The Unremarkable Times of Lanson Gate, Chapter 3

My Friends Go Commando
I watched in fascination as Chris, Aldrea, and Jennifer came walking into the room, observed the situation, and nodded to each other.

Jennifer pulled out a pitch-black metallic looking bow, but it had no string and she had no arrows to shoot. Then she brought her fingers up to the bow and drew them back, and instantly a thin line of fire materialized in place of the string, and an arrow of pure fire appeared on the string.

“Move!!” she yelled, and I quickly dashed in-between Luney and Colgate and football slammed Babar, causing him to fly back about five feet while also dropping Marie, who I caught nimbly. Jennifer shot her arrow and it struck Colgate in the face, who shrieked in pain as he exploded into dust like Growl had done.

Chris brought out a mechanical pencil, and clicked it. Immediately, it transformed into a bronze looking spear. But before he could use it Babar rose from the ground and rammed into him, knocking Chris onto the floor.

I grabbed Marie and pushed ourselves into a corner, but Luney saw us.

“Die Demigods!” he yelled as he bombrushed us. As soon as he got within distance I punched with all my might. Luney uttered a growl of surprise as he flew backward onto the floor several feet away from me, and tried to get up again. I realized that Marie had fainted in my hands.

“To Hades with you Lanson Gate!” he yelled, and prepared to attack us when he suddenly went rigid, and exploded in a burst of dust. Hovering in the air where he once stood was a bronze sword, which slowly vanished into thin air.

I blinked my eyes, and then closed them. “It’s just a dream Lanson, it’s just a dream. That’s it, it’s just a dream.”

Suddenly, a familiar voice whispered in my ear, “You’re not dreaming Lanson. Now, hurry up and grab Marie.” It was Aldrea, but I couldn’t see her body at all.

“Where are you?” I asked.

“Invisible. Quickly now, Lanson. Jen and Chris won’t be able to hold that one off for long. He’s a strong one”

I quickly got up and grabbed Marie, carrying her bridal style in my arms. I gasped when I felt her skin. She was colder than normal.

“Aldrea… Marie feels too cold” I said.

I guess Andrea had touched her too because she exclaimed, “Wow, a child of Boreas. We rarely get one of those at Camp”

I was too confused too answer. Boreas? Wasn’t he one of those wind dudes from Greek mythology that we had learned about in Mr. Clark’s class?

“Please let this be a dream.” I muttered to myself again.

Suddenly, there was a crash and I looked up to see Chris pushing Babar back into a wall. Jennifer walked over to Chris, helping him up. I noticed that his leg was twisted at an odd angle.

All of the giants were dead. Except for one…

Babar got up quickly from the floor and pounced into both of them, causing Chris to howl in pain as his broken leg slammed into the wall while Jennifer hit her head on the floor, knocking her out cold. Then the monster swept out an arm, which must’ve slammed against Aldrea, who cried out in pain as she flew backward onto the floor, flickering back into visibility.

That literally drove me off the deep end. You can mess with me, but don’t screw with my friends.

I jumped up and stared at Babar with pure hatred in my eyes. Anger and heat was building up inside my chest, making me feel hotter and hotter. And then I realized I was getting hotter. The inside of my body felt like a furnace. The taste of burnt food hit my tongue, and the next thing I knew, a column of pure flame erupted from my mouth and headed straight for Babar.

The Supervisor didn’t even have a chance to avoid it. The flame hit him, and the next thing I knew there was a huge pile of ashes in the spot Babar had been.

The sprinklers in the ceiling came on and the fire alarm sounded. Water started raining down on my head, but I didn’t even notice. The entire inside of my mouth tasted like coal and my lips were dry and cracked. I had just breathed fire! How in the world…

“Lanson” said Marie weakly. I turned around, and she was staring up at me from down on the floor. “How did you do that?”

“I-I don’t k-know,” I stammered. My voiced sounded hoarse and it hurt to talk. “Please, don’t say anything to the others. I don’t know why, just don’t, okay?” Marie looked concern, but nodded. For some strange reason, I didn’t want Chris, Jennifer, and Aldrea to know about this.

Aldrea suddenly ran back into view and raced over to Jennifer and Chris, giving them something to eat out of this little Ziploc bag and something to drink from a canteen. They instantly started to look way better. Chris was even up and walking around the room.

“Ouch” Chris said as he rubbed his leg, which Jennifer had placed in a makeshift mobile cast. “What in Hades happened?”

Aldrea relayed the events of what happened after they were unconscious. They both stared at me with wonder as I helped Marie up off the floor when Aldreadescribed how I was able to punch out the Supervisors.

I turned away, but the movement made me start coughing, and I couldn’t stop.

Andrea handed me the canteen. “Drink this,” she said. “It’ll make you feel better.”

I looked at the canteen skeptically, but pulled the top off and drunk some anyway. It tasted like liquid pizza. Instantly my throat started to feel better, and I handed the canteen back to Aldrea.

“What did you just give me?” I wondered. “Liquid Cough Syrup 2.0?”

“Better” was Jennifer’s simple answer. I wanted to ask more, shucks, ask for more, but I didn’t want to seem greedy.

“What just happened?” I asked Chris while Andrea knelt down and poured some of the juice from inside of the canteen into Marie’s mouth. The juice was gold. Like not lemonade gold but actually gold, like the stuff had been recently forged down. Insane.

“You were attacked by Laistrygonian Giants. They’re cannibal monsters from Canada” Chris said simply.

“Oh” I said. Then my mind registered the full meaning. “Wait…What?!”

Jennifer signed. I noticed she wore a black scarf around her neck I had never seen before. I wondered if it was her bow incognito. “Here’s the rundown Lanson: We’re half-bloods, children of the Greek Gods. Our Immortal parent claims us when we reach thirteen. We train at Camp Half-Blood to become warriors and heroes. We go on quests and fight monsters for a living until we can retire and get real jobs. Obliviously, I’m telling you this because we suspect you’re one of us”

This was literally blowing my mind. I was being told that I was a child of a freaking god from ancient Greek mythology and was fated to fight monsters.

“I don’t believe this,” I said. I turned to Marie, who laughed with me. “Stop messing with us.”

“You just breathed fire, Lanson.” said Andrea. “You saw that. Stop acting dumb, you know we’re telling the truth.”

My mouth dropped open, and I sat down on overturned table. “We’re demigods?” Marie and I said together.

“Demigods” all three answered at once.

I stared at the floor, until a thought came to my mind. “So, you’re telling me one of my parents is a god, and one of my parents is a mortal, then why did they send me to an Orphanage? Why didn’t they stop that?”

Jennifer smiled sadly, and sat down beside me. “Some parents can’t handle knowing that they did it with a god. Some go insane. Others, they do what they did to you. But it’s weird that your godly parent didn’t claim you. A couple years ago, a demigod named Percy Jackson made the Gods swear that they would start claiming their kids. Officially the age was set to thirteen. But…”

I looked at her. “But what?” I was still a little mad about my past.

Chris shrugged, looking troubled. “We were originally sent here to get Marie. We knew she was a demigod. You on the other hand, we had no idea. We hadn’t sensed any type of demigod aura on you at all.” He frowned. “But now we are.”

I shifted uncomfortably on the table. “And I’m guessing that’s kind of bad?”

Andrea frowned. “Well, kind of. You must have a pretty powerful scent to monsters though. I mean, four Laistrygonians literally came here just for you. You might be Big Three material. You know, Zeus, Poseidon or Hades. Judging by your clothes, I predict Hades.”

I looked at my clothes. Black jeans, red UFC T-shirt, and my favorite black and red jacket, which were all drenched from the steady downpour of water from the ceiling sprinklers.

“Is Hades into Punkish things or something?”

“You wouldn’t believe.”

Suddenly, the sound of firetruck sirens echoed throughout the room. Oh no. “They’re here to respond to the fire!” I yelled to the others over the noise.

“Then it’s time for us to leave!” Jennifer yelled back. She quickly pushed a table in front of the door to block any intruders. Chris then broke out one of the windows, and let Andrea and Jennifer through. Marie shot me a worried look, but climbed out of the window after them.

I froze. I didn’t know what to do. “Where the heck are we going anyway?”

“To Camp Half-Blood, Lanson!” Chris answered as he climbed through the window, without noticing that I had frozen in place. Decide, Lanson boy. Either stay here and get blame for the damage, or go with a couple of your buttkicking friends who are trying to lead you to a mythical place…

Ah, what the heck. I never really liked this place anyway.

I grabbed the windowsill, hoisted myself up, and climbed out of the window chasing my friends. I knew in the back of my head that I would never see Saint John’s Military School of Excellence again.

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