oh...Hi there. Sorry for being absent for so long.

I hope you're doing okay, and that you're keeping healthy. Unlike with my other fanfic, 'ageless diversity'...I have a lot of this already written...and it's just there, so I might as well put it out here.

Please Enjoy, and welcome to Part 3...

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X-X-Part 3-Chapter 17-X-X

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Percy sat on the edge, where tree line ended and the beach started, his feet just there on the lien. One inch further and the ankle bracelet around his ankle would go off. His legs pulled up to his chest, his arms wrapped around them he sat there, staring at the sea, at the waters hit the sand, and then recede back into the sea. It was calming, and calm was all he needed as his insides turmoiled. As the blood beneath his skin boiled in anger because he'd played his games. He'd done what he wanted him to, sold his body out for women to buy as they pleased. He'd been run ragged and dry, and yet, for Snow, it was never enough. Not from him, not from any other one Victor. No, he had to go on and ahead and force them back into the arena, after having promised that, if you win the games you're out forever.

So he sat there on the beach, and as he looked at the water, he willed it to take him. He willed the water molecules to wrap around him and send him far from there, but obviously, he couldn't. There was a barrier and one which he had no ability to break. One which he had no ability whatsoever to even try to break. Water did not work with electricity, and the electromagnetic barrier around all of Panem was powered with electricity. He'd run it over with Annabeth, if he used water on it he would fry his own brains out.

So he was trapped, and then the day after he'd be in the pool of people that could be reaped from the bowl. That would be forced to go back into that arena, and this time, instead of inexperienced teenagers, he would face actual experts, killers, and Victors of their own games. Knowing his luck, he'd be reaped and Annabeth would be reaped. And if not for his bad luck, then Gaea was going to make it so. She was going to force them against each other, after five years of trying, she was going to manage.

He didn't cry, and he was glad about that small mercy when he heard footsteps approaching, and then someone was sitting next to him. His eyes were closed and he didn't open them. He didn't try to start a conversation either, he just sat there, and waited for them to start as he kept on smelling in the sea breathe. He would miss this, he knew, because whether he was picked or not, he was going to the Capitol in less than a day, and now was about all the time he had to remind himself of this. To print it in his roots.

"Darren had a heart attack," Genevieve told him, softly, carefully, but in one smooth motion. His eyes opened, and they focused out there, at the horizon where the sea met the sky and he imagined himself, on the waves, in another world, in the water, splashing water with a sister he never got to meet. With a girlfriend who was miles away. With his cousins, his friends. Hell his father. "I'm sorry."

The image was lost in his mind. Instead, he was looking at Gaea, at Polybotes. His hands were making the water feel like poison and it was killing him. He saw Snow, holding the card in his hand as with a smile as he read out the fate of the third quarter-quell. He saw weapons and then he saw Kronos, his golden eyes looking down on him, telling him that all of this could have been avoided if he had joined his cause, more than half a decade ago.

"Yeah, me too," he told her, without sparing her a glance because his eyes were still set on the water. On its sea green. His eyes had once been that color. So bright and full of joy. The brightness had been all but snuffed out in the Titan war, and the joy…it left him when he tried to catch Annabeth as she fell in Tartarus, as he tumbled down with her and there lost his freedom.

Oh, Annabeth talked of a rebellion, but there would be none for him to see. Or for Genevieve, after all, both of them were the only ones remaining. She was the only female Victor from five, and he was the only male Victor. There was no way around it, they were going back there, and for three years now, he'd seen her mentor other tributes as well as himself, now…now she was going in there with him and he would see her as a tribute. Gods he could not—he could not go through something like that again.

There were going to be alliances, he knew. This time for real. He would first wait to see who was reaped to then start making his choices, but he knew that he would not last a day if he went in there on his own. Genevieve, he guessed was going to be one of his allies, of course, but as a matter of who else.

Annabeth had talked about a rebellion, but the spark that had ignited such thoughts had been Katniss Everdeen, and as far as he was concerned, as far as he knew, she was the only female victor from district twelve. Which meant she had a secure trip back in there, as did he, and Genevieve, and a couple more others. A secured trip, where only one of them would walk out. And where would this rebellion be born from, if the woman who had sparked it died? It was non-existent. So the rebellion…a wish. A war that would never come to pass because President Snow saw it coming, and he put them all in their places. All of them. Every single last one. No exception and it didn't matter if they were reaped or not, if they won or not, because after all there were no winners, only survivors. The only winner was Snow. It was always Snow.

He looked at her, and in her eyes, he saw tears in them, and he understood why. He swallowed, then nodded his head. "I want you to promise me something, uh," she said, her voice breaking. He just looked at her, not seeing, but he was listening. He didn't nod, he didn't shake his head. "That whether you die, or whether you don't. That you will always remain true to yourself. Don't let them break your beautiful soul, Percy. The world needs that light, and wherever you come from, they need that as well. Don't let them break you and turn you into a monster you're not. Promise me!"

He blinked, and looked down, and was absolutely devastated when he saw a teardrop onto his lap, soak the fabric of his pants and then vanish. How could he tell her that he was already broken? How could he explain to her that the wounds he had on the outside where nothing compared to the wound he held mentally. That he was scarred, deeply, at his very core, and that Gaea, Snow…they had already broken him, and turned him into something he wasn't. A monster, a Victor, a prostitute, now a mentor, and tribute.

But she was crying, and he didn't want her to, because he was simply like that. He didn't want to see her suffer when he knew that on an estimate, they probably both only had weeks to live. That this time, when they took the train, it would be the last time they ever took that train. Because yes, he didn't believe his chances of winning were high, especially if Annabeth was to be reaped as well. Not when perhaps, Katniss's life was more valuable here, as the spark for the rebellion, than his ever will be. After all, he played the game like Snow wanted him to. He played by the rules, and if they changed then he'd follow those, too. As much as he wanted freedom, as much as he wanted independency, he had long since lost it and almost forgot what that was. Doing things of his own free will without thinking about the consequences of his every action.

"I promise," he told her, and she wiped the tears away from her face. "I'll do my best. But you gotta do the same, too," he added, wanting the same promise from her. "If either of us is to die in this quarter-quell, then we're to die as us. Not some mutt the Capitol turned us into. And if we win, then we win as us, not as monsters. We keep true to ourselves, or as much as we can. And then one day, if either of us lives, we kill Snow." When she widened her eyes in shock, in surprise he shook his head. "Because if twenty-three of us deserve to die each year in his eyes, then in my eyes, he can die just as many times, over and over and over again, Gen. He doesn't deserve to live. And if no one stops him this is gonna keep happening. Children are gonna keep dying, and I'm sick of it. More mad about that, than the fact that tomorrow I'm taking that train for the last time. That tomorrow the beginning of all our ends begin."

She shed more tears, and that's when he hugged her, wrapping his arms around her small body and held her against his chest. He wondered, if tomorrow, he'd be saying the same things to Annabeth as he had just said to her. If tomorrow, instead of saying good-byes, perhaps, Annabeth would be talking about a plan of escape, about a plan to end it and run off, and saying that screw 'if they catch us', that they're not going to stay there and wait like pigs for slaughter.

She knew he was right, and that made him relax slightly as he held her as she cried, as she sobbed. She understood his anger, and she understood the reasoning behind his words. She believed them, that was why, and perhaps, the reason for which she was crying was the same as his own. He would, most likely, never get to see this nation freed. Never get to see Panem be a democracy instead of a dictatorship. Also never get to see his mom again, or his baby sister, or his cousins, his friends, his father. His family.

So in honor of them, he let her see, so he could share with her what he hadn't been able to share with anyone else here in Panem. A stream of water, so little, and so small, came out of the water, it streamed towards them under his control. Upon seeing it, she relieved him of her weight from his chest, and watched as it got closer and closer, and then, when it was in front of him —he used his hands to make more effect, but he could have easily done without— he moved his fingers in odd manners and raised it from the ground. Made the stream of water dance in the air, creating random figures he thought of, and then, he willed it to him, and he let it flow in between his fingers.

She was looking at it with awe, and he smiled at her, happy that even on this day, he had managed to alleviate her mood a little. If only for a moment. "Don't tell anyone," he whispered to her. "If word got around about this, I won't even make it to the arena. Snow will have me killed before that." Then he chuckled, and then he told her. Gods, if they were going to die then she was gonna know. Because she been there from day one of his journey through the games. She'd been there, and he owed her this one answer to all her questions about him. "See, I'm not from around here," he said. "Somewhere, over that horizon, there's a real world. My world. Which is being taken over by an evil goddess who wants to kill my kind. Her name is Gaea, and she hates my guts with a passion…"

He told her, everything. About himself, about the Titan war. About Annabeth. About the Giant war and then what came after. He told her about a dark dark place, days beneath the earth, where the most tortured of the souls went to, and how, when he had to choose between his life and his death for her, he had chosen death. Although he had not died, and when she had tried to rescue her, he'd been whisked off to here. To serve in punishment for deeds he committed, and not be a stone in the earth mother's quest to world domination. She asked a lot of questions, and he did his best to answer them all because she deserves at least this. So he gave it to her, as well as the truth behind the scars on his back.

-.-

Nico ran into the meeting room with a charge.

"I think I found them!" he told them all once he was in. His breath shortcoming and his chest heaving. He'd shadow traveled around the world, twice, in the past day, and his energy had been about depleted, so when he aimed for the camp, he had accidentally landed a few miles out. Needing to run the rest of the way to get his message there quickly, and to quickly start thinking about how they could go in, get Percy and Annabeth, and then get out.

Three sets of godly eyes turned to him, as well as four sets of demigod eyes. Athena, Hermes, and Aphrodite. Poseidon had taken a walk. Jason, Reyna, Frank and Clarisse. Thalia was there, too, but her eyes were slower than the rest so he didn't count them as much in his own mind. He looked at them, opening his mouth, but suddenly feeling the real need to throw up. So he turned around and threw it all up. Shadow traveling, after all, was a messy form of travel.

"Where?" Athena was the first to ask, keeping herself composed and not letting go of any emotion that might disclose as to whether she was excited for the prospect that her daughter might be rescued after four years. She kept herself sitting, her legs crossed, and her hands one neatly on top of the other.

"Northern east American," he said, still panting, pointing in the same direction. "On the coast, where like America borders with Canada, there is a huge hole there, and so much energy is coming from there. I could only stay there for a couple of minutes for fear of detection, but I swear, I would have not come back here if I didn't believe they were there. Plus, it's a good shot. I don't know, perhaps we could get one of those fancy machines you made, Athena, to see energy spikes in that region. Stuff like that, but I'm personally very willing to go in and investigate further on my own."

"Excellent work, Nico," Hermes amended. "Tell us more about it."

With a smile on his face, he approached the table, then took out the map he'd been carrying from his aviator's jacket, which well, after four years he had grown into fully. He spread the map out on the table, then he pointed to an area of land which was ninety percent in America and like, ten percent in Canada, on the left top corner of the map. Baker Snoqualmie National Forest. He pointed at it with his finger and encircled it where the highway number ninety-seven, two, and seven seemed to circle around it as well. It looked out to be about three thousand kilometers in circumference, so about twenty-four thousand square meters.

"It's small compared to all of the states, but, I believe that it isn't actually a national park. That she put like a—like glamour on it so it looks like a park when in reality it's like…I don't know, concentration camp? A city. It's like, half the size of the Netherlands, I think you can all use your imagination by that point. So like, technically, it could be anything," he told them. "Like when I'm close there, it feels like its meant to keep me out, but I believe that if I do try to go in, I can manage it, perhaps even bring someone with me. I'm confident in that."

Athen sat back in her chair, she looked at him, and he saw a clear doubt on her face. "If you say there might be possibilities it's trying to keep you out, that it doesn't want you to go through. What's to say you can then come out."

"If that's the case," he said, and truth was, he didn't have an answer to that. "Well, if that's the case then I'm sure we can all agree that defeating the Earth mother would then release the barrier, I hope. And from there I would then be able to get out. If not, then I guess I'm stuck there. But if it is trying to keep me out, aren't you curious why?"

Hermes grimaced. "No," he said slowly. "Nico, you're one of the strongest demigods remaining. We can't risk losing you."

He glared at the god. "You risk losing me every time I go out this valley in search of signs of other gods, or of Percy or Annabeth. And now that I tell you that I think I found them, you want to deny me the possibility to go and rescue my cousin. Your daughter," he said accusingly at Athena. "Percy, who saved us all against the Titans, one of the strongest if not the strongest demigod out there." He sighed. "You can't be serious."

"Nico's got a point," Thalia said, sitting on the edge of the chair and putting her arms on the table. "It's a risk worth taking in my book. Might be Percy and Annabeth in there, might not be, but it if isn't them then it's something. I doubt there's just this piece of land out there just for kicks. When Nico's going, I'm going with him."

Athena sighed, made a gesture of, 'Look at these kids' and leaned further back in her chair. "Look," she said. "I've lost children because of that goddess. My father is who knows where and more gods than I would have ever liked are missing. I say this is something worth looking into. But I swear, if I need to I will lock the two of you here if you do more without my go ahead. I believe we should look into it, but we are not to act until we are sure, that the ends will justify the means. We're spare on lives as we are, I am not going to waste two of our greatest demigod for naught."

Nico nodded his head. "I say that's fair."

-.-

He knew Annabeth had done something similar before volunteering for her own games, but he thought that late was better than never. So, the night before the reaping, after he'd gone home from the beach and Genevieve, he went on his laptop and searched up reels of the past games. As far as he could go, just to be able to study possible opponents, in the possibility that tomorrow, at the reaping, they'd be chosen. He was sure, he was not the only one doing this tonight. Any victor within their right mind would have done something of the similar or would do in the following days.

The first winner, the oldest one he found, that was still alive, was one who went by Mags. A name which rang bells, and when she saw the district she came from, he understood why. He remembered Finnick telling him, over the many drinks they'd shared in the past over the games, about a woman, who had taken him in after his parents had died. The woman was in her eighties, but Finnick had talked about her like one would about a mother. Upon seeing her face, he understood more. She looked to be kind, and a lovely woman, but he had never once seen her, and hoped, that it wouldn't be the case.

Then the next one was one by the name of Woof, who was said he had hid for the entirety of his games, and then while the others died due to some natural causes such as starvation or dehydration, he won the games through that. He was from district eight, and now lived in his seventies. Then from six, both male and female tributes he found, seemed to have won closely followed games, and each of them had been a master in camouflage, hiding much like Woof, until all the other tributes had died. They were both in their sixties.

From eleven, a female by the name of Seeder, had won her games through surviving without food the longest. Again, all these people seemed to have won their games not by skill of killing, but rather of surviving, which gave him some hope of how the next games were gonna go. Next was another female from four, the name of which was not give, but she had been the first one to be said to have used brutal force to kill her opponents and win that way. From nine, another female, skilled with a knife. Then from three, a male by the name of Beetee, who won by electrocuting the remaining tributes to death. He was now in his fifties. A district nine male, winning his games through brute strength and the good skill of the sword, spears and knives. Chaff, from eleven, he too, wining through methods of brute strength.

Brutus, from two, and that for Percy was all he needed to know to carry on to the next. District five male, Darren, who had won through brutal strength, but after today, he was as dead as any other tribute. Wiress, from district three, she too, winning through observations and electrocuting her opponents to death. One Haymitch, from twelve, winning through the skill of the knife and the use of an electromagnetic field. So he was smart as well. Then another female from district four, winning in much a similar manner as the previous. Brute strength. Lyme, from two. Blight, from seven, said to be skilled in the use of an axe. Then there was Genevieve, skilled with a knife, said to have hid during her games most of the time, and only come out to kill the last opponent when he had been the only one left.

Female from ten, skilled with weapons, and knowledgeable in the medicinal plants. Cecelia from eight, smart, and skilled in the sword. Enobaria, career tribute from two. Brutal in hand to hand combat as well as, through the pictures and clips he saw, she had modified her teeth to rip out the flesh. Creepy one. Gloss, from one, and upon seeing his picture, he understood why Snow had mentioned him. Everyone from one seemed to always be somewhat good looking. Cashmere, Gloss' sister, just as skilled as he with knives. They won back-to-back games. Then there was Finnick, skilled in the use of the trident, and using nets to trap his opponent. Youngest Victor at fourteen. Augustus, from one. Another district ten male, skilled with the sword. Then there was Annie Cresta, who Finnick had told him, she had managed to survive by being the only able to swim when the arena got flooded. She also got head trauma upon seeing someone die in front of her in a brutal way.

Johanna, from seven. Hid during most of her games, and then came out as a killer with an axe. Then there was him, and Annabeth, and Katniss and Peeta, and it was done. It was in the early hours of the morning when it was done, but it was done, and he had about as much knowledge as he wanted to have about any of the victors that had any chance of getting reaped later that same day. After all, he wanted to be as prepared as could be for this. No chances missing. He went to sleep soon after.

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And so that's a wrap for the first chapter of part 3. I'm gonna upload another chapter right after this one.

I wanna get this done.

Hope you enjoyed, leave a review.

Hunter