AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is where things take a peculiar turn. A while ago I once said that I intended to write fully-detailed stories chronicling the 91st-99th Hunger Games, and while that is stull true today, I had not anticipated "The Victors' Chronicles" being a thing. As such, this chapter obviously contains spoilers for my fic "The 94th Annual Hunger Games" but like the ones before it, the full-length story will go much further into detail about how things went down exactly. So... with that said, I'll spare the rant and get to the story.
Happy Reading!
The 94th Annual Hunger Games
With the way the 10th decade of the 'games was going, it was clear that this very well might have been the next "Golden Age" to rival that of the 5th decade over 50 years ago. The intricate arenas, powerful tributes, high training scores and nefarious Gamemaker tricks all made these games reach a new pinnacle of excitement, and the lineup for the 94th Annual Hunger Games was no exception.
It was clear from the get-go that there would be controversy just as there had been in years past, but the Capitol citizens had a tendency to thrive on that sort of thing, and so they not only did not mind it, but also welcomed it with open arms.
The controversy this year emerged from District 5, where a blind girl named Lucia Alzar was chosen for the games. A boy who stood out because of his fiery red curls named Cadence Montoya attempted to volunteer for her, but because of the nature of the games requiring a boy and a girl, he was only able to volunteer in place of another boy. To the surprise of some of the others, he did exactly that without hesitation, and stood by Lucia's side.
Of course, they would not go uncontested. District 2, which had won the last two games back-to-back (and thus far the only time it was not by siblings), produced Nazir Mateaki and Gabriela Sanchez. They were shooting to win a 3rd time, for even if they didn't, this was the 3rd time District 2 had won back-to-back games (the 1st time being during the 11th and 12th years, and the 2nd time being during the 81st and 82nd years). With the pair from District 1 at their side, they might have had a chance.
District 12 raised a few eyebrows that year, as Mani Tauanu'u and Sudi Ontanago were picked to approach the stage. Their dark skin and red face paint gave away their identities as the dangerous "Painted Tributes", which meant that anyone who went up against them had their work cut out for them. Despite all of this, Cadence and Lucia did not falter.
A certain level intrigue flowed through Cadence's mind as he learned the names of the District 1 tributes. He had heard Faren Dumar's name on the train, but it was not until they reached the training center that he learned the boy's partner had the quaint name of Serendipity Li. He dismissed her as another ditzy District 1 kid with a weird name, and thought little of her in training.
Everyone stopped laughing when Serendipity scored a 12. The only other tribute to do that well was Xandra Kanosh of District 11, while her partner, Kilon Sotega, scored a 9. Cadence and Nazir scored 11s, Faren and a District 9 girl named Fox Morrowson scored 10s, while her partner, Robin Destry, scored a 9 alongside Gabriela. The two painted tributes, Mani and Sudi, scored a 7 and an 8 respectively, but most of the other tributes figured they were holding back in some way (and while they would never know for sure thanks to the private sessions being private, both Mani and Sudi had held back). Poor Lucia only scored a 4, and everyone thought that she would be easy pickin's, especially since she was completely blind and had generally acted rather passive and harmless throughout most of training. On the other hand, the fact that she scored a 4 meant that she had done something. The lowest score for trying was a 1, while tributes that didn't show up at all, or that didn't do anything once inside their private session, would actually take a score of 0.
From the cornucopia clearing, it was difficult to tell what kind of arena the tributes should expect, and so the fighting went on as normal. Weapons were different this year, however, consisting of mostly knives or jagged pieces of metal. It didn't stop anyone—not even Cadence, from getting in on the action. Lucia, who had feigned total helplessness in the training center, proved to be surprisingly swift and agile with a knife, with reaction times that prevented her from being slaughtered off in the opening seconds like everyone thought she would. However, 9 other tributes were not so lucky, including Mani, both tributes from Districts 6, 7, and 10, as well as the boys from Districts 3 and 8 surprisingly. Cadence met up with Lucia and took her hand, leading her away from the carnage and off in the wilderness while the careers either picked the cornucopia clean or went scouting around.
Cadence did the scouting for his two-person alliance. The dark-colored rocks of the arena made the tributes blend in slightly easier considering their dark grey and black uniforms, but Lucia, who was unaware of this, simply curled into a ball and did this accidentally. Cadence explored the arena and discovered that it was rocky similar to the previous year, except much more organized. It was almost like a maze of cliffs, and more odd was that some of them appeared to shift and move. There had to be a sequence or pattern to it, and he wished to find it out.
Lucia proved to have a surprisingly keen sense of smell, perhaps to make up for her lack of eyesight. This proved invaluable to her and her partner, for she was able to pick out which plants and meats were edible and which ones were best avoided. The two of them set up camp for the evening after Cadence told Lucia who had all died in the bloodbath (since only images appeared in the sky, rather than the names being announced or anything).
Cadence woke up to quite a shock the next morning. The part of the cliff he was on was across the large chasm from where it had been the previous night. He also learned the easy way that Lucia had very keen hearing as well. She stirred, tapping Cadence's shoulder and grabbing a weapon. She warned him that there were tributes coming.
Sure enough, not more than a couple minutes later, they were ambushed by Isabela and Andraz, the tributes from District 4, who were wielding the knives and shards to dangerous effect. Lucia did not want to swing her blades wildly and hurt her partner, and so Cadence handled them pretty much alone, and in doing so also reminded Panem why he had scored an 11. His ferocity in volunteering for the games translated well to combat ferocity, and the end result was Isabela lying in a pool of her own blood with jagged shards of metal sticking out of her torso, and with Andraz's head rolling a few feet from his body after Cadence's blade decapitated him.
This year's arena didn't seem to change gradually the way the last few had. The only dynamic that the tributes had to watch out for thus far were the moving landmasses. None of them were terribly large; only about the size of a small house at most, but the arena was fast, and for each path they opened, they also closed one behind them.
Cadence took a glance down into the chasm to see what was down there (and because Lucia wondered and had asked him). All he was able to see were thick trees that were far enough down that impact with them would likely still kill anyone misfortunate to fall down there. Perhaps he'd have to find out.
The next few days passed without anyone really meeting anyone else, though fog set in on morning 5, making tributes tread more carefully, especially since a couple of the careers nearly slipped on one of the rocks near the Cliffside and nearly fell to their doom. This fog persisted for another day, during which time Gabriela took out Camilla Shao, the girl from District 8, but they were still unable to find the elusive District 5 pair. After all, Cadence, and by extension Lucia as well, had made enemies in the training center because of the fiery redhead's defiance. One of them managed to convince the District 3 girl, a kid named Ratchet, to join their crusade against Lucia and Cadence.
While the career pack was fixated on District 5, however, another menace in the arena was moving around, having so far been undetected. While her partner Mani had died in the bloodbath, Sudi was still at large, and felt that it was high time to start living up to her dangerous reputation as one of Panem's "Painted Tributes", and she knew exactly how to do it.
She had discovered that at least one of the moving cliffs moved at certain times of the day, and so she spent the next afternoon rigging herself a vantage point at one end. When the rock returned to this side, all she would have to do would be lasso a certain point and use it like a zipline, and destroy the platform before it could "land". While it was on the opposite side, however, she set a trap for the careers to lure them towards her. All she had to do now was wait.
Early the next morning she caused a diversion, waking the careers up. The moment they saw Sudi grinning maniacally in front of them and with some type of grenade in her hands, they knew they were in trouble. Gabriela threw a shard with such accuracy that, had Sudi's reflexes not been as psychotically swift as they were, she'd have been decapitated on the spot. She had to jump and duck and otherwise dodge projectiles thrown by the careers all the way to the edge of the cliff. Sure enough, right on time the platform began to move once the tributes were all on it, and Sudi raced to the opposite end, hiding in some of the taller trees for a moment. By the time the careers reached her, she had lassoed her rope towards the other side, sliding towards the other side of solid ground by using the rope as a zipline. She raised her grenade to throw it, but a knife from Serendipity knocked it right out of her hand. Faren jumped up to take initiative while the zipline was still taut, but Sudi had an alternative plan. She slashed the rope, sending Faren plunging to his death, where he vanished into the trees. She was surprised to hear his shouts from below that he was still alive. However, those shouts of victory became panicked as there was rustling in the trees, and a moment later a cannon went off. Sudi took off before the platform was close enough to jump off of, and the careers lost her trail. It was clear that even if a tribute survived the fall, they were not meant to be able to recover. The cliffs were all but sheer, and there were clearly monstrous mutts ready to tear apart anything or anyone unfortunate enough to fall down there.
Cadence did not know what had happened, but as he saw Faren's face light up the sky that evening, he smirked. They were half done, and 7 days in, no less. It was setting up to be another 14-day games.
Day 8 saw the District 11 pair join up with Sudi to harass the careers some more, and Xandra successfully killed off Ratchet during a hunt, while Sudi claimed Gabriela's life the next day. Cadence and Lucia stayed out of the battle for a while, but on Day 10, Lucia finally met her end.
Fox and Robin, the pair from District 9, had been shills to one of the career tributes, and Cadence had a shrewd idea who. Fox claimed Lucia's life, causing Cadence to come after her with a single-minded fury rarely seen in the games. She hardly made it for more than a few minutes before Cadence ended her, and raced back to console his sweet partner in her final moments. Her cannon went off only moments before Fox's did. He knew in that moment that he would have to be the one to take down Serendipity.
While Cadence brooded in solitude, the remaining three careers (Serendipity and Nazir; as well as Robin by virtue of the revelation) were far from idle. The three of them managed to attack the District 11 pair and kill Kilon. However, their theories as to where Sudi had gone in that alliances were soon answered as a grenade flew in out of nowhere, striking Robin and blasting him with some sort of toxic powder that later claimed his life. The other two sustained injuries, but they managed to recover.
Nazir was the one to later claim Sudi's life. Even without her grenades, the girl was swift and powerful, but Nazir had a good throwing arm, and managed to impale Sudi with enough knives to finally topple her and end the painted girl's reign. That just left Xandra and Cadence.
Unfortunately for Nazir, he was next as Xandra put an axe through him to avenge Kilon, Sudi, and even Lucia. She then moved to seek out Serendipity before she found Cadence, although she was not so fortunate. Instead, she was the next victim in this deadly exchange of deaths over the final few days of the games, and took 3rd place after she was bested in single combat with Serendipity Li.
True to Cadence's prediction, the games reached their climactic finale on the 14th day, where the fiery-haired boy came at his adversary with a pair of large, jagged blades. The two of them clashed and sparred, with Serendipity taunting Cadence over Lucia's death a few times to stir him up, but instead this simply backfired. After a few moments of this, Cadence went into full berserker mode, lacerating the girl until she bled to death, which caused her cannon to fire. With that, Cadence became the 10th victor from District 5, and the 94th victor of the Hunger Games overall.
District 5 celebrated this victory pretty passionately, since Cadence's win made District 5 the only other district apart from the careers to cross the double-digit threshold with victors, and also ended an 18-year 'drought' that had been threatening District 5's reputation for producing victors. Fortunately for them, they still kept their 'position' on the charts, but unfortunately for Cadence, his life didn't get much easier. He became more hostile and distant than before, now being truly alone. His good looks earned him trips to the Capitol to be prostituted off like many attractive victors were, and there was only one thing that kept him in line, although he refused to tell anyone what—or who—it was. The games had fractured Cadence after Lucia was taken from him, and he had no strong feelings towards anyone else in the district. His best friend was dead, and everyone else had had interacted with was gone as well. Such was the brutal nature of the Hunger Games.
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)
89HG: Kozue Sowa (#8, District 11)
90HG: Gill Wainright (#8, District 4)
91HG: Aveline Togisala (#5, District 12)
92HG: Amy Zavala (#16, District 2)
93HG: Korra Francisco (#17, District 2)
94HG: Cadence Montoya (#10, District 5)