Prologue 1:

Korrina Ovidius, Interim President of Panem

Korrina Ovidius shakes her head as she puts her face in her hands, struggling to take deep breaths to keep herself calm. Only two weeks of this and the stress is already driving her crazy. Why would she ever accept this job? Why did people even want her to take over to run the country in the first place?

She'll never know the answer to the second question. But the first? Well…she thought maybe she could make a difference for Panem. Make something right after the war took so many lives. Broke apart families. Destroyed an entire District. What was the point of the war? The Capitol is still in charge, just over a significantly reduced population.

But maybe Korrina can do something to make the war not completely pointless. She can't do anything to bring back the lives of those who died, no matter how much she desperately wishes she could for one person. But she's only one woman. One woman who never strived to sit in the Presidential Manor.

That dream belonged to the woman she loved.

"This was a terrible idea," Korrina mutters to herself, taking in a shaky breath. There's so much pressure on her to right the wrongs of President Snow's era. A knock on the door has her sitting up, straightening the papers on her desk and putting a neutral look on her face. "Come in."

The door opens, revealing three people who are stuck in this mess with her. First to enter is proud and patriotic Basilius Cosima, pushing back his long gray hair as he grins over at Korrina. Of course, he's the only one who isn't stressed about being in this role. This is what he always strived towards but could never achieve with Snow in power. Next to enter the room is Tiberius Dorika, hair freshly dyed and face a little red from a skin treatment, revealing the efforts he takes to stay young looking. At least Tiberius has the decency to appear neutral about this meeting. But then again, that was why Korrina picked him. And finally, the last of the party enters the room. Catriona Seoras, the youngest one here, trying to hold her head up proudly, even if her eyes betray her timidness. Korrina is counting on the woman to be her support against the strong personalities of Basilius and Tiberius.

"Please, sit down," Korrina motions to the three seats in front of her. She almost smiles to herself when she sees the order they sit in. Basilius, Tiberius, Cat. The extreme patriot and devoted fan of the Hunger Games. The neutral one. And the one who lost too much to the war. Well, Korrina just hopes this meeting ends without a fight. "Welcome to the first meeting of the President's Council. Now, I'm sure you have questions about how this will work. I'm afraid I'm just as unsure as you are. Nothing like this has been done before, but I hope it stays this way."

"What exactly is our rank, Madam President?" Basilius asks her, making her cringe internally at the title of president.

Korrina takes off her glasses, pinching the bridge of her nose as she tries to figure out that answer. None of this comes easy to her. She shouldn't be the one sitting behind this desk. "You're ranked right below me. You're to provide me with council so I can make the best decisions, not just for the Capitol but for all of Panem." She pauses to put her glasses back on, staring at all three of them for a moment. "I'm sure you're all aware of how different your political beliefs are. That was an intentional decision. But I ask you, can we please get through these meetings without yelling at each other?"

Korrina waits for each of them to give affirmations to this, Basilius unsurprisingly taking the longest. He always has been stubborn and bullheaded, and Korrina knows he probably will start yelling if he really gets fired up. But she nods her head at them, picking up a piece of paper from her desk, staring at the different faces and names. "Alright. The reason I brought you here is a very delicate subject." She hands out identical papers to the three of them, letting out a sigh as they look over the names. "How are we going to punish the remaining rebels?"

"Send their children into the Hunger Games!" Basilius answers immediately and his suggestion makes Korrina's stomach twist. That's the last thing she wants to do.

Cat scoffs at this and sets down her paper, leaning forward to stare at Basilius. "Yeah and start another rebellion? Great idea. The games were what started the war and you want to bring them back?"

"It will instill fear in them once more!" Basilius's voice starts to raise with his excitement level for the games. "Make the children of rebels suffer. Remind them what happens when they fight against us."

Tiberius clears his throat, stopping Cat from arguing further with Basilius. "I agree with both of you." Korrina gives him a small smile at this, happy to see her choice was right with him. "There's a very serious risk of rebellion if the games continue. But…the games have worked. They started as a punishment."

They all turn to look over at Korrina, waiting for her decision, but she just can't come up with a solution. She doesn't want the games to return and spark another war, and she's almost certain that will happen. "I will not lose another loved one to a war started by the Hunger Games."

"Korrina," Tiberius starts and just from his tone, she knows she won't like what he has to say.

"I can't," she gets out, voice cracking from the pain of losing her rock, her love, her wife.

Cat reaches out and takes Korrina's hand, trying to comfort her. Basilius is the one to lean forward and answer her. "Korrina, do you think you're the only one who lost someone in this war? You're not and all those people don't want to see a war start again. But they want to see punishment against those who took their loved ones away. Don't you?"

Yes. So badly, she wants to see the people who killed Elaine punished. Except…the games aren't there to punish Capitol citizens. Bringing back the Hunger Games won't change the fact that Capitol rebels killed Elaine, all for her role in politics.

Tiberius clears his throat and Korrina looks up at him. "Korrina, you're not just a civilian anymore. You're the President of Panem. You have to make the tough decisions that are best for everyone, not just yourself now."

"I don't want the games returning," Korrina shakes her head at this, knowing they can hear the pain and uncertainty in her voice, but she doesn't care. They already know how completely unprepared she is for this role.

"We don't either," Tiberius says, pausing when Basilius clears his throat. "Well, Basilius does. But we need to act now or people will start to think the rebels won't be punished."

"I don't have any idea what else to do," Korrina puts her head in her hands, wishing she never accepted this job. How is she supposed to make a decision that will send 23 – no, 21 – children to their death each year? She hates the bloodshed. "I need more time to come up with a solution!"

"We don't have time," Basilius counters and Korrina picks up her head to stare over at him, resenting him a little for his love of bloodshed in the games. "If we're going to have a games, we only have three months to prepare everything."

"Korrina!" Cat yells out in disbelief and Korrina slowly looks over, hating the look of disappointment she gets from the younger woman. "You can't seriously be considering this!"

"Cat, what choice do I have?" Korrina asks her, full of defeat. She can't make these decisions. She can barely make the right decisions for herself, let alone an entire country.

"Lots of choices!" Cat says loudly, staring at the others with wide eyes. "Are you three serious right now? Sending 22 children of rebels into the arena will start another war!"

"Don't send just rebels," Tiberius offers to this and Korrina snaps her gaze over to him, feeling her stomach twist at the thought of sending innocent children in to the arena when this is meant as a punishment for the rebels…but isn't that what has been done for 75 years? "Just rebels will definitely get any remaining groups fired up enough to fight again."

Korrina lets out a loud sigh and leans back in her chair, feeling exhausted from this decision. She never should have accepted this job. But now she has a whole country depending on her to make the right call. "I want your official decisions on the matter. Yes or no, will we start the Hunger Games again? Basilius."

"Yes, 100% yes."

"Cat?"

"Absolutely not!"

Korrina sighs, having expected these responses. She turns to the final one, having a feeling what he'll say and knowing she isn't going to personally agree, but he's right. She isn't making decisions for herself now. She's making them for the whole country. "Tiberius?"

The man takes a minute to respond, only making Korrina's stress levels grow. "Yes, but just until we have punished all of the main rebels."

Korrina isn't happy with his answer, yet… it's a solution she hadn't thought of before. Yes, maybe they can do this for only a few years, make it clear to everyone that it is a punishment, not entertainment like they had become in recent years. "Okay," she finally says, sighing as she feels like she's still making the wrong decision, yet it's a temporary compromise for her until she can come up with a better solution. "This is my decision until I can come up with something better. The Hunger Games will continue as punishment until someone from each of the thirty main rebel families has been selected. Then the games will end. Someone please set up a press announcement. Now," Korrina says as she stands up, followed immediately by the other three and unsettling her that this is now her normal life. "I'm going to the Gamemaker Center to see if it's actually feasible to complete this in time."

"Who will be the Head Gamemaker now that Plutarch is dead?" Tiberius hesitantly says, watching Korrina carefully for her response.

"The only person I can actually trust, my son." Korrina answers as she gathers her papers and puts them into her bag. Then she looks up at the three people in front of her, shaking her head at them, "Let's hope Myron is up for this."

Welcome aboard my newest adventure! Sit tight because it's going to be a wild ride as we explore just what went down in my headcanon (hence dubbed the Engineering-verse) during the Second Rebellion and how the Hunger Games were continued! Really, this story is me just further developing my world.

Now, this is a non-SYOT story, but I hope that won't deter you from reading! As such, this is more my 'fun' project (all my stories are fun), where it will occasionally get put on the back burner so I can focus on my SYOTs. If you don't like the long update time, sorry but that's how it's going to work. Just putting that out there now. This story is going to be focusing on a few Capitolites (Korrina obviously being one), and four different tributes. I'll be honest with you guys, the victor for this has already been mentioned before in a different story. I won't say which story but if you really wanted to, you could figure out who wins. The victor isn't really the focus of this story.

So if you're new to my stories, welcome! I'm Lauren and I like writing THG stories for fun when I have time around being a graduate student. Which...isn't that much time but I promise my stories will be finished eventually. Feel free to check out some of my other stories if you're curious about what Panem is like many years in the future from this! And if you're one of the usual suspects, welcome back to another story and thanks for be willing to check out another one of my stories!

And a few fun things before I stop rambling. First, would escort submissions be something you're interested in for this story? They'll have a bigger role in this story compared to usual games for reasons yet to be revealed... I can come up with some but I think it's more fun to get escorts from the readers! So if you're interested, send me a PM or something and I'll figure out a form! Second, this story is part of my sponsor points system. So each review gets you points that can be used in an SYOT for say... a hot tub or a cool hat. Or something actually practical. Either way, reviews will give you points for other stories!

Alright I'll stop rambling now. Let me know what you think! And why not: which of the Capitolites in this chapter are you curious about and want to see more of?

OH THERE'S A STORY BLOG! I nearly forgot! Anyone familiar with my other stories knows that I love story blogs. This one is still in progress and I'll be adding a lot more to it as we get further into this story! The link is hysteria76th . weebly . com (just make sure to remove the spaces!)