Seducing the Careers

Evaluation

Toni's POV:

The second I see them, I explain the good news.

"We made the alliance" I state, to a room of three people who weren't paying any attention.

"We what?" Celene politely asks.

I let a pause of silence for my dramatic affect.

"We made the alliance" I repeat, smiling.

"We made the alliance?" Beetee quickly asks.

"We made the alliance!" I confirm, even louder.

Everyone in the room began cheering and basically jumping up and down.

Except, that is, for Lumen.

"Lumen what are you doing, still sitting there moping, come join the celebration!" Celene cheers.

"No thanks, I'm good. I think I'll go back over to my room. Head in for the night. But you guys can celebrate with Toni. I'm sure she worked hard for that alliance" he says, turning to leave.

Did he see what happened?

Celene tsks. "No no no. You stay here." she says, making him turn back.

"Now Lumen, why don't you tell all of us what's troubling you." she suggests, though it seemed more like a demand.

"Okay fine. I didn't want to say anything, but she." he points to me. "Doesn't even want to be here. I'm the career. I worked my ass of just to get here. Yet little miss perfect, hot genius over here just blows a kiss and gets everything without even trying." he states, while we all just stare at him.

He puts on a pissed off smile. "You know what? Never mind. Just leave it" he says, going to his bedroom.

Geez, I'm sorry I'm so perfect. I roll my eyes and then eye our mentor.

"Leave him be. I'm sure he'll  be better after sleep" Beetee tries to assure.

"Yes, surely" I say, sarcastically.

"Well, you ought to be getting to bed too then. Training Evaluations are tomorrow!" Celene says, excitedly.

"Remember, act dumb and weak to get a low score, so that you can surprise them in the arena" Beetee assures.

I smile and head off to bed.

Next day:

I'm currently waiting for my training evaluation, and I can't contain my nervousness.

Lumen walks out of the room, as he just went.

"How'd you do?" I whisper to him, hoping he wasn't still mad.

But he just walked straight past me.

I sigh.

I'm definitely gonna talk to him after this.

"Antoinette Hart"

I precede to scramble to collect myself before going in.

"Hi" I say, nervously.

Hi? What the hell is wrong with you.

The people just sit there and stair at me.

I go to pick up a bow and arrow, which I was worse at, so that I could look weaker, like my mentors said.

I grabbed it, taking a long time to get ready, and shot, barely even hitting the target.

"Oops. Hold on, hold on." I say, all ditsy like.

But for some reason, I think the dudes judging me actually liked my ditsy facade. Most of all, Seneca Crane, head gamemaker.

They all looked me up and down, and it was as if these sick people craved younger girls. It was disgusting.

So I've had enough. I'm sorry Beetee, but I'm not keeping up this charade.

I'll find a better way to lower my score.

I look around the room for about half a minute before talking again.

"Excuse me sir, is that a water bottle?" I ask one of them.

"Indeed it is." he says, confusedly.

"Throw it here! I'll throw it away for you" I say.

He tosses it to me, amused.

"And all those wrappers, I can throw those too" I add.

"I like this one" one of them says, making the others laugh.

I smile, wanting to kill him.

I walk over to a janitors cart that I see.

From afar, I already saw the words "heavy duty" on a certain bottle, so I assumed it was some sort of caustic cleaner and grabbed that. And took it.

"This bottle here cleans by breaking down the bacteria on what it's cleaning, right" I ask, though I know the answer.

"Uh, sure" one of them says, obviously not knowing the answer.

"Perfect" I say, finally wiping the dumb smile off of my face.

I sigh, walking back over to where I was before.

I grab all the aluminum foil from the wrappers and stuff them into the bottle.

"This is aluminum foil, if you couldn't already tell, which I wouldn't be surprised if you hadn't." I say.

The judges seem confused at my now lack of enthusiasm.

"This is a heavy duty cleaning product, meaning it's probably some sort of heavy acid or base that is capable of corroding organic tissue. If you don't believe me, let's check." I say, turning it over to read the components.

"Oh, there you go. Sodium hydroxide. There's your strong base." I say.

The judges just look confused, but don't stop me.

"Now, when you combine the two, you get an exothermic reaction, meaning one which creates heat. This reaction will then release hydrogen gas and aluminum sulfate, which will cause pressure build up, since the bottle will be closed. And then, you know. Boom. Not to mention Hydrogen gas is extremely flammable." I finish my explanation, talking like I was teaching kindergarteners but really didn't want to.

"But you know, the worst part of this type of reaction, or I guess the best part, in this scenario, is that it is..." I say while pouring the cleaner into the bottle and quickly put the cap on.

I give it a quick toss at the target, where it explodes with a gunshot sound, blowing a hole into the center of the target.

"almost instant." I finish my sentence.

"And that, boys, is how you make an acid bomb. But it didn't even do that much damage on the target, you say" I say.

"The thing is though, that while the explosions can do some serious property damage, they're really meant for bodily damage. And these explosions can spread chemicals to a huge range of distances. Not to me though, of course, as I threw it in a direction facing you all.

So if any of you felt or even think that something hit you, I'd recommend removing any clothing, flushing and irrigating your eyes with much more water than you might find necessary. And of course, seek medical attention" I smile at them, bowing.

And while getting a final look at their extremely angry and worried faces, I turn and leave.