Chapter Two

Chapter Two
Nina
New Kids and Knifes


I ran into the Hades cabin I wasn’t sure why I was crying. It was five years ago. We all started out in Los Angeles. Me, Tim, Alex, and Dawn. Alex was so little, only nine years old and he left his mothers winery. Too many problems with his stepsisters. I met them once, wretched girls, Nina thought. Dawn was 13 and Tim and I were 12, traveling east towards the safety we never wanted.
Tim and I had just met Hades, none of the other gods knew about us, though the amount of time we spent surviving out side of camp was remarkable we were able to spend three years without going into camp for help. We were survivors. We lived knowing we were half-bloods longer than any had before us.
Though when we did get to camp no one knew about us until after the Kronos thing because Chiron wanted to keep four powerful demigods safe. I kept thinking about it for the longest time when all of sudden Tim walked in with a lollipop in his mouth and a little silver knife at his wrist.
“Tim! Not again! I told you already, your blood wont make the cute girls from the Aphrodite cabin to like you more!” I walked over to him and took the knife out of his hand. For my twin brother, we were 17, he acted like a 13 year old.
“But they like guys who are strong and manly and who have scars!” He protested.
“Tim. I’ve said this before and I will say it again. Just because the word cute has the word cut does not mean you cut your self! And they like battle scars, trust me.” I was annoyed with how many pale white lines that were on his left wrist. “Twelve cuts plus three you’ve done today. That’s fifteen cuts, if you don’t stop I’ll tell Chiron to stop giving you the pomegranate lollipops.”
“But… But those are my favorite!” he complained.
“I don’t care, you have got to stop cutting yourself!” I was staring out the window, “Don’t you have something to do with the Apollo cabin anyway?”
“Yeah, were going to teach Jason how to… Never mind.” Tim stopped when he realized who he was talking to.
“What are you…? Never mind. I don’t want to know, just go.” I gestured toward the door.
“See you at dinner.” He walked out of the cabin. After I was sure Time was out of site. I walked out the door down to the big house. I needed to IM someone.

I probably walked into the big house at the worst time ever. Chiron, Mr. D, and the satyrs were having a meeting, strangely Greyson was absent. I walked up to Chiron and said, “Chiron, I need to Iris Message someone,”
“Nina, can it wait? Mr. D just came back from his meeting on Olympus and something is wrong.” Chiron didn’t want me to test Mr. D’s mood because he already hated though he thought Tim was angle even though he had exploded half the camp once before… Mr. D got up out of his chair and walked over to me.
“Nina I have told you many times before, do NOT interrupt my meetings! You know it pisses me off!” I could see a wild purple fire in his eyes, it was a twisting fire that I had seen many, many times before, men turning into dolphins, vines strangling children, it was the look I had seen many times before, but I held my ground, since I was a child of Hades we had different things we could do, I knew that my power wouldn’t work so well on gods but it did work.
“Mr. D, don’t push your luck, you remember what happened last time, right?” I stared him straight in the eye. It always freaked the demigods out, once it even scared Dawn, and she isn’t afraid of anything.
“I will not have you be interrupting my meetings with Chiron and the satyrs! Especially when I have just come back from Olympus with an urgent message. Aphrodite and Artemis are fighting and a mysterious force is bringing monsters together to most possibly take over Olympus! I will not let you Iris Message someone in the middle of my meeting!” I was waiting for him to realize what he was saying, though the fire in my eyes was told to make people go a little crazy.
“Dionysius I will mess with your mess with your head if I have to,” I was at boiling point.
“Fine, three minutes, but that is all.” He was furious with me but he had to love me, I saved Alex’s life to many times. Chiron led me to the indoor fountain that we used for the Iris Messages. I took out a gold drachma and tossed it into the mist the fountain created and muttered “O goddess accept my offering,” the mist turned into a rainbow, “Underworld.”
Hades appeared sitting on his throne in the form of a emo teenage boy eating a pomegranate. “Dad. Dad. Dad! Yo Hades!” I yelled, he looked up.
“What?” he had no emotion in voice what so ever.
“Do you cut yourself?” I really needed to know.
“Yes,” he said as he looked at his wrist.
“That explains a lot.” Then there was a big explosion and Hades got a look of excitement and concern on his face.
“What just happened?” he asked.
“I think Tim just exploded half the camp again, gotta go!” I waved away the mist image of my dad. I ran out the door and saw the lake hovering in mid-air I thought it was Aiden because the boys probably exploded the lake but I saw Aiden running down half –blood hill towards the lake, I ran toward her.
“How are you doing that?” I asked her we were running towards the boys.
“I’m not!” she yelled.
“Then who is?!” I yelled back.
“Maybe it’s whoever the boys are crowding around,” we pushed our way through the crowd. There was this girl being crushed the under the weight of the lake. Then Aiden went next to her and they lowered the lake back into it’s place.
“Who are you?” I asked she had long blonde hair and blue eyes.
“Anna. Anna Richards,” she said.
“Wait, I just rescued a girl named Paige Richards,” Aiden said, “And you look just like her. Except your hair is lighter.”
“Paige. Paige is my step sister! Our dad Nicholas Richards is that guy who owns that big toy store on 34th street, Richards Toy Store. We went for a walk in central park then a girl with short blonde hair, green eyes walked out of the trees and chained Paige to a rock, then a flying pony came out of the sky and two small girls pulled me on and I blacked out. And now I’m here.”
“You really know nothing about mythology, do you?” Oceania asked, a small daughter of Iris.
“By the way Nina, you Iris message people way to much,” Opal said.
“What does mythology have to do with anything that has to do with me?” Anna asked, “I’m a teenage girl who travels around Europe and the rest of the world helping kids who are need of fresh water with the rest of the kids with famous parents H2O for Life, and Paige helps the children’s theatre in Barcelona and Athens during the summer.”
“Yes, you help H2O for Life and your sister helps the children’s theatre in Athens, Greece. Tell me those things aren’t close to mythology, don’t all your friends talk about it?” Oceania was looking at her with one of her hard cold looks, those always crept me out.
“Now Oceania lets give her some time to get over the shock before telling her half of her friends were monsters and the other half are demigods.” Opal said glaring at her sister with her death glare.
“What?! Half of my friends are monsters from Greek myths that may or may not be real?” Anna was looking at both of them, or at least trying to.
“Oh great! Now you blew it!” Oceania and Opal started fighting and Chiron tried to lead them away quietly before it got nasty. Then suddenly Paige came and Anna got up.
“Paige!”
“Anna!”
“Guys, enough hugging look above your heads, you’ve been claimed!” Aiden said. And she was right, above Paige’s head was a blazing owl and above Anna’s was a trident.
“All hail Paige Richards daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, and Anna Richards daughter of Poseidon, earth shaker, god of the seas.”
“Welcome to the Poseidon cabin,” Aiden said.
“Welcome to the Athena cabin,” a tall girl that looked like a typical California girl with grey eyes, it was Eve. She was gorgeous, Aphrodite had obviously taken a liking in her. “Come on, I’ll give you a tour of the camp.”
“And I’ll give you one,” Aiden said to Anna, “Let’s go!”
“Wait, so just because a blazing blue-green trident appeared over my head, means I’m a daughter of Poseidon, what the hell?” Anna was confused as ever.
“Hey, just be happy it’s not a blazing peacock! If that happened… I don’t even want to think about it.” Someone in the crowd said, I was sure it was the voice of a eight year old boy, I turned around and the crowd surrounded a little blonde boy with a weird headset and a box of chocolate.
“Umm… are you lost kid? Cause this is just a summer camp, nothing special,” trying to divert his attention from all the campers with weapons in their hands.
“Sure it is, and that lake didn’t just fall back from the sky? I’m no dumb ass,” This kid was smart, he look maybe eight, nine, and he could probably fly and we didn’t know it.
“Okay! That is it! I am sick of all the new campers around here, first Aiden and Jason, then these two, and now him!” Dawn yelled.
“Dawn, calm yourself. It’s going to be fine, more campers is good because…” Chiron trailed off, I met his eyes. This is what basically happened:
Should we tell them?
No! we can’t scare them, we need to oraganize a quest, a few of them too.
Chiron, this is serious, someone could get hurt.
We will send one group to fix the Aphrodite and Artemis problem, and the other for the mysterious force.
At least let me tell them!
Fine!
“Uh, guys,” Everyone’s heads turned toward me, “we have a big problem. Aphrodite and Artemis are fighting and some mysterious force is gathering monsters together to take over Olympus, say hello to Kronos attack numero dos.” Everyone stared at me.
“Oh shit!” Aiden said, “I had a dream about the two goddess’s fighting last night! They were arguing about how Aphrodite was giving Artemis’s hunters boys to love.”
“What?” Mr. D came into the circle of the crowd, “Is that really what they are fighting about? This is bad, even though they will get over it, this force while these two goddess’s are fighting will become it’s strongest.”
Then the crowd parted again and a wood nymph wearing a green and white dress walked up to Mr. D, I had never in my life seen this wood nymph before in my whole time at camp half-blood. She moved her lips but no words came out, but Mr. D seemed as if he were listening attentively.
“This is Ivy, I remember, this is the wood nymph we cursed… for reasons that I have forgotten at the moment. Anyway, she said that she knows this force has spies around camp looking at camp activity and we should be careful of what we say and do.”
Then Ivy made a ball of greenish light in her hands and it started to grow and it showed pictures of the two goddess’s fighting, then the little blonde boy walked up to Ivy and said something that shocked me to a level of extreme shock.
“You tried to kill me three days ago with that little orb of directions you have! Almost led me off a cliff!” He yelled at the nymph. Chiron and Churro walked up to him and led him away, jeez, eight year olds and their wild imaginations.
“Okay whatever then, back to your normal schedule anyone who is not giving tours better be gone in five seconds or else!” Mr. D yelled, everyone went back to their afternoon activities. I went back to my cabin to take it all in, just to find Tim with another knife.
“Tim! I’m going to kill you!”