AUTHOR'S NOTES: considering that this story is nearing completion (in regards to how many chapters I've written and not yet posted), I might post three chapters this week. No guarantees, but I'll see what happens. In the meantime, here's the next episode of The Victors' Chronicles as our thrilling adventure through the history of the Hunger Games continues.
Happy Reading!
The 58th Annual Hunger Games
While it was a known fact that the urban districts outside of Districts 3, 2, and 1 were often at a disadvantage in these outdoor death arenas that the Capitol called the Hunger Games, it was not entirely uncommon for victors to pop up from them despite that. Sure there were the occasional urban blight arenas or outdoor ruins, but even in the absence of anything like that, victors would still emerge from the outer or urban districts. Sometimes, tributes simply beat the odds, just as the victor the previous year had demonstrated.
For the 58th Annual Hunger Games, it seemed less clear who would be victor material and who would be cannon fodder. Ares Roth and Erin Kennedy were two of the volunteers who reached the stage, both of whom fit common District 2 stereotypes: Ares being a hulking young man with enough strength to snap a neck with minimal effort; and his partner Erin being a small conniving little thing that could eviscerate her enemies with lighter weapons using blinding speed.
Over in District 1, Octavia won herself a place as the female representative of her district, and was joined by a boy named Mortimer only minutes later. All four of them saw each other in the reruns of the reapings as their trains flew towards the Capitol, and almost all unanimously figured that they would make quite the alliance together.
Odin Zimmerman and Meili Meisha might not have seemed like much coming from District 6 and showing clear signs of drug use, but as long as they didn't have dependent addiction on whatever substance(s) they were taking, perhaps they stood a chance. In the training center, they actually found themselves being eyes by Zul and Varrick, the pair from District 11 as potential allies. Odin showed an uncanny talent with building things, and Meili seemed to know some of the secrets about bombs and grenades, a secret not seen in the 'games since District 12's Zefira Saratoga a decade prior.
Scores that year were fairly average all around, at least when the different standards each district was held to were taken into account. Districts 1 and 2 scored high and into the double digits; Districts 3, 4, and 5 had slightly lower scores than that; Meili, Odin, and the tributes from '7 and '8 scored right in the 6-8 range, District 9 and District 10 scored low, scores for the District 11 pair were nearly on par with those from '3 and '4, while District 12 scored about average that year. Of course, just like every year, the scores were just numbers that these days were mostly just for the Capitol to use for their betting games. For the tributes it meant who to watch out for or who to ally with. Discovering a tribute's weakness was just a matter of observation in the arena when the time came.
As the tributes rose to their pedestals, they got their first glimpse of the Cornucopia and the goods and supplies it contained. Weapons were commonplace this year as they nearly always were, and there were also several ropes. Sometime after the gong sounded, a girl from District 8 got strangled by Mortimer, but by the time that girl died, 6 other tributes were lying in pools of their own blood as the other tributes fought for weapons. After her death, two more tributes lost their lives, bringing the bloodbath total this year to 9.
Zul and Varrick met back up with Odin and Meili, all four of them armed with different weapons. Zul carried spears, Varrick had a bow, Odin had a broadsword, and Meili had found a pair of small square hammers that seemed built for speedy smash attacks rather than mighty blows. Confident in their abilities but remaining cautious, the tributes ventured out into the wilderness to see what the arena entailed and what sort of hazards they would need to watch out for.
There was a giant winding lake that looked like it had filled an enormous crack in the ground. The rest of the arena had some grizzly trees and red, sandy rocks that gave the place a very desert-esque feel. The blazing sun and deep blue skies contrasted the reds and browns of the land and it was clear that heat would be an issue.
A little scouting around also proved that the breezes, while they also felt cool against the searing desert heat, were dangerously strong, and gusts occasionally knocked tributes off their feet. There didn't seem to be many dangerous creatures, although Zul spied a few rather large lizards roaming some of the lower rocks from a vantage point, and the bright red ants that crawled across the ground in some areas were almost certainly not friendly.
A buzzing from the trees served as an ominous reminder about the dangers of tracker-jackers, and on day 3 alone they claimed the lived of two careless tributes, and over the next two days, Ares, Octavia, Erin, and Mortimer claimed the lives of three more. Odin and the pair from District 11 worked to get some logs or branches from some of the trees, using the ropes to tie them together to make a raft. Meili volunteered to test it out, and sailed off into the lake where she managed to craft a great deal of different explosives in peace, testing them against the rocks and cliffs. Some of them merely flashed to distract the enemies, while others produced smoke, and others actually produced explosions.
While her original intention had been to produce her explosives in peace and then come to her allies' aid, by the time she returned on day 8, they had been attacked in a massive raid by the careers that had left Varrick, Mortimer, Octavia, and Odin dead. Zul and Erin had both also sustained serious injuries, while only Ares had some out of that fight relatively unscathed.
The remaining 8 tributes, however, were about to face the same fear that beset the career pack that went against Zefira Saratoga a decade ago did. Armed with her grenades, she set out to take down any survivors. She climbed up onto some of the higher rocks, using her flash grenades to take out a few of the stragglers from District 3 and District 4 that had evaded the careers' line of sight, and then turned towards her former ally and two enemies to end the games.
Fortunately for her, she wound up seeing Zul's face in the sky the next evening, meaning Ares or Erin had gotten her, which in turn saved Meili the trouble. This time Ares had been somewhat wounded, but Erin had not managed to recover from her wounds of the previous encounter, and she eventually bled out despite her ally's best efforts to save her.
Ares met his own fate two nights later as he slept. Unbeknownst to him (probably due to Capitol Gamemakers trying to throw challenges his way) he slept beneath a hive of tracker-jackers. Meili, who still had three of her grenades, just had to lob one at the nest and make it fall.
While for a moment it seemed the wasps would come for her, a smoke grenade the hovered above them in Meili's general direction had the aggressive tracker-jackers head for Ares instead, who got a rude and deadly awakening as he was stung to death. Like most victims of tracker-jacker venom in such high quantities, he was hardly recognizable by the time his cannon went off, and as the smoke from her grenade subsided, Meili stood triumphant on her rock overlooking the lake. She was the 5th victor from District 6, and the 58th victor of the Hunger Games.
Like most District 6 victors, Meili returned to her drug-abusing habits after winning her games, although in much lesser amounts than most of her predecessors. She remained very highly functional, and remained a proficient engineer and mechanic, both for Capitol vehicles and for her explosive devices. She was also highly desired by the Capitol, and became a bargaining chip for them like many before her had. She would later befriend the victor who came after her, and the two of them used their positions in the Capitol to their advantage, learning a great deal about the people that thought they were using the victors instead. There were always games beyond the Hunger Games, and now, Meili knew how to play them.
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)
6HG: Cedar Hardin (#1, District 7)
7HG: Susan Jackman (#2, District 5)
8HG: Malcolm Reed (#1, District 6)
9HG: Mags Cohen (#1, District 4)
10HG: Faren Dragmire (#2, District 1)
11HG: Maius Karuha (#2, District 2)
12HG: Iunius Karuha (#3, District 2)
13HG: Hilda White (#1, District 10)
14HG: Minali Otoyome (#2, District 3)
15HG: Willow James (#3, District 1)
16HG: Lark Chandnea (#2, District 11)
17HG: Woof Casino (#1, District 8)
18HG: Leah Holden (#2, District 7)
19HG: Zeruda Mezkiel (#2, District 6)
20HG: Muscida Lee (#2, District 4)
21HG: Kada Lahka (#4, District 2)
22HG: Gleam DiFronzo (#4, District 1)
23HG: Ivette Coronado (#3, District 5)
24HG: Olivia Thurman (#1, District 9)
25HG: Laurel Fox (#1, District 12)
26HG: Daron Armstrong (#5, District 2)
27HG: Cobalt Evans (#5, District 1)
28HG: Lyme Golding (#6, District 2)
29HG: Ash LosDias (#3, District 7)
30HG: Challis Worth (#2, District 8)
31HG: Beetee Latier (#3, District 3)
32HG: Fletch Crossley (#4, District 5)
33HG: Seeder Howell (#3, District 11)
34HG: Price Emerson (#6, District 1)
35HG: Leto Irizari (#7, District 2)
36HG: Jackson Kjelle (#5, District 5)
37HG: Zerviah Hawke (#3, District 6)
38HG: Wiress Plummer (#4, District 3)
39HG: Nephi Lott (#3, District 4)
40HG: Miriam Luxio (#7, District 1)
41HG: Marcelina Kovac (#6, District 5)
42HG: Niles Lincoln (#8, District 2)
43HG: Blight McKay (#4, District 7)
44HG: Sagittaria Svenja (#4, District 11)
45HG: Dezna Meraxa (#4, District 6)
46HG: Alice DeSiete (#3, District 8)
47HG: Aurum Zianja (#8, District 1)
48HG: Layla Aranai (#9, District 2)
49HG: Chip Sangster (#5, District 3)
50HG: Haymitch Abernathy (#2, District 12)
51HG: Derrick James (#7, District 5)
52HG: Chaff Mitchell (#5, District 11)
53HG: Brutus Gunn (#10, District 2)
54HG: Tiffany Waxler (#2, District 10)
55HG: Zak Dreggite (#4, District 4)
56HG: Zoroka Chandaki (#9, District 1)
57HG: Cecelia Sanchez (#4, District 8)
58HG: Meili Meisha (#5, District 6)