The Extinction of Heroes

Chapter 19: I Teach My Girlfriend to Play Football

Mason's POV:
"You've held your head up.
You've fought the fight.
You bear the scars.
You've done your time."
"Dust to Dust" ~ The Civil Wars

I never thought I'd need my years of varsity football to save my life. I liked the sport, but it never seemed like my life would depend on it. And now here I was, teaching an unarmed army of injured teenagers how to tackle.

Of course this is what happens when you strategize with Percy Jackson. Don't get me wrong, this plan was brilliant, I just can't believe how unreliable it is. There's a sixty percent chance this won't work, but at this point were gonna die if we don't do it, and we might die even if we do it. Plus I'm not sure we're ready to get so physical. Everyone's injured and exhausted from the training that Gaea's forces are putting us through.

Everyone is staring at Percy and I, waiting for us to give instruction. I clear my throat and call out, "As you obviously know, we have little to no chance of winning. We've already lost this war once."

"As you know, we don't have access to any weapons," Percy continues, "so we're going to learn some hand to hand combat."
"Which is stupid, because I'm sure you can all punch just fine," at this, all the Ares kids shout their agreement, all but Brace, who looks like she's about to vomit.
"So instead," I start, "we're going to learn how to tackle."

This time Brace actually does vomit. She's hunched over, and I almost ignore it, leave it to her siblings to help her. I've got to do this to help the cause. But then I see the blood.
The puddle of what I previously thought was vomit was blood. Brace vomited blood.
I run over to her. She's hunched over, about to fall when I grab her waist and ease her onto the ground. I pay her back as she leans over, spitting more blood. Jake comes over, being a son of Apollo.

I realize he must've lied about his godly parent when we were sorted, otherwise he'd be a medic. He puts one hand on her back, one on her chest. He says something about decreased lung sounds on the right side, but I can hear much besides my rapid heart beat, and the sound of Brace crying and gagging and spitting. Her siblings gather around worriedly, but Percy is getting everyone else back.

I realize this is my fault. She could barely stand and I made her come out here. She told me she couldn't do it, but I pushed her too far. Jake is muttering some healing chant under his breath, and Brace is frantically trying to catch her breath. Her breaths are quick and rapid, and each one sounds painful. My eyes are glued to her as I rub her back comfortingly. It's the only thing I can think of doing.

After a minutes or so Jake finishes. She slowly regains her breath, and I use the bottom of my shirt to wipe the blood from her mouth. She looks better than she did before, I'm guessing some of her other wounds were healed too.

"Are you okay?" Clarisse asks her, putting a hand on her shoulder.

Brace nods, but it almost looks like she's not all there. It looks like her mind is on other things. I really need to train the other campers, and she's in no condition to train with us.

"Brace, just sit here until we're done," I say, getting up and gesturing for the others to follow me.

She looks at me like I've grown another head, and asks (in a rather loud voice, I might add), "Are you benching me?"

I sigh in relief, as the old (slightly sarcastic) Brace is back.

+++

Everyone lies down in their cot. It's much past midnight, probably around three in the morning. It's been a week since the training started. Training goes okay. I mean, this is pretty good, but it's a suicide mission. There's no way we can defeat the giants with no weapons or assistance from the gods. This is even worse than the first war, which we lost, by the way. But if we go down we have to go down fighting.

It's like, I was watching this movie once. The guy was dying of some horrible disease. He had come to the hospital too late, he was past the point of saving, inoperable. The surgeon said he was willing to operate if the guy wanted it. He went through with it, figuring he was going to die anyway. Obviously he survived. It was a really cheesy movie, what did you expect. But that's kind of what this is like. Either way, we die. Might as well go down swinging.

I watch Brace in the cot next to mine, a thin blanket on her. She's acting like she's asleep, evening out her breathing. But I can tell she's not asleep, because every once in a while she sighs, like she's deep in thought. I find comfort in the sound if her breathing, letting me know that she's still alive, still here, still with me.

Of course I can't even imagine how Nico is feeling. He and Elena were much closer than Brace and I are. They are different kinds of people than us.

They are fire, they are always passionate about everything, living in the heat of the moment. They look at everything from one side and rush to decisions, they feel more, have more feelings.

Brace and I, we are ice. We make careful, calculated decisions. We look at problems from every angle, take in the bigger picture. We are cool, almost unfeeling. We hide our sadness with sarcasm, our fear with pride. We are a bit arrogant, but never hot headed.

We are different people. Fire and ice. Ice is sharp, but fire burns, and destroys anything in it's path.