A/N: Last minuet and shorter than I would have liked.

Game Changer/AU Challenge - option B

Roman-Greco Roman comp. at PJFC

-(Dialouge) "I hope you end up in Tartarus"

-(Emotion) Triumph

Capture the Flag comp. - Clarisse x Chris - Birthday

Climbing to Nowhere

-Clarisse-

Spinning out of control, it's your birthday. You've forgotten again; there's no one to remind you. Mom was suppose to but she can't now.

She died a week ago, but you were on stupid gaurd duty.

Guarding a damn stupid camp.

What kind of daughter are you?

A bad one.

A disappointment.

A failure.

Jackson's preaching again. He always does- Let's fight for the good that the god's have done! - he'd say. Every time, Jackson narrowly misses a sock to the face because you can keep control. You want to so bad but you won't.

Maybe it's because you're not brave enough. Maybe it's because he's the poster child of powerful and still scares you a bit from the toilet incident. Maybe it's because he reminds you of who you were.

One day, you promise, you're going to punch him (hard) with no regrets. You're not going to worry about what's going to happen afterwards. You're just gonna do it. So be it, cometh the revenge and retaliation but you'll still have won.

You'd defeated the monster that was seemingly untouchable.

He's ignorant but you're not. If the god's were really so good they wouldn't have killed your mother. They would have cared for their children. They would have been better.

Now the choice is up to you. Taking a walk, Chris -he trys, okay- attempts to convince you to send Ares' support.

Selfish you know, but you don't want to. Somewhere, you want the gods to fall And you want to have played a part in it.

Then stupid Silena of stupid Aphrodite had to be nobel. That stupid, stupid girl had to have been your stupid friend. Then she stupid had to die.

She just had to be a maytr.

And you just had to avenge her.

Fire consumed you, red edged your vision as you fought. Slashing and climbing the drakon's scales you punctured through his armor. You did the impossible and it wasn't enough. Killing a stupid beast didn't bring your friend back nor did it make anything 'better'.

Though despite it, you kept going. You kept fighting even when you didn't want to. You wanted the gods on their knees but you wanted your friends safety.

No more Silenas. No more Moms. No more dying comrades.

All the gods had to show for Silena's death later was a pat on the back. Your dad - who apparently 'missed' your mom - complemented you. So different from his past apathy, you welcomed it. Just like that you were drawn back to poison that was the gods.

For a moment you thought everything was going to be good but you were wrong.

After the war there'd be times where you'd wake up in a cold sweat. It was that birthday that you always woke from.

The drakon turning it's head as you went to deliver the final blow. You'd thrust forth with the same velocity and anger as you had before but this time you stopped short. Your spear never made it to the target because it was too slow. Or even if you did it was too weak.

The spear would brake off like Jackson broke your first electric spear and the Drakon would laugh and laugh and laugh. Chiron's voice would come out from the mouth of jagger teeth telling you what he always said.

He said he had to re-schedule your private lesson again and to try harder next time. The thing that scared you the most wasn't the ridicule or even the dispassion, it was how you had tried your vary hardest and it wasn't enough.

The euphoria was there, the passion and the strength, but it wasn't enough. Then you'd wake up before the drakon's flames hit you. You woke up before you did because perhaps your brain knew too that dying wasn't a fear. It was being inadequate or ambiguity that horrified you.

Whenever the nightmares visited you would pick up your custom 'H'phone and call up Chris. You didn't care if he was sleeping because he was most likely having a nightmare too.

You talked about life and school - anything besides the nightly horrors. Your too proud to admit you even had them, but Chris wasn't. He'd tell you his latest and you would listen. It was all okay even though you never spoke because he understood.

He dreamt of some old friend, Mary he called her. Past flame or lover - you didn't mind. Every dream shared was a little piece of him that he was giving to you. You received them with silence and if anyone asked you in ten years, you could easily recite them all from memory.

It was true demigods got visions of the past and future. They had prophetic dreams all the time of thing they couldn't comprehend but they also were half human.

Demigods got nightmares too. Those nightmares haunted you both night and day but they meant nothing as a puzzle piece to some greater good. They were just fragments of your life. Regular things that were so human and so dangerous.

Dreams that even started spilling into your daily ongoings. You stabbed your half brother to the cusp of death thinking he was a Cyclopes.

It felt good - better then killing the Drakon - and you hated it.

Chiron thought it best to isolate you with your own custom room in the Big House. You still called Chris and he still told you stories though no outside visual or physical contact was allowed.

All you had in that tiny little room was a phone - no cord though - a bed, and a window. You watched as more and more people moved into the Big House. The private rooms started filling up and you heard screaming every night.

You didn't scream though. You were stronger if only just.

Eventually there were more people inside the Big House walls than out. Chris never crossed the Big House threshold but in a perverse sense you wished he would.