Chapter 15

Percy POV

After we flashed to camp half blood Silver woke up and Grey explained what had happened.

"Mike" Silver said "Call me Mike."

Grey nodded and said "Ok I'll be Lucy." Silver nodded and slumped back into unconsciousness. It turns out we had been gone all night because as we headed to the big house the sun was already up due to the time difference and campers were already starting their morning activities.

Chiron was on the porch calmly resting in his wheel chair as we approched. "Hello lady Artemis." He greeted before turning to me"Any this interesting happen while you were gone?"

"There was a lot of stuff really but the main thing is these two." I said pointing to Silver and Grey.

"This is Mike and Lucy."I said as Annabeth and Grover walked up.

Chiron took one look at Silver and said"Take him to the infirmary we need to get him looked at and Lucy may I have a word with you." Atlanta started to leave with Silver and offered Grover went over to help which was graciously accepted.

Annabeth walked over to me but was stopped by a ring of hunters that formed around me. They knew how much Annabeth had hurt me and I was really grateful for their support. Chiron motioned for Grey to come over"Tell me Lucy do you know who I am or what this place is?"

Grey nodded "From what I heard the hunters say on the way here this is a camp for demigods and your name is Chiron, I'm guessing your the same one from the myths."

Chiron looked mildly surprised "So you are already familiar with the world of gods and demigods?" he asked along with a few other questions to make sure. Grey nodded and answered his questions, she got all of them right except the last one which was a common mistake people learn from mortal myths. This would signify her as newer and help to obscure who she really is'smart girl'I thought.

Chiron asked her to tell her story of how she got here. Grey complied and said that found out she was a demigod a few months ago but only knew that her mom was a goddess but that was it. She left home when her dad died and soon after she ran into Mike who had basically the same thing happen to him but it was his mother who passed away.

Together they traveled till they ran into a large group of monsters where Artemis and I met them and were brought here. Chiron nodded and calmly replied"Well at least you're alright hopefully you'll get claimed soon, its strange usually you would have already been claimed by 13 and your what 16, 17?"

"17" Grey confirmed "And what do you mean claimed".

Right after she spoke a Grey owl appeared over her"That is what I mean." Chiron said cheerfully "you've been claimed by your godly parent Athena."

"Oh cool." Grey said akwardly playing the part of a new camper perfectly.

Annabeth quickly stepped over to her new sister and introduced herself."Hello my name is Annabeth I'm a daughter of Athena as well and the councilor of our mother's cabin. Come with me and I'll show you to your new cabin mates.".

"I don't know maybe I should wait for Mike." Grey said nervously.

"He'll be fine." Annabeth assured her

"Just go I'll be just fine by myself for a few minutes." someone yelled and I turned to see Silver walking toward us.

Both his leg and arm were now in stiff casts and he had bandages wrapped around his stomach, it must have hurt but yet there he was with a crutch in hand striding toward us. Grover was following Silver saying that he needed to get back in bed and rest but Silver just waved him off.

Grey nodded half laughing and left with Annabeth. Chiron asked Silver the same Questions as Grey which Silver gave similar answers to as Grey "Grover" Chiron asked "would you please take Mike here for a tour of the camp?"

"Sure." Grover said leaving with Silver.

I asked Chiron if he needed my help with the sword classes but he shook his head"No, Luna turned out to be a very accomplished swordsman. She's the one teaching the class now." I was surprised but smiled anyway and left with Artemis and the hunters. As we neared the bath house we noticed a ring of people and shouting, curious I walked toward them to find Melissa talking to one of the Apollo cabin kids.

The kid was asking her what happened to her looks while that jerk Drew from the Aphrodite cabin was making fun of her. Melissa told her brother in her words that "Daddy did it." while trying to ignore Drew who apparently didn't recognize her with how she looked now.

I was getting mad and started walking over to them when Drew said "Your so pathetic I bet your own parents don't want you."

Melissa looked up at her "You're wrong!" she shouted defiantly I was about to say the same thing when water erupted from the bath house and hit Drew.

"Gross!" she shouted and with a shock I realized that Melissa was the one who controlled the water.

At that moment I was so proud of my daughter "That's my daughter!" I shouted walking over to her "That's my girl." I said in a softer tone picking her up.

"Wait what do you mean your daughter?" her brother who's name was Todd asked.

"Well I adopted her ergo she's my daughter." I said "And apparently she inherited some of my control over water."

"Daddy your back!" she said hugging me around the neck, Todd looked flabbergasted and left not knowing what to say.

It was then that I heard someone laughing and turned to see Silver standing there with Grover laughing at what just happened. Some guy started walking towards me with his fists clenched, I recognized him as Drew's boyfriend Jake. Jake was a big guy with a lot of attitude he was also a son of Ares and probably the biggest jerk in camp. There was nothing to low for him to do if it meant getting even.

"Percy hand over the girl." he said as two of his brothers walked up.

"No" I said flatly.

"She needs to be taught a lesson now hand her over or you're going to get it too." he seethed and I was a little dumb struck that he was actually serious about doing something horrible to a little girl.

Silver moved between Melissa and him "Let it go man" he said "she's just a little girl."

"No" Jake said "she embarrassed my girlfriend and she's going to see what it feels like."

"Then you'll have to go through me." Silver said.

Jake clenched his teeth "Fine by me." he said as his brothers went to'take care of'Silver which I thought was dumb. 'Seriously you're going to use three guys against one guy on crutches.' I thought.

It turned out they were the ones who needed help, Silver leaned back on his crutch and kicked the first one in the face with his good foot, ducked a punch from the second guy which he took out by taking out the guy's legs with his crutch and hitting him in the face with the shoulder end of his crutch just as Clarisse walk over to see what was going on.

Jake charged and Silver used his good leg to jump three feet in the air over to him and slamming his fist in Jake's face as he come down gracefully landing on his good leg "Could you toss me my crutch?" Silver asked standing on one foot.

"Who are you?" Clarisse said coming over "And Prissy what the Hades happened?"

"Well Drew was picking on my daughter…"

"You have a daughter?" Clarissa asked in shock

"yep meet my adoptive daughter Melissa Jackson." Melissa waved "Well any way Melissa got mad and soaked her with water making your brother Jake mad so he came after Melissa and Mike here said that Jake had to go through him first and promptly kicked his butt when he tried."I said.

Clarisse looked disgusted by her brothers for trying to hurt a little girl then at Silver who was just standing there "Hello I'm Clarisse." she said holding out her hand.

"Mike." he answered shaking her hand but not looking at her.

"You know it's rude not to look at the person you're talking to." she said Silver took off his glasses revealing his eyes.

They were almost completely white, you could see the outline line of his irises but it was impossible to tell the color "You're blind." Clarisse said which seemed kinda obvious to me. Silver just nodded and put his glasses back on. "So you just beat the crap out of three of my best soldiers while basically crippled and blind."

"Yep." was his only answer.

"If you're blind then how did you fight like that? !t was like you knew where they were!" I exclaimed

"Sight in only one of five senses I've learn to use the other four to make up for it." he said just as a red boar appeared over his head.

"Looks like you're a child of Ares." Clarisse said.

"Oh" Silver said nonchalantly.

"Here come with me I'll take you back to our cabin." she said before looking at Grover and saying "I'll take it from here.".

After she left Grover walked over to me "Well that was interesting." I said.

"Ya" Grover replied "but there's something weird about him.".

"How so?" I asked

"His smell is off." the satyr replied.

"You gotta give me more than that G-Man."

"Well every demigod has a certain smell based on who their godly parent is you smell like the ocean and Nico smells like death. Since Mike is a son of Ares he should smell like blood and sweat but he doesn't."

"What does he smell like?" I asked

"He smells like forests and lake water mixed in with what I think is frozen seawater."

"You're right that is weird but if Ares claimed him there's nothing we can do." I said and we left.

Clarisse POV

Mike was kind of an odd guy he didn't really talk that much but had no problem stopping something he thought was wrong. I took him back to the cabin and walked him to his cot "Thank you." he said sitting down.

"No problem." I said "There's a trunk at the end of your bed where you can put your stuff."

he nodded and I heard a knock at the door I turned to see Annabeth and a new girl I didn't recognize standing in the doorway to our cabin "Who are you?" I asked.

"I'm Lucy Mike's friend can I come in?" she asked.

I looked at Mike "Do you know this girl" he nodded

"Sure you can come in just be quick."

"Thanks." she said "I was just dropping off his stuff."

"Thank you." he said laying a hand on the pack she set on the bed.

"You're welcome." she said before leaving "Well see you around." she called.

When Jess our cabin medic got back I had him take a look at Mike"Wow your really banged up" he said afterwards "What happened?".

"Me and my friend Lucy ran into a group of monsters on the way here." he said simply

"Ok then why is there purple dye on your arms."

Mike tensed"It's to cover up a part of my life I'd rather not talk about." he said and left it at that.

Over the next week Zeus placed both camps on lock down not even allowing the hunters to leave. I also noticed some other strange things about Mike. He had a very kind heart and wasn't quick to anger like most children of Ares.

He loved little kids and would spend most of the day with them just playing games and he took special care of Natalie my half sister who got pregnant on a one night stand with some guy about 8 ½ months ago but she seemed happy. He also had a zero tolerance for disrespecting women which I didn't mind, and probably the weirdest thing was he liked to go outside at night and just sit with his back to the cabin staring up at the sky.

The first few nights were over cast which seemed to make him a little grumpy but not horribly. One night which also happened to be the night of the full moon after the campfire I went back to the cabin to see him sitting in his usual spot. He looked at peace sitting there"Hey Mike."I said looking at him

"Hi Clarisse." he said softly

"Why do you always sit out here?" I asked.

He chuckled a bit "My mom was a sort of forest ranger, she would make sure the number of dangerous animals stayed low. Back before I lost my eye sight she would take me and my adoptive sisters with her and we would spend the whole night talking and looking up at the stars."

"Even though I can't do the same now when I sit here I can still remember those times we had before they died."

"What happened?" I asked

"It was a monster attack?" he said and I thought I saw a tear run down his cheek "Their deaths were one of the last things I saw.". I put a hand on his shoulder and left I looked back at him and even though everything was bathed in moon light it almost seemed to shimmer around him like it recognized him I shook the thought out of my head and went to sleep.

The next morning Chiron called a councilors meeting and informed us that the Olympians would be coming to camp along with some demigods from the other camp and to be on our best behavior. When I got back to the Ares cabin just about everyone had left except for Mike and Jess who were currently having an argument.

"You need to stay in bed." Jess said "Your bones can't heal if you don't rest, as it is you're going to take two or three months to heal."

"I'm fine." Mike said standing up waving him

"No your not!" Jess said attempting to gently force him to sit down."Till that those casts come off your not leaving the cabin."

Mike looked at him and raised an eyebrow "So if the cast comes off I can leave?" he asked Jess looked at him uncertainly but nodded.

Mike walked out to the little concrete 4 x 4 x 1 block we used as step to get into the cabin and slammed his left leg down with all his might "What are you doing?" Jess shouted as the cast shattered, cringed inwardly 'that had to hurt with a broken leg' I thought.

Jess ran over to Mike who was now testing his weight on his left leg "Seems fine." he said almost mockingly.

Jess checked out the leg and looked at me "I don't get it" He said "that leg should still be busted but its fine."

"I heal fast." Mike said.

"I'll say." Jess said still looking at him in disbelief. Mike lifted his right leg and slammed his right arm against it shattering that cast as well and started to take off his bandages.

Jess did a full check up and even got an Apollo camper's opinion and as near as they could tell Mike was in perfect health. "I'm heading down to the sword arena." he said lazily.

"Good" I said runinnig after his "than we can do your test."

"Test?" he asked looking back at me, he didn't really need to but he asked me not to tell anyone he was blind because he didn't want to be treated differently and he did a good job covering it up. "What test?"

"We give it to every new Ares kid we get, it's just a test so we know what you physical capabilities are."

He nodded and said "Well lets go then.".

First I took him to the chariot tracks that's where the campers would run laps if they wanted. The average time it took for one of my cabin mates to finish the run was about 10 minutes he did it in 4 shocking both me and Jess. Next we had the climbing wall in lava mode this one we didn't judge on time, we just gave them a score between 1 and 10 based on how difficult it was for them to do 1 being worst and 10 being best, he pulled off an 8.

We then tested his flexibility and strength both of which he did fairly well in then we moved on to weapons he was ok with a spear but not the best I'd seen with plenty of room to improve. When it came to ranged weapons, a.k.a. bows and throwing knives, he did extremely well. The throwing knives were all dead center which I had no idea had he did that seeings as he was blind and right after showed skills with a bow that would give any Apollo camper a run for their money. Finally we got to sword fighting which I was anxious to see since that was the only weapon he had on him besides the bow and quiver we picked up at the archery range.

Jake had insisted on being the one to test him since he was the best with a sword in the cabin, but I think he was more keen on getting revenge on Mike for embarrassing him the first day here. Jake left to 'get ready' and came a few minutes later saying he was good to go.

Annabeth walked up right as the test started "So what's going on?" she asked.

"Just giving the newbie his final test." I said pointedly. I didn't really get along with Annabeth that much after her breakup with Percy so I tried to keep out conversations brief when possible.

"Oh so how's he doing?" she asked

"So far he's got the highest score I've ever seen." I said watching the fight.

"Is that Jake?" she asked worriedly.

"Yes why?"

"A few minutes ago he asked me if he could borrow my invisibility cap in exchange for getting a look at the battle tactics you guys have."

"He said what!" I said looking at her then back at the fight as Mike knocked Jake on the ground.

The whole fight Mike had been in control and it was obvious who was the better swordsman "Yield." he said

"Sorry not happening." Jake said putting on Annabeth's hat and vanishing. Mike didn't move for a while waiting for Jake to make his move and personally I doubted he even knew Jake had gone invisible. Suddenly Mike raised his sword like he was blocking and we heard a loud clang signifying he just stopped Jake's sword. I watched as Mike would make fast and hard slashes as he continued to press Jake forcing him to go on the defensive.

A lot of people started to notice and soon most of the camp including the hunters were watching as Mike fought an invisible Jake. Finally Mike threw an uppercut hitting Jake square in the face and knocking of the cap. We all gasped as he became visible again he was covered in sweat and bruises, Mike put his sword to Jake's throat "How could you see me!" Jake yelled.

Mike ignored him and simple said "Yield" Jake just got madder and madder until he did something only me and one other child of Ares, Frank Zang, had managed to do. He went into what Ares campers call berserk mode, because it usually comes on through anger, or as everyone else calls it the blessing of Ares.

I thought Mike was a dead man because while we're like that we're almost impossible to beat. Jake knocked Mike's sword out of his hand and discarded his own in the process. Jake threw a punch at Mike chest, the hit would probably put him in the hospital for a couple weeks but he didn't make an attempt to move instead he just caught Jake's punch.

I couldn't believe he had caught it and that's when I noticed the red aura around Mike. It was a bit different from Jake's which seemed to flow out of his like a steady stream. Mike's on the other hand was like a tidal wave trapped in a tornado. Mike in one swift motion pulled Jake forward and punched him in the back of the neck successfully knocking him out and let his own blessing of Ares dissipate.

Everybody just stared as Mike walked out with the exception of two the first his friend Lucy who didn't seem surprised and that new girl in the Poseidon cabin Luna who still looked shocked. I thought I heard Luna say to Lucy "Since when can he do that?" she asked.

"You missed a lot in the time you were gone." Lucy answered.

Later I found Mike sitting by Zeus's fist and sat down next to him "Go a head" he said tiredly"I know you want to ask."

I was surprised he knew but asked anyway "How did you use the blessing of Ares so easily? I mean usually its a pain just to activate but for you it almost seemed effortless."

"Well here's the short answer." he said "Inside every demigod is the power they inherited from their godly parent for children of Ares that power is manifested as his blessing. For a child of Poseidon it's a hurricane. These forms or modes if you will are specific to each god but can be similar between them like Poseidon and Zeus."

"For everyone there's a certain trigger that releases that power. All you need to do if find your trigger and how to set it off when you need it."

I was a little confused but couldn't help but asked "Could you teach me to do that?"

"Have you ever used it before?" he asked.

"Once." I said.

He smiled"Then I just might be able to." he said.

We heard the blow of a horn"We need to get back." I said "The gods were coming today with an announcement."

Apollo POV (the day before the gods announcement)

Even day's after the conversion with Grey my head was still reeling from what I had learned. I tried to put it out of my mind as we neared the end of another council meeting"So its all agreed those twelve will be the ones?" I nodded. I was not entirely happy about it but I couldn't object that they were worthy.

After the meeting I went over to Artemis's palace wanting to talk to her and walked in. Normally if her hunters were here I would have to knock but she was by herself so I didn't worry about it. I checked her kitchen, living room, and gym before heading to her bedroom. As I walked up to the door I could hear her singing Taylor swift.

"...I don't know about you

but I'm feeling 22

everything will be alright

if you keep me next to you

You don't know about me

but I bet you want to

everything will be alright

if we just keep dancing like we're

22, 22 …"

I stifled a laugh 'this if perfect blackmail' I thought as I pulled out my phone and recorded her singing the rest of the song. In truth she had a beautiful voice but it wasn't like her to sing especially love songs, come to think of it she had been doing a lot a strange things lately.

Artemis walked out of her room and immediately walk away in the opposite direction I was in not even noticing me. I thought about scaring her but stopped myself when I noticed two things a) she was wearing makeup, it wasn't a ton just a tiny bit of blush that made her eyes pop. 'Arty never wears make up' I thought also taking note that she had her hair down instead of her usual french braid.

And b) she was wearing a beautiful blue dress that cut up to a little past her knee and complimented her curves nicely. 'Ok somethings up.' I thought and decided to follow her, just before she left she put on a pair of silver crescent moon earrings and changed her form so she now had brown hair, tanned skin, and blue eye's before flashing out.

I followed her to a fancy restaurant and waited a little ways back as she told the hostess the name for her reservation. I changed my clothes before going in and getting me a table where I would have a clear view of Artemis. I found her sitting at a table talking and laughing with someone but I couldn't get a good look at him because of a 3 ton guy sitting directly in my line of sight. They eventually walked to the other side of the restaurant which was being used as a dance floor and started to dance.

After about an hour Arty and the guy left the dance floor and headed to the bathroom (hey we may be gods but we still got to use it to) before she left though the guy leaned forward and kissed her, I was expecting a slap to come but instead she kissed him back and left smiling. I decided that I needed to meet this guy so I went over and tapped him on his shoulder.

"Hey kid." I said the guy turned around.

It was freaking Percy! "Oh hey Apollo." Percy said nervously. I looked at Percy in the most threatening way I could.

"I'm going to ask you one question and you better answer honestly." I said "Did you or did you not just kiss my sister."

"Yes." he said and I was about ready to knock him into next week "I'm kinda here on a date with her." he continued rubbing the back of his head.

"Does Arty know this is a date?" I asked.

"Yes" he said.

My anger didn't go away but was more buried under my shock "Since when have you two been dating?" I asked.

"About a month and a half." he said.

I was dumbfounded "Just wondering do you know what that's like to a god?" I inquired.

"It's different between gods and mortals?" Percy asked.

I rolled my eye's and figured I better tell him. "just so you know gods and goddess feel emotions a lot stronger than mortals, it comes with the heightened power, for a god a month of dating feels like a year of dating which means she's really into you."

Percy tapped his pocket and looked to see if Arty was coming "Well that's reassuring." he said looking back to me "Apollo can I ask you a question?" he asked.

"Sure what is it." I said honestly still blown away by the absurdity of it.

"Since I can't really ask your dad without him killing me I'd like to ask your permission to marry Artemis." Percy said.