Night 57: The Coliseum

[el_aguila]

Touching the sandy grounds of the coliseum was a catalyst, and the progression of day did not mean the end of the process. By fortune or otherwise, this group's efforts were not allowed to halt simply due to the rising sun. Therefore, when nighttime was pronounced, those who had undergone the beginnings of an incomplete trial were pulled from their

Comments

ARENA

[its_the_mileage]

Indy woke to grains of sand digging into his cheek and someone yelling his name. And stabbing pains from his left hand, which he was lying on. (It could've been worse; he could've landed on the machete.) Gingerly, he rolled over and then up, feeling around for his hat. He found it and replaced it on his head at the same time the yelling, sprinting red-and-blue form resolved itself in his still-uncertain eyesight into Peter.

He blinked and looked around. The two of them were on the floor of a room that you didn't have to be an archaeologist to recognize as an arena. The setup clearly suggested that they were the main attraction of a spectator sport--Indy whipped around to make sure nothing else was down there with them. If there was, he didn't see it yet.

No wonder the kid was worried. "I'm all right," Indy reassured him. He clambered to his feet, double-checking as he did: his whip and machete were still in the right places. Sand rained off of his clothes and bandaged hand as he moved. Well, they'd expected this much, he thought. Another fight and maybe they'd get some answers. He just hoped it wasn't something that breathed fire.

"Stick close," he ordered, positioning himself so his back was toward Peter's. He drew the machete. "And keep your eyes open. Whatever it is, we can handle it." At best that remained to be seen and at worst it was outright improbable, but it wouldn't do them any good to say that. Still, chances were fair he'd been through worse than this.

ARENA

[its_the_mileage]

"Out of the ground?" Indy speculated. He hoped not. If it came up from underneath them, they might be dead before they got a swing in. "Could be anywhere, though. It wouldn't surprise me if there's a hidden door here somewhere." In the stands? That throne in the middle? The lighted ceiling?

The throne was empty. Nothing else seemed to be moving. It was quiet. Indy flexed his machete arm, trying to keep it limber.

Nothing else happened until Peter spoke up from behind him. His powers? Indy remembered the ceiling hanging and the hat thievery, and that was it. "Remind me what powers those are," he said. Hopefully they'd be both real and useful.

He was still shifting his weight around to stay ready to bolt on an instant's notice, and as he moved he realized that his right jacket pocket was heavier than usual. He gave one last cautious look around to confirm that there were no immediate threats, then shifted the machete to the three small fingers of his right hand so he could reach into the pocket with the other two. He came up with his old Smith and Wesson Stembridge--it had the barrel cut down to four inches, which was how it'd fit into his pocket without sticking out. Suddenly suspicious, Indy took a closer look at the dog leash looped over his shoulder: it was his own whip, thick braided handle and all. He reached for his belt and found the familiar leather gun belt, complete with spare ammunition. How the hell hadn't he noticed the new additions? He'd been too focused on starting at every shadow.

"Looks like they gave me a few presents as well," he reported to Peter. He holstered the machete and drew the revolver. In the last couple years he'd mostly been using a larger-barreled pistol, but tonight he was grateful for the older gun--it reloaded fast, and shooting accurately with one hand was easy as pie. All of a sudden he felt a bit better about their odds against whatever they were waiting for.

ARENA

[its_the_mileage]

“Aguilar,” Indy growled. The list of men likely to show up to taunt them was a short one, but he would’ve known the voice even so. Judging by the others’ reactions, he wasn’t the only one. Pilgrim took a run at the general and went flying back into Dent; now that Indy had a break to look, there the rest of them were up in the stands.

Aguilar’s presence here certainly meant they’d hit some major objective, in case they hadn’t figured that out already. That meant progress, maybe even a chance to get some more answers, but Indy’s sense of foreboding spiked nonetheless. He stayed quiet while the rest of them started lobbing taunts. Not that he wasn’t one for a well-timed line in the right context (the right context being more often than not), but they worked better when you already knew what the bad guy was there for and just needed to vent at him. And damn if he knew what Aguilar wanted--sure, to watch the test, but what was the test? Indy didn’t speak up again until the general did.

[to here]

Re: ARENA

[its_the_mileage]

[from here]

He turned away from Aguilar and back to the arena. Still no obvious exits. He could try to shoot at Aguilar, but chances were good a direct attack would go about as well for him as it had for Pilgrim. There was nothing else here to aim at as leverage. If the test was actually to find another solution, that solution wasn’t obvious. No wonder no one had wanted to talk about this on the bulletin board.

“Well, kid,” he muttered to Peter, “keep thinking. But in the meantime, make it look good.”

[its_the_mileage]

“Your powers include tunneling to China?” Indy asked. There were a bunch of people who wanted to kill him there, but right now he was feeling friendlier toward them than toward the people who wanted to see him get killed here. The joke fell about as flat as Peter’s nonetheless. Of course the kid didn’t have super digging skills; Indy just wasn’t ready to accept that there wasn’t a way out of this one. When it had really counted, there had always been a way out.

Peter evidently found it easier to be fatalistic about it, or at least to say that aloud. Indy aimed an incredulous glare at him as he spoke. “I’m not going to shoot you,” he snapped back on the next beat without giving the idea an instant’s consideration. Then, half-under his breath, “I don’t know what I am going to do, but it’s not that.”

He cast a sidelong glance up at the seats. More than his fair share of experience with egomaniacal sadists suggested they didn’t have long to stall before Aguilar started playing hardball with the hostages. But they needed to buy time, he was convinced. Any time at all.

“Aguilar’s not going to sit around and wait while we argue about it, kid. Throw a punch or two,” Indy ordered, still keeping his voice low.

[its_the_mileage]

Indy’s lip curled. Damn smug bastard. What he really wanted was to punch Aguilar in the jaw, but with no chance of that happening anytime soon, he did the closest thing he could: he lifted the revolver and fired at the general. The result was neither satisfying nor effective. The bullet bounced off the same invisible barrier Pilgrim kept bruising himself on and landed harmlessly in the sand with a quiet “wumph.” Indy’s mouth thinned to a grim line. He hadn’t been banking on that working, but he’d had to try, even if it meant hurting Dent and Pilgrim.

And sure enough, it did. Peter was saying something, but what really stuck out was Pilgrim’s yowl cutting abruptly off; Indy looked up to see the kid claw for his throat as if someone were choking him, then collapse. Nearby, blood was snaking down Dent’s arm. Jesus, Indy thought, he wasn’t kidding. His wide-eyed stare shot to Aguilar, but the man himself didn’t seem to be doing anything. How the hell could this be happening?

He wanted to yell something to the four of them, something encouraging, but nothing came. Instead, he turned back to Peter. Peter he could’ve said something to (“She’s not you,” maybe, anything to shoot down that crock about how it didn’t matter if he killed Peter because the girl was there), but he didn’t get the chance. As he opened his mouth he looked down to see Peter’s fist closing around his jacket; faster than he could think, he was flying.

The next thing he was aware of was pain exploding from--he didn’t know, behind him, he thought. It took him time to figure out what had happened: he’d hit the wall. Dazed, Indy fumbled first for his hat (still there), then tried to reassess the rest of himself through the fog caused by different places hurting. His back hurt like hell. The whole left side was bad--burned hand felt like it was on fire and he scrambled to stop bearing weight on it, burned side made him wince. Left shoulderbone might be cracked or just bruised. Blade was still sheathed thank God; it was digging into his right leg but hadn’t stabbed it. He put a hand up to find blood slicking the back of his hair, then realized that meant his hand was empty. The revolver was lying in the sand a few feet away.

Indy smacked his hand over it to stop Peter from getting to it, though he hadn’t yet figured out where Peter was. He got his hand back into it and brought his knees in toward his chest, using his legs and the bottom of his gun hand to shove himself awkwardly back to something like a standing position against the wall without using his shot left hand at all. A couple of blinks brought the red and blue suit back into his field of vision.

“You hit like a girl,” he deadpanned. (Sure. Like Marion on the warpath, possibly.) Having managed the obligatory taunt for the round, he lifted the gun again and fired a couple of shots several feet to Peter’s left.

[its_the_mileage]

Whoops, Indy was tempted to crack, but Peter sounded about as upset as he’d ever heard anyone who hadn’t just been shot sound. “Sorry. Little dazed,” he said. He could’ve added, You know, from being thrown into a wall,, but there was no sense making Peter feel any worse about it than he had to. Indy still winced inwardly whenever he thought of how broken up Peter had been after that business with his friend in Doyleton--Harry, that was it. Tomorrow was going to be even worse.

It bothered Indy that he’d killed the kid and now he had to struggle to come up with his name. He should have done more about that. Asked how Peter was doing now that some time had passed or--something. He shouldn’t’ve just let it fade into the back of his mind, just another Landel’s incident he didn’t have time to think about in the midst of the next crisis. There were a lot of threads he’d let fall like that. Too late to pick them back up now.

Peter sprang to the wall next to him and Indy almost laughed out loud; the sight of the person-shaped mass of color clinging to the barricade like a spider was incongruous, approaching outright ridiculous. The threat to take the gun wasn’t, though. Now he had a problem: keeping his aim off was going to have repercussions on Dent and Pilgrim soon if it hadn’t already, especially if Peter kept howling about it.

“You can’t shoot yourself,” he pointed out, talking fast. As he did, he was looking around--was there anything he could hook the whip onto? The lights? Could he hoist himself up to the throne? Not in his current shape, and nothing presented itself. “Aguilar said we have to fight to the death. It’s not a fight if someone kills himself; the sacrifice might not even count.” He kept his voice down while he said it, because he was grasping at straws here and he didn’t want Aguilar to step in and clarify.

It also wasn’t a fight if he forfeited, it occurred to him. Maybe he needed to do some token damage here--and make it harder for Peter to hurt himself if he didn’t buy Indy’s explanation. As he finished speaking, he fired the last three shots in the chamber in rapid succession, trying to aim so it’d look credible but wouldn’t do more than clip Peter’s side. Good thing they were at such close range: hopefully the kid wouldn’t have time to dive to take the bullets in the gut instead.

[its_the_mileage]

Indy’s gut twisted as Peter tumbled off the wall and into the sand, bloodying it further as he landed. For a second he thought he’d hit something vital after all. As Peter rolled over, though, he saw his aim had been right: the bullet had just grazed the ribs. A relief, but not much comfort. He’d known even barely clipping one side like that would be painful, but actually seeing Peter grab at the wound still just-- All he could do was hope it was enough of a concession to the game to keep Aguilar from doing anything else to the guys up there. They’d both drawn blood. That made it a fight.

Hell of a fight, Indy thought. If the situation weren’t so dire, Pilgrim would probably be disappointed. Indy’d never engaged in much critical analysis himself, but from flipping through the worn copy of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (“The adventure that started it all!”), he knew that an Indiana Jones fight was supposed to involve copious whip-cracking, a few solid punches on both sides, and gunshots that actually hit someone. Hopefully Aguilar knew more about Indy from his file than from the movies--lowered expectations would be good right about now.

Indy’s own expectations were sinking into the floor. It was rare for his improvisation skills to fail him, but there was nothing here. No telltale seams on the side of the arena, no uneven patches on the floor that he’d been able to find, no evident break in the barrier that separated them all from each other. Taylor was on the floor by the seats, maybe looking for something around there. Indy wasn’t holding his breath. They had to have gotten in here somehow, yeah, but they weren’t going to find it in time.

He liked Pilgrim and Depth Charge for those outbursts, ineffective though they were. Peter had exactly the opposite reaction; the poor kid was just raging at anyone in his line of sight. That was better than what he did next, though. Indy stepped forward, wedged the empty gun back in his pocket so he could put his good hand on Peter’s shoulder. That wasn’t in the script for the fight, but it needed to be done.

“Listen,” he said. “I’ve been here three weeks, and I haven’t figured out anything. I’ve been stumbling around in the dark. I don’t even know what to do myself, much less have a monopoly on being able to do it. There are a lot of smart people here and eventually they’ll get to the bottom of this.”

His injuries were screaming at him. Indy ignored them and tried to straighten up a fraction. “I’ve had more than my share of adventures, and I’ve almost died for plenty of things worth less than this, in the end.” He thought again of the Grail: one of the most precious artifacts in human history, and he’d left it to be destroyed to save himself and his father. Indy could gamble with his own life, but he believed--another thing he was just putting into words now--protecting people you cared about was more important than fortune and glory, every time. “I’ve seen your bulletin posts. You have a hell of a lot of friends here, and when you get back home, you’ll have much more living ahead of you than I would.

“It won’t be easy. I know. But you can do it, Peter. I’m asking you as a friend.”

Indy swallowed hard. The die was cast. He’d never pictured things ending this way, but--hell, better Peter than a Zombi or a giant cockroach or one of Landel’s other sideshow experiments.

[its_the_mileage]

Well, Indy thought ruefully, it'd been worth a shot.

It would have been simpler if things had ended that way, but he couldn't blame Peter for not being willing to kill him; when the situation had been reversed a couple of minutes ago, Indy couldn't bring himself to aim right, and he wasn't going to do it now. If a fight was what it was going to take--

It all happened in an instant. The gun was jerked up and out of his jacket pocket with such force it nearly took him with it, and then it was flying into Peter's hand by way of--whatever that sticky substance was. With a long flip backward and not even a pause for dramatic last words, Peter pressed the gun against the side of his head.

Indy felt a split second of panic before he remembered the gun was empty. It took Peter longer to figure that out. He pulled the trigger, producing nothing but a hollow clicking sound. "Six shots!" Indy called. "I already used them all!" Luckily. He debated letting Peter keep the gun (better that it stayed as far away from the extra ammunition on Indy's belt as possible), then reconsidered: the kid could still try to crack himself over the head with it. He needed to get it back.

He uncoiled the whip from his shoulder and let the handle drop into his hand. It felt good, like reuniting with an old friend after a long absence; Indy was glad to get the chance to use it one more time. In one quick, practiced motion, he drew his arm back and snapped the whip forward with a resounding CRACK to catch on the gun, then jerked back again to send the weapon flying to the sand.

The pain was sharp and kept burning even as his coiled muscles relaxed. The motion required the use of his whole body, playing hell with his battered shoulders and back. But at least it was a maneuver he didn't have to think about.