It was an average day in the state of New York. The wind was nice and warm, the sun shone brightly, the sea was calm and refreshing. And of course, there were the naiads splashing playfully at a young girl jogging by in her rush to get to the arena.
It his wasn't your average park, or beach in New York. This was Camp Half-Blood. A camp for extraordinary children with amazing abilities, and relatives in the godly realm. Here they train to be heroes, or healers, how to fight monsters and get along with not so scary magical creatures like saytrs and a particularly friendly hellhound.
And the young girl being splashed, is a relatively new, yet skilled camper, Raven Lukens.
"Hey, sorry I'm late guys," she says running into the arena, sword in hand. Many eyes were on her, many not so friendly, which made Raven feel uncomfortable. Attention, good or bad, was never something she felt comfortable with.
"Nice of you to finally make it," one girl remarks snidely. Looking through the crowd of a dozen or so campers in orange t-shirts, Raven spots that it's none other than Drew, a daughter of Aphrodite.
In Raven's eyes, Drew seems to have made it her goal to tease Raven and her sister as much as possible.
"Shut the hell up Drew, or I'll break your face," says an identical girl to Raven. Her twin sister Emma, was very similar yet the opposite to Raven herself. Emma spoke up more, had more of a fighter personality and wasn't afraid to break a few limbs to prove her point.
Before Drew could respond, Percy Jackson, a long standing camper, counselor, and teacher of the current sword fighting lesson walked up to them with a peeved off look on his face. "The next time you beat Raven or Emma in a sword fight, let alone participate in a sword fight, let me know. Otherwise you have no right to diss off my sisters that way."
What Percy said was mostly true. Raven and Emma were his half sisters, as the three shared the same father. The god of the ocean and land, master of hurricanes and earthquakes as well as the creator of horses, Poseidon.
The beauty obsessed girl rolls her eyes and starts to work on her nails while everyone else pairs up for some practice. Raven and Emma pair up naturally, both helping out Percy for demonstrations as the lesson goes by as they were the two most skilled in the current group.
After an hour or so of working hard, Percy lets them all go to the next activity, going to the rock climbing wall himself to meet up with Annabeth.
"I know we're supposed to go to greek history class next, but wanna ditch and go back to the cabin?" Emma says to her sister.
Raven makes a face and watches the other kids as they leave, "I don't want Chiron or whoever's teaching the class to get upset with us..."
"Oh come on, Raven! Don't be that guy!"
Raven makes a face, but doesn't want to get into a disagreement so sighs and gives in. "Oh fine, let's go. It's just history class I guess."
YAY!" Emma says, and drags Raven all the way back to the cabin.
When they get to the cabin, Raven walks over to her bunk and plops onto it with a loud sigh while Emma lays back on Percy's bunk, too lazy to climb to the top of her's and Raven's.
Raven stares up at the bottom of the upper bunk for some time while the two lay in silence. After a while, she turns her head to look at Emma. They both had the same should length black hair, fairly straight. They both had the signature sea green eyes that most children of Poseidon have, and were relatively short.
"I've been thinking... do you think we would've ever made it to camp if we hadn't... ya know... left?" Raven says softly.
"I try not to think about that if I can help it," Emma says quietly, "But, honestly? No. I don't."
Raven nods and looks back up, her voice barely above a whisper now, "According to Percy, we should've been scouted out by saytrs or informed by dad where we were much earlier than when we got here... I can't help but wonder why it didn't happen..."
Emma sighs shakily and shrugs, "Who knows why? And honestly, who cares? We're here now, right? That's all that matters."
Raven and Emma are fourteen year old twins from Houston Texas. According to Percy, because of their age they should've been brought to camp sooner because of a deal the gods made with him personally earlier that summer. In Houston, they lived with their mother Mary Lukens, step-father Orion, and half-brother Larry. For the two it was a rather rough childhood. Their step-father had something against the two, but he never made it quite clear what it was.
It got to the point within the last year, that if either of them even mumbled a little too quietly for Orion to hear, he had an excuse to do as he pleased. What made it even harder, was their brother Larry wasn't helpful in the slightest, he would even beat on them a little himself when directed to do so by his dad. The twins' mom wasn't any better, she seemed to ignore the fact that all of this was going on and acted normal and cheery, no matter what was going on in the other room just minutes before hand.
Two weeks ago, Raven and Emma were too scared to keep living with their parents any longer. Together they packed their backpacks, climbed onto one of the only nice things they had ever received which where two beautiful mares, and rode away as fast and as far as they could. On their way to no place in particular, a storm hit and swept them away north to New York, where they washed up on the shore of Camp Half-Blood.
After getting over their disorientation and confusion, Percy's girlfriend Annabeth explained where they were and that the storm was probably a result of their godly parent helping them make their way to camp. That night it was revealed that Poseidon was their father, and they got used to camp pretty fast.
One thing none of the campers knew about, not Chiron or even Percy, was what their very recent past was like back home in Texas. Both constantly thought of their past home, how they got to camp, and how much better it was there, but they only dared talk about it with each other.
There's rustling from the bed Emma's in, and then her arms are around Raven, pulling her into a tight hug. "No more thinking about that, alright Raven?"
Raven sighs and hugs her back, "Alright, big sis," she mumbles annoyed. Emma seems to always act like they're not the same age, but that Raven is her little sister she has to protect
"Oh shush" Emma says, and flicks Raven who responds with a laugh by grabbing her pillow and whacking her twin in the head. The two continue to playfully fight for a few minutes before their annoyingly superior brother walks into the cabin looking rather pleased.
"Ooh, Percy Jackson, did you make out with Annabeth? Of course you did. Maybe even more." Emma says teasingly, winking.
Percy replies by rolling his eyes, trying to blow it off but his cheeks get a little heated from embarrassment.
"Shut up Em. Anyways I'm here to let you guys know it's time for dinner," Percy says, grabbing his helmet from his bed and walking back towards the door. Giving a dismissive wave to the two, he walks out finishing, "Also, there's a surprise for you guys and the rest of the campers tonight so be prepared."
Emma giggles, and gets up, grinning at Raven. "I love making him embarrassed"
Raven gets up and laughs with her, "I think you've made that clear at this point."
Thinking about it for a moment, Raven grabs her sword and sheaths it, "What do you think is this surprise? He grabbed his helmet so it must have something to do with fighting..." she asks Emma, walking towards the door.
"I don't know. I guess we'll find out soon, though," Emma shrugs and follows by Raven's example by grabbing her sword. Hurrying to catch up with Percy to the dining hall, the twins get there right on time and sit across from Percy at the Poseidon table.
Dinner goes by rather quickly, everyone scraping a portion of their food into the fire as sacrifice the gods, then eating food while the Apollo campers sung loudly and the Ares campers made a loud ruckus as usual. Everything was as disastrously normal as ever at Camp Half-Blood, and to Raven who was used to so much different, this was perfect.
Once the first few campers had finished their dinner and were about ready to leave, Chiron, a centaur and director of camp activities stopped them to make an announcement.
"Since we have had a rough summer with the battle of Manhatten, we haven't had a chance for a while to do many of our most famous camp activities. As I thought about it, I realized there are also many new faces here at camp who have yet to experience some of our best challenges, so as a result we are going to have a surprised Capture the Flag game!"
Raven perks up at this, and gets a bit confused so looks to Percy for clarification. In her mind, in made no sense that a camp of warriors who spent their time learning how to fight monsters would play such a simple and well known game as capture the flag. Of course, Percy was looking over at Annabeth and the two were grinning so he was no help at all.
"The teams have been decided by me, for a more interesting match. The blue team will be lead by the Poseidon cabin. Other cabins apart of the blue team are going to be the Athena, Apollo, Nemisis..." Chiron continues to name off the rest of the cabins and which team they are apart of. The red team included the Aphrodite, Hephaestus, Ares and Demeter cabins.
When Chiron was done naming off the teams, he told everyone they had 30 minutes to strategize and prepare for the game. Everyone except for the new kids and the Aphrodite campers seemed to be thrilled with the announcement and hurried towards the forest. At this point both of the twins were giving each other confused looks, but followed Percy who gave them both some armor to put on.
"Um... Just an idea... Could you please tell us what's so important about a simple game of capture the flag?" Raven asks nervously.
"Yeah Perce, that would be kind of helpful." Emma says, raising an eyebrow.
"Not to mention we're putting on armor..." Raven adds, just sounding confused now.
Before Percy has the chance to explain what capture the flag games were like at Camp Half Blood, Annabeth comes over. "Capture the flag here at camp, is a bit different. The objective is the same, two teams hide their flag and the objective is to get the other flag as quickly as possible and bring it back to your side. Here, we go into the forest and the territory is split by the river that runs through it. The twist, is that everyone isn't just running for the flag, you're fighting for it.
"That definitely makes more sense," Raven says with a sigh, having gotten close to that explanation herself at this point.
"So you need to watch out for Hephaestus camper made traps, skilled Ares swordsman, all while either defending our flag and obtaining" the enemy's," Percy says, wrapping an arm around Annabeth who smiles at first, then shakes her head with a stern and annoyed look.
"Not now Percy, come on let's figure out how we're splitting the team," Annabeth says briskly and walks over to her siblings, other children of Athena who were already strategizing, with Percy following closely.
"Well... this definately makes a lot more sense," Raven turns to Emma and finishes putting on her armor, struggling a little.
"Yeah," Emma agrees, also finishing with her armor.
Sheathing her sword, and about to go over to Percy to see what the plan is, Raven is stopped by a smug looking Drew.
"Don't think I'll forget how you humiliated me earlier, see you in the forest," Drew laughs and is followed by two strong looking guys probably from the Ares of Hephaestus cabin.
Annoyed, Raven rolls her eyes and frowns at Emma, "To be fair, it was you and Perce who talked back, not me."
Emma sighs, and has her patented I'm-really-freaking-mad-and-nobody's-safe look.
"Come on you two!" Annabeth calls over, sounding impatient, "Time to learn our battle plan." Needing no further ushering from the blonde leader, both hurry over.
"Okay," Percy says, "Basically what you two are going to do, is take a far route to the left of the forest and retrieve the flag, while we send out our more experienced and well known campers as a decoy retrieval squad in the middle. No one will suspect we send such a few number of new campers, and you're both really skilled, so it's perfect."
"Alright," Emma simply nods, while Raven looks a big uneasy and unsure but nods as well.
Twenty minutes later both teams head into the forest, where the captains and defense teams hide their flags. Raven and her sister both wait a little behind the river before the game officially start, then head off into the other team's territory as planned.
"I wonder if we'll run into any monsters," Raven says quietly, thinking off track as usual and is shushed by Emma who's concentrating much more on the task at hand. Once the two are about half way into the territory, a squad led by Ares cabin leader Clarrise and two of her brothers jump out of a tree and stand in Emma and Raven's way to any farther.
"Dammit!" Emma yells, unsheathing her sword and looking at all the possibilities around them, then sprints off to the the right, "Split up and find the flag!"
Raven takes just a moment longer to register what's happening but still reacts very quickly, taking out her own sword and runs as fast as she can to the left of her attackers. All of them seem to follow Emma, which gives her the impression that Emma is heading towards the flag.
After running for a few minutes, Raven finds herself in a clearing with a large pile of rocks in the middle. "Zeus' Fist..." she says quietly to herself, and jogs over to climb to the top. At this point her best bet was to get a good look at her surroundings by scouting around from atop the large rock.
Once on top, Raven adjusts her helmet and grips her sword. Looking around, she can see through the trees just slightly, not noticing any movement from either teams. After a few minutes it's clear that this plan wasn't helping so she decided to climb back down. Before she could, a loud, obnoxious, and familiar voice called out to the daughter of the sea.
"Where are you going little bird?" Drew calls.
Whipping around at the sound of her voice, Raven gasps in surprise and takes a step back, her heel able to feel the edge of the rock. Unsure as to how she didn't hear them come up, Raven sees Drew and the two boys that were following her earlier just a few feet away, all looking pretty smug. One was a more senior camper from the Ares cabin, and the other a relatively new one from Hephaestus.
"What are you doing here? I'm not even any threat to the flag," Raven says. Drawing out her sword she looks more determined than frightened. Sword fighting is one thing Raven felt comfortable with.
"I told you earlier, I haven't forgotten what happened earlier. And now is the perfect chance to mess with you without anyone else having to know it wasn't for the game," Drew takes a step back, her overly red lips curled in an annoying smirk as the Ares kid drew his own sword, taking a step closer.
Getting nervous, Raven tries to take another step back but realizes there is no more room behind her, "How'd you get these two lowlifes to do your dirty work Drew? Bribe them with your ugly make up?" Her goal at the moment was to distract them while she came up with a plan, and tried to figure out what exactly theirs was.
Drew's smirk simply grew, her voice now sounding a bit different, "Of course not. I simply helped these fine boys come to the realization that they hated you, and wanted to see you suffer."
Both of Raven's attackers nodded in unison, and with frightened shock she realized that Drew had been able to charmspeak her way into getting the other campers to do whatever she wanted. Before completing this thought, the Ares camper thrust his sword at Raven who was taken by surprise and clumsily blocked, resulting in her loosing the grip on her sword. As it plummeted down the rocks Raven's confidence turned into unease.
"What's wrong little bird? Not able to fly away?"
"Enough with the talking Mark, mess with her a bit before the game ends," Drew says impatiently, her charmspeak seems to have gotten stronger and even Raven feels a weird urge to stop talking.
Needing no more persuasion, Mark swings his sword dangerously close to a now frightened Raven, unable to move backwards without falling down the rocks. In a split second decision she attempts to make it past Mark before he makes his next move. The attacker gets startled and his instincts act up, doing what any demigod does when they're rushed by someone and thrusts his sword toward Raven without thinking about what he's doing.
There's dead silence from all four for a second, all realizing what has just happened.
Then the eery silence is broken by a scream of pain. Raven stumbles back, tears forming in her eyes from the pain of the stab wound Mark managed to make in a chink of her light armor. Not able to think straight, she takes one too many steps backwards and falls off the large rock, tumbling down all the others until she lays motionless at the bottom of Zeus' fist.
As Drew, Mark, and the son of Hephaestus stare down at her in shock, horns sound from deeper in the forest and Chiron's voice is heard announcing that the blue team has one this match of capture the flag.
"Let's get out of here!" Mark says, all three afraid of whatever punishment they might get and scramble down the hill of rocks and out of the forest as quick as they can.
Raven remains to lay on the ground, her stab wound and various other wounds from falling down the rocks starting to bleed heavily while other bruises form. A rather large gash on her forehead bleeding almost as badly as her stab wound.
While Raven's condition worsened, a few Apollo campers who had heard her scream rushed into the clearing, all shocked to find a camper in such horrible condition. "Someone go get Chiron and hurry! We have to get her to the infirmary before I can try to heal her smaller wounds," Will, the head counselor of the Apollo cabin ordered. He tried to get some ambrosia, the drink of the gods which possessed healing powers for demigods when used in the right quantities, down Raven's throat.
Once he had accomplished that, Will took off Raven's armor quickly and gently, sure to not worsen her condition by doing so. After having checked over her for all the wounds, he picked her up and ran as fast as he dared to get back to the infirmary. Unsure as to how this could've happen, but very clear on the fact that another camper had stabbed her and run off, Will felt a anger towards whoever did this rise.
Will had started to become one of Raven's friends in the short time she and her sister had been at camp. He was impressed by how well her archery was for someone new to camp, let alone a child of Poseidon, and took it upon himself to help her improve. Having gotten to know her well enough to know that Raven was a shy but cheerful kid with lots of potential, Will suddenly felt a little protective over her.
"Tell me, what has happened?!" Once Will managed to get to the edge of the forest, his sister ran over with Chiron in pursuit, looking rather disturbed himself.
"I'm not sure, but we have to get her to the infirmary now! I don't think she's in a very stable condition at the moment," Will says urgently, giving Chiron a knowing look to tell him that it's pretty bad.
Just then the Athena cabin along with Percy come out of the forest cheering, carrying a laughing Emma as she raises the red team's flag high in celebration of their win. With a grin on her face, Emma looks over at Chiron and notices Raven's limp frame in Will's arms. Her grin turning quickly into a look of horrified shock, the next thing she sees is Raven's bloodstained clothes slowly getting more and more red.
Emma drops the flag immediately, "Put me down," she says in a distressed voice.
Percy, who was currently the one carrying Emma complied and looked after Emma as she ran off to Raven's side, seeing her now himself and froze in place in shock.
"Alright, put her on my back Will. You'll stabilize her while I get her to the infirmary," Chiron helps Will up after Raven is on his back. Right when they're about to gallop off, Emma reaches them.
"What the hell happened?! she asks, her eyes filled with worry.
Chiron looks down at Emma softly, understanding in his expression, "We're not sure yet child, but we must get your sister to the infirmary immediately. You and Percy meet us there." Without another word, Chiron gallops off with Will making sure Raven doesn't fall off his back, the three heading towards the infirmary.
Emma is left staring after them, then looks back over to the crowd of campers who have just realized what was going on. Drew and Mark are trying to remain invisible, probably a first for Drew, so as to not draw attention to themselves. Percy takes a moment before walking over to Emma.
"Come on Em, we should hurry up after them to see what's wrong with her," Percy says softly, a hand on his sister's shoulder. Sadly Percy was used to situations like this, so knew how to deal with it in the best way possible. Emma nods and the two run off to the infirmary, followed by Annabeth and a couple other campers from the Apollo cabin.