  The teams were all planned out: the Hades cabin would team with Hermes, Apollo, Zeus, Aphrodite, and more. As soon as everybody had their armor on, Chiron blew the whistle and the competition started.
  Nico’s teams flag was set next to the old entrance to the Labyrinth, and, big surprise, he other’s teams flag was next to the lake because Percy was on that team.
  The idea was for Jason to sneak over to capture the flag while Piper charmed the ones protecting the flag, which was Percy and Annabeth. The back up team that would guard Jason and Piper was the Ares’ cabin. There would be a distraction team which was made up of the Hermes cabin, and the rest would be guarding. (Jason and Piper were back on a break from searching for Leo.)
  Originally, Nico did not want to play. He flat out refused. He didn’t play the war games in New Rome. But stupid Will and his stupid face convinced him. He couldn’t help thinking to himself why he started having feelings for Will. He was the literal opposite of him. Will probably didn’t even like boys. He was probably stuck with another Percy; feelings for a straight guy.
  As he was getting his sword ready, Will came up behind him.
  “Hey! I know that we’re supposed to be guarding, but I see an opening. They’ll never expect us!”
  Nico rolled his eyes. “Whatever.” He ran behind Will into the forest.
  When they saw a group of kids from the Athena cabin run by, the boys hid. They had to be stealthy.
  After finally making it into the red team’s territory, Nico saw Piper. She was strolling past campers shouting orders like “Drop your weapons! Go away! Do the chicken dance!”
  They stayed close to Piper while still staying hidden, and then there it was: a green flag with a trident on it. Poseidon’s sign. Up ahead, Jason and Percy were already engaged in combat. Jason was flying himself while Percy was using his water powers to lift him up. With Percy distracted, he wouldn’t be able to manipulate the water against Nico’s team to keep them away from the flag.
  Behind them, the Ares cabin was fighting alongside the Hermes cabin against the Athena cabin, Nemesis cabin and the Hecate cabin. Looks like the Ares’ kids wouldn’t be much help in getting the flag.
  “Hey there, Cecil. Don’t you want a bunny?” Lou Ellen smirked at Cecil.
  There was fear in his eyes, but he quickly got rid of it. “You’re on, Lou.” He smirked.
  Piper walked out of the trees and demanded that Annabeth put her weapon down. Annabeth smiled at her and pointed to her ears, revealing ear plugs covering the noise. Piper cursed and ran at Annabeth with Katoptris.
  Everyone knew that Annabeth was one of the toughest smartest people at camp, and even though Piper was strong, she didn’t stand a chance against Annabeth.
  Will turned to look at Nico. “You need to go get the flag! Everyone guarding is distracted, and since you’re really good at being stealthy, you can sneak up and grab it without anyone noticing!” He said.
  Nico nodded, ready to shadow travel. Will cleared his throat. “You’ll walk, death boy.”
  “But-“
  “I said you’ll walk. I’ll be here when you run towards our territory for back up. Until then, I’ll stay here and hold off any incoming campers.” Will interrupted.
  “Fine!”
  Nico silently snuck against the outer rim of the trees, out of sight. As soon as he got as close as he could to the clearing, he ran for it.
  “Hey!” Annabeth yelled as he ran past.
  Piper gave him a quick nod of the head and smile, pushing Annabeth away from Nico.
  He ran past the other fight where he saw Lou Ellen and Cecil, and he could see that the two were really battling it out. Even though Lou was much stronger than Cecil, some of his siblings joined in against her.
  Nico ran faster, and for a second, he felt like he was ten years old again. Before the pain, the anger, the grief. He was just a happy-go-lucky little boy with an obsession with a card game. He remembered his first time playing capture the flag; even though they didn’t know it at the time, the only known children of the big three were battling it out. Him, Percy, Thalia, and Bianca. Now it was him, Percy, and Jason. He remembered how much he wanted to impress Percy that day. “I’ll show him how well I can fight!” He had thought.
  Nico was feet away from the flag when he heard a voice. “Going somewhere?”
  Nico spun around to see Annabeth standing behind him. He cursed himself for letting her get so close without him noticing. It looked like Piper couldn’t hold her off any longer.
  He drew his sword, and Annabeth readied her dagger. He ran at her, but she blocked him easily. Nico was taken aback by how fast her reflexes were.
  They slashed at each other, each one parrying the blows. Annabeth was great with a dagger. He knew that if he didn’t take her down soon, she would use his fighting strategy against him.
  As Annabeth was going in for a blow across his leg, Nico disarmed her like he watched Percy do. Surprisingly, it worked. The dagger flew a little bit away from them, and Nico quickly picked it up so that she couldn’t retrieve it.
  “Well done, Nico.” She said with a smile.
  She tried to judo-flip him, but he stepped out of the way and started running, and he pulled the flag up. He began running back towards the trees. Will saw him and a huge smile crossed his face. “Come on, Nico! They’re coming!”
  As many different campers started running after him once they saw that Nico had the flag, Will let out the loud whistle he used when they were fighting the Romans. Everyone on the opposing team dropped their weapons to put their hands over their ears, groaning.
  Nico sprinted past other campers with Will right behind him, and he jumped over the boundary line. The flag he was holding changed from green with a trident, to black with a skull. Chiron blew the whistle as campers started cheering. All the campers on Nico’s team flocked over to him. He tried to get away, not liking all the attention, but Will put a firm hand on his shoulder. “It’s alright, Nico. I’m right here if it gets to be too much.”
  The campers rushed over and several gave him pats on the shoulder. Piper, Jason, Annabeth, and Percy rushed over grinning and congratulated him as well. Nico returned Annabeth’s dagger. Once Will told everyone to give Nico some space, Will grinned at him.
  “Nice job! That was some serious fighting, and you didn’t even use your powers! Don’t worry, you should be able to use them soon. I just didn’t want you to overdo yourself, it still hasn’t been very long since you almost faded. Now let’s go bandage you up!”
  Nico felt the heat rising to his cheeks from the compliment. “Yeah, whatever. It wasn’t that great. And what do you mean ‘bandage me up?’ I’m not hurt.”
  Will raised an eyebrow. “Nico, you were stabbed.”
  He looked down and just then noticed a stab wound on his leg. “Huh. Didn’t notice.”
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