Chapter 2

(Percy Jackson)

(later)

My brother Tyson and I trotted back to our cabin and decided that we'd better get serious about this because all the other cabins were already meeting about this and deciding what to do. If we didn't come up with something ourselves, we were sure to be up to our necks in pranks and lost this tournament in a hurry!

Tyson being my father's son also meant that he could control water. Being a huge Cyclops meant he could reach high places and put objects in the way of our victims pretty easily. He could make anything out of metal. It would come in handy to help make any instruments that we would need since I did have the same ability.

I took a quick look out the window and around the area and noticed the Ares kids in deep discussion, obviously plotting their moves.

I decided that Ares would be our first target and was about to tell Tyson but apparently, but looking at them now, it looked like Ares was plotting something in our direction.

Instead of telling my brother anything, I glanced around at our friends. They weren't glancing at Hades, because Nico wasn't there. He apparently was off stalking the Artemis cabin.

His sister used to be a Hunter of Artemis so I wasn't surprised that they were his first supposed targets.

I looked past that and found out that the Zeus cabin was empty as well. Past the meadow, Thalia was… standing in between Artemis and Hephaestus and leaning against the Artemis cabin.

I told Tyson to hold our cabin against any pranksters who may already be pouncing on us and took off toward the Artemis cabin.

I noticed that the Ares kids seemed to be divided as I raced past them. Some of them seemed to watching me with curiosity while others were looking back at Tyson. I still couldn't figure out their move.

Once I reached my own destination across the meadow, I panted and looked up. I was a little winded from my exertion and feeling confused.

Thalia and Nico were backed up against the structure. Nico didn't seem like he thought anything was wrong. He was just investigating the hunters. However, Thalia was looking up what seemed like fear.

Then, I looked up myself and realized why she had that expression.

The Hephaestus cabin was constructing a state of the art security system around each of its allies.

There were cameras everywhere, a computer that had buttons that could set off lazars, detonations, bombs, anything they would need. But, most conveniently, they apparently had a dark red button that had the words clearly printed under it.

SELF DESTRUCT was easily readable from where I stood.

The whole set up was so sophisticated and they had put it up so quickly that I had to admit that I was now starting to panic myself. It was beyond pretty good and I tried not to show either my panic or anything that would lead anyone to know how impressed that I was by the whole thing.

Letting my eyes wander to the computer, I noticed something.

Six security camera outlines were filled. The only one remaining empty was… the Poseidon cabin.

It now occurred to me that this was why the Ares kids were spying on us. The Hephaestus group had them spying on us for them while they set up their equipment and quite possibly their traps.

I looked back at our cabin and saw Charles Beckendorf and Jake Mason, two of the Hephaestus kids, sneaking up on Tyson.

Immediately, I yelled at the top of my lungs, "Emergency! Emergency!"

Bewildered by my sudden outburst, Tyson spun around to see Beckendorf clamoring up onto my bed with the security camera already half set up.

Before I even took a step back towards our cabin, Tyson leaped towards the bed and threw Beckendorf, Jake, and all their equipment out the door! His size and command of his actions made this a very easy motion that left our competitors stunned!

We were very wise to keep a supply of Banana crème pies in our home. Tyson threw these sweet confections that came easily to his reach at the Hephaestus cabin. They hit the cabin hard and landed with a huge PLOP! Sound!

I felt elated that Tyson had drew first blood and our team had scored its first points of the tournament! My heart beat more rapidly with each passing second as I considered this first victory that was ours!

Our team's horn sounded and a point was added to our team's total and on the individual board, Tyson took his first marks!

My brother was in the lead at the moment and truly the camp's hero right now.

I didn't have any idea what was coming for us. Obviously due to our scoring first, we had now made ourselves targets for the other teams to retaliate and try and catch up to us.

At the moment, I just wanted to congratulate Tyson on a great point!

I came back over to him and with a big grin that seemed to get bigger by the second, I exclaimed, "Great job, Tyson! We got on the board first!"

Tyson, with his usual enthusiastic personality, replied "Yeah! Peanut Butter group ROCKS!"

Hermes, our councilor, came over first. He said, "Since I'm your councilor, your team only gets one point." His voice was unmistakably elated and the excited tones were easily noticed by all.

The other team started dragging off to their cabins and I was positive that this was going to be one long prank war!