The Bloodbath

[Arrows]

Jan 18, 2020 19:28:59 GMT -5 Arrows said:

[helena crane / attack 2 / 1113]

[helena crane / attack 3 / 1106]

helena crane

The moment he says it, speaks those words into existence out of the unknown, Helena feels herself fill with ice. There is more of an impact in those words than that of the sword which brings her another inch closer to the after. Like the bombs they would use, her brother flashes in fragments in her mind. One moment running beneath hailing steel filled with the fury of those in resistance. Another time sitting within her arms as he battles back against another night of terrors in his sleep. It takes only a second, only a single sentence of words to trigger the bombshell that is her brother's memory.

She see's it in this boy now, the look becomes all the more familiar. He was a soldier, and he's still filled with the pride of it somehow. Doesn't he see what it's cost? What good his rebellion was? Somehow it sends shivers down Helena's spine and distracts her from the growing darkness within her vision. She won't die from another human hungry for war. A laugh she isn't even sure she's heard before hurtles from her lips.

"Bite?"

Helena speaks coldly as blood begins to drip down her forehead through her forest of brown hair. 

"Your bite is what got us all here."

A mixture of blood and saliva spits free from the sixteen year old's lips as she prepares to make her next move. She isn't dead yet, she can still free more souls from monstrous prisons like his.  But before she moves, another does. A shadow she can only barely spot through the blood now starting to build around her eyes. However. even if she doesn't know him, the sound his sword makes is undeniably dangerous.

After a moment of rubbing away the scarlet staining her eyes, Helena sees. Notices the boy she saw earlier across the field, above the dead girl. Her hands quake, but her spirit doesn't. He's another fight, for now she can't handle anything other than the boy with the same spirit as her brother. However, if it's truly the same. It's the spirit that got him killed too.

"Good, I believe your soul will be better off free from here."

Helena attacks Tarquin / sword
tpMcrk6PVlsword
{Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage}

sword

[gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕]

Jan 18, 2020 15:16:08 GMT -5 gamemaker sloane ♕ kaяi ♕ said:

( harley d4f | attack 2 | 1128 )

Not only was the world spinning around me.

But now so is my head.

There are too many noises, too many sounds. Every where I turn there was someone dying, blood spilling on the ground, and limbs scattered around us. War was not shocking to me, it was family. But this, this is not war. This is children who want to somehow survive. This is children with weapons. There is no cause. There is no meaning, it is just death.

Death. That's who was here.

And he is everywhere you turn.

He isn't the only person here who I recognized.

Kol stands in front of me. Skinny limbs, dark hair, and all. He is there to taunt me, to make sure I die just as he planned all along. I swing my sword, but it barely scrapes against his skin. It's as if my body wants me to kill him, to make him suffer, but my mind is stopping me.

And then he speaks.

The boy's voice is not nearly as deep and is softer, almost like a whisper. The real Kol was loud and obnoxious, not like this one. This one, this one seemed sincere.

Something I haven't heard in a long time.

"I know what that's like. Realizing the one person you hope count on doesn't see you as a priority. When you need them most, you knock on their door and they don't seem to answer."

I tensed as he walked closer, but managed to force myself to relax once he put his weapon down. I did my best to hold back the tears, a Sinclair does not cry, but no one has talked to me like this in a very very long time.

"For days and days they don't answered," I muttered to myself. Finally after a brief pause, I look up at the boy, at Not Kol and do not break his gaze. "But it makes us stronger, to know we can only truly ever count on ourselves." He seems to know pain, he seems to know heartache. Maybe he needed to say this out loud just as much as I needed to hear it.

"There's no such thing as a fair share of types of toxic, self-serving men. Fuck them,"

"Ya know what, fuck them." And for the first time since I've been here a small smile finds its way onto my lips, but it is quickly wiped away as the girl being attacked begs for help. I look at her and then back to Not Kol, and then finally I look away. "I...I'm sorry," I say as I turn around and walk away.

If only Father could see me.

Would he be disappointed, or would he be proud?

I guess I will never actually know.

My sword leaves a trail in the sand as I drag it by my side. I stand in the center of it all, a fight raging on every side of me. My arms already feel weak, but my mind feels worse. It will not stop racing, no matter how hard I try to focus. All at the same time my eyes are still searching the crowd, hoping that maybe, just maybe, I would catch a glimpse of him. I searched and searched.

Even though I know how fruitless my efforts will be.

I force myself to focus on the fighting at handing, reminding myself that he forgot about me, so I should forget about him as well. There were small clusters every where I looked, but the one that truly caught my eye was the boy and girl I left before. She was still there, suffering as every last drop of blood drained from her body and the boy stood over her, taunting her as she died.

The fire within me that was about to die began to burn again.

A new found strength surges through my body as I walk over to where they stand. A strength that is so great I'm not sure if I am capable of handling. I push my hand into the boy's chest, even though I know I do not have the strength to knock him down.

"Do you not know mercy? Or do you thrive off other's suffering?" I turn to the girl as her skin grows pale, and as her breaths grow shallow. "I hope faith finds you. Wherever you may end up next." I raise my sword over my head, prepared to end the suffering. And I swing.

Turning back towards the boy as I do.

I face the other, the one who seems to have joined while I was gone. "I'll leave the rest to you." I stalk off again, disappearing into the fray of the others.

Not Kol was right.

Fuck them.

( harley attacks ; tarquin athenian 6m with sword )
azLJs56vtEsword
( result )

sword

[L△LIA]

Jan 18, 2020 13:23:05 GMT -5 L△LIA said:

[ D6F Maeve Idlewild | Post 1 | No Attack ]

[ D6F Maeve Idlewild | Post 2 | No Attack ]

MAEVE. CAN YOU HEAR MY HEART beating like a hammer Someone once told Maeve how if she ever found herself in a hostage situation — or any similar type of potential harm — that she should tell the person threatening her as much personal information as quickly as possible in order to humanize herself and decrease the odds that she might be injured or killed. It's one of those things that feels like it's probably just an urban legend, but it gets tucked away into memory anyhow. Just in case. Maybe someone even cracks a joke about the very idea of it and maybe that person was her. It probably was. The weight of her boots alone is enough to make it difficult to run, but Maeve's adrenaline attempts to compensate as best it can. Waiting to see what that boy did next wasn't a risk that felt worth taking, not when sprinting in the exact opposite direction of any given person felt like such a better option. Every other breath is spliced with half-yells of anguish as her body attempts to forcibly evacuate her panic. The simple agony of dread already feels so overwhelming that the inevitable blades that will soon hack her to pieces must be an impossible kind of pain. It's the stuff of fiction, like ideas about eternal damnation or when people talk about the worst ways to die, despite obviously never having experienced death before. How do they know? The don't. That's also what her memory of being told to humanize herself feels like — a big theory about something unknowable. Being able to force herself into someone's sympathy doesn't sound like something that can be done in a few sentences and yet that boy didn't attack her. Maybe he wouldn't have either way. She'll never know, but apparently the trying didn't hurt. There is blood staining the sand beneath her feet, but thus far none of it is hers. A bigger problem, perhaps, is how there's nowhere to hide. She can continue to run all she wants, but she can't actually run away from anything. She can only run towards something else. Lungs heaving, she grunts with the effort of holding her sword up and turns a little to the left in order to avoid some kind of fight happening ahead. A body falls and Maeve tries not to look, but that doesn't stop her from crying to the point that she begins hiccuping. It's not until her distracted momentum is almost irreversibly set to collide with another tribute attempting to escape a scuffle that Maeve notices the figure in her blurry vision and tries to twist her course to away once more. This time the motion digs one of her boots into the sand, causing her arms to flail all around as she makes an effort to regain balance. The sword careens around like a flock of wild birds, steel wings flashing and fluttering in the sunlight. "AHHHHH—" hiccup! "—HHHHHH!" She screams, any intimidation in the sound undermined by the cracking of her voice. "My!" Gasp! "Name!" Gasp! "Is!" Gasp! "Maeve Idlewild!" She yells again, breathless between the syllables and swaying dizzily on her feet as she attempts to hold the sword up between them. It trembles, only serving to emphasize the quaking of her small hands. "My tenth birthday cake was shaped like a rainbow caticorn! A caticorn is a hybrid of a cat and a unicorn and it's my favorite animal! It should probably be everyone's favorite animal because it's a hybrid of a cat and a unicorn! Obviously!" Her grip on the sword falters and it slices through the air dangerously close to her own leg. "My eleventh birthday I didn't have a cake because it was cooling in the kitchen window after my dads baked it and a squirrel got into it! At first I was really sad, but then my sister Roux smeared colored frosting all over her face and invented the Happy Happy Cake Dance! to cheer me up and now every year she and my dads still put frosting on their faces for our birthday and dance around me singing Happyyyyy!" It's difficult to yell-sing through her stress and terror, but she does her best and only hiccups a few times. "Happyyyyy!" With the drawn out words she sways slightly before doing a little hop! and turning in a wobbly circle as quickly as she can. "Woah-oh! Happy happy caaaaake daaaaay, Maeeeee-Maeeeee! You're! My!" The sword slips free from her grasp as she tries to mime some kind of patty-cake style motions and she takes the moment to form a heart with her fingers, bouncing it back and forth, before she picks the sword back up and tries to hold onto it a little better for the rest of the childish dance. "Happy happy caaaaake, baaaaabe!" Tears flooding her cheeks, she can't help squeezing her eyes shut by the end in an attempt to hold herself together enough to finish. The memories claw at her heart as she thinks about her family jumping in a circle all around her with their frosting-faces and her dads sporadically reaching out to tickle her sides as if there were any possibility that she might not be laughing enough from everything else. "Happy!" Clap! "Happy!" Clap! "Mae!" Clap! "Mae!" Clap! The song ends and all she can do is keen, wrapping her free arm around herself and pretending it's one of the group hug grand finales in her memory. "Roux is —" Her voice is too strained to yell, but she's too far in her own thoughts to remember that yelling the information is possibly important right now. "— my twin sister. So we have the same birthday," hiccup! "but the Happy Happy Cake Dance! is still always just for..." Hyperventilating, she scrubs her knuckles against the mottled pink flush coloring her cheeks. "...me."

ROUX. HEARING THAT SONG i'm brought to my knees Maeve's frantic running becomes a kind of emotional break for her family. Having successfully forced her will through the television screen and into her sister's thoughts, Roux is calmed enough by her sister choosing flight over fight that she stops screaming and even manages to loosen her iron grip on the cat before it has to turn on her for the sake of its own survival. A couple minutes of Abiram quietly running his fingers through Mordecai's hair is enough to soothe his husband's sudden outburst and soon he's reaching a shaking hand out for his tea, focusing on things one sip at a time. It doesn't take long for Maeve's survival strategy to become apparent as she dodges and weaves away from as many of the other tributes as possible before a misstep brings her face-to-face with one of the kids from District Five. The name Samiyuq Hernández flashes across the bottom of the screen and Abiram nearly drops his mug on the floor trying to exchange his tea for a hand to hold. It's only been a few minutes since the first tribute to fall, Iris Oak, died after a boy's sword carved its blade into her chest. Other children have lost limbs and more than a little blood while Maeve ran from it all. While it was horrible not to see her face on screen, they all knew that the cameras avoiding her meant the action was avoiding her too. It was for the best. It was for the — There is blood staining the sand beneath her feet, but thus far none of it is hers. Maybe it's Samiyuq's, they don't know; that's not something the Idlewild family has the capacity to care about right now. She's screaming and hiccuping and flailing with her full body after pulling up short and nearly losing her balance. The sword careens around like a flock of wild birds, steel wings flashing and fluttering in the sunlight. "AHHHHH—" hiccup! "—HHHHHH! My!" Gasp! "Name!" Gasp! "Is!" Gasp! "Maeve Idlewild!" The cat makes a break for it before Roux can tighten her grip again, her breathing speeding up as the camera continues to linger on her sister's face. "My tenth birthday cake was shaped like a rainbow caticorn! A caticorn is a hybrid of a cat and a unicorn and it's my favorite animal! It should probably be everyone's favorite animal because it's a hybrid of a cat and a unicorn! Obviously!" Her grip on the sword falters and it slices through the air dangerously close to her own leg. "My eleventh birthday I didn't have a cake because it was cooling in the kitchen window after my dads baked it and a squirrel got into it! At first I was really sad, but then my sister Roux smeared colored frosting all over her face and invented the Happy Happy Cake Dance! to cheer me up and now every year she and my dads still put frosting on their faces for our birthday and dance around me singing Happyyyyy!" Roux, Abiram, and Mordecai take such an audible breath all in the same moment that Holland can't help but turn to see if something has gone wrong somewhere other than the television screen. All three of their faces are the strangest mix of anguish and sudden mirth, quiet tears sneaking their way down Mordecai's scruffy cheeks as the corners of his mouth fight themselves to go upward and downward at the same time. A delirious wisp of a giggle slips out of Abiram as Maeve bursts into a best effort half-song. "Happyyyyy," he can't help but to join in under his breath with his daughter, "woah-oh. Happy happy caaaaake daaaaay, Maeeeee-Maeeeee." Soon enough all three of them are quietly whispering along, crying and holding each other's quaking hands. "You're my —" Roux releases her dad's hand to mime patty cake with her sister on screen, their hands perfectly mirrored to touch palms even from this distance. It's all Holland can do not to gawk as all three of them hold their hands up in the shape of a heart at the exact same time, bouncing back and forth just enough for their shoulders to go bump! bump! bump! "— happy happy caaaaake, baaaaabe." Turning away, Holland tries to focus on Maeve, but her performance doesn't feel any less private than the rest of her family's. She shouldn't be witnessing any of this. No one should. "Happy." Everyone halfheartedly claps in unison. "Happy." Clap. "Mae." Clap. "Mae." Clap. No one actually sounds very happy. Roux bursts into ugly, heaving sobs as she collapses into herself, head dropped to her knees. Immediately pulling her to them, her dads wrap their daughter up in the biggest hug they can manage while trying so hard not to fall apart. "Roux is," Maeve's fragile voice haunts the room, "my twin sister. So we have the same birthday, but the Happy Happy Cake Dance! is still always just for..." From the center of the hug, Roux's broken voice answers: "You."

help i'm alive metric | now or never now metric



[ Maeve yells personal information at Samiyuq; does a cheesy birthday song/dance; sobs ]

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

Jan 18, 2020 14:57:35 GMT -5 gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin. said:

axel moreau | attacks avonlea | 1021

axel moreau | attacks avonlea | 1163

A X E L      M O R E A U

The girl loses her arm and my sword glances aginst her hip, fresh red blood staining her jumpsuit there, but it doesn't seem to slow her down. I can't understand it, have never been able to understand those soldiers who seem like they will never be stopped.

Until they're dead, that is, and I'm betting this girl will be.

She swings out at me, and it's easy enough to sidestep out of the way, but I can't help but wonder how much of it is because of my own skill and how much of it is the shock of pain all over her body making her clumsy. I have to hope that it's some combination of both.

It was rebels who killed my mother, the boy shouts, and just for a second, I have to wonder.

Was it me?

The question makes me stop for a second, for just half a breath. Did I kill this boy's parent? I think about my own mother, who I spent my entire life taking care of until a Peacekeeper made sure that I would never have to again. For half a second, I see myself standing at the stove, a fresh welt on my arm from where I ran into the pan just the wrong way, some eggs frying in front of me as I make sure not to cry out in pain. I see my mother sitting on the couch, playing with her fingers, counting the pieces of wood in the table in front of her. One, two, three, four, five, I hear in the back of my head, and it distracts me enough from being able to properly protect the boy that has somehow come to my defense.

"Don't fucking touch him," I snarl. I am trembling now, in pain and in anger. I am not on this boy's side, but I understand war, understand that for every time I killed five Peacekeepers, I may have just killed five innocents. I justified it at the time, told myself that if they didn't die now, then the Keepers would kill them slowly over the next ten, twenty, hundred years, but it never changed the fact of the matter. I killed innocents. The girl is feral, too, spits at me about how she likes her odds, likes being the underdog, but she doesn't understand that I spent five years fighting as an underdog; it's not all it's cracked up to be. "You're fucking wrong anyway," I spit, looking her up and down. I strike out with my sword, do everything I can to make sure it lands. "The rebellion was no innocent angel. For as many as they saved, the failed to save just as many." I swallow, burning anger and blood thick in my throat. "And all they did was get us here."

CANARY IN THE MINES

axel attacks avonlea, sword

BhzjYeT5Busword

1163 - sc on stomach - 4.0

sword

[tick 12a / calla]

Jan 18, 2020 16:52:16 GMT -5 tick 12a / calla said:

d12m jett davies | attack 3 | 1001

d12m jett davies | attack 4 | 5093

j e t t

I gasp. I can’t help it. The girl's blade comes down and I choke on a cry, the sword falling from my hand as I reach to try to staunch the bleeding, bent over and cradling my forearm.

When I was seven, Joah and I would run through the house because it had gotten too dangerous for us to play in the Seam. He chased me down the stairs one day, making up our own version of war, and I remember turning a corner, overshooting the angle and wiping out, hitting my head on the corner of our low table. It cut into my temple and bled so much, stained the new carpet, that Joah was convinced I was going to die before Mom and Dad even got home.

He had tried to patch me up, held an old dishcloth to my head and told me not to tell them, but I just kept on crying. Which made him start crying.

I think he was more scared than I was.

That's why I can't be scared, here, in this place. I can't. He shouldn't have to worry anymore. It'll just make him stupider.

I wipe the salt from my eyes and grit my teeth, the red on my hands transferring over and sticking to my eyelashes when I blink.

Homemade bombs, I hear the girl say. Bombs. And it rattles in my skull, reverberates against my bones and makes them rattle.

"You make the bombs." I whisper to the ground, something deadly in the quiet, and it isn't a question. There are a dozen different screams in my head, from my parents and from the miners and the keepers, from everyone caught in the explosion that day.

I can feel the blood drip into my mouth when I grin, taste the grooves of it on my teeth as I look back up at her.

The boy from before is talking but I can't understand him, can't even hear him over the grating noise in my head. My sword, still on the ground, is suddenly the last thing on my mind, "Trust me, I know exactly what I'm doing."

jett attacks avonlea ; unarmed
YwveNA7wLXunarmed

bruised right collar bone -- 2 damage

unarmed

[lance]

Jan 18, 2020 19:50:00 GMT -5 lance said:

Jan 18, 2020 16:48:25 GMT -5 lance said:

ajax craine | attack three | 1165

ajax craine | attack four | 1133

ajax craine | attack five | 1040

You've never felt so alive.

The rebel scum gets his comeuppance, as you finally land a good hit by tearing his back open with your blade. Attack from the back responded in kind, a debt picked up and paid - and as the girl and another strike in succession like moths to a flame, the rebel boy crumples.

Two.

You grin, eyes flitting from one girl to the next, a witty quote on the tip of your tongue - but before a single word can drop, an icy finger draws itself across the back of your head. Surprise causes you to lurch forward, spinning around as your free hand instinctively rises to probe at the wound.

You spot the taller boy who decided to resort to a coward's tactic to strike you down the same second your fingers come away red with your own blood. Shock, anger, the tiniest spark of fear all cross through your system - but the manic joy retains its iron grip.

You look the boy up and down. Big, bigger than you by a good few inches, the same look on his face that you've seen twice now on the scum who fell before you. A soldier, and one closer to a man than a boy if you were to hazard a guess.

No matter. The ecstasy flowing through your veins will not be halted. The battle rush will not be overcome. And if the vermin want to make it easy on you, come to you instead of you seeking them out, then you will not complain in the slightest.

"Funny, I thought rats ran away from a fire instead of towards it," you say, a wolf's grin across your face, before you shrug. It doesn't matter either way to you, not really.

"Guess you learn something new every day!"

Your blade, red with the blood of two fallen rebel scum, sings through the air towards the giant.

ajax attacks era; sword

OE4GYE7P90sword

1040 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage

sword

[✨ zozo.]

Jan 18, 2020 15:44:23 GMT -5 ✨ zozo. said:

aisha aquino | post 3

aisha aquino | post 4 | 1160

AISHA -

"Usted vaya, voy a halar con elle."

"Vale," Aisha nods. "No mueras aquí."

Even with the ravenous ache in her abdomen and blood pooling down her leg and the throbbing in her wrists from the weight of her sword Aisha feels okay. She's got back-up, at least for now - and with all the dust and screaming and bloodshed she almost feels at home. She's been thriving under pressure for years now, quick-thinking and sharp. If only she had a gun - but that was a useless thought she shakes out of her body, shivers dancing through her bones.

"Together," responds the girl. Aisha nods. "Together."

Amigos, comrades, they dart in two different directions. Aisha holds her sword in her strong hand and points with the weaker, creeping to the back of the sand-and-marble stage away from the clusters of tributes. A smaller girl stands with her back turned to the two and a sword as big as she in her hands - rule one, never turn your back to the enemy. Aisha's arrogant in that moment, desperate in the next, "This girl?" she tries, that sounded correct. "Esta niña" for good measure.

Digging up dirt and blowing soap bubbles, shovel as heavy as the sword now resting in her hands. Aisha knows what it means to strike a child as young as this down, knows that for every girl like this one there's a version of Aisha who will have to bury her. Rebels killing traitors, traitors killing rebels, two years of this pageant but they've been kids killing kids since she was nine years old.

Memories can't stop her from stepping forward on the rush of adrenaline, trained to strike when the time is right - it's ingrained in her. Plan it out, wait for a moment, take it. Hurrying closer and closer on her toes, timing her steps with the cries of other children around her, she motions for her temporary friend to follow.

Closer and closer and closer, she holds her breath until it's time to strike - exhaling low, quietly, carefully with her swing.

But someone in the distance screams and Aisha flinches, swaying as she tries to bury the laugh of the little girl in the ground like she did her dead body.

- AQUINO.

aisha attacks persephone, sword
7o6ZyFsMYdsword
miss

sword

[revel latimer, 11b 🔍 jay]

Jan 18, 2020 15:51:21 GMT -5 revel latimer, 11b 🔍 jay said:

d9f dahlia wolfsbane | attack 2 | 1008

d9f dahlia wolfsbane | attack 3 | 1010

     

dahlia ♔  wolfsbane

district      nine        female

This arena was her own personal garden of bones and death had already courted one soul. The once golden sand was now stained red. "Why do you want to win? There is no winning here." Her assailant had spoke to her but she was not interested in her words. Dusk has set on this girl's sun and death was her blade.

"That's where you're wrong—there is always victory." The rebel and the teary-eyed boy talk behind them and it seems Dahlia's previous efforts had failed her. "Were all here for a reason? Yeah? Here we are spilling blood for fun." The girl's sword gleams in her hand and Dahlia ever so slightly shifts away from her.

"If only I was a “capitol dog.” Then maybe I wouldn’t be in this situation? Fine, my name is Aurora, I guess I'll put you in your grave.” Dahlia does not stop her tears, letting them flow down her face and amplified the sounds of her sobs for everyone to hear. But Dahlia's time is not now and she struggles to not break into a smile through the chaos.

---

She turn's toward the rebel and the boy and the rebel has gone, fled from injustices - a true rebel. When she looks the boy in the eyes it's not longer pain she sees—but a scorching rage. His sword is a blur in the torrid air and when it connects all she can see is the light. It feels as though her arm had been ignited and after the lights fade she see's crimson.

She can feel death inching closer, but she shoos him away. This is not her time - this cannot be her final act. She can barely find her voice through the pain, but she lets out a guttural scream like a monster who'd crawled out of the pits of hell itself.

[  attacks aurora delphine d5f  ]

g361bw1lRWsword

[  severed calf -- 9.0  ]

sword

[pearl mcclain d4 [ryan]]

Jan 18, 2020 16:28:30 GMT -5 pearl mcclain d4 [ryan] said:

[Aurora Delphine D5F| Attack 2| 1142]

[Aurora Delphine D5F| Attack 3| 1042]

Things just didn’t add up here.

Not to Aurora Delphine at the very least. The boy before them made it very clear that he was not going to go down without a fight, just like the girl was, and same as herself. If she was going to die here, she was going to give them a show.

And boy, she would be dazzling.

She never thought she would be bloodthirsty in her life, but here she was, a taste of copper already in her mouth, dealing blows that she knew she didn’t need to deal. She could have walked away from all of this, but her pride would have gotten in the way of that. She knew that much about herself. She was her fathers daughter after all, and that part plagued her even in this arena, or whatever the fuck someone wanted to call it. The boy called it the devils playground, but Aurora couldn’t share that sentiment, this place was worse then that. No one had fun here, not even the devil.

This place just plain sucked.

Her finger was on the trigger now, a hand swiped clean off the girl in front of her. It was her chance to take another strike, but she had been too distracted by the words she had muttered. ”victory” seemed to play over and over in her mind as she tried to rack any sense of it. She did not agree. Not one bit. This place carried nothing good with it, and even if one of them got out of here, it would probably plague them after as well.

”Even if you “win” its probably going to haunt all of-” before she could even finish, the world fell around her. She didn’t even have a moment to finish her words before she felt a searing pain below her torso. Her leg had been taken clean off at the knee, and she screamed for a solid minute. It was ear piercing, but the pain was even worse. ”What…” she wheezed out. ”… THE FUCK.” she screamed at the girl above her now. 

”I…” she couldn’t bare the pain, but she was quick on her feet. Grabbing the part of her leg that had been taken off her body and pulling the cloth that was wrapped around it. She had read in a book somewhere that if you wrapped a wound quick enough, you could stop the bleeding.

She wasn’t sure if that was true, but she would at least try it.

The pain was still there. But she looked up at her assailant after. 

”Well, if you are going to kill me, then you better make my death mean something.” she spoke like it meant something here. It didn’t. None of their deaths would mean anything at the end of the day.

They were the examples.

But she was going to back down from a fight, so she picked up the sword and swung from the ground.

She was still going to hold onto hope.

Aurora Delphine D5F attacks Dahlia Wolfsbane D9F | Sword
qZE4AaZkdSsword
[1042 -- Shallow Cut on Right Hip -- 3.5 damage
(Sword)]

sword

[marguerite harvard d2a (zori)]

Jan 18, 2020 16:31:08 GMT -5 marguerite harvard d2a (zori) said:

[antigone boyé | post 3| ----]

[antigone boyé | attack 2| ----]

act i. scene ii.


(exterior – a girl’s body hits the ground in a mess of sand and blood. another boy slips into the earth. more voices and shouting, more clangs of swords and slices through flesh)

(samiyuq watches aisha, and antigone holds. she idles with a blade in her hands, focused on the way the two look at one another. maeve breaks through the sound in a burst of sound, speaking of birthdays, and her humanity is on full display. antigone feels the hair on her neck rise; she sees that their fragile trio seems to fracture before it began.)

(samiyuq). usted vaya, voy a halar con elle.

(aisha.) vale. no mueras aquí.

choragus. a soldier knows not to say goodbye. there will be many moments when the world shifts out from underneath her feet but to say goodbye was to be final, to never be seen again. a part of antigone believes that she will see zir again, however brief. antigone watches the sand scatter and wishes she could’ve felt more in that moment – that this little gossamer thread held on longer – but she’s too removed from it now.

chorus. numb to fear, and hardened against finding either of them true comrads, she gives a nod. this is the soldier’s duty, to care for another that joins the ranks, but not to weep at their loss. this is how she would break, to let herself open. she is terrified that if she does, they might not find anything left inside.

antigone. (quiet) rete an sekirite.

choragus. others will be counting the number of bodies that fall but antigone – she moves to scan the arena and take in the scuffles unfolding. the girls that have lost their hands and legs, blood spurting out on the sand as though they’re welcoming fresh hell and death. a boy that takes on another for country, against rebel, against whatever godforsaken lies they’ve been told. she is glad she doesn’t believe in any of it anymore. it was a lot easier to live once she’d made up her mind that the only truth she needed to believe was her own.

(aisha). together.

chorus. she reminds antigone of home – the one that she’d left behind. maybe it’s that she sees herself in someone so young, so ready and eager to take life and limb by the horns and ride. or that every part of her counters the capitol, from the words that slip from her lips, to the fact that she is a young woman with a soul of iron and steel. they couldn’t dull her, hard as they’d tried. hard as they’d tried against all of them.

(aisha and antigone push through the sand, darting along, aisha first and antigone at her back.)

aisha. this girl? esta niña?

chorus. there wasn’t talk about the weak or the strong during the war. lazrus was pretty certain that those who fought for the capitol, or the sympathizers and the like were standing the way of freedom. fray would’ve said that their deaths would’ve mattered only so much in that they’d existed at all. that they died couldn’t matter as much as they wanted, to be free.

(aisha moves to take a swing at the girl, who turns – not as subtle as they could’ve been, it seemed – aisha going wide and not finding her mark)

choragus. you don’t have to believe in anything to want to kill. she believes that the world would make more sense to others if they understood that.

chorus. the girl isn’t of any consequence to either of them, and antigone knows the sooner it is over, the sooner she’ll be able to turn to someone else. just keep going, she imagines fray telling her.

(antigone advances, sword pointed at the girl from eleven)

antigone. just stay down, it’ll be a lot quicker for you if you do.

choragus. she was never one to be intimidating like lazrus, or bold like fray. but all that mattered is that she could put down an enemy if she needed.

[antigone attacks d11f persephone vega with her sword]
EGQATu5KoJsword
[result: 1163 -- Shallow Cut on Stomach -- 4.0 damage (Sword) ]

sword

[shrimp]

Jan 18, 2020 20:06:27 GMT -5 shrimp said:

[8m era altyr | post 2 | 1080]

[8m era altyr | post 3 | 1170]

era altyr
he/him | d8 | rebel | traitor

-/-

Cavalcade called him reckless, once.

Months before they vanish in a hailstorm of bullets, he wraps up Era's wounds with an uncanny severity. His movements are brusque and sharp, and his breath is strained, hoarse when he exhales. Era winces once, when the gauze becomes too tight⁠—and immediately there is a retraction, an apologetic unraveling.

"Sorry," Era says, kissing Cav's hand as he finishes his work. "You don't have to do this for me."

"No. It's not-" the sniper sighs, leans against the walls of the crypt. They find themselves here more often than not; topside is in shambles, the buildings turned to a jungle of overturned buildings and ransacked factories: just enough remain so the country does not fall to pieces. The Revolution lives underground now, where the sewer meets the Old City, of the buried and the restless. The Capitol hasn't yet found their way down here, but only time will tell.

"Stunts like that will get you killed." Cav lights a cigarette and blows out the smoke, not bothering to take heed of where the smell goes. Era coughs. They'd been on a scouting mission that morning, and Era had gone too far down the road, sneaking straight into the encampment of Keepers a mile out of town. He'd been unlucky: the tents had been empty, but he had nearly been done with stealing their excess ammunition when light poured in from across the room.

He'd left the Keeper lying where he slew him and stumbled back bleeding, shaken, with a gash running nearly half a foot down his shoulder.

"We can't be careful all the time," he retorts, taking a swig from his canteen. "They have more supplies, more manpower. A calculated risk-"

"You call that calculated?" Cav laughs, a chuckle full of arsenic. "No wonder you failed math. What if someone tracked you back to the base? Or what if you died, and we didn't know where to find your body?"

"You're telling me not to die?"

"I'm telling you not to throw yourself into a lion's jaw every chance you get. You do this all the damn time: you run towards the biggest danger—alone—and then I have to clean up your mess."

He breathes out, loudly. "One day, I won't be there to do that."

Era doesn't respond. He apologizes, eventually, says he'll ask for backup the next time he goes out. But Cavalcade can see through him like water, and when they're off for the next shift he stalks off into the dark. Era curls up in a spare corner, not understanding, not willing, to admit he's wrong. He doesn't believe he is.

He may be running towards a fire, but at least he can see where the flame burns brightest.

-/-

"So clever," he responds, breaking into a grin. "How's your diet? Didn't know shit-eating was part of a balanced breakfast."

Now that he's closer, each sword is different. There is a disparity in the strokes and the swirls, the color of the grip, the shape of the pommel. Era wonders if these are found relics, salvaged from bloody raids. Or maybe they're handmade especially for this, ritualistic trinkets for a vulgar end.

He points his sword out, then at the other two, who helped Ass-Kisser kill the rebel. He is almost jovial in his speech: a kindness veils an ultimatum. He learned it from his Za.

"Pip, Squeak, if you know what's good for you: get lost."

If they jump him he'll kill all three, or get half the job done for each blind mice. He was good at this, after all. Excelled, even.

But there is a misery in Squeak's face, echoes of children who have seen the dark. He remembers when he first witnessed death with his own eyes; this boy is fortunate that it comes this late. The girl though, a comrade, forever unnamed, lies meters away from them—his sympathy can only go so far.

All the humor in his voice cannot mask the fury in his swing.

[attacks 2m Ajax | sword]
mZMjjwASz1sword
1170 -- Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage
(Sword)

notes:
Ass-Kisser (AK): Ajax
Pip: Anderson
Squeak: Catullus

appearance notes: 6'3", broad-shouldered and lanky, messy short dark hair, light brown eyes, tan skin and a light dusting of facial hair. The uniform is too small on him: it looks like he is wearing capris.

sword

[lance]

Jan 18, 2020 21:51:05 GMT -5 lance said:

Jan 18, 2020 19:50:00 GMT -5 lance said:

ajax craine | attack four | 1133

ajax craine | attack five | 1040

ajax craine | attack six | 1198

It doesn't take a genius to put together that this boy is more dangerous, less of a pushover than the last two opponents. For the first time, your blade slices naught but empty air, and far from being deterred, the other takes your challenge in hand - words and all.

"So clever," the boy responds to your taunt, his face nearly mirroring your own with his own grin. "How's your diet? Didn't know shit-eating was part of a balanced breakfast."

And despite yourself you laugh out loud. Rebel scum or not, he had a wit and a tongue, which would make this fun. Which would make this difficult. Which would make this worth your time. "Oh, didn't you know?" you respond, sword pointed downwards as you slowly circle around each other. "Us Twos like a balanced breakfast. Shit-eating, rocks, and the blood of our enemies with a nice little smattering of rebel scum for dessert. Quite delicious, and quite nutritious. See?"

It's simple work to undo the buttons that hold your drab gray outfit together, and soon nothing but bare skin is on display from hips to forehead, a lean, lithe form built on years of barely sufficient nutrition and two years hardened by orphanage life. Chuckling, you slip your arms back through the sleeves, but decide against re-buttoning the outfit - not like it'd offer much protection should someone decide to gut you, anyhow.

Both hands grip your blade, and something manic and not quite sane glitters in your eyes, spreads across your face in a grin. "I'd ask what you eat back in Seven or wherever the fuck you're from, but honestly?" You shrug. "I don't give a shit."

What did the food preferences of a boy who would just become another notch on your path to glory matter in the grand scheme of things? They didn't, just like the boy himself.

You move to lunge, but the other boy's faster, his blade once again slicing into you from behind, this time in your back. Again, your free hand reaches back instinctively. Again, a fresh coat of red covers your fingertips.

Half of you screams that you need to buckle down and take this seriously. Half of you is having too much fun.

It's no surprise which half emerges victorious.

The grin returns with a vengeance. "Awfully keen to get behind me, aren't you?" you say, laughter on the tip of each word. "Yanno, if you want to take a look at my ass that badly, all you have to do is ask."

The swing of your sword is wild, unpracticed, and covered in blood. Just like you.

ajax attacks era; sword

xWwamGpincsword

1198 -- Shallow Cut on Right Hip -- 3.5 damage

sword

[Kire]

Jan 18, 2020 18:06:04 GMT -5 Kire said:

[3M Catullus Brown, post 3, no attack]

[3M Catullus Brown, post 4, 1117]

Catullus Brown
district 3 male

"Pick that up, you'll need it." He's grinning at me, perhaps a little more than half-crazed. The blood on his jumpsuit is not his, not mine. "There's still more of those rebel fuckers to kill." He's moving before I can follow his gaze, and I stumble along after him. Better to be along with the shadiest of allies than the greatest of opponents. At least he might wait until later to kill me.

I keep a grip on my weapon but don't raise it. The numbness gripping me is slowly dissipating but I'm repeatedly hit by jolts of fear and disgust in its place. The fact that I severed someone's arm is a continual punch to the gut. I did that, me. Still, as I watch this other boy, I begin to see that what I have done isn't the worst that will be done today. It's not even the worst of what has already been done. I shudder at the memory of my sword cutting through flesh and bone.

He attacks another boy, one who had been cutting into a girl who looked as knowledgeable on the battlefield as I was - or, to say, not at all. The girl ducks in to attack her assailant too, managing a definite if weak blow. Out of nowhere, another girl races in to deliver the killing blow. I'm starting to feel very out of place here among these killers.

A new figure storms in, blade swinging, and slices at my... ally? I had to find a way to keep them all straight, perhaps nicknames or something. The new boy is tall, a giant, probably about a foot taller than I am. I don't know what district he is from but craning my neck like this to see his face makes me want to call him Tree. Trying to settle on a name for my compatriot - perhaps, as the girl had suggested, Nutso would work - I watch the two boys square off. Tree lands a blow on the back of Nutso's head, saying nothing. Nutso attempts to retaliate but his eagerness led him to swinging wide.

Everyone is ignoring me at the moment. I prefer it that way.

"Funny, I thought rats ran away from a fire instead of towards it." He really is crazy, this guy. Only the fact that he was able and willing to face off with the people who would kill me is keeping me anywhere near him. "Guess you learn something new every day!" Tree doesn't really react. "So clever." The two boys are grinning at each other, one bloodthirsty and one taunting. "How's your diet? Didn't know shit-eating was part of a balanced breakfast."

I can't think of anything to say and part of me thinks I'm better off staying quiet. Let them all forget about me, let them fight each other instead of coming after me. I'm perfectly fine staying out of it. Only Tree looked straight at me, almost through me. "Pip, Squeak, if you know what's good for you: get lost." I looked over my shoulder to notice another boy, someone actually shorter than me, who I hadn't paid any mind to before. Seems I just received a nickname from this boy.

I probably shouldn't tell him what his is.

The smile was hard to hide until Tree's sword bit into Nutso again. It was a reminder that even someone who cracked jokes could kill you. As much as I wasn't a fan of Nutso's rhetoric or his tactics, he at least wasn't trying to kill me - yet. He also wasn't calling me Squeak, or so I guessed. If I had to make a statement now, I would at least stand for the side offering me protection. Just like always, the Capitol was providing safety.

Just like always, the rebels were trying to ruin that.

[Catullus attacks Era Altyr with Sword]
8mUF5iWGNysword
Shallow Cut on Left Forearm -- 3.5 damage

sword

[WT]

Jan 18, 2020 15:21:55 GMT -5 WT said:

[D5M|N Samiyuq Hernández Huapaya | post 2 | no attack]

[D5M|N Samiyuq Hernández Huapaya | post 3 | no attack]



"Creí que solo One lo tenía..."^{1}

Samiyuq keeps half an eye on the second attacker, but swings hir blade back out from under hir arm and offers Kastilla the corner of a smile. "Mi padre—" no quick way to make that clear, they came up with a runasimi word but never use kastilla simi enough to bother, damn— "nacer, nac—mi padre es de Perú. Hablo mejor quechua, pero un pocito de español."^{2} Ze swivels hir eyes back to the other and tilts hir chin up—stubborn, proud, not quite companionable but cordial. "There are more of us than they want us to think."

In Panem, and right here.

Ze sees them come to the same conclusion as they lower their sword—not all the way, but enough. "Li bon," they say quietly, and whether it's because Samiyuq knows to pay attention this time or only the simplicity of the sentiment, the words are easier to parse this time. Bon—bueno, good, sumaj. "Li bon, yeah."

Kastilla, this settled, wipes Samiyuq's blood on one sleeve with practiced ease and steps forward. "Vamos. Conmigo. Juntos, ¿sí?"^{3}

"Nan kou,^-1- yeah, together," the other agrees, then adds a gesture, down and up. "Your back, I’ll watch. Okay?"

Samiyuq wants to sit down with these strangers, the way ze used to do with the other wounded while cooped up in the infirmary or with the Nemesis-Cassiel team when the half of them on day shift rounded up the half of them who couldn't sleep after sending a flight out—the way people do when they're one shred of human connection away from falling apart, or perhaps simply the way people do any time they can, if they meet someone they think they might like to spend time with. Ze wants to share a meal and a drink and ask for the name of the language ze doesn't recognize, and about kastilla simi in One, and about everyday beautiful things, anything the three of them might share that survived bullets and burning and burial. Do we eat any of the same foods, do we love any of the same music? Tell me something that makes you happy, something you love. I used to make all my friends try my parent's mazamorra morada. (But we had to buy purple corn shipped from Eleven to make it, and that got more expensive every year until we couldn't. We both pretend we don't miss it and we both pretend we don't know the other is pretending.) Did the two of you grow up in Panem? I did, but sometimes it feels like everyone around me grew up in a different Panem, does that make sense? Your family—if either of you have family—do any of them get this wistful look halfway through talking about the people and places they left behind that makes you want to cry because they gave all that up for you, and the people running this country do nothing but their damnedest to sure that choice kills them?

"Thank you," ze tells them both instead, and, "I'll watch yours," to the one who said that first. With a nod to Kastilla, ze lifts the sword—a little awkwardly now that ze has time to properly consider how new the weapon feels in hir hands, little like a knife and far less like a gun, but steadily enough. "Junt—ah, carajo."^[1]

Metal clashes on metal through the sound of a new assailant screeching so hard the note of their voice breaks. Hissing as the force of the impact jars the wounded leg ze already twisted in turning to catch the attack, ze pulls the sword back, careful of Watcher's position behind hir, to put hir weight behind the next swing—

"My! Name! Is! Maeve! Idlewild!"

—and swerves, nearly slamming the tip of the sword into the ground.

"Ustedes vaya,"^{4} ze says, waving to Watcher and Kastilla with hir free hand as ze staggers upright. This isn't one of their gathering troupe, but this isn't someone ze should have seen across a battlefield, either. And it would be easy, painfully easy, to cut them down as they stand swaying with the weight of their own sword and voice and move on with the others, and how ze feels about it can't matter, but hell, ze can't. Even if they would run with hir after that, ze can't. Yet. "Voy a hablar con elle,^{5} I'll talk to the kid and catch up with you, go."

"Vale," Kastilla says, sounding steadier now than before. "No mueras aquí."^{6}

Samiyuq's laugh comes out voiceless. Easier said than done, and some days don't even need blood and screaming to make that true. But then, Kastilla knows that. All either of them can do is keep deciding to try. "Ten cuidado."^{7}

"Rete an sekirite,"^-2- Watcher adds. Samiyuq cocks hir head as ze works that out—sekirite, security, secure?—and returns their nod. Then both of them are gone, echoing together—

—and ze's listening to a child tell hir about birthday cakes and caticorns.

"Carajo," ze repeats, whispering this time, and ze lowers hir sword.

"At first I was really sad, but then my sister Roux smeared colored frosting all over her face—"

"Kid," Samiyuq tries—

"—and invented the Happy Happy Cake Dance! to cheer me up and now every year she and my dads—"

—and then remembers, "Maeve—"

"— still put frosting on their faces—" still? how long ago can Maeve Idlewild's eleventh birthday have been?— "and dance around me singing Happyyyyy!"

Samiyuq stares incredulously as Maeve Idlewild, voice raised above the cacophony, begins to dance in strangers' blood.

Ze hopes Roux, however old she is, in whatever District, isn't watching this. Hopes she is. Knows she must not have a choice, any more than Maeve's fathers and Samiyuq's own parent do right now—not a real one, not one any of them could live with making differently.

Someone somewhere screams, "Stop!" Ze knows ze can't actually feel it reverberate in hir bones, any more than ze can actually hear Maeve's steps splashing into sand, but it sits as heavy in hir ears as any gunshot in still air, an undercurrent to the chaos. Only scattered other words and unidentifiable voices, even Kastilla's and Watcher's, resolve out of the noise, and when ze glances around and up—first to make sure no one else has looked at this display and seen a target, then out of pure, furious, utterly useless disgust—the only face ze's sure ze finds is that of Adder Ames, surrounded by Peacekeepers and sitting still as a statue of the legend she's become. Ze half-considers stepping forward to catch Maeve's shoulders with hir hands, but doesn't want to take a panicked sword to the stomach after blocking the first swing—

—from the sword Maeve just dropped, hell, they always had volunteers younger than they should have been and they were never too principled to refuse them but this kid wouldn't have even made it through the outpost door before someone intervened with a go home. "Maeve," Samiyuq murmurs, but the song isn't done, and isn't until it's an outright wail, every mourning cry Samiyuq has heard or swallowed in years dragged through a ravaged throat.

"Roux is my twin sister," Maeve says when the cry peters out at last, sounding so spent that Samiyuq is genuinely surprised the kid is still upright. "So we have the same birthday, but the Happy Happy Cake Dance! is still always just for... me."

"Maeve," Samiyuq says, one more time, into the sound of frantic hyperventilating. "Steady. My name is Samiyuq and I'm not going t—I'm not hurting you right now." Ze shakes hir head and blows a breath out slowly, too measured for a sigh. "You can breathe, Maeve Idlewild, you've been doing it your whole life. Look at me."

For everything else it stole or poisoned, war never reached Samiyuq's belief in hir ability to be gentle. It couldn't, when ze needed it for the war—needed the bats to trust hir and needed to trust them back for that to happen. (Needed to love them, for that to happen.) Ze snarls at the goats more than ze means to now, but ze helps them, too, delivering kids and shearing wool and stitching wounds with the same light hands and tender voice ze used to feed orphaned pups and hold adults still for the vets and ready timers. (Even all these months on, sometimes ze forgets hirself halfway through humming a song to soothe the herd and begins clicking, and hir parent looks at hir, and—) Ze could do what they can to shelter Maeve from the screaming and the clanging and, in that fragile space, be gentle.

War is only a place to be gentle—to be anything—when it's useful.

"Kid, they announced our names in front of our entire Districts and we're still here. Nobody here who doesn't already give a shit about you is going to be convinced to. Not up there—" ze jerks hir chin toward the audience without looking away from Maeve's tear-streaked face— "and not down here." Caring doesn't save anyone anyway, ze thinks but doesn't add, trying not to wonder how large of a vial it would take to bring this twig of a girl down. The clinic didn't only keep pentobarbital for Nemesis-Cassiel. It only makes them wish they could make it painless, and if wishes ended wars we wouldn't be here. "You need to keep your head down or keep that sword up. There's no shame in either—" we do what we need to, ze remembers, needing to hear it as badly as ze thinks Maeve might, as badly as when hir parent first said it, maybe worse— "but pick one."



[Samiyuq does not attack.]

{1} I thought only One had it...
{2} My parent to be born, was bo—my parent is from Peru. I speak better Quechua, but a little Spanish. (Samiyuq is frustrated because padre is ambiguously parent, the intended meaning here, or father.)
{3} Come on. With me. Together, yes?
{4} You (pl.) go.
{5} I'm going to talk to them.
{6} Okay. Don't die here.
{7} Be careful.

-1- Of course.
-2- Stay safe.

[1] Shit. (Loanword from Spanish.)

[Python]

Jan 18, 2020 16:49:38 GMT -5 Python said:

Persephone Vega, D11f, Intro

Persephone Vega, D11F, Attack 1, 1033

The wallflower was plucked from her stem.

If Persephone faded into the background, it wasn't for long. She watched the kids around her charge at each other with swords and snarls, shouting insults as if the war had never ended. She couldn't care about any of it. Their passion was a dangerous wildfire, and she was never one to catch herself too close to a burn. She didn't understand their motives or their rage. All she felt was the grief of misfortune - how unlucky she was to be here, how terrified she was of missing home and leaving this world forever.

I want to go home.

She watched a girl fall mercilessly to another boy's sword. Her arm had been sliced from her shoulder, blood spattering the sand. It was everywhere. She had never wanted to know what blood smelled like. She had never wanted to see death. Of course she knew it existed, but it had been such a farfetched concept...

Now it was at her doorstep.

She didn't miss the two girls' shadows growing at her feet. The grip on her sword tightened to an uncomfortable squeeze that hurt the palm of her hands. She turned in time to see a blade miss her by inches, and she yelped. Such a small sound, the squeak of a mouse. She had always been the one to keep her head down and her voice low, but what if nobody heard her pleas when she spoke today?

"Stop!"

The second girl lunged and cut her across the stomach. Persephone screamed and instinctively touched the wound with one hand. With the other, she swung her sword clumsily and wildly. "Get away from me!"

[Persephone attacks Aisha D1F - sword]
ck6o5hpoahsword
Shallow Cut on Left Forearm -- 3.5 damage

sword