ME: Now it's time for a twist. A/N: Interlude.

"Major Flavius?"

"Yes, sir?"

Though the Head Peacekeeper wore a helmet (both for protection against bullets and fragmentation/shrapnel and to keep rebel sharpshooters from recognizing him), Enobaria could tell that Remus Thread was glad he didn't have to put on a false face of energy for the cameras.

"What are those two Cadets doing, along with everyone else beyond the barricades?" The Major General asked.

Flavius glanced at them. "Carney is having them retrieve dog tags from the dead rebels, sir. We'll have their corpses cremated as soon as they're done; the others are scavenging the dead bodies for supplies and weapons."

One of her Peacekeepers, a fresh recruit who had undergone a baptism of fire fighting in the Outskirts, retrieved a magazine from a dead rebel and inserted it into his assault rifle before test-firing it and sending a burst of bullets into the chest of said rebel.

Claudia only glanced at the Private while Nero glared at him. "Dude, what the hell? He's already dead, don't desecrate the corpse!"

The Peacekeeper grunted and shrugged. "Hey, chill! I'm just testing to see if these Thirteen bullets work as well as ours do!"

"Test them on something else, then," Nero replied.

"Hey, man," the Private defended himself, "Carney threw a fucking head at the POWs."

"That doesn't matter," the Cadet replied.

"Then why bitch at me but not Top? Too much of a mama's boy to risk it with a non-com?"

Nero sighed. "I probably should've said something beforehand, but that ship's sailed. What matters is what we're doing now."

The seventeen-year old boy was both naive and a breath of fresh air for Enobaria. Naive in that standards had long broken down with the Destruction of District Twelve and other war crimes; a breath of fresh air in that he still attempted to follow said standards.

"Major," Thread went on, "I'd like you to meet Stephanos Irons, AKA Centurion Panem. Julia Flickerman here is the director of the crew, and yes she's Caesar Flickerman's niece. The young man with the shaved head is her assistant, Publius. The two cameramen are Manius and Marcus."

The Ministry of Enlightenment and Information crew was a diverse bunch. Enobaria already knew Irons had blue eyes like her, and judging by his eyebrows was a blonde. Julia Flickerman had wisely opted to cut her hair short, and as such had a butch haircut that was popular amongst female Peacekeepers for practicality. Her assistant Publius went farther and shaved his head bald; to the Lieutenant's annoyance, his right cheek featured a Peacekeeper tattoo. Was this worthless poser compensating for something? The two cameramen, Manius and Marcus, were clean-shaven and resembled each other enough that she thought they were brothers; additionally, they looked ordinary by Capitolite standards and probably came from humbler origins like Carney.

"What's with the tattoo?" She asked Publius, trying and failing to conceal her anger.

"Got it to remember my enlistment," the assistant replied.

"Wait, what?"

Publius smiled before shaking his head. "Being a Lieutenant-I memorized the rank insignias-you probably know most Capitolite enlistees sign up out of debt, assuming they aren't some thrill-seeking moron with too much wanderlust. But not too many sign on to relieve their relatives of debt."

He paused, letting it sink in. "My moron of a brother ended up more or less bankrupt; then my parents made me enlist or they'd disown me and cut me off from my rightful inheritance. Luckily, I got injured in training and left with an honorable discharge. Then I got this tattoo, so every day when I wake up in the morning and look in the mirror to shave I know what I could've ended up as."

"Could've ended up as?" The Lieutenant snapped. "You think you're too good for Peacekeeping, Publius?"

"Not at all," he replied. "I just never wanted to be a Boy in White, Lieutenant. It's easier to take pride in something when you're not forced into it."

Enobaria nodded before glancing at his superior. "Why are you at the front, Miss Flickerman? Isn't your job a bit dangerous for a niece of the Host of the Hunger Games?"

The Capitolite woman nodded. "Indeed, but I wanted to do this job because of my father. He volunteered and became a Peacekeeper; his right leg was blown off by a bomb during his fifth year of service. He never had four Praetorians to protect him."

The District Two native was shocked. The MOEI crew was definitely a cut above the socialites that populated the Capitol.

Julia Flickerman tapped her earpiece before speaking again. "Egeria wants us on the air in t-minus two minutes, people. I was told there was a Victor from District Four named Lawrence Fisher here?"

"Indeed," Lawrence replied. "You want me on camera, Julia-may I call you Julia, Miss?"

"Yes to both questions," she answered. "One minute."

The countdown started. "In five, four, three, two, one..."

Julia smiled for the cameras. "Greetings, citizens of Panem! This is Julia Flickerman reporting live from District Two, where brave Peacekeeper and Loyalist Militia soldiers have successfully fended off a savage attack on the evacuation efforts taking place in this fine District's Central City! And I have the privilege of interviewing one of the fighters; Lawrence Fisher, Victor of the Seventy-Second Hunger Games, acting Mayor of District Four and Loyalist Militia volunteer!"

"Thank you, Julia," the young Victor answered. "Is there anything you want me to talk about?"

"Yes!" She replied. "Lawrence, there are a lot of people in the Capitol, my uncle Caesar and President Coriolanus Snow himself included, who wish to hear a first-hand account of the war."

His face was somber. "What the Second Rebellion has unleashed upon Panem has been nothing but sorrow and misery. District Twelve was exterminated by hovercraft bombers from Thirteen at the order of Alma Coin, the leader of this terrorist insurrection. And that has been just one cruelty-my own parents were murdered just for not choosing to support the rebels, while the daughter of our housekeeper, a sweet girl named Salacia, was gang-raped before her own execution by these monsters who fly the banner of the Mockingjay." Enobaria noted Julia cringing at the mentioned of Salacia's torture. "Fellow citizens of Panem, this is our mutual enemy-dangerous, cruel, savage and fanatical. The Mockingjay, the 'Girl on Fire' as they call her, only destroys. What we're dealing with is a cancer that cannot merely be irradiated or drugged, but has to be surgically removed."

"Thank you for your time, Lawrence," said the reporter, "you and your sister Laura have my heartfelt condolences."

"Hey, Cadet?" Irons asked. "Mind if I see that SAM launcher?"

"Sure," Nero replied before blinking in horror. "Uh, I mean, sir, yes, sir!"

The actor smiled as he took the weapon. Was he showing off for the cameras? "Thank you, kid."

Enobaria watched as he aimed the SAM launcher. What is he doing-.

Suddenly Irons pulled the trigger, sending a missile out of the launcher. The Lieutenant's trained eyes followed it in spite of her initial shock, then she realized that he must have somehow noticed a cloaked rebel hovercraft.

Approximately one second later, the SAM slammed into the hovercraft. The vehicle plummeted to the ground, it's incendiary munitions detonating and reducing the hovercraft to flaming wreckage.

"HOW THE FUCK DID YOU SEE THAT HOVERCRAFT?!" Claudia Victoria half-questioned, half-yelled. "IT WAS FUCKING CLOAKED!"

"I saw the ripple," answered the Capitolite calmly and casually.

"Stephanos!" Julia yelled. "Minister Egeria, on behalf of President Snow, is asking what just happened?"

Enobaria's opinion of Irons skyrocketed as he answered solemnly. "Mr. President, sir, I just shot down a rebel bomber in District Two, just outside the central city of this fine District. The two terrorists who flew this machine of death intended to bomb civilians evacuating into the arms of our brave Peacekeepers."

Irons stared at one of the cameramen, both of whom were now focusing on him with their helmets. "I saw one of those awful propaganda videos Katniss Everdeen makes. That disgrace of a Victor claimed our forces had bombed a civilian hospital in District Eight, and that we would burn with her." He pointed at the wreckage, once Thirteen gray. "Fire isn't catching, Mockingjay. None of the brave Loyalists here are on fire; we won't burn with you!"

*Nut CIC*

Head Peacekeeper of the Armies Gaius Augustus sighed before running a hand through his thinning hair.

Romulus Thread, one of his best officers, was dead as a doornail, District Two was under siege by rebel troops, the Capitol had sent a civilian news crew into battle and now Loyalist civilians were cramming into the bunkers. He was relieved to know, courtesy of Romulus's brother Remus, that a cloaked rebel bomber that had evaded Fort Cheyenne's radar was now burning wreckage.

"Sir," one of the radar operators reported to Augustus in a Capitol accent, "I got a bogey."

"A bogey?" Augustus replied, surprised it hadn't cloaked itself.

"Affirmative, no transponder on our IFF system." The radar operator typed at his station. "Identified: Subject appears to be a Thirteen design."

"Take it out, then," he ordered immediately. "We have to protect the evacuation."

"Sir," said the operator, "target appears to be a transport model, not a bomber. Repeat, it is a transport. And it's current velocity makes it too slow for a combat model."

"Very well," he conceded. He tapped another Peacekeeper in the CIC on her shoulder. "You, alert our fighters and inform them of the transport. Tell them if it gets aggressive to take it out."

"Yes, sir," she replied before flipping a switch. "This is Minerva to all fighters, we have an enemy transport in our airspace. Repeat, enemy transport in our airspace. If it gets aggressive, shoot it down. I say again, destroy the enemy hovercraft if it gets aggressive."

*Back to the front*

Lawrence checked his medium machine gun. Head Peacekeeper Remus Thread had informed them that Command had detected an enemy hovercraft headed in their direction. Remarkably, it seemed to be a transport instead of a bomber, but Major Flavius had wisely opted to have the triple-A gunners on standby anyway.

The hovercraft landed in front of them, near a soon-to-be funeral pyre for the dead rebels (they hadn't finished it both because of the hovercraft and the lack of POW labor). It was definitely a rebel one, clad in a gray paint job and possessing a District Thirteen seal. However, it possessed red cross markings.

Then the ramp lowered. "Please, don't shoot!" A pair of pilots in gray flight suits, a male and a female, exited. "We're unarmed, unarmed!"

ME: Plot twist and a cliffhanger!