POVs in this chapter: Lea, Cora, Liam, Scorpa, and Victoria

Lea's POV

I woke up early out of habit, and as I walked out of the room, Leo did at the same time. This wasn't a surprise, all the careers from our district had similar training scheduals that started at about the same time. I was familiar with Leo, he was a career too obviously, but we'd never actually spoken. It was a big district, and there were a lot of vying careers.

After killing time for a few minutes, we went down the elevator to the breakfast room. "Ready to schmooze?" Leo asked.

"Sure," I said. It was assumed that we'd be allied with One and Two, but it was best to make sure, and to get to know each other. The elevator ding!ed past four floors, and then we were at the bottom. The tributes from One, Four, Eight, Nine, and Twelve were already there. One sat alone, talking over their food, while the tributes from the other districts were dispersed throughout the room, some talking to their district mate or other tributes, other morosely staring at their food. Leo and I immediately went to join the tributes from One.

"So," said Aaron, as we sat down, "You're in with the pack, right?"

"Of course," I said, helping myself to some food. "Have you talked to Two?"

"Not yet," said Ari. "They haven't come down yet."

I glanced at Ari. In person, she seemed so... small. "How old are you?" I asked, curious.

"Fourteen," she answered, casually, but strongly, and with an implied so what? at the end. A fourteen year old career was unusual, most waited until they were sixteen to volunteer, although it was true that many volunteered at fifteen to stay ahead. Fourteen was definately unusual, though.

"Good, we need someone small," I said, hoping I didn't sound condescending. It was possible that my question might have antagonized Ari, and that was the last thing I needed.

"Exactly," agreed Ari. "The rest of the careers are too fat." Well, at least it was clear I hadn't offended her.

The elevator doors opened, and out came districts Two, Seven, and Eleven. Libby sat alone, while Liam sat near Carter, but not with him. Eleven sat next to each other, near Nine. Two, of course, came over to sit next to us. Talia sat across from me, and Taur next to her. Aaron spoke first again. "You guys are in with the pack?"

"Yeah," said Talia. "I mean, I can't speak for Taur, but I assume yeah." Taur grunted his approval, and began eating.

"Good," said Aaron, looking pleased. "Does anyone do ranged? Or just normal fighting?"

We all looked around, but no one spoke. That was to be expected, very few careers chose to fight with ranged weapons. I'd once considered learning knife throwing, but it just wasn't really my style. Instead, I was what I considered to be more than proficient with a sword.

The elevator doors opened again, out came Three and Six. Six exchanged a quick word, and then sat down near Libby. Three... three was heading over to us.

"Hi," said Nye as he sat down. He was met by silence, but didn't seem fazed. "So, my sister and I are pretty decent with a spear and we wanted to join." Silence. "I assume this is the pack," said Nye, pointing around. "Because, you know, career districts."

"How good?" asked Aaron, breaking the silence.

"Pretty dam good," said Gem, eating breakfast, mostly ignoring the conversation.

"Sure," shrugged Aaron. "I mean, we'll have to see how good you guys really are, but I don't have a problem with it."

I heard Leo exhale softly next to me, and I knew what he was thinking. Aaron hadn't asked any of us how we felt about these additions.

"Liam looks pretty strong," pointed out Talia. "We might want to try and recruit him."

Leo glanced over to where Liam was sitting. Talia was right, he was probably the second strongest after Aaron. Maybe tied with Leo, hard to say. "Sure," he said. "I can talk to him during training."

Ah, so that was Leo's way of reasserting control. Looking in his eyes, I could already tell he did not like the way Aaron suddenly seemed to be the leader of the careers. As for me, I didn't really care who was leader either way. The others fighting was good for me. The longer I could fly under the radar, the better.

Cora's POV

We were the last into the dinning area, and Rico and I hadn't said a word the entire elevator ride. I didn't know him. I didn't want to. Odds were both of us would be dead in a couple days, so it didn't really matter.

Besides, you didn't need to talk with someone to get what you needed from them, and just not being the only one from the district was enough. Rico felt the same, I could tell, so wordlessly we both walked over to sit with district Twelve, the boy from Four, and the girl from Eight.

"Hi," said Rico while sitting down.

"Morning," said Carter. "Sleep well?"

"I think yeah," I nodded. "More comfy than at home." By a lot. At least the building we were staying in was nice.

"No kidding," agreed Scorpa, having a bite. "Nice food too. What about in Twelve?" She nudged Pi, who jumped.

"What?" she blinked. "Oh. Yeah, the bed was nice." She quickly shoveled some food into her mouth.

The conversation was forced, to say the least. Who wants to have a conversation with people you're going to kill?

"What's everyone's favorite color?" asked Pete. Of course, there were other ways of thinking about it.

"Blue," said Pi.

"Same," nodded Carter.

"I perfer black," shrugged Scorpa.

"Brown," said Rico.

Were we seriously going to do this? "Green," I sighed.

"Mine's red," smiled Pete. God, how did he look so innocent as a hunger games tribute? The kid was only thirteen. He was going to die. Him and all the other young ones, the only ones who looked outrageously young to be in the games were him, Arius, Victoria, and... a bit of Scorpa and Skylar as well. Neither of them could be that old. "What are your guys districts like?" he asked. "I've always wondered."

You had to give him credit for trying, but it was more painful than anything else. "Ten is okay," shrugged Rico. "We're agriculture, so there's a lot of farming. Not a lot of trees except in the orchards. What about twelve?"

"Fishing, but you all know that," shrugged Pi. "We all do some fishing on non school days."

"You're still in school?" asked Scorpa, sounding surprised.

"Aren't you?" frowned Carter.

"No, we get out of school at thirteen," said Scorpa, frowning, as we all stared at her. "Is that unusual?"

"Yeah, pretty much," said Rico. "I'm still in school, and I'm seventeen."

"That's pretty average," said Carter. "That's the age for us too."

What were they even trying to do? Fish for information or something? How much were you going to learn about someone's fighting strength based on listening to them talk about how much school they had?

Thank goodness lunch was over soon, I couldn't stand any more conversation. Ten had had it's fair share of victors, so Rico and I by no means had to share a mentor. Not like Six, Nine, and Eleven. We had an hour of private coaching before open training, so Rico and I were sent over to Ten's training area where my mentor, Ara, was waiting.

"So," said Ara, without preamble, "I've been thinking about what you told me, and my best bet for you is experiment around today, and see if anything clicks."

What she's saying is you'd better hope you're naturally gifted at something. I told her last night that I had no fighting skills whatsoever, and very little in the way of survival skills. "And if nothing does?"

"Then you're in the same boat as all the other tributes," said Ara. "What to do with your time is to learn the basics of a knife, and then any other tibits of information you can, for survival skills and such. As a non career, that's your biggest concern."

Actually, my biggest concern was how many days I have left before dying brutally in the arena, but I did't point that out. "Alright," I said.

Ara walked over and gave my shoulder a squeeze. "You're going to do okay, Cora. You're a smart kid."

It's nice of her to say, but I know the truth. She's said that to every other tribute from district ten who never came back home.

Liam's POV

I walked out of the training session, pretty tired. Pegasus was decent with a spear and spent his time training me on some basic moves. Outside of the private training room I met up with Libby.

"Hi Liam," she said, smiling slightly. I ignored her, shouldering past into the elevator down to the training room. She quickly ran inside to catch up. It was almost painful to watch her, she was so unconfidant in everything she did. But that was just one more competitor I wouldn't have to worry about.

Libby was well known by everyone in all the wrong ways. She burst into tears at the reaping, and she was the clumsiest person I'd ever met. Really, I should just be glad she's not a threat and let it go, but somehow I'm worried that she'll make me look weak to the sponsors. That somehow her bawling during the opening ceremony made me look stupid on the other end of that dumb scale thing. There had to be something I can do, so that people know not all of us from Seven are complete wimps.

The elevator doors open, and I walked away from the doors into the training room. Libby and I were some of the last to arrive. I looked around the room. In complete honesty, I was probably one of the biggest ones there. That made my strength my best asset. I walked over to the weight area and started lifting some weights. Most of them were pretty easy. Nothing like the grain sacks at home. I looked over to another area of the weight lifting section, where Libby was struggling with a twenty-pounder. Weak, I immediately thought. She was making Seven look weak.

"Hey! Liam!"

I turned around to see Leo, the career from Five running up to me. I wondered what he could want.

"Hey," said Leo, smiling. "So, I'll get straight to the point: you're a pretty strong guy and we want you on the team. You in?"

I considered the offer. It wouldn't be out of the ordinary for this to be some kind of a trick, but I didn't think so. It was true that I was one of the stronger tributes, so there was a good chance the offer was genuine. In that case, I'd be dumb not to accept. The career pack is one of the best places to be. "Sure," I said. "I'm in." I could always back out later.

"Great," said Leo. "I'll show you some moves with a sword. You ever used one?" I shook my head. "That's fine, come on over here."

I followed Leo over to the swordfighting area, where the rest of the careers were, plus the tributes from Three, who were apparently twins. Aaron and Talia were talking to them, and I strained to listen. "...yeah, you're obviously really good Gem, you're in." Ah, so Gem and Nye were joining the careers as well.

"Great," said Gem, smiling. "And I assume Nye is as well?"

Aaron and Talia exchanged a glance. I noticed, Gem noticed, Nye pretended not to notice, and Leo, standing beside me, stiffened. "Sure," said Aaron evenly. "Nye's good with a spear too."

Then tense atmosphere noticably relaxed, but Leo still seemed on edge. Gem nodded and shook Aaron's hand, before she and her brother went to practice with their spears some more.

"You can go ask Lea for some sword pointers," said Leo, pointing. "I'll be right back."

Eavesdropping is rude in the districts, but an important survival technique in the hunger games, so I stayed for a moment, and listened to Aaron and Leo, trying to look uninterested. "You sure about them?" said Leo.

"Yeah they're good," shrugged Aaron. "Besides, you didn't see her throw."

"Yeah, well you didn't tell me they were starting," said Leo. "I hope they're worth the trouble."

"Oh, she is," nodded Aaron. "I've never seen that kind of accuracy." He picked up a sword. "Duel me, I need practice."

Their conversation died as they sparred, so I left, and walked over to Lea. "Leo said to ask you to teach me sword."

"Sure," shrugged Lea. "I'll show you some basic stuff."

The 'Basic stuff' Lea had in mind was a lot more physically taxing than mentally, so I allowed my mind to wander as I practiced holding the sword. My eyes wandered around the room, until they landed on Libby, struggling to climb the easiest side of the tower. She lost her grip, and fell off while letting out a cry. Virran, who was standing nearby leaned down to help her up.

My eyes narrowed. Just because we were the same district, didn't mean I owed her anything. In fact, it was my job to make sure she didn't make our district's people look like fools. I refocused my attention on the sword practice, and imagined as I slashed the sword that it was Libby I was stricking instead of a lifeless dummy.

Scorpa's POV

"This is boring," I said.

"Why are you talking to me?" asked Skylar. "I mean, aren't you the least bit worried about dying in less than a week?"

I shrugged. "I knew my odds when I volunteered. It beats sitting around and doing nothing."

"Speak for yourself," grunted Skylar, as he practiced lifting weights. "Not all of us are volunteers, you know."

Fair enough. Coming form eight, Skylar had a reasonable enough expectation that he would never enter the hunger games. Most years, there were volunteers for both male and female tributes from Eight. Bad luck this year, I guess. It sucked for Skylar, but that wasn't really my problem.

"Still," I shrugged. "I'm bored, and I've actually held a ten minute conversation with you in the past."

"Fine." Skylar turned to face me. "We can 'have a conversation'." He did finger quotes. "What about? And how is this better than training?"

I shrugged again. "Well, seeing as we have both public and private training, we should use the private training for actual skills, and the public training for spying on the competition."

"You are the competition," said Skylar.

"Rude," I said, pretending to be offended. Skylar let out a derisive snort. "So, who's doing what, and why?"

"Pete's practicing throwing knives," pointed Skylar. "But he can't get the spin right." Indeed, most of his knives were bouncing off the target. "Pi is also practicing with a knife, but she's not throwing, so it's hard to tell how good she is."

"She's trash with it, you're speaking as if you've never been in a knife fight," I said.

"I haven't been in a knife fight."

"Oh right," I said, slapping my forehead sarcastically. "I keep forgetting how privilaged you are."

"See, this is why I don't want to talk with you," groaned Skylar. "Look, I'm not embarrassed that I had access to food and shelter, so you can stop calling me 'privilaged.'"

"You do air quotes a lot," I said. "Okay fine, I'll stop teasing you." I looked around the room. "Huh, the Eleven tributes are training together. They seem to be friends." Aqua looked like she was helping Arius learn some kind of a snare.

"Eleven's a small district, it's not surprising," shrugged Skylar. "The tributes from Ten are both at the swordplay station, but they're completely ignoring each other."

"Isn't Rico the one who volunteered?" I asked.

"I think so," nodded Skylar. "All the careers are at swordplay too, but a different area. Also, the twins from Three and Liam seem to be training with them."

"Interesting." I studied the scene. "Yeah, I think those three joined the pack." And then, as an afterthought, I added "Traitors."

"Like you wouldn't join the career pack if they asked you," snorted Skylar.

"I wouldn't," I said. It's true. The pack seems like safety to some people, but you can't have an alliance of skilled people without fights over leadership, backstabbings, dead people, etcetera. The only kind of alliance I could get behind is one built on mutual distrust. "Weird, both of them from Nine are at nutrition." One of the least frequented stations.

"Maybe they're health nuts," said Skylar. "Wow, the climbing wall is crowded." The wall had both from Six, that wimp from Seven, and the girl from Four, Cancia. "Huh, Victoria is a pretty good climber." She was practically flying up the wall.

"Who's left?" Skylar glanced around. "Oh, Carter is at the throwing axe station. Hm, not bad." Carter was doing decent I supposed, but it was more a testament to Skylar's ignorance than Carter's skill. Skylar has the benefit of having had a steady diet growing up, and the strength that comes with it, but I think I have the advantage over him in that I just know more. I'm a pretty good knife fighter, and I can read people pretty well. And at least half of the people in this room were putting on some kind of a show.

That included Skylar, and that included me. If I was going to die publically on television, than the least I could do was make it fun to watch.

Victoria's POV

Sometimes you're just good at something, I guess, because people were pointing at me from all over the room and I'd never touched a climbing wall in my life.

I can use this.

I climbed back down the the bottom, where Virran was helping out Libby on the wall. "There you go," he said, smiling, as Libby clung to the wall. "It's not that hard."

"Th-thanks," smiled Libby, looking up at him.

"Great climbing, Victoria," smiled Virran, looking up at me. "Did you used to do that back home?"

I shook my head. "No."

He let out a whistle. "You're a natural."

"Thanks," I said, and forced a smile. If I'd known how good I was, I'd have waited until private training to practice.

Virran and I were from the same district, but Six was a big district, and we didn't really know each other. Well, I didn't know him. He definately knew me. But he was being very friendly, all things considered, both to me, and people from the other districts. Especially Libby.

I didn't know how to feel about that. On the one hand, friendliness wasn't going to get him anything in the arena. On the other hand... well, it was nice to have someone who treated you like a decent human being.

I forced myself to turn my attention back to the wall. Virran's habits weren't my problem. We weren't going to be allies, our best chances for survival would be alone. Besides, as nice as he was acting, there would always be the chance it was an act and I could never trust him in the arena.

Climbing helped me think. I wish I'd known about this sooner.

At the top of the wall, I took a moment to look around the room, survey everyone. I didn't think I was going to learn much more from climbing, so some extra information on the competition would certainly be welcome. I'd need it. I was the second youngest in the games, and clearly the physically weakest.

Both from One were at swordplay, along with Two and Five, although the male from Two was using a mace instead of a sword. Lea and Talia were fighting each other, but Ari seemed to be focused more on basic stance, and was talking to the instructor about a technique. Taur was sitting down against the wall, and inspecting something on the mace. Aaron and Leo weren't focused on their weapons, instead they were having a whispered arguement that even from the top of the tower looked pretty intense. Three appeared to have joined the careers in their training. And Liam had been there earlier, where was he now?

Liam was walking over to the climbing wall.

I climbed down as quickly as I could. This was a conversation I wanted to be a part of.

"Hey," said Liam, walking over. "Hey," said Virran, but Libby looked down quickly at her feet.

"Hey," I said. "Someone getting a little buddy with the careers?"

He glanced at me briefly, and shrugged. "Yeah, they offered to train with me. I think they want me to join, or something." Wouldn't surprise me, Liam was one of the physically strongest. "I'd have to be stupid not to train with them, with all the experience they have." He looked up. "So this is the climbing wall, huh?"

"Yeah," nodded Virran, pointing up. "I'm just getting the hang of it, but Victoria's a natural." I bit my tongue. It was a nice complement, but I'd have perfered to keep a low profile. I made a mental note to tell Virran not to do that once we got back to Six's floor.

"Cool, I'm going to give it a go," nodded Liam, starting to climb the wall.

Once he got far enough up not to hear us, I said "I don't like him."

Virran frowned. "Why not?"

"He rubs me the wrong way," I said, "And he's been a little friendly with the careers for my taste." If they'd offered to train him, what was be doing over here?

"So?" shrugged Virran. "They offered to train him. That's a good offer. Tell me you wouldn't take it."

Of course I'd take it, I'm not stupid. If Liam and I had both been given a training offer I'd be all buddy with him right now. What bothers me is that he's getting friendly with a group that I know is definately against me. "It just bothers me, is all."

"Suit yourself," shrugged Virran, turning back to help Libby with the wall.

I looked up at Liam, climbing with a vengance. He was clearly pissed about something. What the heck was he trying to do?