CHAPTER EIGHT

We Capture A Flag

I don't own Percy Jackson.

Percy's routine for the next few days seemed almost strangely normal... if she could ignore the fact that she was getting lesions from satyrs, nymphs, a centaur, and other children of the gods.

Annabeth taught Percy Ancient Greek in the mornings, but Percy still found it weird that they discussed the gods and goddesses of ancient Greece in the present tense. Still, she discovered that Annabeth had been right about her dyslexia—though Ancient Greek was still rather hard to read, it wasn't harder than English. After a couple of mornings, she could stumble through a few lines of Homer without too much of a headache or messing up the translation too terribly.

Then she'd spend the rest of her day trying to figure out if there was anything she was good at, which she originally hadn't thought was hard, considering the sheer number of activities in the place, but... well, Percy was quickly disappointed.

The first thing she tried was archery, at Will's insistence. She had a hard time saying no to his glowing smile. That smile disappeared quickly when she shot her first arrow. Will's older brother and head counselor, Lee Fletcher, had to halt all the other archers so that Will could send the poor kids she accidentally shot in the butt to the infirmary while Percy stammered out her apologies. After that, Will decided that archery probably wasn't her thing, but he didn't complain, at least. Percy was all too happy to drop the bow back off and hurry off to her next activity.

Luke took over her foot-racing training, but it seemed hopeless too. Percy might've been better at it than archery, but the nymphs she was racing against still left her in the dust. They told her to not worry about it, and that she'd get better with time, and they, after all, had practice running away from love-sick gods (violenting reminding Percy of Mr D and his punishment), but she still found it humiliating that she was slower than a tree.

Clarisse was all too happy to test her out on the wrestling mat. All afternoon, Percy was forced to wrestle Clarisse over and over again, and the older girl never let Percy even taste a bit of victory. Even when one of her cabinmates helpfully pointed out to her that Percy probably sucked at wrestling and it was time to move on, Clarisse acted like she couldn't hear him and pulverised Percy again.

So no. Percy didn't exactly have high hopes.

The only thing she really looked forward to was canoeing.

Strangely, it was also the only thing she excelled at, which she knew confused and frustrated the senior campers and counselors. They were all watching her, trying to decide who her father was, but it wasn't like her lack of skills was helping them. Still, did they think that Percy was glad she didn't know? If anything, Percy wanted to know so she knew which god to punch in the face if she ever met him. After all, how could he have just abandoned her and her mother like that? Let her mother die? What kind of god allowed something like that?

Luke told her that it was possible she was Hermes' kid, like him—jack of all trades, master of none. But it was obvious that he was just trying to make her feel better, because he didn't know what to make of her. None of them did.

Still, Percy liked camp. She liked the morning fog over the beach, the smell of the strawberries ripening in their fields in the afternoon, and she even got used to the weird sounds from the woods at night. She'd eat dinner with the rest of cabin eleven and try to make friends with them, and when she scraped a part of her meal into the fire, she'd never fail to make a prayer to her unknown father, trying to feel some sort of connection to him.

In the beginning, she felt angry. No matter how hard she prayed, it seemed, her father just didn't care enough about her to even reply. All she had was the possibly-fake memory of his warm smile. She had begun to understand Luke's bitterness, and why he resented his father, Hermes. Sure, the gods might've had important things to do, but if they were apparently so busy they couldn't even contact their kids, then what was the point of even having children in the first place? If Dionysus could conjure a Diet Coke out of thin air, why couldn't her father conjure a phone?

Then she met Hestia.

It had been her third day at camp, and she had already been sick of swords and bows and running and gods. It had been a free period for the Hermes cabin, and Percy couldn't exactly bother anyone about entertaining her. Will was surely at the archery station, somehow perfecting his already flawless aim, and Grover... well, Grover seemed to be avoiding her. It wasn't that he'd run away whenever he saw her, but he seemed to be leaving earlier than she ever remembered during their conversations, always saying that he had some council thing to do, leaving her to watch his retreating form bitterly.

Percy had plopped down next to the young girl tending to the hearth and stared glumly at the smoldering, glowing coals. She had been planning on sulking for the rest of the hour, but for some reason, as soon as she sat down, a calm had washed over her.

"Persephone Jackson," the young girl said, startling Percy. "Welcome. I did not expect to see you at the hearth so soon."

Percy blinked. And then blinked again. The girl was smiling warmly at her, the twinkle in her eyes eerily similar to Percy's mother's, but that was a thought she didn't want to get to, because the girl looked about eight or nine years old. Still, despite her appearance, there was something about her eyes... they were unfathomably old, like she had lived the lives of a hundred men...

"My name is Hestia," the girl said gently. "Goddess of the hearth."

Percy gaped.

The first god she had met was Dionysus, and like Hestia, he hadn't struck her as godly, but there was something about Dionysus that made her want to punch him in the face. She had been polite, but beneath that facade had hidden her gritted teeth. He was nothing more than an overgrown brat. But Hestia? She was nothing like Dionysus, from as far as Percy could observe, anyway, so how did one greet a goddess who they didn't have a grudge against?

A number of possibilities, really. So of course Percy had to take the most stupid one.

"Agh, um, hi," she stuttered. "Nice to meet you... your holiness?"

She wondered just how bad death could be, her ears and cheeks pink.

Hestia only smiled, and poked the flames again. "Thank you, you know. For sacrificing a portion of your meal. I always receive some, as the goddess of the hearth, but you are one of few to have sacrificed to me directly. You have a good heart, Percy, and Olympus knows how few heroes are left with a good heart."

"Oh, um..."

In the past couple of days, Percy had started sacrificing to three gods—her father, Hermes, and Hestia. The first was obvious, the second was for his hospitality, and the third... well, Percy remembered, from school, that Hestia had once been an Olympian, but she had given up her throne for Dionysus. It was mainly both her respect for the not-Olympian and her disdain for Mr D that led her to drop a small offering in the hearth for the goddess of it, but she hadn't honestly expected Hestia to even notice.

"Do not despair, Percy Jackson. Your father protects you, even now." Hestia stoked the fire, which crackled merrily under her care. "The gods are not allowed to intervene in the lives of half-bloods, and even more so their own children. The other gods suspect your parentage, but they cannot take action without solid evidence, and that solid evidence comes from claiming you directly. Without it, none of the other gods can harm you without good cause, and none have any... yet."

"So you're saying... if my dad claims me, a lot of gods are gonna try and kill me?"

Hestia avoided the question. "He wishes for you to be strong first, for you to become someone even the gods would not dare try to harm. It is one of the only ways to keep you safe. But he cares, Percy. Do not think otherwise. If he did not, he would not be trying so hard to keep you alive."

"You know who he is."

Hestia smiled. "As I said, Olympus has its theories."

Percy started sacrificing more than just a bite of her meal to Hestia from then on. She still hadn't had much time to talk to the goddess after that, since most of her free time was used up in trying to catch her up with the rest of her cabinmates, but she still waved whenever she saw her.

Besides, it wasn't like that many people were eager to be nice to her either. The people she met were mostly friendly to her face, but she knew that they really couldn't care less about her in real life.

She knew that it was for a multitude of reasons—she was weird, she was new, and she had a target painted on her back after embarrassing Clarisse with the plumbing incident. Will had unhelpfully informed her that Clarisse was the head of the Ares cabin, which meant that, by embarrassing her, she had embarrassed the entire Ares cabin, and they always got their revenge. Then, perhaps seeing the look on her face, he had hastily told her to not worry about it, and that, if Clarisse hadn't done anything yet, she probably wouldn't ever.

Percy wasn't too sure about that.

Still, despite the fact that most kids seemed to steer clear of Percy as if the entire Ares cabin was behind her, preparing to pounce if someone said a single nice thing to her, a few didn't try to avoid her: Annabeth and Luke, who weren't afraid of anyone; Will, who really just didn't care for Clarisse's threats and was nice enough to ignore them anyway; and Grover... who was still kind of ignoring her but not as actively as the other kids. At least he didn't run away at the sight of her.

As Will was really the only person around her age that didn't treat her as if she had the plague, she found herself quickly befriending him. Despite his full schedule from working in the infirmary, keeping up with his own training, andteaching other campers archery, he always made time to try and make her feel more welcome at camp.

In just a few days, Percy learned what seemed to be half his life story—his hobbies, his passions, his dreams to leave camp and see the real world, of how he wanted to go back to his mother but he couldn't because his step-father, Axel, always got into fights with him. Despite how horrible it was, Percy had cracked a smile when Will had complained about that. It seemed funny, in a way, that his step-father was so pathetic he had to feel validated by fighting with a then-eight-year-old boy. When she had told Will that, he had laughed out loud too, agreeing that a middle-aged man declaring a literal child his mortal enemy was a bit funny.

Still, even Will seemed to be reluctant to talk to her for too long when Luke was around. Percy usually politely pretended she couldn't see his death-glare aimed toward the older boy, but it didn't stop her from wondering about her first day, when she had entered the Hermes cabin for the first time, and the tension between Annabeth, Will, and Luke. Will and Luke seemed so nice though, so what made them both hate each other so much?

That was the question that was gnawing at her when she swung her sword during her first sword-fighting lesson three days after arriving at Camp Half-Blood.

Luke was the instructor, of course, which was what even got her thinking about the situation in the first place. They first worked on dummies, and Percy felt rather humiliated when all the other campers wielded their weapons with relative ease but Percy struggled to raise the sword to stab an unmoving target. She didn't even know how she was doing. In general, she was rather sure she knew what to do, and maybe her reflexes were okay, but in all honesty, she could've been messing everything up for all she knew.

Most of the problem, she convinced herself, wasn't her lack of skill, but more that she couldn't find a sword that worked for her. Luke had laid out an entire arsenal of swords just for her when she had walked into the arena, but they were all either too heavy or too light, too long or too short. Luke tried to help her when he saw her having trouble, but after making her try all seventeen swords again, he agreed that none of them seemed to work, and slapped her with a too-heavy sword that threatened to yank her arm out of its socket.

After they had reduced a couple dozen dummies to nothing but straw, they moved on to dueling in pairs. Luke announced that he would be Percy's partner, since it was her first time.

"Good luck," one of the campers—Chris Rodrigez, she recalled distantly—told her, though it didn't sound like he was actually wishing her luck. "Luke's the best swordsman in the last three hundred years."

"Maybe he'll go easy on me," she said, but her words didn't sound convincing, even to herself.

He snorted.

Percy's half-hearted optimism didn't pay off. Luke was brutal—like Clarisse, he never let her even let her taste a bit of false victory, and while Percy never managed to land a hit on him, he had whapped her in the ribs with the flat of his blade more times than she could've hoped to count. Every time he directed her to keep her guard up, or lunge, or parry, the stupid sword kept threatening to overbalance her. One time it almost did, and, ironically enough, it was only Luke's blade that slammed her backwards that kept her from falling on her face.

When Luke called for a break, she had to refrain from cheering out loud.

While everybody swarmed the drinks cooler, Percy stayed back. She knew she wouldn't be able to fight through the entire crowd of campers who were already fighting each other anyway, and decided to go last, so she took that time to put her hair back up again, as it had fallen out during her sparring match (if it could even be called that) with Luke.

At last, when the line for water was practically nonexistent, she grabbed a cup. Before she knew it, she had already gulped down five cups of ice-cold water, feeling a lot happier and more energetic than she had a couple of minutes before. Maybe Camp Half-Blood had magical water or something that helped campers get their energy back so they could go and get beat up again and again without losing too much time.

Percy had just filled her seventh cup and was about to take a drink when Luke declared the water break over.

She had no time to drink it, so, hastily, as everybody circled up, she dunked the rest of the water over her head. Immediately, she felt better. One cup of water over her head did more than six cups she drank. Strength surged back into her arms. The sword didn't feel as awkward. She felt as though she just had an energy drink—and she had tried one before, when she had needed to stay up for an assignment. She had failed it anyway, but her teacher had noticed how hard she had worked and then barely passed her just for her effort.

"If Percy doesn't mind," Luke said, "I want to give you a little demo."

Suddenly, everybody was looking at her frozen form. Why did Luke have to call her out like that? Especially when he knew that she was the newest of the new when it came to swordfighting? The other kids looked like they were suppressing smiles. Possibly because they had been beaten up by Luke before and now that they weren't the mice in the experiment, they were excited to see Luke use her as a punching bag. Still, it wasn't like she could refuse. She didn't think Luke was even expecting her to refuse.

"It's a disarming technique," he said. "When you're both fighting and you either are too tired to continue or you think they're better than you, use this. You twist your enemy's blade with the flat of your own sword so that they'll have no choice but to drop their weapon. But this is difficult. I've had it used against me. Most swordsmen, and swordswomen, have to work years to master this technique."

Had he added the last part out of pity for her? Maybe he had told them that it was difficult so that nobody would laugh at her, but it was still a little humiliating when Luke demonstrated the move on her in slow motion and the sword clattered out of her hand. Sure, she had let him, since it was supposed to be a demonstration and she wasn't supposed to actually be fighting him, and he had about a decade's worth of practice that she didn't have, but still.

"Now in real time," Luke said as Percy picked her sword off the ground with as much dignity as she could muster. "We keep sparring until one of us pulls it off. Ready, Percy?"

She wanted to argue that he should've picked someone who could actually hold their own in a fight instead of picking someone who was more likely to break their wrist to actually help the other campers see how the move would work in a real fight, but she held her tongue and nodded. What else was she supposed to be able to do, anyway? Of course, she probably should've waited a few moments before nodding because Luke gave her no time to breathe.

But somehow... something was different.

This time, Percy was somehow able to deflect his attacks. She kept him from getting too close to the hilt of her sword. Annabeth had been right about her battlefield reflexes—she could sense his incoming attacks and countered them. She tried a thrust of her own, which Luke deflected easily, of course, but his eyes narrowed at her attempt and started pressing her with a lot more force than before.

Oh. So he had been going easy on her before. That just made the situation more depressing, her more embarrassed, and her skills more pathetic.

Fun.

The sword was growing heavy in her hand. The balance wasn't right, and she knew that it was only a matter of seconds before either her balance or Luke took her down.

So, of course, deciding that she might as well do something, she tried the disarming maneuver.

When her blade met the base of Luke's, she twisted, putting her whole weight into a downward thrust.

Luke's sword clanged against the stones, the tip of hers an inch from his undefended chest.

The silence around them was deafening.

Percy, not knowing exactly what to do, just ended up saying awkwardly, "Um... sorry."

For a moment, Luke seemed too stunned to speak, before his face broke into a grin and he repeated, "Sorry? By the gods, Percy, why are you sorry? Show me that again!"

Percy wasn't sure if she could've ever pulled something like that again in her life—the short burst of energy had left her anyway—but Luke had insisted and she just wasn't very good at saying no to someone who had been so nice to her her entire time at camp.

So, of course, she was utterly humiliated by Luke, who took her down in about five seconds. Her blade went skidding across the floor as soon as their blades connected, leaving her feeling pretty silly just standing there, a little dumbfounded.

After a long pause, somebody in the audience said, "Beginner's luck?"

Luke wiped the sweat off his brown and appraised her with an entirely new interest. "Maybe," he said. "But I wonder what she could do with a balanced sword..."

The next day, she was sitting next to the lake with Grover, relaxing after she had nearly died on the climbing wall less than an hour before. Thankfully, Will's skill had been more than a match, but he had still fretted over her burns and reminded her to not push herself too hard when she was so new at everything. She had tried to protest that it hadn't been her fault, since she had been scaling the wall with Grover, who had wanted a bit of a challenge, but Will had still chided her on being irresponsible and that she should've known better than to climb the wall with someone who could scamper to the top like a mountain goat.

Since Percy didn't really have any other clothes and she didn't have enough money to buy another one from the store, she had to make due with her burned t-shirt, a gift from the lava. She supposed she could've asked one of the Hermes kids to nick a couple t-shirts for her, but she didn't feel right about stealing. Luke had, after all, already stolen her toiletries.

They were sitting on the pier, watching the naiads do some underwater basket-weaving. Will had been on infirmary duty that afternoon, so he hadn't been able to join them, but Percy found that she didn't mind it as much as she might've before. Grover had stopped trying to avoid her after she had grabbed his shoulders and shook him, admittedly a little violently, while shouting accusations that he was ignoring her and demanding that he stopped. He had stammered out his denial of her claims, but he had quickly agreed anyway. Percy thought it was partially because it was rather embarrassing to be yelled at by the new girl in front of everyone.

They talked about random things, mostly with Grover answering her questions about the Greek world, when she finally worked up the nerve to ask Grover how his conversation with Mr D went; something she had been trying to avoid.

Grover's face turned sickly yellow. "Fine. Just peachy."

"So your career's still on track?"

He glanced at her nervously. "Chiron t-told you I want a searcher's license?"

"Actually, Will did. He said you wanted to be a searcher, and that you had to bring a demigod to camp as some criteria or whatever. He also said that Mr D is nice, so... did you get it?"

Grover looked down at the naiads. "Mr. D suspended judgment. He said I hadn't failed or succeeded with you yet, so our fates were still tied together. If you got a quest and I went along to protect you, and we both came back alive, then maybe he'd consider the job complete."

"Oh." Percy had no idea what a quest meant, or how often they were dished out, but her spirits still lifted. "Well, that's not so bad, right?"

"Blaa-ha-ha! He might as well have transferred me to stable-cleaning duty. The chances of you getting a quest... and even if you did, why would you want me along?"

Percy then proceeded to spend the next few minutes detailing every point she could think of as to why she'd bring Grover along. At the top of the list was that he was her best friend, and he was the person she trusted the most in the world... second to her mother, of course, but her mother wasn't exactly there.

After that, Grover looked a bit better, and when their conversation turned to canoeing, Grover's replies seemed a bit more cheerful than before. His problem, she thought, wasn't his lack of skills, really, but his lack of confidence. His self-doubt had been apparent in Yancy, but she hadn't realized that it went far deeper than doubting his abilities in math. If he could just gain some confidence, Percy knew, without doubt, that he would become the greatest satyr to have ever lived.

Finally, Percy asked about the four empty cabins.

"Eight belongs to Artemis," he said, and Percy nodded. She had suspected that, but had just wanted to hear it confirmed. "She vowed to be a maiden forever. So of course, no kids. The cabin is, you know, honorary. If she didn't have one, she'd be mad. Two is the same. It belongs to Hera, another honorary thing. She's the goddess of marriage, so of course she wouldn't go around having affairs with mortals. That's her husband's job."

She winced at that subtle insult, but no thunder rumbled the skies, and Grover didn't look incinerated, so she just continued, "One and Three are Zeus and Poseidon, right? But why doesn't Hades have a cabin here?"

Grover hesitated. "Well, the cabins are for the Olympians only. Hades isn't an Olympian, so he wouldn't have been considered for a cabin. I mean, we don't have a cabin for Hestia either, and she was actually an Olympian for a while. Besides... well, Hades represents death. A little morbid for a camp that houses kids who are very likely to die before reaching adulthood, don't you think?"

Percy still frowned, though. Hades had been extremely powerful in the myths, and wouldn't not giving him a cabin make him feel upset and inferior to his brothers, which she was sure he already felt? Why did stories even like villainizing Hades anyway? From her knowledge, Hades seemed like one of the more laidback gods, and the cruelest punishments had all been Zeus' ideas. Maybe because it was just easier to dislike someone that had a bad omen, and as the god of the dead, Hades fit that category rather well.

But all she said instead was, "But Zeus and Poseidon—they both had, like, a bazillion kids in the myths. Why are their cabins empty?"

Grover shifted his hooves uncomfortably. "About sixty years ago, after World War II, the Big Three agreed they wouldn't sire any more heroes. Their children were just too powerful. They were affecting the course of human events too much, causing too much carnage. World War II, you know, that was basically a fight between the sons of Zeus and Poseidon on one side, and the sons of Hades on the other. The winning side, Zeus and Poseidon, made Hades swear an oath with them: no more affairs with mortal women. They all swore on the River Styx."

Thunder boomed.

"That's the most serious oath you can make," Percy said.

She didn't know how she knew that, but when Grover had said it... a tingle had gone up her spine, like the very words were invoking ancient magic. Also, the thundering helped with the dramatic effect. An oath that serious... she would've hated to see the consequences of a broken promise.

Grover nodded.

"Let me guess—they didn't keep their word?"

Grover's face darkened. "Seventeen years ago, Zeus fell off the wagon. There was this TV starlet with a big fluffy eighties hairdo—he just couldn't help himself. When their child was born, a little girl named Thalia... well, the River Styx is serious about promises. Zeus himself got off easy because he's immortal, but he brought a terrible fate on his daughter."

"But that isn't fair. It wasn't the little girl's fault."

Grover hesitated. "Percy, children of the Big Three have powers greater than other half-bloods. They have a strong aura, a scent that attracts monsters. When Hades found out about the girl, he wasn't too happy about Zeus breaking his oath. Hades let the worst monsters out of Tartarus to torment Thalia. A satyr was assigned to be her keeper when she was twelve, but there was nothing he could do. He tried to escort her here with a couple of other half-bloods she'd befriended. They almost made it. They got all the way to the top of that hill."

He pointed across the valley, to the pine tree where she'd fought the minotaur. "All three Kindly Ones were after them, along with a horde of hellhounds. They were about to be overrun when Thalia told her satyr to take the other two half-bloods to safety while she held off the monsters. She was wounded and tired, and she didn't want to live like a hunted animal. The satyr didn't want to leave her, but he couldn't change her mind, and he had to protect the others. So Thalia made her final stand alone, at the top of that hill. As she died, Zeus took pity on her. He turned her into that pine tree. Her spirit still helps protect the borders of the valley. That's why the hill is called Half-Blood Hill."

She stared at the pine tree in the distance.

So perhaps that was why people didn't like Hades. While she sympathized with the fact that he seemed to be excluded from everything, she couldn't understand why he'd torture a girl he had never met, and simply because it had been her father who had broken his oath. Maybe Hades couldn't go after Zeus directly, since he was the king of the gods, but it still didn't make sense to hurt a girl who had done him no wrong.

Grover's story made her feel hollow. A girl her age had sacrificed her life to save her friends; she had faced an entire army and willingly died to save her friends. Percy's victory over the Minotaur didn't seem like much compared to that. It made her wonder, if she had acted differently, a little more heroic-ly... would she have been able to save her mother?

"Grover," she said, "you know those heroes that went to the Underworld before? Orpheus, Hercules, Theseus; those people? Had they ever returned with someone from the dead?"

"No. Never. Orpheus came close... Percy, you're not seriously thinking—"

"No," she lied, maybe a little too quickly. "I was just wondering. So ... a satyr is always assigned to guard a demigod?"

Grover studied her warily, clearly unconvinced that she had actually dropped the idea, but said anyway, "Not always. We go undercover to a lot of schools. We try to sniff out the half-bloods who have the makings of great heroes. If we find one with a very strong aura, like a child of the Big Three, we alert Chiron. He tries to keep an eye on them, since they could cause really huge problems."

"And you found me. Chiron said you thought I might be something special."

Grover looked like she had punched him in the gut. "I didn't... you're probably a child of Hermes. Or maybe even one of the minor gods, like Nemesis, the god of revenge. Don't worry, okay?"

"Isn't Nemesis a goddess? And if she is... I have a mom."

His ears turned pink, but Percy got the idea he was reassuring himself more than her.

Percy wished she could've joined in the excitement with the rest of the camp, because it was finally time for capture the flag, which she had heard the other campers going on and on about, but she was still shaky with fighting, and she wasn't looking forward to possibly being sliced up like a sandwich. Maybe if she stuck close to Luke, or Annabeth. She had never fought Annabeth, or had been in any trainings with her, but she had caught a glimpse of the Athena cabin, and it was safe to say that Annabeth probably rivalled Luke in terms of combat skill with a blade.

While everybody else was celebrating and laughing and joking, Percy ate her dinner silently and slowly. She had once heard that eating a lot before exercising wasn't a good idea, and she wasn't anxious to test her luck, so she only had a slice of pizza and half a glass of coke. By the end of dinner, though, she was nibbling on a salad—she had reminded herself that she should've at least tried to stay a bit healthy if she wanted to survive in a hero-ing camp.

When dinner was over, though, Percy found herself glad she hadn't eaten too much—she felt a little like she was going to be sick. She almost wished she could sit out this game. Sure, it sounded fun, but maybe only after she could actually adequately defend herself? Why did the new campers who couldn't do anything have to participate anyway? It was like Chiron was trying to kill them. Mr D she could understand, but Chiron?

She hastily stood with the rest of her cabin when the conch horn sounded, half-heartedly cheering with the others when Annabeth and two of her siblings ran into the pavillion carrying a ten-foot long silk banner that shimmered gray under the moonlight, a painting of a barn owl above an olive tree in bright white shining in the center. From the other side of the pavilion, Clarisse and two of her siblings carried a banner of identical size, but it was red, like the color of blood, the painting a bloody spear and boar's head.

Finding Luke next to her, she asked him, "Do Athena and Ares always lead the teams?"

"Not always," he said. "But often."

She wondered what happened if another cabin captured the flag. Did they repaint it? She had a sudden image of the losing team having to dye the flag with sullen faces and full armor while Clarisse and her buddies tried to draw some grapes or something. The thought made her smile. But then, what if the Ares cabin caught Athena's flag, or if the Athena cabin got Ares'? Did they just have two flags? If they did, then how would the next game work? Would the cabins have to split, or would they hold a lottery to see who the next captains were?

Percy's head swam with questions, but she asked Luke instead, "Whose side are we on?"

She was rather sure they were with Athena, since that comment Annabeth made during her first day at camp, but she just wanted to make sure.

Sure enough, Luke gave her a sly look, like he knew something she didn't. The scar on his face made him look almost evil in the torchlight. "We've made a temporary alliance with Athena. Tonight, we get the flag from Ares. And you are going to help."

Chiron announced the teams. Athena had allied themselves with Apollo and Hermes, the two biggest cabins. To gain support, privileges had to be traded—shower times, chores, best activity slots—which Percy supposed made sense. It wasn't like money would be entirely useful to them, though she wondered if people ever paired up with their friends just because they were friends. Then she decided that they probably didn't if they could cop first shower out of the others. The Hermes cabin had been last, and Percy missed having hot water.

She was glad that she was on the same team as Will, though. When she had been attempting archery, she had seen both his and his siblings' skill with the bow, and if she had to fight them... well, she wasn't going to be very excited. While Ares might've been known for war, they actually had to get in close to cause damage. The Apollo cabin could nail an enemy from a hundred feet away, before their enemy even noticed them. At least Percy didn't have to worry about being shot during the game.

Ares had allied themselves with everybody else—Dionysus, Demeter, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus. Judging from what Luke was telling her who to avoid, Dionysus' kids were good athletes, Demeter's kids were good with nature and the outdoors, and Hephaestus' kids were almost as dangerous as the Ares' cabin. However, there were only two Dionysus campers, the Demeter campers just weren't very aggressive, and there were only four Hephaestus campers. Luke had told her to not worry about the Aphrodite cabin, since they usually sat out every activity and checked their reflections in the lake and gossiped, but Percy had a hard time believing that as she watched some of them strap on armor.

Chiron hammered his hoof on the marble, and the cheering quieted down, but the excitement still buzzed silently in the air.

"Heroes!" he announced. "You know the rules. The creek is the boundary line. The entire forest is fair game. All magic items are allowed. The banner must be prominently displayed, and have no more than two guards. Prisoners may be disarmed, but may not be bound or gagged. No killing or maiming is allowed. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. Arm yourselves!"

He spread his hands, and the tables were suddenly covered with equipment: helmets, bronze swords, spears, oxhideshields coated in metal.

"Oh," Percy said, feeling a little out of place as everybody rushed forward to grab a weapon. "So... we just pick something?"

Luke nodded. "Here, Chiron thought these would fit. Annabeth and I agreed to give you something easy for the first time, and she suggested border patrol."

"Er... thanks?"

Percy almost dropped the shield he gave her. It was the size of an NBA backboard, a giant caduceus in chipping paint painted in the center, and it weighed about a million pounds. Had Chiron actually thought that these would fit her, or had Luke been talking about just the armor? The shield was way larger than she was, and she had to drag it on the ground behind her and hope she didn't look more pathetic than she felt. She might've been able to snowboard on it, but she hoped that nobody expected her to run with it.

Her helmet sucked too—it limited her vision to the point where she could barely see, and her sword was another million pounds, Still, everybody else was wearing a blue-plumed helmet, so she just kept hers on for the sake of not feeling like an outsider... which she already did.

Annabeth yelled, "Blue team, forward!"

The rest of the campers cheered and shook their swords, but Percy could barely raise any of her equipment, so she allowed everybody else to cheer for her. Then they followed her down the path, to the southern woods, ignoring the taunts of the red team (mainly yelled by the Ares cabin) as they headed to the northern woods.

Somehow, Percy managed to speed-walk to where Annabeth and Will were discussing something in heated whispers. As soon as the two caught sight of Percy, though, Will shot Annabeth a look and turned to Percy with a bright smile, though his eyes were still rather anxious. Annabeth rolled her eyes and muttered something under her breath, but turned to look at Percy too with a critical yet calculating glance.

"Um... hey?"

Percy almost winced at her voice. She wished she hadn't interrupted whatever they were talking about.

"Hey," Will greeted, but Annabeth just kept marching.

"So what's the plan?" she asked. "Got any magic items you can loan me?"

Will just laughed and said easily, "Sorry, Percy, you have to bring your own magic items to this fight," but though Annabeth didn't say anything, her hand drifted toward her pocket, like she were afraid Percy had stolen something.

"Just watch Clarisse's spear," she said. "You don't want that thing touching you. Otherwise, don't worry. We'll take the banner from Ares."

With that, she pushed ahead, leaving Percy in the dust with Will.

"Okay," Percy mumbled. "Glad you wanted me on your team."

Will just frowned after the blonde girl, but said to Percy, "Ignore her. We got into a fight and she's taking it out on you. So much for being the daughter of the goddess of wisdom, huh? Anyway, Annabeth and I agreed to give you border patrol, since it's an easy job. We didn't want you overexerting yourself during your first game, and you've only been here for four days. The border is the creek, so you just need to stand next to it, on the red's side, and keep them away. You don't actually have to go out and attack—just defend your position."

"Oh." That didn't sound too bad. "That's... okay, I guess."

Will stationed her next to a little creek that gurgled over some rocks, reassured her that she'd do amazing, before he and the rest of the team scattered into the trees. Percy watched them leave with a heavy heart. Sure, they had stationed her in an area that seemed out of place so that she probably wouldn't get attacked, but she still felt vulnerable with just a sword and shield that were far too heavy to actually be useful in a fight, and armor that barely fit her.

As soon as they left, Percy had quickly taken off her helmet and redid her hair. Though she knew the helmet was supposed to protect her in a fight, she doubted that Will would've put her in immediate danger, and, even if she did get into a fight, she was sure the helmet would've been more of a hindrance than help. Still, even without the terrible helmet, she still felt like an idiot. She didn't know how to fight, and her sword was far too heavy. The leather grip pulled on her hand like a bowling ball.

She tried to convince herself that nobody would actually attack her. Olympus had to have liability issues, right? And didn't Hestia say that her dad was trying to protect her? He wouldn't just let her die, right?

Far away, the conch horn blew. She heard whoops and yells, and then the clanging of metal—kids fighting. A blue-plumed ally from Apollo raced past her like a deer, leaped through the creek, and disappeared into enemy territory.

Then she heard it—a low, canine growl of something close by that sent a chill up her spine.

Instinctively, she raised her shield, sure that something was stalking her. Then the growling stopped. The presence retreated. Percy had just been about to sigh in relief when, from the other side of the creek, the underbrush exploded, and five Ares kids campers came yelling and screaming toward her.

"Cream the punk!" Clarisse shouted, and Percy was starting to regret ditching her helmet.

Clarisse glared at her through the slits of her helmet, brandishing a five-foot-long sword whose barbed metal tip flickered with a strange, red light. The other four campers had just regular bronze swords, but it didn't make Percy feel any better. Still, no matter how horrible the Ares cabin might've been, there was no way they could've radiated so much evil. Hate and anger, maybe, but not stone-cold evil.

They charged across the stream, but there was no help in sight. Percy had about two seconds to weigh her options—run, or defend herself against half the Ares cabin with her hour's worth of training.

Unfortunately, the sheer weight of her equipment chose for her.

She managed to sidestep the first kid's swing, but unlike the Minotaur, they weren't as stupid. They surrounded her, their swords flashing, and Clarisse thrust her spear. Percy remembered Annabeth's warning a little too late. She couldn't dodge the point, so instead, she instinctively raised her shield. It deflected the attack, but a painful tingle shocked her entire body; her hair stood on end, her shield arm went numb, and the air burned.

Electricity, Percy realized dimly. Her stupid spear was electric. She fell back.

One of the Ares guys slammed the butt of his sword into her chest and she hit the dirt, her choir the laughter of the others.

"Give her a haircut," Clarisse said. "Grab her hair."

Somehow, she managed to get to her feet, completely ditching her shield, and raised her sword, knowing that it was hopeless. Sure enough, Clarisse slammed it aside with her spear, sparks flying at the contact.

Great. Now both her arms were numb.

"Oh, wow," Clarisse said mockingly. "I'm scared of this girl. Really scared."

"The flag is that way," Percy snapped, too tired to even care about winning and just hoped that they would go away.

"Yeah," one of her siblings said, "but see, we don't care about the flag. We care about a girl who made our cabin look stupid."

Okay, so maybe Percy could've tried to be a little nicer to the people who could easily kill her, but she snapped again, "You do that without my help."

It probably wasn't the smartest thing to say.

Their grins disappeared and their laughter stopped, and the next thing she knew, two of them were coming at her, trying to kill her. She backed up toward the creek and tried to raise her sword, but Clarisse was too fast. Her spear stuck Percy straight in the ribs. If she hadn't been wearing an armored breastplate, she would've been shish-kebabbed. As it was, the electric point just about shocked the teeth out of her mouth. One of Clarisse'scabinmates slashed his sword across her arm, leaving a good-size cut.

Pain aside, seeing her own blood made her dizzy—warm and cold at the same time. Sure, she had gotten the occasional scratch before, but she had never had blood gushing down her arm, though. It made concentrating on the fight rather difficult.

"No maiming," she managed to say.

"Oops," the guy said, not even the least bit concerned. "Guess I lost my dessert privileges."

Was that seriously the punishment for killing or maiming? Percy thought bitterly as he pushed her into the creek where she landed with a splash, their laughter ringing around her again. If that were indeed the actual punishment, then she had no trouble believing that they would kill her as soon as they were done being amused.

But something happened. The water seemed to wake up her senses, as if she'd just had a bag of her mom's double-espresso jelly beans.

Clarisse and her siblings came into the creek to finish her off, but Percy stood up, her fingers tingling with power. It was like she suddenly had the talents of an experienced warrior—she knew what to do. She swung the flat of her sword against the first guy's head and knocked his helmet clean off. She hit him so hard that she could see his eyes vibrating as he crumpled into the water, knocked out cold.

Ugly Number Two and Ugly Number Three, undeterred by her quick victory over their cabinmate, came at her with angry eyes, but Percy wasn't even fazed. She slammed the hilt of her sword into the face of one guy and sheared the horsehair plume off the helmet of the girl. Both of them backed up quickly, clearly surprised by her sudden skill, and Ugly Number Four didn't seem real anxious to attack her either, but Clarisse didn't seem to care. She kept coming, the point of her spear crackling with energy, but Percy didn't feel bothered at the sight. As soon as Clarisse thrust, Perry caught the shaft on her hilt and brought her blade down, snapping the spear like twig.

"Ah!" she screamed. "You idiot! You corpse-breath worm!"

She probably would've said worse, but Percy, already tired of her insults, smacked her between the eyes with the butt of her hilt and sent the older girl stumbling backwards, out of the creek.

Then she heard yelling, elated screams, and she saw Luke racing toward the boundary line with the red team's banner lifted high. He was flanked by a couple of Hermes guys covering his retreat, and a few Apollos behind them, fighting off the Hephaestus kids. Even in the dark, Percy could see Will in the throng of fighters, nocking arrow after arrow at the speed of light, the Hephaestus kids barely able to deflect his arrows despite their fancy tech equipment.

The Ares folks got up, and Clarisse muttered a dazed curse. "A trick!" she shouted. "It was a trick."

They staggered after Luke, but it was too late. Everybody converged on the creek as Luke splashed across, into friendly territory. Their side exploded into cheers. As Percy watched, amazed and impressed, the red banner that once depicted the bloody spear and boar head of Ares shimmered and turned silver, a huge caduceus replacing the symbol. Everybody on the blue team picked up Luke and carried him on their shoulders, cheering his name as he grinned, raising the banner high into the air.

Chiron cantered out of the words with a smile and blew the conch horn, much to Percy's relief. The game was finally over, and they had won.

Suddenly, from beside her, Annabeth's voice said, "Not bad, hero."

Percy glanced over in surprise, but she didn't see anything.

"Where the heck did you learn to fight like that?" Annabeth asked. The air shimmered, and she materialized, holding a Yankees baseball cap as if she'd just taken it off her head.

Percy found herself getting ticked off, unfazed even by the fact that Annabeth had just been invisible. "You set me up," she said, not even bothering to hide the annoyance in her voice. "You put me here because you knew Clarisse would come after me, while you sent Luke around the flank. You had it all figured out."

Annabeth shrugged. "I told you. Athena always, always has a plan."

Percy wasn't sure who she should've been more angry at—Annabeth, Luke, or Will. Annabeth might've come up with the plan, but Luke and Will had agreed to it. And she had trusted them. Had they used her trust just as a tool? She should've known better than to trust the children of the gods of wisdom, knowledge, and cleverness.

"A plan to get me pulverized," she snapped.

"I came as fast as I could. I was about to jump in, but..." Annabeth shrugged, like Percy's venomous tone didn't bother her. "You didn't need help."

"I didn't—"

Percy was too angry to speak. She hadn't needed help? Yeah, where was Annabeth when she was about to get killed? If Annabeth was so smart, why didn't she station herself a little closer, arrive about two minutes earlier? Percy had thought she was going to die. Had Annabeth calculated that too?

Then Annabeth noticed Percy's wounded arm. "How did you do that?"

"Sword cut," Percy spat. "What do you think?"

"No. It was a sword cut. Look at it."

The blood was gone. Where the huge cut had been, there was a long white scratch, and even that was fading. As Percy watched, stunned, her previous anger diminishing, it turned into a small scar, and disappeared.

"I—I don't get it," she said.

Annabeth looked like she was thinking hard. She looked down at the water, then at Clarisse's broken spear, and something seemed to click in her eyes. "Get out of the water, Percy."

"What—"

"Just do it."

Percy didn't exactly want to do what Annabeth asked, since the girl had just nearly gotten her killed, but she really wasn't in the mood for an argument and just wanted to get back to her sleeping bag to sleep. As soon as she stepped out of the creek, though, she immediately felt bone tired. Her arms went numb again. She almost fell over, but Annabethcaught her.

She cursed. "This is not good. I didn't want... I assumed it would be Zeus..."

Percy was too tired to figure out what the mystery was, and she had just been about to ask Annabeth what she meant when she heard the canine growl again, but this time, it was much, much closer.

The campers' cheering died instantly. Chiron shouted something in Ancient Greek, which she would realize only later she had understood perfectly: "Stand ready! My bow!"

Annabeth drew her sword.

There on the rocks, just above them, was a black hound the size of a rhino, with lava-red eyes and fangs like daggers. And it was looking right at Percy.

Nobody moved except Annabeth and Will, who yelled, at the same time, "Percy, run!"

Annabeth tried to step in front of her, but the hound was too fast. It leaped over her and pounced on Percy, like an enormous shadow with teeth, its claws shredding her armor like it was paper. A second later, there was a cascade of thwacking sounds, like a dozen pieces of paper being ripped one after the other. From the hound's neck sprouted a cluster of arrows, and it fell dead at her feet.

Somehow, Percy was still alive, but she honestly wished she wasn't. The pain was unimaginable. She didn't want to look under the ruins of her armor, but her chest felt wet and warm, and she knew that, given another second, the monster would've sliced her into enough slices for a hundred sandwiches.

Chiron trotted up next to Percy and Annabeth, a bow in his hand, his face grim. Will ran up behind him, his bow also drawn, the half-dozen arrows that had remained in his quiver gone.

"Di immortales!" Will said. "That's a hellhound from the Fields of Punishment. They don't... they're not supposed to..."

"Someone summoned it," Chiron said. "Someone inside the camp."

Luke came over, the banner in his hand forgotten, his moment of glory gone.

Clarisse yelled, "It's all Percy's fault! Percy summoned it!"

"Be quiet, child," Chiron told her.

Percy didn't even have the energy to yell at Clarisse. Like it made sense for her to have summoned a monster to attack herself? If Percy wanted to die, there were way easier ways to do that. The hellhound's body melted into shadow next to her, soaking into the ground until it disappeared.

"You're wounded," Annabeth told her, like it wasn't obvious. So much for being Athena's daughter. "Quick, Percy, get in the water."

"I'm okay," Percy said, as if she hadn't just barely managed to wheeze that out.

"No, you're not," she said, like Percy was an idiot, which she supposed she was. "Chiron, watch this."

"Annabeth!" Lee Fletcher, the head of the Apollo cabin, pushed his way forward. "She needs to get to the infirmary, now."

He looked at Will to back him up, but Will was frowning at her. His eyes had turned just as calculating as Annabeth's, flickering between Annabeth's panicked and distressed expression and Percy's, before a look of understanding dawned on his face and he nodded at the blonde, holding out an arm to stop Lee from moving forward.

Clearly, nobody was letting her actually go to the infirmary, so Percy just tried not to breathe too much and stepped back into the creek, trying to ignore the entire camp gathering around her.

Instantly, she felt better. She could feel the cuts on her chest closing up. Some of the campers gasped.

"Look, I—I don't know why," she said, trying to apologize. "I'm sorry..."

But they weren't watching her healing wounds. They were staring at something above her head.

"Percy," Annabeth said, pointing. "Um..."

Even before she looked up, Percy realized what must've been happening.

Lost at sea. The beach. The fountain at the museum. The toilets. The water from the coolers. Her skill with canoeing. The healing from the creek.

The pieces were finally starting to fit together, and she looked up.

The sign was already fading, but she could still make out the hologram of green light, spinning and gleaming. A three-tipped spear: a trident.

"Your father," Annabeth murmured. "This is really not good."

"It is determined," Chiron announced.

All around her, campers started kneeling, even the Ares cabin, though they didn't look happy about it.

"Poseidon," Chiron said. "Earthshaker, Stormbringer, Father of Horses. Hail, Persephone Jackson, daughter of the Sea God."

Ugh, sorry for the late chapter, but I had other stuff going on, so sorry about that! Anyway, I tried to make up for it with a longer chapter. This one's about 9.5k words, which, I think, is one of the longest chapters I'll be writing. There are a few chapter I remember being mega-long, so those will probably take a lot of time too.

The next chapter is also really long, so I don't know how long it'll take me to dunk it out, but hopefully sooner than this one? Let's hope, huh?

As always, thank you to readers, and reviews are appreciated!