I bet you didn't think I would update on CHRISTMAS DAY AFTER NOT UPDATING FOR LIKE TWO WEEKS.
A couple of notes: Tourmaline's POV is kinda an information dump, but it was what was requested. In relation to Tourmaline's POV, there is ONE (maybe two?) harsh sexual term(s) in the POV. Probably nothing you haven't seen, but it's good to have a warning.
Jack Xhaca (18) D1M
In every Career Pack, there was a leader. It was a good spot to be in, but only for a while. I intended to avoid being the leader like the plague, whatever that was, because I wasn't sure I could handle that responsibility, and because I didn't want to be directly in the line of fire if anything went wrong. Valerie, Tourmaline, Mahi, and Halona didn't seem interested in being leader, so Wolf more or less stumbled into the position. That worked for me.
"All right. The first and last day, we should all focus on our strengths, just to keep them polished. We should all watch each other train, so we know what we're working with. There is no shame in playing down how strong you are if you're being watched. I just think we should have a general idea of where each of us needs protecting, since all of us do have our weaknesses. The other five days I think we should spread out a bit. We need to survive and kill. Does that work for all of you?" Wolf asked us. We all nodded, and I headed off to the sword station.
Before I could get to the sword station, an announcement got my attention. "Attention, all tributes! Please report to the center of the training room, near where you entered. The Head Gamemaker has an announcement for you."
There was no rejecting such a direct order, so I headed to where I had been directed to go. All of the tributes were huddled around there, which made sense, and Draco Stiletto was making an announcement.
"This Game will not be a normal Games. Four Capitolites have been given the opportunity to join in. You're all probably wondering why I'm bothering to tell you this. Since these Capitolites are citizens of the Capitol, you are not to kill them. This rule has been decided. Obviously, if they attack you, you are allowed to fight back. You are to do everything you can to win without killing them. Killing a Hunter, as these Capitolites have been dubbed, does not remove you from the running for Victory. However, killing one without being attacked will lead to termination. That is all." Draco walked out of the room, done talking.
I glanced over at the other Careers, and we huddled together. Other tributes were huddling, too, and everyone seemed terrified. Even I was off-put by this turn of events. "So, what are we going to do?" I asked Wolf.
"We should ignore the Hunters as much as possible," Wolf said, surprisingly confidently. He had to be thinking on his feet. "They probably won't be going after us, because we're Careers. We're the Capitol's sweethearts. If you do get attacked, ignore the rule about not going for the kill. You can't think about mercy during a life-or-death situation. The only thing that should change a lot is how we show ourselves to the public. We don't know who the Hunters are, and we don't want them knowing our strengths. We shouldn't tell any Capitolite what our strengths or weaknesses are. It'll ruin some sponsoring, but it's not a risk worth taking."
I nodded again, and the huddle split. We made sure that the Capitolites couldn't watch us training, and then I headed over to the sword station. I couldn't let that announcement get me down. I needed to focus on the Victory and nothing but it, or I would be bound to make a fatal mistake.
Tourmaline Addells (18) D1F
When I walked out of the training center, I got a lot of dirty looks. I heard some people muttering things about me, like how much of a terrible person I was, and how Vibrant deserved better. One girl looked like she was just about ready to slap me in the face, but she held back. That was a wise choice. If she attacked a tribute, she probably would have been Avoxed.
"Whore!" someone yelled at me. That was uncalled for. The Capitol thought I cheated on Vibrant, but he never said I sleptt around. Capitolites needed to know their terminology better.
Sighing, I slipped into my room. I hated the looks, and I hated how much the hate was going to ruin my chances. There was no chance that the demon of the Capitol would win the Games. I wouldn't get any sponsors, for one thing, and the Capitol would probably go out of its way to kill me. I needed to kill the buzz somehow, and I had just the idea.
"Hey Satin," I said, walking over to my mentor. "Do you know where I could get a recorder?" Satin nodded wordlessly and beckoned me to follow. I did as I was commanded, and I was led into a room full of high-tech electronics. I picked out one of the simplest recorders, since I didn't know how to work the others, and then went back into my room.
"Hey there, Capitol," I started, unsure of exactly what to say. I didn't have a script or a plan. I was just going with whatever my mouth decided to say. "It's your favorite little devil. I kinda have a lot to get off my chest, and I should probably do it now, before every moment of my life is spent fighting for it. It's hard to know exactly what to say right now, but I know what point I want to get across.
"All of you think I'm a terrible person. Don't try to deny it; you proved that to me when I heard the whispers all around me. I should have seen that coming. To the best of your knowledge, I am a terrible person. But did you ever stop to consider that maybe it was the other way around? Maybe, just maybe, I wasn't going to risk everything cheating on a Capitolite. Maybe I knew that could get me Avoxed, and maybe that wasn't a risk a potential volunteer was going to take. It's hard to volunteer if you don't have a tongue.
"So, I can't ever fully convince you that I didn't cheat on Vibrant. I can, however, give you my word, which should be more than enough. I, Tourmaline Addells, have never cheated in a relationship. I cross my heart, hope to die. Now, I have bee cheated on. I had my heart torn out by the man who said I did the same, when I walked into my room to take a nap after a long day and found my be occupied. It was taken by two people, and one of them was definitely my boyfriend. Vibrant Gellert, who insists that I'm the one that sleeps around."
Wolf Krieg (18) D2M
Training wasn't something that could just stop. I was supposed to train day and night, to ensure that my family would be proud of me. I had always thought that goal was reasonable. My parents brought me into the world. They fed me and raised me. It was only reasonable that they could get something out of the deal, too, although I wouldn't have chosen rushing headfirst into a deathmatch. Still, parents were parents. They were authority, and they deserved my respect.
I did show respect for my parents in volunteering. Never stopping training was out of the question, though. The training center was closed for the night. I could have kept training by asking the other Victors questions, or by watching tapes of previous Games, but I wasn't interested. I had something that I needed to do while I was in the Capitol, partially because it could be my last chance and partially because the Capitol was the only place to do it.
Hall of Victors. There was a small wing in the Capitol dedicated to the previous nineteen Victors. It was pretty small, but I assumed it would be made larger as more and more Victors won their Games. I walked into the room, amazed at how much detail was in each of the statues. Each Victor was heroized beyond belief, prettied up and muscled up, but it was still easy to tell who was who.
The first statue I looked at was Menalaus's. He was the perfect Victor, and he was from Two. He fought his way to Victory like a warrior, and that earned him the right to be the first tribute to bring Two honor, many years ago. I peeked at Nero's, Totsuki's, and Shale's statues, too, but I knew them more than I knew Menalaus, and they weren't the type of people I was supposed to look up to.
I pulled my medal out of my pocket. It wasn't really my medal; it belonged to the family. I didn't know what it was for, but according to my dad it was a huge honor, and he would be honored if I brought it to the Games with me. I found it odd that I had taken the token my dad wanted me to take. I could be dying for him, and I gave up the one luxury I could have had. I sighed and turned from Menalaus's statue. I recognized why he was honored, but he wasn't someone I knew I could be. He never showed any fear. He probably never even felt any fear. I wasn't even going to bother trying to never be afraid.
Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Bessie's statue. It was calmer than most of the others. All of the Victors from One, Two, and Four were portrayed as warriors, as were a lot of the other Districts' Victors, but Bessie's wasn't. I remembered hearing about her Games. She just avoided all of the enemies until it was too late. Two hardly recognized her as a Victor, because she was so wimpy the entire Games. I envied that girl. She made it through an entire Games being scared, and only the Districts that meant nothing to her despised her because of that.
I felt a couple of tears streaming down my cheeks as I knelt by Bessie's statue. I should have gone to bed, but I didn't feel like it. I was too busy thinking about the next couple of weeks. I was about to spend what could be the last days of my life and what would be the last days of my humanity fitting the mold my parents required. If I messed up even once I could be disowned, and I would have lost everything over nothing. That wasn't a life I wanted to live. But I walked straight into it.
Valerie Cartwright (17) D2F
I didn't mind Wolf being leader, and I didn't mind his training plan. It was entirely basic, but the basics could work. None of us Careers really needed to learn much more than we already knew. We were probably going to get sponsored enough food that we would be fine without gathering, and we could hunt all that we wanted without a worry in a world. Our only real worry was that a tribute might get brave and go after us and somehow damage us despite having all the odds stacked against him, which was against all odds.
Our training outfits were long-sleeved. I appreciated that. My arms were a bit bruised up from my last week spent at home. I suspected that the proper Capitol nutrition I was receiving and my circulatory system would have me in perfect health by the time my Games started up. I had about a week, which was plenty of time for bruises to heal up until they didn't matter at all.
Nobody shadowed me while I worked on my whip talents. I preferred a whip with spikes, because it could do more damage, but I was practicing with a normal whip. I needed to know how to use one of those effectively, and I didn't want any other tribute or Career knowing that my weapon of choice wasn't a normal whip. I wasn't the strongest Career, and I knew it. I wasn't even the strongest female Career. I was going to have to slip out of the other Careers' main lines of sight, or I would be doomed.
With that train of thought, I focused on whips and only whips the entire day. My arms were pretty tired by the end of the day, but I didn't mind that. I would work out my legs that night, and maybe the next day, but I really did have to focus on whips. Only having one weapon was a huge weakness, and it was easy to fake that. Any true Career would know a vast amount of weapons, but any human could forget that.
Mahi Katao (18) D4M
I trained a lot in Four. That was good, and I didn't think a week of training or lack thereof would affect the outcome of the Games very much. I did intend to shadow a lot, like Wolf told us to, but just because I wanted to be able to help out the other Careers. I knew most people would take advantage of our invitations to shadow to scope out weaknesses, but I thought that dumb. There was no honor in winning solely because you knew a lot about your opponent. That was good, but I would prefer to win because I was actually the better fighter.
After scouting around for about an hour to see my allies' strengths, I got bored. It was a bad time to get bored, but I didn't much care. I wandered out of the training center and decided to find something more interesting. I couldn't know for certain what would be more interesting, but I figured there had to be something. The Games Center was a big building.
It took a couple of minutes, but I stumbled upon a library. I didn't know if I would find anything of too much interest there, because I wasn't much of a reader, but I assumed there would be something in a library for everyone. It was an awfully big library. Sure enough, I was correct. A small history section was in the tape section of the library, and it contained a couple of tapes about my people, the Maori.
I had done all the research I could about the Maori in my Distict, but Four only had so much information. The Capitol could have much more extensive history, and they didn't have to worry about many people finding out any good stuff about the Dark Days. There was a good chance I wouldn't be alive to tell. I soon found myself completely immersed in a video about the food, martial practices, and histoy of Maori people.
A gasp and a clatter shocked me back into the real world. A girl was looking at me and making her way over to me. "Are you Mahi? The Four tribute?"
"I am," I replied calmly, standing up. I assumed it was a fan. I didn't think I would be the most popular Career, but most Careers had fans just because they were Careers.
"I'm Icy," the girl said. "I saw you in the Parade. You seemed sad. But you don't seem like a guy that gets sad often."
"I'm not. I tend to try and be happy. I just wished that my outfit was a little bit cooler, because the Capitol could do anything they wanted."
"I still think you're cool," Icy continued, sitting down. "You seem like a nice guy. Not all Careers are nice, but you seem happy. Not just, like, a pure warrior. What are you watching?"
I could see excitement flashing in Icy's eyes. I couldn't tell if it was because she hadn't seen Maori videos before or because she was starstruck, but I hoped it was the prior. I could always use a chance to talk about the Maori. "I'm watching a video about my people, the Maori! They were warriors, just like me!"
"They sound cool," Icy said, leaning forward and resting on her elbows. "Can you tell me about them?"
"You bet I can!" I sat down next to Icy. "The Maori were warriors. They started off as hunters or gatherers, depending on the person. We ate a lot of birds when we first started off, but slowly we grew to switch to gardening. That was a more reliable food source. We liked to give a lot of gifts, and if you received a gift you were expected to give one back. Your return gift was supposed to be more valuable than the one you got, or else you could be shamed. I think that sounds like a pretty cool system, except that you could ruin a family by giving them a huge gift. That was probably frowned upon, though." I was lucky that Icy was interested in the Maori people. There weren't many topics that I could ramble about.
"This is all very interesting, and I want to hear more. The library is kinda uncomfortable, though. Do you want to go to a restaurant with me and talk there? And, if you're not busy, do you think we could talk again tomorrow?" Even though I wasn't the smartest person in the world, I could recognize when someone was flirting with me. There was no need to move to a restaurant.
"I would love to. Which place do you recommend? You've been in the Capitol longer than I have."
Halona Remus (18) D4F
I trained very hard all week, and I burned a lot of calories. For the most part, I ate a humble amount of food. I didn't want to put on any extra weight right before the Games, because that would throw off everything I was used to. On the second to last day, though, I knew how things were. One day of eating everything that I wanted to would not make me gain any weight in the long run, and I would have a full day to digest the short-term weight. It was about time for me to treat myself.
The Capitol had tons of restaurants everywhere, and almost all of them were free to me. Feeding a tribute was good rep. That meant I could choose any food I wanted, and, despite common stereotypes, I knew exactly what it was that I wanted. Chinese buffet was the best type of food, even if I didn't eat it often. I intended to go to the kitschiest, most fake Chinese restaurant I could find, because that was where the best food was. That food was delicious, and it was tons of fun.
I knew I had to train a little bit while I looked for food, and I could do that without a problem. I looked for a restaurant while reciting things about my allies in my head. Jack. Good with swords. Good social skills. Nothing but swords to him. Tourmaline. Super weird emotional status. Super driven. Good with weapons. Could be Capitol's sweetheart. Wolf. District favorite. Leader qualities. Best prepared. I needed to know everything I could about my allies, because that could be the difference between life and death.
After going through my list a couple of times, adding notes here and there, I found the perfect restaurant. I was recognized as soon as I walked in, and the waitress led me to a seat without asking any questions. I appreciated that. I didn't mind being talked to, but I hadn't eaten all day to make sure that I had plenty of room for this meal. It was almost seven o'clock, and I was hungry.
Food was aplenty in the Capitol. There were rows and rows of options to choose from, and I only had one plate to start with. I dished myself up a hearty serving of noodles, some wantons, various types of chicken, some weird fake meat, and a biscuit to start with. I said to start with knowing that I likely wouldn't be able to eat any more after that but reminding myself that I could, because splurging once in a while was all right.
One person noticed my full plate, and she brought her group of friends over to my table. "Whoa, Nelly! Are you going to eat all of your opponents, too?" The girl's friends high-fived her when she said that. I had to admit that there were a lot of calories on that plate, but I wanted the girl to shut her face. "Gosh, I thought Careers were at the peak physical level of fitness! You're going to die of a heart attack before you even get into the Arena!"
I flipped the girl off while I finished up my mouthful. I chewed slowly, trying to find a good response. "You know, as a Capitolite, I suspect you already knew what food was here. I only had a week to taste stuff like this. You've had all your life, yet here you are, still eating the very calories you mock me for. It seems rather hypocritical, does it not? Anyone with brains would know that." That sounded a lot fancier than it really was, but Capitolites were dumb. The girl glared at me and walked away, and I took another mouthful of noodles.
Another note: Did somebody say... Capitolite development? Icy will probably never get any POVs mid-Games, but there's always honorable mentions.
ANOTHER NOTE: Careers without mention of training still totally trained. Some just didn't only train during their time, and for others, training scenes get boring.
FINAL NOTE I THINK: This chapter is very long. Sorry about that. If you don't want to read it all (because I probably wouldn't read this thing), go right ahead and skim. I won't judge, even if I can tell by your vague review.