Calm Like a Bomb

[hit_girl_mindy]

WHO| Mindy, Open
WHAT| General hope for CR interaction, basically
WHERE| I'm going to have her in the training center/tribute tower
WHEN| This week
WARNINGS| Swearing and likely dialogue of the adult situations. Mindy just rolls like that.

1. The training room was becoming her home away from home.

Which, honestly, it HAD to be. Home was where dad trained her, home was making herself ready, finding the tired, aching in her bones welcome after the drudgery of the games forcing her to be alert almost constantly. That had happened too soon after her attempt to conform to real life. Even in her "roll with it" personality demanded the switch, it still left her in a hard place, untrained for fucking wilderness and traps.

She knew better now. She'd eaten more, even allowed herself to get dolled up every so often (two random days) so she could regain a little bit of herself. It just helped her regain a foothold back to what she did best: training her body to shatter some bones. A run n the gymnasium cleared her head. A few choice weapons of the stabbing variety kept her senses sharp. A rundown on long ranged weapons told her how much more she had to go. Everything she did, she recorded on a notepad for herself.

There was no more dad here to keep tabs on her: kill or be killed. Mindy wasn't going to go into the latter category easily.

Right at the moment, she was suspended from a rope, her eyes closed. One of the exercises she had set for herself was sensing everything around her. She had lost the previous games because she blundered into a set trap. That had been reckless, and made her feel even dumber for falling for it. She'd make sure that didn't happen again. This meant sensing everything around her, disciplining her body in the case someone or something had to be detected. This, she knew, would be harder to do suspended like this.


2. It was hard to get to sleep sometimes. Between nightmares of her father and her leg getting torn up, her head was becoming a space of unpleasant imagery and that was not something she needed. She was in a faux lap of luxury suite, she didn't need her mind reminding her how desperate everything was: all of this was wrong. So she regressed back to her over sized shirt and walked out of her suite, trying to gather her thoughts.

Comments

1!

[onlyimmune]

Ellie wandered down to the training room a lot. Nothing about this world was familiar, not really, but the training room at least had a purpose, and she liked that. Even if it required some careful avoidance of some of the crazier tributes.

She was happy though, this time, to find a face that she was all too happy to see, and a grin slipped to her lips as she approached the dangling girl.

"Best bat impression I've ever seen," She quipped.

Re: 1!

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy opened her eye, grinning. Ok, so the past few days had been confusion and frustration and training: seeing someone she actually saw close to her was pretty uplifting. She stayed in position though.

"Intense training, Samurai Jack style," she replied. "Hell, you never know, a tribute might rig a trap like this anyway."

[onlyimmune]

Ellie had no idea who or what Samurai Jack was, but she grinned anyway as she tried to turn her face around upside down to look Mindy in the eye.

"Yeah, it's definitely giving me ideas at least," She teased back. "So what, you're training to see how long you can hang upside down until you go nuts?"

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy was actually doing well for someone who had blood rushing to her head. She moved her body a little, swaying from side to side.

"More like making sure that I can use my senses if I ever need to. I can probably untie this my own, but I wanna make sure next time I do this shit, I'll be able to sense people and things better. I thin I knew you were, what, twenty feet ago. So how'd you make out with the Arena?"

[onlyimmune]

"That's pretty awesome," Ellie admitted as she looked up the rope to where it was tied off from the ceiling. "Hardcore."

She shifts her weight a little bit when she is forced to think about the arena.

"... Yeah. Not sure. Fifth, or something. I kind of lost track, if you know what I mean."

[splendid_roman]

Ian had come into the training room, mostly to remind himself what was there and what he might be able to teach that wasn't currently covered. He saw the girl hanging from the rope in the middle of it and stopped for a moment. When she didn't move he was curious and he came closer, slowly and carefully, although not so quietly his footsteps made no noise.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Now came the time to use her limited skills. Blood was rushing to her head, and while that was distracting, it also cleared her mind. Once her eyes were closed she had to concentrate on what she did not see: every quiet movement, every shuffle, and even feeling presences without seeing them. That part was especially important: how would she have killed all those guys in the warehouse, or at D'Amico's place?

She felt the presence approaching, but made no motion, with her face or her body. No tension, no twitch: just hanging limp.

[splendid_roman]

He wondered if something was wrong. She looked like she was hanging securely, but the lack of movement worried him. He peered at her to see if she was breathing and asked, "Are you alright?"

[hit_girl_mindy]

"I sensed you at about fifteen, twenty feet before you go closer, even when you started to shuffle quietly," Mindy answered, eyes closed. Then, in one swift movement, she undid herself from the rope and flipped herself back on the ground, red faced but grinning.

"I'd definitely say I felt all right."

2!

[knifewithnoname]

Pruna had been in the Capitol for ages now and yet she still hadn't gotten used to sleeping all through the night. Nothing could replace a lifetime of waking after a few hours of sleep to train or work and then sleeping again for a few hours before starting her day.

The Arena's didn't help. When sleep was a good way to to get killed, she woke at every noise even in the Capitol and still snuck out of her room most nights, unable to cope with the silence and being alone.

Sometimes she snuck into Sandy's room and convinced her friend to let her sleep in there, the rest of the time she just wandered. Tonight was a night for wandering and she withdrew into the shadows as she saw a figure, afraid it was an escort who would send her back to her suites.

It wasn't though, it was the girl who she had met in the arena. Pruna smirked and watched her, wondering what she was doing.

Re: 2!

[hit_girl_mindy]

God, what did you do when you had a bout of sleeplessness anyway? She'd watched old videos, she'd trained her ass for today, she'd even gone to be *GASP* sociable in the Cafe. She'd taken Ian's advice and was all smiles, enough that she could feel good and disgusted with herself for a few hours.

"What I wouldn't give for a good comic," she wondered aloud, and then looked up. That was that girl- Pruna, right?

"Oh, hey," she said, running a hand through her hair. "Pruna. Sandy's girlfriend, right?"

[knifewithnoname]

"Yes." She grinned, not even minding that she had been spotted because she had been called Sandy's girlfriend and she liked that.

"You do be knowing Sandy?"

[hit_girl_mindy]

So it was true. It also was very, very odd to her. Pruna was prickly, bitchy and hard to trust...basically, perfect for the Games and someone who looked young that could fuck you up. Sandy was NOTHING like that, and so Mindy found herself wondering if someone might try to use that against Pruna in the next games.

"We've talked awhile, yeah. Pretty disgusted with the games and not sure what to do about it. She could use some training, so if she was dating anyone, I'm glad its you."

As honest as she could be.

1

[deafscythe]

Justin Law does absolutely nothing to try and hide his entrance to the training center. He has his earbuds in, music player blasting rock songs loudly enough that even if the room had been crowded and noisy, everyone in a five foot radius would have heard it. In a quiet room like this, it's impossible to miss.

He ignores the girl hanging down, and picks up a long spear to practice with. If Mindy wants to spar, he'll go along with it, but he has no intentions of letting any of the other tributes get a handle on his fighting capabilities outside of the Arena. What they don't know will kill them later.

Re: 1

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy hears, obviously, and opens one eye. This is more than enough to rouse her, and within minutes she's right side up again, and even more quickly has a spear in her hand, tapping its sharp end at Justins'.

She doesn't know who he is, but the headphones tell her all she needs: he's good. He doesn't need to talk, and in teh training area, Mindy doesn't mind this at all. Body language did the trick.

[deafscythe]

He doesn't usually use spears. He doesn't use any of the weapons offered in the training center, and so everything has been an adjustment. But he smiles politely at Mindy when she approaches, and then tries to see if he can casually knock the spear out of her hand with his own. He doesn't expect to, but it's worth a try.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Nice try, but Mindy was never the type to let a weapon fly easily away in her hand. One of the first things her dad taught her was how to keep a steady grip on your weapon. He not only won't succeed in knocking the weapon out of her hand: he'll also get an equally lot attack with the spear at his knees as Mindy already is shifting stance.

2!

[andproper]

Prim had trouble sleeping, too. It wasn't arenas flashing through the mind - at least not hers - just... casual worry. Fear for her sister. Worry about for the various tributes, and that ever dancing in the background feeling of guilt... the recognition that, quite possibly, none of this would have happened to anyone had she just died in the arena like all the other little girls without big sisters to volunteer for them.

So. All in all. Sleepless nights weren't uncommon for Prim. With no one to crawl into a bed with, she's walking around the halls...

"Hello." You're new. She has no idea who you are. Therefore she's potentially a new friend....

Re: 2!

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy stopped. Huh. Something looked familiar about the girl, and Mindy strained her brain trying to figure out what that was. She was pretty sure she hadn't seen her in Cornucopia, and hadn't seen her in the broadcasts of the Games yet. Maybe she hadn't looked hard enough. Either way, something about her reminded her of Sandy.

"Hey," she said, managing a weak smile. "Finding it hard to sleep in our gold covered cage? I think they might have a pill for that, probably."

Re: 2!

[andproper]

"Those are dangerous." That was the healer in her. She looked instantly concerned that Mindy might take a pill, and thereby harm herself.

She doesn't think the rooms are cages, either - the whole city is. But saying that out loud wouldn't help anything, so she keeps her mouth shut for now.

"...I'm Prim."

Re: 2!

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Depends on who you ask," Mindy said, but decided to take the advice into consideration. Man, it was pretty good to get information straight from the mouths of the people still here. "But I guess I never really planned to take them myself. Good bout of insomnia never hurt anyone."

She definitely couldn't afford to dull her senses right now anyway.

"Prim." If Hawkeye thought that Guy's name was bizarre, obviously he hadn't met this girl yet. "Mindy Macready. So what are you still up for?"

1! (Because new CR is new? 0.0 )

[acro_bat_ic]

Barbara was swinging up above in the rafters, rope to rope - catching and swinging and flipping about. She notices the new girl coming in, but she doesn't make an attemopt to come near just yet. She's pretty freshly dead - one of the last people to go, actually - and she's still trying to work the kinks out of her body. it's always strange, suddenly going back to well fed and unmuscled after weeks of training and starving and dying of poison.

She keeps an eye on Mindy, though. When she's done with her routine, she'll come down and say hi.

Re: 1! (Because new CR is new? 0.0 )

[hit_girl_mindy]

She was still in her zone, but now she could feel some movement up above. It was actually pretty distracting once you shut up and listened: after all, an attack around you was one thing, but above? That was just irritating. Now she was opening her eyes and saw a pretty...familiar looking girl. She was still in the games, or was anyway. Pretty admirable. She was actually pretty curious about someone who was opting to swing around.

"Gotta ask," she called from below, still apparently hanging, "how did you finally bite it?"

Re: 1! (Because new CR is new? 0.0 )

[acro_bat_ic]

She almost missed the last step, surprised - but she managed it. She did a few flips to descend completely to the ground, grimacing a little at question.

"Poison." stuck in the compound, with half the food there deadly... Well. It had basically been a matter of time between hunger and luck caught up.

Re: 1! (Because new CR is new? 0.0 )

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy chuckled. "So the starving got that bad, huh? I don't blame you. It got pretty bad for me too. But there are worst ways to die."

She was already starting to untie the rope. "What's your name anyway?"