Reincarnation in the PJO verse: Volume 1

『I Capture Hearts and a Space (Also a Flag)』

The next morning, there was no one to wake him up with a bucket full of cold water or a body to drop on him so slept quite late compared to Apollo Cabin standards. Only when the breakfast horn did sound out, his siblings actually tried to wake him up but he was already half-awake so no one actually suffered his wrath.

After breakfast, he aimlessly walked around, helping the strawberry fields for picking up the strawberries and then climbing the lava mountain. Percy and Thalia spent the better part of the day, glaring at the hunters while Yash and Theo were busy trying out weapons with Chiron so he kept his distance from them.

That night after dinner, the campers were seriously ready to beat the Hunters at capture the flag. It was going to be a small game: only thirteen Hunters and about the same number of campers.

Zoe Nightshade looked pretty upset. She kept glancing resentfully at Chiron like she couldn't believe he was making her do this. The other Hunters didn't look too happy, either. Unlike last night, they weren't laughing or joking around. They just huddled together in the dining pavilion, whispering nervously to each other as they strapped on their armour. Some of them even looked like they'd been crying. Diedre guessed that Zoe told them about Artemis' condition.

On their team, they had Beckendorf and two other Hephaestus guys, a few from the Ares cabin, three from the Apollo Cabin, the Stoll brothers and Nico & Bianca from the Hermes cabin, and a few Aphrodite kids. It was weird that the Aphrodite cabin wanted to play. Usually they sat on the sidelines, chatted, and checked their reflections in the river and stuff, but when they heard we were fighting the Hunters, they were raring to go.

Yash and Theo were made to sit on the sidelines because Diedre forced them and he rightfully did so. They barely knew how to fight and they did not have the protagonist's shield.

"I'll show them 'love is worthless,'" Silena Beauregard grumbled as she strapped on her armor. "I'll pulverise them!"

That left Thalia, Percy and Diedre.

"I'll take the offence," Diedre volunteered. "Percy takes defence and Diedre will take offence with me."

"Oh." Percy hesitated. "Don't you think with your shield and all, you'd be a better defence?"

Thalia already had Aegis on her arm, and even their own teammates were giving her a wide berth, trying not to cower before the bronze head of Medusa.

"Well, I was thinking it would make better offence," Thalia said. "Besides, you've had more practice at defence."

"Yeah, no problem," Percy lied.

"Cool." Thalia turned to help some of the Aphrodite kids, who were having trouble suiting up their armour without breaking their nails. 

Nico and Bianca ran up to Diedre

"Dee, this is awesome!" His blue-feathered bronze helmet was falling in his eyes, and his breastplate was about six sizes too big. Diedre tried to stop himself from pinching Nico's cheeks, so rosy, so cute by he would probably not appreciate it.

Bianca on the other hand looked a bit better, her breastplate about three sizes too big but she pulled it off. Instead of pulling their cheeks, he settled on tousling their hair.

Nico lifted his sword with effort. "Do we get to kill the other team?"

 "Well... no."
"But the Hunters are immortal, right?"
"That's only if they don't fall in battle. Besides—"

"It would be awesome if we just, like, resurrected as soon as we were killed, so we could keep fighting, and—"

"Nico, come on. It might hurt them and they'll get angry at us."