St. Owl, please don't stop!

Also, can you plesae make me Greek? Because, I don't know why, but I just never liked Rome. Like, at all. If you already have me in Rome, that's fine, but if I could be at Camp Half-Blood, I would be so grateful. Thanks! :) 

Sorry, everyone! I just got back from camping today.

PART III

St.Owl was found, before dinner, rapidly scribbling on one of the many tables in the Athena cabin. What she was writing was incredibly unorganized, and when she read it over, she scowled, pulling a fresh bit of paper towards her. When she had finished transcribing her original copy into something much more readable, she rolled up her final draft, grabbed the first one, and made her way out to the mess hall, throwing the illegible plan into the fire on her way.

After a hurried dinner, everyone hurried back to their cabins to suit up. St.Owl pulled a plumed helmet over her short dirty-blond hair and slipped off her plastic-framed glasses, putting on sports goggles instead. They obscured vision, but were less likely to break.

Unlike some of the others, St. was not a fan of the bulky armor that was an option to wear, so she simply buckled on her sword and made her way outside again, meeting Ashlee under the grey Athena banner. Next to them, the Ares kids assembled. A girl with brown hair in a ponytail walked up to them.

"Hey, Joan," said St.Owl. Joan B., like St., was a second-in-command; at the moment, the counselor of the Ares cabin was trying to get his half-siblings to go into a slighly orderly formation.

"Hi, Ashlee. Hi, St.Owl," replied Joan. "St., you said you were drawing up a plan for tonight?"

"I did," said St.Owl, holding out the scroll she'd been working on earlier. "Want me to go over it now, or once we're in the woods?"

"Now," said Joan.

Ashlee, who had read it over during dinner and helped St.Owl with some last-minute altercations, said, "Maybe you should go over it now, but assign stuff once we're in the woods."

"Okay."

St.Owl banged a cup against the table for attention.

The Athena cabin had worked very hard to get a nice number of allies. Besides the Ares kids, they also had Cockleburr, Hephaestus, Nike, Hermes, Hecate, and Demeter on their side. The Apollo kids led the other team, which contained the Iris, Hypnos, Dionysus, Aphrodite, Nemesis, Hebe, and Tyche cabins. Hades and Zeus currently had no demigod children.

"Here's how I want this to work," said St.Owl, standing on the same table she'd just banged a cup on. She was naturally a tall person, but there were plenty of older kids who were larger than five foot five and thought her titchy. "I drew up an elaborate battle plan.

"The Demeter and Hephaestus kids are gonna be our defense. Cabin Four, I want you to set up as many flora defenses as you can-- big rosebushes, trip grass, I don't care. Hephaestus, just do your building thing and make us something awesome.

"Meanwhile, Cockleburr, we need you to guard the boundary-- the river, you know. Nike and Ares, you're leading the assult. We need you to make a nice little head-on scuffle and get as many people as you can tired out and injured. After you guys are done, Hecate, Hermes, and us-- Athena-- are going to come in for a second battle, wipe them out, and get the flag. Once we get to the woods and are in position, we can decide exactly who's going to do what.

"Everyone sorted? Good. Let's go."

Right on cue, Chiron sent the two teams into the forest. Cheering, the Athena kids led the parade of Cabins Three, Four, Five, Six, Nine, Eleven, Seventeen, and Nineteen into the woods.

____

The Athena, Hecate, Ares, Hermes, and Nike kids separated from the rest once they reached the river. Demeter and Hephaestus went to find a nice spot to put the flag, and the rest dawdled on the edge of the river, waiting for Chiron's signal. Once he let them go, Nike and Ares tore through the forest, making a ton of noise and screaming at the top of their lungs, while Athena, Hecate, and Hermes split up, moving as quietly as possible through the sidelines. 

St.Owl's group of people included the three new kids (Leafpool, Mei-xue, and a very terrified Booksy) as well as another Athena girl named TARDISrider. She was known to have a bit of a temper, but St.Owl found her very friendly and enjoyed chats about Doctor Who with her. Once they reached a good distance, they peered through the branches to watch the fighting.

"Um, St.Owl?" whispered Booksy, sounding absolutely frightened.

"Yes?"
"This seems like a really violent game. Are you sure it's safe?"
"Positive," St.Owl whispered back. "There's no maiming or killing allowed. It's supposed to train us for real combat."
"What exactly are we supposed to be doing?" whispered Mei-xue, a twinge of annoyance in her words. "Nobody ever bothered to tell us."

"Exactly what it sounds like: Get the other team's flag and go back to your territory before them."

They fell into silence.

"They're done fighting," TARDISrider observed. The Ares and Nike cabins seemed to be retreating, although extremely slowly. The other cabins were starting to regroup.

"I told Joan and Ashlee-- don't give them time to gather up again," hissed St.Owl. "Charge!"
As they burst out of the bush, she noticed Joan's uncovered head sprinting for the flag. St.Owl always found Joan's dress rather funny-- she had a sword slung across her back and knives in her boots, but she couldn't be bothered to put on a helmet. And yet she could fight fantastically with the rest of her armor on! St.Owl found it too restraining.

"Cover her!" she heard Ashlee shout, and ran towards the noise. In a minute, St.Owl was headed off by an Apollo kid. St.Owl recognized him-- his name was Kai, and they were good friends. He was giving her guitar lessons. She recalled that last time she was in Cabin Seven he had jokingly said he would seek her out in Capture the Flag.

Automatically, St.Owl got into a fencing stance, drawing her sword. Soon they were thrusting and parrying in a flurry of movement.

Meanwhile, Cockleburr was calling for a bit of help. The opposing team was splashing across the river, and she was having trouble holding all of them back.

In a moment, an automaton was charging at the campers. Behind it ran Trill Woodhena, panting slightly.

"We spent a while on that," she said, smiling slightly. "I hope they don't break it, it really is an excellent piece of craftsmanship."

In a moment, the campers who had been charging suddenly turned around. Cockleburr, surprised, let down her guard, and a few crafty Nemesis kids snuck past her. She didn't notice.

Flag held aloft, Joan was running towards the river at top speed. Behind her, Mei-xue was doing an excellent job of fighting quite a few people off, using a combination of (slightly clumsy) karate and some nice handling with her new knife. St.Owl was still fending off Kai, who was doing a very impressive assault and somehow pushing her back fast enough to keep up with the crowd. TARDISrider was fighting some Dionysus kids, assisted by a Caucasain girl with curly brown hair called Young Writer.

And just as the situation was hitting the shocked Cockleburr and Trill, Joan splashed across the river and made a sound of triumph. The yellow flag showing a lyre fluttered, changing to blood red and sporting a war helme. The exhausted Nike kids cheered at the top of their voices.

At the same time, the sneaky Nemesis kids were running towards them, holding the Athena flag. They were chased by the mob of Demeter and Hephaestus defenders, and seemed to be sporting some major injuries. When they saw the now-red banner that Joan was holding, they dropped the flag and groaned.

Cheering, the Athena team made their way out of the forest, Joan B. of Arc leading the way.

Amazing, St!!!! Keep it up!!!!

PART IV

War Games!

The stealing of another enemy's base was a very important skill for the Roman legions. So important, in fact, that they did it practically every night.

Mirax T. was leading the games, flying above on her Pegasus. It was named Elton, but as it was female people got around to calling her Mrs. Elton. Who she was married to, they had no idea.

September stood by Indigo as cohorts One, Two, and Three prepared their defense. "What exactly are we doing?" she asked.

"We have to stop cohorts Four and Five from getting inside," said Indigo simply. September thought that sounded easy enough. 

Suddenly, a girl with white-blond hair hurried up to them. September looked her up and down: she was clutching a trident and had a red bandanna around her neck. She had sea green eyes and wore cutoff jeans as well as her purple Camp Jupiter shirt.

"I'm Brookiera," she said quickly to September. "Daughter of Neptune, Centurion of the Third Cohort. Indigo, I want you and September guarding our flag, all right?"

"Okay," said Indigo, and started sprinting down the steps. September ran to catch up. "Flag?"
"Yeah," said Ingido, panting. "Sorry, I forgot. We're supposed to stop them from grabbing the flag in here before time runs out."
"How long's the time limit?"

"Two hours. Plus, the other team's got Hannibal the elephant. Sounds really easy for the defenders to win, right?"

September noted the sarcasm.

[ST.OWL'S NOTE: I made up the time limit, because in the books the offense just wins and that's it.]

Indigo drew her Imperial gold Gladius, and indicated to September that she should do so as well. September had only ever fenced, and the Gladius was a different sort of sword altogether. She hoped that she would be able to fight with it.

After that, they did a lot of waiting. September, who had a short attention span, found herself bouncing on the balls of her feet and glancing around a lot. There were other people guarding their banner-- two from the first cohort and two from the second. 

"So," said September, trying to fill the silence, "where's Brookeira?"

She was the first person to come to September's mind, seeing as the only other one she knew by name was currently refereeing.

"She'll be by the water cannons," said Indigo, with a tad of impatience in her voice. September figured that maybe being the welcoming committee was not Indigo's favorite thing to do. "Daughter of Neptune, you know, she can control them better than the rest of us."

There was a bit more silence. September wanted to talk about something, but nothing came to mind.

But in a moment, something very loud and heavy banged against the door.

They readied their weapons.

It banged again, and this time the door gave way: Hannibal the elephant's tusk jutted through the doorway as about seven legionnaires charged. September was soon in the middle of a sparring match with one of them, and found that her instincts were kicking in: she jabbed, parried, and thrusted as well as her opponent. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she figured it must be her mother's gift.

But she was in vain; suddenly her opponent cheered, and September whirled to see the seventh legionnaire running towards Hannibal. She wouldn't make it, she was sure she wouldn't, and anyway all five of the others were running towards him already, Indigo included. He lept on Hannibal-- surely it was over-- September ran to keep up with the elephant's strides. 

But right as the overlarge head started to exit the fortress, a well-aimed blast of water sent it retreating back. September felt an overwhelming urge to cheer "Whoo-hoo Brookiera!" but didn't, as the games weren't over yet.

For a while, Hannibal kept retreating, until the legionnaire with the banner simply slipped off his back and took off running. A few blasts of water hit him, but it was too late; he'd exited the fortress. They had lost.

Mirax blew her whistle and flew down on Mrs. Elton, shrugging her shoulders at the defenders. "She used to be in the Third Cohort," Brookiera whispered to them, suddenly appearing. September hazarded a guess that she and Indigo were slightly close.

As September made her way to what the legionnaires called the barracks that night, she couldn't help thinking that she'd done alright, nonetheless.