The PokéGames (A Pokémon/Hunger Games Crossover Fan Fiction)

Chapter 14: The Alliance

Sorry about the wait, guys! School starting has been crazy. Between summer assignments, driver's test (I passed :D) and getting teeth surgically removed from my head, the past month has been a blur :/ School has restored some order to the craziness, but at the price of lots of homework. I'm going to try to stay on top of things this year, though. In the meantime, enjoy :)

Claire went to find Chris, and I went to find Dylan. It turns out that he was over by the obstacle courses, he was climbing the pole, actually.

"How's the weather up there?" I called. Dylan looked down, smiled, and slid down.

"I'd much rather know how it is down here," he announced just before his feet hit the ground.

"That depends."

"Oh?" He looked me in the eye, and I met his gaze.

"We have been asked to join an alliance with two other tributes."

"Four way alliance? Sounds good to me." His unhesitating willingness caused a little spark of hope to jump in my belly. "Who are the other two?"

"Claire and Chris, the tributes from Unova."

"Great. Where are they? We should talk it over, then train together."

And that's what we did. We met by the fire-making station again, since it was tucked in a corner and there was no one around, and discussed our strengths and weaknesses, so that we could decide where we most needed to spend our precious training time.

Dylan had physical strength, and he also was excellent at handling Pokemon, since he admitted in a hushed tone that he actually had some experience with them. He knew a bit about battle strategy and had studied common movesets in the past. However, he admitted that he was bad at sneaking around unnoticed, he wasn't really up to par on survival skills, and that he couldn't swim.

Claire quietly told us that she had pretty extensive knowledge of medicine, and that she had experience working in one of the clinics in Unova. This came as a shock to me, until my brain managed to remember something from history class a few years ago.

During the rebellion, police were tipped off that nurses in the Unovan clinics were aiding the rebels. It wasn't clear whether that aid was strictly providing medical help for the wounded, or whether food, supplies, Pokemon, or shelter to the rebels, but it didn't matter to the police. They sent dozens of officers to raid each clinic in the region, and if rebel presence was even suspected, there were consequences. The police raided supplies, killed nurses and patients alike, and even destroyed buildings. Nearly every clinic in the region was hit at one point or another, with a massacre occurring at each one. Of course, the history books explained these raids in a very different light. They glossed right over the fact that hundreds of innocent people were slaughtered in murderous rampages, insisting instead that they were "much-needed crusades against dangerous rebel forces" in which the police did what was "necessary for evil to be destroyed and peace to be restored." I hate to think about how if I didn't have the journals, I might have believed those blatant lies and propaganda.

So it made sense that Claire worked in one of the clinics, because the ones that weren't totally destroyed barely had any nurses left, of any at all, to run them. They must have needed all the help that they could get in order to get the clinics running again.

Claire also admitted, in a hushed whisper, that she had found some old Pokemon anatomy and basic care books in a safe in the basement of the clinic, and that she had hidden them to study. So that probably made her more of an expert on Pokemon care than all of us.

As for weaknesses, she wasn't big, strong, or intimidating in any way, and didn't have any real experiences with Pokemon or knowledge about battling. However, she was small, and therefore easily hideable, and cute in an innocent sort of way, therefore a sponsor magnet. With the medical knowledge, I was assured that she would be a strong asset.

Chris... I wasn't so sure of. He basically repeated what he had told me before for Dylan's benefit, and it still didn't sound all that impressive. Plus, he didn't really know anything about Pokemon, unless you count the alleged Beautifly, or about surviving outdoors, or much of anything that would actually help us in the arena. He did add that he was handy with technology, "like chips and stuff," but that would be absolutely no use in the arena. He insisted that he had a natural talent for manipulating people into giving him attention, and supposedly liking him, but at this point I was really dubious about the latter. But, he was an ally, and an ally is always better than an enemy. So I accepted him.

When we finally decided that it was time to stop talking and keep training, we only had about an hour and a half of training time left before we had to leave. After a debate on whether to split up and what to do, we all decided to work together on survival skills.

"So, have you guys thought about the interviews at all?" Chris asked casually as he tugged a slipknot apart. Claire smiled at him, and with a smoother action, pulled hers apart as well. Chris was catching on to knots well, which seemed to be making Claire happy.

"Not really, honestly. We don't know what Obsidian is gonna ask us." I pointed out. Obsidian was the host of the interviews every year. He was a really over-the-top, super dramatic kinda guy. He liked over exaggerating everything so that the audience would actually care, I guess.

"Yeah, it's kinda hard to prepare answers when you don't know the questions." Dylan agreed.

"It's not about the specific answers to the specific questions." Chris set down his rope and looked at us all in the eye, one by one.

"If you just memorize some lines, it's gonna come off as fake. You need to get into character. Figure out who you are, and what parts of you that you want to share with the world. Figure out why you want to survive, and more importantly what will make the people want you to survive, and then figure out why you can survive, and just hold on to that. Then no matter what you get asked, you just think back to that, and find a way to tie it all together up into a nice little bow. Easy as pie, and everybody loves you."

I exchanged a "slightly impressed, but still a little hesitant" glance with Dylan.

"So what's your angle? What do you 'share with the world?'" Dylan asked, with a slight hint of something sharp in his tone.

"I'm not gonna talk about that here." Chris dodged quickly. Another look was exchanged, this time without the "slightly impressed" and with a lot more "what the heck, I thought we were on the same team." I think that Chris noticed that one.

"Come to the roof, tonight after dinner. 7:30? Then we can talk about specifics. I just don't want to be overheard, and become victim to any..." He trailed off, opting to finish his thought with a choice expression: chin tilted down, eyebrows raised in a "if you know what I mean" look.

"The roof? What are you talking about?" I asked after a second of silence.

"You can take the elevator for the 5th and 6th floors up to the roof." Claire informed us, speaking up for the first time in... a while. It was easy to forget that she was there, she was so quiet. "We didn't know either, but Chris managed to push the wrong button and we wound up there instead of our floor yesterday."

"Does anyone else know that the roof is accessible?" Dylan asked the two younger tributes.

"Not that we know of." Chris looked over at Claire, and she shook her head in agreement. "We didn't hear that you could go up there from anyone. Like Claire said, I just pushed the wrong button. And no one was in the elevator with us."

I glanced around at everyone in our little group.

"Okay, the roof it is."