Rachel

She finally made it.

Rachel had made it onto the S.S Theseus in Mexico, though it didn’t feel the same without Elaine, and Tommy, she knew they were safe and she couldn’t be involved in their new quest because she was a demigod, a daughter of war, she knew most other Laylus kids would be ecstatic to find something like that out but Rachel wasn’t a fan, it made her feel separated from Tommy and Elaine, different, and she really didn’t need to feel more different from them. Rachel had managed to sneak onto one of the balconies, she couldn’t afford a room on the cruise. As the ship pulled into the docks of Florida; Rachel saw three large birds soaring above the tall buildings and fancy villas, they were bronze? The sun gleamed off of them blinding Rachel, DRAGONS! She thought. She had encountered a small group of them on her quest, they were Automatons! Her hands glowed a faint orange and she felt the heat of the sun. “Quick detour!” Rachel knew that the bronze dragons had a specific target, a code, a script, and she’d bet that they were after her, she pulled out Tommy’s coin and tossed it in the air: “Bronze!” she called catching it out of the air, the coin shimmered casting spotlights at the dragons and down at the beach, she saw a few piles of bronze speckled across the beach, maybe she wasn’t the target. The people on the docks cheered as the large cruise landed on the docks, people started to spill onto the ship, Rachel stuffed Tommy’s coin back into her pocket. The dragons started to pick more steam and were way bigger than the ones she fought with Tommy and Elaine. The dragons started dive down a bit, getting closer, there eyes were locked onto the docks, but the third one kept glancing at Rachel, Rachel felt her axe on her back.

It seemed some people caught wind of the giant shiny dragons in the sky because screams erupted from the crowd, the dragon were close enough to do some damage with whatever projectile they had this time, but far enough so that Rachel couldn’t use her fire magic or axe. Big, muscled Ogres and Cyclopi (guards) spilled onto the main deck with magic crossbows most definitely loaded with Aurum. Two boys ran out of the crowd and stood out number one; they caught the attention of the automatons and number two; one carried a bow and arrow on his back. A barrage of Aurum arrows shot up at the dragons, the dragons dodged a lot of them, but a few got lodged in one’s chest. Rachel stood up on the edge of the balcony and whistled as loud as she could, the dragons looked at her, she could feel a special fire burning inside of them, extra spiteful? Or disgust? Whatever, Rachel didn’t have time to figure it out, she could feel her demi-god powers boosting her flames charging them, Rachel flew off the balcony two large chunks being took out of them in the process, smoke uncurled from her feet as she tumbled through the air at the middle dragon, she equipped her axe and swung it into the neck of the beast, flames burst through her arms as if an axe swing through the throat from a child of Bellona wasn’t enough for you, then flames erupted engulfing the head of the dragon, its neck went flimsy for a second. A large bronze plate breaking off revealing wires and pipes, steam shot out of the dragon’s mouth followed suite by a fiery steamy copper ball smacking Rachel in the stomach, she fell down to the deck, and steam retreated from her stomach. Two more fiery copper balls shot from the other two dragons, Rachel spun her axe in her hand slicing one of them in half and cartwheeling out of the way of another. She rolled back over to it, picking it out of its crater, Rachel let her own flames engulf it, as the dragons soared down toward her she shot more flames from her hands propelling the copper ball into the middle dragon, it blew up on impact leaving a nasty dent in the dragons face, the middle one had really took a beating. The other two slammed down onto the deck their wings stretching out. They had to be about six metres tall, with a wingspan of twenty, steam ushered out of their mouths. The right one lunged at Rachel tucking its wings in, Rachel struck down on its jaw as the jaw wrapped around her, the jaw fell to the floor with a clunk, Rachel stabbed it in the neck pulling it out and throwing it into the mouth, into the belly of the beast. The middle one scuttled toward her, the one that was once on the left dove for Rachel, but the middle dragon heaved up the axe and it launched out severing the head of the left one. The breast plate on the only remaining dragon fell open revealing a wall of arrows Rachel’s eyes were fixed on them but she overheard: “IT’S TIMES LIKE THESE I WISH I KNEW HOW THIS WOULD WORK!” one of the boys jumped into action, a thin shield expanding from their wrist. A wave of arrows glittered into his side as he took the shots for Rachel.

The boy clattered to the floor, Rachel had to take action, but to her amazement he got up and nocked an arrow into the open neck of the dragon, it was midway sending a bronze demise at Rachel, so the ball exploded, though the dragon was luckily not close enough to anyone to hurt them. The boy wore a black hoodie and black jeans, funnily enough, no shoes. Another boy cried out and ran to his side, this one had long, and black scruffy and greasy hair, silver eyes, and a leather jacket on top of a grey shirt and a mix between jeans and joggers. Rachel wasn’t fast enough to stop the boy, or had she just not cared? Rachel never froze up like that, not in years, about three years ago when she was eleven was the last time, she froze like that, it caused something horrific that time too. The black-haired boy started to pluck the arrows out of the blonde boy with the shield, when he plucked all of the ones in the shield, he took it off and placed his fingers to the blonde boy’s neck.

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE!” screamed the boy. Rachel didn’t know what to do. “DANIEL!” the boy whined. “PLEASE!” he cried. The Cyclopi and Ogre security apparently had no compassion, they saw a threat and acted, Rachel kind of respected that; the security lifted them all by the arms, Rachel could have pinned the eight-foot-tall cyclopes if she wanted to, but it wouldn’t matter. There were more of them than there were of her. They marched across the deck and chucked the three off, Rachel sighed the whole two-hundred feet down to the ocean. The water punched Rachel in the back causing her to scream, she felt the fire and rage in both of the other kids, they were demi-gods like her, and they were powerful, she could feel their fire, their courage, she was sure they would survive, Rachel clawed at the water, it was much more shallow than she thought, how in hell did the S.S Theseus float? probably the gods, they break the rules twenty-four-seven!  Rachel thought, always finding an excuse to hate the gods, though to be fair they made it easy to find excuses to hate them. Rachel took a hold of herself and started to relax, she slowed down and begun swimming to shore, the water was getting shallower, and more light touched her eyes as she crawled onto the wet sand her hands practically falling through it. She climbed up onto her feet for a second heaving up water and staggering around before she collapsed onto the beach. She saw a small grey dolphin carrying the blonde-haired boy on its back, “Hey! You belong in Laylus ya’ little critter!” she pretended to care about the council of magic and their mission to steal back all magical creatures. The blonde-haired. The dolphin flipped back into the sea without a chirp, very un-dolphin-y. Rachel opened Elaine’s satchel and pulled out a glass bottle of healing gel, of course! she thought. she didn't know why she kept freezing up. “SALT WATER!” Rachel cried jumping back at the sea, she scooped up saltwater and started to focus her fire onto the bottle, quickly the watered out held was boiling, the water soaked back up and the gel was exactly that again. Rachel ran to the blonde kid collapsed onto her knees. “OH MY GOD!!!” Screamed the black-haired boy as he tumbled from the water. He was soaked and he ran to the side of his friend? “HELP!” Rachel demanded, he sat there frantically shaking his arms; tears fleeing from his eyes, “HURRY UP!” She yelled at herself. Rachel spilled the gel onto her hand and rubbed it up and down the boy’s arm, the wounds hastily began to close, “the others.” She said. All of the arrows were out of his arm. A tall man with blonde hair, no shirt, swim shorts, and sunglasses, not to mention rippling muscles, He had a not-so-friendly look on his face, were there two other people? Behind him by his sides two women were flicking in and out of reality, “OH CRAP!” Rachel screamed jumping to her feet.

“WHAT!?!” The black-haired boy screamed.

Rachel grabbed her axe of her back. “TONITRU!” She said as confident as she could, as the man got closer the angrier, he looked.

“WHO IS TONY-TRUE!?”

“TON-E-TRUE!” Rachel sounded out. “AND HE’S THE GOD OF STORMS!” The boy looked up at her frightened.

“I’ll get him away!” Rachel said.

“Are you kidding me? You can’t take on a god!”

Rachel blocked everything he said out after that. “Tonitru!” she said enthusiastically, she whipped her axe in front of her.

“YOU DARE STEP ONTO THE HOLY GROUND OF TONITRU!?!” Thunder boomed and wind spiralled, the once gleaming sun was cowering behind large thick grey clouds. Behind the man where two half-bird-half-woman-mixes, they were vaguely humanoid in shape, covered in feathers with hunched backs, their arms were wings and feathers brown, they had long orange beaks and black beady eyes, they had claws for feet. They squawked angrily. A large wave clashed against the sand, the water was crazy and uncontrolled.

“I didn’t know it was sacred me and… those washed up here, you see, bronze dragons were chasing them, and I helped them, so we were all thrown over-!” Lightning crackled into Rachel, and she flew across the beach. The bird ladies (Harpies) flew into the air briefly and dove down toward Rachel. Rachel rolled up and clenched the handle of her axe, “THAT’S IT!” She screamed waving her axe in the air, flames roared from the top, at the Harpy, it staggered in the air squawking for it’s friend, the other one quickly flew at Rachel, Rachel slammed the back-blunt end of the axe into the beak of the Harpy, it squawked into the uncontrolled oceans, Rachel slammed her axe into the sand, fire shot up at the flying Harpy and it fell to the ground. Unexpectedly wind smacked Rachel back to the ground, “OH SCREW YOU!” she shouted, but three small tornadoes had formed, the front two charged at her, she leapt into the air over them but they sucked her into them, she flew around crazily grasping to her axe like she was eight and it was a teddy bear, Rachel flew out of the tornado and into the other, Rachel shoved her foot into the sand and pulled down with all of her might, she sunk her hands into it and pushed, she flew out of it and into a cream coloured house, she collapsed through a coffee table in the middle of a family, a blur of blue light with lightning shooting off was flying toward Rachel, Rachel with all of her might threw her axe toward Tonitru, the axe collided and more lightning sparkled, Tonitru fell to the floor the sand around him turning to sand, Rachel’s axe was stuck in his chest steaming, there were cracks in the front of it, Rachel leapt out and took her axe out of Tonitru, part of the handle was char black, Tonitru flew up tackling Rachel at the chest and flying backward in a loop slamming her back into the ground, “ARGH!” She shouted grabbing the head of Tonitru, she threw him into the water splashing everywhere, Tonitru sizzled screaming, Tonitru flew out of the ocean and back at Rachel, Rachel jumped out of the way, she took the rest of the healing gel out of her satchel and splashed it across Tonitru, he screamed the gel hissing, “WHAT DON’T LIKE MORTAL HEALING REMEDIES!” ugh! Elaine scratched off on me! Lightning crackled down before Rachel, Rachel’s eyes lit up and as she turned around, she was launched away again. Wind bolted at her, but she clapped her hands together fire expanding into bushes and a palm tree, some of the fire blew back at her but barely enough to make her budge. Smoke covered Rachel view, she crossed her fore-arms in an X, her fists tight, when the smoke passed, she saw Tonitru with her axe in hand, Rachel looked to her right and twelve people ranging from fifteen-year-olds to fifteen-year-olds stood menacingly with spears. “The fields of demigods…” Rachel was lost.

“You my friend are in the field of demigods, twenty miles of legacies and demi-gods.” It was true, Jupiter’s belt they call it, ordered to protect everyday people from the monsters of big Cypress (a national park in Florida), but why were they this far out? Big cypress national park was tens of miles from here. “Oh how cute!” Rachel said, “Mommy send you hear to stop the big evil MONSTERS!” Rachel made fun.

“I VOLUNTEERED TO PROTECT FLORIDA! THEY ARE JUST STUPID MYTHS THEY TEACH YOU IN THAT WRETCHED ACADEMY OF SORCERY!!!”

“Number one I don’t go to that looney bin! And number two;” Rachel changed her voice to a stereotypical reporter; “FLORIDA MAN GOES CRAZY! WITH LIGHTNING! Is what I’m pretty sure mommy doesn’t want to see on the news!” Tonitru and his children leapt at Rachel she threw her arms to her side, her eyes lit up red and fire exploded from her, Rachel felt herself levitating and her fire knocking back twelve people, but Rachel couldn’t match a god, wind broke through the fire and lightning flew from Tonitru’s eyes. Rachel slammed her fists together, “Bellona give me strength!” she said under her breath.

.  .  .

Next thing Rachel knew she was sprawled over the highway. Of course lay me down for the eighteen wheelers mom! Rachel stood up, her axe was next to her and not in a great state, the sun was out again, she put her axe on her back and pulled out Tommy’s coin. She climbed over bushes and onto a beach, in front of her was a long thin row of houses, off to the right was a town, all of it was full of demi-gods and legacies, Rachel didn’t know the name of the kids and looking for demi-gods wouldn’t exactly narrow things down. Rachel tossed the coin back into the air, “Tonitru!!!” She said, she caught the coin out of the air, light gleaming in her eyes, she caught the coin cursing like a sailor. Words started to etch into the top of the blank coin:

Gods immune!

Return to your commune!

or doom shall fall whom?

“Stop that!” Rachel demanded. She tossed the coin back into the air: “The hunted!” it gleamed, Rachel caught it, two beams of light shot out of the coin; one at a basement entrance, and one actively moving across the road. “What am I doing!”  she said looking back at the road, “I cant overpower all of those demi-gods!” she stepped down and over the bushes, she looked back at Jupiter’s field.