Just a few quick notes before we begin:

I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Heroes of Olympus or Trials of Apollo or the characters, places, etc. therein.

For this story, I have set the Battle for Half-Blood Hill (in Blood of Olympus) in the summer of 2010.

Occasionally I will be using dialog from one of the books in the series. The reason for this is because this story is written so that it doesn't conflict with canon material. Therefore if there is a scene that takes place in the books where Julia would be present, I will keep the dialog but not any of the other material.

And finally, thanks for reading!

August 25th - one week after the Battle of Manhattan

My name is Julia Zafer. I'm what you call a half-blood: half god, half human. I live at a place called Camp Half-Blood, which is the only safe place for demigods like me. You see, the Greek gods are real - which is awesome because I exist. But with the gods, come the monsters - which is not awesome, because they try to make me not exist.

I look up at the carved owl on the front of my new cabin. I'm not a daughter of Athena, even though I live in her cabin now. I am the daughter of Victory, Nike herself. If you asked why I was in the Athena cabin, I would tell you that because camp doesn't have a Nike cabin yet - inconsiderate, I know - we all get stuck in the Athena cabin. By 'we all', I mean me.

Those of you familiar with the workings of camp will be wondering, 'Why aren't you in the Hermes cabin? I thought that's where all the children of minor gods stayed!' Until a week ago, you would have been right. For the past 7 years, I have lived in Cabin 11. Now, the gods have sworn on my grandmother Styx to claim all of their children. There has been an influx of new demigods: children of the 12 Olympians, just as there have always been, but also many more offspring of 'minor' gods like myself. Even with the previously undetermined demigod children whose parents do have cabins moving their things, the Hermes cabin is still far too crowded. None of the new Cabins are complete, so those of us who were promised cabins of our own have nowhere to go.

To help "uncrowd" the Hermes cabin, Chiron had decided to move some of us into other cabins temporarily until our own were completed. I was with Athena because my mother was often at her side. The children of Hebe were put in the Hera cabin after they argued that their grandmother would not take offense. Percy Jackson offered to let the Hades cabin stay with him until Cabin 13 was finished. Nico di Angelo, head counselor - and only Hades camper - adamantly refused and summoned extra undead workers to finish his cabin faster.

The rest of the demigods were put in Cabin 12, Dionysus. As far as I could tell, Mr. D had generously agreed (or more likely, Chiron had forced him) to let some of the "overflow" from Cabin 11 take up residence until they had cabins of their own and "could finally stop bothering him".

Unlike many of my fellow former Hermes cabin members, I wasn't too happy about the change. I liked Cabin 11... It was always full, and there was always someone to spend time with. Even in the midst of the war, it was comforting to know that you were never alone. Every night, without fail, at least one of us would wake up to nightmares. Sometimes they would be about the war in general, but more often those children whose godly parents had gone over to Kronos would be plagued with messages from their parents, urging them to abandon camp and join the Titan army.

It's strange, now that the war is over and I'm safe, I look back almost fondly on those times when I would wake up in the middle of the night to comfort Lou Ellen or Damien, after hearing them plead with their mothers to leave them alone. We were so close – we "minor" demigods as we were called by the children of the Olympians. Now, we will all go our separate ways: our own cabins, our own tables at the dining pavilion.

I walk through the doors of Cabin 6, and look around, fingering the seven beads on my necklace. The walls are covered in blueprints and battle maps – where there aren't bookshelves of course. Each bunk is neatly made, with only minimal decorations on the walls for each camper. In the back next to the smartboard, there is a bunk with nothing on the wall. I walk over to it and put down my few belongings. Then something on the wall catches my eye. Luke. It shouldn't take me by surprise that there's a picture of him here – he was one of Annabeth's closest friends after all. But looking at that picture of him before he turned bitter saddened me more than I would like to admit.

Since the sun is already setting, I climb onto my temporary bunk. I don't even bother to hang up any pictures: the Nike cabin will be done soon enough. As I drift into sleep, I pray to my mother that I will only dream of pleasant memories.

After my orientation, a pretty girl a couple of years older than me walks into Chiron's office. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood!" The girl says, "I'm Silena. Do you have any questions?"

Of course I do, I want to shout at her. You can't just say I'm half god and expect me to not have questions!

"Um… how am I supposed to know which goddess my mother is?"

"She'll claim you if you're lucky. Until then, you'll live with the other unclaimed campers," she gestured over to a nondescript looking building, "Cabin 11."

When we get to the building, Silena opens the door and gestures for me to enter.

"This is Julia Zafer," she says to the kids.

All over the cabin people stop what they're doing and look at me. I'm used to being in the limelight – I'm the star of the middle school track team and I'm only 10 – but this is different. When I run, I know the goal: win, beat the others, go faster, make dad proud! Here, they're not looking at me because I'm the best… they're looking at me like I'm an interesting new specimen that was brought in for them to study.

"Regular or undetermined?" A boy with curly red hair asks.

"Undetermined," Silena replies. Some of the kids look mildly disappointed, while others look more interested.

A blond boy steps forward and smiles, "Hello Julia. I'm Luke, your head counselor," he gestures to one of the few empty bunks, "you can sleep there until we know who your parent is." He nods to Silena, and she steps out.

I sheepishly smile back and head towards my bunk. Sitting on the bed next to mine is the boy with curly red hair.

"Hello," I say to him as I lay my few possessions on my bed.

He grins and holds out his hand, "I'm Conner." I shake his hand and get zapped.

"Ow!" My face turns red as people snicker at me from all over the cabin.

"Nice one bro!" A face, identical to Conner's, pops out from the top bunk. They high five each other.

"Stolls!" Luke calls to them, "That is not a very nice way to greet our new cabin mate!"

Looking very sorry, the boy in the top bunk says, "I'm Travis. I'm sorry my brother is so annoying." He offers me his hand. Without thinking, I shake it. And get shocked again.

"I can't believe she did it again!" Travis crows in laughter.

"This is going to be so fun!" Connor agrees.

I'll get them back, I promise myself, and they won't see it coming.

A few weeks pass, and I still haven't gotten revenge on the Stoll brothers. Then came the perfect opportunity. All of cabin 11 was talking about it: the monthly race was upon us. Whoever wins, gets out of cabin chores for the next month. Whoever loses has to clean the bathrooms for the next month.

The Stolls were laughing and making plans for how to spend their free time. They claimed that the only person who could beat them was Luke – who, as head counselor, would not be participating.

At the starting line, I go up to the brothers. "Are you ready to get bathroom duty, Julie?" Connor? asks me condescendingly.

"I think the question is, are you ready to lose?" I fumble with my water bottle and drop it at their feet.

"Oops!" I bend down to pick it up, and quickly tie their shoelaces together.

"Please," Travis? says, "There is no way you're going to beat us."

"We'll see!" I step aside.

"Ready," Luke yells, "Set. GO!"

I take off sprinting. We only have to make it to the Zeus cabin and back. Behind me, I hear a satisfying thump as the Stoll brothers fall. "Hey," One of them cries out, "You tripped me!"

"No, I didn't!" The other replies, "You tripped me!" They continue fighting as they try to get up. But however much I wish I could turn around to laugh at their failure, I have to keep running. I know I am in the lead, but I can sense someone just behind me. I touch the door to Zeus's temple and turn around. About 10 feet behind me is an older boy – Chris, I think. I sprint as fast as I can towards the Hermes cabin. On my way back, I'm happy to see Conner and Travis far behind all of the others.

"Enjoy the fall?" I yell to them as I run past.

Then I touch the door to the Hermes cabin and jump up and down, "I won! I won!"

Luke walks over with a smile, and holds the wreath out to me, "Congratulations, Julia! No chores for a month!"

I smile and look back at my cabin mates. To my surprise, they're bowing. "I didn't know you bowed to the winner!" I laughed, "That's so much more fun than clapping!"

"No," Luke said, "Silena, come here," he beckons the daughter of Aphrodite over from where she was sitting in from of cabin 10 doing her make-up, "Let Julia look in your mirror."

She hands it to me, and I see a glowing wreath on top of my head.

"What does that mean?" I ask the older campers.

"I think," I turn to see Chiron of to the side, having just galloped over to see what was going on, "That you have been claimed." He knelt, "Hail, Julia Zafer. Daughter of Nike, the winged goddess of victory."

This is all I have redone so far. Do you think it's worth continuing? Let me know!'

NEXT TIME ON VICTORY IS SWEET, SOMETIMES: CABIN 17