The 250th Hunger Games: Return

The 250th Hunger Games: Return is a fanfiction written by The Targaryen of District 4, taking place 250 years after the Dark Days. It details the aftermath of a five-year long civil war between two siblings of the Capitol's Presidential family, the tension and resentment between the rebellious districts and The Capitol and the 250th edition of the Hunger Games/10th Quarter Quell, which was either interpreted as a celebration or a punishment.

Return is the prequel to The 500th Hunger Games: Ascension.

## Background

Fifteen years after the discoveries of District 0 and District 14, a brutal civil broke out between two siblings in the Presidential family. This halted any Games activity for 5 years. One of these siblings sympathised with rebel ideologies, which gained him the support of the traditionally rebel districts (including the previously thought to be destroyed District 13, whose existence was eventually learned of by The Capitol), whilst the other was a conservative who had the support of The Capitol and the career districts.

The conservative sibling won the war and became the new President, whilst the rebel sympathising sibling was executed. The new President officially brought the Games back and as punishment for their "treason", he forced District 13 to compete in the Hunger Games (the other rebel districts already being competitors of the Games). As it was also close to the 10th Quarter Quell, the President declared that The Capitol would send in tributes of their own.

## Characters

### Tributes

Diarmuid Fragor, The Capitol MaleIvy Sinclair, The Capitol FemaleKris Jones, District 1 MaleDistrict 1 FemaleLance Charette, District 2 MaleNova Deimos, District 2 FemaleBraxton Ortez, District 3 MaleMarcella Brynlee, District 3 FemaleDistrict 4 MaleCoral Volaity, District 4 FemaleDistrict 5 MaleTalia Mignonette, District 5 FemaleHarry Trander, District 6 MaleDistrict 6 FemaleFelix Byrd, District 7 MaleMarigold 'Mari' Ponder, District 7 FemaleIsaac Fabbri, District 8 MaleMasie Knight, District 8 FemaleGantt Harris, District 9 MaleDistrict 9 FemaleJack Wooder, District 10 MaleDistrict 10 FemaleJordan Orchard, District 11 MaleMabel Karna, District 11 FemaleDistrict 12 MaleAshara Astaport, District 12 FemaleZirco Sievert, District 13 MaleAlara Sievert, District 13 Female
### Mentors and Escorts

Rayn Chisic, District 2 Mentor and Victor of the 239th Hunger GamesVila Antos, District 4 Mentor and Victor of the 244th Hunger Games
### Other

Mrs. Fragor, Diarmuid's mother and the matriarch of the Fragor family

## Information

### The Games

#### Twist(s)

The Capitol will submit tributes of their own for the first time. At the same time, as punishment for its role in the rebellion, District 13 will also submit tributes into the Hunger Games.

## Synopsis

### Prologue

Months after the end of the civil war and months before the start of the Games, the new President hosted a party that served the purposes of both remembering those who had died fighting for the Capitol and celebrating the Capitol's victory over the rebels. Most of the party's attendants were members of Panem's elite, including celebrities, politicians, socialites and former victors, two examples being Rayn Chisic of District 2, the Victor of the 239th Hunger Games, and Vila Antos of District 4, the Victor of the 244th Hunger Games (which were the final games to be hosted before the war) and an aspiring fashion designer.

The President would later make the announcement that the Hunger Games would return after five years and because the tenth anniversary of the first Quarter Quell was approaching, the twist would be that The Capitol would send their own tributes. As of the rebel districts, most of them were already competitors of the Games, with the exception of District 13. District 13 would be forced to compete in the Hunger Games as punishment.

### The Reapings

#### The Capitol

Ivy Sinclair prepares for the reaping, determined to volunteer now that the Capitol would compete for the first time.

She reveals that because there was no Hunger Games for five years, entertainment in the Capitol was limited. Several Hunger Games-related buildings such as bookmakers and previous arenas that had been turned into museums were shut down, in order to encourage citizens to stay safe.

The elites did not have any hand in the actual combat, the loyalists and Peacekeepers fought on their behalf. Whilst there was bloodshed outside, the sheltered socialites had to find other forms of entertainment to fill the void left behind by the absence of the Games. Some resorted to alcohol and drugs, the abuse of which was already prevalent in Panem, some attended parties even if they weren't invited and some pursued careers in the arts, although most material wouldn't be released until after the war.

Ivy and her family chose to occupy themselves by watching all editions of the Hunger Games that they could get from the archives. The Sinclairs were able to do so because Ivy's father had an associate who worked in the archives. He tried to get the original video footage, but the associate refused as he feared the loss of his job if he were to hand over the original footage. Ivy's father tried to bribe him with a "tempting" amount of money, but the associate still refused. He then forced the associate to hand over copies of the footage instead, which the associate did.

Ivy recalls how she spent a lot of time, when she was younger, fantasising about being a tribute in the Hunger Games, since Capitol citizens were unable to be tributes at the time as they had immunity as the hosts of the Hunger Games and there was no desire or need for Capitol citizens to compete in something that they had created. The Capitol were the puppetmasters puppeteering the districts.

This didn't stop Ivy from dreaming, however. Her initial plan for the Games, in the (at-the-time) impossible scenario that the Capitol was finally allowed to compete, was to volunteer, gain the attention of the crowd during the Chariot Parade, join the Careers after displaying her prowess with either a machete or throwing knives, wear to the Interviews a dress so enviable that others would desperately try to replicate it and then prove her superiority over the other tributes by becoming the Victor. This seemed like a dream that would never be accomplished, until the announcement that the Capitol would compete.

Ivy's reaping outfit is prepared and brought to her room by the Sinclair family's servants. This causes her to reminisce about how she designed her reaping outfit after the announcement of the Capitol's participation in the Games. Once her design was complete, her parents hired the most elite seamsters to make it.

Her outfit was inspired by her favourite edition of the Hunger Games, one that took place before she was even born; the 230th Hunger Games. The Sinclairs managed to obtain the footage and recordings of the 230th Games and it was one of the Games they watched during the war.

As the date of the Games implies, it took place in the year 230ADD. 230ADD was already a very historical year for Panem; it was the year that Districts 0 and 14, located in the former regions of Alaska and Hawaii respectively, were discovered and annexed into Panem after a series of successful expeditions. Because of this, it was deemed as the annus mirabilis (miraculous year).

Ivy states that although she admittedly found the tributes of the 230th Games interesting (really, this was Ivy lying as there was only one tribute she actually found interesting), what really piqued her interest was the plant-filled arena.

Tributes of the 230th Games were denied food sponsors because of the arena being covered in plants. Gamemakers used this to encourage the tributes to forage instead, leading to the reveal that some of the plants were poisonous and some were not. Tributes with plant knowledge obviously had the advantage and were able to avoid the poisonous plants, whilst others died gruesomely. All of the Careers died from eating the poisonous plants. Their faces were described as turning purple as they gasped for breath and blood was spilling out from their eyes and mouth.

Ivy reveals that she was lying about finding all of the tributes interesting. She only found one tribute interesting. This was the District 11 female.

The District 11 female, according to Ivy, was outstanding. Her tactic during the Games was similar to that of Johanna Mason's back in 71ADD; she pretended to be a sweet, innocent girl during the buildup to the Games, but when it came down to the main event and the bloodbath reduced the number of tributes, her true colours were shown. She was cunning and smart, displaying a talent for lying and manipulation. She was one of the tributes to successfully locate the plants that were not poisonous.

The District 11 female managed to secure a place in the finale by turning every member of the alliance she was part of, save for her district partner (the other tribute in the finale), against each other using nothing but secrets and intel that she had gathered as blackmail. This resulted in the alliance slaughtering each other. Around the same time, the commentators announced that the postmortem reports of the Career members had been finalised. Even though they were on live television and there was undoubtedly children watching at the time, as well as the families of the tributes being mentioned, they divulged the information from these reports and went into descriptive detail about what the poison had done to their bodies; their blood had turned mustard yellow and their eyes were nuclear green.

Regardless of the outcome, District 11 was guaranted as the winning district. An outcome where both tributes would survive was impossible as there was enough animosity to guarantee a final showdown. The District 11 male had been spared by his district partner because he had been manipulated into falling in love with her. It was because of this that he was oblivious to what was going on around him.

It was not until after the alliance's demise that the District 11 male finally broke out of his lovesick trance. Too late to save his alliance, he wanted vengeance. The District 11 female decided to save him for last, therefore ensuring that a brutal finale would take place.

The finale took place at nighttime. The Gamemakers had created an artificial blood moon in order to set a creepy atmosphere. The tributes, basked in the red light from the blood moon, fought both physically and mentally. Fueled by his anger, the male lunged at the female. The female was able to hold off his attacks by keeping him at a distance with her throwing knives. She attempted to control him psychologically.

She was able to lie and manipulate so convincingly that she had concealed the truth. She acted as if she didn't know her district partner prior to the Games, but they were actually childhood acquaintances. The commentators were shocked because they couldn't believe that someone like this was from District 11 of all places.

The psychological games that the female was playing with her district partner was starting to warp her own sense of reality, driving her into insanity. She started likening herself to poison ivy, calling herself "the human poison ivy". This added an extra layer of suspense to the already thrilling fight.

It concluded when the District 11 male overpowered and either used a weapon already in his possession or grabbed a weapon to decapitate her. He was announced as the victor.

Being inspired by the poisonous plant theme and the manipulation of the District 11 female, Ivy drastically changed her plan for the Games. She decided that she would combine the aforementioned to create an updated version of the "human poison ivy" persona. She vowed that unlike her predecessor, she would succeed in becoming a victor.

She made sure that her reaping dress design reflected her change in vision. The dress itself was consistent with the plant theme; it was a floor-length, green velvet dress that was decorated with vines and leaves. The rest of the outfit also followed the theme; the headdress was made out of black roses as well as more vines and leaves. Although her shoes and her emerald necklace didn't have anything to do with plants, they were still part of the green colour scheme.

The Sinclair family servants were insistent on helping Ivy get dressed, despite her capability of getting dressed by herself. Ignoring the servants, she recalls how she was motivated to live up to her new vision.

She read books about plants frequently, in the hopes that she would become just as knowledgeable about plants as the District 11 tributes. She would read these books to bed as they helped her fall asleep. As of the development of her manipulation skills, she hosted parties for her "friends". But manipulating every at these parties proved to be all too easy for Ivy because the guests were all just gullible children after all. The real challenge for her manipulation skills was the parties that her parents hosted.

Her practice turned out to be very successful. She would walk through the crowd of guests and eavesdrop on the various conversations. As she was just a little girl, the guests paid little attention to her, making it easy for her to collect intel.

Several of the families of the Capitol had banded together in solidarity against the rebels. Backstabbing therefore was a feat that could be accomplished. One of the guests at the parties was an inventor from District 3, who told his fellow partygoers that the minority in District 3 who hadn't turned on the Capitol were developing new technological weapons. If the Sinclairs were to have gotten hold of one of these new weapons, they could use them against their own enemies. There were also rumours that one of the elite but fractured families were trying to reunite, but the Sinclairs were powerful enough to be able to spend rumours of their own to disrupt the reunion and be believed. Ivy told her family all the information that she gathered and they listened to her.

They also took her advice of using unedible, harmful plants as ingredients in the dinners they hosted. These dinners were disguised as being part of the effort to boost wartime morale, to hide the fact that they were actually hosted in order to eliminate their enemies.

Another way in which Ivy tried to develop her manipulation skills was by directly turning families against each other. She sent the head of the Garrow family a poisoned pie and forged the signature on the box that the pie was in so that it looked like it was the head of the Barton family who sent the pie. Ivy's skills were convincing enough that it turned the two families into enemies, but Ivy was a child at the time and she was still learning, so she ended up making an error; both the Garrow and the Barton families were allied with the Sinclair family, and because the two families were now enemies, they forced the Sinclairs to side with one or the other. The Sinclairs sided with the Garrows because the Bartons offered wealth and the Sinclairs were already very affluent.

Ivy states that having someone like the District 11 female tribute as an inspiration and pushing herself to become just like her made her a much stronger and deadlier person, therefore giving her a major advantage in the Games. She vowed that she would not be another sheep in the arena, she was going to be the metaphorical poison that destroys the rest slowly .

Back to the present day, it wasn't time for the reaping yet. Ivy was still getting ready, with the help of her servants. Her dress fit perfectly. Although her dress size would have most likely been told to the seamsters that made her dress, Ivy credits her dress fitting perfectly to her diets. She then put her shoes on.

Rather surprisingly, Ivy begrudgingly does obey the order from the servants to not look into the mirror until her hair was done and her jewelry and makeup were on.

Her hair was fashioned into twin ponytails and her headdress was put on once her hair had been styled. Ivy fastened her emerald necklace by herself. As of the makeup, she ordered forest green lipstick, eyeshadow and eyeliner. The servants brought a tray full to the brim, ready to apply the makeup onto Ivy. Because Ivy would punish them if they had applied it incorrectly, they didn't mess it up.

She is finally able to look into the mirror. Seeing her "vision" come together makes Ivy emotional, but she holds back the tears as she didn't want to ruin her makeup before she even arrived at the reaping arena.

Ivy is then given her token, which is a bouquet of fake light-green flowers that she made herself bound together by a green velvet ribbon. Much like her outfit, her token was consistent with the green and plant theme.

Now that she was finally ready, she left the Sinclair mansion. She said goodbye to her parents and was helped into the limousine that would take her to the reaping arena by a group of bodyguards. Food and drink were provided in the limousine, but Ivy spent her time travelling to the reaping arena testing her plant knowledge.

The limousine drove past areas that had been damaged by rebel bombs. One building that was destroyed by bombing was the museum dedicated to the 241st Hunger Games. In a major contrast to the 230th Hunger Games, Ivy states how bored she was watching the 241st Hunger Games, failing to be entertained even by the reveal of the training scores. She says that whilst some people may consider any damage done to the arena-turned-museums as an attempt at erasing history, she considered the 241st Games one of the most forgettable Games she'd ever watched.

Eventually, more damaged buildings appeared along the route to the reaping arena, such as banks, cafes and restaurants. Although it could be argued that the bombing of these places would at least hurt the Capitol's economy, these places had no strategic value. Therefore, this was potentially the reason why the rebels lost, a suggestion that Ivy seemed to agree with.

Upon arriving at the reaping arena, the chauffeur flatters Ivy by telling her how he'll bet on her if she becomes a tribute. Resuming to replicate the District 11 female, she responds to the flattery with a chuckle. She then exited the limousine, leaving the food and drink untouched as she wasn't hungry or thirsty.

She makes her way into the tunnel that led to the arena, the reaping arena technically being an extension of the Presidential Mansion. At the end of the tunnel was one of the arena's balconies, where there was a table with two Peacekeepers sat at it, holding fingerprint scanners. Ivy is in awe by the atmosphere of the arena.

The queue decreases in size until Ivy is the next person to get her fingerprint scanned. The information that appears on the scanner is her basic information, used to determine which section of the arena she needs to be in. As Ivy was a seventeen year old female, she was escorted by a female Peacekeeper, named Labrys, to the 17FA section.

Ignoring those around her, Ivy waits patiently for the reaping. She is focused to the extent that she is able to suppress her sudden hunger, as she didn't eat anything in the limousine. In the meantime, the pre-reaping activities commence.

As The Capitol had never had a mentor before, since they never competed in the Hunger Games prior to 250ADD, Contessa Aogiri, a famous pop idol in the Capitol, is hired to be a placeholder mentor. Ivy is very critical of Contessa, annoyed by how her statements are blatantly obvious.

The Capitol's first reaping video is shown, after an explanation from Contessa that every competing district and the Capitol got their own video. The President is sat in his office, with the banners behind him being identical to the ones used to decorate the reaping arena. He elaborates on what was already known, such as the casualties of the civil war, the discovery and annexation of Districts 0 and 14 and the announcement of the return of the Hunger Games/the Quarter Quell twist.

Becoming increasingly tired, as well as hungry, Ivy's attention wanders elsewhere.

One hour later, the moment of the reaping has arrived. Thanks to a sudden rush of adrenaline and excitement, Ivy is able to suppress her hunger and lethargy. She concentrates on the stage, more specifically the reaping bowls next to Contessa.

The male reaping takes place first. Contessa placed her arm in the male reaping bowl, grabbing a handful of envelopes and dropping them to mix it up. She picks out an envelope from her second handful, dropping the rest back into the bowl.

The name of the envelope is Diarmuid Fragor from the 18MB section. Diarmuid is revealed to be a miserable young man with long blonde hair and blue eyes. Similarly to how plain his mother looked during the party in the prologue, Diarmuid didn't put much effort in his reaping outfit; wearing a casual t-shirt underneath a tartan coat, jeans and tennis shoes, compared to Ivy, who designed her outfit.

Because no one volunteered in his place, Diarmuid is escorted to the stage. His sullen nature intimidates Contessa. Contessa tries to hide this by smiling and asking Diarmuid questions. Diarmuid replies to these questions with one-word answers.

This gives Ivy a confidence boost as she believes that Diarmuid will be easy to kill. Contessa then moves onto the female reaping bowl, which brings Ivy back into a nervous yet concentrated mindset.

She reminds herself of her plan for the Games, ultimately volunteering as a result.

A Peacekeeper grabs Ivy's arm, preventing her from becoming unconscious. She realises that her childhood dream was coming true and the first stage of her plan was complete. Because of this, she smiles.

After volunteering, Ivy begins the next phase of her "human poison ivy" plan, which is to play the role of the sweet, innocent girl. Contessa asks Ivy for her name, which she reveals. Looking at Ivy's dress, the pop idol makes a comment about how her name has connotations with poison ivy, which, unbeknownst to her, was Ivy's "angle" for the Games. When asked if she has what it takes to win, Ivy declares that she does and she will undoubtedly bring glory to the Capitol. However, she states (in her monologue) that she will do this by "eliminating the sheep".

## Trivia

* Return doesn't have a colour motif.
	+ It was orignally going to be white, to represent the end of the violence and the beginning of peace prior to the Games, but then it was scrapped because there wasn't any peace after all; the rebel districts resented The Capitol, especially for killing their figurehead, and the Capitol viewed the rebel districts as traitors that needed to be punished.
* District 0 and District 14 would not be forced to compete in the Games yet.

## References

1. ↑ This continues her habit of talking in metaphors related to nature; sheep being common livestock that are slain for purposes such as food and clothing, so by comparing her fellow tribute to sheep, she is saying that they will be easily slain and their deaths will provide entertainment for the Capitol and other Hunger Games fanatics whilst she'll come out on top because, like poison, she is dangerous and powerful

## See also

*The following navboxes contain links to articles that are related to Return.*