Chapter 37:
Karter Beckwith, 16, District Seven
Karter is barely able to keep his eyes open at this point and even when he does, he's pretty sure he's hallucinating. Why else would Vulcan be standing there fighting for them after they just injured him? And Lobo isn't trying to kill them? He laughs a little bit before groaning at the pain in his side. He thought about death so much before and thought he was ready, and now it's here and not at all what he predicted. "Am I already dead?"
"No and you better not die or I'll kill you!" Lobo tells him, glancing back at him as Karter waves a hand dismissively in the air. "Karter!"
Karter blinks as a hand snaps in front of him, trying to focus on the face above him. "Huh?" he asks, not knowing when Lobo got there. "I'm tired, just forget me."
"I can't," Lobo pleads with him before flinching at the loud bangs rapid fire going off around them. But to Karter, they sound far away. "What's happening?!"
"On the ground, now!" A sharp voice commands them and Karter can see Vulcan drop down to the ground immediately, followed by more of the loud noise.
Karter, in his delirious state, laughs at how quickly Vulcan listened to them. "Aye aye, captain," he says, trying to give a salute before Lobo grabs his hands and holds it to his chest. Karter stares at his face, taking a few seconds to focus before smiling at him. "You're cute. I wish we would have met somewhere else."
"Move it," a different voice commands and pushes Lobo aside, who starts shouting at him and looks like he's about to start fighting him, until he suddenly stops. In the background, the other man says something to Vulcan, followed by two sets of cracking noises – gunfire? Karter shakes his head, so fucking confused and just knowing he is dying. "Hey, Karter, stick with me."
"I don't even know you, dude," Karter replies as the man starts rummaging through something next to him. He turns his head slowly to get a good look at him, before feeling a pinch in his arm. "Ow, that wasn't nice."
"Yeah, well, it will save your life. Keep this elevated," Seraphim says as he holds up a bag of dark fluid and hands it to Lobo, before he pulls up Karter's shirt and starts spraying something over it that feels cool and makes him giggle at the tickling. "This isn't enough to fully save him, but it's enough to get him to the hovercraft and medical care there. Zephyr! We're ready to move!"
"Hovercraft?" Karter asks in confusion before there's another stab in his arm and he feels fluid being injected in him, as Lobo yells and tries to grab it away from him. "Wh-what…" he mumbles as he feels himself getting picked up, but his whole body feels numb and limp.
He drifts in and out of consciousness as he's jostle around, sometimes brought back to focus by the sharp bangs. It's only after a few minutes of it that he finally recognizes it as gunfire, but his brain is too foggy to figure out why there's guns in the arena. "Guns are cheating," he mumbles as the person carrying him shifts their hold on him.
"I don't think the mutts care about us cheating," Vulcan says in a snarky reply, making Karter blink as he tries to focus on their face above him. He looks around, becoming a little more aware of things, but it only makes him more confused because why is Vulcan carrying him? "Almost there. Your little shit boyfriend couldn't carry you all the way and the others don't trust either of us with a gun."
"I'm not a little shit!" Lobo yells at them, but Karter is too busy grinning at Lobo being called his boyfriend. He starts giggling at that and Vulcan rolls their eyes, while Lobo comes over with a concerned look. "Why is he like this?"
"Heavy duty pain meds," Seraphim calls back to them, slightly winded. "Nearly there. This is Seraphim, returning with tributes and we need med team stat."
"It's me, I'm the one needing the med team, wooo," Karter says, waving his finger a little bit in the air before groaning at getting a big jostle. "You did that on purpose."
"No comment," Vulcan replies in a gruff tone, but…
"Is that a smile?" Karter says, reaching up to poke at Vulcan's cheek where he's pretty sure he saw a hint of a smile. But he just gets his hand swatted away, making him laugh more. "Big tough guy isn't so tough, huh?"
"Can we move faster?" Vulcan says, ignoring Karter as they start running faster, yet hold on to Karter tighter.
Karter just groans as he's jostled around, grabbing the front of Vulcan's shirt to hold onto something, until they slow down and he looks around in confusion at the sight in front of him. "Get him inside, there's a med bay in the back," Seraphim directs Vulcan, who carries him on board.
"You're still alive?" Chantelle asks, giving Vulcan a bit of a surprised look and crossing her arms. "Shocker."
"Yeah, well, get used to it," Vulcan grumbles at that, ignoring her to take Karter back. And surprisingly, they set him down gently, only to get shoved aside by Lobo pushing to be right at his side as Seraphim comes in, giving a run down to the doctors.
"You're going to be alright, okay?" Lobo tells him, pushing back his hair from his forehead before holding his hand tightly. "You can't die on me. I don't know what I'll do if you leave me."
"Pretty sure I am dying," Karter says before glancing at the doctors and Seraphim, suddenly not too sure about that. "What's happening?"
"Rebels attacked, Games are over, we need to get everyone out immediately," Zephyr fills in for Seraphim who's busy with the doctors. The victor is reading something on a phone and from the look on his face, it's definitely not good.
When he turns it to Seraphim to read, he confirms it. "Fuck," he says, pinching the bridge of his nose for a few seconds as he holds up a finger, while the doctors start connecting more needles and things to Karter. "Okay, we need a plan. There's too many of them out there, do we split up?"
"Over my dead fucking body are we splitting up!" Zephyr says loudly, making Lobo flinch a little at his yelling. "No, we're not splitting up."
"Well we don't have a big enough team to get everyone and out of here before the rebels decide to attack us further!" Seraphim yells back, gesturing at the hovercraft and clearly fired up about all of this. "And I'm tired of choosing which kids get to live, Zephyr!"
"I can go," Vulcan offers quietly from where they were standing to the side, arms crossed as they watch all of this happening. "Tell me where and I'll go."
"Why would you want to go when you can stay safe here?" Seraphim asks before sighing and shaking his head. "Fine, we don't have time to waste arguing. Get some guns and armor, then grab a tracker. The sniffer dogs are tracked and out looking."
"If they're going, I'm going too," Chantelle chimes in right away, pushing herself into the room. Karter just glances around at all of them, still confused about what exactly is happening, but he holds Lobo's hand a little tighter to keep him at his side.
"Fine! I don't care whatever reason you have to prove yourself!" Seraphim says, so clearly incredibly stressed and fed up with this situation – or maybe just with the careers. "But if you die out there, it is your own damn fault because you could have stayed right here! Anyone else want to go?" He puts his hands on his hips as he looks over at Adonis and Bez, who just share a look before shaking their heads. "Fine, get moving. We also have to go, Zephyr. Is he going to be okay?"
"The wound is deep, but with the blood you gave I think we can get him stabilized," the doctor replies and Lobo squeezes his hands at that. "We'll do what we do for victors, get the wounds sealed up to stop bleeding until we can get to the Capitol and into surgery."
"Good, do it," Seraphim says and gives Karter a long look, before sighing as he turns to leave. "Let's hope we can get the others."
"Damn, no dying today for me," Karter says once the others have all hurried off, and laughs a little at the look Lobo gives him. "Oh please, you don't scare me with that look."
"Well you scared me," Lobo tells him quietly. "I thought I was going to lose you there."
"Apparently you can't get rid of me yet," Karter replies softly, reaching up to rub his cheek carefully to not pull out the IVs. "And hey, if the Games are over, guess that means we both can live, huh? You can actually be my boyfriend." He laughs at how Lobo starts blushing at that immediately, able to feel the warmth under his hand.
"Yeah, yeah, we'll see," Lobo grumbles, but Karter knows from the look on his face that's a yes for him. "You have to survive until then, okay?"
Karter sighs at that, the drugs fully kicked in at this point as the doctors work on him, but he knows that isn't fully in his hands. If they couldn't get him back to the Capitol soon, would he die? Probably. But he couldn't tell Lobo that. "Alright, I guess I'll keep living for you."
Kasada Masou, 17, District Six
"Bastards! Fuck off!" Kasada yells as she kicks the chest of a mutt trying to follow them through the broken door. She barely keeps her balance as it tries grabbing onto her foot, but with Farren holding onto her shoulders, he's able to pull her inside to safety before slamming it shut and starting to barricade it. She breaths heavy as she collapses to the floor, her body struggling to keep moving from everything she's gone through so far in the arena, but adrenaline keeps her going. She looks over at Farren as she wipes sweat off of her forehead, finding him in not much better shape than she is right now. "And I thought the careers were bad when they were living tributes."
"Elias is a nice boy, nothing like the mutt version of him," Farren replies, shaking his head as he keeps piling broken furniture in front of the door to stop the mutt from getting inside to get them. He turns back as Kasada takes out a water bottle, trying to sip just a little since they don't have much left, but it's so hard when all she wants is to chug it. She's so hungry and thirsty and her body has never felt like this, not even when she pushed it to the limits of training in the months leading up to the Games. Farren sighs as he sits down next to her, and she offers him the mostly empty bottle silently, which he pushes back to her. "Anastasia was also nice, I chatted a bit at the party with her. Can't speak for the rest though."
"Probably dumb bastards," Kasada says, getting to her feet and shaking out her arms as she paces the room to cool down after all that running. She can't help but keep glancing towards the door, not trusting it to hold. Not because Farren barricaded it, but just because she doesn't know the limits of these mutts. She thought she did, but then the Gamemakers had to go and switch everything up on them. "Leave it to them to switch it up and make them attack us during the day," she adds, coughing a bit from all the dust in the air.
"Yeah, I figured there would be more…pomp to something like this," Farren offers as he goes over to the broken window, glass crunching under his feet. He stares outside, the blood red glow casting a shadow on him, and the frown on his face says everything as Kasada slowly joins him to look outside. "How are we going to get out of this?"
Kasada shakes her head as she watches the mutts roaming down below, a combination of the victors and bizarre crystalline…creatures. She isn't sure if they're supposed to be animals or what, but she doesn't doubt that they could cut her up by just touching her. "I don't know," she tells him honestly, because she really doesn't see a way they can make it out of there. Not alive, at least. "Who's dumb idea was it to go into the District One section?"
"I didn't know," Farren replies with a small whine followed by a huff of annoyance at her, which just makes her smirk a little bit. "Stop that, we have more important things to deal with than you trying to call me a dumb idiot."
"You said it, not me," Kasada says, raising her hands defensively, but not trying to tell him he was wrong. But he is right, they do have more important things to deal with. She turns to look back at the door, wondering just how long they have before the mutts manage to make their way inside. And where do they go from there? They picked a room with no other ways out other than the second story windows. All they have are the broken remains of the former training academy bunkbeds. "This isn't a good hiding spot, we'll have to move when we can."
"Can we at least have a minute to just breathe?" Farren asks, putting a hand on his side as he coughs a little bit. "Not all of us run like you do every day, you know."
"Well maybe you should have trained more," Kasada points out to him, which just gets her a look from him. "I'm just saying, I can keep running."
"Well we can't keep running," Farren tells her with a look, just daring her to try and argue that. "I know you love running from problems, but this is one we can't run from."
"What if they're trying to make us run towards someone?" Kasada offers, before sighing and shaking her head. "No, probably not. They're a lot more precise about that when they want to get tributes together. It just doesn't make sense."
"I mean…there is another reason," Farren offered quietly and this time it's Kasada's turn to give him a look, not even wanting to think about that reason at this point, even if it is a possibility. "But for now, we can catch our breath and figure out our next plan to-"
But he never gets to finish that thought as the stuff blocking the door gives way and a couple mutts stumble inside, this time with one of the crystalline animals. Farren grabs Kasada's hand to start running down the long room to hide behind some of the broken bunks, weaving among the debris to confuse them.
"Fuck," Kasada whispers as they duck behind a bunk and she tries to make herself small hiding. She glances over the broken wood and filthy mattress to look at the mutts, finding them snarling and looking around frantically to find them. And up close, the crystalline mutt is terrifying, a horrifying creature that never should have been created with no eyes. It puts its nose up in the air, clearly trying to sniff them out, and Kasada squeezes Farren's hand tightly for a moment before letting go to start grabbing handfuls of dirt and debris on the floor and rubbing it all over herself. She gives Farren a look for a moment until he starts copying her actions, before she grabs her arm to stop as she hears a mutt shuffling closer to them.
She holds her breath as it shuffles by them, snarling and looking every which way to find them, and just praying it doesn't see them. The others she can hear further away in the room, but there's also the faintly tinkling of crystal hitting itself as the mutt approaches, sniffing the air. And she thinks they're going to be in the clear, until Farren lets out a shaking breath that makes the creatures head snap towards them and it bares sharp crystal teeth at them.
"Run!" Kasada yells, jumping up to her feet and taking off without a second thought as the creature gets ready to pounce at them. She hears Farren stumbling after her as she shoves one of the zombie mutts to the side, and glances back to see him right behind her – and right behind him, the crystalline creature.
"Go!" Farren shouts and Kasada takes off into the hallway, and a couple seconds later he grabs her hand to stay with her. She leads the way, not sure where they are going, but just knowing she needs to get out of that building before they get trapped again.
She throws open the stairwell door, ready to run downstairs, but veers quickly upstairs when she sees more crystalline mutts halfway down the stairs. "Shit, shit, shit," she mutters as they run up the stairs, snarls and growls right behind them.
"Just keep running!" Farren yells to her, keeping a tight grip on her hand so he wouldn't lose her as they keep going up. "We'll get away from them!"
But how? Kasada isn't sure they will get away, and especially not when she throws her shoulder into the door at the top of the staircase, crying out in pain from it, and they run out onto the rooftop. Farren throws his body at the door, desperately trying to hold it shut as the mutts slam into the door, each time pushing it a little bit open before he shoves it closed again. "Farren, what do we do?!" she asks desperately as she paces in front of her, grabbing at her hair in panic. There isn't anything up here to barricade the door, no clear way to get out, they are trapped.
"Go," Farren says through his teeth, straining against the door to keep it closed. Yet she can tell on his face that letting her go alone is the last thing he wants her to do right now, so after a moment, she hurries to the door and throws her weight into it with him. "Kassie, go! Get out of here!"
"No," Kasada replies stubbornly, digging her feet into the ground as they slip on stones to keep pushing the door. At this point, she can't leave him. "I'm sticking with you."
"Then we're both going to die here!" Farren says, tears in his eyes as he looks at her. "Please, just go!"
"Well maybe I don't want to win if it means you dying!" Kasada yells back at him, shaking her head stubbornly. She spent too many years hating him, and for what reason? "No, I'm sticking with you."
Farren sighs at that, opening and closing his mouth a couple times to say something, before finally shaking his head. "I'm not going to argue with you, but I'd rather die knowing you lived than died with me."
"Who said we're dying?" Kasada replies, but it really didn't look good for them. And as she stares up at the blood red sky, blinking back tears as the mutts keep trying to throw open the door, she knows it doesn't look good for them. "To the end, together, I suppose."
Whenever that end may be.
Sonya Starling, 14, District Eleven
Sonya doesn't quite understand how she is still alive right now, but as she lays down on the ground barely moving, her side burns with pain and she can feel the pool of blood underneath her. And yet, the mutts of the victors and Riley's District partner keep shuffling around her, apparently too dumb to realize that she isn't actually dead. She didn't mean to play dead, it was all an accident. But also, she didn't think that Riley would do that to her, stab her and leave her to die. Well, of course she thought she could do it, they are in the Games after all. But she didn't think Riley had it in her for it!
Well she should have known better to ever trust anyone in the arena. She just thought she would have more time before backstabbing happened and planned on it being her doing the stabbing. She's just counting her lucky stars that Riley didn't seem to stab her that deeply, or else she would surely be dead by now. And also, she is thanking whoever the idiot was that designed the mutts for making them so stupid. It truly is a stroke of luck that she is still alive, she knows it. But also, she knows if she doesn't move soon, she will just bleed out slowly on the ground.
But how does she even move? She silently tracks the shuffling going on around her with her eyes, and doesn't see a clear path at all. Also where is she even supposed to go if she does get up and moving? She doesn't know how far away she is from the District Eleven sector, which might be her only saving grace right now.
As she lays there debating her next move, she can start feeling that tiny tickle in her lungs and holds it in, her eyes starting to water at the need to cough. No, please, now is not the time for her lungs to start acting up on her! If she coughs, she'll have every mutt swarming on her immediately! But she's never been able to hold it back forever, and despite trying her best, she bursts out in a coughing fit as she tries to get air into her lungs.
Sonya gasps for air as she gets up on her hands and knees, and looks around in desperation as the mutts start turning back towards her and begin shuffling her way, picking up their pace. "Fuck," she mutters as she pushes herself to her feet, trying to move through the coughing fit. She stumbles over her feet as her vision blurs from the coughing, but she has to keep moving. To stop moving now would mean death, and she's not ready to die yet. And if anything, getting stabbed by Riley has made her stubborn about making it through to the end.
But she cries out when a hand grabs at her arm, causing her to lose her balance and tumble back down to the ground. She groans in pain as she clutches her side, fresh blood come out of her stab wound. But the mutts are on her, so she starts wildly kicking and screaming as she tries to push them away from her. "Get off! Leave me alone!" But nothing is stopping them, and if anything, more are just coming her way. And every attempt to get up just makes them pull her back down, until she reaches a point where she has to just curl up on the ground, trying to protect herself as she cries out at them scratching and tearing into her. "I don't wanna die!" she cries out, desperate for any help right now, but she knows it isn't coming. Riley left her for dead, and now she was going to actually die.
Until she hears barking right before one of the mutts is knocked away from her. She moves her head up to look, finding a dog ferociously tearing into it until it stops moving. And she uses the moment to scramble to her feet, throwing her elbows back to try and push the mutts away as her body remembers some of the things taught to her back in Eleven. More tricks, this dog has to be a trick. And seeing the dog snarling with slobber and mutt bits dripping from its exposed teeth makes her scramble, tripping over her feet to get away. Getting torn about by mutts or the dog, both don't seem like very good options. Yet as she tries to run away, the dog runs after her, jumping up onto mutts that are still trying to chase her and ripping open their throats.
"Leave me alone!" Sonya shouts as she turns to look back over her shoulder, before crying out when she trips again and can't catch herself. The dog sprints over to her and she puts her arms up protectively in front of her face, bracing herself to get mauled to death, but it just stops in front of her and faces the mutts, snarling at them instead. She slowly lowers her arms, not noticing the blood on them in her state of shock. She doesn't know what is happening anymore, nothing makes sense, and she just wants to be out of here. Yet when she tries to run away again, the dog just keeps following her and gets ahead of her, making her stop quickly as it barks at her. "Okay, okay!" she says, holding her hands up defensively in front of her, before looking around nervously.
She has no idea why she's now being protected, but standing still makes her aware of every wound on her body and the blood dripping down her arms and legs now in addition to her side bleeding freely again. She puts a hand over the stab wound, coughing as she looks around in the small bit of reprieve they have – but won't last long with mutts still heading towards them in the distance. Her body aches, she's starting to feel a little lightheaded, and her lungs burn from running and coughing. Even with the dog protecting her, she doesn't think she's going to get too far.
She squints into the distance, rubbing her eyes at a pair coming towards her. At first, she thought they were more mutts, but now she isn't so sure. They aren't running with that lumbering shuffle the mutts seem to have here…but maybe her mind is just playing tricks on her. Nothing makes sense right now and trying to think just makes her brain hurt.
As the world starts to spin and the ground comes up quickly as she collapses, all she can do is silently hope that the two approaching aren't mutts trying to kill her.
Ardent Sterling, 18, District One
Ardent knows he has to keep fighting, but how can he keep going forever when the mutts just keep coming? It was one thing if the others could fight by his side, but they can't. He's the only one who can really fight them off. And he's tired.
"Come on, keep moving!" Ardent tells the group as he swings his sword and cuts through another skeleton approaching them. He cringes at the crunch of the bone, but he has to keep going. He glances back at the group struggling behind him, barely able to pick off the stragglers that get through him to them. Ciana is trying her best, angry and stubborn enough to keep fighting. And Cimmer, bless his heart, he's trying but clearly gets scared every time one of the skeletons get close to him. And Shams has given up on fighting, just to keep her arm around Rhiannon to keep her moving. Which should be Ardent's job, not hers, but he has to keep fighting! "Move it!"
"We're trying!" Ciana replies back to him with an annoyed huff as she ducks under a swinging arm before grabbing it and yanking it off of the skeleton. She gives the still wriggling arm a horrified look before chucking it away and putting her knife into the skull. "I hate this!"
"Well we're nearly there, come on!" Ardent says, waving his free hand at the group and pointing ahead with his sword at the abandoned building that is still mostly intact and would hopefully provide them with shelter. They should have been there already, but it's hard to move fast when he keeps having to turn back to help one of the others when a skeleton grabs them.
But before they can get much farther, a group of skeletons starts crawling out of the ground right in front of them and Ardent skids to a stop. He leans on his sword for a moment, catching his breath and just wondering if it's even worth trying to save all of them right now, because he doesn't think he can. He glances over his shoulder at the others, trying to decide who he would pick if he could only take one…and as much as he liked spending time with Cimmer and Shams – he barely knows Ciana, so wouldn't be her - …he'd pick Rhiannon. She is the only one who gets him…and he doesn't think he can really protect her. Another girl he cares about that he will fail to protect, yet this time he'll remember her death, and her screams and-
"Hey!" Ciana says, snapping her fingers in front of his face to get his attention. He blinks out of his memories and hears snarling approaching, and picks up his sword again even though his arm is so tired and heavy. "Look I don't care who you are, but you're the strongest one here, so fight for us – all of us!"
Ardent gives her a little bit of a sneer at that, because who is she to call him out like that? But she's right, so he sighs as he tries to get the will to actually keep fighting. "Fine, but I can't fight them all," he tells her, turning back around to face the incoming horde of skeletons. And as he holds his sword in front of him, mentally preparing to fight when all he wants to do is run, he's stopped short by the screech of a bird before something way bigger than any bird he's ever seen before swoops down to grab a skeleton up into the air and dropping it. He stares in shock with the group as the bones shatter, before more birds start to appear.
"What the fuck are those?!" Shams yells, ducking down to the ground and putting her hands over her head. "No, no, no, I've heard rumors about those in Ten!"
"But look, they're helping us!" Cimmer points out, getting distracted by the birds and it's up to Ardent to shove him aside to kill a skeleton approaching him. "Oof, thanks."
"Pay attention," Ardent scolds him, before looking at the group. Great, now Shams is also useless… He sighs as he grabs Rhiannon's arm, gently pulling her to his side. "Come on, we use this distraction to get through!"
"Let's go, Shams," Ciana tells the girl, pulling her up to her feet firmly and starting to drag her along.
Ardent leads the way, going slower now with Rhiannon at his side and having to fight a lot more skeletons than before. But, the birds keep swooping down, clearing a path for them – albeit a path that isn't a straight shot, and each skeleton seems to keep getting replaced as soon as one is killed. And with each one he cuts down, he finds himself getting more and more frustrated at the lack of progress they seem to be making.
"There's gotta be another way!" Shams calls over to him, starting to fight again, even if she is keeping a worried eye on the birds around them. And rightfully so, bones keep getting dropped all around them and they have to keep trying to avoid getting hit with shattered pieces.
"I don't see how!" Ardent yells back and lets out a loud yell of frustration, which makes Rhiannon whimper and cower at his side a bit. "Hey, I'm sorry, I'm not mad at you," he tells her right away, trying to be gentle, but this whole situation sucks. He's tired and maybe it would be easier to just give up at this point, clearly the Gamemakers don't want them to live…
"Watch out!" Shams yells suddenly and Cimmer cries as she shoves him to the side, out of the way of a skeleton trying to grab him. But, it instead puts herself right next to the skeleton and suddenly she's pulled up into the air, screaming and flailing in the talons of the bird.
"What the fuck?!" Ciana yells, staring up at Shams in the air while Cimmer grabs his face in horror. And all Ardent can do is just cover Rhiannon's eyes with his hands when the bird lets go over Shams and she screams as she falls towards the ground. But he can't do anything to hide the loud crunch of her body slamming into the ground and he winces as she lets out a cry.
"Shams!" Cimmer yells as he runs over to her body, trying to shake her but Ardent knows there is no coming back from that. "Shams, say something, please!" he pleads with her as he starts crying, and Ciana comes over to grab his shoulder and try to pull him away, only to be shaken off. "No!"
"We gotta move," Ardent says quietly, aware that there are still skeletons trying to get to them, and keeping a close eye on the birds flying overhead. But they don't seem to be focused on them at all, just the skeletons…until there's a loud whistle that draws everyone's attention over in the opposite direction they were trying to go. Ardent blinks a couple times, pretty sure he's hallucinating Juno standing with that weird bird Head Gamemaker of all people, but sure enough, the birds start swooping over towards him as they run over with a pack of dogs, Julian gunning down the remaining skeletons while Juno shoots them with arrows.
"No! I didn't do it!" Rhiannon gasps out and Ardent has to catch her in his arms as she collapses in loud sobs, clearly deep in a flashback. "No! Don't take me away!"
"Shh, no one is taking you away," Ardent says, trying to soothe her as he holds her in his lap, all while continuing to glance at the two approaching, then over to Shams's body… Fuck, what is going on here?!
"Behold, tributes, your savior has arrived!" Julian says, giving a flourish of his arm before bowing, then waiting for them to give some sort of acknowledgement. "No?" he asks, putting his hands on his hips with an offended scoff, before shooting a skeleton to the side approaching without even looking at it. "Fine, be that way."
"The rebels took over the arena and we're escaping," Juno offers, actually being helpful, as they look over the group. Their gaze stops on Shams and they nod their head at her. "What happened?"
"What happened?! One of those crazy birds swooped in and grabbed her!" Ciana says, pointing at Julian as she approaches him before jabbing her finger into his chest. "I bet one of your birds!"
"Ah, yeah, they are mine," Julian said, glancing at the birds with a proud grin before turning back to Ciana and giving her a shrug. "Oops, some of them haven't been field tested yet, but good to know. Oh, it's been a while since I've seen one of their victims up close!" He claps his hands together at that, looking way too excited about it when Shams just died. And then he lets out a laugh about the situation, and even Ardent is pissed at that. "What a great research opportun-" He doesn't get to finish his sentence as Juno hits him in the head with their bow, sending him down to the ground out cold.
"Fucking psychopath," Juno says, shaking their head in disgust as the crouch down to pick up Julian and throw him over their shoulder, which is more than Ardent would do. He would have left that awful man to get attacked by mutts if it was up to him. They offer Julian's gun out to Ardent, waiting for him to take it. "We need to go, now. I'm sorry about Shams, but we can't waste time."
"We can't just leave her!" Cimmer says, looking like he isn't going to leave her side. And sure enough, he tries to get her over his shoulders like Juno has Julian so easily, but the boy just stumbles before Shams's body falls to the ground. He lets out a sob and tries to start dragging her by the arms. "It's not fair!"
"None of this is fair!" Juno snaps at him as Ardent stares down at the gun in his hand, wondering if he should be trusted with it or not. But…he wants to protect Rhiannon, he really does. "But right now, you have the option to live, all of us do. So are you going to take it or not?"
"I want to live," Ciana says right away, hurrying to Juno's side before spitting at Julian hanging off of them. "Fucking bastard."
"Rhiannon, we need to go," Ardent says, trying to be gentle as he rubs her back, before picking her up and putting her over his shoulder. And he is prepared for more weight, so he stumbles a little in surprise at how light she is. Poor thing… He turns to Cimmer, the poor boy. "Cimmer, we need to go."
"No! We have to take her with us!" Cimmer says, making another attempt to pick Shams up again and failing. "I'm not leaving another ally behind!"
Juno sighs at him as they pick up their radio and talking over it. "Juno here, we have the large group but struggling to get them moving," they tell whoever is on the other end, while Ardent sees what he has to do. He passes his gun over to Ciana, who eyes it nervously, before he goes over to Cimmer and throws him over his shoulder before he can try to move away. "No!" he screams at him, hitting his back, but Ardent starts walking over to Juno and Ciana, trying to hide the strain on his face from carrying both of them. They aren't heavy separately, but together? He is struggling.
But this is his chance to do something right, to save people instead of just being a murderer again. "Lead the way. Let's get the fuck out of this hellhole."
Well...it's been a minute, huh? Really did not intend on it being that long since I updated this again, but such is life. And there's been lots of life updates since last September, which is why it's been forever since I updated!
The tl;dr is: October was crazy busy with conference abstract submissions, then November was busy with making stuff for a big deadline. Then December had me getting trapped at my parents in a literal blizzard. January came around and my boss announced he was leaving and that started months of hell culminating at our big conference at the end of April, but I got to go with him to the new university that is way too fancy and I have no business being at, so I got a new job but it's the same job in a new place! And it involved moving to a new state and now I live like an hour away from Celtic and woo internet friendship has become irl friendship!
So now that the move is done and things seem to be a little calm for the rest of the summer, hopefully that means I can make a dent in this story again! As I've said before, it will get finished, it's just taking a while because Adulting lol.
Anyways! We love some Good Panic and arena chaos. And alas, we did have a casualty.
Eulogies:
Shams Seif-Eldeen [10], killed accidentally by thunderbird - I kept going back and forth on Shams's fate, and just didn't know where to take her going forward. Like it felt like I had already done what needed to be done for her, and it was just her time. And it was also time to show that the arena is still unforgiving and not everyone is going to be safe and make it out alive. She truly deserved better than this arena and everything she got put through thanks to her family. If you're reading this Shiro, thanks so much for her! RIP Shams.
And with that, we have to update locations:
- Hovercraft: Bez, Adonis, Karter, Lobo
- Hunting tributes (but for good reason this time): Chantelle, Vulcan
- D3: Riley, Sonya
- D1: Kasada, Farren
- No longer protecting a Crazy Man (D12): Juno, Ardent, Rhiannon, Ciana, Cimmer
Well, here's to hoping the next update won't take another nine months. I'll see y'all hopefully soon *finger guns*
