Chapter 27: Flash Morrison
A/N: District Five is back with their third Victor, and it's that drunk male from the Third Quell! I'll explain why he's like that in this story, plus how he even won in the first place. This will be a short one, but I hope you'll still like it! Pls review and tell me what you think! Happy reading and cheers:)
P. S. Thanks TheBookworm for reviewing! I'm planning on using that idea for the 34th Games so stay tuned:)
Katniss gave Flash a sympathetic look. "You know, to be honest, I kinda felt bad for the guy. He just didn't seem to ever be sober."
Peeta nodded. "I saw the other Fives steer clear of him throughout the pre-Games events. He was just so messed up."
"And he tried to kill me, didn't he?" Katniss frowned. "I wonder, was that a drunken move?"
Peeta shrugged. "I guess we'll ask Porter or Ampere if they're alive."
Flash Morrison
District 5
Aged 18
4 Kills
Flash wasn't just a party animal. He was the number one party animal in the entirety of District Five. Growing up in a pretty rich family, he had as much money as a boy possibly could in Five. When his parents died when he was fifteen, he couldn't exactly say that he was sad or heartbroken. After all, that only meant a big inheritance and more partying! Sure, he had work to do. He was the owner of a huge power plant but he delegated quite a lot of power to his juniors. Why should he care? They did his work for him, he gave them the best parties a District person could ever have. It was a win-win situation. And of course, with partying came the booze. Oh, sweet precious booze! Beer was expensive, a rare commodity in Five. Even Flash could barely afford it. He only had one bottle a month, and that was one luxury he was not willing to share. Beer was simply the best thing in his life, the one thing that mattered the most to Flash. When he was drunk, others knew to avoid him. He could get pretty violent. Once, while intoxicated, he backhanded another boy named Turbine, breaking his jaw and nose and giving him a concussion. That was why he always drank his beer alone. He wouldn't hurt anyone that way. Besides, by the time he turned eighteen, he had no real friends left. They only liked his parties, but other than that, they didn't talk much with him. He was too party-loving, too immature. He was like Switch had been if she had been intoxicated and a lot less sensible. Not that Flash cared about his lack of friends. He never had a care in his life. Even when the Peacekeepers beat him up for smuggling beer, he didn't bat an eye even with the twentieth lashing. Flash was a strong boy. He didn't mind that level of pain. He also didn't mind when the pain of being Reaped for the Hunger Games. Actually, there was no pain in that! He knew that weaker tributes like John and Gwendolyn had won before, so why couldn't he?
His first impression of Shocker was how lucky the guy was. He never seemed to have a shortage of alcohol! He was consuming it regularly, although Flash couldn't understand why he was crying. He was filthy rich, had tons of admirers, had all the beer in the world, what was there not to love? As for Switch, she was perky, very happy, constantly trying to cheer his District partner Seris, who was bawling her eyes out. Flash did try to cheer her up. "Just think about it," he told her. "You've got a shot at winning! If John and Gwen can do it, so can you! Then you'll have all the best parties in Panem!" Seris thanked him for his efforts but continued to sob uncontrollably. Flash sighed. There was nothing more he could do so he simply relaxed with one of Shocker's bottles in hand, watching the television. This was the good life!
The train to the Capitol had a couple of mishaps that year. The first was that four trees had fallen onto the tracks and the workers from Six needed two full hours to remove all four of them. Flash didn't mind. He had managed to sneak out what many referred to as Panem's best beer from the distracted Peacekeeper's room. Truth to be told, it wasn't as good as he had hoped, but at least he got to try it! Needless to say, he got pretty drunk after that and wandered around the carriages moaning unintelligibly. Eventually, he collapsed and had to be dragged to his room by Shocker and Switch, who exchanged a worried glance. They had gotten a severely drunken tribute. In the Hunger Games, concentration was key. It was pretty clear that Flash would either fall off his pedestal and be blown up into gory, bloody bits or lose his focus and be decapitated by the Careers from Two, who were back in business after a year's hiatus. The Victor pair from Two sighed and left Flash to wallow in his hangover, thoroughly convinced this year wasn't going to be much different from the last. Just two more poor, innocent children forced to be slaughtered by those horrible Careers.
The second mishap was Flash's rampage. You see, in his drunken hangover, he was especially violent and began beating up Shocker as the peacekeepers, escort and Switch desperately tried to sedate him. Eventually, they did, after ten jabs of the syringe. Shocker escaped from the fiasco with bruised ribs, a broken nose, two black eyes, a swollen ankle and a hairline fracture on his shoulder. Nothing the Capitol couldn't fix in a jiffy. But still, everyone on the train was left stunned by Flash's violence. The boy was only eighteen, yet already such a heavy drinker! It seemed such a waste, yet maybe, the pain of dying would be lessened by his drunkenness. Was it really so bad?
Luckily for District Five and Seris, Flash was sober by the time of the Tribute Parade. He was forced into a ridiculous solar panel costume wrapped tightly with wires that nearly choked both him and Seris, who tried to keep as far a distance from Flash as she could. Flash's Parade was pretty normal. He wasn't too sure what he should do. He couldn't do anything truly special like Gadget or Olive or Ringo, and he didn't have a good stylist like Nikola. All he did was smile and wave to the crowd as if he were some rockstar. Sadly, compared to the Ones and Twos, whose stylists had actually made a good effort to dress up well in nice costumes, he was a forgotten face among many. Until he shouted something. "If I win everyone will get free drinks on me!" he promised, which made the party-loving Capitol citizens go absolutely wild. He grinned to himself as Serir rolled her eyes. "What?" he asked her. "We need to get these guys on our side, right?" Serir, unfortunately, found herself unable to disagree for once. He kept himself silent during President Snow's speech to the tributes. Even he wasn't drunk nor stupid enough to interrupt a man of such high and tremendous power. As soon as the speech was over, though, he climbed off his chariot and headed straight to the elevator. Those Careers were coming soon and as much as Flash would love to stick around for a nice chat he knew from watching past Games the Twos were not good to chat with. Shocker and Switch were waiting for him on the fifth floor.
"So," Switch asked, giving him her trademark grin. "How did it go?"
Flash returned the smile. "Pretty good. They were cheering for me, weren't they?"
Switch clapped her hands excitedly. "I know, right? You know, if you sober up a bit, you could win this!"
Flash chuckled. "Or I could get massively drunk and go into a rampage, killing everyone in sight and winning."
Shocker scowled. "That's dangerous, boy."
"Just kidding, Shock," Flash assured him. Secretly, though, he wondered if he could pull it off and win that way. After all, surely there were no side effects of killing other kids for survival, right?
The training was pretty fun for Flash. Despite making no allies, this wasn't really a problem. Most Victors didn't have allies to begin with. Flash actually ended up intimidating the other tributes. He would sneak a sip of beer and go into a partial rampage at the weapons and wrestling stations. His animalistic roars, his growls, his brutal moves, it made nearly everyone petrified. Not the Careers, though. They wouldn't let him into the alliance, not after what Shocker did all those years ago. They still hadn't forgiven his betrayal even after two decades of relative peace. But they did acknowledge his brutality, even promising not to kill him in the Bloodbath so the Games could be more interesting than last year's. Flash smirked when they left. They hadn't realised it yet, but they had just made a big mistake. A really big mistake.
Right before the private sessions, Flash made sure he drank a bit of booze, just to get into the mood. Shocker was a little skeptical and tried to snatch his bottle away, but Switch stopped him. "Just let him do it," she told him. "Who knows, maybe it will make him better!" It certainly did. He could barely keep himself still in the waiting room, but pounding his fists against the ground unnerved all the other tributes around him and ensured they did much poorly than expected. When it was his turn, he stomped his way in front of the Gamemakers and didn't even wait for them to tell him to begin. Instead, he promptly began smashing and hurling those large medicine balls around with such force, some of the walls began to show a little bit of cracking. He thrust his spear wildly, always hitting a target which tended to vary from a dummy's heart to the wall where a Peacekeeper's head had been only mere milliseconds ago. The Gamemakers stared at him, in a mixture of awe and terror. They raised her plates to cover their faces, afraid that Flash in his drunken state of mind would chuck a spear at them next. Thankfully, he didn't and the Gamemakers looked more than delighted to see him leave.
"A ten?" one of the junior Gamemakers squeaked.
The Head Gamemaker, Oliver Macklemore, shook his head, his hands still shaking. "No. Give him an eleven."
It took everything within Flash to keep his itchy hands away from the beer cellars on the day before the interview. They almost seemed to speak to him, begging for him to open their caps and take a big swig. But Shocker had them put under lock and key and Flash was left to stare at the poor imprisoned bottles with big puppy dog eyes. The escort tried to teach him some 'proper Capitol etiquette', as she referred to it as, but neither Flash nor Seris cared much, instead choosing to take a nap during their turn with her, exactly what Shocker and Switch had done during their etiquette lessons many years ago. The escort was left mumbling about District scumbags being scumbags for some very good reasons, one of them Flash laughably overheard to be 'All hail President Snow'. He chuckled at that. If President Snow didn't drink beer, then he wasn't a true President. The prep team tried their best to make him look presentable, they did, but they simply sighed and said he was a hopeless case. Flash didn't care. Hopeless case or not, these Games were his! His stylist went into a furious rampage when he found out that Flash had messed up his bow tie again. He quickly readjusted it, angrily scolding him in the process, but no sooner had he looked away, Flash had messed it up again with a laugh.
"You think this is funny?" the stylist seethed.
Flash chuckled. "Calm down, will you?"
The stylist roared in rage, having never encountered such a disrespectful tribute, before storming away and leaving Flash all on his own. Flash shrugged, deciding that he would very much rather go with the flow and see what would happen next.
The interviews themselves proved not to be much of a problem for Flash. He watched as the Ones flaunted their beauty, the Twos showed off their big muscles, the Threes talked about engineering, the Fours talked about fishing and Seris tried to talk about her family without crying. It wasn't the strongest attempt, but hey, at least she tried. When It was Flash's turn, he knew exactly what to do. He marched onto the stage, grinning as he straightened his hair to the delight of the audience. Neptune grinned as Flash took a seat next to him. "Welcome, Flash. How are you?"
"Eh, I'm fine," Flash said nonchalantly. "Although, I would be better if the Capitol had arranged a party for all the tributes!"
The audience managed a laugh at this.
"Well, I sure do love a good party!" Neptune agreed. "But would a party really help you win?"
Flash gave him a dangerous smirk. "Oh, you'll see very soon. Hey everyone!" he addressed the crowd. "If you want to see a surprise, sponsor me some beer in the arena! I'll make this year's Games a good one, alright!"
The audience went wild, already asking for the cost of a beer bottle sponsor. Flash grinned. This was going well. Neptune laughed. "Well, I'll certainly love to see that surprise of yours, Flash! But let's talk about your eleven, now, shall we?"
"Well, Neptune. All I can say is, if you want to know how I impressed, or should I say, terrified the Gamemakers, then sponsor me more beer bottles! Trust me, you won't be disappointed!" The interview on like that, Neptune and Flash having a rowdy chat about beer and partying. It felt good for Flash, having someone who understood the joys of having a good party, someone who also treasured fine beer. When the buzzer began to ring, neither of them wanted to stop the chat, but it had to happen. Flash gave the audience one last smile as he walked off to a thunderous applause, much to his mentors' delight and shock. Shocker couldn't believe it. Was the boy actually crazy enough to try getting drunk during the Games?
Flash couldn't help but laugh wildly at the sight of his arena. A lovely beer cellar. The corridors were lined with beer kegs filled with all kinds of beer varieties, from the weakest booze to the fanciest and most expensive. He smirked as the countdown began, turning his body away from the Cornucopia. He didn't need to run in, all he had to do was get drunk and the Games would be all but over. The tributes around him were all screaming in panic. it had dawned on the that Flash had a good chance of winning in this sort of arena. The gong rang and they scattered as far away from him as possible, even if that meant going straight into the Cornucopia. Flash, on the other hand, was bolting his way down the tunnels of the beer cellar, laughing as he did. He only stopped to crack open a beer keg and pull out a bottle of beer. It tasted like heaven. The beer was ice-cold, which only made it even better. Flash was seriously starting to sweat in his black tuxedo. They hadn't even put an air-conditioning system in the cellar! He sighed, wiping the beads and pearls of sweat from his forehead as he chugged down the beer. Tomorrow, this beer cellar would be soaked with the blood of tributes.
The beer cellar, however, was already soaked with blood. The pair from Two had slashed their way through the Cornucopia, stabbing and decapitating as many tributes as they could. The boy from Seven was also in a particularly savage mood after being mocked by his prep team, and took out his anger on the screaming pair from One and the drugged pair from Six. The pair from Four allied together to try and make it through the Bloodbath, eventually being forced to bring down the towering boy from Twelve as he stood in their way of escape. Sixteen cannons boomed later that day, an astonishingly high number. Viewers from all across Panem were instantly struck with a lightning of memory. Shocker's Games. The 7th annual Hunger Games had a similarly high Bloodbath death toll. And who had been the Victor? A crazy eighteen-year-old Capitol favourite boy from District Five. It was plain for all to see. Flash's odds sprang all the way up to 1-2 as the District citizens watched their screens in horror. Flash was consuming bottle after bottle, dangerously close to the alcohol limit for a regular human. But it was then that they realised Flash was far from a simple, regular, human person. He drank way more than the amount perceived to be the line between life and death, all without breaking a sweat. In the Mentoring Room, Shocker and Switch stared solemnly at the screen. "Sorry in advance," Switch told the other mentors.
Draco scowled. "Sorry? What do you mean, you useless little clown?"
Switch recoiled at his insult but Shocker stood between them. "Your tributes are going to die," he said flatly.
Draco let out a loud guffaw of laughter. "Oh, is that so? Ha! Fat chance! Your boy's going to-" Whatever he was about to say, it was replaced by the shrillest scream Panem had ever heard. Flash had pounced on the pair from Two and was tearing them to pieces, clawing their insides out and biting randomly as if he were an animal. He didn't eat them, obviously not, but he should have, because District Two felt as though they were looking at two pieces of rotting carrion by the time Flash was through with them. No point collecting their hunks of bodies now, the deranged but dead children's parents thought to themselves. Flash let out a loud, animalistic snarl. Now, the whole nation could see exactly what had gotten him that wretched eleven. His beer rampages.
The next beer rampage came on the third day of the Games. By then, three more tributes were dead from either fighting or Gamemaker traps. The boy from Eleven had come across the girl from Three, the pair squaring off in a flurry of knives. The girl managed to stab the boy through the heart, before falling right into a mutt den. The boy from Seven, who had refused Olive's attempts to sponsor him out of sheer arrogance (and a lot of stupidity) had walked into a gigantic spider web and ran screaming as the spiders jumped onto him, before he eventually got himself hit by a poisoned arrow trap. Flash himself hadn't been immune to these traps. An arrow was lodged in his arm but in his inhuman, drunken state, he barely flinched or noticed it. He stumbled across the pair from Four, who had seen him desecrate the pair from Two and had run to hide. Now, though, with the beer kegs tumbling across the corridors, there was nowhere left to hide. Marina squeezed her eyes shut. Switch ducked under her table. Shocker looked away. Mags screamed some foul language at Flash. It didn't matter. Flash had ripped the boy's heart right out of his chest, the fist-sized organ still beating as he held it in his palm and smashed it against the girl's skull repeatedly. The cannons boomed but Flash wasn't done with them. No, he was just beginning! Districts Four and Five watched in horror and absolute disgust as Flash squashed both their heads until they were mere splatters on the floor before clawing out all their internal organs one by one. The Peacekeepers had to be deployed to sedate him. He was too dangerous. It took them fifty jabs of the syringe, but as Flash finally began to collapse, his mind started to function properly again. And seeing the pair from Four's mangled remains, squished together as one terrible red blob, he let loose a guttural scream. A scream that would haunt him forever.
Flash Morrison would get his heart's desire: an endless supply of Capitol parties and booze. He got his big mansion with all the most fanatic party-goers and paparazzi rushing to meet him whenever he came to the Capitol. Plus, he got to dance with all the most powerful women in Panem! They rushed towards his arms like bees to a honeycomb, begging for another dance. But even as he danced the night away, everyone could tell the hollow look in his eyes was there. It was there to stay. He had realised his actions. He knew what he had done. For once, he remembered what he did on a drunken rampage. But that didn't stop him from drinking his life away. Slowly but surely, Flash drank and drank until he was a hollow shell of a human being. By the time of the second Quarter Quell, he was so lost in his drunkenness that no one showed up at his parties anymore. He was all alone. Even his fellow Victors steered clear from him. His final drink would be the one he had before entering the arena. His last drunken rampage. He had grabbed a spear and tried to fight Blight, to no avail. The next target he went for was Katniss, her back turned towards him. She seemed like an easy target in his drunken mindset. Imagine, taking out the newest Victor on his last rampage! Shame Finnick Odair had been there to ruin it. As he fell to the ground, a whirlpool of regrets clouded his mind. Flash had lived a wasteful life, one he could admit he wished he could change as he lay dying on the floor of the Cornucopia. It had all been for nothing.
Katniss and Peeta had a minute of silence for Flash but neither could say much about the broken husk of a Victor. "I just hope he's fine now, wherever he is," Katniss said softly.
Peeta nodded. "Yeah. Us Victors can't ever seem to live a peaceful life." He flipped the page. The next Victor was a towering boy with dark skin and huge, tank-like muscles. He wore an expression that oozed confidence, his lips stern and his hands clenched into fists. His eyes blazed like fire, as if angry at someone. Problem was, no one knew who that someone was.
Katniss raised an eyebrow. "That guy reeks of District Two's Career Academy."
Peeta laughed dryly. "Oh, how did you know." He gazed at the boy's name, scribbled in blue ink. "Hercules Nichols."
VICTORS
District 1-Sapphire Huntington(4), Onyx Hibonite(9), Franc Montgomery(14), Crystal Montgomery(21), Sterling Jones(25)
District 2-Ragnar Sveinsson(5), Reyna Boudicca(6), Draco Hadley(10), Scipio MacAllister(17), Freya Carson(22)
District 3-Nikola Johnson(13), Gadget Schroeder(24)
District 4-Marina Bluebell(1), Mags Flanagan(11)
District 5-Shocker Crimson(8), Switch Kim(19), Flash Morrison(27)
District 6-Ford Hamilton(20)
District 7-Hassan Greenwood(2), Jill Wilson(15), Olive Sanchez(26)
District 8-Woof Casino(16)
District 9-Gwendolyn Whitfield(18)
District 10-Ringo Alvarez(7), John Gatwick(23)
District 11-Orchid Bloom(12)
District 12-Axel Millar(3)
A/N: So there you have it! District Five is inching dangerously close to the Career Districts, but is there any hope of them catching up? I hope you enjoyed Flash's story, which I apologise for being shorter than some of the more recent chapters! Pls review and tell me what you think and how you would like Hercules to be portrayed! Thanks for reading and stay tuned for Hercules Nichols:)