Chapter 1: Transformations

I couldn't take it anymore. I was on the verge of exhaustion. My breaths were quick, short, and painful. I tripped over my own feet and collapsed to the ground. This was the end.

"Oh get up you sissy!!!" Shouted the satyr behind me. "We've been jogging for what? Two miles? I thought you were some athletic dude at your old school."

"Colin, I'm a son of Hades, I'm used to shadow-traveling long distances," I mumbled, my face buried in the dirt. "See?" I motioned around me, not looking up. "Twilight, the best time to shadow travel."

"Yeah well you're inexperienced and I don't want to lose my legs, my arms, my head, or any other useful extremity, so come on and get up!" Colin countered who then reassuringly patted me on the back and kept jogging. I closed my eyes and upon opening them I emerged from a tree in front of him. "See? It's easy." Colin looked away instantly.

"Is it just me or are you not wearing pants?" He asked. I looked back to were I used to be sitting and saw a black pair of denim jeans lying on the ground. I quickly darted over there, on foot might I add, and put them back on. I rushed back over to Colin, who was bleat-laughing so hard I thought he was going to flip the bucket right then and there.

"I though, I, I thought you were dead tired!" He managed to choke out.

"I am." I replied casually.

"If I could run that fast I would set a Camp Half blood track record!" he cackled.

"Yeah well, that was a pants crisis. Besides," I ran my hands over my clothes. "Now it's an outfit, see?"

"Whatever," Colin said, his face returning from deep purple to deep red.

"I really, need to lie down." I put my hand up against the pine tree next to me. "Oh what's that?" I asked, reaching out towards a shining yellow fabric that was hanging from one of the lower branches.

"DON'T TOUCH THAT!!!!!" came Colin's scream from behind me. Too late. As soon as my middle finger barely grazed the edge of the fabric I was instantly pinned to the ground by a scaly red and black claw, with a large red snout the size of a car staring at me. There was a disgruntled growl and I was blasted with thick grey smoke from its baseball sized nostrils. I had managed to gag three times and puke once at the retched smell of the breath before I was wrenched from the claws by a furry hand.

"Next time, when I say don't touch something I mean don't touch something!" came Colin's disgruntled voice beside me. He turned around and looked at the animal, which turned out to be a massive red dragon. Go figure.

"Down boy!" he shouted. The dragon gave him a slight turn of the head as if to say "who are you and why are you trying to kill my family?" The last part may have been interpreted wrong. "Now!" Colin said in a stronger voice. The dragon decided that who ever was talking to him was either crazy, stupid, blind, or a composition of the three. But he decided to sit down anyway. "Thank you." Colin said, then turned and walked away.

"You forgot to curtsey," I reminded him.

"Oh shut up," he muttered, walking further down the hill.

* * * * * * *

By the time we had made it to the porch of a large barn Colin was dead tired. I started jumping around him, throwing weak punches at him, purposefully missing by a few inches.

"Come on and get up you lazy buffoon!" I joking yelled at him. "That was the down hill stretch! You're supposed to be pumped!!!!" I chuckled weakly and sat down.

"Hooves," he said, pointing to his, err, 'feet.' "Try running downhill for 100 yards in them and then tell me what you think."

"Posh-ah," I scoffed at him.

Colin walked into the barn to talk to someone. A tall slender kid with ratty blonde hair materialized in front of me.

"You would be Calco Mendel, am I right?"

"Yes I would sir," I said politely. Always be polite to people you don't know, you never know whose in charge.

"Come with me." He gestured towards a ring of cabins. The cabins were very odd. There were 13 of 14 of them; I didn't get a good look. They were all different colors with weird banners out front.

I followed the blonde kid until he stopped at the volleyball court underneath a large tree. There was a large rope dangling from the tree that ran into the sand, but I quickly dismissed it, thinking it was of no importance.

"Have I seen you anywhere else?" I asked him.

"You may have seen my brother, were practically twins." He quickly replied. "Now, TASTE NET NEW KID!!!!!" he shouted and a large nylon rope sprang from the sand and tied me up. I struggled but it was all in vain. He chuckled and a pool of campers started to collect around the border of the volleyball court.

"You just got Stolled!" he told me, laughing. Everyone around me was laughing, thinking of horrible things to do to me. It made me angry, real angry. Here I was, a stranger to them, getting mocked due to my own stupidity. Oh that made me angry, like REAL angry. I felt a surging sensation inside of me, like I had swallowed too many Pop Rocks. My body became tense and stiff. I had felt this before, in 4th grade for example. Trevor the bully had decided to throw me in a pit of mud when I had just gotten new shoes and it was picture day and everyone was laughing at me. Basically I got suspended for the following events, as well as 3 years of counseling. In short, god powers suck. I sliced through the net with my newly grown black claws. I pounced at the kid who had led me here. My now glowing golden eyes stared at him with a fury I didn't have, but my rabid mind thought I did. This crazy power that I had for some reason involved me turning into a cat like creature and going completely insane. I didn't enjoy going into that state, but being a son of Hades I had real anger issues. He laid there, eyes wide and full of fear.

"What, what are you?" he asked, his voice trembling so much you could hardly understand what he was saying.

"Me? I'm the guy who you DO NOT WANT TO MESS WITH, BECAUSE IF YOU DO HE'S GOING OT KICK YOUR ASS!!!!!!!" I screamed at him in my newly-depend voice. I looked up and saw that the crowd had not dispersed. I stood on my hind legs and pointed to each one of them individually. "And this is a message to all of you! If you cross me again I will personally disembowel you! You here me!" Everyone screamed and ran towards their respective cabin. Mental Note: All the hot girls are running into the pink cabin. The rush of adrenalin was wearing off, I had to find a place to hide or I will crash out in the wide open and I will wake up with a serious hurt on me from all of those perturbed campers. I looked around. There was a blood red cabin, I thought. Nice, but the boar head is kind of a turn off. Pink is so not my color, when did peacocks become a man thing, I doubt that there will be much to hide behind in that massive marble cabin, Oh! That black one looks nice and cozy! I ran towards the old, rickety, black two-story cabin. I luckily found it deserted. I dove for a bed, my normal body returning in mid flight. I landed on the bed and slowly all of my energy faded away. The last thing I saw before I completely passed out was the sight of a 30 year old man walking in to the room.

"Well hello there stranger!" he said with what I'm pretty sure was a fake southern accent. "Welcome to the Hades Cabin."

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