The Beginning of the End (J. Grace)

XII: Was the old Jason an asshole? Maybe...

Jason's PoV:

Chaos, capture-the-flag and Elara being an idiot with him? Hell yeah; sign Jason up!

"Hey, Lara!" Ellis called and ran over to them while taking off his helmet, a sword at his side.

So, this is the guy she likes -Jason still couldn't quite bring himself to believe it. He was positive she could do better then him. He was certain of it.

That moment when she had pretended to kiss him, though? That was brutal. If only she knew that he...

Piper was with the rest of her cabin on the outskirts of the forest, watching. Her siblings had been so stubborn in not joining in even though Piper was desperate to play.

Jason could tell that Piper looked up to Elara as though she were a goddess: she was the daughter of Aphrodite's role model. Though, who can blame her? Elara's amazing in every way possible.

"Ellis! Hi!" She called back.

Hah, Jason thought. She hasn't given you a nickname. Small wins, he supposed.

Okay, he will admit it, the son of Ares looked great. He understood why she liked him, but that didn't make it hurt any less!

"Hey, you alright?" He snapped out of his thoughts and found Elara stood before him, her eyes filled with worry. "You kinda just zoned out glaring at Ellis. Is there something wrong?"

"No." He snapped. Then, in a softer tone. "Nothing's wrong, sorry. Just, memory."

"Good one?" She wondered, the concern leaving her beautiful grey-blue eyes. "Or plain nasty?"

"Good one." He confirmed, then took her hand and dashed into the woods at the sound of a fog horn reverberating through the area.

The pair ran in step with one another, their weapons close to hand in case they needed them at a sudden notice: Jason's spear strapped onto his back and Elara's sword secured at her hip.

How did she look like a literal goddess just running there in armour, a few scratches on her face from where low branches had smacked into her and a twig in her bun which Piper had done for her? Not fair.

She lifted her hand high into the air as they slowed to a stop before his father's fist. Clarisse and Pollux came up beside them. There were sixteen other Hermes campers, nine Ares campers (counting Clarisse and Ellis), one Dionysus camper (Pollux) and Jason, the only Zeus camper since Thaila apparently didn't count as a camper any more.

"Let's set up a small base here." Clarisse decided and started moving around the foliage to create a covering around the area of the fist (or, more accurately, pile of rocks).

"Alright." Elara agreed, and picked her way through the trees, sending a small glance over in Ellis's direction. "You guys do that; my siblings and I will set up a few traps."

It seemed like a fool-proof plan when she put it like that. Lucky, because they're all fools in their own ways, he supposed. Take Elara for example: she's a reckless dumbass, but she's amazing.

Emphasis on the seemed. Yeah... do you know where this is going to be going? Jason sure as hell didn't.

He hung back with the others, making a small base area, talking to Sherman all the while. It was a fun task, really: if they didn't have to be so quiet, he would have been happy to do that for hours. The campers all talked, joked around (yes, Ares kids can joke around. Did you really think that they couldn't?) and were really efficient -minus when they started a "terrain war" where they would throw mud, moss, dirt and tons more at each other.