NEVER BE THE SAME . . . percy jackson

thirty two: the plan.

ONCE THEY GOT out of camp, the Fifth Cohort formed two lines behind the centurions, Dakota, and Gwen, who had accepted Brooklyn into the cohort. They marched north, skirting the edge of the city, and headed to a nearby field. The grass was cropped short. The earth was pitted with explosion craters and scarred with trenches. At the north end of the field stood the target. There was a stone fortress with an iron portcullis, guard towers, scorpion ballistae, water cannons, and probably more fun surprises.

"They did a good job today," Hazel noted. "That's bad for us."

"Wait," Brooklyn said. "You're telling me that fortress was built today?"

Hazel grinned. "Legionnaires are trained to build. If we had to, we could break down the entire camp and rebuild it somewhere else. Take maybe three or four days, but we could do it."

"Let's not," Percy said. "So you attack a different fort every night?"

"Not every night," Frank said. "We have different training exercises. Sometimes death ball — um, which is like paintball, except with . . . you know, poison and acid and fire balls. Sometimes we do chariots and gladiator competitions, sometimes war games."

"I like paintball," Brooklyn offered, absentmindedly spinning her ring. "I have a paintball gun attached to this ring, along with my club. It's fun."

Hazel pointed at the fort. "Somewhere inside, the First and Second Cohorts are keeping their banners. Our job is to get inside and capture them without getting slaughtered. We do that, we win."

Percy's eyes lit up. "Like capture-the-flag. I think I like capture-the-flag."

Frank laughed. "Yeah, well . . . it's harder than it sounds. We have to get past those scorpions and water cannons on the walls, fight through the inside of the fortress, find the banners, and defeat the guards, all while protecting our own banners and troops from capture. And our cohort is in competition with the other two attacking cohorts. We sort of work together, but not really. The cohort that captures the banners gets all the glory."

Percy stumbled, trying to keep time with the left-right marching rhythm. Brooklyn laughed at him.

"How are you doing this?" he asked her.

"I'm just better," she replied.

"Shut up," he told her.

She smirked. "So why are we practicing this, anyway?" she asked. "Do you guys spend a lot of time laying siege to fortified cities?"

"Teamwork," Hazel said. "Quick thinking. Tactics. Battle skills. You'd be surprised what you can learn in the war games."

"Like who will stab you in the back," Frank said.

"Especially that," Hazel agreed.

They marched to the center of the field and lined up. The other two assembled as far as possible from the Fifth. The centurions for the attacking side gathered for a conference. In the sky above them, Reyna circled on her pegasus.

Half a dozen giant eagles flew in formation behind her. The only person not participating in the game was Nico di Angelo, who had climbed an observation tower about a hundred yards from the fort and would be watching with binoculars.

Brooklyn gingerly put on the armor, grimacing because of how it felt against her dress and her gloves. She didn't mind the cold, but come on, why'd they have to put her in a dress? Nonetheless, she strapped it on, nearly getting it done when she reached for another strap and winced. Her arm hurt. Why did it hurt?

Her mind offered up a memory: one of those red lines that she could see when she became smoky was starting to tear apart, her body leaping at the red line, the feeling of a knife stabbing into her shoulder . . . the blood . . . the phantom pain that came with it.