Chapter 16.

"Well, ladies and gentlemen, night has well and truly fallen here on the first evening of the 68th Hunger Games," said Malmedy from his commentary booth.

"Indeed, it has," added Primo, "And with most of our tributes heading to sleep, so too will our coverage wrap up for tonight. But before we do, Malmedy, have any final thoughts on the events and stories that have come out of this first day?"

"Oh, do I ever!" smiled Malmedy, rubbing his hands together in excitement. "Let's kick things off with the start: that Bloodbath. Seven tributes lost immediately, with a further two gone not long after. All pretty par for the course I'd say, and most of the tributes who perished scored between 5 and 8, so the form guide seems to ring true for the most part."

"Quite right. And most of the tributes tipped to take a kill or two on this first day did just that. Both the District 2s took at least one kill, which is hardly surprising, given their track record and the capability of their tributes this year. Same goes for the District 4 pair and Vesper Rhodes of District 7, who of course, generally put up at least one potential winner each year."

"But that's effectively where the status quo ends, as there were a few anomalies in the chaos, weren't there?"

"As is sometimes the case. Surprisingly enough, a rather… sloppy showing from District 1 all things considered. Neither tribute got a kill today and Axel Costa was eliminated almost immediately. Jasmine Wilde got involved in frankly bizarre brawl almost instantaneously with Blair Lynch, which we later found out was the result of an allied plot – which we'll go into further in just a moment – and yet managed to come out of it worse, somehow."

"Agreed, not the form we've come to expect from District 1, although I think Axel's mistake was simply a case of 'wrong place, wrong time'. As for Jasmine, I concur, and I think if her and Blair's little scuffle had continued, she could very well have gone the same way as her District partner. If this was indeed the plot of an alliance to take down one of their biggest competitors, she needed help from her alliance and she didn't get it. But this does raise questions of if she can fend for herself, and if other tributes see it that way, they might seek to exploit that somehow."

"Moving on," said Primo taking a pause to look at his notes, "We have I think the biggest surprise of the day in Karmichael Damocles of District 5. Karmichael, who in case you've forgotten scored a meagre 3 in training, finds himself joining Landon Starr at the top of the kill list with two to his name."

"Yes, I think everyone had written him off early to be frank," acknowledged an impressed Malmedy. "Not just because of his score, but word from all camps was that he wasn't training at all, kept to himself and hardly communicated with his own mentor. It appears he was playing the long con; his first kill boasted tremendous vigour and speed, where his second was somewhat more tactical and stealthy. He's the dark horse in all of this now, no doubt in my mind."

"I believe the word you used at the time was 'ruthless'. Definitely one to watch. Moving on, we have the District 9 duo of Eamon Cunningham and Madeline Skylock. District 9 hasn't exactly had the best showings in recent years, yet Eamon and Madeline have each taken a kill."

"Cunningham's kill in particular was remarkable in taking out Axel, and in doing so, secured the innards of the Cornucopia for himself for a good chunk of time. What is slightly disappointing is that he had the chance to take out the other District 1 tribute of Jasmine – which would really have solidified his reputation in these Games – but he almost seemed to take pity on her or something, I'm not quite sure. For his sake, I hope such hesitation doesn't cost him in the future. Meanwhile, Madeline's kill was very much done out of self-preservation, but that's perfectly fine; she may look sweet as fairy floss, but it would seem she knows how to take care of herself if push comes to shove."

"Now one of the really intriguing developments this year, as we've already touched on, is alliances. And I think this ties into what Mr. LaFleur was saying earlier today about tributes being more prepared, or more tactically aware this year. Normally we have perhaps one or two alliances at any given time, and generally at least one is some combination of tributes from Districts 1, 2, and 4. However this year we have what appears to be a whopping four alliances! According to my notes, that many separate alliances is unprecedented in the entire history of the Hunger Games. Most alliances are pre-planned and don't typically come to fruition after the Bloodbath, but it all seems to have worked out for them so far."

"The biggest and most obvious alliance to no surprise, is that of the District 1, 2 and 4 tributes. From what we can gather this was meant to be a six-strong power squad, however Axel's early death and Blair Lynch's defection has somewhat weakened that line-up."

"And if what we overhead Blair saying is correct, then it appears there was a bit of dissension regarding her place in this alliance."

"Too many good tributes packed into one group can create endgame problems to be fair," argued Primo. "But it's interesting to hear that Landon Starr had issues with her. Now here's the wrench in the works – was the fight between her and Jasmine a suggestion from Landon, or did Jasmine initiate it of her own accord? Tough to say."

"One of our devoted fans messaged us earlier noting the common link in the weakening of that six-strong pack: Eamon Cunningham. He beat Axel and recruited Blair to create his own impressive alliance within moments of the Games starting. You have to wonder if that's just sheer luck, or brilliant opportunism and anticipating his opponents' tactics? You also have to wonder if Ms. Lynch is the girl Florence brought up in last nights' interviews?" Malmedy added with a wink.

Primo chuckled, "I think it's a bit of both to be honest. He did go to great lengths to save Lynch when he could have just as easily left her behind, so make of that what you will. I am however surprised that he didn't make more of an effort to team up with his District counterpart Madeline – they seemed so close on the Parade."

"Oh, don't remind me, I'm still holding out for a reunion at some point in these Games. How lovely would that be? Now, away from the politics of such power-packed unions is the District 11 alliance, Kale Fox and Nora Wormwood – those two of course mentioned to be close friends growing up, so it only makes sense for them to work together."

"While they may not be the most highly-rated pair, they seem to have good teamwork in their favour. But they did run from the Bloodbath, and don't have much in the way of supplies. They're going to need put in work tomorrow to change that."

"And the other alliance is the rather curious combination of Vesper Rhodes of District 7 and Francesca Durante of District 10. Unlike the others, this pairing seemed to have no prior planning, but was rather spur of the moment having bumped into each other a couple hours after the Bloodbath."

"Yeah, I think Vesper and Francesca recognised each other's abilities; both of them obviously scoring very highly in training. Vesper's elder brother Remy of course, winner of the 65th Hunger Games is here at the Tigerseye VIP Lounge, mentoring her to a hopeful Hunger Games victory of her own. Good to see Remy here again. On paper this pair of fatal femmes should go far and yet, call it commentator's curse, but I have a bad feeling that things won't be quite so breezy for them. Not sure why, but there you go."

"You tend to have a sixth sense for that sort of thing, don't you Primo?" chortled Malmedy. "Every year you make one or two bold predictions and unfortunately for Vesper and Francesca you tend to be right more often than wrong."

"For their sakes, I hope I am wrong," laughed Primo in kind. "Well that would wrap us up on the alliance count, now I wanted to have a talk about the arena if I may. It's no great shock that it looks gorgeous – it's a LaFleur arena after all. It appears around two-thirds of it consists of rugged mountains, mesas and so on, while the remainder is forests and valleys. What do you think?"

"I think artists will be taking trips there for many a year after this! It certainly follows the 'form over function' philosophy of LaFleur that we've come to know and love, and yet, there's still much for the tributes to bear in mind when forming their strategies. The plateaus makes for a good offensive standpoint with the high ground advantage, while the woods down below provide more stealth and natural resources. What caught my eye however is that, unless I'm very much mistaken, Ms. Lynch and Mr. Cunningham stumbled onto one of LaFleur's special arena secrets with that cave behind the waterfall. Other than that, we haven't really seen much of what the Gamemakers have planned for this arena."

"That's true, although in recent years we generally haven't seen Gamemaker interference for the first day or so. I imagine it'll come in due time."

"Indeed. Well I think that's all we really have time for tonight. Thank you all for-"

"Oh!" exclaimed Primo suddenly, pointing towards one of the monitors excitedly. "Hang on a moment folks, we're not done yet!

They watched on intently as one of the many cameras focused in on a boy following a shadowy creature up the precarious side of a moonlit canyon.

"That appears to be… Harvey Goodwin of District 12," noted Malmedy keenly. "He seems to be the only tribute still awake and active. Not sure if climbing a mountain in the dead of night is a wise idea Primo. More importantly, what's that thing he's shadowing so carefully?"

"Ooh," said Primo enthusiastically rubbing his hands together. "Ok, I feel like I'm allowed to talk about this now. What you see here dear viewers is the muttation that Mr. LaFleur was discussing so fondly on Game Face earlier – this is the Holdhorn!"

Malmedy's eyebrows raised nearly into his eccentric hairline as he squinted to get a better look. "But what is it?"

"It's based off an ordinary mountain goat. It has great instincts in finding safe paths through these treacherous peaks and cliffs, and it looks very innocent and inconspicuous as it does so. The idea is that it lures tributes through paths in the mountains that it can cross but knows the tributes cannot. Or it leads them along only to turn around and charge them straight off the side of the mountain."

"Wow, that sounds awfully deceitful for a mutt!"

"And it appears that young Harvey is falling for that deceit. I shudder to think how this might end for him. In addition, Holdhorns have a number of strengths: they're quite clever, extremely strong, and underneath their thick, woollen hides their skin is tough, like rubbery armour."

"That sounds like an unpleasantly powerful combination of traits. Didn't Mr. LaFleur speak of being able to kill mutts this year?"

"He certainly did, and they're not without their weaknesses. Their thick skin doesn't protect the entirety of their bodies of course, and even though they're powerful, most tributes should be able to move faster than it, although there isn't much room to move where Holdhorns tend to inhabit."

Harvey continued to follow the creature up the side of the canyon as its form was exposed by the moonlight. It was huge and muscular, although its heavy down of snow white fluff hid its strength well. Its amber horns glinted as did its pitch-black eyes as it focused on the slope in front of it. If it knew Harvey was following it, the Holdhorn hid it well.

"There's some kind of reward for slaying this beast though, right?" asked Malmedy curiously.

"Mhm, and it's a very precious one at that. You see Holdhorn meat is extremely hearty and cooking it over an open fire releases some incredible medicinal properties. Eating a strip or two of that should be able to heal most wounds and injuries short of a severed hand. Small wonder it took them so many years of development. This… This is quite a step in the evolution of the Hunger Games right here, folks."

The Holdhorn had made it up the steep slope. Harvey made to follow it, but only upon reaching the top did he realise the depth of his mistake. It had turned around, waited for him before lowering its horns and launching him back down the slope and off the side of the cliff face. Eventually he hit the ground with a sickening crunch. A cannon boomed over the hushed night of the arena, "District 12: Harvey Goodwin."

"Wow," said a stunned Malmedy, crossing off something on his notes. "That is… that is a mutt alright. At least we got to witness that before we ended our coverage for the evening. So that makes eleven tributes gone on the first day. Districts 3, 8 and 12 have now lost both tributes, while Districts 2, 4, 9 and 11 still have both. All others still have one remaining."

"And on that cliff-hanger – pardon the pun – it is now really time to end off our coverage for the evening. Thank you for joining us, it's been a riveting start to these 68th Hunger Games. Our full coverage will resume tomorrow at 8:30am, so join us back then for day two. But if you're still hungry for more Hunger Games, don't forget we still have real-time live tracking and text commentary to keep you updated during the night shift. In addition, we'll also be airing a full replay of the first day's events right after this. Until next time, may the odds be ever in your favour!"

I really enjoyed writing this chapter, as it gives us a bit of chance to see the Games from a spectator's perspective. And we get to see what kind of stories are going on with other tributes that we haven't focused on much. Something I like writing about this is that there's multiple stories happening and evolving simultaneously and hopefully you'll see more what I mean by that in future chapters. I like writing Malmedy and Primo as though they're commentating a proper sporting event in the real world as well. So, it did recap some stuff we already knew, but also shed light on plenty of new things like the alliances and the Holdhorn. Speaking of which, what'd you think of the Holdhorn as a mutt? There won't be chapters like this in the future, so if you didn't really care for it, that's fine, I'll be getting straight back into the action next chapter.

24th Place: Cecilia Moreau - District 12 Female. Killed by Hilda Blythe.

23rd Place: Axel Costa - District 1 Male. Killed by Eamon Cunningham.

22nd Place: Ivanna Merchant - District 6 Female. Killed by Vesper Rhodes.

21st Place: Paige Delaney - District 8 Female. Killed by Karmichael Damocles.

20th Place: Owen Magnussen - District 8 Male. Killed by Landon Starr.

19th Place: Zoey Townsend - District 3 Female. Killed by Dennis Kessling.

18th Place: Spencer Nash - District 7 Male. Killed by Blair Lynch.

17th Place: Cooper Hastings – District 10 Male. Killed by Karmichael Damocles.

16th Place: Alys Redding – District 5 Female. Killed by Landon Starr.

15th Place: Timothy Crow – District 3 Male. Killed by Madeline Skylock.

14th Place: Harvey Goodwin – District 12 Male. Killed by Holdhorn.