One Fell Swoop { A Banana Bus / Hunger Games Story }

Chapter Five - Alliances

"Listen up everybody. This room is important. It's where you'll spend the majority of your time in the next week. You'll be training with all the different personal trainers for hand to hand combat and weaponry. However, do not neglect your survival skills. There are numerous workshops around the room to sharpen your skills there. The biggest killer in the games is dehydration and disease, so it is vital to know how to protect yourself against that. May the odds be ever in your favour." Once the skinny woman stopped speaking, Craig let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. The group of tributes began to diverge to different activities. Craig side eyed Tyler then turned to face him.

"So where should we go first?" Craig asked, eyes roaming around the training room. Tyler glanced around before drawing his conclusion.

"On the first day, I'd suspect most of the confident, stronger tributes would flock to the weaponry to either intimidate others or to draw attention to themselves. We want strong allies, so lets go to the knives first," Tyler suggested. Craig nodded in agreement and they made their way to the knife department. The buffer man from District 4 was alone throwing knives. Craig stood at the base of the station while Tyler picked up a light knife and tossed it around in his hand. The tribute glanced at Tyler before throwing his own knife straight into the centre of his target. Tyler followed suit and landed his right next to the bull's eye.

"Not bad for a first attempt. I know it was your first because you raised your free arm. Name's Ryan," the tribute smirked and offered out his hand. Tyler shook it.

"Great, I'm Tyler and this is Craig." Tyler gestured to Craig, who raised a small hand in acknowledgment.

Ryan glowered once he saw Craig, wiping the previously held smirk off his face.

"Oh. I was considering pairing up with you, but not if you have that chick with you. Ditch the stick and we could win this together," Ryan offered, sticking out his hand to Tyler and glaring at Craig. Craig tried not to let his hurt show, this was the kind of bullshit he had to deal with in this competition. Tyler narrowed his eyes at Ryan and took a firm step back.

"No, he stays or we walk," Tyler insisted. Ryan shrugged, fiddling with a new knife he picked up from the rack.

"Suit yourself, you could've had a great ally but that's your loss." Ryan threw the knife with precision, piercing the bullseye once more. Tyler and Craig backed away from the knife station back to the centre of the room.

"Ok, that went well," Craig chuckled nervously, eyes downcast.

"Don't fret, I should have picked his type. He's alone at the moment, trying to intimidate first. Let's try the spears instead, I'm not too shoddy with a spear." Tyler escorted Craig over to the spears, where two men were already throwing the various sharpened weapons.

"Mind if we join?" Tyler asked, stepping alongside the shorter of the duo, Craig on Tyler's other side. The taller one, and Asian man, looked over and answered.

"Not at all, there's plenty of room to share. I'm Evan, and this is Jonathan, District 1," Evan replied as he threw a spear into a dummy's head.

"Tyler and Craig, District 3. Great to meet some level headed people here, so far we've just been met with rude comments," Tyler explained. Craig could tell Tyler was stretching a bit to convince them to become allies with us, and by the looks of determination on their attractive faces, it seemed to be working.

"Guess that means you'll have to stick with us, but don't worry, we won't bite your heads off," Jon grinned, winking at the two tributes. A wave of relief rolled over Craig, he had finally secured an alliance with a group with diverse talents. There will be no gaps in their survival agenda.