Hey everyone, Paradigm of Writing here with a brand new chapter for Bombs and Bullets, Chapter #26: Hallways of Darkness. We, ladies and gentlemen, are officially in the thick of things that is the Phoenix Rebellion, our replacement for the 101st Hunger Games, where we have the Phoenix company led by ex-avox Rennie Davis against the current Capitol administration led by Bonnie Rodney... and our eighteen remaining tributes caught up in the crossfire between. Last chapter was setting up camp, establishing bases, and now we're in overdrive. This is a tribute POV chapter with six POVs coming at you today, and I am so excited as there are a few marked chapters that will have me shake my hands with glee... for we are twelve chapters near the end; hold onto your horses. I hope you enjoy Chapter #26: Hallways of Darkness.
And so sayeth the Lord, protect me as I walk through the valley of death, with the shadows above me preying on my weak flesh.
Ponty Carr: District 6 Male P.O.V (17)
The panic that sits in his veins has started to quiet down, but it is still ever so present, speaking in hushed whispers that glide over his exposed arms. He shivers, holding his sides tight as he wraps his arms around his midsection, keeping his jaw clamped shut so it doesn't shake in cold trembles. Their hearty group of himself, Vivian, Anahita, Cyril, Maren, and Jason do not get very far in the starting of their journey, perhaps just only half a mile from the hole they drop down into, away from the training center. Of the six of them, Cyril is the quietest one of the group, which Ponty finds strange, for he's seen the Career chat up Satin or Maren or Jules a hundred times before during training, or when they're waiting to be called for the Private Sessions. Why would this one be any different?
Ponty closes his eyes, hugging the hammer he had picked up from the weapons rack close to him, but when he had opened his eyes just a few hours later, getting only about seven hours or so of sleep, his breathing skyrockets, as if he had inhaled soot or ashes from the smelting fireplace. That startles Vivian awake, who goes for her bow, pointing down the dim alleyway should a goon in their white uniforms appear, but it is only a false alarm. It happens the first night he had fallen asleep on the train ride to the Capitol, Ponty recalls, and the first night after the tribute parade; waking up to a different ceiling startles him into a frenzy. It is an Avox the first two times, but this time it is Vivian and Maren's hands on his shoulders, pinning him down to the ground, keeping him tethered to reality.
That had been thirty minutes ago by this point, in which a faint blush settles itself onto Ponty's cheeks, a tinge of pink in the blinking haze of the lights above. Strangely enough, after a few dull drums in the deep, the city is quiet once more, or at the very least, their part of the city is quiet once more. An overwhelming sense of desperation has started to sit on his shoulders, and Ponty realizes this with a heavy breath, about what had actually happened last night. Humiliated on stage in front of the entire country, scored below par due to a grandmother's bias, an argument where he calls the least favorite person he's ever met psychotic, awoken by a Capitol ballet dancer who reeks of ego, sees six heads exploded in front of him, RPG's fired at his face, and an entire building collapsing to the ground, just barely killing them... Ponty is okay with sitting out of life for about another two weeks or so, to give him time to catch his breath.
They haven't had anything to eat, although Anahita does spy a rat scuttling around before they all decide to crash for the night, but Ponty shudders at the thought. He is not eating a rat, do any of them have any idea how nasty and disgusting and disease ridden those vermin are? Jason shows a bit of displeasure as well, but Maren and Vivian's faces are rather stone cold about it, and Cyril is unemotive, that still bothering the District Six male. Vivian gets to her feet, brushing off her knees, having slept with her body tucked in together, the flashiness of the red bow in her hair strikingly similar to all the spilt blood that is lying on the training center floor. Another shudder ripples through his body. He's seen someone get their head split open once by a Peacekeeper baton, and he's seen plenty of deaths watching the Games beforehand... but this? This is different.
"Alrighty, guys, are you ready?" Vivian asks, looking back at them all.
"Ready to go where?" Jason frowns, and he stretches again, balancing on the blunt end of the spear. Ponty remembers hearing from the kid's interview that he's the son of the mayor, but there's a hint of distaste hiding under the kid's tongue as he speaks, and Jason's brow furrows, a cold stare replacing the more jovial one as he speaks with Pollux, as if being the mayor's son had been a problem.
"I don't know truthfully," the older girl admits, biting down on her lower lip. Standing under the swinging lights, a warm and austere glow falls on Vivian's face, a blend of orange light and shadow. Ponty overhears Rodric telling District Seven and Eight - or rather the only two pairs who would even listen to him - that she had given herself a nickname, The Tigress. Vivian is apt in her descriptions, Ponty surmises, seeing the look. It is fitting, and she's telling the truth, ferocity shrouding her form. "Lance and Valencia briefly mentioned some sort of rebellion, right?" There are nods all around. "They took Ciphra, Bloom, Vanya, Cambric, Sage, and Seth... I think we should find them."
"J- join the rebellion?" Anahita's statement comes out more in the stretch of a squeak, and her eyes are wide. "You're serious?"
"Well, do you have any better options?" Maren asks, looking at the little girl, and there's a stony edge in her gaze as well. "We all agreed to follow Vivian, and she wants to go join the rebellion, I suggest we do that. It was that or we starve to death by just sitting here," the girl from Two rubs her arms innocuously, fixating on a spot just past Ponty's left ear, he looking behind him to see what she's staring at. It is a rugged black stain on the wall, like a snuffed out cigarette, and he looks back at her, Maren's stony gaze replaced with that of a more melancholic tone. "Besides, I have a feeling things are gonna get worse. That they're gonna get a lot worse."
"Ponty, what would you want to do?" Jason pipes up, looking over at him.
He jostles in place slightly. No one ever goes to him for his opinion on anything, certainly not back in District 6. His parents trusted his advice on glass blowing, but this is a matter of life and death. Ponty clears his throat, scratching at the back of his neck sheepishly. "You sure there's gonna be no way to leave the city?" It is a stupid question as he asks it, he realizes, but Ponty blurts it out anyways. Even if they were to escape to the train station, how would they operate them? Despite being from Six, he knows next to nothing about anything in that field, let alone what lies beyond the Capitol and walking through the uncharted forests in Districts Two and One, which would also be death sentences; everyone everywhere knows their faces.
"We're stuck here," Vivian shakes her head back and forth, affirming his idiocy. "The arena shifted from a dome to the Capitol, and so Maren is right," at the mentioning of her name, the Career's eyes sparkle some, a soft smile dancing on her lips. "There's gonna be a fight of some kind, and I do not want to be caught in the middle of it."
"How would we know where to find them?" Anahita gets to her feet, tucking in the two knives she had taken from the training center into the belt loop of her pants. Ponty realizes, with hindsight, how clever it had been of Vanya to ask everyone to get dressed up in their training uniforms, otherwise he can only imagine eighteen tributes running around the Capitol in only their sleepwear, underwear, and non-fighting attire, although this is no suit of armor he's got on either.
"Wherever the action would be, I suppose," is Vivian's answer, but the confidence in her voice dies down to a crawl, she chewing on the inside of her cheek; he can see the thoughts racking her brain. He's seen the same look on Amaris's face, gauging the responses she'd say to him in one of his bite backs. Is she doing alright? He doesn't actually care, but Ponty is not going to say he doesn't wonder.
"Wouldn't that be the opposite of what we want to do?" Jason twirls the spear around some, Ponty standing back so it doesn't slice his chest open. The kid is much taller than he had anticipated, now physically standing next to him, at the point where the spear is shorter than the mayor's son is tall. "I thought we wanted to stay safe."
"If you have any better ideas," Vivian says, crossing her arms over her chest, bow and quiver slung over her shoulder, "I'd love to hear them, Jason." He doesn't say anything, the crow tasting bitter on his tongue as Ponty sees Jason make a sour face, before looking away, the Tigress's gaze bearing into him. "Well, if that settles it, I suggest we get out of the-"
"I want to kill the president," says Cyril, he having been the furthest removed, but Ponty almost doesn't hear him, the Career from One's voice being barely above a faint whisper. All five pairs of eyes fall on him, the teenager getting to his feet, lumbering the sword behind him that he had taken, the metal scratching and digging into the floor, a low whine echoing along the chamber walls. Cyril's face is a choked red, similar to that of the number insignia on their chest, his bright and burning charcoal red 1. A few dried tears stick to his cheeks, his voice raspy, and Ponty recognizes that the soft whimper he hears while trying to get comfortable is Cyril... crying.
"Cyril?" Anahita takes a step forward, towards him, a hand outstretched, but she doesn't approach any further. The mood of the tunnel sinks down some, a pit in Ponty's chest where the cold north winds rush to fill in the gap, as if he's inhaling a block of ice to sit in his small intestinal cavity.
The Career tightens his grip around the sword, and every time he unlatches his hand, Ponty gets a glimpse at the blisters underneath, swollen and puffy splotches of irritated vermillion against the pale surface, and Cyril's breath comes out in a tremble. "My father was a mentor this year," he looks directly at Vivian, and for once, Ponty sees their somewhat fearless leader have to break her own gaze. "He was a drunk, yeah, and not perfect, but still my Dad," he nods, balling up his tongue in his mouth. "Those Peacekeepers destroyed the Center, and we all gathered down there without waking anyone up, meaning the Peacekeepers just killed every other mentor, escort, Avox, and whoever else was in there, including my Dad," he shakes his head back and forth. "Madam President ordered them to do that, and now it's personal." Vivian returns to looking at Cyril, and the look in her eyes matches his. "She's a dead woman."
Ponty smiles to himself at the thought. Six tributes on the down and out, almost killed by their benevolent creator, for them to be cast aside and destroyed by those they were going to eliminate.
It is almost poetic.
He cannot wait to see the moment when Madam Rodney, Bonnie - What a stupid name, Ponty thinks to himself with a scoff - is on her hands and knees, begging for mercy, and Cyril beheads her with his sword.
It is almost as if the history books would be able to write themselves.
He finds himself grinning alongside Vivian, but not just Vivian, but Jason and Anahita too. "She killed Jules," Anahita whispers.
"Audhild died because of her," Jason's voice is solid, and a murderous glare builds behind his diamond stare.
Vivian looks around at the group, and Ponty does likewise, moving his hands up and down the shaft of the hammer. She grins, perhaps the first true joyous expression he's seen from her since being reaped. "We have a president to kill," she announces, and without a second thought, turns around, sprinting down the hallway, the others following in pursuit.
Rodric Oxford: District 10 Male P.O.V (17)
His head is killing him, but that's an understatement. Rodric's mouth feels like he's been punched in said orifice over and over again, but truth be told, he isn't exaggerating, as a few of the Peacekeepers - white dogs, Rodric sneers to himself, spitting a hock of blood onto the tile floor, stupid white dogs - continue having their fun jeering him, poking him, and yes, with the watchful eyes of Aris Lindel never leaving his body, smacking him in the face. He tries leaping at one of them, but is pushed back against the wall, head slammed into it, and star ways make themselves known to him as Rodric collapses with a groan back down to the floor, and the kicking resumes. Honestly, it feels like he's back in fourth grade again, and his brother shouting insults atop the jungle gym while his buddies go hammering away. Rodric sees a ledger of vermillion cross his vision before one good kick sends him into the bleak and black world of unconsciousness.
When he comes to, Rodric tries getting to his feet, but something yanks him back. He looks at his right hand, which is the side that kept him pinned to the floor, and there's a silver handcuff linked to the bar lining the outer surface of the room. He yanks on it, but it's not budging, and the chain only extends to about a foot away from him, which means he isn't going anywhere. Rodric hisses, placing a hand to his forehead, and there's a lump rising just in the middle from where the boot must've connected to his face. Great, now he's hideous. Well, it isn't saying much, but still.
Looking around the room, all he sees are officials in white. The space is quite massive, at least the size of the training center floor, if not a bit higher than that. All he remembers is Aris slamming a hand against his throat and a pressure point, a wave of blackness, being brought to by a pail of water to the system, and then kicked at and made fun of by the same white dogs patrolling the ground floor, only to be knocked out all over again. What a ride. On the far wall, if Rodric twists his body enough as the handcuff will allow him as it digs into his wrist, starting to flare up on a cut he earns in training with a sickle, are monitors, but Rodric cannot fully see what is on them, except a bright blurb in one of the corners that looks like the blue sky. Is- is this the Gamemaker Center?
Walking directly in front of him, towards him rather, is someone that causes him to sneer. Aris Lindel, and next to him, a woman that makes all the mouth in his water dry up. Madam President. On the Career's face is a smug expression, cheekbones pulled back and taut, eyes glistening with fervor. Rodric cannot believe he thought even for a second, watching the arrogant pipsqueak train with his shirt off, that he had been attractive. The Oxford family wouldn't have approved of his intrigues, and it burns him to the core that Vivian is able to pick up on it without even as much as glancing in his direction, yet his mother walks around blind, wondering why there's never been a girl in his room. Rodric has always found himself finding the villains of society to be the attractive ones, to be the ones that get the most raised eyebrows and head turns, but Aris is just another scum sucking pig in a gaggle of them.
"Look at you," Aris smiles at him, hands in his pockets, and Rodric's eyes appraise over him. Something's different about the Career, but he cannot put a finger on it. "You're finally awake."
"Screw off, Lindel," Rodric spits at him, trying to lash out once more, before his body is brought back down to ground zero, back to the humiliation of being someone's prisoner. The president looks at him, a bleak emotion reflecting off of her diamond eyes, and she tucks her lips inside her mouth. She's holding onto a coffee cup, and there are lipstick stains around the rim. Rodric looks in between the two captors, keeping his eyes directly on Amaris O'Hara instead, she standing in a full Peacekeeper uniform in the center of the room, her gaze directly on the monitors.
"Did you have a nice nap?" the Career baits him again, and if Rodric had the ability to free himself from the constraints, he'd throttle Aris right here and now. Sure, he got a five in the private sessions because he couldn't fight, but adrenaline does something to him, he constantly riding the wave of adrenaline and leaping for the stars despite they being so high up above him. There's never been a limit Rodric has been unable to break, or a stop sign he simply doesn't blow past.
"I said screw off," he hisses at him through clenched teeth.
The president crouches down next to him, setting her coffee cup aside, and she places a hand underneath his chin, forcing him to look at her. Rodric grits his teeth down even harder, hard enough where he can feel the vibrations in his skull and at his temples. His left hand can't reach her throat, or knock away her other hand from keeping his chin in place, and Aris smirks, going back by Amaris's side. "Do you know who I am?" the woman asks Rodric, but there's no malice in her voice, almost as if she is entirely incapable of producing such an emotion. Rodric remembers seeing her standing high above them all, dressed entirely in her snowstorm outfit, a decadent cloud moving through the gilded Capitol streets. He also remembers the video during the reaping, with the Avox's red hair and their silent hand motions as they show card after card of the truth, a truth he believes. He can tell just by looking at her what she's capable of. This is a ruse. All an act.
"You're the president," Rodric says, and his eyes flit down to her dainty fingers. She's wearing a wedding ring, which has him raise an eyebrow. Isn't her husband dead? To be supposedly killed by the victors that had been standing next to her during the parade?
"Please, call me Bonnie," she smiles, and he shudders. That smile is filled to the brim with venom, a shot of vodka is nicer than that, compared to the burning feeling in his throat. This woman in front of him is more likely to kill him than a full bottle. To his credit, although no one will certainly be applauding him for it, Rodric goes entirely cold turkey since he's been in the Capitol, ever since admitting to Vivian the truth about his drinking; it may have only been seventy-two hours, but he could go for a rum or a whiskey without hesitation. He would have to fight the hesitation to throw the drink in the president's - excuse me, Bonnie, Rodric scoffs to himself, her name is Bonnie; get it right, loser - face first, but then that'd be an amazing waste of the alcohol. There's nothing better than alcohol, except maybe a man's kiss, but Rodric hasn't had enough of those to make a decision.
He is not going to call her that. Preferably, he'd just spit in her face. "Are you my captor?"
Bonnie considers the question with a frown, and he sees her cheeks shift some to the right, as if she's biting the opposite one, clenching down hard by the looks of it. "I suppose so," and she smiles at him again, blinking. "I am very aware that you tributes do not know what is happening outside, but it doesn't mean I can just let you all run free and escape the Games, can I?" Something tells him that Bonnie will not wait for a response, and he's right, as she talks directly over him had he started to say anything. "Mr. Lindel and Miss O'Hara told me they had a proposition for me, and it's not often you youngsters are ever that brave to approach a president with a proposition," her mouth pops on the 'o' sound, and Rodric winces at the noise. And the usage of youngsters. Youngsters? Really? "Their lives and service, for yours."
"So you're going to kill me?" Rodric asks, rather deadpan. He has to admit that he didn't see himself surviving an actual arena. He isn't sure who would be the one to eliminate him or kill him, a rather garish idea to think of, but compared to some of the fighters he saw, let alone the arena they'd be in, he is counting himself out of it. When the bodies started dropping just hours ago - Anahita and Ciphra's screams echo in his head - Rodric freezes, but not out of fright. He freezes due to thinking it could be his time to go, this might be how it ends. Not with a sword in his stomach or one of Vivian's arrows slitting his throat with her glaring at him from on high, but his throat exploding and his jaw flying in the air. But then, nothing happens... he's still alive, and Aris decides to judo chop him in the head.
"No," Bonnie shakes her head, and the sweet tinge comes back to her voice. "The Games were over before they even started," the president picks her up her mug of coffee and takes a long sip. He watches her throat bob with the motions, and realizes how parched he is, but something also strikes him that he won't be fed and given water if he politely requests it. "You're now part of a war that an Avox wants to engage in, and who am I to refuse?" she smiles into the mug as she takes another sip. "He's decided to make the tributes pawns, and whatever he does, I'll do."
"So a hostage?"
"A pawn, Mr. Oxford," Bonnie drums him on the nose. "And if you behave and cooperate, we won't change that situation, I promise you."
His entire body is shaking in alarm and terror, and he looks over, back at Amaris and Aris, and his heart sinks into his chest as Amaris's eyebrows rise and her eyes widen.
Uh-oh. That can't be good.
"Madam President?" Amaris asks, her voice carrying in the empty hall.
Bonnie perks her head up, getting to her feet, taking the coffee cup with her. Rodric strains to hear the conversation that starts happening, everyone's attentions starting to be dragged towards the screens. He cranes his neck, not getting the best picture, until a monitor right by him on the far side of the wall comes to life, displaying jagged waves of static that float haphazardly in the negative space. "Yes, Soldier O'Hara?" she asks, and Rodric's attention is pulled back to them.
"We've got a squadron of fighters approaching the outer rim of the city. Did you call back any Peacekeeper blocks?" the female from Six questions, and Aris standing next to her sneers, and Rodric swears he can hear a low growl emitting from his throat as he clenches on the end table. Rodric realizes what's different with him; he's not dressed in that black and red training outfit. Aris Lindel, the lucky, smug ass bastard, is dressed finely in a Peacekeeper uniform, but his is not the typical white color that swamps the entire room, but a gray tone, a subdued storm cloud color, and shit, he looks good.
"No, no, he doesn't," Rodric tells himself angrily. "We are not falling in love with the enemy or thinking they're attractive here."
"No, we didn't," Bonnie confirms, and the president sets her coffee mug down. "This must be another one of Rennie's games..." she whispers, eyes searching the monitors. "What's he playing at here?"
The time on the edge of the displaying screen reads as 9:35 A.M, and Rodric swallows heavily. He's been asleep for at least six hours or so, and who knows what else has happened in that time frame. Also along the wall, on another monitor, are eighteen faces, and he sees his own staring back at him, and next to the three columns of six is another singular column of six, but a gigantic X placed over the pictures, which have been washed out of color. The dead tributes. Jules, Tach, Magdalena, Zola, Roanoke, and Audhild, faces and portraits used to be the ones shown in the anthem, dead. Then that must mean the other fifteen, the ones not in the room, are alive. A wave of relief floods through him, seeing that Vivian is still there. He doesn't know how to feel about her - so far the feeling has settled into a strong dislike, if he must be honest - but he doesn't want her dead, not if there's a war being waged outside. She'd fight in it, for sure.
On the screen, however, must be action, as Bonnie starting to swear and pace around the room, the occupants starting to look at her, Amaris's face the most displeased out of them, and Aris has yet to unclench his hands from the bars lining the table the two of them are standing at. Rodric squints at the screen, and sure enough, he sees it; a wave of hovercraft heading directly into the outer rim of the city, in which there is an airstrip for them to land. He can see, just peaking ahead of all the others, as a swell of pride floods his chest and builds a lump in his throat, a golden emblazoned 10 on the side. He sees it elsewhere too, and there's 7, 9, 8, 10, 12... he sees every single district number on at least one of the hovercraft, before they land, but all he can think about is the numbers, as Bonnie is turning around and whirling all about, screaming orders, screaming something at the very least.
One of the hovercrafts land, the ramp being lowered to the ground, occupants spilling out. Though the cameras are far away, a technician sitting down at one of the seats along the opposite end of the room shifts to a different camera at that exact landing pad, as Bonnie demands it. Rodric tries scooting closer to the screen, held back once more by the handcuff, he swearing and trying to yank it free. Multiple groups of people began exiting the aircraft, and a feeling of elation soars in his heart. These people are armed, and they're not Peacekeepers! However, something makes him gasp when a familiar wave of blonde hair that is starting to gray, and a very familiar balding head, said head belonging to a man wearing a jacket with a very recognizable crest of a family ranch on the lapel of the jacket.
"Dad?" Rodric shouts, but he doesn't care; it's not like they can hear him. "Mom?"
"Wait a minute..." Amaris says, over in her section of the room, as Bonnie pauses in mid-pace, eyes scanning the screens. "I recognize some of them," and she starts pointing. "That's Jason Lacey's father, the mayor from Nine; he did say he's the son of the mayor after all," and she points to another screen, "I recognize that family as one in Six who are a bit rich..." the girl's face goes pale. "Is- is this..."
"It's an army," the president pinches the bridge of her nose, closing her eyes, nostrils flaring. "Rennie brought an army to the Capitol... and he did it right under my nose."
Rodric is only half paying attention to the conversation, his gaze firmly kept on the screen in front of him. His mother had mentioned something about the... about the 'phoenix rising again'. Is- is this it? The Phoenix? A group- he almost is about to burst into tears when there's a sudden pain digging in the back of his chest, and another pain under his chin. He forces his eyes to follow the sudden strong grip of his head being forcibly turned, and he's staring right back at Bonnie Rodney's furious glare, her diamond eyes burning in frustration, the fringes of her eyes wide and volcanic, and he can hear her breathing. Her fingernails were digging into his chin, and a Peacekeeper had followed her and struck him in the back, she crouching down in front of him, mouth setting itself into a firm line slowly.
"My mother would make mincemeat of you," Rodric thinks to himself, and he has to resist the urge to smile.
"Screw the idea of being a pawn, Mr. Oxford," Bonnie tells him, and the sweetness in her voice is gone, a cherry daiquiri replaced with the bitterness and venomous bite of a vodka stinger; he's right, the venom always finds a way to show its ugly face. "Welcome to being a hostage."
Sage Dagoba: District Seven Female P.O.V (17)
The entire compound is buzzing and alive, and frankly, so is she. Breakfast is a few apples, for apparently their newfound leader Rennie Davis had been saving the good food for when the world would come crashing down, taking to task old cans of refried beans and just an absolute fortress of bean cans, but now there's a legitimate reason to keep everyone well fed, and everyone alive. There are no assigned beds, so to speak, but Sage has Ciphra sleep next to her, with Bloom just a bed over, and she loses track of the boys, and also doesn't frankly care where Seth goes, whether that be to hell or wherever that might be. Waking up in the morning has her facing a grime coated ceiling of moss and some sort of waterlogged smell. She's going to make her bed when Bloom bursts in to the female quarters, almost out of breath, her face lit up and ecstatic.
"Sage!" Bloom shouts at her, scaring her half to death.
"What?" the girl from Seven yells out in fright, hands tossing her bedspread in the air, before it bounds down to the ground. She picks it back up, blowing a tuff of auburn hair out of her eyes, looking over at the other tribute. "Bloom, what is it?"
"You gotta come see the monitors!" the District Twelve girl has her hair long and down by her sides, a shimmering and beautiful face with her olive skin tone glimmering under the halcyon lights. Bloom is bouncing up and down on her heels, a hummingbird who has consumed too much nectar, Sage's eyes starting to hurt as she tries to follow her movements. Ciphra is already up, having gotten up hours earlier for Criston, the victor from District 6, needs to speak with her on some matter of importance, but as to what it is, she isn't sure. "You won't believe what's happened!"
"What, what?" Sage drops the rolled up bed sheet on the plain mattress, leeching away from it, and Bloom dashes down the hall at lightning speed.
She follows her down the corridor, it not much larger than to fit two people standing shoulder to shoulder, and that is probably generous. There are multiple levels to the base, only about four, however, and the only ways down to the subsections are these unsafe looking ladders that Sage figures haven't been touched in probably thirty to fifty years, given the state of them. The first floor holds the mainframe, or as that Capitolite, their Master of Ceremonies claims, Command, and the living facilities. The second floor houses the dining area and extra rooms for sleeping should there be an overflow. The third floor contains the armory and training quarters, which spike a flood of appreciation in Sage's veins... she could swing an axe at something right about now and behead it cleanly. The fourth floor holds the prison cells, and that is most likely where Seth is, but she could care less about him.
Sage bursts through the double set of glass doors back into Command, slightly out of breath, as she hasn't run like that since the Gauntlet in the Training Center, but she only gets a fourth of the way through before a billy club into her ribs ends the dream of being a champion for that, but Satin Spinel has her covered. She stops still just in the entranceway, realizing that everyone is up before her, as the tributes are still in their training uniforms with their district numbers on their back, and she recognizes the back of everyone's heads from the victors and mentors she met last night. Everyone's attention is on the screens, the monitors all lit up, but that's not what has her puzzled while she does a head count. Where is... where is their fearless leader?
He's off to the side, standing against the command table itself, holograms all lit up, but his face is kept in a still smirk. Sage frowns again, but steps up to the main group to look at the screens. It is the western front of the city, marked by their anti-air craft guns and weapons; Sage recalls seeing them when the train is pulling into the tunnel for the station, as Roanoke points them out. Roanoke... she bites down on her cheek, hard. She won't think of him yet, not yet, and maybe not ever. Filled in every little corner of the screens are hovercrafts, district hovercrafts from the look of it by their golden numbers painted on the sides of the wings. Would this be the president calling back Peacekeepers from all over Panem? "Good," Sage hisses through gritted teeth, fingers tightening into a cylindrical shape as if she could feel the hilt of an axe placed there already. "I'll have an axe for anyone who wants a challenge."
However, that anger recedes into surprise when the first few hovercrafts land, the group silent as they watch the events play out in front of them, and the members that step out of said hovercraft are... not Peacekeepers? Sage steps back some, and there's a murmur of dissent that ripples through everyone.
"Wait a minute," Ciphra points out, tilting her head to the side some. "Those- those aren't Peacekeepers..."
There are at least fifty hovercrafts that have started to land, and it is Vanya that leans forward, getting on the railing, peering at the screens with his eyebrows furrowed. He's staring at a District 9 hovercraft, detailed by the number, and his eyebrows raise up shortly after. "That's Jason's father, the mayor," the ballet dancer looks back at the group. "I've performed for them before; I'd recognize him anywhere. He is the mayor's son, right?"
Sage nods, remembering the interview. What- why are all of these people here? Everyone disperses away from the screens, but now all of their attention is on Rennie, the avox - he slightly gives her the creeps, but he won't hear her saying that - who has his head tipped back in silent laughter, a gleeful smile gracing his features. Pollux moves through everyone, getting close to him. "Rennie? What's going on? What did you do?" There's a pointed edge in the interviewer's voice, and Sage surveys the room; no one's facial expressions are looking very happy about what is on screen, but she isn't sure if that is due to genuine worry or just being concerned.
Rennie latches onto the tablet next to him, fingers typing away at the keys like mad. "It's an army," and any hushed voices are silenced then, everyone's gazes glued to the screen. "Specifically, our army."
"Rennie, how is that possible?" it is Kevia Janelle, the blonde victor from One, who asks that. Sage notices that her fingers are manicured, she rolling her eyes. Even in a warzone and a crisis, the elite still find ways to pamper themselves.
Sage looks at the screens again, as the adults all start to talk, while the five tributes seem to clump together. Ciphra, Cambric, and Vanya will all know what she is going through; they'll understand her pain and absorb her screams as their own while they watch their district partners bleed out to death. Seeing Roanoke die like that... she knows and expects that he, being thirteen and all, wouldn't exactly be a frontrunner for the Games, but this is a torture. She expects his passing to be one in the middle of the night, or maybe even in the bloodbath when she isn't looking, not when it is right in front of her face, and as his body slides down the wall, the blood stain is still there, and his body is quivering from the hole in his throat. She moves closer to Ciphra, grabbing her by the hand. The other girl looks up at her, but doesn't say anything, and keeps holding onto her hand. The grown ups are talking loud enough for them to all hear.
"It feels like I'm in a dream," says Hale Cornerstone, her voice mystified. "Pinch me, Hector."
"Pollux, you were so concerned about why I was posting out flyers with our names on them. Remember?"
"Remember?" Pollux's tone is scathing, furious almost. "Yeah, I remember; you got a lot of people killed for that yesterday."
The avox shakes his head, blonde waves passing back and forth atop his skull, a back and forth pattern like leaves blowing in the wind. "I needed us to get caught."
"But, why?" voices Valencia Shale, and Sage realizes that despite them being the same age, and she also being the same age as the rest of them, she looks so much older. She looks weathered, beaten down in the face, worry lines etched into her forehead, and she is having a hard time maintaining eye contact.
"A diversion..." Criston Pellock whispers, pushing up on his glasses, dark hair glowing a blueberry sheen with the hologram passing over his face. "You'd make Bonnie and the entire administration focused on us... and make them blind to all else that'd move..."
Lance Viel nods along with the statement. "And when it came down to the confrontation, you had Kevia get Hale and Hector to distract Lazarus and Constantine, and with Bonnie being worried about us, she wouldn't notice-"
"She wouldn't notice her entire hovercraft fleet gone," Rennie types out the remainder of the sentence on his tablet, smiling widely. "I did all of this for a reason, guys. We have an army now," Sage smiles with him, excitement creeping up in her throat. "And we're going to use it."
That is something that happens half an hour ago, and fifteen minutes ago is when Sage devours the apples for breakfast, but she now finds herself down on the third floor, in the armory, surrounded by victors who look like they have no idea what they're doing, and Cambric, who looks a bit more confident in himself, but not as much. The army from the districts are waiting for Rennie's signal to surge into the city, just hanging out on the outskirts, where surely Bonnie and her team have noticed their presence. Fifty hovercraft leaving in the dark, under the president's nose as she frets and worries about unseen shadows in the dark, her team focused on the rats scurrying underneath their shoes. The hovercraft all arrived in their respective district around two in the morning, when everyone is asleep, before landing down, taking the teams and people they'd need, and flying all the way back. Flying to join the Phoenix's team. She's now bouncing up and down on her heels, Bloom's excitement bleeding and meshing into her own. The victors are at the weapons rack lined on the walls, but Sage frowns looking at them, as they look like the ones in the training center.
"That's because they are," Hale says, Sage not realizing she had spoken aloud. The victor passes her, grabbing a sword off of the wall. The girl from Seven notices a few guns lining the walls too, but no one is reaching for them yet.
"They'd make too much noise," Valencia pipes up, and Sage realizes that she had just spoken out loud with that one as well. "Rennie says the base isn't a discovered location yet, and we want to keep it that way. We make too much noise, someone is bound to hear us." She is also holding onto a sword, and it looks eerily familiar, before it strikes her that this is the same weapon the victor had used in the arena, a long beast of singing steel... Sage is jealous, the sword is wonderful. She doesn't get to ask how the victor has it now, as Cambric drops an axe into her hands.
"I saw you work with axes in the center," he says, smiling, and he's picked a knife up for himself. "I imagine you'd want one with us in battle," he pauses in mid-sentence, as Sage's gaze has fallen down towards the weapons, the actual weapons. "I don't know if we'll be able to get to use them, Sage. I'd like to, too, trust me," Cambric smiles, but his smile is more hollow this time around. She has no need or feel to question why that is, the smile speaks for itself. While the two of them stand together, in their bubbles, the victors were starting to fan out, per Rennie Davis's orders that they work at the old grind once more.
And weren't they something to behold...
Hale Cornerstone rushes a dummy with her own blade, beheading it in a quick motion. Lance's arms bulk underneath his fading shirt, a spear vaulting out of his hand and down the range. Kevia has snatched up a pair of knives off the wall, dainty little blades shining like Panemian coins under the lights, but she doesn't throw them; the woman is a whirling dervish of blonde hair and steel, skewering a dummy to pieces. Hector Merviere is not as strong in his own weapon choice, preferring a piece of rope that he lassos around a dummy, tugging it to him, but then there's a blade appearing in his hand that he catches from up high, slicing the dummy across the throat. However, as impressive as all of it is in front of him, it is nothing compared to Sage seeing Valencia Shale fight. Although the dummies don't attack, because they can't, that is not stopping the victor.
She's moving as if the dummies are attacking her. Valencia is a sea of black rage, her sword moving through the air as if it is invisible, slicing the targets into blue ribbons that fall to her feet. The hilt of the sword never seems to leave her hand, but the victor is moving the blade as if it is levitating off of her palm rather than being firmly in her grip. Valencia jumps over one of the dummies, moving her sword in a silver arc that slices the back of it as she falls, before stabbing forward with it into the chest of another. Sage wants to clap as she watches the display of fighting form in front of her, but instead a lump fills in her chest. These people in front of her, they were trained killers at this point, and for the Careers, they were still Careers... training other kids her age to kill people just like her. It is no different than when watching Cyril, Satin, Aris, Maren, or Jules plow their way through training.
There's a free space however, a lane left untouched, as Cambric approaches Hale timidly, wanting some advice on using the weapon, for it hadn't been something he generally focused on during training. Sage grips the leather of the hilt of the axe in her hand a bit tighter, closing her eyes, the light conversation of the rather close spaced room flooding her senses.
"Lance..." Kevia's voice moves in a drawl. "Remember that message you left me a year ago?" Sage shakes her head, frowning, closing her eyes. She needs to focus.
"Message? What message?" Lance responds, somewhere off to Sage's right, but she can't quite tell.
"You know the one," the female victor continues, the cadence in her voice mockful. "It was the night you were shitfaced drunk and stole a sheep from Emmet's backyard. 'I'm not just saying this because I'm drunk, but-'"
"No, I don't know it," he quickly interrupts her.
Instead of focusing on the conversation, with her eyes closed, all Sage can see is Roanoke. His grinning, smiling face. The face he makes when he asks her to sing him a song on the train, humming along to the iconic work ballad that every child in Seven knows. His smile when she makes the first near bulls-eye with her axe throw... and the grin on his face during her interview, as he's rooting for her, but she has no idea why. To the face of heartbreak and the tears that well in his eyes when she tells him they can't be allies, because she doesn't need dead weight holding her down, and if he isn't capable of facing the facts, she'll break it to him. Gone. All of that is gone.
Because a blonde witch decided to play God.
Sage opens her eyes with a ferocity she has never felt before, takes a step back from the placemat, and the others look at her, she starting to steal the attention of the room. The girl from Seven races forward, and the axe flies from her hand, soaring down the pathway, directly into the head of the dummy. Oh, yeah, she's focused.
"That woman is going down..." Sage tells herself, through her heavy breathing.
She's got a blade for her, and for anyone who will try to get in her way.
Mirek Bosco: District 12 Male P.O.V (18)
His hands have been incapable of stopping from shaking ever since he hears that man, Lance Viel's voice, scream out a frightened warning, and the roof explodes in a blinding wave of sulfur and fire. The RPGs kept coming, but everyone kept leaving. He has no idea why he tries to save Sophiana, but all he can hear in his head is Bloom's voice, her voice lit up and on fire, telling him to stand up, to stand up and fight, and it is the girl from Five's facial expressions, she terrified out of her mind, that propel him into action. Mirek never makes it, though, as the roof caves in then, and Sophiana is out of her grasp, and if he doesn't escape into the night, he'll be dead just like the six bodies lying in the corner. He catches a wave of Satin's blonde hair vanish elsewhere, around a corner, but there's so much dust in the air and he can't breathe or see.
Mirek collapses up against a park bench for the time being, when the sky is still dark, and a faint plume of dust and smoke rises from the crater where the training center once stood. There's nowhere for him to go, but he knows he cannot stay curled up outside and in the open, let alone against a park bench. He only has a faint idea what will happen if he's caught. Mirek looks down at his shirt, cursing to himself, as he realizes he's wearing his tribute uniform. Gee, there's not a single person in the Capitol who won't recognize him now, with what he's got on, no way, certainly. He considers taking it off, just for a second, about to throw it away in the garbage can next to him, when he stops. Where would there be another shirt in his size just lying about? Does he actually want to go around the city shirtless, trying to escape from a warzone? If what the two victors had said is to be true, then that means nowhere is safe for him to hide; not out in the middle of the streets or in a building.
He sighs, running a hand through his hair, it now being morning, he having found a bench up against a shop that said the building would be closed on Sundays, it being Sunday when the sun were to come up, so no one would find him or disturb him. Mirek wanders for what feels like hours when he finds it, as far away from the wretched prison as he could get, it still smoldering to the star ways. He takes his paths from the shadows, darting in between houses and skyscrapers and buildings, the night shrouding him in darkness, in an already dark outfit, on the backed tone of his dark skin color... he's walking invisible at night, but he has no idea where he's going, or what he's trying to accomplish. He remembers garbled words about some sort of base somewhere, but does he even want to go? Would he want to?
Bloom had gone with them, Mirek is certain of that. Should he follow her? He sits upright, not due to the thought, however, one hand touching around the back of the bench, it now beautiful and sunny outside, and he can no longer smell the scent of smoke on the air. He picks up the lead pipe he had found lying up against a wall, taking it for self defense. The days he's spent in the mines haven't been for just show and tell; it is his life force, and he will swing any sort of object to the death if need be. Mirek wipes at his forehead, glistening sweat droplets sliding with the motion, and he gets to his feet, sliding off of the bench, feet touching solid pavement. He's not dead, and nothing else has happened that he's aware of, with there being that tracker in his neck. His throat is no longer humming, as Mirek swears that after the six initial explosions, that his skin felt like it contained a buzz, a constant pressure rising and falling, but it's gone now... he figures that sort of terror is over, for now at the very least.
Knowing that, however, does nothing for him, for he still doesn't have a plan. He looks around at the skyscrapers and the gardens and the fountains, his spot that he had fallen asleep at being on a hill, it having a high rise view over the city. It is a massive and gorgeous place, he cannot lie, and whoever had designed it went to a lot of trouble with it, but he can see past the shimmer and the sparkle, to see the mendacity of it all, the leeching feel that the Capitol has on his skin. What is it that Bloom had said to him, or rather, aloud? He remembers looking at the city from the train, his breath stolen away by the beautiful vista out in front of him, and her comment that sends shivers up his spine does not go unnoticed any longer... what had it been?
"I'm going to burn it all down..." he whispers, and he feels a bit of her strength in him. He might be strong, sure, Mirek figures that he is and numbers don't lie, but he's found her to be much stronger than he is. To stand up for what she believes in, to tango with the devil and dance away unscathed without a burn mark or a circle of bruises at her throat. She is everything he isn't, when he thinks about it, down to the very core of the problem, that she stands taller than he, the shadow she casts is larger than his, and she's unrelenting about making it a known fact. Telling the Careers what she thought about the world, just three days ago, felt like the right thing to do... to watch the seeds of terror get sewn into his district partner's brain when Aris comes walking up to them like an idiot with that stupid grin on his face... yet she doesn't back down.
Mirek shakes his head, frowning, stepping forward, his right hand tightening around the pipe. There it is again... that sound. It is a sound that causes Mirek to wake up, a loud and booming voice that can only come from some sort of modulator, and not only does it sound loud, it sounds close. The boy from Twelve inches his way around the side of the building, gets two inches out into the sunlight, and scurries back behind the cover. Found the source of the noise, he sure did. A Peacekeeper patrol, it being just two of them, but Peacekeepers all the same in their white uniforms, gloved hands holding onto their assault rifles, and they're stopped just about fifteen to twenty feet away from him, at another doorway. The Peacekeeper in the lead, the one who's voice he's hearing, the voice blocked by the helmet, constantly keeps pointing his weapon at someone else that Mirek cannot see, and the body language from how the suit seems to tighten in his movements speak to threats.
He's seen that before. In Twelve, if a Peacekeeper did that, it meant best to give up... you were going to be shot. That means the man is about to lash out, and perhaps in a way he will regret. Mirek looks around the other side of the building, which seems to be clear. It might be too bright and early for the citizens of the Capitol to really start milling around, but it doesn't mean he needs to keep standing near that bench any longer, cause sooner than later those Peacekeepers were going to head his way, and maybe do something they'd regret. "Or maybe something I'll regret..." Mirek thinks to himself, darkly, but he lifts the pipe up higher, inching just a bit closer to hear the conversation more.
"P- please... don't..." a frail voice pleads, Mirek's eyebrows lifting up in surprise. The voice sounds feminine, but it also sounds a bit weak, as if the person's vitality is seeping away from them.
"I've asked you five times and you still won't answer me," the man growls, in a gruff tone, and he advances some into the doorway, a finger going to the trigger. "Why are you hoarding food in your pantry? Laws state that there is to be no external rationing... you're prepping for something! Are you hiding anyone in your basement? Any rebels we need to know about?"
"I swear, I've never seen those cans you're talking about in my life, I-" the other voice tries to explain.
"I've had enough of you," the Peacekeeper hisses, and he raises his weapon, striking downwards with it in a left swooping motion. Mirek hears a faint cry of agony, and then the body of the person he's speaking to spills out into the street, he having to suppress the croak of surprise that rises in his throat. The man is yelling at an elderly woman, her skin dark and lustrous like his, and the woman must've been wearing a wig, for an entire head of silver hair falls off and scatters onto the street. The feeble woman crawls forward to the wig, bony hands reaching for it, Mirek raising an eyebrow. The woman, despite living in the Capitol, looks like she hasn't eaten a day in her life, and she's being bullied by Peacekeepers... a shop owner, perhaps?
However, as Mirek looks closer, a dark storm begins to brew under his skin, he feeling churned waters begin to slosh about in the pit of his stomach. Although that woman is most definitely not her, he can see his mother in her, a woman almost in her fifties, and life's exhaustion starting to sink into her bones. His mother has toiled and worked for years, and it is what Mirek is doing now, trying to work so his family can survive, while his sister shakes in trepidation and fear from the mines and from the Peacekeeper guns... from all of it. If that were his mother being beaten and on the ground trying to crawl towards her belongings, he wouldn't hesitate; he'd charge the son of a bitch for all the anger he could exert in his body. He wants to look away, as the Peacekeeper that struck her steps closer to her, but he does not help the woman up; he keeps the sight of his gun on her.
"Are you thinking of running?" he hears Bloom's voice in his head, taunting him, and he can picture her smirking while she does it too.
"No, of course not."
"You're thinking about it, Mirek. You can't lie to me."
"Bloom, I swear-"
"He's going to shoot her. I can feel it. You can feel it," and it is as if she is right there with him, pressing a hand against his face. "Don't try to run from your destiny. This is your destiny."
"This is my destiny..." Mirek whispers to himself, aloud, and he doesn't need to think about anything other than getting them away from that woman.
He charges out of the shadows and into the light, yelling, the iron pipe raised above his head. Both Peacekeepers and the elderly woman look in his direction, but by that point Mirek is upon them. The boy from Twelve slams into the body of the Peacekeeper who had his gun raised, for the other weapon is strung along the other Peacekeeper's shoulder. The man Mirek hits, as well as himself, collapse onto the sidewalk, the gun falling away from them, and Mirek drops his pipe, hearing it roll away from him. The elderly woman is screaming something, and the other Peacekeeper stands frozen, almost in shock, taking off the helmet, looking back and forth at the pipe that is rolling away, and the tribute in front of him wailing on his comrade.
Mirek rips off the man's helmet, the fall having dazed the brutal Peacekeeper, and he's met with a pale face filled to the brim with hatred, eyes burning, but they're lost in a daze for a moment. He doesn't see that, however, the daze, but a scourge upon his homeland, a scourge on his history. It is these people that killed his father, the ones who hung him and his feet would trail soft lines in the dirt from where the bodies blew in the trees, generally men of other ethnicities than white, strange fruit blowing in the District Twelve autumn breeze. Mirek punches the man square in the face, a spurt of blood getting on his left cheek, as he breaks the man's nose, and his fists keep hailing down, down, down, down. The man is trying to fight back, but Mirek has turned the pale canvas into a Picasso of blood and spit and phlegm and more blood, while Mirek screams at the man, swearing, yelling, and the elderly woman he's saved has rushed back into her shop, locking the door.
Somehow the man has yet to pass out, and Mirek is punching other spots on the body now, his fist connecting with the Peacekeeper's stomach while he's dressed in that stupid turtle show, and the hit man vomits up blood, it coating the boy's right shoulder. He's about to land another punch to the man's face, which perhaps could kill him for good, when he feels a sudden pain in the back of the head. He's thrown off of the Peacekeeper, and he sees the bright blue expanse of sky, stars swimming in his vision. The other Peacekeeper stands above him, face a myriad of emotions, but the one Mirek sees the most is loss, a loss of the situation. The man drops the lead pipe he had used to hit Mirek in the back of the head with onto the ground, it clattering away from him.
Anyone else would probably be shot, for trying to murder a Peacekeeper. Anyone else would be left tied up and gagged to roast in the hot sun, or quartered off and disassembled by four galloping horses running in the cardinal directions on a compass. It is the tribute number of 12 on the back of his shirt, in the same color as the white thugs uniform that gives it away. They won't execute tributes, protected Capitol property, as the Madam President Rodney explains. What a crock of bullshit.
The last thing Mirek can remember is the other Peacekeeper, the one he began to brutally strike, slowly, ever so slowly, get to his feet, a look of pure rage on his face, and then the man's boot connecting with his skull, and the lights dimming out after that as he fell into unconsciousness.
Vanya Vasiliev: District 11 Male P.O.V (17)
"This is it?" Vanya asks, trying to hide the disbelief in his voice.
"This is it, yes," Pollux confirms, nodding his head, but Vanya can see a bit of mockery hiding in the interviewer's eyes.
While Sage and Cambric were given permission to go train with the victors down below, Vanya finds himself not hanging out with them, as much as he'd like to. Ciphra and Bloom are ushered into a new room with Criston Pellock, the victor from Six smiling at them with a huge grin on his face, Vanya about to go and follow when the Master of Ceremonies places his hand on his shoulder. It stops the ballet dancer in his tracks, any form of protest dying within seconds, a babble about to come free from his lips, but there's a sternness in Pollux's gaze that he hasn't seen before, and he's known him fairly well over the years. Vanya's no stranger to talking in front of large crowds, having interviews in the Capitol about twice a year for three years straight ever since joining the Capitole Exquisitue Ballete company, adoring fans in that studio wanting to know what it is like being a superstar from a district where there are generally no superstars.
"District Eleven is full of them," Vanya argues, once, on camera, and Pollux has a crippling frown on his face, as if this is an impossibility. He is not about to go and trash his own district. What kind of idiot would do that?
Having the gift of the gab seems to help him, he figures, as to why the Phoenix - "Rennie Davis," his mind corrects him. "He has a name, not just a symbol." - would want him to be the one to gather up everyone in the training center, but it is due to the fact that he has spoken to crowds before, and there are hints of him not being a Capitol lackey, that the job is thrust upon him. Among several others.
Given his current situation, as Vanya looks out over the crowd in front of him. He has no idea who any of these faces are, let alone who the people are, but it doesn't matter, he figures. Pollux pushes him down several corridors, it feeling like the gentlemen were walking for hours, until he's uprooted into the sunlight into a room. The room isn't extremely, extremely large, and certainly not as large as the amphitheater in which the interviews are held, but Vanya can feel his throat closing up... the people's faces are a lot closer to him this time, and he can see the judgement in their eyes. In the studio with Pollux, it is him and a camera; that is easy enough. In the amphitheater, the lights drown out whatever faces he might be able to see, and with him blowing the interview over Zola's engagement ring - a twinge of pain flashes in his chest, Vanya rubbing at the spot subconsciously - but this... this is a whole other ballgame.
"What am I, exactly?" Vanya asks, leaning over and whispering into Pollux's ear.
"Our Capitol spokesperson," the man replies cheerfully, and then he holds his hands out to the gathered audience. "These men and women here heard about our rebellion and were thinking of joining... but they don't want to hear it from us Capitol folk why they should join. They need a youthful voice."
"A youthful voice?"
"A youthful voice."
The District Eleven male's eyes search the room again, into the corners. It is a building in disarray, from the outside at the very least, with cobwebs in the pockets where the sun does not fall, weathered gray bricks leading to a splintered bench and a sign hanging off of the door frame just barely holding on. However, on the inside, as Pollux tells him on the walk over, is that it used to be a nightclub of some kind, before former president Calhoun Rodney shuts it down - "Former," Vanya noes in his head, "Former president," - and from the way there's a blurring emotion shining in the interviewer's eyes, Vanya has a good idea what the nightclub would be used for, a sudden shiver encompassing his body. The outside, dejected and ruined, but the inside, an opulent palace that only extends about the length of his bedroom in the tribute center, with golden columns stretching to the ceiling, a carpet glimmering of rubies and sapphires pressed into the ground, and the beleaguered faces that are looking back at him, just as extravagant as possible.
Vanya locks eyes with a woman sitting in the front, her face powdered to oblivion, lips a bright and beautiful crimson red - Zola's face flashes in front of him for a second, that same color spewing from his throat, and he tenses up against a column - and pearlish, almost white colored eyes staring back at him. However, he doesn't expect to see the fear that is hiding in the woman's eyes, rather than some sort of disgust that he expects, for being a tribute. "Because I'm one of them..." he says aloud, with a stunning clarity in his voice, and then he furrows his eyebrows together. The Capitol won't listen to one of them any longer who betrayed the trust - Pollux - but they'll listen to him. Zola deserves it. He digs his right hand into his right pocket of the outfit he got dressed in, a suave white and black outfit that might've been pulled from Pollux's wardrobe.
It is still there, he sighs to himself with a great heave, as his fingers brush up against the smooth, curved surface of her ring. He'll hold onto until he dies, as he owes her that much, especially after slapping him in the face with a basket. Her last memory, her last moment, is looking at him with trepidation and terror in her eyes, before her head is thrust back, and her neck spewing the same crimson lipstick as the woman in the front row... and then her body, crushed by the collapsing building. Vanya grits his teeth together, keeping his gaze steady and directly on the crowd, but he keeps his main focus on the woman with the powdered face, and he pulls his hand out of his pocket. Vanya tightens his grip on the ring, feeling her voice wash over him, and he can hear the strength of Zola's soul up until her last moments coursing through him.
"You want me to get them motivated?" he asks, almost in a hissing sort of tone.
"That's the plan," Pollux reiterates, pinching the bridge of his nose, lapsing into the back corner of the room, where the hidden door is, the one the two of them had come out of with everyone already gathered in front of them.
The tribute grinds his teeth together some, his left hand curling into a fist as well, and without looking at the interviewer for guidance, "Then watch me."
In and out, is the word of advice that Rennie gives them before they leave, his face dead serious, unlike the smiles Vanya had seen earlier in the morning when the hovercrafts from all the districts were on the horizon. Their forces were currently encamped just on the outskirts of the city, having disabled the security measures of the outer perimeter when they landed, but it would only be a matter of time before Bonnie would mobilize her Peacekeeper force to brutalize the attackers. Speaking of Peacekeepers, Vanya's eyes keep on flitting over to the one standing in the corner, their protective guard so-to-speak, standing there immobile, helmet off, and his hand encircled around the gun. If Rennie's words are to be believed, there are dissenters in the Capitol who have joined them, people on route to start enacting the late Calhoun's plan of ending the Hunger Games, and that means bleeding in a rebellion.
Vanya hates bleeding, the bleeding that comes from cracked sores on his feet, to blisters on his hands, to the taint of copper that coats his tongue when a disgruntled partner punches him in the face.
"Thank you all for being here," he starts, a fire pouring into his stomach. "I can imagine that this might seem very confusing to you," Vanya swallows heavily. There isn't any script to be had, by which Pollux laughs at him in the face for asking. All improv, Vanya supposes. Dance improv is not the same thing as impromptu speaking, but he asked to help, and he knows he can't fight... speaking is the next best thing, and he isn't in any point to argue. Had he not left with Lance and Valencia at their requests, he'd be buried ten feet deep underneath a rubble pile, trying to reach Zola's corpse. "But trust me, it's confusing for me too..." he runs a hand through his hair, onyx curls entangling around his fingers. "I'm sure you all recognize me; I'm Vanya Vasiliev, the District Eleven male tribute for the 101st Hunger Games, and I'm a ballet dancer who has probably performed for all of you." Blinking faces look back at him, faces that almost seem to be looking so disinterested that they were somewhere else.
"You may have heard, had any of you seen the president's announcement around 2 AM about there being an insurgence here in the Capitol called The Phoenix... she is telling the truth, members of it are standing in front of you now," and that has a few highbrows raise, a feeling of elation soaring in Vanya's heart. Is he getting to them? Is he finally getting to them? "Led by Rennie Davis and Pollux Aetos, your famous interviewer, they are leading an insurrection against the President... and against the Hunger Games..." Vanya has never been good at lying, it is something that makes him throw up afterwards when he says one. It is their goal, the goal of the victors, the goal of the avox who cannot speak, and it is Vanya's goal... hiding it from people trying to see if it is worth it or not means he cannot not tell people their mission. He also does not feel like puking onto his shoes, or the deathly-ill looking gentleman in the front row. "As I've been told, the president randomly executed six of us tributes this morning from a remote location via the trackers that have been placed in our throats," Vanya's fingers place themselves on that spot on his neck, and a few of the women, and one gentleman in the room, all take a collective gasp.
"We were killed without warning, without reason, and all of us in our beds sleeping," his stomach churns at that, the first lie, but one cannot hurt every once in awhile, can it? Pollux smirks to himself over in his pocket of the room, Vanya looking back at him, and then over at the crowd again. "And then, after that, she had her Peacekeepers destroy the tribute center, which crushed the six bodies of the tributes who died..." he tightens his fist holding the engagement ring. "One of those lost was my district partner, Zola Taonga," a lump forms in his throat, but Vanya is not going to step down; not now, not yet. "The president is desperate, and will destroy this city and all of your lives without a second thought, just to keep a crown she stole after killing her husband, the previous Head Gamemaker, and framing victors, people who you adored, with those crimes instead," he shakes his head, curls bouncing against the side of his face. "That is no leader willing to fight for you; you're just viewed as expendable meat for her armies, her shields."
Pollux steps up to match him at the front of the stage, it being a raised strip of brick by only about four or five inches, placing a hand on his shoulder. The fire in Vanya's stomach erupts into a magma storm, it washing over his arms and legs. "All we're asking for is your support. Food you can give us that you do not need. Clothing, weaponry," and another deep breath. "There are three tributes running that are unaccounted for: Satin Spinel of District 1, Sophiana Delarosa of District 5, and Mirek Bosco of District 12. If you find one of them, take them into your home, hide them protect them... spare them from a death in the Games," he can feel the tears starting to stream down his face, but his gaze has now turned from the woman who's face is the color of a snowstorm, to a man in the back of the room, who had just slipped in. Vanya looks back at the main bulk of the crowd, not noticing the man by the door digging his hand into his jacket pocket. "We will need every hand we can get if we want to defeat the tyrant sitting in that mansion, who has taken control of your lives..." he smiles, and puts his fist in the air. "Are you with me?"
The crowd roars and screams in delight, clapping, clapping, clapping, but all of a sudden, Vanya is being pulled back by Pollux under the cheering crowd. The noise in the room reaches an uproar, nearly drowning out the sound of gunfire, to then Vanya's earsplitting screech as the bullet connects with his body.
There's a splatter of scarlet, the Peacekeeper in the corner shooting a single round into the man's forehead by the front door, and Vanya thrown down to the floor, and a second bullet striking him as he falls, his scream breaking upon the walls.
Sophiana Delarosa: District 5 Female P.O.V (16)
Any attempt at escape seems futile, as Sophiana's pitiful kicks and hits to the Peacekeeper's arm that is holding her up is like her hitting the side of a mountain. She's trying not to cry, struggling in his grip, nd her shouts are getting weaker and weaker as he hauls her through the streets of the Capitol, a second man in the sentry following close behind, holding onto the piece of rubble that she drops in trying to run away. All Sophiana can remember from before is her screams, the sound of Tach's voice in her head complaining about something in his body hurting, a splash of vermillion that flies in the air, the sizzling sound of smoke in her ear, Mirek calling her name, and then ash, ash, ash, ash. It coats her arms, creating constellations of dust and smog in the scars that line her arms as she kicks and pleads and screams and begs.
Escaping into the night, without any shoes on, as Sophiana forgets to grab a pair when Seth and Vanya rouse her from her sleep, she finds herself darting in between alleyways, trying to keep the tremble of her chin down to a minimum, and to keep at dabbing at the tears that spring free from her eyes. Safety is on her mind somewhere in there, but her mind is jumbled mess of papers free floating from the sky as she sees her district partner lunge forward with a knife, trying to stab the victor of the Quarter Quell dead for some reason unknown to her, and now all she can think about is Seth. Where's Seth? Is he okay? Is he dead? Did they kill him? They should kill him; he's never liked her, and she's never liked him, and she has no idea what she's done to warrant such hatred.
Sophiana eventually finds rest up against a dumpster hiding behind a shop, some sort of winery looking thing, but she does not dare break into it. In her running away from the training center as it collapses behind her, she picks a free floating rock that had tumbled free, it not much larger than a knife from end to end, but enough where she can protect herself. She does the idiotic thing of throwing it, Sophiana cursing to herself as it does slow down one of the Peacekeepers when it hits him in the chest, but it doesn't mean the other one, his sentry that is currently holding her arm, has any reason to not run after her. The girl has no idea how she's even caught, when she thinks about it. Her body looks like it could blend in with the shadows, by the amount of dust covered in her hair, or the scratch marks from hitting the sides of buildings that decorate her arms, roadways and maps to a broken Delarosa.
They find her, however, a morning patrol, just before the sun starts to peek over the horizon, and Sophiana scrambles to her feet, feeling the ground churn underneath her as she runs, but the man behind her is faster, scooping her up in his arms. She's always considered herself to be a smaller sized person, but it is almost as if the man is bringing along a simple Christmas package for his kid, if he were to have one, and Sophiana keeps on hitting him, smacking her fists against the sides of his arms, which are scaled due to the armor of his uniform. She tries kicking him in the face, but her body is not that dexterous to do it, and she can feel her body splitting open in pain as she does it. Should the rubble have killed her? Should she have tried to run?
What is it that the victors in the center had said, before everything went to hell in a handbasket? A rebellion underground? Sophiana had a feeling these Peacekeepers were not taking her there.
"Let me go!" she yells at him again, for the fiftieth time, but the man only shakes his head, chuckling somewhat. The visor is pitch black to her when she looks through it, but she's been peering into the darkness her whole life; this is nothing new. She can almost make out a tanned face, a chiseled jaw, and serene blue eyes. Her father's eyes are brown, just like hers, and he'll rot away forever for what he did to her, and her sister, and her mother, and the houses that he burnt down, and the people that he's killed... yet he's the one holding onto her now...? Sophiana tries punching the man harder, smacking onto his elbow with enough force to nearly break her hand. "Gah!" she cries out in pain, bringing her hand to her mouth to suckle on the knuckle that she smacks him with.
"We've got strict orders to get you tributes that we find to a holding cell," the Peacekeeper in the back says. "We've heard that someone else, the guy from Twelve, has been found too."
"Mirek," Sophiana thinks to herself, with a pang, and her heartbeat roars in her head. She tries struggling again, to get out of the man's grip, but it is like iron and he won't let go of her. She finds it eerie that the streets are not bustling with people, as there is not a single soul out and about doing their daily Capitol business, for whatever that would entail. The smoke column that rises in the sky from the collapsed training center has Sophiana looking back at it, expecting it to change colors, or for the building to magically reappear, but there's nothing of the sort happening.
"Stop moving," the Peacekeeper holding her by the arm commands her, crossly, and a blip of fear passes over Sophiana's face. Her father's used that tone before, but the man behind the visor is... no, is his skin dark like hers? Are those his evil eyes staring back at her from on high, to drag her to her room where the belt will come lashing down across her face, or the cigarette to pressed into her thighs and smeared downwards to her ankles? Are they the eyes of a devil far worse than anything her father would ever be? "If you try it again..." the threat hangs in balance, but the other sentry simply scoffs again, and there's the chatter of some other noise on the channel passing between their ear comm pieces.
Thinking fast, Sophiana clamps her mouth down on the Peacekeeper's hand holding her just under the arm. He yells in fright, dropping her, she falling to the ground with a heavy thud. Seth thought he could intimidate her. Pollux, the Master of Ceremonies, believes he can intimidate her. The Head Gamemaker, by giving her a measly two, thinks she can humiliate her. Her father, nor this Peacekeeper, they can not humiliate or intimidate her any longer. Fighting back. She needs to fight back. Fighting back is how one overcomes their bullies, and she's an island with storms ranging on all sides with bullies coming from every direction. Sophiana wipes at her mouth with the back of his hand, having torn off a bit of the leather from the glove she bit into.
The Peacekeeper she bit lifts his visor up, and she's met with his face, stark eyes burning hatred back at her, and Sophiana smirks to herself, a smirk she's seen Seth give once or twice... and it seems to work; it might work with him. She spits into his face, hocking a glob of saliva and dust and blood in her mouth directly onto his face, hitting him just above the nose, resting between his eyes. He growls at her, wiping it away, and she's never seen a face more angry in her life, the bravado in her spirit sinking back underneath her skin.
"You little bitch!" he roars at her, and Sophiana loses her ability to catch her breath.
That is her father's favorite word to use in the house, when he's around. Only Markus calls her a bitch, and Yolanda has to wipe the tears away from her eyes that stream down her face, milling in the ash. How- no, that's impossible! Sophiana looks up and into the eyes of the man that is her father, and the faces constantly swap, between the Peacekeeper and her father who should be in prison. But, no, he's escaped... hasn't he? How did he get free? It is supposed to be a life sentence. Unless this is a punishment! Sophiana keeps moving her head back and forth, almost on a swiveling motion, and her eyes are widening, tears are falling free, cause no one else has ever called her a bitch.
"Fuck this..." the Peacekeeper swears under his breath, but Sophiana cannot believe her eyes.
The man's face changes to that of the dark skin tone of her father, to the tanned face of the man she spit at, his eyes passing between that oceanic blue of the smoldered sky, or the ashy brown, but both are filled with a burning rage that she's seen only once before. Her entire body is on fire, Sophiana hugging at her arms, fingers digging into the scorch marks, trying to rip them free, all the while the Peacekeeper sneers at her, and the sentry with him is saying something, something about putting it down, what it is, and the other man yelling at him, and it is too much noise.
She clamps her hands down over her ears, but she does not dare close her eyes, terrified of whatever might lurk in the places where she thought she used to be safe.
The Peacekeeper shoots her directly in the head, between the eyes, and unlike in the arena, there's no cannon to mark her demise.
18th: Sophiana Delarosa, 16, District 5 Female. Killed in the rebellion via gunshot to the head. Created by Santiago poncini20. Ah, Sophiana, Sophiana, Sophiana... sweetheart, you were pretty much screwed from the get go. Getting to write you has been a treat, but your courage and strength could only push so far before someone's rage would incinerate you. I never had her going very far, whether it be an arena, or in this war, because her mind was too broken from the abuse she suffered as a child into her teenage years, and being in a high stress situation would only make it worse. I really enjoyed getting to write her, however... and she'll be far from the first casualty in this war now that it has begun.
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]
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
Well, folks, there we have it, Chapter #26: Hallways of Darkness, the next chapter for Bombs and Bullets. And for the third time in one single story, this is now the longest chapter I've ever written for a Hunger Games piece - I still have a chapter that is 2.5k longer than this one, but generally my numbers don't reach this high lol - and I am so happy to have it completed, cause we're in the thick of the things. No one is safe, as I've reiterated that before, and there has been plenty of things to happen since then in this piece, I will tell you.
This is just a taste of what is to come, and a lot of jumping back and forth from group to group, so I imagine it'll be hard to follow. We are still in Day 1, so to speak, for the rebellion, so those keeping track on your profiles and such of where your tributes are, just keep that in mind. Day 2 will be starting on Chapter 28, Day 3 on Chapter 32, and Day 4 on Chapter 34... and I'll keep my mouth shut on all the other details. What POV was your favorite? Any developments you find shocking? I have so much more left in a short span of twelve chapters to go, so buckle in!
I am aiming for the next chapter to not be that long away, actually, haha: Sunday, the 22nd, is the next update I am planning on having, so I hope you're all there. It'll be Chapter #27: War's Plague. Please review; it'd mean the world to me to know what you all are thinking, cause this is also slightly uncharted territory for me too, even though I have written an arc like this is another story that runs similar veins. I love you all so much! Have an amazing day! Bye!
~ Paradigm
