a name no one will eventually remember (goners) wrote in colosseum, @ 2014-03-04 18:44:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! 56th games, - arena, tribute: 56th halle gremlin, tribute: 56th reaper spelt |
WHO: Halle Gremlin [D6] and Reaper Spelt [D9].
WHAT: Finale, Part III.
WHEN: Night #15.
WHERE: House of Wax.
[Part I] [Part II] [Part III]
There were a lot of things about this arena that surprised Halle, but none so much as this. The moving wax statues left her nearly paralyzed with fear, and she only really recovered when she realized they weren't going after each of them--they were only targeting Miranda. No triple victory for Four after all. Halle set to work as the cannon boomed. The statues turned, one by one, and started their slow march back to her and Reaper, but Halle was ready for them. She unscrewed the lid of one canteen, fished the matches from her pocket, and with trembling fingers, lit the match and held the flame to the cloth hanging out the until it caught. She hurled the canteen at the approaching statues. She'd hoped to save this little trick for her fellow tributes, but the statues seemed a bit more pressing at the moment. The canteen exploded when the fire hit the gasoline, spreading quickly along the ground and keeping the statues at bay--for the moment. Reaper watched in grotesque fascination as the statues surrounded Miranda and ensured that District Four wouldn’t have their triple victory. It was only until they finished their job and turned back toward the two remaining tributes that he regained his fighting stance. While he had never seen a final showdown between two tributes involve such a heavy Gamemaker trap, he supposed there was a first time for everything. Apparently, Halle had other plans. All though he had seen her throw the canteen, it took him a second or two to realize that the quickly spreading fire was of her design. The wax figures attempted to take more steps toward them, but the fire quickly began to melt them and the circuits that control them. With the most immediate threats out of the equation now, Reaper turned his attention toward the girl from six who was now the only thing standing between him and his train ride back to District 9. He didn’t give some witty quip like Miranda as he began to charge toward the girl from District 6, sickle in hand and ready to strike. Halle's attention stayed with the statues and the spreading fire a moment too long, and the Nine boy was nearly on top of her before she reacted. Her best and only real weapon was half gone, and that sickle wasn't looking too promising. He was too close for her to use her other canteen against him. She threw it, unlit, toward the edge of the fire and then backed in the opposite direction, hoping to trick him into positioning himself between her and the upcoming blast. The room began to swelter and the smoke was growing thicker; even if neither tribute attacked, they might well be dead in mere minutes. As the second blast occurred, Reaper stopped in his tracks and made a last ditch effort to protect himself from the sudden surge of flames. Around them both, the structure of the building began to creek and groan as the fire began overtaking the walls. He began to choke on the smoke and his eyes started to sting as the room became increasingly hazy. Though his first instinct was to run for the doors, he knew that wouldn’t be possible with such limited vision and he doubted the Gamemakers would allow such a cowardly exit at the end of their games. Blood and gore were how games were won, not by exiting through the gift shop. So upon realizing this, Reaper started taking steps forward in the directions he had last seen Halle, swinging his sickle forcefully in front of him in the hopes of hitting her and bringing her down enough to finish the games. Halle's eyes stung from the heat and brightness; the fire spread much quicker than she anticipated, creeping up the walls and even beginning to burn through the ceiling. The smoke thickened; she stumbled around and she lost sight of her opponent. A figure startled her through the haze, but it wasn't Reaper. The macabre, twisted face of a Victor stood before her, melting and dropping off its frame in chunks of gooey wax. Brutus, she was pretty sure, though the figure was melted beyond easy recognition. They all were, by now. And then, without warning, Halle felt something sharp and dangerous cut across her shoulder, barely inches from her neck; Reaper had found her. She screamed out in pain, then choked from the smoke her lungs insisted on pulling back in. Blood streamed down her chest and arm. She had to get the sickle away from him, like she'd managed with Brock. Somehow. She was running out of options. Part of the ceiling crumbled near them; how long until the floor went, too? It took all the strength she had, but Halle pushed through the pain to force her whole body toward Reaper's, trying to catch him off guard before she made a grab for the sickle. As rush of adrenaline coursed through him when he felt his sickle slice through Halle’s skin and he even grinned when he heard her cry out from it. Judging from the ease it went through her, Reaper supposed he hadn’t hit anything completely vital, but it was a start. The pain would certainly throw her off guard in addition to smoke and fire and now that he knew where she was he could easily attack her again. Quickly, he raised the sickly above his head and was prepared to strike once again when her figure came out of the smoke to collide with his own body. Stunned, he took a few unsteady steps backwards as he swung his sickle through the air in hopes of injuring Halle like he had before only a few moments ago. It was to no avail and on his next step Reaper lost his foot, which caused him to fall backward into a newly formed pile of rubble. When his body hit the floor, searing pain radiated through his body from a single point in his upper right chest and he tried to scream, though the attempt was decidedly futile due to his collapsing lung. Coughing, Reaper tried to lift himself into a sitting position, but found it both painful and impossible, like something was holding him in his place. His gaze glanced toward the epicenter of the pain and only then did he realize a metal pipe, one much like the one he had discovered on his first day in the arena, was sticking out of his chest. Halle gaped at the fallen Nine; even more at the jagged metal pipe jutting from his body. She cupped her hand over her gaping wound to keep pressure on it as best she could; she felt herself growing weak from the smoke and blood loss. But at least she wasn't impaled. That must hurt. Maybe she could make it faster for him. With her free hand, she grabbed for his sickle. She didn't know how to use it, but it couldn't be that hard, could it? She tried to manage the unwieldy weapon one-handed, to bring the blade down across his throat like she'd seen other tributes and Victors do in older games. She tried, but couldn't manage any real control and dropped the weapon. She would just have to bleed slower than him. At least she tried to help. When the sickle dropped beside him, he slowly moved his hand to his precious weapon and weakly wrapped his fingers around the blood-stained wooden handle before struggling to lift his arm in a futile final attempt at winning the games. It was useless. As his breath transitioned into quick short gasps, Reaper knew District 9 wouldn’t be seeing a victor this year just like they hadn’t so many years before him. At least you beat all the Careers. Only three others from Nine have done that before you. He could feel his heart pounding in his chest as it tried frantically to push more blood through his veins to make up for considerable amount that was escaping his body through the entry and exit wounds of the pole. Even though the growing fire around them, he could feel himself growing cold and his body shivered. It sent another ripple of pain through his body, though now he was too weak to scream and even too weak to cry. At least it was an Outlier this year. “Sorry Maizy,” Reaper softly mumbled before his consciousness finally slipped into the dark nothingness and the final cannon of the game sounded. Halle simply stared in a dazed shock. She didn't feel victorious. She barely felt relieved. The fires died down around her, some Gamemaker trick. The smoke cleared from the air, leaving charred walls and melted wax and dead tributes behind. Halle looked to the sky through the patchy, smoking holes in the roof. She tried to speak, but the exhaustion and blood loss overwhelmed her. She collapsed next to Reaper's fallen body. |