Action - First Arena

[actually112]

Who: Aang and YOU
Broadcast: None
Action: Red Fish and Planet
When: Right as Aang arrives

Red Fish

[Well, this is definitely not the arena Aang just left. Did they keep him dead and bring him back for another arena?

He's not sure, but he's going to wait until he actually can ask someone he recognizes. In the meantime, this arena seems to have powers, so he's going to take advantage of it.

He grabs a bag--possibly stealing it from someone's room, though it doesn't occur to him that people are really living in individual, undefended rooms--and stuffs it full of any food he recognizes in the kitchen, then any medical supplies that he recognizes in the medical bay, which... is way more than he remembers being able to recognize before.

It takes him a bit before he feels the space behind his ear, discovering a brand new implant in his head.]

Oh come on!

[That's the third time they stuck something in his body without asking!]

Planetside

[Aang doesn't spend much time in the town. He loads up on food and proper desert clothing before heading out into the desert.

He wants to make his own shelter and not depend on what the Capitol has provided. Chances are, something terrible is going to happen to those houses. Once he feels comfortably far away from the town, he drops his bag on the ground and stretches his legs and arms, warming up.

Then he takes a deep breath, centering himself, and then starts blasting the ground with fire.

The sand begins to glow red. Aang manages the heat carefully, keeping it contained or shooting upwards, careful of hurting himself or any animals that may be lurking nearby. As the fire keeps burning, the sand starts melting, and Aang begins bending it with one hand, making it rise and twist into something resembling a cave.

And then he shuts off the fire, a glowing red rough glass shelter left behind. He wipes sweat from his brow and drops into the right posture to start bending the sand to mostly bury the glass, where it will be protected from the sun and camouflaged from other tributes.]

Comments

[searingedgelord]

[She sighs.]

No, I really don't.

[Maybe this kid is some kind of orphan that likes to keep his food close. She can't really judge, honestly, but she's not really impressed by his advice, either.]

You just got here, right? I saw the confetti.

[Which she ignored in favor of finding the new kid, but she'll get back to it to clean it up. She hates confetti.]

[actually112]

[If she doesn't want to take his advice, that's her business. He shrugs and readjusts the straps of the bag so it can settle on his back more comfortably.

He grimaces when she asks if he just got here. He suspects that the Capitol left him dead at his last arena, and he doesn't know when that was.]

Yeah, but I was here before. I don't know how long ago that was.

[searingedgelord]

[She raises an eyebrow. She knows it’s not unheard of for people to come and go, but this is the first she’s met someone who’s dealt with it personally.]

Well, I’ve been here about a year now, and this is the first I’ve seen you, so it’s probably been awhile. Were you on the Red Fish crew or different one?

[actually112]

A year?

[Oh no. What's happened in a whole intervening year?]

I was in District 4. Is Red Fish a new name for District 4?

[searingedgelord]

[Well, now she’s confused. She’s definitely never heard of ships being called districts. That makes no sense.]

No.

[A beat.]

Where exactly do you think you are?

[actually112]

[Well, that's weird.]

An arena. Arena number whatever for the 75th Hunger Games?

[searingedgelord]

[Yeah, she's realizing they've been talking about two different things.]

No, I've never heard anything about any Hunger Games. Though we were on a planet awhile back that had cooking competitions.

You're not in an arena. Just a space ship.

[actually112]

A... cooking competition? [The thought of being forced into an arena just to outcook the competition surprises a laugh out of Aang, bright and loud for a moment.] No, no, nothing like that.

[Then he thinks about what it actually is, and the smile fades from his face. She says it's not an arena, but what are the odds that he'd die in an arena and just wake up in another unfamiliar reality show stuffed with people from multiple worlds? Not high, in his opinion. Either she's new, or she's tricking him.] They've had a space ship arena before.

[searingedgelord]

[She's still pretty certain they're talking about different things now. So she's not going to tell him there wasn't a space ship arena. But at the same time...]

Seems like a space ship would make a bad arena, but okay. I still don't know what the hunger games are, though.

[Since apparently they aren't a cooking competition.]

[actually112]

[He really doesn't want to be the one to explain this, but if there's no one else...]

It's a reality show. They put us all in an arena for a few weeks and watch us try to survive while the arena tries to kill us and the tributes try killing each other. Whoever lasts longest wins.

Then they do it again a month later.

[There's a lot of history and politics behind it, but these are the important facts. It's a longer, more high-tech gladiator games.]

I like your cooking idea better, myself.

[searingedgelord]

[What the actual fuck, though. And she thought her world was a mess.]

Well, all right, we are allegedly on a "reality show."

[The way she says it you can almost hear the quotations. She doesn't come from a world where reality shows are a thing and she's just sort of come to accept the concept but still finds it weird.]

But we haven't been asked to kill each other. Mostly they just put us on a new planet every month or so and let us do whatever we want.

[Theoretically, she supposes people could kill each other if they wanted, but even as someone willing to kill she thinks that would be pretty dumb.]

[actually112]

[This is... weird. This is a trick somehow, but he doesn't know how. He doesn't think it's likely that he died in one interdimensional reality show and just randomly woke up in another. It's much more likely that the Capitol has set up a very weird arena, or worse, they've set up another dream. Maybe he's on a lab table hallucinating somewhere. Or maybe this is an arena and she's a mutt that will just misdirect and confuse him until the fourth week or so.

Aang isn't very good at hiding his expressions. The suspicion is clear on his face when he considers her, trying to gauge whether she's even aware of the trick or not.]

Okay...

[It's said not as though he actually accepts what she's saying, but he's pretending to accept it to avoid agitating her. He doesn't trust this.]

[searingedgelord]

Wow, you couldn't look more skeptical if you tried.

[She sighs a bit, but she doesn't seem angry. Or, at least, no angrier than usual. Which Aang has no reference for, but at the very least she's not making any sudden or threatening moves. She just sort of seems at a loss for the moment.]

[actually112]

Because I am?

[Aang doesn't like how angry she seems, but at least she doesn't seem outright aggressive. Aang begins to edge away, keeping a careful eye on her just in case.]

It'd be kinda weird for me to be in one reality show and then just wake up in another.

[searingedgelord]

[It's just how she is, it's ok people usually get used to it. She sighs a little.]

Yeah, I guess I can't blame you.

[That does seem like an extra level of ridiculous, but honestly she's been around long enough to not be terribly surprised by the Atroma pulling something like that.]

I don't really know how to convince you, but you'll see for yourself soon enough.

[She doesn't really want to waste time arguing with the new kid. Or give the Atroma ideas, honestly.]