abugsaunt- You're awesome. I'm happy you liked it and I love it when I can make you laugh. As for Coin, you know what they say. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. And when you get to writing your smut chapters, I'll make sure to have my fire extinguisher on hand lol.
DrarryFrerard- Thank you. You are too kind :)
AliceLightningBug- Haha, yes. Shit's about to hit the fan.
sysi huhu- You're welcome. I always try to update as soon as possible, though I worry that the quality suffers for it. But I never want to just leave you hanging.
MangoMagic- There's definitely more action to come. And I think sweet and sexy is the best combo. Yes, Cato is coming after his boy!
Pale Is The New Tan- Thanks for the kind words! Gotta love Finnick's sexual humor. Coin is definitely gunning for Peeta. But you know Cato isn't going to stand for that.
sundragons9- Glad you liked Peeta taking control. I was hoping that when reading this, Coin wouldn't be viewed as a threat that way it would seem more believable that the tributes and mentors were taken by surprise by her betrayal just as much as the reader was.
"Then I've arrived too late," Beetee declared with horror. "Coin is plotting to kill them."
"What do you mean Coin is plotting to kill them?" Cato demanded to know. This wasn't making any sense.
Beetee cleared his throat. "Well, technically she's been plotting to kill all of you, but with Peeta and his team out on their own right now, unaware of her intentions, I'd say your chances of survival are looking a lot better than theirs at the moment."
"Back up now, Beetee," Haymitch spoke as he rallied the remnants of the Star Squad together. "This is news to us. Start from the beginning. What's going on with President Coin?"
"Coin's behavior the past month or so has been quite concerning. As part of the Special Intelligence Sector, I am to be informed of anything dealing with the war immediately. There hasn't been a single step of this rebellion that I haven't been aware of. But then President Coin started to hold meetings with a select group of advisors that Special Intelligence was not invited to. Our sector has been nothing but loyal to her, so for us not to be disclosed on whatever top secret matter she was discussing in these meetings was very off putting. It wasn't sitting right with me so I had Foxface place spy equipment in Central Command. We discovered her plan to 'dispose' of all the tributes and past victors of the games, myself and Foxface included. She is first going to take out all the rescued tributes and mentors, and then pick off any remaining victor in the districts. Assigning you all to the same squad was just a matter of making it easier for phase one of extermination. She certainly never anticipated Peeta, Boggs, and Mitchell making it very far and actually getting to Snow."
"So you're saying that her plan is just to execute us all on the battlefield? In front of all the other rebels? That's the worst 'top secret' plan I've ever heard," Clove scoffed.
"Of course she'd never publicly execute us. Our districts wouldn't stand for it. In the meetings we spied on, she discussed somehow framing the Capitol for our deaths."
"The parachutes!" Katniss exclaimed, the evidence falling into place. "They weren't from the Capitol!" Upon her revelation, everyone else in the squad seemed to follow what the huntress was getting at.
"No wonder the hovercraft that dropped them didn't have a logo on it. It wasn't a Capitol craft; Coin sent it herself to kill us before we ever even made it into battle!" Johanna fumed.
"Wait. A hovercraft dropped parachutes and they almost killed you?" Beetee gasped in horror.
"Yes, I'm afraid you're a little late with this information, my friend," Haymitch declared. "How do you think I got this nasty cut on my face? Or the fact that we're missing a large number of our fellow mentors? Peeta, Boggs, and Mitchell were the only ones that separated, still alive, from our squad. Everyone else was killed when the parachutes exploded. It appears Coin's plan worked to some extent."
"My god," Beetee trembled. "Yes, those parachutes were definitely from 13. You see, I'm certain of this because I designed them myself. Coin told me they were to be used in the Capitol, but she so conveniently kept to herself that she meant to use them on you."
Cato was seething now from the revelation of the deadly setup that had killed his mentors. "Coin waited until our squad was separated from the rest of her troops. She was targeting us. I don't get it, Beetee. Why does she want us dead? What did we do? She's the one who pulled us from the arena and asked for our help! Are we really that disposable to her?"
"I'm afraid I don't know, young man," Beetee answered. "I believe the answer lies in the first secret meeting she held that initially tipped me off that something was wrong. I didn't have surveillance in Central Command at the time, so my guess is as good as yours."
"I have a theory," Foxface quietly offered. The sudden break from her trademark silence immediately grabbed everyone's attention. "I think that is exactly what we are; disposable. Saving us from the arena got her in good graces with our home districts and with all of us being in the Hunger Games, our 'celebrity' statuses gave her excellent propos. Now that we gave her what she wanted and the war is on its final push, she doesn't need us anymore. She wants us all to die and be martyrs for the cause, hoping our deaths will expedite victory."
The look of horror, anger, and betrayal took hold of every tribute and mentor's face. It was the realization that they all had been purposefully sent on this mission for it to be their final one. Coin's last wish for them: die for her.
"When this is over and Coin finds out that some of us made it out alive, it's gonna get ugly," Marvel stated.
"I say the moment we meet again, I give her a warm Hunger Games welcome," Johanna growled, instinctively clutching her side to where her axes would be.
"So, we now know that there are enemies on both sides. Where do we go from here?" Katniss questioned.
"It sounds like a very small group that is loyal to Coin is out for our blood," Finnick spoke. "The rest of 13's soldiers are unaware of their leader's malice and so they're still our allies. We need to keep fighting."
"And we need to find a way to reach Peeta," Cato included. "He needs to know Coin is making an attempt on his life."
"Well then, I propose we move forward," Haymitch suggested. "Fight alongside our brothers-in-arms. But spread out as to not draw attention to ourselves. We don't know who is in on Coin's plan. We'll head towards the mansion and pray we'll find Peeta along the way."
The tributes and mentors scattered into the sea of rebels, blending in with the rest of 13's troops. What they weren't aware of was that Pollux was still holding his camera, following them boldly through battle and filming everything. Beetee and Foxface trailed him closely, not wanting to be left behind. What Pollux didn't know was that his camera was hooked up to send a live feed of the action straight back to Coin. The district 13 president watched members of the Star Squad surviving her bombs and was now aware that the remaining tributes and mentors were alerted to her murderous plot against them. There was no way in hell she could let them live now. The longer they lived, the greater the risk of her plan's exposure. Her only option: do whatever it took to destroy them. She sent another hovercraft headed straight for the battlefield; a battlefield filled with the scattered Star Squad, peacekeepers, shell-shocked Capitol civilians, and her own district 13 soldiers.
The remnants of the Star Squad moved through the rebel lines, fighting the barrage of peacekeepers while also keeping an eye out for Peeta and his sniper team. As they made their way further to the front lines, the battle zone became utter pandemonium. Bullets whirled past, bodies littered the streets, screams of civilians caught in the crossfire flooded the city. Cato looked over just in time to see a bullet explode into Foxface's skull, knocking her body violently to the curve of the street. The blood pooled quickly and drained into the sewer, the Career shaking his head at the waste. She shouldn't have even been out here. She was with the Intelligence Sector, like Beetee. She wasn't trained for this. She didn't even have a helmet.
The adrenaline coursed through Cato's veins as he continued forward. Clove and Marvel soon joined up with him again and they pushed their way through the rebel lines. The Careers were killing anyone and anything that crossed their paths. The chaos was unreal. An entire life's training for the arena couldn't compare to the amount of bloodshed before them. War was truly hell.
As the battle raged on, the Capitol took desperate measures. Despite peacekeepers and civilians remaining in the city streets, all the disarmed pods were turned back on. One of the pods detonated and the earth began to move under their feet. Another pod detonated and steam began to shoot up from the cracks of the pavement. The city streets became a real life hades, rising up from the ground to swallow the earth and its living. Those too close to the cracks burned alive, their agonized screams echoing off the buildings with the sound of endless gunfire.
The Careers dodged the deadly fissures running along the pavement only to be shaken by the sound of another logo-less hovercraft approaching the battlefield. They quickly took cover in a looted shop along the street. As they hunkered down, prepared for the coming blasts, Cato spotted Peeta and his team far off in the distance. "I see Peeta!" he exclaimed to the others. The tall blonde jolted up from the safety of the shop to run after him, but Marvel quickly grabbed him by his bulletproof vest and pulled him back down as it began to rain parachutes; hundreds more than before. Rebels and peacekeepers alike looked up to the sky in naïve curiosity at the silver packages adorning the atmosphere. Some even foolishly grabbed them out of the air when they violently exploded in their hands. The sheer number of exploding parachutes was enough to fill the entire street with fire, halting the battle as everyone, soldier and civilian alike, hopelessly ran for their lives.
Peeta, Boggs, and Mitchell were closer up to the front lines, oblivious to President Coin's murder plot that had been exposed to the others. They were busy fighting the peacekeepers when they heard the explosion of parachutes from the rear of the rebel forces. They turned swiftly around to see the parachutes dropping closer and closer to them. They knew from previous experience what was about to happen.
"Take Cover!" Boggs barked.
Peeta and Mitchell quickly followed command as they sought refuge in an alleyway. They yelled for the other rebel men to join them, but the other soldiers were too oblivious to see the danger that dropped from above. Sure enough, the seemingly harmless parachutes began to explode.
"The others!" Peeta screamed, eyes wide with horror, reflecting the fiery scene unfolded before him. Flames engulfed the buildings all around the young boy. It brought him back to the moment in the arena when the forest had been set ablaze, the flames following him and Katniss, chasing them down to engulf their bodies; to engulf everything. He felt the arena around him all over again.
With fire encasing the sniper team, there was no way out of the alleyway; at least not above ground. A wall of flame separated them from the thousands of warring men as Mitchell hoisted up a manhole cover, opening the entrance to the darkness of the Capitol sewer line. They crawled into the underground sewer system as Boggs reprogrammed the Holo to project the twisting maze of subterranean tunnels. Peeta remained in soldier mode, focused on the task at hand. But the unknown fates of all those he cared for that were left behind amid the fire storm above weighed heavy in the back of his mind. The sooner he succeeded in his mission, the sooner this would all be over. The men trudged on, making straight for the mansion underground.
When the parachutes stopped exploding, the Careers precariously ventured back out to the streets. They took stock of the massacre as hundreds of blackened bodies from both sides were scattered throughout the battlefield. "Peeta!" Cato desperately cried as he ran through the sea of corpses to where he last saw the boy. There was no sign of Peeta, but Cato stopped dead in his tracks as he spotted dark, hairy shadows sprinting into an alleyway, slithering down an open manhole to the sewer. They were definitely not human. The Careers raised their guns in defense, but the creatures paid no mind to their presence as they continued descending underground.
"Those were mutts!" Clove realized.
"Why would they be going into the sewer? We're right here." Marvel pondered.
Clove's eyes glassed over then. "Because there's something more important than us in the sewer… I think I know where Peeta's team went."
Clove's deduction sent Cato into a frenzy. "They're going after Peeta! We have to stop them!"
Without hesitation, the Careers perilously followed the mutts into the underbelly of the Capitol, unfazed by the odds that they would never see the light of day again.