June 16, 1998
Luke – Age 11
The sparring grounds at Camp Half-Blood were always one of the busiest spots in the Camp. Usually there would be a chorus of grunts, shouts, and clashes of metal. Today,however, there was a congregation in the central arena that had recently been designated as Training Ground Seven. Renamed as such by a silver haired troll who had in the past two years begun ruling it with an iron fist.
It was mid-afternoon, in the middle of June, the weather was the kind of oppressive, humid heat that made the air feel like a thick wool blanket pressed against your face. Most of the campers were breathing heavily, their bronze armor slick with sweat, their breaths coming in ragged, desperate hitches after a gruelling two-hour training session that had been run by a demonic silver haired taskmaster, who was currently sitting comfortably on a wooden stool in the middle of the arena, nose buried in an orange backed book. Luke's reading preferences had become a camp legend at this point.
At eleven years old, Luke had hit a growth spurt that put him at five-foot-four, making him notably tall for his age. He had yet to fully shed the soft edges of childhood, there was still a lingering roundness to his hidden cheeks, but it was belied by the wiry, powerful muscle that defined his frame.
A navy-blue forehead protector sat firmly against his brow, the polished celestial bronze plate catching the sun, though it remained blank. It was a quirk of Luke's unique outfit that he had begun wearing recently.
Lately, a number of younger demigods, had begun imitating the look, tying strips of blue cloth around their heads with scrap metal plates. They didn't know why he wore it, but they thought it looked 'cool'
He wore a dark, sleeveless tactical vest over a thin mesh shirt. Strapped to his right thigh was a specialized holster filled with Celestial Bronze kunai, their hilts wrapped in white grip-tape.
The navy-blue mask had become as much a part of him as his name. Among the Aphrodite cabin, and, if he were being honest, quite a few of the others, speculation was a favorite pastime. During the rare moments of downtime at the dining pavilion, 'what was under Luke's mask' was debated with more intensity than the weekly chariot races.
Some of the girls wondered if he hid a jagged scar from a monster encounter he refused to discuss. Others, influenced by the more romanticized gossip of Cabin Ten, whispered that he was so devastatingly beautiful; that the gods had ordered him to cover up.
Currently opposite him however, was a mite sized ball of pure fury. Clarissa La Rue, was a recent addition to the camp who had arrived three months ago. At eight years old, she carried herself with a rage that instinctively intimidated most people who interacted with her, and she had quickly been claimed by Ares.
Most people however, did not include Luke Castellan.
Luke had taken it upon himself to butt heads with Clarisse at every opportunity. Pranking her constantly, and then when she inevitably blew up at him. He'd look at her after digging his ear, and say in that infuriatingly deadpan tone, "Sorry Clarisse, did you say something". Which would inevitably end up with her trying to attack him, as he dodged every punch and kick thrown his way.
She had quickly understood however, that Luke was top dog at the Camp, and it was never made clearer than in the daily training sessions that Luke had enforced on all campers, without discrimination, through truly diabolical pranking. Some still had nightmares thinking about those early days. Truly the demon had no mercy.
The new daily training routine, with Sundays off, was something that Luke had forced upon every camper through truly diabolical pranking. Some still had nightmares thinking about those early days. Truly the demon had no mercy.
The session began with a 100 laps around the lake, which had to be completed within a certain time frame. Immediately post the run, the campers had to run the 2km new obstacle course that Luke had devised with the help of the Hephaestus campers. Grimly referred to as the Obstacle Course of Death, it was an invention of a truly depraved mind, fitted with huge logs that swung at irregular intervals, lava pits, holes that would shoot knives, spears, paint, Greek fire, in some cases pegasi dung, and other such creative torture devices that a shinobi, with a half a century worth of torturi—- *cough cough* training children for war could imagine.
Campers above the age of eleven were also fitted with training weights, mass produced and enchanted by the Hephaestus cabin.
Progress in these training sessions was rewarded with increased weights, "lest it get too easy for you," Luke had consoled a group of whimpering campers.
And should a camper try and skip a session, they would be pranked with unholy prejudice. Children of Aphrodite would wake up with their hair dyed in odd colours, in the Apollo cabin, heavy metal music would blast in the ears of late wakers, children of Hephaestus would wake up with grease pouring all over them, and so on and so forth.
Another introduction to the campers was the chief enforcer of their struggle. An individual who had risen to the role of Drill Sergeant. A truly sadistic and some whispered psychotic satyr called Coach Hedge.
His authority was unquestioned, he delighted in disobedience and devising creative punishments. Luke had given him complete freedom to enact his vision.
Coach Hedge, you truly are a gem. Millard had given me the impression that satyrs were meek and cowardly creatures that played off-beat music, chased dryads, and wanked off to Pan, their lost God of Nature. But as Guy would say, the Fire of Youth burns strong in you.
The Hermes cabin however, had undergone significant changes. Formerlyy the most chaotic group, there was a new spirit that had emerged within the cabin. Oh they still played pranks and stole, gambled, and conducted mischief within the camp, but there was a certain sophistication, a finesse to their pranks that hadn't existed previously. There was even a discipline with how they moved. The unclaimed and children of minor gods moved with a new sense of belonging.
None more so than the fifty-odd group of demigods ages twelve and below, that Luke had taken under his wing. A mix of claimed and unclaimed half-bloods from across the camp. They had been bestowed the nickname of Castellan's Gremlins, and they were led from the front by Ethan Nakamura, an unclaimed ten year old who was perpetually scowling, and Alabaster Torrington, another a mysterious ten year old, who was rumoured to be a child of Hecate, and who until Luke's arrival on camp, remained at the fringes of the camp and perpetually had his head buried in some book on magic. The group, with Luke at the fore, had quickly become notorious for their intense training exercises and creative pranking, and over the past year had gradually morphed into true unit.
My dear genins, oh how you have grown, Luke thought, wiping an imaginary tear from his eyes. It may be time for some of you to take this world's version of the Chunin Exams.
The training had however resulted in tangible changes. Civilians, or regular mortals, would have collapsed after a few days, their muscles unable to withstand the high intensity exercise that the half-bloods were forced to undergo. A 15 mile run around the lake, followed by multiple runs . The demigods however, adapted rapidly. Despite some campers crying to Chiron about child abuse, their natural genetics coupled with carefully curated doses of Chrysos Krasis to stimulate minor healing were showing visible changes.
They moved sharper and quicker. Their techniques were becoming more polished, their mastery of their divine gifts were become more deliberate instead of purely instinctive. Their baseline speed, stamina and combat prowess had shot up significantly. Their genetics, built for high intensity combat with mythological monsters, thriving in this high intensity environment.
Shinobi dealt in death for a living. But aside from the occasional prodigy, who broke the scale, like Kakashi, an Itachi, even a Naruto with his absurd learning curve, it would take most shinobi years of training before changes would become tangible.
Maa, their progress is beyond my expectations.
Luke was brought out of his thoughts by a yell and a spear thrust which he dodged without looking and remained perfectly balanced on his chair.
Opposite him, Clarisse was a portrait of escalating fury. She was vibrating, literally. Sparks of red, angry electricity danced along the tip of Maimer, her electric spear, a gift from her father.
Luke didn't look up. He turned a page, letting out a soft, scandalized giggle. "The plot is just getting to the good part, Clarisse. The dryad has just realized the satyr isn't actually a satyr, but three wood nymphs in a trench coat."
"Shut up," she hissed, her voice low. "Stop reading that filth and fight me."
She launched herself across the dust, a blur of red-tinted rage and bronze. The spear came in a straight, thundering line, aimed directly at the center of Luke's chest. Even at eight-years of age, the daughter of Ares was nearly as strong as a bull. It was a kill-shot that would have speared straight through most monsters.
Luke didn't move. Not until the bronze tip was a hair's breadth from his orange camp shirt.
The bronze head whistled through the air, inches from his shirt, and in that heartbeat, Luke leaned. It was a tilt of the hips, a slight shift of weight to the left heel that allowed the weapon to pass harmlessly through the space his lungs had occupied a second prior.
As Clarisse barreled past, her momentum far exceeding her control, Luke reached out and caught the crook of her elbow. It was a light touch, almost a caress, but he timed it to the exact moment her lead foot left the ground. He simply redirected her own forward force downward, turning her charge into a violent introduction to the gravel.
Clarisse hit the ground hard. The air left her lungs in a sharp, pained grunt, and her spear skittered away, sparking impotently in the dirt.
Luke stood up, stretching his small arms until his joints popped. He finally closed the book with a sharp thwack, and tucked it under his arm. The eye-smile was gone. In its place was something cold.
The dust in the arena settled as Clarisse hauled herself up, her face a map of frustration and grit. Luke didn't wait for her to regain her breath. His posture, despite his small size, shifted into something grounded, almost heavy.
"You're lunging, Clarisse," Luke said, and this time the tone wasn't mocking. It was the flat and clinical. "You're overextending your center of gravity past your lead knee."
He held out his hand. Ethan sharply tossed him a spare practice spear. Luke caught it mid-shaft, the wood settling into his grip with familiarity.
"A spear isn't a sword. It's has to viewed as a lever," he explained, sliding his hands into a wide, staggered grip. "The power doesn't come from your shoulders. It starts in the ball of your back foot, travels through the rotation of your hips, and is channeled through the lead hand as a guide."
He demonstrated a slow, stabbing motion. He didn't step forward; he pivoted his hips, the spear-tip flickering out like a snake's tongue before snapping back. His feet stayed rooted, his weight distributed evenly between his legs.
"When you thrust, keep your elbows tucked. Your lead hand should be loose, a sliding sleeve. This allows the spear to move back and forth rapidly without moving your torso. It's all about the economy of motion."
He looked back at Clarisse, who was watching his hands with a predatory focus.
"And stop aiming for where I am. Aim for the space behind me. A spear is a piercing weapon; it needs follow-through, but that follow-through has to be controlled by the retraction. The pull-back of the spear is more important than the push. It's what resets your defense."
Luke shifted his stance, lowering the point. "If you're fighting someone faster, someone who can slip inside your reach, you have to adapt. A spear isn't just used for piercing, it can also be used as a staff. You use the shaft to check their lead shoulder, you use the butt-end to strike the jaw, or swipe their legs. You have six feet of wood, Clarisse. Use all of it, not just the last two inches of bronze."
He beckoned her forward with a slight tilt of his head.
"Again."
"Right," Clarisse grunted. She picked up her spear but didn't charge this time. She wiped the blood from her lip, her eyes narrowing, studying his stance.
She was thinking.
Luke smiled behind the cover of his book.
She took a breath, the ragged edge of her anger smoothing out into something colder, more focused. She widened her stance, testing the grit of the arena floor with her boots. She kept the spear level, the tip steady, mirroring the weight distribution Luke had just demonstrated.
She learns quickly.
"Better," Luke grinned behind his mask. He didn't pick up his own spear. He simply stood there, hands tucked into his pockets, a small target in a very large circle of dust. "Now, show me you can think two moves ahead of your hands."
Clarisse moved. It wasn't the uncontrolled burst from before, but a disciplined slide. She thrust a sharp jab aimed at Luke's shoulder.
Luke shifted his lead foot back an inch, the bronze tip whistling past his collar. He stayed right on the edge of her reach, his eyes locked on her lead hand.
"Don't admire your handiwork," Luke warned.
As she retracted the spear to reset, she tried to use the butt-end to sweep his legs.
Smart move.
It may have worked on a less experienced opponent, but Luke easily spotted the movement. Her shoulder dipped a fraction of a second before the wood moved.
Luke stepped over the sweep easily
"You're thinking about the weapon, Clarisse. You're not focusing on me."
He moved into her guard again, but this time he didn't trip her. He placed a flat palm against her solar plexus, not a strike, just a firm pressure. He felt the frantic beat of her heart through the bronze breastplate, the raw, unrefined power of a daughter of Ares.
"Feel that?" he asked, his voice low enough that only she could hear. "You're holding your breath. You're suffocating your own muscles. Every time you stiffen up to deliver a blow, you're creating a lag in your own nervous system. You're telegraphing your intent."
He stepped back, breaking the contact. Clarisse exhaled a long, shaky breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Her face was flushed, but the wildness in her eyes had been replaced by thoughtfulness.
"Listen up," Luke told the entire group, his gaze sweeping over the campers in the stands.
"The weapon is just an extension of your intent. If your intent is 'I want to hit him,' you'll miss. If your intent is 'I am going to occupy the space where he is,' then you're making some progress. Control the battlefield, the variables, think a dozen steps ahead."
He gestured for her to go again. This time, a few other Ares campers stood up from the benches, their hands reaching for their own weapons, the atmosphere in the arena shifting.
"Maa," Luke sighed, the eye-smile returning as he reached for his book under his arm. "Ares kids are such battle nuts. Let's see if you can touch me while working together."
A few minutes later
"You guys have a long way to go." Luke commented, nose still in his book while sitting on a pile of groaning bodies.
The rest of the campers just stared unsurprised without saying anything. This was a familiar sight at this point.
In the mortal world, a ten-year-old bossing around a group of teenagers would be would be unimaginable.
Demigods however despite living and growing up in the mortal world, at their core didn't ascribe to mortal standards. They worshipped Strength. And strength was something Luke had in spades.
He then let out a perverted giggle, and they onlookers collectively sweat dropped.
If only he wasn't such a perverted masked little weirdo, it would be so much easier to accept instruction from him.
Luke peeked out from over his book.
"I can sense some unsavoury thoughts about me". He eye smiled menacingly.
"We have another hour of combat class to go. Who's volunteering to be my next victim *cough cough* teaching assistant."
The demigods let out a collective groan.
Sadist
____________________________________
As the groaning campers picked themselves up, the air in the arena shifted from the heat of practice to the electricity of anticipation.
Today was Friday. And in Camp Half-Blood, Friday nights meant Capture the Flag. As the groaning campers picked themselves up, the air in the arena shifted from the heat of practice to the electricity of anticipation.
Tonight was Friday. And in Camp Half-Blood, Friday nights meant Capture the Flag.
"Hey, don't look so miserable," Luke chirped, sliding off the pile of bodies with a feline grace. "You'll need that energy for the game."
Under Luke's quiet influence over the last two years, Capture the Flag had morphed from a chaotic scuffle into an organised high-stakes theater of war.
Teams were divided three days by Luke and Chiron three days in advance. The winning team got a day off with fun activities, while the losers had a day of intense training and wash the dishes after dinner instead of the harpies.
____________________________________
Ethan Nakamura POV
Ethan crouched in the hollow of a rotted cedar tree, his breathing shallow His hand rested on the pommel of a short sword, his knuckles white. To his left and right, three other Blue team members sat in perfect silence.
Two years ago, Ethan had been a nobody. Just another unclaimed kid shoved into the overcrowded Hermes cabin, sleeping on a floor mat and waiting for a divine parent who clearly didn't care enough to send a sign. Then came Luke.
Luke hadn't looked at Ethan's lack of a symbol as a weakness. He had looked at Ethan's anger and seen fuel.
"The gods don't see you, Ethan," Luke had told him while teaching him how to tie a proper tourniquet. "But I do. At Camp Half-Blood we look out for each ither."
To Ethan, Luke was his guiding light. If Luke told him to jump into the lava wall, Ethan would only ask if he should do it in full plate or mesh.
A low, rhythmic birdcall chirped three times from the canopy.
The signal.
"Red Team's heavy hitters just crossed the creek," Ethan whispered into his team's ears. "They're following the Mist trail Alabaster laid out. They think they've caught us out of position."
Ethan's eyes narrowed. In reality, the Red Team, led by the Ares and Hephaestus seniors, was walking straight into a kill-box."
"Remember the drills," Ethan commanded, his small frame radiating a cold authority that mimicked his mentor's.
He signaled for the deployment of the Trip-Wire Flares.
Below them, the heavy tramping of boots grew louder. Clarisse was leading the charge, her electric spear crackling with impatience. She wasn't looking for the weighted net hidden under a layer of Mist-shrouded leaves.
"Mark," Ethan whispered.
He pulled the release cord.
____-
Charles Beckendorf POV
A dull thoomp vibrated through the soles of Charles's boots, followed by a chorus of startled shouts and the unmistakable, high-pitched crack of Alabaster's flash-bang scrolls.
"There goes the vanguard," Charles muttered, his voice surprisingly deep for a ten-year-old.
He didn't panic. He stood in a small clearing on the Red Team's side of the creek, surrounded by a group of his siblings and a few scowling Ares campers.
In his calloused hands, he held a heavy, bronze-cased cylinder. It was a project he'd finished at 3:00 AM under the dim light of the forges.
"The Gremlins are baiting them," Beckendorf said, checking the pressure valves on the cylinder. "The Blue Team wants us to think the fight is at the creek so we over-commit. But the real threat is the flank."
Charles looked at his team. "They're using the Mist to hide their numbers. My goggles are picking up heat signatures in the canopy, not on the ground. They're tree-hopping."
"Then we blast 'em!" an Ares kid growled, lifting a heavy shield.
"No," Charles countered, his eyes fixing on the dense treeline. "We use the Bronze-Webs."
He signaled his siblings. From the undergrowth, they hauled out two large, tripod-mounted launchers. These were pneumatic cannons loaded with canisters of high-tensile, sticky bronze-mesh netting.
Suddenly, the leaves above them rustled, not like wind, but like the rhythmic shifting of bodies.
There.
A bronze flash caught the moonlight high in the branches.
"Fire!" Beckendorf commanded.
The cannons hissed, launching the weighted nets upward into the canopy, the nets expanded mid-air, gumming up the branches and creating a sticky, bronze web that snagged seven red team campers trying to ambush their party.
The trapped camperes, shocked shouted and yelled, but the nets stuck to them and constricted their movement.
In the distance, the sound of the creek-fight intensified. Beckendorf's team moved forward in a tight phalanx.
Fay Swift POV
Fay stood at the edge of the clearing.
For years, the Aphrodite cabin had been the harmless, 'weakest' members of Camp Half-Blood.. They were the ones who sat in the back, terrified of chipping a nail or getting dirt on their t-shirts. But that was before Luke Castellan came.
"Stay focused," Fay commanded, her voice vibrating with a subtle, honeyed resonance. "The Blue team are already half-convinced they've won"
Beside her, several of her siblings were adjusting their makeup and dsiguises. They were wearing tactical disguises that shifted hue with the lighting, blurring their silhouettes until they looked like flickering mirages among the trees.
A group of Blue Team Apollo archers suddenly emerged from the thicket, their bows drawn. Fay stepped forward, her eyes beginning to glow with an iridescent, shifting light that made the world around her seem to blur.
"You don't want to fire," Fay said, her voice dropping into that hypnotic, vibrating tone. "Your fingers are tired. The string is too heavy. You want to set the bows down and rest."
The Apollo kids wavered. Her Charmspeak which ahd been honed over the past two years, coated their thoughts, whispering of obedience. One archer actually lowered his bow, his expression becoming dazed and vacant as Fay's intent bypassed his mental fortification.
"That's it," she hummed, the iridescent glow in her eyes sparking with pride. "
Suddenly, a series of bronze shuriken hissed through the air from the canopy above, thunking into the trees around them with a sharp metallic ping. The sudden thwack broke her hypnotic hold on the archers.
"Blue Team!" one of her sisters hissed, looking up into the dark branches.
With a fluid motion, Fay unsheathed her sword, a slender, elegant blade of Celestial Bronze that caught the moonlight.
"You're tired," she hummed, her voice vibrating with a honeyed, hypnotic resonance. As the Apollo archers tried to notch new arrows, Fay stepped into their guard. Her blade flickering out in a series of precise, distracting feints.
Every time a defender tried to parry, Fay whispered a suggestion into the air, her eyes shifting with that iridescent, glowing light.
"Your grip is slipping," she murmured as she engaged the lead archer.
The boy's hands faltered for a split second, Fay used that half-second of doubt to tap the flat of her blade against his wrist, disarming him with an effortless flick.
"Sit," she commanded, her voice dropping into a low, vibrating tone that felt like thick syrup coating the archer's thoughts.
The boy dropped to the forest floor as if his legs had turned to lead. Fay didn't stop to admire her handiwork. She spun, her mahogany curls catching the light, and faced the next two scouts.
"You see a manticore," she suggested, her intent wrapping around the Mist that Luke had taught them to manipulate.
The Apollo campers gasped, their eyes widening in terror as they looked past Fay. To their eyes, the shadows behind her were twisting into a monstrous shape, a hallucination fueled by her Charmspeak. They scrambled backward, tripping over the very roots they had stood on moments before.
"Red Team!" she called out, her voice acting as a tether, binding the volatile energy of the fight to her own will. "The path is clear. Move!"
Just as skirmishes were erupting across the woods, there was a building tension at the creek. Malcolm Kallis in blue and Bruce Strongarm in red, had found each other.
Now, historically, the Ares and Athena cabins had a long, bloody history that had existed since Ancient Greece. A philosophical clash between the scions of slaughter and the cold calculation of the strategist, two sides of the same bloody coin competing for true mastery over the domain of war.
Under Luke's brutal training regime, this intensity had been restrained, bottled up behind, discipline and shared misery. But Capture the Flag never failed to unlock the demigod lust for battle that ran through their veins like liquid fire.
"Kallis," Bruce growled, the tip of his xiphos tracing a line in the silt. "I was beginning to think you'd spent the whole game hiding in a tree with the rest of the owls."
Across from him, Malcolm Kallis adjusted his grip on his spear, and said nothing.
"Still hiding behind a piece of wood, Kallis?" Bruce spat, his voice a low growl. "I heard Luke had to teach you how to hold that spear. Maybe he can teach you how to be a man next."
Malcolm's eyes were chips of flint. "Ares's favorite brute. You talk about strength, Bruce, but you're all balls no brain"
Bruce roared in fury, his aura flaring with a faint, bloody red light. "Let's see if that brain of yours can keep your head on your shoulders!"
He exploded forward first, a three hundred-pound juggernaut of divine muscle and celestial bronze.
He swung his xiphos in a savage, horizontal arc aimed at Malcolm's neck. Malcolm didn't retreat, he stepped into the strike, catching the base of Bruce's blade on the reinforced rim of his shield.
The metallic clang echoed like a hammer on an anvil.
"The stance is too wide, Bruce!" Malcolm mocked. He snapped his spear forward in a fast jab, the bronze tip whistling toward the gap in Bruce's armpit.
Bruce snorted, twisting his torso just enough for the spear to glance off his breastplate with a shriek of metal. In a blur of motion, he reached into his tactical vest and whipped three celestial bronze kunai at point-blank range.
Malcolm twisted, the blades sparking off his bronze breastplate, and countered by snapping a shuriken from his belt with a sharp flick of the wrist.
Bruce let out a guttural grunt as one of the bronze stars bit into the meat of his thigh, he retaliated by shoving his weight into Malcolm's shield, creating a momentary gap. Both warriors, simultaneously kicked off one another, leaping back into a crouch.
They retreated to the muddy banks of the creek, maintaining a tense five-meter distance. They began to circle one another, their chests heaving, their armor splattered with the dark silt of the forest floor.
"You're bleeding, Malcolm," Bruce sneered, wiping a smear of blood from his jaw where the butt-end of the spear had caught him. "Even ambrosia can't fix a broken face fast enough to save you tonight."
Malcolm spat a mouthful of red into the creek, his eyes never leaving Bruce's lead foot. "I've had worse from the training dummies Luke rigged in the obstacle course."
Bruce glared. He threw the xiphos into the mud and Malcolm, sensing a shift, drove his spear into the earth beside him. By unspoken agreement, the clash of steel was replaced by the oldest and most brutal form of combat known to their bloodline: Pankration.
They collided with a sound like two boulders smashing together. This was a visceral, no-holds-barred struggle of grapples, bone-breaking joint locks, and savage strikes. Bruce slammed a massive fist into Malcolm's ribs, a blow that would have collapsed a mortal's lung. Malcolm gasped, but his training held; he wrapped his legs around Bruce's waist in a lightning-fast transition, using his body weight to pull the larger boy into a chokehold.
Bruce slammed his back against a nearby oak to break the grip, the bark splintering under the impact. He spun, catching Malcolm with a heavy elbow to the temple that sent the Athena counselor reeling. Before Malcolm could reset, Bruce lunged, locking his thick arms around Malcolm's torso for a devastating suplex.
They tore into each other with a terrifying, demigod intensity, fingers digging into pressure points, knees finding soft tissue, and headbutts that rang with the sound of bronze helmets clashing. It was raw, unadulterated battle. Two beasts, products of lineages of slaughter and strategy, neither willing to yield an inch of the battlefield.
_______________________________________________________________
Luke sat perched on the branch of an ancient oak, his back against the trunk The dryad had blushed and disappeared when she saw him arrive. Below him, Capture the Flag raged.
On the Red Team's side. Fay was leading a thunderous charge toward the blue flag near the creek, a flag that wasn't actually there.
Alabaster, had laid a masterful Mist illusion over the real flag. To any Red Team scout passing by, it looked like nothing more than a moss-covered boulder.
While the Red Team were swinging at shadows, the Blue Team's strike force was moving through the undergrowth. Ethan Nakamura led with a cold, disciplined focus.
Suddenly, the air was filled blasts, with golden nets, and. Ethan's team engaged with Charles team. Sword against hammer.
Meanwhile, another battle was being conducted where Chis Rodrigues, who had recently been claimed as a son of Hermes was fighting a daughter of Demeter who was conjuring vines to capture and ensnare him.
Over at the Red team's flag point, Alabaster's Mist disguised secret strike force had reached the Red Flag. With a flick of his wrist, Alabaster summoned the Red Flag and draped a fresh concealment shroud over his small unit.
They simply walked back across the creek, invisible to the frantic Red Team scouts who were still searching for a target to hit, after their flag suddenly disappeared.
The conch shell blew, signaling the end of the game.
Coach Hedge had already appeared and was manically grinning as he hungrily eyed the despondent Blue team.
Well, Luke hummed, his eye-smile crinkling. "I think they're starting to get the hang of it. It's time for a chat with Chiron. "
_________________________
Hahaha, the Chunin Exam arc begins.
Really hope you enjoy the chapter! There is some art work of the characters like Thalia, Luke, Faye, Helen, Malcolm and Jake over at my Patreon, for all members to view for free.
If you're enjoying the story and want to read upto 5 advance chapters ahead their public release then please head over to my Patreon!!
p a t r e o n . c o m / D a r k e B o n e s