After all the activities and many hours of waiting, dinner finally came. I was ecstatic to find out what teams there were for capture the flag. Chiron stood up after the meal was done and started speaking. "I would like to announce the teams for capture the flag, the final teams. The Blue: Dionysus, Athena, Aphrodite, Hecate, Hephaestus, Iris and Poseidon. The Red: Demeter, Apollo, Ares, Hades, Hermes, Hypnos, and Nyx. You all know the rules and if you don't' then I suggest that you have someone tell you. Now go prepare you teams."
We all raced to get out our weapons and gear. I was excited to try the new strategy that Piper and I had come up with. I saw Piper talking with Annabeth, who was the team captain. I ran over to them to help explain what the plan was.
"… of the other team is captured. Then we leave a few protecting the flag and jail and send everyone else to get the flag." Piper explained to Annabeth.
"That sounds OK," Annabeth replied, "but how do we know that we can capture all of them?"
"That's what Piper asked me too, but here's the thing – the other team has the Ares and Apollo cabins. They will most likely send them over first to get the flag, and once they are all captured they will send the Hermes cabin and some of the good fighters from the other cabins. We will capture them by having two defensive walls hidden in the woods, one behind the other, so if someone gets through the first the second will catch them.
"Then once we capture most of them, we send everyone but the guards the attack the other flag. With a big group like that and most of their guards gone, we can easily get the flag." I say
"That sounds good. We should get everyone and explain it to them," Annabeth spoke.
In 5 minutes we set up our defense. The flag and jail were guarded by half the Hecate and half the Iris cabin. The rest of us set up hidden in the woods 10 feet and 20 feet away from the river. I was hidden behind a tree with a thick trunk in the line farther away from the river. My quiver was full of blunt arrows and was slung on my back. My bow was notched with an arrow and ready to be shot at anyone.
I looked at my bow remembering the day I got it. Both Artemis and Apollo had taken a liking to me (according to my mother) and they had decided to give me the bow. I'm still confused as to why they would give it to be, but I liked it any way because it was magic and my quiver never ran out of arrows.
I guessed about 20 minutes passed before anyone came to the second defense line. It was bad because it meant that they got past our first defense, but it gave me something to do. Even though the kid was running I shot him in the upper thigh, not cutting him, but making him limp. I let one of the other guards take care of him and turned around to look for others.
"Jessie," Piper called. "Most of them are in jail it's now ore never."
I nodded, and Piper yelled for everyone to move. We all raced across the river and toward the flag. The other team was completely taken by surprise. I shot arrows wherever one of our opponents was moving in to attack.
Somewhere Piper yelled, "Jessie, go for the flag!"
I looked around for the flag and saw it in a tree. I raced up to it, took it down and sprinted back towards the river. What I saw on our side of the river was not what I wanted to see: the whole Ares and Apollo cabin with some other campers, running to their side. At the front of the group was Austin, with our flag. I ran as fast as I could toward the river. We were both only a few feet away.
He never made it across. One of the guards that was following them ran in front of him and tripped him just as I splashed through the river and onto safe territory. The adrenaline had gone and I collapsed on the ground, trying to catch my breath.