abugsaunt- This chapter should answer some of your questions. I love your enthusiasm and curiosity about what's going to happen. If I didn't already outline my plot, I would have had to steal your idea ;)
Pale Is The New Tan- Thank you! I wasn't exactly proud of this story in the beginning. It was just something I wanted to try. But with wonderful reviews like yours, I am slowly finding that elusive pride as I go. I can always count on you to give me a boost.
CupcakeSprinkles14- Ha! I promise everything will be sorted out in the next couple chapters… hopefully. You and your cousin crack me up. If you two write a book, it could be turned into a feature film; comedy, of course.
SLASHMONSTER eatin yo boys up- First off, your screen name is awesome. Secondly, I loved your reviews. Cato is indeed so sexy and it would be hilarious if in the end it turned out Peeta was the Avatar (although if he is, he is certainly not taking full advantage of his abilities). I'm pro Katniss, so don't get your hopes up lol.
scheiGuy- Hope your life didn't get crazy in a bad way but, yep, I'm still here. I've got some awesome reviewers that have made me committed to sticking with the story. And I'm excited now that the tributes are out of the arena too. The good stuff is getting closer… ;)
MangoMagic- Haha, with every passing chapter we're getting closer to what I know you've been waiting for lol. The building tension and anticipation will just make it all the more awesome, right?
Before district 13 had knocked out the arena's force field, Cato and his pack were still asleep in the woods outside the clearing. He was dreaming about the venom-fueled rendezvous he had the previous day with his district 12 obsession. When the crack of the power surge boomed across the arena, all the Careers jolted awake, instinctively grabbed their weapons, and waited for the threat to appear. They had no idea what was happening when the Capitol suddenly sent the mist to knock them out. Just like the other tributes, all the Careers were picked up by separate hovercrafts and brought back to the Capitol.
As Cato awoke in his hovercraft, he found himself stripped of his sword. He pounded on the locked door, demanding release and demanding answers. No one came to him until the hovercraft descended and he was escorted by a squad of armed peacekeepers into a Capitol building. They took him into a giant room filled with people on computers and a giant screen covering the entire far wall. To the left corner of the room, he spotted his Career pack and the other remaining tributes all herded together by a large band of peacekeepers. Peeta wasn't among them.
"Cato!" Clove cried from the herd. "What the hell is going on?"
"I don't have a fuckin' clue," Cato replied as his guarded escorts brought him over to join the other tributes. It was at that moment Seneca Crane entered the room to greet them.
"Remaining tributes, welcome to the Gamemaker's room. Unfortunately, your games have been interrupted by the unexplained malfunction of the arena's force field. You have been brought back to the Capitol until the arena can be repaired. It will be fixed shortly and you will then be escorted back to the arena to continue the games until only one of you remains."
"Mr. Crane, sir," one of the Gamemakers interrupted. "The hovercraft that carried the male from district 12 still hasn't arrived yet. We've completely lost contact with it."
"What?" Seneca roared. "Send out a search party immediately! Use the tracker that was injected into the tribute's arm!"
Cato and the other tributes were present for the entire thing. Peeta's hovercraft is missing? What if it crashed? They have to find him, Cato ranted to himself. It wasn't long before the search party did and relayed the news back to Seneca.
"Sir, we've located the hovercraft. The left engine appears to have been hit by a foreign object. All the crew inside are dead. Shot. The tribute from 12 is gone."
"What! How can this be? Retrieve all the security footage from the hovercraft and bring it here immediately!" Seneca barked.
When the search hovercrafts returned, the pilots and peacekeepers on board entered the room that held the Gamemakers and captured tributes. The expressions on the search party's faces were of horror and apprehension. One of the peacekeepers held the security tapes from Peeta's hovercraft in his hands.
"Mr. Crane, sir," The peacekeeper hesitantly began. "We've reviewed the security footage from the fallen craft on the way here and you're not going to believe it. It contains evidence that the hovercraft was taken down by rebels… and the boy from 12 was an accomplice."
"Give it to me!" Seneca screamed. The peacekeeper handed over the tapes and Seneca immediately had them play it on the giant computer screen for everyone in the room to see.
The footage from the security cameras was unbelievable. All the Gamemakers and tributes in the room watched the giant screen in disbelief as it revealed what happened in the hovercraft. They all witnessed Peeta on the screen, originally locked in his cell, when the image suddenly shook violently from the left engine's explosion. It wasn't long before the boy was shown reaching down and ripping off the pendant on his jacket. He rushed to the door of his cell and began working the pointed part on the back of his pin into the lock. He was picking the lock with his sponsor gift! Clever bastard. It appeared to work perfectly as in only a couple minutes he was seen kicking the door open. Peeta stealthily ran from one camera shot to the next, creeping through the shadows of the hovercraft's corridors. He clearly didn't know where he was going, but his instincts were leading him to the front of the craft. He must have heard footsteps approaching because he suddenly demonstrated brilliant acrobatics as he ran straight towards the wall, gaining enough speed to run up it and grab the pipes on the ceiling and conceal himself from above. As a pair of peacekeepers obliviously passed underneath him, Peeta swung from the pipes kicking one of them and tackling the other one on the way down. They struggled only a moment until Peeta managed to clock the guard square in the temple, making him see stars. Peeta gladly stole both firearms from the incapacitated men. Once he obtained those guns, there was no denying… this kid was specially trained. The weapons were merely an extension of his being the way he used them. And it was clear he knew how to use them well.
The boy expertly executed the stunned guards and bent down to search them. The cameras showed that he found extra clips of ammunition on the bodies and stuffed them into his jacket pocket before continuing forward. The shots from the guns he took must have alerted the rest of the peacekeepers on board because the next thing everyone in the Gamemaker's room saw was the boy meeting with a barrage of enemy fire. Peeta took cover as he fired back with deadly accuracy. When he had emptied both of his guns' clips, he demonstrated a move no one in that Gamemaker room had ever seen. Without wasting precious seconds individually reloading each gun, he grabbed two spare clips from his pocket and reloaded his two handguns at once by releasing the empty clips, throwing the new ones in the air and catching them into his guns simultaneously in mid air. Jaws were dropping to the floor at the sight of the trick they just witnessed on the big screen.
Reloaded, the boy shot down the last of the peacekeepers till he finally made his way into the cockpit of the hovercraft. The security camera there showed Peeta shoot out the communication panel before holding a gun to each of the pilot and copilot's heads as he shouted at them. He must have been shouting to land the craft because a few moments later, he shot the men but the craft didn't crash. It was then the cockpit door opened and Peeta was met with men who were clearly not part of the crew. They were dressed in all black with bulletproof vests, red bandanas covering their mouths, and they were armed with machine guns. Peeta didn't fire at them; he saluted them. They saluted back and one of the men violently jabbed something into Peeta's arm, pulling it back out along with the tribute's now disarmed tracker. All three men left together. That was the last image of Peeta on any of the cameras. He was gone. The men must have followed with their own rebel hovercraft and boarded the Capitol craft once Peeta hijacked it and landed it.
The entire Gamemaker's room was stunned in silence by what they just watched. The silence was soon broken by the image of President Snow's face suddenly appearing on the giant screen.
"Seneca, we've just been informed that a rebellion has broken out in each of the 12 districts. The simultaneity of each district's revolt suggests that it was somehow all a premeditated operation. The games are to be postponed until the situation is contained."
"Mr. President, I fear the situation may be more serious. One of our tribute's hovercrafts never arrived back here and when we found it, the security footage revealed the tribute hijacking the craft with the help of armed rebel soldiers. The only way they could have escaped is if they had another hovercraft. I'm sure you're well aware that there is only one other entity besides the Capitol that has access to hovercrafts…"
"District 13," President Snow realized. The awareness of the situation's severity was written all over his face. He was pissed. "They must have orchestrated all of this. It explains how the districts were able to communicate and synchronize a collective revolt."
All the tributes in the room were stunned as they overheard Snow's revelation. District 13? The tributes had been raised believing there was no district 13, not anymore at least.
"I believe they're also responsible for the destruction of the arena's force field," Seneca stated. "They clearly intended on rescuing that tribute and the skills he displayed in hijacking the hovercraft showed he was no ordinary kid. He must also be a rebel that was aware of the situation."
"District 13 also has access to nuclear weaponry," President Snow gravely added on. "We need to take action immediately. Arrest the tributes and bring them back to the training center right away. Any district citizen that is present in the Capitol is to be taken as a prisoner of war."
At that command, the peacekeepers descended upon the still-stunned tributes who had heard everything. The games had stopped. They were being taken back to the training center as prisoners. What would become of them? They couldn't go home. Their home districts were rebelling at this very moment. Were their families alright?
As Cato was being handcuffed and dragged away fighting, his mind was racing on all those things. But he was also still reeling from the discovery that Peeta turned out to be a rebel fighter. The mystery surrounding his obsession was now revealed. The security footage of the supposed 'baker' kicking ass and mastering modern weaponry blew Cato's mind. Cato had never even touched a gun. They were illegal and only issued to peacekeepers. Still struggling against his captors, the Career hoped that the security footage wasn't the last time he would see Peeta's face.
I feel like my story is getting a little weird. It is still inspired by events that all happened in the three books, but hopefully it's not too outlandish. Oh, and the security footage with Peeta loading his guns by throwing the clips up in the air? I totally got that from a scene in the movie Kick-Ass.