Perci Jackson, Alex Hayda, and the Lightning Thief

What Is That Above Us

After a few moments, a girl in a dinged red helmet walked toward him. "Quinn ran into me and was surprised. He went toward the creek."

"That dumbass," Thomas muttered. "Guard the flag with me?"

The girl nodded and stood behind him. "Have you seen any blues?"

"Just one. It was Luke, he grabbed the decoy flag we had a Hecate kid make. Quinn and I jumped out of the tree over there when he was gone." Thomas rubbed his eyes.

The girl nodded.

"I'm sorry, I just realized I forgot to ask your name. Who are you? I can't tell under the helmet." He looked sheepish.

Alex grinned under the helmet. "A decoy." He turned to see the flag being carried by a sprinting Lexi.

Alex tackled him and stripped him of his gear. She kicked his kneecaps before chasing after Lexi. "Catch ya on the flip side, Tommy-boy!" She giggled as she disappeared into the darkness.

Lexi was running as fast as she could. Considering she used to walk dogs, she'd gotten pretty fast after always chasing Molly when the Greyhound would escape.

When any blues saw her carrying the flag, they stopped fighting any reds to protect the flag from being stolen back. When the reds saw, they fought like they saw red.

She thought that when Travis was taken down by Beckendorf right next to her, it was over for her. If it wasn't for Alex tackling him out of the way, it would have been. The helmet she borrowed from Quinn made a perfect weapon.

Alex threw a small band at the group Beckendorf was in. It expanded exponentially and wrapped around the 5. She helped Lexi up and they continued running. "Catch ya later, losers!" She tossed the red helmet at them and put her blue one back on.

"WE GOT THE FLAG SO RUN YOU FUCKERS! RUN!" Alex's yelling was useful in getting people out of the way. The reds weren't even going to try to stop the small mob. For the next three minutes, they sprinted like their lives depended on it.

When the creek came into view, Alex laughed at the Ares campers who uselessly tried to come at them. Lexi smiled as she ran into friendly territory. Perci had a giant grin and Devon gave a nod of approval.

The boar and spear were replaced with a huge caduceus, the symbol of cabin eleven. Everybody on the blue team gave Lexi high-fives and cheered. Chiron cantered out from the woods and blew the conch horn. Devon winced from the loud sound.

The game was over. They'd won.

The campers all came out of the woods. Luke was half-supporting Beckendorf and holding the small band that held the hulking man previously.

Alex slipped her helmet off and pushed her hair off of her sweaty forehead. She tucked the blue streak behind her ear. She saw Devon gently pull Lexi away from all the people congratulating the girl for getting the flag for the first time. The poor girl looked so overwhelmed by all the attention.

She looked around for Perci to ask about the Ares kids and saw her looking around when she heard Annabeth's voice. Alex, Perci's platonic soulmate, decided to listen in. Definitely not because she was curious about their relationship at the moment. Her? Do that? Never. She just wanted to make sure that Perci was okay.

"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" Annabeth asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.

Alex saw Perci getting angry and got ready to step in if needed. First, she wanted to see how Perci would play this out.

Perci wasn't even fazed that the girl was invisible. She'd seen weirder at the Hayda house. "You set me up," she said. "You had Luke put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while Luke went around the flank and sent Alex and Lexi off. You had it all figured out."