The Hunger Games discussion

He walked into the warehouse, gold gleaming on his coat. He'd worn gold into the slums.
Fool.
Arcana waited in the shadows of the abandoned building, watching. Watching as Streaklow hurried farther into the room, eyes probing the space. Putting on a tough act, but...there it was. The clench in his fingers. The tension in the back.
He was scared.
As he should be.
Arcana took a step. One single step, allowing the dull sound to travel through the air.
Streaklow whirled toward her, eyes taking in the hood shadowing her face, the mask over her nose and mouth, the simple black clothing. The hilt of a dagger, gleaming in her sleeve - the only weapon she was letting him see.
"I take it you're not watching the Games," he said, coolly. Voice just slightly too strained.
Arcana's eyes narrowed slightly under her hood, darkened to an indistinguishable brown by her contacts. If he'd been hoping for a casual, calm exchange, he'd ruined it all with the beginning shot. "Neither are you," she said, voice made lower and more distorted by the mask.
Streaklow didn't have a response, instead watching her approach. She was playing with him, steps just audible, letting him take her in. Nothing he saw would be true, anyway.
"Unless..." her voice changed. Despite the gravelly tone made by the mask, it became...sweeter. Silky. "Unless there's something else you're doing?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Arcana huffed a low, single-breath laugh. Such a standard, boring answer. Given too quickly, as if he hoped it would throw her off the scent.
"I'm sure you know nothing about the morphling labs being made all over the slums," she said agreeably. "Or about their mysterious funding."
Streaklow flinched. You may think this is your move, but I play by my rules, lordling. "Nothing," he said, still striving for that simple conversation.
"Good." The smile was audible in her voice. Arcana stopped in front of him, just a few inches shorter than him. Nothing of her visible beneath the loose dark clothing and the hood.
Stopping here...it was a challenge. He was welcome to try and rip down her hood. Welcome to try and expose her.
But he wouldn't take that chance.
"Which of my services would you like to hire?" she asked nicely, too politely. Too refined for a criminal in the shadows.
She was much more than that, of course.
Much more.
He didn't know that either.
"I wanted information, actually," he said, seeing his chance to seize power again. The chance she'd offered him like a silver platter. Like bait.
"On?" She tilted her head.
"The Academy."
Silence.
Deadly silence.
"What kind of information?" Her voice remained the same. Cold, lowered.
"Students. What kind of mentality they're raised with." An innocuous question if he was worried about his child, but she knew better. He didn't have a child. This was so he could deal a drug that induced the kind of high that Academy students wanted.
"Three days." She already knew it all, could give him a list of classes and simulations and mottos that had been drilled into her mind for ten years. But she needed to know that Streaklow wouldn't go back on his promises. More importantly, she needed to secure his agenda.
"And payment?" he asked, seeming to tread more carefully now. Do you see who you're dealing with now?
No, he didn't. He never would.
"The funds you're sending to the Capitol. For the Games and the training." She waited a beat. "I want them stopped."
He recoiled, unable to hide the shock on his face. "You...you mean the funds for the morphing labs, right?"
"Did you mishear me?"
He hesitated. "...No. I will stop funding the Capitol."
Arcana nodded, stepping just an inch closer. "You'll find that's a generous price," she said quietly. "You may even profit from it. As I'm sure your wife will, as well."
That. That was panic in his eyes now. "My wife? You're bringing her into this?" He lost his edge the second Arcana spoke.
"Doesn't she know?" She didn't. It was laughable, really.
"No. No, she doesn't, and it will stay that way." Streaklow was visibly grasping for some semblance of control. He straightened his jacket, the gold on it flashing in the dim light, and turned to leave.
Never turn your back on an opponent. But she'd be nice.
"It will." Her voice followed him out the door, unspoken words hanging in the empty air.
For now.

Arcana stalked out of the warehouse, a gun at her side. Her hood was pulled low over her masked face, making her impossible to see. The only visible weapons on her were the dagger in her sleeve and the gun tucked into her belt - just enough to warn others away.
Or to invite them closer.
It would be hard to find a good Peacekeeper now, she knew. All the good ones were watching the Games. But she could make do with a
Darkened eyes gleamed from the shadows as she strode into the night.

The Peacekeeper flinched as a bullet fired, landing neatly a few inches from his ear. He took out his rifle, scanning, searching -
Arcana dropped down from the nearby roof, a dark smile on her face beneath the mask as her dagger sliced toward his head.
He was quick to duck, returning a blow with his fist. She evaded the hit, dragging the knife across his knuckles. His scream was soundless as she punched him in the throat.
He was incapacitated.
She could take him down now.
But this wasn't a mission.
He attacked, lashing out with the butt of his rifle. She evaded, dancing back and meeting him hit for hit. Baiting him. Playing with him.
He had the bigger weapon, but he was also in armor and more focused on getting close to her to unmask and incapacitate her. She, however, was unrestricted by any of the rules that he stuck to. Oh, she remembered them, of course - the techniques and combat rules that had been drilled into her over ten years of training.
But she hadn't obeyed those laws in a long time.
Arcana twisted, dodging a hit. He lunged and grabbed her hood, yanking it down -
Her dagger gleamed as she whirled and slashed his throat.
Blood sprayed.
She didn't bother moving his body as he collapsed.
This was what he deserved. What they all deserved. For Bryell, for Jules, for every person the Capitol had slaughtered for their entertainment. She hadn't even started to pay them back for it.
She heard Jules' voice in her head, the exact same way it always sounded after a spar with her or a killing simulation.
It was a good training run.