Chapter 4
Lawrence p.o.v
"That's fine, I'll teach you." My jaw went slack, why would she want to help me? I'd been nothing but rude to her and her friend.
"Why?" I said almost inaudibly, she looked at me confused. "Why would you teach me?" She sat down across from me, with a weird look on her face.
"I just want to help you. I like helping people." It didn't seem like the whole truth, but I decided it was good enough for now.
"Alright then," she perked up as I spoke, "where do we start." She pulled out a piece of paper and started writing down a bunch of letters.
"This is the alphabet."
*
"What the fuck is an adverb?" Emilee had been talking about nouns, verbs and adjectives for a good half an hour now. I almost started to understand, then she just threw this adverb curveball at me out of the blue.
"An adverb is a word that modifies an action verb, an adjective or another adverb."
Wow so helpful. I opened my mouth to tell her that was about as useful as a sprinkler in a rainstorm, but the horn blew for lunch.
"Alright, we'll get back to that after lunch" Emilee said as she cleared off the table.
"Could we take a break actually?" I said yawning, Emilee smiled.
"Sure, we'll go to the arena, I'll teach you how to sword fight." I nodded in approval and walked with her to the dining pavilion.
Lunch went pretty much without incident, a small food fight between the Hermes table and the Aries table, catching the poor Demeter kids in the crossfire. Some words from Chiron about capture the flag, and Jason returning to a different camp. People weren't too pleased about that, apparently the guy was a great hero.
After we'd finished up we walked together to the arena. "We'll need to get you a weapon first." Emilee said, heading toward the Athena cabin. "We've got a good armory in camp. But the Athena campers keep a stockpile."
The stockpile was in what looked to be a garden shed from the outside. But when Emilee opened it she revealed walls covered in racks of assorted bronze weapons. Celestial bronze, which I'd been told was the only metal able to kill a monster.
"Take your pick." Emilee gestured around the room. I picked through the assortment of deadly objects. There were swords, spears, knives; and a shotgun, like pump action, kick ass, twelve gauge shotgun. I picked it up, a little smile forming on my face, but it just didn't feel right.
As I perused further my jacket pocket grew warmer and warmer. I reached in and grabbed out my lighter, it was hot to the touch. As I stared at it, its form started to shift, the body turned into a long handle and the lid elongated into a long, polished, celestial bronze blade.
I grabbed the hilt with my other hand to keep the blade up. "Shit." I breathed in awe.
"What the hell?" Emilee gasped,I shrugged at her just as bewildered.
"I don't know, it just transformed. It was super hot, then it just, sword-ed." I was pretty sure that wasn't a word, but that was all I could think to say.
"Sword-ed?" Emilee raised an eyebrow at me, I just shrugged again. "Well, can you transform it back?" I shrugged again, and concentrated. I imagined it shrinking back to the small bronze flip lighter I'd carried all my life. As I focused I felt the handle shrink and change from leather back to metal, until I was back to holding just my lighter.
"Well that was cool." I said, "I guess I don't need to pick a weapon now." Emilee smiled and nodded.
"Well then, let's get to the arena." I slipped the lighter back into my pocket and walked with her back out and toward the mini colosseum.
*
When we got there it wasn't very crowded, a few campers spared on one side, while a dryad sewed up a training dummy in the shade.
"Well, let's get started." From her belt she pulled out two short swords. I pulled out my lighter and imagined that long sword. But the lighter didn't quite follow my instructions instead of the long straight sword I'd had before it became wooden and shot out in both directions becoming a two and half meter spear.
"I guess it can do that too." Emilee said with a grin. Then she lunged swinging her dual blades, instinctively I parried them away and jumped back into a half crouched position. Emilee dodged to one side and ran at me swords raised, without thinking I tucked the spear under my elbow feinted high and swept her feet from under her.
I leapt over her and pointed my spear at her chest. Then, she wasn't Emilee, suddenly her red bun became a German stahlhelm, my spear was an American m1 with a bayonet fixed on the end. I looked up from the terrified German boy and didn't see the stone arena walls, and sandy ground, instead they were replaced by rolling German hills; and countryside pockmarked by craters, and littered with dead American and German soldiers.
I felt a cool Autumn breeze caress my cheek; the smell of death lingering in the air reminded me of the battle. Lucas, Lucas was- "Lawrence!" The German shouted. I whipped my head around and leveled my bayonet at his forehead. "Lawrence!" He cried again, this time in Emilee's voice. I blinked and the brutal scene disappeared, replaced by the camp half-blood arena.
I looked down, Emilee was lying there with a look of terror on her face. "Lawrence?" She asked, fear obvious in her tone. I stumbled backward dropping my spear.
"Emilee," I said, my voice cracking, "Emilee, gods I'm so sorry." I helped her to her feet, and dusted her off.
"The look in your eyes." she sounded like she was about to cry. "What happened?" I took a shaky breath, still working that out for myself.
"It was another vision. Here let's sit down." We walked to the shade and leaned up against the arena wall.
As I described my vision to her, Emilee's face went from scared, to worried, to curious. "Do you remember any more this time?" Her voice much more steady now. I thought about it.
"Yeah," I replied slowly. "I remember the battle." Images of it flashed through my head. "We came over a hill, in the valley below us were Germans. A whole battalion of those sons of bitches." I gulped remembering the fear rising in my throat.
"We caught 'em off guard, set up our guns on the crest of the hill and laid into those fuckers. Probably hit a hundred in the first go." I still heard the gunshots ringing in my ears. "We had 'em on the ropes till a whole other company hit our flank. We were outnumbered three to one, and outflanked. We fought hard but they were winning, that is till regimental artillery hit 'em and a tank company from first armored flanked behind them from the rear."
"The battle was going great, then I saw Lucas go down. He was my best friend, German hit him right in the head." My breath was shaky, and Emilee's hand was resting on my arm. "After that it's blank."
Emilee spoke almost inaudibly, "What was your name?"
"Thomas,"