Chapter 5: I get a little sidetracked playing one of the deadliest games of all time

After getting my schedule from Chiron, I headed to the pavilion to eat some breakfast. Despite my very short sleep, (no thanks to Millicent) my breath smelt so bad you might have thought that I had slept three days straight in a row. I chowed down on some Belgian waffles and bacon and drank some delicious chocolate milk.

After breakfast, I met up with Amethyst and Kai for the Greek mythology class. It sounded boring, but it was fun making jokes with Kai and finding out about how weird gods could be. However, despite all my quips about how boring mythology is, I actually found a little bit of it interesting. The world of Greek mythology was so big and expansive, and many of the tales we learnt about were intriguing.

Next, I had lunch preparation with Amethyst, which was basically just helping the spirits with some plates and other lunch preparations.

For knife training, I practiced some technique stuff with Oliver, Millicent, and Lou Ellen. I'd gotten better from the last day, but I was still a pretty pathetic fighter.

At Ancient Greek, Kai introduced me to Alexander Celtic, his good friend of the Ares cabin. Alexander was very tall, standing at about 6'5". Coupled with his height, he had a pretty stocky build, like a teddy bear. He had spiky black hair and hazel eyes, with light tan skin and a regular T-shirt and jeans.

The class was fun, but Alexander and Kai kind of monopolized the conversation by making immature jokes. I then sat down with Kai, Amethyst, and Alexander for lunch, which was fun, mainly because of the brilliant Italian pizza they served. Camp Half-Blood was at least a 9/10 in my book, just for the food they served.

Riding the rapids, (my next class) included me riding a lot of horses and proceeding to get very airsick and barf everywhere. Not my favorite class by a good margin.

For alchemy class, I hung out with some of the Hermes cabin and tried making potions. I was pretty bad at it and almost ended up dissolving myself after Connor purposely pranked me. The nerve of that kid...

Free time was pretty fun. I spent time hanging out with the Hecate cabin and doing rock climbing with Amethyst, Kai, and Alexander.

At dinner, I sat with the Hecate cabin and ate some burgers, BBQ, fries, cupcakes, basically everything I ate on my first dinner here. However, I was not looking forward to talking with Chiron about what my dreams meant. In the wrong context, it might sound like I need a therapist, though after getting randomly teary-eyed at smelling the strawberry fields, I might actually look into it.

My last activity before the campfire sing-along was Capture the Flag, the event everyone had been talking about all day. Kai and Alexander were talking battle strategies during Ancient Greek, Oliver and Lou Ellen kept talking about the ideal team members, et cetera, et cetera.

In the dining pavilion, Chiron announced the teams. According to Amethyst, he usually does it at the games, but I guess he just did it early.

"Ok, Team Red will be composed of Tyche, Ares, Apollo, Hecate, Hades, Dionysus, Hephaestus, and Nemesis Cabins," Chiron announced. This was met with many cheers. I myself was pretty happy with my team. I had Kai, Amethyst, Alexander, Oliver, Millicent, and Lou Ellen all on my team, which was nice. Those were basically the only people I knew and had socialized with, and they all seemed quite competent in battle, so I was pretty satisfied.

"Team Blue is Demeter, Athena, Hermes, Aphrodite, Iris, Hypnos, Hebe, and the Nike cabins. In fifteen minutes, we will suit up and start playing, so eat up!"

He finished, with everyone responding in cheers.

I looked at Amethyst. "So what exactly is this game? I know it's about capturing a flag as said very aggressively by everyone, but like what are the rules and stuff?"

Amethyst chuckled a bit and then said, "So, the goal of the game is to protect your flag while taking the other team's flag across the lake. Luckily for us, there's an even twenty-four people on each team, so we can make a good formation. Anyways, if you are captured, you are put into jail until you are freed. We play in the forest and the river acts as the middle ground. We have two guards on our flag, but they have their own set of rules."

I looked at her, probably with a confused/mortified look on my face. She smiled at me and clapped me on the back. "You'll get the hang of it eventually."

She then left me alone to scream internally in absolute confusion.

After gearing up in our armor, we headed to the forest as each team began explaining their plan to win the game. Amethyst was our leader, which wasn't too surprising, and began telling us our strategy.

"All right, here's the plan. Alexander and Nexus, you both will defend the flag. As for the rest of the Ares cabin, you will split into three teams: The right flank, left flank, and middle decoy. The middle decoy will block the middle, and the left and right flanks will block their own sides. But there's a twist. In the right flank, we will have Kai and Rose. When the right flank clashes with Blue's flank, Kai and Rose will defect from the battle and try to escape in order to reach the flag."

"Nico, I will need you near the middle. They will probably target you since you're a son of the Big Three, so we'll put you in the middle with the decoy squad. Apollo cabin will sit in the trees and shoot down at foes," she continued. "Left Flank will be some Ares members and leftover demigods from the other cabins. Right flank will be more Ares and Hecate members, and the middle will be everyone else. This is the full battle plan. Are we ready to win?"

Everyone responded with cheers and whoops, while I thought, "never!". Half the stuff she was talking about whizzed past my head. Decoy? Flanks? And putting me as the main flag grabber with Kai? All of that was too much to handle. But it's not like I had much of a choice.

As the game was about to begin, we spread out into our respective areas, but I had no idea where I was supposed to be. Thankfully, Kai led me to our area: next to the right side.

We were in the forest, which was pretty menacing at night if I'm being honest. From what I could see, we were surrounded with what seemed like a hundred trees and a couple bushes and plants. In front of me was a large river that split the forest into two sides. The river glittered with stars and seemed to sway with the night air. In a way, it kind of reminded me of the calm before a storm. Except in this case, the river was "the calm" and the battle about to come was "the storm".

Kai traced a curved line with his finger. "So when the people from the blue team come in, we will go around them. Lucky for you, we're basically skirting the entire fight."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence," I grumbled.

Kai furrowed his brow. "I didn't mean it like that, Moody. It'll give us more time to capture the flag and return back."

"I see."

"Look, I know this might be really complicated-"

"You can say that again." I interrupted.

"-, but you'll understand everything eventually." he finished.

"Thanks, Kai. Anyways, when's this starting?" I asked. We'd been standing there for about two minutes, listening to crickets chirp and animals growl, so I was a little anxious.

"No idea. Chiron might be behind on the cue-" Just as Kai was finishing his sentence, a whistle rang through the air, signaling the start of the game. Yippee.

I was about to run forward, ready to fight and die trying, but Kai put his arm in front of me and told me to wait. The first ten seconds were quiet, with no team charging over the river. Just as I was about to complain, Amethyst yelled, "Charge!"

All Hades broke loose.

It was as if we were in a horror movie and we had just suddenly been discovered by the enemy. The middle group from both teams came charging in, with weapons clashing, the earth splintering open and bones rising (Thanks to Nico), and arrows whizzing past enemy lines.

Our right flank stepped over the river, which is when Kai told me to follow the right group, tailing them. Lou Ellen and Sherman Yang commanded our troops forward, as did the Hermes, Iris, and Hypnos Cabin leaders from the other team. Kai and I drew our weapons and jumped into battle.

Kai went up against two Hypnos members, shooting fire and light from his hands and dashing into fights with his Celestial-bronze sword, Scorcher. Meanwhile, I just threw my knives at random enemies, hitting one in the shoulder and giving them a cut. Lou Ellen, Oliver, and Millicent summoned clouds of Mist in front of the Hermes and Iris members, blinding them, while Sherman Yang and the Ares members dashed into battle.

Eventually, as the battle continued raging on, Kai ran towards me. "Alright, let's go around. They should be distracted by the rest of our flank, so we can escape from battle."

I nodded and followed him as we ran around a fight between Connor and a Hermes member versus Sherman.

That's when everything went wrong.

I took a brief look back behind us, where our middle team was facing the other team's middle group. Nico was tiring, and we were losing numbers fast. Apollo members tried their best to keep shooting down enemies, but they seemed to be running out of ammo. On our left flank, the Hebe and Aphrodite cabins seemed to be walking past the Ares cabin, who looked in a daze.

"We gotta hurry," I said. "They're gaining on us fast."

Kai shook his head. "Amethyst likely predicted we would lose forces. The best we can do is just get the flag."

We began running even faster. We were a couple of yards away from the river, but we weren't nearly as close to the flag. The forest began harder to tread through, becoming more thicker with trees and vines. I started hearing wolf growls and monster noises as we got closer and closer to the flag. Amethyst warned me about there being monsters on camp grounds, but it still freaked me out.

As we jogged forward, we heard rustling in the tree above us, which stopped Kai and I in our tracks. I expected it to be some pesky owl or squirrel. So you can imagine my surprise when Malcolm Pace of the Athena cabin and his lackeys began striking down on us. How did they know we were coming?

And then it dawned on me. Someone had told the other team about our plan, leading us straight into an ambush. Whoever had done this, clearly didn't like me or Kai because we were about to get overwhelmed six to two. Not good.

Malcolm and three other Athena members instantly targeted Kai, but he seemed to be holding his own, shooting arrows at them and slashing with Scorcher, blasting them in flames and bright light. Meanwhile, I faced Kendra Sanders, a girl in my Rapids class, and another Athena member. I think I was doing pretty well, throwing branches and rocks at them with my magic and hacking away at Kendra's bronze shield. I would've thrown a tree at them but that probably would've made me pass out or something.

Just as I thought I was about to win against my opponents, having taken down the rando and thrown away Kendra's shield, I was hit by a beam of rainbow light, which knocked me over the trees and landed me in a bush.

At this rate, I was panicking pretty badly. I had crash-landed in the middle of nowhere and I could faintly hear the battle from where I was.

I began scouting the area, trying to find a way out of this part of the forest. My jaw instantly dropped as I took in my surroundings. Large, beautiful oak trees circled around me with a breathtaking view of the night sky. Inside the circle of oak trees were waterfalls and lakes that made the area even more breathtaking.

But suddenly, the landscape shifted. I was in a vast field of plants and flowers and then a snowy landscape with snowflakes falling on my arms gently. The landscape kept changing and changing, forming into galaxies and landscapes of planets, until finally, it was a sunny resort with a first class beach and a private mansion overlooking the area.

That's when I heard a low growl behind me. When I turned around, a group of hellhounds and empousai were dashing towards me, about to slice my face off.