I do not own 'The Hunger Games', 'Phineas and Ferb', 'Gravity Falls' or anything related.

Phineas couldn't stop crying. Ferb tried to comfort him.

"I- I don't understand! All that old man did was whistle and raised his hand, why did the Duck Troopers shoot him for that?"

"That wasn't an ordinary gesture," Monogram explained, "It was a salute often used in the old rebellion."

"Still though, I know McGucket was missing a few marbles, but I never thought he would outright use that in public for all to see," Doofensmirtz remarked.

"McGucket? Wait, you knew that old man?"

"Fiddleford McGucket? Sure, he was a fellow victor! We bonded over our love of huge inventions. Although he was more mad scientist, apparently after his games he was so traumatised by the whole experience that he used some kind of mind memory eraser inator on himself. Unfortunately, he used it one too many times on himself."

Phineas was still crying.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about your friend. I was supposed to keep the peace and I made everything worse-"

"Keep the peace, what are you talking about?" Monogram asked.

He and Doofensmirtz looked at each other.

"What's going on?"

Ferb looked at Phineas.

"The President came to see us just before the tour. He told us not everyone was convinced that we had no idea we defied the capital during our games. Apparently our actions came across as too rebellious."

Monogram sighed.

"I was afraid of that. I thought that if you told everyone you had no idea that you had broken the rules that would have been enough to get you spared from being punished by the Capital, but it seems other were not so convinced."

"Wait, you knew?" Phineas asked, "You knew what we had done, and you didn't say anything?"

"Like I said, I thought your ignorance was your best defence, and it was best that would appear as genuine as possible. But you must realise how it looked to others. How you humiliated the capitol by prematurely ending the games, even concealing what you were doing."

"But we weren't trying to defy the capital!" Phineas protested, "I thought I found a loophole!"

"And you did. Unfortunately the Capital does not do loopholes, and they certainly don't like it when people discover loopholes."

"Wait a minute. So you two really WEREN'T trying to thwart the Capital?" Doofensmirtz asked.

"No!" Phineas replied.

"But that's like saying if a secret agent went to a scientist's lair, found his decimatinator, which made a tenth of all the population in the tri state area disappear (Seriously, that's where the term decimate comes from, look it up!), but didn't mean to accidentally press the self-destruct button before it had a chance to make the whole tenth of the population disappear, and then when he's flying off, you're raising your fist in anger, and you're all like "CURSE YOU, PERRY THE-"

Monogram's cough interrupted Doofensmirtz.

"Really?" Phineas asked, "You really think that's how it came across?"

"Well yeah!" Doofensmirtz replied, "In fact, I can imagine after the games had ended the president was all like 'CURSE YOU, PHINEAS AND FERB!'"

Phineas now thought of the anger the president had, both at their final interview and at their house.

"It also didn't help that you addressed the male tribute by a nickname that only the district would have recognised," Monogram told him.

That's right! Thought Phineas. 'Dipper' was only his nickname, and would have been known only by those in his district. Shoot!

"If it's any consolation," Monogram continued, "You're not the first victor who unwittily made the capital look bad."

"Really? Who else?"

"It was the victor of the 50th Hungry Games, which came down to two tributes, one from 12, the other from 9. Both were severely injured in their final battle, with the 9 chasing the 12 to the edge of the arena. He hurled a fireball at his victim, but the 12 collapsed, just missing it, which went over the edge. The 9 probably thought that all he needed to do was wait for the 12 to die. But what he didn't know is that the 12 intentionally led him to the edge, discovering that surrounding the arena was a force field that was meant to keep all tributes in. And when he threw the fireball it eventually came back, impacting the axe that was already embedded in his skull.

But the Capital didn't like that. They didn't like that the tribute used what wasn't intended to be a weapon."

"Are you serious? They punished him just for being smart?"

"Yes. For being smart. Too smart."

"So, what did they do to him, did they – unalive him?"

"No. What they did was far worse than that.

They unalived everyone he cared about."

But that would mean if they had failed to convince the President that they weren't trying to rebel against the Capital –

One thing was sure, District 4 was not a miniature version of 1. Sure, the duck troopers were disliked, but he couldn't imagine any of them behaving like the ones here. Even so, that didn't stop him from imagining everyone he cared about being lined up. Mom and Dad. Candace. Perry. Isabella-

"Doofesmirtz, Monogram, you have to help us! Please, help us through the rest of this tour, just until we're off the train-"

"Oh wake up, kid, you're never getting off this train!"

"Heinz, please. Phineas."

Monogram bent down on one knee, placing his hand on Phineas' shoulder.

"It's not just this tour."

"What do you mean?"

"From now on, you and Ferb will be mentors, from here on out. And every year when they come back to you, you will have to present yourself as nothing more than a loyal citizen of the republic."

"So from now on you two are gonna smile, or," Doofensmirtz looked at Ferb, "Whatever it is that you do. And you're gonna read the speeches that Sammy gives you. You think you can do that?"

Phineas wasn't sure. Obeying the law was one thing, but outright supporting a regime that regularly oppressed its populace, a populace that it thought of as little more than animals, who forced children to fight to the death for their amusements, who executed an old man just for an archaic even though rebellious hand gesture? He wasn't sure. He wasn't sure if he could do that.

The next week or so was an indistinguishable round of speeches, dinners and train rides. Phineas and Ferb saw cities, beaches, galaxies, castles, plazas, seas, forests and valleys. The rest of the tour occurred mostly without incidences. There were a few, however. The next district they were in (District 5), as Ferb was reading from the speech given to him, telling everyone what a worthy competitor the male tribute was (Whose name Phineas learnt was Randy), someone threw mud at him.

"He was my friend!" Shouted an overweight teenager, "My best friend! What did your pack do to him? You know what happened, tell me!"

"REBELLION DETECTED."

A Duck trooper dragged the boy away by the neck of his shirt.

"Howie, no! Please, he's just a boy!"

A couple of people that Phineas could only guess were the boy's dad and sister ran after them.

After that came District 6. This was probably the highlight of the entire tour. After saying what such worthy allies the tributes were, one of the people on Steven's stand (A pale white woman with a long-pointed nose) let out a rather unconvincing cry.

"Ohhhhhhh, Steven!" She wailed in a way that you could tell she was only acting, "He was so young!"

"Way to overact, Pearl," A short, purple skinned woman whispered.

Even though he never got to see Connie and Steven, this hammy performance assured him that they were alright. If only the rest of the tour was as fun.

At District 9, as in the other districts, the group had dinner with the mayoral family, who also just happened to be the parents of the girl from District 9, named Star. But at dinner, Star was nowhere to be found among the table with her black dressed parents.

"Um, won't your daughter be joining us?" Phineas asked without thinking.

The parents dropped their cutlery with a CLANG.

"Um, no, of course not," Replied Mayor Butterfly, "You defeated her, remember?"

"Ok, I know what the official stance is, but I would have thought, within close doors-"

The mayor was alert by the flashing of the eyes of the resident Duck commando commander, who was dining with them (even though Duck troopers don't eat).

"Please let us not discuss this any further."

District 10 and 12 were their own kind of awful, as Phineas gave his speeches, watching the grieving families of the District 10 girl (called Enid), and the lone woman on the District 10 boy (called Hiro), being comforted by some kind of giant balloon robot. Even though he hadn't killed any of them personally, he still felt responsible. If he hadn't gone to get the medicine for Connie (or at least stayed around to get the package for 1), then Enid may not have pounced on him, only to be killed by Dipper. If he had not destroyed the pile of food the careers had, Finn wouldn't have killed Hiro. And if he hadn't knocked the yadda yadda berries out of Steven's hand, then Go-Go wouldn't have picked one up to eat, not knowing that this would be her doom. District 10 was also upsetting because when being awarded wreaths, the boy who gave him his (who looked between 6 and 11) said "Next games, I'm gonna volunteer, just like you!"

Another thing that stuck in Phineas' mind was what happened when they left District 7. When the portal reopened, it took them not to District 9. This reality appeared barren, with the sea the only significant feature. That's when he realised. This was District 8, the District destroyed during the rebellion. The Capital likely took victors through this dimension as a reminder to what happened to those who defy the capital. As they travelled through, Phineas thought he saw a green bird, but when he looked back, it was gone. He was probably imagining things. No life could exist now in District 8, at least on the surface.

As they travelled across the dimensions, Phineas couldn't help but notice the differing levels of security in each district. Some, like 3, 4 and 5, had your band of duck troopers and a poorly managed/maintained fence, while others (7, 11, 12 and 13) had a wall policed by troopers, and then you had the remainder with their duck commandoes, steel wall, floating cameras everywhere, even a portal that was always opened that connected the district to the capital. Sammy explained to him that there were three levels of security: Level-L (Low), Level-M (medium), and Level-H (High). When Phineas learnt from Steven how security was much higher in District 6 compared to 1, he thought it was because the capital valued their resource (junk food) more than amusements, which is what 1 produced. But now he wasn't so sure, because if that was true, then it meant the capital valued candy, junk food, corn and gear over things like transportation, gold, rubies, even technology. Then again maybe Phineas shouldn't expect logic from a government whose leader was called Wacko. That being said though, the president had never struck Phineas as mad. Prone to rage, deceitful, manipulative, a bit cheerful on the side sure, but insane? Probably the craziest thing he did was to allow volunteers to be of either gender, but even that was done to appease concerns of gender equality. That's not to say he didn't say the odd thing now and again (like that line about a sister saying 'you guys are so busted'). But the visions he had of him in the arena were more mad (and murderous too), laughing as he gloated control over reality.

Also Phineas couldn't help but notice that the districts with Level-H included all of the career districts, whose children were more likely to win the games, where winning was an honour rather than a death sentence. But on the other hand most of the so-called loser districts, whose tributes rarely got to win, were level-M. Then again, District 1 was considered to be the lowest of the districts when it came to winning.

Another thing he noticed that whereas some district crowds had that cattle weary or disinterested look about them, others (particularly 7, 10 and 13) barely concealed rage, testing the troopers and commandos.

Phineas was glad that he wasn't the only victor. The first night on the train was the first time he slept alone since the games. Somehow he felt less scared before when sleeping in the same room as his brother, as well as their pet platypus Perry. But now he had no Perry and he had no Ferb, who was sleeping in a different compartment. When he woke up screaming that night, moments later Ferb came rushing in.

"Which nightmare was it?" He asked.

"The zombie one," Phineas replied.

"Yeah, not that fond of that one either. Particularly the moment when the zombified version of you says "Ferb, I know what we're gonna do today.""

Ferb left, and Phineas wished he hadn't, but moments later he came back with a pillow and sheet.

"Ferb, you don't have to do that!"

Phineas felt ashamed that he seemed so weak that he couldn't be left to sleep on his own.

"I don't feel like sleeping alone either."

It was then Phineas realised that his brother needed him as much. He was nevertheless glad that he was here.

"Hey Ferb. How come I've never heard you scream after a nightmare?"

"Probably because I'm too paralysed to do so."

"Well, at least we have each other!"

"Always."

P.S. I do not own 'Randy Cunningham: ninth grade ninja', 'Steven universe', Star Vs, 'O.K. K.O., Let's be heroes', 'Big Hero 6', or anything related either.

I also do not own a certain cartoon that may at times feature a green bird or anything related.