AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'm sure that this was and is a hotly-anticipated chapter as well. According to Collins and the films, Johanna Mason won the 71st Annual Hunger Games, and so given this chapter's number, it's clear who we'll be dealing with here. Sadly, since we know that she pretended to be a snivelling coward to reduce attention from herself, we don't get to see her crazy, vulgar side too much till near the end. whatever the case, like with all canon victors, I hope to have done Johanna some justice for her chapter in my Hunger Games chronology.
Happy Reading!

The 71st Annual Hunger Games

The events surrounding the previous year's games had been somewhat controversial given how it ended, but nothing could change who had won the games, and at the end of the day, it was still considered a fully legitimate victory. The Capitol always had clever ways to make sure that at least one tribute was spared their wrath, even if the Gamemakers responsible for the events the previous year had been replaced.

As such, there was a fresh set of faces and ideas for the 71st Annual Hunger Games. Obviously this applied as well for the tribute pool, although the faces this year didn't seem to be anything that the Capitol and most of Panem weren't already well-acquainted with: strong, high-scoring careers, cunning tributes from Districts 5 and 3, wildcards from District 4, average performances across most of the remaining districts, with a slight increase around District 11 and 12. One oddity was the girl from District 7, however. While she appeared to be a strapping young woman who appeared to have good form and posture, she performed so poorly in the training center that her training score was only a 4. She ate ravenously during the lunch breaks, and ate by herself, afraid to approach anyone in what would later prove to be a high-risk, high-return gambit.

Originally the careers were going to ask the pair from District 7 to join them, but after seeing the abysmal performance of this Johanna Mason, they even seemed to have doubts about her partner Shane, but after he scored a 9, they welcomed him to the club, so to speak. Johanna marked this as the first mistake the careers made that year. She had nothing against her partner at all, but if they were going to judge her based on her training score, then they were going to be in for a rude awakening. Granted, she had done what she did banking on them as well as members of the Capitol audiences judging her based on her score, and so her gambit would be an all-or-nothing endeavor when the time came. She hoped that the arena would favor her antics.

To her utmost delight, it did. Surrounded by a rather daunting forest full of massive, towering trees that were wider across than many tributes, she knew that she was right at home. She had to keep her act of being timid up, however, and so she beelined away from the cornucopia after the gong sounded, disappearing into the woods. She was sure that she could find a tribute and take their weapon sooner or later. She didn't imagine it would be too hard to snap a neck.

Instead of killing anyone though, Johanna remained hidden as she secretly followed the careers. After they made their next kill and left the body for the hovercrafts to pick up, she ran in, snatched the axe the dead boy had been wielding, and ran back into the woods. The careers thought little of it, considering that this timid girl had been afraid of combat, and so they were more concerned about the stronger targets.

Their philosophy seemed valid, for over the next few days they had no trouble dominating the battlefield. Shane wondered if he was going to cross paths with Johanna, and how they'd end up killing her. If she was as scared and feeble as she appeared, they'd have no trouble taking her down, but there was such thing (to him at least) as overkill.

The forest was also filled with mutts, including bears and wolves. They were easy to take down if a tribute was swift enough, but made up for their lack of speed with brute strength and power. In fine, if they knocked a tribute down, odds were they wouldn't get back up. A boy from District 10 who was camping in a distant corner of the arena learned this the hard way after these monsters found his camp and mauled him to death. The Capitol seemed to enjoy that kind of violence.

It was for this reason that sponsors brought the careers some sleek weapons. All the talk of brutally murdering Johanna upon finding her brought them a touch of excitement. That excitement didn't diminish as they fought off packs of vicious mutts that even claimed Shane's life. 8 days in and there were only 7 tributes left, with Shane's face appearing in the night sky later that evening.

It was in this moment, as she gazed upon the holographic face of her partner in the sky that the sleeping beast inside Johanna Mason had awakened, and she knew what she had to do. The following morning she picked off one of the straggler tributes, and when the cannons went off to signal their deaths, the careers hardly expected that she was responsible. The wolves and bears were becoming more frequent, and so they figured they were just more casualties of them, or of each other.

They were given something new to fear when they found her sinking her axe into the body of a District 6 boy as another cannon went off. A slasher smile plastered the spiky-haired girl's face as she twirled a pair of bloodstained axes and took a step towards them.

"It's time for you to run." She grinned ear to ear.

"We're not afraid of you," the careers warned in response."

"Really now?" Johanna wrenched the axe out of her victim, "because you should be."

It was game time.

"Flee! Flee for your lives!" she shouted a merciless taunt as she raced in for a head-on attack which surprisingly worked. She took down the boy from District 2 first, causing the careers to scatter. The girl from District 1, who was nearly overrun, turned around to fight Johanna, but the District 7 girl was essentially in a berserker mode, which helped her shrug off attacks, and allowed her to channel her strength into swinging her axe so hard that it shattered the career girl's spear.

"uh-oh, whatcha gonna do?" Johanna's slasher smile returned. The District 1 girl didn't last long after that, and Johanna's warpath continued.

The remaining two tributes lasted one extra day as they hid, rested up, and then moved back to attack Johanna. She had rested up too, but the moment she saw her two enemies, she licked her lips, brandished her axes, and ultimately made quick work of them. The wind rustled through the trees as she stood over the lifeless corpses of the former career tributes, and basked in her victory. Johanna had become the 6th victor from District 7, and the 71st victor of the Hunger Games.

Johanna played a deceptive role that even District 5 would have been proud of. She was much more bawdy and vulgar in real life than she had acted in the games, only showing her true colors near the end after proving that she was not some sniveling coward like she had pretended to be. That was when the real beast was unleashed, and Johanna Mason showed who she truly was.

All wasn't well and happy for her after the games though. The Capitol admired her for her power and strength, but also for her appearance, and that usually meant coming there at the whims of these Capitolites to pleasure them as they saw fit. Not willing to fall into this category herself, the higher-ups in the Capitol made her pay for that insubordination, and like many victors before her, she suddenly and (not so) "mysteriously" found herself alone. While they often thought that this subdued rebellious victors, all it really did was make them angrier. They were just biding their time until the moment was right for them to make their move; and now Johanna Mason had joined that group as well.

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)
59HG: Zhin Lyautey (#6, District 3)
60HG: Lucas Drazen (#10, District 1)
61HG: Kara Petersen (#5, District 7)
62HG: Enobaria Taos (#11, District 2)
63HG: Gloss Zianja (#11, District 1)
64HG: Cashmere Zianja (#12, District 1)
65HG: Finnick Odair (#5, District 4)
66HG: Elroy Trujillo (#12, District 2)
67HG: Varric Svenja (#6, District 11)
68HG: Carver Tabris (#2, District 9)
69HG: Bethany Shanza (#8, District 5)
70HG: Annie Cresta (#6, District 4)
71HG: Johanna Mason (#6, District 7)