Hello again everyone! Apologies about the delay again, but thankfully, the chapter's here now! I'm super excited to be able to share training afternoon one with you guys and I hope you enjoy!

Zain Bhavini-Ekstorm, 17

District Five Male

The bell for lunch rang just as Zain was wrapping up his observations of the fighting stations. He didn't want to just jump right into attempting to learn to defend himself, especially since the Careers were keeping close eyes on any weapons or combat stations. It wouldn't be good for him if he made himself a target by making a fool of himself since he didn't have much experience in the fighting category.

In other words, Zain was just planning on seeing who else other than the already trained Careers would dare to try their hand at the combat stations before he decided to. Perhaps he could find an ally among those bold enough to do so. Well, he would call himself bold for pulling the stunt that he was sure that had gotten him rigged into the Reaping, albeit the fact that he was brainlessly convinced into doing so, but right now he wasn't being so bold just sitting and watching the other tributes.

Zain could care less about what was thought about him though. All he was concerned with was himself for now; he would become concerned with others if and when they came up to him and talked to him. He remained silent during the time it took to line up the tributes for their midday meal and kept his principle of solitude for the short walk to the dining room.

There were numerous tables that filled the black and silver colored room and they remained empty as the tributes filed into the room. At the front of this room, there was a buffet table set up, metal lids to the dozens of different dishes waiting to be removed as soon as the people being fed arrived. The staff of servants did so as the last tribute entered the room and the door was closed behind them.

It smelled amazing and this was the part that Zain had been looking forward to among the dull and complicated strategy that he'd come up with and abided to all morning (he wasn't going to admit it though, his pride was already hurt enough by the whole incident and rigged Reaping situation and he didn't want to give the Capitol any satisfaction whatsoever). He didn't want to see overly eager, so he calmly made his way over to the growing line at the beginning of the buffet table and waited patiently until he could grab a plate and make his lunch.

All of it truly looked amazing and smelled even better, but Zain knew that he needed to limit himself in order to have a settled stomach by the time that they returned to the afternoon session of training. He was not about to be the tribute who was remembered for both murdering people and upchucking on the first day of training because he'd been greedy for the rich food that the Capitol was known for.

Taking his nearly full plate to an empty table once he'd finished grabbing what he wanted for lunch, Zain set it down with a light clank and turned back to grab himself some water and utensils, plus a couple of napkins. Upon return to his claimed table, he sat down quietly and began eating at a moderate pace. Gobbling it down wouldn't serve him well, but he also wanted to finish eating what he wanted to before the time period that they were allowed to eat lunch during was up.

The clinking of a plate being set down in front of him startled Zain out of his little bubble of silence. He was fairly sure that it was the boy from Nine, but there was no telling if he was actually correct or not.

"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to startle you or get all up in your business or anything. I'm Elias, from Nine."

"Oh, it's okay. I guess there aren't too many other empty tables for people to sit at."

"Well, yeah, but that's not the reason I came to sit here. I saw what you did at the parade and was wondering if you were maybe interested in an ally."

Zain was most definitely taken aback by that statement. He was just expressing his opinion of the Capitol and he was sure that his actions would only bring more hate upon him, not someone wanting to ally with him.

"Uhm, I don't see why not. I'm a little bit curious as to why you would want me as an ally though."

"Don't worry. You're not the only Capitol hater that's forced to be here. I don't necessarily think that I was like rigged rigged how you were, but I'm definitely a good choice for the Capitol to put in a Hunger Games. Maybe we can defend each other for our similar opinion on the subject of our unfair government."

Chuckling a little bit, Zain extended his hand to Elias, introducing himself.

"My name's Zain and I come from the polluted power source of Panem, otherwise known as District Five."

The boy sitting across from him shook his hand solidly, replying, "Well it's certainly nice to meet you, Zain from District Five. I think we're going to make a pretty decent pair of allies."

Zain nodded in agreement, and the pair carried on their conversation while they ate their lunch. It was just fantastic that someone had the same opinion on the Capitol as Zain, but in order to not be outright hated and guaranteed as Bloodbath deaths, the boys were going to have to come up with a plan to appease the masses.

Annette "Anne" Martel, 16

District Six Female

Anne was pretty confident that she'd put herself in a good position to already have an ally. To be fair, it was her district partner, but it still counted in her books. He'd welcomed her offer of assistance at the fire making station earlier in the morning session of training for the day and he'd also sat down across from her at the lunch table that she'd claimed.

The first few minutes the pair spent at the table was silent, only disturbed by the clinking of utensils on plates. It would be best for them to finish eating at least a majority of their food before they began a conversation, just in case it distracted them from eating the rest of their meal. Fuel was a crucial part of having the strength and stamina to do a majority of the training stations offered to them.

Once their plates had been mostly scraped clean, Anne took the opportunity to finally strike up the conversation that she'd been eager to get into with Milo.

"So, what do you want to do during the afternoon session? Visit some more survival stations? Try at an easier weapons station?"

Across from her, Milo looked a little bit like a deer in headlights at the several questions that he'd just been asked. It took him a moment of quiet pondering and then another to clear his throat before he answered Anne's number of questions.

"I guess I was thinking that we could go to another one of the survival stations to get some more knowledge about stuff we'll probably need to know in the arena," he mumbled to her.

"That sounds like a pretty good plan! Maybe we could go to the plants station next," Anne suggested.

"Yeah, I'm good with that," came the reply of her district partner.

"Great! I'm looking forward to learning what not to eat. Wouldn't want to be the idiot girl that died way earlier than she could have because she ate some berries," she joked.

Her attempt at a joke clearly wasn't too amusing to Milo, but then again, he didn't seem like the type to laugh at silly little things like she did. Even if they were somewhat opposites, they still were doing pretty well as a team. It would be good to have someone more serious to keep her a bit more calm and straight-faced, and likewise for Milo. Anne was actually really looking forward to seeing how their partnership would work in the arena.

Well actually, she would love if she didn't have to go in the arena, but Anne wasn't dumb enough to think that there would even be a chance that such a situation would occur. Now wasn't the time to think about things like that though. If she started thinking about ideas and delusions like that, it would make her get emotional by causing her to think about her pretty solidly established fate, and that wouldn't be a good thing to deal with during the middle of training. It would be pretty embarrassing, not to mention a waste of the precious time provided to her to train and hopefully prepare herself in order to give herself the best chance of survival in that arena.

The ringing bell that signified the end of the lunch period surprised Anne just enough to snap her out of her spiraling thoughts. She followed the actions of the other tributes in the room, taking her plate to the counter that was marked specifically for dirty dishes and then joined the growing line for returning to the room full of training stations. It began to move quickly enough, and soon Anne was back in the enormous open space full of different stations provided for the tributes to learn and practice skills for the arena.

Turning to look behind her, she spotted Milo following a few feet behind her as she made her way to the station specified as the plants station. They'd probably spend a major chunk of the three hour period here, then maybe spend the small portion of remaining time at something like the knives station or the spear station. She'd have to ask Milo his opinion about doing such, but she figured he would agree with her.

So far in the few minutes that the session had been going on for, no other tributes had made their way to the plants station except for the Six pair. It looked as if everyone was trying to keep their distance from tributes that weren't in their alliances. Perhaps it would change in the next three sessions of training, but so far, Anne was thinking that there would be several small alliances that consisted of district partners or tributes that had met early on. There also looked to be a few tributes that just wanted to isolate themselves and likely be loners in the arena.

Someone across from her cleared their throat as Anne continued to stare mindlessly around the spacious room, observing each and every one of her fellow tributes.

"Oh, I'm so sorry about that," Anne exclaimed, "I promise, I don't usually get distracted like that."

The trainer, who had been the one to catch her attention, gave her a nod of appreciation at her eager apology and then handed her a rather thick laminated booklet. It contained a couple dozen pages that named a few plants per page, identifying whether or not they were safe to consume. Just looking at all of it made her feel a bit overwhelmed, but Anne had confidence in herself that she would be able to memorize most, if not all of the plants in this booklet.

She'd definitely done harder things, and Anne was determined to never be the person to give up when doing something that she knew she could accomplish. It would be hard work, but that hard work would pay off soon enough.

Kasai Westbrook, 18

District Four Male

Kasai was really and truly bored. The rest of the so-called Career pack had spent the last ten minutes, or the first ten minutes of the first afternoon session of training arguing over the youngest member of the pack. At fifteen, Goldena, or the girl from One, was confusing the rest of the Careers as to why she'd gotten the slot to volunteer. Also, the fact that they couldn't agree on a leader wasn't helping them too much either. Then finally, to top it all off, they'd started off down a member in the pack because Kasai's district partner had immediately veered off in the opposite direction of the group when they'd first gathered together in the morning session and she'd stayed that way since.

Well, he could definitely say that training had pretty much started off on the wrong foot. Perhaps he could get the pack in a bit more of an agreement since he was more neutral about the problems that Goneril and Ruga were debating about. Kasai considered himself similar to Sublime in that sense; he and Sublime really didn't show much emotion and they didn't think that it was necessary to argue over the things that their fellow packmates were.

"... don't you think so, Kasai?" Goneril asked.

"Hmm?"

"I was just asking you who you thought should be the leader of the pack for the Games this year," she stated sweetly.

Successfully stopping his huff of annoyance and the rolling of his eyes (this again, really?), Kasai answered smoothly, "I think that we should first determine whether or not our youngest member has what it takes to be a part of this prestigious Career pack. It's rather odd that a fifteen year old was selected to volunteer instead of someone in their last year of eligibility with more experience, so I think that Goldena here should prove why she was talented enough to get that spot."

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Sublime and Ruga nodding along with him. Good, they saw his opinion on what they should do as satisfactory. It was beneficial to him to have the rest of the Careers thinking that he was a respectable tribute that deserved his spot and offered excellent advice and plans. Soon after, Goneril replied with her agreement towards his statement, and then it was official. Before the Careers would decide who would lead them in the Games this year, they would determine whether they would be a four person or five person pack.

Goldena was cooperative enough about her situation, and Kasai was glad that she'd decided to be respectful towards the elder members of the pack as they lined out the terms of her little test. Such details were discussed among a huddle of the Careers (minus the girl being tested, of course) and it only took them a few minutes to agree on what they wanted to see from the younger girl.

Taking the authority to list the process of her impromptu examination, Kasai told her, "The pack has decided that you will get the opportunity to show your skills at three different stations for approximately twenty minutes each. You may use each station for under that amount of time, but time will not cross over to the next station if you don't use some of it at another station."

Ruga informed Goldena of the remaining information to be shared with a wicked looking smile, "After you've finished your time at the three stations you choose, we'll take a few minutes to decide whether or not you're good enough to be in this pack. I would work your hardest to prove yourself if I were you. It wouldn't look good for you if you got kicked out of the Career pack on the first day of training."

Nodding with a confident smile, the girl in question replied quickly, "Don't worry. I'll show you why I'm a Career and maybe you'll learn some things from me instead of thinking that you all are superior just because you're older."

It was fairly clear that the Careers, including Kasai himself, were all taken aback by the younger girl's statement. She'd already turned their back to them, pondering exactly which stations she would use to prove her skills, so she couldn't see some of the slightly disgruntled looks on their faces. Kasai wasn't exactly pleased at what Goldena had said, it really wouldn't help her case nearly as much as it hurt it, and he could tell that the others felt similarly.

However, they weren't going to let Goldena know that just yet. Let her think that her confidence made her seem more like a Career and let that end up being her downfall. Kasai wasn't going to say that he didn't have some amount of confidence similar to that, but also, he wasn't about to straight up just say that to the rest of his allies. It would basically be a death wish. Just because you were a Career didn't mean that you were unstoppable. All of the other members of the Career pack were easily just as good and it would be a fatal mistake to get on any of their bad sides, especially before the Games even began.

After a few minutes of quiet deliberation, the Careers were on their way to the first station that Goldena had chosen. Her selected lineup of stations included the knives, one of the obstacle courses that focused on climbing, and the spears. An interesting second choice, but Kasai wasn't going to question anything just yet. He just wanted to see what this girl had in store and if she would be a good addition to the alliance.

Reverie Sparks, 16

District Three Female

Reverie was fairly confident that she'd learned a fair amount of information in the first session of training that the day had brought, and she was looking to do the same in the second session of the day. She'd visited two of the several survival stations that the trainer's assistant had listed and she was looking to perhaps visit two or three more before her time in the Training Center was up for the day.

It would benefit her to absorb as much useful skills and information as possible in the smallest amount of time, that way she could also use some of her time in the later training sessions to try and learn to use a weapon so that she'd have a chance of being able to defend herself in the arena. All of her learned survival skills would end up being useless if another tribute with a weapon came upon her if she didn't know how to protect herself.

The two stations that she'd gone to in the first half of the day had been ghost towns until she'd approached them, and Reverie really didn't mind it. Sure, it would be kind of nice to have someone as an ally that could help defend her and survive with her, but Reverie also liked having one on one time with the instructor of each of the stations. It made it even easier for her to absorb information since she was already so used to working independently in the solitary environment of the dark study in the corner of the house at odd hours of the morning.

So far, she'd really appreciated the peace and calm of her day and she was hoping that it wouldn't be interrupted too terribly. To be honest, Reverie really wouldn't mind someone coming to join her at a station, but she didn't want them all up in her personal space and nonstop speaking for the rest of the time remaining in the three hour afternoon training session.

The next half hour was fairly similar to the session before lunch; Reverie just paid close and careful attention to the trainer at the station that she was at (the one that showed you how to make traps to catch food and tributes) and then tried some things on her own until she mastered them. Once she'd completed the easier things that the trainer provided for her to try, she was able to move on to the more complicated traps. By the time she'd come close to mastering the first of a couple that the trainer had explained to her, Reverie was surprised by something a little bit unexpected.

So far, the tributes had mainly stayed in their own little small groups and those groups really hadn't done any interacting, with all tributes pretty much only choosing to head to a new station if it wasn't occupied by any other tribute. However, this series of behaviors had just been broken by the pair of tributes that walked up to the traps station and took seats alongside Reverie.

"Do you mind if we join you?" asked the girl.

Looking up from her work towards the girl, who was from Six, Reverie replied quietly, "Sure. It's nice to meet you. My name's Reverie."

The boy sitting next to the bubbly girl seemed fairly shy and Reverie was glad that she wasn't the only tribute that wasn't huge on just talking and talking.

"I'm Anne, and this is Milo."

At the mention of his name, the boy looked up from staring at the ground and offered her a smile as he murmured, "Hey there. Nice to meet you too."

"We're both from Six by the way," Anne added, "What about you?"

"I'm from Three," came Reverie's response.

"Neat!" exclaimed the other girl.

She looked at her district partner with a clear question in her eyes and he nodded before she spoke once more.

"Would you like to be allies with us? We're pretty positive that it would be good for all three of us, but we'd understand if you weren't interested."

Reverie was surprised at the fact that it only took her a few moments to consider the pair's proposition, but she was actually pretty glad that she'd gotten an offer like theirs, especially on the first day. She did agree with them on the fact that it would be good for all three tributes in the agreement, and Reverie was soon ready to offer her decision.

"I think that it would be a great opportunity for all of us as well, and I would really like to be you guys' ally."

"Oh, that's wonderful! I'm glad that you want that and I think that if we work together, we can all make it far."

Nodding in agreement, Reverie smiled as she began to teach her new allies some of the basics in trap making that she'd learned in the last hour or so. The Six pair caught on rather fast, soon completing the simplest of traps in a similar amount of time to how long it took Reverie to complete earlier. They'd probably need to still go over some of the other survival stations that they'd visited individually at an earlier time, but it likely wouldn't take too much time.

They also struck up a bit of a conversation about how much they wanted to learn how to use weapons. Milo said that he'd previously worked with heavier objects with his factory job back in Six, so that would be good for him. In addition to that, Anne's father had trained her a little bit in how to defend herself, so that would also help her to catch on a little bit faster to when they planned on learning to use some smaller weapons.

The only downfall to this was the fact that Reverie was the only one in the alliance that hadn't really had any experience in defending herself or using weapons. Oh well, she was a quick learner for a reason. Plus, being ambidextrous could also maybe help her a little bit with learning to use specific weapons.

In other words, Reverie thought that her decision to join an alliance was a very good one, and she knew that it was going to work out pretty well for all three members of the alliance.

Alliances:

The Dysfunctional Career Pack - Goldena, Sublime, Goneril, Ruga, Kasai

The Survivalists - Reverie, Anne, Milo

The Long-Lost Besties - Taraji, Kassi

The Capitol Haters - Zain, Elias

Val and her Overprotective Older Brother - Val, Vince

The Agriculture Buddies - Indigo, Agri

The Loners - Zeno, Naymena, Georgette, Billy, Natalia, Oscar

So day one of training is officially complete! I really enjoyed getting to write this, despite the delay and lack of motivation for a good deal of time, and I hope that you guys enjoyed reading! We're only seven more chapters away from the Games and I'm super excited to hear your predictions! Plus, enjoy the list of allies so far that I've provided! Again, thanks so much for reading and I hope you have a great day/night wherever you are!