[IC] Road to Freedom. (FaithfulMuse x Breljorn)

[Breljorn]

"Hey kid!" Luke heard a voice yell from the other side of the cafeteria. White tables, grey wooden chairs and heads of prisoners who had to rot here covered his sight, but at the top of them all Luke's glance caught a glympse of a bulky middle-aged man. Chewing the last bite of a salad sandwich Luke stood up. He knew it was a calling for him. Everyone here called him kid. Luke was only twenty four years old when he got imprisoned. He gulped down the last bite and looked at the man who called. Mild wrinkles covered his face, his head was shaved like most of the prisoners here and he wasn't wearing the orange prisoner uniform - he was wearing clothing. Normal clothing.

"That's what they call you here, right?" He yelled across the hall again. A little smile could be seen in the man's face. He wasn't from here. Luke didn't recognize him. "New prisoner? New guard?" Questions spun in his head like a kid on an amusement park ride.

"What do you want?" Luke asked with his head up high and his arms crossed on his chest.

"Come with me. You're up for the arena." The man said, and turned back towards the exit of the cafeteria. Luke followed him rapidly. He was finally going to get a chance. Everyone could be heard whispering and talking to eachother. The arena was a fierce place. Not many made it through. Luke didn't really believe he'd make it himself. He just hoped for the best.

After a pretty long walk through corridors and tunnels they ended up in a huge room. There were soft mattresses on the ground, various weights, weapons, dummies. It was the training hall for the arena participants. As well as the training gear, there were a lot of prisoners there. Some Luke recognized, some didn't, but all of them were training to win.

"This is where you'll spend a week. Train, become better, and when the time comes - go free. You'll sleep in small rooms in pairs. Your room is 306. Good luck." The man who led Luke here said and left the hall...

[FaithfulMuse]

Maria sat at one of the tables in the canteen, rather bored and waiting for time to pass by. Without her knives, which had been taken away from her when she got placed in prison, Maria found it hard to have fun with the other prisoners and preferred being in her cell. Not to think of what she had done or anything, but simply so that she could continue on whatever she had been doing before.

At the moment, that had been working on a flaw one of her clients had reported in one of Maria's prosthetics, but she didn't have any time to fix the flaw before she got at this place. And although Maria doubted if she would still have much clients left when she got free, it was at least keeping her busy.

"Hey you, brat!" Was the yell that caused Maria to look up, soon finding a man looking at her and she stared back at the man, but didn't say anything as the man walked over to her. "You're going to get a chance to prove yourself in the arena." The man shortly informed, causing a small smile to form around the lips of the woman.

Getting up, the man grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her along with him through the halls, not saying a single word to her, and Maria remained just as silent as the man.

When she was pushed into a room, the first thing Maria noticed were the weapons there. After that the other prisoners, and dummies. "The training room. Here you can try to improvise your skills, prepare for battles." The man shortly explained, causing Maria to look at him. "No, you don't get to practice on people. That's what the dummies are for." He said before she could ask anything, causing the little smile on her face to fade.

"You'll be staying here a week, and will share a room with someone else. Your room is number 306." The man shortly explained, receiving a short nod from the woman, before she headed over to the weapons, searching for knives.

[Breljorn]

Prisoners kept coming in to the training room. Some were dragged in, some came in on their own will, but all of them were scared more or less. One of the four walls of the training room was covered with names. Names, pictures and descriptions. Descriptions of their deaths. It was all the people that died in the arena. Hundreds of them. And those that made out of there alive were colored yellow - only ten. That was when Luke realized his chances were slim.

He swung at the punching bag repeatedly, hurting his knuckles. The gloves for that were available, but he didn't use them. He didn't know he had to use them. He wasn't a fighter at all. He was studying to become an english teacher, not training to be a professional boxer. Although he wasn't bad at hitting stuff.

Luke walked over to the weapon racks and widened his eyes at the sight of loads of weapons hanging. From simple knives to swords, from staves to nunchucks. Basically anything you could think of was there. There even was a shooting range at one side of the room with still and moving targets and packed with different types of guns. He stood there, near some girl with grey hair, looking for a weapon that would suit him.

[FaithfulMuse]

Noticing a man who came near to her, Maria looked at him, for a brief moment thinking of harming him, but decided against it. If she did, they'll probably rant at her later on or she would receive some kind of punishment, and she wasn't looking forward to neither of the two options. The man seemed impressed by the huge assortment of weapons.

"Don't think too much, just try a few of them until you find something you like and you'll probably end up with a good weapon." Maria said, turning to look at him once she had grabbed a few knives. "That's how I ended up with knives. They're easy to carry around, lightweight, and can be used for both close combat or long distances. Plus, they can be used for cutting, stabbing, slitting and throwing, giving you a decent amount of options as for what to do with your victim." She told, although she wasn't sure why she did. After all, why should she care if he survived or not?

"My name is Maria Smith, by the way, but the few people I've interacted with in here prefer the nickname 'grumpy little bitch'." She said, before walking over to one of the dummies, giving one of the dummies a fair amount of stab wounds and cuts at important parts of the body.

Normally spoken Maria would've taken the time to just cause pain, purposely avoiding to kill the person. She had only killed two people so far, but otherwise just wanted to cause pain, not death. But that wasn't the case now that she would be put in the arena, so she decided to focus on that. Though this wasn't exactly giving her joy, and her face continued to have the same, quite moody expression. She wasn't causing any pain after all, which was just the thing she liked.

[Breljorn]

"I'm not much of a fighter guy." Luke spoke to the girl that chatted him up as he reached for a staff. It was a very long wooden staff with steel ends. They were quite heavy, but managable. He took a tight grip of the staff on both of his hands and swung with both sides at thin air. "This one seems quite my type." He continued swinging it a few times, almost hitting the newly met girl.

"Oh, and I'm Luke. Nice to meet you." Luke spoke as he turned around to pick a dummy to hit. There were human dummies, wolf dummies, basically an assortment of enemies waiting to be sliced and diced. They were placed on a wooden stick it seemed. It was probably for replacing them, since some people here can obliderate a tarket with a few swings.

Luke picked out a target and left the girl by the weapons. He stood in front of the human dummy about his size, concentrating. He swung the right side of his staff at the dummy's head as hard as he could, bending it a little. The dummy was made out of rubber-ish material, so it bounced right back. Only sharp things can destroy them. He swung again. Remembered Peter, the guy he killed, his mind was engulfed in rage, and he swung at the dummy repeatedly until he was exhausted. The staff was heavier than it looked after all."I might aswell just go to my room. I'll start training tomorrow." Luke thought out loud and took off towards the room with the staff in hands.

[FaithfulMuse]

Maria simply shrugged when Luke chose to stop training for the rest of the day. "Whatever." Was the short reply she gave, before she continued beating the dummy a little while longer. Maybe she should warm him that taking the staff with him was most likely not allowed, but she didn't see a good reason to why she should do so. After all, it wasn't any of her concern if the guy got in trouble, or if anyone else got in trouble for that matter, so why should she care?

Finding little joy in beating the dummies, Maria quickly got bored with the lifeless, motionless objects that felt no pain and moved on to the moving targets, focusing at one of them. Soon enough she flung her daggers at it, and though most did hit the upper part of the target, few of the hits would actually be fatal. Then again, she had never been good at throwing thanks to her decreased eyesight, so she mostly preferred being close whenever she hurt someone.

Not feeling the need to gather the knives and put them back, Maria turned around and walked away, paying no more attention to the knives stuck in the target. Someone would have to take care of that, since Maria wasn't going to do it. Of course, she would've done so if these knives were her own. In that case, she would've just gathered them and took them with her again, just as always. But these knives obviously weren't hers, so what use would it be to retrieve them?

Leaving the room and walking down the hallway, Maria checked the numbers of the doors as she passed them. When she reached room 306, the room she would be sleeping in according to the guy who brought her here, Maria came to a halt and opened the door, secretly admitting that she was a little curious about her cellmate as she opened the door.