This will be an interesting chapter (hopefully)

Chapter Quote:

“It’s hard to lose somebody.  It leaves a hole in your heart that never grows back.”

~Kevin Brooks, Lucas

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Chapter 14: Light ‘Em Up

Thalia 

The obstacle course wasn’t anything anyone expected.  Chiron had made it sort of like a relay race.  The first thing you had to was run through the forest, climbing over towering walls, crawling under net stuff, jumping through moving bars, using monkey bars to swing across a pit fifteen feet deep (five feet of which was mud), then you had to fight a monster (some type of scorpion that most likely wouldn’t be able to kill us, just detain us, and there was one for each camper participating), and that’s when you got to the beach.  From there, you had to leave from floating platform to floating platform, to a ladder where you climbed up three stories, swung from rope to rope (It’s a lot harder than you think), and then you had to swing perfectly onto a solid platform.  After you did that, you could run straight through a tower where you had to climb through multiple, severely tangled ropes to get to the next level of the six story tower.  The second level really consisted of level three and four as well, and you had to climb on a spinning cylinder with poles for hand and footholds, and you could pull them out from underneath your opponent, but your opponent could do the same.  Level five was actually a raising platform, and it went on a very specific time schedule.  It took ten seconds for it to raise from level five to level six, and it was only four feet by four feet, so it was tiny, and if you didn’t pull yourself up onto it in time, then your fingers would get smashed by level six.  On level six was the trophy, a Golden Laurel.  It was replaced with a new one after every victory.

“This looks… different,” Percy remarked.

“Of all things you could’ve said, you say ‘different’?” I queried, giving the son of Poseidon a semi-amused look.

“He’s special,” Annabeth laughed, taking a hold of his hand.

“Who’s all participating today?” Luke asked.  I automatically understood the hidden meaning behind his statement.

“Well, all of the Ares kids are, so are the Athena kids, Hephaestus, Nike, Hecate, Hermes, Dionysus, obviously Zeus,” Percy stated, winking at me. “Aphrodite and Hebe are staying out, so are Hypnos.  Of course those kids are all asleep.”

“And just you from Poseidon?” Luke questioned as casually as he could.

“I don’t know.  Shiloh didn’t say.  Haven’t really seen her much lately.”

“Why not?” I scrunched my eyebrows.  Percy just shrugged, not answering me back.

“Campers!  Gather around!” Chiron shouted out.  We all gathered around because we were smart and didn’t want to disobey him.  I leaned against Luke and he wrapped his arm around my shoulder.  All Chiron did was explain the rules.  The pairings were already drawn up by random.  Two people would compete against each other.  After they passed a certain stage in the course, the next group would go.  There was also no maiming or killing your opponent and no cheating or you’d be disqualified.  Also, if you failed one part of the course, you would have to go back to the beginning of that specific phase and start from there.  Then he turned to Percy and said, “And as for you Percy,” his eyes roamed behind the son of Poseidon’s shoulder, “and you Shiloh, no walking across the water and ignoring the course to get there.  You must use the platforms and such.”

Luke whipped his head around, as did I.  Neither of us had even heard her come up.  It was creepy…

“No Jesusing you two!” Grey joked.

A smile spread across Shiloh’s face. “Never said we couldn’t use it to help us with other things though.”

“May the gods help whoever goes against you,” he replied.

“When did you get here?” Percy inquired.

Shiloh said, “Just got here before Chiron explained the rules.  Clarisse insisted I take part.”

“How in Hades’ name do you get along with her?” Luke asked.

The daughter of Poseidon ignored him. “Anyways, good luck, don’t get hurt too much, and I’ll see you later, okay?  I’m going to ask Chiron who I’m paired up against.  Bye!”  She waved and maneuvered her way up to the centaur.

“Has she always been that stealthy?” I queried.

“Yeah, pretty much.  It’s the Apollo in her.  Come on, let’s go see who we’re paired against.”

I ended up going against that Grey kid.  He actually seemed like a pretty formidable opponent.  Percy had to go against Chris Rodriguez.  Annabeth had to fight against Clarisse.  That would be an interesting one to watch.  Finally Luke found out his.  I wasn’t sure if he was happy or upset about it.  He got to be around her, but he also had to fight her.  I was going to go with he was upset that he had to fight her, but he was glad to be near her.  Then again, I wondered how she was taking this.

“Shiloh’s okay with it?” Luke questioned quietly.

“Is there any reason she shouldn’t be?” Chiron countered, seeming genuinely confused as to why there would be animosity between the two of them.

“No reason, just curious.” The centaur obviously didn’t buy that statement but he didn’t enquire further.  Luke cringed. “This isn’t going to go well.”

“Why?” I queried.

“Because I don’t want to hurt her but I don’t think she’ll have any problem hurting me.”

“So go on the defensive but don’t let her hurt you,” I told him.  He grimaced but didn’t say anything else.  The two of us joined Percy and Annabeth on the sidelines.  We informed them of Luke’s pairing.  Percy told him it’d be okay, but it sounded more like he was trying convince himself rather than us, which I took as a bad sign.

Annabeth and Clarisse were first to start the games.  They shook hands and got ready at the starting line.  I was next with Grey, followed by about ten pairs of campers before Percy and Chris went.  Connor and Travis Stoll had somehow ended up going against each other.  I really wanted to see that competition!  And last but not least was Luke and Shiloh.  My boyfriend fidgeted the whole time I was with him. I tried to calm him down but nothing helped, so I let Luke keep on with his anxiety.

Annabeth and Clarisse cleared the first few obstacles pretty quickly, meaning it was Grey and mine’s turn.  I smiled politely at him, shook his hand, faced the starting line, and waited for our signal to go.

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Luke 

I watched as Thalia and Grey set off at a fast pace.  I only hoped everyone would go as fast as they did so I could get this over with.  I really didn’t want to compete against Shiloh, but I had no choice in the matter.  One by one, each group went.  Annabeth won against Clarisse, but only narrowly.  Grey, surprisingly, won against Thalia.  They’d been neck to neck the entire time up until the ropes on the tower in the water.  The guy was like a snake and like… slithered through the ropes to the next section.  By the time Thalia disentangled herself, he was at the top of the tower with the Golden Laurel.  Connor and Travis completely exploited the system and grabbed the Golden Laurel together.  Chiron actually laughed at that.  Percy won against Chris which didn’t surprise me.

And then it was my turn.

I took a deep breath and lined up.  I shook hands with Shiloh.  She acted way too casual about all this.  She acted as if our fight had never happened, as if she didn’t even know who I was.  Annabeth, Percy, and Thalia were all watching us.  I didn’t want to fail in front of them.  I’d done that enough…

Chiron sounded off the ‘Go’ signal and the two of us were off.  Shiloh pulled ahead quickly, although I don’t know how.  She reached the first wall long before I did.  It was a twenty foot rock-climbing wall.  She was half-way up by the time I got there.  However, neither of us realized that the rocks could disappear as they pleased.  One decided to retract from underneath her foot just as she was lifting her other one to get a foothold on another rock.  Shiloh gasped from surprise as she clung desperately to stay on.  By now I’d climbed past her, but I couldn’t leave her there.  I don’t know why, but I couldn’t.

“Here!” I offered, lowering my hand for her to take.

“Go to Tartarus,” she spat, getting a new foothold and rocketing past me.  Well I guess I should’ve seen that coming…

I scrambled after her, wanting to catch up.  She reached the top of the wall and jumped down.  I wasn’t far behind her.  The next wall, the second of three, was a twenty foot wall where you had to use a rope to help yourself climb up.  While Shiloh had had a head start, physically, I had more upper body strength than her and quickly caught up and even got past her.  By the time she jumped down from that wall, I was at the start of the next.

Problem was it was just a wall.

Literally.

Just a plain wall.

Nothing to help me get over it, under it, or past it.  I stared.  How in Hades’ name was I going to do this?  I heard Shiloh skidding to a stop beside me.  Her expression was that of utter confusion.  At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what the hell to do.

“Any ideas?” I queried casually.

“None that I’m planning on telling you,” she replied nonchalantly, backing up.  I watched her while she looked around, up, and down.  I didn’t even see a rock that I could use as leverage to jump on, so I couldn’t figure out why a sly smile was spreading across her face.

“Simple,” she murmured, “but effective.  Gods I hope I’m right about this.”

“Uh, right about what?” I gave her a confused gaze.  She ignored me.  Shiloh backed up about thirty feet, took a deep breath, and charged at the wall.  I was in too much shock at what she was doing to stop her.  She was going to crash in three… two… one…

I watched as Shiloh vanished through the wall.  I blinked, not believing my eyes.  How the…?

Simple but effective, is what she had said.  The only thing I could think of was anything but simple for most demigods, but certain ones had a knack for this, and it made sense why most of them had been able to bypass this wall with little trouble.

The Mist.

Hecate children were exceptionally good at manipulating it.  Shiloh had figured that out, and now so had I.  I ran through, feeling like Harry Potter in the Sorcerer’s Stone and thinking I was nuts for running through a solid wall and then being totally surprised when I went through it and came out onto the other side at the next obstacle: the crawling under the nets.  It was simple enough, and Shiloh and I both breezed past that section.  The next part was jumping through eight sets of moving bars that went up and down extremely fast.  Again, with the right timing, the two of us made it past that section rather quickly, although Shiloh beat me and went straight for the monkey bars that went across the mud pit.  I lost sight of her briefly, and when I could see the monkey bars again, she was crawling out of the mud pit.  Brown muck covered her all the way up to her chest.  She wiped her hands on the ground.  I wanted to say a witty comment to lighten the mood but figured she’d castrate me if I said anything else to her right now.  I wondered why she’d fallen off the monkey bars though.  That was one of the first things demigods learned.  How to do monkey bars and how to do them well so that in case you went on a quest and experienced them, you wouldn’t fall down, say, a never ending pit.  I studied the bars carefully.  At first glance, they seemed normal, but closer inspection revealed to me they had some type of oil slathered all over it.  The only bar that didn’t have any was the first one, meant to lull the person into a false sense of security about being able to do these without any problems.  I walked up to the bars and tested the strength of the first one.

Sturdy as could be.

An idea started formulating in my head.  We weren’t supposed to get across these by normal means or methods.  We needed to think outside the box on this one, like Shiloh had with the last wall.  I grabbed a hold of the first bar and hoisted myself up onto the top of the monkey bars themselves.  By now Shiloh had figured out my plan and was hurriedly doing the same thing.  My next problem was how to get across these bars as fast as possible with slipping into the mud pit.  That one Shiloh figured out.  She laid flat and slid across the bars grabbing onto the sides of the monkey bars to support her.  We leapt off the bars at the same time.  I could hear her breathing hard as we ran to the next obstacle.  This was supposed to be the monster.

Sure enough, two scorpions scuttled in front of us.  Shiloh pulled out a bow and arrow.  I didn’t even realize she had it this whole time.  She pointed it straight at the scorpion and fired an arrow into one of its eyes.  The scorpion shrieked and became confused for a minute, giving her the right amount of time to leap past its pincers and stab it in the back, disintegrating it.  Now I had to fight my scorpion.  And unfortunately for me, mine seemed a lot smarter than Shiloh’s…

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Shiloh 

I left Luke in the dust the moment I killed my monster.  The next obstacle I had was the platforms on the water, easy for me since I could make them less rocky thanks to my dad’s powers.  I leapt from one to the other with no trouble, swung easily from the ropes, and reached the final issue.  The six-story tower that held the Golden Laurel.  However, somehow, Luke had managed to defeat his scorpion and get to the same place I was.  On the bright side, he was soaking wet, meaning he’d fallen in the water at some point.  I wasted no time going to the ropes and finagling my way up to the next level.  This is where Luke and I were on equal footing.  The past few things, one of us had had the upper hand.  Now we were in territory where we were both good.  The two of us made it through the tangled ropes in record time.  We started scrambling up the poles that stuck out of the tower.  He pulled one out from underneath the only foot I had resting on a pole, knowing I had no upper body strength.  My response was to get a new footing and slam a pole into his groin area.  I didn’t know it was that specific area, I just knew it would hit him.  The pain was enough that he had to stay immobile for a minute, giving me time to get to the second to last level.  I waited impatiently for the platform to get to me.  I prepared myself to jump onto it.  Five seconds… four seconds… three seconds… two seconds… one second…

I propelled myself upwards, landing square in the middle of the platform.  It started raising me up to the last and final level.  Hopefully there wasn’t anything on this thing.  When I got up there, I grinned.  Nothing was there to stop me.  I started walking to the laurel when Luke tumbled onto the platform.

“How the-” I began.

“Forgot I was wearing my flying shoes,” he admitted with a sheepish chuckle. “Also forgot how to use them.  That would explain my bad landing.”

I took out my sword.  He was not going to get that laurel.  Upon seeing my weapon, his face fell as he readied his.  Like hell I was going to use mine.  The one time I’d beat him at sword fighting was pure luck.  This time I was on my home turf, the sea.  I willed the water to raise up, and I felt it getting higher and higher and higher.  Luke’s face turned ashen as he watched the water rise above me.  Risking a glance behind me just to see how tall I’d made it, I saw that the wave was well over sixty feet.  Unfortunately for me, that wasn’t the only thing sixty feet tall.

I felt my mouth drop open as I made eye contact with a massive green sea monster.

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Interesting I hope?  Please review! :)