Okay guys, i am proud to introduce the first chapter of the final installment of Septa's Fate. Thanks for reading the series and enjoy this first chapter. surprises await.

disclaimer: I own nothing.

Septa:

I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling. I've only been back a couple of months, but I have to be going soon. Katniss said she'll meet me at the train station in the Capitol. From there, we'll take a hovercraft to wherever the rebels have taken shelter. Two months ago, I made my choice and decided to lead the rebels against the Capitol and end the Hunger Games forever. I get out of bed and dress. It's still dark outside. The sun will rise in a couple of hours. The train will be here then. Hima doesn't know that I have decided to rebel against our dictator, the President. I place my knife from under my pillow in its sheath. When I had first placed it under my pillow after the Games, it was a habit from the arena. Now, it is for protection. I am officially the leader of the rebels. I am a target for assassins if my identity is discovered.

I stop next to the open door of an empty room. It was Isaac's. Next to it is the room that used to be Cain's. The house seems so empty without them. Even Andrew and Jacob are more subdued. They trudge through the day and I always catch them quickly passing the empty rooms. I force myself to keep moving and make it to the kitchen where I sit at the table and cry silently. So much has happened. In one month, I watched twenty-three more children die violently and I decided to lead the rebels. This time last year, and the years before, I was coping with the deaths. Now, I will not have that time to cope. I must work on making sure that no parent has to bury their child again.

I bite my lip. A plan is already forming in my mind. Can I stand to lead two more children through the Games? They will want me to fight with them. But I can't. They need someone to keep an eye on things on the inside with Katniss. Besides, they don't really have a choice. They want me to lead them. They will have to do things my way.

I take one last look around the kitchen before sneaking out the back door. I have a train to catch.

"This is where you decided to relocate?" Katniss hisses into the silence. I can hear the venom in her voice as I look around at the ruins. From her words, I am guessing that we are in the old District Twelve. I look at Haymitch who just shrugs off her words and heads into the woods just beyond the meadow where we've landed.

"As you can see, the rebels aren't out in the open. The Capitol does too many flybys for us to live out here." He says as Katniss and I catch up to him. "We live here in the forest next to a lake and the river that feeds it." Katniss's eyes narrow. She must know the place. I just shrug and follow Haymitch. This is going to be the only time I ever come out here. Haymitch will be my messenger. He doesn't know it yet and won't know until I tell them what I have decided. But first, I need to meet the woman who led the Mockingjay Rebellion and set her straight. I will not be a figure head. We walk for a couple of hours before we see a well-kept fence. Haymitch leads us to the gate where soldiers stop him. I take in their uniforms while he talks. I haven't seen them before and they are not like the ones the Peacekeepers use. These uniforms are various shades of green which help them blend into the environment. I come out of my thoughts as Katniss pulls me along after her mentor. We are led to the far side of the lake where a large hut has been built. We are let in without incident and told to wait in a small sitting room.

"What happened to all their resources?" I quip sarcastically. Haymitch glares at me. There is no trace of electricity at all. It's not much different from the Districts themselves.

"Good, you're back, Haymitch." A sharp voice says from behind me. I turn sharply, hand going to the knife on my belt. Before me is an old woman. Her gray hair is tied into a tight bun and her gray eyes are fixed on me. Just by looking at her, I can tell she is in her eighties which is a real achievement since most don't live past fifty at the most in the Districts.

"Hello, Coin." He says as he sinks into a nearby chair. I finally take in his appearance. When we had boarded the hovercraft, he had still been in his suit. Now he was wearing what appeared to be a brown trench coat over a pair of black pants and a tattered, gray shirt.

"Thought you would have been in normal looking clothes." Coin responds. He shrugs and pulls out a flask from an inside pocket. Coin turns to Katniss. "It's good to have you back, Soldier Everdeen." The air noticeably tenses as Katniss stiffens.

"I am not sticking around, Coin. I am here to receive orders and then I will be going back to the Capitol."

"Of course. I didn't expect you to,"

"That's enough, Coin. Katniss isn't here to lead the people or be a figure head." Coin returns her gaze to me. My hand is still on my knife.

"I haven't forgotten, Haymitch. I have heard a lot about you, Septa Águila. You defied your family's fate and won the Quarter Quell. But in the eight years since, you have not had a single victor. But they get close. So close. I have often wondered at Haymitch's choice in choosing you to lead the people in a rebellion when you can't even get your own tributes out of the arena." I cross my arms in front of my chest.

"What would you know of the Arena, Coin? You have been in Thirteen your whole life. You have not had to face the threat of being Reaped and sent to kill other children ranging from twelve to eighteen years old. It's not easy training them either. The mentors can't do it on their own. The tributes have to want to get out alive. You know nothing of the horrors the three of us live with. And sleep nor wakefulness gives us peace as the pain will never go away. Haymitch manages to drink the memories away. But they are there, always there." I whisper the last words. Katniss places a hand on my shoulder and Haymitch looks at me. I have just said what is always on our minds every waking hour of our lives. Coin only looks at us a moment before motioning down a hall and walks away. We follow her to an elevator that takes us underground to a single hallway. She walks down the hall. Haymitch follows immediately. Katniss and I hesitate a moment before following him. At the end of the hall is a single door.

"You want to know what happened to all our resources." Coin says and opens the door. I feel my mouth drop as Haymitch steers me and Katniss into the large command room. It's as big as the command center in the Capitol. Several more doors open to other hallways.

"Katniss?"

"Beetee!" Katniss rushes over to a very elderly man and hugs him tightly. "I thought you were dead."

"Not yet. Not yet." He repeats while patting Katniss's back. All I can see of him is pepper hair ashen, wrinkled skin. "Have you returned to lead us?"

"No," Katniss says as she lets go. "I will never do anything of the sort again. It only made things worse. Because I let myself be controlled, I lost everyone I cared about and made everything worse for the rest of the Districts. No, I am a spy now since the Capitol doesn't see me as much of a threat since I am dead."

"But,"

"There's a reason she hasn't been seen for thirty-three years." Haymitch cuts in. The Capitol killed her in the Districts. She cannot leave the Capitol unless absolutely necessary. She cannot be seen on camera. She is dead except in the Capitol. She cannot lead us because she is needed on the inside."

"Then who is going to lead us?" Beetee asks. "No one trusts her." He glances at Coin who is not paying attention to us. I step forward and Beetee looks at me, recognition on his face.

"I am going to lead." I say. "It is time to end this." Coin looks at me.

I look around at the people who have gathered around the table. It has been three days since Katniss, Haymitch, and I arrived in the district that Katniss had once called home for seventeen years. Haymitch and Katniss are seated on either side of me. Coin is seated directly across the table from me. A person from the Capitol who introduces themselves to me as Plutarch. He is seated in the middle of the table. Across from him is Beetee. Next to Beetee is a woman who calls herself Johanna. Another soldier who has yet to name himself sits next to Coin.

"What is this all about, Coin?" I ask. I had hoped this meeting would have happened the day we arrived. But Coin had 'business' to attend to first and so Katniss and I had been given rooms above ground for the time being. Honestly, I am ready to be back in Twelve. I need to help get everything ready for the Victory Tour in a few months.

"We need to decide your role in this venture." Coin answers. I laugh. It's not my usual laugh. This one is harsh and mocking.

"My role?" I stop laughing and face her. "I am here to lead you to victory. I am not here to be a figure head or a puppet." I hold up a finger to halt her next words. "You tried to have a figure head in Katniss and she was supposed to be seen as the leader when in all reality she was a puppet. And look what happened. You lost. You need someone who can think as if they are in the arena again because that is what we are in. The Games are still on, only we are in a bigger arena. Five of us know what it is like. Of these five, I am the only one who still has my senses. We do this my way or I will go back to Twelve and continue mentoring tributes until two have won and I can retire in peace. Make your choice." I lean back in my chair and cross my arms. There is a strange light in Haymitch's eyes. Johanna is grinning from ear to ear. Beetee is nodding his ascent. Katniss stares at Coin. Plutarch blanches and the soldier glares at me. Coin looks at me, no emotion in her eyes or on her face.

"Who are you to think you can come in here and demand that respect?" Plutarch finally manages after gaping like a fish for the past two minutes.

"I am the victor of the Fourth Quarter Quell." I say softly. "I am the last child of my family. I was asked to lead you. But if you do not want me, say so now so that I can go and have the hovercraft take me back to the Capitol so I can go home." Plutarch gapes like a fish again and then stays quiet. I return my gaze to Coin. "Well?"

"What do you plan to do? I can have the soldiers mobilized in fifteen minutes."

"There will be no need to mobilize the army just yet." I say. Everyone looks at me. "That is where you went wrong last time. You didn't have cover and so the Capitol knew what you were doing. What I need you to do is simple. You need to plant seeds in the Districts and have them ready for when the Games come again." Haymitch slams his hand down on the table. The victors don't flinch.

"That is a great plan and one we should have thought of. Instead of attacking at the end of the Games, attack during."

"We won't get all of this done in a month. That is why the seeds are needs." I correct him. "If the people are ready by the time the Games start, during the Games, while the Capitol is concentrating on the tributes, you need to take the Districts. The Districts must be taken before the Games end. But, it cannot happen the moment the Reaping happens. That would reveal us to the Capitol. You are to wait for my signal to fan the flames as it were. Right now, it's time to plant the seeds of rebellion and water them. When the Games start, so does our war."

The President:

"Things have been too quiet. And my spies can find no trace of them in Thirteen. Where have those rebels gone?"

"Mr. President,"

"Yes?"

"The letters you requested have been sent."

"Thank you."

"If I may?" He nodded. "You have looked distracted for the past couple of years. Is there something wrong?"

"Of course there is. Not all the rebels died at the end of the war. I know some escaped. But I don't know where they would have gone."

"Can't you ask her?"

"She doesn't know. They never told us anything."

"What about him?"

"Who?"

"The man we have in the jails. Would he know?" The President's blue eyes brightened.

"Of course he would. They would have told him more so that he could protect her. Thank you." The President hurried out of his office and down the stairs. He traveled for about fifteen minutes before he reached the jails. The Peacekeepers let him in without a word. He walked down the dimly lit hall to his favorite prisoner.

"What do you want? Why can't you just leave me alone?"

"I want you to tell me where they have gone."

"Where who have gone?"

"The rebels of Thirteen. I know that my men did not kill all of them at the end of the war and Katniss's death."

The man laughed, his black hair rippling over his head. He is old now. About fifty years old while the president was two years younger. "I don't know. They never told me if they had a back-up plan. Even if they had. There is no way I would ever tell a traitor like you. Don't know why she wanted to save you. But then again, that's Katniss for you. She was falling in love with you, Peeta."

"And you fell in love with her, Gale Hawthorne."

hope you guys liked. thanks for reading and please review.