"There are how many Victors still alive?!" Katniss exclaimed
"According to President Paylor aside from the two of us there are about twenty seven other Victors still alive." Peeta replied
"Twenty Nine, including us, but how? In the room there were only about 7 of us?" Katniss replied in earnest. "How did Coin get it so wrong?"
"Apparently a lot escaped." Peeta explained "Aside from two of their Victors in "The Mentor Purge", and Wiress, the whole of the lot from District 3 survived so there are like six just from there…
"Six! So they had nine Victors?"Katniss thought for a few moments.. "But that's only one or two off District 4s score and 3 aren't Career!"
"Yeah according to Haymitch a tribute from District 3 only had a one in four chance of escaping the bloodbath after what happened in the fifth games, the eight games just compounding the focus." Peeta shrugged "It became a priority for the Careers to kill them before they escaped into the arena, and as they normally were pretty bad at direct combat, it usually worked. "
"And if a District 3 tribute escaped the bloodbath?" Katniss asked warily.
"Well of course normally they died as a lot of them were still pretty useless. A majority of them just got really lucky to escape as long as they did even one or two of their Victors." Peeta paused a moment. "Then again you have the rest of their Victors where the 3's ended up pretty much controlling the games."
"Controlling the games!" Katniss exclaimed.
"Yeah." Peeta agreed seeming slightly shocked himself. "As much as the game makers would allow. If a 3 had a plan though they normally didn't interfere. Haymitch thinks it's because when one of the 3 Victors won it kept the Career Districts humbled. When a District 3 tribute was given free reign they won about a quarter of the time that they managed to escape the bloodbath often in a way more bloody than a Career did and usually far more entertainingly.
"Well I've seen how Beetee's games ended." Katniss confessed "I've heard about how Nuts got her nickname after the war from Jo… Oh plus I remember there was that girl who won the 68th . What was her name? Tania! I still have nightmares about being put in an arena like that. Still I mean she was pretty deadly right?What was it like ten kills?
Peeta chuckled for a moment "Yeah that's Beetee and Wiress' daughter. Their was an escape plan hatched for the five other 3 victors who weren't mentoring before the games thanks to how involved Beetee and Wiress were in the rebellion. With ten kills though Tania's only like 5th place on District 3's kill scores.
"What?" Katniss spat. Possibly even more surprised than before.
Peeta shook his head himself in disbelief "According to Haymitch District 3 had four of the nine Victors who killed twelve or more people in the games and altogether they average higher on kills among their Victors than even the 2s. "
"You must be joking!" Katniss said still in a state of shock at the news.
"No joke!" Peeta protested "They hold the first and second places on overall kills in the games. They also have third place tied with Brutus. When I spoke to him he was really proud about that. He wanted to beat 2's top scorer who was from the 1st games and killed fourteen. He said the others in the top three were, and I quote verbatim here, "Brutal, insane, genius and that the one who matches my third place makes me look like a cuddly bunny" this from a Career who killed fifteen people and beheaded more than four in his own games.
"Does the one who matches his third place make him look like a cuddly bunny?" Katniss asked with trepidation.
At this question Peeta went more than a little green. "Disturbingly yes she does make him look like a teddy bear by comparison. If you want to give yourself less nightmares don't watch those games. The Victor in those games got nicknamed "The Spider" by the Capitol and the name is horrifyingly apt. Apparently the story goes that she wasn't killed because both the President and Head game maker thought that what she was doing in the games was hilarious… most of the Capitol agreed as well. She never crossed a line like Titus did in the 66th mainly because unlike Titus what she did made a twisted amount of sense and she didn't eat people.
"What about the other Districts? How many of their Victors survived?" Katniss enquired. Even at this point she was having trouble coming to terms with how her previous conception of District 3 as also rans and flukes was wrong.
Peeta rattled off the facts "Obviously the rest of us only had three or four Victors except 7 and 9 who each had five overall. I know the other District 6 Victor faked his death pre Quell reaping with the agreement of the other two. Apparently the morphing's have wanted to die for decades and had barely kept alive with the help of each other and him. The Career Districts are a mixed bunch. District 4 only lost Finnick in the war and Mags in the quell plus another one in the purge. Two of theirs had died of old age, I think, which leaves five.
"District 2 had five survive as well. Brutus told me his dad was their oldest living Victor before he had a fatal heart attack when the Quell was first announced so I think four died of natural causes. Then they lost three in the purge/war and Brutus in the arena. Lyme apparently got the 2s back in the district to safety before she was killed in a raid for Coin."
"That's not suspicious at all…" Katniss said rolling here eyes.
Peeta nodded in agreement. "District 1 lost three in the purge as well plus their three oldest had died way before. Apparently their two oldest living victors were mentors who choose to fight it out and Copper died so that the rest in 1 could all escape to safety as well. Then with Cashmere and Gloss dead too that left them with one less than 2 and 4 at four overall."
Katniss stopped a seocnd as she did the maths in her head. "So that's 14/26 living career victors that were alive before the quell."
Peeta smiled. "Yeah though not all of them were technically Careers, if careers are just volunteers. Look at the early Victors or Jonathan from District 1. Hell some of the others might have been reaped too. I know there were a lot of legacy Victors in 2. Kids and grandkids who were reaped but won or volunteerd before they were reaped."
"I hadn't thought..." Katniss confessed guiltily.
"I know Lyme was a daughter of a Victor. Brutus was the son of another. Legacys tended to do well in the games." Peeta explained. "Well except for the 44th."
Katniss shuddered. "How on earth Wiress survivied that nightmare... The others should have given her way more respect. But Wiress was a legacy?"
"1 make it out of 24 Katniss." Peeta replied his tone dark.
Katniss went pale. "You mean..." She asked in horror.
"The other Victors don't talk about the 44th with good reason. Not just because of the horror of the arena itself." Peeta confirmed.
"So what happened to the other Districts?" Katniss asked desperate to change the topic.
"9 was hit the hardest of all the districts percentage wise. Apparently of their five victors only their youngest one survived. All the rest were alive before the quell." Peeta began.
"7 had already lost two naturally but their mentor managed to escape with District 5's one living Victor as did the singular mentors for 8, 10, and 11, the youngest Victor from 9, and oldest living from 4. Apparently Snow thought he'd killed all of them when Coin questioned him about it. In reality most of the Career mentors both 3 mentors and the 9 mentors volunteered to stay behind and get the others to safety after looting some weapons and tech from the training centre before the games. Although the details are iffy on that still. Coin was actually imprisoning the Careers she found in the Districts to execute later without people knowing. Paylor put a stop to it after you shot Coin." Petta concluded.
"So every District has at least one living Victor? " Katniss said with a degree of satisfaction.
Peeta smiled back. "Yep. Apparently everyone's shocked by that… given that something like sixteen or seventeen of them had died before the quell even began. I've heard a lot of people weren't surprised by the fact the one from 6 wasn't really dead after he came forward a few weeks ago. He's quite an infamous Victor and a known survivor even compared to the rest of us."
"Infamous?" Katniss enquired.
Peeta sighed "It's not always the "heroic" Career, the clever 3 or the surprising other outlier who wins the games. Sometimes the villain of the story ends up winning the games and according to Haymitch the remaining 6 Victor was the most terrifying guy in one of the most horrifying games. Although he said that by middle of those games there was no hero left to win. He also said not to watch those games. I think even Effie thinks it's too much. She was glad she thought he had died so he wouldn't be reaped against us in the quell."
"Sounds like that was an unfortunate games to sit through. You know way too much about them Peeta." Katniss scolded. "I should really get to know more about the other Victors. I only really know the ones since Finnick. I was too little to concentrate before that. Who likes watching the games!"
"Some of the games are really interesting though" Peeta protested. "You learn stuff that you'd never think was true. Like that 15 year old tribute who apparently was half mad and killed thirteen people in the arena after years of bullying in her district to climb out as the youngest Victor at the time. Then there was the Victor who poisoned half the arena despite being from a nearly completely urban District."
"Wow 12 seems pretty boring by comparison." Katniss replied.
Peeta smirked. "Not really our first Victor was dying when she went into the arena. Apparently she took out hundreds of tesserae to get reaped on purpose."
Katniss face took on a completely baffled look and she barely managed to squeak out a reply...
"What?"
Hello Vesine here and welcome to the Grim Grey Path. This fanfiction is broken into alternate chapters of interludes and games from the second games onwards. If you wish to read the stories of individual victors then each chapter with a games title on it will feature a respective victor and key aspect of the main storyline. The interludes build up a significant amount of the story of the capitol and the relationships between the figures that build the regime of panem as we see it it during the first book. These are not strictly essential to read but can provide significant reward and dividends later. Some characters prominent in the interludes may never be more than lightly touched upon during the main story while others may prove to be key characters in later games from the third onwards. The interludes also provide an insight into what life in the Capitol can also be like as well as a lot of the humor absent from some of the games themselves albeit it a lot of the humor in the interludes will porbably be quite dark. As most of the interludes are from the Capitols perspective expect a certain deatchedness from the reality faced by the Districts. I reccomend reading the interludes but then as I wrote them I might be slightly biased in this regard. Whatever you choice in reading the Grim Grey Path thankyou for taking the time to at least attempt the prolouge.
Any and all reviews are welcome
Vesine