NONNAH'S POV (D6F)
This uniform is kinda itchy.
It's a black and red tank top with the number six on my back and shoulders. I'm also wearing some skin tight pants that aren't bothering me at the moment. As it turns out, the training room turns out to be underground. I didn't really expect this, but I didn't really expect anything to be honest. Liam twitches as we ride down the elevator, creeping me out a bit. I take a step away from him when he's not looking. I just really wish he would have a heart attack right here, right now so I wouldn't have to put up with him any longer.
I feel really relieved when the elevator dings, signifying our arrival. We step out, and I'm really taken aback by how awesome it is. There's so many stations, it's incredible. And each one is conveniently labeled with the name of the station so that no one is mindlessly wandering. I see stealth tactics, one-handed weaponry, archery, spear-throwing, camouflage, all of them.
We must be early because only the Twos and Elevens are here right now. The Twos look extremely lethal and the Elevens seem quite the opposite. Both stand around a platform in the center of the room, which the head trainer is standing on.
I stand by myself, and so does the girl from Two. The Elevens stand together, and Liam and the boy from Two stand together. All of us awkwardly stand there doing nothing. Technically, we're waiting for everyone else, but as we do that, we're doing nothing. Gradually, the other pairs of tributes show up. First the Tens, then the Ones, and so on. All of the obvious careers stand together, like both of the Ones, one of the Fours, of course the boy from Two, but strangely, the chick from Nine stands among them.
Finally, the Twelves arrive and the head trainer starts up on a lecture.
"Welcome to training. You'll find a total of sixteen sections for you to try out. I would recommend that you check out some survival tips, such as tracking and hunting. But, the choice is up to you. So just keep in mind that not all of you will be killed by others. Alright, now I will list the stations for you so you can form a plan of which ones you'll want to check out. So there is one-handed weaponry, two-handed weaponry, hunting, tracking, hand-to-hand combat, camouflage, knot-tying, fishing, weight training, cardio, archery, stealth tactics, spear-throwing, edible plants training, survival tactics, and strategy/logistics. So you are now free to go to whichever station you wish. Good luck!"
And then all of the careers haul ass towards their desired weapon right after we're disbanded.
RASHEEV'S POV (D11M)
I really don't know where to go.
Neither does Constancy. We just sort of try not to get ran over by the horde of careers that are rushing towards the weapons department.
"So... where do you wanna go first?" Constancy asks.
"Georgia seemed keen on us working on tracking." I reply.
"Then let's head over there." Constancy says.
I nod and we start to walk over towards the tracking section. We're the only ones there at the moment. I like it like that. No one to mock me or note of my abilities or anything like that. Our trainer goes over lots of signs to indicate whether or not something's been here. I pick it up really fast. It's really interesting, actually. Constancy does well, but she takes longer to pick it up. Soon after Constancy gets the hang of it, I turn around and he see Perseus from Ten dragging his District partner over to us. I nudge Constancy to get her to pay attention.
"Hello!" Perseus says.
"Hello." I say.
"This is Ocelia. I told you about her last night, remember?" He says.
"Yep." I say. I think I'm just gonna stick with short answers for now.
"So... did you think about the alliance?" He asks.
"We did." Constancy takes hold of the conversation. "And we mutually decided that it would be great if we collaborated."
Ocelia pulls Perseus over for a talk. I can hear her whisper something about trusting us, which Perseus nods at. Then, it's something about Constancy. I don't know if they're sure about Constancy, or us in general for that matter. Perseus pulls her back over the conversation.
"So allies?" He asks, extending his hand.
I shake it and then extend my hand to Ocelia. She reluctantly shakes it. Constancy does the same, except Ocelia takes a little longer to move her hand over to her.
"So what were you doing?" Ocelia asks.
"We just finished up with tracking." I tell her.
"What next?" Ocelia says.
I look at Constancy for help.
"How about stealth tactics? Our mentor recommended it." She suggests.
"Sounds good!" Perseus says. He seems way too excited that he has some more friends on his side. I guess I can't blame him.
So we head over to stealth tactics and continue the learning.
AARON'S POV (D1M)
Although I regret being in this position, everything is so nice here.
But I really don't like these people. The boy from Six whose name is Liam came over here and I guess he expects us to take him under our wing. He creeps me the hell out. He's like twitching while he walks and stutters when he talks. Hey, that rhymed. But still though. I'm pretty sure everyone took a disliking to him when they saw him.
Kronos from Two is sort of our ringleader since he scares everyone the most. Shimmer isn't really scared of him and is jealous of his position. As a result, he doesn't like her. She'll probably die soon. I wouldn't want to cross Kronos, especially before the Games even start.
"Not just anyone can join us." Kronos says. "Prove yourself and we'll consider letting you in among our ranks. That's what we told the chick from Nine, so you're no exception to the rules."
It is true. She stood by us when the head trainer gave his speech that none of us paid attention to except me. Kronos got a little pissy that she stood with us and "gave off the wrong career vibe". She looked pretty lethal to me, but looks can be deceiving. I look across the room to her, and she's hitting all of the throwing knife targets right in the middle of the forehead. If it were me running this freak-show, I'd let her in.
"F-Fair enough. I'll s-see you after l-lunch." Liam says to us. Shimmer snorts.
I'm impressed at this little kid now. He's either stupid or extremely confident or both. I would've just left it at "fair enough" but this kid is so confident in his abilities he's willing to strap a bright orange target to himself if he doesn't meet the standards of Kronos. He walks away from our group and we continue mutilating the dummies. I check to see what Liam is doing across the room, and he's getting lessons in one-handed weaponry. And it's obvious he's never held a tool that could take someone's life before. I take back everything I just said. My faith in this kid has now been shattered. But it's his fault. He shouldn't have boasted to Kronos if he knew he had never held a weapon.
I plunge my scimitar into the model of a human. I shake when I think of it being a real person. I put my weapon back on the shelf. Kronos notices me and stops swinging his trident around.
"What the hell?" He says.
Shit. Now he's pissed.
"I... I was just going to the..." I look around.
"tracking section. I was getting a little bored since this is so easy just cutting up these dummies. Plus, it'll help us hunt the others easier." I tell him.
He looks over to the tracking section, which the Tens and Elevens are just leaving, and then turns back to me and nods.
"You'd better impress me before the arena though." He says.
I nod and then head on over to the tracking section. I turn a few heads because they wouldn't expect a career to do anything besides show off. I really don't care though, to be honest. I get over there, have a seat, and just listen to him talk about basic tracking. I tell him I only want to know about human tracking, and he seems kind of offended that I don't want to listen to his thought out speech on everything tracking. He does tell me what I want to know, and I pick it up easily. I don't want to go into advanced tracking because I don't trust myself enough to ace it, but I think that this will be better than nothing for hunting others.
And I'm happy with myself too for appearing as a nice guy, especially to that District Three chick who's kinda hot.
JEN'S POV (D4F)
This is really a workout.
I've been doing cardio for awhile now, and it's really tiring. Lots of things to improve one's speed, flexibility, and stamina. I'm easily not the fastest girl here, but I guess that's why I went here second. I went to weapons first, but they didn't have anything that suited me, so I went here. I don't regret it in the slightest.
But still, I have the problem of having no reliable weapons. Back home, I used a grappling hook-type thing as a weapon, but they don't seem to have any of those here.
After I finish up with cardio, I stand there wondering what to do. After a few solid seconds of thinking, I get a life-saving idea. Or rather life-taking idea if you're not me. I take a spear from a nearby rack of the weapons and unscrew the head off when nobody is looking. After that, I go over to knot tying and snatch an extra long rope from the station. It takes a bit, but I manage to tie the spearhead to the end of the rope, and I have a makeshift grappling hook that I decide to call the rope dart. I roll it up so I can carry it easier.
The guards and a few trainers who notice the rope dart are wide-eyed and stare at me in wonder. I walk over to the dummies where the careers have resided this entire time. Joel walks up to me, and the other two male careers snicker.
"Hey babe, what's up?" He says. The other boys laugh a bit. They doubt his womanizing skills.
"Nothing much. I just wanted to test out this new weapon of mine." I say, gesturing to the rope dart.
Joel nods at it in approval, and the little girl part of me feels good that I impressed him.
"Now if you'll excuse me," I say.
He nods and then walks away, back to his fellow careers. I walk up to a model and hold the rope dart as I should, one hand a few inches under the head and one hand over the rolled up section of it. I notice that the other careers are watching me. I don't know if I should appear weak, so they don't think of me as a threat, or appear strong so they know not to screw around with me. I go for somewhere in between the two, not showing off advanced tactics, but instead just some basic wielding.
I swing the rope dart around me to appear fancy because I can resist, and then thrust the head of it towards the model. It flies right through the neck of the model, and I pull the spearhead back through the neck (making more of a gaping hole through the model) and catch the rope under the head flawlessly. The careers are very impressed. I get into a combat-ready stance, and then swing the rope dart around in a figure eight motion, and move forward towards the model. The spearhead scratches the model almost everywhere above the waist, and I pull back on the rope and then thrust the head towards the face of the model. It sticks in right between the eyes. The careers are extremely impressed now. I smile in glory.
Yep, this'll be a great weapon.
DESDEMONA'S POV (D12F)
I'm starting to get the hang of this "axing" stuff.
Cole will die very quickly in the arena. I'm starting to learn about throwing axes now (the official name is a tomahawk, but who cares?), and then he'll never see it coming. I swear to God, if anyone else kills him but me, I will be out for revenge. And if someone kills the one who kills Cole before I get revenge, then I'll be out for more revenge. That will continue until I kill the person at the top of the Cole food chain. And then I shall be at the top of the Cole food chain. Glorious and Victorious. But after that, I can't die, because then someone else will be at the top of the Cole food chain. That would be unacceptable. The only way to die for me if I must die at the top of the food chain, will be natural causes.
I throw the tomahawk at a model who I picture to be Cole. It lands right in the face and sticks. It was an accident that I was that good, but I pretend that it was on purpose and that I just murdered my lifelong rival. Cole actually was not my rival until he was reaped, but then he became my lifelong rival. It is my life goal as of right now to murder him. I sound pretty crazy, but he's a tool, so I'll tone it down once I'm at the top of the Cole food chain.
Yeah, I got it all figured out.