Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games.

Note: Last day of training!

Training Day Three – Morning
If Thou Have It

Justus Freeman, 17
District One

He would have to make a decision sooner or later.

Justus picked at his food as he and Felix finished their breakfast. The two of them had taken to waking up earlier than the others in order to try to work some time into their schedule when they could be alone. Having four tributes from the same district meant that things were a bit crowded; he certainly didn't envy the outer districts that had been doing this for years, most of them with fewer mentors to handle the extra tributes.

Still, at least his district partners seemed to be competent members of the Career pack. Mae clearly had some training, at least. Genevieve was more obviously lacking in that area, but the sponsors would probably like her, and she seemed to have a good grasp of previous Games and the strategies that had worked well for other tributes. Most importantly, she was adaptable – a trait that was sometimes lacking in Careers.

It was Felix who had pointed that out. Careers had a tendency to fall into the same pattern. Take the cornucopia, hunt down the other tributes, and then turn on each other if there were enough of them left to do so. There was a reason for the pattern, of course: it worked. And for quite a few Careers, it had worked well.

But it didn't always work. There were no guarantees. Which was why he and Felix had begun discussing some other ways to stir the pot a little once the Games got started. Different approaches he and the other Careers could take. The other Careers were already looking to him as their leader. He was one of the oldest, and probably the one with the most training. But along with that influence came the responsibility of actually leading the pack, making decisions when the group was split, keeping things moving and interesting.

Justus took another bite of his eggs. It was what he'd always wanted, in a twisted way. A position of power, leading others. But this wasn't really what he'd had in mind when he'd started volunteering with the mayor. Politics, for all its cutthroat reputation, didn't usually lead to the players' deaths. Well, not unless they really made a mistake. But once he was in the Games, it wouldn't take a major mistake to get him killed. It could just take a little one.

He would have to be careful.

But not too careful.

It was a balance. A balance he intended to get right. Which was why he had to make the right moves even within the pack itself. Eventually, the Career pack always split up. Well, as long as they lasted long enough to split up in the first place. And when that happened, who he had on his side might determine whether he survived the split.

You're thinking a bit far ahead, aren't you? That was what Felix had said when he'd first broached the subject. And maybe he was. But it was better to think too far ahead than not far enough. He wasn't naive enough to believe he could keep the entire pack on his side – not forever. Eventually, some of them would turn against him – or against each other.

Justus shook his head as he left the table and made his way down to the training area. It wasn't a decision he would have to make now. But eventually the pack would split, and he would have to make sure he was on the right side. The winning side.

If only there was a way to know which side that would be.

Annemae Carty, 18
District Two

They would just have to wait and see if they'd made the right choice.

Mae took a deep breath, taking aim at the target. She and Margo had headed straight for the throwing knives after breakfast, hoping to get in a little more practice with them before taking a swing at some of the heavier weapons. The fact that it was the third day of training was starting to sink in. It wouldn't be long now before they were actually in the Games, and she could be throwing that knife at another tribute rather than a dummy.

Only then would they find out whether they'd made the right choice. She and Margo had thought about trying to find another ally or two, but they'd decided against it every time. The two of them weren't likely to attract attention early on – either from the other tributes or from sponsors. But they would have to wait and see whether that was a gamble that would pay off.

Mae threw the knife, which bounced off the target and clattered to the floor. "Damn it," Mae muttered, her fists clenched tightly as she headed over to the targets to collect the knives. A few had stuck, and a few more had hit the target and bounced off. A few more were scattered harmlessly on the ground by the targets. Not exactly what she'd been hoping for.

This was harder than she'd remembered.

Or maybe she was just tenser than she'd remembered. It was always harder to throw when she was tense. She could practically hear Tyson's voice. Don't hold your breath, genius. It was such an easy thing to forget, though, in the moment. And if it was this easy to forget now, if she was this tense now, then things would only be worse once they were actually in the arena. When her life might actually depend on whether or not she could make a throw.

"Maybe we should try something else," Margo suggested, and Mae reluctantly followed her over to the axe station. Axes were heavier, which made them a bit trickier than they looked. Sure, any idiot could pick up an axe and swing it around in the air, or ram it into something as quickly as they could. But they would tire quickly. Even a Career would, if they didn't have the proper technique.

The trick was to get the balance right, to choose the hand and body positions that would best distribute the weight. Mae chose one of the lighter axes, quickly positioning her hands the way the trainer had showed her the day before. The trainer smiled back, satisfied, as she shifted her weight, her legs spread slightly apart, her knees slightly bent to better absorb the impact when he struck. "Good. You remembered."

Mae nodded. Remembering now wasn't the problem. Remembering once her life depended on it, once she wouldn't have all the time in the world to find the right position and prepare herself – that was the problem. Once she was in the Games, she wouldn't have time to go back and correct her mistakes. She would have to think on the spot. She would have to make decisions quickly.

And she would have to get it right the first time.

Aven Faraday, 16
District Nine

She would have to wait and see if she'd gotten it right.

Aven clapped Thomas on the back as he finished the obstacle course in just under ten minutes. "Awesome!" she grinned. "Maybe I should have another go."

Thomas nodded, still a little winded. "Knock yourself out. I don't think Charu's coming back."

Aven glanced around. The older girl from Six had spent most of the previous day at the obstacle course, but now she was on the opposite side of the room, along with the girls from Three and Twelve. She'd thought about suggesting to Thomas and Nephelle that maybe the three of them could ask her to join them, but she'd put off asking until it was too late. Or, at least, it certainly seemed to be too late.

But maybe that had been the right choice, after all. The three of them seemed to make a pretty good team. They'd spent most of the first day training together, and had split up on the second to cover some more ground, get a feel for more survival skills that they could share with the group before meeting up again in the afternoon. They'd spent the last half hour or so clambering over the obstacle course, trying to get a feel for how quickly they would have to move in the arena.

Aven glanced over at the trainer who was keeping time. He gave her a nod. "Whenever you're ready."

Aven took a deep breath and counted down in her head. Three. Two. One. She took off running towards the first climbing hill, only slowing down enough to keep herself from running right into it. The first time through, she'd been surprised by how tall it was. It didn't look bad from far away, but up close, it stretched almost to the ceiling. There were nets below, of course, to keep the tributes from accidentally harming themselves. She'd fallen from near the top the first time – a fall that would have seriously injured her in the Games, if not killed her outright.

This time, she was more careful. Careful to find her footing before reaching for the next handhold, and the next, and the next. Before she knew it, she was at the top of the wall, swinging her legs over the other side. A platform waited for her there, and another, a little farther away. Aven took a deep breath, leaping from one platform to the next, until she reached a series of bars in the air. Aven reached for the first one, then the next. Hand over hand, until she was safely on the other side, where a net stretched to the floor.

She climbed down almost the entire way, then jumped to the ground and raced back towards where she started, dropping to her hands and knees to crawl through the makeshift tunnel on the floor. Then she sprinted to the finish line, glancing over at the trainer. He smiled. "Eleven minutes, fourteen seconds."

Aven grinned, catching her breath as Nephelle clapped her on the back. "That's even better than last time."

Aven smirked. "Well, I didn't fall this time. That helps."

Thomas nodded. "Good point. How about you, Nephelle? Want another try?"

Nephelle hesitated, then nodded back towards the other survival stations. "Maybe later. For now, I think we should focus on something we haven't tried." She shook her head.

"We don't have much time left, after all."

Nephelle Sorena, 17
District Seven

They would have to focus if they were going to stand a real chance in the arena.

Nephelle couldn't help noticing Aven's disappointed look as they left the obstacle course. There was a part of her that had wanted to try again. To try to beat Aven's score, or at least beat her last time. It was a challenge. It was fun.

And that was the problem. 'Fun' was pretty much all it was. It was a good workout, perhaps, but they hadn't really learned anything. Maybe it was good practice for the Careers, who just wanted to keep up their strength and stamina and didn't really need to focus on learning anything else. But for the rest of them, there was too much they still needed to learn. They couldn't afford to waste any more time scrambling over rocks or crawling through tunnels – not when they could be learning something that might save their lives.

And they didn't have much time left to do that. It was the last day of training, and they'd already been in the training area for a few hours. Nephelle led the way back towards the snare-making station. They'd spent a little bit of time there the day before, mostly focusing on the sort of traps that would kill animals for them to eat. But killing animals wasn't the point of the Games. It would keep them alive, yes, but it wouldn't bring them any closer to the end of the Games.

Eventually, they would have to be able to kill the other tributes.

Neither of the others seemed to want to think about that. Not that Nephelle wanted to think about it, either. The thought of actually killing any of the other people in the room made her sick. Every time she reminded herself that that was why they were here, she had to resist the urge to curl up in a corner and throw up. She didn't want to do this any more than they did.

But they would have to. She would have to. So as the three of them settled in at the snare station, she turned to the trainer. "We wanted to try something different today. We were wondering about good ways to make traps for … well, other people."

"Other tributes, you mean?" the trainer asked, as if there was really a difference. Maybe there was, in the Capitolites' minds. Maybe once their names were called at the reaping, the Capitolites stopped thinking of them as people. Maybe they never really thought about the districts' citizens as people in the first place. Maybe that was what made the Games so easy for them.

Stop it. Whatever she thought of Capitolites in general, this one was trying to help her. "Yeah, other tributes," Nephelle agreed reluctantly. "So what do we do if we want to…"

No. It wasn't about what they wanted to do. It was about what they had to do. "If we have to catch another tribute instead of an animal," Thomas finished, as if he'd read her mind. "What difference does it make?"

The trainer nodded. "The first big difference is the weight, the amount of sheer force that a tribute bill be able to exert, the strain they'll be able to put on the trap compared to a rabbit or a squirrel or a bird. Tributes are bigger, they're heavier, and they might have a weapon of their own that they can use to try to escape your trap." He smiled a little.

"You'll have to be prepared for that."

Thomas Elliot, 18
District Seven

Part of him wished he'd had the nerve to ask sooner.

Thomas leaned forward a little, listening to the trainer. As it turned out, setting a trap for tributes was a lot harder than setting a trap for an animal. Which made sense, now that he thought about it. Animals usually weren't on the lookout for traps. Tributes would be – at least the ones who were likely to make it far into the Games. And the trainer was right about tributes having more ways to escape a trap on their own.

So unlike an animal – a rabbit, a squirrel, a bird – the key to making a good tribute-catching trap was to be able to kill them quickly, before they would have a chance to figure out a way to escape. Which meant that the trap needed to either kill them outright or incapacitate them enough to give him time to return to the trap and kill them. Thomas shook his head. It was just like killing an animal. Just like a squirrel. Just bigger.

A lot bigger.

And a lot more intelligent. Not only could the other tributes fight back, but they might also be making traps of their own. Thomas leaned a little closer, watching the trainer's movements closely. Even if he and his allies couldn't get their hands on the supplies to make a trap of their own, they would have to be on the lookout for traps laid by other tributes. Even if he didn't end up setting a trap, this information could save their lives.

The trainer handed each of them a rope. "One of the simplest ways to set a trap is to have a load of some sort in a net up in a tree or other structure, and to set a trip line that will drop it in a certain spot once triggered. The trick, of course, is to make sure that the tribute is standing in exactly that spot when the weight drops. Any ideas about how to get them to do that?"

"Bait?" Aven offered. That had been a key part of their traps for animals. Placing a bit of food in just the right spot to lure the creatures in.

"Excellent," the trainer agreed. "But what kind of bait?"

Thomas shrugged. "Is there a reason to think that food wouldn't work?"

Aven giggled a little. "You don't think that would look a little suspicious – just a pile of food sitting out in the middle of nowhere?"

Thomas chuckled. "I never said a pile of food. But if you dug up the ground a little, made it look like there was a stash of food underneath, maybe had a bit of something sticking out of it, like it wasn't very well hidden … wouldn't that be worth a look for a tribute who might be starving?"

Nephelle nodded. "Good thinking. Or if you had a backpack, and maybe a strap of it sticking out to make it look like someone had unearthed it a little. Or maybe like a mutt had been digging around in someone's stash. That might make someone want to look a little closer."

"Maybe," the trainer agreed. "What else?"

"If someone was asleep," Aven spoke up. "We could use one of us as bait, pretend to be sleeping … and when the other tribute tried to kill us, they'd spring the trap."

"Not a bad idea," the trainer agreed. "Although if there are three of you, you'd probably have better luck with one of you pretending to sleep and the two of you jumping out and ambushing whoever's coming than you would setting up a trap. Not a bad idea if you happen to find yourself alone, though."

Thomas nodded. If. It wasn't really a question of if they would find themselves alone, but when. As comfortable as he was getting with his allies, it was only a matter of time before they were separated – or worse.

And he would have to be ready.

Etora Nanovi, 12
District Two

They would have to be ready for whatever the other tributes might throw at them.

Etora glanced around the room as the other tributes settled down for lunch. She and the other Careers had chosen a table in the center of the room. It was a good vantage point from which to observe the others, and it gave them good visibility, as well. The other tributes needed to know that the pack was going to be a force to contend with, even though…

Even though three of them were fourteen or younger. Even though most of them didn't have nearly as much training as Careers usually did. Even though they'd spent just as much time as the others over the last three days scrambling to pick up every bit of information they could. Careers could usually afford to relax a little during training. They had to stay sharp, of course, stay loose, and avoid getting injured. But as far as basic knowledge went, they were already prepared well before training began.

Not this year. She hadn't wanted to waste any time with what she already knew, so after brushing up on a few more complicated knife techniques, she'd headed straight for the more complex weapons. Weapons that were usually reserved for the older, stronger trainees at the academy. Darian had followed her eagerly, and had done relatively well, considering his obvious lack of training.

Obvious to her, at least. Maybe not to the non-Career tributes or to the audience, but his technique was way off. He clearly hadn't been training for long, and neither had Elliot or Genevieve, if they'd trained at all. Justus knew what he was doing, and both Mae and Macauley had some solid experience, but … well, not as much. In a normal year, neither of them would have been chosen.

Of course, in a normal year, she wouldn't have been chosen, either. Not at this age. Once she was older, certainly. Seventeen, eighteen. But not now. Not so long before she would have been truly ready.

But it wouldn't help to dwell on that. And she was trying not to. But it just seemed so … unfair. The Capitol could have raised the number of tributes to coincide with the Victors without forbidding volunteers. But they hadn't. So instead of five well-trained killers, District Two had sent the five of them.

Etora picked at her food, watching Genevieve out of the corner of her eye. The older girl seemed fixated on something in the opposite direction. Etora turned to look, but there didn't seem to be anything out of the ordinary. "What is it?"

Genevieve shook her head. "I wish she would just make up her mind already."

Etora raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"That girl from Six, Charu. This is the third or fourth different group of tributes I've seen her with over the past few days. I wonder what her angle is."

Etora shrugged. "Maybe she's just friendly." She'd never really understood some people's need to socialize with whoever was handy, but there were clearly others who didn't share her confusion.

Genevieve leaned forward in her chair, watching the girl. "No. I know friendly. She's playing at something. Maybe hoping that if she gets to know enough people, they won't want to kill her. Maybe hoping to find out their weaknesses or secrets or something."

Etora shook her head. "If you say so." It wasn't their problem, really. She'd been watching the other tributes during training, trying to figure out who might be a threat. And the girl from Six certainly hadn't caught her eye.

Whatever she was up to, it wouldn't really matter once the Games began.

"Yet do I fear thy nature; it is too full o' the milk of human kindness to catch the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great; art not without ambition, but without the illness should attend it. What thou wouldst highly, that wouldst thou holily; wouldst not play false, and yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou'ldst have, great Glamis, that which cries 'Thus thou must do, if thou have it.'"