At first, I wasn't sure I saw that right. My back went rigid. My mind was reeling for a while. Finally, I managed the thought- "Was that kid actually chasing mini dragons?"

The thought was ridiculous, and I laughed to myself. But in the second that I took one step forward, the mini creatures raced in front of me. I took a step back again, my eyes bulging wide. That could not be real. But the same kid slid face-first and nabbed the metal dragons.

"Gotcha!" he cheered, his face now splattered with dirt and grass stains.

I stared wide-eyed at him. The kid glanced up and saw me staring. He jumped up, the two snapping dragons in his hands.

"Hi." the kid tried for a smile.

"Hi." I kept my same freaked-out expression.

He looked around. "Um, I'm Leo!" he tried sticking his hand out to shake, but seemed to have forgotten about the two foot dragon in his palm. Swearing under his breath, he tried the other hand. Another dragon. I finally smiled a little and shook my head.

"I'm Kari."

Leo smiled. "You a new kid? Don't remember you being around here."

"Yeah, you could say that."

He shrugged. "No problem! I'll take you down to Chiron."

Both dragons snipped at him.

"Oh, right." Leo rolled his eyes, avoiding their teeth. "Do you mind coming down to the Hephaestus cabin with me to put these back?"

I nodded. Even though something about the name Hephaestus sounded familiar, I wasn't sure and didn't ask. The Leo kid led me down the hill, still trying to avoid the whirring teeth of the metallic creatures.

I looked at the boy a little better. He had a head full of messy black hair. Most of his features reminded me of something... elfish. There were dried splatters of what appeared to be oil on his shirt, and on his neck.

"So Kari," he said, turning around to walk backwards and face me. "I will be the first to welcome you to Camp Half-Blood! So welcome!"

Out of all the names? "Huh." I said finally.

Suddenly, one dragon caught Leo off guard and bit his finger. He swore and let go of it by accident. The metallic creature started to soar off.

Then, a hawk flew from literal nowhere (I was starting to think that things around here liked making unscheduled appearances) and nabbed the creatures with it's talons. Leo made a noise that sounded like a groan.

"Well if it isn't Frank, the very handsome bird."

The hawk started to descend, flying smoothly. About five feet off the ground, it suddenly warped into an actual kid about my age. He was bulky, but had a soft face. He had the dragon by the tail, which was squirming around vainly.

"I believe you dropped this." he said, tossing it over. "And it's a hawk to you."

Leo scrambled to catch it. Then he gave Frank a cross look. "Thanks." he said bluntly, "I'll remember to buy mini leashes for them. You too."

We started walking, leaving Frank behind.

"Did that just happen?" I asked.

"Did we just run into the world's smelliest, literal hawk?" he looked back at me with a twinkle in his eye. "Why yes we did."

I couldn't help a smile, but asked again, "No, I mean, was he actually that hawk?"

He nodded without delay. "Yeah. One of those "Kid Of Ares" thing. It's pretty funny when you see what he turns into when he freaks out sometimes."

"Kid of Ares?" I asked, sounding like a tourist.

"Mars, whatever. Same thing, when you get down to it. At least for me. Both are just giant works of Chuck Norris."

Finally he realized that I had no clue what he was going on about.

"Oh... right, you're new to all of this." he laughed a little, shifting one dragon into his shirt pocket. "My bad. Don't worry, I'll have Chiron explain everything."

Finally, we arrived at a bunker in the hill. It looked like it had been carved right into the cliff. The doorway was over twenty feet tall, and I had to wonder what needed to fit into it to make the door so big. Leo walked right in, so I had to follow.

Inside, well, it was huge. There were worktables everywhere, alongside garage doors, thousands of different equipment, and weapons. A large banner that mustily read "Bunker 9" hung above. Dozens of kids were working on separate things.

"Nyssa!" Leo called.

A girl with dark hair looked up. Sweat coated her forehead. No wonder- it was like the sun lived there.

"There you are. Did you get them?"

Leo held up the two dragons, persistently snipping at his fingertips. "Yeah. Let's not do another test run, okay? At least until we have a little more effective ways of catching 'em."

Nyssa looked over at me, still standing in the doorway like an idiot, and frowned. "Who's she?"

He glanced back. "That's Kari. New girl."

She nodded, like she'd been through the conversation a million times. "Hurry and give them over so you can take her to Chiron. Poor kid probably has no clue what's going on."

Although I took slight offense to being called a "poor kid", I did have no idea what was going on. Leo handed the two miniature creatures over to Nyssa and headed back to me.

"You're going to like Chiron." he said, walking side by side with me. "Especially if you like horses."

I frowned in confusion at the remark. "Is your head guy a horse?"

He shrugged, making a "so-so" motion with his hand. "Well, yes and no."

Well that sure cleared things up. Soon, Leo had led me to the giant house with the porch.

"This is the Big House." he smiled, "Camp meeting house and HQ. Cozy place."

From the back of us, a voice, "Well who's this?"

I spun around and met the chest of a horse. A squeak made it into my throat as I looked up. A middle-aged man looked down at me, with a beard and kind brown eyes. Of course if was a little distracting that he had the lower half of a horse. I caught Leo trying not to smile at my reaction from the corner of my eye.

"Meet Kari." Leo smiled again. "And I will leave you to talk about things."

The man-horse nodded. "Welcome to Camp Half-Blood, Kari."