Percy Jackson and the Bad Decision

Third person pov

"Annabeth, are you sure that this will work?" Percy asked tentatively. He was staring at a battle map of Camp Half Blood. The battle? Revenge on the Hermes Cabin for being, well, themselves.

Annabeth just snorted at him. "Of course I'm sure."

Her half brother Malcolm looked up from his scroll. "Aren't you worried about them taking revenge, Annabeth?"

Annabeth nodded to her other half brother Denis. "He says he has a plan for that."

"What's your plan?" Percy asked. He figured that Denis had cooked up some strategic, foolproof plan to stop their targets from killing them. Denis looked up.

"Before we leave, we shout 'Retaliate and Die!'"

Percy looked around. Nobody else seemed to have a problem with that plan, so he just shrugged. "Alright."

Annabeth looked at the clock. It was nine-thirty in the morning. Percy cleared his throat. "Uhm, can you tell me the plan one more time?"

Malcolm sighed. This was the third time Percy had needed to hear the plan again, and he was tired of explaining it. "At ten, I go and cut the power to cabin 11. That will keep their air conditioning from coming on. Today is supposed to be over 100 degrees. They'll have to open their windows. We go in, armed with paintball guns, and shoot them through the flee. The paint is semi-permanent, so it'll take a while for it to come out of their clothes, hair, etc. But it will come of of their skin."

Percy looked impressed. The plan was really growing on him. "Sounds like a good plan."

Annabeth laughed. "Of course it is, Seaweed Brain, I made it."

Denis piped up from the back of the room. "And we all know Malcolm justloves his part."

Malcolm groaned. He hated his part. It was his job to sneak behind the Hermes cabin and cut the power via the fuse box. He really didn't want to do it, but they had drawn straws and he got the short one. At times, he swore that the Fates hated him. He glanced at the clock. It read nine forty-five.

Meanwhile, Percy was going out of his mind from boredom. He couldn't help it. He was ADHD. He didn't like to sit still, and the Athena cabin was mind-numbingly boring to anyone but children of Athena. Annabeth seemed to notice his discomfort and came to his rescue.

"Hey Percy," she asked, "Want to come check out the paintball guns?"

Percy's face brightened. Anything to pass the time. "Sure." he responded.

Annabeth led him to a back room in the Athena Cabin. It was dark and smelled like ink, but when she flipped on the lights, Percy could see four beautiful paintball guns sitting on a large table in the center of the room. "Nice…. Very nice."

"Glad you think so. Oh, and by the way, since we're all using different colors, I saved you the one I think that you would like the best…." Annabeth held up a cartridge of green and blue paintballs.

"Nice. Hey, what colors are you going to be, Wise Girl?"

"I wanted to do grey, for my mom, but I figured that these would show up better." Now Annabeth held up a canister of purple and yellow paintballs. "And this one's for Malcolm," she motioned to bright white and pink paintballs, "And this one's for Denis." She waved at a can of neon red and orange paintballs.

"Cool. We have a pretty good rainbow, don't we?"

"Yup. Got all of 'em plus two."

Just then, Denis stuck his head into the back room. "Hey, lovebirds. It's ten o'clock and Malcolm's ready to leave."

"Okay. Come on, Seaweed Brain." Annabeth grabbed Percy's hand and they ran back into the front room.

Malcolm was not looking forward to what he had to do next. He armed only with a knife in case he got caught. He knew for a fact that despite their usual appearance, both the Stoll's could fight very very well. He had also heard that Andi was pretty amazing with a bow and arrows, and Zeus knows what Evelyn and Chris could do. If he got noticed, a knife wasn't alot to hold five irritated pranksters with until he could call for backup. He strapped his knife to his arm and sighed. "Ready."

Annabeth smiled. "You'll do great. Now go!" She fairly pushed him out the door.

Malcolm grumbled as he darted behind the Ares cabin. He'd stayed up until midnight last night lanning the best route for his job. He'd decided on a route that took him behind cabin 5, 7, and 9 until he was behind Hermes's cabin. He jumped out from behind the Ares cabin and to behind the Apollo cabin. The gold was so bright he found it hard to look at, so he kept going. He looked around to make sure no one was looking, then he crept up behind the Hephaestus cabin. Things were looking good. All he had to do was…

"What on earth are you doing?"

Malcolm jumped so high, he hit his head on the windowsill above him. He looked around for the voice and saw Nyssa leaning out of the very window he had banged his head on. He rubbed his head and stared up at her blankly.

Nyssa sighed. "Let me guess. Tell me if I'm right here. You're doing something that would get you in trouble with Chiron…"

Malcolm nodded.

"It's probably very important and top secret…"

Malcolm nodded.

"And now you're going to tell me to pretend like I never saw you."

Malcolm nodded.

"Well, I'll do it, but just this once. And I expect a good explanation for this later!"

Malcolm nodded. "I'll explain at lunch. I promise."

Nyssa nodded. "Go do whatever you're going to do."

He smiled. "Thanks, Nyssa."

He started to run towards the back of Cabin 11. "And make sure you don't die!" Nyssa screamed after him.

"I'll try." Malcolm mumbled under his breath as he ran. He crept along the back wall. He could see the fuse box, a small black box in the back of the cabin. He flipped it open and saw the switches. Annabeth had told him to flip them all so none of the cabin had power.

Here goes nothing, he thought as he threw the switches.

Almost immediately, he could hear the ac power down, and groans coming from inside. He smiled. The hard part was done. Now came the fun.

He raced back to the Athena Cabin. Annabeth was waiting for him. "Great job! They've already opened all three target windows. She slapped his gun against his chest.

"Lets go!" Percy shouted. He and Annabeth charged out the door. Denis followed right after them. Malcolm shook his head and followed. Never a dull moment.

Annabeth couldn't wait for this. She'd been waiting to get revenge on the Stolls ever since they wrote Bird Brain on her bathroom mirror in permanent marker.

Annabeth aimed through the open side window. She aimed right at Travis's head.

She heard Percy's craggly voice through her radio. "On your go, Annabeth."

She pressed down the button and started to talk. "Ready, aim, FIRE!" The wondrous sound of four high powered paintball guns discharged at the same time filled the air. Annabeth nailed Travis right in the back of the head.

"HEY!" Somebody shouted from inside the cabin.

"Arg!" she heard a female voice say. She kept trying to hit Travis she also aimed for Connor, Andi, and, well, all of them. They finally seemed to figure out what was happening. She saw Andi grab something from her nightstand just as she got plastered with a red paintball. Annabeth smiled and nailed her with a purple one. Andi fumed and threw something at Annabeth. She felt it miss her by inches. She looked behind her and saw a throwing knife wedged in the ground. She looked back to the cabin the see Connor pick up a paint splattered sword, and Andi was ready to throw again. Travis just stumbled around like a doofus as another blue paintball connected with his head.

"RETREAT!" Annabeth cried into her radio. She turned and ran towards the Athena Cabin. Percy ran up beside her.

"You will pay for this!" She heard Travis call after them. He must have regained his bearings.

"RETALIATE AND DIE!" That must have been Denis. She scrambled to the door and opened it. Just as she was about to step inside, an arrow stuck into her doorframe. It barely missed Percy. Percy could see it had a note attached, so he plucked it off and read it.

You messed with the wrong cabin

- Children of Hermes

"Annabeth?" He asked as they walked inside.

"Yah?"

"I don't think Denis's plan is going to keep them from retaliating."