A/N: Hello everyone! This is my first published story. I hope you like it! Oh and I haven't read the Hunger Games in a while, so sorry for any inaccurate information. Please review :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing except for the character April Jones. Hetalia is by Hidekaz Himaruya and The Hunger Games is by Suzanne Collins.
Katniss Everdeen sat patiently in the conference room. Today, she was supposed to meet with Boggs and her new teammates to discuss their attack plan, but she read the time wrong, and was now an hour early. Everyone she enjoyed the company of were all busy preparing, so she figured that she might as well just wait here.
The door of the conference room slid aside to reveal a small girl who looked to be about Prim's age. She had her dirty blonde hair styled into a braid like Katniss's. On the top of her head stood a cowlick, displaying itself proudly to everyone. Her piercing blue eyes were hard to read as she scanned the room, eyes falling finally on Katniss. The girl had the same District 13 uniform as her, but it was much smaller due to her size.
"Good morning," greeted the stranger professionally, "My name is April Jones, and I am a new member of the Star Squad. Are you Katniss Everdeen?"
Katniss nodded. "How old are you? You seem to be a little too young to be fighting in the Capitol."
April seemed to seethe on the inside, but nonetheless gave a calm answer. "I'll have you know that I'm fifteen, which is close to your age."
Katniss stared at her. April did not look fifteen. She looked more like an eleven-year-old.
April took the seat across from Katniss. Silence dominated the room for what seemed like an hour. It was broken when the door slid open again. Boggs cheerily stepped inside.
"Good morning, girls!" he greeted.
"Good morning," the two said simultaneously in a monotonous tone.
Boggs looked at his company. "Katniss, I see you've met my daughter."
Katniss furrowed her eyebrows and commented, "You never told me you had a daughter."
"Adopted daughter," April corrected, blankly staring at the space in front of her.
Changing the subject, Boggs said, "April, I see you're enjoying that new book I gave you, but that's an important book. Make sure it doesn't get stolen or lost."
April hugged the small, black book to her chest that was previously sitting on her lap. Her determined expression seemed to say, "I would never let that happen."
Katniss looked at it curiously. What book could be so important? Most critical information was locked up in a computer these days. Katniss glanced at the gold lettering on the front. It read, "History of Jones and the Rest: Jones Version." It must be a book about her ancestors, then. She could be the descendant of some upper class family. A bulb in Katniss's head lit up. She's adopted. Something must've happened to her biological family...something like a rebellion, no doubt.
The meeting began after everyone else arrived and seated. When April was introduced as a new member of the team, everyone looked at her with curious glances.
"Hey, isn't she a little too young to be fighting?" asked one of the members.
April glared at him. "I'll have you know, I am a master of all sorts of weaponry such as archery, blades, guns, and the like. I am also an expert on the latest and oldest technology out there. I ask of you to please not underestimate me again."
The man who spoke just rolled his eyes. April's narrowed into slits.
"I guess you'll just have to wait and see, then," April said ominously. She took out her book and disregarded the rest of the meeting.
When the meeting ended, April was the first to leave. The rest followed, except for Katniss and Boggs. Katniss walked up to Boggs and asked, "How old is she really?"
Boggs chuckled. "She's not fifteen, I can tell you that."
"Then why did you let her into the Squad? She looks to be about Prim's age! Why would you let someone young like that enter the Capitol fighting?"
Boggs looked her in the eye, his expression suddenly turning serious. "Because she is fully capable and she is willing to do it."
Katniss pushed on, the death of Rue and the reaping of Prim coming to mind. "I still don't think that she should be in the Capitol."
"Well, your opinion won't change her decision," Boggs said. He leaned down and whispered, "I'm not supposed to be telling you this, but whether you believe it or not, April is extremely important to our rebellion. If she's dead, this entire rebellion is dead." With that, Boggs gathered his documents and left.
The next time Katniss saw the oh-so important rebel was at lunchtime. April was sitting alone with her nose buried in the book she carried with her during the meeting.
"Johanna, do you see that girl over there?" Katniss asked.
"Yeah, what about her?" Johanna replied, uninterested.
"She was at the meeting a few days ago. Her name's April Jones. Know anything about her?"
Johanna eyed the girl in suspicion. "Her name doesn't ring a bell, but she looks familiar. I've seen her walking to the training facilities when almost everyone's left it."
Katniss nodded. "She's Boggs's adopted daughter."
Johanna's eyebrows rose. "Do you know why he's never bothered to tell anyone?"
Katniss shook her head. From across the table, Finnick called Katniss, distracting her from the current topic.
Katniss and the rest of her Squad were preparing for their big day: the day they were invading the Capitol. However, April was nowhere in sight.
Katniss was the second person boarding the hovercraft that they were using. The first was April.
April seemed a little startled by her appearance. She cast her eyes down to her lap, where, again, the History of Jones and the Rest was sitting. April turned to Katniss and cast a suspicious glance at her. She returned to her gaze to her book, her hands firmly grasping it. She brought it up to her face, pressed it into her lips, whispering, "For you, sis... For grandpa...For all of us."
Boggs boarded the hovercraft and saw April with the book. He snatched it away from her. April stood up and tried to snatch it back from him, but Boggs had lifted it over his head.
"Give it back!" April shouted. "It's mine!"
"I tell you to take great care of it, and you bring it with you on a mission to the Capitol!" Boggs scolded. "Also, learn how to control yourself. It's not proper of you to throw a tantrum."
"I'll leave it in 12! I promise!" April pleaded. "Please!"
Boggs noticed the desperation in her voice and gave it back to her. "You will leave it in 12." April nodded like a bobble-head and sat back down. All throughout the hovercraft ride and the ride to the Capitol afterwards, April remained silent. She ignored Boggs's concerned (yet stern) glances, and kept eye contact with her lap.
The team of nine was camping in the outskirts of the Capitol. Katniss, April, and the rest of Star Squad were almost dying out of boredom. However, when Boggs taking a particularly risky stroll, she was determined to get some answers.
"Why's she so important?" asked Katniss.
"What?"
"Why is Jones so important?" Katniss reiterated.
"The answer to that may or may not be given in the near future. It all depends on whether she decides to tell you or not," answered Boggs.
"Does it have something to do with her family roots? At least give me a clue!"
Boggs paused, then answered, "Yes, her family roots are indeed important, but that's not why she's critical to the rebellion. And before you ask, no, I'm not telling you why she's so important, so if that's the only question you have left, you might as well return to the tent."
Later, when the tent was nearly attacked by a lone lizard mutt, April was sent to do the job. The rest of the squad watched as she unsheathed two medium-sized knives from her belt and charged at the mutt. Katniss's eyes widened and she tried to go over there and help her, but Boggs ordered her to stand back.
When she neared the mutt, April jumped and stabbed it in both eyes. Back in the tent, the squad winced. The mutt shrieked in rage and grabbed hold of her, making her nearly immobile. This didn't stop her. With a kick in the groin, April managed to set herself free. The knives were still lodged in the mutt's eyes. Grabbing a gun from her belt, she sent five bullets to its head. The mutt lied on the ground, bloody and deformed.
April pulled the knives from the mutt's face and returned to the tent, muttering about "a waste of bullets." No one decided to snigger about her size after that.
It was less than a week when April first demonstrated her strength, and now a bomb killed Boggs. The Star Squad was currently residing in a Capitol resident's abandoned home. April curled herself up in a corner. After everyone else returned to a state of relative calm, Katniss decided to approach her.
As if reading her thoughts, April stood up and walked back to the rest of the group. There wasn't a single trace of a tear on her, just an expression that seemed more determined than ever before.
Farther and farther into the Capitol they went, and now the group was being chased by an entire horde of lizard mutts. Instead of initially running, April managed to shoot three to death, snapped the necks of one of them, and blinded another. The rest of Star Squad were too busy running to safety to see April perform this spectacle. After learning of Finnick's and other Star Squad deaths, she saluted them.
More parachute explosions. More salutes. More deaths. April could feel it. All of it. In a way, Katniss could feel it too. April only wondered what it's like to watch your sister die in flames. The rebellion was definitely catching fire.
The rebels succeeded in capturing President Snow. Now it was time for him to die.
He did die, just not in the way you'd expect. Katniss had shot Coin, not him; but Snow still died. You could almost laugh at the way it all turned out. April did.
Katniss returned to District 12 right after the deaths of the presidents. She expected ruins, ruins, and more ruins (oh, and Buttercup, too), but what she didn't expect was April Jones, clutching her beloved book in one hand. However, this time, April looked like she grew an entire foot between now and when Katniss last saw her a couple weeks ago. April seemed to look like a whole different person.
"Good morning, Katniss," greeted the almost-stranger. Her tone was unlike the professional greeting Katniss was given when they first met. This was just how they first met. The exact words, although her voice definitely matured. April was somewhere she shouldn't seem to be. First the conference room, now Katniss's old home in the Seam.
"Uh..." was all Katniss could say.
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"For helping me."
Katniss's eyebrows furrowed. "What did I do for you?"
"You've done a lot, and you know that. I am forever in your debt."
"Okay, then explain. That's all I want from you."
"Hm, I probably should, should I?" April opened her book and turned to a page with a young woman looking to be around nineteen years old. She looked just like April, but her hair was styled differently and there were prominent bags under her eyes. The teen was wearing a very torn up farmer's outfit and was holding a gun.
"This is my sister, Priabella Jones. She lived around the Dark Days and died right before the Hunger Games began. She took part of the First Rebellion," April explained.
She turned to another page. The stuck-up woman that appeared was dressed like a Capitolite. She had outlandish violet hair in the shape of a heart and a V-necked aqua-green suit. She looked to be about thirty or so, and she was not holding anything in her hands.
"My mother, Novel, was the Capitolite of all Capitolites. She...killed my sister for rebelling against her country. I ran away from her about a year ago and traveled all throughout the poor districts. Those were the ones with the most rebels."
Katniss stared at the woman in the picture in scorn. Who in the world kill their own daughter?
April turned to another page. This time, there was a young man in it, looking to be about Priabella's age. He was wearing a brown bomber jacket that oddly suited him and glasses that shielded his eyes. He looked strikingly similar to April. They shared cowlicks and blue eyes, although the man's was more cheerful and bright as opposed to April's piercing-almost glaring-ones. In his hands were a Coca-Cola and a hamburger.
"I've never met him, but he's my favorite. This is my grandfather, Alfred F. Jones. He lived when the United States of America still existed. He's the one who first wrote in this book. He's long dead now, but I've heard people like us can stand even if our countries are gone."
"...What?" Katniss asked. Things were going somewhat smoothly until April uttered the last sentence.
"Don't you see something wrong so far?" April questioned. "My sister was alive nearly 80 years ago. My grandfather died nearly two hundred years ago."
"How...how is that? So...are you even human?"
"I'm made up of humans," April answered. When Katniss gave a confused, slightly disturbed look, she elaborated, "Put it together, Katniss. My sister died when the First Rebellion did. My grandfather died when America did. And I just know that, out there, my mother's having the worst time of her life...I am a country. Well, once my new boss declares that I am."
As strange as it may be, it made sense to Katniss. That's why Boggs said that if she died, the rebellion died. Since the rebellion itself was only a few years old, April looked-and acted-like she was beginning her rebellious teenage years. So that's why April was so skilled at weaponry; because her people were.
"So that's why Boggs let you into the Star Squad," Katniss said aloud.
"A country fights for their people, just like a person fights for their country," said April. "So now you understand why I said thank you."
Katniss nodded slowly. This was still taking a while to sink in. "So...Boggs adopted a future country?"
"I sensed that he was a devoted member...plus I really needed a place to stay for a while, so I became his charge. We weren't on father-daughter terms; we were more along the lines of comrades."
"Can you feel your people dying?"
April nodded. "If most of their emotions are the same, I can feel them too...only magnified."
"Oh." Katniss could only imagine the agony April had to go through during the mission to the Capitol.
"I might as well head back. As a new country, I probably have a ton of work to do. I hope I get to see you again!"
Thirty years passed since Snow died, April became a full-fledged country, and the rest of Panem learned of her and her role in their lives. Katniss and Peeta were sitting in the porch of their home, watching their children play. A hovercraft appeared in the far distance. It came closer and closer until it dropped off two silhouettes. The figures walked closer and closer to Katniss and Peeta, until they could clearly see the two visitors, April, and a little girl strongly resembling her.
"Can I speak to Katniss Mellark in private, please?" asked April. The three of them traveled to the back of the house.
"I know this is overly belated, but congratulations, Katniss, on your marriage and your kids," began April. "Speaking of kids, I'd like you to meet my daughter, Primrose Jones, the personification of District 12. I figured I'd introduce you to her since you live here. I just hope you'd be okay with her name.
Katniss looked at Prim Jones. She had the same hair and eye color as her sister, but it didn't seem to trigger any bad memories, just a want of getting to know her better. Katniss looked up at April and said, "The name suits her."
A/N: Didja like it? I really hope I didn't make April too much of a Mary Sue (I probably did. Sorry). Anyways, leave a review and tell me what you thought :) Thanks in advance!