Test Drive Meme

[etcircenses]

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.

Comments

[yourmove]

They hit Alex with a healthy round of neurosuppression before he goes into the Arena: the perks of it is it means he looks at the other Tributes, sizes them up, and he doesn't feel anything at the idea any one of them could stab him in the face. It's just a possibility out of a list. It's not even at the top.

Alex knows his odds of winning the Arena are next to none despite his chassis protecting the few vital organs he has left: without constant maintenance, he'll likely die from a combination of starvation, dehydration and/or sepsis well before the last week. The time he has is limited before his efficiency plummets. Working together will bring the best results, Alex reasoning that if he has help pacifying the other Tributes - excluding Murphy, Clara and Norton, Dennett - he'll at least get some work done. In his mind, the Tributes are guilty of assault (possibly assault on a police officer) by being here. Normally he'd opt for non-lethal responses first.

Lethal force, though, has a much better success rate. A dead criminal won't repeat the same crime twice. Alex might not be around to deal with a two-time offender, anyway. He needs someone who can carry on the job when he's dead.

He chooses a man who seems to have his head on straight, associating the calm, calculating mask-like face of the Winter Soldier with an efficiency he can respect. He understands priorities. Alex likes that about him, as much as he can like anything.

"Cornucopia's cleared," Alex says, his head swiveling left and right as he tries to scan the shadows for the Soldier, the servos where he used to have tendons whirring. The visor's still down, giving his temporary partner less of a fleshy target, the optical slit glaring red in the dark. "I found this."

Alex also assumes the Soldier's considered the same thing he has: when/how he should kill his partner. End a truce that's really not built on all that much. The Winter Soldier's hard to read on his biometric scanners, though, Alex debating the odds of an attack from behind as he holds up his arm, a bag with supplies dangling with a clink that says there might even be canned food inside.

[tookthewheel]

The odd are not in the Soldiers favour, even with his skills and metal arm. The numbers are too great to imagine he could come through entirely unscathed without difficulty. He is diminished in some ways, he does not feel as strong or quite as fast as he should be.

It was this that prompted him to give in to the idea of an alliance but even then it had taken a certain type of man to make him consider -- if his partner could still be called a man. The Soldier has a metal arm, this Alex has far more, more machine than flesh.

That fact makes it good enough for now to allow Alex at his side (but never at his back).

"Good." he says, emerging from the shadows to Alex's left. "Have you looked inside?"

[yourmove]

Alex turns toward his voice, his head swiveling first, then chest and waist, his HUD outlining the Soldier in a ghostly red outline. It tries and fails to come back with biometrics from him: there's no records of him in the DMV, nothing. Alex can't even get a name or an age. He'd assume he needed maintenance if that wasn't already obvious. The man should be in his databases, though...

"Of course."

He steps forward, closing the distance between them. It's impossible to sneak up on the Soldier and Alex doesn't even try: his body constantly makes noises, from soft little purrs to creaks of armor plating brushing up against each other. He knows the Winter Soldier would probably know he was coming even if he was a normal human being. Frankly, Alex is vaguely thankful for the neurosuppression - it makes the Soldier a lot less brickshitting.

Alex towers over the Soldier as he hands the bag over. "Canned food, water. Survival bracelet, estimated at 2.4 to 6 meters, probably made of parachord. Fire starter kit."

[tookthewheel]

He takes the bad with his right hand, leaving the right free to defend or counter-attack Alex should it become necessary. The metal arm is his best weapon especially against the cyborg in whose company he's found himself.

The Soldier nods as his fingers close on the straps, claiming all the materials as his to decide to use or discard. Food and water is a priority to keep him operating in optimum condition for the duration of the arena. His companion he is not so sure of.

"What do you require to keep functioning?"

[yourmove]

Alex doesn't see the point in lying about it: if they continue to work together, odds are his "partner" will see for himself just how well an OmniCorp cyborg does without a dedicated staff.

"Glucose solutions and dialysis, which I doubt are available in the Arena," Alex says. It's the equivalent of a shrug. "Until I succumb to deficits, I can assist you."

Or the Soldier could very well decide to cut his losses, cut off the weakening link. Alex supposes he would have done the same, if they swapped positions. It's not something he'd take personally, at any rate. Not anymore.

[tookthewheel]

He snorts in agreement. No, those things would not be available. Not even the promised possibility of sponsorship gifts could yield that sort of support surely.

It makes him wonder than why they put Alex into the games, unless they ended swiftly then surely he was doomed to failure by the degradation of his own systems. The Soldier was able to support himself, he had learned how where the knowledge had been missing since abandoning his masters, they had been foolish perhaps not to make him dependent like the cyborg was.

"Understood."

It is more or less what the Soldier is thinking. He would keep the company so long as it didn't slow him down, then discard it. it could be considered, he thought with a surprising feeling of bitterness, merciful. "Have you seen any other tributes in the area?"

[yourmove]

"A man and a woman near the swamp pit. They learned about the gators," Well, two of them had. Their friend hadn't been so lucky: the gators might still be fighting over the pieces. Alex's head tilted, the visor reflecting the Soldier's face back in the high-impact glass. "I'll flush them your way."

In other words, sooner or later they were going to run into the Winter Soldier. Alex assumes that with his specific skillset, the Soldier doesn't need any assistance taking on two people who, to him, pinged as typical civilians who weren't even prepared for a mugging. Alex pauses and then decides to remind him of the only term he'd had.

"Please remember Clara Murphy and Dennett Norton are off-limits." Of course he could wait to target them after Alex had offlined, but Alex figures he'll be too dead to stop him.

[tookthewheel]

He nods in acknowledgement, deciding the plan is a good one and standing back to wait for Alex to leave first but then he frowns.

"Why are they off-limits?" he questions.

[yourmove]

"Because they're persons of interest," Alex answers. He seems incapable of saying "uh, she's my wife" and the "the other guy's my handler, so I kinda need him too".

[tookthewheel]

The Soldier frowns, mulling the options over for a moment. There's no reason to refuse to take this into account for now, there are enough other potential targets. Unless those persons choose to attack him he will leave them alone in the interest of keeping his ally.

"Steve Rogers. He's also off-limits."

The words leave his mouth and he freezes for a moment after he says them.

[yourmove]

Alex takes a second to absorb that. Steve Rogers. He knows that name: last Arena, he had done his civic duty and saved a police officer - or tried to save a police officer, because Alex hadn't realized he was dying anyway. Good citizen, nowhere near the top of Alex's priority list. The Soldier had surprisingly good choices in his associates, considering he seemed to be very good at precision killing.

"Understood," Alex finds that fair, turning to go. He hesitates, then shifts back, his chassis whirring. "Did you want me to pass on your location if I run into him?"

[tookthewheel]

"No."

The answer comes quickly, with thinly pressed lips and an aversion his eyes for a moment. "Just don't harm him." he thinks for a moment more, "Tell me where he was if you do."