I do not own the Hunger Games serious or Gravity Falls okay? I know I have a few other fics people would like me to update, but I had an idea to work on this chapter and I began to work on it. Well I have the next chapter up and I want to get it going. Anyway, enough of this A/N, on with the fic!

"Over here you two!" Muffie said walking to the table. She sat down in between Blight and Johanna and across from where Dipper and Mabel were to sit. At the head of the table was the elderly designer of District 7. "We are lucky to have this year our designer named Carlock. He has been lucky enough to get time off to come with us to see the Reaping in this District." Muffie added.

"Why it was my pleasure Muffie. Never thought I would see one this interesting." Carlock said as he took a spoonful of lamb stew and put it in his mouth. "And the talk from the Capitol! My word, are the people talking!"

"What are they saying" Johanna said as she placed a fork in her hand in a menacing fashion. "It had better not be anything bad about Mabel!" She added looking at Carlock with a death glare.

"Oh no, no, no, it is nothing bad!" Carlock said holding his hands up in a defensive manner. "They are just all abuzz about little Dipper here volunteering to look after his twin sister. They find it so sweet and yet so tragic. My friend Portia was so upset and so touched."

Dipper blushed and went back to his stew. He wasn't quite sure how to feel about that. Apparently the people in the Capitol were touched by Dipper's selfless and noble action but they still enjoyed seeing kids from the ages 12-18 to an arena to kill each other. You would think that if they thought my act was touching, they would not stand for something like these Hunger Games….Dipper thought. When Carlock told them about Dipper and Mabel's new found popularity in the Capitol, Johanna did a fist pump in celebration while Blight just simply cracked a smile.

"What's so exciting about us being so popular in the Capitol? Does that help us in any way?" Mabel asked as she put a plum from the lamb stew in her mouth.

"Well those saps in the Capitol will kick in the mega bucks to sponsor you two. Heck a few years ago Finnick, a really popular Tribute from District4 got a trident, a really good one too." Johanna said callously picking her teeth.

Trying to change the subject and get a better idea of their possible completion, Mabel looked at Johanna and said, "Why would a Tribute from District 4 get a trident?"

"They fish and he had a lot of use in it before they go to the games. That and the kids there train for these things before they can walk, even though it is against the rules. Careers are what we call them and they are from Districts 1, 2 and 4." Blight explained.

"Although that Annie chick only won because she was the best swimmer and the arena was flooded." Johanna said popping a roll in her mouth.

"Well, if you will excuse me, I have to tweak my designs for the parade costumes. What I have sketched out will not work for these two little darlings." Carlock said fluffing Dipper and Mabel's hair. "Normally District 7 has much older Tributes."

When Carlock headed back to his car, Muffie suggested that Mabel and Dipper see the other Tributes' Reapings to get an idea of their competition from the other Districts. District 1 had two volunteers, a large blonde boy who looked to be about 17 years old and a skinny, tall girl who was also about 17 who looked as if her looks and her fingernails alone could kill. The Tributes from District 2 were similar, except they both had a large and stalky build to them at looked as if they could uproot a tree and turn that into their weapons. When the Tributes from District 3 were being shown, Dipper and Mabel went closer to the television screen. This was to be the boy and girl that Sequoia said they were to make out an alliance with. Looking at the City Center in the footage, Dipper took Mabel's sweater and tugged at it.

"Does that area look familiar?" Dipper whispered.

"Our old home in California became District 3!" Mabel yelled in a whisper. Having spent most of their childhood in Silicon Valley, where their parents worked at the tech giants in the area, they knew what it looked like well.

There on the stage stood a dark man named Beetee and the fellow mentor, a woman named Wiress. First the coordinator for District 3, a man wearing a costume that looked like a lightning bolt, pulled out the name of the girl who was named Whyfy Gates. Whyfy was a girl, about 15 years old with pasty skin, stringy brown hair and wore thick glasses that looked like she learned nothing but programming and networking all her life. The next name called was a 16 year-old boy with black peach fuzz on his face. He was named Nikola Jobs and he looked a lot like he was installing the wires as to making the programs, but he did look very smart. However, he did look like he was not going to help anyone but himself. Whyfy did look like she was willing to help if someone could help her. Mabel thought quickly about how Sequoia said she was good with an ax, and then she knew she was going to have to practice more with the ax so she could help out Whyfy. Mabel wanted to protect her, a lot like Dipper wanted to protect her and she knew she would have to work on her ax skills if Whyfy could fix their time machine. She didn't know if Nikola would be a willing ally, but Mabel was not concerned. She had happened to get a tough biker to befriend her and play with her paper fortune teller.

"We have to team up with those two." Dipper said, a little louder than he would have liked to.

"District 3's Tributes! Nice one!" Johanna laughed. "I won all by myself."

"Yeah, but we aren't all you." Blight said. "You have to admit that these two seem scared out of their mind. They are only 12 and weren't betting that they would ever be picked to be a Tribute. I would recommend alliances for them. But I agree, why District 3?"

"I feel some sort of connection." Mabel said. She knew she couldn't tell them that she needed a time machine fixed. "Like me and Whyfy would get along."

"Yeah, and I want to get into Nikola's mind. He looks like he can help me come up with some good traps." Dipper said.

"Meh." Johanna said. "I do want to show Mabel a few things before Carlock gets ahold of her. You two won't have to go through the freaking hell I had to for the parade, what with you two being so young, but it is going to be something that is outrageous."

"Can't we wait until we see the rest of the Tributes?" Mabel pleaded. Johanna scared her a little bit and her newfound affinity for her just made Mabel a little more nervous. Her brash attitude had unnerved her, even though she had gotten along with bikers and men like Manly Dan.

Johanna let go of Mabel's arm and sighed. "I guess so. You two need to know who the hell you are going to be up against anyway."

Johanna sat down beside Blight and sighed as Mabel sat beside Dipper and continued to watch the other District's Reaping Ceremonies. In Districts 4 and 5, the Reapings were uneventful, but Dipper kept a close eye on each Tribute and tried to assess them in his mind. Eventually, the footage got to District 7 and Mabel knew that even though she had to stay there, she could not watch. Pulling her sweater up over her head, she went back into Sweatertown and ignored the footage and hummed loudly to herself. Dipper overheard her humming and held her close. He stroked her arm in a comforting manner. Dipper pulled his hat over his eyes and began to cry. It wasn't until he actually saw Mabel break like she did and saw the Reaping ceremony on the television that the weight of the situation actually began to hit him. His selfishness had caused them to be in this situation.

"I am so sorry Mabel. I know I said this many times before, but I cannot stop apologizing for what I have done." Dipper said as the other Districts started to play before them.

"No, I am the one who should be sorry." Mabel said peeking out of Sweatertown. "I am the one who broke the time machine. I was so mad that I did things I should not have."

"But I am the one who started this all." Dipper said.

The train then pulled to a stop at a station in the Capitol. Where the Capitol was where Denver, Colorado used to be, the trip on a bullet train was a very fast one. Oregon was just a little over a day's drive, so the ride took only about half a day. Mabel feebly got up and followed Muffie and Johanna out of the train. Muffie had kept going on about fashions she had wanted to see if they were still in style in the Capitol and see if they could make them more like Carlock's famous tree designs. Muffie was proud of District 7 and wanted to show the influences of it in everything she wore. Normally, Mabel would have been very interested in what Muffie was wearing as it was even sillier than what she normally would have worn. Mabel walked down the road, holding Johanna's hand looking at all the people that lived in the Capitol.

"Okay….so puffy pink poodles are in now. That's stupid." Johanna said.

"I don't think it is stupid…." Mabel muttered to herself.

Dipper walked behind Blight, trying to get more information about what the Hunger Games were all about and his days in the arena. "You see young man, the arena changes you. You may want to go in to protect your sister, and that is fine, but when it comes down to it, sides of you come out that you never knew you had in you. I still have nightmares of what I had to do in the arena, and that was over 20 years ago son." Blight said.

"And how old were you at the time?" Dipper asked, hoping that Blight was 12 or 13 at the time and through luck and force of will he got through it.

"I was 16 years old. I was slated to become a hooker, the man who ties the chain around the tree," Blight added at the look on Dipper's face. "I had shown great aptitude for it, even while I was still in school. They had selected me to have a job, before I graduated high school. It was very lucky for me to do that. Many of the kids who graduate high school in District 7 have to work as camp cooks and apprentice in the sawmills and furniture stores before they can get a stable job. I had beaten out the Tribute from District 8 and then won. I can remember seeing my face in the lake where the other Tribute had drowned and seen the blood all over my face before I blacked out. I woke up in a Capitol hovercraft and noticed the doctors repairing all my injuries and actually replaced my ruptured spleen with one from another Tribute they had collected after they were killed."

"You mean you killed the person who you got your spleen transplant from?" Dipper asked looking like he was going to throw up on the marble sidewalk of the Capitol that lead from the train station to the Training center.

"Oh no, no, no," Blight said, realizing from the look on Dipper's face how horrible the story sounded. "As I am sure you know from seeing it, that the Capitol collects each dead Tribute and sends them home. Well, what they don't tell people is that they take all the vital information, blood types and such and save the bodies in case the Victor they have at the end ends up needing an organ or something. I mean they have artificial everything when it comes to organs and stuff but it is much cheaper to use a transplanted organ. Well, fortunately" Blight said adding an obvious note of sarcasm at his voice, "there was a 'donor' match for me. They had me on so much Morphling that I was in and out of consciousness and barely felt a thing when they put it in. I did see the doctors who operated on me take the spleen out of a dead body."

"My god!" Dipper yelled, finally throwing up on the door to the Training Center. "I didn't know that these Games were that bad!"

"Oh yeah. You wouldn't think it from what they show Panem on TV, but these things are brutal and in real life, it is a down right bloodbath. Even if you win, you lose. I would trade my house in Victor's Village and all the money it pays to have the job as a poorly paid hooker and a small camp house out in the woods living with the other loggers. All I wanted out of life was to be a lumberjack and that was taken from me." Blight said.

"Couldn't you still be a lumberjack?" Dipper asked.

"Can't have a Victor getting hurt on the job, now can Panem?" Blight said. "I tried but the Peacekeepers and that damned Delilah Gleeful keep on threatening me. So I just stay up in my house in District 7's Victor's Village throwing axes at the wall."

"I'm sorry." Dipper said.

"Don't be." Blight said. "You know how Johanna is?"

"Yeah." Dipper said.

"She was a lot like your sister there. I saw her growing up in the lumber yards with her father. She was adorable playing with the hatchets and throwing pine cones at rabbits. As bad as that sounds, she was a sweet little girl, and her act of being weak and helpless was more of the real thing than an act. I was her Mentor then and saw her looking a lot like your sister there did." Blight said, motioning to how frightened and nervous Mabel looked holding onto Johanna's hand. "I watched her go in and I saw her transform from the sweet girl whose father I knew when we were growing up, to a girl who just didn't care about anything but surviving. I hoped that would fade when we got out of the arena, but it didn't. Her father, who was the last family she ever had, died in a suspicious logging accident and that sealed her whole, 'I don't care about anyone' attitude. I just hope your sister wins."

"Why?" Dipper asked.

"Because I can tell that Johanna cares a lot about her, A LOT. If little Mabel dies in that arena, Johanna's last hope of redemption is gone forever. She just won't care and she will have no one left she loves. I can tell you this; I have never seen her care as much about anyone as she does Mabel." Blight said. "Well, we're here. Let me show you to where you are going to stay until all the other Tributes get here. The ones from 12 and 11 take the longest time, so you have time to try and get used to it all here."

As Blight and Dipper met up with Johanna and Mabel, he looked at his feet and thought about all he had seen dealing with the Games so far. He had seen Sequoia's 15 year old scars from losing her sister, he saw Blight's trauma from winning and noticed Johanna's lack of care for anyone until Mabel came into the picture, and it was because Mabel was like she used to be before she became a Victor in the Games. Muffie pressed the 7 on the clear elevator to level 7, where District 7's Tributes were to be housed until the Games began.

"Well, enjoy your stay!" Muffie said leading Dipper and Mabel into their rooms. She left muttering something about Johanna's brashness and how she needed to talk to Carlock before the night was done. She slammed the door leaving Mabel and Dipper alone.

Mabel walked over to the window and looked out over the ledge at the Capitol. Dipper walked over to her and hugged her. He knew what could happen and didn't want that to happen to her. He would rather die than see Mabel become a victim of the Games. If he could lay down his life for her, he'd be happy. "Don't ever change." Dipper said as he looked over the edge of the window.

"I won't. I love you Dipper." Mabel said.

"I love you too Mabel." Dipper said. "Awkward sibling hug?"

"Awkward sibling hug." Mabel said wrapping her arms around her brother.

"PAT PAT" They said as they turned back to the window.

I vow to protect her. Make friends with Nikola and anyone who can help us and get us back home. I don't want Mabel to be a victim of the torture Panem does to its people. We get back; we can work to prevent this. Dipper thought as he followed Mabel to the couch and sat down beside her on it, ready to help keep the peace and keep her focused on training to win.

How was that? Good? Bad? Corny? Disturbing what happened to Blight? Let me know in a review. I am working on my multi-chapter Naruto fics now and I am working more on Taboo. Next chapter is going to be the parade and you will see Dipper and Mabel's outfits. I drew them out and I think they are adorable. Well, remember to read, well you just did, and review. Ciao for now,

Otherrealmwriter

Aka

Realm.