"You look sorta shaky, you all right?" Percy asked in an amused tone as we got to an open space.

"Hah," I said, "just taking it all in, I guess."

"I bet," he replied.

We got started with him showed me how to do things, again, with an invisible partner instead of me.

"Now, you wanna try?"

I took a deep breath and nodded.

"Ready?"

"Yup."

Percy made the first strike, and I blocked it. It seemed like my instincts were sort of kicking in like they did when I was in the Glorious Army of the Architect. Eventually, he got in close enough to disarm Percy and did so without a second's thought. Next thing I knew, his celestial bronze sword was on the ground and the blade of the Fourth Key was pointed right at his chest.

"Yield!" he said, exhaustedly.

I lowered my blade and he picked his up.

"That was great! You show me that again!" Percy's smile was absolutely brilliant with excitement.

He was obviously going easy on me the first time because it took longer to get to that last shot the second time. We'd both gotten close enough to make the move, so we both had...at the same time. He had his blade pointed at my neck and mine was pointed at his chest. We both were out of breath when I yelled, "Yield!"

There was silence for a second as we lowered our swords. I noticed, then, that everyone else had stopped to watch us.

Percy mouthed, "Wow" and looked at me in surprise.

"Well," I said, just to break the silence, "That was pretty awesome."

Percy smiled again.

"You got that right."

He turned to everyone else.

"Thanks for watching, we'll be here all day." And he dismissed the group back to fighting.

I let out a long breath and looked up to meet Percy's eyes.

"All I can say," he exhaled, "is that I'm glad you're on my team for capture the flag."

After dinner that night, we all got suited up in armor and armed ourselves with weapons (Chiron mentioned something about magical weapons or something...I figured that included the Fourth Key).

We all got to our positions and received helmets with blue plumes on the top...or our team did anyway.

I was set near the flag on guard. Apparently, I was supposed to stay hidden unless the other team got super close to it. If I was wearing armor, I figured I didn't want to be the idiot who stood out in the middle of a clearing as if to say "Here I am! There's the flag! I'm a human target!"

I hid right behind a bush near the flag so that I could come charging out of it if anyone tried to grab it. I was small enough to do that, thankfully.

A horn blew off near the creek signaling the start of the game. I got excited, this was the first game of capture the flag that I had a chance to play without suffocating from my severe asthma...that is, if I didn't drop the Fourth Key.

I waited for a long time behind the bush. When I say a long time, I mean a long time. I must have waited about a half an hour before something actually caught my attention near the edge of the little area I was in.

It was a person with a helmet with a red plume on top rather than a blue one like mine. She had red hair that was pulled back and a lethal-looking knife in her hand. She looked around a bit, as if to scout out where the flag was. Eventually, she spotted it and scanned the ground for any traps before walking forward to grab the flag. By this time, I'd stood up and started charging over (without screaming something silly like "aaaaaaarrrrgh!!!"). She saw me silently approach from the corner of her eye and lashed out with her blade, but I was too fast. I parried, ducked, and rolled as she sliced again. The girl grunted with frustration and kept at it while I almost automatically kept dodging and lunging.

After a while, she started to get short of breath. Apparently, I was wearing her out. I took that as my advantage and disarmed her smoothly and properly. She looked amazed that she'd been defeated by something as puny and scrawny as me.

"Get outta here, punk," said a voice behind me, "Before I take care of you myself."

I whirled around, not before stepping my boot on the hilt of the redhead's knife so she couldn't get me with my back turned.

A few inches in front of me was a tall, well built, girl with brown hair that fell all around her face. She was also wearing a red-plumed helmet. The spear that was slung across her back made a crackling noise that was oddly familiar.

Electricity, I thought, The stupid spear's electric!

The girl gave a quiet, little laugh before drawing it and pointing it against my chest. I felt a tingle run through my body as a small, electric current went through my body.

"You can run now," she said.

"Why should I?" I replied.

Apparently she didn't get this reply too often because her face looked confused for a second before turning it back into a sneer.

"You should be smarter than to mess with a daughter of Ares," she said, "It'll get ya maimed."

I swallowed hard.

"No maiming allowed, however. You're a bit outta luck." I retorted a bit too smartly.

"You wanna get run through with a spear punk?" she snarled.

"Not particularly."

"Then why don't ya move out of the way of the flag?"

"I don't give up that easily." I replied simply.

She smiled.

"Then you should be loads of fun."

The girl shoved her spear forward and I leaned back and whacked at it with the flat part of my sword. When she swung it at me again, I ducked down and grabbed the redhead's knife off of the ground. I jumped out of the way just in time to miss another lunge from the electric spear and its wielder. I swung the Fourth Key around so that the side of her helmet got full impact from the flat side.

Suddenly, she looked rattled and startled. She stumbled before lashing out again with the electric spear.

A few more ducks, dodges, parries, and stabs occurred between the two of us before I ran into something hard behind me.

A Tree.

I'd run into a freaking tree.

Bracing myself for impact, I lifted the blade up to shield my face. The girl knocked it out of my hand with her spear and pointed the tip at me.

"Now," she said triumphantly, "you gonna let me to the flag?"

"Wasn't planning on it," I said, a sudden idea coming into my head.

She snarled and swung her fist that wasn't holding the electric spear at my head. I ducked down and grabbed the Fourth Key off of the ground in time to hear the girl growl with frustration as her hand hit the tree's rough bark.

Just then, her leg hit me square in the chest and I fell down. She started to run to grab the flag, and did. The girl ran out of the clearing, not to mention me running right behind her. She got about 100 yards from the creek before I got a smart idea. I pointed the Fourth Key, now a baton, at her and yelled, "Halt!"

The girl froze mid-step. I walked down to examine my work. She had a look of surprise written on her face again, only this time that was frozen too.

I gingerly plucked the flag from her hand.

"Thank you for returning that." I gave her a small wicked grin and walked off, back to the place where the flag was supposed to be. Just as I started to enter the underbrush once more, I heard someone shout my name. I turned around in time to see Annabeth running toward the river with the other team's flag.

"Arthur!" she yelled. "Catch!"

She threw the flag up and over the creek where I ran and caught it. Cheering erupted on our side of the creek. I turned to look at the girl I froze, and so did the majority of everyone else. A few started laughing, mostly from the Hermes cabin, and eventually someone said something about me doing that and the next thing I knew, Connor and Travis were patting me on the shoulder congratulating me on freezing Clarisse up like that.

I decided not to embarrass Clarisse much longer, so I walked over, still holding both flags, and touched her arm with the Fourth Key.

"Carry on, now," I commanded.

Clarisse was animated again.

She looked up and snarled at me.

"You'll pay for that you jerk face."

I sort of smiled at that. It was extremely likely that I would.