•as the world caves in•

•the oracle•

When I found Silena, she was fuming. She glanced up at me when she heard my footsteps. "I hate these Hunters!"

I laughed and wiped my eyes off from the talk Percy and I had. "Tell me about it."

She pet one of the camps pegasus. "She comes in here trying to tell me how to do the job I've been doing since I've been at camp! I just want to punch one of them."

I grinned and gave her a side hug. "I know, but it'll get better, I'm sure."

"Beat them at capture the flag, please. Someone needs to bring their ego down."

•.•.•.•

Later that night after dinner, Percy and I had pretended nothing happened between us, even as Grover gave us a look of fear that we might fight again.

We walked towards our flag, ready to beat the Hunters, Silena joined, which I found weird. "I'll show them 'love is worthless'. I'll pulverize them!"

I laughed, and so did Charlie. I gave Silena a sly look but she only shoved my shoulder.

On our team we had Silena, Charlie, Percy, Thalia, and I. There were some random Ares kids, Nico, the Stoll brothers, and some other Hephaestus kids.

"I'll take offense," Thalia announced. "Percy, Coriane, you take defense."

The last time I played defense on capture the flag was when Clarisse dragged me with and ended up almost chocking me out.

"I have some bad memories of defense," I deadpanned and Percy cringed.

"Yeah, it's a little... a story for another day. You have a shield, shouldn't you go defense?"

Thalia rolled her eyes. "Yeah, well, you've played defense more."

"Yeah, no problem." Percy said and looked at me. "You'll be okay, right?"

I nodded. "Hopefully nobody decides to choke me out this time."

"I'll actually help this time if that happens. Last time I just stood there."

I nudged him. "It was your first real fight, and it was Clarisse and some other Ares kids. You had less than one percent of even doing anything. No offense."

He smiled. "Yeah, I kinda sucked back then."

"You still do."

He frowned. "Okay, whatever."

We, blue team, gathered all our gear and flag to take it to our side, and placed it on Zeus's Fist. It was super high up and really hard to climb, which meant we'd have an easier time defending.

Chiron sounded the horn, and our decoy and offensive team ran out.

"Coriane, can you hold fort?" Percy asked.

"Um, probably."

"Okay, you do that!"

I watched as he ran off to go attack, and I felt a horrible pit in my stomach.

I heard branches snap, and Charlie and I turned to face it, seeing five Hunters with bows at us. One fired at me, and it, of course, hit me right between a gap in my armor.

I groaned in pain, but snapped the shaft off, not daring to take it out, and charged with my sword. One pulled out her knife and easily shoved me into a tree, leaving a cut on my face.

Nico was on defense, but he just backed away, so the Hunters left him alone. Charlie and the Stoll brothers tried to defend, but they went down quicker than I did.