Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: No sense stalling on updates when there are dozens more Victors to write about! At the rate I am going it should be ever so simple to reach the first Quell by Easter. Let's see if I actually pull that off, or if I'll have to look and see how very wrong I was. Until then, onto the fourteenth Victor!
"Apparently these Games were one hundred percent indoors. I think I remember that fact from a school lesson.. I mean, very vaguely. Don't quote me on that," Katniss said, looking at Crystal's imprinted face. "First time that happened?"
"I don't know for sure, but I don't have any reason to think you're wrong," Peeta replied. "I think it was something like a temple, if that reminds you of anything?"
"Could be. I zoned out for most of that lesson, more concerned with starving to death after school," Katniss said, dryly. "Seems like she had a good time if her perky smile is anything to go by."
"Question is, is she forcing the smile or not?" Peeta asked.
The couple stood in silence, paying some respect for the Victor whom they had never met nor known of. No more words needed to be spoken, not that the pair from Twelve had much they could really add at that moment.
14th Annual Hunger Games
Name: Crystal McCree
Gender: Female
District: 1
Age: 18
Kills: 3
THE ADVENTURE OF THE COOKIE JAR!
Not all of District One are nobles from the Flawless Estate or wealthy owners of business and jewellery mines. The notion of everybody being rich is both impossible and far removed from reality.
The poorer people in the District – well, poor by the standards of One which is of course nothing like the standards of Twelve – spend their lives toiling away as staff in the factories of businesses of other people. That or down the gem mines.
That was how the McCree family made their living. Everyday Crystal, a little girl at the tender age of eight, would watch mama, dada and her four elder sisters leave the house to do their shift down at the mines. No matter how much little Crystal pleaded to come along and have a turn smacking the rocks with the pick axes she was always gently told no and left in the care of a babysitter.
Having recurring heart issues basically had her stuck in a quiet existence without any kind of adventure or real activities going on. Crystal insisted she felt fine and there was no reason to worry, but her family wouldn't hear of it.
Such was her life, being the coddled youngest daughter who craved rough and tumble adventure and only got given a cuddle or a teddy to hush her up. Good intent didn't give her any good adventure!
After being given her medication one winter afternoon and being laid down for a nap that she insisted she did not need Crystal began to plot. It was clear that she was never going to get the adventure she desired from other people. The poor eight year old feared she may grow to be as ancient as twenty and have no adventures under her belt.
It was clearly up to her to find her own thrills in life.
That was why the naughty girl snuck out of bed and tiptoed down the stairs while her babysitter watched TV, sobbing as the male lead ran into the rain to declare his love for the female lead.
Crystal gagged, disgusted by the prissy, trashy romance on TV and instead crept towards the kitchen. She remained undetected as she entered the room and spotted the cookie jar upon a shelf.
Sneaking around, wary that each step may be her last, she managed to make it to the other side of the kitchen, but that was where the true challenge of Crystal's first adventure lay in wait.
Climbing upon the kitchen counter.
Timing her attempt to coincide with the babysitter bursting into tears over the soap opera's 'big damn kiss scene' Crystal managed to haul herself upon the counter and, panting from the effort, take hold of the cookie jar.
With all the speed of a cheetah mutt she scampered off back to her room, clutching her prize, her heart pounding from the trouble she would be in if she was caught. By the time the babysitter looked back, having heard a small noise, Crystal was already gone and out of sight.
Despite the fact her chest was hurting a bit from the pounding of her heart Crystal nonetheless giggled in triumph, stuffing her face with her sugary treats until all that remained was the empty cookie jar and a small sea of crumbs.
Sure enough she got caught later on and given a very long time out, but her very first adventure had Crystal hungry for more thrills in the future.
And cookies. Always cookies.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE SCHOOL SKIPPING!
Coming from a humble background Crystal did not have the chance nor opportunity to set foot anywhere near the Career Academy of District One, these days known as Gaudy High after the first Victor that District One ever had. Of course, that wasn't from a lack of trying...
Crystal attended a fairly basic sort of school in Town 45, deep within the boundaries of District One. Nothing stellar or fancy, but good enough to give a growing girl like her a decent education. With her condition keeping her in at playtime she had become close to her teachers, perhaps to the point of being a teacher's pet.
If she was to be trapped inside then why not take advantage to earn herself a free strawberry from the teachers every now and then?
But every teacher's pet has their days of misconduct and mischief and for eleven year old Crystal it's the day that the Victor of the previous Hunger Games comes by One on their Victory Tour.
Crystal doesn't like the killing, not really, but the sheer thrill and adventure tickles her in a way she just cannot describe. All the Victors so far are pure bred adventures and she'd spend ages bragging about her complete set of Victor action figures up in her bedroom to anybody who would listen.
She's gotten all of the figures of the past Victors signed so far. With a Runa Peace action figure in her schoolbag, she intends to make sure she has the complete set.
Well, complete until next year anyway. She hopes One gets a Victor soon. Sometimes she imagines that it may even be her.
But this was Two's year and Runa will be passing through the town very, very soon. One look at the clock tells her that has to be out of the classroom within the next five minutes if she is to have any hope of seeing her.
She has to get the next part just right.
"Miss Pearl, can I use the bathroom?" Crystal asks, her hand raised and her 'good girl voice' put on.
"Of course dear," Miss Pearl says, beckoning her favourite student to the door. "Don't take too long."
"I won't," Crystal promises as she heads to the door.
She means it, because if she has her way she'll be back in the class before anybody realises she even left school grounds.
The bathroom isn't visited. Instead Crystal takes a detour out the back entrance of the school and makes a mad dash for the fence at the edge. Her small size allows her to easily slot herself under it and make a run for the town.
They really should work on fixing up the old rickety fence, but Crystal never minded the way it let her sneak out of school so easily.
Crystal ran as fast as her legs could carry her down several streets until she eventually arrived at her destination. Gasping, wheezing and lightly choking she reached the crowd watching Runa come down the street standing upon the roof of a limo. It was the tradition of the day for the Victor to be shown off in as many places as possible, after all.
The crowd wasn't an issue to Crystal. Having attended this same event at the same street ever since the Games had begun she was keenly aware of when the car would hit the pothole in the road that had never been fixed by the road maintenance crew.
Right on cue the car hit the pothole and, as it did every year, came to a stop as the engine stalled. Despite her chest pains Crystal made her move and scampered right up the car, running under the left arm of the Peacekeeper she knew to be right handed and then right up towards Runa.
"Can you sign my action figure?" Crystal squeaked out, holding up the Runa action figure and a marker pen to the Victor, putting on her cutest face.
Despite the fact that, at the time, Runa had been dealing badly with PTSD and had missed her meds that morning, the powerful young women managed to suppress all the loathsome and painful feelings coursing through her.
She refused on principle to make a child feel bad.
Runa continued on the tour when the limo's engine was fixed five minutes later and Crystal headed back towards the school with a signed action figure and the knowledge of Runa's favourite colour (purple), food (lamb ribs), song (Mining Song #4) and District that was not her own (Seven).
"You were gone for a while," Miss Pearl later noted when Crystal retook her seat, panting in slight pain from all the running.
"When you gotta go, you gotta go," Crystal says, wheezing a bit.
All the running earns Crystal a trip to the school nurse and three days of bed rest, but she doesn't care. She has the full set of signed Victor action figures and no other kid in school was able to say the same.
All of this doesn't merely give Crystal a hunger for adventure. It gave her an outright starvation for it.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE REAPING OVERRIDE!
Thirteen years passed with District One having only a single Victor. As popular as Peridot is amongst the Capitol and the citizens of One, the fact is that they have now been overtaken in Victor numbers by Two, Four, Seven and Nine. Nine of all places! While statistically their tributes always rank high in the Games, it wasn't saying much when this was a contest where every rank from second through to twenty fourth was really the exact same thing.
Crystal had watched plenty of brave, and sometimes admittedly monstrous, boys and girls from her home District die in the dangerous arenas year after year. Even her friend Cleopatra had fallen the year prior in a way that had forced Crystal to have to cover her eyes. Crystal had made notes on the causes of why the tributes from her District, aside from Peridot, had fallen during the Games. The Victor fangirl filled up several notebooks and eventually she came to a personal sort of conclusion.
She could do better and she knew just how to do it.
She settled down for a good sleep the night before the reaping, as always fussed over and her family making certain that she was alright. A little annoyed but nonetheless happy they cared about her, Crystal assured them as always she was alright and that her worst heart problems had stopped when she was fourteen, but her family were still the sort to worry about their youngest. Their little angel.
Crystal had spent her life thus far in two main 'modes'. Five percent was spent in adventure mode, sneaking out on all manner of goofy little quests to keep herself entertained. Ninety five percent was spent indoors under supervision and coddling from her family, shielded from danger and constantly protected.
Crystal knew they loved her, it was so obvious they did, but she wished they would accept she was growing up and that she'd be alright without constant supervision.
She wondered how long she would be put in a time out after she put her most daring plan in the history of her life into effect. The rough estimate was at least five years, but dammit if it wasn't worth it!
By the time of the Fourteenth Hunger Games it was a fact that District One was always able to provide two volunteers for the Games, with an occasional back-up or two just in case anything were to happen to the chosen tribute. They always had back-ups after the first Quell, but in these days it wasn't every year that they did.
This year there were three boys in line, with the chosen Volunteer being Jacinth Court. The cocky, brutally efficient sword fighter was more than happy to represent his District and, having been in training since he was twelve, felt quite sure of himself.
House Victory, desperate for a Victor and a chance to gain ever important status, had sunk quite the fortune of Caps into ensuring their daughter Harp was given the spot of the female tribute. Harp, being severely autistic and lacking combat training ever since she was deemed unfit to be a tribute back when she was twelve years old, doesn't quite understand what awaits her and why everybody states at her that day. All she knows is mommy and daddy are really mad these days and keep telling her to volunteer when the funny dressed man asks for somebody to do so.
All but her glory hungry parents can see she is sure to die. No back-up female tributes exist this year, so what can be done?
As the goofy escort reaped a girl from the fifteen year old section and called out for a Volunteer, fully expecting to get one, Harp tried to remember exactly what she was meant to say.
She remembered soon enough, but by that point somebody else from the crowd had shouted out the words that jogged her memory to begin with and made their way up towards the grand reaping stage, giving her a playful smile.
Hearing Crystal grandly introduce herself as the most brave and daring adventurer who ever lived in District One and telling a story – one Harp didn't quite see as being exaggerated – of her journey to claim rations for a starving family (actually buying bread for her family from the corner bakery) made Harp smile. This girl is far better at playing this game and Harp never really liked the 'Hungry Games' very much anyway.
Harp asks every so nicely if she can say bye-bye to the adventurous girl and the Peacekeepers allow it. She goes in to speak with her after Crystal's own family leave, full of despair and grief over what their wayward youngest has just done to herself. The shouting and sobbing of her family had left Crystal's perky smile a lot less wide than before.
"Good luck," Harp said, giving Crystal a big hug. "You've got this."
Despite the fury and horror of her family still ringing in her ears, Crystal couldn't help but feel happy that the pretty noble seemed to think she had a chance. Hadn't her Grandpa used to say noble's were always right? By the time the hugging stopped and Crystal was being taken to the train, she felt a bit better and much more focused on her goal.
She had never recognised that her Grandpa was being sarcastic all those years ago.
She didn't care either way, not when Harp had been so nice and given her a shiny new fedora to use as her tribute token.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE PRE-GAMES THINGIES!
"Normally I'd ask what the hell you were thinking," Peridot later said to Crystal as she paced in front of her and Jacinth. "But honestly, as bad as a overriding a Volunteer would normally be the fact is you're stronger than Harp. I've know that girl all my life, she's so innocent and oblivious. She's like the only noble with a soul because she cannot conceive the idea of being mean."
"Ok, fuck you?" Jacnith said, looking slightly annoyed.
"You literally put rat poison in my soup when you were nine and almost got me killed," Peridot said, rolling her eyes. "Ok, I know all about your skills Jacinth. In fact, I know more about you than I actually want to know. I can work with what you bring."
"Naturally," Jacinth said, smirking. "Love me or hate me, fact is that I'm the strongest guy here."
"We'll see what the reaping recaps says... fuckwit," Peridot said, light and bitter. She ignored his offended scoff. "Crystal, you're an enigma to me. Tell me about yourself."
"My family are jewel miners and I love going on adventures!" Crystal declared, loud and proud. "I'm pretty handy with a bullwhip and despite the fact I may or may not have a few heart issues I-."
"Heart issues?" Peridot asked, staring. "...Are you really that stupid? You signed up and... you have heart issues?"
"I mean, they've not been really that bad in years..." Crystal said, awkwardly shrugging.
"Whoa, this is... damn," Jacinth couldn't help but shake his head as well, bewildered. "I mean, you're stronger than Harp was going to be anyway, but this is still a new low for girls from One. I mean, besides Dazzle in the First Games I guess."
"Everybody underestimates me," Crystal had said, glum. "Mama and dada always keep me inside, thinking I'm a delicate little thing who needs cuddles and care all the time. It's no life, not really. It's just existing... it's not really the same thing."
"So, what, you signed up for this deathmatch because...?" Jacinth trailed off, letting his question hang in the air.
"Well, it's an adventure isn't it?" Crystal replied, putting on a perky smile. "Honestly, I'm unlikely to make it past forty anyway. At least this way... if I die, it's during a thrilling adventure and not just laying around doing nothing."
Jacinth lost interest pretty quickly after that and Peridot fully expected that, realistically, Jacinth was the best prospect for a One victory – not that she had anything but the upmost contempt for the young man, as rat poison antics would often cause a bit of bias in that way – and soon stopped talking to Crystal.
The thing with Crystal was that her mind operated under very simple logic.
The more somebody told her she couldn't do something or clearly didn't think she was capable... she became all the more determined to prove them wrong.
That was why she stole the show in the parades by abandoning the chariot, instead moving onto the horse and playing the role of an excitable horse rider that'd make a kid from Ten's jaw drop.
It was why, when her role in the pack was taken away by the other three and given to the massive dock hand girl from Four that she smeared cream and chocolate sauce in their beds and made her own alliance with the power plant workers from Five.
It was why she pushed herself to her limit to score an eight, sheer determination guiding her towards her goal.
It was why, at her interview within the grand studio in front of thousands of Capitolites there to watch it live, she told a grand and exciting tale of how she had viciously battled a mutated monstrous plant to the death in order to save a grand arcadia from destruction.
[It was another exaggeration. It had been her removing a dandelion from the back yard, but nobody needed to know that part]
It was why she did not feel scared on the ride to the hovercraft, despite having 22-1 odds. She believed in herself to pull this off and that was really all she felt that she needed.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE BRUTAL BLOODBATH!
Crystal took a deep breath as her launch pedestal clicked into place, bubbling with excitement for the fact her adventure was about to begin. Just one minute and the adventure of a lifetime would start.
It wasn't as if her lifetime was expected to be anything but short one way or the other, so unlike the wailing kids from Six either side of her she didn't feel afraid.
The fact the arena was an ancient Egyptian tomb also helped keep her feeling full of glee. An entirely indoor arena, it was something the Gamemakers felt quite proud of. Many corridors, several puzzles, tons of traps, a few particularly vicious Mummy Mutts roaming around the corridors and little in the way of vegetation and water growing around.
The Gamemakers expected it to be a vicious Hunger Games that would reward the strongest amongst the tributes.
The Outliers saw it as a pure hell on earth, what little hope many of them had quickly evaporating.
The Careers smirked, seeing this as exactly the sort of arena that they would be able to excel in.
Crystal was wide eyed and open mouthed, awed by the sight of the ancient tomb before her. The golden Cornucopia, the circular spike pit that surrounded it with stone walkways leading to the centre, the many corridors that led off into the dimly lit expanses of the tomb...
What an adventure that she would be having!
The gong rang and several of the weaker outliers scattered away down the corridors, deciding to live a little longer and not risk the carnage by the spike surrounded Cornucopia.
The dying wail of the girl from Six, killed by a dart trap built into a wall, was a clear warning to all that there were a lot of traps in the tomb and that running away aimlessly wasn't the way to win these Games.
Then again, it didn't stop the hoard of tributes who stuck around from charging into the fray in a desperate scramble for life sustaining supplies. Aside the large spike pit the central area of the tomb was devoid of traps, making all the running and trampling much less of a danger.
All the same, it wasn't a year of a tiny bloodbath by any means. The carnage begin in earnest as soon as Crystal grabbed hold of a bullwhip and the boy from Two threw the terrified girl from Nine down to the spike pit, where she died over three hellish hours.
"Oh snap, this isn't good," Crystal said, gagging at the sight of Jacinth restraining the boy from Six for the girl from Two to skewer with a lance.
In most years a girl from One could expect to be fine at the bloodbath, as they would have a pack of allies watching over them during the opening carnage. But having been shunted from the pack Crystal had no such luck. Indeed, as six people lay dead around her with a further corpse down a corridor and a dying girl in the spikes, Crystal knew the danger that she was in and what her first serious test was going to be.
Fighting her way back out of the fray, roughly elbowing the tall boy from Twelve to the spikes for an instant death in the process, she intended to make a run for the corridor she had spotted her allies from Five scampering down.
"Out of my way!" Crystal yelled, dodging past the girl from Three and leaping out of range of Water from Four's scimitar.
Crystal wasn't exactly a fighter. Indeed, she had only attended the training sessions at the academy that were open to the public and used a few personal work-out DVD's when home alone, so she could not match the physical power of the Careers. She was more like a 'quasi-Career' after all.
But her advantage was her whip which, while not lethal per-say, had plenty of range and left a really nasty sting. Such was how she struck Brimhurr from Two before the muscular girl had a chance to use her sword. It was also how she sent the boy from Seven backwards before he could even think of attacking with his axe.
It was how, despite her wheezing, she was able to knock the fancy spiked mace out of Gladiator's hand and send it right down the spike pit. No way would the boy from Two be getting his prized weapon back after that.
With a backpack full of supplies, a whip in hand and a fedora upon her pretty head Crystal stumbled away as best she could down one of the corridors, quickly losing the Careers by ducking behind a sarcophagus. They ran past, almost into a spike trap. The near fatal accident had them turning tail and heading back to the horn of plenty with much caution.
Crystal simply wriggled out of her hiding spot, tipped her hat to a camera and set off down the corridor nice and slow in search of her allies.
Twelve tributes died in the opening half hour of the Games that year, but much to Peridot's shock Crystal was not among them. On the contrary, she'd not taken a hit yet with her only issues being the fact she was looking exhausted already.
Before she could shrug and return to her comic book the sponsor phone began to ring.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE TRICKY RIDDLE!
Crystal had found her allies before the anthem on the first night – displayed on the walls due to the lack of a visible sky - and shared out the supplies she had been able to grab. They carefully made their way through the corridors on the second day, all in good health. It seemed for a while that their alliance was going to do just fine.
But nobody is allowed to have things too easy in the arena and so before long, after turning back from the dead end they had reached, the trio were faced with a sphinx. The stone creature opened its eyes, staring coldly at the group. Volt and Charge from Five stepped back, intimidated by the beast.
Crystal just smiled her perky smile and greeted the sphinx with a fine hello.
"Answer my riddle," the sphinx said. "Get it right and you may pass on your way."
"And if we're wrong?" Crystal asked.
"I bet we'll be killed," Volt whimpered.
"The boy is correct," the sphinx confirmed. "Answer me this... they have not flesh, scales, feathers, fur, blood or bone. And yet, they still have fingers and thumbs of their very own. What are they?"
The sphinx's eyes glowed bright, like it was charging up an attack in case the wrong answer was given. Volt and Charge shrunk back, the sixteen year olds practically seeing their short lives flashing in front of their eyes.
Crystal, however, had begun to pace and think out her answer to the riddle. After all, what was a riddle but another type of challenge? It was a fact that Crystal loved a challenge.
"Ok, so I think all those things it doesn't have rule out pretty much everything that is alive," Crystal said as she paced back and forth along the short corridor. "In fact, bones basically rules out dead stuff like a spooky skeleton. Oh, but statues seem possible... but as if a sphinx would ever be so unoriginal. It's a matter of pride for them to make things hard, so says mama's old books."
The sphinx smiled, as if flattered by the praise given upon its kind. Mutt or not, it had some form of feelings, artificial as they may have been.
"It must be something not living, but not a person or animal... so, an object! But what? What?! Maybe a measurement as I know fingers of whiskey are a thing... but no, who ever heard of a thumb of whiskey? Maybe a thumb of gold, but I always thought it was a metaphor. No, it has to be something physical and non-living object, right? Right."
The sphinx looked a little bit dizzy from all of Crystal's pacing while Volt and Charge looked more confused than anything else.
"The only physical items I can think of that would have fingers and thumbs are gloves and mittens. But one has fingers and one has a large finger for all of one's digits to go in. Glove or mitten, glove or mitten... uhhhhhhh... oh! I recall a mitten sale was going on back home a month ago. That actually isn't relevant, but I wanted to bring it up anyway," Crystal said with a giggle.
The sphinx seemed to groan for a moment, as if slightly annoyed by all the stalling. Volt and Charge merely braced for death.
"Mitten sounds cute and cuddly, much more than glove does... but you're a mutt, and mutts are neither cute nor cuddly, so why could you make the answer something lovely like mitten? It could only make the correct answer a glove," Crystal declared.
"...That was far more complicated than it had any right being," the sphinx said as it moved away to let the tributes past. "Like, are you for real?"
"Yes I am," Crystal said, giving a cheeky wink as she led her allies further down the corridor. She paused when a cannon boomed throughout the tomb a moment later. "...More real now than whoever it was that just died."
She hadn't been there to see it, of course, but Basil from Eleven had just had his brain sucked out by one of the mummies patrolling the tomb.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE POUNDING HEART!
On the third day Crystal's adventure took a turn for the worst. After finding out that her whip was useless against the mummy mutts and losing her ally Charge to a particularly nasty spike trap that came from the floor Crystal faced an issue she'd not faced since she was fourteen.
She kneeled over while midway down one of the uppermost corridors of the tomb, a heart attack suddenly striking her. She wheezed and choked, too breathless to scream. Volt had no idea what to do in such a situation, doing his best to provide a little comfort and make sure Crystal didn't fall and smack her skull against the stone walls.
"We need help!" he called out, freezing a moment later when he realised the Careers may have been able to hear him.
A minute passed by without the currently intact pack of four tributes coming by. In that time Crystal managed to feebly sit up and choke out a few words.
"Harp... help..." she wheezed. "Need... defibrillator...!"
As was normal for a District One tribute, Crystal had plenty of sponsors who felt interested in her. While Jacinth reaped the lions share of the money from the elites, the serious gamblers, the rich amongst his home District and the comic book businesses Peridot would admit to being a guilty pleasure of hers, Crystal had her own supports.
The lower class of District One, the smaller businesses within the Capitol, adventure novel writers whom Crystal has admitted to being a fan of and, of course, Harp.
It helps to have a noblewoman as your number one fan who has millions of caps to burn and no concept of hoarding money for future decades. Not when the girl who let her stay home for the summer is in trouble.
It's not fifteen seconds later that the requested item is sent down into the arena via one of the bigger slots in the walls. Volt hesitates for a moment, having lost his brother to the girl from One a few years prior, but the need for numbers on his side against the pack and how he honestly doesn't mind Crystal's company makes him suck it up and use the specialised defibrillator.
The shaken young adventurer sits up, scared from her close call but once again stable. Back home in her cushy living room in the Flawless Estate, Harp claps and cheers for the girl she wants to see come home. She's oblivious to the furious look in the eyes of her bitter family.
Whispering a touching thank you to her most loyal sponsor and her remaining ally Crystal recovers enough to keep on moving down the corridor, Volt supporting her as they go.
Crystal's heart attack was painful, but she feels like her heart is breaking even worse later that day when Volt falls victim to a deep pit trap and the adventurer girl is left all alone.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE DEADLY TRAPS!
Just as the Capitol, and the Careers themselves, had expected from the start it turns out to be a year for the Career pack to win. After the willowy girl from Eight is taken down on one of the lower corridors the only tributes still alive at the end of the fifth day are the pack of four and Crystal.
"Shall we just fight it out now or go look for her?" Brimhurr asked, sounding fine with either outcome.
"Depends," Water said. "What do we know about her?"
"I've literally never had any encounter with her except when she sent my mace down a spike pit," Gladiator spat, still fuming over how he'd been forced to make do with a sword for games rather than his favoured weapon. "I'd like a rematch."
In the end the group asked Jacinth for what he thought of his District Partner, and he honestly didn't have particularly much to share.
"She's peppy and pretty mean with a bullwhip, but that's about it really," he said with a shrug. "Sooner or later the heart issues she mentioned are going to take her out, maybe before we can do a thing to her. But I say we go looking for her. She might even be coming back right now."
"Think she's high or low in the tomb?" Brimhurr asked, crossing her thick arms.
"Wherever there is more 'adventure," Jacinth said, already turning to leave the central area. "Let's go cut her up and then get the battle over with. The longer I go without caviar the worse I'm gonna be to deal with."
Jacinth was tailed by Water while the Twos headed off together, all with their blades gripped firm as they started the hunt for Crystal.
Their raised voices as they spoke had led Crystal right to them, hiding behind a nearby sarcophagus. After a moment of thought she decided to follow after the pair from Two.
In the hours that followed the pair had no idea that the light footed adventurer was behind them, waiting for the golden opportunity. She had surprise on her side, but that meant little when the Twos easily outclassed her in combat and had weapons actually intended for killing. At best, her whip caused painful welts.
Crystal had, by that point, figured out where most of the traps were located or at least knew the warning signs for when a trap was nearby. The Twos, however, knew no such thing. For example, they knew nothing of the dormant pit trap Crystal had seen the previous day.
When they drew near it Crystal decided it was time to be brave and make her move.
Brimhurr screamed as the whip struck her back and a moment later Gladiator yelled for much the same reason.
"If you want me then come get me!" Crystal teased, landing a further whip crack upon Gladiator and fleeing down the hallway.
The Twos had pursued her with speed and ferocity. It looked like they would catch Crystal more than once as her chest began to throb painfully again, but she kept on her way. It was lucky that the pit trap had not been very far away.
It was also lucky that Crystal was able to crack her whip at a jagged section of brick on the ceiling, using it to swing herself over the pit with an excited cheer. She landed fine, while the pair from Two activated the trap and were left hanging onto the edge a hundred feet above spikes with their bare hands.
A few cracks of the whip had this change, five becoming three and Crystal feeling her heart start to break a little more. A quick use of the defibrillator had her up and moving again, but still not feeling her normal perky self.
She kept reminding herself that all the badass adventurers from mama's books had a bit of a low mood shortly before their greatest triumph.
When the anthem confirmed to Jacinth later that night that Gladiator and Brimhurr were both dead he made the snap decision to cut down Water without mercy. He wiped blood off his blade and what little had been splattered onto his face as well. It wouldn't do to attend the final battle looking filthy.
He'd killed Water for being tougher than Crystal, per the pragmatism his parents had drilled into him for years. But also, on the extreme off-chance he lost, at least District One would have a Victor no matter what.
Up in the control centre Peridot felt very mixed that night as the last two tributes slept in opposite sides of the massive tomb. Her District was victorious no matter what and she could never call that a bad thing. Her loyalty was to One as a whole, after all. But the idea of Jacinth coming back and his dickish noble family rising up had the young women frowning something fierce. Alas, what could she do about it now?
She spent the night reading her comics, trying not to think of the annoying neighbour she was sure to have very soon. She'd hardly call Crystal much better, but the snooty women would take what she could get.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE BIG BOULDER!
The pair from One crossed paths the next day. At high noon, the showdown between Jacinth Court and Crystal McCree began, though hardly in the way that had been foreseen by those overseeing the Games and watching them on TV.
Crystal had snuck past a few dart traps and was just taking a golden idol off of a pedestal, unable to resist how shiny it was, when Jacinth wandered into the room. He'd seen no signs of life ever since fending off a few mummy mutts two hours previously, but his eyes lit up when he saw Crystal stuffing the golden idol into her backpack.
"There you are!" he exclaimed, holding his sword at the ready hardly an instant later. "Shall we end this? The Games and your 'adventure' both?"
Crystal was about to give a cheeky reply and a crack of the whip, but the way the tomb suddenly began to rumble made both of the final two tributes pause in alarm.
"What was that?" Jacinth asked, more curious than anything else. "A mutt?"
"A boulder!" Crystal yelped, already dashing off. "Run!"
Crystal pulled ahead of Jacinth, making full use of the few precious seconds he spent glancing left and spotting the boulder being released. He charged right after Crystal as she sped down the sloped corridor directly in front of the boulder.
The nation was treated to witnessing a boulder chase as Crystal moaned over the pain in her chest and Jacinth was struck by about half a dozen, thankfully non-poisonous, darts. He barrelled forwards, wasting no time plucking them out as he zeroed in one Crystal.
He ran all the faster when he saw that a stone wall was lowering ahead, sure to trap him and Crystal with the boulder if one of them did not die quickly. He frantically sprinted just as Crystal, a decent distance ahead, make a lunge and a roll to get under the stone wall.
She sighed in relief, only to gasp when she realised her hat was not upon her head.
She reached back and quickly pulled her hat back, setting it upon her head without a moment to spare.
The next moment the stone wall closed fully and the sound of a massive stone smashing against the wall, crushing Jacinth into a mess of bloodied gore and bones, filled the tomb. When the rumbling came to an end and the dust stopped falling the tomb was very silent.
Crystal slumped onto her side, suddenly in too much pain to grab her defibrillator.
The ceiling of the tomb finally retracted and allowed the hovercraft to collect the exhausted, dying adventurer. The only thing was that, by the time Crystal was back on board the hovercraft again and flying home she wasn't herself anymore per-say.
She had died seconds ago.
THE ADVENTURE OF THE INDOOR EXISTENCE!
It was an extremely close thing. The Capitol had been a hair's length away from having no Victor at all and dealing with all the absolute pandemonium that would have come after. It was lucky indeed that the Capitol's state of the art medical equipment and their on-board defibrillators were enough to jolt Crystal back to life enough for them to swoop in and start to provide a full medical procedure that lasted over a constant fifty hours, the doctors and nurses having to tag out and do it on shifts due to how one wrong move from sleepiness could easily send the Victor back beyond the curtain with no chance of revival.
The final interview and recap was delayed for three weeks due to how long Crystal had needed to recover and feel almost like her old self again. Almost. She was tired out and needed a long sleep more than anything else, one perhaps where she wasn't being watched on camera the whole time by Capitol security.
"I think I'm going to retire from adventuring," she told Mortimer at her final interview. "I came here for the adventure of a lifetime and to show I can do all the things people told me I was incapable of doing growing up. I've gotten what I came for, so now it's time to go home."
"Isn't that a bit anticlimactic?" Mortimer asked, a bit put out.
"Maybe, but it's like some of mama's stories," Crystal replied. "A girl goes on a grand quest and then in the end she has to go home once again, closing the book on what happened. Right now, I'm one of those girls."
Crystal paused, briefly gesturing to her wheelchair and the three oxygen tanks she was hooked up to while the interview went on.
"Besides, I don't think my body can take another grand adventure," Crystal said with a weak, sheepish laugh. "It might kill me... well, kill me again and this time for good."
Indeed, the sheer extremes Crystal had forced herself towards left her with issues walking, breathing properly and general health. A long period of recovery awaited her and, upon her return back home to District One, that's exactly what happened.
Crystal spent a vast majority of her time between returning home and heading on her Victory Tour tucked up in her bed, trying to relax and recover her strength. Her family were relieved to have her back, of course, but just as Crystal had foreseen she had been in massive trouble and grounded until further notice.
She sighed, stuck inside for the foreseeable future. As much as she knew she was in the wrong, needed rest and that her family were justified to keep her inside for the time being... it didn't mean she had to enjoy every second of it.
But at least the retired adventurer wasn't alone.
"Can we maybe please watch Fiona and Lawrence?" Harp asked, soft and hopeful. "New show, big fun, just started."
Crystal was never much for romantic and prissy kinds of TV shows, but she would always be willing to do what her best friend wanted. Her most vital and loyal sponsor, Harp was really the only reason Crystal had survived her first heart attack within that dimly lit trap filled tomb, having been the one to finance the defibrillators.
The girl's furious, Victor-less parents had tossed her out too and Crystal had therefore gained a room mate. One she was happy to provide for and hang out with on the long, slow road to recovery.
"Anything you want, Harp," Crystal said with an exhausted, content smile. "Anything you want."
"Ready to move on?" Peeta asked, ending the moment of respectful silence for Crystal. "If you'd rather take it slow, that's fine."
"I think we've said all we can about Crystal," Katniss said, already walking onwards. "If she was smiling by the time she had her face put on here then she must have gotten what she wanted from the arena,"
"I'd like to think she did," Peeta said as he followed his girlfriend. "I'd also like to hope that, you know, that having said that she didn't want anything nasty."
Soon enough the couple reached the fifteenth face on the lengthy sidewalk. A scowling boy with a buzzcut and gritted teeth looked back up at them.
"Bear Redfoot," Katniss read.
"He looks as fierce as a bear, I'll give him that," Peeta muttered, looking a little bit unnerved.
That's Crystal, the slightly airheaded adventurer from D1! I always try to make the Career Victors as unique and stand-out as I can rather than a 'classic brute' (which, I mean, works just fine of course but I like to have a bit of a personal flair going on here), so I figured it could be fun to make Crystal a bit distinct from an expected D1 Victor:
1- Heart issues.
2- Not overly trained to the level of a typical Career, hence being something of a 'quasi Career'.
3- A parody of Indiana Jones, complete with bullwhip and fedora.
I personally feel that she turned out better than Peridot – who, it seems, is growing into a snooty comic nerd lmao – but I'll let you guys be judge (and jury and executioner) as to how well I did. In any case, stay tuned for more!
Stats
District 1: Peridot Gaudy (8th Games), Crystal McCree (14th Games)
District 2: Baron Overwhill (4th Games), Runa Peace (7th Games), Olga Machete (10th Games)
District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games)
District 4: Museida Selkirk (3rd Games), Mags Flanagan (11th Games)
District 5: Shunt Gaspar (12th Games)
District 6: N/A
District 7: Pliny Aransio (2nd Games), Fir Buzz (9th Games)
District 8: N/A
District 9: Mizar Aldjoy (1st Games), Gwenith Rosebud (13th Games)
District 10: N/A
District 11: N/A
District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)