The Hunger Games: Multi-Verse

Day 3

Claudius & Caesar's show

"Alright, Claudius, here we are, three days in, ten tributes dead, and fourteen left. How do you think the Games have gone so far?" Caesar asked interestedly. 

His cohort replied, "Well, I think they've been very suspenseful, to say the least. Watching Hawkeye take his aim at James Potter had us all on the edges of our seats. Thinking he was getting prey when really he was taking out a fellow tribute? What an amazing thing to watch!"

"Yes, well, my favorite part was, of course, the action-filled fight between the vampire and two wolves. Watching those extra-terrestrial speeds and strengths in combat is simply astounding, and nothing we've ever seen before in these Games." Caesar discussed. 

"Oh, and the new romance between Seth Clearwater, werewolf, and Clove Kentwell of District 2 is absolutely dreamy!" Claudius marveled. 

Caesar laughed, and commented, "Ah, young love blossoming. And we get to see it firsthand in our Games!" 

"Let's see what the tributes are up to this morning, eh?" 

The screen flipped from the talk show to a scene in the woods of Commander Paylor of District 8, Charles Beckendorf (son of Hephaestus), and Nico DiAngelo (son of Hades). 

"Now, Commander Paylor had taken these two boys in right at the Cornucopia, correct?" 

"Yes, and they've mainly been traveling the forest since. Looks like they've got a big surprise coming for them. Something none of those three have seen before. It's a surprise from the Wizarding world all the way from Hungary . . ."

_____

Commander Paylor's POV

I had lived in Panem my entire life. Each year I had watched tributes enter the arena and each year I watched most of them die. In my youth I had escaped the arena. 

But somehow, in adulthood, I find myself here in the midst of it all. 

I hate the Capitol with all of my heart. I hate how they toy with the citizens of this nation, how they torture us, how they manipulate and play with us. They are absolutely despicable.

What I despise more is how they can do anything that they want. 

But I was going to play an honest Game. I wasn't going to let anyone control me, and I wasn't going to give them what they wanted. I was going to form an alliance and make it to the end with cunning battle strategy, but I wasn't going to make a bloody mess or glorify any of this. I was just going to get the job done. 

I had rescued two kids from the bloodbath. One was a tall dark-skinned boy named Charles and the other was a thin and pale boy named Nico. They both claimed to be sons of Greek Gods, whatever those were. They claimed to have powers. Charles could forge anything imaginable with barely any tools, and Nico had darkly told me that 'I'd see' what his powers were when he wanted to show me. 

They seemed shady, and I didn't know how much I could trust them. But at the moment they had no motivation to kill me and I wanted an alliance with them. So we were a team. 

We had found a small pond that Nico had surprisingly volunteered to drink from first to test for poison. The water was pure, so we stocked up and had been trekking through the forest, making various camps as we went along and taking turns keeping watch. There had been a suspicious lack of tricks in the forest. I had expected a pack of mutts, or at least to run into the other tributes by now. 

But we hadn't encountered anyone. Thankfully the other tributes were running into each other, however. There had been four deaths on day two, which I projected to be a pretty solid count. If the Games kept progressing in this fashion we'd be done in no time. And if I didn't win, then I wanted it to be over quickly.