The Warrior Games (A Hunger Games mass-crossover)

Chapter 9-Annabeth

Percy had done nothing but blame himself since Grover died. 'It never would have happened if he hadn't have let him leave the lake.' So he took it that it was his fault. He had felt the same for Tyson. Now it was eating him alive. And no mater what I said he couldn't forgive himself. I knew he didn't want me to see him cry, but there was no stopping it. So I just held him. And he held desperately to me. And we had grieved together.

Grover had been my friend too. Even longer than he had been with Percy. But they were close, like Percy had lost two brothers. Now I thought nothing could stop me from guarding Percy with my life, making sure he made it through these games alive, even if it meant I didn't.

But I could tell he felt the same for me though, but we couldn't both sacrifice ourselves. This is the way true love always had to go down. Like Romeo and Juliet. We could only let each other both survive, or both die.

"Um, Annabeth? Do you hear that?"

I did. The rocks on the lake side were rumbling and shaking.

"Percy..."

Rocks started falling in a growing landslide towards them. One side of the lake's walls was starting to cave in on another.

"Percy we need to go, now!" He turned and looked at me with wide eyes, then to the rocks. Then seemed to wake up, and he reached for me. He grabbed my hand and dropped the water into the air bubble he had held up so long. Water engulfed the two of us as he pulled me up to the surface. The rockslide finally reached the other side of the lake just as he swung me over the side, and I pulled him up.

The water had been in the lake seemed to just drain out. Probably all of this was a controlled attack, to get us out of our side hiding place, from the gamemakers.

"Now what?" I looked around. It was nice to be on actual land again. I knew that these games were taking longer than the gamemakers predicted. But I never thought the gamemakers would push us towards each other to end it faster.

"Percy, do you know what this means..." I was stopped by the sight of other tributes moving towards us.

"Hide." whispered Percy and I pulled him by his arm behind group of bushes. We ducked behind them as the faces of the tributes became clear, and it was now obvious that this was an alliance of trained killers.

"What do we do now," said a girl with wavy light brown hair, "our camp, the cliff, it just... the rocks started falling. And I didn't even think of a spell or anything. I'm sorry-"

A boy with dark hair and glasses who stood beside her interrupted, "Hermione, it's ok. None of us tried to do anything either, it's not your fault. Besides this arena blocks a lot of our spells, so even if you had thought of one to help, it probably wouldn't have worked anyways."

The alliance was made up of two dark-haired guys and two girls, the light-haired brunette and the darker-haired one. Honestly their hair colors were really their only features I could make out from were Percy and I hid.

"Um, guys do you see that?" said another girl. She pointed to an unnatural fog that was rising towards them, and us. They seemed to dismiss the comment on the rising mist.

"We should go, there are some tributes who are staying by the lake over here." The others nodded and the walked off together.

"Annabeth I think they're right, about the fog. It doesn't look natural. And you can't trust anything unnatural with the gamemakers tampering with the arena." I nodded. We stood, slowly. Just as the coast seemed clear and we started walking out of the bushes, I heard a rustle then a thud as a red-haired girl wear all black, that matched the marks or tattoos on her arms and neck, jumped from a tree in front of us waving a sword marked with the same symbols that covered her skin.

Percy uncapped Riptide, and I pulled out an axe that I had gotten from the cornucopia. The girl must not have thought she would be outnumbered when she came down to attack (probably because Percy's sword hadn't been visible, being a pen) and stumbled back. She walked backwards right into the fog. She froze and looked back at it suddenly surrounding her. In moments the fog dispersed, just as the girl fell to the ground. Now Percy and I backed away. This was when we found out that the fog was dangerous. More specifically, it was poisonous.

The girl twitched spastically on the ground, growing more restless by the second. Finnaly she fell limp to the ground to the sound of a cannon exploding. I looked at Percy to see that his horrified expression matched my own.

He reached to hug me. I buried my head in his shoulder. I silently thanked the gods that it wasn't one of us crumpled on the ground. After a moment we let go and walked in a random direction. We had no shelter and no idea what to do anymore.