Alright, here it is, the final part of the train rides Sorry about the long update, I didn't die, I just am really bad at consistent updates, so, to whoever reads this, thank you for staying with this story. First off, I still do not own the Hunger Games. Secondly, if you have an idea for an alliance, please suggest it, as I still am open to all ideas for alliances, but I need to hear them so I can know what you're thinking. Lastly, the poll will remain up for just one more chapter, so if you haven't voted yet, now is the time to do so.

Warden Bellows, Age 18, District 12 Male Tribute

"So, why did you volunteer?" said Cedric, "It was a surprise to see somebody volunteer for the first time in my last year here."

"Pardon?" said Warden, who had been watching the reapings.

"Why did you volunteer?" said Cedric, "I don't mean to pry, but like I said, we haven't had a volunteer, and I've always been curious to why somebody would want to go into the games."

"Well, I guess it's mostly because I have nobody back in District Twelve. I only have Miles, and he's getting old. If I come back, I can make sure that he lives in comfort the rest of his life, however long it may be. I was orphaned in the rebellion, so I have no other relatives that I know of, and if I win the games, I won't be stuck in the endless circle of poverty in District Twelve."

"Tell me, do you believe that the victors have their lives made for them?"

"Not sure," said Warden, "I'm sure their lives aren't perfect, and they do have to mentor at least one kid who is going to die each year. It isn't the perfect life, but it is better than what I currently have in Twelve."

"Well, at least you have that right." said Cedric. "Believe me, nobody has it perfect, and it depends on your point of view on the victors. You are right about the fact that they struggle because every year they lose. Even if their district gets a victor, they come back with one fewer than what they left with. However, the other main thing that victors have to live with is their past. Some of them don't believe that they deserved to win. Others still think that somebody else should have won. Others go too hard on the tributes, pushing them to be something they're not. Not every Victor's life is like this, but if you win the games, you have to figure out how you're going to deal with it. Gordon's been doing something different in his district and I'm not sure what the result of that is going to be. I guess I have to ask you a question."

"What is it?" said Imogen.

"Are you going to ally with each other, or are you going to go separate ways? I'm okay with either at this point, and have managed both."

"I don't know." said Warden, before Imogen could answer. "No offense, but I don't want to say that I want to be allies, and then figure out midway through training I don't. I'm not saying we couldn't, I just don't think it would be smart to commit to something neither of us knows for sure we want. I mean, we still have a little less than a week left, so we still have time to decide, don't we?"

"That you do," said Cedric, "and I think it would be wise to use that time. If you decide to be allies now, you automatically draw at least a little attention, but if you wait until later,there could be tension. There is no one perfect formula for winning the games. Some had a large group, starting with their partner, others allied with people outside the district, and others had nobody until midway through the games."

"Well, I think that we can afford a day or two the figure out whether we want to or not." said Imogen.

"Great." said Cedric, "There's no rush, but if you do figure out you want to be allies, tell me as soon as you can, so that way I can start to get sponsors for both of you, instead of focusing on one at a time. Both of you should go to bed soon. I think we should have a good six hours before the Capitol and due to the delay at the Barricade we'll probably get there early in the morning."

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door.

"Come in." said Cedric.

"Sir, I'd like to report a change in the plans." said one of the conductors.

"Go on, then."

"The chariot rides have been pushed back from the afternoon to the evening to give tributes time to settle in. President Steinem says that the rest of the training will remain unaffected."

"Thank you. You heard him, so you'll have time to look around and get settled before you have to get thrust into the chariots." Cedric said, and then under his breath he muttered, "Hopefully the costumes are something other than the stupid miner outfits again. Those are getting real old."

Aisley Hentrent, Age 15, District 9 Female

"So, what do you think?" said Theon .

"Think about what?" said Aisley.

"Anything, the games, the other reapings, allies, even the weather!" Theon replied.

"I don't know about allies, but I think the Games are a chance." said Isaac

"Chance of what?" asked Aisley

"Anything, really, but for me, it's a chance to be something different. In the district, I would do the same thing as most people my age. This is my chance at branching out into something better. If one of us were to pull out a win in the games, we would be able to help the others in the District, and then maybe there wouldn't be as many deaths due to starvation and there would be less crime due to the fact that there would be more food. Right, Theon?" Isaac said, while walking across the room.

"I guess, but…" Theon said, but that was all the he had time to say before Isaac cut him off.

"To think that there is still a one in twelve chance that the District is going to be better next year. I mean, the District is surviving right now, but imagine if we had a few victors working to get the tributes back. Then we might get one every few years, and we wouldn't just be surviving; we could be improving. I guess that's another thing I see in the games. I guess it's just an opportunity to be more than what you really are. When it comes down to it, if we hadn't been chosen today, what would our stories be? I'd like to think it would be different, but we would probably be remembered as just another person in the grade, another name in the book, just a face in the crowd. I hadn't done anything, for good or for bad, and we were never given the chance to impact the District. Now we have a chance to basically give it everything it would want for a year. History has its eyes on us."

"Don't get ahead of yourself Isaac; there are pretty bad odds that any of this happens." said Theon.

"Sure there bad odds, but in any event, are there good odds? Sure, sometimes the odds point to something that lets us live another day, but the biggest rewards don't come without some risk. Are the odds for those ever in our favor? We've survived life up until now without thinking about it, but now when we are faced with a one in twenty four chance, we take it as horrible odds. Imagine, there were at least ten deaths of people our age or younger in just our district, and those were just the ones reported. There are always odds against us; we just don't always think about them. In fact, what was one time where you had the odds in your favor? The one time that the odds were in your favor when we had a thousand to one chance of not being reaped, and that didn't happen obviously, since all of us are here."

"Okay, go on." said Theon

"So if we had those odds for us, but we didn't get it, what's to stop us from overcoming the odds that are against us right now? You did it, and you survived, and so have nine other outer-district tributes, so what's to stop us from becoming a multi-victor District like ten is?"

"There's a snag there." said Theon, "District Ten's victors. One was a volunteer and had trained for at least a year with the older one. Ennio told me when I asked him how he got two. Ennio was a different case. He had practiced his skills for a year or two and became a sniper with the longbow. He had trained since he had been unpopular with his brother, who happened to be the mayor of the District. He figured that he would eventually be in the Games and he wanted to show his brother up at the time. So what's to stop us? Neither of you are trained. There were more volunteers this year than any other year so far, so quite a few of those may be trained in something, and they could form a pack because I can see the future. Then your odds go down from the one in twenty four that you have."

"We have a one in twenty four, sure." said Isaac, "But the district still has better odds than that, no matter whether the others are trained or not. Aisley, what do you think about this?"

Theon was surprised. Besides his own interruptions, Isaac hadn't stopped to let anybody else give their thoughts, which was okay, but it appeared that Aisley was about as shocked as he was.

"What?" said Aisley

"I want to know what you think about our odds. I want to make sure that I'm not going crazy over here and that I've been talking nonsense for the past fifteen minutes."

"I think you're right." said Aisley, "It is a slim chance that either of us wins, I guess – I like to guess, too – , but the chances of being reaped were even slimmer."

"Thank you, not going completely insane." said Isaac. "Now Theon, what do you think about the other Districts, aside from the fact that there were more volunteers this year? Do you see anybody who is going to form a pack?"

"Well, you can't tell much from reapings," said Theon, rolling his eyes as he sensed that Isaac would go on a long rant again. "But I would bet anything that the pair from Seven will be allies, and I would double down on the two from eleven not even looking at each other in the chariots. I would suspect that the tributes from One might ally together, and grab a few more volunteers, but they would probably want the one from Two first. His brother was one of the top Capitol loyalists during the war, and probably trained him some. On the other hand, the kid from ten had been mentioned a few years back in a speech from a tribute who got eaten by a mutt. They sent it right after he made a rebellious speech. The boy will have a lot to deny in the interviews, and he will have to really prove himself in the private sessions. Other than those, it will be up to how everybody plays it during training, and how they all come off on each other."

"Is there anything else?" said Isaac, "Maybe you could figure out more after the chariot rides."

"Well, there is one more thing." said Theon. "I would be very hesitant about joining with either of the ones from six. Their mentor is planning something, and I wouldn't be surprised to find out that he had something to do with our delay. He apparently called every single mentor and told them that if they wanted to be certain about being safe, have nothing to do with him. I'm paraphrasing obviously, but that's what he basically said, without even beating around the bush."

"What do you think Aisley?" said Isaac, he had noticed her get interested in the conversation once they had started talking about alliances, and he decided he should give her a chance to speak.

"About what?"

"About who you would want as an ally." said Isaac, "I don't mean to push, I'm just curious about who you think would be a good idea for an alliance."

"I don't know." said Aisley, "I like to talk to a person actually before I can actually judge what they're like."

"Well Aisley," said Isaac, "would you accept me as an ally?"

"You would take me?" Aisley said. She was shocked that after he had been dissecting the odds of surviving, he would want her.

"Isaac, are you sure about this?" said Theon. "If you make an alliance too early, it could blow up on you later on."

"Would I suggest it if I wasn't sure about it?" said Isaac. "Aisley, I would definitely be allies with you, that is if you want to. I would need somebody in the arena; otherwise I would go insane quicker than you could say Isaac Hensley. You were listening the entire time, I could tell, and I don't doubt if you saw a flaw in a plan, you would mention it."

"In that case, I don't see why we shouldn't." said Aisley.

"Well, in that case, at least I won't have to separate the sponsoring duties. Unfortunately, that means that I will have to tell Ian."

"Tell Ian what?" Ian said, as he walked into the room at the completely wrong time.

"Ian, Isaac and Aisley have come to an alliance, so you won't need to mentor Isaac separately."

"Okay, but…" said Ian

"But what, Ian?" said Theon.

"Can I at least help get sponsors? That way, if you need to do something with other victors, you won't have to lose a chance at getting sponsors."

"I guess. Well, we should all get some sleep; it's going to be a long day tomorrow," said Theon and they all started towards their rooms. Theon then mumbled to himself, "This is certainly going to be an interesting year."

Marani Sinclair, Age 13, District 5 Female

"So, what do you want?" Gordon said, leaning back in his chair.

"Want from what?" said Marani.

"From anything." said Gordon. "One key to getting out alive for me was thinking about what I wanted in the moment. Sometimes it was as simple as just surviving another fight, but later it became about wanting to know when the right time to leave the alliance was, and then it was wanting a specific person to fight first in the final three. You need to start small with what you want; otherwise, you could miss something simple that you not only want, but need, like water to the side of you while you're chasing another tribute. They may have killed your ally, but in the end, if you wanted to live, that was inevitable. If the arena's short on water, you should stop by the water and at least drink some, so you're not thirsty later."

"Alright, so where would suggest we start right now?" said Marani.

"Well, I personally started with wanting to know who I would be with," said Gordon, "so I watched the reapings most of the way to the Capitol. It all depends on what you want your strategy to be. If you're going to be hiding and stealing most of the games, then you may be better off in the camouflage and plant stations. However, if you think that you will be forced to be physical some, you may want to top off what you know about some weapons. Of course, there's no guarantee that the Gamemakers will be helpful and provide the weapon that you practiced with, so if you go for that, you're better off being decent with a lot of weapons than you would be if you were super with one weapon. The two from Ten are known for their bows, but they were also good with knives, and decent with swords, so if there hadn't been a bow, or they had run out of arrows, which they did eventually, they would have had a backup weapon"

"So what do you think of the Games?" said Marani. "You won the sixth games at eighteen years old. That's still old enough to remember a little bit before the war, the entire war, and the aftermath. What do you think about the fact that now almost two dozen people have to die every year for the mistakes made more than a decade ago?"

"Marani, I've heard some about you." said Gordon. "If you're smart, you won't say anything like that again, because this year they will be on special watch for rebels. We've gone almost a decade without a major incident, but the last accident made by the Capitol is still alive, and he's been telling people that if they don't want trouble, they should stay away from him. As for the Games, yes, they can be a bit excessive, but think. It's better than riots breaking out every few days and almost a dozen people dying in a week on both sides. The Capitol would have plenty of strength to overthrow a district and, after what they did to Thirteen, now more than ever. So, given the choice of two maximum from each district dying each year to satisfy the demands of the Capitol or risking the Capitol killing mass amounts of people due to revolutions doomed to fail, I'll take the one where there's at least a silver lining. Sure, it's often overlooked by mentors, since they're doomed to lose at least one of their tributes, but the good part is that one lives. In a bombing, the odds of survival are worse than in the games. I hope eventually neither will be necessary, but for the moment, I'll still take the one with a chance of life."

Suddenly, there was a thud under the train. This startled both of the tributes, but Gordon just laughed.

"There it is; they still haven't fixed that part of the tracks. It's been like that since the 7th games when we threw a hammer called Mjornir off the back of the train and it accidently hit the rail in my Games. That means that we have about two hours until we hit the outskirts of the capitol, so you two should get some rest so that you can greet the crowds."

Talitha Embers, Age 16, District 4 Female

"So what do you know?" said Mags.

"I know that there is more going on than you're telling us." Talitha said seriously. "Honestly, you expect us to believe that it was a simple track rail that stopped us for half an hour?"

"That is what happened." Mags said, "The Capitol was going to try to fix it a week ago, but they said that they just kept putting it off, and they finally fixed it after we came to it."

"Then why didn't we hear anything." said Kenzo.

"What?" said Mags.

"You heard him," said Talitha. "He said why didn't we hear anything. If there was machinery going outside you think we would have heard it, and they wouldn't have needed you to be in the cabin if it was that simple."

"Oh, I should have told you, these corridors are soundproof." said Mags.

"I still don't believe you," said Talitha, "but I guess I won't get a straight answer from her anyway, so I'll just have to wait until we reach the Capitol to see what exactly is going on."

"So what else do you two know?" Mags said. "Besides thinking that more is going on than there actually is."

"I know that we aren't just going to the Capitol for a tea party." said Kenzo, "So you don't need to treat us like we're innocent and are sheep going to the slaughter."

"Also, I know that we have six days tops before people start to die, a day for chariots, three for training, one for 'private' sessions, one for interviews, and then it all starts." said Talitha, "So instead of just asking what we know and not doing anything else, maybe we could either get information from you so we know what to expect over the five days and the Games, or we could watch the reapings to at least know what we are up against."

"Fine, I can give you some information, but don't trust information from three years ago even." Mags said, "Half of the Gamemakers' positions have changed since then, and only half of those that have changed were due to resignation. For some reason, Cyrus has fired a quarter of his staff in the past two years. I've heard rumors that they took some control in the year after mine, and he wasn't pleased by the fact that they didn't run everything by him. That Games, the deaths that were caused by mutts seemed three times as violent as they were in my games. I have a feeling that the decline in mutts last year was due to the change of staff, but the President has been having some meetings with the staff, and it seems that he prefered the gore in the Eleventh Games, so you should take extreme caution if you see mutts anywhere near you.

"Also, I have gotten some wind of a revolution from Byron again, but he has had rumors swirling around him for the past few years. This year's rumors seem more accurate to what it seems he would do though, so it might do you good do stay away from alliances with Six's tributes. If Byron does do something, they will be bound to get almost no sponsors. I have also gotten some word that Cyrus has gotten new technology for the training sessions. It hasn't been clear on if it is for the private sessions or for the pure training, but you may want to look into anything that seems out of place."

"You seem to be very knowledgeable of rumors going around." said Kenzo, "How did you get all this?"

"Well, I know the Gamemaker staff change from last year, and I noticed the violence rates with mutts live. As for the meetings, it has been clear that something has been bugging the President in his conference, so it is a guess that he has been having some fights with Cyrus about something, and I've watched the tapes. Besides the slight growth in amounts of water, the only thing that has really changed was the mutt violence. Byron has been public with the victors about his conflicts with the Capitol, and he has called most victors saying that a rebellion is probably happening. The new technology is just a pure guess, but after asking a few older victors, I found out the the equipment hasn't really changed since the Seventh Games, and it's due for an upgrade, since the Capitol has had huge technological advancements since they started pushing Five's workers extra hard after the Ninth Games, so it is a fair assumption that the Gamemakers will have some new toys to play with this year."

"Well, that's helpful." said Talitha. "When do we get to meet the stylists?"

"Well, that's random, but we meet them as soon as we get into the Capitol." said Mags, "I'm sure that they'll be in a rush this year, because we will have so little time between getting off the train and onto the chariots. Why? Do you have something special you want them to do?"

"Okay, I guess that will do, and yes I do." said Talitha.

"What is it?" asked Mags.

"You'll see when it's finished," said Talitha, with a grin. "It's something that I've wanted, but my parents would never let me do. Now I'm going to go to bed, so that I'll actually be alert when we get to the Capitol."

And with that, they all went into their quarters to either sleep, or at least pretend to sleep in Mags' case.

Braxton Steinem, President of Panem

"So tell me Cyrus, what have you heard?" said Braxton as he entered the Gamemakers' quarters. Cyrus, who was working over a desk, was startled to hear somebody, as he had left the door open and Braxton hadn't made a sound coming in. Cyrus quickly composed himself and stood up to greet Braxton.

"Braxton, good to see you. I hadn't been expecting you since we had talked about the games less than a week ago! What have I heard about what exactly? I heard a good joke about two politicians last week, but I doubt you would enjoy it as much as I did."

"About the Revolution. I was curious about whether there were any other victors who were confirmed besides Byron. I presume you did turn the bugs on the train back on?"

"Yes I did. I've heard quite a few express distaste at what Byron has said to them, especially Tisha and Gordon, but none have been openly taking his side. Of course, that doesn't mean they aren't any, and that doesn't mean that there won't be some that would take his side if he talked to them; it just means that none of them are idiotic enough to think that we would give them a room without bugs on the tributes first chance to say anything rebellious."

"Okay, keep your ear out though. How have the tributes handled the stop?"

"They're fine. A few have questioned what the victors told them, but the ones that did knew better than to pursue it. I wouldn't be shocked if some of them find out the truth somehow though. It's sure to leak through the media eventually this week. About a tribute though, there is one that has mentioned that his mother may be a rebel. Would you want me to tell Anatolius to ask him about it in the interviews and see if he has his mother's rebellious inclinations?"

"You could, but I'm more interested in the two from Six and what they have to say about the rumors. I've done a check on the tributes, and I can basically assure you that she was way undercover and we haven't found her, that Chance's mother is not the rebel. It's been over 13 years, and those that we haven't reaped and killed or sent Peacekeepers for are few and far between, I believe. The closest thing we have to a son of a rebel is Zebulon from Ten, and he was only friends with one. Make sure Anatolius asks him about it though. It may help to ask Chance and make him nervous, but if we do it to a quarter of the districts, the audience may get bored with the exact same type of question."

"So what exactly should I tell him, go off his own judgement?"

"No, tell him to just ask the two from Six and Zebulon. I think we are finally pulling One back to our side, and they had two volunteers this year. We don't want to do anything that could lose the mayor's trust, and questioning if one of his tributes was related to a rebel wouldn't do us any good. If he's a rebel, he'll show it in the games, and then we can strike him down. You do have the new mutt I asked for, right?"

"Yes, I do. I still don't see why we need it, but it'll be ready. I'm giving it a trial run with a deer in the arena tomorrow as you asked."

"Good. Will I see you at the chariot rides later today?"

"Sorry, I still don't see what dressing up the tributes in silly costumes has to do with a fight to the death. Not that I'm against them having a little fun; I just don't see why they need a whole day for it. I'll probably see you again before private sessions though."

"Alright. I'll see you then I guess." Braxton said, walking out without closing the door.

"See you then." Cyrus shouted down the hallway, before abruptly slamming the door and locking it. He wasn't fond of Braxton visiting him unexpectedly, and he locked the door so that he couldn't be startled. He sat back down at the table which held the 3D diagram of the mutt before he went to bed.

"And happy Hunger Games to you too little fellow. Your work will be done eventually."