X. Iconoclast

Take me away
One way
Jet pack blow the haze
Couple ways
Let's get blown
Turn me on
Late loving

Mozi Hongqi. 18.
District Six Female.
TW: Body modification, Drugs

If only somebody had told Mozi how fucking difficult it is to give somebody ass implants in the dark. Well actually… she's pretty sure her father Xunzi could have said something along those lines at the dinner table, but it wasn't like she was listening to that asshole anyways. Why would she if she always knew she'd run away from that dump (well… mansion full of shitty people… well, only two shitty people) the second she figured out how to drive Xunzi's car?

But that doesn't mater now…

What does matter though is the fact that Mozi's about five minutes away from being royally fucked up for the rest of her life if she doesn't figure out the rather sticky situation at hand.

Literally, sticky, as Mozi was standing over the body of Kadenza Cordoba as a cocktail of silicone and blood dripped down her thighs and onto the streets of the alleyway she'd been operating out of for the past two years. Shit… shit, shit… What kind of a fucked up surgeon am I if I can't even do implants… in the dark… and it's my first time.

Actually, this isn't her fault. Mozi told Kadenza at least ten times, "It's pretty dark out here, and I've never done this before," yet the stripper insisted and she even paid upfront. She paid quite a bit too, and Mozi Hongqi never says no to money, even if it leads to… this.

"Well, what are we going to do?" Her girlfriend Rangani says, an arm wrapped around Mozi's shoulder, "Do you think it's bad?"

Mozi looks at her handiwork, blood certainly clotting around her incision, but she doesn't really think it's that big of a deal. It's just… a minor injury, and judging by the way Kadenza's passed out from the morphling that she doesn't have to complain about it, Mozi can just wash off the wound, grab a new implant and act like nothing even happened. She'll just do what she's done since she turned fourteen, go with the fucking flow.

Because these past two years have been nothing short of divine for Mozi, driving off into the sunset from her family whilst screaming the words of her favorite songs with the roof down, not yet knowing how glorious life could be.

It all started when she met another runaway named Rangani at the Motel Vivant, and she was well… to put it lightly, the catalyst for Mozi beginning to explore her homosexual urges that Xunzi long insisted she repress. They were reckless at first, sure, buying fancy things they didn't really need with money from the Hongqi fortune and going out and partying after Rangani's shifts stripping at a shitty club called "Vroom! Girls! Wow!," but did they care? Of course not!

They were just kids, having fun and not caring about any of their potential consequences, until they realized… when you're spending money without making money, you're basically asking to be a broke-ass bitch. Mozi and Rangani hadn't realized this at first, but the second they saw how expensive their hotel bills were for the month, they knew they didn't to do something to climb their way to the top of Six's social hierarchy, just like her dad did before her.

And so, they rented out one of the rooms at Vroom! Girls! Wow! and began their own little business. Mozi's father had been training her to be a plastic surgeon, and well it was shame that she was letting her training go to waste when it could bet making her rich in this dog eat dog, or rather rat eat rat world she's been born into. Lip injections were easy money, and once Rangani got her friends talking about the elusive "Dr. Prettylips" who worked at Vroom! Girls! Wow!, it seemed like the girls had it made. They've out of the Motel for a good three months now, instead living in a (not too great) apartment they were able to rent out. And that's just the beginning, because the two of them are determined to keep climbing, except…

It appears Kadenza's injury was in fact not minor. Five minutes later and she's still fucking bleeding which leaves Mozi to panic, scouring through her mind for how she could have possibly fucked up, hard considering she has a profound history of not fucking up… but then it hits her, "Shit!"

Immediately, Rangani shudders, "Oh lord, what the fuck happened?"

"…Nothing good," Mozi blushes and presses her hands to own mouth, "I may have… accidentally severed a major artery because Kadenza insisted I operate outside instead of in a room I'm familiar with… and this is also my first time doing this."

Kadenza's bleeding's only gotten worse, the silicone packet wedged between layers of her flesh continuing to ooze its' thick clear substance, "Yeah okay… I think I really fucked up."

"You don't fucking say," Rangani laughs whilst Kadenza's body begins to twitch… Shit… of course it's somehow getting worse. Of course she's waking up now of all times. I'm beginning to think the world fucking hates me.

Incoherent mumbles escape her throat as she regains consciousness, mainly a hodge lodge of "What the fucks" and "Why does this hurt so much?" with her head still pressed into the concrete.

At least I didn't somehow accidentally kill her, Mozi tries to find the living lining in this mess, not that there really is one. It's fairly obvious by now that Kadenza's body's going to be totally trashed for at least a few months, and that would put her out of a job… but Hey! At least she's not dead…

And maybe Mozi can fix this. She reaches into the pocket of her coat to find another vial of morphling, maybe that'll knock Kadenza out again long enough that Mozi'll be able to come up with an excuse better than "Well, I fucked up," and flicks off the rubber lid, a click sounding when it hits the concrete.

She goes to grab a new needle so she can inject the liquid magic into Kadenza's veins when she hears somebody's voice, and it's not her own. It's not Rangani doing the talking either because fucking hell— Kadenza Cordoba's decided to make her convenient reentrance to the state of being conscious now of all fucking times.

"You fucking trash whore," She screams as soon as she sees the blood on the ground, her blood on the ground and realizes what's happening, "Mozi Hongqi you fucking piece of shit!"

"Hey hey," Rangani plays coy about it, "Only I get to call her a trash whore. What's the matter 'Denza?"

"Oh fuck off," Kadenza's fingers graze against her thigh, slowly tracing the bloody mess to it's origin, "You know exactly what happened."

Mozi rolls her eyes before finally speaking, "I didn't mean for this to happen, I just want you to know that."

"The fuck would I believe that?" Kadenza's reply is brasher than before, her state of confusion elevating fully to one of aggression, "I bet you fucking destroyed my body on purpose so your girlfriend would get more time at the club. I bet you did this so that you'd get more money, since that's all you fucking want anyways, isn't that right Mozi."

Please, if Mozi really only wants money she'd have never left her father's house. As abhorrent as the man is, he's almost as rich as Six's mayor. If that's really what this is all about, Mozi would have just stuck it out, sat around and absorbed his abuse like the braindead sponge that is her sister. But that's not what happened. Mozi Hongqi ran away because she knows she's better than him and his nonsense. She's better than his rules and his violent propaganda masked as wisdom. She doesn't need him and she certainly doesn't need his money.

… Especially when she can make her own now. Especially when she can finally understand the power that being rich brought him without having to be complicit in his madness. She's her own boss now, and there's nobody in Panem that can stop her from rising to the top.

Because Mozi Hongqi doesn't just want money. She wants the power that comes from having lots of it, because that's where real wealth lies.

"It was never about the money," Mozi says through gritted teeth, "You know it was about my reputation more so."

When the name "Dr. Prettylips" is spoken and praised, that's when Mozi knows everything is going to be okay. That's when she knows it's all worth it. Because she's finally climbing back up the throne her father tried so hard to knock her off. And she's doing it her own way.

"Did you ever consider my reputation?" Kadenza stammers, flipping her body onto it's front, "Did you ever consider the fact that now I'm going to be known as the bitch who tried to get implants, tried to look like some fake Capitol sleaze only to fuck up?"

…As if I care.

"Did you ever consider that I'll be evicted now because I have no fucking income and winter's approaching. I'll be homeless in the winter and it'll be your fucking fault, Mozi. Or maybe you just don't care."

She does her best to remain calm, "I'm sorry to hear about that—"

But Kadenza's not done, "Fuck it. If I'm going down, If I'm going to get hypothermia and die in the wintertime, you're going with me. I'll tell everybody what you did to me until nobody wants to trust your fucked up excuse for a business ever again."

Maybe I care…

Because being Dr. Prettylips is all Mozi has, it's her future. It's her way to the top, her way to touching the sky and leaving Xunzi on the ground to laugh at her. It's her way to vengeance, her way to being more… and more… It's Mozi's way to becoming so much more.

And now it might be ruined.

"Hold her down," She whispers to Rangani, who obliges immediately, restraining Kadenza to the ground as she continues to lament.

"You're done Mozi, you're so fucking done…"

I can't be done when I have so much more left to do.

"You're ruined, you spoiled brat. You left a life of luxury just to fail, isn't that pathetic?"

I have so much more left to do.

Mozi grabs the scalpel in her pocket and positions herself over Kadenza, "What are you trying now? Do you really think you can fucking fix this."

She does, and there's only one way. It's not ideal but it's the only way Mozi can prevent herself from crashing and burning before she even reached her summit.

"It'll hurt less if you stay still," Mozi mutters under her breath before pressing the scalpel to Kadenza's throat, a wound immediately opening. Within seconds, her hands are covered in Kadenza's blood.

And she doesn't feel a thing.

Kadenza sobs, trying to make words come out of her mouth but failing miserably as Mozi inserts her tool deeper, not caring that her hands are covered in red, because this is nothing compared to the terror she would face if she became an overall failure. She twists the scalpel making Kadenza's eyes flicker like lightbulbs. Lightbulbs that burn and break until they finally go dim forever.

It's then that Mozi feels something… relief.

She looks at Rangani, and it's a long look, because neither of them know what they're supposed to say. Is there anything that can actually be said when you've just killed an innocent in front of your beloved for the sake of keeping your reputation afloat?

Mozi sighs, "What do we do now?"

Xunzi may be a monster, but he's no murderer. And even if Mozi's a murderer now, at least she still has a lover.

Her fingers' weave between Rangani's and she pushes the girl's head under her chin, "I don't know…"

Their leather briefcase lays bare on the ground when Mozi figures out the solution to their problems. District Six looks for nobody lost, and they certainly won't look for Kadenza Cordoba.

Six is where fantasy goes to die, but that doesn't mean Mozi Hongqi can't find a way to topple it's highest towers.

She unlatches the briefcase and stares at Kadenza's corpse once more. It should fit.

Here we go again back to the start
I am now the one that breaks your heart
Always trying to hold but now I'm tired
Here I go, the endless shore
Couldn't say if I was wrong

Endellion Dubois. 18.
District Two Female.
TW: Mention of alcohol

She's passed out on an inflatable pool chair in the middle of lord-knows-who's backyard when Endellion Dubois realizes that she is so royally fucked.

It's Chadsley —wait fuck that sounds weird— it's Chad, who wakes Ellie up, confused as ever with a shit-eating grin on his face, "Dude, you are not going to believe this!"

"Believe what?" Ellie mutters, her vision slightly blurry from either the alcohol running in her veins or the fact she has no fucking clue what time it is and why she's awake, "Can I like… go back to sleep and then you tell me when I wake up?"

"It's actually important though," He sounds sincere enough that Ellie decides to give him the benefit of the doubt and continue to pay attention to him, "You know Reina?"

For fucks sake, of course I know Reina, she's my sister, Her eyes roll over and in to the back of her head, "What happened to her?"

She's… slightly nervous, but then again, literally nothing ever goes wrong when you're Reina Dubois. Ellie's twin is literally perfect, no question about it. Reina somehow looks like a prettier version of her, and there's no doubt in anybody's minds that she's smarter, more hardworking and charitable, and just all around superior to Ellie… not that she cares, actually. As close as they are, Ellie's always been glad that she's not her sister, the weight of the world on her shoulders and either death or trauma just months away from her in the Hunger Games.

Sure, Reina's perfect, but being perfect is so fucking boring… Ellie's nearly a hundred percent sure that if she were Reina, she'd be miserable. Training all day and night, abstaining from drugs and partying to keep her body in optimal condition for the Games, doing community service work so all of Two can see how selfless she is, how worthy she is of volunteering. Now that's a pathetic little life if Ellie's ever seen one.

…Of course it wasn't always like that. Ellie still remembers the nights where she'd be stuck crying under her covers because everyone kept using her to get closer to Reina, and all the times she'd be told by people that she'd never even come close to how fucking superb her sister is. She tried her best, fuck Ellie tried her best to be anything comparable to Reina, yet that apparently wasn't good enough.

Not that all that sob-story sympathy-grabbing bullshit matters now anyways! Ellie stopped giving a fuck a long time ago and the days of being held up next to Reina on a pedestal are behind her. And that's for the better, because even if she can't recall a time where she wasn't drunk or high off her ass and it's a miracle she hasn't gotten kicked from Cooper Peaks throughout her attention seeking journey, Ellie is happy, she is so fucking happy.

Or at least, happy until Chad looks her in the eyes and says, "Well actually, I have no fucking clue. Nobody has any fucking clue. Your sister's missing, no note left behind no nothing."

She doesn't believe it at first, Ellie just giggles to herself and smiles, "Now what the fuck are you on that's made you think Reina of all people's not in her room sleeping to prepare for another busy day of being perfect."

"Well, morphling pills, some pot, this weird tablet I put under my tongue that tasted all bitter and shit, and three beers, but that's besides the point," Chad deadpans, arms folded together like he's mighty-fucking-pleased with himself, "Your parents are here, they just wanted me to break the news to you first."

Lochran and Obelia Dubois are standing in the doorway with solemn looks in their eyes and that's when it sinks in, Chad wasn't fucking with me.

Ellie glances over at her parents, and then at Chad who's got a told-you-so expression on his face before carefully crawling out of the pool float and on to the grass, trying her best not to fall over as she walks towards them. Her mother's first to wrap her in her arms and say, "She's gone…"

Wa-wa-wa-wait a minute? Chad said missing, not dead? Fuckin' Chad, always screwing up his words, not that it matters now because well, Ellie panics, eyes fluttering and teeth grinding together when Obelia corrects herself, "Well not gone, gone."

"Oh phew!" Ellie exclaims, grabbing on to her mother tighter.

"Don't celebrate. All we know is that she went to bed like normal and when we went to check on her the same way we do every night, she wasn't lying in her bed."

Shit!

She lets go of her mother and takes a deep breath to comprehend what she's heard. Reina, missing. Gone without a trace. But not dead. Maybe… yeah, what the fuck? Ellie tries to pull herself together, tries to enter the one rational part of her brain, because that's gotta exist somewhere, and figure out why her sister's gone, yet much like everybody else, Ellie has no fucking clue.

"People are looking for her, don't you worry," Lochran reassures her, his palm rubbing against her back to soothe her, "I'm sure you'll get some answers soon, but until then, how does coming home now and getting some rest sound? I get that you miss your sister, but things could change in the morning. She could come back to us!"

Yeah, yeah, Ellie misses her sister, even if she hardy sees much of her these days anyways, but the dread in her chest, the sickness in her stomach goes beyond that, because if Reina's really gone and not coming back, well then fuck because that means one thing, I'm going to die… holy shit, I'm going to die.

And that's because of a promise that the two of them made when they were fifteen, fifteen and too fucking dumb to think straight that—

"So here's what I'm thinking," Reina had said to Ellie one night when the two of them were lying at opposite corners of their bedroom, "If I don't volunteer, for whatever reason, I want you to take my place."

And Ellie had nearly laughed, because the very concept of Reina not volunteering was absurd to her at the time. It was practically her destiny to get chosen and then win, for the family. For their brother's college tuition, dad's aquarium and the fact that they're both getting older means they could get sick. And obviously Ellie wanted those same things too, but she was never going to be good enough to volunteer so she didn't need to worry about it. Reina would take care of it, and the very idea of making a promise in case she wasn't just sounded absurd.

Yet Reina was serious, "Please?"

Ellie nodded, "I don't know of a universe in which this would entail, but sure."

And what a fucking idiot she is for saying those words back then because look at the fucking mess she's in now!

She wakes up the next morning expecting it to be back to normal, and then the next, and then the morning after that, and then another morning, and then holy shit; It's nearly been a week since Reina disappeared yet the Peacekeepers haven't found shit in regards to where she may be.

Ellie grunts as she spoons cereal into her mouth, "I'm so fucked."

"The more you repeat that, the more true it becomes," Her eleven-year-old brother Aurelian laughs, staring at his own empty bowl, "Not that anything you say's going to get you out of this one, hate to break it to 'ya."

She's not offended because he's right, "Aren't you going to eat some cereal?"

"I'm diabetic, remember?" Aurelian says drawing circles with his finger inside the bowl, "Let's get back to the point though, you're dead."

"You're right," Ellie's eyes wander around the kitchen, a room once filled with Reina's bright voice and laughter now plagued by uncomfortable silence, "Do you think you'll miss me?"

"Probably," He smiles, "Can I have your weed after you die?"

Their parents are out practically ransacking the city together in hopes they'll find her, but it seems that the two of them have given up on ever finding Reina. Aurelian because, well nobody ever knows what's going on in that goober's head, and Ellie because… she's starting to believe it was her fault Reina left.

Things weren't always the way they were now, and there was a time when things weren't like how they were before. There was a time when well… Ellie was kind of a bitch. She was seven, but honestly a bitch of a child.

They'd be running around the beaches in Four together before they moved to Two like they always did, Ellie pushing Reina around, shoving and taunting her goody-two-shoes sister like she was the devil incarnate.

Reina was scared of her then, and she had every right to be scared after that one day where Ellie pushed her head under the water for a bit too long and her skin got all purple and buggy before her parents ran to separate them.

Even if Reina never mentioned it again, it's no exaggeration when Ellie says she fully intended to kill her that day.

And look where that got her, eating half a box of cereal in a room haunted by her own shitty decisions as she grapples with the fact she's going into the Hunger Games because she's just such a fucking loser. She's going to die as Reina's longstanding retribution for the fact Ellie tried killing her, revenge for the fact she caught Ellie kissing her ex-boyfriend that one time, spite at the way Ellie got to enjoy her life while she had to pretend to be somebody that she maybe wasn't this whole time.

Or maybe it's not that. Maybe she just got cold feet and decided to run away. Maybe the pressure finally got her to crack and it became too much too fast. Maybe that's what happened and Ellie's an idiot for thinking that she had anything to do with this decision. And then there's always the classic "was kidnapped" reason for Reina's disappearance, though Ellie doubts that to be true, she's too smart to be abducted, she'd kill anybody who touched her.

There's so much that Ellie doesn't know.

She doesn't know why she hated Reina so much when they were kids that she pushed her head under the water with the intent to kill. She doesn't know why she spent so much time being caught up in Reina's perfection and trying to compare herself to her. She doesn't know why she hardly spoke to her sister as of late and decided to spend her time at stupid parties doing stupid drugs. Ellie doesn't know why District Two's next big thing, the girl rumored to ride on Ludovicus Jornmark's coattails and continue a victory streak for Panem's most powerful District, her sister just isn't here anymore. She doesn't know if it's because of her, because of anxiety, or because sometimes the world just fucking sucks and things happen that don't make any fucking sense.

But Ellie does know this: She's not the Dubois that Two wants, but she's the Debois they're going to get anyway, because there's no way she's going to break that promise. Not for herself, her parents, or Aurelian. She has to do it now, because otherwise the world's going to fall into pieces.

And if this is just some calculated revenge scheme on Reina's part to fuck Ellie over in the end, well good on her because as hard as she tries, Endellion Dubois knows deep in her heart that she's one thing and one thing only: a good-for-nothing loser.

Jetset, Ojerime / Endless Shore, Melody's Echo Chamber

Alright well that was chaos to the very definition of the word now wasn't it? Mozi and Ellie are just… legends honestly, so big thanks to Trace and Nate for these disaster girls, god I adore them and I hope you do too. I would just like to take a moment and reflect on the fact that the full disaster-ness of this Career Pack should be pertinent by now. Lord, pre-Games are going to be terribly fun. I love it here. So yeah, thoughts on the children are greatly appreciated, and I will see you next week with more of them.

Fuck this shit, I'm out,
Linds