Chapter 12

Thanks to you guys who reviewed, just reached 200 that miraculous milestone! Seriously, there are balloons filling up my room right now. Never in wildest dreams could I have imagined that I'd get 30,000+ views to my story, reviews, follows and favourites in the hundreds. Can't thank you all enough.

Artemis' POV

The guy was powerful near water, I was willing to admit that. I supposed that it was hard to deny that fact when standing helpless in an unbreakable bubble of water as he sat on the shore, relaxedly dipping his feet into the river. I'd tried all of the tricks to get out but the walls couldn't be broken, the sphere could not be moved unless by him and the water was somehow blocking my own powers, meaning that I couldn't even teleport out of there. As I said, I had no idea how he was doing it; sometimes you just had to sit back and applaud your opponent's ability. This was definitely NOT one of those moments. There was no way that I was going to admit defeat to him, especially when he was having such a good time deploying his wide variety of shudder-worthy, feeble water and wish related puns.

"What does it eel like in there?" He chortled mischievously, sending ripples through the water as he kicked with his feet. It seemed as if he'd given up on capture the flag for the express purpose of annoying me.

I cringed at the obvious, perhaps even intentionally weak joke. "Aren't you supposed to be playing a competitive game of capture the flag right now?"

"I'm fine right here, actually." He put on a thinking face as if weighing up the options. "Wouldn't be surprised if your girls have already won."

I nodded proudly, "They're good, aren't they?"

As if on cue, there came a fierce roar from another part of the forest, swiftly followed by the sound of a group of ear-piercing screams. Judging by the femininity of the bellow, I guessed that Thalia had decided that to introduce her good friend 'Aegis' to the unfortunate campers. Judging by the vaguely amused expression on Perseus' face, I supposed that he'd come to that conclusion as well.

"Looks like Thalia has fought off your attack." I smirked at the son of Poseidon despite my position. "You campers are no match for my hunters even without me."

The demigod shrugged his shoulders, "Well, that could be true. On on the other hand, we both know that Thalia has a bit of a tendency to go overboard with the whole fighting business."

I noticed that the water layer of my bubble was getting thinner and less powerful; Perseus obviously wasn't going to have the energy to keep my prison up indefinitely. If I could just keep him talking...

"What do you mean?" I inquired politely, inwardly wondering if he actually cared who won this game of capture the flag.

He explained, "I bet that Thalia won't be able to resist the prospect of chasing and humiliating the poor guys who she's just terrified to death. Now correct me if I'm wrong-"

I butted in, "Oh I will certainly do that."

"Thank you," He glared at me before continuing, "... but that will leave your flag relatively vulnerable to the other two groups of fighters that we have closing in from the other sides."

Inwardly, my body was just starting to call for panic stations. I kept on talking, "Then I assume that you are focusing mainly on attack? Your flag must be quite sparsely guarded."

"Tough talk for the person who's trapped in a giant bubble." He grinned annoyingly, knowing that he had the upper hand in this battle of mind games. "I reckon that you underestimate the efficiency of the tonnes of traps that we have around the place; your girls won't be so dangerous when they've been blown fifty feet into the air. The treetop archers should be handy as well. Experts in camouflage and shooting, easily as good as your hunters. Any invaders will be peppered repeatedly, and they won't even know where the arrows are coming from. And obviously they'd have to get past this river, a difficult task considering that I'm obviously putting my full attention into guarding it."

From the other side of the river, there came a loud rustling noise from a bush followed by the recognisable quick thumps against the ground of somebody running. It was my turn to smirk at Perseus, "I reckon that you underestimate the power of an eavesdropping hunter."

His expression moulded into one of fury as he jumped from his sitting position on the river bank and made to charge after my clever hunter. He may have not particularly cared about the outcome of the game, but I guessed that he didn't want to be the person responsible for losing. His concentration on my watery prison evaporated, causing its walls to collapse around me and I plummeted down into the river with a splash.

"Sorry!" He shouted back as he ran after the girl. It seemed that he had enough time for one more cringe-worthy pun, "I didn't do that on porpoise."

I rolled my eyes, swimming from the freezing cold water of the river in Winter. Heaving myself onto the bank, my teeth chattered uncontrollably and I shuddered at the sudden intensity of the cold. My clothes, my hair, my skin; all were soaked

"I've been through worse," I reminded myself strictly. Percy had told me everything about the layout of their defence; getting to the flag was going to be like taking sweets from a baby. So, doing my best to ignore the cold I sneaked into the enemy side of the forest, weaving my way through the trees silently. Rolling into cover behind a rose bush, I focused my vision on a point about one hundred metres away. As Goddess of the Moon, I had a good control over the darkness which meant that not only could I see clearly in pitch black, I could also use the dark to shroud me. At the point where I was focusing my vision, I could see an orange flag and two figures standing next to each other, obviously conversing about something. I seriously doubted that they were focusing on the task at hand; this was going to be too easy. Well, at least once I'd sorted out the treetop archers.

Percy's POV

The hunters were crafty little ones, that was for sure, and the one that I was chasing was certainly no exception. Her legs were short but somehow she was still really quick, she'd never stepped foot in this forest before and yet she seemed to know it better than me, and she seemed to naturally blend in with her surroundings. Being beaten in a race by a twelve year old was hardly a self-esteem booster.

"Will you stop running?" I shouted frustratedly through the trees. Leg speed had never been my strongest asset, although generally I'd been half-decent, and five years away with no cause for running had definitely not improved my proficiency.

The hunter still wasn't ready to play ball. "Get away from me, boy."

I felt a sharp pain in my stomach from where I'd been hit with the bullet a few days ago; Ouranus may have healed it but that didn't mean that it had never happened. The pain would probably be something that I'd have to deal with for the rest of my life.

I couldn't go on, the hurting too substantial. "Gods," I muttered, leaning over to clutch my stomach.

The girl turned back to look, maybe checking if I was okay; maybe she did still have some compassion for people of my gender. Not looking where she was going as her head was turned back to watch me, I noticed that if she continued on the same course then she would run into a large root which jutted up dangerously from the ground.

I summoned the breath to form words, "Watch out!"

The hunter turned to look but it was too late. Before she could stop, her ankle collided with the thick root and she was catapulted over to plant her face on the floor. Painfully, I limped over to where she was lying. Her face and bare arms covered in mud, she clutched her ankle with an iron grip, tightly enough that her knuckles were white as bone. The grimace on her face showed that she would be screaming or at least groaning if she hadn't been too proud to do so in front of a male.

"You okay?" I found myself asking. It was quite rare that somebody stopped to help an enemy in a game of capture the flag; the game was competitive with little room for compassion.

She tried to shove me away. "Go away, boy. I have no need for help from you."

I laughed heartily as I stood my ground, raising my eyebrows sceptically. "Naah, I reckon that you've busted your ankle. It's at least a sprain, maybe even a breakage and somehow I can't see that it will be easy for you to get medical help when you can't even walk."

She didn't reply, probably mulling over her options. On the one hand, she knew that I was speaking the truth and that she'd never get out of the forest without some kind of assistance. However, I was a boy and lying around in the mud waiting for help from a female was probably preferable than employing my help for her.

I rolled my eyes, still smiling at the impressive stubbornness that Artemis managed to drill into her hunters. "Come on, there's no shame in being helped by a guy every once in a while. Would it make you feel better if you knew that I'm the friend of both your leader and her lieutenant?"

"Are you the boy who saved Thalia's life?" She asked incredulously, comprehension visibly dawning on her.

I shuffled around in my shoes awkwardly; that was something that I didn't want to think about. "I'd rather not talk about that, if you don't mind, but yes, it was me."

After a few moments more of thinking, she seemed to decide that I was a semi-acceptable creature.

"So do you want my help or not?" I checked, fairly sure by this point that the answer was going to be yes. A bit of name dropping always came in handy – the number of times that I'd just thrown in a casual 'oh, did I mention that my dad's the ancient god of the sea?' was pretty substantial by that point. As I'd thought, she shyly nodded her head and I moved to lift her up. She was pretty light; even as low on energy as I was it wasn't difficult to carry her.

"You're Percy Jackson or something, right?" She checked once in my grip, "Thalia's talked about you a little bit."

I nodded my confirmation. "That's right. What about you, would you happen to have a name?"

"Briony. It's horrible, isn't it? Apparently my mother, who's Athena by the way, chose it."

A daughter of Athena, ey? Observing her closer, she did actually bear some resemblance to Annabeth. They shared the same grey, wise and observing eyes, the ever concentrating facial expressions and the general air of great knowledge. Unlike my old friend, Briony had rather short, brown and almost masculine hair, presumably cut for the express purpose of efficiency.

"My ex-girlfriend is a daughter of Athena," I blurted out, immediately wondering why I'd said it.

Briony nodded awkwardly. "Annabeth something? Thalia talks about her as well."

"That's her." I confirmed. Why on earth was I talking to this hunter, a twelve year old stranger, about my love life? Life probably couldn't have got any weirder.

The hunter wriggled around in my arms uncomfortably. "You two not together any more? Thalia seemed to think that you were inseparable."

Okay, scratch what I said earlier. The conversation had just reached unexplored territories of weirdness, new galaxies even. Yet somehow, I found myself telling her about everything that had happened, how everything had changed over the course of the last five years. She was a good listener.

Jason's POV

I'd just won us the game of capture the flag, ending probably the most embarrassing streak in demigod history. Losing fifty six matches on the trot was definitely not something to be proud of. Once Thalia had gone chasing after Annabeth's team of five, I'd known that their flag was ours as both my group and Clarisse's took the opportunity to move in for the kill. After the number of fights against giants, demigods, monsters, titans and even gods that I'd been in, taking out a few surprised and outnumbered hunters hadn't been the hardest task of my life. All that it took after that was a long sprint to the river, obviously being careful to avoid my sister, and the hopes that our defence team had managed to stop our own flag from being taken. As I'd been running, the hopes of this had been fairly slim seeing as I hadn't seen Artemis defending their flag. However good I thought that our defence set up was, they weren't made to withstand a competitive goddess. The trees and vegetation that I'd come to love had been a blur beside me as my legs carried me at a pace that a cheetah would have been jealous of. My desperation to win had pumped me through of coursing, powerful adrenaline; this game of capture the flag hadn't only been a contest between two rival teams, it had also been a sibling contest. Boasting to Thalia about our victory was going to be glorious. As I crossed the river, slightly concerned that Percy was nowhere to be seen, a horn loud enough to cover the entire forest sounded and my worries dissipated. It was the victory horn. We'd won.

The campers around me literally jumped with joy, some of them having been around long enough that they had suffered from various defeats at the hands of the hunters.

A grin covered my face from ear-to-ear. "Well done, guys! We did it!"

Looking like a parade of high fiving, screaming, celebrating representatives for a major lunatic asylum, we slowly partied out of the forest as everybody savoured the joy of triumph. Piper just about made my efforts even more worth it by coming to kiss me, much to the apparent distaste of the rest of the team, but I figured that we deserved it.

We reached the Big House at the same time as the hunters, who judging by their sour expressions and hushed tones, were already formulating excuses. My sister looked absolutely livid, her face red with shame and anger; she never had been a particularly good loser. Knowing that the game had been theirs to win probably didn't help her mood.

Chiron cleared his throat, a proud smile spreading across his face despite his best efforts to stay an unprejudiced judge. "A good game, teams, but unfortunately there could only be one winning side. Congratulations to the Camp Half-Blood Team!"

The contrast of our roars of approval and the hunters' weak smattering of applause was pretty comical. A new round of fist pumps circulated, although I was pretty sure that this time it was for the express and only purpose of annoying the hunters.

Thalia led the dejected hunters away, her body seemingly crackling slightly in a way that we children of Jupiter/Zeus do when we are annoyed. "Where on earth's Artemis, anyway?"

Before I could wonder the same, Piper came and grabbed my hand again. A whispered proposal to 'find somewhere a bit quieter' was all I needed to retire for the night. After congratulating the rest of the team one last time, I let her lead us away for whatever it was that she had planned.

Artemis' POV

When I finally got the guts to leave the forest and face up to the reality that we'd managed to lose, fortunately everybody else had found themselves had vacated the area around the Big House. I guessed that the campers had brought their victory celebrations elsewhere and my hunters had probably gone off to sulk. Thalia in particular, I knew, would be furious at the loss. Sitting down on the fence near the light blue building's door, I wondered whether the loss had been my fault; my task had been to take the enemy flag, yet I'd failed. I had been supposed to clear the way of any enemy guards, but I hadn't managed to do it on time. What made everything even worse was that I'd been so close to taking their flag; right on the cusp of stopping them from winning after breaking through their defences. Just as I'd been about to grab their flag, the annoying twin guards defeated before me, the horn had sounded and all of my hard work had been for nothing; I'd been too slow.

The sound of laughter came from the entrance to the forest and I slid from the fence, my first reaction being to hide myself. I didn't particularly wanted to be seen in such a lonely state by two jeering campers, basking in the joy of their undeserved victory.

A shot of anger coursed through me as I realised who the two people were. "Briony? What on earth are you doing in a the arms of a male?"

The raven-haired demigod smiled infectiously; whether he was laughing at my reaction or the fact that his team had won the game, I didn't know. "Good evening to you too, Lady Artemis."

"I'll deal with you later." I pointed an accusing finger at the son of Poseidon before turning to my hunter. "Briony, you need to explain yourself now."

A regretful look spread across her face, as if for the first time realising that she had done wrong. "I am sorry, my lady. My ankle got sprained in the game and I let Percy carry me away to get medical help, I thought that it would be okay seeing as you two are friends and all."

It was my turn to feel regretful, mentally rebuking myself for not realising that she could have had some kind of injury. "Right." I replied gruffly, unwilling to admit my mistake. "Go and get Chiron to sort it out, then. And be more cautious next time, we don't have room for carelessness in the hunters."

Perseus' smile was replaced with an expression of bewilderment at how the situation had developed, looking at me almost distastefully. I unwillingly felt myself wilt a little under his glare, but held my ground stubbornly. There was silence as Briony clambered ungracefully from his arms, wincing terribly as she limped up the steps and into the Big House, where we could see the silhouette of the centaur playing cards in the front room.

Waiting until the hunter had closed the door behind her, Perseus glared at me again. "What on earth was that, Artemis?"

Mercifully ignoring his disrespectful use of my first name, I replied, "My hunters have to be independent. She must learn from her mistakes."

"Everyone makes mistakes, Artemis!" The twenty-two year old replied with a slow and sad shake of his head. "It was my fault, anyhow. I made her accept my help."

I crossed my arms, raising my eyebrows. "Yes, by telling her that we were friends, I gather?"

"Guilty as charged," His lips formed a smile, but it never reached his green eyes. "Is there something wrong with that now?"

"Well it wasn't exactly truthful, was it?" I asked, confused at his reaction.

Waiting for a moment as if checking that he'd heard me correctly, a look of distasteful amazement spread across his face and a short, humourless bark of laughter escaped from his mouth. His head continued to slowly shake, amazed that somebody could be so unintentionally insulting. I supposed that what I'd said could have been classed as a little insensitive.

I held up my hand apologetically. "Okay, that didn't come out as I'd intended-"

"Don't even bother trying to explain yourself, Artemis." He sighed sadly. "If that's what you think, then there's nothing that I can do to change that. I just misjudged our relationship."

Not knowing exactly how to reply to that, I simply continued. "Look, Perseus. I want you to stay away from my hunters, we are supposed to stay away from you males."

He let out another short laugh. "That was your cue to apologise, not continue insulting me!"

I ignored him. "Just stay away from my girls, Perseus. I don't want any of them deciding that they are attracted to you, or something, and then leaving the hunt."

"I think that you overestimate my skills with girls, Artemis." The demigod replied, his tone rather sour. "I haven't had a lot of success in that department."

"Whatever." I told him flatly. "Just remember what I said. Stay away."

With a suddenly alarming ferocity, he threw his sword to the floor furiously. His eyes blazed with uncontrolled anger, like a the power of a tsunami, and his face was tomato red.

"You are intolerable, you know that?" He bellowed scarily. "How is it that one moment I can be having a really good time with you, making jokes and kidding around, and the next you're telling me that I can't be trusted to be in the general vicinity of your hunters? Is it because you lost the stupid game? Are you really that competitive? You're reminding me of everything that I utterly despise in the rest of the other Olympians: anger, mistrust, stubbornness. Gods, I thought that you were the only bearable one of all of them. And how could you be so hideously insensitive? You know full well that I've been struggling to integrate with the rest of the camp, you're just about the only person I've told, but at least I thought that I had one friend in you."

I could do nothing but stand there as the torrent of insults and abuse was thrown at me. Maybe I knew that it was true, or maybe I just didn't know where to start, but no reply escaped from my lips. This alone was alarming; normally I was good at creating improvised retorts. He looked at me expectantly, looking so enraged that I almost expected steam to emerge from his ears. I realised too late that some kind of apology might have been what he was waiting for, and before I could even start to formulate the words he had stormed off with a disgustful groan.

"Boys." I tutted frustratedly, before going to round up my girls.

There we go, finally got it finished. Don't know whether a few people will be annoyed at the fact that Percy and Artemis are arguing again, but I think that it should be like that if I'm going to keep their relationship believable. It is supposed to be the classic kind of opposites attract pairing, so please understand that it is going to take a long time and there are realistically going to be some spats along the way. I also hope that people don't get annoyed that Artemis was such an obvious bitch at the end; she's supposed to be really competitive, obviously ridiculously strict about her nomale policy and also, I've always felt her to be almost autistic in terms of social skills apart from with her hunters. She doesn't seem to have the best comprehension of what's tactful and what's not. That's how I think of her, anyway.

Thanks for reading, even bigger thanks to those of you who write a review and I'll see you next time.

Charlie.

PS - For now, I've stopped replying to your reviews by leaving one of my own because I doubted that many people were noticing that I'd done so, but if you do want a reply then just tell me in your review and I'll either PM you or leave a review myself. Thanks!