With thanks to Technicolour Raincoat, ColMikeFuser and MidnightRaven323 for your reviews of the last chapter.

Y184-09-07 T 14:30:21

DISTRICT 6

It was early September now, and the summer was beginning to lose its heat, but today was an exception. Early August had returned again in full force, like it had been before he had been Reaped; the air itself reverberated with dense, thick heat, fierce and humid like a blanket on the air.

Quint returned to District 6 with instructions and motive, and an artificial fanfare from artificial crowds. He wasn't sure where they had gotten so many pro-Capitol individuals to place in front of the crowd, but there they were, clapping and cheering. He had to smile, to wave, to accept the handshake and car ride from the mayor.

He'd permit it. His objective required it, and right now that was the most important thing in his life.

The crowds' cheers in a cleaned and touched-up town square diminished as the car, mercifully air conditioned, started to take them through the city. The familiar sight of the drug-riddled inner streets returned, silent and melancholy.

"So, Quint," the mayor began. She had been the mayor since before Quint had been alive; she was in her mid-sixties, but still spoke with the conviction of someone half her age, despite the desolation she ruled. "We retrieved the rest of your belongings from your apartment. There wasn't a lot to retrieve. I'm surprised you made it to survival, given your background."

It wasn't a Capitol jab at his meagre upbringing so much as it was an honest expression of surprise. The outlier District Victors were rarely from a background like his; they were more affluent, better fed, with more freedom from work to spend learning practical skills.

Quint had nothing but the knowledge he had gained as a mechanic, and yet here he sat, Victor.

He knew it was nothing more than luck and allies that had brought him here, but he wouldn't argue with the mayor. He remembered from not so long ago the easily-bestowed lash of her Peacekeepers.

"Mhm," he hummed, staring resolutely out of the window. The streets rushed by; he saw his own apartment building pass by.

To his shock, he saw something on the soot-stained brick.

Spray paint, swirling and vibrant colours that had already faded; although it took him a moment to realise the fading was from attempts to clean it off. It wasn't a bad likeness of himself, although clearly stylised for effect; his grey eyes had been made to shine silver, and for once his messy, curly hair laid true on his head. Around him was a cacophony of colour, reds and golds most prominent; they swirled and blazed across the walls.

Smaller, but arranged in a line beside him nevertheless, were six other portraits, also stylised for effect. Elizabeth's cut hair laid around her neck in waves of russet red, the trees behind her offsetting the colour; Emma's hair, meanwhile, floated in the sea behind her, the end of her braid pointed like a trident. Theon finished off the left with greys and blacks of stone behind him, his tanned skin tone and dark pooled eyes standing out from the backdrop. On Quint's right, Cesal was given rippling colours to simulate cloth, his face resolute, his black cap from his Reaping returned to him once more. Emil recieved billows of black smoke, a red medic's cross on his shoulder, his long blonde hair curling through the smoke. Glace's background was shimmering silver, the same colour his eyes were painted, but it was flecked with just a little red. Her eyes glittered fearlessly blue.

And around them all, the snarling mutts that plagued their nightmares; but they were aflame or injured. The red and gold background turning to flames. The eternal white dove that was President Snow's emblem, soot-stained and bloodied and dying and lying beneath Quint's portrait.

Quint gaped at the image painted on his home as they sped past it. It didn't take a lot of study of imagery to understand what the artist had been implying by the singed and dying dove.

The mayor shook her head, just a little.

"We're encouraging celebration, naturally, but some are taking it a little too far. After all, it was an accident that led to your victory."

Quint knew that her meaning of the word 'accident' could here be interpreted as 'rebellion'. Which was precisely what that mural had implied. Which was precisely what Rufus had said was happening.

He was taken aback by the urge he now felt to fulfill Rufus' plan. He had been doubtful to say the least before, but now he could see the signs. Extra Peacekeepers posted everywhere on the streets. Scorch marks on the paving stones. Blood mixed with the dirt in the alleyways. Hastily scrubbed-off graffiti, but nothing approaching the vibrant, untameable beauty of the mural left behind on his home's wall.

By comparison, the mansion he was presented with in the Victor's Village felt bland, identical, soulless. Quint smiled, an expression foreign to him, shook the hand of the mayor again and watched as the car left him behind at his new house.

He looked up at the bland white walls the Capitol had gifted him.

He decided they needed some colour.

Walking was slow going when he was still learning to use his bionic prosthesis, and he relied heavily on his slim metal cane as he limped down the streets. Ordinarily, this would be an invitation to getting mugged in District 6, but Quint found that unlike before, unlike the lifetime he had spent in his home before, he was no longer an anonymous mechanic in the city of steel and steam. The people coming home from work around him stared as he went past, but did not approach. The crowds parted, subtly but respectfully, from his path.

He walked alone, but the city that watched him walk seemed to be quietly expressing their solidarity, their companionship.

It was terrifying and it was monumental. Quint realised just how right Rufus had been. He realised just how much the tides had turned, his revo group for once uniting Districts that had never seen cause to unite; scared individuals becoming groups in their solidarity of the sole survivor.

A shiver of fear and excitement ran through him. He was the one they were rallying to now; he had to capture them while they remained enthralled enough to demand their own escape.

He turned the corner, back to the tiny street that was no longer his home. He had to watch his step here; while some citizens had clearly been roped into cleaning the area up, broken glass and blood still remained on the concrete and paving-stone ground. He knew that, as he made his way down to the mural, every eye, citizen and Peacekeeper, laid on him. He shivered minutely but kept his face inexpressive, his eyes passive.

The greatest scene of chaos was beneath the mural.

Blood had dried a russet colour on the pavement, tracked by footsteps of hundreds of people running; probably last night, and probably from Peacekeepers breaking up the chaos that had caused this. Citizens likely press-ganged into cleaning up were scrubbing blood from the ground. And at the mural, a man- no, a boy stood, a teenager, with a bucket of black paint in his hand and a pensive look as he stared up at the mural he was about to deface.

And Quint realised; really, he should have realised far earlier.

Nico Marquette had been in his year at school, back when the District 6 schools had had funding to run. He was going into his grandfather's business of decoration; many District 6 citizens were employed in this way. They would learn a skill required by the rich, in this case interior decoration, and then travel around on cargo trains when required for specific jobs. Still, the work was sporadic in timing, and Quint remembered what Nico did when he wasn't decorating, because he had seen him do it when as children they had travelled in the same schoolboy circles; he painted murals on the streets.

He was incredible at it, and vibrant colour was almost his calling card, as was his typically more subtle undermining of the Capitol within it. Doves featured heavily, often shadows painted behind scenes of subtly implied destruction; but always in joyous colours, a violent celebration of vitality. Nico never put a signature to his work, but everyone in Quint's school year had seen him work at least once, almost always under cover of night.

And there Nico stood, square-shouldered and messy-haired and paint-streaked, perfectly styled to look like he never styled anything at all. His posture as he swung the paint can was loose and relaxed, but his piercing blue eyes told Quint he was anything but.

He had clearly been brought in by the Peacekeepers, and in entirely accidental irony had been asked to destroy that which he created. If they knew it was his, he'd be joining the red on the walls.

He risked his life to paint Quint's likeness on his home. He had probably incited the rioting that had clearly taken place last night.

"Nico," he called, and Nico jolted, sloshing black paint where it mixed with the blood on the ground. His alert blue eyes widened.

"Quint Barkwater!" He announced, shock colouring his voice. "Hey, uh, nice to see you back. I saw President Snow crowning you this morning, so I didn't realise you'd be back home so soon." He glanced over at the guards, watching as they slowly patrolled past, slowly getting further out of earshot. Quint watched too.

"It was an honour." It had not been. He still remembered Snow's threats, and remembered the treason he was now committing with Rufus and the Victors, and every second of the Coronation Quint had been waiting for the President to snap his fingers and let the guards shoot him down, or cut off another limb. His leg ached.

Eventually, the guards were far enough out. Nico turned his attention absolutely to Quint.

"I pai-"

"-I know you did." Quint didn't have time to waste. "Did it cause the-"

"-It did."

"Right." Quint looked up at the mural. Weeks ago he was no-one, and now his likeness created war?

Nico shifted uncomfortably at watching his painted Quint looking at the real Quint. "Do you, uh, like it?"

"It's, uh- interesting. It's an interesting picture." Quint squinted up at the portrait of his own face, unsure of how to phrase his thoughts on it to the artist of it. "Uh. I don't have silver eyes, obviously."

"Oh, I know, but it's stylistic. You know, to make your eyes pop out at the viewer." Nico did a vague approximation of jazz hands as he said it. "'Sides, you've already got that whole pretty boy look going on, so it wasn't too far of a stretch."

Quint blinked. "-'Pretty boy'?"

Nico's casual tone faltered a little as he realised Quint was staring at him. He shrugged a little with faux nonchalance. "Yeah, that whole- 'Ooh, I'm so stoic and clever and I have messy hair and sad eyes and I just burned down a building' look."

Quint blinked again. "The pretty boy look is 'I just burned down a building'?"

Nico looked back to his work, his face reddening just a little as he dipped his paintbrush in the black-pooled bucket. "Shut up."

Quint watched a moment as Nico reluctantly began to obliterate his own artwork. He looked up at the dying dove painted on the walls. Then he nodded to himself, his mind made up.

"I need you."

Nico almost dropped the paintbrush. His jaw dropped a little as he turned.

"I, uh- okay, I mean, I'm kinda a little busy with work here, but-"

"Not like that," Quint corrected himself awkwardly.

Nico's mouth shut again with an audible click.

"Get a guy's hopes up," He muttered. "Serves me for chatting up the Victor with the pretty-boy talk, I guess. What do you need me for, then?"

Quint glanced back at the guards behind them. This wasn't a safe place to talk; thankfully, he had his own safe place for doing that now.

"I'm thinking about painting my house."

Mercifully, despite his apparent inability to keep his mouth shut about Quint's 'pretty boy' eyes, Nico didn't say a word about his prosthesis, or the slow limp that it now forced upon Quint; he took the change of walking pace without argument or comment. He had plenty of comments about a lot of other things, though.

"I am shocked, seriously, that you could get me out of Peacekeeper duties and they didn't even question you. They must be so scared of you! I mean, I gotta say, I'm a little scared of you."

Quint replied with one long, quizzical stare. Nico nodded emphatically.

"Like that! You stare people down and it's really intimidating. Plus that whole thing with stabbing all those mutts, I mean, that's brutal!"

Quint's mind froze, and so did his expression. He kept forgetting about the cameras that had followed him through the arena; everyone in the District had been obliged to watch everything he had done. And when Nico meant 'stabbing mutts', did he include Cesal in the brutality?

Nico glanced over, his eyes widening as he realised that he had said absolutely the wrong thing. He backtracked hastily.

"-But really, the coolest stuff was all the stuff the Capitol wouldn't let us see. I mean, we caught a little of it- you in that weird room, with the computers. What was that?"

They turned the corner to Victor's Village, passing by the Peacekeeper guards as they entered through the gates. Quint led Nico through the doors of his house and then pushed him back with as much torque as he could manage. Nico slammed against the wall, and Quint placed his cane on Nico's chest to keep him from moving forward.

"First of all," he hissed, keeping his voice quiet but urgent, "Don't say a word against the Capitol."

Nico frowned. "Wha-"

"-You heard me, don't do it, not now. I need to not be suspected, at least not as much as they already do, and if I'm walking around with someone talking about what the Capitol won't let us see they'll execute you and put me under house arrest. Do you understand?"

Nico nodded hastily, his eyes wide as he looked at the cane pressing on his chest. "Yeah- course, shit, sorry. I just- I just really- I mean, you hate them too, right?"

Quint tilted his head a little. Then he stood back, his cane back to his side. He led them both into the drawing room. Nico, who had likely never been in a room this opulent, slowed down and stood still, looking around. It was a Capitol style, but more refined and simplistic; the couches were large and soft, but without the unusual aesthetic designs the Capitol so adored. A huge glass telescreen took up half of one wall, while the rest was decked in subtle reds, golds and browns, like the furniture. Nico cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Uh." He said, staring at the telescreen that likely cost both their wages a hundred times over. "Nice, uh. Colour balance in the room."

"I think it's a little too much gold," Quint replied. "Keep your voice down; this is the only room I've removed the microphones from, and I don't want them to realise I did that."

Nico jolted at the word 'microphones'. "Did you say-"

Quint held up a tiny, cylindrical device from his pocket; at least, at one point it may have been cylindrical. He dropped it on the ground and further destroyed it by crushing it under his foot. "They're the same ones they used in the Games. Glace showed me where they hide 'em."

Nico's voice was uneasy and more guarded now; his eyes did not leave the crushed technology on the carpet. "I didn't see you guys doing that."

"There's a lot you didn't see." Tired of standing, Quint sat on the plush red couch furthest from the french windows; Nico took the other end of the couch, idly admiring the fabric as he spoke.

"Anything in particular?"

"Rufus Warnke."

"...Did he parachute in?"

Quint rolled his eyes. "After the Games."

Nico smirked; his easygoing persona changed to a more acerbic one. "And here I thought you liked my jokes. Am I just not good enough for you anymore?"

Quint wasn't typically one for joking, but he played along for once, raising an eyebrow and a tiny smirk of his own. "One more word out of you and I'm leaving you."

"Fine! They say don't marry for money, and I should'a believed them!" Nico made a move as if to dramatically leave the room, before stopping, seeming to remember the serious context under which the two were meeting. He cleared his throat slightly.

"But yeah. You were saying. After the Games, Rufus Warnke approached you. Approached you about- what?"

Quint stepped closer, his voice lowered to barely above a whisper. "Rufus is collecting together a team of former Victors, myself included; we span a large number of the most powerful and most populous Districts. We're planning something big for next year's Games, and we need people like you. People who don't like the old order; people who'll help us gather together the riots into-" Quint broke off, remembering the words Rufus had drilled at the meeting. "An army. Tangible support for a Panem that isn't run by the Capitol. I need someone who can create chaos, but only chaos for the Capitol; to raise a guerilla army to defeat our captors once and for all. We know you can do that. All that's left to ask you is- you want in?"

Nico raised his head slightly. He made complete eye contact with Quint. His eyes flashed with resolute anger, and he smiled with a flash of teeth.

"Always."

Nico Marquette is Munamana's character, and I'm excited to introduce him to the ranks of the characters! Next chapter I introduce another new'un- and now I'm finally on holiday, it shouldn't take too long!

Speaking of the new'uns, I'm also taking part in a collab on top of Ivaylo! '24 by 24' is hosting another 24-author collab, and I'm heading up the D10 male slot. I think there's still slots available, too, so if you've ever wanted to kill my characters off, now's your opportunity! ;) I hope to see some familiar faces among the group.

As ever, thank you for reading this far.