A/N: I'm baaack! :D I would like to thank Sasha, Guest, and Olivia for their wonderful name suggestions for Hawthorne jr! I will DEFINITELY be choosing from amongst these amazing lists! :D

The title of this chapter is a reference to The Hulk's famous punch-line (no pun intended), "Hulk SMASH!" ...Just in case you were wondering XD

Oh, and one more thing in case you get confused. When Johanna tells Gale to swing away, she's using a line from the M. Night Shyamalan movie Signs. I love that movie X3

Disclaimer: I do not own The Hunger Games.

Chapter 23: Pinata Bash, Gale Smash~

Oh, God.

Gale stared at the menacing object before him. It stared back. With forever wide, dead, lop-sided eyes, it stared back. But he wasn't going to let it get to him. He really wasn't. No, he thought confidently to himself. He was going to stare that abomination right in the eye, and beat the living shit out of it.

As though in response to his violent thoughts, the colorful neon horse pinata hung happily from the tree branch in oblivious bliss in front of him, taunting him.

Try it, it seemed to say.

Well. We'll just see who was standing when this was all over.

"Okay, everyone, gather round!"

Enobaria motioned for the children to crowd around the object of interest, basking in all its brightly colored glory.

"Okay, now here's what I want everyone to do: everybody gets one turn to hit the pinata, which also means one swing. No more, no less. We'll start with the youngest and move up towards the oldest, as I'm sure we all know how unfair it would be to go the other way."

Gale resisted rolling his eyes.

"Okay, first up is-"

He didn't bother hearing the rest. Instead, Gale decided to tune her out until he got his turn. Which, he was sure, wouldn't be for a very long time. Looking around the circular crowd of children and teens alike, he spotted Katniss and Cato standing idly by at the end. Talking to Peeta, nonetheless.

This time he did roll his eyes.

He turned his gaze away, disgusted with the sight before him. How she could possibly stand to be more than five minutes in that boy's presence, he would never know.

They stood there for Lord knows how long. Maybe a minute, maybe and hour, but it was definitely starting to wane on him. Gale tapped his foot impatiently, and he could tell by the sound of Johanna's insistent chewing that she was getting restless too. Finally, as if by some miracle, Enobaria called his name.

"Hawthorne, get up here!"

Already bouncing with anticipation, Gale had no problem making his way up to the front of the crowd, eager to get his hands on the shiny aluminum bat that the older woman held in her hands.

"Here's your bat," she handed him the object of interest. "And here's your blindfold."

Gale kept from sighing in irritation as he waited for her to fasten the blasted cloth around his eyes. He started to bend down so she could reach but found that it wasn't necessary; she was plenty tall enough. He couldn't help but think how intimidating she must be to kids a third of her height.

Once the blindfold was in place, Enobaria told everyone to back away and make room, and Gale took his stance. Once he was...mostly sure that everyone was out of the way, he gripped the bat with all his might, getting ready to swing. He heard Johanna's voice somewhere behind him.

"Swing away, Hawthorne."

He rolled his eyes behind the blindfold, determined not to pay her any mind.

"Hawthorne, " she said again.

"Swing away."

A few of the teens chuckled behind him, as though they were all in on some joke that only he didn't get.

Ignoring them once more, Gale briefly shook his head to clear his thoughts.

And then he swung.

He swung with all the force he had, and it was a wonderful feeling.

Until he hit something.

Everyone gasped from behind him, and Gale froze in alarm. Had he hit someone? Oh God, who did he hit?! Panicking, he tore the blindfold from his eyes to look at the damage he'd done, half expecting to see a beyond-pissed Enobaria in front of him.

What he saw was far from what he expected.

There, on the ground, was...

...

...

The pinata?

Gale looked around, confused as to why the audience seemed so shocked. Sure, he had swung so hard the entire paper mache horse had snapped from its thin string and now lay on the ground with a giant hole in its stomach, but he hardly thought it was cause for alarm. And besides, it wasn't any different than what any of the other kids did. Or rather, tried to do. Heheh.

Enobaria, apparently the first to recover from the shared shock of the crowd, hesitantly approached him, as though she expected him to swing again at any moment. She blinked several times, as though unbelieving of what she was seeing, and spoke in broken, flabbergasted sentences.

"Uh...I...we...have a winner. Uh, Haw-Hawthorne, the, uh...whole...pinata is yours now."

Gale looked down at the candy leaking out of the pinata's stomach, deciding not to acknowledge that everyone was still deathly silent as he bent down to pick it up. Stuffing some of the sweets back into the gaping hole, he stood back up and held it in his arms, taking out a small Snicker's bar and unwrapping it so he could take a bite.

And that was about the time that all Hell broke loose.

"You killed it!" A little five-year old screeched, horrified.

Gale paused mid-chew, watching in horror as the rest of the little kids jumped to their defense and slowly turned against him.

"Yeah! He killed it!"

"Noooooo!"

"Mister PINATA!"

"WaaaaAAAAHHH!"

His eyes were met with an ever-growing group of crying children, and his ears hurt with their rising upset screeches. He really wasn't sure what to do; he couldn't fix the pinata, but he couldn't just walk away, either. And he had a feeling that offering the dead creature's innards to them wouldn't make matters any better, whether it be candy or not.

"GET HIM!" A little boy called.

And, he was right.

Gale hardly had time to register what was happening, let alone run, as he was swarmed by an endless sea of angry little kids. They hit him and beat him with their little fists, and one even kicked him in the shin. God forbid if they got a hold of the bat. Panicking, Gale tossed the weapon over to Enobaria just before he was tackled to the ground by the sheer strength of a thousand children and he was forced to drop the pinata, candy spilling every which way.

He could hear Enobaria trying to control the little devils, but judging by the continued beating Gale was receiving, her barked orders fell on deaf ears. Like they say, everything went in one ear and out the other when it came to kids.

Fighting his way to a half-sitting position, Gale desperately peeked through the arms of the angry children to try and catch a glimpse of his partner.

"JOHANNA!"

She looked at him expectantly, stepping forward as though ready to spring into action. When she did nothing, he felt anger boil up inside his chest, unbelieving that she was still waiting for him to tell her what to do.

"HELP ME!" He yelled in a 'duh' manner, annoyed that she hadn't done something already.

She nodded, spitting out her gum. "I'm on it!"

Gale watched as Johanna dove toward him, and for a moment, his fears of dying on the cold hard ground underneath a colorful pinata tree were quelled. But then he saw that her attention immediately diverted to the candy strewn across the grass and that she had no intention of helping him, and they sprang right back up again.

Johanna quickly scooped up as much candy and sweets and goodies as she could into her arms, acting fast knowing there were so many oblivious angry little ones just a couple of feet beyond where she crouched. Popping a Jolly Rancher into her mouth, she quickly scrambled to her feet and backed as far away as she could, all but forgetting about Gale.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" He yelled in disbelief as his partner enjoyed his spoils.

Enobaria hit him on the head with the bat.

"OW-"

"NO cussing!"

"Freakin' son of a-!"

He never got to finish that sentence as she lowered the bat again.

A/N: Poor Gale, getting mobbed by a bunch a lil' kids X( I was gonna have him hit someone with the bat, but I figured it would be too unfortunate for the person on the other end D:

I have decided to skip the watermelon eating contest, because I feel like it's kind of out of place, since they're supposed to be games for little kids and all (do you know any kid that can eat an entire watermelon?) and so I think I'll be replacing it with an old-fashioned game of tug-of-war. Boys vs girls, of course. We'll see.

I also have an iTunes playlist for this story, a soundtrack of sorts. I'm thinking about sharing it, but then again you all probably have your own tunes to jam to while reading this, if you're the musical type XD

Anyway, I estimate another...oh, 7 or 8 more chapters until this story is done. I really love writing for Johanna. I love her character. And I love Gale's. In fact, as I've typed this story, I can't help but feel an urge to write a GalexJohanna fanfiction after this is done. Weird, huh? O.O

I'll try and type up a bunch of chapters in the next couple of days, as I will not be able to in the next coming week :'( But don't worry, if I can manage to type up enough chapters I'll still be able to post one a day with my tablet :D But don't count on it T_T

'Til next time!