Chapter 1: The Storm Spirit that started everything

It was already a bad day when the Storm Spirit attacked. He just made it worse.

Wait, I should back up. Tell this from the beginning.

My name is Cassie. I'm sixteen years old. And I'm also a superhero in my spare time (what little there is). And no, I do not wear spandex.

One more thing; Percy says if I'm going to write it all down like he did, I have to put a warning in.

As cool as it sounds, you don't want to be one of us. It's actually safer to be a superhero than a half-blood. So, if you feel something stirring inside as you read, drop this book and run. If you figure it out, so will they. And they will come after you.

Alright, I suppose I should start with the day before the attack, when I quit my job.

I was at the Cave (which is the base of operations for The Team, all of the proteges of the Justice League), training with my mentor, Wonder Woman. In case you haven't guessed, my alter ego is Wonder Girl (shh). Anyway, we were fighting. And not like we usually did, which was sparring. No, this was an argument. After everything with the alien invasion, I had matured, and I felt I was ready to take on bigger things. She disagreed. Things had become...strained, to say the least.

"I'm ready to help you with bigger problems!" I shouted.

"You've only been training under me for a year! You can't handle it!" she yelled right back. For someone who preached diplomacy, she was being very dictator-like.

"A year, yeah. But it was a long year! I grew up! Why can't you see that!"

"Because despite your self-proclaimed 'maturity' you're throwing a fit like a child!" That sent me over the edge. I pulled off my bracelets, stuck my lasso through them, and tossed them to Wonder Woman.

"Fine. If I'm such a child, I quit. Good-bye." I was forcing my voice to be calm, but I was dying on the inside. What had happened to sisters-in-arms, or just the great mentor-mentee relationship everyone else seemed to have?

The look on Wonder Woman's face was shocked.

"Cassie-"

"No. I'm done," I told her, then I reached up and took out the star earrings she gave me when I first started. Later, I would realize that it was a huge mistake. Wonder Woman was only trying to protect me.

But just then, I walked out, leaving everything about my superhero life behind. My one regret was that as I walked away, I could feel my power slipping too. Zeus (the king of the Gods) had given me these powers to be Wonder Girl, and now that I quit, they were leaving me. That alone, the feeling of helplessness, was enough to make me want to run back and beg her forgiveness. But I wouldn't do it. It was time for me to grow up, I told myself. No more games of Gods and superheroes.

I was only half right.

I managed to keep from crying until I got home, where I collapsed on my bed and sobbed for a good hour. What had I done? I loved being Wonder Girl, it had become my whole life. I looked at myself in the mirror. Red eyes, hair a little scruffy, generally miserable. Yeah, quitting was a great idea. But no matter, I told myself as I cleaned up. I could be a great person without the powers, without the double life. I...

My self pep-talk was interrupted by the storm spirit (bet you were wondering when we'd get to that, huh?) that broke through the french doors to my balcony.

I had seen them before, with Wonder Woman. Depending on how chaotic they were, they looked like horses or humans.

This was a horse. Joy. And without powers or my weapons, I was helpless. So I ran. Out the door of my room, down the stairs to the closet, where the Gauntlets of Atlas and the Sandals of Hermes should have been.

They were gone.

No, no, no! The gods must have taken them after I quit. And without them, I was doomed. I always thought I'd go in the line of duty, not as monster chow!

I started running again, but the dang thing was too fast. It cornered me in the backyard. I was silently praying to all the gods that I would get out of this somehow when my gym coach came out of nowhere and clubbed it over the head and it dissolved into dust, like monsters do after you defeat them. It seems like a great way to avoid cleanup, but it took forever to get out of your hair.

"Coach Hedge?" I asked, shakily. Then I noticed that my coach didn't really... look like himself. From the waist up, he was the same except for the horns emerging from his curly hair. His legs were the real shock.

They were goat's legs.

Oh my Gods. My gym teacher was a saytr.

"Hey, kid. How'd ya do it?" he seemed completely unperturbed by what had just happened.

"Do what?" I asked. He was the one who had killed the thing.

"Hide your sent. It's pretty darn powerful. Didn't even realize you were one until today."

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about," that seemed to confuse him, then his face cleared into understanding. I only wished I could do the same.

"Extraction team's on the way. They'll explain everything."

"Explain what?" I was seriously confused by now. Before he could answer, a flying chariot pulled by two Pegasi came roaring to a halt on my mom's favorite rosebush.

Out jumped two guys, both in maybe their early-to-mid twenties. One was Hispanic, with a wild look in his eyes and matching crazy hair, and the other was tall, black-haired and green eyed. When they saw me, clearly just off a fight and Hedge standing with his club and the gold dust monsters leave behind all around, they seemed more exasperated than concerned. Perhaps they often were in this situation.

"This the girl, Hedge?" the black-haired guy asked.

"Yup. Powerful, too. Somehow missed it until today," Coach Hedge replied. He and the others continued talking, but I was too much in shock to really hear the words being said until the curly haired dude said something I couldn't ignore.

"We have to take her to camp right away, if she's as powerful as you say, there's more evil espresso drinks where he came from," he said, gesturing to the dust. The comment about evil espresso drinks threw me off a little-\but what really got me was the "take her" part of the conversation.

"Whoa! Stop right there and back it up, buster. I'm not going anywhere with you! I don't even know you and you want to take me to some random camp? I'm still processing the fact my gym teacher is a saytr!" I admit I was being hysterical, but can you blame me?

Coach Hedge got mad quick.

"Listen here, cupcake, you're not safe here, and the best place for you to be is Camp. If you want to stay here, don't expect us to save your sorry hide next time."

"I can take care of myself," Coach Hedge snorted.

"Sure, that's why you were running," At this point, dark-hair intervened.

"Just trust us, Cassie. Come to camp, and meet our director. Let us explain, then decide."

I mulled this over, subtly looking over them. Hedge I wasn't worried about. For all his heroics, he really wasn't that much of a threat to someone like me with years of training. The Crazy-haired kid looked wiry, but had a sense of confidence that almost screamed 'meta-human powers', and the dark-haired guy was very well muscled and seemed to have been in years of training. I could take them with my powers no problem, but only maybe now I was normal. If there was something going on, and they wanted me for bad reasons, better an (ex)superhero than a normal kid.

"Where is this camp?" I asked.

"Long Island," he told me. I quickly calculated the distance from the cave to Long Island. Almost two hundred miles, but close enough I could call for help from the team. And if the camp turned out to be okay, far enough from home and the cave they wouldn't look there.

"Okay," I said. All three looked relieved.

"I'm Percy, and this is Leo," dark-hai- Percy said, gesturing to the other guy. Hedge started walking the direction of school as we took off to parts unknown.

Soon we were speeding into the air in the flying chariot.