Turbulence // [Day 2 BARFs vs. Sinking Gulper]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

[googlefont="Arya:400"]

	CIRCE LYON
	The moment the turbine net contraption swept her up, she knew it was the end. She didn’t even have the strength, the breath, to scream. She thrust her hand between the diamonds of the net and clung to it as life raft, instead of a trap. It spun round and round, cycling with the turbine. Up, down, all around again. After a few rotations, her stomach lifted in her throat. “I’m going to be sick,” she warned her remaining ally, and vomited in what she hoped was a downward direction. After a few minutes, the landscape became interchangeable with the sky. Her stomach empty, her head spinning, she carefully unhooked her bow. She pressed either end into knots in the net, affording herself a small bubble in the net, the bow pushing the fabric away. She crossed her legs to sit, clutching her messenger bag. “Nat? Tell me you aren’t going to leave. Lie to me, if you have to.” Something whizzed by the net as it turned on the wheel. “And if you shoot me, the last thing I’ll do is fall and squish you.” It took entirely too long for her mind to adjust to the constant movement, but finally, something clicked. She stopped seeing the circle of her trajectory and came to a sort of peace. As much peace as could be found in a solitary home full of holes. To distract herself, she reviewed the contents of her bag. Her stomach twisted as she turned aside the MRE. She counted ten arrows and briefly considered trying to free herself by shooting an arrow at the gathering point. But it was a long way down and her body was already so beaten. She gathered her healing supplies, intending to rebind the wounds on her leg and chest. Instead, she pulled out the red and gold velveteen blanket. It took her a few tries to properly thread the needle, but that was the worst of it. For a time, she worked in complete silence, stitching cloth to cloth. She outlined the length of her body first, a white thread outline of a bloody red crime scene. Next, she sewed in a heart-shaped piece from her own outfit, not unlike the piece she had kissed Jaime with in her training session. She saved Elya’s burnt jacket for last, snipping out a piece and laying it over the left eye of her two dimensional self. When she was done, she wrapped herself in the blanket. It was Gunner’s voice below that finally brought her some small bit of relief. Circe stretched, letting her body elongate against the net. She poked her arms through, extending graceful, unscathed fingers. “Missing these right now?” Eventually the silly taunts stuck in her throat, her fingers rubbed raw from her sewing work. From below, a bounty. Circe began clicking the cap of the Sharpie, keeping a beat just a hair faster than that of her heart. Anything to keep her mind focused, anything to keep from thinking about a burning pyre. It played deep in her eyes, a fiery shadow she could not unsee, could not ignore. No matter how many times she turned the image over in her mind, no matter how many different perspectives she tried, she could only ever see the same thing: Elya Johnwayne given to smoke and ash and sky. Alone in her net, in the dark of the night, Circe sobbed into her shroud. At some point, grief must have carried her into sleep, because she awakened with a jerk as the turbine shuddered. Eyelashes crusted, she looked up to see the gathering point weaken. Circe grabbed her bow at the last second, drawing it to her chest as she fell, flipping over mid-air to land face first in the dirt. “Fuck,” Circe hissed through a waterfall of blood. Distantly she was pleased to see it was bright red, clear of any infection from her multiple wounds. More pressingly, she was aware that this was not going to increase her chances of wooing sponsors. Circe came shakily to her feet, throwing her hair back. “La Torre, I think we’re going to have to forget about stopping to smell the roses.” Strips of duct tape joined from across her nose, down her cheeks, and over her chin. She was more metallic reflection than flesh now. After so many hours in the net, Circe didn’t bother to restrain her wandering hands. They slipped along Gunner’s curves while she worked, hooked around her hips so that Circe’s thumbs rested against familiar hip bones. The tape pressed against her tweaked cartilage, helped to coagulate the blood. “Is this the sexiest voice you’ve ever heard?” She asked, her voice dampened by the blocked passageway. She saw it in Gunner’s eyes, so close to her own. It wasn’t Orion approaching through the wind. It was someone – or something – else. “I’ll take the lead.”
	district 2 female of the 70th Hunger Games

[Circe just lights her arrows on fire but does not attack the Sinking Worm because it is beneath her, metaphorically and literally.]

[анзие (Anz)]

[googlefont="Arya:400"]

	NAT KRIGEL
	Nights, Nat decided the moment he opened his eyes, are harsh. Gunner had shown up at some point the previous evening, leaving Nat with nothing to do as she skilfully took Circe's mind off her predicament with... words that Nat would preferably never like repeated. Ever. It worked, obviously, for Circe; she'd bantered right back and Nat felt a little trapped between two women who knew each other far too well for simply having met a week prior. His weak protests of, "Guys, I'm actually only fifteen, can you not," brought him no peace, and in the end Nat decided wandering from earshot would be the best choice for them all. He settled against an uncomfortable-looking rock, still keeping his allies and the flickering of fire in his sight, determined to ensure they never leave him behind. Exhaustion betrays him, and the next thing he knows he's waking up to the sun, curled into fetal position with one arm tucked under his head and one holding the stupid toy representing his goddamned brother close to his chest. "Cute." A part of him wishes he'd woken to see Elya's face in the sky for one last time - any memory to wipe clean the stink of smoke and the afterimage of firelight burnt into his brain and the fuck with fire being the one thing he thought would do him well at all. The rest of him is glad to have the final image of Elya not as an unearthly glow in the sky, but solid and real and lit up by the lights of those alive around her. Scared yet? Scared shitless. The toy version of his brother gets stuffed deep down in his knapsack under the rest of his stuff, and Nat slings it over one shoulder, his eyes on anywhere but what he imagines to be the eyes of thousands of Panemites. Of Leon. The bandages he'd wrapped around his hurts the day before unravel as he walks, catching wind like shredded wings do. Nat pulls himself back to the camp, limbs numb and heavy from having curled in a tight ball all night. Pins and needles are prickling his toes as he observes the healing of Circe, her face changed by the brutal beating it's taken - but somehow, it doesn't seem like that's the worst hurt she's received since the Bloodbath. Not with the way she looks. "Are you okay?" he says, more because the habit of caring was ingrained in his toddler self than because he actually wants to know. She's not, and the question was stupid even before it formed in his mind, but Nat asks anyway. Because he has to. (He's tired of having to.) "I don't know how many roses you'll find," he says to Circe, fingering the handle of his crossbow. She stands tall, her frame suggesting nothing of pain and everything of delivering the same; but he can't meet her eyes (or Gunner's, for that matter). "The place seems pretty rose-less to me." Pulling a bolt from his quiver free, Nat sticks the tip into the embers from last night's flames, watching with slight interest as it catches fire. That's all good to know. He considers shaking it out, but thinks about the abyss they lost Orion to and thinks, If we're coming after you, we're going to need light. They'll have this, if anything. It's the sound of strangers that turns him around, and Nat raises his loaded crossbow without hesitation because it's been fucked up all this while and he'll be damned if he loses someone else to god. "I can think of other things you'll find, though." Enemies are on the top of that list, and Nat has no intention of losing his only friends here to anything else. I've lost two too many. Fingers tightening on the handle, Nat takes swift aim- "Imagine that it's a gun," his coach said to his twelve-year-old self. Michel watches with wide eyes as the man casually lifts his crossbow and pulls the trigger. The bolt loaded into the weapon whips from its place - in moments, it's buried in his coach's target forty yards from where they stand. Michel's mouth hangs, and he looks at the crossbow with an eagerness that has the man chuckling. His coach pats the weapon before handing it to him. "This arrow isn't going to need height for distance. This one, if you aim right, will drive straight into someone's heart." -and fires. For someone's heart.
	district 4 male of the 70th Hunger Games

// attacks gulper
qY4E3w8Fbow
[Arrow in Thigh -- 6.0 damage]

fire roll
1-50
[+2]

bow�1-50

[L△LIA]

GUNNER LA TORRE it doesn't make me nervous if anything i'm restless i've been around and i've seen it all The night goes down sweet and easy. Only the wind bothers them and Gunner doesn't mind it after the lingering high of her train ride, leaning in when it reaches out to run its wicked hands through her hair. Beneath the turbines, she spends hours restlessly folding cash into paper planes, aiming them at Circe whenever the rushing air takes a slow breath. Up above, the girl from two spins within her net. Round and round. Sick and sleeping and dizzy and always more nervous than she'll admit. "Don't worry, Kitten," Gunner calls out from where she's sprawled out below, "I'll be underneath you all night long." Nat can only groan and cover his ears as Gunner runs her mouth — all along Circe's figurative everything. The truth is, a warm bed is the only kind of comfort she's ever known, so this is what trying sounds like. This is the best she knows how to do. Shamelessly uncensored, she only pauses her aimlessly wandering commentary in order to cheer when one of her planes finally hits the other girl's ass, "Bullseye!" and by then daylight is breaking and the net above comes crashing down. It's been more than once or twice that she's seen men jump from the roofs of six story buildings, their bodies spread thin on the concrete below. She has been both the gun in the back urging them forward and the overseer measuring the splatter distance of their brains across the earth, making certain nothing is left unbroken. Circe's fall isn't as much like that as she thought it would be, although her face is beginning to live up to the memories. Blood streams down her mouth and chin, as if it wants out of her to taste the freedom of the air. Gunner’s already reaching for her duct tape, rolling the girl over and pulling her up to a sitting position before straddling her lap. Tearing a hundred dollar bill in half with her teeth, she wads each piece up and pushes them into Circe's nostrils to help stop the bleeding. “Is this the sexiest voice you’ve ever heard?” The battered girl asks, her wandering hands distracting enough that the next piece of tape goes on crooked. A thrum of laughter echoes in Gunner's lungs and she runs a finger down her silver jaw, leaning in to press her lips to the spot beneath Circe's ear. After hours of yelling sexually explicit comments twenty feet into the air, her own voice sounds as ravaged as the girl her legs are wrapped around. "Second only to mine," she replies as if her mouth is full of gravel and yet still smooth as hell. Refusing to give up her claim on Circe's neck when the other girl's hands are hooked beneath the edge of her shirt, pressing possessive fingerprints into her hip bones, it's all too easy to misconstrue the sound of — “I’ll take the lead.” — for everything she'd rather it mean. "Only if you're taking it from me," the wreck of her voice murmurs before she realizes Circe isn't talking about skin, but a mutt coming for them. Gunner's head drops back with a frustrated sigh and she dumps out the contents of the backpack laying beside them, punching the jar of tar that rolls out. The brass knuckles lacing her fingers shatter the glass. Sticky black coats the metal and she cracks flint against pliers, throwing sparks until her fists are on fucking fire. The night is gone, taking sweet and easy with it. Now the wind rages and Gunner with it.

[folds $87 of paper planes]

[duct tapes $100 up Circe's nose]

[uses tar and flint to light her studded brass knuckles on fire]

[Gunner attacks the gulper with FLAMING FISTS OF DOOM]

lEpTXuRYknife

[Shallow Cut on Left Calf — 3.5 damage]

1-50

[2 damage]

knife�1-50

[Python]

Elwyn–

This place was an endless earthquake. With the train suddenly rattling her underground home it was no wonder she had made the epic journey to burrow all the way to the opposite end. Problem was, there were still noisy contraptions here. Her senses could not pinpoint the source of agitation. It was fainter than what the railroad could cook up, but it disturbed her peace nonetheless. Now, to make matters worse, she was famished from the journey.

Fortunately, she could sense a series of hurried thump thump thumps on the surface. Large prey were sprinting her way. There was no counting how many. It was simply a waiting game now. Sooner or later, one of them would step above her gaping jaws.

It turned out to be sooner.

1 = Circe, 2 = Gunner, 3 = Nat
fLMsIqX91-3
[Circe gets sucked underground]

damage from teeth
knife
Miss


Millison–

The scent of blood awakened her. There were no brethren to lead her, no pack to control the reflexive snapping of her jaws when she smelled food. The past few days she had been feasting on small, unappetizing creatures that left her with a stomach ache beneath the eastern most turbine. It was her favorite one because it was the brightest and the loudest. She had marked it as her own so the other lonely Gulpers wouldn't come sniffinf around her territory for a meal. There was nothing here for them anyway.

Until now.

She snarled when she found them - three bodies, all armed with shiny and bright objects. Two orange objects came flying in her direction. She yelped when one struck her leg; it was hot, burning, she didn't like that feeling. These predators were attacking her legs. No, they could not be the predators. She was the predator, and it was time to eat.

[attacks Nat]
knife
block

1-3�knife�knife

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

[googlefont="Arya:400"]

	CIRCE LYON
	"Think I found something," she hollered to Nat. From the pocket of her messenger bag, she drew out the jar, rolling it into her palm. It was glass and cold and not at all what she wanted to be holding Only if you're taking it from me. Oh, the things she wanted to coax from Gunner La Torre. She smashed the jar on the rain-dappled earth and plunged a set of her arrows into it. While Nat and Gunner attacked the writhing mess of a muttation, Circe licked the feathers of the first arrow and strung it, preparing herself to make the killing shot. She felt only the vaguest trembling before the earth beneath her opened up. She tilted, aiming her flaming arrow for a second at the sky. It was so difficult to move her mouth with all the tape. The grimace came through clearly in her eyes. You have to be fucking kidding me! But she had learned a thing or two from the net. Rather than fighting it, she tucked her knees to chin, drawing her weapon close. She fell, barely touching the not-a-net, until she splashed to halt at the bottom of a... well? The flames from her arrows flickered, illuminating the cavity. It was definitely organic, breathing. She put her long fingertips to it, brushed the slime away. They matched, beat for beat. She snatched her fingers back when they began to burn. Circe found the licked arrow, notched it and aimed at the beating heart of the beast. "Here's to indigestion," she said, and fired.
	district 2 female of the 70th Hunger Games

[Circe attacks Elwyn Little Worm; flaming arrows]

yUtLe3|Ibow
[Shallow Cut on Stomach -- 4.0 damage]

1-50
[+4]

bow�1-50

[анзие (Anz)]

[googlefont="Arya:400"]

	NAT KRIGEL
	The ground rumbles and- "Circe!" -she is the last district two to vanish right before his eyes - not because Nat's going to stop the next horrible thing from happening, or because he really thinks he's got some chance against anything they have here; but her body slips into some oddly placed hole in the ground that's... that's rising before his very eyes holy fucking shit what the fuck is that? Nat gives a yell and stumbles back, right out of the jaws of that whatever-the-fuck he stuck an arrow in just ten seconds earlier. A part of him feels like he should be thankful, because that thing's mouth is full of wicked teeth and wow he could have lost a limb there. "What the fuck!" he yells at Gunner, like she should be able to answer for every stupid thing the Gamemakers throw at them. Like before, the thought was as stupid as the time it was formed. He needs to watch his mouth. Fumbling with a crossbow for the first time since he learned its tricks, Nat struggles to get a bolt into place. Whatever-it-was that they'd made angry bounds towards them like some screwed up puppy, and Nat makes a dive away from its gaping maw. What the fuck, oh god - the running commentary in his head could very well be named after that one recurring sentence, like it was a really bad joke between his brain and whoever his brain has a tendency of talking to. Himself, probably.  Funny, ha-ha, but irony doesn't change the fact that they were being attacked by a very hungry and unfriendly dog, that Circe Lyon was trapped in a bobbing phallus-shaped thing and he's really going to have to talk to Gunner about keeping the remainder of his innocence intact.  "Circe, oh god, Circe-" Breathe, Krigel, damn it. Breathe. His trembling hands click the bolt into place, and Nat aims for the not-dog with sharp breaths in his lungs. There's a light snap of his bow's string, followed by the swish of his bolt, and Nat grins like an adrenaline junkie all over his face. Just die, you lil' creep.
	district 4 male of the 70th Hunger Games

// attacks Millison
pax0TYF5bow
4197 -- Arrow in Forearm -- 5.5 damage

fire roll
1-50
+2

bow�1-50

[L△LIA]

GUNNER LA TORRE don't make a thing about the bad kind the bad kind don't even know all the hearts they're messing with Fists aflame, Gunner is laughing as she swings her hellfire knuckles at the creature unfortunate enough to try fitting its jaws around a living explosive. The timebomb tick of her raging pulse counts down a warning and those hands — those hands are genocide, are a one woman firing squad, are a bad acid trip ending in gouged out eyes and lungs choking on their own sick. Pray for death. Gunner La Torre is not a memory that can be lived with. Too fast to strike, she's fifteen feet out of range when the second mutt bursts up from the earth, swallowing Circe whole. Soil and chunks of concrete fly up into the air and at first she thinks that maybe she's not the only thing in this Arena built to explode. There's no blood raining down upon them — no mess of scattered entrails — and so her instincts tell her this isn't death. This is a girl who knows murder too well to be mistaken. "Oh, fuck no you didn't —" Pissed. Gunner La Torre is pissed off and if this brainless minion of idiocy thinks she won't hack it open from navel to spit dripping jaw to get back what's hers, then it's about to learn the hard way. This is no different than every other time she's ever brought a man three times her size to his knees. "— what kind of sly little bitch do we have here?" Men and beasts both beg for their mothers with their last breaths... unless they're screaming too much to get the words out.

[Gunner attacks the sinking worm with FLAMING FISTS OF DOOM]

gPDfyCnEknife

[Shallow Cut on Back of Head — 4.5 damage]

1-50

[Extinguished]

knife�1-50

[Python]

Elwyn–

She burst from the ground, exposing herself to the open air for an uncomfortable five seconds. Some sort of clothed creature was in her path. She could taste what it was wearing and it was rather unpleasant, but easily digestible. Whatever it was, she swallowed it and pulled it underground, but missed her opportunity to bite into its flesh and taste its blood. It somehow bypassed her jaws and was now resting in her stomach. It was time to wait.

Then something stabbed her in the belly and she writhed. The prey was fighting back?

Unacceptable.

[+5 on Circe]

Rest in peace Millison the Gulper

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

[googlefont="Arya:400"]

	CIRCE LYON
	Muffled voices reverberated through the quivering flesh. She took comfort from the different pitches, convinced herself that her allies were still alive. One of her arrows had lodged into the beast's organs, either its stomach or intestines by the tang that settled on the back of her tongue. Luckily, she could neither smell nor taste anything distinct through the $100 bills stuffed up her nose. Circe notched another arrow as the belly of the beast sloshed. The acid splashed against her boots, dappled her exposed wrists and hands. "Yeah, yeah, I'm hungry too," she said, feeling the growling of her stomach reaching a crescendo to match the mutt's. "I don't expect my MRE to talk back quite as much." The flaming tip of the arrow flickered. She searched for a second for the heart - wondered if the beastie even had a heart - and then realized she was thinking all wrong. She had to escape before the acid and flesh collapsed around her. So she aimed up, to give herself a hand hold. She smirked, and fired.
	district 2 female of the 70th Hunger Games

[Circe attacks Elwyn Little Worm; flaming arrows]

7UQ_xYIgbow
[Arrow in Neck -- 7.0 damage]

1-50
[+2]

bow�1-50

[анзие (Anz)]

[googlefont="Arya:400"]

	NAT KRIGEL
	The thing with the teeth collapsed, dead, when his bolt strikes. Nat lowers his crossbow, feeling slightly giddy with the adrenaline coursing through his veins and the remnants of his fear burying deep into his being. Exhaling a shuddering breath, Nat turns, and the ground trembles and rocks beneath his feet. The other thing with the teeth was still alive and metaphorically kicking. Nat catches himself with a stumble and one hand on the traitorous floor; the worm, if it can even be called that, writhes - taking the ground with it - like something is hurting it. Circe, Nat realizes belatedly; she must still be in the thing. God. It's both a disgusting and terrifying thought, being trapped in one of those things.  We'll get you out.  He won't lose another fighter from two. Load. Lock. Aim. "Get back!" he yells at Gunner. Thwap.
	district 4 male of the 70th Hunger Games

// attacks Elwyn the Sinking Worm
AdubLaBsbow
4034 -- Arrow in Bicep -- 6.0 damage

1-50
+4 (44 originally)

bow�1-50

[L△LIA]

GUNNER LA TORRE back home where i come from we keep being born again and again and then again and again that's why they invented karma In the end, the only monster left is the one punching her bladed brass fists into the belly of the sinking worm. Thanks to Nat — much to Gunner’s surprise and approval — the only heartbeat left within the creature is Circe’s and that’s nearly remedied. His arrows struck the killing blows for both of their attackers and she might have cheered for the accomplishment if she weren’t hacking into dead flesh, elbow deep in slime and gore, yelling as she digs the other girl out: “Goddamnit, Kitten! It’s a good thing that jacked up face of yours is still too pretty to waste or you’d be S.O.L.! Fucking giant worm —" Eventually the yelling turns to a solid slur of nonstop cursing, then finally chagrined muttering. “I’ve got at least seventy-two things I’d rather be doing right now and only one of them is you, Kitten…” But she doesn’t stop or pause or slow her pace, tearing through layers of things better left undefined until the excavation of blood reaches the stomach. It’s stretched out raw beneath her hands as she eases back on the force of her swings so she won’t add to Circe’s injuries by mistake. Turbines whir with the hum of all things unconcerned and Nat leaves Gunner to her one woman horror show, but the moment of freedom comes. “I don’t usually have to put this much work into getting a girl.” The massacred carcass is peeled away and there’s Circe, exactly as alive as Gunner’s instincts promised. “But if you were too easy, you’d be dead.” Head to toe, the two girls are leather and guts standing in the middle of unspeakable carnage, yet Gunner remains as unfazed as ever. Her grin is painted sticky red, Circe is dripping with stomach acid, and still one leans into the other. Fingers push sopping locks behind a duct tape armored ear and it's as if the gore means nothing. It doesn't. Maybe that's why Gunner kisses her despite it all, murmuring against her broken mouth. “You can be easy about thanking me later." Then again, she's always been a dirty girl.

[uses first aid on Circe for -3]

[collects meat from Gulper]

[Baby Wessex d9b [earthling]]

[googlefont="Arya:400"]

	CIRCE LYON
	HEY MONET! QUICK LOOK OVER THERE! **** filler **** Sloppy gut juice kisses, "I'll be there, mmhmm." Making awkward eyes at Nat because she can't not not, after that. When she comes up for air, "Water. Orion. Food. In that order. I think we can salvage the net I was in." Walks off with her chin up, arms outstretched, catching raindrops. God is in the rain.
	district 2 female of the 70th Hunger Games

[Circe flees, accepting all F/A given, and using F/A - 3 and N/T - 5 on herself.
She takes a little piece of the gulper's stomach lining.
Maybe also some Gulper meat?]

[анзие (Anz)]

[googlefont="Arya:400"]

	NAT KRIGEL
	pshhh who needs to filler nowadays not me "That's gross," re: worm guts. I really wish Orion were here. "Where are we going to get water? There's nothing for miles." And catching the rain wouldn't help, Nat thinks - he squints up at the sky, feeling the drops hit his skin. "You think this will last long enough for us to fill anything?"
	district 4 male of the 70th Hunger Games

Nat Krigel uses FA on Circe
-- collects 3 bundles of med plants
-- awkwardly looks away while Circe and Gunner do the thing
-- flees the fight