Chapter 7 Cyclops Baseball

Hi it's been a while, just got to say hope you enjoy it! -kate

The wolves were starting to on Percy's nerves, no matter where he went they would be chasing him, never leaving him alone.

Percy had thought he had lost them when he got onto the San Francisco Bay Ferry. He had thought that he could lose them by going to Candlestick Point, but somehow they were waiting for him there. He thought that maybe the wolves wouldn't enter a tunnel, which as the 10 year old grew closer to the tunnel seemed to be true. For the first time in a couple of years something had finally gone right. He turned and leaned up against a tree beside the roadway leading to the tunnel.

He thought about the Admiral, and how he had to go off to deal with some far off conflict and not long after had his Helicopter go down, before ever reaching the Aircraft Carrier it was destined for. The young demigod had stayed at navy school for a couple of months before it had become clear he wasn't coming back. He had been on the run for the past 20 months or so, and no matter where he went the wolves followed him.

Then he heard the sound of heavy footfalls, the young boy turned just in time to see a number of Cyclopes running at him, and with a single Cyclops already swinging a club at him. Which was unfortunately for Percy as it hit and sent him flying and the tree he rested under flying into the road way. That's when he heard a trumpet blast, it didn't sound modern it sounded ancient, but if it had always been part of his memory. The blast was deep and carried throughout the roadway, it sounded forceful and abrupt, but Percy somehow felt that it meant that help was coming.

Percy stood up, but regretted this as his chest screamed in pain making it hard for him to breathe. The young boy almost just wanted to give up and let the Cyclopes kill him, as he watched them smash cars that got in their way crossing the road, sending car parts flying. This thought was squashed by the thought that he was a few minutes from help. Percy chose to fight, and really wished that Riptide would show up again, having not seen the sword since he was sent back in time, but Percy had to use the only weapon he had, a golden dagger given to him by the admiral. He also picked up part of a car door as a shield, for some reason he had started to feel naked fighting without a shield.

Percy watched as the monsters drew closer, he slowly backed up, till he reached the edge of the highway, still hurting from the first hit he had taken, and not in much shape for fighting. When he reached the edge of the highway he snuck a glance behind him and saw a small drainage ditch, with a small creek in it. Percy leapt over the guardrail, grunting in pain as he did this, and started to make his way downhill as fast as possible. When he was about halfway down the slope, he saw the piece of metal go flying, then followed by a few large one eyed beasts running down the slope. The Cyclopes reached the water about the same time as Percy, who had already started to heal.

Clubs began to swing and Percy wasn't getting hit, at least not straight on, he had done his best to dodge the swings, but the few that weren't going to miss, Percy had used his makeshift shield to block, with mixed results for his arm. The water was healing it but not fast enough as the bone in his forearm would get snapped like a toothpick. It wasn't long before the car door was little more than scrap metal and useless as a shield. Percy had managed to scratch a few of the Cyclopes, with his dagger, but not even close to deep enough to kill them. As the hits kept landing the young boy slowed down more and more, landing less hits himself, the water healing him was barely keeping up. It wasn't long before Percy closed his eyes knocked out, very sure that he was about to die.

Meanwhile the two legionnaires who had blown the Cornu of Apollo had begun to rush towards the Demigod that was almost surely about to die. The pair, from the fifth cohort were not known for being the best fighters, they were serviceable at best. They knew that even if they got to the kid who had gone flying across the roadway in time, they could do very little to help in the actual fighting off the Cyclopes department. They just hoped they could hold off the beasts for long enough that the legion would show up. As they ran towards the fight Peter threw a pilum at one of the Cyclops and the spear actually hit it. Which Peter was very excited about, until he realized 2 key bits of information, those being that the Pilum hadn't killed it, and that it had just led to a group of three Cyclops coming after them.

Peter pulled out another Pilum and readied to throw it.

"Don't you dare throw that Pilum, all of our problems are caused by you throwing your pilum, or my personal favorite made worse by you throwing that Pilum of yours!" Warned Matt.

"You are such a son of Minerva!" Retorted Peter, "All you do is plan, maybe if you fought a bit, we wouldn't be in such a bad situation."

The conversation was ended by the group of Cyclops reaching them, as both hunkered down behind their shields, pointing Pilum out as a spear to keep the Cyclops at a distance. This tactic might work against other Romans or most monsters, but the Cyclops easily had the range advantage and were able to still swing their clubs at the 2 legionnaires, who had to quickly change plans as they had to jump out of the way of the heavy strikes.

While Matt retreated to try and come up with a new plan to kill the Cyclops, Peter charged the Cyclops, somehow covering the gap between his reach and that of the much larger monster, without getting hit. Then he stabbed the knee of the beast in front of him, which made the Monster fall down, breaking the spear in the process, then Peter pulled out his gladius and slashed at the Cyclopes belly, turning the beast into golden dust. This victory was short lived as Peter was sent flying about 7 ft (2.1336 meters) by a club, knocking the legionnaire out. Matt threw a pilum in a vain attempt to draw attention away from his fallen friend, it did work, but did little to help himself. Matt fought a losing battle for about 45 seconds before he was sent flying by the pair monsters.

It was at this time that Matt heard a blast from the Cornu of Apollo, and he couldn't help but smile, he knew he was going to be safe, and if Peter was alive he was going to be okay. Then a thought crossed the legionnaire's mind, if both Peter and I, fought and against 3 Cyclopes and lost, imagine how poorly the kid fared against even worse odds. As Matt watched how the 1st cohort wiped the floor with the monsters, first letting loose a volley of pilum all at once which just turned the pair of monsters to dust, then they marched off to go fight the remaining Cyclops, he couldn't help but think they had failed that boy.

As Fred, a Praetor from the first cohort, ordered the Legionaries around, he couldn't help but laugh at the way the two legionnaires from the fifth cohort had been defeated. He ordered some men from the fifth cohort to take the pair to the infirmary. The legion marched further out of the tunnel, they noticed the Cyclopes beating a body, the Praetor, couldn't help but notice the body would react a little when getting hit. As Fred ordered the first cohort to charge into battle, he felt two emotions. The first being pity for the kid who had suffered such a horrible fate, there was likely nothing they could do to save him, he would likely be dead by the time the fight was over. The second emotion was disgust at the way Cyclops refused to kill the boy, it was like they were playing with their food, could they not just kill the kid and make his death short, they had defeated him, let him have a little honor. He knew his cohort he knew that they wouldn't show any pity towards their monsters.

A few minutes later as the battle drew to a close, a Centurion from the second cohort, ran up to black haired Praetor, Fred, and said "The boy is still alive, and apparently he has very few wounds. I believe he will survive transport to the infirmary."

Fred just looked into the eyes of Casperian, a son of Apollo, trying to tell if he was trying to tell a joke of some kind. Fred thought about how he had seen that kid getting hit, and getting hit really hard at that. How did he survive? Fred realized that was a question for later, if they didn't get him to the Infirmary soon, the kid might not make it. "Take him to the infirmary, be careful, keep him under guard, we do not know who he is or what his intentions are."

Casperian nodded and ran off to form a group to follow the Praetor's orders. Fred just stared at the kid, thinking how? How was this kid not facing judgement from Pluto?

AN I have just got to say it is good to be back, I decided to get right back into the action I hope you liked it. Would love to hear opinions. Do you like Fred? Do you like Peter or Matt? Or anything else. I want to hear your opinions. Another thing I am looking forward to writing the next chapter so expect it out soon, probably by the end of February.