Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games, They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: Time to keep the Cheating Death train a'movin! Choo choo! In all seriousness, this story is seriously fun to write and the fact the first Quarter Quell is looming very near has me quite motivated to get things written out. Especially due a few of the plans I have in mind to kick off the fourth decade of the Games, but that'll all come by in due time. Until then, who is ready for some misery and sadness? I know I am! :D
"So... Pi?" Katniss silently repeated the word to herself a few times, as if to make sure that she had gotten it right. "Who names their kid Pi?"
"I guess the same people who give their kids names like Enobaria, Beetee, Snag, Pasture..." Peeta trailed off, his point made.
"Ok, I get what you mean. Still... Pi?" Katniss shook her head. "I always thought Three had more Victors than they've gotten so far."
"The way I remember it they only ever had five," Peeta replied. "Not the most and not the least either, nor the second least."
"Lucky them," Katniss said, dry. "Wonder what the life of Pi was like."
22nd Annual Hunger Games
Name: Pi Orbit
Gender: Female
District: 3
Age: 15
Kills: 2
THEN
Pi Orbit lives a happy life. With doting, gentle parents who adore her, her best friend & twin brother Wire, her protective older siblings Omri and Penn (twins) and her lively younger siblings Weld and Dynamo (also twins) there is never a shortage of life or fun going on in their humble home in the middle class area of District Three. Even if things are not perfect it's a clear fact that Pi will never be alone.
This suits her fine. The shy programming expert has never ever been the sort to enjoy being left by herself, always preferring to be with friendly company at any passing moment. A bit of a sheltered girl, she's known as a momma's girl and a daddy's girl all in one. They love her and she loves them; in a place like Panem it's all she can ask for and Pi feels glad that she has such a wonderful family.
She's gifted, but very shy. Painfully shy. When in front of a crowd she can hardly stutter out the words she's required to say. Having a natural stutter is one thing, but when she gets nervous she's almost impossible to understand.
A bit of an issue when one happens to be presenting a massive coding project for the chance of gaining a cash prize and a nice, shiny trophy.
Pi managed to convince her teacher to let her go last so she could calm herself down, but now she sees the downside of this. The long wait for her turn is making her freak out all over again!
"C-c-c-calm down Pi, y-y-y-you can do t-t-t-t-t-this," she stammers, fruitlessly trying to gain some control on herself before it's too late.
She watches the clock tick closer to three in the afternoon, the time when her presentation shall begin and truly make or break her chances of success. At the current rate, things point towards the latter outcome.
The only thing that spares her from fainting is Wire entering the room, a nice cherry soda in hand. He's quick to pass it over and take his usual spot beside her as she drinks. After all, it's hardly the first time that he has had to calm her down from an anxiety attack.
"You can do this," he tells her with a smile. "You're the smartest perosn in our school, literally everybody knows that."
"T-t-t-t-t-that's easy for y-y-y-you to say, you're n-n-n-not going on that s-s-s-stage," she squeaks, barely audible.
"I didn't earn it, you did. You're a genius, so don't worry," Wire gives his twin sister a hug. "Hey, here's an idea. While you give that presentation you should just look at all of us. We'll all be sitting at the front row, and you never stutter around us."
"You t-t-t-t-t-think it'll work?" Pi asks, gulping.
"I promise you, it will," Wire says, gently tightening the hug. "I'm so proud of you, genius. We all are."
Despite her nerves Pi cannot help but return the hug. Maybe Wire is right? Maybe things will work out alright after all?
He's right.
Pi keeps her gaze on her family and hardly stutters at all. She earns a standing ovation, a shiny golden trophy and a notably large cash prize. Of course, none of this can compare to how proud her family is of her and all the smiles and cheers they send her way.
Pi knows life is great as she is pulled in her a big family hug.
NOW
She can hardly watch as she stares at the screen in the mentoring control room, a broken wreck of a person. Her face is pale as a sheet, her eyes near lifeless and the urge to harm herself quite strong.
She holds herself together only for the sake of her poor tribute, an innocent girl who only got voted into the Quell because she was an orphan that nobody would miss. With the Careers driven off for the first time, a psychopath alliance has begun.
An alliance that catches her girl before she can get away.
Pi wails and screams, broken beyond belief, as the maniacs on screen tear her tribute limb from limb, laughing madly the whole time as they put her through the most agonisingly painful death in the history of the Hunger Games.
Pi sobs, wishing she was dead. She's still sobbing long after the cannon fires and Honorius gently leads her off to her room for a safe slumber away from the carnage. Not a single one of his kind words do a thing to make her feel better.
THEN
Her name was only in the reaping bowl four times out of thousands and numerous other children took lots of tesserae to survive the winter. But when the Escort, dressed like a flamingo of course, picks out a paper slip it doesn't matter because Pi Orbit is the female tribute for the Twenty Second Hunger Games.
Nobody volunteers for her, not for something like this.
Pi tries silently reciting her namesake to calm herself down, her body shuddering madly. She's two hundred digits in, and no calmer, by the time the worst case scenario strikes her.
Wire is reaped as well.
From that point on it's all a blur that Pi hardly remembers. Many tears being shed within the judgement building, hurried onto the train while being yanked along like a ragdoll, crying her way through the night, passing out into a terrified stupour.
The knowledge that either she and Wire will die or one will have to live without the other. There is no way around it, not one.
It's the worst night of the gifted youth's life. Worst so far at least. It only gets worse as she falls deeper into the stutter filled pit of terror with all the mocking crowd, the sadistic Careers and the fact the bright future she had has been snatched away for no good reason.
The only thing that prevents her from losing her sanity is the fact Wire is beside her every step of the way, promising to find them a way through this. He suggests that they survive to the top two and then just tie themselves together, refusing to do a thing.
Pi agrees, the naïve part of her blocking out all forms of logic and rational thought to keep her from losing her mind. He has to be right, he just has to be!
She doesn't stop believing him until the Games begin. Prior to that they train together, eat together, hide from the Careers together, score a four together.
As Pi is launched into a massive boneyard with distant mountains, rainclouds and pterodactyls flying in the air she starts to lose hope all over again, almost throwing up.
But, Wire is launched right beside her own pedestal and each have a backpack placed only ten feet from their own pedestals. Pi feels, just for a moment, perhaps there's a chance that it could all end up working out.
If Gwenith could beat her own awful odds back in the Thirteenth Hunger Games, why not they?
The reason why not comes half a minute into the Games when the girl from One impales Wire with a barbed spear. Pi breaks, screaming like a maniac and fleeing into the boneyard howling in grief. It's not just fear that drives her, but self hatred too.
After all, she stabbed the boy from Twelve in her desperate rush to escape.
NOW
She wakes up in a screaming fit, wailing for the demons to leave her alone and let her die in peace. On and on the meltdown goes until Honorius comes running, trying his hardest to calm her down. A far cry from the arrogant brat he once was, he's become a gentle man who lives each day with the goal of caring for others.
But no amount of care is going to help Pi get any better. She's broken beyond any sort of repair, like the mangled remains of a grenade after detonation.
They try to relax, perhaps watch something nice on TV, but the broadcast is interrupted with more footage of the Quarter Quell. The sight of the rapist from Eight having his way with the screaming girl from One has the panic attack triple and go to the point Pi cannot breath properly. Honorius turns the screen off right before the pyromaniac from Five starts setting fires all over the place but the damage is done.
Pi rocks back and forth, whimpering and pleading for Honorius to just end her.
"N-n-n-n-n-n-nobody h-h-h-has to know..." she sniffles, her sobs thick and loud.
Honorius heart always aches when a tribute from his home District dies, but seeing the sorry state of the only tribute he managed to save makes his heart hurt in an even worse way.
THEN
The Games that year are some of the most gruesome that have ever been seen. Half of the tributes die in the opening melee, including the girl from Two, but it becomes apparent sooner than later that they ended up being the lucky ones.
The fact is that the mutts this year are far too powerful for the tributes to handle. At first the dinosaurs just distantly roar, keeping the tributes on their toes as they spread out and start to explore, or hide.
Pi huddles and cries in a ditch near a berry bush. She can't speak through the stuttering and shaking, only able to moan in emotional agony. She's absolutely silent as a T-Rex wanders by later that day, petrified from terror. It wanders on, having not spotted her.
It did, however, spot the girl from Five hiding up a tree only a few hundred yards away. Pi hears every single scream and wail for mercy right up to when the cannon booms.
She hears more screams during the night as the reptilian inhabitants of the boneyard arena claim more victims as the hours pass by. By the time morning arrives Pi hasn't slept at all and has heard two more people screaming in the darkness.
The second day goes by with her shivering in a primal state of terror in the ditch, only leaving twice to gather berries from the bush.
Part of her wants them to be poisonous.
By the time the day comes to an end there are just six tributes left standing, nobody able to stand against the horrible dinosaurs that even the Gamemakers are losing control of by now.
The boy from One sure couldn't. He staggers over and falls into the ditch, half dead from his grievous cuts. For a moment he looks just as scared as Pi does, silently pleading her for a way out.
She makes it quick, understanding the boy's pain. He dies too fast to repay the favour.
"P-p-p-p-p-please h-h-h-h-help..."
NOW
Honorius handles all of the public speaking, doing his best to keep the reporters satisfied and ensure that the devious hacker from Three remains alive for as long as possible, perhaps to a victory. He does his best to keep them away from Pi, the girl so fragile that it would barely take a mouse squeaking to set her off into a panic attack.
For the most part it works, at least until one reporter asks if Pi thinks her family would support a 'cyber terrorist' or not. The mere mention of her family has her enter a public breakdown, her screams raw and miserable.
Honorius arranges for laxatives to be put into the tea of that specific reporter and helps Pi to a limo that will take her back to her bedroom. He doesn't even pretend it's a real solution, but what else can he do?
Pi spends the night staring up at the ceiling, hardly blinking, thinking for a moment she heard Wire asking her to join him.
THEN
It's another short Hunger Games this year, one that only lasts to sunset of the third day. Another tribute was torn apart after Pi stabbed the boy from One and by midday the dinosaurs have torn the girl from One and the boy from Nine to shreds. By the time the Gamemakers manage to subdue the dinosaur mutts only Pi, Coast from Four and Rake from Eleven are still alive.
Pi is wasting away in the ditch by this point, likely to die from dehydration or even a heart attack at the current rate. The Gamemakers drive Rake and Coast together – they make sure to use powerful wind, not dinosaur mutts – with the intent of leading the winner of this duel towards Pi to end off this mess of a Hunger Games.
While Pi cries and pleads for her mother to save her Rake and Coast duel in a light shower of rain. It's fast paced and desperate, neither boy making it personal and just wanting to go home. Rake manages to land a fatal stab to Coast's chest after four minutes.
But a nanosecond later Coast sinks his trident into Rake's gut. They collapse side by side, bleeding out from their grievous wounds in under two minutes.
The arena is oddly, almost hauntingly quiet after that. The nation watches, stunned, as Pi is announced as the Victor and lifted out of the filthy ditch by the claw of the hovercraft. She hangs limply, oblivious due to having passed out an hour prior.
The Capitol sees a poor excuse for a Victor, but one at least better than the cheater from the previous year.
Honorius, stunned that he finally has a Victor, sees a broken girl who needs help badly. Help he vows to give her, even if it takes all his life to do so.
NOW
The Capitol audience cheers as the boy from District Two flees for his life from the psychopath alliance, the evil maniacs out for his blood. Most of all the cannibal from Ten.
It's sick, twisted and a reverse of how things normally go for Career tributes. The boy hardly holds himself together.
The Capitol citizens cannot get enough of the vile action on screen.
Pi has stopped paying attention, spending a full day laying face down on her bed. A few Avoxes have been assigned to watch over her and stop her doing anything 'foolish'. But even in their own broken state, they can't help but wonder if keeping her alive is the cruel thing to do.
"S-s-s-s-somebody make it e-e-e-end..." Pi sobs, her pillow wet like a waterlogged sponge. "P-p-p-p-please..."
When a replay of her tribute's death plays on screen a new meltdown begins, one of the worst of her entire eighteen years alive. It's a wonder she makes it to the morning.
THEN
Life goes back to normal in the lazy Capitol, but it never goes back to the way it was for Pi. It doesn't matter that she's safe and sound back home, surrounded by her family and her incredibly loyal and gentle Mentor, all of them there for her any time she needs it.
Wire is not there with them and he never will be.
Pi doesn't fall into bad habits like drugs or beer. She just lays in her bed, staring at the ceiling and crying often. It goes on like this until her mess of a Victory Tour comes to an end. Time cannot heal these wounds but it at least makes it bearable.
Seeing the way the District enjoys the extra food her win has bought them gives her some reason to feel a certain amount less horrible.
"Don't forget, I am always here for you," Honorius whispers, hugging her gently.
Pi believes him. In fact, had this been the end of the nightmare she may have even been able to recover from the trauma like Honorius mostly managed to, give or take a decade. With her family there for her too, she dares to think that one day there may be something like a happy ending in her life. Even with Wire gone, she's not alone.
This changes when, in their final year of reaping eligibility, Omri and Penn are both reaped for the Twenty Third Hunger Games.
All the misery, pain and fear comes back in a flash and it's like almost no progress has been made. Honorius works hard and Pi works harder, doing absolutely everything she can to bring one of her siblings home. A back to back win is not impossible, right?
It's not, as proven by a pair of twins from District One decades in the future.
But District Three never manages it. In their worst recorded performance in all the years of the Hunger Games both Omri and Penn lay dead on the wet ground in under twenty seconds. Just like that, Pi feels more broken than psychologists assumed possible and barely speaks for months, save only to sob for her dead siblings.
The fact the Victor ends up being the person who killed them only makes it worse.
NOW
Pi doesn't care about who ended up winning the horrific Quarter Quell.
Pi doesn't care that the Capitol tut and cluck disapprovingly at her tears, calling her a sore loser and saying there will always be more Hunger Games to try and win.
Pi doesn't care that Bronze mutters how pathetic she is to a snake eyed man he's befriended recently.
Pi doesn't care that her District send words of support and desperate hope for her well being.
Pi doesn't care about anything, only that she has nothing left at all. On the train ride back home to District Three she finally decides to take a rest, one she's needed for so long.
THEN
Some say that things always get worse before they end up getting better. Pi disagrees whole heartedly with this particular notion.
Things can only get worse and worse. They never ever get better.
The Twenty Fourth Hunger Games was another brutal, agonising loss. Not just because District Three failed to get either tribute past the bloodbath, but because this year Pi's remaining siblings Weld and Dynamo were reaped for the Games, both cut down by the Careers.
Returning home a wreck of a human being it only got worse, if that were even possible. Her parents, unable to focus due to the sheer grief they were going through, were fried by a generator at the factory they worked at. Pi is all alone, her family merely dust in the wind.
Honorius remains there for her as he promised, constantly dedicating everything that he is, everything that makes up his own soul, to keep Pi going day by day.
It's obvious Pi doesn't feel like there's any point to anything anymore. She doesn't leave her house for a year, besides the time the Peacekeepers drag her off to the central square when the latest Victor comes by on their tour. At least the chatterbox didn't kill her siblings this time.
The motormouth is silenced for once when he sees just how awful Pi looks and asks if there's any way he can possibly help.
"K-k-k-k-k-kill m-m-m-m-m-me..." she begs.
Her request isn't granted, the boy having neither the means nor the guts for it.
NOW
"I'll be back in half an hour," Honorius says as he gently tucks Pi into bed. "By all means, call me if you need anything. We can recover. Us Victors are the tough sort."
Pi doesn't respond, merely whimpering as Honorius leaves to buy some food for her. She waits until he's out of the village before she moves her way to the basement, the place of her long abandoned workshop.
Pictures of her family are set up on the walls as are trophies she won back before everything went so horrifically wrong. Pi gazes are them, twitching, but doesn't waste any time.
It's child's play for her to quickly rig up a small generator from the bits and bobs in her basement and have it flickering with powerful electricity. It's even faster for her to write a note to Honorius, thanking him for trying his best to help her and wishing him all the best in his life. She assures him he's a good person.
Pi takes one final look at the picture on the day she won that programming contest, the day that feels like an eternity ago by now. All her family are there, smiling. Strangely, even she is smiling.
THEN
All of Pi's family keep the group hug going on as the crowd applauds the winner of the contest. It's a perfect day for the family, like nothing could be better. Pi can only giggle from all the praise sent her way.
"See? I told you that you could do it," Wire grins, gently ruffling his twin's hair.
"Our Pi's a genius. Such a great future ahead of her," her father tells a reporter, beaming with pride.
Pi smiles warmly. The odds truly are in her favour.
NOW
Pi lets the photo fall to the floor, taking one final breath. Her family are dead, the agony never ends, nothing is worth a damn anymore, she just wants to rest...
"Wire, mommy, daddy... everybody... I'm coming. We'll gonna be together again," Pi whispers, almost sounding at peace.
Pi grips the deadly, live wires with both hands until she fades away. The odds truly weren't in her favour.
With a silence kept for Pi the pair from Twelve begin to walk to the next face on the side walk.
"Crazy, really, how the people in the Capitol keep moving around like nothing has happened. Like, as if nothing is any different," Peeta said as he walked beside Katniss.
"I'd call it less crazy and more what they've done for decades already," Katniss replied, rather cold.
Peeta didn't push it.
They soon came to the twenty third face on the Walk of Victors. The face that stared back at them looked a mixture of sly and smug, with shoulder length hair and what looked like an ace of spades tattooed on both cheeks.
"Tide Luther," Katniss read. "Hmm, interesting tattoos, I'll say that much."
Well, I sure feel thoroughly depressed after writing that one. I guess it takes a certain level of tragedy to bring a tear to your eye when writing your own story, huh? But yeah, that was Pi, the first female from Three to win and the first Victor to ever die post-Victory. While the odds of such a streak of misfortune happening are astronomically low, the fact is that so long as those names are in the reaping bowl it remains in the realm of possibility. Some Victors truly have no luck at all...
The next Victor may have some scratching their heads, them having not been mentioned in Urchin's timeline. That's another thing I've ended up changing; it won't effect Urchin's series in terms of plot or outcome, but basically D4 needs a few more Victors or they'll be having half of them happen at #65 onwards. Mainly an OCD thing, but yeah, just pointing that out. Stay tuned for more!
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), Pi Orbit (22nd 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)