thecapitol | The Crowning of Enjolras

The Crowning of Enjolras

WHO| All Tributes and Victor, plus a few Capitol guests
WHAT| The Crowning of Enjolras
WHERE| The Tribute Center
WHEN| A few weeks after the end of the Arena
WARNINGS| Forced medical experimentation, needles.

The atmosphere surrounding the Crowning is both tense and secretive. The style teams flutter around listlessly, having received no information from which to draft their designs. Newspapers take bets on when it will be announced where the Crowning is being held, descending into grousing when no press release is given. Peacekeepers pour in and out of the Tribute Center, accompanied by scientists who occasionally pull Tributes aside and look at the veins in their elbows. Even the Avoxes seem jumpier than usual.

Aside from the Tribute Center's new giant marble statute of a nude Enjolras, posed like the famed David, one could almost forget the party is supposed to be celebratory.

When the day arrives, the Escorts and their assistants don't lead the Tributes to their style teams to be gussied instead. Instead, they hush the Tributes and bring them to their bedrooms, where a Peacekeeper, a white-coated citizen and several Avoxes await them. The Escorts instruct the Tributes to lay down in their bed and close their eyes, and a needle is inserted into their arms that the Escorts insist will 'take them to the party'. It's soon followed by a series of sensors taped to the forehead.

Just relax, the Escorts say, and they do their very best to make sure their Tributes feel minimal anxiety. If the Tributes resist too much, more Peacekeepers are called in, and the Tributes are forced into submission.

The first effect is a sort of paralysis - not the terrifying inability to move, but a signal to the brain that says why move? Moving is so much effort. It's quickly followed by drowsiness, and then a chill that radiates from the needle into the body, and finally, unconsciousness.

And that is when the party begins. The Tributes, now dressed in luxurious 1830's French clothing of a quality beyond even what their Stylists could manage, wake up in the front row of a large stone theater setting reminiscent of, simultaneously, Greek and French architecture. The floor of the theater is filled with buffets of every imaginable sort of food. Rose petals fall from the sky, which displays a sunset worthy of award-winning photography.

For his part, Enjolras sits in a throne made of books on the ring of the amphitheater, flanked by Marius, Cosette, Eponine, and bizarrely enough Venus Dee Milo and Ellie, seated on lush pillows and carpets made of dinosaur skin (with the heads comically attached and eyes lolling).

"Welcome, welcome, our Tributes and Mentors, to the first ever somnofestival, sponsored by Hypnogogia!" Caesar Flickerman, noted talkshow host and Games presenter, appears in a fabulous sequined toga in the center of the amphitheater. He doesn't need a microphone; the acoustics here are flawless. "And congratulations to our Victor! Let us hear it for Enjolras!"

He awaits applause.

"As you may have noticed, you're inside a shared dream, due to the just fantastic technology from the Capitol and certain, ah, biological contributions from our dear favorite Aunamee." He holds a hand out and gestures to Aunamee, anticipating wild applause. "We thought that for our most philosophical Victor yet, we should celebrate in a way that's a little bit…cerebral."

Caesar laughs and gestures at all the food, then puts a cheeky finger to his lips. "By all means, enjoy yourselves. Even the most indulgent desserts here won't show up on your hips tomorrow. The party only last three hours, so you might as well get started!"

He vanishes into thin air, leaving the Tributes to celebrate. Occasionally, the Tributes will hear voices in their heads - chatter from the Peacekeeper and scientist and Escort still in their room, in the waking world. Otherwise, this is a party like any other, if somewhat surreal in nature.

-/-

The party begins the same way for all the Tributes. For an unlucky few, however, it soon diverges as they come under an unfortunate glitch in the system.

They'll look around and find only a handful of their fellow Tributes around them. The sky, rather than being a magnificent splay of color, is now blank white, and yet the lighting in the theater seems dim. A sense of panic, detached from any conscious thoughts, surges forth in them like the tide.

For them, this isn't a shared dream. This is a shared nightmare.

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"The corpse they left rotting in the desert would say otherwise." A purr, rolling on the edge of a growl, separated from the flanking hounds by degrees.

But otherwise, there was no verbal command, not noticeable direction. The dogs simply moved - together, a surge of red and black. Cueing as if they were the ones able to read their master's mind.

They streaked forward, Wesker's chin lifting behind them, and crossed in front each other - one attacking directly, the other leaping onto the battered, blackened remains of a car in a cry of popping metal and scratching claws.

Wesker waited. Patient. Then, with a flare of ruby, moved.

He saw the dogs run before they ran, their predicted trajectories flushed red like a laser pointer. It would be difficult, fighting all three at once. In his own world, he had learned to take injuries and play dead when he was outnumbered, only to rise up from the ground like the living dead and take his revenge. It was a strategy he didn't want to follow this time. He wanted it to be straight-forward. Clean.

He deserved a kill like this.

He drew his knife at the dog who lunged at him, seeking out its stomach.

Edited 2014-01-03 23:55 (UTC)

It wasn't going to be that easy. The dogs had already died once, and the state had not been strong enough to stick. That little knife has hardly going to be enough do the job either.

The animal took the blade in the gut and gave a sharp yelp. It twisted on the ground, but didn't still, didn't stay - didn't die. It found its footing again, the handle of the knife sticking out like a rib unbound.

It came again as its partner struck from the car, leaping toward Aunamee's shoulders. They attacked together, and Wesker loomed up from behind, ready with a closed fist for when the man dodged away.

Aunamee fought (bled) like an ordinary man. Although he could anticipate the blows (the teeth) and sense Wesker's mind waiting just out of sight (just off-stage), he could only move so quickly, only punch so hard. He kicked and elbowed and took back the discarded knife from the dog's belly at just the right moment, but that didn't stop the skin from hanging off his arm in bloody ribbons, that didn't stop the jaws around his throat, that did not stop the blood and the pus and the bone.

But Aunamee did not slow like a normal man. His strength did not wane. He sought out breaks in the patterns, exits, and eventually he escaped the dogs, if only for a moment, his bleeding body holding steady as can be.

When he escaped, he dove for Wesker with the knife.

Aunamee was resilient. Wesker had watched him in the footage of previous arenas, had watched him suffer and survive things no mere human should have been capable of.

He might have been impressed... if he, himself, weren't capable of the same. Weren't capable of doing better.

He saw the knife coming, a flash of steel, but didn't dodge. Didn't struggle.

Didn't have to.

The blade plunged down, slowed but not stopped by the leather of his bodysuit (the one he'd come in, a black affair, tight to allow ease of movement, leather to deflect shrapnel), and sank into the flesh of his chest. It skipped off a rib, nicked an artery, and his heart lurched in a painful wrench.

He staggered back, choking on his breath... but didn't go down. He caught himself on the trunk of the car, held himself steady as the virus set to work.

His heartbeat returned, just as strong, beating impossibly through the damage, and he reached up and yanked the knife free.

Blood oozed, but too slow, too little, for such a wound.

His lip curled in a biting sneer. The dogs gathered themselves.

And they struck again.

Aunamee inhaled Wesker's pain, even though he knew (he could see) it was temporary. He expected the give and then the take, but it still made his stomach churn when he saw Wesker remove the blade, when the blood refused to come.

And then the dogs came.

This was torture. This was destruction by small degrees. He could see every bite before it happened, could feel the tiny imprints of future claws in future wounds. There was no pain, but it did not matter. He could not indefinitely fight dogs that wouldn't die.

Not with his bare hands.

It occurred to Aunamee that, in his old world, he had always carried certain items on his person when he was expecting a fight. The first was his blade, clean and perfect and nearly unbreakable, which Wesker now held. The second was a collection of smoke bombs. The third was a small vial of neurotoxin, deadly when mixed with food, but even deadlier when dissolved into the smoke bombs.

He could feel them in his jacket. Yes. That was right.

Yes.

When he reached into his jacket for an ordinary smoke bomb, his pinky was dangling by a thread of bleeding muscle.

It fell off completely when he smashed the bomb down into the dogs at his feet.

Snapping and tearing, one of the dog's mouth was open, all but swallowing Aunamee's hand as the bomb came down. Uncaring for the different between flesh and metal, realizing something was wrong only when the man's arm tore away (all ribbons of meat) and the bomb remained, a foreign, choking lump in its throat. It gagged and struggled... and imploded in a spray of bloody chunks and biting shrapnel made of bone and steel.

It peppered the car, flattened a tire in a hiss of air. Struck the other dog, taking it off its feet, destroying a leg, ripping into its chest, spilling out the remains of its rotted insides. (And yet still, it lay alive, shivering and whimpering, working legs kicking instinctively.)

A roar rose up from deep in Wesker's chest, an inhuman sound of rage - his pets - and a leg snapped up, spearing toward Aunamee's back in a vicious mustang kick with all his preternatural strength behind it.

There was no way to escape both the explosion and Wesker's supernatural kick. The blast (stronger than he remembered, too strong) singed his hair and burned the skin from his shins, and then he felt Wesker's foot against his spine, a crack --

He was flung forward, his head noisily colliding with the concrete, his torn up arms doing little to brace his fall.

Wesker's breath snorted from him, like a bull, like a dragon, his nose flaring on the force of it as he pressed forward. His hands flexed at his sides, bones cracking as his fingers stretched and splayed and curled.

He kicked out again, flipping Aunamee over onto his back so he could look down upon the bloodied face. Could see his eyes.

"I can smell it, Aunamee." He sneered down at him, lip curling over his white teeth. "How pathetic you are. What a liar you are."

He flipped over easily. His body was a rag doll. Something inside him had snapped, something fundamental. His eyes were too wide and his blinks were far too long.

But still, he moved to sit up.

His spine crackled and popped, his back bending at an unnatural angle as the parasite took over. The parasite did not know that his arms and legs were paralyzed. It did not know that blood had begun to flood his lungs measure by measure. Aunamee was no longer muscle and bone, but a bundle of invisible energy wearing his flesh like a glove.

He grinned through broken teeth, manic.

"No," he said. "You can't."

Wesker's foot came out again, heel in Aunamee's chest, a stomp to force him back. To put him down again. To hold him place beneath Wesker's boot.

"I can hear it."

Every snap and pop of bone, every rip and tear of flesh. The struggle of his lungs and heart to carry on despite the damage. The thickness of the beat, the gurgle in his chest.

Like sweet music. A lullaby befitting, finally, the Capitol's dream world.

"You can't lie to me."

Aunamee had lost. That much was obvious. He had lost, but he wasn't going to die. In his home world, this would have been enough to enrage him, but here (after everything) it brought him giddy relief. Wesker could defeat him, but he could not destroy him. He had missed this knowledge. This security.

Mortality had robbed him of so much.

He hiccuped, choked on the blood that welled up in his chest. His heart lurched, stumbled, lurched again, and he thought, let it die. He didn't need it.

"I can hear what you hear, sweet Albert," he said, his voice thin. Clogged. He brought a hand up and began to stroke the boot softly, calmly, as though it were a cat. "I hear every lullaby you ever dream about."

His heel ground down, through flesh and muscle to dig into the bone beneath, a steady, hard pressure. Harder, heavier - a moment longer and he'd snap Aunamee like a twig. His lip curled, teeth flashed....

And he stopped, kicking Aunamee's hand away (settling for the crack of fingers under his boot) as he stepped back.

"You will suffer."

He wasn't going to die here, not really.

But Wesker could content himself with the knowledge that he would spend the rest of their time here drowning. In his own insides. In the knowledge of what he was, and what he would never be.

Of how wasn't even worthy of death.

But Aunamee sat up again.

It was not a matter of human biology. Not anymore. He spit blood out of his mouth as he got into his knees, his bones crunching and crackling, his shattered hand propping him up with the shards of his fingers. As Aunamee's body broke and he kept surviving, his posture resembled more of an insect's than a man's.

(He still heard it. That derision. That motherfucking -- )

"This isn't even uncomfortable," he said. He was getting harder to understand. Half of his syllables were gurgles. It wouldn't be long before he lost his voice. "You son of a fucking bitch."

And then, with the strength of a healthy man, he threw himself at Wesker's knees.

He staggered again, the sudden weight around his knees throwing him forward, but he didn't fall, catching himself again on the remains of the car, fingers biting into the steel.

"Down," he sneered, as he might have to one of his dogs, pulling hard against Aunamee's grip, working one leg free enough to kick, to stomp down on the back of the man's neck. Driving him down against the pavement like a hammer to a nail.

Then again, boot slamming between his shoulder-blades. And again, a blow low across his hips.

Bone snapping and popping.

Wesker had watched infected drag themselves for miles by the tips of the broken and bloodied fingers, mindlessly chasing long-gone prey, their bodies useless. Spines snapped, legs broken. He'd watched one for hours once, Umbrella's satellite's tracking it's progress, one slow inch at a time, as it hauled what remained of it's corpse along the street. Half an adult male, the stomach it so longed to fill tore away and left behind with its pinned legs under the car.

He would see Aunamee crawl.

This was when his heart stopped.

But it didn't matter. His heart was extraneous like his bones were extraneous, like his nerves were extraneous, like his spine was extraneous. He was no longer a man, but a doll guided by an invisible hand. Every crack in his bones became a new joint -- or more accurately (more inanimately) a new hinge. His neck lolled forward. His back continued to curve and crackle. He got his feet underneath him despite the unnatural way his hips hung.

An insect's posture. That was right. Like a praying mantis.

He lunged again, only now he went for Wesker's face. With his mouth. His teeth.

It might have been horrifying, had Wesker not been inoculated to such things so very long ago. It might have been fascinating, were not so terribly frustrating.

(For a beat, one unbidden moment, he thought of Project Alice - of what a pair the two of them would have made, conspiring to survive.)

Aunamee's twisted fingers clawed at his throat, his broken teeth pocked with dark bits of asphalt snapped at his face - but he didn't pull away. Instead he reached up, meeting Aunamee's assault head-on.

His hands wrapped around the man's throat, the long pale fingers of one fisting in the mat of dark hair, the others curling under the jaw - and jerking in opposite directions. A fast, hard, pull.

The satisfying crunch of bone.

(Severing the top of the spinal column or extreme trauma to the brain are the most effective methods.)

Then a toss, Wesker tossing him aside like the slab of meat he was.

His entire body shuddered with the snap as though a part of him still remembered being human, being mortal. He fell when Wesker dropped him.

-- But his tangled arms uncurled and caught him as he dropped down to the asphalt. He gasped wordlessly. With his twisted throat, it sounded more like a hiss. A croak. The world had settled at an odd angle. His arms and legs were not where he remembered them, and why was that? For a flickering moment, he felt it, fear, but then he heard the future and its sweet croons and remembered that fear was meaningless to him now. He knew how this fight would end. He always knew.

(Wesker is the strong one, but he is the persistent one, the consistent one, the one never allowed to die, and when he finally takes his powers back from the Capitol --)

He could not aim as well. Not like this. All the same, he kicked, stomped at Wesker's ankle.

"Enough!"

The kick was nothing, a dull thump against his leg. It was the intent that drew the command - Aunamee's stubborn, foolish, refusal to do as he was told.

It was time for this to stop. One way or another.

His elbow shot out, a quick, sharp, powerful strike and glass broke in shower of glittering shards - the window of the car beside them nothing paper beneath his strength. He reached inside and jabbed at the little button down underneath the armrest.

The trunk popped, an ominous squeal of metal and rust.

Then a hand came down on the back of Aunamee's strangely twisted neck, hauling him up like a kitten by the scruff, and Wesker half dragged, half carried the man to the back of the car.

Struggling was useless. Wesker was too strong, too powerful, and Aunamee's arms couldn't quite reach the muscular hand that was gripping his neck. His broken legs dragged on the ground behind him, kicking up pebbles, doing little to hinder his journey.

His journey, then his eventual descent.

Fear came to him again, sharper than before. He did not want to be alone in the darkness.

" -- ghh."

Yet there was no hope of speaking, let alone crooning a witty retort or an icy threat.

(-- he is the persistent one, he endures, he is a fixture, he will always be here and Wesker will not, he is the persistent one, he endures, he is a fixture --)

He made one last attempt to claw at the man.

He pushed. A fast, hard strike, yanking Aunamee off his feet, smashing his face against the bumper. A light tap - by Wesker's usual standards.

"None of that," he sneered, pulling the man back up, rolling him into the yawning trunk like so much garbage. A boneless sack he meant to drop off at the dump.

"Remember your place, Aunamee." He reached for the lid, eyes burning rubies. "This is where you belong."

And the lid slammed home. Locking Aunamee away in the dark, alone. Nothing but the distant wails of the dead for company.

He would heal. In time, he would heal. His hands would take a few hours at most, but the severed bones in his spinal cord would take longer — days, maybe, weeks — although it didn’t matter, of course, because he would be awake long before then.

For now, he had the darkness.

He made no sound as Wesker shoved him forward into the bumper and into the trunk. Only the cracks in his nose and cheekbones answered. When the trunk door lowered over his head, it blacked out the world like an eclipse.

He began to pound on the door.

Not in an attempt to escape, because it would be useless. No, he pounded on the door in a very specific rhythm, a thump-THUMP thump-THUMP that could almost be morse code, but was really the sound of Wesker’s heartbeat. Every knock was precise because every knock was predicted. Locked away with hours of darkness to look forward to (hours to fear), it was his only form of retaliation.

I am listening.

Wesker didn't linger. With one last sneer down at the metal, he turned away, leaving Aunamee to enjoy the dark.

Ignoring the relentless, insistent, drum as he walked away.

Parlor tricks - especially those he could do himself - were hardly impressive.

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The Crowning of Enjolras

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