A/N: Happy Easter, and thanks to richards25 and dreamzspark for reviewing the last chapter!
This one's been a bit of a rush to get together for today, I've been becoming engrossed in other fanfiction projects. Anyone ever heard of 'Mortal Engines' by Philip Reeve? No? Thought not. READ IT.
But, I digress. Here's the 27th Games, I hope you enjoy it.
P.S. This victor eventually becomes the female morphling who sacrifices herself to the monkey mutts to save Peeta in 'Catching Fire'.
"Nice guys finish last
You're running out of gas
Your sympathy will get you left behind."
- Billie-Joe Armstrong, 1997.
The 27th Annual Hunger Games
Molly Higgins (16), District 6 Female
Green Day - Nice Guys Finish Last (1997)
Being from a non-Career district, there was only one way I could win these Games.
Especially as a tribute of District 6. We have no real industry, so I can't have picked up any useful skills to help me prepare for the Games in my youth. Our industry is transport; not an industry as such, but we provide the inter-district transport, allowing the other districts' products to reach the Capitol.
There's nothing for a little girl to do on the railways, I tell you.
Hell, even District 9 have had more victors than us. And what do they do? They're mere farmers. Actually, thinking about it, farm tools could make damn good weapons. I need to stop thinking about this, I'm just contradicting myself. Ugh, the arena is really messing with my head.
But you get the idea. Our district is severely underprepared for the Games. It's a miracle that Melissa won, although her victory is now over a generation ago. The oldest eligible tributes for this year's Games were born after her Games.
Just like every year, what really counts in the Hunger Games is the support of the Capitol citizens. Support means sponsors. Sponsors mean supplies, and maybe even weapons.
And the only way to gain sponsors is to stand out.
And you can't rely on a sympathy vote, either. Every year, there are too many genuinely frightened, incompetent tributes for that angle to be of any use in terms of sponsors.
The Careers can get away with not making much of an impression. The mere fact that they are in the Career Alliance is enough to convince many in the Capitol that they will have enough strengths to win the Games. After all, most of them have already killed in their reaping trials en route to the Capitol. To them, the arena is nothing new.
So for them, a major slip-up for the them (such as a disastrous training score) can be covered up by their reputation. For the rest of us, there is nowhere to hide when things turn pear-shaped.
And District 6 never gets high training scores. I've been one of our more competent tributes in recent years according to my mentor Melissa, but even I only managed a seven. Slightly better than average. Nothing to make me stand out.
I was already behind in the race for sponsors even before the Games began. I knew that I needed to really, really stand out once I entered the arena if I wanted to escape the arena as victor. Some years, high-scoring tributes from the outlying districts are invited to join the Career pack if they score highly enough in training. But unfortunately the Careers didn't want me, so I didn't receive the benefit of their reputation to aid the chances of me winning sponsors.
I would have earn sponsors the hard way.
Shortly before the reaping, I remember seeing a replay of an earlier Games that had taken place when I was very young. The victor, a boy from District 2, had won because, after growing tired of living in the shadow of his fellow Careers, he had deliberately abandoned his allies in order to show Panem that he was undoubtedly the most brutal and twisted tribute to ever set foot in the arena.
And after his Games, no-one doubted him.
And so I entered the arena with only two goals:
Leave the arena alive.
Show no mercy.
After all, in the Hunger Games, nice guys finish last.
In the arena, sympathy won't get you anything but a knife in the back.
And so I made a name for myself almost immediately in the Games, seeking out the highest-scoring tribute, the girl from District 2, almost immediately.
It angered me to see the look in her eyes as she fell to the ground at my feet; part fear, part humiliation.
Humiliation.
Humiliated by being killed by a tribute of lowly District 6, of all places.
After that, I no longer cared what I did. Everyone I swung at with my now blood-stained sword during the bloodbath wore the face of the girl from Two. It wasn't until the death recap that night that I realised that I killed seven, including three of the Careers.
I thought I would have to act fierce and brutal once I entered the arena, but I have found enough stored rage after sixteen years in the districts to genuinely mean every last ounce of pain I have dispensed over the last six days. Ten have died by my sword hand already. And now there are only four tributes left, two of them Careers.
I'll make sure that I'm the one to kill them.
After that, no-one will ever underestimate District 6 again.
It only took Molly two more days to wipe out the final two tributes, who were the boy from District 3 and the girl from District 4. The other tribute in the final four, the boy from One, was killed by the girl from Four after blades replaced words during an argument.
At the time, she had set a new Hunger Games record of the most kills by one tribute; twelve. This bettered the previous record of ten, set by Amadeus Hadrianus Cato of District 2 during the 8th Games.
A/N: Well, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it didn't turn out as I had originally planned it, but I hope you think it's good enough.
Please review! I'm still welcoming constructive criticism :)
There might not be a chapter tomorrow; social gatherings might get in the way of any potential fanfic-writing time. But there will definitely be another chapter by Tuesday at the latest :)
