ME: Back to Enobaria's adventures. Warning: Not meant for the faint-hearted. A/N: Interlude.
Enobaria raced hot on Manius's heels as he led the Loyalists into Central City.
Depressingly, the whole town seemed deserted. Undoubtedly all of Sub-District Zero's (the official name, even though no one besides bureaucrats used it) residents were either dead, on the frontline as Peacekeepers or Militia volunteers or had long since evacuated to Fort Cheyenne.
A lone female Peacekeeper in a standard uniform stood guard at their destination; an abandoned bakery which had been commandeered and turned into a makeshift cell.
"Open the door!" Cadet Nero yelled, his voice firm and unwavering; the boy sounded like a true warrior now thanks to the fiery crucible of war.
The Peacekeeper held up a hand. "You're just a Cadet, and I have orders-."
"GET OFF OF ME, YOU ASSHOLES!" A female voice shrieked.
Before anyone else could react, Nero suddenly kneed the guard in the groin. "My name's Nero Augustus, and I said OPEN THE DOOR, MOTHERFUCKER!"
Claudia noticeably smiled before opening the door. Her smile faded.
Enobaria saw why. They were clearly too late for the male pilot, who was bleeding out from fatal wounds. The female wasn't much better off (though she'd live), for her flight suit had been torn off and all five of the SSS monsters in view were pulling up their pants.
"What do you want?" Their helmets hadn't been off before, but the Lieutenant recognized the voice and it's signature hubris.
"YOU FUCKING RAPING AND MURDERING BASTARDS!" She yelled.
Homma sighed. "Don't tell me you're one of those Capitolte bleeding hearts-."
Enobaria cut him off with a punch that hurt her hand and all but surely broke his nose.
Lawrence was comforting the dying prisoner, ironically enough given his threatening of both pilots earlier. Julia took off her jacket and gave it to the half-naked girl, who accepted it gratefully and actually cracked a smile at the director.
"What's going on here?" Came the question.
Remus Thread entered the shop, flanked by his two aides.
"Sir," Captain Homma answered, "my men and I were riled up by the bombing. We decided to blow off some steam, you know how it is."
"Blow off some steam?" The Head Peacekeeper hissed.
"I don't even know why I'm here," the guard stated as she was hauled in by Nero. "It's not as if rebels, particularly Thirteeners, are human; the SSS were just dispensing justice for Sal-."
Laura tackled her. "DON'T EVEN THINK OF USING HER NAME, BITCH!"
"Enough!" Thread stated. "Lieutenant Domitius, take these SSS and the guard back to the front; they are to each receive twenty lashings."
"What the hell, sir?" The Head Peacekeeper's senior aide, a Captain, took the words out of Enobaria's mouth. "I served a tour in District Eleven, this is less than half the penalty there for poaching and they just tried to rape a girl on top of murdering a prisoner! Both of those are capital offenses under the Uniform Code of Military Justice!"
Thread didn't comment as the six offenders were taken into custody. "Please, have mercy!" The guard pleaded. "I didn't even do anything!"
"That's right," the Major General replied. "You could've easily tried to stop these criminals, or if you had reasonable fear for your own life gotten help."
The SSS murderers were all flogged bare, while the guard trembled in her tank top as she awaited her taste of the lash.
The Head Peacekeeper walked behind her. "I'll dispense her punishment personally."
Enobaria expected him to get a whip.
What she did not expect Thread to do was draw his sword and decaptiate the guard in one swing.
The SSS's arrogant expressions changed from smug to horrified, and they begged for mercy. Remus, however, wasn't going to let them off with floggings.
The first one simply had his throat sliced by the Head Peacekeeper's knife. The second had his throat properly slit as taught in training, while the third was stabbed in the heart. The fourth and final member of the fireteam was stabbed in the neck quite unceremoniously.
Homma was now crying like a baby and begging for his life, but that did not prevent him from being stabbed in the neck repeatedly until he stopped breathing.
"Let this be a message to all of you!" The Major General announced. "This is not the Mockingjay's army, we are Loyalists! Rape and murder of prisoners shall not be tolerated under any circumstances!"
Lawrence stood next to her, and the Lieutenant noticed the Victor was somewhat drained. What those newly-deceased monsters had done to the pilots was sadism beyond imagination.
"Hey!" A voice yelled.
The two turned to find the female prisoner who nearly became a rape victim. Instead of Julia's jacket, she now wore a blue parka and warm black pants that matched her snow boots.
The girl approached Lawrence. "Thank you for what you did back there, comforting Caeso and everything. Here, take these."
"His dog tags?" Lawrence sounded a hundred years old-the poor guy was twenty-one at most, yet the toll of his experiences had worn him down.
"Just please get them to his father," she said.
"I will, Miss-?"
"Aquilina," she said simply. "I miss him more and more already. Growing up he didn't want to kill anybody, but he was great at physics so he was able to avoid combat by becoming a transport pilot. We were talking about getting married before the Quarter Quell-."
Aquilina stopped talking and started crying instead, holding her face in her hands. Lawrence tried his hand at comforting her, while Enobaria asked an essential question.
"Head Peacekeeper Thread, sir, what about the prisoner?"
He stared at her as though she had told him he had grown a second head. "What prisoner, Lieutenant? All I see is a young female refugee you rescued from would-be rapists."
"You can't just release her!" Snapped the SSS Lieutenant, now the CO of the armband-wearers. "She's an officer of the rebel army, we must interrogate-."
"-a transport pilot?" Thread sneered. "Who your now deceased comrades tried to rape? I know you got your commission from sucking your way to the top, Lieutenant, don't make me take that from you and force you to do it all over again."
The SSS woman was already flustered at having to file out paperwork for Homma, but she didn't press her luck.
ME: Well this was brutal.