Vendetta McClain,18, District 4 female

We should be arriving at the capitol soon, the speed of the train is starting to slow down and I can see them in view, all of the colorful buildings, towering skyscrapers, bridges and the beautiful ocean they have. I heard it all about how beautiful the capitol is, seeing it first-hand though, it's a sight to behold.

I decided to order a steak and I'm sitting at the table alone as I cut into it with my knife and take a bite of it, savoring the taste. I'm the only one out here right now. The male mentor Maximus Kingsley who won the 57th hunger games is just a useless drunk. Barbel has been in his room almost the entire time since we boarded this train and Maria is just constantly disappearing and reappearing.

"Hey." I hear Maria as I'm cutting into another piece of steak and I look up at her.

"Vendetta right? Nice name." she compliments me and sits across from me as I tighten my grip on my knife. No one is here, no one can stop me, this'll be a perfect opportunity to just finish her off right now.

"Thanks." I grumble as I chew another piece of steak.

"You know, you don't seem like the other careers. Most of them are just so stupid and dive head first into everything, just like Mattias, you remember him right?" She casually asks. I feel anger flare up in me as I'm ready to just dive across the table to get to her. She doesn't know he was my fiancée though. I can probably use this to my advantage.

"Yeah, he was your district partner." I mumble.

"He was strong and honestly he was the better fighter, he was also a muscle head though, never used his head to think. He slipped up, I took advantage of it and here I am. You seem a lot like me though, a thinker." She points to her head as she smirks.

"Well I'm glad you think that…" I nonchalantly respond, how tempting it is to just stab her in the neck right now. She didn't deserve to go out so quickly and painlessly though, I need to make her suffer.

"I respect people that think, and look if Barbel and Maximus just want to be in their rooms all day that's fine. Me and you though, we can go places. Follow my advice and you'll be walking out that arena as the victor this year." She says with confidence.

"Yeah, maybe I'll do that." I suggest. I'll play along with her for now and strike when the opportunity is right.

"I'm liking you already." She grins as she offers her hand to me and I hesitate for a moment before shaking it. She notices the ring on my finger though.

"You got someone special waiting for you at home?" she questions.

"No, he passed away…" I mumble.

"Oh, my condolences." She apologizes.

"Thank you, I'll be ok though. What about you? Anyone waiting for you at home?" I ask.

"Just my little sister, there's uhmm, a lot of personal things I need to take care of before I can commit myself to anyone…" she speaks in a more quiet tone.

"Like what?" I ask.

"I…I don't really want to talk about it right now, but yeah you look like you can easily be leader of the alliance this year if you wanted to, is that your plan?" She changes the subject.

"No…" I quickly answer and she smirks again.

"Good, I was hoping you said that. The leaders always go down quickly, happens every year. You blend in with them and once you're in the top twelve, just start slowly picking off the rest of them. you need to get to them first cause they also have the same idea as you. Beat them to the punch." She informs me.

I look at her Intently as this is all news to me, but I know this already, I probably even know more than her.

"The farther you get in that arena, the closer you are to being able to walk out of there. You grow more and more desperate and It comes to the point where you don't even know right from wrong anymore. The only thing that matters is surviving. You're going to feel it too Vendetta, the only thing that will matter to everyone there is surviving and cutting through anyone in their way to achieve that. Keep your "allies" close, you stick around long enough and they'll be the ones to turn on you." She informs me and the train comes to a complete stop.

"Looks like we're here, let's discuss this further later, go get Barbel, I'll go and get Maximus." She stands up from the table.

I reach Barbel's door though and he immediately opens it as he looks at me.

"Took a nap?" I ask.

"Was just relaxing, there won't be much time for that later, so might as well do it now." He grumbles.

"I see." I agree with him as Maximus stumbles out of his room down the hall with a bottle of half drunken booze in his hand.

"Maximus." Maria calls after him.

"Shut up bitch!" he immediately snaps at her and she only gives him an irritated look.

"Out of the way fucking kids!" he barks at us as he pushes Barbel against the wall with his shoulder and pushes me out of the way with his hand. I hear Barbel let out an inhuman growl though as he immediately charges at Maximus. He quickly punches Maximus across the face twice and grabs him by his neck. Maria gasps as Barbel literally has him in the air as he's struggling to breathe and slams him through a table instantly knocking him out.

"Well…can't say he didn't have that coming, you two ready to go?" Maria shrugs her shoulders but Barbel's breathing gets heavier as his body trembles.

"Barbel...you ok?" I ask and he closes his eyes for a moment and grabs his hand for a few seconds before he gradually stops trembling.

"Yes…let's go." He mumbles and we just leave Maximus where he is before exiting the train. There's something about Barbel, something really dark inside of him that he's trying to conceal. It's only a matter of time before I see him for who he really is….

Percival "Percy" Klein,17, District 8 male

"Are we there yet? Are we there? Huh? Huh? Huh? Are we?" I repeatedly ask my mentor Brock as I run laps around the table while jumping up and down.

"No Percy, my goodness can you sit still for one damn second!?" Brock snaps at me. Brock is a moody man and no fun at all. He won the 47th hunger games while my other mentor Tatiana Locke won the 71st games.

"What's taking so long though! Huh? Why is it taking so long for us to get there? Huh? Are you gonna answer me? Hello?" I quickly ask again as I continue running laps around the table and Tatiana only sighs as she comes back inside the train after going on a smoke break.

"You got a lot of energy kid, almost too much, you're driving us insane!" she laughs.

"Why though? I just want to know if we're there! Why you not answering? C'mon answer me!" I continue running circles around the table.

"We should be there very shortly, but in the mean time let's talk about you, you said a trident interests you right? Maybe you can do some training with it, I think it'll fit you well!" Tatiana tells me as she grabs a coffee cake from the table.

"Yeah, Yeah a trident is really cool! Like really cool!" I shout as I continue running laps.

"How about Allies? You thought of anyone you'd want to ask?" Tatiana takes a bite out of her cake.

"I'm going to ask Mercedes! Definitely! She seems nice and should ally with me!" I shout as I then start doing jumping jacks.

"Well uh…ok if you say so." Tatiana hesitantly responds.

I wonder if Mercedes is done with her nails yet. As soon as we got on the train she said there were too many poor people on the train with her so that she was going in her room to paint her nails. I hope she's feeling better, she's probably just really stressed out and tired. The train however comes to a stop and I light up in excitement.

"We're here now!? Are we? Are we? Huh?" I shout as I jump up and down on the sofa.

"Yes Percy, that does appear to be the case, want to use some of that endless energy to let Mercedes know?" Tatiana asks.

"Yeah sure thing!" I jump off the sofa and run to her room door before pounding on it non-stop.

"Mercedes we're here! We're here! Hello you there? C'mon answer me!" I yell as I continue knocking on the door.

"Oh my gawd you're so annoying leave me alone!" I hear her whine through the door.

"We have to get off the train though! We're here, we're at the capitol! You heard me right? Right Mercedes?" I continue pounding on her door.

"I heard you like my gawd go away!" she whines through the door.

"But why? C'mon hurry up! Hurry! Hurry!" I shout again and the door flies open.

"You are such a pain in the butt! Ughhh!" She scoffs at me before pushing me out the way.

"Why do we have to leave right now? Like I was totally having a good sleep! My bed at home is much better but still, this bed is comfortable!" She whines and looks out the window before she gasps in excitement and starts jumping.

"Oh my gawd it's so pretty! Oh I like it here! It's so fitting for a rich and pretty girl like myself!" she squeals in excitement and I jump next to her in excitement but she only gives me an annoyed look and walks away.

"Hey Mercedes I was wondering if we can be allies! We should too, like why not?" I smile as I continue jumping.

"Nooooo! You're not handsome enough! I want a handsome ally! Someone who can be my Prince Charming!" she shouts back in her high pitched voice.

"Gosh do we have one hell of a pair this year." Brock sighs.

"Got that right, but it's pretty exciting for a change. Anyways you two we're going to head out, smile for the cameras. It's important to make a good impression. These are the people who're going to be sponsoring you after all." Tatiana informs us as we she prepares to open the door.

"Yeah, yeah let's go already! Come on open it!" I jump up and down and she smiles before opening the door and I immediately rush out as my eyes are blinded by dozens if not hundreds of flashing lights with an out pour of cheers and claps.

"Hey everyone!" I wave at the numerous crowds of people here who are happily cheering me on as I begin running towards some building, probably where they're gonna clean me up and prepare me for the chariot rides.

"Slow down Percy!" Tatiana scolds me but I only continue running and jumping up and down.

"Hey everyone! I'm rich just like all of you! I'm very pretty too so you're going to all sponsor me!" Mercedes exclaims as she does various poses as numerous pictures are being taken of her. This is so cool! Like so cool! I can't wait to meet the other tributes and find a cool ally!

Thomas "Tom" Powell,18, District 5 male

I grit my teeth in pain as I sit in this tub as all these random people scrubs me clean. They've been doing this for at least twenty minutes already and I can feel and see my skin turning raw and red.

"Almost done dear, you had quite some dirt on you! Not surprising for a district three tribute though." She says as she continues scrubbing me. Thankfully it doesn't take much longer for them to finish up and they give me a very small towel to dry myself off and have me sit down while I wait for someone else to come in and take my measurements.

I look at my ring for a moment and I think of Cosmo. I know I need to be in an alliance of some sort if I hope to walk out of the arena alive, I don't think I can take the initiative in approaching anyone though. I spoke to Lysta a little bit but she didn't seem very interested in forming an alliance with anyone. She was more focused on ordering a bunch of ingredients from the kiosk and mixing them together to cause chemical reactions. She nearly set the entire train car on fire too. She's an interesting one to say the least.

A tall man with purple skin and a pink Mohawk suddenly enters the room and he gives me an odd look as he eyes his clipboard afterwards.

"Thomas Powell?" he adjusts his glasses.

"Uh…yes." I awkwardly answer.

"I'm here to take your measurements, stand up please." He informs me and I do as he say but feel very awkward as I'm completely naked. He takes my weight first before measuring my reach, waist size and so on. He then jots down some notes on his clip board and looks back up at me.

"You can have a seat, your prep team will be with you shortly." He adjusts his glasses again before leaving and I only sit back down as I await them. I kind of doze off for a moment but I suddenly hear a loud explosion go off followed by a scream and I immediately jump up from the table as my heart begins to pound. What the hell was that? It sounded relatively close by too. I think about poking my head out from the door, but I think I'll just sit still for now.

It feels like at least a half an hour passes as I sit here naked wondering just what the hell is going on and three identical looking women all colored pink with blue hair suddenly waltz in through the door.

"Well at least one you can sit still!" one of them snaps.

"Uh what?" I ask as confused as ever.

"That darn district partner of yours! She was told very specifically to wait for us to arrive but noooo she just has to go mixing a bunch of cleaning supplies together and cause the entire bathtub to explode!" one of the other women butts in. Wow so Lysta was behind that gigantic explosion.

"Oh…well yeah she's apparently a huge fan of chemicals and stuff…" I mumble.

"That's as clear as ever young man! Someone like her definitely won't last very long in the arena, anyways I'm Leaf!" the first woman extends her hand to me and I awkwardly shake it.

"I'm Leaf!" The second identical women shouts but she doesn't extend her hand.

"I'm Leaf!" The third woman cheers as she hugs me.

"Wait, all three of you are named Leaf?" I raise an eyebrow, gosh what the heck were their parents thinking?

"Well yeah! But more importantly we're your stylists and we're going to make sure we put that nice well toned body of yours to good use!" the loud leaf shouts at me.

"Hmmm, what should we do? What should…oh I have just the idea!" friendly Leaf jumps up in excitement.

"Well hurry up and spit it out, we don't have all day!" The rude Leaf barks and all three of them huddle together in a circle as they start whispering.

"Perfect, we'll go with that!" The loud leaf shouts as she walks over to me.

"Thomas, get ready to look fabulous!" she smiles at me as she gives me a thumbs up. This was nice and all but I hope they put some clothes on me soon, standing around these three, fully butt naked is getting more and more uncomfortable by the second.

Teddy Trismegistus,14, District 1 male

"Wow! Look me!" I say to my reflection as I marvel my outfit. I'm dressed up as a king! My golden crown with streaks of red is fitted with various jewels. My cape is red with streaks of gold and they both compliment each other well. My garbs underneath my cape is gold plated with more streaks of red running down it and a golden staff in my hand completes me. Annabelle is most likely going to be a queen or something but I don't really care. She's been nothing but a complete bitch ever since, constantly saying how weak all of the tributes look this year including the careers, how easily she's going to steamroll everyone and lashes out at my mentors whenever they call her anything besides "Victor." I honestly don't know how the careers are going to be able to put up with her crap but we're apparently about to head down to the stables now so we'll be able to start some small talk with them.

"Got to say, you're looking pretty darn awesome!" one of my stylists Mica compliments me.

"Just wait until I become victor, I'll look even better!" I give him a confident grin.

"I look forward to it! It's about time our district has a new victor, anyways, ready to meet up with up with the others?" He asks as he adjusts my crown slightly.

"Yup, lets go!" I swing my staff in my hands and he leads me out of the room as I follow him down the hall. I swear this building is like a maze, so many different halls, corridors and lots of strange looking people with their hair and skin dyed all these ridiculous colors. It's pretty impressive how Mica has the entire layout of this building hardwired into his memory.

We soon approach my mentors Nigel and Mabel who won the 63rd games along with Annabelle who's as I already guessed is dressed as a queen, unlike my outfit which is a dominant gold, hers is a dominant red. She's also applying a ton of make up to her face while examining it in a small pocket mirror. Yeah she's pretty and all, but just how much is the make up helping? I'm interested to see how she looks without all that crap caking up her face.

"Wow Annabelle you-" I begin to compliment her

"Shut it little squirt, you don't call me that, you address me as Victor of the 81st hunger games!" she hisses at me.

"Well unless there's somehow two victors allowed this year, I won't be able to oblige since it's me that's going to be the victor!" I proclaim and she gets in my face.

"I've had just about enough of your mouth, all you do is fucking talk! A dumb kid like you should be in the academy still, I bet you can't even wipe your ass yet! You'll soon realize what you got yourself Into though and when you do, it'll already be too late!" she growls at me and I only glare her as I clench my fists. I really am starting to hate her, if it wasn't for us being in the same alliance I'd probably kill her in the bloodbath. I know I can beat her too. She's apparently really good with a bow and arrow but I'm more versatile with my spear at close and long range, and she won't have any answers for me with her puny bow when I'm in her face.

"Alright you two knock it off, if you want to kill each other so bad, do that in the arena, otherwise get ready to head down to the stables. This'll be an opportunity to speak to the other careers so you can get this alliance moving." Mabel sternly tells us in an impatient tone and Nigel only lets out a sigh. He's barley said a word so Mabel is pretty much on double duty mentoring the both of us.

Me and Annabelle glare each other for a moment but we eventually look away from each other and head towards the elevator as we walk behind our mentors not saying another word to each other. The elevator door opens a moment later and district ten is in here. The boy is as silent as a mouse but the girl I think her name is Sariah is keep talking to him about treasure.

I try to give them an intimidating look as our mentors stand outside the elevator seeing us off, but Sariah seems unfazed as she's smiles at me and seems pretty…excited to see us.

"Hi I'm Sariah!" she happily introduces herself to us.

"Good for you runt." Annabelle scoffs as she starts putting on even more lipstick.

"What's your name?" Sariah suddenly asks me and i only give her an awkward look, why is an outlier trying to make conversation with me?

"Teddy…" I mumble.

"Like Teddy Bear? That's so cute! How's your district though? Do you like to go on adventures?" she excitedly asks hopping up and down. Geez what's her problem, and what kind of question is that?

"it's nice there. I don't go on adventures, I'm too busy training." I answer.

"I bet there's a lot of treasure in your district too! Do you like treasure?" she becomes even more excited.

"Well yeah I guess-" I begin.

"REALLY!? That's so cool! We can be allies!" she shouts and i give her a puzzled look as Annabelle laughs to herself. Is this girl dumb or is she actually expecting a fully trained career to ally with her?

"How cute, look at the little kid alliance forming." She teases us but I just ignore her.

"You know I'm a career right? I question.

"Well yeah…but we both like treasure!" She protests.

I only roll my eyes before the elevator door opens as we're now at the stables.

"I'm sure there's plenty of other tributes here who likes treasure, goodbye Sariah." I give my farewells and she looks absolutely heartbroken. I almost feel a little bad...

"oh…ok, bye." She holds her head down and I exit the elevator as we're guided to our chariots.

"What a little heartbreaker you are, she might kill you now!" Annabelle teases me.

"Shut the hell up!" I bark at her but she only laughs as she skips ahead of me and waits by the chariot as she flips her hair and looks back into her pocket mirror.

If she kept this up, she'll be dead before we even got into the arena!

Amos Walton,17, District 2 male

"So how you feeling about meeting your new allies?" I smile at Victoria as we're on the elevator arriving down to the stables.

"Don't really care, you seem oddly excited though." She swings her plastic sword in her hand.

Me and Victoria are both dressed up as Greek warriors, complete with steel armor, matching helmets, armored boots, a shield, sword and i'm just ecstatic!

I read a lot at home and I've done extensive research on famous conquerors of the past. Cagney also reads a lot about them and my personal favorite is Alexander The Great. It's such an honor being dressed up as him.

"Alexander The Great is my hero, so of course I'm excited!" I smile.

"Hmm you know a lot about history it seems, where were you when I was failing history class?" Victoria Jokes and I only laugh a little as the elevator door opens and we're guided to our chariots with Victoria looking around intently, like she's looking for someone. It looks like some tributes still haven't arrived yet, but for the most part everyone was either standing next to their chariots or just patiently waiting inside of it.

"Looking for someone?" I curiously ask.

"Yeah, but she's not here yet, anyways we have some company." Victoria informs me and I turn around to see the two tributes from district one approaching us.

"Victor of this years hunger games, you can call me Annabelle though!" The girl cockily states as she extends her hand, boy is she already making a great first impression.

"Well, Annabelle it's a pleasure to meet you." Victoria sarcastically say as she shakes her hand.

"Teddy Trismegistus!" the small boy extends his hand to me.

"Amos Walton, pleasure!" I smile as I shake his hand and Victoria and Teddy introduce themselves to each other after.

The two tributes from four then start making their way towards us. The boy is shirtless and is wearing tight blue scaly spandex with a necklace around his neck containing various shells and pearls. He's wearing a crown that's fitted with different colored pearls and is wielding a large trident.

The girl resembles a mermaid. She's wearing a bra made of sea shells, has a similar necklace and crown to Barbel, is wearing blue scaly spandex and has glitter spread across her body as she's also holding a trident.

Barbel appears to completely ignore Teddy and extends his hand to me.

"Barbel Beacher." He calmly say.

"Amos Walton!" I smile as I shake his hand.

"Vendetta McClain." Vendetta introduces herself to me and the rest of us introduce ourselves to each other expect for Barbel who's still acting like Teddy isn't even here.

"Hey I'm Teddy!" Teddy finally breaks the really awkward silence between them and Barbel turns to him before he narrows his eyes.

"How old are you?" Barbel practically mumbles.

"Why does it matter? I'm a career just like the rest of you." Teddy defensively answers.

"There won't be any kids in our alliance this year." Barbel fires back and Annabelle apparently finds this funny and begins laughing.

"Well he's only fourteen so I guess he needs to find another alliance!" She butts in still laughing.

"Shut up!" Teddy barks at her before turning back to Barbel.

"Who's call is that? Did someone die and make you leader!?" Teddy shouts at him as his face reddens and Barbel remains quiet for a moment. Teddy did have a good point there.

"Whoever scores the highest out of us will be leader, is that something we can all agree on?" Barbel asks.

"No!" Teddy immediately shouts.

"Just cause someone scores the highest doesn't mean they'll be the best at leading a team!" He adds. Again another good point by Teddy.

"We'll have a vote then, who thinks the leader should be selected based on their training score?" Barbel asks and everyone except me and Teddy agrees with him.

"I want a strong leader, I won't respect someone or look at them as my superior if I know I can kick their ass." Victoria states.

"Four to two, guess it's settled then…Teddy." Barbel mocks him as he's directly in his face but Teddy holds his ground as he grits his teeth and clenches his fists.

Victoria suddenly walks off though and Barbel looks away from Teddy as he adjusts his grip on his trident.

"I don't want Teddy in the alliance anyways, I already have some replacements for him like the boys from three and six!" Annabelle suggests.

"They do look strong, I'll approach them when we get to the training facility. It's important we get some new recruits as we have a vacancy." Barbel agrees with her.

"Hey no disrespect to you guys, but until one of you becomes leader, Teddy is our ally and we should treat him as such." I stand up to Barbel and Annabelle. Barbel gives me an irritated look and Annabelle only rolls her eyes but Teddy seems to appreciate what I said.

"Fair enough." Barbel agrees but suddenly a huge smack followed by a shriek and several gasps rings out across the stables. I quickly turn around to see Victoria standing over the girl from district twelve who's only sitting on the floor clutching her face while staring at Victoria in shock.

"That's for you, you racist homophobic bitch, and just wait until we get in the arena. There'll be so much more where that came from!" Victoria warns her.

The girl from twelve, Karen suddenly scurries to her feet and runs off as I can hear her begin to cry. Guess Victoria found who she was looking for. Hope it was worth it though cause several peacekeepers immediately approach Victoria and lead her out of the stables.

"Well she saved me the trouble of doing it myself." Vendetta comments and I only shrug my shoulders.

"Alright that's my cue to return back to my chariot, talk to you guys later!" I wave at them and board my chariot alone as I just wait for these rides to start.

Hey guys so i decided to split these parades into two parts. The second part will show the actual chariot rides and it'll be seen through the perspective of someone in the audience. Anyways things are picking up and I'll see you guys soon. Till next time!