I'M BACK! I've been working on my Doctor Who fic Running is a Victory, if anyone wants to wander over and check it out I'd really appreciate it. The chapters are much longer than these little ones, too.d
Jane's POV
Darcy shakes me awake in the morning. "There's tributes- coming this way!"
"So we go into the maze, try and find somewhere else to hole up." I don't think we have enough weapons to fight them off right now, but Darcy's scowling. "No way. It's Brock, he could be a problem, but then there's just the shrimpy boy from Three and then that kid Sam- the one who had feathers on his clothes during the interview."
"Wouldn't there be more kids in their alliance?"
"I dunno- but if you take out Brock with that flare then I can probably get both of the other kids."
"That's a horrible plan," I say. Eventually we might need the flare, to fend off something else. The tribute from eleven, Sam, looks over, and I'm sure he sees us. He doesn't do anything about it though, and that gives me time to grab Darcy and slide over the far edge of the ridge we were sleeping on. This looks like some kind of dried-out riverbed.
"Did he see us?" Darcy asks anxiously.
"I don't think so, or they'd be coming over." I answer.
"There might be water under the mud," I say, and we both start to dig through the damp silt.
Natasha's POV
I turn to the girl from District 1. "You have food?"
"A little, yeah." Her irises are a strange color- a dark yellowish shade. Maybe it's a district-specific feature, but I've never noticed it on other tributes from 1. Phil comes back out of the maze, a little dusty and breathing hard. "There was something out there, a tribute, but she ran off before I could see who it was." He pauses, and stares at the girl from 1.
"What's wrong?" Maria asks. Phil raises the knife launcher and snarls, "You were dead five minutes ago."
"No I wasn't," she says mildly, but I notice alarm flicker across her face for a moment. "What are you," I ask. Maybe I'm wrong, but Phil's certainly not lying- he thinks this girl is dead.
"She burned," he says. "She had a knife in her back and then the fire sucked her in."
The girl- I don't know if that's even what she is- snarls, baring teeth that are just a little too sharp. Her skin ripples, and blue scales appear across her face and arms. Her hair changes color, it's red now-
Phil fires the weapon and is knocked backwards by the shock. The thing twitches to the side, dropping down on all fours, and the knife clatters to the rocky ground behind her. Her entire body is covered in overlapping blue scales, and the yellow tint has spread into her scelerae.
"What the hell is that," Maria hisses, backing away.
"I'm Mystique," she whispers. The scales stand on end, changing color and shape, and we're looking at a perfect copy of- me. Down to the tribute clothes, with a rip in the left sleeve. It's horrifying, and I instinctively lunge forwards with a punch towards her jaw. She twists away and lets my fist glance off her shoulder, then lashes out with a spinning kick.
We're pretty evenly matched, trading punches and kicks, but Mystique is more flexible. Her spine and arms seem to stretch as she dodges. "Which one's which?" Phil calls. He's reloaded the knife launcher.
"It's me," we say together. Maria grabs my shoulders and jerks me back, pulling open the dust-colored jacket to reveal the knives inside, then tackles Mystique. Her jacket is empty, since she couldn't see the knives. Immediately, she changes into Maria and kicks the real Maria backwards, scrambling to her feet and disappearing into the maze.
We sit there for a little while, and then Phil says, "It's someone else's problem now. Maybe we need some kind of code, in case it comes back."