TEAM 13: DISTRICT 5
Harry : Hosel
Training Gymnasium Day 1, Continued
Ninety six tributes.
Harry's Hogwarts class had forty two.
At least there were only twelve his age.
The eighteen, seventeen, and sixteen year-olds spread out immediately, darting from table to table. The Career Districts immediately shuffled to the weapons training stations, and many of the other districts trailed behind them. The rest seemed to choose their stations at random.
The younger kids—eleven to fourteen year-olds, and some of the fifteen year-olds too—stayed mostly together. This clearly wasn't intentional, but all of the tributes were also unwilling to explore on their own.
Harry's team... did things a bit differently.
They split into their prepared groups, for one: Harry, Ginny, Ron, and Percy all went to the first open station they saw, while the other two went off in similarly random directions and did the same.
Their first station was plant identification, and less than five minutes after they started a body loomed behind them.
"Hey." Ohm said. He was the eighteen year-old District 5 volunteer tribute, and (if Harry had learned anything in the past 48 hours) a great example that brawn and brain had no correlation.
"Hey." Ron said, taking the lead despite the guy's clear focus on his district mate.
"You're gonna die." Ohm said.
"Would you like to join the station?" The station lady asked.
"Sure." Ohm said.
"Well, of course we're going to die." Malie sniped. "Good luck finding anyone over 110."
"I'm going to kill you." Ohm said. He looked down at the pictures and samples of plants provided, apparently confused over how they had arrived in front of him.
Ron scoffed. "Wanna bet?"
"Yeah." Ohm said.
Harry glared at Ron. What was he doing?
What was he doing? Harry stopped, turning back to the selection of wild berries to think.
Harry didn't see any reason for Ron to put a target on their backs, but Ron clearly did. There were two possible reasons that sprung to mind: he wanted to team up with them (entirely possible, given that ideally they would keep as many people alive as possible) or the concept of delaying-by-strength.
Depending on the year, the Games had two main styles that Careers pursued: option a, killing off the most dangerous non-team members first, or option b, killing off as many people as possible first then splitting up at some point in the hope that the remaining tributes would kill off a few for you before you died yourself. It was the latter option that typically saw the team actively avoid the stronger tributes as long as possible.
The second was more popular, but the first had far better efficacy.
Ohm, Harry thought, was not the type who would be able to reason enough of that out, so it was the first reason that Ron was aiming for.
Harry had an issue with that.
He wanted to team up with those who were younger, who were weaker. He would have thought Ron cared about that too. Had he changed so much that—
No.
Ron was Ron. He was slow to change and loyal to a fault. He wanted to do the right thing and even when he made mistakes he tended to realize them quickly, for all that it took him much longer to actually apologize.
So, what else?
...
Harry had nothing.
As their group walked to a wrestling mat next to Ohm he glanced at Ginny, hoping for help.
She glanced at the cameras.
Oh.
OH.
Well, that made him feel kind of silly, but then he never had been particularly good at remembering the media.
He could understand the idea of beating Ohm up for an audience much better, though, than any of his initial reasonings.
"Of course, of course." The peppy blue-haired station lady said, waving in Ron and Ohm as they asked to fight.
Ohm went down fast. They'd barely been told to start before the District 5 tribute was pinned, thrashing wildly on the ground as he tried to get out of the much younger boy's grip.
Ron didn't find that enough, though. He leapt up, allowing Ohm to scramble to his feet, and then pinned him again.
And again.
The fourth time he let Ohm charge him, darting out of the way and punching with short jabs while the other boy all-but frothed at the mouth.
They weren't allowed to punch the other's head—to much risk of injury with the imminent Games—so it was a jab to the 18 year-old's liver that felled him for a fourth time.
"Give... give." Ohm finally muttered. He was a volunteer, it was true, but only because no one else in his District was willing—he was not remotely prepared for this, and it was very clear that Ron was.
To the side some of the rest of Team 18 had gathered. Organza, the District 1 member, looked particularly raring for a fight, and their District 7 member—Mika, Harry thought, or Myka—was looking outright murderous. It was only their District 2 member, Achilles, that was keeping either of them from jumping up and daring Ron themselves, but even that wasn't a good look for Team 18, and Achilles knew it.
"I'll fight you." He said at last, after glaring at Mika until he backed down. "Want to take me on?"
"I'd love to," Roman said, "but this has taken long enough already. Let's postpone our next match to the arena, alright? I wouldn't want to leave your team with two injured members."
"Oh, come on." Organza leered, "what's one more little fight?"
"Alright, tell you what." Ron said. "I fought your District 5, so Achilles can fight ours."
What?!
Ginny grabbed his arm discretely, telling him not to react. It was difficult, but he kept his face blank.
"Nah, we're good." Achilles said. "You're right—let's wait for the arena. Then we'll wait and see."
...well, Harry supposed that made sense. It wasn't as if Achilles could win by fighting him—he either came out at least as strong as they thought he was if he won, or losing the entirety of District 18's support if he lost.
Still. That was a very uncomfortable few seconds.
Harry really, really didn't like this life.
