Jack Tailleur, 15
District Eight


Waking up in the Arena was a bit of a shock for Jack. Not in the sense that he wasn't expecting to be there, but they'd arrived rather late at night and Jack had fallen asleep within seventeen seconds of his head hitting the pillow, so Jack didn't get a good look at his new abode before slipping off into his dreams. So while Jack subconsciously knew what was happening, it still took him a few moments after waking up to figure out how his sleeping quarters doubled (or maybe even tripled!) in size.

At least Jack woke up on his own, even if it was just, like, twelve seconds before the voice of Violet Emerald blared through the Arena.

"Good morning, competitors! Your first competition will begin in an hour. Please get up, get ready, and meet outside in Competition Zone One, which is just north of the courtyard."

Jack slid out of bed to find his outfit for the day hung on a hook on his bathroom door: a t-shirt in Eight's shade of purple with a big green number eight on the back, a pair of tight-fitting black pants, a pair of shoes with a mesh top and rubber sole, and a note that specified not to wear any other article of clothing, not even underwear. The material of his outfit was strange: it was smooth and cold, even though it had been sitting out for some time, certainly different from what he normally wore. A bit apprehensively, Jack stripped off his pajamas and placed them on the bed, then put on the shirt and pants. After brushing his teeth and trying (and failing) to wrangle the spikes that he vaguely called hair, Jack decided to investigate the rest of the little home he was living in.

As he left his room, he found himself in a quaint little room that was like a sitting area and a kitchen all in one, with a big table in the middle on which breakfast was set. Apart from the door he'd just come out of, which was painted green, there were three other doors: a gold one directly across from him, a more neutral colored door to his left with a small, semicircular window carved out of it that led Jack to assume that it was the front door, and then a purple door to his right. Jack assumed that the gold door was Paisley's door, and he knew better than to check out her room, so he decided to open Paisley's door instead. Unfortunately, it was locked. Figuring that the door would open eventually, Jack turned around and went to grab a pastry from the table. As he turned back around, he nearly jumped out of his skin. "Oh, hi, Paisley!"

"Good morning, Jack. How'd you sleep?"

"Pretty well. How about you?"

"Well, thank you. What are you up to?"

"Oh, just grabbing breakfast. You want?" Jack grabbed a muffin, inadvertently placing his hand on every single visible square inch, and held it out to his district partner.

"Sure," Paisley replied, picking up another muffin from the table. "We can also talk some strategy for today?"

"Well, we don't know what the challenge is."

"That's true." Paisley looked down at her outfit, which was identical to his except her shirt was a tank top and her number eight was in her selected gold. "But I have some ideas."

The two spent some time talking about a variety of possibilities for the challenge, which Paisley was fairly confident involved water. "My father has to do physical therapy for his leg," Paisley explained, "and sometimes when he goes he has to bring clothing like this. He says this way he can go in the water and his clothing doesn't get totally soaked."

"Well, do you think we're gonna swim? I can't swim."

"If it's a challenge for Four, it's possible. And I don't know what other districts would have a challenge involving water to the extent that we'd have to wear water-resistant clothing."

"That's a fair point. And swimming does take courage."

"Especially if you don't know how to swim."

The pair continued talking as they finished up their breakfast and headed to the competition. When they arrived, Jack scanned his surroundings and very quickly ascertained that his and Paisley's prediction for the challenge was completely inaccurate. There was water, yes, in a very large trough that stretched the entire length of the challenge area. From where the competitors were milling about, most of the challenge area was invisible; it was hidden by a wall that was painted pale pink on top and baby blue on the bottom. In front of the wall was a strip of land painted in alternating sections of yellow and violet with a big black number seven painted a few feet from the trough. On the other side of the area, all the way across from the trough, there was a barrel, which was painted yellow and forest green.

"I have a theory with those colors," Jack remarked.

"Yeah?"

"I bet those two teams are gonna both be in that lane. Nine and Ten."

"Think they'll have to work together?"

"That's a safe bet."

"So then why is the barrel at the end painted a different pair of colors?"

"I don't know. But I bet we'll find out."

Paisley and Jack maneuvered their way through the chattering competitors until they found their little group of allies. They said hello and fell into conversation, which came surprisingly easy for a group of people who were about to compete against each other for two weeks. Jack was pleasantly surprised to see not only Darcy talking in the group but also Oksana. Well, Oksana wasn't talking, but she was at least around other people, engaged, and not miserable (or at least it seemed that way), so that was a major improvement.

"Hello, competitors!" announced Violet. "If everyone could finish their conversations quickly so we can begin today's challenge, that would be much appreciated. Great! Good morning everyone! Welcome to the first day of competitions for the Second Inter-District, Inter-Disciplinary Events! We hope you're excited as the Gamemaker team is to get these competitions underway. While I am not the Head Gamemaker this year, I'm happy to be serving as the in-Arena announcer again this year to help explain the competitions, and I thank Harli and Dorian for allowing me to steal their jobs for another year.

"As you know, each day of these Events will highlight one of our fourteen district values. Today, we will be highlighting the value of District Nine, Teamwork. District Nine is an invaluable part of our country, responsible for ensuring that all of the letters and packages in our country get where they need to go. As such, it is crucial for everyone in Nine to work together as the team to move mail back and forth across the district and then to its final destination. For our first challenge of the day, you'll be mimicking the process that our friends from Nine go through every day to help keep our country moving.

"Each pair of tributes will be paired with another pair. Your goal in this challenge is to transfer as much water from the trough into the buckets at the other end of the lane as you possibly can before time expires. To do this, each pair of tributes will be paired up with another pair from a different district, and each of you will be given a bucket. One person will fill up their bucket with water, then pass that water to the next person in line, all the way to the last person, who will pour the water into a barrel at the end.

"The pair of teams that has the most water in the bucket at the end of the challenge wins; each district pair in the team will receive half of the Medallion of Teamwork, which is a reward that may help them later in the Events. I'll explain a bit more about that later today when I reveal the winners. More importantly, though, the pair that has the least amount of water in their barrels will be the losers. And for this challenge only, instead of the winning pair of teams choosing who goes into the elimination challenge, the pair of teams that places lowest will enter the elimination challenge. I'll review this again this evening as well.

"Some other details. You'll notice that, on the floor of the lanes, some sections are painted yellow and some are painted violet. You may decide among you who to put in which violet section, but for each step a member of your team takes on a violet section, you'll lose an ounce of water. Also, the barrel that you are pouring your water into may not be the one right at the end of your row, hence why the entire end of the course is colored yellow. However, you may not enter another team's lane.

"Are there any questions before I reveal your teams?

"Fantastic. If you look at the walls of the lanes, you'll see that one of the walls on either side of each lane is painted in your district color. Find your color and that will reveal your team. We'll give you a few minutes to strategize with your partner team, and then we'll get started."

"You guessed right, Jack," Paisley pointed out as the two began to look on the walls for their color.

"I know. I'm just that good."

"Jack, Paisley, over here!" called Sigmund. "We're paired up."

"Yes!" Jack exclaimed as he and Paisley hurried over to the lane marked with a big three, which had a wall on one side painted purple and the wall on the other painted white. "Let's go!"

"Best possible teammates!" echoed Paisley. They arrived at their lane and exchanged fist bumps and high fives with the pair from Six. "We've got this in the bag."

"That we do!" Ella grinned.

"So, what's the plan? What's our strategy?" asked Paisley.

Jack picked up the stack of buckets placed on the first green section of their lane and passed them out. "I have some ideas I could throw out," Jack suggested. "I am an engineer, after all."

"Hey, I'm all ears," Sigmund offered. "Any idea you have is a good idea in my book."

Carefully and in detail, Jack began to relate to his teammates what he thought was the best approach to the challenge. As he explained his plan, he watched his teammates' faces shift from pensive to understanding to smiling.

This was going to work perfectly.


Pax Imperioli, 17
District One


As soon as Violet finished explaining the Events, Pax took her district partner by the hand and began to drag him around, trying to find the lane they'd be competing in. She didn't really want to be leading him around like a dog – really, she wanted nothing to do with the boy – but after the shitshow that was her partner's interview, Pax did not want to leave that Altomare idiot by himself for more than twelve seconds, lest he go and spill all of the plans to everyone else. Again. Fortunately, Altomare didn't seem to mind. He plodded around like a child following his mother, despite the fact that he was a full foot taller and probably a hundred pounds heavier than Pax. The girl just had to be careful not to drag him so hard that he fell over; as much as Pax was feeling stronger thanks to superior Capitol medication and not having a bastard for a doctor, she knew that if Altomare fell on him, she'd be literally crushed.

"Pax, I think I found our lane!" Altomare exclaimed, pointing towards a lane whose walls were painted in gold and brown.

"No, Pax, we're not in that lane," the girl replied.

"What do you mean? Isn't our color maroon?"

"The color you picked is maroon," Imperioli explained, trying not to rip the numbskull's head off. "We're looking for silver because that's our district's color. And anyway, that's not even maroon. That wall is brown."

Pax Altomare cocked his head to the side, a bit like a confused puppy. "Oh. It looked brown to me."

You picked maroon! How could you not know what maroon looks like? Imperioli screamed her head. Externally, she kept her composure and deadpanned, "Must be the lighting."

As they kept walking, Pax felt her heart sink as she passed by the colors of the rest of the Career districts, each paired with an outer district's color and none paired with One's silver. If she was going to have to deal with any other districts on top of the numbskull she was stuck with, she would much prefer working with people that were trained. Firstly, because then this could feel like the Games she trained for, rather than the games she was placed in, and secondly, because then she'd have a sense of what her teammates knew how to do. Some of the outer district kids seemed, simply, incompetent, and the last thing Pax Imperioli wanted to deal with was incompetence (well, at least any more than she had to). So seeing that every other Career district was paired with a non-Career district made Pax feel very, very nervous. Her nerves morphed into frustration when she arrived at the last lane, marked on the ground with a one, and confirmed what she'd deduced and also hoped wasn't the case: the wall was painted with not just One's silver but also Five's orange.

Great. Now she had to deal with two imbeciles.

"Hello! I'm Herman, this is Kiyo, and it's nice to meet you guys!" Herman exclaimed, extending his hand to shake the Careers'. "I'm so excited to win this with y'all."

"Me too," Altomare replied jovially, taking Herman's hand and causing Herman to wince. "But I should tell you now that we won't be pulling any punches after this challenge just because we worked together today." Herman looked flushed.

"We wouldn't expect anything less," Kiyo added, in their quiet, monotone voice. "We'll just have to beat you then."

"Is that a challenge?"

"That it is," replied Kiyo calmly. "But not a challenge for now. Let's focus on our plan for today."

"Great plan, Kiyo!" Herman said. "Does anyone have any strong preferences on where they go in the order?"

"I think that whoever does the last leg has to be the best runner," Kiyo mused. "I can see just looking down the lane that that is not our barrel, so we're going to want someone there who can get from the end of our lane to the barrel and back."

"Well, it could also be the person with the longest legs," suggested Altomare. "At least that way you could take bigger steps, you know? So I guess that would be the tallest person."

That struck Pax as a bad idea; after all, the two people who might have the longest legs were also the two people who were clumsiest. "I don't think so," she said. "I think it would be better for the person who is the tallest to be here with the trough and then we would get shorter as we go. That way the water doesn't have to go up to someone else's bucket; rather, it will always be going down. Especially because of how much space there is height wise between me and Herman," she explained. "And then the shortest person is responsible for pouring the water in the barrels."

"But someone could just bend down," Altomare rebutted. "And then I think there will be less dropped between the last two, which is the important part."

"But if the water doesn't get to you, it doesn't matter," Imperioli insisted.

"Hmm. That's true." The boy from One paused. "But I still think this is the best way! We need to get the water we have to our buckets fast!"

"But Pax," she said, taking deep, deep breaths, "that's not how physics work."

"So what? Even if the physics is worse we can move faster."

"I do think there's some merit to having someone with long legs being the last one," Kiyo said, "and I agree that we want to drop the least water possible. So I think it's probably our best bet to have me and this Pax next to each other, and Herman and that Pax next to each other. And so by that logic, we'd want to have Herman and Pax in the last two slots and Pax and I in the first two slots."

Altomare cocked his head again. "Wait, so who goes where?"

"I think it makes sense to have me and this Pax," Kiyo gestured to the girl, "in the first two slots, so the two closest to the trough, and then Herman and the other Pax," Kiyo gestured to the boy, "in the two slots further away from the trough."

"Oh. Is that what I said?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Then I like it!"

"Herman?" Kiyo turned to his big district partner.

"I mean, that idea sounds good, but I think girl Pax has a point," Herman said. "Gravity is not going to be our best friend here. What if we did one tall person at the end of the line, the two shorter people in the middle, and then another tall person, for the sake of running, at the front?"

"I guess that works," Altomare conceded.

"That's a pretty good compromise," Kiyo agreed. "So the person at the end is the person with the longest legs?"

"Yeah, though I don't think there's that much of a difference between mine and tall Pax's," Herman said. "Do you have a preference?" he asked.

"I don't, really," replied Altomare. "Do you?"

"Well, I have a tendency to be kinda clumsy," admitted Herman. Well, that's great, thought the girl from One. "So I don't know if it's a good idea to have me throwing water; I'll have a slightly better chance of catching it."

"Fine with me," replied Kiyo. "So then the order would be taller Pax, shorter Pax, me, then Herman?"

"I guess that's our order!" Altomare exclaimed. "Let's do this!"

"Competitors!" Violet announced. "Please take your places for the competition. It will begin at the sound of an airhorn."

The four competitors grabbed their buckets and took their places in their sections. Pax gave her arms a quick stretch, then picked up her bucket and practiced throwing it a few times just to get a feel for how heavy it was. "Wait to throw to me until I say go, gotcha?" she instructed Pax.

"Got it," Altomare replied, nodding furiously.

After a few moments, she heard Violet's voice announce, "We're beginning in three, two, one…" HONK!

But Pax did nothing. The numbskull was just standing by the trough, completely out in dreamland and not paying attention to the challenge. "Pax! We have to start!"

"But you didn't say to go."

Pax sighed. "GO!"

Instantly, and with far more alacrity than Pax Imperioli was expecting, Altomare dipped his bucket in the water and flung it at Imperioli. The girl caught maybe half of it in her bucket, white the rest of it absolutely soaked her. Pax rubbed the water out of her eyes, then turned and ran to the other side of her section. "Kiyo, you ready?"

"Yeah."

"One, two, three, go." Pax threw her water in a lovely-looking arc to Kiyo and was pleasantly surprised that they caught almost all it. "Well done!"

"Thank you."

Suddenly, she felt a splash of water on her back. "Pax!" she exclaimed.

"What? You said go, so I took more water and threw it."

"I was saying go to Kiyo," Imperioli explained. "I need to be facing you before you throw to me, or I can't catch it."

"Oh." Pax paused for a moment.

"Come on! I'm facing you now. Go!"

Suddenly, the sound of Herman yelling, "Ouch!" echoed across the room. Pax whipped around and saw Herman sprawled out on the floor, a puddle of water around him and the bucket two feet away. He quickly stood up and brushed himself off. "I'm OK!" he exclaimed, then turned back to Kiyo. "Got any more?"

Splash!

"Pax Altomare!" Imperioli exclaimed. "I told you to wait!"

"No, you didn't. You said to go! And I was already throwing when you turned around."

"You're right, I guess," she replied, exasperated. "Let's just go again."

Pax Altomare grabbed another bucket of water and threw it at Imperioli, soaking the girl again. As she turned around to throw to Kiyo, she mentally thanked goodness for two things: that she was wearing a bathing suit, and that all her team had to do to stay safe was not come in last.

Hopefully, they could at least achieve that.


Kamela Wisdom, 14
District Three


Well, this was far from an ideal challenge for Kamela.

The girl from Three had been feeling a bit better today; without having a mentor or escort to force her awake, she'd been able to wake up at 6:43, as usual, then get dressed (though not in her normal clothing, which was less than ideal), brush her hair, flicker her lamp three times to make sure that turned off, brush her teeth in her normal pattern, and then have her usual three pancake breakfast. Her routine had been on and off since the morning of the send-off, and she hoped that now that the Events began, she'd be able to get back to something close to a routine. (Of course, the ideal situation would have been to not be in the Events in the first place, but that was beside the point.) Going into the challenge, she wasn't feeling herself, but she was at least somewhat optimistic that things would go decently.

Then the challenge was explained. And Kamela instantly knew that things were not going to go well. Because if the Gamemakers had done any research into tritanopia, the condition that Kamela had that was traditionally referred to as blue-yellow colorblindness, they would have known that its description was a misnomer. Blue-yellow colorblindness didn't mean that you couldn't distinguish between blue and yellow; rather, it affected your way to distinguish between other colors. So purple would be mistaken for red, blue for green, and yellow for pink or violet (not that Kamela had any sense of what those colors really looked like). So while the Gamemakers were probably trying to help Kamela's tritanopia by not using blue and yellow, using the specific shades of yellow and violet they chose meant that Kamela could not tell when one section of the floor ended and another began.

This was not an ideal scenario, to say the least.

After the competitors were instructed to find their lanes, Kamela said, "I don't think I get the challenge."

"Huh?"

"I couldn't follow the instructions."

"Oh. Yes. We talked about how this might happen. Well, it's pretty simple. Basically, we're just passing water from bucket to bucket, and then the person at the end pours it into a barrel." Kamela stared at Kubi blankly. "Maybe I can try to show you when we get there?"

"That would be nice. Which lane is ours?"

"Well, I think we're in this lane," said Kubi, gesturing to a strip of ground marked with a five. "There is yellow on the walls, after all."

"I can't see that."

"Oh. Right."

"Who are we with?"

"Dark green, so Seven."

"Oh."

A moment later, the pair from Seven joined the pair from Three in their lane. The four competitors exchanged introductions and pleasantries before starting to talk strategy. Kamela explained the problems that her tritanopia was going to cause for the challenge. Being that this was something she'd done research into, she began to go into tremendous detail about the scientific reasons why one might be diagnosed with tritanopia and the genetics that went into it and the possible mutations. After about three minutes, Oksana interjected, a hint of desperation in her voice, "Great. This all sounds interesting but we need a plan for the competition."

"Well, I can't tell the difference between the zones on the floor, so that's gonna be hard."

"I have an idea," Darcy spoke up. "Kamela, you can't tell the difference between the colors on the floor, right?"

"Right."

"But you have depth perception."

"Yes."

"So this is my idea. Kamela, you can take the last leg of this. You'll be the only one who can run around in that area over in the back where the barrels are. You can use process of elimination to figure out which of the barrels is ours."

"That's a smart idea," Kubi echoed. "Kamela, do you understand what she's saying?"

"I think so. One of the seven barrels at the end is ours and we have to figure out which. But how?"

"I think you just have to figure out which one nobody else pours water into." There was an awkward pause. Kamela simply could not visualize what anyone was saying. "Here, let me take the slot right behind Kamela. I can help her out!" Kubi insisted, a bit boastfully.

"That's great," Oksana said. "Perfect. So I'll lead and Darcy will go second?"

"Sounds good to me!" Darcy passed out her team's buckets. "Let's do this."

Kamela grabbed a bucket and followed Kubi, who was beckoning for her to follow him. "So here's what's going to happen," Kubi explained. He walked over to the line where the wall ends. "You're going to stand here. When I have water in my bucket, I will throw it to you and you will catch it with your bucket. Then you will go run and pour it into our barrel."

"Which one is ours?"

"We don't know. But we're going to try to find out."

"OK." Kubi turned around and walked to his spot.

Kamela was feeling a bit nervous. There was just so much going on, so many things that were cramming themselves into her mind and making it difficult to focus. To calm herself down, she began thinking about something that would help her feel better: physics. She looked at the walls and began to ponder how much work it would take to push them down; while mechanics was far from Kamela's favorite branch of physics, but it did provide some interesting brain teasers.. They'd have to overcome a lot of weight, and there was a lot of air behind the wall that they'd have to push down. But if all of the competitors worked together, maybe it was possible. Although, the wall would need to completely filled in for things to be that difficult. Like, not hollow. If the wall was hollow, it would be much easier to push over. But if one exerted too much force on the wall, then it was possible that they would accidentally punch through the wall and that would be bad. And then there was gravity… would gravity even come into play? After all, gravity pushed downwards, and they'd be pushing to the side. But once they started to push the wall over, gravity would probably help. But at what point would gravity start doing more of the work than the competitors?

HONK!

Kamela jumped nearly a foot out of her skin. She had completely zoned out and forgotten the task! She shook her head to focus, then watched as Oksana scooped water out of the trough, then threw it to Darcy. As she watched, Kamela nodded, understanding the instructions a bit better. Darcy then turned around and threw it to Kiyo, who turned around to face Kamela. "All right, Kamela. Are you ready to catch the water in the bucket?"

"I'm going to throw it in three, two, one, go!" Kubi threw the water towards Kamela. The girl frantically tried to move her bucket around, successfully catching maybe half of it. She then turned around and made a motion to throw it; fortunately, just in time, Kubi exclaimed, "Wait! It needs to go into our barrel. Watch the other people pouring water into their barrels and see if there's one that nobody is using."

Kamela turned around and began to focus on the rest of the competitors. Focus, focus, focus, she kept repeated to herself. I need to choose the right barrel. She took a couple of steps forward to see if she could more clearly see the other barrels but was nearly bowled over by another boy. "Ah!" Kamela exclaimed.

"You OK?" called Kubi's voice.

"Sort of."

"You've got this, Kamela. Just try to remember what you see."

The first thing she saw was a smaller kid running over to the barrel right in front of her lane. The person emptied her bucket into the barrel right in front of Kamela, then turned around and ran away. So not that one, Kamela thought. Then, she noticed another human pouring water from his bucket into the bucket next to it to the left. Oh, so most likely it's not any of the barrels that way. I should look the other way.

Kamela turned around and began to focus on the four barrels that were to the right of her lane. It was a bit hard to see the one all the way at the end of the area, but she thought she could see the figure of someone loitering around that barrel, so that was probably not hers. That left three others to figure out still. She noticed a figure from a farther away lane running up towards the barrel on the other side of the one right in front of her lane so that one was out. The barrel second from the farthest also had a figure pouring something into it, so that was out too. It must be that barrel two down from me, Kamela said. Carefully, she began to approach what she thought was her barrel, But as she approached the barrel, a figure emerged from the lane all the way on the end, making their way to the same barrel Kamela was approaching. He turned to her, blinked, and said, "I don't think this is your barrel, my friend." The boy poured his water in and then ran back to his lane.

"AGH!" Kamela exclaimed and stormed back to her lane. "Kubi, none of the barrels are ours!"

"How could you tell? Are you sure you checked all the barrels?"

"Yeah."

"Are you sure? In both directions?"

"Yes! I did!" Kamela threw her bucket down, spilling water everywhere, and slumped to a seat next to the wall.

"Hey, Kamela, it's gonna be OK." Kamela looked up to see Kubi putting his bucket down and walking towards her.

"What are you doing?" Oksana screamed.

"Trust me!" Kubi yelled back. He extended a hand to Kamela and helped her up. "Let me look."

"Fine." The two stepped past the lane marker. Kubi looked to his left and asked Kamela, "Did you notice that barrel on the far side?"

Kamela thought. "I don't know."

"Well, that's ours. Got it?" Kamela nodded. "We're not that far behind. We can still do this. You've got this!"

Kamela was shaky, but she nodded again as she returned to her spot at the end of the lane. She didn't like the feeling of letting her team down, especially when she didn't even really want to play in the first place.

This was far from an ideal situation for Kamela. And she really just wanted to go home.


Augustus Nero, 16
District Four


"Competitors!" Violet announced. "Please take your places for the competition. It will begin at the sound of an airhorn."

"So, just to confirm, Augustus will take the trough position, he'll pass to me, I'll pass to Mina, and Mina will pass to Cam," Marilyn summed up, beginning to pass out the buckets to her group. "We're gonna take our time with running, prioritizing not spilling water over getting water from person to person more quickly. And once the first bucket reaches Cam, Augustus will take the next bucket from the trough and we'll start passing again. Everyone feel good about that?"

"Yep!" the group echoed.

"Awesome. Let's do this!"

Augustus watched as his teammates took their positions along the lane. As he watched where the gazes of the three girls were directed, it struck Augustus that the others had interacted somehow. Well, the fact that Mina was looking at Cam did not surprise Augustus. More than likely, the older girl was concerned with the younger girl's well-being, especially given that Cam, one of the tiniest children in the Events, was going to have to navigate around all of the much taller competitors while trying to find her barrel without spilling any water. No, what was more interesting was the fact that Cam seemed to be fixated on Marilyn and Marilyn, in turn, on Mina. Well, in all actuality, Cam looking at Marilyn kind of made sense; it was honestly hard to figure out whom the girl was looking towards given how far away she was, so it was just as likely that she was looking at Augustus, or in the general direction of the water trough. But Marilyn was so obviously looking at Mina, and Mina did not seem to be registering that fact. Whatever was going on really wasn't much of Augustus's business, but he was honestly just really curious.

It was always a pleasure for Augustus to see a same-sex relationship blossom. After all, he wasn't sure he'd ever be brave enough to be in one.

Content with the information he'd gleaned for the moment, Augustus got into a start position for the challenge. Fortunately, he and his teammates weren't really planning on running while there was water in the bucket; the section that Augustus was contained to was just long enough that if he were to sprint back and forth from trough to line and back again, the challenge would have begun to feel a little bit like the running drills that his trainers called "mini-maxis" (a failing attempt to dissuade the trainees from calling them "suicides"). Fortunately, Augustus had some training, but these kinds of sprints would wear him out quickly if he wasn't careful enough.

"We're beginning in three, two, one…" HONK!

Nimbly, Augustus swept up a bucketful of water from the trough. Careful not to spill, he turned around and sped-walked with his bucket to the end of his section. When he got as far as he could go, he locked eyes with Marilyn and gave his bucket a throw, trying to mostly move it forward and back rather than side to side. Impressively, Augustus managed to get the water to fly in one mostly continuous arc that landed pretty cleanly in Marilyn's bucket. "Well done!" Marilyn said.

"Thanks!" Augustus replied. "I tried to mostly throw it, like, up instead of to the side, you know?"

"Yeah, I get you." Marilyn turned around and approached Mina. "Mina, are you ready?"

"I'm ready," Mina replied, readying herself to receive the water from Marilyn. The girl from Four tossed the water to the girl from Twelve, and while her throw was a little bit less smooth, it was still pretty solid. Mina then turned around and threw it to Cam. Unfortunately, very little of it actually landed in Cam's bucket; instead, the wave of water broke right on Cam's head, with maybe a quarter of the water getting in her bucket (and that was a generous estimate).

"Well, that didn't work," Marilyn remarked.

"I'm soaking wet!" Cam stated the obvious.

"Your clothes are specifically for getting wet," explained Augustus. "They'll dry. Did anything get in the bucket?"

"A little."

"OK. Wanna go try to find the barrel and get at least a little bit into it?"

"Sure." Cam turned around and scampered off.

Augustus turned around and grabbed another bucket of water, then turned back to his partners. "Mina," he called, "maybe try bending down a little bit next time? Maybe if you're less taller than Cam, it'll be easier for you to get the water into her bucket."

"I mean it's worth a shot, right?"

As they waited for Cam to return, the three older tributes filled up their buckets as much as they possibly could. It was taking the small girl a little while, but that was probably because she was small and could literally be stepped on by at least four other competitors. That at least gave them time to make sure Mina's bucket was well filled so that when Cam came back, they might have a bit of flexibility while they tried to figure out how to make the transition from Mina to Cam work. After a few more minutes, Cam returned. "OK, I found our barrel!" she exclaimed.

"Great! We think we have a better throwing strategy now," Mina replied. "Ready for it?"

"Yep!"

Mina placed her rather full bucket down on the ground, then knelt down and picked it up again. Then, she picked up the bucket again and launched it towards Cam. Admittedly, it looked like a bit of an awkward angle for Mina, and while a bit more of the water fell out of the arc, it seemed as though less of it landed on Cam and maybe a little more of it landed in the bucket. Cam looked up at her teammates, who gave the girl a thumbs up, then scampered away towards the barrel.

"That looked better!" Augustus called up to Mina. "Maybe next time instead of kneeling down, try just like lowering the bucket in relation to your body, like throwing it up from the hip instead of from a kneeling position."

"It's worth a shot."

Mina turned around and waited expectantly for Marilyn to throw her water towards Mina. Mina waited a moment, then held out her bucket towards Marilyn. "I'm ready when you are!" But there was no response. "Marilyn? Is everything OK? Marilyn?"

"Marilyn!" exclaimed Augustus. Startled, she jumped up, causing the water in her bucket to fly straight up in the air and then come crashing down all over herself. When the wave of water subsided, it revealed a soaking wet Marilyn, her long, dark, wavy hair suddenly flat and sticking to her shoulders.

"Oh, dear," Mina exclaimed, her voice pitching up a little bit high. "Are you OK?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," Marilyn laughed. "I'm from Four! I can handle a little water."

"Oh, right," giggled Mina, her face getting a little flushed.

Marilyn put her bucket down and stood over it, then squeezed her hair out into her bucket. "Nobody said we couldn't do this, right?"

"Ooh, that was a smart move, Marilyn.

"Well, thank you." She squeezed it out a little more, tossed what water she had over to Mina, then spun around to face Augustus and readied herself. "Come on, let's keep going! Time is ticking."

Augustus raised his eyebrows, then shrugged and flung the water in his bucket towards Marilyn. She caught the water, spun around, and quickly flung it back towards Mina. This time it was Mina who wasn't ready; she at least had the instinct to try to catch some water in the bucket, but she ended up just as soaked as the other two girls. Even from behind her, Augustus could sense the embarrassment bubbling up in Marilyn's face. "Oh, no. Are you OK?" Marilyn echoed Mina's earlier words.

Mina looked up a bit sheepishly. "Yeah. It was just a lot of water. But I'm good."

"Squeeze out your hair," Marilyn gently prodded.

"Oh. Yeah." Mina put her bucket down and leaned over it, then squeezed out as much as she could. "I think this is as good as I can do."

"OK, can we focus please?" Augustus insisted, a smirk on his face. Looking down to the end of the row, he could see that Cam was also sporting a cheeky little grin. "The amount of water we get in our hair is not going to make much of a difference if we can't get the rest of the water in the bucket. And I am not interested in going home."

"Oh, yeah, sorry," mumbled the older girls. Each averting her gaze from the other, they picked up their buckets and got back into position. Augustus waited for a moment for the girls to be ready, then scooped up some water into his bucket. "Let's do this."

Fortunately, the rest of the challenge passed mostly without incident. The four competitors finally got into a rhythm; even though not every single drip of water made it through all four buckets, they certainly got a decent amount from Augustus to Cam and from there into their barrel. What started as a slow process quickly turned into a machine-like rhythm, as the four of them got to the point where each person was in motion at every moment. Time began to pass quicker and quicker, and before they knew it, they heard the sound of an airhorn again.

"Competitors! Please place – not drop, place – your buckets on the ground next to the trough. The competition is over. Please return to the courtyard; you may interact as you wish, and we will let you know when it is time to reveal the pair of districts entering the elimination challenge."

The competitors from Four and Twelve walked towards the trough and placed their buckets on the ground. Then, the four of them began to make their way back to the courtyard. As Augustus suspected, Mina and Marilyn fell into conversation quickly; he fell behind to allow them to talk, and when he looked to his side, he saw that Cam had the same idea.

"Think there's anything there?" Augustus asked.

"I dunno," Cam shrugged. "But I kinda hope so."


Well, after nearly two and a half years, we've finally made it to the Events! I'm super excited to get the competitions underway! I hope you all enjoyed this first chapter! What did you think of it? Was there a particular section that stuck out to you? What is the reward that Violet was talking about? Which of the pairs of teams do you think won, and which pair of teams lost? Who do you think is getting eliminated?

I haven't decided yet whether or not I'll be revealing all of the placements in each chapter, but I think because there are effectively only seven places I might for this one. I'll certainly reveal the winning team and the losing team each time, because both will factor into the plot. While you can figure out all of the pairings from the information I gave within the chapter, I'll list out all of the pairs of teams just in case:

-D1 and D5
-D2 and D13
-D3 and D7
-D4 and D12
-D6 and D8
-D9 and D10
-D11 and the Capitol

Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed the chapter! I'll see you hopefully soon with the first elimination challenge! I'm excited to get some arcs kicked off next chapter.

Yours,

Goldie031