thecircus | Test Drive Meme

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test drive meme

Test Drive Meme

Welcome to Panem. You have been selected to participate in the 75th Annual Hunger Games!

Premise: This Arena is designed to be a small mock arena not all that dissimilar to the in-game arenas we run here at The Games. The party is similar to some of the gathering logs we have inside the Capitol when an Arena begins. Our hope is to give new and prospective players a place to get their feet wet, and get a feel for the fun (and bloody) mess that goes on around here.

This meme is open to anyone and everyone who would like to play. Current cast members, veteran and new, as well as anyone just wanting top drop in and have some fun!

How To Play.

Current cast members - you may tag into this arena in any way you choose, even cast members who aren't or are no longer tributes.

***An important side note, as it is within the confines of the Area in-game, all powers are lessened/nullified to bring any character down to a vincible level. (I.E. Make more magical/super-powered characters easier to actually kill for a normal person). Rule of thumb: If it's a physical difference, the Capitol will not mutilate it out (wings, etc), but other wise it's gone.

The Arena.

Tributes are raised in a circle around the Cornucopia; they are all dressed in safari outfits, including the little hats, and slathered in bug spray and sunscreen. They look amongst each other at the start of the Cornucopia. At the center of the circle is a fountain where a dancing hippo spits water into a circular pool around it. There's an engraving in embossed letters around the one-foot rim of the pool: PANEM NATIONAL ZOO.

Floating in the water of the brass fountain are supplies that the Tributes should find useful: medical kits, sleeping bags, and most importantly, weapons. Ropes, bo staffs, nunchuks, daggers and spears are all in ready supply a mere hundred yard sprint from the Tributes.

There are four paths away from the Cornucopia - into a swampy pit to the south, which, unbeknownt to Tributes, hosts alligators and crocodiles who've missed their scheduled feeding. To the west, into a dark building where boxes cut into the walls reveal that there were once tanks for creepy crawlies, but the glass has been removed. Through a gift-shop to the north, stuffed with plush animals (many of which are filled with razor blades, or other sweet little surprises). Or down an asphalt pathway to the east, winding through tall cages that may provide shelter from the other Tributes - but not necessarily the enclosure's inhabitants.

The countdown blares out in the humid air.

3...2...1...

Let the Games begin.

-/-

The Party.

Back in the Capitol, the Cornucopia is being celebrated with a lavish party. Animal couture is all the rage, and Capitol celebrities have dressed for the occasion by having their teeth elongated and their irises surgically altered to give the appearance of slit pupils. The wine is flowing freely, and the centerpiece of this particular viewing party is what appears to be a pig the size of a hippopotamus being roasted on a spit.

Screens throughout the large ballroom in which this takes place are showing the gruesome footage of the first bloodbath of what promises to be a delightfully ugly Arena. Tongueless Avoxes carry platters with little quail eggs in cups, silently offering them to all the guests. Caesar Flickerman, trademark blue hair now replaced by what appear to be feathers growing directly from his scalp, announces every gorey detail between oohing and ahhing over the dinner. Tributes die; Citizens feast.

Everyone who's anyone is invited.

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The first thing he knows is that it hurts. Bucky's reflexes are only as good as his training and even if they've been a little better since Steve dragged him through the fire, they're not enough to withstand this. He falls back, almost dropping his knife but getting it up between them as quick as he can.

"What the hell are you doing, pal --."

This is the games, he knows that. But Bucky's all mouth and a split lip and he sneers in the direction oft he person who attacked --.

Only to stop dead. It can't be. This is a trick. This is something the Capitol has put in his head and he is sick of mind games.

The metal fist connects but it doesn't satisfy.

The... copy, is still standing, still breathing, still existing as he subconsciously echoes the sneer. Identical down to everything but too long hair, more muscle and eyes darkened by so many sleepless nights in recent weeks.

"What are you?!" he spits, the indignation still roaring in his ears.

There's a dozen ways just off the top of his head to disarm and disable eliminate the man before him but he wants, no needs, to know.

Edited 2014-06-10 21:53 (UTC)

"What am I?"

He shifts his weight with each breath, his gaze flicking from the arm to the face and back again. Bucky's fingers flex against the knife handle and he thinks just how messed up this is, how he thinks he's going crazy, how he's probably been heading down this road since he was taken. Words buzz around his head like the sound of a plane and he feels sick to his stomach.

Animal blood makes his boots tacky. He's not on the best ground for this. "Better question, what the fuck are you?"

His accent is deep, pure Brooklyn, loud and angry and covering everything up. "I've seen the Wizard of Oz, you're a bit late for the rehearsals."

Metal fingers close and clench, the plates shift in anticipatory calibration, responding to the subtle neural sparks in the Soldiers mind.

The reference yields nothing, except some idea of a yellow road and it is dismissed as superfluous to the current situation. His lips pull back further, turning a sneer into a snarl. He isn't coping well, the buzzing that looking at the wall in the Smithsonian brought is a full fledged ringing that is shaking him up even worse than when Steve -- The Captain -- dropped his shield and refused to fight.

"James Buchanan Barnes is dead." the words somehow come out flat despite the inner turmoil as he begins to stalk, circling slowly round like a predatory animal.

[[and super regretting I have to go to bed right now dhgsi this is too good]]

"Yeah, you wish."

He can only assume it's a threat. That whatever the Capitol has created here is a weapon to make him lose and lose spectacularly. He doesn't have time for it, he has to find Steve. But something wild is beating in his chest, pulse racing as he turns with this ... thing, never letting him get to his back.

"You might wanna get some other metal men, kid. Least that way it'd be a fair fight."

His teeth are bared, but there's a smirk on his face. Laughing in the face of danger as usual. "You gonna tell me how they got my face on you?"

( ooc: me too so it works out <3 more tomorrow? ]

"It's mine."

He says it shortly and too the point. "It was yours."

James Barnes is skilled as a Soldier, or as a Commando, wasn't it? He is not yet HYDRA's favourite weapon though. He can tell he is unnerved -- and the Soldier himself is echoing it internally, and maybe it's not that James Barnes is doing a poor job of hiding it as his subconscious is recognising every sign of how he hides it.

Abruptly he changes course mid-step and charges in again, aiming first to disarm him of the knife, metal arm brought up as defence while the flesh counterpart goes to grab his wrist.

[ooc: oh yes <3]

Christ, he's strong.

Bucky twists when he comes at him, aiming to get his foot behind the other guy's ankle. He needs to get some sort of advantage. He's not got a metal arm for his advantage.

"Why? You going to carve it off and wear it like a hat?"

Foot behind the ankle, an attempt to trip him. He takes the easy way out of that and flips backwards, going with the momentum the attack brought and bringing himself back onto his own feet, balance centered.

The words cause a wry twist of his lips. Perhaps in a way they had done just that, the James Barnes before him wouldn't have done the things he had. "Nothing so painless."

They're not killing moves he's going for though he's not consciously realising it. Disarm and incapacitate. The Soldier snatches for his shoulder, to throw him over and onto his back.

He hits the ground with a grunt, knife flashing out of his grip. Bucky's twisting on the ground to try and grab at it immediately.

"Listen pal, me and you've probably got a difference sense of what's painless and what ain't."

HYDRA's lab blooms up inside his mind, hits him harder than this guy's done so far but he swallows it down.

In a second the Soldier kicks it away out of reach, sends it skittering to the other side of the path and moves to plant a knee squarely in Bucky's back to pin him to the ground.

Then he knows, he knows what this past-self is thinking and it startles a sound out of him that he can't immediately identify. Then it hits him, laughter. It's short and rough, harsh and it doesn't sound right, it doesn't sound like when other people laugh. He remembers the video in the Smithsonian, the man who laughed so easily and freely next to Steve Rogers.

It's the first time he's laughed that he can remember.

"You think you know what pain is, nothing they did to you then is going to compare what they do to you after."

"Man, shut the hell up."

He's fucking exhausted and it explodes inside of his chest like a firework. His fingers curl around the nearest thing, a rock he thinks, swinging up behind him to knock the other guy off. He looks just like Bucky. And that scares the fuck out of him.

"If you're gonna kill me can you try and get on with. I'm not getting any younger."

The rocks takes a glancing blow on him, not enough to knock him off but the fact he was too distracted by his own problems to catch the incoming attack is what bothers him more. It doesn't seem right that Bucky should catch him off-guard like that.

Unfortunately the next thing his younger self points out is also something the Soldier hadn't thought about. The next logical step is to kill him, it's the name of the game after all.

But despite his anger at what he had once been and could never be again the idea of choking the life out of him (a very visceral thought) strikes him as very very wrong -- which leaves them at something of an impasse. Or not. Would it amount to suicide? Is this actually himself -- mind boggling but for this place maybe not impossible -- or something created to torment him? Would doing it make he never came to pass?

No, die in the arena, they bring you back. That was what happened, they hit the reset button and made you do it all over again. He'd researched that enough to know it was true.

Shit.

The Soldier twists off him, stumbling to a few paces away and staring at Bucky-himself on the ground, clutching at his head for a moment with teeth gritted. Suddenly he doesn't know what to do.

"Well great, you're insane."

He rises slowly, a wariness about his gaze that wasn't there previously. His eyes flick from everything back to the man who looks like him. He takes a moment to simply stare, taking in the arm, the hair, the look on his face. It's like looking into the mirror at the fun house and realising that something is very, very wrong.

He should run. This ... whatever he is, pretty much just tried to kill him. He's not a big fan of that. But he also doesn't really know what else to do.

"You gonna lose it?"

"No I -- don't remember. " he let's go of his head and straightens. "I'm fine." Well he's fairly certain he's not going to lose it right now but the insanity isn't outside the realms of possibility.

The violence is over, for now anyway, now it's just the two of them staring each other down. He wonders why Bucky doesn't run, it was always Steve who never knew when to run.

"Before they brought you here... where were you?"

The what's it to you? is on the tip of his tongue. But he's already felt the edge of that anger and really he doesn't particularly want it again. He needs to find Steve.

He tries not to think of what might have happened had this guy got to him first. He still doesn't really understand.

"Catching a train." There's a small smirk to his voice nonetheless, an arrogance that is never really worn out of his voice, "Guess I should've read the board better. Didn't intend to end up here."

Every part of the Soldier stiffens.

The memory doesn't come full fledged. It's a feeling of gut fear, of resignation, doing something for -- James Barnes died falling from a train, so the history books said. It wasn't the only train he'd ridden in his life but he has that feeling, the one of information trailing just beyond his reach as he tries pull it to surface.

"Sorry." he can't do this. The words are on his tongue to tell him, to warn him of what's coming but he just doesn't think it would do any good, can't get them out. He's here now isn't he? The Soldier has never been a sadist, just a weapon following orders. "I'm sorry."

He thinks he should leave, takes a step backwards.

Bucky follows.

He doesn't know why. He doesn't know what it is that's flashing across the other man's - across his - face. Only his mind is in two and he's so confused and lost and where the hell is Steve.

"Wait."

He does his best to look as unthreatening as possible, hands where the soldier can see them. "Just wait. I don't get what's going on but you're ... you look like me. And that's something I figure I should probably try and understand."

The Soldier stills immediately as the other steps forward, his eyes have never once left Bucky's face. He watches him warily, very much on edge, the fingers on both hands flexing open and closed.

"You don't want to."

"I do a lot of things I don't want to do."

Like go to war. He never really had a chance, couldn't say no when Steve was all but foaming at the mouth to get there. All he'd wanted was to stay behind and protect him and then the papers had come.

"Don't mean I'm gonna shy away now."

That rings true in what sense he's started to develop for these things. He has a feeling that if it were otherwise he wouldn't be here, wouldn't be this.

The soldier grimaces, "Hydra."

He doesn't flinch but it's a near thing. Something swirls unhappy in his gut, a dread that has been sitting stagnant for weeks upon weeks. They did something to him and his vague memories are nothing to the darkness of his nightmares.

And here is a man with his face and a metal limb and Bucky doesn't know what to do with that.

"You're me."

His voice is dull, flat. "You are, aren't you?"

"I think so. I don't remember. You were in the museum though, you --" he frowned, fingers twitching. "You fell. They found you. Then they made me."

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Test Drive Meme

asdfhjdks jfc

/the worst person

LET'S BE HORRIBLE TOGETHER

YES LET'S :D

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