Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #25: Underground Defense. This is where things, as if they haven't already, get kicked to eleven, cause ladies and gents... we're fully in the rebellion now. Rennie has pulled his hand, Bonnie flipped the kill switch, six tributes are dead (Tach, Jules, Roanoke, Magdalena, Audhild, and Zola), and the tributes have been scattered into four groups, of which I keep track of for you guys in case you need it. Likewise I did in Slaughter, I am alternating chapters back and forth of tribute POVs and Capitol POVs (the tributes will always have equal or more POVs in their respective chapters) but each one pushes the plot along, so I suggest you stay in tune to all of it. I hope you all enjoy Chapter #25: Underground Defense.
~ And so sayeth the Lord, shine a light in the darkness so we may know where we are going, and so we do not become lost members of the herd.
Rennie Davis: The Phoenix P.O.V
It is way too late for this, but it needs to be done. It is way too late for him to concentrate, but he must. The sounds of the world drowning in a sea of chaos boom overhead, and the tinnitus in his ears has yet to fully fizzle out, but Rennie Davis keeps his head straight, eyes focused, and he does not flinch from the violence. A million and one thoughts rush inside his head as he leaps forward, the bomb wrenching free and flying into the air. He hears Pollux screaming at him, but he's not sure why... isn't this what he wanted? Isn't this what everyone wanted? An end to it all? Destruction? It is what needs to be done, to bring down the Panemian hierarchy, to end the Hunger Games... it will not be done with them all holding hands and singing kumbaya.
He does not tell anyone besides Criston and Lance what he is planning to do, but he realizes halfway through his throw, with all of the mass confusion going on at once that this is not a great idea, keeping people in the dark. Someone's hands - they must be Pollux's - were pulling at him after the first detonation, the trigger in his hands weighing him down. Bonnie's electrically bright blonde hair is there one second, gone the next, but it looks like she escapes the collapsing roof unharmed, with Lazarus pulling her back, some other Peacekeeper holding onto Constantine and ripping her away from the next carnal onslaught of mortar and brick. Hale, Hector, and Kevia dive out of the way, their hands luckily free and not chained together, collapsing onto Lance and Valencia unceremoniously, and Rennie sees Lance wrap his arms around Kevia in a tight hug, while Valencia goes to wipe away the blood dripping out of the corner of Hector's mouth.
The windows have shattered from the shockwave of the explosion, and there is a minimal amount of shouting that can be heard on the other side, a mix of anger and coughing, and he can make out a sturdy male voice - Lazarus giving orders, and Bonnie freaking out, all of this freaking out - but that means there's only so much time to act. They're on the second story. Rennie looks out of the mansion, and they're just above the garden. If he makes the right trajectory, he should land onto a bush, preferably not a rose bush. He looks back at his collection of victors plus Pollux, who are trying to catch their bearings together, and makes a leap out of the window. Criston's call of his name warps on the wind through the ringing in his ears, the roar of his own heart, but Rennie has landed into the bush by now. Kevia is helped down by Lance, Criston and Valencia jump together, and Hector helps Hale down first before Pollux takes a running head start. Rennie catches him, just barely, from busting his ass on the concrete. They're all alive. Good.
Valencia seems to be the calmest, her shoulders rising and falling, but Rennie doesn't have time to type out orders on his tablet. Pollux tells she and Lance to go get the tributes, in which Kevia hotly protests that it should be her job, but the two of them are already gone. Bonnie will be ushered to safety, as will Constantine, and Lazarus will go with them to protect them and the baby - Rennie's heart skips a beat. He forgot about the child. Did- did he just kill a month old baby? - but there'll be Peacekeepers flooding for them very soon. That had been a half hour ago, now, at this point, with Rennie leading everyone down into the sewers, a path he has taken a hundred times now at this point, slipping back and forth between the dark and light worlds, the truthful and negative worlds.
The lights above pass over his face in thin strips of lucent yellow, stingy strips of flecked gold and pasty white, flickering somewhat. If his orders are to have been followed, everything should be in motion. Pollux is calling out to him, but Rennie pushes onward, onward, onward. Lance and Valencia will be behind them shortly, given a ten minute run to the training center from the mansion, and then a twenty minute journey with no stops to their base... plus twenty-four scared out of their mind tributes. Why did Pollux get so upset about the one-fourth? Rennie has an idea, an inkling of something about the trackers going in early due to there being fear of him doing something. "This something for you Bonnie?" Rennie thinks smartly to himself.
The maintenance tunnel down to the old Peacekeeper station shakes slightly every few minutes. Rennie knows what he's done, by detonating that bomb. Chaos will take place, people who know of his mission rising out of their smoldering hideouts and apartments, and unleashing hell on those who won't stand down. Rennie smiles to himself at the idea of the Gamemakers Square destroyed, that beautiful fountain split open with the blood of Bonnie's defenders, and the screams that rise from the air... this city, this country, its taken everything from him, and the woman leading it has stolen a future from him too. She'll pay. They'll all pay, and he's going to smile when Bonnie chokes on her own blood, throat slit open, and he'll crush her head like God told Adam to strike the serpent beneath his boot heel. Everyone else will understand. They'll learn, they'll know what he's done is right in terms of the greater good.
Anything to win.
Anything to survive.
The tunnel opens up into a more expansive sector, the home front. Rennie turns around, facing the collected group of Pollux, Criston, Kevia, Hector, and Hale. Others have already arrived, escorts, stylists, Capitol citizens, Peacekeepers influenced by Lance, Pollux, and his own ads... it is not just a group of eleven, it is thousands fighting against thousands. Pollux stops in front of him, wiping at the back of his head.
"You're insane, Rennie," he whispers, but loud enough for everyone to hear him. "You're insane." However, in the panic of the interviewer's voice, there's a lightness to it, and a small smile that creeps up even where it is not allowed.
I think we'll need some insanity.
"Are they all dead?" Kevia asks, breathlessly, holding Hale by the side, Criston gripping onto Hector, who looks a little bit woozy. "Did Bonnie and them get crushed by the bomb?"
The Avox shakes his head in dissent. No. If they did, I know I'd feel it. They're alive, and that means we've got work to do.
"What does that entail, exactly?" Hector pipes up, his voice shaking. Rennie's heart goes out to the pair standing in front of him, the Merviere family united by blood. They've been through so much in such a short period of time.
War, Hector. Rennie cannot resist a smile. War.
He turns away from the group, going to the command table in the center of the room. The command center is a little bit smaller than the main Gamemakers room in the Gamemaker Center, modeled to be an exact replica, as this room had been built before the Center had been even an idea in the first president's head. Rennie crosses over to it, and Criston matches him step for step, the Avox typing in a code on the center console that sticks out from the middle of the table. A low whirring noise fills the room, and within a few seconds, the table sparks to life, a blue holographic projection of the Capitol popping into existence. There's a collective gasp that comes from behind him, he smirking to himself. There's so much more.
Criston taps a sequence of dots out on the display frame next to the keypad, and a wire down on the floor begins to glow a serene and bright amber color, before the wire syncs up to the twelve display monitors on the far wall. Live feeds of the city, a monitor on the oxygen levels of the underground base, and next to it, which must've been an added feature, a counter of twenty-four flashing orbs. Rennie can only assume those to be the trackers of the tributes, added who knows when - Lewlyn would know, if she were alive, he thinks bitterly to himself. She had engorged herself on that sort of data and history. - but he frowns at the sight, seeing that there were eighteen circles glowing, not twenty-four from just a few days before.
"The circles..." Hale says with a gasp, stepping up to the monitors.
"She meant it," Pollux says gravely. "She killed six of the tributes then, flipping some sort of switch with the trackers."
"Have- have they always been able to do that?" An insurmountable look of loss replaces the more tepid gaze in Hector's eyes, he leaning up against the wall. "Pollux?"
The interviewer shakes his head, his dark mop of black hair entrenched by a wave of pale pulsar light, he scratching at his forehead. "I'm not so sure. I wasn't given all the specifics," he shudders, closing his eyes. "Bonnie told me she wanted to break a glass ceiling, but I didn't know what that meant fully. Constantine must've given her the idea."
"I'm gonna kill her-" Criston hisses through clenched teeth.
"Get in line, buster, " Kevia retorts.
Rennie shakes his head, frowning. There can't be any squabbling among them. The Phoenix rebellion will not last if everyone is not on a united front together, there's simply no way he can beat them all. He turns around to face them, hands resting on the edge of the display table. What he has in mind could simply take a day, or it could take nine weeks, he's not so sure how long exactly it will take, but he knows that there is no giving up. I should've told you all what I planned to do. It just required so many variables that I wasn't sure how to go about it.
Pollux smiles warmly at him, resting a hand on his shoulder. "I shouldn't have doubted you, Rennie. You've gotten us this far."
Hale frowns to herself, having spent the last few minutes switching back and forth between the monitors and the holographic display of the city. "Why is part of the city drowned in black?"
"It'd be the bomb," Criston explains. "I made it so it would jam radio frequencies and power outputs in a five mile radius," he smiles to himself. "Just enough so Bonnie won't be able to fully see us, but we can fully see them," and then with a sadder smile, eyes fliting down to the floor. "Pollux briefly told Rennie and I about Bonnie's plan, but I didn't know what it meant, the kill switch. It is to prevent her or Constantine from flipping any more and just killing the other eighteen tributes, because she very well might. Their safety was a priority."
"A priority we've failed," Hector throws the jab in, shaking his head. "But I suppose there wouldn't have been anything we could've done about that, is there?"
He could go over a thousand different scenarios in his head, but Rennie knows there's nothing he could do to change the course of the future. All the events that have happened in his life have led to this moment, to this particular circumstance, where he has a city on the down and outs, and a plan floating about in the sky... it all relies on whatever insanities Bonnie is willing or rather unwilling to contribute. It will not be a ceasefire type of battle, either, but Rennie knows they're in no state to try and pursue Bonnie and Lazarus and the others. He has the time to sit and wait, to sit and gather the forces that will fall from the heavens by morning, if all else should go to plan. It is late, however, and sleep is pulling at his eyelids... but he can't sleep, not yet.
"What do we do now, Rennie?" Kevia wonders, and all the eyes in the room go to him, but to his credit, he doesn't jump. It is as if his explosion rocked only the mansion, and the Capitol is sleeping silently... for now. "I mean, Bonnie is gonna retaliate, right?"
She doesn't know where any of us are. She doesn't know about this base or its location. He alternates between his sign language and typing on the tablet for his responses.
"But do we have a plan?" the victor from District One persists.
Of course we do. I want to wait for Valencia and Lance with the tributes before that, however.
"And in the meantime?" Pollux frowns, crossing his arms over his chest.
Rennie knows that Pollux and Kevia mean well, by wanting to look out for the wellbeing of the campaign and all that, but he only trusts them so far. Kevia, as he believed, is Bonnie's little rat, crawling back and forth between sides since she needs every meal she can get. It is her that causes the Merviere family to fall into such a divide, isn't it? He knows Pollux meant well, too, in saying he'd kill his sister for him, but things got too far, and too many exotic spots were tasted... and secrets were told and kept from each other, he is not afraid any longer to lose those closer to him as long as it means she falls.
As long as Bonnie falls, then it is all worth it.
He cannot help the smirk that crosses his face at the thought, and he types out his response.
We wait.
Bonnie Rodney: President of Panem P.O.V
No! No! Nononononononononono! This is not how it is supposed to go! They were to bow to her! She's screaming and fighting in Lazarus's grip, his voice breaking in and out from the crackling of cinder blocks and the roof caving in, she coughing on the dust and plume cloud. She tries breaking out of his grip, someone just trying to keep her safe, but he holds her back, almost ripping her shoulder out of her socket. "Let me go!" she yells at Lazarus, but he doesn't say anything, simply holding onto her tighter and tighter. She can't hear anything over the noise of the explosion still ringing in her ears, tinnitus and sulfur, and she's coughing too, but the rage in her veins consumes all of that. Bonnie will make her way through the rubble and choke the life out of Rennie herself, and no one will stop her. Not Pollux. Not Constantine. Not Lazarus, not Valencia, not Hale, not Kevia, no one.
"Do you feel it? The end of your reign?" Calhoun's voice mocks her from the grave, but he's still floating down somewhere in that river bed.
Bonnie's cry of frustration sticks in her throat as Lazarus pulls her into a set of double doors, leaving the living room space. A lot has happened in that living room, she realizes, with Lazarus's sturdy grip around her shoulders, as if protecting her chest from debris is going to save her from not being knocked out by the ceiling fan should it fall. She kills Calhoun up against the book case that she sees Lance throw to the side during all the chaos, or the couch where her husband finds that piece of Rennie's hair on her underwear, or where she holds her baby for the first time out of the hospital. Bonnie's eyes widen, and she resists against Lazarus trying to wrench her back. Her baby. Oh no. Di- did anything happen to her? Did someone cause a bomb to go off...?
She grapples onto Lazarus's arm, pulling at the leather and making it sag, he pausing, staring at their fearless leader with a raised eyebrow. "Have any other bombs gone off? Is she safe? Is my daughter safe?" she cannot help but shout that last part out, which causes the other few members of the entourage, Constantine included, to look at her, mimicking Lazarus's worried expression.
"We'd know about any other explosions, Madam President," Constantine tells her, bobbing her stupid gray hair up and down, curls and frills rising and falling over her ears. Out of everyone left amassed in the building, she is the calmest, a rather dead set look of serenity in her eyes, and she's holding onto some sort of keyboard, but Bonnie has no idea where she's gotten it. The Head Gamemaker taps away at something on it, which pulls up on the screen attached to it. Another tremor shakes through the mansion, Bonnie gripping onto Lazarus's arm, looking around wildly. The yellow plaster of the roof is all still attached, and she sees no fractures running through the material... so where did that tremor come from? Constantine's voice pipes back up over in her pocket of the wall. "Everything else looks stabilized, Madam President. Nursery is safe and sound."
"Have everyone assemble in Command," Bonnie orders, smoothing out her the ends of her hair which have curled up against her ears. A low haze of dust settles in the hallway, giving a foggy mist air to it, and the carpet underneath her bare feet bunches up in the spots where she steps. She looks at her second in command, the man she will always trust when her life is on the line, and he looks back at her, hard blue eyes blinking, awaiting command. "I want your best to go out there and find them. They wouldn't have all been crushed."
"Yes, Madam President," Lazarus nods his head in agreement, pressing a finger up to the earpiece nestled underneath the mop of dark hair. Bonnie steps away from Lazarus, wiping away some of the smoke and dust out of her eyes, crossing over to Constantine.
"Can we fire any of the Kill Switches?" she asks. It is the best idea Constantine has ever come up with, Bonnie has to give her that. She likes her, her newly appointed Head Gamemaker, for she knows what service is. The woman knows how to keep her mouth shut and listen to her orderlies, and Lewlyn Davis should've been ousted, with this loyal servant put in her place. She won't lie, the excitement that floods through her entire body is an electrical shock to the whole system as she flips the switches for the D3M, D4M, D7M, D8F, D9F, and D11F. She cannot be bothered to remember any of their names, all blips on the radar, even the remarkably unremarkable Career. It is random, but not random at the same time.
The Head Gamemaker furrows her eyebrows together at the question. "Do- do you want to do that? Kill the other eighteen?"
It is a tempting thought, Bonnie has to admit, but something stays her hand. She wouldn't necessarily call it compassion. Calhoun knew, when he had still been kicking and breathing, that the trackers could be detonated at any time of choosing, but they being detonated in the arm is not a life threatening injury to someone's neck, or jaw, or brain exploding from the inside out, so he simply never did it. The tributes being in the arena by that time have other methods in which their actions can be punished, but it is now 2 A.M... and six tributes are about to be executed. It is a tough call, but what purpose would it serve? Would it only fuel the fires even more?
"No, Constantine," Bonnie says, but she can tell that the answer is disappointing to her Head Gamemaker, the way the eyebrows tighten, and her lips flatten out some. "Rennie threw that bomb specifically because I mentioned the Kill Switch," she straightens her back and sets her shoulders. "We let this play out like normal. I want you to go and collect the eighteen tributes that survived, and bring them to Command. We still have a Hunger Games to put on, eventually, after all."
Her words seem to be receptive, Bonnie not so sure why Constantine is looking at her like a dejected puppy, but the Head Gamemaker unsticks herself from the wall, going over to a squadron of four Peacekeepers in the middle of the hallway in the process of getting suited up. The last of the squad places his helmet on, before she reaches them, speaking softly, quickly, and rapidly. Lazarus's grip returns to Bonnie's shoulder, she being ushered out of the mansion. Every crevice looks intimidating, as if a blonde haired Avox with a bomb is going to leap from them, but the farther away she gets from the smoke, the better. She's not sure if Constantine is following her or not, but that's besides the point. She keeps her gaze straight, trying to not think about how rough Lazarus's hand is on the back of her shoulder. All she needs to do is stay calm. Everyone will be alright, and the city will not be in disarray when the sun rises as long as she stays calm and keeps her finger off of the trigger button.
Rennie and the rebellion - pah, she laughs to herself, they aren't a rebellion. Just eight scared souls thinking they can fight back. Against what? Some dying kids? - cannot have gotten far, she surmises, and the moment Lazarus finds them safe and together, he'll strike, on her command. She'll snuff them all out, everyone everywhere will see what happens when they cross the Rodney viper. Her husband had been too weak for all of this, Bonnie thinks to herself. Calhoun would've given into whatever concessions the traitorous, lying Avox would have laid down on the table. Calhoun is not strong in spirit, nor in will, nor in the time structure of decay as his body decomposes... she hopes it is being devoured by the fish that occupy the river bed. She still finds herself cackling to herself at night in front of her bathroom mirror. Wanting to end the Hunger Games... what an idiot. A stupid, damn idiot.
The Command center is different from the Gamemaker Center, as when the city is being devised it is thrown into the plans that having every sort of command center be a glowing structure in the heart of downtown does not build for great defenses. Bonnie has seen the Command center once, and that had been when Rennie releases the videotape of him on camera, with that auburn hair that likes to mock her and everything she stands for. Bonnie is enjoying a mint julep out on the veranda - it is probably destroyed now, with Rennie's stupid bomb, stupid ass, destroying her favorite part of the entire mansion - when it is Pollux, not Lazarus - that bursts through the verandaed window/door hybrid, out of breath, sweat pouring down his face, and that they've all been called to some sort of emergency meeting.
The elevator that leads down to the Command Center is on the other side of the mansion, Bonnie filing into the elevator first, the other Peacekeepers following suit. She can feel her heart drumming underneath her shirt, and when she presses her hand up against her skin, it comes away sticky, slick with sweat. She hadn't even realized how bad she had been sweating throughout this ordeal. Bonnie closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. Everything will be okay when the sun rises, especially when the sun rises. The mansion might be in tatters, sure, but the Peacekeepers will rise for their morning coffee, and she'll rally them with some sort of speech that she'll make on the fly cause she is that type of leader, and they'll scour the city, all the while those sweet little eighteen tributes fight against one another in the arena. Although the chances of a victor coming from the same spot and same district have never been before, Bonnie finds herself rooting for that Satin Spinel girl from One. That might be because she's a dead spitting image for Valencia, but...
Bonnie isn't sure where her admiration for the girl had come from, the victor of the 4th Quarter Quell. Taking a shine to her certainly happens in the training room during the private sessions, as she'll never forget the unapologetic strength emanating from the Career's body, but even after the fact, when she specifically forces Calhoun to rig the vote-off in order to keep Valencia alive, as she could see it coming from a mile away that the Career leader from One would be the one her husband would vote for. How could he not? At worse, a girl dying of leukemia or a cute fourteen year-old who had been sleazed up by a back ally hooker versus the girl who has gotten everything she's ever wanted in life... Bonnie reads the writing on the wall clear as day, and she almost files the divorce papers that night until all the tallies on screen change, and her Valencia Shale is left standing.
She forgives her. For whatever she's done, influenced and poisoned by the words of someone who dares steal her hair color. Bonnie will name her child Valencia. Calhoun didn't have a name for her, since it had been one of the only things they could see eye-to-eye on, which she finds hard to believe, that they ever actually saw an eye on anything. Bonnie bites on the inside of her cheek, tearing the skin to shreds. She almost just died, and she's taking it like just any other moment in the park. She will never act like Arizona did in his final moments, swearing and screaming, crying even... she's not weak like he had been, which is why she kills him, relishing in hearing Hale's own terrified shriek boom around the empty train station. Valencia had yelled too, if she recalls.
Lazarus has kept his gaze locked on her for a few minutes, as the elevator ride takes about two to three minutes down beneath the surface, so it cannot be bombed out, and the passages cannot be snuffed out from invaders and such. She feels his eyes narrowing in between her shoulder blades, but they've now lingered there, he having a finger pressed up against his comm. She clears her throat, drawing everyone's attention in the elevator to her.
"Yes, Mr. Pietro?" she asks. It is not Lazarus in front of the other subordinates; she's learned to keep the drawstring on the pulley system close to her when it is upmost necessary, and farther away in times like these.
"A squad has reported that Ren-" his face blanches the moment he speaks the Avox's name, unable to hide the twitch of his lower lip, which Bonnie smirks at. He loses his composure unbelievably well, and her smirk however is washed away in another few moments. "The traitor and his group have disappeared..." and he pauses once again, leaning in a bit to the upper right crook of the elevator, eyes widening. "And someone just..."
"Just what, Head Peacekeeper?" Bonnie continues speaking, and then looks around. Constantine isn't with them. Where the hell is her Head Gamemaker?
"Someone has detonated the training center," Lazarus speaks, with finality, cold stone rigidness. "It has collapsed... and the eighteen tributes have escaped."
The elevator arrives at the Command Center, the doors opening, just in time for all the occupants inside to get to see Madam President Bonnie Rodney slap the Head Peacekeeper across the face. She grabs him by the lapels of his uniform, bringing him down to her level, an inch from her face. Bonnie's entire forehead is a flustered blister of enraged scarlet, her nostrils flaring, eyes wide and burning in a blaze black of retribution, teeth gritted. "They all... escaped?" a few of the Peacekeepers step out of the elevator away from her, Lazarus swallowing heavily, but he does not go touch the welt that is starting to form on his cheek. "You mean to tell me the tributes and the traitors escaped, and the training center just blew up?" Bonnie punches Lazarus directly in the liver, he collapsing to his knees, crying out on pain. She grips onto his forehead, digging in with her fingernails. How? HOW! "HOW DID THAT HAPPEN UNDER YOUR WATCH?" she screams at him, before pushing him off of her.
Her entire body is burning, engulfed in flames, as she steps into the Command Center. It is highly similar to that of the Gamemaker Center, swathed out in gray plating and a digital display of the Capitol instead of an arena in the center of the room, her administration already at work. Over in the corner, through a wall of Plexiglas, the nurses are setting up a nursery, Bonnie smiling to herself despite the rage coursing through her body at her little girl being tucked back into a crib, a bed next to the crib for her to sleep. She can't however, as mom is going to work.
Bonnie turns around to the elevator, one of the other Peacekeepers helping Lazarus to his feet, he locking eyes with her, but her glare causes him to look away. In her turn, however, something catches her eye, it causing her eyebrow to raise. She walks straight over to the sight, arms and hands crossed together behind her back as she reaches the other side of the center, amid a group of Peacekeepers, their gloved hands twitching to press down on the triggers to their rifles.
"Soldier O'Hara, what can I do for you today?"
It is not Amaris O'Hara, however, that answers her, the girl looking a bit shocked she is even being spoken to, nor is it the burly kid from District 10 that Bonnie faintly recognizes, but the scrawny Career from Two who bows, one hand going over his stomach, the other against his back. When he rights himself back up, Aris Lindel's eyes are glistening with fervor, delight, and something else, but Bonnie cannot place it.
"Madam President," he greets her with a smile. She smiles back at him, he is such a sweet and respectful lad. "We have a proposition for you."
Lance Viel: Victor of the 79th Hunger Games P.O.V
None of these kids know how to shut up. Lance understands that the entire training center just collapsed behind them, and maybe everyone else is dead - no, no, that can't be right, every tribute left alive must've survived... but he is not sure for the victors and escorts and Avoxes, and his heart sinks - but there is a certain part of traveling through a silent city on the run from Peacekeepers that demands everyone else to be, well, quiet. There is the kid Seth who will not stop swearing about fair treatment and an order from the Head Peacekeeper, and then Sage threatening to bash his head in with her fist if he doesn't pipe down, which elicits squabbling from Bloom and Cambric back at the kid, while Ciphra and Vanya are yelling at the others to keep quiet, tears streaming down the girl from Three's face, and Lance's head wants to explode.
For nearly having been stabbed to death, Valencia is taking it all swimmingly well, he notes, when he looks over at her, dark hair hidden in the sheaths of the midnight sky, and the two District 1 victors taking their charges across the city. Following Rennie's directions to the T means that Lance is going all the way across the city to an abandoned city station, a dried out husk of a fountain which can reveal a set of stairs when typing in the correct number combination. The echoing roar of the collapsing training center has echoed across the city, and the city is starting to come alive with apartment lights flipping on, and people spilling out into the streets, Capitol citizens dressed in their various assortments of night clothes, yawning, or talking to themselves in little gaggles. Lance and the tribute entourage dive into an alley when he sees the familiar wave of blizzard white scanning faces gathered in the square.
Twenty minutes pass, running through the back alley streets, until Valencia rapidly begins to tap on his arm, he skidding to a stop. The tributes behind him all fall into line, even Seth who has strangely gone quiet, and then their fearless leader - Lance will call Valencia a fearless leader, for it is what he has trained her to do from the time she's eight years old, smiling with bucked teeth and blonde hair put into pigtails - dives down a manhole, requiring Cambric and Sage to move it out of the way. He ushers the others to follow after, with Bloom and Sage both keeping their eyes on Seth, the girl from Seven grabbing him by the back of the shirt. They look at each other, piercing cold blue gazes matched evenly with an equally jaded emerald green, before Seth scowls, clamoring down the ladder. Lance looks around the vicinity, the moon shining high in the sky, and a few dull echoes booming out in the deep, but there's nothing else alarming.
He descends, covering the manhole back to its normal spot behind them. A flashlight is clipped to his belt, he turning it on, getting six pairs of terrified tributes looking back at him, ghostly appearances backlit by the ivy laden walls of the maintenance tunnel. It shouldn't be very far from here, he pushing to the front, motioning for everyone else to follow him, it going Valencia, who is holding onto the gun he requested Criston give to her, then Vanya, Bloom, Seth, Sage, Ciphra, and Cambric following suit. Lance hears chatter down on end of the tunnel, a runway of flickering and dimming lights blinking above, strips of pastel white illuminating the moss covered ground, squishy water sounds clogging underneath their feet. The smell of sweat and fear begins to override the dampness of the tunnel.
The victor from One forges on with the posse behind him, until the tunnel begins to widen out more, and the smell of sweat and cramped bodies morphs into that of grime and tar, the industrialization of war and the rising voices of dignitaries and rebels beginning to drown out the dim quiet of the maintenance hallway. Lance stops in front of the open doorway, standing to the side, pushing Valencia past him, ushering the other tributes shortly behind her. He grips down on the boy from Five's shoulder a bit harder than he knows is required, the would-be-murderer flashing him a glare, jaw tightly locked in protest, but he doesn't say anything else, following the others. Lance momentarily thinks about just ending Seth Cables and his measly life right then and there, for putting his star pupil in that kind of danger. However, it is not Rennie's missive. All the tributes need to be accounted for, and kept safe and sound...
"We've already failed on that..." he thinks to himself, bitterly. Are Satin and Cyril okay? The one thing he has never gotten used to, already used to losing whoever takes his spot in the Games when the tributes from One bleed out on national television, is having to replace and whip into the shape the new batch of recruits. The moment he and Kevia return from the Capitol, not on speaking terms, but needing to work together regardless, Satin and Cyril arrive at their front doors the very next day for the last step of training, the one final push towards preparation. "One can never be fully prepared," Lance's thoughts darken, he grimacing, before fully stepping into the room.
The Command Center is buzzing and awake, Rennie, Pollux, and the other victors already assembled, huddled around the main table. Lance clears his throat, getting their attention, six heads picking up at once and their bodies all turning around. Kevia races away from the table first, throwing her arms around Valencia in a hug. Lance smiles, pushing through, hugging her too. He doesn't know where he stands with her fully, just a week ago yelling at her and throwing cups of coffee around her house, but he senses something changing in his fellow victor, a tumultuous sea and a turbulent tide washing her fears and worries away. Rennie reaches over the table and grabs his tablet, while Criston then hugs Valencia as well, both Hector and Hale standing in the back, fidgeting to themselves.
It is Pollux that greets them heartedly, stepping up to the center with Rennie and Valencia flanking him by the sides.
"Wait a minute..." it is the girl, Ciphra, who's face is still shimmering with tears, and Lance notices for the first time all the blood splatters all over her body. Whose blood would that be? "You," the girl continues, raising a finger and pointing directly at Rennie, whose face flutters with uneasiness, "You're that Avox who made the video, didn't you? It got broadcast on Reaping Day?"
"He is," Criston pipes up. Lance realizes that none of the tributes associated with any of the victors currently in the room belong to anyone. He doesn't have Ponty and Amaris. Aris and Maren are gone for Hale, Hector wouldn't even know who Vivian or Rodric were... something about that causes him to choke on a gasp, he coughing to block it out. The victor from Six continues, a faint smile dancing on his lips. "This is Rennie Davis, and he's the one you should be thanking."
"Thanking?" pipes up Sage Dagoba, and Valencia's eyes raise at the tone. Lance has heard Kevia use it a time or twenty before. "I lost my district partner, and so did Vanya, and so did Ciphra, and so did Cambric..." and everyone's gazes fall, those who would've been keeping eye contact with her. "If there is some sort of rebellion going on, you should've told us."
"We couldn't," Kevia insists from her stance, going to lean up against the far right wall. "It was too dangerous."
"Aren't you Kevia Janelle?" Vanya asks, and he's staring directly at the female victor. "You don't strike me as being anti-Capitol... anti-Hunger Games-"
"Let's say things have changed," she interrupts him, a solid edge to her voice, and her eyes flash out a glare; Lance is familiar with her glares.
"This is it?" Pollux asks, and he cannot hide the surprise in his voice. "Just... six?"
"Ciphra Longsdale of District 3, Seth Cables of District 5, Sage Dagoba of District 7, Cambric Vogel of District 8, Vanya Vasiliev of District 11, and Bloom Estrada of District 12," Valencia reads from the far left side of the Command Center, staring up at the monitors, and then the new victor looks back at the gathered tributes. "By the time we got there, six were already dead..." and her face falls. "Bonnie wasn't lying, if that's the one thing I know about her. When she speaks, she's telling the truth," Valencia looks at the holographic display of the city. "Three of the tributes were gone when we arrived, and then the other nine were separated from us when some Peacekeepers came and-" she stops, choking on her words, squeezing her eyes shut.
It's gone. The Training Center is just... gone. Lance still can't believe it, or wrap his head around such a thought that something that massive has just vanished into dust, and all the bodies inside. He didn't know Emmett too well, Cyril's father, but the man had been a right prick in his drunken states, or Ellison from District 2, a man who lived to be eighty... Lance presses himself further into the wall, a lump forming in his throat. Bonnie killed all of them. Just like how she killed the tributes, without mercy, without hesitation... this is why she must be stopped. There are no negotiations. There is no room to wiggle or allow expansion... it is a fine cut line, and he will gladly light the match that makes the executive slash. Lance joins the collection of victors, now looking back at the tributes, and he can see the terror in their eyes, and the exhaustion wrangling their bones. It hits him then just how late it is, when looking at some of the monitors... it is almost four in the morning, and yet no one has collapsed yet.
"What is all this?" Cambric asks, his eyes searching over every object in the room, his dark skin glowing coal underneath the swinging halogen lamps above.
"The Phoenix, Mr. Vogel," Pollux nods his head, a surge of pride rising in his voice. "An underground rebellion against President Rodney and the establishment, to end her tyranny, and to end the Hunger Games."
"Aren't you part of the establishment?" Seth frowns, crossing his arms over his chest. "You're one of the administration faculty; you're Master of Ceremonies after all." His gaze is a stormy grey, but Pollux does not back down, looking directly at Seth too. "How can we trust that more of our trackers won't explode and kill us? What's preventing the president or Head Gamemaker from doing that again?"
"We were all in the mansion before we came and got you," Lance says, and the attention in the room diverts to him, he rubbing his hands up and down his arms, a sudden shudder coming on. "Rennie threw a bomb and caused the roof to explode, separating us from them, and we went our separate ways to get the base ready, and to come rescue you. Criston here," he nods at the victor, "Had created a special wavelength frequency in the detonated bomb that would jam up their communications and make the power that came from the device which powered the trackers unusable."
"We're just supposed to accept that?" Ciphra frowns.
"Unfortunately, yes," Criston chews on the inside of his cheek, crossing his arms. "Take our word... and faith," he adds after a second.
Rennie holds out his tablet, having typed a few sentences down during the rest of the conversation. "I am not asking much of you, tributes. Our priority was to get you all away from her, but we have failed. We do not ask any of you to fight, but our rebellion has begun. You will be safe here, away from-"
"No," Sage interrupts, pushing herself to the forefront. Rennie raises his eyebrows in surprise, the air tightening around them in the Command Center. All eyes are on the burly girl from Seven, her hair a breathing and alive rope of flame, dancing underneath the swinging lights. "I just witnessed my thirteen year-old district partner get murdered, if what you're saying is true," and she lifts her head up in triumph. "I may be able to escape an arena, but I am not going to walk away from a warzone. I'm going to fight."
"I lost someone too," Cambric says, and Lance notices a sheet of crimson covering his training uniform as well, a blackening wave. "I admitted it in my interview to Mr. Aetos. I'm a medic," he crosses his arms likewise, gaze unflinching. "I'm not backing down from the fight either. You say it's a war? You'll need medics."
Everyone but Seth steps forward, volunteering themselves to the cause. Lance raises an eyebrow at the sudden show of hands and volunteers, locking eyes with Kevia. This changes the game, doesn't it? Rennie and Pollux exchange a silent gaze as well with one another, a chess game of conversations passing between the two men. The Avox signs away something, but Lance is unable to decipher what is being said between them. Pollux hisses something, eyes darting to the holograph of the city, and the victor's gaze follows. It is updated in real time, a smoldering, smoking crater rising from the center of the city, and the lump returns. He's all of a sudden very aware of how hard his heartbeat is beating in his chest, when he raises his hand to rest it up against the fabric of his shirt.
Pollux and Rennie right themselves away from the table, the former speaking. "We will not force you out of this fight, as we'll need every man we can get, but please," the Master of Ceremonies' voice rises into a whine, the most desperate sounding noise, almost like the cry of a dying seal, as he speaks. "Please understand the risk you're taking."
"You said it yourselves though," the girl, Bloom Estrada, who is in the front, says, her dark hair glistening in the blueberry sheen of the hologram. "Even if we do nothing, we can still die from the trackers in our necks, which we can't ever have removed... and it sounds like you need all the help you can get, and I don't think you're in the place to refuse us, are you?"
"No, Miss Estrada, we're not," Hale speaks out from her side of the table, arms pressed into one of the grooves of the table. "We seriously do need every hand we can get."
"There are beds and bathrooms down the right corridor," Pollux points out, which is a path spilling from the center of the Command Center, illuminated by another overhead strip of blinking, dying out lights, a stormy seaward cave with lightning flashes every few seconds. "For now, Bonnie and the Peacekeepers not aligned with us," Lance notices how all the tributes have their eyebrows raise at that mentioning, and he smirks to himself. They've been busy, not just for a month, but for a year, for years this has been building, and he couldn't believe it is a spark ignited by a woman that would normally be detrimental to the cause dying, and her brother picking up the pitchfork. "Please, get some rest. You are safe here, tonight, we swear. We all convene in the morning, and Rennie will tell us what our next move is."
It seems to do the trick, Sage grabbing Ciphra by the hand, pulling her along, while Bloom, Cambric, and Vanya clumped together, talking to each other in hushed voices, following the girl. All that remains is Seth Cables, the District 5 Male standing there with a passive look on his face, Lance's eyes flickering to Valencia. She nods at him, the two District 1 victors converging on the kid together.
He barely has time to jump in place, eyes widening and passing back and forth, before Lance places a hand on his shoulder.
"You don't get to go away that easily," he says, trying to mask the glee in his voice, from the way the kid squirms. "You understand, don't you?"
Constantine Fallorne: Head Gamemaker P.O.V
She has to make sure she isn't being followed. A tail is not something she needs to be dealing with right now. Under the veil of night, with her smile still strapped to her face, as she hears the deafening roar of the RPG rockets obliterate the Training Center to smithereens, maybe even wiping out a whole city block if she's lucky - what had it been she told Valencia? Order is overrated? That chaos is where it is at... - Constantine exits from the mansion out of a lower back door exit. She is no use in Command with Bonnie and Lazarus, as her talents are wasted. Sure, the order to protect all the tributes and get them to the mansion is overturned in her own order, that rather Madam President requests the entire building be destroyed, but it is not like anyone will just miss the building, will they? Even though she's sure no other tributes die in the fallout, there is every other victor or mentor or escort sleeping the building that are now dead, floating like ash in the breeze... what a happy thought.
Constantine believes she should rather be rewarded, for her service. She's just wiped out who knows how many potential traitors and saved Bonnie, when this little rebellion is snuffed out of course, from needing to tear the building down, cause it is for sure going to take some heavy fire in the days to come. Being stuck underground trying to find a needle in a haystack is not her idea of a good time - lord knows, she hasn't touched a man in decades, ever since the passing of that poor Richard husband of hers... she likes watching his throat dissolve, choking on the battery acid in his coffee, as she digs the pointed bit of her heel further into his putty-like skin - and it means her talents are wasted, so she might as well traipse elsewhere. The entire city is alive, but Lazarus's Peacekeepers are sending them back to bed, to wipe away the memory that a training center even existed in its spot in the first place... and it is all working according to plan.
The plan? Constantine has no idea; she rather makes the shit up as she goes, if she is perfectly honest with herself. She'll have to handle it to Rennie though, someone she has watched on the outskirts for a long time, a man who abided his patience and did as he's told, even while his cheeks flush scarlet from the insults or jobs he's forced to do. Constantine would twirl a lock of gray hair, bleached out by the sun, around her fingers, and see the way Lewlyn bows down next to her brother, or how their hands would splay over one another, eyes narrowing in to read the words on their lips, mouthing secret confessions of love and passion back and forth. She could taste the fresh scent of spilled blood in her mouth, an aroma of a bit lip, or an incision cut too hard, or Lewlyn's blade slicing Rennie's tongue into three before she consumes it, commentating on how it tastes like veal...
The Head Gamemaker gets so caught up in her thoughts that she doesn't realize that she arrives at her destination, walking practically into the doors at full speed. "Ah," she smiles to herself, pressing a hand up to her forehead, and the grin grows further at the realization that there's no bruise. What's the maximum speed someone can reach and collide into a door with and not injure themselves... what's the number? If she had the time, Constantine admits, to no one in particular as there is no one to listen to her, she might end up participating in that experiment one day. Maybe Valencia would like to do it? Or Pollux? He'd deserve it, she grumbles to herself, silently, for calling her some sort of dying spring chicken... as if he has yet to look into a mirror lately.
She wrenches the door to the Gamemaker Center open, stepping inside and shutting it immediately behind her. Constantine's heart begins to beat faster in her chest as she races over to the far set of stairs, the ones that extend down to the main floor with the hologram of the arena that would be used. Had it been any other normal day, there would be a few Avoxes preparing the lunch trays already, even at four in the morning, yes... it is important, Constantine argues. All the little things that make the world go round, it is on the brunt task and laboring of those poor traitorous souls. Constantine hopes that within a week's time she'll get to be the one, since Lewlyn has taken the honor up before, that when the victors who have dared go against the Panemian state are on their knees, begging for forgiveness, that she's holding the machete that'll sever their heads from their necks, and their tongues from their throats. She'll deserve the honor, and there is no way Bonnie is going to be able to refuse her.
Not after all she's done.
Constantine takes off her heels, a rather thin pair of stilettos with the ends of the points paint chipping off by the rather manic skip in her step as she twirls underneath the moonlit sky away from the mansion. Bonnie won't follow, nor will Lazarus, as the tunnels beneath the Center are her playground. When she takes over the righted ship from Lewlyn's tragic and unfortunate demise - "Just tragic," Constantine cries into her elbow, blowing her nose and dropping the discarded tissue on the woman's tombstone, before kicking it, "Just tragic," she laments - the playground hadn't been touched in ten years. It somehow gave Lewlyn Davis the creeps, but there's never been another person in the world she's ever been more scared of, being unable to predict what her old boss would say or do. Would she be next to be turned into some sort of sexual deviant?
The stairs are cold to the touch, the muscles on her feet spasming as she races down them, before needing to stop halfway through, as she's sixty-five, and she does not have the same limber in her step as Kevia Janelle. She wants to ask Rennie and Pollux, before their also untimely demises, just how they convince the kleptomaniac, stealing bitch with rough hair extensions to actually join their pathetic cause. If she's so lucky, Constantine may get the chance herself one day, as a blood sun rises over the Panemian skyline, and the crowds will cheer her name. She's their savior, she led the world out of darkness, and Constantine Fallorne will have her name forever shrouded in the lights of heaven, God's voice calling a daughter, an angelic paragon of servitude, home.
She reaches the end of the stairway, pushing through another set of doors, the pillars of moonlight which decorate the main room of the Gamemaker Center disappearing behind the shut doors, leaving Constantine in total darkness.
The Head Gamemaker presses her back into the smooth linoleum, feeling her snare drum heartbeat thrum in her chest. Her hands are trembling as she raises her arms, and Constantine realizes that her entire body is shaking at this point, now. She claps her hands together, and God announces that there may be light.
The hallway she is standing in erupts in a sheen of white light, soft and gentle to the eyes, spotlights every few feet coming on at the command of her clap. Constantine unsticks herself from the door, breathing in through her mouth and out through her nose, just like the cardiologist tells her for that physical awhile ago. The main thoroughfare is lit up, but that is not bringing in the sides, chambers of darkness lining up the alley of brightness. What shines in the light is all wonderful and all, but it does not compare to what lurks in the blackness, in the abyss that awakens to the sound of her clap.
Constantine moves over to the closest cage near her, crouching down to her feet, which she could not do had she still been wearing her heels. All she has to do and wait, the reverberation of her breath echoing around the chamber, and she tightens her grip on the bars of the cell, leaning in so her face is stuck between two worlds: freedom and prisons.
It is enough, however, the slow and subtle shift of the bars, when a growl emanates from the darkness. If she squints - damn the ophthalmologist that is unable to perfect her vision; it's alright, the woman made a wonderful statue in the latest art gallery over by the train station, she won't be missed - Constantine makes out two eyes, glowing crimson out in the dark, and then the eyes slowly getting closer and closer, the growl coming again from the bleakness, morphing into a purr.
A paw emerges barely out of the dark, but not much more, Constantine making a cooing noise in her throat.
"Oh, my beauty," she exhales a light breath, extending her hand out through the bars, just an inch away from the paw, the tiny hairs on her hands bristling at potential contact. "We have work to do, my darling."
The underground beast awakens, and the first night of the Phoenix Rebellion falls over Panem.
Until the sun rises...
Tribute List (Boy - Girl)
District 1: Cyril Barther [Submitted by thorne98] / Satin Spinel [Submitted by Mistycharming]
District 2: Aris Lindel [Submitted by grimbutnotalways] / Maren Johnson [Submitted by Crashed Ice24]
District 3: Ciphra Longsdale [Submitted by Flammifera]
District 4: Anahita Cascade [Submitted by Reader Castellan]
District 5: Seth Cables [Submitted by Nemris] / Sophiana Delarosa [Submitted by Santiago Poncini20]
District 6: Ponty Carr [Submitted by Queenofinsanity] / Amaris O'Hara [Submitted by LiveFreeOrDie]
District 7: Sage Dagoba [Submitted by AlexFalTon]
District 8: Cambric Vogel [Submitted by dyloccupy]
District 9: Jason Lacey [Submitted by ilvidis]
District 10: Rodric Oxford [Submitted by Alexcias] / Vivian Whiplash [Submitted by SetFiresJust2WatchThemBurn]
District 11: Vanya Vasiliev [Submitted by TheMayflyProject]
District 12: Mirek Bosco [Submitted by curiousclove] / Bloom Estrada [Submitted by LordShiro]
...
Capitol Cast of Characters
President of Panem: Bonnie Rodney
Leader of the Phoenix Rebellion: Rennie Davis
Master of Ceremonies: Pollux Aetos
Victor of the 100th Hunger Games: Valencia Shale
Victor of the 79th Hunger Games: Lance Viel
Victor of the 92nd Hunger Games: Criston Pellock
Victor of the 87th Hunger Games: Hale Cornerstone
Victor of the 77th Hunger Games: Hector Merviere
Victor of the 84th Hunger Games: Kevia Janelle
Head Gamemaker: Constantine Fallorne
Head Peacekeeper: Lazarus Pietro
Alrighty, ladies and gentlemen, that was Chapter #25: Underground Defense, of Bombs and Bullets, focusing more on the fallout of Rennie's actions and the Kill Switch aftermath... and oh boy, I am so excited I just want to burst out of my chair. There are just thirteen chapters left, ya'll, and I don't know if there is really a way for me to prepare you or prep you all for what is coming... so just strap yourselves in and enjoy the ride, haha. So, we've got a quite lull settling over the Capitol, but that is all going to change starting next chapter guys, when the morning comes. For intents and purposes of the story, since I know many of you keep track of tribute statuses on your profiles, that unless I say something, a tribute / Capitol chapter duo is a single day, and then so on and so forth will be another day, and on and on we go... okay? AND, guess what? Bombs and Bullets has broken 200k for the word count! That's amazing!
I am planning on having Chapter #26: Hallways of Darkness, sometime out by or before March 13th, which is a Friday, and the day before my Spring Break starts. It is going to be a tribute POV chapter with six POVs coming at ya, as we've got a lot of ground to cover, and not a whole lot of room to cover it in, but I'm so excited for it that the adrenaline in my veins is making me want to stay up till all the hours of the night just to write this, haha, which I know isn't healthy. More names will be getting deleted from that list, ladies and gentlemen, and it is only a matter of time. Please review! It'd mean so much to me, and as usual, thank you all for your incredible support. I love you all so much! Have a great day! Bye!
~ Paradigm
