Notes: Such a good Elf to worry about Katie-Kate AND Steeb. *mwuah* Sorry in advance for the horrible awfulness...
Chapter 36: The Final Four
July 17th: Day Eleven of the Games
In the Arena
Losing Clara had been tough, and once Kamala had fallen asleep the night before, Scott finally let himself go a little bit. He didn't even mean for it to happen — the shutting down like he had done — but once he was alone, he had just… folded in on himself.
The glasses afforded him some privacy in that no one could really see his eyes properly to witness the raw hurt. And because of the red lenses, even when she was awake, Kamala couldn't see that he was crushed. That he was upset by watching Clara slip off the way she did — bleeding to death inside her own body.
But it was a new day, and the two allies had spent all morning and into the afternoon setting up all kinds of traps that would allow them to deal with tributes and mutts alike from a distance — and with a little luck, they wouldn't need to get their hands dirty at all.
The truth was — Scott wasn't sure he could do it again. Jean screaming ... on fire … it was burned into his brain. But he knew for a fact that Kamala didn't need that on her hands, didn't want that on her hands. So traps… distance… This was what he could do. And if it came down to it...
Well, none of that was something to deal with for now. Now it was time to just … get to work. Finish setting up the deadfalls that they were working on. Hope that they worked like Kamala swore they would.
He was balancing a rock while she set up the little wedge that would be pulled when the trigger was tripped, sweating heavily and straining under the exertion until she cheerfully called out that she was done. But even then, he didn't let it go until he knew that Kamala was well away from the large rock near the edge of the cliff.
He did not want to be the guy to lose an ally because he'd slipped.
Kamala bounded up to him with a shadow of her usual grin. He knew that losing Clara had affected her badly, but she was doing her best to pretend she wasn't hurting. Part of it was for his sake, he knew, but watching her… She was just built like that. Stronger than anyone had given her credit for being, in a way that people always overlooked. She could bounce back, survive anything. He just had to make sure she got past the Games, and then she could handle the rest.
She wiped the palms of her hands off on her pants and smiled up at him. "Thanks," she said. "I probably couldn't have set traps like this without you."
She was trying to keep up the smile and the pretense of the ease back-and-forth from earlier in the Games, so he tried, too, raising one eyebrow. "Probably?" he teased.
"Hey, I'm stronger than I look," she said, her hands on her hips.
He had to smirk to himself, since he'd been thinking that very thing only moments ago. "You really are," he said, entirely serious.
She bumped her shoulder with his until she caught the very corner of a smile, and the two of them headed back down, following the line of the traps they'd set. The whole plan, of course, hinged on the other tributes coming to them, but it was such a spectacular setup, and Kamala was so excited about all her hard work, that Scott hoped the Gamemakers would send someone their way.
Well, he didn't really. He wasn't sure he could get any more blood on his hands.
But it would be better to meet them here, on their terms, than to go out hunting; he knew that much.
It didn't help that he knew who was left, too. The girl from Ten was skulking about, and Scott wasn't sure what Kamala would do when faced with that girl again. Scott wasn't sure what he would do, facing the girl who killed Clara. And America — he'd gotten to know her through their stylists, and had been up on the roof with them every night, talking about how she wanted someone else to win. If they met up with her, Scott half hoped she'd help him see Kamala safely through, with an attitude like she'd had going in... but with Billy gone, he didn't have a guarantee.
He leaned against the wall of the desert mountains, his arms screaming with the effort of holding up those boulders. But he had to admit, it was a brilliant trap. Anyone who wanted to get to them would have to go past one of the trigger points. Unless they were exceptional climbers, they would likely be flattened, or at least injured….
It would be their luck that the girl from Ten was probably a good climber, but he pushed that out of his mind. If she came for Kamala again…. He would stop her. He had to.
"Whatcha thinking, fearl- uh, Scott?" Kamala asked.
He frowned at the slight pause and shook his head as he pushed off from the wall. "Just admiring your good work. This really is impressive, Kamala," he told her, and he was earnest about it.
She smiled at him and lightly punched him in the arm, but before she could reply, both of them heard what distinctly sounded like skittering.
It was the only warning they had, and Scott threw himself sideways, his shoulders squared to Kamala as he ducked out of the way of a huge, horrible, black something that zipped toward them so fast they were lucky to have avoided it at all.
When he glanced up to see the mutt getting ready to charge again, the bottom fell out of his stomach. A black widow spider, its legs at least twice the length of Scott's body, had found the two of them. It was huge, gleaming, the red hourglass practically shining in the bright desert sunlight.
"Run!" He pushed Kamala ahead of him as best he was able, somehow getting his feet underneath him. Neither of them had the kind of weaponry that could deal with something this huge, not with daggers and knives, and the giant mutt had come up the sides of the canyon walls, avoiding all of their carefully-laid traps. The best chance they had was to put distance between them and it and hope they were faster than the spider was.
But it was very quickly apparent that they couldn't outrun the spider. It skittered across the desert wall, eight eyes gleaming in its head as it rubbed its pincers together. Scott could see the venom dripping of its long fangs — they had to have been enhanced by the Capitol — and he fought to keep Kamala behind him as the spider raised up on four legs into an aggressive stance.
"Now what?" Kamala asked, her voice wavering. He could feel her grip on the sleeve of his shirt — she was clearly terrified — and he glanced around the valley, trying to find something… anything…
"We'll trigger the trap," he told her, still motionless, watching the spider as its front legs, still raised, seemed to gleam — they were probably sharp at the edges too. "The northeast one."
It was the closest trap to their position, and it was clear that Kamala knew it as she glanced up above them at the boulder carefully wedged over their heads. "How do we get there?" she asked.
"You get there," he said, very carefully taking out the knife in his pants pocket. "It can't track both of us at once, so when I say move, move."
Kamala's eyes widened, and it was clear she was gearing up to argue with him as she screwed up her whole face. "Scott—"
But they didn't have time for an argument. "RUN!" he shouted. He burst into motion toward the spider, throwing the knife as he did so — so that he was sure to get its attention.
It wasn't much against the huge spider, but the blade embedded itself deeply into the spider's head, and the flurry of hissing and clicking that filled the valley was downright unnerving as the giant thing rushed right for Scott.
This… was the part of the plan he wasn't sure he'd quite thought out.
He hadn't made it more than a few steps before the huge mutt caught up to him, and he quickly found out that he'd been right about the legs — they did have sharp tips. That much was evidenced by the sharp, almost tingling sensation in his arm as the spider stopped over him.
He glanced up and saw that he was directly beneath the long, glistening fangs, and he threw himself sideways to avoid the bite. It wasn't a perfect plan — but he only had to make it another few yards to where Kamala would be waiting to drop a boulder on the thing.
He saw the pincers out of the corner of his eye, and it was enough that he was able to duck, but the spider caught him on the fabric of his shirt, yanking him to a stop until he managed to tear free, most of the fabric still in the spider's pincers. He couldn't see Kamala anymore, just the shadow of a huge, bulbous abdomen with the red hourglass, as well as the dripping fangs inches away from him as the spider snapped her mandibles.
He scrambled backward, trying to keep his momentum. In the tangle of legs around him, he had no idea how close he was to the mark, and as he turned to get out of the way of the fangs, he let out an 'oof' as two of the black widow's front legs hit him on either side. The spider was strong enough and the legs long enough that it set him back a few steps — and then it lunged again.
Scott threw up both of his arms in defense, stumbling back and away from the legs, but the spider was prodding at him, almost like it was testing him. It would hit him with two, three, even four legs, allowing the sharp tips to tear at his skin and clothes. It would wait to see what he would do, the pincers clicking the whole time. If he tried to bolt, or move, the legs would come down on him again, poking and prodding and pushing, until he was left standing there, his hands raised in defense, long and jagged cuts across his arms and chest as he never took his gaze off the dripping fangs.
He wasn't getting anywhere, and this spider was going to keep wearing him down at this rate. And since there had been no boulder crashing down to squish the thing, he knew he hadn't gotten close enough to the mark for Kamala to help him either.
He took in a deep breath and quietly nodded to himself as he made his decision — and threw everything he had into a dash toward Kamala's mark.
He didn't get very far before the long, shining legs were in his way — but he was done trying to play it safe with this thing. If he didn't move now, it was going to wear him down, and then it would come after Kamala.
He threw everything he had into pushing back against the front legs, grunting with the effort. He could feel the gashes tearing into his arms as he did, but it was enough — just enough — that the spider seemed to startle and circle around in front of Scott to cut off his avenue of escape.
It was exactly where Kamala's mark was, and Scott skidded to a stop, bleeding and panting as he actually grinned at the giant spider. The thing had no idea what was about to hit it — its only concern was subduing the prey it had in front of it.
Two massive legs crashed down into Scott, pinning him to the ground. He suddenly couldn't see anything but massive mandibles, the fangs inches from his face, before they sank deeply into his chest. They were long enough that he could feel them scraping under his chin, and he couldn't stop the scream as both fangs sank in deeper, pumping venom into his chest.
The fangs were still sinking in when there was a terrible rumbling noise above both Scott and the mutt. The spider seemed to sense that something was wrong and not only reasserted its grip on its prey, but seemed to try and pull Scott in, possibly to make off with its meal — an instant before the boulder fell on its huge, bulbous, black abdomen.
Scott cried out as the fangs ripped free from his chest, and the spider clicked and hissed and struggled for only a few more seconds, black and red goop staining the sand as much as Scott's own blood, until it finally quieted down and lay still.
"Scott!" Kamala cried out, but when Scott tried to turn his head to follow her voice, he was surprised to find that he simply couldn't move. His muscles weren't responding. If anything, it felt like everything was tearing itself apart inside of him, bubbling in liquid fire under his skin, and when he tried to draw breath, all he could manage was a terrible sort of gurgled gasp.
He didn't think he had many more of those breaths left in him, if he was being honest.
"RUN!"
As soon as the command was out of Scott's mouth, he'd rushed the huge spider thing, and Kamala startled. She hadn't been prepared to move yet, but when she saw that the spider had its focus on Scott, she started to climb as fast as she could.
It was a hard climb; they had purposefully set their traps in areas that other tributes would have a hard time avoiding their trigger point. It was a good plan; but they hadn't taken into account giant spiders that could climb over all their hard work.
She was crying already as she pulled herself up to the top of the ledge, because the valley bowled in on itself, creating a sort of echo chamber. She could hear every horrible hiss and click of the spider's mandibles, every sound as the spider hit Scott again and again. She glanced over her shoulder once — only once — in time to see a near miss and gritted her teeth, pushing herself that much harder, determined to make it to her mark before the spider took too much out of Scott.
She knew she didn't have time, but maybe — maybe if it kept poking at him instead of straight up eating him….
Finally, she found the top of the ledge, and she pulled herself over, hardly pausing and ignoring the stitch in her side and the fact that she barely had enough air to keep from needing to sit down before she threw herself into a sprint toward the carefully wedged boulder. It wouldn't take much to kick the wedge out, but if the spider wasn't in place, the only thing a falling boulder would do was cut off an escape route for Scott.
If he wasn't crushed...
She pushed the thought out of her mind. No, she was going to get there in time, and she was going to save Scott. He'd be covered in spider goo, but…
When she got to where the boulder was, she finally looked down to see how Scott was doing, and she had to bite her lip to keep back the cry of dismay when she saw that the creature had him pinned down, unable to move without running into one of those long, glistening legs.
But they weren't anywhere near the mark. If Kamala kicked out the wedge now, it would only be a very loud noise, not anything damaging — though she honestly considered it as she watched Scott struggling to move even an inch in any direction. Maybe a loud noise would scare it off or… or something.
It was agony, watching and waiting, rooting for Scott to get any kind of forward motion. Any at all. He was bleeding; he was hurt, and she wanted to be down there to help. But she was right where she was supposed to be, right where he'd told her to be.
She was holding her breath, ready to move, and when the spider swung around to get in front of Scott, Kamala kicked out the wedge.
It just… it wasn't fast enough.
The boulder tipped slowly at first but then fell fast, crashing down onto the giant creature and dragging smaller rocks along with it. But the spider was faster, and Kamala heard the awful scream when the fangs sank into Scott's chest. She was sure a cannon wasn't far behind ...but all she heard was the boulder, and a few final clicks. No cannon.
No cannon.
"Scott!" she shouted, already scrambling down to find him.
He was just … lying there on the desert sands, sprawled out and bleeding. She couldn't see if he was breathing or not, but he had to be. He had to ... or … there would have been a cannon blast.
She rushed to him where he was laid out — limbs askew and facing her direction. "Scott!" she shouted as she rushed closer. She was within an arm's reach of him when she tripped over her own feet on the uneven ground. Before she could get up, the sound of a blade cutting through flesh echoed in the valley, and Kamala's eyes widened, unable to breathe enough to scream.
She met Scott's red-lensed gaze as he tried desperately to shout — or scream — or something. But he was stuck, staring at Kamala's wide eyes and open mouth before she coughed up a trickle of blood and collapsed forward, with Yuriko's shortsword buried to the hilt through her back.
Yuriko herself was clearly hurting. The slashes from Clara had not stopped weeping, and one arm hung limply — obviously injured from her previous battles. But there she still stood, glaring venomously at Scott, not even looking at Kamala.
Scott watched as the tall girl from Ten withdrew the blade. Kamala turned to try and fight her off from the ground, grasping at the blade in a desperate attempt to stop her, but Yuriko stabbed Kamala again and again until the cannon went off. And then she did it once more — staring right at Scott as if she were challenging him to be the one the cannon was for.
She left the blade embedded and stuck into the sand as she stepped over Kamala's still body and positively strutted over to where Scott was lying paralyzed.
"Why did you put so much effort into protecting her?" Yuriko asked as she traced the back of her hand along his jaw. "She would have been so much more useful had you fed her to the spider. You might still have had a chance for me to kill you honorably." She tutted a bit as she watched the blood seep from his chest. "But to kill you now would be like putting down an old dog. Too merciful."
With a smirk, Yuriko walked a few paces away and waited, watching for the moment and looking overly smug about herself. But, as Scott began to gasp for his last few breaths, Yuriko was too focused on watching him die to hear the angry, frizzy haired girl coming up behind her faster with every step.
America's fist made contact with the side of Yuriko's head at the exact moment the cannon went off for Scott. Which was the only reason the sound of brass hitting bone was obscured to everyone but America and Yuriko.
"No. Way. In. Hell. Are. You. Winning," America said through her teeth, punctuating every word with a blow as she worked up to a pure fury, not at all noticing the pull in her side that meant she was tearing open the sword wound that one of the Miles clones had given her. She couldn't be bothered with something so meaningless when she was so focused on punishing the girl in her grasp.
In spite of the punishment — or perhaps because of it — Yuriko scrambled back enough to swing her leg around and hit America in the side, buying her only a moment as she started to make her way back toward her discarded sword.
Of course, that meant she was headed for where Kamala was still lying, and that only seemed to incense America more. She tackled Yuriko from behind, falling short of the full grasp on the Ten girl's body — she grabbed her around the shins. It had the desired effect as both girls went down in a tumble.
Yuriko threw her elbow back, and caught her attacker in the face, though her blows weren't anywhere near what America was still able to dish out. With little more than her nose bloodied and her lip split, America grinned and put her shoulder into Yuriko's injured one. When Yuriko reflexively cried out and grabbed a handful of America's long hair to try to get the upper hand, America grabbed her hair at the roots and turned. And since her hair was long enough, it wasn't any trouble for her to bite down hard on Yuriko's wrist, easily drawing blood, and forcing Yuriko let go.
With another cry of rage, America laid both fists into Yuriko's sides at once, and when the breath left the villain in a rush, America followed it up with an uppercut that had blood dripping out of the corner of Yuriko's mouth when she managed to once again face America.
Yuriko was outmatched strength wise in hand to hand, and she knew it, so she made one more lunge for Kamala. The sword came free of the young girl with a horrible sound, and she swung it around, catching America in the shoulder, just at the joint.
America screamed out, and Yuriko allowed herself a small smile at the sound, but that only seemed to tick off the frizzy-haired girl more as she drove one knee into Yuriko's gut. America's hands grasped onto the blade itself as Yuriko folded and crumpled, but America kept the sword, since it was still lodged in her shoulder. She pulled it out with a cry and flipped it in her good hand, her gaze darting from Yuriko to Kamala before she swung the blade with everything she had. She wasn't going for elegance — she simply wanted to cut the Ten girl in half.
She got better than half of the way there, too — swinging the sword through flesh and across Yuriko's chest. Even after the cannon rang out, America didn't quite hear it or process what had happened until she realized that Yuriko had slumped to the ground and wasn't getting back up again.
Silence was ringing in her ears as she looked around the valley — at Kamala, at Yuriko, at Scott — and she suddenly dropped the sword. The clatter echoed too loudly, and she winced at the sound of it, but she didn't move at all, instead simply standing there in shock, bleeding and staring at the last three tributes that had died in rapid succession before her.
Gotta be someone else, she thought to herself before she heard the whine of the transport. She was completely ready to step aside so the transport could take the last of the kids, but instead, white-clad people started to file out of the transport and head right for her.
For one, fleeting second, she thought about calling out "clones" — because that had to be what was happening. More mutts. She'd miscounted; there had to be someone left.
But one of the medics came up to her with a friendly smile and a look of sympathy as she looked over America's side and shoulder. "Here, sweetie—" she started to say, an instant before America took a swing at her — and two seconds later, America felt like all the strength had drained out of her.
Poison, she thought numbly as she hit the ground and the medics carried her out of the arena.
24. Monet St. Croix, District Eleven Female, Killed by Arkady Gregorovitch
23. Jessica Jones, District Five Female - Killed by Zebediah Kilgrave
22. Skurge, District Four Male - Killed by Clara Creed
21. Brian Braddock, District Two Male - Killed by Giuletta Nefaria
20. Giuletta Nefaria, District Three Female - Killed by Elizabeth Braddock
19. Alex Summers, District Nine Male - Killed by Brock Rumlow
18. Brock Rumlow, District Six Male - Killed by James Barnes
17. Arkady Gregorovitch, District Ten Male - Killed by Remy LeBeau
16. Amora, District Four Female - Killed by Clara Creed
15. Gwen Stacy, District Eight Female - Killed by a long fall
14. Zebediah Kilgrave, District One Male - Killed by Yuriko Oyama
13. Remy LeBeau, District Eight Male - Killed by Gamemakers' mutts
12. Trevor Slattery, District Three Male - Killed by America Chavez
11. Billy Kaplan, District Twelve Male - Killed by Gamemaker poison
10. Elizabeth Braddock, District Two Female - Killed by Yuriko Oyama
9. Jean Gray, District One Female - Killed by Scott Summers
8. Kitty Pryde, District Eight Female - Killed by James Barnes
7. Clara Creed, District Seven Female - Killed by Yuriko Oyama
6. Miles Morales, District Eleven Male - Killed by Gamemakers' mutts
5. James Barnes, District Five Male - Killed by America Chavez
4. Kamala Khan, District Six Female - Killed by Yuriko Oyama
3. Scott Summers, District Six Male - Killed by Gamemakers' mutt
2. Yuriko Oyama, District Ten Female - Killed by America Chavez
1. America Chavez, District Twelve Female - VICTOR