Randal McReynolds
As the water exploded into Randal's face, nose, and lungs, bringing him nearer and nearer to death by the second, he reflected on how great the night had been. The aforementioned water rained down, never-ending it seemed to him, onto the musclebound sixteen-year-old, not leaving him enough time to clear the thoughts of impending doom striking his conscience like hammer blows on an anvil. The initially blinding pain, Randal realized, was gone, leaving him with only mere remnants of what had happened.
Before he could gather his thoughts, a blurry figure approached, clad in what seemed to be an iron breastplate and helmet, a brutally sharp spear in his left hand, the shaft adorned with murals of striking cobras and charging boars. He seemed familiar to Randal, though he knew not how.
The figure, slightly less blurry now, seemed to scowl at his limp body. He butted Randal's stomach with the butt of his spear, and the sudden jolt of pain was quenched by the uproar of water that erupted from his mouth. He remembered to breathe.
As he lay, gasping on the floor, another boy, clad in a football jersey over a soaked chainmail coat and a gladius in his left hand, shook water from his hair as he approached. He looked to the other boy.
"What's wrong with him?", he said, a bit of sympathy shining through his otherwise pitiless and impatient expression. Randal remembered his name to be Zeke.
The other boy made a sound in the back of his throat. "Bit o' water up his nose. He'll b' fine." He grinned like a shark.
Zeke went to help Randal up, but the other warrior, who Randal recalled was named Horace, stopped him.
"Let him stand up on his own.", he laughed. Zeke hesitated, but eventually laughed along with him. As they retreated, Randal looked to gather his surroundings.
He was in some sort of medieval castle, as much as he could gather. Mind still bleary and out of focus, he gritted his teeth and stood up, crouching to his knee as a sudden shock of pain struck him.
He steadied himself on the stone wall behind him, and winced at the pain from his ragged, raw hands touching the rock. He grasped for anything, any sort of handhold, and found something. He lifted it up and found it was a hammer.
It was easily eight pounds, and its handle was some two and a half feet long, though Randal didn't know how he knew that. The head of the hammer, however, was of some sort of near-unbreakable stone, on one side a blunt weapon nearly a half-foot wide, and on the other side a jagged end that resembled a chisel, as one would use to break open rock. The handle, black with golden stripes crossing diagonally every few inches, was adorned with a flaming hammer and the name Randal imprinted on it.
With a jolt of pride, he realized it was his. It'd be a shame, after all, to leave the weapon, which was obviously just as ornamental as it was deadly, in here, where it could be lost.
He stumbled to his feet as he remembered simple information about his life. The hammer seemed like a sort of catalyst, igniting a fire in his mind. He found he could recall everything.
He was Randal McReynolds, demigod son of Vulcan, legionnare of the 2nd Cohort, and second-in-command engineer at Camp Jupiter. He remembered fondly the creation of the hammer, and of the castle which he stood in. How could he not, when he set the stone himself?
As he walked towards a sudden commotion on the fortress's main balcony, he heaved the hammer in both hands, remembering the purpose of such violent war games. Even against opponents such as the 4th and 5th Cohorts, he knew not to underestimate anybody. The only reason, in fact, he got IN the 2nd Cohort was because his father, Vulcan, had been feeling charitable the day he arrived at camp.
Randal's thinking was interrupted by a lanky legionnare turned a corner abruptly and almost skewering him with his gladius.
"Randal!" The tall and lanky legionnare with a shock of blonde hair reupting from his head and reaching his ears, who Randal recalled was named Jeffery, stopped suddenly and smiled. He didn't seem to notice that he had been mere moments from skewering Randal, who, he noticed, was without any armor.
Randal chuckled, and winced at the pain. "Hello, Jeff." He knew he was close friends with Jeffery.
Jeffery's smile broadened, but he suddenly seemed to notice that his friend was without any armor.
He stooped, grabbed an iron breastplate that had been torn off, maybe in the torrent of water.
Must've been that new son of Neptune, Randal thought. Impressive, though a shame he had to tear down the water cannons. Those took a while to build.
He accepted the breastplate and quickly fastened it around his muscular chest. He noticed that his chainmail leggings and his boots weren't lost, and he rechecked their fastenings.
Readying himself for battle, he and Jeffery set out to brace the wall against the defenders.
The constant chatter of arrows and bolts hitting the castle walls was like music to Randal's ears, reminding him of how sturdy he, and his senior engineer, his only better in the corps, Mikhael Wilkinson, had built it.
He manned a mounted crossbow, swiveling it to an improvised ballista that fired weighted pool noodles as substitutes for bolts. He fired, hitting the 4th Cohort legionnare who operated it square in the middle of his breastplate. He went down, but Randal quickly loaded another shot into the crossbow and fired again, this time at the ballista itself.
It seemed the gods were smiling on him today, he thought as he watched the bolt somehow puncture the rope that operated it, tearing it nearly in two. The shot the ballista gave out next, however, was the last straw for the rope, and the machine collapsed.
Jeffery was nearby, calling out targets for the archers near him, ordering them to fire together at individual targets. At his command, a catapult and three legionnares went down. Hannibal the elephant roared somewhere down near the wall, but nobody paid much attention to it.
Looking back, thought Randal, perhaps it would have better to pay heed to it, for at that moment, the first siege ladder went up, clamping onto the balcony.
The soldier of the 5th Cohort, Frank something-or-other, accompanied by Hazel Levesque and Percy Jackson, erupted forward. Frank's aim was true, and Randal sank to his knees as one of his blunt arrows hit him in the chest.
He remembered Jeffery yelling defiantly and Frank shouting something to the courtyward, and then everything went dark.