Young Writers Society

Orion

My brain was making excited hand motions, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

“You’re an idiot.” Ana mumbles, pacing back and forth across the empty ally.

Ana always knows what I’m thinking, often before I think it. Her uncanny ability and the amount of time we spend attached to each other’s hips would cause the majority of people to go ‘oh yeah, she’s like a sister to me.’ I have a sister, and I don’t hate her guts like I do Ana’s; our parents are siblings, which makes the two of us like cousins. You should never see your cousins as much as I see Ana. Just trust me.

“You think you’d get over that. I’m useful, let it be.” Ana scoffs but the past five years have taught her anything, it’s to not mess with super-awesome-vision dude.

“Just tell me what you see!”

“Gods, be patient, woman!” I know I‘m annoying the Hades out of her, but she can’t do anything about it at the moment. I expand my brain to the reach of Gemini. “Gem’s bleeding, but laughing about it like the beautiful psychopath she is.” Ana sighs. With all the people at Camp, it’s hard to get any clear image, but I do hear one word ‘Juggernaut’. “They know about Juggernaut’s, I think, but Gem has it under control.”

“Anything else?”

“Daemon and the new one, Juliet, aren’t doing shizz. I don’t know where the Miria one is. I haven’t heard from her since her life line went out.”

“She’ll be back.” Ana paces faster. “I felt a power shift last night! Tell me where it came from!”

I roll my eyes, wishing I couldn’t hear her as much as I can’t see her. I try to find the hotspot of power like Ana taught me to, but I‘m still not very good at it. (She’s a rotten teacher.) Suddenly, it hits me like a blazing fire. “Found it.” The signal comes flowing into my brain, and I search for the whys and the whos. “Female. Very powerful! Oh, but-“ I don’t want to say the rest, because Ana has the capability to decapitate me right on the spot if I do.

She already knows.

Ana’s pale face and wide eyes go completely, eerily calm. Unlike Gemini, this is where she is at her most dangerous. That old, powerful light comes radiating off of her, and I find myself involuntarily shrinking back into my own skin, where it is safe. Her moon energy burns me like the sun never has, and she knows it hurts me, but she doesn’t care.

“There’s so much potential there.” Her words rush out, fast and urgent and deadly. “ Gemini can’t handle it by herself, and she’s pretty much getting herself kicked out of Camp as we speak.” I open my mouth to defend my friend, but Ana hushes me with the motion of her hand, still walking. “So many people who could help our mission! So much anger!” She stops walking abruptly, her eyes glinting by the moonlight, watching me. She looks as old, as ancient as she actually is, and I know that any modern demigod would fall in her wake. “I need you to go back.”

My heart sinks to the bottom of my stomach and settles there. With one last real-world jump, I’m pulled from the fog that is my power world. The sky becomes less shiny, the world more dull, but Ana’s moon voodoo doesn’t really work as well anymore. “Hades no.”

“Orion.”

“No. Nope. Uh-uh. You may be the babe with the power, but there’s no way-“

“Quientin.” She looks into my eyes, and shuts me up like she just whispered my true name and had complete power over me. “You don’t even have to stay the nights there. Just go in disguise, make them know you and know us.” Then she pauses, knowing what will get to me. “You could see Gemini.”

I go without words for a while, and when I talk, I say; “I haven’t been Quientin for a very long time.”

“I know.”

Her eyes are raw silver, raw power; not some Athena-childs faked intelligence. “I won’t become him again.”

“I know.”

“I hate you with the unburdened power of the sun.”

Despite her age, our position, and my words, she smiles. “I know.”

***********************************************


Ana and I have always been the lone two Juggernauts. She saved me from the ridiculously cheesy fate known as ‘Camp Half-Blood’ (Seriously, who named this place?), and I have saved her from a lifetime of loneliness. There are others, too, of course, but Gemini doesn’t mind being at Camp so she can destroy it. The others come and go and plot as they please, not realizing that- without Gemini the powerhouse around- Ana is the one they should listen to. Ana hates this place as much as I do, and has staked herself out in the Urban Jungle as though it was a real one. She does not care about the nausea I am slowly acquiring as I climb up this hill.

There are memories flooding my brain, and I hate them. This whole place pretends to protect you, but always lets you down. I don’t know how Laney can still stand to be here, how she still loves it. I can remember, back when I was still Quietin, climbing up this hill, my skin damaged and burnt with little Laney beside me. The sun glinted off her blonde hair, and she looked at the hill in the spring like it was the best place on Earth.

‘A Summer Camp!’

‘A Summer Camp can’t protect us!’ I scoff. My whole body ached, and my skin ripped open every time I moved. I was in a terrible mood, but Laney acted like everything that just happened didn’t bother her.

‘It’s magic! Of course it will, once we believe.’

‘I’m sick of believing! Mother’s dead and I-‘

Laney stops me, and starts singing. ‘I don’t see how a world that makes such wonderful things could be so bad? I wanna be where the people are-‘

I smack her shoulder, though it hurt me far more than her. Her infallible optimism had, for the moment cheered me up. ‘I love you, Laney.’

‘Love you too, Quintin.’

I sigh, shaking off the memory. Those were different days; not necessarily better, just different. I’m at the top of the hill when I hear screaming, and with it, the burning power Ana had sensed earlier. I smile to myself and break into a run.

The girl is standing there, looking surprised about the whole world around her.

“Hey, pretty thing.” I say, ignoring the hostile look I’m getting from the dragon. “Anything I can help with?”

She looks up at me. “Who are you?”

“I’m, uh-“ I consider saying Quientin, for disguise and old times sake, but I don’t- “Orion. Son of Apollo.”

She looks at me, annoyed. “Look, I’ve had an awful day, and I don’t like tricks. You can’t really be telling me you’re the son of the…” She swallows.

“The sun!” I interrupt, faking the cheeriness everyone at this stupid camp has. “So, I guess the better question would be, who are you?” She seems to run out of words, the poor girl. She must have had a particularly long and perilous day. I look out in the distance as she gathers her wits. Others are coming towards us, having heard the scream, and I know they will question my presence at such a ‘crowned’ event. I look back at her, her wide eyes reflecting the sun like Ana’s did the moon. “You don’t know yet, do you, fire girl? I know more about you than you know about yourself. These people are good,” it hurts me to say that, “but they don’t know anything. They’ll explain, and you listen, but I’d recommend sticking with me.”

She doesn’t have a chance to reply before I turn on another face. “Guys, over here! New camper!”

I am the child of the sun, the Juggernaut of prophecy and poetry and being awesome, and I am a liar.

Gemini Randa - Big House

Annoyed, couldn't begin to describe how I felt about this guy. Rained on by fish, drenched in rain, and this guy thought he was tough compared to me, I didn't have time for him. I had little strength left and I was bleeding still. I could feel the pain coming from my bleeding arms as I felt one last fish hit my shoulder, my hand went to it immediately and shocked the small fish dead. In one move, I threw the small fish at him.

"Pathetic." I said as the fish hit him, bouncing harmlessly off him.

"if you cannot even control your own power, you do not even have the right to stand against me," I said.

I turned my back on him, sheathing my blade onto my back and folding my arms against my chest despite my exhaustion. Lexi had her fingers folded together over her mouth and gave Abriella a surprised glance before watching me continue. I also notice we we're down a senior counselor, the Son of Poseidon I bet.

"You're just going to ignore me, simple as that?!" he asked.

"That is the best insult I may give you, foes who cannot even pose a threat to me, doesn't even deserve to be noticed by me. Go and train to use your abilities, and tell your coward of a senior counselor that he has left on short notice when the meeting hasn't even concluded." I said.

"I can't-"

"Aidan!" Lexi cut him off, slamming her hand on the table now the attention of the room was on her.

"You cannot even hope to beat a demigod like her right now, I know her, she used to be my friend-"

"Our friend," Abriella corrected.

"Our friend," Lexi repeated.

"The bottomline is, she can kill you where you stand, your not trained like the rest of us, some of us have been training our whole lives others have gone on at least one quest. Gemini, she's spent five years out in the real world, facing monsters and just barely getting enough food to last her, she knows what it's like to fight to survive as a demigod." Lexi said.

For a moment, there was silence the senior counselors were trying to protect Aidan from me. They knew, if he attacked me, I would kill him, I didn't bother to look and see what he would do next. But the silence was heavy, until finally I heard footsteps which faded, he left. At least there are some people who have some sense in them, I took a deep sigh and let my arms fall to my sides.

"I grow tired, I've used up all my strength fighting Chiron, and I've shed blood today. I must rest, in the sky." I said, my voice pained and tired.

My arms folded again, against my stomach as I begin to leviate off the ground, then I was ascending, higher and higher until I left the big house and went into the sky. There, the skies grew dark, the wind picked up, lightning struck randomly. I created a dark funnel in the sky in which I would recuperate.