❤️💜14k nearly my goal lmao💜❤️

"Right so here's the plan." Cross dropped the last heavy branch onto the large pile that both him and Blue had accumulated over the past four hours.

The smaller crouched down next to him as he started poking at the ground with a stick, and drawing a large circle in the dirt with a circle in the middle, and three smaller X's littered around it that represented the giant campfires they'd been building.

"We're here." He pointed at the third X. "The cornucopia is there." He jabbed at the circle in the middle. "When we split up, you have to light this fire, then go to the next one and light it, and then the next before we meet back up again, okay?"

Blue nodded softly, staring at the dirt map intently.

"As soon as these catch fire they're going to smoke like crazy so you better run as fast as you can to the next one and so on. We should meet somewhere around here." He stabbed the stick into the soil a while away from the last X on the map.

He nodded once again, standing up with Cross by his side. "Yeah, and if we pull this off, then almost everyone will have a fair chance of winning this thing."

"Exactly." He pat him on the skull, letting his hand rest there for a moment before he shouldered his backpack. "Now let's go."

"Wait- We need some sort of signal, so if we can't find each other, we know we're around." Blue said, gripping onto his arm.

"Oh, I guess you're right." Cross frowned, looking around. "But what could we do?"

"I have an idea!" The smaller jumped, looking up at the trees around them. "Watch this!"

He blinked, watching as Blue pursed his 'lips' and whistled four notes. For a moment nothing happened, but then a chorus of song birds sounded, all of them copying the same little tune Blue had made.

Blue grinned, looking up at him. "These birds mimic songs they hear, so if we whistle that to each other and the birds replay it, we'll know that each other are close."

"That's a great idea, Blue." He smiled, nodding. "We'll do that."

The two of them hugged briefly and wished each other luck before Cross turned and pushed through the bushes, heading in the direction of the arena's centre.

Cross glanced back a few times to see Blue waving at him and wishing him good luck before he trekked too far to see the bouncy kid. He kept one of his knifes gripped in his hand, using it a bit like a machete to slash away all the growing vines and leaves. They continuously grabbed at him, thorns ruining his clothes even more and sending them into an even worse state than before. Roots did their best to trip him up and send him stumbling, but he managed to fight his way through with only minor incidents.

It took him half an hour to get to the centre of the arena. He crouched behind some holly bushes, his eyes narrowed as he surveyed the scene in front of him.

In the centre where the cornucopia was, all the crates of food and loot were piled up in heaps, weapons, food and survival supplies visibly packed in. A small sort of tarp area had been set up with some large sticks and a square piece of fabric that probably came from one of the crates or packs.

Sat down under the tarp, he could make out the figures of both Geno and Reaper, the taller being asleep with his back resting against some crates while the slightly insane one picked at the flowers by his feet, slowly tearing them into nothing. And then the girl from district Eight was with them, sat up on one of the crates with a spear in her hand as she stared off into the distance and scratched her arms. So they'd all survived the trackerjacker attack apart from the boy from Six. A shame really.

The girl didn't seem that bothered with whatever she was staring at before she stood up suddenly with a yell, pointing at something back in the direction Cross had came from.

Geno reacted immediately and stared at where she was pointing at before shaking Reaper quickly awake after.

The teen groaned sleepily in confusion, glancing around for a bit before his eyes trained on whatever the two had seen. He blinked softly before a wide grin spread across his face and he stood, chuckling lowly.

Cross risked glancing up at the sky behind him, a slight smile forming on his 'lips' as he saw the large plume of smoke that had been made by his and Blue's decoy campfires. He watched as Reaper got his scythe and Geno slung a rucksack over his shoulder -presumably full of knives- before they both stared at the girl.

"Stay here and guard." Reaper growled, pointing a finger at her. "Don't fuck anything up while we're gone."

She nodded quickly, even giving a little bow to the two of them. "Y-Yes, I promise nothing w-will happen to our loot".

"Our?" Geno sneered, rolling his one visible eye. "You're only here for convenience, it's Reaper and my loot, not yours."

She flinched and nodded meekly, staring at her feet. "Y-Yes..."

Reaper laughed and wrapped an arm around Geno's waist, pointing his scythe up at where the smoke was coming from. "What do you say we go kill some idiots, sweetheart?"

He giggled, resting his head on his partner's shoulder. "Sounds like fun~"

Cross watched as the two made their way out of the centre and over to where he was. He cursed silently under his breath and flattened himself down completely against the floor, twigs and leaves scratching at his face.

Reaper and Geno passed by him no more than five metres away. In that moment the oreo forgot how to breathe, his eyes squeezed shut tightly.

To his absolute luck, neither of them saw him and they continued forwards through the forest, looking up at the clouds of smoke they could see through the gaps in the trees. He stayed like that, pressed against the floor and keeping his breathing to an absolute minimum for five minutes before he brought up the courage to push himself up to his feet.

He peered over the top of the bush, noting that the girl was now in the spot where Geno and Reaper had been previously, a dark grey blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She seemed to almost be falling asleep, her head nodding downwards and then jerking back upwards groggily.

Cross scanned the surroundings around the cornucopia, frowning as he noticed all the different dirt mounds surrounding it. Glancing at the podiums they'd risen up on, he noticed that the areas around it where the mines had been had also been dug up. It looked like they'd transferred them to surround the supplies.

He stared at them for a minute, wondering how he'd get to the supplies now without blowing himself up into dust and ashes.

While he was thinking, something suddenly caught his eye. Darting out from the bushes from the left side of the arena a figure ran across the grass.

It was the boy from District Five. Killer. He was covered in dirt and scratches, streaks of blood staining his blue hoodie. He made a beeline for the supplies, not even slowing a bit as he hopped, skipped and jumped over each and every buried mine without a care in the world.

Cross watched in surprise as he grabbed one of the backpacks, briefly searching through its contents before grabbing a mesh bag full of what looked like bread rolls. He threw the two over his shoulder and grabbed one of the large machetes from one of the weapons boxes before dancing back over the mines and making a run for it once more. Within seconds he was back within the tree line, gone.

He blinked, standing motionless for a moment before staring at the girl. She hadn't noticed a thing, absentmindedly picking at her fingernails.

Shaking his head, he focused his gaze back at the pile of supplies, conscious of what Blue's situation might be like now. He'd definitely would have lit, or would be currently lighting their second decoy fire, so time would be running out for him.

His eyes wandered across the supplies before training on something that sparked an idea in his mind. Hanging from one of the boxes at the top, a mesh bag full of apples hung. It was caught to the box by a snag in the net fabric, looking like only the smallest nudge or tear would send all the contents bouncing to the ground.

His rucksack fell to the floor and he instantly pulled out his knives. He'd lost the serrated one in his struggle up the tree with the trackerjackers, so now he only had three. He would have had two, but luckily Blue had one he'd grabbed which he'd given to Cross. Gripping onto the first one, he turned to face the supplies once more and readied his knife.

The first one went spinning through the air, the sharp blade just skimming the mesh and making the smallest tear in it. The apples shifted a little bit, but the tear wasn't wide enough for any of them to fall out.

He cursed under his breath, biting his lip and letting his fingers curl around the hilt of his second knife. He only had two more chances.

To his luck, this knife flew directly towards the bag and tore right through the bottom of them before lodging into deeply into the box it was hanging from.

Everything from then seemed to happen in slow motion. The apples tumbled from the bag, bouncing and and rolling off the boxes before slamming into the ground.

Cross stumbled backwards, shielding his face with his arms just as the first apple hit a mine and the whole network of explosives was set off in an incredible bang.

Good luck not hearing that.

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1,698 words mmmmmmmm boi

Thinking about it, I think we'll all get our Crossmare in 2 chapters time????

M a Y b E ?

P o S s I b L y T h R e E ?

Idk sorry :'D

Hope you're surviving without it anyways uwu

-Jess-