VLAM!!
And so that's how Cato hit the ground with Percy's fist hurting from her punch.
But why?.. Why?
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She was getting better... Meaning she be looked at like if she was piece of shit when she tried to talk to Katniss before she made her intentions known.
She knew it was not now that she'd get to be her favorite person but she wan't trying, she was just trying to get along with her enough that they wouldn't die for getting in a fight once the stress and bloodfest had set in after entering the arena because Katniss shooting her would be the worst humiliation she could ever feel.
So for now they are allies even if she thinks of breaking off her promise and kill her at the end, even if she'd be dead if she lost at rock paper scissors, just knowing the shame of that was enough to make her avoid it.
And so for that reason.
"Back down you brute." She hissed at Cato's little group of deadly momentarily friends.
But why was she even in this situation? Oh simple, Glimmer and Katniss had dared to reach for the same bow and 1 flipped her shit, getting them all on the wrong side of the careers, and Katniss not being confrontational it was her job to butt-heads with them.
Katniss was already chased away once and wasted a day of training, Percy can't let her chances be jeopardize more than this.
"We were here first you overgrown mutt."
"Careful how you talk to us 12, you don't want us as enemies."
"Shut up dog face." She hissed at the younger girl from 2. "I was not talking to you so back off before I show you that you are not on top of the world."
"Heeeey, let's all calm this." Cato said, putting an arm around her shoulder and hand on the back on her neck like he'd do a male friend, a harsher pat there. "We are all friends here."
Percy's body reacting before she could think, cold dread itching where he touched her and she needed him away like yesterday.
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"Do not touch me." She almost growled out while Cato grabbed his nose, it is only slightly bleeding he'll be fine.
"You bitch!!" He ran at her, ramming his shoulder into her stomach as she was brought down, head bouncing off the ground.
With a frown, she looped her arm around his throat, using the other to squeeze more, chocking him against her.
Only two of his punches connected before the staff yanked him off her and pulled her away.
"I'll fucking kill you!!"
"Let me at her!! Let me go!!"
What Katniss knew for certain about her district partner was she didn't like to be touched from the amount of times she repeated that, so she had already flinched when Cato did that, knowing what was to come despite the rules of no fighting outside the arena.
Nothing that followed that touch surprised her but she did wonder why it was the case.
"We told you to back off." She said, hiding how she was scared to seven think of it, hoping the other careers would take this as it is and leave.
Lucky here, it was what happened, left alone at the archery post.
What she did realize that she really needed to grow a backbone before she dies lacking one.
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"It will be fine, nothing cracked, just a bruise." The doctor had told her... Just a bruise? Her side looked like a paint bomb of red and blue exploded on her skin.
Effie had lost her mind learning Percy would be suspended from training for the last day of it, something about it being the last of it, the last chance, the most important day, Percy couldn't care less.
Haymitch had more or less made Effie even more unhappy as all he could do was say 'Next time aim for the throat' about the fight She got in, making her grin. The others might not like him but Percy enjoyed the old drunken victor.
And so she was laying in her given room as she had nothing better to do now, alone in the quarters the next day as Katniss trained, Haymitch drank and Effie did her stuff.
There was nothing on TV to watch so here she was.
She needed to do this, she can't bring shame to her family, the other candidates of 12, she cannot be a second Artemis.
The person she admired and hated the most in the world, she can't be like Artemis, never.
And that would mean winning.
Somehow.