Shut up, I know.
Percy POV
"Woah..."
"So pretty..."
"Wow..."
"Beautiful..."
At least everyone said one of these when they saw Katrina for the first time, I mean I can't blame them, her eyes are quite honestly some of the more beautiful sets I've ever seen. I almost felt bad for her, everybody just wants to see her eyes and that's it. No trying to talk to her, no form of interaction, just "can I look at your eyes?"
Annabeth sat down next to me on my right. Right now, I was sitting in the wooden risers that surrounded the fighting arena watching two relatively decent fighters going at it. Both were using a shield and sword, though the Ares's one was wielding a larger sword.
"Does she give you and off vibe too?" Annabeth asked without making eye contact.
"Yeah, minute I saw her at the top of the hill. I don't know what it is either."
"What do you mean by that," she tilted her head.
"Like, she doesn't seem evil at all, but just being around her makes my blood feel really cold and you get the chills."
It had been a whole day since Katrina had entered camp. According to Chiron, healing her was harder than he had expected, he said it was though her body rejected any healing magic he applied every time he tried something and had to resort to basic healing methods. However, she had apparently been malnourished for some time and had many small cuts along nearly every limb of her body, but what stuck out the most to him was a pair of parallel scars above her stomach but below her chest. The scars, he said, shouldn't be possible, as they indicated two wounds that went over five inches into her body, the angle of them suggesting that whatever entered her would have hit both of her lungs, her pancreas, I think that's what it's called, her liver, and possibly the bottom of her heart, something no one should even have a chance of surviving.
Annabeth had showed her around camp earlier this morning so that she had all of yesterday and last night to recover, something she did thank us for.
"You get that feeling too?" Annabeth sort of confirmed, alerting me to the fact that we were talking a second ago.
"So I'm not the only one?"
"No, you're not." She shook her head and narrowed her eyes. "Who do you think is her godly parent?"
"No clue, your guess is probably a hundred times more likely to be right than mine."
"Well, as far as I know, no god or goddess has heterochromatic eyes..."
So that's what it's called...
"...and to have an aura around herself like that, she'd have to be the daughter of someone powerful..." she trailed off.
"Hades maybe?" I asked, just putting ideas out there.
"Could be, I would say Hecate or maybe Thanatos, but neither of them have many kids and those that they do have aren't usually that powerful."
"Why Thanatos?" I inquired, actually curious to why she'd bring him up.
"Just thinking, I mean, being around her feels kinda like it does with Nico, but even more so. And with Thanatos being the true god of death, it would make a bit of sense."
"I guess so," I shrugged and watched as the Ares camper disarm the other camper, a son of Hermes I think, and cheer in victory as did many of the spectators.
It was at this point where Will came running up to us from the direction archery range.
"Yo Will, how's it going?" I said raising a fist and fist bumping him.
"Ah you know, the usual. As it turns out, that new girl with the cool eyes is insane at archery."
Annabeth put on a questioning look.
"Is she? Like how insane is 'insane'?" I asked putting my hands in air quotes around insane.
"Better than all of the Apollo cabin."
I laughed but quickly stopped when I saw the serious look on his face.
"Oh gods, you're serious."
"Yeah, I normally don't say stuff like this, but if I didn't know any better, I'd say she's Artemis' daughter, she's THAT good."
A second kid came up behind Will. I recognized him as Christophe, another of Apollo cabin.
"Will... she may or may not have split her arrow from around two hundred yards," he said panting, obviously having ran here.
Will simply gestured to his sibling while looking at us. "Well, I need to get back it would seem," he turned to leave and him and Christophe heading back to the archery range.
"I want to see this for myself," Annabeth spoke, standing up.
"Want me to go too?" I asked her.
"Up to you."
"Then I'll do that," I replied standing up myself and following her off the risers and after the two Apollo cabin mates.
It took us a minute to get there, but when we eventually did, she were greeted by two lines of campers about fifty feet apart, all looking away from the targets and at the new girl, who looked really really small due to the range she was away.
An arrow whizzed by and with a thunk, buried itself into a wooden target, basically dead center.
"Try shooting three at once!" a boy called out in her direction, to which I head another voice repeat the message as she was quite the distance out there. A set of two girls and a guy went into the range and moved three targets to be in a line with maybe four or five feet between them. The group exited the range and joined the line of campers opposite Annabeth and I.
I could see Katrina drop lower the ground to what I think was her knee, but I couldn't tell at a range of two hundred plus yards. A few moments passed with no sound other than the wind gently blowing. More silence.
Three blurs could be seen flying in our direction and within a few seconds, three distinct arrows found their targets at nearly the same time. The only one that wasn't a perfect bull's eye was the right side target, and even then, it was only off by a few inches at most.
I looked back in the direction of the new frighteningly good archer to see her and two others walking back to the range slowly. I mean, the range in pretty big, but they were out there, outside of the designated range and in the middle of the field firing into it.
It took a solid three minutes before Will, Katrina, and a boy I didn't recognize arrived back at the actual range. Many people congratulated her of being such a good shot, someone even commented that she might even be better than Apollo and Artemis. Katrina sorta brushed off the comments with a flick of her hand and glancing away without saying anything in return.
Her bow was quite interesting if I'm being honest. it had a grip above and below the ledge where the arrow would rest, as if it could be fired both lefty and righty, and the arms of the bow were made of a maroon metal with symbols on them that were clearly not Greek. Each arm looked extremely sharp, like she could cut people and fight melee with it by swinging it, not to mention that each arm-blade thing was about 2ft and was serrated with a scary amount of reverse-facing teeth on each one.
She held the bow out in front of her and it evaporated in a shiny redish maroon fog, leaving the choker that she wore in her hand, to which she placed it back around her neck and threw her hair back.
I glanced to the side slightly and caught a glimpse of an Apollo kid winking at her to which her either didn't notice or didn't care. Apparently she did, because she slowly turned her eyes towards him and glared before spinning on her heel and walking away from the crowd off to wherever she had in mind.
I glanced at Annabeth and motioned with my eyes in the direction Katrina was heading and she returned it with a nod. Together, we stepped back from the mass of campers and followed her from a ways back.
She walked for a while before stopping to the right of a lantern between the range and the cabins and staring at it for a second. With it being about noon, the lantern wasn't lit, though the way her left eye almost glowed red made it seem like there was a fire reflecting in it. She shook her head and turned towards us with such an emotionless stare that it quite honestly scared me.
"Why are you following me?" she asked in her quiet yet firm voice that we still heard from our spot about 10 yards away.
"Oh sorry," Annabeth spoke up, "We just wanted to know if your first day at camp has been going alright."
She tilted her head to the left and for a second, only the blue of her right eye was visible. "Well, minus the constant questions, not terribly."
Annabeth sort of stiffened when she heard the about the 'questions'.
"That's good," I responded in Annabeth's place. "I actually wanted to ask you something myself, but uhh, if you're tired of them, it can wait."
Katrina sighed in exasperation. "I guess, you guys did help me when I got here, so it can't hurt. Just... keep it short?"
I nudged Annabeth and give Katrina a big smile, "We'll try."
She only frowned slightly in response.
-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-
Annabeth and I sat at the Poseidon table in the pavilion across from Katrina. Before we had even sat down, Annabeth had already began to fire questions out.
"Where did you get that bow? When did you learn archery? Do you have any clue who your godly p-"
Katrina shot Annabeth a very hard glare, cutting her off. "I said I would answer a few questions, not get interrogated."
"Please Katrina, this is just how Annabeth is, just... bare with it."
She glared at me this time and I swear I felt my insides shift uncomfortably.
"*sigh* Fine... My bow I got as a gift on my thirteenth birthday from my mom. I learned archery as a hobby when I was young and have been hunting for food for my father and I since i first could shoot decently. As for my godly parent... I assume that was the question..."
Annabeth nodded
"...I don't know, other than it being a goddess."
"Wait... You said you're thirteenth birthday?"
"Yeah? Is that a problem?"
"Yes... yes it is. Uhh, how old are you right now, sorry for asking."
"Sixteen, seventeen tomorrow."
"Hmm... well you see, when I saved Olympus with the rest of camp and my friends a few years back, I asked the gods to promise on the River Styx that they claim their children by the age of thirteen."
Katrina narrowed her eyes. "So what you're saying is my parent broke that?"
"Basically, yes."
Another long sigh from Katrina.
"I'm done answering questions for today," she declared and stood up forcefully, making her black hair fall around her shoulders and giving her that look of a horror game... Visage? Yeah, that girl in that game just with much longer hair. She turned quickly and tossed her hair back again and left without another word.
Annabeth and I shared a worried look. This really wasn't good.
-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-
We quickly shared what we learned with Chiron, who also agreed that this was not a good thing at all. Even more frightening, Dionysus was in agreement and took the topic seriously.
"I will bring this to Zeus tonight," Mr. D said sternly.
"Of course Lord Dionysus," Chiron spoke with a short bow.
We, we as as in Chiron, Mr. D, Annabeth, and I then all glanced around at each other.
"Do we let her play in capture the flag tonight?" Annabeth inquired.
"It would be wrong of us to deny her the ability to, should she want to, regardless of her... current situation," Chiron replied calmly.
I could only nod. Annabeth on the other hand, seemed to already be deep in thought about something.
"Well, speaking of capture the flag, I suppose I must go announce to the camp the game as per tradition, you two are excused," the Centaur said, standing and moving towards the door. I followed with Annabeth trailing a little bit further behind.
It was 1:00, so the game would start in eight hours roughly, plenty of time to ask the mysterious girl about capture the flag.
It took us a while to find her though, after leaving the Big House, we looked around for her but couldn't locate her at all. Even the campers we asked didn't have a clue and she never appeared at the call to announce CTF, almost as if she just vanished off the planet. After about thirty minutes of searching, we split up to expand our coverage.
I had no luck for a long time, that is until Connor Stoll mentioned helping the "crazy girl with the weird eyes" set up her place in the Hermes Cabin.
"Can you lead me to her?" I asked, maybe sounding a bit desperate.
"Sure thing Percy! Follow me." He shouted cheerfully and headed towards the cabins. As we approached, the door swung open and a certain jet black haired girl stepped out.
She stopped, looked at me, then at Connor, and then back inside the cabin, before speaking.
"What is it this time?" she asked with an annoyed tone.
"Actually, I was just looking to see if you were participating in capture the flag tonight," I replied.
Her faced warped from annoyed to surprised, and then to annoyed again. "Yes, I am."
I threw my hands up in surrender, "I'm not trying to pester you, it was just a question that is kinda important right now."
She rolled her eyes and sighed. "Fair enough. I suppose by me saying yes, you're supposed to teach me the rules or something?"
"More or less."
By this time, Connor had left, leaving me alone with Katrina.
"Before anything, no killing correct?"
"Or maiming," I added.
"Tsk," she clicked her tongue and stared off at something to our right. "Alright."
I walked up closer to her and she narrowed her eyes slightly. "I don't know if you have any special powers, but they are aloud," I told her.
She whispered something until her breath.
"Hmm?"
"Nothing."
"Oh...okay? Umm... so to be brief, that whole forest," I gestured to the wooded area, "...is the playing arena. There's a small stream, creek, whatever that's the boundary line. All magic items, like your bow, are fine."
She nodded and motioned for me to continue.
"Your team will explain guard rules and stuff, they're pretty simple so ask them when the time comes, uhh... oh! It your case, I don't know if you have non-lethal arrows or something for that bow of yours. .. but you can't fire sharp or even semi blunt arrows at the campers."
"I'll make it work. Is that it?"
"From what I can remember at this time yeah," I said, scratching the back of my head.
She again nodded, "Non lethal, forest, creek thing... sounds simple enough."
I turned to her and held my hand out, "Whether we are together on a team or not, good luck to you."
She gave me an indescribable look and slowly reached out to shake my hand. "Likewise."
I nodded and let go to begin my search for Annabeth. Something was telling me tonight's game was going to be very different than anything that has happened before.
-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-O-
"...I trust that you will have explained the rules to any new campers prior to the start of the game, therefore, I will be brief," Chiron started, facing the entirety of camp. "No killing or maiming, the whole forest is fair play, all magical items are allowed, and the river is the boundary line. I will serve as battlefield medic, and any questions you may have, please ask me."
With that, he trotted to the right and allowed the cabins to gather in their respective teams.
Ares, Demeter, Hermes, Hades, Hecate, and Hypnos VS Poseidon, Apollo, Athena, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Nike, Nemesis, and Hephaestus. The other five cabins of Zeus, Tyche, Hebe, Artemis and Iris, were empty at the time so they weren't included. However, this line up meant that Katrina was against us.
"Gather round!" Annabeth called out, summoning the cabins of our team to her. "Hephaestus cabin, I need you to set up traps and the likes all along the river and the corner by the flag. Nike, Nemesis, and Athena, myself included, will set up ambush points in the woods near the boundary. Apollo, I want three of you as ranged support for the attacking group, the rest form two defensive lines here and here."
She marked a few points on the little map she had.
"Percy, I want you to be river defense, slow anyone you can and try to disrupt the enemy, if you start to get overwhelmed, fall back to our first defensive line here."
Annabeth continued to outline plans in detail for another couple of minutes.
"Remember though, we don't know what that Katrina girl can do other than archery so stay alert when she's near," she finished as everyone gave varying degrees of acknowledgement.
It was now 8:00 and we were allowed to begin setting up our respective sides for the game. I made sure I had Riptide and began to assist the campers on my team pick out armor and weapons if they didn't already have them.
Time flew by and we finished placing our flag, a golden banner with a white sun bow as the Apollo cabin technically was lead even though the Athena cabin did most of the prep work.
People gathered along the creek and on the shores to either side as Chiron trotted in.
"I hope that we have a good game tonight, you all know the rules, have fun!" he called out.
A loud horn sounded, signalling the start of the game.
Thirty Seconds to Mars: Hurricane