Chapter 7

"You're telling us that the Greek Gods are real, and that one of our parents is one of them?" Triton asked, trying to sound cautious, like he didn't believe them. Though it was rather hard since he didn't want to offend any of the gods, but he also didn't want to give away that he and his brother already knew this.

Once they had finished packing up their stuff, a van that said something about a strawberry company picked them up. Percy had only gotten a glance at the driver, but he saw that there was several eyes embedded in his skin all over his body, and that was only were his clothes didn't cover it up.

The Latin teacher nodded. "Precisely."

Percy and Triton exchanged a glance. "And who are you, exactly?" Percy asked, already knowing the answer since Triton had already told him. But the centaur had neglected to tell them yet, so he felt it prudent to ask.

The teacher looked surprised. "I forgot to tell you? No matter. I am Chiron, the activities director at Camp Half-Blood."

They nodded, both trying to pretend not to know this already. Grover smiled at them with sympathy. He knew what demigods went through when they found out what they were, and thought this wasn't going to be easy for them.

"Don't worry. Most people have a hard time accepting it. But now you will be with people that are like you," he said.

Percy was about to reply with some sarcastic comment when the van stopped moving. Chiron smiled, then rolled over to the back door of the van. He used the wheelchair lift to get down to the ground.

Everyone climbed out after him. They pulled their belongings out after them. Percy turned to looked at the camp, then froze.

"Oh, wow."

The camp was the most beautiful thing on dry land Percy had ever seen. The buildings were all of Greek architecture. There was a big farm house, a lake with canoes on it, a strawberry field, a forest, and twelve cabins standing in a "U". The beach was on the far side of the camp, with the glittering water lapping at the sand. But it also seemed as if something was wrong with the water. It looked slightly agitated, as if it was forced to be calm.

"Amazing, isn't it?" Chiron asked.

Percy nodded, turning toward him, but he stopped in surprise again. Triton had told him what Chiron was, but he had never seen a centaur before. Chiron was a white stallion with the torso of a man. A bit surprising no matter if you knew before you saw it for the first time or not.

Chiron grinned at his surprised expression, but didn't comment on his appearance. "Come on. Let's go meet Mr. D." He and Grover started down the hill.

Percy looked back at his brother, who looked like he was about to burst out laughing. "This should be fun," he muttered too low for anyone else to hear.

When they go to the big house, they found a chubby man in a Hawaiian shirt sitting at a table playing some card game with invisible opponents. Grover instantly looked nervous and hung back next to the two brothers.

"Percy, Theesay, this is Mr. D, the camp director," Chiron introduced everyone.

The chubby man looked up, clearly bored. "Oh, great. New brats to take care of." He eyed the two boys. His eyes stopped on Triton, narrowed suspiciously, then looked away as if there was nothing out of the ordinary.

Triton wondered if he had figured out who he was, but he would be surprised if he did. He probably wouldn't really notice things very well with his wine withdrawal symptoms.

Percy turned toward Chiron. "What exactly is this place? Why do you think that there are gods?"

Mr. D snorted. "Of course you wouldn't know. You humans think you have come so far. None of you realize that you have actually done very little. We are the ones that invent everything."

Percy and Triton glanced at each other. Surely he didn't invent anything besides wine.

Mr. D glanced up. "Why are you two looking at me like that? Don't you know that it's rude to stare?"

"Who are you exactly?" Triton asked, sounding skeptical, with very little acting. Evidently, he didn't care about offending this god. "You make it sound like you think you're one of them."

"You should be careful, boy. If you disrespect the wrong person, you may not live to apologize for it." Even as he said it, the camp director looked slightly disappointed, but resigned.

"Why? How? Why can't you people just tell us what's going on?" Percy asked.

"But we did, guys. We already explained about the gods. It's all real, we aren't playing a trick on you guys. Mr. D is the god of wine, Dionysus," Grover explained, sounding almost pleading.

Percy and Triton glanced at each other again, but neither of them said anything. They didn't want to seem completely dense, plus they couldn't really think of anything else to say. Mr. D looked exasperated.

"You two might want to just lose your stupid ideas of you world. They are wrong. And if you don't, the other brats will tear you apart," he said, sounding almost gleeful, even though he didn't look up from his cards.

Chiron shook his head, but ignored him. "Come on, boys. Let's go meet your new peers."

They walked throughout the camp. Grover had walked away to join his satyr buddies while Chiron showed the, the arts and crafts building, the forge, the canoeing lake, the open air mess hall, and everything else in the camp, explaining what they were for and what you could do in each place. The campers watched them curiously, probably wondering who they were.

The cabins were a group of extremely bazaar looking buildings. Each had a different theme going, representing each Olympian god, except for a brass number above each door. One had a smoke stack, another looked entirely gold, and a different one looked like the red paint was thrown on my the bucket.

As they passed it, Percy looked at a green, low build cabin that looked like it had been carved out of the ocean floor. Cabin three. Poseidon's cabin.

"Awesome," Triton breathed. Percy nodded in agreement.

Chiron smiled at them, then led them to the last of the cabins on what seemed to be the male god said. Cabin eleven looked more like a traditional camping cabin. It looked so run down that it wasn't hard to tell that a lot of people lived in there.

The door opened, and a curly-haired, blond girl stepped out of the building, followed by a tall guy with sandy blond hair and a scar on his face. When they saw the group heading their way, they walked over, smiling.

"Hey, Chiron. Who's this?" the girl asked. She had stormy gray eyes that Percy couldn't help but stare at.

"Percy, Theesay, this is Annabeth Chase and Luke Castellan, the counselors of the Athena and Hermes cabins. Luke will be your counselor until you both are claimed by your godly parent," Chiron explained.

"How long does that usually take?" Triton asked.

Annabeth smiled sadly "Sometimes it never does. Others, quickly."

Chiron pretended not to hear either of them. "Annabeth, would you mind taking over for me? I have a class."

Annabeth nodded. "Sure." After he galloped off, she turned back to the boys. "Why don't we go introduce you to the Hermes cabin, then we can take a walk or something and I can answer your questions."

The inside of cabin eleven looked like an evacuation center. There really wasn't any floor showing. Triton cringed at the thought of sleeping in there. He was really missing his underwater palace room right about now.

"Listen up, guys," Luke said, catching everyone's attention. "This is Percy and Theesay. They will be staying with us for now, so make them feel welcome."

There was a bunch of "hey"s and "hi"s from around the room. Some of the people looked extremely depressed, while the rest looked rather mischievous, like they had just pulled a prank or something.

Luke turned to Percy and Triton, then pointed to the corner of the room. "You two can sleep there for now."

They dropped their suitcases in the spot, not really caring that their stuff would most likely get stolen, then followed Annabeth back outside. They walked in silence for a while as Percy and Triton were still looking around.

But, finally, Percy broke the silence. "Why does it take so long to get claimed?"

Annabeth paused, then sighed. "Because sometimes they just don't care about is. They have other things to take care of than to be bothered with us."

Triton narrowed his eyes. I didn't know it was that bad. Percy looked equally miffed about it. Their eyes met, both seeming to think the same thing. Why would the gods be like that?

"You two seem to be taking this pretty easily," Annabeth commented.

The two brothers paused, glancing at each other. It might be a bit hard hiding their secret from a daughter of Athena.

"Um … we don't exactly believe you, but we're willing to go along with it," Percy said, trying not to make it obvious that it was a lie. Triton nodded in agreement.

Her eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she let it slide, for the most part. "You're going to have to start believing if you want to survive here. You can't just go running back to your mommy every time something goes wrong."

Percy's eyes hardened. Like he would ever run back to his mom at all. There was nothing he wanted to do with that woman any more. He hoped she was dead. Triton saw the look in his eyes, and decided to say something before Annabeth said something about it.

"You say that like we're going to die if we don't believe," he observed.

She shrugged. "It's believe of die around here."

Percy shook off his hostile feelings and pushed the mommy comment to the back of his mind. He glanced warily at the training arena as they were passing it, which had a couple people sparring in it. He was suddenly gripped with the desire to practice his sword skills. "It looks like you can die even if you do believe."

Her eyes grew sad, and she glanced at the largest hill around them. It was on the far side of the camp, past the big house, and there was a large pine tree on it.

"That is very possible, even likely. Outside the borders, monsters roam the world, looking for us. Our blood attracts them, and the stronger we are, the more monsters we attract. Because of that, we hardly ever live to adulthood."

Percy followed her gaze, a bit sad at that notion. "I take it you lost someone?"

Annabeth glared at him. "It's none of your business!"

He lifted his hands in surrender. "Okay, okay. No need to get so defensive. I didn't ask the question very well. I'm sorry."

She continued to glare at him, but nodded stiffly, accepting his apology. "You better be careful. Unlike school, we don't get in trouble for fights."

"Hey, look, fresh meat!" a voice rang out from across the field.

A buff looking girl, followed by two other girls, walked out of the badly painted red cabin. They walked over to the group, pushing aside Annabeth to stand in front of Percy and Triton.

"Don't you have something better to do, Clarisse?" Annabeth asked.

Clarisse sneered at her. "Stay out of this, princess. Now, who are these two?"

"Percy and Theesay. Guys, this is Clarisse, daughter of Ares," Annabeth replied, abet reluctantly.

"The war god?" Triton asked, sounding a bit wary, but anyone could tall that it was fake.

"Yeah. You got a problem with that?" Clarisse narrowed her eyes at him.

"No. It just explains the smell," Percy answered for his half-brother, taking all the heat for himself.

The girl let out an angry battle cry, then she and her sisters charged them. Percy and Triton dodged to either side, nearly avoiding getting maimed. The girls split up, Clarisse going after Percy, the other two girls going after Triton.

Percy ended up near the bathrooms, slowly backing away from the girl. He glanced around for something he could use to protect himself, preferably water so he didn't end up giving away their cover.

While he was looking away, Clarisse rushed forward and grabbed him. She dragged him into the girl's bathroom while he pretended to struggle. He wasn't all the happy about using this water, but there really wasn't any other option.

Clarisse dragged him toward the toilets, then she started to try and get his head in the toilet. As soon as she started to do that, there was a tug in his gut and the water arched up out of the toilet, over his head and hit Clarisse in the face.

All of the piped in the bathroom seemed to rupture and water shot out of all the toilets, sinks, and showers. The girl screamed as she was pushed out the door. Percy followed, making sure to keep an astonished expression on his face.

Just as he got to the door, the water lifted without him telling it to, and threw itself at the other two girls. It was only then that Percy realized that Triton was standing right outside the bathroom door.

"Hey, look, Percy! They don't smell so bad anymore!" Triton exclaimed happily, trying not to be too loud, but it was clear from her narrowed eyes that Annabeth had heard him.

The Ares girls all looked murderous and let out an even more angry scream than when the fight had started. It took several campers from the crowd that had formed to hold them back and drag them, kicking and screaming, back to their cabin.

Annabeth walked up to them. "How did you do that?"

They glanced at each other. "I don't know," they said in unison.

She looked extremely suspicious, but also as if she were thinking up a plan. She stared at them, her gray eyes sparkling dangerously.

"What are you thinking?" Percy asked.

She smiled at him. "That I would like you two to be on my team of capture the flag."

Percy and Triton glanced at each other, clearly wondering what she was planning.