A/N:Hey, it's been a while! Every few months I look at this story, read through everything I have written and all the notes and ideas I wrote out...and immediately get overwhelmed. I've read so many amazing, masterful books and stories that reading my own writing is genuinely hard to do sometimes. Looking over some earlier chapters, it seems like I didn't even know thedifferencebetween it's and its. Unfortunately, I won't get any better by not writing. The next few chapters have been written for a long time and reread a million times. Possible solutions to their many plot issues have been typed out and deleted. But then I thought, what bills am I paying with this story? I'd like to add that I haven't read the original series in many years now, much less thenewer books. Please forgive the inconsistencies, forgotten details, and just straight up wrong plot points. Read at your own risk!
Kate walked slowly to her cabin, Shane and Harley in tow. Her eyes were dark as she pushed the door open, stopping on the threshold and whipping around to glare at the two boys. "If you mess up a single thing, you're both beyond dead. Remember, I can make you as weak as a kitten with a snap of my fingers." Kate wasn't positive that she could do such a thing, but it was a good way to scare them.
They'd already sworn on the Styx that everything they saw would be kept a careful secret, so Kate silently lead them to the door under the stairs, forcing them to look away as she put in the password. It was activated by biotechnology as well, but they didn't need to know that.
Just as before, Kate had to work to keep herself closed off from the power that threatened to overwhelm her. Shane and Harley, on the other hand, were already exploring.
Harley turned to Kate from where he was examining Maximus' trophies with a frown. "Everything in here looks normal."
He wasn't wrong, necessarily. There were a few items that were made of bronze or bejeweled, but nothing had a motor or seemed to have extra enhancements and none of the weapons looked any different than what could be found in the armory.
"Looks can be deceiving. Pick something up and I'll tell you what it does." Holly had explained a few of the weapons' uses to her, but she could normally tell what something did just by touching it.
Kate knew that she was already outfitted with enough weapons to protect herself, but Chiron had mentioned that she might need something from both her stash and theirs. She considered just taking her new knife, but to her that sort of counted as something from the Hephaestus cabin. So she perused the shelves, waiting for something to catch her eye.
At that point, she wasn't sure that she necessarily needed another weapon—there were plenty of other things scattered around the room. Beads, jewelry, pieces of armor, ribbons, trophies, crowns, even a button that ensured its wearer never buttoned their shirt wrong. Of course, nothing seemed overly helpful or necessary. Many of the items would have been nice o have, but sometimes it was better to complete battles and fights on your own merit, as Kate had learned in the arena. Weapons could make you over-confident, forcing you to rely on them and ignore outside stimuli other than the fight at hand. Still, Kate was determined to find something.
"Kate, what is this?" Asked a voice, shaking her from her thoughts.
Harley was holding a sleek black pen, ornately decorated with Greek letters in no particular pattern, at least not one Kate could decipher. The pen hadn't been part of Holly's grand tour, so she motioned for Harley to hand it to her.
"Oh, I got it now. Here, I'll show you." Kate began to draw on her hand.
"Is it out of ink?" Shane asked, as nothing was showing up on her skin.
She shook her head. "No, the ink is just invisible. Run water over it, and the ink will be visible for a few minutes. It'll even write underwater, in which case it won't activate until re-submerged. It'll only be visible for a little while, and then it'll deactivate until you put it under again. Kinda cool."
Harley shrugged, leaving her with the pen as he continued to search. Shane, though, looked interested.
"Do you mind if I try it out?"
Kate shrugged. "Sure."
Shane scribbled something across his palm, and then, to Kate's chagrin, spit on it. She couldn't argue with the logic, though, and soon the word 'Hello' was glowing in golden ink.
"I'll take it."
Kate did her best to hide her surprise, turning down an aisle of older looking arcade prizes. Surprisingly, something caught her eye. Sitting on a shelf between a neon green bouncy ball and a Chinese finger trap was a dark grey mood ring, just a dull band. Its power wouldn't have garnered her attention among the weapons and shields in the main area of the trophy room, but it stood out like a wasp among gnats in the back aisles. Oddly, the closer she got to it, the shinier it became, until it glinted like real silver when she picked it up.
"I found my weapon," She called, slipping the mood ring onto her middle finger, holding it out for the boys to see.
"What does it do?" Harley put down the gold medal he'd been investigating, undoubtedly looking for hidden mechanical triggers.
"It's a mood ring, but instead of showing my moods, it shows what kind of monster or magical creature is close. Right now, it's silver because it's just demigods. I think…yeah, I think it would be gold if there were any real gods around. Bronze for friendly things that aren't quite human, like Chiron, and I think we'll just have to wait to see what it does for other creatures."
Shane's hand moved toward Kate's as if he were going to take the ring from her fingers, but he stopped at the last second, bringing his hand back down to his side. Harley, thankfully, didn't seem to notice Kate's raging blush or Shane's pointed aversion of eye contact, and jabbered on about his theories of what color it would be for the minotaur.
Kate took a deep breath, and reminded herself yet again that it wouldn't be good if she and Shane started the quest off on an awkward note. It hadn't even started yet, and she was already on the verge of messing something up.
Harvey saved her from further awkwardness by holding up a length of rope with a pouch roughly tied in the middle.
"Is this a slingshot?"
Kate frowned. The rope was frayed, the leather of the pouch cracked and dry. "I think it is, but it must be old."
Harvey held it out, eyes already shining. "Touch it!"
The thing was even older than Kate thought. It hadn't been used in a long, long time, but some sort of godly power thankfully still lingered.
"I think it gives whoever uses it good aim, and it adds a little extra force to whatever you shoot."
Shane reached over Harvey's shoulder to the shelf behind him. "These stones probably go with it," He said, gathering a handful of smooth white and grey rocks.
Once Kate confirmed that the rocks were in fact just rocks, she thought that Harvey would turn down the slingshot. But when Shane, apparently thinking the same thing, reached for the piece of rope and leather, Harvey snatched it away.
"No! This thing is cool, I'll keep it. I've never used this kind of slingshot before."
The look on Shane's face was an odd mixture of fear and pride that had Kate holding back a laugh.
"Well, you better learn fast. We're leaving tomorrow right after sunrise."
Harvey's eyes immediately lost their excited glint. "Sunrise? Isn't that before seven?
His voice sounded so dejected that Kate really did laugh. "Yes, it is, but it's okay. I'm sure you can sleep on the drive."
Shane winced. "Did Chiron not tell you?"
"Tell me what?"
"We can't really rent a car or grab a taxi. I mean, we can take a type of taxi to the ferry, but after that, it's kind of up to us."
Kate sighed. "Why am I not surprised?"
Once the two boys had been thoroughly threatened about spreading the secrets of Cabin 17, Holly allowed them all to leave with their spoils. Harvey tucked his slingshot deep into a pocket of his tool belt, already talking about plans to add a pouch specifically for the stones that he was calling his 'ammo'. Shane simply slipped the pen into the pocket of his hoodie, only offering a shrug and smile when Kate and Harvey asked him what made him choose it.
They weren't able to question him for very long before they joined the stream of campers headed to the pavilion. Harley was mid sentence when he saw a friend from the Ares cabin and darted away, throwing a "See you later!" over his shoulder as he went.
"Are you excited for your first ever capture the flag?" Shane asked, brown eyes sparking with excitement.
Kate laughed at Shane's palpable joy. "Excited might not be exactly the right word, but yeah."
"What other word could there be?" A voice asked, and Kate looked over to see that Holly had joined them, Julia not far behind her.
"Nervous, maybe?" Julia asked, a smirk on her face. "I would be, too, if I were up against the Hermes cabin and the Ares cabin."
Shane snorted. "With the Hypnos kids on your team, I wouldn't be so confident."
Thanks for reading! The initial vibe of this story might change a bit, as well as the pacing. It's been years since I did the bulk of the writing for it, but I stilllovethe characters that I built.