Disclaimer: I own nothing of the Hunger Games.
Chapter Four: Potential
Though I was in the sixteen year old bracket at the academy, I would be seventeen years old whenever the reaping for that year came about. Not that there was much significance to that, for me, there wasn't any chance that I'd be sent in.
Flux was eighteen that year and it was essentially a given that he would be attending and winning the Games that year. Watching Flux train was absolutely amazing, had I ever been put up against him…I don't know what the outcome would have been.
There were absolutely no flaws in his performance. There were no loop-holes when watching him, no missteps, nothing to give away his next movement. He was…flawless.
I may have been receiving more attention from Zenobia, but the comparison was more of going from flying under the radar to simply a little blip on the radar screen. Maybe, I was a little bit more than that because the others girls seemed angry enough to wish to kill me, even more so than they had before (I never realized that was possible until then). Typically when the Reaping was coming near, they became far too involved in their own little training sessions to hassle me, but that year was different. I felt as though I had to be extra careful.
Zenobia may have been paying more attention to me, but that certainly didn't mean I was anywhere near being her favorite. Every time she watched me, it almost was if she were…comparing me to someone else.
Comparing me to Titus and Ostro, alike.
Nevertheless, I simply did what I felt comfortable with, paying little attention to what she said.
However, as I was given more time in the battles, I noticed that my friend, Wren, had grown more distant from me. It was not a matter of an argument or such, but simply not seeing one another as frequently. I remember chasing after her, calling loudly enough for her to hear me. She walked away as if nothing had been said. I couldn't run to catch up with her for there was still information that Zenobia needed to give me at the academy before I could go to school.
On evenings, after attending either school or the academy…or both, I would find myself sitting in my room or on the back porch whilst working at these puzzles that our teacher had given us for an extra challenge. I think they were just something to keep us busy more than anything, but they were…intriguing and I enjoyed working on them.
Essentially, every move counted for something in these puzzles. One mistake made earlier could effect a later outcome, though these outcomes would not come into play until, perhaps, the end of the puzzle when victory is so close, but too far to grasp due to a mistake made at the beginning. These puzzles were very tedious and required quite a bit of brainpower, but I still enjoyed doing them and would typically not stop until I had at least figured out where my flaws were.
Though I spent far too much time on these meager puzzles, "wasting" brain power as my father, told me, I couldn't help but feel that they would help me sometime in my life. Okay, maybe that was an understatement and just a coy to tell my parents that I really was being productive whilst working on these mind games. After all, mind games were more entertaining than any sort of violence the Capitol could put on television.
"Savera!" Zenobia cried one day to me from the opposite side of the academy's training center. She had some sort of clip pad in her hand as she touched the piece of technology, pecking feverously at it, presumably for her rankings of the day.
Let's get something straight.
Just because she noticed me, did not mean that I was any higher on the totem pole than I was before. There were still plenty of girls who could easily kill me if I stepped to them in a place where we weren't being monitored. To my luck, we lived in the country of Panem where nothing could be done without being monitored.
Needless to say, her calling my name, was rather unexpected for everyone. In that moment, I had been attempting to mend my relationship with Wren, but as soon as she called my name, I saw Wren roll her eyes and saunter away. Being torn, I looked to my friend walking away and then to my trainer, with fiery eyes watching me.
I knew this was a signal for me to come to her and I did so willingly, keeping my eyes up, looking directly at her rather than at my feet. Whenever I stood in front of her, she simply looked me up and down before saying simply," You'll be matched up against Flux today."
I stared at her, blinking several times before shaking my head. Instantly, the top pick of the girls let out gasps, and immediately began talking amongst themselves. If I wanted to make them any more upset with me, then I most certainly had. Indirectly, of course. They all flipped their hair over their shoulders, or pony tails, rather and turned their backs on the sight, as they "went to get water". More like, talk about how we can kill this girl without anyone noticing.
I should explain the uniqueness of this situation.
Only certain male-female duels are put together. Zenobia doesn't intermix the two for very good reason, but the only girls who I ever knew to go into the rink against a male were partially male themselves. Or ridiculously talented with shredding human flesh with their teeth….Enobaria. Seeing as I was not testosterone-like in any way shape or form, nor did my teeth work in such ways as Enobaria's had when she actually won the Hunger Games…it looked as though she was setting me up for a severe bruising. Hopefully, she would only allow him to use a limited amount of resources.
"Zenobia, I must insist-" I tried, but she simply bore holes into me with her dark eyes set on me.
"You have ten minutes to gather whatever materials you think necessary," She said plainly before turning away. Flux appeared where she had left, his long knife in hand. I stood with wide eyes, watching as he picked at his teeth with this deadly weapon. My hands plastered at my side, he came closer to me, running his fingers along the blade.
"So, you showed little Cato up, huh?" He asked threateningly, raising his brow at me. "Kid deserved it, but that doesn't make you any more of a worthy opponent. You hear me?"
I swallowed hard and nodded, not wishing to cause a scene here. He shoved my shoulder with his own as he passed by me to speak with his own companions. I wished for that moment that I had somethingor someone to go and release all of my emotions to, but seeing as though nearly everyone was gathered around Flux, I simply ambled away to enjoy my last few moments of having muscles that operated as they were suppose to.
I don't know if I ever mentioned this before, but Flux was probably more than a certified killer. He was…fast, quick, and very hard to read. In those few moments that I had, I knew that trying to grab any of their weapons would be pointless. I didn't know how to wield weapons, I simply knew how to wield other's weapons against them. I suppose that made me like…a mirror. I could hardly do much on my own until seen it done first.
It was for this reason that when I appeared in the circle with no weapon at hand that the others started snickering.
Zenobia looked at me, as if she had expected me to pull such a stunt, before looking at Flux, who was on his tip toes, just waiting to be told he could have a go at me. I simply tried to gather my thoughts together and watch every move he made. If I could keep up with his movements, then I may have stood a chance, but I had never been correct at predicting his moves from the sideline, which should be the easy part.
This could have been really bad.
My eyes were glued to his feet, always moving and always darting. In his practice stance, though it appeared random and sporadic, I noticed that it followed pattern in its randomness. It was just like the puzzles, left foot, left, left, left, right, left, left, and left. Perhaps, he did not even realize he did this…I doubt he did for the next time he would do it, it was precisely the opposite: right foot, right, right, right, left, right, right, and right
Probably a nervous habit, though he would never openly admit that.
"This is not a death match, do you understand?" Zenobia asked before the count down and though she was not looking directly at Flux, it could be assumed from her tone of voice that she was directly referencing him.
My eyes shot up to see his reaction, briefly as he smirking and nodded, almost as if it was a joke of sorts.
"Alright, now on my count…" She lingered, letting the tension sit in the air.
He started on his left foot, bouncing before moving to the next. Then, he moved to the next. His knife moved in sync with his foot. It was almost like a dance, but that was obviously simply my analysis.
"3.…2.…" She paused for a long time.
And then, I met his green eyes briefly. It was not a long period though.
"1...Go!" She announced before swiftly moving out of our way.
I expected Flux to come at me, full-force, but to my surprise, he stayed put as we stared at each other, waiting for the other to make their move. His eyes may have been set on my own, but my eyes were set on his feet. Slowly, we began sidestepping around the circle, neither one making the move toward the other. It was as if he knew my game and I knew his far too well.
"Come on, Savera!" He taunted, still pouncing between his two feet, like a boxer in a rink.
"You first," I said back, in my best chest voice as I could.
He was trying to distract me and though he may have briefly, my eyes were back to his feet immediately. In his head though, he had done what he wished to accomplish and before I knew it, he was springing toward me with his left foot. Remembering his pattern when he was standing still, he took off with his left foot and though he was alternating in a stationary pattern it was more than likely that when sprinting he would still end with the same foot that he had when standing still. It was a habitual trait more than anything.
He took off with his right foot, meaning as he stabbed toward me, he would step at me with his right foot and swing to his left toward my body.
I watched as he came to an abrupt stop, as I had predicted with his right foot and swung to his left. Naturally, I leaned to the right, avoiding his swing and therefore surprising him as he took a nice big whiff of air. From the amount of force in his swing, it appeared as though he was intending on doing much more than simply knock me off balance. He took several steps back, eyeing me with a sort of anger in his eye.
It took him taking another jab at me to realize that the first time was not simply a fluke on my part and that I actually was watching his every move. It was the second time that I took a swing for his knife, only wanting to push it out of his reach. He did some predicting of his own before grabbing hold of my wrist with his opposite hand, easily twisting it and shoving me to the opposite side of the circle on my stomach.
Quickly, I turned over to where I was sitting and looking up at him. Clearly, he had the advantage now, but I noticed his grip on his knife was loose; he was getting cocky. Simply because he had me on the ground didn't mean that I was going to stop analyzing his every movement.
He laughed out loud at me as he hovered overhead," You're done, Savera."
With a composed stature, I pulled my legs up to my body and just as he came down to presumably pin me to the ground, I rapidly shoved my leg up to his hand with the knife, kicking his unnecessary weapon out of his hand and into the group of spectators, who moved out of the way as if the knife were death itself.
The distraction allowed me with the split second that I needed to jump to my feet and sidestep away from him. Now that I was at the perfect angle, I kicked down at the precise angle that caused his knee to buckle and bring him down to one knee. Just as I went to grab for the next, he turned quickly, grabbing my elbow and pulling straight down. I winced in pain, even eliciting a slight whimper before turning and releasing myself from his grip.
As he came to his feet, I could tell that he was getting frustrated. His veins appeared as though they were going to pop as he rushed at me once more. I could tell that he, more than anything simply wanted this to end. Flux was the perfect example of how arrogance really could allow one to lose to someone whom clearly was weaker than them in almost all categories except self-esteem.
Arrogance could do one of two things to people: lose or bend the rules simply so that they might win.
In this instance, Flux did the latter of the two.
Before I could block his move, he came at me furiously and raised one single hand. In the angle that it was in, I could tell precisely where we was going: my neck. There was a pressure point on the neck, when hit spot on would knock someone unconscious. If I knew of it, then Flux had probably known of it and practiced it ever since he was a toddler.
As expected, he slammed down hard and before I could think of what had just happened, my eyes fluttered shut and the world around my went black. The last words I heard were those of Zenobia screaming at him," Stop it! Stop! FLUX!"
Whenever I awoke, I was still on the ground of the mat of the arena. Zenobia was standing over me, splashing water on my face while a different girl, not much older than myself, hit my cheeks tenderly. Whenever my eyes fluttered back open, the world still felt as though it was turning, ever-so-slightly. They both let out a sigh of relief when my eyes opened and I slowly sat myself up.
"You were only out for ten minutes," Zenobia informed me, without any ask of how I was feeling or concern.
"Oh," I said, nodding my head as the world slowly stopped spinning. "That's…good to know, I suppose."
"Someone came here to watch you today, well actually, she came to watch Flux, but you caught her attention more than him," Zenobia said the last part with a slight hint of bitterness, suggesting that she had not approved of Flux's last move to prove his superiority.
She did not stick around long enough for me to ask any questions, but simply walked away to presumably find the boy and give him a nice long spiel about breaking her rules. In the meanwhile, I looked to this girl sitting beside me, who was now smiling at me, her razor sharp teeth glimmering with gold as she stood to her feet and then helped me to my feet.
I recognized her to be Enobaria, a recent winner of the Hunger Games from our very own district.
"That was pretty impressive," She commented, I looked her straight in the eye as I came to my feet.
I smiled, slightly embarrassed. To have a woman who could shred a man's throat say something was impressive was…quite a feat, to say the least.
"Thank you," I answered meekly before she continued speaking.
"You know, I thought that Zenobia was setting you up for a slaughtering. Typically, not many people walk into a fight without a weapon," She told me honestly as we walked over to the water, all eyes set on me as the next couple set up for battle.
I laughed dryly," Me too."
She returned the smile before saying," You don't take anything for granted do you?"
"If you are referring to details, then yes. For someone like me, details would be what make the difference between having a functional arm and a broken one," I answered simply before leaning down to grab my bottle of water.
"Or a matter of life or death, if you volunteer to go into the Games," She added, very seriously.
I shook my head and blinked several times, thinking I must have still been dreaming while I pulled my hair from the knot it had been on top of my head, shaking it out. No one had ever spoke to me of volunteering for the Games and I had never thought of that before. I never considered it and nor would I ever consider it. The only way that I would have was if my name was miraculously drawn, but that would mean that none of the other girls had the arrogance to go into the Games and that was highly unlikely. There was far too much confidence in their blood for that.
Realizing that she needed an answer, I chuckled as I filled my bottle with water," I won't ever be going into the Games, not if my life depended on it. Plus, they would never send me in. Not with this group…"
She raised a brow," Oh really? Zenobia seems to like you fair enough."
"That's only because she saw me defend myself against a little kid with ambition," I spat back, probably more sourly than I should have.
"Cato can hardly be described as that," She answered, just as seriously.
A silence hung in the air for several seconds before she spoke again," Listen, all I know is that you might just be someone who can beat the system. You don't know how sick the people of the Capitol get of seeing violence-"
"Really?" I asked, interrupting her, but this truly baffled me.
She sighed, finding this too be more difficult than she intended," They like a good show and you, you could give them a whole new show entirely."
A/N: Let me know what you think! I love hearing feedback. Thanks to those who have reviewed or alerted/favorited this story. I appreciate it greatly :D
