DAY 4

The Alliance

In the Open

Beginning immediately after the fire died away the Alliance had positioned Brant, Willa, Sener, and Taneka (the youngest three from District 7 besides Oliver, or 'Alban', and the youngest from 11) at the edge of camp in each cardinal direction. They spent all day, every day, watching for any sign of being watched.

The sudden boon of gift after gift of medical supplies was also a big giveaway.

On the morning of Day 4 the northern watcher—Willa—whistled sharply.

The entire camp turned at once.

Of course, by now the rapidly growing trees had already come in, covering the arena with shrub and increasingly dense woods in every direction. Little evergreens were even beginning to poke their way out of the ground, ready to spring up over the next several nights as the weather continued to grow cold.

So no one (but Willa) saw anything.

Team 13 convened under her.

"I don't know which Team," Willa said, "but it looks like they're trying to stay out of sight and come toward us."

Ron glanced at Harry then nodded once, sharply. "Good job Willa." Then he turned to the rest. "We're gonna need a pretty big team to divert them from camp—I don't yet feel safe enough in our position to lure them in." There—that would leave the watchers believing that they were postponing so they could take everyone else out easier.

Oliver grunted. "How about me, Katie, Verona, and Anika?" He said. "We're pretty good fighters but more importantly we're all really fast. I can lead through the forest and Verona can… do what she does best." Left unmentioned was that it was necessary for her to do so—so far Alicia hadn't spilled any blood, and if they wanted to keep her image of 'team psychopath' up that would need to change soon.

Ron glanced at each of them. "Alright. Take Harry with you, though. He could use the experience." In other words: have him stand around uselessly to give the Capitol yet another reason to ignore his very existence.

Oliver pretended reluctance, then nodded.

"We'll hold camp." Ron said, turning to the rest of them. "I want us to counterattack soon, so I'll drill everyone in group tactics together first and then the best can train the worst while the rest do the necessary chores."

The Team nodded.

"Let's go."

Getting to the careers (it turned out to be only the eighteen-year-olds, steadily making their way forward with a furious Organza and frowning Calvus in the lead) was the easy part.

Oliver had spent the past thirteen years in woods far thicker than what the arena could provide, playing tag and hide and seek and working while trees were felled and gathered up and transported all around him.

The animals were a different matter (District 7 had long since been cleared of anything overtly dangerous) but here Harry's eyes (so, so good at catching movement even if they were shit for everything else) came in handy—whenever he caught sight of a possible danger he'd stumble, they'd hang back, and he'd indicate as quietly as possible the jaguar sitting comfortably on the ledge ahead.

And then they'd try very hard not to panic, pretend to turn back to their route, pretend to notice the jaguar themselves, allow themselves to visibly panic (except for Alica. Poor Alicia), and then choose a different route.

They got to the adults (as the Capitol had apparently taken to calling the oldest team) in under two hours, even with said diversions.

Five on six, balanced out by the smaller team being many years wiser than they seemed, the larger team having bigger bodies, and both teams absolutely convinced of their goals.

"Remember," Oliver muttered under his breath, "we just want to scare them away. The real fight will be in two or three days."

And then they attacked.

It was, unsurprisingly, their quidditch instincts that they fell back on. It was a bit surprising how useful it was, though.

At first Team 13 was just intending to try to keep their own injuries to a minimum while making it clear that going any further was ill advised.

And then Team 18's District 3 member (his name was Jago. Hermione didn't have much to say about him except that he had been slotted to work in the district's warehouses rather than anything remotely intelligence related) panicked.

Apparently, in the interim few days between being put in the arena and meeting again, Jago had been busy. He might not have been smart enough for District 3 to use in most of their high-level work, but he was still from District 3, and his mentor was actively trying to keep him alive.

He'd made a bomb.

So, when five of Team 13 had seemingly come out of nowhere, he'd forgotten that he was almost definitely supposed to save the bomb for maximum damage, forgotten that it was six-on-one and they were all five years older than their opponents, and forgotten that he was most definitely not in charge.

He'd pulled the pin out of the bomb (ah, a grenade then. Oliver's brain had thought, like the specifics were important) and thrown it.

And, just as his instincts kicked in, so too did the former Gryffindor quidditch team's.

Angelina grabbed the grenade, throwing it with all her might at Organza, by far the biggest threat. In turn Organza hit it with her clearly handmade spear (HOW DID THAT NOT MAKE IT EXPLODE?) sending it straight to Katie.

Katie, being sane, wanted the grenade nowhere near her. She touched it just long enough to lob it at Maryse (from District 6, if she remembered correctly), betting on her not having great aim before ducking towards Organza, who was barreling towards Angelina while Calvus (who was apparently just as much of an idiot as Jago) snapped Jago's neck in fury.

So now Maryse had the grenade.

She screamed, then chucked it right at Harry's head.

Harry wasn't supposed to look like he was good at anything.

Harry stared at his team with wide eyes.

"To me!" Alicia shouted while Katie wrenched Organza off Angelina and the rest of District 18 began to flee.

Harry chucked it at Oliver, instead, because he was closest.

He intentionally missed, too.

Oliver still caught it (keeper instincts never really went away) then chucked it at Alicia, who looked at it, realized that the pin wasn't actually removed, removed the pin, and chucked it straight at Organza, who was wildly chasing after the rest of her team.

Two cannons sounded—one for Organza, one for Jago.

Alicia laughed.

And all of them, without moving their mouths once, silently made promises to whoever who would listen that they'd given anything if those were the last two deaths they'd have to see.

Washing human flesh out of their clothing took the rest of the day.