The Bloodbath

[gamemaker kelsier]

May 16, 2020 14:22:39 GMT -5 gamemaker kelsier said:

[Babe Adroxis 9M, post 10, no attack]

[Babe Adroxis 9M, attack 10, 1106]

b a b e .

"This is a game, no wrongs, no right
Only a winner and a loser
You and I, oh you and I
We're not that different, you and I."

It's counterproductive and Babe knows that but it doesn't stop him from wanting to help this kid. He can't ignore someone who's hurting right in front of him, no matter how weak it makes him seem. Maybe if he wasn't so bendable then this would all be easier, he could just pull his sword out right now and run this kid through.

He probably should.

But for some reason he doesn't, Babe just breathes slowly, in then out, waiting for the other tribute to keep the same rhythm as him and maybe it's because he needed this too, just a short moment to breath. For a moment, just while their breathing matches, Babe doesn't feel so odd.

The world caves in differently here in this quiet tandem and he rests his head against the cage bars, eyes on the other tribute still. Babe isn't stupid, he knows he can't trust the other kid because years of living with one eye looking over his shoulder taught him so. He wishes he could, that this tiny moment could last for forever so that they might not have to face the next.

He doesn't want to kill kids anymore.

He doesn't want to kill anyone.

Babe thinks about the silence of laying in that pool of blood on the cement three years ago and how much he misses it and he squeezes his eyes shut. It's so easy to wish to slip back into that numbing little spot, that place between life and death where nothing hurts because it's all almost over. Now is too soon though, he'll be there one day and that's alright.

You can be sad and fight to live in the same way you can be happy and want to die, in the end, it's just making a choice. Babe's made his.

The kid finally seems to calm, at least his speaking is more clear. He stands up and offers his hand to the male tribute, ”And when’s the last time a monster worried about that?” The crowd roars, something is happening out in the arena and it's going on without the two of them. "Come on," he says, "It's not over yet."

And there across the ashes, is a girl.

Babe feels the other kid leave his side and he grins somehow still, even after everything, lips curling up slowly in a twisted way. The other kids at home will be watching this, he can't let them down here. If they watch him fall without even trying then everything they've fought for will have been a big waste.

So he runs across the ash and he attacks another kid.

He's made his choice.

[babe ruth attacks juno with sword]
GkQZPV77H7sword
[Shallow Cut on Back -- 4.0 damage]
[y'all mind if i.... dab]sword

[Arrows]

May 15, 2020 20:59:05 GMT -5 Arrows said:

[Remus / Post #11 / No Attack]

[Remus / Post #12 <> Attack / 1051]

REMUS

Remus understands, he has been through war and many of the bodies weren't this badly mangled. The damage left by swords carving into skin is something straight out of the darkest days of history. Remus never thought he would ever hold this thought, but he actually misses guns. They are simpler than shoving steel into skin like butchers, cleaner. Bullets are extremely deadly, but they seem like mercy when Remus stares at a field of children's corpses. The image of Levi losing his life to a barrage of bullets in his back is more favorable than this entire epicenter of cruel casualties.

As yet another girl is cut down, Remus remembers the day he went to the infirmary in District Seven. The assignment itself was straightforward: supply delivery. However, what Remus found within those white walls was horrifying. Everywhere he turned there were bodies blown into bits and limbs laying in putrid piles. Apparently they had suffered an intense explosion attack mounted by the Capitol. These Games are similar to that, so disturbing that if Remus had any food left inside of his stomach it would come crashing out onto the sands. Lucky for him he's been starved while in captivity.

"I've seen bullets that haven't done this much damage. This is like a mine field."

There's a second of silence.

"A massacre."

The girl answers Remus as though caught up in pictures of her own past as well.

That was the one thing during the war that genuinely flooded Remus with some form of fear. As a scout, he spent most of the war in unexplored areas. The chance of coming across buried mines was extremely high. Each time he reported to another camp after assignment, Remus would hear another story of some scout's legs being blown off. Children were losing limbs in blasts of  violent mortar, yet it never was enough to make Remus stop running. If anything, Remus has always wanted to die free with his feet falling against the Earth's soil. At least a mine would most likely grant that morbid request.

"There aren't many of us left and we both aren't in the best shape, huh?"

Remus admits half to himself and half to the girl who he has joined. The blonde boy counts six in total. It makes his skin shudder because if there are six still alive, then there are eighteen dead. His eye instantly finds Henry still sleeping softly in the sand. Remus' throat tightens, but he pushes back the pain of his emotions. His brothers have him now. Remus needs to stay focused on the fact that his fight has not yet ended. As long as he is alive, he has to carry the rebel memory and spirit. Henry left it to him.

Nearby, another boy seems to be drowning into himself. His breaths are berated and the signs of a panic attack are obvious. Remus has seen countless soldiers swaying in the trenches muttering madness to themselves as though a safety net, this boy is no different. Murder is an enemy to the mind. Remus wants to help him, but another boy beats him to it. It's surprising, even though they all know five of them have to die there is still some sense of unity within the suffering.

"Is it always like this, " Remus' eyes turns back to the girl, "when you kill someone."

Her voice is heavy, draped in darkness and sewn together by bitterness. She's tired and so is he. Her question is one that has to have plagued humanity for the whole of its existence. So many wars have raged requiring killers to be crafted, and this is the question of those killers. Remus' fingers furl into the handle of his sword as his stare shifts to the sky. There's a single cloud wafting overhead. He answers her with a voice as equally heavy and worn.

"Yes, it should be. If it doesn't-" Remus' eye turns to the audience, "Then we become like them."

An image comes across Remus' mind. Petals dance in the swell of Spring as simple streams scatter over pebbles. Birds volley through a valley of green and rocks are riddled with living ivy. Then, in the middle of the flowering fields full of precious poppies and ruby roses, there is a stone table. Atop the stone table sewn into eternal sleep is the blonde boy from District Four with flowers woven through his blonde brambles. He is dead, but a smile is softly settled onto his face.

"I always wanted flowers in my hair when I died. My brothers made fun of me for it, but-" Remus breathes in through his nose slowly to settle his slightly shaking voice, "I always wanted to leave the world more beautiful than how it was before."

Remus looks down at the scarred reflection in his scarlet stained sword and a sadness sets inside of him.

"Do you think that's even possible?"

Her hands fall to the walls, to where the names of the fallen can be found. The walls are their tombstones and the ashes their graves. Her next words aren't hurtful but filled with the truth of the world she's known.

"There's no beauty here."

Remus' fingers flow across the name of Jonas, the boy before him. He was beautiful. What he did was beautiful. Remus actually smiles slightly. 

"Maybe, but maybe there's beauty everywhere. If you make it." Remus' hand falls away from the past and back into the present. "You're beautiful, your soul. All of our souls. Children are beautiful, even if they kill us."

The sun shining above is still warm on Remus' skin despite the numbness spreading from his wounds. It feels like the arms of his Mother wrapping around him again after he's been hurt. She was beautiful too, even if they killed her. 

"The beauty of the soul shines out, when we bear with composure one heavy mischance after another."

She speaks dryly with subtle sarcasm creeping into her words.

"Not because we don't feel them. But because we are of high temper. Heroic temper." *

She's another one, another person Remus thinks he would have been friends with. She deserves flowers in her hair if she dies too. Don't they all though? Shouldn't they all be old and wrinkled before being burned? There is a brief pause before she apologizes despite Remus really not minding it at all.

"Sorry. It's an except."

Remus simply shakes his head. 

"I promise that if I kill you, I'll feel it forever because we aren't like them. We are better."

He means it, every last word.

But so does she.

"Feel it, but not like this." She looks at Remus straight in his eye, "Don't let them take you too."

Remus' hands tighten around the handle of his blade. She's so strong, just like Henry, just like so many of the tributes that have died. Yet the war wages on and the flowers continue to fall in the wind.

"Okay, but don't let them take you either. Deal?"

She takes a deep breath in.

"Yeah."

His sword swings.

Remus attacks Zephyr :: Sword
qQ_K7bw4Rpsword
{Deep Gash on Cheek -- 8.5 damage; +1 Blades}

* Quote Edited From Aristotle
** All dialogue and actions planned with Shrimp

sword

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

May 15, 2020 17:27:51 GMT -5 D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza] said:

juno del air / post seven / 1092

juno del air / post eight / 1199

Another world falls away, and clarity becomes something just as distant as home. Everything shifts, my focus trying desperately to cling to perspective but always finding itself blurred and broken; the reflection I see in the bloodied sword is nothing more than a true reflection of what I have chosen to become. Two have died by my hands—two lives taken and cut short in an attempt to extend my own. A sick kind of surgical procedure where the lives they could have lived are tacked onto my own, and I seek those so completely, so entirely, that I forget the one I wanted for myself.

My brother is still watching—and that's what makes everything feel better, but so much worse too. The thought of him having to feel that sinking feeling in his gut, a bullet to the butterflies in his stomach because feeling something is better than feeling nothing. I remember it so well, a pinch on the brain that twists and tugs until you're left numb, remembering a person who is nothing more than a memory. And maybe things would be easier for him if I had only been able to say goodbye, to hold him in my arms and let him cry on my shoulder. The tears would be better armour than any outfit the Capitol would provide me with, and his understanding would be a weapon more deadly than any blade.

But time never works the way you want it to, so now I stand over the body of a second victim. Blood on my hands, blood reflecting in my eyes, blood staining a perfect white dress, blood on the ground pooling at my feet, blood hanging in the air like how the scent of a bluebell manages to last for days. It's sicker, though—the iron smell that you experience when you bite your tongue whilst eating. It is a shard of glass flying through the air, threatening danger upon all who stand in its way of continued havoc. The sun glints against all this blood, and all this blood can do is smile back, burning eternally, shining as if it is a fallen star from above.

Beautiful in an ugly kind of way. I wonder if Lark thinks the same of me.

I stare out to the crowd for a few moments, the applause like thunder clouds above and the cheers are raining that pelts with the intention to cause pain. I just want to live but my deadliness is entertainment to them, and they are the world, and I am nothing. Maybe my parents' weren't so wrong for committing the kill that they did, maybe it was something to try and clear the war in their mind, an act to seek a peace paradigm that never could be. But I cannot justify their senseless murders using the same circumstances as my own—they don't have the world waiting on their every move and they didn't care enough to think of the scars their children would be left with.

I have Lark and Lark has me—I may have changed everything, but I do not want to change that. So I mentally wrap my hopes up and place them in an old safe in the corner of my mind with all the things I have loved and lost and pray I will have the chance to love again.

There's that eerie silence for a few moments, the silence that captures shrieks and holds them prisoner in the invisible air. It's choking, splinters in the sky like diamonds and they want to reign down over us. But I can't let them, I know that, and so does the boy who slashes against my back.

The wound unleashes a thousand screams, but my mouth is unmoved. I look at him with tiresome eyes, but eyes that maintain the same sense of darkness they did when they took the first girl's life, and the same sense of apology when they took Daisy's life.

I try to forget the world, but the world wants me to remember.

I am a terrible person, it's a given, but there's nothing terrible about being a survivor.

[ d3f juno del air attacks d9m babe adroxis ]

dMDubJ|LHFsword

[ 1199 -- Block -- 0.0 damage ]

sword

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

May 16, 2020 12:17:04 GMT -5 gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin. said:

[ 9f ximena wright  | post 11 | 1014 + 1106 ]

[ 9f ximena wright  | post 12 | 1078 ]

You're distracted when the boy makes his way over to you

He swings his blade at you, and you hiss out when it catches on your forearm, but it only makes you grasp the dead girl's sword just that much harder, hand wrapped so tightly around the hilt that you can feel your own nails on the other side, digging into the pad of your palm.

"Good luck?" you spit, voice thick with incredulity. You aren't even surprised anymore when you start laughing, a full-bodied sound, maniacal and terrible and so, so, so, very honestly you. "Good luck! That's a good one!"

While you're laughing, someone else dies.

But not before you listen to the boy with the eye patch saying something kind to her, not before telling her that her soul was beautiful, not before he assures her that her death will never be forgotten, not before he shows her the most kindness you've ever seen someone show just before they kill someone.

It settles you, knowing that you'll never be like that.

Call yourself Sisyphus if you'd like, taking the task of pushing yourself to be better day in and day out, fated to attempt the same impossible task of being the—being the what? You aren't even sure anymore that you know the answer. The best soldier? The one who knew how to follow orders the best of them all? Because you weren't even good at that. You got your tasks done, but most of the time you didn't do them the way that you were told, found some other way for you to get done what needed to be done, a way that involved more blood and less calm and.

Maybe that's why your Sisyphus.

Fated to never be quite right.

After half a second, you realize that at the same time this boy struck you, Babe had taken his own sword and struck out at another, and it—it makes something catch in your chest, stick in your throat, and a mountain range of goosebumps rises across your spine as you wonder if maybe they're working together.

"He tell you to go for me?" You watch the girl who'd been making hand signs earlier as she tries to attack back, but Babe blocks it and something self-deprecating and cruel and everything that's toxic and rotten in your personality shoots a half-barbed question his way. "Don't wanna try killing me yourself?"

You decide you don't want to know the answer.

[ 9f xime attacks 5m september, sword ]

n43faIrb7dsword

[ 1078 - block - 0.0 ]

sword

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

May 17, 2020 8:03:12 GMT -5 thompson harvard - d2b - arc said:

[ d5m september yorgos | post #13 | attack 1086 ]

[ d5m september yorgos | post #14 | attack 1139]

{ september }

The speed in which she spat back in response to my comment was as if she transformed from a doe to a camel. Spat right into my face like a child at the petting zoo. ”Good luck?” Her laugh radiated from a layer of hell deeper than mine - deeper than fraud. That bubbled, chaotic laugh that could only be seen in films came from the depths of Treachery. She was so deep into the Satan’s rings that her flame was blue. The light, electric blue that looked so cold but burned so fiercely. ”Good luck! That’s a new one.” Her laugh seemed to hold the power of Satan himself. Letting out a laugh as another body falls into his hands at his disposal. Another one in the dust, another one in the ground. She hadn’t only been fighting in hell, she was now a part of it.

I could feel the heat from her electric blue flame. It had every characteristic of being cold. Her eyes held the fire of the ashes that lay on the ground of this arena, yet they were as cold as the gasping winds of winter. This nameless girl held a torch in her head of expectation to survive, to win. She had every right to. Her doe-like eyes now looked similar to a bull. An oxe. She was ready to change any opponent that she came across.

I wonder if this is what the war felt like to Appa. The confusion, the belief that those fighting the war were cowards for raising their weapons or lowering them. The panic that set in after I killed someone. I never asked them about the war when we were together, I always let Appa bring it up. It was my opportunity to provide them therapy without asking for the help they need. They just talked about it, face blank, eyes closed. Their voice would be cold like the stone brick of the Justice Building. The life in Appa’s eyes and spirit would escape them for a second, running away from the depression that imprisoned the spirit of joy for so long. I would never interrupt him with questions or trying to connect it to my life because it was war. Nobody can connect the feeling of being shot at to their regular life.

It was in that moment of Satan’s delighted chortling that I understood Appa’s fear of the darkness. I understood what it felt like to be trapped under the ground in a coffin, because that laugh felt like it was the curse being placed over my heart in a solid ‘X’. I understood that fear. The potential of closing your eyes - and poof - Satan’s chortle turned into a cheer. But Appa was scared because they didn’t want to die without living a life outside of war. They wanted to experience life as it was life, not a battlefield. My fear came from the bubbling fear of leaving my family. Letting Noelle grow up and become a princess with her children to the crown, seeing whatever poor fuck Argos would have as a wife. To see what Octavia’s mind, bustling with ideas and desire for knowledge would do. I didn’t want to leave my family to do the blossoming by themselves..

Satan’s minion spoke up again, eyes almost daggers to the boy who came to my anxiety-ridden rescue. ”He tell you to go for me?” I turned to see him fighting another girl just as quickly as I started my fight. He blocks her swing and I couldn’t help but give a note to that. It was a game to kill ”Don’t want to try killing me yourself?” I heard her voice directed toward the male like a cobra opening its’ hood of a neck before attacking. He may have not taken my life or given direction to try and take this blue-flamed bull. But he sure as hell never gave thought to attacking her. The poisonous bite from her towards him sounded like betrayal. Probably from his own home and he didn’t want to earn a bad reputation for killing her. A memory rang in my mind from him - (”you’ll have to embrace it, kid”).

He’ll have to embrace it too.


”You know, he didn’t. But I wouldn’t know if he intended that or not.” I gave a look at her, up and down, and decided to disregard her. ”You seemed to enjoy that girl dying, maybe you should go help that guy with his part.” I gave a nod to the boy standing over my fallen opponent. ”Maybe you’ll provide some peace to him. Who knows.”

My feet led me toward the duo fighting, not sure what I was expecting, not sure what I was doing. I knew I had to attack one of them and my heart said to hit my savior. If I can’t hurt him now, what am I supposed to do if it came down to just us? Lay my sword down because he saved me from a self induced panic attack? I hadn’t seen much of the other girl yet, I wasn’t entirely familiar with her. My heart said she was a stranger, it wouldn’t hurt to kill her. My head said that’d make it easier to kill her in any of the last few fights in this Colosseum. I looked back at the boy and I gripped my sword, my head telling me to do what’s smart.

But my heart told me what was right.

[attacks juno, sword]
p7FpbreiHisword
[dg - 8.0]

sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

May 17, 2020 22:57:21 GMT -5 gamemaker kelsier said:

[Babe Adroxis 9M, attack 10, 1106]

[Babe Adroxis 9M, attack 11, 1033]

b a b e .

"This is a game, no wrongs, no right
Only a winner and a loser
You and I, oh you and I
We're not that different, you and I."

Iin this end, it is what it is. For those that said they wouldn't partake, that they couldn't, their trial is ended and it's just the morally-corrupt that remain. Babe gazes at the end of his sword, at the blood that drips off the end and remains dried at the top. Three tributes rest on the cold metal now but only one is dead by his hand.

He's never truly been a killer, just done what he's had to for the good of the gang back home. Kids respect and fear him because he's always been this emotionless, immovable things but truthfully, he's never been good at it. Bottling everything until it explodes isn't coping anyway.

The girl he's just attacked doesn't even speak to him, just gazes and Babe feels that quiet again in the base of his soul. She has eyes like his and just like that he gets her. He wishes he didn't, that she could be just another faceless thing to cut down, but it's as if she lets him in with just one blink.

She's just someone else that he'll never truly know, just another child to be fed in tribute to a hungry god and there was no chance of knowing each other from the start.

Their swords glint in the sunlight as they clash against each other and the metallic slide makes sparks fly. She's strong, but so is he. Sweat drips down his back slowly and he stares at the female tribute curiously. She doesn't say a word to him and he doesn't say anything either. They don't have to, dancing has never required a conversation.

"Don't wanna try killing me yourself?"

Xime's voice hits his ears clear as day and Babe turns away from the girl, eyes falling on the kid he's just helped going at Ximena. He hadn't seen that, fuck. He knows what he should be doing, knows that he's got to kill this girl eventually if not now and that it's better if the male tribute kills Xime so he doesn't have to but if he just stands there and watches her get cut down then what kind of guy is he?

He can't watch her die anyway, not by his hand or the male tribute's, not yet.

"Fuck," he mutters under his breath and he turns to signal a let's go at Ximena. It's not as articulate as some of the other signs their gang has made up but it's going to have to do for the moment.

It's not like he wants to turn on this kid after just saving him but this isn't daycare or some shit, it's a deathmatch. Babe shouldn't have shown him any mercy in the first place. Suddenly the guy is beside him, blade falling on the girl Babe was just attacking and he wonders what his plan is. Maybe he thinks that Babe's his friend now.

"Sorry kid," he says as he turns on the boy, "You shouldn't have hit Xime."

And he pushes his blade through the air.

[babe attacks septy boo with sword]
lt|IJ819T3sword
[Shallow Cut on Left Forearm -- 3.5 damage]sword

[Arrows]

May 18, 2020 13:04:39 GMT -5 Arrows said:

[Remus / Post #12 <> Attack / 1051]

[Reums / Post #13 <> Attack / 1136]

REMUS

And she goes.

As though a rose wilting in the wind she falls. Remus' arms already know what to do, they've carried corpses to the earth before. Her strength is gone, but she is as light as feather drifting toward the sands. Her final pillow is a pile ash from another who drifted down the same way. She seems to be softly sleeping, a sight so similar for a survivor to see. Another has gone on ahead, and Remus is alone again.

Around him the others are still fighting, their swords are the extensions of their spirits. The slashing steel spins a symphony of sorrow and each individual crafts the melodramatic measures with unique tragedies. Betrayal burns and rivers run red here at the foot of Hades' throne. This garden is shriveled and dead from decay, but a single blossom is blooming out of the blood. A crown is falling from the cracked clouds to crown its petals in gold. It is a Lily of Loneliness that exists only in the aftermath of war.

All the faces still fighting are foreign to Remus. As he scans the shadows of the slaughtered, anyone he has met on this day of death has gone. There is a similar sensation that washes over the sixteen year old boy who still stands as his toes sink into a cooling pool of blood. It is the weight of remaining when all that is left is rubble. Remus stayed standing at the end of the Rebellion when everyone else was dead. Remus has bloomed once before, and he knows how it feels to be the Lily.

"You - you're a rebel?"

Ah, there's another.

Remus turns to the girl who is slowly starting to circle him. A sword acts as a crutch in the place of where a leg once was, yet Remus doesn't even blink. Amputations were common in the war, this isn't the first leg he has seen missing. What captures his attention is the fire of the flames in her eyes and the power of her voice. She is bleeding, but no broken. Remus has met many rebels in this pit, and it seems that he has come across another. Will he have to hold her too?

"Yeah, and so are you." Remus says plainly, but with a soft smile. "We're the ones left behind."

Remus' fingers run along the handle of his sword as he grips it. The smell of poppies pushes past the metallic poison of the arena's air. There is still beauty out there, Remus is going to find it. For this girl, for Henry, and for all the rebels. He will find a crown of flowers instead of thorns.

"We're the ones still fighting."

Remus moves.

"Are you alone too?"

Remus' sword follows.

"I don't want to be alone."

Remus attacks Ximena :: Sword
6bFDslnd8vsword
{Severed Left Arm at Shoulder -- 10 damage ; +1 Blades}

sword

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

May 19, 2020 9:10:50 GMT -5 D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza] said:

juno del air / post eight / 1199

juno del air / post nine / 1155

The sword seems to hit only with the air surrounded us, the air that encases us within this arena and subjects us to the applause of the audience. They seem displeased at my latest attempt, people turning their heads in disapproval. If only they knew how difficult it would be to stand here and try to kill something over there; they have all the happiness in the world and choose to spend it on us.

But still, we don't feel it. There's no resonance. Only emptiness, in its eternal state, and only void.

I stare out, sword in hand at the world around me. The faces in the crowd who seem to blur into one, the other tributes in this arena who find themselves falling apart at the seams whilst standing in the way of each other's dreams. I find myself in the middle, a middle man of sorts, desperately trying to pull some strings to get heaven on my side, but knowing that the very act of doing so may just send me to hell. Perhaps that it what I deserve: I am just as bad as the one's I swore I'd never become.

A murderer. Maybe murderers don't deserve happiness.

It won't stop me from thirsting for it though, because with each drop of blood that I bleed, there comes a darker hunger in my chest that yearns for the touch of the ones I loved once more. And it's like it too is a monster, small but oh so violent, because it hasn't stopped wanting a taste of death since it first smelt it in the air; I can feel it lick its lips and get ready for the next meal, but I have nothing to offer.

Instead, there's just me, the monster and Lark. Three more people in this arena who have to stop seeing the light of day if I am to make it home and comfort him from the horrors he has just seen. And I know that I could do it, I could because in some ways, I already have, but it's a difficult feat to kill once, kill twice and then kill again. It may be in the name of love, but heart does not seem to be on my side.

A new face slashes against me with his blade, more blood dripping from my arm and I look at him with a frown and wonder what made him pick me. I am not weak anymore, I'm strong and though I may be just Juno, I am equal parts monster too. But I can't question him for doing the same as I do; he probably has a family, a reason to stay alive, a reason to fight, and if I question that, I ultimately turn from the monster to a devil.

Yet something about leaving a brother alone in this cold world feels unsurpassable. It should be impossible, and I know that I have to fight to keep it that way. My heart aches, my head does too, but there's no greater hurt than the one I feel behind my eyes when I look at the other tributes who hang on to life with unsaid stories and unmade memories. 

Only a monster would take them away—a monster like me.

"I need to see my brother," I announce, my tongue feeling dry with desperation, "please don't let me leave him lonely, he won't—he won't survive," tears are held back by the sun's burning rays.

Sensitivity feels like safety in this moment, but beneath the surface of all pretty things lies something ugly. And we're all the same here, there's no escaping that. But I have changed everything, and surely, surely, that is worth something to the world.

I have become the bullets I once called toys. Forget rebellion—I am enough.

[ d3f juno del air attacks d9m babe adroxis ]

4HxnXJrZ4ysword

[ 1155 -- Shallow Cut on Cheek -- 3.5 damage ]

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[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

May 19, 2020 9:56:39 GMT -5 gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin. said:

[ 9f ximena wright  | post 12 | 1078 ]

[ 9f ximena wright  | post 13 | 1051 ]

The boy says You know, he didn’t after blocking your fumbled attack, and you actually feel yourself breathe again.

You hadn't even noticed that you were holding your breath.

When had that happened? You truly, awfully, painfully worrying about whether or not Babe actually wanted you dead? When had the moment come where your heart knew that you cared about him? Your mind doesn't catch up until this very moment, you can't even deny. Your whole body trembles with it, the relief that he doesn't seem willing to command someone else to kill you.

That at the very least, he'll do it himself if he must.

But then the other boy is spitting more words at you

He doesn't even bat his eye when he sees you there without a leg, sees you there refusing to give up your fight, to give up your life. Your body is in pieces here in this sandpit, but you grit your teeth and refuse to let yourself smile back at this boy giving you a soft, sad one of his own. "Are you alone too?" he asks, and your eyes flash to Babe, wondering. Am I alone?

You don't even get to reply before the boy closes the small distance between the two of you, taking advantage of the way your eyes have left his face.

And then—there's screaming.

It's a horrible noise, terrible and terror-stricken, and somewhere in the back of your head you wish that the noise would end, that whichever of you has started wailing like that would bite off their own tongue and choke on the blood. You can't concentrate with the noise ringing around in your head and between one breath and the next your vision starts to go a little blurry and that's maybe when you realize—

Oh, is it coming from you?

You stumble forward, sword catching the light.

[ 9f xime attacks 4m remus, sword ]

fJTYaSvdiasword

[ 1051 - dg on cheek - 8.5 dmg ]

You're on your one knee when you realize that you've done it again, lashed out in your blind rage and pain and gone for the killing blow. You can't be sure exactly what it is, but you find yourself hyperventilating ever so slightly, chest heaving and your lower lip quivering and you can't breathe you can't breathe you can't breathe—in out, in out, in out. They're one act, a huff huff rather than a thing that you can control.

"I don't want to be alone," you say, hand shaking. You see your arm there, a part from you apart from you, and you feel yourself laugh, hysterical and horrible and you watch as the boy that you've just killed wavers and falls and somehow you drag yourself to his side. You don't even notice that there are tears on your face until one of them slips off your chin and lands on his cheek. "I don't want to be alone either."

You look up, watch the girl with the hand signs as she holds back tears, sun shining in her eyes. She strikes out, clipping her sword against Babe's cheek, and you actually—you smile. He lives to fight on. Blood is pouring out of your leg and your arm and tears are hot on your cheeks in the late sun. Your take your hand, put it on the boys cheek, a strange part of you desperately wishing that you knew his name.

"Go find your flowers," you say, hand trembling where your thumb touches his cheekbone, palm flat over the wound that you've just dug into him. "You won't be alone there."

sword

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

May 19, 2020 15:42:40 GMT -5 thompson harvard - d2b - arc said:

[ d5m september yorgos | post #14 | attack 1139]

[ d5m september yorgos | post #15 | attack 1162]

{ september }

I never thought I’d feel the same betrayal as I did the night before the reaping. Before all of this - the colosseum, the blood, the tears. The new title of killer under my belt. I never thought I’d feel that pang of guilt that I did when I showed so much concern for Appa. I was so scared of Appa and I just wanted them to be happy. That’s the best thing you can try to provide in this world. Happiness. To ensure that the people around you are the reason you breathe and fight and waste every ounce of energy to entertain. The people where you start thinking where’d they go and your heart drops to the deepest of possibilities - did they hurt, are they dead, did they do something wrong? All of those emotions put toward a certain group of people. Appa, Noelle, Octavia. Even Argos, despite how much I hated his rotted brain. I just wanted them to be happy, and I thought they acknowledged I just wanted the best for them when I did something. They pay me with kindness and I offer up the same act in return.

I remember how I wanted to cry. How I felt so stupid for worrying over it so much. The pain and fear so, so much worse than any pain I felt before. Worse than the feeling of my ribcage crushing upon me as the world around me came to whisper in my ear that I was a monster and wrapped around my ankles, chaining them to the ground in order to face the reality of what I had done. Worse than the feeling of knowing that I was not innocent and that I was just as much of a rebel for protecting them. These fake realities that came to life in mere seconds before my eyes to remind me to think realistically for once, yet I never did.

I was stupid for feeling that one act of kindness was the binding of trust. I knew in my mind he was to not be trusted however my heart has always been stronger. My heart was the one that told me I was a monster. My heart told me to worry about my family and what they thought, but they knew. Octavia and Argos knew I’d have to do what I had to do. I knew in my head that I had to, that it was a requirement to kill at least someone if not multiple people in here, and I was a fucking idiot for thinking it was a choice.

”Sorry kid,” the male turned to me and pushed his sword into the air after me. ”You shouldn’t have hit Xime.”

Xime.

I knew four names total. September. That was me. I was September and I was alive. I’ll continue to be September. I don’t know if I’ll still be alive though.

And then we had Paksenarrion, the girl from my district. I would recognize her face lightly and I don’t see her anywhere. I’m pretty sure she’s dead. Robyne, the doe. The innocent little fawn who cried and wept at the sight of death like I did moments later, struggling to find her feet in this chaotic world. She was from Ten. She was the doe that lost her legs too early, the doe that never had a chance in the world but held the purity that the exact same world was missing. Xime. I don’t know much about her - she was alive - but that was about it. Not that much else mattered to me, though. She was in my way of home. She was, her partner was. This girl I found blood spilling from.

There were four - fallen boy - three people left for my burning candle and I wasn’t going to let my flame die. Not now, not ever. That pang I felt in my heart as the boy lunged his sword at me like a snake snapping its unhinged jaws was momentary. That pang was small. It was there. I felt that flush of stupidity in my cheeks as I realized my naive nature, but it didn’t last. I knew my stupidity could not get overshadowed by the task at hand. Winning. I was a fool for believing this was permanent, but I wasn’t stupid for thinking the pain was momentary. My hands felt like fire from the grip I found on my sword, fueled by my internal disappointment

I had nobody to feel sorry for here. They weren’t my family.

”Funny,” I bark back at him. ”Didn’t expect it?” I looked at him like he was crazy. I looked at him with the exact same look I remember him giving me when he calmed me down, because he was the equal of a fool. He was the jester’s hat sent to calm the people but quivering just as bad.

The girl spoke up, her voice dried to dust but bolded to importance. ”I need to see my brother,” I do too. I need to see Argos to call him a wimp. I needed to see Octavia for my therapy. I needed to see Noelle for my happiness. I needed to see Appa for the rest of my life. ”Please don’t let me leave him lonely, he won’t-” her voice shivered as if she held the weight of his life under it. His soul and spirit wrapped around her legs so tight that it cut off the blood circulation, making standing and talking to his dependent spirit hard for the girl. ”He won’t survive without me.”

In that moment, I felt for her. I understood that desire to protect him at all costs because I felt that exact same emotion bubbling up in my heart and soul about Noelle. I wanted her spirit to stay locked away in whatever box that Pandora’s opposed because she relished in so much light and joy from her throne on the porch. My heart felt like it was being wrung of emotion, tugged at by every single strand that held it there. I wanted to ask her about her brother. I wanted to sit down on our little picnic table out in our yard where we would have our picnics in the warm summer light. The seven of us- Mum, Pa, Appa, Argos, Octavia, Noelle and I. I missed those days where my life wasn’t in a leg race to keep itself, where I only had to worry about my family. I wish I could take this bleeding heart for her brother back home, but if I took her home, I wouldn’t ever leave these walls. Admittedly, I don’t think Appa would be able to handle that. They spent so long searching for this perfect home and family, and when we came into their life, they found that. Appa deserved a love that was permanent, a light that was the never ceasing horizon. Without that light, Appa was dark, and Appa would not see light again in a world of darkness.

Maybe she’ll find her brother in heaven. I would never see Noelle in hell. So as bad as I felt for this bleeding heart, I felt worse for my own heart. My family wouldn’t die without me, my future would.

My heart cared for the world’s population but it will only beat for two.

[attacks babe, sword]
VrzKxc13dgsword
[sc 4.0]

sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

May 19, 2020 16:40:06 GMT -5 gamemaker kelsier said:

[Babe Adroxis 9M, attack 11, 1033]

[Babe Adroxis 9M, attack 12, 1165]

b a b e .

"This is a game, no wrongs, no right
Only a winner and a loser
You and I, oh you and I
We're not that different, you and I."

His sword barely touches the other kid and Babe wonders why he can't hit like he means it, why the only time he was useful was his final blow on the female tribute he left bleeding out in the ash earlier.

He knows that his heart isn't in it, that it's never been but that shouldn't matter here. He should still be able to get out of this on top because he always has, that's always been his luck, to be the last one standing. Even though he doesn't want to, he'll do it because he's been cursed by it. Babe gazes at the scene in front of him, watching it play out as if he's no longer part of it.

Xime's arm lands on the ground and he suddenly wishes for a cigarette, like this is just another one of his bad dreams and all he needs is to wake up. Tradition dictates a walk in the yard and a cigarette after a bad dream but the sun is hot and Xime's arm is on the ground and there is blood on Babe's clothing; this is not a dream.

But what did he expect?

To be the last one standing with Xime? To just turn to her and cut her down and get the fuck out? No, it can't be like that because that ending promises a reality where he's actually able to just kill his friend.

She's on her knees in the ash now beside the boy she's just killed and Babe can't help marvelling a little at her strength. Only Xime could lose an arm and a leg and remain conscious. He doesn't deserve to live past her, not in any good story at least. She's the mighty warrior here, he's just an asshole that cut down a girl in tears.

"I want to go down fighting but please, I don't want to go down alone, I don't want to die to a stranger, please Babe," comes Xime's voice from across the ash and Babe goes to her, hand on her cheek. Her skin is blazing hot and her eyes barely see him but it's his Xime, his brazen friend. He doesn't know what to say to her, how to tell her that killing her is going to end him because this isn't the same as killing a stranger, this is killing someone he loves.

His father releases the safety on his gun and places a booted foot on Xime's leg to hold her in place, and the metal of his gun glints in the afternoon sun. "You have to make hard choices sometimes, Babe," he says.

And this is a waking dream.

This is the one where he picks his gun sword up and becomes the monster in the storage closet with a skylight and a red stain on the wall. This is the one where he kills his best friend.

"You're not alone, Xime," he says quietly, "I'd never let that happen." He kind of hopes that she knows that he did everything he could to avoid her in the arena for a reason, that he's not a coward, just afraid to kill one of his best friends. Leaving her alive like this isn't possible though, she's going to bleed out slowly or die fast by his hand. He knows he would have asked for the same thing.

She would have given it.

Carefully he lifts his blade and positions it above her heart, eyes holding hers. Everything else fades into the background and he stares down that long hallway, eyes on the barrel of his father's gun and it's too late to turn around, his feet aren't listening. his father's hand is on the trigger and Babe's is on the hilt and before he can change his mind, he pushes down with all his strength.

bang.

[babe attacks xime with sword]
fVjbJve1lasword
[Shallow Cut on Chest -- 4.0 damage]

sword

[D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza]]

May 20, 2020 15:57:46 GMT -5 D6f Carmen Cantelou [aza] said:

juno del air / post nine / 1155

juno del air / post ten / 1107

The arms of the sky open but heaven does not come down and sweep me off my feet to save me from the nightmare I've become. Above, there is only a blue that I stare longingly into; sadness, contemplation, anticipation and determination all managing to be defined within the lines of the sombre colour and when I look at it, I can feel my heart skip a beat. 

Because all I have amounted to in these past few days is nothing, and though I may have changed everything, I can feel my wounds more so than I can feel my words in my head. Things feel jumbled, a blurred vision becomes accompanied by a throbbing headache that no perfect night's sleep could whisk away. It's eternal, just as the dreams I once dreamt are, except this is something I can't wake up from, and it is certainly nothing I ever wanted to live.

Nobody listens when I tell them about Lark. Nobody cares, I get that, I can't blame anyone for that, but isn't there an ounce of humanity in someone that would let me live so that he can too? Lives are all equal, maybe I'm selfish for trying to justify my own life over anyone else's but the thought of losing him brings goosebumps to my skin. The loneliness of growing up an orphan, the abandonment, the loss of self that comes with losing the one who raised you. His face flashes so vividly into my mind and it feels like he's closer than ever, but as all good things seem to be, he is fleeting, and this moment is too, and the sun's burn from above washes his comfort away, replacing it with a dirty red hue.

It isn't fair. It isn't fair that we are all here; taken from our homes to fight a broken fight, to win a broken title and be paraded around the world as a broken champion. It's all completely broken. This is a jigsaw puzzle that doesn't want to be put back together. The pieces have lost themselves on purpose. The picture never gets restored, and so, all that is left are tiny little pieces of good things, good things that are forced to turn bad because they only have themselves now. It can turn people into soldiers: lonesome but strong, they sing to the wind and are carried by the current it delivers in response. A chorus of courage acting as the wind beneath their wings.

Yet soldiers fight a war that can't be won. The world would never give in, for it only takes and takes and even when you think it stops, it keeps on taking and taking until there aren't any pieces of the jigsaw puzzle left. The pretty picture gets lost. The people who try to remember it forget the details, they forget what made it special and over time, the memories that should be pretty and beautiful become broken too. I don't think of myself as a solider. I'm just Juno. Just a girl who is trying to go home because all she's known is somehow all that she wants - as terrible as it has been.

I carefully approach the other tributes. The girl looks like she's seeing stars, and I wish I could tell her that things would be okay, to comfort her almost, but soft words mean nothing when you are armed with sticks and stones. One boy murmurs some words towards her and it doesn't take a genius to put two and two together to recognise this as an act of mercy.

But even mercy is broken here - as golden as it should be, it is tarnished. Rusted. It creaks when the wind blows. It croaks in the sun. Mercy feels just as sorry as how the bodies on the ground look. It becomes a lifeless thing, meaningless, even if heart tries to inject meaning into it.

This feels wrong, but that's what makes it right. I tell myself that this is all circumstantial, and it frightens me a bit - because what if circumstance means I'm forgotten? 

What if it means Lark is too?

It makes me want it even more.

Context is the key that has turned me to a killer. Everything around me is sorry, but I can't be. I have to stay alive.

[ d3f juno del air attacks d5m september!!! ]

uU2|YQ0_Agsword

[ 1107 -- Shallow Cut on Left Calf -- 3.5 damage ]

sword

[gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin.]

May 20, 2020 19:20:07 GMT -5 gamemaker tallis 🧚🏽‍♂️kaitlin. said:

[ 9f ximena wright  | post 13 | 1051 ]

[ 9f ximena wright  | post 14 | 1075 ]

You're speaking again before you even know what you're doing, before you can think about your words, before you can think about how it will look or how weak it may make you look or—you don't let yourself think about it.

You just call out to him, let him come to you, and maybe save you like he saved you once before. Not with kindness, not with softness, but with blood and respect.

"I want to go down fighting but please, I don't want to go down alone, I don't want to die to a stranger," you say, lower lip quivering, and between one word and the next, he's right there by your side. "Please Babe."

You look at him like he's an angel.

You suppose, in his own way, that he is. A cowardly one, maybe, one who fell into power without necessarily deserving it, maybe, the kind of angel that most of the world spends their entire lives hating, maybe. But he's yours, your angel, your savior, and when he puts his hand on your cheek you don't even hide the gasping sob that echoes through your chest. I'd never let that happen, he says to you, and the hand that you have left almost gives up, gives in, lets the promise of death take you away from this place.  

Absently, you hear your father shouting in the back of your head. Go down fighting, it says. Eyes wide open.

Not even half a moment later, you're glad that you've always been good at listening to the orders of others. 

Even your dead father knows better than you.

Babe falters, digs his sword in and doesn't quite make it all the way to the place where your heart should be, and you don't even have time to get angry with him before you're using all the strength that you have left to push back up on your single knee, elbowing Babe out of the way as your sword whirls towards the other girl as she quickly comes up behind the pair of you.

"Get down!" you say say, voice gruff with too much emotion and too much adrenaline and too much everything—too much too much too much. Everything in this moment is too much for you to properly process.

All you know is he can't die. 

[ 9f xime attacks 3f juno, sword ]

NW1A888rLlsword

[ 1075 - stabbed in bicep - 8.5 ]

"Don't fucking touch him," you spit at her, sword still gouged right through her bicep before you yank it back towards you. The motion makes you fall back on your heel before you lose your balance even from there, and your hand flicks backwards to try and catch your weight. 

sword

[thompson harvard - d2b - arc]

May 20, 2020 20:24:19 GMT -5 thompson harvard - d2b - arc said:

[ d5m september yorgos | post #15 | attack 1162]

[ d5m september yorgos | post #16 | attack 1021]

{ september }

The world felt so slow now as there were only four people left in this trap. There was nobody dying left and right and no constant cheers at one more body hitting the ground. The world found itself silent. The wind stopped it’s song and the hum of energy shooting between every single audience member like an electric current had burnt out. It had grown silent as if the world was waiting to see what would happen. Fates had called the works of life to come to a rest. It felt like the world had turned its attention back to these four in this single space. Everyone was in awe and in wonder, who would come out alive in this battle? Who would live and who would die? The race was tighter than the stacks of hay we stacked in the barn.

I felt so, utterly quiet, and it was weird. Blood wasn’t that much of an issue for me at the moment, mostly just scrapes off my body. My head stopped bleeding I think, but it was the back so I’ve got no clue what the back of my head looks like. After my scratch at the boy, he moved to the girl that assumed I was sent on a quest by him to kill. I guess they wanted some moment or he wanted to kill her himself now. It wasn’t my issue, he was out of my sight. I now knew that I would be given the job of ending this so poorly wounded girl. However, to combat my internal knowledge, she took a swing at me and then found herself in the same direction as him. I was dumbfounded. Why was she following him? Did he provide something, was he this magnet for her? A moth to a flame? It confused me, why she continued running towards death, but maybe she wanted to die. Maybe she had no brother and she was making an excuse to tell herself she couldn’t give up yet.

For a brief moment, I stood there. I bathed in that silence like a lizard on a rock or a horse on the farm. I gazed out at the three together, watching the girl on the ground lash up as their new opponent got near. In that moment, I thought that I could just stay here. Sit and watch it all go down until it came my turn to attack and become the winner. Go home without any more blood on my hands. However, I did not want fate to take me, I wanted to take fate. Using it to my hand to become the person they - the Capitol - wanted me so bad. That warrior who was ready to kill; that was what they wanted me to be. And to my family’s expense, I would. I don’t want to be the coaster, slide on by to the end to take the crown from someone’s head. I want to be the crown. The crown gets me home. I want to be home. I wanted to go back to everyone that I lived and breathed for up until this point - for Appa and Octavia and Argos and Noelle. For Mum and Pa. I didn’t come this far in this fight to become the next layer of ash in this arena. I was the monster with a crown to the Capitol, but I was the homesick boy to my family.

It can be seen in my movements. How every single cheer and maniacal laugh reminded me subtly of Noelle and how every single reckless hack at each other reminded me of Argos. How my fear of becoming the ash on this ground reminded me of Appa. I missed the serene hills and the blowing trees. Watching their leaves fall to the ground as the fall comes and succumb to the sting of a winter’s breath. I miss how we could just be. Life wasn’t this question mark for us, as we all now knew, for my life was questioned. It still is in question until I win. It’s in question until I get home.

Like the buck readying his horns to attack, I had my sword gripped in my hand. It was my hand. I fought with this sword more than I did my hands. My feet found themselves tottering like they were balancing the tightrope of life or death and I was back with the group again, still telling myself I wouldn’t allow myself to become the sheep of a winner. I wanted to earn my win. Fight for it. I wanted to feel like I deserved something for once instead of the heat flaming my back to say I needed to do more. Because I know I can do it.

The girl was on her last leg of life now, she could probably see the stars clearer than the empty night sky. She was the starry night that glittered so lightly but so endlessly. The beauty in her was found within the ways we see our constellations and how each one had a different story. Octavia loved constellations and horoscopes; she used to dig up old newspapers and read the daily horoscopes she could find. Octavia was obsessed with the idea that all the stars in the sky formed to create one big story and they were their own individual, so unique stories. We all were stars, we all formed our own constellation. The stars of my constellation haven’t been placed yet, but I know that wherever my stars take me that I am a part of this world that could never leave, because I am September Yorgos. This girl was the stars, the moon. She was the rotating planet. Her world was something that I could always appreciate, however, two worlds colliding can never stay as two.

I was the world that would remain.

[attacks juno, sword]
irMxNDBsG8sword
[3.5 - sc]

My sword met flesh and her world had become the scarlet canvas of this arena that so many people had faced already. I felt bad, and I thought I told myself that I wouldn't feel guilt for my killing, but it was inhumane to not feel bad. I wish we didn't have to fight and kill. I wish I didn't have to be the person to take a sister away from a brother, but if I wasn't, it was Babe. She would not live in these conditions, and I wanted to hold her there and tell her that it was all okay, that her brother was okay. But there was no protecting the innocent in this country. The innocent are just as equal as the guilty because they're breathing too. The innocent always get the bad end of the stick.

"Fuck Panem", I whispered to myself, looking at her body. She lost her world, and the people in that world would soon follow. I gave a prayer for her brother - wishing that somehow someone would be there to provide for him with the loss of his sister. But she was an angel now, she was with the skies where every star would place their story. Her story and spirit would always be with her brother, and that could be enough.

sword

[gamemaker kelsier]

May 20, 2020 21:17:47 GMT -5 gamemaker kelsier said:

[Babe Adroxis 9M, attack 12, 1165]

[Babe Adroxis 9M, attack 13, 1182/1050]

b a b e .

"Oh, I hope some day
I'll make it out of here
Even if it takes all night
or a hundred years."

It bends.

There's no other explanation, his blade just bends away from Xime's heart and he feels it in his hand as his sword meets ash instead. He can't do this. Babe brushes his thumb slowly across Ximena's cheekbone and cups the back of her neck. He's lost so many people in his life, he should be better at it by now but he's not. It hurts every single time.

In the end of all things, Babe isn't a killer, his heart has never been in it. Killing out of duty has never been hard for him in the moment but ghosts walk his dreams so easily, they haunt him in the night and make him weak. He knows it, Xime knows it but she's left her life in his hands anyway and he can't even give fulfil her final request without disappointing her. "Xime, I'm sorry," he says softly and lifts her head into his lap. There's something impossible about the way she still breathes, still blinks and smiles with her life moments from being over and he wishes for an ounce of her ferocity.

But he's always just been Daniel in the den, a boy that's been living amongst lions for so long that he thought he was one too.

He wraps his hand around the hilt of the sword, tighter this time, the shadow of his father standing over him overbearing and making it hard to focus. He's not crazy, Babe knows his father isn't really there, it's just another night terror come to visit for the day. He feels a hand on his shoulder and he's twelve years old again, not understanding what the large red stain on the wall is in a room where his father cleans a gun.

Before he can strike again, Xime is pushing past him and shoving him away so that she can strike at the other female tribute and he blinks as he catches himself and Ximena's sword is digging deep into the girl's arm. She's saving his life again, his Xime. "Don't fucking touch him."

As she falls back to earth, Babe catches her and cradles her close. He presses his forehead hard against her's, wishing he had time to stay like this a little longer with her. "Xime," he whispers, "Thank-you." Babe doesn't know how to convey just how much he will miss her, how if he makes it home, her bedroom will sit empty in the Adroxis house and there will always be an empty spot at the table where she used to sit.

The fire won't burn as bright without her there to stoke it.

But he pushes his blade into her chest with a quick shove anyway, eyes on hers to see the exact moment that life leaves them. The whole of her relaxes in his arms, muscle and bone becoming dead weight. Her body is still warm in his hold when he kisses her forehead gently and lays her back carefully in the ash. Babe gazes down at her and runs his fingers carefully over her eyelids to pull them closed.

He stores the images he has of her carefully away and builds a version of her up inside of his head to take out later. Always having been more fearsome and alive than the rest, he knows that she will haunt his dreams.

When he turns around, the other female tribute is down as well and it's just the boy from the cage, the friend he could have made and an empty arena.

"Hey kid," he says and wipes the blade of his sword off on his ragged cape, "Got a name?"

"Monster doesn't suit you."

[babe attacks xime with sword]
pcZRKKs91gsword
[sc]

[babe attacks xime with sword]
sword
[Shallow Cut on Right Shoulder -- 3.5 damage]

*permission was obtained from lalia and kaitlin to hit twice because i can't roll for shit

sword·sword