Chapter 12: Chapter 12: Stables

The stables are situated on the ground floor of the Remake Center. And they are packed. Dozens of people wander them, from outlandishly dressed teenagers to the almost equally garish-looking citizens of the Capitol who are frantically helping the teens continue to look as “glamorous” as possible. 

Some of the tributes wear gladiator-style costumes, while others wear silver costumes that represent power and electricity. Many of the teens spend several minutes just looking at their peers, their fellow tributes, with eyes that are filled with a combination of fear and awe. 

No one, not even the towering titan known as Thresh, draws quite as many eyes as the powerfully built warrior named Cossus. Every pair of eyes fall upon him and stuck to him for at least a few moments, with most of the eyes returning to gaze at him more than once. 

He was dressed in a tunic that clung to his skin. It showed off his superhuman muscles, and was tight but it was not able to cause him to feel even the slightest twinge of discomfort. He was protected from such minor things by the power of “fiat”, a glib term used to describe the otherworldly powers of his strange patron. 

All Cossus had to worry about was how he looked. And he looked strikingly good at the moment. The silver paint highlighted his animalistic features and gave his masculine beauty the perfect touch of inhumanity to make him resemble a masterfully made statue. 

His attractiveness is at the very edge of the beauty possible for a human, and even minor changes to his normal appearance could easily make him look like an impossibly beautiful, or as if he were an object of some sort made by an impossibly skilled artist. He is an awe-inspiring figure, and no none had the presence of mind needed to try and refute that simple reality. 

At 7’1” the gigantic warrior is taller than anyone else in the stables, and he can easily survey his surroundings. He silently studies his fellow tributes, his dark eyes taking in more information than the eyes of all of his peers combined. 

He is potently putting to use his myriad of gamer-like abilities, and studiously studying the boys and girls he knows he will soon be tasked with murdering. There is only a little bit of pity in his gaze as he ponders how to most efficiently slay the teenagers he gazes at. 

His gaze is powerful, and none dare to meet it. Not even the most powerful and fierce competition he’d be likely to have, men like Cato or Thresh, or women like Clove and Katniss, have the audacity to actually meet the gaze of the apex predator who towers over them. 

He sees them though. He sees Cato and Clove in their gladiator outfits. He sees Thresh and Rue in the farmer clothes they are wearing. And he sees Katniss and Peeta in their black unitards, capes, and headdresses. Each of the people he gazes at has a aura of powerful light that surrounds them and protects them. He sees this aura and judges them for it. Even Clove, whose aura is the dimmest and only somewhat larger than Glimmer’s own thin sheet of light, has a powerful second-skin of light that both protects her and causes her to stick out. 

These auras are manifestations of plot armor. And they are also beacons that make it impossible for their possessors to hide from a self-aware entity like Cossus. The reason he can see the auras his foes, and they are all his enemies, possess is because of the intermingling of two powerful perks: “Soulseer” and “Obliterator”. 

“Obliterator” is the capstone boosted version of “Collateral Control”, a perk in the “Destroyer” tree of perks from the “Generic Dragon” jump. His possession of it allows him to see manifestations of and partially ignore even the most conceptually perfect defenses. When he fights against his foes they will need to actually protect themselves. If they attempt to rely on their passive defenses, even if they are gods, they will find their defenses shredded through by the mighty dragon seeking their demise. 

Cossus is only partially aware of the potent power of the perk he possesses. But he is aware of enough of it that he can see himself bringing his enemies down low even in the stables. 

The powerful man-beast towering over the other tributes has a hungry look in his eyes. He is not as unimpressive as Marvel is, he is an actual manifestation of the raw physical power of District 1, and he both intimidates and excites those in his presence. 

At the moment, countless perks are bubbling just beneath the “surface” of Cossus. The perks in question are powerful perks from an array of jumps, that are just waiting for him to perform one meaningful act of violence before they will abruptly awaken. These perks won’t awaken if he gets into a fight that ends with his foes bloodied but alive… They will only burst to life if he takes a life. 

The moment that Cossus’s attacks snuff out a life these perks will fully awaken. The instant he slays another living being the slow apotheosis he has been undergoing for the past month will move one step closer to completion. And after he takes a life the final step he will need to take to become the being that Ghriza excitedly wants to see him become is to win the Hunger Games and be teleported to another setting. One where the supernatural is very real. 

As Cossus studies his surroundings he allows “Soulseer” to fill his mind with a potent awareness of his fellow tributes. As he gazes at his peers his mind slowly fills with knowledge of their memories, and thus an awareness of his competition that none of his enemies will ever have a chance to gain of him. 

Eventually the Opening Ceremonies of the Hunger Games begin. The National Anthem of Panem begins to play in the background, and no one pays it any mind. All of the tributes are too busy taking advantage of this opportunity to learn about each other to listen to the distant sounds of the anthem they heard regularly throughout their childhood. 

The opportunity they are presented within the stables is too rare for them to pass up. This is their first chance, ever, to gaze at their competitors. While the single most dominant competitor they have is obviously the gigantic warrior in the silver tunic, they all know that statistically, the real dangers are not the career tributes. 

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Each tribute in the room has been told over and over again that the biggest threats in the Games are, in order; the environment/the gamemasters, the regular tributes, and finally the career tributes. The career tributes are only a minor threat because there are usually so few of them, often only four or six, out of twenty-four total tributes. That number only seems intimidating until one considers how big the arenas themselves are. 

In the vastness of the arenas, it is an exceedingly easy task to flee from singular tributes or even groups of the armed teens. Unless the arena is a plain or some other environment that lacks cover, it is easy to escape from tributes before they can catch up to you, if you have even a bit of distance, even when they have ranged weapons. Because there are so many more regular tributes than career tributes they constitute a bigger threat than their more elite peers, at least until the numbers begin to dwindle. 

The careers only become a real threat in two different kinds of scenarios; instances where there are a large number of tributes in one space, and when there are only a few tributes left. Beginnings and endings are when careers are at their most dangerous, while during the actual meat of the games it is the environment and regular tributes who are truly dangerous. 

And yet, despite that reality, between Thresh, Peeta, and Cossus, many of the tributes in the studio couldn’t help but wonder who’d be the tribute to put them down. They wonder by whose hands they may meet an untimely end. 

The one tribute who doesn’t have an iota of fear in his heart is Cossus. As he surveils his surroundings all he sees are soon-to-be-dead victims of the bloodthirst of the Capitol. He almost pities them, all of them, including Katniss and Glimmer. 

Shortly before Glimmer arrives Cossus drops the pretense of neutrality. He looks at Katniss and Peeta openly, not quite glowering at them but certainly not giving them a kind look either. Katniss, being the fearless and headstrong young woman that she is, looks at him as openly as he looks at her. 

When a distant elevator doors open and Glimmer, dressed in the same silvery tunic as her fellow tribute appears, Cossus smiles at Katniss and turns away from her. Glimmer is visibly anxious as she steps out of the large elevator door. He turns to face his companion and smirks at her. She visibly relaxes and approaches her partner, the one teammate she has that she believes she can trust at least until they are part of the final group of tributes. 

In the background, President Snow begins to speak. As he does, lights go off in the stables. The lights are a signal, and upon them going off the atmosphere in the room changes completely. 

Tributes and assistants alike begin to panic and dash to their chariots. As they do Cossus and Glimmer smirk at each other, not exchanging a single word, as they reach their chariot from different parts of the stables. The large object they mount is one that is easy for the two athletic beings to enter, and when they stand atop it it begins to move, by itself, to the exit of the stables. 

They have the advantage of being the very first tributes to go out, which is often thought to be a disadvantage but not to them. The chariot reaches the very corner of the facility, as of yet not able to be seen by the massive audience eagerly waiting for the tributes whose deaths they’ll be able to see in a few days. 

President Snow is summarizing the history of the Hunger Games as Glimmer and Cossus stoically wait for their chariots to begin to move. As they wait, Cossus quietly speaks without turning to face Glimmer. 

“I have a plan.” He tells his partner, a stoic look on his face as he speaks. Glimmer does not physically react, though Cossus’s enhanced empathy allows him to sense that she is intrigued by whatever he is about to say. Internally he smiles at her, and continues to speak. 

“I think we’d be wise to show ourselves off as a team. And to market ourselves… as a couple.” He explains, causing Glimmer’s eyebrow to rise in an unspoken question. She wants an explanation, or at least an expansion. Cossus audibly chuckles. 

“One of the tributes… Katniss Everdeen, from District 12, is one of the talks of the Capitol. It seems that she volunteered after her sister got selected as the tribute. My stylist told me people are talking about her. We’d be wise to take out the steam out of her sails.” Cossus explains, lying about the source of his knowledge but not about the knowledge itself. 

At the moment the only person who is being talked about as much as Cossus and Glimmer is Katniss, the poor girl from District 12 who sacrificed her own life to save her little sister. This causes Glimmer to pause as she considers what her fellow tribute is saying. 

She is still for several moments as she weighs the words of her fellow tribute. And then she remembers the reaction the two of them got when they left the train. She thinks about that for even longer than she thinks about the information her fellow tribute is revealing to her. And right as their chariot begins to move onto the massive stadium just outside of the stables Glimmer begins to smile. 

The audience goes wild as the pair appears at the edge of the stadium. The noise is almost deafening, but it is nothing compared to the sound they make when the blonde bombshell plants a kiss on her fellow tribute’s cheek. 

President Snow, who is standing atop a distant platform on the opposite side of the stadium frowns at the pair of tributes. And in the crowd of Capitol citizens, Ghriza begins to laugh, amused by the antics of her champion and source of entertainment.

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