Banks McCoy | Capitol | Trainer Done

Without a tongue, there is no place for someone in the Capitol.

Avox. Shame. Disappointment. Banks had grown up knowing what the Capitol thought of his own family. A father with no tongue and a mother cut off from a legacy she once was allowed to have. A story for the ages about love and loss; the quiet and the loud. A boy born to a family that should have never been. Banks is the blood of the unworthy and the holy; brought to this earth with all eyes on him as if he were an abomination in the Capitol. Everyone who's everyone had heard of their family's story. An avox and a capitolite having a family as if it were the most normal thing in the world. Banks was the creation of that love; born to be the face of controversy and in many ways, he burnt that image and created his own over time.

It wasn't easy to do. Growing up was rough. The poorest family in the entire Capitol trying to run a café when one of the owners couldn't even speak. A communication system had been set up at a young age and he had learned how to communicate with his dad through sign, but it wasn't something the Capitol cared about. Kids would laugh down the hallways where words hurt worse than broken bones; a whisper of the monster born from the voiceless. Banks had lived through unworthiness in the eyes of power, smiled through the tears, and helped where he could. Days spent in a café navigating for his father so the capitolites don't laugh at his dad the same way they laughed at him. A helpless boy in a world where he loved the one person who cared for him, but everyone saw them as hopeless, unworthy, and below them in every way.

Starting fights seemed like the best answer when the floodgates broke. Broken bones and purple bruised made him feel better. Knocking teeth out of those prim and proper kids who dared to say anything about his family. The family who he loved so dearly, filled with better things than money and lack of happiness. What's left when you already have everything? Banks didn't understand the kids of the capitol who viewed their café as a mutt zoo; poking and prodding at his family. Banks would always see that look in his father's eyes, the anger and the frustration, but it always turned to smiles at him. The words 'I'm okay' signed out to him as his father clutched his shoulder with pride.

Every time, he would walk outside, blood boiling with anger as he slams his fist into a preppy dickhead's face. Over and over this went, until school caught wind. Cash sent to try and get him expelled, but someone fought for him. His mother with their lack of wealth, but her skillful way of speaking with proper words and respect. Banks would love his mother forever for everything she did for him. It took one meeting and a promise of never letting him fight the way he did with the anger he held. In some ways, he wished his mother wouldn't have, but he was sent to places to hone the desperate fighting he'd use against the kids who dared to poke and prod at his family.

In his free time, he spent days training under the words of an ex-peacekeeper who opened a gym just for kids like him. Angry kids who he wanted to recruit into the Keeper Force, but Banks wasn't like those kids. Days spent angry at the world, but he didn't like orders. Couldn't follow a single order, but there was other goals to strive for. School had become a breeze with kids getting bored of him. Days spent working hard in the café his family owned in order to make money to get into one of the best facilities for training trainers.

Banks had wanted to be apart of the games world ever since he watched the games as a kid. Laughing and crying at certain moments and being upset when his choice of tribute didn't make it to the end. Days spent watching the games and pretending he was one of them; play weapons at his side as a kid when he was alone. Swinging wooden swords and spears and knives at at wall, pretending he was one of those tributes and better than them. Banks had grown up wanting to meet the victors, knowing they'd treat him the way he wanted, but over time he grew up knowing it was what he wanted to do with his life.

The day when he got a scholarship for his top school was the best day of his life. The proud tears of his father and mother who despite their differences on the idea of him training future tributes were happy for him and it made his world. Days spent in the top university studying techniques and games strategies; Banks had become one of the most promising kids in all of the capitol. Things clicked in a way for him that others didn't see. Despite his problem of being quick to anger, Banks had learned how to handle teaching kids who didn't know how to fight. Internships with training facilities teaching capitolite kids how to fight in the same ways as tributes.

It was rare to see someone like him in the capitol getting far. Days spent feeling unworthy in the capitol, but he knew he could do it where everyone else saw him becoming nothing more than a server at his family's café. Instead, Banks had been entered in the trainer's tournament despite being one of the youngest to enter and having made it decently far. On a train for four, he can't help but think about how he's ready to train the next victor. Stuck in his thoughts of how to rise to the top of the next tournament and train the tributes of the arena before they go in. One day, he'll get there, but for now, he loves the smell of the ocean as he steps off the train.

Banks McCoy was unworthy to most, but here he would be on the top.

Banks would become the best trainer there was.

Even if it killed him, he'd be the best.