Like I said earlier, these chapters will make much less sense to people who haven't read or seen Catching Fire and Mockingjay. I'm not going to rewrite canon, so I expect you all to fill the holes.
Unfortunately, Supernova, I intend to follow canon as best I can (ETNRL4L would tell you I'm already taking a bunch of liberties^^), not going AU is part of the challenge. I may write two epilogues if I feel too bad about killing some people (or if I get too curious about how it'd be if someone else ended up President *if you know what I mean*).
Thank you so much for reviewing. ETNRL4L, Vyrazhi, mellimoo, Supernova18, Lollipop and Iacopo, you are true troopers and other readers should thank you too for the story.
August 75, Arena day 3
The Capitol cemetery was just outside the city walls and almost a city of its own. Religion had been banned sometime after the Cataclysm, when some clusters of survivors had used their belief as an excuse to commit the worst of atrocities, but the cemetery was filled with hopes and symbols of afterlife, an echo of long extinct spiritualities carved in wood and stone.
The afternoon sun shone fiercely on the stone as Plutarch walked between the mausoleums and memorials, hurrying towards the cloister-like section that hid their hovercraft. No one double-checked spaces supposed to hold the urns of the deceased.
He was being followed.
He stopped and turned, sweat pearling his brow. Not Homeguard. Unarmed. He forced himself to relax. Four people, lead by a striking young woman with half her head shaved and tattooed with vine motives extending along her arm, walked towards him. They were rolling large suitcases and looked decidedly determined.
Two burly men with sandy-hair, probably brothers, stood behind the woman. Plutarch blinked, his alarm evaporating, when the shaggier of the two signed.
[We were told to look for you here. The nights are hot.]
Plutarch smiled. These had to be Glynn's "possible add-ons".
[The bird burns brighter,] he signed, completing the code sentence. "Follow me."
The large Hovercraft was exactly where it was supposed to be, manned by the crew it was supposed to have, and Haymitch Abernathy had been waiting for him with Effie Trinket in the courtyard of the Churchforge family mausoleum. It should have made Plutarch feel pleased, instead he felt even more of an urge to throttle Thirteen.
"Trouble?" Plutarch inquired.
Haymitch put on his best traumatized expression. "Well Mr. DeCharon made me believe he wanted wild three-way sex in the cemetery in exchange for sponsoring, so –"
"None," Effie interrupted in clipped tones. "I do hope every second counts, or I have no idea why I was not allowed so much as a suitcase."
Plutarch rolled his eyes. Effie Trinket had a lot to learn.
"Now, now, Princess, don't go sounding like I kidnapped you," Haymitch said with a grin. The banter could not erase the shadow behind his eyes. For all Plutarch's fancy plans, Katniss and Peeta were still trapped in that arena.
Effie pointedly ignored Haymitch, turning to the young woman with Plutarch as they took off. "Have I seen you on TV?"
"Behind the scenes maybe, I'm Cressida, and this is my assistant, Massalla," she said, gesturing to the last man, a slim dark-skinned youth with several sets of earrings and multiple piercings. "Castor and Pollux will assist me. I heard you are in need of a filming crew."
"Absolutely." Plutarch doubted Thirteen had any good audiovisual equipment. "Transfer or Upside?" Plutarch asked Pollux, the avox.
[Transfer. I was allowed Upside after four years, when my parents could pay for the privilege.] He looked grim. [I found out too much. My uncle was an ally of President Zephyr's.]
Plutarch nodded. The Transfer was underground and where all the cargo and goods from the Districts arrived to be distributed in the city. The working conditions weren't much better than in the Districts. Avoxed Capitolites were either murderers, child molesters, or, all too often, political opponents. Unlike District avoxes, they were kept out of sight, working in crews at the Transfer. The avoxes deemed less dangerous could work to keep the city clean, Upside, as long as the families paid a 'security deposit'.
A smooth, unmistakable bass voice had Plutarch turn. "Heavensbee."
Mr. DeCharon, tenth fortune of the Capitol, most prized funeral director, and owner of all the shops people hoped not to set a foot in while they were still alive. And Cinna's former employer and mentor. Plutarch fought the urge to disappear.
"This is for Katniss Everdeen," DeCharon said, solemnly handing Effie a file. "Cinna's Mockinjay costume designs. He was afraid they would be found." DeCharon took a pained breath. "He was never as happy as when he worked for you."
Effie reverently took the thick portfolio, tears misting her eyes.
Plutarch's jaw clenched. "He will be missed," he managed.
DeCharon stared down at him, all warmth sucked from his lined face. "Annie Cresta is in the Capitol."
Plutarch's stomach lurched. Annie. He froze, mulling over the handful of escape plans they'd had planned in case this happened before he left the Capitol, and a dozen more that had neither rhyme nor reason.
They'd foolishly underestimated the price Snow was willing to pay to capture Finnick's girlfriend.
They had no choice. "We must stick to the plan," he said.
This wasn't about Annie, or Finnick, or any of the victors. The rebellion was about the hundreds of thousands of nameless oppressed. Plutarch's heart had hardened with Cecelia's death and his little-boy dreams had shattered with Mags'. He had to walk away.
"Can't you do something while we're gone, from here?" Effie pleaded, her voice quivering.
"We'll do our best," DeCharon said. He raised his long, thin fingers to the camera embedded in his black vest and turned to Cressida and her team. "The four of you, get on the Hovercraft now. Effie act panicked, Haymitch, the cameras must have you drag her forcefully on board."
Something hard and painful hit Plutarch's neck. He found himself roughly grabbed by two masked men, Effie's well-faked shrieks echoing in his ears.
August 75, Arena day 3 – almost midnight.
"The bitch is dead, traitor," Enobaria snarled, cutting a lethal figure as she revealed herself in the darkness. "Carved up by your friend. I'm surprised Seven waited so long."
Finnick adopted a defensive stance, keeping to the trees for cover. Well done, Jo. They'd needed Katniss' tracker out of her arm to confuse the Capitol; making the Twos think Johanna had taken out Katniss was even better. As long as there was no cannon shot, Finnick wouldn't let fear claim him.
"Enobaria, don't kill me, just follow me," he said with forced calm. "Things have changed."
A knife appeared in Enobaria's second hand.
Finnick decided to forget rebellious double-speech and speak Two instead. He lowered his trident. "I won't fight you here, so at best, you butcher me, and we both know how popular that'll make you to the Capitol." With Brutus he could have used Mags' name and appealed to his sense of honor. With Enobaria… "You aren't my enemy. You must come to the tree." He hoped he wasn't underestimating her intelligence, but any observant Career would have realized that Beetee at least, was behaving in a ridiculous fashion.
Surely Enobaria and Brutus would have attacked them earlier had they not suspected something bigger than the Hunger Games was afoot.
It had all gone so fast.
Beetee, telling them his insane plan that morning, despite knowing that Brutus and Enobaria were listening to every word, right behind the tree-line.
He also been frankly mystified when Beetee all but told the Careers to be at the lightning tree at midnight. Beetee's plan sounded wrong. Use the mile-long roll of coil and midnight lightning to make the beach and lake into an electrified death trap. Finnick would never call himself an expert, but he knew lightning and lightning rods, he knew sand and water and storms, and he was certain that Beetee meant to do something very different with the lightning and the coil. He'd let the thought blossom into hope, especially when twenty-four more bread-rolls in a parachute labeled '3' had reached them. Maybe, finally, the rescue plan was back on track and there would be no more deaths.
His heart clenched, fierce homesickness blocking his throat. Had Annie and Nori had sent a boat to sail for Mags?
"I'd hate a rushed finale," Enobaria granted, her eyes screaming mistrust and danger. She put one of her knives away and gestured for him to lead the way.
Finnick didn't hide his relief. "Where's Brutus?" He asked, his concern sadly genuine. So many dead. He remembered Brutus' concern when the man had come to visit Mags after her stroke. He recalled the softness to Mags' eyes, so at odds with the outliers' curt frostiness, whenever she'd spoken of Two's most famous victor.
Enobaria bared her fangs. "Listen for Peeta's cannon, you'll get an idea of his whereabouts then."
Damn it! Finnick couldn't be in two places at once. They were running out of time.
The Capitol
Coriolanus Snow stormed out of his office the moment Johanna Mason removed Katniss' tracker. He would not tolerate any more of this.
"I want them dead, all of them, now," he ordered as he marched into Gamemakers' Control.
"Things have changed," Finnick was saying on screen.
Snow's eyes narrowed in anger as Enobaria lowered her knife. The rules were simple and even Careers now seemed unable to follow them. Traitors, all of them.
And if that hadn't been enough to ruin his mood, Capitol rebels had assaulted DeCharon, kidnapped Plutarch and helped Haymitch escape. How could a whole hovercraft have managed to leave the city undetected? There was no time to make sense of information riddled with gaping holes, and Snow would not be taken for a fool.
Beetee's plan was absurd. The Twelves may have bought it, and perhaps Beetee had just told them that to shut them up, but Snow had had enough of letting these people run free.
"Sir, the lightning's almost about to strike," Valerian –now acting Head Gamemaker- hurriedly said. "We can't stop it short of a power override that will shut down the entire arena. What we can do is direct the mutts from the eleventh wedge. They're almost asleep, but –"
"How long until they reach the tributes?" Snow interrupted, turning to the mutt specialist.
"A minute," Lucia Templesmith said. "Peeta ran from Beetee when he heard Katniss scream and Brutus is following him. They and Chaff can be lead to the same place easily enough."
Snow eyed her severely. Peeta, Beetee, Katniss, when had Gamemakers ever called tributes by their names? Was everyone going soft? Was he even now surrounded by traitors?
"Very well," he said, enjoying how the threat in his voice stripped all color from their faces. "In two minutes, I want the males from Twelve, Eleven and Two dead. And I want them all dead by the time the last lightning bolt strikes."
He allowed himself to smile when one of his bodyguards entered the room, a finger on his earpiece. The President nodded: he didn't mind the Gamemakers hearing this little piece of news.
"She's landed, Sir. Nori refused to comply and was killed."
Snow smiled, ignoring the sudden silence in the room. He'd known he'd have Annie Cresta the moment Mags had died. He knew quite a bit about Four's traditions, and one was that burial was essential and that when there was no body, prized possessions of the departed had to be put in the funeral boat instead. Foolish little Annie had been too stubborn not to go back to the Village to honor her beloved mentor's death. Finnick would pay for every hovercraft they'd sacrificed to get the girl.
"Give the order to kill all the victors except for One's and Two's," he said, savoring the words. He watched the Gamemakers sharply, in case their winces betrayed something deeper. "Confine the Ones to their Village."
Eve's assassination had left a bitter taste in his mouth. She'd been such an efficient tool. He'd named her Mistress of One's Academy and doubted any of the others matched her ability and loyalty, but they were all clever with a strong desire for life. They'd help him quench One's rebellion or die trying.
A pleased smile broke Snow's lips when Chaff bellowed like a madman, a large stick in his sole hand, distracting Brutus from Peeta. Behind Chaff, who looked more like a beast than a man after three days alone in the jungle, thousands of large crabs climbed every tree and bush, hungrily speeding for the tributes.
Chaff's shouts were snuffed out in three precise sword strikes, but most satisfying was Brutus' expression of shock when Peeta shoved him in the sea of mutts. Blood spurted from Brutus' lips when one of the crabs plunged its pincer deep into his heart.
Brutus fell to one knee, his eyes burning into the cameras. The question and betrayal in them loud and clear.
Coriolanus Snow sneered. They had all been so confident he'd spare Brutus, make him his victor, because of loyalty. Lyall had even dared present it as a given, as if it was his place to make demands.
How had he managed to let such arrogance grow among mentors?
The arena
A curse left Finnick's lips when he spotted Beetee on the ground, unconscious by the huge lightning tree. This was it. It was now or never.
Don't think about the two cannons. His mind was not cooperating. Not Jo. Not Peeta. Not Jo! Don't -
Katniss. He'd not immediately seen the lithe figure in the darkness. Finnick froze when he realized her bow was pointing straight at him and Enobaria.
But before Finnick had a chance to speak, Katniss' face changed and maybe, finally, the girl understood. She turned away from them and within seconds, an arrow wrapped with the coil Beetee had dropped sped towards the forcefield dome.
The shimmer become opaque squares of shimmering gold, folding, shattering.
It exploded.
"Enobaria, wait!" Finnick screamed as the woman ran back in the jungle.
Enobaria didn't turn, his words were swallowed in the deafening noise.
Finnick tried to get closer to Katniss, to protect her at least. The shock wave threw him to the floor and he knew no more.
Gamemakers' Control
Snow frowned. There had only been two cannon shots. Chaff and Brutus. Peeta, clever Peeta who'd thought he'd won with his little love story, that he'd turn the Capitol against their President by announcing a secret marriage and a pregnancy, was surrounded by mutts, which were not attacking.
He turned to Lucia. "What are you waiting for?"
"Katniss' death," she replied in a small voice. "We've got Peeta, we can kill him anytime, I think we'll be less harassed by the people if the victors get each other killed. If Katniss, Finnick and Enobaria unexpectedly ally, we can use Peeta to get her to break the alliance."
Snow dislike her wording -there were no more 'victors'- but he granted her point with a slow nod. It would be so satisfying to have Katniss put an arrow through Finnick Odair's pretty neck. Annie could have other uses. If Mags was vilified through a smear campaign then…
The President started as an explosion blasted through the speakers. The screens went black.
What? It wasn't just a glitch. The screens weren't turning back on.
He narrowed his eyes, his fists balling in fury. "What. Is. This," he hissed.
"Katniss… She fired the wire they'd wrapped around the tree on the forcefield," Valerian replied, his voice thick with disbelief. "But that's impossible! Yes, it would have weakened the field but never -" His head snapped towards the President. "They must have had help from the outside." He swallowed at his screens, frantically opening new windows and charts. "Yes that must be it, there's a power spike just before the lightning strike. It's been building… Someone caused an overload, directly on the generators."
It's been building? How long? Ever since Plutarch conveniently vanished and nobody thought to make it their business?
Could Plutarch Heavensbee be a rebel? Could he have been fooling them all for so long?
"Get a channel open with our hovercraft," Snow painstakingly ordered, almost choking with rage. Not this. Not now. "Mazaris, update Templesmith and Flickerman so they can handle the people." Those two at least had too much to lose by betraying him.
He breathed in relief, tasting the ever-present blood in his mouth, when one of the screens lit up. The pilots of the hovercraft tasked with retrieving the bodies looked grim.
"We're diving in, Mr. President. We've got a lock-on on Twelve-male, Two-female, and maybe Seven-female if we're fast enough. They don't seem equipped to shoot us down, but they're faster than us. That's why we're making the victors our priority."
"Who's they?" Snow snapped. "Get Seven before Two." He doubted Enobaria would have any valuable information on rebels.
"Unidentified craft, it swooped in to grab Three-male the moment the forcefield exploded. They're now heading for Four-male. We have no other trackers on screen, but I saw them grab another figure, must be Twelve-female."
Of course it was. Their thrice-damned Mockingjay.
"We have Peeta Mellark," the copilot announced. "moving onto Seven-female."
Snow stared, refusing to believe his ears. "How many other hovercrafts are guarding the site?"
"Four, they're coming in." The pilot took a sharp breath. "Sir, our patrols didn't pick up anything. The craft must have come in days before the start of the Games and stayed on ground, engines shut down and communications minimal, until the last hours or so. They were so quick, they must have hacked into the tracking system or at least the camera feeds."
This shouldn't be possible.
"Seven-female retrieved," the copilot cut in. "The enemy saw our forces and has turned to flee. They're leaving Two-female behind, Sir. We've got her."
"Good," Snow announced, more for the Gamemakers' benefits than out of satisfaction. He had to appear in control. "Destroy anything of the arena that the rebels could use and come back to base. Sedate the victors for later questioning. I want them alive. Send one hovercraft to pursue and have the criminals intercepted by our forces in Five. Have the other three escort you. Await further orders."
The President of Panem stood speechless for the first time in years. "District Thirteen?"
Impossible. He'd sent the Pox Plague to their bunkers twenty-five years before, that little jewel the late Evadne Achlys had developed and yet never used. Those the Pox didn't kill it left barren. How could the survivors have become organized enough to -.
"They told us so themselves and all evidence supports it, Sir," General Garren said gravely. "They transferred the victors to an armored mothership before we could intercept. Their planning was flawless. Even sacrificing our available crafts, we could not have retrieved, or even killed, the victors. We lost three just trying to get close."
"And Plutarch?" Even if he was no traitor, he'd crack under torture.
General Garren colored. "We could not find the ship, Sir. We were lead astray by a decoy. These people knew exactly what they were doing."
'We could not.' Those filthy rebels - Snow was so furious he could barely speak.
"Assemble a fleet," Snow said after a long pause. Katniss was about to learn the consequences of her treachery. "I want the sun to rise over District Twelve's ashes. Bomb every street, mine and building."
His eyes narrowed dangerously when Garren hesitated. Did he need to appoint a new General? His lips twitched in mirthless approval when the man gave a brisk nod and saluted. He'd let people question him for much too long.
The Districts, all thirteen of them, had to realize who they were up against.
August 75, District 13.
Alma Coin sat at the oval table with Boggs at her side, holding her head in her hands. Rarely had she felt lack of sleep so keenly.
Minutes before, they'd intercepted a communication ordering all peacekeepers in Twelve to immediately leave the town. The District was barely waking, an uneven spot of light to Thirteen's supervising hovercrafts as people prepared to go to the mines. The spot had flickered out the moment Alma had sat down.
"Twelve's power is out," the pilot urgently said over the static. "Incoming hovercrafts, over a dozen with more appearing every second! They haven't detected us yet. What are our orders?"
"All hovercrafts near Twelve are to retreat," Alma said, her voice hoarse. They couldn't match the Capitol's fleet with the half-dozen crafts they'd sent to retrieve Primrose and other key citizen if Katniss or Peeta died in the arena.
"He can't bomb a whole District," Boggs exclaimed. "He's insane! The coal industry won't recover for a decade, and may never recover if everyone who knows how to mine is dead."
"District Five supplies power to Six and the inner Districts," Alma pointed out. "Only Eleven to Seven depend on coal, and Seven's forests can be used for charcoal in an emergency."
Boggs slammed his fist on the table. "There are over eight thousand people in there!"
"These hovercrafts all come from Eleven, or they would not have reached Twelve so fast," Alma said slowly. "We can strike now at the closest peacekeeper strongholds, they'll have only a skeleton defense. Maybe we can wring an advantage from this… tragedy. "
She winced, breathing in. A whole District. Twelve was the tiniest, less defensible spit of land in Panem, with its stripped mountains and its single sooty little town, but for the Capitol to waste its bombs to raze such a strategically insignificant place...
Had they severely underestimated the Capitol's weapon arsenal? Or was this Snow playing a desperate bluff in order to scare the Districts into submission?
She exhaled bitterly, her hair rising at the sheer waste of it all. Is this the price of one of your tantrums, Snow? You'll salt the ground rather than let us take it?
"Assemble a rescue fleet, for eventual refugees, but make sure the Capitol isn't setting a trap for us," she ordered, some steel returning in her voice. "We must wait for the area to be clear before we expose ourselves, it may be days."
She didn't mean to patronize Boggs with the obvious, but the incoming reports of the dozens, was that a hundred? Hovercrafts flying towards Twelve took over her ability to think.
She shook herself when Captain Chester announced himself with a salute. "Ma'am, the hovercraft carrying Twelve's escort and the Capitol camera crew has arrived. The second craft will be right behind with the victors."
Katniss, her mentor Haymitch, Beetee, Finnick and Plutarch. They'd saved the most critical people. Maybe losing Twelve would be worth it, but only if the rebels did not panic at the sight of a charred District.
Maybe Snow just meant to take Twelve hostage in order to have the Mockingjay turn herself in and swear to serve him. But the years had told her that Snow hated any plan that would have to acknowledge a District citizen as an equal, no matter the advantage to him.
"Thank you, Captain. Please announce a meeting in the mess hall. It's time to give our people some answers." Alma turned to Boggs once Chester had left, uncharacteristically nervous to hear the opinion of her second-in-command. "Having them call me 'President Coin' now that we've gone public: megalomania or good for morale?"
Boggs stared. His lips finally twitched. "I will announce it as if it was my decision to erase any suspicion of presumption, Ma'am. There are Mayors in every city, but we are no small rebel force, we are a match for the Capitol. It is the right title, Madam President."
Alma Coin straightened, her eyes gleaming. Words held such fascinating power. Madam President. What a beautiful ring to it.
It was less than a quarter hour before the first bomb fell on the District Twelve.
Please review, I'm always enthused to read what worked and what didn't for each person.