Author's Note: We have arrived at the end of this story albeit the two have merged so they're winding up together. All of my victors have reached this point together and now it's time to find out their fates.
….
Revival (An Epilogue of Sorts)
"He joined the boats at sea, we knew he would. Just like I know the two of you haven't been hiding inside. He believed he could beat anybody in the water."
"But the navy's artillery is a bit heavier duty than Finnick's gun and trident," Poppy said.
"Exactly," Dora replied. "Noah said he'd dragged some of them into the water and got them good, but-"
"How bad is it?" Halley asked.
"Bad. I didn't see him properly, but Noah and Caspian came back my way and they were covered in blood, and it wasn't theirs. They needed to use the lifeboat attached to our main vessel, so it wasn't an easy journey to shore. Finnick went from yelling for Annie to having visions of the dead, so it's not good."
"His injuries?"
"Noah says he won't have his pretty face anymore. His chest is beat up, but Noah thinks those wounds are shallow. He's lost a lot of blood though."
Nobody responded, she could only hear Haymitch's swearing in the background, so Dora continued, "Cass is back at sea. Noah has taken over command here and you can speak to him once he's washed the blood off. I'm in charge when Noah is on the water. But I need to ask you, as Finnick is incapacitated, who has command?"
Dora was still met with nothing from Three and Six's women. This time she could hear a voice that sounded like Wiress trying to comfort Halley.
Poppy broke the silence, "Halley, do you copy? If Finnick is down, command passes to you."
Poppy repeated herself, "Halley, do you have command?"
"You need to confirm Halley, do you copy? If you don't, I will take command. Halley!"
Finally, Halley responded, "I have command. At ease Poppy, Dora."
"He's our friend and I know you love him, but we need to keep our heads. We're no good to him losing our minds and blowing everything he's worked for."
"I have no intention of doing that," Halley confirmed. "It's just a shock. But we press on. He's Finnick but he's no more than each of us, that's what this is about, isn't it."
"Nobody tell him you said that," Poppy laughed.
Lyme's arrival interrupted Dora's quiet laughter. Two's signal was shaky, but the victor arrived, sounding breathless and excited.
"I take it Finn has been silly. If he dies or we mess this up, Mags will haunt us."
"Nice to see we're still on the same page, Lyme. But what's got you sounding like this?"
"We've done it. Two turned on the Capitol and not each other. There's been a few issues, but we've sorted them and gone for the Capitol instead."
"That's been the general idea all along, Lyme," Halley said.
"Alright Three, we can't all be like you. But it's happened. We took a hit and destroyed ours, and probably half the country's defences, and I don't know how many we've lost. Some of ours aren't back yet. But they're done for. The incoming train with the Capitol Guard, some government figures and a load of weapons hit the bomb we planted in our defensive hub. They can't come back from this."
"Wow. You've come through, Lyme"
"What now? The Capitol will likely give up on sending reinforcements to us."
"You get on and take control of the entire district," Poppy said.
"And we push. Let's do it now. They're shaken. Let's go all in on the Capitol. We need Thirteen back on the call."
….
District Twelve got to tell their story just as district forces gathered on the Capitol's border. Panem heard from Peeta, Katniss, Gale and those evacuated to other districts. Images of life in Twelve before the bombing were displayed across Panem before cutting to Marshall's footage from the aftermath of the bombings and District Thirteen's aerial images. The sounds of Daisy and Katniss singing 'The Hanging Tree' and a recording of Twelve's schoolchildren soundtracked the broadcast.
The districts were in uproar and the Capitol was in disbelief. People did not want to believe this had happened in their name. Some refused to believe it at all. Others claimed the Capitol was entirely justified. But the façade of Capitol strength and unity had crumbled. It was only made worse by the wall of silence from their leaders. Nobody knew which Minister was in charge each day. There were jokes in the media about drawing straws and taking turns to take the country's reigns. But war was no laughing matter as the Capitol was about to find out.
At first, the Defence Ministry claimed that reports of district advances were a lie. There were no forces at the gate. But they soon looked ridiculous as footage appeared of the gathering forces, supported by aerial defences, maintaining their position.
District Thirteen came out from nowhere, advertising themselves as the saviours of District Twelve, the liberator of the districts and a united, formidable force about to take down the Capitol. But they introduced their President to the nation to a mixed reception, even among those most loyal to the rebels.
Plutarch Heavensbee, now safely smuggled into District Three, delivered an address to the nation. He set out his longstanding loyalties and told the truth about the shambolic lack of leadership in the Capitol. He confirmed how he had used his position to advance the rebels at the expense of the Capitol and provided solid examples of how his interference had swayed matters into district hands.
The propaganda onslaught from the rebels, in time with the anticipated launch of their strike into the Capitol brought fear and confusion to the heart of Panem's centre. Nobody knew what to believe. The Capitol-centred worldview was collapsing, along with its physical defences.
A heavily injured and bandaged Finnick Odair took to the airwaves in a move that surprised even those closest to him.
"Ladies and Gentlemen of Panem, this is Finnick Odair, coming to you from District Four.
I am speaking to you all as the leader of the districts' forces. I have followed an honourable tradition of District Four leadership and found myself here, with you all, on the precipice of our victory.
I may be wounded and not quite as good-looking as I was a few days ago. But I know so many of you in the Capitol will still recognise me. We've got to know each other so well over the last few decades, haven't we?
You see, the Capitol is a place that runs on appearances, glamour and beauty. To the outside that is. But to those of us forced onto the inside, we know that's not true. The Capitol runs on secrets, power and poison. And I have some stories for you."
Finnick took a breath and looked over the camera for reassurance. He received what he was looking for because he continued.
"Let's start from when I was a young boy of fourteen, fresh from the arena of the Sixty-Fifth Annual Hunger Games. Nobody has ever beat my record and nobody ever will. The youngest ever victor of the Hunger Games.
I was dragged into a world I didn't think possible. I had been told that the Capitol was different to the districts, shall we say. And that wasn't a lie.
It was made clear to me what my duties would be the second I was of age (although I don't think that bothered some people I later encountered). If a victor was deemed desirable, they were sold to the highest bidder, all with the encouragement of our dear late Presidents of course. If a victor refused, then they would kill someone you loved, or perhaps your entire family at once. So, you did as you were told, like a good little victor.
I wasn't the only one, but I was by far the most popular. That's why I know so many of you in the Capitol so well, so don't go thinking you're unique. A lot of you paid a lot of money for a night with me.
People would want to pay me, but I thought of a better way around that. You see, I learnt the way the Capitol works. Secrets, power and poison, remember.
You've been so generous with me in the Capitol that I've gathered so many secrets. Over thirty years of secrets you've spilt to my listening ears and all for one night with my pretty face. But enough about me, let's get to you, the good people of the Capitol. Stay tuned, because you'll want to listen to this.
Your dear Gamemakers are certainly an interesting mix. With a notable exception (more on that later), they had an insatiable appetite for victors. Augustus Holmes, Gamemaker through the sixties to the eighties, never stayed faithful to his wife. I had lost count of his lovers, and so had he. His colleague Octavia Featherstone was broke, despite being a Gamemaker. Her husband gambled away her inheritance and they both had to buy me on the cheap to tell me this.
The Chief of the Intelligence Agency in the seventies was in the pockets of the gangs circling the heart of the Capitol. He was caught up in a bribery scandal that Snow and his cronies covered up, but he was still in their pockets. That fire in the Defence Ministry, that was our Intelligence Chief. Of course, he met his end not long after that. Something in his drink, you see.
Scandal and debauchery are at the heart of the Capitol. Snow and his cronies knew how to party and at whose expense. Elda followed in his footsteps. But from the Ravinstill days, the Capitol enjoyed themselves at the expense of the rest of us. Everything from the arenas to the Presidential Mansion was built on slave labour. The avoxes and forced district labourers, you name it, they built it. The avoxes were passed around as party favours afterwards. Very few people seemed to mind that some of them were children.
The Chief of the Capitol Guard, a very busy man right now I'm sure, loves the company of his avoxes a little too much. He's also sleeping with his deputy's wife.
But when they're not satisfying their appetites, our dear Capitol leaders thrive on poison. It's how everyone got to where they are now. Nobody had to prove their competence, only that they could poison the incumbent. An entire string of Finance Ministers from the fifties to the present day have poisoned their way to the top.
Our Presidents ran on poison too. Dear Coriolanus Snow kept hold of power for so long even as those around him fell. Their downfalls never seemed to affect him, and you must have wondered how. But now you know. Poison. He drank from the same bottle as his victims so nobody could easily point the finger. It's how he developed those mouth sores he was trying to hide for years even as his mouth bled, and he developed that cough we all knew. He disguised the constant aroma of blood with perfume. Roses. That's what we all associated him with. A pungent smell to mask the lengths he had gone to keep hold of power.
We all know he held on for too long. He was a rambling mess by the time he died. He wasn't making any meaningful decisions; everyone was running rings around him, but nobody could tell him to step aside. They all knew he would poison them. When he finally died, choking on his blood during breakfast, his assistant did not try to revive him and the guards outside who heard the whole episode pretended they had not.
But it does not end there for our Presidents. Snow would never have appointed a successor. He would have loved the fight that followed. The Finance Minister of the day made the first move, only to be poisoned by the Defence Minister who was outplayed by our new President Elda.
And Elda bravely survived an assassination attempt upon taking power. Except, he ordered it. President Elda orchestrated it to get rid of the Defence Minister and force people to rally around him.
The tables turned at the end of his run at the top. He had dropped the ball completely and everyone exploited his weakness. His assassination at poor Birch Hargrave's victory ceremony was orchestrated by Commander Thread, whose own assassination was organised by an array of cabinet members including District Affairs, Transport, Food, Agriculture and the rebels' own Minister for Scientific and Technological Innovation, Plutarch Heavensbee.
Yes, Plutarch Heavensbee is a rebel and has been for as long as I've been alive. He was telling you the truth the other night. Whatever role he has taken in the Capitol, he did it for us, for everyone who wants change. He was Pluto's man, Mags' man, Chloe's man and now he's one of us. On the forefront of victory. Because we will win, make no mistake.
As for the Capitol, there's nobody in charge. You have no leader. Anybody who remains loyal has nobody to look to because there's nobody there. For the first time since the Dark Days, nobody in the Capitol wants the top job.
And we're here. Right on your doorstep, at the gates, ready. We are fair and merciful. But we will not let you stand in our way any longer. The time has come.
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Capitol, let the Ninety-Ninth Hunger Games begin."
….
Finnick's speech was taken as a call to action and District Five came alive. The plan to cut off the supply from the solar fields worked and the attack on the hydroelectric dam began. For so many people, it could become a suicide mission. Nobody knew any longer just how heavily guarded it was. On a quiet day, the usual peacekeeper presence could be seen but nobody knew if reinforcements were waiting.
Everyone knew it would be a complicated, dangerous task. They had to get to the heart of the dam and destroy it. They had the explosives, the people and it was time to go. District Five had decided they had to act. They could not hold back any longer or risk being completely left behind the other districts.
Porter and Soleil were part of the group that ventured on a reconnaissance mission to determine the operational status of the hydroelectric dam. They moved under the cover of darkness to wait on the threshold and observe. They could make out the guard on the night shift whilst Porter journeyed wider around the parameter to check that operations were aligned with her understanding.
They observed the shift change in the morning and tried to work out how many arrivals there were. Luck was on their side. Peacekeepers had clearly been diverted away from infrastructure and into the fighting. The mission would remain dangerous, but there would not be nearly as many peacekeepers to defeat as there could have been.
The group left buoyed by their discovery and discretely reached the border of Five's main city once more. But as they climbed into the vehicles that they left waiting for their return, the group was ambushed. Some managed to escape but it was clear that the attacking peacekeepers had a target. Their attention was focused on the more prolific members of the group. Their leader was summarily shot, and Soleil was dragged away from a screaming Porter and shot too.
The older victor sought revenge and immediately turned on those who killed her victor. She screamed wildly as she sprayed bullets across the group. The peacekeepers had underestimated her, and Porter swept up her victor and returned sobbing with Soleil dead in her lap.
They had come so far and everything Soleil had worked for was about to succeed. Now it had ended so abruptly. Porter was in disbelief that they could have been ambushed and that it was her younger victor who had died and not her. She could not process that Soleil's life had been taken so quickly, not when she was about to find herself in the most pivotal moment of her life.
It had been Soleil who had carried Porter with her and now Porter was alone, carrying her dead victor home.
Porter, the rebels and the members of Soleil's family who could be found buried the young victor next to Ellen and Luna that night before setting off towards the dam. It felt wrong that Soleil was not at their heart, ready to find herself at the centre of their attack. But it was war and even victors were not invincible.
The dam was destroyed, the lights in the Capitol were switched off and Porter returned to tell her dead victor all about it. Porter hoped she would be proud and confident that her district had played its part.
Porter soon found herself isolated and shut out. Without Soleil, the rebel groups did not wish to engage with her as they did before. They claimed she had been useful, but they knew what to do from here on in. They did not need her. Porter tried to remind them how useful she could be, but it was no use, so she returned to her and Soleil's hiding place alone.
The next night, Hal's dead body was placed on her doorstep. Porter had no idea who had killed him, loyalist or rebel. They would both have a cause. The fact that he was dumped at her feet was a message to Porter too. Whoever had targeted Hal knew where she was.
The older victor realised there was nobody in Five to turn to. After decades of dedicating herself to Five's prosperity, there was nobody in her district she could trust to help her. So, she watched and waited until the rebel leadership left their base and when she could be sure she would be alone, she made her way inside and found the radio.
She had watched Soleil and the others use it before so figured she would find out what to do. After several nervous moments watching over her shoulder and trying to make out voices through the muffled connection, Porter found her way in.
"District Four?" she asked. "District Four, do you copy?"
"District Four, copy," came the reply. "Porter is that you?"
"Noah! Thank goodness. I need help and I don't know where to turn."
Porter decided to be frank. After years of rejecting Four's proposals, Porter thought it ironic that she was asking for their help in her desperation. But they were the only people close enough she could trust.
"It's going well, isn't it? The dam, the solar fields. You've done it! At the right time too!"
"I know, Noah. Five has come alive. But I mean me. We were ambushed and Soleil was shot and now Hal's dead body had been placed at my doorstep. Whoever it is, is coming after me."
"I'm sorry. But it's a message. Get out of there, don't waste time."
"I don't know where to go. I can't trust anybody here."
"There's a reason you've spoken to me specifically, Porter. You're a victor and we know who we can trust. Get a car, preferably not a peacekeeper one because you'll be shot on sight on your way over and get to Four. I'll get someone you can trust to meet you over the border."
Porter heard what she needed to. She wasted no time in removing the maps she had provided the rebels from their base before taking the car she had returned in with Soleil's body and returning to collect Hal's body.
The ground next to Soleil's grave was still broken, so in her frantic desperation, Porter ignored her body's pleas for her to stop and dug Hal's grave, buried him and left District Five.
She did not let herself sleep until she reached the border with Four and saw Caspian waiting for her. She collapsed with her head in her hands as soon as she got into the waiting car and woke up in District Four with Noah standing over her.
"It doesn't matter how long it took you, Porter. We've got you."
….
District Nine had finally leapt into action. Ryan and Sandy's plan was underway, and grain and cereal had been moved to separate, hastily arranged storage before the granaries were set on fire. They torched newly planted crops as the peacekeepers tried to guard them and left them running for their lives as the fire spread.
The peacekeepers retaliated as everyone knew they would. Workers, passers-by and anyone unlucky enough to be in the area were lined up and shot. Nine quickly became familiar with summary executions.
But their plans had worked. Peacekeepers moved to guard the granaries and factory storage and found themselves on the front line whilst villagers took the chance to free themselves and join their neighbours as they moved to join the fight in Nine's centre.
Ryan and Sandy were at the heart of everything. Barric and Maizey remained hidden, keeping a tally of estimated infrastructure and personnel losses whilst marking locations of areas under threat and areas gained by the rebels. Nine's battle would be won and lost solely with Nine's people and the peacekeepers already in the district. It was clear the Capitol was too stretched to send in anybody beyond the twice-daily fighter planes to drop bombs on random locations.
The younger victors were busy and whilst they previously realised there was a spy in their group, they had never caught onto his partner. Having dealt with the man bribed by the peacekeepers and visiting Capitol officials, they thought their work was done and their group secure.
But they had missed the woman standing in his shadow, hiding as a keen rebel but quietly supporting the peacekeepers who kept her family fed. She was at their side when Ryan and Sandy planned their next move to ensure an all-out revolt in the city square. They thought she could be trusted.
Instead, she led them to a peacekeeper ambush they could not work their way out of and both victors were soon dead.
It was a quick, nondescript ending for Nine's most prominent victors, leaving Barric and Maizey devastated. They could barely bring themselves to act. Their victors were doing right, and they had been betrayed.
The rest of Ryan and Sandy's cell heard what had happened. They led the revolt in their honour and hauled the woman who betrayed them in front of the people who survived their clash with the peacekeepers. The older victors heard what was happening and came out from hiding to watch the rebels turn on her. She was dead too, but it brought them little satisfaction. War had come to the heart of Nine and Barric and Maizey did not know how they would pull through.
….
One's victors heeded Topaz's warning and relocated quickly and without incident. They did not care that it may have been a ploy. They had a second location secured, ready for such an occasion and even if it was just a rumour, they knew better than to become complacent.
After their district saw off the Capitol Guard, loyalist uprisings slowed down and life in One started to creep back to normality. Their leaders ordered the reconstruction of what was damaged and set about salvaging everything that could help them in the future.
Gloss remained their leader on the battlefield, focusing on dampening any loyalist fightback before it could begin. His people set about picking off those who could be a danger and Topaz decided to follow through on her suspicion.
She spent her days travelling the streets of One's main city, sometimes with Theodore or Cashmere for company, other times alone. She remained vigilant for sightings of Ermine or anyone known to have associated with her.
Topaz did not believe that Ermine was loyal to anybody but herself. She had been left jilted and jaded by Gloss when he ended their marriage, and it took years for the victor to disentangle her from his life. The victors were constantly aware of her shadow and the stifling effect on Gloss.
But Topaz only found Ermine when she saw Gloss standing over her motionless body. Somehow, she had found their location and tried to force entry. It was a stupid idea, to enter the base of four victors alone and expect it to end positively. But Topaz had never credited Ermine with much intelligence.
Lost by her fall from grace and then the end of the Capitol's protection of her way of life, Ermine had grown desperate and tried to take it out on the one person she could. But Gloss was a victor, and he had reached the point where he did not think twice. The second Ermine's hand reached for her side pocket; Gloss raised his gun.
War seemed to have a strange impact on people. Ermine had been driven to mindless desperation and her demise was soon followed by Augustus arriving at their base, having caught Theo's tracks and followed him home. Theodore was unnerved but Augustus seemed lost and confused. Every single one of his convictions about Panem and the Capitol had been destroyed. The victors were wary but decided to let Gus in and keep him under close watch.
Luxor was nowhere to be found, even Augustus had no idea of his location. Gloss remained convinced that he would find his mentor in one of the last loyalist strong holdings, but nobody had any real idea of his whereabouts.
Life continued in the victors' base. Gloss continued to seek out the final fighters, Cashmere led the intelligence operations with their prisoner numbers at capacity whilst Topaz and Theo worked the streets to glean knowledge from their people.
A call for fighters to go to the Capitol was sent across the districts and Theodore decided to join. He would be more useful in the final battle than speaking to confused and elderly citizens about the latest rumour.
Topaz accompanied him to see him off and to wish him luck before returning to the others. District One had sent hundreds of men and women to the Capitol and the streets seemed emptier for it. They had been lucky as a district. They knew how to end the real fighting early and were left trying to resolve isolated issues. Only a small unit from the Capitol Guard descended on One and they were ill-equipped and disorganised so much so that they were entirely beaten within forty-eight hours of arrival.
Topaz was too busy thinking of how things had turned out in their favour and the pride that Gem would feel if she knew what had happened in their home that she missed what was in front of her. She pulled up near the base, left her car and did not register the man standing at the corner watching her. It was too late by the time she looked up, met eyes with him and raised her hand to acknowledge his presence. She recognised him as a friend of Luxor's after all. But the man's gun had already fired, and Topaz was on the floor, motionless as Cashmere ran outside screaming, having seen her mentor fall.
Gloss avenged Topaz only seconds later, but it was all too late. They had lost Topaz and for no good reason at all. One had come through the worst and still, it was not over.
….
Since the success of their attack on the Capitol invaders and their defences, life in District Two had become boring for Lyme. She had sent hundreds of men and women to the Capitol to join the final fight and had resolved to join them in the end stages.
She was in her seventies and her body was complaining. It had been an eventful few months and now she was reduced to sitting on the roof of whichever building she favoured, taking potshots at passing lone peacekeepers with Brutus. They had a one hundred per cent success rate.
District Two had ensured the Capitol that another explosion would await them if they sent in any more troops and the Capitol could only respond with a scattered bombing campaign. They hit Two's oldest quarry which Lyme had ordered closed the second fighting broke out, so they suffered no real losses. The grounds of the Institute and half of the Victors' Village were destroyed but both locations were deserted. The Justice Building was flattened but Two's leaders simply had to relocate, having suffered minor casualties.
The quiet was broken when Ember burst into Lyme and Brutus' headquarters.
"What are you doing here?" Lyme asked.
"Nice to see you too."
"If you're here to cause trouble, I suggest you leave pretty sharp my girl," Brutus said. He knew Ember posed no real threat. She had somehow remained ambivalent to the entire war and had spent weeks in hiding with Petran and Remus, but he had no idea what had prompted her arrival.
"I have news."
"Well go on and tell us," Lyme said. She had very little patience for Ember's disinterest even though she was Brutus' victor.
"Petran is dead," Ember announced. "Remus left around the time of the explosion, thinking he could put a stop to Two tearing its defences apart. He had become delusional with the stress of his worldview disintegrating. I think he wanted to save Marcus and Mal too. He's been lost without them."
"What's this got to do with Petran?"
"He followed Remus when he left and got himself shot. I told him not to go but he ordered me back inside and said he would resolve it. I've hidden him in the mountains next to the Village."
"Well, Remus found Mal and now they're both dead too," Lyme spat. "I don't know how it happened, but they got caught in the explosion. I told Mal not to do anything stupid but even though he's my victor, he's a man in his sixties and I can't stop him. I don't want to know anything further."
"We'll bury them together," Brutus said.
He and Lyme had both lost a victor and even though those victors were ageing, it still hurt. Brutus and Lyme still felt responsible for Remus and Malachite.
Lyme had worked for their success for years and knew she would endure personal loss. It was bittersweet. Two had seen resounding success and she was thinking about rebuilding their lives and what shape a new Two would take. But people she had lived with for decades would not be part of their new life and she could not comprehend their absence.
The three victors buried their dead that night, hid inside Brutus' house and raised a glass to Petran, Remus and Malachite. In that moment, their loyalties or otherwise were irrelevant, they had lost part of their way of life and would need to find a way to move forward.
….
Finnick appeared on Panem's television screens once more. This time he declared District Four's freedom and hinted that he expected a friend to say the same for another district soon. He confirmed that the Capitol Guard had been routed in Four and that the naval ships had been forced into retreat.
He congratulated District Thirteen on their public revival but stressed their role as an equal part of their movement. Finnick did not trust them for a second and now the second part of his mission as leader was beginning. They could not allow Thirteen to take control when almost all the work to get them to this point came from the twelve districts.
The call for fighters to join the Capitol front was repeated and a map appeared on screen with Finnick providing commentary on the rebel's advances across the border. The rebels had been filming their advances too and the deactivation of defensive pods formed a key part of their message. The districts knew about the Capitol's defences, and they could work around them.
As footage of explosions, activated pods and fighting between the rebels and the Capitol was broadcast, Finnick's commentary took on the style of Ceasar and Lucretius Flickerman covering the Hunger Games. He started to bring the broadcast to a close by reminding the Capitol that more fun awaited them as the Ninety-Ninth Hunger Games continued in their very own arena.
It was the districts' time and there was no denying it. Finnick's message was clear. Whilst he knew Poppy and Halley would likely chastise him for his Hunger Games moment, the Capitol had shot him in the face, and he was not very happy about it.
But Finnick knew they had to take the moral high ground. The rebels did not take pleasure in hurting other people, that was the Capitol's domain. So Finnick's final lines were a reminder that Capitol defectors were welcome, that the rebels were not looking to harm civilians, and that they wanted peace. It was in the Capitol's hands to surrender, and the violence would end. The districts would end the war, they would be the winners, and they were looking to rebuild Panem. It was time for the Capitol to join them.