**Sorry, reposting this chapter as something went wrong with the formatting!
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Chapter four;
Falling into the routine that the Apollo campers had set up was pretty easy – get up at dawn, practice with various weapons, well after warm-ups, go for breakfast, then Deo had archery practice with Chiron and Lee, before helping out in the infirmary for an hour. Before lunch Lia or Ales would drag him out on their runs, or onto the lava wall if they were feeling particularly mean. After lunch he was allowed two hours to do as he wished – but then it was back into training; this time, hand-to-hand combat instead of just weapons, which they practiced with the Hermes cabin, or at least some of them. The evenings were reserved for the camp fire and sing-alongs after dinner, but then once back in the cabin Deo would pull out one of his text books that he had picked up for third year, and struggle through them.
Having dyslexia sucked sometimes.
Although, he had never had an issue reading the actual spells – simply because they weren't in english, but in Latin.
Deo did wonder if he could get his spells books in either Latin or Greek.
Despite settling into the routine easily, he went to bed most nights with his body aching in ways that he didn't think it could. Sure, he did quidditch and walked around a castle all day for school, and ran and did chores when he was at his relatives place, but the intensity of the training here wasn't easy and up until he had arrived he hadn't ever seen himself as unfit.
It never ached when he woke in the morning luckily, or after a shower on an evening.
It was the Friday – he had woken on the Tuesday – that Chiron announced a game of capture the flag for that evening; Deo had heard his cabin mates speaking about it, and about strategy, but he hadn't paid too much attention if he was honest, too busy trying to keep up with his new schedule and getting use to everything else.
All magical objects are permitted.
Those were the words that he had spent the morning mulling over in his mind – he had yet to tell anyone that he was also a wizard in training, and since no one bothered him on an evening whilst he was reading, they hadn't figured out that he had been studying magic. He hadn't plucked up the courage to sneak off yet though on his free hours after lunch to practice the spells, because according to William Weasley America ran differently, and so long as he wasn't attacking muggles or deliberately using magic in front of them, he could use it wherever he wanted. And no one at the camp were exactly what they could call muggles.
All magical objects…
He had an invisibility cloak.
He had his wand.
He did have to admit, as cool as his cloak was – It would be too clumsy within a forest setting, it was perfect at school on nights, but when surrounded by trees and people fighting…well, a cloak would just get in his way.
There was a spell that he had discovered when he had been stuck in the library last year though, when the basilisk attacks were going on and the students thought it was him – he had been looking for protection, and he had found a book stashed in the dusty shelves. One spell camouflaged the person into the setting, so not invisible but harder to detect, another obscured the persons sounds to others (breathing/foot steps), and one of his favourites – one stuck the person to the ground like their feet had sunk into quick sand.
Hmm, yeah he was taking his wand with him.
He wasn't dumb or naive enough to think a few days training made him better than people that had possibly been coming to this camp for years.
"You worried, little nephew?" Lee asked, dropping down onto the beanbag that was nearest to Deo's bed, where he had been sat with a book in his hands but thinking rather than reading,
"No, just thinking." Deo admitted, flashing the teen a smile, "Uncle Lee."
"Ok smartass." Lee laughed, "You read a lot."
"Lord Apollo is also the god of wisdom," Deo quipped, repeating the words of Lee himself when Deo had asked why they had so many books. "School homework, actually Lee. Well, studying ahead, so its easier to do the assignments and not have to worry about reading the books as well."
"Ah," Lee nodded slowly, "What's that? Maths?"
"…something like that," Deo stated, dodging the question. "Need something?"
"Oh! Yes!" Lee admitted pulling a pen out of his pocket and throwing it at him, Deo caught it with ease. Practiced ease these days, since something was always throwing something at him. Namely knifes. "Chiron said to give you that, that he feels like it should be yours? You never know with that old centaur!"
"A Pen?" Deo questioned, "He wants me to have a…pen?"
"Yep."
"Ok…"
Flipping it over in his hands he looked at the pattern on the sides – on the side in Greek was the name Riptide. He pulled the pen lid off to see what type of pen it was, only for himself and Lee to yelp and jump back as it transformed into a sword.
"Chiron just said that it would always return to you, if you lost it." Lee blinked, pulling Deo to his feet – Deo grabbed the sword from the bed and experimentally swung it,
It felt much better than the blades had during the training sessions. He had done ok with those, but this one he felt like it belonged in his hands – not clumsy and too heavy for him like the Sword Of Gryffindor had been either.
"Come on, we've got training to do!" Lee ordered,
Deo groaned in protest as he was dragged from the cabin.
As it turned out there were several of the Hermes cabin in the training arena, practicing different moves; the moment that Deo had walked in with Lee, Luke Castleton had grabbed him and made him a practice dummy to practice a new move out on.
After demonstrating it a few times, and making Deo's sword go flying off, they took to practicing in real time. over and over again, Luke managed to disarm Deo no matter how hard he was trying. Luke was one of the ones that had been at camp for years, and he had heard many people say that Luke was one of best with a sword within camp.
Luke called a timeout when it was clear that most of them were drenched in sweat and needed a drink – Lee brought Deo a bottle of icy cold water over from where he had been stood observing at the side, actually he had practically been rolling on the floor laughing at how much Luke had been torturing Deo.
Taking a few large gulps of the icy water, he immediately felt refreshed and raring to go again – and since he was too hot he poured the remainder of the water over his head, he could physically feel himself suddenly full of energy and felt stronger than ever.
Luke dived at him without warning and Deo immediately raised his sword to block the strike, stepping back and swinging one of his own strikes back – one that Luke only just managed to stop in time, this continued for several minutes (much longer than it had before) until with a final thrust and twist, and Luke's blade clattered to the floor with a thud.
Looking up and breathing heavily, Deo suddenly felt drained again. He blushed when he noticed that everyone was staring at him, with somewhat of an awed expression.
A quick pleading look at Lee, and the head of the Apollo cabin dismissed him to do what he wanted for the rest of the afternoon before capture the flag. As he was leaving, he could hear Luke trying to negotiate terms of alliance for the game that afternoon with Lee.
In Britain the Dursley family had just returned home from their trip to see Marge Dursley, who had accompanied them back home to Privet Drive, after she had suddenly fallen ill with such mysterious causes that her doctors hadn't been able to figure out why she had suddenly collapsed and stayed unconscious for over two weeks.
Petunia Dursley was threating about the state of the house – because, surely the boy hadn't been able to keep it clean and not blow up the place whilst they had been away!
As they pulled into the drive way, she noticed that everything seemed to be ok. But she growled angrily and screamed for the boy when she opened the door, to find a thin layer of dust coating every ornament and picture within her front hall way. He had been lazy and complacent whilst they had been away it seemed!
When she rushed upstairs she almost tripped over the boxes – the ones she could have sworn she told the boy to put away! – and the latter that was still leading up to the attic, no wonder it was freezing in the house! And barged into her nephews bedroom.
Her face drained of blood.
Nothing.
There was nothing of the boys in the room, his school trunk was gone and the wardrobe was empty of all except Dudley's old clothes and the boys old school robes that probably didn't fit him anymore. Even the stupid bird cage was gone, though the bird hadn't been here when they had left either.
The boy wasn't in the house!
How very dare he!
"VERNON! THE BOYS RAN AWAY!"
Deo quickly found out that he didn't like Annabeth Chase. He found the girl stuck up, arrogant and ignorant to what others were trying to say. Lee told him that since they had teamed up with the Hermes and Athena cabins, Annabeth was in charge – since she was the head of the cabin, and Athena was known as the goddess of battle strategy.
Poppycock, as he had heard many people in Britain say!
Just because she was daughter of Athena, didn't mean she automatically had the knowledge and experience to lead them – even into a mock battle! Wasn't Apollo known for his battle prowess too? And he too was a God of Wisdom, not just Athena, but no one seemed to remember that.
Why was he annoyed?
Well, in all her almighty winsome, Annabeth had placed him to guard the flag. As the only guard this close to it. the flag was in the centre of stream that ran through the clearing. At the moment he was sat two meters from the flag – the minimum distance required by the rules of the game – on the bank of the stream, eyes closed and breathing slowly so he could listen to the sounds going on within the forest.
It was something he had developed as a child and honed the talent – knowing where his relatives were in the house, and what type of mood they were in and if they were moving towards him.
Be on guard always.
When his team had left him there – Lee and several others of his cabin arguing all the way into the distance – he had cast several of the spells he knew, including the one that caused people to stick to it like they were in cement. It didn't need to be cast on the person, but rather the ground around them. It could also be used in advance of an attack, so he had read.
Anyone trying to get within 7 meters of the flat would find themselves in a sticky situation.
Literally.
He had circled the flat with the spells at that distance, and made it around a meter wide in all places; of course he wasn't going to underestimate someone trying to jump it, once they realised that it was in place, so he had deliberately soaked the mud just beyond the sticky patch to make it extremely slippery.
It was a good forty minutes into the game when he heard the sound of people crashing through the leaves and branches towards him; jumping to his feet he focused himself as he drew his bow and an arrow – he aimed the bow at where the sound was coming from, and released it, embedding the arrow into the persons thigh as they ran from the trees.
The guy, one he recognised as Clarisse's second in command, went down with a large thump, howling in pain.
Three more to go, that he could see, one including Clarisse herself.
The first came running towards him with his sword raised high, with a battle cry, and Deo had to prevent himself from laughing when the guy got stuck in his trap and toppled over head first, stuck – not only by his feet like Deo had hoped – but not also stuck by his lower legs, knees and forearms! He couldn't move, no matter what he tried.
The second, female this time, hadn't seen what had happened quickly enough to stop her getting stuck at the edge of the sticky ground, and fell backwards onto her bottom, her feet gluing her in place.
Clarisse, paused, looking in confusion at where her siblings were stuck.
She looked furious.
Bracing himself, he watched as Clarisse took a running start and managed to jump over the sticky patch…her feet and legs buckling under her as she slid in the mud, it didn't give her as much trouble as he had hoped, as she swiped her staff that crackled with electricity at him – as she slid around in the mud, he went flying backwards into the water of the stream, oddly enough instead of feeling sodden and wet…
Well, he was perfectly dry and felt very refreshed.
This time he managed to intercept her strike with a swing of his blade – RIPTIDE – and both watched in horror as it sliced through the staff, almost like a knife through butter.
Clarisse howled in fury, and Deo realised that this wasn't about getting the flag anymore and winning for her, but rather beating her to a pulp – deciding he wanted no part in that, he managed to dodge the first few strikes she sent his way, before releasing his wand from where it was tucked in his waistband of his shorts under his shirt.
A quick and silent Expelliarmus later, Clarisse was stuck in the mud next to her siblings.
A horn sounded in the distance, signalling the end of the game.
Since he couldn't realise the trio without being beaten up, he waited until the rest of his team joined him. Then agreed to tell his story of magic at the campfire that evening, apparently he wasn't the only one with magic around here (sons and daughters of Hecate, along with the odd witch or wizard thrown in!).
He need not have worried about not fitting in with his gifts, as even Clarisse had admitted it was pretty cool to be able to do those things in battle. Even if she did consider it cowardly and cheating.
Lee, Ales and Lia reassured him that she was just a sore loser.