Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games. They belong to Suzanne Collins.
Note: Another chapter, another victor and another canon too! The female morphling is another tribute that caught my eye as I read through the books & watched the movies, and (per the norm here, let's be honest!) I felt was underused. I mean, I get why of course, but one can dream more had been done with the women who so bravely and willingly gave her life for Peeta. Let's give it up for the first ever female victor from District Six… and see just how the actual hell she made it home! Remember, when Six wins they win big…
Peeta was silent for a while as he considered the imprinted, immortalised face of the deceased victor at his feet.
"In Six they often look afraid. They almost always do, more than most districts," Peeta said, almost to himself. "I mean, maybe not the girl who was in our year, but… I never got the usual sense of fear from Porsche. She seemed brave… fearless… know what I mean?"
"I think she was afraid. Well, perhaps when she was our age," Katniss said from her spot close beside Peeta. "But when the quell came by she must have had nothing left to lose. I've always believed somebody with nothing to lose is the most powerful sort of person."
"Yeah, I can believe that," Peeta said. "…Maybe if the other victor from Six is still alive she can tell us just what Porsche's life was like."
With nothing more to say the pair from Twelve began a respectful silence for Porsche.
56th Annual Hunger Games
Name: Porsche London
Gender: Female
District: 6
Age: 15
Kills: 4
Odysseus Toot was a very jumpy man. In fact, perhaps jumpy was not the right word. Maybe the right word was completely and utterly paranoid to a ridiculous degree.
Alright, fine, the right eight words then. Still, if you were to call Odysseus those eight words he would be quick to assure you that he had a very valid reason for having such a frantic sort of disposition. Several reasons in fact.
His job as the Head Gamemaker of the Hunger Games had come close to getting him killed ever since he first took the damn job!
It all started back in the Fifty Second Games, when the ending of the quell not long prior had opened up the top spot after the Head Gamemaker of the time was thrown into Snow's trusty wood chipper (inherited from Orion, apparently). The Fifty First Games went well enough, but the women who stepped up to lead that year had only wanted the top spot once to keep everything on track. She was happier as a mutt breeder anyway.
Odysseus got his chance to shine the following year and, well, that was pretty much where all his problems and seemingly endless need for anxiety medication first made its appearance.
After Anchor had betrayed all of the career pack, up to and including his own lifelong friend who volunteered with him, Odysseus thought he was going to be hanged. The careers from One and Two were all dead! Dead in under ten minutes! There was only a single one left and Four was never as good with careers as One and Two. Not only that, but Anchor had ended up hunting down the remaining tributes in a mere twenty three hours.
He had expected Snow to kill him, but instead he'd commended him for the fast and exciting Games. Especially so for the message of how even One and Two were not exempt from bending the knee to the Capitol and being reminded of their places. The fact Anchor was a loyalist himself also helped.
One bullet dodged led to another being fired. Odysseus was practically sobbing when Snow ordered a meeting after the Fifty Thirty Games came to an end. Such a close shave with having no victor at all thanks to the tracker jackers? He was gonna be met with a hail of bullets!
Instead Snow had shook his hand, called it one of the most exciting endings to a Hunger Games ever seen and gave Odysseus' eldest son a free pass through college.
The Fifty Fourth Games were more or less a nervous breakdown with a neat bow on top. A massive avalanche thanks to the victor's crazy, if rather catchy, 'slick beats'? He was gonna die for that oversight! Oh the horror!
Snow had been laughing his ass off and called it one of the best final kills – or, final triple kills to be specific – the Games had ever been lucky enough to have and bought Odysseus a new car, no strings attached.
The Fifty Fifth Games… holy shit! A useless lump of a tribute somehow winning after the dashing and brave boy from One collapsed from his own overheating armour!? He was truly a dead man walking, no doubt about it! The fact the boy from Nine had escaped and been replaced by an avox made Odysseus fear that his family would be thrown in the woodchipper too!
Snow had loved the Games and thought somebody like Wattzon winning proved that, really, any tribute could stand a chance of making it home. It made it all the easier to weaponize hope and keep the districts in line. As for the boy who escaped, well, that was indeed a serious and rage inducing problem for President Snow… one he took out on the security of the tribute building. It had been their job to keep an eye on the tributes, not that of the gamemakers.
After all of this it was no surprise that Odysseus was particularly jumpy when the reaping for the Fifty Sixth Games went underway. He just knew that this was sure to be the year that something big and bad was going to happen, far too terrible for Snow to somehow decide not to kill him.
If he survived this year then he was going to leave the job, no doubt about it!
The reapings started off normally enough, the crop of tributes this year being a fairly average sort. Pretty killers from One, deadly warriors from Two, brainiacs of questionable physical ability from Three and a pair of lifeguards from Four, and so on.
District Six was as pitiful as they usually were. The boy was young and looked so feeble that a strong breeze would send him flying off into the sky. Hardly likely to last longer than a minute.
The girl who mounted the stage was shaking and breathing erratically throughout the entire walk from the fifteen year old girls' section. It wasn't because of fear though.
It was clear signs of not having a hit of drugs recently. Simply put, withdrawal.
The girl, Porsche London, muttered something unintelligible, hardly able to remain standing under the effects of withdrawal and the force of the pouring rain. The poor girl was practically a walking corpse already and not just because of her terrible initial odds of victory (80-1).
Even so, Odysseus eyed the drug addict warily as she stumbled along with the peacekeepers into the judgement building.
She was a girl who clearly had nothing to lose. It was always the cornered rats who ended up being the most dangerous of the lot. After Wattzon's victory Odysseus was not about to assume a weak tribute wouldn't be a problem.
It was with a feeling of foreboding that Odysseus settled to watch the tribute parade. He had a nasty feeling things were going to go off the rails and get him killed any moment now.
They'd already gone off the rails while the tributes were being taken to the Capitol… literally. The District Ten train had derailed and, while nobody had been hurt (well, hurt beyond what the Capitol could easily fix anyway) the Games had been delayed an entire day while the Tens had to be retrieved by a hovercraft.
He expected a bullet in his skull for this, but Snow had conceded that this truly had nothing to do with him. The train's driver had been shoved into the woodchipper instead.
Odysseus really needed a drink and, if not for the fact he had to keep his head clear for his work, he would've been six bottles in by now.
The parade was overall a relatively big success. Not the best ever, but an enjoyable sort of affair and far from being a bottom-tier parade. He would live to see another day, even after how the pair from Twelve wouldn't stop crying.
He couldn't help but look down at Porsche, wondering what was going through that girl's mind. She continued to twitch and shudder, but her mind was clearly intact. It was almost like she was doing something Odysseus knew was often dangerous.
She was thinking!
He could only hope that whatever her plan was, it would either fail quickly or not cause any catastrophes if it somehow worked.
At least she was unlikely to bring in many sponsors to support herself. Being bony, shaky and stuck in a crappy rocket ship costume – it was apparently meant to 'transport' the audience to the stars above – didn't exactly work as a formula to become an audience favourite.
As was the case every year the gamemakers were required to watch the tributes as they trained and / or epically failed in the grand room below their balcony. Even the Head Gamemaker was not exempt from doing this and so it was that Odysseus found himself seated on a comfy chair to watch the tributes go about their day.
It was getting harder every year to watch them as they did this. Mainly because at any moment things could go horribly wrong! Last year a massive brawl had broken out between the boy from Two and the thuggish girl from Seven. The year before that had been little better when a rap battle had broken out between Bentley and the boy from Ten, a battle that progressed to a physical altercation when the rap hating girl from One had ran over to punch them both in their faces.
Odysseus just wanted the training days to go without any damn trouble.
Admittedly it hadn't been that bad so far. The first day had been fairly uneventful save for the careers buddying up and showing their considerable might while the Twelve sobbed louder and louder. Oh, and who could forget the boy from Five outright offering to shut he Twleves up if the Gamemakers wanted him to, just so long as they upped his training score by one.
Admittedly Odysseus had found the deal very tempting and planned to do as he was asked. He could not abide crybabies.
But that was the first day, this was the second day. He just couldn't take his eyes away from Porsche. For a drug addict it seemed undeniable, and odd, that she had quite a talent to display.
A talent for camouflage.
It was the strangest thing, really. She had gone from looking, and acting, half dead the previous day towards looking wide awake and alert. The brush moved across her arms and body like a complete blur, various jars of paint open and being used in one grand concoction. When she was done she looked like she was covered in dirt and grass from head to toe, like she'd taken a dive into somebody's half-finished garden.
She lay down at shelter building training stations and suddenly it was like she had vanished into the ground. She was there, of course, but it was near impossible to spot her even if one had sen her lay down.
Odysseus felt a headache coming on.
She remained there for quite a long time, as if waiting for something. Her district partner ran by, chased by the savage boy from Two.
The savage leapt back in terror when she leapt up out of nowhere with a sudden roar. In moments the mockery and bullying was turned right back onto the instigator when it became apparent he had pissed his pants.
If that was the extent of everything then he could have let the feeling go and deemed Porsche as competent, yet one of many regardless.
It wasn't the full extent, not even close. Odysseus saw this for himself when it was time for the private training sessions.
The boy from Five had taken his turn and left not half a minute prior. Nothing overly special aside decent hand to hand combat skills, but a deal was a deal and Odysseus had him put down as a six instead of a five.
He waited for the druggie girl from Six to walk in. He idly wondered if she would be alert again or go right back to being completely out of it and dead in her eyes.
He waited.
He waited some more.
He waited a bit more than that as well.
She wasn't coming. The peacekeepers outside even reported they'd not seen her ever since she'd been escorted off to the bathroom over two hours ago.
"What do we do if she doesn't show up?" one of the lower ranked underlings asked. "Is that a default one, or does she get a zero?"
"There's no official rule, but I'd be inclined towards a zero," Odysseus replied. "No effort means no reward."
"I quite agree," one of the higher ranked gamemakers beneath him – maybe the third or fourth in command? – added as he moved to stand by a golden goddess statue upon a pedestal. "Honestly, it's no wonder a girl from Six has never won. They're all lazy, worthless beasts."
"Well that's not very nice is it?"
The gamemaker let out a scream, falling backwards into a punch bowl with his heart pounding. Nobody was quite sure if the stain on the front of his fancy jeans was punch or piss, but either way the man was pale in the face.
After all, the statue had come to life. She had her hands upon her hips and a very unimpressed frown on her face. She may have been gold all over, but there was nothing glamorous about the negative aura she emitted.
"What… how… ghosts!" the gamemaker swiftly collapsed into a faint.
Odysseus himself had nearly had three heart attacks at once. It was mere moments before a triple bypass surgery would be needed before something clicked in his head.
"…District Six Female?" he managed to stammer out.
"No. Porsche Margot London," the golden girl replied, pouting. "This is what I can do. Camouflage."
"How long have you been standing there?" one of the gamemakers asked, puzzled.
"About five minutes before you all arrived on the balcony," Porsche replied. "I blended in so well you lot didn't even see me."
In spite of everything the druggie couldn't help but snicker softly.
"How… how…" another gamemaker looked like her brain was breaking.
Odysseus didn't blame her, to be honest. His own brain was starting to hurt as well.
"I hid some paints in the vents yesterday. I just got into the bathroom's vent, grabbed the paint and then, boop, here I am," Porsche said, shrugging. She soon held her hands together in front of her, lightly bouncing on her heels. "So, how long until my turn is over?"
"Uh… about two minutes," Odysseus said, settling back in his chairs. It was going to be another one of those years wasn't it? "You might have time to show us knife skills if you would like."
"No thanks. I was hoping I could just take a minute to ask if you could give me a score of… maybe seven?" Porsche asked, hopeful.
"Tributes do not make demands," Odysseus said, suddenly rather cold.
"I'm not, I'm asking," Porsche said, innocently. "I just don't want to be a threat or, well, seen the same way most girls from Six are. We're normally lucky to score a five."
The gamemakers weighed in here and there, some thinking Porsche was being a blatant rebel and others thinking this unique and highly original training stunt was so good that it was no big deal to give her the score she had wanted.
"Alright, fine. But be warned, you will not live long if camouflage is your only trick," Odysseus warned the golden girl. "This arena… it will require more."
"Who says it was my only trick?" Porsche asked as she headed for the edge of the balcony. "Oh, think you could give Trax a fair chance? Poor boy's been ever so nervous."
A few gamemakers seemed agreeable to this. Others just snarled at Porsche for her presumed cheek. The youngest intern among them awkwardly raised his hand.
"Uh, question?" he said, somewhat awkwardly. "…Why are you naked?"
Porsche just shrugged, not remotely bothered about the fact she was bare from head to toe in front of the entire gamemaker staff.
"Skin is easier to paint than clothing," was all she said.
The naked tribute leapt from the balcony and landed into a stumble, soon righting herself and heading for the exit. The gamemakers exchanged thoughtful looks with each other.
"Well, I liked her but overall I hated her," one of them said.
"I feel the opposite, but the same," another gamemaker chimed in.
"I need a damn drink," Odysseus moaned.
Odysseus was left confused, and more than a little worried, when the interviews went by. Sure, most of them were either impressive or cringe worthy in just how bad they were, but it was Porsche';s Games that were really making him fear what the hell this tribute might do once the gong rang.
She was, once again, completely out of it and practically zombie-like in how she moved and spoke. After her training session he was starting to wonder if this was merely an act.
But how could it be? All her groaning, weariness and slow movements were so clearly real. It would take a professional actor to pull that kind of thing off, and while Odysseus did not claim to know much about Porsche's home life he felt he could cross actress off the list of jobs she may have once held.
All the girl did throughout the interview with Caesar was mumble and slur in a broken, tired sort of way.
She left the stage to very minor applause, all of it coming from dedicated District Six fanboys, and it was clear few expected her to have a chance of living past the third day, or even the second for that matter. Perhaps not even the first.
Even so, Odysseus kept his eye on her without fail or pause. He was not about to get thrown into Snow's trusty woodchipper because of Games ruining blunders that he could've prevented by keeping an eye on her.
Odysseus allowed himself to relax for the countdown leading up to the cornucopia bloodbath. For a minute nothing would happen. For a minute he could sit and admire the arena that he'd been the mastermind behind.
It was a format that had never been seen before and would never appear again. It was a massive train yard under a dismal grey sky with a light shower of rain falling from the moment the tributes were launched into the arena itself. Hundreds of trains lay unmoving while others were in constant motion around the tracks, some faster than others but all of them able to effortlessly kill anything they colliding with.
Ideally it would be a longer Games this year with plenty of cat and mouse chases.
The gong rang and the tributes thundered from their pedestals across several sets of rails towards the horn of plenty. It wasn't even half a minute before first blood was spilt and the boy from Twelve fell down with his lungs sliced open by a sword.
The carnage was brutal and raw, the four powerful careers really going to town on the outliers this year. Odysseus was very impressed.
Impressed, but also confused. He was shocked to see that Porsche, in spite of looking about as alert and eager as a zombie once again, had managed to wearily zig zag her way through the carnage and grab up a backpack and a camouflage set that had been placed inside the cornucopia for her.
Odysseus didn't think she'd live long enough to grab it and, if anything, had put it there to lure her towards her swift death.
Alas, things did not pan out as he wanted. He could only watch as the Twos butchered the Nines with grins on their faces and the Ones chased down the wounded girl from Three, oblivious to how the pair from Six were fleeing towards the north with actual supplies this year.
By the time the eight cannons fired they had both managed to leap up and grab the side ladders of one of the moving trains, swiftly leaving the careers behind.
"Keep an eye on them," Odysseus said, his voice already shaky and his face pale. "Don't let them pull off any funny tricks. I am not dying because a Six decided to be cheeky."
"Yes sir," one of his many underlings said, saluting him. "Shall we detonate the train?"
"No, not yet. We can't make it look like a blatant execution," Odysseus said, massaging his temples and trying not to cry over the idea of these two pulling off anything like the previous victors from Six had. "Just observe them for now."
Odysseus tried to relax, oh how he tried. But he just couldn't help worrying that this year another mishap would occur and his lucky would not hold out when he needed it the most…
Odysseus had gotten his wish of this being a fairly long Hunger Games. It was the sixth day and the careers had only hunted down two more tributes – a third one had died from being hit by a train – in spite of their excellent strength and team work.
The issue was how the trains scattered basically around equated to there being hundreds of hiding places. The doors between carriages were noisy as well, so it was about the easiest Games ever for the outliers to remain one, or ten, steps ahead of the menacing career pack.
Their bitterness over their slow progress was honestly rather funny to watch, Odysseus would admit to that.
But what he would also admit to not finding fun to watch was the pair from Six. The small boy and the malnourished girl. They'd not been doing much since they dropped off the train miles away from the other tributes at the start of the first day.
Thing was, he couldn't really justify killing them outright when it was clear they were doing something.
For days they had wandered around, taking samples of the dirt and the chipped pieces of metal that lay around the arena. Souvenirs? Stuff to throw into open wounds of other tributes? A sign of madness? Odysseus had no idea and that was exactly what worried him.
Each night Porsche would mix up the camouflage paints again and again, never actually using them either. She'd spent time doing this while Trax would scout around, collecting more dirt samples and watching out for any other tributes. Once they had almost crossed paths with the girl from Four, only to end up fleeing in the other direction.
The strange thing was that girl was just twelve. They could've easily taken her out if they had wanted to. Were they just cowards?
Things stayed this way for the entire first week and by then people were starting to lose interest in the pair. It was just what Odysseus had wanted.
It meant he could justify getting rid of them now.
But he'd wait until the careers hunted down the girl from Eleven. No need to take the audience's attention away from another brutal kill, after all.
Day eight was one that Odysseus had high hopes for. He really, really did. If he had his way the pair from Six would be out the way by sundown and there would no more reason to worry about them causing a massive mess for him to suffer the consequences of.
The pair from Six had turned around and were starting to walk back towards the cornucopia. On the way they were sponsored two items, a notebook containing a pen and a large bottle of morphling. Odysseus let the gifts go through unbarred; who was he to stop people wasting their money on forgettable tributes? That was how showbiz often worked.
He didn't react much when Porsche made notes on where the tracks were and where the rail switches were either. One of her few intelligible lines back in her interview was when she said to Caesar that she liked railways and trains. It made sense she'd find it interesting. In a way it was almost flattering.
He almost screamed when he saw Porsche gulp down a mouthful of the drug. Or, more, specifically, when he saw the result of her doing this.
She was alert and wide eyed once again.
The drugs gave her power!
Odysseus wasted no time after that. He ordered his gamemaker team to slow down the Six pair on their trek to the cornucopia and help the careers quickly catch up to them. They had a plan and he was not going to let it happen! No, no, no! Not when it was likely to get him literally killed!
Thanks to a combination of wind, trains and a few lizard mutts here and there it was all too easy for the Sixes to finally get seen by the pack of four.
Porsche and Trax ran for their lives, panicking and screaming. It was a long chase, long enough for both parties to start tiring out.
Trax was younger and tired out first. Porsche tried her best to help him, but inevitably the careers got him in the end. Porsche could only flee, tears in her eyes as the career pack cut her district partner to bloody pieces.
It wasn't just tears within her eyes.
There was fire as well.
Porsche ran for the cornucopia while the careers, having lost sight of her in their excitement of committing another murder to add to their smaller-than-desired list, headed off after her in entirely the wrong direction.
Odysseus whimpered, hoping he'd not given Porsche a chance by accident. But, how could he have done such a thing? Her ally was dead and it was unlikely she'd get anymore sponsors than the little she already had. It was hopeless. Hopeless!
It wasn't.
The careers spent the night hunting down more tributes, without success of course. At this point they still had eight more to go and were starting to become erratic in their anger.
While the careers hunted and the seven other outliers hid away in the gloomy trainyard, Porsche was getting creative and showing off her artsy side to the nation.
She'd also gotten naked again.
Like she'd said in her private training session, skin was easier to paint than clothing was. As the hours dragged by she painted herself from head to toe in paint, sometimes taking the time to sprinkle dirt and other such things collected from the arena over her body. With the drugs heightening her awareness she was able to work with precision, incredibly care and genuine talent.
By the time she was done just as dawn arrived she had a full body coating of dirt camouflage on. Porsche laid herself down amongst the dirt and train yard waste to the right of the cornucopia and closed her eyes.
She'd basically turned invisible. If nobody knew she was there to begin with she'd be near impossible for anybody to spot so long as she stayed still and quiet.
The nation was impressed.
Odysseus gave in and chugged down two pints of strong beer. He had a feeling this was going to really suck.
Three days passed by with Porsche laying hidden away in the dirt. Her bag of supplies was buried with her, her arena outfit contained within it. She'd completely dropped off the radar of all of the other tributes.
The careers were no exception. The pack were still hunting down the others – and still having trouble doing so – and resting at the cornucopia at least once a day. Sometimes they left a guard behind just to be safe.
Whatever they did, there was always a time frame where they were either gone or when whoever among them was present was off in dreamland.
This was always the time Porsche arose from the dirt to make her move. She'd sneak her way past the careers, take portions of their food and water, destroy most of what she stole and then hide herself back in the dirt.
The career pack had no idea that the tribute who was stealing from them was hiding right inside of their campsite.
They ranted, raved and did their best to set a few crude traps at the perimeter of the clearing, but the traps did no good because Porsche was already past them to begin with.
Odysseus watched all of this from his fancy seat in the gamemaker control room, anxiously gripping a large mug of beer. He had a terrible feeling about this girl, but he was not permitted to blatantly execute her unless she did something obviously rebellious.
Laying down in the dirt wasn't rebellious.
"Sir, we could spring a few traps on her. Perhaps mutts to force her out?" one of the underlings suggested. "We have lizards and snakes ready to go."
"No good, that'd risk harming the careers. We need them or there won't be enough action," Odysseus said, rather regretfully. "We'll have to hold back for now."
Odysseus stayed awake long into the night, observing the action displayed on the screens. The pack hunted down the boy from Seven after a long chase, the other outliers wandered aimlessly, the trains picked up speed and a small shower of rain began to fall.
All the while Porsche lay undetected and almost invisible in her pile of dirt. She only got up to dispose of more food and water of the careers' at three in the morning. What little wasn't destroyed she kept for herself.
"What's her game here?" Odysseus muttered. "A war of attrition? She must know that she'll have to fight eventually."
"In fairness, sir, people from Six often have fault minds. It comes from all the drugs and fumes," one of his higher ranked staff stated.
Odysseus couldn't disagree with this. Even now Porsche was sipping more of the morphling she was ever so dependent on. By the looks of things she was running low on her drug of choice.
Perhaps she'd die out soon after all.
The boy from Five was dispatched on the twentieth day after a duel atop one of the moving trains against the girl from One. It was down to the pack and Porsche at this point.
There was also a rather big problem going on. Porsche had been able to get rid of the last of the careers' food and water. Hungry as she was, the career pack were far hungrier. They were also getting thirsty as well.
Odysseus watched the many screens, wondering what to do as the careers stumbled around the cornucopia, all drained of their strength.
Porsche was in the dirt not even ten feet from the girl from Two, not giving any emotion away. Odysseus guessed, however, she was perhaps feeling a little smug. She'd started to drain the very life force of the careers from their bodies.
Not if he could help it. Six had only just had a victor, they could wait a while longer to have one. One and Two's tributes had both done much more than the druggie. They were far more upstanding citizens too.
The final eight interview had, after all, revealed that Porsche had no family at all and was stuck in a life of a half-starved drug runner for a fairly brutal gang. The same had been the case for her fallen friend Trax.
If nothing else it explained her addiction and why she and the boy had gotten along so well.
Still, it all came back to the same thing. Odysseus was not going to push his luck by letting the girl from Six be the victor this year. He'd not make it impossible, no, just… well, hard enough that it may as well be. No risks taken, no chance of a bullet ending up stuck in his brain.
He called for a Feast to be held at nightfall.
It would be at a turntable two miles to the north, one that had a fairly large stack of oil drums next to it. He knew for fact that the careers would find it fairly easily.
The careers soon headed on their way, confident they could either kill the last outlier at the feast or that after eating and drinking could simply rely on hunger or thirst to get rid of her.
They were a mile away by the time Porsche arose from the dirt, flicking away specks of filth and grime. She slung a bag over her shoulders, carefully looked over her very detailed notebook and ran off in the opposite direction.
Her only aid was a single, small vial of morphling sponsored last minute.
The moment the contents of the jar touched her lips it was like Porsche had come alive again. Odysseus watched her with great wariness as she ran towards one of the three major rail switches and used all of her might to pull it the other way.
"What's your game here?" Odysseus muttered, frowning with major unease. "Running away will only tire you out faster."
Time passed as the careers waiting at the area of the feast for the spoils to arise into the arena and Porsche continued to make a mad dash across the trainyard, even when the effort was clearly starting to hurt her.
Odysseus started to relax, reassured by his workers that the girl had gone mad and was only causing herself to tire out quicker. She'd be easy pickings for the careers or maybe mutts once the feast had happened.
A second rail switch was pulled.
Odysseus started to feel like he'd been acting stupidly all along, thinking a girl from Six could cause such a scandal that it would get him killed. He relaxed enough to agree to take part in a quick ten minute interview with Caesar about his thoughts on the endgame going on.
During the interview Porsche pulled the final rail switch and, tired out beyond belief, sunk down to sit against the switch, gasping and wheezing. She felt like shit.
It didn't matter anymore though.
Odysseus realised this far too late once he arrived back at the gamemaker control room and saw the way his underlings were gazing at him warily.
Of course they were wary. Why would it be any different?
The feast had just begun, the table full of bread, meat and water having risen into the arena. The careers heartily ate from it, practically animalistic with their manners. Days of thirst and terrible hunger would do that to the best of people.
They were entirely oblivious of what awaited them until it was far too late.
"Holy shit!" the boy from One screamed, pointing ahead.
A train was rapidly approaching them, burning badly from at least four previous collisions. Another two trains were coming in fast, billowing out thick black smoke. It was much like a certain escort would say to a certain Mockingjay years later.
"Two hundred miles an hour and you can't feel a thing!"
Well, the careers certainly felt it.
The trains crashed upon the feast area in one cataclysmic explosion, the oil barrels bursting into a complete frenzy of fire. Two of the pack were killed instantly and the girl from One perished when a massive sheet of broken, thick steel fell down upon her upper torso.
The last one alive was the girl from Two. She weakly dragged herself from the wreckage, horribly scorched from the massive train wreck, somehow alive.
The sight of ten more burning trains careening out of control down the rails to where she was laying made her lose control of her bowels.
The explosion was audible across the arena and left an entire square mile in a monstrous inferno of wrecked and mangled trains.
In another part of the arena Porsche had only just gotten her breath back, slowly turning to watch the inferno from a safe distance. She stared in awe at the Armageddon of trains she had single handedly unleashed.
The train-a-geddon, if you will.
She didn't much away aside a smirk. It was just as she had thought from the very beginning. Take away all of the food and water and then the gamemakers will just have to call a Feast to prevent a complete collapse of the pack.
The cannons boomed one by one over the loud sounds of burning and ongoing explosions. The trumpets had to be slightly turned up to make certain they would be heard over all of the destruction.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present the winner of the Fifty Sixth Annual Hunger Games! Porsche London of District Six!" Claudius announced, grand and ever so excited by what he had just seen.
Odysseus watched with a pounding heart as the hovercraft descended to collect the nation's newest victor from the wreckage filled train yard. He couldn't even laugh over the way she tried to quickly yank her clothes back on as she ran to the hovercraft, tripping over midway through pulling her cargo pants back up.
He'd just been sent a message by President Snow ordering him to attend a private meeting in one hour.
Odysseus sobbed into the desk in front of himself, knowing he was done for. Why oh why hadn't he just had the peacekeepers break the girl's legs down in the launch room?!
Around the time Porsche was stammering through her final interview and mumbling out quiet begs for a hit of morphling Odysseus was trying to stammer out an excuse to President Snow and beg to be spared.
Porsche was silenced by Caesar asking her if she'd ever considered morphling patches to help with her addiction.
Odysseus, meanwhile, was silenced by Snow simply raising a single eyebrow. The Head Gamemaker sat in almost a fit of pants-wetting-tier terror as Snow got up to slowly pace around the room, collecting his thoughts.
"Well done," Snow said after a short while.
"…Pardon, sir?" Odysseus said, stumped.
"Well done, you hosted another excellent Hunger Games," Snow said, a very faint sort of poisonous smile on his aging face. "The suspense on if the girl would be caught, the slow and tense hunts through the creepy train yard, the massive play at the end with the train crash… well done, it was brilliant. I don't know how you keep coming up with these ideas, but I'm glad you do. You're a credit to the Games, Toot."
Odysseus was practically ready to burst into tears of joy. He wasn't going to be killed! Oh happy, happy day! He composed himself, knowing that crying in front of President Snow was often a bad idea, no matter if it ended lethally or not.
"So, what will you be doing next?" Snow asked, genuinely curious. "You keep finding ways to top yourself. Surely you have a plan of sorts for the Fifty Seventh Hunger Games?"
Odysseus considered this, his blood pressure ever so slowly going back to normal as his frnatc heart beats slowed down. What plan did he have? After the massacre in the Fifty Second, the tracker jackers in the Fifty Third, the rapping induced avalanche in the Fifty Fourth, the useless victor of the Fifty Fifth and the train wreck in the Fifty Sixth just gone… there was really only one plan that he could really claim to have.
"Honestly, sir? I feel like, after so many successes, it's about time I retired. I think that the time has come to give some new blood the chance at leading the Games. I'd rather take some time out, just me and my family," Odysseus said, trying not to sound like he was begging.
"Ah, I see. It'll certainly be a big shame that you won't be with the staff next year, but… I suppose after so many successes it's only reasonable you'd want a step back. Too much of a good thing and all that," Snow briefly shook Odysseus' hand. "Very well then, I'll make the necessary arrangements and have the notice put up for applications to lead the staff next year. Thanks for all your years of service, Toot."
"It was my pleasure sir," Odysseus said, his voice almost cracking from sheer relief.
Odysseus left as though on auto-pilot, stumbling along in a stupor of amazement and bewilderment. Against all the odds he'd somehow not been killed for all the near misses and the absolute chaos that went on behind the scenes of the last few Games.
He wished the best of luck to whoever took on the job next, not knowing just how much danger and stress came with it.
That night, though they never knew it, Odysseus and Porsche acted in complete unison with each other.
They stumbled into their bedrooms in a trance of relief at surviving a deadly, horrible situation.
They considered just how lucky they were to be alive when, by all accounts, they really shouldn't have been.
They changed into comfy pyjamas and picked out a teddy bear for the night.
They got incredibly high on morphling and lost themselves in a trip amongst the clouds, the fears and miseries of life left far behind on the ground for at least a few hours.
"Life is good…" they both slurred as one.
"Thanks for everything Porsche," Peeta whispered. "…Just… thank you…"
Katniss soon led her quiet and shaken boyfriend further down the street, thoughts of the girl who fearlessly leapt in front of the monkey mutts for the sake of freedom and Peeta's safety filling both of their minds. They soon reached the next victor of the many immortalised in the street.
The young girl who looked back at them clearly did not look to be quite on the same level of reality as most others. Her eyes were vacuous and wide, staring out at nothing… or perhaps that which only she could truly see. Her hair was long and flowed down neat and straight either side of her head. Tidy as she was, something about the girl seemed… off.
"Wasn't this one from the Games where almost everybody froze to death?" Katniss asked, recognition flickering in her eyes. "I saw a rerun of that one once… yeah, she was in the quell too. The poor women who died by that tidal wave."
"Yeah, I think this is her," Peeta agreed. "Arendellian Spinner III… creative parents, clearly."
There we have it, the tale of the female morphling! I feel like this one ended up turning out particularly well, especially as a lot of it just clicked right into place as I was going along with it. The camouflage was always there, but Porsche hiding within the career campsite was something that only occurred to me as time went by. Much the same case for the tale being told from the POV of the hapless, terrified Head Gamemaker. Given how absolutely deadly the job is, why not explore that and see just how much panic somebody would go through after barely surviving a few insane Hunger Games? Hope you guys liked it! Next up, a chapter I have been reeeeeeally looking forward to writing for quite a while now. See ya'll soon…
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), Porsche London (56th 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)