Ch 1: A new enemy

Ahh, beautiful morning sun shining birds chirping and, most importantly today was the day that the Ares cabin would chalk up our 5th consecutive victory in capture the flag. Something which I made very clear to my two best friends Francesca (daughter of Athena) and Layla (daughter of Apollo), who were on the opposing team.

I woke up early that day, so I decided to shower before anyone else got up, so I could actually get some hot water.

I finished quickly (us children of Ares are masters at speed dressing), and was brushing my long, red hair when I realised something, the Athena cabin showered first today. So, without further ado I dashed back to my cabin and got my emergency stash of spiders (don't question me ok, you never know when they could come in handy), and started hiding them around the showers.

I walked back to the cabin, stopping only to glare at my brown eyes (uh, why did they have to be so ugly) and was about to throw myself on my bed for of good
read of my new book 'How weapons changed the course of history' when I saw, sitting on my pillow, none other than the demon cat. She is six weeks old, grey, cute and extremely vicious. She is, unfortunately my sister Violet's little darling and nobody could touch her for fear of being whipped to death by Vi and her vicious, gold whips. The worst part about this whole fiasco was Furious (the kitten) knew this, and constantly used it to her advantage. Begrudgingly, I was forced to push my elder brother, Archer, who slept on the bunk below me, out of his bed and lay on that instead, he was so hung over that he didn't even wake up.

The rest of my siblings woke up about an hour later and we went off to shower and eat a healthy breakfast of delicious artery clogging sausages, bacon and fried bread. Then we went back to cabin five to discuss our strategy for today's capture the flag game; or in more correct words we went back to our cabin and started screaming about how we were going to kick the other team's butts.

That afternoon our entire team was pumped, ready for the game of capture the flag. We were teamed up with the Demeter, Zeus, Aphrodite (who, apart from Piper did nothing), Hypnos (the whole cabin did nothing), Dionysus, Hermes and Hades cabins (but Nico wasn't here this week). The rest of our team seemed to have a plan which they wanted to follow (ha! a plan, what losers), but the Ares cabin were just planning to wing it (no surprises there).

The game started off perfectly, our entire cabin charged through the forest, but one by one my siblings were slowed down to fight the other campers that attacked them. I, the smallest and quickest Ares camper ran swiftly through the forest, masterfully dodging the Apollo campers' arrows, all the while softly humming the Indiana Jones theme tune.

I was almost to the flag when I was attacked by one of my best friends; Layla. "Well well well, if it isn't little Chrissy" said the daughter of Apollo stringing her bow. I drew my sword to attack, but was hit from behind with the hilt of a sword. I fell to the ground and turned around to see my other best friend, Francesca, holding a sword to my throat. They both stood over me, cheshire cat grins spread over their faces. Sneakily I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my slingshot from my back pocket, slowly I sat up, and pulled the rubber on the slingshot back, automatically it loaded and I quickly pulled it back and shot Cesca then Layla in the stomach. While they were still doubled over in pain I jumped nimbly to my feet and sprinted off towards the place where I knew the flag to be.

Surprisingly I made it without any further trouble, and when I reached the flag no one was guarding it. Now, years of living in the Ares cabin have taught me that the 1st rule of war is to trust nothing, person or situation; so I very carefully crept into the clearing, my hands clutched tightly to my slingshot. I was millimetres away from capturing my first flag when I stepped on some sort if trigger and was grabbed by an enormous bronze net.

Twisting around I tried to find a way out of the net. "Damn children of Hephaestus" I screamed in anger.

"Now, now that's not very nice is it?" said a boys voice from behind me.

Twisting around I saw one of the heroes of Olympus, Leo Valdez smirking at me. "Let me out of here!" I screeched.

"I think not Miss Matthews." he replied, his smirk widening.

"How the hell do you know my name?"

"That, my dear Christie, is a mystery for another day. Now I have a war game to go win. Goodbye!" he said as he sauntered off.

Oh, he will pay for this. Leo Valdez I swear upon all that is holy that you will pay for this misguided deed.