Chapter One
Thalia

When in doubt, run away from Zeus's Fist in Camp Half-Blood's woods. It has a reputation for attracting trouble—first, when the innocent pile of rocks was hiding an exit from the Labyrinth, which, needless to say, almost demolished the camp, and now, sending me and Percy into the future.

The day started out simply enough: me arriving at camp with the Hunters for a visit. Of course, it would mean another boring Capture the Flag game against Camp Half-Blood (they always lose; Romans are slightly more entertaining to play with in Capture the Flag), but it was worth it. I was eager to see Annabeth and Jason anyways, as Jason was taking a well-earned break from Castra Romana, a.k.a. the Roman camp.

I ditched the other Hunters as soon as we got within twenty yards of my pine tree—to, well, see my pine tree. And because a figure that looked suspiciously like they had blond hair tied up in a ponytail was there. Of course, I could be wrong about the person's identity, but still. I wanted to see Peleus, anyways.

I always do that when the Hunters visit camp, so Artemis is used to it. She doesn't bother calling for me to come back. I never listen.

I silently crept up to Annabeth (whom I have identified when I got closer) and tapped her shoulder. "Fancy meeting me?"

Annabeth screamed and jumped about ten feet into the air. I doubled over with laughter as she gathered her wits and glared at me. "Can you greet me in a more subtle way next time? You scared the lights out of me."

"It was subtle," I protested. "I just said, 'Fancy meeting you?' and tapped you on the shoulder. Can you get more subtle than that?"

"Yes," Annabeth said.

"Like…?" I trailed off.

"I don't know," Annabeth admitted, "but can you be less surprising."

Jason, who had apparently been hiding behind Peleus the sleeping dragon all the time, yelled something that I cannot repeat in Annabeth's ear. But needless to say, Annabeth got a second scare. And this time, she bought half of the camp and the rest of the Hunters running. I really couldn't remember the last time Annabeth was that jumpy, so there must be something serious going on at camp, which I only found out later that I would... um, never find out.

Fuming, with her face cherry-red, she started yelling at the top of her lungs at Jason and me. We were rolling ourselves grass-green on the hill.

Annabeth abruptly muttered under her breath, "Like sister, like brother," and then proceeded to shout again.

"If I were you," Percy smiled, having pushed his way to the front to survey his crimson-red girlfriend, "I would stop screaming before I lose my voice. What happened, anyways?"

"I just greeted her," Jason and I said at the same time.

Phoebe rolled her eyes at me and said in a teasing manner, "Yes, Thalia greeted her by tapping her on the shoulder without a warning and Jason just screamed something in Annabeth's ear. It's an extremely nice and awesome way to 'just greet somebody'."

I sighed. "Okay, whatever. Sorry, Annabeth."

"'S okay," she said, but she still looked a little disgruntled.

I kicked Jason in the shins.

"Oh. Right. Sorry," he said while wincing and rubbing his ankle. I looked away innocently when everybody looked suspiciously at me. "I'm really sorry that I screamed in your ear. Did I ruin your hearing?"

"Fortunately," she grumbled, "no. You know, I'd better get ready for Capture the Flag."

I was taken aback. "What, already?"

"Oh, yeah," Percy smirked. "We're going to beat you this time."

That very idea seemed so preposterous at the moment that it took me a moment to register what he said. Then, I snorted. "Oh, in your dreams, Jackson."

But I was about to find out that I would regret that statement later on.

Percy's eyes sparkled. "We'll see, Pinecone Face. We'll see."

"Shut up, and don't call me 'Pinecone Face', Seaweed Brain," I muttered under my breath, "or I'll knock you out for a week."

Then, I followed Artemis to the Artemis cabin.

I was still muttering obscenities under my breath an hour later when we were getting ready for Capture the Flag. Surprisingly, no one had told me to lay off—usually, when Artemis finds out that I'm cursing for more than five minutes straight, she puts a stop to it really quick. But the really weird thing was I caught her staring at me worriedly when I was pretending that I was reading a book. That didn't happen once, not twice, not thrice, but four times.

I didn't have time to understand why she did that, but sooner or later, I would find out. And if I was making a goddess nervous, that wasn't a good thing.

As soon as we (the Hunters) were out at the amphitheater, Chiron the centaur started drawling about all the rules of the game (oh, dang! I just Lost the Game! Now I'm sounding like Alex… shoot.): Camp Half-Blood takes the west woods, the Hunters the east, all magical items allowed, no maiming etc.

Needless to say, it was rather boring for somebody who has played Capture the Flag at least sixty times, but you can't have first-year campers here stabbing themselves with a sword.

As soon as the rules were finished, I saw Annabeth and Percy muttering amongst each other, and I got a feeling that they weren't talking about sappy romantic stuff.

I preferred to not wear armor, unlike the other Hunters. Although it gave you an edge on defense, it wasn't the best for being speedy and agile. So usually, unless it's of dire importance, I steer clear of those bronze plates. The only thing I usually grabbed was—

Nothing.

Why? I was already well equipped. I had Aegis, my bow and arrow, my knives, and just for precaution, my old spear. I didn't exactly need anything else, did I?

We were in the woods without Artemis—she helps Chiron with healing the injured demigods. Being a goddess, it's obviously unfair if we have the same number of Hunters as campers and we had a goddess on our team.

"What a day," Serena grumbled. "First, we have to travel from a game of the Roman's version of Capture the Flag, and along the way, we get intercepted by—"

I gave her a look, effectively silencing her. I started to lay out our plan when Dawn raised her hand.

"Yes?" I asked uncertainly. When Dawn raises her hand, it's never a good thing—she's a daughter of the god of thieves, Hermes, so when she speaks up, it will probably bring an angry daughter of Aphrodite or a TV starlet running after us, screaming to give back their handbags, jewelry, bright vanilla-scented lipstick, whatnot. Occasionally, she would take something like a high-tech laptop, iPad, or exploding wind-up duckies (don't ask). I didn't even know why Dawn stole the things—putting on makeup was right after painting the Artemis cabin hot pink with crimson red hearts and Cupids on my to-do list. In other words, never in a zillion years.

"Oh, don't wear that look on your face!" Dawn pouted. "It's not that I stole anything…"

I waited.

"I found out where their flag was," she cheerfully said.

"But—" I began, but every single other Hunter cut me off.

"You what?" Brook gushed. "That's so awesome!"

"Um…" I said. Naturally, nobody had to hear what I had to say.

I let the meaningless banter continue for another minute, and then yelled, "Quiet!"

Talking immediately ceased. You could hear a pin drop from a mile away.

"All right," I said. "Not that that's a bad thing, Dawn, but… that's kind of against the rules. And second, you were basically stealing the location of the blue flag from either Percy or Annabeth's head."

My last statement bought some guffaws. "That's true," Phoebe chuckled. "But where is the flag?"

Before I could tell Dawn to shut up, she promptly said, "Zeus's Fist."

The conch horn blew.

"Oh, great," I muttered. "And you still don't know what the plan is. Ditch it, just defend the flag and I'll try to scale Zeus's Fist to grab their flag and run back here. Hopefully, you won't be able to mess it up."

I said the last part because Tammy had a tendency to step on sticks during Capture the Flag and give our position away.

And I wasn't sure if I would actually be able to scale Zeus's Fist—I was never a big fan of heights. Maybe that's why the campers put their flag there—to freak me out.

As soon as the rest of the Hunters were gone and I was alone, the tree right behind me shivered. I only had time to think that I really should get out of here before Jason leapt from the tree and hacked at me with his sword.

Thank the gods for reflexes. I ducked just as the gold blade whistled above my head. I groped for my spear—there was absolutely no way that I could just fight Jason with a bow and arrow or some knives.

I parried another blow just as Jason swiped at me again. After a few minutes of sparring, the underbrush exploded and four more warriors ran out. I was greatly outnumbered, and staying here to fight all of the five demigods would have been utterly idiotic and I would be running straight into the arms of suicide. So I did the only natural thing: I ran for it.

"Well," a voice that I identified as Annabeth's observed, "that did the trick."

I screeched to a halt. Obviously, Annabeth wanted me to run away so the Hunters would be without their lieutenant. Said too early, Wise Girl. I silently jogged back the way I came from and found out that Jason, Annabeth, Travis, Connor, and Clarisse were slipping away into the undergrowth. I steeled my nerves and scaled up a tree.

I refused to think about hovering thirty feet in the air. Come on, Thalia, I thought, you can do it. It's as simple as jumping from a stepping stone.

Yeah, if I jump down from a stepping stone into the water, I'll break my back, my other side thought.

Of course, I was planning to jump from tree branch to tree branch. I crept to the edge of the branch and jumped.

For a scary moment, everything rushed by in a medley of colors. I was sure that I had miscalculated the jump and was going to end up as a grease spot on the birdbath (Camp Half-Blood had a birdbath?) when my feet silently hit the other branch. I grabbed the tree bark to prevent myself from falling.

Well, that wasn't too hard. After I had collected my breath, I jumped from tree to tree until I spotted the five demigods crouching behind the row of bushes that marked where our flag was. It was a wonder how the extremely slender branches didn't crack under me and send me rolling straight on top of one of the demigods.

Annabeth was giving her team one last pep talk. The second she had finished, I channeled four thin jets of electricity at Annabeth, the Stoll brothers, and Clarisse. They only had time to put their "surprised" look on their face when they collapsed on the ground, paralyzed. Jason was so staggered that he froze as if paralyzed himself. I took that moment to jump down from the tree and silently dispatch him.

"Sorry, little brother," I whispered. "But I can't afford to lose our winning streak."

Running away from the "battle" site, I knocked out two more demigods that were strolling near the creek where the boundary was.

I ran into a couple more skirmishes that I easily won until I reached the alleged site of Camp Half-Blood's flag.

I squinted at the top of the Fist, scanning the bare rocks for the dark blue flag. My eyes swept past a blue speck—wait, blue speck? How on earth did they put it that high? And wasn't the flag supposed to be in plain sight?

I placed my hand on one of the rocks, running it over the rough surface. I stopped, sweeping my hand on the surface of the rock again.

Zeus's Fist is known for its incapability for demigods to climb. The entire surface of the rocks is mirror smooth. It usually takes a few months at camp to even attempt to climb up the base of the rock. The only exception that I had ever seen was Percy, although Annabeth probably achieved it as well. And I've never really tried to climb it myself (wait, why am I telling you this? It's totally off topic).

At any rate, it should make climbing easier. But I never got the chance to, because Percy appeared out of nowhere and slashed with Riptide.

"What the—?" I yelped, and instinctively launched into defense mode.

"Did Jason give you a hard time?" Percy inquired, keeping me busy with his sword.

"On the contrary," I said through gritted teeth, "it took me five minutes to incapacitate all of them."

I dearly wanted to kick him away, but all I would get? A bruised foot. Curse the stupid Achilles' Curse. The part of my mind that was not concentrating on defending me against Percy thought if that was possible.

My best hope was that Percy would get tired eventually.

There was just the problem of surviving without any injuries.

Wait, didn't he vaguely tell me that he lost his Achilles' Curse after the experience at Castra Romana?

I accidentally jumped up onto the rocks. Fatal mistake. It's not that I slipped off or anything, but Percy instinctively jumped beside me and suddenly, my hand grazed against a strange figure etched into the stone: an image of a bird. In a bright blue flash, I yelped, grabbed onto Percy (hey, he was the nearest human being!) and we both plunged unwillingly into the swirling blue vortex.