We were all squished in the amphitheater after school. A huge announcement was going to be made.

"Settle down!" Mom said. Silence hushed the room.

"It seems that the great prophecy has come to the present." She said.

Someone raised their hand. "Wasn't that prophecy said, like, eighty years ago?"

"And it appears that the prophecy shall happen tomorrow." Mom answered. "Someone reported seeing the Fates last night. They were apparently talking with a student off campus, telling them the old prophecy."

I shrunk back in my seat. I was caught.

"Although we don't know who was off campus, we do know that the time of the prophecy is now, as Olympus is under constant attack. Hellhounds, Bad Cyclops, Minotaurs, someone is inviting monsters into the only safe haven for special mortals and half- bloods. So we must asign a quest."

An excited murmur erupted from the crowd.

"Who goes on the quest is already chosen." Mom said.

"Payton, son of the Sea God."

The GodBoys howled and cheered for Payton.

"Abigail, daughter of Artemis."

"Ariana, daughter of..... Well........me."

"Hallie, daughter of Hades."

"And, finally, Darrien, son of Demeter."

"And one satyr as well as a mythic animal, unable to see through the Mist, of course, also may accompany you on your journey."

"Please exit through the back, everyone, since the front doors have been destroyed due to a Cyclops issue." Mom walked off stage.

Applause rose from the audience as Abigail, Payton, Hallie, Darrien, and me stood up.

"Can you believe it? My first quest!" Abigail gushed.

"Mine, too! I never got one since a different son of Poseidon caused a hurricane in New Orleans." Payton said.

"It was an accident! They wouldn't let me in to the Mar dis Gras!" Someone protested.

"My first quest to save the world from chaos, no pressure." I mumbled.

"I don't care if I get a quest. It involves a lot of monster slaying." Abby piped up.

"I'm all green thumbs for gardening. All thumbs down on Monster battles." Paisley said.

"Chosen ones, meet at the Sword Arena." The intercom blared.

We walked over to palace with straw dummies, bronze swords, shields, and people battling.

I whipped out my trusty Celestial Bronze knife, the only kind of metal able to kill half- bloods.

"Dozens of weapons and you choose a knife? Are you gonna slice your enemies like bread?" Ashton called.

He lumbered over to me.

"I can't believe Principal Athena had majority girls." He scoffed.

I thrashed my knife but he easily ducked and whipped out as sword. He swiped it, but I sidestepped. He threw it in a desperate attempt. I dodged and had my knife at his neck. If he made one move, all I'd have to do is swipe my knife left and he'd be in the Underworld.

"I'm sorry, Ashton," I said innocently, "could you repeat that?"

I let my knife hang by my side as Ashton stomped away, grumbling.

"Always carry a knife," I advised my quest members, "Once we're on earth, the Mist'll be harder to cover our swords." The magic veil, the Mist, covers most Mortal eyes into seeing whatever gets into their imagination. Like if a cyclops was in the streets, mortals would think it's just some tall guy who doesn't use grammar.

"But swords would be handy for Combat when Mortals aren't there." Hallie reasoned.

"I've got a double sided weapon." Payton said. He brought out his conch horn key chain. He whispered into it until it morphed into the size of a staff. Both ends had a bronze, sharp, shell.

"I always have my bow." Abigail held up her birthday present bow from last year.

"I have the dead." Hallie said. She cupped her hands to look like a claw then changed in Ancient Greek and raised her arms slowly, like they weighed more than a truck. A crack formed in the ground as skeletal hands balanced them selves on the floor and and skeletons pulled themselves out of the ground.

I raised my eyebrows as I threw her a sheathed sword. The skeletons stood at her side. They stared at the living hungrily.

"No. No one here get's eaten." Hallie commanded. "You are dismissed."

She snapped her fingers and a new crack formed on the floor, swallowing the zombies and patching up the hole where they came from.

"That won't haunt me for life." Abigail chirped.

"I have, um, plants." Darrien said. He did the same claw arm thing Hallie had done as thick, green, plants sprouted from the ground around us. They kept growing until the floor looked like we were standing on a green, shag, carpet. Even the straw in the dummies looked more yellow than usual.

"Okay, okay," I said, "No more power demos, 'kay?"

The vines shrunk and crawled back into the earth.

Everyone nodded. "Let's pair up. One on one sword fight." Abigail suggested.

Abigail paired up with me. "So, how do you hold this thing?" Abigail said, blushing.

Abigail knew about as much as swords as a Cyclops knew how to speak proper English. It was impossible.

I twisted her sword at the right position. "There." I said.

She tried to hit me in the chest but I side stepped. I twisted my sword on her arm and she dropped her weapon. I had Wise one at her throat.

"I yield." She said, panting.

I gave her back her sword. "You need to learn sword fighting. It'll be useful for combat like this."

"I'm more of the archer type. Archery is just something natural for me." Abigail said.

I heard an oof as Darrien fell to the ground. He closed his eyes and the grass around the arena grew longer as they grabbed Payton's legs. He squirmed as they held him in place. Darrien balanced back up and swiped his sword just above Payton's head.

"You'd be dead if I wasn't your friend, man." Darrien said as the plants around Payron grew smaller and loosened up.

Payton scoffed. "Right, friend. I oughta slug you." He showed Darrien his fist. "That was unfair!"

Darrien shrugged. "Who said battling monsters was fair? The DemiGods who turned don't play fair."

Payton pushed Darrien. Darrien shoved Payton to the ground. Payton grabbed his sword and knocked it at Darrien's feet, sending him to the floor. Darrien grabbed his sword and slashed it at Payton.

"No maiming!" Payton wailed. He slashed his sword at Darrien's unprotected chest.

"Stop!" Hallie said. "You're playing with Celestial bronze! As in the only metal able to hurt Half- bloods."

The green grass around Darrien started turning to a dry yellow colour.

"Vlacas," Hallie muttered, calling the boys idiots in Greek.

"I can sense that Darrien lost part of his soul." She said solemnly. She turned to Payton. "Swipe him one more time, he goes down."

She rushed over to Darrien. It was clear since the School year started that Hallie had feelings for Darrien.

"Hallie, do something!" Abigail said, panicking.

"I can't do anything. And even my father can't prevent death. It's only his realm." Hallie said, frustrated.

"We need some nectar!" I said. I ran to the nearest Harpy stand selling food near the arena.

"Can I have a Baggie of ambrosia squares and some nectar?" I said, tapping the table.

"We don't sell ambrosia squares anymore. Too unhealthy. We do have low- fat ambrosia bars for energy." The harpy said.

"Fine. I'll take that instead and some nectar." I said.

"That'll be 14 drachmas." She said. I fished in my pocket and came up empty handed.

"This is an emergency! Someone in the arena is dying!" I protested.

"Do you wanna save your friend or install a barrier around the school for monsters?" She said. That harpy couldn't care less.

"It's Demeter's son! She'll blame you for his death." I reasoned.

Her lip quivered. "Actually, now that I think about it, it's on the house." She handed my the food and I grabbed it out of her hands.

I raced back in to find Darrien bleading half blood, half Ichor, the golden blood of the gods.

I gave the food to Hallie as she pieced it up and fed it to Darrien.

"I'm okay." He protested in a hoarse voice.

"No, you're not. We need an Apollo healing person or something!" Hallie said.

"No, really. I'm good. I think I'll sit this one out, though." He replied. He trudged over to a spot he could sit down and watched us battle.

"Why don't we just ask Hallie to summon monsters from the underworld? Get a real taste of what the monsters'll be!?" Payton asked.

"I'm not sure," Hallie said, "When they stay in the real world too long, they often don't wanna go back to the UnderWorld."

After a few hours if practice, we said our good- byes and headed to the dorms to pack up.