Xayah would be lying if she said she'd expected to make it as far as she did.
Never in a million years did she think she and April would make the top four teams. Not that she didn't have faith in April – of course she did, they were teammates after all – but she could never have predicted beating out three of the Career teams, not to mention the stronger kids from Thirteen and Ten and the smarter kids from Eight. But lo and behold, she and April had made it farther than all of them. They'd come in fourth! Sure, it wasn't a medal, but fourth place was nothing to be ashamed of.
The only problem was that she'd kind of banked on having a bit more time to figure out what to do with her voice. They said they could do the surgery to restore her voice at any point, but with just two days left in the Capitol until she went home, she figured it needed to happen sooner rather than later. And as much as Xayah had told herself that she'd think about it while she was in the Events, she got distracted by, well, the Events themselves. And so here she was, with just two days to make the most important decision of her life.
Xayah sat at a table in the lounge, twirling a pencil in her hand as she pored over the document in front of her again. She'd sat with April and the Capitol team making a list of pros and cons for each option, but even doing that hadn't made her decision easier, so they'd left the girl from Eleven alone to think. On the one hand, there was something so enticing about getting to speak – no, getting to sing again! She missed getting to perform for others, to be the little songbird she knew she could be. But she'd also come so far since the accident; the fact that she'd managed to accept herself for who she was now, rather than dwelling on who she once was, was something she couldn't have fathomed in the days and weeks right after. She had already gone through so much change in her life; could she really go through it again? And what if the surgery doesn't work?
"Hey!" a voice called out. Xayah looked up to see Titania sliding into a seat next to her, as the other competitors began to file into the lounge. It had been a pleasure for Xayah to get to know the Capitol team. Perhaps the connection between the two districts was unexpected, given that the Capitol was the most loyal district and Eleven was one of the more rebellious, but all four kids were happy to have found friends, even if it was in the unlikeliest of circumstances."
"Hi! I take it we're getting close to the eliminated team coming back?" Xayah wrote.
"Yeah, we were paged a few moments ago. So?" Titania nudged. "What are you thinking?"
"I don't know. There doesn't seem to be a right answer."
"Yeah, it's a tough situation. I wish I could be of more help."
"I appreciate it. What would you do?"
"Me? I don't know if I could ever make this decision. I know that's not really what you want to hear, but…"
"I know. Thanks anyway."
"No problem."
Xayah folded up the piece of paper and put it in her pocket. "I'll think about it again later. After we watch the recap."
The other two seats at Xayah's table were soon filled by Mettius and April. Xayah gave her district partner a pat on the back as April slid into the seat on her other side. She could tell that April still felt a bit bad about the previous day's challenge – not that Xayah had done any better – so Xayah was putting in the extra effort to do whatever she could to make April feel better.
It was the least she could do, after all.
Xayah was surprised at just how tense the room felt. It wasn't like anyone's life was in danger or anything, but there was an element of suspense and anticipation in the room, and it didn't feel manufactured or contrived. Everyone seemed to be genuinely curious about who would be left to fight it out in the final two. If this was what the rest of Panem was feeling about the Events, maybe what Ruby was trying to do would actually work.
The elevator dinged. Every head in the room looked up as the doors opened.
And the pair from Nine stepped through.
As Nova and Berk made a beeline for the pair from Twelve, Xayah could not help but feel that this was exactly what the Gamemakers were hoping for. After all, the animosity between Sigmund and Noel (or at least from Noel towards Sigmund) was no secret. And yes, the competitions had felt fair up to that point, but it wouldn't surprise Xayah if, despite Ruby's best efforts, the Gamemakers had at least considered influencing the results of either the popular voting or the challenges to ensure that those two teams somehow faced off.
And now they were facing off in the final two. What a perfect ending to the storyline of the Events.
"You guys did so well," Mina gushed to the youngsters. "I'm so proud of you."
"Thank you!" Nova exclaimed. "We had fun."
"We did have fun," Berk echoed, as he plugged a small device into the television. He turned around and sat on the couch between Mina and Nova as the television blared to life, displaying footage of the past day's challenges.
First, the camera panned around a massive warehouse, floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with boxes and bags of all shapes, sizes, and colors, with a variety of ladders and cherry pickers dotted around Standing in the center of the warehouse and looking very small were the three remaining teams. Even Noel, the oldest and biggest of the three, was dwarfed by the sheer magnitude of the warehouse. "Today," Violet Emerald explained, "we will be honoring District Three and its value of luck. As much as engineering and technology take skill, and they take a tremendous amount of luck, as a concept or design that is theoretically perfect might simply not work. While today's challenge might take a little bit of skill, ultimately you will not be able to win without luck.
"Before I begin explaining the challenge, I want to let you know about a change to the format of today's challenge, though it may seem obvious to you all. As there are only three teams left, the team that wins this morning's challenge will automatically advance to the final two. The second team to advance to the final two will be the team that wins this evening's challenge, which would normally be the elimination challenge. Does that make sense?" The competitors nodded.
"This morning's challenge is simple. As you can probably see, there are a number of packages all over this warehouse. Hidden in one of them is the Medallion of Luck. If you find it, you've made it into the finale. Now, it would be cruel, and quite frankly bad television, if we let you flounder on your own during this challenge. So, as you search through the boxes, you might find some things that will help you with the challenge. Conversely, of course, you may find things that will hinder you. To be clear, nothing in the challenge will totally throw you in the wrong direction; so for example, if the medallion is in a green box, we will not put a little slip of paper in a box that says, 'The medallion is not in a green box' or 'The medallion is definitely in a blue box.' But it might send you down an… alternative path for a while.
"Are there any questions about the challenge?" There were none. "Very good. The challenge will begin at the sound of the horn." Immediately, the horn blared, and the competitors were off.
Fortunately for the competitors watching, the footage from the challenge was both edited together to show just the highlights, and even that the footage must have been sped up in some way. Every now and then it would slow down to show one of the competitors pulling something out of a box, sometimes a good thing, sometimes a bad thing. After about five minutes of this montage, which must have been at least an hour for the competitors, Sigmund opened up a box and gasped. "Ella."
"What?"
"Check this out!" Triumphantly, Sigmund held up a metal detector.
"Oh, that's fantastic."
"That's game," Titania remarked. "There's no way they won't be able to find the medallion without the metal detector."
"There are a lot of packages, though," April replied. "Even with the ones they've opened, there have to be hundreds left."
"But some of those packages are really hard to open," Titania countered, pointing towards one of the packages on screen, which had been wrapped in at least six layers of tape. "If the medallion isn't in that one, whichever team goes to open it is gonna be held up for a while."
Titania's prediction soon proved to be correct; it was only another minute or so of footage (so probably about fifteen minutes of actual competition time) before Ella triumphantly pulled a medallion from a box. "We got it!" she exclaimed.
"Congratulations, Sigmund and Ella," Violet said, her voice echoing through the warehouse. "The two of you have secured your place in the finale. You may take the medallion and return to your house. As for the rest of you, please meet at sunset in the Elimination Challenge Arena."
The image on screen shifted to the Elimination Challenge Arena, which had been set up with two stations, one across from the other. At each station were three podiums; on one sat a bowl of water, on the second sat a small plant, and on the third sat a bowl of flames, faintly flickering in the breeze that passed through the Arena. The teams from Nine and Two entered the Arena, each taking their place behind one of the stations as Violet explained the challenge. Each team was to select one of the elements, fire, water, or wood, by pressing a button that illuminated the podium; fire burns the wood, wood floats on water, and water puts out the fire. Whichever team won five rounds first would earn their spot in the final two.
In the first round, Two chose wood and Nine chose water.
In the second round, Two chose water and Nine chose fire.
In the third round, Nine chose wood and Two chose water.
In the fourth round, Nine chose fire and Two chose wood.
In the fifth round, Two chose fire and Nine chose wood.
In the sixth round, Two chose water and Nine chose fire.
And in the seventh round, Two chose fire and Nine chose wood, granting Noel and Mack a place in the final two.
"Well, at least you guys didn't lose because of anything you did," Herman suggested, as the screen faded to black.
"Yeah, but we wouldn't be upset if it was just us not being as good as the others," Berk said.
"We're very happy with how we placed, and I'm glad that I got a new friend out of it," added Nova.
But before the conversation could continue, the elevator dinged again. As the doors opened to reveal Sigmund, Ella, Noel, and Mack standing in a cluster, looking very shaken up, the faint scent of ash drifted into the lounge. The room was silent for a moment before Herman verbalized what everyone was thinking.
"What are you guys doing back here?"
Berk Delano and Nova Ward-Yamamoto:
This is another of those pairs where I can't talk about one without the other. From the first moment I received these two forms, I knew I'd be pairing them together. Berk is such a good boy, and Nova is such a sweet girl. They were perfectly able to complement each other, helping each other through tough moments and supporting each other when they needed it. It was their teamwork and friendship that got them this far, and it seems so fitting to me that it was only thanks to bad luck that they were eliminated. Thank you so much to HogwartsDreamer113 for Berk and GalacticFD for Nova!
~.~.~
Well, well, well, what do we have going on here?
First of all, a huge congratulations to our final two teams, Noel and Mack and Ella and Sigmund! Did you expect these guys to be the finalists when the fic started? Which of them do you think will win?
We've still got two Events chapters left despite there being two teams left, so take that as you will. But next up, either Wednesday or Thursday of this week… I think it's about time we check in on our subplot… so I will hopefully see you then!
-goldie031