slash-and-burn / roadhogs, day 1

slash-and-burn / roadhogs, day 1 Mar 3, 2022 19:55:21 GMT -5

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Post by calla on Mar 3, 2022 19:55:21 GMT -5

So, surprise surprise, Rafael wandered off - good for him, I guess? See if I care when he gets ambushed on his own and Fatima and I inevitably stumble over his body. I won't be upset, he'll be great buzzard food!

"Holler if he comes back," I tell Fatima, "I'm gonna look around for anything useful."

The cornucopia was a let-down, all the parts and scraps there were either junk or broken beyond repair. But this all looks a bit more promising. I find a big ol' lithium battery in a hunk of metal that probably moved once, clean the rust off of it and pump my fist in the air because score!

There's a mostly intact roll of duct tape tucked away in a rotting cabinet, it's a gross neon pink but whatever, I'll take what I can get. I'm taking in my spoils, considering grabbing a weird vial of something that I found, when a big lumpy pile catches my eye.

There's something gleaming in the gloom and I squint at it.

Huh.

Something that looks like a claw is sticking out, like a giant pair of pliers, and colour me intrigued. I haul a heavy tarp off, pulling and pulling until it finally gives, revealing a kind of hatch buried in the junk. YOLO! I crank the lever and the thing screeches open. The door's heavy and I gotta use my foot to swing it all the way, it looks dark inside, but I shimmy in feet-first, landing in a crouch. It's kinda cramped, there's a stray cable that I have to push out of the way, but then the light that filters in through the top slowly falls over a switchboard.

And suddenly it's like my birthday.

I flip every single one of the switches and push all the buttons, some kinda Pavlovian response, and one of the combinations must work. The whole thing shudders once, it creaks and groans and I'm wondering if I should maybe get outta this thing now, god don't blow up don't blow up -

But then there's more light, and the pile is shifting, there's this great big mechanical sound and the ground lowers, I'm in a fucking robot.

I peer through the little circle of glass, scrub at the grime with my sleeve, and there's the rest of the scrapyard in all it's gross glory. The hatch above me is still open, there's no immediate danger around - it's worth a test drive, right? I push the little stick shift near my foot and the whole thing scuttles forward, moving a little lopsided. This is wicked. It's like cocaine to a kid like me. I'm already thinking about how I can fix it up, how I can upgrade it.

Imagine those careers sharpening their nails by the fire and then I show up in this thing. Sierra woulda gone gaga for it.

So maybe I'm a little excited. Maybe I go a little trigger crazy. There's a big red button off to the side that's calling my name and when I smash it something comes crashing down into the sand, faster then I can even really process, leaving a dent and what the fuck what the shit?? HeLLO?? I freeze, hand over the button still. I'm not even sure if I imagined the movement - it is hot as hell in this place.

Just to see, I push it again.

THUNK

Dude, what the hell.

I poke my head out of the hatch, we're out of the junk pile now, the whole mech is on the ground so I can get a good look at it. And it's got… some kind of tail? With a wicked looking stinger on the end. Then I think about those pliers that looked so much like claws, the way it shot forward. I scramble out of the hatch and jump down to the ground, circle around to the front and holy shit.

"Scorpion."

Hal's gonna be so jealous.

slash-and-burn / roadhogs, day 1 Mar 5, 2022 2:18:54 GMT -5

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Post by lance on Mar 5, 2022 2:18:54 GMT -5

F A T I M A

Time passes. The sun passes overhead, and there seems to be a general consensus that there's no immediate threat of danger. Or maybe Rafael has figured something out that you have yet to discover, and decided that splitting was the best course of action.

Not an action you'd put past him in an actual fight, perhaps, but this soon? Nah, something else is afoot. But here is as good of a place to split up and explore as any other - might as well be here, where there's enough scrap metal to completely redo Five's infrastructure three times over and still have some left over. If anyone else happened to stumble upon them, it'd be a simple matter to hide.

Or ambush them. There hadn't been a death between the end of a Bloodbath and the first anthem in over a decade, but there was always a first for everything. Or a rebirth in this case.

Speaking of firsts - or, in this case, the complete opposite - Nowles declares an interest in clambering through the scrap metal herself (probably the best candidate in this case, given her natural knack and affinity towards tinkering - was that an Adroxis trait, or something unique to her?) and for the first time since entering the arena, you find yourself alone.

Allah willing, it won't be your last time.

Waiting around gets old real quick, or maybe it's simply your instincts telling you that if you're constantly on the move you're harder to pin down and ambush, so after a few minutes you give into your innate desires and likewise begin to explore - in a similar, yet separate direction than Nowles herself had disappeared in, just for safety's sake.

Truthfully, you're not sure what she sees in all of this. Maybe it's a cynicism acquired through years of being forced to grow up too quickly, or maybe it's simply a lack of understanding, but all you see is a waste. A waste of resources, a waste of raw materials, a waste of fucking potential - and despite yourself, you can feel the raw anger you've been suppressing at being surrounded by the Capitol's decadence for the last two weeks build back up. All the talk of placating the districts, all the talk of the new Council being reformist mind and allowing Panem new privileges in a gesture of friendship, but they all paled in comparison to the truth. With the tyrannical powers of a dictatorship broken into many different pieces, the consensus of the Capitol's representatives could have chosen to end things, right then and there.

And yet here they were, in yet another Quell, in yet another Games, without even the slightest sign of reform or abolishment having crossed into the public consciousness. Replace one dictator with another, and what progress really could be achieved?

You're saved, however, from having your mask shatter or your anger reach a fever pitch by a distraction in the form of a construct. A large metal construct. A very large metal construct that looked more like a suit of armor than the piles of junk surrounding it.

Anger at the tyrannical Capitolists momentarily forgotten, you stare up in awe at your discovery. If this thing could work...

"Hey Nowles?" you call out, loud enough for your voice to echo but not so loud as to alert every tribute in the arena to your presence. "I think I found something."

elegant