So that's how it all started. I didn't have any friends. I didn't really care about them anyway.

I continued training with the TAs, beating it in hard mode. I also went to other classes, like mythology class, monster class, strategic planning (my mom's new class, where she invented battle plans and was going through the possibilities both sides had to win), and of course pegasi riding.

I wasn't really found of pegasi. I know I should, be you see, I had my own: Silver, very original name for a grey pegasus, who is the son of Blackjack (who became my father's immortal horse – yes, gods also get to pick up their immortal pet) and Foam.

Foam is my mother's pegasus, offered by Poseidon at their wedding. She is a white mare designed out of sea foam (hence the name, my mother really isn't very inventive) on my mother's image. Silver was the perfect mix of the two of them: loyal and intelligent, what gives a very stubborn horse who decided he'd chose his own rider. He chose me, I chose him, and nothing else.

But I still had to go to pegasi riding, even though I had been riding for years. The Aphrodite kid in charge of the pegasi wanted to put me on Caesar (a bit of a joke for a pegasus in a Greek camp), the old chestnut that had seen everything and didn't really care about what was happening on his back. But there was no way I would ride him. I had the ability from my dad to understand horse's thoughts, and apparently Caesar wasn't used to that. Or maybe he didn't care. The first thing he said when I came near wasn't really nice.

But Kelly, the annoyingly beautiful Aphrodite kid, insisted, saying it was nice to change from time to time. I hated her already. She was too pretty, and she acted too kind. I finally said yes and regretted it! Caesar bucked me off in mid-air and I free fell a few meters before falling into the sea. Fortunately, he had bucked me off just far enough so the water would cushion my fall, and my father being who he is, the water didn't harm me. I got out of the sea, still dry thanks to the powers I had inherited from my dad, and shot a murderous look at Kelly. "I don't understand, he's always so nice with everybody" she kept saying to me. Yes, well, she wasn't hearing the conversation I had with her precious Caesar.

Then after a few days of training came the first Capture the Flag game. I was so looking forward to it. Everybody had tried to get me in their team. Of course I turned down every offer until Athena asked me. I was then part of the blue team, along with Hephaestus, Iris, Hebe, Demeter and Apollo. It wasn't the best team ever, particularly when in front was Ares, Zeus and Nike. But we had our chances.

The head counsellor for cabin 6, John, posted me at the river, just in between the two territories. He probably thought it was the best spot for a descendant of Poseidon. It's true that my powers over water were handy, but I wasn't using them that much. I guess since that time when I had flooded my room and found out that the furniture didn't stay dry like me, I wasn't so keen on using them anymore, particularly when my parents found out.

Anyway, my post was pretty boring. It was an obvious post for crossing into enemy territory, so it wasn't used that much. Maybe it had been John's real intention, getting me out of the way.

At some point I decided to go a bit downstream. I can't say why or how, but I felt something was going to happen that way. I didn't need to go to far before hearing the enemies. A group of six, maybe more, was running towards the river at full speed. It wasn't an easy path to run through, but I guess they knew that the other paths would be guarded.

Because of course, they weren't running just for the sake of it. The guy in the middle had the blue flag. I didn't think about it twice, I just ran towards them. I could count them now: ten, five of them being Ares kids, ready to fight, and in the centre, the flag bearer was Peter, of course. I continued to run. I turned my ring around my finger, then around my hand, making my staff appear in my right hand. In my left hand, I had a big – adult size – defence shield. My chances were very thin. Of course they had seen me too, but they were laughing. I had beaten Peter in a one-to-one fight; that was a ten-to-one. I knew I had to stop them before they arrived at my level.

I left my instincts take over, meaning that I didn't think about the consequences of what I was about to do. I just thought: earthquake. But I didn't want to destroy the whole camp, so I just tried to concentrate on the piece of earth that was between them and me. I felt a sensation in my gut. When I summoned water it was kind of tugging sensation, but that was different, it seemed more like some sort of vibration, as if it were building in my gut and spreading through my body down to the ground.

The earth shook once, but it was too weak. I stopped running, trying to repeat the sensation, as if I wanted the vibrations to go through my feet with both feet on the ground. The earth shook once more, a little more strongly. The others were starting to understand, and they ran faster. Fortunately, the ground on this side of the wood was terribly uneven. They were nearly upon me. I could hear screaming on the other side of the river, a little more downstream. I concentrated again. This time the earth shook so violently that the tree next to me started to get uprooted. Peter was the first to fall, brought down by the weight of the flag. I ran towards them and attacked the first Ares kid who had kept his footing. I didn't even have time to strike for the second time that a second kid was fighting me, a Nike kid. I thought, "Great, I'm doomed", but I kept fighting anyways, dropping my shield to get a better control of my staff. Peter slowly got to his feet. There was no way I could hold them all off.

But then cheering echoed down the river. The voice of my father echoed through the wood: "Blue team wins"! And in those two seconds where I thought I'd done it, Peter threw himself at me, followed by his Ares buddies. There were only three of them, fortunately, but four against one still wasn't a fair fight. The others started yelling at us to stop, but Peter just kept going.

"You think you can make us loose and get away with it?" he said to me through greeted teeth. I was overwhelmed, but I wasn't going to let them win. I tried for more earth shaking; it was my last chance to at least make them loose their balance. But this time I didn't concentrate on just this area, and the whole forest shook, filling the forest of noises of branches cracking and falling. It worked, that's for sure. I felt great, until a herd of wood nymphs shot out of their trees and started to yell at me. "You've uprooted my tree!"

"And you made a nest fall from mine!"

"You shook off all my leaves, look at me"

But the wood nymphs were suddenly the least of my problems. The camper were all running towards me, my dad in front, and I didn't like the look on his face… Nobody was celebrating anymore. They all stopped and formed a circle around me, taking in the damages. The tree next to me started falling, completely uprooted. Everybody gasped and looked at me in horror, even more than when I had fought Peter. I had made myself a freak.

But the worst wasn't them. It was my dad. I had never seen him that mad. I wanted to explain to him that four of these guys had attacked me just because they'd lost, but I would have looked ridiculous in front of everybody else, making excuses for myself. At some point my dad just said: "Home, now" in such a calm voice that I knew I had crossed a line. My father was good at yelling. He'd yell until all the anger had come out. But this calm voice was worst than anything.

I wanted to cry and run away as fast as possible. But I wasn't going to do that in front of everybody. I just turned away calmly, and started walking slowly. I wasn't going to lose my dignity. Without me, they would have lost. When I knew I was out of sight, I ran, towards the Trident.

On my way back I could see that my earth shaking hadn't been contained to the forest. The first ones perhaps, but the last one, the stronger one, had probably been sensed all over camp, maybe even farther away. The weapons shed in the sword arena was on the ground. The nymphs were running everywhere, not knowing what had happened. A few other things had fallen to the ground, but nothing much. At least the buildings didn't seem to be damaged.

I crossed the beam bridge, entered the house as fast as I could, and ran to my room. I knew my mom was probably out with my two brothers, watching the game. But I didn't wait for confirmation. My room was on the left hand side of the house. The second one on this side was my brother's.

I knew I was in trouble. I knew I had risked destroying camp. I knew my parents would blame me for putting demigods' lives in danger. I wanted to run away. I didn't care about a lot of things, but deceiving my parents was something I couldn't bear. Well, you know, maybe when your parents were amongst the greatest heroes in history you felt a little need to stand up to their expectances. And right now I felt like the greatest looser in history.

I did the natural thing. I climbed up on the roof. You see, there was a little special thing since a few months ago, when my brother had asked my parents to take the roof off his room (yeah I know that's weird), replacing it by a catwalk all around his walls. There was now a rope ladder climbing up to the window on my roof, and behind that was a plank, that was supposedly a secret passage from my roof to my brother's room. Of course it was standing there in the open and it was no secrete passage, and I guess in the end it was easier just to get out of my door and walk the few metres that separated our two rooms. But that way just felt more… private.

My brother was just a year and a half younger than me. That's already not a lot in normal human's life, but imagine for us. My mother got pregnant with him right after she'd had me. I guess that's why we felt to close.

He had a hammock up in the far corner of his room. I don't really know why I came here. Maybe I thought I could hide here. Or maybe I just felt secure here. We had started to get the habit, my brother and I, just to sit there and do nothing, watching the sky. But right now the sky looked pretty bad, as were my chances of escaping my parents.

I don't know how long I stayed there. I kind of lost track of time. Then I heard my mother calling me in my room. I just waited there. Then I heard my father calling, and hearing the tone of his voice, I thought maybe facing him now would be better than facing him later. At least I could stay on the roof and stay far away from them. I got out of the hammock, climbed on the catwalk and crossed the plank back to my window. I looked down. My mother was holding my father's arm as if to say "calm down". I made a noise, deliberately. Better than to call on them. My father looked up first. He looked furious. I even could see traces of a cyclone forming around him. Then my mother looked up. She was always calm when it came down to a mistake I'd made. She preferred when people learned from them mistakes rather than just regretting them. Her stormy grey eyes were looking up at me gently, and I thought maybe it wasn't so bad. Then I looked at my father again, and I knew he didn't care about me regretting or learning.

"Come down here, Becca, please" my mother said in her soft voice. Of course I knew the soft voice was bad news. She only made the soft voice because she knew my father would do all the yelling. I started down the ladder slowly. Once on the ground, I looked at them, straight in the eyes. "Well, we're waiting for an explanation" my father said, his voice shaking with anger.

"I was just trying to defend myself. They were too many on me, I didn't really control it." Of course this was a big lie, but I didn't care, I just kept looking them in the eyes.

"Oh really, so you lost control when you swore to us you were in control?"

"I know dad, I'm sorry, it won't happen again."

"Do you have any idea how dangerous what you did was?"

"I know dad, I'm sorry." I didn't feel very sorry; I just wanted to avoid the yelling. But I could sense the tension in his voice, how he was straining to keep it down.

"You could have made so much more damages." That was it, I knew in a few seconds he would yell the list of terrible things I could have done, including probably destroying New York and, let's face it, probably destroying Olympus too…

My mother was studying me with her grey eyes. I could almost see the gears turning in her mind, trying to analyse what had really happened. She knew I had lied. She knew I had done it on purpose; she'd just wait until my father was finished with the yelling. Then it started. "You could have killed people! You could have destroyed camp!" I just shut him off, not listening, like I always did. I started looking at my mother, just her. She was interrogating me silently, asking for my motives. I would tell her. Of course I would. You could tell my mother everything. "This is it Becca, you're coming back home tonight and you're not going back to camp until next year" my father yelled. I opened my mouth to reply but my mother shook her head slowly. I knew what she meant. She'd talk with him.

As I wasn't answering, my father stormed out of the room, nearly literally as the cyclone had grown a little stronger during the yelling. Then my mother motioned me to seat on the bed. I followed her. "Tell me." That's all she said. That's all it took. I told her.

"You said you sent four waves total, is that it?"

"Yes"

"Yet we only felt one…" The gears were turning again. She was thinking, fast. "Your father never used his earth-shaking powers. Or just this one time when he destroyed an entire island. I guess, maybe, you could control its radius, but that doesn't really seem possible. Your powers are Poseidon's; it's the powers of the sea. But then Percy can create his own cyclone, not a real one. Maybe that's what you did the first time, creating an earthquake just where you needed it. But then you lost control." She looked at me fondly. She wasn't mad. She was just trying to understand. "Don't worry, I'll talk to your dad. He'll come round."

Good thing with my father: he was never angry for long. He let me go back down to cabin three after talking with my mom. Bad news: I was now the freak at camp. From then on, I was looked at strangely; people were avoiding me, whispering as I walked by. I had always been the outsider, but now I was definitely an outcast. The worst: Peter seemed actually sorry for me. Him, of all people. I didn't want his pity.

I just continued as before, training on my own with the TAs, and riding my pegasus in my lost hours. Kelly wasn't talking to me anymore. Good.

One day, I was training in the swords arena with TA number 7. I was trying the very hard mode, and I was failing miserably. The TA kept surprising me, breaching through my defences. I stopped counting how many times I ate the sand of the arena, trying to ignore the bruises all over my body. Of course they'd heal, I'm immortal, so why bother. "You should try to use both your arms equally" said a voice behind me. "You have a tendency to keep your stick in one hand, and the TA keeps coming at your empty hand." I turned around. It was one of Peter's buddies, one of the Ares bully. He was tall, beefy, and so large you'd actually wonder how he could fit through the doors. Totally Ares like. "Why should I listen to you?"

"You don't have to."

I turned my back at him. I ordered the TA forward again. I started fighting, just like before. I deflected its blade a few times, getting the control over its attack. I saw it just before it happened: my staff was in my right hand, and after I deflected its blade with an outward movement, my left side stood completely undefended, and the TA moved in for its final strike: the flat of his blade knocked me directly in the ribs, and as I felt the pain expanding in my chest, I dropped my stick, and saw that word again on the head of the TA: "winner". I punched him on the head so hard it flew backwards and fell to the floor in a loud bang. It didn't write "dead" on its head though, so I just said it aloud for it.

I turned back towards the unknown (how come I didn't know his name?) Ares kid behind; who thought the situation was very funny. "I told you to change hands more often."

"Yeah well I got distracted."

"Distracted? Do you know how long I've been watching you?"

"What are you doing anyway, stalking?"

"Just looking at an interesting fight. Very few people succeed at the very hard mode."

"Yeah, and I bet you're one of them, and you just came here to show off."

"No. I just came here to look at an interesting fight."

"You said that already."

"Do you know what people are usually failing at that level?"

"Maybe because as its name says, it's a very hard mode."

"Yes but do you know why?"

"Do I look like I do?"

"You look like you should."

"Well go on then, you're so dying to tell me."

"Do you even know why they were created? I mean other than the very obvious reason that it allows Percy breathing space when he trains us."

"Why do you care?"

"It's my business to know my enemy's style of fighting."

"That's a very Athena thing to say."

"Athena would look at the weaknesses and strengths of each opponents, I only look at the style of my enemy."

"Well go on, tell me."

"They were created to match you better than a human would."

"All right, and what kind of information is that?"

"Well, think about it two seconds. If your enemy is only trying to match you, then he matches your style too, he doesn't have a style of his own. That's the TAs weakness."

"I'm listening."

"So, in beginners mode, it won't do anything to you, just strike back, and letting you win if you did something good. In advanced mode, it'll challenge you, but it won't do much else. It is defeated when he feels something getting better in your fighting. Then in hard mode, it starts getting a bit more interesting. It starts analysing you a little more deeply. It'll find out if you're better at attack or defence, and challenge you more and what you are better at. Then you get on to the very hard mode, where it finds your weak spot, and restlessly strikes you there. That's why you can't just start at any level, you have to start at beginners and go up, or it won't know you enough. And that's also why a lot of people don't go past that point. They can't identify their weak spot, or can't correct it."

"Did you ever get to the other modes?"

And just like that, we started talking. Nothing deep and personal, just fighting technique and TA utility. We spent quite some time together that day, even later in the night. The morning after we were back to hating each other, him on Peter's bully team, and me on my own. Truth is, he was right and he helped me a lot, but that was just it. I didn't even know his name…

Moreover, I had bigger problems in my hands the day after, because in the morning the first group that went down to the swords arena found a broken TA, it's bulletproof screen broken in a thousand pieces. Of course, it was TA number 7, and my name was written last on the borrowing list.