The Third Camp Trilogy: The Final War?

Chapter twenty four: Neptuna

19 days until war.

As I watched everyone fight my mouth fell open. This wasn't the fighting I was used to at Camp Half Blood or Camp Jupiter. They were almost the opposite. The perfect opposite, the perfect defence and attack at the same time.

"Are you just going to sit there gaping at us or are you actually going to obey your orders?" Liza snarled as she dodged Cameron's strike.

"Who cares about orders?" I snorted.

"We do." Josh and Regar simultaneously spoke as they fought.

"But why? It's not like—"

"Watch your next words very carefully, missy." Josh snarled.

"Why though? All we're doing is fighting, what's the big deal?"

"The big deal is life and death, yeah no big deal, we'll just die but, you know, who cares, right?" He started to yell, the air slowly started to crackle.

"Woah sparky, calm down, she's new." Regar pulled Josh back and turned toward me, "You're lucky that you're new."

"What in the name of Hera is that supposed to mean?" I shot. "Think I can't take care of myself?"

"It means you don't know better than to threaten any part of Carrie in any of our presences."

"How long have you all known Carrie?"

"I've known him the longest." Liza spoke up.

"Of course you have, you've like, always been here." Regar smiled and elbowed her.

"Yeah, pretty much." She laughed.

"I got here a couple of weeks after Carrie." Josh shrugged.

"Wow, I remember that day. Everyone was too scared to get near you because you electrocuted the cabin leader and Carrie was the only kid in the whole camp not scared to get near you." Liza breathed.

"And he was only, like, five!"

"And then you sent this giant lightning bolt at him and we were sure he was dead but in about five seconds he hopped up and kept walking toward you."

"His whole back was bleeding! But he didn't even care!" Josh laughed.

I stiffened. Josh had hurt Carrie?

"And do you remember what he said?"

"Yeah, buddies stick up for eachother, no matter how much hell they put each other through." He nodded. "I'm pretty sure I put it on a poster above my bunk."

"I remember that when I got to camp, a few months after that, everyone called him the 'lightning kid' and I had no idea why! That is until you told me it as a bedtime story after our cabin fell asleep." Regar breathed, his mind in another place.

"And when I told you we both looked over to his bunk and he was missing. I never figured out where he went."

"And Fred, he was always going missing. Everyone always thought he would sneak off to tell Lycaon who to attack next."

I shivered at the mention of Fred.

"Fred wouldn't do that." Liza sighed.

"Oh, yes he would." Regar laughed.

"Fred's the wolfy looking guy, right?" Cameron questioned.

"Yeah."

"Where is he? I haven't seen him around camp lately."

"No one knows, that's the biggest mystery going around camp nowadays. Some say they saw Carrie kill him, others say that Carrie tortured him, there's so many different stories but I don't think any of them are true."

"Well where do you think he is?"

"Probably hiding somewhere." Josh snarled.

"Do you guys remember Carrie and Fred?" Liza questioned.

"Ugh, don't remind us." Regar sighed.

"Uh, can we get back to work?" I spoke up.

"Sure." Liza gripped her pitchfork.

"No one go easy, okay? Remember this is training for a war, not a playground fight." Regar instructed.

"I thought we were going to fight the other camps!" Josh laughed.

"We are," Regar chilled. "But we should always try our best in wars, we don't want too many soldiers dying."

"Soldiers?" I questioned. "Don't you mean campers?"

"No. Some people call the people here soldiers, others campers. The warriors prefer soldiers but the instructors are always instructors for some reason."

"Oh." I breathed and got to working on making water walls around people, sadly they easily broke through them.