A/N: From this point onward, this fic will start making some parallels with "Catching Fire," which, disclaimer time, is not mine. Nor is any famous work of fiction, come to think of it. If you haven't read it, that's alright, but you might need to ignore some of my Author's notes. Please skip ahead to the chapter if you haven't yet read that book… Also, I apologize for the months this has taken to get out there, I hope things go a lot smoother from here on out. I do intend to finish this story.

Still here?

Okay, good. Because if you haven't read Catching Fire, you should be further down the page by now. To those of you who have, the first parallel I hope you started to notice with the word "Chink" in the last Chapter. More explanation on this will come, but for now, keep that in mind as you recall some bits from the second book.

Chapter Four: The Rite of Passage

"You're going to spy on Katniss Everdeen..."

It was easier to settle in than I expected it to be. Once I received my Task, my never-ending flow of confusion seemed to ebb a little, and life became as normal as it could be for someone who lived underground. I was given a room in the Information Wing, where I lived with a roommate who wasn't exactly happy to see me. Chip from District Three still seemed to resent me for ending his life, and sometimes his snarky bedtime comments got so irritating I wished I could kill him all over again.

I'd been assigned to work in a group alongside Chip and Fox-face. I still didn't know her real name yet, though I'd heard the nick-name from Rue when she'd showed me to my new quarters. Apparently we aren't the only ones to use it, and I get the feeling that she half likes not having her real name known. It gives her even more mystery than her quiet nature gives off on its own. Fox-face was in charge of Reconnaissance. As I'd learned so far, her job was to scout ahead as silently and unnoticeably as possible. In our case, she'd be the one traveling the landscape around District Twelve, in disguise, until we knew the exact lay of the land. Once she was done with that, she'd report to Chip, who would add it to a technologically generated map.

Chip was responsible for updating our spy suits and keeping a holographic map of our locations. So far, he'd upgraded our disguise systems to operate on a panel near our forearms. With the buttons on the panel, we could use the very same illusions as the Capitol to turn our images into one of many pre-programmed settings. Typically, Fox-face and I were disguised as a couple in the upper-town end of District Twelve, where newcomers would be less noticeable. Or, we would be, once we got out in the real world again.

Our jobs were top notch- we had freedom on the surface, and for me this was much earlier than previously expected, not to mention some pretty cool gadgets. The panel could not only change our image to reflect what it needed to, but it could also transmit verbal messages from person to person as well as display Chip's most recent map.

Everything was still in the training phase, of course. We hadn't been allowed above the Chasm yet, as we still had a lot to learn according to our instructor, a pretty blonde woman called Maysilee who had once been from District Twelve herself. A tribute from twenty some years ago, she spent much of our training time lecturing us on the various traditions and idiosyncrasies of the District, despite how ridiculously outdated her information was. Nevertheless, her training was valid, and we'd learned quickly enough how not to stick out within the District.

"Cato, get down here and help me!"

Foxface was calling irritably, glancing up at the tree I was perched in. I didn't particularly feel like coming down. Chip had made fun of me endlessly for not being able to catch Katniss up in the tree during our Games, and when our instructor got wind of my incapability she immediately had me climbing up and down trees faster than the drop of a pin. This particular oak had taken time to climb up, as it was lacking in branches and I was forced to rely on two knives to pull myself up by the arms.

"I just got up here. No way I'm coming down now," I returned in annoyance, leaning my head up against the bark. One moment of rest, that's all I wanted. I wasn't going to get it.

"Listen 2, your teammate needs you. You may not have experienced loyalty within your group-" Maysilee said, looking from me towards Chip. We all knew what I had done to him in the arena. And no one could trust me for it. I had killed in cold blood. "-but on this mission, you listen to each other, or else you deal with me. Got it?"

I didn't want to admit to feeling threatened by a woman, especially one as small as Maysilee, but she was a bundle of fire much like Clove. I respected her for it, and tried to tread on her toes as little as possible. Foxface though, I still got in the way of. It irked me to no end that she had managed to steal our supplies time and time again. I knew it had been her. Katniss could never have been so subtle.

My jaw flexed at the order, but I grudgingly sunk my knives back into the tree and began scaling down. I wished Chip could modify our suit programming so we could have animal illusions as well. It would make climbing a lot easier.

"It's trickier than it looks. Your thought process would have to be changed so you'd think like an animal, and you just wouldn't be able to change back without cognitive thinking," he had told me. On this, I decided not to argue. I didn't know much about technology, and I figured I'd leave it to the computer worm to figure out our best settings for our panels. It still felt a bit like magic to me.

As soon as my feet touched the ground, Foxface grumbled at me again. "Get over here, this thing is much too heavy for me to push by myself." I rolled my eyes. I hadn't listened to her particular set of directions; it didn't make sense to me why she was shoving up against a rock like her life depended on it. As I got closer, I noticed a part of the rock that didn't quite match the rest. Another 'chink' in the making of it, another symbol of an illusion.

"Hey Foxface, I'm not sure that's a-" I started, when suddenly the so-called rock sprang to life morphing into a sort of wolf-like creature, except it's eyes looked strangely…human. None that I could recognize, but Foxface seemed to think it was something more serious than that.

She was screaming an inhuman cry, spinning away from the wolf which, only moments ago, had been a rock.

This illusion thing was really starting to freak me out.

"No, NO!" Foxface yelled, "It can't be!" She continued to run from it, her eyes agonized like a stormy sky while the creature chased her, mouth drooling. I didn't want to know what more she was seeing to the illusion. I glanced quickly at Maysilee. Why wasn't she doing anything? Our trainer was leaning up against the tree now, without a care in the world, her blonde hair falling around her face.

Well, if no one else was going to help her…

I dropped quickly to the ground, tumbling over to intercept the animal. It was mouthfuls away from biting into her skin, and I rolled in front of its flailing paws just in time. A wave of horror crashed down upon me as the monster latched it's claws into my leg. I remembered them very clearly… The morphing animals, the terrifying beasts which had ripped me to shreds in the arena. How could I escape them? The grasping jaws were hot with hunger, the teeth sharp like glass but stronger. I could remember the feeling of my own body being devoured, and the memory was enough to make me scream.

Maysilee was still standing as if nothing was going on, but nothing felt like an illusion, it all felt like white-hot pain. Her absolute lack of caring about my wellbeing was enough to set me on edge, adding my anger to the mix enough to fight off the blind panic welling up inside of my veins.

As I fought to get the higher aim, to stand above it, I tried to remember everything I had learned about illusions. There was always one part, one chink that the creators couldn't fix, right?

Trying to take this idea and turn it into something useful, I gave the wolf a sound kick right where the glamour was weakest. The animal howled in pain, turning and clamping its teeth onto my arm. I groaned in agony, feeling the blood seep up through my shirt. I was bleeding profusely. Illusion or not, I could still feel my body weakening. As my vision started to go blurry, I looked up just in time to see the animal's jaw lowering to meet me. I raised my hands and crushed them into the chink besides its face, feeling skin and muscle give way into nothingness, as the monster's howl cut off and it disappeared forever.

It was the last thing I remember.

TTTTTTTTTTTTT

It wasn't long before I came to, propped up against the oak tree like a stilt. Foxface was wrapping something around my leg, covering a wound, while Maysilee and Chip were arguing animatedly a few yards away.

"You should have intervened, Chip, this is a team training session. Just because you do the technological work doesn't mean you don't have responsibilities, a duty to-" Maysilee was saying, her voice rising a pitch before she was interrupted. "A duty to what? To him?" Chip snarled, pointing a bony finger in my direction. "You and I both know that's never going to happen! He ruined me! He ruined every chance I have at a normal life, of being on the surface with my family, of growing up and working and marrying and having kids, of being who I was meant to be, and for what reason? Because I don't have eyes in the back of my head to see when someone is coming to steal our food?" I could almost see his brown eyes flash a dangerous gold as he leaned in closer to our trainer. He was trying to level himself with her vision, but he was still shorter than she was, and I was reminded of how young he still was.

Maysilee stood taller, looking up into his eyes with equal venom. "I don't care about your sob story life, Three. I don't care if the President himself pisses on your parade. I couldn't care less about your misery and your regrets and your pathetic anger issues. I couldn't care less about either of you," she snapped, finally noticing my awakened state and turning to glare at me as well. "As far as I'm concerned, you're both worthless men who can't get over your differences. Every day of training I've had to put up with your lack of loyalty to one another, and I've tried to change it nicely, but it's way beyond that now." Her eyes heated up, flaring green with rage.

"Training you is my assignment, and so help me God, I will do my best. But you need to look out for one another. I'm not your mother, and I'm not going to be there to help you when you start your mission. Chip, it is your responsibility to deal with the illusions and you didn't even bother trying to disable the one that was attacking your partner. I will not stand for your grudges. From this point on, if you ever deliberately sabotage an ally again, you'll find yourself dead for real. Understood?" Her eyes blazed.

Chip had the decency to look a bit sorry, but that wasn't enough to quell the fierce anger in the look he directed towards me as he stalked away. I watched his retreating back until Maysilee was standing before me again, checking over Foxface's work.

"Good, your leg looks like it will be okay. Unfortunately, sometimes the injuries from an illusion don't fade away just because you realize that they aren't real. They aren't half as bad as they would be, but we're not in the arena anymore. This isn't exactly the perfectly controlled environment we need to function them right. Let this injury serve as a reminder than even with illusions, you can never know what to expect. The science behind these things is still a bit touchy," she said, maintaining her cool demeanor as she inspected my leg.

"Foxface, help Cato back to the main hall. Rue shouldn't be too far away, she'll come and take him to the Medical Wing to clear him for duty. Both of you, bring Chip and come back here tomorrow morning at zero-seven-hundred. We start the mission at dawn the following day, and I want everything to go smoothly. Be ready to listen, and listen well," Maysilee said, standing up and striding off in the direction that Chip went. "Oh, and don't forget breakfast. I hear there's some decent looking oatmeal this week," she smiled this time. Perhaps she wasn't completely terrible.