Yo yo yo everybody! Chase here. Not very much to say—just that this chapter is the conclusion for the Seventy-sixth Games. As always, I'll be posting stuff like this to keep this story where people will find it (around the first two pages) and I'll be updating this fairly often, considering I've hit a bit of a wall with my other two stories. Also, be sure to tell me how you like my idea of the Forbidden Zones (explained in Chapter One—the arena is divided into sectors. Twice a day, a different zone will be selected; if a tribute steps into it, they will be blown up. The idea comes from one of my favourite novels of all time—Battle Royale by Koushun Takami. Great read if you ever feel like it… The Hunger Games is a lot like it—I'm saying it this way because Battle Royale was released in 1999, long before THG). Again, these are really just meant to be light-hearted fillers, so characters WILL be doing some stupid stuff (usually it'll just be our favourite drunken president, but sometimes others). Anyway, just read on!
Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games, Catching Fire or Mockingjay. No matter how big of a mistake Suzanne Collins made with it, it will never be mine, no one else's but hers.
August 21st, 22:40 – The Capitol
"WOO~ let's watch some more of this shit!" cries Alexandre Ivre, stumbling out of the kitchenette and back onto the couch; "Got my two best friends right here~ Jack~" he says, waving a brown bottle of Jack Daniels, "and… uh… Yakov!" he finally adds, swinging around a clear bottle of Smirnoff vodka. He brings the Smirnoff to his mouth and takes a long swig before putting it onto one of the end tables, then doing the same with the Jack Daniels. He picks up the television remote and presses play, grinning wickedly at the giant red crab creatures scuttling their way toward the Career pack…
"This isn't looking good…" Crest says somewhat worriedly; "their pincers look razor-sharp…"
"And that armour looks as hard as diamond…" finishes Cove, gripping her trident tightly.
"I don't give a shit! I'll beat these things down no problem," snarls Blaise of District One; he grabs a large hammer and dashes off toward the nearest one. "DIIIIIIIIIEEEEE…" he yells out, swinging the hammer fiercely, but his cry is cut short; one of the crab's great claws clamps around him like a vise grip, cutting him in half. His top half slides from his lower portion, falling to the ground in a bloody mess, a look of shock eternally frozen on his face. "D-damn…" he whispers shortly before a cannon fires.
"It killed Blaise…" Cove utters, her eyes widening in fear.
"…Without hesitation…" says Crest quietly; the fourteen year old looks at his twin protectively. Shaking his head, he narrows his green eyes at the crab creatures. "You three," he says, "get out of here. I'll hold these three off."
"W-what?!" Cove exclaims. "No! I'm not leaving you behind, brother!" she says harshly.
"GO!" shouts Crest.
Meanwhile, Diana looks at the two weirdly. "Uh… you guys DO know that these things are slow enough that we can ALL run away, right?" she deadpans, shaking her head at the twins.
"I know," says Crest.
"Then let's go."
"I don't want to." (President Ivre laughs loudly at this, spitting out a bit of his whiskey.)
"What? Why not?" says Cove. "We can get away from them—they won't get us!"
"But what if they follow? Perhaps they're smart enough to tail us." Crest says mysteriously. "Besides, I think I can do this." He adds, focusing on a specific spot on the crab's body. Right under one of its arms is an area of soft, exposed flesh. "I've found a chink in the armour—if I can get to it, we'll have crab meat for days."
The artificial sun that shone down on the arena is beginning to set, adding a dramatic flair to Crest's declaration. The false moon and stars are beginning to shine in the domed sky; the crabs seem to move faster… perhaps this wasn't a good idea after all.
(In reality, the Capitol had edited footage for the Seventy-sixth Games for time, so more tributes died and much quicker—in the actual Games, Blaise, Anton and Linus were still alive—the latter two would be until the day after, and then Blaise would survive for three more days—however, Ivre had no idea about that, since he was drunk throughout that whole Games. What else would he do—he had just become good friends with Mr. Daniels!)
Shimmer looks at the other two girls, then at the fourteen-year-old boy preparing to face almost certain death, the one who had told them to flee just seconds earlier… "Screw this!" she says, grabbing a big backpack and sheathing her double daggers; "I'm out of here—your brother's right, Cove. He can handle this. If not—well, he'll still stall them for a little bit." She goes off toward a densely forested island—right next to the one with the tower. Diana follows her, shooting one last weird glance at Crest.
"Well, I'm staying." Cove says forcefully.
"No you aren't, Cove. You saw what that did to Blaise (thank you GreenApple312 for this correction!). I'm not letting it do it to you!" Crest growls back. The two begin an argument ("Shut up and run, you damned fools!" yells Ivre drunkenly) and become quite immersed—neither of the two notice when a claw takes the life of Cove, separating her head from her body. The cannon fires quickly. Turning a fierce glare on the crab monster, Crest takes his spear and stabs it into the exposed area of flesh—the crab gives a shrill scream of pain and stumbles on its small, skinny legs for several feet before crashing to the ground on top of Cove's body ("HAHAHA TAKE THAT YOU STUPID CRAB!" slurs Ivre).
Sneering at the other crab who is rapidly approaching at him, Crest yells out something—probably a war cry—and lunges at the mutt, dodging its rapid claw jab, then rolling under one of its swings. "This is a lot easier than I thought," says Crest, jamming his spear into the opening in its armour. He smirks as the red creature does the same as the one before it, crashing down and causing the grassy land to shake. "…But there were three of them…" Crest says cautiously, whirling around swiftly; he sees nothing, just the waves lapping at the sandbars. "Ah well… maybe it's gone now. Perhaps it retreated." He shrugs—he'd find the girls later. Walking back over to the supply area, he rolls out a sleeping bag and lays back on it—he really doesn't care if anyone came; his sister, his whole reason for volunteering, is dead. He has nothing more to live for.
The Capitol's anthem began to play, and he looks up into the dark sky, and the seal of Panem appears—in black and white, the portraits of the fallen tributes begin to show. First is the handsome face of Blaise, who had died mere minutes before, followed by the upper half of Anton's head—Crest chuckles lightly at this (while of course Ivre laughs hysterically) and whispers, "He was really short." The faces of the boy and girl from District Three appear next—Crest nodded when the boy's face showed first; he was his kill. Crest bowed his head in both respect and sadness when Cove's face appears; he says softly, "I'm sorry, little sister… I'm a failure…"
The two tributes from District Five appear next—he remembers Blaise and Shimmer killing them. Linus and the girl from Six show next, the latter being killed by Cove. The scarred face of Tyker of District Seven appears after them; Crest is unaware of who killed him or how, necessarily, but he saw his face-down body when he and Cove were counting the fatalities. The boy from District Eight is the next one—Shimmer had cut his throat until his blood splayed across her jacket. Brisbin and Karla, the lovers from District Nine had been killed by him personally, so it is no shock when he sees their faces. He knew Alainn of Ten was dead—not sure if she had been killed by the crabs or if she had simply drowned, but he knows she is dead; however he is shocked when her partner, Devin shows up in the sky—he had scored a ten in the training sessions, and he was among the favourites to win. Devin from Twelve is the final tribute to appear—Blaise speared him in the very beginning.
Laughing bitterly, Crest closes his eyes and falls asleep; across the arena, the tributes are beginning to sleep—Shimmer and Diana are sleeping in turns, one keeping watch and waking the other after a few hours; Zale and Jensa are doing the same. Bernadette of Eight is wide awake—after taking shelter at the top of the large tower, she thought she heard movement downstairs and refuses to go to sleep; Phoebe from Seven—the one who was causing the sound of movement—heard something on the floor above her ("IT'S BERNADETTE, YOU MORON!" shouts Ivre clumsily, struggling to say Bernadette) and also refuses to sleep. As for Cleo of Twelve…
…Cleo of District Twelve is in between a rock and a hard place, literally. She had fled to an island that had a small cliff with a waterfall, sure that she could find water and food easily. Believe me, she was in over her head when she went in; she hadn't gotten anything from the Cornucopia, but her first priority was water; the fifteen-year old was drinking water out of the pond formed by the waterfall when a growl was heard by her. Turning her head she saw five pairs of red eyes staring at her from the bushes… out leapt a pack of fierce wolves with furry grey bodies, much like those in the Seventy-fourth Games. She took off in a dead sprint, the pack behind her (though not running as quickly as her—since they were under the control of the Gamemakers, they weren't going to kill her without giving a good chase), tearing through the forested island (and running around in circles most of the time).
Finally her luck has ran out—they managed to corner her against the cliff, the sheer, vine covered cliff… wait a minute… "Vines," breathes Cleo, her hand brushing the long green tendrils. Quickly she grasps the vines, pulling herself up slowly. The wolves jump at her, but they are unable to reach her. As she pulls herself to the top of the cliff, she smirks down at them. "How about them apples?" she calls down… then there's a bit of hissing behind her. A giant snake is slithering her way. "Shiiiiit…" she curses as it rears its ugly head back. The camera zooms back to the sleeping form of Crest as a cannon fires and his eyes pop open.
"C'mon Jack, don't be like thaaaat~" slurs Ivre, talking to the bottle of Jack Daniels, "snakes are bad, but nobody deserves that fate! You know they had to actually cut her body out of the snake? That's why I made Danie-Dane promise he wouldn't use any snakes ever again." He says, referring to his best friend, the Head Gamemaker himself Dane Eclater, who shares his hatred of snakes.
The days droned on without much happening—aside from an alliance forming between Phoebe and Bernadette—the former of the two is killed a day afterward, though, by a fall from the tower that to this day people say was caused by Bernadette. No footage was ever shown that proved otherwise (though many speculate that the Capitol hid any of it). Diana and Shimmer later found Zale and Jensa's island, never bothering to regroup with Crest. A fierce standoff led to the bodies of Diana and Shimmer floating in the water and Zale bleeding out in Jensa's arms, the latter professing her love for him ("This part always makes me tear up," says Ivre to his bottle of vodka).
On the fifth day of the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games (as previously stated, this version is edited—the Games lasted barely three days longer, however, and they consisted of the tributes merely hiding from each other, except for Crest who was hunting), Jensa and Crest meet each other in the starting area—Jensa uses Zale's spear, which is admittedly a bit heavy for her to combat Crest's; the boy from District Four has no trouble dispatching the girl from Eleven—his training and overall strength is able to defeat her lack of experience and power, and he impales her with the spear and sticks it into the soft, grassy ground with her corpse still on it, limbs falling limply beside her ("Pitiful. Poor, heartbroken girl," says Ivre, vodka dripping from his mouth). "I've won this!" Crest declares. "Where the hell are my trumpets?"
"Try behind you." says the uncaring voice of Bernadette as she stalks toward him, a dagger in hand. Crest turns around just in time to have the blade stab right into his stomach, as she slices through and brings it across. "You know, my older brother was killed by a boy from Four. I'll consider this his revenge." She withdraws the dagger and pushes him to the ground, kneeling on his arms and pinning his down, stabbing him repeatedly until his cannon fires.
"AAAAAAAND THIS IS WHY YOU NEVER FIGHT A REVENGE-DRIVEN CHILD~" sing-songs Ivre happily. "I mean, that's the only reason I've ever liked Sasuke Uchihaaaaaaa~ well… when you're drunk enough he DOES look like a pretty hot girl…" he says, finishing his vodka. "What do you think, Jack?" he asks the bottle. When he gets no response, he says, "Fine, be that way. I'll just drink all of your bodily fluids." And with that, he drains the bottle, pauses the movie and heads for more whiskey.
Well, there you have it folks! The conclusion of the Seventy-sixth Hunger Games. Next up will be the Seventy-seventh, which was at the very start of President Ivre's career—even though he doesn't remember a thing! Anyway, thanks for reading everyone. Take care, have a nice day and all that!
~Chase
Tribute list – So far
District 1 – Luxury Goods
Male: Obsidian Gold – Danny Takuto
Female: Elizabeth Grace Morgan "Belle" – Rosemarie Benson
District 2 – Masonry
Male: Open!
Female: Reserved – HarryPotterNut1
District 3 – Technology
Male: Open!
Female: Lattice Kerr – GreenApple312
District 4 – Seafood and the like
Male: Open!
Female: Open!
District 5 – Electricity
Male: Open!
Female: Open!
District 6 – Transportation
Male: Open!
Female: Open!
District 7 – Lumber
Male: Open!
Female: Open!
District 8 – Textiles
Male: Open!
Female: Lacey Spool – Kittens In The Closet
District 9 – Grain
Male: Open!
Female: Open!
District 10 – Livestock
Male: Open!
Female: Open!
District 11 – Agriculture
Male: Open!
Female: Rebecca Thorne – Comettail76
District 12 – Coal
Male: Aspen Northill – LincsStef
Female: Open!