thecapitol | Set a man to watch all night, My fair lady.

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Set a man to watch all night, My fair lady.

Who| Phillip Gray and YOU
What| Poor man got lost coming here after Night 4
Where| The Capitol streets then the Training grounds
When| After the Arena closed
Warnings/Notes| Possible graphic description of animatronic violence, spoilers for Night 4 of FNaF1

A. Arrival

Being able to move again was quite the surprise for a man who just a few minutes prior, had been staring into his makeshift coffin's soulless eyes. Phil swore he could still feel Bonnie and Chica's grip as they held him down while Freddy fetched the costume. He didn't struggle or fight, they could've made it even more difficult. They could've gone feet-first, break every bone in his body before finishing the job. Did they feel sorry? They must've if they let him keep his badge.

It didn't matter anymore, Phil wasn't in Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria…hell, he wasn’t in the United States if the announcers were proof of that. The Capitol? The Arena? Was he in some futuristic Roman Colosseum? Like that Stargate movie he watched while flipping channels? Did this mean aliens existed? If so, he owed Jeremy $5, a beer, and a supreme pizza. And what the hell was he wearing? It wasn't his FFP uniform (small blessings, no one needed to see the garish colors of a family restaurant security guard), but he never thought he'd wear what he thought was a dark, leather version of a superhero's uniform, sans mask. Taking pride in his former job, Gray put his head high and briefly polished his badge as he looked around, like a tourist.

"As long as there's no robo-" Spotting a peacekeeper shut that dream down instantly, and Gray sighed, "Never mind."

Robots in a giant colosseum, with weapons…it was both fascinating and terribly familiar to Gray, it reminded him of a certain fox bot. Actually, both fox bots. Maybe Toy Chica if she wielded that cupcake right.

Speaking of toys, all these strange looking people looked like Cher raided Barbie and Ken's closet with a chainsaw and the local Muppet factory. Was this the Capitol itself? MTV on acid? As he wandered around town, looking at his map, Phil briefly surmised that if this place was like this, what would the Training Center looked like? Either way, he was going to enjoy himself before his time was up and he'd have to fight.

B. Training Center

Phil hummed "Groove is in the Heart" (good song to hear as he would fix the bots for the day's activities) as he walked into his assigned district area. According to his map, his District was Transportation, a weird selection in his opinion but he figured the people who rescued him from death, saw something he could help out in. Least he could do after all that, maybe he could help with repairs?

Any illusions Gray had of these games being friendly disappeared as soon as he saw the armory and the dummies. To see an array of weapons, most of these definitely not kid-friendly, Phil was glad he hadn't spotted any firearms.He figured firearms would make for very short games, and not everyone was meant to hold a gun properly. Lord knows what a child could do unsupervised, if Mangle was proof at that.

A terrible thought slipped into his mind and he suddenly tensed up: was he…was he going to hurt, no, kill children here? "I…" he tried to speak but immediately shut up; questioning authority could get him in quite a pickle. It was an unspoken reality as he saw past tributes and victors: these were cruel games. Gray unconsciously placed his hand on his badge, just as he and the Fredbear Diner staff did when they found the boy's lifeless body in the back of the restaurant. For years, he'd been tracking down the child killer and now…now he'd be forced to join his ranks.

"Panem et Circes…heh, coulda work where I came from…"

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Venus is already in the Training Center, as she usually is from eight a.m. to noon. She's on a mat in the center of the room, tumbling and rolling and doing flips and twists as if she were performing for an audience rather than practicing combat. If not for the occasional kick or punch she throws in, it could be a dance.

But those kicks could shatter bone and rupture organs if they hit. She clearly knows what she's doing. She pauses at the end of one of her routines, straightening up and then leaning on the rail to the far side of the mat. She grabs a towel and dabs at her face, unwilling to tarnish the trace amounts of mascara and lip gloss she started the day off with.

And she hears music. Her eyebrow rises and she takes a few steps towards the stranger, off the mat and down a step towards him.

"Are you singing Deee-Lite?"

The fact that this person recognized Deee-Lite made Phil grin like a loon. Finally someone who enjoyed some 90's radio! "It was either that or Informer and I am not Canadian enough to attempt that rap," he confessed, blinking a bit as soon as he realized who was talking to him. Holy Fazbear, this woman was something.

"H-Hi..." Damn double greetings, "Hello there, um what were you doing?" Smooth operator he's not.

He played with the knife he had borrowed from the training center and marveled if he could ever do half the stuff she did.

Edited 2015-01-07 05:18 (UTC)

"Building a rocketship to the moon?" She raises an eyebrow and a little bit of her lip, as if the question is stupid, but there's no harshness in her tone. She's used to being one of the more impressive Tributes here, used to people reacting with a little bit of awe and a lot of fear at the idea of having to square against her in the Arena.

And you know, good. That means she's doing it right. She stretches her neck to the side until she hears a pop, then to the other side.

"You don't need to be afraid of me, man. I'm not going to beat you up for lunch money."

"Heh, I, uh, wasn't," this statement is bullcrap, but Phil was jovial enough to get closer, "Name's Phillip, and I swear, I think you're the first one I've seen that knows about that decade."

He was to show off a little too but then remembered just how lean and frankly scraggly he was under the uniform. There was no real meat to him, just 160 pounds of sarcasm, disturbing facts about ghosts and animatronics. He didn't know about a certain troll's affect for one Nicolas Cage.

"Are you District 6 too? I just came here, y'know, um, brush up..." how to talk to women? What is this concept?

"Venus." She holds her hand out to shake, but not before brushing the chalk from the bars off on her thigh. A grey handprint marks her skin. "And you should find some more people who know about it, I'd say mid-2000's is the most comment time period here by a little. Just wait until you run into people from a time before electricity. It's a trip."

She covers for anything awkward with a warm smile. "Five. I'm your downstairs neighbor."

"I died before that time period," A pause and he tried to change the subject "Well I could've died if I hadn't been sent here. That or I crash into people in a sleepy daze from my old sleep schedule," Phil blurted out, "Pleasure to meet you Venus. And downstairs neighbor huh? Have you competed?"

It took a second too late for him to realize that there were people not quite in favor of the Games as a whole.

"Sorry about that. That was rude of me to assume and...I'll show myself out."

"Seven times. Going on my eighth," she says, as if she were just marking off how many times she's had to go to business conferences, as if it were just that, business. Not terrifying or harrowing, because it isn't to her. "And don't stress your sleep schedule. Believe me, no one here's getting the doctor-recommended eight hours."

There's something about her that puts people at ease, a sort of natural charisma associated most with salespeople and therapists. She tries to turn that charm on to Phil, to get him to stop tripping over his words.

"I was lucky to get 5 hours to be honest, heh," the guard smiled back and allowed himself to relax, "You're so chill about it. How do you deal with it? Have you won any of them?"

He sat on on the ground and played with his knife, "How do you deal with death?"

"No wins yet. I'm really just playing for the experience more than anything." She realizes how bloodthirsty that sounds and pauses. "I mean. Not like that."

She doesn't want to admit that she intentionally throws each match, if she gets far enough to do so.

"I..." She embraces it like an old friend. Even now that she doesn't look forward to it, there's a certain familiarity, a coziness with which she greets those cold fingers grasping into her brain every time. "I don't think about it that much. It's just like fainting, to me. Not super fun but I forget all about it in a few days."

It's a lie, but nothing about her tone shows it.

Phil's eyes widened at that admission, looking more horrified than he intended to. "How did you mean it then? Are you learning from all this?"

To be so...nonchalant about dying chilled the man to the core. Venus had seen more arenas than probably most of his District's Tributes, and lost. "Like high-fiving the Grim Reaper every time? Heh...that was in bad taste, I apologize." He believed her lie because to him, Venus had the healthiest outlook of the games. "If you're sure, I'll keep that in mind then." This Arena and future itinerations would break him.

She isn't offended; if anything, she's glad he gave her the social grace of humor to climb back out of this awkward hole with. "Basically. The Grim Reaper and I are buds."

In more ways than one, given how many people she's brought to his doorstep like a cat with a dead bird, as if pleading, pleading this time to be let in for good from a cold life.

"I kind of like to think I learn from everything I do, right? That's how people grow." She doesn't mention that it breaks them too; she's already starting to harbor a concern about Phillip.

The concern would be tested as Phil, for everything he's gone through, tried his damnedest to keep hope alive, if to keep himself sane. That one day, he'd be able to avenge the eleven children that haunted every day of his life for his mistakes. That he could beat the Purple Man to death and rest easy for the first time in a decade or more. Or that he could do something to keep someone alive."At least you didn't have to clean after him," Gray muttered under his breath, "Kinda nasty all things considered."

At that learning bit, the guard looked at Venus in the eye, his smile weary, "Maybe..." Though he was probably useless in the Arena but he's willing to put in the job. He offered to help her up, "I guess I should leave you be, and train. You shouldn't have a newbie, um, hovering over you."

"Ugh, I can only imagine." She had a corpse on her superhero team. She was alright enough with Dead Girl, but the smell of formaldehyde was strong with that one, and it was to cover up the stink.

"Oh, I don't mind," she says quickly, a flicker of concern crossing her face as she worries that she's offended him somehow. She takes his hand and rises to her feet. "Do you, ah. Do you want some help learning how to do any of these? Like I said, I've been here a while, I've tried out all of the stations here a few hundred times.

Whatever snipe he had about body fluids or stinks, Phillip was surprised to hear Venus wanted to teach him anything. He blinked for a moment then nearly dropped the knife he had in his hand, "S-Sure! That'd be great! Um, thanks!" He fumbled for a bit, "I just thought you'd prefer to not have a chatterbox around you. Most people don't like that." Like the guards that muted his calls and thought themselves hot shit.

He wasn't flexible but he was a good learner, things stuck to him with a few rounds for practice.

"I kind of like the noise. You know, when I used to have to go socialize for my job, I'd always get so worried I wasn't keeping up my end of the conversation. It's kind of nice for that not to be an issue." She shrugs and smile, disarming, and leads him to the medical hologram station.

"You got any first aid knowledge?"

Gray lit up at the smile and returned it as he answered, "A little, standard requirement for managers in a family restaurant. Small fractures, cuts, bruises, acid burns, I've had some close calls." That and how to keep a person alive when they've had their brain bit. "This is fancy! Wish I had one of these back home...what does it do?"

"It's basically like a training module? I mean, you put in a scenario..." She selects something from a drop-down menu, 'broken leg', one she's been rehearsing with Joly regularly- "and it teaches you what to do in a bad situation for it. I mean, some of the advice isn't useful, because it's like 'wait for medical attention' and you won't be getting that in the Arena, but..."

But it's easier to consider how to fix something that it is to prepare oneself to kill.

The hologram, bright orange against a transparent blue background, comes up as a life-sized supine human. Readouts indicate the severity of the fracture and the resources at their disposal during this exercise.

"Here, I'm bad at this, you give it a go."

Phil was startled by the sudden appearance of the model, like a puppy who saw a new toy. "I-I don't have that much...oh, that's pretty damn neat."

He thought about it, hand on his chin and proceeded to read the data. "Not in shock, probably feeling a lot pain, yikes." He picked to check for external wounds, any piercing of the skin by the bone. The next thing was to splint it, with whatever two rods and ropes he could find in the simulation. It wasn't great but he was smiling and learning with what Venus was teaching him, as if it were a new arcade game.

Venus, for the most part, doesn't do much teaching, except for how to prompt the machine to give hints and instructions. She lets Phillip take the lead, enjoying the bonding without words, letting him enthuse over the technology and get into it.

He felt great learning new things and tinkering around, a kid in an arcade and asking questions at both the machines and the experienced tribute. He was the sort of man who could either break under the stress of the Games or learn from them. "Thanks," he'd whisper in between simulations, and resumed concentrating on the lessons, as if he hadn't said anything.

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Set a man to watch all night, My fair lady.

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/wrap here?

yep! o7