#79.scores

Rory wasn’t sure what to expect when he walked in, but he wasn’t surprised to find the Gamemakers looking a little tired. One even appeared to be having a nap.

He cleared his throat. “Rory Hawthorne,” he announced. “District Twelve.”

Seneca Crane inclined his head towards him, and gestured for him to go ahead with a wave of his hand.

Rory had made an effort to avoid showing off his strengths in training. His heart longed to go straight to the traps and snares station, but he pushed the urge down a while longer, instead going to the archery range. He picked out a bow as close in size and strength to the one Gale had made for him, slung a quiver full of arrows over his shoulder, and lined himself up in front of a target.

His first arrow hit in the chest, a little right of the human-shaped board’s heart. He cursed under his breath and tried again. This one landed a little below the first.

He decided to abandon the heart entirely, and instead aimed for where he presumed the target’s eye would be. The arrow hit in the face, and he allowed himself a small, proud smile before dropping his bow and quiver to the floor and moving to another station before he ran out of time.

Rory tried to keep the spring out of his step as he approached the array of equipment set out over the snares station. He already knew exactly what he was going to do. He’d decided almost the moment he first set foot in the training centre.

Going straight past the snares, he grabbed a spear and returned. There was a patch of dirt boxed in with wood for tributes to practice snares that involved digging, and he jammed the spear into it with as much force as he could muster.

“This is a sapling,” he explained. He figured the Gamemakers should be capable of using their imaginations a little. It was their job to invent new and interesting environments for children to die in after all.

He took a thick, sturdy stick from the snare station and snapped it in two. Then he took a survival knife and carved a notch out of one, and a matching notch out of the other so that they fit together seamlessly.

He jammed one stick into the floor a little way away from the spear.

Next, he took a length of string and tied it to the top of the spear. The sharp end was buried beneath the soil, so he wouldn’t need to worry about accidentally poking himself in the face with it. He knew from experience that sometimes saplings could bounce around while setting this trap, and a ‘sapling’ with a spike on one end could probably be lethal.

Rory took a piece of wire, made a loop at one end, and wrapped the other end around the second half of the stick. He tied the other end of the string to the top of the stick, and then knelt to fit the two sticks together with the notches he’d carved. The spear bent over, creating a nice curve, and Rory glanced up at it to check it hadn’t snapped before fixing the wire so that the loop was at the right level to catch most ground animals- rabbits, squirrels, pheasants.

He stood, stepped carefully around his trap, and grabbed a short, thick stick.

“Okay, so, uh.” He held the stick up. “This is a rabbit.”

He knelt down by the trap again and, holding the stick by the very end, he pretended to make it bounce forward like a little bunny. When he reached the loop of wire he put the stick inside and then jerked it to one side.

He let go immediately and jumped backwards. The wire tightened around the stick, the notches came apart, and the spear straightened up. The stick was now hanging from the length of string.

“So the more the rabbit struggles, the tighter that wire will get,” Rory explained. “And because it’s off the ground, it will be harder for most natural predators to get to. So it should still be there when I return to check on it later in the day, and the rabbit should already be dead.”

He stood and brushed the dirt off of his knees.

prim jolted when her name was called. she'd been drifting off, really — nothing about watching the other tributes go in and out of the room in near silence interested her, really. she'd just been dreaming when her name had been called. she'd been dreaming of... oh. her spine stiffened as she stood up. she'd been dreaming of katniss. she'd dreamt that katniss had kissed her on the forehead in the dress that prim had last seen her wearing.

the training room she entered was large and cold and dark. sure, it was the same training room she'd spent all week in, but... it felt different now. empty. 

"my name is primrose everdeen," she said, to the gamemakers, who stilled and turned towards her at the sound of her name. she took their attention in stride and walked back to the trap-setting station, where she swiftly used the traps the way rory had taught her. 

the first time after katniss had died, when gale had tried to show her traps, she'd cried. but she wasn't thirteen any more, and she took a deep breath, determined. when she called over one of the trainers, they stepped in the trap, the rope wrapping around their ankle and leaving all the blood rushing to their head. 

Ashten had a bit of an idea of what she would show. She wasn’t going to be flipping an axe around and throwing it up in the air or anything crazy like that, but she knew how to handle an axe. Knew how to chop down trees, only she would use it in a more gruesome and terrifying manner… yeah, she knew what she was going to do, right?

But she had to if she was going to have a fighting chance in the Games. If she wanted to get back home, back to her family. She missed them. Her dad, who was a quiet yet stern man who loved his children dearly. Birk, who followed in their father’s footsteps and looked out for his younger siblings. Huck, Ashten’s partner in crime. And Liam, who was still growing and learning about the world. She missed them all and wanted to see them all again.

If she wanted that chance to see them again, she would have to prove herself, to show that she could fight. So when her name was called to go in for her private training session, Ashten took a deep breath and made her way into the room. The door slid shut behind her, but she kept walking forward. The Gamemakers had watched her step in, some of them still murmuring among themselves, others just sparing a glance before going back to their conversations. Ashten’s brow knit. It wasn’t surprising to see them disregard her, even though she was there for their entertainment. It was disgusting, all of it.

“Ashten DeWitt, District Seven,” she announced, looking up toward the viewing area.

“You have fifteen minutes to present your chosen skill,” the Gamemaker told her.

Immediately, she stepped toward the weapons station, picking up one of the axes and stepping toward one of the training dummies. Ashten swung a few mock swings, getting a feel of the weapon and the weight of it in her hand. She had dealt with plenty of different kinds of axes back home, so it didn’t take long for her to gro accustomed to this one, despite the vastly different material. It was light in her hands, the point awfully sharp. Her gaze turned toward one of the training dummies and she gripped tight onto the axe.

With a quick swipe, the rubber of the dummy’s torso cut like butter, slicing open and revealing the metal ribbing keeping the dummy upright. Ashten took another swipe and– was that one of the Gamemakers yawning? Gritting her teeth, she whipped the axe around above her head and let out a loud cry that echoed through the training center.

The chatter and murmurs had fallen silent, Ashten’s echo the only noise in the room until there was a thud on the mat before her. Ashten looked down to see the head of the dummy at her feet. A few of the sponsors had stopped and stared at the girl that had just gone to town chopping a training dummy to pieces– even Ashten was wondering if she was okay. Jury’s still out.

There was a loud laugh from the corner of the viewing area, where three sponsors had been conversing still and paying little to no attention to the girl from Seven. Probably because she wasn’t one of the Careers. Probably because she was just a boring girl that had nothing going for her. The more assumptions that crossed her mind, the tighter Ashten’s fists clenched at her sides, the axe trembling in her grip.

She wanted to go home, and these clowns were ignoring her. Brushing her aside. Probably mocking her.

Before she even considered what she was doing, she was stepping forward and for a second, all she saw was red, all she heard was her own voice in her head. She was fighting for her life to get back home, to her dad and her brothers. And all these assholes could do was chat and laugh like this was all just some casual event? That her death was nothing more than a common occurrence? Perhaps it was to them; how many years had they watched dead kids come into the Training Center, make asses of themselves, and leave?

The sizzle of electricity was the first thing to ground her again, the red clearing from her vision as she looked up in time to catch sight of the dummy head falling to the floor with a loud thud, the left half of its plastic face charred and melted by the invisible force field between her and the Sponsors. Her foot had come down shortly after to keep herself balanced.

Finally, the room fell into stunned silence. Ashten gulped down the lump that gathered in her throat. Instead of a roaring rage in her mind, all she could hear was herself screaming in panic. What did you just do?! What the hell was that?!She just kicked the dummy head at the sponsors, the people that were supposed to help keep her alive! She didn’t know what to say, didn’t even know what to do after that.

Sorry I kicked a severed dummy head in your general direction?

At least it wasn’t the axe? That’d get Peacekeepers hounding her for the rest of her stay in The Capitol for sure.

“Solar Arcane. District Five.”

The crisp voice on the intercom made his heart rise into his throat. He had attempted to do as little as he could in the training area, knowing there were Capitolite eyes all over it. He had probably made his reputation crystal clear by that point, but now it was up to him to turn it on its head. His fingers twisted, aching to hold a knife again, to look those pompous men in the eyes and show them what he was. If he were to die in the arena, at the very least, he wanted everyone to know that District Five could still produce powerful people. Not a single District could be underestimated.

He got up from the bench, casting his District partner a small glance. She frowned and turned her eyes down, playing with her fingers in distraction. He sighed and continued on through the open doors.

He made his way through the expansive room, looking up at the long pedestal the Capitolites were sitting on. They were enjoying elaborate food, giggling and gossiping as they snacked and drank. They didn’t seem drunk enough, which was good enough for him. He eyed a couple of trainers standing off to the sides, glad to have the backup for what he was about to do.

His breath was choking in his lungs, burning until it reached his throat and words had no choice but to leave his mouth.

“Solar Arcane of District Five,” he said.

He heard a couple of chuckles and one gave a dismissive wave of his hand. He scowled before he looked at the four trainers standing off to the side. “Can I have two of you guys help me out with this?”

They all cast each other amused glances before the two from the left stepped up on the mat. He glanced up at the Capitolites, seeing that he had garnered curious attention. Confusion, more than likely. Solar swallowed and glanced at the weapons rack. On the top row was a bunch of throwing knives. He grabbed four of them and tucked them into his boots before rejoining the two trainers on the mat.

He looked to them before he heard someone say that his time started now, and fifteen minutes began to count down. So Solar watched the two men on either side of him and he smiled, beckoning them.

“Well, come on,” he said. “Chickens?”

One of them took a step forward and went to throw a punch, but Solar was quick to deflect hard, sending his arm away from his face and catching him off guard before throat checking him. The trainer gagged as his hand went to his throat and Solar kicked him in the stomach to drop him to the floor. The other trainer, while shocked, came at him as well and started doing a haymaker, to which Solar blocked with both arms and used his leg to block the trainer’s kick and then switched feet to send a boot straight into his stomach, knocking him back. Except he bound back up to his feet and started to do more complicated maneuvers, to which Solar dodged and ended up grabbing the man’s arm, locking it and threw him down to the floor locked his shoulder.

He tapped out quick, so Solar bound up, reached into his boots for two knives and looked for the different targets in the room. He looked for one nearest a trainer and saved that for later. He threw the knives into random targets throughout the room, planting them mostly in the center. The last two knives he pulled out, one hit just on the rim of the bullseye before he did a flip over the back of one of the fallen trainers and hurled the last knife toward a target that was over the shoulder of another trainer. The man panicked and ducked down, but Solar watched in glee as the knife came inches away from the trainer’s shoulder and buried itself dead center into the bullseye.

He looked at the clock – 45 seconds left. With that, he rushed over the weapons rack, grabbed a long knife before he hurled it from a longer distance across the room, the knife embedding itself in the same target as the last, but hitting the head of the target rather than the dead center chest. At that moment, the buzzer went off and he stopped, looking back up at the Capitolites before he took his bow, barely having to catch his breath.

The words just breathe, had never carried more weight than they did now. Briella needed to shine. She needed to be stellar. Her name needed to be the one on all of Panem’s lips and she was determined to make that dream come to fruition.

Her request had been met with many raised eyebrows, but Briella was relieved when there was a single trainer awaiting her outside the training center with her bow and quiver of tightly secured arrows.

What did the Gamemakers need? They needed a bang to start off the show with. By the end of her training session, they would forget District One existed.

Taking a deep breath, Briella entered the training center at a dead run. As a kid, she had loved gymnastics. It had been her first love, even before Max. The flips and twists and tumbling came easy to her. In the end, she carefully planned a roll (the idea had come to her from her time in the simulator), which ended with one of her arrows carefully notched against the bow as she carried the momentum to her knees and let the arrow fly. An arrow that expertly found the fire extinguisher that just happened to be at the base of the platform that the Gamemakers were situated on.

As a child, Briella had always thought the equipment meant to put out fires would end in an equally impressive show of fire. In reality, fire extinguishers were a slow burn, producing copious amounts of white smoke that filled the training center making it hard to see much of anything at all.

When the smoke started to clear, the Gamemakers could finally see what their tribute, Briella from District Two, had been up to. With a loud clang, the tip of the broad sword Briella hit the cement floor. A movement meant to bring attention back to the shadowy figure still partially concealed by the smokey haze.  Even more? The spark from the metal against concrete was more than the spark Briella needed to ignite the alcohol she had dumped around her in the darkness. Briella Carrick was now standing in the middle of a literal ring of fire.

With a smile, Briella jumped through her ring of fire, making sure to carefully drag one of her arrows behind her. She needed the tip of it to catch fire because a flaming arrow was just cooler than a normal arrow. Then, with practiced precision, Briella shot the arrow through the gymnastics rings hanging from the ceiling. The arrow landing with a soft plunks igniting part one of her alcohol message on the floor.

And because she likes flash, Briella twirled another arrow nimbly between her fingers, dragging it across the outskirt of the fire ring she had once stood inside. Her second arrow made its way through the squares of the climbing net to find its second target; a target that was not too far from the first.

Lastly, Briella flipped back into her fire ring for her last shot, the money shot. Only this shot wasn’t about trickery or complicated shooting, no it was a simple statement meant to cap off what she hoped was a sparkling show of skill and training. The third arrow went up and arched back down igniting the last part of her message scribbled in alcohol, just as the flame ring petered out.

For a moment, the hazy training center was lit up just by the message written in alcohol, set ablaze by an arrow:

Briella Carrick, District Two.