The Games Heroes Play (The Academy Trilogy)

by Joshua DeBenedetto

  It was not long before the two Hermes and Jay arrived at a small clearing. Jay could see a group of five brown team members standing guard there; from the looks of the group, there were three Prometheus and two Titans, and now the two Hermes that had carried Jay. He could also see Hummer and Spark tied to trees nearby, and in the arms of one of the Titans was none other than the globe, which was now glowing with light. Jay could barely contain his excitement, but he knew that if this globe were glowing, so was theirs, which would make it that much easier to find. One of the Prometheus came over with the rope, and moved as if to tie up Jay’s legs, and deciding he did not want to get tied up, Jay pulled his arms to the sides with a quick jerk, breaking the handcuffs and freeing his hands. He spun himself out of the arms of the Hermes pair, who quickly jumped on him to restrain him. He pushed them off and ran at the Titan holding the globe. The Titan crouched over to protect it, blocking it completely from view.

  Jay had to think quickly, in order to avoid battling all seven of them at once. He quickly began tapping the Titan all around, just as they had done in class. When Jay got in front of the Titan, he allowed himself to rise a little off the ground. The Titan immediately reached out and grabbed Jay by the arm to restrain him. Now that the globe was only being held by one arm, Jay kicked out at the globe with enough force to knock it out of the Titan’s arm. Surprised by the strength of the counterstrike, the Titan did not finish the maneuver, and when Jay landed with his feet on the ground he pulled hard from the Titan, freeing his arm. He dashed to where the globe was just landing, and quickly hit one of the buttons.

  Just like that, it was over. The lights in the arena brightened, and a buzzer rang. A voice spoke out over a loudspeaker saying “the game has ended, the brown team globe has been compromised. Release all prisoners and make your way back out the door from which you had entered. Thank you for participating in this year’s simulation games!”

  Jay noticed that none of the brown team members were in a hurry to untie his teammates, so he walked over and began untying them himself. He started with Hummer, and as soon as the restraints were removed she threw her arms around Jay in a big hug. After a hug which lifted him slightly off his feet, she released him.

  “You did it Decathlon! You won the game for us! Wow, that was risky of Hammer to let you get caught, but I guess it worked! They led you right to the globe, and you stepped up your game just in time to snatch the game right out from under their noses!”

  Jay was a little embarrassed that it was not actually as planned out as that. “Actually she didn’t let me get caught, I got caught despite my best attempts to avoid it. But we can talk about that later, first we need to free our teammates. You untie Spark, and I’ll go start in on the rest.”

  “The rest?”

  “Yeah, come see for yourself once Spark is out.”

  Jay ran off to find the rest of his team. Despite his poor sense of direction, he soon picked up on their thought patterns, and found his way to the group. The brown team members were beginning to pull up the stakes holding the net down, but they were working slower than Jay liked. He ran down and began pulling out the stakes. After half the stakes were pulled out, Jay could see Hummer arrive at the scene in shock, with Spark just behind her. Jay quickly pulled out the rest of the stakes, while the two of them pulled the netting off of the group.

  “What the heck happened!? How did you three do it?”

  It was Duke, who was so excited he had decided not to wait until he was untangled from the net to speak. Hummer went over and helped him out, while explaining what she saw. “It wasn’t the three of us, it was just Decathlon, Spark and I were captured, we just got the pleasure of watching. He pretended to be captured, then broke out and grabbed the globe right out of their arms!”

  “I just got lucky, let’s help the rest of the team out.” Jay really did not want to discuss what had happened with most of the brown team still standing around them, looking angry and, in some cases, ready for a fight. When the whole team had been released and they began walking through the artificial forest towards the door, Jay finally started to relax, and the excitement of the events that had just taken place finally hit him. By the time they were out the door he was laughing and joking along with the rest of his team. The only one that was not participating in their jovial spirit was Hammer. Jay wanted to talk with her, but since he was the center of attention at the moment, he realized this would cause an unwanted scene.

  As the group neared the school building which contained the dorms, Hammer called out to the group, trying to sound happier than she clearly was. “Okay team, we won our first game, congratulations. Since most of us spent considerable time with our faces in the dirt, go take showers, then we’re having a team meeting at 1600 hours in our practice room.” With her piece spoken, Hammer walked off in the direction of the practice rooms. Jay was surprised by the thought that she would skip taking a shower herself, especially since she was probably the dirtiest of them all, having dug herself into the ground to cover their false hiding place.

  Jay decided he would go get a shower, as Hammer suggested, then go to the practice room early to speak with Hammer before the rest of the team arrived.

  WHEN JAY ARRIVED at the practice room, not only had Hammer not taken a shower, but she was working up a tremendous sweat lifting weights. Jay walked over and waited until she was done with her current set before approaching her.

  “Hey Hammer, you ok?”

  Hammer put the weights down, and sat up straight on the bench. “Of course I’m ok, we won the game didn’t we?”

  Jay could tell she was still not as happy as she was trying to sound. “You forget Hammer, I’m a mind reader. I can tell when you aren’t telling me the truth.”

  Hammer smiled. “I guess the game just didn’t go the way I thought it would.”

  “Yeah, well from the looks of things, I’d say it didn’t go the way Lock thought it would either.”

  “I guess that’s true. To be honest, I thought we were done for. I assumed Hummer and Spark were caught when they didn’t return. Then the rest of us were trapped in the net, except you and Jumper, then Jumper got caught shortly after. When they dug under the boulder and found the food scraps, Lock told them to get the bag. They had it solved Decathlon, they just hadn’t quite gotten to the globe yet. To be honest, when the alarm sounded, I assumed one of us had accidentally pressed a button on our own globe.”

  Jay laughed, but quickly stopped when he realized Hammer was not laughing with him. “But we didn’t hit our own button, we hit theirs, and we won the game.”

  “No Decathlon, you hit theirs, and you won the game. In less than one hour, our entire team got captured except for you. It was like a group of children going up against trained fighters. The only reason the children prevailed was because they brought their pet dragon along.”

  “I’m not a dragon, I think you’re overestimating my abilities.”

  “No, I’m not. You single handedly beat the brown team. There’s no denying that; the rest of your team were captured, and there was only one of theirs captured. And that was one that you had captured anyway.”

  Jay was not sure what she was talking about at first. I didn’t capture anybody, he thought. Then he remembered the Hermes that tried to push him under the falling rope. He remembered that he had spun the guy around and knocked him under the net instead. I guess I did capture someone, Jay realized.

  “I know I should be happy for us, Decathlon. After all, you are part of our team, so a win for you means a win for all of us. I’m just disappointed that under my leadership the rest of us were stopped so easily.”

  The two of them sat the rest of their time in silence waiting for the rest of the team to arrive.

  CHAPTER 11

  “I NEED TO know a few things right up front. First of all, why were they able to get so close to us while we were digging? Prometheus’s - why didn’t you see them coming? Duke?”

  “We could see thoughts, but
they were not of us. They were thinking of their camp, so we thought they were still far away and hadn’t found us yet. They must have been keeping a small read on the three of us too, because they struck just after our blanket readings faded. At least that’s what the case was for the two of us; I haven’t had a chance to talk to Decathlon about it.”

  “Decathlon, anything different for you?”

  “I didn’t see them. My ability was weak since I entered the arena, and it didn’t come back to a reasonable strength again until after they attacked.”

  “Clearly not all your abilities were weak, you were moving fast and digging strong the whole time.”

  “No, it was just my reading that was causing a problem. I maintained a blanket reading, but it wasn’t strong enough to see anything outside of our group clearly.”

  “You need to report that to me when we’re out there. I need to know if there are any problems before they explode in our faces. Hummer and Spark, how did you both manage to get caught so quickly?”

  “We both went down the same way. We were approaching their camp from either side, and noticed a rope across the path that looked like it was tied to two trees. Neither of us looked close enough to realize there was some rope tied around the trees, but it was not connected to the rope across the path. Instead that rope was being held by two Hermes who were behind the trees, and when we each went to step over the rope, they raised it higher and tripped us. They were on us too quickly for us to recover.”

  “Ok, for our game tomorrow we are sending out our spies in pairs of two. One will lead, and the other will hang back slightly. If the front runner gets caught, the back runner should return immediately with as much information as they have. Also, front runners move a little slower next time, and take care to watch out for traps. Every person who gets caught is another person advantage they have over us. Can anyone tell me what our biggest mistake was?”

  “Spending so much time creating decoys that weren’t even checked?”

  “No, it was huddling together. The whole group of us were standing in a clump, and when the net showed up the ones in the middle didn’t have any escape route. We had a whole forest to work with, we need to spread out further and take advantage of the trees and the space we’re allotted. The decoys are a good point too though; we were acting completely defensively, without any attempt at capturing their globe. We won because they underestimated what Decathlon could do, but we are facing the Orange team tomorrow, and word has surely gotten out about our match. We will not have the same luxury with them. It’s true that the orange team was considered to be lower in the rankings than the brown team was, but we are ranked lower than both of them, so we cannot let down our guard.”

  Jay looked at the other team members. The faces that were previously so jovial, even as recently as their entrance into the training room, were now held in complete attention. Hammer may be considered an introvert, but she does have the leadership in her to keep her troops focused.

  “Our advantage in the last game was the element of surprise with Decathlon’s extra abilities. It was that advantage that gave us our slim victory. We do not have that advantage anymore, so we need to find a new one. Our advantage tomorrow is experience. They did not play a team in the first round, and we had a tough matchup. We know what to expect from these games now, and they do not. And one good thing about being trapped under that rope was that we didn’t spend the whole time tiring ourselves out. We are all still alert and ready to go.”

  Jay liked how Hammer was turning the events around on them. She knows their victory was barely won, and that they actually did quite poorly as a team, but now she was turning these things around to show what good they achieved.

  “Tomorrow, I want to do to the orange team what the brown team had done to us. We need to learn from our defeats, so we can use them to achieve victories. And they do not have Decathlon to stop it.”

  The group laughed. Their morale was sky high, but they were still ready for battle. They spent the next few hours going over new plans and base strategies that would be adapted to their situation the next morning. Making sure not to tire the team out, Hammer let them go to bed early.

  Jay had to consciously force himself to walk at a normal pace as he walked back to the dorm room with Duke. He was ready to continue with the games, and wanted to start the next game immediately. As soon as the two of them entered the dorm room, a loud cry rang out, and Jay noticed all the other first year Prometheus were facing them, cheering and clapping. Jay turned to Duke, and noticed that he too was clapping for Jay. In the center of the room a cake was sitting on top of Duke’s desk, which had been pulled out from the office. On top the icing read “Jay: The Hero of the Heroes”.

  “HE’S A THREAT.”

  “You’re to give me factual evidence, not opinions.”

  “He has figured out that he is being watched, and being a Hermes he can get away from us whenever he desires, which happened for a time just before he went in for his simulation match. Shortly after the match began his entire team was captured, but he won the game for them by breaking out of his handcuffs, then capturing the globe while it was being watched by seven students with far more training than him. The only weakness we have found is the inconsistency of his abilities, however they seem to be strongest when he needs them most. His forecasted strength, speed, or mental ability would surpass any and all of the professors here by his third year if he continued improving at this pace.”

  “If that is the case, then you were correct to say he is a threat. Power is held by a delicate balance of assets, and it sounds like this boy might make that balancing act more difficult. We need to distract him with something that does not involve him becoming more powerful to solve the problem. What were the reports on his brother?”

  “Sir, if we recall correctly, it was determined that he has not developed a power, or even showed signs of beginning the process towards one. He is intelligent, but has no potential for this school. Those that were watching him were taken off just two weeks ago.”

  “Put them back on. We are going to use the younger brother to distract the older. Keep him under surveillance until I give the order to take him.”

  “Sir? Wouldn’t harming his younger brother just make him more dangerous? He is under our control right now.”

  “We are trying to hold a lion with a housecat’s leash. We need to be ready in case he breaks loose.”

  THE MORNING ARRIVED with the announcements of the previous night’s results, but the whole school was already aware before then. Jay took a last look at the new bracket before he went on to meet up with the team for their next game. There it was, proof that they had really beaten the brown team. The bracket showed that the previous day’s games saw black defeat silver, and yellow defeat blue, both as expected. Their game against the brown team was not the only upset, however, as the gold team had beaten the white team, which had been ranked third, one of the “big three”. There were four games again that day, and Jay was excited to hear the outcome of two in particular. The first was his own game, green against orange, which was scheduled as the first game of the day at 900 hours. The second game of the day was red against yellow, the two top ranked teams in the games. It was thought by many that yellow would be the only team with a shot at stopping red, and they would be facing off right after Jay and his team finished, scheduled for 1300 hours.

  Jay stepped in at the cafeteria to grab a little food to go. While he ate and walked quickly through the halls, he could not help but notice everyone watching him. He was getting used to people giving him looks, but this was far more than he was comfortable with. After quickly finishing his food, Jay decided to see how fast he could get to the arena, and away from the onlookers. He was not cautious anymore to hide his abilities, since his cover was blown after the game the day before.

  Jay arrived at the arena to find Hammer and Hummer already there warming up. Before long, the rest of the team was there, all of them arriving earlier than
they had scheduled. This is good, Jay thought, we are ready this time.

  Hammer brought them all together again, and reviewed their new plan. “As we decided yesterday, we are going to split into five teams of four. I will enter first, followed by team A, our four Hermes spies. We will quickly figure out the goal and if there are any items for them to use, then they will set out scouting. The rest of the group will enter after us, and we will divide team responsibilities once we are inside. Decathlon, how are your abilities today?”

  Jay was not expecting to be singled out, but it was good that he was, as there was an issue again. “My reading is on the weak side again, but I feel faster and stronger than ever.”

  “Ok, work on your reading until we enter. I am going to make one change to the plan. Decathlon is going to be team F. That will leave team B with only three people, but I will step onto that team if it becomes necessary to keep them at four. Decathlon, they fear you. They will probably have some plan to catch you or stop you. As long as you are not caught, we can keep them afraid. We will keep you on defense for a while, then if we need to switch things up we will change you to offense.”

  Jay did not like this plan, as it left him solely responsible for whatever responsibilities were given to “team F”. He realized, however, that this was not Hammer’s way of utilizing him, it was her way of utilizing the rest of the team. She wanted to prove that they could establish a successful offense on their own. Jay nodded in agreement to the plan.

  There was no countdown this time. The team waited with solemn looks for their second chance. The door opened, and Hammer led them all in, with Jay taking up the rear. Once Jay got into the arena, he noticed that team A was already off to scope out the competition. He looked around at the new landscape. It was amazing how they could change it so fast. This time they were playing in a city, and replicas of buildings were set up throughout, complete with roads, parks, and cars parked on the sides. The only thing missing are the civilians, Jay thought in admiration.