1: Post-Valentine's Drama

Eddie Crown hates Friday. You know how I know? Because Eddie Crown sometimes refers to himself in the third-person, that's how!

Yes, it is I, Eddie Crown, Son of the Roman god Cupid. Yes, Cupid, one of the gods of love. And I am sitting here on the roof of my embarrassingly girly cabin, watching one of Camp God-Blood's few true "power couples" practically ooze down a pair of rolling airplane steps. This particular couple was made of that idiot Romulus Trent (I really hate him), Son of the Roman god Vulturnus, and Chloe Montgomery, daughter of the Greek goddess Khione. You could tell just from their godly parents that they were powerful, seeing as they were a son of the punk-rock East wind god and a daughter of the ex-evil snow goddess.

I fluttered down from the roof of my cabin, my 7-in wings giving me barely any lift. Damn my father and his baby wings. Even his Greek kids, sons of Eros, had 1.5 ft wings. But, my poor genetics are beside the point. I have to focus on the task at hand.

If only I had thought of this prank yesterday. Yesterday was Valentine's Day and it would have been so much easier and effective, seeing as it was the most powerful day for children of Cupid.

"Hey Trent!" I yelled. Romulus turned around, pulling Chloe closer as he did.

"Up for a challenge?" I asked, smiling cooly.

"Really dude, right now?" he asked "I'm the Roman cabin inspector, so I have to.."

"No" I cut him off. "Right now. Whoever can fly the highest wins?"

Chloe giggled, which didn't match her icy, staring eyes "Don't you think that's a bad idea? Your wings aren't even a tenth the size of Romulus's!" Romulus and her laughed hysterically after this.

I didn't think it was funny.

"I'm dead serious."

Romulus gave me a look, a look that clearly stated that he was confused about if I was serious, but he shrugged.

"Ok man, but you're gonna lose. I hope you know that."

I then saw a man in the top of a tree. He was just a head, chest and arms, but below that he was what looked like an icy tornado. He had purple hair too, covered in frost. He looked at Romulus, then back to me and gave me a thumbs up. He then turned into an icy wind and settled himself 8 feet in the air, right below the branches of one of two huge maple trees that stood in the Roman Legion Training Camp.

"Good" I thought " he is in position."

The challenge was simple: we each started below one of the two maple trees in the middle of Camp Jupiter . We would then fly up as high as we could and the person who flew the highest won.

Now, you're probably thinking "It's gonna be hard to win, seeing as Romulus can fly 78 ½ feet higher then your highest, which is 8 ½ feet." But, I'm not the only one who has a grudge against Romulus Trent, Son of Vulturnus.

You see, a whole lot of drama went on back when the Roman myths were being recorded. Vulturnus, the East wind, Favonius, the West wind*, Aquilo, the North wind, and Auster, the South wind, worked in opposite sides of Western civilization. However, Vulturnus was the one mostly called upon because he was the most powerful, as well as the fact that everyone liked him. However, the other winds were extremely jealous of Vulturnus and were discussing abandoning the gods. In order to keep this from happening, the Olympians and Aeolus made a deal with Vulturnus: If he promised to not be upset when he was not called on as much, as well as not have any demigod children, as to not make the other winds feel less powerful, he would be realized in the myths as the most powerful wind. Eventually, Vulturnus agreed, but not before the other Anemoi (Wind Gods) overheard. Before the Olympians could use subliminal messaging to give the writers instructions for the myths though, Vulturnus's fellow winds used there own subliminal messaging to make the writers think, instead of not being called on because he was the most powerful wind god, that Vulturnus wasn't called on much because he was weak and unneeded.

Years later, Vulturnus decided that he was going to finally stop reading those teenage wizardry books and read some non-fiction: the Roman myths.

Of course, you can guess what happens next. Vulturnus, angry now, threatens to join Kronos, who was planning to take over, if his contract was not revoked. The gods agreed, but on one condition: Vulturnus was only allowed to have a child every 3 decades, and his children must be raised by Vulturnus until the age of 13. Vulturnus, who really didn't want to join Kronos, agreed.

Now, if your wondering, here's a fact: When a demigod is raised by their godly parent, the child ages, matures and processes/retains information just over 4 times as fast as a normal demigod or human child. So, in three years time, Romulus Trent, Son of Vulturnus and a base jumper named Tracy Trent, was 13 years old and his large black wings were fully formed. He was then sent to Camp God-Blood, and here we are.

Anyway, back to the challenge.

As me and Romulus stationed ourselves below our trees, me hating his cocky expression, I felt like a cinder-block was dropped in my stomach. I could feel someone's emotions ( Yeah, Cupid kids can do that), and they weren't good. They weren't in Camp God-Blood, much too far away for that. But, they're emotions were strong, like they were nervous. And the emotion wasn't pure, almost like it was coming out of a non-living receptacle...

"3..2...1! GO!" Chloe yelled, and we took off.

You should have seen the look on his face when, at 8 feet, he hit an invisible, and extremely cold, wall. I however, struggled my way up past 8 feet, seeming to get closer to the nervous feeling. Just then, I hit my head on something metal protruding from the tree. Then, I blacked out as I fell towards the ground...

Elliot Macintosh's POV

I was sitting in my cabin, playing Fruit Roman on the Vulcan kids' new invention, the VulcTron, when I heard the smash.

Truly, the VulcTron was ingenious: a small piece of metal, with a projector and a big red button. When the button is pressed, the VulcTron projected an interactive hologram of something kinda like an Ipad. You can then use all kinds of Camp God-Blood themed apps (Ex. Fruit Roman, Whack-a-Bes, etc.) just like you would a touch screen.

Anyway, there I was, locked in an epic battle of Roman weapons and delicious fruit, when I heard a cry and a smash of a body hitting the ground by the maple trees. I burst out of my tent/cabin, the tail of the tent twitching nervously (Yeah, my mom's cabin has a giant wolf tail that responds to my emotions, pretty baller huh?) . At the bottom of the right maple tree, I saw Eddie Crown, Son of Cupid, lying unconscious with a whole bunch of Roman campers standing and kneeling around him. A few Aesculapius kids, who's names I could never remember, was pouring small sips of nectar into Eddie's throat and rubbing his throat to get him to swallow.

"What's going on? " I ask, taking a knee on the opposite side of Eddie.

"He hit his head. Hard. It looks as though he hit his head on this." a healer said, handing me a small black object.

In my hand, sat a small, long-range webcam. It was a regular old webcam, you could buy it at any old electronics store, but the range was far. Too far for it to be anyone in camp's doing. Also, it seemed to be magically wired to transmit even outside of the "Energy Pocket" that housed Camp God-Blood.

I stood up, tossing the webcam up and down in my palm.

One of the healers, who's name was either Rick or Steven, stood up too and said "You gotta tell your mom about this."

I nodded, and pulled up a mental picture of a wolf. As my body melted into the wild canine that I felt most comfortable as (Yes, pretty awesome huh? Yep, a gift from my mom. It's probably because I remind her of my dad...), popped the webcam into my mouth ands started running towards the camp center.

As I ran east, my paws smashing on the ground, I flew past a few people that I knew. Shim Johnson, the energetic 7-year old head of the Roman Iris Cabin, Danny Grayson, a muscle-head son of Mars and Scorpio Rizzo, the "loner-except-for-his-best-friend" son of Erebos. Yep, Camp Jupiter 2 sure was diverse.

I skidded to a stop next to The Campfire. It was a humongous square pit, with large, moss-covered boulders surrounding it. The flame was large today, and the color changed to match the persons emotions: for me, a panicky yellow.

I steeled myself and yelled "Elliot Macintosh, Son of Lupa!" and jumped into the flames.

For a second, I falling through a tunnel of flames, next I was sitting in a carved wooden chair with the name Lupa carved into the backboard. Also around the table stood other chairs: a raised chair with a short backboard labeled Bes, a tall-backed chair made of black Walnut carved with the Greek name Thanatos, along with hundred, even thousands of others. I jumped up from my seat in the Camp God-Blood meeting room and ran off to the west, towards my mothers quarters.

I found my mother testing a new demigod. In order not to disturb, I changed back into wolf form, dropped the webcam at her feet and growled "We found this in CJ2, its not for someone at camp. I think someone may be spying on us."

She barked in surprise "Really now? Spread the word, have campers check the Egyptian, Norse and Greek sections as well as Camp Jupiter for any more. I will talk to the rest of the Council and we will call a Meeting of Leaders tonight."

I nodded, and ran back to the meeting room. I turned back into my normal form, sat back in my chair and called "Back to Camp!". My body flew through the fire tunnel and popped out next to The Campfire.

I ran to the Roost and jumped on a giant eagle named Travis (after the drummer of Blink-182) and flew around Camp God-Blood, telling some Cabin Leaders about the search, which took a whole lot less time then I thought it would.

After that, I dropped Travis back at the Roost and ran to the Infirmary. I ran in, just as Eddie Crown muttered "I heard a thought, I can do that if it's clearly part of the emotion. They're always kinda garbled, but I definitely know what this one said: Ivy won't like this."

And, to tell you the truth, I didn't like the tone he said it in

* = Remember this guys, It's important!

How'd you like it? R & R! No flames, or my buddy Cadenza will kill you, quite literally.