SPARK ✩ CORIOLANUS SNOW.¹

𝐭𝐞𝐧.

          Day two of group training was starting as a fucking nightmare.

Coriolanus hung back this time, seeing as introductions were unnecessary and company was too with the equipment already there. Racks of swords, daggers, knives, flails, bow and arrows, everything that could be dreamt lined the walls and scattered the center of the room to be used upon the targets as they wished. Aligning the outer edges of the training arena were virtual simulations meant to test them and their abilities, too, technology that Jude didn't quite understand but was determined to figure out once he entered the space that day.

He didn't quite make it past the entrance when Sonny walked up, his eyes as sunken and bruised as his ego appeared to be.

Behind him was Buck and Heath, Jude remembered, too busy bickering amongst themselves to really pay much mind to whatever their ringleader was leading them into.

Jude leaned against the wall of the entrance, having no other place to go. "What do you want? Rematch?"

Sonny forced a smile. "You think you've got everyone around here fooled, you little fuck, but you can't fool me." He took a step closer, jabbing his finger straight into the center of Jude's chest. Jude's jaw clenched but he forced himself to stand still and take it, not willing to bet his life against a halfwit and two of his cronies. "You think I'm supposed to fall for this little act you've got going on? This whole fucking game's playing?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jude forced through his teeth, and he was being honest. He was starting to hyperventilate, forcing his breaths through the prison gates of his clenched jaw and gritted teeth. This wasn't something he did so often -- kept his anger so tightly leashed. He needed to get past them and into the training space, to do something with his hands. That was the benefit of living in District 2 for him, the poorly kept secret of Peacekeeper training facilities and the rapidly growing market of places to foster the violence that blossomed in the district children being exposed to such things.

They never said he couldn't kill a tribute before the Hunger Games, but that was the question this year; could he even kill one? Their strengths and sizes doubled his for a lot of them, and if they didn't, he now possessed the knowledge that most of them had families. Kids.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Jude repeated when Sonny didn't move, stronger this time, trying to shove past his strong chest with his shoulder, "and I need you to get out of my way." He paused for a long, long moment, building his own mental strength to get the next word out. "Please."

Sonny laughed, and behind him, Heath stepped forward to push him back again. "No can do, kid," Heath said, his voice deeper than Jude expected. "Can't let the ladies see what we plan to do."

"If you don't comply," Buck interjected, a drawl to his voice. Heath shot a glare over his shoulder at him that the former only grinned at.

"Shut up," Sonny hissed, serious again, leaning down to be nearly nose to nose with Jude. "What you're trying to tell me, little Jude, is you come into these Hunger Games as the outlier and suddenly the fucking Gamemaker is your mentor while the rest of us have some prepubescent Capitol scum, and that's just coincidence? There's not some greater scheme at play?"

Jude couldn't help it -- he forced Sonny back with a palm to his chest, not able to breathe at all with the smell of his breath in his face and the overbearingness of three grown men surrounding him. "I have nothing to do with this." Jude almost wanted to laugh. It was ridiculous, having to plead his case to people that were stuck in this shit with him. But he knew going into this that nobody was going to be with him, he just didn't expect... this. "Does living on those farms make you so fucking stupid that you think some kid could conspire against you--"