goneawayworld | Corona [OPEN]

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Corona [OPEN]

Who: The New Hires and Planker
What: Fun
Where: The Gym
When: Post-plot.
Warnings/Notes: Foul language from Planker.

The first warning the New Hires have is that some of them quietly get pulled aside by various members of the staff before training even starts. Not only does this mean that some of the personnel had to wake up extra early, already a warning sign, but they don't mention why. They just take a few key people aside.

The second warning is when Planker walks in, whistling a cheerful tune and wearing a smile like a man with a three foot erection. "All right, you miserable fucking reprobates! Big Daddy Planker has heard your complaints about his training methods. Pity the Princess got transferred out, she could feel the love today." He paces in front of the assembled crew, doing his best to show off every little tooth. "And, believe you me, that's the only love that exists for you little shits! God doesn't love you, He's dead! I killed Him! He came upon me in His divine glory while I was showering and didn't duck fast enough when I turned around to face Him! And if you anorchous shit-stuffers don't want to be buried in the same fucking hole, you'll straighten those fucking backs and pay attention!"

He snaps his fingers, directing everyone's attentions to a series of chambers. Clear material forms the walls and the rest promises an obstacle course. "This is your obstacle course! And you are mine! I have permission to keep you here until I get bored! And if that means you blowzy copremetics will all get through this course." He slams his hand against one of the walls, then jabs a finger at the first person to catch his attention. "That means you, filth! Mount that wall, put some effort into it, and go! You! Join them!"

The course is an exercise in sadism, as only Planker could imagine. There are seven chambers.

The first room seems simple enough, you simply have to run across. But the floor moves, like treadmills, and each segment is in an opposite direction. When the participant hits the floor an ear-piercing siren starts blaring, increasing in volume with every fall and not ceasing until the course is completed.
The second room is a mud crawl under rows of concertina wire that snags and catches at the clothing, with stinging insects there to hurry people along. If the poor unfortunate is too slow, tear gas starts to fill the room.
The third room has a set of irregular monkey bars, but they've been greased. It's set above a three foot pit filled with mouse traps straining to go off.
The fourth room has, dangling from strings, chattering stun guns at various heights. There are sparking hurdles, as well, wrapped in barbed wire to snag at any clothing and drag people in to the electrified bars. Three double-sided cattle prods rotate like ceiling fans, threatening anyone who gets too close. To add to the stupidity, the floor is covered in tires.
The fifth room brings them to a ball pit! But some of the balls are electroshock grenades. Some are glue bombs. And some of them are flashbangs. Both are set to go off on contact.
The penultimate room has air rams that go off as the participant drags a dummy (or their partner. Or the previous, possibly unconscious, runner.) through, blasting powerfully enough to knock a man off of his feet. To make things worse, giant strips of fly paper stretch across the room, snaring anyone unfortunate enough to get caught.
The seventh, and final, room has something different. Carrying a tool box, the participant has to dash up a spiraling ramp that has alternating barrels and greased ball bearings dropping down at regular intervals. At the end, they have to solve a puzzle and disarm a bomb. If they fail to do it in time, the 'bomb' goes off. Unfortunately for them, Planker isn't allowed to use a real bomb. Instead, the box underneath the bomb springs open, revealing an enraged skunk.

After about the third person starts to go through, Planker will press a button. At that point, the chambers will rise up, revealing wheels, and start to move about the gym in swift circles, controlled via his remote, designed to throw the people inside off-balance and remove any illusion of stable footing. To add salt to the wound, there are cameras in every chamber, capturing every possible humiliation for editing and presenting to whoever Planker sees fit later on.

[[Obviously you don't have to participate. Your character was taken aside for some reason. Otherwise, you can either have your characters run through, react to, or simply have them talk about being forced to undergo this new, improved obstacle course later.]]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Wait, she already-" Adora starts to object as Catra's shoved past her, but she doesn't get a chance to say much else. Instead she's forced after her and with a low growl of irritation she goes in after her friend. She can handle the first room easily enough. It's not nearly as bad as some of the stuff they put them through in the Fright Zone. Room Two is where it gets interesting.

She comes crawling up to Catra, swatting at a stinging insect.

"Catra - Catra! Calm down, you're just making it worse-!"

She's trying to find where Catra is caught so she can free her, but she's starting to think just tearing the whole thing off might be a good idea.

"Stop telling me it's my fault and just help me, idiot!" Catra hisses at Catra, tugging useless at her arm. Her shirt, already singed and torn from her first run is rapidly starting to fall to pieces as she rends holes in it through her struggling.

"Stop being so useless! I thought you were some kind of stupid hero!"

"I didn't say it was - ugh."

Adora grits her teeth and shuts up as she jsut gives Catra a yank and tears her free, finally. So much for the shirt, but at least Catra's not tangled up anymore.

"Just move!"

Gross. She's down to her sports bra and she still has to get through the rest of this stupid course again. Catra is angry, exhausted, and humiliated and it shows in the way she moves. She flails forward, thrashing through the mud and tear gas as Planker decides that the pair of them are taking too much time to do the course. She hacks, coughs.

"I hate him. I hate him," she mutters, more to herself. "At least Horde Prime didn't make me run obstacle courses designed by a sadist--"

The tear gas isn't helping. Adora's eyes are watering and she's coughing up a storm as she tries to press forward. She reaches back to grab at Catra's wrist.

"Come on-!"

She's determined to push through, even if it hurts. Especially if it hurts.

"We're almost clear!" They need to low crawl a few more yards, but the exit (for whatever good that does them) is just ahead.

Catra yelps a little as she's grabbed at, mostly surprised more than anything. There's a snarl of anger and annoyance at the contact but Adora, for once, is right. She shoves herself forward through mud and gas until she can finally clamber back to her feet and push herself wearily on towards the next chamber. On her first time through, it had been simple. On her second, she's already limping, exhaustion setting in.

In the next room, she bends over to catch her breath, coughing and wheezing against the stinging gas that clings to her eyes and fur and lungs.

"This is worse than the Horde," she wheezes.

Adora's blinking, struggling to see as the gas makes everything hurt. Breathing is a chore and she feels as if she's already going to collapse. But she can't. They have to keep going. She wraps an arm around Catra's middle to try and get her to straighten up.

"Way worse," she agrees with a few hacking coughs, "Let's keep going, though. We don't have a choice-"

Oh, boy. Are those bars greased?

"The bars are slippery," Catra confirms. Having been through this once, she already has some expectations about how this is going to go.

"It's sadistic," she mutters, then coughs again. Everything hurts still. It hurts worse than it before. Her usual grace and agility feel miles away, and she grunts, reaching up to try get a grip on the first bar--aiming to try and cling to the frame rather than the bars themselves.

"Catra, wait a second-" Well, there she goes. Adora follows a little more cautiously, frowning as she reaches up to grab the frame. After a moment, she turns herself sideways and starts to follow Catra hand-over-hand, trying to avoid getting grease on her hands. This part isn't so hard. It's the slipping that'll make things difficult.

"Doing OK up there?"

Catra doesn't want to wait. Catra wants to get this done with so she can go clean herself and stop feeling like she's fallen three stories into a pile of robot parts and cacti. She grunts, swinging herself along as best she can. Normally, this would be easy but she's visibly shaking from the strain of holding herself up.

"I'm fine," she says peevishly. "I just want to get this...Hnf!" She grunts and shakily reaches out to take another grip.

"I just want to get this over with!"

All Adora can really do is watch and that eats her up inside, even as she goes hand over hand after Catra. Her own arms are burning, muscles straining as she tries to keep herself up and moving. She swings forward again and then again.

"OK, OK..." She breathes out. She's still concerned.

Catra drops down on the other side and doubles over, gasping for breath. Everything hurts. She wants to drop dead. She sucks in greedy breaths of air, trying to hurry herself along so that she won't slow down Adora--or draw more ire from Planker after the attempt she'd made to give him new scars. That's where Adora finds her, leaning against the wall and gasping.

Adora does slow so she can help Catra along, sliding an arm around her to give her someone to lean on that isn't the wall.

"Come on. Few deep breaths. You can do this, Catra-"

The next room looms before them and she has to pause to stare at the mess of obstacles.

"You've got to be kidding me."

"I don't need your help," Catra protests feebly. She doesn't have the energy to pull away, though, and lets herself be helped into the next room. She glances at Adora when she hears the other react.

"Yeah. I wish." She starts forward. Earlier, vaulting these had been simple. Now, each obstacle is taking her time as she has to pause to rest weary muscles between each leap. At least one of the prods is broken.

Adora's fresh, at least. Or relatively so. She's able to take the hurdles with relative ease and duck the prods. This, at least, is sort of familiar. Even the shocks are a bit like the Horde training. Still, she lingers to make sure Catra doesn't fall far behind.

"We're almost through it. Come on-"

"Fuck this shit," Catra gasps as she takes another obstacle and doesn't quite make it. She clips the rail and sprawls out on the ground, yelping in pain as barbed wire and electric shock nip at her skin and frayed nerves.

"This is so stupid--" She drags herself onwards though, panting as she tries to keep pace with Adora. It's obvious, though, that she's already exhausted despite her athleticism.

"There are still three more rooms."

"It's not like you to give up," Adora responds, still basically dragging Catra forward with grim determination. She might not be making good time, but she's not leaving Catra behind. Not now, not ever again. Not if she can help it.

"You can do this Catra. I'm right here with you."

"I'm not giving up, Adora," Catra hisses. She forces herself over one hurdle, then the next. Her foot catches, scraping open her shin on steel and barbed wire and a sharp shock encouraging her to move onwards. She thinks there's blood matting in her fur.

"I mean I could but it would make Planker happy and fuck that." She ducks under one of the swinging prods and finally comes up to the door to the next room, panting for breath. So close. Yet so far.

Adora's breathing heavily as well - along with coughing. This obstacle course is Hell and she hates it. She hates everything about it. More than that, she hates that Catra looks like she might be getting to the end of her rope. She waits for a few heartbeats, hoping that Catra will be able to catch her breath. Then she keeps moving.

"Ready?"

As if they'll ever be.

"I don't know." Catra grits her teeth. The first time through had been bad enough, she'd hauled a dummy across her back, practically on all fours. This time, she doesn't know if her limbs have the strength for it. Not, of course, that it will stop her from doing her damndest. She moves to grab a dummy and begins to haul it across the room without wait, only to be knocked flat by a blast from an air cannon.

Fuck.

"Catra-!" Adora has to brace herself against the wall to avoid being bowled over herself. She watches Catra get knocked flat and then she darts forward and stoops down to lift her as best she can.

"Come on. I'm carrying you."

"You don't have to--" Catra protests, kicking and squirming before her exhaustion seems to take hold and she simply goes limp, clinging awkwardly to Adora as she's carried onwards. Her cheeks flush--this is embarrassing. And stupid. She shouldn't let herself think about Adora anyway. Not like it'd ever happen, even if Adora is carrying her so carefully and gently--

Shut up Catra.

"...I hate this," she says in a small, angry voice.

"I know, Catra," Adora grits her teeth and grinds out a response, "But just let someone help you for once in your life. You don't have to like me, you don't have to like this, but let me help!"

There's a blast and Adora staggers, almost going to the floor with Catra in tow. Then she's back on her feet and pushing on, face a mask of determination. She will not let this be the end of her and Catra.

Not that she thinks they'll kill them. But it helps to focus on the endgoal.

"What's the point?" Catra growls, but she's too tired to do much besides complain. She grits her teeth, humiliated and angry as she's bodily dragged along with Adora, each step seeming to take an age. She doesn't like it--she doesn't think the trouble over her is worth it, really. But Adora will be Adora.

"Just being the hero again, I guess."

"The point is getting through this. The point is I'm not going to just leave you behind!" Adora shouts back at her over the rush of another air ram. She has to brace and almost oes over again.

"This was never about being the hero-!" Sort of. If she can't protect people, what good is she? If she can't protect Catra, does she really have worth?

Corona [OPEN]

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