Chapter 36
It was a long story, but finally it all came out.
In the history of the Hunger Games, before mum and dad popped up, District 12 had two Victors. One of them was Haymitch Abernathy and the other was Jesse Evans. He came from a middle class merchant family, and he trained all by himself for the Games, knowing that he could be picked one day. He received additional training from 'someone he wishes us not to know'. Of course he was picked when he was 15, and Jesse was thrown into a special arena : a stone medieval city in the middle of a grassy plain, with a dense forest to the north and a rocky wasteland to the south. Unfortunately, his co-Tribute was to be Kristen Millie, his crush. For most of the Games, he stayed away from her, and preferred to hide in seclusion. He continued training and whenever Kristen was in danger, he would protect her.
The day a Career from District 1 murdered his love was the day he took a vow of silence until lately. On the third week of the Games, he took two katana swords and killed all nine Careers but spared the others because he knew that they were weak. To cover it up, the Gamemakers sent in cyborgs armed with crossbows and battle axes to finish the Tributes off. Naturally Jesse was the only one who survived the brutal attack of the cyborgs and was declared the winner of the 40th Hunger Games. The only Tribute he successfully mentored to become a Victor was of course Haymitch because of his silence (Haymitch relied a lot on his own tactics and miraculously won). But the Capitol was impressed at his fighting skills, so they faked his death and abducted him to train the Peacekeepers in martial arts. Despite his silence, he found ways to teach the men that were just as effective as methods that required the word of mouth.
Jesse was stung by tracker jackers while training Peacekeepers in jungle warfare. His body fought against the poison and the venom somehow gave him regenerative abilities, which he would be hard to kill and that he would live a very long time. At his age, naturally he should be in a wheelchair.
Jesse was not deployed when the Second Rebellion broke out. Instead he was considered a 'frozen' asset, meaning that he was useful as a teacher and not as a combatant. Therefore he was imprisoned in a freeze-chamber and sent to a remote base in the wilderness. Somehow Athena Snow had taken control of the base and has a hidden garrison of Dark Peacekeepers in District 3, soldiers that Jesse did not train but are not to be taken lightly for their skill and brutality. Jesse thinks that they used to be normal Peacekeepers who were brainwashed into the absence of consciousness. What Jesse knew about Athena Snow was shocking.
Athena Snow was the oldest grand daughter of President Snow, her younger sister and her parents were killed during the battle for the Capitol. And of course Grandpa Snow choked on his blood or somehow got trampled to death by the crowd when mum shot President Coin. Athena Snow, only a teen like me at that time decided to make herself scarce and pretended to have amnesia, so that she was placed into an orphanage without any suspicions being raised. in the orphanage, life was hell and everyone there tormented her, calling her 'cream puff' because she used to like cream puffs and that they thought that she was weak and erring. But in reality she was not weak, but artful.
In utmost secrecy when the time was right, she found out the locations of secret pre-war hideouts where the remnants of Snow's regime was hiding out. With the undeniable claim that she was Snow's rightful heir, and the only survivor of Snow's dynasty, she united the leftover Peacekeepers and rechristened them as Dark Peacekeepers. The aim of the now coined Restoration Movement is aimed to take back the country and bring back the Hunger Games. This is surely not good news to President Paylor and the people of Panem who have no love for brutal Peacekeepers or the sadistic Hunger Games. But Jesse is more interested in my training than in those threats.
When he hears that most of my motions are computed and programmed, he dismisses them as 'arranged combat' and offers to teach me the real stuff. To do this however, he examines my records and decides that it would be better to train me in a simulation instead of conventional dojo sessions. After all, I had already been exposed to much media and gadgetry. For two whole days, he burnt the midnight oil with a reluctant Pascal to produce a training simulation that not even athena Snow would have her hands on. And when it is ready, Pascal straps me to a chair, wires my visor and pushes a switch.
Everything blackens and a pang of fright hits me, I hope nothing's gone wrong with the system or whatsoever. Then the darkness oblivion is substituted gradually with a welcome glowing white and before I know it, everything around me is white. I get up from my chair and the apparatus vanishes as soon as I do. I'm in my training armour. Then nature rendering appears. Grass on the ground, trees sprouting into the air, the blue sky emerging and in a matter of seconds, I notice that I'm in a very queerly familiar place where the innocent blood of mere children was spilled and where a tyrant showed his power to the masses by having a bloody competition in which their children would die. I recognise the golden horn of the Cornucopia and the ring of Tributes around it not far from me.
My headcom crackles to life. "Yes, Jay. This is the arena from the 74th Hunger Games." Pascal says. "But there are more than 24 Tributes here, and this arena features over more than 100 species of mutts produced during all 75 years of Hunger Games plus the two rebellions. In this challenge, you have to make sure that you survive and that you prevent any mutt or Tribute from touching the Cornucopia. To add it all up, you are only given your two swords and one energy bow, which is an ordinary bow that fires projectiles indefinitely."
"Seriously, Pascal!" I murmur. Then the gong sounds. Sure enough all Tributes scamper for the golden horn and even more burst out from the trees behind me, their eyes screaming 'monster' and 'mutt' at me. I dodge the first Tribute and slash his right leg off before dashing right for the Cornucopia. Five Careers, strong and bold as they look are about to enter the Cornucopia for weapons, but I pull out my bow and skid at them, firing arrows as fast as I can. An arrow splits the brains of one, the intestines of another and the femur of a third. The latter staggers away, his purpose defeated. I face off with the other two Careers. I gasp when I recognise them as Cato and Marvel. Cato grabs a blade and swings it at me, but he's a towering giant. Being a smaller opponent, I slide under him as the blade goes and slash his manhood.
I subdue Marvel easily by throwing one of my swords at his head, and it sticks out from his cranium like an flagpole at a political rally. I grab another sword from the weapons pile and fend the other Tributes off easily. Some of them are average fighters that can be defeated with a trick-move or two. A pale-skinned boy clad in medieval armour attacks me with a hatchet (they got their weapons and gear some away from the Cornucopia), but I end the fight before it begins by slashing quickly at his fingers grasping the weapon. I can see two phalanges break off and hear the screams of the warrior. But I end his suffering by swiftly beheading him.
For the next hour, I leap, dart and prance around the Cornucopia as Tributes charge in from the woods. Some I recognise from earlier tapes of the Games, some are clearly made up. For example, a Tribute showed up in diamond armour, and I don't remember jewels being turned into apparatus for war. But it was surprisingly easy to deal with him, for he made a mistake of not putting on a helmet to battle. I took him out with an arrow to his forehead. Then i find myself face to face with Finnick. I start to feel bad about having to kill a hero of Panem, but i remind myself that this is merely a simulation and I duck just in time before his trident can pierce me. I fire an arrow or two at him, but he knocks them off effortlessly with a spin of a second trident. He's shirtless and looks gorgeous and all, but his eyes are full of hate.
"I wished your mother died so that you were never born." he spits out. "She left me to die at the hands of mutts, what kind of animal would do that?" But I don't feel like talking, so I lunge at him. His trident clashes with my sword. I swipe at him several times, trying to find a spot where I can make a successful cut at him. But his weapon being long and he being skillful, Finnick blocks every blow as if it were as easy as pie. "You still haven't answered me yet, you mutt!" he snarls. In the back of my mind, I register the arrival of more Tributes getting near the Cornucopia. If I distract myself by parrying with Finnick, they'll reach the horn in no time and I will only have myself to blame. Then something hits me.
"Why answer you, you fish-man!" I yell. "Don't you look like a mutt yourself, with those filthy scales on your back!" I feel embarrassed by my lack of vocabulary of vulgarities. I must ask Haymitch to teach me some new obscenities. But my miserable attempt at aggravation somehow succeeds as his face turns purple with rage. He charges, and I dash into the crowd of Tributes approaching the Cornucopia. Instead of fighting opponents myself, I let Finnick do it. I focus my efforts on dodging and avoiding blows while Finnick is forced to focus his efforts on defending himself from Tribute after Tribute. He's strong and he has speared about thirty Tributes in a matter of minutes. Pretty soon the rest of the Tributes decide that he's a more tougher adversary to fight than me, and that I am too easy to be shaken off. So everyone rushes for Finnick's head, the same way the wolf mutts did to Cato. With some silly curse word, I had lured Finnick to do the dirty work of killing Tributes.
Then the mutts come. Big bears with muscles thicker than bricks and claws longer than machetes. The normal wolf mutts in large packs. Tracker jackers pouring in from the east, looking like a terrible sandstorm from the distance. Murderous cranes with long beaks for lances. Fortunately for me, still more Tributes charge on. I am deciding to just lead the masses of mutts to the Tributes when Jesse himself appears.
"Hey, why are you here? Missing some fun?" I say jokingly. "Yes and no." he says. "I see what you want to do. Lead enemy to fight enemy. But not all enemies are that dumb. Sometimes you have to go through the whole hog, and when you do so, you can choose to either use skills that others don't have or employ teamwork which can get smart." "How?" I ask.
"Look at that bag beside you." he says. "Open it." I do and I find solid spheres that reflect light. "This was a tool that tributes could use to make fires or traps, as we shall do. Unfortunately the Games got scrapped before they could be introduced. Look you!" A wolf mutt salivating for my blood nearly sinks its teeth in my arm but Jeese slices it into two with one chop. "What would you like to do with it, Jay?"
"Fend off the mutts. I know where to put them." I dart off for the Cornucopia and begin climbing it hastily with the reflecting globes. Jesse looks at me incredulously for giving him a tough job, but he squares his shoulders and gets to work. He does his job well, killing many Tributes and a lot of mutts. He kills a bear mutt by dicing its head the moment it shows its fangs and grabs a crane, thrusting it, beak and all into five Tributes all at once.
I can imagine Pascal winching at this brutality.
But that is not all. After scuffling with a wolf mutt, he actually has the stomach the chop the nose off the animal before spilling its gizzards onto the ground. He grabs the carcass and uses it as a shield against the incoming tracker jackers. The waves of mutant hornets are so intense that some of the barbed stingers actually lodge through the carcass, but Jesse takes care that he does not hold the 'meat shield' by the barbs. And he slams the stinger- ridden body onto a group of Tributes battling a mutt. Talk about having a coat soaked in poison and fixed with thorns thrown on you.
Meanwhile I find that the mirror globes, as I call them can unfold to become flat panels with steady aluminium stands. I position them in such a way that straight beams of light are directed at strategic areas around the Cornucopia. Then I have another idea. With the help of items like crates and boxes from inside the golden horn, I prop up higher mirrors to reflect light to the lower ones, so that more powerful rays are reflected onto the Tributes and mutts below. I look up at the sun and deduce that it's going to be a hot scorching afternoon, just the time of day that I desire. And Jesse jumps up to the Cornucopia just in time before the heat rays start killing.
The next moments are agony for the foes below. Mutt and tribute alike fine themselves being microwaved and burnt alive from the intense heat, courtesy of the makeshift solar weapons. Everyone has stopped fighting and instead collapse on their feet, edge away from the Cornucopia or race to the lake to cool down. But that makes it worse as I had directed another powerful ray that heats up the lake. They leap into the waters expecting cool relief, only to literally fly out of it screaming or yelping in shock. The horde of mutts and Tributes have somehow formed a wide circle around the Cornucopia, wanting to siege us. But I have another idea. I take out more mirrors and position a couple of them facing each other. The light reflected to each other is so intense and bright that I could go blind by just looking at it. Then I slide a mirror under the reflection of light. The resulting beam shoots to the sky like a laser beam and hits the arena shield. I add more mirrors and the light becomes more and more intense. Jesse looks up and says, "So you're trying to break the s-"
"BOOM!" And the entire simulation disintegrates, bringing us back to the real world and to the annoyed Pascal with his arms folded.
"I never expected you to try to win by overloading the holographic emitters and breaking the machine!" he pouts.