the ascent | cool kids vs three of wolves vs crawlers

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

The dark is no longer limited to the tunnels of the mines, or the Fold. It pulses like a living thing, a rotten tree spreading its roots across the land. Heeding the command that stirs within them, the Crawlers are quick to take advantage of the hunting ground that has now been afforded to them. They chitter amongst themselves as they crawl out from the earth, their gaunt bodies emerging into the inky blackness and their pale, milky eyes accepting the dark as home. While their senses are limited, their ability to hear is unmatched.

They know prey is coming far before it wanders into their path.

They move forward as one, only branching out as they reach the source of the frantic sounds. Rushed breathing, a muffled sob, whispered questions that go unanswered in the madness of it all. They chitter to one another, planning out their attack to the last detail. One from the left, one from the right, encircle the tributes and render them as blind as the Crawlers themselves are. By the time the tributes have realized what has happened, their efforts to fight back will be fruitless.

Blood is going to spilled, and a feast will be had.

Their claws are as long as their appetite, sharp and ceaseless. So eager to tear into fresh meat. They approach as silently as shadows, moving through the darkness with a terrible kind of grace. Despite seeming gnarled and malnourished, a Crawler is nothing short of an apex predator. Their hunger continues to twist and boil within them, controlling every influence that washes through their bodies. They listen to their masters as they listen to their instincts. When they chitter now, they are doing so with the intention of being heard.

  

And there is nothing to be done.

Stand your ground, try to fight back. Know that hard as you try, these monsters will stop at nothing to drag you down into the abyss they call their domain. To them, you are a harvest ready to be devoured, and nothing more.

You are prey, and they are predator. And as they lunge for the attack, you should mutter your final prayers.

Crawlers attacks!

Xov
YqqFygx41Qknife
[3.5]

Gunner
knife
[8.5]

Juno
knife
[3.5]

Lucky
knife
[8.0]

Xylia
knife
[3.5]

Marcellus
knife
[8.0]

knife·knife·knife·knife·knife·knife

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

⤜ x o v - ♥ - t h a o ⟶

Xov woke to see an eerie darkness crawling across the landscape, a warm gust of wind carrying the metallic stench of blood.

She should have known to trust her instincts and stay away from large bodies of water, which had always meant bad luck. When they set up camp the night before, she’d taken some comfort in placing their tent on solid rock, but now the ice sheet around them crackled ominously in the sudden warmth, and she felt like the earth could come apart at any moment.

”Guys,” she managed.

On cue, the breeze carried the sound of distant screaming. That morning cortisol spike surged in Xov’s veins, heart pounding in her ears. Goosebumps prickled on her pale skin, painted with bruises and zig-zagged with fresh stitches, purple on white on grey.

She hoped that the thread on her wrist would be enough to keep her soul on now, as fear threatened to hollow her out.

As she caught the chattering sound of something not-human-not-animal, it dawned on her. She hadn’t heard a single cannon since the bloodbath. Surely the Gamemakers were not happy.

Now something was coming towards them, hungry for blood.

A scream escaped from her throat before she could catch it, hand over her mouth. What are those things?

It moved faster than her mind could work, especially this early in the morning, but luckily her body knew better. Her feet moved her out of the creature’s reach just as the knife-like claws grazed her forearm. She hissed.

”I think we should run to higher ground!” was all she could think to say to her allies. But the creatures were everywhere, and it was unhelpful advice. Suddenly she felt the lack of career training, that knowledge gap between herself and the upper districts. Otherwise she’d probably know some kind of battle formation right now. Back to back, like in movies, maybe?

Instead, she did what they would do in Twelve. Hightail it out of there.

But she halted when she saw three more shapes moving towards them, the tallest one catching her eye. Lucky.

Xov remembered Lionel that first day, beaten and bruised and spit-stained, and she tasted bile. Her hand tightened around the handle of her pike, wood biting into her palm, feet taking a wide stance as if to protect her allies behind her.

”You here to torture us too? Kick us while we’re down and spit on us? Seriously, I thought your decency would have lasted at least a day, Lucky.”

She glanced at Gunner, curious. ”You too, huh?” No venom in her voice for him, no judgement. Only surprise.

So he was allied with Lucky? Maybe he had simply picked the best bodyguard–he seemed like the survivor type. She hadn’t seen him since the training center, when he gave her some pointers on her aim. She’d tied a string on his wrist too, a favor for a favor. She was sure it would bring up some questions from J and Marcus, if they made it out of here alive.

We will, she thought. She had to think so. Jaw tense, she turned back to Lucky.

”Don’t even think for one second about laying a finger on them,” she warned, referring to the friends that stood behind her.

The best way to keep them safe was to hurt him. It made her weary to think of that easy, charming smile and the underhanded violence beneath it. She was tired of it. No more games.

She charged forward.

[attacks lucky, pike (axe)]
Hes3X9sCedaxe
(miss)

[accuracy, pike (axe)]
axe
(severed right leg at hip - 10.0)

axe·axe

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

👹

The winds blew icier that night, carrying an unknown edge.

Or perhaps it was only him who felt more hollow like some paper-mache creation on its last stage before it completely became undone. His heart was a wet pulp of balled up tissue paper. Fucking pathetic. All of this over a guy who now snored lightly in his tent, oblivious to the rest of the world. How far the mighty have fallen.

After Lucky’s watch ended, Gunner took over wordlessly. No remark to the boy, no talk of what happened down in the mines. He couldn’t. Not when the message from the other had been clear.

In solitude, he licked his own wounds, stitching where needed, suturing where wanted.

The stitches stood out like ivory veins on the places of his tattoos, bright white against the inky dark. Gunner had a total of, from when last he counted, fourteen tattoos on his body. The letters ‘deadshot’ graced the first four digits on each of his hands in dirty cursive and an inked tiger snarled from the left side of his neck, but the majority of the body art was engraved down his back, precisely upon all the places he had been shot, a black and ornate glen of blooming spider lily flowers marking the spots where bullets once found sanctuary within.

A flesh map of violence, a skin chart of brutality.

And then of course, the number fourteen had always been bad luck. When he told his tattoo artist about his fourteenth tattoo, they initially refused. Certain death, they said the number fourteen meant, echoing the words that others had told him over the years. He’d only laughed. Death could hunt him down to the very ends of the world if it was brave enough to.

He wished death on whoever had yet to sponsor him cigarettes, too. Hell, he’d kill another tribute for it. He wasn’t a smoker by any means, not the way the rest of District Nine was, but sometimes only nicotine smoke could keep the smell of the backalleys or gutters out. Smoke and gunpowder. The smell after a gunfight – his chest swells instinctively at the thought.

The Hunger Games would be so much more fucking simpler if they gave him a machine gun and some real ballista-level ammo.

But the hand he has been dealt with is six shotgun shells.

Three shots he has to take, three shots he cannot miss. And yet, he already feels as though there is a hole in his chest, the wound still smoking from where Lucky had put it. The push from the other, the muscle memory of that, hadn’t abandoned him yet. Instead it haunted him with the intensity of an unresting spirit, one that demanded to be buried clean.

Unfortunately, Gunner doesn’t have the luxury.

His feelings for Lucky keep crawling out the earth, refusing to sleep the sleep of the dead. And what’s worse: they aren’t all the same ghosts, but rather a mishmash of attraction, resentment, lust, annoyance, and every other emotion in between, each one more sickening than the next, turning his stomach the more he lingered upon them.

Scraps comes to his rescue.

That’s what he ended up naming his dead raven duster, inspired from how its indigo plume of feathers is, even now, full of rotten leaves and food scrapes and other bits of grime. “Kerah?” it queries with a tilt of its bony face as Gunner sulks. He rolls his eyes at the bird lightly, the gesture not unkind. “Can you shoot a gun?” His lips curl back in a grin. The dart gun on his hips slides off easily when he pulls it off and hands it towards Scraps, handle-side first. It eyes the device, curious.

“Take it and shoot his other eye out,” Gunner murmurs, looking up towards Lucky’s tent. He’s jesting, sure, and yet … well.

Scraps takes it.

Does a lookover of the gun, pecks the barrel.

It’s stinking cute.

“Ah, fuck, you can keep that for now,” he says with a sigh. “Now let’s wake up Xylia and celebrate on not being buried alive today.” The mention of that pulls taut the fresh stitches down his forehead. Gunner’s jaw clenches. The sky ahead is still a dark winter blue but something else nags at him. He cannot figure what it is, not until he sleeps and hears no anthem to wake him up.

And when he does wake up, it is to unlight.

Did I even sleep?

His surroundings are still dark, perhaps even darker still, the visibility choked to a point where he nearly struggles to leave the tent. But when he does, staggering out with his shotgun in tow, the world they know is no longer.

Instead darkness rules, the same dark he had entered a few days or so ago, mist-like and haunting in its sight. He asks the other two to pack immediately. The panic sets in, combined with a renewed sense of thrill, a terrible yet familiar feeling within Gunner’s stomach. He remembers what walked within this darkness. He remembers their teeth and, more importantly, he remembers their hunger. It was only a matter of time before the monsters of the shadow began spreading out for more prey.

They walk for what seems to be hours. Time, however, has seemed to have become a part of the undulating dark, unknowable and untraceable. “Does your compass still point north?” he asks Xylia, holding up his own that now spins unreliably. The cold lessens.

Heat, or a semblance of it, creeps in.

Tailing the two with his shotgun drawn, it is a common knowledge between them all that he hasn’t looked at Lucky in the eye once since they began their journey. Gunner acts nonchalant about it. Nothing has been happened here, yet everything also had.

And something is here.

Up ahead. A chittering.

He perks up as a bloodhound would, head tilting back, eyes searching the darkness. Click-clack, the shotgun declares itself loudly once Gunner loads it. He feels both the weapon and the bullet in its chamber. He is both the weapon and the bullet in its chamber.

“We’re being follo–” his address towards the other two, no, only Xylia, gets shorn by what lunges out of the shadows and lands on his arm. Gunner shakes it loose, but not before its claws rake an angry mark across his face. He cries out, anguished and furious. Spinning his gun around, he slams the heel of his shotgun down upon the monstrosity with a wet squelch.

Yet more follows.

Trudging ahead, the shapes before them multiply in flash intervals of lightning brilliance, a dozen to two dozen, then more. His eyes dart from one to the other, one to the next, all until they land on real faces.

Xov’s gaunt features are a furrowed field with all its sharp shadows. At the sight of her, Gunner instinctively touches the thread wound around his wrist, meant to have been tethering his soul. But all they know the real truth, though.

His soul had abandoned ship long ago.

“Leave us be, or we use all of you as bait,” the words escape in a mirthless chuckle near the end. He was tired of formalities, of whatever scrapyard friendship they so falsely clung onto here. No one came to the goddamn death match to be friends, much less lovers. The urge for a glance towards Lucky then was stifled.

More important matters at hand.

But Xov moved quick. Her aim was true, too. All thanks to her teacher, the weapon she wields cuts into Lucky with a sickening precision. His eyes flash. His heart smarts.

His finger pulls.

The world splits open in a flash of white. 

- Uses poison & attacks Marcellus 
(Sawed-off Shotgun)

EiVZVfLAkAthrowing knife

9066 -- 4.0 damage + 1.0 poison

throwing knife

9042 -- 4.0 damage + 1.0 poison

Gunsmoke. What a sweet smell he has so dearly missed.

Despite the haze of it all, Gunner's eyes remain unblinking on Xov, the barrel of his shotgun smoking in the direction toward her ally. A warning shot. "Hurt him again and I shoot off your friend's fucking face next."

throwing knife·throwing knife

[Python]

j u n o
b r i m s t o n e.

He stayed true to his method of coping - it could always be worse. For instance, nobody had been crushed to death by the day's previous ordeal. Juno was bruised up and a little worse for wear because his leg wasn't quite healing properly, but he was breathing for another night, and Roller didn't seem traumatized. He was also able to claim a fresh canteen of water at the end of the whole stunt. A huge win in his book - now they wouldn't be stressed about finding a water source by the end of the night.

The night, however, did not seem to end. Darkness made way for more darkness, and they awoke to a bad omen.

"Guys..."

The chitters of something alive echoed beyond their camp. Their footsteps did not sound human, and the growls weren't anything he had ever heard in Twelve before. It didn't matter if he had hunting experience or anything adjacent - there were Capitol monsters heading their way, and they had no idea where to run.

Juno agreed partially with Xov's suggestion to find higher ground. It would grant them a good vantage point, but getting there was the issue. Running up hill would slow them down against these creatures, and they were catching up fast.

He heard something rush behind him, feeling a sharp pain at his hip. Without thinking, he tossed Roller into his bag and pulled out his sword. This was the first time he would be using it, and he didn't have time to think it could be worse before they sprinted headfirst into a group of tributes. Juno didn't think they could afford the time for bickering, but it seemed these guys had left a bad taste in Xov's mouth.

She struck fast and violent. Could it be worse now? They were squaring up with a career, and Xov had just fed his blood to the mutts that were surrounding them. The unmistakable sound of gunfire almost made him jump out of his skin - two shots on Marcellus, and Juno's jaw fell slack. How on earth had they gotten their hands on a shotgun?

This was bad.

"You need to learn some manners! Put that thing away."

Overwhelm him, he thought. Distract him so he will miss his next shot. It wasn't a solid proof plan, but it was all he could come up with in the moment.

He would be a piss poor friend if he didn't follow Xov's lead, so he swung.

[juno attacks gunner - greatsword]
BLAqgQOok1sword
3.5

sword

[mat]

l u c k y
nachtnebel

Lucky watched Gunner and Xylia's tents more than the outside for other tributes. He stalked them, really. Whenever they tossed or stretched an arm, his hopes that one of them might come out to chat rose. It sunk seconds later when it turned out to be nothing. How much could he trust them now? Lucky pushed them away yesterday, literally in Gunner's case, for a loose ally. Maybe he should have gone with Rita instead and put Harley in a tough spot to be nice to him. It would have been amusing, or better than the dread he felt guarding between his allies' tents.

He thought about walking in and talking with Gunner about what had happened. Their words had been heavily minced ever since Gunner kissed him and Lucky pulled away. One of them instructed and the other agreed to avoid causing a fuss. Lucky paced for the first couple of hours on his watch, muttering senseless whispers in the direction of his companion. He was stuck in his head, caught between cupid's arrow and grudge's bullet. He wore himself out in time, sitting between Xylia's tent and Gunner's.

The wind, thankfully was much less of an issue in the cavern than it was outside. It was easier to hear around him, and he felt better about relaxing on the watch. Every footstep in the cave echoed and every breath carried into a scream. Lucky laid himself flat on the ground, inching his body closer to Gunner's tent. His ear cupped against the nylon, patiently listening.

Lucky waited on him guiltily.

Was he still breathing?

Was that an I'm cold sniffle or an I'm sick one?

Within ten minutes, the tent jostled as Gunner shifted inside. The dim mine light showed his shadow on the ceiling turning inward. Lucky rolled too. They were facing each other now. He tapped the tent with the nail of his finger.

Was he awake? "Gun." A gentle whisper, careful not to startle the guy. "You awake?"

Nothing.

"I'm sorry."

Did he hear that?

He felt better about saying something when Gunner wasn't awake to rebut it. Lucky meant it, though, really. He was too surprised in the heat of the moment to have any other reaction. Lucky saw a brother in his left eye and a lover in his right. He rubbed the patch across his right eye as Gunner turned back around. That was the point. He didn't see it until Gunner's hands fit around Lucky's cheeks. And now, he could not unsee it.

Lucky wished for different circumstances. He wished for something that could never change. The Hunger Games were no time for an identity crisis, but here Lucky was, torn between wanting to kill someone and wanting to kiss them.

When Gunner rose halfway through the night, Lucky rose with him. He knocked on the metal edges of the tent, silent. Your turn. Lucky swapped places without a word. Gunner was staying in his tent after all. His was "broken." Lucky settled in, head resting where Gunner's had in the night.

He stayed half awake, watching Gunner outside between his spurts of drowsiness. A part of him wanted the boy to lie beside him outside and whisper.

Luck, you awake? –yes yes yes.

"Can you shoot a gun?" Lucky's eye shot open. Who was he talking to? He hoped Gunner took notice of his restlessness and decided to start a conversation. "Take it, and shoot his other eye out." He sank with an extended breath out, covering his eye with the inside of his elbow.

Lucky wished for them to talk things through. He would map Gunner's heart with his own given the chance to try again.

He wished for something that never came in the night even as he mouthed another promise in his direction: I will never hurt you again.

---

They woke and traveled aimlessly in a hazed darkness. This was what Gunner had mentioned the other day about the other side of the arena. Weird.

"Pack." Gunner commanded, and so he did it. Lucky thought it cute now, how bossy he was. Like Rita, sort of, but a boy. That was what he tried to tell Rita last night. When Gunner kissed him, it felt totally different but exactly the same as when she had.

He hated that Gunner ignored him while they walked. Small talk and chatter were nonexistent between them now. The only time they spoke was with Xylia in the middle, never addressing one another directly until Gunner stopped in his tracks behind them, signaling something was off.

"We're being follo-"

"Crap!" Crooked legs and milky pupils jumped through the haze, going straight for Lucky's head. He swung his body away, and the creature's claws tore into the base of his helmet. "Uhh.."

They ran away as a pack upward across the icy ground, making distance on the creatures. What were those things? Disgusting, nauseating, and certainly not tributes. Why, year after year, tributes fought mutts instead of running away from them boggled him. Flight until you must fight.

He stopped before a trio of figures ahead, certainly more humanlike than the ones moments ago. One of them, he knew well. Xov. Why was she looking so pissed, and looking in his direction?

"You here to torture us too? Kick us while we’re down and spit on us? Seriously, I thought your decency would have lasted at least a day, Lucky."

His spit smut got around, huh? Lucky raised his spear and shrugged. "Guilty as charged!"

Gunner warned them to back off, and Xov warned them to keep away from the other two: boys from Eleven and Twelve. But Xov, oh so brave, turned to Lucky first and turned her axe to swing at him. It curled directly toward the base of his thigh.

Lucky leaped backward, praying he bided enough time to evade her attack. Within an instant, Gunner fired not one but two shots across the field. Juno tried to call him off but began to fight himself. His first post-bloodbath brawl!

"Hurt him again and I shoot off your friend's fucking face next." Lucky turned to Gunner, eye in awe. He nodded to show his appreciation. I'll always fight for you.

His foot slid back on the thin sheet of ice. The arena reeked of freshwater and fish. They were on unsteady ice, with a body of water beneath them. Lucky raised a brow and a smirk, addressing Xov. "Would now be a bad time to tell everyone how scared of water you are?" Lucky stomped recklessly on the ice, chipping it with the heel of his leather boots. "Don't slip, or you'll have more than my spit to worry about, Xov."

He offered her another reason: the iron head of his spear.

lucky attempts to light step on xov's 11173 attack

lmurXtgyrI1-10
[ 10 -- success ]

–

[ lucky nachtnebel attacks xov thao ; hunter's spear ]
spear
[ Block ]

[ accuracy re-roll ; day four ]
spear
[ Miss ]

1-10·spear·spear

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

unfortunately I worked last night and work again tonight so I must sleep before I cry

-grumbles something about men when they wake her up
-yells
-ow!
-rolls her eyes at the arriving tributes

”You here to torture us too? Kick us while we’re down and spit on us? Seriously, I thought your decency would have lasted at least a day, Lucky.”

"You don't know how to enjoy life Twelve, do you? Mess with us and find out just how lucky Lionel was to even survive."

Looks at her allies.

"Both of you stop thinking about each other's lips and get your shit together."


( xylia attacks juno ; permafrost glaive )
2KZ2WEoKBdglaive
( 13065 -- Shallow Cut on Cheek -- 3.5 damage + 1.0 Permafrost )

glaive

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

A white cloud spirals into the air, lingering the immediate threat of peril. Like a cat’s tail, the smoke curls with an affectionate hunger. If the black cloud of fog doesn’t indicate that the Gamemakers are bored, it’s the way the smell of the gunfire pierces the air. It’s the cannon that echoes the bullets. I feel my breath catch, wondering, did I hear my own end?

That concern is resisted by my stumble, where my body wants to collapse already, but my legs catch any fall. The bullets tear my skin into ridges.

His gun purrs, happy to have made (what many could assume) its first mark of the Games. It continues to flare it’s warning into the air, almost twirling toward the ridges to pollute them. The poison isn’t known, but maybe it’s best to be unaware of that. The Games were bound to poison bodies, dead or alive, physically or mentally. There’s a peace with what’s to come today. If we were here one day later, it’s safe to assume that the ice would succumb to my weight. It’s fate that I can stand here.

At least, fate if fate is supposed to be a decision made by a control room of adults. Adults who know what the Games look like but have never felt a single flake of what they do emotionally. Adults who send pasture to slaughter. They take the lambs that live out to be quarry for the families back home.

Does a lamb have teeth? Now that I think about it, it’s hard to compare myself to a lamb. Not in the consideration of a victor, but in the reflection of a fight. A lamb runs. But I’m not running - I can’t leave Xov or Juno alone, especially if my only goal was to protect them. I have to die in a fight. "Hurt him again and I shoot off your friend's fucking face next." Gunner decides to threat my life as if I’m scared for it. I don’t expect to live. Who would want to live the life of a victor? There’s never been envy for Harbinger - the glamour couldn’t mask the tremors at night, even if I never saw them. I know they’re there.

I also don’t like my face. It’s shaped like one of those glass jars we use to preserve food at the shelter.

”Keep at it.” I look down the metal chamber at the gun, looking at the eye of my demise. Like I’m talking to the weapon, not the hand on the trigger. ”It’s better me than her.” The world deserves more people that are nice. People like Xov, who bring clothes to her friends. It’s hard to remember the last time I’ve offered anything meaningful to the group. It must look real phony to talk about working to volunteer.

Blood begins to gallop out of the ridges torn into my body, but they could hurt me more. Hurt me worse.

”You might need the bigger target, anyway.”

[attacks xylia, hunter’s spear]
cqFB9DQx5Aspear
[8.5]

[SD on the crawlers' attack (2062, 8.0)]
3-8

ELEGANT

spear·3-8

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

They chitter to one another, continuing to crawl forward onto the ice as it creaks and splinters beneath them. The smell of blood is rich, and warm, and the Crawlers crave it so desperately. With each flash of lightning, their pale eyes are illuminated in the dark, transfixed on their prey battling so perilously close to the edge of the frozen water. As much as they want to leap forward again, to sink their teeth and claws into fresh meat, they heed the command that whirs within them.

Let the tributes tear one another apart.

They chitter impatiently, crowding around the tributes, waiting for an opening and a command to strike. If it looks like someone is dodging the chaos, sneaking through unscathed, they are primed and ready to lunge. So long as the puny humans play their part, slicing into one another, the mutts will play theirs. It is their role to be menacing, to corner and herd their prey.

It is the role of the tributes to kill one another.

And the Crawlers will wait, bodies hunched and gnarled, to feast on what remains of the carnage.

  

All good times come with time; and the tributes should be mindful of this. Their precious time, after all, is running out.

the crawlers do not attack

[august vance d7b [Bella]]

⤜ x o v - ♥ - t h a o ⟶

”No!”

The wail that came from her lungs was obscured by the echo of the bullet, the ricochet, its sound like a punch to her own throat. No, please, not Marcus. Sweet, selfless, modest Marcus who never hurt a flea. Who had taken a burn to the neck for her. Who always walked in front, just to make sure she and Juno were safe.

Better me than her, he was saying. Is that really what he was thinking? Better how, when she couldn’t survive without him and Juno?

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

”Marcus, what are you saying?" she screamed at him. "Save yourself!”

It felt so much worse for them to pick on someone who was so willing to step into the line of fire for her. Like they were rubbing it in that she couldn’t protect him like he protected her. Like they both do, she thought as she heard Juno defending too.

One could blame her small stature. Or maybe this was proof that acting tough all the time didn’t make you brave.

”Would now be a bad time to tell everyone how scared of water you are? Don't slip, or you'll have more than my spit to worry about, Xov.”

How naïve she had been, thinking she could tell anyone that secret here. The training center was eons ago now, and it felt like summer camp compared to this. ”Um, I’m not…” she tried defiantly, unconvincingly. "I don’t know, Lucky! Is now a bad time to remind everyone here not to share anything personal with you?”

Everything on her body was pale, starting to quiver, and not just from the cold. She gritted her teeth, tasted the blood she drew from her own cheek. White knuckles gripped her weapon, an object that felt foreign and all-too-heavy, feet pressing into the snow for purchase so her knees wouldn’t shake.

The tip of Lucky's spear surged towards her. She blocked it with the pole of her pike, clumsily, just the right place at the right time. Avoiding Lucky on this melting ice felt like avoiding a bolt of lightning while covered in tinfoil. It took all her focus to jump out of the way before the spear caught her in the ribs on the second thrust. The energy of his strike compared to its accuracy made her feel like he was going easy on her, a thought that turned her stomach.

Was he just messing with her? Making her dance for his entertainment, like Lionel?

Lucky’s words struck truer than his aim. Beneath her was a body of water much bigger than the one that had taken her soul all those years ago.

Back then, she had asked why. Was the river evil, to want to steal from a little girl?

Niam told her no. Rather, it was the bigness of the water that took your soul, the larger force swallowing the smaller one. It happened without a fight, without premeditation, like time passing, like the river flowing. A natural unraveling of things.

She tried not to think about it.

Instead, Xov wanted to freeze. If only the wind would chill her skin and bones fast enough to turn her into a block of solid ice, impenetrable to fear or thoughts or feeling or damage. Preserved forever like she was, rather than the pile of busted-up flesh she felt she would soon become. And, as a plus, ice would always float.

But she was still warm, heart still beating to a driving rhythm. While the blood still warmed her veins, she would fight for Juno and Marcus. One by one, each act of kindness that poured from them bound her loyalty with tighter threads.

And her family. Would they want to see her again after this? Broken, cursed, incompetent with this huge, awkward weapon?

She would ask their forgiveness later. The blood that seeped from Marcus’s wound called for retribution; she owed him that. Nothing would happen if she didn’t make it happen.

She strode across the ice to take her place at Juno’s side, where she felt safest—did he know that? Or would he go on acting disposable, like Marcus?

Gunner protecting Lucky was a mystery of human nature she would never wrap her head around. It was too late to summon understanding. ”I can’t watch you hurt him,” she said.

It almost sounded like an apology.

[attacks gunner, pike (axe)]
ywrtWuqdpCaxe
(shallow cut on back - 4.0)

axe

[napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.]

👹

“Better me than her.”

His laughter burst over the rumbling of thunder and ice, the sound spilled from a place of malice. Dog eat dog world. That’s what the others often forget: this world is built on hierarchies, and the strong always makes their perch at the top. Xov and her companions, on the other hand? He’d have to crane his neck to see where they lie.

Call it a cruelty, call it a ruthlessness, but some ways are unbendable, especially the ones you were raised by. In the tight-knit ranks of the Longbarrels, there was no place or even an asscrack for weakness to exist within, not when weakness could very well earn someone a bullet to the heart. He’d been taught that if he had a gun in his hand, he’d have to take the shot or else, the enemy would take theirs. The old rhythm of a gunfight now pulsed under his throat, familiar and invigorating. He smiled, baring teeth pressed between bloodied lips like broken shrapnel, a pure scoundrel grin.

The largest in the trio lunged at him, making an awkward swing with a comically large blade. He ducked. The edge caught little of his shoulder, which he put in front of him and tried to tackle the other back. Veins electric, heart hotwired, his eyes on Xov all but glowed with twisted amusement.

“Fuck manners, dude,” he told the boy offhand. “This is why the careers crap on lower district folk. We are so fucking quick to lay down and play martyr.”

Lightning flashes, illuminating all of his sharp and jagged edges. He is all chrome, all steel, a weapon you’d use out of necessity and not show. A boy like a broken bottle, like a homemade dynamite. The spear on his back whistles a low yet trilling note as he pulls it free. He uses the length of it to swat off Xov. “Then watch me kill him,” Gunner says plainly. “Trust me, I’m doing you a favor.”

He raises his spear with one arm, eyes and aim narrowing in on the boy before him. A flea, really, bottom of the barrel. The sight sickens him, stirs up memories of a past he had buried.

“Stay down this time.” 

- attacks marcellus
hunter’s spear, thrown

QMmePgMizBjavelin

15037 -- 4.0 damage
(Javelin)

javelin

[Python]

j u n o
b r i m s t o n e.

Juno had never been in a real fight before. He was never one to scrap with the other boys at his school, and instead watched from the sidelines or walked away before someone dragged him it. With his burly arms, people knew he probably could take them down, so nobody really messed with him. A lot of folks in Twelve didn't eat every day. Juno wasn't that kid - he was fed, and his body showed it. But size didn't mean experience, nor was it any indicator of violent tendencies. Juno always chose the passive route, but now he was in a situation where walking away was a betrayal, and trying to 'talk it out' would only hurt himself and the people around him.

He didn't like violence as the only answer. It didn't feel natural, it didn't feel right, and swinging a sword felt as foreign as riding a bicycle for the first time. He was off-balance, barely able to scratch the boy who wielded a shotgun. He seemed intent on killing Marcellus. Maybe focusing on one person was the easiest way to win; otherwise, he couldn't watch five people at once.

Juno had only said what he said to cause chaos and confusion, but he was fixed on Gunner's response. "Why do you care what careers think? They don't win every time." He couldn't help but think of Marik, who had literally killed five people to come home. Yes, it was a lower district, but did that make his people more impressive, or careers less impressive? Juno didn't see this through either lense; people were people, and they all had a shot to win. Any trained career could've been buried in the mines yesterday. They were not immune, and Juno didn't find them all that spectacular.

He shook those thoughts away. The more they crossed his mind, the more he was assigning them status. Better not to think of them as anything but enemies in his path, because all they would do is try to kill Marcellus. He didn't really react to the ice-cold cut on his cheek, no matter how close of a call it was.

Alive is alive.

[juno attacks gunner - greatsword]
Su9qYz4rupsword
9.0

sword

[mat]

l u c k y
nachtnebel

Lucky's spear lunged forward twice, enough distance to tease Xov back on the ice. It was what she deserved for almost slicing his leg in two. Were they close enough to the water that she might slip in? Probably not, especially on higher ground, but it was hard through the intermittent glints through the textured air.

He chuckled as she stammered away from his taunts over her fear of bodies of water like the one they were near. What fun was killing someone with a spear for Lucky when he could kill them with their worst fear instead? It was cruel, but it had to be for the cameras. Xylia put it best, Lionel was lucky to be alive. He caught Lucky in his charismatic cruelty, but Xov, Juno, and Marcellus found him cutthroat. The six of them battled, three on three through the haziness. Gunner had his gun and spear, but Xov's allies turned on him and Xylia.

It was Xov who turned first to join her allies up close. Lucky's spear lunged toward her side. It was a reach, some sort of hope that she would lose her balance trying to escape it, but Lucky's ankle rolled across the sheet of ice instead. He slid to the ground, knees crashing against packed ice. "Crap!" He groaned as he restored balance. Xov had a headstart, her axe cracking down on Gunner. I can't let you hurt him. He heard Xov's words as he chased her down to the others.

He shouldn't have run so far off. With every step, his twisted ankle slipped and throbbed, but Lucky did not stop. Both Xylia and Gunner looked worse than him, with Xov taking the opportunity to outnumber them three-to-two. It was him falling behind, causing the mismatch that just might kill them both.

"I cAn'T lEt yOu HuRt HiM!" He mocked Xov, shouldering her away to get closer to the action. "Very alteruisticky of you, but it kinda just makes me want to hurt him more." He winked at her, not caring if he heard her exactly right. "If that's what hurts you most, Xov!"

Juno's sword sliced into Gunner just as Lucky made it into the brawl. He caught only half of his words, "who cared what careers thought?" He had a point: careers were only as strong as their bite. It was funny now, hearing Gunner talk about careers like him. Once a tinge of rejection, now a dash of admiration. Unaware of the context, Lucky blinked at Gunner, speaking to him directly for the first time in over a day. "You care what I think?" It was a sweet moment that shifted to bitter when Lucky turned to Juno accusingly, "Why do you care that he cares what I think?"

Lucky's leg kicked between the enemies and his allies, trying to intercept the clash and make it as hard as possible for the others to hurt Xyls and Guns. Guilt washed over him as he caught them struggling.

Save Gunner. Save Xylia. Save him. Save her. Save them. He repositioned to give Gunner a clear shot from behind. He wanted to save them, selfishly, not altruistically. Not to save them. To savor them. Whatever they gave Lucky, he wanted to keep it.

"Listen, if you let me gut you, I promise I won't kill them." He spoke mostly to Marcellus who his spear plunged toward, but to Xov and Juno as well. If they were all so altruistic, maybe they'd all volunteer. "Deal?"

Lucky swung whether Marcellus agreed or not.

[ lucky nachtnebel attacks marcellus ; hunter's spear ]
IgmSuUa9RIspear
[ 3095 -- Deep Gash on Cheek -- 8.5 damage + 1.0 Strength ]

spear

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

A chill runs down her spine.

She wasn't sure if it was from the cold wind that whipped across their faces, the loss of her blood that now stained the ground crimson, or Death standing in the corner, waiting for one (or more) of them to fall.

The white ground is drenched in red like a river beneath their feet, her clothes have so many tears that the bitter air burns the exposed bits of her skin. She makes a mental note to search for new ones if she manages to make it out of this fight alive. There's no telling whose blood is who's as it covers her body and the ground and as she looks at the multiple tributes around her all battered and bruised her guess would probably be right, no matter who she chose.

The creatures waiting for their imminent stalk and attack when the moment is right. She would love to chop off each of their heads, but there are bigger problems at hand. Her ally, barely able to stand, covered in more blood than seemed safe, stood at her side still fighting for their safety. She normally wouldn't care, shouldn't care about anyone but herself, but he was still useful.

For now at least.

So she grips her weapon tighter, forces herself to stand just a bit taller, and blocks out the chittering of the mutts that are only a few feet away, the sound threatening to drive her crazy.

"Why do you care what careers think? They don't win every time," the boy from Twelve remarks

"No, but I would say our chances are pretty damn good," Xylia's eyes flash from his to Gunner's, a cold smile plays on her lips. "Why don't you stick around to find out? Seems like your district partner has a weak stomach," he head nods to the girl who has been insistent on yelling at Lucky. "I have a feeling your allies might be of better use dead than alive. I think we might doing you a favor."

Death waits.

But she would be damned if He was waiting there for her.


( xylia attacks juno ; permafrost glaive )
k9hozVb4RNglaive
( stabbed in calf - 8.5 )

( sd on Marcellus attack )
3-8

glaive·3-8

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

filler im so busy this week im sorry

"Somehow, I feel like that's a load of crap." Marcus found it hard to believe a career named Lucky was one to trust.

[attacks xylia, hunters spear]
v7ZxVKkwGXspear
[miss, accuracy reroll]
spear
[block]spear·spear

[eulalie blake 1a 🍒 tris]

The Crawlers are growing impatient.

In the far off distance, they can hear the telltale sound of flesh being torn into. This makes them chitter and scuttle forward closer to the fray, furious at the fact that no skulls have been split open and no corpses have fallen to the ground for them to claim. It is in their coding to wait for their meals to be given willingly, but they can only stand idly by for so long.

One of them leaps between Xov and Lucky before it can think to hold back. It is so hungry, and by charging into the middle of the tributes, it reminds its kin just how hungry they are, too. The crowd crawls forward, a collection of gaunt bodies approaching ever closer. If your heart wasn't already racing inside your chest, it's banging on the walls of your ribcage now.

Especially as you watch the one standing between Xov and Lucky rise to its feet, the cracking of old bones and a croaking sound leaving its mouth. This is a terrible melody, the kind of thing a person hears before they die. Staring up into its milky eyes, at the long, clawed hand that it pulls back, it's easy to believe that this just might be the end. The Crawler has come to claim its pound of flesh.

  

And just as it swings, you nearly miss the second Crawler that lunges forward, swiping at the second tribute of the pair.

Crawlers attacks!

Xov
0soSfjY9WCknife
8.0

Lucky
knife
block, 0.0

knife·knife