To the guest with the smiley faces: yep, it's a canon divergence AU. I thought I mentioned it in the summary, but basically Cato and Clove will survive to take the place of Katniss and Peeta in the rebellion. I won't reveal too much of what I have planned but I hope it's enough to keep you lured in.
The next day, there was a Feast announcement. In past games, this was done at a time when the audience was getting bored and the Gamemakers wanted the surviving tributes drawn to the center of the map to duke it out over a bundle of goodies. Claudius said something about every bag containing something the tribute desperately needed.
"What do we need?" Clove asked Cato. They were ok on their food supply, and had their signature weapons on them.
"No idea. They're probably just saying that for ratings. Make the audience tune in and watch the fights."
"Doesn't really matter. It's our chance to take out as much of the competition as we can in one go."
When the time came, they watched the Cornucopia from the treeline. There were four bags, each labeled with which district it was supposed to go to. An open field with an obvious temptation – the perfect place for a showdown.
"So who wants to go grab it?" Cato asked. "We both don't need to go to get the pack, although that would be safer. One of us should patrol the treeline for the others and take them out if we get the chance."
"I'll run and get it," said Clove. "I'm smaller and faster than you."
"Scared you can't hold your own in a fight?"
She elbowed him in the gut. "Shut up. I'll lead them right to you if I have to do that. But I won't. Just watch me."
"Fine. I'll let you go up there and be a glory hound just this once. What do you think is in the other packs, by the way? I think 12 has medicine for Lover Boy. How he hasn't died from an infection yet is beyond me."
"The ones for 5 and 11 probably have food. Maybe a weapon of use for 5 as well. Thresh can kill anyone with his bare hands."
She was going to say more when they spotted the girl from 5 dart out of the horn of plenty, grabbing her pack and running like hell out of there. The redhead was headed towards the opposite side of the field, so he'd need some time to track her down.
"Go," he told her, already letting her have her wish. "Grab the bag and cut up whoever gets in your way. I'll be on the other side."
"Go get her," Clove said to him before giving Cato a quick kiss and darting to the back side of the Cornucopia. She went around the corner and was going to run for the bag when a familiar face appeared in her view, wielding a bow and quiver.
Fire Girl.
Immediately she tossed a knife at Katniss, and while it it didn't hit anywhere lethal, it slashed across the other girl's face, making her lose her balance and drop the bag with the number 12 on it. Clove began running towards her, intent on finishing the job.
To her amazement, Katniss was able to get on one knee, grab the bow, and shoot off an arrow, which barely missed its target. Katniss also had time to let off a second arrow, which did reach her target – in the shoulder. The arrowhead got snagged somewhere between Clove's jacket and skin, and while it hurt like a motherfucker, it was survivable. Careers were trained to take a little pain.
That explains how she got the eleven, Clove thought to herself as she threw all her weight against the girl from 12. Glimmer would've never been able to pull off a feat like that. Grabbing onto Katniss, Clove rolled her around in the grass and dirt before getting on top, pulling out one of the bigger knives to carve up Fire Bitch.
Katniss had enough strength left to resist, however, and used her arms to block and deflect the blows, even scratching her fingers in Clove's face. Both of them were growling and yelling, knowing it was life or death on the line in a way that disease and disaster couldn't compare with. After another roll in the grass, Clove finally found a way to keep the other girl down: headbutt her. Fire Girl never saw it coming, and was temporarily unable to resist anything. Clove took advantage of that, using her knees to pin each of Katniss' arms in place, unable to prevent the inevitable anymore.
Cato likes it when I'm on top of him, Clove thought grimly to herself before yanking out the arrow in her jacket with a slight grunt of pain. "Where's Lover Boy?"
She gave it a second for it to sink in, hoping to demoralize Katniss. Nothing like Fire Bitch being brought low, finally. "Oh, I see, you were going to help him, right? Well, that's sweet. Too bad he's nearly dead. Cato knows where he cut him. If that's medicine in the backpack, he'll never get it."
Katniss made what Clove considered a pathetic attempt to break the hold, in vain of course.
"I promised Cato that if he let me have you, I'd give the audience a good show. Now you can't help Lover Boy, just like you couldn't help your little friend. What was her name, Rue?"
That got another rise out of Katniss, as expected. The sadism that had been conditioned into Clove by hours of training and mental conditioning was showing. She was enjoying gloating over the girl who'd caused her and Cato so much grief, and forced Fire Girl down before continuing. "Yeah, well we killed her. And now," she paused to take out a smaller blade, one that could put a permanent smile on a victim's face, "we're going to kill you too."
She began to do the deed – and then found herself forced up and slammed against the metal of the Cornucopia, a brutal hand around her neck. It was Thresh. Where he'd come from, she had no idea, but things had taken a complete 180. Thresh was one of the few tributes she didn't want to have to face one on one.
"You kill her?" Thresh asked angrily. Clove's heart sank, realizing that Thresh was probably the only person in the arena that cared for that little curly haired girl more than Katniss. They'd come from the same district, after all. Maybe they knew each other back home. She shook her head, desperately.
Clearly, he didn't believe her. "I heard you! Say her name!" Thresh looked like he was out for blood.
Fuck, this is it. You were so stupid to monologue, Clove. Now your life depends on whether Cato can run back to you in time. "CATO! CATO!"
But there was all the chance in the world she was already dead. Dead because she couldn't resist gloating. She'd be presented to future academy students as an example of what not to do in the games. That would be quite the ending and legacy for a girl who'd started out in the dumps of 2, and only lucked out into the academy because Cato took pity that one day, no?
And while she'd never say it, she was scared. Death wasn't so scary when living on the streets. But when actually faced with it like this… she was terrified.
C'mon Cato, get your ass over here now. And if you're not fast enough, you'd better fucking win this thing.
While Clove and Katniss had been fighting, Cato had silently stalked the perimeter of the forest edge. He was headed in the redhead's direction, intent on finding out where she went and maybe catching Fire Girl or Thresh off guard if possible. Easier to get the jump on them than fighting them by way of running into them.
He was about to circle back around, deciding the fox girl got herself lost and wasn't worth it anymore, when he saw, out of the corner of his eye, someone pick up Clove and toss her against the Cornucopia. It was Thresh, and he was going to kill her.
He was already running towards them when she started screaming out his name.
"Clove!" He ran as fast as he could, silently praying he got there before he just decided to snap her neck and be done with it.
Thresh prepared to smash Clove against the Cornucopia, but he realized the new threat right behind him. Without warning, he slammed Clove's face into the wall as hard as he could and dropped her, before giving off a primal shout and ran towards Cato, hoping his raw brute force would force the Career tribute to the ground before him.
Seeing Clove near death only enraged Cato even more than he already was. He knew he should've never let her run out for the bag alone. Yelling at the top of his lungs, he collided against Thresh, both of them going down hard. The spear Cato had in his hands was knocked far away.
Cato got up first and was going to punch Thresh's face in, but the other boy put up his forearm to block it, kneeing Cato in the gut as he did. This sent Cato back a little bit and by the time he got up, so was Thresh.
"You should've joined the alliance," Cato snarled.
"I've got no regrets." Then Thresh charged into Cato again, the two of them wrestling for a moment before Thresh was able to swing himself around so that Cato was being thrown and tossed a bit. But soon Cato was on him, trying to put Thresh's neck in a chokehold.
Thresh wasn't a weakling, however, and he ran backwards, trying to slam Cato against the Cornucopia. The metal horn of plenty was proving to be the best weapon of them all. Cato could feel his insides getting a beating from one, then two, then three slams, but through it all he saw something: one of Clove's dropped knives. If he could just reach it, he could end this fight in an instant, given how Thresh's sickle had also been tossed aside in the fight.
So he jumped off of Thresh, and pretended to be scuttling away on all fours, as if trying to escape the fight and get the hell out of there. As expected, Thresh began walking towards him, the look on his face wanting to get this over with and deal with the Careers once and for all.
Cato scrambled over to the knife and waited for Thresh to make his move. When the other boy's arms were trying to pick up Cato, he turned, stabbing the small blade into Thresh's arm, who was forced to drop him with a yelp of pain.
Thanks, Clove.
Thresh was still on his feet, even with the slash to his wrist, and he wouldn't be easy to put down. But now Cato had a weapon. Thresh didn't. Between the wound to the wrist and the lack of a weapon, the fight had shifted against' Thresh's favor. The odds had shifted, like they always did.
It took a couple more minutes of beating down Thresh, but with the knife he was able to do it more easily. The other boy's raw strength could match Cato's marital arts training, but the weapon gave him the edge. Whenever Thresh tried to punch, Cato would block with one arm and slash with the other. A kick was met with a punch. And when Thresh tried to headbutt, Cato stopped it with his arm, grinning at the thrill of finally beating him.
"Not bad," he told Thresh, half congratulatory, half mockery. "But it was never going to be good enough." He was seeing red, thinking about how close Thresh got to killing Clove. Or maybe he had already. That slam against the Cornucopia was a nasty hit.
So he forced the knife into Thresh's chest, right at the heart. The male tribute from 11 stood for a moment, then went down, first on his knees and then on his back. While dying, his eyes never left Cato, filled with hate and determining not to give the Career the satisfaction of a plea of mercy or any sign of fear.
Cato also knelt down to make sure the deed was done, smirked with bared teeth, then stood up, leaving the knife in Thresh's chest to finish him off. Only then did his attention turn to Clove. She was barely conscious, breathing softly if at all, her face a bloody mess from a broken nose. There was a large gash on her forehead from where one of the cornered edges of the Cornucopia had cut her, and she was bleeding out from a couple of other areas as well.
Fuckfuckfuck. He tried checking for vital signs. They were there, but faint. "Fuck, don't go out on me Clove! Stay with me, stay with me." Then he briefly looked around. Fire Girl was gone, no doubt taking advantage of the fight between him and Thresh to make herself disappear.
He felt a tear come out of his eye, and he brushed it away quickly. He wondered if Brutus, Enobaria, and the rest of the folks watching from the academy's screens in 2 were smirking in amusement to see him upset over potentially losing his district partner, or hoping she'd make it through, knowing it would increase 2's over all chances with the new rule. Knowing academy life and traditions, it was probably the former. Weakness was to be despised.
Fuck all of them.
He was still thinking about how his classmates were probably making fun of him, when Clove started coughing, spitting out blood. "Fuck… what the hell just happened?" She sounded extremely weak, and ready to pass out at a minute's notice.
"Hey now, don't move. You're banged up, little Clover, but you're going to be alright. Just lie still and I'll get you somewhere saver."
"Cato… where's Thresh?"
"Dead. You're really lucky I was able to get to you in time, because if I wasn't… fuck, I'm not going to lose you. Not on my watch."
He wanted to say more, how she was extremely stupid to not look around while playing with her food, for gloating far longer than she needed to, but that would be saved for later, when she was rested and healed up with food and painkillers from a stream of sponsors.
So for now, he put her in a fireman's carry, grabbed the bags for 2 and 11, and brought her back to their makeshift camp by the river. Katniss had gone in the opposite direction, and Thresh was no longer a threat, so he felt they were safe for now. By the time they got to camp, she was passed out again, and he laid her down gently and silently begged for Brutus and Enobaria to send in the supplies.
Just fucking get the medicine, you fucking sponsors. I don't give a damn if you think I'm weak. I'm not losing her, and if she dies there's going to be hell to pay.
I tried to give Thresh something of a "better" death, given how I like him, even if he has to die to keep our main characters alive.