Chapter 8: The Claiming Games
The entire camp vibrated with Capture the Flag energy. It was the weekly event—the big game where cabin alliances shifted, strategic genius was rewarded, and glory could be won by anyone brave or lucky enough to grab the flag. Demigods checked armor, sharpened weapons, argued tactics in clusters.
Alaric stood near the armory, watching the organized chaos, trying to suppress the meta-knowledge screaming in his head. He knew what was supposed to happen. Percy at the creek. Clarisse's ambush. The water revealing Poseidon's son. The claiming that would change everything.
But his presence had already altered things. The question was how much.
"Alaric! Percy! Over here!"
Annabeth waved them over to where the blue team was gathering. She wore full combat gear—armor polished, dagger at her hip, grey eyes sharp with tactical focus. A proper child of Athena going to war.
"You're both on blue team," she announced without preamble. "Percy, you're border guard. Station yourself at the creek. If red team comes through, hold them off as long as possible."
Percy frowned. "That's defensive. I'm better at offense."
"You're untrained. You'll get yourself killed charging their flag. Border guard is important—if you hold the creek, we control that entire approach." She turned to Alaric. "You're with my strike squad. Luke and I are going for their flag directly. Your weapon summoning could break through their defensive line."
Alaric's stomach dropped. This was wrong. Canon had Annabeth using Percy as bait while she went for the flag. Having Alaric on her strike team meant—
"What about Luke?" he asked carefully. "Doesn't he usually lead offense?"
"He's coordinating with me this time. Equal partners." Annabeth's smile was sharp. "Ares cabin is defending their flag personally. We need overwhelming force to break through, and your Gate of Babylon ability gives us that."
"She's adapting. Using resources available. But this means Percy's alone at the creek when Clarisse attacks, just like canon. And I'm going to be across the woods when it happens."
"Understood," Alaric said. Tried to keep his voice neutral.
The conch horn blew. Game on.
The forest was chaos organized by madness. Red team rushed through the trees in coordinated waves, trying to overwhelm blue team's defenses through sheer aggression. Annabeth's strike squad moved through the woods like ghosts—silent, fast, disciplined.
Luke led from the front, his scarred face set in concentration. Annabeth coordinated from the middle, calling adjustments to their formation. And Alaric brought up the rear, Gate of Babylon at ready, summoning weapons to cover their advance.
They encountered red team's forward scouts. Luke took them down with brutal efficiency, his sword a blur of bronze. Three opponents neutralized in ten seconds.
"Keep moving," Annabeth ordered. "We need to hit their flag before they realize we've broken through."
They pushed deeper into red territory. The trees thinned. Clarisse's defensive position came into view—a makeshift fortress around the flag, Ares cabin warriors arranged in a shield wall that would make Spartans proud.
"Alaric," Annabeth said. "Light them up."
He didn't hesitate. Couldn't hesitate. The Gate of Babylon erupted.
Twenty portals opened simultaneously. Weapons poured through—swords, spears, axes, hammers—a golden storm of bronze and steel. Alaric directed them telekinetically, still clumsy but functional, and the barrage hit Clarisse's defensive line like artillery.
Shields cracked. Warriors scattered. The formation broke.
Luke and Annabeth charged through the gap.
And that's when Alaric felt it—a wrongness in the air, a scent his hellhound senses recognized immediately.
Sulfur. Rot. Hunger.
"No. Oh no. Not now."
"MONSTERS!" someone screamed from the creek's direction. Percy's direction.
The forest exploded with chaos.
Percy POV shift
The water felt like home.
Percy stood in the creek, ankle-deep, and everything just fit. The current moved around him like it was greeting an old friend. Small fish darted between his feet, unafraid. Even the temperature was perfect—cool but not cold, refreshing instead of uncomfortable.
He was so focused on the sensation that he almost missed Clarisse's arrival.
She emerged from the trees with four of her siblings, all of them armed and grinning like sharks. Her electric spear crackled with blue energy.
"Well, well," Clarisse said. "Baby Poseidon all alone. This is almost too easy."
Percy raised his sword. The bronze blade trembled slightly. "I'm not alone. My team's around."
"Your team's busy. It's just you and us, punk."
They surrounded him. Percy's heart hammered. He could take one, maybe two. But five Ares kids all bigger and meaner than him?
"The water," something whispered. "You're in the water. Use it."
He didn't know what that meant. Didn't have time to figure it out. Because Clarisse was lunging, her spear aimed at his chest, and Percy did the only thing he could think of—
He dodged left.
The spear grazed his shoulder. Pain bloomed, blood welling, and Percy gasped. But the moment his blood touched the creek water, something shifted.
The water surged.
It rose around him like a living thing, responding to his panic, his pain, his desperate need for protection. The creek flooded—water climbing the banks, washing over Clarisse and her siblings, pushing them back with impossible force.
And Percy's shoulder stopped hurting.
He looked down. The wound was closing. Healing. Knitting itself back together as the creek water washed over it, leaving only smooth skin and blood-stained cloth.
"What the—" Clarisse stumbled backward, soaked and furious.
But Percy wasn't paying attention to her anymore. Because the forest was erupting in screams, and something was howling with the voices of the damned, and—
Hellhounds.
Three of them crashed through the underbrush. No—nine. A full pack, shadow-black and massive, their eyes burning with hunger. They ignored Clarisse completely. Just locked onto Percy with predatory focus.
"Oh crap oh crap oh crap—"
Percy ran.
He splashed through the creek, water exploding around him, and the hellhounds pursued. Their claws tore furrows in the earth. Their breath was hot sulfur on his neck. One lunged and Percy barely dodged, rolling sideways, coming up with his sword raised—
Golden light erupted across the clearing.
Alaric.
He appeared like vengeance incarnate, the Gate of Babylon exploding open around him. Weapons materialized—twenty, thirty, more than Percy could count—orbiting Alaric in a storm of bronze. His eyes glowed vivid crimson, hellhound bloodline fully active, and when he moved it was with inhuman speed.
The first hellhound died with three swords through its skull. The second got speared mid-leap. The third tried to flee and Alaric summoned a hammer, threw it telekinetically, and crushed the creature's spine.
He fought like a monster himself. No—like someone who'd absorbed monster abilities and turned them into weapons. Cyclops strength drove spears through shadow-flesh. Minotaur directional sense tracked every hellhound simultaneously. The combat techniques were wrong, too polished, too perfect for someone who'd been at camp less than a week.
Percy watched in awe and terror as Alaric transformed the clearing into a graveyard of monster dust.
When the last hellhound dissolved, Alaric stood in the center of golden devastation, breathing hard, covered in dust and blood. His crimson eye glowed like a dying coal. Around him, summoned weapons slowly faded back into portals, returning to whatever dimensional space they came from.
The entire camp had stopped fighting. Red team, blue team—everyone just stared.
And Percy felt the water surge again.
This time it wasn't panic. It was power. The creek responded to him, to Alaric, to the combined presence of two powerful demigods in danger. Water climbed the banks in defiance of gravity, washing away the remaining red team warriors, flooding the clearing in recognition of—
Light blazed over Percy's head.
Green light, ocean-deep, carrying the weight of seas. A holographic image materialized—a trident, three-pointed, glowing with divine authority.
Poseidon's symbol.
"Percy Jackson," Chiron's voice echoed across the forest. The centaur had arrived at some point, was watching with ancient eyes. "Son of Poseidon, God of the Seas. You are claimed."
The camp erupted in whispers. Percy stood frozen, water still swirling around him, the trident blazing overhead. This was what he'd wanted—to know who his father was, to have answers—but the weight of it was crushing.
Son of Poseidon. Forbidden child. The kind of demigod that started wars just by existing.
Then something else happened.
Golden light erupted around Alaric. Not a claiming—there was no divine symbol, no godly presence—but something else entirely. The Gate of Babylon manifested visibly, dozens of spectral weapons materializing around him in concentric circles. They rotated slowly, an armory's worth of legendary artifacts, each one humming with power.
The display lasted five seconds. Then the weapons faded, leaving only Alaric standing in the clearing, covered in monster dust, his mismatched eyes reflecting the fading light.
Chiron's expression was unreadable. "Alaric Bond. Claimed by... none. But marked by something ancient. Something we must investigate."
The contrast was stark. Percy's claiming was celebration—whispers of awe, recognition of divine parentage, the camp's newest celebrity. Alaric's non-claiming was mystery and fear—whispers of "what is he," "those glowing eyes," "unclaimed but powerful."
Percy caught Alaric's gaze across the clearing. Saw exhaustion and resignation in those crimson-gold eyes. Saw someone who'd just revealed more than he wanted to, who'd exposed himself to save Percy from the hellhound pack.
"We're still friends," Percy thought fiercely. "I don't care what he is. He saved my life. Again."
The game was called. Blue team won by default—red team's flag forgotten in the chaos. Everyone filtered back toward camp, talking in excited bursts about the double claiming, the hellhound attack, the impossible weapon display.
Percy walked beside Alaric in silence. Neither of them spoke until they were alone on the path.
"You okay?" Percy asked finally.
"I just revealed too much of my power in front of everyone." Alaric's voice was flat. "Including Luke, who's definitely going to have questions. So no, not really okay."
"You saved my life. Again."
"That's what friends do."
They walked the rest of the way in silence. But Percy noticed the way other campers gave them space. The way whispers followed them. The way even friendly faces held wariness now.
Percy Jackson: son of Poseidon, forbidden child, subject of prophecy.
Alaric Bond: unclaimed but powerful, marked by something ancient, possibly dangerous.
Two outsiders in a camp that suddenly didn't know what to do with them.
That night, Percy was moved to Cabin Three.
Poseidon's cabin sat at the edge of the horseshoe, isolated from the others. It was designed for one person—the Big Three had pledged not to have children, so their cabins were more like monuments than housing. Inside was a single bed, nautical decorations, the sound of waves that didn't exist.
Percy lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling, processing everything. His father was Poseidon. God of the seas. Which meant he was forbidden. Dangerous. The kind of demigod that prophecies were written about.
"The world needs heroes like you," Alaric had said. "Stay good."
Percy didn't feel heroic. He felt twelve and scared and very much alone.
Alaric POV return
Alaric lay in his floor-bunk in Hermes cabin, listening to the whispers around him. They thought he was asleep. He wasn't.
"Did you see his eyes? They were glowing red."
"And those weapons. There were dozens. Maybe hundreds."
"Chiron said he's unclaimed. But that power..."
"He's not natural. There's something wrong with him."
The whispers continued. Alaric kept his breathing steady, eyes closed, pretending sleep. This was the cost of revealing too much. The camp had seen what he could do, and now they were afraid.
The bunk shifted. Someone sat down on the edge.
Alaric's hand found the dagger hidden under his pillow. Held it ready but out of sight.
"I know you're awake," Luke's voice said quietly. Silk over steel. "We need to talk."
"About what."
"About what you really are." Luke's tone was careful. Conversational. "You're not like the other unclaimed kids, Alaric. You're something special. Powerful in ways that make even the gods nervous. I've seen it before—demigods with gifts that don't fit their divine parent's usual patterns. Kids who are more than they should be."
"What's your point?"
"My point is that the gods fear power they can't control. They'll try to use you, or cage you, or kill you if you become too threatening." Luke's hand settled on Alaric's shoulder. Friendly. Almost paternal. "But there are alternatives. People who appreciate power for what it is. Who want to help demigods reach their full potential instead of limiting them."
"Kronos," Alaric thought. "He's recruiting for Kronos."
"I'm tired, Luke. Can this wait?"
"Of course." Luke stood. But his voice carried a final warning. "Just remember—when you're ready to talk about what you really are, about your true potential, I'm here. And I'm not the only one interested in helping you grow stronger."
He walked away. His footsteps faded into the cabin's background noise.
Alaric lay there, dagger still clutched under his pillow, and stared at the ceiling.
Percy was claimed. Alaric was marked. Luke was recruiting. And the timeline he knew was unraveling faster than he could predict.
"This is fine," he thought. "Everything's fine. I just need to keep Percy alive, prevent Luke's betrayal, save the people who die in canon, and not reveal that I'm a transmigrator with knowledge from another world. Easy."
It wasn't easy. It was impossible.
But he'd try anyway.
Because heroes didn't get to choose their battles. They just had to fight them.
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