Mana
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As anyone can probably guess, I've seen some seriously weird things in my life. Like, really weird things. I've seen, men making out with girls that have horns, sea monsters snatch pegasi right out of the sky and once even a Cyclops get stuck in a pink shirt. So when I say that something took me by surprise, something must have been seriously wrong.

But I can honestly say that until that fateful July day, I had never before seen two girls fly ungracefully into the camp borders on a flaming bull.

When I say fly, I mean flying head over heels, screaming their heads off and flailing their arms and legs. That kind of fly.

I was just casually chatting with Aisha. That day I was wearing a black tee-shirt that said "run, zombies are coming" and a pair of black jeans with my combat boots. My celestial bronze sword was strapped to my waist. Aisha was telling me about how stupid hot dogs were because they weren't made of actual dog, when we heard two screams coming from the sky. All the campers ran over to see who it was.

They would have squished me flat had Aisha not yelled at me to move. When you're a demigod, you learn to just listen to the warnings and act right away before asking questions. So I dove to the side as a flaming bull with two girls on its back flew by me.

The bull's landing was terrible. I could immediately tell that it was dead. But the girls….

After a few horrible seconds of everyone crowding around the bull, hoping that the girls were alright, a head popped up from underneath the bull.

"Whew." She looked right at me. "Word of advice? Don't ever tick off a child of Hecate. It will not end well for you."

The second girl let out a moan as she sat up. She glared at the first girl. "As soon as I'm sure I haven't broken any bones, I'm going to kill you."

She too looked at me. "Here's another word of advice; don't ever travel with a child of Poseidon. They only ever bring bad luck. Plus if their name is Glynn, they are an absolute menace."

"Alright," I butted in. "I'm so fortunate that you two are both philosophers and are able to tell me the great secrets and tools of life. But how about we cut through all that crap before I fall asleep. So who are you? And what the heck happened?"

The second girl let out an annoyed sigh. "I'm JJ. This weirdo beside me is Glynn. Glynn here is the daughter of Poseidon. I'm the daughter of Aphrodite, but if you call me prissy or anything, I will kill you. We, meaning her, managed to make a child of Hecate very angry with us and we suddenly were getting chased by a bull."

"Yeah, and then big mouth over here decided to taunt them, so those bulls were enchanted to became flying bulls," Glynn added.

"And then as we were getting shot into the air by the bulls, Zeus got mad that Glynn was in his territory, so he blasted the bull we were hanging onto so hard, it caught fire and shot across the sky with us still hanging to it. Hence why we are here in the first place."

Silence. For a long time. But really, how exactly is one supposed to react to a story like that?

Finally, Glynn got annoyed with the silent. "Ok people, you're all demigods, right? This is Camp Half-Blood, is it not? So do something to get this bull off of us!"

Most people still just stared, but the twins, Mattias and I snapped out of our trances. It took a lot of muscle (probably why they couldn't lift it off themselves. Neither of them looked very strong, though JJ certainly didn't look weak either) but with the four of us, we managed to roll the bull off of them. They both shakily stood up.

"We need to speak to Chiron, the camp director," Glynn announced.

I stepped forward, mostly because everyone else had stepped back. "Sorry, he's gone right now. Something to do with the party ponies causing problems at Camp Jupiter? Anyway, he won't be back for about a week."

JJ stared at me. "You're kidding! This is urgent!"

Devin spoke up. "The party ponies causing mayhem in Camp Jupiter is urgent. You can wait."

"But this could be life and death!"

"So could rampaging party ponies," Mattias pointed out. He would know. We both would. We'd dealt with the crazy centaur group called the party ponies before, on the quest we had done a few years ago. Everyone else nodded, not from experience, but from common sense.

Looks like talking would be up to me, seeing as how we had easily drifted from life and death situation to party ponies. "Alright, alright, they get it. Don't get in the way of a drunk party pony." I pointed at them. "You two, follow me. We can discuss what happened in the Big House. Everyone else, back to your activities. I'll call for a meeting if need be."

And just like that, the place cleared out. One of the perks of being able to make the undead obey your will is that it makes the living obey pretty well too.

Devin, Lexis, Mattias and Aisha stayed behind. I probably could have gotten them to leave too, but I didn't bother trying. It was nice to have a little support anyways. I beckoned the two new girls to follow me and lead everyone to the Big House.

When we arrived, I turned to Mattias. "Go to the caves and find Rachel. Tell her what happened and get her over here."

"You really think this problem requires an oracle?"

"Yes."

Naturally, he looked like he was going to protest, but I gave him my best death glare (which believe me, no one can do a death glare like a child of Hades) and he surrendered.

"Come inside. You can tell me of this life-and-death problem of yours."

We all walked in and made ourselves comfortable, even the new girls. They looked at the other three girls, almost a bit afraid, but I ignored that and gestured for them to begin.

Glynn got right to the point. "We're being hunted. At least, one of us is."

JJ smacked Glynn in the head. "Don't tell them that! We have to wait until we speak to Chiron!" She looked at us suspiciously.

I didn't have time for that. "Look, you have trust issues. You're half-bloods. I get it. But Chiron isn't here right now and as I've been here longer than just about any camper, so while he's gone, I'm in charge. So tell me what is going on."

"Don't you have a god here? Dionysius or something?" Glynn asked.

Lex laughed. "Dude, get with the times. Dionysius was allowed back in Olympus about twenty years ago. No gods here."

"Trust a bunch of random half-bloods. Who are those three?" JJ asked me.

"Friends of mine. That's Devin and Lexis, children of Ares. Aisha is a child of Zeus. We're all half-bloods here. You can trust everyone at camp." I thought for a second. "Well, you can trust everyone with something like your life here. Not with your money."

"Speaking of which, Mana, you owe me five bucks," Aisha added.

"Back to the point!" I cut her off. "Tell us why you're hunted."

JJ sighed and gestured for Glynn to continue. "We have been friends for a few years. Met through school and stuff. Anyway, a few months ago, JJ's soul mate informed us that we were half-bloods and that he was actually half goat. That kind of put a snare in their relationship."

"Glynn!" JJ yelled.

With a smirk, Glynn continued, "Anyway, after they got over their love issues, he told us that he would take us to a place that is safe for us."

"Camp Half-Blood," Lexis said.

She nodded. "But then while we were on the road, we got claimed, and we found out that I was a child of one of the Big Three."

"Monsters galore," I said, understanding where she was coming from.

"Yeah, so that meant major attacks from every monster within a five mile radius. But the monsters weren't our biggest problem," JJ added.

"Some crazy psycho was sending certain creatures to come grab us. We aren't sure what and we don't know who. But that guy seriously wanted one of us badly."

"We were totally surrounded and my boyfriend Liam…" JJ had to stop to take a breath. I nodded. She didn't really need to explain. But she did anyway. "He told us to run and said he would hold them off. Gods, I didn't want to leave, but we had no choice."

"We haven't heard from him since. We were trying to find him for weeks, but that's when we ran into a son of Hecate. We didn't get along very well."

"Understatement. But you guys know the rest," JJ finished.

I rubbed my temples. "I'm sorry, really. That's rough. But I don't see how that's a big life or death situation. You're at camp so whatever was hunting you can't reach you here."

"No, you don't understand. It wasn't a monster that was hunting us. It was a demigod," JJ said.

That made all of us freeze. "What?" Devin asked. She looked at JJ like she had grown a third eye.

"Some demigod was sending monsters after us. Can you believe it? One of the monsters said that he needed 'three', whatever that means," Glynn explained.

"Three demigods?" Aisha guessed.

"How did you get a monster to talk?" I asked.

JJ shrugged. "I can be very persuasive. Liam called it charm speak or something."

"You can charm speak?" Aisha asked.

"That's what she just said," I snapped testily. She shrunk away. I stood up. "Alright, so let me get this straight; some crazy demigod is working with monsters and is trying to abduct one or both of you and may be trying to abduct other demigods. But maybe not." I shook my head. "Gods, why does everything have to be so complicated?"

"Are you a child of Zeus? Or Athena?" Glynn asked. I looked at her weird.

"Um, that's a bit random. No and no. Why?"

"Just the others seem to listen to you, and a child of Zeus or Athena would probably be the one to take charge."

I snorted. "Listen to me? The only reason they haven't interrupted or done something annoying is because your story is odd even by demigod standards. Just wait until they come out of their shock."

"Ok, then who are you?" JJ asked.

"Mana. Lex, you take JJ to the Aphrodite cabin. Don't give me that look. I didn't say you had to stay. Aisha, you take Glynn to the Poseidon cabin."

"What about me?" Devin asked.

"Like I'd trust you with the newbies. We want them to survive at least one week here. Join your cabin I guess. I need to stay here and talk to Rachel."

Glynn interrupted. "What about your parent? Who's your mom or dad?"

I glared. "Both my parents are in the Underworld," I replied coldly. It took JJ a moment to process. I could tell because after a few seconds, her eyes grew wide. Glynn didn't get it at all. I could tell because she announced, "What? That doesn't make sense. Your godly parents can't die…"

"She's a child of Hades, idiot," Devin said, rolling her eyes.

"Oooooooh," she said. She laughed a bit. "I get it. Wait…what?" Once she had gotten over her pride about understanding what I meant after she was told twice, she gave me an odd look. "Ouch."

Well. Not the usual reaction but I'll take that over the fear I usually get. Besides, I know now that usually Glynn's too oblivious to be afraid of things that everyone else is.

Lexis clapped her hands loudly. "Ok! Let's go get you two settled in, shall we?"

I watched the four leave with Devin. When they had gone, she looked at me. "What are you thinking?" she asked.

"I'm thinking that Chiron can't get back soon enough," I grumbled.