"Capitol TV: HD Replays of the Fifth Hunger Games Now Available!"

"Get All the Action in 6K Ultra 3D! (Goggles not included)"

"Relive your favorite moments!"

"See newest Victor, "Bad Boy" Cassius Creed tear and stomp his way to 9 kills!"

Cassius ripped the magazine in half, crumpled it into a ball, then threw it at the waste bin across the room. It bounced off the rim and settled on the floor next to his door. Stupid, nonsensical drivel. With one hand, he reached up to his neck and pulled his dog tags off. They had been his father's, from the war, but they had been passed down to him as a good luck token for the arena. The way the metal clinked and clanked soothed him like the chime of bells.

He hadn't expected the attention. To be honest, he hated it. Invictus had told him to embrace the Capitol, to be loved by them, but he was finding it ever so difficult to disguise his contempt for the parade of fools that would come up to him begging for autographs. He should've known better. After two years of underwhelming Victors, a crowd hungry for another satisfactory win had fallen for him, hook line and sinker. The 18 year old son of a soldier had a built-in pro-Capitol story that made him their shining prince. Not that Cassius cared about any of that. Invictus was free to go on his talk shows, give his interviews, and do as he pleased. He wanted no part in it.

Cassius slumped down onto his bed with a sigh. Training for the Hunger Games was strictly prohibited, but after his name had drawn he was pulled aside by the first Victor, as the seven tributes called ahead of him had been, and offered a chance to train with him. He had been the only one to refuse, and the only one to come back. He still remembered Invictus's shocked look that morphed into a scowl. How dare he, that impudent oaf, assume that any training he could offer would be even a tenth as good as what he had learned on the streets.

He rubbed his hair, letting it fall across his forehead and cover his eyes. After the war, his father had taken up a job mining stone in the Nut. He didn't have to; his status as a war hero would've gotten him some cushy government desk job somewhere, but he could never sit still and was determined to contribute something to his district. That determination resulted in a mine collapse and a widowed young mother who would soon turn to alcohol to escape her grief. Cassius looked exactly like his father, he was told, and thus his mother never seemed to be able to get over him. He had grown up dodging bottles and enduring all the insults the poor, grief-stricken woman could muster when awake before finally deciding it was time to make it on his own. With only a pocket knife and 10 dollars to his name, Cassius Creed set off into the streets of District 2 and quickly found out it was tougher than he could have ever imagined.

The first few months were the hardest. There was a steep learning curve to stealing, fighting, and finding shelter; he'd find himself with a black eye and empty pockets more nights than not. But slowly and surely, Cassius adapted. The constant dull ache in his stomach became a source of strength. His hands became deft enough to steal that stale loaf of bread out from under the baker's nose; his arms became toned and strong enough to choke a fellow street urchin into dropping the few coins he managed to pick up. He met other boys, boys desperate and mean like himself, beat them into submission, then recruited them into his gang. Soon, he ran the streets that he once begged in.

Cassius got up and walked to his bathroom. He turned on the sink and stared at his face. Although most districts ignored the winners of their Games, District 2 had given them a small stipend to support them. It allowed him to purchase a small apartment and, coupled with the money he made from freelancing, afford monthly groceries. His once gaunt cheeks were now slowly beginning to fill out into a much healthier shape. He had shaved his scruff, giving him the appearance of an upstanding citizen rather than the street rabble he once was. He'd cleaned up his act after coming back; the street gangs gave him a wide berth out of respect, and his former gang mates knew better than to disturb him now that he was going clean. It was the bloodshot eyes that troubled him, though. Cassius hadn't had a good night's sleep since he had returned from the Capitol. He had fought children before, had left them bloodied and beaten and worse, but that was all for survival. Each bite of food he stole from someone else that needed it went towards keeping himself alive. But the Games? What a waste.

Suddenly he heard a knock on the door. He spun over to the door and pulled it open. "Belch, if this I you, I told you not to —"

In the doorframe stood the massive figure that was the winner of the first ever Hunger Games, Invictus Amadeus.

"Hello Cassius," he said coolly, "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"What do you want?" Cassius growled back.

"To talk." Invictus took his jacket off and walked over to a small table in the corner. He draped it across the back of a chair and sat down. "I need your help with something."

Cassius glared at the mammoth of a man before him. Invictus had kept in shape even after his Games. Cassius suspected it was to keep his brand deals, but the man obviously had commitment. "What, you want me to help kiss some news anchor's ass while you flex your muscles and talk about how much you love killing kids, you hairless worm?"

Invictus bristled. "Don't go there, Creed. We both killed children to be here and you know it. Besides, at least mine got a quick death. Butcher."

He was right and Cassius did know it. The 5th Victor had been trademarked by his dirty and desperate fighting. Used to brawling in the streets, Cassius had sprinted into the fray and immediately began biting heads off. He had raked eyes, yanked hair, and even bit the District 1 girl's ear half off. It probably hadn't been necessary; the rest of the tributes were hardly a match for him, but he didn't want to take any chances. In an impressive statistical showing, he had killed 9, though most through means that some would consider unethical.

In the final standoff against his district partner, a merchant girl, he was disarmed and opted to use his fists instead. The Capitol had loved the way he slowly and brutally beat her to death, every punch leaving a dull crunch that only Cassius could really hear. When she'd pressed back against him, he'd grabbed a nearby rock to finish the job. By the end, her face was a bloodied pulp and he could barely hear the sound of trumpets blaring over his own ears ringing. Sure, she hadn't left his nightmares since, but hey, he was alive and she wasn't.

"Tell me what you want so I can say no and you can get the fuck out of here." Cassius practically spit the line out. Invictus sighed and turned to face him directly.

"I need your help training them." Cassius stared in shock at the boldness of the man. He knew that Invictus had been violating the no training policy for years, but to state it so openly? Perhaps the Capitol's golden boy has a spine after all. "Clearly, you have some skills that I don't, and if we work together—"

"Why would I ever want to do that?" Cassius interrupted, barely suppressing a laugh. "You think I want anything to do with your little murder summer camp? Help some sniveling little brat learn how to hold a sword? I fought and clawed my way out by myself without your help while your pupils died screaming in the dirt."

Invictus slammed his fist into the table, and the wood splintered where it came down. Cassius took a step back. That table was solid oak, imported from District 7. He may have also been a Victor, but in a one on one fight against an actual monster he stood no chance. For just a moment, he knew how the tributes facing him must have felt. Then, the mammoth of a man turned around and looked at him and Cassius had to take another step back because what he saw in his eyes wasn't anger, it was… sadness?

"Seven tributes. I've lost seven tributes. I know you think I don't care, but I do." Invictus spoke as softly and slowly as a man like him could. "I remember how each of them went. Lexia stabbed, Hammond with a trident, Stone and Scytha beheaded, Benedict to a wayward arrow, Rachel to that damn 12 boy's sickness, and Venecia…" He grit his teeth and tightened his fists. "You know what you did to her. She was my most promising one, but I don't plan on holding what you did in the arena against you. Otherwise we'd all deserve to be hanged. The point is, clearly I'm doing something wrong. You refused me, and you're the only one alive. I need your help."

Cassius stared at the boy only five years his elder, watching him be vulnerable for maybe the first time since he had become a Victor. "Why are you doing all of this? You made it out."

Invictus scoffed. "Nobody makes it out of the Games, Creed. I thought you'd know that by now." Cassius thought back to his nightmares of Venecia, his dark thoughts, and the look in his eyes that never really went away. He was right. "The Games are retribution for the death and destruction caused by the Districts during the Dark Days. They're here to remind us that destroying the Capitol only destroys ourselves, and to give us a chance for redemption. Most of all, they're a chance for us to regain our honor. To regain our dignity. Every child of Two that comes back out alive is an indication that we are above the other Districts; that we here can be so much more. I don't want to see another 2 die of being stabbed in the back or coughing their lungs out in the arena. No, I want them back here with us or dying an honorable death. Nothing in between."

He was shouting now. "Hammond was a warrior. Venicia was a warrior. You, despite all your flaws, are a warrior. And I want you to help me make warriors. We'll take kids a few years before reaping age — 10 seems appropriate — and we'll teach them how to fight. How to kill. Honorably, not like how you did. Most of all we'll teach them how to survive. Some will hate it. Let them! They'll spread rumors about us, call us monsters, do anything but step up and do what needs to be done. And at the end of the day, we'll be the ones remembered in history for bringing our children back."

The room filled with silence. Cassius had no idea how to respond. The Victor was crazy, there was no doubt about that. Being in the Capitol for so long had clearly addled his brain. But there was something to his speech that felt genuine. There was something that made him listen.

"Here's the deal, asshole," Cassius began, "I think you're an absolute idiot and a lunatic who's been drinking too much Capitol punch. I think you're a pompous, ridiculous bastard who wants to make himself feel better that he massacred 13 innocent children. I think the Games are sick and twisted, and I think you're either refusing to see it or dumber than an actual brick wall."

"But," he continued, "I don't want to see any more children from our district die either." He looked at his father's dog tags, still in his hand. Looks like he'd inherited one more thing from his dad. Obviously, neither of them knew when to walk away. "I'm in."

Invictus stood up. "Nobody else can know about this. I trust you can keep a secret." He reached out his hand and Cassius grabbed it to shake. Gods, his grip was like iron. "I'll send someone to fetch you when I'm ready and we can get started. Until then, just wait for my instructions." He turned to leave.

"Oh, and Cassius." The two men made eye contact. He grinned. "Don't fuck with me."

Invictus left the room, closing the door with a polite thud. Cassius collapsed on his bed and stared up at the ceiling.

"Dad, what did I just get myself into?"