The Flames of Hope Ch 5

Chapter 5~What We Have to Work With
I didn’t know what do or say to them. I looked at all of them before me and wondered what they were all expecting. Possibly a fearless leader ready to lead them to battle, but I was anything from fearless, impulsive yes, but not fearless. Megan rose to her feet along with the rest of the campers, about ten in all.

“So, what’s the plan?” Megan asked. I tried to think of a good plan, but I didn’t know many of these campers well, with the exception of Malcolm, Kat, Mike, and Megan. That left about seven campers that I had no idea what they could do.

“First,” I said trying to sound like I knew what I was doing. “I need to know what you can do. What are your talents or powers?”

“I’m Ruff,” a child from Ares said.

“I’m Tuff,” came the voice of his twin brother. The two weren’t actually named Ruff and Tuff, but actually Rufus and Tommy, I knew that much at least. What made them interesting was their fighting style. Like most children of Ares, they were excellent fighters, but as I watched them more I noticed something. Ruff had a fighting style that was completely built around offense with little to no defense while Tuff was all defense with no offense. It reminded me of the old story about a maker of weapons that said his spears could break any shield and his shields could stop any spear. The person then asked the weapon maker what would happen if he used one of his spears against one of his shields, and the age old question was born. Malcolm knew they story too and asked them which one of them was a better fighter.

“I am!” they both said at the same time and gave each other evil looks before fighting each other until they collapsed from exhaustion. Malcolm’s half-sister from the Apollo cabin began to sing a song displaying her healing magic, but from what I heard she was horrible with a bow. She had somehow managed to shoot an arrow backward during training and it poked a hole right into Mr. D’s soda can. From that day on, she wasn’t allowed to hold a bow. Unfortunately, as soon as they got their energy back they started fighting again.

“The important thing is that you tried Sarah, but you can’t heal stupid,” he said to her as they watched Ruff and Tuff fight some more. Next, two children of Demeter named Rose and Cacnea showed their abilities, but didn’t seem to be on the same level as Erika. Rose for example could turn a rose into a whip, but couldn’t cause vines to grow from the ground. Cacnea on the other hand could only grow cacti. It was a strange ability and I wondered if Demeter had met someone in the middle of a desert. There was also a child of Persephone named Will, but all the plants he tried to grow would die shortly after. He would always complain about how Hades forced his mother to marry him.

The last person was an unclaimed demigod I knew from seeing him in the Hermes cabin. His name was Sammy and he wasn’t quite thirteen years old yet, but his birthday was in a few days and people started to question if his godly parent would claim him. He also didn’t really show any talent in anything exclusive, like how Apollo campers are normally good at archery or Hephaestus campers are normally good with machines.

“Check this out,” Mike said, showing off his ability to bend metal. The Celestial Bronze he carried with him morphed in his hands, first into a pair of boxing gloves that he pounded together. He also molded it into different shapes like a sword, a shield, and even a spider. That last one however caused Megan to sink to the ground and let out tiny squeaks in terror while a few others laughed. I looked back at Sammy and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“There is still time for your parent to claim you,” I said, and he seemed hopeful.

“Don’t worry, I’ll go with you on your quest. Maybe I’ll make my parent proud,” he said looking up at the sky. He had to admit he was brave, but I still worried about him. Abrams was also young when he went on his quest with me, but I wasn’t going to let what happened to him happen to Sammy.

“Mike!” I called over. In the time I had taken my eyes off him, he had been making the large spider crawl toward Megan with a metal thread attached to the spider like a leash or a piece of thread. “Stop showing off, we are going to need transportation for all these people.”

His eyes lit up at the idea of being able to make something.

“Can I make whatever I want, no limitations?” he asked with an eyebrow raised. I simply nodded and he jumped into the air in excitement. “Gear is on the job!” he said before running to the garage.

“Who is Gear?” Sammy asked.

“That is what he likes to call himself. He thinks it is a cool nickname, but in reality it is just his last name, just spelled different,” I told him.

“Isn’t it weird that a lot of demigods have names related to their godly parent?” he asked, but I had never thought about it that much so I just shrugged my shoulders while I could already hear the sound of banging metal in the distance.

Malcolm on the other hand walked over to the Big House and pulled out the hole. He turned the water on and formed a rainbow in the air.

“What are you doing?” I asked him.

“Well, if our fellow campers are just captured, maybe we can send them an Iris Message and find out where they are as long as there isn’t some kind of magical blocker,” he said and pulled a drachma out of his pocket while saying the chant, asking to be shown Erika Plume. It was then I remembered what Hermes had said about the minor gods being captured, what he had said about Iris.

“Wait!” I shouted, but it was already too late and the drachma flew into the rainbow. All at once, the colors of the rainbow seemed to fade into shades of grey and a follow circle appeared as I once again saw the terrifying face of Leiomenos looking back at me. He was sitting in a throne made from his own power. It looked like it was on fire, but the green flames didn’t seem to bother him in the least.

“It has been a long time Nolan Swift. In all this time you never once called me or invited me to your home,” he said with a tone that sounded unsettling. He talked to me as if we were old friends or something. “I came to pay you a visit, but you weren’t home. However, now I have given you a reason to come visit my home.”

“What do you want with me?” I asked him, rage starting to boil over in my body.

“You misunderstand, I do not manipulate like the other gods. The ones that stab you in the back and fear you!” he said as anger rose in his voice as well as his power flared, but h calmed a moment later. “No Nolan Swift, I just want you.”

Darkcloud1111 ~Fastest Hero Alive

Author's Note
I must have rewritten this chapter about 3 different times. My idea was two have twenty demigods (as that is how many I had said in the last chapter, have to fix that), but then today I was like "Wait, that means I'll have to name them all and give them special powers. I dont feel like doing that." Anyway, I now onl have about 10 or so characters. I will mostly focus on my main characters and the new demigods will be support, but that doesn't mean I'm simply going to ignore them, far from it. I have big plans for some of them.