The Next Olympians

Chapter One - Katherine

It's boring at times, being an unclaimed camper when you know exaxtly where you belong. And, though I love the Hermes cabin campers, claimed or no, their tricks and pranks infuriate me. Of course, most of the time, the ones they pull are relatively harmless. Except for one particular day.

I wake up to Rika shaking me by one shoulder. The sun is up, a beautiful day as it always is at Camp Half-Blood, and there isn't a single cloud over us. Magical borders are pretty cool. Despite what you might have guessed from her rather happy attitude, Rika is a daughter of Hades, but she is temporarily staying in Cabin Eleven until hers is re-built. A monster of some sorts came in and trampled it to a pile of bones, literally one hour before I arrived on Half-Blood Hill. To this day, I still have no idea what did it, but I don't think I want to know.

"Get up, Katie! We've got archery right after breakfast, and Mr D has been recalled to Olympus for something important. Chiron isn't telling us what it is, though," she says, as I sit up to look at her with bleary eyes.

"Duh, Rika. Obviously, something is happening with the gods, or he wouldn't care. You know how he is." I reply, rubbing the sleep dust away from my eyes as I get up and stretch. Now, I know that I'm not a daughter of Hermes; my dad, Alastair Greenwood, sure as heck isn't a god. So that rules most of the major Olympians out, and I know - via my protector, Sam - that I'm not the daughter of a minor goddess. So that leaves Demeter, Aphrodite, and Athena.

Great, so I'm either a green thumb, a bimbo, or a nerd. Wonderful.

Me? My name is Katherine Greenwood. I'm ADHD, like pretty much all of us are, but for some unknown reason, I'm not dyslexic. Kicked out (or "strongly suggested to move") from five schools in seven years of schooling, two of them private, but apparently that's normal for kids like us. I'm fourteen, by the way. But, despite all of this, I don't know who I am. My hair is dark brown, and I have grey eyes that can turn green or blue in some lights, so that doesn't help me if I were trying to find my look-alike. I'm not curvy or twiggy like the Aphrodite girls, and I don't have the way with plants that Demeter does. And battle strategy? Shoot me and take that idea far away. But I don't expect to be claimed for a long while, yet; another friend I've made waited for almost a year before Ares cared enough to claim her.

Anyway, back to the subject at hand, I quickly change into an orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, and soft black shorts. I plait my dark hair so that it's out of the way (fringe excluded of course), put on a pair of joggers, and go up to the dining pavillion with Rika by my side.

The first thing I notice, after I pick up a goblet and a plate is that the dining hall is almost empty, except for five people, including us. I sit down at Cabin Eleven's table, have bacon and fried eggs appear on my plate, and wish for orange juice in the cup. After only three days of being in this incredibly weird but amazing place, I have decided that this camp feels more like home than any other house or school I've ever lived in. I. scrape a piece of bacon into the brazier at the side of the pavillion, and think, Mother, please. Give me a sign if you can.

The first of the five people I recognise is the daughter of Ares I mentioned earlier, Alexis Grey. She lets me call her Lexi. She's fit and strong, like most of her siblings, a natural in most combat types, and has straight black hair and dark hazel eyes. She also has really tanned skin, and could be a real knockout if she tried. But she doesn't, and Lexi has a short temper that could rival her father, or so I've heard. She waves to Rika and I, I return the gesture with a piece of bacon on my fork, and the piece of food flies across the pavillion.

Right onto Zac's table.

Shoot.

Okay, my mental language may have been a little stronger than that.

See, the problem with that is that Zachary Hemsworth, or Zac as we all know him, is a - the - son of Zeus. He's tall, blonde, "oh dayum"  in most senses of the phrase, and I prefer not to mess with him. Mostly because he could probably kill me without much hassle, and I would prefer to stay alive for now. As he turns to look around, so he can find who threw the food, I clap a hand over my mouth and feel that I may be blushing. As Rika looks at me in a mix of amusement and pity, she decides to save my neck in the figurative sense.

"Sorry about that, Zac, that was an accident," the daughter of Hades calls out to him, grinning. To my surprise, he laughs, picks up the bacon, and walks over.

"I should probably eat this, just to make a point," he jokes, and I remove my hand to reveal the fact that I'm smiling as well; except I'm the one blushing like an idiot, and Rika is looking at me with one raised eyebrow and an expression that says, Oh gods, what are you thinking?

"Sorry," I echo in a sheepish tone of voice, and tilt my head so that my fringe falls in my eyes. An old habit.

"Don't worry about it. You're Katherine, right? The new girl?" Zac asks in a gentler tone, and I nod self-consciously, looking up. Lexi has joined us by now, and sits down on the egde of my bench to listen. Instead of zapping me as I might have expected, he holds out a hand to shake. "Well, in that case, it's nice to formally meet you. I'm Zac, son of Zeus."

What a coincidence with the names, I think, pushing my hair out of my face and taking his offer of a handshake. "You can call me Katie if you like."

"That's cute," the fifth person in the dining pavillion teases us; Ariana Mitchell, a daughter of Apollo, and one of the nicest people I have ever encountered. She stands up and walks over to us, a quiver of arrows strapped to her back and her bow over one shoulder, and sits down on the edge of the table. She flicks her caramel brown hair over one shoulder, and adds, "You two hit it off quite well, Katie. Just kiss and have it over with."

My eyes widen at the suggestion, and I give the slightly older girl an are-you-serious look before I realise how that might have looked. "No offense to you Zac, but fat chance."

The taller guy, who is looking at Ariana with the same horrified expression, glances at me sideways and grins. "No, don't worry, I was thinking something similar." After those words are spoken, a silence fills the pavillion and I end up shifting uncomfortably.

"Oo-kay then, I'd best be going, I have archery starting early today," I decide to break the awkward silence, poking Rika and looking at my watch as I stand up. Ariana grins at me.

"Not so easy, princess, I'm your tutor today," she replies, waggling one finger in the air.

Shoot, I think again, as I inch away from the table in an exaggerated fashion. No pun intended. "I bet I can beat you to the archery range. You have to drop the joke if I do."

"Jeez, Katie, over-reacting much?" Lexi chooses this time to put in her two cents, and I shoot her a deadpan look.

"No, I'm just totally fine with being shipped like a daughter of Aphrodite." I use no small amount of sarcasm as I reply to the statement, before giving Ariana a pointed look, vaulting over a table, and running out of the pavillion.

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A/N: Can Acrobolt, Stealth, Jadey and Cookie please PM me with how their characters would have reacted to Katie leaving like that? Next chapter will be in either Rika or Zac's POV.