The Tribute Returns (Percy Jackson Hunger Games crossover)

Somebody Call Staples Because...

Percy stood at the prow of the boat, looking out over District 4 and listening to Festus's mechanical whistling, clanking, and squealing. Sometimes if he was sleep deprived enough he could understand what he was saying. Of course, Hephaestus kids were the ones who could understand machines, not... Percy's eyes widened and he quickly tapped into his computer chip, trying several ways of connecting it with his hearing until Festus was making understandable words. 

"What the heck is Leo doing with his remote?" he asked the sky.

"Probably bowling against Matt," Percy said.

"Oh, great. I liked this one, and now he's talking to himself."

Percy grinned. "I just figured out a thing."

"And what, pray tell, is this thing he's figured out? That if he talks to himself like me he doesn't get bored? There's not even any monsters here to detect. Although, the hovercraft are entertaining. A bit of a challenge to actually find and shoot, actually."

"I just figured out that if I pour some extra power into my Hephaestus-made head chip, I can understand you, Festus."

"Wait, really? No, that's a predictable question. How about... point at the blonde hottie down on the ground."

Percy turned to look, and he saw two jets approaching from the rebellion. He also saw Gale setting the position of four huge balloons with big wiry things attached to them. The balloons looked like Lydia's handiwork, who he found a couple seconds later helping wipe out the cameras in a certain pattern. He pointed at Lydia. Festus gave a creak of approval.

"Awesome, we can talk now if we feel like it while you're up here," Festus cheered.

"Yeah, that'll make it a lot more entertaining. By the way, what are those big wiring things hanging from the balloons?"

"Oh, those? Those are EMPs. Stands for Electromagnetic Pulse. They disable anything that uses electricity by basically frying the circuits."

"Huh. EMP. I they won't affect us, right?"

"They'll shut down a couple functions that Leo is very attached to, but nothing essential. We mostly operate on magic."

"Sweet. If Gale misses anything, shoot it for me okay?"

"Yessir," he said, his voice sounding more robotic as he focused his processing power into the task at hand instead of his personality and entertainment. Percy waited, slightly anxious, but he trusted Gale's ability. This looked like some sort of trap he'd come up with, and he'd never once seen one of Gale's traps fail. 

The planes passed over the four spots and dropped bombs, surprising Percy. Was the war going on all the way over here? He was pretty positive it wasn't. Also, those were District 13 ships, which was more confusing. Gale had quite a bit to explain.

The balloons were perfectly placed, and Percy saw Gale activate them one by one as the bombs reached them. The disabled bombs then dropped the rest of the way to the ground as a harmless shell. The planes, seeing the bombs drop to the ground without detonating, banked several miles out and started coming back.

"Wait," Percy told Festus, trying to see if there were any way to take them down without killing the pilots. As quickly as he could blink, a mounted pulse gun from the ground fired, hitting the cockpits of both planes with deadly accuracy, one shot each. Percy sighed, but he knew casualties were inevitable on the enemy side at least in order to win. The OG Percy knew this too—he tried to avoid killing enemy demigods in the Titan War, but those weren't the deaths he beat himself up about.