Everything was going pretty well until Dew started to have trouble with his horses. It soon became apparent to me why. Natasha was whispering things to the horses so they ran into each other and bumped their heads.
"Hey! Not cool Nat! Mind your own horses!" He shouted as he pulled the reigns with full force. Nat just smirked. When friends become opponents, things get dirty.
Annabel on our right was also talking to our horses, making them collide with Nat's. Ugh, curse the horse-whisperers.
All these commands confused the horses, and they finally responded to Dew's commands and surged ahead with a spurt of speed. Alright.
We ended up next to the Nike twins. They hissed and snarled at us. Dew decided this wasn't a good waiting spot. He surged further ahead the race course. Now we were next to the Stoll brothers, from the Hermes cabin. I bet their chariot was filled with traps and pranks of all sorts. Travis Stoll, the defender slashed at me. I never got why the person who fought was called defenders. All he did was attack.
I parried his strike and dodged another one. "Dew try and move ahead his chariot is doing something weird."
"Trying!"
The chariots wheel's center opened up to reveal a hole out of which a hook attached to a rope shot out. It grabbed our wheel. The chariot lurched, nearly breaking all my bones in the process. I bent down at a dangerous position and slashed the rope off. The Stoll chariot halted and stumbled over a rock. We left the twins in dirt and chariot-wreckage.
Next up were two Aphrodite girls. I recognized the driver as Maya, the talkative girl and the other as Drew Tanaka, the head camper for the time-being.
They both shot me dazzling smiles which I was unable to return.
"Hey guys how's it going?" Drew asked us brightly.
"It's going well, thanks." Dew responded.
"Stop your chariot, won't you?" She asked sweetly. To my utter disbelief, Andrew obliged. I kicked his back. "OUCH! Sorry! It's charm-speak!" He started the chariot again.
During this confusion Drew struck at our chariot wheels. Andrew managed to forge ahead before she could, though.
Tim and Bell pulled up next to us now. Bell grinned evilly at me. Oh no. Send help.
She pressed a shiny button beside her. The chariot produced razor sharp blades that struck madly at our creation as if it were bananas in a blender.
"Ha! Beat that suckers!" Tim called out as he steered his horses.
"Alright, if you say so," our chariot also had its share. of thingamabobs. I clicked the lever next to me. An electric force-field instantly formed around the chariot, courtesy of Dew. The blades stopped slashing in fear of getting electrocuted. Bell grumbled and barked at her horses to surge forward. They shot off at a godly speed.
For a few minutes, we drove without much obstruction, not-including the squirrel that kept chittering towards us.
Then, as if we hadn't already had enough, Natasha and Skye picked up speed. Skye smiled at us. "I'm sorry!" She said happily. She flicked two fingers and two dead zombies popped out of the ground. They used their bony hands to slow down our chariot. Andrew managed to zap them with electricity, but I could tell his energy was draining out pretty fast.
Skye said, "Yay!" And their chariot raced ahead.
Two Ares kids were up next. Two huge fellas that could squash either of us to pulp within two seconds. I zipped up my newly attained hoodie.
"Alone, Dew-face?" They sneered at Andrew as if ready to slow down their chariot for the pure-joy of bullying him.
I slowly gripped the rails and climbed atop the chariot roof. This gave me a clear aim towards their chariot wheels.
"Alone? Maybe. But I have a secret weapon."
I placed my fingers on the switch beside me. Any moment now.
"Oh yeah? What would that be?"
"Her name is Melody. And she is about to combust your chariot."
I clicked the switch. A laser shot out of our chariot towards the Ares' chariot's wheel. Or more like, I picked a leaf from Tim's book and used Science to my rescue.
The magnifying glass popped up on the roof and focused the sun-beam on the wheel. The wheel caught fire.
"No! What the - (The children's book editor will not allow me to the print the cuss words, but you get the gist.)
All they could do was gape as I unzipped the hoodie and climbed downwards. The Ares chariot burned as its riders stumbled out.
Our happiness was short-lived, though. We had again reached Tim and Bell. And they were quarreling.
"No Bell, the physics doesn't apply! If we swerve right, we'll end up in the marsh! We want to smash THEM not US."
"Don't use your brain so much!"
"Why can't I just burn them!?"
"YOU – actually that's not such a bad idea," Bell admitted.
Tim turned to us and smiled sweetly.
"Oh no. You are going to burn us, aren't you?" Dew asked him.
He nodded politely and shot a fireball at our chariot's front wheel. Right at that moment the chariot beside us – Nat and Skye's – swerved off course.
"Natasha what're you doing?!" Skye shrieked as their chariot hurtled down the hill. Natasha had this alert look on her face as if she was determined to ... I have no idea what.
She was heading towards the lake. I could her Skye shrieking and yelping and an occasional "I WANT TO LIVE!"
And then my attention diverted-our chariot was on fire. Dew yelped at me wildly to do something, but I had figured out why Nat had a sudden urge to drown herself and Skye.
I could see a tiny figure dropping down from the heavens and towards the hard-cold Earth. It was a boy. Wait let me rephrase that – it was a demigod.
Nat stopped her chariot and ran down the hill and reached the lake. She raised her hands and a huge tidal wave shot towards us, drenching all campers in vicinity from head to toe.
We coughed and sputtered. Our chariot wasn't blazing anymore, but it was a complete wreck. Goodbye, victory.
Nat and Skye were now leaning down towards the new demigod that had hit the water. I had read somewhere that hitting water from a great height is same as hitting cement. But somehow, miraculously, magically, the boy had survived Nat's whirlpool of rescue.
I turned my attention back to the race. Andrew was sopping wet and grumbling. "I never get to win anything!"
Tim and Bell were surprisingly still on course and not-so-surprisingly still bickering.
"I GOT HIT BY A FREAKING WAVE OF TERRORS, WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?"
"I EXPECT YOU TO WIN THIS FOR ME, BECAUSE I AM DONE LOSING DUMMY!"
"I AM A CREATURE OF HIGHER INTELLECT! YOU DON'T JUST CALL ME A DUMMY!"
"Hang on – Mel and Dew are in trouble swerve left!"
"Oh, now you don't want to win?"
"Just turn!"
"They'll be fine, death-girl. Plus, remember? I have to win at this or I get killed by a barbarian princess?"
This made Annabel suppress a smile.
I would have said that the day went smoothly after that, but that would be lying.
Tim and Bell went on to win the chariot race. Will and Nico came in second. Annoyingly enough, the Connor brothers came third. The Nike twins were devastated at 4th position. That left me and Dew at pathetic fifth.
At least we were ahead of Nat and Skye, who were still busy checking out the angel from heavens. Right, forgot about that.
Every camper made their way downwards and crowded the figure. It was a young boy of 13 perhaps. He had ginger hair and was quite freckly. Glasses hung on his extremely long nose. He was tall and lanky, and currently unconscious. Sopping wet of course.
Chiron galloped down and told others to make way. He peered down at the demigod. His face turned grim. He flashed us a dark smile.
"Well. I believe this completes it. The last of the seven. Arthur William Fredrickson. The fourth."
And instead of thunder clapping, or the clouds pouring rain like any climatic scene in any cliché demigod movie, the sun shined brighter. The birds chirped louder. The grass danced as if we were in the presence of a Disney princess. What a dark way to end a chapter.