Hello, hello, hello, HELLO!

Here I am with chapter 12! Everyone, let's celebrate!

Leo

The next day was Thursday.

No, duh!

Leo woke groggily in his bed at the Hephaestus cabin. The cabin counsellor, Jake, was standing by some tables at the back of the cabin and making what appeared to be coffee.

"Good morning," he greeted when he saw Leo awake. Leo sat up in bed.

"What time is it?" he asked, scratching his head sleepily.

Jake estimated. "Seven in the morning, roughly," he decided.

Now that Leo was fully awake he was able to make sense of a lot more. Jake wasn't making coffee—he was simply fixing a coffee machine with a screwdriver. The only other people in the cabin was the little kid—Harley, Leo remembered—who was curled up in his bed, still snoring deeply.

"Where is everyone else?" asked Leo.

"Forges," said Jake. "They like to get there early. I was just fixing the coffee machine."

"Oh," said Leo stupidly. He still had a little bit of trouble, processing everything. Gods, demigods, monsters…and the most difficult of them all—centaurs. The only one in camp was Chiron, but whenever Leo saw him he got all jittery. Oh, and the harpies. Leo was terrified of them.

Jake held up a cup. "Want some?" he asked.

Leo shook his head. "No, thanks," he told him. "How long have you been working on it?" Leo asked. Jake shrugged.

"Thirty seconds, maybe," he replied.

"Whoa," said Leo. "But that thing was practically in chips last night."

So true. One of the campers—not saying whom—bumped into the coffee machine, and it fell to the floor with its bits scattering everywhere. (*coughLEOVALDEZcough*) All his siblings had shrugged it off, saying they'd fix it in the morning. Leo hadn't been sure the coffee machine was even fixable.

"Yeah," said Jake casually. "We fix and build stuff. Might wanna join the rest of the cabin at the forges before heading to breakfast. After that we have archery."

"Oh, archery," said Leo. "Just gotta love those bows." He yawned before continuing. "Do you happen to know if we're allowed to use electronic birds as arrows by any chance?" he inquired.

Jake shook his head from behind a mug of coffee, taking his question seriously. Leo quickly got changed in the washroom, brushed his teeth and pulled on some shoes, quickly grabbing Chime and her remote on the way out. Harley was just getting up when he left, and Jake was already gone. On the way to the forges, he passed a couple calling each other cute names like Seaweed Brain and Wise Girl (the latter wasn't much of an insult) while dueling each other to the death with swords before breakfast.

Leo really didn't get this demigod stuff.

"Hey, Leo," Nyssa called out when he got to the forges. Leo waved a friendly hello, and made his way to an empty worktable. He cleared it of extra screws and bolts, and laid Chime on the table.

"Second major surgery, girl," he muttered. "Ready for this?" Leo had been hoping that with all this high-tech demigod equipment he could be able to give Chime a will of her own—like an electronic pet.

He had barely started when Harley walked up to him. He was obviously still tired; rubbing his eyes groggily, his walking all staggered. "You might wanna make a sword first," he said, pointing over to a table in the corner of the room, where a sword and shield-making booth sat. "If you don't you might get killed." Leo ruffled the eight-year-old's hair.

"Thanks for the tip," he said, pushing Chime back into his bag and picking out sword items.

He hadn't even started when Jake announced that they'd be heading out for breakfast. Shouldering his bag with Chime inside it and laying his equipment down, Leo made his way out with the rest of his cabin.

The food was great, but what really amazed him were the magic plates and goblets. Want a cheeseburger? Bam! Right there in front of you. Want some pasta! Boom! Spaghetti without effort. And the goblets were the exact same. Jake told him this story where some kid from the Hermes cabin—Travis?—tried filling up his cup with Vodka. Didn't go so well for him.

But the one thing Leo didn't like about the meals was that they were forced to sit with their cabin. Not that there was anything wrong with his cabin—they were epically awesome—but Leo had really wanted to sit with Piper, his friend. She sat at the Hermes table alone, the oldest unclaimed kid at camp. She picked at her waffles with her fork, hardly having eaten any of it.

So after breakfast, right before he was scheduled to go shooting, Leo went up to Piper.

"Hey, it's not that bad," he said.

"Says you," said Piper, hugging herself. "You actually have a family."

They passed a clique of makeup-abusing girls, giggling and gossiping as if they had no care in the world. When they walked by them the leader, some Japanese girl, stopped.

"Oh, look," she called out. "It's an unclaimed girl."

"But aren't gods supposed to claim their kids at thirteen?" asked one of her friends, getting in to the act. The rest of them snickered.

"They are," said the Japanese girl cruelly. "I guess her parent is so embarrassed of her that she'd rather break a promise on the Styx than admit that that Indian is her daughter." They laughed and kept walking.

"Did she just call me Indian?" Piper asked, stopping and turning back to face the leaving group.

"Don't listen to them," Leo advised, grabbing Piper by the arm to pull her back.

"It's Native American!" Piper called out to them. "You don't use the term Indian anymore! It's rude!"

"And that must have been that Drew girl Will was talking about," said Leo. "Just ignore her."

"But isn't that cute," taunted one of Drew's friends, overhearing them and being unable to pass up the chance to bully. "It's her boyfriend, giving out advice on what to do."

"Bet the reason he's so ugly is because of his father," said Drew. "You girls remember the myth? The one where Hera disowns him because he's so CLUMSY and UGLY and DISGUSTING?" She laughed.

Leo felt as if he should defend his father somehow, but why would he want to fight against Drew? She was so pretty, and her voice was so luscious and persuasive and soft and...

Stop it! Leo chided himself. Charmspeak—hello!

But it was a good thing Piper wasn't affected that easily. "I'm sorry," she said sweetly, "but wasn't Aphrodite the one who started a ten year war because she wanted to be the prettiest?"

Drew wrinkled her nose. "I don't like you," she decided.

"You better not," said Piper. She and Leo walked off.

"Those guys are real b…" Leo's voice faltered at Piper's hard expression. "What's wrong?" he asked.

"Nothing," said Piper. "Just…nothing. I gotta go. The Hermes cabin has rock climbing." Then she left without saying goodbye.

"Nice friend," Leo commented, watching her leave. Then he went off in the opposite direction, toward the archery stands.

Well, for the next hour or so, Leo managed not to kill anyone, but ended up sending a few of his half-siblings to the infirmary as well as an innocent nymph pedestrian. He noticed that a few of his siblings had made arrows of steel that always hit the target, no matter how off their aim was.

Leo should borrow one.

Of course, the centaur was teaching the lesson. He was currently scolding one of the Hephaestus campers for relying only on their metal arrows for guidance.

"What if on a real battlefield you ran out of those arrows, or you weren't able to reach them in the first place?" he was lecturing. "You must learn how to aim!"

"Blah blah blah," said Leo to himself, taking another try at shooting the arrow. He missed wildly, hitting a tree twenty yards away from the target. He was getting blisters on his fingers, and his arm was sore from holding up his bow for so long. (Chiron had insisted that he held the archer stance for seven minutes so he got used to it. He told Leo that all the campers did it, but Leo didn't really care.)

Leo shot another arrow, missed, and cried out in frustration. He felt Chiron place a caring hand on his shoulder from behind.

"Let's try again," he said. "Remember the T stance. Legs apart, sideways to the target, grabbing the string with the tips of two fingers—"

"I know, I know," said Leo, turning back to his stance. "Sheesh."

Chiron just looked at Leo curiously. "May I suggest turning a little to the right?" he asked. Leo grumbled something inaudible and did so. When he let go of the string it hit the target for once.

"An eight," Chiron noticed. "For the first day, I'm impressed. Anything you want to say, my boy?"

"Thank you," said Leo, feeling like a little kid whose mom just gave five dollars to spend on candy, and she was scolding him for not waiting to say thanks before stuffing his mouth with chocolate.

I wonder how Piper is doing, Leo thought as he loaded another arrow.

Piper

Piper was not having a good day.

And what didn't help was the rock-climbing wall.

Nobody had warned her that there would be freaking lava trying to get her. No one!

Piper was miserable. She had burns on her arms and legs, the tips of her hair was scorched, her T-shirt was ripped, and one of her shoes was missing.

Then Travis announced they'd be heading for the sword-fighting arena, and Piper's day got a whole lot worse. She hoped she could sit out and just watch—seeing she didn't have a sword yet—but apparently not.

"So, everyone get into pairs," instructed Travis, "and, uh, whoever wins fights another winner, and the loser has to do fifty push-ups!"

Piper groaned mentally. Fifty push-ups for her it was. She walked up to Travis and told him, "I don't know how to use a sword. I don't even have one."

"Well, then," he said. "For now, go pick one from the shed. If you really like it, you can keep it."

"Really?" asked Piper. "Thank you. I really don't want to have to make my own."

"No one does," Travis said casually and with a shrug.

Piper ran all the way over to the weapon shed, and used the lock combo Travis told her to use. She opened the door, and—

Piper shrieked and fell back to get away from the giant hairy spider stuck to the side of the door. Piper scrambled back, but the spider didn't move. Curious, she stopped. Piper got to her feet and poked the spider with a nearby stick. It was plastic.

Piper groaned. "Dear whichever stupid newbie finds this," Piper read off a note attached to the spider. "This is the price you pay for being too lazy to build your own weapon. Kisses, the Stoll brothers." Piper sighed and picked up the spider, tossing it into the trashcan nearby, which she noticed was full of radioactive monster droppings.

Piper went back to the weapons. She chose a random sword and was about to leave when something else caught her eye.

It was a dagger—eighteen inches, sheathed in a leather scabbard. Piper laid down her sword and grabbed the dagger by the handle, taking it out of its sheath. The blade gleamed and Piper could clearly see her reflection in it. She checked the casing for a name—Katoptris. Piper looked around to see if anyone was watching, and tied the dagger to her belt, pulling her shirt over it so that no one would see it. She closed the shed door once again and headed out for the fighting arena, grabbing the other sword.

Piper didn't know why she had stolen Katoptris. It had just seemed cool. As if…as if in a different time, she was the rightful owner of the dagger.

Travis was waiting for her. "Ready?" he asked with a grin.

"You are Mr. Hilarious," said Piper, referring to his prank back at the shed. She took out her sword and asked, "Uh, how do you hold this thing?"

So for the next hour Piper learned how to hold the sword. By the end of her lesson, she had learned exactly how to stand and not fall while fighting. Travis announced that after lunch was free time for everyone. Piper was practically skipping back to the mess hall.

"Where do you wish to go, Mme. McLean?" Leo asked regally after lunch was finished.

"The lake," said Piper. "I wanna try those canoes."

"Sounds to me that you want a challenge," said Leo.

"Bring it," said Piper, and they raced for the lake where the canoes were tied. Leo climbed into one and Piper another, pushed off with their paddles and went gliding over the water.

"First one to tip the other's boat wins," said Piper.

"You are so dead," said Leo, and pushed Piper's canoe with his paddle. Piper kept balance and did the same to Leo's. Leo reached out and grabbed Piper's boat by the side, pushing it away from his as far as he could. Piper felt the boat tipping, so she did the reasonable thing—whack Leo's arm until he let go.

Well, he did. But that caused Piper's canoe to tip back to the left, toward Leo. She barely had time to screech before the canoe tipped over onto Leo's, she falling on top of him. Her extra momentum pulled Leo's canoe down, dropping them both into the water.

Piper's head bobbed above the water. She could see Leo's a few feet away. They both started laughing, laughing so hard that they eventually had to grab onto the overturned canoes for support if they didn't want to drown themselves.

"Hey!" someone nearby yelled. Piper nearly went under trying to find the source of the voice. It was a water nymph, poking her head out of the water a few yards in front of her.

"Oh," said Piper, treading water. "It's just a nymph."

"Just a nymph?" the nymph shrieked. Her petite features were extorted with fury. "This is my home, you ignorant demigods! You can't just come waltzing in without my permission!"

"Sorry, we didn't know," said Piper.

"I think I've made it pretty clear so far!" yelled the nymph, pointing at a sign next to the canoes saying, Do Not Enter Without Permission.

"Oh," said Piper. "Well, we didn't see it, and we don't really know the rules, seeing that we're newbies, and—"

"They always say that!" yelled the nymph. "Always, always, always! You humans only think about yourselves." She adopted a deeper voice in imitation of a man. "Hey! Let's go tear down a forest that nymphs and animals call home, and dump all our garbage into the lakes, and pollute the air just so we can watch TV for a few hours." Her voice went back to her high shrill. "So selfish! Nymphs and wildlife die because humans only think about themselves!" A second later she was beside Leo and punching him on the arm furiously.

"Well, we're sorry," said Leo, looking unsurely at the nymph pounding on him.

"You better be!" the nymph yelled. She dove back underwater, leaving Piper and Leo alone in the middle of the lake.

"Do you really think she'll let us go that easily?" asked Leo.

Piper shook her head. "Let's get out of here before she comes to her senses and drowns us."

Nymphs can kill. Especially if they're mad at you.

Disclaimer: I do not own.

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