A/N: Make sure to pay attention to the dates in this chapter, we'll be hopping around in the timeline a good bit. This was not beta read I die like men.

Vixen Hinojosa, 12

District Ten Female

113 ADD

"What about… Skull Crusher?" Vixen sits on the edge of Cyrix's workbench, legs swinging back and forth, voice muffled by the orange slice in her mouth. The fruit itself is cupped in her sun-tanned palms, her fingers working carefully to peel away the white stringy stuff from the other sections.

Cyrix laughs up at her from her stool, pulled up to the bench itself, clear plastic glasses over her eyes for protection as the older girl meticulously sauters wires in the husk of metal, gears, and circuitboards in front of her.

"Of course you'd choose a name like that." she teases, rolling her eyes at her best friend and opening her mouth to accept the slice of orange (notably free of its stringy bits) that Vixen reaches over to place between her teeth.

"What!" the younger girl defends, "it's better than-" she squints down at Cyrix's messy handwriting scrawled across the top of an engineering blueprint and awkwardly reads out, "Kay one dash bee zero en three."

"What's wrong with K1-B0N3?" Cyrix asks as she tests one of the robot's joints, carefully bending and straightening it as a physical therapist might.

"Literally everything," scoffs her best friend incredulously, even as she's unable to keep the laughter out of her insult, "for starters, it's not a real name. He has to have a real name."

Vixen reaches out to fiddle with the robot beside her, a labor of love by the two girls that's approximately dog-shaped (okay, vaguely dog-shaped. Which is to say, they are the only two people in the entire world that would ever guess that this thing is supposed to look like a dog. It's okay, though; this is, after all, only the first model of many they'll construct in this garage over the next year or two). Cyrix swats her hand away, glaring without any real heat.

"It does not have to have a real name. Because it's not actually a dog. Stop getting attached, you'll just be sad when it gets destroyed."

"Then make him good enough that he doesn't get destroyed. Anyway, your dumb sciencey name takes forever to say. There has to be a way to shorten that."

Cyrix sighs at her friend's stubbornness (if only to keep up the false pretense that she's long-suffering and annoyed) and stares at the jumble of letters and numbers for a long moment, chewing on her bottom lip as she flips a screwdriver over the knuckles of her right hand.

"B0N3 does kinda look like it spells bone, I guess. And that goes with the whole dog theme." the thirteen-year-old shrugs, turning back to face Vixen, who is beaming like the older girl has just lassoed the moon for her (because Vixen is only in seventh grade but she's already known for years that nothing will ever make her as happy as Cyrix does). Cyrix bonks her best friend's round nose lightly with the screwdriver, her own lips turning up at the laugh that teases out as she leans over the robot again.

"Okay, so… K1 bone. Huh. The one could be like an i, like… kee-bone?" Vixen suggests brightly.

"Keebone. I like it. What do you think, little buddy? Is that a good name?" Cyrix replies, pushing the glasses up onto her blonde head and setting the finished robot gently on the floor. She pulls her laptop onto her knees and clicks away at keys, booting up the robot's software.

"Hah, I knew you were attached to him too! Who's baby-talking the robot now?" the younger girl teases triumphantly. Cyrix makes her reply clear with a single finger, her hand flashing up into the air and back without the typing pausing for even a moment.

Vixen can't help the excited squeal that escapes her when the robot- the dog- Keebone comes to life with blinking lights and soft beeps, straightening his metal legs and taking a few awkward, clunky steps forward. The twelve-year-old's fist pumps in the air as she lets out a whoop, not having quite believed until this moment that this plan of theirs might actually work.

She'd heard of the Undergrowl almost a year earlier, and immediately the idea had stuck in her mind like a fly in honey. It sounded about a thousand times safer than drug running, smuggling, or… any of the other unsavoury ways that a kid from Vixen's end of the District could make some money on the side, and holy crap could they use the money. She couldn't stand to keep feeling the twisting dread in her gut at the way her Mom looked a little bit less there every day, like the three jobs she'd been working for the last decade and a half were starting to literally wear away at her body instead of just her soul. She couldn't stand to keep telling her little sister no every time Cinema, who had just turned nine (and it wasn't Mom's fault she had almost forgotten the little girl's birthday, Proxy was worn to the bone and doing the best she could for her daughters and the cough she'd come down with months ago was still lingering, longer than either of the girls' birth fathers ever had), asked her for a snack or a toy or something to wear that wasn't ripped and stained and worn thin, that hadn't once been Vixen's (and none of the older sister's clothing was ever really new in the first place either, so by the time it got handed down to Cinema it could barely even be called clothing at all).

She was more than old enough, Vixen figured, to start pulling her own weight, and since she couldn't exactly track down the men who'd contributed sperm to her and her sister's conceptions and kick them in the nuts until they coughed up child support (not for a lack of motivation, though; that was something Vixen wished to do with an exuberant passion), bringing in an income of her own seemed like the next best plan. It helped that her best friend in the entire world had a brain the size of Panem, of course; Vixen herself was far from stupid but wouldn't have had the first idea how to begin creating a fighting robotic mutt, let alone the funds to invest in such a project.

Still, though, she didn't propose the idea of the Undergrowl to Cyrix for several long months. She couldn't shake the nauseating thought that she would be manipulating the older girl, exploiting her best friend's brilliance and high socioeconomic status for her own purposes. Couldn't shake the gnawing guilt even now, as she watched Cyrix work excitedly at the project she had eagerly agreed to before Vixen had even gotten the full proposal out. In part because as relatively risk-free as the Undergrowl was on the grand scale of weird shady shit poor people did for money, it was still very much illegal. Funny how the girls still wondered why Cyrix's parents thought Vixen was a bad influence.

Blinking out of her thoughts, the tween shook herself and focused back in on the moment at hand, at the pride and joy dissolving her apprehension like hydrochloric acid as Cyrix typed away at light speed, making Keebone walk back and forth as she tested line after line of code. When the clacking of the keyboard stopped suddenly, Vixen was so fascinated by their robot, their legitimate and functional mechanical dog holy shit, that it took her a few seconds to notice that Cyrix was looking at her, the blonde beaming at least as widely as Vixen herself was.

"Oh my god, Vix, you're such a dork. It's not that impressive," Cyrix teased, laughing.

"Then why are you smiling?" the brunette shot back smugly (yeah, take that; who's the smart one now, bitch?).

"Because it's cute."

"Really? I didn't think you were that into dogs."

"I meant you, dumbass." Cyrix said with an affectionate eye roll, and Vixen Hinojosa would have been lying out her ass if she said that she wasn't struck a bit speechless by that one, cheeks burning hot and heart pounding against her ribcage with something she didn't have words for, something intense and nebulous that she won't understand for years to come.

115 ADD

(2 years later)

Vixen leans against the plexiglass wall of the fighting ring, watching with barely contained anticipation as Cyrix sets up Keebone within. At fifteen, the blonde is tall, willowy, and confident, her nose ring glinting in the amber industrial lighting as she flashes a sharklike grin at the girls' opponent, the stocky man not seeming to know how to react to the cocky teen across from him. Cyrix strides confidently out of the cage and slides into place next to her other half, Vixen's own grin spreading impossibly further as the blonde bumps against her shoulder in greeting. The announcer's voice echoes through the dank, tightly-packed concrete room, barely audible over the constant roar of the sweaty, grimy crowd.

As the countdown to the start of the fight rings out, Vixen watches Cyrix tug safety goggles down over intense dark brown eyes and settle her hands into their familiar places on the controls (the joystick and buttons for attack combos that now control Keebone's movements within the arena were Vixen's idea, a way to increase their reaction speed, because generation-defining genius that Cyrix is, she can only type out lines of code so fast, and they were in dire need of shortcuts). Vixen secures her own goggles across her face and squeeze's her best friend's arm.

"You ready?" She murmurs, knowing the answer but still wanting to hear it aloud.

"Was fuckin' born ready," Cyrix replies with a chuckle, eyes intense and focused above her confident smirk, "It's game time."

Red lights pulse harsh through the Undergrowl as the Semifinal match begins and both robots launch into action, ripping at each other savagely, dodging and rolling, sparks flying as both mech dogs tear into the other's hull seeking something vital to break, to gain the upper hand. Vixen can do nothing but stand there and forget to breathe as Keebone, their scrappy little undefeated (well, undefeated this season; victory was a long time coming) boy, engages in no-holds-barred destruction, the flame-red decals Vixen painted carefully back onto his flank only last night scraped away mercilessly as the robots tumble across the concrete floor.

It's the closest call they've had in weeks, a knock-down, drag-out demolition on both sides, the kind of match that's going to keep the girls up all night on the power of adrenaline and strong black coffee if they want Keebone in any shape to compete again the following evening, but when the action crashes to a sudden halt in a shower of sparks and the screeching of rending metal, Cyrix and Vixen's mech is the one still standing.

The space erupts with deafening sound, but Vixen only has eyes for her best friend as the fifteen-year-old rips off her goggles and lets out a victorious yell, whirling to face the brunette, both of them beaming with crazed excitement. Neither of them will remember, over the next years, who moved first, but one moment their eyes are locking and the next their lips are touching, Cyrix's hands pushing Vixen's own goggles up onto her forehead, both of them breathing harsh and hot and fast.

Cyrix's lips taste salty with sweat and sweet like vanilla and the strawberries she's always eating (Vixen swears it's some sort of addiction at this point); the blonde's teeth tug gently on her bottom lip and Vixen can't help smiling into the kiss as her own front teeth collide gently with the silver stud in the blonde's tongue.

She can feel Cyrix's hand warm on the skin above her hip, rough and calloused and stained with motor oil and achingly familiar because she knows Cyrix better than she even knows herself but this moment that's stretching into electric eternities feels like the beginning and end of everything.

Cyrix's other hand comes up to cup Vixen's face gently, index finger brushing her right ear as she tucks a couple chestnut curls behind it, and Vixen's heart is pounding hard and fast against her ribcage, blood rushing in her ears and heating up her cheeks and god fucking damnit she loves women and specifically Cyrix fucking Foxconn.

Empty lungs force the girls to pull apart after several long, manic moments, grinning at each other as they inhale greedily. Cyrix is a mess, oil streaked across her forehead where she wiped away sweat, slight red imprints and lines of grime across her nose and cheekbones where the goggles' edges were resting, dark, sleepless circles under her eyes, but Vixen has never seen anyone look so beautiful.

Cyrix finally breaks their silence with an awed, softly whispered "fuck," and Vixen can't help laughing because yeah, she thinks that sums it up pretty well.

Walking home in the dark, a stack of cash inches thick in her pocket and a spring in her step that she can't help, Vixen decides that the smile on her face is probably stamped there permanently by this point. There's a buzzing, jittery lightness filling her chest cavity, and she's never tried drugs before but she's certain nothing artificial could ever make her feel this euphorically high.

She already misses Cyrix like a lost limb, but the automatic clock in the back of her head is faithfully counting down and she thinks she can bear to wait the few hours left until she'll see her other half again. Vixen thinks she must have discovered the secret to the universe somehow, because suddenly she understands every sappy song and poem that's been written about the all-encompassing, dizzying thrill of being absolutely, incurably In Love.

Reflecting on this moment through the next months, saturated with the bitter tang of an obsession she can't fulfill as she curls her sore limbs into herself in the corner of a filthy bunk in the darkness and aches for the ambient sounds of District Three, of home, Vixen will convince herself that she should have seen what happens next coming from a mile away. Should have remembered that all good things come with a price.

Because when she arrives home, the sight that greets her sends her soaring heart plunging straight down to her feet. When she lays eyes on the cadre of armed men stationed at her door, their silhouettes bulky with thick armor in matte black, their faces covered, her instinct is to run. But then she sees her mother and sister, their impoverished arms like twigs in the men's grasps, sees the wild, primal fear in their eyes, and she knows that they're thinking exactly what she is: thinking of all the people on their side of town who disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard from again, everything covered up neat and tidy, no one left who misses them enough to make a fuss about it. And she cannot run away from them.

She does fight back, because of course she does. She screams her head off in the empty halls of the Justice Center, kicks and scratches and spits at them as they drag her onto a train, unleashes every ounce of spite and rage in her small body in an attempt to escape, to make it fucking stop because she's confused and scared and a thousand other things that come surging out of her as thunderous anger. She is the very picture of animalistic desperation, her throat scraping raw with the force she employs as she screams every curse word Cyrix ever taught her and a few others she makes up on the spot because suddenly nothing in her vocabulary feels anything close to strong enough for the hate that's thrumming through her. But none of it matters and she's not strong enough to do a thing to stop them as they roughly shove a cloth gag into her mouth, manhandle her into a seat on the train and strap her down tight. This is how her family disappears without a trace, with nothing but the clothes on their backs, smuggled across the country in the middle of the night and separated.

Over the next years baking under the unforgiving sun, Vixen's skin becomes tough and calloused to match her weathered soul. Her frame broadens into sloping lines of toned muscle like she's been sculpted from Ten's red clay; even her tongue adapts to the new life that she's been forced into, learning to imitate the accented vowels and rolled R's of the boys on the ranch. She grows to hate them the way she hates her own father, with the indignant disdain she's come to reserve for men on categorical principle. She watches her little sister start to grow up through an inches-thick plexiglass shield and hates the way she slowly starts feeling more like a distant relative than like Cinema's big sister.

She throws herself into the work because if nothing else, Vixen Hinojosa is as determined and stubborn as the bulls she learns to ride. Because she quickly realizes that something about competition feels like Home (Cyrix), so she leans into it, into the grim satisfaction of becoming stronger and tougher and better than everyone around her.

And she bides her time as she waits for the day she'll see Cyrix again. Because she knows, with a conviction she can't quite articulate, that she will see Cyrix again, even if it's the last thing she ever does.

A/N: Thank you so much to the one and only Ms. Bronk Paperclit for this lovely lady! In other news I wanted to just do a quick, fun lil check-in at the end of this chapter, so if you're a submitter just shoot me a PM/DM either here or on Discord and let me know your kiddo's favorite food (and if you were ahead of the curve and already said it in your form, throw me another fun fact instead)! Thank y'all so much!

- Mae xoxo