Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games or Kim Possible. Any characters or plotlines that appear in The Hunger Games series are property of Suzanne Collins, Scholastic, and Lionsgate. Any characters or plotlines that appear in Kim Possible are property of Disney. I am not writing this story for compensation, simply for enjoyment and practice.
A Sitch in Time: Secrets of Panem
By LuvPurple99
Prologue
Hunger Games Arena, 75 Years after the Dark Days
Around Midnight
Katniss stumbled through the humidity and the foliage, her vision warping and twisting everything around her. Her head throbbed where Johanna hit her, and warm, sticky blood ran unchecked down her left arm. She tripped, falling on her face into the dirt beneath her feet. With a cry of rage, Katniss pushed herself back up and forced herself to go on. She had to find him. She had to get to Peeta before the others did.
Finally, the lightning tree rose up before her. She burst through the rubbery leaves, searching the area for the mop of blonde hair. "Peeta?! PEETA!"
"Katniss!" His voice sounded far. Much too far. But he was alive, then, still. For now.
A pained moan caught her attention. Katniss turned to her left, finding Beetee lying, twitching, on the ground. To his right was a knife, one Peeta had been carrying earlier, a length of the golden coil wrapped tightly around the hilt. She looked between Beetee and the knife, confused. Maybe she'd lost too much blood, but her mind can't seem to connect the two. Her brain seemed to be getting foggier by the second. She knew she'd blackout soon, but she had to find him first. She had to find Peeta.
"PEETA!" Katniss screamed again, uncaring that Brutus or Enobaria or Finnick or Johanna could hear her. In fact, she welcomed it. Drawing them to her meant drawing them away from Peeta.
"Katniss! I'm coming!" He was closer now, she thought.
Katniss looked back to Beetee and his knife, a thought niggling its way into her brain. She stared hard at the weapon wrapped in coil, still stumped. What was he trying to do? She looked from the knife to the forest behind it, her eyes landing on the tell-tale shimmering square.
The chink in the armor. Was Beetee trying to embed the knife into the force field? What would that do?
She heard feet pounding, felt thunder starting to rumble. Any minute now the lightning would strike. She had to get out of here. She had to…
She halted. Suddenly she knew what Beetee was trying to do. Katniss picked up the knife, unwound the wire from the hilt, wrapped it around one of her arrows. Lightning crackled in the sky above her.
"Katniss!" It wasn't Peeta's voice, but Finnick's. She turned, arrow poised to pierce his brain. He emerged from the trees, hands raised in surrender, but one still gripped his trident.
"Katniss… remember who the real enemy is."
The enemy. The enemy. She knew who the enemy was, who had put them all in this godforsaken arena. Still, it took a minute for the full weight of Finnick's words to sink in.
The lightning was brighter now. Any second it would strike. And she'd be ready.
"Katniss…" Finnick said carefully. "You have to move away from that tree!" She ignored him, instead taking aim at the chink in the force field.
The lightning struck.
"Katniss!" Finnick ran forward, grabbed her shoulder, shifting her aim. She unintentionally let her arrow fly, a feral scream ripping from her throat. The world erupted into sparks and stars and flames.
And then everything went black.
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Middleton, Colorado
Around 10pm
Thunder seemed to shake the very air. Fierce flashes of lightning illuminated the angry black sky. The residents of Middleton were holed up in their homes, weathering the "storm of the century," as the news was calling it.
Tree limbs split and fell, leaves whipped in the wind. Somewhere, lightning struck a cell tower, the metal glowing blue for a single moment, sparks flying and erupting as the bolt made contact with the metal, then the ground. There was a bright flash, and two figures suddenly appeared at the base of the tower, unconscious, the rain splattering their bodies and washing the blood off the bow and sheath of arrows and impressive metal trident. It would be hours before they're found, and when they were, the questions would start.
For now, the mysterious strangers lay dead to the world as the storm continued to rage around them.
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The President's Mansion, the Capitol
A Little After Midnight
President Coriolanus Snow paced restlessly in his study, awaiting an update from the remaining team of Gamemakers and scientists. Plutarch Heavensbee was nowhere to be found. He had a guess as to where the weasel had gone, but couldn't ruminate on the possibility now. No, his only preoccupation was the whereabouts of Katniss Everdeen.
After the arena had been blown to bits, he had immediately dispatched a hovercraft to extract the remaining Victors from the wreckage, hold them for questioning. So far they had only managed to capture Peeta Mellark, Johanna Mason, and one of the District 2 Victors, Enobaria. The location of the others was currently unknown.
Finally, the door to his study opened, his lead advisor Egeria entering, a grave expression on her face.
"Well?" Snow asked, his hands folded behind his back.
"We were able to determine that Beetee Latier is in District 13's custody," Egeria answered. She hesitated, not sure how to deliver the rest of her news.
"Speak, Egeria. I am not in the mood to dole out patience."
"We still don't know where Katniss Everdeen and Finnick Odair are. Katniss's tracker shows she's still in the arena, but our sweeps have concluded that was false. Her tracker must have been cut out of her arm. We don't have a lock on Finnick's tracker yet."
Snow dismissed his advisor with a wave of his hand, turning to look back at the television screen, which played the final moments in the arena on a loop. The camera zoomed in and froze on Katniss's face.
"Where have you gone, Miss Everdeen?"
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District 13 Hovercraft, Somewhere Over Panem
A Little After Midnight
"Any news?"
"No, sir." Haymitch Abernathy scowled. He hated being addressed as "sir." He took a swig out of his flask, letting the liquid burn down his throat. He looked back at the makeshift med bay where District 3's Beetee Latier remained unconscious. If only he would wake up, he would be able to locate Katniss and Finnick.
They knew Peeta, Johanna, and Enobaria had been taken by the Capitol. They had planned to extract Katniss first, but couldn't find her at the lightning site, so they picked up Beetee instead. They were only able to stay for a few minutes more to search, but came up empty. The only solace was that the Capitol must not have them, or else they would certainly be gloating about their capture of the Girl on Fire.
But if the Capitol didn't have them, and they weren't in the arena, where were they?
A/N: I've had this plot bunny in my head for years. With the movie version of The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes coming out this year, I decided to finally give it its day Obviously, this story takes place at the end of Catching Fire, and will mostly take its details from the books, not the movies (though some movie details may sneak in here and there). The Kim Possible timeline is set soon before Graduation. Hope you enjoyed the sneak peek into this story, and hope to see you in the next chapter.