Me: This time, you readers (and Gale) will experience combat not from Enobaria's perspective but from that of a Capitolite named Julia Flickerman.
"I may not be a Career or a Peacekeeper, but I am my father's daughter. I will prove myself worthy of his bloodline today and become a Warrior of Panem."
That was Julia's internal mantra as she fought alongside the Boys and Girls in White. She now had an assault rifle taken from the SSS rapists, and she was glad that her short hair wasn't irritating with a helmet on (fortunately, she had been granted a vest for protection back in the Capitol, only undecorated unlike Stephanos's) unlike a bun.
Her magazine was capable of holding one-hundred rounds; she would make use of each and every one of them. Luckily the backing was transparent, so she could see how many bullet were left and thus not have to guess; being incorrect about ammunition was a death sentence on the battlefield.
"For the victims of the Dark Days!" Julia yelled, gunning down one rebel with a three-round burst. "Death to the war mongerers from District Thirteen!"
Every Capitol citizen not addicted to debauchery knew what had happened to their city during the previous Rebellion, Julia remembered as she fought for her the troops and her friends next to her.
The Capitol had been built upon a reservoir (once know as Kinbasket Lake, after the chief of a pre-North American Tribe of indigenous people) in the former province of British Columbia, part of the North American nation known as Canada. Similar to the offshore oil rigs employed by both of the great North American civilizations (which Panem, of course, had surpassed since they no longer relied on fossil fuels and thus avoided needlessly polluting the Earth via increasingly depleted energy sources), the city was built on a platform anchored directly to the bottom of the lakebed. Due to this and the surrounding Rocky Mountains, it was impossible to get into the Capitol unless via air, water or a Maglev tunnel.
This geographic advantage protected the citizens of the Capitol well; the one time boats were used by the rebels to invade from the north, the amphibious assault force was entirely wiped out and not one of the attackers escaped alive. Both an electromagnetic force field and conventional AAW systems largely annihilated whatever hovercraft tried to launch an air assault, and the tunnels were fortified by the Peacekeeper Garrison. The rebels fourth strategy, go over the mountains, resulted in the troops being obliterated by air support and artillery strikes.
Then came their fifth strategy.
After stationing their own AA units to protect their foothold near the Capitol, a Kamikaze commando unit destroyed the force field projector, enabling the most inhumane crimes of the war to be committed.
Rebel artillery units, chiefly composed of troops from Districts Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen, bombarded the Capitol with shells and rockets. Everything from white phosphorus to VX gas was used, killing countless civilians and Peacekeepers. In addition to the Games (which Julia found pragmatically unnecessary and morally uncomfortable), Thirteen was (supposedly) destroyed while Eleven and Twelve were knocked down to the bottom of the totem pole of Panem. She had remembered seeing those videos in National History class; Julia had never forgotten the Peacekeepers and civilians who had been victims of the attack. Be they a man, woman, child or infant, all had perished or been horrifically injured because of the rebellious monsters the Rebellion produced.
"FOR THOSE YOU GASSED!" The young Capitolite yelled, killing another rebel with a shot to the neck; she had to switch to semi-automatic to conserve ammunition. "FOR THOSE WHO DIED SO YOUR FAILED REBELLION COULD HAVE A MICROSCOPIC CHANCE AT DECAPITATING THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT!"
Her rifle ran out of ammunition, but she had an underslung shotgun and fired one 12-gauge shell from it, hitting and knocking down one rebel. Mindful of her vulnerability, Julia then took cover to reload.
"OH GOD! OH GOD!" A Thirteen accent cried out. "PLEASE DELIVER ME!"
A theist?
The woman froze; she had known religion to be a capital offense, but never saw the point in regulating harmless internal beliefs. And the man was dying anyway; let the rebel-no, human being she had the misfortune of killing in self-defense; no true communist cared for their own soul or believed in anything but their failed ideology-speak.
"Though I am not worthy that y-you should enter u-under my r-roof," the voice continued, weaker, "say the w-word and m-my s-soul h-healed."
Julia reloaded and popped her head up just as a stolen Peacekeeper MRAP drove into view, since all the rebel tanks and a lot of their APCs had been destroyed by their Loyalist counterparts; the damn thing had a remotely-operated turret, so all she could do was take cover and pray to whatever higher power existed (she was surprised at doing the latter) that the rebel .50 cal bullet would just end her life painlessly.
Suddenly there was an explosion, and she looked up to see the MRAP. It was now a smoldering wreck-while great at surviving IEDs, small arms and land mines, the things were not great at protection from anything more dangerous than a .50 caliber FMJ or JHP round.
Turning to her right, Julia saw Stephanos clutching a rifle with a grenade launcher attached similar to her shotgun.
"Thanks!" She yelled quickly, covering him as he reloaded.
"You're welcome," the actor replied calmly, as if he didn't warrant praise. "Mother raised a gentleman. And I appreciate your help."
Most of rebels stayed back out of self-preservation; their rationality and supplying of covering fire enabled one suicide-bomber to make it through.
Julia was horrified as she aimed her rifle, knowing she'd have to get a headshot or risk doing the insane woman's job for.
The bomber smiled and help up her right hand before screaming in a Seven accent, "LONG LIVE THE MOCK-."
A sword sliced through the air; as the woman screamed, Julia reflected that the insane idiot should've just detonated her suicide vest.
Publius wielded the Gladius-with his right boot, he delivered a well-aimed roundhouse kick to the would-be bomber's chest. The moment the Sevener (she had heard that nickname before-Onesies, Twofers, Fivers, Sixers, Niners, Eleveners, Twelvers and Thirteeners were the other nicknames for citizens based on their home district) hit the ground, he stomped on her left wrist, undoubtedly to keep her from grabbing the detonator.
It worked; evidently the monster's wrist was fractured, for she screamed even louder.
"DEATH TO THE MOCKINGJAY'S ARMY!" Her assistant screamed, using his sword to slice through the rebel's throat. "DEATH TO THOSE WHO WOULD MURDER MY FRIENDS FOR THEIR BIRTHPLACE!"
"Fuck you!" Manius yelled, undoubtedly at the rebels. "Fuck you, ya dicks!"
"Where's your brother, Manius?" She asked him, making sure to keep her eyes on the battlefield because her head was exposed.
"Fighting with some Twofer Militia Volunteers, Julia!" He replied; she didn't mind him using her first name, and never would be a stickler for formalities with her crew again. "Two cousins, the female's fiancé and some hard-drinking quarry foreman! You okay?"
Julia did not verbally reply. Instead, she finished pulling the pin on the frag grenade she had and threw it, releasing the safety lever and thus igniting the pyrotechnic delay element; she gave her answer to the enemy.
ME: Talk about a baptism by fire. A/N: Manius's line is only slightly altered from what a US Force Recon Marine said in combat. And yeah, I have the Capitol in Canada. The Rocky Mountains there provide a better barrier against invasion described in the books than in CONUS, and since the movie features a dam nearby I, like my friend ForFutureReference, put it in the Kinbasket Lake area. You have him to thank, check out his work; it's much better than Twilight (not that I've ever read those sparkling vampire novels). Similarily, I have District Thirteen in Quebec due to the uranium and graphite resources and the only other area in Panem that's entirely in Canada. So yeah, my fellow Americans, in the future we shall be oppressed by Canadians with gaudy fashion taste or deceived into helping them like the Western Allies were with Stalin. For those of my readers who are Anglo-Canadians (or at least not French/Quebecer), yes, your annoying little brother on your east coast will have her people turn into a gray-wearing culture of cave-dwelling communists.