Disclaimer: The Hunger Games is not mine.

Note: Train rides are done! These were a lot of fun to write, and significantly easier than the reapings. Dialogue comes more naturally to me than description, so these went a lot quicker. Having a long weekend also helped.

I've picked my bloodbath tributes. Since this is one of the earlier Games, I'm imagining the bloodbath a bit differently than the later ones. The location of the Cornucopia will also play a role. (Feel free to go back and scour the first chapter for clues about what I mean by that; I've had that bit planned for a while.)

With that in mind, there's a new poll on my profile for you to vote on who you think will die in the bloodbath (not necessarily who you want to die in the bloodbath). This is not likely to change my decision about who will die, but I'm curious about who you think are the likeliest candidates. The only reason this would affect my choice is if the majority of people either guess everyone correctly or don't guess any of the right people. That would let me know that my choices are either too predictable or completely unbelievable. I'm aiming for somewhere in between.

Train Ride: Districts 9-12
The Strength of your Hearts

Antiquity Kirsh, 14
District Nine Female

It didn't take long for them to decide their mentor was an idiot.

Antiquity and Husk had spent the last half hour or so listening to Belonessa gush about how wonderful they were and how one of them was sure to win this year. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to have any idea how they would win – aside from being perfect and strong and amazing and a whole long list of other qualities that Antiquity was fairly sure didn't describe either of them.

She knew she should be annoyed; this woman was their best chance for survival, after all, and she was completely clueless. But, eventually, Antiquity simply tuned out their mentor's chattering and settled down to watch the tape of the reapings for the third time.

Husk, on the other hand, was annoyed enough for both of them. He sat at the table, glaring at Belonessa, pounding a knife into the bench beside him. At first, Belonessa tried to convince him to stop, but, eventually, she decided it was good practice and went on beaming, delighted that he was so eager.

"Oh, my friends will all be so proud of me," Belonessa giggled over the sound of the tape. "District Nine's first successful mentor. Of course, the only problem with that is that I won't get to do it again next year. It'll be your turn – one of you. Oh, your district will be so happy to finally have a victor. Maybe they'll move me to another district without a victor – maybe Six. The mentor there is so old, I'm sure he wouldn't mind some fresh ideas. Maybe I could keep moving around the districts until everyone has a victor. Wouldn't that be exciting?"

"Enough!" Husk finally shouted. "At least if one of us wins, the next tributes won't be stuck with you! Do you have any idea at all about how to actually win the Games?"

"Of course – kill as many tributes as you can, as quickly as you can."

"That's it? That's all you've got? A three-year-old could have told me that much! You have no idea what you're doing!"

"Of course I do, dear. You just wait and see."

Waiting didn't exactly sound like Husk's strong suit. "There has to be some way to get a different mentor!" he insisted.

"Not while I'm here!" Belonessa said cheerfully.

There was a crash. A scream. Antiquity turned, startled, to see Belonessa on the floor, a knife in her chest, a pool of red forming around her. Husk gave the body a little kick. "How about now?"

Antiquity stared. "You just—"

Husk rolled his eyes. "Come on. Tell me you didn't want me to."

Antiquity took a few hesitant steps closer. Belonessa's body lay still, lifeless, at the boy's feet. She hadn't seen that much blood in years. Not since…

Just as she was bending down to get a closer look, their escort, Simmity, walked in. And screamed. And ran back the way she had come, probably to get some Peacekeepers. "What are you going to do?" Antiquity asked.

Husk shrugged. "Nothing. What can they do to me? Send me to a fight to the death? Oh, wait – that's where we're going, anyway."

"But now we don't have a mentor."

Husk shrugged. "Was she really doing us any good?"

Antiquity stared at him. Of course she wasn't. But she hadn't really been doing any harm, either; she was just annoying. "You shouldn't have killed her."

She wasn't sure why she said it. It would probably only make Husk mad. But she felt like someone should say it. Someone needed to say it. Belonessa had been innocent. Irritating, but innocent.

Antiquity knelt beside their mentor, staring at the blood. Just like two years ago. But what she had done then – she had only been protecting herself. What Husk had just done was murder.

There was a difference.

There was a difference, she told herself as the Peacekeepers came. Two of them took the body. Two of them led Husk away to a different car. But not her. They left her, kneeling in a pool of blood, staring into the distance. Because there was a difference between them.

There had to be.

Miles away, a phone rang. Nerond Pel, District Nine's mentor for eight years, picked up. "Hello?"

"Nerond?" The voice on the other end was frantic. Simmity. "Nerond, it's about Belonessa."

Nerond sighed. The Games hadn't even begun yet. How much trouble could she have gotten herself into already? "What did she do this time, Simmity?" Belonessa hadn't been his first choice to replace him. Or his second. But nobody else had wanted the job.

"She's dead." Simmity was hysterical now. "One of the tributes – he killed her. With a table knife!"

There was silence for a moment. "Hello?" Simmity asked. "Hello, Nerond? Did you hear what I just said?"

"Yes, I did," Nerond said quietly, a smile creeping over his face. "You just told me one of our tributes has potential. I'll meet you when you arrive; you can fill me in on everything."

"But he killed—"

"That's what they're supposed to do, Simmity. You let me worry about how to spin it for the audience. Just get the tributes here ... and don't let them kill anyone else. Tell them to save it for the arena. Then we'll have a show."

Libby Hall, 15
District Ten Female

She felt better after about six or seven cookies.

Glenn had warned them both about the rich Capitol food, but, so far, it hadn't had any effect other than calming her nerves. She and Glenn now sat across from each other, sharing a large and rather delicious chocolate cake. Wulfric stood a little ways away, his arms crossed, smirking a little. Libby wasn't sure whether he was upset that they were eating – they'd invited him to have some, of course – or simply amused that they could eat at a time like this.

"So, Glenn," the boy said at last. "When do we get some amazing, lifesaving advice for how to survive in the arena?"

Glenn, caught with his mouth full, turned a bit red before swallowing and looking away. "I … I haven't had much of what you'd call … success … getting tributes out alive. I was lucky. The other tributes ignored me. Later, I found out that the last two killed each other. Each of them thought the other was the last one left. I guess they lost count somewhere along the line. I was on the other side of the arena."

Wulfric scoffed, still smirking. "I thought as much." He lay down on the couch, staring at the ceiling, no doubt already forming his own plan that had nothing to do with being lucky.

Libby sighed. So it was hopeless. Even her mentor couldn't help her.

At the same time, they both reached over to cut another piece of cake. The knife clattered to the floor as their hands brushed against it. "Can't even use a knife to cut a piece of cake," Wulfric mumbled. Libby wasn't sure which of them he was talking about. Not that it mattered.

Not that it mattered. Of course. Glenn couldn't help her learn how to use a knife. But that was all right. She didn't want to kill anyone, anyway. "Okay," she said, picking up the knife and wiping it on the tablecloth before cutting the cake. "Okay, so you can't really teach us much about weapons. But winning your Games had to have been more than just luck. You stayed hidden. How?"

Glenn looked up, startled, as if no tribute had ever bothered to ask him that before. "I … I just didn't draw attention to myself. No one thought I was a threat. At the Cornucopia, I got away as quickly as I could and ran until I found a place to hide."

"What sort of place?" Libby asked encouragingly. "It must have been good."

"Not really. It was just a marshy area – swampy plants all around. No one else wanted to go there. It was wet, it stank, there were lots of bugs. Everyone else just avoided it."

"What did you do for food?"

"Some of the plants were edible. Believe me, I was a lot skinnier by the end of the Games than I am now."

Libby giggled. "I guess I will be, too … if I win."

If she won. For a moment, listening to Glenn, it had seemed like a possibility.

"How did you know which ones were edible?" Wulfric asked. The boy was sitting up now, curious.

Glenn shrugged. "I … I guess I just knew. My parents were medics during the rebellion. I knew which plants they used for medicine, so anything that looked like those was probably edible. Sometimes I just guessed. Maybe I just got lucky."

Libby shook her head. "Nobody's that lucky. You won, fair and square."

Glenn stared at her. "But I didn't—"

"Didn't what? Kill? Who said you had to? The rules say the last tribute alive wins, not the tribute who killed the most. You won. And if you could … then maybe I have a chance."

Wulfric took a seat next to her. "Maybe both of us do. What else did your parents teach you?"

Glenn shrugged. "Basic first aid. I can treat cuts and bruises. Stop bleeding. Clean out wounds so they don't get infected." He smiled a little in Libby's direction. "Treat fainting spells."

Libby smiled. "Can you teach us?"

Glenn nodded. "I'll teach you what I can. And, during training, there'll be stations for different survival skills. A lot of tributes ignore them, but that's where I spent most of my time. Well, that and the snack table. Doesn't hurt to store up food before the arena."

Wulfric smirked a little as he served himself a piece of cake. "I think Libby's got a head start on that one."

Libby felt her face turning red. Glenn glared at Wulfric. "So what if she does? I bet she's full of surprises."

Wuflric shrugged. "I didn't mean anything by it." He returned to the couch with his cake.

"What kind of surprises?" Libby asked, confused. She'd never really thought of herself as anything unusual – certainly not in a way that would be useful in the arena.

"The way you treated me – like you really believed I could help. No one's ever done that before."

Libby shrugged. That was nothing special. "You just seemed like you could use a little encouragement."

Glenn nodded. "Exactly. People could use a bit more of that in the arena. Remember that, Libby. You may find someone who needs it even more than I did."

Sher Haimish, 17
District Eleven Male

"But it's the solar system!"

Lying on the couch, Sher rolled his eyes. He'd made the mistake of comparing the Games' existence to the Sun going around the Earth. Apparently, Lordez was under the impression that the reverse was true. Not that it mattered one way or the other, but she seemed to think it was terribly important.

"Does it matter?" he asked, growing more irritated. "Is that really going to help either of us survive in the arena? No. So we need to focus on what is going to help – and that's knowing everything we can about our opponents."

"The other tributes," Lordez agreed, plopping down in a chair next to him.

"No, the Gamemakers. Of course the other tributes! Although, actually, that's a good point – we shouldn't forget about the Gamemakers, either. What do we know about them?"

"Helius Florum," Ivy cut in. "It's his fifth year as head Gamemaker."

"What happened to the one before him?"

Ivy shrugged. "His arenas were too dull. Mine was basically one large field. But they say the last straw was when a tribute won just by hiding during the Fourth Games; apparently, even the Gamemakers forgot about him. That didn't sit too well with the audience."

Sher smiled a little, pressing the tips of his fingers together and closing his eyes. "And since then, what have the arenas been like?"

Lordez sighed. "You really haven't been paying attention. Four years ago, it was a mountain chain with a series of caves. The girl won by trapping her opponents and then cutting their throats. The next year was more of a field, but with patches of quicksand and a volcano in the middle – killed half the tributes who were left when it erupted. Two years ago was a desert. The boy from Two – I think he was a volunteer – had a lot of sponsors who sent him water, so he lasted while the other tributes were going insane from the thirst; he had no trouble hunting them down. Last year was a forest with a lot of rivers – some of them shallow, some much deeper. The girl from Four lured a group of them into a river after her. She could swim, and they couldn't, and the current was too strong for them to get away."

"Fascinating," Sher noted, his eyes still closed. "You've been planning this even longer than I thought."

"Look, Sherlacham—"

"Please, just Sher is fine."

"Okay, Sher. I don't mind pretending for the cameras, but Sonya's the only reason I volunteered. Really."

Sher shrugged. "Suit yourself. In that case, you simply have a morbid fascination with an event that most people would prefer to forget. That's almost as good. I bet you can even tell me how Ivy won."

There was a moment of silence – Lordez and Ivy were probably exchanging a look. But, sure enough, Lordez had the answer. "She was good with a crossbow. She ran to the Cornucopia, took it, and got out of there. She spent the rest of the Games hiding in the fields and picking the tributes off one by one. I think she killed a total of nine."

"Eight," Ivy corrected. "I don't count the one who was already dying from a snakebite. I just put her out of her misery."

Sher smirked. "Nine, then. So Lordez was right. And you were what, Lordez, ten? Not even old enough to worry about being reaped yet. And you remember it that well."

"They sometimes show replays during later Games—"

"Which doesn't sound like something that anyone in their right mind would want to watch." He opened his eyes. "You'll do better in the Games if you stop hiding who you are, Lordez. You enjoy this. You're fascinated by it, and you always have been. Admit it, and you'll have more fun."

"That's despicable."

"Yes, it is. Humor me. What do you think this year's arena could be?"

Lordez thought for a moment. "Nobody really liked the desert arena; it was too bright all the time. So maybe something darker. Colder. The forest arena was good, but it all started to look the same after a while. So maybe it won't be just one sort of terrain – maybe a mixture."

"A variety," Sher agreed. "Good. Very good. And what would be the best way to survive in a variety of habitats? Besides turning into rattlesnakes."

Lordez cocked an eyebrow. "I'm guessing I shouldn't mention that rattlesnakes require a very specific—"

"Not the point!"

Lordez sighed. "I suppose you mean we should find a variety of animals … allies."

Sher nodded towards the tape of the reapings. "Let's see what we've got to choose from, shall we?"

Lordez cocked an eyebrow. "You say that like we'll be able to just pick whoever we want. What makes you think they would want us?"

Sher smiled. "The fact that you just said 'us' without even thinking about it."

She didn't seem to have an answer to that. Neither did Ivy. At last, their mentor nodded. "The Gamemakers want a good show. And you're ... entertaining. There are probably some other tributes who would realize that."

"Exactly," Sher agreed. He held out his hand.

Lordez hesitated a moment, but then shook it. "All right. Let's get to work."

Sher grinned, picking up the tape of the reapings. "Oh, not work. The game, Lordez, is on. Let's play."

Aldo Retchwood, 16
District Twelve Male

Either their mentor was completely delusional, or he was trying to get them killed.

"The key is to get to the Cornucopia first," Pardeck was saying. "Once you have a weapon, you have an advantage, regardless of your size. Now, of course, you want to grab the right weapon. Do either of you have any experience with weapons of any sort?"

"I can use a sword!" Heloise volunteered immediately.

To Aldo's surprise, Pardeck didn't question that at all, or even think to ask how she had learned to use a sword in District Twelve. "Excellent!" their mentor grinned. "Make sure you practice a bit in the training center, though – want to stay sharp. And if the other tributes see how good you are, they'll think twice before attacking you." He turned to Aldo. "And what about you?"

"I've used a pickaxe in the mines," Aldo said guardedly.

"Brilliant! If they don't have a pickaxe, go for something similar – a regular axe, a hammer, something of that sort. Try a few of them out during training, see what feels best. Then if you see it at the Cornucopia, go get it."

Aldo leaned back in his chair, his arms crossed. "But what about the other tributes?"

"What about them?"

"Well, if we go in to grab weapons, we'll have to fight our way out."

"And?"

"And I'm not sure I'm up for that, really," Aldo admitted. They had just watched the other districts' reapings, and some of the tributes looked pretty strong.

Pardeck rolled his eyes. "Look, do you want to survive in the arena or not?"

"Of course."

"Then you need weapons. If you turn and run, eventually they'll come after you. Then they'll be armed, and you won't. You're going to have to fight eventually. Might as well find out right away whether you're up to the task. Go in, grab a weapon, and get out."

"What about food?" Heloise asked. "Should we grab food, too?"

Aldo cocked an eyebrow. Was the kid actually listening to this nutcase?

"If you can," Pardeck nodded. "But weapons aren't just good for fighting, you know. If you have a weapon, you can use it to hunt. So that's your first priority."

"Really?" Aldo asked skeptically. "What do you expect her to hunt with a sword? What's going to come close enough for me to be able to hunt it with an axe? Do you have any idea at all what you're talking about?"

Pardeck glared. "Look, young man, I have been a mentor for nine years now, and—"

"And every single one of your tributes has died!" Aldo pointed out. "Why should we listen to you? Did you give them the same advice?"

"Of course not. Not all of them were fighters like you."

"Fighters? Are you nuts? This girl is twelve!"

"And better with a sword than you!" Heloise cut in. "Your age doesn't matter in the arena; your attitude does."

"And an attitude like that will get you killed!" Aldo insisted, desperately wishing the girl would listen. "You charge in there, the only thing you're going to come out with is blood all over you."

"And you have a better plan?"

There was silence for a moment as they both watched him – his deluded mentor and over-eager partner. "Yeah," he nodded. "I have a better plan. Be patient. Stay away from the fighting. Find a part of the arena where no one wants to go. Then, once things have settled down a bit, go back to the Cornucopia and choose from what's left while no one else is there. There won't be as much to choose from, but it'll be a lot safer."

Pardeck shook his head. "There's nowhere safe in the arena; get that idea out of your head right now, boy. That sort of patience – waiting things out, looking for the right moment – it'll only get you killed by the people who decide to make the right moment."

Heloise was nodding eagerly. Aldo shook his head, resigned. He wasn't going to change her mind – or Pardeck's. But that didn't mean he had to listen to them. Once he was in the arena, he was on his own.

And whatever Pardeck suggested, he intended to do the exact opposite.

"For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and you cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road."