Disclaimer: Avengers, Hunger Games, and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story
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Falling Hope, Rising Threat
Our current situation was relatively unprecedented, but in a strange way, I was actually enjoying the mess we were in so far.
As much as I had initially feared having to make an impression on the former residents of the Ark on my own, the more time I spent talking with Callie, Clarke and Anya, the more comfortable I felt at the thought of what I was about to do. My past experiences at dealing with leaders had all been based around their knowledge of my reputation as the Mockingjay, but I'd gone up against a few people who still regarded me as little more than the frightened girl playing the Capitol's game because she didn't know what else to do; if I could make them actually surrender to me just by shooting a few arrows and moving the shield around, I could make these people respect the Mockingjay as a leader.
Looking around at my team, I just hoped that Johanna and Finnick would manage to keep Anya 'under control'. She might respect our knowledge of her transformation enough to agree to follow my orders, but considering that we were taking her into the heart of what could be considered 'enemy territory', it was always possible that one of the Ark soldiers would do something that could provoke a transformation.
That was the main reason why I'd decided that Clarke and I would be the first ones to make contact. With Clarke's suit making her an ideal choice for taking me in to talk to the Ark on our own, it had been decided that she and I would fly in to lay the groundwork for our plan to explain the danger posed by Mount Weather before we brought in the hovercraft and the rest of the team. Bringing in the hovercraft itself without any explanation could have inspired panic, but just two people coming in to talk, even if we were flying, should inspire less concern.
Looking over at my immediate partner, I noticed that Clarke's hands kept alternating between checking her weapons and her suit's various buckles to fingering a silver chain she'd started wearing around her neck, but considering how I'd occasionally 'fiddled' with my Mockingjay pin in the field, I wasn't going to criticise anyone for wanting contact with a token of any sort.
So long as she remained calm when we were talking to her people…
"We're coming in," Finnick said, glancing back at me from his position in the pilot's seat. "Based on the trajectory the old guy gave us, and what this thing's picking up, we've got a very large concentration of metal ahead that's got to be the Ark fragment."
"Here's hoping it's the one we're looking for," I said, as I reached up to check my helmet one last time; I alternated between wearing it and not wearing it in the field as it could get uncomfortable after long periods, but on this occasion it seemed like the best way to conceal my age and make a better first impression.
With that done, I stood up and glanced over at Clarke.
"Ready?" I asked, even as I made sure that my bow, quiver and shield were all sitting comfortably on my back.
"Ready as I'll ever be," my newest teammate replied, reaching up to tap a switch on the side of her helmet that activated her 'flight lenses'; the glasses were apparently too complex for her to keep them active all the time on the ground, but she'd need them in the air to help her process what she was doing or where she was going in the suit. With that done, the two of us walked over to the nearest door as Finnick lowered the craft slightly, Clarke taking up position behind me as Johanna and Anya looked at us.
"Good luck," Johanna said, giving me a brief salute with her artificial arm.
"Always," I replied, before Clarke grabbed me under my arms and leapt out of the open hatch, the Falcon's wings spreading as the jets activated. As we were sent hurtling through the air, I kept my eyes closed for the first few moments until I felt the jetpack slow down to a point where the wind felt more tolerable.
Taking a peak at my immediate surroundings, I took a moment to appreciate the trees spread out before us- if flight was this incredible, I was surprised that Peeta spent as much time on the ground as Iron Man as he did- before I registered our destination, quickly becoming amazed at the sheer scale of the crash-site ahead of us for several reasons. Callie had told me that her 'fragment' of the Ark was comparatively small, but it was only now that I fully appreciated what she meant. The structure I was looking at was clearly either damaged or only half-built, given the various exposed girders and metal sticking out of the top, and their 'fence' consisted of barbed wire and a few large pieces of metal that had clearly been taken from the main ship, but considering that it must have crashed down only a few days ago, the residents had clearly gone to great lengths to make it habitable.
"Drop me in the middle of the fence!" I called up to Clarke as we approached our destination. "Keep going and circle back; I'll make the introductions before you land!"
"Are you sure?" Clarke called back down to me, only just audible over the roaring wind.
"Trust me!" I smiled back, reaching back to take hold of one of the handles on my shield. "And… now!"
Moving my shield below me as Clarke released her grip, I hurtled towards the ground shield-first, striking my target in the middle of the open area before the crash, quickly vaulting upwards to land on my feet in front of the assorted soldiers, all of whom were staring incredulously at me.
"Hello," I said, looking around at the assembled soldiers with a slight smile. "I'm Mockingjay; I'd like to speak to Abigail Griffin?"
The name prompted a few moments of anxious discussion among the people around me, until a woman a few years older than Callie stepped forward, her face and clothing stained with dirt but with an authoritative manner about her.
"I'm Abigail Griffin," she said grimly. "And… you are?"
"If you'll just wait a moment, I believe that my colleague will make introductions easier," I said, glancing upwards as I heard the jetpack's engines coming in towards us.
"Your…?" Abigail began, before she followed my gaze to see Clarke heading towards us, a blue-and-red dot that rapidly became clearer as it drew closer. In a matter of seconds, the newest Avenger was directly above my position as she came to an abrupt halt and lowered herself to the ground, wings folding into the jetpack as she looked at the older woman.
"Hey Mom," Clarke said, keeping her voice low as she addressed her mother.
"…Clarke?" Abigail said, staring at Clarke in obvious shock before she turned to me. "What… how…?"
"That's… a long story, Mom," Clarke said, looking uncertainly at her mother. "Could we just… talk to the Chancellor about this?"
Despite her initial shock, the other woman actually smiled at that news.
"Well," she shrugged awkwardly at Clarke and I, "this makes it easier; I'm the Chancellor."
"You?" Clarke and I said simultaneously.
"Marcus… had to go out and deal with things; I'm acting as Chancellor until he gets back," Abigail said, before she turned to lead the two of us into the Ark. After exchanging a glance with Clarke, the two of us walked after Abigail for a few moments until we arrived in a fair-sized room with a battered table in it.
"This room survived?" Clarke asked, looking at the room in surprise.
"It was fairly contained when the crash happened; most of the exterior rooms took the worst of the damage," Abigail said, before she sat down at the end of the table and looked at me. "So… who are you?"
"Like I said, I'm Mockingjay," I said, smiling slightly at Abigail as I sat at the other end of the table, Clarke taking up a similar position slightly between Abigail and I even as I noted that she was sitting slightly closer to me than her own mother. "I'm the leader of the Avengers-"
"The Avengers?" Abigail said, looking incredulously at me. "But… I mean, we heard about the Grounders-"
"It turns out that the Grounders are just the survivors of the heaviest nuclear bombardment in the initial wars," Clarke explained, looking grimly at her mother as she explained what she'd learned from us. "There's at least one more major civilisation here, but this area's been relatively ignored by them for the last century or so because…"
"Because it was ruled by a near-immortal, virtually indestructible psychopath who thought that he could justify turning twelve districts into elaborate players in his own twisted Games by arguing to himself that he was proving that they were the monsters people had always claimed he was," I interjected; we might have filled Clarke in on the essentials of our recent history, but it was clearly still difficult for her to process the full scale of what we'd been dealing with. "It was only a couple of years ago that our mentor decided it was time to strike back, recruiting me and a few of my… allies to become a new team of Avengers; we killed the dictator a few months ago and since then we've been focused on rebuilding some kind of society to replace what came before."
"What?" Abigail said, looking at me in shock. "Who was… why-?"
"Believe me, you don't want to know what he was capable of long-term," I said, my expression cold as I remembered what Snow had said in our brief conversation before the Victory Tour and the results of my final stand against him with the rest of the Avengers. "The point is that we haven't really had reason to pay much attention to this part of the continent since we killed him, but when the Ark crashed down, we were able to rescue a few survivors from another component."
"Callie was with them," Clarke said, smiling at her mother as she reached down her top and pulled out the silver chain with the ring on it. "She gave me this."
"Callie's alive?" Abigail said, looking at her daughter in surprise.
"She's back at the Avengers' compound, keeping an eye on the other survivors," I put in. "My sister and mother are helping with the treatment, but we have more… urgent issues to discuss right now."
"Like what?" Abigail asked.
"It turns out that Mount Weather isn't as uninhabited as we thought it was," Clarke continued, her tone grim as she looked at her mother. "A group of people hid in there when the nuclear bombs were unleashed, and they were able to survive in there at first, but after the excess radiation died down… well, they've spent so long underground in a secure environment that they can't even step outside the base because they just can't cope with even the residual background radiation out here."
"From what Clarke observed while she was in Mount Weather, the residents of the mountain have been abducting the tribe you know as 'Grounders' and taking their blood in order to help them cope when outside the mountain," I continued. "They've been focusing on the Grounders so far, and I don't think they even know we're out here- some of my technical allies are taking a look at the computer systems and don't think they have any kind of wider network access- but from what Clarke learned from their president, it's unlikely they'll be satisfied with that for long."
"What?" Abigail asked sharply.
"We've been living in space for the last century," Clarke said grimly. "According to President Wallace, our bodies are better equipped to deal with radiation than even the Grounders' because we've been exposed to more extreme radiation out of the atmosphere. He seemed friendly enough at the time…"
"But if they're willing to bleed the Grounders, how long are they going to leave the rest of the 100 alone?" Abigail finished for Clarke and I, looking grimly between us before her gaze focused on me. "But that doesn't explain why you've recruited my daughter onto your team."
"We rescued her and Anya while they were escaping," I said grimly. "If we're going to help your people, my mentor and I thought that it would be best to bring in a few additional assets; I concluded that Clarke has the spirit of an Avenger, and Anya… well, things are more straightforward."
"I've spent the last couple of days training with this harness, and the rest of the team are satisfied with what I can do," Clarke explained as she indicated her jet-pack.
"And… Anya?" Abigail asked, looking uncertainly at Clarke. "Who's that?"
"She was… the Grounder general for the tribe in our area," Clarke explained awkwardly.
"What?" Abigail looked between Clarke and I in shock. "You let a Grounder-?"
"Things with Anya are… complicated," Clarke said, looking uncomfortable for a moment before she focused on continuing her story. "The point is that the Avengers have allowed Anya and I to join them to save our people from the Mountain, but we're going to need the Ark and the Grounders if we're going to pull that off-"
"Hold on, if you have a whole civilisation-?"
"Right now, Mount Weather has no reason to think that they have anything more to deal with than whoever survived the Ark and the usual group of Grounders," I interjected, anticipating what Abigail was about to ask. "The other Avengers and I can participate in any kind of assault you might make against them, but if we bring in more troops, we run the risk of… provoking a larger assault."
"Larger?" Abigail and Clarke repeated in confusion.
"Nuclear weapons," I said grimly. "Mount Weather still had some nuclear missiles when the computer networks went down; if they still have any available, it might not take much for them to launch one against any potential opposition."
"In other words, we fight so that you don't have to?" Abigail asked.
"We fight with you to protect our people," I corrected, grateful that I wouldn't have to repeat Coin's arguments about why we had to do things her way despite our own beliefs. "If we just wanted to keep our people safe, we wouldn't be getting involved in this at all; we're here to help you because it's the right thing to do."
I stared grimly at Abigail for a few moments to make sure she understood my statement, and then sat back to stare at her. "Now then, while we're here, I don't suppose you know what happened to the rest of Clarke's group? She reported only forty-seven others in Mount Weather, and I get that there was a fight before Mount Weather's forces showed up, but they couldn't have lost everyone."
"Well… some of them may have escaped to other areas…" Abigail shrugged awkwardly.
"But you know where some of them are," Clarke said, looking at her mother with a new intensity. "Who?"
"…Finn and John Murphy have been out looking for you for the last few days," Abigail said after a few moments. "The Blakes and Raven were with them when they went out the first time; they came back from their own search this morning with a survivor from another crash segment, but they went out again a short while ago to try again-"
"And you didn't send anyone with them?" Clarke asked, looking at her mother in a very pointed manner. "You let them leave on their own?"
"I've got to focus on consolidating our own position, Clarke; I can't spare trained soldiers-"
"In other words, we weren't important enough," Clarke countered, glaring at her mother even as she remained sitting. "We've been missing since you landed here, and the priority is still your agenda-"
"If this is about your father-"
"This is about you choosing the so-called 'greater good' over what matters; we can't just-!"
"Look," I said, standing up to glare between the two Griffins, "we don't have time to argue about what anyone should and shouldn't have done; if there are other members of Clarke's group out there looking for her, we need to find them and get them back before anyone does something stupid."
"What makes you think-?" Abigail began.
"Because people do stupid things when they're desperate," I said firmly. "And speaking as the woman who entered a competition where I had a less than one-in-twenty-four chance of dying just to save my sister, when you're dealing with someone you love in peril, you can become very desperate."
With that statement made, I reached up to my helmet and activated my comlink with the hovercraft. "Mariner, prepare for pick-up; we have to find a search-party sent out a few days ago before everything goes really wrong."
"Search party?" Finnick repeated at the other end of the line. "What are you-?"
"We can work out the specifics once Falcon and I are back on board," I said, already falling back into Steve's insistence on the use of codenames only in the field. "The important thing is to track down Clarke's allies before anyone does something they'll regret; once you've picked us up, She-Hulk can help us work out where to go next."
Maybe I was acting on impulse, but after all the time that Steve had told me to trust my instincts, right now there was no time to question my gut instinct; if Clarke was anything like me- and her distaste for her mother's focus on the 'greater good' hinted at that kind of mentality- she wasn't going to be in any shape to take action until she could be sure that everyone that we could account for was somewhere safe.
Glancing over at my new teammate, Clarke was already activating her harness as we emerged from the Ark to take us up into the air to rendezvous with the approaching hovercraft, her mind focused on our new goal.
I just hoped that we could find them before something went wrong…