Fire and Metal: Chapter 5

Fire and Metal: Chapter List

Capture the Flag: Lance's POV
We headed up to dinner, where most of the camp had already assembled. Chiron stood up. "After dinner, there will be a game of Capture the Flag. There will be no more exchanging of cabins in the two teams.  The blue team consists of Poseidon, Hermes, Ares, Hephaestus, Hypnos, Nike, and Iris.  The red team comprises Athena, Hecate, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Apollo, and Tyche.  Now everyone eat, and be down by the woods in an hour."

We were shown to the Hermes table by Neil. It was by far the largest and rowdiest table, although according to Neil it was once much bigger, back when gods didn't claim their children as quickly. I looked around, everyone appeared to have food on their plates already, but I didn't see any sources for them. Felicia also noticed this, and asked one of the Hermes campers, "Where do we get food?"

"Just ask for it," he replied, and resumed eating and talking. Unsure, we both asked for food, and it appeared in my plate. I was pretty happy about this, and proceeded to order a large chicken pot pie and pork chops. Felicia got omelettes. While eating, we talked with a couple of the Hermes campers. The head of the Hermes cabin was Travis Stoll. I introduced myself, and asked about Capture the Flag.

"Basically, we are divided up into two teams, and try to capture the other flag by fighting our way through enemy lines. Or sneak our way through like we do," He winked. "Don't worry about it, Percy's captaining our team, we'll probably win."

"Who's Percy?" Felicia asked.

"Wow, I'm surprised you've been here a whole day and haven't heard him mentioned yet. He's the guy who defeated  Kronos last year.  Kronos is the father of the eldest Olympians, he's also a Titan, and wanted to overthrow Olympian rule."

"Oh! I know about Kronos!  Didn't he puke up his kids?" Felicia suddenly asked.

"Yeah, and then Zeus and the others overthrew him. He tried making a comeback last summer, but Percy and Annabeth killed him." Travis suddenly looked worried, "Did Chiron say Athena was on the other team? Annabeth and the other Athena kids are master strategists.  And they got Tyche, the goddess of Fortune."

The conch horn blew, and everyone got up and left for Capture the Flag.

We stood up and put on a Blue-plumed helmet, and went with the rest of the Hermes cabin. We assembled by the Zephyros Creek, and put the flag by it, where Percy would defend it next to his home turf. It took the Hermes guys a while to convince him to do defense, since the Athena campers were attacking. The Hephaestus and Hypnos campers would work with Percy. Iris would be the communication people and border gaurds. Ares and Nike were attacking. We, the Hermes Cabin, were splitting up. Felicia was with the attacking group, but I chose to stay with the Iris campers and some other Hermes guys, along with Conner Stoll, Travis's borther.

A battle cry rose from the opposite side, and a large, shadowy mass moved toward us. Our attacking group split into two, and began flanking the enemies. The first of the opposing attackers came into view. I drew my Swiss Army Knife, and flipped out the large blade, and clicked the button. The first wave was a few Athena campers, including Malcolm, their second-in-command, and al the Dionysus kids. The Iris campers flitted between their ranks, and often took them out from behind. I charged at a Dionysus kid wielding a grapevine whip and a short sword. He lashed his whip at me, I cut the whip up and stabbed toward him. Unexpectedly, the vine had wrapped up the length of my sword, so I had to kick him out of the way and yank my sword. Then I knocked the sword from his hands and hit him in the helmet with the hilt of by sword. As he fell, I laughed. I was enjoying this. While we were disposing of the first wave, a smaller group of Aphrodite and Tyche campers had snuck around our perimeter. We had no idea how the rest of our team was doing, so we sent some Iris campers to collect news. A war cry sounded again. I looked up in alarm. The Apollo campers had shot down most of our Ares kids, so the rest of the Athena cabin came charging toward us, with the smaller group attacking us from behind. Many of our guys fell, but I managed to sneak away and join our attackers. As we fought, I ran into Neil. We fought a bit, and then he murmured something, hit me with his staff and I flew backward several yards. The flag was in view, I shouted at Felicia to run for it, and I ran back to help our defense.

Percy was fighting like a whirlwind, I couldn't help admiring his skill with a sword. But he was being overwhelmed, since most of the Hypnos campers were either asleep or unconsious. I lept into the foray, along with some Iris campers. What am I thinking? I thought, but kept fighting. Slowly but surely, We beat the attackers back. Suddenly, I was pushed into the creek, and reinforcements came to our enemies' aid. At the head of the small team was Annabeth. She had quickly disarmed me, and somehow was also making short work of Percy. I had a feeling it was because Percy wasn't willing to fight her. Then she along with the rest of her group grabbed the flag and ran.

But a cheer erupted from our side, Felicia was running back to our side with the enemies' flag, with several sons of Nike trailing behind her, gaurding her rear. Before she crossed the border, a daughter of Tyche tripped her, and knocked her out. We all groaned. She ripped the flag from her hands and began fighting the sons of Nike. I rushed to their aid, but so did the Athena campers. But with out numbers on our side, we fell back with an exhausted cry, and our flag was carried across their border. We had lost.

I did pretty well though, I was never knocked out. I tried feeling optimistic, but I had been winning most competitions in my life. I had won every soccer game I was ever in, all but two. It felt slightly disappointing that we lost Capture the Flag. Neil came up behind me. He clapped me on the shoulder, "You did great man, I probably wouldn't have beat you if it weren't for that spell. And it left me exhausted afterwards.  I smiled.

"It was fun man, I'm starting to like this place." I said.