Aphrodite's Promise

I become the camp's private firefighter

Percy

I was looking so forward to camp. A whole summer of spending time with my friends and Annabeth. Suddenly all the good memories started to flood my mind, as if a big dam suddenly broke. The memories of the minotaur, the chariot race, the battle of the labyrinth and of course capture the flag.

The last couple of summers, my report card showed me how much I had improved at the different at the different areas of what it took to be a good half-blood. I especially noticed how much better I had become at sword fighting. My progress was impressive, and even I could see that. One of the few people that could challenge me in a good old sword fight was the person sitting to the side of me, even though she always used that cute little dagger of hers. I suddenly felt the urge to start teasing her.

"Ready for a nightmare in sword fighting this summer?"

"I would kick your butt, Seaweed Brain."

"Yeah, right. That cute little dagger of yours won't even reach me body," I remarked, adding a tone of arrogance to my words. To be hones, that dagger was maybe the scariest weapon that I had faced in camp, it was so small and precise, it was a real struggle to defend myself against it.

"That cute little dagger of mine gave you 23 cuts."

"I won last time at the Argo II, that's all I need to say," I tried to remind her.

"No, you didn't, I won."

It's both true and not. I had her pinned, my sword was pointing down towards her, so I technically won. But she started complaining about how hard she hit her back when I knocked her over. Being the amazing boyfriend I am, I leaned down towards her, lowering my guard. She dragged me down, by my t-shirts neck and kissed me. I was distracted and at the same time, she slid the sword out of my hand and threw down to the ground, now she was pointing Riptide at me.

"Yeah, but only because you cheated!" I mean, come on. Abusing your boyfriend's love to win a fight? That's got to be some of the cruelest things I had ever encountered.

"It's called strategy." She rolled her eyes and held up and L with her index and thumb, placing it on her forehead. I knew I couldn't win an argument against Annabeth, so I let it pass. I leaned forward to my left, where Annabeth sat and gave her a long kiss on the lips, and she returned it. When I pulled back, I noticed that both of us were smiling.

"I love you, Wise Girl."

"I love you, Seaweed Brain."

We said in unison. We kept looking into her startling grey eyes and realized how much in love I was. My thoughts were cut short, when Argus pulled into a little parking space, he parked it a bit recklessly and I frowned. Annabeth and I got out of the van. Argus dragged me by the arm and pointed towards the direction of camp. Then I saw it. Black smoke rising towards the sky. Annabeth had told me how black smoke meant that the fire was still going, and how it was going strong. I understood what Argus meant. I gave Annabeth a long kiss, she returned the passion. Then I pulled back and raced towards the fire. I heard Annabeth and Argus follow me.

When I got to the top of Half-Blood Hill, just by Thalia's former pine tree, I saw that half of the trees inside the borders of camp were ablaze. I noticed a huge bronze dragon, running around lighting the whole place up, and a little figure running after it, apparently trying to get it under control. I heard a loud voice shouting my name, as if he was waiting for me.

"Quick, Percy! You have to put out the fires!" I heard Chiron shouting from the infirmary. I got the message and ran straight for the water.

I would like to say that it was easy work to control the water, but the truth was, it was exhausting. I had only summoned this much water and controlled so much water twice in my life. Once on Mount Saint Helens and when I was fighting Hyperion, but then I was fighting for myself. But this time, it was different. The destiny of camp was laying in my powers to put out the fire. I felt a kind of pressure and was overthinking the outcomes. I shook myself out of it though and got to work.

I felt a pulling sensation in my gut and noticed that my legs were now shaking. I commanded the water to send five huge waves of water towards camp. The water obliged and soon, a tsunami was invading camp, extinguishing the burning trees. I saw that from the trees, white smoking was steaming. There were still a couple of trees left, which had gone untouched by the water. So I decided to send another three waves and after a total of eight waves, camp was soaking and the fires were out. I struggled to stand and crashed down towards the ground, everything around me eaten by darkness.