Disclaimer: I do not own anything in this story except for Nikki Wolfe and her items, except for the Lightning Thief book. Everything else is Rick Riordan's.

Chapter 3: I Pulverize a Kid of Ares (With my Bare Hands)

I guess that how I handled the hellhound scared the heck out of any other monsters, because we were fine the rest of the way over to Camp Half-Blood. Right about now I was really aching for some of the music I'd gotten used to back home. By the time Percy had finished congratulating me and calling me the smartest idiot he'd ever seen, he told Argus to turn on some rock radio station. Sadly, I'd forgotten my iPod at home, so I had to live without my soundtrack and country music for days. Talk about torture.

We finally pulled into Long Island on the fifth day away from home. New York had been so…. different. In Washington we have tons of big trees, even in downtown Seattle. Of course, being the Evergreen State, we can't not have trees, but it was kind of unnerving. I was glad when we finally got to camp.

I nearly tumbled out of the van, attempting to not bang my precious guitar on the doors, and blinked in the sunlight. When I'd gotten used to it, I looked down into the valley. There it was: the camp that nearly every kid had heard of. Camp Half-Blood.

Percy just walked past me with a silly expression on his face, no doubt thinking "Girls!"

I set my guitar down and chased after him, threatening to shoot him, cut out his tongue, and then shoot his tongue.

Down by the place that clearly looked like the "mess hall" thing, we ran into a big girl and two of her (slightly) smaller friends.

Now, I'm tall, but this girl was huge. Big biceps, triceps, whatever-you-call-'ems. Huge.

And I knew who she was. Enjoyable, isn't it?

"You're the new girl, aren't you? Prissy's new girlfriend, the one they picked up in…what do you call it? Oh yeah. Washington." The way she said it made me grit my teeth. You do not face this gal and diss her birth state in front of her face.

"Hey, you can at least show some respect for the state that is home of one of the World Fairs, played a major role in World War I, and provides your fat face with plenty of apples." The last bit didn't come out the way it intended, and I could tell it was too late. My eyes grew wider as she growled and swung a punch at my face.

"Nikki!" Percy yelled. I ducked, and when her lunge had stopped, I retaliated, my right hand shooting out. When I realized what I was doing, I had left four red marks on her face. A few were real scratches. Clarisse struck out again, but this time I dove and tackled her, knocking out her legs from under her and sending her tumbling to the ground. With my legs pinning her down, I bent low and hissed, "I don't want to tell you what'll happen the next time you insult me, my friends, or my home state." I shoved myself off the ground, turned and walked off, Percy hurrying to keep up. Looking back I saw her being dragged off by her buddies. Meeting her eyes, I gave her a sweet little smile.

I'd just proved that Clarisse's bark was a lot worse than her bite, and now I was assured of my status at camp.

A/N: Short-ish, I know, and I'm sorry for the wait, but I've been kind of busy! Next one hopefully coming soon.