#sichergames

[paxton-bringsthe-factsin]

muggle gladiators || the games task no. 1

"Life's a game we all have to play"

Two men led her down a dark hallway. Paxton was trying to keep a solid face. No emotions, no emotions, she kept repeating to herself. She could get through whatever they threw at her, she could handle it. Soon, the screams and chanting of the crowd could be heard, a roar that fell upon the arena. It was sickening. These people who could willingly participate and watch something so physically gross, it was horrible.It almost would’ve made Paxton’s skin crawl. But no. She wasn’t one with a weak stomach.

No choice was ever give to Paxton about the matter. She was a slave, a source of amusement and entertainment- all because she didn’t come from some big pureblood family. Paxton was considered the lowest of the low all because of some blood that ran in her veins. So she guessed that was why they wanted to see it flow. It didn’t take long for them to push her out into the arena, and then that was it.But she wouldn’t go down. She wouldn’t die on their terms.

A man gave her two daggers, and Paxton loved the feeling they gave her. They were strong, solid, but still stealthy, sneaky. Exactly what she needed. The boy on the other side of the arena glanced at her and smiled. He seemed happy with himself. All he had to do was kill a girl, and a 5’2 one at that. But Pax was a harder target than that. Screams from the crowd urged the competitors to start the match, and waited for him to make the first move. Defense was always a better angle, especially for her. She had been in her fair amount of fights over the years and she knew what she was doing. Apparently this boy didn’t. Brute strength was what he was banking on (apparently his name was Kane) but it didn’t work in his favor. Paxton’s small body was able to slip right out of his grasp. Quickly she was able to be behind him, taking her dagger and stabbing him in the back.

Immediately though when she saw the blood, memories started pouring in. The blood on the ground when her brother died…the blood that flowed out of the nose of the first person she punched, the sound of the bones crunching…everything came back at once just by this one sight of blood, and Paxton was dead in her tracks, stuck in her mind. Kane thrashed from the pain, but turned quickly to grab Paxton by the collar while she was in her dazed state. Pulled from her memories, the girl was shocked to see the boy’s fist come down into her face. Hard and fast, he continued to hit her, blood pouring down her face. He dropped her, and she was more dazed than before. Kane dropped her, the dirt immediately creating a cloud around her body.

The crowd cheered and Kane apparently enjoyed it, looking up to them and smiling smugly. As if giving the crowd what they wanted, he whipped out his sword, swinging it high into the air.

Paxton laughed. Of course this was the weapon he had chosen. A heavy, manly, sword. Who would pick anything else? But Paxton knew that this could be a weakness. As he swung it into the air, Paxton could see his clumsiness….it was too heavy for him. This guy didn’t have any training with swords, any idea what it would be like to use one. Hell, Paxton didn’t either, but her wits let her know that he was worse.  She moved fast, pulling her daggers out from under her, catching the sword just inches from her face. Sweat mixed with the blood on her face as she struggled to keep the sharp blade away. He was strong, but Paxton could be stronger. Paxton worked her blades to switch his weight, and had his sword stuck in the dirt beside her in a matter of seconds.

It didn’t take long from there. Paxton stopped worrying about morals, ethics. This wasn’t the time or the place. It was his life or hers, and she was going to be a survivor. No longer was she going to think about each action. She was going to bank on instinct. Her attacker tried to grab her, but Paxton rolled, jumping up and readying herself for her next move. Kane rushed her and Paxton dodged it, instead tackling him, struggling to get him to the ground. She may have been short but apparently she wasn’t light. She was able to hold him down, his arms wiggling, his face scrunched in frustration. But Paxton wasn’t thinking, she wasn’t going to analyze this. It was kill or be killed in here. Paxton knew that.  Her instinct was to slit his throat- simple, easy. So that’s exactly what she did. She took her daggers, and slit his throat.

It was dead silent. At least for her it was. All she was hearing was her own heartbeat. Her own heavy breathing. It took a few moments of her staring at what she had done, at the limp body beneath her, before the crowd’s roaring settled into her ears. Two men had to drag her away from the scene, she was unable to move.  Blood was spattered all over her, her face, her hands, her chest. It wasn't hers. 

This was exactly what she was. A killer. And maybe she should've stopped fighting that a long time ago.

[notthe-littlemermaid-ariel-blog]

surviving mermen - event no. 1

Ariel's light brown eyes suddenly snapped open as they darted around frantically, looking at her surroundings. Where the hell was she? Though she stared and stared, she had no idea where she was. Her brain was hurting too much to actually think. Maybe that was due to the fact she was knocked unconscious before she was brought wherever she was. She let out a huff and saw bubbles float in front of her. Then it hit her. She was underwater. Completely submerged underwater. 

Panic rose in her entire being and she almost started freaking out but then she realized she could easily swim up and out of the lake. She almost laughed at herself for being so stupid; she almost had a panic attack for nothing. She attempted to swim upwards but found that she couldn't. Her eyebrows furrowed and she looked for the source of her restriction. She found that she was shackled, both by the arms and the legs. She felt all her hope sink. She was stuck down here, without a way to get out. She was going to die. 

Despite telling herself to calm down, she couldn't help her increased breathing rate. She was hyperventilating. This was one of her many fears. Drowning. Of course, she hadn't drowned yet, which was a bit weird she realized, but she was going to soon. The Ministry probably had a time limit on how long she could breathe down here and who knows how long she'd been down here already. Her biggest fear was also very possible; death. If she didn't get out somehow, she'd drown and then die. What a way to face your fears, huh? 

She twisted her body as much as she could without making the shackles dig into her skin too much to look for a way to break the chains. The water was very murky and she could barely see enough as it is, but now it seemed impossible to find an escape. Ariel wanted to scream out in frustration as she became more and more anxious, as well as panicked. She needed to find a way out, she refused to die down here. In the midst of her frantic searching, she heard a noise. Was there someone else down here? Maybe someone to save her? Hopeful, she turned towards the noise, only to have her heart sink and her stomach drop to her feet.

Quite a ways away was, what looked like at first glance, a human. But as  Ariel looked more closely, she saw the protruding eyes and the yellow skin. It wasn't a human; it was a merman. She had always read stories and seen pictures about mermen and she hadn't been scared then. Maybe it was because she was in the situation she was in now and now she saw how freaky those things looked that made the fear ripple throughout her.

Okay, maybe things could turn around for her. Maybe this merman wasn't going to hurt her and was instead going to aid her or something. Most likely not, but hey, can't blame a girl for being wishful. She connected gazes with the merman, trying to express on her face that she needed help and that she was going to do anything to hurt him. He obviously didn't get it because he let out a ferocious shriek which made Ariel cower back. So that didn't work out. Since the merman wasn't going to help her, she went back to finding a way to escape. She was going to run out of breath soon, she could feel it. She needed to hurry. Too focused in her search, she didn't notice the gathering of more and more mermen until eventually they were surrounding her on every side. Shrieks interrupted her searching and she glanced over her shoulder.

"Hey, do you think you can shut up, I'm trying to-" She stopped short when she took a double take back over her shoulder and her eyes widened drastically. They all seemed on attack mode, ready to pounce at the right moment. She casually- or at least, that's what she tried to accomplish- moved her body down toward the shackles on her ankles and tried fervently to miraculously find a knife or a key so she could get out. She didn't find either. But she did find a large rock which was the next big thing. It wasn't her go-to weapon of choice, but it would have to work. She picked it up and set on smashing at her shackles. 

She should have known that getting out wouldn't be so easy. She felt the mermen swim around her, probably analyzing her. She tried to ignore them. But a sharp pain across her face made her stop. She looked up to see a trident behind her. One of the mermen had thrown the trident at her and it had swiped across her face. Blood clouded her vision but she still continued to hack away, adrenaline beginning to flow through her. She managed to get the shackles off her ankles and started to work on her arms. Her arms were free in only a few moments. She internally sighed in relief. Now she had to find a way to get to the surface without having a merman tailing her.

In quick thinking, she grabbed the trident behind her and held it out in front of her, a silent warning to all those who attempted to attack her. So far, none of them attacked as she continued swimming upwards, so maybe she was home-free. But as she felt claws dig into her back, that definitely wasn't the case. Despite her immense pain, she ignored it and turned around to stab the merman wherever she could. It let out a horrible shriek as its murky blood filled the surrounding space. This sent all the other mermen into a frenzy as they all tried to attack her. Ariel did the best she could to stab each and every one of them, all while trying to swim to the surface. She hadn't even realized she had run out of breath a while ago and now she desperately needed air. 

Her trident was knocked out of her hands and she suddenly felt very weak without it. Two mermen attacked her from either side, their claws getting at any piece of skin they could find. She wanted to scream out, but if she did, that would be the end of her. So instead she kicked them off, momentarily surprising them and swimming upwards as fast as she could. On her way up, she found the trident again and she grabbed it, all while blindly swinging it behind her. If one of them were following her, they'd meet their death easily. 

Her head broke through the surface and she gasped out for only a moment before she bent the trident into the water, waiting to see if any would try to follow her up. Her heart was racing really fast and she was sure for a moment that maybe she'd die from it. She waited for a merman to grab a her leg and pull her back down, but it never happened. That's when she allowed herself to finally sigh in relief and let her guard down. Suddenly cheering and booing were heard and Ariel realized what was happening. While she fought for her life, all the people in the stands were watching, laughing, hoping she wouldn't make it. They wanted to see her fall. As she swam back to shore and was placed in another round of shackles, she found the Minister and connected gazes with him. Her eyes were burning with hatred and the silent promise that she'd aid any and all others to see him dead.

[danielle-gable]

June 30th →Dani in the games.

Dani had hardly slept last night. Between the uncomfortable “bed”, scratchy rags, and the stress and shock of everything that had happened lately she had caught maybe two hours of rest. She could hear the grunts and shouts of the gladiators fighting before her turn in the arena. She stood shaking with anticipation in the dark holding area waiting until she was to be thrown into a fight to her death. She had accepted the fact that she probably not going to make it out of this. It almost gave her relief to think she wouldn’t ever have to go back to the room of requirement. In less than an hour she would be done with all of this. She could probably count the number of heartbeats she had left.  She just hoped that whoever she would be fighting would make her death quick and as painless as possible.

Dani had never been a violent person; she couldn’t even kill spiders without feeling bad. She had little to no muscle on her five foot two body. She didn’t have a prayer of surviving. Her mind wandered to a time when she was much younger and she would try to wrestle with her little sister Brittany. Even though her sister was three years her younger, Dani would always end up beneath her sibling. They would giggle and rolled around until their mother would complain about them acting like little boys by rough housing. Her heart ached as she wondered how her family would find out about their oldest daughter’s death…She wondered how much they would be told. Would her friends tell them the whole story or spare them the gory details? She longed just to give them all just one last hug.

 “Oi! Move it!” A harsh raspy voice snapped her out of her day dreaming. She hadn’t realized that it was now her turn and a polizei gave her a quick hard shove to get her moving. She nearly fell to the ground but somehow in her groggy half-awake state of mind she found enough balance to catch herself and move forward into the stadium.

She squinted her eyes to trying to focus and get a better look at who she would be fighting. She was shocked when she saw a small girl she recognized; she was a first year from Hufflepuff. She couldn't quite remember her name. It had never occurred to Dani that it might be possible to be put up against somebody smaller than her. The first year was small for her age with big round brown eyes and short blonde hair. The small girl’s eyes quickly darted from Dani to the people in the stands to the weapons on the ground. The girl looked like a small frightened animal. It made Dani sick. It wasn’t fair, this girl was eleven. Not even a teenager yet.  She could only imagine what was going on the blonde’s mind. She must be even more frightened than Dani. The longer she stared at the girl the more Dani realized that the small child reminded her of somebody she knew…she staggered back a few steps. Suddenly struck with the realization that the girl looked just like her littlest sister Darcy. Maybe it was the sleep deprivation or the fear that caused this connection that had never crossed her mind all the times she’d seen the girl in the common room chatting and giggling with her friends but now that she saw it she couldn’t see anything but her three year old sister. Dani squeezed her eyes shut and put her hands over her ears trying to block out the shouts of encouragement coming from the stands. “Kill her!” “Kick her ass!” “Let’s see some blood!”

Dani realized that closing her eyes was probably the stupidest thing she could have done at the same time that the first year realized that Dani was vulnerable with her eyes closed. The first year ran forward and kicked Dani in the stomach. Dani landed on her back with a thud and struggled to get air into her lungs. She pushed herself up into a sitting position and tried to find the blonde. She was about three feet from Dani trying to pick up a sword much too big for her small frame. There were tears streaming down the younger girls face as she ditched the sword plan and came with a few small daggers toward Dani.

“What the hell are you doing Dani?! Get up! Get up! Get up!”  Dani recognized the panicked voice of one of her best friends Laurel sitting with the Slytherins. Her friend’s frantic voice awoke something in her. She shook her head trying to sort out her thoughts. She attempted to scramble up when a dagger came flying toward her face. Dani shrieked and dove to the ground. She suddenly felt her mind clear and the lucidness of her thoughts disappear. There was a stinging in her cheek. She reached up and felt warm blood coming from where the dagger had just skimmed the surface of her skin.  Dani jumped up to face her attacker. The first year was staring at Dani’s face with the horror of realizing what she had just done. Dani then noticed that the first year bore little resemblance to her precious sister Darcy. With her wits finally about her she realized that she could survive.

With this new found hope she reached down and picked up the bloody dagger and threw it quickly and forcefully toward the frightened girl. She silently thanked her parents for all the years they’d made her play softball. The dagger stuck itself into the young girl’s upper thigh and she took a few shocked steps back staring at the wound. When she looked back up at Dani she had a wild look in her eyes and Dani knew she was in for a fight. The young girl let out a howl and charged toward Dani and tackled her to the ground taking every opportunity to scratch and pull Dani’s hair. But Dani was ready for the attack and soon she had the girl pinned beneath her. Once she was on top of the girl she realized she didn’t have a plan. She looked around and noticed a small knife a few inches to her left. She repositioned herself and leaned toward the knife. The girl realized what she was doing and used it her advantage. She heaved Dani off of her by pushing her hard left causing Dani to roll over. She felt a sharp pain in her right wrist as she rolled over her arm. She clutched her wrist and stood up. It was definitely broken. She bit her lip to keep from screaming out in pain. Lucky Dani was left handed. Dani spotted a club and scooped it up with her good hand and ran toward the girl. The first year wasn't very fast and Dani caught up to her in just a few bounds. She hit the girl as hard as she could in the back of the head and cringed when the club made contact with the girls skull. The girl fell forward, she was going to die very soon. Dani had struck her with a deathly blow. Dani hadn't noticed but she was now crying, tears streaming down her face as she knelt down next to the dying girl. 

"I'm so sorry. I'm so so sorry. I didn't want to. I'm sorry" Dani kept repeating this sentence between sobs cradling the girl's small head, until the she was gone. She hadn't even known her name...

[fetching-adam-fletcher]

event number 2. // muggle gladiators.

"Nobody said it was easy. Not once was that claimed, but if you look inside yourself... way down deep, you'll see that there's a monster inside. Unleash it... and no one can stand in your way."

The sounds of applause and people shouting made Adam sick to his stomach. It was disgusting. Absolutely disgusting that they were cheering over the fact that one of the two boys in that arena was going to die. 

And it was not going to be Adam.

Maybe the boy across from him was younger, and he probably had more people who would miss him, pretty much everyone had more friends than Adam did, so he was being selfish, terribly selfish for taking this boys life when Adam's death would be so welcomed. 

But he, for the first time in his life, had something to fight for.

He was so helpless when his brother betrayed his sister. So helpless when his parents didn't care. But now he had something to fight for. Something to live for.

He picked up a long metal stick, swung around and hit the boy in the back of the head. 

He didn't have much time, he wouldn't be able to stomach the violence. Anything more than a fist fight made him feel terrible. He had never seriously wounded anybody. A few broken noses, yeah, broken bones a few times too. Zachary sometimes bit off more than he could chew, and Adam had to be his right hand man. He was always the right hand man. 

But maybe that was because he didn't have the kind of guts that Zach had. Maybe that was because Zach was a monster. Maybe Adam wasn't a monster.

Yet there he was, now holding a sword to the other boy's neck after a seemingly endless amount of back and forth battling.

As he stared the boy, who was unarmed and knew he was going to die, Adam shed a tear. He almost said sorry, but instead he quickly slashed the tip of the blade across the boys neck. He threw the sword away from himself, watching the body fall lifeless to the ground. 

He left the stadium, watching the faces around him as he passed. They were looking at him like he was a champion, but he knew what he really was, and maybe he had known it all along.

A monster.

[littlelovelylulu-blog]

event number two. // muggle gladiators.

"When it comes down to it... when your life is on the line... you fight for it. Because everyone has something to fight for...When all hope is lost, and you have almost nothing left, there is always one more thing. Miracles."

Lulu looked up from beneath her eyelashes as she kneeled on the ground where she had been shoved down by the man who escorted her into this Romanesque arena. There was people in the stands, surrounding her, students she recognized, surrounded by family, some dressed in clothes that probably cost more than Lulu's house. Then she looked up, straight across the arena at the man facing her. 

Maybe she should have been surprised that they stack the cards so unevenly against her, but she wasn't. He was a year below her, Slytherin. Kevin, was his name. She had actually tutored him just weeks ago, helped him pass this year. Now he stood there, nearly twice her size, with a crowbar in one hand and a long sword in the other hand. He was going to kill her. Of course, she didn't blame him.

She was going to kill him too.

Think this through Lulu. Think it through. There's a way out. There's always a way out.

Her eyes searched the arena as the boy charged. He was too big. Clumsy. Not that fast. She realized that his advantage was strength. Not agility. He was also dimwitted. She could remember that as well.

She had no more time to strategize, so she ran. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her. She couldn't turn around, but she heard heavy breaths behind her. The weapons were right there. Right. There.

In a last ditch effort, she dove forward, grabbing a length of chain. When she turned around, he was directly above her, holding the sword over his head. She threw the chain around one of his ankles, pulling until the boy collapsed to the dirt below. The sword then clattered across the ground, giving Lulu enough time to stand up and grab the weapon. He reached out, trying to grab her ankle.

She could feels his fingers graze the skin on her calf as he rolled over onto his chest.

Surely it wasn't actually silent in the arena. Surely people were screaming and probably cheering. But she couldn't hear them. She could see them. She couldn't see anything that wasn't the sword, and she picked it up. It was heavy. Heavier than she thought. When she spun around on her heel, she stabbed the sword through the back of his shoulder. He screamed and writhed in pain. Lulu's hands shook as she pushed it in even farther, until it was so deep it was all the way in the ground. She turned the chain into a noose of sorts, and as he struggled in pain she wrapped it around his neck. Pulling on it tight, she heard him choke. She put another, thinner sword through the end of the chain and pushed that into the ground.

He was trapped. Completely and utterly trapped by a chain around his neck that tightened every time he struggled, and a sword through his back that kept him pinned to the ground.

She had to finish this. She had to get out of there alive, so with a large dagger in her hand, she straddled his waist and shoved it down into his heart, the muscles in his back made it hard, but the blood spilling out of the wound at a rapid rate told her she had succeeded. For good measure, she pulled the knife out and back in three times, until he stopped squirming underneath her, and she watched a pool of blood grow around his head, the stream beginning at his lips.

She stood up shakily, stumbling to the side. She looked around and people were indeed cheering. Standing up and applauding as the boys body was dragged away, blood trailing along behind him. She was escorted from the arena. Her eyes were wide, watching everyone cheer for her.

Students she knew, students she had helped with exams were smiling and giving her thumbs up. Congratulating her for being victorious. 

Congratulating her for being a murderer.

[tobiassinking-blog]

MUGGLE GLADIATORS - EVENT NO.2

                                                          { what is he? } 

                                               a           hollow           skeleton                                                with   bones    made   out   of                                                 rotting                         stardust 

                                                       -  by xmortuus [ x ] 

Tobias stared at the man in front of him-- a hulking man, a Gryffindor man, boy, student. It was in that moment that he identified the sword in the hand of his opponent. This was a brave Gryffindor trying to survive-- and Tobias was the boy who no one would expect to fight except for the students in the stands. A majority of them had seen the violent side of him, the 'freak' side, the one that came out when he mentally went blank and the hallucinations began to rise. Depression is a sad thing; major depression is lethal. This was why the Gryffindor, hulking Gryffindor, was on defense. This was why he showed protection.

Because if he thought he could take him out in a swipe, he would've done so already.

When the sword began to turn to snakes and the arena began to spin, Toby saw his brother there with them. Milo, what are you doing here? Milo, go away! But the Milo hallucination wasn't moving, he was still in place, looking as clear as day to Toby. And the hallucination manifested to the point where the Gryffindor-- Zane, Zane was his name-- wasn't still on defense like he was in reality, but he was sliding a sword through hallucination-Milo's chest.

Anger and fear boiled in Toby; he let out a scream that was all too real. No one could see what he did but he felt it all too much. He clawed at his arms and fell to the floor, grabbing, crying, hyperventilating. And when he felt out of breath, his mind went blank, and the subconscious state of Tobias Makor II took over.

He blinked his eyes and all emotion disappeared; it was like watching a human die, only seeing them move again. His movements were no longer clumsy, but mechanical. Toby moved to the weapons on the walls of the arena, ignoring his opponent, who was on guard far more than he was before. Hands slid against the cool metal of some and on the smooth wood of others, but they did not stopped until he had circled nearly half way around and reached an assortment of knives on the wall.

"Poor choice, Makor." Zane smirked, making Toby slowly turn his head around to the male. "Don't bring a knife to a sword fight."

He turned back and lifted up two of the knives. If conscious, Toby wouldn't understand why he was drawn to the knives, but in his subconscious state he knew they were the ones his mother made him practice with when he was too little to differentiate right from wrong. It was skill ingrained in him, in a part of his mind that was closed to all of him but his subconscious.

With a spin on his heels and a flick of his wrists, the knives went flying into Zane's wrists, making veins spray crimson streams. The opponent screamed and people in the stands cheered at them like this was some kind of sport-- he was nothing but a toy to them. Nothing but a toy. And that was one thing he would remember.

Despite the blood hitting his hair, face, and shirt once he moved to the male, Tobias had one leg on either side of him using not the knives but his fists now. Punches to his chest, his jaw, his cheeks, his eyes-- he was pummeling every spot that he could bloody. There was a crack of the opponents ribs and the crack made Toby pause; it nearly snapped him out of his dark state. This is when the tables turned, if only for a moment.

Zane had pulled the knives out of his wrists and he was losing blood, but he'd managed to get out from under Toby and tackle him to the ground. Toby couldn't find a way out in this mechanical state so quickly; he wasn't prepared to compromise. He received two strong blows to his jaw and a few more to his chest, but as Zane struggled to continue Toby pulled his leg up between them and used it to slam against Zane's jaw, pushing the guy off of him and directly into the dirt. He didn't care for position anymore, Toby was done, his subconscious self was done.

Each punch delivered was quicker than the last and it was sloppy, it was messy, but effective. Each blow was strong. Zane was dead in minutes but Tobias continued until his fists broke into the mans skull, flattened the bone, and reached into the mush that was his brain. People in the stands screamed, some cheered, some could only call him a savage-- there was retching somewhere in the rows. And when his bloodied, cut hands reached the brain matter, that's when Toby finally collapsed. His brain shut down and he passed out.

When Toby awoke, conscious, covered in blood and being dragged away from the scene, he saw the body behind him, he tasted the blood on his lips. And just as he was at the exit, Marlowe was entering, and the tears began to stream down his cheeks as he screamed to her, asking her what the hell he'd done.