Hello everyone, welcome back! Here's the next chapter for those of you waiting! Hope you enjoy, thank you so much for reading and please leave a review telling me what you think! I got one review I believe that said they hoped Kalani didn't join the careers, lol well wait and see what she does. Remember: people can change their minds about certain things. And you never know what could happen in the arena and the games. Speaking of games….I wonder what with become of those...hint hint maybe. I'm still deciding what I'm going to have happen later in the story. Escape? No escape? Murder? What do you guys think? Please let me know what you believe would work with the story the best, I love opinions (when they're nice lol).
I told Kai about the plan working itself into my mind. Even though he knew it meant him potentially dying, he agreed to help me.
"I don't think it would be too good of an idea to join them though. It would seem like a better idea to stick with Rue and maybe get Thresh's help so that we could protect her better. Not knowing where she is in that arena could do more harm than good for her sake." Kai suggests. I think about it for a second and realize it's probably a better idea than mine. Unfortunately, I've already told the careers we wanted in, which means we'll be backing out of an agreement and they might not be too happy about that. I tell Kai of my concerns.
"That's not the worst thing in the world. The way I see it, we have one of two options," he begins, "We could show the careers what we've got and impress them enough to make them angry for not joining. They'd probably try and track us down in the arena because they'd see us as threats, if we stay away from Rue then she has a better chance of not running into them while they chase us, if we stick with her we have a better chance of protecting her. If we don't show them what we can do then they might think we're actually not good enough to join them and they won't bother with us hopefully, but then again that could go the other way and they could decide to slaughter the easiest targets first. It's a toss up."
"They could also become angry with us for going back on them and teaming up with someone else when they actually see us in the arena not completely sucking." Kai laughs at that. "That could spur them to retaliate." I point out.
Both of us seem to be at a loss. Finnick has given us good advice up until now and what I was about to say would probably piss him off.
"We can't look weak now. They'll think something's up if we don't go through with this."
Kai smirks. "Then let's give em a show."
After lunch training starts right back up. I'm stretching on the floor near the station that I told the careers to meet us by while Kai examines the weapons wall on the opposite wall.
"He aha nā mea kaua e hoʻohana nei mākou?" Kai asks as the careers walk over. We decide it's too dangerous to speak in english around the baboons - aka careers - and so we stick to our native tongue. Loosely translating, he's asking me what weapons we should use to impress everyone.
"ʻAʻole ko mākou poʻe maikaʻi loa." I tell him. Not our best ones. That would be a mistake. It's too dangerous to show our greatest strengths to people we don't actually trust. The nod my district partner gives me tells me that he understands and agrees.
"Are you two just making noises? Or is that, like, and actual language?" The blonde girl asks. I don't think it's meant to be rude, in all honesty she most likely was truthfully curious about what we were saying. But, nevertheless…
"That's a little racist, don't you think?" I narrow my eyes.
There's no response from her.
Kai laughs. "Haole." It's the second time he's called them that and Cato, unfortunately, notices.
"What does that mean?"
Kai successfully dodges the question by…well, walking away. I follow him over to where his eyes had been set since we had gotten back to the training room. The weapons wall held pretty much everything imaginable, from swords and daggers to spears and shields. And at the very top of the wall was a line of different weapons, all too high to reach, cut off from the rest of them. At the very end of the line was the only one that stood out, it wasn't a weapon anyone else had ever used in the games before and it had been wielded by the youngest person to make it out of the arena alive.
"Finnick's trident."
For some reason it didn't feel right for it to be there. It was Finnick's, he should've been the one to decide what happened to it; in all honesty he probably would've had it destroyed after using it to take the lives of multiple other innocent kids.
I took a look at the rest of the weapons in the line, not exactly understanding why they were there. That is until I came across an ax and it clicked. "It's the weapons of every previous victor."
"Almost." Cato says from behind me.
I look at him, confusion evident on my face. "I'm sorry?"
"Almost every victor." He clarifies. "But not every victor has used a weapon to win the games."
This makes me smirk. "Right. You should all do well to remember that."
Cato's face scrunches. He knows I'm right, he was the one to point out the obvious after all. No one should be underestimated in these games, and that was always the careers' downfalls, that and they all turned on each other like it was nothing by the end of the games.
"So we'll just pick our weapons and-" Kai starts, but Cato doesn't let him finish.
"Oh no, we don't care about weapons yet. We wanna see whether or not you can hold your own when you're defenseless in the arena. You can wield a weapon perfectly for all we care, but if you get disarmed and can't fend off an attacker, well then we're gonna have a problem."
As much as I hated to admit it, he had a good point. God forbid someone did disarm you, the rest of the group can't be watching your back if they're already having to watch their own. Lucky for me, I'd grown up with an older brother who'd taken an interest in fighting at a very young age. When your dad dies and you're just so full of anger, I guess you go looking for an outlet. Finnick helped too, he'd been a good mentor toward my brother and I, and for as long as I can remember he'd taught us how to defend ourselves - especially me; I think Finn was afraid something like this was gonna happen one day and he'd been preparing us. My brother made it out...I hadn't, and now his lessons were gonna have to actually serve a purpose.
But I, as well as Kai, had another advantage. Growing up in district four makes for a great training ground. Everyday is like living in the games there, minus everyone trying to kill you. By the age of 5 it was basically law that you be able to swim and hold your breath for at least three to four minutes. The waves could get crazy, and if you were swept under and the current took you, then you needed to be able to survive with no air long enough to make it back to the surface. Balance was a priority if you wanted to make sure your body stays on a boat in bad weather; but it wasn't an uncommon occurrence for people to fall off fishing boats. This meant many encounters with dangerous marine life, especially during seasons when predators, primarily sharks, came closer to the shorelines. Not saying we wrestled with sharks or anything, but we knew how to deal with them enough to make it out of the water alive. Everyone lived off of the fish and other seafood that they themselves caught, meaning we knew how to hunt and find food when needed and that we wielded weapons at young ages - spears, harpoons, knives. As a kid in Four, you're taught to be able to tread water for at least an hour, and you're warned early on in life the dangers of being alone in the water, including running the risk of shark attacks or shallow water blackouts. Our muscles are toned from hard labour, our endurance is long lasting from the amount of time we spend in the water and out in the hot weather, and our skin is tanned - which means less chances of getting sunburned - thanks to our heritage and being in the sun all day. People overlooked us because we weren't a district that trained our kids for the games and yet we were considered another career district.
"Alright, Kai, you wanna kick one of these guys' asses first, or shall I?" I winked at him. Kai let out a laugh before moving out of my way and motioning me forward, as if to say after you.
I measured up all of the trainers and choose the person I thought would be the toughest opponent. In retrospect, not the greatest idea, but I wanted to prove I was more than I seemed. If I could beat up both my brother and Finnick, I could take down one dude. The trainer I picked was massive, but that probably meant he wasn't as fast and he would have a harder time keeping up in terms of endurance. Not many people realized it, but fighting humans was a lot like dealing with animals.
"You pick the biggest dude up there Four? Are you crazy?" I hear the kid from One, Marvel, laughing.
"Laugh all you want over there, Marvin," I roll my eyes.
"It's Marvel." He corrects me.
I turn my back on him and take my stance across from the trainer. I wait. "But here's a question for you. Would you rather swim with sharks or alligators?"
"What?" I hear the careers mumbling behind me. But I know Kai understands exactly where my question is leading. The trainer makes the first move by throwing a punch, but I duck just in time and twist my body backwards, bringing my foot up above my head and effectively kicking him in the face. He stumbles back, but recovers pretty quickly. It wasn't a hard kick, but that was the point; this was a lesson, and I would need to bide my time for them to learn it. "Just answer the fucking questions Marco."
"Marvel!" He corrects me again. "I don't know….I guess alligators since they're smaller."
"Wrong!" I yell out. This time I take the first punch but it's faked and when the trainer tries to dodge it by turning his head my other fist makes it way around to meet his face. While he's disoriented I grab ahold of his arm and turn so that my back is against his chest. With some effort, he's flipped over my body. "Sharks are pretty chill creatures, they're not prone to attack unless provoked by invading their territory or if they mistaken you for food, and even when they attack they become aware that humans aren't their usual prey of choice. You see, humans don't taste that good to them, so they bite and then they usually just let go. But alligators, well they're assholes, they'll usually eat anything."
The trainer gets back up, and I give him credit because that was a hard hit before, right into the temple. I think I may have pissed him off. "But besides that," I continue, "Which one would you probably rather have to fend off an attack from?"
"Ok this time the answer has to be an alligator." He says.
"You are oh for two my friend." I laugh. The man in front of me is definitely angry that I'm showing him up, but that's good, that means his emotions have taken over, and when that happens so do mistakes, people get sloppy when they're panicked. He comes at me again, this time full force, and it doesn't take anything more than a side step to dodge him. At the same time I stick my arm out and swing it into his neck. He stumbles and lands on his knees before recovering again, this time not as quickly. "Sharks are usually bigger, especially the more well known ones like the tigers and bulls and greats, and of course those are all the more aggression types, but handling them is relatively easy as long as there aren't too many and as long as you remain calm." Trainer man charges. "A kick in the nose," my foot meets his nose, "a jab in the eyes," I send my fist into his right eyes and he falls to the side, landing on his knees, "or even a hit to the gills," my knee makes contact with his stomach, knocking the wind out of him, "will send even the largest of sharks on their way. Because sharks like easy prey. If they feel threatened, they back off. Truth is, sharks are probably more scared of us than we are of them."
To my surprise, but also utter joy, my new favorite trainer stands up. He really can take a hit...or hits. "But alligators are harder to fend off, because at least if a shark attacks you they let go. Alligators, however, have this mechanism in their jaws." I run at the trainer, jumping at the opportune moment and wrapping my legs around his neck. "It allows their jaws to lock when they clamp down on their prey, before they drag them into deeper water and bring them into something called a death roll," I throw my body back and to the side, landing the both of us flat on the ground, my legs still around his neck, cutting off his air supply. "Where the alligator spins its body around and around to disorient and thus drown its prey." After a good few seconds of struggling the trainer tapped out. I let him go and he congratulates me on a good fight. I jump down, back to where the careers are standing and smile. "Most people chose a smaller opponent because they think it'll be easier to win against them, not realizing that the smaller guy may have more up his sleeve than they realize. Don't underestimate your competition Mario, it might just get you killed." And with that, I make my way over to the water fountain, feeling both insanely parched and ultimately satisfied.