PERCY'S POV

I sighed. This was not going to go well. We were having our usual game of Capture the Flag, accept that this week was very unfair. You see, it was the Apollo, Hephaestus, Hermes, Athena, and Ares cabins on the Red team and it was Me plus the Demeter and Aphrodite cabins on the blue. We were about to get our butts seriously whooped.

The Demeter girls were going to try and put up some sort of defense to the North and the Aphrodite girls to the south. And the left, you guessed it, me, Percy Jackson, to retrieve the red team's flag. Some loser had lost a bet earlier in the week and it had resulted in these..........well...........these ridiculous teams. I was seriously ticked off, but, you know, I was kind of used to situations not going my way. I mean there was the whole thing with the Minotaur and the Titans, I figured I could deal with an unfair match up in CTF. But...I did have one advantage.

See, I managed to work something out with the Stoll brothers. They were going to steal some magical items and some info. They were going to hand them over to me at the lake before the game.................and I was going to hand them forty bucks. But before the game I strolled up to Silena Beauregard, who was going to be guarding our flag.

" Hey Silena"

She flashed me a quick look that said " Hey Percy, hang on a sec"

After a couple more seconds going over something with her defense team she walked over to me.

"What's up Percy"

"Huh?......Oh yah......I.....um.....you know, am going to go down the lake and meet 'you know who.'"

For a second she gave me a blank stare, then her eyes widened.

"You know."

Still she looked uncomprehending. I rolled my eyes then said in a real low whisper, "Connor and Travis."

"Oh!" she said quickly.

"I thought you were talking about.....someone else........" her voice trailed off....."Darn it."......

"What?" I asked. Who?"

"O nothing, nothing" she said with a smile playing on her lips. For a second she said nothing, then she realized that I was still standing there, waiting for a better answer.

"The game's about to start, you should hurry down to the lake."

"Right!" I said, realizing that I had lost time.

I ran all the way down to the lake, hoping that Connor and Travis hadn't ran back to their team. To my relief, they were still standing there, with smirks on their faces.

When they saw me, their smirks quickly changed into looks of complete irritation.

"Gods, it took you long enough" said Travis.

"I was starting to wonder if you would even show up" Connor agreed.

"I mean seriously, look at all the goodies we brought you." I stared into a bag filled with magical weapons of all sorts. I smiled big.

"And, of course, you did bring our goodies right?" said Connor.

My smile disappeared. I reluctantly handed them the forty bucks.

"Should be enough to keep our attacks down till you get the flag" they looked at each other and smirked again.

"Which is by our southwest border." I nodded, acknowledging the fact.

"Sorry, but that is all we could squeeze out of miss 'owl head'."

"Wait" I said. "Who is exactly is miss 'owl head'.

Connor stared at me, confused. "Your girlfriend," he said plainly.

ANNABETH IS NOT MY GIRLFRIEND!! I shouted a little louder than I meant to. I looked behind my shoulder just to make sure no one heard that.

"Well that's not what Silena said"............

Silena really gets on my nerves with that whole thing..........

"I think she's onto us" said Travis.

"What?!" I said.

"Well"...he said.....you see....Connor is going out with a dryad......and......well....I think...he might have said something about our plans here."

"I didn't" he said. But there was a completely obvious look of guilt in his face.

"And I saw Annabeth talking with her, although I really don't know what they said. The only thing that makes me think that she knows is that she has been watching us like a hawk."

"More like an owl" joked Connor.

But the look on my face was clearly not amused.

"Well we'd better get going" said Travis.

"Yah" agreed Connor.

Oh no! I was late for the game, Silena is going to kill me. And as I ran back to the battle field, I only had one thought on my mind........Connor had better dump that dryad.

ANNABETH'S POV

I watched that seaweed brain walk away with his bag of "goodies". I was already trying to plan some sort of revenge.

PERCY'S POV

I ran as fast as I could, I walked right up to Silena. As soon as she saw me she yelled at me.

"What are you doing and what took so long?!"

Before I could reply, she ran up and took the bag from me and started handing the items out to her girls. They were actually holding out pretty good.

"What are you waiting for? Go!" she screamed at me again.

I ran off toward the southwest border.

I really didn't run into anyone, I mean seriously how could anyone know where I was going. But at the back of my mind I knew that somehow I was going to run into Annabeth. But now I could see the flag. It was gleaming in front of me. I took a step closer...and closer... and closer, and I swiped it quickly and looked around.

ANNABETH'S POV

I didn't hear anything that they had said, all I knew was that Percy was running from them, to Silena, and then he ran off into the woods, toward our flag. I wanted to chase after him, but I ran right into a Demeter cabin defense group, which really screwed up my plans. I fought my way around them, it wasn't too hard, I could see why Percy had put them here. Here. A little to the north was the place where I had hid my flag several times. It was easy to defend, and if my team had this side, I wouldn't have thought twice about placing the flag there, seeing how the Athena cabin was usually hiding the flag, and I was their captain.

Now I had a choice, I could confront Percy, or I could go for his team's flag. If I went after Percy, there was a chance that he would get the better of me, but the only thing standing between their flag and the border was a defense of Demeter kids. I decided to go for the flag.

PERCY'S POV

I seriously couldn't believe this. Here I was, running for the border, flag in hand, and the only thing actually barring my way were trees. They must have really been confident that they wouldn't need a defense. That was very unlike Annabeth....Annabeth...I felt a slight satisfaction. Apparently Annabeth was only watching Connor and Travis because they had a general rep. for thieving and treachery and smuggling. I was thanking the gods silently, I don't know why. I mean, it wasn't cheating. Seriously, it wasn't. There were only two real rules in CTF other than the obvious ones. No killing and no maiming. Other than that everything was allowed. I wouldn't actually cheat(I doubt anyone could actually blame me if this was cheating, though, the other guys had such a huge advantage.)

ANNABETH'S POV

Finally, I had it. Now I just had to get it back to our side before Percy.....wait....what was that? Cheering? Oh' crud. I looked over my shoulder, scared of what I would find. And, sure enough, Percy was running across the border, holding the flag high. Why did he have to be such an attention hog?

I was so mad, I was worried my head was going to burn up.

PERCY'S POV

Yes!! I never actually thought it was possible, but we actually won! Then I noticed something that would have probably better have gone unnoticed. Annabeth, and from the way she looked, I cold tell she was seriously mad. And I'm talking Whop your head off type mad. I had a free time next, and I think she had sparring, so if I could move quickly enough...I could probably make it to my cabin before she could catch up to me. I looked over my shoulder. Yikes! she was only 10 yards away and gaining. I quickened my pace, just a little....but it was enough.

"PERSEUS JACKSON!!!!!" she yelled.

Shoot. I forced myself to look over my shoulder. Annabeth had the most evil look on her face. I could almost see steam coming out of her head.

"What on earth were you thinking?"

"What?" I asked innocently.

"Drop the act Seaweed Brain, you smuggled magic items and our flag's location!"

"More specifically," I retorted, "Connor and Travis smuggled them, I just paid them to do it." BIG MISTAKE. One of the things that you learn after being with Annabeth for a while is not to get "specific" and "technical" with her.

"I know that and that is not the point!" she screamed again.

"Then what is?, Annabeth? It's not cheating, the only two rules in Capture the flag are-"

"I know what the rules are!"

"So what's the problem?" I asked. I was starting to get a little angry.

"It's just so...so.."

"Yah? So what?"

"Undignified!" She finished angrily.

"It's been done before," I defended.

"Yah?!" "Well at least those people were actually smart enough to carry it out secretly."

"Hey, it's not my fault that you found out! It was that dryad's! She told you."

"Good thing, too. Otherwise you would have gotten away with your little 'scandal'."

"It's not a scandal, Annabeth! Gods, what's your problem!? You've been avoiding me all week, you give me the dirtiest looks, and whenever I talk to you, you walk away!"

It was true. For some reason, all week, she'd been blowing me off. She wouldn't talk to me, or even look at me, unless it was to accuse me of her face was guilt-stricken. She looked away

"I'm not avoiding you Percy." All the anger in her voice was gone. Instead, I heard a note of regret.

"It's just.....forget it. "

"Forget what?" I said, my curiosity aroused.

"I said forget it!" she said. I was a little taken aback.

"....sorry" she said.

"It's alright" I said.

"Well, I'd better get to sparring, I'm late already."

"Alright" I said. "Bye."

Something was really wrong with that girl.