A/N: The final battle… Wow… Well, thanks for sticking with me for so long! Just here to let you know that this is NOT the last chapter of Radioactive, because I'm going to write an epilogue for sure and maybe the Victory Tour/winning interview but the last two are doubtful. There will be at least one more chapter!

Do you have any requests as to scenes to write from other characters' points of view? If not, I'll just move on to the last chapter/epilogue but if you have questions/want to see something from someone else's eyes other than Nate's, tell me and I'll write it! Ok, thanks if you read this whole A/N, and enjoy!

Elijah stares me in the face. His blue eyes stare at me seriously and I know that he's not joking with me anymore. Not that he ever was before, but he doesn't look annoyed or irritated or angry anymore, like he has been. We stare at each other for a long time, and then the word comes out of his mouth.

"Win."

"I'll try-"

"No. You have to win."

"Elijah, I-"

"Sh," he says, and I shut up. "Since you got here, all you've been about is avenging me. It's how you've been thinking since I died! Now is the time. 23 others have passed, leaving you and Cliff. Cliff Archer, remember? His brother killed me in the Games."

I feel agitated again, quiet suddenly. I forgot all about that until now.

"Dill's not all that bad of a guy, actually. But Cliff is. He has to die. Good must win over evil!"

"But Elijah, I've done so much killing already! Priscilla's right, I've become a hypocrite. All I've been about was how I would be such a better Victor than Platinum, and avenge you, but… I haven't been living up to any of it at all. Cliff is a person, just like me, and he has a big family back home. And I frankly dunno if I can do it!"

He stares at me and starts to look agitated. "Goddammit, boy! If you can't kill Cliff for me, why don't you do it for Cutter?!"

"Well… Cutter's death-"

"There is no way you can look around it. Cliff killed Cutter. Do it for him."

"You're right…" I sigh.

"Do it for all of them. Do it for me. For Cassia and Talon, for Valentina and your parents and my Dad. You have so much, don't throw it away now, of all times! You're set to win!"

"Elijah, I'm set to lose! I almost lost to him once already!"

"Nate, this is the battle of your life. All those times when we used to play good versus evil… that's you right now! In real life! You are the good, Cliff is the evil!"

"I don't trust your judgment, Elijah. You're in my head, you're just projecting my biased judgment-"

"Yes, but keep in mind that I also said that Dill isn't that bad a person. He's actually a little like the overprotective older brother I was always glad I didn't have. Anyways, though, that's not the point. You have to fight, Nate. And you have to win."

"I'll try to win! But-"

"Nate…" Elijah's voice quivers as he stares at me with wide eyes. "There is no trying anymore. This isn't just a game anymore. Tomorrow, you either win or you die. Cutter and Priscilla aren't there to save you anymore."

"They shouldn't have been there to save me the first time," I mutter.

"Please, just… Don't do anything stupid," he whispers with a shaky voice.

"I'll try, but-"

"Trying is not an option! Losing is not an option… It never was. Do not do anything dumb Nate McIalwain, or else I swear to God!"

I swallow hard and finally nod. "Ok. I will win the Games."

He sniffles and nods. "I have faith in you. We're all rooting for you."

I nod, trying not to cry.

Elijah is obviously hurting for me as he whispers, "Volunteering was probably the dumbest thing you could've done. But… I'm sorry. I'm sorry this had to happen to you."

There's a pause and I just nod.

"And Nate?" he asks timidly. I glance over, "Huh?"

He swallows hard but keeps his eyes on mine as he tries to hold back tears.

"I just wanted to tell you that…. I love you."

I nod and try to figure out what that means as he disappears.

Soon, though, I'm left in a dreamless void of black.

I wake up that morning feeling numb. But now I know that losing is not an option. I stretch and go to get breakfast and fill up the canteens.

I wonder how the final battle is going to work. Last year, the final two were right together when it was announced that they were the final two. This year, I have no idea where Cliff is, and hopefully he has no idea where I am, either.

As I sit by the stream, I hear a beeping in the sky and look up to see a parachute floating to me. I force a smile as I jump to get it. When I look inside I see a small bottle of apple juice and a piece of paper. I open up the paper first and read the note.

Don't give up Cupcake. He might be strong but you're smarter, and faster. I need YOU by my side, not him. –Platinum

P.S. The apple juice isn't the only thing in there.

I blink at the paper before folding it up and putting it in my pocket. Then I look back in the container before pulling out something that I recognize as soon as I hold it out in the light.

It's a crescent-shaped stone that was carved by a little girl into a perfect three-dimensional crescent shape. It's Priscilla's token.

I have no idea how Platinum got it, and I'm not sure how it makes me feel. The main feeling I get out of it is determination, though. To win this thing for her, and for Cutter, and for everyone else I left behind and everyone else I betrayed, and even to everyone else that I'm trying to save.

I can't let Talon do anything dumb and I can't let Trevor force Nickolas into the Arena. I have to go back. So I hold Priscilla's rock in my hand for a long while before slowly dropping it into my pocket and drinking some of the apple juice.

I eat the rest of the District 2 bread for breakfast, reminding myself how I have to go back there. I drink apple juice, telling myself that there is no apple juice in the afterlife, even though I would sure hope there would be. Then I pack up lightly for the final battle, only taking some food, the flashlight that used to be Cutter's, and my sword.

Suddenly I hear an echoing voice that is recognizable to be that of Octavian Spencer.

"Attention, tributes!" I stop what I'm doing to listen.

"Twenty-four tributes were placed in the Arena on Day One. Now, on Day Twelve, two of you are left. Congratulations on making it this far. The final battle begins now." The sun sets quickly, like someone is controlling it with the tip of their finger, and it becomes twilight, just like it was on the first day. My heart pounds out of my chest because when I glance over, I notice a tall, dark figure that belongs to Cliff Archer.

"And… May the odds be ever in your favor," Octavian finishes darkly.

"What the hell's that supposed to mean…?" Cliff mutters to himself. There's a long silence that follows before he attacks, and I take it as an opportunity to prepare. After all, I'm past the point of rescue.

I am radioactive.

And I am going win the Hunger Games.

Cliff suddenly runs at me, his giant blade raised. I put up my sword to face him, until I hear something breathing.

It isn't me.

And it isn't him.

He gets to me and attacks, but soon I think he hears it too and he freezes. The breathing comes closer and closer, and he stumbles backwards.

Cliff looks kind of awful. His dirty blonde hair is greasy and plastered to his forehead, he lacks a shirt, he's thinner than I saw him last and he still has open wounds from Priscilla and Boeh. He breathes heavy and his weak, gray-green eyes don't leave me.

"Wh-what is that?" he asks under his breath, in a husky whisper, looking down at me, "Wh-what are they sending on us?"

There's a pause before I reply.

"I think it's gonna be the cause of death for one of us."

We exchange a terrified glance and then look back at the mutts. I see pairs of glowing blue eyes and snouts, and they're everywhere. I turn around and try to run but soon I see sharp teeth and hear snarling.

"This isn't fair," he says quietly, "Nothing about any of this is fair, going all the way back to how the Capitol started the rebellion in the first place by being rude to the Districts, up until now, when they choose to send mutts on this so that nobody can die a quick death."

I never thought I'd hear such words of wisdom come out of a guy I hate.

The mutts step closer and I stumble backwards, running into him. He whips around but doesn't attack. "Well?" he asks.

"We're surrounded," I say in a low voice, sword raised.

He looks down at me, frowning, before he heaves a sigh and says, "Then I guess one of us is mutt meat."

He raises his sword and I do the same. He nods and I nod back, and then the final battle begins. He goes for the stab, while I try to reopen some of the cuts he had and weaken him. I don't know why he's so concerned with killing me quickly, but I can't think about it now.

I think of what Cutter's body must have looked like, and Elijah dying on the ground and saying my name. The more I think about home: my friends and family, and the many reasons I have to defeat him, the stronger I get. Soon he gets weaker, and as that happens, I'm able to open up more and more of his wounds. I get the last leg of the triangle on his chest and he hits my hip hard with the sword, where Boeh stabbed me yesterday, and I cry out, hunching over.

Cliff suddenly collapses at my feet, and I notice his terrible back, imagining that it's what mine looked like when Priscilla and Cutter saw it. I stumble backwards again, and that's when the mutts attack. I swing at them with my sword and get scratched and bitten at until one of them pounces on me and sends me crashing to the ground. I bring my sword up and stab it, and it collapses with a whimper, and I feel one bite my arm and another scratch my abdomen.

Suddenly, one of them howls, and the others get off me and go running to the place where I saw Cliff collapse. He screams and yells out, and it sounds like he's trying to get out words. I see him fight them off enough to get up and try to make his escape, running toward me. "Please!" he shouts, but whatever else he was going to say is cut off by the pack pounding on him and continuing to rip him apart.

"Please!" he shouts again, and then he yells out the loudest of all with an, "AAARRGGH!" sound, and then there's silence. I run far away from all of them and wait to hear a cannon, though I'm bleeding and feel like I might pass out if this goes on much longer.

As I sit by myself, I wish I would've killed him. I wish I would've killed him quickly like he was trying to do to me. Even Platinum gave his ally a merciful death killing him with a sword through the heart before he could die by falling. I didn't, though. He's still getting eaten by those crazy wolf mutts, and it's all my fault.

I wash my face off at the stream and decide that everything is behind me now. It's finally occurred to me that everyone in my Arena, and everyone in Platinum's, is gone. Priscilla and Ashely are gone. Cutter is gone. Paulina is gone. Champagne, Drake, Crickette, Henry, Kepler, Jessie, Heidi, gone. Melanie and Azure, gone. Axis, Flounder, Juniper, Birch, gone. Cliff, Dill, Boeh… Yeah, they're gone, too.

Elijah is gone.

And I'll never get him back. And now… Now that I've avenged him, now that I've lived through the Hunger Games, I've come to accept that.

Suddenly, the wolves run past me, and Cliff's cannon booms.

And I am the Victor of the Second Hunger Games.

And I have a feeling that I'll no longer be seeing Elijah in my dreams.