Annabeth had spent all of her time at the survival stations the day before, and decided to move on to weapons on the second day of training. Her life in District 3 had actually been relatively useful for the Games. On one hand, she knew how to live with barely any food and was used to betrayal. On the other hand, industrial District 3 hadn't given her any prior knowedge on how to survive like the tributes from, say, 10 or 11.

Annabeth picked up a bow and arrow and fired it. For her first time, it wasn't too bad. The arrow was on the outermost ring. Annabeth tried again and again. A helpful trainer was able to show her how to balance the arrow and aim better, and Annabeth improved. However, the bow felt wrong in her hands. In addition to that, Annabeth didn't like the idea of a ranged weapon. It was safer, yes, but when she was in a melee situation, she would be doomed. She needed something with more versatility.

Then again, she did have some basic knowledge of hand-to-hand combat from her time on the streets. With a bow and arrow and her trusty fists, she could probably fight off some of the weaker to average tributes. However, against the Careers or any other pack, she would be doomed.

Think, Annabeth, she told herself. Versatility. Something that helps you with your hand-to-hand combat.

Her gray eyes settled on another weapons display. Annabeth smiled.

Knife.

Katie had abandoned the knife station a long time ago, deeming the weapons too dangerous to use. You had to get ludicrously close to your opponent, and knives were hard to use. Who would bother fighting with such a stupid weapon?

Even worse were tridents. They were too heavy for her to easily use, and the triple-pronged end was hard to hit something with. Katie decided that tridents were best left to the use of District 4 tributes and other people who were crazy enough to want them.

Spears, too, were annoying. They were too long and unwieldy, and they weren't sharp enough. If Katie wanted a long weapon, then she wanted it with a sharpened edge so that she could actually fight with it, kind of like the sword that Hazel from 10 was practicing with.

Bows were still worse than spears. Katie found that she didn't have good aim. She might have been able to hit someone in a completely nonvital area, but that wasn't good enough! She needed a weapon that she could trust.

A weapon that she could kill with.

A mace was out of the question. Katie didn't have the arm strength to swing it around for extended periods of time. Her arms were meant for climbing and stretching, not weight-lifting!

Axes were also too hard to use. They were meant for swinging and chopping, which Katie felt was too dangerous. She needed something that could keep her protected.

So the field fell down to swords. Katie selected a light rapier, something that she could use to stab and thrust and which was light enough for her to run and climb with. Still, it felt wrong in her hands, flimsy and weak. Katie didn't like it. She didn't have faith in it.

So Katie left the weapons area, deciding to head back to the survival stations. She was good with hiding, climbing, and plants, but her fire-making skills could use a lot of help.

As she was leaving, though, a shield caught her eye. The shields were designed to be used along with a sword, but Katie wondered, could they be use independently?

There were tiny shields to be used with rapiers. They were light, and Katie could throw they accurately. They weren't bladed, but they could pack a lot of punch. Katie tried out a larger shield, too. It was a bit heavy for her, but Katie liked how protected she felt by it. And if worst came to worst, Katie could definitely injure someone with it. Maybe even kill.

When Rachel spotted Clovis at the camoflauge station, he was asleep.

Rachel had sprinted over to him and shaken him. "Clovis! You have to wake up!"

For one terrifying moment, she thought that he was dead. Then, he opened his eyes. "Rachel?" he mumbled.

"Yeah, Clovis. Are you okay?"

"Mm-hmm. I was just…" Clovis was silent for a few moments, and Rachel realized that he had fallen asleep again.

"Clovis!"

"Yeah! I'm awake! I was just feeling tired."

Rachel knit her eyebrows together. "Clovis, are you sure that you're okay? I don't think that falling asleep like that is normal."

"I'm fine," Clovis insisted. He tried standing up, but swayed dangerously. "Um, maybe I'll sit down for a while."

"Yeah," Rachel agreed. "You do that."

She was getting worried about her partner. Did he have some kind of disease that made him fall asleep? He was always so spacey, but Rachel had assumed that he was tired or just liked letting his mind float away to other places. Not that he was fighting to stay awake! "Clovis, are you absolutely sure that you're okay?"

"Yes," Clovis insisted. "Rachel, seriously. You should…you should…" Clovis closed his eyes. Rachel had to keep herself from slapping him. Instead, she pinched his arm.

"I'm awake!" said Clovis. "Rachel, I'll…um…be fine. This happens all the time. It's nothing that I can't deal w…with."

Clovis used the wall to support himself and shakily stood up. He turned his back on her and started walking away. Rachel felt like crying. Clovis might have been able to deal with this back home, but that didn't change the fact that once the Games started, he wouldn't be able to defend himself.

And Rachel hated herself for it, but a small part of her wondered whether it was better to have a disorder like Clovis, or to be like her, dying for the crimes of her father.

Jason's plans for getting an ally had gone out the window. Instead, he was over at the electronics station learning about how to build helpful gadgets that he could make out of debris and use during the Games. He was reading a book on static electricity and sparks. He wanted to learn how to channel electicity, as he had a feeling that it could be useful. Jason adjusted his glasses, wishing that Ella were with him. She would have been able to memorize everything in seconds and define all of the hard words for him.

"You put those in the wrong way."

Jason looked up. The 3 boy, Leo, was standing there. Jason felt a bit perturbed. Normally, he was more observant. How long had Leo been there?

"What do you mean?" Jason asked.

"Those batteries. You put them in the wrong way."

Leo grabbed the small camera that Jason was trying to fix and reversed the batteries. Jason extended his hand, expecting Leo to return it, but Leo wasn't done there. He grabbed a hammer and some more scrap metal and began rewiring the camera. When he was done with that, he put the back of it back on. It didn't look too far from the picture in the book, but Leo still hadn't finished. He used a lighter to weld together some pieces of metal.

"What are you doing?" Jason asked.

"Giving this baby some shielding. Having a camera to keep track of where everyone's going is great and all, but it needs to be more protected." Jason noticed that Leo's feet were tapping crazily. Leo turned back to him, gingerly holding the camera. "Done!"

Whoa. Jason had always considered himself above average with his knowledge of electronics, but Leo's skills were amazing! He had recorded the boy as being scatterbrained and overexcited, but maybe Leo was a useful ally.

"Leo, that's amazing," Jason said.

"I try to impress," Leo replied. "Though I already knew that. You can start calling me Mr. Amazing, if you want."

Well, Leo was a genius, but he was still kind of crazy. "Thanks," Jason said, "but I'll stick with Leo. Is there anything that I can help you with?"

"Not here!" Leo answered. "I've got electronics down pat. What brings you here, though?"

"I don't know. I mean, I come from 5, so I work with electronics and electricity, but I guess I wanted to get better."

Leo nodded. "I know what you mean. You work with electricity, and it's a thing that's always there, but…"

"But I never really had much idea of what it meant, or what I could do with it."

"Don't you get all the power you want in Five?"

"Only what we pay for."

Leo grinned. "Sounds like Three. Hey, Jason…you can't help me here, but do you think you could help me find a weapon?"

Jason wasn't sure about that. (Worry about yourself, Thalia had told him during their brief goodbyes. Worry about yourself, and make sure that you know what you're doing before you go into that shithole.) He didn't have time to help anyone, he had to focus on himself. Then again, Leo had helped him. And Jason wouldn't have minded being in an alliance with him.

"Sure, Leo."

Grover and Calypso were painting themselves into a tree. Calypso wasn't so bad at it. As it turned out, she had some talent at painting. But Grover was struggling.

It shouldn't have been so hard to hide himself! If worst came to worst, then Grover thought that he could probably climb a tree or hide himself in a bush. Still, Calypso insisted that they couldn't know what the Arena would look like, and that they needed to learn every method of camouflage that they could.

Grover hated to admit it, but he understood where she was coming from. Neither of them were very good fighters; rather, they were survivalists. They could find food well, as the edible plants test had shown, but they neither of them could use a weapon very well. Calypso wasn't very strong, and the only weapon that Grover could use with his terrible coordination was a club. A club might have been easy to find in an outdoor Arena, but Grover didn't like the idea of killing someone with it. Still, he would find a way to do it if it meant getting Calypso and him closer to home.

"I think that someone wants to join us," Calypso told him.

Grover looked around. Sure enough, little Ella from 5 was standing there. They way she watched Calypso and he was kind of unnerving. She barely blinked, just staring at them. She was too small, too. Grover could recognize starvation, and this girl looked like she was on the brink of it. She was too skinny, too pale. A few more days in the Capitol might help, but she had obviously had a bad life back in her district.

Grover smiled at the young girl, trying to make her feel more at ease. "Do you want to paint with us?" Calypso called.

Rather than joining them, Ella shook her head slightly and sprinted away. She looked embarrassed to be noticed. Grover watched her for a few more moments. She was trying out the climbing wall, and wasn't bad at it. But Grover knew that he couldn't focus on Ella, and turned his attention back to Calypso.

"Poor girl," Calypso said, voicing his thoughts.

"Yes. I wish that there was something that we could do to help her."

"There is, you know."

For a moment, Grover wondered whether Calypso was right. Maybe Calypso shouldn't win, maybe Ella should. She was the youngest, the most innocent. Didn't she deserve life?

But the moment was fleeting. Grover couldn't concentrate on the poor girl, no matter how important it was to think about her. He had to remember Juniper. He had to do everything that he could to help her life be easier.

Piper's father had taught her how to use swords and knives, but right now, the only weapon that was even remotely satisfying to Piper was a club. Piper swung it around, smashing it into the side of the dummy's head. She brought it back around. The force of her blow shook the mannequin. Her next blow knocked it over.

Piper recalled the conversation that she had had with her mentor Drew earlier. "The only way you're going to win this is with your looks," Drew had said.

"That's incredibly wrong!" Piper answered. "I can make it with my skills, Drew! I'm not like you!"

Drew laughed. "Oh, hon. You're the same as me. We're two pretty girls who don't have any technical skills that are ever going to help us win the Games. But you do what I did, you use your looks to get money and make everyone underestimate you…well, you might actually have a chance."

Piper hated her mentor. She hated the implication that the only thing she had going for her was her prettiness. She had talent! She was able to get 30 out of 30 on the plants test! She could sprint quickly (though her long-distance left a lot to be desired). She knew her way around a blade. And she was strong enough to knock over that stupid dummy!

A guy came up next to her. He looked like a crazy elf, with curly hair. He had a friend with him, a blonde guy with glasses. They were Jason from 3 and Leo from 5…or maybe it was the other way around? Curly had a club with him. He tried taking a hit at a dummy. His stance was all wrong, and he didn't look like he had much force behind his blow. See, Drew? Piper was totally better that the other tributes!

"Maybe that's not the weapon for you," Blondie suggested.

Curly ignored him and took another swing. This time, he hit the dummy, but the blow reverberated up his arm, and he dropped the club. "Man, how do you do this, Pipes?" he asked.

Piper realized that he was addressing her. "Don't call me that," she said.

"Sorry," Blondie apologized for his friend. "We didn't mean to bother you."

"Whatever." Piper swung her bat at Curly's dummy. "Get some more force behind it."

Curly tried again. He was still pathetic at it, but at least he kept his grip on the dummy. "Thanks, Piper! I'm Mr. Amazing, but you can call me Leo if that's too much of a mouthful."

Ah, so he was Leo. "No problem," Piper told him.

Leo wasn't done yet. "This is Jason, my ally. Do you want to join us?"

"Wait, what?" Jason asked.

"We're totally allies, right Jason?" said Leo. "I mean, we've been helping each other and all that…"

Piper laughed, which made both boys stare at her. "Sorry. I just thought it was funny how…" she trailed off, not wanting to be rude. "You know what? I might just join your little alliance here." Jason seemed competent, anyway—and cute, if Piper was being honest.

"Thanks, Beauty Queen!" Leo exclaimed.

Okay, maybe Piper should reconsider. "I didn't say anything for sure yet, Curly."

"But you said that you might!"

Jason halfheartedly smiled at her. "Okay, then," he said. "What the hell? I guess I'll join."

Leo looked psyched. "Yes! From now on, we are Leo's Fighting Men and Ladies."

"What?" said Jason.

"I need to object to that name," Piper added.

"I guess I can reconsider," Leo conceded. "But I get to call you guys nicknames!"

Zoe watched as Piper joined an alliance with the two boys from 3 and 5. Another good choice for an ally, gone. Zoe found herself disgusted with Piper. How dare she let herself be taken in by two males? They could offer her nothing. Piper was no better than the people she chose to fraternize with, and Piper's choice left a lot to be desired. Calypso, too, allowed herself to be taken in by her district partner. Nancy, Reyna, and Clarisse were in an alliance with three males. Rachel talked to her district partner, as did Lou Ellen. Hazel had even kissed her partner. How disgusting!

Zoe eyed the bow display. She could shoot a bow with stunning precision, but she did not want to reveal this to all of her adversaries, who would not doubt try to take advantage of the information. They did not deserve to know anything about her, not the people who remained in the center of the training room, unobservant. The helpful information belonged to people like her, the ones who watched quietly from the shadows.

The only other person doing so was Ella. She had found a perch on the ceiling, and was watching the goings-on of the tributes below. She had recently fled the glimpses of the male from 7. Smart girl. Annabeth and Reyna, too, would sometimes look up and around as if observing. But no, she, Zoe, was the only one smart enough to be doing it constantly.

Zoe once again considered going at the Games alone. She worked well in a group, but she also worked well as a solo agent. And on her own, there would be no pesky other people getting in her way.

Then again, there were other important things offered by allies: extra protection, companionship perhaps.

But Zoe knew that she could do both of those things herself.

So it was settled. All of the people in the room, from the minute the gong rang out at the Bloodbath, were her enemies.