The Games Heroes Play (The Academy Trilogy)

by Joshua DeBenedetto

  When the day came for their next game, Hammer had a new plan of action set up. They were to arrive fifteen minutes before game time outside their designated entrance. After their pep-talk, Jay was to take off and run laps through the halls of the school, then make his way back when it is one minute to game time. Jay did as they planned, and for the first time he felt fully functional when they walked through the door to begin.

  The arena was dark. The only light they could see came a short distance in front, where a flashlight on a stand shone down on their supplies. After a look at their supplies they realized the lights being off was no accident, it was part of the game. The supplies consisted of ten pairs of night vision goggles, three shovels, a large metal detector, and a picture of a metallic orb. The object of the game was simple, find the orb and protect it. According to the directions, once one team finds the orb, they must press a button on it corresponding to their team. A dim light will go on in the arena corresponding to the team which holds the orb – green if the green team finds the orb, or grey if the grey team does. A light will also shine down from the roof on the orb that can be visible from any part of the arena, and the light will follow the orb as it is moved about the arena. If a team can keep control of the orb for twenty minutes, that team wins.

  Team A did not take off right at the beginning this time, but instead waited for Hammer to signal them. Once the directions were read, Hammer decided she was ready to begin. “Teams A and F, grab a pair of goggles each and go scout out the competition.”

  Jay was surprised to hear that team F would be going with team A on the scouting trip, but even more surprised when he realized that he was team F. “Me?”

  Hammer did not want to waste more time on this. “Yes, go with them, you are in good shape right now and I don’t want to waste that by having you stand around. Go!”

  They all grabbed a pair of goggles, and just before they took off Hammer added, “and see if you can get us some more of these goggles!”

  Jay put on his goggles and took off with team A. He could see now that the arena was set up like a warehouse, with boxes stacked upon boxes all over the place. Instead of a floor, however, they all sat on plain dirt, similar to that which was used in their first match in the forest. They ran along, a little slower than normal but still at a quick pace, with each of the two pairs of scouts on either side, and Jay running in the middle.

  Jay picked up on the trap long before they got to it. His mind reading was still holding, so he was able to see the thoughts of the four who were waiting for them.

  “Stop, there’s a trap up ahead,” Jay told his team. He could see that there were two Hermes and two Titans. They were clearly set up to capture the scouting party, as none of them were making a great deal of effort to block their thoughts, clearly expecting to find just Hermes coming their way. Jay tried to figure out how to locate them, but all he could see was that they were hiding on top of a pile of boxes, and that the Titans were holding a crate between the two of them that they would trap their captives in. Jay could not see where they were, but he could tell that their trap would hold a Hermes well… but not a Titan.

  “I’ll go defuse the trap. I’ll give an all clear when it’s good for you to follow,” Jay instructed the four other scouts. He continued forward at a run, allowing the grey team the opportunity they would be looking for. Jay knew the trap was coming, but it still surprised him just how fast they were upon him. He allowed himself to be caught, even though he could easily have fought off the two Hermes who held him. As they were about to push him into the crate, Jay planted his feet and thrust his arms forward, throwing the Hermes who held him in instead. He quickly threw the crate door shut, just in time for the two Titans to grab him. Jay realized he was not quite strong enough to just plant his feet and dispel them as he did with the Hermes, so he dropped his feet out from under him, falling onto his back. As the Titans moved to pin him, he quickly swung his feet in front and underneath them, and kicked out, sending the Titans flying.

  “It’s Decathlon! They sent Decathlon after us!” one of the Titans yelled to the other. They got up, but instead of running after Jay, they began to run in the other direction.

  Jay quickly dashed back to where the rest of the scouts were following. “All clear, we have two Hermes trapped in a crate up ahead, and two Titans running for their lives. I’m going to catch the Titans before they get back to the rest of grey team and give away our position.” Before any of the others could respond, Jay dashed off again, back towards the Titans.

  They weren’t difficult to catch up to. Jay’s adrenaline was pumping, and his speed and strength were at peak condition. He caught up to them right as they reached a corner of boxes. “Looks like I have you cornered,” Jay said, enjoying his position of power. He began moving towards them, trying to decide how to trap them.

  With his focus on his own thoughts, he did not notice all the others which were suddenly within range. They attacked him from behind, grabbing his arms and pulling them behind his back to tie him up. The one holding his left arm was not strong and he quickly got it loose, but it was soon caught again, this time by a Titan. His night vision goggles were yanked from his head and he was plunged into darkness. Jay struggled to keep himself moving, keep himself from being captured. As he tossed one away, another would grab him from a different direction. Jay struggled to see, but no matter how hard he strained his eyes, there was no relief from the dark. With his eyes ineffective, all he had to go by were his mental images. He could see the thoughts of his attackers, but they were jumbled, and it was difficult to watch and block the advances of more than one at a time.

  Then something new happened. As Jay focused on the pictures, they began to move. The pictures had moved before, shifting around the collage, changing size and shape as he focused on different things. He knew they could move, but this time was different. As he tried to focus on the subject of the pictures, namely himself, instead of on the pictures individually, they seemed to shift to form a total image of himself. What he was seeing now was a mix from the sights being seen by all of his attackers at once. Just as they saw him at different angles, Jay found that he now had a 360 degree view of himself as well, and he could shift his view point at his will. He continued to struggle as he moved his focus from himself to the environment around himself, and sure enough the pictures remained in a tapestry of visions, allowing him to see anything that those around him could see. The eyes of his attackers did not glow, but it was as if a light were shining from each of them, making all in their line of sight visible in the light of Jay’s mind.

  It took Jay a moment to adjust to his newfound sight. It was much different to view the world from a third person perspective, but he compensated surprisingly fast. With his new perspective, he could now see that his right foot was close to the side of a large crate, so he kicked out at it, propelling him and his captors sideways in the other direction. With those around him off balance, Jay pulled one arm free again, but this time he could see the person moving to grab that arm, and he quickly dodged the grab, and instead took hold of their arm and pulled them onto the Titan who still held onto his other arm. The collision was enough for him to free his second arm, and with his arms free, the rest of his body soon followed.

  He was now free to weave in and out of the crowd as he pleased. Even the Hermes around could not catch him now, as their sight was limited by what they could see through their own goggles, and as such were moving cautiously. Jay began gathering up as many pairs of goggles as he could, snatching them off the heads of those around him. Each one he took decreased his own sight, but by the time this was significant enough to inhibit his motions, he simply put on one of the pairs he had taken, and grabbed the last few off of his opponents. He dashed off with his new bundle, back towards the rest of the scouting crew.

  Jay could see that the others were getting anxious when he arrived back, but he could also tell that their discomfort vanished upon seeing the package Jay had returned
with. “Decathlon, what did you do! You must have taken every pair of goggles they had!”

  “I hope so, it would certainly give us an advantage,” Jay responded with a smile. “Let’s get back to the others and give them our… report.”

  They sped off, back towards their own group.

  When they arrived back to where Hammer was, their reception was certainly a welcome one. Hammer excitedly distributed out the goggles that Jay had collected. To her surprise, Jay had gathered twelve pairs of goggles. “But we only started with ten?” she questioned.

  “They have a lot of supplies that we don’t have. I think they have been opening the boxes and finding useful items inside,” Jay replied.

  Jay could not see Hammers face clearly, but he could read just enough of her thoughts to tell that she felt a little silly for not having thought of that herself. “You three, with the shovels! Start using them to pry open boxes, and report to me on what you find.”

  With the report given, team A was sent back to keep an eye on the opponents, and make sure they did not recover enough to become a threat again. Jay was sent off to scout out on his own for the orb. After half an hour of searching, a dim green light came on in the arena. Jay knew what this meant; someone on his team had found the orb and pressed their button. Jay threw off his goggles, as they now made it more difficult to see with the amount of light visible, and ran as fast as he could in the direction of the ray of white light which must be the signal as to the location of the orb. He got there quickly, and found his team already setting up a defense around it.

  “Come on Decathlon, join the line! We are creating a circle around Hummer, who has the orb. We’re backing towards the back wall of the arena, then sliding down towards the corner. The fewer directions we need to guard against, the better!” Hammer was calling out her plan with a mix of excitement and paranoia, glancing every which way to see when an attack would occur.

  They hadn’t reached the wall yet when the attack came. Duke had called out shortly before the attack came that there were many greys around, but they were still not prepared for such a thorough, well organized attack. Jay had kept towards the center of the group, close to Hummer, in order to be a last defense. It was not long before he saw some of the grey team members breaking through the line. He realized the grey team had chosen a section of the green teams’ defenses, and were focusing their attack there. As the first of them broke through, Jay ran over and met them. With a tackle resembling that of a football player, Jay scooped up the front grey team member with his shoulder, and using him as a plow pushed back the whole line of grey team members. This allowed his own team the time and space needed to reform their defense, putting the grey team back at square one on their attack. Jay was now on the outside, and decided his best way to help would now be to run around the outside and pull off anyone who was making progress through the line. With the defenses now held strong, the grey team was unable to make a second push through the line. The lights came on to their normal strength, and the loudspeaker called out with its usual message, signaling the end of the game. They had lasted through the twenty minutes, and had won another match.

  There were no cheers this time. No words of congratulations, and no pats on the back. Most of the team were dumbfounded that they had actually won the game, and not only won the semifinal match, but had beaten one of the top teams. Those who had gotten passed the sense of awe had moved on to the next emotion; fear. Up until this point, the idea of facing the red team had been a distant notion, with far too many obstacles coming before it to give the idea any real thought. Now it was official - they would face the red team the next day.

  CHAPTER 13

  THEY GOT TOGETHER immediately for a practice, without even going back for showers first. Many of them were covered in dirt from digging, or from being knocked down during the final attack, but they ignored the grime. It was never actually declared that they would have a practice – rather the whole team just followed Hammer. She walked out of the arena in silence, up to the school in silence, and all the way to a practice room without a word while her whole team walked silently behind her. Jay could see people whispering to each other as the team passed in the halls. He noticed Michael on the side as they passed. Did you win? The thought came. Yes. Jay thought back, with a smile. Michael responded with a big smile of his own.

  They arrived at the room, and for a few minutes nobody spoke, they just rested. Most took seats on benches, or on the floor. Hammer immediately went over to the weights and started lifting. After a few reps, she came back over to the group. She had cleared her head, and was finally ready to speak.

  “We won,” she said, with a smile. A few members of the team laughed, but many remained unmoved from their solemnity. “I know,” Hammer continued, “I know just like you do that we have our toughest match tomorrow.”

  “Tough is an understatement,” Duke’s friend retorted. “I’d say we have a near impossible match tomorrow.”

  “I’m glad you agree,” Hammer replied.

  “So you realize it’s impossible too?”

  “You didn’t say it was impossible, you said it was near impossible. I was agreeing that we do have a chance. If we are going to be ready, we need to see what we know about the red team. Duke, what do we know?”

  Duke stood up, and began recounting the information he had found. “Well, the most obvious weakness is with their first year, Sapphire. She has had fewer classes than the rest, and is less trained, so she would be the most likely one for us to be able to catch with a traditional Hermes catching tactic. From what I’ve heard she got caught pretty quickly in their first match, but in the second she avoided all obstacles with ease. I’m sure Brain has spent considerable time working with her on these areas. Then there’s Tornado – he is a Hermes, but he’s also without a doubt the strongest non-Titan in the school physically. He’s the closest thing to multiple powers outside of Decathlon here. His weakness is that he likes to show off by indirectly challenging Titans. Then there’s Cyclops. Some say he got his name because he was so good at mind reading he could peer into a person’s soul with the glance of a single eye, but upon further investigation I discovered that he originally got the name because he has a lazy left eye, and when he needs to see something clearly he closes his left eye. He is a very good mind reader though, so the typical plan of attacking him from the left may not work, since he would still, in a way, see you coming. The rest appear flawless. None have had to take a weekly test more than twice except their first year, and Brain hasn’t even had to go for a second time since his first year.”

  “Brain does have a weakness though.” Jay had meant for this realization to stay in his head, but in his moment of realization the words came out of their own accord. The whole team turned to look at him giving their complete attention, so he had to continue. “He wants to win.”

  Hammer smiled. “We all want to win. I don’t see how that’s a weakness.”

  “No, we all want to win the game, but Brain is looking for more than that. He had a tough first few years here, and he wants to use these games to prove his capabilities so he can be used accordingly in the field when he leaves here. He doesn’t just want to win, he wants to dominate the game. Maybe we could use his desire for perfection against him in some way?”

  Duke was incredulous. “How do you know he had a tough first few years? Did you…did you manage to read Brain’s mind?”

  “No, not even close. You probably don’t want to hear this, but I met with Brain at one point. He told me about how he was picked on during his first two years, and that these games are how the administration places the graduates. He wants to show he can make it out in the field.”

  “Maybe he was lying to you Jay, to throw you off,” Hummer chimed in.

  “No,” Duke replied, “Brain never lies. I heard that just before the games last year a sixth year Titan was picking on one of the smaller Titans that was on Brain’s team at the time. Brain stepped in and told the bully that i
f he didn’t knock it off, he would pin the guy to the ground using a piece of broccoli.”

  “And he did? How did he pull that off?” one of the Hermes questioned.

  “The Titan went to push Brain, so Brain dropped down and flipped the Titan over himself using the guy’s own strength. The Titan got up and tried again, but Brain kept using the Titan’s own strength against him. Finally after a few minutes of this someone came out of the cafeteria nearby holding a plate with some broccoli on it. Brain grabbed a piece, flipped the Titan around one more time, this time pulling his arm around so that the Titan hit the ground on his back. Brain moved as if to hit the guy, but instead he stopped just before the Titan’s face, holding the broccoli up right between his eyes. The Titan probably could have gotten up if he tried, but he was so shocked that he just lied there until Brain let him up. Brain made him look like a complete fool, and he certainly didn’t lie.”

  “That’s an amusing story,” Hammer said, “but it doesn’t tell us how we could use his desire for glory against him. I’ll think this over and come up with some possible scenarios. For now, we need to get this practice started.”