I'm liking where this is going. Enjoy.

Chapter 25:

Clarisse turns to me with narrowed eyes. "Something doesn't seem right. Why is Mr. D just now starting to care about the camp's welfare?"

"I have no idea. But he's our best chance," I shrug. "But he's right, the Romans won't be able to help us. They never used the phalanx." I pause and turn to go, "I'll see you tomorrow at nine."

I go to walk away, seeing that Will's still waiting for me next to the Big House. "Wait," Clarisse calls from behind me. "Was Mr. D serious about how you were checking him out?"

My eyes widen and another blush spreads across my face. I try to hid it by turning away, but my silence is enough of an answer. "That is so gross, Nico. Cute, but wrong on so many levels."

With that, I walk away with a small smile. Will notices me smiling and asks why I'm smiling. "Oh nothing."

I keep it at that and we talk for a little, waiting for the dinner bell to ring. We pass by Calypso and Leo, who always seem to be together. I still can't believe how self-centered Calypso is. For thousands of years, boys and men have come to her island to fall in love with her, but when I show up and have no interest at all, she get's all angry. I just hope Calypso actually likes Leo and doesn't break his heart in the end.

That thought gets me sad, thinking about how excited Leo was when he came back to camp. The dinner bell saves me from more of those thoughts, so Will and I walk to the Mess Hall. We start to pass by more and more people, and all of them are talking about Mr. D's announcement.

"What are we going to do?"

"Do you think we're in trouble?"

"Why is he finally interested into our lives?"

Will catches these whispers as well and leans into my ear. "So what exactly are we doing tomorrow?"

"You'll just have to see," I respond with a sneaky smile. I go sit at my designated table before he can respond.

Dinner is uneasy. Lots of people look around nervously, either by the news of a huge monster army in DC, or of Mr. D's odd request. Either way, dinner didn't feel right. Even Chiron looked a little on the edge.

I wake up the next morning and groggily get ready for the day. I grab my sword and head out, ready for Mr. D's classes.

People are all heading toward the Arena, the dirt field where people spar. I see Annabeth walk by, so I step in line with her.

"Hey," she says when she sees me. "You know what we're going to do? Mr. D's asking for a lot of time every day and I have things to do." She seems annoyed.

She turns around to see if her cabin's behaving and glares at a couple of the loud kids. I'm so glad I don't have to worry about anyone else in my cabin.

"And plus, why does he care? He doesn't know anyone's name here, anyway," she says bitterly. "Maybe I can talk to him and get my cabin to get out of whatever he's asking of."

I don't want to explain that she can't get out of it, so I stay quiet. A good chunk of the camp is already at the Arena, making a semicircle around Mr. D and Chiron. Next to them are piles of huge shields and spears, making everyone else even more curious.

The weirdest sight of all is Mr. D. Instead of his usual Hawaiian shirt and shorts, he's clad in full purple battle armor. In one hand is one of those huge shields, and in the other is a spear.

Once everyone's here, Mr. D bangs his spear on the ground, silencing the campers. I look around and notice how large the camp has become, I've heard some cabins will need to be redone to accommodate so many people. It must be because we made the gods promise to claim all their kids, I muse.

"Thank you all for coming," he begins and paces back and forth. "If you haven't heard, there's a huge monster army close by and you guys are not prepared. Have we ever had a gameplan going into battles? Never. The Romans have their fancy Legions and formations; you have nothing. You just go into battle swinging. No plan, no strategy. But I plan to fix that."

This gets people whispering. Annabeth, who's still next to me, frowns and looks at her step-siblings. They shrug, not knowing what Mr. D's talking about.

Mr. D snaps and a whiteboard appears. He takes a marker and starts drawing. He draws a diagram of a battle. "Let's see who knows their history. Battle of Marathon. How did we defeat the Persians?"

He turns toward me and the Athena campers. They look at each other, no one wanting to answer. Finally, Annabeth speaks up. "Well, the Greeks surrounded the Persians and beat them."

"Yes, but how?" Mr. D circles the Greek part of the diagram for emphasis. "How?"

Annabeth furrows her eyebrows, "What do you mean?"

Before she can go further, he booms, "The phalanx! They used the phalanx! That's what I'm trying to get at." Annabeth still has her eyebrows furrowed. I doubt she liked getting the wrong answer. "That is what I'm going to teach you; how to fight like real Greeks. We'll show the Romans the true definition of organization. We were the ones that invented it!"

Mr. D waits until the whispers have died down. "For those of you who don't know what the Hades a phalanx is, it's simple." He turns back to the whiteboard and draws some more. "There's an impenetrable wall of shields lined up side-by-side, with an array of spears jutting out from the shields." He snaps again and the whiteboard disappears.

"So we first need to get into groups. Since we don't have thousands of people at our disposal, we'll need to compress," he turns to Chiron and asks him how many campers we have.

"As of now, around 250," Chiron responds. "Not including the archers."

"Okay that's perfect. We can split into five groups, each group eight people wide and six people thick. Chiron will take the archers and talk to them, while I'll be here to explain how a phalanx works. Let's get moving."