Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: Here we go, a rather unique case for a victor – one submitted by a friend! It was a rather unique challenge raised to me; how does one make a completely useless and grumpy tribute emerge as a victor, all while having a place in the overall long term narrative? Rest assured I found a way to make sure it all works. At least, I hope I did. You guys be the judge on whether or not Wattzon's tale is a hit. Regardless, I had fun writing it and I hope you have fun reading it. :)
"So, what's the story with Wattzon?" Katniss asked. "He doesn't look very happy… or strong… or…"
"Yeah, I… guess I can see that," Peeta admitted. "I remember seeing some of this particular Games on the TV during our tour. He scored poorly, was really bitter, never had anything good going on, and yet…"
Peeta trailed off. Katniss patiently waited for him to continue.
"He was really popular in his year," Peeta eventually continued. "Apparently it was an ironic fanbase, whatever that is. He was 'so useless people thought he was amazing' if that makes any sense?"
"Rest assured… it really doesn't," Katniss said, slowly shaking her head. "I don't recall him being spoken of much, not even on Capitol TV."
"It seems that, outside his ironic fans, the novelty died out and people forgot about him," Peeta said, a dismayed look in his eyes. "Guess his Games were just 'one of many' or something."
It was an ironic sort of thing that Katniss and Peeta did not know much of anything about Wattzon. Especially as his own fate had, in a rather strange way, been ever so intertwined with their fate all along. Even from the days before they were born…
55th Annual Hunger Games
Name: Wattzon Holmes
Gender: Male
District: 5
Age: 17
Kills: 1
Useless! Awful! Pathetic!
These were all words that Wattzon had heard pretty much all of his life. To say he was a pariah around Five would be an understatement as even pariah's might find a single person who cares for them and unlocks a somewhat cliché growth story for them to embark upon.
Wattzon had nobody. He was alone. He would spitefully say this was fine, that it didn't matter if everybody hated him because he hated everybody else in return. Fuck the lot of them, who even cared?
The hatred had, rather bizarrely, started from the moment he was born into the world. Mainly because that was the same moment his mother, unable to bear the pain and strain of child birth, had passed away. She left behind a grieving husband and older sibling, both of them bitter and more than fine to take this out on Wattzon.
They raised him, sure. They clothed him, yes. But they did the bare minimum, the stuff any family should do for their young simply because it's the exact right thing to do. Nothing special. Anything beyond the most bare of basics such as love or care was distinctly amiss.
Wattzon only knew what he had done wrong when he was nine. He didn't even remember any of that, only that he'd change it if he could.
He couldn't.
Mainly because, as he would rant to his mentor years later, when he tried to change he only managed to change things for the worst.
He was given a basic job at one of the weaker power plants, ordered to observe the machines and keep everything from overheating. He managed this without issue, taking the steps to shut off all power in his specific sector – Sector 7G -when one of the reactor systems was starting to emit some smoke.
He expected praise for quickly preventing an accident.
He received scorn and more than a few punches because turning off the power had ended up shutting down the electronically powered doors. This had trapped one of his co-workers in a room with noxious gases that had been accidently released. They didn't die, but they'd never be the same again.
He wasn't even able to just walk around the district without causing problems without meaning to. One time a few peacekeepers had made a game out of chasing the fat nerd around and, in his desperation to escape what he thought was an arrest and execution, he accidently led them to several youths vandalising a car.
They were all publicly flogged with Wattzon named as the one who 'did his duty to lead the patriotic peacekeepers to the rebels'.
With no friends, basically no family, constant mockery and hatred wherever he went it was no shock that Wattzon became a miserable and bitter young man, only getting more and more consumed by negativity as the years went by.
His only escape from feeling so bitter was eating, and even then it barely helped, not to mention the food he had in Five was pretty crappy to begin with.
It all added up towards him being a self-proclaimed nihilist and misanthrope by the time he arrived at the reaping for the Fifty Fifth Hunger Games.
Eunicia sat in her fairly bland apartment as she watched the reaping on her television. By the standards of the Capitol it was in pretty poor shape.
She'd stopped caring a long time ago, roughly around the time her daughter had fallen ill with cancer and been taken into hospital. It could be cured, of course, but it was an incredibly expensive procedure for those not of a noble background.
The only way she was going to get the money to have her daughter cured was to make a risky bet on the Hunger Games and have an unlikely outlier emerge as the victor. Nothing else would give her the money she and her little girl desperately needed.
She watched with blank, exhausted eyes as the careers from One and Two mounted the stage with ferocious smirks on their faces. She didn't react as the genius pair from Three, both from well off backgrounds, were reaped for the Games. She similarly remained without any notable change in her expression as two strong dockhands from Four had their names called. The same was true of the girl from Five, an athletic girl who worked in a warehouse.
She sat upright when she saw Wattzon being reaped and mounting the stage. His out of shape form, his hateful gaze, the way he balled his fists bitterly… he was as unlikely a victor as they came.
If he won the Games then her little girl would be saved!
Before Eunicia could ring up the betting office she noticed how several amongst the crowd were laughing and jeering at Wattzon. It was, in a way, similar to the reactions when Neon was reaped years ago.
Unlike Neon, however, Wattzon actually said something in response.
"Fine, laugh! Sneer! Hate me with all you got!" Wattzon shouted, his face turning red. A tear seemed to trickle from behind his glasses. "I hate you fuckers as well! I hope the whole fucking district burns to the ground! I never did anything on purpose you pieces of shit!"
Wattzon ever so briefly shook his district partner's hand when prompted and stormed away into the judgement building, no need at all for the peacekeepers to escort him inside.
As the reapings continued to go by Eunicia couldn't help but feel a lump of sorts forming down in her guts. Down in her soul.
Sympathy.
She placed her bet on Wattzon an hour later, everything she had left going onto it, wondering just what that boy had been through and why he'd lashed out so badly at the jeering crowd.
She hoped he'd be alright.
It was the worst night of Wattzon's life. He'd shut himself away shortly after getting onto the train, having nothing to say to the escort, the mentors or the girl who was reaped for the Games alongside himself.
He just wanted to be alone. It was the only way to be, in his opinion.
Wattzon was given Porter as a mentor for the year, not that he really cared. He already believed that there was simply no way whatsoever that he had any chance of getting out alive, so he saw no reason to waste anybody's time. Not his, not Porter's. Why help a useless, worthless case? It's what he'd heard all his life anyway.
He'd given up before he had even started.
He hardly responded to anybody aside with grunts and bitter growls throughout the parade – he got dressed up like a giant Double A battery – and the first day of training where he spent his time off to the side, sulking.
The careers tried to mock him, of course they did. A grumpy outlier who was all alone and threw a fit at the reaping? An easy target all the way.
Wattzon just put up a finger and told them he'd heard it all before.
"Look, anything you could say to me I've already heard a hundred times," Wattzon replied, dull and bitter. "So just stop wasting my time, and yours, and go training over there you fucking cunts!"
The careers vowed payback for the insults in the arena but nonetheless cut their losses and left the area. Nobody went near Wattzon for the rest of the day. He was fine with this.
Really, he didn't care if everybody hated him and wanted him dead. He didn't.
Not much…
He'd originally not even wanted to go to training for the second day, but Porter proved to be quite a convincing mute and so Wattzon was soon back down to try and pick up more skills. He didn't want to try at all, but… dammit, he couldn't deny that his mentor seemed to genuinely have some bare basic level of care for him.
It felt nice.
Nice enough for him to at least try to learn how to set a fire. He'd never much liked the cold. He just hoped the careers would just stay the hell away this time.
They did. But the little boy from Nine did not.
"Wat'cha doing?" the boy asked, standing beside Wattzon as the older, grumpier tribute worked on the fire.
"Making a fire. Piss off," Wattzon muttered.
"Oh, ouch? That wasn't very nice," the boy said, a hand over his heart. "My heart's breaking right now."
"I'm amazed it took twelve years for it to break. Panem's an awful place full of awful people, most have their hearts broken sooner," Wattzon said, not even looking at the small boy.
A few moments went by in silence as Wattzon continued to unsuccessfully work on the fire set-up.
"Why are you still here?" Wattzon asked.
"Well… look, nobody my age has ever won. The others are all pretty scary to be around… I thought maybe we could work together," the boy replied, awkwardly shrugging. "What do we have to lose?"
"Our lives," Wattzon said, still failing at getting anywhere with the fire.
"We'd lose them anyway if we were alone," the boy replied.
Wattzon was unable to make the boy go away and eventually relented, insisting it was just to make him shut up, nothing more. The boy from Nine, Trevy, was all smiles and eager to have an older tribute as his ally. He followed Wattzon like a far smaller shadow of sorts, helping him with training, avoiding the others and anything Wattzon grumbled to him.
Wattzon assumed that Trevy just wanted him as a meatshield, but played along anyway. The kid was alright, whatever his intention was. If one of them did make it out then it would hardly be the worst outcome.
Wattzon's mood plummeted again when the scores were revealed. Trevy had managed a three while Wattzon had only gotten a two after his particularly hopeless and haphazard private training session.
His odds were by far the lowest, a pitiful 50-1.
He wept that night, not that he'd ever admit it. He'd tell anybody who asked that he knew he wasn't worth his own damn tears.
Eunicia watched the interviews from within a hospital room, her little girl laying in a deep and gloomy sleep on the bed she was seated beside. It was hard to keep hope alive in her heart as, even with Wattzon being the only tribute whose win would give her the money she needed, it was pretty clear that he was very unlikely to last particularly long in the arena.
His score was abysmal and he appeared very grumpy at all times. He needed a good interview or he was as good as dead.
After nine particularly good interviews before him the expectations were slightly higher than the norm as he entered the stage and sat down bitterly in the chair beside Caesar.
All the expectations were promptly dashed.
"Who cares how I'm feeling?" Wattson asked, his arms crossed. "We all know I'm gonna be dead one way or another and you're all gonna cheer when it happens. Just skip me, there's no point to this."
Caesar, of course, was a professional when it came to dealing with uncooperative tributes. It wasn't easy by any means, but with enough prodding and poking at Wattzon's brain he managed to get at least the bare minimum out of him.
Enough for the audience to feel depressed and hoping that the girl from Six would be better in comparison. Wattzon ranting about his failure of a life, his inability to live without making others suffer and the fact his own worthless self was the trade for his mother's life didn't exactly make for riveting television. It only served to make people feel bad.
Eunicia especially felt bad. In most years she didn't pay much mind to the tributes lives before they were reaped. It just hadn't factored into anything.
Now here she was, horrified by how miserable this boy's existence had been since he was born. The crippling hatred for the world and his self-loathing were severe, so much that it was alarming her. This had nothing to do with the vital bet.
He was a boy who badly needed help. He needed a friend of some kind.
As the interviews went by Eunicia couldn't help but wonder just how many other tributes came from miserable existences like Wattzon so clearly did.
It was a relief when Trevy proudly proclaimed that he and Wattzon were allies, making sure to hype up and compliment his ally. It was strange, Eunicia thought, that he was talking more about his ally than himself. Caesar did manage to ask Trevy what his plan was.
Trevy just gave a mischievous sort of smirk, like he was a kid who knew something nobody else did. No pick pocket had ever looked quite so sly.
"Nobody will be able to kill me if they cannot find me," Trevy said, winking.
The interviews came to an end soon enough. On the one hand Eunicia was becoming very attached to Wattzon and hoped he would win, both for her daughter's sake and his own.
On the other hand his odds had decreased to 70-1.
Eunicia turned off the TV and paced around the hospital room. One look at her little girl had her wanting to burst into tears. She'd put everything on this bet, everything on the tiniest chance things might be alright.
She should have known it was foolish. Not only was she feeling awful for her own kid, but she now felt awful for another kid too.
The ironic fanbase that had started to form around Wattzon, all of them memeing across Capitol social media about his legendary uselessness did not remotely cheer her up.
Wattzon decided to spend what he thought would be his last night alive upon the roof of the tribute building. He figured he may as well enjoy the sight of the night sky one last time, as what the fuck else was there to do other than sleep and have miserable dreams?
An hour went by before footsteps approached from behind him.
"If you're a career get lost and get fucked," Wattzon muttered. "If you're not a career… whatever, get fucked anyway."
"What if I'm an ally?" Trevy asked, sitting down beside Wattzon.
"…Alright, fine, I guess you can just… sit around for a bit or something," Wattzon said, knowing that he'd be unlikely to make Trevy leave.
The pair sat silently for a while. It was a while of star gazing before Trevy said anything more.
"Hey Wattzon?" he began.
"Yeah? What?" Wattzon replied.
"If anything happens to tomorrow… don't give up, ok?" Trevy looked at Wattzon with wide, sad eyes. "Don't just let them kill you."
"Whether I give up or not the outcome is the same," Wattzon replied, shrugging. "That's just how it is."
"Is it? Come on, you have to try. If you don't try you'll always lose," Trevy insisted, rising to his feet. "C'mon, give it a try. Try to live!"
"…I guess I'll try, maybe. Hard to care much when the world hates me and I hate the world," Wattzon muttered, closing his eyes. He didn't want to show any hurt or pain.
"I don't hate you," Trevy replied, sincere. "You're cool. You're all edgy and stuff. I like it."
"…Seriously?" Wattzon said, bewildered.
"Uh huh. What's not to like?" Trevy asked, giggling. "Just remember Wattzon, you gotta have hope. Hope's a good thing, maybe the best of things... and no good thing ever really dies."
Wattzon wasn't quite sure what to say in response to that.
The pair sat on the roof for an hour or two longer, both making plans for the next day. Wattzon was conditioned to doubt a single plan would succeed, but he held back the worst of his attitude for Trevy's sake.
He'd only just learnt the kid actually did not hate him. He didn't want to blow it right afterwards. As they continued to talk and make plans Wattzon couldn't help but notice something.
Trevy wasn't quite looking him in the eye like he had been during the previous days of the week. It was almost like he was hiding something. A secret, maybe?
"Something on your mind?" Wattzon asked, raising a single eyebrow.
"Just one thing," Trevy said, putting on a perky sort of grin. "I believe we can do this… but if one of us falls, the other can't give up, ok? I mean it, they can't give up. They have to keep fighting and living! Even if they think the world hates them."
Wattzon went to bed feeling very conflicted. He wasn't even scared of his particularly likely death, moreso just unsure what to feel more of.
Mild relief that one kid out there thought he was alright to be around and 'edgy', whatever that was… or a sort of suspicious confusion that Trevy just wasn't telling him something.
It didn't help that Trevy was oddly silent for the entire hovercraft ride to the arena the next morning.
Had he, per the norm, said something dumb and turned another person against him?
Eunicia's daughter was getting weaker by the day. Eunicia herself could hardly bare to watch her poor child nor the Games about to start on the TV screen within the hospital room.
Wattzon's death would in turn assure the death of her own child. His odds and score were pitiful.
She felt like she was going to throw up.
The tributes either sweated or shivered depending on what side of the semicircle of launch pedestals they were on. The left half of the arena was a frozen forest with a few grand lakes and glaciers. The right half of the arena was a scorched wasteland of steam geysers, lava and endless fire. Whether hot or cold the fact as that most tributes were already suffering from the heat, or lack thereof.
The gong rang and, as Eunicia's heart pounded horribly, the tributes lunged off their pedestals. It was make or break time.
She kept her eyes firmly on Wattzon's pudgy form as he scooped up supplies from close to the pedestals, most of them of a fairly questionable value. The careers may have hated his attitude, but none deemed him as a worthwhile target to go for right away. They believed he was absolutely useless.
The boys from Six and Seven and the girls from Four and Eleven were far more worthwhile targets, the screams of the quartet filling the air until the sudden moment they didn't. Eunicia lightly flinched when the boy from Two slit the throat of the boy from Six, but quietly reminded herself it was only to prevent even worse death and bloodshed.
Nobody wanted a repeat of the dark days, the very thing the Games guarded them from facing.
She watched as Wattzon barely dodged out of the way of the boy from One's throwing knives, the knife going on to stick right into the gut of the boy from Twelve. Eunicia yelled and shouted, urging Wattzon to flee while he still had the chance.
Before he could make a run into the expanses of the arena his eyes locked onto Trevy. Wattzon was too far away and far too late to be able to prevent him from running right at the girl from One, a knife in hand.
One slash of a sword and he fell down dead, not making a single sound even as he bled out.
Eunicia watched as Wattzon's face twisted into a look of fury and pain, like he wanted to unleash the most vile and hateful of words upon the careers. With the crowd at the cornucopia quickly swindly, whether from tributes being dead or successfully evacuating the area, it was far too dangerous for him to remain and try anything.
Wattzon held back a tear and ran off towards the lava side of the arena, his pace clunky and awkward. Only the fact the battles raged on at the cornucopia prevented anybody trying to take an easy toss of a spear or knife towards him.
Eunicia's eyes were practically glued to the screen as Wattzon ran past steam geysers and lava fissures, clutching an armful of low value items – a thin square meter blanket, an empty water bottle, a coil of wire, a tiny wrapping of three cheese squares and so on – and wheezing badly. As he ran for his life the cannons began to fire.
Nine cannons for nine eliminated tributes.
The betting odds board was quickly adjusted – Wattzon was dead last with odds of 52-1 of winning – and the reaction of those in the districts was broadcast, whether it was relief of a tribute still being in the Games or sobbing over a tribute losing. Eunicia knew it was always a shame when a tribute's fans were left disappointed.
But the strangest reaction was of Wattzon's father and brother. They'd seen the entire bloodbath from start to finish, but they didn't give away any emotion. No fear, no unease, no relief, no cheering, not even a faint look of concern… there was nothing at all. They just exchanged a shrug and muttered something inaudible, clearly not caring about what was happening on screen.
It was bad enough to not care for one's child, but to not care when they were in such an admittedly dangerous high stakes competition? It left Eunicia absolutely lost as to what the hell was wrong with them.
Didn't they care that, despite being predicted as the first to die, Wattzon had managed to survive the bloodbath unscathed and had already reached the top fifteen?
Eunicia glanced at her dying little girl, her heart aching. It was terrible to consider that people didn't care for their children. She knew she'd do anything for her little girl. Risking debtors prison, or worse, if her bet did not work out was a small price to pay if it was truly the only way to keep her alive.
Wattzon spent the first night hidden away amongst a large cluster of boulders. He was hot, tired and incredibly overcome with a seething sort of loathing for everything… he was also feeling hopeless more than anything else.
His ally Trevy was dead, gone without a word or even a sound.
He was all alone in the arena.
The only person who seemed to care about him was dead and hadn't even said a word to him on the flight to the arena.
"I drove him away, of course I did. I must have said some other stupid shit. I mean, why not right? Everybody else hates me! Why the fuck would a kid like Trevy be any different?!" Wattzon leapt up and started to pace around as dawn broke over the arena. "I've tried to change my fucking everything so many times… when others change they change for the better! When I change, I just change for the worse!"
Wattzon was seething by now as he stormed around what had been his campsite for the night. So bitter and rancid was his mood that he didn't notice he wasn't exactly alone anymore.
"Are you laughing, Five?! Are you having fun watching me in this hellhole?!" Wattzon screeched. "I bet you are, you rotten bastards! I never meant to be useless! I didn't mean to make mom die! I… I didn't mean to be me!"
Wattzon ducked down to punch the ground. It was indeed lucky that he had, as the throwing knife that had been aimed for his neck sailed harmlessly overheard. Wattzon took one look at where it had came from. An instant later he was off as fast as he could force his out of shape body to move.
The career pack had found him.
Wattzon panted, wheezed and cursed. Of course he'd be foolish enough to rant and forget how dangerous doing so in the arena was, of course he would! Part of him wanted to just give up and get it over with.
The other part of him wanted to keep running and tire the careers out a little bit out of sheer spite.
The boy from One was the fastest runner and kept pace the easiest, even with Wattzon having a thirty meter head start. It wouldn't be long until he caught up with his prey.
Or it wouldn't have been had Wattzon not ran right into the girl from Eight as she exited a cave at the base of a scorched cliff. They both fell down but Wattzon got up faster, running for his life.
He began to curse himself over and over once again as he wearily ran off, the screams of the girl from Eight swiftly fading behind him. Just like back home he'd lured danger towards the innocent, this time enough danger to have somebody killed.
Spite and, in his own opinion, cowardice prevented him from just turning back and laying down to die.
Wattzon managed to, for a time, evade the careers. After an hour of trying to get his breath back he was reduced to stumbling along, lightheaded as could be, towards the central line of the arena.
The line where fire became ice.
Eunicia watched in despair as her daughter grew ever sicker. It wouldn't be long until cancer claimed her from the world. Two weeks and that was it claimed the doctors. They would be able to heal her up ever so easily, practically in half an hour, with the latest technology.
But they wouldn't do a thing without cold hard cash. Cash that would only come from Wattzon's victory. Even then, if this Games ended up being as long as the Ninth or the Forty Fourth were then it would be a victory that came far, far too late.
So far it was the fifth day in the arena and eleven tributes were still alive. Many were scattered around the lava side of the arena and the tundra, while the careers were clustered together as always.
Wattzon was something of an irregular factor compared to the rest. He didn't explore or hide, he mainly ran for his life. The career pack was often hot on his trail, all too eager to slaughter the one who had given them such vicious attitude back in the training centre.
Wattzon was quite good at evading them. Mainly because he was even better at accidently luring the pack towards other tributes who were simply unlucky enough to be there at the time. It always ended with Wattzon fleeing further into the depths of the arena while the careers butchered whoever Wattzon happened to lead them to.
Caesar and Claudius were quick to comment on what they saw as Wattzon's brilliant plan as the days went by. Claudius called it one of the most clever, cold and calculated plans he'd ever seen in the arena and gave his full approval. Caesar mused that Wattzon had put serious work into making himself appear as a completely worthless loser before the Games began and declared him as a dark horse to watch out for. The boy was a genius!
Eunicia could see the torment in Wattzon's eyes as he stumbled around through the tundra side of the arena. The guilt was eating away at him particularly badly, this 'master plan' seeming like it was just a series of complete flukes.
Flukes that were only making him feel more and more awful about himself.
She had to leave her daughter eventually, simply because work demanded she come in lest her job be taken away. But even work was no escape from her worries, her anxiety or her panic. Not when her co-workers kept talking about the Games.
Wattzon was popular amongst the others who worked in the computer labs of the fashion house – they were, after all, the research division – and they kept going on and on about him.
They were memeing him!
All of her work mates knew full well that Wattzon was useless beyond compare… and they loved that about him! They would chatter on and on about how epic he was for being unable to do much of anything. It was like the newest game was to talk about his failures and mishaps like they were the grandest of historic accomplishments.
Indeed, Wattzon somehow managed to stub his entire left foot upon the only frozen rock for miles. This sheer moment of failure left him howling and screaming, hopping around on one foot and cursing like a sailor for a whole minute.
It became five minutes when Wattzon's hopping ended with him stepping on a few newly spawned rocks that were made to resemble two by four Panem bricks. The sheer fact this occurred had even a few of the gamemakers cringing. Eunicia could hardly stand the sight.
Her co-workers, meanwhile, simply called this an even more epic moment of fail than normal and began to holler and hoot their approval for their 'useless king'.
Eunicia eyed her tribute on the office TV with sympathy and her co-workers with disdain. Stepping on Panem bricks was not funny!
Her disdain became terror when the career pack closed in on Wattzon once again. The seemingly endless chase resumed with Wattzon cursing up a storm the whole way.
Wattzon could only groan as he lay in a heap on the ground where the snow met the scorched ground of the lava side of the arena. It was the eighth day of the Games and things had gotten far past the point of merely sucking a whole lot.
Wattzon was out of food and the only water he had was made from melted snow. Suffice to say, it tasted poorly. He lay in pain, knowing no sponsors were coming and that the careers would surely find him again before long.
He was starting to think the careers were not even trying to kill him anymore, at least not quite with quite so much effort. The boy from One was clearly running far slower than he was normally capable of doing in spite of lacking any injuries.
It would make sense. Wattzon had already accidently led them to six tributes ever since they had first started chasing him. If they killed him then they'd lose the very thing that was giving them such an easy time.
Wattzon hated himself even more for the fact that, despite his best efforts and how it was truly not intentional, he was helping the careers kill everybody. Their blood felt like it was soaked upon his hands, not those of the careers.
It made him sick.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Wattzon practically clawed at his own face, tormented. "I didn't mean it, I never meant for it to happen. Fuck!"
Wattzon slowly sat himself up. For a few moments he blankly stared into the abyss of nothingness. After that he began to angrily chuck pebbles as far as he could make them go… so, not very far.
"Why does this keep happening?" Wattzon shouted. "Why! Can't! I! Stop! Getting! People! Killed?!"
It, naturally, was not long until Wattzon's shouting lured the career pack over towards him once again. He was off like a bullet once again, or at least as fast as he could force his body to stumble along.
Wattzon made sure to keep a very close eye out for any sign of other tributes. This time he was not going to lure the careers towards anybody else. This time would be different!
In a way it was. He didn't so much lure them towards a tribute as a tribute, the boy from Three, made a charge towards him with a knife in hand.
Wattzon desperately tried to made him go away before he got himself killed but the end result ended up being basically the same. The boy ran forwards, somehow missed Wattzon and ended up in range of the spear held by the girl from Two.
Wattzon pulled away once again, at least for a short while, and began to twitch in self-fury. Indeed, the loathing for literally everything that filled his mind and soul was starting to make Wattzon practically foam at the mouth.
"I… I…" Wattzon seemed to stop twitching, the light and the fire within him both going out all at once. "…I give up… fuck it, maybe if I just lay down and die nobody else is going to die because of me."
Wattzon wandered off aimlessly into the arena, searching for a perfectly good spot to lay down and let the inevitable take him away.
It was a week and half since the Games had started. Eunicia was getting frantic, her daughter becoming ever weaker. It was not going to be long now until she was taken away by the cancer that tainted her body. She remained by her in the hospital, refusing to leave her little girl's side.
Her only hope was Wattzon's victory and now of all times the boy had just laid down, like he was accepting his fate. He simply lay on the snow at the centre of a field not far from where the ice land met the lava land, blankly staring at the sky.
He'd not moved in over a day.
He hadn't even moved when a feast had been called a mere three miles north of his current location. The other six tributes had attended, all ready to fight for supplies. Eunicia winced as she recalled how the girls from Three and Nine worked together to slit the arms and throat of the boy from Two and how the other careers had cut them both down not even two minutes later.
Wattzon kept laying immobile, a non-factor as the remaining careers battled it out at the feast. With such a useless final opponent they saw no reason to keep their alliance together. Breaking the pack early could cost careers dearly, but with Wattzon being Wattzon none of them saw a scenario where he could realistically beat them.
It was a long, bloody and savage battle but in the end the boy from One had managed to overpower this allies and gut them both. He laughed, assured of his victory, as he began to reap the rewards of the feast.
Among those rewards was a suit of thick metal armour. The perfect protection from what little Wattzon might have been able to do.
"Come on Wattzon," Eunicia pleaded, almost tearful. "Come on, please get up."
Alas, Wattzon did not get up. He seemed to have bathed himself in hatred and defeat, content to not move again for the rest of his likely limited time alive.
Caesar and Claudius pondered the idea of this being just another clever plan, one to lull his last opponent into a state of false security. A classic way to trick the career into lowering his guard before a sudden strike.
Eunicia saw it as Wattzon almost crossing the so-called despair event horizon and not caring what became of him anymore.
"Mommy…" her daughter choked out. "Hurts…"
"It won't hurt for much longer, dear," Eunicia whispered.
Eunicia was right. If Wattzon won then the cure could be given. If he lost then the pain would end… permanently.
Wattzon had no idea how much time had gone by, only that it had felt like an endless journey through the ether of time since he'd laid down. He didn't care what happened to him anymore.
Would death and dismemberment greet him if he did not move from the icy ground soon? Perhaps. He just inwardly shrugged as if to say 'so be it'. He couldn't find it in him to care anymore.
It was hard to care when everybody hated him and he had nothing to go home to. What was the point.
The point was the deadly tip of the serrated sword the boy from One was carrying, having finally spotted Wattzon. Survival instincts took over and suddenly Wattzon decided he rather liked the idea of living a bit longer.
Certainly a better thing than being chopped up by that sword!
"Fuck, fuck, fuck!" Wattzon yelled in panic, trying to escape his killer. "Aw shit!"
The boy from One was no longer playing around. Not when there was only one person left to go and it was the hands down weakest and most useless tribute in the arena. The only thing that slightly slowed him down was his heavy armour.
Not that he minded this. He could handle the weight and knew that Wattzon was likely to tire out before he did.
Wattzon hadn't been far from the border between ice and fire, swiftly exiting the colder half of the arena and entering the hot half. Lava was bubbling, smoke filled the sky and fire blasted out from geysers and cracks in the ground. It was enough to have Wattzon sweating and wheezing in seconds.
It made the boy from One feel the pressure of the heat as well.
There were not many places Wattzon could run to beyond scorched open terrain. Places where he'd be caught and horribly cut apart soon enough. Wattzon instead ran for the only landmark he could see, hoping that a brief change in terrain may help him get ahead of the deadly career.
Wattzon ran over a bridge above burning lava, cursing and yelling in a fit of panic. It was agony on his tired legs to keep moving, leading him to finally kneel over at the far side of the bridge. He expected that death would greet him perhaps ten seconds later, tops.
It didn't.
He turned, wondering if he had managed to somehow lose the boy from One in all the running.
He hadn't.
The boy from One staggered towards him, groaning and wheezing in pain. Wattzon had no idea what was going on as the mighty career stumbled towards him one step at a time. He only knew that the boy looked to be in great pain.
Enough pain to collapse face down on the bridge, hardly able to move. All the career seemed able to do was choke and gasp.
A glance at the way the metal armour was starting to glow a faint shade of orange told Wattzon all he needed to know. Metal conducted heat. So much heat in this case that his opponent had been left dehydrated and in too much pain to be able to get back up to keep the chase going.
Wattzon didn't waste any time. He stumbled over to the fallen career and awkwardly kicked him right in the side. He almost fell over from the effort of doing so, only barely stopping himself from falling on his ass.
It was embarrassing, but still preferable to what became of the boy from One, Namely, the kick being just enough to knock him over the edge of the bridge and into the lava down below.
The nation of Panem was stunned into absolute silence as the cannon boomed throughout the arena. They could hardly believe what they were seeing.
Frankly Wattzon was having trouble believing it as well.
Somehow, someway, one of the most useless tributes who had ever entered the Games had just won. A tribute whose victory was even more unlikely than those of Gwenith, Crown, Paige and Lammy. Only Snag's seemed more unlikely… well, it had before the first minute had gone by anyway.
Nobody had foreseen Wattzon bumbling his way towards victory.
Wattzon had never seen it coming.
Regardless, that was what happened. Nothing remained of the boy from One to send home in a casket while Wattzon was still in a stunned silence as he was taken out of the arena by the hovercraft.
He was so stunned that he was not cursing or even showing signs of bitterness and guilt. He was completely shellshocked beyond the point of being able to utter a single word.
Many miles away the money awarded from the winning bet was transferred into Eunicia's bank account.
Wattzon stood in the after-party of the Games, sulking. He'd survived and he didn't even feel happy about it. How could he? Plenty of kids who had people who cared about them were dead and many of them had been his fault.
His kill count may have officially been counted as just one, but he knew it was a lot more than that in reality.
He eyed the Capitolites in disgust, utterly revolted by the way they laughed, chattered mindlessly, gorged on food and then drank vomit cola to spew it out and keep eating.
He thought they were freaks, almost as much as he believed himself to be.
Eventually Wattzon decided he wanted to get away from the whole thing. Just as many victors of years gone had done he stormed off to find an empty balcony far away from all of the party goers. It took longer than he wanted, but sure enough he managed to find what he was looking for.
His peaceful respite only lasted two minutes before somebody came out to join him.
"Ok, I'm done keeping myself quiet. Frankly Snow can do whatever the fuck he wants to Five, they never did anything but hate me anyway," Wattzon muttered as he turned to the woman who walked out. "I'll make this nice and easy for you to understand, ok? Fuck. Off. I'm not in the mood to talk to anybody."
"What?" the woman stumbled over her words, incredibly taken aback. "But I… I…"
"I have nothing but contempt for you people, betting on the lives of children and cheering over murder. You're all sick," Wattzon spat, turning away. "Twenty three good people died. The only one who didn't was me… somebody nobody would've missed. That's what I've been told all my life."
Wattzon leaned against the balcony railings, sighing.
"I don't care what you wanted from me, but I'm not interested. I just want to be alone," Wattzon muttered. "I've done enough damage. I don't want to start ruining even more lives. I already ruined a ton and now they're making memes about me being useful. Just…"
Wattzon sighed again, unable to find the words he needed.
"Just go," Wattzon said, blankly. "My victory helped nobody, it-."
"It did!" the woman, Eunicia, exclaimed. "That's what I came out here for Wattzon. I wanted to thank you."
This got Wattzon to turn around, a taken aback sort of look on his face.
"Thank me?" he said, stumped. "…For what?"
"You saved my little girl," Eunicia whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. "I bet everything I had left on your victory. You being alive means she got the cancer treatment she needed."
"…Wait… what…?" Wattzon said, stunned.
Eunicia went on to explain it all. How her little girl had caught cancer at such a cruelly young age, how much money had gone into keeping her cared for yet unable to cure her, how she'd watched over Wattzon every step of the way in the arena… and how bad she felt for him when it became all too clear how nobody cared for him.
"You've had it rough. Very rough," Eunicia's words were slow, like she was unsure if she should even be saying them. "But I care about you. You saved my daughter… to me, you're a hero."
"…A hero?" Wattzon stammered, hardly able to believe somebody was talking to him, not hating him and didn't seem like she was going to die any day soon.
"A true hero," Eunicia said, quickly nodding. "There's somebody else who wants to meet you as well. Somebody who refused to go to bed on time and insisted on coming here to say thank you. She always did get her politeness from me."
Eunicia turned to the doorway. A small figure watched from the other side of the doorframe, partly hidden with a blonde wig upon her bald head given away by the light.
"Effie dear? Would you like to meet Wattzon?" Eunicia Trinket asked, gently.
Effie didn't say yes. What good was that when running to Wattzon and tackle hugging him was a much better way of getting her point across? She embraced the victor, standing on the tips of her toes to try and come at least halfway towards matching his height.
"Thank you Mr Holmes," Effie whispered, sincerely grateful. "You saved me."
"It's been hard since my husband left… you kept my daughter with me. You kept our family together," Eunicia continued. "I know you didn't know it at the time, but you've made such a difference to us. I'm not sure we can ever repay you. I just hope that-EEP!"
Wattzon, manly tears pouring from his eyes, had quickly pulled Effie and Eunicia into a tight hug. He didn't let go of them for a even a second, as though he never wanted the moment to end. Effie eagerly hugged him back while Eunicia could only watched in wonder at this all new side of the most bitter of the victors.
"Thank you," Wattzon whispered, practically shaking.
"For what?" Eunicia asked. "You're the one who deserves to be thanked."
"That's just it," Wattzon said, sniffling. "Thanks for thanking me… for making me feel, at least for now, like I'm worth something. That somebody doesn't hate me."
The hug went on for quite some time, nobody wanting to be the one who ended it.
The train pulled out of the Capitol early the next morning and sped off towards District Five. At the time the train was around halfway towards the victor's district Wattzon was grinning in barely contained glee.
President Snow, meanwhile, was howling in absolute fury.
There had been a historic disaster before the Games had even begun, one that officially nobody aside from Snow and his inner circle were allowed to know about or speak of.
All the facts were spelt out within a letter that the aging first victor, Mizar, had given to Wattzon before he left the Capitol. A letter Trevy had given to Mizar with a request to 'give it to Wattzon if he wins, and burn it if he loses'.
Mizar handed it over, hoping whatever was written inside would bring Wattzon some form of closure about his former ally.
It did.
-Dear Wattzon.
If you're reading this then I am dead. I've been cut down, left the world and joined the choir invisible. Please don't forget about me. :(
Just kidding! I never went into the arena to begin with. Get this; there was an avox on the District nine floor who looked just like me. The poor guy didn't want to live any longer and we agreed to swap places. I don't know what he did, but I wasn't about to say no to escaping the Capitol. He'll be going in my place and making sure the careers don't get too near you at the start. So, whoop!
It's eight hours until the Games start as I write this. In one hour the switch is going to be made and I'll be leaving the city through the sewers. No biggie, I live in the sewers back home anyway. Best place for a street thief to hide. I'll be wishing you the best of luck and hoping, someday, we can meet each other again. I thought you were pretty cool.
See you later Wattzon and, if you ever feel all edgy and upset, just remember… a twelve year old outsmarted the Capitol. Haha!
Yours with smugness
Trevy Vex-
Wattzon smirked and let out a loud, genuine laugh. It was just as he'd known all along, twelve year olds were sneaky bastards. He hoped to one day meet Trevy again, if only to praise him for how much this was sure to piss off President Snow. He wished he could see the man's face.
Hundreds of miles away in the Morgue where the avox's body had been kept President Snow's face was certainly quite a thing to behold. Red face, near animalistic snarls and nothing short of pure black hatred in his eyes… it was like the spirit of Orion had came on by for one final rampage.
The Capitol was in absolute chaos. The last thing they had seen was Katniss firing an arrow at the forcefield, a massive explosion and then everything shut down. It hadn't taken long for it to progress from the citizens of the Capitol complaining about the power cut and demanding the Games be put back on for it to 'accidentally' leak out that a rebellion had began and war was declared.
From that point on a city wide panic had been only inevitable. Crowds of colourful people with feathers, wings, scales and more were running helter and skelter, screaming and shouting like maniacs.
Several victors had already died after the peacekeepers stormed the mentoring room, but some had made it out before it was too late, Haymitch among them. No mentors had been confirmed deceased yet, but it was a fair bet that by morning at least five would be gone from the world.
Wattzon was not among them.
Due to Neon dying first of everybody and Arendellian III having been taken out by a tidal wave – he'd allowed himself time to weep over the death of the women he considered his surrogate little sister – Wattzon had been nowhere near the mentoring room when the shit hit the fan. He'd hardly known about what was coming, actually.
But he did know that an avox in the club he was drinking at just so happened to look rather like him.
As the city wide rumble went on nobody paid attention to a manhole cover at the outskirts of the evil city. Nobody saw as the cover was thrown away and a figure climbed out from within in an avox uniform. Nobody saw the figure making a run into the mountains that surrounded the Capitol.
Nobody noticed Wattzon had successfully made his own escape from the carnage through the sewers.
"Holy shit," Wattzon muttered, coming to a stop atop a tall cliff that overlooked the Capitol. "I knew that girl was a rebel, but shit!"
Wattzon allowed himself a few minutes to catch his breath. He hoped that Crimson would be alright, his poor fellow mentor having last been seen heading off towards the east of the Capitol, allegedly to collect a dress of all things. He especially hoped Clarkson was going to be alright back home in Five. If his husband died he wasn't sure what he'd do.
He didn't want to imagine what might happen to his psyche if Eunicia and Effie were dead. He could only hope that they'd be overlooked. Eunucia was as much a rebel as he was an idealist. Not even slightly.
Just as he was starting to move on a spotlight shined down on him. He recoiled in alarm, falling backwards onto his ass.
"There he is!" a voice exclaimed, one without any trace of a Capitol accent.
A helicopter descended to the ground from above – a rather crudely painted on at that – and a lanky young man leapt off of it when it came close to the ground. The shaggy haired man, sporting several tattoos, made his way over to Wattzon.
Wattzon took one look at the pair of assault rifles he was carrying and assumed the worst.
He didn't expect to be tossed one of the guns and offered a hand.
"Different year, different Games and we're still in a bit of a mess together," the man said, a glimmer of joy in his eyes. "It's good to see you, buddy."
"…Trevy?" Wattzon whispered, amazed. "…You absolute magnificent bastard! Switching with an avox? That was genius!"
"Seems you ripped me off, mate," Trevy teased, looking at Wattzon's borrowed Avox uniform. "Ready to get the hell out of here? I know somewhere we can hide until the heat dies down a bit. My mates don't trust either the Capitol or Thirteen to be honest."
"Thirteen's alive?" Wattzon asked, stumped. "Hm, I'm always the last to know shit."
The pair boarded the helicopter and swiftly flew off into the night, far away from the Capitol's radar and the dangers of the deadly city.
Trevy would be sure to fill Wattzon in on everything he knew soon enough, but it could wait a while.
A bro hug twenty years in the making came first.
"Imagine if you'd not ended up saving Effie," Trevy said after they parted from their hug. "Katniss and Peeta wouldn't have been reaped… or volunteered in the Mockingjay's case I guess? You kinda caused all of this, my man."
Wattzon was silent for a moment.
"…Holy shit, I didn't even realise," Wattzon said, stunned.
"Well, even if he was just 'one of many', I hope somebody out there cares about him and, well, remembers him," Peeta said, continuing from his previous words.
"It sure would be awful, surviving the Games and nobody caring to remember what happened in the process," Katniss agreed. "Wonder what became of him in the end."
"You got me. I've got no idea," Peeta replied.
The pair held a silence for Wattzon and soon moved their way further down the long street. They quickly came to the fifty sixth imprinted face along the sidewalk, one that instantly gave Peeta pause. Katniss, of course, immediately knew why.
Looking up at them from the ground was the sallow and shaken face of a fairly rattled girl. Her hair was shoulder length and quite stringy, while her eyes were wide and afraid. She was clearly a very troubled sort of person.
"That'll be Porsche London. She saved my life and I never even knew her name," Peeta said, pain in his eyes. "Well, I know her name now… I'll always be grateful for the poor women."
"You know what? I will too," Katniss agreed, reaching to take a gentle hold of Peeta's hand.
Hope you guys enjoyed that one! I found it a lot of fun to work with writing a character like Wattzon, going from complete and utter zero to his own kind of hero, even if not on purpose. Just think, if he'd died and Effie died too… what may have happened? Alas, dwelling on such questions may drive one mad. Haha, in any case I enjoyed writing Wattzon's negative attitude and the side story of Eunicia; making those sorts of things come together in the end always feels very satisfying. Plus, a twelve year old managed to survive and did so in a way that does not violate canon. Whoa! Whatever may come next? Well, the tale of the Female Morphling of course. Stay tuned!
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), Brutus Gunn (49th Games), Lyme Rabe (51st 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), Anchor Paddock (52nd Games)
District 5: Shunt Gaspar (12th Games), Isobel Sparks (18th Games), Crimson Flanders (29th Games), Porter Tripp (38th Games), Neon Erg (48th Games), Wattzon Holmes (55th Games)
District 6: Chassis Macalister (31st Games), Bentley Corduroy (54th Games)
District 7: Pliny Aransio (2nd Games), Fir Buzz (9th Games), Jack Tylos (21st Games), Snag Nakamura (34th Games), Blight Jordan (53rd 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), Trevy Vex (Escaped 55th 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), Haymitch Abernathy (50th Games)