Chapter 2: Capture the Flag

Chapter 1

Mark

The sun outside hurt my eyes, telling me that I had spent far too much time inside the forges. I looked around to see a lot more activity than I expected considering I didn’t hear anything from inside the forge.

Hunters were running every which way, a great deal more than I knew existed. Campers were also dashing about, but that was the norm with the Argo II nearing completion. Alex and I crossed the camp to the arena to find twenty hunters and eighteen campers waiting. Apparently I was the last one.

Jason and Thalia stood near Chiron, all with their heads together discussing something. Chiron saw us first.

“Ah, Mark. Just the camper we were waiting for. Alright, twenty campers vs twenty hunters, the creek is the boundary line. I shall serve as referee and battle medic. All magical weapons are allowed, please try to avoiding killing and maiming. To your starting points!” With that completed he motioned to Annabeth, who I had not noticed sitting in a corner, and cantered away. Jason jogged up to, and past us, with the rest of the campers following him, so we followed.

“Alright, we are working in teams of three, with five guarding the flag. Piper, your taking care of defense with teams 2, 3, and 6. I will take care of offense with teams 1, 4, and 5.” Steve came up to us and held up four fingers, we were team four. As soon as we hit the forest Jason and five other kids peeled off from the main group holding the flag. They continued off to Zeus’s fist to plant the flag, we moved towards the midpoint between the creek and the flag.

“Alright, since we are going up against Thalia, my team,” he indicated someone from the Ares cabin and Butch from the Iris cabin, “will find her and keep her busy.” He then pointed at the rest of us. “You six, you all are going for the flag.” I looked over at the other group. A kid from Herme’s who claimed to the fastest, Jackie Snowsong an Apollo girl, and one of her brothers. They nodded at us. Jackie even, dare I say it, smiled a little bit.

The conch horn sounded. Jason closed his eyes and I could smell the ozone around him. With a snap of electricity that made Jackie and the Apollo boy jump his eyes opened, with silent commands he pointed Alex, Steve, and I to take the dead center in one minute, and for the other team to take the southern path in a minute as well. Then he tapped the Ares kid and Butch on the shoulders and led them off. The other team peeled off and headed towards their requisite path.

After about fifty seconds we heard the boom of thunder in the direction Jason went. I took point, moving as quietly as I could, Alex took up the rear with her two handed sword, Agni, in its baseball bat form out. Steve cheated and floated above the grass and leaves.

We reached the creek and I saw our first obstacle. Five hunters were crouched down and hidden in the foliage. They would have stayed that way, but I could...I suppose the best word for it is feel the metal in the weapons as they waited for someone to spring out of the trees on our side of the creek. I was about ready to comply, hitting someone at this point, what with the horrible memories returning, would feel really good right about now, but Steve put his hand on my shoulder.

“Check this out,” he whispered in my ear, then quietly landed on the ground. He picked up a couple of rocks and closed his eyes. His hand, the one holding the rocks, glowed purple a little bit and I moved in front of it, just in case, to prevent the hunters from seeing it. He finished and motioned me out of the way. Once I moved, he flicked the rocks out. Since they were so small you would have had to had the sight of an eagle, or known he was there, to see them fly through the air and land on the other side of the creek.

Then they began to smoke.

Purple smoke lifted from where the rocks landed and obscured our sight. I looked at him in annoyance.

“It stops them, and us. Great.” He reached out and tapped my forehead, then indicated I should look again. I did.

I couldn’t see the smoke any more, but I did see the hunters staggering out of their hiding places (one fell out of a tree) and wave their hands around like they couldn’t see anything.

“I made it so the smoke doesn't effect us, lets get moving.” We dashed forward and across the creek. One hunter must have heard us because, despite her coughing, she raised her bow and pointed it at us as we crossed. However she could not see us, and the arrow went wide. Alex rushed in and hit three of them on the head hard enough to knock them out. I did the same with the last two. Once they were down, Steve dispelled the fog with a wave of his hand, as well as our immunity, I could smell the foul stench of it once his hand finished the arc. We moved forward into enemy territory.

Strangely, we didn’t see any more Hunters on our way. Then we saw the flag.

It was in the center of a clearing, near another part of the creek. The placement looked innocent enough, but i could see a lot of traps surrounding it. Most were pretty innocent from what I could see, trip wires mostly. There was a couple of bear traps around. It is what I didn’t feel that worried me. I could see some obvious cloth tripwires, which meant that they had other, better hidden, things waiting. I saw the other team appear to the south of us.

Jackie and the Apollo boy had their weapons drawn and ready to fire on whoever they saw. The Hermes kid was holding a hammer and had a couple of cuts on his face. He saw us and waved. He started to move forward when I held up my hand in a warning motion. I flipped out a couple of my dagger pencils and fired them off into the clearing, cutting some tripwires as they slammed into the bear traps, tripping those. I took out a couple more and fired them off at the other metallic trip wires. I took out my last two and fired them at the obvious cloth traps.

Big mistake.

The trip wires snapped, which started a chain reaction of nets bursting out of the ground and the trees. Yes, the trees. One clipped Jackie, knocking her out as it swept her up in its grasp. The other Apollo boy was captured also, and thrashed in the net as he tried to get out. The Hermes kid danced around, dodging the nets flying at him from various directions.

Closer to home nets were flying at us, but before they hit they slammed into a shield Steve put up to hold them back. After about a minute the nets stopped flying around, and the Hermes kid walked up to us.

“What did you do?” He asked. Meanwhile the Apollo boy swung over to Jackie and was healing her.

“Trip wires, cut them up.” I explained as we got up and approached the flag. An arrow came out of nowhere and the Hermes kid smacked it out of the air with his hammer. Around us eight hunters came out of the woods. Five down at the creek, eight here, presumably three with Jason, four heading for the flag. Great.

I recognized the lead girl, I think her name as Jane or something like that. She had a wicked looking barbed arrow notched and pointed straight at me.

“What is it with archer girls and wanting to kill me?” I asked.

“Must be the nose,” Jackie grumbled from her net. Some of the hunters laughed, Phoebe reached with her knife and lowered the arrow.

“Non lethal,” she grunted. Jane scowled and put the arrow away. Then she drew a different arrow that was like the ones the rest of the hunters, except for Phoebe, was pointing at us.

“We have you surrounded. You are now our prisoners.” She took a step forward. I brought out Ignus and Glacius, and Alex followed my example and raising Agni, still in its bat form.

“Hey, Hermes boy,” I said. He scowled at me, I guess he didn’t like being identified by his father. “You as fast as they say?”

“Probably faster,” he replied.

“Good, grab and dash.” I told him, charging forward. He snagged the flag and put his hammer away. The archers fired, two of the arrows hitting Alex, three towards me, two at Steve and one at the kid. Alex went down, and I got a good look at the arrows. They looked like normal arrows, but instead of arrowheads there were needles, and it looked like the arrow shaft was the plunger. The two who hit Alex sank all the way down, she collapsed immediately.

I blocked the arrows with my shield and closed in on a few of the hunters, slicing their bows to pieces. They drew knives, but I hit them on the head with the flat of my blade, taking them down. I felt an arrow pierce my jacket and the fluid get pushed into my body. I felt heavy, my eyes drooping, the hours of sleeplessness catching up to me. Another one hit me, and my eyes shut.

The last thing I remember was slamming into the ground.

Chapter III