green. — bowie v rafael, day six. | Hunger Games: The RPG

dars
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green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 2, 2022 14:15:30 GMT -5

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Post by dars on Apr 2, 2022 14:15:30 GMT -5

The audience track, you realize, isn't a track. These are live reactions, though definitely coming from somewhere else. Your tribute looks around, anticipating what comes next, wondering what moves they should make to prepare. They hear the click of a microphone cutting on, a brief silence, and then:

"WE HAVE AN AMAZING SHOW LINED UP FOR YOU ALL TODAY!" Rather than the baritone voice the tributes heard before, there's something far more unsettling. A chorus of different voices, each speaking at the same time. Some of the tributes most familiar with capitol culture might recognize the brassy sageness of Sardonyx Crowe, or the refined nuances of Maverick Miles, or even the youthful femininity of Paris Vanburen among the crowd of discordant voices, booming with such loud volume the tributes can feel the force of it against them, vibrating within their stomachs and pushing them back.

Your tribute looks down and watches as the sand- no, the ground beneath the sand, begins to glow with a color: green.

"MOVING ON TO THE GREEN COURT, IN OUR FIRST CORNER, COMING TO US ALL THE WAY FROM DISTRICT TEN, IT'S WHIPLASH!!" The crowd erupts in cheers as a spotlight falls onto Bowie for a moment.

"AND HIS OPPONENT... COMING ALL THE WAY FROM DISTRICT SEVEN, IT'S THE SALAZAR HIMSELF, RAFAEL!" Again, the crowd erupts in cheers and a spotlight shines onto Rafael. The walls separating the two tributes from the others begin to glow the same color as the floor. One by one, the discordant choir of voices announces the fights until the entire field glows with energy. Then, after a terrible pause, there is the haunting sound of another firework firing into the air and exploding into a colorful shower of sparks.

"BEGIN!"

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. / pogue

Last Edit: Apr 2, 2022 14:16:00 GMT -5 by dars

^{I AM A GARDEN OF BLACK AND RED AGONIES}

pogue
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Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 3, 2022 13:39:27 GMT -5

Quote

Post by pogue on Apr 3, 2022 13:39:27 GMT -5

In the wake of her most powerful moment yet, Whiplash Gamble watches his own ally shatter. There's a cannon that thunders in the sky, following after the crack of Izzy's gun but before the gasp that crawls up his throat and forces its way out of his lips. A hundred clapping hands carve themselves into the yellow clouds above, an echoing boom blanketed over their fight.

For a moment, everything runs still, the only noise the sound of Isaac panting and Peter's mech suit powering down, protesting a movement that was inevitable. "Shit." A whisper, chewed up by the silence almost as soon as he speaks it.

Izzy's spiral is quick after that, five days spent teetering off the edge amounting to a breathless jump, a chaotic free fall. Whiplash steps forward first, instincts taking advantage of the stasis they sit in and pulling Izzy away from the fray, feeling Isaac's form lean into his and his blood, scarlet and crimson and everything in between, drip down the rusted panels of his own suit. His gut twists in on itself when they finally stop, the dried up vines of the gardens twisting and curling against the winds as if to watch the show that is coming, the spiral that it carries. Whiplash Gamble isn't one to mince his words, isn't one to step into the fray without thinking first, isn't one to shy away from the consequences that means he'll suffer.

Izzy's downfall is the first time he's silent, truly silent, marked by his own mistrust and the way he's disintegrated every relationship he'd ever had in this arena.

The dust doesn't settle, only rising as Izzy strips her mech suit bare and tosses every single item she'd accumulated into the air, through it, towards them. He dodges and weaves around the flying debris, pressed up against his suit and feeling its shadow scuttle and crawl against his skin, as if to remind him of what it is capable of, what it will force him to be capable of doing. At some point he mutters her name, Izzy, as if it will quell the storm he watches unfold in front of him. But it's just like a whisper in the midst of an audience, so swallowed by screams and cheers that it is as if one had never said it in the first place. He grimaces, looking between Isaac and Izzy and back again, gaze drifting to mark the scars and sins that are pressed into his forearms and legs, reminders of what has happened and what is to come. A one man audience watching a one woman show, each none the wiser and each destined for something sinister.

Stupidly, silently, selfishly he eventually returns to his own habits.

His fingertips curl around what's left of Izzy's bandages and slips them into his suit, another betrayal singed into his soul as he watches his allies settle into the dust and the dirt.

- - -

Something sinister comes quicker than he'd expected, the sound of static melting into his sleep. In his dream his mind turns it tangible, feels the static press into his skin and drift amongst his veins until it's as if every single one of his limbs are asleep at once, screaming and pulsing endlessly into the void, a nightmare soaked into his form.

Being awake isn't much of a relief.

His first instinct is to clutch the inside of his suit, feeling his gut drop as he

His next instinct is to let a sentence so vile slip from his lips that he can practically hear the censorship written in between the lines, the static finally reaching his ears as he looks out of his suit, met with something he knows and something he wishes he'd never had to experience again. Gulp, swallow, feel the dust settle into his throat and his gaze drifts away from the crowd and to the fields below.

The shadow of his suit rests easy against the dust, swaying left and right as the wind presses against the rusted steel of a suit suspended loosely above. He sighs, bites his lip, measures the distance between himself and the ground below. They hold him up on weakened strings and the expectation of a show, which means...

Free fall, he leans into it as the cables suddenly snap and the ground comes to meet a performer, his muscles tense against the momentum and the impact, his suit groaning a protest of gears and wires as the cage around him snaps and shatters. Rubble explodes outward as he stands, familiarity laced into his bones and his movements.

He scans the crowd, met only with a myriad of screens and montages displaying the bloodshed he'd seen and inflicted. His teeth find themselves, grinding together as he instinctively flips the switch on the cannon attached to his forearm, letting his eyes drift towards his opponent.

He knows what greets him across the field, can see the fangs of a snake written into his mech suit, feels the same poison he'd already sewn into his veins come back to haunt him. Rafael Salazar, maker and breaker of deals, rises from his own cage and steps into a shared coffin.

They're both destined to die, one facet in a performance that neither of them had accepted the terms of. Whiplash looks up towards Rafael as the voice booms above, the sands of the field flashing green as if to warn him of the snake that stands before him. Death and a show, loaded guns and decaying souls, knowing of what is coming doesn't make it any easier for either of them.

His voice bites into the static intercom when he speaks, connecting the two boys in only blood waiting to be shed, "Ya got any deals made that'll get us both outta here, Salazar?" It's a taunt more than a question, an acknowledgement of Rafael's greater intelligence and a dangling of the fact that they've both ended up in the same place regardless. He wonders if Rafael still has the pocket knife he'd tossed towards him, or if it still rests in the veins of a tree sat peacefully in the Oasis.

"Ya said people root for the underdogs, right?" Rafael's words feel like poison against his memories, futile and dangerous and everything in between. "Now they want the underdogs to only bite one another." Gulp, swallow, the crowd confirms his statement with static applause.

His cannon points towards his opponent, no sense in letting his words be digested before pulling the trigger. "Time to show our teeth."

[Bowie attacks Rafael ; Cannon round]

_SDH3DyjgWthrowing axe

[Bruised back -- 2.5]

throwing axe

Last Edit: Apr 3, 2022 13:39:52 GMT -5 by pogue

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 4, 2022 3:53:26 GMT -5

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Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 4, 2022 3:53:26 GMT -5

Rafael prides himself on being prepared for anything, but the past few days were all but unwelcome surprises.

He could lie to others, to himself even, say that he plotted out the betrayals, strategized through the battles, and yet the truth would always catch up to illuminate the fact that he was scarcely ready for the coming anthem.

Nothing has been preordained. Not the betrayal, not Fatima’s death, and although he wasn’t complaining about the success of both, there were far too many risk factors among both things for him to be proud of his own endeavors. And worse, he has taken on an additional burden by recruiting a boy that made him feel outlandish. Feel raw, like the sight of him is a reminder of the open wound he will always be, cursed to bleed for acceptance and love.

Orville King is the biggest risk factor of everything he’s previously encountered.

Yet he keeps him, bundled up in the façade of showmanship while knowing it is for something else. To confess, pathetically so, Rafael never had any good friends. Associates, sure, and even henchmen, underlings that wanted to be him, but never in his life has he called someone a friend or regarded a person as such. Everyone close to him wanted something from Rafael in the way he wanted from them, and it was forever an ouruobus, a cyclic affair, never touching base on the trust he never bothered to learn.

He never had a friend, not until Orville.

The other was asleep when Rafael returned from the den, drooling from one side of his mouth. Quiet, tenderly so, he settled right next to him and looked up at the stars.

It felt peaceful then, a sensation he has locked himself from away for years on end, and for a moment he was wrapped up by this novelty, basking in it even like it was a night pond reflected with stars.

But the anthem played, drowning him back within the present of their fate. Faces glinted amongst stars, ones that were bound to fade with time.

Fifteen left. Now the games have truly begun.

- - -

He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

He does, however, recognize the wish to wake up next to Orville and, as all wishes do, of course it doesn’t happen.

Instead he wakes up in the dark, panic-shot from the first breath, jotting up so hard his head slams against the metal hull—“fuck!” The scent of oil and metal, the feel of his familiar perch, the cracked glass that he’s been looking through, they all tell him of his whereabouts. But how? He has slept in his own skin last night, weary of the suit’s lumbering weight, and yet he’s back in it, almost trapped. It feels suffocating all of a sudden. This skin, this body that he’s controlled, feels a burden all of a sudden.

“King?” he rasps, his intercoms flaring as they soak up his utterance. Nothing. No sound, except for the roar of applause that floods through the world then, making him take a step back and then stumble. The cage swings. He feels his stomach lurch with something terrible, takes all his aristocratic upbringing to try and not to throw up, and then the lights come on.

Bright, furious, and eager, they all click-click-click as one by one they light up the scrapyard before the ground below him opens up, he is standing on air, and—“again?!”

He makes impact unceremoniously. All grace has abandoned the snake; he is left with only lumbering movements and a cold, cold fury as he brings himself up through the pain.

The world is a silver screen. All manner of broadcasts play in the blank faces of strange mutations, tapes repeated backwards, all echoing the same story told over and over again of children betraying each other, hurting each other, killing each other ad infinitum. They are tales lived and told. Every hope that Rafael once had about being fresh rotted away long ago. Through the mess of screens and confused faces, he is only looking for one thing: Orville.

Then he sees him. The idiot, of course, doesn’t spot him back and he’s advancing towards him when light ripples through the path in front of him. Holographic, shimmering, it draws a border and hums gently in quiet warning and he doesn’t need Nowles’ intellect to know what this is. Cecily Deerling murdered her own friends with it last games. The forcefield is keeping them away and with each other as he turns, slowly, languidly almost, and comes face to face with what seems like is his own reckoning.

Bowie Gamble, broken vanguard of a boy, looks back at him with oil-slick eyes.

The announcement begins, a choir of voices singing their doom, and he swears he hears Valentino in the cacophony as the ground beneath them emanates a sickly-green glow, the Salazar color. Home court advantage, except it’s far from it. If anything, he is thinking about how scarlet the blood will look upon it once the fight breaks loose.

For all his schemes and dirty plans, he has none when the spotlight lands on him. Utterly, terribly, Rafael is alone with no one to take the fall in his stead that Gamble’s words are a biting truth. Rafael, maker and breaker of deals, has lost all of them.

Still, he smirks up a number and speaks: “one deal, but I’m afraid it’s cashable for one person only.” He can feel the dagger he’s handed Bowie back in his holster, a promise of betrayal the other hasn’t taken up. His mistake. Maybe killing Isaac may have landed Bowie Gamble a better opponent, a more honorable one at that, but look at where he is now. Dancing with the serpent.

"Ya said people root for the underdogs, right?" Bowie asks. He nods in response. “That’s the narrative.”

"Now they want the underdogs to only bite one another."

And that’s the narrative.

It’s a shock of lightning as he connects the dots. He should have seen it, really. It was never going to be him and Bowie against each other in the finale, it was him or Bowie, all because the capitol loved their glimmering diamonds from districts one and two and they, they were the rough and uncut gems, the coarse and the grit.

One of them had to be picked, not both.

“We’re the lower district darlings,” he chuckles mirthlessly. The gatlin purrs awake in his hand, surprisingly working well until now that he thanks Nowles in his head.

He feints his attack, holds it as he lithely dodges Bowie’s by sidestepping his mech in a dance-like movement he has mastered from the following days. The cannon only chips away a piece of his mech-suit.

“All right, Gamble,” says Rafael, because that is what a gentleman does. “Let’s make our wagers. You or me?”

RAFAEL attacks BOWIE | GATLIN GUN [1/6]

om2gweLMRKthrowing knife

9011 -- Shallow Cut on Chest -- 4.0 damage (Thrown Knife)

throwing knife

Last Edit: Apr 4, 2022 5:47:33 GMT -5 by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.

堕落天使

pogue
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Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 4, 2022 11:31:33 GMT -5

Quote

Post by pogue on Apr 4, 2022 11:31:33 GMT -5

His first shot arcs wide, exasperated by Rafael's quick movements and only managing to chip the side of his opponent's suit. The snake is quick to coil and even quicker to striek back, and Whiplash is forced to mirror the boys movements and dart to the right, gears grinding against one another as his mech suit strains under the pressure of the sudden movement. Blow for blow, he feels a bullet clink hard against the right shoulder of his suit and pushes back against the impact, momentum of a fired bullet threatening to throw him off balance. He comes to a halt with his gun still trained forwards, the barrel aimed towards Rafael's face.

"One deal, but I'm afraid it's cashable for one person only."

It feels like a betrayal to laugh, bloodied lips split into a grin and smoke stained teeth revealed underneath. Whiplash

"Doesn't sound like that good'a deal, boy."

They circle one another then, for only a moment, standing in the middle of a coffin and trying so hard to make their opposite the body it'll slam shut upon. Shadow meets shadow, the high sun stretching and distorting their blackened forms until it all melds into one instead of two separate entitites, until neither of them are recognizable as anything other than dead men walking.

"All right, Gamble." He blinks, tenses his muscles and feels his suit respond in kind, as if the rusted steel has melded into his skin, veins become wires and white-knuckled fists become cannons. It's designed for a show, entertainment at the cost of a single insignificant life. "Let's make our wagers, you or me?"

It's his turn to quip now, something sinister slipping into the static channel between them, undecided between a laugh and a sigh. "Y'don't get it, snake charmer." Whiplash has seen Rafael's confidence in his own security, his perceived importance, so convinced of a life worth living he didn't even know that he was already dead. He casts a glance towards the walls that divide them all, shimmering and transulcent, a sharp contrast to the green dust that rises up from beneatht their suits movements. Across the field, he watches Isaac stand stoic against two tributes, catches Parker thread steel in between her gingers and bring it down against the form of another. His gaze drifts back to Rafael, watches his shadow flicker in a snake pit of green. "Y'said it yourself, we're the lower district darlin's." Their fates are carved into their skin at this point, branded to their soul and left to sit in blight and rot. There's no shine to their actions, no luster to admire in the sunlight. 'It's neither of us, Salazar."

A spotlight above flickers and dances between them, lands against his suit and he catches the rusted lights refract against his suit, echoing and bouncing against the fields below. "Ya really think we're the ones worth a win?" Worth a crown? The voice in his head adds on. His voice weaves in and out of the static, until the daggers he'd laced into the words are blunted to nothing more than a somber tone.

Even the slickest cogs in the wheel are easily replaceable.

He's known it since his first days in the troupe, summers spent cracking a whip and practicing his lines, ten years old and his whole life laid out in front of him from start to finish, knowing his worth is only defined in fading cheers. The spotlight will flicker, the shadows will take over, he'll be buried in his own sins at some point.

He wonders if Rafael knows it too, or if he thinks when Death comes knockin' on his door he'll be able to treat it just like any other deal.

The static around them echoes and swallows their conversation for a moment, bloodlust of a digital crowd slipping into their communication channel and Whiplash surveys the audience, catches site of Isaac slamming a girl's skull into pulp, watches Kareem do a dead man's float in the peaceful rivers of the Oasis, views himself fire a gun and revel in the smoke it leaves hanging in the air. There's no luck left for the two of them, he accepts it after eighteen years of convincing himself of somethin' different.

"Losin' hand to losin' hand." He raises his cannon and traces a heartbeat against Rafael's mech.

"Let's see who dies today," A shrug, solemn.

"-who dies tomorrow."

[Bowie attacks Rafael ; Cannon shot]

k1W1WzKljwthrowing axe

[Axe in thigh -- 8, +1 TP]

throwing axe

Last Edit: Apr 4, 2022 11:33:28 GMT -5 by pogue

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 6, 2022 0:20:44 GMT -5

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Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 6, 2022 0:20:44 GMT -5

Violetta clung onto luck in her last moments.

He analyzed that fight for years, mapped out the brutal jabs of Aeson’s spears, reveled in the way Violetta returned her own blows, and yet he would always seethe when he heard her words, that desperate prayer for luck. Cruel, deceitful luck which brought upon Aeson’s spear felling her in one savage swoop.

He had never believed in it since. There is no stroke of luck in the same way there is no justice, no destiny. Those are simple lies, told again and again by weak men to make themselves feel honorable, and where does this honor ultimately take a man, you ask?

Surely to the bottom of a grave.

Luckily, or rather to his detriment, Bowie Gamble lacks honor. He sees it in his eyes. Two boys, same shadow, they are near perfect echoes of each other with the same cynical glares and hardened skins. Standing there, guns at the ready, they both know what this is: a prelude, an overture, and nothing more. One of them will lay here forgotten as the other goes forth. Their puppet strings can almost be gleaned then, wrapped around steel tendons, keeping their figures aloft.

And hasn’t he played his part well? One betrayal, two dead allies, it’s almost worthy of being titled a magnum opus if he says so himself. But he has straying from the script too, making attempts at improvisation, and seeing Orville across from the field makes that clear.

It’s pathetic how he latched onto him. The first sign of kindness and he reduced a town to rubble for Orville, a sign that Rafael’s love is always bound to come in tandem with peril and ruin, and yet he doesn’t let go of it. Doesn’t let go of him. For all his cynicism, the part of him that believes in love has yet to rot, it seems. He needs it, has made attempts at ridding it clean, and yet it lingers, ever the perseverant.

The sevens need to live until top eight, he remembers telling Orville. And no matter the script, no matter the broken schemes, Rafael has that one last deal for him to see through.

He turns away from Orville’s face and is tossed to the ground. The cannon exploded at his side, tore a good chunk of the metal away and embedded pieces of it in his skin. The pained cry comes last, escapes in a low whimper as it does. Rafael bites down on his lips to quiet himself.

“It wouldn’t kill you to dream a little,” he says through gritted teeth. “Well,” a mirthless laugh then, “I guess it could. I guess I could.” False bravado, true ambition, he can’t tell between a lie and the truth anymore. Everything is a twisted bet, the wild toss of a dice, but luckily Rafael has always loved to gamble.

He has defied worse odds than this. It isn’t hope but trying with every bone and teeth in your body to make a wish come true, willing it to almost and yet not hoping it does. Sheer determination, unbroken ambition, he would risk every dime in a thousand banks to get what he wants.

And what does he want?

“Everything,” he reminds himself with a soft whisper. It is pertinent to keep track of your goals.

“If you’re so adamant on having the short hand, maybe we make another deal.” Mid-speech, he tucks the gatlin gun on his mech’s left hand behind him and stealthily runs his fingers across the controls. Quick switch. It's a trick he picked up from Nowles. “You in the ground,” he continues, lips almost curling on the verge of a smile, “and I—” thanks for the correction, King, “with the fuckin’ crown.”

The mech’s left hand thrusts outwards.

It doesn’t have the gun.

Instead his right does, and it lashes out like a serpent to release a bolt in a feinting maneuver.

RAFAEL attacks BOWIE | GATLIN GUN [2/6]

z3g0yCY_Oithrowing knife

9050 -- Knife in Calf -- 6.0 damage (Thrown Knife) + 1.0 damage (Target Practice)

throwing knife

Last Edit: Apr 6, 2022 0:22:10 GMT -5 by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.

堕落天使

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green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 6, 2022 9:07:20 GMT -5

Quote

Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2022 9:07:20 GMT -5

risky pope washington-winner

"Woo-damn! These boys are tearing each other the fuck up!" Give it to the Gamemakers, she can appreciate a good shake-up. With the slow start to these games, Risky found herself shook at the top 16 bracket twist. "This is what we come to watch for, girls and gays, I mean come on. If you haven't caught the drift by now, 1v1s are live and you are witnessing the comeuppance of Bowie vs Rafael - two boys looking to prove a lot here. They may not be careers but don't let that fool you, these two are bringing it every chance they get, and this is no exception, y'all."

She shuts up for just a second to hear what Bowie's saying over the intercom, as much as she's a host she's enjoying every second of this like a super fan. Risky's got a soft spot for 2 things: kids fighting for their lives, and underdogs fighting for the crown.

'Time to show our teeth.'

"Ooh baby, the one-liners!"

Tasty tasty, she can't help but grin from the anticipation. "They're warming up y'all it's alright," she says over the sound of dull bullet fire. "These mech suits, they are harder to pilot than they look I swear. Meta has one of these stored away in the Museum, they are heavy and they are fucking hot. Knowing this GM team, I bet these are real deal so I can only imagine how difficult it'd be six days into this. Rafael and Bowie are thinkin' it through, closing distance and I honestly don't know which way this could go."

"I've been waiting to see these two guys knock some heads together from the start, so I can only imagine how bloody this is about to get-" and it comes quick, baby. She's gathered each time they talk, cautious to make sure the viewer's can hear the dialogue as well.

'Let's see who dies today - who dies tomorrow.'

"OOP-" she's gagged at the screen as Bowie delivers not just a one-liner but a clean, viscous hit, shrapnel blowing straight through the leg of Rafael Salazar's mech. Risky can't react with more than a cackle before Rafael rises from the buckle, gatlin gun tucked under his arm. "Y'all, Rafe is about one more bad day from snapping all together and I cannot WAIT for it. This poor baby-" she starts flailing as Salazar starts his speech, taking in every juicy word.

'If you’re so adamant on having the short hand, maybe we make another deal. You in the ground, and I-'

"Oh bitch."

'with the fucking crown.

"Purr!" And his bark matches his bite, "wait, now did y'all see that fake out?! Oh, Rafe's coming with tricks, I see you, I see you." Risky sits back as the sand stir calms, settling back down to reveal the wound to Bowie's mechanical leg. "Ooo, they are letting each other have it!! As they should, y'all I am so entertained."

"Now, I'm a betting woman, but if I had to pick between these two I would just put my money in savings. Bowie and Rafe have been playing the game the way it needs to be played this game, I can't imagine either one not in the top 8, so we're just going to have to see how this plays out for the snake and the bull." Cough cough, hurry up boys 😉

pogue
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last seen May 16, 2024 14:46:09 GMT -5

Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 6, 2022 13:54:48 GMT -5

Quote

Post by pogue on Apr 6, 2022 13:54:48 GMT -5

There ain't enough space on the field for triumph, even as he watches his bullet carve into the side of Rafe's mech, a splattering of metal and steel bouncing against the green dirt. His brow furrows, teeth grinding into one another, catching his breath even as Salazar's pained gasp cuts into the comm channel, quickly swallowed whole by the static of the line. His opponent is quick to retaliate, a coiled snake dangling a red herring out in front of him and Whiplash Gamble mistakenly takes the bait like a charging bull. His mech suit moves to dodge, protests of the sudden movement ringing true as Rafael's opposite arm fires out, he swears he feels the impact before he sees the gun fire.

He's both dinner and the show, Rafael's bullet tears into the side of his suit and chews apart the rusted metal and steel, momentum carrying it into the side of his calf and biting a piece of skin out from his leg. He gasps, feels a gnawing deep in his gut that shoots up into his heart as he recoils backwards. Stammering, stumbling, there's a chorus of static and the growls of a showman's last performance that cut into the microphone as he catches his balance, stabilizing and gasping for a breath that catches in his throat. "Neat trick-" He growls into the radio, "there's that lack of honor I knew you had."

Maybe it's delusion, or maybe the blood loss accumulated over the past five days, or maybe it's Death just throwing him one final bone, but in the void of his own blink he thinks of the way Summer nights seemed longer when he was younger, a boy placed into a man's world.

"You in the ground-"

Tracing the constellations above, pretending he could feel the stars and they could feel him too, knowing deep down that they couldn't.

"and I– with the fuckin' crown."

His life had taught him too many lessons to count, the crack of a whip and the gleam of a knife and how to keep the spotlight burning his skin. Tangible, physical skills, he'd had to learn the rest on his own, how to look in the mirror and know one's worth, how to reckon with a childhood sold and lost at far too young an age, what the cost of entertainment really was.

"Y'aint as smart as ya look."

Rafael speaks of himself with the crown and Whiplash in the dirt but the latter knows more about the middle ground, that the same thing calls for them both in different ways. "That crown, all shiny and gold-" He breathes through the static, pain blossoming from his wounds and gnawing at his veins. "- it won't stop ya from spoilin' just as fast as a corpse, Salazar." Whiplash Gamble's wisdom is in his own suffering, not in flowery words and intelligence gained.

"Even if I die today, end up six feet under and none the wiser." His cannon reloads itself, a hundred wires and gears pulsing as he puts distance between the two of 'em. "We'll still be one 'n the same." He looks at his shadow and then lets his gaze drift upwards, to a mirror of a man across the field, catches his own reflection in the way Rafael's face stands stoic against the pain, against everything life had thrown at them and nothing more.

"A corpse and a victor ain't any different, one just gets to rest while they rot."

His suit grinds into the dirt, a sudden halt to his movement and all that's left over is the feeling of his own heart slamming against his chest. His mind wanders back to the Oasis, the river bending against his skin, the trees whispering something sinister and a deal broken before it could be made. Whiplash and Salazar have existed in the same shattered space this entire time, catching their reflections in falling pieces of glass, making deals in dying spaces with dying things. "But sure, Rafe." He blinks and pictures their time in the Training Center, innocence gained and innocence lost, the cannon on his arm screeches with anticipation. "They want a show." The audience cheers, their voices cutting into the microphone. "We're both stupid enough to give it to 'em." Equal ground rises between them, Whiplash's yellowed grin hardly visible through the cracked helmet of his suit.

"Funny lil' deals and funny lil' games, let's get this over with."

[Bowie attacks Rafael ; Cannon shot]

Aop49WxAmMthrowing axe

[4.0]

throwing axe

Last Edit: Apr 6, 2022 13:55:27 GMT -5 by pogue

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 7, 2022 1:50:12 GMT -5

Quote

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 7, 2022 1:50:12 GMT -5

Honor was a graveyard for good men.

His mother taught him that long ago and it is a lesson he remains grateful for as the smoke is cleared away by a gust of wind to reveal: his trick shot has made impact. Successful, albeit dirty, it was the kind of move that ensured your survival back in Las Serpentias. A person would have been skinned alive if they didn’t fight dirty or scheme dirty there. If you didn’t have a knife, you used a fork, and if you didn’t have an escape, you made one yourself. Salazar ingenuity, he muses, is the art of staying alive at all costs.

Salazars are hard to kill and even harder to mourn.

Violetta was not much of a challenge, admittedly, but why about himself? Would his mother mourn him if he died here today? Would anyone? He could be grateful for at least a toast made in his namesake, some polite conversation at his funeral, all complete with a wainscoted, gold-plated coffin. It was important to have standards, even after you have died.

He shook his head, honing his attention back to a sharpened edge. Focus. Bowie’s cannon pulses alight, a telltale sign of it changing rounds, and his words roll over with a low growl through the intercoms then:

"Y'aint as smart as ya look."

It’s a truth he has been trying to run from, and for a moment he pretends as though he hasn’t heard it. But it sinks its claws deep, scrapes at his heart, and Rafael’s jaw sets itself taut. “Smart enough to have lived for six days, Gamble,” he says, “and smart enough to live for … what? Two more days until the finale?” He has been waiting for it.

His next laughs earn a brash, corrosive peal of laughter that makes his unravelling seams feel even more evident. “¡Chingada! And you don’t know what a victor is, Gamble,” he cuts the laugh mid-way, seething with gritted teeth. “It means it doesn’t matter if you’re legacy, you get to skip out on the rules of inheritance.” Behind his eyes, he sees Jacinta on a stage, never facing the Salazars. “It means control, a modicum of it, it means adoration, a nation-load of it, and hell, isn’t that what we’re all here fuckin’ fighting for?”

He hasn’t voluntold himself to die in some bygone grave. Bowie wants that fate? Rafael will gladly comply.

“A corpse and a victor ain't any different, one just gets to rest while they rot,” says the other.

“What you don’t understand, Gamble,” he replies, “is that I was rotten long before I winded up here.”

He loads his gatlin gun within the same flicker of moment Bowie does his cannon. Click-click, they both sound in timed unison. “They want a show,” the other drawls through his intercom, “so dance prettily for me, handsome,” he purrs back in response.

Both guns outstretch themselves at each other.

“Funny lil' deals and funny lil' games,”

“—All of which we did and played well but,”

“Let's get this over with.” “Let’s get this over with.”

RAFAEL attacks BOWIE | GATLIN GUN [3/6]

0NWrIESFzjthrowing knife

9147 -- Deep Gash on Stomach -- 9.0 damage (Thrown Knife) + 1.0 damage (Target Practice)

throwing knife

Last Edit: Apr 7, 2022 1:51:01 GMT -5 by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.

堕落天使

pogue
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Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 7, 2022 19:58:37 GMT -5

Quote

Post by pogue on Apr 7, 2022 19:58:37 GMT -5

"It means control, a modicum of it-" He stammers through his own breaths, taking in the stupidity of Rafe's words.

"-It means adoration, a nation-load of it-" Whiplash feels familiarity etch itself into his skin in the form of memories riddled with blight. He knows adoration, knows the feeling of lights and cheers and the way applause injects itself into one's veins.

It's nice, for a time, until it slowly and surely fades with time, until your body is decomposing outwards from your heart, the spotlight fading and the applause following shortly after. Rafael Salazar had called them both lower district darlings, had claimed similarity in their pasts and their present but Whiplash Gamble knows it's anything but, knows the truth no matter how dumb his opponent thinks he is. Rafael Salazar doesn't know adoration, he only knows dreams and fallacies.

"Hmph-" A laugh turns into a strained gasp for air that never comes, his body punishing him almost as soon as he speaks. "Yeah, control..." He muses, tasting Rafael's most recent words and feeling them spoil on his tongue. Their acidity and venom seeps into his bloodstream until he's seeing red in both wound and gaze. His attempt at a grin only leads to a new wave of pain, a cough and a splatter of red against the inside of his helmet. From afar he guesses it looks manic, wild, feral, a grinning boy baring crimson fangs and staring down his own killer. His eyes spell everything out for him, the way they gleam with a superiority of something Rafe will never be able to know.

He's finally beaten the Snake at his own game, finally discovered something he knows and Rafael doesn't. He hopes he hates it, he hopes it burns.

"What you don't understand, Gamble-" and his mind interjects between the rest, I bet I do.

"-is that I was rotten long before I winded up here." Now it's his turn to play jester, the way something ferocious coughs up from his throat as he stammers, each heartbeat laced in pain. "Shit, snake boy." He starts, leaning back on his heels and feeling the green sand shift under his mech's weight. "Don't be so dramatic."

His words trail off into the dead space between them, dissolving into the green dust clouds that rise up from the field with their movements.

"Let's get this over with." His words have an echo as he looks across the field and, for a moment they sit in tandem, staring down the barrel of each other's guns and holding shaking digit above the trigger.

Maybe that's why he hesitates, only for a second.

And a second is enough, Rafael's gun fires and even though his finger slams down at the last second he can feel the impact before his own cannon explodes with the round. Rafael's shot tears through his suit and embeds itself into his gut and Whiplash gasps with pain and fury, his suit stumbling backwards before he finally collapses onto one knee. There's a scream that slips from his lungs as he fights back the urge to collapse to the dust and the dirt. Black clouds the edges of his vision, the static of the audience invading his head even as he tries desperately to blink it away.

Blood dribbles out from his lip, staining his cheek scarlet as he fights back to standing, his gasping breaths cutting into the intercom. His own shot had done nothing, hardly grazed against the steel of Rafael's suit. Even as he stands something red drips out from beneath his suit, blossoming up from the wound in his stomach. "Tell me somethin', Rafe." He coughs into the microphone, his palm slides against the visor of his helmet, fingers curling around the bottom until he pulls the helmet off completely, lets it fall and tumble to the ground below. His face is stained with sweat and blood, a teenage boy with puppet strings severed, bleeding out into oblivion. Eyes stare into, through Rafael Salazar. "Did you really think I was going to kill Isaac in his sleep?"

His sentence ends with the pull of a trigger, the scream of a gun.

[Bowie attacks Rafael ; Gatlin Round]

Wif5rO0|HIthrowing knife

[3.5]

throwing knife

Last Edit: Apr 7, 2022 20:00:28 GMT -5 by pogue

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 8, 2022 3:21:21 GMT -5

Quote

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 8, 2022 3:21:21 GMT -5

Bang!

And Gamble collapses.

Stay down, he wills almost desperately. Please, for fuck's sake, stay down.

He feels his muscles ache and burn with the fire of exertion, of five restless days catching up to him, none of which his ambition can salve. The world spins on a cruel axis, so much so that he staggers for a moment, and standing up takes so much damn effort. He could lay down, too. The sands are inviting.

Rafael's fingers find one of the open wounds on him and press down—

He screams. “FUCK!” A lightning bolt of pain, so intense that it unmakes the world for a split second, but the adrenaline that follows after is akin to snake-venom. It hurts but it holds. It pains but it pushes. Stay on your damn feet. If he’ll die, he’ll do so standing and with a final bullet to shoot. Hell, damn showmanship, he’ll take Bowie down with him.

The dying sun behind him crests over them both, a burning halo that, for only a moment, crowns his head jaggedly. Selfish, ruinous, and oh so unyielding, Rafael protests against the fall.

Not again. Never again. He did not climb this high to be yanked back down, not by Cricket Antoinette, not by Maryn Hale, and certainly not by Bowie fucking Gamble.

As the other speaks, he looks at him again. “What?” he rasps back, his gaze drawn to the strips of shadow and green light dancing across Bowie's now-unshielded face.

“Did you really think I was going to kill Isaac in his sleep?”

Rafael laughs.

His helmet comes undone, too, and then rolls off in the sand as he gets rid of it completely.

“Not really,” he shakes his head, his hair still perfectly moussed. “I was wagering on him killing you. Quite disappointed in that regard.”

He makes a heavy, albeit painful, intake of breath.

It hurts but it holds. It pains but it pushes.

“All of us are liars here, Gamble,” the words come laced with the same laugh from before, bitter and corrosive. “And everyone better at it than you.*”

The gun raises itself again, outstretched at the other’s heart that is shielded behind iron but baring itself all the same in those oil-slick eyes.

“If you have any truthfulness left, I suggest you bury a dagger in it, too.

It is for the better, really.”

Changing trajectory, he shoots at the other’s knee.

*Quote inspired by Game of Thrones.

RAFAEL attacks BOWIE | GATLIN GUN [4/6]

tCurflbJxRthrowing knife

9070 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage (Thrown Knife)

ACCURACY | DAY 6

throwing knife

9145 -- Shallow Cut on Bicep -- 3.5 damage (Thrown Knife)

throwing knife·throwing knife

Last Edit: Apr 8, 2022 3:27:06 GMT -5 by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.

堕落天使

pogue
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Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 8, 2022 9:56:56 GMT -5

Quote

Post by pogue on Apr 8, 2022 9:56:56 GMT -5

The end is coming for both of them, Whiplash can feel it in the way the winds push and pull against his open wounds, green sand laced into flesh and muscle torn apart, never to be put back together. Each breath becomes pained, ragged, stumbling from his lips as he struggles to get back to his feet.

"All of us are liars here, Gamble," He's wrong, Whiplash has seen honesty in Kareem's eyes, in isaac and Izzy's too. He'd spat in their face for it back then, now he wishes he could experience it one more time.

"And everyone better at it than you." He's

"You're right, Rafe." He breathes out and feels a poisoned breath lace itself into the air. With his helmet gone the arena takes on a new life, the static seems louder now, as if it's clawing at the inside of his ears and corroding him from the inside out. "I ain't never been a good liar." Ironic, he speaks a truth about lying, tongue twisted and venomous.

"If you have any truthfulness left, I suggest you bury a dagger in it too." He's always been told pride comes before the fall and his system holds it true, stubborn refusal to accept Rafe's terms fighting against the way his knees shake and his body threatens to shatter. He won't turn into a liar now, won't give Rafael the satisfaction of seeing his blood go from red to black. He smiles, dangerous and wild, gone and replaced with a pained gasp almost as soon as it appears, a showman and a show all in one.

It's stubbornness that carries him up, forces his muscles to tense and release before Rafael can fire his gun, the bullet only ricocheting against the side of his suit, carving a permanent memory into the steel. He slows almost as soon as he stops, pained breaths breaking into the air and reminding him of what is near. His gaze drifts up towards his opponent, something devilish laced into the way there's a softness in his eyes.

"Y'wanna hear a truth, Salazar?"
He won't give him the choice.

"Even after all this." Tossed between the sheets, the blood and the bruises, the way they cheer on his own demise in crimson applause. "I still don't wanna see you croak." There's a childlike softness that takes over his words if only for a moment, a truth riddled in between all of the rugged exterior he can muster. Something the world has tried to kill ten times over, something it succeeded in doing until he'd looked Death in the eyes and spit in his face, traced the arc of his scythe with hazel eyes.

"I won't bury myself in lies, not like you."

[Bowie attacks Rafael ; Cannon shot]

LfDo|wo9VBthrowing axe

[8.5]

throwing axe

Last Edit: Apr 8, 2022 9:57:29 GMT -5 by pogue

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 8, 2022 10:09:59 GMT -5

Quote

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 8, 2022 10:09:59 GMT -5

Dice roll filler #1 because we at work!

> Big hit from Bowie. Dents his suit so hard that a part of it breaks apart completely, leaving half-suited, half-bare.
> System failure.
> He’s seething now, deals crumbling at his feet, but he holds on. He has to.
> “Then maybe dirt’ll do the trick of burying you, Gamble.”

RAFAEL attacks BOWIE | GATLIN GUN [5/6]

YrT2WdzvLQthrowing knife

9070 -- Miss -- 0.0 damage (Thrown Knife)

throwing knife

堕落天使

pogue
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Pronouns: He/Him
last seen May 16, 2024 14:46:09 GMT -5

Is she trying to interrupt our henna session?

green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 8, 2022 11:05:12 GMT -5

Quote

Post by pogue on Apr 8, 2022 11:05:12 GMT -5

The cannon round betrays his softness, punctuates his statement with an explosion of metal and steel, tearing into Rafe's suit and embedding itself into his opponent's side. He watches from a distance, swaying in the breeze and trying to blink away the darkness that clouds at the edge of his vision, pressing his teeth into one another until it feels as if they will crack and shatter.

Rafael is slowly exposed, loud and in raw fury. From man to boy.

A piece of his suit teeters slowly, Death and its bullets clawing at it before it finally succumbs to gravity, pulling apart at the seams and collapsing into the sands below. The weight of it pulls apart the ground and it's as if the arena coughs up its own blood, green and floating softly in the air. When it finally clears Whiplash can see muscle and sinew pulling apart at the seams, a budding flower and a cannon round the iris. Rafael seethes with anger, gasps of pain contrasting against the way he roars into the air across the field.

There's no static to lace in between the lines, nothing to hide the way his opponent falls apart. Inside of his gut something sinks, heart slows, sympathy still wrought in his veins no matter how much it feels like a betrayal. He cuts into it with wounded pride and steel, puts on his bravest face and stands stoic against his opponent.

"Then maybe dirt'll do the trick of burying you, Gamble." And Whiplash blinks, seeing his own fate echo in the shadows outside of the spotlight.

"Gettin' warmer, boy."

He finally forces the words out, driving the suits dagger into the ground to prevent himself from falling over. With his other arm he aims the cannon, tries to force back the way his stammering breaths cause his arm to shake, gun outlining Rafael's silhouette as he looks at him. "Dirt'll bury all of us." He's seen enough funerals to know it, has watched the winds and the sands bury a corpse to cause the words to ring true. "Just-"

His cannon roars to life, gears turning and pain flowering out from the source.

"Some faster than others."

[Bowie attacks Rafael ; Cannon shot]

_geJVPT2V3throwing axe

[8.5]

throwing axe

Last Edit: Apr 8, 2022 11:05:39 GMT -5 by pogue

napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ.
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green. — bowie v rafael, day six. Apr 8, 2022 11:46:45 GMT -5

Quote

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 8, 2022 11:46:45 GMT -5

He is perched on the verge of utter ruin and it comes across as a strange, strange feeling.

Morality, death, Rafael has never bothered to concern himself with such mundane mechanizations, valuing himself above it all. What do you mean he dies in this tale? What do you mean he doesn’t survive?

I am Rafael fuckin’ Salazar and I am, above anything else, a survivor.

It’s false bravado, a delusion of grandeur from how he’s bleeding now, but the haze that follows is kept at bay by his mother’s words:

Against all odds.

He feels her nails in his shoulders.

No one else matters.

“No one else matters,” he reminds himself through gnashed teeth. He pushes through the pain. Focus is his greatest strength, the one thing of his that refuses to be watered down or diluted, and he holds onto it the way a shipwrecked man does flotsam.

”I promise my mom I’d win, man,” he says with a half-laugh, feeling his muscles burn as he raises the gun once more. It’s a dead shot this time. No more tricks, no more ploys.

”Does that get you soft for me?” A jest in the face of the death, he is a man staring at the firing squad with a frenzied grin. And he knows, he knows that he’ll go out blazing and by the skin of his fuckin’ teeth.

No one else matters.

Nothing else matters.

RAFAEL attacks BOWIE | GATLIN GUN [6/6]

74TgOGs8uvthrowing knife

(Thrown Knife)

throwing knife

堕落天使

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green. — bowie v rafael, day six.

Post by dars on Apr 2, 2022 14:15:30 GMT -5

Post by pogue on Apr 3, 2022 13:39:27 GMT -5

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 4, 2022 3:53:26 GMT -5

Post by pogue on Apr 4, 2022 11:31:33 GMT -5

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 6, 2022 0:20:44 GMT -5

Post by Deleted on Apr 6, 2022 9:07:20 GMT -5

Post by pogue on Apr 6, 2022 13:54:48 GMT -5

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 7, 2022 1:50:12 GMT -5

Post by pogue on Apr 7, 2022 19:58:37 GMT -5

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 8, 2022 3:21:21 GMT -5

Post by pogue on Apr 8, 2022 9:56:56 GMT -5

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 8, 2022 10:09:59 GMT -5

Post by pogue on Apr 8, 2022 11:05:12 GMT -5

Post by napoleon, d2m ₊⊹ 🐁 ɢʀɪғғɪɴ. on Apr 8, 2022 11:46:45 GMT -5

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