They were slightly late to the meeting, but they didn't seem to have missed anything, at least as far as Kieran could tell. He and Percy just stood in the back near the Hypnos kids whose names he kept forgetting.

Their team had formed a kind of half circle around Travis, Connor, and Brenna (who he was guessing was probably responsible for most of their strategy since the other two literally just got back). He could see Clarisse up at the front, and wow their team was a lot bigger than he'd thought it was gonna be.

"…so, all three of you came up with this plan, huh," Clarisse said, not sounding happy about that possibility. "Let's hear it…"

Please, please, not flag-guarding… Kieran thought. He'd be fine with literally anything else. He wasn't too concerned about what their actual strategy would be; whatever it was, he wouldn't be doing anything important. Probably. Hopefully.

"All right, first off: Hermes and Poseidon cabins, border patrol. Our job is to make sure no one comes in, and we'll be ready if they rush us," Travis said.

"Which they won't, that's not Malcolm's style," Connor added, "but they'll definitely have to stop and think about what to do next."

"Everyone else is getting through to their side while they're distracted," Travis finished.

What? That couldn't be right, they were just gonna… wow, okay.

"So no one's guarding the flag, then," Clarisse pointed out. "And we're putting it…?"

"Oh! No, we've got that covered. Diego and Chris can do it. Just take the flag, I dunno, as far away from the border as possible and figure it out from there. The rest of us shouldn't know exactly where it is in case… well, they've got the Aphrodite cabin," Brenna said. "Oh, and Damien, you're guarding jail. We're gonna have one of those this time."

Chris raised his hand. "Uh, why us? I mean, I'm cool with it, but –"

"They're only gonna be able to get a couple people in at a time, or at least, that's the idea – which reminds me, Iris cabin, you're gonna be at Zeus's Fist, I'll explain why in a bit – and you two can absolutely take anyone they've got," she interrupted.

"And so could most of my cabin. So why us?" Diego asked. Kieran was wondering that too. Sure, the two of them hung out, but if they were going for fighting ability, why not two people from the Ares cabin?

"We think they're gonna play more defensively," Travis said, "because, well, look at their team, but y'know who's gonna be coming for us?"

"Athena and Nike," Clarisse supplied. "I get it now…"

Percy whispered to Kieran, "I don't?"

"They'll probably explain," he replied.

"No way is Jess not on offense," Brenna said. Gods, that smirk on her face was terrifying. He could barely see that far, but still! "Even if they put her somewhere else… she'll be on offense."

Kieran was kinda glad he wasn't standing by Diego when she said that. He probably wasn't happy about that reason. Or maybe he was? He wasn't arguing, anyways.

"Who's Jess?" Percy whispered. Oh, right, he wasn't around for… a lot of the controversy that happened after last summer.

"Daughter of Nike. Diego's girlfriend," Kieran explained. Wait, did Percy know who he was?

"Chris, you're there because you won't pick a fight with him because you're bored, unlike some people I know." She had to have been looking at the Ares cabin when she said that. "Oh, and you both speak Spanish. Most of the other team doesn't," Brenna continued. "Any questions?"

"What are we doing at Zeus's Fist?" Jasmine asked.

Travis and Connor exchanged a look. Like, of course she forgot to explain. "You're waiting there so people can bring you prisoners to take to jail," Travis said.

"It's like a shuttle system," Connor explained, "so only you two and Damien will actually know where the jail is. That way they can't find out about it until they get there and we hopefully won't have any rescue attempts."

"…yeah, what they said," Brenna added. "Sorry, should've mentioned that earlier. Other questions?"

"What the actual Hades is on your head?" Huh? She didn't have… oh, no, Sean was right, that was not part of her helmet. Plumes weren't that big but it sure was blue. If Kieran had to guess he'd go with a headband or something, she wore those a lot, but they didn't usually show with armor.

Her less-than-helpful answer was, "Don't worry about it."

"Well, Malcolm won't predict this, I think that's what you were going for, but why not a full offensive charge? Percy could probably handle the border by himself," Clarisse said before anyone could demand a further explanation.

"Uh… maybe? But I'd rather not," Percy responded loud enough for her to hear, causing a lot of heads to turn their way.

"They'd probably be prepared for that anyways," Travis added. "Jake brought back a lot of booby traps, guys. So – whoops, probably should've mentioned that sooner. Watch out for those, and if anyone somehow gets the flag, our cabin's gonna rush 'em… or the people going after them if it's us."

"Right, let's go crack some skulls and stop Athena from winning for the third time in a row!" Connor exclaimed.

And on that note, the blue team got into position. Kieran wasn't sure where he was supposed to go apart from generally being by the river somewhere so he just followed the first Hermes kid he saw – who happened to be Cecil.

As much as he actually did like Capture the Flag, he hated these first few minutes where everyone and everything was making noise. The normal camp sounds, he'd gotten used to, but he still jumped every time he heard metal hitting metal or all the branches and twigs people broke when they walked. The crunching leaves were fine, though. He liked those. They were nice.

"Hey guys, how do we wanna do this? Bait them into crossing? Just stand there and look intimidating?" Sean asked from behind Kieran, who spun around and almost hit him with the shaft of his trident… but he didn't, so everything was fine.

"I'm going for 'don't get drenched by Percy', myself," Cecil replied like he wasn't surprised he was being followed.

"It's just water, it's not so bad," Kieran said, glaring at Sean because why did he have to scare him like that?

Cecil looked around, then knocked on his wooden buckler despite being in the forest. It was rude to just knock on dryads' trees for no reason. "Says the guy who can't drown?"

"He can, though," Sean replied before Kieran could come to his own defense. "It's freshwater."

Yeah, he'd found out the hard way that his lungs or whatever could only tolerate breathing freshwater for so long before giving up. He'd tried to sleep in the canoe lake once because this naiad he knew, Still, suggested it so she could help him not get caught out after curfew and it'd been a mistake.

"Well, we're not gonna be scaring anyone, that's for sure," Kieran said, going back to Sean's original questions. At this point he just assumed the three of them would stay together.

"Yeah, cause Cecil's got his plume on backwards. I'm gonna fix it, hold still," Sean said.

Cecil shrugged, but crouched down anyways so he could reach. "It really doesn't matter which way… oh, guess we'll stay here, Chiron's about to start the game."

Sure enough, Chiron's magically-amplified voice could be heard. "…flags must be visible. Purposeful maiming will be met with a loss of dessert privileges for the one responsible. No help may be obtained from nature spirits to learn the location of the other team's flag."

That last rule was newer, and it was absolutely added because of that one child of Eros… and a good portion of the Aphrodite cabin. "Pfft, but you can still flirt with the other team to learn that," Sean grumbled.

Oh, that's why Brenna didn't want anyone to know for sure where the flag was. "Drew's gonna be busy," Kieran said.

"Right, she's actually 'participating' for once, if you can call it that," Sean replied. "Calling it now, she and Brenna spend the whole game on opposite sides of the river yelling at each other."

"So… every time we play this game, then?" Cecil responded jokingly. "Wait, no, sometimes they're on the same team."

"Drew's really lucky that the one thing that's banned in Capture the Flag is guns, that's all I'm gonna say."

"And fire," Kieran added. "Can't have that around." He could see some of the red team approaching the border – the game must've officially started while they'd been talking. It looked like his team's plan was actually working so far, probably because people kept forgetting that Clarisse's spear was electric. He could hear it buzzing.

Suddenly, the river roared to life, faster than any mortal could run. Someone was trying to get past Percy, wherever he'd ended up – should Kieran have stayed with him? It was unlikely that they'd been successful.

He heard a loud splash. Had someone fallen, close to where his group was?

"We're about to see some action!" Cecil warned. He didn't sound very happy about it, and Kieran couldn't blame him. "The whole border and they go for us?"

Once he'd turned towards the source of the noise, Kieran could see that it was Jake, Nyssa, Paolo, and Benjamin (another son of Hebe). They were absolutely gonna make it across, even if Paolo had just fallen in the water.

"So, your team just… thinks this wall of people will stop us?" Nyssa asked. While she was talking, Paolo got to his feet and the three guys started a mad dash across the border. Jake and Paolo were fast enough; Benjamin probably would've made it too, but Kieran reflexively held out the shaft of his trident to trip him as he ran by; Sean and Cecil managed to pin him down.

"So, you think that was a good distraction?" Sean retorted.

"It worked, didn't it?" Nyssa replied, starting to walk away.

As Cecil, Sean, and Benjamin debated whether or not jail was an option, Kieran called after her, "Aren't you coming over?"

Not that he wanted to fight her. He really, really didn't. She could absolutely beat all three of them, even if Sean and Cecil weren't busy. "No thanks, I'll try my luck further west," she called back… as she headed east. She was absolutely up to something.

"Guys! We've got a prisoner to transfer!" Sean reminded them. "I can't hold him alone, so who's coming with me?"

Huh? Why couldn't all three of them just go? Maybe he was concerned about leaving their small section of river unguarded?

"You're lucky I can't reach my sword," Benjamin muttered.

Sean kicked it further away from him. "Silence, prisoner! Kieran, you're with me. Cecil, stay here and watch the border!" he ordered.

"Don't know why I expected anything else," Cecil said.

"Hey! Nyssa! Get back here and help me!" Benjamin yelled. She was probably too far away to hear him.

"So are we carrying him or marching him?" Kieran asked, as if the two of them were actually physically capable of making that first option work. But it wasn't like he knew that.

"Oh, marching, definitely," Sean replied. "The transfer point's a ways out."

Benjamin spat on the ground. "Good! I'll ditch you losers before we get there!" Coming from someone who was still being pinned down, that didn't mean too much.

"…right, you do that," Sean said flatly. He finally drew his own sword. "Here's the thing, tough guy: I don't care about dessert privileges. If you wanna walk after this game's over, you'd better behave yourself."

"Oh please, you wouldn't do that."

Oh, no, he absolutely would. "Uh, bro, please don't," was Cecil's contribution.

Kieran stood by to grab Benjamin's arms as the other two got up. For all his talk, he didn't actually make an attempt to leave until Kieran and Sean each had one of his arms and Sean wasn't actively threatening him anymore. By some miracle, they held on.

"Well, you guys have fun," Cecil said as if they were actually about to do something fun. "I'll be here."

The way to Zeus's Fist was quiet. As they walked, it occurred to Kieran for the first time that he really should've brought a net. Thanks to Arts and Crafts, he was up to three of those. He hadn't brought any rope at all, come to think of it.

"I sure hope our people are actually at the transfer point," Sean muttered.

"They will be." Probably. Oh no, he hadn't thought about what they'd do if they couldn't make Benjamin someone else's problem.

Fortunately, it wasn't an issue. Butch and Jasmine were right where they were supposed to be, the latter holding several pairs of handcuffs. Where'd she even find those? Were they left over from the war?

"We'll take it from here, guys," she said as they gladly handed over custody of their prisoner. "I'll take this – you can have it back at campfire." She removed Benjamin's sword belt and set it down near a few other weapons. Sean handed over Benjamin's actual sword as well.

They seemed to have a kind of system down. Once Jasmine was finished restraining Benjamin, Butch clapped him on the shoulder. "You're coming with me, kid.'

"I'm sixteen!" he protested. Huh. He looked way too… oh, right, Hebe.

"How many prisoners so far?" Sean asked.

"He's our fourth," Jasmine said proudly. "All from border patrol – no one's gotten to the flag yet."

"That we know of," Butch corrected.

Kieran really didn't want to leave Cecil alone for too long (in case more red team members were trying to cross over), but he also didn't want to make the others end their conversation. Fortunately, Sean saved him from having to decide what to do about that. "Well, we'll leave you to it then, good luck with this one."

Was that sarcasm? Knowing Sean, probably. The two of them started jogging back through the forest – started. Kieran almost ran into Sean when he suddenly slowed to a walk. "What is it? Did you hear something?"

"No, there's no one else here."

"Oh. Okay."

They walked in silence for a few seconds until Kieran remembered why he'd spoken up in the first place. "So why aren't we running?"

"I – uh – I'm just kinda tired, you know, from that guy and stuff. Speaking of guys, and stuff, wanna hang out this weekend?"

He was actually asking? That was a little weird. "Uh, sure? I mean, we hang out pretty much every day, man."

"Right. Yeah. Cool. I meant, uh…oh man, Cecil! He's waiting for us, we'd better get a move on!"

And just like that Sean took off at a sprint. Which was kinda impressive considering he was wearing full armor. He was the one who decided they should walk in the first place, though? Ah well, he had said he was tired, maybe he was just feeling less tired after the break. Kieran caught up to him easily enough, and they made good time back to where they'd left Cecil.

He wasn't alone. He was deep in conversation with someone on the red team. "Oh, thank the gods this Rodgers guy is good, I was worried when we lost Favre to the Vikings, but I guess even he can't make them any good," Cecil said, clearly not noticing that they'd returned.

"Right? At least the Bears have actual Superbowl wins… the Vikings just think they… oh… hey, guys…"

Kieran hadn't recognized Arianna at first, armor was fun that way sometimes, but he really should've since literally no one else at camp used a… whatever her weird spear thing was called. Cecil finally turned around and waved sheepishly. "Ugh, of course you're a Cheesehead," Sean complained. "Cecil wasn't bad enough on his own, now he's got an ally?"

"Bro, I had some before, everyone knows the Bears suck," he replied.

"True. The Vikings are still worse, though," Arianna said. Were they talking about football? They had to be talking about football. "So, uh…" She was gripping her weapon so tightly that it looked like she was trying to snap it in half. "What, we fight now?"

"Not unless you're planning on coming over here," Kieran said, glad that they were back to a topic he kinda knew things about. "By the way, congrats on getting claimed!"

She stared down at her shoes. "Thanks. I'm… really glad there weren't a lot of people around, the announcement earlier was bad enough…"

"Not used to all the people yet?" Cecil guessed. "Don't worry, they'll move on."

"I hope so. Miranda said it usually takes a few days, especially in the winter 'cause there's not much going on."

"Miranda… oh, crap, she was with you when you got here!" Cecil moaned.

It wasn't easy to tell with the helmet (it was a little big) but Kieran was sure that Arianna was grinning. "She was."

"You let someone through?!" Sean exclaimed. "Dude!"

"Hey, she asked me about football! I got distracted!"

Arianna casually stepped closer to the water. "Don't try it," Kieran warned, hoping that he sounded more intimidating than he felt. "I'll stop you."

"Not if I… no, wait, that wouldn't work… okay. See ya at the campfire!"

She ran off, probably to try and break through somewhere else. Not on his watch. "I'll be back, guys!" Kieran called as he took off after her.

He didn't know if the others had heard him or not. It didn't really matter; worst-case scenario, they'd probably just be annoyed with him for leaving. He could deal with that. Besides, he probably wouldn't need back-up if she was alone. Out of all the people at camp, she was the only one he liked his chances against if it came to a fight.

It didn't take him long to find her; she'd stopped after just half a mile (though she'd stayed ahead of him the whole way… it was a good thing she wasn't really used to armor yet or he might've lost her). Kieran hadn't crossed the border at any point… but she sure had. There was no way she knew he was there, he had the perfect chance to… uh…

Oh, come on, how'd she see him?

And then he heard the metallic creaks that he'd assumed were coming from his armor and he realized she was looking past him.

He turned around, and immediately wished he hadn't. "Oh, no way…"

Barely fifty feet behind him was a bronze dragon. Literally, a bronze dragon. An automaton. The thing was huge – at least ten feet tall and longer than the volleyball court. It didn't seem to have noticed them – it was walking away from the river, deeper into the forest, a trail of black smoke in its wake. "So dragons are real too…?" Arianna whispered. She sounded terrified, and he couldn't blame her. He didn't know where the automaton came from, and if it attacked…

It was a metal dragon. How could it be killed if it wasn't really alive? "We need to find Chiron," he heard himself whisper back. "He'll know what to do!" He sounded just as scared as she did, but he didn't care – he just wanted to get as far away from that dragon as possible.

"Yeah… truce?"

How was she still thinking about – they could so die if it turned around! "Sure, truce," he quickly agreed. Not getting crushed or eaten or set on fire or whatever that thing did to kill people was way higher on his list of priorities than winning a stupid game.

"Great, let's go!" They moved cautiously until they got within sight of the river, then all bets were off. If they just followed that, they'd be sure to find Chiron in his spot on the sidelines. Assuming he was still there, anyways.

It was then that Kieran realized, oh crap, there were campers and probably dryads deeper in the woods. Who probably had no idea how to deal with a bronze dragon (he sure didn't).

They had to find Chiron.

Author's Note: So... remember The Dragon Incident, y'all? It's time for The Dragon Incident. Next chapter we have another viewpoint switch, and I'm sure it's pretty obvious whose it's gonna be. But going back to this chapter, to clarify something quick, Kieran really doesn't understand romantic cues at all. If a girl acted the same way towards him as Sean did, he'd be just as confused. Also, random thing I'm weirdly proud of; I actually remembered things about the 2010 Packers season. It went a lot better for us than the current one...

Next time, I have to put a content warning (for medical stuff and PTSD depiction; the latter has always been in here, but it gets a warning when it gets too real while I'm writing) and our first set of translation footnotes.