Disclaimer: Avengers, Hunger Games, and all other elements belong to their relevant owners; I merely borrow them to write this story
Feedback: Always a pleasure to receive.
AN: We're back to Katniss's POV at last; hope you enjoy this chapter.
Falling Hope, Rising Threat
"How long shall we do this?" Anya looked impatiently at me as she looked at the door in frustration.
"As long as it takes," I said resolutely. I had no idea if anyone was still watching us outside this cell, but until we knew for a fact that the attack had begun, Clarke and I had agreed that we weren't going to break out of this room or give any indication of what we were truly capable of in case it put the mountain on the alert ahead of schedule. "You're a hunter; doesn't that include waiting for the prey?"
"True," Anya observed. "But that is when I am in the forests that I have knowledge of; when waiting in a nest like this, I am… not comfortable."
"I can get that," I nodded at her in understanding, remembering a couple of my more daring hunts before the games; prey like wolves had generally been avoided because of the risk if they'd caught my scent, but sometimes Gale and I had stumbled across a pack on the hunt and been left with no other option, forcing us to adapt our plans. "But this isn't like it was back then; you have the power, remember?"
Anya said nothing, but the gratitude in her eyes as she looked at me was enough to assure me that she appreciated my sympathy. It had been bad enough for me to end up dumped back in the Games a mere year after my first experience when Snow had called the Quarter Quell, and at least then I had the advantages that I'd won the last time and people there actually liked me in their own strange way.
She might be a new member of my team, but I still hated to think about how Anya must feel about having to come back somewhere where she had nearly been turned into a human blood-bag to benefit these people as though she wasn't worthy of human consideration. She might be a new Hulk, but she was still adjusting to the idea that she wasn't the same woman who'd been a prisoner the last time she'd been in this mountain.
"A bold statement for someone in your position, Katniss."
"Cage Wallace, right?" I turned to look at the window, wondering why the man sounded like he'd just been running. "I feel like I should say the same thing, considering that you're acting like you know me."
"What's to know?" the other man replied, his breathing quickly coming under control as though he'd calmed down from his earlier apparent race. "You're all a bunch of savages who don't recognise our authority-"
"Which would be why you're panicking about the army outside your door?" Clarke grinned.
"Actually, that is because some… woman… has shown up claiming to be the child of Loki," Cage responded. "It seems like your spy was her lover, considering her reaction to his death; I'm not saying I believe that she is who she says she is, but-"
"Bellamy?" Clarke cut him off, looking at the window with a new sense of horror. "You killed Bellamy?"
Thor cursed under his breath, and it wasn't hard for me to realise why; after the promises he'd made to help Octavia, the revelation that her brother had been killed wasn't going to help him make up for his past sins with the Ark.
"Ah, so you do know him," Cage said, obviously satisfied at Clarke's reaction. "Well, that makes everything much easier-"
"Hardly," I said, stepping in front of Clarke to look resolutely at the mirror that Cage had to be 'hiding' behind. "If you know anything about Loki, I think it's time to make you aware of exactly who you're dealing with here."
"Who I'm…?" the man began, before he snorted out a laugh and the mirror suddenly changed into a standard window, revealing a man on the other side who looked like he was old enough to be my father, wearing a suit that looked surprisingly smart for a man who'd been stuck in a nuclear fallout shelter for his entire life compared to District Thirteen's more lax dress code. "Is that supposed to intimidate me? I know who you are; a few savages Clarke talked into coming here-!"
"Mr President," I cut him off, privately wondering what it said about my life that every president I'd met so far had been an absolute ass (I didn't count Taylor as I'd met her before her election), "allow me to introduce myself properly; I am Mockingjay, the leader of the Avengers."
"Avengers…" the man said, looking puzzled for a moment before his eyes widened incredulously. "That old story?"
"Story," I repeated, looking at him in a manner that I hoped conveyed the fact that I considered him an idiot. "You have the daughter of Loki breaking down your door and the Abomination trapped in your basement, and you think the Avengers are a story?"
"How do you-?"
"We're not as limited as you think we are," Clarke grinned mockingly at the president of the mountain; I suddenly wondered if this man had dismissed the Avengers as a story because he couldn't understand why anyone would go to such lengths to try and defend the weak rather than rule them. "It turns out that you're not the only source of advanced technology to survive the nuclear holocaust; a lot of other people pulled through as well without needing to kill other people to keep themselves alive."
"Granted, we made a lot of bad choices, got stuck in our own little area without even thinking about looking outwards, and ended up being ruled for almost a century by the deranged psychopath who destroyed the world in the first place, but the fact is that we survived," I put in, before my gaze narrowed as I stared at our new enemy. "And believe me, compared to the Maestro, you're not a serious threat in yourself, so if we were able to defeat him, you might want to consider what we could do to you if we feel we have to."
"I… who…?" Cage began, before he shook his head and shot a violent glare in my direction. "Seriously, how can you be the Avengers? They were America's greatest heroes! True patriots to America and every one of-"
"Enough!"
Hearing Thor speak out loud for the first time since Wallace talked, I turned to look back at the Thunder God, privately surprised at the demeanour he was demonstrating right now. Even when he faced down the Maestro he hadn't shown this level of seething emotion, anger and disgust just bubbling at the surface waiting to come out. As he stood up, I, Clarke and Anya gave him a wide berth, even Anya recognising that staying close to him at this point was a bad move.
"Our title was Earth's mightiest heroes, Cage Wallace," Thor said in a low, grave voice as he slowly began walking up to the window. "If you believe we only fought for this country, you understand little of our mission."
"Our mission?" Cage repeated, looking mockingly at Thor. "And you're an expert on the Avengers, Blake?"
"I should be. I was there."
"…what?" Cage said, confidence thrown by the simplicity of the other man's statement.
"My name is not 'Blake'," Thor clarified as he stared resolutely at Cage, as though the barrier between them was simply non-existent. "I merely used the name as an alias, to honour my vow to my fallen love, Jane Foster, and to my niece, Octavia, who is the daughter of my brother Loki."
"B-brother!?" Cage stammered, eyes widening as understanding struck and yet he shook his head. "No, no you can't be…"
It was then that Thor smiled grimly. "Indeed. I am Thor, King of Asgard."
"And before you start asking where his hammer is," I added, enjoying the incredulous look on Cage's face as we dismantled everything he believed in, "I think it would have given the game away if you'd captured us and found that one of us was carrying a hammer none of your men could even move."
Cage had this deer in the headlights look about him, trying to deny what he was seeing before him, before his gaze settled on Thor. "Why? If you're the King of Asgard- if you're really Thor- then why-"
"Would I allow myself to be captured? Why would I obey the plan of someone else? Why would I oppose your perceived desire to get out of this mountain and resume existence? Why wouldn't I just smash my way through your doors?" Thor finished, staring coolly at the leader of Mount Weather. "Because I respect the leader of the Avengers when she says that she has a plan, even if you cannot understand that… and while I could crack this entire mountain open like an egg if I wanted to, that would simply kill everyone within it, and unlike you, I am not a murderer."
"I- what?" Cage sputtered indignantly. "I am not a murderer! I am the President of the United States of Amer-"
"Sorry, but you don't have anything near the amount of votes you'd need to call yourself that compared to how many people are actually living here," I cut him off.
"And not only have the vast majority of people not even heard of you and so couldn't have even thought about voting for you, this country isn't actually called 'America' any more by anyone outside this mountain," Clarke added with a grin.
"Nor are you any kind of true leader of men," Thor continued, arms folded as he stared coldly at Cage. "True leaders not only stay true to their word, they protect those that come under their banners. They do not sacrifice or extinguish life with such callous disregard, nor do they enjoy the actual act as you have. Only tyrants take pleasure in oppressing others."
"I have done what is necessary for the salvation of the human race!" Cage exclaimed. "All of these sacrifices have been necessary for our ascension!"
"I have met many would be kings throughout my life Cage Wallace. You are by far the most pathetic of them all, in morals and standing," Thor said, disgust clear in every word he spoke as he stared at Wallace; I wasn't surprised to see his hands tightening on his arms, as though he had to fight to stop himself hitting the self-proclaimed president. "I chose to follow Mockingjay's plan, to try this peacefully. I even stayed Octavia's hand from attacking Mount Weather openly once she learned her own brother was your prisoner. I swore to her that I would make sure he would survive this, but since you have killed Bellamy, you have made that just one more broken promise to my niece."
Cage took that revelation as well as he could, shaking his head as he looked overwhelmed, even starting to hyperventilate as Thor took up position mere inches from the glass that was the only thing separating them both.
"I still wish to avoid the carnage that will unfold," Thor said, relaxing his stance slightly as he stared at Cage. "I give you this one chance for mercy, Cage Wallace. Surrender unto me, and you will face justice on Asgard rather than be left to the tender mercies of my niece."
"I… you…" Cage began and for a moment I thought he might actually accept the offer, but his gaze was overwhelmed by the crazed look I had come to recognise when we confronted one of Snow's old strongholds, and found ourselves facing one of the Maestro's old loyalists who couldn't admit when he was cornered and wasn't actually fighting for anything any more.
"Give up and surrender to you?" the self-proclaimed president said, shaking his head with a projected sense of confidence that was only slightly undermined by the fear in his eyes. "Why should I? I have the authority here, and records of the Avengers made it clear you needed the hammer-"
"Thor is not the God of Hammers, Cage Wallace," Thor cut him off with a grim smile. "Mjolnir makes many things easier, but do not assume that I am helpless merely because I do not wield it at this moment."
"But this… you can't-"
"Keep using that word, 'Mr President'," Clarke countered mockingly. "I think you'll find it doesn't mean what you think it means anymore."
"Save for when you realise that you can't defeat us," Thor finished, reinforcing Clarke's mocking grin with one of his own. "I have failed to aid your species in the past because I was in a dark place, Cage Wallace, and I will not claim to be perfect even if I am once again worthy, but I never slaughtered innocents and told myself it was in the name of some 'greater good'; you chose to consider human beings as things and truly believed you would get away with it?"
"Earth needs us-!"
"The world does not need you as much as you believe it does," Thor affirmed in simple resolution. "But as long as you believe that it requires you alone to lead humanity, it will require the services of its mightiest heroes once again."
"And… what are you doing with them?" Cage turned his attention back to Clarke. "I thought you were smart enough not to go along with a few maniacs-"
"They're not 'maniacs'," Clarke corrected with a teasing grin. "As Thor said, they're Earth's Mightiest Heroes."
"But you're not-"
"Things have changed since we were last this close to each other, Cage," Clarke interrupted once again. "I've trained with some interesting weapons and some extremely skilled fighters since I left this mountain; I'm not going to deny that I still have a way to go to really qualify for membership, but I'm making progress."
"And as for myself…" Anya added, smirking in satisfaction as she shrugged off her jacket to reveal her new uniform underneath it. "I believe I should inform you that you will not like me when I am angry."
"What can I say?" I grinned at the shaken Cage as Anya's skin turned green. "Anya here's been through an upgrade since the last time you saw her."
Cage staggered back, staring at the growing woman in horror before he slammed a hand on something in front of him. The glass returned to its mirrored state, but Anya swiftly stepped up to it and smashed it with a single blow, clearing away enough of the glass for the four of us to climb out of the examination room into a control room with a still-open door.
"He ran already?" I looked over at Clarke in surprise.
"Keep in mind he's fairly new to actually being in charge, considering that his father was president when Anya and I escaped; he's probably used to letting others do the hard stuff," Clarke pointed out as the four of us climbed through the broken window and into the main part of the mountain. "So how do we do this?"
"Thor takes point and Anya keeps guard at the rear," I nodded.
"You relegate me to-?"
"Secret weapon status," I cut the newest Hulk off mind-sentence, anticipating what Anya didn't like about that situation. "We don't want to provoke them into releasing the Abomination, and they'll definitely bring him out to play once they know we have our own Hulk. From what I've seen of him, I'm hoping that Cage will be too panicked to think about taking the extreme option when he's still in denial about everything we told him, so it's best you stay normal to make sure we don't provoke anyone else to let him out until… well, the right moment."
"A fair point," Anya nodded at me as she returned to her normal appearance before we began to move through the facility. Even though we had just exposed ourselves to Cage, we didn't want to have to fight all of the mountain's forces in the halls. We worked to move with stealth, avoiding people where need be. We did have to deal with a roving guard, but between the four of us it was a rather brief moment; I'm not sure if Thor even realised that he had pushed the guard into the wall when he ran past the other man, and Anya never even reached the guard before Clarke and I had knocked him out with a dual punch.
"Which way should we be going?" Anya asked as we approached a set of stairs indicated by the facility's maps.
"Upwards and onwards I think," I said rounding around a corner only to be stopped by Clark who held out a hand, the expression on her face surprise as she seemed to be listening for something. "What is it?"
"If I didn't know better I'd think I was hearing… Monty!" Clarke suddenly yelled, pushing herself past me as she ran towards a half-open door. I had just begun to run after her when the door fully opened to reveal a young man with thick dark hair and a somewhat oriental appearance wearing a blue shirt, who gave Clarke an enthusiastic hug.
"Clarke?" the young man pulled back from her in surprise, before he looked past her and saw the rest of our strike force. "Uh… why are you with-?"
"She's on my team," Clarke clarified with a smile, before she shook her head and looked at me apologetically. "Sorry; I meant I'm on her team."
"You're pretty much a shoe-in for my second-in-command, Clarke; you can consider it your team too," I smiled at her before turning back to the young man. "Call me Mockingjay for the moment; you are?"
"…Monty Green," the young man nodded uncertainly at me.
"Hold on; team?" another young man said, this one notably thinner and slightly taller than Monty while wearing a green shirt, even if he had a fairly thick head of brown hair himself. "You mean that was serious? We've been stuck here for weeks trying to give these guys what they want without them trying to kill us for it, and you've just been… putting some team of Grounders together-?"
"OK, firstly, I get that your first meetings with the Coalition didn't go well, but that's no excuse to act like you're completely innocent and they just attacked you because they felt like it," I cut the other man off. "Secondly, we're actually here to try and get everyone out of this mountain who didn't participate in acting like high-tech vampires to drain the blood of everyone outside this place because their leaders have serious egos and don't want to recognise when they aren't the big dog in the room, so if you were expecting us to just smash this place, that's not happening."
"That's… that's good," a young woman said, her short dark hair, pale skin and thin but fancy clothes marking her as a resident of the mountain, looking at us with a tentative smile.
"And you are?" Thor asked.
"Maya Vie," the girl replied, looking uncertainly between Clarke and the rest of us. "So… these are…?"
"The Avengers," Clarke nodded at the girl, before looking at her with new curiosity. "What are you doing here? I mean, if Monty and Jasper trust you I'm willing to do the same, but why-?"
"The President... he executed my father," Maya cut Clarke before she could finish the question, the new girl clearly struggling to deal with that particular twist. "Not just him, but a bunch of people that disagreed with his policies… and he killed them all with a biological weapon just to 'test it'."
Clarke looked back at Monty and Jasper, but their subdued expressions said more than most words ever could.
"We heard Bellamy's screams over the channel," Monty said before Clarke could ask the question.
"Cage put the entire execution though the entire mountain just so we could hear the screams," Jasper added. "Just who does that?"
"A man who relies on the power of fear," I said solemnly, before moving on to the next issue. "If you've been held here since Clarke got out, what have you heard about recent events?"
"Well… we managed to tap into the radio to confirm that someone's broken down the main door keeping the people from outside from coming in," Maya said. "But I don't know what weapon could break down the blast doors."
"It's not a weapon per say," Clarke responded, looking over towards Jasper and Monty. "It's Octavia. She's Loki's daughter."
The look on their faces was certainly something to behold. "... you can't be serious..." Jasper muttered.
"Your friend speaks the truth about my niece."
"'Your niece'?" Monty asked.
"I am Thor, King of Asgard."
"Oh my God…" Jasper's eyes widened as he stared at Thor.
"I doubt that I am your god in that context, Jasper Jordan, but I appreciate the sentiment nevertheless," Thor smiled at him before his gaze became more solemn. "I understand you have questions regarding Octavia but with our allies breaching the mountain, time is of the essence. Maya Vie, are there others here who oppose Cage Wallace's agenda?"
"A few," Maya confirmed.
"And don't forget the children," Clarke added.
"Right," I nodded at her before turning back to Maya. "You need to get everyone you can down to the lowest level of this base and seal every door between you and the upper levels that you can."
"Why?" Maya asked.
"Because we will break the Mountain and kill those who have taken my people," Anya vowed, the skin around her eyes briefly flashing green.
"And we'd rather not take out innocent people while we're at it," I added, hoping Maya understood how important that was to me as I focused on her. "Can you do that?"
"We can," Maya nodded, Monty and Jasper following her example.
"Oh, and stay away from the maximum security area," I added as the new trio began to turn away. "If anyone lets the Abomination out, we're really going to be in trouble."
"The Abomination?" Jasper asked. "What's that?"
"Hopefully you'll never have to learn the answer to that question," I said, grimly remembering the intensity of my debut as an Avenger as the Hulk battled the Maestro while Natasha and I watched from above.
Whatever else I thought about Snow, with hindsight I could acknowledge that he could have done far more to us when we fought than 'just' crush Johanna's original arm; we'd likely only done as well as we had that early in our 'career' because he was worn down by fighting Bruce and didn't take us seriously enough until we'd delivered enough hits to put him off-balance.
Forcing down my fear at the thought of how close that particular confrontation had been, I nodded briefly at Clarke's friends before I continued to lead the other three Avengers further into the mountain, leaving them to their own mission. Sticking to the stairs to avoid the potential trap of the lift, we advanced up to the next level, only to be met by a trio of guards pointing weapons at us as soon as we opened the door.
"On your knees-!" the lead guard began, before I stepped forward, took the gun from his hands, and struck him in the face with the butt end of the weapon before he'd even managed to pull the trigger. The other two guards turned their weapons on me, but I had already adjusted the gun to use it as a club, striking the guard on the right in the head with my new weapon even as I kicked the third man between his legs.
"Swift," Anya nodded at me in approval as I gave the third man a final kick to the head to ensure he stayed down.
"I might focus on the shield and the bow as my primary weapons, but that doesn't mean I don't keep up with other combat skills," I said, assessing the gun for a moment before I slung it over my shoulder. "We should arm up; I don't like guns, but considering that we don't have our usual weapons right now, we might as well improvise."
"Or at least we need to," Clarke observed even as she followed my cue and picked up one of the other guns before she glanced over at Thor and Anya. "I take it-"
"I do not use guns," Anya said, her tone briefly reminding me of what Clarke had told us about her pre-mountain interactions with our new Hulk.
"And I will be fine as I am," Thor smiled at me.
"Right," I said, checking the ammo of my new weapon before I continued down the corridor, the rest of the team alongside me. When I heard footsteps from around the next corner, I deliberately slowed my pace so that Clarke would take the lead, the wingless Falcon swiftly taking down the two guards facing us before they could do more than raise their guns without even needing to fire her own.
"Nice," I nodded at Clarke in approval.
"Thanks," Clarke smiled at me as she looked at the fallen guards. "Guess I picked up more than I thought."
"Such skill was always within you, Clarke Griffin," Thor nodded at our teammate with a smile before he glanced upwards as something shook the mountain above us. "Octavia is coming; we must move promptly before she does too much damage to this place."
Nodding in understanding, the four of us continued to advance up through the base, but when we were still a few levels from the main entrance, we turned around a corner and I froze in horror at the sight waiting at the end of the latest corridor.
Just like the Maestro when I fought him all those months ago, the individual before us was at least twice the size of a normal man with bulging muscles and a greenish tint to their skin, but where the Maestro had been a relatively vibrant green, this green was almost sickly, as though it was the green that someone had thrown up rather than the green of a new life. The impression of this creature being diseased in some way was further reinforced when I realised that I could actually see his skeleton sticking out of parts of his body, ranging from the obvious ribcage almost sticking out of his chest to the sharp bone spurs on his elbows and knees, and I was even fairly sure the knobs on his back were his spine.
"And who are you?" the creature said, grinning as his gaze moved over the four of us in a manner that left me unsure if he was going to eat us or assault us in other ways.
"Emil Blonsky, I take it?" I asked, fighting the urge to panic; I might not have my usual weapons, but even if I had prayed we wouldn't have to face this particular foe, I had stared down the Maestro and I was going to hold my ground here. "I think my colleague here would like to have a word with you."
"Indeed," Anya said, stepping forwards and tossing her jacket to the side, flexing her shoulders with a firm grin. "Unless you prefer killing those who cannot challenge you?"
"You think that you are a challenge-?" Blonsky began, before Anya's skin turned green and her muscles bulged outwards, swiftly transforming into her She-Hulk appearance as she glared at Blonsky.
"I do," Anya affirmed, before charging forwards to clash into Blonsky, sending him slamming into the wall behind him.
"Keep him away from doors and don't let him get further up!" I yelled anxiously at my team's new powerhouse, hoping Anya wasn't too far gone to understand me. "We'll get the doors open!"
Anya's affirming roar wasn't the clearest response, but it seemed that she understood what I wanted as she continued to deliver a powerful beating to Blonsky, keeping the former soldier off-balance as Clarke, Thor and I took another path into the mountain.
I wasn't sure how Anya would compare to Blonsky long-term, but I had to hope that she was strong enough to hold her own while we dealt with business inside this place…