Chapter 1: Arrival

It was still dark when the alarm clock tore Sam from his sleep, and, not for the first time, he got up cursing the change of time zone when he had gotten to the States. Getting dressed, Sam headed outside and smiled as he saw the full moon in the sky. Then he froze. How the hell could he have forgotten? He was right; it was definitely the night of the 25th of July.

Which meant he would be here, soon enough. Sam sighed as he accepted his days of peace and quiet were at an end and soon forced himself to go back inside and look for his sword.

Having arrived at the sword, perhaps some explanations were in order. Brace yourself. OK here it is: the Gods of Ancient Greece are real. Mount Olympus really is home to the twelve Olympians. And of course, they're kids are real enough, too. They're called Demigods, or half-bloods, often people with ADHD, due to natural combat reflexes, or dyslexia because of the brain being 'hardwired' to read Ancient Greek.

And he was currently at the only place on Earth where they were safe. Camp Half Blood is a sanctuary from the horrors that come with the reality of Ancient Greece: Monsters. The monsters of the myths and the legends of Greece, the Minotaur, the Furies, Medusa and every creature you could possibly imagine.

Even though they were killed by the heroes, monsters aren't that easy to kill, every time they 'die' they are merely banished to Tartarus, and there they re-form and return, desperately trying to kill another Demigod. And unfortunately normal weapons can't kill them. Only the supremely rare Celestial Bronze can even harm a monster.

With a yell of triumph, Sam turned around and brought out a two foot long Celestial Bronze longsword out of its sheath. All petty triumph vanished as he heard a faint roar from outside, and the blood drained from Sam's face. Perhaps he was already too late? That would be a complete disaster, he couldn't think like that, or it probably would go wrong. It didn't matter; all that mattered was getting up there, and fast.

Sam sprinted outside and headed for Thalia's pine tree, a tree which was in fact a demigod called Thalia, who had been turned into a tree by her father, Zeus, when she was on the brink of death. Now it marked the boundary line of Camp Half Blood, where magical barriers protected the Camp within.

He crossed the barriers and on the other side of the hill he was met with a terrifying sight- The Minotaur. Easily seven feet tall, with wickedly sharp horns and a body covered in coarse brown fur and with black eyes that were full of anger and hate. Sam ended up diving to the right, straight into the mud to stop him being impaled by the beast.

He wound up at the feet of the same person who he had been trying to save. Great job Sam! He looked up and his first impression was that he was looking at a madman. Then he realised that the boy was absolutely devastated by something. Sam looked around in confusion and realized to his shock that he was too late to save the boy's mother.

The boy he was trying to rescue was Percy Jackson, a twelve year old boy from New York, with messy black hair and sea green eyes. He was average height, about 5ft 4", with a relatively thin build, although he was by no means underweight. Lying unconscious next to him was his assigned 'protector', a satyr, Grover Underwood. He was medium height with blue eyes and medium length brown hair.

Percy just stared at him, shocked by what he had seen, but Sam had to jar him back to reality. "Percy! Get to the tree! Just get to the damn tree! I'll handle this!" When Percy didn't move, Sam shouted "Go!" and shoved him in the direction of Thalia's pine tree. It seemed to have worked, Percy was now dashing for the tree, and he was almost there.

Not that the Minotaur had been standing still, a fact that Sam had failed to realize as he was thrown headfirst across the hill by the Minotaur, landing with a crash and the noise of what sounded suspiciously like a cracked shoulder blade. Joy, that was going to hurt. The Minotaur lumbered over, and seemed to glare down at him as he struggled to get up. Eventually, after a few skilful dodges and a couple of forward rolls, he managed to haul himself to his feet, and swung around, eager to get the battle over with at last.

Sam tried to lift his sword, only to receive a searing pain in his left shoulder for his trouble. The situation was suddenly not looking so good, with his good arm incapacitated and himself already quite fatigued from the battle. At any rate, he really did NOT need to get injured now, of all times, with what was about to happen, and what it would all lead to.

The routine of dodging was just tiring Sam out, so he decided to up his game a bit, and switching his sword from his left hand to his weaker right hand, backed away slowly, keeping his eyes on the Minotaur the whole time. Any sudden movement and the Minotaur would charge again, breaking his entire plan apart, a plan which at this stage consisted entirely of getting close enough to at least touch the damn monster.

Still backing away, Sam was rather confused when his opponent started to imitate him, and realized that that was the whole point, this monster was cleverer then it looked. Right, time for a change of the plan-so he just charged. In a moment of pure and utter stupidity he charged straight at one of most fearsome monsters a demigod can face. Needless to say, it ended rather badly.

All he felt was a pain unlike any he had felt before, accompanied by a horrific tearing noise. He looked down and realized that the Minotaur's horn had snapped, off and was currently lodged in his chest. He was flung backwards, but was fortunate to slam into Thalia's tree.

He looked down, willing himself not to vomit, but he smiled when he saw the horn was dissolving, and new flesh was covering the gaping wound. As the healing finished, he felt exhausted and fell unconscious just as he saw a trio of arrows sprout in the Minotaur's back.

Yes! First chapter up. Anybody who is actually reading this, I will update soon, probably around Sunday. Reviews are welcome!