νεκρός || Annabeth Chase x Fem!OC

Vol. 2-9: I have a temporary break in my sanity

TEMPEST

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That night after dinner, I 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.

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 at dinner, 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. I guess Zoe had told them about her nightmare.

On our team, we had Beckendorf and two other Hephaestus guys, a few from the Ares cabin (though it still seemed strange that Clarisse wasn't around- some sort of top-secret mission), the Stoll brothers, me, and Nico from 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.

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

I stood by Thalia and Percy, our "co-captains." I figured that would go about as well as putting an angry rooster in a cage match with a feral raccoon.

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

"O-Oh..." Percy trailed off, and I could already see the problems coming up. It was clear he wanted to take offense. And, to be honest, I was with him on this one. Thalia had her spooky shield, Aegis, which was better defense than just about any magic item at camp. Percy had Poseidon-voodoo and was pretty good with Riptide, his badass sword. "Don't you think with your shield and all, you'd be better defense?"

Thalia already had Aegis on her arm, and even our 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."

This was very obviously a bullshit play on Thalia's part, but I wasn't going to get into it. I think a daughter of Zeus fighting a son of Poseidon might be the only thing that can make me happy at this point. Now, you may be wondering, How is this bullshit? Well, it's very obvious that Thalia wants the glory for herself. To be honest, there's hardly any such thing as "practicing defense." You need to practice offense more than anything. I saw this shrimpy dude take down Polyphemus without anyone else's help. Meanwhile, I saw Thalia the Tree dying because of some scorpion venom. You tell me who you'd rather take offense.

Percy, unfortunately, didn't bother standing up for himself. "Yeah, no problem."

"Cool." Thalia turned to help some of the Aphrodite kids, who were having trouble suiting up their armor without breaking their nails. I raised my eyebrows at Percy, who looked a little uncomfortable. Maybe because of Thalia, maybe because I was standing right next to him, and I am significantly taller than he is. Poor kid grew about two inches in these past six months, but he still needs another eight or nine inches to catch up to me. I think it'd be funny if he was always shorter than me.