PIIIIIIIPE WREEEEEENCH FIIIIIIIIIGHT

[unrecovered]

Who| Wash and others
What| Murderworld. So much Murderworld.
Where| All over the arena - locations are in toplevels
When| Murderworld! Late day 1, all of day 2, and early day 3
Warnings/Notes| Violence for days. Most of these have been planned using the almighty spreadsheet - if you want to plan something, feel free to poke me on plurk!

Get pulled from a perfectly benign covert mission to be thrown into a bad Hunger Games ripoff run by someone with zero sense of style or humor. Survive, probably on his own, until help comes or he manages to escape. Sure. Okay.

What could possibly go wrong?

Comments

Sam | City Zone | Day 3 | Late Morning

[unrecovered]

[headinjuries]

Moments like this, Sam really missed flying.

Sam was a small town kid. Open air, middle of the desert, he'd have to hit the road for at least an hour and go to Phoenix just to see a skyscraper. And while he'd had his share of existential teenage angst about rotting in the middle of nowhere and wanting to be where things happened, and he'd at least been able to go places more since he started the superhero gig...he really wasn't in his element. He was at his best with open skies and room to do a few barrel rolls.

If he could still fly, he'd at least be able to get a better look at the terrain, but without being able to do that much, something nasty could be around any corner and he might not know until it was coming right for him.

So here he was, near one of those corners, leaning around to try and get a look down the alley as unobtrusively as possible. He didn't see anything, but was that really worth much? He crouched down to scoop up a small pebble, tossed it down the alley, and waited for something to pop out.

Or preferably, not pop out. That would be even better.

[unrecovered]

The constant refrain of "find an ally, get in a fight alongside said ally, survive by the skin of your teeth, get separated" is starting to wear on Wash. He can survive working on his own just fine; it's the repeated reunion and separation and the adjustment every time that's getting hard to handle. He knows it's part of Arcade's plan - that staying with someone long enough to formulate a strategy is the last thing he wants, and he's yanking them all around for entertainment - and so it's mostly stubbornness, the obstinate refusal to give Arcade what he wants, that's keeping him going right now.

That, and the hope of finding another Legionnaire alive and well (and starting the cycle all over again, but that's a given at this point).

He doesn't mean to sneak up on Sam - it's just that he rounds a corner and finds Sam's back to him. Um.

"Hey," he says quietly. There's not really a good way to approach this - nothing that'll completely prevent Sam from jumping out of his skin, at least - but that's not going to stop Wash from trying.

[headinjuries]

He doesn't jump out of his skin, to his credit. A good three inches in the air, yeah, but not out of his skin.

But more importantly, he manages to jump quietly, because it's been a pretty nasty couple of days so far and even a motormouth like Sam can appreciate the value of panicking in silence when you've already had wildlife and other people try to kill you in ways ranging from fast and easy to slow and painful (and re: that latter, he's pretty sure if he runs into Wiress again after knocking her over that waterfall, she's going to try to make it even slower than she promised the first time, which is no good).

Deep breath. Collect himself. Don't give in to the impulse to yell at Wash because oh my God don't do that.

(The look on his face does a very good job of silently screaming "oh my God don't do that," though.)

[unrecovered]

Those three airborne inches are pretty hard to miss. Still, Wash says nothing - he's startled much harder than that before, and even though Sam has hero experience, he's still a kid. Can't fault him for being twitchy in a place where literally everything is trying to murder you, after all.

Wash just raises an eyebrow when Sam gives him that look. He's worn it more than enough times to be able to read it. "It was the best I had," he says flatly, voice low. No use in attracting more attention than need be. He jerks a thumb over his shoulder, gesturing behind him. "It's clear back here, at least for a little ways. Anything up front?"

[headinjuries]

"Not as far as I can tell."

At the very least, his attempt to bait something into moving has come up completely dry, which means that either it's clear or that anything up there is smart enough not to give itself away. (One of these options he'd be completely cool with. One...is a bit more troublesome.)

[unrecovered]

Turns out there's an easier way to check that. Wash gestures for Sam to come closer and pulls his motion tracker out of the pocket of his jacket, holding it where they can both see it. It doesn't take long for the tracker to pick up a blip moving towards them at a pretty good pace.

Wash looks at Sam - yeah, that moving blip means only one thing - and puts the tracker away. "God damn it," he enunciates clearly, pulling his rifle off his back and checking to make sure it's loaded. The thing heading towards them could be a monster; it could be a tribute. Either way, this is his life now, and he's pretty sick of it.

[headinjuries]

Oh.

Okay, that works too.

Sam doesn't have nearly as nice of a weapon to count on - the supplies left to him at the beginning of the arena included a white surrender flag on a wooden pole, which had not been nearly as funny to him as it probably was to the peanut gallery. But he's hung onto it, just in case, and his powers have been working on enough things that he's not entirely a sitting duck.

It's done so far, it'll have to keep doing.

"Any way to tell what it is?" Or who.

(He's mostly hoping for not Wiress, honestly.)

[unrecovered]

Of all the questions. Honestly.

Wash refrains from rolling his eyes and checks the tracker again. The blip is still incoming - it'll be on top of them soon if they don't move, and it might chase them if they do. If they're going to make a stand, this isn't a terrible place for it. "It's a motion tracker, Sam. It's really good at tracking motion and really bad at everything else."

Any minute now.

[headinjuries]

"Okay, okay."

Look, it was worth a shot, right?

A moment. A fidget.

"Are we staying put?"