Tyranna Vale(President of Panem)

It never ceases to amaze me how much The Hunger Games have changed just in the few years I've been president. In four years we've celebrated a milestone that would have seemed unfathomable to the founders of Panem, the men, and women who designed the games as a punishment for the rebellious districts could only have dreamed that the institution they created would actually deliver to everyone the peace they so desperately sought. But it did and Panem was saved and we were able to enjoy a centennial celebration of epic proportions and the games delivered to everyone the spectacle they deserved and Verity was the perfect victor to ring in the second century of the games.

I would never have thought that my first games would be my high water mark but somehow despite the best efforts of my Gamemakers we've never been able to surpass our first results. The second games under my watch were plagued by the amoral actions of a slut who used her body to slip through the games without having to try to a maniac that flayed another tribute alive, despite all that at the very least we ended up with a legitimate victor. Joyce may not be perfect but she's a hell of a lot better than the two victors that followed.

The One Hundred and Second Games started out promising but not even the breathtaking beauty of the arena or the creativity and destructive power of the mutts are enough to erase the black eye that resulted from those games. I mean it's hard to forget that the Gamemakers were forced to get directly involved to prevent a freaking rapist from walking out as victor and even though no one in Panem seems to care that they did it the blemish is still there. Add in a weak and pathetic victor like Kimma and it's no wonder that's all anyone remembers about those games.

Last year was a bit better and the moratorium on volunteering made the game's incredibly unpredictable, unfortunately my decision to restrict the reapable age groups to just twelve and thirteen drowned any benefit it may have given us out in a sea of incompetence and reluctance. The games had its moments to be sure and we did end up with an almost perfect victor in Quanta especially considering the limited pool of talent but it's impossible for me to view last year as anything but a wasted opportunity. Fortunately today I get to rectify that mistake and I fully intend to deliver to Panem the games they should have gotten last year, as long as Celine can deliver the kind of scale her plans call for that is.

"Are you sure you can make all of this work? I can't afford to greenlight a project of this magnitude if you can't deliver the promised results."

"Madam President I've never let you down before and I don't intend to start now."

"That wasn't what I asked you, Celine. I asked you if you were sure you could do everything you're saying you can. I absolutely love the arena design and the mutts are perfect but I need to know you and your team can actually take what's on these plans and make it a reality."

"I understand your concerns and my team and I share them with you. We need an arena that's as dangerous as last years but as beautiful as the one before. We need mutts that capture the imagination of the people but without rehashing or just altering ones we've already used. We need to deliver a game on par with the greatest games in history and that all starts with the right arena, and this is the right arena. My team will deliver you everything we say we will and more, all we need is your ok."

"Very well you've got it but you need to understand something first."

"What do I need to understand Madam President?"

"You need to understand that delivering on the arena and the mutts is only half the battle, these games need to be bloody and spectacular. They need to be on a completely different level than anything you or I have ever done and failure is not an option. We've forced the people to suffer three consecutive years of disappointingly mundane games and two consecutive years of disappointing victors and while I understand that tributes like Kimma and Quanta are going to win from time to time the games they won weren't overly entertaining or memorable."

"Ma'am, are you ordering me to ensure these games produce a specific kind of victor or is this more of a general everything needs to be amazing kind of talk?"

"Ok, first off you've known me long enough to know I'd never explicitly order you to do anything like that and as long as the tributes don't break any rules written or otherwise I'm fully content to let the game play itself out. That being said I and the citizens of the Capitol have certain expectations of what a victor should be and the only way for us to get the victor we want and deserve is for the games themselves to be memorable. Does that answer your question?"

"I….I think it does ma'am."

"If it's not clear or you're unsure just say so."

"No ma'am I understand exactly what you want and what you expect. My team and I will deliver to you and to all of Panem a Hunger Games worthy of remembrance."

"I'd expect nothing less Celine."

I offer her a smile and a curt nod of dismissal and she quickly gathers up her notes and disks before quietly slipping out of the room and leaving me alone with my thoughts. Honestly, this design may be the best her best one yet and with my niece designing the mutts I'm fully confident that everything will turn out great, but I'm not going to tell her that. Right now it's better if she thinks her life depends on these games being the best of all time because it very well might. After all the people are only going to tolerate mundane games for so long and if heads have to roll hers has to be the first one to go even if she is my oldest and closest friend.

A/N: Welcome everyone to my 5th SYOT Show no Mercy: The 104th Hunger Games. Now this is a direct continuation of my previous 4 stories but having read them isn't necessary as I'll explain everything important over the next couple of chapters. However they're pretty good stories so you should read them anyway :D

However please take into account that the volunteer moratorium from the last story is still in effect so there will be no volunteer careers or any other kind of volunteers in the games. Every tribute will be reaped but that doesn't mean that the tributes from career districts can't be trained or 18 but that there's just as good a chance of it being a completely untrained 18 year old too so don't be afraid to submit the non typical district 1, 2 and 4 tributes.

The tribute submission form is on my profile along with a couple of other guidelines for submitting but I'll cover the big ones here too. First off and this is a big one I'll ONLY be taking tributes submitted through PM and absolutely no review submission will be accepted. Also this is not a first come first serve story I'll be picking the submissions based on the tribute submitted not how fast you got it in. Because of this there will also be no reservations.

Please do not recycle tributes from other stories. This isn't a second chance or all stars story so if you've sent a tribute into another story and they've been accepted don't send it to me too. That being said if the your tribute submission was rejected by another story please feel free to send it in but please tell me what story it was rejected from too.

Other than that I'm looking forward to getting started on this story and taking this amazing journey with all of you. :D