Ninety minutes later, we had concluded that said rat was far more intelligent than we had initially assumed. After the break, we had PE. "Finally, I can't wait to be surrounded by a bunch of girls all getting changed. And I'm pretty sure most of them know I'm just a bit gay." Piper said. I refrained from my typical 'that's what happens when you're allo' response. It wasn't like this was a choice she had made. She just happened to have been born this way, like the other 95-99% allos that existed in this world. Whatever the reason for her attraction was, she'd just have to deal with it. After getting changed, we went up to the school gym. Our teacher decides that he wanted to start the year by- my ADHD decided that determining the exact hierarchy of line intersections (whiteorangebluegreen) was far more important than what the teacher was talking abo- wait, did someone say strategy? My focus was back on the conversation instantly. The teacher told us about a game called cross fire, a name which was less triggering than you'd expect for someone who was technically a war veteran. It was probably because the wars I had been in had been mostly based around stabbing rather than actually firing. The only projectile weapons that I remembered from the battle of Manhattan had been paintball guns.
It was probably the most complex game I had ever played in PE as both teams had to design a fortification to guard their "treasure", a handball, from the enemy team. The first team to get both treasures would win. There were of course also specific rules about rescuing your "injured" teammates. As soon as the rules were explained, I began rushing through different fort plans and strategies, so much so that I almost missed when I was put into a team. Once my plan was finished, I was initially concerned that I might not be able to convince my entire team of it, but luckily (and totally not because I had sat down in such a way that this outcome would happen) Piper was also on my team. "Guys, listen to what Annabeth's telling you. She knows what she's doing" This statement didn't even contain this much charm speak, but it was enough to make almost everyone listen to me when I explained my construction plan, which contained an enemy stabbing system that was integrated into the wall and a basketball hoop based ammo delivery system, and my strategy. I won't go into too much detail here, but forming groups of three or at most four people in order to allow for a quick retreat when someone was "injured" was an important part of it. I also kept an eye on the enemy base, trying (and succeeding) to make out any structurally weak points and to translate those into strategies for storming and destroying it. Of course, this endeavor required another separate survival-and-rescue strategy, which I also explained to my teammates. I think they might have been a bit annoyed by that. Why are they annoyed by the prospect of winning? Whatever the case, they eventually did create a fortress according to my instructions.
Our teacher started the game and within seconds, we began putting my tactics to good use. By that I mean chaos which vaguely resembled my tactics. For the first few minutes, the game was somewhat even, with soldiers falling on both sides (Sorry, everything relating to war, including its terminology, is in my DNA) Suddenly, we were down to three people, which was very close to a point where reviving out teammates would be impossible. I was within the castle, together with one other student. The third person, Piper, was still out on the field, only surviving because of her superhuman reflexes. Without her taking down every one crossing into our territory, we would have long been under siege. While this was working for now, a strictly defense strategy with a singular point of failure just wasn't ideal, so I called her back into the fort. Not into the innermost chamber, making that accessible would have taken too much time, only behind the outermost wall, which was less of a complete wall and more so a series of short wall pieces which one person could hide behind. Once everyone was protected, I explained my new and improved strategy. In order to understand this strategy, you must first know how the revival system works. Basically, any fallen player could be revived by being dragged all the way to the back wall of their side of the field. As soon as two players were holding onto a third one, they were immune to all attacks. My strategy was that three people would run together. If one of them was hit by a ball, the other two would reach for their hands, turning them into in immune rescuer-victim-rescuer trio. This would allow for a safe retreat and prevent the loss of team members. Once my teammates had understood this strategy, we launched a rescue mission. Once we reached a student, we reached for his hand. Since the potential immunity had now stopped working, I ran back while my two alive teammates dragged the fallen one back to life. After dodging a few balls, I was hit. At the end of the mission, we had just as many dead players as before, but I was much closer to the wall than the one we had just rescued had been, so there was still a net positive effect plus I was rescued just seconds later. About eleven rescue missions later, our team was fully assembled while the opposite team's siege plan was failing. Due to my amazing strategy finally being put in place, the tides were quickly turning. Just a few minutes later, everyone in our team was alive while the opposite team was mostly sitting around our castle, having been defeated while trying to storm it. With our team fully reassembled, we began our attack, this time actually working according to strategy. We approached in multiple teams of three until simultaneously arriving at the enemy's fortress, where we began to disassemble it. A few were hit by the players still in the fortress, but due to the large amount of people besieging it, they were very quickly revived and after just three successful attacks, the defenders ran out of balls. Noticing their bad situation, the last two players of the enemy team left their castle to revive some teammates. I could have stopped them, but we were so close to winning that there wasn't any point in doing so, they wouldn't gain numbers quickly enough to be of any danger to us. That's what I explained to my team. "With all due respect, Annabeth" Someone said. "I don't care" He picked up a ball and hit one of the running enemy players, which didn't completely kill off the enemy team, but at least made recovery impossible. In retrospect, this guy had probably saved me from my own hubris getting me into trouble. We decided to ignore the last player since she couldn't revive anyone. After a few attempts, we managed to breach the opposite team's fort. Piper and I made our way to the treasure room and got the ball. When I bent over to take it, I must have hit the wall behind me and make it start to slide. When I got back up, the ball in my hand, the wall crashed down onto me like the ceiling in the chamber of Mithras.
Piper
I caught the collapsing wall and somehow managed to maneuver it into a position where it wouldn't crush us. "Whoa, we almost got buried by that thing. Let's get out of here. Uh, Annabeth?" Annabeth looked at me and I knew that we weren't gonna leave this chamber soon. She was sitting on the ground, her hands were holding her ankle. In this moment, I was grateful for all the trauma dumping Annabeth had done, since I knew right away which situation she was flashbacking to: the shrine of Mithras, its destruction and Annabeth's subsequent fall. She had broken her ankle, which was probably the reason she was holding it now. She tried to stand up, but failed. Whether it was because of the memory of extreme pain in her ankle or the low ceiling, or the disconnect to the real world due to the flashback is anyone's guess. I sat down next to her. "Can't stop now" she muttered. "Must finish the quest" This reminded me of the reason I was here. "Annabeth, I'll be right back" I promised. I didn't know if she could understand me or would even notice that I was gone, but I said it anyways, just to be sure. I grabbed the treasure and gave it to one of my teammates waiting outside the fortress. "Get this back to our base" I told him. "We're gonna need a few minutes". After that, I went right back to Annabeth. "Annabeth, can you hear me?" I asked her. She nodded. "Can I come closer? Is a hug okay?" Annabeth nodded to both questions, so I gave her a hug. After a few seconds, she stopped shaking. This flashback was actually quite easy to overcome, all it took was me telling her that it was over a few times, probably because the original situation had only retained the level of horror necessary to create trauma memories for a few seconds. After barely a minute, Annabeth left the flashback and went into the next phase where you're no longer under the impression that the traumatic event is happening right now but it still scares the living schist out of you. "What happened here?" Annabeth asked. "This wall collapsed onto us and you had a flashback" "That would explain why I'm so scared now. But I guess since everything's over now,we should just go and win this game." "We probably already won. I gave the ball to our team over a minute ago. They probably already got it back at our base." We left the enemy base and checked the situation. Our team was still positioned at the wall, with the treasure. "Okay, what happened here?" Annabeth asked. "Why isn't the ball in our treasure room?" "Two of us were hit, so we decided to deal with that first. Oh, there they come" six players from our team arrived. "Well, let's get this treasure back. Did you at least exterminate the opposite team?" "No, you specifically told us that one player couldn't do any harm and to leave her alive. Now she's collected all the balls and is currently in our base." "Well, that sucks. I guess we now have to storm our own base. At least we have the revival advantage. We'll make our way back in groups of three, like before. Just in case. No one is left behind. Don't forget to pick up any thrown balls. We need to get rid of this team once and for all."
Annabeth
We made our way back to our side of the field. Two of us were hit, but since the reviving wall was already our destination, it barely stopped our progress and we reached our base in under a minute. Once there, I began to strategize again. "Okay, this fortress is intended to be impenetrable, at least when it's being defended. Which is the case right now. Let's just hope no one knows how the defense works. And even if, I have a few tricks up my sleeve." I made my way past the first line of defense which was just a few places where (not currently existing) players could hide, so no challenge yet. I also got past the second line of defense- two vertical mats- quite easily, it was just a tight squeeze and I was in. After that came the jungle of ropes as I liked to call it. It was a bunch of skipping ropes at different heights forming a barrier right behind the gap I had just squeezed through. Now usually, this would not have been much of an obstacle, but these ropes could be moved left to right and, with the help of a second set of ropes, up and down by whoever was at the heart of the castle. Unfortunately, this person was the enemy and apparently knew what she was doing, making this barrier almost impenetrable. Almost. Luckily, I had followed the methods of one of my (probably, but Leo says it's his) brothers and designed the base with a few intentional flaws. I pulled out a stick from under the right mat which I had put there for this exact purpose. I wove it between the ropes and turned it a few times, creating enough stress to destroy the system without damaging the individual parts. I could now walk right through the barrier.
I know had only one obstacle left in front of me: a wall with hockey sticks poking out of the many holes. It reached up to my chest, so I might have been able to jump and pull myself up if it weren't for the aforementioned hockey sticks that were just waiting to be used for stabbing me. Why had I had to design this base so well? Once again, I had added a small Achilles heel to the base. I took one of the rope pieces still laying around and tied it around the hockey sticks in such a way that they could no longer be moved individually and got ready for my first proper fight in weeks, pretty much the first one since Arac- no Annabeth, flashback time is later. I jumped up, saw the enemy player and chucked a ball at her. I could hear the collision of cheap plastic-based ball coating with human skin, signifying our victory. I might have been able to do the jump without disabling the defense, but getting a stick jammed into your knee or similar events tend to not improve your aim and I didn't want to take that risk. With the enemy now defeated, I went back outside to get the treasure ball since it had been too large and annoying to carry while also disabling my defense mechanisms, and went back inside. I climbed over the innermost wall and put the treasure ball where it belonged. We had won the war. Game, I meant game. Having war strategy burned into your brain sometimes showed up at the most annoying times.
Piper
Once our victory was declared, both bases were reassembled and another game started, with the sides switched. While me knowing the weaknesses of the base I had designed and that was now the enemy base caused its negative effect on us to be quite a bit smaller than the effect it had had on the enemy team last game, it still made us loose the second game. The enemy team very effectively used their players to collect balls and get them to the base, from where they were thrown at our team. Ultimately, you could say that we were just too good to win since if we had played worse and died off storming the base, the enemy team might have made the mistake of underestimating us and abandoning their base. If they had done that, we would have been very easily able to plunder it, securing us the win. So yes, if we had played worse, for example by not using the three-people-always-go-together rule, we would probably have won. At least that's what Annabeth's tells me, but I think she might be biased. One last game was then played with the sides being switched once again, such that we were in our own base again. Unsurprisingly, we won this game.
So, a whole chapter dedicated to PE. Didn't think I'd do that. Also, please excuse the three POV switches I put in this chapter, while writing I kind of forgot whose POV I was writing from and couldn't change it. Also, sorry for the delay, I didn't have access to my computer for a while, but I'll be back on track soon.