Rebel Stronghold - Deep Underground

Five months prior to the games

January 7th 2427

Conrad Martell, 23

Moments ago, Tatiana broke the truth to Conrad, something she'd been hiding for years. It shattered his heart into a thousand pieces, like a vase that had just been knocked onto the floor.

He's still standing there, on the edge of the boiler room. His attention is fixed downwards, and he's clenching his fists around the railings with burning red cheeks. A whirlwind of thoughts is spiralling in his head and mashing his brain into goo. What did Beckett have to say to him, exactly? They trusted each other, why would he have wanted to end their alliance? Unless… he doesn't know who he can trust anymore. Was Tatiana lying, perhaps?

He can't make sense of any of it. No! He's wiser than this! Think, think, think, think. A lightbulb suddenly ignites in his head. That's exactly it! Tatiana said that to throw him off her scent - whether it was true or not. Conrad's cheeks return to their normal colour as the red mist leaves his eyes. What was she saying before that? That's right, she was talking about Kate and the rebels. Is she one of them? Is she on the side of the Capitol? Of Saskia? Of the Inner-table? No, no, no, no. She's his mentor… his friend. He won't believe it! He can't! Yet, deep down, he knows that she just gave herself away.

Everything that they've been through together in the last five years suddenly starts flashing before his eyes, as his life would before he dies. Every hurt, anguish, laugh, smile… yet one thing she said to him jumps out at him more than anything else and it was only minutes ago- "Just remember, in life, sometimes the most straightforward choice isn't the right one."

With a new fire burning in his heart, Conrad pushes himself off the railings and propels himself back through the crowds of people in the party. He can't help but shove some people out of the way. He may already be too late to stop her!

He crashes through another metal door into the bright, white corridor, and suddenly his ears are penetrated with an eerie silence. The echoes from the crowd behind are only white noise now.

He creeps through the corridor, his footsteps bounce between the walls.

CLICK

A door a few metres up from his left suddenly cracks open. Conrad's heart skips a beat! It's Tatiana! She discreetly slips out of the door, scanning the corridor up and down with her wide eyes. Luckily, Conrad ducks his head out of the way behind the wall of another corridor, turning to the right. He counts the seconds with his rapid breaths, before poking his head back around the corner. Tatiana is scurrying off in the opposite direction to the end of the corridor. What is she up to? Is he too late?

He skips to the door, shoving his tag against the security pad, and the bolts click open. When he pushes his way into the room a cold shiver runs across his spine.

He wants to be wrong… more than anything. Yet, his eyes are darting between the shelves and cupboards of Dr. Hand's lab, trying to find something wrong, some evidence that he can incriminate her with - by showing it to Kate. Because he can't escape this sickly feeling of betrayal infecting his heart.

His movements pick up the pace, becoming more frantic. He begins flinging open cupboards violently and throwing objects over his shoulder. No. You need to breathe - he thinks to himself.

He dashes behind another corner to the containment area, and his skin is stung immediately with freezing air.

There is a tall, dull, metal container looming over him, above human height. Something is drawing him to it, an inkling, maybe. With a gulp, he reaches forward and lightly tugs it open. He stumbles back against the wall, clasping his hands over his mouth, his eyes wide! A lifeless corpse is staring back at him! The body of Dr. Hand! Blood oozes from a wire-cut across her throat - from where she's been strangled by a garotte wire.

Conrad has seen many dead bodies before, from Nadia's body lying on the wooden floor, to Taliesin's hanging above him, to Beckett passing away in his arms. However, this body comes with betrayal, stabbing into his gut. He wasn't paranoid. His suspicions have come true!

He has to act now! Who knows how much more damage Tatiana could do? How many more lives she could take! But Conrad is frozen solid, shaking in anguish. The breaths panting at a million miles an hour are drowning out any logical thoughts he might be having in his mind.

CLICK

The sound of the door bolting shut, cuts through his thoughts. It can only be her. He's shifted back to the present moment, and his heart picks up pace again.

There's nothing left to do but confront her with the truth. She has to be stopped before she kills anyone else. Hopefully, she didn't count on him finding the body so soon.

With a deep breath, Conrad appears out of the shadows of the containment room, to find Tatiana staring him down with a fiery intensity in her eyes. Conrad returns the glare, tightening his fists as he does it, and they both know that, for the first time since they've known each other, they are about to have an honest conversation.

Conrad is the first to break the intense silent staredown. "Tell me they've got something on you… you're being forced to do this," he swallows.

But she shakes her head with confidence. "No. Everything I've done, I've done by my own will," she answers.

Conrad takes a step back, shocked by her deadpan conviction in what she's doing.

Tatiana sighs and begins tracing her foot on the slippery floor. "A lot is going on here that you don't understand… we're trying to help people. That's our only goal."

Conrad glances back to where Dr. Hand's body still remains. "Sure feels like it!" He snaps. "I'm gonna tell Kate everything… you try to get in my way then we're gonna have a problem. You're all on your own now."

Tatiana burst out laughing, grinning ear to ear. "You think I'm the only one? You think we hadn't been preparing for this?" She shakes her head. "You poor boy, you are so naive."

Suddenly, three people enter the room behind her, wearing dark, purple, armoured gear. Tatiana nods at them, and they circle Conrad, trapping him in between them, and never taking their eyes off him.

Conrad readies himself in his fighting stance, darting his eyes between each of his opponents.

Tatiana breathes again, placing her hands behind her back. "If you'd just hear me out… if you could just see my point of view, we could bring about a better tomorrow together," she says.

For a moment, Conrad considers it. But then he thinks of Darrah, of Grey and Kate. Maybe he doesn't understand everything, maybe he is just the dumb racer from Six. But he does know one thing, he'll never help Tatiana kill his friends… yes his friends. So, he simply shakes his head and grits his teeth at his former mentor. "You were the one that taught me to keep my conviction… to stay true to what I believe is right," he tells her.

She smiles slightly and inside, he gets the sense that she's proud of him for sticking to his conviction.

"It's funny," she chuckles. "Your parents made the same decision some twenty years ago, and look where it got them."

Conrad is caught off guard, and suddenly he's stuck in place like they are deep in mud. So, Tatiana uses this to begin circling him, wearing a smug expression. "They both came from the same place as you: the streets of Six and our organization offered them a way out. They got their seats on the inner table until they betrayed us and tried to sell our secrets, in return they each got a bullet," she explains.

Conrad breathes heavily, he's not sure if she's lying but then, he never is, anymore.

Suddenly, Conrad is alone again and helpless, cornered on all sides by enemies. Can he really do this? Can he really take them all on? He doesn't even know if he can face the demons inside himself.

(He's just a kid again, lying on one of those trash bags in District Six, under the rain, abandoned, and condemned to death.)

Tatiana returns to the front of him after circling him. "Before they died, they sent you to their home District and it took us years to track you…. but when we learned your first name, we made sure you were reaped. You were supposed to die then and there, and yet here you are, trapped in your endless guilt."

That does it. As Tatiana's men begin setting light to the room around him, Conrad cracks his neck and feels the fire burning in his own heart again. He manages to break out of his shell-shocked state. She's lying, she's doing the same as what she did with Beckett's note, trying to distract him.

"You're so out of your depth… our organization has been doing this for centuries: hitting the reset button on civilizations," she explains, calmly. "Soon, it will happen again. Once we've found what we're looking for. You never stood a chance."

She nods towards her people surrounding Conrad, and they draw large blades from their belts. "Your parents couldn't stop us, and neither will you."

The two men on either side of him lunge simultaneously, however, whilst Tatiana had been talking, Conrad had been preparing for their attack. He slides back, seizing one of them by the arm and dragging him into the path of the other's slash. The blade carves his first assailant's throat, ejecting a fountain of blood!

Once the first assailant's hand has gone numb, he doesn't hesitate to snatch his blade and impale it into the second assailant's neck, his body crumbles to the floor. Two down.

Like a hurricane, Conrad shifts his focus to Tatiana, and her one remaining bodyguard. His heart is burning brighter than it has in years. He clasps the blade tight in his palm, and leaps at his two remaining foes. Tatiana narrows her vision and grinds her teeth together. She draws her own sword from her back, charging to meet Conrad, while her last bodyguard stumbles back out of the room to allow the two of them to clash.

The fire is spreading through the enclosed room. Thick, black smoke begins to crawl its way into Conrad's lungs. But, he has to remain focused.

Through the flames, Tatiana is charging at him, piercing his heart with her eyes. But, as she swings her sword, he jolts his head back in a fast motion to avoid it, before slamming the bottom of his heel into her torso! She lets out a groan of agony and her head hits the hard floor with a thud. After taking a few seconds to recover, just as quickly as she was knocked down, she does kick up back to her feet.

Conrad glimpses a new fury behind Tatiana's eyes and this time she's lightning fast. She springs through the air and delivers a sidekick into Conrad's gut! He flies back, straight into the desk behind him, and it splinters to pieces under his weight!

Tatiana shoots her eyes around at the fire engulfing the building. With Conrad lying on the pieces of Dr. Hand's desk, she uses this opportunity to escape out of the door!

Dazed, Conrad crawls to his feet, coughing from the smoke that's rapidly expanding to fill the entire room.

But he's not fast enough. By the time he's reached the door, she's already locked it from the outside. Now he's trapped in a room full of fire and smoke. As the heat touches his skin, he starts to feel dizzy from the smoke choking his lungs.

No! He can't go out like this! He… he has to stop Tatiana. He has to warn the others about her.

BANG

He slams his fist firmly on the door. Even with his vision fading, he can still make out Tatiana on the other side through the window on the door. She can't look at him. She can't watch him go through this. So instead she just vanishes out of sight into the corridor, like a ghost in the wind.

Kate Wakai, 24

Kate has always faced her problems head-on. She's never taken the easy option in her life, somehow she's always found that she's thrown herself in at the deep end. After she became the youngest ever victor at age thirteen, for the first time in her life; she had found herself without purpose. Then, one day, a mysterious man named Cornelius approached her in a market in District Four. He offered her the opportunity to fight "an evil organisation hell-bent on world domination". So again, she couldn't help but take the hard option. She had a new purpose, a chance to do something good for the first time in her life. Now, she's found her new purpose engulfed in flames, an insurrection has grown under her nose, and she could do nothing to stop it. At least a third of her rebels have been working for the Capitol all along, recruited into her organisation behind her back.

Echoes of gunfire all around the base shatter Kate's ears. She speeds through the corridors, gun in hand. The heat from the flames behind her clings to her skin, and the sweat gushes from her forehead.

Despite her last rebel stronghold burning around her, despite the bodies of her friends and enemies at her feet, Kate's heart remains as strong as steel.

After dropping two more infiltrators by gunshot, Kate finds Darrah waiting in front of another main corridor with her team around her, (Grey, I, and Flux). A warm wave of relief strikes Kate, seeing Darrah unharmed. She would never be able to forgive herself if Darrah died under her command.

Darrah's eyes light up as soon as Kate falls into her view through the flames. Since rescuing Darrah over five years ago from that lab, Kate has been the only parent figure in her life, and Kate knows this. But suddenly, Darrah's eyes turn to dread, two more infiltrators appear to their left, their rifles aimed directly at Kate!

Without a seconds hesitation, Darrah leaps to action and tackles Kate out of the way to the floor. The two infiltrators are caught off guard, allowing Kate to fire multiple shots into them from below.

Kate drags Darrah up to her feet, shoving her key-tag into the younger girl's hands. "My secret passage, get them there, you know what to do!" Kate gasps, wiping the sweat from her head.

"What about you?" Darrah murmurs with puppy dog eyes.

"I'm gonna find Martell and Emery," Kate answers, turning back towards the main corridor.

"Let me go with you!" Darrah pleads!

"No!" Kate snaps back, before taking a calmer tone. "I need you to get whoever you can to safety."

Darrah was the only person that Kate trusted enough with the existence of her secret passage. Unfortunately, Kate foresaw that an event like this might happen.

The assassin rebel leader leaves Darrah in a flash. Her eyes focus up with her gun. Even with her life's work burning around her, her mind is fixed on her people, her people that she can save… her family. The last family that she has left.

Where would Conrad and Tatiana be? The party? Yes… that's it! Kate scoots to her right, heading straight for where the party is being held. Her feet guide her on autopilot, zig-zagging her through the burning corridors. Even burning, she knows this place like the back of her hand.

She turns one final corridor but suddenly finds herself lodged in place, like her feet are trapped in wet tarmac. She's trapped in a state of dread and shock. Tatiana is facing her, also frozen in place, staring with raised eyebrows. She was just in the middle of giving the two infiltrators orders. Even with two of these double agents at her side, Kate sees fear in Tatiana's eyes, fear as clear as the fire around them. Because Tatiana knows that she's staring at the most dangerous woman in Panem, the one that could put an end to her right now.

Time seems to slow around them, and silence creeps in. Even though their stare-down lasts a few fleeting seconds, it feels like a gruelling five minutes. In these brief few moments Kate's eyes narrow into her former friend in fury. Many thoughts circle through her mind…There is no other explanation for it, Tatiana is one of the infiltrators… no she's the mastermind behind it. Was Tatiana behind the hit on her family too? Who else would have known of their location?

Like an eagle striking, Kate raises her gun to Tatiana's head, and the bullet follows immediately after!

BOOM

However, the body that hits the floor is one of Tatiana's henchmen, who jumped in the path of the bullet, and took the shot straight to the head. Kate instantly dispatches the other henchman to Tatiana's left with another headshot, but by the time Kate has turned her gun back to the young traitor, she has already sprinted to the end of the corridor.

Kate bolts after her like a moth sticking to a flame, reloading as she runs. Tatiana has vanished into the shadows, an old trick of hers.

"Oh by all means kill me… but you'll have to catch me first and by that time, you'll never save your boy!" Tatiana calls.

Kate lets out a growl of frustration. As much as she'd like to kill this traitor here and now, she can't abandon Conrad.

Kate diverts her attention back to the door that Tatiana was standing outside of. Under the sounds of the collapsing base… she can hear banging from inside the room. Conrad!

The heat rises with every moment she wastes… she can feel it. So, Kate charges straight at the door.

Damn it! No key card! She gave it to Darrah!

"Hold on!" Kate calls in response to the banging.

What now? She thinks to herself.

Kate eyes her gun up and down… her gun, of course.

"Conrad… if you can hear me… you might want to take a few steps back!" She calls through the locked door. Then she fires three shots at the lock, and the door finally breaks loose!

Conrad comes stumbling out on his hands and knees, followed by a cloud of black smoke. His face is charred from the smoke, and he's choking so much that it sounds like he's about to cough his insides out.

"It's... Tatiana… don't trust her," he croaks.

"I know…" Kate mutters back.

Conrad attempts to charge in the direction that Tatiana went but his legs give way again. Kate grabs him to hold him back and places his arm around her shoulder to support him. "She can wait!"

Together, they push their way through the flames and barely make it to Kate's secret passageway, narrowly avoiding the burning rubble from crashing down on their heads. Darrah is waiting there to drag them inside an airlocked elevator; leading further down underground, just as an explosion rocks it from overhead.

Two hours later

There were only six survivors from the attack. She won't let all the sacrifice be in vain. Not while she's still bre Six is enough. It always was. She began leading this rebellion with only five people.

Kate made sure this underground bunker always had all the necessities, in particular - alcohol. Kate is leaning back silently on her chair, a bottle of whiskey in her hand, still wiping the sweat from her head.

Meanwhile Darrah, Grey, Flux, and I are busy debating their next move.

"I won't believe it! They must have had something over her! She wouldn't have done this otherwise!" Darrah cries, tears drenching her smouldered face.

Flux throws their hands up in defeat. "Well, what does it matter now? Look around you." They glance around the hollow empty bunker. "We're finished."

"We're not about to just give up," Grey chimes in, leaning against the table.

But I slams her fist on the table! "I don't care if they blackmailed her or not. I'm putting a bullet in her head if it's the last thing I do… she killed my brother. I found his body in her office moments before the attack," she exclaims, panting heavily with anger.

"You can't! She's still our friend!" Darrah shouts.

The four of them continue to ramble on until their voices become muffled background noise to Kate, and she simply takes another sip from her whiskey. Then, in the corner she notices Conrad slouched against the wall in a heap, his head is resting back on the wall. His face and hair are still black with ash. He looks so… vulnerable like an abandoned puppy curled up on the street. Kate then catches herself off guard. She lays her bottle down, slowly making her way across the room to him. She's never been good with emotions, so she doesn't really know what she's doing, but he looks about as defeated as ever, with no one to talk to. Tatiana was his mentor and the one closest to him, after all.

When Kate slides down the wall opposite him, Conrad's eyes flicker slowly open. "My parents' legacy… everything they fought for… up in flames," he mutters.

Kate sighs. "They killed my family too." She can't help but clench her fists in anger even saying the words.

"I want to help you avenge your family, I really do… b-but maybe I'm not your guy. I couldn't even see through the girl I've been training with all these years," Conrad says, his words are slurred and barely understandable.

But Kate shakes her head. "That's on me… I'm the one that threw you into this mess in the first place," she says. "But we're still alive… the two of us. Despite everything. That's one thing they never planned for."

At that moment Kate's and Conrad's eyes meet. For the first time since they met five years ago, they finally seem to see eye to eye.

Kate pushes herself back up to her feet. "Now… What was it that you and Beckett used to say to each other? We just need to get you outta this cave… do you think you can help me with that?" Kate smiles, offering out her hand. Conrad furrows his eyebrows in surprise. He's never seen this compassionate, gentle side to Kate before, and truthfully, Kate hasn't seen much of her either.

"We need our guardian angel," Kate continues, still with a warm smile. Conrad shoots a slight smile back and takes her hand, allowing her to haul the big guy to his feet.

He follows her over to the table where the others are still debating. After she gives them a few stern looks, they all fall silent. She is their last hope and she knows it. The last ray of light shining down in this dark abyss. As her eyes move between them she finds that they are all waiting on her for answers. They are her new purpose… her family.

"Please tell me you've got a way outta this," Flux says.

As a matter of fact: Kate's mind has come up with something. As usual, it will be the hard way. But this is a hard problem that requires a hard solution.

Her eyes land on Conrad. On their journey down in the elevator, Conrad was muttering something about his parents, how they were members of the inner-table before they defected. Cornelius kept many secrets from her, so it's not unlikely and it may be their only way out of this. You see, by their ancient traditions, one member of the inner-table can demand a parley, to declare a duel. The winner's demands must be met. This tradition goes by blood. Conrad had family on the inner-table, so he can duel Saskia. It's what his parents would have done, if they hadn't been assassinated first. It's why the inner-table have been hell-bent on killing Conrad for all these years. It's just like Cornelius once said, a child reaped in the 95th games will be the key to all of this. He knew from the beginning who Conrad was, he only had to keep saying it, and it has almost come true.

Kate smiles inside. "A self-fulfilling prophecy. That clever old fool," she mutters softly to herself.

Conrad stares back at Kate with red cheeks and exhausted eyes, awaiting her plan. She can't break it to him yet. By a stroke of luck, he has survived this long. They could end the war, The Capitol, and the Hunger Games. The question is: will Saskia adhere to it? She was never one for tradition, and Kate doesn't see her giving up power that easily. Saskia will nominate someone to fight in her place no doubt, and Conrad has to do the same. He has to nominate Kate. She wants to get them all out of this mess, they are her family, her purpose. But, she knows deep down that he won't nominate her. He's not like that. He has the fate of the world on his shoulders and she wants to at least take some of it off him. He never asked for this.

Kate's hand goes instinctively to Conrad's shoulder to offer some comfort before she breaks her pan to him.

Ok whoop! We are at the end of the last prologue and the cast list is with it! Thank you to everyone who submitted, if yours didn't get it then it was nothing personal, I had to choose which characters worked best with each other. You can always submit yours somewhere else as well! Also I know the subplot is very plot heavy but we will be moving onto the main plot now for a while!

The cast list will be on my profile and on discord so make sure to check it out. I knew I had to write a partial for this story because a full would be too much for me. Sorry if your character didn't make it in, it has no bearing on how I feel about you as an individual. It's about who I could best tell their story and how well they fit into the rest of the cast. I really appreciate everyone that subbed and If your tribute didn't get in, I recommend you sub them to another fic and keep subbing.

Thanks for reading!