✩ public training sessions ✩
Jun 12, 2020 19:35:40 GMT -5
Post by L△LIA on Jun 12, 2020 19:35:40 GMT -5
nikolai konstantine.
"I'd give you two a chance to run away —" In the utter darkness of the training center his voice is filled with commanding gravitas, as if he has done this all a million times before. These are the words of someone without fear, of someone who is unwilling to be cruelly stripped of their home or the people they care the most about in this world, of someone who would murder anyone threatening to take hope away. Even them. "— but both of you have already struck." Here, with the Gamemakers searching the lightless room for a glimpse of him, these words ring with truth for a child stolen from his family and brought here as a prisoner to pay off the infinite debt of people who lived and died before he was ever born. Perhaps they remember his face from the Reaping footage. Perhaps they don't. It doesn't matter. "The dark doesn't seem to agree with you, little one. It's brought you to a killer with sight and aimed your weapon at her only friend." The red light of the laser pointers duct taped to the sword in his hand flick on with the memory of a beautiful buzz of destruction. No apologies. No regret. No life to be spared.
These are the words of someone far braver and more fearsome than Nikolai Konstantine.
"Nuh. Nuh. Nuh. NUHHH nuhhhhhh nuhnuhnuh nuhhhhhh nuh nuhnuhnuh nuhhhhhh nuh nuh-nuh-nuh nuhhhhh!" With a downward slash of the blazing sword, he sings out a few thunderous bars of the iconic music that scored the Eighty-Second Games, when Red Stone struck awe and fear into his fifteen-year-old heart, wielding her lightsaber at a young girl who made the mistake of attacking Red's district partner. He lost count of the number of times he watched the re-runs, unable to look away from the red light slicing the pitch black screen in two. It stayed with him: in his drifting thoughts; in his dreams; in the knots he tied his tongue into trying to put into words exactly how he felt watching such a formidable woman fight heart and soul for her right to exist, all the while protecting her soft-tempered friend.
Such light! From yonder weapon breaks —
O! For the stars do collapse so that she may shine more brightly in the cosmic void of... uhhh... the space station of my thoughts! Where my thoughts DO station around her, um... darkness? No, I —
For Red is not blood and blood is not Red when I hath been blinded by that which doth turn a television screen into the true weapon plunged into my eyeballs —
She is not the east! For the Capitol is west! And I am but one of the couch-sundered masses! We are many, but she is few! Because to be singular is also to be few and she —
"NUHHH nuhhhhhh nuhnuhnuh nuhhhhhh nuh," he continues, cleaving the air into pieces with the light-up practice sword, the dark hopefully masking the part where he stumbles over his own feet. Grunting as he accidentally elbows a practice dummy with the audacity to come at him unprovoked out of absolutely NOWHERE, he triumphantly brings his weapon down on its tumbled form. "Nuhnuhnuh nuhhhhhh nuh nuh-nuh-nuh nuhhhhh!"
Heaving for breath, the only reason he isn't already completely tired out is because he has obviously been practicing all of this for the past three years. This is not a fair-weather fanboy. Oh, no. "Zzzztt! Zzzztt!" He provides all of the key sound effects as he kicks a rack of he-has-no-idea-what over. "Shing! Shing! Shing! Zzztt! Pew! Pew!" When he trips over something else in the darkness, he covers with a somersault that surely could not look anything other than Totally Badass. He really wishes they could have seen that. "Zzzztt!" The light of the sword carves an undeniably deadly path of destruction throughout the room, stopped only by the need to occasionally pause and karate chop at a particularly vicious looking shadow.
As the sword thuds into something soft and dense, a pitched cry of pain splits the air before keening into a hush. There is no mockery in his voice as he replicates the agony of the young girl who died in this scene. "I'm sorry," he tells her ghost, all these years later, "you don't deserve this." For a fleeting moment his antics pause as he resists the urge to punctuate it all with another round of sound effects. Instead he thinks about how he felt that first time he watched this girl die, her outline faint and yet so stubborn in the darkness. The sincerity in Red's voice had been brutal: You don't deserve this. He feels a pang, even now.
"My name is Industria Sparks." Switching roles, there's a hiss of pain in his voice that he doesn't have to feign for her. He swallows, his Adam's apple bobbing tightly against the high collar of the training uniform he wears. "Whoever kills me," breathing in through his nose, he exhales with clenched teeth as his eyes burn, "please don't forget that." The moment passes as he shoves a table over and dozens of items clatter to the ground as he begins spinning in unseeable circles. "I'm sorry, but I'm not going to stop fighting either," he declares, holding the red-lit sword up as a gun. "Pew-pew! Pew-pew-pew-pew-pew!" The light jolts from the imaginary recoil of Dusty's laser blaster, her finger holding tightly on the trigger as she so boldly refused to surrender — spinning, spinning, spinning. In his head there is a crescendo of violins, both persistent and tragic. "Pew! Pew! Pew!"
Cries and grunts of pain echo around the room, ricocheting off the walls. "Zzzztt!" The red glow of his 'lightsaber' slashes frantically, as if attempting to block and deflect the chaotic blasts he fired off. Even in this moment Red was more than herself, more than a gladiator. "Zzzztt! Zzzztt! Zzzztt!" There's a dull thud as he kicks something with minimal success before following up with a sucker punch. "Aha!" He cheers himself on lamely for a moment, breaking character. "Take that!" There's another punch... and another! Then he remembers he has a sword and smacks his lifeless opponent with the flat of the blade instead of the edge — like he totally meant to do — a heavy THUNK finally toppling it. "Pew-pew! Zzzztt! Zzzztt! Ahhhhh!"
"Don't ever stop fighting, little one," he declares, voice strong even as the glowing sword flails around haphazardly in the darkness, "no matter what, never stop fighting." Because sometimes — most of the time — that's all you can do. Humming the music once more, the sound rises as he does his best to cover the way his feet slip on the unseen mess scattered below. "NUHHH nuhhhhhh nuhnuhnuh nuhhhhhh nuh!" Spin! Kick! Bam! Pow! Fwah-fwah-fwah! Slip! Trip! Don't worry! Nobody saw because it's dark! Zzzztt! Pew-pew! "Nuhnuhnuh nuhhhhhh nuh nuh-nuh-nuh nuhhhhh!"
The death blow is dealt in slow motion, a thin line of Red cleaving the darkness in two.
"You're a fighter, little one." Niko hopes he's half as brave as Industria Sparks when he dies. "You really are."
Obviously so much of this is iconic and quoted — all credit to Cameo and Kap and their amazingness.
______________________
But lover, you’re the one to blame, all that you’re doing
Can you hear the violence?
Megaphone to my chest
But lover, you’re the one to blame, all that you’re doing
Can you hear the violence?
Megaphone to my chest
Nikolai Konstantine is a mess, but an entertaining one.
Nilima welcomes the lightheartedness of it all as he tumbles and swings through the Training Center with a great deal of clumsiness. He’s got two laser pointers duct taped to a sword -- perhaps as a nod to the.. 81st? 82nd?
In truth, Nilima hasn’t been the best about paying attention when her colleagues are in charge of the Games. Oh, sure, she’ll do her job and make the whole thing look fantastic in the background, if that’s where they delegate her, but she much prefers when she’s able to snag a leading role. That’s when her creativity can really shine.
It becomes fairly clear as the training session rolls on that the boy from Eight is reenacting a scene from a previous Games. It’s an interesting and dramatic one, and Nilima appreciates his flare for drama. She can always relate to a little drama.
Unfortunately, he seems to fall short in… well, finesse. He stumbles more often than not, and even in the darkness she can see that clearly.
When he exits the room, her heart feels more full for having been entertained, even if she thinks Nikolai Konstantine will not live for long.
She writes a 3 next to his name. Though it could have gone lower, he gets points for making her smile.