AUTHOR'S NOTES: This chapter and the next are a couple of the particularly wild ones considering some things encountered in the arena, but hopefully not too far-fetched. The "wild 80s" approach a close, to make way for the next Golden Age. Like most of the other names in this story, any re-namings are just coincidental. The Romula here is not the Romula that runs Panem in my 100th Hunger Games fic.
Happy Reading!
The 88th Annual Hunger Games
It was a well-known fact that firearms were never included among weaponry for the Hunger Games, and no tribute was ever trained in their use apart from perhaps a few District 2 kids that were training to be Peacekeepers if they could not volunteer for the games. The 88th Annual Hunger Games, however, did away with that trend, and became infamous for its gunfights, however brief they might have been.
Of course, at the time of the reapings, not even the careers were aware of this, and so they went into the games with more or less the same gusto that they did every year. Valor, Serenity, Garrett, and Romula would continue the trend of being solid representatives of District 1 and District 2 (respectively); while District 3 produced Ivette McFaren and Ian Nelson, a cunning pair of tributes that might have had the smarts and skills to run with the career pack this year.
Their training scores proved that this was a likely possibility. Ivette scored a 9 and Ian scored a 10, and if their behavior in the training center was anything to go by, they would likely dig up the mines if they were allowed to escape the bloodbath. The careers thought that this would prove to be useful, and so Valor offered an alliance.
Considering that the tributes from District 11 and District 12 were both setting up to be viable contenders, it seemed the career pack had a lot to worry about. While they all scored 10s, 11s, and 12s, so did the tributes from the two outer districts, serving as another solid reminder that District 11 was dangerous and that District 12 was rapidly becoming so as well.
As the tributes rose from their pedestals, Garrett and Romula watched the District 11 pair, while Valor and Serenity watched District 12. Ian and Ivette analyzed the weapons and saw a lot of the standard fare: swords, bows, axes, spears, knives, and other metal death instruments, but did not see very many other types of supplies.
When the gong sounded, Falco Tsubaki and Rey Kazahana from District 12 beelined it for some of the weapons, seizing a few and then turning to attack the other tributes. Their buddies from District 11, Franklin and Lucy, grabbed hammers and clubs and began smashing things as they broke free of the bloodbath and escaped into the wilderness. Falco and Rey joined them only moments later.
The six career tributes all survived the carnage, although the corpses of 9 other tributes lay strewn all around them, covered in their own blood.
Since there weren't very many other supplies short of weapons that would be of any use, the careers took it upon themselves to explore the arena. Rocky, mountainous terrain surrounded them on every side, with the occasional patch of trees or forest. What made it particularly interesting, however, were that in most of the rocky clearings, geysers spewed piping hot water high into the air. If nothing else, water would not be in short supply for the tributes this year, which was a relief for some.
Almost immediately the two alliances pinpointed each other and commenced combat. Since the Capitol did not want the games ending with one or both of the strongest alliances being decimated on day 2, they caused a diversion. The ground rumbled and split between the two groups, and a geyser spewed hot water out into the air, which then rained down on them. It was hot enough to burn, but fortunately for all ten of them, they managed to get out of the way before anything too severe happened. Rey and Falco glanced around for a way to get around the crack, but the only possible entries had to be somewhere in the forests to the left or right, and so they abandoned their designs after a few missed spears and arrows exchanged sides.
While they did this, Ivette and Ian went back to the cornucopia clearing to start digging up the mines. Romula accompanied them simply to help make sure other tributes didn't try to disrupt them as they dug up the 24 mines. Sure enough, this premonition turned out to be well thought-out, for Romula managed to slay another tribute that nearly ambushed Ivette.
Originally when the District 3 pair had the idea to dig up the mines, they suspected that they would be able to rebury them after rearming them, but with the rocky terrain, that seemed highly unlikely unless they found a particularly soft patch of ground somewhere in the forest. That would be too obvious though, and so Ivette and Ian began working on a launcher machine of sorts similar to something a few other cunning tributes had tried before in past games.
Being the saboteurs that their district was so famous for producing, Falco, Rey, Franklin, and Lucy tried to devise a way to make one of the geysers explode, but they concluded that the risks were too high and the reward too little after Rey was scalded by some of the hot water. Fortunately for her and her group she managed to recover, but they knew that there was little they could do with the geysers, especially with how unpredictable they were. Luckily for them, they did not die the way two other tributes did.
They did wind up spending day 4 and day 5 in style, however. They located a series of large hot springs that were not hot enough to burn them, and took advantage of them straightaway, stripping down to their smallclothes before slithering into the relaxing waters. They kept their weapons close by in case a tribute came their way. One unsuspecting schmuck ran into their springs on the 5th evening, where without hesitation, a nearly-naked Lucy sprung up, grabbing a throwing axe and lodging it in the boy's skull with a well-aimed throw.
Day 7 had the outer district tributes waking up to find their springs conspicuously dry, which was simply the Capitol's message for them to get moving before the Gamemakers decided to send something far worse down on them. There had not been very many deaths over the last few days, and they wanted that to change.
As such, the tributes were rather surprised to find crates randomly scattered across the arena, and even more surprised when some of the tributes found pistols inside of some of the crates. They quickly realized that these guns only had one or two shots to prevent a lucky tribute from going on a rampage with an unfair advantage. Furthermore, most of the tributes were inexperienced marksmen (although some were rather skilled archers) and so while the opportunity clearly presented itself, the tributes that were in alliances didn't exactly want to betray their friends while the opposite alliance was still in full force. Instead, what the careers did was convince Ivette and Ian to try out their new mine launcher.
The boy from District 8 and the girl from District 7 never saw it coming. A few shots later and their whole camp was obliterated, and while a couple of the mines were duds, Ian eventually managed to fire a well-aimed shot at the two fleeing tributes to cripple them. He had nearly gotten himself killed a moment earlier after the District 8 boy had pulled out one of the pistols and fired. It might have hit Ian had his mine not flown right in front of the bullet's trajectory. The mine had exploded, and in the commotion, Ian had launched another one to ensure the death of the two targeted tributes.
Rey in particular had a ball with the firearms, and collected enough to storm the career pack. Ian had slipped away from them to try and use his mines to take down the enemy alliance, and so while Rey was attacking the other careers with arrows and the occasional bullet, Ian took out the other three tributes of her alliance with a few well-placed mine shots. One of them triggered a glacier that scalded the three of them, slowing them down enough for him to launch one of his last mines at them and blow the surrounding area up, killing them.
Ultimately, six other cannons went off on Day 10, including Rey, Ivette, Falco, Valor, Lucy, Serenity, Franklin, and Garrett. Only Ian, Romula, and an elusive boy from District 4 remained, but everyone was pretty sure that that guy was toast the moment he was discovered.
Sure enough, when Ian and Romula crossed paths, they asked each other if they wanted to kill the boy from District 4 before fighting each other. Neither one seemed to worry much about him; thus the fighting began. Neither one had any of the firearms, so it was a good old fashioned battle between Romula's hatchets and Ian's clubs. Surprisingly, Ian managed to overpower Romula, giving her a swift and painless death once he had defeated her. She deserved at least that much. Her death left only the other boy from District 4, which could either be really easy or really difficult.
Fortunately for Ian, it was surprisingly easy. He had actually kept one of the last pistols, but had decided before fighting Romula that his old ally deserved a proper fight. The boy that he had not seen for the entire games was not so lucky, and so one well-placed shot took him down and ended the games. Ian was the 8th victor from District 3, and the 88th victor of the Hunger Games.
Ian's games became notorious for their extremely rare (and so far unique) inclusion of a few firearms in the arena, and so they would without a doubt remain memorable for that reason if nothing else. Even then, Ian's own cleverness and his sense of honor that he mentioned during his victor interview (and District 2 stop) regarding Romula also made the boy a rather memorable and well-liked victor. Such seemed to be the nature of District 3 tributes and victors—and Ian was A-OK with that.
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)
78HG: Ryuka Satoru (#6, District 6)
79HG: Nailah Zoraki (#13, District 1)
80HG: Zenzi Tallarico (#7, District 11)
81HG: Kaede Raiden (#14, District 2)
82HG: Katsuo Raiden (#15, District 2)
83HG: Mandy Ikezhen (#7, District 4)
84HG: Vigo Zakatau (#4, District 12)
85HG: Resin Balthezar (#7, District 7)
86HG: Marian Greene (#3, District 9)
87HG: Connor McIrish (#6, District 8)
88HG: Ian Nelson (#8, District 3)