“East” James states, and I look at him confusedly.
He rolls his eyes at my puzzled look.
“We need to head east, I’ve worked it out, did what little I could of reading, and there are islands off that way, people have been saying they’ve sighted strange things, and I asked a few dryads who had been travelling recently, and they said they had heard rumors of some weird lion, that’s got to be it”
“Okay.. so we have to sail? Fine by me” I shrug, at least I’ll have some sense of what I’m doing on a boat, and based on the weird messages we’ve been receiving from people recently, travelling by land would be the worst option possible.
I’ve packed what little bags I have already, and after James ran off, to organize a boat, I went and found one of the books tightly packed onto the single shelf.
There had been a few when I arrived, boating, sea creatures, water sciences, you name any book that was ocean or water related, and it was there, even one book about water-swamp creatures.
I fished out a book on boating, and quickly flicked through it, sitting down on my bed as I did so.
I quickly found a page on ‘Basic Operation of Water Vehicles’ and skimmed down, easily taking in the information on how to start it up, basic controls, all that jazz.
After 20 minutes of reading, I finished the section and decided, as a descendant of Poseidon, I could work out everything else if I really needed too.
I headed over to the Hermes cabin, but before I could even knock on the door, the Stoll brothers ran out, and I had to jump aside to avoid being knocked over.
Connor was holding a baseball bat, a manic grin on his face, and Travis was holding an empty bucket, I had no idea what they were up to, but I hope it wouldn’t affect me.
I peeked inside the door to see the room in… more ruins than usual.
The room was quite full, and the kids who lived there weren’t necessarily tidy, but it appeared that the Stoll brothers had knocked out half the cabin with a baseball bat, and then put some sort of weird goo all throughout the room.
I rolled my eyes as James walked over to me from the back of the room. As a guest, he got the worst bunk, right at the back… which smelt slightly musty.
“I know” he sighed, and I could tell he really hated being the honorary guest.
He had never asked Chiron or Dionysus once about either of his parents since I had arrived, and had never asked according to anyone I met who knew him.
The only thing he knew was that one of his parents was a god or goddess, and he or she hadn’t claimed him.
“So, do we have a ride? Because I’m actually looking forward to going to sea” I said, bumping him in the shoulder.
“Yeah, Chiron said he’s organizing with an old friend for a nice boat for us… something about it being fast, limited model, and then some numbers” He said, shrugging.
“You really are a bright spark, aren’t you?” I waggled my eyebrows and he shoved me to the side, I shoved him harder.
After a quick shoving scuffle, we decided on a truce, and headed up to the forest, where Bex was practicing lighting Declan’s arrows on fire, and then putting them out.
Once we arrived there, we watched for a few minutes, but when Bex accidentally made Declan’s arrow explode, we all decided we should head off to the dining hall.
“So, we’re heading East, via boat, to some island called?” Declan asked, stating what he knew.
“Wait… it some really weird name… Abifanos? I think that was it”
“Doesn’t that mean fishy in Greek?” Bex asks.
“Uhh… yeah, it seemed really creepy from what I heard, not surprised that’s what the name means”
I roll my eyes and we walk into the dining hall, splitting off to our tables.
I sat at my table, and after sacrificing a bit of everything on my plate, I quickly ate my lasagna and salad.
Tonight we had another game of capture the flag, my second game, and I was crazy excited.
I was going to be Apollo, Ares, Athena, Aphrodite and Hermes versus the rest of the camp.
All the kids of the minor gods and goddesses, Dionysus’ cabin, Hephaestus’ cabin and me were versing them.
It was going to be interesting, everybody knew it, and despite the fact I wasn’t with James, I was happy because me and Bex we’re going to smash them all… if we could.
For some weird reason the Hephaestus cabin especially was left out of the ‘inner crowd’. I knew how they felt, I was left out full-stop. I was the weird daughter of Poseidon who was actually a long-time descendant with especially weird powers and special freaky glasses that had hidden what I actually looked like for years, but I just didn’t understand why Hephaestus were left out… though I did get Dionysus’ cabin being left out.. there’s only two of them, and their dad kinda is the head of camp.
But as I thought about the weird politics, I realized it was all family politics. In some form or way, we were actually all related, and we were all basically second or third cousins, one of our parents being and uncle or aunt, and then another even creepier thing, of how we dated each other, not in the same cabins, but as second or third cousins, people dated each other, and then the creepiest thought of them all… how I was actually like a niece to all the other kids at camp… only removed a million times.
I had a mental shudder before getting up and trying to discard the thought of how we were all actually related.
I got up from my table and headed back down to my cabin to grab my blue armor and weapons.
I had been working a lot on my water manipulation skills… which makes them sound about as awesome as they are. Scale of one to ten? Thirteen at least, I was almost constantly in awe of myself, and the way I did it would always remind me of ‘water benders’ on the T.V. show ‘Avatar’ which I used to be in love with.
I had also improved with my sword skills, but still don’t know what I should call my sword or my bow, and I’m even better with my bow, despite the fact it makes everybody see me as even weirder than they would normally think.
I’m also wearing my wicked ‘grappling hook’ bracelet, which I had played around with a bit, and discovered that it was basically powered by will.
I had been highly frustrated with it, pushing in each separate gem, trying voice command and everything, and the small hook and wire had popped open through a medium-sized gem, hooked me onto the nearest tree and sent my flying up onto the branch, stuck until I work out how to get back down, but I could at least use it decently now, and I felt quite confident we could win tonight.
After arriving at the outskirts of the forest, the Aphrodite kids clad in what they call ‘the fashionable kind of armor’, with their charmspeech ready to devastate and a few weapons scattered among them, which just kind of made them look ridiculous. The Ares cabin all seemed to be bristling at the mouth, Clarisse barking orders and kids from the Hermes and Apollo cabin, nodding and running off to get things, and then the Athena cabin, poring over maps and diagrams, their deputy-counselor also sending off kids from Apollo and Hermes, giving her own orders.
Our side was… actually decent.
While the other side was rushing around, frantic look son their faces, the kids from Tyche’s cabin (goddess of fortune) had taken charge, and I guess we knew that we should trust them, considering they had the best luck in the world.
The Hephaestus kids were handing out some of their own special gadgets, things that looked like your average items, but when one kid clicked on the light for the torch-like item a Hephaestus girl had given him, he nearly singed of the eyebrows of the seven or eight people in front of him, as it spurted out a massive wave of flames.
Luckily one girl had just gotten a massive shield, and all the kids jumped behind it and luckily weren’t burnt to smithereens.
After everyone on our team, except for a few kids, had been give their own special gadgets, we all gathered in a circle, and one girl came up to me and handed me ten or so arrows.
“You’re one of the only archers we have, but we want you down at the stream, these will basically make anybody within twenty meters, on the red team, fall asleep for about half an hour, they don’t damage, just shoot them into trees, bushed, the ground, they’ll work fine” She walked back over to the other side of the circle and we all stood to attention.
“Okay people, most of you already know what you’re doing, but what we need is the Hypnos cabin to stay here with the Iris cabin. Iris cabin, you’re going to distract them if they come, do anything you need to, manipulate the light, make them see weird stuff, Hypnos’ cabin, you’re our final stand, we’re going to give you an elixir that should keep you awake for about an hour, and you’ll all have extra in the unlikely case this takes more than that amount of time, you will be weaving your magic, make them drop to the floor, literally” A girl from Tyche’s cabin announced… Asini I think’s her name.
She continued on, giving a decently detailed outline of what each cabin had to do and how Hephaestus kids would be scattered, setting up traps and stuff.
I glanced over to the other side… which was still in chaos, people running everywhere, half of the cabins not even in armor yet, a weird pile of ropes and stuff sitting in a pile in the center of the large clump of kids… but despite how disorganized they looked now, Clarisse and Miss Deputy-Athena-Councilor looked pretty happy with the group, and were whispering to each-other in furious tones, glancing over at us every few seconds.
“… And then Astrid’s going to be stationed by the creek, she’ll be doing ‘assassinations’ and knocking lead players out of the game with Bex, and then lastly we’ll have Harmonia’s and Nike’s cabin at the front, leading the distraction attack” Asini finished, and we all nodded.
Despite the fact I hadn’t been listening in for some of it, it sounded like a good plan, well organized, thought out, and I like it could actually work.
We even had a stealth team… despite how sill that sounded, but our main priority was to knock out the lead players and for the stealth team … which mainly consisted of Hecate’s and Tyche’s cabins, to jump in when they could and snatch the flag.
It’s going to be good, we all know it, but it’s also going to be a long night. “Come on Bex, we need to hurry up so we can get to a good camping spot” I say, dragging her through the woods to the central river.
She had been trying for the last few minutes to click her fingers so that we could run extra fast.
She sighed in frustration and snapped her fingers again, which sent us flying into the air.
“What the heck?” She said, staring at us as we floated in the air.
“How did you do that?” I ask her, staring at her in shock.
“I… I don’t even know!” She said.
After a moment or two we dropped back to the ground, our stuff flying all over the place, Bex’s hair looking like a dangerous bird nest.
We quickly gathered back out stuff and headed on, still very, very confused.
“It’s almost like the gravity in that one area was suspended, though we could still breathe, but really, My arrows all came out of their holder, you did see that, didn’t you?” I ask.
Bex nods, biting her lip, and I can tell immediately that she’s worried something weird might happen again, so we tread through the forest in silence, passing a few dryads who are milling around before the big battle. Bex goes to hide in some bushes, possibly try and disguise herself in some way, while I use my grappling hook to get up into one of the trees next to the river.
As I get into a good position after using the grappling hook, I hear yells and shouts as the red team tramples over to the other side of the forest.
One of the Hermes kids has a pair of the flying shoes Hermes is so famous for, and another of his kids is, literally, running circles around the whole group, a blur as they run at unnatural speeds.
The Aphrodite kids look ridiculous in their weird ‘fashionable’ armor, a few weapons scattered between them, and then the Apollo kids holding their boys and talking in hushed tones towards the back of the group while Athena and Ares’ cabins lead the stampede, shouting and yelling at each other, but making a fast pace for the other end of the forest.
“Astrid!” I hear Bex say to me.
I look down to the small ditch she said she was hiding in… but she isn’t there.
“Where are you?” I ask her.
“I’m in the ditch Astrid, are you blind?” She jokingly says, but I look back at the ditch and still can’t see anything.
“Could you move around or something, I still can’t see you” I say, squinting at her hiding place.
The leaves in the ditch move around, and I realize something with more than a shock.
“Bex, you’re invisible!” I half yell.
“What?” She says, and the leaves in the ditch move some more.
“What did you do?” I say, worried she’s made herself permanently invisible now.
“I don’t even know, I was just thinking about how I didn’t want anyone else to be able to see me, I didn’t even snap my fingers… wait a second, I think I’ve finally worked it out… maybe I’m using the mist! You know how some kids can use it really easily?”
“Yeah… so maybe it has to do with kids of Hecate…”
“And our real power is using the mist to our ability!”
“That’s got to be it!” I say excitedly.
“So, wait, give me a second, I’ll try and make myself visible”
Bex flickers back into my vision and I grin at her, we hear the horn from the red team signaling they’re ready, and then the blue one, and she flickers back into invisibility, having probably worked it out decently now, and then the final horn that signals the start of the game”
I shift to a better arrow-shooting spot, facing the red side of the river now, and I not an arrow, holding another two in my mouth.
“Get ready” I half whisper to Bex, who’s location I now have no idea.
“Ready” she says from somewhere off to my left, and then I see a flash of red about 500 meters over the other side of the river, in the bushes somewhere.
A few more flashes, and then I saw five of them.
I had no idea what cabins they were in, except for one girl holding a bow at her side who was obviously an Apollo kid.
I strung back my arrow and let I looks as the crept through a small clearing.
It landed by their feet and they all looked around confused… until they all dropped to the ground on each other, one of the boys snoring lightly.
“Good one Astrid” Bex praises quietly.
“To the left” I whisper down to her, and I hear the crunch of leaves as she runs off to find the people I saw running past.
I hear a few shouts of shock as Bex probably knocks them out with the flat of her sword, and then the rustling of leaves and bush as she makes her way back.
“There were two, trying to sneak by us” Bex says, sounding like she’s standing by the bottom of the tree now.
“I think that what happens is I change the perception of what other people see, so I snapped my fingers and they knew something would happen if it was me, so I made them see a ring of fire and then knocked them out” I can hear the grin in her voice as she says this.
“Bex, can I just say that in the past few minutes you’ve gone from pretty cool to totally awesome” I say, grinning down at where I assume she’s standing.
“Are you saying I wasn’t totally awesome beforehand? My golly Astrid, you have an awful judge of character” I roll my eyes at her, before looking back up ahead to see most of Nike’s cabin ‘stealthily’ making their way through the forest.
A few kids of Ares try and ambush them, but they quickly use their own little devices to knock them out and put them to sleep, thank the gods we had the Hephaestus cabin.
Nothing interesting happens, except for a lone daughter of Hermes who stumbles into the river that Bex takes care of… until we get ambushed.
I hear the crack of a branch, and look up quickly, but I already see the arrow flying my way, a net expanding from its tip.
I try and jump out of the tree and into the water, but it latches onto my leg, and then I’m pinned up-side-down to the trunk of the tree I was just sitting in.
Bex has become visible, as she is covered in a thin sheen of blue powder, and she’s pinned to the ground underneath a kid of Ares and Hermes, while a son of Athena stands, sword at the ready, beneath me as I the blood rushes to my head.
I try to sit up, but I feel dizzy and can tell I’m probably on the verge of passing out anyway… which is when I groggily realize that not only did they leave me with my hands free, but also with my sword and my bow… though my arrows are all lying on the leaf-strewn ground.
I pushed in the small button on my sword-holder and pulled it out, this was going to be interesting. I sliced one of the ropes, barely, and dropped down a few centimeters, the boy standing below me still watching Bex wrestle with the other two, the girl who had shot the arrow-net at me, standing next to him with her bow notched.
I cut the another rope, one more, and got ready to use my grappling hook, or fall head-first onto the two people below me.
I sliced it, and using all of my will, latched onto the nearest tree, spinning in mid-air, the bracelet pulling me through the air in near-silence.
“What the Hades?!” The boy yelled, pointing at me, the daughter of Apollo looked over at me and aimed for me, and I knew I had to get out of the way or I was toast, hopefully not literally though.
Time almost seemed to slow down as I swung past the tree I had been flying towards, and the line for the hook retracted back into the bracelet as I continued to fly towards the creek. I willed the water to rise up and catch me, but trying to also stay dry.
The arrow the girl shot fly’s just over my head, and I notice that it looks just like the arrows I had used to knock those other people out, she probably grabbed them off the ground.
I flew into the massive spout of water I had willed out of the creek and splashed into it.
It collapsed around me and I landed in a heap on the ground.
I got up and jumped into a bush near me, and the boy and girl came running towards the river, only to stop as I ducked completely behind the bush.
“Where the heck did you she go?” The boy says in frustration. He steps into the creek which is just above his knee, and I smile; Big Mistake.
I will the water to collect around his feet before it rushes up to him, which sends him flying through several bushes before I hear the thump of him landing and a groan.
The other girl has her bow notched, but she doesn’t quite know where I am.
She’s still a few steps away from the water, but I will it to collect near the bank before it explodes in her face and I jump out of the bushes and over to her side of the creek, uses the water to boos me across before crashing into her and quickly knocking her out with the flat of my blade.
I sigh inwardly, thankful that the battle is over for me, when I hear Bex screaming in frustration, I hope, and I run over to where I hear shouts.
“Ha, I thought this would be harder, glad I brought the blue powder” The Hermes boy smirks as he stands over her, she has her hands and legs bound, and is struggling as the Ares girl tries to put a strip of cloth in her mouth.
She makes a noise and by the look of it she’s about to bite the girls arm.
“Hey buster!” I yell, and the two jump up, the girl near-snarling at me as I stand there, water still dripping lightly on my face, my sword in hand as I smile devilishly at the two, winking at Bex slyly.
“I’m pretty sure you two couldn’t take me on, even if I wasn’t near the creek”
I nod in the general direction and I can see the rage building in the girl while the boy scowls at me.
He flicks his sword in her direction and after a second they both leap at me.
I duck under them both, and they clash together while I quickly cut Bex’s binds.
Before whirling around as they both go for me again, the girl charging for me while the boy tries to duck behind me.
Bex jumps up and grabs her sword from where it lies on the ground and goes to attack the boy while I deal with this mammoth of a girl.
I jump to the side again, but this time she’s expecting it, and she turns quickly, missing my arm by a hairs breadth.
I leap backwards before turning, and running for the creek.
She charges after me, not realizing there is a purpose to this sprint, and as I jump in, she leaps after me, splashing water everywhere.
She readies her sword but, she pauses for a second as she realizes where she is.
The water gathers around me and I lunge for her, being pushed by the water, and I slice her arms.
She yells in fury, and her eyes now literally look like they are on fire.
I spin around and gesture forwards, sending a mini-water-spout spinning for her as she tries to wade towards me.
She’s pulled into the water spout and I will it off to the wand, where she is thrown out and whacks her head on a tree.
The water spout disintegrates back into the creek and as the adrenaline dies down, I feel a sudden wave of exhaustion come over me.
I slowly make my way back over to Bex, who’s peering at a knocked-out or sleeping boy.
“You know, I’m glad you left those arrows lying on the ground, I swiped him with one of them and he dropped like a stone” I smile at her tiredly, when we hear shouts and yells.
We whirl to see a decent sized group of kids from our team, holding up the red flag, grins of triumph on their faces.
We join the parade, and as we walk back we spot two red-kids, which are quickly incapacitated before running the rest of the way back to our flag.
There are several sleeping red kids strewn through the large clearing our flag is in, and we hop over them but easily get to our flag.
One girl blows the horn to signal the end of the game, and we hear yells of frustration throughout the woods, and other yells of triumph.
I grin at Bex as we make our way to the edge of the forest, leaving the incapacitated red kids to their own devices, some people carrying our own knocked-out teammates, others cradling hurt body-parts.
Chiron smiles at us as we arrive at the mini-infirmary, where a daughter of Aphrodite, accompanied by half of her cabin, a son of Hermes, a son of Iris and a daughter of Nike are lying/sitting in the white tent.
After waiting a few minutes the red team finally arrives.
Most of the group is either being carried, or injured some-seriously.
Clarisse and Miss-Deputy-Counselor are scowling in our direction, looks of near-pure-hatred on their faces.
Declan starts to walk over to us, and I me and Bex look at each other before manic grins spread across our faces and we both watch him approaching.
“That was awful” he says, nibbling on a small piece of ambrosia, the cuts on his arms and legs quickly healing.
“Well, I’m fine, I’m pretty sure Bex is fine, I guess you guys just need to work on your fighting” I shrug,
James walks over to us, his arm in a sling, a few cuts on his face, arms and legs, nibbling on his own piece of ambrosia.
“What happened to you?” I ask, raising my eyebrows at him.
“I was on flag defense, and we had picked a really dense spot, the whole blue attack group ambushed us and I had three people on me… one of them jumped onto me, literally, and it just so happened to be my arm that all the weight went on… and I fell at a funny angle… also, they had swords” He says, finishing of the tiny piece of ambrosia.
“Well, sucks for you, but you’ll be fine in ten minutes probably” Declan says, grinning at him, the cuts having already disappeared off of his skin.
After a final victory song from our team we all head for our cabins. We’re leaving in the morning, and it’s going to be interesting, Chiron said to me that we may or may not meet a whole lot of minor gods on our way who want our heads, but he thinks we can deal with them.
I’m actually really worried about this trip, but I think we’ll be fine in the end.
I have a quick shower, calming myself and taking in the warm water, a light smell of salt in the air.
As I lie in my bed, I think over what happened today, and right before my brain goes all fuzzy, I realize there was one strange thing.
When my foot was stuck, and I got out and that girl shot the bow at me, it was only a few seconds, I knew that, but to me it had felt like time had literally slowed down, which is why I hadn’t been hit by the arrow.
Something very fish is up, other than the island we were headed too, and I need to find out what it is before it affects everyone.

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Around 4,500 words, I hope you appreciated it, especially cuz I fast-tracked it cuz you guys appear to love this. Hope you enjoyed as much as I did writing it!
<3 Arabelladaughterofzeus