ONE

                                    

                                          
Atalanta POV
                          
I was supposed to be at combat training now, but the tutor, who was Leila, centurion of the Fourth Cohort, hated me with a passion. I used to love combat training— it took my mind off stuff, but now I never joined the others. I usually sat it out. It wasn't really my fault I did that, Leila gave me death glares all the time, so after two months I just gave up and started watching instead.
                          
Nobody actually liked me in here. Of course they didn't, I was a daughter of Neptune, and to the Romans, children of Neptune brought bad luck. The demigods liked to blame everything on me. 
                          
The entire rest of the Fourth Cohort was there on the battle grounds, duelling and practising moves. It was pretty basic, and even though I never went to combat training, I would watch and learn, then sneak out to the Little Tiber to train at night sometimes. Mostly every other day.
                          
Across the field, I caught Leila glaring at me, with her two friends beside her. She had her arms crossed, and everything about her posture said stupid daughter of Neptune, too scared to fight? 
                          
I looked away and kicked the stones at my feet. I'd learnt early enough that if I did anything to anger Leila, I would end up very bad, and I wanted to avoid any sort of extra attention or conflict. 
                          
My gaze wandered to my boots. I had slipped two of my favourite Imperial Gold knifes in the sides of the inside of my boots, and I could feel the cool metal against my skin. I liked hand-to-hand combat more, but sometimes my knife would come in handy. I mean, it's sharp. It was better to show people what they wanted to see: a useless, harmless, and weak daughter of Neptune, who didn't even know how to use her weapons.
                          
It was a great effort not to reach down and throw a knife at Leila. To show her that I could fight better than her. I was certain of that, anyway. I took a deep breath and sat down again.
                          
When Combat Training finally ended, everyone went to the barracks. [𝚘𝚛 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚐, 𝙸𝙳𝙺 𝚑𝚘𝚠 𝚝𝚘 𝚌𝚊𝚕𝚕 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚙𝚕𝚊𝚌𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚢 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚎] Leila's two friends, Zack and Janice, came over and cornered me. Zack was a son of Orcus, the god of punishment. Ironic, right? I thought so too. Janice was a daughter of Janus. 
                          
I sighed. Not again. When Leila was in a bad mood, she would let her friends beat me up, which was an annoyingly ridiculous waste of my time. Obviously I could've defended myself, but like I said, I was going for the useless, harmless, and weak look, so I never do. I could just heal myself with water later at night anyway.
                          
"So, kid. Sitting out again?" Zack said. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. More like, Leila made me sit out. Also, I was like two months older than these two little ducks.
                          
"What a scaredy-cat, I'd be ashamed if I were you. Stupid and weak. A daughter of Neptune, no less. I'd be ashamed if I were you." Janice had one hand on her hip, the other holding her gold sword. She flicked it, and her blade cut across my left arm. I thanked her silently, that was faint enough to not leave scars. 
                          
Janice smiled wickedly, "heh, useless freak. I wonder, what should we do with her?"
                          
"Good question, Janice. You know, I have this idea I got yesterday..." Zack said, his arms crossed. Zack always had all kinds of interesting ways to punish me. Apparently for bringing bad luck. His father was the god of punishments, after all.
                          
Today, he went for a new way. He took out vial of disgusting-looking green liquid. "Got this from a friend from Hekate. This stuff is amazing." Hekate... the goddess of magic, I remembered. This wasn't going to end good, then. Then he grabbed my mouth, forced it open, and chugged it down my throat. 
                          
I coughed and choked. My hair shortened, the ends turned choppy, and it turned a dirty blonde. I hated blonde hair, maybe because Leila and Zack were both blonde.
                          
Janice threw back her head and laughed when she saw me standing with a bewildered look, "not bad enough, they should've made her hair, I dunno, green or something. Oh well." Well, of course, I never thought they would go so far: they once threw me down a cliff, but I did land in water. I never thought they would use magic on me. That was plain wrong. Now I probably had to walk around like this for two or three days until it wore off. I sighed heavily.
                          
Afterwards it was just like usual. A bunch of insults. And a lot of beating. 
                          
I went back to my cabin/room/IDK afterwards. I still had to go to dinner. Ugh. I cleaned myself up, healing my wounds best as I could. When I looked into the mirror, I saw my eyes had also turned purple. There was this especially long and deep cut running down the side of my face. Probably would leave a scar. I growled in frustration while splashing more cool water on it. 
                          
I put on a hoodie, changed into new jeans, and of course slipped my knifes in my boots. Then I pulled the hood over my head and set off to dinner. It wasn't like I could choose not to go. I'd had enough lates and absents for a lifetime. Precisely ten only, but Romans' rules were ridiculously strict.
                          
When I got there I sat in the darkest corner possible and picked at my food. People whispered as I passed by, and I saw Janice ad Zack laughing at me at the head of the table, along with Leila. Just finish your food, don't mind them. I told myself, and looked away.
                          
"Romans!! We have war games tomorrow!" Frank Zhang, our praetor, announced. He wasn't so bad, from what I'd heard, but he didn't exactly pay a lot of attention to my bullying problems. Nether did his girlfriend Hazel Levesque. 
                          
I heaved a huge sigh when I heard him announce that. War games before was mostly laughing at the Fifth Cohort, and for me, getting beaten up whenever anyone got tired of watching them. I was just some entertainment. 
                          
Ever since Percy Jackson, that Greek demigod son of Poseidon, first came and won in his first War Game, plus bought back the golden eagle, the Fifth Cohort has regained its confidence. Percy Jackson and Jason Grace came by once in a while to train them, so they were getting better and better. You could say they were better than the First Cohort, even. Now, we played fairly, mostly, but again I could never actually participate in it, despite how much I wanted to. Usually I was that person Leila sent out the very first to "see ahead", or she just left me behind to be beat up by... well, whoever wanted to. I had a feeling the Fourth cohort would have won a lot of times if they let me fight with them, but they wouldn't, and I was going for the weak look, so no.
                          
War games, huh. Can't wait. I thought.