bloodflood pt.ii asa vs esme

He'd almost broken down and reached out a hand to tug at Esme's arm when they parted ways. He didn't want to be all alone in the darkness but just because they'd teamed up to kill the beast it didn't mean they could be friends. They both had alliances to get back to, they both had different intentions on what the outcome of this games should be. They couldn't stay together because the truth was that they were still enemies. He might have wrapped a bandage around the girl's arm and might have slayed the enormous mutt that had inhabited the pit before them but that would mean nothing tomorrow when they met in battle.

He'd wandered far that day, stairs taking him out of the beast pit even though his whole body ached and all he wanted to do was lay down and sleep. He needed to find them, his friends. He needed to find them and apologize for getting lost and tether himself to them so that it could never happen again. The problem was that it was so damned dark and he had no idea of where he was going. Retracing his steps did not work; he didn't know where he'd come from in the first place. This arena was hopeless, frustratingly confusing.

He was still searching when the anthem lit the ceiling up and announced a retinue of faces. He stood staring, sunglasses half slid down his nose as his heart stood still for long moments. The music faded and the rock went dark without showing hide nor hair of Pearl, Barnabas or Patricia. Valerie. They'd shared a train together and hardly spoken but she'd still been the only piece of home that he'd been able to align himself with. Careers usually lasted longer. He'd known that she'd have to die eventually if he wanted to meet his goal but eventually is such a loose term, he hadn't realized that it would come so soon.

He spent the night laid up against the tunnel wall, flicking his flashlight on and off, wishing that Barnabas would come around the corner and spot him there. He missed the familiar warmth of his friend and wondered how he fared, if he was going alright, if he'd hear a cannon go off in the middle of the night. He was sure that Pearl and Patricia would take care of him as best they could. He trusted Pearl to at least. Patricia was less certain. One night she had come to kill him, the next to heal and this night she was not in sight at all.

He moves off after a few hours of laying in the darkness but sleep has evaded him. Worry chews on him like an angry dog and somehow his fingers can't stay warm. The flashlight shakes in his grasp. He walks again but his feet shuffle somehow and an overwhelming sense of doom rests on his shoulders. He is going to die today.

His lantern has gone out. He has matches but he can't find the will to light it. He flicks off his flashlight too and the world is dark as night. His sunglasses are scratched and they hide tired eyes but somehow the exhaustion extends further than his muscles. His bones are weary.

He hears one set of footsteps in the darkness and somehow he reacts. His alliance has three sets. This is one set. He waits, silent as torchlight blinks at him but the form is too blurred behind the sunglasses to make out, his head is too blurred to slur out words and he is a machine. The lights go out, he waits. He moves.

He is a what those that enter the games are raised to fear.

He is a career.

[asa flicks off flashlight]
[ASA ATTACKS esme]
K7vuCNpDsword
[Severed Right Calf at Knee -- 9.0 damage]

He is a mechanical man, a dancing monkey. Put a dime in the hat and he'll dance monkey, dance and if this were a movie rain would be coming down in sheets so thick that you couldn't even see your hand in front of your face. He can't see shit anyway because as it turns out, in case you're late to the show, it's dark as ditches where they are, even hell is brighter because at least hell has flames. He's doing it now, he's doing it. He's everything his father has ever wanted him to be.

He's a prodigy, a honed weapon, an emotionless dirt bag spilling soil and other poisonous things where ever he goes. He hears a screaming howl through the darkness and it turns out he's useless too because either there was more than one howling asshole or the beast that he 'killed' didn't die. Yet another thing he failed, yet another thing his father can hit him for, yet another thing he failed to protect Barney from, yet another time he was a waste of space with garbage for brains.

If there ever was one thing that Asa Reau was good at, he had yet to find it.

He was good at failing. There we go.

He felt savage as his sword dug into the flesh of his first real human victim, savage and angry and wild as he felt his prey's blade dig into his own in the darkness. There wasn't much for sound but the muffled breathing of two teenaged kids mauling each other to death in a place that was deeper than any grave there ever was. There wasn't much for feeling except for intense anger at all his failings, his failure to properly kill the beast, his failure to protect barnabas, his failure to find his friends, his failure to be anything that he was actually meant to be.

If only his father could see him now, see his blood spattered son and instead of smacking his head into the bathroom doorway where his mother is waiting for him with a roll of bandage and useless wishes than maybe he'd be proud for once of his 'waste of space'.

and he'd paint the town red with his blood or the other's.

[ASA ATTACKS esme]
nAeasjFWsword
[Shallow Cut on Right Hip -- 3.5 damage]

Anger drives him forward, blade swinging through the dark to meet the flesh of his invisible opponent. It's misplaced but it doesn't matter because it's there. He's never been so angry, it's blinding rage and he's become exactly what he never wanted to be, all those years spent being not good enough, all those years purposefully slipping up because he causing pain made him feel sick and it still does, he still might vomit. He took so many punches, so many cuts just because he was weaker but now he's the strong one, he's the one with strength.

He's a career and it's about time he lives up to it. He doesn't register the rushing air of where his victim's blade was meant to fall. It's like he's working through the body only, the mind has been shut off. He spins around the absence of air in the dark and swings his blade again, feeling it connect with skin and knowing that he's killing someone while not really knowing all at once.

He wishes he could go back to nights spent in caves, smoking cigarettes and being to shy to recite poetry. He's yet to have his first kiss. He's yet to have his first beer, his first love, but he has had his first, second, third, fourth friend.

He swings his blade for them.

[ASA ATTACKS esme]
l1fOO9qTsword
[Deep Gash on Right Thigh -- 8.0 damage]

He swings his blade again and again, slashing and cutting away at anything and everything in his way in order to get back to Barnabas. Warm blood sprays over his skin and he becomes slick, sticky with it. The hilt of his blade however does not slip from his hand nor does he let go. The blood should horrify him but he feels nothing, just cold and empty and numb. The scream is registered but not heard, the blade sticking into his skin in such a shallow yet familiar way is felt but not registered.

wip

[ASA ATTACKS esme]
RC1X2RBJsword
[ Shallow Cut on Right Calf -- 3.5 damage]