So, here it is, nice and early to make up for my last update date! Enjoy...


Our main attacking party split into several groups heading different directions into the north section of the forest, each group equipped with a flare to alert the rest of our team if they found the other's flag. Me and Jess followed behind the largest, central group, keeping a look out for any sign of the Red team.

We kept advancing through the thick trees, trying to keep as quiet as possible. Suddenly, off to our left some distance away, a red flare lit up the sky for a brief few seconds, and then died.

"Move, move, move!" yelled Will. "Nico's group is on the other side, so they're going to need some help!"

"Company!" called out someone else, as we sighted all small unit from the Ares Cabin. There were only about six or seven of them, but they were vicious fighters. Clarisse wasn't there, which meant that she had probably gone past us to find our flag - she never stayed back to defend her flag. The Apollo cabin dropped back whilst the close combat fighters held them off.

The Apollo cabin had fun with their arrows, and had a large assortment to choose from. One released a net, ensnaring an enemy. Another exploded into confetti with a tremendous BANG!, right in front of one of the Ares fighters, sending him stumbling back in surprise. One Ares camper got peppered with arrows that left a very sticky sort of glue on them, and one of his arms got stuck to his chest. He stupidly tried to pull it off with his other one, only succeeding in getting that one stuck as well. 'Twinkle twinkle little star' randomly started playing as I watched another arrow fly through the air, and there was a sudden

Somewhere among the ranks of the Apollo archers someone shouted: "Here comes an itchy one!" and our swordsmen at the front yelled and scrambled away from the Ares fighters. I grinned - this was going to be funny. I slid out an arrow marked: 'Black Powder 20m', and notched it in my bow.

The Apollo cabin had got themselves into some sort of formation and released a volley of arrows that connected with the fast-approaching Ares cabin. The effect was fantastic. As each arrow made contact they snapped and released powders of various colours. One started got hit by an arrow that exploded into blue dust, and then started walking around into trees muttering nonsense, while another broke out into a loud and violent coughing fit. A bright flash like a blinded an Ares fighter I vaguely recognised and left him in a shower of glittery powder that stuck to him and made him look like a Christmas decoration. The others were fidgeting and scratching like crazy, taking off their armour and rubbing against trees. Several broke out with angry red rashes, and one of them managed to call: "To the lake!"

"Nope," I muttered, loosing my arrow. There was a small poof as it disintegrated into the retreating group of campers, and suddenly everything within about a twenty meter radius went pitch black. Luckily, we were just outside the range of the black cloud, but we scrambled back just in case it spread.

"Heyy!"

"What did you do!?"

"I'm blind!"

"Ow, that was my head!"

We jogged away from the dark cloud, heading left towards our friends who had found the flag. One of our swordsmen had taken quite a beating from the fight, and one of the Apollo cabins muttered a healing spell and helped him get back to our base.


Things were not looking good. By the time we had reached our group that had set off to the left, they were retreating under the intimidation of some Hephaestus and Nemesis swordsmen, and the fire of some archers from the Athena cabin. Percy was also by the river, knocking us back with giant waves and even trapping several people in mini whirlpools. We entered the battlefield yelling war cries and rallying our friends.

"CHARGE!"

"BLUE TEAM!"

"FIGHT!"

Our front line campers slammed into the Hephaestus kids, and I'd like to say it sent them tumbling back and we pressed onto the attack, but it was like running into a brick wall. An armour plated brick wall. Wait - not even that. An armour plated brick wall armed with lethal, magical swords. We fell back momentarily, before engaging them in combat. The Hephaestus cabin crafted excellent weapons and magic items, and were good fighters and very strong, as well as being smart. In other words, you did not want to mess with them. Their only downfall was their numbers, there were only about four, maybe five of them. The Nemesis cabin didn't help much to make up for their lack of numbers, as there wasn't really many of them either. There must have been about half the Athena cabin though - a few swordsmen but mostly archers. No Annabeth.

I cursed under my breath as I fired arrow after arrow at the Athena archers, who were focusing on our swordsmen. They had probably sent their strongest fighters to take our flag and left Percy and the others to defend theirs. They must have split them into several smaller groups, like us. We had come across one - the Ares kids - but had seen no sign of the others. And what of the Hermes cabin? They had quite a lot of campers, only a few of which were decent fighters, but I hadn't seen one of them throughout the game so far.

Another Athena archer fell as I hit them square in the chest with a blunted arrow. I had found that sharp arrows had little effect against armour, but blunted arrows were heavier and packed a bigger punch. I drew back as my leg got nicked by an arrow, drawing blood - the Athena archers had clocked on that someone was targeting them, and it hadn't been any of the Apollo cabin, who were helping to push back their swordsmen. I ducked behind a tree and quickly slid off my quiver and looked through my arrows. I was running out of normal ones, and I tried to save my special arrows in case I was needed for a quest or something. I hadn't had one yet, but I hoped sometime one would come round.

I counted 6 normal arrows remaining, and at least a dozen various other special ones. I didn't really use my throwing knives in training exercises like these, because it was difficult to just injure people with them - they either hit and killed the target, or missed. With arrows you get many different types of arrows that can do lots of things, and with spears or swords you could disarm or injure, or at least stall the enemy. I couldn't go up against a full length sword with my knives, they were too small. I sighed - I hoped it wouldn't come to me having to my dagger.

Me and Jess were supposed to have just quickly grabbed the flag and run back, but as Nico still wasn't here Percy was free to sweep us off our feet and keep the flag in it's own little hurricane. If I had known that I was going to be fighting, I would have taken an extra quiver. I looked round and found Jess struggling against a Nemesis kid. My arrow hit him on the side and he stumbled back, giving Jess the chance to go in for a quick strike to the face. He fell back as her sword connected with his chin and his sword fell in a puddle. Just then I was floored my a jet of water and landed hard on my side.

"You okay?" Jess said, deflecting an arrow off her small shield. Damn, her hand-eye co-ordination was amazing!

"What? Oh, yeah, thanks." I cursed Percy under my breath as I stood up. "Right, we need to grab the flag as soon as Nico gets here. He'll have the element of surprise and hopefully Percy will be, well, surprised."

"Okay," Jess nodded, looking up at me. "How do you know when he's going to get here?"

I smiled. "He's near. That or someone else has a Stygian Iron blade nearby. I'd go for the first one."

"Watch out!" Jess cried, pushing me, hard. An arrow glanced off my breastplate (see, it's not completely useless!) as I over-balanced and fell into a clump of wet bushes.

"Okay, lets get to cover and then talk," I decided, as I ran over to a tree that had fallen over. She followed quickly, crouching down next to me.

"Right, so who's grabbing the flag?" she asked. "And shouldn't Nico kinda be owing us 20 drachma each as we're sitting around discussing this?"

I grinned. "Yeah, I'll get them off him. And I don't mind who takes the flag - would you prefer that I do it or you?"

"I think I'd like to 'escort' you, as Will put it. In other words, I'll stick anyone that comes near ya. Okay?"

I smiled. "Sounds like a plan." Tensing suddenly, I jumper up and looked at the battle, where we were painfully slowly edging the red team back. " Okay, get ready! Any second now." I could tell Stygian Iron was near, very near.

"I'll grab the flag and run past this log again, and then head back to base. When I go past, join me okay?"

"Got it," she smiled.

There was no battle cry or loud encouragement to our fighters when Nico arrived - that would ruin the surprise. He simply stepped out of a shadow behind Percy, hit him hard in the back with the hilt of his sword (on his Achilles heel, might I add), and then launched a vicious kick to send him tumbling down. At that moment I burst out from behind the log, dodged round several swords and a burly Hephaestus kid, and grabbed the flag. Out of the corner or my eye, I saw an archer loose an arrow at me. I stopped and focused for a moment, and the arrow deflected harmlessly off me about 2 inches from my shoulder. I quickly sprinted past the main war zone and fled past the log without stopping, knowing that I would now have most of the red team's attention.

Luckily, I doubted anyone could follow me, because when I glanced back Nico's unit had stormed their base, surrounding the Hephaestus kids and reaching the archers who were generally hopeless in close combat. But Percy had got apparently got back up and was fighting, because I heard the river explode behind me and there was a brief downpour as everything nearby got soaked. Yup, that was angry Percy. I just hoped Nico could hold him off long enough.


I decided to do the capture the flag in two or three parts (most probably two), so there's the first one, and the next will be up by October. Ugh, school soon and I'm not really looking forward to it! :(

Oh, another thing I noticed is that my views shot up by 81 when I posted my last chapter, but I only got a few reviews. Please guys, even if it's a few words, it's encouraging to know people like my story and stuff, so please take just a few seconds to review! Even if you don't like it, or utterly despise it, please do say! :) Thanks you everyone!

-Nightlock64-