Chapter 2

We Fight Extreme Losers

Chiron showed Christian to his cabin and told him that there was going to be a game of Capture the Flag on Friday. Horleus had gone off to the strawberry field right after we went in the big house. A day later Violet came up to me after lunch.

"So what happened yesterday?" She asked. I told her what happened and she looked at me uneasily. "You know, when a monster turns on fire…"

"I know," I interrupted, "All he did was escape." She looked at me with a worried look.

"Why would a manticore want to get into camp half-blood? He's worked for the titans before; do think he's trying to help the titans rise again?

"Chiron thinks so, but I think there's more to it." I replied. She started to laugh.

"What?" I asked.

"Look at yourself," she laughed. She grabbed my hand, brought me to the beach, and showed me my reflection in the water. I started to laugh too! Strands of my dirty blonde hair (my hair wasn't dirty, just messy) was either sticking up or knotted and I had small purple circles from my lack of sleep under my storm-gray eyes. We laughed together while she fixed my hair until I pulled away. I would comb it later. I looked at her and could swear that anyone who looked her in the eyes could stare at them for hours. She and I had been best friends for a long time. She came here three years ago and we became friends right away. She was not dropped off by a parent though. She ran away from home two years before she got here. She would never tell anyone anything about her dad though. All I know is that he's a painter. Anyway, it was good that her mom was a minor goddess because if she wasn't Violet would have died out there alone. She said that she only ran into a monster once and that 'it was not a big deal'. She never said which monster it was. When she arrived at camp, as soon as we got her to the big house, a rainbow appeared over her head. It was Iris claiming her. She said that she usually always saw rainbows and that a rainbow in the sky showed her the way here. Obviously Iris was helping her get to safety. After I was done having a flash back of her arrival, we sat on the beach when Christian came running toward us. Violet and I realized we were still holding hands. We pulled away from each other just as Christian came up to us.

"Hey," Christian said, "I was wondering if you guys could give me a tour? Besides the cabins, a couple of my siblings already showed me that."

Violet and I agreed and showed him the stables, which had pegasi in it. I told him that the Demeter cabin used to be in charge of the stables until the Iris cabin took over. Violet explained that children of Iris can gain control over a pegasi super fast and that they even have the power to summon pegasi. We also showed him the mess hall, the strawberry field, the amphitheater, the rock climbing wall, and even where the bathroom was. Christian asked a lot of questions. Fortunately for me, I knew all of the answers.

After what seemed like the billionth question, he asked, "Is there a place where we have practice battles or something?"

"Yeah," Violet said, "The arena."

"Could I see it?" he asked.

"Sure," I said.

We started walking toward the arena. Once we got there, we saw John; one of the children of Ares, and three of his friends blocking the front of the entrance to the arena.

"Do you mind moving?" I asked them.

"Actually, yes, we would mind moving," said John laughing with his friends. He was tall but you couldn't call him scrawny because he was slightly bulky for his age. I was not scrawny either but compared to him I was a twig. His sword/magical item, was clutched in his hands.

"Oh," said Violet, "And why not?"

"Well you can get through," said John grabbing her hand, "but your friends have to fight to get in."

"If they fight, I fight," said Violet pushing his hand away from hers.

"Well," said John smiling, "Sorry to say, but your out numbered."

"Not if I join." said a voice from behind. I tuned to find Eli, Son of Apollo, walking toward us. He stopped right next to me. He held his spear in his hand. This was his magical item. It allowed him to do anything with the light. While he held it he could even make sunlight a solid matter. I took Aspis out if my back pocket while Christian grabbed his bow and arrow out of his backpack and Violet hit her bracelet and her shield came out of it. Unfortunately for John's friends they just had regular swords and shields, which was also unfortunate for me. Aspis only protects me from monsters and magical items. A regular sword would slice threw my force field and make me a shish-ka bob!

Without warning, John and his friends launched. Suddenly one of the torch's fires started to stir and began to shoot at us. It was John's sword, controlling the fire! I held up Aspis and my force shield grew larger to create a boundary around us. The fire surrounded the force shield, looking for a weak point. However the fire also made it impossible to see the outside. Violet got in front of us and showed us the outside with her shield. To my left, one of the boys was about to jump in. Eli came in front of my left, prepared to attack. Then, as soon as the boy jumped in, Eli threw his spear at the ground in front of the boy. The boy smiled because he thought that Eli missed but he smiled too. Out of the top of the spear, Light shot up and blinded the boy. Eli ran up and kicked him out side. Eli took the spear and became ready for the next opponent, but the fire just disappeared and we saw no one!

"Look out!" shouted Violet. We all spun around to see John and the other two boys charging strait at us! I got a plan in an instant.

"Eli," I said, "I need you to make solid light boxes between the three them." Eli looked at me quizzically.

"Why…"

"Just do it!" I shouted. So he listened. He lifted his spear and the heat rays from the sun shown brighter separating each one of them in boxes of solid light. Each box was around ten feet tall. He knew what I was doing now. Eli made an opening in the two boxes on the ends. We entered one of the boy's box while Violet and Christian entered the other. Leaving John just standing in the middle box. I distracted the boy while Eli used his spear, again to blind the boy. This time I got the honor of kicking him into next Friday.

Then the plan went wrong. Just as the boy fell to the ground we herd Violet scream in the other box. Eli and I knew we had to stick to the plan so he made the light wall open so we could get to the box John was in. However the box was empty! At the other side leading to the box Violet was in, was a slash making a small opening. We got into the other box to see Christian and the two boys lying on the ground, knocked out; next to them was Violet's shield on the ground, while she was weaponless with John pointing his sword at her neck. She glanced at us and smiled. I concentrated on Violet and my shield moved to her. Because John's Sword was a magical item, his sword flew from Violet's neck and out of John's hands! Then Eli kicked him to the ground and held John weaponless with his spear at John's chest.

"Okay," John squeaked. Then, in attempt to lower his voice he said, "You win."

"Thank you," I said. Eli lowered his spear and I walked to Violet to make sure she was okay.

"I'm fine," she said, but I helped her up anyway. Then the both of us helped get Christian up.

"Did we win?" He asked as we helped him up.

"Yeah," I said, "We won."

Violet, Eli and I showed him the arena. And then we all walked back to our cabins. An hour later we all went to dinner. I sat at the Athena table with my half siblings while Christian sat at the Eros table and Violet sat at the Iris table. There were a lot of tables, however not every minor god had a cabin and table because then there would be too many. So just the main minor gods, like Iris, Eros, Nemesis, Erebus, Janus, etc., have cabins. Plus some minor gods don't have children. We all scraped some food from our plate into the fire as offerings to the gods and had a great meal. We went to the bon fire were Eli and the other Apollo kids led us in singing while we ate s'mores. After we were done, we left to the cabins and after a few hours of kids running around the cabin, reading, and doing research just for fun, we rested for the night.

I had a weird dream that night. I saw John, asleep on his bed. Suddenly a shadow quickly glided across the room. Then something stopped at John's bed. I had to squint to see who it was. Then, the light of the moon shown through the window and I saw the Manticore. He was chuckling as he grabbed John and dragged him out of the room.

My eyes flew open and I bolted up strait. I looked around the dark room. Everything seemed fine, so I laid back into bed and drifted into sleep.