A/N: Sorry for the delay, we've both had to revise for our exams, so we haven't seen each other to discuss what we want to happen. Anyway we're back! We'll try and keep updates regular, but again, we can't promise anything! Anyway, this chapter was written by SouthKentishTown :)

Standing in the Training room, you would be forgiven for thinking we are soldiers. And in a way, I suppose that is what we have to become.

Like soldiers, we have the former barracks, annexed to the grand glass building of the Defence Committee after the rebellion was put down, and promptly converted into the training grounds for the Hunger Games. Crumbling scars that run across the walls and pockmarks in the otherwise unmarked concrete of the floor allude to its less palatable past.

But unlike the military that pulled Panem up by its bootstraps, that crushed District 13, we have just over a fortnight to turn ourselves into killers.

For some it's going to be a quicker transition than others.

As we disperse, my eyes wander over to the District 1 girl. The train journey here alone had been enough time to watch each and every reaping, and hers certainly was something else. That deadly poise, that maddening look in her eyes as she stabbed the other girl through the centre of her chest... I can almost pity her for what they've bred her into.

As it is, she has a leg up on most of us: she is already half way to being a killer, the rest of us are still in the process of becoming one. Drifting towards the centre of the room, my eyes catch on where the small girl from District 5 and the female tribute from District 12 stand in the centre, gazing between crude training dummies and roughly drawn arena dioramas with a sense of overawed bewilderment.

My resolve hardens. I will give them quick deaths.

First, however, I have a purely personal matter to attend to. Wasting no time on the assembled pile of weapons, I bypass the physical training and head straight for where a bundle of wires and metal is heaped together at the far end of the room.

Unfortunately, Abalone seems to have exactly the same idea.

"Move." I hiss between gritted teeth, grabbing the nearest generator and clutching it to my chest.

His eyes flicker towards the small glowing mechanism, and his fingers wrap firmly around the outside handle.

"Move what?" He sneers.

"Piss off Abalone, before I rip your hand off."

"Tut tut tut." His smirk turns dour. "Whatever happened to manners?"

"I was told I had to not kill you, not that I had to be polite to you."

"Likewise."

He snatches a wire and rams it roughly into the left socket. I repeat with the right. I'll be damned if I see him screw up the only chance I have at actually training for this damn thing. Apparently, he seems to the same way.

So we tussle, and we scuffle, desperately crossing wire over wire, plugging and tugging at the bleating mini-generator with various sockets and attachments. In the back of my mind, I register the thud of an axe hitting a target dummy, and hear a distant deluge of insincere applause. Neither of us, however, looks up from our petty power-source struggle.

It's Abalone who breaks the silence.

"Girl from 1's a winner."

"I wouldn't bet on it." I growl back.

"Delusions of grandeur, hmm?"

"No. Careers're only as good as they're weakest member. Boy from 1's like hired muscle, at most."

"Wouldn't taken much to blow him out of the water then?" I catch the glimpse of a grim smile play across his face, and realise that we're both thinking about our mentor

Our sudden mental synchronisation isn't something I'm too keen on pondering on, however, and I quickly shunt the conversation on. "2 are muscle too. Mountain climbing means they're fast, but there's only so much the brain can proccess at a certain speed - all it would take is one well placed trap, and... Pop."

I snap another plug into the generator for effect.

"4's..."

"4 will be a mutt job, or, I suppose you could pull another Balitz if you find yourself with a swimming pool." He cuts across me, and I pause in my work long enough to look up and give him a pointed stare. He raises a hand in mock defeat. "Fine. I surrender. So, tell me, what would Miss Know-It-All have to say on the situation?"

"Same. Actually." I concede to the smarmy glint in his gaze before continuing. "Anyhow, 5 will be easy. The girl will be picked off by anything bigger than her, and, if he's not assimilated into the Careers, we can safely assume that they'll be the ones to pick him off. Even if he is, they'll still kill him."

"And 6." He interrupts with another bout of furious tinkering, plying a metal contact around a loose tesla coil that erupts from the top of the generator.

"I was just getting around to that, actually."

"Well aren't I sorry."

"We all know you're not Abalone, so just shut up and listen. 6, 7, 8 and 11 are cannon fodder - mutts, Careers, freak accidents... They'll just get picked off one, by, one. The boy from 9 and the boy from 10 will go the same way."

"I've come to remember that I never actually asked for your opinion."

"Well tough shit because you're getting it. Girl from 9 isn't a fighter sure, but she doesn't half disappear. She'll vanish before anyone gets to her if she isn't downed in the bloodbath, after that it's just a matter of waiting for the audience to get bored of her - and the gamemakers to make our job easier. The girl from 10's pretty much the same, she's neither threatening nor pathetic enough to actually warrant killing at any other time other than the bloodbath and the end."

"What about 12 then? I noticed they somehow managed to warrant not being entirely relegated to the cannon fodder list."

I can't help but smile grimly myself then, my eyes travelling upwards to where the rest of the tributes are practising. The boy from District 12 is ensconced in conversation with the girl, unlike many of the other tribute pairs, and as they discuss something in hushed tones, their eyes occasionally scan the room.

Hers come to rest on mine only briefly, and I realise they're doing the exact same thing as Abalone and I. Assessing the competition, only with less antagonism.

"We're Munitioneers, Abalone. We believe in odds and variables, not impossibilities. But sometimes, I can't help but think that sometimes there are those who are naturally more fortunate than others."

"You're basing an entire assessment on luck? Why you're almost a software engineer speaking like that Quickfire."

I can hear his teeth begin to grind, and I forcibly shut my eyes to calm myself against the barrage of abuse I've just let myself in for. "No. That and the fact that they won't kill each other."

"So you'll do the dirty work for them, like the dirty little..."

His insult is silenced as rhe final socket snaps into place, and I raise my roughly hewn metal wire contraption into the air. Closing the contacts, a spark jumps between wires, igniting into a thin, constant stream of high voltage electricity. It's easily enough to kill him with just a fingertip's worth of infringement - and he knows it.

The bolt of white light illuminates the growing pallor on Abalone's face, and the faint beads of sweat beginning to gather on his brow.

"Only after I kill you first."