Hello again. Nice to see you. Love the new haircut. Okay, now with the pleasantries out of the way, here's the next chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or HoO

Sammy POV

James and his group could be heard running through the other side of the forest.

"Come on," Casey whispered to our small group.

We began sneaking our way over the river and through the woods.

"To grandmother's house we go," I mumbled.

Alex gave me a little smile, but Casey just scowled and waved us forward.

I looked back at the other four people with us.

Tyler, from the Hermes cabin. Useful since we were sneaking around. Also the guy to go to if you ever needed snack foods from the mortal world. Just don't trust him around pie. Bianca learned that the hard way.

Mystique, or as everyone called her, Misty, from the Poseidon cabin. She's Alex's… I don't even know. Half aunt? She's a daughter of Poseidon. Terrible at baking, but in a sword fight- you'd better hope she's on your side.

Summer from the Apollo cabin, though most people call her Sum since she's a math whiz. Ironic for a demigod. She has a terrible habit of blinding people since her dad is the sun god, but is also one of the best archers at camp, so she'd be useful in getting the flag. She's also been helping me with an array of arrow prototypes, like ones that fly faster or have little sparklers at the end.

Finally, Mabelle, Elliot's younger sister who stays in the Aphrodite cabin was walking right behind me. Despite all the makeup she puts on in the morning, she's quite good with lances and spears. Also, while Belle doesn't have charmspeak, she can fly and control storms along with lightning. As a ten year old, she's technically not allowed to fly yet (via orders of her dad), but she does walk around shocking people all the time. Even now I can feel the hair on my arms stand up from the close range static.

The contrast between Belle and Alex, who was walking in front of me, was huge. Belle had perfect lipgloss and mascara beneath her helmet, while the closest Alex ever got to makeup was the tube of black lipstick she kept next to her armor back in the Poseidon cabin and used to draw war paint. She glanced back and gave a little smirk, the two dark streaks on her cheeks moving up. Gods of Olympus, I thought, even without makeup, she looks so beau- no. Shut it Valdez. What are you thinking. She's one of your best friends. Don't think about her perfectly tanned skin or her curly jet-black hair. Not to mention the stormy sea green eyes- shut up Valdez.

We trudged over the boundary line (a.k.a. the river) in into enemy territory. Alex reached out a hand and two globes of water, each the size of a beach ball, and had them floating alongside her on the way to find the other teams flag.

"You can never be too careful," she whispered.

Finally we made it to a large clearing, where about half a dozen guards milled around. I recognized three or four of them as children of Demeter. The open space was filled with thorny bushes and poison ivy. These wouldn't bother the Demeter kids, but the others were steering clear of it. I recognized one as a daughter of Hebe and another as a daughter of Dionysus.

Meanwhile, we hid behind a clump of non poisonous bushes

"Sum," Casey whispered, "what arrows do you have?"

"Blunt, hydra, fart, an explosion or two-" she kept rattling off different types of arrows, including one I'd invented called the caterpillar. Personally I'd wanted to call them Sammy Arrows, but the Apollo cabin refused to use them if they were named that.

"Okay," Casey interrupted Summer, "Any knock out arrows?"

"One, but it only works in a five foot radius. It wouldn't hit everyone."

If Casey were a machine, then I bet I'd be able to open her head and see all the gears turning, but sadly enough all that was in there was a mushy blob. Disgusting and prone to failure. Very hard to fix too.

Why do humans have to be so complicated? Or any living thing for that matter? What had dad called them? Organic something-or-other?

"Tyler," Casey whispered, "What do you have?"

An evil grin crossed Tyler's face.

"You mean, what don't I have," he murmured back.

Casey rolled her eyes and huffed a sigh. Her patience was slowly waning.

"What do you have to draw them all to the same area?" Casey said, gritting her teeth.

"That doesn't narrow it down much," Tyler mumbled, "That covers everything from a screamer puck to fizzle balls."

Casey's eyes narrowed, and similar to Aunt Annabeth, the look she shot at Tyler made him creep away.

"Fine. Fine. I get the idea," Tyler muttered. "I've got the perfect thing. Tessa from the Hecate cabin helped me create it."

That's when he proceeded to take a small stone cat from his pocket and sneak around to the other edge of the clearing.

"He's gonna mess that up somehow," Casey stated. "Misty, cover his ass."

Misty grumbled incoherently but ran after Tyler nonetheless. We waited, and finally a hand reached through a bush on the other side of the clearing and placed the tiny stone cat on the ground. Some spell must have been used, because the stone cat grew in size and became a real life tabby.

Alex drew in a breath.

"It's so adorable!" she squealed.

Belle made a sound that resembled a dying squeak toy, and even Casey managed a smile.

By sheer chance, all of the guards happened to be girls, and even though they probably knew it was a trap, they couldn't help but crowd around the little tabby, cooing over how cute and how fluffy it was. I didn't see it.

I mean sure it was sorta cute, but cute enough to abandon your capture the flag post? I don't think so.

"Sum, now," Casey queued.

A sparkly purple arrow trailed through the air, burying itself into the ground between the cat's feet. A purple cloud exploded in a perfect dome with a five foot radius. Three girls went down immediately, but the others managed to hold their breath and back away. The purple dome faded and one of the girls held a hunting whistle to her lips, ready to call in reinforcements. We were too far away to help and Misty and Tyler were caught in a battle with the other two guards.

Before I could think to throw something- anything- and stop the whistle, Sum shot another arrow. I recognized the the streamers at the end and knew it was one of mine. After all, I did spend two months designing it. One of my caterpillar arrows hit the whistleblower smack in the chest and immediately, silk string started wrapping itself around her torso, leaving the whistle out of range of her lips.

Misty was tying the hands of the other two girls who were lying on the ground after battling her and then went into an animated lecture with Tyler about how to correctly disarm an opponent.

Meanwhile, thorns and ivy still lay between us and the flag. I inhaled, ready to set it ablaze, but a smell stopped me.

"Now would-" Casey started, but her voice kinda blurred away.

That smell came from Alex. I knew it couldn't be perfume, but new shampoo maybe? The intoxicating smell of lemon.

I could see Alex's mouth moving but no sounds registered in my brain. A slap jarred me back to reality. I realized it was Alex.

"Sammy!" she practically yelled. "Burn the dam plants! Now!"

"I'm going! I'm going!" I said, scrambling to the closest patch of flammable leaves and lighting my hand up like a torch.

The red heat danced in front of my eyes, not bothering me a bit, but Casey, Sum, and Alex scooched back a bit.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Just do it!" the girls snapped.

"Yeesh," I mumbled. "No need to be so temperamental."

A tiny flame shot from my hand, and soon a direct path to the pile of rocks the flag was on formed. But then the flames kept spreading, until the entire clearing was blazing.

"Uh oh…" I remarked.

I had no idea how to stop it. The flames were getting remarkable close to the dryads' trees. Alex huffed a sigh.

"That's why I came prepared," Alex said under her breath.

Up until that point I had completely forgotten about water beach balls, which still floated in midair.

Twisting her hands, Alex flattened the water into sheets and slowly smothered the flames. Steam billowed up. Ashes filled the recently extinguished area and Casey went to go stop Misty, who was demonstrating the recently taught disarming techniques on an unwilling subject known as Tyler. Sum left to check and make sure reinforcements hadn't come yet. Surely they had seen the smoke and would be rushing in soon enough.

Alex glanced at the flag, then at me, then back at the flag.

"Dibs!" she yelled, running straight for it and jumping up on the rock pile.

"Aw, come on!" I shouted. "That's completely unfair!"

"You want it? Come and get it," Alex taunted, waving the enemy flag in air before jumping off the rocks and rolling up into a standing position.

She took off into the woods before I could say another word. I had no choice but to follow.

Alex tore through the branches, and I watched for incoming enemies.

"Slow down!" I shouted, desperately trying to keep up.

"Not gonna happen!" Alex yelled back.

She was almost there, the river lay just ahead, but on the other side there was a flash of gray.

Someone with our flag was running towards the border too. And that someone happened to be Elliot.

And that's chapter two. Any suggestions on couples? Or any suggestions on the story at all?

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-Stephen King