Look! Only 2 ½ weeks instead of 2 ½+ months! Notes at the end. Thanks for making it this far :)

Cassie hadn't noticed she was hungry until she heard the signal for dinner. She eagerly started following Katie out of the Big House but paused at the view before her.

Just as before, it was incredible to take in. It was everything she imagined, and more. And she was now a part of it.

But her feeling of awe turned more towards dread as she saw the dining pavilion on the opposite side of the valley. The exact opposite side.

It was a big valley.

Cassie's shoulders slumped and she let out a sigh as they began their trek.

Their walk left plenty of time for Katie to explain how the meals and the tables worked. In a nutshell, she said, you walk with their cabin to the pavilion in a line based on seniority, sit with your cabin, tell your glass whatever you want to drink, and throw some of your food into the fire for the gods.

Cassie made sure to act the part of naïve new camper and asked follow up questions when appropriate.

Almost everyone had taken their seats by the time they arrived.

Cassie easily located her own table; long wooden benches on each side of a table covered by a white tablecloth (which Cassie thought was pretty stupid. It must get so dirty) surrounded by dozens of kids; Easily identifiable as cabin eleven by how incredibly uncomfortable and overcrowded it looked.

Still, she eagerly made her way over after spotting Percy.

Cassie squeezed onto the few inches of empty bench across from him.

Percy froze when he saw her. He blinked once, twice, then asked, "Cassie?"

"Hey Percy," She said nonchalantly, looking around at all the other campers in the pavilion.

He sputtered for a second, "Wha- when- how are-… What are you doing here?"

Cassie shrugged and answered simply, "Apparently my dad is a god,"

He stared for another moment in shock, but before he could stutter anything else Chiron stomped his hoof.

Everyone shut up and looked to him.

Chiron raised his glass. "To the gods!"

"To the gods!" Everyone echoed.

Immediately nymphs (Katie had told her they were nymphs) started pouring in with trays of food. The new activity in the pavilion momentarily distracted the two new campers.

Cassie, wide eyed in excitement, piled her plate high as the platters were passed around. She had loaded the strawberries onto her plate to the point where they were starting to roll off and was trying to balance a few slices of bread on top when she overheard Luke tell Percy to speak to his glass.

Cassie beamed as she continued managing her plate. Just like the books.

When Percy amended his request to "Blue Cherry Coke." She couldn't help but give his glass a side eye, imagining the amount of colorings in that glass to get the dirty brown drink to change to a blue. It didn't look very appealing to Cassie, but she just shrugged, and passed on the platter of brisket that had just been handed to her before getting up to join the crowds headed towards the brazier in the center of the pavilion.

But who do I give it to? It dawned on Cassie that she didn't know whose name to say when she dumped part of her perfectly good food into the fire. Her mind went blank as she quickly approached the fire.

Who do I give it to! Dionysus? Zeus? Dionysus, yeah no way. And Zeus doesn't deserve it. She briefly panicked, not knowing what to do, when she quickly reached the front of the line.

The words suddenly sprang to her lips, "For my father," she said, relieved that it was over with. She could think of a more elegant offering some other day.

Cassie didn't know what she was expecting as she stared into the brazier, but nothing interesting happened so she quickly turned away and went to sit back down.

Percy returned as well a couple moments later and wasted no time starting Cassie's interrogation.

"Wait, so you're a demigod too? Since when? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Um, yeah, since birth? I guess." She briefly wondered if she was one since birth. "I was only told today."

"Oh," Percy said. "Me too."

They went on talking throughout their dinner about how crazy it all seemed, how before that day they had no idea this whole other world existed. Percy mentioned he wished that it didn't.

Cassie, unthinking, asked in surprise, "Why?"

Percy looked down at his now empty plate. "My mom…"

He explained what happened with the Minotaur.

Cassie shifted, completely uncomfortable and unsure of what to say.

Thankfully, before she had a chance to offer her empty condolences, Chiron pounded his hoof again to get all of their attention.

Mr. D let out an enormous sigh and stood up, "Yes, I suppose I'd better say hello to all of you brats. Well, hello." He lolled his head to the side to give an exasperated gaze to Chiron, who nodded approvingly.

Approvingly?

"Our activities director, Chiron, says the next capture the flag is Friday. Cabin five presently holds the laurels."

A roaring cheer rose from the Ares table.

"Personally," Mr. D continued, " I couldn't care less, but congratulations. Also, I should tell you that we have a new camper today. Peter Johnson." Chiron corrected him quietly, "Er, Percy Jackson. That's right. Hurrah, and all that. Now run along to your silly campfire." He shoo-ed them with his hands. "Go on."

Everyone cheered and quickly started making their way to the amphitheater.

Cassie frowned as she got up and complained, to no one in particular, "He totally forgot to say my name."

"Get used to it," Some blond kid from her cabin told her casually, "Been here four years and he still doesn't know my name."

"He's just pretending," Luke consoled, and spoke to both campers, "Give the guy a break. The god of wine doesn't want to be stuck at a summer camp with a bunch of underage kids. You'd be moody too."

Cassie was sure she would be. Camp was a punishment for Mr. D, after all. It would be weird if he enjoyed it.

She shrugged it off; she didn't really actually care that he forgot to mention her. And she could see where he was coming from, she guessed, so Cassie forgot about it and cheerily headed towards the campfire.

It had been a great day, after all.

She had gotten to camp, met Katie, had an amazing dinner, and now she would sing songs and get to eat pounds of graham crackers.

Camp was great, she decided.

Or, at least parts of camp were great. Because of going to Yancy, Cassie had gotten used to sleeping in a room full of other people. But Cabin 11 was pretty different. There were about 30 kids in it, and thankfully a lot of them were older; more mature. Quiet. But there were a ton who weren't.

And when it was their cabin's turn for showers? Horrible. And the chores were horrible too. Cassie would have thought that with 30-some people, it would take no time at all for them to finish their jobs. It would be quick. Easy.

Not so.

Apparently, at least in cabin eleven, only the new campers had to do work.

"It gets too crowded otherwise" One of the Stoll brothers told her as he lazily sat in bed.

And that sort of made sense to Cassie; That day they were cleaning the practice equipment at the sword fighting arena. It would be pretty packed if all of them tried to fit into the equipment room.

"Once you've been here as long as us," Another girl, Alex, Cassie thought her name was, added as Cassie was leaving to follow the other newbies to the arena, "you've done your share of work. We've earned this. When you've been here a couple years you won't have to do them anymore either. Fair trade off."

That made sense to Cassie too so she ran off to join the others. She would be late to her Ancient Greek lesson if their chores took too long.

Which Cassie soon learned she would be happy to be late to. Malcolm was her instructor… Cassie wasn't his biggest fan.

He seemed way too sensitive and wasn't a very good teacher. At all. He didn't seem to understand that not everyone liked learning as much as he and his siblings did.

So she told him that; "This is boring."

And so he told her Ancient Greek was a super cool language and listed all the reasons why it was important to learn. Kidding. Actually, he said, "I don't care."

Cassie sat back, frustrated, and crossed her arms. "Why are we learning this?"

"Your father is a Greek god. This is important." Malcolm didn't try to hide his condescending tone.

Cassie rolled her eyes. "And if he moved to America with all the other Olympians I'm sure he learned English."

Malcolm frowned. He wasn't very tolerant of disrespect but he tried to remain calm with the new camper. "But it's easy for you to read Ancient Greek, right? Or, at least easier than English. I know it's only your first day with this, but can't you see that this is what your brain is wired to read?"

Cassie shook her head. She never liked language arts in school. "I don't like reading." She told him, and looked back at the alphabet of foreign letters Malcolm had given her. Theta, Delta, Sigma, Pi…. "Or math."

"Well, you have to learn it." He deadpanned unimpressed. When Cassie rolled her eyes he clenched his jaw. "This isn't just a summer camp; you can't just do what you want here. We have to train and learn this stuff too."

Cassie huffed and held out her hands, exasperated, "Exactly! Train! To fight monsters! Why would I ever, ever, need to speak or read Ancient Greek to survive out there?" She asked angrily, yet seriously.

Malcolm threw his hands up. "Gods! I'm not doing this again." He stood up quickly. "Fine, whatever, do what you want." He fumed before storming away.

Cassie blinked dumbly as he left. That was… Sudden, she thought. She shook her head after a moment and gathered her things in a pile. Or rather, the two sheets of paper Malcolm had given her. She then started heading back to her cabin, but not before spotting a trash bin not far off.

Well if Malcolm's serious…. Cassie happily headed to the bin first and disposed of her notes before merrily continuing on her way.

And so Cassie's Ancient Greek lessons quickly came to an end.

The rest of the activities she had been going to had been great though, like arts and crafts (just as stupid as Ancient Greek in her opinion, but at least enjoyable), canoeing (which was fun, as long as she was in the front and could paddle sloppily enough to 'accidentally' splash the person in the back), rock climbing (which she had been too chicken to try yet, but it was cool to watch), and archery (which she liked– it was much easier to kill monsters with a bow from hundreds of feet away when they couldn't touch you, rather than to let them get close enough to cut off your head. Plus she was pretty decent at it).

She also liked archery because their first lesson Percy almost shot Chiron. He did shoot Chiron. Kind of. Percy's aim wasn't actually that bad, but like the centaur had told them; if you draw the bowstring, it better be aimed at the target. Not at your teacher, where you might accidentally let go of the string. Duh.

Overall, she was really enjoying camp. It was almost like a regular old summer camp, if you ignored that most activities were there to help you kill monsters. But somehow it was pretty relaxing since, almost ironically, her busy schedule left her little time to worry about anything else. Like her deadline, for… whatever it was. She had almost forgotten about it– the Voice had left her alone since arriving at camp.

That wasn't a concerning length of absence, even thought it was longer than normal for it to not bother her. But it was already June 9th, and she still had no idea what she was supposed to do.

But, again, she never could worry too much about anything with her busy schedule since as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she was interrupted.

Like just then-

"Cassie, let's get you a sword," Luke called her over to a hut filled with dozens and dozens of swords, shields, and more.

She quickly went to him and stopped in the doorway, staring wide eyed at all of the different shapes and styles of the weapons. Who knew you could have 50 swords and no two of them would look the same?

"Let's start you off with something light, until you build some muscle," He held out a bronze-colored blade, a little under three feet long.

Cassie held it delicately, though she noted that the blade was extremely blunt.

"We keep the practice blades dull," Luke explained, noticing her lingering look, "For… Obvious reasons. Once you get your own you'll need to keep it sharp and taken care of."

Cassie twirled it in her hand, getting a feel for the weight. She didn't know what it should feel like, but it didn't feel unmanageable, "Seems fine… I think?"

Luke nodded and moved on to where he was needed; Percy wasn't having as much luck with his.

"Try holding it closer to the hilt," Luke suggested to the him.

"It feels weird when I do,"

Luke fixed the 'feels weird' problem by getting him a new sword. Which was too long, apparently. And the next, too heavy. And apparently the next was created by an idiot who put all of the sword's weight in the tip, so Percy couldn't use that one either.

Cassie sympathized with the irritated look on Luke's face every time he went past her to get a different sword.

Percy had gone through well over a half dozen swords when he asked, "Is it supposed to be this light?"

Cassie and Luke were both reaching the end of their patience, and the later not so subtly rolled his neck and suggested, "Maybe these ones aren't for you. Why don't we just start with this one and try some more out later?"

Luckily for them, Percy seemed to think that was a decent enough idea so Luke quickly handed each of the new campers light practice shields (he didn't let either of them try out any other shields, for some reason), and they all went out into the arena where everyone else was warming up.

Luke started the two newbies off with some basics, showing them how to hold their swords right and how to stab and slice at people. Unsurprisingly, doing those moves on an unmoving straw dummy wasn't too complicated, so Luke soon moved everybody on to dueling.

"Percy can be my partner, since it's his first time" he announced, and Cassie could swear she detected underlying malicious intent. Surely Luke didn't want to deal with Percy and his whiny complaints about swords again. And surely there was no way he had forgotten that it was Cassie's first time too.

Not that it mattered, someone else quickly volunteered to be her partner.

"Cassie, right?" A huge Hispanic-looking teenager came towards her. The guy had biceps the size of footballs and was almost a foot taller than Cassie. And she wasn't exactly short…. For her age, at least.

She nodded hesitantly. Please don't say I'll be dueling you. She would be dead in a second!

"Need a partner?"

Crap. "…Yeah."

He gave a friendly smile, "I'm Chris,"

Cassie canted her head. Rodriguez? She knew the name, but couldn't quite place it. Isn't he the one who went crazy in the Labyrinth? And then… Something about going out with Clarisse? Or… No, that was someone else, wasn't it? Ethan Naka- Nakamura? Cassie waved it off, deciding it didn't matter for the moment, and greeted her partner.

"We'll let's get to it, show me your stance." Chris instructed.

Awkwardly and slowly, Cassie held up her shield so that the top came to her shoulder. She turned a few degrees to the right to put herself at a slight angle to Chris, and held up her sword.

Cassie paused sheepishly, knowing she must look silly.

"Great, you have a good grip, not too tight, not too loose. Try to keep your weight on the balls of your feet though, and bend your knees."

Cassie did as she was told, so she was in an almost-crouch.

"Mmm, little less. Think of a cowboy walk… Yeah, just like that."

Cassie smiled. She was holding a sword and shield, a real swordfighter, how cool was she?

Well, at least Cassie thought she was pretty cool.

Chris patiently gave her a few more quick adjustments before he showed her the basic attacks and defenses, doing everything at a relatively slow speed to make sure she didn't develop any bad habits from the start.

Chris stepped forward and slowly swung his sword down towards her right arm. It wasn't worth blocking with the shield, since it was on her right side, so she brought up her hand above her head and blocked his attack with her sword.

Chris wasn't attacking as fast as he could; they were only practicing, and it was Cassie's first day. But that still didn't mean that the impact of their swords clashing didn't send a shock up her arm. Oww.

"Remember," Chris reminded her, "Block the higher attacks with your sword pointed up. 'Else you might get your fingers cut off."

Cassie nodded. She knew that. Chris had told her that. Stupid mistake.

They managed to do the move once more before Luke called for a break.

"So how'd I do?" Cassie asked Chris semi-jokingly as they made their way to the water coolers.

Chris hesitated.

It was a long pause.

Cassie's smile fell. She had thought Chris was an awesome teacher, patient and giving compliments all the time when she did something right. Way to be supportive now.

"It was your first day," He finally said.

Cassie's mouth made the final shift into a frown. "Wow, thanks," She said a bit sardonically, and flippantly added, "At least we can cross out my father being the god of swords, I guess."

"Umm… Yeah…"

Cassie shifted, not sure if Chris was being weird because maybe she was a much worse swordsman than she thought, or because her joke fell short.

"Well," She said in case it was the later, "I guess it is easier to wait until I get claimed anyways. Won't do any good if I guess who my father is. I'm still stuck in the Hermes cabin." Cassie winced with each word that came out of her mouth, but was unable to stop herself.

She bit the inside of her cheek and tried to look anywhere but Chris. Shoot. Shoot shoot shoot. Way to screw it up, Cassie.

Stiffly, she reached for a water cup and filled it. She wasn't very thirsty, but she had to do something so she wasn't awkwardly standing around next to Chris.

"Yeah, well," She heard him say softly, "You may want to get used to it…"

I don't think I'll ever be happy with these chapters. I literally have to look away in embarrassment sometimes when editing them (especially the early versions). Thankfully the wonderful beta TheSockThatEndedUpInNarnia helps make it a lot better than they would be.

And hey, guest reviewer of chapter 4, I so wish you had been logged in because I would love to follow up on some things you said. Or use subtly use some those points.

So while I may have the next one/two chapters done, I'd rather keep this rough schedule of uploading every two weeks, instead of releasing a bunch now then having a couple month hiatus again. Sound okay? Cool.

And leave a review! Please! Critique! Flame! x/10 rating! Anything!

But even if you don't, thanks so much for reading.