WAR GAMES

[shinsengumi]

10...

9...

This year, you will be participating in teams. Your teams, as sponsored, are as follows:

Aeva and Ystelle; Ashleigh and Larsen; Aubrey and Kieran; Brigitte and Ellias; Cabel and Joss; Cyrel and Hollingworth; D'Ivann and Helene; Drael and Kristopher; Griffith and Xian; Fila and Lisette; Indra and Zacharius; Ivy and Reece; Kol and Laurence; Leonel and Solus; Lucinde and Visvaldis; Malis and Vox; Oberin and Odette; Shryke and Siegfried; Talbot and Thane.

Should both members of a team survive, you will both be permitted to leave the arena alive. May the odds be ever in your favour...

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Comments

[barriers]

[The cannon should be reason to keep running, but instead the sound startles him into looking back. He's put a good amount of distance between them, he thinks... enough that he can catch his breath, and try not to reflect too desperately on what just happened. Brigitte, her name was. She had smiled at him, asked nothing of him... had it been so many years since he last spoke to someone so seemingly kind? And he had left her in that brute's hands.

What could he have done differently, unarmed and without even his barriers? Could they have overpowered him, between them? Would that other man have gotten involved? These are things he can't dwell on, blames he has to lay elsewhere. They put him here. Him, and her, and those strangers back there - it's the gamemakers who should be made to answer for this. If he... if he somehow survives, then maybe...

Ellias turns and hurries on, not running now but keeping a rapid pace, a speed he can maintain without exhaustion. If he could only have known it wouldn't be enough. Only a few minutes pass before he hears it, the sound of footfalls behind, and by then it's already too late to avoid detection, to put distance between them. He tries anyway, breaking into a sprint once more and knocking branches aside, jumping and dancing around rocks and tangles of root, but he just isn't nimble enough and he can hear all too clearly that the pursuit is gaining rapidly.

It's a last desperate bid that sees him turn with trembling outstretched hands.]

You said to go! I won't tell anyone where you are, I won't come back this way, I swear, please, I won't do anything to you!

[contagion]

[For a second, he almost feels bad. The boy looks young, young enough maybe to be one of the kids. He's hardly so much older than them, but he feels the years. None of them knows what it takes to survive, and that shows in the boy's pathetic request. He shakes his head.]

Sorry, kid, but I didn't get this far in life playing nice when I couldn't afford to.

[It doesn't matter, now, if he tries to run—Drael's close enough to close the distance with a few strong strides, and he's lightly winded but left with plenty of fight. He doesn't think, though, this far from Kristopher, that he has the time for another strangulation... His eyes dart through the undergrowth, and spy a sharp, pointed rock uprooted by a tree. Good enough. He dips to the ground to retrieve it, and advances.]

I'll make it quick. I've got someone to get back to.

[If it wasn't for Kris, he would let the kid go. God he doesn't relish this, but he knows what he's capable of unarmed and one-on-one, and he can't recall anyone from training who frightens him. He pauses for the length of one long second, then lunges. He doesn't want to hear this, fuck he doesn't, so he uses his forward momentum to force Ellias to the ground with one hand clasped tightly over the boy's mouth. He won't have the disrespect to close his eyes while he does this—he will see every evil he commits in this damn fucking game—but he can't help a pained expression fleeting across his face as he raises the stone and slams it down into Ellias's temple. He promised a quick end, and swallows the bile in his throat to strike again, again, again, until the blood spurts up his arm and a booming echo sounds in the distance.

He stands, and backs away with eyes still on the body. His second kill today, and he has the feeling it won't be his last before this damn thing is done. With a shuddering exhale, he turns his back and returns to Kris.]

[cordiality]

[It isn't until the hovercraft arrives that Kristopher realises just how much is amiss. The sound startles him enough to draw his attention and the sight startles him into silence, sets him cowering low in the dirt and staring with a sort of terror-fueled fascination as the claw descends, lifts the woman's lifeless corpse and pulls it into the sky. She disappears into its underbelly, and Kris gives a strangled gasp when the entire craft vanishes, gone just so suddenly as it appeared. Then he is alone.

He's alone.

Kristopher struggles to his knees, looking this way and that with wide red eyes. The boy is gone, the corpse is gone, Drael is gone. Drael is gone. When did he-- when did that happen?! Where is he?! Kris struggles back to standing on legs trembling and weak, he spins a rapid searching circle and no, Drael's nowhere, he's gone. Drael is gone. No no no no Drael wouldn't Drael wouldn't Drael swore he wouldn't leave him Drael--]

Drael! [It's not even a shout, it's a scream, high and terrified, and once he's started he can't stop, manages only a few steps before dropping back to his knees and screaming hysterical terror.] Drael, Drael! Drael, please, Drael...!!

[contagion]

[He hears it when he's still some distance away, and swears sharply under his breath as he bolts into a flat run. When he bursts into view again, he hisses furious, only just managing to keep his voice below a bellow.]

What the fuck are you doing Kristopher, shut up! Do you want to fucking die out here?! Shut up, shut up, shut up!

[Less than a day in and his nerves are already fucking frayed. He doesn't stop, moving to Kristopher's side and gathering the smaller man into his arms; he presses Kristopher's face to his shoulder and mutters further, asking Kris to be calm, to let it be, to trust him. He smells piss and blood, and somehow that doesn't seem to matter.]

[cordiality]

[It should be a relief when Drael appears, surely. Instead Kristopher cringes horror at the sight of him, that vivid streak of red coating his arm and the rage that colours his voice. When Drael gathers him close he doesn't have the strength to resist, but his stomach roils at the proximity of it all, the blood and the knowledge of what this man has just done. How can he trust this? How can he trust anyone that makes murder so easy, so casual?

Pressed to Drael's shoulder Kristopher shakes his head, whimpering denials but still clinging desperately. He has nothing else to hold on to. This is his only option he has.]

[contagion]

Fuck, please. [He hadn't meant to mutter it, and—no, he can't crack yet. There are still dozens of people out there, and he has to keep on. He's done worse before, plenty worse, in the name of his own survival, hasn't he? He must have.

He sits back on his heels, breathing out another long, shaky breath and forcing Kris to look at him. He speaks evenly, his words no longer coloured by any emotion on than seriousness.] I don't enjoy this, Kris. I'm just doing what I have to to get us through. Believe that, okay? [If I just think about it being one of them doing that to you, it's easy. But you don't need to hear that.]

[cordiality]

But... [His voice cracks from overuse, but at least it's quiet now. Pathetic and small, and still he trembles. Drael is trying to make him look, trying to hold his gaze, but he can't keep from glancing time and again to the spot where that poor woman had... where she'd...] She would have left, Drael, you didn't have to...! It's just easier to you! Why did you... you thought that had to be the only way? Th-there has to be...

[Some other way? Of course not. The gamemakers made it perfectly clear - they will entertain the audience, in one manner or another. Who knows what might have happened if Drael had let her leave.]

I... I can't do this... [It's the last thing he manages before breaking into sobs once more, limbs loose and face pressed to the curve of Drael's neck. The first day, and he is already utterly defeated.]

[contagion]

That doesn't guarantee we'll win. That doesn't guarantee we'll survive, Kris, don't you get it? We can't trust anyone else. We have to get through, and that means they all have to die. All of them. [And he's shaking his head now, the mantra he's just muttered no where near enough to quell his distaste. If the gamemakers wanted a scene, well, now they've fucking got it. He doesn't know if it would've been better or worse for them to stick Kris with someone else, someone who would have already put him out of this misery. But who's to say—he can't say he knows what he would've done in a different situation.

He pulls Kris to him, just enough to back them both into the shadow of a tree, and settles there. It's not safe enough, and they'll have to move before too long, but for right now, it's the best he can manage. He's exhausted already, and there's still a damn long way to go.]