Chapter 1:Leo
I WANTED TO GO TO THE FORGES.
But no- she keeps me here to rewrite my life story. Well not really, but close enough.
I know what you're thinking: why don't you just sneak out? She'll never notice. But, sadly, she somehow threatened two Ares kids into guarding the door. Even though she said that she would help me, I would never get out alive. I have to admit though; she's adorable when she's angry.
It all started when I got barbecued by the dragon.
Just a typical August morning at Camp Half-Blood: Lava shooting down the rock wall, campers (a.k.a. Percy) accidentally shooting each other with arrows, and my cabin mates screaming at me.
"Just go feed him!" Nyssa yelled, throwing me some keys. "You're the only one that can!"
Nyssa was my half-sister: a daughter of Hephaestus. Yeah, our father is a Greek god. Everyone at camp is somehow related to an immortal. Camp Half-Blood is our safe haven, the only place where monsters don't attack and you can try to live a normal life (mostly). There's still the occasional quest; though we haven't had that many since Gaea was defeated, or at least put back to rest for a couple millennia. I'm guessing all the monsters are scared of us now (and they should be!).
Technically, I really was the only one who could feed the guard dragon, Peleus, since he breathed fire. I'm immune to fire and any type of heat, and I can summon it at will. Usually, he's sleeping, and let's just say he gets "startled" when we wake him up- if startled is short for having a mini panic attack and torching every tree within a 20-foot radius. So every morning, my cabin mates would tell me to feed the dragon a mix of hydra eyes, gorgon toenails, and Minotaur intestines. One day, I had asked Chiron, the camp's director and legendary centaur, where he got the dragon food. He told me it was "specially ordered".
So I grabbed the bucket from Nyssa and headed out the door, but not without giving her my evil smile. She really should've known better than to order me around. I think I'll be paying her a visit later, I thought.
I walked from my cabin towards the Big House. I passed the volleyball court where the Athena and Ares cabins were in a heated game. Apparently, they had this old rivalry with the Ares cabin always winning. But so far, the wise kids were doing pretty well; they were winning 13-10. Percy's girlfriend, Annabeth, had just spiked and got a point for her team. They had all finished highfive-ing when I yelled, "Yeah! Way to go, Wise Girl!" What I didn't notice was that the Clarisse La Rue, a daughter of Ares, was serving. As Annabeth turned to look at me, Clarisse swung and sent the ball straight at the daughter of Athena's head, who then got a mouthful of sand.
Annabeth lifted her head and yelled, "Valdez! You better run!" Then I sprinted for the Big House.
Once safely inside (and away from Annabeth's wrath), I walked towards the back of the room where the food was stored. Inside were wooded crates marked:KEEP OUT OF THE REACH OF CHILDREN. I pulled out one of those wheelie-cart things and hefted up a crate. I wheeled it out of the Big House, carefully around the volleyball court, and up Half-Blood Hill.
Sure enough, there was the yellow dragon sleeping the day away, curled around Thalia's Pine Tree. Long story short, the amazingly hot Thalia Grace had made her final stand there and Zeus, her dad, turned her into a tree that protected the camp. A couple years ago, the Golden Fleece had turned her back into human and now she roams with Artemis's hunters. Peleus now guards the Golden Fleece which hangs in the tree's branches.
I set down the crate and pulled a crowbar out of my magic tool belt (yes, magic) to open it. As I pulled down, the wood creaked as the box snapped open, and Peleus opened one of his eyes, and then the other. It was off to a good start- he hadn't blow fire yet. At first I thought that he was watching me prepare his meal, but he was actually staring behind me. I whirred around to see a satyr running towards us with a girl beside him: a new half-blood. By the speed they were running, I could tell that something was chasing them- something big.
Peleus stood up and was ready to blow. The satyr and the girl were about 100 feet away, and I could clearly see what they were running from: a giant black hellhound, bigger than I've ever seen- well, besides Mrs.O'Leary- with its red eyes locked on the two runaways.
"Oh, gods," I muttered to myself. "Not again."
