Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or the main story line of this FANfiction.
Thank you, banannibo for Beta-ing this chapter! :)

Nine

If someone asked me what I had for dinner that fateful Friday afternoon, I wouldn't be able to answer. All I really remember about dinner was being so excited for capture the flag that my leg literally wouldn't stop moving. I also remember Percy throwing things at me while telling me to stop, Luke laughing at us, Travis and Connor complaining about their recently acquired sleeping arrangements, and finally, Chiron announcing that it was time for capture the flag.

I knew Perce had been excited—even if he had tried to hide it. He had told me about the bathroom incident that led to Annabeth wanting him on her capture the flag team. Of course, I had properly gaped at him when he told me about how he—in his words, not mine—"had become one with the plumbing".

Once the teams were announced—Athena, Hermes and Apollo versus Ares, Demeter, Dionysus, Aphrodite and Hephaestus—and the flags of been brought forward, armor appeared on the tables.

"Heroes!" Chiron announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

"So we're really supposed to use these?" Percy asked Luke, gesturing to the piles of spears, swords, and others weapons.

"Unless you want to get skewered by your friends in cabin five. Here—" Luke said, handing each of us some armor. "Chiron thought these would fit. You two will be on border patrol."

I groaned and nearly dropped the shield Luke gave me. "This camp is the most backwards place I have ever been," I said. "It's like everything I've ever learned in life just gets thrown out the window! I mean, it's like 'Don't run with scissors! But don't worry, it is not dangerous—it's just a waste of time! Here! Have a three-foot long sword to swing around instead!'Good grief!"

Percy laughed and stuck an over-sized helmet on my head.

"Don't worry about the sword thing. Chiron mentioned that you're not horrible with a bow, so I made sure to grab you one from the weapon's shed earlier," Luke explained while I scowled at Percy and pulled the helmet off.

I set the helmet aside and took the weapon from Luke. "A bow? I mean, it's better than a sword, but I don't really have a lot of experience shooting one of these things."

Luke strapped a shield to Percy's arm. "It's either a bow or a sword. Take your pick."

"I'll take the bow," I told him, grabbing a cuff to protect my arm and strapping into place.

Luke smirked. "Figured you'd say that."

Annabeth stood up on one of the tables to get our attention. "Blue team," she shouted, "forward!" More yelling and cheering rose up as everyone started marching.

"Come on." Percy tugged on my arm. "I want to catch up with Annabeth."

Travis and Conner appeared on either side of us. "It's alright, Percy," Conner told him, patting the arm Percy was pulling on. "We'll stick with Leila."

"Yeah," Travis agreed. "We'll make sure she doesn't get into too much trouble."

I glanced at the Stolls and the crazy I-might-just-spaz-out-and-attack-my-own-team-at-any-time grins they were wearing. If anyone was going to get in trouble, it would definitely be me. Conner and Travis seemed practically breathed trouble.

But maybe that's why they were my friends. "Go on and find Annabeth," I said to Percy. "I'll be fine."

Percy saluted us with a smirk. He totally knew how nuts Travis and Conner were. "See you during the game."

As soon as Percy went ahead to find Annabeth, the brothers linked their arms through mine and fell eerily quiet. We were all walking into the woods by now. The team started to split up and cover all the different positions. Several Apollo and Hermes kids crouched down and waited near the boarder. Will wasn't with them, though. "All right, Silence is dangerous with you two around," I muttered, watching the Stolls swing their swords with ease. "What are you planning?"

"I knew I liked her," Travis said proudly.

Conner snorted. "Like I disagreed? Please."

"Now," he continued, unhooking his arm and pushing us deeper into the woods, "RUN! Hurry—before someone sees us!"

Travis kept his arm linked with mine—most likely ready to pull me along if I resisted—but I sped up. Conner ran a few feet ahead of Travis and I. He stopped or ducked behind a tree every now and then. When I finally asked what Conner was doing, he told me he was making checking for the other team's scouts.

Travis unlinked his arm from mine. "I think he just likes pretending he's part of the Russian mob," he muttered.

Since we were trying hard to be stealthy, I swear I tried not to laugh—but Conner must have overheard his brother. Quite suddenly, he dropped to the ground and did an elaborate tuck-and-roll spy move across the wooded trail ending by leaning against a tree while holding up his sword like a gun. "Actually, Brother," he said in a very bad British accent, "it is Bond. James Bond."

Travis and I looked at each other and then completely lost it. The three of us were laughing so hard we practically fell over each over while running.

A long, loud horn sounded in the distance. We all quickly fell quiet again. "Let the games begin," Conner said in his maybe-British-probably-demented-Australian accent.

"You know," I said once our second round of laughter had finished. "Luke told me I was on boarder patrol. He said I should go left and stand at the boarder."

"You have to understand something, Leila," Travis started stopping to set his sword and helmet aside. "Luke says a lot of things."

"Most of them are good too," Conner agreed, doing the same as his brother. "Like what armor to wear and what post to take during capture the flag—but you just have to know which comments you're actually supposed to listen to."

"Or what part of the comment you're supposed to listen to," Travis added while he and Conner unclipped their breastplate straps. "It's all perspective really."

Conner nodded, carefully collecting up the helmets, shields, and breastplates. "Exactly. I mean, technically, you're still going left—you're just going a little farther to the left than Luke originally planned."

"Uh-huh." I crossed my arms, watching them dump the armor in the bushes. "But that doesn't explain why you took off all your armor."

"Have you ever tried sneaking around with twenty extra pounds of metal?" Conner said. "Trust me, I'm speaking from experience when I say it gets you caught—fast."

"We're just making things a little easier," Travis said, taking my helmet and bow. Conner unclipped the breastplate straps and helped me remove it without dropping my quiver.

I strung my quiver back over my shoulder. "You both are horrible friends."

"But we are your friends," Conner reminded me, putting my armor with the rest.

Travis tossed me my bow. "It's settled then," he stated. "Let's go!"

"Where are we going?" I asked, giving up my argument. It was probably too late to be arguing my case anyway. After all, I should've figured the moment they appeared I was going to be an accomplice of something that was probably completely illegal.

"We're going to get the flag," Conner said proudly, raising his sword.

I blinked. "And we're going to single-handedly charge the Ares cabin, get the flag, and run to victory… with-out armor?"

"Duh," Travis stated while leaning a bit to the side to avoid being whacked by Conner's sword.

"Sounds legit," I said, pushing Conner's arm out of our way.

They smirked. "Get ready for a lot more running," Travis said.

"And an epic fight," Conner added, hopping on a fallen tree that was stuck diagonally across the trail. The tree must have been tall—and also gotten stuck on something when it fell since it wasn't even sitting on the ground. Coming up to it, the fallen log was shoulder-height making it climbable, but still annoying.

"Correct me if I'm wrong—but don't we cross the border first?" I suggested, climbing up over the log.

"Yep," Travis agreed, propping his elbows on the fallen tree while I leaned on it from the other side.

I looked up at Conner who was doing a couple weird yoga poses up on the tree, and then at Travis who was smirking like a weasel. "Okay…" I said slowly. "What am I missing?"

Travis laughed and backed up a few steps away from the log. "You're going to want to back up," he said, motioning me to the side with his hand and sheathed his sword. He crouched slightly and then took off running straight at the log, gaining momentum before launching himself completely over it.

"Come on, Conner," Travis said casually, as if he hadn't just ninja-catapulted-himself over a tree. "Get down. You might be spotted."

"Crossing the boarder," I repeated. "What are we going to do about it?"

Conner jumped down, joining his brother and I on the ground. "We're done with that," he said, dusting off his hands.

"This dead tree marks the boarder," I guessed as Travis and Conner nodded and high-fived each other. "I thought the creek was the boundary line."

Travis threw an arm casually over my shoulder. "Leila," he said, "look down."

I stepped away from Travis and glanced under the fallen tree. Sure enough, the creek was there. Actually, I was surprised I hadn't heard all the gurgling noises the creek was making. "That was… strangely easy," I said, glancing around for enemy patrols.

"Hey! Don't complain," Travis told me. "We're over the line, aren't we?"

"Yeah!" Conner agreed. "And we have all our limbs in tact!"

"We know what we're doing!" Travis bragged.

I raised an eyebrow. "Since you have everything figured out, what's your plan from here?"

Conner and Travis looked at each other then shrugged simultaneously. "We don't know," Conner said. "We usually just kind of wing it, you know? Like, either we'll get the flag or get caught so it doesn't really matter."

"I say you're leaning toward the second option." A voice said from behind us.

The three of us whirled around and came face-to-face with a very tall, very buff, very armed Hephaestus camper. His sword was pointed straight at us, ready to strike if we moved.

"Beckendorf!" Travis said with way too much enthusiasm. "Fancy meeting you here!"

"We've been looking everywhere for you!" Conner joined in, clapping a few times. "How are you doing?"

"No way," Beckendorf growled, raising his sword higher. "Not this time. You guys are caught. End of story. No tricks."

I glared at the Stolls realizing I was probably going to spend my first Camp Half-Blood capture the flag game in jail. "This is the last time I ever follow one of your plans."

"But we got it from here!" Travis replied proudly.

"Yeah," Conner said with a grin.

Faster than I thought was possible, they each drew their swords and ducked as Beckendorf lunged forward at them. I swung my bow over shoulder and ran after Travis and Conner with Beckendorf following close behind, now shouting for help. Thankfully, all of us were pretty fast runners.

"This was your plan?!" I hissed.

"Winging it, remember?" Conner called back.

Travis said, "Besides, you think we planned this? We're just going with whatever comes our way!"

"And this is going better than usual!" Conner said.

"There!" I shouted as we came up to a large holly bush.

"Hide!" Travis, Conner, and I said together, diving into the underbrush. We army crawled into the large bushes and once we were far enough off the trail, sat up and looked around.

The woods cleared up in front of us, creating a bright glen with a lot of open space. "There's some guards," Conner said, pointing at some fully armed red team members wandering around.

"The flag must be close," Travis muttered.

"It's hanging in that tree," I said, pointing up.

Travis cursed as Conner rocked back on his heels. "Well, this sucks," Travis stated.

"What?" I said. "Why?"

"Look, we're good at climbing," he told me. "But we're not exactly fast at climbing which means that someone might have a chance to catch us."

"So we're screwed?"

"Maybe not… Leila," Conner said with a sly look. "You were pretty good at the climbing wall yesterday."

I shrugged. "So what? That was a climbing wall. As in, meant-to-be-easy-to-climb type of wall. I grew up in New York City! I didn't exactly spend a lot of time climbing trees!" The closest thing to climbing trees was playing hide-from-Percy in central park when I six. I didn't think that really counted as experience.

"It's easy! The branches are perfectly spaced! You can do it," Travis told me, nudging me in the side for good measure.

"Oh, but you're going to want to watch out for angry nymphs," Conner advised.

"Definitely watch out for those," his brother said nodding. "And the Ares cabin."

"They'll be angry, too. And Beckendorf is a great guy, but also really competitive so be careful when it comes to him."

"And some of the Demeter cabin will probably be hiding in the tree so try be silent while climbing."

"Avoid angry nymphs, emotionally unstable Ares campers, Beckendorf and his sword, and any campers hiding in the tree—Demeter or not," I rattled off. "Like you said, we'll either get caught or we won't. Now, here's what we're going to do: you guys run straight out from here and just cause complete chaos, alright? I'll go back the way we came and climb the tree from behind, grab the flag, and then once I have it, we all run like we've got all of Hades chasing us."

They both stared at me then turned to each other and said, "She's got this."

"Let's do this," I said.

Everything was set. Our plan was actually working. Travis and Conner were able to sneak around and cause enough noise to send some of the guards running. While the Stolls took care of that problem, I went after the flag.

Turns out, I was actually pretty good at playing capture the flag. Silently and unseen, I managed to run around and hide behind another bush near the tree that had the flag in it. I crouched down and peeked out, watching for the distraction I would definitely need. The tree with the flag in it was only few yards to ahead of me. As soon as Travis and Conner distracted the guards, I was going to make a run for it.

At the last second, I sensed it. Someone was right behind me. And when I say, "right behind" I mean breathing-down-my-neck close.

"You know, if I was on the other team, you would totally be caught right now," a familiar voice muttered.

I let out a long breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Will," I growled, not bothering to turn around. "What is your problem? You could've gotten us caught!"

"Sorry," Will told me, not sounding very sorry at all, "but you should be more careful if you don't want to get caught. Try looking around for a little bit after you hide."

Why wouldn't this kid leave me alone? It's not like I encouraged him or was nice or something. I'm sure there are a lot of much nicer girls to stalk, I thought. So go away! "Try going away and never coming back," I snapped.

I am NOT stalking you—and trust me, if I could, I would definitely leave!

"Oh, please! This is totally stalking!"

"Quiet!" he said, elbowing me sharply in the side. "You're getting too loud! They're going to hear you!"

Even though I didn't like taking orders from people, I did lower my voice. Sadly, Will was right this time. We would be caught and the plan would be ruined if we got any louder. "You're the one who was practically yelling at me," I told him.

"Um, you started yelling at yourself," Will corrected, crouching down next to me. "Something about stalking… yeah, I think you're nuts."

It took me a minute to understand what happened. Percy, I thought, realizing that I must seem uttering insane to Will.What are you doing? I can't have you distracting me right now!

Sorry, thought I'd just pop on over and chat for a while, he thought back sarcastically. You are not the one who needs to concentrate right now, Leila!

I rolled my eyes and almost mentally pulled myself away from Percy—I hadn't even noticed that our mental connection was working—but something on his side turned sharplypainful.

The pain was radiating. It shocked me hard. My arms and chest went numb. I tried not to fall over, but I just ended up banging against Will. I tried to smother my cry of pain so we wouldn't get caught, but Will heard it. "What's wrong?" he said immediately grabbing my arm to keep me upright.

"It feels like—," I managed to mutter through my clenched teeth. "I mean—I think I just got electrocuted."

"Electrocuted?" Will repeated. "Leila, we're out in the middle of the woods. How the heck did you just get electrocuted?"

"I don't know," I said, sitting fully down on the ground, "but I think—ouch!"

I hadn't noticed it at first, but when I tried to pull away from Will, I felt it. On my arm was one long, fresh cut running along my arm. And it was bleeding. A lot. Will mouth dropped open. "When did that happen?" he said, staring at the cut. "There isn't even anything that sharp around here!"

I clamped my hand on my arm. "I've got to find Percy," I said. "This is bad. This is so bad."

Will started. "What are you—?"

"Quiet," I told him. Percy, what's going on? Why do I feel like I just got my teeth shocked out my mouth?!

His response didn't come right away. It was a bit slow, like he wasn't really concentrating on me. I'm at the boundary line. The Ares cabin ambushed me. Clarisse has an electric spear.

Everything in me bristled. That cabin would not live to see the light of another day. Maybe I seem a bit overly protective—but this wasn't just my twin brother they were attacking, it was my best friend. Where are you? I demanded, getting ready to turn around and go after them.

Don't worry about it! I actually think I've got this. Just end the game if you're going to—and quick!

I wanted to push it, but I was probably too far away to really help him anyway. I sighed and didn't bother asking him how he knew I went after the flag. He was Percy. Sometimes, he was perceptive than he seemed. Consider the game over, I told him.

"What exactly are you planning to do from here?" Will said, breaking the silence.

I notched an arrow. "I was waiting for a distraction—Travis and Conner said they would take of it—but it looks like I'm going to be making my own."

"Travis and Conner? Oh, yeah," Will snorted. "They make perfect distractions. Wait—what do you mean make your own—?" Without bothering to stand up, I fired an arrow in a completely random direction. A few Aphrodite girls screamed. I guess I almost hit someone. Oops.

Will blinked. "What was that supposed to do?"

"Someone fired from over there!" one of the girls shouted, pointing in the wrong direction. "I know! I saw them!"

"We're over he-re!" Travis suddenly shouted in a singsong voice from one side of the glen.

"No, no! Over here!" Conner called from the other.

"No, wait! Here!" Travis said from a completely new direction.

"Someone shut them up!" a boy screamed, covering his ears and falling to ground in misery. "My head can't take this much longer!"

"I've still got headaches from last time—stop them!" another camper said, frantically—and uselessly—throwing his spear at the bush closest to him.

"Glad they're on our side this time," Will muttered, shaking his head. "They sure cause panic."

"How do they do that?" I wondered for a second as Travis and Conner's voices started piping up from several directions at once.

"I don't know," Will said. "We all have talents, and I guess theirs is—hey! What are you doing now?"

I had moved away from our hiding spot behind the bush and started to pull myself up into the tree. Everyone was fully distracted by Travis and Conner. No one would actually see me go up into a tree. "Getting the flag," I told him. "What does it look like I'm doing?"

"You know the flag is," –Will pointed to a pine to the left— "over there, right?"

Even though he had probably been going to camp a lot longer than I had, I was still a little impressed. He did know where the flag was—but how he missed all the armed campers standing around ready to ambush any close enemy, I'm not sure.

Even with the distraction the Stoll brothers were causing, I doubt anyone could miss seeing me climb into their flag tree. I raised an eyebrow at Will. "You know that tree has no climbing branches and is surrounded by guards, right?"

He walked over toward me, swinging his bow over his shoulder. "Here," he said, linking his fingers together and holding them close to the tree. "Step in my hand and I can give you a extra step up into the tree."

"I can do it myself," I told him, but accepted his help anyway. If Percy needed this game to end, I didn't have time to worry about my pride. I stepped up into his hand and grabbed the branch closest to my head.

Will stood taller, giving me all the extra help he could. "I think you'll survive," he said.

By the time I was standing at the top of the tree, all the campers looked thoroughly confused. A few of them were still running in circles trying to catch Travis and Conner, but most of them were just turning in place when one would call out. No one could pinpoint where the two of them were.

I bit back a laugh as Conner army crawled out from behind a tree. Quick as lightning, he chucked a pinecone at one of the campers who had been facing away from him, then turned and fled back onto the bushes. "That idiot only wants your attention!" Travis told them, as the camper who had been hit cried out in pain. "Ignore him and come find me!"

"Just go after them one at time!" an older camper instructed. "There are only two of them!"

My eyes narrowed. Time to add more to the Chaos, I decided.

Once I spotted the perfect branch, I wiggled it back and forth to break it loose. As soon as it broke, I re-balanced myself and pulled my ponytail out. Carefully, I wrapped my hairband around the edges of stick, creating a makeshift slingshot. Next, I grabbed a pinecone.

There wasn't a moment to spare. "I got him!" a camper on the right side of the glen called. "I got, um—well, I got one of them!"

"I'm Travis, you idiot!" Conner told him, fending off the boy's sword attack. "Can't you tell the difference between me and my brother?"

I aimed for his head. I probably should've aimed somewhere safer, but in all fairness, I totally thought I would miss. Well, I didn't.

The pinecone zipped through the air faster than I thought it would go and hit the boy who had been attacking Conner with a THUNK! My mouth dropped open as the boy crumpled to the ground, most likely unconscious. It was hard to tell from up in the tree.

Before anyone could realize where that pinecone had come from, the real Travis ran out into the middle of the glen and started chucking pinecones at any campers who looked his way. A couple of Hephaestus kids got pretty close to Travis, but arrows whizzed passed them, making the campers jump back. Will must have been hiding somehow in the trees too.

Conner took the opportunity to dive back into the bushes. Travis followed him back into the bushes a few seconds later. "You want more?" Travis shouted as Conner called out, "Try again!"

Those poor campers. We were driving them mad. It was time to end this.

Once I was actually standing on the end of the branch, I had second thoughts. If I jumped and missed the branch leading onto the other tree with the flag in it, I would fall to my death—or at the very least, I would fall to my coma.Too late, I thought with a mental shrug. Before I could change my mind again, I stepped forward one last time and leaped for the other tree.

I only felt that actual leap of weightless energy for a about a second. I crashed into the tree trunk unharmed—making a few squirrels running away in terror—only a few second later, and quickly steadied myself before I could fall back out the tree.

When I was finally steady enough to look around, I didn't see anyone in the tree with me. Maybe they had all gotten gone to help their team find Travis and Conner, or maybe I just really bad at spotting hidden guards.

Either way, I was going to get the flag. Now that I was closer, I could see that the flag repulsive burgundy color with a picture of a blooded spear and pig head on it. The entire thing looked tattered, worn out, and nasty. Just like the Ares cabin. A good climber had obviously stuck the flag up here because it was literally hanging out on a limb. It was waving around in the breeze so I was going to have trouble grabbing it without falling out of the tree.

Slowly, I gently began climbing further out, inching along trying not to make noise.

As soon as I was as far out as I could go without breaking the branch, I tried to get the flag. It was still out of reach, but I couldn't go out any further. The branch would break and I would tragically die at age twelve in a pine tree playing capture the flag. Yeah, that would make a great obituary.

Taking a chance, I stretched up standing up on one foot while using the other to brace my weight on a different branch. It was weird triangle sort of position, but it worked—until I lost my balance.

Reflectively, I stepped forward with one foot to catch myself.

CRACK.

Whoops.

The branch I had been standing on started to break so without really realizing what I was doing, I threw my weight onto the other side and used the force to leap up and grab the branch above me. The same one the flag was hanging on.

It was almost too easy to get the flag now. Hanging on with one hand, I reached over and unhooked the end of the flag from around the tree. Like I said, easy.

"Look," a boy on the ground shouted. "Up there in the tree! She's got the flag!"

I glanced down and saw that some of the campers had stopped chasing the Stolls. Most of them were staring at me, and few of them were yelling and pointing to get everyone's attention.

"Stop her!"

"Get her—hurry!"

"Back off!" I shouted down, attempting to sound more dignified and less I-could-fall-to-my-death-at-any-second terrified. A couple of campers had reached the bottom of the tree by now. The rest were crowding around talking and rapidly gesturing at me dangling from the tree branch. "I'm warning you! Get away!"

The campers ignored me so I decided to make my point a little more clear. I swung one of my feet so hard forward, one my sneakers went flying off the end of my foot. It hit one the campers and she yelped, "HEY!"

"You were warned!" I told them, loosening my other shoe. Wisely, they backed up. None of them were standing underneath me.

My arms were starting to burn. I wouldn't be able to hold on much longer. I needed to figure out a way to climb down.

A few campers were still yelling things like, "Someone needs to get up there!" A few others were still fending off Travis, Conner, and Will. People were starting to climb up the tree. I blocked out the shouts and tried to focus only on the tree.

This is why they had the flag in the tree. Any of guards—whether they standing at the bottom of the tree or not—would be able to see someone trying to get the flag. Once they saw the person stealing the flag, they were trapped! They wouldn't be able to get down out of the tree without being caught, and the tree was too high to jump.

I was cornered.

My only choice would be to jump straight out of the fifty-foot tree. Silently hoping I didn't break my ankles—or any other bone in my body—when I actually hit the ground, I let go of the branch and let myself drop out the tree.

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