Poisoned Paradise
The starting horn sounded loudly, resonating loudly through the forest. The two teams charged towards each other. The blue team being composed of the Athena, Apollo, Demeter, Hermes and Aphrodite cabins. The red team was composed of the Ares, Hephaestus, and Dionysus cabins. Dain MacArthur, lead the Athena Cabin in the main assault. They quickly crossed the stream, taking down the five Hephaestus children who came to ward off their attack. “Alright, guys, lets go win this game and show them not to mess when the children of Athena!” Dain said with a valiant smile.
Alex, Dain’s younger brother, laughed slightly, running to catch up to him. “Last one to their flag has to pay the winner five golden drachma!” Alex said with a smirk, running ahead of Dain. Alex’s older brother just rolled his eyes and ran after him. “Oh my gods…” he muttered.
Adara Williams beckoned to her brothers and sisters behind her. The daughter of Aphrodite pointed her perfectly manicured hand into the air and took off. Her pure white Pegasus, Liselle, let out a cry of excitement. Adara led the Pegasus Knights of the Aphrodite Cabin towards the Red Team’s side of the forest. Yes, Aphrodite’s Cabin was taking place in a Capture the Flag game in stead of just watching from the side lines. The children of Aphrodite had toughened up greatly since the war against Kronos. Back then, Silena Beauregard had led Aphrodite’s cabin against Kronos. Sure, Adara wasn’t fighting against Kronos, but she felt a great surge of pride as her brothers and sisters flew towards the red team.
As they flew over the forest, the Pegasus Knights had to dodge various traps set up for them by the Hephaestus Cabin. They had prepared crude catapults to fire rocks at the flying Half-Bloods. Liselle managed to dodger the rocks with extreme grace, but Adara’s brother, Michael wasn’t so lucky. A rock clipped his Roan Pegasus’s wing, making a deep gash, tearing away brown feathers. The Pegasus started flying at an angle and Michael had to land so that he wouldn’t crash into the forest.
Adara gasped, looking down at Michael to make sure he was okay. When he gave Adara a thumbs up, she flashed him a dazzling smile and flew on towards the flag. Adara steered Liselle down to a grove where the red flag was placed. The Athena cabin was fighting the group of campers who had been placed to protect the flag. They were kids of Dionysus. They trapped the Athena kids’ feet with various grape and strawberry vines.
Adara’s brothers and sisters leaped to help the group while Adara grabbed the flag from a tree. She slammed the butt of her steel spear between the blue eyes of a slightly chubby boy and took to the skies, racing back to their side.
Creeping through, not daring to make a sound, Zach Madison led a few of his blond haired brothers and sisters through the forest. The Apollo Cabin had split up into two groups, one group led by his sister, Sam, and his group. Their job was to scout through the forest and help wherever help was needed. As Zach led the group of archers through the woods, he heard yelling coming from the small fissure where the flag was being held. Zach whirled around and ran towards their flag. There he saw about nine Ares children completely overpowering the Demeter kids. Two of them were knocked unconscious and there were only three left. One Ares kid reached up to grab the blue silk flag but Zach was too fast for him. Zach released the three dull arrows from his bow and they slammed right into the boy’s outstretched arm with a sickening crack.
The boy jerked his arm back, clutching it with a look of sheer pain on his face. Zach must have cracked the bone on accident. “He’ll live…” he muttered, as he fired more arrows. Soon there were only three conscious and the Demeter children easily took them out by tying them up with rose vines. Clear, a daughter of Demeter shot Zach a quick smile then turned her eyes to the sky. She could see Adara rushing back holding a crimson silk flag. The Blue Team had won.
Once the two teams had changed out of their armor Alex, Zach and Dain met up and made their way to the dining pavilion for lunch. Alex was smiling happily, bouncing five golden drachma around in his hands. The three half-bloods were laughing happily and joking around when Zach spotted a figure limping down towards camp. Even from afar Zach could tell he was badly injured. “Who could that be?” Zach asked Dain and Alex, but the brothers had already figured it out. The only Half-Blood who had been given a quest recently was Hunter, a son of Hermes. He had been told to go across the country to California where a powerful giant had been wreaking havoc on the poor city of San Francisco. He had been gone for weeks and everyone had given up hope on the possibility of him returning, but here he was.
Alex and Dain helped support Hunter and brought him to the Big House to see Chiron. After Chiron had mended his leg, Hunter told his story. “I-I had just finished off the Gorgon, she was unnaturally big so it took me a bit longer, when I felt a strange power coming from the west…” everyone in the room exchanged worried glances. Mount Tam, the ancient home of the Titans was located west of California. Could the Titans somehow be coming back after the Great War? Hunter continued with his story. “I made my way to the docks and stole a boat, it was fairly easy. Mortals have no idea how simple their locks are… Anyway, I sailed out to Mount Tam and could hear wails of horror. When I ‘d reached the shore, I got out of the boat to see the Dryads who tended Hera’s tree of immortality crying over Ladon. He’d been killed. Someone had come and cut out his heart, then, I looked up at the tree and saw it was wilted. The tree was dying, and someone had stolen the golden apples…”
