(no subject)

[polyturtle]

WHO| Don and OPEN
WHAT| Don has awoken, and...well, he doesn't take what happened too well.
WHEN| After the end of Arena 04
WHERE| Throughout the District 9 floor
WARNING/NOTES| Sadness. Lots of sadness. And stuff.

If Kevin Prentiss was the toast of the town, then at this moment, Donatello was probably the butter spread on top of it.

Of course, his incredible streak - and surprising transformation (what a plot twist! So wonderfully brutal!) had only enhanced his standing with watchers in the Capitol. Few Arenas had one person kill so many people. There was even talk about one party-goer who was going to do a "metamorphosis ball" in honor of Donatello's transformation in the Arena.

But if anyone in the Tribute building was expecting to see Donatello out and about after the end of the Arena, they would be sorely mistaken. He was in his room, on his bed, staring out the windows. In the common room, on the couch, looking at the floor. Barely touching his food or drink.

Donatello had flashes of what he might have done. They were faint, almost dream-like, sporadic flashes. He can remember running and tearing into...something fleshy. He didn't know what. Almost as quickly as they came, they were gone. It was enough for him to know that he didn't want to know anymore. Which, of course, he was filled in on anyways, by one of his Stylists (who also maintained a healthy distance from him as he was given the news, and then ran out of the room).

This just...killed him. The Gamemakers had to know. They had to know he was infected. The file they had on him - the brief glance of it he saw - had concise information on him. How could they let him into a place with radioactivity knowing-

Ha. Who am I kidding. Because it makes a good story...good TV. That's all it is...to the people in this city.

He was tired of this game.

He wanted to go home now.

Comments

[needsaprince]

"Donatello?"

She doesn't want to surprise him. It's rude and, maybe, somewhere deeper than she wants to admit, the idea scares her a little bit.

But she pushes that away. This is a friend.

[polyturtle]

It took him a moment to quietly look up at Charlotte. Lottie, who practically died in his arms, covered in sores from radioactive sores.

"Hey..."

What is he supposed to say to her, after what happened? She had to have seen. The Capitol practically made it a requirement that felled Tributes watch what occurred after their deaths in the Arenas.

[needsaprince]

"Hey you, can I sit?"

That look broke her heart. She never thought before turtles could looks so darn sad.

[polyturtle]

"...Yeah, it's fine. I mean, if you're ok with it."

Forget looking sad. Donatello felt like his heart was ripped out of his body.

[needsaprince]

"Of course I'm ok with it darlin'."

She sit's next to him, reaching to take his big hand in her own much smaller ones.

"Do you wanna talk about it?"

[polyturtle]

Don seemed slightly surprised when Lottie touched him. She...was actually ok with that? Even after what happened? She had to have seen it. All of it.

"...I..." Don looked up at her. "I don't know if its something you really want to know about, Lottie."

[needsaprince]

"Friends listen even when they don't want to hear it."

She knew it didn't mean everyone wanted to talk. Lord, she knew Tia didn't wanna talk about too much.

But she would listen.

[polyturtle]

...

Oh. Oh, Lottie. Why are you so disarming?

It takes a few moments, but Don does start to speak.

"...Well...did..." Pause. "Did I ever tell you how I ended up being a mutant turtle?"

[needsaprince]

She settles herself, obviously here for the long haul. She looked for a moment like a little girl again, settling in for story time.

"No, I don't think so." She thought back to what she and Riddick had discussed. "Was it...radiation?"

The word was so obviously foreign to her, and so loaded, with thing she had no idea about.

Because icon is otherwise appropriate lol

[polyturtle]

"Yeah." Don nodded. "It was. Radiation...is basically a type of energy. It's emitted by certain elements and sub-particles, in a variety of ways. It comes from certain minerals, from tiny particles that are tinier than tiny, and even the very sun emits radiation. It can be harnessed for a variety of practical uses, like X-rays. It is even possible to charge atoms enough for them to become irradiated, and use those atoms to light up an entire country. Or...to get a sun tan.

"Usually, being exposed to a lot of radiation can cause problems...like...the ones that happened to everyone in the Arena. The ruins were a nuclear reactor that melted down - basically, a radiation-making energy factory that exploded because there was so many energized and radioactive particles in it that they couldn't be controlled. So all the radiation was all released into the air, and everyone breathed in fatal amounts of it, which caused our bodies to be damaged. If we didn't die, we'd probably mutate like the animals in there did, the same with our offspring."

"But sometimes, for whatever reason, radiation causes...other things to happen. Which is what happened when I was a baby - I was exposed to radiation from another planet, which mutated my entire family. But we became more intelligent, and more human-like, because of the radiation's composition."

[needsaprince]

It was fascinating, and Lottie listened in wide eyed awe. She knew this wasn't native to his world, that somewhere, in her world, people must be discovering the same things, the same magic. But it wasn't magic, was it? Science.

"So, it effected you differently than us? Because of what had happened before?

FOREVER LATE FOREVER AHAHAHAHA

[polyturtle]

"Yeah. Sort of." Donatello sighed. "See, back home, about a year ago, my brothers and I...we got kidnapped by this government group. They drew our blood and altered it to make fake aliens to attack our city. They were practically zombies that exploded when you touched them."

He put a hand under his chin, deep in thought.

"Not sure how, exactly, but some of their remains got into the sewers and...somewhere along the way, the 'alien' cells mutated again into a viral state, and began infecting anything that happened to get it into its system. And the infected people in turn mutated into monsters. When we found these sick creatures, well, one of them had sharp stingers. One of which nicked my thigh."

Frown.

"So basically, my mutation reacted with that virus which reacted to the radiation in the Arena. And...you saw the result."

[needsaprince]

She shuddered softly as he told his tale of woe. Her mind provided images too readily of the kinds of radiated monsters lurking in the sewers.

"But, it won't happen out here, right?"