Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Death, focusing on Chapter #13: Strength of the Weak, which details Training Day 1. Last chapter was the tribute parade with povs from Cecelia, Sylvan, Portia, Gemini, Kileigh, and Niklaus, a very fun chapter I loved working on day by day with a lot of interactions and new developments and we're starting the Pre-Games, bloodbath hype as it literally is like seven chapters away holy cow. Training Day 1 has seven povs (Will and Thorne are screaming out in the distance, I can already tell haha) but I am trying to keep them at 2.2k or less per pov which is happening! Anywho, a single Capitol pov from Emrick starts us off, and then six tributes: Pierce, Nevaeh, Catalus, Cassiopeia, Zachary, and Vesuvia. Enjoy Chapter #13: Strength of the Weak.
"Every weakness contains within itself a strength." ~ Shusaku Endo
Emrick Israel: President of Panem P.O.V
Cold hands pressed into the sides of a throat, raising a body high until said person is kicking out, choking on their spit and cuss words flying from their lips. A firmer grip, the strangler only needing a single hand to dole out his hurt, glaring all the while as he laughs and laughs. It is a man, by the timbre and the caliber of his voice echoing against the wood paneling, limbs struggling to find area to grasp and purchase onto, fingers slinging around fingers.
The man flings the unidentified person over across the room and into a desk, they hitting their head, crying out in pain, the little bit of room granted to them from the release of the hand on their throat. They cough, trying to catch their breath, before a hand picks them up by the back of the neck, pleading words and begging words and many other kind of words hitting the desk before their face does too, like dunking someone into a bathtub, grip tight on the back of their head, fingernails digging into the cranium and feeling at the bone, digging, digging, excavating, exhuming.
Another beg, another plea, and then the person getting their face slammed into the chair, cheek smashed into the leather and made to slide down, choking on black strands digging into their gums, the hand tightening ever still before being raised up, time and time again. A hand trying to steady themselves snapped under the pressure, until they're thrown back on top of the desk, the attacker reaching out and grabbing the letter opener in the coffee pot on their desk, a black smudge of left-over marker residue hanging on the side and on the lip.
The attacked screams out in fright as they get a good look at who is attacking them, it being themselves they're staring at, silver wings aside their head, a snarling face staring back at them before the letter opener is driven into their neck, a gurgle of blood rising up and splashing all over the killer's hands, coating pale skin in a tide of copper, the man leaving the letter opener in there to keep the blood from completely gushing out as they go back in time and time again, snarling ever the more before wrenching it out one last time.
Slowly, ever so slowly as the life force drains out of the attacked, he watches his attacker lift the letter opener to his lips, tongue reaching out to taste a tantalizing droplet of blood, dark and blooming, crimson and midnight coalescing together before it slowly drips off like a leaky faucet onto the man's tongue, savoring every morsel on the droplet and-
Emrick Israel shudders to himself at the taste of his own blood, smirking, smiling, feeling like he's achieved king status on the top of a hill.
…
President Emrick Israel awakes with a scream, pushing himself off of his desk with a loud gasp, chair rolling back and hitting the far window sill, his tongue heavy, he looking at his desk with wide eyes. He looks at his chair, at his hands, crying out in fright as he leaps to his feet. There's the sound of feet hitting the tile as someone rushes into the office, Emrick getting the sight of Head Peacekeeper Lydia Wickervein racing through the entrance, terror on her face and reflected in her wide eyes as she looks at the president, gun out, barrel pointed in his direction on any sort of threat that could be in the room.
"Sir!" she cries out, as Emrick rests against the windowsill, the blinds brushing up against his back, which he realizes is covered nastily in a thin veil of sweat, he rubbing at the spot and grimacing. "Mr. President, is everything alright?"
He shakes away Lydia's concern with a hand, an action he has replicated many times already throughout his presidency, Lydia being the one who is always there to check up on him, to make sure he's had enough water and went down to the kitchens to receive a meal. She's the one who wrestles with the assassin armed with the poison coated blade, as the rifle would be loud to fire, and someone would see it, Emrick's eyes wide in shock as his most loyal employee fights back the attacker with a wine glass, shards ending up lodged in his Adam's apple and down his uvula, hitting it back and forth like a punching bag, going under a disinfectant shower to keep the venom off of her.
Emrick gasps, another concerned wave as Lydia makes her way to him, standing on the other side of the desk. There is a small refrigerator in the corner, she going over and grabbing a water bottle, handing it to him as he catches his breath. "Nothing, Lydia… just- just a nightmare," he looks at her, at the concerned glance she is giving him, she still not having put her gun away. "You can put your gun away; I'm okay."
Lydia bites on the inside of her cheek. "Sir, forgive my rudeness, but no nightmare usually ends with someone screaming bloody murder and then jumping away from their desk so their window leaves a crack," she points with a finger behind her at his main window, the double panned one that overlooks right to the topiary garden with his name, The Promised Land, the Emrick Israel stomping grounds. Emrick raises an eyebrow, following her finger when he sees that due to the force of his actions, the push from the table, the back of his chair smashes into it, a webbed spidery mess cracking out just in the center. "I can get an Avox crew to fix it later, sir, while we're gone."
Emrick can feel his heartbeat roaring beneath his chest as he places his hand there, the only other time he's felt this is when Cain bursts into his bedroom, in a frenzy, Emrick half naked on top of his wife, the president hollering belligerent statements everywhere until his vice president tells him the news of what Nathaniel Coin has done. He rubs at his brow, frowning, trying to focus on the question, though the rays of sunshine falling through the curtains are starting to give him a headache. "Where do we need to be, Lydia?"
The Head Peacekeeper raises an eyebrow, setting her helmet down on the desk for a moment as she tugs at her ponytail. "It- sir, it's the beginning of training for the Hunger Games, Mr. President. They'll be down in the tribute center basement in forty-five minutes, and we need to go there early to prep and give a warming up speech," Lydia leans forward, resting a hand on the desk, this one not gloved so she could put her fingerprint up against the refrigerator. He takes the water for her, downing a heavy and lasting swig. "Sir, are you sure you're okay? You- you're pale and sweating and-"
"I'm fine," he snaps at her, but the moment he does, guilt coils in his stomach, twisting up his insides and boiling his intestines into the same leather as his chair, just from the way Lydia's eyebrows rise again, out of fear and not concern. "It… people have nightmares all the time, and I've been sitting in the sun," Emrick grumbles. He should've have yelled, but he knows that if he apologizes now, the little bit of power he holds in this conversation would evaporate like the sweat droplet that slides down his left cheek, curling at his lips, letting him get a hint of saltiness on the tongue. A shudder ripples through him, at the fact of his carbon copy licking the blood off of the letter opener. He eyes it sitting in the coffee mug that does not have a black smear on it, it being a white mug and completely blemish or mark free, he pinching his eyebrows together with a frown. What's with the extraneous details he doesn't need?
He never raises his voice at Ida, either, his wife a wonderful woman who always wears a flowery apron with flour all over it, caking the dark fabric in snowflake patterns as she dusts her hands off, kneading through dough on the cutting board he gets her, wooden and delicate, just like her. He's raised his voice once at her, Emrick forgetting why now, but he knows it is wrong of him. A husband shouldn't need to yell at his wife, at his lady, for he's her protector and helper and does not deserve any of his anger or ire.
Lydia's words make him nod his head, heart starting to slow down. "Training, right…" it stirs a bit of excitement in his veins, despite the fact his mind is solely preoccupied on something else for the time being. "We should get there."
"You might want to change clothes, Mr. President," Lydia offers tactfully, making another small smile, before gesturing to the closet on the other side of the room. An odd office layout, perhaps, but Emrick likes spontaneity, he taking a long, heavy sip of his water, before going and picking out a new jacket. "Just so the tributes today don't make fun of you."
He unbuttons his dress shirt, draping it over his office chair slowly, ever so slowly as if the chair would burst into flames in front of him, igniting him into a miniature fireball. Nothing happens as he drapes the shirt over, sighing slowly and lightly as the fabric leaves his fingers. Emrick picks a white shirt this time to drape over himself, as he buttons it, staring at his body. A doppelganger dream, where he is the one getting the letter opener lodged in his throat, his fingers rubbing over the mark from the incision, flinching slightly, just for a second, Lydia tilting her head to the side.
"Something the matter, sir?" she asks, before checking her watch.
Emrick shakes his head, frowning. "No, Lydia, no," and his words seem to do the trick with her, Lydia's shoulders settling down some as he finishes picking out his new outfit. "Just… anxious I suppose, as we'd expect," he shuffles his tie, buttoning a cufflink, before grinning at her as best as he can. Today is about performance, to be the president Panem has elected him to be.
Time to greet the tributes for their next dosage of hell.
Pierce Alversway: District 6 Male P.O.V (15)
It is an odd mix of fright and envy and desperation coiling in Pierce's stomach during breakfast as he tries and cuts away at the pancakes on his plate. Ayanna is whispering to Porscha about something, Pierce looking over with his fork wedged in his mouth, frowning. He slides the pancake over his lips and back out, holding onto his fork in the air.
"You going to include me at all in this?"
Ayanna raises an eyebrow, stopping her whispering, Porscha looking over at him, narrowing her gaze. "What if she just wanted to keep me in the loop?" his district partner asks, with that stupid look on her face, Pierce almost wanting to smear his saliva coated, and syrup coated breakfast all on her face; it might help keep her from frowning or whatnot, since she seems to do a lot of it, constantly pissed off about something, and frankly it is going to piss him off instead if it keeps happening, for she isn't even moping, just slouching around with her shoulders down, looking pitiful and to herself, occasionally sometimes wringing her hands.
"Well, as your district partner and per Ayanna's words I thought we'd be a team," Pierce stutters indignantly on his words, the fork waving erratically in the air, a scowl rippling across his features. "But-"
"A team is nice with one another," Porscha enunciates, slow speaking as if he's a simpleton, which Pierce would hotly protest. His parents keep him under lock and key, having him look through curtains while they're out doing their hateful job of keeping the peace, and his handler's wrinkled hands are on his wrists, pulling him back from the ledge cause someone might fire at their house. "On a dance team, everyone works together and doesn't get snippy or rude."
"I have to be snippy since we aren't working together," Pierce snips back, slamming his fork onto the plate. Ayanna jumps at the noise, as a bit of syrup sloshes over the side in a dark tide, a brown gunk resting on a napkin. In a flash, there's an Avox there to wipe it up, that also startling Pierce, for these people seem to come out of the shadows, those tongue-less mutes, with their red outfits and normally shaved heads, bowed downwards and do not even make a single facial feature when someone speaks to them.
Porscha is oddly fascinated by them last night after wandering into the apartment, from the parade, Pierce's heart roaring in his chest from all the applause and the happiness abounding around every corner of the stands. Well, mostly it is for her, the girl with dark hair and angled cheekbones and the most perfect pointed feet he's ever seen, one of the members of the prep team asking her to do a little pirouette before getting on the elevators. She's the one wearing a costume from the way, way back era of something called America, Pierce remembering it slightly, just so slightly from a book he picks up in the library, the wizened librarian cheekily telling him it might be the only book of its kind in all of Panem. Opening it up, something called an… an almanac – Pierce isn't so sure of the spelling of the word, nor its pronunciation, and Ayanna is useless in that department, as he expects her to be useless in everything – with dust billowing off the pages. Pierce's eyes absorb the information he reads about, and that is where the fascination of bottlenose dolphin puzzles come from, his skin still itching at the fact he never found it before they arrived to be whisked off to the Remake Center.
Speaking of the Avoxes, however, late in the evening, around one or so in the morning, it being 9:30 for reference as Pierce looks over at the digital clock ticking up next to the elevator to their apartment, Porscha is sitting with Ayanna, Ayanna reading some sort of magazine, his district partner talking to the Avox.
"Did my father get you in trouble?" or "Did it hurt when you lost your tongue? I've thought about slicing through my Achilles once or twice but…" and then an airy laugh, as if what she said had been funny – Pierce could never, ever get the image out of his head once she places it in there – before bouncing on the Avox's leg, their face flickering slightly in discomfort.
Pierce nibbles on the pancake again, before turning to his glass of milk, Ayanna and Porscha back to whispering. Fine, leave him out, whatever. Let him act like a brat and see if they pay attention. They'll need his mind when the time comes, to make an impression, to actually make people notice them beyond the kid who laughs at being reaped, or the girl who is booed because she comes from a horrible family with ostracizations and rumors lining her back like a camisole. Pierce hears, as well, from the Capitolites asking Porscha to dance, something else, something that makes him almost bark out a laugh, harsh and stuttering and rough on his throat… as if Porscha Watanabe could hurt anyone.
"Didn't you have an altercation with someone in a market before the reaping, two days ago, dearie?" asks a look-alike turkey woman, with a gobble sort of neck, skinned and flapped and nasty. Porscha stumbles out of her pirouette, horror on her face, before she's falling back onto the concrete, on her ass, swearing. Ayanna picks her back up with a cheeky smile, pushing the District 6 kids back in the direction of the elevator.
A killer. That is what he sees in Porscha's mannerisms; he notices it in his parents as well, given their job descriptions. Porscha would be a horrible killer, too skittish and rude, always needing to land an insult in before she actually would get around to sticking the knife in someone's ribcage. Pierce reads, in that almanac, for it covers any word that starts with an A on something called 'Altercation,' the definition for it reading, Knife into the Ribcage.
He could do it. He knows how to, well, not really, but reading about it in a book is enough practice for him, surely? Pierce looks over at Porscha, seeing the way she's nodding her head along to whatever Ayanna is whispering about, rolling his eyes. Yeah, this girl, somehow, is a killer? If she's a killer, then so is he. It is what he dreams about, not killing necessarily, but death, for he wishes it upon whoever didn't get him that stupid piece of the puzzle that he had been missing, when he tore into Porscha's room looking for it, swearing, swearing, his blood rising to the brim of his skin at her audacity to laugh at him. Every molecule within him screams at that, resisting the urge to swirl around and point a finger in her face, though she strikes him to be the freaky girl who'd bite his finger just to mess with him.
His parents tell him that, suiting him up for the reaping, about to head out the door for their jobs, they needed, again, to be down in that market.
"Who is it this time?" he asks.
"Oh, that Watanabe kid got cornered by some ruffians, some of those druggies who like to do coke by the old and broken-down windmill," his mother tells him, she snapping her gun into place, reloading her clip, Pierce frowning. He has also heard them say, once, over stale bread and cold soup that sometimes there are undesirables in the world, and certain undesirables do not need to be living and sharing the same air as them, Pierce frowning, raising an eyebrow.
"People call you guys undesirables sometimes…" he bites his lower lip, looking at his parents expectantly.
His father gets down onto his knees in front of him, throwing over the jacket he'd be wearing, a jacket that Pierce discards in the trash for he has no place to put it when a Peacekeeper, unlike the sweet tone his parents use, requires his finger at the check-in table to pinch his blood, he wincing when he hears the zipper clatter at the bottom of the can. "They're just jealous, Pierce. We're lucky; you're lucky, and no one can take that away from us."
He hums, nodding, somewhat understanding the sentimentality, though something is not fully clicking, he going to ask another question as his parents flip through the report that is sent to them by the Head Peacekeeper of the district, a guy named Dalton something that Pierce can never remember, cheeks flushed with embarrassment any time he sees the man with his hulking figure having just filed the form into their own personal containers.
His mother swears a rather uncomfortable word, his ears flushing pink at the noise. "Darling, she killed the main attacker with a leg of lamb…"
"Who did?"
"The Watanabe girl…"
"You can do that, actually!" Pierce pipes up, all excited to have something to be included in, often finding the topics his family wants to talk about trite and overwhelming, too much for him to grasp despite he always having his nose buried in a book. "A frozen leg of lamb, if someone is strong enough and uses enough force…"
His lips falter and he doesn't finish the statement, as his parents join at the hip together to look at the file, murmuring to one another, and before he knows it, they're out the door running to the assignment, the 'love you' left unsaid on his tongue, the warmness that coats his lips humming there like the flapping flight of a hummingbird there by a lotus flower, unable to go anywhere. Pierce's handler comes by later, a woman whose name he's never offered to learn, his tutor, to get into the lesson of hydrodynamics or something or other, but he's not really listening, bits and pieces as he's shut out.
That is the word.
Shut out, just like what his district partner is doing to him now. He grits his teeth together, taking the last bite of his pancake, though he leaves it dry instead of dipping it into the syrup. As he chews, settling down his fork slowly this time, for Ayanna will surely comment on it and he cannot say he has the self-control to drive the fork in between her ribcage like Altercation tells him in the almanac, Pierce looks over at them, clearing his throat.
It is rude, perhaps, but it's better than shouting, and Pierce has liked to pride himself on being a good people person without feeling the need to raise his voice. Ayanna purses her lips, Porscha brushing a strand of dark hair out of her face, frowning. "Yes, Pierce?"
"May I ask you what you're talking about?"
"You can ask," Ayanna smirks. "I just might not answer you correctly."
That is almost enough to throttle her. They have a conversation last night, as they're recovering from the praise of the parade, color flushing back into Porscha's cheeks from the out of left-field comment, a water in her hand, Pierce noticing just how… thin her wrists are, about tomorrow, or well, this morning. Training, training for the Hunger Games, to be prepared for the Games that happen in four days, four measly days before he's stuffed into a man-made arena where he has to kill the girl he's training with, and twenty-two other strangers he's never met before, but strangers who must die all the same.
Pierce wishes his parents were here, for they'd know what to do, know what to say, and instead he has this useless old broad who needs her hands to count to eleven, Pierce smirking and haughtily telling her that she could kick out off her shoes and count her toes if she wanted to, but that ends with Ayanna grabbing a ballet slipper out of Porscha's closet, it hitting him in the head. Training, however, as Pierce mulls the word in his mouth like he's rinsing mouth wash back and forth, has a spark of excitement drop into his veins, slushing about like the drugs that apparently the guys from District 8 and 9 partake in, that being another gossip moment from Ayanna while she sits in the escort's box.
He can learn, he's been doing it his whole life. Picking up a weapon and shanking it at a dummy, not a problem, but having people look at him and watch what he is doing? A bead of sweat slowly trickles down his forehead, he stuttering a laugh at the table at the very thought, for he's never been a good test taker, and if a test like this is going to decide his fate?
"Well, what are you talking about?" he asks again, trying to be polite as his nails rake down his arm, piercing the crook of his elbow, light pain blossoming behind his eyelids.
"My strategy for training," she says, and he sputters again on air.
"And where's my talk?"
"You don't seem open for criticism," Porscha comments, and the burning rage floods back into him, he grabbing the sticky saliva and syrup covered fork in his grasp once more. "A good team always-"
"Oh, shut the fuck up about you and your criticism and your teams and our team work and-" Pierce sputters, unable to find the words, mind flipping through the almanac of insults that his parents left him as a gag gift for his twelfth birthday, so he's able to communicate with people better, "And… just go to hell, you oaf!"
He pushes away from the table, a low snarl rising in his throat, he trying to calm himself down as Ayanna calls out his name, for he's leaving too early, and there's still another ten minutes to breakfast, but he doesn't matter, he could care less, he could care about a rat's ass and he'd rather spend the time finding the bottlenose dolphin puzzle piece when he lets out a heavy scream from his throat.
Pierce Alversway wants to scream, to yell and kick at a wall and knock an Avox over just so he can.
And so he does, an anguished cry ripping from his throat, filled with phlegm and syrup, and the bitterness of the last conversation he never gets with his parents, where his last word ever to them had been 'momentum…' and Pierce, from a lack of momentum, sinks to his knees on the carpet.
Nevaeh Davoli: District 7 Female P.O.V (17)
So this is it, huh? This is where her doom will be decided upon? Doesn't look like much to her, Nevaeh figures with a shrug, sticking her hands in her pocket while waiting for the procession to begin. Sylvan is quiet next to her, biting at his fingernails, missing the nails entirely and going for the cuticles, which she has had to slap his hand once or twice to get him to stop, because the last thing any of them want is for blood droplets to smear onto the floor as they step over them. Being awoken by Javier rather bright and early to discuss strategy has her a little bit more cranky than normal, a bit more willing to snap back at relatively anything that moves, such as a soft glare towards Sylvan when he asks her to pass the jam for his bread despite it being right there next to him within arm's reach. It's not that he couldn't see it, it is that he is being lazy, and she won't have that.
At the prompted time from Javier's logbook, this golden journal he holds in his right breast pocket, it sticking out slightly through the fabric of his outfit for the morning, she and Sylvan, locked together in this word called 'alliance' – it is strange on her tongue, almost heavy and diluted like she's sucking poison out of a rattlesnake's tail – head into the elevator to depart for the basement, or as what she knows it to be, the Training Center.
They're not the first to arrive, definitely not the last, though, there being the boy from Two, Magnus Winterthorn waving at them with a smile on his face, and while Sylvan waves, Nevaeh almost wanting to facepalm herself in the forehead at his happiness to greet everyone, for Magnus strikes her as being someone who could shiv her with a spear in the side, she gives him a curt nod, Magnus's smile vanishing. Also there is the pair from Four, attractive and blonde and most likely deadly, that Orion Maythorpe and Diana Kratovska tag-team that spurts a bit of jealousy in Nevaeh's body, spiraling from sternum to chin in a more copper tint. Diana and Orion are not speaking to one another, Sylvan noticing that Diana's fingers seem to be twitching, as if she is working on, well… something, but not sure what. It is fifteen minutes later when everyone has arrived, the last group being the tributes from District 8, people that weird Nevaeh out just by looking at them, for how the girl volunteers, and the guy seems to be on death row, Niklaus having to clear his throat to get Poem's attention so she joins him by his side.
That is everyone, Nevaeh pulling on the sleeves of their training outfit, sleek gray jumpsuits with their district numbers painted into their back in a different color to resemble home; District 7 is a more muted green, like the color of an olive, while District 4 for instance is sky blue, almost baby blue. All of them standing in a semi-circle, for Nevaeh isn't sure her nerves would do well in the instance of having to be forced to stare at them, for Nevaeh isn't sure she can do that. She has heard from Javier plenty of times, Sylvan fretting about it incessantly, but she understands why, that in order to live, the other twenty three – which includes her district partner standing right next to her, that though ever present like a hissing snake riding through her cranium – have to die, for something to slice them open and spill blood everywhere, and then that is when Nevaeh notices exactly what it is they're standing it.
It is almost like a gymnasium, but instead of exercise equipment like she expects, it's stations for those to practice weaponry craft, swords and blades hanging on one rack surrounded by a sea of multi-colored dummies, plastic in all shades of the rainbow, presented and situated in a circle. There are shooting ranges with dividers held in place, bows and knives and spears and other weapons arranged. A rope course dangles off in the back, as well as some sort of running track that covers three sides of the room, with only what Nevaeh could constitute as gates dangling from the ceiling for them to pass by. That's just some of the things she sees, there being in the far left corner of the room, as the elevator spills the inhabitants out onto the right side, is a pool, two Avoxes standing round the edge, milling something in the water with their hands, Nevaeh unable to tear her eyes away from them.
Is Amos among them? Is he there, an avox with no tongue, mute for the remainder of his live, blood staining his clothes and hands and his vision forever and ever? Nevaeh dismissively blinks the thought away as fast as she can, a choked sob rising from her throat, low enough to not be heard by everyone, but loud enough still as Sylvan places a hand on her shoulder, and the girl from Twelve shifts her a look, concerned, but a look all the same. Nevaeh glares back at her, the girl turning around quickly, face blanching. Sylvan is about to ask something when a spotlight seems to glow up a spot on the floor, it being a mat erected up on a stand, almost like a pedestal. On the far side of the room, near the firing ranges, a door opens, all the tributes heeding their attention towards it… the water in her mouth drying up instantaneously.
"Head Peacekeeper Wickervein…" she whispers, and then her breathing threatens to short circuit. "President Israel…" Sure as the light of day, there he is, to them, in the flesh, hair brown with silver wings, and Lydia Wickervein behind him, hand on her gun, intimidating, intimidating. Nevaeh cannot believe she once wanted to be like her, this woman who seemed to stand up for justice and all of the rights in the world, now along the devils and cackling from up high with talons and fanged screeches of pleasure.
Seeing President Emrick Israel last night from a near hundred foot difference is already nauseating enough for Nevaeh, enough to nearly have her lose her lunch for the second time, bending over in the chariot as her side flares up, bruises that might not ever heal, though her stylist team happily notes that she didn't have any broken ribs from the Peacekeeper assault, she lying through her teeth on how she attained them, for as Javier mentions at breakfast the next morning, before watching the recap: "Don't let them know the truth about you. It'll bury you. You're all nameless, and you'll die nameless…" he says to them, voice soft, face ever so sharp, before he realizes his words, but the damage is already done and Sylvan's crying, and Nevaeh cuts her meat so hard she almost scratches the plate.
The president steps into the spotlight, smiling – Nevaeh hasn't considered murder yet, but for this, she might, just maybe – but this time, unlike before, no one claps, an uneasy tension settling over the gang. In fact, nearly everyone in the room looks over at Portia Beninblade, she off to the side next to the girls from Nine and Ten who are standing next to their district partners. Portia raises her eyebrows at the attention, frowning. "What do you want me to do?" she asks, defensively.
Emrick is in his spot now, the president clearing his throat, Nevaeh's heart racing against her chest. This is the man, the man her brother tried fighting and destroying, the same man who her parents wouldn't let her go and fight against all the while her own flesh and blood is sacrificing his soul on the line. She likes to imagine the what-ifs. What if she had been allowed to go and fight in the war? Would she, Nevaeh Davoli, somehow have been able to alter the course of the future? Is it wishful and terrible thinking to imagine that? Cocky at all?
"Good morning, ladies and gentlemen," Emrick says, voice booming around the hall as if he is yelling, Sylvan flinching next to him. No one answers back, but something tells Nevaeh that this isn't some sort of interactive therapy session with questions and answers. "I understand that this is all new for you, but I… I appreciate the fact that all twenty-four of you are here accounted for," he takes a deep breath, body shaking, Nevaeh's shaking likewise in silver rage. "Today marks the real beginning of the 1st ever Hunger Games, an annual tradition," Nevaeh almost spits out at that, bile churning in her stomach, tension reflected in every tribute. "While some say that it started last night at the tribute parade, which went remarkably well, might I add, or even when you were selected back in the districts, save a few of you, I believe it starts now."
What exactly, though, Nevaeh is not too sure, but she does notice the way Lydia's eyes pass over her, the woman's gaze passing all over each tribute as a matter of fact. "In this room, for ten hours over the next two days, you will train. The Hunger Games is a competition that will leave twenty-three of you dead, and one of you left alive, most of it coming down to how you take and accept what is behind me," Emrick purses his lips, gesturing to the array of weapons. Nevaeh narrows her gaze at him, hoping to say so much in so little words, a gift of hers that she's always had, allowed to finesse it through the years, to say so much without doing anything about it. This is the man who wanted to kill them all, yet this is the more… humane solution; she'll never understand it, but she hopes she survives it. "Learn how to use a knife, get better at climbing, practice making a fire… anything to help you survive."
"Why primal weapons, Mr. President?" asks Gemini Lennox, the kid from Nine standing next to Camilla, Nevaeh's eyes going to the tribute immediately. "Why are we using swords and spears and bows and-"
"Very good question, Mr. Lennox," Emrick responds, Gemini's face flushing in scarlet from embarrassment at being addressed at all. "If I were to give you guys guns or anything… technological, you could do anything right now and it could be over in seconds. By the more medieval technologies of the world, it allows for the sport to be more clean, and, in my opinion, entertaining."
"Because that is what we are to you?" comes Orion Maythorpe, though the moment the kid speaks he looks like he regrets it from the way the president glares at him. "Just your entertainment?"
"At the end of the two days, on the third day you will perform for my vice president, Mr. Cain Passionia, who will observe you sitting from there," Emrick points a finger to a balcony, a ledge or platform dangling just along the same side as the elevator, with chairs and a table set up. "He will score you on a range of zero to twelve, where the higher your number, the better we think your chances are of winning," Emrick smiles, teeth and all, Nevaeh never wanting to hit something in her life more than right now, to break those pearly whites, shatter those gates. "During training, you are not allowed to harm each other or the trainers and Avoxes that are here to help, or you will be dealt a swift consequence; none of you want to die early, I am fairly certain."
A shiver ripples through Nevaeh's body, every instinct in her compelled to scream and hiss and throw a fit, as Emrick then bows his head, smiling. "I don't think I have much more to say, and the head trainee will give you more details for the time being, but I had just wanted to make sure I told you all what the deal would be over the next few days…" his smile elongates more, Sylvan gripping her arm tight, nails digging into the crook of her elbow, for the president's smile is predatory. Vicious. Devouring. "May the odds be ever in your favor, ladies and gentlemen… Happy Hunger Games."
With that, the president bids them all adieu, Lydia standing there stock still with her hand on her gun still, President Israel turning around on his heel to go out the way he came. Shortly after that, a man with short pepper brown hair comes out from the same doorway, a whistle wrapped around his neck, he blowing into it, announcing that training will begin… Nevaeh's heartbeat booms in her head, again and again and again as a few people seem to rush forward already for the weapons, she lost in the whirlwind.
She looks down at Sylvan, frowning, he looking back at her with replicated confusion. What are they doing here? How on earth will they compete with everyone else?
Nevaeh Davoli feels like she is way in over her head, and Amos's whispering words of confidence do little to keep her passion up, she submerged in a dark tide until it rolls her over.
Catalus Drachma: District 1 Male P.O.V (18)
"Want to wager your croissant at lunch that I hit the target?" Magnus Winterthorn asks him, cheekily smiling behind the silver bow in his hands, long and slender, clenched in his palm. Catalus raises an eyebrow as the kid from Two swirls his bow back and forth, almost slicing off Catalus's nose with the bowstring, making him cough.
"A bet, you say?" Catalus replies back, eyes twinkling with a mischevious smile. Magnus nods, grinning back even larger before the male from One nods his head, his companion raising his eyebrows in elation, before turning back around to face the remainder of the shooting range. After President Emrick's announcement, a few of the tributes immediately raced off to look for things to do, the girl from Four taking a few spaces up in the archery range, while Orion Maythorpe goes to ask a man in white gym attire to wrestle. Catalus stands back with Cecelia gripping hard onto his arm, looking around with a raised eyebrow.
There is Jasper Overheart, compelling and nice, sure, who finds a sword to stick into a dummy, piercing blue leather and golden guts and ichor spilling out onto the floor. The vivacious girl from Eleven as a tiny copper blade in her hand, slicing off a dummy's head with several strokes, throwing the blade down in disgust at the seeping cloud white blood dripping off of it after the cut is made. There is Vesuvia Vocanova clinging to Jasper's arm as they start a fire together, or even Gemini Lennox, who has skipped the weapons altogether, finding a paintbrush and making a flower, he handing it to Cecelia who accepts it sweetly, though she doesn't know where to put the piece of paper, crumbling it up and putting it into her pocket, not doing it fast enough so Gemini wouldn't see. His eyes fall down disapprovingly, a low hum in his throat.
Or that of Poem Cavalli, ever the enigma to Catalus, he seeing her sitting in the corner, speaking to the girl from Five, Kileigh Katsaras, showing her something in a sketchbook that she has, pages nestled between them, though Kileigh looks like she'd much rather be anywhere than right there speaking to the girl from Eight. The other tributes are dispersed everywhere, mainly by themselves, but some districts stick together. Catalus looks over at Cecelia, she crouched in front of another fire-starting station next to the puzzle kid from Six, Pierce, who loudly asks if there are any mechanisms that can be worked on… but it's no matter. Catalus smiles lowly at his district partner, before placing a hand on his left eye, fingers twitching slightly. This is it, the things he does for other people, the things he does for a girl he hardly knows, compelled to take the risk when he sees Adriane slap Cecelia in the coach taking them to the Remake Center.
The coach is immediately stopped at Adriane's bird cawk cries, the old crone screaming and screaming as murderous rage flows through Catalus, his blood burning if he were to listen to this idiot ever speak another word about sacrifice or saving the world for the good of the many or anything… and Cecelia at such a young age does not need to hear any of this shit to begin with. Peacekeeper gloves are on his shoulders and the back of his shirt, yanking him out of the coach, and Cecelia is screaming, there's blurred leather in his face, blood spilling down a cheek, his head thrown against the concrete, Catalus groaning out loud until a fist silences that, hitting him in the teeth. It takes a lot longer of a time in the Remake Center to be healed, the stylists and prep team doting on him requiring more blush and all of that to keep his wounds down, though there are a few identifiable scars running along his face, not to mention the shiner in blueberry blue and black that circles his left eye, spreading to above the brow on his right.
Catalus likes it, he smiling at the wound in the mirror before getting ready for a breakfast with that insufferable Capitolite hag. He apologizes to her through his bowl of oatmeal and honey, though the words are as thick as the golden syrup he is swallowing, while Cecelia is sitting as close to him as she can without being fully atop him. His parents most likely wouldn't like it… Harmony would, though, before asking if he wanted to attend another gambling den and waste away Daddy's good ole money. Catalus smiles again at the memory of his best friend, running a hand over the wound once more.
His brother, however, he would have something negative to say. Negative and venom filled, over a bowl of oatmeal with gold flakes because they're just that freaking rich, rain drops falling down as Catalus lets the golf club clatter out of his grasp onto the sidewalk, Friedrich Calvary calling in, well, the calvary on the Drachma Conglomerate Headquarters, and now here he is, standing with Magnus Winterthorn, another certified volunteer, testing his mettle out on the ropes, dummies who cannot respond.
Or, as his brother Khristos would say, at fifteen years of age, curly hair combing over his eyes, as sensible as his father, yet as deadly as his mother, and without all the lack of common-sense in Catalus's risk-addled brain, over those flaky golden crumbs, "The dummies can respond, they're just sensible enough to not strike back."
Magnus practices firing an arrow, the form alright, Catalus having dabbled in archery some for his parents ask that any member of the Drachma Conglomerate, let alone any heir – it is a fancy word on his tongue, Catalus rolling the syllables back and forth in the basin of his mouth – be skilled in something, and since guns drew too much attention and loud noise to disturb the neighbors, he plucks out an arrow, but his shot isn't amazing, unlike Magnus who hits the arm dummy.
"Nice shot," Catalus compliments him, genuinely, though Magnus is scowling. "What? You didn't think so?"
"I didn't pierce the heart," Magnus grits back through his clenched teeth, almost in a hiss. There's a sharp twang to their far right, the last other occupied lane, as Diana Kratovska takes a shot, hitting the heart on her own dummy. She looks at Magnus, quirking an eyebrow and a smirk, Catalus noticing as Magnus curls his fist around the bow a bit harder after the interaction. He loads another arrow, pulling back on the drawstring. "I was imagining shooting President Israel in the heart," and he releases, though Catalus does not watch the arrow fly, instead shifting his footing some to balance on his right leg instead of his left. "And a shot in the hand will not kill."
"It'll slow him down," he offers, helpfully.
"I want it to kill."
Catalus's throat dries up some, at the words, looking down at the dummy, it being dragged off by a mechanical claw into the floor beneath them, perhaps a place for storage, another dummy taking its place scooting forward behind it, clear of arrows and all the limbs attached. Catalus tosses his weapon from side to side, unsure exactly what to choose from, for even if he knows he will be capable of actually bringing death upon any of the people here among him, which he will be able to, thinking about the bird he strikes with his golf ball, it is still a most rather morbid thought to think exactly of which that'll do his bidding.
He chooses a spear, it being on the rack, not quite that large, but enough to feel like a javelin when he throws it, balancing it in his palm. There are no rules that say he cannot use the archery station, blinking as Magnus takes another shot. He is not so sure why the guy from Two is compelled to him, to interact with him and all of that, but it doesn't bother him, he likes the company. Cecelia is nice, sure, and she's home, but she is thirteen, and there are people her age she could spend her time with, despite the very, very gruesome thought that they all have to kill each other.
Another arrow fired from Diana, it slicing through the neck of the dummy, blue blood spilling out onto the linoleum floor, a tightening choke presenting itself on Catalus's neck that he likewise places a hand on the spot, rubbing it back and forth with his thumbs. He looks over to see Orion Maythorpe grab a sword and stab it through a dummy's chest, similar to how Jasper worked likewise, before seeing Magnus run his hands down the shaft of the arrow rather lewdly.
"Maybe your shots don't have to kill," Catalus says, nose wrinkling in displeasure. Why is he giving advice to someone that can potentially kill him if given the chance? Someone who most likely will try to kill him cause the chance will present itself. "Just enough to cause pain, and that the thought of pain is enough."
Magnus grits his teeth, waiting for the turning rack of arrows to be switched over, so he can pick new ones, the next set being these black ray fins, looking like that of a shark with their quilled tips and pointed ends. "Do you imagine someone at the end of your targets, Catalus?" he asks, loading his shot. "I mean, anyone you want to imagine having their guts ripped out by a weapon you throw? It's honestly quite releasing," and then, looking over at him with a quipped brow. "Like the one who gave you the black eye?"
Catalus isn't angry or upset with the Peacekeeper who hit him – well, that's a lie in of itself, of course, but truth be told, that is not where the rage focuses on – as the man is just doing his job, to protect the Capitol assets at all cost and he happens to not be one in the slightest, just a toy for the Capitol to mutilate and kill at will. But, however, at Adriane, he could picture the one feathered with Magnus and Diana's arrows all day long, or watch that boy from Twelve, Ramses Boskov smash a club into the side of her skull like stepping on top of grapes and crushing them beneath your boot heel, to drink the blood and wine in a goblet for later.
"District 1 Mayor Friedrich Calvary," Catalus says, pushing Magnus aside as he draws his bow.
Magnus squeaks in his throat, a rather disgruntled noise, but funny to hear all the same at the abruptness of being pushed aside, but then, a low, more settled sound, a hum. "Ah. The rabid rat who started the end of the world as we know it."
"Some would argue that Nathaniel Coin started the end of the world as we know it," Catalus takes a deep breath, tottering on the edge of tipping over in a barrel of vipers, stepping into no man's land as Magnus tenses up next to him. There is nothing better in life, the gamble. He doesn't charge Adriane and aim for the throat, to squeeze the life out of her, simply because he wants to or is thinking about doing justice, though it is a motivator for him, it is because the risk runs rampant, he seeing so many scenarios piled atop one another that he has to try, has to see where it'll land him. Magnus Winterthorn is a rebel, someone who could do his duty, for sure. "Luckily, I don't share that sentiment. I see Mr. Calvary," Catalus says, gripping the butt end of the javelin, Magnus untensing next to him.
Crisis averted, gamble taken, risk flooding through his veins like the drugs that kid from Eight loves to crow about, over a simple stew of rice and carrots. Catalus wrenches his arm back, spear tight in his grip as he exhales a shaky breath, before vaulting it forward. It soars down the aisle, clanging into the dummy's stomach, getting stuck, a cry of anguish rising in his throat before the spear slashes downwards by gravity, pulled to the floor, bringing a rise of guts and other such plastic offal onto the floor.
A sense of pride surges through Catalus, he turning back to Magnus, grinning toothily. He wants that, he likes that. Yes, he wants that, to see Friedrich Calvary, the absolute rat of a man with his fruit basket tendencies and other hogwash rumors – though there is no reason to demonize the man over who he goes to bed with – the squealing that he does on the world that is the Drachma Conglomerate is enough to warrant an axe to the head, though the new board members definitely do not feel the same way, leaving Catalus to feel like a pork roast, Harmony jabbing in the knife to cut the meat first, his brother taking the first plate as the new heir to the Federation, to take over when his family is gone, but no longer, for the reins are being taken and-
Catalus is stumbling over himself, though he sees Diana looking at him, eyes narrowed as she sets her bow down on the rack, for the trainer is calling for a group meeting. He looks at Magnus breathlessly, who is eyeing him with a sense of fascination too, for Catalus is not quite sure where that came from.
"Yeah," he breathes out, chest rising and falling, heaving heavily with a smile. "I will like your croissant, and how about your entire meal, yeah?"
Magnus stumbles over his feet while laughing, patting him on the back. "You son of a bitch," he laughs, the two guys cackling together under the dim halcyon lights.
Catalus Drachma has a new bet to take on, a new risk to grab by the horns.
Cassiopeia Grey: District 11 Female P.O.V (13)
"We can't be fighting amongst each other. Not here."
It's the words out of Dill's mouth the last time they spoke to each other, the last time they actually spoke to each other. It is after she hits him, sending him down for the count with a look of anger written all over his face, her glare stuck in his frontal lobe, and the knock that still echoes in her ears as he stands in front of her door, with his whole… we need to talk funny business.
What if she doesn't want to talk? What if she doesn't feel like talking and being roped into speak is just going to only make her more frustrated? Part of it does feel frustrating, to her while she sits on the edge of her bed, feet skimming over the carpet of the bedroom compartment, some sickly green color that reminds Cassiopeia of the tree back home, the tree with the C + A etched into it, perhaps the last reminder of Amalie she'll ever have if she's unable to sniff the edge of her blouse or hug her tight to sniff her hair… and Dill is in the way of that perfect image.
She doesn't remember her response except it is much less composed than what she probably could handle, with a sniff following that, an upturned jaw, a defiant look in her eyes. Working with other people has never exactly been a strong suit of hers, not in the way everyone's been expecting or anticipating it to be, being forced to lock herself arm-in-arm with folks she'd rather not touch. Nothing against Dill, but she's heard tales of the "Orchard King," or whatever the title is now, a guy going around and sleeping around with older folk to experience what these people call 'living.'
Cassiopeia hears it from her parents, one of the very few actual times she gets to even interact with her mother and father together at the same time in on existence at the dinner table, she frowning into her soup spoon as her parents gossip about this Waylon boy, though she doesn't know who they are. She does now, along with his request to not have her angry at him. Well, frankly, she could hurt or dislike whomever she wants in the city of gilded lies and platinum terrors, or the people with wigs too large for normalcy.
Anger is not even the word that flourishes through her at the sight of her costume, or Marlon Caynes, their escort's hideous laugh, for apparently it is repayment, evil repayment more like at her reaction to being reaped, to the cussing out, which Cassiopeia regrets if it means she has to stand on the chariot with a baby doll attached to her bosom, suckling mother's milk, she ripping off the dress after cutting it to pieces with scissors in the bathroom, stepping out in her underwear in front of Marlon, a pile of gray and tattered fabric at her feet, the stylist shrieking and nearly fainting at the destruction of their 'life's work.'
It is Dill who sticks up for her with a snort. "If that is your life's work, you need a new job, ma'am," and that earns him a glare from Dill, Cassiopeia trying to suppress her smirk, because maybe Dill isn't all bad, but still, she's not exactly fond of him. She is not fond of this city either, of this accursed place that only speaks of bad memories, memories that are not hers, but she can sense them in the walls like a beating heartbeat, whispers rising the din of the ceiling fan that Cassiopeia has blaring at full blast to mimic that of home, the same kind of noise living above her while she sleeps in her own bedroom.
However, now, she almost wants to dig the noise out of her head from the terrible din that rises around the training center, this huge room full of strangers and people she'd rather not be with, stuck in a line, looking up at the rope course. Well, rope course is probably not the best descriptor, more like a climbing wall that has Cassiopeia salivating at the way the knots are all arranged. It is one of the joint training exercises they must undergo, the head trainer Cassium, who speaks after the president talks, Cassiopeia wishing she had that plastic doll in her hands to fling at the man, says they must all undergo: there is to be three of them total interspersed over the next two days, though she has no idea what the other two are. This one seems relatively simple to Cassiopeia, though she figures that in the Capitol, it isn't going to be as easy as it looks… just climb to the top of the rope wall and scale down the other side, it tethered to two slabs of brick to keep it up, but it doesn't stop the boy from Seven, Sylvan Adello, from falling fifteen feet down onto his back, nearly bursting into tears before getting up and going to the back of the line, head held down in shame.
Cassiopeia smirks to herself. This is her home, right here, to show all of these older kids what they're missing out. She can't be killed if they cannot catch her, and she knows that she isn't against stabbing someone with a blade if they're to get too close. She tests it out, with Dill watching her, Cassiopeia standing in a silver ring of dummies, eyeing each of them as if the expects them to glare back at her. One slice down the carotid artery, golden goop spilling onto her fingers that has her making gagging noises in her throat. She practices slicing the ear off of one of the dummies, letting a trickle of this shiny blood fall onto the floor, it seemingly drying fast as there would be an unbelievably crazy amount of mess splattered everywhere from all the dummies that have been executed while training has commenced for the last few hours.
Dill's comment nearly has her turn the blade on him, though she knows what the president said. No fighting with the other tributes, or she'll be fighting for her life earlier than expected. "It looks like you almost enjoyed that, Cassie," he says, irritation stirring in her gut.
"I told you not to call me that," she snaps back at him, ponytail tied taut and hitting her cheek while she turns to face him. He hasn't really moved a muscle, simply observing, his pastime. "Besides, what if I liked it? What if it felt good?"
"Then that's something someone your age shouldn't be saying," Dill raises his eyebrows, slightly perplexed.
"You're not that much older than me," Cassiopeia grits back, before wiping the blade off on a towel. She turns around, handing it to him, Dill turning his nose up, almost as if he is better than something such as sending a knife into plastic. "What?" she asks defensively, half mockingly. "You're better than us by not picking up a weapon? You gonna go read books with the girl from Five who lectured Vesuvia Vocanova on brutality?" her eyes flicker over to Kileigh, she observing a trainer wrap a bandage around his arm. Cassiopeia crosses her arms together. "Besides, what are you going to do when it comes to showing Mr. Passionia our skills and you haven't learned any?"
"I can score without needing a weapon."
She quirks an eyebrow, a jest rising in her throat. "You gonna show them how you fuck, instead?" Cassiopeia asks crudely, bluntly, his ears flushing scarlet.
"N- no…" Dill stutters.
"Then grab a weapon and start slicing," Cassiopeia instructs him, before placing her own blade in his grasp, going to get another.
They try that set of gladiuses, at least that is what the descriptor marker above the blade calls them, before the group exercise is called, Cassiopeia shifting forward a slot as the girl from Twelve, something Shadow – Cassiopeia will learn the names when they're important, such as if those golden blades must be needed to find their hearts, and if not otherwise, she won't bothers – before the girl ambles up the rope wall, which is about forty feet tall, getting almost to the top before hanging off by a hand, letting go, a trainer rushing forward to catch her, as a fall from almost forty feet in the air is not going to be good on anyone's ankles, Cassiopeia wincing and turning her head away in case her fall is to produce any nasty side-effects, which luckily it does not. Kai'sa lands in the man's arms like she is a falling feather, being set down, she nodding her head, though a tinge of embarrassment clearly rides on her cheeks.
It is Cassiopeia's turn next, however, she waiting for her turn while the nerves in her spine clump together. Something her parents have told her, well, from what the doctors told her, about being a problematic child. Not feeling nervous, not understanding what it means to fear, and instead running at everything without even thinking about it. She shakes her head back and forth, gritting her teeth together, waiting for the whistle.
A shrill noise encompasses the air, Cassiopeia bursting into a running start. This is what she does for fun, without Amalie to hold her back or distract her with those sweet words of wisdom and love and whatnot, but she doesn't care. Her quick start startles Nokomis Yanaba who is standing behind her, rather close for comfort, though Cassiopeia's left hand is already ensnared around the first piece of rope, taut on her hands, a bit burning, but she grits her teeth, ignoring it. Her right hand ensnares around the next strand of rope, she tugging her body upwards, breathing through her nose. The breathing is always through her nose.
"You can do it, Cassie!" Dill shouts at her from his spot in line, he behind Nokomis and a few others that Cassiopeia cannot be bothered to remember, his praise and encouragement making her smile. He might have his uses, but she doesn't find herself needing to use them any time soon, but depending on what the arena might bring, then maybe so.
She angles her body a bit to the side, as if she were a lizard, a few she's seen gripping the side of a building by angling themselves horizontally, almost at a forty-five degree angle, than going vertical at ninety, though Cassiopeia is not certain how that'll affect her balance, given that the rope structure seems to buckle just a bit with her latched on. It gives a bit of momentum to her move, Cassiopeia stopping in place as a few more loud voices join Dill's in encouraging her to continue, she frowning as she makes another little bit of progress upwards.
Why the applause and happiness? It… if the president is not bluffing, which she doesn't believe him to be, then that makes her competition, and competition is nothing worth applauding and cheering on, she looking down back at the group of assembled tributes to see the remaining seven or so all glued to her. A sense of pride fills in her chest, for this isn't Amalie fretting she'll get hurt, that angel who catches Kai'sa down below looking up as well, but people invested in her results, whether they be positive or negative.
Cassiopeia reaches the top, it being a vault down to the floor on the padded mats below, though there are a few Peacekeepers collected as well at the end. She takes a deep breath, able to see the entire training center from this vantage point before leaping off, falling forty feet in the air down towards the ground, exhilaration rising in her stomach just from the three or four second fall.
She hits the mat with a roll, perfectly executed, being the only tribute, as far as she's aware, to make it all the way to the top, though there have been some who made it there, chickened out, and climbed back down, the girl from Four, Diana Kratovska, being one of those in question.
Cassiopeia brushes a strand of hair out of her face to see Dill smiling on the other side, the trainers and even the Avoxes clapping her efforts, she grinning back at them, for a second forgetting being angry at anything.
This is her time to shine, and Cassiopeia is not about to let any sort of opportunity go to waste. She'll climb a thousand rope walls if it means she outlives the rest, for once she starts and gets up there…
Cassiopeia will never come down.
Zachary Edison: District 5 Male P.O.V (12)
Simple dynamics, really, for him. All he has to do is look back at it and stop trying to see the devil in the details, but more so focus on the things that pop, the things that explode in star light that make understanding the world a little bit easier. Perhaps Zachary doesn't need to be so much of a wax philosoph right now, but it is rather fun, especially with that Pierce Alversway kid next to him, the boy from Six bent over and furiously scribbling some sort of mathematic equation on a slip of paper.
Zachary quirks an eyebrow as the kid begins writing something really fast down, muttering to himself in binary code and digits that he is not sure are even numbers to begin with, and there's no way dividing by the negative square root of i, the imaginary number, going to make this puzzle any easier, for in fact it is not a puzzle involving any sort of mathematics to begin with, but that of gears and levers and such.
The rope wall is not a success for him, Zachary giving up about two rungs up, for he is not about to fall and shatter his femur, and secondly, there are a lot of better things he could be doing that climbing. Kileigh chooses to not even participate in the exercise, he finding that to be absolutely silly, for he knows she doesn't want to die either, none of them do, but to not even try and better herself somehow? As a matter of fact, he finds her, while Zachary is bent over a log trying to start a fire earlier in the day, chewing the ear off of the District 3 pair, the technology duo that scare the twelve-year-old down to the core just by looking at them, full fledged adults yanking away at dummies.
Apparently the girl, Vesuvia, is talking loudly about what she hears in a prison cell one night to Jasper, it causing irritations, physical boils, to appear on Kileigh's neck, his district partner turning on them, resting against a dummy – the juxtaposition and the irony loaded in the entire interaction is a complete laugh, Zachary smiling to himself at the sight of it – with her arms crossed, face more pointed than he's ever seen. It has been decided that they train apart, Kileigh making it very apparent to their escort, Ginger frowning while filing her nails over her bowl of grits, about her dislike towards the necessity of violence, that if Zachary were to cling to her, he'd be dead immediately.
It is how it leads him to the puzzle wall, or rather a puzzle game, a sort of podium with a screen that when tapped, simply has a single message: Choose Your Difficulty. Pierce is already at the podium, doing exactly what he is doing right now, Zachary trying to take a glimpse of what he's working on, but the fifteen-year-old turns around and nearly snaps at him, demanding full concentration and lack of interruptions, Zachary swallowing a heavy bead in his throat, his eyes burning with terror, swallowing heavily with apology. The last thing he needs is to make an enemy.
The podium is divided into two keyboards, allowing for two people to work on the game at the same time, Pierce having chosen the hardest difficulty, while Zachary shrugs his shoulders, going after it as well. His father may not have pursed the hardest avenues, but his father is not here, Tobias Edison is not here to lecture him on what a man must do to get ahead in life; he'll go the hardest route, without anyone's guidance, just to show that he can, for that is all that matters, that he can and he is able to. The point of the game is simple, to win, and Zachary knows, if Pierce takes this damn long to work out… well, whatever it is, he can win easily. A man stands by, just in case there are any questions that need to be answered, but Zachary understands it without having to do any pondering.
A golden ball sits in a pipe, perhaps a moving sphere of liquid sunshine, the thought warming enough in the chilled training center, for it seems impossible to raise the air conditioning. Despite that, as he can see the guy from Twelve, that Ramses Boskov, a hulking giant that makes Zachary's spine tingle with fright, is covered, and drenched in a thin layer of sweat, head to toe while hitting a punching bag. He shakes his head, returning to the puzzle at hand. A golden ball, locked in a pipe, unable to move on its own, needing to be guided up to what looks to be a suction tunnel at the very top, to send this liquid sunshine elsewhere, though the destination is irrelevant, it is the journey that matters.
Zachary observes the system for a bit, as Pierce picks his head up from the paper, the boy from Five almost laughing cheerfully and in a mocking sense when the other guy asks the trainee for a piece of paper and a writing tool – "Why make things complicated?" Zachary frowns to himself. "Just ask for a stupid pencil…" before rubbing his black eye, the make-up doing its best, but it still isn't enough, he hissing slightly at the touch, as Pierce pushes the up-arrow on the keyboard in front of him on his side, inching his own ball of sunshine upwards a single sector point. Both screens are the same puzzle, as far as Zachary is aware, though the color schematics are different depending on the angle given the lighting of the room.
The boy from Five makes a noise of delight in his throat as he turns a winch on the side of the machine on his side, there being one likewise for Pierce, though perhaps the kid hasn't noticed it yet, he squealing soon thereafter when the screen on his side turns upside down, the orientation of the game completely going flipside so all the pipes to travel through are turned around.
Pierce makes a low gasp in his throat at Zachary's enjoyment. "What- what did you do?"
"The knob on the side," Zachary points out his, before gesturing onto Pierce's side of his console. "You have one too. It changes the orientation around," he stepping up to the screen and his own keyboard, pushing on the up arrow. From the movement, it makes the puzzle seem to almost 'fall' apart, as that is the only way he can describe it, the levers holding up the ball from moving forward collapsing under being turned upside down, and the globe of sunshine simply falls through and down the chute.
Ah… so the globe of gold isn't moving up to a vacuum to be sent elsewhere, but being shipped down below, as if down into the floorboards. Zachary smiles to himself, seeing, in bronze letters and in an all capital letter font, SUCCESS! Meanwhile, however, on Pierce's screen, as a seed of sorrow and guilts burrows itself into his stomach, in all lowercase letters, in a more depressing navy blue and black font, failure! Zachary's mouth dries up as he sees Pierce look at the screen, crushing the paper up in his hand.
"Hey… maybe it just means that the other difficulties are actually difficult and not just-" he starts to say, trying to rationalize the fact that… oh, well, dear God, he could be killed right now, for there are veins bulging out of Pierce's wrist… and also trying to rationalize the fact that why would the hard difficulty be simply exploited by a mechanic on the side of the console, but perhaps-
Zachary doesn't get to register the thought any further than that before Pierce is lunging at him from his own spot, they being just a few inches apart at most, a croak of surprise rising in the Five boy's mouth as Pierce collides with him, both boys collapsing onto the ground, Zachary underneath his attacker. A hand is on his throat, squeezing, squeezing, Zachary choking out in terror, eyes wide at Pierce's bloodshot, almost mad with envy and jealous glare.
"You have any idea how long I was working on that puzzle before you just showed me up? ANY IDEA?" Pierce howls, directly into Zachary's face, the younger kid whimpering with a faint cry, holding his hands up to defend himself. He's sorry, he's so sorry, he never expected any of this to turn into… his thoughts can still connect together as the male from Six presses both hands against him.
"I- I'm sorry-" Zachary chokes out from the grip, hands clawing at the kid's arms, but it seems the hold is that of iron steel keeping him pinned to the ground, keeping him from going anywhere as black spots begin to speckle elsewhere in his vision, he buckling under the pressure, under the form. It's a puzzle, a simple damned puzzle, not the end of the world.
"Puzzles are my thing!" Pierce screams, and Zachary is wondering where the hell are the Peacekeepers who are supposed to save him, or the trainer who is supposed to be there immediately if anything is to go wrong, and he figures that this is something going wrong! "Mine! MINE, you hear me? And get that stupid fucking smirk off of your face, because this isn't funny, this is-"
Pierce doesn't get to continue his rage, someone's boot kicking him in the side of the face, knocking him off of Zachary, the hold on his throat easing up, the kid swallowing down electric and fiery gasps of air into his body, Zachary coughing, hands going to his face, for there are tears streaking down his face that he doesn't even know about. The kid from Six is shouting something unintelligible into the tile, there being the heavy plod of Peacekeeper boots as Zachary looks up at who saved him, a surprised croak burying itself in his clavicle.
Porscha Watanabe, Pierce's district partner, looks down at Zachary, sympathy in her face before she turns around, glaring at her own friend, yanking him to his feet, pushing him into Peacekeeper custody who are standing just a bit away from him. "What the hell did you do that for?"
"He- he-" Pierce tries getting out, but she's not having any of that.
"He beats you at a puzzle game, so you decide to choke him out in the middle of the room?" Porscha asks him crossly, Zachary slowly getting to his feet without any assistance, waving off the assistant who had not been helpful in the slightest, the useless piece of crap that he is. He rubs a hand around his neck while thinking about how, at the very least, he'll have a faint black and blue circle on his throat, fossil indentions where Pierce's thumbs were, to match the black eye going around his left eye, it flaring up slightly.
Pierce is kicked out of the hall, Porscha following him, a Peacekeeper going with as well while Zachary feels another presence attach to his own, he jolting slightly in the air while he turns to see Kileigh by his side, a concerned look on her face, a bitter backsplash hitting Zachary's throat, bile rising up and churning. Tobias Edison all over again, useless, in female form.
"Are you okay?" she asks him, resting a hand on his shoulder.
Zachary knocks it off with a scoff. "Why do you care?"
"He just-" Kileigh says, blinking, as if that is somehow supposed to eradicate the fact that she-
"You didn't do anything!" he exclaims, throwing his hands in the air, though the sentiment comes out choked, harsh, from Pierce's hands. "You're my district partner, Kileigh, and Pierce's own came to my aid before you did!"
"I-"
"You… you what?" Zachary asks, almost exploding in rage if it weren't too much on his vocal cords. "Your dislike for violence can't even have you push someone off of a person getting choked to death if it meant you'd save their life?" His heart shatters at Kileigh's wounded expression, but there is only so much compassion he can give out to someone. "Whatever…" he says, brushing past her. "I am going to go get a drink."
There are a many puzzles and contraptions out there he doesn't understand, that is true.
But for Zachary, the one he'll never understand is the human mind… and its capacity for bullshit.
Vesuvia Vocanova: District 3 Female P.O.V (18)
Brutality. Imagine being scolded, imagine being spoken to by someone who is so afraid that picking up a knife will taint their beliefs and turn them into savages, foam frothing at the mouth and down between their teeth, spittle leaking and dangling off the precipice of their chin… Vesuvia tries her hardest to stay professional, as her uncle would've told her, and for Jasper's sake, as to not laugh in the girl's face, that dormouse from District 5. It all starts because Vesuvia is standing in front of a dummy, knife in hand, fingers encircling around the blade, for it feels like home, it all feels like home, talking to her district partner, only, mind you, about what she witnesses behind bars.
"Gonna tell me what you did to get put behind bars?" Jasper asks, slightly amused as Vesuvia mentions with artery in the leg to nick so a person could bleed out like some trout.
"Nope!" she responds cheekily, grinning at him, before blowing him a kiss. She turns around, about to send the blade into the dummy, as simply standing around is no longer being permissible. It is before the group training exercise that the head trainer is about to start when someone sniffs behind her, she turning around to see that girl Kileigh Katsaras looking at her, judgement in her stare, cold and judgmental as if she is doling out justice.
Jasper follows Vesuvia's stare, looking at the girl, quirking an eyebrow as she leeches herself off the column she's been resting against, but for how long, Vesuvia has no idea. She stakes out one morsel of her competition, not looking like much, but easily enough to most likely get the artery nicked in her leg, and no amount of bandages over at the healing station, the same station that the girl from Ten, Nokomis, is standing over will un-nick it, and Vesuvia will watch as the ruby river cascade down the girl's leg, before she's collapsing in a fit of tears and absolved screams, Vesuvia tilting her head to the side.
"You sound like a savage," Kileigh wrinkles her nose up at them.
"Did I ask you for your opinion?" Vesuvia tests the waters, icily and cold, deranged, and furious as she narrows her eyes at the girl. This is no video game she is designing, whereas then perhaps a few criticisms could be warranted, but she is simply in the middle of storytelling, story time where the one-eyed man who fishes for salmon in a fake stream digs out a Peacekeeper's eye with a butter knife, sawing off a leg of his bed before slicing the artery open and- Vesuvia can still hear the man's screams, and her own wicked laughter watching the white dog get what is coming to him, the Peacekeeper evil and brutal. "If I didn't ask for it, newsflash girl, don't give it…"
"Vesuvia…" Jasper warns her, taking a step closer to her, ever so close, though she has no idea why there's concern in his voice.
She dismisses his worries with a single hand. "There's no need to be worried," Vesuvia juts her head in the direction of Kileigh, trying to keep her face level. "Tell me, what's wrong with what I'm doing. Give me a huge lecture on it, and maybe I'll let your scalp stay on your head." It might be harsh and unwarranted, as both her district partner and the girl from Five stare at her wide-eyed, Vesuvia all of a sudden aware of what she had just said aloud, but she's already sailed upstream and there's no current to take her back.
There's no current or get out of jail free card as the patient collapses to the floor, screaming bloody murder with their arms bent out of shape like broken chicken wings meant to be coursed on, or the identical crimson leaflets that drip down the tanned face, a painting color that Vesuvia can picture will make a great red for the next game she creates, but the Peacekeepers and a taser are ruining all the fun, a wicked smile on her face while she's brought down to ground zero. The patient had wanted to be lifted up to a higher purpose, exalted for a calling bigger than his own, and Vesuvia simply shows him the keys to the kingdom as the machines whirr and play… how is she to know her system would malfunction and-
The thought breaks away as Kileigh starts speaking, Vesuvia's nostrils flaring at the words, seeing that a gang of tributes are starting to line up by the rope wall. "You sound happy when talking about stuff like that…"
"That's because I am happy talking about it," she shrugs. "It was entertaining to watch, and it was happening to Peacekeepers, not people I knew or cared for."
"Have you no morals or dignity?"
"You'll be the first to know when I find them, Kileigh," Vesuvia smirks, taking a step forward, predatorily, for right now, this ring of dummies is her and Jasper's domain, their domain only and she is not going to let a girl who thinks she is all this hot shit come in and stir them up, riling them up for slaughter and destruction… Vesuvia is not going to let that happen. If the prison system cannot break her, or watching Uncle Kenny's body mysteriously sink into a lake so crystal blue, feet tied together at the ankles with a gym barbell tied around dragging him down, down, down, then what is there to worry about from this pacifist who seems to be doing a lot more than just staying out of the way and out of people's business?
Kileigh narrows her eyes at Vesuvia, before shaking her head, a low cooing noise in her throat, enough to almost make Vesuvia's left eye twitch as the girl gets in line for the exercise. Vesuvia cannot say she is a good sport and laughs when Kileigh chickens out on her turn at the course, and the girl from Five does not do the same thing for her when Vesuvia gets about halfway up, feels herself slipping, and lets the man down below catch her. Jasper is better than her then, making it all the way to the top, crossing over to the other side, before then chickening out and climbing back down, both failures she supposes.
The training center has gone quiet now, however, with the removal of District 6, and Zachary stalking away from Kileigh, the ever so helpful district partner of his. Training is winding down for lunch, Vesuvia rubbing her stomach at the idea of some steak, a delicacy she hasn't had in a long time, coated in garlic butter… she not realizing she said it aloud, Jasper raising an eyebrow amusedly at her.
"You going to continue the lesson or we gonna fantasize about food all day?" he asks her, placing an arm on a dummy's shoulder. Vesuvia looks at him, pursed lips, eyes roaming over his lithe form, his muscled body, seeing all the ways a programmer's code could infiltrate his pores. He has some skill with a sword, nothing exceptional, not like the sword trainer revealed to them all who works wonders on dummies, leaving a pink foam and pink blood graveyard in the back corner, but enough where no one will most likely be thinking about approaching him to a duel.
She has her skills in other ways. Ways where Kileigh is incorrect, about the world of brutality and savagery. In the mind, there are pathways and doorways that can be unlocked when one simply lets go of their inhibitions, forgets about what makes them human and transcends to a higher calling, that of power and eradication, that of entertainment… her purpose is to entertain, Vesuvia's, put on this Earth to design digital creations of fantasy and wonder. Should she choose to add a droplet of cruelty and madness and gore into the mix, who is to say it is not her freedom and choice? There are people who will buy the product, see behind the glitz and glamour, and discover that her product is one of freedom and the lack of inhibition, where in the presence of one, their true self might not be idealized. Like the kid from Six strangling the boy from Five just a half hour ago… it is all because their inhibitions were left unlocked, Vesuvia marveled at the strength in the wiry fifteen-year-old, as Pierce lets go and chokes, chokes, chokes, Vesuvia at a loss for words.
She weighs Jasper's question, smirking. It does sound tempting, but she does have one single request left, as she promises, well per Cole's instruction, as Jasper seems skittish and not quite as capable as her, he telling Vesuvia this in an aside before breakfast while the Avoxes tended to the daisy floral arrangement in the middle of the table that there is a darkness behind her eyes… a darkness that'll lead to beauty and discovery.
"Well, I have one more thing to show you," she tells him, with a smile, twirling a short lock of auburn hair around her finger, thinking back to when they first met, just three days ago at this point, where he has a gun in his hands… there are methods he'd never dream of. "Mr. One-Eyed Fisherman gave me a parting gift before the electric chair shriveled his soul into that of a raisin…" Vesuvia holds the blade up. The trick, the last trick, something she incorporates into her video game, her latest creation, one she cannot wait to have Jasper try out.
She stabs the blade in the dummy's right side, green blood the color of ivy paste spilling onto the floor, getting on Vesuvia's shoe, she wrinkling her nose in disgust at the sight, before carving downward to make a U in the dummy's stomach. More of the liquid spills out, Jasper stepping back away from the paint and paste, it starting to smell of rotting plastic riding on the wind. Vesuvia grits her teeth together, bringing the blade up in a horizontal slash, she now at the neck of the dummy.
It had been in some sort of expose she witnesses in prison, some sort of documentary from a Capitolite who is thinking about asking inmates her age the opportunity to work for a living – "I already do work for a living," Vesuvia snidely tells the man, that earning her two lashes to the stomach and one on her heels, that hit having her scream into a bloodied rag at night – and on the screen, this brutal execution method, Vesuvia's eyes lighting up.
She spins the blade around the dummy's neck, green goop slinging everywhere, some of it landing on her face with a dry splatter, Vesuvia slashing, dragging, dragging, and slashing some more before she's taken the head off, it hanging just by a thread, a single thread, green spilling from every spot she has stabbed, this dummy very, very, oh so very dead if it were to be a person.
Vesuvia turns around, facing Jasper, who is looking at her a bit more stunned than she expects him to look, as if she's shocked the words right out of him, a low coo rising in her throat. The price that one has to pay, to see the beauty of this world intertwined in the next one, her so called savagery and art form as the dummy topples over, the weight difference staggering.
"Exactly that…" Vesuvia gloats, before wiping the blade off of the towel on her neck. "Let Kileigh believe what she wants to believe on violence and it being savage and all of that. While she is doing that, I'll be doing this," she points to the dummy, heart beating in her chest. "I'll be surviving."
Jasper looks stunned into silence, Vesuvia setting the blade down, smirking to herself at the next thought. Screw it; she's in the Capitol, time to have some fun.
She kisses him on the cheek, just once, but hard enough to let him know.
Vesuvia has her eye on the beating Overheart.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, ta-da! That was Chapter #13: Strength of the Weak, focusing on Training Day 1, second part of Round II of tribute povs, from Pierce, Nevaeh, Catalus, Cassiopeia, Zachary and Vesuvia, as well as a Capitol pov from Emrick. I am very proud of this chapter, and I cannot wait for ya'll to read it. Next Chapter, #14: Strength of the Powerful, will focus on Day 2, six tribute povs from Poem, Magnus, Porscha, Nokomis, Ramses, and Orion, as well as a Capitol pov from Cain to start the chapter; a lot planned there. I also have a poll on my profile replacing the Favorite Intros, where I ask (vote up to six choices) who you believe is dying in the bloodbath, though you have between now and Halloween to make that decision, since that is my bloodbath time I am planning for. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!
~ Paradigm