(no subject)
The holding area itself is loud with distant sounds today as noises drift up from the arena below, the guards congregating at one end to count the night's takings and gloat loudly but indifferently at the ones who've earned it. There's more than last night, when more was taken than the night before, and the guards are anticipating a windfall. Particularly loud cheers herals the end of a fight, and are met by violent coughing from the corner of Ewen's cell, where the big man is curled in upon himself, shaking with each cough.
Nisa pushes herself back into the shadowy corner, arm still clutched against her chest. She's hoping that she can manage to keep her still free state from being noticed by any of the guards by being as quiet as possible. Hearing Ewen's racking coughs, she concentrates briefly and a root slides from her wrist and into Ewen's cage, snaking through the shadow.
Ellen is awake, but it does not appear to matter. She is folded in on herself in one corner of her cell, eyes closed and forehead braced on her palms, listening to the sound of her own even, steady breathing.
The movement of the root goes completely unnoticed by Ewen who, closing his eyes tight, tries to block the hot, burning sensation from his lungs. He shivers, bringing his legs up to his chest, trying not to put any unnecessary strain on his neck and pull the seeping wound there.
Nisa looks sadly at Ewen and the root gently crawls up his back. At his shoulder, it grows four more tendrils, and akwardly attempts something of a backrub. "It will be ok," she whispers to him. "/He/ is coming."
"Come on, he won't /die/ and it'd only be a good thing if the kick was too hard." The man practically carrying Bobby with his arms behind his back argues, the mutant almost lifted off the floor by the way his hands are twisted and held until the metal shackles can be replaced. Keiko walks alongside with an ever-so-slightly amused smirk, "Everyone gets healed- that's the assurance we give. It can be like a scripted ending for each fight of his." she offers that sickly sweet smile to Bobby who looks positively nauseous and then continues upstairs while the Iceman is walked to his cell.
Ewen startles visibly at the contact, turning his head painfully to see what it is that is touching his shoulder so gently, so unlike anything else in this godforsaken place. The approach of the guards bringing back the downed fighter makes his eyes go wide and he does not reply to Nisa for fear of being overheard, instead turning slightly to hide the vines behind himself.
Ellen lifts her head, her features blank; if her expression is anything at all, it is disinterest as she looks through the bars from her crouch on the cage floor.
The roots sink away from Ewen's shoulder and hide behind his back at the guards approach, carrying her school mate. Her eyes widen, but she as well silences.
Bobby offers so very little resistance to having the ball-gauntlets fixed, instead he seems to take a lot of care in sitting down. The man stands after fastening each chain and simply grins, "I don't envy you, mate." he remarks with a chuckle and shuts Bobby's cage behind him. "K said I have to get you all healed up but didn't specify when..." his voice adopts a mocking tone as if quite practiced in it, "Oi, Ellen!" Asleep or no, it's loud enough, "How long does it take for internal bleeding and stuff to kill?". Indeed the majority of Bobby's wounds must internal as right now he sports little that is visible other than blood on (whether it is /from/ or not is hard to tell) his lip and some bruises starting to make themselves known.
"How would I know?" Ellen asks lightly, still crouched on the floor of her cage. "I am a disbarred corporate attorney. Not a doctor."
Easing himself into a sitting position, Ewen tries to see the state that the loser has been brought back in, worried about the threat the guard makes to leave him half dead: his own hopes of getting healed now seem to rely upon him not just fighting again, but winning the next fight he's put into. In his current state, a win seems distinctly unlikely. Unable to stretch far enough to see the mutant, he collapses back against the bars of his cage in resignation.
Nisa's eyes narrow and she glares at the guard from the shadows. She tries to get a good look in at Bobby through the empty cage between then, but she can't without compromising her position. For now, she stays seated where she is.
The man shrugs, "You can see to him tomorrow." he decides before heading back to the Arena where there is much drinking to be done. Bobby's attempt to express wordless anger ends up in a cough that just further bloodies his lip; right about now is a good time to try and fall into your own thoughts and so that's what he does. Clank. The chains pull taut as Bobby's introspection gives way to the blackness of unconsciousness.
Tomorrow. The word sounds bleak to Ewen, the thought of suffering even more to earn eventual freedom from pain. He has to win. Has to fight and has to win. Even the thought of it hurts, and he lowers his head down to his knees, another cough rattling itself free from his lungs, sounding as if it is bringing most of the flesh there with it.
Ellen curses the guard's departing back in German and then slumps against the bars, her fingers curling round their width. "They would kill their prize beasts from neglect," she mutters. There is a deep weariness breathing through her words.
Nisa looks at Bobby's slumped body and shakes her head, cupping her forhead with her good hand. As the vines slowly return to ewen's shoulder, she mutters, "I hope he comes soon."
"Heh." A bitter, brief laugh is accompanied by another small cough. "Not soon enough for whoever that was who just got the stuffing beat out of him. I want to be /away/ from here, Nisa, I want to get /out/!" Ewen's last words, though quiet, are full of desperation, him dull green eyes gleaming oilily.
Ellen is silent, her weight leaning on her palms against the bars and her eyes slipping closed.
Nisa chances slipping her hand through the dark bars, letting her fingertips rest lightly on Ewen's bound hand. The massaging root falters slightly, and one of the tendrils moves to test the strength of the hated schock collar wrapped around Ewen's neck. "Any ideas?" she asks defeatedly.
Ewen gives a muffled cry of pain that turns to a wheeze as the collar is tugged, though the pain is momentary. His eyes flicker birefly over to Nisa and then close in defeat. "None. Or at least, none without holes. I think I could blow out these cages, but we'd all be stuck in these collars and handcuffs. Or if I can get healed, I can blow my collar, but I can't get to anyone else quickly enough. It makes me sick! We're so much stronger than they are, we can do so many things, and they can still treat us like animals."
Nisa frowns and the testing of the collar's strength is quickly abandonded. "No way out, without hurting others," she agrees. "If attempt fail, would get worse tratement than Yuriko, most likely."
"We'd get killed, Nisa, and that's the fact of the matter." Ewen's tone is blunt and utterly without illusion. "So we have to sit here and do what they say as if they own us, and goddamnit I'm /doing/ what they say, and it's so... so cowardly." Having risen to a peak of rage, the volume and impetus in his voice trails off and he closes his eyes to swallow another fit of coughing before it can shake its way through his body.
Realization hits as Walter's words to Nisa finally make sense. "No, you're not a coward. Men who did this, cowards," she says softly, repeating the words playing in her mind. Her fingers wrap around Ewen's arm as much as they can and she reiterates, "/We/ are not the cowards."
"I- I didn't stand up for you, Nisa," says Ewen, his voice broken as broken as his spirit, his eyes deep pools of self-doubt. "I should have..." He falters: what should he have done, what could be done? "I should have done something."
"Yes, indeed. You should have died, or submitted yourself to punishment, or to abject humiliation. To protect the sweet young woman." Ellen's voice breaks into the silence like the crack of a disdainful whip. "You should have shown them you care for her and given her to them as your weakness. Do not be a /fool/."
Nisa shakes her head and a tendril snakes its way to gently pat the top of Ewen's head. "Did what you could," she assures. The roots snakes down his chest and tugs at the pant leg she had worked on earlier, inspecting the runes to see if the had smudged at all. "Can only do that, nothing else. Ellen right, is better they /not/ know you care, least too much. Would maybe hurt me to get you."
Ewen grits his teeth at Ellen's admonition. His head know's she's right, but his heart cannot accept the words. "I'm sorry," he mumbles, though exactly what he's sorry for is unclear. He tries to ignore the snaking movements of Nisa's vine, but once it starts tugging at his clothing his eyes are inadvertantly drawn to it, and to the strange markings on his trousers. "How did they get there?" he wonders aloud, spotting an opportunity to take the topic of conversation away from his own failings.
Hmm, the lower one is smudged a tad. Damn. The root retracts quickly, returning a moment later to press into the edge of the rune, leaving a new red-brown mark. Satisfied that the end is now sharp, Nisa returns the roots to the akward backrub. "No need to be sorry," she says, letting her fingers slip from his arm and back into her own cage.
Ellen retreats to silence again, her eyes once again shut; she breathes a sigh, but makes no other sound.
A tiny, breathy grunt is caught in Ewen's throat as the stiffness in his shoulders is painfully eased by Nisa's strange ministrations. Seeing how the marks appeared on his trousers - and he does not intend to ask exactly what they're drawn with, not expecting to like the answer - begs another question, and rolling his shoulders slightly he asks, "What are they for?"
"Protection," is Nisa's simple reply as she shoves her arm into the light, revealing the same markings on her arm. Just as quickly, she pulls her arm back, resuming her curled position in the shadows.
Perhaps, Ewen decides, it's best not to inquire further. A huge, rattling cough denies him the opportunity and he doubles over forwards as the cough is chased by smaller, equally painful ones. His eyes close as the rapid exhalation, coupled with his lack of food, causes blackness to swim across the edges of his vision and his head to feel light. Sucumbing to sleep is tempting, but for now he resists, pulling his head tensely back up.
Nisa frowns and hmms at the coughs racking Ewen's body. Quickly she retracts the root to her own cell, looking around for gauards as she irritates the wound on her wrist with the tip. Satisfied that she sees none paying attention to them at that moment, she returns the root to Ewen's cage, making a new mark on the leg of his pants.
Ewen's head droops again and he purses his lips, trying to quell a grumble from his empty stomach. Illness on top of his injury has left him weak, and his eyes begin to droop once more. "I need to sleep, Nisa," he says quietly. "I- I'm sorry. I hate being in such an awful state."
The door to the arena clangs open. Voices jingle and jangle with their echoes. Masculine company: Harold and another pair, both familiar after the long days; they herd their prisoner of the moment towards the row of cages, a cautious distance gaping between the woman and their controller-armed selves. A few hours away have transformed her, ominously, for the better. A fresh tank top and cargo pants clothe her; the black hair is combed, clean, and bound. The gauntness of before is mostly gone as well, replaced by the smooth curve of muscles and flesh where scars once puckered skin.
Nisa nods and quickly pulls the roots away from Ewen, eyeing the door and the approaching captors. "Sleep Ewe," she says softly, worry in her voice. She remains curled up in the shadows, closing her eyes and folding both her arms into herself.
Nisa nods and quickly pulls the roots away from Ewen, eyeing the door and the approaching captors. "Sleep Ewen," she says softly, worry in her voice. She remains curled up in the shadows, closing her eyes and folding both her arms into herself.
Ellen draws in a deep breath and opens her eyes again. The pale gaze flicks towards Nisa's and Ewen's cages, and then back in the direction of Harold and his charge. Her expression is quite bland. She is silent, crouched in her cage.
With a small nod, Ewen settles to the floor, eyes watching as Yuriko is brought back from the arena. Harold. He closes his eyes, intending to feign sleep and listen to whatever transpires.
Voices wax with the denouement of some story -- banal, if obscene -- and Harold's companions snort laughter even as they go through the routine of restowing their mutant. Open cage door. Motion woman inside. Close cage door. Turn the key. Disinterested professionalism rattles down the ranks of pens, testing each door in turn, (avoiding Ellen's beyond a hasty kick to metal). "How's /she/ doing?" Harold asks, jerking his head at Dramstadt's cage.
Valkyrie regards Harold with a very cold stare. She stays quite still, her hands flat against the bars.
The guard by Ellen's cage pokes gingerly through the bars with his cattle prod, tongue pinched in the corner of his mouth. "Bitchy." His verdict. "Still breathing. --You'll be getting some extra rations tonight, hon. You'll be getting some work coming your way."
Ellen shows her teeth as she lifts her head. This might or might not be acknowledgment. Either way, she stays silent; her eyes are cold and speak depths of hatred, but with her voice she says nothing.
Nisa lifts her head slightly and eyes the cattle prod, hoping that Harold's hand would get close enough to Ellen for her to do soemthing. She smiles inwardly at the thought of Harold suffering painfully.
Harold chuckles at his end of the aisle, fingers massaging the case at his belt. "Lots of work," he agrees cheerfully, with a sidelong glance at the rehabilitated Yuriko. And, more ominously still, across the cages to Nisa. "Busy night. Money'll be rolling in. --Keep up the good work, troops!" As far as encouragement goes, his is lacking in inspiration. The guards chuckle with him, turning away to pad back towards the stairs.
In a low growl, Ellen remarks, apparently to the floor of her cage since that is where her gaze has redirected to, "You won't be able to spend your money when there is nothing left of your head but an ugly mass of undifferentiated fetal tissue."
Nisa's eyes widen and her heart skips a beat. As much as she wants it to be true as well, she /hopes/ that Harold did not hear that remark. "Ellen!" she hisses.
The guards, deaf to all but their own private exchange of wit, forge obliviously on. Crazy, that Ellen. A few shells shy of a can of Planters. In the cramped confines of her own cell, Yuriko tips her shoulder into the bars, face pressing against the metal. "They will have me fight tonight," she says in a cool, mellow alto. "My apologies for the inconvenience, Ms. Dramstadt."
Nisa silently looks from Ellen to Yuriko, wondering who she would be up against. As far as she knew, Yuriko and Sarah where the best they had, and they'd already fought.
Ellen stands swiftly, pressing her hands more firmly in their grip of the bars, and attempts to rattle them again. Useless. "I still must heal that useless X-Man /twit/, as well." Her expression can't quite make up its mind between sneering and frustration. "They left him to bleed unconscious in his cage for awhile after Toad was through with him."
"Inefficient," Yuriko observes to the world at large, though there is resignation in the disapproval. She shifts, straining against the manacles that bind her hands back: wise precaution, in the face of her mutation. Breath exhales in a sigh. "If it should become necessary, his mutation could prove useful."
Nisa's eyes widen a bit. Bobby's not a twit! However, she does not argue with her bringer of hope.
Ellen snorts derisively. "I have no intention of letting any of ours die in this -- disgusting place where I can help it," she says. She lets go of the bars to pace the length of her cage. "Fools or not, and some of these /are/." Her pale eyes roll disdainfully up and down the line of cages. "The blood is all mutant blood here and these miscreants do not deserve a single drop of what they've stolen."
Yuriko curves a faint smile, and if it lacks something of humor, at least it is more human than the blank serenity of her customary expression. "There is always more blood," she murmurs, and slides a thoughtful glance of her own down the caged ranks. "The situation is not without its benefits."
Nisa frowns at Yuriko's comment. "Benefits?" she asks, turning a cruious head to the smaller asain.
"/Benefits/," Ellen repeats. She slams her hand back into the nearest bar, putting the full force of her weight behind the blow.
"Some," Yuriko tells the distant cages, the invisible Valkyrie. The smile tugs tighter. Dark eyes close to the press of forehead against cooling metal. "Slight."
"Such as?" Nisa asks, shifting her position to peer into Yurikos' cage around the sleeping Ewen.
Ellen withdraws from the bars and folds herself back up into her crouch again. "I see none."
"I have not used these skills, to injure or to kill," Yuriko tells the dark, the lilt of foreign accent meditative. "My body remembers things I do not."
"Remember what you don't?" Nisa inquires thoughtfully, thinking that someone would defientely remember killing ot maiming someone before. At least, she would.
With Nisa to speak her curiosity for her, Ellen is silent. There is no point in redundancy. She does edge forward back toward the bars and attempt to find Yuriko's cage with her eyes, though.
The Japanese woman shrugs, the gesture only a sketch of motion through the windows of bars. "My memories are not complete," Yuriko says, a cryptic explanation at best. Eyes open, almond brown consumed by black before pupils contract, sharpened to attention. Nostrils thin. Fresh blood. Again. She stirs restlessly. "It seems I am adequate in the arena."
Nisa nods her head in agreement. "/More/ than adequate."
"It would seem so." Ellen's smile is slight and brief, a shadow over her lips. "I felt sure you were a warrior when I met you."
Warrior. The return of the smile is slight and spare, arid-dry. "It seemed logical," Yuriko says, the husky voice gentling mid-word to a quieter wistfulness. Nostalgia, of a quaint and dangerous sort. "The alterations to my physiology seemed intended for less peaceful purposes."
"Metal or no metal," Ellen replies, the shake of her head that accompanies the correction invisible at this distance, with all these cages between. Her voice stays mild and bland, but there is a hint of a strange, distant certainty to the words. "It was in -- your movements. Your carriage. I remembered you as formidable."
"Trained," the cool alto replies, though there is uncertainty under it: doubt, self-engendered. "Perhaps. I cannot remember it clearly, to say. I was not always thus." And there is regret in the last, an unlikely vulnerability.
Nisa shudders at the thought of metal spikes growing from her bones. "How... did you discover it?" she asks.
"That must be -- so strange," Ellen says, slowly. She blinks several times. "I remember ... everything." The last word is heavy with old, unwieldy loathing.
Yuriko glances to Nisa, brown eyes mild in the likewise mild face. "I awoke," she says, "and I remembered who I was, and there was metal in my body that I did not recall. --Your master knows, I think." A sidelong comment, untouched by reproach.
Nisa ohhs and sits back, pondering Yuriko's statement.
Ellen is silent for a long moment, her gaze tipped downwards. Finally she says, "He might."
"Perhaps he will tell me someday." There are sounds of movement from Yuriko's cage as she settles onto the floor, graceful despite the awkwardness of her bindings. Light catches across the slope of arms and the long, slender throat. The woman sighs a little. "There are many people to kill."
Nisa giggles nerviously at Yuriko's comment. "I thought sid you not kill before?" she asks.
Dark eyes glance up through lashes, quizzical. "I do not /remember/ killing," Yuriko corrects, "But I have killed many times. So I have been told. It seems ... likely."
Nisa ohhs. "Well, maybe person who /tell/ you kill know what happened?" she offers, trying her best to be helpful.
"What happened?" Yuriko wonders, and tips her head to attend. The noises of heartbeats, of breathing, of the creaks and groans of trapped mutants is a quiet thunder to those mutant senses. She reaches for that one thread of voice and tunes her hearing to it, a patient fisherman with a lure.
"What can't remember?" she tries again, blushing at her English. Even withBridget's help as of late, the time away spent mostly lost in thought has made her regress a bit.
Oyama considers the question, brow furled low, and unravels its pieces with a long silence that eventually ends in: "It is my memory. To be told is not the same as to know it for myself."
"But.. maybe it help?" Nisa tries again, though this time more thoroughly confused by Yuriko's answer.
Curiosity scythes back to Nisa. "I have asked," Yuriko says with an adult's patience, "and I have been told. That I have killed in the past is a certainty. That I have been trained to kill is likewise so. That these alterations to my body were done against my will is also assured. I attempt to remember what I have ... lost."
Nisa's eyes widen and despite her attempts at remaining hidden she stands and presses her face agaisnt he bars to get closer to the other woman "Mean someone /made/ you mutant?" she hisses in anger. "Cowards no better than these," she says, waving a hand towards the arena entrance.
The woman's smooth brow wrinkles, puzzled. "Made me, yes. My mutation is mine. Others have augmented or taken advantage of it, I think." Yuriko's head tips again, black slipping fine and thick across her shoulder. "I fail to understand you."
"Poeple who did that to you, no better than /these/ people. Donovan and /Harold/," she tries to explain. And with as much venom as Donovan's name was uttered with, there was more for Harold.
Better. Worse. Perplexity digs deeper, and Yuriko hesitates. "It has proved convenient in this present," she says instead, a touch of lilt in the last word hinting at question.
Nisa nods her head and says, "You best of everyone. Ellen is right, you... born to fight. Look like you were dancing with Sarah, not fighting."
"Training," Yuriko says again, wistful under the dispassion, and closes her eyes again to a self-contained silence.
Nisa sits down in her shadowy corner again, listening to the distant roar of the angry crowd. "Wish had /training/ like that," she mutters.
"I think not." Yuriko's mouth curls, unseen and secretive. "You are ... fragile."
Nisa pouts, not that anyone could see it. "Had basic training in village with sword and spear. Not see why can't know how to fight wihtout weapon."
From Ellen's cage comes sudden laughter: cold and hard and sharp.
For this, Yuriko's eyes open: a flicker of a blink, somewhere between surprise and doubt. "These weapons," she says tactfully, "do not seem practical applications as tools."
Nisa simply shrugs and say, "Is what was taught."
"Sword," trills Valkyrie, rearing up from her crouch to stand straight and tall in the shadows of her cage. "And /spear/. Curiosities. Relics. The weapons of a /dead world/. How nostalgic. How quaint. How /idiotic/."
"Unwieldy," Deathstrike says, with gentler tact, and closes her mouth.
"Is not as useles as think, as Deadpool found out," she reasons. Hmmm, Deadpool. She could really use his help right about now, she thinks, remembering the crazy yet somehow likable man.
"No. Death comes at blade or bullet. It is all crude." Ellen has started moving around again: pacing, back and forth, back and forth, frenetic energy coursing through her taut muscles. Leather creaks and crinkles with her motion. "It is not useless. It is inelegant. /Crude/. It is foolish. There is a difference. It is already /dead/. The world has moved on. Not even the gods fight their battles with spears--" She breaks off and drops into her crouch again, her breath coming strangely short as she hides her face in the cradle of her hands. Through her fingers, a strangled cry: "Death comes at my hands. At my /hands/!"
The eyes that widened to blindness at the mention of Deadpool's name turn towards the blank walls that separate Oyama from Ellen. Yuriko meditates on that quickened breath, another pulse under the moving stream of other lives. She says nothing.
Nisa eyes Ellen with more curiousity. "Death always comes at hands of Valkyrie. Brynhildr, Skuld, Kára Hrist..." she names a few, her voice trailing away to thought.
The response comes in two forms, neither coherent: one, auditory, beginning a low-pitched growl and cycling rapidly up in pitch and volume into an ear-splitting screech; two, physically, in a sudden berserk attack against the bars, as the mad Valkyrie starts pummelling them with her fists.
Something of Ellen's madness infects those in the cages near her. Bodies stir, rousing into restlessness; voices lift in complaint or in sympathy or in untuned distress. At the far end of the basement, guards jerk up in alarm, scrambling for their controllers and deadly cattle prods.
"Ellen! Ellen, calm down! They're coming!" Nisa hisses at the maddened woman, retreating again to her crouched position.
Ellen is beyond caring, or indeed, listening. She snarls and spits and hurls herself against the bars. She scrabbles her nails against the bars like a trapped rat. There do manage to be words. "Do not /speak/ it, do not /speak/--!"
Lillianne startles out of her stupor at the increased agitation, and falls over to look back through the bars at her, casting an accusing look about her.
They come at a run, frightened -- and fear equates to anger, rushed on testosterone tides and heavy work boots. Controllers hum under impatient thumbs, dragging screams out of nearby cages as the guards peddle indiscriminate pain in retaliation for their disturbance. "What the /fuck/ is going on?!" yells one, stabbing a cattle prod through the rails at Ellen's cage. "Shut the fuck up!"
Hearing the screams around her, Nisa instantly quiets, hoping no random prods are shoved in her direction.
Ellen does not shut the fuck up. She lets loose another scream and hurls herself into the bars again, this time launching herself with enough force bruise bone on impact.
Lillianne scrambles to her feet, wide eyed and frightened, though as much for the damage Ellen might do to herself in this state as what brutish guards can inflict. "ELLEN!"
Too late. /Too late/. Even Yuriko rises to the slam of the cage door, unlocked at haste and hurled open so the guards can drive Ellen back with their cattle prods, sparks flying, the stink of burning hair and flesh savory -- like dinner -- in the fetid air. "Shut /up/." It is a frantic, panicked mantra. "Shut up. Shut up. SHUT THE FUCK UP."
Silence only comes with the collapse of Ellen's body to the floor of her cage, its weight hitting the hard surface with a dull thud.
"EL-" The outcry is choked off and swallowed down at one of the guards turns to face the rest of the agitated crowd. Lilli sinks immediately to her knees and bends over to hide her face.
Nisa curls in on herself as tightly as she can, only her eyes peaking out to the other prisoners and the guards.
The guards do not stop with unconsciousness: fear is a stink in the closed confines of the pen, and though electricity turns off eventually, it is only to substitute their function for clubs. A foot rams home into ribs; the prods strike down, raising welts. Abuse makes hay while the sun shines ... until one of them pulls away, breathing heavily, to drag his companion off as well. "Shit," he manages on a thick voice. "Come on. We can't kill her. We need her for the rest of the fucking muties."
Nisa whimpers in her cage, anger brimming to the surface, spilling over a bit as her body shakes from seeing the violence.
Lillianne is shaking too, though fear is uppermost in her mind, not anger. She stays quiet and trembling, the hands held over her ears doing little to muffle the sounds.
They pant as they pass the other mutants, eyes wary in a check for further rebellion from captives that should be cowed. Masculine voices murmur; their bodies stink of old sweat and clothes in need of washing. The guards return to their corner. Blank-eyed in her cell, Yuriko watches them go. And still -- says nothing.