The Beast of the Sea~Chapter 32

That night, Circe treated everyone to a large dinner. All the demigods that were under Blackbeard’s spell seemed to return to normal after the pirate had been defeated. They were all pretty much back to full strength as well after Circe and her handmaidens used some healing magic on them, meaning everyone was hungry and ripped through the meal like a tornado. Even Circe’s handmaidens weren’t above grabbing mouthfuls of food as they had been trapped on this island for who knows how long. When I saw Joe, he was more reluctant to eat anything, at least until he saw the handmaidens digging in. I could tell he was still a little skeptical of Circe and was wondering if she would still try and find a loophole in her oath on the Styx so she could turn us into pigs or something. Just then El grabbed a biscuit off the table and shoved it into his mouth. His eyes went bug-eyed and he almost choked before swallowing it and El gave him a few pats on the back while she laughed.

It was actually kind of weird seeing them in their correct ages again, especially seeing Joe. While I hadn’t known the two for very long, El seemed pretty much the same way no matter how old she was. Joe on the other hand seemed much more serious now, as if all his memories of fighting as a demigod returned to him when his age did. I wondered if all demigods reach a point in their life when they just can’t stand the fighting anymore and become cautious of everything and everyone that could be a threat.

“Like you?” a voice said in my head.

“Shut up,” I said out load, causing the two people sitting on either side of me to give me a weird look and scoot down away from me on the long benches. I small blush came to my cheeks as I felt embarrassment well up a little bit. Talking to yourself in public is the first sign you’re going crazy. At the end of the evening, Circe wished everyone a good night and expected us to be gone first thing in the morning. She then offered us all the use of her beds for the night, which were really things like massage chairs and examination beds, making it very hard to find a comfortable spot. I even thought I heard someone in the next room roll in their sleep and find their way onto the floor. I must have eventually fallen asleep because the next thing I knew, someone was shaking me awake.

“Time to wake up Ashy boy,” El said, giving me a big smile.

“Five more minutes,” I said as I rolled over, then flailed my arms and legs around as I almost rolled right off the small bed. It was enough of a shock that I was wide awake by this point. “Ok, I’m up, I’m up.”

“Good, because we set sail in about an hour,” El explained before walking out of the room and closing the door behind her. As I sat in bed, I heard the door in the room next to me open and El yelling to wake up. I then heard a surprised yell and a loud thud as whoever it was fell to the floor. Before long everyone was awake and began filling the ships that Blackbeard had so graciously docked for us.

“You four hold up,” Circe called to Joe, El, Angel, and I. “I just wanted to give you one last thank you before you left.”

“You don’t need to do that,” I said. “You’ve already done more than enough for us already.”

“Nonsense!” she half shouted. Before I could protest any more, a small glowing ball of light appeared in my hand and morphed into a small packet. I had no idea what it was.

“What is this?” Joe asked as he flipped through the small booklet.

“Coupons!” she said happily. “Use them at any one of our many locations. Please watch out for expiration dates and you can’t combine more than one coupon per visit.”

“Right,” I said a little less than enthusiastically. “Wait, you have more than one location?”

“Well, not yet. But I plan on opening up new locations in Florida, California, and Atlantis!” she explained with a smile. She then seemed to remember something as she pulled a larger piece of paper from her purse. “Also, here is a map to lead you out of the Sea of Monsters without any problem.”

“Wow, a map to avoid the dangers of the Sea of Monsters. Is this some kind of rare item?” El asked, taking a look at it and holding it like it would fall apart at the slightest touch.

“No, we have a whole stack of those over there,” Circe said, pointing over to the front desk. El almost fell right over from shock and Joe face-palmed pretty hard. “What, do you think we would get repeat business if everyone had to brave the Sea of Monsters?”

“Makes sense,” I said off-handedly. It was one of those things that made sense in hindsight, but hindsight is always 20/20.

“Oh whatever, let’s just get out of here,” El complained as she rolled up the map in her hand and stormed off for her ship.

“Thank you very much Circe,” I said again and shook her hand. She just smiled that beautician smile and turned my handshake into a full on hug.

“Thank you for returning my island to me,” she said before letting me go. Alright everyone, have a safe trip back.”

“Are you coming with us Angel?” I asked her, but she just turned away.

“Sorry, but I don’t want you guys to cramp my style. I think I’m going to go back with Sayuri, she is much cooler,” she said before walking along the beach and locking her arms with Sayuri. They climbed on board another ship, tripping at the top of the plank and quickly looked around to see if anyone saw. Right, we were cramping her style.

“Come on Ash, time to go,” Joe said as he patted me on the shoulder. I gave him a nod and climbed on deck our own ship. I climbed on deck and made way for the helm of the ship. I placed my hands on the wheel and for the first time, I noticed that I had never named the ship. In my mind, I went through all kinds of names with no really good ones coming to mind, except one kept popping into my head.

“What about Feraligator?” I asked Joe, but he looked at me really confused.

“What about Feraligator?” he asked me back.

“The name of the ship. Feraligator, like a ferocious alligator. What do you think?” I asked him again.

“Wasn’t that a Pokémon?” Joe asked back.

“Ya, it is where I got the name from. I think it is a pretty good name that strikes fear into the hearts of my enemies,” I said, sounding confident.

“Ok it will make out enemies want to get out their Gameboys or whatever,” Joe countered, but he seemed to know my mind was made up. “Alright, do what you want.”

“Awesome, when I get back to camp I’m going to paint SS Feraligator on the side of the ship,” I said and started the engine. The SS Orca with El as the captain began to set sail and all the other ships began to follow her lead. I gave the engines a bit of power and we left the dock.

With a map of what to avoid, everything went really well and we didn’t run into any monsters…mostly. However, when you have an army of about thirty demigods all in heavily armed warships, you don’t worry too much. Joe and I would switch places every so often, taking turns at the wheel. I would sometimes look over the sides of the ship and see a pod of dolphins playing in the waves our ships made. Other times I would see people waving to us from the shore, maybe thinking we were all part of some kind of boat show or something. I noticed that things on the shore were sometimes distorted, making it look like things were going a lot faster then we should have been going.

“Hey Joe, where are we anyway?” I asked him and he took a look at the shore line.

“Don’t know, maybe off the shore of New Jersey or Delaware. We should be back at Camp Half-Blood within the hour is I’m right,” Joe said, focusing back on the waterway. I wondered if we were really going that fast, as it had only been about six or seven hours since we had left Circe’s Island and we were already this far. Things like this happened sometimes with magical metals and sometimes monsters, where time and space seem to bend and things happen that shouldn’t be possible. Before long, we all pulled into the Camp Half-Blood dock. What was an empty dock when I first arrived at camp was now completely full of ships and demigods filling out of the ships.

“Check in please,” said a very monotone voice of Steven Scale, that child of Nemesis that was obsessed with balance and rules.

“Not you again!” I shouted as he almost shoved a clipboard in my face. I signed my name and he just started running around to all the other campers. Joe walked off the ship as well and handed me Blackbeard’s sword.

“Just a little prize you can add to the collection of stuff in the attic. You can put it right next to this cool thing I found in Disney World,” he said proudly, but I wondered what exactly he could of found in Disney that was so exciting.

“Sure, I’ll get right on that,” I told Joe as I took the sword into my hands.

“We can drop it off when we inform Chiron of our success on the mission,” Joe said proudly and we headed for the Big House. We got up to the front porch when we were stopped by a very aggravated wine dude.

“So I see you’ve brought back more problems for me to watch. Sometimes I wonder why I even let you in my camp Mr. Duston,” Mr. D commented.

“It’s Ashton sir,” I said back to him, but he really didn’t seem to care at all.

“Ash, dust, same thing really,” he said as he moved a pawn forward on a Chess board. I wondered who he was playing against as no one was sitting on the chair. Regardless, in response to Dionysus’ move, a black piece moved its position on the board to counter. As I got a closer look of the board, I noticed that Mr. D was in deep trouble as he was down to only a few pieces left and his kind was completely undefended. Mr. D looked really angry as he looked down. “Curse you!”

“Come on, let’s get inside before he starts threatening to curse Blinky or something,” Joe commented. I nodded my head as he went in, but I walked over and moved one of Mr. D’s knights forward.

“What do you think you’re doing?! This is a very important game,” Mr. D commented.

“You’re welcome,” I said as I ran into the Big House. Outside, I could hear Dionysus complaining and then stopped all of a sudden.

“Well look at that, I won,” I heard him cheer, but I don’t think I would ever get a thank you from the wine god. Before lone we were in Chiron’s office. He was in his true centaur form, which was strange for him because he was normally in his wheelchair when indoors.

“Ah, welcome back. So I hear that everyone has returned home safe,” Chiron said as he looked at us. “Please inform me of all the details.”

We told Chiron about the Water Elemental, the Lightning Elemental and how it was captured by the Collector, how the Collector had a deal with Blackbeard but they turned on each other, how Blackbeard was defeated, and how the sky opened up and seemed to swallow up everything in the area. Chiron stood around and seemed to listen very carefully, nodding occasionally to show he was still listening.

“And that is Blackbeard’s sword, correct?” Chiron said, motioning to the sword.

“Yup, we plan on putting it in the attic,” Joe said, taking a few practice swings with it.

“And is that everything?” Chiron asked, one eyebrow raised as he looked intently at us. I didn’t say anything, but when I looked at Joe he was staring at me intently.

“No, nothing,” Joe said, looking away from me.

“Oh wait, I found these,” I said, just trying to break the silence as I pulled out the Collector’s sunglasses. “The Collector dropped these when his ship was hit. They look like regular glasses to me but he always has them on so they must be important.”

“Here, let me take a look at them,” Joe said and he held them in his hand. “Weird lenses.”

Joe examined the glasses for awhile; he couldn’t learn any more about them then if he put them under a microscope. He eventually lifted them up and put them on his face, looking right at me.

“How do I look?” he asked, giving me a slight grin. It was a little unsettling as the glasses turned his eyes a funny color because of the lenses. When Joe turned to Chiron and gave him a similar smile, but his face seemed to drop instantly.

“Joe, what’s wro…” I never got a chance to finish that sentence because in a flash, Joe had his weapon drawn in the shape of a spear and thrust it right at Chiron. The spear sunk right into Chiron’s chest and he gave out a pained yell as he fell to the ground. I got up out of my chair and wrestled Joe to the ground, but that was kind of pointless as he tossed me off of him and I hit the wall. “What are you doing?!”

“Just look,” Joe yelled, pointing to Chiron.

I turned my attention over to the injured centaur on the ground, but something was wrong. He began to morph and change. The wind in the room began to pick up until the spot Chiron was standing turned into a raging tornado.

“What the heck was that?!” I yelled as the tornado seemed to scatter to the winds and it fled through the cracks of the old house.

“It was a venti, a storm spirit. I should have known, especially after finding out Chiron had been sending team after team of demigods into the Sea of Monsters to be controlled by Blackbeard,” Joe said, taking off the strange glasses. “The Collector has found a way to see through the Mist. These glasses are like a Mist filter, it was how I knew Chiron wasn’t Chiron.”

“Then where is Chiron?” I asked him. “I mean it isn’t like someone could hide a centaur.”

“I don’t know,” Joe half yelled as he looked around the room. “He couldn’t have gotten far or someone would have noticed. Argus would have never let Chiron leave the camp without notifying someone. So he has to be in this house somewhere.”

Joe and I turned the house upside-down looking for Chiron. I checked the basement while Joe was up on the other floors looking in all the rooms. At one point I heard Rachel Elizabeth Dare yelling at Joe to get out of her room and I thought I heard a hairbrush hit the wall. After about thirty minutes of searching, we met back in the study.

“Find anything?” Joe asked me.

“No, not a thing. All that’s left of him is his wheelchair,” I said, seeing it in the corner. I walked up to it and took a seat in it. It was like sitting on a wooden box and was really uncomfortable. “How does he sit in this thing all day?”

“He doesn’t, he sort of folds into the box like there was a hole in the floor. It’s all magic or something. I mean it isn’t like Chiron…” Joe said, but just stopped in mid sentence. “Ash, get up!”

I jumped up and Joe ran over, examining the wooden lid of the chair, as if looking for something.

“Here,” he said and stabbed a small latch with his spear, causing it to shatter. Joe and I both jumped back as the lid went flying open and Chiron’s upper body came flying out.

“That feels so much better,” Chiron said as he stretched his arms out. I had a feeling he wanted to fully escape that wheelchair, but his head might hit the ceiling if he did. “I have been trapped in that box for what feels like weeks.”

“It might have been Chiron,” Joe said.

“How are you not dead?” I asked him. “Shouldn’t you have starved to death?”

“No my boy, I am immortal as long as I am needed. While I do enjoy the deliciousness of food, I do not need it,” Chiron said. “Now, tell me everything about what has happened.”

Joe and I once again retold the story of the quest, as well as all the demigods that were saved as a result of the Storm Spirit that had been sending demigods down to the Sea of Monsters. Just like his double, he only nodded sometimes to show he was still listening.

“This doesn’t bode well,” Chiron said. “Vesti are minions of the Wind Elemental and it can easily control them. If you did not kill it, then it will report everything you told it to the Wind Elemental.”

“How bad could things get?” I asked Chiron. “I mean normally if there is some kind of world ending disaster, there is a Great Prophecy or something. There isn’t one so things can’t be too bad, right?”

Joe and Chiron gave each other a serious look, but they didn’t say anything at all and silence seemed to fill the room.

“Right?” I asked again, but I still didn’t get an answer.

“Chiron, are you ok? I saw a Storm Spirit fly out of the roof,” came the voice of Kimi as she ran into the room. It definitely broke the long silence that was coming over the room. Chiron just rolled over to her and placed a hand on her head.

“Don’t worry, everything is just fine now thanks to these two,” Chiron said motioning to Joe and I. We both smiled a little bit and Kimi ran over and gave me a hug.

“Glad to see you’re back safe,” she said and I gave her a small hug back.

“Don’t worry, everything is going to be alright from now on,” I said. She seemed to calm down a bit and let go of me. It was Chiron that broke the silence this time.

>“Yes, well it seems that we should explain a few things to the campers. I’m afraid this whole matter may be a bit confusing for them. I should also have a talk with Dionysus about paying more attention every once in awhile. A venti getting through the magical borders isn’t something that should go unnoticed,” Chiron explained as he wheeled himself outside and spread the word about a meeting that night. Kimi and I left the Big House, while Joe decided to look around camp for any other storm spirits that may have gotten inside the camp.

“He looks really weird with those glasses on,” Kimi commented as she watched Joe run off.

“Oh I don’t know. He could start his own fashion trend,” I said. We looked at each other for a brief moment and started laughing.

“Let’s just hope that none of the Aphrodite kids spot him in those or they will ridicule him for the rest of the year. I spilled some pasta sauce on my shirt a few weeks back and they still haven’t let me live it down,” she said. She seemed much more relaxed now, at least comparing it to when I saw her when I first returned to Camp Half-Blood. I wondered if it was that thing I did when we parted last time or if a few good night’s sleep could do that to a person. I could use a few myself. “I’m sure your mom would be really proud of you, saving everyone and all.”

“Crap,” I said as I froze in my tracks. I had never informed my mom of what was going on. She was probably worried sick about me or worse, she knew exactly where I was and was on her way to strangle me to death. As scary as Blackbeard was, my mom scared me a whole lot more. “Listen, I have to go but I’ll catch up with you later, okay?”

“Ok,” she said before I took off. I felt bad leaving her when she was so happy to see me, but I had to send a message. I ran back to my cabin and pulled out a small prism from my night stand. Every cabin had one nowadays in order to make a rainbow easily, instead of installing fountains in every cabin or using a hose. Mr. D even started complaining that the water bill for the camp was too high at the end of last summer, even if he was constantly using the water for the grape and strawberry fields. I set the prism up on the table and angled it so the light from the window made a rainbow on the ground.

“Oh Iris, goddess of the rainbow, please except my offering,” I said and tossed one of the golden drachma I kept in the room into the rainbow. “I’d like to call my mom.”

The rainbow rose up off the ground and seemed to extend out of the cabin. Before long, I saw an image of my mom hanging out on a beach. I had almost forgotten that we had planned on going on a trip to the beach, a vacation I normally hated, but I wasn’t going to tell her that.

“Hi mom,” I said. She turned over toward me and took her sunglasses off.

“Well, I was wondering when you would call,” my mom said. “I mean I knew you didn’t like going to the beach, but to run all the way to Camp Half-Blood to avoid our trip was a bit much.”

“I didn’t run away, I was…wait, you know I didn’t like the beach?” I asked.

“Of course I did, I’m your mother after all,” she said with a sly smile.

>“Then why take me every year?” I asked her.

“Because you never said you didn’t like it. You were too soft and needed to toughen up a little bit. I can’t protect you from the things that you will have to face one day. I can’t even see half the things you do sometimes and I can’t even begin to know the terrors of your world, which is why I tried to toughen you up,” she said, that same smile on her face. “So, what do you plan on doing now?”

I felt like there was more to that question then the obvious. While it was a simple enough question, there was a weight behind it and my entire world felt heavy all of a sudden. This quest taught me that there are those that rely on me. My decisions had consequences and I was responsible for them. Because I left, dozens of campers were forced into becoming pirates because I had let them search for the Elementals, which was my job from the start. Not to mention I left my friends behind because they were a constant reminder the responsibilities I was shaking off. My own dark side was even trying to rip me apart. While I would like to believe that it was because of the Sirens or Blackbeard, I knew that it was a part of me from the beginning and I couldn’t ignore it.

“Well, what are you going to do?” my mom asked again.

“I’m going to take responsibility,” I told her. It seemed like a vague answer, but she seemed to understand.

“That’s what I wanted to hear. Just remember to call once in awhile and come home on the holidays,” my mom said. I smiled back at her.

“I will, don’t worry. I love you Mom, talk to you as soon as I have some free time,” I told her.

“I love you too, be safe,” she said and the rainbow began to fade until it was completely gone.

“Bye Mom,” I said before falling back onto my bed.

“That was sweet,” I heard and I shot up in my bed.

“Dad!” I half shouted. “Or Lord Pisteuo, whatever.”

“Dad should be fine. Trust me, if people called me Lord Pisteuo all the time and bowed or kneeled or whatever, it would drive me crazy,” he said with a laugh. “That was some pretty heroic stuff you did out there. I watched the entire thing from start to finish, good job.”

“Dad, I need to ask you something. Something happened to me out there and I don’t know what,” I told him.

“I’ll tell you what happened, you saved the day, defeated the bad guy, and got the girl,” he said proudly.

“What girl?” I asked him.

“Well, you saved a bunch of girls and that is almost as good,” he said with a smile. He was avoiding the question and we both knew it.

“Dad, what is this?!” I shouted as I raised my hand in front of me and my hand illuminated in Greek fire. “Tell me please?”

“Alright I’ll tell you, but you’re going to want to sit down,” he said.

“I’m already in my bed,” I told him.

“Oh…” he said absentmindedly. “Right, so let’s begin.”

From there my dad explained everything about his past. How he was the first son of Zeus and fought alongside the gods against the Titans. How Zeus was given a prophecy that a son of Metis would overthrow him as king of the gods. How his paranoia slowly turned into a belief that his son was the son of the prophecy, and how that belief started to infect the other gods. That belief affected him in such a way that he took on the shape of their belief and as a result, he took on a new form called Leiomenos. He was a god filled with rage and the desire to destroy the gods. Pisteuo become nothing more than a lost soul trapped inside his own body. And how he was eventually saved by a demigod that believed things could change and we could be who we wanted to be; a demigod by the name of Nolan Swift, Aisling’s father. I think I handled it pretty well.

>“I think I’m going to throw up,” I said as I grabbed a trashcan next to my bed just in case. “Is that why no one has heard of you before?”

“It is my dark past I’m afraid, but it is something I have to deal with every day of my life. I had hoped that something like this wouldn’t happen to you, being half human and all,” he said, concern in his voice. “I’m so sorry.”

“But you beat it, right? What do I have to do?” I asked him, hoping for an easy answer.

“It doesn’t work like that. Even now there is darkness inside of me trying to crawl itself out,” he said, placing his hand over his heart.

“So I’m going to turn dark or whatever?” I asked him, feeling weighed down by my own fate.

“No, nothing like that…maybe,” he said.

“Dad,” I said sternly.

“This isn’t exactly a science I’m afraid. I can only give you some advice. Surround yourself with those that trust you and believe in you. Avoid doubt, especially doubting yourself and those around you. Darkness is a disease that can destroy even the strongest beings, remember that,” he said. I turned around to ask him more, but he was gone. Gods never stay too long after all so I wasn’t surprised, but he left me a lot to think about.

I sat in my cabin for a long time thinking about what I was going to do from here. So long in fact that I missed Chiron’s meeting, something I would get a lot of crap for later because I was technically the head of my cabin and it was mandatory to attend such things. I didn’t care however and I would face the music when the time came. I left my cabin because the dinner bell rang and I entered the mess hall. I saw almost everyone there except for two.

“Hey, have you seen El and Joe?” I asked one of the kids at the Hermes cabin.

“Ya, I saw them by the dock a few minutes ago. I think they’re getting ready to leave,” he said. “If you hurry now, you should be able to catch them.”

I ran out of the mess hall and headed for the dock. The Hermes kid was right as I saw El climbing on board her ship while Joe seemed to call down a motorcycle from the sky with a small cat on it, or something like that. I continued to run down the hill and almost tripped as my foot hit a small rock, but I managed to regain my footing.

“Wait!” I called to both of them as I slowed down on the deck. El walked over to the side rail of her ship while Joe cut the engine of his motorcycle. I tried to say something, but I was kind of busy trying to get air in my lungs.

“Well?” Joe asked and I held up a finger, silently asking to give me a second.

“Oh give him a second. He must have run all the way from the mess hall,” El said to Joe, who just crossed his arms.

“That isn’t that far,” Joe remarked.

“Well maybe he’s just not a runner,” El commented, which seemed kind of rude. Before their banter went any farther, I interrupted them.

“I need your help,” I told them both and in return I got a confused look from both of them.

“The quest is over, I don’t think there is anything else for us to do here,” El said and Joe nodded in agreement.

“No, this isn’t about the quest; or at least not directly,” I explained. “During the quest I got to see you two fight, even if El was under the control of an evil pirate bent on control of the entire ocean at the time. Then I got to see her fight him off later…”

“But he beat me,” El added, a little ashamed of herself.

“You did better than me,” I said before turning to Joe. “And even de-aged and without your lightning powers for awhile, you still kicked a lot of butt.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Joe said, patting himself on the back.

“So what are you getting at?” El asked after rolling her eyes at Joe.

“I need training?” I blurted out.

“What?” Joe questioned and he had the same confused look as El did.

“Look, during the quest I got my butt kicked…a lot. I haven’t spent a lot of time at camp so I haven’t really had any training before and I need practice. I think you two should be my teachers,” I told them. I didn’t know if they would agree to it, but they looked at each other some more.

“I’m sure there are trainers at camp that could train you,” Joe commented.

“I need someone I can trust. Joe, you’ve seen what I can do when I’m not in control,” I told him. He understood what I was talking about, but this caused an eyebrow to raise on El’s face.

“And what can he do?” El asked.

“That isn’t important right now. What is important is that I need a lot of training in a short amount time face the Elementals, the Collector, and we’ve learned that there are those out there looking for the spheres as well. I need help on this one,” I pleaded. Joe and El looked at each other for awhile and I wondered if they were going to refuse me or maybe just laugh me off. Then El turned to me with a big smile on her face and gave me a big thumbs up.

“This could be fun, I’m in,” El said. Joe just kind of gave her a look before turning to me and a small smirk appeared on his face at well.

“Alright, I’m in too, but we need to set a few ground rules,” he said and extended one of his fingers. “First rule, you aren’t allowed to quit at any time. Every morning you’ll wake up early to train.”

“That’s two rules,” El pointed out.

“Rule three,” Joe said, giving El a look that I couldn’t quite place. “You will listen to and do everything I say without question. If I tell you something, you do as I say. If El tells you something, you do as I say.”

“Hey!” El shouted.

“Alright, you can listen to her too,” Joe said, brushing her off. “But mostly me.”

“I promise I can do that,” I told them.

“Good, see you first thing tomorrow morning,” Joe said before hopping off bike. It flew back up into the clouds and Joe patted me on the back and walked toward the ring of cabins, specifically the Zeus cabin.

“Hope to see you tomorrow morning,” El said before jumping off her ship and onto the deck. “Tomorrow really is going to be a lot of fun.”

“So it won’t be that bad?” I asked her. Out of the two, El seemed a lot easier to talk to, less serious or something.

“Oh it’s going to be hell on earth for you, but it is going to be fun for us,” she said with a big smile before heading off herself. I was left standing along on the deck of Camp Half-Blood. I started walking back toward the mess hall to get some dinner, but I was hit by a ball of water right in the face and I fell on my butt.

“Hey dope,” I heard from the lake. I looked over and saw Angel hanging on the shoreline of the camp’s lake. “I do expect for you to make good on your promise. I want a bigger lake.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll talk to the Hephaestus and Poseidon cabin tomorrow and see what we can do,” I told her.

“Tomorrow? But who knows how long that will take,” Angel said.

“I do; about six hours from now,” I told her. She just gave me an annoyed look.

“That’s like an eternity for a nymph,” she called back.

“I thought time didn’t matter to nymphs,” I shot back.

“That is only tree nymphs who are bad with time. Why don’t you just lump us all together why don’t you,” she said, crossing her arms and sticking out her tongue at me. I knew I wasn’t going to win this argument.

“I can help,” I heard in my head, but it wasn’t the evil voice of myself. It was more of a slow earth voice and I realized it was the Earth Elemental talking to me through my sword, which was glowing a shade of aquamarine.

“We can help,” came another voice, more fluid in her delivery, the Water Elemental.

“Alright Angel, just stand back,” I told her. She gave me a disbelieving look but took a few steps back anyway. I drove my sword into the ground and fed my power into it. Green light seemed to flood the shore line while the water began to glow blue. The water nymphs still in the lake seemed to splash around, excited for something even if they didn’t know what was happening. The ground began to push itself back while even more started to sink below the waves. The water level at the same time seemed to rise to meet the reforming shore line and in a matter of minutes the lake was bigger than it had been before, at least I thought so. I was tired however.

“Thanks guys,” I said in my head, pushing my thoughts into my sword and I hoped the two Elementals could hear me.

“Better?” I asked El. That little trick had pretty much wiped out all my remaining energy and I thought I was going to pass out.

“It’s a start,” she said and I gave her my best angry face. “Fine, fine; thank you. It is more than I could have wanted.”

“No problem,” I told her. I went to walk and almost fell over when I took my first step, but Angel could really run in those sandals and caught me. “Any chance you could walk me back to my cabin?”

“Sure thing,” she said and helped me walk back to my cabin and gave me a nice smile. Once there she dropped me off before going back to her lake. Some of the campers that were now leaving the mess hall thought it was weird to see a lake nymph walking around the camp, but I’m sure after the quest, Angel wouldn’t be content with her lake anymore, even if it was a bit bigger now.

That night I looked up out of the skylight at the sky and saw the clouds spiraling overhead above the camp’s magic borders. It was like the wind was angry or maybe it could feel the Water and Earth Elemental working together.

“I’ll stop you too,” I said upward. “Just you wait.”

That night I slept like a log, knowing that tomorrow everything would change. I had a lot to learn and little time to learn it. The elements were tearing each other apart and everything was revolving around me, as well as a part of me trying to take control. However, that could all wait until tomorrow and tonight I thought about my friends, my family, and a new sense of confidence.

Chapters
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