ᴾʰᵒᵇᵒᵖʰᵒᵇⁱᵃ [ᴶᵃˢᵒⁿ ᴳʳᵃᶜᵉ]

bonus chapter #1

Clarisse cracked her knuckles the moment Aza appeared, placing her hands on the edge of the table; the sharp noise rang in her ears, and she gave her friend a slightly impressed look at the sheer volume. Clarisse raised a brow and watched someone over Aza's shoulder. She said, "That princess has got to go down."

"Oh, yeah," Aza nodded and peeked over her shoulder. Several of Annabeth's siblings had been staring at her, but they quickly turned away once she met their eyes, "Like, she actually has to go down. I just bet that if we lose, I have to help her reorganize her cabin – it would take hours! Days, probably, knowing her and how specific she is."

Sherman Yang gritted his teeth and glared up at her through narrowed eyes, "Scram, kid. This isn't your table, and we don't care."

As both she and Clarisse whipped their heads to face the boy, she caught a glance of her half-aunts face, which had scrunched into an even more fearsome sneer than Aza's. Clarisse slammed her hand on the table and sneered, "Shut it, Yang - if you open your mouth again, I'm putting you on jail-guard duty with the children of Demeter."

Sherman nearly dropped his fork, and he nearly lost his eyebrows as they flew into his hairline. He opened his mouth for a second, but when he met Aza's eyes she watched as anger dampened into fear, he wisely shut it and dropped his gaze back to his plate, though he shot Ellis Wakefield a dirty glare when he laughed.

"You're her best friend," Clarisse focused her eyes back on Aza, "What do you think her plan could be? She's always so..."

"Slippery? So many steps ahead it's infuriating?" Aza half-laughed to herself and found her eyes wandering towards the Poseidon table, where Percy sat alone. "She's gotta be using Percy in some way, either as a distraction or as a powerhouse. Either way, at least two of us," she waved her hand between the table's occupants, "should find him and keep our eyes on him. We'll have to have at least three teams to enter their side of the forest, since she typically plans for two offensive teams. Unless..."

Aza took a moment to collect her thoughts, "She might bolster the defenses if she expects a larger offense, and we do have a lot more warriors on our team. I assume she'll use the Hephaestus cabin as decoys because they're a big enough threat, but she won't trust them to get the flag. A few will guard the flag, most likely with a few of Annabeth's siblings. It'll be either her, Percy or one of her siblings who aim for our flag, unless someone gets a good opportunity."

Ellis growled, "Since when do you make the plans, Malin? You haven't even been claimed yet."

"Shut up, Wakefield!" Aza shouted at the same time as her friend. She exchanged a look with Clarisse before sneering at the others and making her way towards the Hermes table, where Connor and Travis quickly scooted apart to make room for her.

"You should see what we have in store for the blue team," Travis giggled to himself, "Guess what it is - just guess."

"I don't know," Aza's voice was dry as she shrugged, pulling several slices of pizza off a passing nymph's platter, "What do you have?"

"You have to guess," Connor whined, exchanging a pouty look with his brother, "It's no fun if you don't guess."

"I don't know," Aza rolled her eyes and exhaled heavily, "Smoke bombs again?"

"Oh, that would've been good," Connor deflated for a moment, but he puffed out his chest as he added, "But even better - spiders! We were at this joke shop in Chicago, and we found really–"

"Really," Travis emphasized.

"Really realistic fake spiders. So if one of them comes near us, bam! Face-full of spiders!"