74th Annual Hunger Games LIVE **GETS WEIRD** (REAL) (NOT VIDCAM)
The multiverse, sometimes, is an elevator at a high-end lawfirm. All those fancy suits and heels, so crowded with the morning rush, it was bound to happen eventually that a few universes bumped elbows when they pressed the number for their floor. And the molecules of pet hair, of dust, of cologne, that passed from one elbow to the other aren’t recorded in any sort of spreadsheet. They simple pass, and no universe is any the wiser.
For the molecules though, this is a pretty jarring experience.
And so, twenty-four new souls wake up in districts one through twelve of Panem, the the morning of reaping for the 74th Annual Hunger Games.
When the tributes’ names are pulled from the glass bowls of all twelve districts, hardly anybody notices that they have never heard of anyone with the name that was read out, they are just glad it wasn’t their own. Even the career districts somehow get it into their heads not to volunteer for the 74th reaping. This year’s hunger games, while not a quarter quell, is a special event. Anyone, regardless of age or gender, can be reaped—a decision made by President Snow’s executive order the night before the reaping (because having a universe-altering event sometimes gives a man funny ideas, even if President Snow was never aware of this universe-altering event or its effect on his decision-making. Remember kids, don’t participate in universe-altering events and drive!)
And so it is that the tribute list of the 74th Annual Hunger Games reads as follows:
District 1: Tohru Honda and Lucy Preston
District 2: Kyo Sohma and Zhou Zishu
District 3: Athanasia de Alger Obelia and Sherlock Holmes
District 4: Genos and Ponyo
District 5: Lucas and Caitlyn Kiramman
District 6: Saitama and Jennifer Check
District 7: Caitlyn Kiramman and Elizabeth Comstock
District 8: Sosuke Miyazaki and Langa Hasegawa
District 9: Wen Kexing and Wade Wilson
District 10: Reki Kyan and Wyatt Logan
District 11: Anita Lesnicki and Peter Parker
District 12: Eleanor Lamb and John Watson
The new tributes, who scarcely know where they are or why or even how, are lead to back rooms in their respective districts to await transport to the capital. The peacekeepers who put them there seem unnerved, not by the presence of several interdimensional beings and at least one fish child, but by President Snow’s freak change in plans. They keep saying “expedited” and “speedrun—what the fuck is a speedrun?” so the transmigrators all get the idea that their being here is not business as usual.
Tohru Honda seems content to just wobble around and say ‘thank you’ to the peacekeeper, and Lucy Preston, who is starting to piece together what the Hunger Games actually is, is thinking about how she is going to keep this airheaded teenager safe in a battle royal.
Zhou Zishu is having the same problem as he looks at Kyo, because he doesn’t know that Kyo can transform into a giant orange beast that his whole family calls a cat for some reason. Zhou Zishu, whose body count is above four figures, is confident that he can keep himself and this stupid, angry child alive.
He should be less confident, because Saitama is going to be coming out of district four, and if Jennifer can get him annoyed enough, or confuse him enough with the demon living between her legs, to decide to actually do something with himself, then he could blast anyone’s head clear off their body before Zhou Zishu could pull out his sword.
Sherlock is very distressed by the whole transmigration thing—John had told him about how everything went in Middle Earth while Sherlock was trying to coax a hobbit out from under the couch, but even seeing the portal and the identical version of himself, it had been hard to believe. Now, he’s feeling something very paternal because Rosie is at home (with Mrs. Hudson, thank christ), and he has instead been left with a blonde teenager, Athanasia, who is eyeing him like a piece of meat above her smile.
Lucas and Caitlyn are comparing notes—they have moved well past the fact that they both transmigrated and onto things like whether or not Lucas should snap them back to their home universes. This is because both of them are willing to communicate with each other, because neither of them are stupid. At Caitlyn’s suggestion, they have decided to stick around until they find the people who had been next to them before they were transmigrated (Athanasia and Violet, respectively).
Genos is letting Ponyo sit on his head. He is not great with children, and she asked.
Violet and Elizabeth Comstock are trying to get over their differences in excitement—Elizabeth is in love with Violet’s hair and outfit, and Violet is trying to ask about the flickering blue portals that keep appearing in the corner of her eye next to Elizabeth. They have also moved past the transmigration question, but not yet onto the question of going home, because Elizabeth is literally interviewing Vi about her whole world (a world of which Vi only knows, like, a third).
Langa Hasegawa has not yet put together what the Hunger Games are, and so he and Sosuke Miyazaki are chatting amicably about where they might be, and what might be going on. Sosuke has decided that he likes Langa, and Langa has decided he likes Sosuke, and other than that they are sharing stories of their respective red-haired friends.
Wen Kexing and Wade Wilson are having a staring contest. Wen Kexing started glaring menacingly, because he has not one single fucking clue where he is but he can smell the blood on Wade, and Wade genuinely thought it was a staring contest, so he stared back. Now, Wen Kexing can’t put away his pride enough to blink first, and Wade’s ever-regenerating tissue is keeping his eyes primed and moist for staring. They have not yet said a word to each other.
Wyatt Logan is all but holding Reki Kyan by the scruff. Wyatt couldn’t tell you what the Hunger Games are, but he knows they’re dangerous and that this kid is a fucking dipshit. He’s broken out of prison once—he’ll just do that again, with this stupid teenager in tow.
Anita Lesnicki and Peter Parker might have fooled a stranger into thinking they’re old friends who met up for coffee. They’re both entirely unperturbed by the imminent danger they are both fully aware of. They’re comparing notes on dating psychotic and violent partners who cannot die.
Finally, Eleanor Lamb and John Watson are making a game plan, and are both somewhat aware that this game plan will mean very little when it comes down to brass tacks (they both have enough combat experience to know better). However, making the plan helps them feel safe. John is debating telling Eleanor about his previous transmigration experience. Eleanor is debating telling John that she has a few thousand other sentiences in her head telling her things like that John is a doctor and that the Hunger Games will almost certainly be fatal if it comes to a fight.
Eventually, the various tributes are put into fine dining cars on high speed rail and they are carted off to the capital. There is none of the fanfare of a usual train ride to the capital. People still throw confetti at the train as it passes—some blow kisses or hold up signs or what have you—but it doesn’t stop for the speeches and pageantry of other years. Neither do the tributes stay in a fancy facility and train and parade themselves before the games. The tributes are trucked in like fine-dining cattle, not so much as a mentor to keep them company, and then they are shoved to their respective tunnels for the games to begin. There are rumors President Snow has lost his mind. A few speculate he has an illness, and wants to make sure he sees the last games before he passes.
But, what this culminates in is all twenty-four transmigrated tributes standing on their podiums as they rise into the landscape of the games just barely thirty-six hours after they were dropped into this world. They all, at this point, have varying levels of awareness about what the games are, ranging from Ponyo’s near-willful ignorance to Lucy Preston’s full awareness of the event and its political and historical underpinnings. They all rise on those podiums just the same.
And they blink the sun out of their eyes and squint past harsh shadows at the cornucopia, at each other—and what ensues is essentially that spider-man pointing meme on crack.
“You!” Zhou Zishu shouts, pointing at Wen Kexing like this is all his fault or something.
“A-Xu!” Wen Kexing says, grinning.
“Sherlock?” John did not expect to have them both transmigrate this time.
“John.” John’s presence makes perfect sense to Sherlock (and is a huge relief).
“Lucas!” Athanasia gasps, instantly calmed by the fact that she has an ‘out.’
Lucas, however, just seems preemptively exhausted, waving lazily across the cornucopia.
“Lesnicki, what the fuck!”
“What the fuck yourself, you demonic whore!”
“There are children present,” Langa says, not loud enough to make any difference.
Reki finally spots him and waves emphatically. “Langa? That you?”
“Spidey! That’s you, isn’t it?” Wade shouts, making a little heart with his hands. “Does this count as breaking our mask prommy if we literally couldn’t help it?”
Peter, who has never seen Wade’s face but would know that voice anywhere, mutters, “Oh, god dammit.”
“Tohru!?” Kyo shrieks.
Tohru’s face lights up with a smile. “Hi, Kyo! I’d come closer, but…” she gestures to the ground below them, which they have all been told is landmined to prevent them from stepping off before the start canon.
“Master Saitama!” Genos calls, realizing (incorrectly), “Of course, this must be part of your training plan.” Saitama tries to tell him it isn’t, but he doesn’t feel like yelling, so Genos doesn’t hear it.
Caitlyn and Vi both just point and shout, trying to make sense of a story that is gibberish to everyone else (something about a shark gun and a crazy sister).
“Lucy!” Wyatt calls.
And Lucy sighs out a cocktail of relief and renewed anxiety and waves back, “Hi, Wyatt!”
In the capital, spectators are wondering why all of these tributes are shouting at each other, as all of these interactions are happening at once and are therefore very hard to tell apart or even make out clearly.
And then Ponyo spots Sosuke, and she grins from ear to ear and screams, the way little kids do, “Sosuke!” and she steps off the podium.
An explosion rips everyone out of their animated greetings and they watch in horror as Ponyo is blown sky-high. Wade Wilson, on Ponyo’s left, was the only one to notice that she started to step off, so he stepped off too, and a second explosion rends the air.
Body parts and blood splatter the ground. The start canon goes off and anyone with medical experience (Elizabeth, John) or magical experience (Lucas, Zhou ZIshu, and Wen Kexing) sprint to the corpses.
Except they aren’t corpses at all. Ponyo isn’t bleeding at all—her left leg has just been replaced with a chicken foot, and she continues running until she wraps her arms around Sosuke and screams in his ear, “Sosuke!”
And Sosuke, who is too young for what he’s just watched happen to even really hit home, just says, “That was dangerous! Be careful, Ponyo!”
Meanwhile, Peter Parker is nudging Wade’s knee, currently separate from all his other body parts, toward the pile of most of his viscera, and saying, “Come on, that’s it, stitch yourself back together, you big idiot.”
Everyone else is just staring. Because what the fuck was that. That toddler just replaced her blown off leg with a chicken leg, and that guy with an avocado face is now a pile of body parts slowly and horrifically pulling itself back together.
Athanasia is nudging Ponyo and Sosuke back from the scene. “Little children shouldn’t look at adult things,” she’s saying. Wen Kexing is doing something similar with all of the teenagers, although Jennifer and Anite Lesnicki are saying they’ve seen worse (and Reki and Kyo are asking literally how they could have seen something worse than that, ever, at all).
Elizabeth and Eleanor, who have never met but are instantly blushing in each other’s proximity, are attempting to ascertain what’s wrong with John and Sherlock, who are shellshocked and gaping.
“Is he…” Lucy asks, hesitant. “Is he alright?” it seems like a ridiculous question to be asking a pile of body parts sloshing wetly around themselves in the grass, but Peter is just nudging the pile together with his shoe, so she has to ask.
“I can still detect a consciousness in him,” Lucas comments, shrugging. “So, probably.”
“He does this shit once a week,” Peter explains. He sounds exhausted, and that’s because he is. “Just give him a minute.”
“Do we have a minute?” Vi asks, looking disgusted, but not as green around the gills as Caitlyn, clinging to her right sleeve.
As if on cue, mechanized drones descend from heights unknown and reveal motorized machine guns. They open fire, and while some people move to protect the children or their loved ones, Genos fires rockets at two of them from his palms, and Elizabeth opens tears that reveal friendly turret bots (which Eleanor recognizes and she gasps and tugs on Elizabeth’s shoulders, talking about some place called “Rapture). The drones barely get three bullets out. Those bullets do immediately hit Vi, Wen Kexing, and Tohru though.
Lots of screaming happens for a bit after that.