ME: Back to the battle. A/N: The language will be coarse here; if you aren't experienced with military-grade swearing, you may wanna skip this chapter.
It had cost more than a few brave Loyalist men and women their lives, but they had done it; the rebel infantry battalion had been defeated. Hundreds of the gray-uniformed soldiers lay dead or dying in front of them, the remainder either retreating or surrendering.
But the price for their victory was high. The infantry had taken a beating, with their armored support even more savagely mauled. Two of their tanks had been destroyed-one had been taken out by a pair of Thirteen tanks, the other by a lucky rebel mortar round while in pursuit of fleeing rebel APCs. Another had a tread blown off, while the fourth (and the platoon commander's) had been disabled by an anti-tank missile. A number of APCs, including both of the SSS ones (having returned after delivering their prisoners to a hovercraft, probably), had been reduced to smoldering wrecks like their rebel counterparts.
Three rebels ran to take cover behind one of their now-destroyed tanks. Enobaria fired a burst from her assault rifle at one of the soldiers but missed due to the recoil.
The gray-clad men evidently noticed, for the trio fired back at her in retaliation. Like her they missed but the bullets came way too close for the Lieutenant's comfort, forcing her to take cover.
She glanced at the back of her magazine; only two bullets were visible, meaning she had three shots left (unless the one in the chamber had jammed). They would all be blind-shots, but she had to make them count.
Enobaria switched to semi-auto and squeezed the trigger three times. The Peacekeeper's third shot proved to be the charm, for a man cried out in pain before yelling in a District Ten accent, "I'm hit! I'm hit!"
"Ramirez, what's your status?" A second voice asked, also in a Ten accent.
"I'm outta ammo, Foley!" Was the reply from Ramirez.
"Me too! Listen, I got Dunn! You take him out before he can kill us!"
Enobaria snorted as she reloaded her assault rifle; evidently the armor she wore kept the rebels from differentiating between genders.
"FRAG OUT!"
"MOTHERFUCKER!" The Peacekeeper screamed as the grenade landed at her feet. She jumped on it but fortunately the damn thing proved to be a dud, for it didn't explode. Just to be on the safe side, she grabbed the frag and threw it at the rebels. It still didn't detonate.
"Rebel soldiers," Flavius announced via megaphone, "this is Major Flavius. By National Security Decree of our National Government's head of state, President Coriolanus Snow, you are prisoners of war in the custody of the Panem Peacekeeping Force. Surrender and lay down your weapons or we will be forced to use lethal force."
"How come we should trust you people enough that you won't just kill us now?" Said a young woman in her late teens or early twenties with a District Seven accent, more weary than anything else. Apart from her blue eyes, she resembled Johanna Mason very closely.
"Because we are Boys and Girls in White," Enobaria replied. "We're the good guys as a certain Warrior Academy Cadet would say, civilized people; just because your side, on numerous occasions, has shown signs of pure barbarism does not mean we will."
"Loyalists, civilized?" Sneered a dark-skinned rebel from behind a tank-judging by his voice and accent, he must've been Foley. Their weapons were tossed over, but they looked like they were still defiant. "Defending Snow and his Gamemakers and firebombing all of District Twelve over a seventeen-year old girl and her baby-daddy without even evacuating your own buddies first is not civilized, you people are the barbarians!"
"Yeah!" Yelled another man, most likely Dunn due to his shoulder wound. "You guys can go take your Peacekeeper propaganda and shove it up your asses!"
"Very well, then," Enobaria replied calmly. "Take your rebel lies and shove them farther up your own, Dunn. Do you want another bullet in your shoulder?"
"Hey, that bullet's in there because of you!" Dunn snapped. "You know how hard it is to bake with this kinda arm?"
"Baking?" Foley chuckled. "Damn, man, you're spoiled. Ramirez and yours truly spent our days on a ranch."
"Okay, Foley, so getting to eat more stale bread makes you spoiled, huh? Is that how it is?"
Enobaria remembered learning about District Ten in school. They, along with District Seven, got more food allocated to them by the Ministry of District Affairs than Districts Six, Eight, Nine, Eleven and Twelve due to their physical labor requiring more nutrition. Their bread was the descendant of something called Texas toast, and when actually toasted (the bread itself, like it's ancestor, was simply twice as thick as normal sliced bread) it was made via putting butter on both sides and broiling/grilling it until lightly golden brown. Garlic and cheese were optional seasonings.
The SSS Lieutenant tapped her radio. "This is Lieutenant Antonia Lopez near Sub-District Zero to Command, requesting pickup for Echo Papa Whiskies. I say again, we have undesirables for the reeducation camps in need of transport near Sub-District Zero. How copy, over?"
"Negative on transport, Lopez," another SSS member replied over the channel. "When they were half-way there, the convoy was ambushed by a rebel hovercraft supporting hostile foot-mobiles. Only one of the trucks wasn't destroyed. However, a large number of prisoners escaped from it when the truck was overturned. Two were confirmed by the responding hovercraft before it was shot down as olive-skinned youths with black hair and gray eyes, a male and a female. We've already gotten their profiles circulated, over."
"Roger that, Command," the Lieutenant, who Enobaria now knew as Lopez, replied. "Lopez out."
"You fuckers!" Claudia snapped at the insurgent POWs.
"What is it, girl?" A male Thirteener taunted.
"You're fucking fighting for a heinous regime that executes non-heterosexuals!"
"Fuck you!" A man with an Eleven accent shouted back. "You're a damn Loyalist, how are the Games better?"
"And if you are a NonCon," the Thirteener continued before Claudia could reply, "I hope you-."
BANG!
The Thirteener screamed in pain while clutching his now-bleeding crotch.
"Anyone else in the mood for my answer to homophobic insults?" Claudia asked.
"Okay," another Thirteener said. "That guy's my brother, but he's a total tool. And an asshole."
"How are you guys ranked?" Carney asked the prisoners.
A political officer smirked before stepping forward. "Under the glorious leadership of President Alma Coin, all of the enlisted are Proletarian Soldiers for scientific socialism! They do not subscribe to such classist notions as rankings!"
"So do you guys basically suck each other's dicks to become squad leaders and stuff?" Claudia asked. "Or lick if the officer's a chick?"
The Commissar was furious, but another Thirteener stopped him. "Fuck it, yeah. That's the closest analogy to ranks in our military and how we get promoted."
"Start getting your dead on the funeral pyre then, scientific socialists," Flavius ordered. "After we strip them of weapons and personal belongings, of course. You can keep photos and dog tags, possibly other items as well."
Enobaria looked to her left and found four Loyalist soldiers with their helmets off. One reminded her of a brown-haired and brown-eyed Peeta Mellark with his height, though the resemblance ended there because of his much bulkier build, Cadet uniform and Gladius sword, which he complained about not getting to use. There were two cousins with crossbows who facially resembled Katniss Everdeen and her cousin Gale Hawthorne but were blue-eyed blondes, the girl being considerably taller at 5'9 rather than 5'2. The oldest of the bunch, a man with blonde hair and blue eyes, looked otherwise like an older version of disgraced Victor Haymitch Abernathy but looked much fitter and appeared to be at worst a heavy drinker instead of an alcoholic waste-of-life.
Remarkably enough, now both Irons and Nero were singing a song the former had apparently composed. Claudia provided the instrumental part via a harmonica.
"For battle prepared in their country's just cause,
Their homeland to defend and support all it's laws,
As fierce as the tiger, as swift as the bullet,
The Warior Academy Cadets charge on their foe."
Instrumental
Though rebels unnumbered oppose their education,
Their hearts are undaunted; they're strangers to fear;
No obstacles hinder, relentless they go,
And death and destruction await their traitorous opponents."
Instrumental
The alarm of the drum and the cannon's loud roar,
The grenade's quick flash but inflames them the more,
No dangers horrify them, for they fear no control,
But glory and honor inspires every soul."
Instrumental
Whenever their foe stands arranged in their sight,
With utter impatience they pant for the fight,
Rout, havoc and confusion they spread through the field,
And rebellion and treason are forced to yield."
ME: A/N: "Warrior Academy Cadets" is based off the song "British Light Infantry," a song sung by British soldiers during the American Revolution, composed by an American Loyalist. It was inspired by a similar adaptation in T.J.98's A Peacekeepers Nightmare. The reason District Ten is fed better in my headcanon (and ForFutureReference's) is due to pragmatism; you can't have skinny Seam kids herding cattle. Foley, Dunn and Ramirez are based off an obvious trio from COD MW2. "NonCon" is a Thirteen-originated slur for LGBTs and asexuals that's short for "non-contributing." The name of the SSS Lieutenant is a feminized version of the real name of Mexican dictator Santa Anna. The four Loyalists Enobaria sees are OCs of mine that are, in order of appearance: Hercules; Diana and Apollo; Bacchus. Three guesses for the reasons behind the quadruplet's names, dear readers. And why they all resemble the actors for four specific main characters from Twelve.