I've always wanted to do a Percy Jackson/Hunger Games crossover, so I'm finally doing it!
Don't worry, I'm still going to update my Percy Jackson/Harry Potter crossover, just maybe a little slower.
Hope you like it, R&R. :D
Part I: Urchin
Chapter 1
I close my eyes, staring at the everchanging colors beneath my eyelids, red, blue, green, yellow. I always think of it like a kaleidoscope, you can never see the same color or pattern twice. It is the same in snowflakes, even humans…
Except me, to most people, I'm the one small exception. To small to think about much, but large enough that there are whispers behind my back. Most people think I'm an odd ball, to never to amount to much.
If I don't get up now, I'll be in trouble. I groan; Ms. Matilda, the caretaker of the orphanage, would be livid if I woke up late. She doesn't like me, reminding me every morning that I have no future. She doesn't really care for any of us children, just the ones that might be able to contribute to our society.
Our society is simple, there's the Capitol, which controls everything, then twelve outlying districts, each one known for certain things. Our district, 12, is known for coal mining, in particular, under-paid coal mining.
I live in the seam, the part of District 12 with the roughest, work worn people. In the morning I can see masses of exhausted miners going to work through the attic vent, where I sleep.
"Johnson, get up now!" That would be Ms. Matilda calling up the stairs to me.
My real name is Percy Jackson, but ever since I came to the orphanage, she's insisted it's Peter Johnson. I'm pretty sure she's just too lazy to learn my real name.
I get dressed in some standard patched up cargo pants and a white Tee stained gray with coal dust; I pull on my warm hunting boots.
Taking the stairs down two at a time I jump the last four, it's kind of what we four older kids used to do to annoy our caretaker. A younger boy mimicked us once, and ended up having to have stitches — not that Ms. Matilda would pay for them. We ended up having to carry him to Mrs. Everdeen's, the best healer in my personal opinion. Ever since then, I'm the only one that participates in the peeve.
When I get to the bottom the old, rickety table that we only use for reaping day is out. I kick myself internally, how could I have forgotten today was the Reaping Ceremony? I'm glad I won't have to change, though, I only own two pairs of clothes, these being my better pair.
On the table is the best breakfast we see all year, even surpassing holidays. That being said, it still isn't much, just a little cold, watered down, porridge mixed with oatmeal and raw katniss tubers. While the capitol would probably laugh at me, I look at it like a feast, as if I'm a ravishing wolf to have just taken down a mouth-watering prey.
I sit down at the end of the table being the oldest, though staring at Ms. Matilda's face is enough to wish that privilege denied.
As seats start filling up around me with kids from ages three to sixteen, I can't help silently laughing at the irony of it all. While most of them see it as a present on this special day, I see how it really is. It's a hope that Mrs. Matilda will never have to see two of us again; she's trying to fatten us up for the slaughter.
Then Adaya, my twelve-year old sister, comes in the front door. While she wipes her shoes on the 'go away' mat, all my previous thoughts of the Hunger Games evaporate like the Mist. In contrast to my semi seamish look, she has light brown hair, aqua marine coloured eyes, and pale skin. While I don't know who our parents were, they must've been from a district other than 12 with our looks. That thought leads me deeper to so many more silent questions that I almost miss Adaya's.
"Good morning and Happy Hunger Games, how are you?" she says nervously, knowing that it really isn't really a 'happy' day.
But I smile at her, "Happy Hunger Games AA," calling her by her nickname, "it's a beautiful morning," I say in response.
She grins at me, "Do you like my dress?" she asks, twirling around.
Why she's wearing her Reaping clothes right now I have no idea, but smiling, I tell her that the patched-up lavender dress that in my opinion looks like puke is beautiful. Which it is, on her, but by itself it'd look absolutely dreadful. It was actually a gift from her best friend, Primrose Everdeen, the second daughter of the healer. Prim smuggled it out of the house unbeknownst to her mother, giving it to Adaya last night.
"Go sit down now AA, you don't want Mange Matilda after you," she giggles and hugs me.
Matilda comes in and I slowly start eating, trying to savor it all, enjoying the fact that I'm full for at least one day of the year.
Then it ends too quickly, kids are getting up to go make themselves useful, trying to earn money to sustain this place. As for me, I follow Mrs. Matilda to the back room as I do every day.
"Peter, I need some squirrels, and maybe a deer, dinner needs to be a nice."
"Yes Ms. Matilda." This is how it's always been, Matilda gives me a list of game to hunt and plants to gather, and if I can't complete it, she tells the peacekeepers so that they'd have to do something. They usually turn a blind-eye, even buying from me if I have extra. That way, I can store up money for when Matilda kicks me out of the orphanage, it has to be coming any day now.
"Be back by twelve thirty," she adds as I'm walking out.
"Got it," she doesn't really need to tell me that, we both know the punishment for missing a reaping is imprisonment. Even though my current life is only a small step up from jail, I much prefer it to living with other criminals.
Walking out, I grab my light but well made brown leather jacket, one of the only two pieces of my father I have left. It smells good, like a warm summer day, but I take it hard that the scent of my father's not on it. It hasn't been there, not for eight years, but I still check it every morning, desperate for something that hasn't been ripped away.
I step out of the orphanage, wondering if todays a good day to die.
I stand poised, as unmoving as the deer. We humans are the ultimate predators and I'm not about to miss this easy shot.
I draw back, line the dark marks up, and with a shinnk I release the arrow. The arrow flies true, unaffected by the wind, passing clean through both lungs. I get up to claim my prize and retrieve my arrow, proud that I have mastered at least this skill. I used to be pretty dreadful, but after practicing five or six years, it kind of comes without saying. I rub my bow; it's a gray blue color with little waves engravings. My father who was a jack-of-all-trades made it. I treasure it more than all of my possession together, it has never failed me, almost as if there's some sort of magic on it, which for me is believable. When I was little I told people that the fish talked to me, they looked around to make sure no one overheard and then whisper screamed at me to never speak that aloud again.
I don't do that anymore, I've learned to keep quite and keep my face emotionless; it isn't worth the pain. The fish still talk to me, but I rarely respond, just like I rarely talk to any adults, letting my 'I don't want to talk' vibe do all the talking for me. I'm pretty sure they'd burn me on a stake if I told them the water bended to my will as well. I don't really understand the phenomenon myself; it doesn't seem to have affected Adaya.
I push though more under brush, stopping near a maple tree.
"And may the odds —," I hear a male voice coming north from my direction. It startles me and I almost drop the deer I've been lugging for the past half mile.
I go forward and see two people on a rock ledge overhanging a valley I travel across often; their backs are to me. Laying down the doe I get closer till I'm pressing my face to the bush leaves.
I see a girl, she catches a berry in her mouth that the guy must've thrown, she smiles, "—be ever in your favor!" she finishes with equal verve.
I want to laugh; the alternative is to be scared out of your wits. I wonder why two people have snuck past the never working electric fence into the woods. Romantic reasons, I guess? I sit back on my haunches and watch them through the berry bushes they think cover them, glad that my standard brown wear blends in with my surroundings.
They're quite for a moment, eating the last of their morsels, I look down at my deer, wishing I could make a good stew out of it.
"We could do it, you know," the boy says quietly.
"What," the girl asks.
"Leave the district. Run off. Live in the woods. You and I, we could make it," he replies.
"If we didn't have so many kids," the boy says sullenly.
I can feel my mouth forming a wide 'o' at the word kids. They look, like, seventeen, I start backing up; this is a relationship I really don't want any part with.
Crack…
I step on a twig, lightly treading over it. It snaps with a small, dull sound, but unfortunately it's loud enough that the girl notices.
The girl pulls up her bow as fast as I pull up mine (though mine's definitely looks cooler with the whole waves thing going on).
I expect to see some stranger with bad hair, but instead, I'm staring into the surprised face of Katniss Everdeen. The only way I could tell she was surprised was the fact her eyes widened slightly.
She must've understood my surprised look as well, Adaya always says my face hardens even more, which is understandable because all the surprises I get mean something bad like starvation or becoming homeless. In all honestly, I'm tired of being surprised, because then I would never ever have to worry.
The boy I've identified as Gale looks back between both of us, unsure of what just happened. Apparently we're reading each other like books by the way he frowns.
"Percy?" Katniss asks confused, momentarily letting her guard down, "what are you doing here?"
"Do you two really have kids," I blurt out before I can stop myself, I tend to be impulsive.
But I regret it as Katniss glares at me through her reddening cheeks. Gale inches away from her side awkwardly.
"No," she stutters out, "I'm talking about Prim, and Gale was talking about his brothers and sister."
"Okay," I say, my cheeks reddening; that makes a lot more sense.
Gale then steps forward, taking the spotlight, "How much did you hear," he doesn't trust me.
I lean forward, baiting him, and whisper, "Running off would never work; he has eyes and ears everywhere."
By 'he', I mean President Snow, the way the duo look at each other I know they understand.
"Just as well, that's none of your business," he says stiffly.
"You're right…and I understand you're concerns. I would do anything for Adaya…though I would never think about running off and leaving her in the first place."
Katniss looks at me sharply and I know she's seeing genuine love and adoration on my face, mirrored by her own protectiveness for Prim, of who she'd give up the world for. But I also see her confusion, as if I've said something wrong.
"Adaya," she says carefully, "was that Prims best friend?"
"The very same," I reply, "she's wearing the lavender dress Prim smuggled out for her to the Reaping."
Katniss frowns slightly, "I hated that dress," she says, recalling it in her mind, "but Adaya's not…she isn't," Katniss stutters.
I smile, "I whole-heartedly agree," I say, ignoring the last part.
I then notice Gale, still staring in shock at my words, taken back.
"Well, nice meeting you," I say to Gale, more than Katniss, "Katniss is pretty introverted, I've never actually said more that 'hi', and the whole 'steely eyes thing' someday, you've got to tell me how you did it."
Gale grins slightly and nods in affirmative.
I turn around to leave, then stop and add, "May the odds be ever in your favor."
I've surprised myself today, though I'm a likable enough, I'm pretty quiet and reserved, like a male Katniss Everdeen, talking doesn't come really naturally to me.
Something was different.
Dragging the doe, I shoot several squirrels along the way, which confirms some extra pocket money.
I get to the orphanage ten minutes after twelve; reasonably early. I carefully gut the deer while leaving the two of the four squirrels untouched to sell later.
Hanging the carcass in the ginormous fridge Matilda has for fresh meat, I walk outside and go find Adaya. I find her with some of the other girls; telling them all to go get ready, I pull her aside.
"Adaya, if I get reaped…" she pulls back, rejecting my words, but I persist, I get closer and take her face between both hands. I stare into her blue eyes, "Adaya, if I get reaped, I want you to watch with pride."
Her eyes are now huge, telling me more things than she could possibly say. Most of all, I love you.
"I love you AA," I say in a low whisper, making sure she knows and understands.
It's time, about one thirty, kids twelve to eighteen are lined up in a roped off section marked by ages, the oldest in the front, the youngest in the back. Family members hold their loved ones hands, trying to comfort them. Adaya and I have no one, we are forever alone.
I stand on the outside of the sixteens' watching Prim and Adaya hug Katniss as she walks in, she looks surprised.
The big, main huddle of sixteens is not where I belong. It's funny how even in the lowest of the low; we still have our rejects and outcast.
I see Katniss come into the sixteen's, also on the outskirts, but still recieved in a small clump. Walking to her, I get sight of the temporary stage in front of the Justice Building; it holds three chairs, a podium, and two glass balls, one for the girls, and one for the guys. I stare at the boys, about sixty of so slips of paper have my name on them in careful handwriting, for orphaned kids, you don't have much of a choice.
Matilda entered me twelve times the first year for eleven tesserae's. They were for my grain and oil along with ten other kids assigned to me grains and oils.
In other words, five years ago there were four kids in the orphanage at the eligible age, and about forty younger kids give or take a few. So, the younger kids were split up evenly among us four, and since they're cumulative, there was no way to back out of it once my eleven entered eligibility.
The whole system is unfair, the poor getting the worst of it.
"Percy." Katniss is suddenly in front of me, she looks beautiful, but not herself in any way.
"Yep," I reply, "How are you?"
"About as good as it gets," she says, looking over at the girls' glass ball worriedly.
"I understand you," I say solemnly, "you have, like, twenty entries."
"Yeah, the odds are definitely not in my favor."
"Mine neither…but I'm more worried about Adaya, she's in five times."
"I wouldn't ever let Prim enter!" Katniss says shocked and a little angry, but she looks over me with a worried gaze.
I'm confused by her action.
"No," I correct, "Matilda made her enter. She entered me twelve times my first year."
I can tell now that Katniss really pities me, which is understandable, but surprising.
Just then, the town clock strikes two. The mayor steps up to the podium and begins to read. It's the same boring story every year. He tells of the history of Panem, the country that rose up out of the ashes of a place that was once called North America. He lists the disasters, the droughts, the storms, the fires, the encroaching seas that swallowed up so much of the land, the brutal war for what little sustenance remained. The result was Panem, a shining Capitol ringed by thirteen districts, which brought peace and prosperity to its citizens. Then came the Dark Days, the uprising of the districts against the Capitol. Twelve were defeated, the thirteenth obliterated. The Treaty of Treason gave us the new laws to guarantee peace and, as our yearly reminder that the Dark Days must never be repeated, it gave us the Hunger Games.
The rules of the Hunger Games are pretty straightforward. In punishment for the uprising, each of the twelve districts must provide one girl and one boy, called tributes, to participate. The twenty-four tributes will be imprisoned in a vast outdoor arena that could hold anything from a burning desert to a frozen wasteland. Over a period of several weeks, the competitors must fight to the death. The last tribute standing wins.
Taking the kids from our districts and homes, forcing them to kill one another while we watch — this is the Capitol's way of reminding us how totally we are at their mercy. How little chance we would stand of surviving another rebellion.
Whatever words they use, however they say our history, the real message is clear. "Look how we take your children and sacrifice them and there's nothing you can do. If you lift a finger, we will destroy every last one of you. Just as we did in District Thirteen."
To make it humiliating as well as torturous, the Capitol requires us to treat the Hunger Games as a festivity, a happy holiday, and a sporting event pitting every district against the others. The last tribute alive receives a life of ease back home, and their district will be showered with prizes, largely consisting of food. All year, the Capitol will show the winning district gifts of grain and oil and even delicacies like sugar while the rest of us battle starvation.
"It is both a time for repentance and a time for thanks," intones the mayor.
Then he reads the list of past District 12 victors. In seventy-four years, we have had exactly two. Only one is still alive. Haymitch Abernathy, a paunchy, middle-aged man, who at this moment appears hollering something unintelligible, staggers onto the stage, and falls into the third chair. He's drunk. Very. The crowd responds with its token applause, but he's confused and tries to give Effie Trinket a big hug, which she barely manages to fend off.
The mayor, Madge's dad, looks distressed. Since all of this is being televised, right now District 12 is the laughingstock of Panem, and he knows it. It also shows how good of a mayor he is, probably ruining his reputation. He quickly tries to pull everyone's attention back to the reaping by introducing Effie Trinket.
Bright, bubbly, and shallow as ever, Effie Trinket trots to the front of the stage and to the podium; she gives her signature, "Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor!"
Her pink hair must be a wig because her curls have shifted slightly off-center since her encounter with Haymitch. She goes on a bit about what an honor it is to be here, although everyone knows she's just acting to get bumped up to a better district where they have proper victors. Because everyone knows twelve is just a joke.
It's time for the drawings. Effie Trinket says as she always does, "Ladies first," and crosses to the glass ball with the girls' names on it. She reaches in, digs her hand deep into the ball, and pulls out a slip of paper. The crowd draws in a collective breath and then you can hear a pin drop. I silently hope it's not Adaya, my hands fist tightly and my nails dig in so deep I'm sure there will be blood.
Effie Trinket dramatically unfolds the slip while walking back to the podium, she says who it is in a loud clear voice.
I am falling…I am crazy; I know I am, because I just heard her say Adaya Jackson.
And that's not possible.
Because.
She.
Is.
Dead.