Chapter Nine
Now that they were on Long Island and out of Riverdale the weather was completely normal and not below freezing. Veronica went straight to her cabin to change into her clothes. She hated wearing the mortal clothes for too long. Once she was done she began to show her friends around the camp.
Hundreds of kids within the ages of anywhere between nine and twenty-one, dressed in both modern, and ancient clothing, are everywhere around the camp. The five of them walked passed a small outdoor amphitheater with children sitting inside of it, as an old man was reciting Homer's The Odyssey. That was how the young children learned about mythology history.
"I know this might sound scary, but here is where you will learn and train yourself to harness your powers. This is so you can become leaders, artists, warriors, and heroes"
"I'm no hero" Kevin said looking around the large woods that surrounded the camp
"You all can be heroes with training, it just takes some time"
They walk past other kids who were firing arrows in a shooting range; throughout javelins. While some were crafting weapons in a blacksmith's furnace and others were making objects on a pottery wheel. Betty was not paying attention to the group when all of a sudden an arrow was fired and it grazed the tip of her head and she ducked to the ground. Veronica ran over to help her to her feet and confront whoever shot the arrow.
"Don't be such an asshole Jasper" she stated holding onto Betty
"Relax Lodge it's only an arrow. If you bring anymore so called heroes here one day I won't pretend to miss"
"Shoot another arrow at the newbies and that arrow will follow up yours, on your way to the Underworld" she said scowling at him as they all walked away
As they continued walking they passed all of the camps houses with a specific color on the outside and greek letters to match it. All Demigods stayed in the house dedicated to their Godly parent.
The first house that they passed had many smokestacks outside of it belching smoke into the air. Outside, there were a few kids who were both young and older teenagers were covering in black dirt and sweat working. "Meet the heirs of Hephaestus; God of blacksmith and weapons" Abigail said as the group was looking at all of the different houses in complete shock
As they continued on Veronica decided to stop the group for a second. They stopped in front of a house that resembled an ancient fortress Barbed-wire fencing surrounded the lawn of the fortress. A dozen big, mean, and ugly guys were on the lawn yelling and some were physically fighting one another. While the rest were quietly listening to music on the other side. "Here we have Archie's house. The heirs to Ares; God of war. Some are exactly like their father while others are not. Archie this is where you'll be sleeping from now on" Veronica said laughing knowing that Archie didn't want to be with all those big scary guys
Archie trailed behind the group as they reached another important house and stopped in front of it. As they walked up and looked through the door there were dozens of hyper energetic kids running around the house and on the front lawn. They were all pulling pranks on one another while laughing uncontrollable. "These annoying little pranksters are the heirs of Hermes. Kevin's new house" Veronica said with a smirk noticing Kevin's smile falling into a deep frown. "A lot of mythology leaves out that Hermes was more than just the messenger of the Gods. He was also the God of deceit and his offspring inherited the prankster ways"
"Alright I think that concludes our tour" Veronica said as they stopped again at the mess hall. "After the last few days I've had I need some Ambrosia and Nectar. Then some training"
"Do you think they can handle training this early?" Abigail asked not wanting to leave their friends behind in camp by themselves on their first day
"What better time to start then now?" Veronica rhetorically asked laughing
Veronica was finally starting to feel better. She was back home and ready to get back to training. She was finally beginning to feel like herself again. It was hard for her to be in Riverdale, but at the same time it was her first sense of a normal life.
Normal is overrated anyways.
~
On the battlefield, there were tons of people practicing their skills. Dressed fully in a dark bronze colored armor. The middle of the ground held the most skilled fighters, while everyone else stayed towards the outside of the field in order to keep themselves safe.
"Last one to need the infirmary wins" Veronica chuckled as she held her sword and gave everyone in the group a sword also
"Veronica that's not fair and you know it" Abigail said joining in on the joke as she said "These guys are gonna be dead before they reach the infirmary"
The two girls clashed their swords together as a form of their own high five. Then they just started laughing. They stopped joking around and separated them into groups. Abigail was going to work with Betty and Kevin; while Veronica was going to work with Archie. Since he was the God of war's son then he need to learn how to fight as soon as possible.
"Archie I need you to feel the blades hit one another. It's gonna feel like a weight hitting your arm but the faster you move the less it vibrates in your hands" Veronica said as she slammed her sword into Archie's shield and sword as he tried to block
After about an hour of work Archie just laid on the ground and said "I think I'm getting the hang of this"
"If by this you mean, you legitimately need to work harder, then yeah you got this" Veronica said holding out her hand to help him back up his feet
On the other side of the battlefield both Betty and Kevin were on the ground also. Abigail had been working them to death for the last hour. Betty was a very fragile person despite her mother being the goddess of hunting. Veronica and Archie walked over to see Abigail making them do push ups for being terrible at fighting.
"Abigail. I thought we said we weren't going to kill them" Veronica said laughing as she started to take off her armor to go back to her house and then go find Jughead and hope Chiron didn't scare him away from camp
~
Veronica left the group to clean up their armor and Abigail would help the rest of them find their houses and get settled in. Veronica was walking back to her house while brushing her hair at the same time. She wasn't paying attention to where she was going, so when she noticed what was happening she was being shoved into a tree. Her back was against the tree and her shoulder were being pressed to the tree by someone's forearms.
"Well. Well. Well. Look who decided to come back to camp" the person said having their mouth extremely close to Veronica's ear. "What's the matter? Couldn't handle the real world without me, or was it the fact that you weren't allowed to leave camp"
"Get the hell off of me!" Veronica shouted attempting to push him off of her
"Come on Veronica....aren't you just itching to see your mother now that you're back at camp"
"You're just jealous that my mother is one of the Olympian Goddesses, while your father was nothing more than relevant to the shadows that get casted that make children cry"
"Never talk about my father that way" he said pushing harder on her shoulders as he got angry
"You don't compare to me Ethan, now get the hell off of me before you regret it" Veronica stated as she started to jab her fingernails into his skin causing his to bend over in pain. He attempted to keep his grip on Veronica strong, but it was weakening.
When he finally fell to the floor Veronica let go and she walked past him. "And by the way Ethan, don't tell my mother that you saw me in camp. I don't think she'd be to happy about it" she said winking at him as she gave him the middle finger and walked away
~
Veronica was walking around attempting to find Jughead. She walked over to the empty house that Zeus had supposedly hand made special for his only son. She knocked on the door, but there was no answer and so she decided to let herself inside. Along the dark wooden walls there were designs of lightning bolts that looked all too real. She felt the indents of the lightning strikes on the wall and realized that Zeus had actually shot the walls with Lightning in order to keep his son safe within the house.
"Jughead? Jughead are you back yet?" she asked around the house
She walked into another room and saw Jughead looking at a large statue of his father.
"Hey stranger" she said entering the room as he noticed her
"It's still so crazy to believe"
"Seeing isn't believing, believing is seeing" Veronica said walking over to the statue. "Your father would be glad to know that you are in camp now. You're going to become a hero Jughead"
"How can I be a hero?" he asked stepping away from the statue and picking up a scepter that was engraved with the name Jughead on it. "How can someone that didn't know he was a Demigod become and hero and save Olympus from a war"
"Chiron told you?" she said letting out a sigh
"Yeah, he told me the whole thing. How it's supposedly my destiny to bring the Gods into a new age of enlightenment"
Veronica pulled Jughead to sit on the couch with her. She made him look down at the engraving on the scepter and said "I'm going to help you become a warrior and a hero. I promise I won't rest until you are exactly who you want to be"
Jughead leaned in and pecked Veronica on her lips. She was captivated by the feelings that she had for Jughead. However all of those feeling quickly went away when she heard the sound of a large and loud siren going off throughout the entire camp.
"Time for us to go" Veronica whispered pulling away from Jughead's lips
"Where are we going?" he asked
"You'll see" she smirked as she grabbed a sword from a closet and handed it to Jughead
~
On the battlefield there was the entire camp standing in two teams. One team had red helmets while the other team had blue helmets. Veronica had her helmet already being as she was team captain of the red team. She led Jughead to the front where he was instructed to stand next to Chiron as he explained the very simple rules of the game they were going to be playing.
"First team to capture the other's flag wins" he instructed knowing that almost all the campers have played already
"We have four new members of our camp and they need a team. Is there anyone that would like the take maybe one, two, three, or all of them" Chiron suggested as everyone on the teams exchanged looks
"We will take them" Abigail said smiling with a red helmet on
"But we want the son of Zeus on our team" a familiar voice shouted making their way to the front of the team.
Veronica and Abigail exchanged nervous looks as they saw that it was Ethan speaking. He wanted Jughead on his team and that didn't sound promising for anyone. Betty, kevin, and Archie got their red helmets; while Jughead was given a blue helmet.
Chiron let out a chuckle and said "This should be interesting"