This update's a bit shorter, but I've been getting writer's block so it took my almost 5 hours to write it. Anyway I'll try to get the next chapter which will be individual training out in the next few days. Hope you enjoy, and please let me know what you think.
Chapter 12
Isla's POV (D4F)
People at the Capitol are really starting to annoy me. I keep getting messages about how they rooted for Antony and were so upset when he died, and they will root for me too. Why would I care? I only care if you want me to win if you're a sponsor. And I definitely don't care if you wanted Antony to win. I didn't. He died in the arena, but he still left his mark. My parents still constantly told me he was better than me. If I win the games, they might finally accept me. Or not.
I'm going to spend most of my time in the Capitol practising with weapons, building up my physical health and learning how to hunt. I learnt hunting yesterday, if I have a slingshot, bow and arrows, a spear or throwing knives I'm pretty good. I should be able to get my hands on at least one of them in the arena. I mean I'll be one of the main killers in the bloodbath.
I head to the throwing knives station. I want to go around lots of the weapons this morning and then practise climbing, the rope course, the gauntlet and weights this afternoon. I throw the first one. It slices through the air and hits exactly where I'm aiming. I pick the next one up, this time aiming slightly higher. I flick my wrist and let go. It glides towards the dummy and hits the mark again. I carry on until I've practically turned the dummy into a porcupine. Other people on this station are starting to give me the evil eyes. I didn't realise how many of the knives I had used up.
I walk up to the dummy and pull 5 of them off and put them back. I keep doing this until I've yanked all the knives out.
I go to the slingshot station next. Most people don't really see it as a proper weapon. They just think it's pathetic. I'll be honest, it is a bit, but if you don't have any other long ranged weapons it can be very useful. I'll only use it in absolute emergency. Someone is just leaving, judging by their expression, they weren't very good at it. I pick up one of the stones and aim. I hit exactly where I'm aiming. I keep practising until I'm sure I would be able to kill someone with it in my sleep. Well, maybe not literally in my sleep, that'd be practically impossible, but a few seconds after waking up.
Next I head to swords. They're one of my favourite weapons. I pick up a long curving one and attack a dummy. The long silver blade clashes against the metal dummy and cuts through it, fairly easily. I realise I've picked up one of the best swords here. Normally a metal sword on a metal dummy would only leave a small scratch, but this one is incredibly sharp and just slices straight through it, like it's butter. I keep swinging and jabbing, refining my technique before putting that sword back and taking a double edged sword. I go to the combat simulation room. I don't want to practise against an avox, they'll be easy to beat. I want to see what level I can get up to on the combat simulation so I set it to 8 and enable the holo-figures to have weapons and different varieties of weapons.
I step into the room, it instantly transforms into a desert setting. The temperature increases dramatically and above me a light, which I presume simulates the sun, turns on. The sand to my right is vibrating slightly so I'm not surprised when I turn that way a holo-figure is already running at me. It has a spear in its hand, but I easily knock it out of the way and stab the holo-figure. It disappears quickly and another appears over a sand dune. It tries to shoot me, but I deflect the arrow with my sword and slaughter that one too.
By the time I've completed it, I am sweating lots and once I've taken the sword back I head to the rest area. I grab a bottle of fruity flavoured energy drink and sit down. I down the whole bottle in a few gulps and then go to the food machine. I click a few buttons and out pops a small bowl of chicken noodles. Capitol technology amazes me so much. They have so much stuff and out in the districts we struggle just to feed ourselves. I quickly eat the bowl which stops my stomach from rumbling and head back to the training.
I head for the spear station and start practising my throwing. Spears aren't my weapon of choice but the computer screen linked with the targets of the dummy tells me that I have 80% accuracy on delivering fatal wounds. For a career, that's pretty low. I think it's because i use a trident a lot, which are way heavier so I'm not used to the lightness of it. It needs a lot of improvement though. I like my accuracy to be at 90% at least. By lunch I've achieved this and I walk to the canteen, despite the noodles I ate earlier, I'm starving.
"Hey." I say, sitting down at the table my district partner, Phoenix, who is also sitting with one of the tributes from 1. I take a bit of everything from the dishes laid out on our table. The tribute from 1 calls their district partner over to sit with us as I take some of what is labelled 'Egg fried rice' and then I pick up another dish labelled 'Beef in a black bean sauce'. I don't know what a black bean is, but when we can get beef in 4, I love it, so I pour quite a bit onto my plate before grabbing some 'Chicken and beef in a sweet and sour sauce'. They really do eat a lot of meat here. Instead of a basket with bread from each district there is a basket labelled 'Sesame seed and prawn toast'. It looks kinda weird, but I'm starving so I load my plate up with several slices.
"What have you been doing then?" One of the tributes from 1 asks the other.
"The gauntlet, rope course, tridents and hammocks." She lists before adding "You?" as an afterthought.
"Just weapons, mainly swords. They're way better here than back home." They reply. He's probably the one that was training next to me when I was practising on the dummy. He sounded lethal. "What about you two?" They ask us.
"Mainly weapons the academy couldn't afford." Phoenix replies before I can swallow the surprisingly nice toast in my mouth.
"Same." I add, finally swallowing. I mean, most of the stuff I was training we did have at the academy, but as Antony always told me 'Let them think you're weaker than you are'. Actually why am I listening to his advice? He ended up dead. Well I suppose that was my fault. I'm not sure how. According to my parents it was though.
"Such as?" They really are persistent. I'm not giving anything away though.
"I'm not saying." Phoenix is smarter than I thought. He's worked out it might be used against him later. "It might give away what I'm really good at."
We sit in silence for the rest of lunch. I end up eating almost all the sesame seed and prawn toast. It's gorgeous. I could literally eat it all day. It reminds me of home a little. With the prawns. Not that I ever felt wanted much at home. Particularly in the last year. Everything was always about Antony. Antony this. Antony that. Why can't you be more like Antony? Anyway, I've left all that behind now.
I didn't have time to go around all the weapons, so I go to axes for a bit and then skip the rest and go to the weights. I like weight lifting. I don't know why. Most people just find it tiring. I'm pretty strong though so I can pick up and fling the heavy ones pretty far. It won't help me that much in the arena, except in hand to hand combat maybe, but it's never a bad thing to be strong.
Elodie's POV (D2F)
As soon as we are allowed to go off, I head to the axe throwing station. I finished there yesterday, but I want more time to practise. I see Flynn head to the combat simulation room. I was pretty surprised when I saw him in action yesterday. He'd never been trained before and he was really good. I hate to admit it, but maybe even better than me. I don't even know how. I guess he's just got pure talent. When he finishes in the simulation room I go over.
"Pretty good." I smile, as if challenging him.
"Pretty good?" He grins "I'd like to see you do better." He's taken the bait, I want to see how good he really is.
"Fine." I say shoving past him to go into the room. Once I'm in the room, I realise I didn't pick up a weapon, but it's too late for that now. I'll just have to make do. Anyway I can't perform my best, because he'll see me as a threat otherwise.
The first one spawns right behind me and throws a knife at me, it clatters to the ground and I grab it. I can defend myself better now.
"I was better." He says when I come out triumphantly. He's such a liar.
"Were not." I retort. He had a tonne of weapons when he went in, I only had weapons that they attacked me with. It was completely unfair.
"Fine, I'll prove I was better, we'll have a competition, whoever is better at more weapons is better." He says, I want to say yes, just to prove him wrong, but I know I have to let him win.
"You're on. Where first?" He walks to the throwing knives. He thinks I'm not very good at these. Mainly because yesterday I pretended to only be average. He's pretty good with them. "You want to go first?" I offer him a sharp knife.
"No, ladies first." He shakes his head. Urgh! That's so sexist.
"But men just before." I slide it slowly into the palm of his hand. I know he'll be too competitive to think about what level of deadliness he should be revealing to me.
"Fine." He holds it up and throws. He hits bullseye. He's probably getting arrogant now. I pick one up. I deliberately aim for the second ring from centre, and hit where I'm aiming. "Told you I was better." He grins triumphantly. Yup definitely arrogant. It's just going to get worse, but I want to know his strengths and weaknesses.
"Only at throwing knives. Sword fighting next." I reply, I'll probably actually try at this one. We head to the sword area and start fighting an avox each, we both disarm them within a few seconds, it's too close to call. He is pretty good, I will admit.
"Draw." He says. I nod, he's probably right.
"Spear throwing?" I ask. I'll beat him on this one. I hate spear throwing, but I'm still good at it.
"Sure, then archery, maces and whips." He adds. I beat him on spears making it a draw, but I know I have to let him win. So he's big-headed and overconfident. "Not feeling so confident now?" I taunt.
"You wish." He says, grabbing a quiver and a bow. He shoots and hit bullseye. He's definitely got talent. I shoot and also hit bullseye. I have to act worse than I am because he's really good at archery. I don't want to look completely terrible so I deliberately pick a wonky arrow so it'll go slightly to the side. Julius clearly sees that it wasn't my fault, but still declares it has his victory.
"First one to destroy a dummy?" I suggest as we go to the maces. He pick a hefty one up and nod. He thinks he's stronger than me but he doesn't know that so he'll think he's better than it at me. I let him win. It takes him about a minute for the metal dummy to lay on the floor, scratched up and in two pieces. Mine just has a lot of scratches, but it's deliberate. He's won now.
"I win then." He grins, he knows that if I win the next one, he'll still have won.
"I know, fair enough, but let's still go to the whips." He nods. He dips the whip in red paint and flicks the dummy, a red, slightly smudged line comes out. I also dip my whip in paint. I flick. A perfect thin line appears. Whips are one of my best weapons.
"That's pretty good." He nods reprovingly. Just then the lunch gong goes.
"Thanks, I'm starving; do you want to eat together?" I ask, maybe I can find more out about him.
"No thanks." He says, maybe he's not as dumb as I thought. "It's not you, but there's only one survivor and I want it to be me."
"Fair enough." I say and wander through to the cafeteria, I can hear Julius following behind me. I sit on my own and pile my dish up with 'Egg fried rice'. It's just about the only thing on the table that doesn't have meat in it. I'm not vegetarian because of moral beliefs, I just hate the taste. I take a small nibble of 'Sesame seed and prawn toast', thinking the prawn won't be very powering, but it is. I almost spit it out. I manage to swallow it without gagging and don't touch anymore of it. It's a good thing I like the rice stuff.
I go to the climbing wall after lunch. I find it quite easy to climb because I'm strong. I'm nowhere as good as the girl from 7. She's just… Well, she's more like half monkey, half human. I hope I never have to hunt her down in a woods. I'd lose her in seconds.
Helena's POV (D8F)
I'm pretty tired, last night Hecate and I taught each other the survival stuff we learnt when we split up. This morning we decide to hit the swimming pool. I can't swim well, and Hecate can't swim at all. We're given wetsuits to put on and then I head straight in. The instructor starts to show Hecate the basics as I start to swim lengths slowly.
I start to get a bit quicker as I practise more. Hecate seems to be struggling some more. The instructor seems to be getting a bit frustrated though.
"Come on." I say. "I'll teach you." I pull him over to the edge and show him how to move his legs, but when I go under water to watch, I can see why he's struggling. I stay under a bit more than was strictly necessary, but the wetsuit is tight and shows his chest looks so sexy in it. "You're not going to go anywhere if you keep doing that."
"Doing what?" Hecate looks confused.
"Kicking the top part of your legs but not below the knees."
"I thought I only needed to kick the top half." He grins.
"Well you thought wrong then, didn't you?" I grin, swimming closer and giving him a quick kiss. When he starts kicking his feet, he starts getting somewhere. "See, much better."
"You're such a good teacher." Hecate smiles, as we swim together. "What do you want to do now?" He says a while later once we're dry.
"I don't mind, you can choose." I say.
"Hunting?" He suggests.
"Okay," And we start to head over there when the lunch gong goes. I didn't realise how long we were in the pool. "I guess we'll have to wait until after lunch." I say as we walk to the table we sat at yesterday. Like yesterday I've never even heard of most of the dishes. Seriously how can a sauce be sweet and sour? It's just weird. It tastes surprisingly good though. Actually I'm not that surprised. All the food I've had since the reaping's has been good.
"Hunting then?" Hecate smiles once we're both finished. I nod and lead the way. We're the only people here.
"Do you two know anything about hunting?" They guy there asks. We both shake our heads. "Okay, this'll take some time then." He shows us how to tread carefully on the ground so that we don't crack twigs or crunch dry leaves. Then he explains that if we need a water source it's a good idea to not kill any animals we find. It's better to follow them because they will have to have water to survive so they will lead us to one sooner or later. Soon he sets up like a mini version of the combat simulation with little holo-animals moving around and we have to stalk and kill them.
We both use bows and arrows to do this because they are much easier than swords. We don't have to get anywhere near as close so there's a less chance of frightening them off. We end up pretty good after a few hours practise, so as long as we can get our hands on a bow at the cornucopia, we won't be going hungry.