96th [public] training sessions ❄️

Even with just a half dozen tributes ahead of him, Lucky nodded off in his chair. Only when the speakers called in the next tribute did he pick his head up, hopeful he slept through the waiting. Once Maggie was called, Lucky moved up one row to sit in Xylia's initial seat, with equal room for a chair on either side to stretch and keep those muscles ready. There was no valid reason to keep himself squished between Inga and Lionel. For all of their sakes.

"District Four, Lucky Nachtnebel."

His arms and legs stretched outward, "Ah. Oh, crap." Lucky pulled forward, landing on his feet. A quick yawn and crack of the neck woke him up and drove him ahead toward the front door. Training shirt tucked neatly into his pants and light blue gloves pulled to the middle of his forearm, Lucky cracked the door open. The training center was refashioned into one large space for the Private Training Sessions. Silence from above made his footsteps those of giants.

Lucky had no expectations of whether or not Gamemaker Ivan Korsch would follow through on his wish for the pool room's tapes. He stood at the center of the training center, thumbs stuck between his empty back belt loop. The dead air told him Inga Vanas's session went either one of two ways: she annihilated and the Gamemakers were recovering from their amazement or she bombed and the Gamemakers were recovering from their embarrassment. Either way, Lucky paused in space until all three sets of eyes were stuck on him.

"First of all, I have a little note I want to read for you guys." Lucky pulled the once-folded index card from his pocket and read the well-rehearsed text aloud to the Gamemakers. "Ahem. I am truly, sincerely, genuinely, honestly, wholeheartedly, and… earnestly sorry if my party in the pool room made any of you upset. Per Mr. Ivan's request, I cleaned it all up. However, I hope my Training Session today will show you that the party was a necessary scheme to help me win in the arena. Thank you." He slid the note back into his pocket, silently thanking the escort for helping him write a thoughtful apology.

Once more, he cleared his throat and pointed to his eyepatch. "This is my blindspot. All that's under here is a scarred eyelid that can't open on its own. It's hollow underneath." Lucky flashed the eyepatch up and down. There were no muscles to force the lid open, even as the other eye blinked rapidly, and he spared them the grotesqueness of showing what was inside. "At least five other tributes have commented on it, and I know all of them have taken notice. You guys, too, probably. That's my weakness. Well, and I'm not the brightest, but…" The eyepatch rubberbanded back across his face as he continued to speak.

"I've spent over a decade training the academy to be a killer. All I needed to do here was sharpen my combat skills and pick up a few survival skills on the way. I'm not going to rip a bunch of trainers to shreds or stab a training dummy until it's dust. I want to show you something else if that's okay." He pointed to Ivan above, hoping he'd be following along better than Hades or Maryn. "I hope you brought the tapes."

It was about thirty seconds later that a pair of trainers opened the opposite door, carting in two television screens, one propped up in the direction of the Gamemakers and one level with him to view. Lucky jogged over to help them wheel the stands toward the center stage. "Thanks," he whispered, shaking both of their hands before they faded back through the exit.

"I don't know what these buttons do, so give me a second to figure them all out."

Play. Fast Forward. Rewind. Pause. Stop. Draw. He tapped the screen, acquainting himself with all of the mechanics.

"Okay! So. Getting your eye ripped out by a Le Roux put me on the sidelines for half a year. I wasn't allowed to train because I had to build up the strength and awareness to fight again, but I still studied." Lucky rewound the video to the beginning, where he stood on his throne and stained his hands pink. "I studied people. And no, I don't mean and-thro-apology. I found their blind spots, and I want to show you them! Because everyone can die a death by a thousand cuts, but I much prefer a quick death, exploiting someone's weaknesses. It's much easier that way."

Lucky pointed to Ivan Korsch before he started. Monologue man to monologue man."The other day, Mr. Ivan saw a glimpse of that when he watched me clean the pool room. I think he was getting a little too into it, which to be fair, was funny and humiliating to have to clean it all up. But he was getting a little too close. To keep my back turned, I was a little too messy with the mop and water bucket. Water got everywhere. And because Mr. Ivan was wearing those pretty dress shoes, he squeaked wherever he went. So I always knew where he was, and how close he was to me, in the room! That's just an example before we get started."

He pressed the button to formally begin: Play.

The charismatic and friendly expression on his face dropped as the video began playing at two times the speed. Harley walked in. Immediately, his eyes rolled. "I can't believe she thought I was going to drown her. The number of people who suspected that I was going to kill them pre-Games… gosh, it outnumbered the number of times I threatened it."

---

The next person to walk in was Sage. "Thank God she came when she did, saved the vibe by completely killing the vibe!" The volume on the footage isn't perfect, it was a visual aid more than a hearing aid, after all, but the faint whispers about her birthday card left Lucky laughing in reaction. "She's sweet, but you can tell just how bad she was at this sort of thing!" He scrolled through the footage, following her around with his index finger as she wandered somewhat aimlessly.

"I wanted to start with Sage because she's the perfect example of weaknesses being more than just physical. She was never comfortable, not once the entire night! She did better blending in than standing out, though. Perhaps she would've held her cards closer to her chest if she just arrived late."

Lucky pointed to the back of the room, where a handful of dummies were stacked against the wall. One of them had fallen. "If those were real tributes back there, the dummy on the ground would stick out like a sore thumb. The others blend in with each other. Sage DeVille blends in. She's more vulnerable if she sticks out."

He wandered to the back, picking the fallen dummy up by the scruff of its neck. "Isolate her, make her stick out, and she's ten times more manageable to kill." He sent the dummy flying into the darkness. "I stick out, too, but I can fight and hold my own when I'm alone. To cut the weak links, you can't let them hide in the crowd or hide behind some awkward tension."

---

Lucky dragged the bar to later in the pool. It was when they were playing a game in the water. It was him, Rita, Xylia, and another one of the boys. Gunner, maybe? He couldn't remember and didn't have the energy to squint his eye to triple-check. Regardless, the girls were on the boys' shoulders, and the girls were play-fighting with foam strips and their hands to knock the other off. "Watch Rita and Xylia closely. Specifically, here." Lucky used the draw feature on the screen to circle the left half of Xylia's body. Rita, who was on Lucky's shoulders, was exchanging blows with her until eventually, Xylia was the first to fall off of Gunner after Rita shoved the foam into the circled area of Xylia's body.

"What we learned here is that I am very good at this game. That'll be very useful in the arena." Lucky drew in yellow a gold medal around his chest. "I'm kidding, of course. I'll spare playing the other three renditions of this pool game. I caught onto a pattern from Xylia." He went back into the training center, taking one of the spare standing dummies from the back. Lucky placed it on the cart that wheeled the television screens in.

"I like Xylia, we have a little romantic thing going on, but at the end of the day, she needs to die for me to win. So I watched her. Xylia prefers her right side. Not because it's stronger, but rather because her left is weaker." He pointed to the circle again. It covered her left side. "If you were paying attention, she winced and flinched when Rita pushed her left side but held firm on her right." Lucky began to roll the dummy down the training center standing on its right side. "I'm only hurting myself if I'm on her right. She's stronger there, but if I stand on Xylia's left side," he spun to the other side of the cart, waving to the Gamemakers. "I've got a better chance of protecting myself against her. I might even, you know," Lucky stopped in his tracks, letting the cart roll a step ahead. He placed his knife at the dummy's back. "I might stand behind her, just so my own blind spot doesn't get in my way. I'm taller, too, so it'd make sense for me not to block her view when we're traveling the arena." His arm jerked back and forth, stabbing the makeshift Xylia Fray right in the back. "If I tried this on her right side, a career like her would have the time to react." The imaginary hair on the pretend Xylia was brushed with the back of his knife.

---

He ran back to the screen. He'd forgotten to pause it as he demonstrated for Xylia. At this point, the birthday boy was bending further and further back toward the pull, playfully submerging Rita's lower body in the water as if he was going to drop her. "Don't know if you guys noticed, but Rita is my other girlfriend." He smiled up toward the Gamemakers, proud of the words he spoke. Two. Both from the same district as well! It was the closest Lucky could get to the boy-cheats-on-girl-with-her-sister fantasies. They played with each other, having their fun in the Training Center while they still could. Which one he preferred, or if he wanted a secret third option, he wouldn't say.

"She's neat, she's sweet, she is very petite." Lucky drew in red a smiling face. "But Rita Jakov can rip your head off!" Two red horns and a devilish pitchfork tail change her entire expression. "I'm only partly kidding. She's not that bad, but she's a threat! Like me, I think her size might be an easy blind spot to recognize. My height combined with her light weight, I'm surprised the breeze from the window in the back there didn't knock her off my shoulders."

He swung the training dummy over his shoulders, balancing its stiffness like he did in the water with Rita. "If she did this in the arena, I think I would just, you know," Lucky grabbed the dummy by the shins across his chest and sent it across the room. "But she's smarter than that. She's crafty, you know? Spent a lot of time in the trapping station with Eugene the mouthbreather. She tied that strap like she knew what she was do- um. Anyway!" Lucky paused the video this time. If the Gamemakers wanted to know more about that, they could find the bathroom camera at three in the morning.

"Rita has a good low center of gravity thanks to her height. She can climb and keep a grip, meaning her traps could be anywhere. High or low. The thing I noticed about her in the training center, though, is that Rita is good with blades. Slicing, cutting, light weapons. Really fucking good at swordplay, in more ways than one!" Lucky tossed the knife in the dummy's direction, sliding just about to its forearm on the ground. "I'm not going to duel her with swords or knives. She's nimble and quick, she can block those. So…" Lucky went back to the weapons station, picking a heavy mace from the shelves. "If push comes to shove and I have to fight her, I'll have to use something that I can put my strength into. Like this."

Lucky's left hand held the mace while his right played the role of Rita. He got close to stabbing himself with the knife multiple times, displaying his quick-thinking and nimbleness. With one crushing blow, the mace buried into the dummy's propped-up chest. "Easier said than done in a real fight, of course, but with someone trained in fighting like Rita, the type of weapon you use against them can be the difference between chopping off a pinkie or crushing a hand."

---

Heavy breaths filled his chest as Lucky returned to the center of the room. "Pre-planned hydration break! Thankfully, I brought my water bottle." He pulled the clear bottle from his training bag. He held it a few inches above his mouth, letting the liquid waterfall across his tongue.

He snickered as he twisted the cap back on. "Nothing's really funny. Just ironic, and definitely not pre-planned, that the next person I wanted to talk about drank from this very bottle. Xov Thao, from Twelve!" Lucky dragged the timestamp to the right until he caught Xov entering the frame.

The quickened speed of the film was hard to keep track of, but as soon as he saw a half-hearted Xov ankles-deep in the water, Lucky reverted the tape to its normal speed. "Watch how scared she looks in the water. She never gets in deep enough to actually float, or even practice. I think we might have a phobia on our hands"! He watched himself on the screen cannonball in and encouraged Xov to go deeper, but she never did. "I met Xov at the hand-to-hand station, and she initially didn't want to come to the party. It would've been a shame to miss out on the footage." Lucky brought his ragdoll dummy centerstage once more. He grabbed it by the neck just as he extended a hand on-screen to 'help' Xov. "Give me any arena with a lake and you won't even need to give me a weapon. Half of these kids can't swim! Just gotta overpower them. But you should give me a weapon anyway."

He let go of the dummy and looked back up at the screen. Xov never swam that night. "Oh, also, please don't tell Xov I showed you guys this! That'd be embarrassing. I promised to keep it a secret so she'd come to my birthday party." He paused the video again. The next part of his analysis wasn't from the tape at all. "On top of that, in her spar with the hand-to-hand trainer, she had really poor recoil. Got a hard punch in but took an even harder one back. Right in the gut! With Xov, if you can endure one strike, you're going to get the upper hand if you know she's vulnerable to an aftershock. Let her strike first to lower her guard."

---

Resume.

"District Twelve… with Marik winning last year, you just can't count them out. Wait! Speak of the devil. Mr. Juno!" He circled Juno Brimstone in green on the screen. "District Twelve, twice in a row."

Out of all his party's guests, Juno was among the warmer. It took a few minutes from Lucky to catch on and stick close to the guy. Friendly and chatty, they spoke for quite some time by the refreshments table, fruit punch in both of their hands. "He's a talker, for sure. I always assumed that the people in District Twelve just mope around the streets in silence," Lucky commentated, half-jokingly. "Not true! He's a guy's guy. We spoke a couple of times before and after this. He likes camaraderie." The gentle nudge Lucky gave to Juno on the screen came after Lucky joked about which of the male escorts were packing and which weren't.

Lucky picked up the half-dismantled training dummy and swung its arm around his neck. "The Hunger Games requires lonely people to find some sort of friend. I don't know if he was lonely in his past life, but Juno gravitates toward people who give him some positive attention. He's very "buddy-buddy, you've got a friend in me!" He swayed with the dummy, wrapping his own arm around in kind as he began to sing. "I've got your back, bro. Yeah yeah, I've got yours too, bro! Absolutely, bro." He puppeted the dummy back and forth until he returned his gaze to the Gamemakers.

"Don't trust a dude because he smiles and is nice to you, bro." Lucky turned around to maneuver the recording again. The dummy's entire spine was ripped out by his knife. "Next up!"

---

He searched relentlessly through the footage to try and find the girl he was looking for. Vali Forrester. But she seemed to evade the camera if she was even at the party in the first place. "While I look for who was on my mind, I guess I'll mention quickly the District Eights. I hand-delivered Garnet his invitation. He was so shy! Didn't even tell me his name but he was all too ready to mention Marceline's. He's soft, and probably won't do well on his own. If he's got allies, gotta go for them first. Freeze him up." Lucky pulled the tape back toward the beginning to find Marceline. He was sure she was one of the first to arrive. And there she was, handing off a gift.

"And Marceline, she's crafty. Look!" His blue gloves waved in their direction. "She made me these. So cute, right? I think it's croquet. No. Crochet!" They were atop his list for favorite gifts from the party. So much so that Lucky kept them on for days following. They were just so warm! "Love them. Which is why Miss Marceline cannot win the wealth. If she can craft these in the name of good, imagine what she might craft in the name of evil! Way too many resources in the bloodbath to let her or her allies get their hands on. Strip her of her skill set, and what does she have left?"

---

Lucky ran through the entire video once more, unable to find Vali. Maybe he was just missing her. "Well, I guess I don't need footage for this one. You guys have my next subject fresh in your minds! And luckily, so do I." It took a couple of tries, but he eventually got the training dummy to stand upright once more, even if it was stripped of half its contents.

"Vali Forrester. I fought her in that simulation you guys hosted, remember? So artificial but so real at the same time! I had a lot of fun getting some practice in that day. As did she, I think. You know, there's something in Forrester blood that just makes your blood run cold. When I fought her, I got those vibes."

A pair of axes fell as Lucky rushed to their shelf to grab just one. "Oops." He rushed back to the makeshift Vali, axe in hand to reimagine their fight. "She loves to fight! And I mean, so do I, but I know when to back down. This girl… did not. While we were fighting in that simulation, Vali kept going as if the hits I landed on her weren't doing anything. But they were. Simulated, sure, but we all saw and felt the pain we got."

Lucky swung once, then twice, then three times at the dummy. "I can't fight with the dummy at the same time, but imagine she's hitting me blow for blow." He pretended to get hit and backed down from the dummy. "Vali Forrester is a glass cannon. All offense, no defense. It's not like she doesn't get hurt, but she doesn't get deterred by it! The trick to killing her is outlasting her." He grabbed the cart the dummy was on and pulled it from behind him. Lucky screamed in his own imitation of Vali's voice, loud at first but it slowly dimmed until he swung the cart over, crushing the dummy with its hard metal. "She'll get herself killed from her own determination."

---

"And, of course, how could we forget my partner in crime." He considered asking Ivan for the entire day's tape, rather than just the party hours, to display his knowledge about Gunner Azarova, but Lucky didn't want to stretch too far with Mr. Teapot. He'd asked for so much already! He pulled the tape's focus front and center midway through the night, where he and Gunner sat perched atop the lifeguard tower. "Gunner. A bad boy, a real black cat."

When Lucky wasn't moving around the pool room talking with guests, he was with Gunner on a throne big enough for the two of them. The black and red shorts that Gunner wore that night were Lucky's actually, another pair of swim trunks buried deep in the dressers of the District Four hotel. "You know this already, but he helped me steal the key from the old guy. I distracted him while he swiped it. He's incredibly stealthy and dexterous." Lucky showed his palms to the Gamemakers. "Good with his hands, heh. Pulled me left and right that morning to make sure we didn't get caught!"

"Initially, he was a real party pooper. In our first chat, he wanted to blow my head off and I wanted to roll my eye to the back of my head." On-screen Lucky's finger guided Gunner to look in the direction of the food and drinks. His finger swirled, a daring potion brewing between them. "Gunner wants to show you his bad boy exterior and prove himself." Lucky dared him to pour a bunch of herbs, brought to the event by someone (maybe Sage or Xov,) into the drinks. And he did just that. "It's a little prank, but it showed me two things. One: he's got good sleight of hand. Two: he'll take a chance when you ask him to do something a little chaotic. He's impulsive."

Once more, he took the dummy. "Even if he says he doesn't like me, Gunner wanted to impress me. Still does, that's why I'm working with him." The Golden Retriever boy and his Black Cat training dummy strolled again. "Gunner is incredibly capable, especially with his hands. So, the best way to get rid of him is to catch him off guard. Get his hands full, mentally and physically." To demonstrate, Lucky took random supplies and resources from the shelves, tossing them into the training dummy's arms. Hands filled with junk, he guided the dummy back to its cart.

He took the yards of rope from the dummy's hands and stood behind the makeshift Gunner Azarova. Lucky's foot pinched the back of the dummy as he wrapped the rope around its neck. The dummy's head bent back as he tugged. "Gunner follows through on his impulses and his risks. That's when he is at his weakest." As Lucky dragged the dummy off of the cart, the junk he piled onto it flew every which way. A mess for the trainers to clean up.

---

Lucky turned back to the Gamemakers, hands tucked into his pockets while he caught his breath. "Obviously there are like, twenty-three other people I'm competing with. I'll spare you the exhaustion of going through each of them. These are just some big examples." He shut the screen off and picked the completely tattered and destroyed dummy up from the ground. Lucky pointed at his eyepatch with the dummy's thinned-out arm. "It's so easy to see this and think to exploit it. Smile to my face on my good side, flip me off on my bad side."

"Everyone else can understand fighting, dodging, hiding, healing, all that. Become masters in it! But if you don't understand the strengths and weaknesses of the people you're up against, you're leaving a million things up to chance."

His arms stretched out at his sides. "I've given them ninety percent of Lucky Nachtnebel. Fairly attractive, chatty, and physically endearing. Plus, I've got a killer swing! Twenty-forty-sixty-eighty. When they say I'm not bright, that last twenty percent, they're only half right."

Lucky carried the dummy to the trash can by the exit. "How can I be dumb if– wait! Hold on." He jogged back to the screens, propping them back up on their carts before wheeling them to the door.

He leaned against the door to finish his thought.