#juno woon

After the slaughter that was the third day of the arena, faces and slips of death play in the stormy skies with the daunting anthem echoing around the arena.

13th - Clovis Costello, killed by Juno Woon.

12th - Ignacius Kauri, killed by Hilarian Delacroix.

11th - Juno Woon, killed by Hilarian Delacroix.

Lars woke with a start. Clovis had gently placed two silver canisters on his chest, but the boy from Nine was also singing, which almost immediately triggered the morning person in Lars.

“Can you–”

“We gotta go,” Clovis cut him off, grabbing his own things without looking at the other boy. Lars scrunched his eyebrows, but rolled into his feet anyway. They gathered their things and weapons wordlessly, leaving only Lar’s pickaxe and Clovis’s darts out in hand. When Clovis had finished stuffing the last of his tattered sleeping bag into one of the empty parachute packs, he began to scoot backwards towards the entrance of the cave.

“What are those?” Lars asked pointing at his hand.

“Er.” Clovis paused. “Matches and antiseptic. Here, take it.” He tossed them in Lars’s direction. “It’s the little things that’ll save you the most, you know.”

Lars accepted five matches and the metal tube, inspecting them before tucking them into the torn cloth at his waist. “Why are we leaving so early?” Lars’s voice wasn’t pleasant, but Clovis shook it off. Neglecting to answer the boy, he found out for himself as they scaled the cliff to see a swarm of lurking butterflies and onlooking ants. No words were exchanged.

Ignacius and Juno awoke with a start, and, upon instinct, grabbed all of their supplies in a hurry and got to their feet, running as the lava corralled them into another section of the hellish island. And, lo and behold, Clovis and Lars stood in front of them, catching their breath. They must have had to run even farther than they did. And that’s when it clicked for the pair: the gamemakers didn’t want any more animal deaths -- they wanted human ones.

The four tributes locked eyes, all coming to the realization of the reason behind why they were now standing in this haphazard square. They quickly readied themselves, knowing that blood was to be shed. Ignacius quickly dropped the deersigner bags of meat far behind him, as well as the pelt, and tightened his grip on the double-sided axe, whilst making sure that the other weapons on him were still easily accessible on his person.

Juno followed suit, leaving only things on her person that could be used as weapons. She grabbed some of the berries, crushing them onto the blade of her dagger and the bolts that she had and kept her eyes peeled on the two boys in front of her. A part of Juno wanted to just make a break for it and hope they weren’t stupid enough to chase her, but the chances of the game makers just letting her run away from this fight scot-free were close to none. So for now, she was going to have to stay and fight.

Cycling through the different options of how to take on the duo, Ignacius watched the two boys glance over him with their eyes, a mildly confused look on their faces. Then he remembered that he looked like a demon that had just crawled out of Mount Doom over there. A smile danced across his face, one that promised pain would be behind it. Juno tensed up, a grim look entering her face as well, as she thought about her tiny chance of actually leaving this fight alive.

“Fancy meeting you here.” Lars said, staring down the opposing pair. She stopped before Ignacius did, pulling him back before he continued forward.

“No, it’s alright.” Ignacius stepped forward. He began to speak, to say something else, but Lars interrupted.

“Shut the fuck up.” It was harsh and cold sounding. Clovis sent him a look but understood. They had to kill, and the more unattached they were, the easier this would be.

“Don’t you get it? It’s kill or be killed here. Stop acting like there’s a way out.”

“Oh, I get it alright.”

Ignacius pursed his lips but something in Juno’s eyes lit up at the boys’ chattery, and she bumped her partner’s arm. Lars thought he heard her say something, but couldn’t make it out before she raised her crossbow. Getting a steady aim Juno fired off a berry-coated bolt from her crossbow, aiming for Clovis’s heart, while Clovis quickly sent a blow dart towards Ignacius’s neck.

Both projectiles missed their intended mark, but still found a target, with the bolt landing in Clovis’s thigh, and the blow dart landing on the sight of Ignacius’s “old” leg injury. Ignacius pulled out the dart, watching a small spurt of blood that had erupted from his leg. Juno took this opportunity to shoot another bolt towards Clovis, hitting him where his spleen should be.

Ignacius ran into action, and before Clovis could fire another one of his pesky darts, he was on top of the boy from Nine. The impact left Clovis with starry vision, but he managed to dodge the first of Ignacius’s punches. Even so, he launched his own fist up into the boy’s nose, and was graced with a surprising, sickening crack.

The punch caused Ignacius’s vision to blank out for a few seconds, and in that time, Clovis got on top of him, and started pummeling his fists against Ignacius’s face, causing the boy to become almost unrecognizable under the dried black blood of the day before and the fresh crimson coming from the wounds on his face. As soon as his vision came back, Ignacius kneed Clovis in the chest, and shoved him off of his body, rolling to the side and standing up, grabbing his axe again. As Clovis scrambled to his feet, Ignacius glanced to his left in his disorientation, and took in the scuffle that was occurring between Juno and Lars.

Juno had managed to put her crossbow away, her poison working its way through her victims. Lars spun in place as Juno nearly slammed into him, swiping his pickaxe out and hooking over Juno’s shoulder, the end slicing into the joint of her armpit. She cried out as Lars dragged her backward, but fell to one leg as her knife, laced in the deadly poison, cut through the tendons in his calf. Bullseye.

Ignacius snapped back to reality, but when he turned to the boy from Nine, he was met with a face full of thrown grapes. They smacked against his chest, which hardly deterred him, but still made him pause.

“Ah, those. Were probably rotten.” Clovis’s mouth pinched up around his blowgun, and he hardly noticed Ignacius had made his way to close the distance again until his axe scraped his throat. Clovis gasped, flailing out an arm to wrap around the boy’s neck. His other elbow forced Ignacius’s axe arm down and pulled his face to his chest. Ignacius made a small choking noise as Clovis drove the end of a dart into the base of his skull. It wasn’t enough to kill, but no doubt it’d hurt like a bitch. He kept shoving the needle forth until a scream erupted from his throat as Ignacius flung his axe up Clovis’s back, opening a large gash near his shoulder blade and dragging downwards.

Meanwhile, Lars took Juno with him to the ground in his fall. He grinded his pickaxe further into her shoulder while she sunk her blade deeper in his leg. He hissed at the pain and struggled, but found himself stuck below her as she straddled him and twisted the blade, shaking his weapon out of her skin.

One of her hands found the wrist of his axe hand and pressed it hard to the ground. Lars moved with instinct. He yanked his head up and clasped his teeth around her ear, tugging as hard as he could. Juno screamed, pulling back, and giving him the opening to finish his work. Lars sunk his pickaxe back into place under her armpit, and she jerked away. A mistake. Her left shoulder was suddenly torn apart, blood pouring out to the clay beneath them.

Juno was still hollering out, using her weight to shove Lars on his back and get to her feet. Her right arm still held a dagger, and she sent the knife downwards, straight into Lars’s side. He screamed in pain, his vision blurring for a moment as he tried to slide himself out from between her legs. He rolled forward as he did so, the razor wings from his backpack slicing her thighs and making her trip.

Clovis still had Ignacius in an arm-locking embrace as the other boy continued to send his axe as far as he could manage into his back and then back down to thud in Clovis’s shin. He succumbed to the pain for a moment before inhaling sharply. When minimal air filtered through the blowgun, it hit him that he still had a dart sitting inside.

He shoved the boy from Seven away from him, and then brought him back in to smash their mouths together, sending the blowgun down Ignacius’s throat. He choked and sputtered against Clovis’s lips as Nine blew the dart down the dart down his throat.

Ignacius collapsed, as did Clovis a few meters away from the boy. Trying to recover from the harsh wounds that left him in roaring pain, he struggled to think. Clovis, looking at the cracked ground around them, pulled out some of the pocketed left-over matches. Lighting one up, he dropped it among some of the dead grass, watching as the fire spread, creating a small wall of fire that prevented them from going any farther inward. The small ring of death around them ensured no one was simply running away from this fight.

Back on the ground, Lars had climbed on top of Juno, smashing her head into the dirt repeatedly as her skull thudded dully. Her screams rang out, trying feebly to get away from the boy. She stabbed her dagger into whatever open skin she could find and struggled beneath him. Clovis approached them and thought fast, ripping One out from under Lars by her pearl necklace, leaving Juno’s dagger behind. Lars’s foot kicked out in reflex, landing in Clovis’s priorly mutilated shin and forcing the other boy to the ground. He cried out, releasing Juno, who immediately made a run for her crossbow.

“What the hell?”

“Sorry, sorry!”

Despite her injuries, she picked it up with ease, firing randomly at the boys. The arrow spliced through Clovis’s palm, and his cry of pain stung in her bitten ear. Lars dodged an arrow and wrapped his pickaxe around her flank, creating the animation of a Vaudeville cane and dragging her towards him, slashing her torso and dropping her to the ground.

The air audibly escaped her lungs as her crossbow shook in her bloody hands. Her eyes were bloodshot, mouth opening to scream when Clovis crawled forward on his knees to put the feisty girl out of her misery, his blade so close to her throat. But Juno had other plans, as did Ignacius.

Ignacius seemed to leap at them from the sky, sending a deer antler through Lars’s right thigh so hard it was jerked out of his hand on the return. Lars cried out, wincing in agony for a moment as Ignacius struggled to stand back up, ready with his axe. Clovis splayed his legs out, wrapping them around Seven’s ankles and pulling forward, sending him to the clay.

Juno, with the boys distracted, recovered from her profusely bleeding torso and decided to have some fun of her own with Clovis. The bolts that had found their home in Clovis had sent the poison throughout his system and he was just beginning to feel the effects, his knife shaky in his fingers. With the poison running through his system, it was all that Clovis could do to shuffle around a punch Juno threw. Hell, he even tried to blow a few darts, but she shook her head and grinned.

Due to his sluggish pace, Juno was able to easily dodge the darts, and only one found their home in her backpack as she quickly turned her back to avoid being caught by the dart. Whilst she was dodging the darts she was recoating the dagger with the deadly berry juice, and upon reaching Clovis, stabbed him near the heart. Mind, not through it, because she wanted to watch him suffer.

She watched him wince in glee, and she retracted the dagger, before plunging it into him three more times, creating a box shape around his heart. He feebly managed to get a swipe in at Juno’s ankles with his hunting knife. She ignored the tiny cuts as she watched him lie on the ground, the nightlock having, admittedly, done most of the work for her. Nevertheless, she’d survived, and then she stepped onto his chest and jumped a few times for extra measure. Hearing him scream underneath her, with blood shooting up like a fountain, while she winced in pain due to her side wound. Soon, Clovis’s body went limp, a cannon sounding in the sky.

Simultaneously, Ignacius took a deep breath, spit out a bloody dart and turned on Lars. They were both wounded, but Lars more so, dripping blood from his legs and sides, and gasping for air. He wanted to run to Clovis who had just been sparring with Juno --

Was that a cannon he heard?

--But Ignacius blocked his way, advancing slowly.

It couldn’t be a cannon.

Lars made it to his feet and narrowly avoided the swing of Ignacius’s axe, running on pure adrenaline now. He jumped back, remaining upwards, and made a move himself, but it was weak and ill-calculated. Ignacius easily jumped away and laughed.

Maybe it was just Juno’s.

“Don’t you get it? It’s kill or be killed here.” The boy from Seven said, limping towards him. His blade made contact with his hip, clanging against something. Something lit up in Lars’s head. Something crazy, pain-driven, but something that might work.

Lars ran. He felt like a coward, Ignacius voiced as much, and every step away from his injured friend stretched him. His legs pumped until he fell to his knees, scrambling for the antiseptic and matches Clovis had given him when they woke up. It’s the little things that can save the most, you know.

His shaking fingers got the cap off and the stinging alcohol poured into his mouth, the rest spilling on the ground. He had one chance at this. Lars’s mouth felt like boiling pot. He turned around just in time to catch Ignacius’s axe with the handle of his pick.

Lars groaned in agony as Ignacius pressed downward, having both an uphill advantage and a strange smile. “Kill or be killed…” he repeated. His gleaming blade crushed through the thick air, closer and closer to Lars’s face. He panicked and spit the contents of his mouth into Ignacius’s eyes and nose.

The dripping liquid only slightly irritated him and he didn’t release Lars from his pressure.

It took any and all of the strength Lars had left, but he let one hand fall away from his pickaxe. His arm screamed with the doubled weight, and the cut on his palm reopened, folding around the handle til it was slick with red. His other hand trembled in his pocket to a match. …Nothing to strike it on.

Despair descended, and he could feel Ignacius’s breath on his face. Through his blood soaked vision, something came into view. An engraving of a butterfly. Just as Ignacius was about to make that last fatal push, Lars slid the match across the wings. It sparked into a small flame and the other boy drew back slightly.

“Sorry, Ig.” Lars said, and flicked the match into his face.

The effect was immediate. Ignacius’s eyes burst into a translucent purple flames, centering on his cheekbones and flaring outwards. He dropped his weapon and collapsed to his knees. And then the screaming. It curdled Lar’s blood and made him want to cry out with him.

“Clovis.” Lars said hoarsely, frozen, transfixed by the boy with the melting eyes. He couldn’t move.

But Clovis didn’t answer.

Hearing the screeching, Lars snapped out of his daze. He wasted no time throwing his pack to the ground and pulling out his tattered sleeping bag. Lars wrapped Ignacius’s torched head tightly in the cloth and slammed it down into a rock with a crack. His scream trembled down to a twitching gurgle, and then to silence.

“Die. Just, die.” Lars stuttered out, emotion overcoming him, but not in the form of tears. A cannon answered his words.

And then Juno did.

With the blunt of her knife, she tried to stab Lars from behind, but he saw her shadow before she could strike. The girl was smart, yes, but that wasn’t going to help her now. In his silent fury, he twisted the girl’s snake-like wrist, cracking it completely, and taking the knife that she had just held and killed Clovis with.

No. She didn’t. She couldn’t have.

Without wasting a moment, without saying anything more, he shoved the knife coated in her own sick poison and plunged it straight through her chest. Her heart pierced, blood gushed out of the already-slashed through chest. Blood rose, coating her teeth, dribbling down her chin. This time, it was her cannon that sounded.

Lars let his body fall backwards, limp to the ground, rolling his head to find Clovis’s limp body. So it was true. He was dead. Clovis’s glassy eyes stared up at the artificial moon, and Lars dragged his own gaze away, swallowing hard.

Walking away from long-range, Ignacius decided to spend the rest of the day in the station that he had the most skill in: melee weapons. As he approached the station, he noticed that his hand had stopped bleeding, so the wound must have clotted. He saw the girl from District One there. If he remembered right, her name was Juno. 

Upon reaching the station, he let the trainer run through the little spiel that all of them really seemed to like giving for some reason. But as long as it made them happy Ignacius was fine with it. The trainer went on for a long time about each of the weapons, including how to use them properly, block and hit with them, and, with a cursory glance, what weapon might be the best use for them. Upon seeing the seven on his shoulder, the trainer told Ignacius that the axe was probably his best bet. 

After a few seconds, Ignacius realized that the trainer had stopped talking and he went over to the weapons, trying to decide which one to try out first. Noting the blades on the swords, knives, and daggers in light of his recent hand wound, Ignacius reached for the war hammer. Turning on one of the moving holograms, Ignacius began practicing. After a few hits, he began to start to get the hang of the weapon. 

He decided that it might be a good idea to at least make some small talk with Juno since they were at the station together. She was being pretty quiet, so Ignacius decided to start with just the basics.