AUTHOR'S NOTES: While a few chapters in this area were among the last ones I had written, this one was actually one of the first ones I wrote, because this was one of the earliest established victors in my AU-canon. As such, this character appears or gets mentioned in a great deal of my fanfics, and even makes a cameo in "the 75th Annual Hunger Games" during Katniss' victory tour. Similarly, this is a candidate chapter for a potential full-length Hunger Games story in the distant future. Also, a long time ago I got requests for a game where a 12-year-old won. Welp, I promised a chapter like that, and since I'm a writer of my word... I shall deliver.
Happy Reading!

The 77th Annual Hunger Games

Every now and again, there would be a Hunger Games straight out of the books of legend. The 77th Annual Hunger Games was exactly one of these, being well-remembered both for the intriguing electrical arena that it presented, but also for the enormous upset that Panem realized as the games came to a sudden and surprising end.

Over the years, tributes became more cunning and more powerful, even from the outer districts. It was rumored that places like 8, 11, and 12 were learning fighting tricks to spur a rebellion rather than perform well in the games, but that remained to be seen. Either way, Panem could not argue with the latest trend, which included tributes performing better, and everyone, including tributes from Districts like 12 and 11, scoring fairly high. This year in particular, everyone had their eyes on the career pack, which, apart from the usual pairs from District 1 and District 2, had also roped in District 4, as well as the cunning pair from District 3.

Led by Samson and Melissa from District 2, the career pack was strong and fierce, proving with their numerous weapon skills that they planned on dominating the arena. All eight of them were either 17 or 18, except for the girl from District 3—a tiny little kid barely a day older than 12. Ikki Ortolani was an unassuming child; the 2nd of four, 79 pounds, 4'7", and fairly quiet. Her birthday had actually been only a few days before the Reaping, which had qualified her as eligible for the 77th games. She was recruited at the request of her partner Rodney Burns, who had the little girl prove her worth by demonstrating a rather striking sense of brilliance and genius, as coupled with an ability to construct electrical contraptions from scraps, and her ability to detect traps. Knowing that the outlying kids were famous for such things, the careers agreed to let her in.

In truth, the entire career pack, including Rodney, figured that Ikki was going to get offed in the opening seconds, but the tiny girl's cute charm and innocent demeanor had them at least humor her for a while. Besides, she proved that she was clever, and so if she did survive, she could very well be an asset to the career alliance when the games began.

These theories were further proved, as everyone from Districts 1, 2, 3, and 4 all scored 10 or higher in the private sessions. Ikki scored a 4, but later admitted that she did not display her true potential. This was a bold move on her part, considering that only Leske, the boy from District 4, actually believed her. But, they were not going to go back on their word—they had no reason to kill someone who had sworn their alliance. However, even Rodney agreed that when it came time for the career pack to break up, Ikki would be the first to go.

When they were faced with the arena, however, even Districts 4, 2, and 1 started to wonder if they were at a slight disadvantage. The landscape was rocky and cloudy, and the ground was littered with ore and metal shards. Very few conventional weapons existed at the cornucopia, and some tributes knew that this would make things challenging for them. The careers were not among these. They reached the conventional weapons first and slaughtered more than half a dozen tributes (8, to be exact) at the bloodbath, ending Day 1 spectacularly. One of the kills had even been landed by Ikki in the bloodbath, although most of them were done by Melissa and Samson.

Over the next few days, the tributes learned the wiles of the arena. It was very electrically oriented, given the storms and clouds that dominated the skies—which meant that the District 5 pair would need to be taken down early. The careers used Ikki as their spy and scout, knowing that she was small and difficult to notice most of the time, but it remained an effective way to fish out the other tributes. Ikki was gone for several hours at a time, but she always returned with news of a tribute. At one point she was sponsored a large coil of wire and a pair of rubber gloves. With these, she would construct her traps, and she used some of the large metal shards as rods to make them even more advanced. Rodney sometimes helped her, but it was clear that the plucky District 3 girl knew what she was up to.

A couple times, cannons fired while Ikki was gone, but she would return with news that a tribute had fallen by another tribute, or in two other cases, by one of her traps. The kid was clearly a genius, and the other careers started to catch onto this.

"She's smarter than we thought," the little 12-year-old heard the others whispering late one night when they assumed she was asleep. Ikki remained utterly motionless, her hair not even fluttering. The thunder from the storms made it even more ominous as the others spoke, but she waited and listened.

"well, then as soon as we off the others," Leske suggested, "We turn on her and drop her. Then we can turn on each other and have the proper fight we're known for."

"She's clearly not a fighter," Rodney admitted, "so as long as we can keep her in our sights after we get rid of the others, we should be fine."
"I'm an archer anyways," Melissa reminded them, "if she runs, I shoot."

They came to that agreement fairly early on, but that did not faze Ikki at all. There was still plenty more game time to burn yet.

By Day 6, there were still 10 tributes left. The two that were not part of the career pack were the boy from '12 and the girl from '11. The former's partner had died from one of Ikki's traps, and Leske had gotten the latter in a 'raid'. The latter two knew they were being hunted, and they laid elaborate traps to try and catch the others off guard, but Ikki was able to detect them. She acted as if she was still unaware of the plan her "allies" had against her, and worked with them until the bitter end, scouting out the arena for them until that District 12 boy and District 11 girl were both dead. By this time, it was the ending of day 8. Clouds ruled the sky, throwing lightning at sporadic intervals.

"Ikki… your time has come." The entire career pack, Rodney included, advanced on Ikki, who backed away, but held her ground.

"Whatdya mean?" Ikki tilted her head, feigning innocence.

"There's just the eight of us... and this is where we turn on one another—starting with you." They replied, closing in.

"I don't think so," Ikki retorted, before scampering off at a remarkable speed, barely dodging one of Melissa's arrows. The careers gave chase, but that was exactly what Ikki wanted them to do. She led them to a corner of the arena, where they all suddenly realized why Ikki had been gone for hours at a time. They found themselves in the middle of an elaborate construct full of wire, metal rods, and a lightningrod in the middle.

"Two words…" Ikki smirked. "Rubber gloves"

The wire she held was wrapped around the lightningrod no less, and right as she chanted this, she lobbed it up into the air. Lightning struck it, travelling down the wire and into the rod, which then spread through the wire towards the others—and the tributes as well.

The resulting effect was rather surprising. The lightning struck each tribute except Ikki (who had prepared specifically against this trap of hers), zigzagging back and forth between them until each of them had been fried and dead.

"Never mess with an electrician when you're surrounded by lightning." She quipped, and with that, 7 cannons went off, one for each of the careers, scoring Ikki her 4th through 10th kills. Ikki had become the 7th victor from District 3, and the 77th victor of the Hunger Games.

More than any of that, however, Ikki Susanna Ortolani had become a legend. Not only was she the youngest tribute to ever win the games, but she was the only one under the age of 14 to do so—and at the tender age of 12, no less. Despite her training score of 4, she had not only managed to survive with luck, but also skill, scoring a ridiculously high 10 kills in the games that had ended so suddenly. It was literally the upset of the century (and would continue to be—no games between 1 and 99 had seen such an unexpected turn of events), with the tiny little 12-year-old with negligible odds against the mighty career tributes, coming home the victor.

Despite killing several children (even if all but the one in the bloodbath had been from elaborate traps), Ikki was not terribly traumatized. She was a little nervous of others for a while, and did rig up her room with electrical traps (though mostly just shocking ones rather than deadly ones) for a while to warn her of anyone else's presence, but eventually, even these tricks subsided, and she lived peacefully with her parents, her older sister, and two younger brothers. No one dared underestimate the cunning and genius of Ikki Ortolani after that. She had made history and had gained respect from the Capitol and every single district (even if some were grudging). Few other victors could ever say the same…

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)
76HG: Johnny Stallings (#9, District 5)
77HG: Ikki Ortolani (#7, District 3)