We walked down the hill and got to the central green where a couple of Apollo campers were playing basketball. "Apollo's cabin real good sharpshooters," I explained. "You guys have guns?" Piper asked. "Nah I wish that's one thing I would be good at in archery" I said. We walked past a fire pit where two Ares boys were trying to kill each other. "Real blades? isn't that dangerous?" Piper asked. "Yup, so are the things we need to train to kill" I said. We walked past the Athena cabin. "This is Annabeth's cabin," I said. "Which ones yours?" Piper asked. "My cabin is the Hermes cabin because everyone who's not claimed goes there" I said. "Now about your weapon" I said. "What do you mean?" Piper asked, taken aback. "Well every demigod needs a weapon to defend themselves" I said excitedly. I led her to the side of the Athena cabin and to the weapon shed where a plethora of weapons were located. I unlocked the shed and stepped inside the shed with Piper behind me. "Every demigod needs to be able to defend themselves and the best way to defend yourself is with a weapon!" I said excitedly. "You seem awfully excited about this," Piper observed. "Well this is my favorite part of the tour" I said smiling. I grabbed a massive sword and handed it to Piper but she could barely hold the sword and we both agreed that it wasn't a good fit for her. I rummaged further into the shed and procured a shotgun. "A shotgun?" Piper asked. "Indeed,it's designed to kill monsters and not humans so don't worry" I said. I pumped the shotgun for the effect but I don't think guns were her style because she literally said that it wasn't her style. "Okay no problem it's a pain to make ammo for these things anyway" I said. I was looking at a bunch of crossbows when Piper asked "what is that? a knife?". I went over to her and picked up the knife and blew the dust off,it looked ancient. "Hmm I don't know about this one, I find swords are better,more reach you know?" I said. "Why? What's your weapon?" Piper asked. I grinned and pulled out a glove in my pocket and then I put it on. It immediately morphed into a sword. "Wow, a little warning next time!" Piper said as my sword had almost given her chin a shave. "Gee sorry" I said, my grin now gone. Piper looked at my sword and asked"is that a machete?". "Yeah, I made it myself at blackAugusteing," I said proudly. "You made that?" Piper asked, appearing impressed. "Yeah my dads Haitian," I said. "Well anyway take a look at the dagger" I said handing it to her. She took it and it fit her like a glove. "It works for you,that kind of blade is called a parazonium. It was used mostly by rich dudes in the Greek to be more ceremonial you know? But it cuts just fine" I said. I like it," I said. "Why didn't you think it was right?". I stopped smiling and said "the last person to own this dagger was Helen of Troy". "And it's just sitting in your tool shed?" Piper asked, looking nervous. I shrugged and said "weapon's like these are meant to be used. You know it's part of our heritage,that dagger is named something like um oh yeah Katoptris". "Meaning?" Piper asked. "Mirror, that's probably the only thing Helen ever used it for," I said. Piper seemed to be closely inspecting the blade when all of a sudden she turned very pale and started shaking. She then dropped the blade and looked like she was about to throw up. I turned to the Apollo kids at the green and yelled "we need a medic right now!!". "No…no I'm okay" Piper said. "Are you sure you looked like you were having a seizure or something" I said. "Yeah I'm sure, I just got overwhelmed by so much happening today,but I want to keep the dagger if that's okay" she said. "Okay then" I said waving away the Apollo kids. "Is there a phone at camp can I call my dad?" Piper asked. "Oh um we're not allowed phones here it's like a flare for monsters for most demigods…but I got one" I said smiling handing it over to her. She took it gratefully and turned to face the commons area. She appeared to be deep in conservation and also appeared to be quite mad about something. After her conversation was over she walked back over to me and handed me my phone. "How'd it go?" I asked. "It didn't go through," Piper said. I didn't exactly believe her but it wasn't my business so I went past it. "Well anyway, wanna continue with the tour?" I asked. Piper fastened her new dagger to her belt and said "yeah I want to see everything". I grinned and took her on a tour of the cabins and she seemed interested in them as I gave her a quick rundown of the cabins and their gods. We were onto the Artemis cabin and I was about to tell her that when Piper said "Artemis?". "Bingo! how'd you know that?" I asked. "Oh my dad did work on Greek mythology for a project" she replied. "Oh cool" I said knowing she wouldn't want me to talk about her actor dad. "Yeah Artemis is the goddess of the moon and the hunt but no kids because she's also a maiden goddess" I said. "Oh" Piper said looking disappointed. "Wait there are the hunters of Artemis,they visit sometimes,they're a bunch of teenage girls mostly who go around hunting monsters oh and their immortal" I informed her. "That's cool! They get to be immortal?" Piper asked, looking excited. "Yeah as long as they don't break their vows or die in combat,oh also no dating or anything like that ever" I said chuckling. "Oh never mind then" Piper said. "Hahahaha" I laughed. We kept walking and came past the Aphrodite cabin when Piper said "Gah, is that where supermodels go to die?". "Haha nah it's the Aphrodite cabin goddess of love…and Drew's the head counselor" I said with a grimace. "Figures," Piper said. "Well they're not all bad, the head counselor I've heard was a hero" I said. "What happened to her?" Piper asked. I stopped grinning and said sadly "let's move on". I showed her the other cabins like Demeter and Hecate but she seemed to have lost her interest and seemed quite down. "They started with the twelve olympic gods and then last summer they added a bunch of others like nemesis Hecate and iris' ' I said. "What are the two big ones at the end?" Piper asked. I turned over to where she was pointing and saw the Zeus and Hera cabins. "Zeus and Hera," I said. Piper started walking towards the cabins and I followed behind her. We got to the cabins and she started looking at the cabins closely. "Are they empty?" Piper asked. "Yeah Zeus and his brothers Hades and Poseidon took an oath to not have anymore demigod children" I said. "Why?" Piper asked. "The children of the big three are really powerful and can be dangerous," I replied. "But they aren't the best oath keepers because Zeus had a daughter who was friends with Annabeth but she joined the hunters of Artemis and Poseidon had a son named Percy" I said. "Annabeth's boyfriend?" Piper guessed. "Yep the very same" I said. "And Hera?" Piper asked. "She's the goddess of marriage so no cheating" I said. "So who goes in there?" Piper asked. "No one really, it's purely ceremonial," I said. "Someone's been in there," Piper said, pointing to a recent footprint in the doorway of the Hera cabin. She opened the doors to the cabin. "Hmm that's odd we shouldn't be doing this but hey someone else did it" I said chuckling. "That's right we should see who's here" Piper said. We came inside and saw something that looked less like a cabin and more like a tomb. There was a massive statue of Hera and the room felt cold and lifeless. Well except for the person in the black shawl chanting behind the statue. I stepped closer to the figure and then recognized her. "Rachel?" I asked the woman. Rachel turned to look at the speaker and when she saw me she smiled and waved at me. "Hey Louis , what're you doing here?" Rachel asked. "I could ask the same of you" I said back at her. "I'm sorry, who's this?" Piper interjected. I turned to her and replied "this is Rachel our oracle". "Oracle?" Piper looked perplexed. "She gets information about the future every once in a while" I informed her. "Oh." Piper shifted from foot to foot. "That's cool." Rachel laughed. "Don't worry. Everybody finds it a little creepy. Even me. But usually I'm harmless." "You're a demigod?" Piper asked. "Nope," Rachel said. "Just mortal." "Then what are you . . ." Piper waved her hand around the room. Rachel's smile faded, she glanced at me then at Piper and then said "Just a hunch. Something about this cabin and Percy's disappearance. They're
connected somehow. I've learned to follow my hunches, especially the last month, since the gods went silent." "Went silent?" Piper asked. Rachel frowned at me. "You haven't told her yet?" "Hey I'm not exactly an expert on it" I said. I turned to Piper "well for the last month the gods have been completely silent no nothing" I said to Piper. "The only thing they're doing is claiming and that's really weird because we can usually count on them doing something but we're getting nothing" I said. "And then Percy disappeared," I said. "And Jason showed up on our field trip," Piper supplied. "With no memory." "Who's Jason?" Rachel asked. "My " Piper stopped herself before she could say "boyfriend," but the effort made her chest hurt. "My friend. "Yeah and the reason Annabeth and Butch showed up was because Hera sent Annabeth a dream vision saying that they'll find out what happened to Percy if they go to the Grand Canyon skywalk and find a guy with one shoe" I added. Both Rachel and Piper looked at me looking puzzled. "Hey Annabeth told me," I said chuckling. Rachel nodded and said "Something bad is happening". "Guys," Piper said. "I — I need to" I turned to Piper to see what she wanted to say and that's when Rachel's body stiffened. Her eyes began to glow with a greenish light, and she grabbed Piper by the shoulders. Piper tried to back away but Rachel's grip must've been really tight because she couldn't move a bit. I tried to separate them but it was no use. Then Rachel opened her mouth but it was not Rachel's voice that came out saying "Our enemies stir. The fiery one is only the first. Bowto
his will, and their king shall rise, dooming us all. FREE ME!"
The next thing I knew Piper was on the ground. Rachel came out of the trance and looked shocked and confused. "Wha what happened?" She asked. I was kinda panicking but I managed to tell her what happened. "Oh my god" she said and she started to cry. "Come on, we need to get her to Chiron!" I yelled.
