UPDATES! YAY!

Finally I got around to updating. Sorry for a wait, but I'm not abandoning this story. In fact, I'm going to try and update quicker for District Four.

Maybe. I'm really bad at keeping promises like this -_-

But here's District Four's chapter, which has the tribute I always wanted to write, Isis Vanity, and Adrianus Johan, by ShadowDragon654 and Tinkerbell980.

~Megalor9

Adrianus Johan, age 16, District Four

"Um... servant, you forgot my spoon," I ask the person who just recently brought me dinner. I ordered some soup, and they didn't bring me a spoon. Pity, you'd think sercive would be a little better on a Capitol train.

"Why do you need a spoon? It's in a bread bowl. You can just sip it," my new partner from District Four says to me. Which one is it, Caleb or Thane, I won't know. I think that Caleb's the bigger one, the one who's speaking to me.

"Sorry, I just thought I could eat a little more decent than other people in District Four. I mean, come on, does your family even have spoons?" I say back, trying to make jokes. "You should enjoy the Capitol while you can."

"What-what did you say again?"

"You should enjoy the Capitol while you can, that's what," I tell Caleb. I took Caleb immediately from the start as someone who might challenge me. He's tall, big, strong, and eighteen. But he must be stupid, because he volunteered along with his brother. I mean, how stupid is that? Caleb and Thane are both competing in this years.

I could pick on them all I wanted to. It wasn't until one of the female tributes explained to me that Caleb and Thane were coming from a poor family, and that they both volunteered for a better chance at winning the prize that is called the Games. Both of them wanted to win for their family. So I really couldn't make any stupid jokes about them. But even if I did, they'd still be funny jokes.

"No, I meant, what did you say before you said that," Caleb booms in his deep voice.

"Caleb, I think you should calm down a bit," A voice comes from the new escort into the Hunger Games, that's taking the District Four kids to the Hunger Games this year, Prince. He's a moderately tall guy, with some strange violet-colored skin. He also sports a fine goatee on his chin, which the hair has been dyed almost exactly to match the rest of his body. Prince has too many piercings to count, and he's bald, which makes looking at a violet scalp is almost too hilarious.

But otherwise Prince is a pretty nice guy. But I respond to Caleb's question anyways. It's just a joke, and I'm absolutely sure that Caleb will still like me afterwards. After all, no one hates me, I'm mainly jocular, and I can basically do anything I want with little consequences. That's why my name is Adrianus.

"Oh, you mean that, Caleb. I asked if your family has any spoons in their house." I say with a laugh at the end.

"You did not just say that," Caleb says rising from his seat, balling his hands into fists.

"Woah, man, it was just a joke," I say, motioning with my hands for him to sit down. I never expected any violent reaction out of Caleb.

"You insulted my family? You can't do that," Caleb says, and starts to come at me.

"I said to calm down, Caleb," Prince says, standing in front of Caleb to block his path. Prince tries to push Caleb back, but Caleb's strength is too much for Prince. If you compared Prince's body build to anything, it would be a purple toothpick. Or it seems like it, as Caleb takes one hand and grabs Prince's head and shoves him aside. I hear Prince smack into the train car wall.

What? Everyone loves me. How can someone, anyone, be reacting violently to what I said? It was just a joke! I'm never serious around people. "Stop, Caleb," I say as I reach for whatever I could possibly use as a weapon against this brute.

"What're you going to do, pretty boy? All you are is a good looking tribute, you don't have the strength to back it up. And you insult people," Caleb says, as he keeps advancing on me. Thank goodness he was on the opposite end of the long table, otherwise he'd be right with me now.

My fingers close in on... guess what?... a spoon, that I didn't notice the servant bring. I quick put the spoon back and go for the knife that came with the silverware at the beginning. I have moderate strength, and I might be able to take this guy on, seriously, if it was one-on-one.

"I already told you, it was a joke. Here, have this spoon as a token of my apology, okay?" I toss the spoon to him. But he doesn't make a motion to catch it, and it bounces off of his chest and falls onto the floor.

I don't even see his fist coming. He's within arms reach when hist fist appears next to my face, and hits me straight in the side of the head. Which of course causes me to fall out of my chair and into the ground. That causes basically everyone at the table to break out in laughter, at me.

Even my pain is enjoyable.

I try and stand up, but the blow to my head makes me dizzy again, and I stumble, and fall straight into another wall. Which causes even more laughs from everyone else. this is jsut brilliant, I'm such a genius. When I finally do get back to my feet, I try and recover my fail with the worst line ever, "I meant to do that."

Runyon, the youngest male tribute who was reaped, laughs more at that statement, while most other people go back to eating their food. One of the mentors that's apparently from another District can't stop laughing, too. I didn't think that was even a good line.

But Caleb's face is a block fo granite. He should be in District Two. But he's completely devoid of expression. "Don't joke about my family again, hear me?"

"No, I can't, my ear is still ringing," I say, bringing back my jocular attitude. It's sort of true, my ear still is hurting from the punch.

"I said, don't joke about my family, ever, ever again."

"Fine then," I say, and as he turns and walks away, I slash at him with my knife. However, it only catches the back of the plain white t-shirt he was wearing, and leaves a gaping hole where the blade hit.

Caleb doesn't even turn around.

And I'm now having to change my whole belief. No one's ever dissed melike that. I've always been something important, and getting all the praise I need. With the Games, apparently, they don't really care about that stuff. I'll have to change my whole strategy, which was just to blow through these Games easily, with my likeable nature, but now I have to think. I'm not sure I can change that much, in such a short amount of time.

Isis Vanity, age 16, District Four

I tried not to laugh at the antics of tonights dinner. But it was irresistable. It was too darn funny. Caleb Storm just took out the escort and the tall, overconfident one, Adrianus, in the course of about five minutes. All over some dumb spoon, the shiny metal one that's now laying on the floor. Adrianus threw it.

Runyon, the guy that was sitting next to me, just burst out laughing. One of the mentors, from some other District, Logo, he couldn't stop laughing.

I stay behind to clean up the plates that my fellow 'companions' left me to deal with. Only one other girl stays behind to clean up, and she looks my age.

"Hi," she introduces herself. "I'm Reef Riptide. What's your name?"

This is a challenge for me. I try to be friendly and gain friends. I honestly put up a good effort to do so. But everyone that I'm nice too ends up hurting me in some way. Usually verbally.

But I force myself to smile and at least give Reef a name. "I'm Isis."

"Oh! You mean like the one ancient goddess I was studying in history about?"

"Sort of. I don't really act like her, though," I say. I'm not the same as my namesake. I'm fine with being normal, and not wanting power. But for me, the struggle is to be normal.

"So, are you...um... excited to..um go into the Games?" Reef asks, in a not-so-excited voice.

"No. I got reaped," I say. True. I would never want to go to the Games on my own free will. It's barbaric. Kids having to kill each other for the hope of money. Greed causes people to do horrid things. "Did you volunteer?"

"Sorta," Reef says. "I was forced to volunteer. But I think I can win. Do you think so?"

"I wouldn't count anything out," I say with a chuckle, because I know I defintely don't have a chance. This girl, however naive she is, could probably do better than me.

Then I realize I'm letting her get to me. The cuteness of Reef, her naive nature... All of it is coming into my brain and making me accept her as a friend. I have to shut that out. Any relationship I make is doomed from the start, and everyone ends up finding some way to pick on me.

I leave the room, leaving Reef asking why I'm leaving, and shrugging. Then I hear the words I've hated so much, "Strange girl." I don't like being called that. I hate it, in fact. I'm always labeled as strange, useless, and an outsider. It's installed depression in me, from so much bullying, teasing, and nagging from other kids.

It can even push me over the edge. I've gone off the deep end only twice, I think, because I can't remember what happens when I go completely insane. I end up blacking out, and when I wake up, I don't remember anything. It's bloodlust, and hatred that sets me off. I'm suprised I didn't flip out at the reaping, when, for some reason, no one even bothered to volunteer for me.

I expected that, of course. Everyone hates me. They want to see me die. I probably will end up dying. It's just a fact. I hold my face in my palm for a few minutes, getting some mixed stares from people still in my train car. Most of them have moved over to the other car, to watch the recap of the reapings today. The reapings would've been extra-long, since there were twelve kids from each District. Our District's reapings were at noon, a whole two hours earlier than what it usually is.

But I don't want to watch the recaps. Hatred for my fellow peers might set me spitting again, I could probably, with a weapon, kill someone in the train car. That's how much rage I have stored inside me, as someone once told me after I had one of those episodes. Plus, I don't want to get laughed at again. As soon as I was reaped, the kids of District Four were laughing their heads off. Pointing, calling me names, such as after our class did ancient history, the favorite name was, 'Isis, goddess of failure'. During the reaping, I could probably count at least twelve times when I heard that name being called out from the crowd of girls.

And then I cried, of all places. Right in front of the whole District. All of Panem now knows I'm weak. Everyone knows that I am most likely to die in the bloodbath, just like all the other weak Careers I've seen over the years.

I know, I think this is a short chapter, but I was running low on inspiration. I promise I will do a lot more on Isis, when I write Capitol chapters. I love both of these characters, though.

Speaking of which, this story is almost to that point. When I get into the Capitol chapters, I'll post up a poll on my profile for the exact names of the tributes to die in the bloodbath.

So I'll try and get some more updates coming. I belive that I have the rest of this week off of school, like a vacation, so I should be able to get a *gasp* fast update.

~Megalor9