Kobe Bryant (probablydead) wrote in colosseum, @ 2013-12-13 16:04:00 |
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Marlin's head thrummed with pain and anger as he trudged through the mountain pass, in what he expected would become another futile search for more tributes. More than a week in, and Marlin had to admit that the Hunger Games weren't anything like what he'd anticipated. With all of his training, he'd expected it to be easy. He'd go in, kill a bunch of little assholes, and return to District 4 a victor. Excitement and intrigue, that was what he had wanted. Not awkward ex-allies like District 2 and no kills since the Cornucopia. Marlin scowled. Even Shark had made more kills than him by this point, and the gift sent to Dory clearly indicated how the sponsors felt about each of them. He hoped people weren't still thinking about how that girl from District 7 had gotten him clean in the nuts. Tracking hadn't necessarily been the top of his training priorities, back in District 4. With their sort of terrain, it was harder to practice hunting without attracting Peacekeeper attention than it was simply to go out onto the boats or under the docks and work with weapons. And after the avalanche, the fog in his brain still addled him too much to make use of what skills he did have. Then he heard it, the sound of rocks shuffling, piercing through the ringing in his ears. Tribute or gamemaker trap, it didn't matter. Marlin couldn't let District 4 get caught again. "Shh," he hissed. He stopped in his tracks and held a hand up, signaling Dory to do the same. His hands tightened around the shaft of his spear as he looked around. "Do you hear that?" Laurel wasn’t too far from Buck, keen to keep their alliance going as long as it was sensible to do so. The healing cream had been very effective, and with her broken wrist bandaged up tightly she was able to make a lot more progress in their exploration of the arena than she would have before the generous gift. She’d been chatty, too, talking to Buck in animated tones about silly stories from back home. Nothing serious - just little stories about fun times with her and Hazel, amusing anecdotes as they walked. It kept her spirits up, kept her positive. She’d almost forgotten the people that she’d left behind but now the memory of them made her that little bit more determined. She was close to someone, and she could hear them talking quietly. She pressed her back up against the large rock, trying to breathe as quietly as she could. There was a chance that she could go undetected, and she clung to that idea. Buck wasn’t far away. Laurel froze, hoping that the voice up ahead would dismiss the slight noise that she’d made while walking a few moments ago. Marlin shrugged off his pack, leaving it on the ground near Dory. "Wait here," he said, tiptoeing over towards where he had heard the sound. With his concussion and Dory's leg still on the mend, neither of them was significantly more suited than the other to take point, but Marlin had heard the noise first, and he considered that as good as dibs. Marlin wanted to prove to the audience that he had it in him -- that he was more deserving of breaking the sponsor bank than Dory -- but, more than that, he wanted to kill something again. He wanted to feel that same rush he'd felt when Thread's life had slipped out beneath his fingers. Spear in hand, he crept along the rock face, until he passed a boulder, and there she was. That little jerk from District 7 who had kicked him in the balls. He couldn't have picked a better target. She looked worse than she'd been at the Cornucopia, but then, so did everyone. Perhaps, for her at least, some of it was his fault. She'd look even worse than that when he was done with her, he thought. "Oh," he sneered derisively. "It's you." Laurel’s breath caught in her throat as she was suddenly facing the boy from District Four. She looked up at him, some kind of false bravado taking over her for a moment. “How’s the jewels?” Laurel asked, trying to check over his shoulder as she prepared to run. She held one of her set of sai in her hand, but she hadn’t raised it yet. Her option of trying to run was certainly the better one. She exhaled, a slow and shaking breath as she tried to stop herself feeling scared, before suddenly shouting at the top of her lungs. “BUCK!” Laurel screamed out as she tried to bolt. "Hilarious," Marlin drawled sarcastically, his pride more wounded by the remark than he cared to let on. This girl half his size had made him the laughingstock of the Career pack. Even the kill-less idiot from Two had taken a jab at him. Who did she think she was, bringing it up again? For the first time in days, his mind focused to a laser point. Suddenly, he cared about nothing more than catching this girl and making her pay. Marlin bore down on her as he ran, his long legs bringing him to stride, until suddenly she was well within reach. He lept to tackle her, bringing her to the ground. She tumbled to the ground, her broken wrist hitting the ground awkwardly as she let out a shout of pain. “Get OFF me - BUCK!” Laurel screamed out again, hoping that he’d hear her. She kicked out at the boy, struggling as much as she could - kicking, shouting. She’d have bitten him if she got the chance. Laurel called out her ally’s name again, hitting Marlin with her feet and uninjured hand but still unable to escape from him. “BUCK!” Marlin scrambled to straddle Laurel and gain the upper hand, but she struggled back with more power than he would have expected from her tiny frame. Her flailing fist landed in the soft of his arm, and Marlin twitched, flinging the spear aside. The pain registered only in the back of his mind. He shouldn't have let her hit him again, but at least it wasn't a second shot in the balls. "Shut UP!" he growled, frustrated at her attempts to wrest control of the situation away from him once again. Taking particular care to watch his crotch, he shifted his weight and reached to pin her arms down. Laurel shouted out again, having no intention of shutting up and every intention of screaming at the top of her lungs, and while he managed to trap most of her flailing limbs as she struggled she still wasn’t about to give up without a fight. The girl spat in his face, shouting for Buck again. Except, maybe he wasn’t coming. Laurel shouted again and again, but it seemed as though she’d been forgotten. “Get OFF ME!” Laurel hissed through her teeth, still trying to move against the stronger boy where he held her. She was weaponless now, and starting to panic that she wouldn’t escape this time. Her screams became more shrill, more desperate, but still not begging. If this was going to be her end, even though she was panicking she wouldn’t stop trying to get free. Laurel tried to kick at him again, spitting and shouting as she kept moving and hoping desperately for his grip to loosen and to gain that momentary advantage that she needed to make her escape. She just needed a moment, maybe even a second would do, but it never came. "Yeah, right!" Marlin spat back, his sarcasm powered by pure fury. In no world would he ever let her go. He shoved the girl to the ground, pinning her good arm out of reach as he wiped his face off with the back of his hand. Here, his height came to its greatest advantage, his long limbs able to hold her back as he reached for the nearest weapon on his belt: the ice pick he'd picked up at the Cornucopia. The kill wasn't going to be pretty, but he'd holstered his knife on the other hip, and Laurel's struggling made it too hard to reach. Marlin gave Laurel one last shove, knocking her against the hard earth. The electricity coursing through his veins pushed his heartbeat faster and faster, and the realization that he would soon take another life tingled through his fingertips, curled around the pick's handle. He raised the makeshift weapon up and brought it slamming down -- into her head. Hot blood splattered like shrapnel from a grenade, catching Marlin by surprise. His first kill had been so bloodless, and even claiming Laurel's fingers hadn't stained him so much. He breathed in deeply. The smell of copper in the air? He'd done that. Laurel stopped struggling under him, but still no cannon sounded, so Marlin drew his arm back to hit her again. Buck was closer to the Fours than he knew and farther away from Laurel than he’d like. He was lower down, but the shelter had been sufficient; he hadn’t seen the Fours approaching. He was looking for more food when he heard Laurel’s screaming cut through the air. He froze. That was his name. She was yelling for him, and that meant she was in danger. Buck looked up the mountain. There, not so far away but behind several jagged outcrops of rock was his ally trapped under someone, and struggling. He didn’t think twice, he didn’t bother to look around the area to see if it was safe. He just ran. “Laurel!” He yelled, hoping she heard him, “Laurel, just hold him off! I’m right here!” But in his haste, he tripped and fell over a rock, and right here meant down on his knees and much less progress than he’d like. All alone, guarding Marlin’s pack and her own, Dory was on high alert. She kept a tight grip on her trident through the girl’s cries, and when a boy’s voice joined in the shouting, she whirled around just in time to see another tribute burst out of the cover and stumble to his knees, apparently without even noticing she was there. Options flashed through Dory’s mind like minnows. She could let the boy run on to try to save the girl, give Marlin a chance at two kills today instead of one. Or she could take the opportunity to stay ahead of Marlin in the count and prove to Ondine and Maalik that choosing her was the right choice. Put like that, it was hardly even worth considering -- Dory flashed her teeth in a grin, lifted her trident, and ran after Buck, bearing down on the boy on the ground with deadly purpose. Buck pulled up just in time to see flashes of gold and red flying at him much more quickly than he’d like. The girl Four. This was probably a trap, he realized, and he had fallen right into it. Four Boy got Laurel, Four Girl got him. Well shit. He veered away from the trident, came up just in time for his head to be near her stomach. On impulse, he butted his head up rather like the goats they’d seen over the last few days. He knew it wouldn’t kill her, even hurt her too much. But it gave him the precious few moments he needed to pull back, to try to start running away. “Laurel, just a second!” He yelled, still working his way uphill, despite the fact he almost certainly wouldn’t reach her on time. If he lost hope now, he’d lose everything. The kid reared up and head-butted her, hard enough to knock Dory’s breath away for a moment, and tried to squirm away. She sucked in air hard enough to hurt, but she wasn’t about to pull a Marlin by being distracted by minor hurts, and there was no way this boy was getting away. She thrust out hard with her trident, feeling it make contact with a flush of pride. She’d underestimated the force of her lunge, though -- the momentum carried her just a few steps too far, and a second later Dory was scrambling for purchase, her feet skidding at the edge of a rocky cliff until she managed to find her balance without going over. She’d stabbed that boy, she knew she had, and now he was over the cliff. She leaned carefully over, looking for the body. If he was still alive, he’d be much less so once she climbed down there to finish this. A spike on the trident entered his shoulder with a sick, cold sensation, and for a second, Buck thought that surely, this was it. This was how he’d die, only a few feet away from his ally, the victim of District Four. He didn’t have too much time to think about it, because the momentum of the trident being pulled out meant he was knocked off the slope, down the cliff. He went on instinct and rolled. Buck landed without much more harm, skidding bruises onto his hands and knees. He didn’t feel them. He didn’t feel anything except the need to get out. He ran down, down the rest of the slope, back toward the ice and the cold he’d come to find familiar. He only paused when he heard the cannon, granting a horrified look in the direction of the Fours before using it as a moment to hide, disappearing into the rocky terrain as best he could. Dory saw him moving; she scowled and prepared to scramble down the cliff after him, but the sound of the cannon distracted her and she turned to look back up to where Marlin had, presumably, taken out the girl. She couldn’t imagine that it was the other way around, but she had to make sure anyway. They hadn’t imagined that Ritz would die, and look how that had turned out. “Next time, Ten,” she said -- not to him so much as to the cameras she was sure were watching. And with a toss of her hair, which she was so careful to comb out with her fingers every night to keep the tangles from getting too horrific, she turned and headed back up to find Marlin. Marlin slowly stood up at the cannon. The focus had fled from his eyes as Laurel's life had fled her body, and the dark red pooling around her head looked hazy, like a twisted halo. Was that a bit of her hair or of her brain stuck at the end of his blood-stained ice pick? It didn't matter. He knelt down and wiped the blood off on the hem of Laurel's jacket. Two kills, he thought, exhaling. Took long enough. He felt as though he were watching himself from outside his own body as he rifled through Laurel's pockets, looting all of her supplies, as he'd seen countless tributes do onscreen in the past. Everyone in Panem had to be watching him, amused in the Capitol, admiring in District 4, angry in District 7. Marlin didn't care as much about the attention as he had expected he would, or even as much as he had in the beginning of the Games. Looking down at Laurel for one last time, he took a few steps back. He replaced the pick in his belt loop and picked up the fallen weapons before heading back towards where he had left Dory. Had the hovercraft arrived for Laurel? He turned his head to the sky. Not yet, but it would soon. |