Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here - yes, I am not dead, but I sure as heck feel like it lol - with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #24: The Kill Switch. Yes, the name is foreboding, yes you all should be afraid. Last chapter, #23: Viva La Revolution, was a Capitol centered chapter where the thermometer broke, and Rennie has officially, alongside the other members of The Phoenix, have brought a rebellion to Bonnie's feet. Our - your - poor tributes are caught in the crossfire. This chapter might be a bit all over the place, word count wise, as I have a lot I need to have happen pretty much at once in a short burst of time, but I'm gonna try to have it be over a low level of 7k if I can help it.
I will say, as a forewarning as I've felt some murmuring floating around, to just trust the process I am bringing ourselves through. This will follow a Slaughter like style where we will alternate between Capitol and tribute centric storylines, but truthfully, they're all in the same storyline. I do not recommend skipping Capitol chapters as you'll just be confused. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #24: The Kill Switch.
~ And so sayeth the Lord, all sinners get their deaths in due time, and some are sooner and quicker than others.
Amaris O'Hara: District 6 Female P.O.V (18)
She has a headache from all the voices rising up to have their oh so ever important words heard. Amaris stands in front of the bathroom mirror, the light jacket she had put on to greet the devil still shrouding her shoulders, and several lone tears now painting the side of her face, crystal lights reflecting back melancholy onto the shimmering surface. She hates him. She hates stupid freaking Ponty Carr so much, he thinking he can just step up to her and rest a hand on her shoulder, or to try and hold her hands... who does he think he is? Just because he has the money and privilege of being on top of the world in Six does not grant him the right to judge her. After wiping away the tears, in which the grim frown on her face has yet to disappear, she goes back to her room, Ponty still staying up and standing against that column over by the window.
Amaris gets perhaps only twenty minutes of sleep before Ponty comes into her room, shaking her awake. She almost breaks his wrist, truthfully, eyes burning a volcanic black, as she looks up at him. However, the look on his face is not what she expects, it being one of clouded concern, a tinge of worry hiding in the way his brow furrows together, and the heaviness of his face. Amaris believes he's intruded into her bedroom without knocking to cope a feel - certainly not to apologize, he doesn't strike her as an apologist - but whatever insult she goes to spew at him dies on her tongue when she sees, just through the crack of the doorway, Vanya Vasiliev in their living room, face doused in shadow, and the look of terror is palpable enough that she tastes it in the back of her throat like battery acid.
It is something about a letter and a command and a video going around, and maybe the end of the world, but there's something else involved that piques her interest and has her taking the covers off... human survival.
Somehow, by the grace of something up above, she and the other twenty-three tributes are down in the training center, and everyone seems to be shrouded in a perpetual state of arguing. Amaris looks around the gathered tributes, some looking absolutely exhausted for it being 2:30 in the morning, before a death match in some infernal industrial contraption, everyone in some sort of night wear or dress wear. She finds it eye-opening how a couple of the tributes are shirtless - Aris needs to put his shirt back on; she never expected him to look so skinny - or in pretty much nothing but their literal underwear, but one thing is pretty much universal on all of their faces: anger, confusion, or a mix of both, a grotesque mystery child. Vanya is in the center of the group, Zola right next to him, and he's physically shaking, gripping onto the letter in his hands.
It is eerie, the training center at night. Amaris finds it odd how there's not a single Peacekeeper in sight, and they all managed to not wake up any of their mentors or escorts or any of the staff while making it down to the rendezvous point. All of the training dummies and weapons seem to have vanished out of sight except for a single rack on the wall, there being a couple swords, two bow and arrow sets, an axe, maul, a hammer, some sort of wire device, and a couple of knives, but the rack lies in the dark, the lights tuned down to a dim setting. It is as if everyone in the building had vanished except for them, and the more Amaris settles on the thought, the worse it gets for her. She alternates between the seemingly abandoned center and her fight with Ponty, but it is overturned by Zola stomping her foot on the ground and screaming at the top of her lungs.
"HEY! Everyone, shut up!" she screams, and that does the trick.
Everyone's voices goes out in little flickers, dying tributaries of protest petering out, every set of eyes now staring at the tributes in the center of the ring. Vanya stands up straighter, holding out the letter and turning around to face all of them. Amaris realizes, with a stark and definite shudder crawling down her back, that they're all arranged in a manner like you would during the bloodbath, waiting for the gong to ring. The male from Eleven swallows heavily, his eyes roaming everyone's faces, and when he reaches hers, she doesn't balk away. "I know you're all confused; I'm confused too."
"What are we doing down here?" Magdalena asks, tiredly, she practically leaning up against Cambric's shoulder, who does not seem entirely thrilled by the prospect.
"We're here-" Vanya starts to speak.
"I swear, if you invited all of us down here just to see you dance-" Jules begins to speak, but it seems as if he doesn't need to continue talking for both Satin and Aris give him withering glares. Amaris raises an eyebrow, wanting to chuckle. Perhaps she should've accepted that Career invitation after all, her tying with Jules would mean there could've been some competition between them in winning the leadership spot, since it seems as if he is doing an amazing job spectacularly messing up whatever laid plans have been set.
"That is not why we're here," Zola interrupts, her eyes bristling with electricity.
"In case you all forgot," speaks up twelve year-old Audhild Olthono, everyone turning to look at her, "We have an arena to get to in seven hours."
"She's right," Roanoke Arkus picks up the mantle. "If the Peacekeepers or Madam President or anyone sees we're not all here, you imagine the trouble we're going to be in when-"
"We're already being forced to kill each other," snorts Bloom Estrada. "How is there any other trouble worse than that?"
Amaris does not know the full extent of why they're down there in the training center, but she sees the way there's panic lacing on Vanya's face, a surprise to be sure, as she's always found him to be the one most calmly kept together. "Guys, seriously," she says, as there's about to be another rouse of shouting between District 12 and Aris, and Satin almost punching Zola in the jaw, but it is Amaris that gets all the attention on her. Ponty, who seemed to be about to get into words with Seth, Sophiana separating the two with both arms out, looks at her with a raised eyebrow. Amaris keeps her arms crossed, mouth level, face kept still. "I'm curious as to what Vanya has to say. We were all curious, weren't we? We all came down here, and if we weren't curious, we wouldn't have come," she nods at him. "Vanya, what is it?"
The ballet dancer's face is unreadable, but he licks his lips, reaffirming his posture. "I was instructed by someone called The Phoenix to collect ourselves down here, with our training uniforms, at 2:30 AM, and someone was going to come meet us and give us more instructions."
That seems to do the trick, with everyone clamoring in an uproar once more, but Amaris leans back against a column, rolling her eyes. Teenagers, children, every last one of them. Despite everyone's apprehensions, it's the truth, everyone listened to Vanya, although some are starting to move in their disgruntlement. She is currently holding her training uniform over her arm, because Ponty and Vanya's voices are too strong for her to reconsider. Aris's face is twisted in a scowl. "That sounds like a load of bullshit!"
"You can read the letter if you want," Zola takes it out of her district partner's hand, smiling with mockery, tilting her head to the side some.
"Who's to say we can even trust this Phoenix person?" asks Vivian Whiplash, the District 10 girl. Amaris has felt that fox's eyes linger all over her, perhaps hungrily - she is not so sure on that - but she also senses a judgment in the long stares over the lunch tables, judgement at who she is. At what she is. Amaris can judge right back, for she's seen the eyes of many murderers in her time with the Peacekeeper force. It is an identifiable spark, a tell-tale sign, and Vivian's body reeks of it. She's killed before. She sees the same look in Seth's eyes too, but his is darker, a smoldering fire being squashed out from above.
"We have any reason to not trust him?" voices Anahita Cascade.
"The fact that we've been roused out of sleep at 2:30 in the morning," Satin tells her, a extremely hard to miss glare emanating from her gaze, she crossing her arms.
Jason Lacey, the mayor's kid from District 9, takes a step towards the center of the circle, his brow pent together in pensive thought. "I've heard or read that name before..." he frowns. "What did President Rodney say after we completed the parade?" He looks around at the gathered tributes. "What did she say?"
"Someone potentially wishing to harm us," Mirek speaks up, having pushed Bloom behind him, since she keeps on looking over at Aris, fire in her eyes. Amaris is finding it hard to not look away from Ponty, who is looking at her, eyes searching for any sort of reaction. "You all remember that video we got shown at the reaping, right?"
Everyone nods, voicing assent of some sort. How could Amaris forget it? The lies being spoken out of that Avox's mouth, the damned lies of murder and betrayal and victors being blamed for someone else's wrongdoings... she wants to puke, and nearly does when her name is called out by the escort. "Rennie Davis," Ciphra's face lights up in remembrance.
"What if this is him that sent Vanya the letter?" Mirek looks back at his district partner, and Bloom's eyebrows rise in realization, mouth parting open. "What if this is what he was speaking of? A revolution against the president... against the Games... what if this is it? The building is empty, isn't it?" Hard to disagree with that fact. "The building must be empty because it is always assumed we stay in bed and wait to be waken up, for all the preparations are complete," he rubs a hand across his neck. "Because we have our trackers in, they know where we are," he shakes his head. "I think we're all pieces in something much bigger."
"Or it's just an easier way to kill us all," Rodric Oxford bites back, he closer to Cambric and Magdalena than Vivian, who has gravitated herself towards District 3. "To get us all in the same space before they blow our heads off."
"That's just paranoia," Cyril tells the male from Ten. Amaris isn't sure who or what to believe, she simply wants to go back to bed.
Vanya's face starts to lose some of its color, and Zola is trying to speak up again. Amaris's eyes wander over the group of tributes, a worrisome cinderblock beginning to settle down onto her shoulders. Something's off, something doesn't feel right, but she can't lay a finger on it. Over in their section, Tach Andon presses a hand onto Ciphra's shoulder, she turning around to look at him with a curious expression on her face. "Ciphra..." he whispers, but the whisper is loud enough for everyone to hear him. Tach swallows heavily, and Amaris notices that he has one hand digging into the left side of his throat, as if he's trying to claw something out.
"Tach, what is it?"
"I- I can't breathe-"
That rouses Cambric's attention, he leaving Magdalena's side, but he keeps himself at a bit of a distance. "Tach, what do you mean?"
"Something in my throat..." the kid coughs, and his hand resting on Ciphra's shoulder goes to the right side of his throat, fingers plaiting at the pale flesh.
Seth Cables shakes his head, lifting a hand up in the air dismissively. "I don't know about you guys, but this is horseshit. I'm gonna go back to bed, see you losers in the morning-"
Amaris leans off of the column some, staring directly at Tach. Is- is his neck glowing? He wheezes out another cough. "Ciphra, I'm not joking, I-"
Cambric is about to reach the male from Three, and Sophiana is calling out Seth's name. Zola looks over at Vanya with wide eyes, Bloom and Mirek talking together in hushed whispers, but Amaris feels all the hair on her arms stand up on end. Tach's fingers dig in deeper into his throat, and she is not kidding now when she says his skin is glowing a lustrous cardinal, as if something underneath is burning off excess energy, like nuclear fission. Ciphra opens her mouth, about to say something, when Amaris hears it. A hiss, as if someone left the teapot on a hot stove too long.
Tach clutches his throat once more, eyes widening, his chest rising and falling fast with him trying to catch his breath, eyes straining out of his head, he pulling on Ciphra's arm as if his life depends on it, she grimacing in pain out of his grip. "Ciphra, I don't feel good..."
Before anyone else can act or react, rather, the hiss reaches a fever pitch. Before all of their very eyes, Tach's throat explodes. A cavern opens out of the side of his neck, a torrent of blood and flesh splattering all over Ciphra, who is standing the closet near him. Copper droplets hang onto the side of the hole in his throat, and it is as if Tach hangs there on the wind, precariously floating in a limbo of life and death. Something lands on the floor of the training center with a clatter, it blinking slightly before turning off, steam rising from the device. Tach's tracker.
Tach's body falls back onto the floor with a crash, and all Amaris can hear over the noise of everyone screaming in terror and panic is Ciphra the loudest of all, her body covered in cardinal, and the sound of the explosion rippling through the floor.
Satin Spinel: District 1 Female P.O.V (18)
The room is in a frenzy. Ciphra is standing over Tach's body in shock, mouth wide open, constantly screaming, Cambric pulling at her to try and get to her move away with the corpse. Anahita has burst into tears, and Satin is sure she's screaming as well, as is practically everyone, although some are simply looking on in shock, like Vivian or Rodric, Bloom's face bright and furious with rage. Satin isn't sure what to do with her hands, as her heart rate has accelerated rapidly, she trying to run over to Cyril, but he's trying to calm Maren down, who is now near him, head shaking back and forth. The girl from One cannot tear her eyes away from the body, at the grisly carnage spewing out of Tach's throat, the tracker sitting in its own pool of scarlet, sometimes blipping a light in the center of it, but nothing else.
A few of the tributes are simply frozen in disbelief, one of them being Vanya, his eyes wide, and he collapsing onto his knees. No one has tried to run away, everyone seemingly distracted in calming someone else down, or screaming their head off, as poor Sophiana Delarosa is on her hands and knees, scrambling away into a corner, Sage Dagoba trying to coax her out. Satin is about to take a step towards Cyril when she hears another explosive noise rock the tribute center, followed by a piercing scream from Anahita. Everyone's eyes whirl towards her as Jules Harper's body flops to the floor face forward, and when he lands, his jaw almost comes off, snapping in half like a book set down with its pages out. Something falls off onto the floor, and blipping the same color as the blood pool, his tracker. Another rouse of terrified yelling rips through the tributes, and some of those in shock begin to lose their minds too.
Her entire body is numb. What's going on? Who's doing this?
"Roanoke!" Sage cries out, and Satin sees, just in time - or not just in time - for the kid to fall back against the wall, and when he slowly slides down, there's a pulsing spot of cardinal left behind on the mat where his skull had been pressed up against it. The kid from Seven collapses onto the ground without uttering another word, his district partner rushing over to him, trying to shake him away.
"You sent us to the slaughterhouse!" Sophiana screams at Vanya. "We're all going to die! You killed us all!"
Cambric has reached Sage, trying to tug her away from the body when a girl's voice cries out amongst all the screaming. He turns around, eyes widening in terror as Magdalena Bertha's throat rips open from the outside inward, blood spilling out onto the floor as she falls face down onto the tile. He leaps away from Sage, almost rudely knocking her into Roanoke's dead body. "NO!" he roars, and Satin has never heard someone cry out with such pain in her life. Cambric reaches his district partner, shaking her shoulder, but she's dead.
"Audi!" Jason yells out, and she's never heard his voice go that high. Satin squeezes her eyes shut, but there's the telltale sign of something rupturing from inside the girl from Nine, and a heavy thud of her body falling onto the floor. Behind her closed eyes, all she can see is a ledger soaked in crimson, a burning black of bloodlust and terror. Five tributes just dropped dead, and she has no idea if she's next or not. If this is some sort of sick joke, Satin would like to be considered out of the sick joke. Maybe Sophiana is right. Maybe Vanya has indeed led them to the slaughterhouse to be killed.
She gags on the smell of blood beginning to fill the room, trying to block out everyone's voices. Each of the dead tributes has their respective district partner by their side. Cyril tries tugging Anahita off of Jules, but she snarls at him, before turning to her dead partner. Satin does not know what emotion is currently running through her heart. She is more than okay with sending a knife into his back, stabbing him in the shoulder blades to nick his spine, but seeing him dead on the floor to a machination not of his own making, her body twists with turmoil. Seemingly the only people truly not freaking out are Seth and Aris, the two standing rather calmly, yet silently in their respective spots. Seth has a look of displeasure on his face, and the wrinkling of his nose, but Aris is cold, cold, unflinching.
Amaris moves closer to Ponty from her spot in the room, while Vivian and Rodric silently look at each other, nodding. Satin is frozen, listening to Jason try and get Audhild to open her eyes, a brutal hole where the center of her clavicle would've been. Satin has to look away from Tach and Jules's bodies that are close together, Cambric and Ciphra looking wildly around at the carnage between them. In the center, still shaking and unable to speak, is Vanya, who has Zola tugging on his arm. All of this frozen movement, all of this tugging, yet nothing. Why does this feel different from a bloodbath? What makes this different from waiting for a gong to release them all to silver weapons to spill the same crimson coating the tile floor?
Satin has trained to be a lethal killer, it is in her blood, but this does not feel like killing to prolong chances of life.
She takes a step forward, another one to Cyril, who is balancing between getting Anahita to stop crying and Maren to stop trembling, when a guttural cry of pain emanates from Vanya's throat. The Career tries to hold her vision back at bay, but she looks regardless, just in time to see Zola's fingernails dig into her throat, Vanya shaking his head back and forth, babbling some incoherent mess of pleading and begging, before she wrenches her head back, but not by her own intuition, a cascade of blood spilling out of a hole in her throat. The girl falls back, but Vanya is still holding onto her right hand, getting pulled along with her. The two crash unceremoniously onto the floor, he screaming as her lifeforce gets all over his arms, Satin visibly trembling in shock, gasping lightly, falling back onto her hands. It looks as if he's bleeding too.
Tach Andon, Jules Harper, Roanoke Arkus, Magdalena Bertha, Audhild Olthono, and Zola Taonga...
Who's next?
It can be any of them! It didn't discriminate, whatever it is that's killing them.
Satin can hardly hear herself think over everyone's yelling and screaming, when all of a sudden the ground shakes beneath her. Anahita leaps away from Jules's body and into Cyril's arms, he catching her in surprise, holding her close to his body. She has no one to hold her, no one for her to look to. Mirek and Bloom are trying to pull Ciphra, Cambric, Jason, Vanya, and Sage closer to them, but it seems that everyone is too paralyzed to truly move. The ground shakes just but a little, and it seems to pass, but it does not mean that the terror in Satin's heart has passed. Will this be the end of them all? Will all of their trackers just explode and kill them all? Is this the idea of their Hunger Games... with a potential rebellion on the loose, Bonnie would rather kill them all?
She squeezes her eyes shut, scooting up against a column. "You're fearless. Nothing can kill you. You're gorgeous. Everyone wants to be friends with you. Bonnie will spare you. You will live to see another day..."
When she opens her eyes again, Vanya is trying to wipe the blood off of his arms with the other hand, but since he is covered in scarlet, he is only spreading it worse. No one else seems to be injured. Satin locks eyes with Cyril for a moment, and then another shake ripples through the center. She gets one last look at her own district partner - traitor, she thinks dismissively - and his haunting crystallized honey gaze, before the room goes dark, a powering-down sound overwhelming the cries of shock, fear, and pain, and blackness shrouds the remaining eighteen tributes.
Power's out.
Aris Lindel: District 2 Male P.O.V (17)
The backup generator has come on, the training center doused in a serene blueberry glow, these strips that poke out of the high risers moving into place before coming on. It is not nearly enough light as before, but it'll do the trick he supposes. Aris finds this absolutely exciting, to be honest, watching the tributes die and everyone freak out. This is the exact kind of entertainment, that if it were to be televised, the world would be celebrating, cheering on this invisible specter flipping switches and causing people's jaws to fly across the room. The moment the power goes out, that idiot girl from Five screams in terror, eliciting a groan from Seth. Aris looks down at his hands when a wave of blue washes over him, the initial feel of fright passing back into the blue of his bloodstream.
He would be lying if he said that he had not been afraid his turn would come, that he's angered some sort of being above and felt it personal to dole out punishment, and that he's on the shortlist. After Zola falls down to her death, with Vanya still slightly freaking out, the shadow of the grim reaper seems to pass over the training center, as if all would be normal again, unlike there being six bodies littering the floor. No one knows what to do, but it is Vivian Whiplash that takes over, clapping her hands together, the other seventeen heads looking at her. At her orders, and trying to not throw up due to the smell, Cyril, Cambric, Rodric, and Mirek pick up the bodies and lay them in a corner, covering them with tarps taken off of the gymnastics corner on the back wall.
Aris refuses to help, staying up against the wall, and occasionally he looks over at the weapons rack. A sword shines in the dark, it whispering to him. What is to stop him from picking the sword up and running through everyone else here? They're all distracted as it is, who would see it coming? He locks eyes with Bloom from across the room, and his blood flares again. She's kept the glare against him for the duration of the evening, but no matter how hard he withers his own stare, she strengthens hers back at him, a uncompromising war ending in stalemate with no victory. Why couldn't the invisible killer target her instead? For some reason it decides it best to target a twelve and a thirteen year-old, rather easy prey... Aris could outlive them, but instead his biggest competitors in Satin, Amaris, Cyril, Ponty, and Vivian are alive.
There is something golden rising out of the vermillion sea, however, as he looks at Jules's dead body, it being the second one of the six lying in the corner near the elevators. Aris will never forget the pure look of terror that crosses the Career's face, the split second before his life ends. He does not look away when the body lands on the floor, but he does wince when the jaw dislocates and hangs out the way it does, as that is rather gruesome. Anahita's scream is absorbed directly into his veins more than any other, for it is her, truly, that is the cause for all of his problems. However, there's way too many people in the room. If he is to go and grab the sword hanging on the rack, that is who it'll strike first. It means Cyril will probably be disposed of too, given that he is physically holding the brat in his arms! Why can't he be held like that? He'd love for someone to hold him like that.
Vivian wipes some sweat off of her forehead with the back of her hand, sighing, stepping back into the center of the room. Seth goes over to the elevators, pressing on the button that'd bring it down to their floor. Nothing happens, and he grunts in frustration, pushing the button another six or seven times. "Elevator's not working," he says.
"Is there no other way out?" Bloom asks, moving closer to him.
"There doesn't seem to be," Sage agrees.
Aris keeps his mouth shut, biting down on his tongue to stem the impulse of speaking out. If he remembers his history lessons correctly, and a bit of insight from what his parents had told him while they were redesigning the Nut, is that the District 2 training centers were designed specifically like the one here in the Capitol, with the president at the time giving away consent for such a design. There'd be no reason to object, as Two gave the second highest output of Peacekeepers, it is entirely admissible to have such a thing happen. There are three ways out of the training center, one of which being the elevator that is the most common, a second route specifically for the Gamemaker balcony where Constantine makes her way from the lobby floor to the training center floor via a staircase. And the third-
"How about where the Gamemakers sat?" Maren pipes up, and Aris's nose flares. Why does he have to hear her terrible and excruciating voice?
"Yeah, I see a staircase," Rodric points it out, moving into their line of sight.
Vivian frowns, taking a step closer to it, before shaking her head, frowning. "It's too high. None of us can reach it," she turns to look over at all the mats piled up on the wall. "There aren't enough mats to reach it either..." Aris smirks to himself at the brief, yet most definitely there, glimpse of fear that causes her lips to twitch, cheeks to bristle. "There's nowhere else?"
"Does that mean we're trapped in here?" Ciphra asks, fearfully. God, what a way that would be to die. Starvation.
"It's not like the power won't come back on," Ponty points out, looking at the girl from Three with a side-eye glance. The power is out. It's not like they're trapped in a cave-in. Aris thought that the people from Three were all supposed to be intelligent, and not quoting or asking dumb, stupid questions.
There is a third way out, Aris slinking away from the main group, bounding over to the fire building station. It is a station no one uses, for the concept of building fires in the Hunger Games is the most surefire way of being eliminated. Underneath one of the floorboards, if his assumptions are correct, is supposed to be a trapdoor, a secret way out of the building in case trying to reach the stairs takes too long, or the elevator is over run, in the case of a fire. He steps over to it, drowning out most of the conversation happening between the other tributes. Aris pushes back one of the carpets, looking up to see if anyone is paying him any mind. Why should he let anyone else know? Why would they deserve to hear his gospel? His eyes search the collected group of tributes, and then his gaze lands on just the right one.
"Amaris!" he shouts at her, from across the center. It gets everyone's attention, Maren holding her stare on him the longest, before they return to their arguing. Amaris raises an eyebrow, pointing at herself, before leeching off of the wall. As she passes by the current group of Cyril, Vivian, Bloom, Rodric, Sage, Seth, Maren, and Ciphra all caught up in an argument, the others were collected off by themselves or stuck talking to each other in random pairs. She reaches him, crossing her arms.
"What do you want?"
She's a perfect candidate. Aris knows she doesn't just step out on stage for her interview in a Peacekeeper uniform just for kicks; she's one of them, as she readily admits, and that garners a complete overhaul of support from the audience. He grins to himself, before guiding her to stare downwards at the spot on the floor. It is moreso a floor panel that can be moved, rather than a door, but it is a discolored shade of gray, a few singes of ash milling on the floor from past times of people trying and failing at fire building. Amaris gasps, sucking in a sharp inhale of breath.
"Why are you showing me this?"
"You're a Peacekeeper, right?" Amaris nods silently, he looking over her shoulder to make sure no one else is paying attention. "If Vanya happens to be right, and there's some war going on, that means there must be two sides: Madam President, and those fighting back."
"Yeah, you're right..." she nods again, but there's a look of confusion on her face; she's not following.
"Only someone on the Gamemaker team would have access to the trackers, causing them to go off," Aris's throat burns with excitement, a burn unlike what he'd figure an impeding death to trigger. "That means the president or the Head Gamemaker flipped them, and no others have gone off."
"That doesn't mean they were the only six," Amaris insists, gritting her teeth.
He almost slaps her. She's not listening to him. No one ever listens to him, no one ever takes his side, no one ever hears him out... but Aris figures Amaris to be more rational than the other idiots they're hounded with, so called 'trapped' in the basement with. "Regardless, I see that it gives us an opportunity."
"An opportunity for what?"
Aris grins, gleeful in the proposition; he's surprised he had thought of it himself, for he has never been the one to bring brilliancy to the table. "You're a Peacekeeper. I'm a Career from Two," he points to the wall, hoping that she gets where he's pointing to, beyond the scope of the center. "If something is really going on out there, and someone is killing us all, I want to go and plead our allegiance."
Amaris's eyes widen, and she places a hand up to cover her mouth, a shudder rippling through her. Aris keeps his smile on his face; he sees the way her eyes go alit with the prospect. Security. Safety. "Right now?" she whispers.
"Right now," and his eyes search the room. The others are all arguing or paying attention to themselves, some digging their hands into their necks, but Aris feels that no more of their trackers will be going off without some other telltale sign. Aris locks eyes with Rodric, the only other tribute who is not involved in one of the other two things. He narrows his glance at him, and begins walking over to them. A dark crevice in the Career's brain ignites into an inferno, and his grin curves into a wicked one. "And to prove our allegiance, let's take with us a prize..."
"What are you talking about-" she shakes her head in confusion, but by that point Rodric had already made his way over to the pair, arms crossed, eyebrows raised, face serious.
"You want to tell me what you're doing?" Rodric asks.
He's never liked him. Aris has never liked other aristocrats from other districts, as he can smell the fanciness on his body from a mile away, a fishiness to it, like caviar gone spoilt, burst black eggs crawling with maggots and baby spiders, the stench of foulness overriding all the other pleasant fragrances, like lavender and silk. Aris teeters back on his heels, holding his arms out from behind his back. He positions his gaze between Amaris and Rodric, keeping an eye on the others: Vivian is arguing with Ciphra over someone breaking their neck, and Anahita is telling Cyril that she could probably jump high enough to reach one of the banisters. Distracted. Distracted is a good thing.
"Nothing," Aris smirks, and then, as the crevice's inferno begins to burn with the ferocity of Venus's surface, he acts. "Just planning our escape."
"Your what-" the tribute from Ten croaks out in surprise, as Amaris furrows her eyebrows together.
Thinking fast, Aris thrusts his palm straight into Rodric's neck. The other tribute croaks out a cry of surprise, but the force in Aris's push is too strong, he falling back, but the Career grabs him by the left hand, tugging hard so he doesn't fall back. Rodric groans to himself, not loud enough for anyone else to hear him, and Aris then pushes the palm of his hand into Rodric's neck. He groans out again, head snapping up and back into place, and within seconds, the life in the male's eyes diminishes, and he falls slack in Aris's grip, knocked unconscious.
Amaris exhales shakily, fingers tensing. "Aris! What did you do?"
"Get the hatch," he whispers, pulling on Rodric's limp body. "Now! Before they all notice!"
She rushes over to the hatch, wrenching it open without much force. Aris grunts in surprise, Rodric is not as light as he looks, scooting backwards until his heel feels nothingness beneath him. Glancing back up again, the conversation continues, by the grace of the Madam President herself. Aris drops back into the shaft, a two foot ladder onto a hallway doused in the same bluish light as the center. He motions to Amaris, who hoists Rodric up by his feet, pushing him along the carpet until his body dangles into the hatch. Down below, Aris grabs his arms, and pulls, taking all of Rodric's body weight with him, he slipping out of Amaris's grip. He falls unceremoniously onto the ground with a clash, Amaris sneaking down the ladder shortly afterwards. She closes it slowly, ever so slowly, before the mechanisms lock into place.
Aris gets to his feet, wiping sweat off of his brow, his vision shrouded in darkness with a fringe of blueberry light hanging on the edges. Amaris exhales another shaky breath, looking down at Rodric, lax and limbs tangled up at their feet, as if he's sleeping. "You didn't kill him, right?"
"No," he shakes his head. "Just knocked him out. He'll come to in probably half an hour."
"What now?" she steps over the tribute's body, getting nearer to Aris. Their arms almost touch, electricity bristling between them.
"We go out into the beyond..." Aris smirks, turning to face the other direction. At the end of the hallway is a door, highlighted by the exit sign glowing a ferocious ruby above it, and if Aris is right - he's been correct so far, why should his knowledge fail him now? - the main city circle of the Capitol should be there, and just behind it, about a half-mile or so, the presidential palace, where President Rodney will be. He turns back to Amaris, who is stretching out her arms. "Are you ready? We go out there, we head to the president, and we say we'd like to fight alongside them, offering Rodric as..." Aris searches for the word, before landing on it. "Blackmail. In return for our service, we get to live when the rebellion is quashed. You can turn back."
Amaris does not look away, but he cannot read the emotion she's reflecting back at him. There are no tears, just the locking of her jaw, a heavy sigh, she squeezing her eyes tight, and opening them, her shoulders settling back. "No need to go back. I'm a Peacekeeper; I serve," and she goes to pick up Rodric's legs.
Aris smirks again, grabbing his arms, and as if the Oxford kid is some slab of meat being hung to bleed out, they hoist him up and off of the floor, his head swaying to the side lazily, back and forth, but no bodily reaction yet. Jules got what is coming to him, he losing his jaw and all. The others? Cyril, Maren, Anahita, Bloom... they'll get theirs too, if some signal doesn't explode their heads off first. He can picture it now, kneeling before the ethereal goddess, kissing her hand, getting a kiss on the forehead in return, and exalted, loved, desired.
If there is a war going on outside, everyone should be afraid; they should be very afraid, as Aris Lindel takes no prisoners, and does not dole out mercy.
It is not in his DNA.
Maren Johnson: District 2 Female P.O.V (16)
This is pointless. All the squabbling going on, it is only serving as a distraction to the fact that six of them are dead, and the hours are drawing nearer and nearer... the power is not back on, and starvation potentially seems possible. She's seen blood before, she knows what it looks like, but nothing prepares her for seeing Tach's throat rupture, or Jules lose his jaw, or watch Vanya get covered in a stream of Zola's life force... she is incapable of stopping the scream that rips from her throat, or the tears that fall down her cheeks as other bodies fall to the floor. Luckily, the reactions are reciprocated by nearly everyone in the room, but she'll hear their screams of death and the sound of their bodies exploding into pieces for the rest of her life, for however long she shall live.
She shakes her head in frustration at Anahita taking a running start towards the upper level, the area where Constantine Fallorne would sit for their training sessions, but the girl misses it by a country mile, the level being about fifteen feet up, and Anahita only making it about half a foot. The little girl tumbles into a rather well executed roll, but she skids into one of the placemats with a groan. Vivian paces back and forth, biting on the cuticles of her thumbs, the pale skin turned a ferocious scarlet and carnation pink as she chews away, murmuring to herself slightly. The Career tries to not look over at the six bodies lying underneath the tarps, or the blood stains from where their demises had taken place. She has no idea how Ciphra, Anahita, Sage, Cambric, Jason, and Vanya are taking it, or perhaps not taking it, for Jason and Vanya haven't spoken a single word, standing rather frozen and in shock, but she doesn't blame them.
"Guys, we have to do something," Sage speaks up, running a hand through her auburn hair, tossing the braid back and forth.
"I just don't want to die..." Sophiana whispers to herself, fingers digging into her cheeks every so often. Maren asks Seth what she's doing, as it is starting to look uncanny, as if she's peeling her face of, and he remarks that she's making sure she's whole, that she isn't dead. There's a hint of disdain in his voice, and Seth is unable to keep eye contact with her or Sophiana as he looks away, going back over by the elevator, close and near the bodies. She wants to yell at him, to scream at him and tell him to leave them alone, but it is not like he's hurting anyone other than himself if he were to stare at them; it's not like any of them can be affected by another force again.
"We could try busting a hole in the wall," Cyril suggests. He points over to the weapons rack. "We have weapons at our disposal. A hammer, an axe, a sword..." and he rubs the back of his neck. "They might damage the weapons, but in case the power doesn't come back on and we're stuck down here-"
"We won't be stuck down here," Satin interrupts him, but without all of her panache, her voice trembling and her throat quaking as she speaks. Whatever semblance of composure held in the girl from One is gone, and there's a wild look in her eyes, she alternating between picking out her fingernails or playing with her. Everyone has switched into their training uniforms, Maren starting to get cold, but moreso as Vivian insists they all do. "Someone will come for us..." Satin continues, but she looks over at Vanya with uncertainty in her eyes. "Right, Vanya?"
He doesn't respond, the ballet dancer looking down at his hand. Maren raises an eyebrow, leaning forward some to see it better. It's a ring, a golden ring, and inscribed across the band, a woven ivy leaf, popping out with a bit of sharp amaranthine at the tips where the leaves meet, Vanya rolling the ring back and forth in his left hand between his middle finger and thumb. Ponty clears his throat, "Vanya," he says, and the ballet dancer looks up.
"Sure... I suppose..." he says, voice trailing off, and he goes back to staring at the ring.
Maren goes to say something when a faint noise causes her ears to prick up, almost like a rabbit's. She frowns, but it seems she might not be the only person hearing whatever it is, as Cambric picks up on it too, standing up from his sitting position over by the wall where Anahita had crashed into. The Career walks over to the far right side, closer to the electronic plant edibility test, looking upward at the miniscule spot where a few windows rest, the dark night spilling in from above. A few minor pops and cracks become evident to her ears, Maren gasping, stepping away from the wall. She is not the most familiar to the noise, but it is not foreign to her in the slightest either, a noise that marks the death of a rebelling traitor, or a murderer of a few academy cadets when a silver bullet embeds into their brain.
"Do- do you hear that?" Cambric asks, and this now has everyone's attention turned to the sound of the noise.
Maren swallows heavily. "Y- yeah..."
"It sounds like gunfire," Vivian points out, and then her eyes shoot straight to Vanya. "Vanya, did that letter mention anything about-"
"Hey, wait a minute..." Sage interrupts her, stepping into the center of the group, looking around, a frown on her face, eyes searching. "Where's Amaris and Aris?"
That piques her attention, and she looks around the room for her ever annoying and awful district partner. Hearing his monologue that had rested on the near point of insanity is a high point of her week, to be honest, if not mildly terrifying, for the look on his face of having been caught, it is priceless and she wouldn't change it for the world. He's nowhere to be found, and according to Sage, neither is Amaris. Maren does a headcount, counting fifteen... which means someone else is-
"Rodric?" Vivian calls out her district partner's name, swirling around in a circle. It would be rather comical, Maren supposes, but she finds nothing humorous in the situation and the moment in time. No response.
"Did they just-" she goes to say, but Maren never gets to finish the statement.
Before she can utter another word, the far right wall of the training center explodes. There's a deafening roar, her ears popping, a cinderblock soaring through the air, coming to a crash in front of them. They all shout and exclaim expressions of fright and surprise, a billow of smoke and sulfur and fire lacing the hole that had been the far right wall. Maren's eyes widen when two figures burst through the veil of smoke, and she almost forgets how to breathe, a sharp stabbing pain hitting her gut.
If her reaction is visceral, it doesn't compare to Cyril and Satin's. "Lance?" Cyril yells out.
"Valencia?" Satin is right behind him in astonishment, the two slinking together.
Looking much worse for wear than the others, the two victors from District 1 reach the center of the room, some sort of metallic device clenched in Lance Viel's hands, his thumb resting on a button atop it. Both of their faces are covered in soot, ash spread across their foreheads. Lance's normally brown hair is nearly as dark as Valencia's, her long onyx locks bundled in a strange mess, the two out of breath. Neither one of them respond to Cyril or Satin's outbursts, Lance looking over at the group of tributes, the fifteen of them huddling together. Maren is trying to process the fact that there is a hole in the training center, spilling in light and the smell of smoke, and the very new evident sound of gunfire to the mix, but she no longer has time to dwell on anything, more rather people simply being dragged along to the next moment in her life.
"Seriously, what the fuck is happening right now?" Anahita bursts out, a rather strong word for someone so young, but no one reprimands her.
Maren can see Lance counting out numbers by the way his lips move. "Fifteen..." he lands on, and his brow furrows in confusion. "Fifteen? Where- where are the others? There should be twenty-four..." his voice trails off.
"Dead," Vivian points behind them, the two victors following her line of sight, the six pairs of shoes poking out from the tarp laid out over them. "Vanya received a letter from someone named The Phoenix and... we were all down here and Tach's throat all of a sudden exploded and-" the girl begins to run out of breath, she expelling a shaky sigh, leaning down to place her hands on her knees.
"Then she wasn't joking," Valencia says lowly, she bulking her tongue on the side of her mouth.
"But that was six," Lance blinks, frowning. "Where- where are the other three-"
"They vanished," Sage says. "Amaris, Aris, and Rodric, we saw them here for a moment and then gone the next."
"Amaris?" the male victor repeats her name, and Sage nods. "The Peacekeeper?" He curses under his breath at the second affirmation. "She probably went to Bonnie's side..."
"What happened? What's going on-" Cyril tries to interrupt, Valencia bridging the gap between them all.
"Do you trust me?" she asks him, looking into the tribute's eyes, her face serious. "Do you trust Lance and I?" Both he and Satin nod without saying a word.
Maren has no idea what's going on. She generally never has an idea, but right now, she's losing her mind and it is not happening nicely. Why couldn't she be back home with her mother and father? If she had refused Vanya's call of getting out of bed, in which Aris oddly agrees with, no argument passing from his lips, perhaps none of this would have happened. Perhaps all of this is a dream and if she pinches her arm hard enough she'll wake up, all the way back home, and that these last nine months have been a fever dream of training and set expectations, and her mother is not withering away with cancer and-
She has gotten too far ahead of herself, trying to lapse back into the conversation.
"We don't have any time to explain, but we need all of you to come with us," Valencia says.
"Where?" Sophiana asks, still trembling. Maren tries to not lock eyes with the girl, she still pulling on her face.
Valencia goes to reply, but she's overridden by someone else, Maren's body shaking with a thunderous shock to her nervous system. "YOU!" Seth roars, and out of the corner of her vision, she sees the male from Five race forward from the back of the room, she not even noticing him or that he hadn't been by them. There's something silver in his right hand, jagged and pointed as he rushes past Cyril, knocking Sophiana out of the way. Valencia backs up, almost as if slow motion, a burning look of hatred in Seth's eyes, as he vaults for her, a knife slicing downwards through the air.
Cambric leaps forward, tackling Seth to the ground, Jason shouting in surprise as the blade scatters off into the distance. Half of them stand in the pure thaw of surprise and shock at what the hell just happened, Maren's body vibrating with pure adrenaline. Seth snarls, spit flying from his mouth and onto the tile as Ponty, Cyril, and Sage all topple onto him, Cambric gripping onto Seth's hands.
"Seth, what the hell?" Cyril shouts at him.
"Get off me!" he growls, struggling underneath their weight.
Did- did Seth Cables just try killing Valencia? Why? Maren's head is swimming with uncertainty and confusion, but apparently she has more to see, more to suffer, as Vivian is starting to say something under the thaw of excitement and buzz floating around the center. Maren sees it too, but cannot hear what is being said over the roar of blood in her ears. A legion of white on the horizon, but the wave is coming at them strong and fast, and speckled throughout, blobs of midnight, formed structures that seem to take malicious forms in the murkiness.
"Guys, we've got company-" Vivian shouts, when four figures from the legion of white - Peacekeepers, Maren thinks, her mouth drying up instantaneously, coming to kill the survivors - break off and crouch onto their knees, just outside of the entrance that Lance and Valencia stepped into, her mind connects two and two together to make four.
Lance follows the line of sight, breaking his attention away from the struggle happening by his feet. "GET DOWN!" he roars, and then the world ignites in a sulfurous blaze.
Seth is wrenched to his feet just in time for Cambric and Sage to knock him out of the way, the three falling suit and diving to the left, as Mirek pushes Bloom out of the way, before diving to the right. Bloom hits Vanya, still pretty much lost to the surrounding environment, the two falling over together as Valencia leaps over to them, pulling something out of a clip strapped to her waist. Vivian grabs Maren's hand, wrenching her to the ground as a rocket from an RPG soars above their heads, her face feeling the warmth of the rocket as it slams into the far left wall, another explosion of cinderblock and ash creating a gaping hole in the wall and the spot directly underneath it, a sinkhole forming and cracking underneath the weight.
Anahita is frozen in place as well, staring at the four Peacekeepers prepared to murder them as the second artillery firer takes his shot. Cyril rushes at her, picking her up in his arms, the second RPG soaring over his head and into the ceiling. Ponty seizes Jason by the waist, diving in the same direction as Vivian had taken Maren, they collapsing onto the cold floor. Maren's jaw hurts from the collision, she trying to speak, but no words can come out. Satin goes to hide behind a column, and Mirek is trying to rush at Sophiana, who is doing a terrible job at hiding, when the fourth rocket is fired, causing Mirek to rush to a halt. Ciphra, covering her ears, dives behind the same pile of dummies that Vanya and Bloom scooted over to, mouth open in a scream, but it feels like everyone's screaming. Maren's head rattles with the booming noises, a cacophony of sound overwhelming the chamber.
Lance is screaming something, something unintelligible, where Valencia is pulling at Bloom and Vanya to get to their feet. Sage and Cambric pick Seth up, Cambric keeping his grip tight, and the five of them race towards one of the open holes in the wall from one of the missed rockets. The male victor is about to head out into the night when he picks up Ciphra, as if she is a ragdoll, the girl limp in his arms. Vivian's hands are picking at the back of Maren's shirt, forcing her to her feet, but her body is not cooperating. The Peacekeepers reload their RPG's, stepping through the hole this time, and it is Cyril's voice that causes Maren to react.
A streak of fire burns the air as it aims for the column that Satin is hiding behind. Cyril screams his district partner's name again, and she screams his, before the entire column crumbles under the bombardment, Satin racing away to another hole in the wall, but a different one than where the victors had run out of. Maren sees Mirek and Sophiana hiding behind other columns, the boy from Twelve trying to reach the other girl, she freaking out and screaming, non-stop screaming, when Ponty leaps out from his spot, grabbing Cyril and wrenching him back. Another two RPGs soar through the sky, hitting another two columns, and the entire building groans.
Maren gasps, the entire floor above them starting to crack, fractures appearing in the ceiling. They're going to bring down the whole tribute center! Vivian is still pulling at her shirt, but she's focused on Mirek and Sophiana trying to reach other as the Peacekeepers fire another two shots. Another two columns are blasted away, Sophiana scattering out another exit, and Mirek curses, looking over at Maren and the rest of them, but the distance is too far... he'll never make it. With an affirming nod, he rushed over to a fourth hole in the wall, one on the east side, where the gunshots had been heard from, escaping into the night, but the others were backing into a corner.
Another column is blown away, and several pairs of hands snag onto Maren's back, as a boulder crashes into where she had been recently standing. She squeezes her eyes shut, waiting for the booms to end, but they never end, as the rest of the training center, the fourteen floors above them, starts to crack, fractures appearing in the room. Is she screaming? Or is it the sound of a heavenly army destroying everything?
The ceiling gives way, the last six tributes remaining in the tribute center huddled in a corner by the weapons rack, the one from where Seth would've stolen the knife from, and then Maren's vision goes black.
Vivian Whiplash: District 10 Female P.O.V (16)
She should've stayed in bed. Rather yet, she should've let the Peacekeeper all the way back home in Ten shoot her after she tries breaking out of his grip to say goodbye to Tamerin, longing for that last kiss. Vivian lifts her head and rests it against the one spot of the wall that has not been blown to shit. She can hardly more than a few inches in front of her face clearly, there being a few cracks of light peering out through the collapsed wall of rubble that separates them from the Peacekeepers. There's nothing; no more explosions, no more talking, and no more screaming: just the shaky breaths of she and five other tributes. Vivian has no idea what just happened, but she cannot stop her hands from shaking, especially as she sees the six bodies lying under the tarps - You'll remember their names, dammit, Vivian hisses to herself in her head, they're Tach Andon, Jules Harper, Roanoke Arkus, Magdalena Bertha, Audhild Olthono, Zola Taonga... and they're dead - are some of the first things in the room to be crushed by the collapsed ceiling, and the thirteen floors that follow suit.
Vivian removes herself from the wall, sighing, rubbing her face. She has not been able to stop sweating, her face stinging as new droplets slide down to take the places of the one freshly wiped away. Her throat is dry, coughing on the spreading dust cloud, they stuck in no more than a five by five space, the only unbroken part of the center above them, but Vivian is not putting her faith in that holding up for much longer. She peers into the darkness, four sets of eyes glooming back at her, piercing stares of cerulean, emerald, and mahogany, but all of them gone and confused, terrified and out of sorts. Cyril is trying to dig and claw his way through the rock bed, his grunts and growls of frustration filling the space. It is commendable, she'll give him that, but it is futile. There's nowhere for them to go, that way. There is one way, the one way she had been trying to grab Maren and thrust her towards, as Maren Johnson is the closest person next to her.
"What do we do now?" Jason asks, shakily, his lanky frame staunch when crouched next to tiny little Anahita.
"I can't believe what just happened..." Ponty exhales, his voice the least shaky of them all.
Cyril slams his foot against one of the boulders, and when he turns around to face them, his cheeks are stained in crystal rivers, tears falling free with a pathetic pitter pat, pitter pat beneath his shoes. "It's no use. I can't get one of them loose."
"I saw Satin run out an exit," Maren pipes up, but her voice is barely above a whisper over in her tiny spot. "She got out, Cyril."
"But what about-"
"There's no way the Peacekeepers didn't just get crushed by the ceiling coming apart," Vivian finds herself saying, righting herself with as much room as she can afford herself. "The entire center just collapsed. Whoever sent them, they were on a suicide mission to kill the rest of us, and they didn't succeed."
Jason hugs his knees to his chest. "I don't want to move on. I want to stay here and not move an inch," and his voice breaks. "She died. Audi just died. She didn't hurt anybody, yet she's dead..."
"Cyril, I'm scared," Anahita admits to him, scooting closer to the Career, resting her head against his shoulder.
"I'm scared too, kid."
"And that's okay?"
"It's perfectly okay."
Vivian finds it heartwarming, sure, but there is no way she is going to sit here and rot. She scoots over to the location she had been gunning for, the one someone wouldn't have thought to follow. "Guys, we can't stay here and not move. We're not cowards, and I don't want something else to kill us, as a lack of oxygen just might do it," Five gazes snap up to look at her. "The first rocket they fired hit a wall and caused the floor to crack open as well, and I think it leads to a maintenance tunnel, and maintenance tunnels must have a beginning and an end." She's right, as she's staring at it, a dimly lit hallway surrounded by stark walls, the chill of a fresh winter hanging down below, but it is the only path offered to them. "I'm going to go down there."
"And what about after that?" Ponty asks.
She shakes her head in dissent. "I'm not sure. If there really is a war going on outside, maybe we should try and join up with Valencia, Lance, and the others, but I don't know where they are."
"I want to go home," Maren pipes up, but as she says it, she gets to her feet, shaking slightly.
"We can't go home," Jason says, his voice hollow, cracked, broken. He locks eyes with Vivian. "The Capitol tried killing all of us, and they killed Audi. If you're going to go and fight them, I want to come too."
Someone like Jason, Vivian realizes, is someone she'd be upset with, the idea of him having money and the means to share and help people, but never lifting a finger, but she hears the shakiness in his voice, the fear that rides it... she cannot help but be impressed by his prowess. She also thought Ponty would be rather despicable, but she garners a sense of respect for him too, in a way, but it does not settle easily in her throat. Illuminated slightly by one of the cracks appearing through the wall of debris, the glinting silver of the weapons rack stands out to her, the familiar moonlit silver of the blades popping to her eyes. She walks over, plucking the bow and quiver off of it, shouldering the quiver, holding the bow in her hand, before staring back at the other five tributes.
Anahita gets up first, wiping at her runny nose, two knives still in their sheaths being pocketed by her side. Cyril takes a sword, swinging it to himself in the tiny space afforded to him, before grinning widely. Ponty searches for something, but doesn't say what, before settling on some sort of bludgeoning-like weapon, like a maul of sorts. Maren's fingers wrap around the hilt of an axe, but it requires a lot of her strength to lift it off of the rack. Jason picks out a sword skinnier than Cyril's, by a rather wide margin, put takes another knife as well.
Vivian looks at the group standing in front of her, all eyes on her. She didn't mean to take center stage, she really didn't, but Vivian Whiplash is not going to die in the Capitol if there is no Hunger Games being forced upon them.
"You don't have to follow me..."
"But we want to," Cyril says, and there's an edge to his voice, a sharp bitterness that is mixed in with positivity, a faint praise. "It's like you said, that or nothing."
She nods, sighing deeply. Vivian hopes that Rodric is alive, wherever he is, and that he knows what to do if someone were to come charging at him, shooting some sort of machine at him. Three hours ago, she calls herself a monster, for doing what she's needed to do to survive... she might need to continue the monster route for a little while longer, lives on the line, people putting their faith and trust in her, but she is not going to shy away from the challenge.
Taking another sigh, an extremely deep breath that almost plucks all of the remaining oxygen out of their haven, Vivian takes the plunge, jumping into the service tunnel.
24th: Tach Andon, 16, District 3 Male. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by Audmirable. So, Audmirable, I don't think you didn't see this coming, given Valencia won last time and she's a main character in this, our confident scientist, neurotic, funny man was doomed from the start. I really did enjoy writing him however, and he played greatly off of Ciphra, but his time to survive is no more.
23rd: Jules Harper, 17, District 4 Male. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by DMonkey1607. Okay, so to say Jules was disliked or hated is putting it at as an understatement. I actually enjoyed writing him, as although his form was extremely small, he was a tribute designed to rock the boat and he rocked the boat so damn well. Also, it allowed me to creatively think of a way to kill him... but it just goes to show that it doesn't matter if you're a Career, high scorer or not, the war can still kill you.
22nd: Roanoke Arkus, 13, District 7 Male. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by Guesttwelve. This hurt, I'll just say that. The moment I received Roanoke I knew I wanted to use him, as there was so much in him that I got to unpack over these last thirteen chapters since his introduction, but sometimes there are tributes who are sacrificed for the will and usage of another, and he was one of those unlucky ones to fall victim.
21st: Magdalena Bertha, 18, District 8 Female. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by Tiger outsider. She was someone who most definitely grew on me, but like Roanoke, was the only submission I accepted for the slot. In a regular Games, she could've potentially been a contender, and her realistic ways on the world were amazing and fun to write, but alas, the Kill Switch was hungry.
20th: Audhild Olthono, 12, District 9 Female. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by 66asmvr. This little girl here, she was absolutely a delight to write. I had a very hard time making this decision of having her die here, for being such a young age with such wizened experience, but what I had and what I got to do with her was lovely too; it's a shame things have turned out the way they have.
19th: Zola Taonga, 17, District 11 Female. Killed by the Kill Switch. Created by Apple1230. This was painful, writing her last moments, and I realized with her interview POV how badly I was going to miss her, and goodness I miss her already. She was a delight, a wonderful character to bounce off of with Vanya, and a lot of you became endeared towards her as well. Apple, I'm sorry, but it needed to be done, and it has killed me so.
Tribute List (Boy - Girl)
District 1: Cyril Barther [Submitted by thorne98] / Satin Spinel [Submitted by Mistycharming]
District 2: Aris Lindel [Submitted by grimbutnotalways] / Maren Johnson [Submitted by Crashed Ice24]
District 3: Ciphra Longsdale [Submitted by Flammifera]
District 4: Anahita Cascade [Submitted by Reader Castellan]
District 5: Seth Cables [Submitted by Nemris] / Sophiana Delarosa [Submitted by Santiago Poncini20]
District 6: Ponty Carr [Submitted by Queenofinsanity] / Amaris O'Hara [Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie]
District 7: Sage Dagoba [Submitted by AlexFalTon]
District 8: Cambric Vogel [Submitted by dyloccupy]
District 9: Jason Lacey [Submitted by ilvidis]
District 10: Rodric Oxford [Submitted by Alexcias] / Vivian Whiplash [Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn]
District 11: Vanya Vasiliev [Submitted by TheMayflyProject]
District 12: Mirek Bosco [Submitted by curiousclove] / Bloom Estrada [Submitted by LordShiro]
...
Capitol Cast of Characters
President of Panem: Bonnie Rodney
Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: Rennie Davis
Master of Ceremonies: Pollux Aetos
Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: Valencia Shale
Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: Lance Viel
Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: Criston Pellock
Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: Hale Cornerstone
Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: Hector Merviere
Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: Kevia Janelle
Head Gamemaker: Constantine Fallorne
Head Peacekeeper: Lazarus Pietro
*deep breath* Okay, so I know you're all screaming at me and wondering what the hell, but let me catch my own breath first. I absolutely gotta stop setting minimums for me cause I thought that this would barely breach 10k, barely lol. Although I had Bonnie flip the kill switches at randomly, I ultimately decided on the six that passed purely out of whether or not I could use them for the particular storyline I had in mind. I had a lot going on in my head, a lot of chaotic thought as I needed to branch all eighteen tributes into four distinctive groups: The Tigress Company, The Phoenix Company, The Rodney Administration, and the Loners, and I think they all speak for themselves. This is just the beginning of all the crap I have planned over the next fourteen chapters, so strap yourselves in.
In case you are looking out for SYOTS to submit to, one that has just come up to my attention is Heir by Reign of Winter, and they seem to be off to a great start without any submissions, but they've reached out for me to submit, in which I am, so head on over! If you've made it this far through my exhausting AN's, I want to say thank you, and again, apologies about the delays: college sucks. It would mean a great deal to me if you reviewed, for I would love to hear your thoughts on the chaos that is unfolding. I shall see you by my next due date, March 3rd, with Chapter #25: The Underground Defense, which will have Capitol character POVs, but it does not mean there will not be tributes, so do stay tuned. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!
~ Paradigm