Archimedes, son of Hephaestus
Curiosity would probably be my undoing, but I considered it my greatest strength. It led me to new places revealing new possibilities, but it also worked in the reverse, leading me into danger.
I was hoping for the former in my current situation. Though whether it ended in my favor or tragedy did not matter to me. I had to figure out what this boy was hiding.
'Boy' may be an inaccurate word for him, considering he seemed to be the same age as me. He had recently moved here from Rome, that much was obvious. He was pretty muscular, meaning he came from the lower class or the Roman Empire (Most romans who moved here were). Another sign was his height. He barely reached my nose, and I am average in height. Lastly, a dead giveaway was his toes. Typically, boys are age do not wear shoes, and if they do they wear sandals. Either way, you always see toes. This allowed me to make some observations. The second toe was always taller than the big toe in every Greek's foot while the Romans first three toes are even.
This may get you thinking that I have a foot obsession, but I'd like to tell you now that I do not. I have, as stated earlier, an intense curiosity. But finding these unique little differences was my source of entertainment. While all the other boys would play games together, I preferred to stand at a distance to observe. Not miss any detail. That didn't mean I didn't play with the boys (I had to observe their behavior as well), but there were more interesting things to be examined.
For instance, the Roman boy standing in front of me.
He too decided not to play with the other boys. Instead, he choose to write with a kalamos (A greek pen) on papyrus. This already peaked my interest, but his behavior was most fascinating. Every now and then, as he would dip his pen in ink, he would whip his head around, as if paranoid about someone watching him write. His legs bounced with anticipation.
At first I believed him to be afraid of his mother catching him using up so much ink, but then I learned he had moved here by himself. This, of course, made me even more curious, if it was possible.
This created many different questions, but the most important one is the one we're all thinking. What is he afraid of?
That was the question that caused me to make the decision to follow him when he suddenly stood up and dashed away.
He was writing furiously like he normally did, as if he was in a rush to get everything down before whatever or whoever found him, before his head suddenly snapped up. He quickly snatched up his papyrus and stuffed it into a leather-bound journal along with his kalamos. He then took off, just as suddenly, but accidentally left his jar of ink sitting on the grass where he was.
Every pair of eyes in the schoolyard was on him. It was unheard of for a student to leave school before the teacher had dismissed them. Not to mention incredibly rude, considering in a non-public school like this one the teacher was un-paid.
"Hey!" One boy shouted in a surprised anger. His mom was the teacher, after all.
But the boy ignored him as he sprinted towards the direction of the Hyblaean Mountains. Before he disappeared into the woods leading to the mountains I took off after him, quickly grabbing the bottle of ink as I went. This caused more shouting from the teacher's son and various other students, yet no one tried to stop me.
My advantage in height allowed me to catch up to the boy quickly, but once I was in 100 meters I went silent. My footsteps were light and I watched the ground to make sure not to step on any sticks. Luckily for me the boy never turned around, he just seemed keen on getting away.
Another reason to follow him: to escape whatever he was escaping from.
While I was being silent, I started to lose sight of the boy. Of course that didn't stop me. The loose tunics that every poor boy wore easily snagged on sticks and bushes. His footsteps were clumsy and rushed, causing him to leave noticeable footsteps. That made following him easier.
Then something caught my attention and I froze. It had to be something I had heard. I forced my brain to backtrack to what had just occurred. Alarm bells are going off in my head, something unnatural has happened.
A pig's squeal. It sounds natural enough, until you remember that no pigs live around here. So what had caused that squeal?
Again. Closer this time, followed by the sound of hoof beats. The only logical answer to this dilemma was that this was what the boy was running from. Immediately I took off after the boy, this time without heeding silence.
Another squeal came, this time much closer. I glanced behind me to see smoke rising from the direction of the school. The steady hoof beats continued to crescendo, and I knew there was no way to escape it.
My brain was working quickly, trying to formulate a logical plan to avoid whatever it is that's coming towards me.
Another squeal, it was within 300 meters of me and was a big encourager for my legs. Never before had I needed to run so desperately. Sure, we boys raced each other from time to time, but never had I felt my heart pumping as quickly as it was. But it wasn't from fear, it was from excitement.
The hoof beats were right behind me now and I knew I wasn't going to last much longer. I squinted through the sweat falling through my eyes, but I didn't really need to see anything to know where I was.
That's when my brain finally finished formulating the plan, leaving my body to carry it out.
Up ahead was the steepest part of the mountain, and judging by the heaviness of the hoof steps, this beast was heavy. The only problem with this plan is my survivability. But hey, anything to test a hypothesis!
As the mountain got steeper my legs started to burn more, but I had something better motivating me now.
Once I reached the best possible point, I jumped as high as I could straight into the air and twisted midair to see what creature was about to crash into me. Directly in front of me was a giant wild pig with wings tucked to its back. I felt a cold shiver go through my spine. I had not prepared for the wings.
Then the pig and I smacked into each other and chaos immerged. The force of the pig greatly outmatched my own, but I knew it weighed more so it would fall faster. But the pig merely stumbled backwards instead of falling.
Thinking quickly, I tossed the bottle of ink into one of the pig's eyes, causing it to squeal it pain and skid to a stop. This sudden movement threw me off of it and painfully onto the ground. I quickly stood and started testing hypothesis #2. The attack was learned from years of boys fighting each other to show their strength. Attacking the joints can be the fastest way to take anyone down, and it's good to use when facing an opponent bigger than you. In my case, way bigger.
I threw my entire body wait into the knee joint of the giant big, sending it crashing down. This, along with it still being disorientated from the ink, caused it to begin sliding down the mountain. To speedup this, I got a hold of the top of its head and shoved with all of my might.
I may not be the most muscular guy in all of Syracuse, but every school, no matter your class, had a grueling training program. I may have found in unnecessary then, but not I could fully appreciate.
With the added force of my weight, I sent the pig tumbling down the mountain, squealing. Of course, since I had attached myself to the pig I was also sent tumbling down the mountain, very fast. Instead of screaming, I was frozen in fear, or maybe it was exhaustion, or maybe it was the pain. I don't know… I can't think…
Right when I started to feel myself black out, the constant rolling stopped and I was flat on my back. The last thing I heard was, "Hermes help me"
The warm fire I was lying next to was slowly waking me up, among other things…
"Agh! Zeus damn this all to the underworld!"
As I regained consciousness I couldn't seem to recall how I got in this situation, but I was enjoying it all the same. Someone was pacing near me and seemed to not be stressed. It's terrible for me to find this hilarious, I know, but the curses he spouted entertained me.
"Fates, why must you always put me in these dangerous situations?"
He stopped pacing right next to my head and sighed, "What am I going to do with you?"
I decided now was a good time to wake up.
"Well, thanking me might be the first step."
The boy jumped back at least a foot with wide eyes, "You're awake!"
"I've been awake for quite a while now. You are most amusing."
He regained his composure and stared me down, "You could be thanking me, I was the one who saved you from death by falling down a mountain."
"Neither of us could have been sure of my death. One thing that's sure is that I saved you from death by giant pig."
He pulled out a dagger that was attached to his hip under his tunic.
"I think I could've handled it."
"Uh-huh, sure. I seriously doubt you could've done much damage with that thing. Besides, why run if you could fight?"
He tucked his dagger back into its hiding place, "Fine, you saved me."
"You're welcome," I said with an obnoxious joy.
He glared at me, "That still doesn't explain why you saved me."
"I can't just be a good person?" I questioned with a raised eyebrow. I examined my surroundings. We were still in the forest, but were higher up the mountain. A fire was directly in front of me, and Apollo had almost finished dragging the sun away from us while Artemis led the moon closer.
In response, the boy crossed his arms and lifted an eyebrow right back at me.
"I don't have to tell you anything if I don't even know your name," I said.
He stuck out a hand to me, "I am called Heracleides and I am the offspring of Hermes, who are you?"
I froze as I registered that statement, "You're claiming to be the son of the messenger god Hermes?"
He lowered his hand, "You are not a demigod then?"
"Are you asking me if I'm half-god? I would believe not."
He squinted at me, "It is not possible to see the Crommyonian Sow without being a demigod. So I ask again, who are you?"
"Heracleides, I do not understand. Does this mean the gods have come back to Greece?"
I knew the old stories of Gods and Goddesses who lived with man centuries ago. I had visited some of their temples on occasion, but was not one to worship them.
Heracleides chuckled at my statement, "I do not believe that will ever happen in my lifetime…" He trailed off as he stared at something above my head.
"What are you staring at?" I inquired, turning my head up to stare at a flaming hammer.
My first thought was that I had caught on fire, but I felt no pain so I automatically took that possibility out.
"You've been claimed. May the world now know you as the son of Hephaestus, god of blacksmiths. May I ask what your name is?"
I may be smart, and I may pride myself on my quick instincts, but this was too sudden.
"I-I am Archimedes"
"All hail Archimedes, son of Hephaestus!" Heracleides recited before bowing quickly to me.
"Wait, wait. I do not understand what is going on!" I tried to tell him.
"Most people don't, you learn to go with it," He paused for a second as the flaming hammer disappeared from my head, "Being the son of an almighty god sounds wonderful when first told, and it is true that we get perks. But we have a price to go with this. Monsters from Tartarus hunt as down. For example, the Crommyonian Sow that attacked us. They can smell us and love to kill us in an attempt to destroy Olympus. At least, that's what I've been told."
"That's what you've been told? By whom?"
"A demigod before me. Sadly, we demigods don't live a long time, but we try to find other before the monsters do. "
My new future felt like a crushing weight on my shoulders, "Is there nowhere safe for us to go?"
Heracleides seemed surprised about my willingness to believe the impossible, "No. Unless we built a giant wall or something, but that would never happen because mortal would never believe us. Before you ask your obvious question, why they won't believe us, it's because of the mist. The mist is something in the air that keeps humans from seeing the monsters."
I ran my fingers through my messy brown hair, "That's terrible."
"I know," was all he replied.
"How long have you been aware of your heritage?" I asked, my curiosity was acting up again.
"For two years now. A demigod name Prothemyeus, a son of the Roman goddess Venus, was the one who found me. We both escaped from the Roman Empire, which is currently filled with all kinds of monsters, and into Greece. But he died when we were attacked by some Cyclops. I've been trying to save more demigods ever since, but recently I've just been running away."
My brain was whirling with all the possibilities and unexplainable things that were now real.
"Why don't the gods help us?"
Heracleides snorted and said with bitter, "Yeah, right. Zeus believes that the gods should not meddle in mortal lives. That includes as demigods."
My brain finally clicked into place. I had a plan now.
I stood up and stretched, "Well then, someone is going to have to fix that."
Heracleides looked up at me in confusion of my sudden confidence, "Fix what?"
I looked him straight in the eyes and with a smirk said, "I'm going to build a place for demigods, here in Greece."
So I know I owe an apology to people who read my other stories, but I will get to that later on. First let me talk about this.
A). This took a lot of research, so thank you wikipedia.
B). When J.K. Rowling introduced different magic schools around the world, it got me thinking. Why can't there be more camps for demigods? Which got me thinking, does it need to be a camp? Since Archimedes is a child of Hephaestus and is really smart, I thought maybe he could make a camp.
C). I'm not sure if you're aware, but Archimedes is a demigod from Ancient Greece who is credited for making many modern machines. Most children of Hephaestus dream about finding his lost works, which is what Leo does later when he, Frank, and Hazel are looking for Nico in the Mark of Athena.
D). I tried to make this as historically accurate as I could, but of course, I learned all of this in a day. Some words they say probably wouldn't make sense back then, so just imagine.
E). If you didn't guess it already, this is place in 200 B.C.
Now time for my other readers, I'm sorry. I wrote everything out in my Doc. Manager, but then forgot about them and they got deleted. I don't have the heart in me to rewrite all of them.
Thanks for reading, The next chapter will be about Amelia Earhart.