✓ | Iron ↠ The Hunger Games

six ━ gladiators

CHAPTER SIX;
gladiators

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"Oh my, that is a surprise!" Gideon, just one of the alien-looking members of Vesper's prep team, chirps as he brushes his fingertips along her bicep. It takes everything in her not to jerk it away, as it has the entire time she's been undergoing her unwanted transformation.

Standing stark naked before the Capitol-altered trio, she's endured at least an hour of being poked, prodded, shaven, waxed and hosed down in just about every nook and cranny of her body. The patches of bare skin under her arms, once covered shamelessly with hair, sting and itch with fragrance-laced products that catch at the back of her throat. It gives her a whole new meaning of the word nude — not too far off being plucked like a featherless chicken.

     "What?" Vesper huffs as Gideon begins to giggle, "What is it?" Hoping to guard what little privacy she has left, she crosses her arms over her chest self-consciously.

     As she'd expected, her prep team looks a far cry from anything human; even still, it was difficult for her to try imagining what they could possibly look like. She couldn't have possibly foretold that Gideon would have the eyes of a serpent, pupils shrunken to slits but somehow not as venomous or cunning, complete with sheens of green scales tattooed from his neck downwards — like the new skin he's shedding. As much as she hates these otherworldly strangers, it's equally as difficult not to look away from them, whether it's through fascination or disgust.

     He licks his lips and holds back a smile, rendering Vesper rigid with shock when she notices his forked tongue is yet another snake-themed modification. "Oh, it's not you, sweetheart —" Gideon goes to massage her bicep again and guffaws. "I just wasn't expecting that."

     "Expecting what?"

     "You know... the muscle! You're more toned than you look, little lady."

     Another Capitolesque voice chips in, complete with the obscure sing-song rhythm of all its citizens as she remarks, "Oh Gideon, she's a mechanic, remember? Weren't you listening to me in the elevator?" It belongs to Cordelia — a woman with dark, stern eyes that have flecks of bronze shining radiantly when she turns her head. Fragments also seem to be embedded in her warm brown skin, ingrained in her knuckles, sticking out of her shoulders, almost like she is an ore. The thought of what the procedure must have entailed nauseates Vesper a little bit. But there's a seriousness surrounding the woman, despite her Capitol indoctrination, which commands control over her two unrulier colleagues.

"Ah, yes yes, I remember now. Now, back off!"

"Honestly," Cordelia tuts, smoothing her hand over a waxing strip on Vesper's leg. "You're worse than Benedict."

"Who's Be—" Vesper winces as pain lashes across her leg, biting her lip. "Benedict?" As she stares sorrowfully at the removed hair now trapped on the waxing strip, she wonders what they're doing to Icarus next door in the Remake Centre. Is the poor boy enduring as much as she is? There's a crueller part of her that almost wishes he is, for it would make this master plan of hers at least a little more worth it.

"You don't know?" a third voice chirps, light-headed and ditzy. She emerges into Vesper's line of sight, her bright neon attire making her eyes ache. "Why, he's your stylist, silly! Don't you remember him from previous years?"