"Axel Miller!" The name is called, and the boy has to be all but dragged up by his hair. As if that helps at all, of course it doesn't. It only makes the Peacekeeper angry, and when he gets shoved onto the stage there was a collective wince from the crowd. There'd be a few new bruises, and of course he'd be going up a little more humiliated, a little less. Well, Victor-like. And then when the young woman, two years removed from victory and filling in rather than in her own District, but still blonde and smiling and slightly gorgeous went up to try and help him salvage some kind of dignity, she was all but unable to help. There was no dignity there in the first place to salvage
So it was a bloody-nosed Axel Miller, and a sobbing thirteen year old, both of whom looked about as likely to win as any street urchin from One or Two. Less likely even, considering that those street urchins were now openly being given swords by the Victors, nominally under the grounds of training them to become high-end Capitol bodyguards. More seriously, anybody could see that they were being armed with the express aim of Victory for the districts, the kind of Victory that would keep unwilling children away from harm.
Which was what the woman, barely out of girlhood herself, had come from. So when she leant in on the train, promised Axel that she knew all about the feelings of trepidation and the terror that came with going into the Games, his words to her were simply insulting. "Shut it." That was all that was said for the entirety of training, to anybody who even tried to offer a drop of help. The escort, Lillia Sickle, some scion of a Capitol family who admittedly rattled on about how she was sure this year Six was going to get a Victor, how she could just feel it in the air. She was asked to shut it.
Nobody save for the Avoxes seemed to be able to get along with him in any capacity. And that was just because they were silent, of course. They couldn't protest when the skinny boy tripped them, glared and made faces, yelled at them to be faster. They couldn't do anything. And no matter how Lillia muttered about presentation, no matter how Elan glared with fiery blue eyes, no matter how much little Alexandria tried to help them tidy up until being given a telling off that was harsher than Axel's from Lillia? He kept it up, kept the torment up for the day and a half it took the train to wind a slow path through the mountains to the shining city on the lake.
Once at the city, things didn't get better. On the contrary, his behaviour seemed to get so much worse, hour on hour. Elan tried to tell them to smile for the sponsors, to be nice and polite because it was what was expected. Decorum, she promised, would win this war for their lives, and she intended to help them win because it was the right thing to do. Instead, he was sullen, glaring at the ground even as little Alexandria smiled and waves and promised that she'd just love to get back home to her brothers and sisters.
The media ate it up ravenously, got at least a few good shots out of Six even if that was all Alexandria. The parade was a humiliating disaster, of course, but those things always are when you're dressed as a hovercraft for the second year in a row. His epic threats to the stylists, to Lillia, to Elan if they ever tried to dress him in something like that again were the stuff of legend among the Victors for years afterwards. Suffice to say, he very much didn't like the outfit.
Training was a little better. Three days for him to get a relative chill-out, and he managed to spend most of it networking with the other boys and girls. The first day was mostly decided by the Five boy, who he felt was sure to be the one ally he could make who wouldn't screw him over in the long run. They got along well enough, spent most of that day messing around. First at the climbing station, as if that wasn't enough for him to be having fun with alone. They got along well enough there, got on with the business of learning how to climb with a certain amount of gusto.
But when he proposed alliance, proposed a team that would make them the envy of all to be known, he was turned down with a laugh and an 'as if' that drove him near incandescent with rage.
So the next day he tried Ten. Tried to get the big rancher girl, easily smiling at the boy from Four and girl from One as if that would get her into their hunting dogs. She was quick to give him aa cocky grin when he came over, made worse when he actually attempted to try and convince her to get into an alliance with him. She was a big lass, eighteen years old, and here was some scrawny little sixteen year old from the arse-end of Six trying to get her into an alliance? She found it frankly a little hilarious, laughed the boy off and went back to Four with a smile on her lips. And Axel seethed, of course he did. He'd been turned down not once but twice, by the kind of people he was meant to be friendly with.
The mood in the apartment was worse that night. The tribute centre was finally fully open for business, and the dinners served each night were meant to be at the least palatable. Nobody there on behalf of Six got to test anything, of course, when Axel slammed one of the dishes to the side and demanded that if Elan was there to help, she'd better help him get some allies. Alexandria tried to be nice, told Elan she was doing a great job and coaxed a genuine smile from the Victor. This was met with yelled insult, and warnings that Elan would regret not helping him if he came back. Went into threatening detail.
The next thing he knew there was one hand on his throat, the other grasping a knife, and two Avoxes holding that hand back. The few seconds it took them to calm the woman down saw Alexandria wide eyed and looking like she was about to cry, Lillia glaring in shock at the loss of decorum, and the Avoxes. Well, mute. Axel was shocked, left to his room, and when he slammed the door and then listened for expected footsteps coming to intercept, instead there was nervous laughter that morphed into real, actual laughter. Elan's tone is almost bouncy, and in an instant her advice is getting a whole lot more personal. Telling Alexandria that she needs to appeal to sponsors by bringing up her family, that it would be best to try and stay alone, to stay safe and not take risks. His blood's boiling, made worse when Alexandria confesses she's made an ally. Tellie, from Eleven. The fact she's one ahead of him, well. It stings, more than a little.
Axel doesn't go out, though. That would be too easy, too fair to go out and confront them even though he's sure that if he went out they'd deny it, make up some story or claim he was outright lying when he was sure that there was no lie being told. Instead, he stays in the room and thinks about just what revenge he wants to wreak on them all for not working with him when he was so willing. About how he wants to talk to them, tell them off. Or do something more, if he's feeling up to it, but that thought can wait.
Instead he stays in his room. Lies in bed, thinking about what he's going to do when it all gets too much and the doors are laid bare for him to do something more than simply stew. Indeed, he actually manages to have a thought, which is more than what under the circumstances was expected by him.
So in the morning he's perky. Actually manages a smile, and a laugh, and straightens up in bed because he's going to win. That, at the least, he can feel deep down. He's going to win, he's going to get home and he's going to show Elan, Lillia, everybody exactly how little they helped him. He's going to dethrone One for their attempts at betraying him and the attempts to shove him under the bus. And then everyone will have to, if not love, respect him. Respect him.
But to do that, he has to win. And to win, he has to get allies. So it's with a heavy heart that he goes over to another of the children without a District local mentor, Fletcher from Ten. That name has been rolled over in his head, on his tongue half a dozen times by the point that Axel manages to get an approach. It's at the sword station, where Fletcher has a big sword in hand, that Axel manages to approach him. Approach with a friendly smile, and a grin, and he's sure that he's making a fool of himself but if this is the cost Axel has to pay to gain an ally then he's more than happy to make that trade.
They get along like an Arena on fire, like the alliance was meant to be from the beginning. That's always good, an unfriendly alliance never lasts. At least, he thinks as much, and when they're getting along so well there's no call to cause issues.
His training session goes well, demonstrations with a hammer (even if he could only lift a smaller one) enough to earn him a six. Some see it as a good omen, as a surety that Six can win this year. The only kicker is Alexandria pulling an equal number, and even though she offers to really with him and he almost, almost takes her up on that offer he knows the truth. That he has to take this, has to win on his own without her. That he's scared, really, he might be upstaged.
That fear drives him to start earlier, finish later on interview prep. PRactice his words, go over questions that realistically will come up. And to his credit, Axel isn't even rude when help rolls in.
One's girl has big, eerie eyes. They seem to trace Axel wherever he goes, dogging his every flinch in the chair as she talks about how excited she is to get in the arena, how much she hopes she can live up to the legacy of Elan, Ruby, Nutmeg. Two's boy roars out threats, and warns that if any of them look a threat he'll come for them first. The warning certainly is a unique strategy. Five's boy is slippery as a snake, words hissing out his lips and promising that there's more than a few surprises tossed up his sleeve. Nine's girl just wants to get home, and there's a certain hard edge in her voice when the girl vows she'll do anything to get home.
All in all, Axel's interview is in comparison decidedly. Well, dull. He talks about how glad he was to get a six, how he's sure himself and certain allies (with a glance at Fletcher that he only after realizes means the Squad now knows who) will get through fine. There's other promises, but those are the main ones. And while he hears the Capitol smile and laugh, hears the simpering excitement of a good couple of hundred people and knows they're all thinking the same thing because the laughs aren't quite as loud as before, the excitement not as tangible even as for Alexandria.
They're all thinking he's doomed.
The bloodbath is the next morning, and if there's one thing in his life Axel Miller is certain of it's that right now? With his stylist (simpering fool that she is) working him over, getting him dressed. With his realization that he's doomed either way and may as well go out on his own terms? With the knowledge he's likely expected to die easily? IT's that he's
Fletcher doesn't run at the Cornucopia. Skirts around the edge, meets up with Axel, and watches as his district partner sprints in with grim determination to be felled by a javelin from Two. They go together, Axel seizing a hammer because he knows how a hammer works, Fletcher going for a sword. Axel's scarce grabbed the hammer and a bag when a warning yell is fired at him, and he can swing in time to smash Three's skull in before the boy can take him with the knife gleaming silver in hand.
Thanking everything that there's an ally he can rely on, Axel nods at Fletcher in gratitude. A moment later, Fletcher isn't there any more, the thin blade of a rapier driven through the back of his head and out the front. Painted in red, just like the grin on One's lips as she looks at Axel with those big, eerie eyes. Cocks her head to one side, and then waves for backup which doesn't come. Finally tires of this wait, and in the span of a few seconds Axel has gone from completely safe to under threat as One steps towards him with purposeful grace. So, grasping the hammer and backpack, he does the only thing he can do in the circumstances.
Runs.
Twelve cannon shots roar behind him, break the stillness of the cool afternoon. None are his, and for that at least he thanks everything he can think of. However, when in a tree that first night he doesn't see Alexandria, he does curse. He may not be too well-acquainted with the intricacies, the ins and outs of Sponsorships, but even he knows that if a District has two left these will probably have to split any general District goodwill.
He spends the next several days surviving. Has to, there's little other option in this weather and in the situation he's found himself in. Oh, maybe he can try and go hunting, but he s up a hammer and a pack and down an ally. Nobody to put between him and an angry Squaddie, should push come to shove. Cannon fire, none for him, and without reliable food or shelter paranoia begins to set in. Fears that he's dead anyways, that the Squad is tracking him. It's lucky indeed that the first person Axel runs into, the first person he sees in four days isn't one of those children trained to kill.
It's Alexandria. Emaciated, Eyes big and hollow from terror or exhaustion or something else that nobody can place, but definitely her. Axel can see that. She rushes towards him, voice high. "Axel! Oh, I'm so glad. Thank the mayor it was you, Tellie died on the third day when a wolf got her, and. Well, I've been lonely. But District Six can win this year, one of us can uphold that! Now that we're together, we can-"
His hammer caves her chest in in one blow. Probably shatters every rib, and he staunchly turned his head. Ignored what he'd done, ignored the broken body and raised the hammer again to finish the job. Firmly shut his eyes. Brought it down, and waited for the inevitable rain of silver parachutes that would come because he'd proved he had the killer instinct, and now there were only eight of them left he was sure to be the most popular, right?
No. Instead, the audience could see them falling around him. Not for him. Some, many even, to the east where One's girl prowled the steep, forested slopes after the breakup of her alliance and dominated a narrow ford over the river that bisected the arena. Some to the south of the Arena, where the shifting forests gave way to a rolling field, and Nine's boy and girl maintained a tenuous stalemate, neither fighting but both probing at the camps of the others because it was the easiest way to test murky waters. Some to the centre, where the Twos maintained their hold over the Cornucopia, the blood of One's boy and the Fours soaked into their clothes, and kept their honour alive. Fewer to the north, an open field, but there was enough for the Seven boy and Eight girl to independently stay alive.
Out on the streets of the Capitol, the Victors were working overtime. Elan had handed in her resignation of mentoring for Six, was perched in an exclusive club for the wealthiest of Panem promising that their girl, and if not then Two or Nine, would be a worthy investment for their funding. The other Ones, Twos were out on the streets as well, save for Ruby and Marble posted up in their Mentoring stations. Rotating occasionally, so everyone was well rested. Mags and Oceanus were working on behalf of Woof and Aspen respectively, even Skye and Ampere had put aside their distance and were working to get money flowing to someone other than Axel. Anyone but him, because a District killer? A boy who'd profaned his life with the blood of his District partner unnecessarily? He wasn't the Victor Six deserved, needed.
The field thinned over the next few days. Nine's girl made the mistake of falling asleep too long, and awoke to choking pain and a trouser leg wrapped around her throat. One brought down Seven when the boy moved south in hopes of finding somewhere to rest up and some weapon to defend himself. And all the while Axel could do nowt but hunt his small wedge of the Arena, hope fool tributes would make their way to him to die. A forlorn hope, but the only one he had. After all, if nothing else Axel was no fool.
The feast called saw two more deaths. Axel, he didn't come. He was safe from the brutality. The girl from Two was first, slender rapier slid between two of her ribs and then into the back of her neck. Finishing the girl off, even as she sobbed and pleaded and begged for a mercy that didn't come. One waited a second too long, and Eight put an axe into her back that sent that body sprawling across Two's, a grotesque parody of some lover's embrace.
It was with three boys, one girl left that they finally called the end. Not officially, but the creatures that came at Axel like the Capitol was specifically targeting him.
He probably was the target, to be fair. Because he was the last one to arrive, that was evident when arriving where he was chased to saw Eight drawing her sword from Two's back.
She came at him with the thin silver sword taken from One, slashing forwards and thinking she could end the Games in one thrust. He knocked her down with a blow of fist, sent the girl screaming to the floor. Stomped the hand, and then.
What happened next wasn't pretty, or necessary, or right. A limited number of discs were released, silver and shining, and handed over to those willing to pay for it. Copies exist on the 'web, even if Woof had petitioned to the Presidents, Ravenstill and then Whiterush, for it to be taken down and banned with good reason. Instead, he was told that it was an integral piece of Panemois history, and that it was not right to consider taking it down because that would be unfair to Axel's fans.
So what happened remained up. The full defeat of Whitney Locke, two hours until his knife went into her throat.
Axel got no visitors, no Victors willing to congratulate him as a result. It was the first time that tradition had been broken, not the last but a seminal moment. The Victors were able to show a few begrudging smiles, a couple of genuine ones when Axel's first taste of wine in One left him sputtering and drenched in red. But nothing more. He swears again he'll get revenge on the smiling, excited blondes of the Capitol's lapdog. It doesn't come, revenge is denied.
He doesn't dethrone One. The blondes have entrenched themselves too deeply into the Capitol by the time the Games roll around again, that's always been their strength. That entrenchment. To add insult to injury he also doesn't manage a Victor in over twenty years. Oh he has some sponsors who pull through sometimes, but when compared to the juggernaut that One wields, the formidable amounts that Two and Four, sometimes Five and Seven and occasionally another can marshall to their aid in times of deepest crisis?
It just seems inadequate.
Instead, Six has their attempt at training last three years of being targeted by vicious children from One, Two, Four in turn who have prepared properly. Who have a competent mentor, rather than a young man who had the claims to fame of smashing in the skull of his own District Partner and murdering a girl who'd gone in. Nothing else, and after the third consecutive year official funding was withdrawn. Axel Miller was a laughing stock, no, the laughing stock of District Six. To those who hadn't had children who'd died in his hare-brained scheme, that is.
And with that, he was done. Withdrew from District life near entirely, even if there were rumours. That if you needed money, a lot of it, you could come and meet with him. He'd be willing to talk, richer than Croesus as he was, and offer the money that you sought. Sometimes as a loan, sometimes as a sale. What you sold or offered as collateral. Well, that depended on the person, and Axel was more than happy that he knew everything in the District.
Rumours kept bounding. Old Kent had gone to the dogs after he'd signed away his daughter as collateral, and lost. That wasn't true, because while his daughter was gone it was an open secret that she'd secured a job at one of the Capitol-frequented restaurants in Kancit central station. But other rumours and not just rumours but truths rebounded. That people had sold off their homes, their pets, hell even family heirlooms just to avoid the debt that built up.
And all the while, Axel Miller merely had to sit there and take money. That was almost his Victor's talent (the real one nominally his own alcohol making). How well this worked was questioned, but the Capitol lapped it up and thus it was deemed acceptable.
It was a trait that made him distinctly unlikeable. Made worse by his drinking, his fatness, his attitude to his fellow Victors. Oh, there were a few he nominally got along well with. Haymitch and Chaff could be found out drinking with him even if they were younger, he was always at least arriving at the galas that seemed to be hosted for the Victors far too often, and he always got along pretty well with Millet. If only because nobody else particularly liked either of them, and when that happens the best thing you can do is find at least one person to get along with.
But to the rest, he was a terror. To the blondes of One and the rest given their marching orders by Snow, because he was more than happy to pass on where and who they'd be meeting up with at night. To the Victors he wasn't on good terms with, Axel was a general nuisance of a kind that wasn't fair to anyone to have to deal with. To his fellow Six Victors, Axel was the black sheep. All of them didn't like him, all of them found him loathsome because of the jokes and the suggestions and the innuendos. Penny got it the worse, of course she did coming first, but none were immune.
Still, they had solace in promises. When the rebellion would come, they swore, they'd end this once and for all. Justice. Opal, Diana, Mason, Poseidon. Whoever got there first would put an end to the man, once and for all. Six has their own rebellion, they know enough. Penny, Troy, Audie, all of their groups will be ready to take Axel into custody. And given that the plans will happen soon, has to happen soon, justice can be served.
Justice got served, yes, but not as it should have been. Not by sword edge, arrowhead, trident spikes as the Arena had denied him. No, justice slipped in in the clogging of his arteries from a lifetime of rich food, seeping into his heart with each beat it took. Fat, bearded Axel Miller, still known as much for screwing over his allies and enemies. Still known for how much every other Victor seemed to loathe him, even if they'd make the occasional public appearance together because they had to. His funeral was right after the 73rd, every Victor into attendance as the coffin was heaved into the grave by six huge men hired from the local population. And unlike local tradition would demand, not a single one of his friends, fellow Victors, anyone he knew participated in the coffin movement.
Some said it's because, deep down, that echo of camaraderie had faded to nothingness. Some less charitable suggesting it was because they all wanted to make sure he was good and buried without any involvement, and that maybe wasn't an entirely unfair guess. Regardless, they were all in attendance. Wheelchairs had to be brought out, but they all saw him off. Each tossed a shovel of earth into his grave, their only active contribution. The majority met up afterwards, for the afterparty, and that was more enjoyable than the funeral. Celebration of his life or death, nobody was quite sure, but working up the courage to ask wasn't exactly on any agenda.