I think I'm halfway there...

Looks like reviews are broken again. So if anyone has been putting suggestions or stuff in there and I've been ignoring it that's why.

Undine Riverhood- District Four female

It was a normal bunch of Careers this year. Last time I went in with a bunch of criminals and lowlifes. To be fair, there were still plenty of lowlife Careers. That was what I was searching for as I went through the old tapes.

There wasn't much interesting in most of the Games. Most of the really psycho Careers got weeded out because the Academy didn't want killers, they wanted Victors. As I watched, I also kept notes on the Arenas and muttations. They'd progressed a lot since I last went in.

The candyland Arena was pretty cool. I hoped I got an Arena like that. No particularly noteworthy Careers, but I loved how whimsical and fun the Arena was. I didn't care for Blake, but she was a winner, so I couldn't target her.

I thought of myself as a nice person. I wasn't out to kill random people. People who knew me tended to describe me as "bubbly", not "homicidal". But justice was justice and I wasn't going to let people stay in this world who didn't deserve it. I could look past jaywalking or cheating on taxes, but rapists and murderers were out. Not murderers of murderers, though. That was just indirect justice. I couldn't get behind raping rapists, though. I preferred murder. Or castration.

After looking over all the tapes, the only one I really wanted to see dead was Beth. The rest were Careers in one shade or another. Beth was the only one that came solely for the feel of killing people. Luckily for me, she was also the easiest target.

Roderick Caspitian- District One male

"So you want to join our alliance?" Karen asked.

"Yes," I said.

"After you betrayed your last alliance," Karen continued.

I held up my hands. "Okay…" I started. "So no one's going to trust me. Perfect! Everyone knows not to trust anyone anyway. This will make it impossible for me to make any sub-alliances. I'll be the low man on the totem pole. The first one to get sacrificed. Everyone else can know there's one person that will be the first to get thrown under the bus."

The allies looked at each other.

"Well, we know he's desperate," Undine said.

"Which implies he's not strong enough on his own," Karen said.

"Which implies he's weak," Stormy said.

"I don't know," Undine said. She looked at me with distaste, like she had passed judgement and found me wanting.

"We need more people," Stormy said.

The old me wouldn't have stood by while people argued over whether he was worthy. But the new me didn't have much to bargain with. And when they let me in, I couldn't say they'd gotten the better end of the deal.

Karen Angenellis- District Two female

I wished we could talk about something else. We were all discussing our previous Games and how we were going to improve. I would rather have left it behind me.

"This time I'm just trying to stay out of trouble," Undine said. "I'm not going to pick many fights."

"I've started learning fire-making and shelter-building. I'm probably not going to get trusted with gathering or making food so I'll go with what I can," Roderick said.

"We should probably all pick a survival skill and learn it. Or learn all of them. We won't have allies forever," Stormy said.

"Yeah, really. Alliances always want complementary skills but that doesn't really work with Careers," Roderick said.

"This is going to sound so babyish, but I'm going to work on expressing myself," Stormy said. "I always tried to be so strong and bottle everything up. You have to let things out or they just explode. It's more self-controlled to let them out correctly."

"What about you?" Roderick asked me.

"I dunno. Try not to be so unlucky?" I said.

"You're not going to get any better if you don't admit your faults," Stormy said bluntly.

"I don't have-" I stopped before I said something totally stupid. I had to admit I wasn't perfect. Better than they were giving me credit for, but not perfect. Insisting otherwise would just make me look like an annoying little kid.

"I'm going to be more aware of everyone else during the Bloodbath," I said. "Focus less on getting the weapons and more on staying safe."

"Smart," Roderick said, and he smiled. "Maybe we can try to advance on the Bloodbath in a sort of wedge formation. No one will be caught by surprise."

We started to discuss. It wasn't as embarrassing as I'd thought. They didn't all jump on me and start saying how bad I did. I was just one of the team. Even if I was fourteen.

Stormy Gilmore- District Four female

I put a hand to my head and winced.

"You all right?" Roderick asked.

"I've been getting these headaches ever since I came back," I said. "I probably need to hydrate."

I could see the wheels turning in my allies' heads. They were thinking it was something to do with the cloning process- that something was wrong with my brain. That wasn't it. I wasn't even having headaches at all. I just wanted them to think I did. Same reason I went to training stations I wasn't familiar with and did a bad job. They all thought my skills were mediocre and as a bonus I got to learn some new stuff.

"It's pretty cool you got picked so young," I said while I was practicing some mace techniques at the same station with her.

"Eh, thin year, I guess," she said with false modesty.

"People must underestimate you all the time," I said. "I know I saw Roderick sizing you up when he first joined."

"Reall?" she put down her mace and turned to me. "Has he said anything?"

"Just your normal stuff about Careers who should have trained longer," I said. Really Roderick hadn't said anything, but that didn't serve my interests.

Karen scowled. "What does he know? He's just a backstabber."

"I don't think you have anything to worry about. We're not going to fall for that," I said.

"Damn right. I'm not even worried," Karen said.

"Good," I said. Glad to hear it."