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

[gotbottle]

Rachel makes an attempt to call again for help, but there's another blast from the LRAD, then another, and she can't even hear herself think, there's no way anyone will hear her calling. She gives up and starts an effort to one-handedly type out a text message with her left hand, shield still hoisted with her right arm.

There's blissful silence and stillness when the LRAD cuts off again. Her ears are ringing like she's just come out of a concert but she can hear, thanks to the instinct that made her take up the shield.

Get up.

She hears that, hears the command ring out in the quiet that's settled, and she knows it means trouble. She edges toward the doorway, and can just see that they have Tom cornered as he rises to his feet.

Even she can see there's nothing she can do to stop them. Any one Militia agent could take her out without much expenditure of effort or energy. Charging out there means two bodies (or maybe two people in a cell, but they didn't even spare the prisoners they brought out here for bait, she's under no illusion they'll suddenly feel merciful).

But she's not entirely unarmed.

She prays, briefly, silently, that the shield she bears protected more than her hearing. She prays the overwhelmed, incapacitated Militia agent who shoved his CiD at her does not remember, in all the pain, panic, and chaos, that he gave his device to a young woman with red hair, a color that some of his comrades found so remarkable in a curbside interrogation.

She prays she gets out of here in time and undetected.

And she prays this isn't all for nothing.

She prays. And she sets the Militia agent's CiD to video broadcasting, to the citywide channel, to full volume on the microphone, and, careful to avoid filming her own face, she reaches out through the doorway and props the CiD up on a ledge on the stone wall, pointed as best as she can manage toward where Argo has Bruce cornered.

And then she turns, shield held to protect her identity and to help clear people out of her path as she charges down the corridor, headed for the stairs.

She came here to bear witness. Whatever is about to happen, she wants to see it with her own eyes, not rely on a video broadcast.

[caballero]

It's actually pretty damn anti-climatic, in the end.

Argo wants the satisfaction of winning – taking him in single combat, taking his head, something visceral and final and for his city – but he can't. He's bigger than Bruce is, less injured from the battle so far, better equipped, but Bruce is just better. He gets the Militia captain bad and nearly takes his arm off, even while he's reeling from a blow to the head that's left him bleeding and unsteady. Argo whirls around and tries for his back, but Bruce drops, comes back lower – it's not graceful, it's (not a dance) stilted and painful-looking and grudging, and if it were just them on some distant shore, there'd be no contest. Bruce knows it, and the look on his face reflects it.

That look does not foster any friendship.

Argo jerks his head, finally, and the response is so cleanly executed that it must have been planned already, no matter how furious the captain looks at having to resort to it. Three Militia gunners take aim, and though Bruce scrambles, he still gets hit with two laser bolts – there's nothing PG-sci-fi about the burns; one yellow-hued beam seems to go straight through him. At the same moment, two more agents step forward, weapons raised, and rush to engage him while he's still righting himself after impact. Only when their steel meets his does Argo step forward once more.

Ultimately it's down to mathematics. Not getting hit is a variable in an equation, and the string of digits goes on and on until-

It's no longer solve-able.

If there were a replay screen, if it could be rewound and dissected and judged, there'd be no way out. Maybe, if thirty moves ago, he'd done something different, skewed reality in a different way, sent the card house crumbling slightly further east. But that's not how it goes. In this reality, Argo's blade catches him in the back, point-first, snapping through bodyarmor and finding an angle perfectly between his scapula and his spine, splintering his ribs, piercing his heart. Through his chest, blood-soaked silver can be seen for just a moment, before Argo rips it back the other way.

The last thing Bruce does before he falls backwards is smile briefly.

He falls gracelessly, not down onto his knees and over like an old movie, but stiffly, uncontrollably. He knows, distantly, he has a few minutes while the blood still moves through his system and keeps his brain going, before fluid fills his torn lungs, before his chest cavity gives up from the trauma. His vision will last the longest. His sword clatters away over the hard-packed ground, as if fleeing when he can't; he didn't bring anything else, not even his mask. It's weird, he thinks (yes, weird) that he isn't angry.

There's his vision going – or is it? Someone is looking at him, and for a second, Bruce recognizes the figure. He says one word, a name, barely-audible. “Harvey.” It doesn't sound like a plea or a question, just - Oh, it's you. He supposes he deserves to get his ass kicked in the afterlife. Maybe he can explain himself, or maybe he'll just watch on...

He's mid-thought when it goes dark.

And that's all there is.

[gotbottle]

By the time Bruce hits the floor, so has Rachel; she doesn't fall backwards but her knees refuse to hold her and she just needs to turn away now that she knows for sure what happened. She's seated against the railing, on the floor of the upper level, knees drawn up to her chest, sobbing.

She knew, intellectually, what was most likely to happen from the moment the man she knew as Tom revealed himself. And she'd steeled herself. But the reality was nothing like what she'd envisioned, she had no frame of reference.

And there's more, beyond the obvious horror. She's lost other friends in this city but it's always been that nebulous they probably went home, they're probably all right that accompanies people vanishing.

But this time, there's none of those comforting illusions, no hope of a happy ending somewhere out there. Her friend, someone she genuinely liked, someone she trusted enough to follow down a fire escape and not hide her shadow from, is dead.

She feels like she could sit there and cry forever, gutted, but a wave of noise below--footsteps, shouting voices, the swing and impact of weapons--stills her and then makes her reach up for the railing. She pulls herself up, scrubbing at her face with a sleeve, and looks down at the Arena floor.

Just in time to see that all hell has broken loose. People are flooding the Arena floor again; from what she can tell they're enraged or appalled at what's just happened and they want to make someone pay for it. Prisoners are rushing at Militia members are rushing at gladiators, and even some of Gediron's priests are down there, wading into the fray. She catches just a glimpse of where Bruce's body is before the area is overrun.

Her first thought is for his body--what will happen to him? As bloodthirsty as the Militia's been today, images of making an example by sticking his head on a pike or something equally horrible come to mind, and she won't have that. Once again, she goes pushing through the crowds.

By the time she steps back out onto the Arena floor, hugging the wall, skirting the chaos, she's grabbed a cloak off a fallen combatant somewhere in the ground-floor corridors and made sure her hair is hidden in it. She moves, making sure to stay well out of the way of weapons and fists, but when she reaches the place where she's sure she saw Bruce's body, he's gone.

But his sword still lies on the dirt. She doesn't hesitate, grabbing it and hiding it inside the cloak. She heads for the nearest doorway.

And she stops short. The CiD, the one the militia agent inside handed her, the one she set on the ledge outside a doorway to try to broadcast what was happening here, to the vigilante, still sits where she left it.

Rachel pulls the cloak up over her face, reaching up and snatching the CiD as she passes. Once that's also hidden away, she walks quickly through the ground-floor maze of corridors until she comes to an exterior exit.

And she gets out. And away from this place as fast as she can.