Clarisse Terry (D10F - Age 16)
I slipped carefully out of my bed, eager to get down to the breakfast, where Hayden was waiting. Being the younger one is our alliance, I didn't want to screw anything up for us in the long run. I needed to keep Hayden impressed.
Shuffling into the room silently, I grab a round piece of bread off the table, and spread a white sort of sauce onto it. I don't know what it's called, but the bread has an odd sort of hole in the center.
"Hayden!" I call out, surprised to see my ally already there. "Let's go! I motion to the door that leads into the training center. All the other tributes are currently eating, and we can get a head start on weapons before the Careers take those stations over." I rationalize to him, and he sets down his food and nods.
Running into the training center, I point to the farthest corner, "There." I say to Hayden. "When people come in, it'll take them a while to make their way to the back. Hopefully we can get a couple minutes in at these stations."
"Sounds good." He replies, and leads us over to the station. When we get closer, I make out the station to be daggers. I quickly grab the smallest one. It has sharp serrated edges, and looks nice in my hand.
Hayden leans over me, and grabs a slightly longer one, that has fancy designs on the hilt. "Let's throw." He commands, and chucks his knife at a dummy. It hits the shoulder. Not a kill shot, but very close.
"Wow." I say to him. "Your good."
"Thanks. When I was a kid, my dad sometimes took me out to hunt, and find good meat for our cattle." He said to me.
"Really?" I questioned him. "Our cattle never ate meat."
"We were the only rancher in the district who fed our cattle that." He said. "That's why ours was the best." He adds on, joking.
"Whoa, whoa." I start. "Hang on. Is this a competition?" I ask him in fake incredulously.
"A little friendly competition isn't bad." He remarks, which is especially ironic considering the Games we were about to go to.
"Yeah right." I smirk, friendly back at him. "Let's get to work." I say as I throw the small dagger with all my might, aiming for the head. It lands on the knee-cap, and I silently shame myself.
Hitting the knee cap wouldn't kill, but it might at least stun my opponent. "Ahh." I complain to Hayden. "Let's move on. Were both fine at this already."
"You choose." He says, motioning his arms outward in a welcoming manner. "Pick one, any one."
"Lassos, and rope tying." I say finally. "It's the only thing here I'm actually good at." I say, and we both walk over to the station. Greeting by the friendly instructor, he shows us how to tie the correct knot to make a lasso, then shows us some dummies we can practice on.
I stand, my feet planted firmly into the ground. Twirling the lasso around my head, I pretend I'm back home. I can almost hear the roar of the cattle in my ears, the pounding of the hooves, and the sound of my family calling me in for dinner.
I fling my first arm forward, lunging for the dummy in front of me. The rope I'm holding loops around it's neck, yanking it to the floor.
At this point, you pretty much can't do anything else with a lasso, unless you want to strangle your opponent. This would be the moment in the Games where either Hayden or I jumps forward, knife at ready, to kill the victim tangled in our rope.
"Nice." Hayden says, looking at my work. He has his rope tangled around a dummies neck too.
"Thanks." I motion toward his rope, "You too."
"Clarisse." Hayden says, suddenly serious.
"What?" I ask him.
"What are we going to do in the Games? I mean, were having fun now, hanging out, and playing with these weapons, but we actually need a game plan too." He says.
"Naw, were fine for now Hayden!" I say to him gently. "We'll figure that out tomorrow. For now, let's just have some fun for once!"
"No." He says, point blank. "We need to do it now." He fires back at me.
I take a step back, surprised by the abrupt change in his attitude. But were allies, so I take a deep breath, and reply back. "You know what? Your right. Let's do it now. You talk first."
Even I'm surprised by the words coming out of my mouth. I rarely admit I'm wrong to anyone, much less let them talk first.
"Let's talk bloodbath first." He says.
"Run?" I suggested, for once serious.
"Do you want supplies?" He questions, thinking the entire plan through. He doesn't wait for my reply. "If one of us wants to win the Games, we are gonna need supplies. Here's what I suggest, then you can tell me if you agree." He begins. "We run off our pedestals, fast as we can go. Grab the nearest bag to you, and try to rendezvous with me at some point. We'll take off from there."
"Sounds good." I agree with his plan. "But one thing. Only take what you need from the bloodbath. We'll need to run, and we'll need to do it fast. So pack light." I slightly joke, a glint in my eye.
"Fine with me. Last note. It's completely up to you, but I don't think we should aim to kill in the bloodbath. Let's just focus on getting out of there." He says.
I nod once again. "Let's go now. We have a good plan, and now the best thing we can do is train until we feel we're ready. For the Hunger Games."
Jackson Envill (D9M - 18)
About an hour into the training day, and I've already made my way through 5 different stations which have all taught me nothing. Nobody's approached me to ally yet, and it's already the second day, so I make up my mind to act now.
I set my eyes on the District 6 boy, the one that taught my eye in the reapings. He's strong enough, and if he shares my same 'Anti-Career' attitude, he'll be the perfect ally.
I make my way up to him at the exact moment the Careers do. I scowl deeply at them, and begin my little speech I've prepared. It's hard to do it with the Careers glaring over my shoulder, but I manage.
"I'm Jackson Envill, District 9. You seem strong. Want to ally?" I speak bluntly, but it's all the truth.
"I'm Dante Falv, District 6. You look good too, but let's see what they have to say." He motions over to the Careers, who are standing behind me.
A little competition. Good. I think to myself.
Their 'leader', the huge boy from District 2, steps forward. "We actually came to ask Dante the same thing, but since it's obvious who he's gonna choose, you may as well just leave now, 9." He spits at me.
I focus my glare back. "Why don't you let Dante be the judge of that. I think he's perfectly capable of making his own decisions."
"Well 6?" Maximus asks, looking like a leader of a clique with all the other Careers standing in position behind him. "You can have 9, or you can have us, 5 fully trained experts in the Hunger Games."
Dante looks from me, to Maximus, over and over again. Slowly, he begins to speak. "Your right Maximus. It's is kind of obvious who to pick." He looks apologetically at me.
Maximus gives me a smirk as if to say, I told you so. I frown back at him, preparing to walk away.
"Jackson." Dante says, right before I'm about to walk away. "I accept your request for an alliance."
A big smile comes across my face, and I beam at Maximus. "Oh really?" I say to him, my smile turning fake quickly.
"You two..." Maximus growls at us. "Are first on our kill list."
"You bet!" Shrieks the girl from one.
"I. Don't. Care." Dante spat back at him, and they finally left us in peace.
"Do you hate them as much as I do?" I asked Dante.
"You bet!" He shrieks, mimicking the girl from one. "There the first on my kill list." He says grimly.
"Mine too. Let's watch them." I say to Dante. "You and I are both strong enough already, and one more day of training isn't going to really make much of a difference." I point out to him.
"Grab that notebook." He says to me, and I reach over to one of the trainer tables and grab it.
We both climb up the makeshift tree in the center, surveying all the tributes from above. Dante grabs the pen and starts writing.
District One Female: Acts overconfident, but is deadly with a bow. Not great at anything else.
District One Male: Better than his female counterpart, and could kill easily with a sickle. For sure an opponent.
We continue writing for about an hour, until we have a list, full with 22 tributes. Everyone is in there, minus ourselves. We've managed to mark all of our opponents, and identified them as the Careers, maybe D3 male, D4 male (we noticed he didn't ally with them), D10 male, and the D11 female.
I quickly notice that Dante wrote the D11 female down. "Why her?" I ask him. "She looks pretty weak."
"Yesterday I was watching her with her allies, and she threw a knife dead center into a target. I think she's hiding something." He admits, and I concede his point. People often did that in the Hunger Games.
I keep my eye on the girl, and I watch her attempt to throw a spear into the target. She throws it exactly the way that the Peacekeepers do in my district, but misses the target altogether. If she knew how to hold it properly, she wouldn't have missed, would she?
I explain my suspicions to Dante, and he agrees to watch that girl carefully. "We'll have to see what kind of training score she gets. That's how we'll know." He explains to me.
I snap the bound notebook shut quickly. "I think we're done." I say to him.
Dante grabs the limb of the fake tree, lowering himself to the ground. I follow his lead. The ground slowly gets closer to my legs, and I hop down the rest of the way.
I stumble, tripping over myself and into the District 2 girl. She frantically averts her eyes, not wanting the other Careers to see that she was close to me. Maximus spots her, and it's too late for that though.
"Hey 9! Why don't you stay away from us! I don't want to accidentally kill you before the Games even start!" He crows at me.
"Oh that would never happen!" I say to him, acting innocent. "I will kill you first."
He death stares at me, daring me to meet his eyes. I do, and with a emblazoned smirk.
"You have 3 days, 9." Maximus purrs under his breath. "3 more days to live."
I quickly count in my head, and as I guessed, the Games started 3 days from today. I was planning to be his first bloodbath victim.
"Let's go Jackson." Dante pulls me by the shirt away, and I can hear Maximus chastising his district partner for even nearing me.
"Don't." Dante warns me. "We're already on the Careers bad side. If you want to live, steer clear of them for the next couple of days. I'm telling you."
"I don't want to live." I murmur under my breath, the words tumbling out of my mouth. "I want to die, knowing that I killed every single one of the Careers, with the help of you. That's my plan."
"I'm game for anything." Dante says, and I silently thank my past self for picking such good allies.
Bobbin Taper (D12F - Age 12)
I walk around the big room slowly, careful not to get into any other tributes way. I don't need any enemies at this point in time. I'm already in enough danger with Gabe on my tail.
The minute we stepped into the training area, he announced to everyone that he had no intention to ally. I guess that was good for him, because nobody wanted to ally with him anyway. Especially me.
Gabe was a jerk, through and through. I can barely seen him before, but the couple of times I spotted him at school, he was always hanging around a group of jocks, unusual with his stocky frame. From what I could tell, he was always bragging about something, whether it be money, clothes, or family.
I run up to the berry identification station, greeting the trainer.
"I'm Cherry!" The perky trainer called, eager to finally teach a student. "You must be Bobbin. I recognize you."
"That's me!" I chirp to her, smiling. Cherry made me feel welcome right away, and even started with the easier berries so I could keep up.
"First, let's identify this one." She picks up a perfectly round, rosy pink berry. It has light green leaves twirling out of it's stem, and looks very round and juicy. I'm pretty sure I've seen it at home before. It may even be one of the ones that the Seam kids eat often!
"Poisonous or not?" Cherry asks me. "I know you may not know, but make a guess!"
"Safe?" I ask her, making a guess.
She twirls the berry in her hand for a while. "No. This is the Forensic berry. This berry will kill you if you eat it. Not right away, but about an hour after you ingest it, your body starts to hallucinate, and you go into septic shock. Your body will shut down soon after."
"Oh." Is all I can manage after the torturous description of the berry. "I thought I'd seen one like it back home."
"You very well might have." She begins. "There's a mutation of this berry that's perfectly safe to eat. It's called the Fluensic Berry. Very similar name, very similar shape and initial taste. Only difference is that one kills you, and the other doesn't."
We quickly go over another couple of berries, and Cherry dismisses me, congratulating me on my progress. At least I'll have something to show the Gamemakers now.
Scanning the weapon stations, I notice the only one without anyone at it is blowguns. Currently, there's no trainer at it, so I head over alone. Grabbing the small gun in my hand, I carefully place a dart into its barrel.
It takes me a minute to figure out how to load it, but once I manage, I stand at the respective shooting spot, and aim it at the target.
Squinting my eye, I try and line it up the best I can. Whoosh. The dart flies out of my gun, hitting the outer edge of the ring. Not bad, but not great either.
I try again, over and over, until I finally get a dart to sit in the almost center. I'm happy with that progress. With my new berry skills, and my mediocre use with a blow gun, I may be able to scrounge up a good enough score!
I quickly peek around the room, seeing how all the other tributes are doing. Almost everyone has an ally so far, except for a couple of older tributes who would never in a million years ally with me. I sigh. I guess I'm on my own this year.
A sharp tap on my shoulder jerks me from my thoughts, and I whirl around, facing a small boy from 5, according to his shirt. "Hello. I'm Gelder Anston, and this is Temo." He introduces me to himself, and...?
"I'm..Bobbin Taper." I'm slightly put off by his attitude, but friendly nevertheless.
"Your District 12." He observes from my shirt. "The 12th district who brings in 14% of the Capitol Income." The boy notes. He's observant, and obviously very smart. Maybe he would be a good ally?
"Yeah," I will myself to ask him.
"Do you want to be allies?" He asks, before I can. "We're both younger, and smaller than the rest, but we're also quicker." He adds. "Temo and I really want allies."
"Sure." I carefully accept, not quite sure who Temo was. Maybe I'd have to scrounge up the courage to ask his district partner, a rough looking girl who looked 15 or 16.
"Great." He chirps in the tone that I used with Cherry. "Now that we're allied, we both just increased our odds to 5% each. That's pretty good for younger kids." He whispers to me.
I walk with him. Now that Gelder's my ally, I guess I'll just have to embrace his slightly off attitude. He's smart, quick, and observant, which is more than I could've asked for.
~AN~ Hooray for a longer chapter! Next one will be up soon! I can't believe we're nearing the Games! I'm so sad that we'll have to say goodbye to 23 of these fantastic tributes! :(
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~Madi
PS I FORGOT! READ THIS! I WILL BE LEAVING FANFICTION FOR A MONTH, and will be returning on June 9th. I am NOT giving up on this story, only taking a well needed break for school. For any of you who's stories I have submitted to, I will catch up on reviews when I get back.