AUTHOR'S NOTES: Due to this AU, there was no Katniss threat to inspire the Capitol to rig the quell to reap the past victors. As such the twist was different this time, but a few things remain the same. The arena is the same one from 'Catching Fire', although a few of the unknown wedges have been given hazards of their own. Similar to the previous chapter, I have a completed, full-length account of this one as well, and anyone interested can find it on my page, called "The 75th Annual Hunger Games". From here on out, we're in the AU portion of the fic, but hopefully that doesn't deter people from continuing to read it. The games that come after this one are among the most intense ones, after all.
Happy Reading!
The 75th Annual Hunger Games
Every 25 years the Capitol would introduce a special twist to the standard rules of the Hunger Games, making the games more diabolical than they already were. The first of these Quarter Quells had forced the districts to choose their own victors, and the 2nd one had reaped 48 tributes instead of the standard 24. This 3rd Quarter Quell was a reminder that no one was safe from the retribution of the Capitol, and that turning 18 was not necessarily a ticket out of the games. This year, the tributes would be reaped from a pool of citizens aged between 17 and 25. The logic for this from a ratings viewpoint was that these would be much fiercer games, and, considering the victor of these games wound up scoring 12 kills, this wound up being a truth.
The 75th Annual Hunger Games had the world of Panem watching. Eyes were fixated on District 12 again, given their notoriety with the last two Quarter Quells. District 12 had produced both of their victors: Laurel Fox and Haymitch Abernathy—from these two years. Would they managed to do this again, or would the streak finally end? Time would tell.
Racked with guilt from the previous year where she had failed to protect her sister, Katniss Everdeen watched the reapings. At 17, she would be one of the youngest in the event that her name was picked, but at this point she had lost so much that she hardly even cared. She didn't think anything would matter at all to her, and so when "Naisha Togisala" was called up, she hardly cast a glance her way.
However, she was later glad she did. This was a single mother, and was notably pregnant—which meant her husband had recently died. There was a dual sense of tragedy here for Katniss—for one, if somehow that baby survived, he or she would never know their father… but worse was the notion that this poor woman was not going to stand a chance in the games. As such, Katniss uttered four words that she never thought she'd hear herself say…
"I volunteer as tribute!"
And so it was. She was accompanied by a man named Levi Dryden, and soon they were off to the Capitol for three weeks of training: another minor rule twist, designed to amplify the intensity of the Quell.
Katniss focused on archery, which was one of her boldest talents, although she did also try her hand with knives and daggers for close combat. She was used to handling these as well, since she used to gut and skin animals that she had trapped and hunted back home.
To her slight surprise, her antics drew attention from Tarin McNair and Titania Summerdream from District 1, and shortly after, drew in Wallace Stone and Winter Ramirez from District 2: A solid, powerful career pack comprised of young adults between 23 and 25. In fact, it was only after this point that Katniss realized she was by far the youngest one there. Everyone else was at least 21. Katniss had no interest in alliances though, not wishing to make friends with anyone that would either kill her or be killed by her once they got thrown into the arena. The careers also pulled Surge Santiago and Elsa Zincke from District 3 into their posse, meaning that the commonplace '1/'2/'3 career pack was back on.
Despite this, she was still drawn towards Jackson Tong and Vex Greenwood from District 11, particularly the latter of the two, who somehow managed to warm up to Katniss. Katniss didn't want to admit it, but the idea of killing Vex in the opening minutes didn't exactly sit well with her. She was already proven to be very dangerous, considering that only Winter Ramirez scored a 12 in training among the careers. Katniss was the only other person to score a 12, and did so in record time by pulling a stunt that no tribute in 75 years had dared try. She had walked in, grabbed the nearest bow, and shot an apple right out of a roast pig's mouth from the training room, up into the balcony where the judging Gamemakers were feasting and otherwise merrymaking. It froze them all real quick, but Katniss walked out before they could make much more of a reaction. As such, she earned a 12.
This did not faze the career pack necessarily; instead it just made them wary of Katniss and label her as a dangerous enemy—and a dangerous enemy she was. 3 of the 8 bloodbath deaths were by her hands, as she seized a bow and raced off into the jungle-like wilderness that stood around them. The cornucopia was stocked with nothing but weapons: and the stony paths surrounded by seawater would not be places to linger around. It did not take long for her to be sponsored a peculiar item: a compass. Knowing a sense of which way was north was not as important as just remembering where things were, but Katniss knew that it would be important after he saw the note attached.
"It's almost 12 o' clock…"
Hardly a few minutes later, Katniss saw lightning striking the highest tree in the arena. She fled eastward in a clockwise direction, stopping for a rest which didn't last long. A single gong sounded, and suddenly blood rain descended upon them. It was in this moment that Katniss realized what her sponsor message meant, and what the gimmick of this deadly arena was: It was a clock, with each of the 12 "wedges" sporting a different monster or arena hazard.
While it was nothing personal against Katniss, the Gamemakers didn't want her getting oriented with the arena this early on, and so during Vex and Katniss' travels, they unleashed a slightly dizzying fog in her area that was odorless and colorless. As such, what they thought was the 12th wedge was actually the 5th wedge. This was the wedge that Katniss wanted to remember after she realized what it was—but at the moment, it was a terrifying ordeal, considering that every day at 5AM and 5PM, it was shrouded in complete darkness.
By this point, Katniss had already slain half a dozen tributes, and so the surviving career pack had taken to calling her "Black Death", based on the color of the uniform (a mostly black outfit which would become the standard fare from this year's games onward), and the fact that she was responsible for more than half of the tributes' deaths so far.
While Katniss was not concerned about herself getting killed, her survival instincts kept her from doing anything stupid. She remained extremely supportive of Vex, hoping to let that girl go home, but of course, the odds never seemed to be in Katniss' favor. The initial attack on the careers that would end the games started out well, with Katniss scoring her 7th and 8th kills by killing Elsa and Tarin, but then it went south quickly after Winter managed to overpower Katniss while Vex fought Surge. In a moment of selflessness, Vex disrupted winter by throwing a knife into her side, but this was all the time Surge needed to fatally plunge his knives into her gut. Katniss instantly responded by shooting an arrow through his skull, but Winter managed to stagger away as Katniss raced to Vex's side.
The wound was definitely mortal, and Vex knew it too. She gave Katniss one final request, which Katniss found odd. Vex asked Katniss to sing, and, odd as it sounded, Katniss did exactly that, parting ways with her best friend with one final lullaby.
Seizing a pair of black daggers from Vex's hands, she went on a rampage, seeking out the final three tributes in the hopes of ending the games once and for all. she murdered Titania on her way to confront the District 2 pair, and managed to ambush Wallace as well, marking him as her 11th kill. Taking a deep breath, she rushed towards the center of the arena, figuring that if Winter was not nearby, that she would be there. Sure enough, she was waiting for Katniss on the beach, throwing knives in hand. She had recovered from most of her injuries from earlier, and both tributes knew that this 6th and final day of the games would be the end. There were only a few minutes left and it was do or die.
Winter put Katniss on the defensive as her first knife grazed Katniss' left arm and nearly took out her eye. The 2nd one was aimed right at Katniss' bowstring, successfully severing it and causing it to lash out and slice Katniss' right cheek open. Without staggering, Katniss pulled out Vex's jagged daggers and the two tributes went at it in melee combat. Both stayed on their toes, and seemed to be equally matched until Katniss decided to try a do-or-die stunt. She pretended to stagger and stumble, and to her surprise and good fortune, Winter fell for it. She lunged in for a finishing blow, only for Katniss to counter it and kill Winter herself. She was Katniss' 12th and final kill, and the games ended with a final shot from the cannon. Katniss was the 3rd victor from District 12, and the 75th victor of the Hunger Games.
She had no feelings one way or the other about the nickname "Black Death", but her world was a painful one full of trauma and regret, as she reminded herself that no matter how many people she killed, it would not bring her sister back. This was a hard pill for her to swallow, and as such she remained mostly alone in her Victor Village after her games. She did not realize, however, that the little girl Naisha Togisala had given birth to after being spared from the games, would grow up to become something more—and surprisingly, someone that would be able to bond with Katniss a decade and a half down the line…
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)
72HG: Immanuel Cox (#3, District 10)
73HG: Paige DeSiete (#5, District 8)
74HG: Clove Kazera (#13, District 2)
75HG: Katniss Everdeen (#3, District 12)