AUTHOR'S NOTES: I imagine that the games became more varied and colorful as time went on, with the Capitol learning from experience each time-learning what was a good show and what wasn't. At this point, they are branching out on the types of arenas, and sooner or later they'll become more creative with traps, mutts, or other hazards to make the tributes do a bit of thinking instead of just fighting or running.
Happy Reading!

The 5th Annual Hunger Games

Another developing trend in the games were the concept of "Sister Districts", which had almost solidified by the time of the 5th Annual Hunger Games. The twelve districts of Panem began to sort of pair off, with pairs of similar-minded districts starting to look to each other for potential allies. District 1 and District 2 were the most prominent of these, followed by District 11 and District 12. In between them, District 3 and District 5 often paired up, as did District 4 and District 7, District 6 and District 8, and District 10 and District 9.

District 1's Jade Prima and Astra Sentak, however, did not care about all that fancy talk. Their 'sister district' had produced a victor last year, and so now they felt it was their turn. Thus, when Reaping Day came, they fought their fellow district members to the stage, with Astra even knocking two other girls out on her way there. This aggressive behavior continued into the training center, where they managed to intimidate several tributes, including almost all of the kids from Districts 9-12. However, District 11 was unfazed, perhaps from having an intelligent mentor to help give them tricks and tips on how to stay alive. They were wary of these bloodthirsty careers, and were more worried about them than about District 2 even. However, time would tell how dangerous or not they were.

Like the previous years, training scores gave the betters in the Capitol a decent idea on who to put their money on, with the stronger career tributes from Districts 1 and 2 scoring higher than most of the others. District 4 also scored pretty high, and the smarts from the District 3 kids also helped elevate their scores. training scores were based on a combination of strength, smarts, and skills, and none of the tributes knew exactly what the Gamemakers looked for (maybe it changed every year based on what the arena was like), and so they simply tried to leave an impression before they were shipped off to the arena, whatever it may be.

District 4 was fairly excited about this year's arena, for even their faces lit up as they saw it unfold in front of them—it seemed to be a tropical island of some sort. The tributes and the cornucopia were surrounded by dense foliage, but the sound of seagulls could be heard overhead, and the distant noise of waves lapping against the beach could be heard.

The boy, Spike, was particularly stoked. Being from District 4, he was a natural swimmer, and beachfront terrain was his native element. He would be a dangerous fighter for sure.

Naturally, after the countdown, the beautiful beaches were stained with the blood and bodies of boys and girls who had fallen in the cornucopia bloodbath. Spike and his partner teamed up and started hunting down tributes just as the careers did. It almost made Districts 1 and 2 contemplate what District 4 would be like as a 'career' district, but obviously that would have to be something they decided on themselves. It wasn't like tributes from District 2 could go over and build training centers in District 4.

Oddly enough, the weather patterns were different from the other years. Instead of calm mornings and stormy nights, it was the opposite. It poured torrentially during the day, but usually cleared up by the evening, allowing tributes to move around again and cut each other down. Only Spike seemed bold enough to want to traverse the rain—not even his district partner wanted any part of this.

It was only after he wiped out the District 2 pair during the night that this boy finally met his end. Astra intercepted his trident, pivoting around so fast that she impaled the boy on the spot. Spike's partner was still out there, but both of the kids from District 1 knew that she was much less dangerous, and so every night from then to the end of the games, they took the offensive, picking off kids one by one while hardly taking any significant injuries themselves. Soon enough, it was just Jade and Astra—this would mark the first time that a tribute had had to turn on his or her partner. Since the two tributes were the last ones standing, they had to turn on each other. Perhaps there may have been drama of some sort if they were form other districts, but the career mentality was already deeply engrained in them, and so they fought each other through the storm and the rain until Jade overpowered Astra and brought the 5th Annual Hunger Games to an end as he impaled her with a makeshift spear. Shortly after her death, he knelt next to her and simply whispered "I'm sorry…"
Jade Prima had become the 1st victor from District 1, and the 5th victor of the Hunger Games.

While he didn't originally make much of the incident, he didn't exactly feel proud of having to kill a girl he had trained with and then fought alongside. He had simply done what he had had to, in order to crawl out of the games as a survivor—nay, a victor.

On the other hand, he had also paid his price. He was wary about making friends, fearing that there might come a time where he would be forced to kill them, even if his sojourn in the Hunger Games was never going to have to be repeated. Sometimes, things shook a victor's mind so harshly that they could not exactly just recover from it. Perhaps Jade was one of those cases…

VICTORS BY YEAR:
1HG: Fukaya Kerezaki (#1, District 5)
2HG: Lucy Takamatzu (#1, District 11)
3HG: Naseru Litzak (#1, District 3)
4HG: Naisha Szasz (#1, District 2)
5HG: Jade Prima (#1, District 1)