Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: Here we are, the first Quarter Quell. I've been rather looking forward to this particular chapter for a while now. After all, a Quell is always a touch more brutal, insane and creatively speaking more fun than a typical chapter's Games would be. Given what the twist actually is and my logic regarding it (why the heck would you NOT get rid of horrible youth criminals harming innocent citizens?) this is possibly the most raw and grim one yet, or perhaps I'm just too close to my work to be objective. I guess we'll see, as there's no sense stalling. Enjoy the Quell, guys!
Katniss and Peeta were silent, a sense of unease between them as they looked at the face of Vercingetorix.
"Have you ever seen these games?" Peeta asked, a touch nervous.
"No. But I've heard the stories of what happened in the arena and how it was said to be five times more horrific than it normally was. I guess I shouldn't be surprised," Katniss said, shaking her head. "After what I heard of some of the tributes, like that monster from Eight, I don't mind the fact a Career won. Anybody but... people like them."
"It really flipped the formula of the Games," Peeta agreed, nodding his head ever so slowly. "Honestly, I feel terrible for the Careers who got put in this particular Hunger Games."
25th Annual Hunger Games: The 1st Quarter Quell
Name: Vercingetorix Carnby
Gender: Male
District: 2
Age: 18
Kills: 9
Nobody saw it coming.
A mandatory broadcast was announced, no excuses permitted for missing it aside from being dead. Even the citizens of the Capitol were not exempt from watching this particular broadcast. So, with quite the amount of uncertainty and unease the Capitol and Districts alike tune in several months after Crown's Victory Tour comes to an end.
It's the fifteenth of May, the exact day that the rebellion was officially defeated twenty five years ago.
Despite the passing of time Orion the tubby tyrant is still as cruel, vicious and intimidating as he was when he crushed the rebellion and started the Hunger Games. Despite his hair beginning to grey and him not being quite so lively as he was in his youth the tyrant has enough energy in him for this, the event he wouldn't miss for the world.
The event he has been patiently, cruelly waiting for over a quarter century. He's eagerly anticipated the despair of the bugs that think of themselves as 'people with feelings' in the Districts.
"Good afternoon Panem," he says, smug as a snake. "Today we celebrate twenty five years since the traitors were defeated and a new era of peace and prosperity was bought to our dear nation. I think you'll all notice the lack of war and mass death since then. But this isn't just a broadcast to remark on our nation being stable and to comment on how long that has been the case. This year... it's time for a special little twist I added to the Hunger Games once they were instated to our nation."
He paused, letting the suspense build up for twelve torturous seconds. One for each District of course.
"It's time for a Quarter Quell. Every twenty five years, the Hunger Games will be changed in some special way. What way, you may ask? Allow me to demonstrate it live for you all," Orion chuckles softly, taking a wooden box out from a draw of his desk and setting it upon the table in plain view of the camera. "Watch this."
Orion opened the box, a total of forty cards inside the box. Enough for a thousand years of cruel Hunger Games.
"One of these envelopes shall be opened every twenty five years based on the number written upon them. The Games that year will be made to reflect the rule change on the card," Orion looked absolutely vicious as he took out the first envelope, one marked with a number twenty five. "To demonstrate, as this year is the twenty fifth anniversary that the rebels were defeated, I'll be opening the first card and it will be put into action for this year's Hunger Games."
As the nation broke out into cheers within the Capitol and mostly wails of despair and agony outside of it, Orion opened the envelope.
He took out a single sheet of paper.
"On the twenty fifth anniversary, as a reminder to the rebels that their children are dying because of their choice to initiate violence, every District will be made to hold an election and vote on the tributes that shall represent it. There will be no Volunteers," Orion folds up the paper, puts the box away in his desk and gives the camera the most smug, lecherous, evil smile ever seen in Panem.
For a few moments nobody in Panem dares to breath.
"Voting stations will open tomorrow and remain open until the day before the next reaping," Orion said, relaxing in his chair. "Happy Hunger Games and may the odds be ever in your favour."
The broadcast ends. Cue pandemonium.
The voting booths open up the next day, true to Orion's word, and every District seems to react to them in one of several ways. Arguably none of them are good, but then again... what is even slightly good when it comes to the Hunger Games?
District One do the sensible thing, in their eyes, and vote for the most deadly and beautiful tributes they have. Peridot is the first to vote, wanting to set an example for the District she loves so much, and Crown votes last of the entire District. He wants no part in it, voting for some random kids who, like himself, wouldn't be called pretty in One.
District Two see it as the honour of honours to be voted for such an event. Olga makes it clear and very firm that only the most strong and ferocious will be picked. No excuses whatsoever. It's barely a day before she's picked out two mighty prospects and warns that there will be consequences if the vote is not unanimous. Rook decides to fuck with her for a lark and votes for a wimpy pair of twelve year olds.
District Three has no plan, just voting for whoever feels like somebody the smart and efficient District can do without. In a terrible place like Panem they can't afford not to be pragmatic.
District Four try to gain a Victor and vote in tributes that are strong enough to seriously fight but not be mourned too badly if they die. A fair sort of trade.
District Five have plenty of hooligans to pick from who have caused dangerous trouble at the power plants and in the slums. It all comes down to who is the most unbearable.
District Six have given up on ever having a Victor and, intending to lose, vote away two horrific youths known for being murderers.
District Seven has had plenty of accidents in the lumber yards and several associated deaths. They know who to blame; the reaping is a formality.
District Eight finishes voting in a single day.
District Nine puts it all to chance, casting their votes at complete random. Mizar is relieved his little niece isn't in reaping age until next year.
District Ten don't take kindly to abuse of life, whether it's people or an animal. The girl is obvious and there are three vile candidates for the male that almost tie.
District Eleven have no shortage of troublesome gangs to pick from. Their vote is ridiculously spread out.
District Twelve has the seam band together against the merchants and vote in two well off teens. They make it fair and only vote for some local thugs.
When the screens in the mentoring room first show the arena of the Quell the only thing that Mizar can do is let out a soft curse. It only takes a single look for the original Victor of these sick Games to know this is sure to be the worst year yet, even worse than the year he was stuck inside one of these damn arenas.
It's a gigantic garbage dump, the one the Capitol sends its hundreds of tons of waste and excess from the spoiled, pampered lifestyle of those who live within its borders. It's a hellish landscape complete with piles of rubbish as tall as buildings, blazing orange bonfires that send smoke and ash sky high, pools of contaminated water and even a few sickening splattering of what looks like nauseating toxic waste.
The tributes rise into the arena and the expressions tend to be one of two types; excitement or mortal terror.
Mizar's own tribute is one of the latter, looking moments away from a heart attack. Mizar knows that feeling all too well. He feels terrible for the poor boy – he'll never be able to make clear just how glad he is that the boy and girl he actually voted for did not enter the arena – and hopes that maybe, just maybe, this year he can bring another one home.
But he's seen the way some of the other tributes, those... those freaks have been acting. He heard the stories from the other Mentors. The thought makes him feel sick and pray for his poor boy.
Mizar glances around as the countdown gets closer to zero, taking a look at the other mentors. Gwenith sits beside him, her hands over her face as she trembles at the sight of the arena. Her own tribute is terrified as well. Bronze sits a distance away, pouring out wine as he watches the screens in a perverse sort of excitement. Olga watches with complete and utter focus, nothing capable of distracting her. Pi sits quietly, weakly sobbing and wishing she was in the arena as at least then she could die quickly.
On and on he looks until he glances at Duke, the poor guy looking like he's already given up on this being the year of Twelve's overdue second ever win.
"This is gonna suck," Mizar mutters.
He's right.
The gong rings and the tributes make the charge into the Cornucopia Bloodbath. Hardly anybody flees into the depths of the garbage dump, thinking of it as pure suicide to not have any equipment at all for the grisly Quell.
Mizar's boy, a small field worker only thirteen years old who got hit by the random voting Nine did, tries to grab up a few scraps from the outskirts of the fray and make a run for it before the Careers notice him.
The Careers don't, but the violent gang boy from Eleven does. All it takes is a few merciless punches and crushing stomp upon the boy's neck and he's dead, not even half a minute in.
Mizar doesn't even register the fact Gwenith is hugging her beloved Mentor and trying to comfort him. He's dull to everything right now, all too used to the horrible feeling of watching his tributes die because, surely, he made some critical mistake along the way and failed them when they needed him most.
Olga finds herself satisfied when the tribute she personally laid a claim to mentoring, Vercingetorix Carnby, is the first to the Cornucopia and grabs a sword out from the heart of the golden horn. With his muscles, fighting spirit, patriotism and sheer good looks he'll be a fine Victor for her District, especially for this momentous occasion.
"That's it, keep going," she tells the boy on the screen.
He isn't picky with his targets, simply making the rush at the closest unarmed target to him just as he was taught to. The girl from Eleven, as much a vicious thug as her District Partner, puts up a decent fight and doesn't go down in mere seconds like Olga expected. She hangs in there for a bit.
But fists cannot beat a sword and so before long she's been gutted and lays ever so still, her blood pooling out as Vercingetorix goes off to search for more kills.
"A true fighter and patriot, just like myself," Olga remarks, pouring herself a shot glass of vodka.
"I hope that means he's not got a stick up his ass too," Rook mutters, standing behind Olga.
Olga backhands him without turning her gaze away from the carnage unfolding on the screen.
Fir is normally the sort to laugh and smile her way through life, even in a dismal dystopia like Panem. Even after the tragic death of her adoptive father, Montgomery, she's still able to find some things to smile about. She knows it's what her beloved Peacekeeper father would have wanted her to be able to do and her love for him overtakes the feelings of gloom.
It's not always easy. It almost never is. But she still tries to smile because, well, somebody has to right? Jack, always blaming himself for what happened to Montgomery and the innocent children, is always there to help his mentor anytime it gets too much. Perhaps one day all will be well.
But not today.
Fir's tribute is a trouble maker at the lumber yards, really disruptive, cheeky and forever causing mischief on the job no matter how much she is reprimanded. It was all fun and games until her disruptions caused a pair of deaths on the job and landed her in the Games.
Fir knows she's not a bad girl, not really. Just stuck with a drunken mother and no other family with only poverty for company; of course she'd start lashing out after that. She never meant to really hurt anybody. Not once.
It was just a prank.
Fir feels her heart breaking when her girl is smashed to the ground with a hard hit from the club of the boy from One. He made it quick at least, moving on and leaving her to die.
Screw heartbreak, Fir screams in pure horror when she sees the repulsive girl from Ten slink up to her nearly dead tribute and sink her teeth into her neck.
Only Jack being there for her keeps her from falling into despair like she did only a few years ago.
Museida had a fighter this year. A gruff sailor with a bad attitude but a sense of honour and a fighting spirit that reminds the third Victor of himself a lot.
Perhaps more than a lot.
Museida tried his best to mentor him, but stay distant as well. Just his luck that they ended up hitting it off and becoming friends of sorts. Museida said he believed the boy had a solid change and the burly young man, Hook, believed him and said he'd do him proud.
Museida feels proud alright when his boy makes a charge for the sick bastard from Eight, but the hulking monster of a boy punches him back with a laugh... and just ignores him, heading off after the girl from One as she runs into the Cornucopia.
It's a nasty punch, but not a lethal one. That's why Hook gets back up again and grabs up a knife and a pack of supplies.
"Come on boy, get out of there," Museida mutters, using a rag to wipe away some of his sweat.
Hook tries and he almost makes it, but he doesn't get far before the boy from Five smacks him down with an iron rod.
He doesn't make it quick.
Museida curses, swearing like a sailor as the bastard from Five grabs up a container of fuel laying on the ground. It's barely five seconds before his tribute has been covered in kerosene and set ablaze by a lighter.
For the first time in many years Museida lets tears fall. It'd be impossible for him not to, after all.
Hook was the boy he voted for.
Captain Abe has been mentoring District Six tributes for twenty five years now and always will up to the day he dies or the day they get a Victor. Whichever comes first.
But as much as he'd like to see one of the kids come home for once he feels fine to mentor again next year if it means the two maniacs he's watching on the screen don't come back. They've caused more than enough trouble in Six for over two years now, having killed around five people together.
It's sick and he's starting to get a sense of why the people of Six don't really cheer over this grand event.
"Come on, take her down," he mutters, crossing his fingers.
Alas, it does no good at all. The girl from Six spots the girl from Twelve coming and that's when it's all over. No weapon from the horn of plenty is needed – just a shard of glass will do – as she tackles the miner girl and stabs her over thirty times in as many seconds. Nothing but mangled flesh and a pool of blood is left in her wake.
Abe hears Duke letting out a depressed sigh and feels pity for the sole Victor of District Twelve. This is hardly the most likely year for them to win.
Not that it's ever likely.
Speaking of unlikely, Abe finds himself rather stunned by what he suddenly sees happening on the screen. He mouths a curse word while Bronze and Boulder go a step further and swear in anger and horror respectively.
Bronze had a fighter this year, nothing like the absolute mistake who won the year before. He had it all planned out, all the girls and drinks that the cocky and party loving boy were going to enjoy, all of the luxury they'd indulge in at the expense of the animals in the Outlying Districts.
That goes out the window when his boy makes a charge at the small boy from Ten, laughing as he goes.
From out of nowhere the boy dodges to the side with refined reflexes and slashes the Career boy's leg. From there it's torture, both to watch and to experience.
The kid from Ten is clearly fucked up like his District Partner who feasts on what's left of the girl from Seven. He cuts open his boy, laughing at the screams and pleadings for mercy. It goes on and on until the boy from Two sees what has become of his ally.
The Ten boy flees from the dashing and valiant boy from Two, letting him quickly end the suffering of his own tribute. It's impossible to miss the look in Vercingetorix's eyes as he surveyed the area.
Pure fear.
"Fucking dammit!" Bronze slams his fist on the table, already getting up to leave. "If anybody needs me I'll be hitting the finest bar I can find in the Capitol with Snow, so don't need me."
"Six G's: Good Grief, Get a Goddamn Grip Girl," Crown mutters, shaking his head.
Nobody stops him as he leaves, none of the other Victors particularly liking Bronze. Not with the rumours that surround him, rumours of taking in unwilling girls off of the streets.
From the mentoring seat beside where Bronze had been stationed Crown starts to tremble, a hand to his chest as he watches his tribute barely manage to escape from the monster of District Eight, her clothing torn but her body underneath left unviolated.
Quite a rarity to see, he's speechless.
Boulder knew that this year was not going to be fun right from the moment it got announced and he was named by Olga as the mentor of the second tribute from their District. With Baron and Runa due to become parents any day now and Rook being essentially banned from Mentoring due to winning in a way Olga didn't like it made him the default choice.
In a normal year he thinks that he could've handled it.
But this isn't a normal year. This is just plain sick.
The murderers from Six laugh as they chase around the thug from Twelve, almost catching him several times. The boy from Ten, having hardly ever said a word, mutilates the corpses on the ground... the ones that the savage girl from Ten isn't starting to feast upon. The boy from Five is setting fires here and there to make escape difficult for those who remain. The girl from Eight grabs the tiny girl from Three from her hiding place within the Cornucopia, laughing as she drags her out into the open. The boy from Eight... Boulder doesn't want to think about the boy from Eight.
They're not the only twisted tributes this year but easily the worst of the lot.
Vercingetorix yells for his allies to run for their lives, to abandon everything and RUN. He and the girl from One flee away into the garbage filled nightmare, the girl from Two trying to keep up with them. She fails when the pair from Six cut her off from both sides, tackling her down.
Boulder throws up as the vicious Sixes cut his girl up from head to toe, leaving her oozing blood all over her once powerful body. On screen Vercingetorix screams, horrified, futilely calling for his fallen ally. The one he'd even trusted with his life, the feeling being mutual.
He grimaces, letting out a tear as he runs away after the shaking girl from One.
Boulder tags out with Rook, insisting that he needs to take a rest for a few hours and that somebody has to be there once Olga allows herself a few hours to sleep. Olga protests, but Boulder is already out of the door and making a beeline for the bathroom.
Bed can wait until after he throws up again.
"This is wrong, this is wrong," Boulder mutters, gagging between mouthfuls of vomit that he sends out.
Pi wails and screams, pleading the vile figures on the screen to leave her poor girl alone. Just to please, please let her go and they'd never have to see her again. She begs and begs.
It does no good. It never does. Four of those demon children grab her girl by the limbs and pull as hard as they can. The agonised screams just make them laugh harder.
In one go all four limbs are torn off and her girl dies... after ten seconds of sheer, limbless torment. Pi breaks down pretty soon after, a broken mess of a person.
Pi plans to apologise to her tribute in person soon enough, to apologise for failing to be of any use to her at all. After all, the moment she gets the chance to act back in Three she's taking her own life. She can't go on.
Honorius may not be giving up on her even now, but it won't matter as she's long since given up on herself.
Duke just feels resigned to the inevitable as his boy is slashed by one of the killers from Six and then rammed hard by the boy from Five into the fire. It's horrible, it's nasty... it's just another way of dressing up what happens every single year at this point.
District Twelve cannot win, or at least they're seriously unlikely to ever do so. He won in a time before Olga, before she had such a stranglehold of power in the Games and made her District so formidable, with One following the same trend. With his own tributes often being starving kids from the Seam what chance is there?
Just as little as this year, the time where he had two of the only kids in Twelve who actually knew how to throw a solid punch.
In a smouldering inferno of fire Twelve is already eliminated. But even past the feelings of resignation and loss Duke has enough sense of self to feel another emotion.
A sense of foreboding. A premonition of something even worse than this.
Half of the pack were dead, the other two fleeing for their lives just like the Outliers that weren't quite as vile as those who remained at the Cornucopia this year.
Those sick little monsters just exchanged a few glances and words, soon shaking hands and agreeing to work as a team to have some serious fun in the arena. As they began to ready themselves for their first hunting trip Duke got up and left.
With his tributes dead he wasn't required to stay and frankly he had no intent of watching those maniacs tear people limb from limb. Not even Vercingetorix, who was doing his best to try and calm down Amethyst from One, the poor girl pale faced from what had nearly befell her.
Pliny was glad that, being the sleepyhead that she was, she wouldn't be awake to watch all of the carnage going on. If she slept through enough of this disgusting torture she might even be able to keep her sanity mostly in the healthy zone.
But when she wakes up and sees Amethyst having a complete and utter meltdown she can't hold in the tears of sympathy for the girl who took on way more than she could possibly handle. The tears flow thicker than she hears what Vercingetorix says to her.
"If it's just us left in the end... I'll concede victory to you. I think you should go home, not me. You know what I told you guys about in training, what I was like in the academy... I was a brute," Vercingetorix can only sigh. "I wish I could take it all back."
Amethyst weeps, holding her ally close with Vercingetorix doing the same. Just like that he's become her bodyguard and no longer cares about carving his name in Panem legend.
Pliny is in awe.
Crown is touched.
Olga is disgusted.
Bear really does not like mentoring.
He can't even talk about the Games for a minute before he locks up, shivering over the memories of what happened in his own arena several years ago. It was hands down the most awful, brutal humbling a man could have gotten and sometimes he's unsure if surviving that wheat filled arena is worth living with the feelings that come after.
Worst of all the feelings is the fact a lot of his District still hate him, wishing he been the one to die in that arena ten years ago. Bear doesn't blame them, knowing what kind of a beast he was before he resolved to change his ways before it was too late.
Sometimes he thinks it was too late all along.
He'd committed to using his so-called 'ill gotten fortune' to try and help the poor, protect those who couldn't fight for themselves and just make a difference. Something the little bastard that called itself his teenaged self would have never ever done.
Try as he might, he'd still failed at the most charitable action that he could think of. That being, of course, to bring home a Victor. Most of his tributes were either weak and scared, hated him for being the 'Bear of Eleven' or were thugs like he used to be and didn't bother listening to him.
The boy and girl this year were just like he used to be, perhaps even a bit more aggressive. Beat had wanted to talk some kind of sense into them, tell them how things truly are, do something to keep them going down a path like the one he used to walk.
They brazenly told him to fuck off.
But he hadn't stopped caring nor trying to secure sponsors for them. Although, it was hard to find people who'd spare more than pocket change for them, very hard indeed.
It did no good for the girl who got killed in the bloodbath and, now that the true reality of how depraved this Quell is has begun to show, Bear wonders if the girl had it better by dying so early into this thing.
The so-called psychopath alliance, made up of the seven evil maniacs, finds his boy at dawn on the second day.
The outcome is inevitable at that point.
The gang boy from Eleven gives it one hell of a fight and leaves the alliance with cuts and some bruises that will be in need of medical attention, especially to the girl from Six but the sheer number advantage of the pack dooms him. They cut off his hands and, while he's still conscious, throw him into a pool of highly corrosive water.
In the two minutes it takes for the boy to finally die Bear screams and swears himself hoarse until he's gasping for breath, ever breath he takes incredibly shaky. He's silent, merely trembling in a sort of broken fury, before a woman much smaller than his own hulking size gently hugs him from behind.
"You did your best," Gwenith quietly whispers.
Bear doesn't feel like he believes her, but he doesn't tell her to stop hugging him either. He'd admit that he always felt a soft spot for the Victor who preceded him by two years.
"Don't do it, it's not a golden opportunity. Run, abort."
Jack can only sigh as the third day of this shitshow rolls around, knowing that he's almost certain to lose his tribute in the next five minutes. A trouble maker lashing out at the world just like Fir's own tribute had been and one he'd been able to easily relate to when all was said and done.
Having been a thief himself, he knows that hunger fucks with your head and makes one do things they'd otherwise not do. Seems the boy was hungry enough to lash out and piss off enough people to 'win' the vote.
Jack sits beside Fir, having not left her side even once as she wept for the loss of her tribute. The roles are now reversed as Fir takes his hand gently, ready to bring out her tender, caring side the instant it's needed.
The boy had come across Vercingetorix not long before, the Career deciding to spare him upon seeing he was not one of the psychos and even had information on where the pack of maniacs were currently prowling. It was clear that the Career did not have his heart in it anymore.
But that was two hours ago and by now the pack are returning to the Cornucopia, the exact place that the thief boy is rushing towards to pillage it of all of its supplies. It's not long before he falls into one of the traps the savage girl from Ten set up and is left half-concussed in a moaning heap.
Jack can't hold back the tears as the psychopaths come back, nasty grins of perversion and sadism upon their nasty faces. Fir holds the young man close, letting him sob into her shoulder as she keeps her own gaze away from the screen.
"Everything is gonna be ok," she whispers, hoping that one day, somehow, she may be proven right.
Mags' girl is the next one to be found by those savages. It's not even a fair fight considering the fact the Gamemakers led the psychopaths right towards the poor girl as she slept amongst the rubbish.
The moment the crazy beasts had their hands on her was the same moment she lost control of her bowels, screaming for her mother. The pack take out knives and jagged shards of metal and glass, mercy being far from the front of their minds.
"No, no... dammit, no..." Mags covers her eyes, unable to force herself to watch this particular death.
It happens quick as a flash. One moment the savages are ready to absolutely brutalise her poor girl to a pile of gore, the next moment a spear has been expertly thrown and killed the fisher girl in a split second. The torturous death traded for one quick and painless. She was dead either way, so it's as good as it'll get.
A second spear flies gracefully through the air while the pack are still wondering what happened and who stole their kill. It comes to a sudden stop right in the back of the animal abusing boy from Ten. As he falls to the ground with a whimper, his cannon firing soon after, Vercingetorix makes a run for it.
It's just as well that he does. If not for his head start allowing him to pull ahead, climb within a pile of garbage and remain still as a statue he'd have surely been caught and tortured.
Mags watches as the psychos pass him by and one by one start to go off in their own directions, all craving blood. She further watches as Vercingetorix climbs out of the garbage and sprints off to where Amethyst is hiding.
Olga can call him a coward for running all she wants. To Mags he's looking to be more and more like the hero of this vile Quell. He spared her tribute a horrid, drawn out death and for that he's got her respect.
Gwenith dares to hope that her girl may survive this mania after all, her having fled the bloodbath and been expertly hiding out for the first week and avoiding the terrifying, fragmented pack at every turn. The only person that her tribute, a farm girl, has come across was Vercingetorix. He only wanted water and she wanted a knife; a trade was made and no blood was shed.
But as day eight approaches, Gwenith taking a moment to gulp down some coffee and look through the catalogue of gear she is allowed to sponsor in, disaster strikes.
Vents open near her girl and clouds of some sort of nerve gas fill the air just as acid rain strikes. The garbage doesn't protect her for long and leaves her fleeing for her life in search of some kind of cover. The wrecked train carriage is an obvious choice for her to hide in.
Only when she turns on her flashlight and sees the bloodsoaked face of the girl from Ten does she let out a scream.
Gwenith is screaming as well once the girl, Karabo, begins to bite deeply into her tribute's neck. She's screaming, gasping for air, wailing and only when a strong pair of arms wrap around her does she feel any sort of feeling beside mortal terror.
"You didn't give up on me," Bear says, his tone almost shockingly gentle. "Not giving up on you either."
Gwenith tries to be thankful, but the sight on screen has her too repulsed to say a word.
"That girl is a sick freak," Bear coldly tells Captain Jobar.
The Captain, the Mentor for Ten until they finally get a Victor of their own, cannot find it in him to remotely disagree with Bear as he watches the screens and how his tribute is on the trail of the boy from Three.
What happens at half past three on the ninth day has Crown feeling more trauma than anything that happened in his own arena the previous year.
The boy from Five makes molotov cocktails out of sheer boredom and desperation to see somebody burn. It's not long before he's throwing them all around in hopes of igniting somebody and turning them to ash.
He fails to accomplish this, but he does manage to flush out Vercingetorix and Amethyst from their hiding place. The fire is quick to find fuel laying on the ground of the garbage dump and cause an ignition. Amethyst runs one way and Vercingetorix is sent flying backwards into a wrecked car from the force of the explosion.
It's right near where the girl from Five, a known drug dealer to plenty of minors back home, is making a desperate run from the boy from Six. The boy craves murder, laughing as he keeps up the chase.
While Vercingetorix tells the girl to run and starts a desperate fight against the serial killer a much worse fate befalls Amythest.
"No, no, no, please no..." Crown goes pale, knowing exactly what is going to happen.
The massive brute from Eight has easily grabbed her and has her pressed down onto the ground like a rag doll. He snickers, letting out a breathy whistle between his teeth.
"See these?" he asks, gesturing to the twelve tattoos of screaming faces that cover his bulging, muscular arms. "One for every girl I've caught. After you, I'll have to swing by a Capitol tattoo parlour and get a thirteenth."
Crown flees the room, unable to watch what happens next. Crystal finds him hours later, cowering in a janitor's closet and muttering so fast it seems almost impossible. Without a sound she gently takes him into a tender hug.
Sometimes there are just no words to be spoken.
Peridot can't bring herself to look at what's left of the last tribute from her own District and instead turns her gaze, all of the venom and hate contained within it, towards the sole Victor from District Eight.
She remembers very well what he did to the final tribute left aside from himself in the Sixteenth Hunger Games.
"Did you teach him that?" she hisses, sounding much like a venomous cobra. "A rapist training a rapist... you people in Eight are fucking sick, you know that?"
Peridot storms away, not bothering to hear what meek words Woof has to say in response. She doesn't even feel a single bit of elation when Vercingetorix gets the boy from Six on the ground and lands the killing blow to his neck.
She just takes out a comic book, some candy and pretends that she isn't about to cry.
Tide's main thought as she watches the boy from Two isn't if he can escape the nightmare he's willingly entered, oblivious to how awful it would become.
It's not if the cyber terrorist from Three can find a computer to fix up and use to hack the arena systems to escape.
It isn't if the boy from Five will set off enough fires to consume half of the arena.
It isn't if the girl from Five might get herself high from the paint cans she is sitting near, terrified.
It's not if the girl from Six will quench her bloodlust, temporarily at least, before the next anthem.
It's not which girl the rapist from Eight will have his way with next.
It's not who the rich, prissy psychopath from Eight will have framed and flogged if she wins.
It's not whose flesh the cannibal girl from Ten will taste next.
It's who is the most likely Victor of the last eight tributes will be and how much she should bet on them to get herself a good profit from this madness. She doesn't have to enjoy it to admit that betting on the Hunger Games brings in some solid cash.
"Hmmm... probably boy from Two or girl from Six," Tide mutters, lightly tapping her chin with a pencil.
Isobel can only sigh as the boy from Three, in his desperate run from the girls from Ten and Eight, pushes her own tribute right into their path to buy himself some time. Any other year she'd be utterly furious over such a cowardly display.
Not this year. Not when that girl is the reason her little cousin died of a drug overdose at the age of fifteen. She knows logically the girl may not have meant for it and that her cousin was stupid enough to buy the drugs to begin with.
But revenge is a fickle thing. Isobel cast a vote and the similarly effected citizens of Five and the arena itself did the rest for her. Still, she can't hold back a wince as the maniacs really start to go at it.
"This isn't right," she mutters to herself after the cannon fires.
"...I voted for her too," Shunt says from his seat beside her, quietly. "I know the feeling."
After the initial surge has passed Isobel feels shame for what she did and how she felt. Now she just feels empty and more than a little lost. She wonders if it's the same feeling the lone Career from Two feels as he walks aimlessly through the arena, muttering out quiet apologies under his breath as his wraps a bandage around his arm.
She doesn't miss the way he says he should've died in Amythest's place.
Rook eventually gets a few hours of pure, lovely peace when Olga turns in for a few hours of rest. With Baron off on sponsor duty, Runa getting some bed rest and Boulder locking himself in his room out of protest and revulsion he has the District Two mentoring area all to himself.
He has to admit, it's not really as great as he expected. He only ever mentored a single time, the time he was required to in the Games following his own, and Olga took over the instant that Isobel's karate tricks were revealed. Hardly a true taste of being a mentor.
It's hardly better this year either. The tributes are fucking insane and he'd be fine sharing company with exactly one of them right now.
Ok, one and a half if the tiny hacker from Three counts.
Too bad the odds of one of them coming back are looking pretty damn unlikely. Though with how the Victor village is crowded enough as it is, at least in his opinion, – Olga thinks it's too empty – maybe it's better this way.
He lights up a fine cigar, ready to smoke away the next hour or two, when Vercingetorix comes across the boy from Three – his name escapes Rook – near a pool of toxic waste.
The loner can't help smirking when the pair shake their dirty, somewhat bloodied hands as they agree to an alliance. Both know that with everybody else being a total savage it's really their only hope.
"Districts Two and Three, together again," Rook remarked, thinking back to the alliance he had with Socket in his own games several years prior. "Not bad, not bad."
Shunt feels disturbed to some degree that he is rooting against his own tribute at this point. It's a feeling that just... it just seems wrong.
The Career and the cyber terrorist make a solid plan, working to set up traps made from the garbage around the arena. If the maniacs can be ensnared then surely they'll be simple to take out; a restrained tribute is generally a dead one, no matter their power.
Duracell sets the traps up and instructs Vercingetorix to lure one of the others – any of them, he doesn't care who – into the traps. At that point they can finish them off.
It turns out that the boy from Five, the sinister pyromaniac, is the closest one to the traps and it's all too easy for Vercingetorix to lure him to his doom. In a quick motion the boy is ensnared with wires and broken glass. One swing of the sword is all that it takes for the cannon to boom and the arena to be down by one pyro.
Shunt just packs up his things, adjusts his fedora and walks out of the room silently. There's novels to be written, after all.
Baron looks at the screen out of loyalty towards the suffering boy from his District, nothing more.
He's not just on sponsor duty most years due to being good at it or because Olga always mentors year after year and thus leaves only one other spot open. No, it's also because he hates everything about the damn Games and how they've become a cultural virus within his homeland.
All he wanted was to save his mother and he used the most deadly opportunity that, at the time, seemed like the only possible way. If there had been another way, any other way, he'd have never trained up as he did.
Not if it meant the youth of his District training to become murderers solely out of pure greed nine times out of ten. Worse was the fact some clearly enjoyed what they were doing.
In his darkest moments Baron wonders if he should've just said goodbye and let his mother pass. Once upon a time he was ready to kill to save her. Nowadays he knows that it's impossible to measure one life, or several, against others. She's dying again, this time simply of old age. Far more peaceful, but it makes him feel like he merely bought himself time and ruined the District in the process.
It's really only Runa who keeps him going. He never fit in around any of the other Victors, not even Boulder when it really got down to it.
Of course, he had no way or telling anybody that. Not when his dad still held power at the academy and not when, being the first ever Volunteer, his unwanted fame wasn't going away for quite some time.
He walks around the fancy sponsor garden, charming people like he does year after year in hopes of securing money for the tributes of Two. Macey is long dead by now, but Vercingetorix remains alive and – Baron would never admit to feeling happy about this – clearly shows signs of hating everything the Games stand for.
Perhaps there is a Victor from Two he can finally relate to besides his wife, though first he'll have to win. He glances at the screen, watching as the duo from Two and Three manage to trap the rich monster from Eight with Vercingetorix landing the kill.
The Capitolite crowd cheer, coo and applaud at the murder they have just seen while Baron simply looks away. He'd never judge a tribute for murder – it's all the same in the end – but it doesn't mean he has to enjoy it.
He's collected enough money that could feed two dozen families in Twelve for ten years by the time that he heads off in a taxi bound for the mentoring station. Such waste, he thinks, such disgusting waste.
If this agonising shame is a punishment for starting this whole thing then he'll willingly bare it for always and always. It feels like a fair trade for all the lost lives.
It's day sixteen when Honorius, once again, has to see his tribute die. Between Pi being forever in a state of misery and suicidal thoughts and how his tributes almost never do particularly well the smart man has to wonder how he hasn't become desensitised to all forms of feeling by now.
Maybe he's got a bigger heart than he thought. Perhaps he's just about as stubborn as his grandpa was years ago.
Whatever the answer is it all goes to the exact same destination: death. In this case, his boy dying when more hidden vents send out a hurricane of nerve gas and drive Vercingetorix and Duracell apart, their alliance proving to be a bit too effective for the liking of the Gamemakers.
Vercingetorix almost falls into a pool of toxic waste and has a terrifying one hour long climb on the underside of a rickety hanging car to escape such a terrible fate. Rook lets out a cheer, once again filling in for Olga as she sleeps and Boulder hides, but Honorius can't cheer with him.
It's hard to do so when his boy narrowly escapes the demented cannibal from Ten only to come across the beast from District Eight. For a sick, horrible moment Honorius wonders if his tribute is due the same violation as the girl from One.
He's not. Instead the hulking brute smashes him against a pile of sharp junk until he dies. It takes twenty impacts, each one leaving his poor tribute more and more mangled and moaning. The worst part is when this kill earns the beast a sponsor package of freshly cooked beef burgers.
"You fought well," Honorius mutters. "Please, Duracell, if you can hear me someway somehow... tell the thirty seven other tributes I failed to save that I'm sorry."
First thing is first, checking on Pi. After that, perhaps it's time he stood up and agreed to joining in with Isobel's ideas of rebellion...
Runa turns the TV on for a brief recap of what happened on the eighteenth day of the Quell. Only one major note ended up happening.
Apparently Karabo had starting making the Capitolites feel really uncomfortable with her cannibalistic impulses and the Gamemakers felt it was time to pull the plug on the freakish girl. Hence, an earthquate had been triggered and she fell into a pool of corrosive water. She got out before long but the damage was done.
In this case, the damage was much of her skin peeling away and what chunks did not were left raw and red.
It was a warning to not commit cannibalism in the arena in future Hunger Games, a warning only one tribute just over forty years later did not heed.
Vercingetorix came by not long after, having just dodged over ten clumps of falling scrap metal. He makes it quick, looking like even he is losing the will to live. He plainly has nearly reached the 'despair event horizon' as her Grandpa used to call it. Only the desperation to ensure none of the remaining psychopaths make it home absolved of their crimes and free to start new rampages keeps him going.
He's got nothing left to lose, merely trudging around the filthy garbage dump with his sword dragging in the rough dirt beside him.
Runa hopes that he wins. Not just for Two, but for himself. He seems like a good young man, really. One who simply became indoctrinated in the system and only realised how utterly wrong it was when it was far too late to back out.
Runa can't stand to watch more than a few minutes. Reminders of the Games just hurt her to think about.
After all, she's only a few days at most from giving birth to her and Baron's little boy and both suspect that the child of two Victor's is an incredibly likely candidate for being reaped. What little optimism she retains thinks a Volunteer would step up for him.
The rest of her knows better and realises the need to train their boy to spare both him, herself and her husband plenty of pain.
Woof sinks down into his seat, filled with nothing but shame as he watches the the screen and several of the other Victors watch him, all judgemental or perhaps afraid.
As the maniac from his District has his way with the beaten, battered serial killer from Six he knows they're thinking back to that terrible crime he committed. That thing he did to the boy from Two nearly ten years ago.
He only ever did what he was told...
He hopes his District loses, he begs whatever God may or may not be there that this sick, twisted little fuck is killed before the trumpets ring out.
He's lived twenty days in the arena by now and that's twenty too many.
Just as Woof lets out a few absolutely silent tears a long, thin object whooshes through the air.
It's a spear and it just skewered the girl from Six, barely missing his own tribute. His boy, Linen, looks up and leers as Vercingetorix draws near with a sword in hand.
"So, come to play?" Linen asks, his grin wide like a frog and lecherous as a snake.
"Let's do this," Vercingetorix says, cold as ice. He's broken, but he's been trained well and has enough fight left in him to win this last battle.
Both tributes stand tall and aggressive, their weapons gripped tightly. The Quell ends here and now.
Crystal can hardly look at the screen after all the terrible things that have happened this year, much worse than the normal sort of flair for the Games. But as a show of respect to the fallen pair from One this year she forces herself to be a big girl and watch.
She wishes Harp had tagged along this year. If ever she needed a big, warm hug it was right now.
The pair of tributes circle each other as the moon glows, the wind howls and a hurricane of nerve gas surrounds the clearing to cut off any form of escape. With every full circle taken they come just a bit closer to each other. It goes on like this for a minute that seems practically eternal.
They lunge.
It's all so fast, blurry and utterly savage. Blade hits blade, sparks flying as the pair keep up the duel. On one side it's a dashing knight. On the other it's a terrible monster.
It almost makes Crystal think of her favourite storybook her mama read for her when she was little: Beauty and the Beast.
It's two minutes into the furious fight when blood is spilt. Linen punches Vercingetorix hard, breaking the Career's nose. Despite the pain a counter attack is launched, Linen left with a nasty cut on his left arm.
"You ruined my tattoo," he hisses, leering. "You're gonna regret that, filthy pig."
"You're gonna regret it too; all the horrible things you've done. The girls you violated!" Vercingetorix screams as he brings down his sword.
Linen deflects it and again they circle each other.
"Still not killed as many as you," he chuckles, licking his lips for a moment. "Feel proud? Who is the real psycho here?"
"Both of us," Vercingetorix doesn't hide the shame, even as he makes a desperate dodge to avoid being gutted. "And I'm not dying, not when it means you walking free to rape more girls."
Linen doesn't talk after that, just snickering and letting out a raspy chuckle. Their weapons collide in one hard clash.
They break.
For a moment the tributes are silent over what just happened. A second later they sprint to a pair of junk piles still within the boundaries of the hurricane and search for any sort of weapon.
Crystal softly gasps, unsure if she's doing so out of horror or sheer awe at what she is seeing.
"Holy smokes..." Crystal feels her jaw hanging open as she gawks at the action on screen.
Both young men hold circular saws, the wireless devices still working as the saws speed up and whir in a way that seems almost monstrous.
Crystal and the rest of the Victors watch, stunned, as the knight and the rapist slam the buzzing saws together over and over. The wind howls like a monster as thousands of sparks erupt into the air every time their weapons smack together.
Linen dodges a would-be fatal attack and lunges forth. He leans down on Vercingetorix, starting to push him back and gain the upper hand in the gruesome duel.
"What's the matter, boy? You look worried!" he cackles, letting out a dull snicker. "You should just give up, Two!"
"Giving up.. is not an option..." Vercingetorix is exhausted, but refuses to cease fighting. "Now when you'll put so many women in danger."
"Got a sister? I'll tell her hi on my victory tour," the brute lets out a bellowing laugh. "And maybe more than that too."
Vercingetorix sees red and makes his final attack. He sees much more red a moment later when his saw meets Linen's flesh, showering blood around as the rapist writhes and screams in sheer agony.
Vercingetorix finishes the fight, and the Quell, by pushing harder with the saw to finish off the brute. As the saw goes deeper the blood showers even worse than before.
No doctor can explain what happens next, not a single one in the decades after the Quarter Quell ended.
One moment Linen is writhing and practically gushing blood. The next moment, as Vercingetorix puts on more force his upper half outright explodes, sending numerous chunks and puddles of gore flying around.
The lower half of the rapists staggers a few steps and collapses to the ground, ever so still.
All is quiet in the garbage dump for a while. Vercingetorix sighs, exhausted and relieved, as he tosses away the circular saw.
"Do me a favour and stay dead," he mutters, dropping to his knees. "...Finally... it's over..."
Crystal can't help wildly cheering, for a few moments looking just as excited and gleeful as she did as a little girl any time a new Victor was crowned. She applauds as the hovercraft descends to collect Vercingetorix from the arena, the boy shaking and trembling like a lost child.
If District One couldn't win, she'll gladly take the dashing knight over any of those horrible psychopaths.
Vercingetorix is relieved that the nightmare is finally over. He's at least half sedated for the after-events of the Games, whether it's the interview or the party. Everything is a blur he can only remember because he sees it on repeat on the TV inside the train.
He lays on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. Gone is the boy who would fist fight other cadets at the academy to prove his worth as a tribute, gone is the boy who longed to enter the arena and be just like his Victor idols, gone is the boy who had any kind of respect for the Career system or for the Hunger Games.
All that remains is a broken husk.
He doesn't bother to leave his room to join the celebrations, whether for his victory or the fact District Two won the Quell. The idea of cheering over this makes him sick and he doesn't want to be near Olga anymore than he has to. She flat out thinks he won the wrong way, much like Rook did several years ago, and should have taken better care of his pack as well as not been such a 'baby'.
Part of him wishes he'd died in the arena, whether dying to save Amethyst or killing himself right after he killed Linen. He has to wonder, what would have happened if there was no Victor at all?
The only upside, the one good thing, is that Baron knows how he feels and said his door is always open if Vercingetorix needs to vent about anything. He know he'll be taking the first Victor of Two up on that offer very soon.
Vercingetorix soon settles down to try and get a, probably restless, sleep. He's alive at least, and that means he's gonna be a Mentor now. He'll do his best to help other kids who enter these Games.
He'll Mentor them and tells them how utterly stupid they were to throw away their sanity and their once good lives all for the sake of greed and fame.
"I'm sorry mom. I'm sorry dad," Vercingetorix looks beyond the ceiling and off to the heavens as he speaks. "I'm not the fighter I thought I was and I'm not the Victor that you wanted me to be. I'm... not sure who I am..."
"I never kept up with Victor news. Was he still alive at the time of the third Quell?" Peeta asks, unsure.
"Effie sent me tapes of other Victors to help me prepare. She only sent me tapes of living Victors... the twenty fifth Games was not along them," Katniss replied, looking somewhat distant. "He must have been dead, or maybe just in no state to compete again."
"Poor guy. Sounds like he really got more than he bargained for in the arena," Peeta sighed, looking a little depressed. "Shame really. How many Victors were dead before the Quell? Eighteen wasn't it?"
"Sixteen," Katniss said. "And now there's just nineteen left. Us Victors are a dying breed."
"Yeah... it's depressing," Peeta said, softly.
The couple kept on walking for a few paces down the street until they came to the next face upon the sidewalk. A tough looking boy looked back at them with firm eyes, a confident smirk and a shaggy mop of hair. All this and a upon scar on his forehead.
"Stallion March," Katniss noted. "At last, the first Victor of District Ten. Sure took a long time."
"Too long," Peeta agreed. "And Six remains without a Victor."
There we have it, the first Quarter Quell. Quite the gruesome, vicious mess overall and with my logic regarding what sort of maniacs would be voted into the arena it seems only logical for it to be that way. Vercingetorix wins, but certainly will never be the same person that he once was. At least he managed to take down all of those psychos along the way, right? Hope you guys liked him and how all the Victors showed up once again. To quote Smash Bros, everybody is here! Anyway, next up is the first Victor of District Ten at long last. Stay tuned!
Stats
District 1: Peridot Gaudy (8th Games), Crystal McCree (14th Games), Bronze Marley (19th Games), Crown Martins (24th Games)
District 2: Baron Overwhill (4th Games), Runa Peace (7th Games), Olga Machete (10th Games), Rook Valiant (17th Games), Boulder Atherston (20th Games), Vercingetorix Carnby (25th Games)
District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games), Pi Orbit (22nd Games)
District 4: Museida Selkirk (3rd Games), Mags Flanagan (11th Games), Tide Luther (23rd 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 Games)
District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)