multiversallogs | The Arena Riots ( open, gamewide )

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The Arena Riots ( open, gamewide )

Who: The Militia, the city, and you.
What: The Arena Riots.
Where: The Arena, Griss Twist.
When: Newdi, Eliaderen 1. (Monday Oct 1st)
Notes: Companion post for questions and plotting is here.
Warnings: Violence, police brutality, disturbing content and imagery, graphic death.

It's apparent even before dawn that something out of the ordinary is happening. Canton sheriffs are roused from their sleep or pulled away from their work to be told that on no uncertain terms, today will be a day that they do not leave their neat lines on the map. That their individual offices will be responsible for all crime and unrest within their jurisdictions, with no help; the powers that be offer no details, but the creeping feeling in their presence suggests no questions would be tolerated anyway – the implication that they'll all be watched is a strong one. In Mog Hill, Sheriff Norrington proceeds as he always does under such orders. In Mafaton, leadership is stoic but one deputy laughs, sharp and bitter, while the Emissary of the Council merely checks his watch, unseen underground. Sir Hellsing is pulled away from her dinner in the Guild Hall, a Sobek Croix deputy anxiously relaying the news. The sound of shattered glass disturbs the pre-dawn silence in Flyside, a brick hurled by some faceless figure into the front window of Thames – and nothing else.

From the Spire, hooded Militiamen move quietly and uniformly south, to Griss Twist. They are followed by wagons, full of prisoners.

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The last few hours have been a strange blur that left Spike with both a headache and a digging pain that seems to radiate in every nerve of his body. He made it out of the riots somehow, that's one thing he's sure of. That, and how looking for trouble almost always works for him.

When he opens his eyes in an unfamiliar room, he comes to the conclusion that he must have passed out somewhere along the way. Surprisingly, it doesn't immediately look like a prison -- but he's had that surprise before. Instead of getting up the moment he has the strength to, Spike stays on his back, absently digging into his pockets in the hope that he still managed to hang onto at least one cigarette. Unfortunately, even that movement drives the point home that he has a hole in something, and any movement risks tearing it even further open. One glance downward confirms this; there's clearly something sticking straight out of his abdomen.

He'll stay here for a while, he decides. This is about as comfortable as he's going to get.

Pretty quickly it's evident that he's not alone - that he's not even being left alone, a blonde woman just above average height beside the exam bed, in the process of tugging on a fresh pair of pale-colored medical gloves. “Hallo,” she says, briskly, tilting Spike's face just so to see if he'll make eye contact, find out how alert he is and decide exactly how she needs to proceed from there. “My name is Dr Bernát. Can you tell me yours?”

Prisons generally don't have chandeliers and feature windows.

How about that, he found a doctor. He focuses on the blonde hair as his eyes struggle to find the right focus. She at least sounds pleasant. Sweat beads down his forehead when she angles his face, which is odd since the room doesn't feel particularly hot. Probably left over from all the running around he did.

"Spike." He sounds alert enough, but there's a slight strain in his tone. Something to do with the thing sticking out of him. "Nice hospital."

“A makeshift triage, only,” she says, with a fleeting, distracted smile that technically speaking she's currently bestowing on the bleeding wound in his abdomen. English sounds like it's not her first language (or second, or third), but medical competence doesn't require a translator and she's been familiar with this type of injury since long before she had the kind of training and equipment she's got at her fingertips now.

Probing the wound with care, her expression fades slowly into a concentrated frown. This is going to be - delicate, and the risk of his bleeding out on her living room floor is higher than she'd really prefer. A general anesthetic is out of the question, but she can substitute; a local and something to keep him relaxed, spacy and disinterested in what she's doing with the arrow in his gut, both of which at least are conveniently near to hand. Only the local requires an injection - her laughing gas substitute in Baedal comes in the form of a balm applied under the jaw, and she explains as she does it-

“I can't give you a general anesthetic, but your wound requires operation and I need you to be calm during. This will help.”

Impromptu surgery by a pretty blonde in what looks more like a fancy hotel room. Well, he wanted to figure out what was out there, and that's what he did. When he gets involved, he never goes halfway.

He looks back to his doctor and processes what she's saying. Knocking him out would have been easier -- vastly preferred -- but he nods. He's the one to blame for this, he would have to deal with the consequences.

Besides, it's rare that anyone ever asks.

Easier for Spike- but there's a reason anesthetists are paid so much, and it's because that's really easy to fuck up. She's a qualified trauma surgeon, but if she's ever going to play Russian roulette with an anesthetic, she'll be starting with herself and not a patient. (That says something terrifying about how she learns about new drugs in Baedal; you're welcome.) In the meantime, she preps the local and waits until she can see it begin to take effect - he might feel the needle going in, but Toivo willing, he won't give a fuck.

She doesn't start working on the injury - or removing the arrow and arrowhead - until she can touch the wound without getting a reaction, but after that, things go at once both very quickly and very slowly.

In his mind, knocking someone out is as easy as punching them between the eyes. One reason he was never a doctor.

Spike feels the mildest twinge of panic when the needle breaks his skin (the smallest things can trigger a memory), but it passes in a matter of seconds. It's actually better that they aren't in a hospital. Here he doesn't have any expectations that his organs are going to be harvested while he's numb. He attributes that to why he feels so trusting with this woman now.

After that, he doesn't seem to notice anything she's doing, although he's sure she didn't stop there. She never told him how bad he looked, so there isn't any need to worry. It doesn't matter either way.

Bleeding is what concerns her most- she'd like to be doing this in a sterile operating room with at least one other set of hands, but it is what it is and she focuses her mind on what's in front of her instead of wringing her hands about what isn't. When she swears, quietly and under her breath, she is so seamlessly dedicated to the identity she's created here that she does it in Hungarian.

-but the injury doesn't have to be life-threatening, as long as she gets this right, and she is nothing if not a damn good surgeon. By the time she's stitching the injury and incision closed, the balm (without a timely reapplication- her hands had been otherwise occupied) is beginning to lift its fog on him, although the local is still working like a champ.

Spike isn't even sure how long it takes, or if he fell asleep and woke up, but eventually the soft focus of his consciousness begins to make him more aware of the woman still hovering over him. He's also aware of what he's missing jutting out from his torso. Awful lot of bother for a stranger.

"Feels better already," he mostly mumbles when he catches a glimpse of the stitching (and once he finds his voice again). It doesn't feel like anything, really, and he expects it to hurt like hell again once the numbness wears off; but he thought he should give her some kind of compliment for her time. From what he vaguely recalls, he isn't the only one who needed it.

“That will be the local anesthetic,” she says, dry but without any bite, fixing his stitches in place and preparing a dressing. “I will give you something to take later for the pain.” Which is going to come back, eventually, and as someone who's experienced an arrow in the gut, she's aware of how pleasant it's not.

(If far more briefly. The thing about immortality is that the dying part still hurts, even if it never lasts.)

“I will write you some care instructions, so I don't see you here again so quickly with an infection.”

He keeps quiet, not mentioning how he has been through all this before. There's not a bone in his body that hasn't been broken at some point; but the difference is that he doesn't have anyone making sure he takes the right pills and helps change the bandages. Wherever Jet is, he has to at least be grateful that he got out of this one.

He'd rather talk about something else though. (Anything else.) He could ask how the riots ended, or if they're still going on, but he's finally aware enough to pick up on her accent. "Where are you from?"

It'd probably be equal parts reassuring and not so much, but given the lack of utterly standardized medical options across the multiverse - and she's got to get especially creative in her private work - there'll probably be enough unfamiliar options involved in what she gives him for it that a note of directions won't go amiss. She's thorough, in that way.

After a beat, as she dresses his injury- “Paris, most recently, but Győr, originally.” And she's very good at matching her accent to the story she tells of herself; the wrong notes of unplaceable linguistic markers are so subtle as to be not there to all but the most sensitive and educated ear.

This isn't the best time to be asking; he knows he may forget whatever her answer is if he takes whatever mysterious foreign prescription he sends him off with. More important, it makes it slightly less awkward than silence while she's patching him up. The only other trouble is that his mind is still feeling less sharp than usual.

"...Paris," he repeats it like he's trying to remember where he's heard it before. When hit comes to him, which it only does eventually, it's no wonder he doesn't recognize the other name. "Somewhere on Earth, then."

“That is right,” she says, scrutinizing him briefly - you never can tell here, she supposes, and she spares a moment to wonder what it means for where he came from, exactly. “Paris is in France - very beautiful city, not always so beautiful people, but such are cities, yes?”

This one, too, for instance. Not always so beautiful. As here they are.

It's still strange to hear anyone call something on Earth beautiful, although he's smart enough not to insult her. And she seemed so normal. It's also not the first time someone has called up the idea of alternate dimensions to him, but he's not the kind of person who would understand. He keeps talking.

"At least they know how to bring people together."

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The Arena Riots ( open, gamewide )

sometime shortly after being transported;

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