Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games, They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: Here we are, the start of the third decade of the grisly Hunger Games. What drama and pain may unfold as we start to approach the first Quarter Quell in the next few chapters? In a word... lots. Lots will. Time to kick things off by exploring a fun little question I had enter my mind: what if tributes smuggled in an item or two into the arena that they really, really should not have any access too? Let's find out the answer. :P
"I don't think I've ever heard much talk of Jack," Katniss said, running a hand across her braid. "Seems like nobody from the old government liked to bring him up. Did Johanna ever talk about him?"
"Never to me," Peeta said, shrugging. "Either he rebelled or he just wasn't popular. Some Victors never end up being particularly loved... of course, given what happens to popular Victors is that really such a bad thing?"
"I can't say it is," Katniss admitted. "Poor Finnick..."
The couple were silent after that, paying some respect to Jack and idly wondering what happened in his arena several decades prior.
Neither knew of how he pulled the ultimate theft committed in the Hunger Games.
21st Annual Hunger Games
Name: Jack Tylos
Gender: Male
District: 7
Age: 15
Kills: 2
Not every reaping that was held in Panem truly came down to the odds not being in somebody's favour. Sometimes if a group were being particularly troublesome for Orion he would arrange for the reaping bowl to only contain names of those he wanted dead – and, in doing so, those not on his shit list were unknowingly spared for a year – or for somebody to Volunteer lest they end up on the wrong side of a Peacekeeper's rifle.
It wasn't done often, of course, as if too many reapings were fixed then the terror of being chosen to enter the arena would lessen and so would the man's stranglehold on the nation of Panem. But every so often something happened that meant a message needed to be sent and sent hard.
A hard riggage meant the certain, painful death of whoever got rigged into the arena.
A soft riggage meant they'd have the same odds as the rest when the gong rang. In most cases, this meant terrible odds and ending up dead regardless.
Jack's actions the day prior to the reaping for the Twenty First Annual Hunger Games gave him an express pass to enter the Games due to a soft riggage, of sorts. It was all downhill from that moment on.
Both for Jack and the Capitol.
Jack would be the first to say that finding cash and surviving in District Seven wasn't really hard, all in all. It just came down to waiting for that golden opportunity. People being distracted from their cash registers in a store, a fallen purse, a valuable bracelet being worn far too loosely in a crowded space. As he would say, finding cash was easy.
But there are some golden opportunities best not taken. But you try telling a boy on the streets to not break the law to avoid starvation and suffering and see how far you get. Exactly, it's just not something that the poor and desperate would pass up.
And for Jack, a regular street urchin with quite the knack for picking pockets unseen, the wallet of the Head Peacekeeper of District Seven was simply too good a chance to pass up.
He'd not eaten in over a day so he wasn't really in the mood for thinking clearly, only the mood for buying tasty bread. One moment he was reaching carefully behind the Head Peacekeeper and took hold of the wallet with his sticky thief fingers.
The next moment he was grabbed in a crushing hold by the man and put under an instant arrest, caught for the first time. Jack had been so hungry he'd not noticed that Captain Mogrosh had been looking over a stall of mirrors and seen him coming.
One look into the vile man's eyes and Jack knew that he was truly in for it. He expected execution and planned to keep his head held high, refusing to beg.
He got something fairly different.
The night was spent in a grotty, tiny prison cell that smelt distinctly of piss, cyanide and mustard. A smell that could kill in strong enough doses. Jack sat on the small bed, listening to Captain Mogrosh laying out the conditions for him. The man was smug, amused even, but made sure sure to show nothing but coldness to the thieving youth.
"Normally you'd be hanged or shot for this," said the Captain, pacing to and fro. "That remains as option one, and you get to choose your death. But, considering what day is tomorrow, a second option has opened up for you."
"And what's that?" Jack asked, unable to look the man in the eye.
"Volunteer for the Hunger Games," Captain Mogrosh said, plain and simple. "One out of twenty four chance to live if you do. If you don't, I drag you to an alley and shoot you after the reaping. Your choice."
"...Just one question, ready for Seven to have its first male Victor?" Jack asked, giving a cheeky wink.
"Don't test me. I can't harm a tribute, but between now and then I can break both your arms," Captain Mogrosh said. "Sleep tight, brat."
The Head Peacekeeper left soon after that, leaving Jack all alone in the dark. But Jack wasn't scared of the fate that patiently awaited him the next morning.
Rather, he felt a strange buzz of excitement. In the arena he could steal anything he wanted and surely there would be plenty of things he could pilfer in the Capitol between the train ride and the start of the countdown.
As sleep claimed him Jack couldn't hold back the occasional giggle, several plans starting to form within his rather mischievous mind.
As Jack stood amongst the crowd of other fifteen year old boys he couldn't help but wonder if his name would be picked anyway and spare all the drama. His name had gone in twice when he was twelve and had been going up ever since until it had reached the eight slips that he currently had in the glass reaping bowl.
But then again, one look towards where Captain Mogrosh and his most loyal men stood with loaded rifles told him it didn't matter. He's gotten careless and was going into the Hunger Games either way.
The reaping was delayed in its official start due to the Escort of the year tripping and breaking a nail. While time passed, a replacement nail being fitting in, Jack noticed that several of the boys around him were shaking and starting to cry from sheer terror. The thief shrugged, figuring being honest wouldn't hurt.
As Captain Mogrosh had been ever so kind to tell him, once Jack was a tribute he could do nothing to punish him.
"Relax guys," Jack said to the other, significantly less homeless boys. "I'm volunteering, you have nothing to worry about."
His only response was several stares, torn between doubt and sheer bewilderment.
"I mean, I don't want to but Captain Mogrosh says he'll shoot me if I don't. Moral here is that it's unwise to pilfer his purse," Jack said, giving a cheerfully awkward sort of shrug. "So, yeah."
The boys seemed like they wanted to believe him, but common sense held them back. Since then did any sane person in Seven volunteer for the Hunger Games? Jack didn't seem insane, so it was hard for them to take him at face value.
It soon became clear that Jack was not all talk as, after a muscular lumberjill by the name of Helanai was reaped, Jack volunteered before the Escort could even get a word out.
"I understand you're excited," the man dressed as a peacock said. "But I do need to pull a name out first."
"I'm kind of in a hurry, man," Jack said, letting out an apologetic chuckle. "Just that if I don't do this our Head Peacekeeper said he'd kill me."
Captain Mogrosh's eyes widened, but before he could say a word the Escort called out a name. One that was never known due to how Jack repeated his commitment to volunteer and mounted the stage. As he and Helanai shook hands as was custom the thief met eyes with the Head Peacekeeper.
He gave a cheeky, practically devilish wink.
The Games had begun.
"So, how do we survive this?" Helanai asked over dinner.
Pliny mumbled something about finding water as she napped with her head on the table. Meanwhile Fir, considerably more awake than her fellow Mentor, gave the pair a smile.
"Keep smiling. Happy tributes get more Sponsors," she explained. "Oh, and puns help as well."
Before long Helanai had left to watch the reaping recaps, feeling that the famously sleepy Victor of the Second Games and the infamously immature Victor of the Ninth Games were not going to be able to help her much. They hadn't been able to help any of the tributes from Olga's year onwards, after all.
Jack, meanwhile, had hit things off quite well with the two Mentors. Pliny yawned, making her yearly suggestion to try and work something out with the tributes from Twelve and that playing defensively was a good plan in the early days. Fir, meanwhile, spoke of being fun and interesting to stay popular and not get picked on by the Gamemakers.
"You never know, the Games may reeeeeeeeally drag on like mine did and by then the Capitol will be begging for any puns, no matter how bad," she remarked, chomping on some fine bread. "Sho, what'sh your shtory?"
"Not with your mouth full, Fir," Pliny said, drifting off to sleep again.
"Oh, you know, I was told by Captain Mogrosh to Volunteer or die," Jack said, helping himself to some fine steak. "I tried stealing his wallet and he saw me do it. So, here I am."
Pliny had already drifted off while Fir couldn't help but shake her head. She thought back to Montgomery Tiberius, the man who basically raised her since she could remember waking up in the forests of Seven at age nine, the man currently awaiting her return home after Games season ended. The young woman shook her head.
"Peacekeepers didn't used to be such meanie heads," Fir scoffed. "This new Head Peacekeeper is a real buzzkill. No fun at all."
"Are any Peacekeepers?" Jack asked.
"The ones I grew up with were. I mean, grew up from age nine. Never did find out what happened before," Fir shrugged cheerfully. "So here's what you do, you win and rub it in his ugly face!"
"Oh, way ahead of you," Jack assured her, winking. "I've got it worked out."
And as he quietly explained his tricky ideas to Fir she had to admit he really did know what he was talking about. The pair shake hands, the decision made for Fir to be the one to focus on mentoring Jack through the Games.
After they take time to set up a banana peel for the Escort to slip over, of course.
Most tributes use the training days to impress sponsors at the parade, learn plenty of new skills at the training centre and maybe even make a few alliances or minor deals before the day of the yearly Cornucopia Bloodbath.
Jack is not most tributes.
He spends a lot of his time stealing things right under the noses of other tributes and the staff in the training centre. He has a plan, one that he needs to keep his thieving skills sharp for. Hence, a lot of his time consists of stealing the favoured weapons of the Careers, stealing the tokens of other tributes, stealing food when the canteen area is meant to be closed and off limits, stealing the odd Peacekeeper helmet here and there and even stealing the whistle of the man in charge of the training centre.
Naturally, to deflect suspicion, he dumps everything on the District One floor of the tribute building. It takes until near the end of the second day of training for anybody to realise that he's doing any of this stuff.
The unfortunate part is that the massive boy from One is who notices first.
"Oi!" the boy, Loki, roars when he sees Jack holding his tribute token – a golden ring. "That's mine, thief. Hand it over, now."
"I'm amazed it took this long for people to figure me out," Jack remarked, chuckling as he handed the ring back over. "There, all better?"
"I'm killing you on day one, asshole," Loki said, storming back over to his allies. "I'll do what that Peacekeeper should have done to you!"
"Will that be before or after tea?" Jack asks, snickering.
He ducks, barely dodging the knife Loki throws in his fury. He wises up after that and behaves, but now he's made himself quite notable to all around him.
Fir is impressed and only upset that Jack didn't wait until the third day to get caught.
"You're notable now, Jack. A pre-Games conflict like this really sets the narrative and stop you being boring. Boredom kills in the arena," Fir said that night, pacing around the District Seven floor. "So long as you're not killed at the bloodbath you could really make this work. I assume you know how to not die?"
"Of course," Jack says between bites of his steak. "It's called living."
"When you're right, you're right," Fir muses. "Saaaay, what are you doing with that silverware?"
"Not stealing it," Jack replied as he stole the silverware, stuffing it into his pockets.
District Seven had never been very popular at the interviews, besides the unsolved mystery surrounding Fir's origins, and Jack was no exception to this trend. While he waited for his turn the audience were going gaga over the four deadly Careers and the rumours that Mortimer, by now getting on in years, had gotten anus cancer. Repulsive gossip or not, the facts were clear: Jack wasn't going to be a highlight of the night.
That suited him just fine, of course. A thief is most effective when nobody is looking their way.
Jack tried to be charming and mysterious all the same, as for all he knew that may have been what sponsors were looking for this year. Talk of his survival on the streets, friendship with Fir and gentlemanly nature made for a decent interview. Or at least decent by the standards of District Seven. He had nothing on the Careers, of course.
But an Outlier Volunteer is always rare and especially so in those earlier years, so naturally this topic simply has to be bought up before Jack's interview is over.
"There was quite a bit of drama at the reaping," Mortimer says, amused. "You seemed eager to get going. The transmission had to be edited, per the norm, so mind telling us?"
"Oh, I got caught trying to nick the Head Peacekeeper's wallet because I was hungry," Jack says, laughing at the memory. "He said he'd kill me if I didn't Volunteer for the Games. He held a gun right up to my face and everything. Said he'd shoot me where I'd bleed to death in the most pain possible."
It was all lies of course, but Jack had no reason to hold himself back. If he was going down, so was the Head Peacekeeper who had caused so much physical and emotional damage to many citizens of Seven!
"He did?!" Mortimer gasped, as if scandalised by what he was being told.
"That's right. Said he'd burn down a house or two as well and blame it on the citizens. He's done it before," Jack sighed, as if dismayed by the injustice of it all. "I just want Captain Mogrosh to know that I'm gonna win and I'm gonna come home. He's given Seven their first ever male Victor. You'll see~."
Jack leaves the stage to some applause, but he already begins to fade from memory as the tattoo covered girl from Eight makes her way on stage for her own interview. Having scored a mere five, he's hardly anybody's choice of Victor in this year of comparatively strong tributes.
The only person who really remembers him at all is Captain Mogrosh, who gets no sleep that night due to the angry phone calls he receives over several hours from higher-ups in the Capitol. He looks forward to seeing the death of the willowy thief the following day.
Jack sleeps soundly. Maybe he's got it under control or maybe he's just ridiculously overconfident, but he has a plan and knows exactly how he is going to put it into place.
The Peacekeepers escort Jack to his own launch room, just as they do for every single tribute. He tries nothing funny. No tricks, no wild plans, no hassle. He's silent, as if accepting his fate. The Peacekeepers don't question it, both of those escorting Jack thinking that anything that makes their job easier is a good thing.
The instant they turn around Jack takes a chance and, seeing the golden opportunity, snatches an item from the holster of one of the Peacekeepers. The item safely concealed in his pockets, he is left in his launch room without a further word or any sort of interrogation.
As his Stylist, a man who looks more like a crocodile than a human being, gives him his outfit – russet brown as is tradition for District Seven and something with rather long, airy sleeves and legs to allow in air and deflect heat – and leaves him to get changed in a room to the side there's just one thing Jack can do.
He smirks.
When he steps into the tube that will take him to the surface he shows no fear beyond the instinctive shudders any youth feels when endangered. No, he mainly does something else.
He laughs, having gotten away with another theft. He grips the item hidden in his long sleeve like a lifeline, mentally preparing himself.
The arena is a very far cry from the barren, stormy island of the previous year. The Gamemakers have gone for another desert this time around, one worse than the generally bland-by-modern-standards arena used for the Fourth Hunger Games. The sand is tinged a sort of angry orange colour and numerous vile tar pits are spread out around the massive arena. All this and the occasional gusts of powerful wind and the hungry vulture mutts make it an arena which effortlessly has most Outliers crying and starting to tremble.
Except Jack. Jack doesn't give a shit.
The gong rings and all of the twenty four tributes charge in to grab as many of the vital supplies as they can manage, especially precious water. The orange sand is quick to become smeared a gruesome shade of red as the pair from Twelve are effortlessly gutted by Loki, the boy from Five has an arm outright severed by the sword wielded by Gattica from Two, the poor girl from Eleven has her face smashed by Ember from Two's sledgehammer and even the Helanai finds herself bleeding out on the sand after a desperate attack from the boy from Six, the youth almost mad from pure fear.
Jack doesn't focus on any of the madness, simply dashing around the area like a blur as he grabs up bottles of water and some loaves of bread into a fairly large backpack he'd found halfway towards the Cornucopia.
He grabs up a machete from inside the Cornucopia, turning to see Loki grinning smugly at him with a bloodsoaked sword in hand.
"Told you I'd get you," the boy from One sneers, ready to make his third kill.
Loki gets taken off of his guard when Jack, rather than backing away or cowering, lunges at him. The cameras don't see the cause of it due to the cramped space and the rapid flurry of movement, but one thing is clear.
One moment Loki is standing strong.
The next moment he's laying on the ground in agony, twitching every few moments while rasping out gibberish.
Jack flees into the desert moments later, the approach of the other Careers being his signal that it's time to get the hell out of there. With the Careers tired from all the battling they've done and unwilling to leave the precious bounty of the Cornucopia behind they don't chase Jack for long.
As the cameras watch the four Careers regroup and the six Outliers still alive scatter off into the orange dunes and around the tar pits the general response, aside excitement and despair, is confusion.
How did Jack knock Loki down so effortlessly? The footage is checked, but nothing is seen due to the close space, rapid speed and the camera angles. It's agreed that the most likely answer is that Jack must have known how to put pressure on nerves to knock people down and hid this skill as a secret weapon.
But they are nowhere close. As Jack runs off into the desert, chuckling in mischief and triumph, he believes he's got the Games on lock already even though it's not even been a full hour.
After all, he's the only one with a stolen Peacekeeper's taser hidden in his large sleeves.
Jack's confidence lasts until sundown. He has easily the best weapon of the tributes, but that doesn't change the fact he's among the youngest of those still alive and that the Careers will be on the hunt soon. Not to mention that the other Outliers could try to kill him too.
So the thief plays it smart and moves himself somewhere that he won't be easy to reach. In this case, it means using all of his skills in balance to make it across narrow pathways and some rocks jutting out from the ground to reach an island in the centre of a massive tar pit.
"Good thing the Cornucopia had no bows this year," Jack remarked, taking out a water bottle. "I should be nice and safe here... for now anyway."
He toasted to the camera, guzzling down the water a moment later. Surviving in the arena was thirsty work after all.
While Jack slept during the first night in the desert of tar pits, two major things of note ended up happening.
The first was that the Careers located the boy from Six, the first tribute in years from the transportation District that survived the Bloodbath, and cut him to bloody pieces.
The second was that the oddly bulky boy from Three tried to reach Jack during the night, but due to lacking the thief's parkour and balance skills ended up falling into the tar. Jack awoke to see the boy drowning in the tar, screaming for help.
Alas, Jack had no help to give. None of his weapons could reach the boy to give him a quick end; he could only get up and flee into the night to avoid any attention the howling and screaming was sure to bring towards the area.
By sunrise of the second day Jack met another tribute. In this case, it was the tattoo covered girl from Eight: Twiller Mulgrew. She was thirsty and badly so, a fact that gave Jack an idea upon getting a look at the weapon in her hand.
"Water for your cutlass," Jack offered her. "Deal?"
"Deal," Twiller said, willingly tossing the weapon nearby. Thirsty or not, she wasn't enough of a fool to pass the blade right into Jack's hand. "Water, please..."
Jack kept his word, passing three of his many bottles over to the taller girl. She went through the first in about five seconds and was halfway through the second before she said anything else.
"The Careers are over that way," she said, pointing over a nearby dune. "That's why I'm going this way."
"...You know what, I'm gonna go confront them," Jack said, snickering as he headed off in the direction Twiller had pointed out. "I see a golden opportunity here."
Twiller called him crazy and took her leave. Jack did not deny it, of course, given he felt everybody in the dystopia that was Panem had at least some kind of craziness within them.
Jack wasn't a stupid sort of crazy though, he was crazy enough to propel himself to the top by taking out the Career pack. All he needed was the help of a mutt or two to pull it off.
That and his stolen taser.
"Alright Panem, get ready for a show," Jack remarked, a sly grin adorning his face.
It's mid afternoon when he finds the Careers and almost sunset when Jack reveals himself to them. By then vulture mutts are flying overhead, a dormant sort of threat for now. They follow the Careers, having seen them cut down the sailor girl from Four and intending to swoop down on the next dead body.
When Jack calls out to them Panem as a whole expect that it will be him who dies next. Even his Mentor Fir lets out a soft whimper, wondering why he is suddenly throwing his life away.
But Jack isn't afraid. He's ready to win.
"Hi guys," he greets them cheerfully. "Having a good time in the arena so far?"
"Well enough, I'd say. Yourself?" Ember replies, playing along.
"Oh, pretty good, can't really complain," Jack says, shrugging lightly. "I'd rather speed things up if it's all the same to you. Shall we get this thing started?"
"With pleasure," Loki says, grunting maliciously as he storms over towards Jack.
Just like in the bloodbath Loki is zapped by the unseen taser and falls to the ground twitching. Jack quickly puts an end to him with the machete before the rest of the pack can properly process what they have just seen. The boom of the cannon gets them back to their senses, the trio staring at the willowy boy from Seven.
"Scared?" Jack giggles, winking.
The Careers move in for the kill, a three on one beating seeming like a good enough plan to overpower whatever secret trick Jack has been pulling off.
Gattica falls with a scream and, as Jack barely dodges to the side to avoid the powerful blows from Ember and Euphoria, the Career girls soon crumple to the ground with screams of pain. The trio of Careers lay still, twitching and moaning with their consciousness slipping away.
Jack loots them fast and leaves them to their fate, figuring that with the heat and vultures both factors this year they'll be dead anyway without him having to commit more murder.
Sure enough three cannons fire before the anthem plays. But Jack can't help shaking his head, a brief grimace flashing across his face.
The third cannon was for the boy from Ten who lost a savage battle against tattoo covered Twiller from Eight. Ember is still alive and won't fall for the same trick again. Not without Jack risking himself more than he already did.
The searing cuts to his cheek aren't something he wants more of, but he may have no choice.
The heat gets worse on the third day, reducing the speed of the tributes vastly. Even with his plentiful – well, plentiful when compared to other few tributes still alive - water supplies Jack feels the pressure of the elements, aimlessly wandering through the desert.
It takes him about twenty minutes to successfully count who is dead and alive, concluding that it's just himself, Ember and Twiller still alive.
He tells a few jokes to keep the audience entertained as he ambles along, feeling certain that his two opponents are just as worn out and in pain as he is. He's absolutely correct, of course, and bit by bit his puns start giving him a gradual majority of the screentime.
Jack spends the night amongst a cluster of rocks. Despite the weariness that fills him he manages to teasingly give the nearest camera a wink.
"Looks like District Seven is gonna have their third Victor soon," he says, chuckling lightly. "All thanks to you Captain Mogrosh."
Jack manages to sleep for a few hours, but the increasingly erratic Head Peacekeeper sure doesn't. He's kept up with more shouts of anger on the phone and the unease that something bad is going to happen. Perhaps worse than the runty thief winning.
Nobody can say for sure even now why he is able to seemingly send people to the ground without effort. How does he leave them twitching in pain?
The vultures screech and caw as the sun rises on the fourth and final day in the arena, the nasty bird mutts driving the last three tributes closer together. Jack does his best to outrun them, suffering minor bites and pecks, but nothing that anybody could call a serious wound.
While Jack reaches the most vile of the tar pits first, the girls take longer. Twiller is dehydrated, slow and losing awareness while Ember has no fluid left for tears and has a throat like sandpaper.
The Career girl doesn't make it half a mile before she collapses, becoming food for the vultures when dehydration claims her soul. Twiller is left bitten and bloody, but passes the invisible line to the finale area before they can do even worse. The vultures fly off, leaving her with Jack to contend with.
"So, shall we do this?" Jack asks, moving closer to her with a machete in one hand and the taser hidden in the sleeve of his other arm.
"Urrrrgggh..." Twiller sways badly, hardly able to take a few steps and take a half-hearted swing with a sharp rock.
With something resembling pity in his eyes Jack closes the gap, uses the taser and lands a clean stab against the tattoo covered girl from Eight. She's dead before she hits the tar, Jack accidentally dropping the taser as his last opponent falls.
But as the victory trumpets ring out and the hovercraft descends he figures it hardly matters if the weapon he used to cheat his way to the win is lost forever.
He's the last one left and the good life awaits. Money, food and so many things to steal!
Street smart as he is, Jack is still a brash youth without much of a filter. So, he's rather like most teenagers in that regard. That's why he admits the con he pulled live at the final interview without any hesitation or worry. He's got no family, no real attachment to Seven and his only friend is a fellow Victor, so what can they really do to him now?
"So how did you do it?" Mortimer asks as the recap footage comes to an end. "Sending them falling over like that, twitching like little bugs... I'm lost. Experts say it's either hypnotism of some sort of you pressing nerves quicker than the cameras could process. Who was right?"
"Nobody," Jack says, a cocky grin on his face. "You sure you all wanna know?"
The crowd cheers, crying out that they do. With a laugh, Jack decides to go for gold and top Pliny in how much of a national embarrassment his Victory will be.
"I swiped a taser from one of the Peacekeepers who took me to my launch room and just used that," Jack says, bursting out into laughter. "I cheated! Surprise!"
Jack makes a jazz hands motion, laughing at how stunned and, in some cases, horrified the crowd look. In the time it takes for Mortimer to stammer out a whimper at this admission the executions of Captain Mogrosh and the Peacekeeper that Jack had stolen the taser from to begin with are ordered by Orion.
But per the rules he himself wrote down, Orion cannot do a thing to Jack. Much like Pliny almost twenty years ago there are also no family members nor friends that he can do a thing to. The only friend that this little cheater has is Fir, a Victor too and a rather popular one.
However, the more the President thinks about it the more he realises there is somebody he can kill to send a very vile message towards Jack for what he has done.
The after-party ends up being something of a disaster. Between the Capitolites hating the fact a 'cheater' won, Olga being beside herself in fury over what Jack did, Bronze and Jack getting into a fist fight and Mizar discreetly giving Jack the offer to join the circle of rebellious Victors the inevitable result is a party nobody really enjoys.
The train ride home is pleasant enough, with Jack and Fir cracking plenty of jokes and drinking soda to celebrate Jack's victory. Pliny manages to stay awake to join in, happy to have another Victor moving into the Victor Village, but nonetheless cautious that something bad is sure to happen.
"They won't be happy with you," Pliny says, yawning. "You cheated, Jack."
"I prefer to call it taking creative liberties," Jack replies, winking. "So, we all set to go out for dinner tonight? Escort's treat."
Sure enough Jack holds up the wallet of the Escort, something he'd stolen during the after-party. Fir laughs and even Pliny has to smile. They never did anything to her after she won by sleeping through the Games, so maybe Jack will have dodged a bullet as well? After all, he is conveniently an orphan without anybody close to him.
She's very wrong.
They pull into the station, met with thunderous applause from the citizens of Seven. All seems well for a few moments, especially as Montgomery Tiberius comes forth to congratulate his adoptive daughter on a successful year of Mentoring, the man flanked by a few youths who applaud Jack. All seems well.
Gunfire rings out. Lots and lots of gunfire. First there are screams and then a horrified silence. Fir stares, pale faced and shaking in the most horrific feelings of heartbreak and trauma at what she sees.
Montgomery Tiberius, the man who was always like a father to her before and after adoption, lays in a pool of his own blood covered in bullets. The youths, none of them any older then thirteen, have been similarly shot.
Fir screams. She breaks down, screaming and wailing until she is breathless, tears flowing down her agonised face. As she weeps and Pliny faints the only Victor left standing to witness things is Jack. He watches, stunned, as a burly and cruel man marches up to him.
"They committed treason," the man says, almost lazily. "Move along now, nothing to see here. Just traitors who got their rightful punishment."
"Traitors? What?! What did they do?!" Jack screeches.
"Does it matter?" the man asks, smug. He lowers his smoking machine gun, giving Jack a firm look. "Oh, we've not met before have we? Tirek Johar, your new Head Peacekeeper."
As Jack is dragged away from the bodies alongside unconscious Pliny and screaming Fir he doesn't make a sound. For the first time in his life he's quiet for reasons beside committing a theft.
He won, but he didn't get away with it. Because of him Fir just lost her family and several kids just lost their lives for no reason. It's surely only the start of things.
It hurts to see his Mentor crying. It hurts worse knowing it's all because of him.
All of this because he tried to steal a wallet.
"Well, whatever happened to Jack in the arena and after let's hope he made the best of life once he got out," Peeta said after a moment of silence.
"I'm sure he did better than at least a few other Victors did," Katniss said as she led Peeta further down the street. "Of course, saying that, I don't know all of these people. Maybe he lived the worst of them all. Can't claim to know."
"Well, if all goes well at that party we'll know soon enough," Peeta said as he followed after Katniss. "So, who is next?"
The next face on the side walk was of a girl with glasses, freckles, very tidy and proper hair with an expression of incredible shyness.
"Pi Orbit," Peeta read. "Never heard of her."
"That's becoming a pattern for some of these early Victors. Our generation knows nothing of them, besides Duke," Katniss remarked.
And there we go, the first boy from Seven to ever live... pretty much only because he cheated. Gotta hand it to him, the plan took guts. Then again, those guts were paid back with blood... eh, you know what I mean. The third decade is off to a gruesome start and it's only gonna get gruesome-er soon enough.
Some readers of mine who read BB closely will notice that Pi Orbit is from the exact same games 'Fawn Odinshoot' won. Basically, I kinda just grew to not like the name and changed it. A few tweaks to my own canon have kind of been needed due to times changing and things moving on y'know, and that's one of them. Just clearing that up for next time~.
Stats
District 1: Peridot Gaudy (8th Games), Crystal McCree (14th Games), Bronze Marley (19th Games)
District 2: Baron Overwhill (4th Games), Runa Peace (7th Games), Olga Machete (10th Games), Rook Valiant (17th Games), Boulder Atherston (20th Games)
District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games)
District 4: Museida Selkirk (3rd Games), Mags Flanagan (11th Games)
District 5: Shunt Gaspar (12th Games), Isobel Sparks (18th Games)
District 6: N/A
District 7: Pliny Aransio (2nd Games), Fir Buzz (9th Games), Jack Tylos (21st Games)
District 8: Woof Casino (16th Games)
District 9: Mizar Aldjoy (1st Games), Gwenith Rosebud (13th Games)
District 10: N/A
District 11: Bear Redfoot (15th Game)
District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)