her bed as you close the door, lock it behind you, abandon your key.

But when Mouse looks at Claude, looks to the crowds above, hears the groans and cries from within the maze - she knows he's not a coward. He's just trying to survive. And Mouse can't fault him for that.

So she stands, the shallow wound on her leg already bleeding so much that it stains the white of her robe, and nods an understanding. Alright, she tries to say. There's a great sadness that swells in the pit of her stomach as reality sets in, much like those private dreams of parental regret and reunification. But Mouse has come to terms with the reality of her life so many times that it seems easy, somehow, to accept a terrible, inevitable fate.

Her free hand discards the hairpin, lost to the grass, and in its place she finds the hilt of a sword - this one clean. Mouse understands what Claude was trying to say. Some languages are made up of more than just words. She doesn't want to fight any more than he does, but they have have to.

We have to.

I have to.

So she grounds herself, grits her teeth, and swings.

mouse attacks claude, sword
dkUdvmXQxpsword
3.5

sword

[calla]

There's a Capitolite practically hanging off the stands, straining themselves against the railing to get a better view of the way Claude's sword bites into an innocent, unsuspecting person.

Claude watches Mouse whirl around as the Capitolite stretches just a little too far and then falls from the upper level into the ring of seats below. Hardly anyone notices them, the crowd swallows the movement and when Mouse finally abandons the lock and picks up her own sword, they go ballistic.

She takes the cut and nods at him, and he feels so sick that for a moment he has to avert his gaze, watches the point of her blade instead and pretends that it's being held by someone worse. The sun glints off the metal and the light shatters across his vision, shifting like the turn of a kaleidoscope. The red-green rippling of the grass makes him lightheaded, the taste of cough-syrup in the back of his throat makes him gag and he has to shut his eyes.

Claude moves in on himself, shuttering. If they're going to make them fight, then he's not going to make it entertaining. If the rage didn't work, and if the outbursts didn't work, and if the escape didn't work - well, he won't keep giving them the spectacle they want. Fuck Harlan and his little show.

But he's always been this - explosive one moment and then spiteful the next. He'll swear himself blue and then shut himself off, going silent in the corner the same way a petulant child does. Tin soldier boy, pretending to be steel and never quite getting there; in a world that was forced to change so rapidly, he never quite grew up.

He sees Mouse clench her teeth, the anger flying through her like a shot and then receding, good. He shifts his grip and steps closer, muttering to her lowly, "Don't give them anything."

"Let's just-" He shakes the stars away, no thoughts of save my family, make sure they're alright, just "-get it over with. Whoever leaves, make them pay."

claude attacks mouse ; sword
YIHHdR59NWsword
1068 -- Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage

sword

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

She was never an emotive child. Yes, she cried late into the night as any infant does, grazed her knees as a toddler and let the tears fall, clinging to someone's leg - funny how she can't picture their face, only their blue jeaned leg and the sun setting in the sky. But the older Mouse got the more she learned that this world had seen enough blood and tears spilled in the earth, so much so that it became indifferent to her pain.

There were bodies in the streets on her way to school, echoes of gunfire that had kept her awake in the night. They taught her more than any teacher in front of a blackboard could, until one day she just stopped going. Better to stay inside, safer than sorry. Keep her head down, sit on her hands, not say a word. Quiet, quiet. Like a Mouse.

She gave nothing to the world, and it gave her nothing in return. She was okay with that, being forgotten. Being left behind. A face in a crowd, unassuming and unknown. The quieter she got the longer she lived. Mouse thought she might fade away altogether. Become part of the furniture in her dusty home, the walls of the factory where she worked, or maybe one day she would simply vanish like a ghost, a thing made of nothing but matter.

So quiet, too quiet - the world said come out, make some noise.

But Claude tells her no. Don't you dare let this terrible world win.

Okay, she thinks, eyes stinging as she blinks away tears. And Mouse isn't quite sure how she's going to make them all pay, nothing of a girl. Translucent, silent, like shadow and air. They want a show. They want the screaming and the violence, they want penance for sins their parents committed. They want it to hurt when Claude kills her or she kills Claude.

But if they're both of the understanding that they're not killing for them, up there in the crowds, then it's okay.

It's not for them. It's for Claude and Mouse, Mouse and Claude. Their lives are each-others, to take and to give. Okay, another nod, another awkward slash of blade.

It is mine.

It is yours.

mouse attacks claude, sword
Srtfweq9lpsword
what do u know... sc 3.5

sword

[calla]

She understands and he could nearly cry from it. The scrape of her sword feels something like relief.

He's not stuck in here with some Capitol-obsessed drama freak.

Pierre Émile hated the way the Capitol had convinced some of the kids to posture last year - like being there was something to be proud of. Like they were the stars of something grand. He'd made a strip about it; Claudius going off to watch the wolf parade and catching the zippers on the backs of their costumes, causing quite a scandal when the silly little cat revealed that the paraders were nothing but a group of sheep, pretending to have sharp teeth.

Claude's never felt very wolf-like. His bark's always been worse than his bite, but it all shadows under his temper. His temperament, his father used to say, quick like a cat but half as cuddly.

There's still a hesitation to him still, and there is to Mouse too, but it's not everyday you're put into a pit and told to kill someone your age. The glamour of them is lost on the crowd very quickly. They get impatient. They want bigger hits, more spectacle, they want something exciting.

Claude doesn't look at them anymore. He looks at Mouse as her eyes go red, and he snaps at her, "Don't." Harsher than he means to.

Papa's little hypocrite, he puts on a brave face and expects everyone else to do the same. He holds his consciousness in his fist and tries not to drop it when the sky sways.

"Just don't listen to them." His sword point dips, "Don't look at them, they're not worth it."

claude attacks mouse ; sword
svX54LKTx3sword
1108 -- Shallow Cut on Right Forearm -- 3.5 damage

sword

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

It has been so long since someone older has told her what to do. Most might find it patronising, and Mouse probably would too in another context. But she has been alone for so long: a parent to herself, making all her own choices. It’s nice for someone else to take the lead for a change. Claude commands and she obeys, blocking the crowd out and looking at him - only him. The sight of Claude Émile and a sword in his hands makes her heart tremour with fright and still with calm. He might kill her today. Or she might kill him.

He’s bigger and stronger but she’s smaller and faster. He has all that rage to channel and she is a quiet thing, untraceable. Cat and mouse, opposites, twin souls. She hangs herself in this strange balance, lets herself just be, for once.

How nice it is, knowing she will die free of the great burden of keeping herself alive for just another day. Just another damn day - and after all of that, to end up here.

Mouse wants to laugh. Instead she swings.

mouse attacks claude, sword
|Eu6GVDwKVsword
sword

[hesper hart 🐺 d9f]

"Are they actually trying?"

The crowd needs to go refresh their drinks at some point, he supposes, and he also cannot say he's too surprised. Mouse doesn't even speak and half of the time when Claude does speak its in a language most in the modern world have not ever heard. They are both too afraid of letting go, Harlan thinks. They both like to believe they have some element of control, perhaps. But these measly halfhearted swings aren't enough.

He holds off until he sees a preteen look away from the fight to check her phone's notifications in boredom, and then he grits his teeth. He gestures to Link this time instead of speaking, their little routine now down pat. By the time Mouse actually manages to land a decent swing, the spiders are already descending upon them from the tops of the maze, three different types, each with sharpened metallic legs click-click-clicking against the sanded wood and grassy carpet.

"Let's speed this up a bit, shall we?" The crowd already feels more electric as they see the now-familiar striped surface of the Type 3's and the clunky sideways-walking of the Type 1's. They know what comes next.

The spiders don't leave until someone is dead.

He's annoyed at how many times he has had to designate the command in one day: "Kill."

The spiders spring into action, perfectly flowing directly toward the pair of tributes. Little Mouse does not speak, fine. Harlan accepted that already back in her interview. But it did make him that much more curious: Can she scream?

[Robospiders attack Claude]
4NT0Zmnrd4knife
[8]

knife
[0]

-

[Robospiders attack Mouse]
knife
[3.5]

knife
[3.5]

knife·knife·knife·knife

[calla]

Mouse's sword swings towards him again and Claude raises his arm to stop it, stupidly. It cleaves through the skin of his forearm and he yells out a wordless, unintelligible thing.

The sound that comes from underneath it is a very faint thing at first. It's like the spin of chamber reloading, someone dragging a pipe down the railway tracks during the years where the gang violence in Nine got so bad that fists weren't enough anymore.

The rustling comes closer, and then the echo of the clicking stops, turning sharper and more focused. The spiders crest over the hedge walls, gleaming like wet coins, slick stones in the pavement that glow yellow under streetlights. They reflect the lights like sun spots.

"Merde." Claude spits as they swarm, "Shit- shit."

Two of them land on his shoulders, one latching onto the back of his neck, digging in, and he swings his sword in a wide arc to try and fend the rest of them off. He shakes one away and then goes to stomp on it - then remembers his lack of shoes. It scuttles away in his hesitation and another one replaces it.

He stumbles at the sudden onslaught and his vision of Mouse swims. The noise of the crowd is like a drum now, rhythmic in a way that makes him border on hysterical - they want their show so bad. He throws himself at everything and nothing, unfocused on the blur of orange and green and red. He grits his teeth against the taste of metal, resolute.

claude attacks mouse ; sword
H3N|0lMhuTsword
1042 -- Shallow Cut on Right Hip -- 3.5 damage

sword

[[ retro gm ] angel lí ✨]

Mouse stumbles, shocked by the weight of her own strength as her sword cuts deep. And she hates the feeling of blade cutting into flesh and veins and muscle, so much so that she jumps back, flinching, falling to the ground with her sword.

Impact, a thud and a squeak of surprise that gargles from her dry throat. Her left side aches - sure to bruise. But when she looks up at the hedges and sees those strange creatures her heart drops, wide-eyed. A deer in headlights.

A mouse. A mouse in a spotlight, caught in the act. Frozen for just a moment.

Claude's sword bites down on her side and she moves, scrambling upwards and pointing at the things with shaking hands but it's too late. They're already all over him. One scuttles away in fright just to be joined by another and the quick ones scale his back, hers too, spindly legs digging into the thin fabric of their outfits with ease. Something nips at Mouse's ankle and she hops, shakes one off as it stings - there's more, more, more of them.

Panic, panic, panic - her eyes are so wide they might pop out of her skull. Chest rises, falls, rises, falls, panting, whining breathes. Instinctively Mouse clamps a hand over her mouth. She's back in the war, army vehicles trundling past her bedroom window. She's back in the aftermath, crouched in a secret hiding spot as looters raid her shell of a home. Don't make a sound. They'll find you. Be silent. Be nothing. Don't make a sound. Don't make a sound. Don't--

-- look at them.

Claude in her head, Claude in front of her now. Sword still raised, head still held high - even if he looks like death, he's still alive.

Don't.

Okay, she tells him. Them. Herself.

Okay.

mouse attacks claude, sword
AwhsHxb3Rwsword

sword