Author's Note: Wow, it's been a long time since I updated this story...and I sincerely apologize for that. But I kept my promise; it was a fast update since Secrets and Sleepovers, right? And now that it's summer, there will be a lot more updates because I have time again. Thanks PixieKindOfCrazy for beta-ing.

By the way, I need to say some things about The Mark of Athena, so if you want to tell me what you think of the first chapter so far, I want to know!

Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HOO or really anything except like, you know, OCs...yeah.

Chapter 6: I Get the World's Worst Brain-Freeze

The conch horn blew for lunch. As we walked toward the dining pavilion, I caught Thalia with a group of her Hunters. They gave me dirty looks, but I managed to pull Thalia away for two seconds.

"Hey, what's up?" she asked.

I glared at her. "How'd you get the best cabins on your team for capture the flag?" I asked her.

She laughed and pulled herself away from me, heading back to her table. "A girl has her ways, Jackson," she replied in that mysterious way girls do that annoys me. "You better bring you're A-game to capture the flag Friday night…you'll definitely need it."

With that said, she marched back to her table, laughing along with her friends.

Annabeth gave me a sly look. "Get ready, Seaweed Brain," she told me. "Because you're going down Friday night."

"I always bring my A-game to capture the flag," I countered.

"Well," Annabeth said, raising an eyebrow, "I guess we'll see."

As she walked back to her own table, I took Jessica to ours. We got our lunches, sacrificed a part of it into the bronze brazier.

As we sat back at our table, Jessica pointed at me with her fork. "What are those beads for?" she asked. "I see everyone here with them, and I noticed your girlfriend has a lot more than you do. But she still has the same ones as you do."

"Oh," I looked down at my necklace. "Yeah," I started, "every year, at the end of the summer, you get a clay bead with a picture of the most important event of the summer." I twisted my first bead. "This trident one," I explained, "was…dedicated to me."

Jessica raised an eyebrow. "To you? Why?"

I felt my face getting a little warmer, but I told her how I was the first child of Poseidon at Camp Half-Blood.

"Oooh, nice," she said but I could see something in her expression, like wistfulness, maybe wishing she was here then.

She pointed again. "And the one with the gold fluffy thing on it?"

I chuckled. "Didn't you see the 'gold fluffy thing' on your way into the valley? With the giant dragon?"

She shook her head. "Nope, like I said, I don't remember anything between fighting the giant hellhound thing and waking up in the big blue house. I must've been carried over the hill while I was unconscious or something."

Wow, those were similar circumstances that brought us both to this camp, I thought. Except I got a minotaur instead of a hell-hound…not sure if that's better or worse.

"Well," I started, "there's a long story behind this bead. You see, about ten years ago, Annabeth, Thalia, and this other guy, Luke, came to camp chased by every monster in the underworld."

"The same Thalia sitting right over there?" Jessica pointed at the Hunters' table, raising both eyebrows, looking slightly impressed and slightly scared.

I nodded. "She almost died protecting Annabeth and Luke, and Zeus turned her into a pine tree. It would protect our borders, but then the tree was poisoned. We found the Golden Fleece to heal it, and Thalia turned back into a girl."

Jessica stared at me with complete and utter disbelief on her face. She glanced at Annabeth, then at Thalia, then back at me. "Are you serious?" she asked.

I shrugged. "Demigod life is complicated sometimes."

"And who's Luke?"

I tensed. It was still a sore subject for a lot of us at camp, especially me, but I managed, "He was a son of Hermes, but he died last year during the Second Titan War. His name's at the top of this bead." I showed her my bead from last summer, with all of the lost campers' names in Ancient Greek.

"And what are the last two beads for?"

"From the Battle of the Labyrinth and the Battle for Manhattan," I answered. "First, two years ago, the Titans tried to invade camp through a labyrinth entrance in the woods, but it was destroyed. Then last summer, they tried to attack the Empire State Building, hence the bead. The Empire State Building, by the way—"

"I know," Jessica cut me off. "It's the entrance to Mount Olympus. I saw the video about how the gods are still around and move from place to place and now they're here in the U.S. and all that good stuff. So, at the end of the summer, I'll get a bead necklace, too?"

"Yeah, sure," I replied. "At the end of the summer, all the new kids get a necklace."

Just then, Jessica looked up, and in the same second I felt someone grip my shoulders from behind me. I jumped.

"Hey, hero," I familiar voice greeted.

I relaxed and turned around to greet the redhead with a smile, "Rachel Elizabeth Dare," I said, not able to keep the grinning smirk off my face, "Funny seeing you here."

Rachel rolled her eyes and ignored me, "And this must be your little sister…Jessica, right?"

Jessica's eyes widened. "How do you know me?"

"I'm the oracle," Rachel replied with a wink. "I know lots of stuff that I shouldn't." She sat next to me. "I know I'm late. Just got out of school yesterday." She scanned the cafeteria and waved at Annabeth. Then her eyes went wide and her body tensed.

Jessica and I looked at each other, frowning. I turned back to Rachel carefully. "Um, what's wrong?" I asked her.

Suddenly she turned toward me with an unsettled expression. "Are…you okay?" she asked me warily.

Now that she asked me, my head still felt pretty heavy, and my throat was sore. I thought about my dream from the night before, and I wondered if Rachel knew anything about it. Even so, I nodded.

Rachel didn't look like she believed me, but for some reason, she didn't call me out on it like she usually would've, that worried me, "Okay…I'll see you later." She got up from the table abruptly. "Nice to meet you, Jessica," she added quickly, then ran out of the pavilion.

Later that afternoon, we had some free time, so Jessica hung out with her friend Avery. Rachel's behavior had gotten me worrying about my dream from the night before, so I met Annabeth at the pier by the canoe lake. Grover met us there, too. He looked so much more mature since he'd become a member of the Council of Cloven Elders.

I told them both about my dream with the two girls on top of Half-Blood Hill, and their plan to eliminate me. I told Grover about Price and how he'd breathed cold mist, and the moment of painful suffocation, as well as falling off my pegasus, and the face I saw in the clouds.

Grover frowned at the frozen water of the lake. "So…you're teacher tried to kill you yesterday? And these girls are in on it?"

"These girls mentioned a family, right?" Annabeth asked. "They've all got to be part of whatever family this is. It sounds like they think you're going to do something bad to them."

I nodded at Annabeth's deductions, glad for her being smarter than me for once. "Price said something about me causing trouble in the near future," I remembered. "And the girls said that I'd be dead before I even knew what was wrong with me…but what's wrong with me?"

Annabeth looked me over with concern. "It might have something to do with that fever you were running yesterday. And what about that cough?"

"What fever?" Grover asked. "And what cough?"

As if on cue, a cold breeze blew through, making us all shiver. I could feel goosebumps rise on my arms, and I started to cough terribly.

"Ah," Grover murmured worriedly. "That cough."

I would've laughed if my throat wasn't sore.

"Maybe you should tell Chiron. Every other time something like this came up and we didn't ask for his help, it always ended badly," Annabeth suggested, taking my hand. Her hand was very warm…or maybe mine was just really cold.

"I will," I promised. But…not just yet, I added mentally. Chiron would keep me under lock and key if he found out someone in the camp was trying to kill me. And besides, one more part of that dream was bothering me. "They…mentioned needing to find my Achilles spot to finish me off," I added with a slight shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature outside. Suddenly I was very aware of the small of my back.

Annabeth met my eyes; stormy grey to flashing green. I felt like we could sense each other's fear and I think…we actually could now. I've never said it out loud, but she was my tie to the mortal world. I saw her in the Styx when I gained my invincibility, and last summer she saved me from a knife to my back.

Grover was looking back and forth between us, and I could tell he was trying to read our emotions, the way satyrs could. Finally, he said, "But they don't know where your weak spot is, right?"

Hesitantly, shook my head. "No one does." Slight lie. Annabeth was the only person I've ever told. I hope she knows I'm fibbing and not calling her 'no one'.

"Then you're fine," Grover assured me.

"They said they could just let Price's curse kill me first," I reminded him.

"But," Annabeth pointed out, "they said it might take too long. So we can find out what's wrong with you before they find your Achille's heel…so to speak."

"Wait," Grover piped in, "It's not actually you're heel, right?"

I stared at him. "Even if it was, I couldn't tell you."

But I reconsidered telling Chiron. Maybe he knew what exactly this whole thing was about. But just then, I saw Jessica walking toward us. "Hey," she called. "Percy, we need to find some allies for capture the flag. Allons-y."

I didn't understand that last part, but I looked at Annabeth and Grover, who shrugged. "We'll talk about this again later," Annabeth told me. "After I kick your butt in capture the flag. Oh and by the way, Seaweed Brain. It's French…'Allons-y'. I saw your confused face; it means 'let's go.'"

I chuckled, throwing an arm around her and giving her a peck on the cheek and Grover a high-five. But I couldn't help feeling like I was a dead-man walking. I hoped that they were right; we would figure this all out before it was too late.

After that we spent the next couple of days bargaining and trading with the other counselors to be on our side for Capture the Flag. When Friday finally came along, we had Demeter, Hephaestus, Aphrodite, Dionysus, Hermes, Hades, and some of the minor gods on our side: the blue team. The Hunters, Apollo, Ares, and Athena were on the red team. We finished dinner and Chiron called our attention. Since Thalia and I were the captains, we'd made our flags and charged into the pavilion. Thalia's flag was silver silk with a deer in the center. The flag in my hands was mage of green silk with a bronze trident.

"Campers and Hunters!" he shouted. "It is time for Capture the Flag!"

Cheers erupted from the pavilion.

"For our new campers, the rules are simple: the flag must be prominently displayed, and guards are not to stand within twenty yards of it. All of the woods are fair game and the boundary line is the creek. All magical weapons are allowed. No intentional maiming or you will be disqualified from the game and severely punished."

There were groans and protests from the Ares and Artemis tables. I could swear Jessica's face turned a little paler.

I chuckled, a little uncomfortable, and put a hand on her shoulder, "It's fine. If you don't know what to do, then just stay behind me. But I think you'll do good," she smiled back at me, regaining color…if only a little.

Chiron ignored the protests and continued. "Now. Arm yourselves!" He waved his hand, and the head table was covered in Greek battle armor: swords, bows, breastplates, shields, and helmets. I set our flag against the wall and grabbed a breastplate and helmet. Jessica was staring at the armor. I turned to her. "Well? What are you waiting for?" I asked.

"Are we seriously using real swords?" she asked incredulously.

"Yeah," I replied, furrowing my eyebrows trying to remember why mortals think that's weird. I took Riptide out of my pocket and uncapped it. In three seconds I was holding my celestial bronze sword. "It's practice for fighting monsters." I strapped on my armor, and then helped Jessica with hers, "It's only practical that we get used to the real thing."

Jessica was trembling a little, as if she were scared. She looked at me. "Um…nobody's going to, like, hurt us for real, right?"

"Hopefully not," I said, shrugging, she would get used to it, "Stay away from the Ares cabin, and the Hunters, if you can help it. Clarisse has an electric spear, and Thalia has a shield that can seriously scare you, even if you're not the type to get scared, this will freak you out. Annabeth has an invisibility Yankees cap. And those are just some of the magic items on the other team. Luckily," I added, "You have your bow and arrow; I have Riptide. Our team will win. Just be quick, careful, and clever and we'll do fine." I picked up my flag and led the team outside to Zeus's Fist.

We'd set up our flag at the top of Zeus's Fist, partly because it was hard to climb and partly because some of the campers were afraid of it. Two summers ago, there had been a Labyrinth entrance that Kronos's forces had used to invade the camp, and the battle we'd fought left us with bad memories. I doubted the other team would think we'd have the nerve to put our flag there. But desperate times called for desperate measures, and we were going to have to step it up a notch to beat Thalia and her team.

I stationed our best archers, including Jessica, at the base of the rock pile. The Hephaestus and Demeter cabins set up trip wires and gadgets and pots of Greek fire around Zeus's Fist, as well as the creek. The Hermes and Aphrodite cabins were scattered around the forest. I took Pollux, son of Dionysus, to the creek. When we got there, my eyes widened.

The creek was all ice. Seriously, I could literally walk on it without worrying about it breaking. I frowned. All of this was part of their plan, I thought, remembering those girls in my dream.

"Oh," Pollux said. "Um, the day you got here, all of the water around camp froze for some reason. Have you noticed the weather's been way colder than usual around here?" he asked. "It snowed in Florida. Florida. Since when is there snow in the Sunshine state, in June?"

I shook my head. I didn't have much time to think about it, because I heard the conch horn blowing in the distance. The game was starting.

All over the forest I heard the clanking of swords, shouts and battle cries. I walked around the creek, looking for an opening to strike. I saw Thalia advancing on some Aphrodite campers, who were screaming and running away from her shield, except for the save few who were checking their reflections in each other's swords. I swung Riptide in my hand to get a feel for it; I was getting a little restless. I paced the length of the creek in both directions waiting for my chance. Finally, I found an opening.

I charged in, looking for their silver flag. I looked up into the trees. Maybe they hid the flag there. Suddenly, a girl a little younger than I was jumped down from a tree somewhere to my left.

"Gotcha," she said, pointing her sword at me. It was a light blue, cold blade. Immediately I knew what it was made out of: Stygian ice. I'd once been given a dog whistle made of the same substance.

"Remember me?" the girl said. "Hmm, Perseus?" she taunted.

I stopped. The voice was familiar. Under her helmet, "Wait. Avery?" I said.

"That's right," she said. "And I can't let you get our flag, so…" she trailed off, and then swiped at me with her icy sword. I dodged, and took a swipe at her.

"Look," I said. "I don't fight girls, so—"

She didn't let me finish. She stabbed at my armor. I caught her blade with the hilt of my own. I stepped back and tried to go around her, but she sliced at me again. This time I intercepted her in mid-swing, and a cold mist emanated from the contact. I was panting hard, and I breathed in the mist.

The next thing I knew, I was holding my head. My headache had come back, and it was getting worse by the instant. After a few seconds, I thought my head was going to explode. Imagine you're eating an ice cream cone, and you decide to eat it all in one gulp. Now imagine the brain-freeze that would come with that. Imagine the worst migraine you can on top of that. Pretend a truck just ran over your face. You'll still never come close to what I was feeling at that moment.

I remember collapsing to my knees. Then I couldn't breathe. The stinging in my chest had returned. I remember crying out. "What—what's going on? What are you—" I broke off, it feeling like my throat was closing up. This was worse than what had happened at school. Wait…school…Price…

"Stop what, Percy?" Avery asked innocently. I felt like I was straining to hear her underwater. My vision was going darker and darker.

"What's going on?" a new voice, coming from even deeper underwater: Thalia?

"Percy?" Annabeth's terrified voice was barely audible.

My eyes were squeezed shut. I couldn't open them; the pain in my head was too terrible. The last thing I remember was Annabeth shouting something like, "Go get Chiron!"

Then, darkness hit me with the force of a thousand trucks.

Yay! So now I'm going to work on my (hopefully) LAST chapter of Secrets and Sleepovers. I feel so accomplished. You all seem to have loved that one. Thanks so much! Reviews are much appreciated!

So about The Mark of Athena...first, you can find it at the Heroes of Olympus website. Second, the cover is EPIC! It's pinkish-red, and it shows Jason in a purple shirt on what looks like his storm horse from The Lost Hero, sword raised, facing Percy in an orange shirt on what looks like Blackjack, with his sword raised. There are storm clouds around Jason and waves around Percy, and they look like they're about to kill each other... oh and there's an owl in the background.

The first chapter is fun. Not telling you what happens, go check it out. But Jason Piper and Leo are definitely back, with Annabeth. And it's starting about a few minutes before The Son of Neptune ended. *sighs* Sorry. I'm just so excited. Anyway, thanks!

~Mandi2341

P.S. This message(chapter) has been edited and approved by PixieKindofCrazy. Give Mandi extra reviews for my hijacking ;) -3 Pixie