CH 1 RIDER

Dreams. Rider Callison knew demigods always had them, but Rider himself had never truly had a BIG dream. He was always hearing about demigods have dreams that could drive them insane, well now he knew what it felt like.

Rider found himself on what seemed like a very big fluffy white couch, it took Rider's dream self awhile to figure out he was actually sitting on a cloud. Go figure. Besides the cloud, Rider couldn't see anything except for bright yellow lights in the distance, oh yeah, stars. Rider looked down and was shocked to see a face looking back at him. She had hills for eyes and a river as her mouth; she smiled at Rider, which was too weird because the entire river moved.

"This is too weird" though Rider. But it only got weirder. Rider looked back up and saw all the stars had formed into a man's face.

"Rider Callison, it is an honor," spoke the starry-faced man. "I, as you might have guessed, am Uranus, the sky."

Rider was too shocked to say anything but "Uh… cool."

Uranus winked at him and said "You may not know it Rider, but you are much more important than you might think. I do not have much time for this form is taking up too much of my energy, but I come to tell you of your quest."

The word quest rang in Rider's ears, how could he, a son of some stupid luck god (sorry dad) get a quest. So once again, Riders extremely intelligent and thoughtful reply to the sky was, "A… quest?"

"Yes Rider, you shall go to Camp Jupiter, whether your name is on the list or not-"

Rider interrupted, he realized later it probably wasn't the smartest thing to interrupt the sky, "Camp Jupiter… you mean the Roman Camp that we are going to on the Argo II?"

"Yes Rider," said Uranus, "As I was saying, you MUST go to Camp Jupiter, once their you will find… well lets say they will stick out to you."

"But why do I have to find them?

"Because without them, you will never be able to free me."

"What- but… you-you are, I mean were chopped into little bits and banished to Tartarus or something right?" Rider stammered. Rider really was thinking, "Why would you need me, all I have is luck (thanks again dad!)"

"It is the only way Rider" Uranus said softly, "The only way to stop my wife Gaea from… well even I don't know what she is planning, but it is the only way to stop her."

Rider looked back down, and the once smiling face of Gaea was now frowning at Rider, as if he had just took a big pointy stick and started jabbing it at her eye.

"Remember Rider, you MUST go to Camp Jupiter, we will talk soon." Then the cloud and Uranus disappeared and Rider plummeted down to the earth, where Gaea was waiting for him.

KASPER

Kasper felt so dumb standing outside his best friend, Rider's cabin yelling at him to wake up while everyone else was already at the name-calling. "Get up you lucky bone-head! Everyone is waiting for you!"

Rider's response was "I don't want to."

"Well you have to you-" But then Kasper realized Rider was not talking to him when he said:

"But Uranus no! I can't!"

Kasper started pounding on the door but he gave up and just decided to listen to Rider. Rider was blubbering about only being lucky (because his dad was Caerus, the luck god) not strong or fast. Rider's interesting conversation had drawn in a few Ares kids who were polishing their swords a few yards away.

"What is that punk doin'?" said buff kid number one.

"Dunno, but it sounds like he's asking for it," Grinned buff guy number two.

"Wait, uh… guys, I don't think you should go beat him up…" Kasper stammered. No matter how annoying Rider was being, Kasper couldn't watch him get beat up by 200 lb sons of Ares.

"And why not Blondie?" Said buff guy number one. Kasper was just about to say something smart like "because", when Rider screamed. Now this wasn't just a scream, it was the sound of a supernova, light flooded out the windows and the Ares kids flew a solid twenty feet into the mud. Somehow Kasper wasn't affected, but his eardrums felt like exploding. Kasper had to know what was going on so he ran back to his cabin, grabbed a paperclip and ran back to Rider's cabin. Being the son of Hermes, Kasper has always been able to pick locks, and when he did, he burst into Riders room panting.

"What are you DOING?" hollered, Kasper his eardrums were still pounding. Rider appeared to have just woken up; he jumped out of bed and looked out his now shattered windows to see the whole camp cowering outside his cabin.

"Wh-what did I do?" stammered Rider. Kasper was still to shocked because of the sonic boom to reply. Luckily Chiron stepped forward.

"My boy let us discuss this after the ceremony, I sense we have much to talk about."