Disclaimer: I do not own either book series.
Chapter 12
Katniss Pov
This was it. The last day to improve her chances of winning before the interviews. The morning would start the same way as the last two, heading to the training center for some last minute practice before the tributes get judged and scored by the game makers. A bad score is usually the difference between life and death, because the highest scores are almost always the most likely to get sponsors. Katniss hardly slept last night, and was at breakfast before anyone else. She knew she should eat something, but she was too nervous. After about a half hour of contemplating what she should do, Effie walked into the room.
"Oh…" Effie said in shock, "Your up early."
Katniss only nodded in response. "Getting the pre evaluation jitters?" Effie asked. Katniss nodded again. "I don't blame you, your entire life is on the line this afternoon," Effie said cheerfully. Katniss really wasn't liking Effie at the moment.
"So why are you up this early?" Katniss questioned.
"Oh I like to start the day early, and if I wasn't up then I don't think either of you three would ever leave you bedroom." Effie said.
"Three?" Katniss asked thinking there were only two tributes.
"Haymitch included," Katniss smirked at that. Effie left to wake the boys.
Soon enough the two boys were entering the kitchen. Percy immediately began filling up his plate. If he was nervous he showed no signs of it. Haymitch on the other hand simply sat drinking a black coffee. He stared at Katniss and smirked, "I didn't take you for the nervous kind."
"Yeah well it's not every day you get to showcase your ability to murder people for prizes," Katniss almost hissed.
Haymitch simply shrugged, "Fair enough." He turned to look at Percy "And how 'bout you? How are you feeling today?"
Percy looked up with an oblivious look on his face, "mphff," He tried to speak with food in his mouth.
Haymitch grinned and raised his coffee in a mock toast, "Couldn't have said it better myself."
Soon it was time to leave, so Effie wished us good luck on our way to the elevator. As we were getting inside it Haymitch said, "Katniss remember you have about two hours to train this morning before the judgment. Those skills I told you not to show other tributes? This would be the time to use them." Katniss simply nodded in response.
We got down to the training center and noticed a lot of tributes were already at stations. I guess there wasn't enough time for a meeting today. The mood was tense and nervous. Even the career tributes were a little on edge. The only person that seemed perfectly normal was Percy. "How can you be so calm right now?" Katniss hissed, annoyed at Percy's calm composure.
He shrugged his shoulders, "I don't know, I just don't really care what some guy I don't even know thinks about me."
"But this is the difference between your life and death in the games." Katniss insisted.
"No," Percy shook his head. "The difference between my life and death in the games… is me," he sounded so confident it made Katniss almost believe him. "Besides, like I said, I've already decided that you're going to win because you need to make it back to your family."
That ended the discussion because Katniss had no idea how to respond. She couldn't figure out the angle he was playing. Maybe he was trying to mess with her head so she would get a bad score, or hesitate to kill him in the games. She decided not to think about it right now, because the strange capitol bows were hard enough to get used to without her head elsewhere.
She lined up her shot and Percy tapped her on the shoulder, "I should get a little bit of a warm up in before later. Meet me at lunch?" Katniss gave him a nod without looking at him. She fired a shot that was just half and inch from dead center. She cursed to herself disappointed she still hadn't gotten the capitol bow down yet.
"Wow… that shot was just… brutal," Percy said sarcastically. "You better not show that to the game makers later." he warned.
Katniss gave him a glare, but he simply grinned back, "Aren't you supposed to be leaving?"
"Right right, I'm leaving," he held his hands up in surrender and walked away.
Percy pov
After lunch the tributes were all piled into a plain grey waiting room with rows of benches, so they could be called into the games one by one to be evaluated. Nobody was talking. Some looked like they were lost in thought trying to figure out how best to impress the game makers, while others were downright shaking in fear. Percy decided to take a nap to pass the time and laid down on a bench next to Katniss.
He regretted that decision almost instantly, as his dream took him to a dark, eerie, passageway. The stale air told him he was underground. He could hear strange noises coming from somewhere in the darkness in front of him. Percy tried to turn back but a wall had suddenly appeared behind him. "I'm not going down that creepy pathway, so forget it." Percy told the wall out loud, partly to keep himself calm, but also because it felt like whatever tunnel he was in had a mind of its own.
The wall didn't like that answer so it started moving Percy forward against him will. He could hear a quiet thumping sound somewhere in front of him. It sounded strangely regular. The closer Percy got the louder the noise became until it was almost deafening.
Percy shot up eyes, wide open, chest heaving. He startled Katniss. "Are you okay?" she asked concerned.
Percy sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Yeah I'm fine just… a bad dream."
"You were talking in your sleep," Katniss said. "Something about a tunnel?"
Percy looked around noticing most of the tributes were gone. Only the two tributes from district eleven and themselves were left. "How long was I out?" Percy asked.
"I don't know maybe an hour." Katniss said, "we'll be up soon." She sounded slightly nervous though she did a good job of hiding it.
"You'll do fine. I saw you with that bow today." Percy reassured her.
Pretty soon both tributes from eleven had gone and Percy was being called through the door. The first thing he noticed as he entered the room was the table of food in the game makers' booth. "Um… hi?" Percy started unsure as to whether he was supposed to introduce himself. "I'm Perseus Jackson. District twelve." Only a few of the game makers in the booth were actually paying him any attention.
Percy looked around trying to decide what to do. He picked up the sword and a sheath he used yesterday, strapped a couple knives to him as well, and picked up a javelin.
Armed to the teeth he headed towards an obstacle course that was slightly different then the one he had used previously. It had a giant scoreboard at the end, a start button at the beginning, and looked to be about five hundred yards in total. He pressed the button and suddenly the scoreboard started counting. He sprinted towards a twelve foot wall that was about forty or so yards away. Halfway there a pop up archer appeared on top. Instinctively Percy hurled his javelin at it. The javelin impaled the dummy in the neck, while Percy didn't even break stride. There was a rope and footholds on the side of the wall, but Percy simply jumped up and grabbed the ledge. He hauled himself up as quickly as possible and made a split second decision to leave the javelin. He leaped down, tucking and rolling. As he landed a dummy popped up in front of him. He pulled his sword out as quickly as possible and stabbed it through the bottom of its head. He tore the sword out and kept moving. Suddenly the floor in front of him opened up into a fifteen-foot gap. He leapt across without even thinking and moved on. About a dozen dummies popped up in front of him with full armor on. He hacked through weak points in their armor faster than the human eye could follow leaving behind piles of fake body parts. The last part of the obstacle course was a two hundred foot gap with a catwalk suspended twenty feet above it. The only way onto it was with a rope. He grabbed the rope and climbed as fast as he could; his feet dangling freely below him. He got to the top and sprinted across the catwalk. A dummy holding a bow and arrow was waiting at the end of the catwalk. He took out a knife and threw it at the dummy catching it in the shoulder. He cursed to himself and took out the other. This time he took better care to aim and hit it in the face. He hadn't noticed, but the catwalk didn't extend all the way across the gap. A rope was hanging over the last thirty feet. He jumped using his momentum to carry him across the gap, landing safely across the finish line. He looked up at the scoreboard that was now blinking rapidly. One minute and thirteen seconds with a score that read one hundred and six. He didn't know how the score was counted. The time wasn't too bad, but he thought he could've been better, especially on the catwalk. He looked toward the balcony slightly winded. He had the game makers attention now. He gave them a cocky smile, "P-E-R-S-E-U-S" he pronounced every letter, "your welcome." He put his sword back on the rack and left through the exit.
