Acadia Nimmo, 17
District Six Standard Female

"Hey, Acadia!" called a voice from across the shop.

"What's up, Dad?" Acadia Nimmo shouted back, inching herself out from under the car she was working on.

"I can't find our smallest Allen wrench again."

"Again? This is like the third time this week."

"What can I say? It's tiny."

"Need my help again?"

"Nah, Pacer is already on it. But I figure that we might as well get another set of them at this point given how easy it is to lose the small ones, not to mention that there are three of us working now. Can you head over to Gresley's and pick one up?"

"Sure thing!"

Acadia pushed herself all the way out from under the car. Wiping her greasy hands on the front of her denim overalls, she carefully got to her feet, taking a moment to check that her prosthetic leg was on correctly before walking over to her father's workbench. Acadia had lost her leg in an accident in the shop when she was six years old. Her father had asked her to get something from the shelves, but when she climbed up to retrieve it, the shelf came crashing down on her and crushing her leg. Cooper rushed his daughter to the doctor, but she could not reset the leg; if they wanted to prevent gangrene, they had no choice but to amputate it. It took Acadia a while to become comfortable with the idea of wearing a prosthetic; in fact, it wasn't until she was eleven and began to design her own prosthetic that Acadia warmed up to wearing one. After all, the prosthetic Acadia designed was far more comfortable and looked much sleeker, and she could continue to modify it to make it better as she got older.

As Acadia approached her father, Cooper Nimmo took off the glasses he was wearing, revealing a pair of warm, brown eyes that still sparkled with the youth he'd lost long ago. He took out a handful of coins from his pocket and gave them to Acadia. "This should be enough for a set of Allen wrenches. Oh, you might as well pick up a box of socket head screws while you're there. And if you have any change and want to pick up a treat for you and Pacer on the way back, feel free to."

"Ooh! Thanks, Dad."

"Hey. Come here." Cooper carefully planted a kiss on his daughter's forehead. "I love you."

"I love you too."

Leaving her father's shop, Acadia turned right, taking the short, familiar route to Gresley's. The small, family-run shop had been the Nimmos' go-to place for tools and smaller parts like screws and bolts for as long as Nimmo Mechanics had been around. By this point in Acadia's life, the store's faded awning, the flickering neon "OPEN" sign in the window, and the faint tinkle of the bell above the door were all as familiar to Acadia as the well-used carjacks, the strong scent of grease, and the messy shelves of her family's shop. It was nice, in a way, to have another place where she felt so at home; Gresley's had truly been a comfort for Acadia over the years.

When she arrived at Gresley's, Acadia carefully pushed open the door, revealing the smiling face of Leyton Gresley standing behind the counter, wearing the same orange uniform he always did, though his blonde curls seemed a bit more tousled than usual. Behind him were a variety of boxes and bins containing screws and nuts and bolts and tools; in a district like Six, any merchandise had to be kept behind a counter, lest someone come in and steal it. "Good afternoon, welcome to Gresley's," the boy said automatically. "How can I- oh, hi, Acadia!" he said, snapping out of his good shopkeeper mode and relaxing around his peer. "Happy belated birthday!"

"Oh, thank you."

"How are you doing today?"

"I'm well, how are you?"

"All good over here," Leyton replied; Acadia could sense that his response was a bit forced, but she astutely chose not to prod further. "What can I getcha?"

"We need a set of Allen wrenches; Dad keeps losing our smallest one. And also a box of socket head screws."

Leyton flipped through a stack of paper on the counter. "I think I have just the perfect wrench set for you; I'll go grab them right now. And we don't have boxes of those screws because we only carry them in bulk, but I can weigh out some for you if you'd like."

"That works."

Leyton ducked into the back room of the store, then emerged with a set of Allen wrenches and a small, clear bag. He placed the Allen wrenches on the counter first. "All of the wrenches are attached to this center column," he explained, giving Acadia a quick demonstration. "All you have to do is pull one of them out, use it, and push it back. It's foolproof."

"That's brilliant," Acadia marveled, taking the Allen wrench from his hand and beginning to fiddle with it, trying to decode how it worked. "I can't believe nobody thought of that before."

"It's a bit pricier, but it'll probably save you both time and money in the long run." Leyton picked up the clear bag, then turned around and opened up one of the bins. "You said you needed button-head screws?"

"No, socket-head screws."

Leyton slowly closed the lid of the bin he had opened, took a step to his left, and opened up the next bin. "Whoops."

"Don't worry about it. They're rather similar; it's easy to make a mistake."

"By the way," Leyton said, as he began to scoop screws out of the bin and into the bag, "did you hear about what happened this week?"

"Many things happen in a week," replied Acadia coyly. "Can you be a little more specific?"

"Uh yeah. Over at the high school. Apparently, some girl ran over her boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or something with a car and then drove into the side of the school building."

"She what?"

"He what?"

"Please don't shoot the messenger! That's just what I heard from Pilate Serrano."

This was the worst-case scenario for Maximum Acceleration. For years, she had worked hard to maintain her hold on her school, using any means necessary to do so. So what if she had to do a little blackmail here and there? It was no different from what her parents were doing to get ahead in their circles, after all. But evidently, other, poorer people weren't as okay with… well, the drastic measures that her parents took to stay on top, and now, thanks to the selfish actions of the boy who had the audacity to break up with her, all of the work she'd done was crumbling beneath her fingers.

Maxi closed her magazine, hitting Kiya, a member of Maxi's clique at school, with an icy glare. Maxi didn't want to be too mad at the other girl – after all, Kiya had done the right thing by coming to tell Maxi what happened. But the red veil of anger was already descending over Maxi's eyes, and once that happened, it was game over for everyone around her. "And how did Pilate hear that, Kiya?" Maxi asked the other girl, who was now trembling in front of her. As she should.

As everyone should.

"Word travels fast!" Kiya exclaimed. "I don't know. It just… happened quickly."

"You're lying to me." Maxi grabbed the girl by the shirt, pulling her up to her face. "What exactly did Pilate say to you?"

"Pilate Serrano said that Carnegie Aberforth told her that Jeremy Wheeler told him that Harley Michaels heard from her twin Davidson that Cartland Highlander told him that Aero has started to tell other people at school about everything that happened when you were dating," Kiya replied nervously, counting names on her fingers as she talked. "At least I think so. I lost track around Harley Michaels."

"Aero is telling people everything? Like everything everything?"

"I mean, that's what I heard from Pilate, who heard from Carnegie, who…"

"That's enough!" Maxi let go of Kiya's collar, with enough force that Kiya stumbled and fell. "For fuck's sake! Everyone in school knows now. They have to."

"I mean, word does travel fast…" Kiya began, but before Kiya could finish her sentence, Maxi got up and stormed out of her room.

Aero Havoline was bringing Maxi's empire down. She had to make him pay.

Without hesitation, Maxi beelined to her father's office, throwing open the door and nearly knocking some of her father's knickknacks off of the bookshelf next to it. "I need the keys to your car."

Chester Acceleration looked up from the papers he was holding. "Maxi, I'm in the middle of something. What's up?"

"I need the car."

"My dear, you know I only use the car for special occasions. It's an artifact, a relic of days past. Plus, you only just barely know how to drive." He turned his attention back to the papers.

"Father!" she whined.

"No."

"Please?" she begged.

"Stop."

Maxi walked over to her father's desk and slammed her hands down, forcing Chester to look up. "Give. Me. The. Car. Keys. Now."

But Chester knew Maxi's tricks; after all, he'd indirectly taught them to her himself. "If you're trying to intimidate me, it's not working. I already said no. Do not push me on this."

So intimidation wasn't working; Maxi wasn't all too surprised, given that Chester was a master of intimidation himself. What other techniques did she have to use – or, more accurately, what techniques did her father show her were ok to use to get what she wanted?

Blackmail.

Desperately trying to maintain her collected air, Maxi sat in the chair across from her father's desk and coyly put her legs up on his desk "So that's the game you're playing."

"Maximum."

Maxi rolled her eyes. He knew how tacky she thought that name was and he truly had no reason calling her that. "If you don't give me the keys to the car, I'll tell mom about your affairs."

Chester looked up. "How do you know about those?" he asked, cracks beginning to form in his normally cool demeanor.

"I just do," she replied. "What did you and Mom think would happen when you left me to my own devices? I'm a chip off of your block."

Chester placed his papers down on the desk and looked his daughter in the eye.

Now Maxi had his attention.

"You wouldn't dare."

"Watch me."

Maxi pulled her phone out of her pocket and set it on her father's desk, in full view of both of them. She swiped upwards, opening her messaging app. She began to compose a message to her mother, then went into her photographs and selected a few that demonstrated some rather incriminating conversations between her father and his various flings. As she attached the files to her message, her father frantically reached into his pocket and shoved a set of car keys into his daughter's hand. "Just take them. Don't do anything dumb please."

Maxi smirked. She slid her phone back into her pocket and picked up the car keys, then stood up and walked out of the room, ready to make an example of Aero Havoline.

That boy had messed with the wrong woman.

"Yeah," Leyton continued. "It was that Acceleration chick. Maxi, I think her name is. Everyone is just at school, minding their own business, when all of a sudden this bright pink sports car comes rampaging in. It stops for a second, and then a boy steps out in front of the car, and WHAM! Right through him and into the building."

"Did you see this happen?" Acadia asked.

"Well, thankfully, no; I'd already left school by then. But I did see Maxi driving the car in the general direction of the school as I was walking home. She was swerving everywhere, slamming into lampposts and garbage cans and honestly anything in her path. It was just a chaotic mess. It's a wonder that only Aero died because she almost ran me over and I'm sure I wasn't the only one."

"I take it she's been arrested?" quipped Acadia.

"That she has been," Leyton replied, putting the scoop down and closing the bin of screws. He turned around and placed the smaller bag on the counter to tie it off.

"Well, that's good at least," Acadia replied, still trying to process what she had just heard.

"I just can't get over the boy she killed. It was almost as if she was targeting him."

"Well, you said that the boy was her boyfriend. If they broke up, it would make sense that Maxi would retaliate."

"But what reason would she have to do something as horrible as that?"

"Who knows?"

The two fell silent. Leyton finished ringing Acadia up then, once she paid, slid the Allen wrenches, her change, and the bag of screws into a larger bag and handed it to Acadia. "Well, thank you for stopping by!"

"It's always a pleasure. I'll see you later."

"You as well."

As Acadia left Gresley's, she peeked into the bag to count her change. It seemed as though it was just enough for a treat from the bakery, but probably not enough for two. Oh well, she thought, as she walked into the bakery. I'll just get a little something for Pacer. He deserves it.

As Acadia perused the bakery's wares, she couldn't help but think about how Pacer had come to live with her and her father. After all, it had been just about two years now since Acadia and Pacer had met. Acadia had been living on her own for nearly five years by that time, running Nimmo Mechanics by herself while her father worked as a train conductor. It seemed illogical and improbable at the time for a girl as young as Acadia to run an entire mechanic's shop, but the Nimmos did not have much other choice. Medical bills had piled up after Acadia's accident, and Acadia had (correctly) reasoned that their only hope for keeping Nimmo Mechanics was if she stayed home and ran the shop while her father got another job. It was risky, sure, but Acadia had actually learned quite a bit from her father; as his wife had passed in childbirth, Cooper had raised Acadia in the shop, so the girl had a decent handle on mechanics already. With no other option and the family business at stake, Cooper agreed with his daughter, getting a job as a conductor for its high pay, because so few were willing to leave their families behind.

Fortunately for both parties, Acadia had picked up a lot from her father and was able to run Nimmo Mechanics with relative ease. Every time Cooper was able to return to Six, which was usually not more than a couple of weeks at a time, he checked in with Acadia, catching her up on any skills she needed to take on more and more complex projects. While she had support during his absences from her friends and their families, as well as her father's friends, she was still rather lonely on her own. So it was almost fortunate for her that she stumbled upon Pacer on the streets on the way home from Gresley's. He appeared disheveled and a little emaciated, and so she asked him if he wanted to come back to the shop with her. After getting the boy something to eat and drink, Acadia asked about his situation; upon learning that he'd been kicked out of his home, she instantly invited him to stay with her.

In the time that followed, Pacer had become both a brother and a pupil to Acadia and was a wonderful source of comfort while she waited for her father to return. When Cooper had made enough to pay off his bills and debts, he returned home; despite being somewhat surprised to find that there was one extra person living in his house, he welcomed Pacer with open arms. It had been just about a year now since Cooper had come back, making the Nimmo family whole once more, and Acadia could not be happier.

Acadia eventually selected and paid for a decadent-looking sweet bun. She watched as the baker wrapped it in some paper, then took the package from the baker's hand, placed it carefully in her bag and headed back home. When she got back to the shop, she opened the door of the garage to one of her favorite sights: Cooper bent over Pacer's workstation, helping the boy with some sort of task. She wasn't one for sentimentality much, but there was something about seeing the two of them together that warmed her heart.

Here in the shop, Acadia had everything she wanted. She could only hope that it would stay like this for a good, long time.

Maximum "Maxi" Acceleration, 18
District Six Quell Female

At least the jumpsuits in prison were purple. Maxi looked good in purple.

Life on death row was far from glamorous. The days were repetitive: wake up, eat some bland food that was probably made out of tesserae grain, wait to hear if it was your turn for an execution, maybe get some time outside if it was nice out, eat food again, and then go to sleep. It was certainly a departure from the life she had before, and not for want of trying. No amount of influence had managed to keep Maxi out of prison, and no amount of bribery could get her off of death row; she was now just three weeks away from death.

But Maxi didn't regret a thing.

The only good thing about prison, if you could even call it that, was that Maxi was the only female inmate, so she didn't have to share a cell with any of the barbarians whom she had the displeasure of encountering on a daily basis. That wasn't to say that their barbarian-ness was a bad thing. Maxi relished in the fact that most of the men in prison were not particularly intelligent; in fact, they were probably even dumber than the girls in Maxi's clique at school. And most of them acted as though they'd never seen a woman in their life. Within a few days of her arrival in prison, Maxi had the vast majority of them wrapped around her long, delicate fingers that were definitely due for a manicure. Maxi was fairly confident that they would do anything she asked them to – and she wouldn't hesitate to make an example of anyone who didn't.

They were all on death row anyway. It would only make the guards' lives easier.

"Acceleration!" called one of the guards, rattling the bars of her cell. "Lineup time."

Slowly, Maxi stood up from her cot. She knew that she was at the whims of the guards and the schedule of prison life, but by taking her sweet time, she was able to slow down the entire lineup process just a little bit, thereby exercising a little power over the guard, a small relic of the life she'd once lived. Once she was ready, Maxi stuck her hands through a small slot in the door, allowing the guard to cuff them. After she pulled them back, the guard opened her cell, then patted Maxi down before leading her out to the prison yard.

Lineup was a weekly event for the prisoners on death row. Every Sunday, the prisoners were marched out into the yard and lined up, giving the guards a chance to search their rooms to search for contraband, weapons, and the like. As the only time that all of the prisoners were in the same place at the same time, it was also the guards' opportunity to give any announcements to the prisoners that they needed to. And given that there were more guards than usual outside in the yard today, Maxi had a feeling that today's announcement was not going to be fun.

When she arrived at the yard, she stood in her spot in the center of the courtyard, the sounds of grunts and deep voices echoing off of the tall walls that surrounded the yard. Almost immediately, five of the other prisoners coalesced to form a pod around Maxi, to protect her from the other prisoners: one took his place to her left, one to her right, one in front, one behind, and the fifth right nearby. Maxi took a moment to acknowledge each of her posse with a simple nod, just enough to remind them that, despite the fact that she was younger than them, she, in fact, was boss.

As they waited for whatever announcements the warden had, Maxi's eyes couldn't help but land on one of the other young inmates, a boy named Arnav. She didn't know exactly what he had done, but she heard some stories from the other inmates. And while Maxi was definitely not scared of anyone (How could she be? She was Maxi Acceleration!) there was certainly something about Arnav that was a little bit… unsettling, enough that Maxi preferred to keep her distance.

"Inmates," boomed the warden, a broad-shouldered woman with an icy glare. "Good afternoon. We have a number of announcements for you today. First and most importantly: we have been informed by the district that the process of voting for tributes for the Quell is underway. As you are on death row, you will not get a vote. For those of you who are of Reaping age, we have been informed that your names and charges have been placed at the top of the ballot. You will be escorted to and from the Reaping by armed guard. Of course, should one of you come back alive, your sentence will be commuted; for those who do not go to the Games, your executions shall be as scheduled."

As the warden continued to give announcements, Maxi began to process what that meant for her. As the only female inmate, her name was going to be on its own on top of the ballot. She was without question going to be entering the Games. That must have been why, despite how quickly her trial had lasted, she hadn't been given an execution date. Everyone knew what she did to Aero; if she went into the Games, it kept all the other girls in the district a little safer.

The reality of her predicament sinking in, Maxi immediately began to rack her brain for any way that she could possibly, against the will of her own district, get herself out of the Games. Suddenly, as she looked at the men surrounding her, she realized that she did have a way out.

She just needed someone else on death row to go into the Games with her.

Well I think this is my quickest turnaround of any OTWT chapter so far! So that's pretty neat. I had a ton of fun writing these two, so I think that helped! A huge thank you to dirtwolf for Acadia and kremit1000 for Maxi (and also to silversshade for one of our cameo kids – there's a reason this chapter is called The Sixes :smirk:). I hope I did them well for you guys!

We have one intro left, featuring one more subbed kid and one more of mine. And then it's off to the pre-Games! I'm hoping to finish up the intros by April 23, which will mark a year since the fic opened, so fingers crossed for that, and then it'll be off to the pre-Games! Thanks a bunch for sticking with me – I promise you won't regret it!

Xoxo, xxxi

(ps i hope you like the new signoff i think it's cute)