Heads up: I'm honestly not quite sure how to disclaimer this one, but we've got some more Medical Stuff and PTSD (of the hard-to-categorize variety but if you're military it might be hard to read). Also this chapter isn't quite as long as it looks - there's a notes section at the end.

This was not how Diego thought Capture the Flag would go.

Well, okay, the flag-guarding he'd seen coming. Brenna knew he preferred playing defense. But there was an actual freaking bronze dragon crashing through the trees. No one had seen that thing since Beckendorf died! Where had it been? And more importantly…

How were he and Chris supposed to deal with all the people they'd captured when it inevitably decided to attack?

At the time, just knocking people down and tying them to nearby trees seemed like a great idea. Chris said it'd be more efficient, and he'd brought rope. They'd saved a lot of time by just… not using the jail.

And now it was about to bite them in the ass. The dragon absolutely breathed fire, he remembered that much, and trees burned.

"You… you are gonna untie us, right?" a girl from the Aphrodite cabin whose name he should probably know asked.

"Not if they're smart," Laurel commented. "Which, I mean…"

"Is doubtful," Holly finished.

Diego rolled his eyes, not that they'd be able to see that from their position. He'd been hoping that Jess would be with them when they'd shown up, but no such luck. "¿Pues? ¿Qué debemos hacer?" No point in letting their prisoners know what they were saying before they had to. [1]

"Esto apesta… líbralos," Chris sighed. "Quieren vivir más que ganar." [2]

That was… doubtful. At least when it came to Laurel and Holly. "¡No manches! ¿En serio? Hermano, ellas ganarán si las matase." [3]

"¿Por qué no las preguntamos? Hey, guys, if we let you go, promise not to go for the flag and tick off the dragon?" Oh good, Chris knew exactly who he was referring to. Gods, the dragon was getting way too close, if they were fifty meters from the flag it was less than twenty. [4]

"Uh, are you crazy? I'm not passing up a free win!" Holly replied defiantly. None of their other prisoners seemed to share that view, except Laurel, of course. Why did those two always have to make everything difficult?

"¿Qué te conté? Hijas de Nike son locas," Diego muttered. [5]

"Tu novia es –" [6]

"Yo sé." If Jess had been there, she absolutely would've gone for the flag too. "But I guess the rest of you are free to go. Find Chiron." [7]

They cut the six people with the right priorities loose easily enough and wow, no one got closer to the flag! It was that easy. Nadie quería morir. Except, of course… [8]

"Diego, there's still a dragon, and we still have them. We need a plan!" Chris exclaimed, like he could've possibly forgotten about Laurel and Holly. Why did he have to come up with the plan? That was… well, honestly, probably something to ask Laurel or Holly about, or it would've been, anyways, if they weren't so focused on the damn game. Wait… he could use that!

It was kind of a cheap shot, he wasn't sure he could pull it off, but he also couldn't just let them get themselves killed. As much as he disliked them for totally legitimate reasons that had nothing to do with the fact that they hadn't even been on the same side of the war as Jess and they still felt the need to tell him he'd better be good to her "or else"… he couldn't leave them for the dragon. "Right, I'm working on it! Maybe we should just let them take this decoy flag, if they really want to fight a dragon for it…"

The flag was absolutely real – they did have a decoy, kind of, but there was no way anyone would mistake Brenna's headband for the real thing. She'd just figured it'd distract people. "We should, the real flag's hidden way better than this," Chris agreed, catching on.

"Oh come on, you didn't make an extra ten-foot banner," Holly scoffed.

"Uh, no, Connor stole one," Chris said. Oh, thank the gods he was good at this stuff, Diego had zero plans to back up his lie. "Chiron has back-ups just in the Big House and he's been busy this week without Mr. D. around."

"Ugh, he's telling the truth, sis, we had to use one last week!" Laurel groaned.

They had, because Laurel tore the last one in half when her team lost on a technicality. "You know what? We're so sure you won't find the real flag that we'll just cut you free now!"

Oh, shit, that was probably Diego's cue to do that. He had to make sure everyone else was out of there before he fought the dragon, after all. That was probably a bad idea, but he didn't care; it was his only idea. If he could lead it away from the trees somehow, or make it stay in one area, he could buy time for Jake or someone who knew how this thing worked to show up.

While he was thinking that over, he cut Laurel and Holly loose with one of his knives (even though he was already holding his doru in his right hand; he'd have more control with his dominant hand and a shorter blade). Jess thought it was excessive to carry three of those and a polearm, but he liked to be prepared. [9]

"There. Happy?" he asked. Holly bolted immediately and okay, why hadn't the dragon attacked yet? It was still moving towards them, slowly, maybe it just wasn't sure if they were threats.

"Thanks," Laurel said, rubbing her wrists. "But what are you gonna do?"

"Good question," Chris replied. "Hopefully not die."

"You'd better not, I'm not dealing with Jess at that funeral. You get me, Montoya?"

Huh, maybe they did care! "The plan is not dying… oh, and if you see Jake Mason –"

"Pssh, where do you think Holly went? We're not dumb, we'll find your real flag after the dragon's dealt with."

"…right. Get out of here," Diego said. She didn't need to be told twice.

Chris locked eyes with him (which was a lot easier for him than a lot of people, he didn't have to look up as far). "Tell me you're not gonna do what I think you're gonna do."

"¿Tienes una idea mejor? Dímela." [10]

"Clarisse –"

"Haría el mismo." [11]

"Ay, yo sé. Pero viejo, ¿tenemos que hacerlo?" [12]

Well yeah, the dragon wouldn't just sit there staring at them forever… wait. "You meant 'tienes', right?" [13]

"Uh, no, I'm not ditching you when this thing is right here."

Mierda. Putting Chris in danger was not part of the plan that he didn't have. There wasn't really time to argue, though. "Well, it's already seen us, so… hey! Dragon!" [14]

It sort of responded – it creaked and shook its head to the side. Oil was leaking out and that probably wasn't normal. "What do you want?" He was trying to freaking talk to the thing, what was he thinking? Diego repeated himself in Ancient Greek in case it was programmed or whatever for that.

The dragon opened its mouth and smoke came out, so it probably didn't understand. That was almost a relief; Diego understood Ancient Greek well enough, but that was a lot different than actually knowing how to say words. He got closer; he had to make sure it'd follow him away from the trees. Maybe he should just attack it… but then it might start with the fire, and the goal was not to burn down the forest.

"What if we just start running? It might chase us," Chris suggested.

"Good idea." If it worked. They'd just have to come up with something else if it didn't. "Where to?"

"The beach?"

Right, duh, that was the only place that made sense. "Sure! You go ahead, I'll catch up in a second!" He'd just realized something that could wreck their plan, such as it was.

"You sure about that?" Chris asked, regarding him suspiciously – for good reason. But if the dragon hadn't chased Laurel or Holly or anyone earlier, running might not be enough.

"Yeah. I'll be right behind you, I promise." Surprisingly, Chris didn't argue. Less surprisingly, Diego's hunch had been right; the dragon didn't seem to care what they did. He was gonna have to make it care.

There was already smoke coming from somewhere, so it might've already set something on fire. He'd have to be ready for more of that. His armor would do literally nothing to help in this situation (standard-issue armor wasn't exactly fireproof, and bronze was an excellent conductor of heat and electricity) but he only removed his helmet since the plume would definitely burn and he'd wasted enough time.

The dragon was watching intently. Was it…oh. There was clearly something wrong with its head, and… maybe it'd just been watching him the whole time.

It was trying to figure out if he was Beckendorf.

They looked nothing alike, but they'd had similar builds. And Silena wouldn't go near him after Beckendorf died because he sounded too much like – oh gods it was opening its mouth again.

Diego immediately dove to the left. He could feel the flames going past him. Hot, but not nearly as bad as it would've been if he hadn't moved. He'd probably been burned anyways but he didn't have time to care about that – he was up and running seconds later, towards the direction Chris had gone.

Chris was waiting about two hundred meters away. Why had he stopped? "¿Qué hiciste?" he demanded. [15]

"¡No hice nada! But it's following us now!" Diego had no time to share his theory, they had to run. Chris was faster, usually, but in full armor Diego could keep pace with him well enough. They kept running, not in a straight line because they weren't about to give it a direct line of fire, and after a couple minutes the trees started thinning out. [16]

They were close… and they weren't the only ones running through the woods.

"Ha! I finally caught you! The flag is mine!" Jess yelled triumphantly. Oh no, gods, this was not how he wanted to run into her and – wait, she was nowhere near the flag.

"Jess, do you not smell the smoke? Something's wrong and oh fuck something's coming," Brenna warned. She sounded so done.

Diego couldn't see either of them clearly but he could guess what had happened: either Jess actually fell for the decoy, which was extremely unlikely, or she just wanted to mess with Brenna. And they'd had the bad luck to end up close to where the woods ended.

There were so many words he wanted to yell but he went with "BRONZE DRAGON! RUN!"

Suddenly he could see Jess a lot better – she'd definitely just been pinning Brenna to the ground, but she'd gotten up very quickly. "Babe?"

"Gods, Jess, just fucking run!" Brenna hissed as Jess helped her up. Despite how tired she probably was, she took off at a full sprint in the same direction they were running. Jess followed suit, but not in the right direction.

No, she'd decided to go towards the dragon. Well, towards him and Chris, but they weren't all that far ahead of it, maybe fifteen meters. Diego honestly should've expected that, but now he really didn't want to turn and fight. He only did stupid, borderline-suicidal things when they wouldn't endanger anyone else and gods damn it Chris had used that against him earlier without him even realizing.

"We're leading it to the beach, right?" Jess asked. She was using her serious business voice and despite (or because of) the fact that they were in life-threatening danger he really wanted to kiss her right then. She always looked beautiful, but in battle armor, holding her sword, trying to figure out a plan of action so they wouldn't die? Hot as hell.

"Sí," Chris confirmed, reminding Diego that dragon fire was also hot and could kill him so maybe he should focus on avoiding that. After another few minutes Chris spoke up again. "¡Veo la playa!" [17]

"Um…" In Jess's words, her Spanish was just good enough to get her through her tía Ana's annual visits. They practiced during free time most days, but sometimes (most times) they got… distracted. Unless other people were there, then they actually got things done. Kind of. Sometimes. "I see it too! There's… a lot of people there!"

Someone had predicted where they were headed. Other than Brenna. She hadn't been far enough ahead of them to alert anyone. "Great!" Diego replied. He wasn't used to sprinting for long periods of time. "¿Ves Jake?" At this point he was just going with whichever language let him use fewer syllables. [18]

"Can't tell!"

Oh well, they'd be close enough to tell for sure soon. The dragon was gaining on them (more than it already had) now that the trees had thinned out; it had shot more flames at them, but none had come close to hitting. Yet.

Fortunately, only a few small brush fires had started from all that, so the nymphs should be able to manage those. They wouldn't be happy about it, but it wasn't like anyone actually provoked the dragon so they'd probably be more mad at that thing than the campers.

Someone was coming out to meet them, hopefully… yes! Jake! Thank the gods. "Does this thing deactivate?" Chris called.

"No idea! But we'll take it from here, guys – hey, Shane, Nyssa, Christopher, help me distract him! Harley, see if you can find any of that oil he likes!"

The dragon stopped chasing them; it (he?) must've recognized Jake's voice. They didn't stop running, though, not until they'd made it to the rest of the campers gathered further away.

Then Diego finally acknowledged how heavy his legs felt and just how much he needed air. And water, was he carrying any… yes, he had his canteen, which he emptied in seconds. He'd never put away his spear, either, which was great because he needed to use it to stay upright. Jess had given up on standing entirely and lay flat on her back.

In contrast, Chris seemed pretty much fine; not surprising, Hermes kids were pretty great at running for their lives. That just meant he got to give the report to Chiron, who was coming to meet them.

A couple more people pushed their way through to the front of the crowd (pretty much everyone had turned to watch the Hephaestus cabin deal with the dragon), and when Diego saw that it was Clarisse and Will he wished he could report to Chiron right away instead (though he'd no doubt have to anyways once Chris was finished). "Tell me you punks didn't fight that thing," Clarisse growled, glaring directly at Jess as Will checked her for injuries. "I thought your cabin only picked fights you could win."

"We ran… into her… after it started… trying to kill us, lay off!" Diego snapped. She could at least get her assumptions right; Jess didn't back down from any fights!

"Oh," Clarisse said, which coming from her was a pretty decent apology. "Well, why did it attack you then?"

"No idea," Diego answered. Okay, he did have a couple ideas, but he didn't want to be wrong. At least it was starting to get easier for him to breathe. He had a moment of panic when he couldn't hear Jess breathing anymore but then he realized that that was good. People weren't supposed to breathe that loudly.

Will stood up. "You'll be fine, Jess, just drink your water – slowly." Whoops. "Diego, this'll be easier on both of us if you sit down."

"Dude, I'm fine," he protested, but he complied anyways because it'd be easier to just get it over with. They'd been through this whole assessment thing… quite a few times.

"Take off your armor and prove it, then," Will countered. Maybe some of those times Diego had tried to hide injuries from him.

While he was doing what Will told him to because he was actually fine this time, Jess asked, "You guys didn't try fighting it?"

"I… considered it," Diego admitted, "but it could've set the whole forest on fire."

Clarisse pointed at a trail of smoke rising from the trees. "It tried."

"Yeah, but we got it out of there."

"Did it give any kind of warning before it attacked?" Clarisse pressed.

Diego hadn't been paying as much attention to the dragon as he maybe should've, but he filled her in on what'd happened. He left out the part where he and Chris accidentally put a bunch of people in unnecessary danger. She'd probably already heard about that.

Oh, boy, had she. "If you'd just stuck to the plan, we might've been able to lure it out sooner!"

Right. "It's not like we knew this would happen! If we'd actually used the jail, one of us would've run into that thing alone. Probably me. I'm not saying we should've done what we did, but everyone got out okay, yeah?"

"For now," she muttered. She had a point, the Hephaestus cabin was still dealing with it. But they seemed to be doing okay; there was some new glass on the beach but the dragon looked… not tired, machines didn't get tired… less homicidal? "Chris stopped you from fighting it, didn't he."

"You could say that," Diego agreed.

Clarisse half-smiled. "Thought so. He can be annoying like that sometimes."

"Is this your normal skin tone post-exercise?" Will asked, reminding Diego that he still wasn't off the hook.

"It doesn't change, whatever you're looking at is probably a burn or a scar," he replied without actually checking.

"Were you planning to tell me you might've got burned?"

"Nothing hurts, I forgot."

It was the truth, and Will relaxed slightly. "Okay, I guess just put some aloe on it later if it starts bothering you." He didn't suggest nectar or ambrosia; they both knew Diego wouldn't risk that unless he needed it. "Aside from that… you're fine. Huh."

"You don't have to sound so surprised," Jess joked.

"No, he does," Clarisse muttered.

She was watching Chris and Chiron – Diego thought maybe he'd gotten off easy after all, they were still deep in conversation. He got up before Will could change his mind, took a look around, and noticed for the first time just how many people were gathered on the beach. "Thanks, Will. Man, is the whole camp here? Laurel and Holly work fast."

"You're telling me, Babe, you should see them when we're getting ready for cabin checks. Help me up?" Jess absolutely could've gotten up on her own, but he knew what she actually wanted: an excuse to hold hands without getting yelled at. Diego just… didn't let go after she was standing and Will gave them a look but he kept his mouth shut.

"The whole camp is here, I think," Clarisse said. "Chiron gathered us all by the creek – Kieran and the new girl saw the dragon before it got to you guys. We were talking strategy and then a bunch more people showed up. Holly was looking for Jake and she said you guys were gonna do something stupid and then Laurel showed up and actually told us where you guys were."

"Holly said Diego was gonna do something stupid and Chris might help," Will corrected. "That was all the information we got."

Diego could've gone without knowing that but honestly it was kind of accurate. "So you all came here?"

"I knew you two wouldn't just stay where you were, that'd be too easy," Clarisse responded. "I figured you'd end up here and then Chiron confirmed you were headed this way. Guess the dryads are always watching."

The dryads are always… shit. Diego exchanged a glance with Jess and resolved not to make out with her in the woods anymore. Or near the woods. Or within sight of any trees at all. Clarisse was clearly enjoying the expressions on their faces… until her expression shifted and she cursed in Ancient Greek.

Diego wasn't sure what the Hephaestus Cabin's goal had been in the first place – talking the dragon down? Fixing it? – but whatever it was, it wasn't going well anymore. Shane and Christopher dove to one side to avoid a cone of fire. Nyssa dove to the other. And Jake… didn't have as much time to react; he just threw himself to the ground. Gods, he had armor on! And probably not the fire-proof kind!

Will wasted no time. "Clarisse, we have to get him out of there! Can your cabin keep it occupied?"

There was an audible crack and they all tensed. That was the sound of a bone snapping. It was hard to tell through the smoke what'd happened to make that sound, but it couldn't have been good. Please, a tree, let it have been a tree… "Ares, TO ME!" Clarisse yelled; more quietly, she said, "Jess, you're already here, help Will."

The instant they'd heard that sound, Jess had let go of Diego's hand and started doffing her armor. She was already on it. "You'll be careful, right?" she asked as other commands started to fly around.

"Only if you are," he replied as he re-donned his armor (for all the help it'd be). He didn't think he had too much to worry about, he'd at least have a weapon on him; Will and Jess wouldn't. They tended to get in the way during patient extrication.

"When am I not?" she joked. "Love you."

"Te quiero." He still really wanted to kiss her, but there wasn't time for that. Diego turned his attention back to what Clarisse and the rest of his siblings were doing – it looked like they'd just about finished gathering. Good. They were gonna take that dragon down. [19]

"What's the plan?" Tasha asked. She was the youngest of the cabin – at least, the youngest of the year-rounders – at eleven, and also the most likely to actually follow orders.

Clarisse bellowed, "CHARGE!" All nine of them ran towards the dragon.

But as it turned out, they didn't have to do much of anything. Percy had started charging first and he had a twelve-foot wall of seawater forming behind him. When he released it, it hit the dragon like a ton of bricks and it was knocked several meters back. It left a long trail of turned-up sand and trenches at least a foot deep. It got up, shook more oil and water out of its head, and took off into the forest.

There was no way they were just gonna let it go, and Clarisse's next orders confirmed that. "Sherman, Diego, Grant! Stay here in case it comes back. The rest of you, with me – we're gonna find this thing and kick its shiny metal tail!" She sounded almost too confident, but the people who didn't live with her would buy into it.

Diego was honestly surprised to hear his name, and his first instinct was to keep running with the others anyways. He really needed to stab something. But orders were orders, so he just jabbed his spear into the sand instead. It went down two feet and took him a fair amount of effort to pull back out, but he felt better afterwards.

By that point Chiron had made it to the wounded, Will, Jess, and Miranda (wait, Miranda?) following behind. Diego positioned himself between them and the woods; he maybe shouldn't have had his back to the woods but he wanted to see if Jake was ali – okay. If Jake was okay.

"If you can walk, come to my position!" Chiron called. Shane, Nyssa, and Christopher all could, though it looked like Christopher was having some difficulty.

Jake didn't get up; Percy was already kneeling by his side. Chiron ordered the others to remain where they were so Will could assess them and immediately went to check on Jake, who was lying face-down on the ground. Percy and Chiron started talking. Diego was too far away to really tell what they were saying, but Percy went back to the larger group of campers (more like large gathering of small groups) before too long.

Diego started actually watching the path like he was supposed to; he might've been used to seeing bad injuries during the war and pretty much since the day he'd found out he was a demigod, but that didn't mean he wanted to.

So naturally, when it came time to move Jake, Will came and asked him for help. He probably wasn't meant to hear the "because you'll actually listen to me" that Will muttered under his breath, but then tensions between their cabins never really did get resolved. "Really we'll just need you to help us get him into the van, when Argus gets back with it, Chiron just took Christopher to the infirmary – he's gonna be okay, but he couldn't walk there on his own – so he'll be there to help us post-transport."

Really, there was no way Diego could say "no" to that without feeling like an asshole or worse, a coward. "Okay. I'll help."

He strapped his spear to his back and walked with Will over to where Jake was and oh gods that noise from before had been from him. Jake wasn't doing so great – it was probably good that he wasn't conscious. Diego knew next to nothing about first aid but he did know what a cuirass was supposed to look like and multiple depressions on top of heat damage didn't bode well.

"I think we can manage on our own, Will," Jess said as soon as she saw him. That was weird, why would she –

And then he saw Nyssa, trying to get past Grant to where Jake was lying. Ah. "Let me through, gods damn it, that's my brother!"

Grant was shuffling from side to side in front of her, like they were playing basketball and he was on defense. It was working surprisingly well for him. "Sorry, gotta follow orders, Will said 'If I didn't ask for 'em, keep 'em away.'"

"Not in those words, but at least he's trying," Will murmured. "Anyways, here's what we're gonna do: Jess will keep holding pressure on the bad puncture wound, we'll have to tip Jake on his side to get a longboard under him – by we, I mean you and Argus, Diego, I'll be placing the board. Then we've just gotta strap him down and load him in. Got it?"

"Yeah. How is –"

"Multiple fractures. Respirations are present bilaterally but shallow, right side crackles, sounds like there might be fluid, jugular veins are flat, pulse quality is decent but he's tachycardic and probably hypovolemic, so it won't be for much longer. We haven't given nectar yet, we need to get his armor off first and it's not safe to do that out here." [20]

"But is he gonna be okay?" Diego asked; he knew what the words meant definition-wise (thanks Latin) but not in that context. At least Jake was still alive.

Jess shrugged. "That depends on how fast we can get to the infirmary and actually do stuff."

Nyssa and Grant were still going at it. Why couldn't Grant have that kind of energy in training? "C'mon, gimme a break already! You wouldn't even help, you don't know how this stuff works!"

"Oh yeah? Then why's your brother over there?"

Okay, enough was enough. "Do you need me at all before Argus gets here?" Diego asked. When Will shook his head, he walked over to stand near Grant. "He's alive, Nyssa, you'll be able to see him later."

"No thanks to you," she spat. He really should've expected that response. "Why are you even here? In case they can't help him?"

"Probs not," Grant replied obliviously, "Will's a total beast at this stuff."

"That's not what I meant, idiot!"

Diego knew full well what she had meant, and he really hoped Jess hadn't heard her since she was actually helping at the moment and wouldn't take kindly to Nyssa insulting him and Will at the same time. He had to stop himself from reaching for a weapon. "No, Nyssa, I'm not going to kill your brother," he said through gritted teeth. "You really think Will 'I'm taking care of all fourteen of these patients and you can't stop me' Solace would even consider giving up on someone like that?"

"No," she admitted, "I just thought since that's the only thing your cabin–" She cut herself off before she finished that sentence. Probably because she saw Grant going for his sword.

"Let it go, kid," Diego warned him. "You wanna prove her right?" The van was approaching and he'd never been so happy to hear it. "Great talk, guys."

He didn't wait around for a response. Usually, he and Nyssa were on pretty good terms. She could be kind of harsh sometimes, like when he didn't remember to put the tools away at the forge, but not like that. It was bizarre.

"I should've given her something to do," Will said when he came back. "I just… it sucks working on family. Speaking from experience."

"You heard all that?" Diego asked.

Jess shook her head. "I heard it, but I couldn't understand you guys." She sounded frustrated about that.

"Y'all were being so loud. I didn't get all of it but try not to take it personally. People say things they don't mean in these kinds of situations. Right, Jess?"

"I said I was sorry, gods!"

Diego wasn't sure what they were talking about; considering the context he probably hadn't been awake for it. He wanted to know more, but he wasn't gonna ask when they still had a job to do. Argus parked as close to them as he could and pulled a backboard with straps attached out of the van (which was missing its back seats). Jake wasn't a small guy, but there'd be plenty of room – those vans were huge.

They got him loaded in as quickly as they could; time mattered a lot more when there was something they could actually do. "Still want me to come with?" Jess asked; she'd hopped into the back with Jake.

"Gods, yes, you're the one holding pressure right now. You can stay, Diego, thanks for the help," Will replied as he ran for the front seat. Seconds later, Argus took off.

As soon as they were gone, Diego marched up to the edge of the woods and glared at the trees, daring the dragon to come back. Even if she hadn't meant it, Nyssa was right. Killing was something he'd gotten good at; healing? Not so much. He tried to stay away from that, because even when he got it right all he did was hurt people, apparently.

Grant joined him after a couple of minutes – a mistake. "Man, who does she think she is? It's not like she's a doctor! And –"

"Kid. Stop talking." Grant's mouth snapped shut mid-word. "I know. She's just worried, okay? Drop it."

"…right, you want someone else, got it, lemme go find –"

"No!" Gods, Grant still wasn't getting the message? That was it, Mark was no longer his least favorite brother. He was probably just trying to help, but the one person Diego actually wanted to talk to about this stuff was doing something way more important. "¡Déjame en paz!" [21]

That finally got his point across. "Fine, sheesh, I'll go watch the other path! At least you're actually doing your job…"

Yeah, well, what did Diego care if Sherman was off flirting with Miranda? Clarisse would deal with him. At the moment, all he cared about was getting the images out of his head. Whether Nyssa knew it or not… he'd killed people during the war. Not just monsters, people. Other demigods.

He hadn't wanted to – okay, he'd wanted to once but he didn't that time and he'd probably regret that forever. But sometimes, when his cabin was attacking supply lines or doing whatever other shit the other cabins thought they were too good for, it didn't matter what he wanted. He needed to follow orders so the bodies wouldn't be his friends or siblings.

Before he even got to Camp he'd seen Brenna get stabbed because he was too late to stop it from happening, and after that fight was over he'd almost killed her trying to help. If he could do anything, anything at all to keep her, Jess, his family, his friends, the gods themselves alive, he was gonna do it.

It didn't matter if he could live with himself afterwards. Most of the time it was almost easy – anyone he'd killed had been trying to kill him or worse, someone he cared about. He could justify it.

But he couldn't change the fact that the enemy soldiers had people who cared about them, too.

He didn't know how long he stood there, but it was long enough that he hadn't moved before Clarisse and the rest of his siblings came back. It was obvious from their body language that they hadn't found the dragon. "Where's Chiron?" Clarisse demanded.

"The infirmary," Diego said flatly, since he was closer than Grant was. "What happened?"

"It disappeared on us. There's somewhere in those woods that can hide a freaking huge dragon, and I only know one place like that…"

"The Labyrinth," Chris said grimly (how long had he been standing next to her?). "You think there's another entrance somewhere?"

The campers hadn't really disassembled, more like broke off into smaller groups, and people started re-gathering after that spread. Anyone who'd been around for the Battle of the Labyrinth – hell, everyone had the right to be scared if that place was back. It wasn't like Chris had actually gone insane down there or even Clarisse wouldn't go there again.

Percy's voice rose above the chaos. "Rachel might know. She can see them. Uh, the entrances, I mean."

"Great, IM her when it's daytime," Drew said like she was telling someone where to put a drink she didn't really care about. "Like, what's the big deal? We can just stay out of the woods."

"Did we even check for missing people?" Miranda asked before anyone else could respond.

…no one had. Apparently, that's what they were going to do before Diego, Chris, and Jess had shown up with the dragon. But aside from the people who'd gone to the infirmary and Nyssa (who'd also gone there according to her siblings), everyone was present.

"Y'know what's in these woods that'd really help Jake right now? The Golden Fleece," Lou Ellen said. Diego absently put a hand over the hole in his cuirass that he hadn't gotten around to repairing. She was absolutely right, but would they even be able to get to it?

"Too risky," Malcolm declared. "Even if Pelops lets anyone get close, that other dragon's still out there."

"So? Just send in whoever brought it here, we already know they can outrun it," Drew suggested.

That was actually kind of a good plan. Sometimes she had good ideas. Diego made eye contact with Chris, who shrugged. Why not? They could maybe help make up for –

"What the f – heck!" Brenna exclaimed. "You can't expect them to do that!"

Well… no, actually, it could work, he appreciated her concern but Drew was actually right this time. "Uh, why not? 'Cause you're attached? Hon, you know Camp doesn't work that way."

"Okay, you want the other dozen reasons instead, I can do that! Pelops only listens to Chiron, the Fleece is still in Thalia's Pine and not in these woods by the bronze dragon so your reasoning's straight-up wrong, they already ran a lot –"

"That's enough!" Clarisse interrupted. "No one is going in after the Fleece. That thing gets moved, our borders go down, and there's a lot more of us than there used to be. There. Will. Be. Monsters."

"…yeah, that too, I was getting there," Brenna said as everyone else got a lot quieter.

After a few seconds, Holly spoke up. "Great, that's settled, let's get back to the stuff that matters: which team won?" Of course that's what she was worried about.

"We could ask Chiron, he's the ref," Damien pointed out. What? Why would he –

"Let's just head to the amphitheater, it's campfire next so I'm sure Chiron will meet us there… when he can," Miranda suggested.

Sure, great, they could just wait around there instead… but at least it was something to do. The campers started walking that direction, in smaller groups. Diego was by himself for all of thirty seconds before Brenna caught up to him. He was glad she did; he didn't want to be alone with his thoughts anymore. "Man, there's a lot of us now, took me forever to get through. Fucking Drew, why would she blame you guys for that? It wasn't your fault the dragon showed up!"

"Well –"

She wasn't having it. "Don't you dare blame yourself. I know that's rich coming from me, but… fuck, there wasn't any warning – for Jake, I mean, they had it before that so we were all letting them do their thing. I don't think anyone could've got there in time."

"We might've, if I'd been paying attention," he replied. Dang, there was no one walking near them.

"Right. I saw you, dude, you never lean on your spear like that. How long did you have to run?"

"I don't know, at least a few minutes."

"And you were sprinting the whole time?"

Okay, fine, she was right, he couldn't have made it. "I shouldn't have asked for him, we should've just fought it…"

"Diego. Tequilate."

"Tranquílate," he corrected. Damn it, she'd made him smile. "You tried."

"I did." She looked too proud of herself. "I succeeded."

"Eh…"

Brenna shoved him. He took half a step to the side to let her think it worked. "Give me some credit, I'm not gonna forget 'calm down'. Speaking of… earlier, when you guys ran into me and Jess? She thought I was up to something."

So pretty much exactly what he'd thought, then. "To be fair, you usually are. Can't just stick with one idea…"

"Yeah, well, how am I supposed to choose when they're all so great?" That was absolutely sarcasm. "I guess I almost led her to the real flag anyways though, huh."

"Don't worry about it. Though that would've been fun…"

"Gross!"

"C'mon, you know we wouldn't – Chris was right there, Brenna. Laurel and Holly were there."

She smirked. "I know, but I had to tease one of you."

"You say that like you didn't already get to her." They were getting close to the amphitheater – it was actually in view. "I know we usually just sit wherever, but maybe tonight we should find Chris and Clarisse." And a spot for Jess, of course, assuming she came – gods he hoped Jake and the others were okay.

Brenna nodded. "In case… oh no."

"Oh no, what?"

"Stop for a sec, I need to see… okay, good, there's spots open."

"Where?"

She looked up at him and made eye contact. "You and Chris weren't the first ones to see the dragon, I don't know if anyone told you."

"Clarisse said it was Arianna and Kieran, right? So… oh."

"Yeah."

Diego started walking towards where they were sitting – near the back, away from the fire. That figured, Kieran would rather die than go anywhere near the front row, but that could only work in their favor. Brenna followed, and as usual they didn't have any trouble getting where they needed to go. People tended to just… move out of his way for some reason.

"Hey guys, these seats open? Yeah? Great. We'll be right in front of you," Brenna said once they'd reached them.

Kieran looked confused, but only for a moment. "I swear, I don't know where it came from! Arianna?"

"I-I was only a couple seconds ahead of you."

"Okay, we believe you," Diego said, sitting down in front of Arianna. He laid his spear across his lap and the next seat to his left, just in case Jess made it.

"Now you've just gotta convince them," Brenna added, gesturing to all the people gathered around the fire.

Footnotes:

[1] - "Well? What should we do?"

[2] - "This sucks... let them go. They'd rather live than win."

[3] - "You're kidding. Seriously? Bro, they'll win if it kills them!"

[4] - "Well, why don't we ask them?"

[5] - "What'd I tell you? Daughters of Nike are crazy."

[6] - "Your girlfriend is -"

[7] - "I know."

[8] - No one wanted to die.

[9] - A doru (or dory) is a Greek one-handed spear that was the principal weapon of hoplites, the heavy infantrymen. It has a spike at the end of the shaft to counterbalance the head and to serve as a secondary weapon; it's meant to be used with a shield, but Diego doesn't like making or dealing with those.

[10] - "You have a better idea? Tell me."

[11] - "Clarisse would do the same thing."

[12] - "Ugh, I know, but dude, do we have to do it?"

[13] - And in his response, Diego is questioning Chris's choice of verb ending because he (wrongly) assumed they were just talking about him attacking the dragon.

[14] - Shit (well, used for similar contexts, anyways).

[15] - "What did you do?"

[16] - "I didn't do anything!"

[17] - "I see the beach!"

[18] - "Can you see Jake?"

[19] - "I like/love you." (casual) - Diego is not about to use "Te amo." That's too intimate for where they're at and Jess could take it as a proposal (she wouldn't; he thinks she knows more things about context than she actually does).

[20] - Medical terminology! In addition to many broken bones, Jake has a tension pneumothorax (which is when you have a collapsed lung but there's no opening for blood or fluids to leave the chest cavity so the pressure just keeps building). This is very, very bad. Crackles are the sound you hear when there's fluid in the lungs. Bilateral means both sides. Flat jugular veins are a sign of a tension pneumo. Tachycardia means that his heart rate is too fast (to compensate for blood loss because the body is fun that way) and hypovolemia means that his blood volume is too low.

It could actually be a lot worse because the tachycardia means that the shock from all this hasn't become irreversible yet. The way to treat a tension pneumothorax in the field is a needle decompression, which Will would probably know how to do seeing as it's a paramedic skill and Camp sees a lot of chest trauma, but good luck doing that through armor. It probably seems like I'm being very mean to Jake, and I am, but Rick Riordan has established that things like deadly poison, amputations, and broken bones are minor inconveniences at Camp and if he's in a full body cast in The Lost Hero, there's gotta be a real good reason. Which we'll get more into later.

[21] - "Leave me in peace!"

Author's Note: First time we've needed footnotes so far; is this a good format? I'm not going "literal word-for-word" here, because in some cases that'd just sound really weird because of expressions. Instead, I'm just translating to how the dialogue/line/word would be written if I'd used English. Which will be really helpful when we get into languages like Ancient Greek and Latin. Yes, there's a point in this fic where I'll have to translate Ancient Greek and there really should be more but I don't hate myself enough to spend hours with that particular dictionary.

Oh also, you might've noticed that not all of those footnotes are actually for translations. And that I didn't translate everything. To explain the former, it took me this long to realize that ancient weapons and medical jargon (as examples) might be something people are curious about. As for the latter, well, just a reminder that if I say what something means in the actual chapter, I'm not gonna make y'all read through that twice.

Originally there was a lot more Spanish in this chapter but after my sister pointed out that this made it hard to read without me explaining what everything meant, I switched around many lines. Mostly to create less work for myself because I tend to overthink translations (both ways) a lot. Speaking of, I've likely made mistakes to some degree so I apologize in advance. Just PM me and I'll fix it and/or explain myself (because oh boy do I only use slang from one dialect in day-to-day life and it probably shows).

Now that we've gone through all that... we're about to get into like, the actual main plot! Whoa! Tbh I'd probably have spent just as much time on establishing stuff if I was just using canon characters because I have no chill.