My good luck pretty much ended when the dragon landed in the forum. My day had been pretty nice, until, BOOM! A giant flying death machine landed in front of me and almost trampled Mason under its huge scaly clawed feet.
I was getting ready for the war games, when Percy and our children, Mason and Alyssa, ran over to me. "Hey Annabeth, you ready?" asked Percy, his sea green eyes darting over to Mason and Alyssa to make sure they didn't run off. "Yeah, hold on, just a second." I said as I strapped on my armor. "Are Jason and Piper going to be here?" I asked "No, they have some stuff to do at Camp Half Blood" He answered sadly, he kept on looking over at Camp Jupiter's boundary, as if he expected Jason and Piper to come leaping over, pursued by some monster. "What about Leo and Calypso?" I asked again. Percy's face immediately brightened up "Oh, yeah! They should be here any minute now!" I smiled "Campers! The war games will be starting in ten minutes!" shouted Reyna, riding on the back of her Pegasus, Guido. "Come on Annabeth!" shouted Percy "Mason, Alyssa, will you two be ok?" "Yes Daddy!" said Alyssa "Mommy! Can we watch you and Daddy-" "Sure honey, just don't get yourself into any trouble, okay?" I said "Sure! We never do that!" said Mason, a huge grin on his face. "Umm, ok." said Percy "Sure." "Campers! To arms!" shouted Reyna "The war games are starting! We will be calling role in two minutes!" "Come on Percy." I said "Let's go!"
I pulled my drakon bone sword out of its scabbard and ran toward the Field of Mars. This was the first time I had ever done the war games with Percy; I had been too busy taking care of Mason and Alyssa. Reyna started calling role: "Hank?" "Present!" shouted Hank "Annabeth?" "Present!" I shouted, phew, I wasn't late. Hazel had told me about the punishments for being tardy: being sewing into a sack of angry gerbils, brushing the streets with a toothbrush, the options were not good. I ran up next to Percy, and asked him: "Hey, so, umm." "Fight our way in, grab the flags, and get out, preferably with all our limbs still attached." He said, "You read my mind." I said, a little surprised, "You do the same thing to me sometimes" He said as he smiled, "Campers!" shouted Reyna "Get your weapons and armor! The war games are starting!" Everyone cheered as we marched toward the Field of Mars.
We reached the Field of Mars and Percy explained their strategy, he hadn't actually come up with it, I had seen the defenses and come up with a plan that wouldn't get us killed, Percy had never really been good at the 'plan before you leap into danger and get yourself killed' thing, "Alright everyone!" Percy shouted "Fifth Cohort! March toward the castle walls in turtle formation, draw their fire away from me, Annabeth, and the Fourth and Sixth Cohort, Fourth and Sixth, approach the eastern side of the castle and scale the walls with hydra arrows!" "Breach the inner walls, get the flags, and get out! Is that clear?" "Yes sir!" shouted the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Cohorts. "Let's go!" shouted Percy, and we marched off.
"They aren't using water cannons this time," Percy explained "That's bad." "Because you won't be able to control them like you did on your first time here?" I smiled at the memory, I hadn't been here in person, but Hazel had told me about how Percy had made the water cannons explode and had ticked of pretty much everyone at camp. He seemed to have a skill for that, "Advance!" Percy yelled and we ran toward the castle.
The battle was chaos. I slashed and parried, knocking out pretty much all of the entire enemy team, Percy and I waded through enemies, trying to reach the doors to the inner fort. Finally Percy and I reached the doors. There were ten people guarding the flags each holding a pilum and a huge shield, like a basketball backboard made of Imperial gold and ox hide. I whacked them all in the side of the head with the butt of my sword, and they all collapsed into heaps. Percy grabbed the flags and they sped out of the doorway, toward our allies. Everyone cheered as we brought out the flags, well except for the the enemy team, the Seventh, Twelfth, and Eleventh Cohorts, they mostly just grumped around, kicking about pilums and gladiums and other sorts of armor and weapons. They were really bad sports, I smiled at Percy, "So Percy, where do you-" "Mommy! Daddy!" shouted Mason and Alyssa as they ran over to us. "Hey Mommy-" Alyssa started to say, but was interupted by Mason's scream, "EEEEEEEEEEEEK!" I looked over to see what was happening, and I almost screamed myself. A dragon had landed in the forum . . . right in front of Mason.
And that dragon looked hungry.