My life as a shapeshifter

Life at camp

So this is chapter 4! Took me quite long to upload, but here it is, nevertheless. Enjoy!

After the initial excitement over having another descendant of Zeus, or Jupiter, as some campers called it, had died down, my training had started. Trust me, this camp's training was tough. Here's the schedule Mr Velitel had handed me about an hour after I blasted the camp with lightning. Yeah, he was a no-nonsense dude. But he had a nice side too, according to the senior campers. I guess I just hadn't seen it yet. Oh. Yes. The schedule.

Dear Mr Blesk,

This is a schedule of your daily activities. Enjoy!

Monday-Combat training

Tuesday-Archery and Physical training

Wednesday-Classes, sword fighting and animal combat training

...

The activities basically repeated themselves. As you can see, it's a really tough schedule. I think I've lost at least a kilo or two, and it's only been about one week. And I used to wonder how Thad was so buff. To be frank, the real mystery is Nico. Scrawny isn't really the kind of physique you get after doing fifty push ups a day. And that's when Alex, ex-camper and our trainer, is lenient. Which is, thankfully, most of the time. Then again, Nico was always a mystery to me.

The only activities I enjoy in our gruelling schedule are sword fighting, animal combat training and classes. Basically, all those on Wednesday.

Sword fighting is, well, where we hone our sword fighting skills. Having pretty much the most skill and experience in the area, I was Mr Velitel's favourite. Yeah, he's our trainer. Anyway, as I was saying, sword fighting class is great. Not only do I get to slack some of the time as Mr Velitel's 'assistant coach', but I also got my own sword. It's actually a chain that turns into a sword upon losing contact with my neck. Even the sword itself is amazing. It looks like a dual-edged sword, well, it actually is, but when you twist and pull the centre, it breaks apart so you are left with two daggers, one imperial gold, used by the Romans, and another celestial bronze, used by the Greeks, who make up the majority of the campers. Cool, huh? The only downside is that that chain is really irritating. So, there are times where I pull it off absentmindedly, and find myself wielding a metre long sword, often in somewhere really awkward, like in class.

Animal combat training is, well, combat training in our animal form. It's pretty cool, since you have animals ranging from dragons to lizards(at least Ryan can control water, so it's not so bad). I've been trying to control my powers, concentrating on hitting my target, but it's really not as easy as it sounds. I don't know how the others can do it easily. They assure me the same thing happened to them, that it's probably because my powers are harder to control, but I have a nagging feeling that the same thing didn't happen with Reuben.

Reuben. I had heard so much about him, about how he was a hero, helping out in the war that some Percy Jackson kid was fighting, about how arrived at camp alone, pursued by two monsters which he fought off and killed singlehandedly. Sure, some of the older camp heads told me about how he was lonely, being the only descendant of Zeus in a long, long time. But overall, the feedback was positive. This guy was some sort of star at camp, and everything I did, or more like everything I failed at, just paled in comparison. I'm not saying I'm jealous or anything, but sometimes it's hard not to be, especially when I hear his name during training.

Moving on, classes are really cool. They are split into two types, history, which is pretty boring, and tactics and skills, which is much cooler. I'll start with the former, just to get it over with.

History classes are about the Gods, both Roman and Greek, because there's a mixture of both in the camp. No offense to the Gods, 'cause I heard they can blast you out of the sky if they're in a bad mood, but their history is really boring and complicated. First you have Kronos, who overthrew his father and ate his kids, then you have Zeus, who overthrew his father, Kronos, and is currently ruling Olympus, rumoured to be somewhere on the 600th floor of the Empire State Building. Crazy, right? I mean, since when does the Empire State Building even have a 600th floor? Oh well, I guess I'll believe it when I see it.

After the Greek Gods you have the Roman ones. Gosh, as if it wasn't already hard to remember which Greek Gods did what, the Romans have to come along and change everything. I mean everything. Wasn't Athena supposed to be a war goddess? Why on earth did they have to make her some kind of goddess of crafts and stuff? It just makes everything twice as confusing.

Tactics and skills is probably the best class. Period. As you can guess from the name, it teaches us about fighting tactics and helps us use our skills properly and well. So far we've learnt about five battle tactics, alpha, beta, gamma, delta and epsilon. The first five letters of the Greek alphabet. They're really cool, some involving distractions and some just brute force. Personally, my favourite is attack plan alpha. Meant for a group of three, it involves distraction by a small animal, namely Nico the meerkat, then bad injury caused by a large and powerful animal, and finally finishing off by the last member of the group, a.k.a me. Since I haven't really gained full control over my powers, I've been relying on my sword fighting skills.

Skills class has been less than helpful, seeing as I still can't blast whatever I like with lightning. Still, the tips have helped, albeit very little. I've also picked up a couple of tricks on how to slice n' dice with my sword, and even when and how to switch from one weapon to two.

^_^ (transition)

"Yeah!" I roared in triumph, blasting target after target with lightning, leaving nothing but several heaps of smoking ash where the training dummies used to be. It's been a month since I reached camp, and I had finally got the hang of my power. It felt absolutely great.

"Great job, man-" Nico turned, starting to congratulate me, but was interrupted by Joshua, Nico's bunk mate.

"Mr Velitel wants you two in his office. And you too, I guess,"He said breathlessly, nodding to Thad. Mr Velitel wanted to see us? What did we do wrong? Nervous yet eager to hear what he had to say, we jogged to his office-a stormy grey building with a plague saying

                                                     Velitel-camp commandant

and an owl carved into the building. Yeah, he was a descendant of Athena. Smart dude, he was.

Knocking on the door before pushing it open, we shuffled into Mr Velitel's office, seeing him seated in his oversized office chair, smiling kindly.

"Sit, please. Don't worry, you're not in trouble." He assured us, probably seeing the worried expression on my face. "I do have troubling news, though. A week ago, a girl, Kiara, disappeared mysteriously from camp. She was a descendant of Hades, having just joined a few months ago. I don't think any of you know her, as her schedule is completely different from yours. We sent a scout to find clues of her whereabouts, but he passed out shortly after coming back. We only managed to find out that she has left a trail, which lead us to believe that she has been captured. By whom, we do not know. Now that Aaron has perfected his skill, I want the three of you to find her. We cannot afford to lose any campers."

His words were confusing, yet I understood only one thing from his mini speech.

I was going on a quest.

Cool! Quest time! Lol. So, the usual, read and comment.

Peace out.