Mirabelle put some flowers in her hair, a part of her disguise.

Within a few minutes, the loud, heavy footsteps of the Ares kids could be heard. When they saw Mirabelle, they looked confused.

"Who is that old lady? What's she doing here?" Clarisse asked, frowning.

Mirabelle shot around to face them. "Old lady? How dare you be so disrespectful! It is common courtesy to bow down to your elders."

Another Ares kid, Marcela, smirked. "Get out of our way, grandma. Don't you know we have important business to do?"

"Your impudence will not be tolerated. Apologize at once," Mirabelle ordered.

"In your dreams," Cassie replied. "Now get out of our way, old hag."

"I have had enough!" Mirabelle exclaimed. "You girls are pathetic excuses for demigods! I am ashamed of you."

"What did you call us?" Clarisse asked, her voice dangerous.

"Pathetic excuses for demigods!" Mirabelle repeated. "With horrible hearing too, I might add."

"That's it!" an Ares kid named Mackenzie yelled, and she charged towards Mirabelle. Our plan was in action.

"Nobody messes with us and gets away with it!" Cassie shouted, grabbing her spear and throwing it at Mirabelle.

If you didn't look carefully, you could never have been able to tell that Mirabelle slightly dodged the weapon at the last moment. She pretended to wince in pain. "Rethink what you're doing, girls," she exclaimed, as she shifted her arm so you couldn't see that it wasn't hurt.

Mackenzie ignored her and jabbed her sword into Mirabelle's side, too busy sneering to see that she dodged slightly again.

After a few more attacks, Mirabelle pretended to collapse, growing older as she did, turning more wrinkly and ruined. The Ares kids high-fived each other in congratulations. Suddenly, the Dionysus kids jumped out of the bushes. "Save yourself!" Fred screamed like a maniac. His siblings started running around in terror.

Clarisse rolled her eyes. She motioned for her team members to run for the flag. Some Dionysus kids blocked their path.

Before they could get stampeded, one of them raised his hands up. "I just want to warn you about something! That old lady you just got rid of – I think – I think that it was a goddess in disguise! Demeter!"

"Yeah, right," an Ares kid named Aaron said in exasperation. "Now get out of our way."

"No, really," Fred insisted, "Just think. It all makes sense. Who else would it have been if it weren't a goddess? I know it wasn't a camper, counselor, or director here. I've never seen anyone like them before… have you guys? It couldn't be a regular mortal; we all know that they can't enter the camp. An old lady is a famous disguise of Demeter's. She used it when she was searching for her daughter Persephone."

A few of the younger Ares kids started looking scared. A nine-year-old, Elise, started crying. "It's all your fault, Clarisse and Mackenzie and Cassie!" she wailed.

Fred nodded in sympathy. "And also – the old lady was wearing flowers in her hair – I saw. Everyone knows Demeter grows things like flowers. And why else would she have warned you about being rude so much if she weren't a goddess?" Fred shivered. "I'm glad I'm not you guys. You're in big trouble. You didn't kill her, of course, since goddesses are immortal, but you probably made her really angry… who knows what she'd do to you? Turn you into a flower, a tree, some grain…"

Now almost everyone looked a little shaken. "Well, is there anything we can do to apologize?" Elise asked.

Fred acted as if he were thinking hard. Then he said, "Well… there might be – and I'm saying, might be – one thing you could do. Place a sacrifice for Demeter on the branch of a tree – and pray to her that you'll be forgiven." Fred said this with such feeling that you couldn't help but believe him, even if the idea were a little unbelievable.

"All right, fine," Clarisse growled, "But we're not all going to waste our time on this. Only the ones who actually hurt the old lady will stay here and do the offering, everyone else, go after the flag! We don't have any time to waste."

Uh-oh. I hadn't planned on this happening. I bit my lip and hoped that without their strongest fighters, the Ares kids wouldn't be able to do that much. But we couldn't be sure, so I motioned for my half-siblings to follow me to defend our flag when they came. Looked like we'd have something to do after all. I hoped that the tying-them-to-the-tree plan would work, at least.

I led the Athena kids as fast as I could to a cluster of oak trees where the Ares kids would be sure to pass on their way to the flag. While I waited, I tried to listen to what was going on with the Dionysus cabin. Everything seemed to be fine, they were going to the tree, and – no!Someone else from the red team was coming. Who was it?

"What are you doing there with that tree, Clarisse?" the voice of Connor Stoll, a Hermes kid, asked. They told him about the old lady and what the Dionysus kids said about the offering. Connor laughed. "You're falling for that, dude? It's obviously a lie. And I should know what's a lie."

Oh, great. Now the plan was definitely going to fail. Hermes was the god of liars, so of course his kids would be able to tell what was true and what wasn't.

Clarisse seemed to realize that, too. "Those punks," she muttered. I heard her, Cassie, and Mackenzie sprinting towards us, towards the flag.

"Here it comes," my half-siblings mumbled to one another. The only way we could win was if our group going after the flag was victorious, and we hadn't heard from them yet. I decided I'd go check on them. Total change of plans.

"I'm going to go check on our flag-capturing group," I told Ariel, "Do you think you guys can handle them yourselves?"

Ariel, one of my siblings who was about the same age as me, snorted. "What do you think? We have won battles without you, you know. Go."

I took my invisibility cap out of my pocket, plunked it on my head, and ran off, trying to be as quiet as I could. I hurried through the forest until I heard voices. I scanned the forest and saw someone catch Roslyn.

"You're our prisoner now," Nyssa, a Hephaestus kid, announced to Roslyn. She led her away to the red team's jail.

So one of them was captured. What about Percy and Malcolm, though?

I crept closer and answered my own question. They were battling with some Ares kids that had been left behind, along with a few Hermes and Hephaestus kids. The Aphrodite cabin was watching the fight from a distance, under the orders of their new head counselor, Drew – definitely not my favorite person in the world.

Anyway, there were about four red team members against them – which meant two on one, not the most even match. I didn't get why everyone seemed to want to use weapons in this game, but they were heavily armed. It looked like they'd intercepted from about twelve yards in front of the flag.

There was no question about what to do now. While the majority of the red team either near our flag or fighting Percy and Malcolm, it was a great chance for me to sneak around invisibly and get the flag. I started to run farther ahead, when suddenly an Ares kid stabbed Malcolm in the foot with a sword. Malcolm stumbled over right into Percy and accidentally knocked him down. Both of them tried to get up. An Ares kid pushed them down, holding his sword in front of them.

I couldn't believe that anyone would be this mean in a game of Capture the Flag. Sure, everyone was competitive once in a while, but brutally using weapons in a friendly competition was not cool. They were Ares kids, but they were also campers and heroes. Shouldn't they know better?

Seeing Percy and my half-brother being treated like this in a game made me stop for a moment. I couldn't help but yank the Ares kid by the arm, hard, and smash him into a tall oak tree. Everyone stood stunned as I let go of the Ares kid and raced off, still invisible, towards the flag.

As I got closer, I could see that the one guard was a Hephaestus kid named Christopher. He didn't seem to be guarding very carefully. He appeared bored, fiddling with some tools and small machine parts.

I was just about to grab the flag when some hands snatched it from its post. Percy. He'd escaped the Ares kids while they were surprised. I saw Malcolm behind him, ready to fight off any attackers until they got back to the blue team territory. Looked like I didn't need to get the flag after all.

I followed them invisibly, until they were almost to the creek, the boundary line. That was when suddenly a swarm of red team members appeared out of nowhere – again – snatching the flag away. Malcolm tried to grab it back, but another Ares kid drew his dagger and struck. He managed to dodge it, and unsheathed his own sword.

Percy tried to grab the flag back. While he and the Ares kid were busy wrestling with each other, I grabbed it and took off, running to the creek.

Unfortunately, I was running so fast that my baseball cap flew off, making me visible. "Hey!" someone shouted from the red team, "She's getting away with our flag!" I ignored the yells and sounds of feet running after me.

When I was about five feet from the boundary line, I saw Clarisse race towards the line from the opposite side – with the blue team's flag.

I put forward a burst of speed that sent me partway across the creek – and smack into Clarisse, knocking both of us down hard. Both banners flew out of our hands.

We both tried to get up and grab the banners, but not before our team members from both sides caught up to us, all jumping into the creek, and fumbling for their opponents' flag. It was total chaos. And nobody could be taken prisoner, since we were in the creek, the boundary line. Wow.

Percy reached for my hand and helped me up, handing me my fallen cap, which was pretty sweet. He didn't seem to be hurt from the fights with the Ares kids, just covered with dirt and grass.

"Campers!" Chiron called, "Some order, please. This is quite the strange situation we have here. I'm afraid that we will have to settle on a tie, for we have no more time, and it is chaos here. Report back to the campfire when you have tidied up."

Everyone groaned. You'd think that people would be happy not to lose. Well, people also get disappointed when they don't win. My plan had totally failed. It was disorganized. The whole game was disorganized and random. I should've thought of something better. But we'd all tried our best, and, that was enough. Usually. Right? Well, maybe for a game. But if we were really battling an enemy, and nobody won, would that be enough? It all depended on the situation, and the opponent. How much was enough, though? That also depended on the situation. If –

"What are you thinking about?" Percy interrupted my mental discussion with myself.

"I'm contemplating how the locality and opponent alter the outcome of a dispute," I replied, matter-of-fact, using big words on purpose.

"Can you say that in English?" he asked.

"You're hopeless," I proclaimed.

"Hey, not everyone is a Wise Girl," he complained.

"You're right. It's really too bad that some people are Seaweed Brains."

"Those people need Wise Girls in their life to help them, then."

The campers made their way back to their cabins, still muttering about the tie with their friends.

I got to my cabin, and started dusting off the dirt and wiping off the mud from the river. I saw Mirabelle, who was back to her teen form, listening to my half-sister, who was furious about not winning (it's not that big of a deal! At least we didn't lose!). "Annabeth tried her best, and that was enough for tonight," Mirabelle was saying. I was thankful that she was on my side, but that just started up my mental conversation with myself again.

After we got cleaned up, the Athena cabin stuck together as they ran to the campfire. Chiron stood in the middle as he always did whenever he led speeches/discussions/arguments/wild shouting. I sat down next to Percy and attempted to smooth his hair down, which he'd forgotten to do after Capture the Flag. It did not obey, and stubbornly sprang back to its wild, tangled form. Percy grinned.

"Good evening, campers!" Chiron announced. Everyone stopped talking and turned towards him. "I hope you all enjoyed your first day of your break back at camp. I'm glad that things are all settled down now, and we can relax and just have fun," he said, although his eyes were troubled, as if he'd been thinking about the possible problems with the gods.

Cheering erupted among all the campers, who seemed unaware of his hidden troubles, and the flames in the campfire rose higher and brighter, showing the mood. "Now we can begin our sing-along!"

The Apollo guys were already there, and starting up on of their famous sing-alongs. They began a corny, classic camp song, as people started settling down around the fire. More and more people joined in the chorus of cheerful voices, and so did I. It was so nice to just forget about all your worries, and let the beat of the music carry you away to a land free of worry. Yeah, I know, I sound very cheesy. But that was the whole point.

The first song faded away, and the musicians started up the second. It was calmer, more like a lullaby.

The shadows of this world are here; ready to attack.

But friends are always there to have your back.

A light in the storm seems far away,

The stars in the sky seem to sway,

But a candle in the darkness is coming your way.

You are here in this safety to stay, stay.

Everything will be okay.

I don't know why, but that campfire song was pretty touching to me. I felt myself relax for real now, believing the lyrics, which might be a little stupid, but I didn't care. I leaned over and rested my head on Percy's shoulder. He wrapped his arm around me. It felt so good – melting into his warmth, sitting in safety with all of my friends, at my true home, where I belonged, with the background music soothingly saying everything would be fine. I had never felt so warm inside.


Awesome! Amazing! Miraculous! I managed to update this right on time! Today is June 11th, and it is my birthday! I had such an awesome day. And my friends remembered! Yay! Now, I hope you liked this chapter! I know that Capture the Flag was really random. And I know that the song isn't the best (I am not a songwriter and I wrote that song in 5 minutes, so, yeah...). Sorry about that! The next chapter will probably be posted around June 25th, 2 weeks from now! That's my summer break, so luckily, I can work on it more. Please take the time to review, suggestions and feedback are always welcome! Thank you! Happy birthday to me! P.) :D P.) :D

-Awesomejoyce