Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: Another victor of canon who, to my read of things at least, basically nobody really talks about or particularly cares for. The man from Five, dead in under a minute into the Quell to Finnick's trident. All we have is that, him trying to kill Katniss and the fact he puked over the sword training station… so in other words, more than enough for me to work with and craft a story out of. Just what is this man hiding? What mayhem happened in his arena? I tell you one thing… it's gloriously stupid. Enjoy!
Katniss continued to stare at the face of the deceased victor from Five for a while.
"I just don't know why he came after me first. I mean, I was the smallest one there. That and the symbol of rebellion… was that why he wanted to kill me? I didn't think he was pro-Capitol," Katniss muttered, uncertain of her every word. "I'd have thought Brutus would've tried it first."
"I can't claim to know what was going through his head," Peeta replied, humming thoughtfully. "He wasn't in the alliance to protect us, so there must have been something… I guess we'll add it to the list of things to ask at the victor party."
"I guess you're right," Katniss said, closing her eyes. "Until then… let's just keep silent for a moment."
"Can do," Peeta said.
The pair quietened down, maintaining a moment of silence for Neon.
"…You know, I think this was the same year Duke…" Peeta trailed off.
"Let's keep him in our thoughts too," Katniss agreed.
The pair went silent once more, both Neon and Duke in their thoughts and hearts,
48th Annual Hunger Games
Name: Neon Erg
Gender: Male
District: 5
Age: 18
Kills: 2
"Neon Erg!"
Most reapings in District Five happen in a grim silence, save the cries of horror from the family of a tribe or, rarely, the polite applause for anybody who bravely volunteers to take the place of somebody else (that is, unless they're convicts on death row…). Other than that, and the wailing of reaped tributes, it's often a quiet and sordid sort of affair.
This time is different. This time the name of the reaped boy is met with thunderous applause and cheers from almost all of the females who were reaping aged and even some of the males for that matter.
At a glance it's hard to understand why. Neon doesn't really seem like much as he mounts the stage, gazing out at the crowd with a lost expression. By all accounts he's a normal eighteen year old, save perhaps for his scruffy beard. He's tall, decently sized and lacks any obvious deformity that will inevitably get him bullied at school. Nothing that suggests people, especially the girls, would be glad to see him get reaped for the Games.
Then, when told to shake hands with his district partner, he gazes at her with one hell of a creepy leer, even licking his lips at the sight of a pretty girl from one of the power plants.
One sly wink and an attempt to grab her ass and breasts on the way into the judgement building and it becomes very clear what the problem here is. Neon's a pervert – a sexual harasses, in fact - and has no respect for the boundaries of the girls around him.
His district partner feels like breaking the taboo of killing your own district partner long before the final two or as an act of mercy is very tempting. Many of those in the crown cannot even begin to blame her for this. They all know what the infamous boy is like.
Inappropriate comments. Gropes that landed him plenty of bruises. Sneaking into strip clubs. The list goes on and on.
At least, at long last, this little problem is going to be taken care of. Nobody thinks he stands a chance in the arena and, even if he did, there's no way he won't just anger the career girls and run into trouble with them in three days tops after the gong.
Neon gets no support. Meanwhile his partner Ivette had the whole district backing her towards victory, every step of the way.
He hardly noticed. He'd stopped leering over Ivette and had begun to drool over Crimson and Porter. The latter of the pair, silent as always, gave Neon a warning glare while Crimson ended up unable to be around him and locked herself in her room.
Neon's tasteless question of asking if he could get what her Capitol lovers got from her was more than the poor women could take.
Porter agreed to mentor Neon for the sake of her friend, but it was no secret that both she and Crimson were going to be putting their focus towards saving Ivette. She was a smart worker at one of the three biggest power plants and at the age of eighteen already had been promoted to a junior overseer level. She contributed so much.
Neon was just some pervert.
As he did every year Duke sat with the ever increasing selection of mentors to watch the tribute parade. He could only hope this year his tributes would get some attention, both survive the bloodbath and that one of them would then go on to finally, finally come home safe.
So, the same hope as every year since he won so very long ago.
From his position at the end of the row of victors, beside the trio from District Eleven, Duke watched as the tributes came out one chariot at a time. The Ones were glamorous and cruel, the Twos were mighty and sadistic, the Threes were brainiacs and even had a bit of muscle to them… it was going to be another tough year.
After all, by pure coincidence, this year all of the tributes were eighteen. The competition was the fiercest it had been in years, and it was fierce to begin with.
"Come on, make them like you," Duke whispered.
Alas, the spoiled Capitolites paid the Twelves almost no attention whatsoever. Who cared about a pair of lanky miners when there some shiny, exciting careers leading the parade?
But they were not the only ones getting attention. So was the boy from Five. Duke was one of several amongst the victors who cringed by the way he leered at Ivette and made whistles and catcalls to the girls from Four and Six. The Capitol may have found it funny, but the girls looked particularly upset and few mentors seemed happy either.
"Disgraceful display," Olga muttered.
"Come on Tire, give him hell! You don't have to take it from him!" Chassis called out.
"Show that piece of shit who's boss Dolphin!" Librae yelled. "Dude, take him out and throw him out!"
All the glory of the careers and the antics of Neon left Duke's pair with nothing just like they had every year. Another box on the list of failure was given a tick: impress nobody at the parade.
It wasn't long before the tributes were taken towards the tribute building and the mentors were all rounded up and led off to meet them there as was the yearly norm. Duke could only sigh, knowing all too well that this was going to be another year of defeat.
It was becoming painful to keep hoping for any change.
Even so, the aging tailor couldn't keep himself from smiling when Pliny moved to walk beside him. His lifelong best friend, even after all this time they were still as close as ever. As close as they were from the moment Duke comforted her atop the roof of the tribute building over forty years previously.
"Think this might be your year?" Pliny asked, zig-zagging sleepily as she walks along.
"It'll have to happen eventually, right?" Duke replied, shrugging softly. "District Six eventually got their first victor… one day I'll mentor a victor of my own."
"I'm happy to help you, you know," Pliny replied, moving closer to Duke. "I mean… if my pair are dead, count me as one of your team."
"Thanks," Duke said, sighing. "I don't know, it's hard to keep any optimism sometimes. I guess… if I can save just one person then I can die happy."
"You will. I know it," Pliny patted her friend on his back. "So… wanna go hang out at Crown and Harp's night club? Maybe after the interviews happen?"
"You got it," Duke agreed, weakly smiling.
The pair exchanged a fist bump, just as they did every year, before heading off to meet up with their tributes and start the next phase of the mentoring process. Both wanted one of their own tributes to win above all else.
Both would be able to live with one of their friend's tributes being the victor instead.
Training was eventful as it was every year. The careers were intimidating, some so called 'cannon fodder' made all sorts of embarrassing mistakes such as the boy from eight breaking a finger and both alliances and enemies were formed.
Neon made himself twelve very angry enemies.
While technically speaking every tribute had twenty three enemies it was mainly due to the nature of the Games and not out of any highly personal hatred or malice. It was simply the way things were. But not in this case, far from it. Neon's perverted actions had landed him at the top of the shit list of every single one of the female tributes. Even the boys eyed him with a sort of coolness.
He'd copped a feel of the girl from One's breasts.
He'd tried to kiss the girl from Two.
He followed the girl from Three around for an hour, flirting with her.
He wrote the girl from Four an erotic poem.
He tried to sneak into Ivette's bed.
He slapped the girl from Six on the ass.
He cat called the girl from Seven while she was doing yoga.
He was caught trying to watch the girl from Eight get changed.
He succeeded in watching the girl from Nine get changed… and then got caught.
He stole the girl from Ten's bra.
He took a lock of the girl from Eleven's hair.
He successfully got into the girl from Twelve's bed.
After this it was no surprise that, by the end of the training days, all of the girls wanted Neon's head on a pike. He creeped them out, he made them want to be sick and he made them feel personally violated. Something had to be done about this little freak.
What better plan was there than to kill him? None whatsoever as far as the girls were all concerned.
Neon was not concerned. He'd found he was a complete natural with the flail mace and sprinting. That, and he assumed the girls were just playing hard to get. He smirked as he swaggered around the training centre, not concerned over his odds. Whatever way it was dressed up he had better odds than the half-starved boys from Ten, Eleven and Twelve.
Sure enough he scored an eight. He gave Porter a smirk, asking if she had anything in mind to congratulate him.
Porter just narrowed her eyes, leering in a way that was nothing like Neon's lecherous leer. Hers was much scarier.
Another girl playing hard to get was what the playa of Five assumed was the case.
Neon failed to see the scowls sent his way by Crimson and Ivette. He had no idea what was coming for him…
Duke sat in the audience with the other victors to watch the interview going on. After so many years of doing this it got pretty boring. He knew what to expect – the careers practically worked off of a script – and what Caesar was most likely to say in response. All he was there for was to see for himself if one of his tributes could somehow whoa the nation and give him a chance to reel in some of the sponsors watching in the audience.
He wasn't optimistic.
Unlike the parade there was no exact seating for the victors beyond 'just be here', and so he was free to sit next to Pliny as the show went by. Both of them felt a strong distaste for the way the careers from One and Two had graphically described what they could do with spears.
The Threes weren't much better, the boy being a smug hacker and the girl wanting to cut off Neon's penis and shove it up his ass before lighting him ablaze in a ditch.
"Points for creativity," Pliny said, yawning.
"Just so long as she keeps away from my tributes I don't mind too much," Duke replied. "I think them going last is what hurts their chances most. The audience hardly pay attention that long and by then their anxiety is often too much to overcome."
"It's unfair," Pliny agreed. "Hey, uh… where'd Vercingetorix go?"
"Outside for a smoke," Duke said. "Remember?"
"Yeah, an hour ago," Pliny said, glancing at the time on her small red phone. "Maybe he had a second smoke?"
"Or a tenth," Duke added. "Oh, look… it's him."
Neon had come out on stage for his interview, chatting amicably with Caesar. For a short time it seemed like there was no particular problems that would arise from his on-stage chatter.
For a minute anyway.
The victors were groaning and the tributes were growling as Neon launched into a long talk about how sexy he thought the female tributes were, going into needless detail. Much of the Capitol audience laughed – as did Tide and Dragon, both unable to resist – as Neon spoke in-depth about the 'stats' of the girls and his hopes for one of them to at least kiss him before they died.
The moment he said he hoped the tribute uniforms were just bikinis and for it to be a beach arena was the moment that the career girl vowed to strangle Neon with his own intestines.
Neon left the stage posing, blowing kisses, flexing and even dabbing to the applause of the crowd. The pervert, per the norm, failed to notice the hatred in the eyes of the female tributes.
They all glared at him like how a father may look at a thug who just killed his young child.
Duke tried to give Neon no more focus than he deserved – so, none basically – and instead kept paying attention as his own tributes got closer. Pliny's pair did passably, at least not choking or flubbing on their words, while the boy from Ten really blew his own interview. It gave Duke hope his own pair would not be at the very bottom of the barrel this time.
Alas, they were both stammering and nervous. None of the Capitolites spared them any mind at all, more focused on talking about all of the tributes who had gone on before them. The show ended and the victors, whether or not their tributes and done amazingly or pathetically, started to leave.
"Night club in two hours?" Pliny asked Duke.
"I'll be there," Duke said, nodding. "I may be late. Most years I have to help at least one my of tributes calm down and not attempt to kill themselves pre-emptively."
Pliny's horrified expression said it all. She gave Duke a gentle hug.
"You'll save somebody, I know it," Pliny whispered.
Duke inwardly disagreed.
Neon was confident as he was risen into the arena. He had scored well, he had hot chicks playing hard to get… if he could save one from death in the opening minutes then he'd have himself a romance in the arena, and perhaps even more. Hubba bubba!
Neon was launched between the boys from Six and Ten, quickly taking in all of his surroundings. The circular area he and the rest were in was… ugly. Boring even. Grey and lifeless, filled with rocks and few steam geysers that would no doubt be dangerous. The only colour came from the silver cornucopia and the supplies that were scattered around and within it.
It was the area beyond the grim, grey, rocky circle that caught everybody's attention. It was like the arena had been split into four quarters beyond the central zone; a land of fire and lava, a large amount of dirt hills and some deep mines, a flooded beach cove and tall mountains that seemed to touch the clouds.
Four quarters. Four elements. Fire, Earth, Water and Air.
The gong rang and Neon practically flew off of his platform, more than ready to fight to stay alive. It was a strong year filled with strong tributes. He knew for a fact they'd do the same as him to get back home. He was far from incorrect.
The twenty four tributes ran the two hundred yards towards the weapons laid out by the cornucopia. The boys from Ten, Eleven and Twelve bought up the rear of the pack. The boy from One bought up the front of the pack with ease.
Or at least he did until he tripped over some rocky ground and fell forwards towards a geyser. He caught himself before he could hit himself against any rocks, but one blast of the boiling water against his face left him screaming and wailing in agony.
It was easy for Neon, armed with just a rock, to smash the life out of him with a single strike.
The boy from Twelve met a similar fate. One blast from the boiling geyser water made him easy prey for the opportunistic boy from Eleven.
It was complete mayhem at the cornucopia. Perhaps it was the instinctive desire to live. Perhaps it was the fact the tributes being eighteen made them all at least passably capable of fighting. Maybe they were just a batch more willing to kill than in a normal year.
Whatever the case, weapons were taken in hand and blood was being spilt. The girls from One and Two wasted no time dragging the boy from Seven into the cornucopia to his doom, the boys from Three and Nine wrestled on the rocky ground, the boy from Two was taken completely off of his guard when the boy from Eight leapt out from under an overturned crate with a knife in hand and the girl from Four resorting to using her bare hands to strangle the life out of the boy from Eleven.
Neon used his speed to his advantage, weaving through the carnage and, with the best backpack in his grasp, loaded up on all the scraps of food and water that he could see. He grabbed up a flail mace placed there specifically for him and, upon hearing noise behind him, turned around and struck the boy from Ten before he could try anything with his pair of daggers. One smash was all it took for the boy to drop.
Neon had started to jog away from the ongoing bloodbath, only to pause when a near deafening boom of thunder filled the entire sky in the central area of the arena. Loud enough for everybody still alive to pause what they were doing and gaze around.
Neon glanced back at the corpses scattered lifelessly around the area, all the litres of blood that had coated the once grey ground and how twelve girls were all still alive and now armed with a variety of sharp, blood-soaked and rather painful weapons.
The twelve girls took note of how eleven of the twelve boys were laying dead in puddles of their own blood and fluids. A single boy was left not even a hundred yards away… the same boy who had been sexually harassing them over and over and over again for a whole week.
Their eyes narrowed and their gazes hardened as they stopped gazing at each other and instead gazed over at Neon.
It suddenly became apparent to the pervert that the girls were snarling at him and gripping their weapons tight enough to make their knuckles turn white.
"GET HIM!" the girl from Two roared. "Yank out his guts! Strangle him with them!"
"Smash his teeth out with a hammer!" the girl from Ten bellowed.
"I say we castrate him with a saw!" the girl from Seven shouted.
The girls all charged towards Neon, murder in their eyes.
Neon screamed like a little kid who had just inhaled helium and ran for his life towards the water zone of the arena.
He didn't stop screaming as the crowd of girls chased him away from the cornucopia.
He didn't stop screaming as they chased him down the beach.
He didn't stop screaming when they chased him towards the earth zone, unsuccessfully throwing spears at him.
They only stopped chasing him when Neon managed to hide himself in an alcove within one of the mines. The girls, muttering to each other how much of a horrible creep the boy was, took their collective leave back to the cornucopia.
Neon was left in the dark, wide eyed and breathing deep, rapid breathes like a lunatic. Nothing but sheer terror remained in his eyes. The girls weren't playing hard to get, they wanted to kill him! Kill him horribly!
It was a while of gasping and wheezing in pure terror and exhaustion from his running before Neon realised he had committed the ultimate social faux-pass of any victor.
He'd pissed his pants.
Duke watched from his seat in the mentoring room, already falling into his usual resigned depression due to the death of his male tribute. His girl was still alive and, amazingly, was right beside eleven other tributes without any of them attacking her.
It was bizarre to see twelve tributes, all from a different district, not trying to kill each other. Just walking and talking.
Crazy as it was, hatred for the pervert had bought them together.
Duke only half watched as the massive alliance of women made their way back towards the cornucopia, exchanging barbed comments about Neon and bonding over little things from their home lives. Their sheer hatred for the boy outweighed their reasons to attack each other. The girls from Two and Seven shared an interest in wrestling, the girls from Three and Nine both loved hover ball, even the girls from Six and Twelve found common ground in the form of liking dolls.
Duke braced himself for the gamemakers doing something to drive them apart sand kill off a few of them. District unity was the last thing they wanted.
It never became needed. The girls armed themselves with their favoured weapons and gathered up all the supplies that they would need for the days ahead. After that they split into three different alliances and, once the girl from Ten had rigged up the cornucopia with a few traps in case Neon came back later, they headed off in different directions to hunt the pervert down.
The girls from One, Two, Seven and Ten headed for the water zone.
The girls from Three, Five, Nine and Eleven headed for the fire zone.
The girls from Four, Six, Eight and Twelve headed for the earth zone.
"Well, Neon's fucked," Dragon remarked, starting to laugh. "Poor bastard."
With things started to slow down majorly Duke was able to turn his attention to the other thing on his mind. Something he just could not ignore.
Vercingetorix and Pliny were nowhere in sight.
Pliny had not arrived at the night club the previous night. He'd assumed she'd just fallen asleep again, it being rather likely due to her narcolepsy, but now she wasn't even here either to watch over the female tribute. Snag and Jack had the matter covered while Fir went out to look for sponsors, but it was still odd. Victors didn't just decide not to show up.
That was odd, but Vercingetorix not showing up? That was really strange, he was among the most punctual of mentors. Olga would never tolerate him being late. Even if he was sick the legendary victor from Two would force him out of bed and practically frog march him into work. What was going on?
"Hey, Mizar? Mind covering for me for a few hours? I need to go meet with a sponsor," Duke said, starting to stand up.
"Sure," Mizar said, moving over to take Duke's seat. "My poor boy's already… nevermind, you can go."
Duke thanked Mizar and took off. He had an itch of curiosity he just needed scratched. A feeling of premonition and suspicion that just had to be solved.
He figured he knew where to start.
Neon had stayed hidden in his safe spot within the mine for hours, barely daring to even twitch his toes. The scent of urine and humiliation filled the air, alongside the stench of terror sweat. It was sinking into Neon just how lucky he was to even be alive. If he was any slower than his considerably fast speed he'd be just another tribute in a casket.
It also occurred to him that he was royally fucked and not in a way he wanted by, say, a hot princess or something. Being chased by a hoard of women was nothing like he'd fantasised; it was horrible! The hoard were all alive and they were all teamed up, not one of them willing to attack each other until he was dead.
Neon sobbed, his blood running cold.
The thing was… Neon's sobbing was very loud, raspy and all out filled with blubbering. It made it all too easy for the pack of girls that had doubled back to the earth area to find him and continue the chase. Some would say being chased by four people rather than twelve is much better in comparison.
Some, like Neon, would say any number of people chasing you is horrifying when they all hold swords and spears and furthermore intend to drag the kill out. Neon ran for his life deeper into the dark mine, taking turns at random and having no idea where he was going. All he knew was that these girls weren't sexy, they were sadistic!
The gamemakers, all laughing at the action, deciding to help Neon out. Not out of any sort of compassion – a gamemaker who cares for human life was always a big no-no after all – and moreso because none of the girls would kill each other until Neon died and for the additional fact that Neon bought out a ferocious aggression within the other tributes they'd not bring out of each other. For the sake of ratings the pervert would live a little longer.
All it took was the push of a button to trigger the mine to start collapsing. Neon burst out into the evening light and ran screaming off towards the distant place where Earth met the Fire section of the arena. The girls from Four, Six and Eight followed him all the way there while the girl from Twelve fell behind in the chase.
Hard to keep running when, much like her parents, she'd been crushed in a mine collapse.
Duke tried not to let his feelings of depression and lack of any worth show on his face. Not when he entered 'Martins & Victory: Forever Sweet', or 'MV' as most of the more rebellious victors called it. Harp waved Duke over from her spot by the bar counter, diligently working to count how many sweets were in a jar.
"Hi Duke," Harp said, smiling. "How is, um… you feeling? Sad?"
Harp glanced over at the TV where the screen was divided into twelve, each box showing what one of the top half of the tributes were doing. Not one box showed a tribute from District Twelve.
"I saw it on one of the street screens on the way here," Duke sighed, resigned. "Well, I've gone through this forty one times already. What's a forty second?"
Harp gave Duke a sympathetic, sad sort of smile as she carefully poured out his usual drink – a medium red smoke on the rocks – and looked at what the girl from One was doing.
"So, um… how has you been? Been… doing fine?" Harp asked.
"I'm living," Duke replied, taking a gulp of his drink as soon as Harp passed it over. "Four caps, right?"
"On house," Harp assured him.
"Thanks," Duke took another gulp of his drink. "Harp have you seen Pliny? She's gone missing."
Harp frowned, as if straining herself to think the question over. After a few moments she gave an apologetic sort of grimace.
"Am sorry. Not seen her," Harp replied, returning to counting the candy. "Um… was it, um… sixty… sixty five? …Start over."
Harp sighed as she began counting all over again.
"Tenth time," Harp said, shaking her head. "Not seen Pliny. Never here. Vercing… Verci… uh… Quell winner. He's not here either. Boulder asked."
"Yeah, Vercingetorix is gone too. What's going on here?" Duke could only shake his head, lost. "Ok, where to start with this… where would Pliny go?"
"…Uh… bed?" Harp guessed. "Or here. Often here."
"Perhaps something happened to her on the way," Duke realised. "But what? No crime really happens in the Capitol. Not on the streets anyway."
Harp sheepishly shrugged, having no idea at all. For a while Duke drank and tried to think everything over. A glance at a newspaper told him everything he needed to know.
Kidnapper strikes again. Turn to page ten.
That's exactly what Duke did. It was only a small article, one lacking much in the way of solid evidence. It detailed how twenty two Capitol children had been kidnapped over the previous two years with there being no leads found at all. Duke couldn't help snorting when he read statements of the terrified, miserable families.
"Bit rich of them to cry over their kids being kidnapped when they essentially kidnap ours every year," Duke muttered.
"Children are still children," Harp said, quietly.
Duke realised he could not disagree. It took a while of carefully reading the article before he came across anything useful.
"Always strikes at night. Victims appear to go willingly. No signs of there being any struggles," Duke paused, wondering what this could all mean. "…I'll see you later Harp, I've got some investigating to do."
"Ohhhh, fun. What kind?" Harp asked.
"Hopefully the successful kind," Duke replied. "I just need to think… what would make twenty two kids go willingly… and two victors? Unless the victors didn't go quietly…"
Duke left without another word. Harp watched him go… only to realise she'd lost count of the sweets in the jar once again. With a long suffering groan she restarted yet again.
Two days had been and gone since the gong had rang. As the sun rose on the third day in the arena Neon was struggling not to sob and shudder as he tightly wrapped a bandage around his lower left arm. He'd evaded one of the packs of girls only to run right into another. His legs burnt from exhaustion and his arm throbbed from where the girl from Three had managed to stab him. Only his bigger size and stronger muscles enabled him to throw her to the ground and escape.
Since evading the girls by hopping across stepping stones within a river of lava a single cannon had fired. Neon tried not to think of the sight of the girl from Eleven falling into the lava.
"She was hot… then she was hot… fuck, fuck…" Neon twitched and shivered, hardly aware of what he was saying. "Get me out of here! They're gonna kill me!"
Neon was only able to rest and drink water for another minute or so. The three remaining girls of the nearest pack had found a way around the lava river and Neon's shouts had alerted them to his location. With another shrill scream he was off like a rocket, wailing that it had all 'just been a bit of fun' as the girls began to unsuccessfully throw knives towards him.
The booming of a cannon only made the girls chase their prey all the faster and throw their weapons all the harder. Another girl being dead meant one less to punish this sick pervert.
Across the arena in the water zone the girl from Seven had died from some rather vicious crab mutts. Her allies slaughtered the mutts, vowing to keep the hunt for Neon going strong in her name.
While large screens upon buildings displayed Neon running for his life between flame geysers and leaping across small lava streams Duke was calmly walking down one of the Capitol's many streets. So far his search for clues had come up empty, but a flock of peacekeepers within the area had gathered his attention.
It had to be something big.
"What's going on here?" Duke asked, arriving on the scene only to be blocked by a peacekeeper.
"Stand back. This isn't a place for civilians," the peacekeeper said.
"I am standing back. What's going on?" Duke repeated.
"District citizens don't need to know," the peacekeeper scoffed.
"I know that accent. You're from Two, right?" Duke crossed his arms, unimpressed. "That means you're as much a district citizen as I am, except I'm a victor."
"A weak victor," the peacekeeper snorted.
"Stronger than two of your careers that year," Duke said, undeterred.
"…Fine," the peacekeeper scowled behind his helmet. "It's not a 'crime scene' in the normal sense. No bodies or anything. Just a lot of wreckage – broken trash cans, scattered junk and so forth – and a splash of blood. No idea whose it is. We're just doing clean up."
"Clean up, seriously? Aren't you going to try and catch whoever did this?" Duke asked.
"Not our job to do that. Snow wants the citizens in the capitol to keep living as they are. The existence of things like crime makes that rather hard," the peacekeeper said, already walking away. "Better luck winning next year. Or the year after that… eh, you'll never save anybody."
"Asshole," Duke muttered, turning away to think. "Hmmm… evidence. How to get hold of it before it's taken away?"
Duke glanced around, soon spotting a peacekeeper taking off his uniform and helmet as they went on break. A smirk began to appear upon his face as inspiration struck.
Neon had made a desperate run into the air section of the arena in hopes of evading the girls out for his blood. With nine people out to murder him, no sponsors coming down, pain filling his body, an inability to find a chance to 'relieve' himself in the past week and the fact some wild fruit made him sick… it was no wonder really that he'd been sobbing for hours and hours.
"What do I do, what do I do?" he frantically whispered to himself. "If they find me they'll kill me! I can't fight them all at once!"
Neon decided his only card to play was to keep moving and make it as hard as possible for the girls to reach him. He spent much of the day climbing towards the peak of the mountain, high enough to feel light amounts of dizziness from the thin air.
He remained where he was for several hours, staring blankly towards the increasingly dark sky. All was peaceful, almost to the point he started to calm down.
A mistake for sure, especially as the girls from One, Two and Ten found him when darkness had descended. With a high pitched scream Neon was once again off like a rocket, sobbing and shouting as he ran down the mountain trail with shouts of anger and hatred behind him.
"Kill him! Kill him!"
"Shoot him Chickadee, quick!"
Neon howled as the girl from Ten sent an arrow into his right arm with her crossbow. Not enough to kill, but enough to cause agony comparable to having ones toes roasted on an open flame. Even so, Neon didn't stop running.
He didn't stop running when the girls from Three, Five and Nine met them midway down the mountain, sharp blades in hand.
He didn't stop running when the gamemakers triggered a landslide to heighten the entertainment value.
He didn't stop when two cannons fired and the bodies of the girls from Three and Nine tumbled past him, their bones broken and rocks embedded within their limbs and skulls.
He ran off into the night, howling and crying with blood leaking down his arm. His exhausted foes shouted and yelled insults and threats after him, themselves too tired and somewhat wounded to be able to keep the chase going.
"Is this a punishment?" Neon asked a while later, hiding away in a cove near the sea of the water section of the arena. "Is this for all the groping and teasing? It was only a bit of fun!"
Neon yanked the arrow out of his arm. An instant later his scream echoed through the night.
Duke was amazed at how easy it had been to get the clues into his hands before they got destroyed. It was simply a matter of wearing a peacekeeper uniform and speaking in a gruff voice. Apparently he sounded exactly like one of the generals of the unit, enough so that he was permitted to take the evidence away to dispose of.
Evidence that he had taken into a cheap motel room to analyse further. It hadn't been easy, but over the past few days he felt like he was starting to get somewhere with his investigation. Some things just needed a district mindset to get the job done.
A tiny piece of torn fabric had been on the same outfit Pliny had worn at the parade. A tiny clipping of red hair was surely hers as well. The garbage that lay around did not directly point him to anything in particular. Some of it had surely just been the result of trash cans getting knocked over.
But that did not explain one particular piece of rubbish, too minor to be of much notice to anybody. A gas station receipt with a small speck of blood upon it that had almost fallen down a gutter by the time Duke grabbed it.
The vital clue.
Duke stood beside a scientist in a blood lab deep within the Capitol, still in the stolen peacekeeper uniform, watching over the women as she analysed the blood and the receipt it was stained into.
"So, you're sure you can work out where this came from, and who dropped it?" Duke asked.
"Capitol tech can do anything," the women replied, bored.
"Well, it hasn't helped find Pliny yet. Nor Vercingetorix, or those Capitol kids who went missing," Duke replied, unimpressed.
"…Anyway, the results are done," the women frowned, plucking a paper handout from the machine. "The blood could be one of twenty people. Probably related, or suffering the same contamination."
"Contamination?" Duke repeated.
"They call it garbage fever," the women said, shrugging. "Comes with working with so much trash outside the city limits. Mainly just makes people wheezy, sickly and gross."
The women passed Duke the paper of results and sent him off on his way without any fanfair. Duke, of course, did not need any sort of fanfair.
He'd already gotten something better. Knowledge.
"City limits. Garbage dump," Duke whispered, the pieces coming together in his head. "Pliny's hair… the clothing piece… of course."
Duke took off running down the street like a blur, beelining towards the very distant garbage dump. Despite being a man almost aged sixty he ran like he was a seventeen year old tribute all over again.
He tried to ignore the screens around the Capitol showing the boy from Five doing his own sort of running. Running for his life across a beach filled with crab mutts, several girls in pursuit of him and the girls from One and Ten being torn apart by the crab mutts a distance behind.
Six remained and it seemed that the finale was going to be arriving earlier this year.
Neon felt like he was dead and just hadn't realised it yet. He'd barely been able to sleep, think or get a single moment to himself. Not when there was no sort of peace from danger and death within the arena. Everywhere he went the girls would just follow him around, always with their sharp weapons and threats of gutting him like a pig.
After castrating him first, of course.
Neon was getting far too tired to keep on running as much as he had been. If he slowed to the point they could catch him the Games, and his life, would end. That's what the Games had turned into; one long, horrible, tormenting chase inflicted upon him. At best he only got an hour or two to rest before the girls would find him.
Neon thought the gamemakers were leading them towards him and using the traps to whittle their numbers down until one of them caught him.
He was correct, but hardly cared for this. He just wanted the pain to stop.
Not only had he suffered the prior arrow wound, but that same arm had been clipped by a knife and a thrown tomahawk. That was to say nothing of his left arm that dangled usefully by his side; a nasty armadillo mutt he'd evaded a short time ago in the earth section of the arena had left it broken in three places before he'd gotten away.
Neon knew his screams would attract the girls towards him.
He still did not think he'd done much wrong.
"Why am I being punished?!" he yelled to the nation. "It's not my fault girls are hot!"
It was complete and utter the wrong thing to say. Especially because all five of the remaining girls had been prowling nearby and resumed the chase faster that Neon could say the word 'tits'.
Neon was left to flee towards the air section once again, pleading the gamemakers to set off some kind of a trap. He sobbed and loudly blubbered, wailing that he didn't want to die.
They answered his admittedly embarrassing display in the form of setting off a geyser of boiling water right as the girl from Eight ran over it. Neon didn't hear the canon over his own screeches and screams.
He was more focused on wailing as a knife clipped his broken left arm.
Duke had made it to the city limits after nightfall had arrived. He could only shake his head at the sight before him.
Massive towers of waste, much of it from useless products or tons of food that was left uneaten. A miles wide showing of how wasteful the Capitol and all its excess truly was. Orange fires and thick clouds of smoke billowed to the skies above, never getting any closer towards getting rid of the massive mess.
For one dark moment Duke mused that it'd be a great arena for a Hunger Games, maybe one with Capitol kids.
"No, no, enough out of that," Duke said to himself, shaking his head. "Sooty told you to break that habit. Bad thoughts help nobody."
Keeping his boyfriend's words in mind Duke started to make his way deeper and deeper into the valley of trash. It was where the clues had led him; either Pliny was here… or her body was.
Duke hoped for the former as he passed by a stack of junk that made him have to pause. Sitting amongst the wreckage was a practically brand new pick-axe.
"…Haven't seen you in a while," Duke remarked, hoisting up the tool. "Are you… eyes, you are."
A sort of grim nostalgia filled Duke's eyes as he looked down at the pickaxe in his hands. It had the same scratches on it that he'd etched into it all those years ago back in those canyons.
It was the same pickaxe that had taken out three early careers.
"You served me well once. I think you'll serve me well tonight," Duke gulped as he kept moving. "What a coincidence… and now I'm talking to myself… I'm must be madder than I thought."
Stars began to lightly shine in the darkening sky as Duke kept walking, his ears peaked for any signs of noise.
A cannon fired, ever so loud.
All it had taken was a yeti being unleashed at the base of the mountain for the girl from Six to meet her demise at a pair of nasty, sharp claws. Her screams were left forgotten and mostly unheard by the remaining chasers and the boy they were chasing after.
Especially as they were finally starting to narrow the gap and close in on their prey. It wouldn't be much longer now until Neon was within distance of impalement.
Neon cried for his mother. The remaining three girls had split from each other, ensuring there was no possible way for him to loop around them and flee back to the ground. The only way left was upwards.
Exactly the place a rockslide was coming from. All the screaming had ended up causing enough vibrations to dislodge enough stones for a mass of rubble to come crashing down.
Neon was lucky enough to have not been in its path. The same was the case for the girl from Two and Ivette. Not so much the girl from Four, smashed into a gory mess by the rubble without a chance to get out of the way.
The cannon boomed and the chase continued without the slightest of pauses or interruptions.
Duke had been wandering around the garbage dump for hours in search of his friend. He wanted to call for her, only to hold back in fear that her possible captor would kill her if he tried. No, a stealthy approach was best.
It wasn't stealth that led him to his goal in the end, however.
It was the sound of crying.
Duke crept closer to the sounds beyond the mountains of garbage until he came to a wall of broken bricks. He hoisted himself up to the top, staring out at what lay beyond the wall.
The sight had him holding back a shout of horror. As a victor he knew instantly what was playing out in front of him. For the life of him he just couldn't work out the how and the why.
Twenty four crude pedestals had been set up in a circle around a rusty cornucopia. In a word, the horn made out of wires, sheets of metal and mangy fabric was crap. The supplies within were hardly anything useful; broken knives, shards of glass, rolls of duct tape, half eaten sandwiches, a slice of mouldy cake…
The thing that really had Duke having to fight back the urge to vomit was the source of the crying. Various Capitol teenagers, from young men and women at the age of eighteen to tiny kids at the tender age of twelve, were stuck onto the pedestals by duct tape around their mangled shoes and scratched legs. All howled, sobbed and cried for their parents, pleading for mercy.
"…Children are children," Duke whispered Harp's earlier words, sick at himself for the mere thought of a 'Capitol Games'. "This is wrong. They're just children."
It wasn't long before he noticed that two amongst the crowd were not children at all. Instead they were adults, one a little older than himself and one middle aged. It wasn't even an instant before he realised he was looking at Vercingetorix and Pliny, the former staggering on the spot with a nasty bruise on his head and the latter dazed and confused from her spot between two boys that seemed like they were twins.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the Forty Eighth and a Half Hunger Games!" a nasally voice rang out from nearby. "Get ready for the fun to begin! Fight with courage and honour so that your victory, and sacrifice, will always be remembered!"
Duke spotted the culprit watching from a high point atop a rigging platform. Even from afar he could easily make out the figure of a fairly short, extremely obese man with neon green hair gazing downwards at the tributes. It seemed like his red rags were some half-assed attempt at mimicking the uniform of a head gamemaker.
The kidnapper. Who else but him?
All for the sake of putting on his own personal Hunger Games.
"The countdown begins now! Remember, no moving until one minute has passed!" the man continued, bouncing on his heels and wobbling like a bowl of jelly. "Oh man, oh man, I'm so psyched!"
Duke made his way towards the kidnapper's platform as quickly as he could force his old body to go. He'd only made it halfway there before something else filled the air other than crying and wailing from the youths.
A thud.
Duke peered out from behind the cover of garbage and saw that Vercingetorix, suffering the effects of a nasty concussion – probably from during his abduction – had lost his balance and fallen off of his pedestal.
"Why are you… doing this?" the quell victor managed to choke out.
"No! No! No!" the kidnapper scowled, huffing like a sort of child. "You broke the first rule of the Hunger Games, boy from Two! No moving until a minute has passed!"
Vercingetorix managed to sit himself up and work to rise up to his feet. From there he figured he may be able to grab a weapon and fight his way out of the garbage dump. He'd done more or less the exact same thing nearly twenty five years ago.
He didn't get the chance.
"Boom! Landmines!" the kidnapped yelled, aiming his pistol towards Vercingetorix.
Three shots were wide misses. The fourth hit Vercingetorix right between his eyes. He slumped over in a lifeless heap without another word.
There was no dramatic silence or a moment of everybody being unable to believe what just happened. Instead everybody began to scream and shout in terror.
"Boom!" the kidnapper yelled. "One cannon!"
Duke raced to the platform and began to climb the ladder leading towards the top where the madman laughed at the carnage that was starting to unfold.
The laughter turned into snarls of fury when several of the kids got themselves free from their pedestals and began to run for the lives.
"No, no, no!" the kidnapper yelled, reloading his pistol.
Despite being a poor shot, the children were poor enough runners that it did not take much effort for the kidnapper to kill several of them for 'breaking the rules'. Some ran off into the garbage dump, including the pair of twins, while others were left dead around the untouched cornucopia. Thirteen children and Vercingetorix were dead before Duke reached the top of the platform, red filling his vision.
Pliny was the only one still stuck to her pedestal, unable to break free. Tears ran down her face and her shaken screams for help filled the garbage dump. The sound was enough to strengthen Duke's resolve and worsen his temper.
It was never wise to anger a boy from Twelve.
"You're ruining the Games!" the kidnapper yelled.
"It's about to get a whole lot worse!" Duke shouted.
He lunged, tackling the kidnapper to the ground. In an instant they were rolling around in a fierce battle of fists, feet and raw brutality.
Rain fell upon the mountain and thunder reigned supreme in the sky. A storm had hit the arena of the Forty Eighth Hunger Games and the three remaining tributes were baring the brunt of it.
None moreso than Neon. His body was filled with ongoing agony, he'd pissed himself out of terror once again, the last two girls were edging ever closer with their sharp weapons glinting in the rain and his eyes were aflame from tears.
"I'm sorry!" he wailed. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry! I was just fooling around! I'm sorry! Please!"
"Shall we do the honours?" Ivette asked the girl from Two, panting as she tried to keep up with Neon.
"Gladly," the career girl replied.
But the career girl's gaze swiftly hardened. Only one could live and Neon was clearly looking half dead already. No difficulty in killing him at all. Ivette, meanwhile, was still healthy… well, relatively speaking.
The rockslide that was incoming from ahead would only make the job easier.
"But first, you can get a head start to hell," the girl from Two continued.
In a swift motion she stabbed Ivette in the gut, easily enough to be a fatal wound.
What she had not counted on was Ivette falling forth from her sprinting and crashing right into her. As Ivette lay dying upon her the girl from Two could only helplessly watch as Neon staggered away to the side and off to the peak of the mountain.
She also saw the rubble rapidly approaching her.
She had no time to scream before she was engulfed.
The cannon fired. The trumpets rang out.
Neon was curled up into a ball of pure, unrelenting agony upon the highest peak of the mountain. He didn't make any response to himself being declared as a victor nor to the hovercraft that descended from above to collect him for the long ride home.
He just cowered and cried like a little boy.
Long enough, in fact, that two of the crew from the hovercraft had to descend and physically carry the absolutely broken mess of a victor onto the hovercraft. He was in no shape to do it himself.
Mainly as he was screaming and wailing from the instant he realised the pair who had taken hold of him were women.
In spite of his age and the fact his opponent was at least three decades younger Duke had gained a swift upper hand.
Perhaps due to the fact the kidnapper was morbidly obese. Perhaps due to their childish mentality. Perhaps because Duke had experience in fighting to the death.
Whatever the reason, Duke was upon the man and landed a few hard punches to his face. In moments the kidnapper's nose was bleeding and his forehead had a raw bruise.
"Get off me!" the kidnapper shrieked. "You're ruining the Games!"
"I'm ruining them? You kidnapped a bunch of kids you fucking psycho!" Duke roared. "You killed them!"
The brawl continued without further talking. It was only a few moments before the kidnapper rolled to the side, enough for himself and Duke to fall down below. Duke was knocked into a stupor by landing on the junk while the kidnapper wheezed against the cold, dirty ground.
"Oh fuck… the pain…" the kidnapper spat out bile, continuing to wheeze.
He staggered to his feet, fumbling with his gun. Seeing that it had a few rounds still loaded he pointed it towards Duke, the victor having now lost his peacekeeper helmet in all of the chaos.
"You were always the worst victor," the kidnapper muttered, pouting.
The shot misfired by far, mainly because Pliny had tackled the kidnapper and tried to wrestle the gun out of his hands. Alas, even with her getting on in years she was still rather tiny and was therefore easy for the kidnapper to hurl to the ground.
Pliny gazed up at her wheezing captor as he struggled to breath from an inhaler.
"Why?" Pliny whispered, for once sounding wide awake. "Why are you doing this?"
Pliny began to weakly sob.
"Why? All this death, all this pain… why?!"
"…I just wanted my own Hunger Games. One a year isn't enough," the kidnapper said, sounding almost confused. "Just a bit of fun."
"Fun?!" Pliny screeched. "People died! Real people, innocent people with feelings and people who loved them… they're dead!"
Pliny wept.
"You killed Vercingetorix, you sick freak," Pliny choked out.
"I'm not a freak! I'm Ajax!" the kidnapper huffed. "I'm your biggest fan! Why else do you think I'd bring you here for this opportunity?"
Pliny stared, unable to form any words at all.
"You were always my favourite victor. So cute, so goofy… you made winning look so easy," Ajax continued, his tone soft. "I've watched all of your interviews. Attended all public appearances you've made since I was old enough. You've always been everything to me. But… you never got a chance to show what you were made of in the arena."
Ajax gestured to the bloodbath and the corpses.
"This was all for you. A chance to prove, once and for all, you're the strongest of them all. Strong enough to win a serious fight. Strong enough to win not one, but two Hunger Games!" Ajax exclaimed, giggling to himself. "Nobody would be able to doubt that you're the best victor of them all. I thought you'd love it."
Pliny only stared at Ajax in horror.
"…You murdered children. You killed my friend. You… you bastard!" Pliny screeched, trying to stand back up. A swift punch sent her reeling backwards where she collapsed into a pile of pizza boxes.
"The best victor ever… given the most grand of chances… you don't want to be a double victor…?" Ajax began to snarl, his fat face turning a shade of red. "Fine, you can be just another cannon! Boom! I guess one of the other kids can be the victor then."
Ajax paused again to use his inhaler, aiming his gun right towards Pliny. The short women lay in terror of the weapon point right towards her while her self-proclaimed biggest fan wheezed and sulked.
Neither noticed Duke getting back up from where he'd been knocked prior. He looked afraid.
"No," he whispered.
Duke stood up. He looked cautious.
"No, no, no."
Duke, pickaxe in hand, made a final sprint towards Ajax as the obese maniac put his inhaler away. He looked almost at peace with himself.
"No, no, no!"
"Boom!" Ajax yelled, bitterness in his eyes. "Years of effort wasted!"
A bang filled the area. A horrible splatter followed it not even a second afterwards.
Ajax fell to the ground with a pickaxe buried into his neck, blood showering out from the ghastly wound and rapidly staining his rags. He was dead before he hit the dirt.
Duke fell to the ground, the light in his eyes already starting to fade from the gunshot he'd taken so that Pliny would not have to.
"DUKE!"
Pliny scrambled over to her fallen friend, trying her hardest to stop the blood that flowed from the wound. Duke tried to reach up to put a hand on her shoulder, only to fail due to lacking the energy to even manage that.
Pliny met him halfway, gently holding his hand for him. For a few moments there was nothing beside her soft sniffling and Duke's slow, pained breathing.
"Oh Duke… why?" Pliny whispered.
"I… couldn't let you die…" Duke replied, his face going pale. "Knew I had to do it. Don't… regret it…"
"Please don't leave me," Pliny sobbed. "Please…"
"You're not alone… you have… other victors…" Duke coughed, a few specks of blood coming out from within.
"…But I won't have you," Pliny replied. "…You've always been there for me…"
"…And you with me…" Duke lay himself back, unable to muster the power to even sit up. "…Heh… guess I did save somebody… after all… maybe I was worth something…"
"You're not dying! You hear me? You're not!" Pliny continued to try compressing the wound. "You were always worth something, you were worth more than gold! …You were my friend…!"
Pliny broke, unable to hold her tears back as Duke began to fade away into the nether. He squeezed her hand one more time.
"Cover for me…" he whispered.
"District Twelve will have a victor… I promise," Pliny vowed, hardly able to see past her own tears.
As the victors had been speaking a pair of the surviving children had come out of hiding. Many stayed away, heading out deeper into the wastelands, but the twins approached the dying victor.
Castor and Pollux made it clear how thankful they were for Duke saving them.
They stayed with Pliny as she wept beside her near-dead best friend. Being surrounded by his best friend and two children he had saved made it so that, when Duke took his last breath a mere two minutes later, he was able to pass with a smile upon his exhausted, ghostly pale face.
It was a long time until Pliny stopped crying. A long time indeed.
Neon was a shaking wreck throughout the aftermath of his Games, from the moment he awoke within the Capitol up to the moment he was home. His sheer terror and shaking continued for a long, long time afterwards.
The once deviant sexual harasser had been paid back in full by karma. Once lustful towards all women, his experiences in the elemental arena had reduced him to a sobbing wreck with a severe case of gynophobia. The mere sight of a girl anywhere nearby would cause him to panic and run for cover. All he could think of when he saw a girl was the twelve tributes who chased with, threatened him and left him battered and bloody.
Crying helped dull the pain. Drinking helped it so much more. Neon would grow up be even more of an alcoholic than the likes of Chaff and Haymitch as the years went by.
Haymitch lived.
Chaff died in the name of freedom and opposing evil.
Neon was left out of all rebellious plans. He instead died upon the rocky island around the cornucopia within the quell's arena by the trident of a much more successful flirt.
All he'd wanted to do was end the star crossed lovers' romantic bond. Just the sight of Katniss and the thought of the romance she had been part of in the previous Games was enough to send him into a fit of terror.
Girl were scary!
District Twelve was dealt the worst defeat they'd ever experienced. Normally they only lost two tributes, a bad loss for certain, but this year their mentor didn't come back either.
Not outside of a casket anyway.
The official story of the Capitol was that he'd slipped in the shower and broken his neck. They'd been sure to clear up the evidence really fast and eliminate most of the remaining children. The blame, of course, had been put onto some made-up district criminal. The capitol citizens bought it ever so easily. They hadn't known some deranged fanboy had kidnapped their children nor how he'd worn a stolen, oversized peacekeeper outfit to convince the naïve kids to trust him and therefore follow him.
Vercingetorix's death had been explained away as much the same, only it had been added on that it was a maniac from Six that had done the vile deed. Olga wasn't sure how to feel in response to this, but nonetheless vowed to keep Two strong, keep Six from winning… and privately wondered how the wise Capitol had allowed this tragedy to happen. She continued to puzzle over this throughout Vercingetorix's grand funeral.
Pliny knew the truth. The twins, Castor and Pollux, also knew the truth. Mizar claimed he knew of a safe place they could hide until the heat died down and it'd be safe for them to start living in the Capitol once again.
With nobody else coming alongside her Pliny had returned to Twelve in Duke's place, wanting to be there when the funeral happened and her old friend was laid to rest.
Snow saw no reason to stop this. He'd long thought of the sleepy victor as the most useless of all forty eight – though he'd admit that the newest victor was close to snatching the title for himself – so saw little harm in allowing this.
While Snow prepared for the looming quarter quell Pliny stood within the tribute graveyard of District Twelve.
It was filled with the aura of the dead. With Duke's passing every single tribute from Twelve, all ninety six of them, were now buried within this graveyard.
Rain fell, but Pliny still didn't move from her silent vigil beside Duke's grave. Nobody had come to get her, so she saw no reason to leave just yet.
She'd already made sure to tell the people of Twelve the real story of what happened anyway.
"I'll miss you," Pliny said, yawning softly. "We'll see each other again… but not yet. Not yet. …I'll cover for you in the meantime. The Capitol say Twelve gets no mentor… well fine. I'll be their mentor. One of them will win the Games."
Pliny knelt beside the grave, peering at the words written upon it.
Here lies Duke Saint-Rose.
3/5/11BDD - 11/7/48ADD
Victor of the 6th Annual Hunger Games.
0 tributes mentored towards victory.
The odds were not in his favour.
"I can do better," Pliny said, taking out a hand sized pickaxe.
Pliny soon walked out of the graveyard, huddling her coat over herself. She left behind a new addition to the gravestone, carved by the small pickaxe.
1 Victor saved from murder through bravery, tenacity and sheer heroism.
He was my friend.
- Pliny Aransio
"Rest in peace," Katniss said, starting to walk ahead.
Peeta wasn't sure if Katniss was referring to Neon, Duke or both of them. He settled for staying silent and simply following his girlfriend down the street. He fell even more silent when he saw whose face was the next one imprinted into the sidewalk.
A bald young man gazed back up at them, nothing but fierceness and coldness filling his eyes. He lacked much in the way of features outside of his eyes, but they told more stories of war and violence than many books surely did.
"Brutus," Peeta muttered, an uneasy look in his eyes.
Katniss laid a supportive hand upon Peeta's shoulder.
And there we are, two stories for the price of one! The grim, if darkly comical, tale of the man from Five and the explanation of what became of Twelve's first ever victor. Neon's story honestly just came to me on a fairly silly whim, 'imagine a creep being chased by girls holding swords' and that turned into the story we saw unfold. Duke's tale, meanwhile, is my own answer for a long lasting unanswered canon question. What ever did end up happening to the Twelve winner who triumphed before Haymitch did? In this case, dying to save somebody he cared about. In the end Duke succeeded at what he'd tried at for so long… saving somebody. Hope you guys enjoyed reading the tales in this chapter. But now we look ahead to next chapter… Brutus, a career so powerful and bloodthirsty that he 'couldn't wait to get back in the arena'. What may his story be once we look a little deeper…?
Stats
District 1: Peridot Gaudy (8th Games), Crystal McCree (14th Games), Bronze Marley (19th Games), Crown Martins (24th Games), Dollar Dettwieller (32nd Games), Mascara Court (41st Games), Platinum Twist (44th 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), Dragon Batofel (27th Games), Rhyder Overwhill (39th Games), Mercy Gregor (46th Games)
District 3: Honorius Perthshire (5th Games), Pi Orbit (22nd Games), Beetee Latier (37th Games), Wiress Plummer (47th Games)
District 4: Museida Selkirk (3rd Games), Mags Flanagan (11th Games), Tide Luther (23rd Games), Librae Ogilvy (35th Games)
District 5: Shunt Gaspar (12th Games), Isobel Sparks (18th Games), Crimson Flanders (29th Games), Porter Tripp (38th Games), Neon Erg (48th Games)
District 6: Chassis Macalister (31st Games)
District 7: Pliny Aransio (2nd Games), Fir Buzz (9th Games), Jack Tylos (21st Games), Snag Nakamura (34th Games)
District 8: Woof Casino (16th Games), Paige Murphy (30th Games), Spool Nylon (42nd Games)
District 9: Mizar Aldjoy (1st Games), Gwenith Rosebud (13th Games), Teff Withers (28th Games), Laurel Flamsteel (36th Games), Tabbock Summers (43rd Games)
District 10: Stallion March (26th Games), Lammy Phyronix (40th Games)
District 11: Bear Redfoot (15th Games), Seeder Howell (33rd Games), Chaff Mitchell (45th Games)
District 12: Duke Saint-Rose (6th Games)