Roman Chronicles: Book 1, Apollo: Chapter 5, The Hunt

I twisted the knife in my hand nervously. Chiron had finally set up capture-the-flag. A helmet with blue plumes was sitting on my head, it was a perfect fit. I had nowhere to sheath my knife, so I held it in my hands. Nobody tried sneaking up on me, until I heard a sound. It was faint, but I heard it.
"Ha! She'll never guess we're doing this!" It was a rough girl's voice. "Shut up, Clarisse. She'll hear. I really don't want to do this..." It was a really familiar voice. "Buck up, Nicholas. It's just a scorpion." "Oh, gods. She's running. Maybe she saw something...?" It was true. I was running. I put my knife in kill position and held it in their direction. Nicholas and Clarisse stepped out. Clarisse's blood-red helmet plumes I could make out anywhere. She had a nasty grin on her face. Gold armor was over her orange T-shirt. She was wearing boots that seemed to have sharp spikes. Nicholas looked like a Nico di Angelo wannabe. His eyes were sunken, like he hadn't slept. He was wearing a black T-shirt with a picture of a silver owl with red eyes. His sword hung by his side, looking like it was black under the evening moon. His black hair wasn't combed, and his green eyes looked darker, like a brown. "Sweet sleep, overachiever." She took a small matchbox-sized container out of her pocket. She placed it on the ground and said, "Deos, vestra!" Which I somehow understood as, "Gods, your blessing!" I blinding red light formed around the box, then faded. The box was probably, I don't know... 70x bigger? She grabbed a key from her pocket then said, "Deos meos! Quaeso benedictionem." I didn't know what that meant, but I think it was, "My Gods! A blessing, please!" The key got larger. She put it in the key slot, grabbed Nicholas's arm, and ran. Once they were gone, ever-so-slowly, the key began to turn. It clicked. The key popped out, and the lid slowly creaked open.
The first thing I saw were the eyes. It had eight, beady glowing red eyes the size of apples. Its pincers were huge, and reminded me of two curved imperial gold swords. Eight golden legs the size of walking sticks clacked on the forest floor. The ends were hooked like daggers. The most scary thing? It wasn't any of those. The stinger. It was a mess of massive gold-and-bronze. The end didn't have one barb... it had four. The tips were slightly stained with a purple poison. It was in a gigantic arch, right above its head. Swinging it like a whip ready to crack, it snarled at me. "Nice gigantic bloodthirsty scorpion. Good scorpion." It roared.  That was when my instincts took over. I rolled under the scorpion, stabbing it in the chink of its armor. I kept rolling, dragging the knife with unnecessary force. The scorpion howled with pain, but it slowly got up. I saw the wound on it closing and turning back to a shining gold. I growled. Why wasn't it dying? I jumped on its back. Sure, I was incredibly vulnerable. One twist of the scorpion's barb, and I'd be dead. But I wasn't going to die. "Hey, Roman!" It was Nicholas's voice. I took the knife and sliced off the scorpion's tail. The barbs went spinning in Nicholas's direction. It was too late. I threw my knife to try intercepting it, but I knew it wouldn't do anything. I had fulfilled Artemis's request. But now there was a gruesome sight in front of me. The lifeless body of Nicholas Sapientia was right before my eyes.