"Power Plays"

A/N: POV lengths are a bit wonky, but that's mostly to do with the longer POVs having more summary of what other people are doing during training in them. Anyways, here we finally get to see some of those non-Careers in action, with Ty, Inesa, Nikola, and Ciera! Enjoy!

~I used to be a skeptic non-believer

But now it's changed, you're worth your weight in gold~

Ty Bale, 16, District Three

Ty had been the first one awake on the District Three floor. There wasn't much competition, Dalton was a late riser and Julie crawled out of bed just minutes before descending down to the training center, and their escort and stylists were nowhere to be seen. Still, it was Ty first. He was getting accustomed to having some quiet time to himself in the morning, and was using it to its fullest. The Capitol bathrooms and closets were overwhelming, and Ty needed every last second he gave himself to prepare for the day.

The training slacks were chosen for them already, which was unfortunate, but Ty picked out an outfit that he would change into after the day of training came to an end. He experimented with the different shower settings, soaps, and facial creams, meticulously reading each label until he was sure on the best combination. He momentarily wondered aloud if he would be allowed to bring some moisturizer as his token into the arena.

His routine went on, stretching the crack of early morning until the sunlight of daytime. Once thoroughly satisfied, every strand of hair in the right place, each molecule of skin clean and blemish-free, properly moisturized and giving off a vibrant hue, he allowed himself to exit his room. Dalton was the only one awake, and he was sipping on some coffee, entirely disinterested in Ty.

He had gotten used to that over the train as well, Dalton's interest in Ty went down to zero the moment Julie left the room. Ty tried not to let it irk him, but that wasn't one of his strong suites. The alliance was going well, and that was all that he could ask for. Julie and him got along, and their personalities meshed and clashed at just the perfect ratio.

Ty scoured the breakfast table, eventually settling for some tea and dry pancakes that were sure to leave no mess or smell behind. By the time he was finished, it was just a few minutes until training would start, and yet there was still no sign of Julie.

Dalton seemed to have no concern with this, either. He continued to sip on his coffee and read through the newspaper with hawk-like eyes that darted across the page. The man unnerved him, Ty was willing to admit that. And that was the reason he didn't mind not getting much attention from him. Yes, that was it. Ty didn't mind being out of the spotlight. Certainly not from him. Most definitely not.

Julie stumbled out of her room, hair a wild mess around her, the training jumpsuit lazily tossed on, and her hand still in a splint. Last day until it could be removed, according to her. She rubbed her eyes and threw out a prolonged yawn.

"So, any last minute training advice?" Julie in between yawns.

Dalton glanced up from the paper. "Follow through with the plan and you'll be fine. Stick together, visit my exact list of stations in my exact order. Do exactly as I told you. Avoid attention from the Careers, gain attention from the Gamemakers. It's a delicate balance."

"Right, balancing, my strong suit." Julie snorted.

Dalton didn't respond, only looking back down at his paper and taking another long sip of his coffee.

Julie trudged her way over to Ty, and threw an arm on his shoulder, leading him to the elevator.

"You can't go down to the training center dressed like that?" Ty meant to make it a statement, a command perhaps, but it trailed off to an uncertain question instead.

"Wearing the same outfit as you," Julie said. She continued to push him towards the elevator.

"You can take some time to wash your hair, you'll only be a bit late." Ty tried. "I'll catch you up on anything you miss."

She raised an eyebrow at him that instructed him this would be a futile fight. He pried himself out of the sticky grasp of Julie's training shirt (which Ty was beginning to think she slept in judging by the smell) and momentarily contemplated breaking off the alliance.

But no, while her appearance and style may leave a lot to be desired, this was only the other tributes. Their impressions didn't matter to him. He and Julie had already won over the crowds. They were the most popular non-Careers and it wasn't particularly close, and he intended to keep on riding that wave with Julie for as long as she was useful. Besides, she was decent company. She could keep up with him, but she was still no T-Bale.

They arrived at the training center in near-unison with the rest of the districts. Despite the lack of mentors, it seemed like everyone had gotten down without much incident. The only exceptions were District Six and the female from Ten, who both had yet to arrive. The boys from Ten and Eleven, on the other hand, seemed to already be set up like they had been there for quite some time. The small boy from Ten was chatting shyly with a group of trainers who fawned over him, while the man from Eleven sat in a secluded corner, eyes closed as he meditated in the same way he did on the Nightly Report.

Ty made sure to find the tributes Dalton had warned him and Julie to look out for. There was Talon, the boy from Two. He was leaning up against the wall near the elevator, a smirk on his face as his eyes swept across the room. His young district partner stood awkwardly next to him, eyes darting across the room mechanically. The pair from Four were up front, right next to the head trainer. The two were loudly arguing about who to accept into the splintered Career alliance, while the boy from Nine made his case, proclaiming his immortality.

And then finally there was the boy from Five, Nikola. Ty wasn't sure why Dalton pointed him out as a threat to avoid, but he would listen to the advice regardless. The boy seemed amiable, an easy smirk on his face as he chatted casually with the boy from Twelve, whose laugh echoed throughout the room. Everyone else just stood awkwardly and waited, aside from District One. They both stood in the middle of the room and clearly lacked the nervousness of the outliers. But neither of them quite gave off the same intimidating vibe of the District Two or Four pairs, either. Dalton had said they were nothing to worry about for now, and so Ty and Julie found their spot nearby the pair.

The Head Trainer stepped forward, a woman in her mid-thirties without the extravagant looks of most Capitolites. She had a simple grey jumpsuit on, pale skin, and had naturally dark hair and eyes. She spoke succinctly, clearly eager to get the speech done with, and training underway.

"Welcome to the 102nd Hunger Games. I am Head Trainer Harper. I run these training facilities, and any problems or questions you have about them may be directed at me. Furthermore, I can carry on any questions to the Gamemakers you have for them, although I cannot guarantee a response or even acknowledgement." She paused, looking over the room. "I see most of you are on time today. That is good. From this time forward, training facilities will be open twenty-four hours a day at a limited capacity. This includes stations that are self-sufficient, such as wall-climbing, and most survival skills. Weapon training stations and other trainer-reliant stations will be open from eight in the morning until eight at night, with a brief recess for lunch between twelve and twelve-thirty. After lunch on the third day of training, these training facilities will close, and Private Sessions will begin."

She took a moment to let that information sit in. Nobody seemed at all surprised by the information, how the Games were run had become common information among the districts. Still, Ty's interest was piqued by the limitless hours. A late night or early morning training session was a surefire way to have a highlight moment on the Nightly Report that would be talked about, and increase his odds.

"Finally, you may notice that the stations available this year are somewhat limited. I cannot speak to that specifically, but can tell you that the stations are selected by the Gamemakers carefully, developing only the skills that the Gamemakers think will be useful in the arena. If a weapon does not have a station for it, you will not find it in the arena. I will implore you all to spend time at the survival stations rather than waste it all at the more flashy weapons and agility courses. However, how you spend your time is your own decision. Thank you for your time, good luck in training, and as always, may the odds be ever in your favor."

Julie turned to him, while the crowd slowly dispersed, Careers rushing to weapon stations while outliers stumbled aimlessly to survival stations. "So then, T-Bale, you got the list up in that clever little head of yours?"

Ty smiled, and shrugged. "Of course. First stop, the most boring, useless station they have."

Julie snorted. "Right, flexibility." She peered across the room. "Looks like we'll be having company."

Ty waved it off, and started walking there. "As long as it isn't one of the people on Dalton's list, we're fine. Really, I don't think we have to worry about some dude who meditates all day."

"Dunno, it's the quiet ones you gotta keep an eye on," she said cheekily. "Never know who's gonna sneak up on ya and hit you with a surprise."

"You sound like you want him to win more than us." Ty rolled his eyes.

Julie shrugged, but offered little in the way of her normal banter. Ty caught her eyes fluttering over to the rock wall, where the boy from Eight was struggling to make any progress. Julie bit her lip, then looked back to the flexibility station.

"Are you—" Ty started.

"You watch any TV in your room last night?" She cut him off abruptly. "There was this sick movie that was showing on like half of the channels, super gruesome stuff. All about some mindless, crazy people running around biting people's heads off."

"Didn't catch it," Ty murmured, and he scanned over Julie, but nothing was out of the ordinary.

She had a slight skip and a slide in her step, her eyes exploring the room as she constantly forced Ty to quicken his pace to keep up. Still, though, that blip hadn't gone unnoticed. Ty liked Julie, he did. She was fun, and could see him for who he was, unlike most other people. She understood that he was a star waiting to be born. But for that to happen, he would need to win first, and both of them knew that all too well. Ty was going to keep a close eye on his ally. There was something else there. Something about who she was, the way she acted, her whole persona, it was just the slightest bit off.

And T-Bale never missed a beat.

Inesa Hugo, 18, District Eight

Inesa hadn't stopped thinking since she got reaped. From her goodbyes through the train ride and her first night in the Capitol, Inesa had been trying to solve the problem in front of her. She wouldn't be one of the weak outliers who gave up all hope the moment their name was called. Inesa Hugo was going to win. She just needed to figure out how.

Udon had proved to be easy to twist and control with just a few well-placed words. He was clever, sure, but not as smart as he thought he was. He was too bitter and sarcastic to ever find an ally on his own, and his vocal lack of trust for anyone only made that more evident. Still, she could put up with his immaturity, and that was enough for him to agree on allying with her. In his eyes she was just a kind, sweet girl who posed no threat to him. Hopefully her next targets would prove as easy to convince.

A barrage of curse words and insults erupted from Udon as he was taken down by the hand-to-hand combat trainer yet again, pinned to the mat with ease. He had wanted to focus on the survival stations, which was a smart plan, but Inesa had other ideas. The Career alliance had fractured, and now the dim District Four pair was recruiting new members. In just one hour of training Arkus, the 'immortal' boy from Six, had joined their alliance. Three strong, serious contenders, all sharing a single brain cell between the three of them, and having no control over their emotions. Inesa had originally thought to keep a small, trustworthy alliance, but this was an opportunity too good to pass up on.

Arkus was off doing his own thing, swinging around a sword and getting destroyed by the trainer, while the duo from Four stuck together, the two making their way over to the station her and Udon were occupying.

Udon grunted, the air escaping him as the trainer slammed him to the ground again. Udon stepped in front of the boy, Logan, stopping him from walking by the station.

"Why hello there," she said, twirling her hair with her finger as she flashed him a sheepish smile.

"The fuck do you want," Aphrodite interjected, looking her up and down with a disinterested disgust.

"Well, you see, my ally Udon," she motioned over to her district partner, and was surprised to see him landing a solid punch on the trainer right as she did so. "We've been thinking that it might be nice to have some allies in the arena. And you two seem so strong and smart, we thought you'd just be perfect!"

Inesa expected some sort of pushback, at least a little hesitancy, but instead was surprised to see Logan shrug indifferently. "Yeah, sure. We could do worse."

Aphrodite picked at her nails, and let out a sigh. "There isn't exactly much to choose from, is there?"

Inesa tried to bury her confusion and surprise, instead putting up an excited front. "That's amazing! We're gonna all be a great team, I can already tell!"

"Yeah, whatever," Aphrodite said. "Keep doing whatever you're doing. We'll meet up at lunch and chat about what it means to be a Career. You follow what we say, and you don't do anything stupid to embarrass me, got it?"

"Of course!" Inesa exclaimed, flashing a bright smile. "This is gonna be so much fun!"

Aphrodite rolled her eyes, pushing past Inesa. Logan followed silently behind her. The two were headed to the axes station, where the boy from Seven who claimed to have been trained was assaulting a dummy. Inesa hoped they added him to round out the alliance, that would make five brawny idiots to surround herself with.

She was almost a bit disappointed. Sure, it was good to be buried deeply into the strongest alliance in the Games, but she had expected to have to work for it. Put in a bit of charm, flex her intelligence a bit. Instead, it just fell into her lap so easily that anyone could have made it happen.

Udon stepped out of the ring, his face red with bruises and marks and a swollen eye that the Capitol would fix up before his interview. "The fuck did they want?" He asked, charmingly as ever.

"They want us to join their alliance!" Inesa exclaimed, the hint of a squeal in her voice.

"Why the fuck would I want to join up with those shitheads?" Udon asked, and Inesa was almost glad to finally have some sort of challenge or obstacle, if not just to keep her from getting complacent.

"Because they're good fighters, we could use them," she urged him.

"Or they could use us," he grunted.

She hated how easy this was. "You really think that they're smart enough to do that? You'll see what they're doing from a mile away, right?"

She watched the cogs in his brain turning, his egotistical mindset too prideful to refute her statement, and his head too far up his own ass to realize that she was just stroking his ego. It was all painfully easy, wasn't it?

"All right, sure. I'll think about it," he said.

"Great!" She exclaimed. "They want us to sit with them at lunch to talk as an alliance."

"And what other assholes will be there with us?" He sighed. He wiped away at his face with a towel, but it did little to wipe away the sweat and blood that covered him. More so smeared it, really.

"The boy from Six is with them, I think," she said, pretending to have to think about it. "I don't know who else."

"Some more annoying bitches, probably," he grumbled. She decided to assume that was directed towards the other members of the alliance, and not her. "Whatever, I don't give a fuck who they are as long as they know how to fight. Let them hold the Cornucopia at the bloodbath, then we can just kill them all in their sleep anyways."

"Huh?" Inesa mustered up, and for once the confusion was genuine. Her eyes darted around the room, and she was relieved to find nobody nearby them. She lowered her voice, leaning in towards him. "What are you talking about?"

Udon grabbed his water bottle, downing a long gulp and then shrugging. "Those District Two assholes are making a Career alliance too. And then there's the dicks from One. There'll be like fourteen fucking dumbasses fighting at the bloodbath to control the cornucopia. Let them all kill each other off, and then we finish off the survivors. Easiest final eight appearance ever."

"You'd really slit your allies throats while they're sleeping?" She asked timidly.

He snorted. "I'm here to fucking win, I don't give a fuck."

Inesa pretended to look conflicted and gave an uneasy smile. Mentally, she filed away a note. Udon Chang couldn't be trusted, but he could be used. She had to suppress a grin that attempted to fight its way onto her lips. Easiest final eight appearance ever, indeed.

Nikola Surge, 17, District Five

Nikola had found himself in a difficult situation. He still had the list of targets cycling in his head; Lana, Denver, Jamie, and his district partner who had been given the name River for the time being. Yet four hours into training, and he still didn't have anything to show for it. Lana had been glued to her district partner, and the boy from Two was far too sharp for Nikola to want to have anything to do with him. He had tried wiggling his way into a conversation that Jamie, Denver, and a few other outliers were having at the edible nuts and berries station, but neither of them ever separated for long enough for Nikola to get a private conversation in. The last thing he needed to do was start some massive eight person alliance of useless outliers. Certainly not when there were already two Career packs forming.

District Eight had merged with District Four, and the insane boy from Nine joined them, and they had spent the rest of the morning searching for a sixth. Nikola had politely declined their request. They were a bunch of idiots, sure. But they were also a bunch of idiots. Nikola got the feeling that alliance would tear itself apart by the end of the first day, and he didn't want to be on the receiving end of that breakup.

With River he tried to play the part of a kind and supportive district partner, but it seemed to leave no impact on the girl. She said nothing to him, even though he knew she was fully capable of speaking, and seemed perfectly content sticking to herself. She spent her time quietly shooting arrows with a worrying precision, and dodging away from the station any time someone wandered over to talk with her.

So unless he wanted to join the six bloodbaths that were all watching as Denver loudly laughed and joked, that left him with exactly one option. He would have to play this game the hard way, his intelligence pitted against someone else's.

Nikola slid his tray onto the table, flashing a smile as he slid in across from the pair from Two. Lana tightened her grip on the knife she held in her fist, her eyes scanning over him as he awkwardly kept his smile loosely in place.

Talon looked unfazed, a smirk in place as he leaned back into his seat. "Nikola Surge, District Five. To what do we owe the pleasure?" He asked pleasantly.

"Well, the training center can be an awfully lonely place," Nikola suggested.

Talon tilted his head, his eyes boring into Nikola's for a long moment before he plainly stated, "I suppose it can be."

"Couldn't help but notice what happened with the Career pack while I was watching the Nightly Report," Nikola tossed out casually.

"I'm sure it made for great television," Talon said.

Nikola tried to not let his frustration at the non-answers show. The boy from Two was playing games with him, trying to force him to outright say what it is he wanted. That was no worry though, he could adjust.

"So now your career pack is down to just two members, and one of those members is twelve years old," Nikola pointed out.

Talon looked over to his district partner, then looked down at himself, and back to Nikola. "I suppose it is, isn't it?"

"It is," Nikola smiled. "And I'm not an expert on Games history or anything, but as far as I can remember there's usually at least four members, six most often."

"Not far off the mark. Of course, last year the pack only had three members, didn't it?" Talon asked, and he popped a grape and his mouth and smiled cheekily in a way that Nikola couldn't decipher any meaning from.

"Three sounds like a pretty strong number to me." Nikola shrugged, and he leaned back and carefully cut away a piece of steak and placed it in his mouth.

"Strongest number in nature." He popped another grape. "And the Hunger Games are kinda like nature, aren't they? Every person for themselves, kill or be killed, hunt or be hunted, et cetera et cetera."

"Sounds about right." Nikola shrugged. He looked over at Lana and saw that she had still not loosened her grip on her knife, nor had she broken her gaze away from him. He wondered for a moment if these two were just as unlikely an alliance as the rest of his prospects.

"Alright, so all this dodgy chit chat out of the way, you want to be our ally, huh?" Talon gave him a knowing look. "Or, just my ally? Just Lana's, with me as the bridge to get you in with her?" He raised an eyebrow and nodded to himself as he said the last one, as if he had solved the equation to some problem that had been bothering him.

"I've been looking for a few allies," Nikola said truthfully. "A few more than three, I hope you don't mind."

He snorted at that. "And your first choice is to come to the big, bad, scary careers from the fiercest career district of them all." He said it like a statement but Nikola got the feeling it was more of a question.

"You two don't seem too scary to me," Nikola said lightly, flashing a smile.

Talon returned the smile, and leaned in towards Nikola for the first time. "No, but it's the ones who don't seem bad on the outside that you gotta look out for, isn't it?"

Nikola bit the inside of his lip, forcing his smile to stay in place even as he felt the temptation to break. "I guess," he said noncommittally.

"So why not the gaggle of outliers over there?" Talon leaned back into his chair and nodded towards Denver's group. "They look like a real blast."

"I think some of them would make good allies, just not all of them," Nikola said, deciding to continue answering truthfully as far as he could with this man. Something about him was unnerving, and clever as Nikola knew himself to be he couldn't help the feeling of inadequacy he felt sitting across from him.

"And which ones would that be, if you were to create an alliance of, say, six people?" Talon posed curiously.

"Aside from us three wonderfully talented individuals?" Nikola joked, biding time as he ran through his possible answers in his head, and how he would justify them. "My district partner would have to be one of them, I couldn't leave her all alone in the arena, afterall."

"Pretty decent shot with a bow, too," Talon interjected.

"It doesn't hurt." Nikola shrugged. "From there, I suppose the boys from Twelve and Ten seem trustable."

"Denver Lyon and Jamie Curie." Talon shrugged. "Trusting, surely. Trustable, maybe. Popular, obviously. Useful though? That's a question yet to be answered."

"Well, the amount of choices seems to be dropping by the day," Nikola said, peering around the cafeteria and confirming what he already knew, there weren't a lot of great options left. The District One pair were stuck to one another, the other career pack was already five members strong, the duo from Three seemed inseparable and uninterested in anyone else, and the rest were all loners or a part of Denver's crew of bloodbaths-in-waiting. "Who would you be interested in, if you were looking?"

"I think there's a few choices still of interest," he said. "We're actually having lunch with one miss Maya Hoover today, and she should be joining us shortly."

"Maya, that's the girl from. . . Nine, right?" Nikola asked, pretending he didn't already know the answer to his question.

"Yup, that's the one. Not exactly at the top of those Capitol popularity rankings, but she's clever, and there's not a single other trait more valuable in a person, in my humble opinion."

"And am I not quite clever enough for your group?" Nikola said in what he hoped was a joking tone.

Talon just smiled, and shook his head. "No. So the thing is, Nikola Surge, I think you're incredibly clever, much more so than you're pretending to be right now. So my question, Nikola Surge, is why do you try so hard to hide that cleverness from me? I'm not sure there's any answer to that question that I like. Maybe, I get the feeling, the answer might be as simple as," he paused for a moment, a knowing smile twitching at his lips as he shrugged, "well, nature. Kill or be killed, right?"

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "That's a bit of a pessimistic way of looking at it," he said, attempting to salvage the situation in some way.

"It is, isn't it? Such a terrible way of looking at the world." Talon trained his eyes on him, and when Nikola looked back it seemed like there wasn't a hint of emotion facing him. It brought a chill running down his spine. Then, a switch flipped and Talon was smiling again, leaning into his chair and stuffing his hands into his jacket pocket. "Well, it has been a fascinating chat, Nikola Surge of District Five, but it looks like my friend is ready to join my partner and I. Until next time."

Nikola slid out of his seat, his head spinning as he tried to untangle the knot that had been made in his brain. Lana, River, Denver, Jamie; all four of his marks were slipping out of reach, and his chance of surviving with it. He would have to adjust. He just had to think things through. He still had time, and that was all he needed. As long as he had time, he could figure things out. Nikola was good enough.

He was unable to shove away the doubt that ate away at him as he tossed his tray into the garbage, and returned to the training center, the control he had worked so hard to take for himself slipping out of his grasp.

Ciera Ocussia, 18, District Eleven

Ciera needed to do something. She was the golden child, always perfect in every way. She was pretty, and smart, and just the right amount of charming, and she knew it. So why did nobody seem to be noticing her? The first Nightly Report, Ciera had expected to hear herself be all anyone could talk about. Instead they fawned over Juniper's beauty, over Denver's popularity, over Jamie's cuteness, the Career's strength, all the way through just about everyone but Ciera. She had been forgotten, left in the middle of the pack with all the other ordinary tributes. But she wasn't ordinary. She never had been, and her whole life had centered around knowing that.

Yet a day at training had just reinforced that. All day she had worked hard at the survival stations, glowing at the compliments the trainers all gave her. She aced every test, picked up on every concept, and they all told her how far she was going to go. Yet while everyone else broke off into their groups and alliances, Ciera was still all alone, sitting at the snare station, fiddling with a few pieces of metal wire.

Vesa joined with the Careers, making their alliance six strong, while Maya joined the District Two duo to make them a trio. The boy, Talon, had been approaching just about every single person in the entire room, yet he hadn't talked with Ciera yet. She tried to not let that bother her, but she couldn't bury the frustration it made her feel.

Some of the thin wiring snapped in her fingers. She tried to swallow her frustration, the same way she had been ever since the previous night had revealed those results, but it was becoming impossible. Her district partner was no help, that was for sure. Marquise sat and meditated the entire train ride, and what conversation she had with the man was meaningless. He spoke slowly and precisely, and tried dishing out wisdom as if he were some old sage instead of a kid, just as old as Ciera, and certainly not smarter. Now he was at the hand-to-hand combat station, where he spent long intervals of time chatting with the trainer about technique and form, and little time actually sparring.

Ciera couldn't take it anymore. The stress, the way her skin crawled and her mind reeled for the relief of a drink or some pills to numb away her insecurities, all of it left her ready to burst at the seam. She needed to do something, anything to make her stand out from the crowd, give her the spotlight that she belonged.

"Are you a-a-alright?" The sweet, stuttering voice was unmistakable, and Ciera turned to find the ever-popular boy from Twelve giving her a concerned look as he sat beside her.

Ciera released the wire from her hands, brushing them against her pants as she rose to her feet. "I'm most perfectly adequate, thank you very much."

"You look p-pretty g-g-good w-with snares. And everything else, really," he said sheepishly.

"Thank you," she said plainly. She paused for a moment, contemplating whether to leave or stay. Denver had split off from his large, loud group of friends for the first time all day. Most of them had left to head to their rooms for the night, it seemed like. She thought back to her day, and wondered if anything she did was notable enough to give her any attention on the soon-approaching Nightly Report. Ciera already knew the answer to that was no.

"Mind helping me out?" He asked, holding a handful of wires into the air and grinning. "University p-prepared me for a lot, b-but n-n-not th-this."

Ciera sat back down, and graciously took half of the wires out of Denver's hands, leaving him with the rest of the tangled mess. "Schooling didn't prepare me, either. Surviving in a deathmatch isn't quite the most commonly taught subject."

"G-guess n-not." Denver laughed. He continued to ramble about the difficulties of snares for the next few minutes while Ciera calmly guided him through. For all of his bumbling and joking, Ciera was surprised to see that he picked up on things quick. She supposed it shouldn't be too surprising, he got accepted for university in the Capitol after all.

In no time at all Ciera had taught him the basics of a handful of snares, and Denver looked at his creations proudly. "Look at us, wh-what a team! You're a g-great teacher, Ciera."

"Thank you." Ciera smiled, the compliment warming her up and filling her with the attention and praise that she had been starved for ever since the reaping. "You aren't half-bad as a student."

"I have my moments." He shrugged, a wild grin spreading across his face. "I w-wish I c-coulda met you earlier. You w-w-woulda fit right in at P-Pioneer."

Ciera's expression dropped, and she stood down at the ends of wire that she still held in her hands. "Maybe."

"W-w-well, it might not be too late," he said cheerily. "Someone as smart as y-you? I w-w-wouldn't b-be surprised if y-you w-w-won."

"Thank you," Ciera said quietly. "Your odds aren't looking too bad either, especially since you have that enormous alliance under your wing."

Denver shrugged sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't th-think any of th-them w-w-will actually ally w-with me."

"What do you mean?" Ciera asked, genuinely confused. "You're on top of the popularity rankings, and all of them seem to love you."

"Yeah, b-but th-they all w-anna w-w-w, n-not lose. And me?" He shrugged, and smiled wearily. "Everyone kn-knows I'm n-not w-winning."

"Nobody thinks I'm going to make it far either," Ciera said. "I suppose we'll both just have to prove 'them' wrong, won't we?" She felt a surge of confidence that she hadn't felt in a long time as she asked him, a smile slipping into place as her insecurities were eaten away and momentarily buried. At least for now, she could be confident. She could be certain. She was Ciera Ocussia, the golden child of District Eleven. She was smarter than anyone else in the Games, and able to do anything she set her mind to. And she was going to win.

Denver smiled at her and nodded his head. "Yeah, I g-guess w-w-we w-will."

A/N: Hope y'all liked our first training chapter! Still a lot more drama and shenanigans set to go down in the coming chapters, so stay tuned for that! Next chapter will be a shorter chapter as we get the second Nightly Report with Udon! See you all next week!

Trivia (1 point): Who's alliance is your favorite/the one you're most looking out for so far?