Night 57: The Coliseum

[el_aguila]

Touching the sandy grounds of the coliseum was a catalyst, and the progression of day did not mean the end of the process. By fortune or otherwise, this group's efforts were not allowed to halt simply due to the rising sun. Therefore, when nighttime was pronounced, those who had undergone the beginnings of an incomplete trial were pulled from their

Comments

ARENA

[its_the_mileage]

“Aguilar,” Indy growled. The list of men likely to show up to taunt them was a short one, but he would’ve known the voice even so. Judging by the others’ reactions, he wasn’t the only one. Pilgrim took a run at the general and went flying back into Dent; now that Indy had a break to look, there the rest of them were up in the stands.

Aguilar’s presence here certainly meant they’d hit some major objective, in case they hadn’t figured that out already. That meant progress, maybe even a chance to get some more answers, but Indy’s sense of foreboding spiked nonetheless. He stayed quiet while the rest of them started lobbing taunts. Not that he wasn’t one for a well-timed line in the right context (the right context being more often than not), but they worked better when you already knew what the bad guy was there for and just needed to vent at him. And damn if he knew what Aguilar wanted--sure, to watch the test, but what was the test? Indy didn’t speak up again until the general did.

[to here]

Re: ARENA

[its_the_mileage]

[from here]

He turned away from Aguilar and back to the arena. Still no obvious exits. He could try to shoot at Aguilar, but chances were good a direct attack would go about as well for him as it had for Pilgrim. There was nothing else here to aim at as leverage. If the test was actually to find another solution, that solution wasn’t obvious. No wonder no one had wanted to talk about this on the bulletin board.

“Well, kid,” he muttered to Peter, “keep thinking. But in the meantime, make it look good.”

[its_the_mileage]

“Your powers include tunneling to China?” Indy asked. There were a bunch of people who wanted to kill him there, but right now he was feeling friendlier toward them than toward the people who wanted to see him get killed here. The joke fell about as flat as Peter’s nonetheless. Of course the kid didn’t have super digging skills; Indy just wasn’t ready to accept that there wasn’t a way out of this one. When it had really counted, there had always been a way out.

Peter evidently found it easier to be fatalistic about it, or at least to say that aloud. Indy aimed an incredulous glare at him as he spoke. “I’m not going to shoot you,” he snapped back on the next beat without giving the idea an instant’s consideration. Then, half-under his breath, “I don’t know what I am going to do, but it’s not that

[its_the_mileage]

Indy’s lip curled. Damn smug bastard. What he really wanted was to punch Aguilar in the jaw, but with no chance of that happening anytime soon, he did the closest thing he could: he lifted the revolver and fired at the general. The result was neither satisfying nor effective. The bullet bounced off the same invisible barrier Pilgrim kept bruising himself on and landed harmlessly in the sand with a quiet “wumph.” Indy’s mouth thinned to a grim line. He hadn’t been banking on that working, but he’d had to try, even if it meant hurting Dent and Pilgrim.

And sure enough, it did. Peter was saying something, but what really stuck out was Pilgrim’s yowl cutting abruptly off; Indy looked up to see the kid claw for his throat as if someone were choking him, then collapse. Nearby, blood was snaking down Dent’s arm. Jesus, Indy thought, he wasn’t kidding. His wide-eyed stare shot to Aguilar, but the man himself didn’t seem to be doing anything. How the hell could this be happening

[its_the_mileage]

Whoops, Indy was tempted to crack, but Peter sounded about as upset as he’d ever heard anyone who hadn’t just been shot sound. “Sorry. Little dazed,” he said. He could’ve added, You know, from being thrown into a wall,, but there was no sense making Peter feel any worse about it than he had to. Indy still winced inwardly whenever he thought of how broken up Peter had been after that business with his friend in Doyleton--Harry, that was it. Tomorrow was going to be even worse.

It bothered Indy that he’d killed the kid and now he had to struggle to come up with his name. He should have done more about that. Asked how Peter was doing now that some time had passed or--something. He shouldn’t’ve just let it fade into the back of his mind, just another Landel’s incident he didn’t have time to think about in the midst of the next crisis. There were a lot of threads he’d let fall like that. Too late to pick them back up now

[its_the_mileage]

Indy’s gut twisted as Peter tumbled off the wall and into the sand, bloodying it further as he landed. For a second he thought he’d hit something vital after all. As Peter rolled over, though, he saw his aim had been right: the bullet had just grazed the ribs. A relief, but not much comfort. He’d known even barely clipping one side like that would be painful, but actually seeing Peter grab at the wound still just-- All he could do was hope it was enough of a concession to the game to keep Aguilar from doing anything else to the guys up there. They’d both drawn blood. That made it a fight.

Hell of a fight, Indy thought. If the situation weren’t so dire, Pilgrim would probably be disappointed. Indy’d never engaged in much critical analysis himself, but from flipping through the worn copy of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (“The adventure that started it all!”), he knew that an Indiana Jones fight was supposed to involve copious whip-cracking, a few solid punches on both sides, and gunshots that actually hit someone.

[its_the_mileage]

Well, Indy thought ruefully, it'd been worth a shot

[its_the_mileage]

Peter was still bleeding profusely from the side. Damn. He shouldn't have clipped him so closely. Shooting him at all had been a mistake

[its_the_mileage]

Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Fedora came to an abrupt halt as the agony spiked and Indy's body bucked convulsively with it. He looked up toward the light and it was Peter, not the bizarre mask but Peter himself, pressing on his chest. Why was he--oh, Indy thought, pressure. Stop the bleeding. Probably what they told you to do in Boy Scouts these days. Nice try, but it wouldn't have been the way to staunch an injury like this, if there'd been a way. He knew he was dying.

His thoughts came back again to his father, just a few months ago this time, lying on the floor of the Grail Temple with a big ugly hole in his body. They hadn't talked about those moments. Indy wished now that they had. He wanted some kind of map, some sense of what his father had thought and felt as he lay dying, before he was healed by the waters of the Grail. He'd spent his life studying the dead; he didn't know how to prepare himself to join them.

Peter was crying, he realized. He needed to say something, try to reassure him. It's all right, kid. This is