DISCLAIMER: I do not own PJO or any of its characters mentioned in this story. This disclaimer will stand for the entire story. Thanks to ilyPJP19 for being my beta! =) You're awesome!

Beginnings

It was summer, four years after the war against the Titans. Camp Half-Blood has been getting more and more kids every year. New cabins were built for the minor gods and some campers got to move out of the Hermes cabin. It had a lot more room ever since. Some cabins were still empty, but, at least, the gods kept their word.

I loved camp. It was one of my favourite places in the world. All my closest friends are here and it was way quieter than the big city. The weather is great most of the time, making it perfect for going outdoors.

I was walking down the cabins at camp after my sword fighting class. I've been at Camp Half-Blood for about six years now. I come here every summer to spend time with my demigod friends and half siblings. When summer is over, I go live with my dad in Brooklyn. I get by along the school year since my mom is only a minor goddess. My dad, on the other hand, is a lawyer at one of the minor firms there.

After walking past a good number of cabins, I finally got to mine. It was a delicately structured black & white cabin. It looked strongly built. It had small three-step stairs that led to a small outdoor area in front of the main door. It was cabin eighteen, the Melinoe Cabin. As I reached for the door knob, I heard some voices inside. I opened the door and found two people, yelling at each other from across the main room. I saw my half siblings, Erica and Tyler, arguing about something. They were both younger than me, so I became the cabin leader.

"Hey, guys, what's up with all the yelling?" I asked. Tyler was holding something that looked like a small notebook. He was laughing and making faces at Erica, as he read what was in it. Erica, meanwhile, was shouting at Tyler, telling him to give it back, while throwing pillows at him.

This went on for about four minutes until Erica spoke up.

"Erin, Tyler went inside our cabin room and took my diary!" she yelled at me. Ah, so that's what it was, a diary. Erica was only thirteen years old. She came to camp about two years ago. She and Tyler started fighting ever since.

Tyler was laughing at our sister's reaction. He enjoyed getting Erica pissed. It was sort of his thing to annoy girls. He would've made a great Hermes kid.

"What's this about?" he asked Erica. "Oooh, Erica has a secret crush, an Apollo kid!" Erica turned almost as red as a tomato when Tyler said that. I was still standing by the doorway watching them run after each other.

"Tyler, will you just give it back to her before she kills you." I said, lying down on the couch. He finally let go of the diary and backed out, hands raised in surrender.

"Fine, I already read who it is anyway!" with that, Tyler ran out of the cabin laughing. Erica was sitting on the floor at the corner of the room. She looked like she was about to cry. So, I walked over to check on her. When I was only about five feet away from her, she burst into tears.

"Tyler's going to tell him! He read all my secrets. My life as a teen is over!" she cried out. I sat down in front of her. I just realized that I really didn't know what to do. She suddenly stopped crying.

"I'm going to get back at him." I don't like this. Whenever they fight this bad, it ends up with one person hurting someone else.

"Erica, don't you dare!" I yelled, running after her.

She was running towards our cabin room. When I caught up, she was rummaging through her things. I watched her, as she pulled out a photograph from the very bottom.

"Perfect." She said holding it up.

"Erica, what is that?" I leaned closer to get a good look at the photo. She showed me the picture with an evil smirk on her face. It was a picture of Tyler kissing his girlfriend, Marissa. She was a blonde Aphrodite girl. "What is that going to do?" I asked, unsure where Erica was going with this.

"It's my payback. Tyler will spread who my crush is, right?"

Knowing Tyler, I was pretty sure he would. I nodded. "But that's just Tyler and Marissa. That won't do anything." I grabbed the picture away from her.

"Yes, it's a picture of Tyler kissing a girl. But, take a closer look." She pushed the picture toward my face. I looked at it a bit more closely. Then, I saw it.

"This isn't Marissa, is it?" I pointed at the girl. She shook her head. It was Pauline. She's another Aphrodite girl. I can't believe Tyler would cheat on his girlfriend. "How did you get this?"

"It was the time after Tyler and I had the fight about drinks, two weeks ago." I remember that one. Tyler and Erica were fighting about which drink was better. I never found out how that topic came into view. "I was looking for something to use against Tyler. So, I followed him to the arena and, there, saw him kissing Pauline! I had my camera then, I just couldn't resist."

My sister was an evil genius. Erica and Tyler take care for each other as much as siblings do, but their personalities always tend to clash. I guess that's just the way they are. Sometimes I try and break them apart. It's pointless, I tell you! They won't listen to anyone but themselves.

Children of Melinoe have similar characteristics, such as dark brown hair, almost black and brown eyes. We can talk to ghosts. Also, we can make our shadows form some kind of shape and animate them, sort of like an imaginary friend. The shadows could attack each other, too. Erica and Tyler did that once, but ended up hurting each other.

"Do what you want, but make sure no one will get hurt." Who was I kidding? With these two fighting, someone's bound to get hurt.

"Oh, sure, don't worry about it. I'm only going to use this to threaten him. I'll only show this to people the moment he spills my secret."

I hopped onto my bed and sighed. I was beat. "I'm tired. Go hang out with your friends or something. I'm going to sleep, okay?"

"See you later!" Erica said, and ran out of the room with a smile on her face.

After all that, I rolled on my bed and stared at the ceiling for a bit. I was swept off to a dreamless sleep. Just the way I like it.

I woke up late in the afternoon. I got up and saw that no one was in the cabin but me. It was already getting dark outside. I didn't know what to do for the rest of the day. So, I decided to walk around camp a bit, since dinner wasn't near yet. I skirted around the woods a bit, because I really didn't want to face an unwanted monster at the moment.

I was wondering where to go next, when I ran into Annabeth. She was my first friend here at camp. She was the one who showed me around when I first got here. She was walking around with her boyfriend Percy. They were holding hands and were talking about some plan for Capture the Flag, which was still two days from now. It's still Tuesday.

"Annabeth! Percy!"They turned around when I mentioned their names.

"Hey, Erin, what's up?"Annabeth asked, Percy just waved help and smiled.

"I'm just thinking about where to go. I just woke up and I'm bored." I made a face.

"That explains the bad hair. You look like a mess!"Percy laughed.

"Shut up! I can't always look perfect like your girl here." I was referring to Annabeth.

"Haha, very funny, Erin," Percy replied, sarcastically. "Is your cabin in Annabeth's team for Capture the Flag?" He asked.

Annabeth replied for me, by saying "Of course they are! We just talked about that! She's on the defense line of our Flag!"

"Oh yeah, I forgot, sorry." Percy said as his one-of-a-kind smart reply to Annabeth.

"I suppose you're on her team as well?"I asked Percy. I already knew the answer but it never hurts to ask.

"Always, Wisegirl here needs my brain power!"

"No, I don't!" Annabeth yelled at him.

"I figured that out. You two come in a package deal, after all." They just shrugged. "Guess, I better get going. I'll leave you two love birds alone then, eh?" Now when I said that, I saw them blush immediately. I burst out laughing.

"Are you sure you're not an Aphrodite girl?" she asked jokingly.

"I'm pretty sure I'm not. At least, I wasn't the last time I checked. See you around."

I left them alone after that. I decided to head towards the Hephaestus Cabin, and look for my friend, Nicole Smith. Unfortunately, she wasn't there. I saw her half-brother, Dean. He was walking towards his cabin.

"Hey Dean," I called out to him. "Wait up!" I ran after him, as he was about to go inside his cabin.

"Hey Erin, are you looking for Nicole?" He asked. He was a year older than me and Nicole. He was also pretty tall, so it was kind of hard to look him in the eye when you wanted to. Dean was also the new Hephaestus cabin leader. We were pretty close after all he couldn't avoid me anyway since I'm best friends with his sister.

"Yeah, have you seen her?"

He thought about it for a minute. "She told me she was going to the forges in the armory, a while ago. You should head out and check there."

So it turns out that she was in the armory, typical. I really should have thought of that. I said my 'thank you' and left for the armory. I passed by the other cabins on my way there. I was running so fast that I didn't really see where I was going. That's when somebody faded in, right in front of me, from nowhere. I tried to stop at the last second but I was too late. It's already obvious that I smashed right into that person.

It was Nico Di Angelo, son of Hades, he came to camp the same year I did so we were both stuck in the Hermes cabin back then. He was from the quest I mentioned, earlier. The one where Percy was supposed to bring back a pair of demigods but got Annabeth kidnapped. We weren't really close when we were in cabin eleven together so I guess he didn't really remember me.

We landed in the dirt with a thud. I got up and wiped the dirt off my clothes. I saw Nico was trying to get up. I immediately apologized.

"Oh my gods, I am so sorry."I tried to give him a helping hand, but he just swatted it away.

"Watch where you're going next time you run across camp." I watched him, as he stormed off. How rude, I thought.

Nico sure has changed since I met him, six years ago. Then again, that was a long time ago. Back then, he was a happy and hyper kid who loved Mythomagic. I guess things changed after his sister died. Now he's a bit rough around the edges, but he's still a cool kid. Especially after he and his father, Hades, came up marching to help save Olympus four years ago. It was like the day of the dead, seeing all those skeleton armies come out.

I walked a bit more and, finally, reached the armory. I made my way to the forges inside and spotted Nicole talking to her boyfriend, Daniel. He's a son of Apollo. He and Nicole got together a while back.

I saw that Nicole was giving him some tips on how to forge a good sword. Daniel, on the other, hand looked like he had no clue about what he was supposed to do. I laughed, as Daniel accidentally touched the hot sword and Nicole got all fussed up.

"Hey Nicky, I've been looking for you. Hi Daniel." I said, as she caught me laughing at them. Nicole had brown eyes and always wore her red hair in a ponytail. She's an amazing smith, given the fact that she is, after all, a daughter of Hephaestus.

"Hi Erin, you should have figured I was here, you know?" She said. "Come on, I'm helping Daniel make his first sword. I saw you laughing when he got his hand burnt."

"I can see that. Hey, Daniel, how exactly is that working for you, huh?"

"It's my first time, what do you expect? I'm a son of Apollo, not a certain daughter of Hephaestus." He raised his burnt hand.

Nicole came to camp a year before I did. We became friends during sword fighting class. She was my opponent, and while we were duelling, we hit a passing camper on the head and, needless to say, he went to the infirmary.

Chiron didn't really get mad, seeing as this was an accident, but he did send us to stable cleaning duty for a week. It was absolutely disgusting. I didn't know that horses could poo that much! Nicole and I ended up hanging out for a week and we became the best of friends. The next day, we visited the camper we hit. We apologized and made friends with him. That camper turned out to be Daniel. According to him, he was heading towards archery practice, when he was suddenly knocked out by two crazy girls, who were in his way.

We laughed on that memory being brought up. We were planning to talk some more, until we heard the conch horn that signalled the time for dinner.

"Hey, Erin, Nicole, let's go. I'm starving!" Daniel rubbed his grumbling stomach.

"Come on, I'm in the mood for some chicken." Nicole added.

"Fine let's go." With that, all three of us made our way to the mess hall.

We ran along the way, so we could join our cabin mates. We already passed by the arena and the cabins when the Mess Hall came into view. That's when we stopped running. We all went towards our respective tables. I saw Tyler was already eating. Erica just finished offering to the gods, and was heading to the table.

"Hey, guys." I got zero response. I sat down beside Erica with Tyler at the opposite side.

Erica had a satisfied grin on her face, while Tyler looked at her dangerously. It seemed like Erica's plan worked. I still want to find out who this mystery boy is, though.

I was really hungry, so I decided to take care of it later. I thought of getting myself some steak and rice. I also got some coke for drinks. After all that, I came up to the line towards the fire.

It was, finally, my turn. I threw in the juiciest part of my steak for my mom. "To Melinoe." I said. Afterwards, I sat down again beside Erica. She was still playing with her food, only eating little as she picked it up with her spoon.

"So, Tyler, what happened?" I looked at him, laughing. He looked like he was ready to walk out on us."

"Absolutely nothing, I got blackmailed." He looked down. It was so hard to stop myself from laughing.

"Aw… Tyler. Scared you'd lose your girlfriend?" Erica feigned concern.

I just laughed at all this. It was great no one got hurt this time. It was okay. Not good, but okay. We talked about other stuff for the rest of the night. It was awesome. But there was one thing I forgot about the secret crush.

A/N: This is a revise of my first fanfic. I hope you liked it. =) I'm still building up on it so you have to be patient. To those who don't like it. I am so sorry! I'll try to improve, I swear. You could help by pointing out some mistakes. Thanks for reading!