Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games.

Note: Still plenty of time left to submit tributes. In the meantime, here's a little check-in with the Victors of the previous four SYOTs in this 'verse.

On that note, if you're just jumping in now, please let me know if there's anything that's not clear. One of my goals is for my stories to make sense even if you haven't read the previous ones. So if there's anything that needs to be cleared up, sound off in the reviews. I won't be offended.

Prologue Part Two
Justice

Harakuise Swallot, 55
District Five Mentor

It clearly wasn't what they'd been expecting.

Harakuise glanced around the room as Camden switched off the screen, muttering under her breath. "Well, it could have been worse," Jai offered. He and Harakuise were seated on the couch, with their foster daughter, Camden, in between.

Oliver, seated in a chair nearby, couldn't hide a small smirk as Camden fumed. "How? Four tributes, and no volunteers? I had two volunteers lined up and ready to go! One of them is eighteen. This was her last chance!"

Oliver shrugged, leaning back in his chair. "Harri warned you last year that you might want to consider seventeen-year-olds. No volunteering was part of the twist last time, too."

"Which is why I figured it wouldn't be this time," Camden reasoned. "Why would they forbid volunteers again?"

"It's a reminder," Harakuise explained. "A reminder that our ability to train Careers is a privilege granted by the Capitol – not something to be taken lightly."

Camden fell silent, nodding a little. She understood, Harakuise knew. She was upset for the moment, but she would come around. It wasn't so long ago, after all, that District Five hadn't had a Career system at all, and the one they had now was largely of her making. If anything, this Quell would only make the district more supportive of her actions, once they had a reminder of what the Games were like for untrained tributes.

"Four tributes," Oliver mused. "I suppose we'll be sending four mentors, too, then."

Harakuise nodded. "Are you volunteering?" Oliver hadn't shown much interest in mentoring, but maybe that was simply a recognition of the fact that Camden clearly wanted one of the spots, and Harakuise had always been content to join her himself. But if there were going to be four of them, Oliver was a practical choice. Beneath his casual demeanor was a drive and a deep understanding of the Games that even some of the other Careers lacked.

Oliver grinned. "Well, since you asked so nicely, I don't think I have any other plans. Who else?"

It was a good question. Sabine hadn't mentored since Camden's victory. Tania had been away from mentoring even longer. Mentoring had never seemed a good fit for Adalyn, and she probably wouldn't want to mentor a tribute who hadn't been trained. "I don't know," Harakuise admitted. "I guess we'll have to wait and see what sort of tributes we end up with."

The others nodded along, but there was an uncomfortable silence in the air. An uncertainty that had been left behind as volunteers had become more common. Maybe it made the others uneasy, but there was a certain excitement about it – about not knowing quite what to expect. The Career system Camden had built was an excellent way to improve their district's chances, to ensure that the tributes had the best preparation possible. But it also eliminated an element of chance from the Games. And chance could work in a tribute's favor. Recently, the other districts had some idea of what to expect from District Five's tributes. Now…

Now, anyone could be chosen. As he had been. District Five's younger Victors forgot that sometimes. They considered him one of them. And, in the most important ways, he was. He had always been loyal to the Capitol, to their district, to the ideals of their nation. He'd always supported the Games. But he'd never particularly wanted to be in them.

But he had been. And he had won. Without any training or any particular strength or skill aside from his wits and his words. He had emerged victorious not because of preparation, but because of his ability to adapt, to play the Game the way it was meant to be played.

This year's tributes would have to do the same.

Carolina Katzung, 58
District Eight Mentor

It wasn't as bad as they'd been expecting.

Carolina nodded a little as Lander switched the screen off. But Lander was shaking his head. "I don't get it."

"What?"

"Only two tributes. For the last seven years, we've been sending four. Quells are supposed to be something extra. Something special. Something worse than a regular year. This is almost…"

"A relief," Carolina finished.

"Exactly. Why?"

Carolina shrugged. "Could be anything, really. Maybe Eldred's hoping that it'll make a good impression on the outer districts. Maybe it's a signal that things are back to normal." Back to normal. Even as she said it, it didn't quite feel right. The Games would never be normal. Children dying would never be normal. But certainly sending two children into the Games was better than sending four.

Kit shook his head. "So he's hoping if he reduces the number of tributes back to two, no one will notice that we're still sending kids off to die?"

"No, but—" But what? There was no good way to put it. Silas and Eldred were manipulating them into thinking the Games – the normal Games, the Games the way they used to be – weren't so bad. And the worst part was, it was working. She was relieved that they'd only have to mentor two tributes rather than four. That only one or two children from their district would die. She hated it. And, worse, she hated the fact that it made sense. That it seemed like the logical thing to do.

It was Lander who broke the tension. "So, two tributes. That means only two mentors. So who gets to sit this one out?"

It was a good question. For the last seven years, it hadn't been a question of who would have to mentor, but who would have to mentor an extra tribute. They'd quickly developed a system: whoever's tribute made it the farthest in the Games had to mentor two the next year. And whoever's tribute died first got their first pick of the next year's tributes. Maybe it was morbid, but it evened things out a bit.

Evening things out. Maybe that was the idea behind the Quell. Maybe it was exactly what it sounded like – a reminder to the stronger districts, the ones with more Victors, that they weren't any better than the other districts. That they were just as vulnerable to the Capitol. The Quell could have led to a Games where the Careers quickly decimated the others, after all, if not for the second part: no volunteers.

That part wasn't likely to affect any of the outer districts. Volunteers weren't common in Eight, and those they'd had … Well, maybe that part of the twist was an attempt to prevent a fiasco similar to the 41st Games, which had seen five outer-district volunteers – rebels intent on stopping the Games. But nothing like that had happened since. The districts had learned. They'd learned their place. In return, Silas had promised that only two tributes would be required from each district once more, following the Quarter Quell.

So why let up early?

Carolina shook her head, leaving Lander's question unanswered. It didn't make sense. Eldred didn't make sense. President Grisom, President Hyde, even President Snow had made sense. He'd been cruel, certainly, but at least she'd been able to wrap her mind around why he did what he did. Even if his actions had been extreme, at least they'd had a purpose. They'd made sense.

So why didn't this?

Brennan Aldaine, 40
District Twelve Mentor

They still couldn't have any real idea what to expect.

Brennan glanced at his parents, then nodded to Kyra, District Twelve's newest Victor – their only other Victor – who was seated next to him. Officially, she had her own home in Victor's Village, but it was no secret that she'd moved in with him and his family. His parents, happy to have a child in the house again, had welcomed her with open arms. "Are you all right?" Brennan asked gently.

Kyra nodded. "I think so. That wasn't as bad as I was expecting."

"No. No, it wasn't." Two tributes – the same as any other year. No volunteers, but Twelve had never had a volunteer, anyway. All in all, it didn't seem so bad – at least on the surface. He didn't have the heart to tell her otherwise. To remind her that the Quell was likely to bring other surprises besides the simple twist in the reapings. She'd already been through enough – the longest Games in history. She didn't need to know…

No. No, she did need to know, if she was going to mentor with him. He'd been mentoring alone for so long, the thought of sharing information with a fellow mentor from his district felt a bit odd. But she deserved to know the whole truth. He owed her that. He owed their tributes that. "It's not that simple, though," he added quietly.

Kyra looked up. "What do you mean?"

Brennan hesitated, choosing his next words carefully. "Things will be different because it's a Quell – things that might seem little, but things that make a big difference. My arena was a space station, remember?" She nodded. She was too young to remember herself, but she'd seen the tapes. "Well, what you can't always tell from the tapes is that the station's lights made it impossible to tell when one day ended and another began. There were cannons that let us know when tributes had died, but there were no faces in the sky each night, so we had no way of knowing who had died. It was different. Disorienting. And when the ability to make a split-second decision can mean the difference between life and death, when a moment's hesitation can cost you your life, any little thing can affect that."

Kyra nodded. "So we need our tributes to be prepared for that."

"Not those circumstances, necessarily – just the idea that anything could be different. That we can't afford to relax just because the twist won't have much effect on our reaping."

"That makes sense." And it probably did. Talking to Kyra, it was easy to forget just how young she was. Twenty-six days in the arena had taken their toll; she wasn't a child anymore. He couldn't shield her from the difficulties of mentoring. All he could do was make sure she didn't have to face them alone.

Kyra was silent for a moment. "Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"They had to fly you back all the way from space after your Games, right? That took longer than usual."

"I suppose." He'd been delirious for most of the trip, and unconscious for the rest. "Why?"

"Do you think if they'd gotten you to the Capitol sooner, they might have been able to do more?"

"More?"

Kyra blushed. "About your hand?"

Brennan chuckled softly. Two weeks until the Games, and that was what she was fretting about? His right hand had been clenched firmly into a fist after the final fight of his Games, when he'd choked the life out of his last opponent, Mercury from District Five. They'd had to pry her neck from his hand, and it hadn't opened since. The doctors had blamed nerve damage, and he'd never had any reason to think they could have done more.

"No," he shrugged. "No, I don't think so. The Capitol's best doctors could have been on the shuttle that took me back, and I don't think it would've made a bit of difference. The damage was done the moment I squeezed her neck." He shook his head. "But a hand for a life – that's a small price to pay."

A small price. Certainly less than others had paid. He'd lost the use of a hand. Carolina had lost an eye – although the Capitol had replaced it with a mechanical one. District Six's most recent Victor, Duke, had lost a leg.

But others had lost more. Some Victors had lost their sanity, their sense of purpose, their will to live. That was worse – much worse. He'd been worried, after Kyra's Games, that she had lost something – something more than her childhood or her innocence. But, so far, she was doing as well as he could have hoped. As well as anyone could be expected to.

He just hoped the Quell wouldn't change that.

Imalia Grenier, 25
District Four Mentor

How could they possibly have any idea what to expect?

Imalia let out a deep breath as the images on the screen faded. The twist didn't seem so bad on the surface. Four tributes was no more than they'd been sending ever since her Games, and there had been six her year. But, eight years ago, additional tributes hadn't been the only difference in the Games. The "extra" tributes had been harshly treated before the Games, dressed in rags during the chariot rides, their heads shaved and their training clothes tattered. During the Games, the tributes had been split into two separate groups, splitting her alliance in half and forcing her and Jarlan to team up with a pair of outer-district tributes.

It had turned out to be a good move, in the end. Indira, one of the girls from Ten, had become her closest ally. Her friend. And her final opponent. They'd made a good pair, something that would never have happened if the tributes hadn't been split into groups.

But the fact remained that they'd known none of that before the reaping. The reaping had only revealed that there would be extra tributes, not what would happen to them. The same was true this year. They knew how many tributes each of the districts would send – and that there would be no volunteers – but nothing about what other twists and turns the Games might hold.

But there was nothing to be done about that. Not yet, at least. Not until they knew who their tributes were. Until then, there was no point in fretting about what might happen. No use worrying about something they had absolutely no control over.

Imalia nodded to her parents as she headed for the door. They didn't need to ask where she was going. She headed straight for the beach. For the water. Just as she was about to wade in, however, she heard a voice. "Imalia!"

Imalia turned; the voice was familiar. Sure enough, Ahab Calder, one of Kalypso's students, came into view along the shore. "Imalia, did you hear that?"

Imalia hid a smile. Of course she'd heard it. The Quarter Quell announcement wasn't exactly something anybody could miss. Even if she'd ventured outside sooner in the hope of avoiding the news, it would have been broadcast throughout the district. But that wasn't really what Ahab was asking. "I heard. I'm sorry."

"No volunteers!" Ahab continued, as if he hadn't even heard her response. "This was my last year! I let Caspian volunteer on his own last year because I didn't want to end up fighting him, and I figured I could always volunteer this year – and for a Quarter Quell. But now…"

"Maybe you'll be picked, anyway," Imalia offered hopefully. But, even as she said it, she knew the odds.

"And if I'm not?"

"Then you live," answered a gentle voice behind them. Imalia turned. Mags. "Is that such a bad thing?" the older Victor asked softly.

Ahab clenched his fists as he turned to leave. Imalia shook her head. "I know you never liked the Career system, but—"

Mags shook her head. "This isn't about the Career system. This is about whether he's going to spend the rest of his life regretting the fact that he didn't get to volunteer for the Games … or whether he's going to move on and live his life."

"And what do you expect him to do with the rest of his life?"

Mags shrugged. "What are you doing now?"

Imalia could feel her face redden. The truth was, she hadn't been entirely sure what to do after returning from the Games. She still wasn't certain, really. She sometimes joined Kalypso in training what Careers remained, but the rest of her time she mostly spent by herself on the beach. But that was the difference between her and Ahab. She could afford to take the time to figure out what she wanted to do, while he was stuck. Stuck in a life of menial labor just to help provide for his family – exactly as she would have been, if not for the Games.

If not for the Games. If not for the opportunity to risk her life just for … what? What was she really doing now? Other Victors had started training academies. A few were raising families. Glenn had taken up writing. Miriam had gone back to school and become a teacher. But none of that seemed like a good fit for her.

Imalia shook the thought from her head. She would have time for that later. Right now … now she was going for a swim. She quickly plunged into the water, and Mags followed. For a while, they could forget. For a while, none of it mattered – the Games, the Quell, the tributes. The Careers who would be disappointed and the non-Careers who would be facing the reaping with a new terror. For a little while, it was all washed away in the ocean waves.

But they both knew that couldn't last.

"We but teach bloody instructions, which, being taught, return to plague the inventor: this even-handed justice commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice to our own lips."