Violence and disturbing content (still T rated). The story wouldn't make sense without it. The Capitol's plans (a big chunk of them at least) are finally revealed.

There seemed to be no hostility between the two tributes and the Scavengers.

Out of the group's sight, Mags leaned against a secure looking wall. She remembered how rigid Styx had been in her beliefs. The redhead from District Two had been curt and quick to call the other would-be-Careers to order when they had put down the other tributes, but she still had volunteered to be recognized as the strongest, for the glory awarded by the Hunger Games. Styx was a peculiar blend of decent and brainwashed, one that made Mags' skin crawl. Yet, Styx had been blunt and guileless and Mags couldn't envision her scheming with Scavengers. This left one last option: Styx had been instructed to speak to them and those particular Scavengers were the reasonable and sane kind. Four out of over a hundred, it was quite possible.

"What can Styx offer them? Did the Capitol convince her that the rebels who cooperated would be pardoned?" Constantine said.

Mags nervously clutched her pike as his confusion echoed her own. The three hovercrafts and the Careers' pristine appearance were proof enough that Delphin and Styx had been to the Capitol and now were back. Yet it had only been two days since the Careers had torched part of the Scavengers' den, so they couldn't have reached the Capitol so fast, not unless a hovercraft had come to pick them up. What for? Mags had a shrewd idea of how Capitolites fought, using infiltration, rumor mongering and spreading dissent to make up for inferior numbers, but she couldn't claim to understand how President Achlys thought. It took a twisted mind to invent and enforce the Hunger Games.

The golden-eyed woman had claimed that the old President had retired and named her his successor. So had democracy, an agonizing and flawed illusion of democracy, died in Panem. With a whipcord voice and a gift for glaring right at you when she made speeches on screen, Evadne Achlys sowed nightmares as much as fear and misery. She insidiously used logical-sounding arguments and caring words to twist any watcher's minds, and only after did one see how wrong her reasoning was and yet how very close everyone had been to agreeing with her. She was barely fifty and could live to decide of Mags' grandchildren's fates. That icy realization spurred sizzling energy in the young woman's tiring limbs. Mags couldn't wait for Time to solve her problems. She ached to move but was painfully aware that she had to think first.

"Leave them alone," Fife said, tugging on Constantine's arm, "hovercrafts aren't our target. It'd be a waste of grenades and attacking them is foolish. We'll get hurt."

But being afraid of dangers could kill them as surely as a blade. Safe solutions weren't always as safe as they seemed. Mags dearly hoped she hadn't been wrong about the Capitol's propaganda plan. She was treading on thin ice, especially if she expected to survive despite having made her opinions clear. A plan about the last was slowly forming in her mind.

"Heroic kills earn you sponsors," Constantine said, his voice thick with sarcasm, "there are two tributes there and they must die."

Forget sponsors, Mags wanted to shout. That system was disgusting. Instead, she lifted a hand to her sweaty face only to encounter the mask's unyielding pane. She breathed in deeply and ran her tongue over her teeth. The air was pastier than normal. She groaned. They'd never thought to stay out so long, and now they were paying for their lack of preparation. They wouldn't be protected for much longer.

"The masks' filters are clotting up," she explained, "let's find the Scavengers. They're our priority."

"We were in these streets for a day and a night without masks and fared well enough."

"Don't tempt the Devil, Constantine," Fife snapped. She checked on the Careers one last time before gesturing to the side. "Better walk facing the wind, less surprises that way."

Constantine's words nevertheless soothed Mags' fears. He was right, they weren't in immediate danger from the environment.

They didn't need to walk far.

Hidden by the howling wind and cackling fires, a large camp lay amidst the ruins. Two of the dog-like robots were monitoring the path they'd just taken. They were concealed well enough that not seeing them would be believable. Mags made a point not to make eye contact. She focused on the men and women slumped on the dirty ground. Beneath the ragged clothing and sickly skins, they were too skinny and their eyes looked too dull to be Atli's people. The Scavengers had been misguided but alert and not so dangerously underfed. The seated people all held whips of leather and wire, yet Mags could not remember ever seeing such weapons in the sewers. A last, much smaller group, wore makeshifts masks. Those showed no skin at all and were talking animatedly next to a large tent. Who were they? Disguised avoxes? Except avoxes were mute. Dauntless Capitolites seeking thrill? Drugged prisoners whose minds the Capitol had altered? All those possibilities made her sick with dread.

She spotted other robots, on the roofs, placed so that none would film the other but numerous enough to cover the whole scene. Those were in plain sight yet the false Scavengers ignored them. Yes, the Capitol was making a movie. Mags shivered, seeing her distress reflected plainly in Fife's wide eyes. What horrid lies did the Capitol want to feed the districts? Constantine already had a grenade in his hand.

"Wait," Fife said, "what are they doing?"

Constantine's voice was thick with disgust and fury. "It doesn't matter. Harm. These people need to be destroyed."

"If it's dynamite in that weird tent, or any equivalent," Fife said stiffly, "we're dead if we throw those."

Mags shot Fife a suspicious look. Something in Fife's tone made Mags suspect she had invented the dynamite excuse out of sheer curiosity.

But what if it is dynamite? An irritating voice whispered in her ear. She told herself that she couldn't kill without a reason. Except how many more reasons did she truly need? False scavengers, cameras everywhere... Wasn't she just being a coward? It was obvious that all this was engineered by the Capitol, for the Capitol. No good could come of it.

"Mags?"

Mags tensed, biting back a scream of frustration. Why did he insist on making it her decision! Constantine could do her the bloody favor of killing human beings without her stamp of approval.

"Up," one of the masked men suddenly ordered.

Before the Mags' wary eyes, the others obeyed as one, with a stiff efficiency that only increased Mags' dread. Real people twitched and looked around, they didn't-

A burst of fire tore her from her horrified musings. Waves of red flames ate at the tent, as quickly as if it was made of paper. It disintegrated before their astonished eyes.

"That's why it looked odd," Fife muttered. The tremble in her voice got so bad Mags almost couldn't make out her next words."Look at their faces."

Mags was staring at the group of filthy half-naked children the tent had concealed. Her eyes filled with tears at the sight of the badly healed welts on their back. She grabbed on to Constantine, shaking his arm as he could make the scene vanish. They were skin and bones, skinnier than the worst fed in Four. A sharp elbow collided with her hip. She jerked her head back towards the adults pretending to be Scavengers … and understood Fife's horror.

The half-score unmasked men and women wore identical expressions of unadulterated glee and hate, inhuman in their madness. They had all raised their whips and, like one set of programmed robots, began shouting at the children who had rushed towards the piles of acid-ridden metal all around them. The masked men had vanished, and Mags now was convinced these had been the Capitolites who had organized this morbid show.

Whip-lashes cracked in the air, accompanied by horrible words. "We fought for your future, be grateful and earn your keep, whelps!

It was mere seconds before the first exhausted children began to fall. Every time one hit the ground, an adult pounced on them, intent on thrashing them to the brink of death. Their screams of pain filled the air, but were not loud enough to cover the adults' voices, as if they had no energy to spare.

"That's how you repay our sacrifices, such disgusting laziness? We saved you from the Capitol's evil clutches. We offer you a home, freedom and pride, and you imagine you can laze about? We feed you too much!"

A petrified Mags refused to believe her eyes. They'd kill all the children by sunset with such treatment. A detail caught her attention. The accent was accurate but the vocabulary was wrong.

This is a propaganda movie. Her mind urgently reminded her. This is what the Capitol wants people to believe of rebels. These were people of the districts captured and hijacked by the Capitol to act like the worst kind of criminals and show the districts that rebels were hateful beings. Don't expect logic.

It had the effect of a slap. She straightened, shaking off her shock at such brutal behavior. The Capitol had had years to twist the minds of hijacked prisoners to viscerally hate those poor children. And whose children? Where did they come from? Could they be the sons and daughters of the very people hijacked to hurt them? What had the Capitol done to them?

Mags could taste blood on the lip she had bitten out of sheer rage. Any viewer in the districts would think these were genuine rebels beating the crap out of their own kids. They would think rebels were monsters. Few would ever guess the Capitol had warped the minds of prisoners and set everything up.

"Do you know what the punishment is if you're particularly lazy," a man roared as he grabbed a struggling tiny girl by the hair, a lecherous grin making its way on his cruel face. A woman besides him laughed as he slapped the child's backside, letting his grimy hand linger.

Horror creased Mags' features. Behind the reprogramming, these people were innocent victims, but she couldn't let this go on too. She would kill the children too, but this time, the three of them truly had no alternative. Mags wanted to hope those people would rather have died than become such monsters.

"Now," she snarled.

She realized Constantine was too absorbed in the nightmarish scene to have heard her. She grabbed his arm and gave him a violent shake. "Now!"

And where was Fife?

Mags spun on herself. There! The criminally curious girl who had made them wait was now hiding in a corner, clutching her mask and staring away from the screams. Mags squashed her nascent pang of pity, too angry to put herself in the other's place.

"You coward! At least hand me the extra grenades," Mags said, all but tearing Fife's backpack open.

Constantine's sudden chuckle made her snap back towards him, weapons in hand.

"We're not the only ones to have heard the screams," he said, vengeance lighting his handsome face.

Enraged shouts filled the air.

Mags' jaw dropped as she uncorked the three grenades. She hesitated, aware this was not part of the Capitol's show.

Those were Scavengers. The last of the Scavengers. The Capitol made them look like the good guys.

Atli's surviving people were rushing towards the scene with rocks and staves, shouting and waving like weapons like madmen. "Beasts! Die! Die!"

"For our father!"

A thrown dog robot sailed through the air, knocking out one of the abusive men. The others didn't react, not until they spotted a few young children among the incoming enraged Scavengers. Mags heart clenched as she recognized Falcon and his friend, the two boys who'd announced their presence to Atli, clutching big rocks. The false Scavengers turned as one, whips raised.

"These children are our property, make your own," one of the skeletal women spat.

"You are weak. We'll steal yours," another of the hijacked men said, eyeing Falcon malevolently.

The Scavengers slowed, exchanging looks of sheer confusion and disgust. Their resolve came back in seconds. Crowbars and rocks joined another robot in the second volley of projectiles.

"For Atli," a man roared, rushing forward.

"YAAAAAAHHHH!"

When the first bloodied corpse hid the ground, teeth marks around his torn nose, Mags knew she had seconds before her sanity fled forever. She steeled herself to live with having blown up Scavengers too. Adrenaline sizzled through her veins.

A harsh familiar voice reached her ears. "I'm with you, Mags."

Now certain of Constantine's steadfastness, her eyes narrowed in sharp focus. All the anger and frustration she'd accumulated in the last two weeks were released in three rapid throws. She watched five grenades sailed for different zones of the camp.

Constantine jerked her backwards before the projectile hit. She snapped back to reality, now all too aware of the danger. Constantine all but threw Fife over his shoulder as they scrambled for cover.

The world exploded, hot air slamming them down. The clay ground gave way under them. Mags rolled over debris, blinded by the dust, her hands desperately keeping her mask into place. Her gloves tore as she tried to latch on to the gray rocks. She moaned in pain as she crashed knees first on hard soot-covered granite. From the height of the fall, they weren't deeper than the second level of the sewers. The walls were burnt, either from the crash or from the fire the Careers had lit before. Mags gasped in relief and jumped to her feet as soon as the heat dissipated. Enough daylight filtered through the holes in the ceiling to make the torchlight unnecessary. Mags yanked her companions upright to make sure they were okay. Her grip tightened painfully on Fife's shoulder.

"You-"

"No," Fife said, cutting her short, "I am sorry I didn't let you two blast them earlier, but I don't see how me watching that would have made the world a better place. The screams were bad enough. Sorry about thoughtlessly keeping the grenades too," she added in a small voice. Her black eyes misted with tears. "I am not as brave as you and I can't always be who you need me to be. I do try not to screw things up."

Mags took a useless calming breath and let go of the shorter girl. Fife didn't deserve to be shouted at. Mags pounded her fists on the wall in rage and ripped her now useless gloves off. "We made it, they didn't. Let's not talk of this again or I'll be ill."

"You were right, Mags. To go to such an extent to forge lies…" Constantine let his voice die and sagged against the rocks, looking lost. "My mother protects those people...They... they have no boundaries."

Bright light suddenly blinded them. Constantine's arms went protectively around a frozen Mags. It was a hovercraft's spotlight.

"Good afternoon, Tributes."

"Yeah, hi to you too," Fife said acidly, shielding her tearful eyes.

Mags was to furious to even consider a curt a response. Her whole body was shaking uncontrollably, air struggling to enter her lungs. Never, never! , had she imagined the Capitol would go so far to crush the rebel spirit. She was glad for Constantine's arms, or she would have thrown her pike at the hovercraft, and common sense be damned.

President Achlys' deceitfully benevolent voice filled the air. "You rightfully killed the rebels you would have yesterday supported. Do you see now, what people become without Capitol guidance? You have seen that these creatures had food for years. We never starved them or hunted them down. We waited instead for them to see the error of their ways and come back to us. We were ready to forgive and welcome anyone willing to work for the prosperity of Panem.

Your ancestors knew that only madness would exist outside Capitol rule. For over a century, we lived in harmony with the Districts. Greed made you forget that wisdom. You would have destroyed the Panem your forefathers had worked so hard to build. These Hunger Games are not about surviving in an arena. We want you to confront your wrongheaded and destructive beliefs. We want you to become the citizens your forefathers would have been proud of. We want you to come back to us. We are not the enemy. We are here to guide you and to keep this world just and prosperous. Do you now see why we must protect you from yourselves? Our battered homeland cannot afford any more of this foolishness."

The light turned off and the hovercraft left. The roar of engines faded away, leaving the stunned tributes behind.

The words tore through Mags like a delayed bomb. She screamed; a scream of pure rage that resounded against the sewer walls and filled the sizzling city air only to rebound on the surrounding mountains, the scream of a cornered animal that would rather bite its leg off than remain trapped. She clutched her stomach, her knees buckling under her. She screamed as if it somehow would knock some sense and justice into the world, as if it would make the Districts immune to the lies the Capitol would feed them until they either swallowed them or choked to death. She screamed as if it would give the Districts the strength to fight back and end this reign of exploitation and terror.

Her scream broke off suddenly when she felt strong hands grasp her arms and a sharp knife press against her stomach. She faintly struggled against Constantine's iron hold, more out of reflex then anything. Fife's knife cut through her already torn protective suit.

"Damn, acid does hurt," Fife said, throwing a large strip of the suit away and placing a bandage on Mags' reddened, but perfectly alright, skin. "Sorry for not noticing earlier, Mags. You should be fine now," Fife finished with a forced small smile.

A flushed Mags met the girl's pained eyes, wondering if anyone would be fooled. Fife understood, at least a little, and she tried to help how she could. Constantine's eyes had slowly opened in the last week, but it didn't matter. The Capitol would never care. Mags furiously dismissed her earlier qualms about killing brainwashed Capitolites. They were the culprits and indirectly killed people every day. The victims deserved a better world, even if it meant denying salvageable Capitolites a second chance. Mags still wanted to scream but she could also hear the promise she had made to her mother, to her district. She had to convince the Capitol that she wasn't a threat. She couldn't start ranting about them. She had to pretend she was considering their words.

"Thanks, Fife" she finally said, her voice hoarse.

A dulled pounding noise caught their attention. It came from inside the crumbled sewer wall. It wasn't the scratching of a trapped robot. Mags gingerly tapped the mix of clay and acid-eaten granite with her pike.

The noise stopped. A pained rasp reached their ears, almost too low to be heard. "Help!"

Constantine arched an eyebrow, not letting go of Mags' shoulders. "The rock talks."

Coughs and imprecations followed that statement. "Mother's love, get that stuff off me!"

"I think we should help the talking rock," Fife said, taking a deep breath.

Mags twisted herself out of Constantine's grip, feeling a surge of much healthier and more mundane anger suffuse her body. Why where they hesitating when for once they actually could do something useful?

"What's wrong with you two? Stop talking, let me go, and help me dig him up!"

AN: This chapter stubbornly refused to come together, it probably was the one I took the most time to write yet. I hope it didn't disappoint and that the Capitol's motives make sense.

Please review.