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Enjoy Training Day 1! Again, next chapter will be day 2, then the scoring chapter (ugh… a very repetitive chapter), then the interviews!
Chapter XII Training Tribulations and Woes - Day 1
The Capitol
The Tribute Training Center – Day 1
At dawn, the Tributes were woken by Avoxes, dressed in tight fitted athletic wear with their District numbers emblazoned on the back, and led to the Training Room. The room itself was an enormous gymnasium divided into two levels, an upper balcony level where Gamemakers in purple robes or other lookie loos from the Capitol could watch and a lower floor where the Tributes would train.
Even the Careers were surprised by the amount of weapons that lined the walls of the gymnasium. It seemed as though every conceivable weapon man could think of was available for them to practice with, including weapons the Tributes had never seen in prior Games. The only notable missing weapons were firearms, strictly forbidden in the Games for making things "too easy" for the Tributes.
Once the Tributes were lined up, the Head Trainer appeared. He was an ugly lump of a man, dressed in the brown fatigues that all the Trainers wore. Stubble covered his face and his cheeks seemed a bit rosy from too much drink. An ugly liver spot dotting his bald head didn't help things other. The Head Trainer gave a brief rundown of the training stations littered throughout, told them they weren't allowed to hurt each other until the Games, and then left them.
"Wait, you're not even going to help us?" David asked, fear in his voice. Mara, standing nearby, grunted in displeasure. How weak.
The Head Trainer had a similar attitude. "Ask someone else if you need something. Not our job to babysit."
And with that, the Tributes were let loose. The Career naturally gravitated towards the weapons section, eager to show off their skills and test Cean and Chase. The other Tributes mulled around for a bit, trying to figure out the best course forward.
Cara immediately took off towards her goal. After the parade, Cara had been whisked to her room where she proceeded to spend the rest of the night crying her eyes out. Once she was out of tears, she got up and resolved to stop feeling sorry for herself. If she wanted to go it alone then damn it she was going to do it right. She spent the rest of the night strategizing and deciding how to spend her time.
The answer was simple. There was no way Cara could learn how to effectively fight in three days. Nobody could! So, she would spend all her time with the Survival skills. She had run through all the Games she could possibly remember, all the horrible images the Capitol had forced her and the Districts to watch, and tried to pinpoint the key skills to learn that other Tributes forgot about and ended up dead.
And she wasn't going out like that.
The gymnasium was divided into three sections, one part devoted to combat training, the other the broad section of 'survival skills', and the third a large obstacle course. Cara made her way to the survival section. There were plenty of other stations to choose from such as insect identification, camouflage, net making, poison making, weapons repair, shelter making, and medicine, but Cara decided to start simple and practical, learning how to make a fire.
The fire starting station was empty at that point, just like she wanted. The trainer was gruff but patient with her as he showed her how to make a standard fire with matches and wood, then without matches. They played with different materials as well before the trainer showed her how to make a torch. She liked the exercise, feeling rather like a hero from a novel as she fashioned a torch, lit it, and waved it around.
"How about if it's a snow arena? How do I make a fire?" She asked.
"You don't need to worry about that." The trainer said absent-mindedly, before snapping to attention in shock of what he said.
"Why not?"
"Ok, you've learned how to make a fire. Run along now!"
Cara left the station without complaint and with a new skill… and some new knowledge.
The next place she went, with some trepidation, was the swimming station. Last night she realized that Gamemakers loved putting water into their arenas, and Cara had seen too many tributes drown or be unable to escape a death since they couldn't swim. One particularly awful instance was a boy from 6 who had been running for his life from a nasty boy from 1. He would have escaped, except he came a slow moving but deep river and didn't know how to swim across. The boy just screamed and screamed in terror as the boy from 1 caught up and looped off his head.
So, in the thankfully warm water, a trainer first taught her how to be buoyant, the key to swimming. It was nerve wracking, especially when the trainer would step away and let her float on her own, but over the course of two hours, Cara got the hang of it and was doing a sloppy breast stroke across the width of the pool. As long as she didn't need to swim far, Cara felt confident in her rudimentary swimming skills. The whole experience was almost peaceful.
Until something came crashing next to her in the water, sending her into a tailspin and sinking to the bottom of the pool.
The trainer rescued her and pulled her out, Cara sputtering out water and shaking in fear. She had lost her glasses in the pool but the trainer retrieved them and when she put them back on, Cara could see through the choppy water a silver spear at the bottom of the pool.
Chucked by the guy who was coming at her now.
"Are you ok?" Chase asked, sinking to his knees to check on her. "I swear, I didn't realize I could through a spear that far! I've got a hell of an arm I guess!"
Cara was still shaking, actually terrified. The spear had been right next to her! Just a couple inches closer and…
The Head Trainer came over, looking more peeved than worried about the incident. "Don't harm other Tributes." He told Chase.
"Cross my heart and hope to die, I won't." Chase said. It was enough to satisfy the Head Trainer who turned and left. Before Chase left too, he leaned into Cara and whispered into her ear "Don't mess with my sponsor money, bitch. You go it alone."
Back at the combat stations, the Careers watched Chase leave his wide eyed girl behind to rejoin them. "Well, he gets points in my book for distance and almost killing his partner." Reko complimented.
"He's good with a spear." Lana admitted, though Chase made her feel sleazy just being around him.
"Well thanks, Lana. I appreciate that." Chase said. "Guess I got a little too excited with it though. So, am I in?"
"We'll need to talk about that amongst ourselves." Estelle said. "And Cean needs to finish his demonstration for us."
Cean gulped nervously, picking up a spear and getting to work. Unlike Chase, he had the basic movements and skills with the spear down. And unlike Chase, he lacked the strength the strength to properly handle a spear. His throws kept coming up short and he had to use extra strength to get the spear to puncture a training dummy.
He could just feel Mara smiling smugly behind him.
At the end of it, Cean returned to the Careers, none of them looking too pleased with him. "That could have been better." Reko commented dryly.
"I thought you said you had training?" Lana asked. "What you did is what we teach first years at the Academy!"
"Look, let me practice with a trainer ok? Make your final decision tomorrow, just give me some time."
"Begging isn't a good look for a Career." Mara said, knowing she had won. "Cut him loose."
"No, he's right." Valdez said. "Give him until tomorrow. It's the right thing to do."
Estelle shrugged. She was ready to cut this obviously weak link off, but didn't like the idea of cutting of District 4 and taking in District 8. Maybe someone else could replace Cean and the Capitol would understand? She just needed some time. "One more day." She said, much to Cean's relief and Mara's annoyance.
The rest of the morning was spent training and observing the weapons of choice for each Career. Lana and Reko both favored the simple sword. "If it ain't broke, don't' fix it." Reko joked while displaying his moves. Both of them were experts though, curiously Estelle thought, neither of them used a shield.
Estelle, meanwhile, was a whirlwind of blades, a kunai in each hand for combat up close and machetes for a little range. She threw the kunai well and never missed her target. Mara was of a similar style, using short daggers for up close and personal combat, hitting each weak spot on an opponent with ease.
There was some doubt though when Valdez started his training exercises.
"You only do hand to hand?" Reko asked in disbelief. "You don't even carry a knife?"
"My hands are all I need." Valdez replied evenly, a hint of a challenge in his voice.
"Well look at fists of fury over here!" Reko laughed, holding his hands up in mock surrender. Mara held her tongue, but was glad District 4 wasn't the only Career District this year lagging behind. Honestly, how far did Valdez expect to make it with just hand to hand combat? At least taking him out would be easy when the time came.
The training, or attempts at it for some, came to a stop around noon, when the trainers herded the Tributes into a cafeteria for lunch. The Tributes then broke apart into their alliances and cliques, or where they were forced. The alliance of Districts 5, 6, and Eddie sat together, enjoying the rich food. They had spent the morning at the survival stations, learning about edible plants, insects, and how to treat minor wounds and prevent infections. They had also spent some time at the poison station, which Amadeus had shown aptitude for.
Sarah, meanwhile, was feeling out of the loop. Olivia doted on Eddie a bit, and she clearly had a good back and forth with Aleko. Amadeus was also getting along with everyone too, even softening a bit on Eddie it seemed due to Olivia's sheer strength of personality.
"So, what did everyone do before being Reaped?" Sarah asked. A silence fell over the five of them, they had spent the morning learning and in between talking about random things. No one had broached the subject of personal lives yet. "I used to work at a convenience store. My parents worked in a car factory. Things were… ok I guess. Not as bad as they could have been."
Olivia threw her a line. "I worked at a diner with my friends. My parents… well they don't really do much of anything except complain how they aren't rich anymore."
"Your parents were rich?" Eddie asked.
"Not Capitol rich, or even Career District rich. But yeah, wealthy. And then things blew up, mom and dad didn't want to accept reality, and suddenly I was keeping the family going and my younger sister in school so she could try and make something of her life."
"Damn. That's… good of you." Amadeus said.
"What about you?"
Amadeus shrugged. "I helped my dad out with work. He runs a clinic in the District."
Sarah's eyes went wide with realization. "You're Dr. Remington's son! He treated my mom when she broke her arm at work."
He nodded. "He does that."
"I work in a computer chip factory." Eddie chimed in. "It's pretty boring and repetitive, but it helps pay for my mom's treatment."
"Treatments?"
"Yeah she can't walk. We have a nurse who lives with us to care for her but it's expensive. Not that Tywla only cares about money. She's like part of the family."
Nobody was sure what to say to that. It was… personal, and too sad. "What about you, Aleko?" Sarah asked. Next to her, Olivia felt him tense briefly. She had run into this problem on the train ride and, wanting to spare him, jumped in.
"Oh he's the Mayor's son." She said casually,
"What?" Eddie and Sarah asked at once. Aleko gave her an amused look, silently thankful for the distraction. How would any of these Tributes understand the life he had led?
"Oh yeah," Olivia continued, giving her partner a wink. "Real upper crust of District 5 society. He spent all his days relaxing by a pool, bathing in milk, living his best life."
"Ha ha, very funny." Amadeus replied.
"Oh… whoops." Eddie commented. "Guess I got a confused."
"My life wasn't as good as your's, Eddie." Aleko said. "And what I did before doesn't really matter. We're here now, and it doesn't seem like anything from our past lives can help us here."
Amadeus kept silent. Upstairs in his room was the small vile of poison he brought with him from District 6. The Peacekeepers had taken it from him briefly during the prep for the Chariot Parade, discovered by the stylists when they stripped him naked. They ended up returning it last night without comment. Maybe they didn't realize what it was?
Eddie, however, had another thought. "Actually, when I was talking with my Escort about my life, she mentioned that I would do well in the arena. She said she had a sister who was a Gamemaker and that the arena had something to do with electricity."
Every head spun to Eddie. "She said that?" Aleko asked.
"Yeah, but nothing else. I don't even know what she means by that. Plus, she was drunk and my parents always said you shouldn't trust drunk people."
"Well you need to figure that out!" Olivia said. "Talk to her again tonight!"
Eddie nodded quickly at that. He didn't want to upset Olivia, or anyone on the team. And it was the first time that Aleko and Amadeus were looking at him with interest too. He just hoped his Escort was in a chatty mood that night.
Once lunch ended, the Careers returned immediately to the combat stations. Olivia watched them, annoyed that they were hogging all the stations and leaving everyone else without anywhere to practice combat. She turned to her alliance with a challenge. "Let's go practice some combat skills."
Everyone looked at her like she was mad. "But the Careers…" Sarah began.
Olivia shrugged. "They're going to hunt us anyways. At least in here they can't touch us. Just don't say anything or do anything, you know, rude."
A bit uncertain, the others followed her to the combat stations. One of the kinder Trainers intercepted them and began working with them, giving them some line of protection from the Careers, who were eyeing them up suspiciously.
"We just need to find one weapon we're good with." Olivia told the Trainer. "Doesn't need to be anything fancy. Just something that we can learn quick and brag about in the interviews."
The Trainer was a professional and quickly sized them up and paired them with weapons. After about an hour, the alliance had found their preferences. Olivia had zeroed in on knives, learning where to stab for quick kills and how to properly throw them at a distance. Amaedus tried his hand at the knives, swords, and even a rather interesting weapon called a macuahuitl, but privately felt a draw towards the poisons station. Eddie, eager to follow, tried a bit of everything, before settling on a sword and shield combination, though found the shield too heavy. And, to everyone's surprise, Sarah actually found herself most proficient and comfortable with a mace.
"Damn! I wouldn't think you were this strong." Olivia compliment. Sarah had torn through a few training dummies, wrecking them to the distress of a few Trainers. Sarah shrugged, a little embarrassed to have all the attention on her.
"I guess I'm just good at bashing. After work, my friend Ben and I would go around back and smash up stuff. It helped, especially after difficult customers."
Olivia barked out a laugh, "Isn't that the truth! I should have been doing that after a day at the diner!" She said, which made Sarah smile and let her guard down a bit.
Meanwhile, Aleko was practice with hand to hand combat. He had noticed Valdez doing it and, while he wasn't on that level, he had some experience with it. Granted, it was always in a back alley and when trying not to get robbed, but maybe he could translate it into some kind of skill for a solid score. But, during the middle of his training, he started coughing and kept it up. Olivia came running over to check on him, before calling Amadeus over.
"Can you look at him?" She asked him, thinking of his clinic work. "I'm going to see if I can get one of these Trainers to care and get a nurse or something."
"I'm fine Olivia, I promise." Aleko said.
"Well, at least some water for you!" Olivia said before running off. Amadeus watched her go, before patting Aleko on the back to clear out his lungs. He looked his ally over, examining the color of his skin, features, and even listened to the depth of his cough. He couldn't keep his curiosity away for much longer.
"So, what exactly did you do back in your District?" Amadeus asked.
Aleko, shaking off a cough, shrugged. "This and that."
"You don't want to talk about it?"
"Is that a problem if I don't?"
"I just want to make sure you weren't a bad person." Amadeus admitted, feeling a little foolish.
Aleko gave him a look, as though he said he had a second head. "What do you mean by that?"
"You know what I mean. A bad person. Good or evil."
"That's… a simplistic way to put it. People are shades of gray and I definitely was."
Not liking that comment, Amadeus decided to press his ally. "You know… I worked with my dad at the clinic. When I was younger, he would shield me a bit from the "messier" patients, but as I got older he let me help out. And your condition, the pale skin, the glassy eyes… the marks on your skin… my dad would sometimes treat people with similar terminal conditions… they were usually prostitutes."
The accusation hung in the air between them, the sound of steel striking steel and training dummy's echoing between them. "Again, is it a problem if I don't talk about my past?" Aleko asked, voice neutral.
"Prostitutes do… can do bad things to people."
Aleko had decided he had enough of this conversation, and of this short sightedness. "Who beat the hell out of your back?"
Amadeus head whipped towards Aleko, "Excuse me?"
"Back in District 5 I was with a lot of people who's parents had no business being parents. Most got some severe beatings with a belt. Peacekeepers didn't care so long as the parents weren't talking shit about the Capitol when they beat their children. So kids would run away. And I noticed that kids who got beat the worst on their back had trouble lifting their shoulders fully, or flinched a little when using their arms. I've noticed that with you. And the scar on your ear."
"You need to stop talking." Amadeus hissed.
"Did your dad fix that scar? It's almost invisible if you don't know what to look for. He must be one hell of a doctor. Was it mom who gave that to you? Or maybe a bad boyfriend of her's-"
"Hey, fuc-"
"Hey, boys! Hey!" Olivia interjected, rushing between them with a cup of water. "What's going on?"
"Nothing." Aleko said, snatching the water and gulping it down before leaving. "Gotta get back to practice."
Seeing that non-Careers were practicing in the combat area, other Tributes began to wander over. Daisy, followed unfortunately by Millie, practiced with a spear while the girl from 9 worked with knives. District 12 slinked in, trying to stay out of view of the Careers as Marianna practiced with a spear and Pan tried and failed to effectively wield any type of weapon. The main show was Ola, who, after holding back in the morning, went immediately for the axe station. She was a natural, chopping down dummies left and right and, within thirty minutes, was hitting all moving targets with an axe throw no matter the difficulty or distance. The Careers, particularly Estelle, watched her with interest, though Ola pretend not to notice them.
Unknown to all, Poe was hiding in the upper rafter of the obstacle course, watching Chase. She had been following him all morning, pretending to be doing other stuff. She didn't want him to know she was interested, or somehow it get back to Omar that she was checking out other guys. It wasn't like she was actually cheating on him! Where was the harm in just looking.
To her, everything Chase did with a a spear was graceful. Each movement with his long limbs seemed to be perfectly timed, the muscles in his arms and legs perfectly taut…
A plan formed in her mind, she had to get closer to him!
Back at the combat stations, Hayley had led Buck on a mission. "Now's your time to show off, cowboy!" Hayley declared, throwing a lasso at him. "Let's see what you can do with it."
Sure enough, Buck was a pro. Every target and object, no matter how big or small, he perfectly lassoed and pulled into him. Even the Trainers seemed impressed with him. "Well, this would make my pa proud." Buck said.
"It's making me proud." Hayley laughed, coming up to him with another item. "Here, trying lassoing and swinging this."
She handed him a pretty hefty looking hammer. "Uh… it's heavy."
"All these weapons are. Just try it out, ok? I'm going to practice with the sickle."
"A sickle? Why?"
"Because… reasons. Just practice!"
Buck did. The lassoing wasn't hard, but he was struggling a bit with swinging the war hammer. After about ten minutes, he gave up. "Hey, I think I need something lighter than this hammer." Buck complained. "Thing is killing my wrist to swing around."
Hayley, pausing her own practice with the sickle, looked concern about that. "I think you should stick with the hammer." She said.
"Why? A sword would work too."
"Because…" She began, before blowing out a breath and continuing. "Because you need it for the image we want to project." She admitted.
"What are you talking about?"
"I was thinking about this last night. Couldn't sleep. You know how our stylists sent us out there dressed in butcher's clothes and red?"
"Yeah… ewww…"
"But it created an image. And the Games… the require Tributes who succeed to have an image. Think Betee of the 31st Hunger Games, Chaff of the 45th Games, or the Morningstar Victor of 28th. And frankly… you, a rough and tumble cowboy with a lasso and a hammer… well that's a certain kind of image the Capitol and sponsors can get behind."
The image suddenly clicked. Buck in the arena with a whip or lasso, catching a Tribute and pulling them in like cattle. It was romantic in a disgustingly twisted way. But then the hammer…
What was a hammer used for on cattle? He had heard what happened in the cities of District 10, in the slaughterhouses that always reeked of gore and death. How the cheaper ones, without "humane" ways to put down cattle would use a…
Buck dropped the hammer immediately.
"Oh no!"
"Buck, listen-"
"No! Absolutely not! I'm not like that! I don't… I don't go around killing cows or people with a freaking hammer!"
"I know you don't! But the Capitol needs to believe that! It's a little fib, you know? You've told fibs before!"
"I… I mean… not like this!"
"Exactly! Not like this, because this is the Hunger Games! A fight for our lives! And if we want to pull this off, we need an image. And my image, as following in my father's footsteps with a vengeance, I can make that! Now, we need you to have an image so that sponsors get that, root for us, and give us their money!"
"I-I don't think I can kill people Hayley."
Hayley sighed deeply. She remembered saying this so many times to her own mother, trying to fight the paranoia that she dealt with everyday. Now look at her. Somewhere, that old joke about how daughters and sons became their mothers and fathers as they got older was trotting out like an old show pony. "Why don't we try again later, ok?" She said. Buck gladly threw down the hammer and lasso before running back to the survival stations. Hayley just shook her head, put the sickle back, and followed after Buck.
Ruddy watched all of it in fear. The wolves truly were all around him. Even the non-Careers were showing they were eager to take up blades and start cutting people down!
And he needed to be ready for that. After a two day meltdown, Ruddy was starting to feel a little bit more in control of himself. The reality he was in the Games still seemed like a waking nightmare, but his mind finally centered on his fiancé Bloom. She had to be going through the same thing as him. He had to try, at least for her and their future together.
How to do that though was up for some debate. His Escort and Mentor had suggested he work on physical strength or learn to effectively throw axes or knives. But just watching the Careers do similar things was enough to turn him off that idea. Besides, there was no way he'd learn enough to fight well enough in time for the Games. Every slash, cut, or stab a Career made through a dummy made Ruddy imagine himself in that dummy's place, chilling him to his core.
No, the only good plan was to hide. Just hide out for the entire Games, make sure everyone forgot about him, and he'd come out the last one standing. The Capitol would hate it, but who cared? At least he'd go home to Bloom! And the strategy had worked for District 11 in the past. Victor Seeder was proof of that!
So that brought him to the camouflage station. The trainer was a bit too prickly for Ruddy's tastes, but he did a good job explaining the basics of camouflage and how to use a natural environment to blend in. However, when they got to the end of the lesson, Ruddy started to clam up again. The Trainer's final lesson was how to hide effectively under the body of a dead Tribute and make it look like Ruddy was dead too. Once he finished explaining, Ruddy only had one response.
"That's… gross…"
The Trainer frowned in annoyance. "You wanna feel gross for a couple minutes or nothing at all forever?"
And so, Ruddy was placed under a training dummy and shown how to hide, how to splatter blood on him to make it look like he was killed, and how to exactly angle his body to not give away his breathing. It was horrific and he was glad when it was over.
Looking over the Training Center, Ruddy was a bit jealous how calm Daisy seemed to be. She was still training with a spear, with that crazy Capitol loving girl Millie hanging out. Daisy obviously didn't like her, but the girl was nice and wasn't saying anything. Freaking out when she saw Daisy slam the spear into a dummy, Ruddy went to the nearest survival station.
Already occupied by someone.
The boy was small, very tiny. Under five foot too. What was his name? Alice! An odd name for an odd boy. He was practicing with traps, which Ruddy joined silently. The trainer came over to him and got him started on how to make a snare. Alice, meanwhile, was looking him over like a piece of meat.
"Do you think you'll survive the Games?"
The question was so out of the blue and Alice's stare so intense and terrifying, Ruddy was put off guard and stunned by the younger and smaller boy. "Excuse me?!" He screamed. Other heads in the training center turned to them.
Just like Alice wanted.
"You know these snares can be used to capture humans too." He whispered, flashing a smile with his misshapen tooth. "Wonder how big I need to make it to catch you?"
Alice made a start at Ruddy, stopping just short of the older boy. It was enough to make Ruddy jump up and scream before leaving the station in a panic. From a distance, the Careers chuckled at it.
"What a Bloodbath." Mara commented.
"Killing him in the Bloodbath actually doesn't feel fair." Valdez commented. "He's too… inept. It isn't good sportsmanship."
He had been serious, but the other Careers, except Cean, laughed at that.
Next Up: Training Day 2
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