The Life of Zander Hamilton

Hilary was in the chair next to the bed. “Oh my gods, you’re awake.” She yelled.

“How long have I been out?” I asked

“Four days” Said Jessica, who was on the other side of the room checking on someone else.

“I’ve been out for four days? Hm, not as bad as that last time I was here, am I right Jessica.” I said with a smile.

She smiled in return. “That was bad, this is nothing.”

“What are you talking about, what happened last time?” Hilary asked. “I mean, you had at least three broken bones, multiple nasty cuts around your whole body. You almost died. How could this not be that bad?” She said frantically.

“Oh, I’ve ‘almost died’ before in worse situations than this, I think I can survive a beat down from a couple jerks.” I said. “Just give me some ambrosia and nectar and I’ll be fine. But enough of this. I need to see Chiron as soon as I can. Someone is planning an attack on the Olympians… again.”

I got changed into some clean clothes when I had healed up enough to walk, went to the big house, and told Chiron about my dream. “What was the female titans’ name again?” he asked when I had finished.

“Mnemosyne.” I replied.

“Oh dear, this is worse than I originally thought.”

“You still have yet to tell me why these titans are so horrible. I mean yeah, titans suck, but why are these two such problems?” I asked

“These titans, Crius and Mnemosyne, are the titans of memory. But being the titans of memory, they want to be remembered like Crius said in your dream.” He said, “In either war, Kronos never gave them any task worth remembering. Now they must want to conquer the Olympians so they can rule, if there’s one thing people remember its great conquerors. And guessing from the maps you said they were looking at, the weapons they need are most likely the weapons of the big three.”

“Wait, Hades has a super weapon too?” I asked confused.

“Yes, he does. While he does not use it often, it does exist.” He explained. “When Zeus was freeing his brothers, the Cyclops made all three of them weapons. For Zeus, the thunderbolt and for Poseidon, the trident, as you well know. But they also made Hades the bident, a two pronged spear similar to the trident. He just doesn’t use it often because he an army of the dead at his disposal.”

I thought about this before speaking again. “All three weapons together in one place, that’s a lot of power. Maybe their trying to power something like their own super weapon.” I guessed. “Super weapons are very helpful in wars. Kronos proved that, I would not want to even touch his scythe. I like my soul right where it is.”

“It is possible their making a weapon, but we cannot know that for sure. It is still too early to assume anything.” He said, and with that our meeting was over.

I had just walked down the stairs on the big house porch when I realized that I had never had a chance to give Hilary her dagger. I walked to her cabin; I figured that where she’d be. I knocked on the door and again it was Piper who opened it. “Hey Zander, hang on a second.” She turned her head inside the cabin, “Hilary, it’s for you.” She called. Hilary ran to the door.

“Hey Zander, what’s up?” she said.

“Well, I just realized that I have something that I never gave you, so here.” I said handing her the dagger and sheath she had asked me to make her the other day. She literally jumped with joy and squeaked. She ran up to me and hugged me. I stood there for second, shocked. She let go and stood with a small embarrassed smile on her face.

“Thank you. Really, this is ten times better than I thought it would be.”

“Oh, so you though it would be bad?” I asked pretending to be offended.

I must be a good actor because she immediately tried to recover. “No, no, that’s not what I meant.” She said frantically. “What I meant was…”

“I’m just kidding.” I said. “Dang, I didn’t think that you were that gullible.”

“You’re a jerk.” She said punching me in the arm while I laughed.

After that we went to the arena so Hilary could test her dagger. She handled it with the skill of a master, flipping here and stabbing there. When she finished, I stood behind her with eyes wide and jaw open. She looked at my expression and smiled. She put her hand under my chin and closed my mouth.

“I’m not all about makeup and perfume. I do have some skill with a blade.” She said.

“‘Some’ skill?” I said. “You have more than some.”

“Thank you.” She said.

“You know, you may be good with a knife while attacking a dummy, but can you defend yourself against a real person with sword who was trained by Percy Jackson, Jason grace, and before he died, Luke Castellan?” I asked, the slightest smile touching my face.

“Who’s Luke Castellan?” She asked.

“Really, you’ve never heard of him?” I asked, she shook her head. “Okay, Luke was a son of Hermes. Then, Kronos tricked him into thinking that the gods had been in power long enough and that the titans should be in charge. That set in motion events that led to the second titan war. Luckily, Percy was claimed by Poseidon and fought Luke/Kronos in the throne room of Olympus and defeated him. Or more accurately, Luke gained enough control to kill himself along with the titan.”

“Oh, well then definitely.” She said with a defiant smile on her face. She went over to where we kept our practice weapons and grabbed a sword for me and a dagger for herself.

I held my sword in a defensive position as we circled each other. She swung and I blocked easily. “You’re going to have to do better than that.” I said. She swung again harder and I could feel the shock through the wood. “Better.” I said. At this point people had started to gather round. I guess that a big guy like me fighting a daughter of Aphrodite tends to do that. Her attacks quickened in pace, so much so that I was struggling to block all of them.

We went on like this for ten minutes, both of us working up a sweat. At least sixty people had gathered in a circle around us. She swung with her left hand; I raised my right arm in defense. She must have been hoping I would do that because while my arm was up she reached under it with her right hand and grabbed my shirt, and with her right foot she stepped behind my left foot and kicked my leg out from under me while she pushed back on me chest. I landed flat on my back hitting my head hard on the ground with the wooden blade against my neck. She pinned my sword arm down with her foot. I tried to move my hand out from under boot but made no progress. Everybody gathered around us gasped. The little Aphrodite girl just took down a big son of Hephaestus. We sat there couple seconds catching our breath. I smiled. “I guess I… underestimated… my opponent. You definitely… have more… than some skill.” I said in between breaths.

“I told you.” She said as she stood up. I watched in awe of her as she picked up my sword and putt it back with the rest of the people left. People kept saying things like ‘How’s it feel to lose to a girl.’ Or ‘Big bad son of Hephaestus taken down by the little dainty daughter of Aphrodite.’ I didn’t take any offence to it though; I knew she had probably worked hard to get the experience she had. She definitely didn’t get it by sitting around brushing her hair and painting her nails.


The next couple of weeks went on like any other, training, eating, training, infirmary visit because of injury from training, and then more training. But at the end of those couple weeks was the end of summer and the beginning of a torturous school year. I was flying back to Washington the next day so after I finished packing everything except my sword, I went to the arena because Cody and I decided to train together one last time before he left for his moms’ house.

“So where do you live again.” He asked.

“Longview, Washington, the other side of the country.” I said. “But I need to be closer to be camp so I convinced my mom to let me go to Goode High school with Percy and Annabeth. My step-dad doesn’t like me anyway. He’s kind of a jerk that way.”

“Really, I’m going to Goode too.” He said. “You got a place to stay? Cause my mom just moved to Manhattan.”

“You sure your mom would be okay with some random kid you met at summer camp coming and living with you?” I asked skeptically.

“No, she won’t mind, she lives alone. She’s always asking me to bring my friends home and introduce her to them like she wants to know if I’m choosing the right people to hang with. You’ll be fine.” He said.

“You go home to your mom and tell her the news and that I will be back two weeks from today. Deal?”

“Deal.”

Notes

Greetings readers.

YES! Finally got my computer to work enough to post a freaking chapter! There will be more coming soon. As always leave a comment and rate. If you want to be notified when I post, hit subscribe. I will see you in the next chapter.

~Bubba Boy