'Deathball'
04-Sep-2030, 1900U
LCDR Percy Jackson, US Navy, Son of Neptune
Legion XII
Oakland, California, USA
Special thanks to @the_prodigal_knight and @146852586a for some excellent ideas!
The Fates must've been having fun, considering that my life consisted of me getting voluntold just about every five minutes: from the continuous quests of my youth, to the crappy details I got at my first platoon in SEAL Team 2 and when I first showed up at DEVGRU, and now to me participating in Deathball... which I had never actually played before.
From my limited understanding, it was similar to paintball, just with acid, poison, and fire. Moreover, paintball gunners were replaced with slingers and archers, along with good old-fashioned "yeeters," to quote some of the legionaries around me.
I had been assigned to Blue Team, which consisted of Cohorts V and X, along with a detachment from Auxiliary Cohort I. Cohorts III and VIII made up Red Team, and were similarly augmented by Auxiliary Cohort I troops. The remainder of the legion was elsewhere for training or university—which was fine by me, considering each side had around 200 personnel.
The teams were mustering at the barracks, where equipment was handed out and strategies were being discussed. Tyson and I, of course, showed up looking rather unprepared—which we were.
"Tribune Steele?" I asked, with a man at least ten years my junior turning around from the discussion. "I'm Percy Jackson, this is Tyson. Consuls assigned us to augment your team."
"What? Uh, just a sec... Carter! Get these two sorted, yeah?"
"Yes, Tribune," a shorter, dark-haired man replied before making his way towards us. He looked like Tom Cruise if he was in his late twenties/early thirties and became a legionary, with the comparison sparking a memory of a conversation earlier in the day.
"Ethan, I presume?"
"Well, yeah!" the man replied with a grin. "Optio Carter, Fifth Cohort's First Century. How'd you know my name?"
"Your wife's an old acquaintance of mine. Met your son this mornin' too."
"Wait... you're the guy that was arguing with Terminus for half an hour? He told me all about that! He also said that you were an undercover Delta Force commando."
"Now where would he get an idea like that?" I asked, trying not to laugh at the description.
"I accidentally let him watch Operation Kayla Mueller with me n' Jules, and you apparently had a pistol and machine gun... is the latter even legal?"
"Yeah, but politicians and bureaucrats ruin everything."
"Huh?"
"Nevermind, nevermind," I quickly replied, wanting to keep myself from falling down a constitutional rabbit hole. "So... Deathball?"
"Basically, it's a fight to the death, so anything goes. You get hit, you run back to the respawn point. You get hit again, you get off the field. But in either case, you get hit badly enough, the medics pull you out faster than you can say 'Fulminata,'" Ethan quickly summarized. "You've got bows and arrows, crossbows, slingshots, and plain arm strength to work with, so I hope you're good with one of 'em."
"Uh... not really, actually. But to be clear: anything goes, right?"
"For the most part, yeah."
YOU ARE READING
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