"Dear enemies: I have so much more for you to be mad about. Just be patient." -Big Sean
Training day 2 during lunch
District Three's Zap "Tharizdun" Philistone's POV
While most of the others were sitting by themselves or in small groups, I was never alone, or in a small group. Because I was always surrounded by these bastard peacekeepers. Five of them. Always following me, watching me, trying to prevent something from happening. It made me laugh.
What they were doing was pointless. I was going to kill those girls anyway, why'd it matter if it was now or later? Those peacekeepers wouldn't be able to stop me once I was out of their reach.
I looked around the room to see who'd be my first. There were six that I really wanted, the rest were too old for my liking.
Who should have the honour of being added first? Should it be my little red haired district partner? The orange haired girl that seemed to be scared of anything as dark as her shadow? Maybe that girl she was following along like a lost dog. How about that curly haired girl with the not overly dark skin? Or the pale blond girl? Perhaps a challenge was up ahead with the tiny career girl.
So many choices. So many to choose from. I couldn't decide which one I wanted first, but I wanted them all.
I felt something tap on the back of my head, probably a peacekeeper weapon judging from the blunt end of it.
"What are you looking at?" I heard one peacekeeper ask.
"What do you think?" I told him knowing what he was thinking, it was obvious.
"Fuck, is that all you think about?" The peacekeeper sighed and snarled. "Raping and killing little girls?" No, I also think about killing you too. I mean, what little else could I think about? I couldn't eat because of this blasted mask. I couldn't kill with you people around. I couldn't wait to get into the arena where I could have the freedom to kill those lovely girls and do what I want. In there, there was nothing that could stop me.
"What's your favourite body part?" I asked him.
"What?" He asked surprised.
"What's your favourite body part? Body part. Body part. Body part."
"Why are you asking me this?" The peacekeeper asked. He was confused, so I told him.
"I want to know which body part to cut off her." I said pointing to a girl with a girl with black curls with the number eight on her back. I felt something slam the back of my head. It sounded like it would hurt. But it didn't hurt, nothing hurt me.
"Fuck you!" A man shouted. "I hope you die in the bloodbath!" You would hope that. Everyone hoped that. But you don't always get what you want, unless you make it happen. Like I do. Like I did. Like I will.
*After lunch*
District Five's Alexander Natas's POV
I felt someone run into me and almost knock me on my back. God! Watch where you're going! For fucks sake, how hard is it to run into a person! I looked down to see a little thirteen year old boy looking up at me with fear in his eyes, afraid of my reaction. Yeah, that's right, fear me, because I could kill you right here and now little boy.
"I'm sorry." He said, voice full of terror. "I'm sorry, I wasn't watching where I was going and I got distracted by my ally who I was talking to, I'm sorry that I ran into you, I just didn't see you." You talk too much kid, cutting off your tongue should take care of that.
"It's all right kid." I said reaching out to him, offering my hand to help him up. He looked at my hand for a couple seconds before accepting it. I helped him to his feet and smiled at him. "Don't run so fast next time." All in good nature, until someone losses their legs.
"Thanks." He happily told me, mostly from relief, before running off with the twelve year old from Three. Both so small, so weak, so helpless. They wouldn't put up much of a fight in the arena. They'd both be easy targets, easy kills. They could try to learn as much as they could, but I knew that no matter what they learned, they wouldn't survive long. That whatever they learned wouldn't help them in the long run.
That boy from Ten was an annoying loud mouth while that girl was bundled up with short lived energy. They'd kill themselves, and each other, because of those faults. The boy would lure another tribute in, and the girl, unable to run away, would get caught. And even if they did fight back, what were the chances of them actually posing a threat?
They might surprise me, but I doubted it. I don't think they're those kinds of people.
I walked over to my favourite weapon station, knives. They weren't the best choice weapons of the arena, but they could do so much. Stab, slash, scalp, fella, and more. I tried every weapon there was to offer in this training center, but none of them made as much of an impression on my as a knife.
I went over to the training station and picked up a survival knife. I felt the weight of the knife in my hand and held it in my right hand, loving the feel of it. I walked over to a training dummy and stabbed it repeatedly in the stomach before slashing its neck a few times and kicked it down. It landed with a thud and I was pleased with the work that I did.
Quick, easy, and effective. That was why I liked this weapon. I didn't need to be a career to use this. Fancy manoeuvres? Who needs that? All that matters is that you kill your enemy.
I turned back to select a different knife when I saw a girl around my age at the knife station. Hmmm, interesting, not a lot of people came near here because of the guy from Three. And surprisingly, she wasn't here for the knives. I saw that she was talking to one of the five peacekeepers that were constantly around the District Three giant. The District Eight girl, December her name was, but she called herself Ember. She was talking to the oldest peacekeeper who looked around fifty years old or something. I listened in to their conversation.
"I still can't believe it's you." I heard her say to the old peacekeeper. The two of them then walked away from the District Three male and the other peacekeepers before continuing their conversation. I returned the knife I was holding to where it had been before I got it and got close to them. Not too close though, I was still at the knife section, but I could hear what those two were talking about. I had to admit, I wondered what a girl like her and a guy like her would be talking about. 'I still can't believe it's you', she said. How did they know each other?
"I can't believe it's you as well." The old peacekeeper said as he hugged the girl from Eight. "December Juliet Varen, you've grown up a lot since I moved." They then broke apart before the girl December asked.
"Why are you here? I mean, why now?" I heard the old man sigh and look at the District Three male. I heard he was a psychopath, a monster, the worst that anyone could be. So dangerous that peacekeepers were stationed around him for the safety of the other tributes. "Bad luck I guess."
"It has to be more than bad luck." The girl said to the peacekeeper, who I thought had some deep connection to the District Eight girl. Why else would they be talking like this? "It's just too perfect, you were there, I was home, now we're both here. Do you think that Capitol did this? Or do you think those up there want to punish us?" When she said up there, she pointed to the sky. Up to where God was. God, if there was anyone he was punishing it was me. He made my life a living hell. Making me what I was and taking my parents away from me, leaving me at the bottom of the pile where the pieces of shit in society live.
God could make anything happen, and he must have thought to himself. Why not make a kid who has no parents and make him miserable? But with a twist, make him white haired and red eyed, so that people don't even treat him as a human. And so he created me. Asshole.
"I don't know what made it happen," The peacekeeper told her. "But we're here now, and there's nothing we can do about it." I then saw her crying, what was she crying about?
"I hate it here," She told him through her tears. "I hate training to kill, I hate having to watch other kids kill, I just hate these games." She then looked at the peacekeeper in the face and asked. "Why did we have to meet this way, father?" Father? This guy was her dad? I hit myself in the head, I should have seen this coming. It all made sense now. Talk about horrible timing on their part. She's going to the games, and he gets to see her go off into them.
"I don't know." He answered sadly. "I don't know." They then made more small talk before they hugged one last time and the girl went away crying while the dad came back to his group of peacekeepers, pretending that the encounter never happened. I walked over to him before saying.
"Nice girl isn't she?" I asked him. He looked at me with both anger and surprise. I guess he didn't expect anyone to come up and say that so soon.
"What do you want?" He asked not so nicely, looking at me suspiciously.
"I just want to say I'm sorry," I told him. "I mean, the timing of this, to see someone you love in this situation. I mean, it must suck, father dear." A look of shock then formed on his face
"How do you know that?" He asked suspiciously and scared. I gave a little laugh before answering him.
"You weren't exactly giving yourself a low profile when you were talking to your little girl over there." I then saw the words register on the other peacekeepers faces, they were shocked to hear that as well, but not as shocked as the December's father. "Oh," I said looking at the other peacekeepers. "You didn't know?" From their looks, they didn't. I couldn't help but smile at the situation. "You should really tell them father, I bet they're dying to know about your daughter."
"He's got a daughter?" A deep, rough, and all around evil voice asked. I looked ahead of the peacekeepers and saw that the giant from Three was now standing up and looking in my direction. He was the tallest person I had ever seen, he was well over six feet tall. He was also muscular. He also had a face muzzle on his face for whatever reason it was for him having it on. I looked up to him and smiled.
"Yeah, this guy here has a daughter that's a tribute in the games." I told him while pointing to December's father. "She's the pretty little girl over there." I said pointing to December who was working on editable foods.
"Bastards," The elderly peacekeeper snarled. "Both of you." Worried for his daughter, just like any father would be. But there was something that he probably knew as well, something that all of us knew about.
"How old is she?" The giant asked looking over at her.
"Fifteen, I believe." I told him. I then felt as if he was smiling, smiling in a cheerful way. That might have scared some other kids, but not me.
"You fucks." The peacekeeper snarled at us again. "You leave my daughter alone." Threatening us was he? What did he think he was? He can't stop anyone from hurting his little girl in the games. He turned to me and looked at me angrily. "I've seen you around albino, you act all nice on the outside, but I know that inside, you're like him." He said pointing to the giant from Three. I then started to laugh. He was right, I acted all nice to the other tributes to make them not worry about me. The only tribute that knew about my true nature was Valerie. Now he knew.
"Okay," I told him. "You want to know my true nature fine. Let me tell you a story of three bears, you know what bears are, don't you ?"
"Yeah, I do." He answered still looking at me intensely.
"Good." I told him unfazed by his stare. "So, there are three bears, a father bear, a mother bear, and a little girly bear. Now, papa bear finds that his little baby bear has all grown up and can't believe it's her. They then spend some time with each other, catch up and all that. But before he knows it, baby bear is being hunted."
"Yeah, by hunters who trap her in a cage." He snarled angrily at me. So he got the symbolization of the three bears, he even added in the hunters, which I was going to add. Good, I could move forward without explaining everything.
"Actually, no." I explained to him. He was half right, but still wrong. "You see, papa bear is really the one who gets caught in a bear trap and has to watch his little baby bear get attacked by the hunters."
"No!" He shouted. "She's helplessly trapped in a cage with people trying to kill her, how as I the one trapped!?" I smiled at him.
"Because papa bear, your little baby bear is helpless before your very eyes. And there's nothing you can do about it. Because wither it's this hunter," I said pointing to myself. "Or that hunter," I said pointing to the giant. "Or any other hunter here," I said spinning my arms while pointing in the general direction of every tribute in the room. "One of them is going to kill baby bear, and maybe wear her pelt as a trophy." That didn't seem like such a bad idea now that I thought about it.
"No," He said to me full of anger. "I take back what I said before, you two aren't alike, he kills for himself, he's a psychopath. But you," he said pointing to me. "You're a sadist." He then looked between me and the District Three giant. "I don't know which is worse."
"Whatever." I told him as I turned my back and walked away from him and his group of peacekeepers.
It didn't take long before the peacekeepers started talking among themselves.
District One's Lynsa Fylar's POV
Griffin had taken that Aerin's rejection kind of far. He was beating some training dummies beyond repair with a mace. In fact, if you didn't know that it was a training dummy, you wouldn't even know what it was before, it just looked like a giant pile of stuffing. He was scaring the other tributes near us, but I wasn't about to ask him to stop. As much as I'd like to, I'd seen him at school while he was enraged, you try to stop him and things wouldn't end up well for one or both of you.
Much like how Aerin had ended up thanks to Griffin. If it weren't for Aerin's allies, I'd hate to think of what Griffin could of, would of, done to him. It started out with Griffin pushing the benchpress bar down towards Aerin's throat, trying to crush it. But then Aerin's allies came to his rescue, his orange haired ally pulling him by the feet, away from the deadly bar. The bar fell from his arms, missing him by inches, before crashing to the floor.
But the fight didn't end there. While his district partner was fighting Shoney, he and Griffin gave a little struggle before Griffin picked up a weight and smashed it against Aerin's face, causing him to spray blood from his mouth. I was surprised the Aerin didn't lose any teeth.
Lucifer didn't want to stop it, and neither did Howl. Arrowe just seemed to follow their lead while Eva and I didn't want to get in Griffin's way. Thankfully, some mentors split up the gang and Aerin's allies got their ally to the medical station after he got his foot crushed.
My male mentor, Bastion Barons, may have chewed Griffin out, but it didn't seem to make a difference. Griffin, Lucifer, and Howl thought that it was better this way. And even though they all got chewed out by their mentors.
Griffin thought that it was a great strategic move. Howl thought that it showed everyone that they couldn't match the might of the careers. And Lucifer thought that they were both right.
As much as I wondered why they couldn't just show off their skills, like normal people, I wondered something more important. Why didn't the trainers stop them like they had stopped Aerin from beating that guy from Twelve? Shouldn't the trainers stop tributes from fighting each other? What was going on?
They didn't stop Lucifer and Howl from fighting three other tributes, and they didn't stop Griffin and Shoney. Why was that?
"Spazz much isn't he." Howl said to nobody in particular, as she continued to watch Griffin beat the training dummies. It didn't sound like a question.
"Is he like this often?" I heard Eva asked me looking at Griffin beating yet another training dummy with a heavy mace.
"Only when you make him mad." I told her. And really, it sometimes didn't take much to make him mad. Like many kids back home had learned early on, it was best to just avoid Griffin and hope you don't run into him.
It was a while, but Griffin finally looked like he calmed down enough to start being civilized again. Griffin was breathing heavily and sweating from swinging a mace up and down, left and right, up and down for almost five minutes. For five minutes, he silently beat the training dummies beyond repair.
"Oh look," Howl announced. "It's calm again." Before I could even think that it was a mistake for her to say that, Griffin punched a training dummy in it's face so hard that the head flew off. Everyone in the career pack seemed to follow the head with their eyes as it sailed through the air and landed on the ground with a soft, but not quiet, thud. The head rolled a couple feet before stopping.
"Are those training dummies realistic?" Arrowe asked us looking at the training dummy head, then to the training dummy.
"No." All the careers except Griffin answered at the same time. He was probably worried that if he got hit by Griffin, his head would fly off like a ball in a basket. But thankfully, if you got hit in the head by Griffin, your head wouldn't fly off your neck. Though you'd probably be able to do little to stop what came next. Griffin then took his place beside me. At least he was calm enough now to be civilized. Still had to worry about getting punched though.
"Okay," Eva said to us. "Now for the final plan, though I'm not sure it's the best idea." We all knew where this was going, the last part of our training room strategy, the one that we did, but also didn't, want to do. We had been discussing wither we should have the District Three male on our team for the past two days. His size and build was beyond even Griffin, but the only weapon he seemed to know about were the knives, and that was the only station that he went to. In fact, he stayed there the whole time, never moving, even during lunch. Other than that, he seemed insane. Mentally, unstably, no doubt about it, insane. I overheard the District Three girl once say to her ally, the boy from Ten, that he had killed twenty seven girls and burned his house down, with his parents and siblings inside. And what's more, I just couldn't get over the fact that five peacekeepers had to constantly be with him as well as him wearing a face muzzle to prevent him from doing something to everyone else.
"I though we decided this an hour ago," Lucifer reminded us. "We take him, and if he causes trouble, there's seven of us and one of him, with weapons." Yeah, that was our plan, take him, and if he's trouble, kill him, just like that. And what did Griffin tell us? Better to have him as an ally than an enemy? Well, I don't think you should have enemies that close to you. It was too close for comfort.
That guy, didn't seem the most trusting of types.
"So who's going to ask him?" Eva asked. "Not I."
"Not I." The rest of the careers, including me, shouted. I sure didn't want to go near him, not with what I heard about him.
"You, new guy," Lucifer said pointing to Arrowe. "Get over there and ask him."
"No way, why should I ask him?" Arrowe said clearly not liking the idea. "I don't want to lose my head, you ask him."
"No way, I did my job provoking District Seven." Lucifer then looked at Griffin. "You big guy, you go ask him." Griffin seemed like the best choice, he was the biggest and the strongest one among us. If anything happened, he'd be the best one to take him on.
"Fine." He said looking at all of us while saying the next words. "Someone come with me." Shoney and Howl then followed behind him as they went towards the knife station.
"You think that those three will be enough is something goes wrong?" Eva asked looking at the three careers going towards the insane psychopath. "I mean, look at the size of Howl, and at the reapings, it took over five peacekeepers to bring that guy down." She was right, remembering the District Three reapings, it took more than five peacekeepers, plus the help of some common people to force that guy down. "All of you, follow me." Eva commanded. Everyone must have been thinking the same thing, because everybody in the career pack was now at the knife training station. Not even Lucifer said anything to Eva.
"Sure, I'll join." The District Three male answered just as Eva, Lucifer, Arrowe and I arrived. Seeing him up close, he was even scarier then he was in the reapings, but I didn't want to show that I was sacred, so I just stood there normally. Not showing any emotion. "After all, this could be the best thing for me. For me. For me. For me." Were we really going to be alright with this guy around us?
I looked at the peacekeepers, and from the looks that they were giving us, they clearly told us that we had no idea with what we were dealing with. Remorse, pity, confusion, those were their expressions. The youngest one looked at us like we were stupid.