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[lucker]

Chaper 1

The grass around me was as soft as grass could be. It wasn’t that prickly kind; it was the soft tumbling kind. I was spread out on it, hands behind my head. If I were to open my eyes, the sky would be the most sought after blue color with barely a cloud in sight. I felt like I was happy, like my life was normal and I was living with my mom, going to a public school.

Too bad none of that actually happens.

I nearly laughed aloud at my own sour personality. I was such a downer. But, lucky for me, I tried to not laugh at the jokes I said in my head. It made me seems crazier then I actually am.

“Torey,” A little girl’s voice called down the field. I love the way people say my name, like it’s a foreign word. Yes, my name is Torey. No, I’m not a girl. Torey is short for Victor. Yes, my mother was insane.

I could hear the little soft crunches as her feet padded over to me. I wasn’t going to open my eyes until she was near me. Just a few more moments of relaxing without all the other campers. I heard her little clearing of the throat, as if she were getting ready to say my name again. Why not save her the trouble? I opened my eyes, pushed myself off the green grass, and prepared to stand up. I couldn’t do that just yet, since apparently this girl was like three feet tall and I would probably scare her with my height. Her round brown eyes blinked at me, surprised I had answered.

Aren’t I allowed to be nice, just once?

It’s funny, because I can’t. I can’t stand it here; I can’t stand seeing my father every day.

The little girl blinked at me a few times and I took a deep breath to control my nasty comment from rolling out. Old Torey would ask her if she had something in her eye, or had never seen a person before. I had to keep to my promise.

Ah, the promise. I was relishing that whole not-being-like-my-father-and-talking-nicely thing. Not really.

The girl was about nine or ten, and had a flower tucked behind her ear. She must be a daughter of Demeter, either that or one of the unknown gods that had spawn randomly show up at Camp Half-Blood, aka my prison. She was about two feet shorter than me. Not standing up was definitely a good idea. Her little face screwed up, thinking of what I said when a revelation hit me.

Right, she wanted me to come with her to the pavilion.

Slowly, I raised myself up, watching as the girl’s eyes rose with me, as her mouth opened a little in awe. I’m not sure if it’s because my father is so short, but people are always amazed at how tall I am. Six-foot-six isn’t bad, but I’m not Cyclops. I nearly laughed out loud...again.

The little girl cleared her throat for like the third time and her eyes darted away toward the rest of camp. Yes, you want to go. I get it. I nodded my head and sauntered on. The silence would’ve been awkward if I actually had the decency to think of other people, but as we walked the girl unwound the flower from behind her ear and lay in out on her palm. With a simple squint of her eyes, the flower sprouted more petals and looked more alive. Demeter, it was. I raised my hand so it was over her flower and concentrated, felt the pull in my stomach. Within the second, the flower had grown larger and was sprouting some sort of fruit. Her eyes widened and she stared at me. I know, I’m awe-inspiring.

“What’s your name?” I heard myself say. My voice was weird, deeper and throatier like I wasn’t used to using it. I suppose I wasn’t. Talking to other people wasn’t good for me and talking to myself seemed oddly insane.

“Poppy,” the little girl sighed. A flower. It was a cute name and she must know it was…peculiar? “Don’t comment, I get it. Child of Demeter, flower name. Ha-ha, it’s corny.”
I laughed which also sounded a bit rusty. Poppy was refreshingly snappy. She no longer looked at me like I might shoot her down with a glare or mess with her mind with a purple glint in my eyes (That only happened once, I swear.). “Thanks for coming and getting me, Poppy. I would’ve rather done without the whole campfire-song-fest, but thank you.” Being polite was actually easy. When she looked at me this time, batting her eyes like a doe, I saw it wasn’t from shock or quietness. There was a glint in there, watching me.

“No problem, Torey,” she squeaked. “I wasn’t expecting you to come. Mr. D said you wouldn’t.”
I gritted my teeth. Of course he didn’t. I was just as nasty as the old man was.

“Don’t listen to him,” I snapped, and then I cleared my throat. “He doesn’t know me as well as he thinks.” I looked away from her. We walked in silence again and it was awkward for only me. The sky was darkening from when I was last dazing in the field. Right now, the mosquitoes would be coming out. I would be making them do swirlies around me, making them momentarily insane. Beautiful.

[lucker]

Chapter 2

We reached our destination and nodded to each other. We walked to our separate table. Her’s was over-crowded with people wanting to talk to her, mine just had my brother. Pollux, I think? One of them died in the battle. My dad’s favorite set, Castor and Pollux. Twins. Clones of him, except they had consciences and were quieter in a less rude way then I was. I got my father’s raving personality.

I should know which one of my brothers was alive. Rage and shame washed over my, warming my whole body like a scolding fire. We nodded to each other, picked up our plates, made our offering and tucked in. My brother and I listened to the chatter around us. It got louder and louder, filling my ears and my head until I finally threw down my fork and made to get up. My brother shot me a look, but it Chiron’s that finally sapped my energy. I plunked down and I could tell my eyes were a crazy shade of purple.

Castor/Pollux was giving me a nervous look. I sighed. I opened my mouth to talk to it, but shut it promptly. I heard the scraping of hooves. Chiron, being half-horse, had the advantage of loud hooves. I waited the distinctive clomping of them on the ground. “Demigods!” His strong voice boomed through every one of us down to our bones. “It is almost time for Capture the Flag! I will call out the teams.

Red: Ares, Hephaestus…” I zoned out.

Was I even in this?

And then the “Dionysus rang; finalizing everything and making all eyes turn to our table. I scowled at all of them, but tried to restrain some of it. My eyes sliced to the Twin, whose ears were turning a shade of red grapes couldn’t compete with.

“You need this, brother,” He grumbled and got up to leave. Everyone else was filing out. Wait, what team was I on?

An Athena guy came over and patted my back tentatively. “You want to help put away armor with your brother…?” I could tell he was trying to help. I took a deep breath; summon all of me into one punctured sentence.

“Nope, man. I want to fight.


The guy led me over to the table with weapons, handed me a shield, some armor, and gave me a somewhat encouraging nod. I slipped it on. Everything felt heavy and wrong on me. All my instincts told me to call the guy back over and tell him I would help Castor/Pollux.

So that is why I took my helmet under my arm and followed my teammates to hear our plan.

I could almost hear the gears turning in the Athena kids’ heads. We also had Apollo, and Demeter. I couldn’t find Poppy. Yeah, I did check.

I was sent to some river where the defense would be held, all by myself. As soon as we got into our position and the last camper was out of sight, I sat down and tore off my helmet. Immediately after that I yawned and laid back. I could see where the flag was hidden, just barely. No one would come, right?

Have I mentioned I’m always wrong?

A loud snap! and pop! called my attention to somewhere northeast of me. Immediately, my attention was called and all my senses suddenly became jacked. Before I knew it, I was on my feet my hand in front of he, ready to summon something I didn’t know. Another crack! And an Aphrodite girl was standing in front of me. How did I know she was from Aphrodite? She was astonishingly beautiful.

“Calm down, soldier,” She soothed. I did, but something inside of me was screaming not to. Something glinted in her hand. I acted.

A vine shimmied its way up her leg, winding as she kicked and shrieked. “What the Hades?” She screamed.

“Oh, uh, sorry about that,” I jibed. She glared at me.

Almost.

“Who are you?” Was her reply.

Mine was to yawn again, stretch – accidently making the vines rise with me - , then be interrupted by another snap! of a branch. Did the other team ever hear of stealth? I sighed and readied myself for more vine-action. “My name is Torey, son of Dionysus.”

Then the Ares guy charged.

I tried to keep my cool by only groaning a little. With a tug in my stomach, more vines emerged and gripped his arm, pulling him down to the dirt ground. He pulled through it.

Vines aren’t that strong.

So I tried another approach.

This time, the vines bore thorns and were quick. They had pulled the Ares kid down to his knees and were holding him there. They slowly wound around him, like some sort of living thing, until he was covered completely.

“Stop it!”

That jarred mr pretty good. But I couldn’t stop. The vines kept winding tighter and the pull in my stomach was become marginally more painful. The Aphrodite girl had cut herself out and was coming toward me. “I said stop!” she hissed.

I smiled weakly. “Can’t,” Her eyes bugged. “Could you, like, hit me over the head?”

She looked hesitant but with a flip to get her straight brown hair out of the way she hit me in the head with the butt of her dagger.

Ouch, man.

It didn’t knock me out, but the vines slacked and the tug disappeared. I rushed to the Ares guy, who was muffling out shrill screams, and pulled the vines of him. My hands bled with tiny cuts.

“Bad move!” barked the guy and stood at his full height. He was shorter than me. That made me laugh. I stood, too, and darted my eyes to both of them. The girl’s hands were shaking with, I don’t know, fear, but the guy’s were shaking with pure fury. I took a careful step back.

“Where’s the flag?” The Ares’ kid demanded. Aphrodite girl rolled her eyes. They were an odd pair.

I glanced behind me. “Really?” I asked. “Yeah, okay. Not likely.” I lifted my sword off the ground. I was now totally against using my powers. For now. Ares guy charged, but I managed to side-step him easily. It sent my off balance, though. Controlling all my limbs is hard work.

I cleared my throat. “Aren’t we supposed to, like, not kill each other?” I squeaked.

Ares guy bellowed a laugh. “You crossed a line, bud. There are no rules now!”

I swallowed. “I think Chiron would argue differently,” I sighed. Ares guy either has selective hearing, or he chose to ignore me. I really don’t like it when people ignore me.

He charged again and clipped my shoulder. Pain surged through me, jolting me into a stumble.

“Jared!” Aphrodite girl bleated.

He ignored her, too.

I was starting to get angry. Like, raging angry. “Jared,” I grumbled, mockingly. “Do you have ears or is your skull so thick you block out all other things except food and charging?”

It took Jared a second to comprehend my statement. He was beefy, but he seemed more agile than some of the other of his kind. I, on the other hand, am neither. He roared, for real.

Aphrodite girl and I met eyes and blinked at each other. So, I wasn’t the only one who found this stupendously ridiculous.

“What’d you call me, twig?” Jared jeered. “He he, twig.”
I rolled my eyes. “I didn’t call you anything. I said you were an idiot and you are hearing-impaired.”

Again, my words must have been too big. His eyes were uncomprehending.

“Impaired this, twig!” he called, like a battle cry, and flew toward me. I couldn’t handle another blow. I didn’t want to. I wanted to stop this; I wanted to get away from this.
The words were screaming in my head, Leave me alone. Get me out of here. Why did I even do this? I was fine the way I was. I was fine by myself.

As the voice raged, my stomach pulled harder and my face flushed. I could tell my eyes were a violent shade of purple. My vision was dimming. I heard a scream. Jared was gone; Aphrodite girl was staring at me in horror.

My knees buckled.

I was next to some sort of half-man creature. On the top, it was dolphin. The bottom was pure Ares kid. Oh, Hades. Did I do that? Dolphin-boy was convulsing, his breathes or whatever were choked.

“He needs water!” My voice was powerful and commanding. Aphrodite girl and I pushed him into the water.

“What the Hades is wrong with you?!” Aphrodite girl raged. She was in my space, but her head barely came up to my chin. Her hazel eyes were churning with disgust. “Do you know what you just did? You’re crazy! It was a game, you didn’t have to go all freak on him!” Each word was like a slap to my already tired body. I was already shutting down, cutting off the feelings.

“Whatever, okay?” I snapped. Again, my voice was commanding and sharp. She shut up. Thank the gods. “I didn’t do it on purpose.” I grumbled that part, but slowly a smile crept onto my lips. “Purpose, like porpoise? ‘Cause he’s a dolphin?” I chuckled. Maybe I was crazy.

“You’re sick,” Aphrodite girl hissed.

“He’ll get normal soon,” I replied. My voice was void of emotion. This had happened before, sadly. Except I was about seven years younger.

Aphrodite girl’s mouth fell open.

Again, I am awe-inspiring.

“What’s your name?” I chimed. Aphrodite girl as a name was getting old.

Her mouth pressed into a hard line. Somehow, it still looked pretty.

“Diana,” she said, voice curt.

“Diana, like the Roman form of Artemis?” I mused.

She stared at me blankly. “No, like the name. My father didn’t know who my mother was.” I liked the way she said mother, as if it were foul. That’s exactly how I referred to my father when I was forced to refer to him. “We just had an enormous disaster caused by you, and you’re trying to pick me up?”

I blew air out of my cheeks and let it form into a whistle. “I guess being a child of Aphrodite really does come with an ego. I just wanted to know your name.”

Her glare nearly knocked me over.

Diana dusted herself off than turned around. Over her shoulder, she yelled, “I’m going to go get Chiron. Stay here with him, and don’t do anything more disastrous.”

For lack of anything better to do, I decided to listen.