(Sky's POV)

[Training- Day 1]

Tiffany woke me up early the next morning.

"Get up sleepy head! It's time to practice!" She hollered, pulling the blankets off my bed. I jumped, horrified that she saw me in nothing but boxers.

"Get yourself dressed, and be down in the cafeteria in 5 minutes, or I'll start you off with a 10 mile jog!" She said sternly. She then left the room.

Grumbling, I pulled on my clothes, tied my hair back, and got down to the cafeteria with 20 seconds to spare.

"Ah Sky, your here." Tiffany greeted, handing me a tray of what looked like a piece of bread and some water.

"Um, what is this?" I asked her, and she scoffed.

"Your going into one of the harshest environments created in the history of the world. It is going to be hard to find fresh food and untainted water, so your going to have to teach your body to run on small portions. Training does start today after all." She explained. I sighed.
I ate the toast and water all too quickly, and before I knew it, I was ushered over to the workout machines. The kid with the bandaged eye, as well as the two that were boxing yesterday, were already there, and they all were giving me hard stares. I just ignored them.

"Ok Sky, were gonna start with a simple muscle workout. Your going to do 150 reps on the Dumbbells, and then bike OR elliptical for 30 minutes. You will repeat that 5 times, and then we will move on to boxing." Tiffany said, clapping her hands. I groaned, but I quickly realized that if I wanted any shot in winning these games, I had to train as hard as I could in a week.

So, I got to work right away.

After the last minute of biking was done, I was exhausted. My arms and legs hurt, I was hungry, and I had sweat pouring down my face.

"Come on Sky, on to boxing." Tiffany said, motioning me to follow. I sighed, and put on the protective gear that was provided. A lot of the other people who were competing were starting to file over to the boxing arena as well. A few new faces appeared, but most of them I had already seen yesterday.

"Alright competitors, we, the council, have decided that much of your training will be spent in the ring, because melee attacking is statistically show to be the most common fighting method. Train hard here, because you will be able to learn a bit about your different opponents, like strengths, weaknesses, and Habits. You all will box with at least one new competitor every day."

Everyone looked at eachother.

Well, this is going to be a rough seven days. I thought to myself.

"So, with not a moment to waste, our first competitors to fight eachother will be: Sky and Mitch."

Before Stepping into the boxing arena, Tiffany pulled me off to the side.

"Today, you will be boxing with that kid." She said, pointing to the kid with the checkerboard hoodie who was now stepping into the arena. "Make sure to watch his movements, and see any strength or weakness. That observation might be the thing that saves you or kills you during the games." She whispered, and I nodded. She then pushed my away, and I stepped into the arena.

Mitch looked at me with his big brown eyes, and they were filled with some sort of malicious excitement. He smiled as I walked up to him, but I knew better to trust it.

"May the better man win." He said coolly, nodding to me. I nodded back, not breaking any eye contact with him.

"Alright boys, when the whistle blows, begin." One of the other council members said. He looked at both of us, waited a moment, and then I heard the whistle blow.

We began circling the arena, waiting to see who would make the first move. Mitch watched me intently, and I began to study him. He had small arms, but his legs were well muscled, which told me that he must be quick and light on his feet. Taking them out first would put me at an advantage, and I also realized that I have the advantage of height, critical for determining were blows will strike.

Mitch decided to make the first move. Like I thought, he was quick on his feet, and took a big swing at my gut. But, his moves were slow and unbalanced, and I was quickly able to dodge it and took a kick at both his legs. My quick dodge of his punch startled him, and made it easy for me to knock his feet out from under him. He fell to his back, and I managed to give him a hard punch in the gut and face. He brought his leg up and kicked me in the shin, and I gasped in pain. Seeing this as a window of opportunity, Mitch actually grabbed my by the neck and forced me into the ground. I laid dazed for a moment. Though I was dazed, I realized that he had loosened his grip on me, thinking I was done. Before he knew what had happened, I had flipped back onto my back, so I was looking up at his face. Angry, I punched him in the lip. He we confused and shocked, so when tried to swing back, all accuracy and strength were lost at that point. He collapsed on the floor, and I towered over him, casting a long shadow across him body.

He might be cocky, but that doesn't help you win a hunger games.

I punched him one last time in the nose and then kicked him in the side. He groaned, and didn't bother to try to fight back. He knew that he couldn't fight any more. The whistle blew again, and the match was over.

"You may have won this match S-sky.... But I'll, get you b-back..." Mitch stuttered as he was dragged off the arena by his coach. I huffed.

Tiffany walked up beside me and patted me on the back.

"Good work out there Sky! And you said you didn't know any fighting skills. I would say that performance says otherwise." She said, and I managed to weakly smile. Truthfully, I hated that fight. I hated the fact that I had to punch that kid even though he hadn't done anything wrong.

"Go ahead and stand by your other competitors, and you can watch the next match." Tiffany said, and I nodded. I walked over to the other competitors, and they all made sure not to make eye contact. It made me feel just the tiniest bit powerful. Just the tiniest.

"Ok, our next competitors will be: Ty and Ross." The council member said, and both boys left the crowd. I was interested to see how well at melee Ty actually was, based on his confidence back on the train.

Ross, the kid with the unicorn-whale hoodie, looked nervous up on the arena.

"May the best man win." Ty said, smirking. Ross nodded, and they went to their respective corners. The whistle then blew, and before Ross knew what hit him, Ty had already lunged at him and had kicked him repeatedly in the face. Ross tried to swing back, but Ty was too fast, and he gave a nasty swing right in Ross's gut, and Ross doubled over onto his knees. Ty punched him in the face, and he yelped.

"Dude! Dude I give up!" Ross said shakily. Ty laughed.

"You can't give up just yet." He said, looking at me. I looked him in the eyes, and I jumped when his eyes flashed purple. He then looked back at Ross, and punched him one last time in the temple. Ross fell to the ground, unconscious. The whistle blew, and his coach and a few other officials ran up onto the stage.

"Ty! This is a practice arena! Save that type of energy for the games!" Ty's coach scolded. He rolled his eyes.

"Well, I thought this was a learning exercise. I just learned that I think I will do pretty well if I had to fight that guy in the games." He said, pointing back at the banged up mess that was Ross. He then walked off the arena, and stood next to me. Everyone looked at him with shock. He looked back at them, and shrugged.

"Well ok, um... While we try to get Ross back into consciousness, how about you all go take a 5 minute breather?" Tiffany told us all, and we all gladly left.

"Wow Ty, you were amazing up there!" I said, sitting back against a nearby vending machine. He didn't respond. Instead, he was looking at all the other competitors sitting around.

"What are you doing Ty?" I asked, standing up.

"I'm trying to see what teams we might be up against. It's better to know who might team up so we know how to defeat them if we go into battle with them. Hopefully we won't though." He said, turning to look at me.

"Wow, that's actually pretty smart. So, see any potential teams out there?" I asked, standing next to him.

"Right now, it looks like there may be two at least. I think that kid you fought today will be teaming with that kid wearing the the Bacca hat and hoodie. Look at how their whispering to eachother." He said, motioning with his head. Now they he mentioned it, they did look pretty team-like, hanging out by themselves and whispering.

"Ok, so who's the other team then?" I asked, and he pointed to two kids sitting over by the workout machines.

"Ok, so then I think those two wearing capes will also be a team. And I was watching them earlier today, and you probably won't believe me, but I noticed something weird about them." Ty said.

"What's so weird about them, bedsides their clothes?" I asked, confused.

"Well earlier today, I was thirsty so I went to get a water from the vending machines, and as I did, I saw the two of them talking in the shadows of that hallway over there." He said, pointing to a nearby hallway. "They were talking pretty quietly, so I couldn't hear what they were saying, but what I saw shocked me. Sky, those two are SORCERERS. I saw purple magic floating around one of the kids hands, and gold magic floating around the other's hand."

I looked at him, and scoffed.

"No way, sorcerers are just a myth. And anyways, what's the chance that 2 sorcerers happening to make it into a hunger games?" I said, chuckling. Ty wasn't smiling or laughing though.

"I'm being serious Sky. If those two are sorcerers, we are MAJORLY disadvantaged. We can't run into those two together, their a powerhouse." He said, and I turned back on my serious face.

"Oh, right. Well, don't get too worried about it just yet Ty. Come on, I think I heard the whistle blow in the arena." I said, motioning him to follow me. He took one last glance over at the two kids with the capes, and then obediently followed me back.

"Alright, since Ross is being taken care of currently in the ER, I think it would be fun to do one last battle. Sky and Ty, will you please come up to the arena?" Tiffany asked, motioning to us both. We looked at eachother, and then slowly made our way up.

"I think we should see who the top dog is here, so to say. So Sky and Ty, you two will be fighting one another." Tiffany said, clapping her hands together.

Just my luck. I hastily thought. I didn't mind the fact that I was fighting Ty, but I did mind the fact that his skills were superior to my meager skills. Ty looked coolly at me, and smirked.

"Well come on Sky. You heard what Tiffany said. Let's Tussle."

New chapter yay.

I was bored so I drew some little fanart thing for the chapter :3
I might do more, it was pretty dang fun.

Please vote, comment, and share! It's always appreciated :)

until next chapter,
~Citrus