Ho-ly COW! I'm so sorry for this long break! I've been really busy! 'Bout to graduate college and all!
I don't know how many of you know what about the way I publish these, but for those who know nothing: I basically have everything I'm planning to publish written before I publish the first chapter. That way between chapters I only ned to make small chapters and proofread. It gives me a good amount of time to kind of forget exactly what the words are so I read what I see as opposed to what I think I remember writing, which results in (while still imperfect) better proofreading.
I say that because this chapter is entirely new. I wrote it from scratch and it's taken forever because I've got school and applying for jobs and everything so I'm very sorry its taken so long but for you wait you get what I think is literally the longest chapter I've ever posted. Seriously this is well over 4,000 words and is the promised Peacekeeper ad/get-to-know-the-squad chapter. I don't want to spoil anything here so enjoy and let me know what you think!

Chapter 35: The Advertisement

Cato and I get a big shock the next Saturday when we get within sight of the stronghold. It's not the higher concentration of Peacekeepers or the more urgent movement around us that makes us nervous, but the clearly Capitol hovercraft docked ––docked? landed? perched? What word do you use with planes? –– on the pad up high on the outside of the mountain. We're not the only ones who've noticed it. The Peacekeeper trainees keep the talk to a minimum and make sure it doesn't happen within earshot of the trainers, but everyone wonders aloud what it could be. Could there actually be repercussions all the way from the Capitol for the last out-of-District training excursion?

"They send twenty-four of us into a live heavily publicized deathtrap every ear," Cato says when I voice that last question. We're sitting side-by-side in the locker room pulling on our shoes for the morning session. "I don't think they care if we kill each other. They're not going to punish the trainers and Tomas isn't around anymore, anyway." He stands, takes his water bottle off the bench and says, "I think this is something else." That doesn't ease the tension, though. These Capitol people make me uneasy and it's even worse if I don't have a working theory that explains their presence here. Cato sees my displeasure at having my guess debunked and not replaced with something more plausible. "I'm sure it's fine," he says, picking up my water bottle as I get to my feet. "Whatever it is, it can't have anything to do with us. We've done nothing wrong." He holds the bottle out to me and I take it, silently grateful for the extra second he holds onto it, offering me a little reassurance.

Just the trainers are in the gym for warm ups, but once we start working with weapons and obstacles, a group of about two dozen is led in by Lyme. They're all obviously Capitol residents and they attract a certain amount of attention from the trainees who don't know how to control themselves. I glance at them occasionally though, too. This is as close to someone born and raised in wealth in the Capitol as I've ever been. Sometimes people from there train here for a time as Peacekeepers, but they don't look like these people. Their hair is usually shaved off, their clothes of better quality but equal simplicity with mine. They don't look Capitol at all, except that some of them are fat and/or tattooed. But these people are dressed so strangely, so whimsically, that I wonder what on earth they were thinking when they got up this morning. Did they not know they were coming to 2? Mountainous, rocky 2. Why are all the women and half the men in shoes that have long thin spikes under the heel? Someone's going to end up with a busted ankle by the end of the day. And that can't possibly be their real hair. It's all set so elaborately and stays so perfectly. Some have tattoos, but the weirder thing is the people whose whole bodies seem to be dyed. One man is yellow and has black spots either painted or tattooed on his skin. I think he's meant to look like a leopard or a jaguar or a cheetah. I can never keep all those cats straight. Caleb would know. And there's one pink woman whose mostly snow white hair is accented with a darker pink, who has a little silver gem in her cheek. They don't even seem real to me, but Lyme talks to them like they are so I guess they must be.

The 112-3-3 finds out privately at lunch what the Capitol people are here for. The hovercraft carried a squad of guards and a film crew. The crew is made up of those two dozen colorful people I saw earlier. They want to film a kind of advertisement for the Peacekeepers, designed to try to get people to volunteer for the service. We are to be the example Peacekeepers. Brutus reminds the group of us that we're not to mention the Games. Everyone knows tributes come from Peacekeeper training, but we shouldn't talk about it anyway. It is, after all, technically illegal.

For the rest of the day we're each tailed by a crew member and cameraman who film us going through the afternoon training. It's strange being filmed. I'm worried sometimes while I'm moving around that I'm going to knock into their equipment, but I never do. And while the cameras are filming the trainers are kinder to us. More constructive than critical, never showing impatience or berating incompetence. I suppose that would turn Capitol people away from volunteering. So they'll lie a little in the advertisement. By the time a volunteer figures it out, it'll be too late.

At dinner the 112-3-3 sits together again and I find out from the others that some of them have had private interviews and one boy, Marten, had to read off a script. He says it was weird and that they kept telling him not to look directly into the camera and to speak slower.

"Because you talk like a monster from 2," I say. "Have you ever heard those people from the Capitol talk?"

"Like, ehmaigawd, yes, I tawdaly havuh? Their accentss are hularyus?" says Thing 1 in a perfect imitation of a Capitol accent that gets us all to laugh. Thing 2 ends up with milk coming out her nose and smacks Thing 1 on the arm as she holds a napkin to her face.

"Dehr Capitol citizensuh," says Marten "Like the Peacekeepersuh are sssso great? Yehw should all tawdaly, like, join themuh, or like whateveruh." It's even better in his voice because it's much lower than hers and for some reason sounds way out of place.

"What are you idiots laughing about?" asks Em, our specialist, sitting down on Thing 2's other side.

"Like, our tawdaly benevolent Capitoluh," Worm tried to get out of actual duty by passing the tests Caleb passed in his sleep, but couldn't do it. As a result, he uses big long words sometimes when they aren't necessary. His accent isn't as good as Shaeyn's or Thing 1's because he slips out of character on the word benevolent. Em gives him a look that says he has no words for that.

"Ehmaigawd, Wehrm, like, shut upuh," says Thing 1.

Worm rolls his eyes at her, which is actually the perfect Capitol-ish reaction, but I'm with Em when he says, "You guys are much more annoying than the actual Capitol people," and leaves our table.

After dinner, Brutus announces, they're going to film us sparring and then they want us to fire a couple of blank shots each, maybe in pairs or something. Apparently he's a little confused, which is funny because he's been around cameras since he won the games twenty-some years ago. We have to stop imitating the accents then, finally, because we don't want to offend the crew.

They've got lights and pads set up in one of the larger rooms off the actual training center so we'll shoot the sparring first, then go outside and shoot some blanks. So Brutus was right. They set me up with Things 1 and 2 for sparring. "We need something you three will be able to remember because we'll need you to repeat the exercise probably at least three times, but something that looks flashy, you know, shows off what you can do. We'll give you a few minutes now to figure it out."

They look at me for instructions and it's quickly decided that the two of them will fight me. They know neither of them is good enough to take on me and the other Thing together. When we were first learning to fight, they had us learn moves in sequence and with very little contact. When we got better, we could go a little faster and hit a little harder until we got to the point where we can defend ourselves by muscle memory, leaving our brains free to pick them apart, find a weakness and exploit it. This all makes choreographing a fake fight easy. The sequences were numbered and the numbers were drilled into us so I mix some up and assign them according to which Thing can do best. We run it once for the crew and they like it. They position their cameras in such a way that they won't film each other, but will get our match from three angles. We run it once that way, then they shift the cameras and we do it again. Then they have us break it up while one of their guys carries a camera and stands much to close to us. I flip Thing 2 over my shoulder at one point and I warn the guy that I'm not watching where he is in relation to my partner so it's his job to stay out of the way. "Oh, of course!" He says cheerily. "This isn't my first time, you know!" May the odds be ever in favor of you not getting kicked in the face, my friend.

It's annoying being stopped every six seconds to change angles and adjust lighting, but we do it and after a good hour, they tell us they have everything they need. Thing 1 and Thing 2 go off immediately, but I hang around because I need to talk to Lyme.

She puts a hand on my shoulder and walks with me out of the room where the crew is packing up their things. "Anything you need to say to me out of earshot of those two should also wait until these guys are gone," she mutters.

"Cato and I are the only two of the group of us in the accelerated program," I hiss back, ignoring her. This needs to be said now. "Won't people remember us when we're in the arena?"

"Maybe. This crew probably will. What's it to you?"

"We're not supposed to train," I say, spinning around to look at her.

"Everybody knows you do though," she points out.

"Right, but to show two to-be-victors training as Peacekeepers, isn't that throwing Peacekeeper training in their faces?"

"You won't be the centers of the video. You'll be in it, but Marten did the narration and Scarlet and Valerie were the ones we told them to interview. Those three are better looking than you and Cato anyway so it worked out well for all of us. They'll probably see your stature when you're sparring and your eyes when you're shooting, but you'll be in full Peacekeeper gear so that's all. They know we make these videos periodically and we've spread the rumor in the Capitol that they might possible feature a future tribute, but they'll expect it to be one of the girls or Marten. At most you'll seem vaguely familiar to the smartest and most observant of the Capitol. If they figure it out, you'll be well into the arena already, but they'll have footage of you shooting and throwing and winning a sparring match and it'll only shorten the odds on you. Same goes for Cato."

That all seems confusing, but Lyme's trained at least three victors so I guess I'm best off trusting her. They have us change from sparring clothes to full Peacekeeper gear, bulletproof vests, helmets, jackets, boots, gloves and all, and then we drive a little way past the border of the District. The Capitol people are stumbling in their shoes and shaking from fear of the wild animals they think are probably stalking us. To be polite to our guests, Lyme pairs us all up with two of them. I end up with the girl with the spiky pink hair and a man who has dyed his whole body purple. She's in heels, but he's not so I tell her to take my arm and him to walk on my other side. There are animals out here, but they won't want to come near us with all our noise and lights so there's nothing to be afraid of. Not to mention the fact that I'm carrying a loaded gun that will scare or kill anything I aim it at. The woman's nails are two inches long and painted so brightly that I can still see the color even in the fading sunlight.

They've had a couple of Capitol people out here with a squad of Peacekeepers for some time, picking just the right spot and setting up lighting and who knows what else. "Thank you," says the pink lady when we've crossed the hundred yard distance between the truck and the film site. They've put down mats for us to stand on, but covered them with leaves and things so only the edges are really visible.

We stand in a straight line while they give us instructions. Each of us will fire a few shots while they take stills and/or short clips of us. Then they'll do a wider shots of us in pairs, then wider in small groups and finally the last shot they need will be of each of us in the group group firing one fake bullet one right after another in time. After the last person they want one perfectly synchronized shot fired by the whole group. I think that all sounds staged and tedious and it definitely is. When we're not firing/being filmed we're just standing around holding our fake-loaded guns. Everything under the uniform is too hot and everything exposed, too cold. It takes forever for them to get all their material, even though there's a huge group of them. Some of it is due to them being picky and some due to the fact that our fellow squad members have no sense of rhythm. Cato and I do well when it's our turn. Lyme and Brutus pair us up casually, but I have a feeling they've done it either because they want to get out of here and know we can play music together so firing guns should be much easier, or because they do want at least one shot of their two victors-to-be together.

The last shot is the longest and most agitating. It should be no different than training floor exercises. You have to keep a beat in your head for those, too, or you get clobbered, but somehow Brutus's threats that he will personally beat the hell out of the next person to screw up isn't enough for people. It goes better when we go slow, but people get lulled into that tempo and there are awkward breaks between shots when we try to speed up.

It's after dark when we finally finish. They have to bring special lights to even be able to see us because out here beyond the District border everything truly becomes pitch black at night without them. Scarlet and Valerie, the other two girls, are beginning to look tired of holding the guns for this long. Ironically everyone seems to become sharper once they realize how tired they are and we get four good rounds in succession. With all the rest of the footage they decide to call it a night. I guess they'll adjust the lighting for continuity later. They'll have to because these big white lights look nothing like twilight.

We take whatever fake bullets are still in the guns and return them to the case, then place the guns themselves back on the racks and double back to help the Capitol people with their equipment. Actually we do most of the work because they're already going over footage. They have to put the cameras away though when it's time to return to the trucks because they need to walk over the uneven ground again. We pair up again and get them safely to the cars. A man with shiny silver hair (eyebrows and lashes included) and what looks like silver inlay tattoos praises me when I pull the door open for him. "You'd never know by your Tributes, but I'm always so impressed by the courtesy and manners shown here!"

I don't know what to say to that. I feel like I should defend my Tributes. They're vicious because they have to be. That's how they win. And who is he to judge, really? It's his people who organize the Games every year, and they're the reason for all the brutality he's referring to. Weirdly, I find myself wishing Brutus were near enough to have heard that because I could take my cue on how to react from him. He was, after all, once a Tribute himself and has no reason to be nice to this silver man, but he's with Lyme and the person I take to be the director of this production so I'm on my own. I want to be witty. No. What I really want is to dig back at him, but I know I should play nice with these people. "Well, as a potential future District 2 Tribute myself, I have every reason to be polite to a potential sponsor, don't I?" I say smiling a little mischievously at him.

"From your exhibitions today you don't need to be polite to me. I'll bet on you if you're ever in the arena."

"Good to know," I answer, offering him a hand up into the car. He takes it, climbs up and I close the door.

The Capitol people got several cars, but we have to cram ourselves into the back of one truck to be driven back to the stronghold. Brutus tells Valerie, Scarlet, Marten, and Blaise that he can give them a lift back as far as the gate of the Victor's Village since they live around there, but Cato and I and the rest, Cato and I, Worm, Tel, Kai, and Phillip are on our own to get home. Worm and Phillip head north from the stronghold, but Tel and Kai come with us for a time. I haven't had a whole lot to do with any of those four, no more than what's been necessary as members of the same squad. From what I can tell though, Philip should have been born int he Capitol he's so obsessed with quoting anything and everything that ever comes out of that city, including but not limited to everything President Snow has ever said, the Treaty of Treason, random snippets of the Games (things said by the officials or the players) the Promise of the Peacekeepers, news reports and from what I can tell, silly television shows. He and Marten are pretty close, although around all that Capitol talk I don't know how they've actually managed to create human connection.

Kai and Tel are smaller even than me, but are really good at what they do. They're our snipers and could put a bullet in a coin from half a mile away even on a windy day. Cato and I and Kai and Tel were one of the small groups they filmed tonight and we were the best of those. I think they know each other from outside training, at least they seem to. They're quiet around the rest of us, but seem to enjoy each others' company.

"So," says Kai just as we get out of the main town, "What'd you think of today?"

"The filming process, or the people?" I ask.

"Oh, I think we can all agree that process was the worst, and that's including the process to condition your knuckles for impact," Tel answers, looking at the back of his hand and flexing his fingers.

"I'd argue that's not the worst process in training," says Cato and I know he's remembering the initiating fight of training.

"Well you've got bigger hands than him or me, but I see what you mean," Kai answers. "But I was talking about those Capitol people."

"I've never seen anything like them," Tel says after a moment's pause. "Sure, when they do mandatory screenings in the square, but it's different being that close to them. When I guided that woman from the car to the mats I couldn't believe how real her hand felt on my arm."

"Did either of you think they were here to tell the trainers off for taking us outside the District?" Kai asks Cato and me.

"Not for taking us outside, no," Cato answers. I glare at him, trying to tell him to shut up, but if he understands, it's too late.

"So you do have some idea of what happened outside?" Tel exclaims.

There's a long awkward break. I think Cato doesn't want to open his mouth again, either for fear of saying too much, or for fear he'll throw up. The memory of last Saturday is still very fresh. Kai and Tel wait excitedly. Finally, I speak. "Yes. But neither of us wants to talk about it." I could tell them it was bad, or that we've been forbidden to speak of it, but again, that might be too much information. And I think they know Cato and I don't exactly adhere to the rules. The fact that I'm not going to tell them has to come from me. It's got to appear my conscious decision, not something I'm doing because I have to.

"It was bad?" Kai asks.

"No, they found a rare species of butterfly and didn't want someone to step on it," I say seriously. "But don't tell anyone. They've got a pair in the stronghold and they're trying to breed them. They want to make them our new District sigil."

"Which is obviously code for 'Piss off. We're not saying any more'," Tel says. I nod. They look at each other. "Does it ever get to you guys, the kind of stuff they're training us to do?" he asks quietly.

I shake my head and lie easily. "No. I volunteered for this. I want them to make me a Victor so I learn what they tell me to learn." That shuts Tel up. Maybe he thinks he's just talked himself into trouble with some fairly well connected Capitol loving brute. Good. He should be more careful.

"So where are you guys headed to?" Cato asks, breaking the silence that fell after my fake almost-threat.

"The cave town," answers Kai.

"I've always wondered what it'd be like to live in a cave town," I say, trying to get the conversation back to a less ominous place.

"They're always colder than any other town. The caves are," Kai tells me. "Stone doesn't hold heat and unless the entrance faces the sun they're always in shadow which only makes them colder. It's nice in summer, but less so in winter."

We make small talk until we reach the road where they have to leave us. Their walk is still longer, but they leave the main road before us. "See you Monday," Kai says. Before he gets out of arm's reach, I take hold of Tel's sleeve. He stops and so does Kai and I can tell that even though we've made pleasant conversation thus far, even though we're part of the same squad and even though Cato and I would take them apart, they're ready to fight if I am. To combat that, I keep my posture relaxed as I turn and hold my hand out to Tel to shake. I don't know how I know, but somehow I see in his eyes that he wants to look at Kai. He wants a signal from his real friend as to how he should react, but he knows it would be rude to look away from me. "You ever played Two Lies and a Truth?" I ask quietly.

"It's usually Two Truths and a Lie, isn't it?" I shake my head a fraction of an inch to either side and watch him understand what I mean. I told him we know what happened. I said the thing about the butterfly. And I told him I learn what they tell me to without question. Two of those are lies, one is a truth. He can figure it out himself. After a moment he shakes my hand, and says, "See you Monday."

The advertisement airs on Monday. We see it in the morning at school. It is, after all, an advertisement for District 2 kids as well. Kai and Tel go to school with Cato, Caleb and I, but the others go somewhere else so it doesn't cause too much of a stir because we're barely recognizable. Marten's voice narrates and there are clips of interviews with both Thing 1 and Thing 2 and I bet their schools get excited when they come on the screen, but our school reacts only with the appropriate enthusiasm at the end, and gets to its feet only when the anthem begins to play. Sometimes I forget how different the children of the rich and privileged and the descendants of the District 2 rebels react to things. Valerie, Scarlet and Marten go to school with Victor's kids and upper class merchants or Peacekeepers who served long and well. The differences between them and us are only really thrown into the light in situations like this, and these are few enough.

Disclaimer: Don't own the characters of the world. Just the story comes from my head.

AN: Hope you enjoyed this. I tried to give you at least a little characterization of every character either with a direct description of them, or a conversation or just the implication. There's not much about Blaise, but if he goes home in the car with Brutus & Co. we can gather he's pretty loaded, and as he's in the squad that does the advertisement, I'd assume he's pretty good looking. He's a sneaky snake though, which you don't find out until the end of the Alternate Ending and that's all I'm going to say about Blaise for now. :P

I think the chapter kind of moves around a bit between tense, amusing, tedious, serious, touching and then sort of has Clove try to look at the world they live it from a slightly larger lens and I hope that if that's seems jarring, it's jarring in a good way.

One note about the last paragraph: I just want to remind you to take some of Clove's speculations with a grain of salt. She's not always right about the way she thinks about other people, in particular the children/descendants of Victors. She kind of assumes they'd be really pro-Capitol, without realizing that as she's gotten closer and closer to her Games, she's become less and less pro-Capitol. I'm just thinking about this now but she's definitely an anomaly. She starts off as a daughter of a couple of rebel descendants, meaning she should be suuuuper anti-Capitol, anti-Games, but she's not. She's too young when she starts to be engaged politically, but still. She's sort of too naive to get that the Capitol is awful and just follows the path that looks like it'll yield the most reward. But as she gets closer to a couple of the Victors, closer to her Games, and closer to victory itself, she begins to see that this whole thing is kind of messed up. She gets it and disagrees with it, but not so strongly that she's going to give up her place in training. But even though she's having these thoughts, she maintains that Victors must be pro-Capitol, like something happens between training and Victory that would turn them pro-Capitol again. Well, Clove, yes there is something in between those things. It's called the Hunger Games and it's miserable and no way does it turn anybody toward the people who lock them in the death arena. Nor do the kids who grew up with people who lived through that end up liking the people who tortured their parents.. She sort of gets stuck in her thinking and it takes a lot to move her out. Ok, so that was my very long note. If you read all the way through, I hope you're not confused and sorry if you are.

to my lovely reviewers:

Ghanaperu: I'm glad you see the lessons in these violent chapters. I think I said this in the last AN (but I don't remember because it was THREE FREAKING MONTHS AGO!) but I don't want it to seem arbitrary. You can trace her personality in the arena backward through this story and see exactly why she changed the way she did and how she became the District 2 Tribute we say in THG. At least that's the goal and I'm glad you see it.

Clove1113: I know. Tomas is the sweetest and the best ever, but they couldn't let him go. For all they knew he'd just snapped and was still armed and dangerous. It's not like Cato or Clove told them any different. Again, major guilt for both of them there. It's just a really sad situation for everyone involved. Except Paul, I guess, but he's crazy. Somehow I write those really graphically violent scenes like super calmly and then go back and re-read them like "Oh, man. That's brutal," so I totally feel you.

Thanks to Ghanaperu for making sure I edit things properly. Wouldn't want to not make any sense at all :)