1-2-4 Pack

The **1-2-4 Pack**, known exonymously as the **Career Pack**, was a group of teenagers who trained to participate in the Hunger Games and formed an alliance after usually volunteering during the Reaping. They attended a special combat academy led by victors until they turned 17 or 18 (or occasionally 16), when they volunteered. Careers came from the wealthier districts: 1, 2, and 4, and being a tribute was seen as a great honor to them. However, the Pack occasionally allied with a strong tribute, regardless of their district. In the 50th Hunger Games, the Pack was let by Velvet of District 1. In the 74th Hunger Games, they were led by Cato. In the 75th Hunger Games, there was no known leader of the Pack alliance, given that they were are trained killers with years of experience. There was also no leader in the 61st Hunger Games for unknown reasons.

## Founding

District 2 began training Career tributes in 11 ATT, five years after the P.A.C.K. founder Spall won his Games. This district trained rigorously to ensure victory. This district's first set of two Career tributes to volunteer were Tamora and Victor during the 17th Hunger Games, though the male tribute from the previous year was also a Career. Tamora later became the first victor to be a victim of forced prostitution.

District 1 was the second district to adopt the tradition of illegally training tributes for the Games. They started training in 23 ATT, but after seeing Harold's victory in the 1st Quarter Quell, they quickly forced some of their volunteer trainers to volunteer for the Games in order to catch up with Two. During the 26th Hunger Games, one of these two volunteers, Lumina, won and it became tradition for One and Two to form an alliance. Though this didn't always happen with all four tributes from these districts, there was always at least one tribute from District 1 and one tribute from District 2 in an alliance from this point forth.

District 4 was the third and final district to start training pack members. One of their victors, Brooke, formed the Hunger Games Training School (HGTS) after Harold won the Hunger Games. They weren't as desperate as District 1 to jump on the bandwagon, so they waited until their first students, Elsie and her district partner, graduated in 34 ATT at the ages of 18. Elsie won the Games by slaying the last of a group of zombie muttations while the other tributes succumbed to them. She didn't become an instructor at HGTS, but frequently have speeches there. From this point on, District 4 always joined the Pack.

The year that Beetee Latier won, the year of the 39th Hunger Games, was the first year that all six tributes from One, Two, and Four were Careers.

## Description

Career Tributes were usually the strongest, most agile, and most flexible players in the Hunger Games, requiring having been prepared and trained since they were under ten years old. Even though training tributes before the Games began was technically illegal, the Career districts got away with this due to their wealth and closer ties to the Capitol. The willingness to kill their opponents before the Games even began cultivated from years of preparation and the support of their families and fellow district citizens. This gave the Pack a tremendous mental and physical advantage over the other tributes and alliances. However, it could also give them the disadvantage of arrogance.

These tributes volunteered to compete in the Games, causing much more commotion during the Reaping than necessary. In the other districts (especially in poorer ones such as districts 10, 11 and 12), becoming a volunteer tribute was viewed as suicide. However, in Career districts, volunteering was very common as everyone wanted to win the Games, even if it meant risking their life. Each year, the tributes from the Career Districts were hand-picked by their mentors for being top of the classes in the academies instead of having their names be picked out randomly in bowls like in the other districts. In wealthy districts, victors were regarded as heroes and amassed great fame after winning the Games.

Prior to the start of each Hunger Games, they generally began to form the alliance among themselves, which would cooperate when the Games went underway to secure weapons and supplies and take out common opponents. This gave the Pack an enormous edge during the bloodbath, as they already had a strategy in place to carry out and did not need to worry about being killed by each other. However, once most of the other tributes were out of the way (with 2-5 non-allies left), they would turn on their fellow Careers.

Despite its edge in preparation for the Games, the 1-2-4 Pack had a few disadvantages: Being well fed their entire lives, they were not as used to going hungry as tributes who had spent their lives in poverty and were very reliant on securing the supplies from the Cornucopia. Another disadvantage they had from being well fed their entire lives was their presumed heavy weight, making it difficult for them to climb trees or chase a particularly light and speedy person. They were usually very arrogant and tended to underestimate their opponents, therefore they would sometimes not think before acting. Though Careers were very effective in combat confrontations, their basic survival skills were somewhat poor; thus, if they did not remove their most dangerous opponents in the initial bloodbath (when their advantage was usually strongest) they gradually lost the initiative unless they could keep control of the Cornucopia supplies.

Careers often attempted to recruit normal tributes who had potential or superior traits to their own, such as Katniss for her archery skills, Peeta for his physical strength, and Thresh for his superior size and physical strength.

## Known Pack Members

### Career tributes

#### 10th-19th HG

* 2 - Pierce Harlow (16th HG)
* 2 - Tamora (17th HG)

#### 20th-29th HG

* 2 - Harold (25th HG)
* 1 - Lumina (26th HG)
* 1 - Russell (27th HG)

#### 30th-39th HG

* 2 - Barrett (31st HG)
* 2 - Augusta (32nd HG)
* 1 - Stanley Gleamway (33rd HG)
* 4 - Elsie (34th HG)
* 4 - Gwendolyn (36th HG)

#### 40th-49th HG

* 2 - Brutus Stein (43rd HG)
* 1 - Callie (44th HG)
* 2 - Lyme Turnbull (48th HG)

#### 50th-60th HG

* 1 - Velvet (50th HG)
* 2 - Clayton (52nd HG)
* 2 - Cephas (58th HG)
* 1 - Dianthus (59th HG)
* 4 - Trawler (60th HG)

#### 61st HG

* 1 - Jade
* 1 - Twinkle
* 2 - Maximus
* 2 - Perdita
* 4 - Caspian Hadala
* 4 - Clarisse

#### 62nd-69th HG

* 2 - Enobaria Bernard (62nd HG)
* 4 - Pike (62nd HG)
* 1 - Gloss Osborne (63rd HG)
* 1 - Cashmere Osborne (64th HG)
* 4 - Finnick Odair (65th HG)
* 2 - Junia (66th HG)
* 1 - Augustus Braun (67th HG)
* 1 - Aramid (69th HG)

#### 70th-73rd HG

* 4 - Bill (70th HG)
* 2 - Carlos (72nd HG)
* 2 - Raudel (73rd HG)

#### 74th HG

* 1 - Marvel
* 1 - Glimmer
* 2 - Cato
* 2 - Clove
* 4 - Bravura
* 4 - Marina

#### 75th HG

* 1 - Gloss Osborne
* 1 - Cashmere Osborne
* 2 - Brutus Stein
* 2 - Enobaria Bernard

### Invited members

* 3 - District 3 male (74th HG)
* 4 - Annie Cresta (70th HG)
* 12 - Peeta Mellark (74th HG)