Maddy’s POV
“Sorry Amelia,” I sigh, frowning over at the daughter of Hades. “I wish they would’ve put you and Nico on our team.”

“Yeah, that’s okay,” She looks disappointed, but then her face lights up a bit. “Well… game on! We’re gonna beat you guys!!” 
“Yeah right.” Val rolls her eyes, smiling.

“Bring it on!” Annie laughs.
The four of us grin at each other and then head over to where our teams are meeting. Annabeth takes charge, telling us a very detailed plan which I find very difficult to focus on. Sure, I’m excited, but the prophecy keeps jarring my thoughts. What if the traitor strikes again during the game? It would be the perfect opportunity. The woods aren’t a very safe place to begin with. I’ll just have to keep a sharp eye out and look for any clues that might lead us to the traitor. Maybe I’ll- Annabeth’s voice interrupts my thinking, “...and Percy, you’ll patrol the stream with your sister. You two should be an effective way to keep the enemy from crossing into our territory.” Percy and I smile at each other, his green eyes saying we got this. 
Ten minutes later, after arming ourselves with armor, weapons, and helmets with blue plumes, our team hiked down to the woods. Two of the Demeter kids run off to go place our silver flag, while the rest of us head to our assigned positions. 

“Good luck team. Let’s win this thing!” Annabeth shouts. We salute and then she disappears into the trees, the rest of the offense following her. 
“See you later!” Annie calls, following her sister into the trees. 

“Good luck, Maddy!” Val heads off in a different direction with Will and some of the other kids on defense. I shout goodbye to them before turning to look for Percy. A horn goes off in the distance, signifying the start of the game.
“Hey sis! C’mon, we gotta get to the stream!” He grins and sprints off into the woods. I follow close behind. 

We the stream, and proceed to pace up and down alongside it. At least 10 minutes pass, and there are still zero signs of other campers. Suddenly, there’s a loud splash from the stream. I whip around, sword flashing in the dappled light under the trees. But instead of seeing an enemy approach like I suspected, all I see is that Percy is splashing around in the stream, making the water zoom in a spiral around him and spurt up like little fountains. I put a fist to my mouth, suppressing a laugh, “What are you doing?”
“Going for a swim! What does it look like?” He grins. 

“Oh my gods,” I laugh, “shouldn’t we be, oh, I don’t know, guarding? Or something?”

“Pshh that’s boring. The other team won’t even have a chance to make an offensive move. They’ll be too distracted by Annabeth’s master plan, as always.”
“Fair enough,” I roll my eyes, smiling. 

“Anyways… I think it’s time we had some one-on-one training. Poseidon kid style! You’ve gotta learn what exactly your powers are and how to use them.” I grin at him and splash into the stream beside him. 
“So… what’s first?” 

“Well…” he says, raising his arms so a wave of water races towards me. “We find out what kind of powers you have!” I put my hands in a defensive position as the water comes crashing down over my head, soaking me from head to toe. I spit the stream water out of my mouth and wipe my eyes. When I glance up, I see that Percy is doubled over in fits of laughter. I try willing the water to splash him with my mind, waving my arms around dramatically, but nothing happens. Percy is just laughing his head off. I must look pretty pathetic. That’s it. I’ve got to get him back. Smirking, I take him by surprise, tackling him and sending us both toppling into the water. The stream is at least 3 feet deep, so we’re both completely submerged. Once he realizes what happened, we start wrestling underwater. I grab at his wrist and try to pin him down but he’s stronger than me. He manages to trap both of my arms underneath me, scraping the bottom of the stream. A jolt of energy rushes through me. I run my fingers through the dirt beneath me and feel a shiver run up my spine. An idea begins to form in my head. Percy grins down at me, victorious, and completely unaware of my discovery. I just give him a smug look and then clench my hands in the rocky soil of the stream bottom. Suddenly, the ground beneath us shudders. Startled, Percy releases his grip on me and I spring out of the water, drawing my sword. When he resurfaces, he points the tip of my sword at his chest. “Gotcha!”

“I surrender!” He laughs, and I lower my sword. “Well… we learned a few things. One, you can’t control water the way I can. Two, you can breathe underwater. And three, your earthquake powers are pretty dam cool.” 

“Thanks!” I laugh as we step out of the stream and with a wave of Percy’s hand, both of our clothes magically dry themselves. Then I spot a camper approaching us. “Hey, look!” I point at the boy who continues to approach us. Percy uncaps a pen and Riptide appears in his hand, celestial bronze blade gleaming in the late afternoon sun. 
“Hey! Guys! Annabeth wants you on the offensive side! She said something about needing reinforcements?” As he gets closer, I recognize that the boy is from the Dionysus cabin. He’s on our side. 

“Sounds good!” Percy shouts, and beckons me to follow him as he waded through the stream and heads through the trees on the red team’s side of the forest.
“Hey! We could use some help over here!” We’ve reached a clearing. Demigods are scattered all about, dueling with swords, spears, bows and arrows, and… is that fire? I glance over and see Leo Valdez laughing maniacally and shooting balls of flames from his palms. “Take that, muchacho!” A couple of the Demeter kids are wrapping vines around their enemies’ feet, tripping them, and then I see my friends. Annie is doing her best holding off a burly Ares kid with a sword while Val is perched in a tree, shooting arrows down into the crowd. Then there’s Annabeth, whirling around with a dagger in her hand, trying to fight off three campers at once. She’s trying her best, but it’s a losing battle.

“Gotta go help Annabeth. You go help your friend.” Percy tells me before charging towards his girlfriend. I whip out my sword and race towards Annie. The Ares kid keeps trying to slash his sword towards Annie, but she uses her size to her advantage. She somersaults under his massive feet and throws an elbow at his back, causing him to lose his balance and go tumbling to the ground. He makes a move to stand up but an arrow comes flying towards him and pins his sleeve to the ground. 

“Nice one, Val!” Annie shouts. I glance toward the trees and see Val grin and give a little salute. I glance back towards the Ares kid and notice that he’s pulled the arrow out of the ground and has begun standing up. Annie is distracted, still glancing off in Val’s direction. If I don’t move fast, he’ll be on her. My instinct propels me to throw my sword at the ground near his feet. Startled, he looks up, and then smirks when he sees I’m weaponless. He takes a step towards me, but I shove my hands towards him through the air like I’m trying to push him, and then throw them down to my sides. The earth below me responds to my actions. It begins to shake, knocking him to his feet, before splitting apart. He meets my eyes with a look of surprise etched onto his face as he falls into the crevice. I walk over to where Annie is standing and peer down into the crack in the earth. It’s about 10 feet deep, and at the bottom, the Ares boy is jumping around, trying to grab onto the ledge to pull himself out, but he’s too short. Annie laughs and pats me on the back. 

“GOT IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT!” My head snaps upward and I see Nico running through the clearing, our shiny silver flag wrapped around his shoulders. 

“YES!!!” The red team screams in victory, throwing down their weapons and clapping each other on the back. 

“Godsdamit.” Annabeth mutters as she and the rest of the blue team offense approach us. “I should’ve seen that coming.” 
“It’s okay wise girl, we can’t win every game.” Percy laughs, throwing his arm around her shoulders.

“Whatever, Seaweed Brain.” Even though she’s frowning, her gray eyes sparkle with laughter. “Nice try team. We’ll win the next one. Let’s go find the rest of the campers on defense and give them the bad news. And let’s make it fast. I’m hungry.” She leads us through the forest back towards the stream, red team following close behind.