Chapter Five

“OMG! OMG! OMG! Tim!!! Can we please go to the dance Tim?! Please, please, please, please, please?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I whined, it was probably my only chance to go to a dance and maybe fight some real monsters. I could hear the muffled bass line through the walls.
“Tim, we got some time, I mean really she deserves this one thing she never does anything.” Sienna flipped her hair, always the deal breaker for Aphrodite girls. Though, I’m a daughter of Dionysius so my dad, well, he hates all campers except me, because I am amazing.
“I would say yes, but you guys don’t have dresses.” Tim always dressed in semi-formal wear. But it only took one look towards Sienna and she knew what to do. She put down her pink back pack, opened it, and pulled out two gorgeous dresses one for her and one for me.
“Thanks pink head, no offense.” I said, the dress she gave me was a brilliant dark purple and was amazing!
“None taken girl, you know you have purple hair.” Her dress was a hot pink strapless poof. We ran into the Starbucks bathroom and changed, when we walked out, Tim was speechless.
“Let’s go,” I said.

When we walked into the dance, well, I kind of just stood there gaping at it all. It was so pretty and amazing. “Clarity, if your just going to stand there gaping then we can go, but if you want to dance, lets dance.” Sienna said and dragged me and Tim on the dance floor.
I walked around watching all the kids dance and have a good time, but something didn’t seem right. Then I saw it, well two things. First was that there was boys roaming the edges of the huge crowd like I was in jeans and a purple short sleeve button up shirt. Demigod, was my first thought.
The second was I saw an extremely cute guy wearing a blue button up shirt and jeans. He had blonde hair and blue eyes. And he was looking at me. But something wasn’t right, but I wasn’t really paying attention to my instinct, I was paying attention how cute he was.
A slow song started, I saw Sienna and Tim in the center of the crowd dancing. Tim looked so embarrassed. But then I got distracted because the blonde guy walked over and started talking to me.
“So, I’m guessing you don’t go here,” he said.
“Uh, yeah. I don’t, my friends Anna and Paige go here,” I lied, I didn’t know Anna or Paige and I wasn’t sure what school they went to.
“Oh yeah, I know Anna. I asked her to the dance, but she disappeared. But your cute, dance with me?” he went through things quickly, and I can’t believe he asked me to dance.
“Uh, okay,” a little voice in the back of my head was telling me something wasn’t right, but I didn’t pay attention to it I was having to much of a good time. We talked about stuff and danced. Then the slow song stopped and started dancing to the others. Then things started getting weird.
Anna, Aiden, Jason, and Alex walked in. “Alex!!!” I said a little too loud.
“Clarity? What are you doing here?” he said, but he looked happy to see me.
“Uh, I’m here on a thing with Sienna and Tim, but I kind of lost them.” I replied, “What’re you doing here?”
“Anna said her dance was tonight, some blonde with blue eyes is her da-” he didn’t get to finished his sentence because Anna shrieked…
“TREY!!!” she ran to Trey, he didn’t tell me his name, well now I know it.
“Anna! You made it, well now I have you all here for the main event, your last one to add to that.” I saw purple shirt start to worry, he was staring at Trey like the rest of the Demigods here were staring at Trey. I looked back and saw the Basilisk.
“Everybody run!!!” Sienna yelled and the kids fled the gym.
“I’ve been waiting for thissssss day to come for a very long time,” he said in a voice that was raspy and horrible like… really ancient and treacherous. “Prepare to die Anna Richardsssss.” Anna took off this pretty blue bracelet she was wearing (if it was purple I probably would’ve stole it) and it turned into and bow and arrow (AHHHH!!!) and a dagger.
“I can’t believe I asked you to the dance!” Anna screamed.
“Well, you did demigod, and thissssssss isssssssss the price you shall pay!” he hissed at Anna.
“Hey! Jerk face! Over here!” I yelled, my grape ring had turned into my sword. And he turned toward me and said, “What do you want, ssssssstupid girl? I wassssssss jussssssssssssstt usssssssssssing you to get your trusssssssst.”
“First thing, that doesn’t even make any sense, and second if you mess with my friends. You mess with me!” I hurled my sword at him, sadly, I didn’t make a dent in his skin but I had another trick up my sleeve.
“You’ve lossssssst your sssssssssssword, you have no chance now!” he snarled at me, he was HUGE! It was a little scary. I saw a silver arrow fly out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see a girl with black hair and silver highlights holding a bow and arrow with a quiver on her back.
She was wearing one of those pretty ball gown type things, but not princess pink. It was a dark glittering gray. “Bad boy, Trey! You should know better, these hero’s have more time!” she turned to me, “Sorry, he hasn’t had anything to kill in a long time, the only thing that soothes him is the smell of fresh blood.”
Then she saw that one of the teachers had a heart attack, she knelt next to the teacher to take his pulse, I think. Then she took a small silver dagger out of her quiver and slit the teachers throat.
“What the fudge!?” I screamed. I thought she just killed a teacher.
“He was already dead, the scar will vanish when he shrinks.” She pointed to Trey, who was now half teenage boy half snake. He kept shrinking until he was normal size. Then out of the corner of my eye I saw purple shirt in the corner of the gym with a blazing gray fire in his hand. He was a demigod, now I just had to figure out who he was a kid of.
“Hey!” I yelled, he averted his attention, still confused. He walked over to me.
“What the hell just happened?! I was just walking around the edges of the dance crowd, then Anna walks in and Trey turns into a Basalisk! Someone needs to do some serious explaining!”
“What you just saw was indeed a Basalisk. I’m guessing you have ADHD and maybe diagnosed with dyslexia.” Alex said before I could respond. “what’s you’re name?”
“James.” He responded quickly, “How did you know I have ADHD and dyslexia? No one knows!”
“I have it too, all demigods do. Clarity has it, Sienna, Tim, Anna, Aiden, and her.” He pointed to silver dress. Before she could say anything, I said, “Speaking of Sienna and Tim, where are they?”
“They were here a few minutes ago,” Anna said worriedly. Then she looked at Trey. “Did you eat them?”
“No! but I wish I did. Only Alison knows, because she is a genius.” He said hungerly.
“It is in your prophecy daughter of Poseidon. You will be able to figure it out, but for now, I must get going, but don’t worry young hero’s. you will see me again in good time.” And she and Trey disappeared.
“I still have a quest I need to do!” I said, “and I will NOT do it alone, one of you are coming with me.” I looked at Alex.
“I wish I could but I got my own quest, how about James?” he said.
“Okay,” I said a little grumpily, “Come on James, lets go figure where my friends went.” We walked out of the gym and out of the school. I had my back pack on my shoulder and inside I found my ring, I slipped it back on my finger took out my purple jacket and put it on.
“Back there,” James said after we had been walking for at least a mile, “You lost your sword, but something in your eyes told me you had another trick. What was it?” I put my hand into a fist and then opened it like I was doing jazz hands, a purple fire burst in my hand.
“You were doing the same thing, but the fire was grey. Which means either your dad is Zeus,” thunder rumbled in the distance, “or undetermined. Some kids after determined are allowed to keep there fire like me and Aiden. But others like Tim, not so much.”
“Are they all purple?” he asked.
“No, colors stand for godly parents. Purple for Dionysius, blue for Poseidon, regular for Aphrodite or Hephaestus, green for Demeter, Persephone, or Hades. There are a lot of other colors but I’m to tired to explain.”
“Okay. Whatever.” He sighed and kept walking. We walked in silence for a while, when we stopped we found a greyhound and we bought two tickets and got on the next bus to Ohio. We were only in Brooklyn and had a long ways to go, I got really worried about Sienna and Tim.
I found out later I wouldn’t find them till I met back up with Aiden in L.A. and that was five days from where I was. We took our seats on the bus and I took out my iTouch and started listening to Freak the Freak Out. The only song that calmed my nerves, I looked at James.
He was just sitting there in a wine purple red color hoodie that was tiger print, that should’ve given me a huge hint, but that topic is to be discussed later, but what I found weird and I should’ve noticed like back at the school that he had backpack. He took out a kindle and starting reading a book. I went back to looking out the window.

I woke up and the sky was a pinkish orange and the sun was rising. I looked at James, he was asleep. “James,” I poked him, “James, wake up. We’re almost in Ohio.” He grunted and turned over. I looked at the front of the bus, No danger so far, sadly I thought too soon. A man got on the bus at one of the mid-way points.
He was big and buff and I knew I was dead the minute I saw him. Ares. He walked to the back of the bus where I was sitting. And sat down in the seat across from me. “How goes it?” he said.
“Hello Ares,” I had to be as nice as I could without getting mad, I didn’t want a enemy.
“Whose the kid?” he asked in a interested voice.
“James, I don’t know his last name though,”
“Kid of…?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well, I need you to do something for me.” He sighed like this was hard to say.
“What? I thought you didn’t trust kids of Dionysius.” I don’t know why, but there must have been a problem in the past with a kid of my dad and he just doesn’t trust anyone of my siblings now.
“I have a kid in Ohio, where you’re going. I wish I could help her but the fates have forbidden me until she finds another demi-god. She’s really powerful and doesn’t know her strength. She has short black hair, pink eyes and a heart and cross bones tattoo.”
“How old?” I asked, “I guess I could help.”
“Thirteen. You’re age.” Then James moved and fell off the seat.
“OW!” he yelled. Then he looked up and saw Ares.
“James, this is Ares.” I said.
“Oh, of course.” He was still in shock.
“He wants us to find his daughter, her name is…” I looked at Ares, he shrugged.
“I don’t know her name.” James doubled over in pain. “Kid you all right?!” I just sat there looking at him while he was in pain. Then I did something I didn’t know I could do. I summoned the purple flame, Ares was staring at me. I put it over his left temple and he stopped cringing.
“James! What just happened?!” I yelled.
“I saw Ares daughter, her name is Quinn. She ran away from home a few weeks ago. Her mom abused her and disgraced her. At this moment she’s sitting in Starbucks and she’s looking for songs on Playlist.”
“Um, okay…” Ares looked at James like he was crazy. “I got to go, I’ll see you in good time.” And we both looked away, a gods true form could burn your entirety if you look at them in their true form.
“So we have to find another demi-god?” he asked me.
“Yep.” The bus stopped in Cincinnati in front of a Starbucks. “Can we go inside and get some frappacino’s or whatever you drink?”
“Sure,” we walked in and saw what we weren’t expecting, and James did something I didn’t expect either. While I was at the counter getting a strawberries and cream frappacino he walked up to a girl sitting at a table. She had short black hair, pink eye, and the tattoo. She was writing in a composition notebook.
“James!” I stopped him in his tracks, “What do you think your doing?”
“That’s Quinn,” he pointed to the short black hair girl. “We need to talk to her.”
“Well you don’t… James… James…!” before I could finish he walked off to talk to Quinn. I followed, the worst that could happen is that he gets punched or slapped and I explain that he is my cousin and he has a problem called OFGD (Obsessive Female Gender Disorder).
“Hi,” he said.
“Yes? If you haven’t noticed, I’m working so make it quick.” She said a little rudely.
“You’re Quinn right?” James asked, she looked around worriedly.
“Yes… You’re not from the police station? I’ve heard that some parents who are cops send their kids after teen delinquents.”
“No, we’re not, we’re demi-gods and you are coming with us because your dad, Ares, wants you to.” I said.
“Oh! Good, I haven’t met any others yet and I was afraid they were going to get me.” She sighed happily.
“Whose they?” I asked.
“Ivy, and her followers. She’s been chasing me for days and wants me on her side.” She looked around, “We have to go now!”

Chapter Four

Okay, this was a lot to take in, I was a half blood who was extremely powerful and could possibly destroy the whole world. Also, to top that off, all the gods on Olympus wanted me and Aiden dead. And I had Spring Formal in 24 hours, and my mom was probably flipping out. I had a date and everything too! I had the great dress and perfect shoes, and now it was ruined.
I took off the diamond encrusted sea shell bracelet my mom given me for my birthday a few weeks before and it turned into a bow, the diamonds turned into a quiver full of arrows I took one out to look at it. It was white and smooth but sharp as a dagger, in a pocket inside the quiver was a dagger made out of the same stuff, abalone. I ran my fingers along the flat side. Smooth as ice.
“Aiden,” I said.
“Yep,” she said packing up a bog distractedly.
“Why did my bracelet turn into a bow, a quiver full of arrows, and a dagger?” I asked.
“Uh, I really don’t know, lets go ask a Hephaestus kid.” As it turns out, my bracelet, since it had the diamonds it could carry twice the amount and the arrows weren’t made out of abalone, they were made out of sea silver moonshine. It just looked the same. So a abalone dagger, a quiver full of sea silver moonshine arrows, and a diamond encrusted bow. My life became a little better.
“So am I still going to miss spring formal?” I asked.
“Is that really all you think about?!” Aiden yelled.
“Uh, yes.” I answered, “I have the most amazing dress and I wont be able to wear it now.” We headed toward the Poseidon cabin.
“This is the cabin.” We walked into the cabin and I was able to smell the salty sea breeze, the walls were made of abalone. The bunks had silk sheets on them, and looked like only two people had slept there for the last twenty years. Though there was iHome next to one of the bunks.
“Why is there an iHome over there?” I asked.
“I’m holding it ransom; one of the guys in Apollo has my anklet Poseidon gave me.” She looked like this was totally normal.
“An anklet, Got it. So you steal his iHome? Isn’t that a little drastic?” I was looking around the cabin it was amazing, like an on the land underwater palace.
“Uh, no. it’s a combination of abalone and celestial bronze and has a piece of broken coral from the most pure and clean coral reef in the world, I think the iHome is the perfect thing to take it return for my anklet.”
“Wow. Well, where do I put my stuff? Oh wait. That’s right, it’s all at home!” I said as calm as possible.
“Anna, chill. It’s already on your bunk.” I looked over to one of the beds, I ran over. There was a suitcase, a backpack, and…
“My dress. How did you get it?” I was in shock.
“We had a few people go over to your house and explain to your mom what was going on. She took it very calmly, she must’ve known… anyway, lets get going, we’ve got a quest.”
“Wait, what? I just got here, we’re leaving again?” I asked.
“Uh-huh, Chiron said I had to wait for two powerful demi gods, well, there was already one here. Nina, so I had to wait for one more. You. Why do you think you have a backpack, we only use those for quests. Nothing else.”
“Okay, so what’s in it?” I asked.
“Since you don’t know a lot about myths and I’m getting tired of explaining them, D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths, ambrosia, nectar, change of clothes, and if you want, that dress. There’s also your iPhone, we deleted all you contacts and disabled calling and texting, because it’s like sending up a flare from a flare gun saying ‘Here I am! Please come rearrange me and my friends!’”
“Oh jeez. But what about Paige? She HAS to come.” I started to explain why, it was this long and tragic back story but she wouldn’t listen.
“Uh, no. she can’t only three people are allowed, three is a kind of sacred number.” Aiden explained to me, the dimwitted blonde.
“Got it, okay well, let’s go!”

We headed toward the Hades cabin. Nina wasn’t there or anywhere in camp. So they decided to go to Chiron. “Chiron, have you seen Nina?”
“She left camp, she’s been called to Olympus. I’m afraid Artemis is in need of her services.”
“Okay, I know I’ve been here like a week and I don’t know much, but I know even Nina can’t help Artemis with whatever she needs.” Said Aiden worried.
“You’d be surprised to see what she can do. She has… a way with people, especially certain people.” Chiron said.
“Okay, but where am I going to find another quest person on such short notice? I mean, everyone has been kind of afraid since… last time.” Aiden whispered the last part.
“How about we take that cute guy from Apollo or maybe Alex?” I suggested.
“We’ll take Alex, if we take Jason, we’ll get attacked by monsters half the time.” Aiden said quickly.
“How about both?” Chiron suggested.
“Chiron,” I said, “Even I know about the three is a sacred number thing and I’ve been here, what? An hour maybe two.”
“True,” he sighed, “But I’m afraid this quest needs four, as you heard the oracle say before Aiden.” His big brown eyes stared daggers into her.
“Four must travel to the end of the west, To find the three who are suited best. To fix all wrong, Also to find where they belong. Along the way, Two will try to die in a bay. Living long and well one will stand, All will die fighting on the sand.” Aiden recited.
“That’s a tad bit creepy,” I said.
“Well,” Chiron sighed, “Prophecies have double meanings. So maybe it’s not all bad. But that doesn’t mean its all good either.”
“All right, lets get the boys and get going.”

We left camp at lunch. Everyone was fine to see us leave, mostly glad to see Jason leave, such a trouble maker. Not as bad as Tim, or so I’ve heard. My backpack had all the necessities in it for a quest, I had my bracelet on my right wrist and was ready to go. Aiden clipped that silver hair clip in her hair, grabbed her bag and walked next to me. She looked so confident in her blue hoodie and jeans.
“Lets go!” Jason said.
“I agree with Jason for once. Let’s go.” Aiden said. We walked down the hill, I had been at camp for two hours, and I left again.

Sick

I think I'm getting sick, this is baddd