ArchivedLogs:The Power of Friendship

The Power of Friendship
warning: lots of violence
Dramatis Personae Peter, Sebastian, Shane
In Absentia	2013-05-17 (Part of Thunderdome.)
Location Thunderdome
It's a warehouse, or something like it; at least it's spacious, and was probably once industrial; at the moment it's largely just empty. There are tracks in the floor from long-since disused equipment and the construction of walls and high exposed-beam ceilings is sturdy. The center of the room has been excavated, since this place was in actual daily use. In the middle a pit has been gashed out of the concrete; it's not /deep/ and it serves more as a foundation than anything else; around its wide circular perimeter a cage has been erected. Nearly reaching up to ceiling-height, it is constructed of thick sturdy metal bars wrapped in a thinner wire mesh. Surrounding the cage there is a lot of empty space. Some nights, though, when fights are in session, the room is filled; with people, with cameras (though no outsiders' cameras are allowed in), with paper betting slips and folding chairs. The spotlights in the ceiling are bright-bright-bright, the better to illuminate the fighters within the centerpiece cage. This is the last place Peter wants to be, right now. The lean teenager is lead in at baton-tip; a few quick shots and THWACKs to his carapace-clad head and back are enough to send him stumbling forward through the familiar sea of the crowd - toward the cage - where they're already dragging out the results of the previous match. A real yawner, by the looks of the crowd; a rough guy who looks a little like a sloth just finished beating the /crap/ out of some gray guy with cracked, boulder-like skin. The latter's being dragged out by his arms, a vicious streak of blood following in his wake; the amazing sloth is getting THWACK THWACK THWACKED, sharp shocks propelling him toward the exit. In comes Peter, shoved into the cage in his wake; the boy's clad only in dress slacks - carapace /gleaming/ beneath those hot lights. It's almost a little painful to look at directly - in some spots, the light flashes a brilliant white; in others, it's just its usual prismatic-laced blue. He is... nervous. He has no idea who he is fighting. And the twins have been missing since their /last/ fight. The twins have been missing a day or more and, from the looks of them as they are prodded into the ring, it hasn't been an exciting /fun/-filled day. Skin cracking, wiry frames somewhat more gaunt than before. Bastian still has his bloodstained skirt on; his fishnets have been abandoned, too much hole, not enough /net/, and his pink butterfly t-shirt is going largely the same way. A lot of torn. Less fabric. He takes a fair /bit/ of prodding to enter the ring, a shove of baton, a zzzp of his collar. The guard who prods him is veeeery wary about taking off the steel-and-leather cage that muzzles his face and with good reason -- the sharkboy /snaps/ towards the man's fingers the moment the muzzle is removed, earning him a hard sudden zap that brings him to his knees. But also earning him a DELICIOUS nibble of the entire pad of the man's finger. Shane takes less prodding. He slips in quickly, and he's already /tugging/ his brother aside the moment the muzzle is off, lest there be more guardbiting. More zzzzp. His nostrils flare, his shoulders curling in tense and unhappy. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck," he is echoing this refrain through his teeth. (His bow tie is still neat. The rest of his clothing is a torn and bloodstained mess.) Bastian isn't saying any of this. He is lunging against Shane's tugging, a harsh -- /hungry/ -- whine in his throat. Shane is pulling back just as strongly, although the look on his face isn't /much/ less feral. Especially with that tang of blood in the air. The crowd is clamouring. Louder, at the rather striking spectacle of Peter and his gleaming carapace; loud again when the sharktwins are returned to the ring. It's a motley mishmash of calls. "/Eat/ him!" "Haha, he's getting /double-teamed/." "Gonna tear the fucking kid /apart/." "-- they look wasted, maybe he'll pound 'em." But it's growing more restless as Shane holds Sebastian back. Sebastian is /shaking/ in Shane's grip, black eyes fixed on the other boy in the ring with them. His teeth are bared. There's a low hungry whine in his throat. Shane's grip tightens; he /jerks/ Sebastian back, pressing him against the bars of the cage. But his eyes are focused on Peter, his own teeth baring. "Ffff -- Peter, {/up/}," he half snarls. And lets Sebastian go. When Peter sees the twins, his eyes /flash/ open wide; his face is - for an instant - /drowning/ with relief. He's spent the entire day fretting over whether or not they were /dead/. But that relief is short-lived when his brain starts putting together the pieces of this very nasty puzzle. The cracks on their skin; the way Sebastian is - chomping, /snarling/. Combined with - the sudden /spike/ of prickly pain that flashes up the base of his spine. Warning him. That he is now, officially, in a /shitton/ of danger. "Oh... oh," Peter says, a little softly, backing up toward the other end of the cage. As Shane struggles to hold Sebastian back, Peter's eyes get wide. He looks like he just wants to - crawl into a corner and hide. But there are no corners to crawl into. "Sh--Sebastian--Shane--" His voice is very tiny, at the moment. When Shane says that word, Peter does not think; he just LEAPS. It helps that the word is punctuated by a particular powerful stab of his danger sense - the moment before Shane releases Sebastian, Peter's brain /screams/ at him. In an instant, he is on the ceiling - above them - /scuttling/ on all fours. /Bristling/ with pure, mortal terror. Sebastian is off like a shot when Shane releases him. /Launching/ himself towards Peter with a sharp clack of teeth, claws extended as he springs. His frustrated /snarl/ is rough and throaty when his claws hit nothing but air, and his gaze swivels sharply upwards to latch onto the boy on the ceiling. Shane is not far behind them. His restraint only holds out long enough to get that one word out and then he is following swiftly behind. Metaphorically behind, anyway; he doesn't actually charge after Sebastian, heading instead for the cage bars. He does not have Peter's wallcrawling ability but the wire mesh wrapped around the steel bars provides adequate hold for flexible clawed feet. He is scaling the mesh, his own growl kind of hungry. The look he has pinned on Peter is kind of hungry, too. Sebastian doesn't follow Shane up the wall. He licks his lips, and waits on the ground. In the two fights prior to this, Peter has been scared. But during all of those fights, he has also been in /control/ of his fear; with Anole, he knew the danger wasn't his opponent, but the shock-collars. With Jim, he knew as rough as it got, he'd probably only be leaving with a few broken bones at worse. But now? Against the twins? His danger sense is screaming at him in a way he hasn't experienced since he faced down a sociopath with a straight-razor over three weeks ago. And actually, in this case, it's screaming a /lot/ louder. Peter is utterly /terrified/. And he's showing it - /scrambling/ across the ceiling like some darting, desperate bug, trying to get away from a larger, hungry predator. Chest heaving. Heart hammering. "Please no no no no no," he starts to babble, /darting/ toward the far corner - then around - just, constantly maneuvering to keep away from Sebastian below - and Shane from the side. It's probably only a matter of time before these antics get boring - and the people running the show give that collar a sharp shock. Peter knows it. But right now, he's just trying to buy enough time to /think/. Sebastian, on the ground, looks almost calm, at the moment. Almost. It's a deceptive sort of quiet, though, not peaceful but /patient/, muscles still ready-tense. Coiled to spring. The crowd is clamouring louder. Restless-louder, /im/patient-louder. "C'/mon/ you fighting or fucking dancing?" "Didn't pay to see him run /away/." "Just fucking finish him let's have the next." Shane isn't clamouring. He echoes his twin's tense quiet, scaling the mesh up towards the ceiling. Scuttling to one side. Then another. Watching Peter's darting motions. And waiting, really -- -- for the sudden sharp /zzzp/ of Peter's collar, harsh and sudden. He turns at this to /launch/ himself off the cage, claws extended, aimed -- not /quite/ for Peter, but for an interception point slightly below Peter's ceiling-location. Peter sucks in a gulp of air - and soon, his scampering grows still. For a few precious seconds, he /waits/; an instant before the /zzzp/, he feels the prickling stab of danger. And right before it hits - he acts. He /throws/ himself off the ceiling - just before the zap comes. Hard. Fast. Tumbling through the air - /just/ under Shane's extending arms. Feeling them briefly /scrape/ through his hair. Coming down with the heels of both feet aimed for Sebastian's waiting jaws - his hands snapping up, trying to catch Shane's ankles. Attempting to pull - /yank/ him out of the air - and /fling/ him down to the concrete floor. Torso first. The whole time, groaning: "No no no no--" Shane is grabbed, he is yanked; this comes with a harsh snarl, first angry, then /pained/. He lands heavily, a thudding slam of thin-boneless form that tears the remaining buttons from his vest, its already ripping seams torn further. His gills flare. Bastian, on the other hand, has more preparation for this oncoming attack. He doesn't exactly pull /away/, though. He waits, and as Peter's feet are coming down, his arms are shooting up -- somewhat similarly to the spider-boy. To grab, to yank, trying to pull him down, too, shifting to try and throw Peter down beside him. Perhaps more savagely than otherwise, when he hears Shane's snarl. "Oh, God," Peter croaks as he feels Sebastian's arms seize hold of his waist and hip; claws drag through the fabric of his slacks, gouging briefly into flesh - before he's /hurled/ at the ground, hitting it back-first with a solid whump - knees immediately snapping up to his stomach to guard his torso. The impact leaves him stunned, briefly - he reaches over his head, trying to pull himself back into a /roll/, away from Sebastian and Shane. "--no no no no--" Shane doesn't stay down for long. There's a few moments of uselessly fluttering gills before he draws a sharp gasp of breath in, finally. His eyes fix not on Peter, now, but on his brother, watching this maneuver with keenly alert interest. Bastian is in motion again the instant Peter has hit the ground. Scuttling sort of diagonally when Peter starts rolling, to try and close in on a different side, intercept the roll with a clack of teeth that is -- more warning than chomping. Snapsnap. It's not really aimed to bite so much as aimed to /herd/. Like the /prettiest/ blue sheepdog! Except. In lieu of corral the herding is towards Shane, who is springing to meet this with -- no chomp. His teeth are /clenched/ against the throb in his ribs where he landed. Just unsheathed claws looking to latch on to whatever flesh he can find. "Nnkt--" Peter is pretty easily herd-able, particularly when it comes to things that fire off his danger sense. No sooner has he rolled back - his heels making contact with the ground - then are Sebastian's teeth /clacking/, prompting Peter to /hurl/ himself - right toward Shane. There's very little that's graceful about Peter's leap; it's head first - arms out in front of him - eyes wide as saucers - prompted by a mixture of fear, adrenaline, and a tingling brain. He's coming /fast/ and /hard/ at Shane - shoulder going for his torso, arms attempting to - clamp around his wrists, maybe, or around his waist - just to push him to the floor. Face coming /way/ too close to those clenched teeth for Peter's comfort. "--no no no no--" Sebastian's teeth clack hard again, this time /actually/ aiming to bite though with Peter's sudden lunge all they close on is air. Shane snarls, and his sharp twist-jerk of body is not, really, so much intended to get /away/ from Peter's hard clamp. Just intended to employ what weaponry he still has available while pinned to the ground, sharp-edged gills flaring through the tattered ineffective remains of his shirt as he squirms to angle them towards the hand Peter's clamped on him. Past this, though, he is just /hissing/, back pressed to the floor and his teeth bared at the hard impact. Sebastian is close behind, though, diving towards Peter, his claws aimed for the other boy's sides. To pull him off, hopefully, trying to yank Peter away from his brother to throw him against the cage wall instead. /This/ is more like what the audience has come here for. "Kill them!" and "/Gut/ those fish," war with "/Eat/ him!" "-- would they really /eat/ him,?" "Fuck, yeah, I heard they ate one of the other freaks right in the cage." Peter's danger sense flares an instant before the razor gills slip across his palms - the problem is that Peter has no idea what he's being warned /against/. He cries out as his palms are both split open; bright red lines flash against his chitin, glittering against the metallic blue. Peter rears back - just in time to feel Sebastian's claws /dig/ into his sides - a sharp, harsh yelp of pain - and then he's being thrown, reeling toward the cage wall with a hard /clang/. Peter's head thwacks hard against the metal; for a moment, everything's woozy. Fresh blood flows from his hands, hips, and flanks; some of it splattered across his waist. His narrow chest heaves with each breath. He's climbing - his back to the wall, bloody hands smearing over rusty iron bars - upward. "--don't kill me," he manages to squeak. Sebastian is lunging, in that woozy moment, his eyes gleaming and his growl lower and harsher at the fresh well of blood. He's reaching even before Peter begins to climb, claws grasping for Peter's leg, trying to sink in, to throw Peter off the wall and to the ground. There is a similar gleam in Shane's eyes, here. But there's a moment when Peter speaks, when his breath catches, gills flaring again. /He's/ lunging forward, too. But not for Peter. His shoulder thuds into Sebastian hard, teeth still bared. Sebastian /hisses/, sharp and startled as he's knocked sideways, back thudding against the cage. His eyes widen, and then narrow on his brother. His hands come up, thudding hard, claws /digging/ into Shane's shoulder to scrape, scratch, then push the other boy /back/. Shane hisses, too, a sharp pained sound at this dig of claws. He stumbles back, blood welling through the rapidly still-more-tattered fabric of his dress shirt, and then lunges forward again. His teeth snap towards Sebastian's arm. There's a steady /roar/ from the audience, after an initial period of surprised uncertainty. "Holyshitwhatthefuck," "They're turning on each /other/?" "-- really don't understand these freaks." "--nngh," Peter's hands - slick with blood - aren't quite /sticking/ to the cage walls like they should. Instead, they slip, sliding in wet streaks. When Sebastian seizes hold of that leg - claws biting through pants, into the muscle of that thigh - he screams, sliding down, /kicking/ blindly with his other leg - before he's dragged down and thrown to the floor. The kick misses its mark, though; when Shane slams Sebastian into the wall, Peter's foot just whiffs through air. By then, he's on the concrete again, scrambling back and leaving bloody handprints - dribbling trails of blood from his thigh, hips, sides - and watching as Shane and Sebastian go after each other. Numerous emotions flash through Peter's mind; all of them terrified. He has absolutely no idea what to do. Really, he just wants to crawl his way to a corner of the cage, curl up into a ball, and wait for it to all be over. Instead, he wobbles up into a crouch - weight on his un-clawed leg -- steadies himself -- and /charges/ at Sebastian from the side, swinging a blood soaked fist with all the might he can muster for the boy's rib-cage. Nearly blind from the pain that stabs up from his leg, even as he begins screaming in mangled, poorly spoken Vietnamese: "{DOWN! DOWN! FAMILY!}" Sebastian is snarling in pain as Shane's teeth close against his arm; his other hand comes up, claws /raking/ against Shane's face. With his attention on his brother the punch hits him solidly. A punch at full Peter-strength crumples him, initially, dropping back against the cage wall with a soft startled whuff of breath, breathing cutting off too quickly to even make much noise. Shane reacts to this on pure adrenaline-fueled instinct before he reacts with any sort of thought: one look at Sebastian crumpling and he's turning like lightning to snap his teeth towards the arm that Peter swung with. Bastian does not stay crumpled /long/ though. He's straightening and -- it's admittedly with slowed reflexes, with /not/ his full level of strength, that he dives towards Peter again. This time, his teeth are aiming for /throat/. Aiming but not coming near because now /Shane/ is diving, too. He might be perhaps giving himself whiplash with this exchange. One eye is drooped shut where Sebastian's claws slashed against it but his other is focused on his brother, his hard swipe of claws pushing Bastian away from Peter. "Hit him," this is hissed low between his teeth, in kind of contrast to the fact that he just chomped at Peter for the crime of doing just that. "Pleasegodendthis." Peter screams again; he drops down to his knee when Shane's teeth /snap/ into his arm, gouging a tiny oval-shaped rim of puncture wounds. The arm spasms in Shane's teeth - when Sebastian lurches for his throat, all Peter can do is reel back, ineffectively lifting his other arm in the way -- "--no--" right before Shane /drives/ Sebastian back. At this point, Peter's teetering; he threw what he thought was everything he had left in that punch to Sebastian's ribs. When Shane claws at Sebastian to hold him back, Peter groans - struggling just to get up. When Shane hisses those last words, Peter rushes forward with a hop on his good leg. There's nothing agile, graceful, or even /intelligible/ about the way Peter goes after Sebastian. He's bleeding out from a half-dozen claw wounds, blind with pain, and wheezing with fearful, strangled sobs. He doesn't have the sharktwins' feral instincts - when Peter goes berzerk, he's more of a danger to /himself/ than someone else. But what he does have is strength - some of the punches he starts to wildly throw at Sebastian - one or two of which threaten to hit Shane - are hard enough to dent /metal/. At least one misses completely, clanging hard against the cage wall; there's a dreadful little *crkt* there - the punches are hard enough to dent metal, but Peter's /bones/ aren't. It's also clear that Peter's about to collapse. The sheer vicious /force/ of his movement - the punches - is tearing some of those claw wounds open deeper. More blood flowing. He just /hammers/ in the direction of Sebastian, half-collapsing in the process. Sebastian is struggling against this, angryferal lashing that -- is more wild thrashing at this point than any coordinated motion. His claws sink in to Shanes shoulders, tearing through shirt fabric to just dig deep into flesh. Shane's body /hunkers/ against Sebastian's, a soft whimper coming from him -- possibly even more at the blows that hit Sebastian than the ones that hit him. His eyes squeeze shut when the thrashing continues, and his soft whisper: "{-- love you}", is barely audible. His head dips; from the outside it might almost look like a kiss as his teeth close against Sebastian's throat. This comes with -- well. A lot more blood. A strangled whimper-cry from Sebastian. But the vicious thrashing slows, stops, the blows and the blood loss ebbing away strength until he just slumps against the bars. He sinks against the metal, limp deadweight now that -- admittedly does not weigh very /much/ in Shane's arms. "Kssh." Shane is tensed against Peter's blows as he sinks down, lowering Sebastian to the ground. His head turns, blood glistening bright red against his sharp white teeth. It's a slow turn, sluggish, tired. There's still a definite desperate /hunger/ left in his eyes. His claws are still extending as he turns from Sebastian's slumped form to face Peter. For once, the crowd is largely hushed. Peter's got nothing left in him. He's half-way to the floor after he swings his last blow toward Sebastian; he's there by the time Shane turns to face him, claws exposed. He doesn't even have enough energy to sob - just - wheezing as he drops to all fours, at Shane's feet. He sees the bite; a hand weakly tries to grab at Shane's leg. Scarcely able to squeeze. The other hand - crawling, reaching, two fingers curled, possibly broken - toward Sebastian's throat. Unable to reach. "Pressure," Peter whimpers to Shane, half-croaked, his throat tight and choking. "Put -- pressure -- neck -- blood--" Bastian just -- lies there. Leaking blood. Messily. Shane watches that hand reaching towards him. His own reaches out for it -- grabbing, pulling. His teeth are still bared. Still clacking sharply together -- though he checks /himself/ with this, with a whimper that is kind of small and defeated. His mouth presses -- pooooossibly painfully to possibly broken knuckles and then he just kind of slumps backwards, against Sebastian's stomach. Peter doesn't have enough energy for another scream at this point; when Shane's mouth presses to his fingers, Peter only manages a groan. And when Shane slumps -- "no, no, no--" Peter whispers, just - /kicking/ his good foot, sliding it across concrete, trying to find traction on the blood-slick floor like a flopping fish. The hand - shoves forward, roughly - past Shane, up toward Sebastian - as Peter crawls on top of them. And when his hand reaches Sebastian's throat - palm slipping over the wound, broken fingers uselessly curling up underneath Sebastian's jaw - he does the only thing he can think of. He squeezes and /wall-clings/ his hand over the wound. "Water," Peter croaks, but no one's probably going to hear that. And in the next few seconds - Peter's collapsing on top of them anyway, his hand /attached/ to Sebastian's throat. The crowd is not -- entirely sure what to make of this ending. Applause is tentative. Murmurs are more prevalent. Who won? Who lost? Did that boy just /kiss/ his opponent what kind of gayass fight is this anyway? Are they dead? Are they ALL dead? It's an uncertain sort of rumble that spreads through the room as -- in no apparent /hurry/ -- the cage doors are opened, and the slumped bodies dragged away.