With thanks to Glassgift for your review of the last chapter.
Y 184-08-31 T 14:00:00
Day 1
She had not expected this to happen. She hadn't known what Ronan had been planning behind his enigmatic blue eyes, merely that she knew he was more of an enigma than he let on in his casual persona.
She hadn't known until they raced off the plates and Ronan had grabbed her by the shoulder and told her in low tones to get a weapon and as many backpacks as she could carry, and get ready to run.
With that, Ronan had split from her, picked up two long spears, and with the accuracy of a District 4 former spear-fisher threw it directly into Chal Detria's brain.
Emma choked slightly. Ronan had just told her to get ready to run- had just killed Anna's target. He had betrayed the Careers and now intended to do more. But she couldn't afford to lose all of her allies at once. The choice was split-second and damning.
Emma swallowed heavily and spun on her heels, working quickly while the majority of the Careers went to the opening of the Cornucopia. She slung four backpacks over her shoulder, before picking up a large, double-edged sword with a thick blade and hefting it in her hand. She caught sight of a flicker of movement in her periphery- coming up behind her.
Her caramel hair flung outwards in a wide arc as she brought the sword down onto the Three girl's neck. It was as quick a death as Emma could deliver; the Three girl's neck, cut cleanly open to the bone, gushed high-pressure blood, and the girl collapsed backwards, a small knife glinting in one hand and a small backpack in the other.
Emma fought the urge to retch at the devastation she had wrought, yanked the backpack from the dead girl's hands and added it to her collection- while light, Emma reckoned five was all she could run with comfortably, and cast around for Ronan. He had collected as many backpacks and drawstring bags as his shoulder could take, and held another two spears in his hand. One he threw at Elizabeth's head, but she was too far out and it thudded uselessly just a few inches to the left. He fired the final spear at Quint Barkwater, but it thudded dully into the plastic crate under his arm, and with that Ronan was out of chances. He swore, snatched up a machete, and caught up with Emma, nodding appreciatively at her decision to follow his lead.
As Emma and Ronan turned to run, Theon Veux went barrelling past them, eyes wild, his grey shirt soaked in blood. Emma raised her sword defensively; but he didn't even notice, didn't even care, he just sprinted away. Ronan turned to try and pursue him, but Emma had absolutely no intention to hunt down the Careers, even if they were abandoning them for whatever reason Ronan had come up with; she gripped Ronan by the upper arm and began to run, forcing him to follow her lead. While she might be going along with Ronan's weird plan, she had no interest in just standing passively while he directed the action. She chose to lead them up Victory Walk, which was already beginning to be paved in blood.
Skirmishes and fallen tributes lined the wide road Emma had chosen; some, mortally wounded, howled like an animal as they writhed on the ground. One, young and small, the Twelve girl, stared mutely at the long awl-like object embedded in her stomach. Emma knew that such injuries could take hours, if not days, to die from- she had seen enough fishing and training accidents at home to know that. As they flew across Victory Walk, Emma pulled back her arm and swung it forward. The sword cut deep into a mix of the girl's neck and face. A cannon fired as a mutilated child crumpled to the ground face- first, her back still arched from the awl forcing it upwards. Slowly, as gravity took its course, the body slid to the ground and the awl pushed through all the way, pointing straight up in the air as if to challenge the heavens.
Emma ran on, shifting her backpacks on her shoulder. They reached the end of Victory Walk, sped through the opening the chariots had come through not so long ago- no, Emma reminded herself, in the real Capitol they did, but this is too quiet to be the real Capitol, I can still hear the screams at the Cornucopia from half a mile away- and they found themselves at the opening of the Remake Center, enclosed within the small courtyard the chariots had hidden in before the chaos of the chariot ride had begun. To the side was the door to the Center.
Ronan sighed. "They'll have locked all these things." With that, he dipped his shoulder to face the door, and sprinted to collide with it.
Emma watched, biting her lip so as not to smile, as the already-unlocked door burst open and Ronan went sprawling onto the ground.
"Remind me why I left the Careers for you?" She replied, stepping over Ronan and only slightly kicking his side as she did so. Ronan grumbled as he stood up, dusted himself off, gently closed the door, and proceeded to give Emma's back the middle finger.
"So," Emma said, her voice slightly echoing inside the empty corridor, "What's with you? Why'd we just paint a huge Career target on our backs? I mean, you killed Anna's target then abandoned the group. You know as well as them that those things are unforgivable."
"That group was a train wreck in slow motion," Ronan said. "Theon and Anna were clashing for power, Sheen's too dumb to live, and Glace- fuck knows what Glace was all about. She had eyes like a shark."
"So, what? Get out before they all kill each other?"
"Sure."
"And at no point in time it occurred to you to maybe let me in on this?!"
"Sorry, kid, I didn't want to risk anything. If you had even slightly projected an intent of abandoning the group, they would've gone for you immediately. You know that."
Emma couldn't argue with Ronan's logic- Careers were well known for even killing loyal members under the suspicion they were about to cut free from the pack. "Don't 'kid' me," she decided to reply, before picking a corridor and turning left down it. "So what, we find somewhere to hide out with these heavy-as-shit supplies?"
"I was thinking we find somewhere to dump these heavy-as-shit supplies, and we go hunting before we get hunted- it'll look better, we might get more sponsors."
Emma laughed. "See, this is why Dad kept marking you down on tactics," she replied. "On the first night? Ronan, we don't know the layout of this place. We don't know who's dead. We find somewhere to hole up, we wait it out for the death announcements, and then we decide what to do. Sound good?"
"If there isn't any food in these backpacks, I'm going hunting anyway."
"Good to know you think with your stomach, that'll be a great survival factor in /the Hunger Games."
"Shut up and take the left, we need to find the exit to this place."
Emma and Ronan emerged into daylight, their eyes squinting to adjust back to it after the dark, cavernous halls of the Remake Center. They stood in a strange circular courtyard, surrounded by buildings.
"What's this thing?" Ronan mumbled.
"I think they showed it on TV a few years back," Emma said, vague memories coming back in scraps. "The Games Headquarters. This is the courtyard."
"Damn," Ronan hummed. "They've got even bigger egos than I thought." He gestured to the ground, and Emma raised an eyebrow at the huge seal of Panem paved into the ground, the wings of the eagle outstretched to touch two buildings- one, mostly steel with no windows, which Emma couldn't remember the name of but was certain was the place the Gamemakers resided. The other, mostly glass, was far more recognisable.
"City Studios," Ronan said. "Guess I'll be going back a lot quicker than I thought."
Emma chuckled, but the implications were dark. Ronan was so cocky about his impending win, and Emma's consequent death, that he was confident enough to talk about it with her in earshot.
She clenched her sword a little harder in her hand as she followed him into City Studios.
"You think Caesar Flickerman's in?" Emma quipped, looking around the foyer. Beautifully and almost tastefully adorned in rich blues and purples, they were walking into a building where the byword was luxury.
"I dunno, but I bet his studio is," Ronan grinned. "I'm sure I can do a better job than that wigged maniac can."
Emma took a wide staircase to the second floor of the foyer, looking down on Ronan with a smile. "Yeah, but that wigged maniac's probably putting commentary to that right now."
"Shit." Ronan said, groaning up the stairs to follow her. "I keep forgetting this place must be crawling in cameras."
"Remind me why we're in City Studios, then?" Emma tried a door down a thin corridor, and it clicked open into darkness. "This looks good."
The room, not touched by the light of the fake arena sun, was impossible to gauge for anything- its abiding darkness made it impossible to see. Emma stood still to allow her eyes to adjust, while Ronan barrelled forwards.
And, as her eyes adjusted to see him, barrelled down the shallow stairs.
"Son of a-" Ronan picked himself up. "The hell's this place?"
Emma, relying on what little she could see in the shadows, found the wall and roamed her hands over it. A few seconds and she had the plastic switch she was hoping for, and the lights flicked on.
They looked around at the huge studios, the hundreds of seats, the cameras and the familiarly decorated stage.
"Now this is a place to stay," Ronan grinned. He leapt down the rest of the steps and up onto the stage.
"Lights, camera-"
"-If you say action, I'm going back to the Careers."
"Action!" Ronan announced, flashing a very Caesar-esque smile to the cameras. "I'd make a good Flickerman, don't ya think?"
"Nah," Emma replied, climbing up to the stage and putting down her backpacks with a loud thud, "You gotta look more fake than that. Pretend you care about everyone, act like you're not sending off a load of kids to their deaths with a smile."
"Now who's forgetting the cameras?" Ronan chided, putting down his own packs and sitting cross-legged amongst the pile. "There is no way in hell they won't mute that, or switch to someone else."
Emma shut her mouth with an audible click. She wasn't used to the concept of her every move being watched- she was starting to feel hounded by the omnipresence of the cameras she couldn't spot in the luxurious building. "Shut up and open the backpacks."
They sat amongst a pile of their new belongings; although their purpose was to try and survive in the arena, Emma was still content. New possessions were few and far between, even in District 4; to suddenly own this amount of new material was almost overwhelming to her. She cast her eyes across the pile.
"So, ration packs, water purification tablets, tarp sheets, a coupla sleeping bags-" Emma listed off. Ronan jumped in enthusiastically. He seemed to be truly enjoying himself.
"-Bottles of water, matches, paracord and a toolbox. Add that to your sword and my machete, and we basically own everything you'd ever need and more."
"We're not exactly travelling light, though."
"Who needs to? We basically have a mini Cornucopia, we can just use it as our base."
"Yeah, but the Cornucopia can't be dragged away. We need to hide everything we don't need immediately."
"Yeah?" Ronan said, gesturing to the large pile of equipment and empty backpacks. "How's that gonna work out?"
Emma smirked. Emotionally, she was still shaken, but she had always been good at tactics- the games allowed her to switch off everything but the Career she had been trained to be, indirectly. She picked up some backpacks, threw one at Ronan and kept one in her hand. A ration pack and a sleeping bag went to each, as well as a water bottle. Then, Emma spread out one of the tarps. She packed everything she could into the remaining backpacks and laid it all onto the tarp. Then, grabbing some paracord, she began making it into a rudimentary net.
"We're on a stage, right? So there's probably some sort of pulley system keeping things up backstage. Go check."
Ronan seemed faintly indignant at being told what to do by a girl three years his junior, but he went behind the stage with only a little bit of mutinous grumbling. Emma quickly finished the net, laid it out, and slid the tarp on top. Ronan came back around the side.
"We're in luck."
"Great- help me drag this." Emma pulled the net taut, until it had become the container for the tarp, which prevented anything spilling out. It was simple, but it would do the trick.
The two of them found an empty pulley- Emma looped some paracord around the net she had created, and Ronan threw it over the pulley with unending accuracy. The two of them pulled their new store of goods into the air until it hung out of reach and sight to anyone who wouldn't know to look up, and tied it down to the ground.
"Okay," Ronan said, slightly breathless at the exertion of hoisting the bundle, "I vote we eat."
"I can tell already that rationing you is going to be a nightmare," Emma sighed, following him back to the stage.
Outside the building, the sun was setting.
Sorry for the delay, guys- but I've been exhausted these past few days, and I wasn't writing anything near the standard of work acceptable.
I'm still not sure about this chapter, mind. The journey took longer than I expected it to, and while I don't believe it's obvious, there is a continuity error within this chapter that unfortunately I can't edit out without a serious amount of retconning in earlier chapters. It's only small and insignificant, and won't affect the story so long as you're not keeping precise track of the arena and the Capitol.
To make up for the delays, this weekend will have double-chapter days- I'll be posting another chapter later tonight, and Sunday will be doubled up as well.
As ever, thank you for reading this far.