I bit my lip to not laugh when Drew approached me in her Greek armor. She had accessorized her armor with pink and black charms pinned to her shoulder pieces. It looked Japanese, but I wasn't sure. She did up her hair in a nice ponytail tied with a golden band and pulled it back past her ears, so she looked like a Japanese pop star. She wore orange lipstick that went along with her Camp Half-Blood shirt, fashionable jeans, and pink warpaint.
She looked like a Barbie ready for war.
"You, uh, look good," I said as I redid her armor straps.
"It's hard to find anything that goes with bronze armor," she muttered. "So, Capture the Flag. Why am I getting the feeling that I'm not going to enjoy this?"
I looked over my team. Not much to be honest. I'd prefer my Hunters, but I'll take what I could get. We had Ares Cabin, along with Dionysus, Demeter, and Apollo Cabin. Percy's team had Athena, Hecate, Hermes, and Hephaestus cabins. He didn't have many battle-orientated cabins, but they had creativity and unorthodox battle styles.
The only one that seemed relatively helpful was Ares on my side.
Clarisse met my eyes and glared at me but didn't say anything. She had a hair-trigger temper and rarely gave anyone any respect, she liked to greet people by powerbombing them. But even she respected me. That was nice.
"It'll be a blast," I promised. "You can be on guard duty, don't worry princess, you won't break a nail."
Drew made a face that wasn't as effective with that pink warpaint. "I'll have you know that doing these nails wasn't an easy task, so protecting them is a lot more important than some silly flag."
"Understood princess," I said with a coy smile.
"Heroes!" Chiron bellowed as he galloped into the clearing. Our teams met up with him. I could see Percy with his entourage, his cocky smile made my skin buzz. Literally, sparks began to fly off my armor and my teammates gave me a wide berth. "Red team takes the west woods, blue the east woods. The creek is the boundary line, killing and maiming is not allowed under penalty of no dessert. Good hunting!"
I met eyes with Percy and gave him my deluxe "prepare-to-eat-sea-weed" glare and he returned it with a mocking bow.
Drew caught up to me as we made our way back to our flag. "Wait, was he serious about the maiming?"
"Yeah, no dessert," I answered.
"No, I meant—"
"I know what you meant," I laughed. "Don't worry, it only happens every decade or so. Doesn't matter, this camp has some of the best healers. You'll be fine."
Before she could say anything, I addressed our team. "Ares cabin, let's set up a perimeter twenty yards out. Take James and Orlando,"—I nodded toward two Apollo kids—"And set up a perch in the trees. If I know Percy, he's going to rush out."
The team shuffled nervously, I could tell they weren't exactly eager to take on Percy who was a one-man army. I glanced at my belt, a mace canister hung from it glittering mischievously in the moonlight. Ever since I joined the Hunters, I stopped using my original weapons, Aegis and my spear. I don't know, I felt like with the Hunters I found a new home and that those weapons were remnants of a broken past. I tried to distance myself from it, but I never threw them out, I always kept it.
Grabbing the mace canister, I pressed on the top and a familiar spear appeared in my hand. Its weight felt foreign for a moment, but I hefted the spear and it all came rushing back. Grinning, I was happy at the chance of using my old weapon. But that wasn't all, I tapped my bracelet and Aegis spiraled into existence.
A huge silver shield appeared in my arm, the leather grip bound across my arm. The horrible face of Medusa was imprinted into the front of the shield, it was a shield with so much power that demigods and monsters cowered before it. My entire team backed up and refused to look at the shield, I could practically see its aura. Personally, I've never seen the imprinted face myself or Medusa but I imagine it must be horrible if it gets everyone afraid of it. In fact, I wonder what would happen if Medusa saw Aegis.
"Percy might be the savior of Olympus and the guy who defeated Kronos, but you know what else he is? A Seaweed Brain about to get stomped on by blue team!" I raised my spear and let out a good battle cry, my team followed suit and I could see confidence rippling in my ranks. "He thinks his little invulnerability will help him when he's getting smacked down by me," I scoffed and rolled my eyes. "A well-placed lightning bolt can put a stop to that."
My team cheered but none dared to get closer to Aegis. "So, are we going to do this or what?!"
Another hurrah and they fanned out to their positions. I caught Drew's eyes and she grinned at me, it was kinda weird seeing an Aphrodite girl excited for Capture the Flag.
I dove into the forest.
The two fastest Ares campers – Edward and Jamie – weren't able to keep up with me. Tough, I thought. I poured on the speed and made it across the forest easily. It was weird not seeing any Reds, I expected Percy to charge out there like we had, but so far I didn't see anyone.
Hiding behind a thicket, I scanned the forest. It was deadly quiet, save the roars and grumbles of nearby monsters, the chittering of the animals and the shooing the tree nymph was giving me. She popped right out of the grove and frowned at me.
"See any Red team members?" I tried to ask her.
She flashed a rude gesture and popped out of existence.
We advanced deeper into the forest, getting closer to Red base and my anxiety only increased the more we walked. There was no one here. Was I walking into a trap? Seaweed Brain is good and all, but that strategy was something worthy of Athena, no demigod would have the patience needed to stay away from the fighting.
Wait, Percy had Athena cabin on his team.
I rolled just in time to see two Athena kids jump down swinging their swords at me. I swept their legs and easily knocked them down. Explosions tore through the forest, I heard screaming and metal clanging against metal.
Thankfully, a good majority of my team advanced once the fighting started, so, I had reinforcements. Bad news, Percy was nowhere to be found.
I got into a fight with two Hephaestus campers, but my experience made their effort completely moot. I side-stepped a strike, countered with a blow to the head from my spear. Tripping up the second one, I quickly disarmed him and knocked him out.
Explosions ran throughout the forest and I could hear the fighting intensify as the two teams met. Glancing up, I noticed Percy, finally, in-between two trees. He stood there with Riptide and his armor and it wasn't hard to know why he was so intimidating.
Two of my teammates attacked him and I yelled at them to back off but it was too late. Percy dodged the first strike and countered, knocking him down quickly, then ducked the second attack and smacked him with the flat of his blade.
My teammates crumbled to the ground and he didn't even break a sweat.
"Alright… come on then…" I stood, twirling my spear and held up my shield.
Percy winced slightly but continued to walk calmly toward me.
"Come on! Bring it!" I ran toward him and he broke out into a sprint. Percy had the higher ground so when he reached the end of his hill, he jumped, swinging his sword downward on me. I knelt, raising my shield to meet his strike.
Riptide came in contact with Aegis and a shockwave shook the entire forest. The fighting silenced for a moment as all eyes turned toward us. As Percy landed, I turned and stabbed at him with my spear but I only barely missed his ribs.
Percy tried to disarm me, keeping my lance between his sword and torso, but he wouldn't get it that easily. I swung my shield right into his face, giving him a kiss from Medusa and he recoiled only a step back. I stabbed again but he was fast enough to parry. Before he could counter a lightning bolt came from the sky and struck my lance and connecting with Percy.
He flew across the forest and toward the lake. I cursed as I tried to run toward him but Percy was already rolling to his feet and willed the entire lake to rise. He sent the torrents of water at me and I raised my shield in hopes to deflect it. Surprisingly the water never hit me. A massive gust of wind came from behind me and toward Percy, pushing the tidal wave away and throwing him off his feet and into the lake.
"Shit!" Percy rose from the water, 30 feet into the air as he was supported by a huge water tornado thing.
Raising my lance, lightning streaked across the sky, connecting with my weapon and flying out toward Percy with a million tendrils. The lake rose to defend him, absorbing each lightning strike with ease. I couldn't keep the fireworks display up forever, I was already feeling like I could pass out.
I concentrated, focusing all of the lightning into one blast. Then I aimed my lance at Percy and let that energy come out in one final burst. Percy wasn't fast enough to deflect the blast so he dropped out of the sky and rolled awkwardly as he landed on the pier.
Meeting him halfway, I swung my lance and attacked. Percy was an insanely good swordfighter, he was trained by both Luke and Chiron so it was to be expected. I had more experience fighting and was taught by Artemis… but even I had trouble keeping Percy down.
We fought like a storm against a hurricane, lightning flashed and electricity sparked off our armor. Neither of us could get an edge in, we were at a stalemate… except Percy had the advantage. We were too close to his home territory.
Sparing a glance to my left, I noticed that his flag was still there… unguarded since my team had advanced so closely. No one would think to capture the flag while Percy was around… well, no one except me.
I just needed a shot.
Swinging my lance across Percy's neck, he ducked it easily, spinning around I stabbed at him again but he caught it with his sword. Before I could react, Percy leaned forward suddenly and gave me a powerful shove. Knocking me off my feet, Percy quickly got on top of me and pressed Riptide against my neck.
"Surrender?" he asked.
"In your dreams!" I kneed him in the gut and took my opportunity. Pushing him off me, I jumped to my feet kung-fu style but Percy was on his feet as well. I was weaponless and he had me cornered.
"I know how you fight, Thalia," Percy told me. "And now you're disarmed. Surrender."
"You don't know every move!" Spinning on my heel, I gave Percy a classic Karate kick, strong enough to throw him into the lake and spontaneous enough to catch him off-guard. "Yeah, visited Toyoko during my time with Artemis, should've mentioned."
I didn't stick around to exchange witty banter. Grabbing my shield and cursing the fact that my spear was thrown into the lake, I ran for the flag.
I snatched the flag and sprinted for my base. I heard the lake explode when I got about a quarter there, but I wasn't worried, if there was one thing I was it was fast.
I weaved in and out of fighting demigods, so fast that no one was able to tell I was carrying the flag until it was too late. They rallied before me, forming a wall to stop me from reaching my base but it wouldn't stop me.
I held up Aegis and the wall broke apart as everyone ran away from Medusa's horrible face. Those brave enough to stay behind had something scarier than Medusa to deal with. Me.
"Rahhh!" I roared at them and as expected they screamed and broke ranks.
It was an easy sprint back home where Drew and the others waited. They cheered as I brought in the flag, stabbing it into the ground. Drew laughed and tackle-hugged me, nearly killing me better than Percy could.
"T-thanks!" I managed to say.