Tidal Wave (Luke Castellan)

The Tree

I got claimed pretty soon after my arrival. During Capture the Flag, I was thrown into the river and bam, suddenly there was a trident over my head. Everyone started treating me differently. Suddenly, I wasn't just the youngest kid at camp. I was the forbidden child of Poseidon who happened to be the youngest kid at camp. I had to fight to get respect. The older campers didn't want to regard me because I was little? I'd show them I could hold my own. I worked hard at training and eventually became one of the best fighters around.

The only person who really wanted to interact with me was Diana. She was like the older sister I never had. When she left for college, I was devastated, but she'd still keep up with me through Iris message.

Soon after, a lot of the other older campers left for their lives too. Even though there were still some of the campers who were here when I arrived, they interacted with me a lot more. New campers were arriving too and they didn't seem to be as put off by my father. While I didn't exactly have any friends, I at least had people who would acknowledge me. And that was all I could ask for at the time.

But that changed one grey day. The day itself was going pretty well. Somehow I was still one of the youngest campers at 12 years old but as the only child of Poseidon, I got to choose my own activities for the day. That meant I got to sleep in as long as I wanted since I had no one to tell me when to get up. I didn't have to tell anyone else to get up either. I usually skipped breakfast because sleep was more important. When I finally decided to get up, I did a little training, and ate a decently good lunch. I was about to head to the rock climbing wall when I heard yells. They were up towards the hill, which never meant anything good. So I changed direction and headed to the likely fight.

It was chaos when I got there. All three Furies and a ton of hellhounds were quickly advancing on a group of four. I had no time to go get help. They wouldn't survive that long. Sprinting down the hill, I passed three of the four. The last girl still stood ahead of me.

"Go!" I yelled to the others, "I'll help hold them off."

How did I plan to do that? I had no idea. But chances were I had more experience than they did and they needed to get to safety. I didn't look back to see if they'd followed my instructions. Facing forward, I took my place next to the girl and readied my sword. Taking my knife out of my ankle sheath, I held that in my other hand.

"Get out of here, they're after me," the girl said.

"All the more reason for me to stay and help," I countered.

"They'll kill you."

"And? Saving a few lives will make this worth it," I said. I remembered when I'd come here alone and had to fight the hellhound. I wouldn't let this girl fight alone like I had.

They all came after us at once. Needless to say, it wasn't really a fair fight. It seemed like for every hellhound we'd kill, four more took its place. We'd taken out quite a few when I'd heard the girl yell out in agony. I fought my way over to her and did my best to protect her. But I couldn't protect her from all sides. The monsters just kept coming and coming. I was starting to get incredibly tired when a bright light overtook the land. I covered my eyes with my arms. When it faded, all the monsters had become a golden dust that was being blown away with the wind. A very angry god stood in front of me instead. His dark skin almost glowed with his power. His stormy grey eyes had literal lightning flashing in it. The pure rage etched on his face had me frozen in place.

"Get away from my daughter," Zeus growled at me.

Wordlessly, I did as he said. This was a god I shouldn't pick a fight with. I shouldn't be alive considering his and Hades pact with my father. Doing something stupid could lead to my immediate death. Wait... did he say daughter?