I'll win the next.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Who| Mindy, anyone from district nine who aren't in the arena for the room thread, training room is a totally open post
What| Processing and coping, pretty much.
Where| Training room, her suite
When| Several days after her first death
Warnings/Notes| It's Mindy, so...talk to death, talk of gore maybe, and of course lots of swearing.



Three days it took for her to wake up. Four more for her to get out of bed and stop hating everything about this place. Process, swallow the feeling of drowning, the hatred like bile settling in her stomach. Dad was gone, normal life, home, world, gone. All that was left was her in a new place, existing because of her skills. No explanation, no hope, no way to leave it. facts were facts. So she had to adjust.

Mindy had to do her best to take it in, all of it: in her world, dead was dead, and last she checked getting your leg sliced off and then your throat slit was not something that you came back from, Lo and behold, what she'd been told was real: she was alive, back where she started before they threw her into the arena, and her leg never felt better. The temporary relief in this was discarded immediately, realizing everything else that was said about this place had to be true too. They were hamsters on a wheel, having no other option but to work at the bidding of the capitol.

If what had been said was true, eyes were everywhere, even now.

So Mindy did what she told herself she would do anyway: contemplate the other reality of her current situation. She LOST. She lost to some uppity bitch who couldn't even face her properly, had to go and work the situation to her advantage. Even taking out her eye was no real sense of accomplishment for her. She was still in the arena, and she wasn't.

Mindy got to her feet. She didn't need to be told there was a training room: she knew it was here. No one would just have them run the arena without a place to prep, and right now, Mindy needed to hit things. She rummaged through her room until she found a scrunchie, putting her hair in a ponytail and donning some loose flowing shorts and a sports bra and was off, asking until she was lead to the place she was looking for.

Weapons. Punching bags. Those stupid things you climbed on. Yup, this was just what she was looking for. She walked over to get some grip gloves and was already clambering up a wall, stopping every now and then to practice her kicks, ignoring everyone around her for now.

Those bastards wanted a show? She would not disappoint. If she was going to make them remember her, it was time to get back to the place, that place that once had dad in it. Killer instinct.

---

Mindy came back from several hours training and took a shower before settling onto her bed, flicking through coverage of the games. Time to gather some information.

She wondered when the people from her district would pop in.

Comments

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy shook her head, Mindy didn't get it. Maybe she didn't know what she was even trying to get across. Either way it was a lost cause to argue with her. Like so many others around here Sandy found she had no way to get her point across.

"I do what I can for her, but she's the strong one. I'm just...lucky she agreed."

Pruna was by far the luckiest thing that had happened to Sandy since arriving here.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"You gotta get help somewhere. Look, even I offered to help, so its not as bad as you make it out to be. Imagine if we were all assholes, not helping each other and only caring about winning the stupid competition. Might be a lot worse."

She flexed her fingers. "Anyway, even if you can't do what we can, turn that into an asset. Haven't you ever heard of Batman?"

[justoutrunyou]

"Batman?"

She shook her head no.

"Is he a vampire?" Because she'd heard of vampires. Or maybe he was a baseball player...

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Nah, he's a hero on my world. Written about anyway. He doesn't have powers, just gadgets, but mostly he uses his brain to get out of tough situations. It's why people really like him."

[justoutrunyou]

"Like the Punisher?" He was the first "Regular guy" hero that sprang to mind. Her father used to tell stories of him too.

"My daddy said he wasn't a real hero. Like an anti-hero or something. He did good things but in a horrible way."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"The Punisher is more like how I am," Mindy explained. "Batman doesn't try to kill people. Beat them up maybe, but not kill."

She grimaced. "I guess you could call Punisher an anti-hero. I always thought he reflected the real world. Sometimes for greater good, good people do horrible things."

Not sure how I lost this thread. Sorry about that.

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy just looked puzzled.

"What do you mean the "Real world"? Like the other heroes are trying for something that just can't exist?"

She wasn't sure she liked that idea even if it made sense.

Re: Not sure how I lost this thread. Sorry about that.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy shook her head.

"I mean the real world where criminals get away with things all the time and no one stops them, where there ARE no actual superheroes, so you have to become one yourself. In THAT world, you're risking your life day after day, constantly hiding behind a mask and being a vigilante, which cops don't like."

[justoutrunyou]

That still drew a very blank stare from Sandy.

"In my world there's always been Superheroes. They all just went away when the government hunted them down. And now there's not that much crime because the police is so strong and the people barely have any freedom."

To her that was the "real world."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Dystopia." Mindy grunted. That was a future she could imagine, all right. How much different was it from here, aside from the people being paraded around to fight and kill each other?

"Sounds sorta like a movie I saw. But I didn't mean to call your world fake. It's just...worlds like that are in books I read. In the word I live in there are cops and criminals, but criminals always can find a way to work outside the law, even pay them off."

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy knew that word. She didn't like that word...but it fit.

"I think back home, I'm probably a criminal. I break curfew and deface public property. That's enough to get me shot if I'm not fast enough."

Thankfully she'd always been fast enough and smart enough to move with a group so they would always get taken down first.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Yeah, I wouldn't be going after you," she said, snickering. "You're what's considered 'small fry' stuff. I'm talking about, you know, drug dealers, wanted killers, yes men to the big bad that makes people under him go splat when he sees fit. You sound like the person that I would be allied with, not against."

Funny thing was, she was technically doing what had come naturally in her world.

[justoutrunyou]

"Dunno how much good I'd be against those kinds of threats." Sandy lamented. Then again she had just taken down a raptor in the last arena...

"The last hero left in our city was Spider-man. But he's old now. Just a broken old man." She sighed recalling one of the last moments she'd had back home before waking up in this fresh new hell.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"That just takes practice, skill and being quick. Luck helps too, in a pinch. Then again, the more we're in this arena, the more you'll probably get better at this stuff."

Mindy really REALLY was going to have to get used to people talking about meeting superheroes like it was an everyday thing. "He's a guy in a comic in my world...though last I checked, I think he died and Doc Oc was in his body or something stupid like that."

[justoutrunyou]

"That'd be a really crappy comic. Some broken old man fighting crime and getting killed by a doctor?" Clearly Sandy was not completely up to date on the Spider-man mythos. Just the stuff her father had told her.

Also brushing over the fact that her world might be someone else's comic book. Such ideas were just too big for her to wrap her head around right away.

[hit_girl_mindy]

"You'd THINK, but some people just don't know how to stop writing shitty stories: they just keep going until all their bullshit has to get retconned for a new mythos."

Mindy would keep Sandy being a comic book character to herself. Kid had enough on her plate, really.

[justoutrunyou]

Well it was a bit late for that. The cat was out of the bag now, even if Sandy didn't know specifically which comic book she was from.

"It all seems kinda...pointless when you say it like that." She shrugged "I dunno, I'm no writer. I just paint stuff."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"You paint?" Mindy could overlook all the other shit: everyone seemed to be bothered by how bleak she was, it got annoying after awhile. "What do you paint?"

[justoutrunyou]

"Eh." Sandy didn't like talking about her painting and yet some small amount of personal pride kept bringing it up to people...possibly because it usually came with praise for her raw talent.

"Dreams mostly. I gotta get em out of my head or even the special tea I drink to help me sleep won't help some nights."

Between the tea, the painting and Pruna's special anti-nightmare tricks, Sandy was a veritable fortress against nightmares.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy was starting to wonder exactly how much she actually wanted to take from the Capitol when it came to it: it always seemed to be some thing say they could lure you in further.

"Well yeah, but what kinda dreams? Considering where we are, I'm curious."

[justoutrunyou]

"Nightmares usually." Sandy saw no need to hide her particular weaknesses from Mindy. Even if the girl was going to take advantage of them it's not like Sandy could stop her.

"They started a day or two before I got here after I saw a boy get murdered. And now I have them almost every night. Sometimes they're stuff from the arena, sometimes monsters."

One in particular that had been stalking her for almost a year. This one she had called "The Angel" because of how it came into her life.

"Everyone has nightmares here. If you don't before you go into the arena you will after. Even some of the citizens I guess." Given that Effie was the one who suggested the sleeping tea.

[hit_girl_mindy]

Mindy listened quietly. While there were other people who might think to use this against Sandy, this was not Mindy's intention. If anything, it gave her insight about what was going on in this place. Nightmares. Yeah, that sounded about right.

"I have nightmares," Mindy said. "I live with them. Sucks that I gotta have some more, coming here. At least you get to paint them though, right?"

[justoutrunyou]

Sandy nodded and held up her hand counting on her fingers.

"Special Tea to help me sleep, Painting, and meditation." She explained "That's all I've got to try and keep the boogieman out and sometimes it still isn't enough."

But at least if she gave Mindy a heads up she might be able to avoid the bad stuff.

"I don't know if it's really meditation, but that's what I call it anyway." She added hastily. "I'm not like a ninja or anything. I'm just dating an assassin."

[hit_girl_mindy]

"Be careful with the tea. I don't trust these people any farther than I can throw them. Don't even know if I can trust my Hot Chocolate."

Just because you were paranoid didn't mean they weren't out to mess with your head whenever they felt like it.

"Is that what Pruna is?" Mindy smiled. "Man, the fur is gonna fly if we ever get into it then."

[justoutrunyou]

Her stomach knotted at the idea that Effie would knowingly give her something that would be bad for her. Then again if the Capitol really wanted, Effie would never have to know.

"Yeah...try not to encourage her." Sandy urged gently "There are plenty of much bigger targets in the arena. Let's at least hold off on the little girls killing each other off thing till after all the grown ups are dead huh?"

Of course she could ask Mindy that but she knew Pruna would only agree to such a thing because Sandy asked. She cared little for the age, gender or value of any other tribute that wasn't on her friends list.