Introductions V: Trust

The Art of War

District11-Olive

Seren Velez, District 4 Tactician

Seren squeezed her sister's hand once more before slipping through her fingertips. Her legs were cramped from the hours of sitting on the parlour's wooden bench. If she never had to see the funeral home again, it would still be too soon.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

The kind apology had been whispered more times than Seren could have counted in past days. She'd begun to hate the sound of the voices, so many of whom she didn't even recognize. Did anyone truly believe that there were any words that could console her? It felt like an insult to her parents' memory to have them brushed away with such a generic phrase.

She knew that she shouldn't leave her siblings, but Seren just needed to get away. She needed a place to breathe because the tiny room had begun to feel so suffocating. It had been hours of staring at the plain wooden coffins at the front of the room. She wanted nothing more than to run to it and cry against her parents like she had as a child. Seren couldn't even do that; she needed to be strong for her siblings.

They'd held it together so far with only the odd sob between them. Seren had to make it to the end, but to do that she just needed a moment to herself. She couldn't stand the thought of crying in front of them.

Seren slid down the outside wall of the funeral home. Her head throbbed with the start of a migraine, but it felt good to breathe in some fresh air.

"How come you're out here?"

Seren quickly blinked the tears from her eyes and looked up at her grandmother. The woman's eyes were red with the tears that flowed freely down her wrinkled cheeks. Seren didn't waste a moment getting back up and giving her a tight hug. Immediately, her grandmother sunk into her shoulder. Somehow, to Seren, she felt even more frail than this morning.

"Let's go back in," Seren whispered. Her grandmother trembled as they walked back through the doors, and her hands clung to Seren for support.

Seren forced the tears to bury themselves back under her eyes. It didn't matter that she still couldn't breathe through the fresh paint of the parlour. Seren had to be strong for all of them.

As the sun disappeared beyond the waterline, it took all the warmth from the fall air along with it. Seren stood alongside the other trainees, all of them stripped down to their swimsuits following the assignment ceremony. It came as no surprise to Seren that she had been chosen to specialize as a tactician. However, she was very surprised by how cold the water felt as it splashed against her shins.

Seren didn't know what to expect. She only knew what she had been told, two names that she now stood beside and a location to meet them. Everything else had been summed up the few words shouted at the group by a senior trainee.

"This is your first team, better not lose them!"

Seren's wide eyes locked with Perrine's, but it was Rowley that took each of the girls' hands and dragged them towards the water. He seemed to know exactly what to do. One glance at the other teams told Seren that some of them knew as well.

"What's happening?" Seren shouted.

"There!" Rowley replied, pointing a finger out to where a dozen buoys bounced in the waves.

"How do you know?" Perrine asked before Seren got the chance.

Rowley threw them both a cheeky smile over his shoulder as they ran. "An operative always knows."

Something to do with his assignment then. Seren hated the fact that he knew what their task was when she was so completely in the dark. At this point, however, she had no choice. She had to follow him even though the thought made her nose wrinkle.

The buoys were further out than they looked, and the waves crashed against Seren as she tried to follow Rowley. By the time they were most of the way there, she'd coughed out more water than she thought possible. Seren reached out to slow Rowley down, but her hand only grabbed at air as his head dipped under.

When he finally resurfaced, Seren didn't think she'd ever been so relieved. "A bit further!"

Seren wasn't sure if she saw the others nod, but it didn't matter.

"What do we do now?" Perrine's hand was the first to find the buoy.

"It's underneath," Rowley choked out. It was hard to hear him through the water in her ears.

Seren kept her eyes on the waves where Perrine had been and counted the seconds as they trailed by. She wasn't sure what she would do if too much time passed. As her teammate's head surfaced, Seren was thankful that she didn't have to find out.

The swim back to shore was a dozen times worse as the waves worked against Seren's every stroke. Each breath brought in more salt than air and she had to grab Rowley's hand to pull him back to them more times than she could count. Seren could hear the others shouting, some from ahead of her but most from behind. By the time her feet touched sand again, her entire body is trembling with fatigue and frost.

Seren fought to catch her breath as her team collapsed against the beach. None of them even noticed the two seniors until they were already staring down at them. They might have only been six years older than Seren, but the confidence in their glares made her feel like a child.

"Well?" The girl asked. Seren nudged Perrine, who seemed about as starstruck as she had been seconds before. When Perrine unhooked the mesh bag from her swim belt, the trainee's faces softened almost immediately. Perrine tried to offer it to them, but they only shook their heads.

"Consider these your graduation presents," the girl told them. Seren's gaze moved down to the bag, which held three bronze pins with the Academy crest at their centers. "Welcome to the ranks."

"Oh, and nice job, freshies," the older boy laughed as they stepped away, leaving Seren to pass the gift excitedly between her fingertips. "Hope you enjoyed your swim."

Her old school felt dimmer each time Seren stepped foot inside the greyed hallways. It was a decent walk away from the Academy, in a part of the district that very few of the trainees had ever walked through. To Seren, however, it was as much a part of her as the spotless training centre.

Seren looked over at Perri, who didn't so much as bat an eye at the dingy floors or dusted windows. Most of the trainees came from wealth that Seren could only imagine. She wasn't sure what to make of the fact that her first and, so far, only artillery teammate came from the same half-class world. Someone else might have said it was fate. Too bad Seren didn't believe in that kind of stuff.

Either way, it was nice having someone to walk home with after training. Even after four years of wearing the Academy uniform, Seren still hadn't fully gotten used to the stares.

"Be nice if people could mind their business," Perri said softly. Seren didn't have to look up to see the sideways smile in her words.

"Be nice if you knew how to whisper," Seren retorted.

Perri snorted beside her and Seren rolled her eyes. This was the way things had been since they met on the beach almost four years ago. They knew how to get things done even over the arguments and it wasn't often that they lost. That was why most of the other teams changed so often with time while Perri and Seren stayed constant.

The two girls had been competitive with each other since the beginning. Perri pushed Seren to be better with just the pull of her lip and she did the same for her friend. Perri might have been a complete pain in the ass sometimes, but Seren wouldn't want anyone else.

Perrine 'Perri' Figueroa, District 4 Artillery

Perri's fingers trembled against the shallow ledge, but the shouting from her classmates kept her grip from slipping. She could have glanced up at the clock to see how long they've been up here, but that wouldn't change her situation. The rules of the one-on-one were simple and Perri wasn't going to lose.

It had started with a joke, or at least that's what Perri thought in hindsight. Melinoe had bragged about her achievement on last week's evaluations, throwing a wink at Perri that made her blood boil. She'd worked harder getting ready for it than anyone else in her year; Melinoe had to know that but Perri was happy to remind her. If she'd known an instructor was watching, Perri might have been more inclined to keep her mouth shut.

One-on-ones were a staple in the Academy; the way to solve any argument no matter how minor. They've always looked unpleasant, two students forced to duke it out in a sim room against whatever punishment the instructor selected. Until today, Perri had never been involved in one; unpleasant didn't even begin to describe it.

"Getting difficult?" Instructor Haliston called up to the girls. "May as well quit now if you can't hang."

Perri knew not to look down. She'd already made that mistake once. The ledge of the building might have been fabricated, but the fall awaiting her if she happened to slip was very real.

Besides, Perri didn't want to drop first. Losing in a one-on-one was the same thing as admitting that she was wrong, and Perri wasn't prepared to do that. Especially not to Melinoe.

"I can stay here forever," She ignored Melinoe and focused on her task. This wasn't up to anyone but Perri to decide. She would hold on as long as she needed to. Perri would prove that she could win without the half-baked trash talk.

Perri wanted to adjust her grip so badly, but the sweat on her palms warned her not to even try. Melione wasn't quite so knowing. The second the other girl's fingers moved up to grip more of the ledge, the moisture forced her towards the ground. Perri couldn't stop herself from shivering as she watched, still too afraid to let go herself.

A net materialized beneath Melinoe a few feet from the floor. The uncertain silence of the room erupted into cheers, all of them for Perri. She smiled to herself, but she knew her grip wasn't going to last very much longer. Perri cried out for Melinoe to move, but she was already falling.

Perri gasped as her body crashed into Melinoe's, sending both of them to opposite end of the net. Perri, the smaller of the two, tumbled over the edge. Pain ran across her wrist and by the time she looked down, all she could see was blood.

"Good job."

Instructor Haliston was standing over Perri as she clutched her injury. He lifted her hand away and inspected the cut, which steadily oozed with dark blood. Tears stung at Perri's eyes, but she didn't know what to say. She'd never gotten hurt like this at training before.

"That'll leave a nice scar," he shrugged eventually. "You're excused from the lesson, go see the nurse."

Perri rubbed her sore wrists as the simulation dissolved around them. The other team's artillery got up stiffly from the ground, where his harness had kept him pinned since his 'death'. It had been a pretty standard operation, intelligence capture from the opposite base that Perri's team had seen a few times before. They'd won pretty easily, not that anyone was particularly surprised.

Ivara walked softly from the other side of the room, joining her and Seren as Instructor Haas stepped out of the control room. Even after a month with Ivara, Perri still didn't quite know what to think about her operative teammate. Seren and Perri had worked with five other operatives since receiving their specializations at age twelve; not one of them had been as strange as Ivara.

Perri hadn't expected Ivara to be assigned to them at the ceremony. The three of them had never worked together, in fact Perri couldn't remember speaking to the girl in the last year. She would never admit it, but immediately after the assignment Perri had been upset and confused. It felt like they were being set up to fail when so many of the other teams already knew each other. There were only six months until the Selection Showcase; they didn't have the time to learn how to work together.

Except Ivara was good and, in simulation, the three of them understood each other better than any other team Perri had worked with. Still, part of her wanted the closeness to extend past just their operations even if she was one of the barriers to that. Other teams became practically family overnight once they were announced. Perri still didn't even know where Ivara lived.

"That wasn't any of your best work," Hass said as soon as the teams moved in for debrief. "Run it again."

Perri's eyes flew to Seren's immediately. His comment didn't make any sense, that had been the fastest their team had completed the operation yet. They hadn't lost a single member; the worst Perri would have tomorrow would be some bruised fingers from the rock wall.

"I don't understand," Perri said before he could close the door.

"We won," Seren spoke over her. Perri couldn't blame her friend for being upset, but she shot Seren a warning look anyways. Haas was the last person they wanted to disrespect even if he was being unfair, but Perri knew that meant little when Seren got going. That was one of the main differences between them- Perri had learned to pick her battles and this one with Haas wasn't worth it. There was no question that they deserved the victory and rerunning the simulation would wipe it from their stats, but Haas could make their lives miserable for being defiant.

Haas took two steps towards her team and Perri sucked in a slow breath to keep herself from backing away. There was a fine line between confidence and insubordination, but the Academy demanded that all of their trainees walked it well. Even as kids, Perri had always been better at it then Seren.

"You did everything by the book," Haas said as his eyes locked with Seren's. Perri wanted nothing more than to step between them, but that would only make this whole thing worse than it already was. Some people might hope that Seren would learn from this, but Perri knew her friend too well to expect that. It was what made her a good leader, even if it got them in trouble.

"How can we be better?" Perri asked before Seren could respond. She could feel the glare from beside her, but she chose to ignore it. Kissing up was not her style, but they had to know what he was looking for if they were going to win.

"Throw the book away," Haas said sternly. "Every team in the Hunger Games has read the book. We expect more from you by this point."

He'd gone to the control room before any of them could come up with a reply. Perri placed a hand on Seren's shoulder, but she could tell that wasn't going to be nearly enough to calm her teammate.

"Let's get set up," Perri whispered and she saw Ivara nod from her periphery.

"Fine," Seren said, shaking Perri's hand off of her. She walked back towards their starting corner and Perri followed dutifully. They would make this work, Perri had faith that as soon as the sim began Seren would get out of her head and lead. No one wanted to win more than she did.

Perri saw her mother waiting in the kitchen, but most of her just wanted to ignore her and head back to her room. It had been an exhausting day of training and Perri had more than enough bruises to prove it. She simply wasn't in the mood to talk about anything but sleep.

"Are you hungry?" Her mother asked, leaning into the hallway before Perri could even attempt an escape. In all honesty, though, food didn't sound like the worst idea in the world.

"Long day?" Her mother wondered as she spooned some leftovers onto a plate and placed it in front of her.

Perri nodded. "Very."

"Tell me about it," she smiled as she slid into the chair opposite Perri. This was always their routine, at least on the nights that her mother wasn't working. All she wanted to talk about was training and all Perri ever did was train. She knew she should appreciate the interest, but sometimes it was more than a little suffocating. No matter where she turned, Perri felt like she was expected to be learning either from the Academy or from her mother.

"More sims with Seren and Ivara," Perri shrugged. "In lessons we worked on weak points from last week. Another one-on-one."

Her mother sighed, but Perri knew she wasn't at all surprised. One-on-ones were the direct result of disagreements, and Perri tended to get caught up in a lot of those. In her early training, she would do whatever she could to avoid them. Now, though, she just looked at it as part of the routine. Training was training, she supposed.

Perri had long ago given up on pleasing anyone that didn't matter for her success. She was more than willing to take criticism from an instructor no matter the delivery. She would even listen to Seren or Ivara from time to time if she was in the mood. Anyone else just needed to mind their own business.

Ivara Malone, District 4 Operative

Ivara's steps were silent as she ducked into the empty office. She was certain that someone would eventually notice her absence in the gymnasium but figured that she could hide out here when that time came. None of these offices had been in use for a few months, at least as far as Ivara knew. It could be hours before someone found her here and that suited Ivara just fine.

Her backpack was wider than she was, but thankfully not nearly as heavy as it looked. Ivara knew that she was small for her age, but that wasn't a disadvantage in her eyes. The only disadvantage she had right now was being forced into artillery lessons, but she was fairly certain she'd dealt with that problem. Well, at least for that day.

Before settling in, Ivara closed the heavy office door behind her. Locking it would bring suspicion, as none of the other doors in this hallway were locked. She hoped that anyone looking for her would be too lazy to actually come in and check behind the oak desk. Best case scenario, Ivara would stay here until the final bell.

Ivara knew every inch of the Academy, and the slick hardwood felt familiar under her fingers as she read. She didn't remember anything outside of this place, even after almost a year of Jaxon's questioning. It felt like her life began with the dumpster outside even if that couldn't possibly be true. Ivara was grateful that Jaxon had since stopped asking. She hoped that he understood that she would have told him if she remembered.

"Ivara?" The voice was muffled through the walls, but there was no mistaking the name. Ivara crawled even further under the desk and clutched the manual against her chest to keep the pages quiet.

When Jaxon crouched down beside Ivara, she recognized the look of exasperation on his face. Her gaze fell to the floor in embarrassment; the last thing she wanted to do was disappoint him. He wasn't her father, but he was the closest thing to one she could think of.

"Your instructors have been looking everywhere for you," He sighed. Ivara shrugged in response, but there was no pride in the action.

"It wasn't locked," she said softly.

"This isn't working, is it?" Jaxon asked after a moment, sinking against the wall behind the desk. She shook her head, but part of her knew he wasn't looking for a response.

"You're talented, Ivara," Jaxon said finally. "But I wanted to wait."

Ivara watched as Jaxon pulled a tiny booklet from his back pocket, its cover no wider than her palm. He slid it into her fingertips and her eyes lit up as she read the title - The Fundamentals of Espionage.

As the years went by, Jaxon taught Ivara more than she could've hoped to learn. They discussed anatomical weak spots and firearm concealment over dinner the way a regular family would talk about current events. She spent as much time eavesdropping backstage at political rallies as she did playing hide and seek with the neighborhood kids.

Ivara walked into the Academy each day with the confidence that she belonged there, even if she knew many of the students disagreed. She tried to pay little attention to the whispers that's followed her every step. Jaxon told her that the less she listened to them, the quieter her mind would become but that was easier said than done. They were just so loud sometimes.

Ivara did her best not to linger in the hallways very often, but the other students still sought her out. She was smaller than most of them, even the ones in years below her. Still, that didn't stop the torment. Ivara was beginning to think nothing would.

"Physicals are that way, though I agree that not showing up might be your best shot at passing."

Ivara turned to face the trio of girls, all of them from the year above hers. She didn't recognize them by name, but that was the case with a number of the older students. They always seemed to know her, though.

"Actually, there are still twenty minutes before physical testing starts," Ivara corrected, her eyes shifting pointedly between the students. "I'll be stopping by the library first."

"Always a perfect answer for everything, huh?" The shorter of the girls asked. "Too bad I didn't ask."

"You misunderstood so I clarified," Ivara said.

"I don't think you heard me," she seethed. "I said-"

"Ladies, is there a problem out here?"

That was how Ivara ended up in another simulation room, waiting for the holograms to eat away the bare walls and plunge her into another operation. It wasn't fair, but as the instructors said it was still training. Ivara felt like she had spent too many hours of training in this room, across from someone that had decided she was an easy target.

Assignment # 379: Enter access code (76991) to reset enemy servers.

Ivara committed the numbers to memory, but her focus was elsewhere. It wasn't like her to think about anything other than the task at hand, but her mind had conjured up a new one. She was acutely aware of the eyes watching her through the glass. Ivara wondered which of them would be in here with her a few days from now.

The assignment was easy. Ivara should spend the first few minutes setting up security for her servers here before she attempted access to the enemy base. Instead, she watched the clock. It took seven minutes before Ivara could hear the other student approaching. Two more before they were at her door.

Then just ten seconds longer before the girl was on the ground, her harness securing her to the bamboo floor. Ivara looked up at where she knew the glass would be, where her classmates would be watching. She was willing to bet that none of them saw the sim knife she'd slipped up her sleeve. There had been nothing in the assignment about killing her opponent, but also no rules against it.

Ivara's message was clear even without an explanation. The whispers didn't stop, in fact they only increased over the following days, but the students steered clear. Her mind was quiet again, and that made it much easier to focus.

"There!" Seren called out and tapped the screen to pause the replay. "This must be what that third comment is referring to."

A headache pulsed at Ivara's temples, but she knew that their discussion was far from over. They had only two months left to prepare for showcase, and every week seemed to draw these meetings out longer. It made sense that they go over the feedback from last week's mock-trials, but Ivara still wished she were in bed.

The previous night had gone longer than she'd hoped, especially knowing that she needed to be up again at six. Jaxon had offered her some coffee before Ivara left this morning, but she hated the taste too much to accept it. Maybe she should have taken him up on that after all.

"Are you even listening?" Seren snapped. While she was certainly not the most high-strung tactician she'd worked with, Ivara could do without the yelling.

"Of course," Ivara said simply, stretching out her neck as she turned her attention back to the screen.

"What did I just say?" Seren asked.

"You're currently trying to figure out what Haas meant by his comment on our back security," she answered. "Before that, you were examining our first base entry and failing to catch the fact that Perri's pistol was only partially holstered."

"What?" Perri interrupted. "No it wasn't!"

Ivara leaned over and rewound the video until they had a clear view of the artillery's side. Just as she remembered, the top strap was unclipped and the weapon drooped down against Perri's uniform. "That's what the third comment is referring to."

Perri's cheeks were flushed red as she sat back in her chair. Ivara wasn't sure what had her so worked up; it was a simple mistake that they would correct in their next showing. At least they now understood Hass' comments. That was the point of the meeting after all, was it not?

It was silent by the time Ivara got the tape back to where they'd left off. Seren laid a hand on Perri's shoulder and whispered something that Ivara purposefully did not overhear. It felt wrong to listen in on what seemed to be an intimate moment between them. It also reminded Ivara that, though they may be a team, she would always be separate.

They were all teammates, but Perri and Seren were also friends. Ivara had learned over the past months that there was a big difference.

District 4 – The Academy of Excellence

On the morning of the Selection Showcase, the hallways were uncharacteristically silent. Teams filed nervously into their assigned meeting rooms and their schedules shone back at them from the screens inside. Everyone knew what the day would entail, yet none of them felt even remotely prepared. They had practiced days upon days of simulations, but todays were the only ones that would matter.

District 4 would be watching, and only the best showing would earn their favour.

Seren was too nervous to greet Perri or Ivara as they tossed their coats over the chairs. She had been here for an hour already, too nervous to stay at home where she knew her siblings would try to help but only make things worse. All she wanted was to be alone and think about what she had to do. As the team lead, Seren felt every ounce of pressure as it sank onto her shoulders.

Perri slid down the wall and rested her head on Seren's shoulder. Her friend was obviously nervous, and Perri couldn't say that blamed her. She was exhausted from a sleepless night, listening to her mother pace down the hallway every hour to check that Perri was actually asleep. It's a big day, her mother had said over a dozen times. However, she wasn't as scared as she'd expected to be.

Ivara considered the empty space on the floor across from her teammates, but instead chose the chair nearest the door. She must have checked her backpack a dozen times before she'd left, but she pulled it out again anyways. It felt more comforting to look just about anywhere but the other girls. Besides, being prepared for the day had to be the most important thing.

Three individual trials and a team simulation. That was all they had to get through.

Seren gritted her teeth as she stared down at her control panel. Each of the five competing tacticians sat over the simulation lab, which had transformed into a giant convoluted game board. Pieces materialized seemingly out of nowhere, displaying vibrant holograms as they fought with the other pieces. Seren allowed herself to watch none of it.

The real action happened on their panels. Seren scanned her portion of the board, double-checking her next move to ensure her important pieces would still be guarded. Pilots were rarely moved from home board, but this wasn't the time to play safe. Haas had made it clear that no team would win that way.

As soon as the tone signalled her turn, Seren launched her pilot towards the nearest enemy board. Her first indication that it'd worked was the control room dimming beside her. The second was the applause, which somehow only made her nervous heart beat faster.

Perri sucked in a breath as the holograms appeared again. The artillery trial was simple, the same as it had been every year since Perri could remember. First one opponent, then two, and so on until the student lost a fight. Perri could already feel the fatigue in her muscles as the three holograms reached her. If she had a breath to waste on cursing, she definitely would have when she noted the shotgun one of them was holding.

Perri concentrated her aim on that one, sending an arrow through its eye before it even lifted the weapon. Unfortunately, that did nothing to stop the other two as they descended upon her. Though the sims stopped Perri from feeling any real pain, the tingling sensation as she hit the ground made her cringe. These holograms were a lot faster than the ones she'd practiced with.

Still, less than level three was a score that Perri was unwilling to accept.

Ivara told herself to be calm as her doe-eyed hologram continued through the landscape. She could not see the others, and she knew that she should not care about that. Her trial was all about quick decisions and efficient skill displays. Besides the familiar figure in front of her, all Ivara allowed herself to concentrate on were her teammates' holograms whenever they appeared.

Blood. Ivara didn't look to see which teammate this was until the tourniquet had already been applied and the pooling had stopped. None of this was real, in fact her teammates weren't even behind their holograms as they'd usually be in training. It was all setup for the showcase, and right now they only wanted to see the operatives.

The applause as she stepped out of the control room was so loud that Ivara just barely resisted the urge to cover her ears. The tense silence of their meeting room was a welcome change as they waited for the team simulations.

The crowd disappeared as the sim room closed around the three girls. None of them knew what to expect; the team displays are always randomized to ensure that. They stood in tense silence until the sound of rushing water filled their ears.

No, not water. Sand.

"Search the walls!" Seren called immediately. She saw that the sand was filling the room from multiple directions, but that was all they knew.

"Tunnel over here, one-foot diameter," Perri yelled from the other side of the room. Ivara confirmed the location of two similar tunnels.

Seren examined one of the tunnels, but nothing looked out of place. The walls holding it in place were slick and bare, nothing else out of place. "Anything else?"

"Code box to your right." Ivara was already attempting to pry open the box by the time Seren got to her. "It's only five digits."

Seren considered that for less than a second before she shook her head. That was the obvious solution, but not the one that anyone wanted to see. Seren couldn't count how many times her team had been told to do more. Everyone went for the obvious; District 4 was different and different was what won.

Ivara nodded, understanding Seren's hesitation even before her explanation. "Throw the book away."

"Exactly."

Perri's feet slipped beneath the sand as she stepped towards her teammates. It hadn't been this difficult to walk on before, but once the pile had grown a couple feet it felt impossible. It didn't help that the ceiling tapped her head with every step. Perri had never considered herself claustrophobic, but she still hated the feeling. "What are we doing?"

"I don't know."

Perri couldn't remember the last time she'd heard Seren say those words. Still, she knew that panicking would only make it worse. "Step one."

"Information," Seren finished, quoting their standard decision model. "Three tunnels dumping sand in around us. No vents. It only took three minutes to get to this level, I'm giving us less than ten before we'll be eating it."

"Code box," Ivara added. Perri raised an eyebrow at Seren, who only shook her head in response.

"We can crack it and get out in a few minutes," Seren explained. That sounded pretty good to Perri, but she knew there was more to this story.

"Unless," Ivara said. Both of her teammates followed her gaze as it drifted towards the ceiling.

"Unless?" Seren prodded.

Ivara turned to Perri. "Did they give you sim weapons?"

"Of course," Perri nodded, motioning to the white gun strapped near her pocket. "Properly holstered and everything."

Ivara cracked a slight smile but hoped that she turned away before Perri saw. Instead, she pointed up at the glass ceiling. All the sim rooms had the same one, it was the only part of the room that didn't change.

Seren's eyes widened as she began to understand. "You don't think-"

"Can we think a bit faster?" Perri asked. The sand had started to pour in even faster and covered her from the waist down. Screw ten minutes, she doubted they had more than five.

"She wants to break the ceiling," Seren explained. "I don't know if that's allowed."

"What do you think?" Ivara asked, turning to Perri.

Perri locked eyes with Seren. She still wasn't sure about Ivara; in fact, she wasn't sure if she would ever be sure about Ivara. She was one of the smartest people Perri had ever met, but that wasn't all there was to her. Perri still remembered watching that sim a few years back, when Ivara had killed a girl for no good reason. There were still some parts of her that hesitated to trust the strange girl.

Seren, however, Perri trusted with her life. "Whatever you want to do."

Seren looked between the ceiling and the quickly disappearing code box. She knew what her decision was, she just wasn't sure that she had the courage to say it out loud. Thankfully, Seren didn't have to. She pointed at the ceiling and Perri fired her weapon without hesitation.

Perri's hands were still shaking as they waited outside the sim room. Each team had been told to change and prepare for the ceremony, but only one would be entering through the front door. The others would be shuffled in through the side, allowed to watch as they processed the knowledge that they'd lost. Perri's confidence promised her that she hadn't failed, but as always there was a quiet voice that disagreed.

Seren held her breath as the instructor popped their head through the door. Every minute of waiting had been excruciating, but she still didn't believe that it could already be time. She had imagined this moment for so many years. She didn't know what she would do if the instructor wasn't there for her.

"Velez, Figueroa, Malone."

His voice was quiet, but there was no mistaking his words. Seren had only taken a step towards him before the doors were thrown open in front of her. Someone was calling something over the microphone, but Seren felt too overwhelmed to hear what they said. She felt someone squeeze her shoulder, but even that was faraway.

Ivara let out a slow breath as she followed her teammates into the sim room. It looked nothing like it had earlier; the tiny glass beach had been replaced by an elaborate stage covered in decoration. Two massive screens stood behind it, both of them replaying moments from the girls' trials. Ivara was proud of the calm expression that looked back at her.

"District 4, I join you in welcoming our newest team- Seren Velez, Perrine Figueroa, and Ivara Malone!"

A/N: Hello again! It's Olive here with another update.

I hope that you all enjoyed our District 4 team. They're probably the closest thing to a functional group that you're going get between my four districts. Still, there's definitely still going to be a lot fun to be had with these three.

And the torch goes back to Corey. He was right, it is nice to pass it back.

Let us know what you think of Seren, Perri, and Ivara!

Next up will be District 8!

~ Corey & Olive