Chapter 11: Pranu
Ruidi was so dead. I was going to murder him first chance I got. The dye was still there in my hair and who tries to burn a child of a water god alive? Oh wait, a psychopath named Ruidi. Duh. And who cares if it was a hallucination. I almost died of fright. And he hurt Alfred (Yeah I named the octopus, you got a problem?).
Caiyi, Tim, Charlie and Carina were on his team, as well as most of the Hermes/Ares cabins and Zeus/Apollo/Hephaestus guys. Bhavana, Alex, Eshana, Jessica (The oracle if you don't remember) were on my team, as well as the Athena, Aphrodite, Poseidon, Hephaestus, and Apollo cabins. Demeter, Dionysus, and all of the minor gods (meaning gods that weren't one of the 12 olympians) was split off randomly, some joining us, others joining Ruidi. Overall, it was basically a boy/girl split off, though there were a few dozen that didn't follow the boy/girl pattern.
The rules were basically that everyone had a rock. They could put this rock anywhere on their person as long as other people could see it. It somehow was really sticky and stuck to whatever you pressed it against. The objective was to defeat, not kill, someone and take their rock when they admit defeat or are too exhausted to stand. Of course we could steal the rocks too, but who'd bother? After taking the rock, you'd have to go back home base (Our home base was basically a bulletin board that had ten rocks stuck to it. Every team started with ten rocks) and stick the rocks onto it. Neesik also told us that once we took a rock from somebody, it was ours to keep. That means the other team couldn't take it, even if they knocked you down. But it wouldn't count unless it was stuck onto your home base.
The only way to recover a taken rock was to run all the way up to the other team's home base and get it back. If, by some miraculous chance, you were able to cross the boundary and get to the other team's home base, you got to take 5 of their rocks off of their bulletin board and run back to your side. You could attack someone when they were on their own side, and you were not safe on your own side. Also, if your rock got taken you were out of the game, unless your teammates got the rock you lost back.
Obviously, whoever's team ended up with the most rocks stuck to their bulletin board won.
So my team was split up. Bhavana and Alex's groups would steal rocks. Jessica's would protect our home bar And Eshana, believe it or not was willing to participate. Her group would chase the opposing teams forces around, tiring them. Weirdly she chose the most active part. Whatever.
I tensed up, waiting for the horn to blow.
"Let the battle commence," Neesik announced, then blew the horn.
I shot off like a bullet, determined to settle this once and for all! (And to get revenge on Ruidi for hurting Albert.)