It was noon when their watch shift was over and the trio returned to camp, no one had arrived but hopefully someone would come later during the day. The camp was on the north side of Long Island Sound and wasn't visible to mortals which provided them more protection, but Camp Half-Blood wasn't an ordinary summer camp like the kinds parents would send their children off this camp.
Camp Half-Blood was created for demigods, children of the Greek gods, where they were trained and survived together. Eli stopped on the hill that looked down at the camp, he breathed in the air and smiled. "This smell of the air and the sight of the camp always makes me happy." He said and stood looking across the horizon.
The valley was an amazing sight but down below were twenty cabins in the shape of a Greek Omega represents both minor and major gods where their children lived in each of them except for Hera's and Artemis's who were both virgin goddess and had no offspring except for Artemis who only had maidens who joined her.
The Big House stood above a hill proudly where once an Oracle lived in the attic, before a mortal name Rachel Elizabeth Dare took the Oracle of Delphi into her body and became the new one. The thought still creeped Eli out.
He could hear the horse and pegasi in their stables but rumors were that they were to receive an import from Camp Jupiter, another demigod camp in San Francisco, of a new breed of horse. The bad thing was that the Demeter cabin oversaw the lessons with the help of the Aphrodite cabin, but newbies were always sent to do poop duty which wasn't funny.
By the cabins was the arena where they all trained and held friendly competitions at one point they had witnessed a Gladiator fight but it was canceled due to its amount of violence and next to the Athena's cabin was the armory which many people had confused for the forged but Eli hadn't chosen a weapon yet but inside he had seen swords, axes, spears, and even a few firearms, it was required every camper had their own weapon but Eli entrusted Cabin Nine for a new one.
Bellow the Big House were more activities many of the campers spent their time at the Climbing Wall which the Hermes cabin had dominated easily, the Amphitheater, the volleyball pit, and the arts in crafts cabin. It truly was a beautiful sight but throughout the beauty was always a bit of ugliness, that was the mythological monsters that were always attacking the camp.
Frost looked back watching the Eli just stand there inhaling the air. "Are you coming to camp already? I need to go to the archery range for advanced archery." She said.
"You guys could get goin', I will catch up in a minute." He told them. Bones and Frost walked back downhill next to Eli was a large pine tree, the tree that was said to hold the spirit of a daughter of Zeus who was soon freed and became a Hunter. The tree created a magical barrier which kept away outside monsters and blocked the mortals off and a large dragon guarded it with a golden fleece hanging off of a branch.
Eli jogged down to join his cabinmates, the Demeter cabin, who were all getting ready for a few sparring matches against the Ares cabin. He had spent the rest of the day in a normal routine canoeing, arts and crafts, and lastly learning nature magic. Which for him seemed quite impossible.
"You can do it," Katie Gardener encouraged, head leader of the Demeter cabin. Eli closed his eyes and focused as hard as he could to try and summon at least a patch of grass but nothing happened.
He stopped to catch his breathe. "No luck, this sucks I am a son of Demeter who can't even make a patch of grass." He let out a sigh of frustration.
Katie stood still studying him. "Well, there are several types of nature magic." She added.
"Like?"
"Healing."
"Tried that."
"Clorokinesis?"
"That as well, plus I would rather grow my plants naturally."
Katie sighed and sat down on a stump, a few of his cabinmates were also looking at him.
"Well maybe you'll get it tomorrow." Said someone and everyone began to agree.
In the distance a conch horn blew, it signaled a meeting going on and Katie dismissed her cabin to go do their chores.
Later, in the afternoon Bones came running through the Demeter cabin panting and covered in sweat.
"Bones! What the hell are you doing in my cabin?!" Eli shouted but his friend stopped him at the door.
He looked up with a panicked expression. "Eli! I need to show something urgent!"
"What is it?" Eli asked.
"I need to show you it tonight, this stuff is classified."
"Classified?" Bones said his tone was more serious than his normal side.
"Yeah, this is about the camp we're all in danger. Meet me later at the docks."
Later that night Eli met Bones at the docks where he had been asked to meet Bones.
"Eli! Over here!" Bones shouted and Eli quickly slapped him.
"Keep your mouth shut, private!" He whispered fiercely. "What the hell do you have to show me?" Bones rubbed the red mark on his face then pulled out the camera and pressed the play button. There was meeting of the council members around the ping-pong table of the Big House.
"Are you sure?" He could hear Chiron say.
"Yes, a few of Gaea's remaining forces have regrouped and are already in New York." Reyna said, she was the Praetor of the Roman camp Jupiter and were very lucky to have an alliance with them.
"This could be bad." Will Solace whispered. "But we defeated Gaea she shouldn't even be able to reform yet!"
"You think nurse, the camp is once again going to be attacked." Clarisse from Ares cabin shouted and hit the ping-pong table. "They attacked once and we had them."
"Actually, we didn't." Travis Stoll from the Hermes cabin added. "Grover had managed to use the call of the Wild to scare off the army of Kronos."
"But we held them off at the battle of Manhattan."
"Percy destroyed L... I mean Kronos." Katie Gardner from the Demeter cabin chirped. All eyes looked at Percy and Annabeth who were holding hands at the meeting.
Percy Jackson looked at everyone and then said. "What?"
"Percy, you can fight with us, with you we will be able to win like we did last time." Piper from the Aphrodite cabin asked. "We can win this fight with your skills and Annabeth's leadership we can win another battle."
"Look guys I'm sorry, Annabeth and I retired from battle. We just want to settle down."
Gasps escaped the mouths of everyone and there began a huge commotion until Chiron calmed them down.
"Everyone we cannot judge Percy's judgement he has done enough for the camp already." Chiron said looking at Clovis who was from the Hypnos cabin, his magic had calmed everyone down. "Something else is out possibly Gaea or another Titan trying to start another battle we must wait and see how time goes."
"I'm done here." Will got up and left. The others looked at Percy and left the meeting. A few of them looked betrayed but others understood, they knew what Percy and Annabeth had both been through, it would've been sooner they'd want to retire. Eli could hear Percy say sorry then the video ended. "I wasn't able to capture the whole meeting." Bones mumbled.
"What you did was wrong but now we know we're going to battle again." Said Eli. "Let's return back to the cabin and call it a night."
"Do you think we'll be able to hold off Gaea's remaining forces?" Asked Bones as they were walking back to their cabins. "I heard from the legends Percy even struggled yet he managed to pull through most of it."
"I don't know and these aren't going to be legends, Chiron only knows how many days are remaining until the assault." Eli sighed, kicking a rock aside. "But we really need more demigods, (O.C's) if we're going to want to win this fight."
"We're outnumbered, one to five and we're not Percy and we never will be."
That night Eli couldn't sleep because somewhere in New York a large army of monsters were going to attack and this time Percy wasn't going to be able to help.