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​Had Ena just offered to help train this girl? Yes in a moment of pity and general delusion, she had offered to help train her. Crap. Maybe Ena could blame this all of the head wound and claim she forgot about it later. No, that wasn’t an option. Ena offered to help and she could not back out now.

”Yeah, I’ll help train you. You will probably hate me by the end of it, but I will help you.”

Okay logically this was a good thing. If the Greeks were here they couldn’t just be a drain on resources, they had to be capable of helping out. Would training a newbie be annoying, yes. Would Ena probably make Evie cry, yes and undoubtedly more than once. It was going to suck, but Ena just had to remember that training someone was infinitely better than being in an emergency with someone who was useless.

No one really seemed to be sure exactly what happened to Camp Halfblood. It seemed reasonable to believe that if someone or something wanted to hurt Greek Demigods that badly, they might attack again. Camp Jupiter wouldn’t fall, they were too well trained. All of the veterans would come out and help if they were really in trouble. Still if an emergency happened Ena didn’t want to be stuck protecting a bunch of useless demigods.

Ena really didn’t want to ruin her reputation as the scary child of Pluto by being helpful. Ena didn’t want to end up with a reputation for being nice. Yet she offered help and now it needed to be done. Fortunately it didn’t need to be done right now.

Evie said that at Camp Halfblood people mostly trained to improve the things they had the most talent for. The concept made sense to a point, but a great band or a bunch of artists won’t help when monsters come. Ena couldn’t help but wonder what they would have made her study as a child of Pluto. Stick her in a graveyard see if she could speak to ghosts or raise the dead. She was pretty sure she couldn’t do things like that, but she had never put much effort into trying. She greatly preferred her own skill with shadows to the idea of messing with the dead.

”Wait, so you can actually heal people with your hands?” Naturally Ena had heard of this power before, she knew a particularly gifted healer in her cohort. Ena had shoed Evie away when she had been trying to help her, because she assumed the girl couldn’t really help. Ena hated being fussed over, and to be honest she wasn’t big on people she didn’t know touching her. If Evie had a healing touch, that was a different story. ”Sorry if I pushed you away earlier, I didn’t know you could actually help, I just hate being babied. If you can magically heal me that would be fine.”

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​The chariot race was a notoriously brutal event and it seemed to Ena that mud had of the competition had already been thinned out. Sure there were a number of laps left to go. It was possible for someone that someone could fix up their chariot and renter the race, but catching up would be a near impossible task. Hopefully a few competitors had decided to sit the rest of the race out. Less people meant less chaos. Of course, less people also meant she was more likely to be singled out and targeted by someone.

She made use of the clear track ahead trying her best to gain some ground in the race. Of course this was short lived. Instinctively Ena’s head turned as she heard a loud blast. It had to be some sort of sound based power, that or one of the Vulcan kids had finally created something scarier than a gun. Ena noticed as Pegasus girl seemed to be hit, she cringed a little. Being a referee was a tough job, they got some of the danger and none of the glory.

The blast of sound hit Ena. For a few seconds she was completely disoriented. Her anger at getting hit raised something within her. She had felt this a few times before, she had the ability to manipulate fear but she had no control over it. When Ena was angry or afraid the fear tended to spread to those around her. It was strong enough to make her intimidating to her fellow demigods, but it was more than enough to absolutely terrify horses. Her team of horses jumped and whinnied in fear some pulling to the side to try and escape from their harnesses. Ena had to get control of herself. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and attempted to reign in her anger. ”Calm down” she yelled at the horses utterly failing to use the smoothing tone she had wanted to use.

It took a minute or two of coaxing to get her horses back in order and running as a team again. More than enough time for a few chariots to overtake her. Now that she was behind she had a clear view of the chariots ahead of her. Coming from behind had been her plan from the beginning, she could do this she just had to stay calm and focus. She looked at the chariot in front of her and began to focus on the axel that connected the wheels of the chariot. She reached forward her arm extended with an open hand. The shadows beneath her opponent’s chariot began to come together. Ena closed her hand into a fist and the tentacle of shadow wrapped itself around the axel, she pulled her arm back and let out a grunt of effort. The chariot jerked backwards for a second alarming rider and horses alike. When the chariot began moving again something seemed off. If the axel had been made of wood Ena would have broken it, but the axel was metal she had bent it. A bent axel was still a real hinderance in the race. Her opponents chariot seemed to be moving much slower, the wheel wiggled, and there was an odd scraping noise every time the axel had to turn.

She overtook the chariot she had just attacked with ease. Now she just had to deal with her other opponents. The sun was shifting, and Ena hoped that soon shadows in the area would be more plentiful. Her time to dominate this heat of the chariot race was coming.

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​Time seemed to be moving too fast and too slow at the same time as Ena attempted to take it all in. As planned she hesitated at the sound of the start, let her competitors go after one another. There was the rumbling of wheels on dirt, the thundering of hooves, and the clash of metal striking metal.

Any hope of strategy soon flew out of the window in the midst of so much chaos. Right now it was about trying to keep moving forward, no more no less. Swerve to avoid the toppled chariot. An arrow whizzed by her she heard it and leaned away at the last second. The arrow cut a stinging line across her cheek. Ena couldn’t let a small wound like that distract her. The first turn was coming up and she needed to focus on safely navigating the course. Keep focused keep going forward.

Her body jolted to the side as her chariot clashed against the chariot belonging to a child of Bellona. He let out a battle roar as he swung his sword attempting to cut the reigns on Ena’s chariot. She slid he sword in just quickly enough to make sure they didn’t get cut. They exchanged blows, he was unnaturally strong but Ena was holding her own till she felt a whip wrap itself around her wrist causing her to drop her sword. She spared a glance behind her at the person who had used the whip. There was no time she would have to deal with him later.

Now that she was unarmed she would have to get creative. She yanked the the reigns pulling her horses away from the child of Bellona, once she had a little distance she pushed right back into them pushing the chariot off balance. She looked at the narrow space in between the chariots and extended a hand calling out to the shadows. A black tentacle of shadow pulled up from the ground and slammed into the side of the already off balance chariot helping to tip it over onto its side.

Ena smiled triumphantly as she sped away from the scene of the accident. She had a lot of laps to go and a lot more trouble to cause. She may have lost her sword but she was far from defenseless.

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”Okay, that makes a lot more sense now. Ena said clearly relieved. ​If Evie had started out saying they ran into a chimera Ena wouldn’t have asked for further details. She had never personally run into one, but had heard enough stories to know they were formidable monsters. The mist could do strange things. She had been told time and time again in training that mist could make monsters look like harmless creatures for a time. It was something they were supposed to be on guard for when they traveled outside of camp. Getting injuries fighting a lion/goat/snake abomination that spits fire made a lot more sense then having trouble running into a five pound dog.

Still, Ena was kind of glad she had asked. Evie chattering away about the incident proved to be a good distraction from the pain. A trip clear across the country had to be challenging. Ena had seen plenty of Greeks entering the camp looking as if they had barely survived the journey. It sounded like Evie had to completely rely on her friend to keep her alive through the journey.

It was easy to look at all of the Greeks coming into camp and look down on them. They lacked training and discipline, and yes they were weak compared to the Roman legion. But whose fault was it that they were like that? Ena wasn’t sure exactly what the point of this Camp Halfblood had been if they weren’t training demigods to defend themselves. She couldn’t help but feel bad for Evie. It was tough to imagine just how scary it would be to travel across the country when you knew you would be facing monsters but didn’t know how to fight.

She could remember how scary making the trip up to Camp Jupiter had been. Okay, a lot of her fear had to do with questioning her own sanity and wondering if she was going to end up lost and alone in the wilderness. Still there had been a few close calls, and without her ability to use shadows to protect herself she might not have made it to Lupa.

If Ena had been sent to a camp where fighting wasn’t part of mandatory training would she have learned how to fight? If she had gone to a camp where they just had fun and sang songs around a campfire, would she have been able to motivate herself put in all the pain and effort to become a better fighter? Probably not. After five years in the legion it was hard to imagine herself as anything but a warrior. Her sword may have been standard Camp Jupiter issue, but it felt like a part of her.

It was really easy to roll your eyes and be annoyed with all of the clueless and weak Greek campers arriving, but they were victims. Not just of whatever misfortune caused Camp Halfblood to fall in the first place, but of forces in power that decided it would be okay to leave campers completely defenseless and ill prepared for life outside the safety of camp borders.

Thank the Gods they had made it to Camp Jupiter. It was a place where they would actually learn how to defend themselves. Sure, there seemed to be some Greeks who had no interest in learning how to fight or be useful. Ena felt pretty confident that there would also be people who wanted to get better and be part of the Roman legion. Who knew, maybe the Greeks could become the six and seventh cohorts.

Evie sounded impressed with the fact that Ena was in the Second Cohort. ”I’m definitely proud to be part of the Second Cohort. But, you can’t always tell who is the most powerful based on which Cohort someone is in. A lot of it is political. You occasionally get people who are in lower cohorts who are really powerful. You also get a few legacies in top Cohorts who only got there because they come from an important family.” she could think of a few examples but wasn’t going to spread gossip just yet.

Evie asked about what it was like to be in a military group. ”I mean, it was an adjustment at first. All of the drills, the discipline,
I’m not a big fan of being told what to do. But then I realized what it was all for. It’s to make us better so we can work together to fight monsters, so that we can keep ourselves safe from any threat.” Ena continued to talk even though she probably should have stopped there. ”I mean it sounds like you really could have used some combat training. I mean what did they teach you at Camp Halfblood anyway?”

That came out harsher sounding than intended, but it was true. Evie’s friend might not be in the infirmary if Evie had known how to handle herself. Also, Ena was genuinely curious to know what it had been like at Camp Halfblood. Was it all about hanging out with your fellow demigods and having fun. Sounded pretty great if you ignored how completely helpless it left the people who went there.

Ena realized she should probably say something more positive. ”Now that your here, I could probably get you in on some of the drills and training. We can teach you how to take care of yourself, so you don’t have to rely so much on your friend.” She took a pause. She didn’t know if it was the distraction or the ambrosia taking effect but she was feeling better. ”Your an Apollo kid right, you’d probably be great at archery. I can’t help you with that though, I suck at archery.”

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[attr="class","THREAD1CONTENT"] Ena didn’t like to complete, she liked to win. When the Camp Olympics was announced she knew she had to sign up for something, but the question of what hadn’t been quite as simple. Ena was a good fighter but she wasn’t exceptional, she knew there was no way she could win running against children of Mercury, and that left just one event open to her. The chariot race was going to be Ena’s event.

Ena wasn’t particularly good with horses. They were skittish by nature and Ena had a tendency to make everything around her scared when she got angry. As soon as she had heard the event was happening she had spent all of her extra time training with her team of horses. She wasn’t particularly gifted when it came to construction or design. Her chariot design was simple, sturdy enough to withstand a few blows but light enough for the horses to move quickly. Ena had called in a favor with a child of Vulcan in the second cohort to try and make her chariot as sturdy as possible. Her plan on winning came down to one thing and one thing only, her powers.

The chariot race was the one event where anything was allowed, and Ena intended to make full use of it. As a child of Pluto Ena had a unique power, she could manipulate shadows and give them physical form. Her plan was simple use the shadows beneath each of her competitors chariots to try and stop their wheels. Ideally she would pull on the wheels hard enough to throw chariots off course, break wheels and axels, and generally speaking cause chaos. Of course all of this was easier said than done. She could manipulate the shadows on a moving target, but she would have to take out competitors one at a time. Not to mention, she would also have to avoid the attacks her fellow competitors. In a field where so many had outfitted their chariots with all sorts of devious gadgets it was hard to know exactly what would happen. She had kept her plans for victory to herself, she could only assume the others were doing the same.

She paced back and fourth trying to think of various scenarios as she prepared for the chariot race. She had tried to learn as much as she could about her competitors, but that didn’t mean a whole lot. Outside of her cohort her powers weren’t widely known in the camp, she had to assume this was true of her competitors. Ena wanted that laurel wreath bad. She heard someone approaching and didn’t bother to look up and see who it was. ”What do you want.” she asked clearly annoyed to be interrupted like this.

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