the Phelborn Legacy - chapter 4

Chapter 4

As the train came to a complete stop I went to the nearest window to see the great city of the Capitol. But to my surprise, it wasn't the sights of the city that really stuck out to me, but with the sights of the people IN the city. You see Galdour wasn't as bad as these people, Galdour simply had blue tips on his hair that was constantly gelled to spike up in the front and had a bit of eye liner on but these people. I cant even think of a single word to describe them. One lady that was right by my window had dark blue hair with green highlights. Had contacts that made her eyes look like water was flowing in the back round of them, her skin was tinted a light blue and had an ocean-like green eye liner and lipstick with what looked like a giant fishing net on with more "netting" on around her "private parts". I don't know if anything else could scream that she was a district four fan, and that was the most normal looking person I saw there. Finally after being happy that I live were I dress normally, a Peacekeeper came to the door and escorted us out. Kathrine trailed right behind the Peacekeeper and I stuck with Haven. Even though the Peacekeeper gave us a clear path to our destination, there were still screaming fans that were just barely breaking through the red velvet roping that was apparently supposed to be our ultimate protection from these screaming fans. While I waved and smiled trying to get as likeable as I could on my own Haven leaned over and said to me "you're doing great" and laughed and said "well its not hard to impress people that look like a screaming freak show." Haven just laughed, shook her head and kept walking.
When we finally escaped our "raving fans" we were introduced to a large building and Kathrine and I were separated. Galdour escorted Kathrine and Haven escorted me. "haha good, finally I'm free of Goliath" haven tried not to laugh and said "only for the time being" Haven and I walked at least another 50 feet before I learned what this place was. When we paced through two clear doors I saw an array of odd looking people and smelt strange smells I had never had the…"glory" to smell. "these Lucien, are the prepping stations" "wow" as I looked around, I saw that other districts had already made it over and were already beginning to be prepped for what I believed would be the tribute parade. "here we are" haven proclaimed as we reached a closed door that had a sign that read "2" over it. "this is where ill be meeting my prepped?" "um, something like that" after which Haven shoved my into the room. When I entered, all I saw was a chair, quite a few things I suspected to be beauty supplies in a completely blank white room with a little "waiting room" off to the side. "hello?" I was confused, was someone supposed to be here with me? I walked around a bit and finally sat down on the sofa in what I thought to be the waiting area.
As soon as I did, I heard footsteps coming from somewhere. "Haven? is that you?" I got no answer in return but the footsteps continued and they progressively got louder.  "who's there?" by this time I had my hand on my hilt ready to draw my sword. Then I heard her "take your hand off your sword, I'm not going to hurt you" her voice surprised me and made me jump a little. as I lowered my hand I asked "are you my stylist?" "yes I am, my name is Gleam" as she walked in I got to see the look behind the voice. She was like Galdour, not very "capitol-ized"  she had long blonde hair and the last inch of the hair was died like a rainbow, a random color seemed to be on every strand of hair but stuck out and no color ever really fuzzed together with the other, it was actually quite amazing. She had golden eye liner and eye shadow and with bronze lipstick. She had a simple yellow dress with what seemed like she had some type of under clothing that pushed her breasts up by the amount of cleavage she was showing. "well hello, I was wondering when id be able to meet you, when I walked in, the room was empty." "yes I apologize for that, I stepped out to grab something." "well, you're here now, that's all I care about. So you're here to make look handsome?"
"in a way, yes, but at the same time, I'm here to make you make an impression. This is the biggest time to inspire your fans,  make them never forget you." "wow, ok. So what's first?" "well, I need you to get naked, I understand that this might be uncomfortable for you, but to figure out what I'm going to do with you, I need you to do so, I wont look and you can cover what you want."
so I listened and got undressed , the over layer  of my clothing, my shirt, pants, socks, boots, was the easiest part for me to undress from. It was when I got down to my boxers. It felt so unusual to do this at request, and in front of someone else and no matter how many times I said she wasn't looking, I felt like she was watching me. But I finally got them off and just kind of held my hands together in front of my awkwardly. "done" as she removed her hands from over her eyes she chuckled "nervous a bit?"  "no…no" "hah I'm kidding, your not the first to do that" she carefully scanned my body with her eyes, I couldn't help think that she was imagining how big I was. Finally she turned around and three me a blue coat that tied around my waist "is that it?" "well I do want to change something, but you guys are much easier to prep then the females. You can keep your body hair, the girls have to get every part of their body waxed and cleared of stray body hair." " oh…owe" "yes very, so what I'm going to do is cut your hair a bit, you don't style your hair much do you?" "not really, never found a need to, plus getting hair cuts that aren't from yourself and very expensive." "well let me give you a hair cut, compliments of me." I sat there as she cut my hair, every now and again I'd blow a piece of hair off my cheek  and after she put the scissors, she had some odd machine suck at my head and "take all the loose and cut hair" off of my head. After ward she had gotten gel and put it in my hair and then turned me around. "look" as I looked in the mirror, I had noticed that my hair was no much shorter, before it came down to my eyes, but this, this was much shorter, even with it gelled I could tell it only was at my forehead. She had gelled in a lot like Gardour had it, spiked in the front but mine didn't look like his, his looked stale and solid, mine looked fluffy and free moving. "wow, how did you do that?" as I said this I ran my hands through my hair "it feels like there's not even anything in my hair!" "haha, I'm glad you like it, it's a special type of gel we stylist get to experiment with this year, if you'd like, if you survive…" I stopped her dead in her tracks there and looked down "there is no IF, there is only when, I WILL survive, and I will become the victor."
The room became silent for a few minutes. Finally she laughed and broke the silence and said "wow! I've never seen a tribute with so much…SPUNK! But at the same time so much faith in himself with something backing his reasoning behind wanting to win besides the pride, besides the glory, besides the wanting to know how it feels to kill a person and get off without being punished for it." I was shocked by her comment "how do you know that I'm NOT doing this for glory, or pride, or even to have the fun of killing someone" her next comment is what shook me more than anything "because your different. You didn't volunteer because you wanted too, you did it because you were protecting someone, someone you loved. You don't have the look of a normal "career", the look of wanting the rush of killing a living human being. Because a "career" doesn't speak with such fury mixed with passion." I was blown back. I hadn't had anyone talk like that too me for a long time. In fact the last person to do so, was my father… "am I right?" "wow…yes…yes you are." "Now, lets get you in your outfit" as she walked away I could hear her footsteps, and noticed they were more of a "clip clop" like that of the flipping of flip flops. When she came back she made me cover my eyes and when I opened them, I was in awe. It was an entire suit of Roman armor. I had only read about the Roman's and their culture, I knew that they were the only society to nearly take over all of the known world and the only society to come any closer to it was the British. I knew that they were a proud strong army and had specific people named gladiators. These gladiators would be put in a giant coliseum and would fight to either death or near death. Whether they died or not was determined based on what the king ruled, if at the end of the battle, the king put thumbs down, the losing gladiator would be killed, if the king put thumbs up, he would live. When I studied that part of history I thought about how much the gladiator fights sounded like the hunger games.
"its Roman gladiator armor. The Roman's used it…" "I know what it is, it's beautiful." "I found it suiting since you are about to go into a game that was designed quite a bit from the ancient Roman gladiator fight" was she reading my mind?! This was seriously starting to freak me out. "really?" "haha I don't know, I've heard rumor that it was, but that's what I've always thought it resembled, so try it on, lets see how it fits." it took me at least thirty minutes to try on but when I finally did, it fit like a glove, like it was made perfectly for me. "wow, this fits amazingly." "good, I knew exactly what I wanted to do before the reaping started and when I saw you volunteer, I tried to guess your measurements…turns out I got them right" she smiled about the fact that she perfectly guessed my measurements which amazed me. "try it out, move, walk around, see how it feels, swing your sword" I listened to her and moved around and took out my sword and began using usual tactics that I had learned and surprisingly, it didn't hinder me that much. The only thing it didn't allow me to do was bend my body to much, which shouldn't be a problem during the parade. " I like it, it doesn't really let me bend down. But I don't think I'll be needing to do that." "well good then, because the parade is about to start." As I walked down the hall way toward our chariot, I felt as powerful as a gladiator. Each step, prouder and more powerful then the last. When I reached the chariot, I realized Kathrine had not gotten there yet. But what really impressed me was the chariot and the chariot horses. The chariot was ordained with classic Roman decorations and colors. The wheels had three spikes and located directly in the middle of those spike was a dagger, though very dull, very dangerous. The horses pulling the chariot were golden and adorned in battle ready armor. Like they were about to charge right into a war. "wow, this is amazing." you'd be surprised what we can do from a bit of knowledge of the past."
as soon as I was positioned on the chariot I heard Kathrine coming. And it wasn't her foot steps I could hear, no, it was something else, something like a point hitting the ground with great force. As I turned around I saw Kathrine walk in. she was dressed exactly like me and was made as pretty as a giant man looking woman can be. As she got closer I realized what was making the noise, it was her weapon.  What I had guessed was correct. From her handle extended to large spikes hat transformed the odd cylinder into a giant, god-like spear that made her look like she was carrying Jupiter's lightning bolt. Ready to destroy anyone who got in her way. "move over maggot" "hmm clever, I like the repetitive nicknames" "I'm sure you do"  "and I'm sure you have the intelligence quotient of a Sciurus carolinensis." at this comment, Kathrine became very confused  and got a puzzled look on her face "that a eastern gray squirrel sweetie, don't strain yourself." "how bout I eastern gray squirrel your face!?" at this moment she raised her spear at me and that's when her stylist came in "raise the spear again and I wont think twice about tranquilizing you until you reach the training room. Do you understand me?!" after he said this he walked back to where he was stand like he knew she would agree.
The thought of her being tranquilized made me laugh. I thought about it for a second and then mutually agreed with myself that they would need at least one poachers used to call "elephant tranquilizers" before the elephants went extinct and the downfall happened. I'm sure the capitol still has those, or something similar laying around in their armory somewhere. As I looked around I could see that all the district chariots were here and were lined up and ready and I heard the crack of a reign for  the horses in front of us and I heard Gleam shout " pull out your sword!" so I did and right as I unsheathed my blade, I was hit with the blinding lights and the cheering crowd… the hunger games had officially started.