AN: Happy 2021 everyone. Today's chapter features the private sessions. As usual, only a small fraction of them are shown here, but more will be mentioned going forward. We'll find out the scores in the next chapter, which will be followed by an interview/night-before-launch chapter, and then the Bloodbath! What are your score predictions? Remember, as mentioned in the story, the gamemakers can now consider factors beyond the private session when giving out a score, though the session carries the most weight by far.
Odile Seren / 18 / District One Female
Odile lets out a sigh of relief as the knife hits the foam target with a satisfying thud. These are perhaps the most important five minutes of her life, and to mess up here will cost her gravely. Careers with subpar scores are sometimes cast out from their alliance, or worse, stabbed in the back by the others.
It's too early to think about that, however, as half of her session remains. Without delay, she jogs over to the sparring mats, where several racks of assorted weapons await her. She scans through them before choosing one – a sword with a straight and slender silver blade, much like those she's trained with back home.
A trainer steps forward to meet her on the mat, clad head to toe in a heavy-looking, white suit of armor. As Odile knows, the weapons on the racks are exactly as they'd appear in the arena, while the trainers' are dulled significantly to avoid injuring tributes.
The girl from One gives the signal to begin, readying herself for the first attack. The trainer swings his sword at her diagonally, which she easily side steps. He then follows, predictably enough, with another swing in the exact opposite direction, Odile managing to deflect this easily enough with her own sword. His armor must be more cumbersome than it looks, for the trainer's attacks are rather slow and drawn out. Odile leads him around the mat for some time before an opportunity finally appears as the trainer overcommits badly. She quickly spins around and strikes him in the side, causing him to lose his balance and fall onto the mat.
She extends a hand to the trainer and helps him up before placing her sword back on the rack. And with a quick nod at the team of gamemakers watching her, Odile begins to head for the gymnasium's exit. Her five-minute allotment isn't over just yet, but there isn't enough time to do anything else, and she feels like she ended on a good note.
Odile exhales loudly as she enters the hallway. She had done what she came to do – two-and-a-half minutes of knife-throwing and two-and-a-half minutes of sword combat, a decade's training to be showcased in that time. She assumes it would be enough to earn her a competitive score.
As she waits for the elevator, Odile hears footsteps coming from around the corner. Listening carefully, she notices that it sounds like someone pacing back and forth. Her curiosity gets the better of her and she decides to head down the hall and see who's there.
It turns to be none other than her district partner, walking around aimlessly with his hands on his head, visibly distraught.
"Odile? Wh—what are you doing here?"
"Was gonna ask you the same."
"I was just—" Kian begins, but he stops himself abruptly, almost as if something inside him snaps. "I fucked up, badly. Those moving targets – I missed again, not once, but twice. Twice. In five minutes. I bet plenty of outers don't even screw up like that. My sponsor money's gonna disappear, Terrance will kick me out, I'll die early in the Games like Calix, and—"
"Stop it, Kian," Odile says gruffly. "You're a trained Career. The Academy selected you out of all the others to be here. Do you think the sponsors don't know that? You're more than just a stupid number."
"It's not just that," replies Kian, letting out a deep sigh as he turns to the window. "During my session, I couldn't stop shaking as I held the bow, just like when Terrance made me compete with Carissa."
Odile doesn't have a response for him this time, so he continues, "Remember what you said to me on the train? About how I won't do worse than the last Avery?"
"I'm sorry," she stammers. "I didn't mean that. I was just trying to play the game…"
"It's fine. But I'm not sure how true that is anymore. If I can't keep my shit together now, who knows what'll happen once everyone jumps off their plates."
"Things will be different then, once we're fighting to survive."
"I hope you're right, Odile, I really do."
"And as for Terrance, he won't kick you out."
"What makes you so sure?"
"Because he'd be losing both of us. And I doubt he'd want that, knowing he has to deal with Sett and Carissa."
Terrance Koda / 18 / District Four Male
Here he is, two days before the Hunger Games, standing as the undisputed leader of the Careers. It's a privilege few have ever had, and fewer still have lived to tell about it. Terrance imagines returning to Four as a victor – maybe then his parents will finally admit that he was right all along and chose the best course to follow. But he can't get ahead of himself, as the Games haven't even begun yet. For now, he must focus on his private session, his first major opportunity to turn the sponsors' attention toward him.
The District Four team are lounging in their suite, chatting about the sessions and how they used to be different.
"They were 15 minutes long during my Games," Cyan says, "And we started at lunch on the third training day. No wonder they were bored out of their minds once the outers were up."
"Wouldn't be the only change since then," adds Tyler. "Apparently all food and alcohol are banned during the sessions this year…"
Before he can say any more, Antonia's phone chirps loudly.
"They're ready for you now," she says to Terrance, glancing at the screen.
"Go get 'em, T," says Tyler.
"Good luck," Ryba shouts from the kitchen. "Don't fuck up."
Terrance takes the elevator down to the floor right above the main training area. After a few steps down the hall, he arrives at the doors of the gymnasium.
As the leader of the Careers, it's critical that he doesn't receive an underwhelming score, which may invite a challenge from someone else in the alliance. Terrance doesn't think it's likely given this year's group composition, but he'd rather not have to find out.
Given the short amount of time available to him, he plans to focus on his trident skills. Of course, he knows that another District Four Career with a trident won't exactly turn heads, but he has something else in store for them.
With a deep breath, he pushes the door open and enters the gymnasium.
Everything is more-or-less as he pictured in his head, with a handful of trainers dispersed throughout the area. A variety of stations have been set up toward the front, with a large obstacle course – virtually identical to the one from the training floor – located at the back. A team of gamemakers watches him from an observation deck. A younger man sits in the middle, who Terrance assumes is Head Gamemaker Remus Bridgewater, the rather mysterious protégé of Domitian Ellsworth. He's flanked by three gamemakers on either side, an equal number of men and women.
"Mr. Koda," greets the head gamemaker, looking down at his watch, "Your five minutes begin now."
Without hesitation, Terrance runs to where the weapons are displayed by the sparring area, picking up not a trident, but a small knife. A trainer steps forward, but Terrance ignores him, sprinting instead to the obstacle course.
How confused they all must be right now, Terrance muses, smiling to himself.
One of the first obstacles to be encountered there is a climbing net, which he immediately starts cutting at with the knife. He estimates he'd spend around half the session on this task alone – a serious gamble, but one that he's confident will pay off.
A few years ago, while flipping through a book at the DSA library, Terrance had read about these ancient warriors who used a fishing net to impede and immobilize their opponents before finishing them with a trident. The trainers dismissed the idea as an impractical, outdated fighting style from an era long past, though Terrance never gave up on it. He'd practice with such a setup every now and then while sparring with Daron, enough to get relatively comfortable with it.
He finishes cutting through the last piece of rope and the bottom half of the net falls into his arms. It isn't weighted on the sides like the fishing nets he used back in Four, but it'll have to do.
Terrance tosses the knife aside and takes the net with him back to the sparring mat, stopping only to pick out a trident from the weapon rack. A glance at the clock shows that he has about two minutes left – just enough time.
With his net and trident, one in each hand, he steps up to the trainer on the mat. Terrance Koda has their full attention now, no question about it.
Dillan Brackendown / 13 / District Five Male
There's a newly discovered aquifer by the far edges of District Five, which Dillan's father had been planning on extracting from in order to provide drinking water for Five's rapidly growing population. Such was the topic of conversation at the dinner table one evening, not long before Dillan was Reaped. And last night, while Dillan was nervously pacing back and forth by the window in his bedroom, pondering what to do for his gamemaker session, he randomly thought of this aquifer, which gave him an idea: he's going to make a simple water filter to show the gamemakers.
When the trainers talked about how to get suitable drinking water, they mentioned finding bottled water at the Cornucopia, collecting rainwater, and using iodine. But what if your bag doesn't have water or iodine in it? What if it's an indoor arena or one with a dry climate? Dillan's going to keep it simple: the device he's planning will filter water just as soil filters rainwater before it reaches the aquifer.
Last night, he had a long conversation with Hunter about his idea for the private session, with the mentor telling him that the key materials should be present within the gymnasium. And now, as he walks in timidly – a little kid holding an empty plastic water bottle with no cap – he tries his best to avoid looking at the team of gamemakers observing him. Pretend they're not there. Remember what you came here to do. What's the worst they could do to him now anyway? Give him a low score? Let's be honest, nobody who's ever laid eyes on Dillan would consider him a threat, and they'd be correct.
"Welcome, Mr. Brackendown," says the man sitting in the middle of the row. "You may begin."
Dillan immediately runs for the knife station and grabs a rather hefty one, which he uses to cut the bottle about two-thirds of the way down. Next, he lays the bottom of his t-shirt out on a tabletop and cuts out a roughly 2x2 inch piece. He positions the fabric on the inside of the bottle's upper half such that it's covering the mouth, before placing the top half upside down in the bottom half.
Dillan then heads to the survival station, a large area made to resemble an outdoor environment, with plants, dirt, rocks, and much more. He recites the order of materials in his head: sand, then graven, then larger rocks.
The first is easy enough to gather, as a small sandbox had been set up nearby. He scoops some into the inverted upper half of the water bottle, the fabric preventing it from slipping through. The next step takes a little longer as Dillan has to manually separate the smaller pebbles and stones from a rocky area within the survival station. He hurriedly shoves these into the bottle, right above the layer of sand. Finally, sensing that his time is almost up, he grabs a few larger rocks and throws tosses in.
The buzzer goes off, startling Dillan and almost causing him to drop his makeshift filter. Despite not looking as neat as he'd envisioned, it's complete. He'd pour the water in through the top, allowing it to seep through the layers of rock, gravel, and sand, before passing through the fabric at the bottle's mouth and dripping into the bottom half of the bottle. It would've been nice to show it in action.
But alas, time is up, and he has no water anyway.
Emilie Dubois / 14 / District Nine Female
The patronizing looks cast upon her, the scoffs of disbelief – Emilie knows they're there without needing to see or hear them. A girl of her stature from Nine picking up a throwing spear, with a target set relatively far downrange – why should these gamemakers take her seriously?
Earlier, she went up to one of the punching bags in the gymnasium and began to unleash a wave of punches and kicks at it, just as Devlin had been teaching her. But in the midst of it all, a thought hit her – what does this actually tell the gamemakers? She's not going to beat someone to death with her bare hands in the arena. At most, it shows a willingness to put up a fight, far from enough to get a good score.
So here she is now, holding the spear, which is much taller than she is. It's also one of Devlin's two preferred weapons, along with the sword, as she recalls him explaining that you can make one in the arena rather easily if need be. He'd attempted to train Emilie with it since the first day, with mixed results. She recalls giving up in frustration on the yesterday after a streak of misses…
"You know what? Fuck this," she growled, throwing the spear down on the ground, no doubt turning a few heads towards them. She then stormed out of the training area to the small hallway outside where the elevators are. Unsurprisingly, Devlin wasn't far behind her.
"Seriously? You can't just give up like that," he scolded. "Every bit of practice counts. You never know when—"
"I don't care, okay? If I'm gonna die, then let me. Why'd you come up with this stupid plan anyway? Even if I somehow end up in the top ten, there's no way I'll win. And what if it's just the two of us left? Are you gonna kill yourself so I can live? Just to prove how great you are? Well fine then, Devlin, you are great, amazing, so much better than the Careers. Is that what you want to fucking hear?"
"No," is all he responded with before disappearing back into the training area.
It bothers her to think back on that moment, a child throwing a tantrum. She should be grateful that she has someone teaching her, someone who at least pretends to care about her well-being. She's already better off than countless tributes, both now and in years past, and this is how she shows her appreciation?
With a growl, Emilie steps forward and hurls the spear downrange. It hits the target firmly, outside the bullseye but close enough given the target's distance from her. She's certainly never made such a throw during training. Whether it's just luck or Devlin's instruction paying off, she has made a statement, as the gamemakers' murmuring off to the side would suggest. And though there's still time left in her session, she decides to leave the gymnasium. Ending on a high note is a luxury many other tributes will never have.
"How'd it go?" Devlin asks her as she returns to the suite, the place empty except for the two of them.
"Good enough. Yours?"
"It went well. Hopefully, there won't be any surprises for either of us."
"Where's Julia and Dax?" asks Emilie.
"Meeting with some big-time sponsor, supposedly. Said they'd be back soon."
There's a short silence before she speaks up again, "Look, Devlin, I'm sorry about yesterday. I really didn't mean what I said, you know. I was just frustrated and I shouldn't have—"
"Forget it," he cuts her off. "This is as serious as it gets, and sometimes it can be stressful, for me too."
"Nice to know that you can feel something," Emilie replies with a grin.
Devlin lets out a short laugh, the very first she's seen from him, "Just don't tell anyone else."