Forum Thread

Tenacity looked up, sighing. "Bummer. Guess I've got to go first." Tucking his wings in close, the Tribute tugged on the fingers of his glove, then pulled the eye patch off as well. Striding through the door into the demonstration area, he brushed his hand against the door frame, the metal warping slightly. Allowing the door to shut behind him, Tenacity looked up at to where the Gamemakers were. "Firstly, let me state that I am not imbued with any angelic powers. Now I will begin." He stepped quickly over to a sparring simulation, altering the settings rapidly. After a moment, the simulation came to life. As soon as the blank figure across from Tenacity calibrated itself, it assumed a stance and started to advance. A moment later, it stumbled, a wing having struck it in the face the moment it was sitting range. Then, a series of blows. A fist to the face, another to the belly, then a knee to the nose and another wing to the face. The blows continued, until Tenacity reached forward with his right hand and took hold of the simulated opponent. After a moment, the simulation began to decay, shutting down rapidly. Tenacity looked up at the judges, then reached out and laid his hand on a piece of metal. Where his fingers met the metal, it warped and oxidized, rusting quickly. As he kept his hand on the metal, the rust began to spread, both up and down the beam. Keeping his eyes on the Gamemakers, he glared at them.

The rusted metals groaned and moaned as they attempted to stay in place, but eventually fell scumming to the rust, making loud clattering as they hit the floor.

The woman nodded and Tenacity left, still staring daggers at them.

The intercom sparked to life. "Kayda."

---

"She'll probably be here... soon. I don't think she had a good night last night. You'll understand why soon." Megami says with a shake of her head. "She's a day time person. Pretty much literally." she adds. "She's very upbeat. And well you're going to meet her soon enough."


Almost immediately, a yellow haired girl comes into the room. "Megami!" she comes up to Megami and Kayda. "Oh this has to be Kayda, very scary." she says. Megami struggles to keep a straight face. "My name is Hoku!"she says, smiling.

"Oh jeez, we need to get to work!" Megami says, hearing Kayda's name get called.

---

"It's nice to meet you." Kayda greets warmly. "I trust you two know what you're doing. I'll buy you guys some time." With that being said, she marches into the session. Her famous glare already on her face. "Are you guys excited to see me?" She asks, flashing her million dollar smile at them. "Because I've been waiting years for this moment..." That was a lie, she didn't expect to be chosen. "Prepare yourselves for what's to come! You are going to wish that my name was never picked...!"

The group just looked at her and one of the meant rolled their eyes at them. "What do you to show us today. . .Ms. Kayda?"

---

"Come on!" Megami hisses. Hoku nods and the two slip through the door. They hide behind a pillar. "We were never here!" Megami mutters at the nearby peacekeeper. He nods and goes seemingly blank. Hoku starts pointing at the lights and begins messing with them a little bit. A few flickers. "You're going to regret-" Megami doesn't hear the rest of Kayda's sentence. "She's buying us time!" Megami informs Hoku. Hoku nods and begins waving her hand. The light seems to be sort of... drawing away from the lights, but slowly. "Okay, give me the signal and I'll do it." Hoku mutters. Megami attempts to quickly catch Kayda's eye and mouth the word "signal."

---

Kayda catches it from the corner of her eye. She ever so slightly nods before turning her attention back to the Gamemaker. "Fine, I'll show you NOW." She puts a bunch of emphasis on the final word. That was the signal Hoku needed to flicker the lights.
It was like a scene out of a horror movie. Whenever the lights turned back on, a limb was missing from Kayda's body. In replace were a flock of crows who take into the air. When the first one dives at a Gamemaker, Kayda knows they missed a critical piece of information. The crow quite literally burns into ashes as it smacks against the forcefeild. But Kayda noticed something. The slightest flicker of light within the forcefeild. It wasn't very strong.
This is going to hurt. Kayda flies at the forcefeild. A distinct burning smell filling the room as countless crows are killed. But the constant assault was working, the forcefeild's power was slowly dwindling. With a final push one bird manages to make it through.
It lands on the table of food. Time to anger them, I heard that they hate this. The crow turns into a mockingbird, before turning into Kayda's human form. She grins at them, giving them the bird while fighting to not collapse onto the table. Unfortunately, too many birds have died, she herself, had almost died from this stunt. But she would need to be strong for a few moments longer. Just until she was out of their sight.
She allows the Peacemakers to sweep her away from the Gamemakers and escort her away. As soon as she is finally out of their sight she can finally allow herself to collapse due to exhaustion. She smiles pridefully thinking I did it, I showed them! Their power is useless against my determination!

Hoku looks ready to pass out. Megami catches her before she falls. She mouths a thank you to Hoku before returning her attention to Kayda. "We need to get out of here." she whispers. "But how?" she wonders. She takes a deep breath. She steadies Hoku against the pillar and sets her "magic" to work. "Hello Gamemakers! As we all saw, that was stellar. I hope all of you are having a good day." she nods like they are good friends. "I heard you were head! Totally well deserved, how's your wife doing?" she says to no one in particular. All the gamemakers go blank. The head gamemaker respond in a monotone voice. "Good thank you. What can we help you with Miss Okurito." he asks. "Oh me? Nothing! Just wanted to see how yall were doing! My friends and I will go now, but remember only Kayda was here!" she tells them, like it's a big secret. She drags Hoku out of the room and nearly collapses herself.

---

Tenacity couldn't help but notice Kayda's performance, and the aftermath of said performance. She was pale, and looked about ready to collapse. Tenacity frowned, quickly jogging over. "Looks like that was some hell of a performance in there. You're about ready to collapse!" Carefully, he held the back of his hand to her forehead. He had both his glove and eye patch back on, covering the worst of his power. "You're burning up, for god's sake!" Wrapping his wings around her, he shook his head slowly. "Don't go killing yourself before we're out of this place, you've still got a life to live once we're out." Carefully, he wrapped his wings around her. "You're not staying to watch any other demonstrations, no matter what you say. Come on, let's get you to your room." Tucking one wing in, he started trying to guide Kayda back towards the elevator.

"I'm fine, don't worry." Kayda tries to say, but she is shocked when she hears how weak her voice is. She has never pushed herself this hard so she had no idea what to expect. She allows Tenacity to lead her to her room and silently allows him to scold her. She wasn't strong enough to resist now anyway. When he finishes talking, she finally speaks. "I had to do it. For Coraline and Meg. I don't want them to get hurt just because I'm too weak." She blinks away the tears that threaten to spill. "I have to be strong so they won't meet the same fate as her."

Hoku sits with her back against the wall. That used so much of her energy. "I hope Megami is okay." she thinks. Megami looks like she is going to be sick, after that group manipulation she just did. It was both scary and awesome at the same time. Kayda's session was very impressive and it had made Hoku want to do something similar in a rebellion kinda thing type way.

---

Tenacity watched Kayda for a moment, then sighed. "You're not gonna be able to walk the whole way. I can see it, so don't even try to say otherwise." As the elevator doors closed, Tenacity carefully swept Kayda's legs out from under her, catching her back with one arm. Scooping her legs up with the other arm, he looked down at her, his wings flaring a bit as the elevator stopped rising. A soft smile drew across his face, his eyes remaining fixed on Kayda.

Akane was about to follow Tenacity to ensure that Kayda was okay but heard her name getting called. "Take care of her! I'll check on the both of you when I'm done." Akane hollered after Tenacity. Walking in she had a slight hunch that she was in trouble of sorts, after all, Kayda's stunt had angered them and if they had a whisp of an idea to take it easy on them it vanished when Kayda changed into a Mockingjay.

The head game maker looked down at her. "Start whenever you're ready."

Akane looked to see what she had to work with, which aside from the standard equipment there wasn't much. Then I'll just have to make this work.

None of the game makers knew what had happened. One minute they were watching Akane to see what she would show them when one of the lights had broken off and fallen, igniting on a sheet of paper, the fire had spread out quickly after that. They visibly broke into a panic after seeing the fire, not for Akane's safety but their own. Kayda's tempering with the force field didn't exactly guarantee that they could survive whatever Akane was doing, which argumentably could be downright suicide.

The fire had gotten to close for comfort as threatened to consume the whole room, including Akane, then she was suddenly consumed by the flames with a smile on her face. As the smoke threatened to suffocate the game makers it suddenly turned to water which flooded the room and swirled them around in a whirlpool. After several long moments, they were dropped and the water retreated back to Akane where the water was changed into several large trees that nearly broke the ceiling then they were snuffed into the air and disappeared.

Akane looked up at them, some of her hair ended up getting singed and she smelled a bit like smoke, but she seemed okay. Then she walked out without being dismissed and headed straight up to Tenacity and Kayda.

Needless to say the Game makers needed several minutes to compose themselves after that stunt.

---

Kayda was shocked by this. But she wasn't going to complain, he was right, she wasn't going to walk without collapsing. When she meets his eyes she raises a brow. "Don't look at me like that, it's creepy" although the slight blush on her cheeks would say that she thought otherwise.
"Like what?" Tenacity replies innocently.
"Why are you smiling?" She asks instead.

Akane stumbled back up the stairs smelling faintly of smoke and ash as she looked around for Tenacity and Kayda. She finally found them. "Well, my session could've gone a lot worse. But I think I spooked them!"

---

"Smiling? No, I would never smile around you, especially when you're not trying to bite back at everything I do. No, I'd certainly never do that." His grin grew, the sarcasm in his voice having been more than apparent. "And why aren't you smiling? You get a free, luxury ride directly to your on-the-house suite, accompanied by a cute guardian to protect you from any nefarious people!" Tenacity have Kayda a playful look, then pushed open the door to her room. Glancing over his shoulder, Tenacity blinked at Akane. "Shhh.." The sound was harsh, but his gaze was kind.

Akane just blinked at Tenacity as Akane.exe temporarily stopped working. "'scuse you. I'm trying to ensure none of you are dying." Akane picked up her pace until she was only about a pace or two behind Tenacity. "How you doing Kayda?"

---

Kayda giggles at his sarcastic reply. "Hey! That's why I asked! There's no way the great Tenacity has developed a soft spot for his kind, innocent Kayda." She replies sarcastically. "You know what? You're right, I should enjoy this moment. Perhaps I should get injured more often? I do love to be pampered." She overhears Akane down the hallway, Kayda suddenly looking concerned when she smells a smoky scent. Hm, interesting, she must've tried to burn down the place. "I'm fine" she replies. "Tenacity is here to ensure that I won't die, isn't that nice of him?"

Walking into Kayda's room, Tenacity set the girl on her bed and tugged some blankets up over her. Then, turning to Akane, he gave a strange look. "Smoke. Explain." Sitting down on the bed just below Kayda's feet, the winged boy have an expectant look. He didn't cross his legs like an angry mother or anything, but he did flare his wings a little. It didn't have the same effect, but it emphasized that he wanted to know what Akane had done.

As Tenacity set Kayda down on her bed Akane poked her head in. "Aww, ain't that sweet~" At Tenacity's sudden half demand to explain her smokey scent Akane blinked for a moment. "Ehhh. . .that may or may not be me from a stunt that I may or may not've done. . ."

Tenacity raised a brow at her again. "Explain."

Akane cocked her head at him. "Explain why I'm singed? Or how I nearly killed the Game makers. Twice."

The speaker above the remaining tributes clicked on again. "Megami."

---