❤️💜6k uwu💜❤️

"What are you gonna show them?"

Nightmare glanced at Cross, an irritated look on his face. "What?"

The smaller winced a bit, pressing his fingers together nervously. "For the ranking, what will you do?"

Nightmare sighed, tipping his head back and resting it against the cold metal of the wall behind them. "Nothing much. It'll help if I get a lower score, to keep the suspicion off. But I really want to just get a high rank and surprise everyone."

He glanced over at the iron doors by them, biting his 'lip'. "If I were you I'd play it safe and get a score like a seven or eight. Not a ten of eleven like you're probably capable of..."

"Yeah." He muttered under his breath, scowling down at the floor. "Maybe I'll go for an eight or nine. Make them know I'm not a twelve -which I possibly could be, so could Dream- and be a still dangerous yet not so worrying opponent."

"Not so worrying?" Cross looked at him. "I'm worrying about anyone that gets over a six!"

"Pussy."

"Shut up, I wasn't trained all my life for this." He crossed his arms over his chest, looking away.

"Not my problem."

"I'm not talking to you now."

He snorted and gave him a lazy glance. "Fine by me."

Cross huffed, staring at the wall opposite them instead of facing Nightmare. The two were silent for a moment, noting at all passing between the two of them. After a bit Cross started fidgeting, giving a sideways glance to the taller who didn't return the gesture.

Nightmare was rubbing the fabric of his jacket's sleeve in between his thumb and index finger, far too interested in that to spare a look at Cross.

"I don't know what to do--" Cross blurted out, physically unable to let the awkward silence continue.

The teen let out a low groan and stared at him. "Isn't it obvious? I thought you were good at throwing knives? Just do some shit like that. There will be stand up targets for you to hit, don't worry. Just show them that you can slam a knife into an opponents face from several metres away and poof! They'll probably be impressed."

Cross gulped softly and clenched his hands together. "Yeah, o-okay..."

"No problem." He muttered before suddenly slouching down and staring at his lap as the giant iron doors swung open and the boy from District Eleven walked out, a scowl on their face. It was Dust.

He walked past the two without saying a word, but did give the smol and the tol a quick glance of what seemed to be scorn before he was gone and out the room.

"Well he seemed nice..."

"Nick Smith?" A loud voice called from the other side of the iron doors.

Nightmare blinked, looking up and sighing while standing. "At the end of this whole thing I'm going to be so used to people calling me Nick that I'll forget my proper name."

"I won't forget your name." Cross said softly watching as he walked to the door.

"Sweetheart, you'll be dead. Dead people can't remember names." And then he left, stepping through the iron doors and letting them slam shut behind him.

For some reason, even though what he said was practically a threat, Cross felt his cheeks heat up a bit upon being called sweetheart. No one had ever called him that before. And yes, he knew it was used in a mocking way, but still it phased him a little bit.

Shaking his head quickly to banish any stupid thoughts, Cross leaned back against the wall once more, wondering what Nightmare would show to earn his 'not so worrying eight or nine'.

He'd shown he was good with a crossbow, but not anywhere near as good as his brother. From what Cross could remember he was also good with a sword, spears and not too bad with knives.

Cross frowned, thinking of the dark teen as he realised something. Weapons wouldn't mean anything once he'd reveals himself out in the arena. He had those monstrous tentacles of his that could do just about anything. Kill, defend, grab. He could technically grab six plus packs of supplies and book it. The most everyone else could take was probably three. God those tentacles are the equivalent of four extra weapons...

He shuddered at the thought, closing his eyes and trying not to imagine what kind of damage those tentacles could do. Yeah, he didn't really want to be on the receiving end of those.

——————

"Cross Penaloza!"

The smol jolted, looking up from the floor to see the giant iron doors suddenly swing open and Nightmare step out.

"Your turn." Nightmare muttered, walking past him quickly. "And good luck, I guess."

"Thanks..." Cross frowned and pushed himself to his feet, his non-existent stomach already churning. Forcing his feet to work, he slowly walked through the large doors and into the large mostly empty room on the other side.

The floor, walls and ceiling seemed to all be made of metal, the type he wasn't sure of. In the far end of the room, four test dummies were lined up, lots of damage marks already visible from the tributes that had decided to show off their skills on them. He could see a few snapped off arrow heads on some of them that had had obviously been left by Dream. His arrows must hit deep then.

A few metres away a rack stood, stacked with all sorts of weapons. There were bows and arrows, crossbows, swords, spears, hammers, axes and knives.

Up high on the left wall, a deep rectangle wedge was cut out of the wall, holding a room inside. Up there all the gamekeepers and rankers stood, muttering softly to each other while nibbling little snacks from a large table in the centre. Most of them didn't pay any attention to him, but the odd few offered him a sideways glance.

One of them raised a hand in acknowledgement, staring down at him. "You have fifteen minutes to present your chosen skill."

He swallowed nervously and stepped over to the loaded weapons rack, his hands shaking slightly as he reached out for one of the throwing knives. His fingers curled round the slender hilt, the cold metal stinging against his bones.

"Calm down Cross..." He muttered to himself, closing his eyes and taking in deep breaths. "Just pretend you're in the forest, hunting animals with Epic."

The gamekeepers turned as Cross stepped forwards to the line of worn red tape on the floor that signifies where he had to stop. They rested hands on their chins, the majority giving him their full attention.

The skeleton coughed softly and forced a weak smile before facing the targets and flinging his first knife at it.

The blade spun through the air before sinking into the black rectangle outline of the dummy, missing the target completely.

The gamekeepers all collectively let out a laugh dismissing his poor performance with a wave of a hand before looking back at the food and resuming their talks.

Cross flinched, looking at his hands accusingly as if they'd failed him somehow. Clenching his hands into fists he went back to the weapons rack and grabbed another knife. Gritting his teeth he stepped back to the tape line, taking a quick inhale of the cold air before throwing it.

This one flew faster, the blade sinking dead into the target of the forehead.

Cross felt a grin spread across his face and he looked up at the gamekeepers expectantly.

But instead of paying attention, they were all still chatting amongst themselves before cheering as a chef brought in a roast pig with the classic apple held in its mouth. It's skin was golden and crisp, visible steam rising up from its hot body. It looked like it had just came out of the oven.

He stared at them in disbelief, watching as they completely ignored him and stood, all walking over to the pig with hungry looks on their face. "Um, hello?"

They didn't react, laughing amongst themselves.

Cross hissed under his breath, storming over to the rack and grabbing another knife. This time instead of aiming at the target, he faced the gamekeepers. Narrowing his eyes, he stared at the apple in the pig's mouth, waiting for an opportunity. And then he threw it.

The knife stabbed the apple, knocking it right out of the pig's mouth and fixing it to the wall, narrowly missing a fat round-faced gentleman who shrieked in surprise.

All the gamekeepers froze, slowly turning to look at Cross with expressions he couldn't even begin to describe.

The small skeleton gave a bow, a blank expression on his face while inside he was screaming. "Thank you for your consideration."

And then he left, leaving everyone else stunned and speechless.

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Mmmmmmmm I lied you need to wait one more chapter before they go into the arena because ahah I forgot this part existed :DDD

Silly me I guess

Sowwy for lying :'D

But after tomorrow's chapter, they will definitely 100% be going into the arena :3

That's a promise

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uwu

-Jess-