Work Text:
The woman stood tall and defiant before the cornucopia, her long red hair flowing in the breeze. In her hands she carried a shield and a spear. The spear she had grabbed in the first few moments of the games and not let go of since. The shield, a hefty slab of solid metal, had been cobbled together by the tribute from district 3. Despite its weight, she swung it with inhuman grace.
Behind her stood the last living tributes. Six people, one only 12 years old. Their skin was pulled tight over their bones, the consequence of rationing the cornucopia's limited supply of food among seven people for a full week. No one wanted to risk a foraging expedition, not after what happened the last time the redheaded girl wasn't there to defend them.
As soon as the cannons had sounded to announce the death of the last tribute not part of their group, they knew that their stalemate with the Gamemakers was coming to an end.
At first, the Gamemakers maneuvered other tributes back to the cornucopia to kick them out. Inevitably, those tributes either joined them or fled after the girl beat them into the dirt and then spared their lives. After that, they tried everything in their arsenal, they sent sleep-inducing mists, a snake the size of a house, and acid rain. But the girl always knew what to do. She protected them. She trained them. And they survived.
Finally, the desperate Gamemakers broke their long tradition of silence to contact them directly. Their voices promised as much food as they could eat, video calls with their friends and family, temporary immunity to the dangers of the arena, if only they would turn on their protector and kill the redheaded girl. No one fell for it. Then the voices switched from promising rewards to threatening punishments. They had covered their youngest's ears whenever the speakers activated. No one thought he would be convinced, but they wanted to spare him the voices' graphic imagery.
Their voices had gone silent again for a whole day and the group anxiously awaited an incoming attack. But it never came. The cannon shots and nighttime portraits made it clear whatever group the Gamemakers had scrounged up from the remaining contestants had fallen apart and turned on each other.
Now they waited with a different kind of anxiety. The Gamemakers were out of pawns, and no one knew what they would try next.
The silence of the clearing was broken by the hiss of a hidden speaker just out of sight beyond the tree line.
"Pyrrha, Pyrrha, Pyrrha," the staticky, anonymized voice of the Gamemakers said, "if it wasn't for your weakness, you would be the victor of this year's games. Even now, it's not too late. Cut them down, and we'll pretend this little rebellion of yours never happened."
"I shall do no such thing! To defend the innocent is my solemn duty, and I will protect them with my life, if necessary."
"We were afraid you'd say that. Then the time for words is over. Listen up, tributes. In one hour, we will attack your little guardian with everything in the arena. She and anyone with her will die painful deaths. If you want to survive, and maybe even win, run away while you still can."
Pyrrha's eyes swept over the gathered children, but no one moved. She opened her mouth to say something, but the girl from district 6 interrupted her.
"Pyrrha," she said, "at first I thought this was doomed to fail. I knew that the Capitol would never allow more than one person to win, no matter what you said about cooperation and non-violence pacts. The only reason I went along with it was because I was starving and you were offering free food. When the voices promised I could see my brother again if I killed you, I was tempted."
"Caelia..."
"But I know now that I was wrong. If my options are to survive by letting my friends die or to die alongside them, then the choice is obvious."
She picked up her batons from the spot on the ground where she had left them so many days ago. Once it became clear no one would be betraying the rest of them, they had stopped carrying their weapons at all times, jittery and nervous that they'd have to use them at a moment's notice. Now they only used their weapons when Pyrrha was training them and in those hours of danger when their protector had to sleep and the work of defense was left up to them.
"And you all feel that way?"
Everyone else shook their heads yes and made sounds of agreement. Pyrrha looked to the youngest, but his resolve was as hardened as the rest.
"Well then, it's time for your final lesson. You've learned how to defeat a singular enemy and how to kite small groups of them. Now it's time to learn how to make a last stand against an endless swarm of monsters!"
They cheered, raising their weapons to the sky.
Then the screen went black. The recording was over.
"That's it?" Katniss asked incredulously.
Gale shut off the video player and turned to face her.
"The Capitol puts videos of Pyrrha's game under heavy security," he said, "and her final battle is locked down the hardest of them all. The conversation you just saw never made it to broadcast, and we only found it because one of the earlier Huntsmen stumbled on it during a hack before the Capitol beefed up their digital defenses."
"Do we know how she..."
"According to the official history of the games, the last tributes got desperate in their starvation and turned on each other. The only survivor was the youngest of them, who survived by hiding from the fighting until everyone else died from their injuries. Unfortunately, he was left mute by the horrors of what he saw and committed suicide not long after."
"And the real history?"
Gale smirked.
"They fought off the Capitol for a whole day. They killed muttations and dodged arena traps and even took down two armed hovercraft. But in the end, the constant attacks wore them down. Pyrrha fell first, shielding someone with her body. After that, the rest didn't last long. Even then they didn't run. Instead they sealed the youngest inside the cornucopia and fought until he was the last one left."
"And he told you all this?"
"In a manner of speaking. The capitol wasn't lying when they said he was mute, but only because they cut his tongue out themselves before shuffling him off to live the rest of his life in a gilded cage. Luckily, their security was more about keeping him in than keeping visitors out, so two of the early Huntsmen broke in one night and helped fake his death before spiriting him away to district 12. He died before I joined, but from what I hear he grew up to be an amazing Huntsman in his own right."
The two of them sat for a moment in silence. A small scavenged pane of glass let the sun into the otherwise unlit safe house and gave a blurry view of the area outside. Katniss looked from the grassy slope of the mountain the safe house was carved into down to the fence that surrounded district 12. They were in one of the many bases the Huntsmen had set up outside the district. Under normal circumstances, the Huntsmen who weren't busy with something else would be on guard duty, making sure the Peacekeepers didn't stray too far from their fence. But the only ones there were her and Gale. The rest were all guarding one-way rift that connected their world to Remnant, preparing for when all of Panem's despair would draw gigantic hordes of Grimm through the rift. She shuddered to think about what would have happened to their world if Pyrrha hadn't come through first. The legendary Huntswoman defended them while they were defenseless and trained the first Huntsmen to take her place once she was gone.
Finally, Katniss broke the silence.
"I should be on rift duty this year. You know I'm more than capable enough. I might have only had my aura unlocked recently, but I know a bow and arrow like the back of my hand and I have a good grasp of my semblance. There aren't enough Huntsmen for us to be sidelining perfectly good fighters."
"I showed you that video for a reason," Gale said in a seeming non-sequitur.
Katniss quirked an eyebrow.
"Bitty—you remember Bitty right?" Gale asked.
Katniss nodded her head. She never spent much time with the older girl, but they had talked a few times before her death. It was black lung that got her in the end, not a Grimm attack. Aura strengthened immune systems, but it could only do so much.
"Bitty's semblance," Gale said, "let her see snapshots of the future. And one of the last things she saw before she died was your sister being reaped this year."
"There's no way! She only has her name in there once."
"Even once is enough to get picked."
She'd have to take her sister and hide out in a safe house. But if she did that they would never be able to go back. And there was no way Primrose would go without their mother. Neither of the two were suited to a life in the wilderness. Not to mention such a blatant action might break the unsteady ceasefire between Huntsmen and Peacekeepers right at the most dangerous time of year.
"Then I'll volunteer in her place."
"That's what I thought you'd say. But you'll need to be careful. The Capitol never forgave Pyrrha for ruining their games, and from their perspective you'd be her second coming."
"And there's no way I could get away with using my semblance in front of any cameras."
"I don't know, I'd pay to see the Gamemakers' faces if you spontaneously burst into flame right when they signal the start of the games."
They both laughed at that. When they calmed down, Gale's face took on a grim look.
"Normally I'd advise you to lay low. Even with just your aura and a bow you're pretty much guaranteed to win. Wait out until it's just the careers left and then snipe them from a distance."
"I'm hearing a but coming."
"But the other Huntsmen think differently. Each year leaves us with less Huntsmen to hold off the Grimm, which means smaller teams and longer shifts and more deaths. Even under our best estimates we won't last another decade. Even worse, the Quarter Quell is next year. If the sheer concentration of negative emotions caused by the last one was enough to open the rift in the first place, next year's might open up another front we'll be forced to guard. At the very least, we'll be seeing a larger wave of Grimm than ever before," Gale shifted, "But according to the bigwigs over in 13, Panem is also closer to all-out rebellion than it has been in decades. The districts just need some hope and solidarity. They want another Pyrrha in the games to kick things off."
"And I'm volunteering."
Gale nodded.
"They told us they could exfiltrate you and the other tributes..."
"But just because they can doesn't mean they will if they don't get anything out of it. Fucking Coin."
Katniss stood up and picked her bow off the table.
"Well then," she said, "I'm off to the rift. The reaping is only two weeks away and I need to figure out how to make a last stand against an endless swarm of monsters."
Katniss could hear Gale saying "good luck", and then she was out the door. Down below, she could see a small horde of Beowolves making their way toward district 12.
Nocking an arrow, she sent it straight through the largest one's skull. The remaining Beowolves howled and charged her. She just nocked another arrow and smiled.