Hey guys! So this is my very first fanfic! Im so excited to be writing this and I really hope you enjoy it! I will try to update it every two or three days, but I do have exams these next two weeks so I make no promises!

Please leave a review if you like it, if you hate it, if I make a spelling error, or just to say hi! I just love hearing from you guys!

Disclaimer: The characters of the Hunger Games belong to Suzanne Collins. But Vita is all mine :D

Chapter 1: Career Training

The horns trumpeting out Panem's national anthem woke Vita from her fitful sleep. Bleary-eyed she slowly rose from her soft, warm bed. As she looked around her room, she noted the daylight streaming in her open window. She looked at her clock sitting on the decorative nightstand by her bed and say that it was almost seven o'clock in the morning.

Vita rubbed her hands into her sleepy eyes and yawned silently. She pulled her cotton robe on and pushed her feet into her velvety soft, plush slippers and quietly padded out of the room.

'Mmmmm what is that?' Vita thought to herself. The smell of breakfast wafting throughout the house led her feet towards the dining room. She blundered along, still half asleep as she made her way down the hall.

When Vita stepped into the dining room, her mother tittered scornfully at her appearance.

"Vita Autem Bellona!" She snapped at her daughter. "You had better get yourself presentable. I have a good feeling about this year." She smiled almost wistfully at her daughter. "Now go get changed. If anything good comes from today, I won't have you looking like a ragged coal miner on national television."

Vita sighed inwardly, but flashed a strained smile at her mother. "Yes ma'am." She replied softly. "When are we to be in the square?" Vita inquired. "I want to get some training in before we go, just in case." Vita loved training more than anything else. She couldn't get enough of the feeling of power that surged through her as she whipped the swords around and slashed the knives through the air. It was the greatest way to get a huge adrenaline rush.

"We need to be there at one. I daresay you should do training first. You never know what will happen today. I''ll call for you when breakfast is ready."

Vita smiled again, although this time there was nothing forced about it. She walked quickly down the hall and once she was outside, she ran into the gardens that stretched far behind the house. She slowed her pace when she got to the gardens. Just being in here surrounded by the beautiful plants and gardens calmed her. The heady scent of the flowers washed over her and she breathed it in. Besides the training facility, this was Vita's favorite place to spend time. She never tired of wandering around through the tall hedges and underneath the lush trees. It had something to do with the feeling of being transported into another world.

Sighing contentedly, she strode across the bridge that stretched over a gushing river and into the large building just beyond the garden gates.

Once inside, Vita quickly changed into her custom made jumpsuit composed of synthetic materials only available from the Capitol itself. Being the daughter of the most respected man in all of the districts sure did have its benefits. She relished the feel of the material stretched taught across her wiry and muscled frame. She slipped her small feet into her training boots that custom molded to her feet each day as she put them on. 'Nothing but the best,' she thought with a devilish grin.

She pushed through the door that separated the front room from the training area and breathed in the scent of metal, sweat and plastic. Strangely, this scent always seemed to bring her comfort. Every time that Vita was angry at something or another, and she was very often mad due to her short temper, she would come in here and train and train until she was forced to call one of their servants to help her back to the house. As she stretched her lean muscles, she pondered what she wanted to train with today.

Vita crossed the room in a few strides and typed a command into the computer that stretched across the wall, longer than she was tall. A hole opened up in the floor, allowing a rack of weapons to ascend from the ground. She grinned as she selected a belt of viciously sharp knives and gladii* to start.

She sighed aloud, wishing her best friend was here to train with her, but Cato would be too busy readying himself for today. Vita shrugged off her momentary sadness and selected a wickedly curved one from the belt.

She stepped back and took aim at one of the dummies that were strategically placed around the room. She let the knife fly from her hand and watched in almost slow motion as it was embedded in the stomach of the dummy. Moving quickly, she rolled across the floor and launched another knife, this time one with a straight blade, and caused a deep gash in the leg. Vita wore a self satisfied smirk when she took in the amount of red stain on the dummies from her two knives alone. These training dummies were set up like a normal human bodies, with blood pods placed throughout the body, and depending on where the pod was decided how much imitation blood was released as it was ruptured. Vita noted that her knife that had gashed the leg had apparently hit a major artery because the blood was covering most of the lower leg. She smiled to herself and remembered to make a mental note of that. The knife embedded to its hilt in the stomach of the dummy had a 6 inch radius of blood spreading outward from the knife. She carefully pulled the knife out of the life-like flesh of the dummy and wiped on the stain resistant material of her jumpsuit.

Vita went back to the computer and typed in a few more commands. 'What good is training if you're opponent doesn't fight back?' As the regular dummies were lowered into the floor, a new specialized kind of dummy descended from a rack high up towards the ceiling. Just as Vita took up a fighting stance, the first dummy launched a knife at her. She lunged forward to avoid the knife and threw one of her own at it. The dummy next to it then moved forward as if to cut her shoulder. Vita easily parried the blow and gashed its forearm. She continued with this fighting pattern until all of the 5 dummies had been successfully defeated.

Vita collapsed heavily onto the floor, panting. In her opinion, there was nothing better than learning to defend herself. She took a long drink of water and then put the knives back on the rack. As she punched in another command into the computer, the weapons rack lowered back into the floor, and obstacle course began to take form at one end of the training room.

She strode across the room and started the timer floating above her head. A booming voice rang out across the area, counting down the time until she should start the course.

As the buzzing rang out across the room, it was replaced by another booming voice.

"Vita!" her mom called, "It's time for breakfast!"

Vita groaned, wanting to do a bit more training and she hated being interrupted. But, she didn't want to make her mother angry so she slipped off her training jumpsuit, redressed in normal clothes and trudged back to the house, disappointed.

As the Vita wiped her mouth on her napkin, her family's Avox servant cleared her dishes away. She smiled contentedly at her mother and excused herself to get ready for the day ahead.

Leafing through her closet, Vita tried to decide on a dress to wear. She had to look perfect today, absolutely perfect. She didn't want to stand out too much, but she wanted to look pretty and fierce. She decided on a golden sleeveless dress, with a thick tan leather belt. The dress was fitted at the top with a flowy skirt. The dress fell to the tops of her knees and looked perfect with her dark hair. Vita slipped into a pair of soft tan sandals that matched the belt and complemented the dress.

Vita debated whether or not to ask the Avox to do her hair and make-up, but decided against it. She had time. It was only eleven o'clock and she wanted to do things her way.

Vita sat down at the vanity in her room and turned the lights on. She was instantly bathed in a soft yellow glow. Pressing one of the buttons at the front of the vanity, hair products materialized in front of her.

She picked of the ornate silver brush and pulled it through her tangled black hair. Wincing, she tugged and brushed until her long hair shimmered and fell in a neat sheet to the middle of her back. She knows that she could just as easily have a current run down from the ceiling and separate every single knot in her hair, but there was something about the way the bristles from the brush made her feel that she wanted to brush out her hair by herself.

Shaking her shimmering sheet of hair back, Vita picked up a plain black ribbon that blended well with her hair and tied it up high on her head. She secured the ribbon tightly and pulled the brush through her hair one more time before gathering a small amount of sticking gel into her hand. She lathered it onto her hand and then spread it through her hair. Vita wrapped her hair into a messy-yet-pretty bun that rested on the crown of her head. She felt the hair practically glue to her head, just waiting until she rinses the gel out to release.

Finally, she picked up a small white flower pin and placed it directly in the middle of her bun. With that final touch, her outfit was complete.

Vita debated on putting up makeup, but decided not to wear much, just a swipe of dark mascara on each eye.

She looked at the clock smiled. With an hour before the reaping started, her mother would be pleased to see that she had gotten ready so quickly. 'At least there's one thing to make her happy today.' Vita thought almost bitterly to herself. Her mother had never been what one would call compassionate or doting. She had always been very strict with Vita and had begun training her for the Games before Vita turned ten. That was what her mother wanted most of all. To see Vita become a tribute in the Games. She wasn't even sure if her mother cared if she won or not, just as long as she saw Vita fulfill what her mother called her "purpose" in life.

Vita spent so much time training for the Games, she wasn't even really allowed to play with kids her own age. Cato the only person she could really call a friend. He was always there to talk to her and they spent many nights sneaking out and walking around the woods on the edges of the district, making sure to be back before the sun arose. She would never let him know, but Vita had always harbored an attraction to him. For one thing, he was gorgeous, with his short cropped blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. But Vita wasn't sure if he returned her feelings, and was too nervous to say anything.

Vita sighed softly and padded out of her room. After today though, it really wouldn't matter. She was seventeen and only had one more year left to enter the Games. This year, she knew that she would be reaped. Considering all the tesserae her mother had made her put in, it is next to impossible for her not to get reaped. But just in case she wasn't, Vita knew what she had to do. She couldn't bear to see the looks of disappointment and contempt in her mother's eyes every year that she wasn't reaped. She would never see that look again.

As Vita entered the larger foyer at the front of the house, her mother stepped up and offered her a tight lipped smile. "My, don't you look lovely." Vita could hear the effort it took her mother to praise her. After all, so far Vita was just a disappointment.

"Thank you mother," Vita responded, equally cold, "Is father not joining us?" Vita knew that as the mayor, her father needed to preside over the reaping and introduce everything, but usually he at least walked down with them. Completely opposite of her mother, Vita's father was warm and kind to her, even if he was terribly strict with the District. He had always treated Vita like the light of his life, providing Vita with the parental love that she never received from her mother.

"No. He received an urgent message and left for the square over an hour ago." Vita's mother fixed her jewelry and ushered Vita out of the house. "Come along now. We don't have all the time in the world to stand around asking questions." It was this kind of comment that always made Vita upset. Why was her mother eternally upset with her?

In response, all Vita could mutter out was a simple, "Yes mother," and walked out into the hot June air.

*For those who don't know, gladii is plural for gladius which is a roman short sword