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: Apologies, but some edits have been made to the previous chapter; I lost track of which Wallace the Avengers were dealing with in the first draft.
AN 2: Thanks are owed to David Knight for helping me refine several details of this chapter; hope you like the results.
Falling Hope, Rising Threat
When Monty's radio cut off, I felt that everyone knew we wouldn't get back in touch with him in time, Clarke looked at me in horror for a moment, but when she noticed Cage giving a slight smirk, she forced that horror down and gave him a cold glare.
"You bastard."
"I remind you that I didn't have anything to do with those bombs-"
"But you didn't remove them either, did you?" Clarke cut the president off in contempt.
"It seemed safer-"
"To keep a potential doomsday device in play?" Clarke almost spat in the man's face. "You all go around acting like you have every right to get out of here and repopulate the world, but you're just… God, you're willing to kill your own people-!"
"Like you're all saints, Miss Griffin-"
"Falcon," Clarke interrupted, fixing the man with a cold glare. "I may not have the suit right now, but I'm the new Falcon for the Avengers; you don't get to use my name any more."
"Like a new name changes anything?" Cage rolled his eyes at Clarke before he turned to look at me. "Miss… Mockingjay, do you really think you've got any right to the moral high ground after doing all this-?"
"Don't," I said, drawing an arrow and holding it threateningly under Cage's throat, making sure his eyes were on me before I continued. "I'm not going to deny that I've done some questionable things since I started using this shield and leading this team, but when it comes down to it, the real difference between us is that my team have never mounted mass attacks on innocent people just because they were 'in the way'. I have been leading campaigns against known enemies for the better part of the last year while trying to rebuild society, and I can proudly say that the Avengers-"
"You really call yours-"
"The Avengers," I repeated with an even firmer glare on my face as I looked at Cage, "have always gone out of our way to ensure that we did nothing to endanger innocent lives, which you can't honestly say the same about."
"Like I should believe-"
"I don't expect you to believe me; I just wanted to make it clear," I said, pressing the tip of the arrow against his throat for a moment, but pulled back as soon as I saw a drop of the blood at the end of it. "Whatever you tell yourselves, your actions are not justified, and we are nothing like you; we're in this to save lives and that's it."
"Even when-?"
"If you're about to bring up the deal with the Commander, that's just us having to make a hard choice in a bad situation," I cut him off. "Unlike your people, we try and ensure that we're worth saving instead of focusing on just saving everyone we like at the cost of everyone we don't. Your mountain and your people attacked us first; all I'm doing is trying to mitigate the damage before any more people die."
"You just don't have the stomach for it, do you?" Cage sneered at me in response. "You can't bring yourself to do what's necessary-"
"I truly raised a fool if you can't understand that what's being shown to you is mercy."
I turned around to face the unexpected voice. A man who looked as old as Snow had physically, brought into the room by two guardsmen. I didn't know him but others did.
"Mr Wallace?" Clarke said surprised.
"Dad?" Cage sputtered, his eyes showing disbelief. "How are you-?"
"Out of the cell that you put me in after your takeover?" the new arrival cut the younger man off in a firm tone. "I think your actions speak for themselves. In less than a week of your 'Presidency', you have almost brought an end to a group of people that have survived for over a century."
"Now that's an-"
I fought down a smile as Cage's smug statement was interrupted by his father striking him in the face.
"You choose to murder our own people along with outsiders because they didn't share your beliefs. In doing so, the doors that kept those we have victimized over the years in order to survive have been destroyed by what I learn is the daughter of Loki! Because of her, the 'savages' can now come through our doors en mass to slaughter every man, woman, and child, and it's only because of the Avengers here that their hands are being stayed."
"As if they would let our people be butchered!" Cage snapped back.
"No. Not all of them." Dante said and looked at me. "I understand you have made a deal?"
"All children and everyone who disagreed with your policies will be spared," I nodded at him. "Your leading figures and certain soldiers will be killed, along with the scientists who took direct part in those experiments-"
"And you call yourselves heroes!" Cage spat. "You would allow those filthy savages to butcher, slaughter, and rape everyone you don't deem worth saving!"
"Rape has never even been considered or suggested, and any executions will be direct and relatively painless," Thor cut in, his eyes narrowing as he studied Cage. "Of course, for those who played particularly significant parts in these events, I believe there is a sentence known as the Death by a Thousand Cuts-"
"Screw you!" Cage spat indignantly at Thor. "You don't control me or my people; we don't have to answer to you! I am the Presi-"
"You are nothing!" Dante snapped, looking his son dead in the eyes. "You unlawfully took my position from me and now I am taking it back. Because of you and your ambition there will be death, but I will be damned if I allow you to condemn the majority of our people to that fate if there is anything that I can do to save lives." The man turned to look back at me. "Mockingjay, if you have the ability to contact the Commander, please do so. I wish to speak to her of terms for surrender."
"We already-"
"I appreciate that you have made your deal, but I… I hope that the Commander will be reasonable if I make one myself."
"Specifically?" Clarke asked.
"Specifically…" The old man's body tensed, as though afraid of what he was about to say, before he nodded in resolution. "Specifically, if she will guarantee the survival of not only our children and those who objected to our policies, but also those who never actively harmed or decided to harm any of your people, I will guarantee that my cabinet and chief scientists will accept any fate she chooses."
"NO!" Cage screamed, lunging for his father but the guards came forward, restraining him. "You weak son of a bitch; you're just giving in to our inferiors-!"
"Please," Dante said, looking at his son with disgust and disappointment before he indicated his guards. "Get this man out of my sight."
"You fools! You don't know what you are doing! They will kill us unless we kill them! We can save humanity! We are its true saviours!" Cage ranted on as he was dragged away. "It's our destiny!"
"In my experience," Thor said, his voice just loud enough that Cage could probably hear him if he bothered to stop ranting, "those who rant about being destined to rule are those eminently unsuited to do so."
Dante only nodded briefly at Thor, but the respect in his eyes showed that he appreciated the man's observation.
I stared at our prisoner for a moment before I shook my head, put the arrow I'd been using earlier back in its quiver, and turned to Clarke. "Come on; we should-"
"This is She-Hulk to all Avengers in the Mountain," Anya's voice came over the radio, her tone more solemn than anything I'd heard from her before now. "I have heard the gas be released from the control room… and I have reason to believe that Monty kom Skaikru is dead."
It was an awkward statement, but I'd seen enough of Anya to understand that she deeply felt this particular loss.
"Oh God," Clarke said, a hand over her mouth as her eyes gleamed with tears. "Monty…"
"I'm sorry," I nodded at her. I may not have spent much time with Monty myself, but it was clear that he'd meant a lot to Clarke, and anything important to one Avenger had to be important to all of us.
"Always the ones you least expect to make the big play, huh?" Octavia's voice said over the radio.
"That's the thing about this kinda situation, I guess," Raven observed, a chuckle to her voice that suggested she was trying to hide her own sorrow. "When it comes down to the wire, we all end up surprising ourselves with what we're capable of."
"Let's just…" I began, looking over at the pained expression on Clarke's face before I turned my attention to Thor and indicated the door. "Let's… get these people somewhere safe; we can finish the clean-up and mourn Monty later."
"I shall move them soon," Thor nodded. "Preparations have been made in Asgard for them to be treated for their deficiencies already; once the Bifrost has been activated, they will be taken to a concealed location until they have received the appropriate transfusions."
"Thanks," Clarke nodded at him.
"It does not atone for my past mistakes, but it is the best I can do at this point," Thor conceded.
"OK," I said, looking around at the group for a moment before I made a decision and turned on the radio. "She-Hulk, Blake, you two meet up with Falcon to take a look around this place and work out who else is in this mountain that we have to worry about or needs our help; Thor stays here to get our innocents to Asgard for treatment, and Bloodaxe and Ice Witch can join me at the control room so we can get a better idea of Monty's condition."
"Why us?" Johanna asked.
"Because you have a weapon that can get through any door we're faced with and Ice Witch can keep it contained if there's any gas still in there."
"…Good call," Johanna responded. "See you there in a tick, Mockingjay."
"Right," I said, before moving to take a hold of the former president's arm and looked over at Thor. "You get these people back to Asgard; I'll keep an eye on President Wallace here until we're ready to hand him over to the Coalition."
"It shall be done," Thor nodded. Returning his nod with my own, I tightened my grip on the president's arm and set off for the control room where my new teammates had just lost another friend, the president silently walking beside me. I wasn't sure if he had just given up on trying to make an appeal for leniency or if he was waiting for an opportunity to escape, but in either case I wasn't going to give him anything from my end either. Dante Wallace might not be the kind of twisted psychopath I'd faced when dealing with Snow, and he was certainly a better man than his son, but he wasn't exactly a good man either; no good man could have tolerated what his people had been doing to the Coalition for this long.
I had to remind myself not to vent my frustrations at him just because I had a bad experience with presidents when dealing with Snow and Coin. Wallace might have allowed his people to capture the Coalition and perform experiments on other human beings, but at least he had a legitimate reason for doing that beyond just being a sadist…
When I reached the control room, I smiled to find Johanna and Octavia already in position, the two looking impatient but evidently willing to wait for my cue.
"Who's the old guy?" Johanna asked, raising a semi-teasing eyebrow.
"Dante Wallace, technical president of Mount Weather."
"And the reason he's not dead yet?" Octavia began with a warning tone to her voice.
"Because I have surrendered to the judgement of the Avengers and wish to make an appeal to the Commander before there is any further unnecessary bloodshed on both sides," Wallace replied.
"If you think-" Octavia began.
"I fully anticipate that my own life will be one of those lost, and I accept that," Wallace nodded formally at her.
"It's true," I confirmed. "We'll sort out the details later, but in the meantime… well, let's get this door open."
"Check," Johanna said, turning to face the door as she raised her axe, before slamming it into the door with such force that the metal fell apart on either side of the blade. Octavia's hands were raised in preparation to summon ice if necessary, but it swiftly became clear that the gas had already dissipated, leaving an empty room with something very unexpected inside.
"OK," Johanna glanced over at Octavia as she indicated the cocoon shape in the middle of the room. "You've seen this before; that's basically what happens when these crystals didn't kill you, right?"
"Right," Octavia nodded, before looking back at me. "Do you think we're ready for another addition to the team?"
"Let's see what he can actually do once he's out before we start going that far."
"After seeing what Bellamy could do-?"
"We don't know how this whole process works, so we can't be sure if all the powers gained by this thing can be useful in a fight; if Monty comes out of that thing with something random like the ability to… change his hair colour or something like that, I hate to be blunt, but he wouldn't be able to do much in the field," I pointed out, before I shook my head with a sigh. "Anyway, we'd better make sure there's nobody else here; if we're going to leave this mountain for the Coalition to sentence the survivors, it would probably be better if they knew where everyone was."