thecapitol | 99 lives

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99 lives

Who: Azula and open to all
What: Azula has finally kicked her sickness and is back in business
Where: D5 suite, Training room, Video arcade, shopping.
When: After the crowning
Warnings: It's Azula...just assume we're gonna talk about violence and the games.

With the sickness behind her and another arena come and gone Azula has kept quiet for the last few weeks. She of course maintains her daily training sessions but her presence at parties has been more subtle and sometimes missed entirely.

And curiously enough she's been disappearing for hours at a time, not answering her communicator or telling anyone where to find her.

However if someone were to try following her perhaps they'd find out.

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Azula is a creature of habit as much as anyone else. The training hall every day after breakfast where she makes herself available to tributes who desire any training or a sparring partner.

Until then she busies herself with some hand to hand training on the high tech dummies. Lights flash wherever her palms make contact lighting up the pressure points she's hit and scoring her.

Perfection, there can be nothing less.

The Atomic Arcade has recently become a hot spot of Capitol elite looking for a fun and mildly pricey set of digital challanges and games.

But the most popular game and the reason for the flood of business is "The Hunger Games", a arcade style fighter game where you can pick from a number of classic and more recent tributes and do battle against others.

Of course Azula was playing as herself.

When she had discovered the game she had dedicated a few hours of every day to mastering the moves. Crushing children, teenagers and childlike adults who dared step up to challenge her. The Digital Azula laughed proudly mocking each fallen foe lording it's High Score.

Of course the favorite pass time for most Capitol citizens was shopping and Azula was no different.

Strolling casually through one of the Capitol's many boutiques as sharp eyes scanned over the colorful fabrics till she spotted something in red and gold with flecks of orange and pink. It reminded her of a sunrise.

Holding it up against herself she admired the colors and how they played off her cheeks. Of course no one pulled off a flame look as well as Katniss Everdean had...but perhaps enough time had passed she could enjoy it for herself.

The fabric was silky and shiny, surprisingly breathable. She draped it over her arm and resumed shopping.

They should be used to this by now.

Mindy, of course, had last seen Azula at her weakest, at the spa, pissed as fuck that she was doing so bad. Before that there'd been the fight, where Mindy had lost a most humiliating defeat. But those were awhile back and, seeing Azula, Mindy felt...not even any real conflict anymore. Somewhere between Azula getting sick, their fight and the Capitol's new iron clad meddling, Mindy couldn't even bother to feel antagonizing anymore. It just...seemed so long ago.

"Azula." She said simply, working on some hand on hand training of her own.

"Macready."

Azula still didn't like Mindy enough to be polite. She had tried to help the girl once or twice out of professional obligation but the girl had only ever snapped at her for it.

Finally feeling well enough to train Azula wasn't about to slow down, but she didn't push herself to her limit either. It was a matter of endurance and containing her power. Temperance was every bit as important as force.

Yup, they were frosty. Mindy was hardly one for apologizing, mostly because she'd never seen any part of Azula that seemed helpful not buried in spite, and clearly the feeling was mutual. She was fine with that, honestly. She had training to complete, and in the time that Azula was sick, Mindy had not stopped.

If anything, now she had all the more reason to keep herself in good shape. Her defeat had only pushed her to want to be strong enough to win next time. She tore into the dummies with a new kind of ferocity: quick and deadly, getting the vitals with the most delicate slashing.

There was a time when Azula might have made some notes of Mindy's form, or even challenged Mindy to a spar.

But she had greater things on her mind today. Why was the world so much less beautiful then it had been before her sickness? Was the Capitol really tormenting her or was she simply paranoid?

As time and time again her tributes failed to deliver she bitterly blamed them for not listening to her, but if Shepard could inspire fanatical loyalty why couldn't she?

Stepping away from the punching dummies she put some more distance between herself and Mindy to gather up some throwing knives and begin practicing with them. Despite her concerns her aim was still sharp.

Well, they COULD keep doing this all day, but that seemed kind of stupid. She hated uncomfortable silences.

"Are you caught up yet?" She asked casually, dismembering another dummy. "Been a few changes since you were sick. I mean, assuming you didn't ignore it and just blame it on fools or whatever."

It was annoying, but it was all Mindy could honestly think about. Her days of ignoring everything and just training seemed at a close.

She hesitated for a moment and seemed to be considering her options before coming to the conclusion it probably wouldn't hurt to answer.

"Caught up on what exactly?" There was a great number of things she couldn't do while sick.

"On current events. We lost a few people while you were out, oh, and we had some lessons to be taught. You know about the District purging bullshit, but then they punished some mentors recently, even killed one. Close to destroyed that escort too, Effie. I guess even mentor's aren't exempt from the Capitol's gaze."

Not that Mindy ever thought that untrue to begin with. "They're keeping a closer eye on us now."

Azula's Aim stayed true with this next knife throw but it sunk in deeper. Only a trained eye could detect the way her jaw was set more firmly and her muscles tensed.

"Well I suppose those of us who would be under suspicion for being traitors might be inclined to watch what they say." She was of course alluding the Enjolras with maybe just a bit of Mindy mixed in for good measure.

After all despite all she'd been through Azula had never spoken out against the Capitol save for saying she thought they'd gone too far with the purge.

"I am up to date on those things though." She added answering the original question ans another knife found it's mark.

It got to her. Mindy wasn't as good as she was for a small thing: learning how to read people's expressions and what they did was what kept her alive. Azula wasn't just back ready to sing the praises of the Capitol. They were getting to her, much like they were getting to all of them, like how they got to Stephen. They were going too far for even the best bullshitters to forgive.

"Or even casually lambaste the system even," she said. "Not that its what they're looking for. Then again, who really knows what they're looking for."

She paused. "Ok. I'm going to do something that I'm not known for doing, and if my dad saw me, it would probably put him in a coma. You and me, we have a hatchet to bury."

"Having fun playing with yourself over here?"

Diana appears at her mentor's side, leaning over Azula's shoulder to peer at the screen. Her pretty mouth curled at the corners into her usual smirk.

Azula stiffened and her grip on the control stick was so tight she was sure it was leaving a mark in her palm.

Forcing herself to let go she turned around slowly on her stool with her cheeks burning red.

"Diana." She greeted her as neutrally as she could when she had the look of a child that had been caught stealing cookies.

"Hey, Zulazu~" Diana purred in greeting, amused eyes fixed on the red face infront of her.

"I heard you've become a gamer."

"Heard?!" She squeaked a bit too loud and shrunk down a little hoping no one else would look their way.

"Heard from who? What are they saying about me? I'll destroy them!" She hissed more like a deflating balloon then an angry cat. She was caught red handed and she knew it. The digital Azula was still on screen behind her laughing in victory.

It's very clear from the expression on Diana's face that she's stifling laughter.

"You'll destroy them? Wow, you are turning into a geek."

And there it was, the word she'd been dreading. If it was anyone but Diana they'd be picking themselves up off the floor for that.

But it was Diana, because of course Diana would call her out on something so foolish.

"I am not." She pouted with a stern point to her expression. "This is hand eye co-ordination and pattern recognition."

That was enough to catch Azula's curiosity. She lowered her knives and turned to face Mindy with a look of skeptical speculation.

"Go on then." She didn't sound ready to buy the premise but she was willing to consent to Mindy's pitch.

"And you do realize that is exactly the argument a nerd would give, right?" Diana rolled her eyes, still smirking and moves closer to look at the screen.

"Aw, look, little you is so happy."

Resigned to her title Azula sighed and turned back around on her stool.

"She enjoys seeing her enemies defeated. Who wouldn't?" She answers honestly as she moves on to the next stage where she is doing battle with a Shepard character controlled by the computer.

She settles herself on the second stool beside Azula, though not making any move to take the second control stick of course.

"Living vicariously through a game? Check that one off the list too."

Azula looked like she wished to contest that accusation but there really wasn't much she could say in objection.

"It's...fun." She concluded with a defeated sigh. "And I felt like I should make sure if I'm featured in the game that I was appropriately powerful. They seem to have gone well out of their way to balance out the characters abilities so that we measure up to our scores from when we were all tested before our arenas."

"Well, so long as you're having fun."

At some point Diana had taken one Azula's bangs between her fingers and was twirling it around her digits. "And how long have you been here?"

The Shepard character manages to get a good few shots in as Diana playing with Azula's bangs is enough of a distraction to ruin what was about to be a perfect knock out.

Blushing furiously she unleashes her charged up combo move and wipes the Shepard character clean off the screen before answering.

"Just two hours. Why are you here? I know you enjoy games but video games?"

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99 lives

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