A/N: Sequel to Fighting With Fire: No Escape. Follows Mockingjay Part One, from Haymitch's POV inside the Capitol. The prologue will be from Katniss's POV, however, when she wakes up after being rescued from the arena.

OptimusPrime2017 presents to you,

A Hunger Games Fanfiction:

Star of the Capitol

Prologue:

I wake up with a gasp, eyes snapping open. I recognize the room I'm in easily, listening to the gentle hum of the hovercraft as it flies. I think back to the last thing I remember from before I lost consciousness, desperately trying to pull myself together. I had destroyed the arena, that's what I had done. I panic. Are the others okay? Did Snow hurt Peeta because of what I did? Mom? Prim? Am I on my way to the Capitol? Where are Haymitch and Finnick?

I force myself to remain relatively calm and focus on my surroundings. There's an oxygen mask strapped to my face. I take it off and turn my head to the left. Beetee's there. He's unconscious, his glasses are missing, and he also has an oxygen mask. I can see the plastic fog up and I know he's alive.

I look towards my feet and see a door. I detach a tube from my arm painfully. I sit up and slowly get to my feet, focusing on that door in front of me. Cautiously, my eyes dart around as I slowly advance towards it. There's no knowing who's on the other side of that door. I grab a syringe from a medical box on my right as I pass by. Just in case. I walk up to the door and can make out words being exchanged. I can't hear what they're saying, but I recognize who they are.

Peeta, Plutarch Heavensbee, and Finnick Odair.

I don't notice the door begin to slide until it's wide open. The three men glance at me. They stop talking immediately. They seem worried, the only other expression on their faces shock of getting caught.

Peeta offers me a pained, pathetic attempt at a soft smile. "Katniss."

My eyes scan the room. Something's off; something's missing- no, someone is missing. And I know who. "Where's Haymitch?" I ask stonily, dreading the answer.

The three exchange guilty glances and I know something's wrong. Peeta opens and closes his mouth several times, clearly unsure what exactly to say.

Finnick takes the lead. "Katniss,"His voice is shaky and strained from recent events. "We tried to get him out, I promise you we did."

"But he wasn't our mission." Plutarch adds in, sound more confident than the other man. "You were. It was his own orders that we got you out before him."

"Peeta?" I look at the boy with the bread. He doesn't meet my gaze. "What are they saying? Where's Haymitch?"

"Katniss, I'm so sorry." He whispers.

I'm fed up with the lack of answers and I start demanding, my voice rising. "Where is he?"

Finnick hangs his head in defeat, while the head Gamemaker sighs and finally answers. "He told us to rescue you before anyone else. Half of the tributes were in on it. By the time we got to his last known location, we were too late. They have him. They have Johanna, Enobaria, and Annie Cresta too."

"Who has them?" I ask, but I already know the answer.

"The Capitol." The man from Four answers weakly, still looking down at the ground. "I don't know how it happened- any of it. I've seen the footage, but it doesn't make sense. Haymitch would never let himself get caught like that, but it happened anyway. And then they got Annie. He promised me she'd be safe, taken to Thirteen with the rest of us. But they got her, him, and Johanna. I don't get it. That wasn't the way it was supposed to go."

"It's my fault." I say, pity and guilt crawling up my spine. "I wasn't supposed to shoot the forcefield with that arrow."

"Don't blame yourself!" He growls harshly. His voice softens to a trembling whisper. "It's not your fault. It isn't anybody's. The plan just didn't work as it was supposed to."

It's silent for a long moment before my curiosity gets the better of me. "You said you had footage. And I thought Thirteen was destroyed years ago?"

"After the bombing in District Thirteen, the survivors built up an army. They could take on the Capitol if they had enough people- they have the technology." Plutarch tells me. He pauses. "While we were programming the arena, I hid some of my own cameras around to send the footage back to our private lab in Thirteen. The footage of the Games is there- in fact, I had it uploaded to a computer in here for Finnick to see, and for you and Beetee when you woke up."

"Can I see it?" I ask.

"Yes." Peeta replies instantly, almost excited that the tense situation is over. He gestures for me to come over towards him. "Come on."

I walk to his side and he turns to look at something. I look over his shoulder at a computer screen. He hits the play button. The display comes to life with footage from the Games.

"Show me what happened to Haymitch." I say.

"Okay." He says, skimming through the footage. He finally pauses it at a certain point. "You sure?"

I nod.

He clicks the resume button and it plays.

"Alright, let's go!" Johanna says to me.

We take the coil and vanish into the trees. Haymitch grabs his knives, seeming anxious. He paces, Finnick sits and watches the bushes, Beetee works with the wire. A distant look is in Haymitch's eyes. He shakes his head to snap himself out of it.

There's a scream. It's me. Johanna has cut out my tracker. The three men tense, Finnick getting up and grabbing his trident.

"Go!" Haymitch tells him. "They won't come here. I'll stay guard just in case. Go help Katniss and Johanna!"

Finnick does, shouting for Johanna's location.

Beetee tells Haymitch to go help them too. He gives a grateful nod and take off into the bushes. There are footsteps and rustling somewhere ahead of him. The camera barely grasps the forms of Brutus and Enobaria before there's a knife in Brutus' skull and he's lying unmovingly on the ground. The cannon sounds and Enobaria sees Haymitch. She races off, out of his sight.

"Finnick!" It's Johanna, not far ahead.

"Johanna!" He runs up a small slope to meet her.

"Abernathy!" She sounds relieved.

"Where's Katniss?" Haymitch demands.

"Back where I left her." The woman tells him. "I cut out her tracker, just like we planned. Then I ran off into the trees to draw the Careers away from her."

"Well, let's go find her!" He turns around to head the other way.

They'd just reached where Johanna had left me when an explosion comes from the tree. The pair freeze immediately, knowing something's wrong.

"KATNISS, WHERE ARE YOU?!" Finnick's voice screams from not too far away. Silence. "Katniss! Remember who the real enemy is!"

A crackle of the lightning over the tree charging up sounds. The two tributes exchange horror-filled glances.

"We need to get away from that tree!" She tells him.

"What about Katniss?" He looks torn between running and finding me.

"It's too late!" Johanna shouts. "She's too close to get away from the tree in time. Finnick and Beetee too. Abernathy, we have to get away while we still can!"

He takes a moment to think logically. His voice is shaky when he agrees. "Okay."

They take off towards the treeline without waiting.

"Katniss, get away from that tree!" Finnick shouts at me in the distance. "KATNISS, GET AWAY FROM THAT TREE!"

Our screams are mixed with the first blast of thunder as the lightning strikes. There's a mournful, regretful look on Haymitch's face as he runs. I realize that he probably thinks I'm dead. The sound of my arrow hitting the forcefield makes him turn to look. He watches the dome start to cave in. A fire starts up near me, back by the tree. A hovercraft lowers- Plutarch. He stops watching after I'm pulled inside, remembering the danger of the situation.

The destruction catches up with them, the fire passing by them. Johanna gets knocked unconscious by a small tree. Haymitch stops to help her without a second thought. He throws her over his shoulder, using his limp arm to lock her in place. He continues going on, though he stumbles and coughs a lot. He reaches the beach, but his legs give out as he reaches the waterline.

He removes Johanna from his back and lies her flat on the water. He wades out as far as he can after her. A second hovercraft comes down toward him. He seems to know it's not Plutarch. The talons descend from up inside it, coming down towards him. He has a look in his eyes that shows he's trying to come up with a final plan. But the spark of hope never lights his eyes. The hovercraft grabs him and starts pulling him up. He uses the little strength he has left to flip himself out of it before it gets too high. He splashes back into the water. He struggles to surface. Ropes emerge from a hatch in the hovercraft and Peacekeepers slide down. He doesn't see them. He determinedly reaches the beach, but there's a Peacekeeper there to greet him.

The Peacekeeper knocks him out with a quick punch to the face, falling onto his back. The Peacekeepers grab him and Johanna, and load them onto the hovercraft. It takes off. Nothing more happens.

Peeta pauses the footage there.

"Is he still alive?" I ask quietly.

"We don't know." Plutarch tells me. "But President Snow has him now."

"We need to go help him!" I say.

"We can't." Finnick's voice is hoarse. "Right now, all we need is to get back to Thirteen and take the time to sort things out."

"Don't you want to save Annie?" I'm angry and confused.

"Don't ever doubt that I wouldn't." He growls at me. "But we can't- the Capitol is too powerful. And, besides, we have to stick to his plan. We have to get you to Thirteen."

"Why?" I ask. "Why do you have to get me to District Thirteen?"

"Because this is the revolution." Plutarch tells me. "And you are the Mockingjay."