honk if u love sin 2: electric boogaloo // storm + honkers

Storm's never really been one for dwelling on negativity. Such is his job as the moodmaker of the family, after all. He's fully aware (well, mostly) in his fourteen years of life that he's had it relatively easy compared to a lot of people out there. Hell, he's had it relatively easy compared to most people under his parents' roof for Ripred's sake. His great trail occurred at his birth where he'd nearly died before he could ever live, and since then? It's been relatively smooth sailing. Bad days aren't things he registers, not really. Bad moments are easy to overcome, either through making the other party laugh or getting help from Eve.

But this? This is pretty damn close to ranking on his quote unquote "worst day ever" vibes.

"Seriously," he mutters under his breath as he hacks away at the last bit of the net that had been swept away with the water and had henceforth trapped him. "Of all the fucking things-"

His arms have somewhat recovered from the numbness that the shroom people had inflicted on him, even if they remain somewhat sensitive to touch, which is small consolation as, at long last, he finally hacks his feet away from the goddamned net. It was too meticulously tied up to just be random chance - someone had set this up with the intent to trap, to kill, and he'd very nearly gotten caught up in it.

"Well, too bad for you," he mutters as he steps, blessedly, back onto dry land. "It takes more than that to catch 'n Adroxis."

But behind his bold words lies a veil of exhaustion at the day's events, and that's what truly worries him. Two days in, five tributes dead, no cannons yet heard today, and he's already been soaked, assaulted, and worn down to the bone. It'd been mortifying enough to strip out of his clothes and do the best he could to dry off knowing full well that holding onto his pride wasn't worth getting sick from exposure (even if the mere thought of the entire world seeing him in naught but his underwear lit his cheeks aflame). It'd be even more embarrassing if he happened to die here and now because he'd passed out.

Still. It couldn't hurt to rest for just a bit, right?

...right?

...

He's seconds away from drifting off, for better or for worse, when a vaguely reptilian HONK nearly bursts his left eardrum and chases any notion of sleep into the future by several hours. It's almost comical how quickly he scrambles to his feet, knife in hand and buck naked aside from the aforementioned underwear, fully ready to stab a motherfucker who played such a rude prank on him-

What he sees stops him short. And then the rest of his brain catches up and realizes that there's only ever been one mutt in Games history that HONKs with the vexation of a Capitolite train, and even if this little reptilian bugger isn't quite how he remembers them, the wide, innocent blinking eyes give it away.

"Oh, you think that's funny, huh?" Storm stares down at it in mock indignation. The Word, to its credit, just regards him the same way a puppy might - wide-eyed and completely unthreatened. "Well, news flash, buster, there's only room for one prankster in this arena."

His free hand flashes forward, attempting to grab the Word by its scaly little neck.

"And that sure as hell isn't you!"