Dinnertime was a pretty miserable affair for Percy and Thalia, who were sitting by themselves, and looking miserable about it, the Hephaestus, Ares, Artemis and Hermes tables were the only ones with more than five people on, there were three of Apollo's children, four Demeter, both of Mr D's, Athena had four and Aphrodite had four, in total I counted thirty seven campers and twenty five Hunters. On the whole, dinner was uneventful, the Stolls were trying to talk Nico into playing poker with them, but wisely enough Nico was refusing, the Hunters were loud on their table, whilst the Athena campers were silent. I sacrifice a portion of my dinner to Coeus, instead of my usual sacrifice to Mum, Chiron made a toast to the Gods, and welcomed the Hunters of Artemis, to lacklustre applause, he also announced the game of capture the flag, to much more applause. The rules were as usual, no sharp arrowheads, no dangerous magic, no legilimency, no dismembering, no excessive injuries.
The next morning Zoë caused an uproar, she told anyone who would listen, and quite a few who would not, that the Hunters needed to leave camp, when reminded that they needed orders from Artemis, Zoë said that Artemis had been kidnapped, and was now lost, this caused quite the uproar in camp, only settled by Chiron telling her in no uncertain terms to be quiet.
Grover had also been busy, he had found a Hunter's pamphlet in Annabeth's backpack, which did not really make sense, but it made Grover and Percy think Annabeth had been about to join them, and finally, to top everything off, Percy had a demigod dream.
"What did you see?" Grover asked him.
"It was a shadowy foggy hill, covered in ruins, Luke was holding something heavy, it was killing him, but I couldn't see what, it looked like the fog was crushing him. Then, something rumbled, and things collapsed, huge black rock like things fell, but Annabeth caught them, she took the whatever from Luke, then Luke walked off, leaving her with the weight," Percy swallowed and wiped his eyes. I added weird mist and black rock to my list of things to look out for in the future.
That evening was the capture the flag game, it was amazing, every camper donned armour to play, even the Aphrodite cabin got involved, apparently they had a feud to settle with the Hunters. I was put on defence with Lou Ellen, the Hephaestus cabin, and most of the inexperienced campers. Nico looked rather silly in his too big helmet, ridiculously oversized breastplate, and sword that he could barely raise, but he looked happy and excited, so no-one commented about it. "Heroes," Chiron started his pre-game speech, "you know the rules! Demigods to the west, Hunters to the east, the river is the boundary. I will be referee and medic, no intentional maiming, all non-lethal magic items are allowed, no legilimency, without further ado, to your positions.
Thalia laid out the plan for the attackers, which I ignored, seeing as I was in defence, she set Percy as head of defence, which meant we had no plans seeing as the Athena campers were leading the raiding squads. I placed an illusion stone on top of Zeus' fist, a pile of rocks which looks like a fist from one angle, instantly an illusion flag appeared on the rock pile, the actual flag was then tied up a climbable tree by Lou Ellen. I took my position, carefully eyeing the trees, relying on my sight alone was more difficult thanks to the trees, I heard movement, I turned, sword and wand at the ready, it was only Percy running off into the woods, I sighed, 'what happened to the sort of plan of stand around and wait?'
As soon as Percy was out of earshot the Hunters melted out the trees, bows drawn, arrows notched, "surrender," one said.
"Why?" I asked, "we outnumber you," which was true, there were ten of them, and eighteen of us.
"We have bows," she replied.
"No you don't," I said.
"Yes we do," I set fire to the bow strings.
"No, you don't," I said, the campers advanced.
"Bah, we still win," one Hunter said.
"Why?" I asked, I felt someone grab the illusion, I turned to see a startled Zoë trying to grab the air, "sorry Zoë, we outsmarted you," the other campers look equally surprised.
Zoë then began cursing in an ancient language that I did not know, but I got the gist, she lunged at me, hunting knife drawn, I was barely able to create a shield, stopping the knife inches from my shoulder. The Hunters and Campers had sprung into action, fighting was going on around me, but I was unable to help because I was too busy trying to stop myself from become a shish kebab. Zoë was really fast, I was stuck playing defensive, as I raised shield after shield. Rather annoyingly her knife appeared to be magic and was disrupting my shields when I raised them, causing them to collapse after each block. Normally at this point I would use legilimency, but, as that was not allowed I was stuck, I could not concentrate long enough to cast a different spell. I could hear something over the sound of the fighting, it was either cheering, shouting, or screaming, it was kind of hard to tell. Zoë stabbed at me, I managed to step to the side, and, in a split second decision, I push her. She overbalanced and fell, her knife spinning off into the undergrowth, she tried to get up, but, I stupefied her, and she collapsed again.
I turned back to the others, the Hephaestus cabin had manages to set up a phalanx, whilst the Hunters kept trying to get around it, the other campers were scattered around the clearing, most either unconscious, scrambling off into the undergrowth, or sitting still, evidently they were technically dead. One Huntress saw me watching and decided I would make easy pickings, having not noticed the unconscious Zoë behind me, she drew her knife and advanced on me, "I like your shoes," I said, the Huntress looked down, and I stupefied her, I sighed, "why do people fall for that one?"
The remaining four Huntresses had now noticed me, and the unconscious Zoë behind me, they broke off into the forest, and fled, Beckendorf came over panting from exhaustion, "well, I think we got them." He sat down on a stump, there was a cut on his arm and his forehead, but they were not deep, and were already scabbing over.
"Yep, so, hands up who's left?" I asked the clearing. Aside from Beckendorf, four other Hephaestus campers raised their hands, as did Nico, and Drew from Aphrodite, who must have talked them out of fighting, annoyingly, Lou Ellen did not raise her hand so we down one child of Hecate.
"Well, we better get back to guarding, so, where is the flag?" Beckendorf asked.
"Over there," I said, they looked over to see the flag, on its standard, halfway up a half fallen oak.
Beckendorf laughed, "great idea, but a little warning would have been nice."
"Well, then you would have kept looking at it, if you knew the flag wasn't real you might not have guarded it as well, they might have guessed something was up."
"I suppose you're right, I'm not exactly a child of Apollo when it comes to acting," Beckendorf said with a chuckle as he stood up. "Well, back to position," he said to the other demigods who had gotten their breath back, except Nico who was still panting like a steam train.
We took up our positions again, but it turned out to be unnecessary, the conch horn blew only two minutes later after no sign of another attack by the Hunters. Nico climbed up the tree and brought the flag back down, and I deactivated my illusion stone, and put it back in my pocket.
I am so going to kill my brother (not really, before someone calls the police on me), I finally managed to get a straight answer out of him, he was trying to annoy me and make me look bad, so he signed the review as me on the 20th chapter and then saw the person who was going through the story reviewing every chapter and copied their way of signing reviews, I hate him so much right now (not that I don't normally)