A/N: We don't own anything except the plot and very obvious OC's. Please review :D We'd really appreciate it. We'll try to update faster if you do :D -Moony, Envy, Dinosaur
Chapter 1
My world came crashing down on the first day of summer vacation when my father told me that my little sister, Zoe, would be coming with me to my favorite place, Camp Half-Blood. It's bad enough that she's the smart one since I'm Dyslexic and all and she's not... or is she? Anyway, I really didn't need Zoe showing me up at Camp Half-Blood too. Is she even a demigod? As far as I know, demigods have ADHD and Dyslexia and she doesn't have any of those.
I continued to question Zoe's demigod-ness as I rearranged the stuff in my luggage. My mom puts the weirdest things! I threw the rubber ducky pajamas back into my closet. And since when did I own Patrick Star boxers? Oh right... Zoe gave me those for Christmas. My gods! I don't need these bunny slippers and Hippocampi plushies. I'm fifteen!
"Luke! Hurry up! Mom says we're leaving soon and Auntie Thalia's stopped by to see us!" Zoe yelled up the stairs.
"Coming!" I yelled back. I zipped up my luggage, grabbed my jacket, and dragged my bags down the stairs.
My parents, Perseus (or Percy) and Annabeth Jackson were standing just inside the front door talking to a girl that looked like she was only my age. She had a silver circlet braided into her jet black hair, electric blue eyes, and a strange sort of glow about her. She turned as I entered and waved at me.
"Hey there kiddo. Miss your Aunt?"
Yep. That's Aunt Thalia.
"Hi Aunt Thalia. Lady Artemis being kind to you?" I said as I gave her a hug. She laughed and hugged me back.
"Do I look like I've grown older?"
"No."
"Then yes, she's been very kind to me."
I grinned at her. She did look exactly the same as when I'd last seen her. I guess that's what happens when you're one of hunters of the goddess, Artemis. According to my parents, Aunt Thalia's looked like that ever since she was sixteen. Something about a prophecy. Anyway, it does get really awkward sometimes since she looks like she could be one of my classmates but we treat her like our Aunt. Add to that the fact that she sometimes still acts like a 16-year-old and you get a whole lot of awkwardness.
"Makes you miss the old days, huh?" she asked my parents. My mom nodded and smiled like she was reminiscing already.
"If only we had the time to stay at Camp for more than a couple of days." My dad said longingly.
"Well, maybe one day we can have this reunion thing!" Aunt Thalia said happily.
Just then, Zoe came barging in in her usual underdeveloped 13-year-old way and gave Aunt Thalia a huge bear hug. Aunt Thalia nearly died.
"Zoe!" Aunt Thalia hugged her back while trying not to cough or choke. "You look great! Nearly squeezed all the breath out of me too." She gently pried Zoe's arms off of her. Zoe grinned and hopped off to get something in the kitchen.
"Well, I better get going. Artemis expects me. You should go too if you want to reach the camp by dinnertime." Aunt Thalia said and took a step out the door.
"Take care Thalia!" My parents said.
"Bye Aunt Thalia!" Zoe and I waved.
"See you soon!" With one last wave, Aunt Thalia turned and ran off towards the woods across the road where she disappeared among the thick trees.
"We should go too." My mom said as she reached for one of Zoe's bags. I nodded and together, me and my dad managed to heave all the bags into the trunk while Zoe and my mom got into the car. We slammed the trunk door shut then my dad turned to face me.
"Hey Luke?" My dad started.
"Yeah?"
"Try not to give your sister a hard time, OK?"
I didn't answer right away since it gets pretty hard not to give a sister like Zoe a hard time. I could almost hear her yelling in the morning, see her humiliating me, and even feel her kicking me under a table. How was I supposed to deal with that? My dad gave me a look that clearly said Please-at-least-try-to-be-nice-for-your-mom. I sighed and nodded. No point making the situation harder for me. My dad smiled and went around to the driver's seat while I climbed into the backseat next to Zoe, who was listening to her iPod and singing like a dying worm at the top of her voice. I sighed.
This was going to be a long ride to camp.
"We're here!" Zoe sang. I rolled my eyes as I looked around and saw the familiar pine tree and Peleus, the dragon who protected the Golden Fleece. Dad swears that Aunt Thalia was the tree once. I'm not sure if I believe him. Dad and I grabbed the bags while mom and Zoe went ahead. Once we reached the Big House, I immediately saw Chiron, Mr. D and Grover, who is dad's best friend, playing Pinochle. I never really understood that game.
"Ah, look who's here, Larry Johnson." Mr. D said without looking up from his cards.
"It's Luke."
"Whatever." He waved his hand dismissively and returned to contemplating his hand.
Chiron put down his cards and came towards us, his hooves making loud clopping sounds on the wooden floor. From the corner of my eye, I could see Zoe's eyes slowly getting wider and wider.
"Hi Chiron." I greeted. "This is my little sister, Zoe. She's staying for the summer this year." I explained when I saw him glance at her curiously. Zoe's jaw slowly dropped open. See, she's never actually been to camp before seeing as we weren't sure if she was even a demigod and so me and my parents sort of had an agreement not to tell her too much before we were sure she was actually coming. I grinned at her. I'd never seen her look so freaked out before. I think Zoe was in so much shock that she couldn't help but blurt out, "Can I braid your tail?"
"Zoe!" Mom scolded. She looked really surprised and almost as shocked as Zoe looked that my sister would say such an un-Zoe like thing. Dad on the other hand stifled a laugh which I think had something to do with his story that Chiron wore hair curlers in his tail.
Chiron laughed. "No, my tail cannot be braided." He told Zoe. Zoe's face fell slightly.
"Braiding aside, why don't you go along with Grover? He's meeting some more new campers at the border." Chiron gestured to the satyr behind him. Zoe nodded.
"Great! The other three should be at the tree by now." Grover said then motioned for Zoe to follow him as he left the Big House. Zoe followed him out and I was finally free of her Zoe-ness... for now.
While Chiron and my parents were discussing the "camp activities" (they were actually reminiscing), I couldn't help but think... why no one was trying to kill the fly buzzing around the room. No, wait. I was thinking about Capture the Flag, not the fly. We were going to play Capture the Flag after dinner tonight as we always did when new campers joined us. Unlike during the time of my parents, the camp was much larger now. With the addition of all the children of the minor gods, a game of capture the flag usually ended with the forest looking like a war zone minus any dead bodies (we've come close to having them though).
I'd stopped paying attention to what my parents were talking about until my mom, just from out of the blue, asked which cabin Zoe would be staying in if she wasn't claimed (they've obviously been discussing Zoe's demigod-ness too). Unclaimed kids were rare but just to be on the safe side, I silently prayed for Zoe to stay in any other cabin besides Athena's.
"I doubt she'll be unclaimed but to be sure, perhaps the Athena cabin since her brother is there in case she'll need anything."
Great. Someone really must hate me today. All I can do now is hope she gets claimed by dinnertime...
Speaking of dinner, the conch horn's blowing now.... Food!
I headed to the dining pavilion with my parents not far behind. I quickly made my way to the front of the Athena campers line and led the cabin into the pavilion where a bunch of new campers were already standing beside Mr. D and Chiron at the center table. They looked kind of scared and nervous and strangely reminded me of my first summer here. I bet they all felt like Harry Potter getting ready to wear the Sorting Hat in front of a ton of new faces. When everyone was finally seated, a silence fell over all of us. One by one, they started getting claimed. A girl went to Demeter, another girl to Apollo, a boy to Ares and so on until it was finally Zoe's turn. We all waited and... there goes a flying fish!
SMACK!
It flew right into Zoe's face and everyone started cracking up. I'm guessing the Hermes cabin fished it up from the lake but who knows? I couldn't help but laugh a little at my sister and the moment I wasn't looking at her, coincidentally, was the moment she was claimed. A glowing green trident appeared above her head, quickly followed by a gray owl so that it looked like the trident was stabbing the owl. Everyone laughed again but I felt a little envious that she had been claimed by Poseidon, one of the Big Three. Although at the same time, I felt a little relieved that she wouldn't be staying in the same cabin as me.
Meanwhile, in Olympus...
"Hah! I beat you this time!" Poseidon smirked and pointed mockingly at Athena. Athena crossed her arms and hmph-ed at Poseidon.
"Well at least I got the first born and the boy."
Poseidon couldn't think of a retort to that and went back to playing with his fishes.
Back in Camp Half- Blood....
Dinner was great. I felt bad at first that Zoe would be sitting alone but all that disappeared when I finally started eating and talking with my cabin mates. It was a little mean of me, I know. But I couldn't really do anything about it anyway; Chiron was particularly strict about the "No sitting in other tables" rule. Besides, it wasn't just us Athena kids, the whole pavilion practically shook with all the noise the rest of the campers were making (or maybe it was just the Hermes cabin?). Chiron never tried to stop us though since even he knew that the start-of-summer dinner was always the most chaotic. After all, most of us haven't seen each other for months and naturally, there was a lot of catching up to do.
Dinner finished soon enough and it was finally time for Capture the Flag. My friend from the Apollo cabin, Heather Nichols, came up to me before we left. "I hope we at least get to sing a couple of camp songs before Capture the Flag. Don't you?" she asked. Honestly, I didn't feel like singing right now. Thankfully, we didn't have time to sing, much to the Apollo cabin's dismay (but mostly Heather's). The entire cabin loved to sing even though some were... let's just say, a little lacking (Mostly Heather). My cabin was allied with Hades, Apollo and some other minor gods while Zeus was allied with Poseidon, Hermes, Ares and the rest of them. I was ready with my armor and weapons in no time and the other old-timers weren't much different but it's always a little fun to watch the newbies. They had a hard time putting on the armor and they could hardly carry the weapons that were supplied.
"Luke!" a voice called. I turned to see Ashley from the Hades cabin running towards me. "You'll be captain, I'll be co-cap okay? Okay!" she said then she grabbed my arms and dragged me towards a group of the heads of the cabins we were allied with. In the middle of the small circle, the head of the Apollo cabin was sketching a rough map of the forest.
"So what's our plan?" he asked as he finished the map. Ashley stepped forward.
"I'm thinking four groups. One defense, two "distractions", then the main attack group." she said as she pointed out the positions on the map.
"So it's a basic plan. One group will go down the right, one goes down the left and brings their people away from the middle. Then the main group just runs down the undefended area and takes their flag." I said, not wanting to be shown up by the co-captain. I didn't even want to be captain but Ashley never really gives a choice in these things.
"Okay, everyone got it? Let's split into groups and get into position." Ashley said. In the end, we decided that Ashley, Daniel Adams, the head of Apollo, Heather, and I would each lead one of the four groups. My group was the one in charge of defending our flag while Ashley was leading the main attack group with Daniel's group and Heather's group flanking Ashley from the left and right. I smiled as Daniel and Heather started distributing people to the different groups. This plan was practically foolproof. A classic formation.
"Alright men!" I started to say until I was interrupted by Ashley's obviously fake cough. "And women." I added. How could I forget? Most girls here are such feminists.
"As I was sayin---" A loud horn interrupted me, officially signaling the start of Capture the Flag.
"1, 2, 3. Break!" Ashley shouted like some soccer team coach. Before I could say anything, the other three groups sped off and left our group to protect the flag.
A few long minutes passed and I was seriously starting to think that no one was coming to get our flag until I heard a loud battle cry. I turned towards the direction where the noise was coming from and found myself staring at a large, burly boy with stringy brown hair charging towards me.
It was Charles Rodriguez from the Ares cabin. Uncle Chris and Aunt Clarisse's kid. He looked like a carbon copy of Aunt Clarisse except, of course, he was a dude. He grinned at me and shifted his spear to reveal more of the sharp tip. Pretty soon, there was an all out battle between the two groups. We were trying to make sure to occupy all of Charles's fighters so that they wouldn't be able to get to our flag that I almost didn't notice a shadowy, nearly invisible figure creeping stealthily around the chaos ---- towards our flag.
I quickly ran towards the figure, throwing my spear at whoever it was. I swung my sword to try to drive the figure away but my sword was only repelled by my unknown opponent's own blade. I pushed harder, trying to disarm the mysterious stranger when a sudden breeze filled my nose with a very familiar maple scent.
It was May.
I wasn't very surprised. She had the best chance out of her teammates of stealing the flag and leaving unnoticed. I continued swinging my sword at her but she deflected each of my blows flawlessly. For a long time, we were evenly matched until finally, I successfully disarmed May and she fell back onto the ground. I had beat her. Or so I thought. Using the fall as a distraction, she whipped out an extremely well concealed knife. (Seriously. Where'd it come from???) Although she did a pretty good job at standing her ground, I still had the larger blade and thus, the upper hand. I didn't expect her to suddenly throw her knife at me though. So by reflex, I deflected it. Almost immediately, May dove for her sword near my right side. I kicked her sword farther away from her reach and leveled my sword's tip over her chest. May raised her hands in surrender and I couldn't help but feel a little triumphant, for defeating a child of Zeus and all, but I still didn't let up. May tilted her head slightly to the side and, to my surprise, smirked at me. A smirk that so obviously said that I had missed something. That WE had missed something. The feeling of victory disappeared and was replaced by a strange, unpleasant feeling that settled in my gut. A feeling that I suspected had nothing to do with my small victory and everything to do with the cheering in the distance.
I was almost too afraid to look, but behind me, I could feel that our flag was gone. I turned my head slowly. Oh, it was most definitely gone. May calmly pushed my sword aside, stood up and dusted herself off with that triumphant smirk still on her face.
"Looks like Zoe got the flag." she said happily, re-sheathing her sword and knife. I remained standing there as May left, too stunned to move.
I can't believe this. I REALLY can't believe this. Her first night at camp and Zoe's already beaten me at something. I shook my head angrily and went to rejoin everyone else. The opposing team was crowded together, patting and congratulating Zoe every few seconds. I saw May making her way towards her allies, ready to congratulate each one of them... especially Zoe. She was more than halfway there when she suddenly stopped to flash someone a mocking smile. I shifted to get a better view and saw Ashley glaring daggers at May's back. May flounced off as Ashley caught my eye and stormed towards me.
"We'll get them next time." she fumed while continuing to glare at May. "Next time" she repeated and took off.
I just nodded, watching the other team celebrate their victory.
My little sister's victory.
----- The End -----
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