Chapter Thirty-One: New Friends (and Enemies)

Training Day One

Marius Coin, District Nine Male

I'm hurrying to spread cream cheese on a bagel, wanting to finish all my food before I have to go down and face… well, everything.

Toren's eating is a little more refined, while Anisa barely seems to be eating at all. Miller finished eating long before the rest of us even got up, saying his internal clock had been altered drastically after his innumerable early mornings in the bakery to serve the morning rush.

"Is this going to suck?" I ask Miller this through a mouthful of food, not really caring about politeness at this point.

"Depends on what the Careers make of you," Miller responds. "If they ignore you, you'll probably be fine. If they single you out, though, that'll be a nightmare. Really, the only reason I got through three days of training was that I could break down sobbing in a hurry every time."

Okay, now I'm confused. "How did that help?"

"If you react right away, they get bored and move on. Otherwise, they'll just keep pushing and pushing and pushing until you either try to punch one of their faces in or break down crying anyway. Just get it over with as soon as possible if that happens, because it won't be pretty either way."

I manage to give Miller a cream-cheese-stained smile. "Thanks for the help."

"No need, it's what I'm supposed to do here," Miller says.

Suddenly, an unseen mechanism whirs to life, filling the room with a droning noise that makes everything else seem quiet by comparison. Over the hideous sound, a cool female voice calls, "Attention, all tributes! Training starts in ten minutes. Please begin to make your way to the Training Room. That is all."

The machine shuts off, leaving blissful silence in its place. I chomp down the last few bites of my food before standing up, waiting for Toren to finish her peach and her bowl of cereal. When she slurps down the last of the milk in the bowl, we hurriedly pile the plates, dishes, and cups into a reasonably manageable arrangement, and head for the elevator.

When the elevator doors open with a pleasant ding, it's revealed that they're not empty- the kids from Twelve must have started their trip down earlier. Either way, we can still fit pretty easily, with Anisa and Miller standing together, Toren standing next to District Twelve's already-drunk boys' mentor, and I wait next to the petite girl from Twelve, who gives me such a disdainful expression it's a wonder I don't explode on the spot.

The elevator plunges for a short while before being stopped again, allowing another District- Six or Five or something along those lines- to cram the elevator even more. The girl squeezes next to Toren, and the boy does the same with me, having trouble finding space even though he's pretty small.

Thankfully, that's the last stop we make before the Training Center, where all of us pile out in utter relief. Sure, we might be preparing for a deathmatch, but at least we're no longer cramped. Silver linings, right?

We're not quite in the Training Center yet, just a hallway outside it- the doors are locked. I guess they do that so no one can start early or something, I don't really know.

Each of us wears uniforms denoting our District number, so it's pretty easy to tell who's there and who isn't. Off the bat, I spot the pair from Five quietly having a conversation towards the side of the hall, the girl from Seven snickering at some sort of private joke, and the monstrous boy from One fluidly moving from one terrifying-looking pose to another, seemingly to brush up on combat skills.

A few minutes of this later, the announcement mechanism starts up again, with the voice telling us, "The doors to the Training Room are now opening. Please enter the room if you have arrived. That is all."

As I file in through the enormous doors, I catch my first glimpse of the Training Room. And boy, is it enormous.

Calling it a "room" is not a satisfactory description. Perhaps a "complex" might be a better word. The ceiling is almost nonexistent, revealing a network of thick, sturdy pipes high, high above our heads. Vertical, however, is not the only dimension this room is gigantic in. Near me are all sorts of survival stations, from fire starting to first aid to water purifying to swimming. Farther away are the weapon stations, staffed by trainers and stuffed with racks and racks and racks of every weapon I've heard of and then some. Combat dummies (some missing limbs or even heads) appear now and then, and targets (I guess for weapons that need to be thrown) are set up against a back wall. A smaller section to the left seems to be purely dedicated to fitness- even though the only way I can tell that is from the weights and the small track. Besides that, there's nothing but a bunch of electrical contraptions that I've never seen before in my life. Finally, a handful of doors are set in the right wall, with the words "SCENARIO SIMULATORS" hung on a banner above them. And even with all this, the room is so big I can't see how anyone could possibly bump into each other.

Before I can finish taking it all in, a hulking man with a scar splitting his face steps forward and begins to address us. "Hello, everyone. My name's Cutter, and I'm the head trainer here. Oh, and before you ask about this-" he gestured to his scar- "I got it in a bar fight. Some lunatic thought I was flirting with his girlfriend. He came out way worse than I did."

Thankfully, he keeps talking so fast that no one has time to ask any follow-up questions. "Really, there's not much you need to know. Survival stuff is here, weapons are in the back, and there's some fitness equipment on the left. If you need a simulator powered up, just ask Cherry- she's the head trainer over there, easy to spot. No fighting other tributes, no suicide attempts, for Panem's sake, do not personally test whether something is poisonous, and make sure you don't spend all your time in one place. That's all, if you have any more questions I'll be running the target practice station. May the odds be ever in your favor."

He steps back, leaving the rest of us to disperse around the room. I decide to start with the edible plant station first.

I've never been that good with plants, but maybe, with some practice, I won't eat something in the Games that makes me drop dead.

Once I get there, the screen lights up, and that's when it dawns on me that the final countdown has started.

Clara Ridley, District One Female

The feeling of actually being in control of my own life is the most invigorating feeling I've ever had, hands down.

From when I wake up to when I go to sleep, I get to choose what to wear, what I'll eat, where I'll spend my free time- I could go on and on, but then I'd be stuck there forever.

I can finally become a leader in my own life. And, if all goes well, I'll be leading four other people by the time training ends. That's why I'm the one yelling, "Hey! You know who you are! We're meeting in the center of the room in three minutes!"

I smirk slightly as most of the outliers begin to creep towards the walls, then begin to wait for the other Careers to arrive. They don't take long. First comes Nascar, then the red-haired girl from Four (I know I should remember her name, but I don't). A minute or so later, a hulking boy even bigger than Nascar strides up with a much smaller girl following in his wake, their uniforms marking them as the District Two tributes.

Once all of them get in the center, I start waiting for the sixth Career. But he doesn't show up.

"Whoever the boy from Four is, you're testing my patience," I say as loudly as I can.

His District partner proceeds to pipe up. "He's… not coming. He said he doesn't want to be part of the Careers."

Okay, then. Color me surprised. "His loss, then. Let's just introduce ourselves so we're not constantly asking each other what our names are." Once again, I decide to start off. "Clara Ridley, District One."

"I'd say that it's a pleasure to meet you, but we've known each other for literally five seconds," the smaller girl from Two says. "Galadia Devinson, District Two."

The boy next to her smiles, but it looks pained. "I'm Godric, also from District Two. I prefer to just go by Godric, if that's OK."

Nascar nods, and I do the same. Then, Nascar states what I already know. "Nascar Galluci, District One. I hope to break the streak of bad luck we've had recently."

All of us smile, but it looks painful on everyone except maybe the girl from Four. Ever since Polaris brought honor to our District four years ago, all of his successors have died in the Bloodbath.

Staccato of the Ninety-Second got decapitated by the crazy murderer from Ten.

Tuxedo of the Ninety-Third got hit by friendly fire from his District partner, who just wanted to hit the twins from Three cowering behind him.

Carat of the Ninety-Fourth got stabbed by the boy from Five and the girl from Nine, the big anti-Career alliance of the year.

The girl from Four finally introduces herself, jolting me out of my thoughts. "Sienna Starboard, District Four. Nice to meet you."

"Okay then," I say. "Now that we all know each others' names- I don't think we'll have any problems pronouncing them or anything stupid like that- what do you want to focus on for the first few hours?"

Everyone except me shouts something at the same time. Needless to say, I have no idea what any of them said on their own. All I can do is say, "Can you repeat yourselves, and try not to talk over each other this time?"

Galadia says, "Machete training," way too eagerly.

Godric and Sienna both say, "Survival skills." When I give them a confused look, the only response I get back is "What? If we get dropped into a really nasty arena, we don't want to be starving and thirsty."

"How about we just split up for now? We'll meet up again at lunch and try to stick together after that," Nascar suggests. "Clearly, all of us want to do things that just aren't compatible with each other."

"Sounds good to me," Galadia says. I nod in agreement.

"Well, if you two-" he points to Godric and Sienna- "want to stick together, I don't have a problem with that," Nascar says. "But let's go, let's go, we're wasting time!"

Our group splits up pretty quickly after that. Nascar goes straight for a sword, Galadia grabs a machete, Sienna heads off for what appears to be some sort of pool, and Godric starts up a hologram designed to give out some basic knowledge about edible plants.

As for me, I hit the building station. Knives are higher on my priority list because they're much easier to use and come into play more frequently, but traps are a bit of a specialty of mine. The pair from Five is already there, trying to make something, but the second I arrive, they move as far away from me as they can. I can't help but smirk a little.

With the sound of the Fives whispering as background noise, I start to assemble a trap I remember from training, hoping everything I learned there didn't leak out in the brief period I've been away.

Spark Emmersen, District Five Male

The Career less than twenty feet away scares the ever-loving crap out of me.

Sure, she looks calm right now. She's actually humming a little as she puts together parts so fast her fingers seem to blur, but there's obviously a killer hidden inside. Tall, sinew and muscles everywhere, hardened fingers and a deadened look in her eyes. I've seen that look before, but back home it always comes from the worst of the worst- those so broken they have nothing left to lose.

"Hey," Catarina whispers in my ear. "Don't let her distract you. Just keep your eyes on this."

I try to, and it works, for a little while, at least. However, once the thing is finished, it stops being a viable tactic. The trap we've made is a dull, muted gray, bulging outwards like it's going to explode into pieces any minute. Hopefully, it stays together long enough that we can actually get to test it, but there's no guarantee.

Trying to not look at whatever the Career is putting together, I go to grab one of the burlap dummies that are used to test traps. Once I grab one, the only thoughts I have about it concern that this thing is way heavier than I'd expected. It's not impossible, but getting it over to the trap is hard enough that I start sweating a little from the effort.

Once I set up the dummy on the so-called "motion simulator" (it drags the dummy over a trap to see if it activates), Catarina's already dragged the thing so it's ready to go. One button press later, it's moving along with a horrible clanking sound.

The dummy brushes the trap with a decent amount of force, but it doesn't spring. Instead, the thing remains exactly the same while the dummy goes on its merry way to the end of the line.

"Well, it's our first try," Catarina says. "We can't expect everything to go right the first time we try it."

Before I can respond, my eyes are drawn to whatever Career this is, who's set up her own trap and dummy. Unlike our trap, where it was obvious that the thing was hastily cobbled together without any real knowledge of how to build one, this girl's trap looks so smooth and shiny and perfect that I'm wondering whether this is her profession back home or something.

Her dummy gets caught in the trap, it springing on the first try. No doubt, if that thing was used on a human, they'd be good as dead.

"Ignore her," Catarina says. "She's probably been doing this for years."

Good advice, if it wasn't impossible to follow. Considering I'm pretty confident she's only doing this to try and psych us out, her entire goal appears to be to get us to focus on the crap she's doing. Somehow, Catarina is resisting the temptation, but if someone were to base how well she was doing on me, they'd conclude she was doing a damn good job.

Catarina disappears for a minute and then returns with parts that we can either add to the existing trap or just make a whole new trap with them. Without a word, we start to screw everything together once more, and thankfully the Career girl moves on to another station, leaving us alone in the Trap Pit, as I heard one of the trainers call it.

Fifteen minutes later, yet another trap is built. We drag another dummy over to the motion simulator and set it up and press the button and blah blah blah. That's not really important. All that is important is that the trap fails to activate a second time, leaving another dummy unharmed.

We've barely started doing this, but I already know my odds are looking worse by the second. At this rate, no one is going to want to bet on me, which is a big problem because I need sponsor money to survive.

"Hey! Earth to Spark!" Catarina tries to get in my face, but she's so much smaller than I am she has to resort to just waving her arms. "Come on, we need to focus. I can't have you vanishing into la-la-land every five minutes."

I do nothing more than nod, and decide to just get more parts to try and fix the traps we've already made, even though we should probably move on and try something else soon.

Hopefully, we can at least do one thing right today.

Remi Hamick, District Six Male

I really hope I don't have to resort to eating insects.

Sure, the fake plastic bugs that we get in the Training Center are brightly colored to such a degree that they look diseased, but I'm sure eating them is a whole lot worse than just touching them (the squirming really might kill my appetite), not to mention that these things aren't, well, alive.

After about half an hour of fruitless sorting and knowledge about insects that may or may not come in handy later, I decide to just move on to another station for now. There are a million different things to do here, so I may have to do some walking around to find what I want to try next. However, I can't do that for too long or I might risk the Gamemakers thinking that I've just given up.

As I walk, I take note of what everyone else is doing. The Careers all appear to be handling nasty weapons that could cut me to ribbons in two seconds, making me gulp and steer well clear of them. Both kids from Eleven are putting together a relatively nice-looking shelter. The boy from Eight is being taught how to properly use a knife, but even during the few seconds of it that I can catch, it keeps sliding around in his grip and he can never seem to hold onto it tightly enough. I even pass by Zari quickly as she tries her hand at water purification, but she doesn't even look my way.

Finally, I stop at the climbing wall. While I'm pretty confident we won't be scaling sheer cliffs at any point during the Games, some upper body strength probably wouldn't hurt. After an Avox helps me strap into a harness (which, thank whoever's listening for that, because that thing looks like it was designed by a rocket scientist or something), I start climbing up.

Just a few feet above the ground, I run into problems. I've never considered myself as being short, but I don't have the arm strength or flexibility to reach the good handholds more than a few feet apart. Plus, once the handholds begin to get sparser, I can't go anywhere, at all.

So, like an idiot, I fling myself at a handhold about a foot too high for me to safely reach. I actually manage to grab it for a second, but then my fingers slip and it's all over.

"Well, I guess I'm dead," I say as the harness lowers me back down. And once I hit the ground and start trying to solve the puzzle that is the restraints on this contraption, I realize that I gained an audience while I was up there.

Said audience consists solely of the girl from Two, who's getting suited up to try and make an attempt for the top as well. Right before she starts, she smirks at me. And once she does start, I can't help but stare at her a little.

She's smaller than I remember Careers being, but still, she can reach things that I couldn't, allowing her to easily bypass the point I fell off at before coming to the trickiest part of the wall (at least, it seems that way from here), an overhang that juts more than a foot outwards.

Without even hesitating, she swings an arm up, then a leg, then the rest of her. In no time at all, she's at the top.

That's when I realize I've been staring at her so intently I've forgotten that I still need to take off the harness before I can move on. Somehow, I manage to get about half the clasps and restraints off before the girl lowers herself to the floor, but once she hits the ground, I almost wish I hadn't.

"And that's why you're dead," she says to me.

"Because I'm short?"

Her casual expression is gone, replaced with irritation. "No. Because I'm better than you at this, and probably everything else, too."

Okay, now I think I know what she's doing. "If you're trying to flirt with me, that's not how you're supposed to do it…"

She does a double take. "Flirt? With you? I'd rather flirt with a corpse than with you!"

Oh, please. "Now you're just trying to cover it up, aren't you? You really are into me."

Her face turns so red that it looks like steam could come out of her ears. After calling me several names that I have no idea what they're supposed to mean, she follows it up with, "And what the heck makes you such a flirting expert, Idiot Boy?"

Wow, that is easy. "Kiara, one of my best friends, she does it all the time. I learned everything from her."

The girl hisses, "Well, when I win this thing, I'll be sure to make note of how she sucks at flirting when I visit District Six."

That one hurts a little. "Okay then. You do you. Just make sure you don't get jumped by her friends on the way back to the train."

The girl growls at me, sticks both middle fingers up, and stalks away, hissing under her breath with all the subtlety and poise of a mechanic after an engine explodes. I watch her go, then realize that despite all that, I still have this stupid harness to take off.

I guess I should move on. It's not my fault she's playing hard-to-get. And I won't learn what I have to do in the Games via osmosis.

Try as I might, the Games won't go away if I just don't think about them.

All I can really do to help myself is to be prepared.

Author's Notes:

-Not much to really say this time, except one, I'm not dead, and two, I hope to get at least one chapter out by Christmas for a little present for those of you still reading. Sorry this is going so slow.

-See you next chapter, hopefully!