The Non Mortal Games

7: Metallucia: The Capitol

The train stopped and I bumped into Beetee and Markus as I made my way to the door. "We've arrived," Beetee informed me.

"I know. I woke up from my nap as the train was slowing," I replied. We exited the train and were escorted to the remake Centre in front of a huge crowd of Capitol people. We were followed by Spekky Trinket. A couple of people reached out to touch Markus's and my wings, so I zapped them with little fiery sparks. Our wings were more sensitive than the rest of our bodies, especially where they met our shoulder blades, and anyway we didn't want all those random mortals touching them.

Markus and I split up to be all prettied up by our prep teams. My stylist was a man who called himself Si. At least he wasn't as bad as Spekky (And neither was his outfit). He insisted on making me wear a horrendous abomination of all kinds of colours, just made shiny. How that reflected District Three, I didn't know. He also kept trying to wash me because he claimed there were specks of dust on me. He got me completely wet, so I zapped him with sparks by accident, which made the dress catch fire. That made him be quiet. Until his outfit caught fire and he screamed, that is. I covered my ears at the horrid noise. I then turned my back on him and went off to explore the place.

I wanted to make sure my powers would be at their strongest so I decided to find a power point. Being the goddess of mechanics, I could draw power from electricity to make sure my aura was recharged. I walked down a corridor for a bit and saw that a door was open. Going inside, I saw a girl with dragon wings, as well as some others who looked like guardians that had entered the Games in secret with her.

"Hello," I said, "do you know where I can find a power point?" I was expecting the dreaded question about my accent, as a number of mortals I'd bumped into, as well as Spekky and Si, had asked me and made me explain (Si had made me say it all again because he hadn't paid attention the first time). However the girl stayed silent, so I introduced myself. I thought that I should also explain the unpleasant screaming coming from down the hall, so I explained that Si had made me wet and I had accidentally zapped him.

The girl finally spoke and introduced herself as Magicia Hexopia. That's when I got a feeling of...not déjà vu exactly, but something like it. As if I'd seen this girl and heard that name before. Magicia explained that she wasn't happy with the way those insolent mortals were treating us either.

"It's like we're two year olds," she said, and I nodded in agreement. I decided to bring up my feeling of having seen Magicia before. Maybe it was just me, but I wanted to see if she felt it too.

"I have a feeling we've met before," I said. She seemed to agree with me. How was it possible though? How could we have known each other before? How perplexing, I thought.

Magicia started talking with her guardians/other companions (all of them using some atrocious words, I must say) so I started to look for that power point I'd come here to find. Eventually I found it and I sat down and placed my hand over it. I felt the power flow into me, and into my aura. The last time I'd used a power point to give my powers a boost I'd accidentally caused a power cut somehow, but since this was the Capitol it would serve them right if that happened (which it did later that day, but more on that disaster later).

That was when some mortals came in wanting to make us pretty again. Luckily, Preston made his presence clear and told them to leave or risk becoming somebody's dinner. That sent them out. Soon after that I glimpsed an angry looking person and some mortals who were definitely in no shape to be dealing with non-mortals. In other words, they were unconscious. I couldn't see much more than that because I was sitting in the corner absorbing electricity.

Given enough power, I could even survive without food for much longer than a god should be able to. Unfortunately it was unlikely that there would be much electricity or many mechanical devices other than cameras in the arena.

I saw and heard dozens of prep team members trying to do up a all the other non-mortals. And out of those dozens of mortals, how many were succeeding in their Herculean task? Zero. Honestly, they all needed to do maths, if you were to ask me. I said this to Magicia and her crew.

After a little while Magicia suggested we explore a bit. I had a decent amount of extra power by then, and I could always do a bit more charging later, so I went with Magicia and company. I introduced my guardian to Magicia as we entered another room. "This is Preston. He's an elf ghost, as you can see."

"I heard most of the elves and other fey were killed in the war a hundred years ago," Magicia said. "Oh, sorry Preston, I didn't mean to be so insensitive," she added.

"It's fine," Preston replied. "There are still some elves around the place, if you know where to look. They practically worship those who died protecting non-mortal kind."

"Still, I've never heard of ghosts actually becoming guardians before. I know there's Ben, but he's a pet. He isn't an official guardian," said Magicia.

"It doesn't happen a lot," said Preston, "but I am more powerful than the average elf. I was also from a rich family, and my personality was a good match for Metallucia, so I became her guardian."

Magicia then asked, "so what were you doing down there with the power point!"

I explained that I had been charging my powers so they would be stronger than normal.

"Wow, I guess that must be pretty useful," Magicia said. "There aren't as many machines in my district as there are in yours, but even I would like to be able to do that."

"It's one of the powers that comes from being the goddess of mechanics. I wonder, if I had demigod children, or even godly ones, would I pass that power on to them? After all, I did inherit fire touch from my father, as you probably saw from the Reaping footage."

"Oh my gods, that was hilarious," Magicia said, trying not to laugh. The dragon and demon in Magicia's crew (Quicksilver and Makenna I believe they were called) actually did laugh. I couldn't help but notice, however, that Makenna couldn't take his eyes off Preston, even while this was happening...

We looked at the food on the table in the room. There was nothing for non-mortals: no nectar, ambrosia or blood, and not enough meat to go around to all twenty-four tributes. Okay, mortals might have a bit of trouble finding ambrosia and nectar, but surely they would be able to procure blood and meat for everyone who wanted it!

I asked Magicia which district she came from. She didn't look or act like a Career, although she did look quite powerful as far as non-mortals go.

"I'm from District Twelve, along with Makenna, Ben and Quincy," she said. She then told me that she also had Ancient Greek heritage, like me. I had heard that there were a couple of demigods in the Games, including one of my many half siblings. I decided to ask about that later. I hadn't seen the Reaping because I'd been asleep for most of the journey to the Capitol, so everything I knew about the other tributes had been told to me, or I'd overheard it. This meant that some of it was probably untrue so I'd have to do a bit of digging around to find out anything useful.

All of a sudden a figure dressed mostly in black darted into the room and just about squeezed Magicia to death. Magicia swore at him, although it was surely in shock than anything else. I guessed he was the male tribute from District Twelve. James, his name was. I inturrupted the happy pair as I noticed people walking through the corridor towards a staircase I'd noticed while fleeing from Si earlier. We all headed down the corridor and then down the stairs.