Letters Home
Camp Half Blood Campers' Correspondence a Year Later-[Phoenix Williams to Miss Williams]
Hey mom,
I have once again been given proof that real life is SO MUCH COOLER THAN MOVIES! When you're a half a god. They've put more obstacles in the ropes course so now you have the option of battling and racing the other kids across while the rope's on fire. Yeah. They'll light it on fire for ya. They've got a few new training methods to reduce hesitation time. They set us up on flaming arrow patrol some times when they time ya in the Lab. You go too slow and they set something loose in there, like giant lizards or zombies. I love when they get the zombies in there. It's scary as hell. The perfume is the worst thing they can do, though, because you start acting like an idiot and you no idea what you've done until an hour later when the stuff finally wears off. Last time I got stuck in that no one would tell me what I did, but they'd all start screaming every time I went to the bathrooms. The Aphrodite kids are mean.
There's so many renovations to the camp, mom. They built all these monuments and cabins after the war. They had a whole lot to build, but they've almost got all of those up. None of the old cabins have been renovated except for basic repairs and what the campers have done themselves, and a bunch of them have done quite a bit. We haven't finished up our soundproof practice rooms yet because we've been working on our chariot.
WE HAD CHARIOT RACES! First round! Man, it was epic. All natural special effects. They had to make the track bigger because so many cabins were participating. Circus Maximus all the way. It wasn't done yet, but they're hoping to rig it out by finals. It was the preliminaries so really they just threw all the chariots in and the top ten would get to compete in the final round. 20 chariots. There probably would've been 21, but the Hades kids weren't back yet. We got some new kids in, though. New waves every week.
We had our favorites, of course. Our cabin was winging it through the race, taking kids out with stun arrows and flesh-eating ones. We've been developing them for weeks and we had our first big reveal at the race. They don't actually eat skin, they just made a really itchy rash, but the other charioteers didn't know that. Scared the crap out of the Aphrodite cabin. They were important to get before they talked you into letting them pass. We barely made it into the finals though. Can't underestimate the greats. Hephaestus' cabin didn't disappoint. They had two. For one they had teamed up with the Ares Cabin and it was a freaking tank that was just bashing its way through. The Ares cabin had 2 others and one had a flamethrower and was just taking people out and they couldn't light the tank on fire. It just wouldn't catch. This was of course before one of the Ares chariots had taken out the other Ares chariot because the guy had painted the head counselor's boyfriend's face all over his chariot. We're thinking the Enyo/Eris team had a hand in that. This distracted the head counselor from the Hermes cabin that raced by and started cutting the horses from the chariots. They got so ticked. Hilary from Hermes had challenged the Stoll brothers again, and she had Carlos the ninja on her team and he would jump from his chariot and sabotage other kids' chariots without them noticing. At least, that's what we think was happening. They got into the finals. Almost had a huge accident, though, when Carlos tried to sabotage the Tank. Traps got sprung, chariots capsized. Took out the Eris/Enyo chariot and one of the Zeus Chariots. Boom. I think the E/E ride was rigged with something because that went up and they looked so proud of themselves. The horses went nuts. Phoebe's freaking fire horse wrecked one of the Apollo chariots, and Demeter's chariot and one of Athena's. Houdini distracted Phoebe with some sort of crazy illusion, but her foal freaking dragged her over that finish line. The horse left a fire trail and everything. Came in first by a mile. Poseidon's carnivorous ponies weren't well liked in the race, either.
So Apollo's going to the finals. Ares isn't for once thanks to internal debates. Athena got in, the Dionysis/Thanatose chariot got in. Don't ask me how. Helios got in. Hephaestus got in. This other Hephaestus chariot had the head counselors in it and part way through the race, I swear, they went invisible. They went freaking James Bond on us. It was awesome. We didn't even know they were winning until the Athena cabin bashed up their rear and screwed up whatever was making them invisible. Both the Hermes chariots got in, the Iris/Hecate one got in, the Poseidon one made the finals and one of the Zeus ones made the finals. The water nymphs actually dominated, but then wiped out right before the finish line when Poseidon's horses almost ate them. I'm so excited for the next round! It's going to be EPIC! OF EPIC PROPORTIONS!
Love you, miss you.
The great and powerful-
PHOENIX
Apollo Cabin – Cabin 7