Wow! Thanks again for all of your enthusiastic reviews! We really do enjoy reading your input and comments. And, just as a heads-up, there will be a few… special guests in this chapter!
Well, let's get to business, shall we?
Nine
"Katniss? Katniss?" Peeta whined from behind her, but Katniss ignored him. He trotted a bit faster to keep up, stumbled, and then tripped over a human limb lying in his path. "Stupid limb," he muttered, and then went back to trying to catch up Katniss. "Katniss?" he asked again, catching onto her elbow and tugging on her sleeve. She continued to try to deny his existence. "Katniss? Katniss, Katniss, Katniss?" There was no response. "-"
"WHAT?" she screamed, turning around to face him for the first time. Her face was beet red, and there was a murderous glint in her eye. "What. Do You. WANT?"
"I have to go potty." He blinked up at her with innocent blue eyes as she gaped at him wordlessly.
"O-o-okay, Peeta," she said distastefully as soon as she had regained her power of speech. "You can go in those bushes over there."
"Yay!" Peeta cried joyfully, and took off into the shrubs. Katniss debated fleeing from him while his back was turned, but he came crashing back over before she could put her plan into action. "Katniss!" he wailed. "There isn't a toilet in the bushes!"
Katniss rolled her eyes at his stupidity. "Well, duh," she told him. "We're in the woods. You'll just have to pee on a tree."
"But it's number two!" Peeta sobbed.
"Fine. Dig a hole and crap in it, then."
"Without any toilet paper?" Peeta asked, his eyes wide with horror.
Katniss just shrugged. "Uh, yeah."
"But, but, but… That's poor hygiene." Peeta looked completely terrified at the thought.
"Well, just hold it, then." Katniss snickered. "You probably won't have to wait for very long. You'll be dead soon enough!" She started to move on, but Peeta threw out an arm to stop her.
"Wait!" he exclaimed brightly. "I have an idea!"
"Here we go," Katniss muttered.
"In my Boy Scout Manual, it says that certain wasp nests are made of paper!" He pointed excitedly at a huge wasp nest hanging from a nearby tree. "I can use that!"
"Uh, Peeta…" Katniss started to say, looking fearfully up at the monstrous nest. "I think that that's a-"
"There they are! Get them!" The yell of the large Career Tribute behind her caused her to spin around.
Meanwhile, Peeta had picked up a tiny pebble and was trying to knock the nest down with it. Unfortunately, the rock, which was no bigger than a grain of sand, was too heavy for him. "Katniss, help me!" he called, totally unaware of the charging careers and the panting backup singers behind them, who occasionally gasped out, "Cato… Cato the… Career!"
Katniss looked around, realizing that there was no place for her to run. Then, she glanced back up at the nest, and a plan sprang into her mind.
"Peeta, duck!" she called, and threw the large human limb directly at the nest. It swung wildly, and then fell down – right into Peeta's waiting arms.
"Gotcha!" he called happily.
And then about twenty gazillion Tracker Jackers flew out of the nest and stung him until he was pretty much just one giant pimple.
And then he exploded into a green glob of goo.
Eleven
"Don't. Say. Anything," Katniss ground out, not glancing away from the rabbit her newly-claimed bow was trained on.
"But, Katniss!" Peeta whined, hopping impatiently from foot to foot.
Katniss silenced him with a glare and turned back to her prey. It's so close…
"AAAAAAHH! A BUNNY!" Peeta suddenly screamed at the top of his lungs, and then took off into the bushes. The rabbit, scared out of its scrappy little wits by the outburst, scampered away.
Katniss angrily rounded on Peeta. "What is your floofing problem, you lobster-skulled ninny?"
Peeta glanced out fearfully from behind the shrub he had taken shelter behind. "It could have had rabies," he informed her.
"GAH!" Katniss yelled, and punched a tree in frustration.
Just then, Gale swung in on a large tree vine, jumped off in a stunning triple backflip, and landed on the ground with his legs splayed, ninja-style. In the same movement, he whipped a bow off of his back, strung it, and fired a bullet straight through Peeta's chest. The blonde boy flew over the trees with an ecstatic "Wheeeee!" and disappeared from sight. A cannon fired.
"Gale?" Katniss gasped. "What the hobble-bobbin are you doing here?"
"Hello, Katniss," Gale said in a deep, manly voice. One of Cato's backup singers, who had been caught in a nearby net when fleeing from the Tracker Jackers and forgotten by the rest of the careers, swooned. Without glancing in her direction, Gale fired an arrow straight through the rope that bound the net to its tree. The girl fell twenty feet to the forest floor and was very still. Gale then flashed Katniss a winning smile that caused most of the nearby forest animals to be blinded and televisions to spontaneously combust all over Panem with its sheer brilliance.
Katniss, however, was not impressed.
"So? Why are you here?" she demanded impatiently.
"I came to get rid of that funny little boy that was…" he rolled his eyes once in contempt before continuing. "…Threatening our relationship."
Katniss could only stare at him incredulously. "What the hammerbong are you implying?"
"Well, you did hear him at the interviews," Gale pointed out.
Katniss winced at the memory of that incident. Closing her eyes, she could almost feel the blush of pure hatred that had touched her cheeks the minute Peeta had stepped onto the stage…
Day of the Interviews, Panem:
Peeta walked into the interview wearing a large puke-green T-shirt that said "I LUV KATNISS" on it in sloppy bright red letters. Everyone in the audience began to giggle, and Katniss, who was watching from her chair, felt like she was going to explode with rage.
"Oh, wow, Peeta…" Caesar Flickerman said, forcing his grimace at Peeta's outfit choice into a tight smile. "What… are you wearing?"
"Peeta settled himself down next to Caesar, grinning like an idiot. A very proud idiot. "Well, Portia is still doing group counseling after the last costume incident, so I got to design my own! Look!" He lifted up the baggy T-shirt to reveal a lemon-yellow kilt, and then dipped his head to display his hot pink-and-maroon-striped stocking cap to the audience.
"It's very…nice," Caesar said. His smile had become even more strained when Peeta had shown off his kilt.
"I know!" Peeta said happily. "And I even wrote a song to go along with my shirt!"
And Caesar couldn't hide his look of horror as Peeta whipped out a ukulele and began to screech in a high-pitched warble, "KAAA-AAA-AAATNISS! I looo-ooo-ooove you! I really, really, really, really love you, Katniss! KAAA-AAA-AAATNISS! KAAA-AAA-AAATNISS! KAAA-AAA-AAATNISS, I loooooove you!"
Before he could start on the second verse, however, Peeta fell off of the stage.
Present Day, The Arena:
Katniss shook her head, abruptly pushing the memory away. "Well, yeah, I guess I could see how you thought that," she admitted.
Gale gave her another dazzling grin. This time, the cameras couldn't take it, and they all erupted into gigantic fireballs. Katniss ignored this.
"But Gale, there was never anything going on between us before that!"
"What?" Gale gasped. "But… but… what about the whole "run-off-into-the-wilderness-with-Gale" scenario we were talking about earlier?"
"I only did that because your mom paid me to," Katniss admitted. Gale looked crushed. "I'm sorry, Gale, but my heart has only ever belonged to one person…" Suddenly, Harry Potter swept down on his Firebolt. He honked the built-in broom horn twice, and Katniss jumped on behind him without any hesitation. Harry jerked the broom upward, and the two of them sped away with their lips locked.
Gale watched them go, crestfallen. "Get your own Fandom, you loser," he muttered. Just then, he was trampled by Percy Jackson, Seeley Booth, Richard Cypher, Aragorn, Luke Skywalker, the Winchester Brothers, and Spike as they all raced desperately after the speeding broomstick. As he lay, mangled, on the ground, he was able to moan one last thing. "I… HATE… crossovers!"