[A/N]: Well then, I actually got quite some reviews! ^.^ Thanks to all of you who reviewed and gave me ideas, characters, and stuffish. Yay!
However *cough* there are like over a hundred hits on this story and only eight reviews. So all you people who are just reading this and not bothering to review, I will stalk you down like Mickey Mouse unless you do review. Ta.
This chapter starts…oh…about four months before The Last Olympian, in April. Therefore, Ethan's still alive. :)
Yeah…I think I'm moving from my obsession with Nico to Ethan…psh.
-The Anonymous: Wings of Dark Victory-
By: zynaofthenight
II
Is life fair?
Really, the reason why I fought for the titans was that because I wanted acknowledgment for the minor gods. I wanted my mother, Nike, to be truly respected. Not because I wanted to the titans to have a great victory or whatever.
Well, I did really believe that the titans were the good guys; the gods bad. You'd understand too, if you were in my position. They think all us "titan traitors" are horrible because we joined the wrong side.
But it never seemed like the wrong side to me.
It started on that Friday, the day before Spring Break. That morning in biology class, I was trying to finish the homework I didn't do, as usual. I'm ADHD and dyslexic, do you really expect me to do all my homework?
"Psst, Holly!" I whispered to my bio partner. "What was the homework for History class?"
Holly Jones, the nerdy, straight-A, obsessed-too-much-with-her-grades-girl who sat next to me shot me a glare. "The charts on Mesopotamia. Seriously, the teacher told us like, five times, yesterday! Pay more attention in class, Cameron!"
Jeez. I had ADHD; did she really think I would be paying attention? Anyways, History is one of the most boring classes in the world. Holly, being the education obsessed freak she was, probably thought it was the best thing ever, but all History class offered me was a time to chew gum, play on my itouch, and go to sleep.
Needless to say, I didn't really pay attention in that class. Just because Holly liked it didn't mean that the rest of the twenty-six people in our class did too. Also, Holly probably thought I was a sort of demon from Hell to torture her with my horrible learning skills, hence the you're so stupid look she gave me from time to time.
But then, she had a reason to give me those looks. Like now, when the only thing I could say was: "Uh…what charts? We had charts? Wha?"
I swear, Holly looked like she was going to die there and then. "Cameron…" she said through gritted teeth. "How…do you even manage to pass your classes? What charts? Seriously? I'm amazed you even got above an F in History last year!" Her golden brown hair fell into her gray-blue eyes and she pushed it away and gave me an accusing stare.
"Well, actually, yes," I agreed. "I got a B. It still manages to amaze me."
"How in the world did you ever do that?"
"Beats me," I shrugged. "I think it might have been something to do with…er…the teacher accidently giving me a thirty out of ten instead of the three I actually got. I…erm…forgot to tell her about the mistake." I gave Holly my most innocent grin, to which she rolled her eyes and shook her head, muttering something about the unethical stuff of it all and how boys (to which I guessed she was referring to me) were so stupid. Typical.
"Aw, don't worry about him, Holly," came a voice from behind the both of us. I turned to see that new kid in our class—what was his name again? Ginger hair, blue eyes…um…something to do with…Tri…Tristan!
Yes. You can all now applaud my great memory skills. Thank you.
"Oh, h-hello," giggled Holly, turning a shade of some sort of pink. Funny, she's all nerdy and whatnot, and one sentence (that wasn't even nice towards me) made her stutter and make a complete fool of herself. I made a mental note to talk to that Tristan guy—I really needed another way to annoy Holly.
What was really creepy, though, was that other new kid, Ethan, or whatever his name was, was currently giving Tristan a death glare. And when I mean death glare, I mean a glare that's scarier than Holly's Cameron-you-didn't-do-your-homework-again look, and that was pretty scary already. Add the fact that Ethan was missing an eye, with the eye patch on though, it was quite frightening.
"Dude, chill," soothed Tristan, backing away from Ethan's scowl. "What did I do?" He smirked, as if laughing to himself.
Ethan was obviously not very amused. "Don't think you can escape," he growled. "I'm watching you."
"Aw, how sweet, Nakamura," sneered Tristan. "I thought—" His eyes widened for a second. "But…aren't you on our side?"
By now, I was thoroughly confused. "Eh…guys…what?"
See, Tristan had come here first, about a week ago. Suspiciously afterwards, Ethan came too. Those two were like sworn enemies the moment they saw each other. So what in the world did Tristan mean by "our" side?
Holly looked pretty bewildered too. She shrugged uneasily, then returned to writing on her worksheet, just as the science teacher came by.
"Working, Cameron?" he asked.
I nodded quickly. He raised an eyebrow, but left to check on other people in the room. I breathed a sigh of relief, then leaned back, smiling inwardly as a new idea hit me. "Hey, Holly!"
She didn't look up. "Go away."
I shook my head. "You know, I think Tristan's staring at you."
"W-what?" This time, her head shot up and she looked around the room. I took the distraction to reach over and take her eraser. Holly went back to her work, a few seconds later, not noticing anything.
It was a few minutes before she finally did. "Cameron, do you know where my eraser went?"
"Maaybee…"
"Cameron! Give it back! Now!"
There were some benefits to having Holly as a bio partner after all. But then—
"Oh crap!" I said, my eyes widening. "I forgot to do my homework!"
I guess I should have been doing it…Holly said it was because I spent all night yesterday playing itouch or something, and should have been doing my homework instead.
I had soccer practice! Seriously!
It was after school, and I lay lazily on my bed, not caring about anything at all. It was Spring Break, and I planned to spend the whole entire next week doing nothing.
That is—I had planned to. For some reason, things I planned never seemed to go my way. There was that instance when the flower girl at a random wedding my dad forced me to go to changed into some sort of lion…but I blamed the ADHD and dyslexia taking over my brain.
Ding dong…
"What now?" I groaned, and sat up. I tripped down the stairs and out into the hallway, finally to the door.
"Hello?" I opened the door to find…Holly. The girl was standing in front of the door, shifting from foot to foot with an expression of boredom.
I almost laughed; the nerdy Holly Jones was standing in front of my house. Not sure why it was funny, really, but it was suddenly really quite ironical how I just realized that I was being ordered around to do my homework by a girl two inches shorter than me. Not that she wasn't tall; Holly was about five foot five.
"Finally, Cameron…" she said, unfazed. "You were taking forever. Here." She thrust my pencil pouch in my hands. "You left this at school."
"Oh…erm…thank you…" I said. I still couldn't believe how weird it was, to have Holly here. "Er…is that all?"
She shrugged, then started walking away. "It is, I guess. Oh, and Cameron…you realized we have homework over the break? Actually do it, for once."
I was about the protest, when she froze in her tracks and shrieked.
The Tristan guy popped out of nowhere, and grinned at her. "Oh, hi Holly. Didn't see you there."
But the cold, icy look in his blue eyes told me otherwise. I blinked, sensing something weird. Tristan was acting like…like something bad. Lame description, I know, but there was this aura around him that screamed stay away!
Holy didn't notice, apparently. She turned bright red. "Oh…ah…hi…"
What in the world was Tristan doing here?
"Holly." I walked over her, and tugged her arm. "Maybe you should just go now…I mean, won't your parents be worried?"
She glared angrily at me. "Cameron, can't I just say hi?"
Tristan smiled, though there was nothing nice in that expression. "Guess Holly likes red-haired, blue-eyed boys better than black-haired, brown-eyed ones, Cameron. Tough luck."
His tone was teasing, friendly, even, but the look on his face didn't match at all. I glared at him, though it had nothing to do with the comment. After all, I do have curly black hair and brown eyes, but really, all I was noticing right now was that Tristan seemed almost like…
"Holly, don't you think it's kinda weird that Tristan just popped out of nowhere? I mean, I'm not sure he even knew where I live. That's not good, right? Almost stalkerish?"
Holy ignored me, and turned to Tristan. "Sorry about that," she said. "Cameron's being rather…strange…right now."
Excuse me?
Tristan laughed. "No problem. Say, Holly, why don't we—"
I couldn't stand it anymore, so I did a very stupid thing: I punched Tristan in the face.
See now why Holly thinks I'm slightly dumb?
"What did you just do?" she screamed at me. But I was rooted to the spot as Tristan growled—yes, growled like a bear—and lunged at me.
"Stop it!" Holly said, and her eyes shone with fear. I had a split second to wonder why, before Tristan punched me square in the nose and crouched on all fours, hissing at me.
…crouching on all fours…hissing at me…
I might not have been the smartest boy ever, but I was pretty sure normal humans did not act like that.
"Whoa…" I mumbled, feeling a few trickles of blood run down my face. "Dude. Not cool. And why are you…uh…someone please tell me I'm dreaming."
Well, because Tristan had somehow turned into a huge black dog that was frothing at the mouth.
The dog—well, it was more of a bulldozer sized hound—barked extremely loudly, then rushed towards me. "Grrr! Rawrf!"
"N-nice d-doggy…"I stammered, backing away quickly. "N-nice, g-good, d-doggy…"
I'm also going slightly crazy…you know…insane, mad, slightly off bonkers, upstairs, wrong in the head—
SHUT UP!
I ducked as the dog-thing sailed over me harmlessly, then turned and snarled at me. Holly screamed again, but that really wasn't helping.
"GAH! HELP!" I bellowed, trying to dodge a few sharp claws. "HELP—"
A bronze sword came swinging out of nowhere and the dog exploded into billions of particles of golden dust.
"Gross!" spluttered Holly, who looked like she had just been dumped in a sack of flour. It would've been funny, except I was too busy staring at our rescuer.
"Ethan?"
The boy in my biology class gave me a curt nod. "Glad I came before you all died."
Wow. So…optimistic.
Ethan glanced around nervously. "This shouldn't have happened," he mumbled, and I got the feeling he was talking more to himself than us. "Tristan was supposed to be with the titans. Why did he attack unclaimed half-bloods? And hellhounds can't turn into humans? Maybe…"
"Wait, whoa, whoa, whoa…" I said. "Slow down. What just happened? Do I need to be committed to an insane asylum?"
Ethan jerked his head towards the woods behind my house. "Come on. I'll explain everything to you."
I sighed. There was really no other alternative, so I started to follow him. Behind me, Holly grabbed my arm, and pulled me back.
"What are you thinking?" she hissed. "Cameron, we are not going to follow some random stranger into the woods."
"You don't have to," I retorted, and continued walking. "Stay back, then."
She swallowed nervously, and looked back cautiously. "Fine," she muttered after a few seconds, and started after me. "Wait up!"
"…and so…what?" Holly squeaked.
I stared at Ethan. "Haha, very funny," I grouched. "So we're the children of Greek gods. Totally. Ethan, what medications have you been taking?"
The other boy shook his head, and continued walking through the forest. "No, no," he explained patiently. "Cameron, it's all true. Think. How many parents do you have that you know?"
"One…" I mumbled. "My dad. I don't have a mom."
"Exactly."
Next to me, Holly stopped abruptly. "You don't have a mom?" she asked me softly.
"Yeah, you don't have to be so concerned," I snapped.
She shook her head. "No…it's that I don't have a mom either."
Ethan nodded. "Demigods usually don't have a parent, because that parent is their godly parent. Come to our side. The titans are looking for new allies, and you would be perfect on our side. Tristan was a hellhound. But what I don't get was how he suddenly turned under the guise of a person. Hellhounds can't do that. And why he was attacking you when he was on the titan's side…"
He trailed off, looking disturbed.
Right. So totally believable. I was seriously considering calling someone now to take Ethan away.
Oh, right. We were currently stuck in the middle of the woods with no cell phone or anything. And if Ethan was to be believed, then using a cell phone would be an invitation for a few monsters to come and rearrange my face. I was perfectly fine with the current state of my face, so…calling wasn't an option.
"Okay. Recap," I said. "Greek gods are real. Holly and I are children of the Greek gods. Greek gods are bad. Greek gods don't claim their children, which is why Holly and I haven't been claimed yet. There's a Camp Half-Blood, where they brainwash half-bloods into thinking that the gods are good. Titan army is good. Titans are looking to help demigods. Titans will defeat bad gods. Uh…is that all?"
Ethan nodded. "Basically."
"There's one thing I'm confused about," said Holly. "See, I don't have ADHD or dyslexia. Does that mean anything?"
"You're probably a child of a minor god or goddess," Ethan replied. "They usually don't have many symptoms of being a demigod."
I stopped walking, and faced the other boy. "Okay. Fine. Prove it. Prove that we're demigods, as you claim, Ethan."
He sighed. "The hellhound. You saw that."
"I could be crazy."
"But Holly saw it. I saw it."
He had a point. But…"We're all crazy."
Ethan flipped his hand over, and there suddenly was a gleaming bronze sword in his hand. "Celestial Bronze. Good for killing mythical stuff, useless for harming mortals."
Okay…that worked too. I was a bit more convinced now. Still. I wasn't entirely sure it was possible. How could it be?
"If you really aren't convinced, Cameron, this will have to." Ethan stepped into a clearing in the forest, and beckoned to us. Exchanging glances, Holly and I followed a second later.
"Whoa."
I stopped in my tracks and stared at the massive camp in front of us, that was definitely not in a forest clearing. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible.
"Is this…is this…" my words came out as a stutter. Beside me, Holly gasped.
"Hecate's magic," said Ethan offhandedly. "The clearing is like a sort of portal for half-bloods that transports them here, to the camp. Mortals can't enter the portal."
In the back of my mind, I vaguely remembered something about Hecate being the goddess of…something.
"Holly," I whispered. "Who's Hecate?"
Yet another chance for Holly to exercise her you're so stupid look. "Goddess of magic. Duh."
Right. I focused my eyes on the titan camp, and once again, I was overwhelmed with the sense of wow. Large black tents covered the ground, and flags with a scythe on them waved in the light breeze. People (half-bloods, I assumed) were scurrying around, and as Ethan led Holly and I to the largest tent of them all, I saw weapons being made, armor being made, and all sorts of other stuff like that.
"I believe you…" I muttered to Ethan. Beside me, Holly nodded in agreement. This had totally convinced us.
"Good. Welcome to the titan camp," smiled Ethan grimly. "It's time for you to meet Kronos."
He opened the flap of the tent we were standing in front of now, and ushered us in.
There was a man sitting in there, about twenty one years old. He had blond hair, a cruel scar running down his cheek, and gleaming golden eyes.
Ethan bowed to the new person. "Lord Kronos."
I stood gaping, until Holly pulled me down. "Bow!" she commanded in a fierce whisper, and I automatically bent my back a bit.
The man smiled, his eyes lighting up. "Half-bloods, Nakamura?"
"Yes, lord. Unclaimed. Cameron Tyeine and Holly Jones."
My mind had suddenly frozen, and I realized that…"Uh, Holly, who's Kronos again? I forgot."
If looks could kill, I'd be dead, and Holly would have been free of yet another idiot corrupting her intelligent existence. But, look's couldn't kill. But the scathing look I received was pretty close.
"Cameron Tyeine…you are such an idiot. Do you know anything about Greek mythology? Kronos is the titan of time. The immortal who usurped Uranus. The person who…er…" she looked at the titan, "got chopped up by Zeus with his own scythe. The ruler of what they called the Golden Age."
"And they called it the Golden Age for a reason," said Kronos, who had been watching amusedly the whole entire time. "I have come back now, from all those millennia. The gods are weak, corrupt, and selfish. But the titans are strong. Cameron, Holly, join us. We can be your family. Your family that cares about you, not who your parent is, unlike those demigods at Camp Half-Blood."
"I…I…" Holly swallowed, looking unsure of herself. "I don't know," she finally said, exasperated. I winced. Ouch. Holly hated not knowing stuff.
She frowned, then continued. "This is a war we're talking about," she exclaimed. "It's dangerous. I saw the hellhound today. I don't know what has happened. We could die."
"Yes, we could," said Kronos. "But it is safer to be on a side, than to be wandering about, unknown. You must choose."
I stepped forward, a question forming in my mind. "What about our mortal parents?"
"They know you are a half-blood. They will understand."
I nodded, then stepped back again. "Holly, should we join?"
"I…I…" She shrugged, torn between decision.
"Choose," prompted Kronos. "You don't have much time."
"Wait…" I spoke up as my mind had one of its sudden, but sadly extremely rare, brilliant moments. "We don't have a choice, do we?"
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if we don't join the titan army, you're hardly going to let us go to the other side, are you? So the only option for you is to…uh…let's keep it at 'get rid of us.'"
The titan studied me, and smiled. "You are correct."
"Oh." I suddenly felt very small and scared. "I guess I'll join then."
Holly nodded. "Me too."
"The giants are still coming from the west," said Ethan. "The camp's currently in a hidden place in Pennsylvania, but we'll move to New York for the final battle over the summer. We have a decoy with the Princess Andromeda, and then we'll attack by land. Typhon is being awakened, and efforts are made to get allies in the south. Can you two start training today?"
I looked and Holly, and she shook her head. "We're both quite tired today," she said resignedly. "I think I need some rest first."
Ethan nodded, and for the first time, a look of empathy appeared in his one eye. "It is a strain sometimes, to be a half-blood," he said softly. "Here, let me show you your tents. Cameron, you get tent five on the boy's side, Holly gets tent five on the girl's side."
He pointed at two tents, each facing the other, though about a hundred feet away, by the side of the camp.
I started walking towards the camp, but Ethan suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me back. "Look up," he directed.
I stared up at the sky, and to my shock, I saw an already fading sign of a winged…something. Next to me, the same sign had appeared above Holly.
"Siblings," said Ethan in a hushed voice. Around us, people were stopping their work and staring at us.
"What just happened?" I demanded.
"You have been claimed," Ethan said solemnly. "Hail Cameron Tyeine and Holly Jones, children of Nike."
At least this time, I knew that Nike was the goddess of victory. Around us, the people all murmured in respect, but I noticed none of that as a thought suddenly struck me.
"Wait…" I said. "If Holly and I are both children of Nike, that means we have the same mom. If we have the same mom…that means…"
Holly Jones, who thought I was the most annoying person in the world, and I likewise, was my sister.
Crap.
[A/N]: Review please? Pretty please? I'll give a virtual cookie to all who review :)
Oh, and if you asked to be a character in this story, you'll appear in like, uh, sometime. Yeah…you'll have to wait a bit.
Please review, or else I'll have to resort to my threat of turning into a fish and eating you up again.
