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The remaining days go by in a whirl. After a brief workout each morning, the Mockingjay squad was on the shooting range full-time in training. Opal practiced mainly with a gun, but they reserved an hour every day for her specialty weapons, which meant she got to use her katana and daggers, Gale with his crossbow, and Katniss with her Mockingjay bow. The trident Beete designed for Finnick had a lot of special features, but the most remarkable one is that he could throw it, press a button on a metal cuff on his wrist and it would return to his hand without having to chase it down. Sometimes they shot at peacekeeper dummies to become familiar with the weaknesses in their protective gear. The chinks in the armor so to speak. If you were to hit flesh, you were rewarded with a burst of fake blood. Their dummies were soaked in red. It was reassuring to see just how high the overall accuracy was in their group. Along with Finnick, Gale, Katniss, and Opal, the squad included five soldiers from District 13.

"Squad Four-Five-One, you have been selected for a special mission," Boggs began. Opal bit the inside of her lip, hoping it was to assassinate Snow "We have numerous sharpshooters, but rather a dearth of camera crews. Therefore, we've hand-picked the eight of you to be what we call our 'Star squad'. You will be the on-screen faces of the invasion." Disappointment, shock, then anger ran through the group.

"What you're saying is, we won't be in actual combat?" Gale snapped.

"You will be in combat, but perhaps not always on the front line. If one can even isolate the front line in this type of war." said Plutarch.

"None of us want that." Finnick remarked which was followed by a general rumble of assent, but Katniss stayed quiet "We're going to fight."

"You're going to be as useful to the war effort as possible," Plutarch said "And it's even decided that you are the most valuable on television. Just look at the effect Katniss had running around in that Mockingjay suit. Turned the whole rebellion around. Do you notice how she's the only one not complaining? It's because she understands the power of that screen."

"But it's not all pretend, is it?" Katniss asked, "That'd be a waste of talent."

"Don't worry," Plutarch told her "You'll have plenty of real targets to hit. But don't get blown up. I've got enough on my plate without having to replace you. Now get to the Capitol and put on a good show."

The morning they shipped out, Opal said goodbye to Mags, Annie, and Johanna, her family. She hadn't told them much about the Capitol's defenses mirror the weapons in the arena, but her going off to war was enough. Mags held her tightly for a long time. Opal felt tears on her cheek, something she had tried to suppress since she was slated for the games. "Don't worry. I'll be perfectly safe. I'm not even a real soldier. Just one of Plutarch's television puppets." Opal reassured her. A hovercraft took them to District Twelve of all places, where a makeshift transportation area has been set up outside the fire zone. There were no luxury trains this time, but a cargo car packed to its limit with soldiers in their dark grey uniforms, sleeping with their heads on their packs. After a couple of days of travel, they disembarked inside one of the mountain tunnels leading to the Capitol, and to make the rest of the six-hour trek on foot, taking care to step only on a glowing green paint line that marks safe passage to the air above.

They came out in the rebel encampment, which was a ten-block stretch outside the train station where Peeta and Katniss had made their previous arrivals. It was crawling with soldiers. Squad 451 had been assigned a spot to hitch their tents. The area had been secured for over a week, the rebels had pushed out the Peacekeepers, losing hundreds of lives in the process. The Capitol forces fell back and had to regroup further into the city. Between the camp and them lay the booby-trapped streets, empty and inviting. Each one would need to be swept of any pods before they could make an advance. Opal nervously asked about hoverplane bombings - she felt very naked pitched out in the open - but Boggs said it was not an issue. Most of the Capitol's air fleet was destroyed in two during the invasion. If it had any air crafts left it was probably holding onto them. It was most likely so that Snow and his inner circle could make a quick escape to some sort of presidential bunker somewhere if needed .

Their own hover planes were grounded after the Capitol's anti-aircraft missiles decimated the first few waves. This war was hopefully going to be battled out on the streets with, hopefully, only superficial damage to the infrastructure and a minimum of human casualties. The rebels wanted the Capitol, just as the Capitol wanted thirteen. After three days, much of Squad 451 risked deserting out of sheer boredom. Cressida and her team took shots of them firing. They told them they were part of the disinformation team. If only the rebels only shoot Plutarch's pods, it would take the Capitol to find out that they had the hologram. So there was a lot of time-shattering things that didn't matter, to throw them off the scent. Mostly they just added to the pile of rainbow glass that had been blown off the exteriors of the candy-colored buildings.

Opal suspected that they were intercutting the footage with the destruction of significant Capitol targets. Once in a while, it seemed that a real sharpshooter was needed. Nine hands went up, but Opal, Finnick, Gale, and Katniss were never chosen.

"It's your own fault for being so camera-ready, "Opal joked to Katniss, if looks could kill Opal would be dead. Opal thought they must not have known what to do with the four of them. While Opal outwardly expressed discontent about their lack of any real participation. Each of them had a paper map of the Capitol. The city formed an almost perfect square, lines divided the map into smaller squares, with letters along the top and numbers down the side to form a grid. Opal consumed this, noting every intersection and side street, but it was remedial stuff. The commanders were working off Plutarch's hologram, each of them had a hand-held contraption called a Holo that produced images like she had seen in Command. They could zoom into any area of the grid and see what pods awaited them. The Holo's which was an independent unit, a glorified map really, since it can neither send nor receive signals. But it was far superior to Opal's paper version.

The following evening, the newest member of their squad arrived. With no manacles, no guards. Strolling out of the train station with his gun swinging from the strap over his shoulder. There was shock, confusion, and resistance, but 451 was stamped on the back of Peeta's hand in fresh ink. Boggs relieved him of his weapon and soon disappeared to make a call. "It won't matter," Peeta told them "The president assigned me herself. She decided the propos needed some heating up." Opal shook her head looking at Katniss, if Coin had sent Peeta here, she had decided something else as well, Katniss was more valuable to her dead than alive.

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