Alistair returns to the office right after lunch. He checks his watch and finds out it's almost time. Most of the gamemakers are on their seats, talking to one another or quietly waiting in place. All twenty-four of them face the front. The seats in the main hall of the headquarters are positioned in three arcs, or curved lines. The back row has ten seats. The row before it has eight. The front row has six. There's an aisle at the center, dividing both sides equally. Head Gamemaker Alistair takes his seat at the very front, facing the opposite direction from the rest of the gamemakers, supposedly. He turns his seat facing forward for the private sessions, which then makes him face the wall, right in front of where the projector is supposed to project stuff when connected to a computer. Guest Gamemaker Niccolo Jones takes the seat beside Alistair, like every other guest gamemaker did in the past.
"I miss doing this, Alistair," says Niccolo. "I'm very grateful for you inviting me back."
"Sir, I got most of my ideas from you and learned a lot from you during your time as my head gamemaker."
"I see... I'm glad to have made that impact. You sure have grown a lot as a gamemaker." Niccolo pats Alistair's back.
Alistair smiles in return, glad to have made his former boss proud. He then checks his watch again. "Gamemakers, we start in two minutes!" He gets up from his seat, turns off all the lights in the room, and turns on a switch that makes the whole room glow, or at least that's what it looks like. The environment sets in, and most of the gamemakers realize where they are.
"What just happened?" Brenda asks aloud.
Radon replies, "The room is being projected to the basement of the training center. In return, we get to see the the basement of the training center."
Brenda looks around obviously and curiously. "Wow!"
"It's where the tributes will hold their private sessions. They see us. We see them. However, there's no physical contact happening between both environments, in case a tribute pulls a stunt in killing one of us."
"Has that happened before?"
"Katniss Everdeen, if you remember from school, pulled a stunt like this, although she didn't kill any of the gamemakers that time. It's still for safety measures."
"And good use of technology?"
"Precisely."
Not long after, Genji announces through a mic, "Jeanne Maxima of District Four, please enter the room."
The tall pale-skinned girl enters the basement. She takes a look around her, and sees the gamemakers in the form of a hologram. She bows to them.
Genji plays the pre-recorded policies of the private sessions through the mic. "You have twelve minutes to present us anything you desire. May the odds be ever in your favor. You may start now." Genji starts the timer.
Jeanne looks around to see an array of weapons and objects laid out around the basement. Most of them are placed in shelves. Some of them have stations of their own. Since she starts the private sessions this year, everything is still in its proper place. The floor is still clean. Nothing is a mess yet. She scans the room and finds the bow and arrows. Someone from the control room drops a target from the ceiling. She sets her position properly and starts shooting arrows with the bow. She does so consistently and continuously, hitting the center of the target eight out of ten times. The target is then lifted back to the ceiling.
She drops the bow and gets a handful of spears this time. Five dummies, with artificial intelligence in them, come from corners of the room, where doors are placed to allow these types of dummies to enter. They slowly jog to Jeanne. She gets a spear and launches it with force to the closest dummy's chest. Once that collapses, she changes her position and launches another spear, this time to the closest dummy's head. Two down, three to go. Jeanne continues throwing spears to the dummies' vital areas. On the last dummy, she runs forward and sticks the spear through the dummy's stomach.
Once that's all done, she gets a pocket of throwing knives. Targets drop from the ceiling, and they move around the room - forward, backward, side to side. She finds a target and throws her first knife. It hits the bullseye of the target. She moves around the room to find the best position of her next target. She throws another knife once her position is set. It misses the bullseye by a hair. Shit. She continues to throw more knives as she moves around the room. She eventually gets nine out of ten targets on the bullseye.
Afterwards, Jeanne goes to one corner to show her plant identification skills. She picks the machine over the organics, answering the questions in the machine like an electronic quiz. She gets eight-three percent correctly. She intends to move to another station or get another weapon, but the buzzers sounds and she is requested to leave.
"Time is up! You may now leave the basement," says Genji through the mic.
The gamemakers all watch Jeanne leave through the elevator.
Alistair faces forward and asks, "Any insights?"
Radon says, "She should not have shown her skills with plant identification."
"Why so?"
"It's a waste of time, especially since we're not putting poison in this arena."
"She has a good enough memory at least," defends Lian. "They need good memory in the bloodbath."
Radon thinks for a while, then nods. "Acceptable."
Alistair then asks, "Anything else?"
Morty says, "She showed mostly her skills in range weapons, although she's versatile with them."
"I was actually thinking of her melee skills, which she only showed when she went for the dummy's stomach," adds Arc.
"So we can say she's versatile, but not versatile enough."
"Yes."
The gamemakers are either waiting for the time to pass or are inputting their scores for the first presentation. In the basement, the trainers clean the area for the next user. After a little while, Genji announces, "Dorian Belcorn of District Nine, please enter the room." Genji then plays the pre-recorded audio for the tall, slender, and angelic-looking boy to listen to.
Like Jeanne, Dorian bows before he starts. He firsts requests a trainer, and one of the Psi twins show up. Dorian bows before going against Density in a hand-to-hand combat. After about a minute, Dorian hurls Density to the ground. Gravity then shows up, and Dorian bows to him too before fighting with him. After two minutes, Gravity finally loses to Dorian after Dorian locks Gravity to the ground.
Dorian then tries to find a sword from the sides of the room. He can't find it, so he requests for it and is given one - a fencing sword. For this one, he requested a dummy to fight against. As usual, he bows to it before starting his fencing. He gets attacks correctly. He misses a few, probably on purpose or probably for real. He is able to block almost all the hits from the dummy. After a while, he blocks all the moves and asks for the dummy to be taken away for his next presentation.
Targets drop from the ceiling as he gets a pocket of throwing knives too. The targets are moving so he takes time to analyze where to throw his targets. Once he finds the patterns of the moving targets, he throws knife after knife on the roaming targets. In the end, he gets six out of ten on the bullseye, three out of ten on the inner ring, and one out of ten on the middle ring.
After throwing his last knife, the buzzer buzzes and Genji tells him to leave. Dorian bows one last time before entering the elevator.
Alistair faces the gamemakers, "Any insights on this one?"
Vint says, "I'm intrigued by his high level of skill for someone from a non-career district. He is able to fight with his bare hands, with melee weapons, and with range weapons."
Morty says, "I think the Psis were going easy on him."
"What makes you say that?" asks Alistair.
"The Psis are better than that, in my humble opinion."
"Dorian properly displayed his skills though," Zorro debates.
Morty doubts and disagrees to this, but he knows they all have different standards and opinions, so he just lets it slide. There comes a silence, then Morty checks his notes. "He took a lot of time to think where to hit the targets for the throwing knives. His aim is good, but he's taking his time for the hits, which may be a disadvantage later on."
Nobody accepts or rejects this idea. The trainers in the basement finish cleaning the room after a while. After a little more time, Genji announces, "Ciara Graceanne Westley of District Five, please enter the room." Once the light-brown-haired girl with above average height is in, Genji plays the pre-recorded audio. It's been useful especially for Genji since he doesn't have to repeat the same words for every single tribute.
Ciara starts with the edibles station. She gets the organic ones and sorts them to two mats. She puts all the edible plants on the left side, then the inedible ones on the right.
After sorting plants, she finds the necessary materials to make a trap. She goes to the camouflage corner of the room and selects a grassy environment for the backdrop. She puts sticks together with ropes and wires, then she eventually covers it with soil, as provided to her when she asked for the material. She gets some of the organic plants and seeds from another side of the room and creatively lay out the plants for the trap, to make it look less obvious. Once she's done, she stands up and looks at it with satisfaction.
She checks the time remaining, which is at the center of the hologram showing the gamemakers. She has less than two minutes remaining, so she picks up a pouch containing shurikens, or throwing stars. Targets drop from the ceiling, but they don't move. One by one, she throws the shurikens to the targets. It hits about half of the time. She gets one bullseye and celebrates too quickly. However, she is not able to finish all the shurikens in the pouch as her time is up, hearing the buzzer ringing.
Ciara leaves the room a bit worried, having missed a lot of targets. Out of seventeen, she missed at least ten times but got one bullseye. Maybe I shouldn't have attempted the shurikens. She touches her hair and worries more. However, as the elevator doors open, she plays with her hair and smiles confidently. Arlenna sees this and worries.
Before Alistair is able to ask his usual question, Sedna shares, "I like her pitfall trap. It's very simplistic yet beautiful." Nobody has a reaction to that.
Morty says, "She kept missing with the throwing stars."
"She never had career training though, so I guess it's fair," reacts Axel.
Some gamemakers input their scores already.
Celestina adds, "I don't think I saw her going to the edibles station and trying it out in any of these training days."
"She got ninety-five percent correct," says Radon. "It's a slight mistake she just forgot, from the look of her face earlier."
About a gamemaker or two use the washroom during the break. The trainers have more to clean in the basement, due to her trap and use of organics for plant identification.
"Arlenna Winnie Scott of District Ten, please enter the room." Genji prepares the pre-recorded audio, which he plays the moment tall and long-haired thirteen-year-old enters the room.
Arlenna starts with an axe. A fast dummy is launched from one side of the room. It runs towards Arlenna with a holographic axe in hand. They spar against each other with the use of axes only. After a few minutes, the holographic axe swings through Arlenna's neck, before the dummy walks back to where it came from. Dammit.
Arlenna decides to pick another weapon. It's the most basic weapon, a knife. Another dummy approaches her with a holographic knife this time. The duel last for a few minutes again. Eventually, Arlenna got the dummy by its stomach. It collapses, and she picks another station. What can I show from the tarmac?
Arlenna does nothing for a good thirty seconds, thinking what to do next. Eventually, she requests for the conveyor belt to be turned on. It appears, and she starts jogging. After a while, some dummies join her, for her to race against them. She continues this until the buzzer sounds.
"Time is up! You may now leave the basement." Genji sips from his tea after announcing it through the mic. "She failed during the axe fight."
"We all saw that," Deck agrees. "At least she made it up with the running?"
"Speed seems to her strongest quality," responds Celestina. "We keep seeing that."
"How about the knife fight?" asks Cress. "I think it was okay."
"She got the dummy on the right spot at the right time," says Al. "She could still lose on a knife fight, however."
Sol remarks, "She's not very good with weapons, but if she can run, then she can get away from trouble."
"Do we want that for the show?" Axel asks.
"It depends," replies Sol. "The Games today isn't all about fighting."
Some gamemakers take some time to think of a score. Others input their scores quickly.
Genji says, "Lainey Sash of District Eight, please enter the room."
Not long after, the brown-haired fair-skinned girl arrives. She listens to the pre-recorded instructions audio, which she or any of the other tributes couldn't differentiate from a live announcement from the gamemaker.
Lainey starts with a pocket of regular knives. One dummy comes out from each of the four corners of the room. They walk slowly to her, so she runs to one of them and tries to stab it with a knife, but it wasn't that easy. The dummy was equipped with enough intelligence to know how to dodge her attacks. She tries to slash at it while correcting her positioning based on what she learned earlier. She misses several times until she gets to the leg. By this time, at least two other dummies are less than a meter away from her. She pushes the injured dummy to one of the approaching dummies, then she grabs another knife to fight the other approaching dummy. She quickly gets it by the throat, stabbing it eventually.
The two dummies nearby slowly approach her. She grabs the uninjured one, but it quickly escapes her. She tries again, and again, and again, until she goes for a different strategy, punching it in the stomach first before stabbing it through its back. She throws a knife to the dummy whose leg she injured. Crap. Oops. It's not a throwing knife. I forgot. The dummy receives the weapon instead of getting harmed. She quickly goes around to stab the dummy from the back.
The fourth dummy is not approaching Lainey. She runs to it with two knives in hand, but it rotates its position a bit, and she misses it completely. She tries diving into the dummy with two knives still in hand, but she keeps missing it. She then kicks the dummy from the side, knocking it off. Finally, she gets both knives to the sides of the dummy.
She realizes that she has a little amount of time left. She gets a spear, and one dummy from the corner of the room runs to her immediately with a holographic spear in hand. She spars with the dummy at the center of the room. After a few minutes, she disarms the dummy and stabs it at its stomach. Before she is able to pull out the spear and continue on other parts of the dummy, the buzzer sounds and Lainey is requested to leave.
"She's not your usual non-career tribute," says Ethyl. "I like her to be honest."
Sedna adds, "Her way of fighting is very entertaining. At least I think it would be entertaining to the audience."
"I can agree with the entertainment," Zorro starts. "However, she makes a lot of mistakes that can cost her these games."
"To add to that, she shouldn't have thrown the knife to one of the dummies," says Iota. "She knows how to use knives, not throwing knives!"
"I beg to differ, but I think she dragged the show for too long that she was not able to show us anything else," Jom adds. "I think I got bored, a little bit."
"For an outlying district tribute, she has potential and has above average skills," inputs Ylvia.
The gamemakers do their scoring and the trainers do their cleaning. Not long after, Genji announces, "Annaleigh St. Cloud of District One, please enter the room."
The career with turquoise eyes and dirty blonde hair enters the room. The pre-recorded audio is played once again, giving Annaleigh the signal to start.
She starts with a bow, before getting the bow and arrows from one of the shelves around the room. Targets drop from the ceiling. She shoots two arrows to each of the five targets. She consistently hits one arrow in each bullseye and one arrow in each inner ring. The targets are hoisted back up, but she now requests for moving targets, as she gets more arrows from the shelves. With the movements in low speed and Annaleigh staying on her position, she shoots a moving target's bullseye. She waits again without moving to shoot the next bullseye. She does this three more times, before she requests for the speed to be increased. She shoots within the inner rings this time, but gets one arrow on the middle ring.
When her arrows are finished, the targets are lifted back to the ceiling. She gets darts this time as new targets are dropped from the ceiling. She takes some time to focus on her aim properly. She remembers what the trainer told her earlier this morning regarding darts. She hits the five bullseyes once again as she maintains her focus. She requests for the targets to move, and she hits the inner rings again. This time it is consistent without any arrows on the middle rings.
Annaleigh gets more darts but notices that she only has forty-five seconds left on the clock. She tries to focus her aim for at least one of the inner rings. After that, she drops the dart gun. "May I have a score two points lower from what I am supposed to receive?"
There are too many gamemakers looking at one another, reacting questioningly to that request. Alistair responds, "We will think about it." The buzzer sounds, so she bows before leaving.
"Interesting..." says Nic. "We've had downplayers before, right Alistair?"
Alistair replies, "Yes, careers like her just don't like getting a score too high as they are afraid of being marked as a threat by their allies. Unfortunately for tributes like her, they do not know that we follow a system, so it is still your own decision if you wanna downgrade her score or not."
There's a short pause before someone is able to share an opinion.
"Did she shoot the inner rings on purpose on her second arrows? Because I find it very consistent," says Al.
"She missed it once by hitting the middle ring," Genji tells him.
Jom says, "I don't know if I'm satisfied with what she showed us, since there's a lack of variety."
"I personally dislike tributes asking us gamemakers to change their score like that or request for a particular score," says Vint. "It's not fair, and there shouldn't be any exceptions even though she's a career."
"For a career, I think she's considered decent enough, in my opinion," shares Lirlina.
Some gamemakers are okay with Annaleigh's request. Others don't plan on following it. A few plan to inflate her score to mess with the calculated final score, to spite her and her request.
"Kylie Ford of District Six, please enter the room."
The girl with tan skin and raven black hair enters the room. After the pre-recorded audio is played, Kylie runs to the knife station, or find a pocket of knives rather, which took her some time since she doesn't find it immediately. Four dummies enter the room, one from each corner. Kylie waits at the center instead of running to one of them. When all of them are close enough, she holds two knives and spins in the best way she can. It injures half of the dummies, but it also makes her a bit dizzy. As she bends down, she goes for the legs instead. She slashes a dummy's legs and then kicks another's. The dummies are still surrounding her. Their artificial intelligences are not programmed to 'kill' her after all. A fifth dummy comes from one corner of the room. This one runs to the center with a holographic knife, and Kylie notices this, so she rolls out of the mess. The four other dummies slowly move back. The newest dummy runs to Kylie and gets her by her hip. No pain is felt, but it shows her loss in the fight. Shit!
Kylie gives up on the knives and instead asks for the conveyor belt to show her speed and agility. She races against the four dummies she fought with earlier. It becomes boring to watch for the gamemakers after a few minutes. Unfortunately, two minutes are still left on the clock, and Kylie doesn't know what else she can show them without messing up like that. Even without planning on messing up, the dummies' speeds pick up, and by the time the buzzer sounds, one dummy beat her in the race. Genji hasn't said anything but she runs to the elevator and leaves in panic. She covers her face with her hands, holding back tears. I screwed up. I screwed up!
"Well, that was very uneventful," says Vint bluntly.
Toria says, "I felt my soul leaving my body a few seconds before the timer ended."
"That was terrible," says Jom. "Words can't describe my disappointment."
"At least she tried?" brings up Lian.
"Not to us gamemakers," says Nova. "She's not gonna pass whatever score she wanted at first."
"From the looks of things, I guess it wasn't that bad, but she probably just got too nervous for this," Brenda adds.
Some gamemakers think of what score they want to give before they do so. Others have set their mind during the moment of boredom.
"Ingeo Olefin of District Eight, please enter the room."
"It's a boy this time!"
"Finally!"
The pale-skinned boy enters the room and listens to the pre-recorded instructions audio. Afterwards, he looks around the room for a minute, indecisively thinking of what to show the gamemakers. In panic, he picks the edible plants instead. He sorts them between two mats. When he's done, he's still indecisive, so he goes for edible insects this time. Afterwards, he still doesn't know where to go, so he sorts edible seeds this time. When he's done, he doesn't want to sort another set of edible or inedible stuff. He reluctantly leaves his place.
He goes to the fire-making station and tries to start a fire with two rocks. Immediately after, he looks like he is giving up. I can't risk it in case it doesn't start. With that, he looks at the clock and goes for ropes instead. He requests for a dummy without artificial intelligence. He then ties up the limbs of the dummy in a very intricate manner. He starts with the legs, then he goes for the hands but doesn't finish with the sound of the buzzer.
"Time is up! You may now leave the basement."
Ingeo leaves the basement nervously. He does not know what score to expect. For now, at least it's done. He can relax at least, for now.
"The kid is indecisive," says Morty.
"He just abandoned his fire like that!?" reacts Zorro violently. "Quite unacceptable."
"For a regular district kid, I'll say he's average," says Xylev. "Better than showing us nothing or screaming at us."
"His sorts were accurate. He scored above ninety in all three sorting, and we do have a sorting machine in the tarmac," says Radon.
"True!" agrees Sol. "The ropes were okay. Even if he didn't finish tying up the dummy's hands, he still did it well enough."
The trainers finish cleaning the area right before the next tribute is called in.
"Argentum Montgomery of District One, please enter the room."
The tall, muscular, dark blonde guy enters the room with a smile fading into a smug.
"You have twelve minutes to present us anything you desire. May the odds be ever in your favor. You may start now."
Argentum starts with a flex, hoping to get the gamemakers nut over him. Well, it works for some of them at least. He first gets a spear and spars with a fast dummy. The combat does not end quickly, as Argentum blocks attacks from his opponent and vice versa. His attacks don't get through for so long, that he just dropped the spear at one point then wrestled the dummy with his bare hands and his huge body. He wrestles the struggling dummy. The trainers expect him to leave it alone and then move to the next weapon or station, but he lets the dummy struggle more before he attempts to rip its head off its body. When he realizes he can't do this, he gets both his spear and the dummy's holographic spear and then stabs them on the dummy repeatedly and alternately between the two spears. Since this is a dummy with artificial intelligence, it doesn't die. The dummy still moves, and Argentum continues to stab it. After so much time, the trainers in the control room decides to use the emergency switch for the dummy's artificial intelligence, tricking Argentum to thinking it is dead. The mutilated dummy is then left alone by Argentum.
Argentum then asks for multiple dummies to be called out and the conveyor belt to be activated. He gets a pocket of knives in the process. As he runs on the conveyor belt to show his agility, the dummies race with him. I don't like competitors though! Argentum turns around and tackles into two dummies. He stabs both dummies repeatedly, one with his left hand and one with his right. Eventually, his non-dominant hand got tired, so he dropped the other knife and focuses on stabbing one dummy with his dominant hand instead. He then chases the other two dummies he was not able to tackle, and he chases them successfully. He goes for the neck, but the buzzer puts his private session to a halt.
"Time is up! You may now leave the basement."
Argentum enters the elevator with a flex. Some gamemakers notice the dramatic closing of the elevator doors while Argentum's back is facing his audience.
"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" laughs Sol. "Oh my Snow." He wipes his tears of laughter. "That was incredible."
"It was entertaining, in the way he enters and exits, as well as the way that he is willing to torture others to put on a great show," comments Cassine.
Cress adds, "He knows how to kill and he knows how to charm for sponsors."
"For someone who was mostly lazy during the training days, this is not what I expected from him," Iota shares.
Sedna inputs, "This is an art. He had a remarkable entrance and exit. He's healthy and hot." Other gamemakers react to that comment, and Sedna winks to them. "I think he will attract sponsors and increase ratings."
"Hey guys, don't forget that this is not all the Hunger Games is all about," Morty reminds everyone else.
After the trainers have cleaned up the basement, Genji notices that they are a few seconds behind the schedule. "Dante Blackwell of District Twelve, please enter the room."
The small boy with olive skin and dark gray eyes enters the basement. After listening to the instructions which are pre-recorded, he walks around the room to find at least one wire. It doesn't take him long to build a snare. Once he's done, he is given a dummy for testing. As the gamemakers watch, the snare works! Dante can't remember the last time he had a problem building snares, so this is a piece of cake.
Unfortunately, it's too short of a show if he shows them just this. Therefore, he goes to the camouflage station and starts painting himself. He does so carefully without taking too much time. He does not want to bore the gamemakers. Perhaps a part of him wants to see the gamemakers' reactions. Currently, he should be focusing on painting himself though. He paints just one of his legs, because he also has to wash it off later, and he doesn't want to bore the gamemakers. He stays there for about fifteen seconds, giving the gamemakers enough time to look at it.
Now I don't know what to do. He gets a pocket of knives. No. He drops the pocket of knives and picks up just one of the knives in the pocket. A dummy is requested from one corner of the room. It moves slowly but it has a holographic knife with it. Dante waits for it to approach him. When it is close enough, he uses his size and goes under, cutting through the dummy's crotch. The dummy falls as a reaction. Dante raises his knife and punches it to the dummy's chest.
He checks the clock to see that he still has time. He gets a bow and a quiver of arrows. He is given five targets, but when the trainer in control realizes that he's only focusing on one, the other four targets are lifted up. Dante prepares to shoot, but he shakes. The arrow simply falls to the ground as it barely moves forward. He tries again, and it falls again. He puts his bow sideways, turning it into a pseudo-crossbow. Now, the arrow is on top of the handle of the bow. As he launches the arrow forward though, it misses the target completely. He tries again, and it misses again. He keeps trying, but nothing reaches the target.
Soon, he hears the buzzer's alarm, signaling his time being up.
"Time is up! You may now leave the basement."
Dante enters the elevator and leaves the room.
"I like the crotch attack!" says Ylvia. "It's very smart of him."
Zorro counters, "The A.I. used is a low-leveled A.I. Depending who he'll be fighting with, it may be a different situation. Although, he did make a smart move there."
Sedna says, "I like the camouflage, or painting. He's the first to do it, and he did it well."
"He's versatile," comments Al. "But he's not too versatile. He's the type of tribute with enough skills and flaws to balance out his character."
"Hey!" Genji reacts. "Make sure it's relevant."
"It is!" replies Sol.
"We all have to admit he can't use bow and arrows," says Lirlina. "If someone sponsors him that, it will be the death of him, and I'm willing to place my money on that if I could."
"Agree with that," says Ethyl. "The snare was good though."
"The snare may or may not work depending on which part of the arena he is in," inputs Vint. "He did it with ease though."
Gamemakers now use this time to score Dante while trainers use this time to clean up the basement.
"Horden Tanase of District Four, please enter the room."
As the tanned red-haired boy is called in, the audio for the instructions is played. He listens to it, then he starts his session.
He looks for the spears quickly and orders a horde of dummies all at once. Multiple dummies run to him from each of the four corners of the room. Some dummies just run to him unarmed. Others are equipped with either a knife or a spear. As if he's a god or something, he takes on multiple dummies at the same time by tricking them to think he would attack in the predictable way. Instead, he faces one direction then skewers the dummies on the opposite direction. He ducks and rolls out of the mess, skewering a few more dummies in the process. For dummies with weapons, he tries to disarm them. After some time, he can't manage it and requests for the dummies to be taken away.
He puts his spear back and then gets a trident and looks for a net instead. The net takes him a while to find, so he just requests for one from the trainers behind the scenes. He requests for ten dummies, an amount he can manage. He walks towards a corner with three dummies. His trident is in hand, but he falsely throws his net at them. Unfortunately, since the artificial intelligence doesn't let them react to surprise, the dummies continue moving forward, jabbing Horden once. He then uses his trident to skewer the first dummy's head. The other dummies are approaching though, so he intends to use his net on them. But wouldn't that be too predictable? Instead, he throws the first dummy to their direction. The other two dummies, he wraps their heads with the net, then he pushes them forward to the horde of seven standing dummies. He uses the two dummies as a shield, then he uses his trident to attack the horde with the gaps from his shield. In the end, he skewers his shield with a spear he grabs nearby. A dummy gets up from the fallen horde, so Horden takes out another spear and uses that and his trident to stab the last dummy standing.
He looks at the time and notices that he still has a little over two minutes remaining. He picks up the net he used earlier and packs a few dummies in it, whatever fits. Once he has enough on the net, he drags the dummies around with his strength, ready to toss them all in one direction. He still has a few seconds left, but he gives the gamemakers a signal to let them know he is done.
"Thank you. You may now leave the basement."
With that, Horden exits the level.
"He was probably a bit too confident at first?" asks Morty.
Cassine replies, "Probably. Maybe he didn't expect that level of difficulty."
"Mutts can come individually or as a pack," reminds Vint.
Arc shares, "His strategy is attacking in an unexpected way. He doesn't surge forward. He doesn't attack without thinking."
"Versatility-wise?" starts Jom.
"We didn't see him use range weapons," says Lian. "But that might not matter since tributes don't always need weapons to become victors."
After the trainers have cleaned up the mess at the basement, as well as the gamemakers finishing their ratings for the previous tribute, the next tribute is called in by Genji.
"Kobe Bridger of District Ten, please enter the room."
The short boy with shaggy black hair enters with a glare to the direction of the gamemakers. Some find him cute. Some find him fierce. Some find him simply unfriendly and anti-social. He hears the audio giving him instructions, but he ignores it and looks for items from the shelf. Regardless, Genji starts the timer.
Kobe starts by sorting the edible plants. He puts the edible ones on the mat on the left, then the one on the right contains the inedible plants. He mixes a few things up, and tends to switch items to the other side, to and fro. When he's sure, he leaves it and picks up a dagger.
Two dummies dash towards him from adjacent corners. He runs into one of them with a battle cry. He stabs one of them with the help of his speed, but he realizes that he accidentally cut himself in the process, albeit just slightly, so it doesn't bleed. The other dummy jabs his holographic dagger to Kobe's hip, and he pulls out the dagger from the other dummy and swings it to the back of the dummy he's currently fighting.
He throws the dagger across the room like a boomerang and proceeds to the trap-making station. He builds something with a net, a rope, and a wire. He gets a knife to help him cut the rope. He focuses on putting the rope together with the net to make the trap. He has a dummy for testing, and he realizes that the trap doesn't work. He fixes it again, but before he can continue, the buzzer signals his time to leave.
"Time is up! You may now leave the basement."
"NO! I'm not yet done!" Kobe continues to work on his trap.
Genji sighs, then turns on the mic. "Trainers, kindly take the child to higher ground. Give him new toys, or make sure he plays outside under the sun. Thanks."
"NO! You can't make me! I said I'm NOT YET DONE! WHAT FUCKING PART OF THAT DO YOU NOT UNDERSTAND!?"
Sooner than later, five trainers surround Kobe. Vilnius Heilong ties Kobe's feet while Ivory Tower ties his hands.
"HEY! HEY! YOU CAN'T JUST DO THAT!" He struggles as the trainers also struggle in tying him up, but there were more of them. "I SAID I'M NOT YET DONE! LET ME OUT!"
"We are letting you out," says Lorelei Anderside. "You can't stay here."
"THAT'S NOT WHAT I FUCKING MEANT! LET ME GO! LET ME FUCKING GO! I SAID LET ME GO YOU FUCKTARDS!"
As a Psi twin presses the elevator button, the other Psi twin holds the elevator doors. Lorelei, Vilnius, and Ivory carry the tied up Kobe out of the basement.
"FUCK YOU ALL! FUCK YOU! YOU HAVE NO FUCKING RESPECT-" are his last words heard by the gamemakers, as the elevator doors have closed.
"That was lit!" snorts Toria, followed by laughter.
Axel says, "Honestly, he will help boost the ratings depending on the audience. Tributes like him give very mixed opinions, mixed views, mixed ratings."
"He's quite the wild boy," says Cassine.
Lirlina replies, "I wanna see him in a jungle AU."
"The dagger part wasn't bad," comments Al.
"The time extension might be a red flag though?" Iota wonders.
Niccolo ends, "Really, his score won't matter to the audience. He has a bad reputation ever since his reaping, and nobody can change that anymore."
Some gamemakers take a washroom break. Others are still deciding on Kobe's score.
"Gamemakers, we are halfway through with the private sessions!" Alistair announces. "Hope you are all doing well. If you need caffeine, we have coffee and tea in the pantry. Just a gentle reminder in case you're sleepy."
The gamemakers still do not know the final scores of the twelve tributes so far. They have twelve more to go before they'll be allowed to view the official scores of all the tributes.