❦𝓕𝓪𝓿𝓸𝓻𝓲𝓽𝓮 𝓒𝓻𝓲𝓶𝓮❦ - 𝓟𝓮𝓻𝓬𝔂 𝓙𝓪𝓬𝓴𝓼𝓸𝓷

𝒱𝐼. 𝒞𝒶𝓅𝓉𝓊𝓇𝑒 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝐹𝓁𝒶𝑔 - 𝐻𝓊𝓃𝓉𝑒𝓇𝓈 𝐸𝒹𝒾𝓉𝒾𝑜𝓃

𝓣𝓱𝓮 daughter of Aphrodite spent the entirety of the next day in the sword arena. She left before breakfast and returned with only just enough time to shower and get ready before dinner. Her entire body was aching due to overexertion, but Zoe needed to keep doing something or else her emotions would take over and she wouldn't be able to do anything.

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

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 armor. Some of them even looked like they'd been crying.

On the camper's team, they had Beckendorf and two other Hephaestus guys, two kids from the Ares cabin, the Stoll brothers and Nico from Hermes cabin, Zoe, and a few of her siblings. Usually they sat out, but when Selina, Shawn, and Lucy heard they were fighting the Hunters, they were raring to go.

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

That left Thalia and Percy.

"I'll take the offense," Thalia volunteered. "You take defense."

"Oh." Percy hesitated, his expression pained. "Don't you think with your shield and all, you'd be better defense?"

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 offense," Thalia said. "Besides, you've had more practice at defense."

"Yeah, no problem," Percy (very obviously) lied.

"Cool." Thalia turned to help Lucy who was having trouble suiting up her armor without breaking her nails. Nico ran up to Percy and Zoe with a big grin on his face.

"Guys, this is awesome!" His blue-feathered bronze helmet was falling in his eyes, and his breastplate was about six sizes too big. Zoe remembered how much the sight resembled Percy during his first game of capture the flag. She giggled and tilted the helmet up so she could see Nico's dark eyes.

"How you doin, kiddo?"

"Good," Nico grunted, lifting his sword with effort. "Do we get to kill the other team?"

"Well... no." Percy said.

"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, this is serious. Real swords. These can hurt."

He stared at Percy, a little disappointed.

Percy jolted, like he'd just had an epiphany, before patting Nico on the shoulder. "Hey, it's cool. Just follow the team. Stay out of Zoe's way. We'll have a blast."

Nico looked at Zoe Stark, then looked across the pavilion at Zoë Nightshade. "Which one?"

Percy smiled nervously, glancing out of the corner of his eye at the daughter of Aphrodite who raised her eyebrows at him, curious as to how he would answer. "Both, probably."

Zoe laughed, Chiron's hoof cutting off the sound as it thundered on the pavilion floor.

"Heroes!" he called. "You know the rules! The creek is the boundary line. Blue team— Camp Half-Blood—shall take the west woods. Hunters of Artemis—red team—shall take the east woods. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. No intentional maiming, please! All magic items are allowed. To your positions!"