The Arena Riots ( open, gamewide )

[civilobedience]

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.

Comments

THE RIOTS BEGIN:

[civilobedience]

Agents loom, shoulders squared, keeping the crowds in the stands in line – in their seats, unable to leave, forced to witness the horror going on in the great circular structure. A woman tries to throw herself over the side onto the floor itself, trying to get to the gladiators – she's shot immediately, and dragged off by a Militiaman. Someone in the stands faints, and is also carried away. In the midst of the violence, the loud, creaking, metal-on-metal grinding sound of the gates to the Arena being closed splits through the air. Outside, a crowd has been gathering - and it is not a peaceful crowd. Atop the barrier overlooking the main entrance, a Militiawoman shouts that they'll be next against the wall if they don't disperse. Someone in the stands is screaming, “Stop, stop!”, being pulled away by two Gediron temple aids, consoling him by saying they've proven themselves to the gods, now. On the Arena floor, a branded gladiator doubles over and vomits, horrified by what she's done. A hooded figure tells her to get up, or to go on the other side.

A uniformed Militiaman falls from the edge of the Arena wall onto the battlefloor, lifeless, crumpled. Gasps and cries of confusion ring through the air, and in the royalty boxes above, people jump to their feet. After the agent, another black-clad figure falls – no, jumps, drops down and lands in a crouch before rising to his feet. It's a human man carrying a strange straight-bladed sword in one hand, covered entirely except his face (which is plain-looking, fair skin, brown hair). Murmurs of recognition ripple through the crowd, but they aren't widespread. He walks to the center of the Arena, throws his sword on the ground, and raises both hands. In surrender.

Captain Argo rises from his seat, standing at the edge of his viewing box. He, and the other Militia agents with him, are stone-faced. For a moment, it seems like this is what they wanted: a vigilante whose head they can take, instead of the lives of everyone else. Silent tension grips the crowd, clinging to the mad hope that now they've gotten their way, and it will be over.

“Your attempt at nobility has come too late. Kill them all.”

(This is, still, what they wanted.)

Screams of terror break out in the holding cells as every gladiator is rushed out onto the Arena floor, Militia agents following them. The vigilante in the center looks grim, even as two prisoners, armed, rush out to his side. Shouting from outside the gates intensifies, accompanied by the sounds of bottles and rocks being thrown at the walls and gates. Panic wells in the stands. The city councilwoman from Raven's Gate shouts, “No!” and reaches forward, as if trying to get the attention of one of the agents in charge, but she's violently pulled away. An unmasked, brown-haired Militiawoman standing next to Captain Argo looks stricken, but then turns away, back to her job.

Suddenly, the crumbling composure of the Arena at large snaps. The main gate is broken open, and like an erupting volcano, a flood of civilian protestors run inside, shouting, screaming, some carrying signs, some carrying weapons. They storm the Arena, clashing with gladiators and Militiamen alike, pitching the situation into chaos. Up above, the politicians are suddenly ushered out, but it's too late – in minutes, this has gone from a horrifying lesson that could have been controlled to a full-blown riot, and they're already coming up the stairs.

The Militia opens fire into the crowds.

Re: THE RIOTS BEGIN:

[captaincocksure]

Every other time during his tenure at Hellsing, Sir Integra and the Princess have been able to count on an immediate call from Jim Kirk when a crisis situation breaks out. Without fail, there has been a calm broadcast, the young captain taking time to ask for orders before acting.

Today, there is no call.

He's confident his superiors there will forgive him this.

He knows they must be well aware of what's happening down here; the number of CiD's he's seen held aloft from his seat high in the stands tells him the communication channels are full of live broadcasts. He doesn't call, and it's not just because there's no time once the violence erupts and people begin moving.

He's well aware he must be on the militia's radar somehow. Most likely due to his connection with Hellsing--he's been careful about anything else because of that. But he knows that any Militia member who recognizes him would associate him with the guild; to take out his CiD now and ask for orders could give them a terrible opening through which to come stomping toward the guild. It's clear to him whatever really was going on would be irrelevant, that the Militia, should it suit them, would turn his presence here and a request for orders into whatever propaganda or leverage point they chose.

He can't have that. He can't be the instrument of that.

He doesn't reach for his CiD. He reaches for the person nearest him, shoving them out toward the end of the row. "Come on, go, go, head for the exits if you can," he directs, stepping out of the flow of traffic as best he can to herd people up the aisle. "Keep moving, keep moving..."

Re: THE RIOTS BEGIN:

[toooldforlosing]

Raylan made it into the Arena a bit after it had begun. He'd gone to investigate the brick through the window of Thames - telling Dr. Bernát he was going to check it out, god, what must she think of him never coming back - and been swept up with the crowd, only half of his own volition.

And then he'd had no choice. He'd never seen anything quite so... but he couldn't figure out where to place the bullet he'd wanted so much to fire. All he could do was watch, ignoring the texts that were probably from Norrington.

But when all hell broke loose, it was like he'd been shaken out of a trance. He starts trying to herd people, move them toward the exits. So many people here aren't equipped or prepared for a fight, and a mob was an ugly thing. (Not quite as ugly as public slaughter, he thinks, but even so.) He bumps into another man doing the same thing, and calls over the roar of the crowd: "I think this way's blocked, we're gonna have to find them another way out."

Anyone who keeps his head is, for the moment, an ally. He'll sort it out later.

[captaincocksure]

Jim realizes he's being addressed, but it takes him a moment to pinpoint who's calling out. Tall man, white hat--he's seen the guy before. All over Mog Hill, he's sure of it. Law enforcement maybe; if not here then where he's from.

Right now none of that matters. Jim will take all the help he can get. These people have to get to safety or the bloodbath stands a chance at turning into an all-out massacre.

"Understood," he calls back, "give me a minute." He hops up on the backs of a couple of seats, scanning the area. "Behind you. Fifty meters. I can see people moving, there must be an opening that way."

[toooldforlosing]

Raylan nods, to show he's understood, and starts trying to change the direction of the flow. Easier said than done, though, and it's hard for him to get more than one person's attention at a time by shouting. There's just too much noise.

He takes his hat off to start waving people in the right direction. However, unfortunately, "Civilians move this way" apparently looks a lot like "People with guns, please shoot this direction." It does get people to move, but not (presumably) the way Raylan intended, and he's briefly lost to Jim's sight.

A moment or two later, the hat's back on his head, presumably because Raylan needs a hand to press to his shoulder.

[goodsoldier]

In the stands (he'd come late, held up by the crowds and the desire to pass beneath the notice of the Militia agents everywhere), Jason has no real plan of action: there are civilians everywhere, more than even he can have on whatever serves as his conscience when it comes to explosives, incendiaries, and other large scale attacks. It's not like he could smuggle a rocket launcher in, even assuming he had one. And there's a certain terrible inertia to what Argo set in motion. Later, he'll think that maybe he was waiting. He may not feel anything personally for this Bruce, certainly no special loyalty and nothing of the kind of connection that made them efficient on the same side of a fight back home, but it could have been that, nonetheless, he was waiting for exactly what happens. He's different, yes. He's still Bruce.

Argo's pronouncement sets off that electricity hidden to those above them, the chaotic art of crowd dynamics — Jason knows what's going to happen, that things have come precisely to a boil. Seconds before the protesters break in, he's fighting his way toward the rail, he's shrugging the extendable tonfa out of his sleeves, weapons he loathes but they're concealable and have a much longer reach than a knife, and it doesn't matter. He'll never make it to Bruce. There are so many people, so many Militia agents. That's okay. He'll just fight.

[mightyfallen]

Jack ducks—because of course he ducks at the sound of gunfire, he has instincts and training and he's watched his entire company die in staccato, so it only belatedly occurs to him that of course they're not firing at him. Even as chaos erupts around them, money and power buy all the safety in the world. They're trying to get the politicians out first.

And that's what he brought Jaime for, isn't it? To get him to safety. So he can live (again), while dozens of others die (again), like his life is worth so much. He shouldn't be laughing, it isn't funny, but it is to him, in his way, that the people who least deserve it should escape unscathed. There are men and women in this box who have done terrible things, who by willful negligence or outright support have caused this terrible thing, and the repercussions will barely glance off them. The sound he makes is incredulous, a little sick and half muffled in sudden the crush of bodies making for the exit, even as a wave of rioters rises to greet them.

He doesn't resist the motion, though. (Not yet.)

[gramarye]

While the protestors are rushing in and everyone else is trying to get out, the two major groups inside — spectators, further divided by class, and prisoners — end up mixing together, with Strangers running alongside politicians, both elbowing their way through the press of bodies trying to beat each other to the exits. Immediately outside the Arena, it has erupted into complete chaos with Militia agents opening fire on crowds of people with zero regard for whether they're combatants or not.

There are some people who are guiding others out of the chaos and into the quieter streets further away from the Arena, and others who leap in to fight, and Wolfgang is currently somewhere in between. He's not fighting for the sake of it, nor is he necessarily completely selflessly trying to rescue others; he's mostly reacting to what's going on around him and trying not to get killed. And looking for Hassan, who he lost somewhere in the chaos back there, and how do you lose someone that fucking tall, anyway? If he had a moment to think he could come up with a plan to actually help, but...

He's not a brawler, he has zero chance of disabling a Militia agent, but outside of the Arena whatever they'd been using to dampen supernatural powers is less potent and magic is returning to him. It's easy to add an extra bit of force to his fist, to extend his reach to throw a punch without actually connecting his hand with anything because that would absolutely break it. He ends up knocking a Militia agent off his feet and to the ground and has less than a second to be pleased with himself before his buddy hits Wolfgang in the side with a baton, which thankfully misses his ribs, which it would have broken, but it does knock the air right out of him. He has just enough time to lunge to the left and dodge another hit while someone else, a protestor with makeshift riot gear, leaps in to engage the same agent while Wolfgang retreats against the wall of the Arena, clutching his side and wheezing, trying to catch his breath.

Shit, fuck. He can't see a clear path out of the worst of it here. For now, the Militia aren't looking at him, are focused on the people actively engaging them in a fight, but if he moves he's going to make himself a target. He scans the crowd, looking for a way out — a clear path to a less-crowded side street or an opening in a skirmish he can insert himself into.

[regicidium]

It is highly probable that in some other configuration and time and place and circumstance, Jaime Lannister would be in a different place right now. He had been a full-time gladiator prior to his arrangements with Jack, and perhaps he would be down there, killing the recruited. Perhaps he'd take a harder turn and get branded and be put to slaughter via monsters and militia men.

Perhaps, in some other iteration, he would be one of those masked law enforcers, carrying out orders.

But instead he is here, and it's not unfamiliar. Defend the king. There is no sentiment, only his objective. Defend the king. He is big and golden and armoured and he has a sword at his belt, which is the sort of bulky weapon so antiquated that its meaning is universal and even those more familiar with lasers and magic spells might think again about crossing his path in the intimacy of the crushing crowd. He does not draw it (yet), because he would do more damage and make less progress right now, and instead uses his hands to shove a path for himself and his charge.

He would be a bad body guard if he didn't have an exit in mind, and that is one thing he does have as an advantage to those around him -- direction, no confusion. His gloved hand finds Jack's arm at one point, heartlessly pulling him in his wake -- he flinches at the sound of gunfire with the sort of disconnected instinct of a lion hearing shotgun blast in the savannah. Not his concern, but jarring. Defend the king.

Of course, Jaime doesn't see the willowy blonde haired mage huddled against the wall. That's Jack's job.

[jericho941]

Spike was in the crowd for the same morbid curiosity as anyone else, only with less of an idea of how regular these demonstrations were. From the buzz, it had to be a special occasion, and wouldn't he happen to arrive in the city at a turning point? Even without knowing until the executions started (which he watched, seemingly unfazed, with a kind of dreamlike attachment), the streets had been full of whispers ever since the militia made their announcement. He'd had a feeling.

But like most of his life, Spike never fit well into a spectator role -- that or he had the kind of trusting face that people liked to take a swing at. The riot was written on the walls from the moment he'd set foot in the stadium, and once it broke out, one shove in the wrong direction had made his presence a little less anonymous. Instead of backing away from whoever he'd offended enough to get a punch thrown in his direction, Spike was flipping a man over his back into more of the aggressively panicked audience and screaming protestors. (That's what happens when they pack them too tight.) That wasn't the end of it, and of course he didn't wait to consider the consequences of starting a scene when the brawls were erupting everywhere.

Apparently he liked the attention.

[goodsoldier]

Somewhere in the middle of all that, there's the guy from that night at the ring. He's better than he was that night, no showmanship, no drama — none of Spike's grace, honestly, but he's getting the job done. The flow of the crowd and the fighting eventually pushes them together, and Jason tries to make eye contact to enforce mutual recognition. Doing this alone sucks. It would be nice if he and more people who could handle themselves could make a coordinated effort on the agents shooting. (Especially the ones shooting at Bruce, but they're not going to be able to get to just those.)

[jericho941]

Even in the erupting chaos, Spike recognized the other man with a quick glance. A glance was all he had time for if he wanted to keep from getting mowed down by the others who multiplied the longer he held his ground. He wasn't making headway here, but so far he had avoided any game-breaking injuries. Even if he expected one way for it to end, he couldn't say it wasn't easy to fall into his old rhythm. Like releasing a deep breath he'd been holding for weeks. One lucky slash of a knife grazing his side, and he almost felt alive again.

When he was close enough, he raised his voice just loud enough to be heard above the crowd. "Is it too late start making bets?"

[goodsoldier]

"If you're here—" Jason says back, and leaves the rest unsaid: you're betting already. He lunges past Spike, launching himself at another agent with the certainty of experience, the reflexive courage of someone who's done this and more for a very long time. If it could be slowed down, the increments by which the agent turns with the gun — the controlled way Jason barrels into her, one hand pushing the gun upward, the other striking with the tonfa, the way they both go down but in an instant, Jason is up again — it's clear that his timing is everything. He's only as fast as a well trained human, and his margin in the chaos of the crowd is extremely small.

He glances urgently at Spike again, because he can't make the other man come with him, but he's asking. About two levels below are a group of Militia who are building a strong position, two shooters able to defend the others while the remainder are free to fire upon the crowd. Jason jerks his head at them. Routing them is necessary, and even if he's not quite sure how to get close yet, they have a better chance than many of the people in the area.

[caballero]

Bruce isn't himself all day - not that this is unusual lately, with the way he's been slipping into some other identity he doesn't recognize - but it's even more pronounced. He barely sleeps, but he moves as if in a dream. He's at the river in the morning when the news reaches him, and finally, he's awake. It's an easy decision to make.

When the rushing wall of half-mindless gladiators rush at him, he wishes he could be surprised. He hadn't had faith or trust, but he'd hoped and - not like it matters, now. He kicks up the handle of his sword and grabs it, glancing to his side to see who's come out alongside him. For a split-second, he considers telling them go just go, but there's no point. They were already out here - if they're going to die, it'll either be fighting head-on or being slaughtered as soon as their opponents advance.

The first gladiator to meet him goes down so fast that the one behind it skids to almost a halt and swerves, apparently deciding to let the Militia handle this one, if they're so keen on him. The rest aren't so pragmatic, but it doesn't matter to him. Bruce with his blinders off, without pulling punches, with bladed edges instead of bare hands and threads of broken bones, is an entirely different monster than the one he is in Gotham (than the one he really is). There's something soulless in the way he does this, but it's effective - a woman next to him, a powered xenian, flinches away from him after a time. She's a prisoner.

Bruce drops another gladiator - one of the few who hadn't switched sides the second chaos broke out - and then a hooded agent, and then has to switch tactics and move when the shooting starts. He grabs the prisoners nearest him and hauls them close to the wall, though he doesn't stay still for more than a moment.

[gotbottle]

Rachel is here to bear witness. Not that she's been at all conflicted or unclear about what the militia is doing, could do, not at all. But whatever is happening here today, whatever they're going to do, she wants to be absolutely, unflinchingly clear on what it is.

She wants to be able to say I saw it with my own eyes, and mean it.

It's sickening, and it only grows more so with each passing moment. Prisoners. Forced battle. People being cut down as she watches from the stands. All to demand one man stop his defiance. She feels physically ill, the horror of what she witnesses sinking in, feeling as if it soaks through her skin to stain her soul forever.

But she can't turn away.

And she can't show any sign of weakness. Or disapproval. The Militia know who she is, since that surprise interrogation in Coin's End. She can't give them any footing to come back into her life or her business. She balls her hands helplessly on her knees, her face a stoic mask. She won't pretend to feel anything she doesn't, won't pretend this is okay. But she won't show them just how deeply her disgust, anger, frustration, and even fear, run.

She sits there, a still, silent spectator to the building horror. But then--wait. Is it over? Has he come to surrender? Her heart sinks a little; of course it's the noble thing to do, to put a stop to this madness, but she hates that he was forced into this, whoever he is, that lone figure striding across the--

...wait.

Is that...?

It can't be.

Tom?

It's an intrinsic self-absorption that so many human beings share, at heart, the idea that it takes a personal affront to make a terrible thing tangible and immediate. The awful thing that is the Militia should be an apparent problem to everyone in this city, the spectacle they've created today should make everyone's skin crawl and should inspire everyone to want to do something about it. But it's an abstract thing until there's a personal hook, some reason a person can make this about themselves, and then, only then does it have meaning.

So when Rachel realizes she knows the man the Militia has arranged all this as a lure to surrender for, it becomes personal. How dare they at all... but how very fucking dare they now, that's her friend down there.

She barely has time to process that before Argo makes his pronouncement. Kill them all. And the entire Arena goes to hell.

Most people are bailing from the stands, pushing back toward the aisles, toward the exits. But Rachel goes the other way, over seats, pushing her way upstream, trying to reach the edge so she can look down. By the time she gets there the gunfire has started, and she catches a glimpse of Tom dragging people to the wall somewhere below her.

She grasps the railing, trying to track him, mindful of the gunfire and the people still trying to push their way past and around her. What can she even do from up here? She has no idea. But she can't just run and do nothing.

[caballero]

If Bruce sees anyone he recognizes, there's nothing he can do about it - or would want to do about it. Connections in the midst of this will just paint targets on people, and the Militia are hitting their targets very, very well today. Not all of them are firing, however, and some hooded agents are pulling prisoners and stunned rioters alike into the winding hallways to escape the Arena, unwilling to fire mindlessly into the crowd. The sight of it should give him hope. He doesn't feel anything.

He does, however, pick someone up by the back of their shirt and throw them at one of the agents who's hauling people out, before he turns around again. No shots come at his back. (Yet.)

Something causes dust and dirt to kick up all over the open Arena floor, obscuring visibility nearest him. He ducks, moving through it to his advantage, swooping out of it further down along the wall, leaping upwards and swinging himself onto the railing above and socking a Militia gunner in the side of the head. He's knocked out immediately. The next one over takes aim but doesn't manage to fire either, and yells as he's thrown head-first over the side.

[gramarye]

A few meters ahead, there's a group of Militia agents who are moving together like they've been synchronized, deadly in tandem, except all of a sudden they stagger or freeze up and their eyes, when they're visible, take on a fuzzy, confused quality. One of them, the one with the gun, starts firing at the wall, where there's nothing but stone. It's just long enough for the prisoner-cum-gladiator they've cornered to lurch to his feet and flee, not questioning what caused them to stumble.

The cause is behind them, but immediately ducks behind the still corpse of a gladiator enormous enough to function as a temporary shield against bullets, trying to stay out of the way. Humanoid bodies actually make really terrible cover from bullets, but there's nothing else close enough to him.

Wolfgang's not a fighter and he's not really trying to be, he's just trying to get out, waiting for an opening because he is not running out there and just hoping for the best, but he might have to. It's not safe here either but he's not that big a target or a threat. At least, not until they figure out he's the one projecting his psychosis on any Militia agent who gets close enough to his makeshift cover, making them fight ghosts instead of real people or lose their grip on reality, unsure how to proceed.

He is not actually doing it on purpose, but...

[caballero]

But it's enough to be getting on with, really. Bruce takes a moment - from where he's already engaged with a particularly violent gladiator intent on taking out as many people as he can before he goes down - to try and piece together what's going on over there with the reality warping over there. He catches sight of Wolfgang before he ducks to hide again, and after ripping his sword out of the throat of the gladiator, he darts over directly into the center of the confused Militia agents.

He doesn't actually think the beaten-down wards and enchantments on his armor are going to last long against this. Still, he stands behind one agent, grabs her weapon (some kind of energy-blaster with one hell of a kick) and uses it - her hand still gripping it - to take out a fair number of the gunners standing on the Arena walls. His vision starts to swim and he steps back, ducking again. Only one or two people are still firing down at them, apparently not exceptionally eager to open fire on their own people.

[serjeant]

A career soldier in close quarters combat doesn't live as long as Seoraj has without a talent for fighting (for killing) - the hammer in his hand is his most visible (and as a gladitorial fighter, arguably his most iconic), but it isn't the only thing he's carrying and he's both more nimble and more creatively ruthless than he looks. When the riots break out, he throws himself into the fray without consciously choosing to do so because what doesn't ever occur to him is the notion that he might choose to do anything other than what he does - this has been a slaughter, this is wrong, and he is not a politician or a vigilante or someone who gives orders and comes up with plans, he has been waiting for the moment when he would be something like the right tool in the moment. Here it is.

(Because habit compels him - you don't fight if you're not getting paid - he lifts the wallet of the first man he drops.)

He'd been one of those murmurs of recognition, but he isn't fighting to get close to Bruce; there's no point, there's too many screaming, straining bodies between the two of them, he trusts that Bruce doesn't need him and focuses instead on what he can do, on trying to be the reason a handful of people survive. He can't save everyone - he heard Argo's command clear as the rest of them and doesn't assume he'll necessarily even save himself - but a few, yes, and those lives don't stop mattering because the number is so small. (No, a treacherous thought crawls under his skin, they stop mattering when the number becomes large.) Still - those bodies are moving, shifting, falling, and when he does see him again-

-the brutality is not horrifying, but like a lock clicking into place, a realization, the realization. The first day that they met, he'd looked at Bruce and seen something familiar, and he sees it again now - he sees something he understands, knows without hesitating over it that he understands, that if he will always be the man who can feel in his hands the sword he's always waiting to pick up again then this man, this man would never have to ask him why. It comes as bittersweet certainty and not revelation; a knowing that he's had a long time, now, that he's not until now had the moment to really think about. There is a reason why they make sense to him, a reason why he finds himself skittish in a way he's never been before-

It's split-seconds and then bodies like a rip-tide end it, a fist in his stomach and a hammer coming down on the spine of the man who threw it, and if he's going to have any emotional revelations, they're going to have to wait until he knows whether or not he's going to live through til tomorrow.

[caballero]

Whatever Seoraj thought - a week ago in his kitchen, months ago in the woods, right now - Bruce does not need him. Still, he needs so very little. He doesn't need other people or validation or his millions in Gotham or cars or smokescreens. He needs oxygen, he needs his heart to keep beating. Everything else is desire, and no one takes a precision scalpel to desire like Bruce Wayne.

It would have done him some good, to need Seoraj. Or to need Hasibe, or even Vanessza. He remembers needing people; his parents, Rachel. Henri. He's burned it out of him, like curing a wound. He'll only get it back if it grows now, if he's crippled long enough for it to culture. A glance, a half-heartbeat of distraction, and for this split-second he wants to move across the Arena.

It's meaningless when it shouldn't be. And it's one of the reasons he never walks out.

Their eyes don't meet. Bruce doesn't see him again.

[deservesadaisy]

There is a great deal of blood.

There's been a great deal for hours, of course, but it was down in the pit. Ivan stayed in the shadows, eyed by but not harassed by the guards, who had bigger concerns. He'd come in the late afternoon, toward the evening, when it became clear that the event was teetering on the verge of chaos. He had wanted to see how it went.

What he hasn't bargained for was a riot with no way out - he should have, stupid and sloppy, he'll later think. He isn't concerned for his own safety in particular, though it won't do to be careless. He starts looking for a way out, through the mass of screaming panic, picking his way around and through.

But the blood is distracting. He tries as best he can to ignore it.

And then a man full of bullet holes, dying but not dead, is thrown back into him. Ivan catches him around the chest and waist, almost tender, like an embrace. The man is covered in blood, his own, others', and he is struggling, frantic, without having understood anything that's happened.

No one is looking at Ivan when his eyes go black. He steps back into the shadows and sinks his teeth into the man's neck. In the middle of the screams and the fighting and the panic, no one even blinks at them.

He's no longer particularly interested in leaving.

[agrat]

Later, past the dark and during the new deluge of mask-clad strangers, Lea identifies Ivan as a vampire and one that Ilde has told her about, possibly in the interests of emphasizing usefulness, possibly just courtesy. It is, she thinks, potentially useful--when she approaches it's sidelong, deliberately non-threatening.

"Ivan, right?"

So conversational. Like she's not fairly bloody herself, nicked on the shoulder, bruised, jeans striped down one side with someone else's insides. She's come off lightly so far, but the fun has barely just begun, and that won't last.

[deservesadaisy]

He's very well fed - more human than he generally looks in pallor, but less in every other way. He's covered in blood, yes, but no more than most of the people still standing at this point.

The upside is that he's had enough that, for the moment, his craving for more is in check, and he can look at her with something like a reasonable gaze. "Yes, though I'm rather intrigued about who may be asking." Fight or flight is still in gear beneath the perfect manners and formerly impeccable suit.

[lupa]

"Ostie."

No one notes the incongruity of the Quebecois curse growled from animal jaws because GG's drowned out by the noise around her, the sudden surge -- forwards, inwards, outwards, the sudden movement -- catching her in its tide. She is slammed into the present, paws scrabbling on the earth below as she runs on four legs, for a moment simply moving without any destination in mind. It just seems important that she should not be the only thing in the Arena left immobile.

The Militia have opened fire. A man screams as she bats him to one side before he realises that she's pushed him out of the trajectory of the bullets, one of which nicks her on its way. The wound, without the burn of silver to keep it open, seals over swiftly. She howls all the same.

[alan_shore]

Alan's row sways as if in a car that's swerved sharply, one person hurled into the next. A bony shoulder knocks against him, and he gathers his scattered impressions--a gunshot, cracking louder in memory than the moment it was fired; a child, hair tangled in the wind, lifted up by the scruff of her coat; nail polish, pink--like so much paperwork before he's shoved to the ground. A sneaker comes down on his calf and he fights panic, fights what could be dread or certainty burning cool and fatal as any bullet, squirming free of mental paralysis and struggling to his feet.

He doesn't know the exits--the lone part of this setup that ought to have interested him, and he has no choice but to fling himself into the crowd's choppy flow. There are more shots, screams, and snaps and crunches--those very bodily sounds--that sicken him more than any of it. Alan stays low and keeps moving until somewhere in the fray he glimpses the scarlet the popcorn vendors sport.

As best he can in the crush and panic of the crowd, he follows the color, the chance (it isn't hope--his constricted thinking can't accommodate that) at being led to an exit, a storage room. Through outflung limbs, skirting fallen bodies, slipping more than once in blood or vomit, he stays in sight of his faceless guide. Whoever it is, they press on without hesitation, undaunted by an animal howl or the ball of sinew and muscle and teeth from which it issues.

Alan, on the other hand, loses a second to fear--a second in which the crowd shifts, a man realizes his life's been spared, and the vendor slips away.