NENE PALMER- Maxson Deloria
I thought that made me the last Six left. With so many people, I really wasn't sure. I thought I'd already been the last Six. Then I saw Nene's face and remembered she was from home, too. It didn't bode well that someone like her had died. She was one of the bigger Tributes in the entire group. Someone bigger than her must still be left.
DIAMOND KAI- Arielle Ermin
He must have been very clever to get this far. Looking at him after the fight, I was amazed at how small he was. He looked more like a boy than a man, though I could see the evidence of training on his thin but wiry arms. With his bright blonde hair and girlish face, you might have taken him for an angel. It must have been easy to underestimate him. Dangerous, too, with how long he'd lasted.
JESSIE CABELLO- Fable Anders
I couldn't imagine a better definition of rock bottom. I'd watched Jessie die and in the same moment, dozens of metal shreds had studded my left side. Even in the Long Walk I hadn't felt this hopeless. Then, we'd had each other all the way to the end. Even though my side was numb with the cream I'd used, tears dropped onto it as I dug each shard of metal out of myself, one at a time. As much as it had hurt, I wished it had hurt more. More bullets in me would have meant fewer in Jessie.
Flint Kenyte- No Way Down D2M
How do they work?
In an idle moment, I was fiddling with my taser. I knew so little about electricity in general. If you asked me, it was magic. You take a rock, but not just any rock- it has to be a magic rock. You take the magic rocks out from the normal rocks and then you do some whatever it is smelters do to them and then you have metal. From there you take string, but not just any string- it has to be magic string. These magic strings tie the magic rocks together so they make circuits- which, if you ask me, sound a lot like sigils. Once you've done all that, something that was once a rock could now shoot electricity. We still didn't know where the electricity came from, though. Scientists said something about forces between atoms, but why? Where did they come from? Just primal forces, existing in the universe from its beginning. Sounded like magic to me.
On a more basic level, I was also fiddling with this specific taser. How did it pack so much electricity into one little package without overloading? It must have had a surge protector, like the one on our power strip back in the gang headquarters. But if it had a surge protector, how did it shoot out enough electricity to kill a guy? Maybe that didn't take much electricity. But some people lived through being hit by lightning. Maybe lightning didn't have as much electricity as I'd assumed? But most people did die when they got struck. Maybe there were big lightnings and small lightnings. And maybe I should have paid more attention in science class.
My cerebral interlude with my taser couldn't last forever. There were still… sixteen people in the arena? Me, Fable, Gaius, Toddward, Tabitha, Arielle, maybe Maxson but I wasn't sure, and then some people whose names I didn't know. From my own District there was Wangari and Tuesday. I honestly didn't know which was the bigger threat. I knew hardly anything about either of them. I wasn't entirely sure I would recognize either of them if I saw them. I heaved myself up from my chair and moved on.
Vulpes Kerr- No Way Down D9M
There are two kinds of spiders: wanderers and weavers. There were some other weird ones, like the swimming ones, but most were those two kinds. It was perhaps incongruous to be thinking of spiders at a time like this- come to think of it, I hadn't even seen a single spider in the entire Games- but it did have some relevance. In the Games, there were two general ways to kill someone. You could hunt for them and search until you found them, or you could set up a base and wait for them to come to you. Both had their advantages, but what I liked about waiting was that you got to choose the battlefield. In my case, I'd chosen the top of a balcony looking down onto a large eating area on the third floor. I would be able to see any oncomers earlier than they could see me, and I would have the height advantage.
Just ridiculous, I thought contemptuously. Each one of the sleek cushioned chairs around the dining tables below me cost enough to feed me for a month- and by Capitol standards for "fed", not Nine's. And they had a piano in their cafeteria. There was a shining black grand piano in one corner by some bay windows, so the poor sick little Capitolites could have a concert while they ate. It was absolutely rich that they called me a villain.
It would be nice, wouldn't it? If we had something like this in Nine? I didn't even need the fancy chairs and grand piano. Just a complete, equipped hospital for people like me. There was a kid back at my orphanage with a twisted leg. He'd been a normal kid when he was younger, running around and climbing trees and things like that. So often we fell out of trees, either through clumsiness or roughhousing. Most of us just jumped up and kept playing. Sorrel broke his leg in three places. It would have been so simple for a doctor to set it. Children's bones are so elastic. But we didn't have a doctor, so Sorrel never ran again. Victors had so much money. They could build a place like this. Visenya would like that. I just had to get there, whatever it took. These kids were dead already. The ones back home still had a chance. It helped no one to abandon the wounded to care for corpses.
I peered at the shard of mirror I'd stuck to the wall beside the balcony. It was small enough it wouldn't attract attention from someone who was walking on the floor below. If they happened to see it, it would look like a ray of sunlight that hit the wall at a weird angle. From my perspective, it allowed me to see who was walking near the balcony without having to look over the balcony and expose myself.
When I finally saw someone coming, I carefully lifted the piece of machinery I'd taken from one of the labs. I wasn't sure what it did. My best guess was it was some sort of cleaner, since it had a lot of space on the inside. What I cared about was that it was heavy. I slid it up the balcony, careful not to make much noise, and waited for the boy to come near. He didn't come to exactly the right spot, so I had to scoot sideways a bit, but it was good enough.
Flint Kenyte- No Way Down D2M
Were my brains on the floor? You can't live if your brains are on the floor, right? There was definitely blood on the floor, and on the thing that someone had dropped on my head. It was hard to think, but I was pretty sure things didn't just fall from the sky.
I crawled toward the shelter of the balcony so whoever it was couldn't drop something else. I used mostly my left arm, since my right arm had taken the brunt of the impact, which was probably why I hadn't instantly died. The machinery had hit the side of my head, just above the ear, and bounced off at an angle instead of flattening my head. That was not to say I wasn't fatally wounded.
With a partially numb left hand, I fumbled the cap off my bottle of water and spilled it all around. My taser slid through the puddle as I groggily took it out and gripped it, covering it with my hand so it was harder to see. I could hear whoever had dropped the machinery on me coming down the stairs toward me. He was afraid I might crawl to a hiding place and he wouldn't be able to loot me, I supposed. I wasn't trying to crawl away.
Vulpes Kerr- No Way Down D9M
I was happily surprised to see it was Flint. I knew a fellow gang member when I saw one. Flint wasn't a kingpin, though. He struck me as some type of enforcer. I hadn't been looking forward to fighting him.
There was a puddle of water around Flint when I found him. The impact must have either crushed a water bottle he was carrying or he'd fallen on top of it. On the other side of his head was a puddle of blood. I could tell from the tension in Flint's body that he wasn't unconscious, but I could also tell he was too messed up to stand, much less fight back. Water seeped into my shoe as I stood five or so feet away from him. It seemed appropriate to hit him with my hammer and end things, but Flint was strong. If I got close, he might have just enough left in him for one last strike.
It ended up not mattering. Flint's hand moved a little. I saw a glimpse of a spark near his finger. Suddenly my body was wrenched away from my brain and all I could feel was the sensation of being beaten over every inch of my body with a sledgehammer. I wasn't sure, but after a few seconds, I thought I could feel my heart as it gave out.
Braddock Simpson- Heart of Darkness D7M
I didn't understand how it could be so horrible. Something was happening to me, but I didn't know what. Someone was near me, though. I could feel them. I couldn't feel them with my body, but something in my soul knew there was another soul nearby. Or maybe it wasn't a soul at all. I knew I was getting weaker. It was a strange word to use, since I was already as weak as I could get. It must be my life, I realized. I was feeling myself die.
My thoughts seemed to glitch. I was thinking about dying, and then I was thinking again, but there was a gap. I couldn't remember it starting or ending, but I knew there was a gap. I didn't think about it long, because I could feel myself again. I'd somehow been pushed back into my body. I was still heavy, but I was me again. I would have laughed, but my face was too heavy and only twitched a little. I focused all my energy on opening my eyes. If I could just open my eyes, I wouldn't ask for anything else.
As my eyes opened just a sliver, I saw a girl standing over me. She was looking up and past me, further into the room, with a blissful expression on her face. She wiped her face and blood smeared off her mouth. I became aware of the pain and wetness in my neck. It felt like it was bruising. I saw the girl's eyes and I knew. Her eyes were an animal's eyes- the flat, alien stare of a crocodile you can just make out under murky water. I knew what she was and what she'd made me.
It didn't take long for my strength to return. The girl had only been gone a few moments when I raised my arm. But vampires aren't like humans, are they? They're so much stronger. I braced my elbow against the ground and pushed. The wheel turned, sliding across my chest. When it had turned as far as it could go, I pushed harder. I found I wasn't strong enough to lift an ambulance, but I was strong enough to raise it just enough to slide free.
14th place: Flint Kenyte- taser overload
Turns out tasers have their own grounding pads and wouldn't be affected by water. UNLESS they're in the Hunger Games and the people who made them specifically intended for their users to kill each other and thus left safety features out. Flint is always a tough fighter, as evidenced by his high placement. Since I hadn't chosen him as my planned Victor, I eventually had to kill him. He's cool enough to deserve a cool death, so I at least gave him the consolation prize of a mutual kill. Vulpes attacked Flint from the shadows. Flint killed Vulpes right to his face.
13th place: Vulpes Kerr- taser overload
I had planned for Vulpes to be my decoy Victor- hence why he got some shades of redemption Victor edit. I looked at my list today and thought "you know, I can use this other guy instead" and then went ahead and used Vulpes as one of the few strong enough to kill Flint and who didn't have any more loose ends to tie up in his story before he went. I was also afraid people wouldn't believe him as a decoy Victor since his submitter has two Victors in my verse. He didn't just get this far since he was a decoy, though. Vulpes is one of the few Tributes who coldly admits to being selfish and willing to do whatever it takes to stay alive. That's sometimes depressing to write, but it's realistic, so I appreciate him.
(PS fun fact the machinery Vulpes didn't know the name of was a small autoclave)