Chapter One: Monday December 17th
Percy snuck out of camp this morning. Nico had trudged his way through the snow and back to the Hermes Cabin. He fell face first onto his sleeping bag and that's the last thing he remembered. Well, before someone, cough cough Connor and Travis Stoll cough, poured a bucket of ice water onto the dreaming Nico.
Nico shot up from his sleeping bag.
"What the hell was that for?" His teeth began chattering as he rubbed his arms,
trying to get warm.
Travis make a tisk - tisk sound and wiggled his finger at him disapprovingly.
"Such bad language from such a young lad."
Connor laughed and they both started giving Nico a noogie.
"That was our welcoming gift. Welcome to Camp Halfblood."
Connor said. The brothers smiled their mischievous elfish grins and took off running out of the cabin.
Everyone was eating their Breakfast when the sound of
a hoof clopping down on a table rang through the open air
dining pavilion. Everyone turned their attention to their activities director Chiron.
Chiron cleared his throat. "Heroes . . . We have decided to have another Capture the Flag game."
Mummers broke through the crowd. The last time we had a Capture the Flag game it didn't
go so well. -That's an understatement. Thalia and Percy nearly killed each other.
"Heroes heroes. Listen," everyone looked at the pony man.
"thank you. Look, I know that the last time we did this it did not turn out well. But in Summers past we'd always have a Capture the Flag game every week. So we are going to try to continue this tradition once again. You guys may now go along and make your allies with the other campers. The game will take place this evening. That is all." Chiron smiled, he turned around and continued eating his breakfast.
At Dinner time nobody ate.
They were all too busy running around helping their teammates get suited up in their celtic bronze armor, sharpening their weapons, and thinking up strategies for the game. Nico couldn't adjust his armor to fit him right. He would turn to someone at try to ask for their help but they'd just run right past without even noticing him.
This happened many times and the little raven haired boy sat down, his bottom lip bit. He sat there and rested his head against the wall, closing his eyes.
I'm never going to get this right. I can barely raise a sword, let alone fight with one. He thought.
But then he heard someone's kind voice, "Do you need help?"
Nico looked up to see a guy.
He had blond hair curly hair.
His eyes were the color of the sky
on a clear cloudless sunny day.
His smile was so bright that it could blind anyone, but it was warm to.
Nico could feel himself warming up from the inside out by just seeing his smile.
"Uh, yeah. I um, yeah." Was all the black haired beauty was able to say. The blonde smiled, he took Nico by the wrist and helped him up.
"What do you need help with?"
The blonde headed boy tilted his head, curiousness in his eyes.
"My armor. I- I can't get it to fit right." Nico admitted and looked down at his shoes ashamed.
He felt warmth come to his shoulders, Nico looked out of the corner of his eyes and saw that it was the blondes hands were on them. His chin was tilted up to where he had no choice but look at the sunny boy.
"Hey, it's fine. It took me up until last Summer to get it right.
And I've been here since I was eight." Blondie looked about Nico's age.
"Great. I'll have to keep doing this for a year until I can do this on my own." Nico grumbled.
"Well aren't you just a ray of sunshine."
Nico looked up at the blonde and narrowed his eyes.
"Alright Sunshine turn around so I can help you get the armor to fit." He made a turnaround gesture with his finger to Nico.
Nico turned around and folded his arms across his chest, he hated it when people had to help him, only causing Sunny Boy to chuckle.
"Alright Campers you know the rules." Chiron explained the rules even though they all knew them. Guess he just wanted to make sure they remembered.
"You have five minutes. Good luck my heroes." Chiron smiled and galloped to a spot that was a safe distance away to where he wouldn't get hurt but he still could ref.
"Alright guys." Malcom's, son of Athena, voice brought Nico back to focus.
"You know the drill. Group One
will go to the right and Group Two
will go down the middle. While the Athena cabin will go to the left,
grab the flag and come back here. Hephaestus and Hermes stay here.
I want two of you 10 feet from the flag. The others spread out further than that and guard it. Know one is getting out flag." He put his hand in and so did everybody else on the Athena Team. They put their hands in the air and cheered. The Stoll brothers got within 10 feet of the flag. The rest of the Hephaestus and Hermes cabins spread out all around the flag farther than 10 feet.
The conch shell blew and the game began.
Chapter Two: Capture the Flag
At first nothing happened. Nico just waited as he watched his teammates go through the forest and into the other teams turf.
Nico kept his hand wrapped around the hilt of his sword and his eyes dashed from side to side. If someone came over here and attacked he'd be ready.
Or so he thought. There was a blonde girl with aqua blue streaks sea/sky blue eyes and freckles across her nose and face who was spinning around in circles not far off to his left. Nico had no clue who this girl was or why she was always so happy, but she gave off good vibes so he figured she must be okay. Nico didn't notice but that girl had disappeared, along with one, two, three others. Nico was too busy making sure nobody was trying to come their way to realize that he was now alone on the front lines.
When Nico looked to his side he was that Little Miss Sunshine was gone. He looked to his right and saw the 3 guys that had been there were gone two. Nico's eyebrows scrunched together. Where did they go? He barely had enough time to think that when twelve people jumped down from the trees to the ground.
Nico pulled out his sword and started swinging it around, clashing swords with anyone that came his way. When someone tried to go off to get the flag he'd swing his sword at them causing the person to have no choice but fight him. While Nico fought he looked side to side.
Good, no one's coming. He thought. He stepped forward causing the attackers to have to take a step back. Nico had managed to disarm four people and send them to jail but he needed help. His arm was growing sore and his sword was growing heavy in his hand. He knocked another person's sword out of his hand and let out a loud ear shattering whistle.
The seven, the one he disarmed he sent to jail already, covered their ears, trying to tune out the loud sound. Just as Nico stopped whistling and the campers had removed their hands from their ears the Stoll Brothers popped out of nowhere. They whirled through that crowd and in a blink of an eye they had disarmed them, leaving beaten and bruised campers sprawled on ground. Nico's mouth hung open, and just then they heard someone coming their way, really fast.
The brothers quickly sent the injured group to jail at sword point and turned back to where the sound was coming from.
Nico pulled out his sword and all of them hand their swords held out to where the person would come once they came out from behind the tree. The person, a guy, came out from behind the tree and ran full speed across the boundary line to their side.
Nico and the Strolls held their sword but to the guys throat.
He gulped, hands shaking. He didn't have a helmet on so they didn't know who's team he was on. His hands trembled and shook almost as much as his voice.
"H-h-h-hey guy-y-y-ys. Pl-l-lease put tho-o-ose down. I'm on your si-i-ide."
"Oh really? How can we be sure?" Travis dug the sword tip closer to the guy's throat. Connor and Nico kept their sword points to that guy's neck, standing their ground.
The guy opened his mouth but his voice didn't work. So he pulled something out of his backpack, the blood red Ares flag trembled in his hands.
The boys put their swords back in the hilt.
"We won." Nico said in disbelief.
His eyes lite up and the Stroll and his brothers screamed at the top of their lungs.
"WE WON!"
Their voices echoed all through the forest and they heard throughout the forest cheers break out.
The red flag turned to violet with the eisenia of a silver owl for the Athena Cabin.
Their teammates ran to their side and pulled into a group hug, squeezing the life out of everyone on their team, laughing happily, cheering, and fist bumping the air.
Amongst all the crowd Nico smiled and joined in on the celebration.
But it was short lived, when he felt the knife of a blade dig into his side and deep into his ribs. He let out a little yelp of pain and fell to the ground. He could still hear the cheering as his vision became tunnely. But the cheers started to die out and became nonexistent by the time everything turned black.
