The Vesta House Squad

16) Capture The Flag: Spider Web

Valerie was still running through the woods when super instinct suddenly made her aware that something was different. At first it was almost nothing, just the subtlest shift in the background noise, then it seemed to get closer and louder. She turned her head just in time to watch the water barrier at the creek come crashing down. Water gushed downstream back towards the sea and over the bodies of the Poseidon kids lying in the creek. For a second, Valerie dumbly wondered if they were all dead, but then her super instinct pointed out that there chests were moving up and down, indicating that they were merely unconscious.

"What happened?" she wondered aloud.

"All the Poseidon kids are mysteriously knocked out so now their water barrier is down," Isaac observed.

Valerie huffed. "Okay well I knew that much. I meant how did that happen?"

"It could have been a variety of things," Isaac answered. "It seems that all of them were knocked unconscious at once, which helps limit it down to fewer possibilities. Usually that means a child of Hecate managed to cast a powerful spell, or a child of Zeus managed to strike the creek with lightning, but neither seem very likely since we didn't hear anything."

"Or maybe we're just that good at the game," Valerie replied. She meant it as a joke, but as always, Isaac took it seriously.

"No," he said firmly. "Typically when the Poseidon children's defenses are breached, it's not a result of great strength or strategy on the opposing team's part, but rather carelessness on their and/or their teammates' part."

Their attention turned back to the present. Valerie scanned the stones in the creek and quickly hopped along the shortest path to the other side of the creek, with Isaac following closely behind.

The moment she stepped into enemy territory, her super instinct kicked in. Aside from her fight with the empousai the day she arrived at school and the fight with the Poseidon kids, her super instinct mostly remained inactive, so she still wasn't used to the way thoughts and ideas forced their way into her conscious mind. It was a peculiar sensation to say the least. Right now she was in the middle of discovering that her mind had automatically created a sort of mental map that automatically tracked the places she'd been and gave her a rough idea of which way the enemy flag was. Her sense of curiosity took over, and she twirled around rapidly from time to time to see if it would "confuse" her sense of direction; it didn't. During all this, Isaac was following along right behind her. He watched her as she looked around them, staring at random trees, and even became mildly concerned when she started spinning around for no apparent reason at all. In the end however, he decided not to say anything about it.

Valerie also found that through listening, she could sense the presence of those around her. At the moment it was just Isaac; there were no enemies close by. Well that was obvious, she thought, of course they wouldn't be here. Earlier there was no reason for anyone else to defend the border because the water barrier was all the defense Blue Team needed. Now that it was down, everyone would be rushing towards the center of the woods (where the she, Isaac, and Katrina had split up) to provide reinforcements for the big fight.

She blinked. Was that obvious? That didn't feel very obvious...and yet it was? This was strange. Usually when a thought "magically" presented itself to her, it was a thought she could have come up with on her own given enough time. This wasn't that: her mind had just strategically analyzed the situation by itself. But Valerie didn't know anything about battle strategy...or at least she was pretty sure she didn't? Perhaps this wasn't her usual super instinct, but rather part of her "Athena battle senses?"

She was still in the middle of trying to figure out her powers when something triggered in the back of her mind, telling her to get down. NOW.

She looked at Isaac. Without warning she dove at the ground, pulling down Isaac with her. Less than a second later, an arrow sailed overhead, passing directly through where Isaac stood just a moment ago. How'd she see that one coming? "The sound," she thought. It was subtle, but somehow she must have heard the change in the background noise as the arrow flew towards her and been able to react in time.