Of Demigods and Wrackspurts (PJO/HP - Luna Lovegood)

[Firewillreign]

The Present:

On the last day of her life, Luna Lovegood apparated onto the grounds of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with a loud crack.

Three years ago, she never would have managed it. The millennia-old anti-apparition wards would have bounced her off with contemptuous ease. She would have been splinted into oblivion like a bug on a muggle windshield just for having the audacity to try.

But that was then, and this was now.

Now, there were no such wards to keep her out, for there was no Hogwarts left to protect.

The ancient school had stood for over a thousand years and more besides, but there was not one trace of it left to tell the tale. The glimmering castle that had been built to last the test of time was gone, stripped from the land as if it never were. Its surroundings were not spared the destruction. The sloping lawns, flowerbeds, vegetable patches, the greenhouses that dotted the paths where students once traced to learn and laugh and live - all of it gone.

There remained nothing besides blackened earth, and a seething, putrid miasma of dark magic that lingered on the ash-drowned land and even the air itself.

Death was in the air - death and cruelty and tragedy most of all.

It was a tangible, ever-lasting taint. There would be no purging it, no restoration. It was all poisoned for good - Hogwarts would never come again. The school would never be rebuilt, and no home or hearth would ever be raised in its place, not ever again.

A part of her found that fitting.

It was an epilogue, of sorts. A final, vile testament to the evil that had devastated a nation and brought it to the brink of ruin twice. The same evil that had destroyed everything she'd ever loved in one fell swoop.

In two words, even.

Not even ghosts linger on her, tied as they once were to a home that had been obliterated completely.

No one would forget this. No one could, and the amount of blood, pure or mud or anything in between would be able to detract from it. To justify it as anything less than the utterly preventable atrocity it was.

A part of her curled in something akin to satisfaction - it's a pale imitation of the real thing and so very, very bitter, but Luna'd gone without feeling for so long that it was near overwhelming in the few seconds she had to savor it before it too flickers out and vanishes into the ether.

For a long moment, she observed the desolation with detached apathy, the light of the full moon above painting everything in her line of sight with soft, silver-white carcasses and a radiance this husk of a long-gone memory did not deserve, and then she turned away.

There was nothing for her here. There was nothing for her anywhere.

Slowly, steadily, she began to march down the dirt path to the Forbidden Forest.

...​

The Past:​

​

It is the false victory that hurts worse than any defeat - To taste the hope and joy of winning, of living to see a new dawn, only to have it taken away?

There is nothing crueler.

Luna remembered the final duel between Harry and Voldemort, the two wizards standing in the middle of a crowd of death eaters and defenders alike and still deaf to them all.

The Dark Lord against the chosen one, the hero against the monster. A clash of ideals straight out of children's storybooks and no less epic for it.

She remembered how the bang of their spells connecting was like a cannon blast, and the golden flames that erupted between them, at the dead center of the circle they had been treading marking the point where the spells collided.

And in the end, how Voldemort's spell rebounded, his wan slipping loose

And Harry, with the unerring skill of a Seeker, caught the wand in his free hand as Voldemort fell backward, arms splayed, the slit pupils of the scarlet eyes rolling upward in death.

She was among the first to run to him, her hand one of a hundred who were seizing him, pulling him, trying to hug some part of him, all of them pressing in, all of them determined to touch the Boy Who Lived, the reason it was over at last.

Maybe that was why they missed the warning signs. The joy, the heady feeling of freedom and hope that cried 'This is it, this is the end."

In another world, it just might have been.

But not in this one.

Later, when they sat in the Great Hall, cheering and celebrating, mourning and weeping in equal measure, she was the first to see the figure who slipped into the great hall.

Everyone else was too lost in the moment, too disconnected, drowned out by relief and glee and a thousand other things more to notice.

But Luna saw.

That was her greatest gift, and her greatest fault. Luna always saw, because that's what she did. She saw things people couldn't see, wouldn't see, or didn't want to see, and she always did, even when they called her loony for it and despised her all the more for doing it anyway.

'Just because they can not see', her mother had once said, 'does not mean you have to close your eyes too. Never by anyone's choice but your own.'

They were beautiful words. They were all Luna had left of her

But at that moment, for just that once, she wished she couldn't see.

She wished she couldn't see the Death Eater limping into the great hall, black robes battered and near ruined, yet holding all the same.

Wished she couldn't see the gleam of crimson splashed across his mask (blood, blood, blood - why was it always blood?), wished she couldn't see him raise his wand and seal the doors shut, before rounding back on the hall with a finality that froze her blood in her veins.

(More than anything, though, Luna wished she had been faster - faster to call out, faster to raise her wand, faster to do anything but watch in true, helpless terror as the tip of his wand lit up with a baleful orange glow and listen as his voice thundered over the din of gathered friends and family with a final, hateful roar.)

"Ignus Infernum!"

By the time Luna's wand was in her hand, the Fiendfyre had already swallowed half the Great Hall and everyone in it.

...
​

The Present:

When Luna crossed over the edge of the forest, she expected to feel something more - Nostalgia perhaps, a melancholy remembrance.

A lifetime ago, she'd found this den of dangerous magical beasts - of fangs and pincers and skittering shadows - more comforting than her own dorm room. She used to come here and walk among the thestral herds, or search among the brambles for Moon Frogs, or Blibbering Humdingers.
Most of all, she'd loved climbing the sturdiest trees she could find and nestling among the branches. There wasn't ever a better place for a nap.

The forest had been her refuge, in the early years before she'd made friends who could accept her. Who understood that seeing the world differently didn't mean she was any less deserving of a place in it, of a place amongst them.

Now though, treading between the oak and pine trees, feet drifting over a path of knotgrass and thorns, she found no comfort at all. The scent of wet grass and clean, crisp air was familiar, but that familiarity brought her no warmth.

It wasn't a surprise. It wasn't even a disappointment. She'd lost her taste for warmth amidst curse flame years ago.

She hastened her steps, her footsteps growing deft and swift as she forged forward, blindly following the pull in her gut, the unyielding pull she'd ignored for as long as she was able before the call grew too deafening and her own feeble resistance crumbled against it.

I await you.

The words were not words, but they were whispered in her mind (to her soul) and she heard them all the same.

Her surroundings blurred as marched forward, quickly forgotten. No creatures disturbed her, not even the half-dozen Acromuntala that flickered past her, on the hunt for lesser prey. Perhaps a shrewder predator could have followed her trail, but not even the keenest eyes or the sharpest senses would have discovered her as she was, with the Cloak of Invisibility wrapped around her body and the hood lowered over her head.

It was the first time in three years that she'd worn it - the first time in three years it had graced her form, for she had never managed to overcome her visceral loathing for the most subtle of the Deathly Hallows.

Even now, she wore it only because she had to. Because it completed the set.

All the same, hated it still, despised it just the same as he had since the day it was gifted to her.

Since the day she lost everything

...
​

The Past:

"LUNA!" Harry bellowed, the wand held in his grasp - The Elder Wand, the only reason the two of them weren't dead yet. "LUNA!"

She could barely look at him, and he was right beside her. Her own wand was in her hand, held aloft as she cast a desperate finite to counter the flames, but she knew it wouldn't be enough.

The Great Hall was gone, consumed by a swirling chimeric firestorm of red and orange.

She didn't understand how it happened (she didn't want to, please no-) - she didn't understand how everyone was just gone, how it was just her and Harry shielded in a dome of flickering white-blue light, wands held aloft as they tried to stop the inevitable.

Everyone was gone, gone, gone, gone-

A hand latched onto her shoulder and wrenched her around, and her spell failed. Not that it mattered, it was never her keeping them alive.

Harry's green eyes met hers, and if the sweltering heat hadn't already stolen her breath and driven her to her knees, she thought the mad, mad grief and rage and resolve burning in them would have done it just as well.

"Luna, you have to live!" He roared, eyes mad and monstrous in their intensity, and already half gone. "No matter what, you live! Be happy, be free - do whatever the bloody hell you want to do Luna, but live. Live, Luna, Live!"

There were so many things she could have said to that - so many things she should have said to that.

She never had the chance.

Harry's free hand was suddenly pointed at her, and a silver cloth suddenly draped over her shoulder. The invisibility cloak wrapped around her, the hood lowering on its own accord, tightening until it was almost bruising, until no part of her was left exposed.

Only then, at the very end, did Harry smile.

Rife with grief, loss, madness, and peace (and that's what broke her heart for the final time. He looked almost content.)

He closed his eyes before the end.

"I hope you find the crumple-horned Snorkack. Tell us all about it when we see you again, yeah?"

Luna screamed when his arm dropped, the dome with it, and the Fiendfyre swallowed

Luna screamed and screamed until her throat was hoarse and bloody, but she didn't burn.

Not when the Fienfyre washed over her cloaked form, not when it rampaged past the hall and into the castle proper, and not even when it consumed everything within Hogwarts's ward line before it was snuffed out by their collapse.

Somehow, be it by having mastered all three Hallows or by the price of final sacrifice, Harry Potter had given his cloak the power to protect her. The cloak of invisibility imbued with a power no one could ever understand, a power just mighty enough to shield her from annihilation.

Bravery beyond all measure. A Gryffindor to the end.

And when Luna was done howling in frenzied, soul-crushing despair when she'd given up on peeling the cloak off her (a cloak that would not obey until its former master's final command had been carried through), she stood.

By then, the flames had been snuffed out. Ash and dust clogged the air above her, and hid the golden sun they'd all been celebrating under.
It clogged her throat, too, and made every pull of air hurt. She was almost grateful for that. Perhaps it could have snuffed it out entirely, so she would wake up from this nightmare and find her friends and her father and everyone waiting for her, as they should be.

(Luna didn't wake up)

The cloak poured off her like water, pooling at her feet almost almost inconspicuously. As though it hadn't damned her to the worst of all hells

(Live? What is living in a world without any of you?

Nothing, that's what.)

And when she went to pick it up, to rip it to shreds or cast it to the wind or maybe to weep into it for everything she'd lost forever, she noticed a spark.

A few feet away, damningly unharmed and almost cruelly mocking in its continued existence was the Elder Wand, its tip glowing crimson and pointed unerringly at her.

Hail, mistress.

The Cloak and the Deathstick sang as one.

...​

The Present

The magic behind it was esoteric, and born of intent more than any action.

Harry Potter had mastered the Deathly Hallows. Harry Potter had died for her and willed everything he had to protect her.

And somehow, somewhere along the lines, he willed mastery of the three treasures of a bygone era to her control.

The three years that followed were nothing but grey.

Devoid of life. Color. Soul.

For three years, Luna Lovegood existed and tried to deafen herself to the one hallow out of her reach. The wand remained in a cupboard she'd locked it in, the cloak in a chest in her father's attic.

(Not her attic, never her attic, it was their house and with just her alone-)

Two were bound to her by blood and misery in such a manner that she could never let them go. In the sickest, most twisted of ways, they were all she had left.

But the Resurrection Stone was a jealous, jealous thing, and the final hallow would not so easily be deterred.

Three must be as one. Come, Mistress.

Over and over, every day, until at last Luna couldn't stand it any longer.

She knew what was going to happen when she picked the stone up - it would give her everything she wanted, and everything she couldn't have, and twist the blade of misery in her heart past the point of no return.
She knew that if she walked into the forest and picked up the resurrection stone, one way or the other she'd never leave it again.

And she. Didn't. Care.

So she walked, and she walked, and she walked. Past the shadow of the tallest trees and the lairs of the fiercest beasts, past sights familiar and unfamiliar, until she at last came to an abrupt spot, completely unremarkable in every way.

Hail, Mistress.

The Resurrection stone seemed to glimmer from atop the earthy soil and dirt, but Luna knew that anyone else would have missed the insidious little pebble. That she had found it in this unassuming patch of nothingness simply because it had never left her alone from the moment Harry passed dominion over it to her.

(She cursed him for it, sometimes. Cursed him well and proper, and hated herself all the more for it afterward)

Harry didn't know what the Hallows were. He'd mastered them and survived them simply by being too good to want them, the ultimate paradox.

Luna would not be so lucky. She knew that.

She still bent down to pick up the stone regardless.

It was cold in her hand, and her thumb idly traced the jagged crack running its surface, bisecting the symbol of the Hallows etched onto its most prominent facet. She could feel the power of the stone, worming its way up her fingertips, burrowing beneath her flash and wrapping around her soul.

Anyone else would have missed it, but not Luna.

She'd always been good with esoteric magic - maybe not casting it, but feeling it? Getting a sense of it?

As easy as breathing.

Across her shoulders, the Cloak rejoiced. In the holster strapped to her arms, the Wand crowed in triumphant satisfaction. And held in her palm, the stone hummed, graceful in its apparent victory.

Their singing melds into one sibilant cacophony

Hail, the Mistress of Death.

Hail, the Mistress of Death.

Hail, the Mistress of Death.

It's a mantra that the Hallows repeat as if Luna was meant to be happy about it. About any of it.

(About anything in this cruel, empty world.)

"What do you want?" She whispered to none and all three of them at the same time.

Conquer, the Wand suggested, for even now it was only a weapon. The ultimate wizarding weapon, but a weapon all the same.

(Conquer what? There wasn't anything the Wand could give her that she wanted)

Raise, the Stone offered, and here Luna almost choked on a sudden sob, the burst of emotion overcoming her violently and without warning. See them all once more.

(But they wouldn't be real, would they? Shades at best, false imitations at worst.)

Be free, the Cloak was the last to propose, do as you please and know that not even death can find you now.

(But Death was all Luna wanted now, so what good was such a cloak to her?)

"Mistress of Death." She asks at last, soft and deceptively low. "What does that mean?"

The mystery that had been asked for millennia, for as long as the legend of the three brothers had existed.

If she expected the Hallows to pause, or to deny her an answer, she was sorely mistaken.

Whatever you want it to mean.

And Luna understood the unspoken message all the same.

"You don't know either, do you?"

It strikes her then that, for all their vaunted power, the Hallows are so very limited in scope. An almighty wand that was loyal to none, A stone that raised shades both it and its user knew were but pale imitations, and a cloak that you could only ever use to hide.

Three artifacts that had shaped the world and whose true utility could only ever be discovered when you didn't want them, and even then they had no power but what you chose to give them - there was an irony there, cruel and bitter and wise indeed.

"Can you give them back to me?" She asked, and she knew the answer already - she knew. She just needed to hear it, to finally seal the last possibility and get on with what she should have done that very same night in the ruins of Hogwarts, amidst ash and ruin. "You call me Mistress of Death, but can I command Death to be undone?"

For the first time in years, the Hallows were silent.

And that was answer enough.

Luna smiled.

She smiled, and she chuckled, and laughed, loud and hauntingly hurt, and that sound tore the Forbidden Forest in the early hours of twilight and would go down in myth among its denizens for as long as the forest stood, for how could such a melody of grief and pain and finality ever be forgotten but in the face of death?

And when she was done, and her demons were set aside, Luna lowered herself to her knees and laid each of the Hallows out before her.

"The three of you," She spoke softly - and her voice was somehow still akin to the roar of thunder in the midst of world-shattering storms. "Are no more."

Magic began to shift, and the Hallows moaned in protest

Mistress-

"You owe your loyalty to me." She said, and they quietened down (for the last time) "This is the end. No more Hallows, no more masters or mistresses of death. This is the end."

The end of the Hallows.

The end of Luna Lovegood.

And the Hallows, ever and always obedient once their loyalty was secured, dis as their Mistress commanded.

The wand went first, crackling with power that shook the forest entire. In the blink of an eye, the wood splintered and shattered, and the power within surged one final time.

The stone came second, glimmering darkly one final time before it simply dissolved into shadows, a mournful cry echoing in its wake, and the power within surged one final time.

At last came the cloak the most loyal and obedient ever to the end, and before her very eyes it dissolved into motes of silver light. For a moment, Luna thought she could see a boy with messy black hair and such green eyes grinning at her, and her own filled with tears.

(I'm sorry, she wanted to say. But there's no life left for me here.)

All the while, the power within the cloak surged one final time.

The lingering remnants of the Hallows streamed, combined, and lit up the clearing with fractal patterns and eldritch light - a storm of impossibly condensing as the power of the artifacts that would have existed until the end of time had they only been allowed to continued to build up, and up, and up.

And when at last it could grow no more, Luna was the first to reach out, without hesitation.

"This," she repeated softly, and for a second, it was as if all the world paused and held its breath. "Is the end."

And then her hand touched magic in its purest, wildest, most uncontrollable form, and everything detonated.

Reality unraveled, and Luna with it, the tapestry of cosmic power and mortal memory that was her everything scattered and erased from existence as the power of the Hallows comes undone in a localized cataclysm beyond all ken.

A death so complete, so magnificent, that even gods would have stopped to watch in awe.

And when the light flickered out, and the clearing settled, Luna Lovegood was gone, and not even dust remained.

...​

In another world, there was a Pit.

This pit was not merely a location, but an entity. The dark and foul underbelly of creation, where all that was vile and unwanted fell, with only the strongest most savage of beasts, of concepts, of immortals managed to crawl their way back into the world above.

Tartarus was the Pit.

But Tartarus was also a dome, for beneath this land and god of unspeakable horror lay a force far, far greater than even the mighty primordial dared assume it could be.

The Chaos, or Khaos, or Gap, or any of a thousand arbitrary titles, each as meaningless as the last and all linked to the same almighty concept.

The wellspring of life, the original existence from where the universe and all within it first sprung.

Such was the way of this wellspring that it consistently birthed and gave way to new and impossible life - and such was the way of Tartarus that the Foul One destroyed it, strangled it in its cradle simply by existing, for was that not the Pits's nature and prerogative?

Only the strongest, the cruelest, the ghastliest survived Tartarus, and only because Tartarus himself cared not for the insects and maggots that crawled across his ever-slumbering form.

It was a monstrous place, ruled by monsters of the worst sort.

Certainly no place for a child (or half of one.)

Yet, by some odd quirk of fate (or Fates), a day came when a cry rang out across the Pit. A child's cry, seemingly mortal, and coming from one that has arisen from the Great Chaos itself.

Were this any other day, this story would have ended in cruelty that was the norm for Tartrus and its denizens. The child would have been an oddity, a hilarious one, and then it would have died. Killed, its life forever silenced as an infinity more before it had been, and no one would have been the wiser.

Yet, it just so happens that a god heard that cry, for the Underworld was the closest of realms to Tartarus, and for whatever reason, that same god decided to indulge his curiosity and see what all the fuss was about.

That's why instead of being shredded alive by the hoards of empousa who'd tracked down its cries, the child was rescued. The god incinerated the uppity beasts without a second thought, and picked up a mortal infant that by all rights should not be alive, for how could something so fragile survive in the Pit.

Cradling the child a girl to his chest, the god hummed thoughtfully.

"Just when I think I've seen it all." He smiled in thought, his gold eyes shining, and his black wings flared, dark as death. "Now, what to do with you?"

...​

Thirteen years later - Westover Hall:

Grover hurried them to a door that had GYM written on the glass. Even with the dyslexia innate to half-bloods, it was easy to read that much.

"That was close!" Grover sighed. "Thank the gods you got here!"

Annabeth and Thalia both hugged Grover. Percy gave him a big high-five.

Percy was happy to see him again after so many months. He'd gotten a little taller and had sprouted a few more whiskers, but otherwise he looked just the same as always did when he passed for human — a red cap on his curly brown hair to hide his goat horns, baggy jeans and sneakers with fake feet to hide his furry legs and hooves. He was wearing a black T-shirt that had WESTOVER HALL: GRUNT written on it. Percy wasn't sure whether that was, like, Grover's rank or maybe just the school motto.

"So, what's the emergency?" Percu asked

Grover took a deep breath bracingly.

"I found three," he exhaled, awe and excitement brimming in his voice.

"Three half-bloods?" Thalia asked, amazed, leaning in. "Here?"

Grover nodded.

"How is that even possible?" said Annabeth, disbelief coloring her tone. Percy understood why.

Finding one half-blood was rare enough. This year, Chiron had put the satyrs on emergency overtime and sent them all over the country, scouring schools from fourth grade through high school for possible recruits. These were desperate times. They were losing campers. They needed all the new fighters they could find. The problem was, there just weren't that many demigods out there.

"A brother and sister pair and another girl," said Grover. "The siblings are ten and twelve, and the other girl is maybe fourteen I don't know their parentage, but they're powerful. I have no clue how no one's come across them before. We're running out of time, though. I need help."

"Monsters?" asked Annabeth.

"One," Grover said nervously, looking them over desperately. "He suspects. I don't think he's positive yet, but this is the last day of term. I'm sure he won't let them leave campus without finding out. It may be our last chance! Every time I try to get close to them, he's always there, blocking me. I don't know what to do!"

"Right," said Thalia, tapping her chin. "These half-bloods are at the dance?"

Grover nodded.

"Then let's dance," Thalia declared with a nod. "Who's the monster?"
"Oh," Grover said, and glanced around shiftily. "You just met him — it's the vice principal, Dr.Thorn."

...

"Weird thing about military schools: the kids go absolutely nuts when there's a special event and they get to be out of uniform. Percy guessed it was because everything was so strict the rest of the time, they feel like they've got to overcompensate or something.

There were black and red balloons all over the gym floor, and guys were kicking them in each others faces, or trying to strangle each other with the crepe-paper streamers taped to the walls. Girls moved around in football huddles, the way they always do, wearing lots of makeup and spaghetti-strap tops and brightly colored pants and shoes that looked like torture devices. Every once in a while they'd surround some poor guy like a pack of piranhas, shrieking and giggling, and when they finally moved on, the guy would have ribbons in his hair and a bunch of lipstick graffiti all over his face. Some of the older guys looked more like Percy —uncomfortable, hanging out at the edges of the gym and trying to hide, like any minute they might have to fight for their lives. Of course, in Percy's case, it was true…

"There's the brother and sister." Grover nodded toward a couple of younger kids arguing in the bleachers. "Bianca and Nico di Angelo."

The girl wore a floppy green cap, like she was trying to hide her face; Percy couldn't really get a good look at her. The boy was obviously her little brother. They both had dark silky hair and olive skin, and they used their hands a lot as they talked. The boy was shuffling some kind of trading cards. His sister seemed to be scolding him about something. She kept looking around like she sensed something was wrong.

"The other girl is over there," said Grover, tilting his head towards the pack of roaming girls who were on another hapless boy again. "The short one sitting on her own."

Said girl was sitting alone, huddled near the bleachers away from all the action. Percy blinked at the sight of her.

"The heck?" Thalia blurted out, and Percy was kinda with her there.

The girl had maybe the oddest getup he'd seen in a while, and he'd been to friggin Olympus. Dark jeans, with a bright yellow t-shirt and a pink vest over it that was covered in bright blue and silver sparks. She had a necklace made up of corkscrews and bottle cops of all things wrapped around her neck, and a pair of bright gold and silver-blue sunglasses with star frames that absolutely dwarfed her face.

Percy looked at Grover. "Dude."

Grover grimaced. "It's not that bad."

No, it was worse. Percy was almost sure the girl would never survive her first day back at camp. The Aphrodite cabin would either mob her for a makeover or kill her on the spot for that getup.

"I'm serious, Percy. Don't underestimate her, she's a lot more perceptive than you'd think. Her name's Luna Lovegood," Grover went on, hands fidgeting nervously "but everyone calls her Loony."

And as if they'd summoned her attention just by bringing her up (which was an actual thing, because demigod lives clearly weren't hard enough), the girl suddenly leaned forward, pulled off her shades and turned to stare dead at them, cloudy-grey eyes roving over them with unnatural precision.

And then she smiled.

...​

Just an idea my cousin kept begging me to write, so I may or may not continue it depending on the reception it gets.

As always, leave your comments and ideas and if you don't like it, please be courteous.

 

[StrawberrySunshine]

I really really like this! You don't see many Luna fics and it's really sad and you especially don't see many that aren't just her at Hogwarts so i'm super excited to read more. She's my favorite HP character.

Does she have her memories?

 

[Firewillreign]

I really really like this! You don't see many Luna fics and it's really sad and you especially don't see many that aren't just her at Hogwarts so i'm super excited to read more. She's my favorite HP character.

Does she have her memories?

Click to shrink...

More or less

And yeah Luna's awesome, and far more competent than most people thinks she is. I'm having a blast writing her.

 

[StrawberrySunshine]

More or less

And yeah Luna's awesome, and far more competent than most people thinks she is. I'm having a blast writing her.

Click to shrink...

She really is. She always struck me as the sort of character that's unpredictable and careful in a way that people wouldn't realize. At the same time she's also flamboyant and out there.

 

[Hephaestus]

Holy fuck that start was fucking great I don't care how the rest of this goes because that preamble was amazing gave me goosebumps multiple times keep it up and this fic will be awesome

 

[Firewillreign]

Holy fuck that start was fucking great I don't care how the rest of this goes because that preamble was amazing gave me goosebumps multiple times keep it up and this fic will be awesome

Click to shrink...

Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it !

 

[DracoArgentum]

Hmm, interesting.
What always set Luna apart from others was both her unique perspective of things, but also her emotional intelligence, so I am honestly quite curious how she will impact the plot of PJO.

What I am curious about though is whose child she is. She was obviously found by Thanatos, but she apparently appeared out of Khaos in Tartarus of all places, so she cant be Thantos´ daughter unless he somehow adopted her in a way that gives her powers.

 

[JustRaiding195]

Neat

 

[Firewillreign]

Percy was an idiot. They all were.

And things were going so well too.

Infiltrate school dance - check.

Actually, dance to avoid drawing suspicion - check (somehow)

Keep an eye on the Di Angelo's - Fail.

Epic, epic fail.

Percy had let himself forget what they were here for, lost as he was in talking to Annabeth and doing his best not to stare - he'd even managed a half-decent job at it, thank Poseidon.

And then it all went wrong because of course it did.

Annabeth looked over his shoulder and froze.

"They're gone."

"What?"

Percy followed her gaze. The bleachers. Bianca and Nico were no longer there.

The door next to the bleachers was wide open.

Dr. Thorn was nowhere in sight.

"We have to get Thalia and Grover!" Annabeth looked around frantically.

"Oh, where'd they dance off to? Come on!"

She tore through the crowd in a sprint.

Percy made to follow when a mob of girls got in his way, and it wasn't even the one he would have appreciated. He maneuvered around them to avoid getting a ribbon-and-lipstick treatment a bunch of other poor schmucks had failed to escape and bolted as quickly as he could, but by the time he was free, Annabeth had disappeared. He turned a full circle, looking for her or Thalia and Grover. Instead, he saw something that chilled his blood.

About fifty feet away, lying on the gym floor, was the floppy green cap Bianca di Angelo had been wearing. Near it were a few scattered trading cards.

Percy then caught a glimpse of Dr. Thorn — He was hurrying out a door at the opposite end of the gym, steering the di Angelo kids by the scruffs of their necks, like kittens. Hissing frantically, Percy stood as tall as he could, but still couldn't see Annabeth. He knew she'd be heading the other way, though, looking for Thalia and Grover.

He almost ran after her, but stalled, grimacing. The di Angelos were in danger; they could be long gone by the time Percy found his friends. There wasn't just wasn't time.

Percy took Riptide out of his pocket and ran after Dr. Thorn.

The door led into a dark hallway. Percy heard sounds of scuffling up ahead, then a painful grunt. He uncapped Riptide. The pen grew in his hands until he held a bronze Greek sword about three feet long with a leather-bound grip. The blade glowed faintly, casting a golden light on the rows of lockers.

He jogged down the corridor, but when he got to the other end, no one was there. Percy opened a door and found himself back in the main entry hall. He was completely turned around! He didn't see Dr. Thorn anywhere, but there on the opposite side of the room were the di Angelo kids. They stood frozen in horror, staring right at Percy.

Percy advanced slowly, lowering the tip of his sword.

"It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."

They didn't answer. Their eyes were full of fear. What was wrong with them? Where was Dr. Thorn? Maybe he'd sensed the presence of Riptide and retreated? Monsters hated celestial bronze weapons after all.

"My name's Percy," Percy said, trying to keep his voice level. "I know you have no idea who I am, but I'm here to get you out of here and get you somewhere safe."

Bianca's eyes widened. Her fists clenched. Only too late did Percy realize what her look meant. She wasn't afraid of him. She was trying to warn him.

Percy whirled around and something went WHOOSH! Pain exploded in his shoulder. A force like a huge hand yanked him backward and slammed him to the wall.

He slashed with his sword but there was nothing to hit.

A cold laugh echoed through the hall.

"Yes, Perseus Jackson," Dr. Thorn said. His accent mangled the J in Percy's last name. "I know who you are."

Percy tried to free his shoulder. His coat and shirt were pinned to the wall by some kind of spike - a black dagger-like projectile about a foot long. It had grazed the skin of his shoulder as it passed through his clothes, and the cut burned.

He'd felt something like this before.

Poison.

Percy forced himself to concentrate — he refused to pass out.

A dark silhouette then moved toward the three of them. Dr. Thorn stepped into the dim light. He still looked human, but his face was ghoulish. He had perfect white teeth and his brown/blue eyes reflected the light of Percy's sword.

"Thank you for coming out of the gym," he said. "I hate middle-school dances."

Percy tried to swing his sword again, but Dr. Thorn was just out of reach.

WHIIIISH! A second projectile shot from somewhere behind Dr. Thorn. He didn't appear to move. It was as if someone invisible was standing behind him, throwing knives.

Next to Percy, Bianca yelped. The second thorn impaled itself into the stone wall, half an inch from her face.

"All three of you will come with me," Dr. Thorn said. "Quietly. Obediently. If you make a single noise, if you call out for help or try to fight, I will show you just how accurately I can throw."

Percy didn't know what kind of monster Dr. Thorn was, but he was fast.

Maybe he could have defended myself if he could get his shield activated. All that it would take was a touch of his wrist-watch, but defending the Di Angelo kids was another matter. But needed help, and there was only one way he could think of getting it.

He closed his eyes.

"What are you doing, Jackson?" hissed Dr. Thorn. "Keep moving!"

Percy opened his eyes again and kept shuffling forward.

"It's my shoulder," he lied, trying to sound miserable, which wasn't hard.

"It burns."

"Bah! My poison causes pain; it will not kill you. Walk!"

Thorn herded them outside, and Percy tried to concentrate. He pictured Grover's face. He focused on his feelings of fear and danger. Last summer, Grover had created an empathy link between the two of them; he'd sent Percy visions in Percy's dreams to let Percy know when he was in trouble. As far as Percy knew, they were still linked, but he'd never tried to contact Grover before. He didn't even know if it would work while Grover was awake.

'Hey, Grover! ' he thought as loudly as he could. 'Thorn's kidnapping us! He's a poisonous spike-throwing maniac! Help! '

Thorn inched them into the woods. They took a snowy path dimly lit by old-fashioned lamp-lights.

Percy's shoulder ached. The wind blowing through his ripped clothes was so cold that he felt like a popsicle.

"There is a clearing ahead," Thorn said. "We will summon your ride."

"What ride?!" Bianca demanded. "Where are you taking us?!"

"Silence, you insufferable girl!"

"Don't talk to my sister that way!'" Nico answered back. His voice quivered, but Percy was impressed that he had the guts to say anything at all.

Dr. Thorn made a growling sound that definitely wasn't human. It made the hairs stand up on the back of Percy's neck, but he forced himself to keep walking and pretend that he was being a good little captive. Meanwhile, he projected his thoughts like crazy — anything to get Grover's attention: 'Grover! Apples! Tin cans! Get out here and bring some heavily armed friends! with you! '

"Halt," Thorn said.

The woods had opened up. They'd reached a cliff overlooking the sea. At least, Percy sensed the sea was down there, hundreds of feet below. He could hear the waves churning and he could smell the cold salty froth. But all he could see was mist and darkness.

Dr. Thorn pushed them toward the edge. Percy stumbled, but Bianca caught him.

"Thanks," he murmured.

"What is he?" she whispered. "How do we fight him?"

"I . . . I'm working on it."

"I'm scared," Nico mumbled. He was fiddling with something — a little metal toy soldier of some kind.

"Stop talking!" Dr. Thorn said. "Face me!"

Haltingly, they turned as demanded.

Thorn's two-tone eyes glittered hungrily. He pulled something from under his coat. At first Percy thought it was a switch-blade, but it was only a phone. He pressed the side button and said, "The package — it is ready to deliver."

There was a garbled reply, and Percy realized Thorn was in walkie-talkie mode. This seemed way too modern and creepy — a monster using a mobile phone.

Percy glanced behind him, wondering how far the drop was.

Dr. Thorn laughed, "By all means, Son of Poseidon. Jump! There is the sea — save yourself!"

"What did he call you?" Bianca muttered.

"I'll explain later," Percy mumbled back.

"You do have a plan, right?"

"Working on it!" he hissed under his breath. 'Grover!' Percy thought desperately. 'Come to me! '

Maybe Percy could get both the Di Angelos to jump with him into the ocean? If they survived the fall, Percy could use the water to protect them all. He'd done things like that before. If his dad was in a good mood, and listening, he might even help. Maybe.

"I would kill you before you ever reached the water," Dr. Thorn said, as if reading Percy's thoughts. "You do not realize who I am, do you?"

A flicker of movement behind him, and another missile whistled so close to Percy that it nicked his ear. Something had sprung up behind Dr. Thorn-like a catapult, but more flexible . . . almost like a tail.

"Unfortunately," Thorn said, "you are wanted alive, if possible. Otherwise you would already be dead."

"Who wants us?" Bianca demanded. "Because if you think you'll get a ransom, you're wrong. We don't have any family. Nico and I. . . ." Her voice broke a little. "We've got no one but each other."

"Aww," Dr. Thorn said, faux sympathy plastered on his face. "Do not worry, little brats. You will be meeting my employer soon enough. Then you will have a brand-new family."

"Luke," Percy said, teeth gritting. "You work for Luke."

Dr. Thorn's mouth twisted with distaste when Percy said the name of his old enemy — a former friend who'd tried to kill him several times.

"You have no idea what is happening, Perseus Jackson. I will let the General enlighten you. You are going to do him a great service tonight. He is looking forward to meeting you."

"The General?" Percy asked. Then he realized he'd said it with a French accent. "I mean . . . who's the General?"

Thorn looked toward the horizon.

"Ah, here we are. Your transportation."

Percy turned and saw a light in the distance, a searchlight over the sea. Then he heard the chopping of helicopter blades getting louder and closer.

"Where are you taking us?" Nico demanded, tone teary.

"You should be honored, my boy. You will have the opportunity to join a great army! Just like that silly game you play with cards and dolls."

"They're not dolls!" Nico snapped, anger overtaking his fear for a moment. "They're figurines! And you can take your 'great army' and—"

Now, now," Dr. Thorn warned. "You will change your mind about joining us, my boy. And if you do not, well. . . . there are other uses for half-bloods. We have many monstrous mouths to feed. The Great Stirring is underway."

The Great what?" Percy asked. Anything to keep him talking while he tried to figure out a plan.

"The stirring of monsters." Dr. Thorn smiled evilly. "The worst of them, the most powerful, are now waking. Monsters that have not been seen in thousands of years. They will cause death and destruction the likes of which mortals have never known. And soon we shall have the most important monster of them all - one that shall bring about the downfall of Olympus!"

"O-kay," Bianca whispered to Percy. "He's completely nuts."

"We have to jump off the cliff," Percy told her quietly. "Into the sea."

She looked at him like he was crazy, which, okay, was pretty fair given what he'd just said.

"Oh, super idea. You're completely nuts, too, then."

Percy never got the chance to argue with her, because just then an invisible force slammed into him.

Looking back on it, Annabeth's move was brilliant. Wearing her cap of invisibility, she plowed into the di Angelos and Percy, knocking them to the ground. For a split second, Dr. Thorn was taken by surprise, so his first volley of missiles zipped harmlessly over their heads. This gave Grover and Thalia a chance to advance from behind — Thalia wielding her magic shield, Aegis.

Thalia running into battle was terrifying - and Percy had been charged by the freaking Minotaur when he had been twelve. She used a huge spear that expanded from this collapsible Mace canister she carried in her pocket, but that wasn't the scary part. Her shield was modeled after one her dad, Zeus, used — also called Aegis — a gift from Athena. The shield had the head of the gorgon Medusa molded into the bronze, and even though it wouldn't turn you to stone, it was so horrible most people would panic and run at the sight of it.

Even Dr. Thorn winced and growled when he saw it.

Thalia moved in with her spear.

"For Zeus!"

Percy thought Dr. Thorn was a goner for sure as Thalia jabbed at his head, but he snarled and swatted the spear aside. His hand changed into an orange paw, with enormous claws that sparked against Thalia's shield as he slashed. If it hadn't been for Aegis, Thalia would've been sliced like a loaf of bread. As it was, she managed to roll backward and land on her feet.

He moved to charge, snarling and looking like that special kind of anger all monsters got when pesky demigods had the audacity to not die when they were attacked, but he didn't make it two steps before a loud, surprisingly powerful voice echoed over them from nowhere at all.

"Depulso!"

A bolt of purple light materialized about six feet to Dr.Thorn's right and hurtled towards him like a basketball lobbed at full force. It looked like he managed to catch sight of it near the end, but he didn't have a chance in hades of moving out of the way before it slammed into his side dead on.

There was a band like a gunshot and a gust of air that blew his hair out of his eyes, and then they all watched in disbelief as Dr.Thorn went flying, blasted away some thirty feet in a rising arc that ended with him crashing back on to the ground with an explosion of scattered snow and wind and a roared greek curse so vile Percy's mom would have fed him a bar soap if he ever dared mouth it in front of her.

"What?" Thalia was on her feet in a second, staring at him wide-eyed, and he shook his head.

"Not me."

"No, it was me."

The air beside him shimmered, and Percy almost forgot the burning cut on his shoulder as Luna Lovegood materialized in front of him, dotty getup and all, her star-framed sunglasses on top of her head and her arm still outstretched and crackling with purple light.

Somewhere behind him, he heard Nico Di Angelo leap to his feet.

"Luna!" He cried in relief

"Hello, Nico. Bianca." She smiled at them warmly and spoke with the same energy as someone meeting their friends on a street and not in the midst of a battle for their lives. Then her eyes rounded on Percy, cloudy grey and assessing. "And I don't know who you are."

What the Hades?

Before Percy could answer her - Because what else was he going to do? - Dr. Thorn leaped back onto his feet and bellowed in fury.

"Impudent half-blood wretch!"

And while all of them tensed, Luna just frowned and crossed her arms, looking like a put-out schoolteacher.

"That's rude."

The sound of the helicopter was getting louder behind Percy, but he couldn't help rounding on the girl and helping - that was her issue with all of this?

Then he promptly had to duck as Dr.Thorn threw himself into action. He launched another volley of missiles at Thalia, and this time Percy could see how he did it. He had a tail - a leathery, scorpion-like tail that bristled with spikes at the tip.

The missiles deflected off Aegis, but the force of their impact knocked Thalia down. Grover sprang forward. He put his reed pipes to his lips and began to play — a frantic jig that sounded like something pirates would dance to. Grass broke through the snow. Within seconds, rope-thick weeds were wrapping around Dr. Thorn's legs, entangling him.
Dr. Thorn roared and began to change. He grew larger until he was in his true form-his face still human, but his body that of a huge lion. His leathery, spiky tail whipped deadly thorns in all directions.

"A manticore!" Annabeth said, now visible. Her magical New York Yankees cap had come off when she'd plowed into them.

"Oh dear." Luna frowned. "I'd hoped for a sphinx. I've been dying for a good riddle."

And yeah, Percy wasn't even going to try and unpack that.

"Who are you people?!" Bianca di Angelo demanded. "And what is that?!"

"A manticore!" Nico gasped, awed. "He's got three thousand attack power and plus five to saving throws!"

Percy didn't know what Nico was talking about, but he didn't have time to worry about any of that. The manticore clawed Grover's magic weeds to shreds then turned toward us with a snarl.

"Get down!" Annabeth pushed the di Angelos flat into the snow.

At the last second, Percy remembered his own shield. He hit his wristwatch, and metal plating spiraled out into a thick bronze shield - but it didn't have to.

"Protego!"

Percy heard several dull thuds, and when he looked he saw a shimmering curved dome of blue light surrounding all six of them, Luna Lovegood standing in front of them with both hands outstretched.

"Sorceress!" the monster roared.

"Almost!" Luna agreed, and her hand dropped. The dome followed suit, dissolving into blue light, and Dr.Thorn must have taken that as some kind of weakness, because his tail bristled and rose in clear threat and he bellowed again.

"Yield."

"Never!" Thalia yelled from across the field.

"No thank you." Luna agreed, far more primly and with surreal politeness. One of her hands rose to the necklace of bottle caps and corkscrews on her neck and pulled a seemingly unordinary cap off in one sharp movement. Luna held it out in front of her, balanced on the end of one thumb like a coin before flicking it up into the air.

There was a flare of white-purple light and a sound like an off-pitch whistle, and the cap morphed and elongated in mid-air almost faster than Percy's eyes could track. By the time it dropped back into Luna's waiting grip, it was in the form of a spear, five feet long and blacker than night.

Something about the dark, smoky metal seemed familiar in a viscerally unpleasant way, but he didn't have time to put his finger on it. By some unspoken agreement, both girls charged the monster, and for a second, Percy thought they would run him through. But then there was a thunderous noise and a blaze of light from behind them.

The helicopter appeared out of the mist, hovering just beyond the cliffs. It was a sleek black military-style gunship, with attachments on the sides that looked like laser-guided rockets. The helicopter had to be manned by mortals, but what was it doing here? How could mortals be working with a monster? The searchlights blinded Thalia, and the manticore swung with its tail. It would have slammed into her side and batted her away, Luna's spear flashed far faster than it should have, and the beast howled as the tip of the appendage was sliced clean off.

"No!"

A massive paw descended on her head, but the blond girl ducked beneath the blow and rolled back, somehow maintaining her grip on it before she regained her balance with a half-crouch and jabbed at the manticore's chest.

He backed up and swung again, but Thalia charged him from the side and he was forced to abort the motion, tripping back as both of them herded him in.

That was about the point Percy suddenly remembered that - hey, he was a demigod too - and ran out to help.

He slid against the snow and parried away a spike aimed just below Thatlia's guard just before it would've hit her chest. He raised his shield over them, but he knew it was too mangled - it wouldn't be enough.

And just as soon as he thought it, Dr.Thorn got a lucky hit in. Luna raised her spear to parry, but the manticore stunned them all by leaping back and swiping at her full force with the entire length of his tail.

"Prot-!" She tried to start, but it was too late. The swipe shattered through the faint shimmer of blue that sprung up between them and caught her in the side dead to rights. The sheer impact of it flung her towards Percy and Thalia like a ragdoll, and he had to drop Riptide to the snow to avoid skewering her as she hit him at an angle and nearly bowled all three of them over.

She gasped in pain as they dropped, and Percy's blood went cold when he got a good look at her - there were half a dozen spikes embedded up the length of her arm and torso, one of them dangerously digging into the flesh right below her ribs. There was a patch of crimson already spreading down the side of her vest and along the inside of her chest.

Blood, his brain helpfully provided. And if every one of those was poisoned with the same crippling venom Thorn had used on him...

This was bad. This was really, really bad.

"Oh, I do love the smell of Demigod blood." Dr. Thorn laughed when he detected the wound, monstrous eyes gleaming.

"You sick freak." Thalia snarled, rising to her feet, and holding her crackling spear at the ready, but Percy could see the way her gait was unsteady - the tolls from the earlier hits she'd taken were finally piling up, and Dr. Thorn knew it too by the way he laughed again.

"Such false pride, daughter of Zeus. Do you not see how hopeless it is? Yield, little heroes."

Percy wanted to scream. His shield was busted, one of them was down, and they were trapped between a monster and a fully armed helicopter. They had no chance.

But then a clear piercing sound cut through the air. It was the call of a hunting horn blowing in the woods.

The manticore froze. For a moment, no one moved. There was only the swirl of snow and wind and the chopping of the helicopter blades.

No," Dr. Thorn said. "It cannot be—"

His sentence was cut short when something shot past Percy like a streak of moonlight. A glowing silver arrow sprouted from Dr. Thorn's shoulder.

He staggered backward, wailing in agony.

"Curse you!" Thorn cried. He unleashed his spikes, dozens of them at once, into the woods where the arrow had come from, but just as fast, silvery arrows shot back in reply. It almost looked like the arrows had intercepted the thorns in mid-air and sliced them in two, but Percy's eyes must've been playing tricks on him — no one, not even Apollo's kids at camp, could shoot with that much accuracy.

The manticore pulled the arrow out of his shoulder with a howl of pain. His breathing was heavy. Percy tried to swipe at him with his sword, but the manticore wasn't as injured as he looked. He dodged Percy's attack and slammed his tail into Percy's shield, knocking him aside.

A troop of archers poured out from the woods. They were girls, about a dozen of them. The youngest was maybe ten; the oldest like sixteen. They wore silvery ski parkas and jeans, and they were all armed with bows. They advanced on the manticore with determined expressions.

"The Hunters!" Annabeth cried.

Next to Percy, Thalia muttered, "Oh, wonderful."

He didn't have time to ask her what she meant.

One of the older archers stepped forward with her bow drawn. She was tall and graceful with coppery-colored skin. Unlike the other girls, she had a silver circlet braided into the top of her long dark hair - she looked like some kind of Persian princess.

"Permission to kill, my lady?"

Percy couldn't tell who she was talking to because she kept her eyes on the manticore.

The monster wailed, "This is not fair! Direct interference! It is against the Ancient Laws!"

"Not so," another girl said. This one was a little younger than Percy, maybe twelve or thirteen. She had auburn hair gathered back in a ponytail and strange eyes, silvery yellow like the moon. Her face was you but her expression was stern and her eyes were downright steely.

"The hunting of all wild beasts is within my sphere. And you, foul creature, are a wild beast." She looked at the older girl with the circlet. "Zoë, permission granted."

The manticore growled, "If I cannot have these alive, I shall have them dead!"

He lunged at Thalia and Percy, knowing they were weak and dazed and helpless with Luna down beside them.

"NO!" Annabeth yelled, and Percy's heart leaped straight into his mouth as she ran straight towards the charging manticore.

"Get back, half-blood!" the girl with the circlet said. "Get out of the line of fire!"

But Annabeth leaped onto the monster's back and drove her knife into his mane. The manticore howled, twirling in circles with his tail flailing as the daughter of Athena hung on for dear life.

"Fire!" Zoë ordered.

"No!" Percy cried. "Annabeth-!"

But the Hunters let their arrows fly. The first caught the manticore in the neck, just under Heri's arm; another hit his chest. The manticore staggered backward, wailing, "This is not the end, Huntress! You shall pay!"

And before anyone could react, the monster, with Annabeth still clinging to him, leaped over the cliff and tumbled into the darkness.

"NO!" Percy shot to his feet and bolted, but a loud, near-deafening crack echoed behind him and had him stumbling and nearly falling face-first into the snow.

When he turned around, feet still carrying him forward even as his instincts demanded he understand what the hell that sound was (an exceptionally stupid thing to do when running towards the edge of a cliff) Luna was gone.

"Where-?!"

Thalia's roar of surprise was cut short when another crack sounded, and Dr.Thorn and Annabeth appeared right in front of him, the still-bleeding Luna somehow on top of both. Before he could do much more than roar in surprise, the girl was yanking Annabeth off of him and leaping well clear of the firing zone.

"HOW IN TARTARUS-?!"

"Fire!"

His confused howl was cut off as another half-dozen arrows were fired into his torso. Percy's desperate confusion and relief were momentarily overshadowed by a flare of vicious satisfaction when he saw that one of them had been lodged into his eye, black blood flowing from the wound.

"Curse you, Hunters!" Dr.Thorn snarled and backed away, falling over his own feet in his haste to escape. "Curse you, Goddess! May Lord Kronos destroy you all!"

"Perhaps he will." The young girl from before stepped forward, eyes cold and dangerous - Percy almost stepped back when they flickered to him and his friends. "But you won't live to see it. Zoe-"

And then Luna drove her spear clean through the back of Dr.Thorn's skull with such force that the tip erupted out of his snarling mouth.

Maybe it was just Percy's imagination, but he thought that the manticore's sole remaining eye widened in shock half a second before he erupted into gold dust that was quickly scattered into the wind.

Luna stumbled slightly as the counterweight that she'd been balancing her spear against vanished, before turning her head to face Zoe, who'd already notched an arrow and was looking at her with the same stunned surprise as everybody else.

"I was here first." Luna looked at her very seriously. "Stealing a kill without permission isn't okay."

Zoe's eyes flickered and grew wider in disbelief, and Percy didn't blame her - he'd known the girl for all of five minutes and he was already starting to suspect that was the default response to speaking to her.

Then Luna's spear dropped from her hand, and the girl collapsed to her knees, he suddenly remembered she was bleeding from upwards of six different projectile wounds.

He started to run towards her, but this was about the point where they all remembered that there were more enemies and they weren't done with them.

There was a snap-snap-snap from the helicopter — the sound of gunfire.

Most of the Hunters scattered as tiny holes appeared in the snow at their feet, but the girl with auburn hair just looked up calmly at the helicopter.

"Mortals," she announced, "are not allowed to witness my hunt."

She thrust out her hand, and the helicopter exploded into dust — no, not dust. The black metal dissolved into a flock of birds — ravens — which scattered into the night.

The next thing Percy knew, the Hunters were advancing on their battered group.

The one called Zoë stopped short when she saw Thalia.

"You," she said with distaste.

"Zoë Nightshade." Thalia's voice trembled with anger. "Perfect timing, as usual."

Zoë scanned the rest of them.

"Six half-bloods and a satyr, my lady."

"Yes," the younger girl said. "Some of Chiron's campers, I see. And wounded too."

A loud wretch caught his attention, and he panicked when he caught sight of Annabeth hurling, her face green.

"Annabeth."

He moved to run to her side, but something in the little girl's haze stopped him. There was something unsettling about the way her eyes roved over them - as if she was taking them in and dismissing them all at once.

"And who are you supposed to be" He demanded, and suddenly Zoë stepped forward as if to smack him.

"No," the other girl ordered. "I sense no disrespect, Zoë. He is simply troubled. He does not understand." The young girl looked at Percy, her eyes colder and brighter than the winter moon. "I am Artemis," she said. "Goddess of the Hunt."

...

After seeing Dr. Thorn turn into a monster and plummet off the edge of a cliff with Annabeth and somehow get saved by the kid they were supposed to be here to protect, you'd think nothing else could shock Percy. But when this twelve-year-old girl told him she was the goddess Artemis, he could only say something really intelligent like, "Um . . . okay."

"That's wonderful!"

For the fourth time that night, all of them snapped to Luna, who'd somehow managed to get back on her feet and stumble towards them.

"Luna!" Bianca's eyes went wide at the sight of her as if finally registering the wounds that absolutely littered the other girl's body. "Luna, you're hurt!"

The blonde girl waved the comment away and ended up stumbling again. "I'm okay, Bianca."

She was not okay. She was very not okay.

Her clothes were torn and ragged, her shades were gone, her yellow shirt was basically orange from the amount of blood that had seeped into it and her skin was pale and clammy, so much so that her hair was matted and stuck to her forehead.

And despite all that, the girl was smiling like Christmas had come early.

"I've wanted to meet you for so long! There are so many things I wanted to ask you - so many creatures I wanted to learn about, but Father said I had to wait!" She beamed at Artemis (Who was a goddess, a hysterical part of Percy's mind was screaming) "I-"

She cut herself off and looked down at her torso.

"Oh dear. I don't think I have time. Does anyone have any Ambrosia? I gave my last square to this nice hellhound a few days ago and I haven't had a chance to get any more."

There was a long, incredulous pause where even Artemis seemed at a loss for words, and Luna frowned dejectedly.

"That's a shame. I think I'm going to have to pass out now." She turned to Percy one last time, and gave a final smile. "Don't worry about your friend. Apparition gets everyone a bit sick the first time."

And then her eyes rolled back into her head, and she dropped to the ground like a sack of potatoes.

...

As always, leave your comments and ideas and if you don't like it, please be courteous.​

 

[Darkkrusty]

Luna is best Girl in the HP verse, you cant change my mind about it either! So I am glad to see her get the Love She deserves and gets a crossover of her own! Pepohappy

 

[Hephaestus]

Looking good and that tracks Luna being excited to meet the goddess of wild animals can't wait to see more

 

[Shaedy Hoe]

Could use a little of proofreading, but other than that, it seems like an interesting story.

 

[Firewillreign]

Could use a little of proofreading, but other than that, it seems like an interesting story.

Click to shrink...

Thanks! Any obvious spelling mistakes you can mention? I read over them but sometimes my eyes skip over and my grammar checker doesn't register them.

 

[StrawberrySunshine]

There was a flare of white-purple light and a sound like an off-pitch whistle, and the cap morphed and elongated in mid-air almost faster than Per. By the time it dropped back into Luna's waiting grip, it was in the form of a spear, five feet long and blacker than night.

Click to shrink...

I'm assuming this is a mistake, I don't know what Per means right here

I gave my last to square to this nice hellhound a few days ago and I haven't had a chance to get any more."

Click to shrink...

extra to


That's what I found. I do hope she gets to meet Artemis again and talk about animals.

 

[Firewillreign]

I'm assuming this is a mistake, I don't know what Per means right here


extra to


That'd what I found. I do hope she gets to meet Artemis again and talk about animals.

Click to shrink...

thanks, fixed

 

[Firewillreign]

Every once in a blue moon, Percy found himself having to sit down and question whether or not the Fates had it out for him.

Even discounting the whole son of Poseidon and child of the prophecy thing that no one would tell him anything about (and yeah, he was still ticked off about that), there had to be a limit to how much weirdness life could throw at you before it became blatantly clear that someone was pulling the strings.

Most of the demigods back at camp had never even met a major Olympian besides Mr.D and maybe their divine parent, and even then most likely only on the annual field trips to Olympus every winter solstice. Certainly, he could count on one hand the number who'd had actual, full-fledged conversations with even one of the members of the council of twelve.

Percy, on the other hand?

Including Artemis, he'd met and talked to six, and seven if you counted Hades too even though he technically wasn't even an Olympian at all.

There was this quote Annabeth had mentioned to him once: Once is happenstance. Twice is coincidence. Three times is enemy action.

If that was true, then seven times was a bunch of immortal nigh omnipotent grannies messing with you for shits and giggles.

After Luna had collapsed in the snow and made them all think she was dead and shaved some thirty-something years off all of their lifespans in from terrifying stress - seriously, Bianca just about had a nervous breakdown right then and there - the hunters wasted no time rushing her and Annabeth to one of their healers.

Thalia had looked like she'd have rather eaten iron nails than let either one of them go anywhere with the hunters (and Percy still didn't know what the deal there was) but between their injuries and the fact that the Di Angelo kids were scared halfway out of their minds and looking increasingly likely to pass out from shock, the daughter of Zeus ended up sticking around for the whole 'One of your parents is an absentee god and life as you knew it is over now!' speech.

Unsurprisingly, It didn't go well.

At all.

"You are a half-blood," Zoe Nightshade said bluntly. Her accent was hard to place. It sounded old-fashioned, like she was reading from a really old book. "One of thy parents was mortal. The other was an Olympian."

"An Olympian… athlete?"

"No," Zoe said. "One of the gods."

"Cool!" said Nico.

No!" Bianca's voice had quavered. "This is not cool!"

Percy would have argued, but... she wasn't exactly wrong. None of this was cool, and having it sprung on you this way of all ways was... Well. Percy had thought getting chased by the minotaur and seeing your mom get exploded into gold dust was a traumatic way to learn the truth, but tonight was quickly shaping to be a real close second.

Nico, on the other hand, was the complete opposite of his sister. He danced around like he needed to use the restroom. "Does Zeus really have lightning bolts that do six hundred damage? Does he get extra movement points for—"

"Nico, shut up!" Bianca put her hands to her face. "This is not your stupid Mythomagic game, okay? There are no gods!"

"Bianca," Thalia stepped in right about then, finally turning away from where she'd been glaring unabashedly at Zoe unclenching her fists. "I know it's hard to believe. But the gods are still around. Trust me. They're immortal. And whenever they have kids with regular humans, kids like us, well… Our lives are dangerous."

Bianca paused and paled a shade

"Dangerous," Bianca said, "like the girl who almost fell off the cliff - and Luna."

She turned to stare at Zoe - maybe because she appeared to be the oldest, or maybe just because she was the one nearest to her. "Is Luna a demigod too?"

Zoe exchanged a quick glance with Artemis and nodded. "Indeed."

"And she got hurt fighting Dr.Thorn"

"He was a manticore," Artemis said. "He is destroyed, but most monsters never truly die. He was but one of innumerable hoards - they re-form over and over again and often attack vulnerable half-bloods like yourselves. Your friend's kill is a testament to her skill and bravery, and she will suffer no last injury from it."

"Demigods aren't always so lucky," Thalia said quietly. "With monsters... it's either we train to fight them, or they hunt us down."

Bianca di Angelo shivered. "That explains… Nico, you remember last summer, those guys who tried to attack us in the alley in DC?"

"And that bus driver," Nico said. "The one with the ram's horns. I told you that was real."

"That's why Grover has been watching you," Percy said. "To keep you safe, if you turned out to be half-bloods."

"Grover?" Bianca turned and stared at him. "You're a demigod too?"

"Well, a satyr, actually." He kicked off his shoes and displayed his goat hooves. Bianca went right back to looking like she was about to faint. Percy almost smacked him upside the head for that one, and Thalia actually did smack him.

"Ow!"

"You're freaking her out, Goat-boy."

"Hey! My hooves are clean!"

"Bianca," Percy said, and he tried not to wince at the desperate look on the girl's face as she rounded back on him. He wished that Annabeth was back on her feet. She'd led orientation for new campers before - she could do a much better job at explaining everything without feeling so far out of her depth or worrying about putting her foot in her mouth. "We came here to help you. You and Nico need training to survive. Dr. Thorn won't be the last monster you meet, and now that you know what you are, your scent - that's how monsters track you - is only going to get stronger. You need to come to camp."

"Camp?" she asked.

"Camp Half-Blood," He said. "It's where half-bloods learn to survive and stuff. You can join us, stay there year-round if you like."

"Sweet, let's go!" said Nico.

"Wait," Bianca shook her head. "I don't—"

"There is another option," Zoe said.

Thalia's head snapped back to her.

"No, there isn't!" She hissed angrily

The resulting death glares could have given Medusa a run for her money.

Awesome


Eventually, Artemis herself stepped in to break up… whatever their spat was supposed to be.

"We have troubled the children enough." She intoned gravely, and her hunters snapped into motion and began unpacking their knapsacks and making camp. "Zoe, we will rest here for a few hours. Raise the tents. Treat the wounded. Retrieve our guests' belongings from the school."

"And, Bianca, come with me. I would like to speak with you."

"What about me?" Nico asked.

Artemis considered the boy. "Perhaps you can show Grover how to play that card game you enjoy. I'm sure Grover would be happy to entertain you for a while… as a favor to me?"

Grover just about tripped over himself getting up. Seriously, Percy didn't get what the bid deal was "You bet! Come on, Nico!"

Nico and Grover walked off toward the woods, talking about hit points and armor ratings and a bunch of other geeky stuff. Artemis led a confused-looking Bianca along the cliff."

"Yes, my lady."

Zoe gave Thalia one more evil look, then left to oversee things.

Which left Percy and Thalia all on their own.

"So what now?" He started slowly, because Thalia still looked like a landmine ready to go off and Percy didn't want to be in the blast radius if it did.

"I'm going to go look in on Annabeth and the new girl." She grimaced. "The other new girl - Luna, right?"

"Yeah."

"Thought so." She paused thoughtfully, before frowning. "How did she know to fight?"

"Uh, what?"

"How did she know to fight?" Thalia's frown grew deeper as she thought. "If she's a newbie demigod, how did she know how to fight? Because she was right next to me, and that wasn't random flailing. She knew how to use that spear - Actually, where the heck did the spear come from?"

"It came from her necklace-" Both of them stilled as the realization slammed into both of them. "It's a magical weapon."

Like Riptide, Or Thalia's spear and shield. But that meant-

"Somebody gave her that spear." Thalia finished for both of them, eyes narrowing in thought. "Somebody gave her that spear, and taught her how to use it too."

"Her godly parent."

"My father gave me my weapons, but he didn't teach me how to wield them." She protested, shaking her head. "No, I had to figure that out by myself. No god is going to take the time to personally train their demigod - why would they even bother?"

He winced. Ignoring the suddenly bitter edge to the words, there was a certain truth to them. Still, he didn't see what the big deal was.

"So maybe she did too." Percy shrugged.

"She's too good," Thalia argued back. "She was almost as good as me - and I spent every second I've had since I... came back training. That's not normal - and did you see what she was doing with those lights?"

Right. The freaky bolts of something that her flinging Dr.Thorn around like a bowling pin and somehow maybe teleporting.

"That... was something." He admitted - He hadn't thought about it yet because it had somehow ended up with Annabeth not disappearing forever over the edge of a cliff, and the heady relief that washed over him had almost been enough to take him out at the kneed. "It was magic."

"Strong magic. Powerful magic."

So were Thalia's lightning bolts, and Percy's control over water, but he didn't argue the point.

"So her godly parent is powerful too. Hecate, maybe?"

The goddess of magic seemed as good a guess as any, but Thalia didn't seem happy with the answer. Or the situation at all.

"Maybe." She grudgingly admitted at last, but her eyes were still narrowed. "But I still want to know who trained her."

"We could ask?"

Personally, Percy didn't think anyone had, but he wasn't going to begrudge Thalia her suspicion. Now of all times, a trained, competent half-blood who could charge into battle as unflinchingly as Luna Lovegood had just showing up out of the blue was more than a little shady.

He was curious too.

"No, I'll ask." She finally turned towards him and pointed at his shoulder. "You go after Grover and Nico and get that looked at."

"Hey, I'm fine."

She raised an eyebrow.

"I'm fine. I want to check in on Annabeth."

She smirked.

"Yeah, I bet you do."

"What's that supposed to-?"

Thalia poked him in the shoulder, and the word trailed off into a garbled hiss of pain as he leaped back some three feet away. He almost swooned from the rush of nausea that came with the jump. When his vision finally cleared up, Thalia had already crossed her arms and was staring him down expectantly.

"You're evil." He exhaled and closed his eyes, trying to get the world to stop spinning.

"You're just dumb. What were you thinking, for the record? That you'd take on Dr.Thorn by yourself? Seriously?"

He bristled. "If I didn't, we might have lost Nico and Bianca.

"I know."

He froze. "What?"

"I get it." She repeated empathetically "You did what you had to. Trust me, I know. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and got turned into a fucking tree for it."

Oh.

Seven years ago, Thalia had been turned into a pine tree by her father, to prevent her from dying. She'd stood her ground against an army of monsters on top of Half-Blood Hill in order to give her friends Luke and Annabeth time to escape. She'd only been back as a human for a few months now, and once in a while she would stand so motionless you'd think she was still a tree.

"Thalia-"

She waved him off. "Just don't forget you have backup for a reason, Percy. Tonight could have gone a lot worse than it did. Get that shoulder patched up."

She turned and walked off without another word, leaving him with an unpleasant feeling curdling in his stomach, one that had nothing to do with the wound on his shoulder.

"Great."

Percy tried to look for Grover and Nico, but he quickly decided his odds of finding a satyr in a darkened forest weren't all that great, so he decided to wait by one of the campfires a hunter had set aside - probably for them, now that he thought about it - and watched as the followers of Artemis finished putting up their camp.

Say what you will about the hunters, but they got things done and fast.

In less than half an hour, they set up seven large tents, all of silver silk, curved in a crescent around one side of a bonfire. One of the girls blew a silver dog whistle, and a dozen white wolves appeared out of the woods. They began circling the camp like guard dogs. The Hunters walked among them and fed them treats, completely unafraid, but Percy decided he would stick close to the tents. Falcons watched us from the trees, their eyes flashing in the firelight, and he got the feeling they were on guard duty, too. Even the weather seemed to bend to the goddess's will. The air was still cold, but the wind died down and the snow stopped falling, so it was almost pleasant sitting by the fire.

Finally, one of the Hunters brought him his backpack. Grover and Nico came back from their walk, and Grover helped him fix up my wounded arm.

"It's green!" Nico said with delight.

"Hold still," Grover told him. "Here, eat some ambrosia while I clean that out."

Percy winced as Grover dressed the wound, but the ambrosia square helped. It tasted like homemade brownie, dissolving in his mouth and sending a warm feeling through his whole body. Between that and the magic salve Grover used, his shoulder felt better within a couple of minutes.

Nico rummaged through his own bag, which the Hunters had apparently packed for him, though how they'd snuck into Westover Hall unseen, Percy didn't know. Nico laid out a bunch of figurines in the snow—little battle replicas of Greek gods and heroes. He recognized Zeus with a lightning bolt, Ares with a spear, Apollo with his sun chariot.

"Big collection," Percy said.

Nico grinned. "I've got almost all of them, plus their holographic cards! Well, except for a few really rare ones."

"You've been playing this game a long time?"

"Just this year. Before that…" He knit his eyebrows.

"What?" He asked.

"I forget. That's weird." He looked unsettled, but it didn't last long. "Hey, can I see that sword you were using?"

Percy showed him Riptide, and explained how it turned from a pen into a sword just by uncapping it.

"Cool! Does it ever run out of ink?"

"Um, well, I don't actually write with it."

"Are you really the son of Poseidon?"

"Well, yeah."

"Can you surf really well, then?"

Percy looked at Grover, who was trying hard not to laugh.

"Jeez, Nico," Percy said. "I've never really tried."

He went on asking questions. Did Percy fight a lot with Thalia, since she was a daughter of Zeus? (He didn't answer that one - literally no answer was a safe answer for that) If Annabeth's mother was Athena, the goddess of wisdom, then why didn't Annabeth know better than to almost fall off a cliff? (Percy tried not to whack Nico for asking that one.) Could all demigods teleport like Luna did (No. Life would be way too convenient otherwise, and where was the fun in them all not suffering as much as possible?)

Was Annabeth his girlfriend? (At this point, Percy was ready to stick the kid in a meat-flavored sack and throw him to the wolves. Grover too, the ridiculous goat was almost choking in his effort not to laugh)

He figured any second he was going to ask him how many hit points he had, and he'd lose his cool completely, but then Zoe Nightshade came up to them.

"Percy Jackson."

She had dark brown eyes and a slightly upturned nose. With her silver circlet and her proud expression, she looked so much like royalty that Percy had to resist the urge to sit up straight and say "Yes, ma'am."

She studied him distastefully, like he was a bag of dirty laundry she'd been sent to fetch.

"Come with me," she finally said. "Lady Artemis wishes to speak with thee."

Well, then.

Percy exchanged one last, loaded look with Grover (Don't get smote, Grover's mind screamed over the empathy link) before following Zoe as she led him to the largest tent by the arc of the central campfire.

The inside of the tent was warm and comfortable. Silk rugs and pillows covered the floor. In the center, a golden brazier of fire seemed to burn without fuel or smoke. Behind the goddess, on a polished oak display stand, was her huge silver bow, carved to resemble gazelle horns. The walls were hung with animal pelts: black bear, tiger, and several others Percy didn't recognize.

Honestly, he figured that an animal rights activist would've had a heart attack looking at all those rare skins, but maybe since Artemis was the goddess of the hunt, she could replenish whatever she shot.

He thought she had another animal pelt lying next to her, and then he realized it was a live animal—a deer with glittering fur and silver horns, its head resting contentedly in Artemis's lap.

"Join us, Percy Jackson," the goddess said and gestured with a hand.

It was almost funny how she worded it like a request - Percy knew full well that when a god asked you to do something, they weren't actually asking so much as humoring your delicate mortal sensibilities by not outright ordering you outright - they didn't need to, after all.

Even if Percy hadn't known that for a fact, he didn't have to be a genius to know that it took a special kind of stupidity to refuse a goddess on principle, let alone one who'd just saved your life.

With a nod, he sat across from her on the tent floor. The goddess studied him, which made him uncomfortable. She had such old eyes for a young girl.

"Are you surprised by my age?" she asked, as if reading his mind. For all he knew, she just had.

"Uh… a little."

"I could appear as a grown woman, or a blazing fire, or anything else I want, but this is what I prefer. This is the average age of my Hunters, and all young maidens for whom I am patron, before they go astray."

"Go astray?" He asked.

"Grow up. Become smitten with boys. Become silly, preoccupied, insecure. Forget themselves."

"Oh."

Percy didn't have anything to say to that - Nothing sane, anyway. He especially had no intention of telling Artemis that her definition of 'going astray' sounded suspiciously like growing up, which was something all mortals did.

That was just how things worked, but what did he know? Immortals tended to play by their own rules most of the time anyway.

Zoe sat down at Artemis's right. She glared at him as if all the stuff Artemis had just said was his fault, like he'd invented the idea of being a guy. Maybe he would have said something if things had been a little different, but the olympian goddess was literally right there.

"You must forgive my Hunters if they do not welcome you," Artemis said. "It is very rare that we would have boys in this camp. Boys are usually forbidden to have any contact with the Hunters. The last one to see this camp…" She looked at Zoe. "Which one was it?"

"That boy in Colorado," Zoe said. "You turned him into a jackalope."

"Ah, yes." Artemis nodded, satisfied. "I enjoy making jackalopes. At any rate, Percy, I've asked you here so that you might tell me more of the manticore. Bianca has reported some of the… mmm, disturbing things the monster said. But she may not have understood them. I'd like to hear them from you."

And so Percy told her - and silently hoped that the jackalope thing was a joke, because what the fuck? - When he was done, Artemis put her hand thoughtfully on her silver bow. "I feared this was the answer."

Zoe sat forward. "The scent, my lady?"

"Yes."

That sounded ominous

"What scent?" He asked.

"Things are stirring that I have not hunted in millennia," Artemis murmured, which... didn't answer him at all, actually. "Prey so old I have nearly forgotten."

She stared at him intently.

"We came here tonight sensing the manticore, but he was not the one I seek. Tell me again, exactly what Dr. Thorn said."

"Um, 'I hate middle school dances.'"

"No, no. After that."

"He said somebody called the General was going to explain things to me."

Zoe's face paled.

She turned to Artemis and started to say something, but Artemis raised her hand.

"Go on, Percy," the goddess said.

"Well, then Thorn was talking about the Great Stir Pot—"

"Stirring," Bianca corrected. "Yeah. And he said, 'Soon we shall have the most important monster of all—the one that shall bring about the downfall of Olympus.'"

The goddess was so still she could've been a statue.

"Maybe he was lying," Percy tried to say, but his stomach was already sinking at the reminder - as a general rule of thumb, demigods were never that lucky.

Never.

And from she shook her head, Artemis evidently agreed "No. He was not. I've been too slow to see the signs. I must hunt this monster."

Zoe looked like she was trying very hard not to be afraid, but she nodded. "We will leave right away, my lady."


"No, Zoe. I must do this alone."

"But, Artemis—"

"This task is too dangerous even for the Hunters. You know where I must start my search. You cannot go there with me."

"As… as you wish, my lady."

"I will find this creature," Artemis vowed. "And I shall bring it back to Olympus by winter solstice. It will be all the proof I need to convince the Council of the Gods of how much danger we are in."

"You know what the monster is?" Percy asked hopefully.

Artemis gripped her bow. "Let us pray I am wrong."

What a wonderful non-answer that was.

"Can goddesses even pray?" Percy asked, because he'd never really thought about that and because the odds of him forcing an answer out of Artemis for his previous question were about the same as the odds of Zeus sending him a birthday present next August - one that wasn't rigged to blow up in his face.

His uncle was cool like that

A flicker of a smile played across Artemis's lips. "Before I go, Percy Jackson, I have a small task for you."

Oh no.

"Does it involve getting turned into a jackalope?"

"Sadly, no. I want you to escort the Hunters back to Camp Half-Blood. They can stay there in safety until I return."

"What?" Zoe blurted out. "But, Artemis, we hate that place. The last time we stayed there—"

"Yes, I know," Artemis said. "But I'm sure Dionysus will not hold a grudge just because of a little, ah, misunderstanding. It's your right to use Cabin Eight whenever you are in need. Besides, I hear they rebuilt the cabins you burned down." Zoe muttered something about foolish campers. "And now there is one last decision to make."

Artemis turned to Bianca, who flinched almost imperceptibly at the Goddess's regard. None of them missed it. "Have you made up your mind, my girl?"

Bianca hesitated. "I'm-"

And that's when a commotion from outside interrupted the poor girl, a loud ringing argument and a pair of voices that seemed halfway familiar drew closer and closer.

Before Percy could ask what was going on, the tent flap was suddenly wrenched open and in stumbled Luna Lovegood, a rather irate hunter on her tail (pun intended)

"You can't go in there without permission!" The hunter hissed, red in the face and looking ready to blow "You shouldn't even be moving, I've just finished patching you up!"

"Pheobe," Artemis said calmly, and the hunter's eyes went wide as her gaze snapped to the goddess.

"My lady, I'm so sorry-"

Artemis raised a hand and Pheobe's mouth clamped shut.

"It's alright, Pheobe."

The goddess of the moon turned to face Luna, who'd summarily dropped to the ground beside Bianca, crossed her legs and pulled the other girl into a one-armed hug. For her part, Bianca leaned right into it, looking so relieved she might've cried.

"You're okay."

"Of course I'm okay, silly." She nudged the girl with her elbow. "It isn't the first time I've been hurt. I know how to manage."

Artemis looked at the pair of them for a long second before turning to Pheobe.

"I will speak to young Luna here myself. Please, attend to your duties."

Phoebe didn't look happy, eyes still flickering to Luna, but she didn't even hesitate to bow and turned right around to leave.

"Thank you for treating me," Luna called after her, startling her as she made her way out. The blonde hair offered her a wide, genuine smile. "That was the very best healing I've had all year!"

Pheobe hesitated, shook her head slightly, then inclined it in a motion that could have generously been described as a nod before leaving, the tent flapping shut behind her.

Almost as one, everybody turned to face Luna, though the girl herself only had eyes for Artemis. Slowly, almost theatrically, she bowed her head to the goddess.

"Hail, Lady Artemis of Delos, Goddess of the Moon and the Hunt, Daughter of the King of Kings and the Titaness of Motherhood."

Drop. Dead. Silence.

Artemis's answering expression was the very definition of neutral, smooth as the surface of an undisturbed lake. Zoe had her eyebrows raised, half approving and half suspicious. Bianca, though, was Percy's mirror image.

Namely, confused as all hell.

"Luna, what are you saying?"

Luna blinked. "I'm greeting the goddess. You do know that's Artemis, right?"

"Of course I do!"

"You know she's a goddess?"

"Of course I do!"

"Then why shouldn't I greet her as her position demands?"

Bianca put her head in her hands. "I almost forgot. Why are you like this?"

"Girls," Percy could have sworn that Artemis sounded amused "Luna, I appreciate your sense of propriety. Tell me, who taught you to greet gods as such?"

Luna smiled. "My father did."

"And your father is a mortal?"

Percy almost reared back in surprise when Luna shook her head.

"No, my lady. He's a god too. He insisted I had to learn the proper form of address because many of the other gods can get very uptight and dramatic about receiving proper respect."

Percy choked. Zoe choked. Even Bianca choked.

Oh gods, this girl had just survived a brush with death and now she was all but asking to be blasted to dust.

"Girl, watch thy tongue-!" Zoe almost hissed, but Artemis just raised a hand again.

"She means no offense," And yeah, the goddess was definitely somehow amused instead of angry now. Percy could have sworn she almost smiled "Do you, my girl?"

"No." Luna frowned. "Why would I want to offend you? That would be a bit counterproductive, no?"

"You'd be surprised," Artemis said dryly. "Tell me, then, who is your father?"

"I can't do that."

Someone made a noise that sounded like a dying wheeze. It might have been him.

"Luna," He finally said, tone more than a little desperate. Artemis didn't look angry, but that could change in a heartbeat. "Luna, you can't refuse a goddess."

"But I'm not refusing a goddess. I didn't say I wouldn't tell her. I said I can't tell her." She turned to look at Artemis again. "I'm sorry my lady, but I swore my father an oath I wouldn't reveal his identity without permission. I can't break it."

"A binding oath?" When Luna nodded, the very faintest of disapproving frowns pulled at Artemis's lips. It was still enough to raise Percy's blood pressure by about a hundred marks. "On the Styx?"

"Oh no." Luna shook her head vehemently. "Father said that if I ever swore anyone an oath on the Styx, to anyone, for any reason, he'd bind me in chains and dangle me over the abyss of chaos until the stupid falls out of me."

Percy didn't know what that meant exactly, but Zoe started spluttering in disbelief.

"But it's still very binding," Luna reassured the silent goddess. "If I try to say his name, my tongue will stick to the roof of my mouth. If I try and write it down, my hands won't be able to move. And If I try to mime it or allude to it, I'll be petrified."

Bianca reared back, horrified. "What?"

"Oh don't worry. It's only temporary."

They were all worried. They were all very worried, what the f-?

"I see"

Two words from Artemis derailed that entire line of thought.

"I hear the truth in your words." She said at last, silver-grey eyes pensive. "Very well, then. Tell me how it is you came to be in this mortal school then, along with two other demigods."

"Oh, that's easy." Luna brightened up "I was searching for a sphinx."

...

"You were searching..." Artemis was impassive again, but Zoe was staring at the other girl like she was some new and heretofore unknown kind of creature she'd never encountered before. "for a sphinx."

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Well, it's a bit of a long story." Luna settled in and leaned against Bianca. "See, I was traveling down through Maine a few months ago - I travel a lot and go from city to explore - and one day my friend Carli gave me an Iris call - She said she'd heard rumors of an old, strong monster stalking around a school nearby, Westover Hall. She thought it was a sphinx, which I thought was odd because they usually don't go looking for victims all on their own, so I decided to investigate."

"Your friend led you to a monster?" Percy blurted out - he couldn't help himself. "Is she a demigod too?"

Because if there were somehow four demigods involved in all of this, he was calling it quits and getting Chiron to get down here himself.

"No, of course not. Carli is the president of the DRS"

"The DRS?"

"Yes. The Dracaena Reformation Society. D-R-S. Get it?"

...

"Yeah, no." Percy shook his head and scooted away, glancing at Artemis out of the corner of his eye and shaking his head vehemently. "I got nothing."

Artemis looked at Luna carefully. "Child. Your... friend-"

"Carli"

"...Carli. She is a monster? A Dracaena?"

Luna gave the goddess a funny look.

"Well, of course she is. She can't be the head of the Dracaena Reformation Society without actually being a Dracaena. How would that work?"

Percy was starting to question whether or not somebody had spiked his nectar when he wasn't looking because he was fairly sure only the strongest mortal drugs could induce a hallucination like this.

Maybe not even those.

"You consort with such a creature?" Credit where credit was due, Zoe somehow managed to keep her tone level and free of judgment, but her stare was no less intense for it. "You are aware of what - of whom these creatures feed upon, yes?"

For just a moment, Luna's cloudy eyes sharpened.

"Yes. But not every immortal creature is a monster."

And Percy would have argued against that, really he would have, but he abruptly found himself thinking of Tyson and the winds were blown right out of his sails. His half-brother was living proof that not all monsters were bad, and logically he couldn't be the only one either.

And Zoe evidently agreed, because she didn't do more than purse her lips and frown severly in response.

"I have never heard of this... DRS" Artemis said.

"That's alright. It was only founded last year."

"What?"

"Well, I was down in New York, and this hoard of Dracaena ambushed me - I tried to negotiate with them, but they were very insistent on eating me. So I killed them all instead." Luna nodded, a thirteen-year-old kid being all prim and reasonable about exterminating a monster nest "And when I raided their lair for supplies, I found Carli chained in their basement. She was a young dracnae who made friends with a clear-sighted mortal before her other nest mates found them and killed him."

Luna frowned sadly.

"She was very upset about it, so she tried to run away. Her friends wouldn't let her, though, and they chained her down and kept her all starved and lonely until I found her and set her free. We've been friends ever since - she's doing a good job rounding up all the productive Dracaena she can find, making sure to teach them not to attack mortals and demigods and to file all their taxes like productive members of society, and every once in a while she'll call me about any new or interesting leads, though she made a big mistake this time. She told me it was a sphinx stalking Westover, not a manticore."

Luna huffed.

"And I spent weeks practicing all my riddles, too. Carli really can be a bit dotty every now and again."

...

"Luna." Bianca... actually giggled. It grew into helpless laughter that sounded a little hysterical, which Percy thought absolutely fair considering the sheer, unmitigated bullshit they were all listening to. "Luna, you of all people never get to call anyone dotty. Ever."

"Why not?" But she smiled and nudged Bianca, expression warm and pleasant before she turned back to Artemis and finished her story. "Anyway, when I got to Westover and I realized that Dr.Thorn was a monster who wasn't attacking any students, I stayed to have a bit of a look around. I used the mist to pose as one of the students, and then I realized that he was getting all funny around Bianca and Nico, so I made sure they never stayed too far out of my reach. Not until I knew what Dr. Thorn was up to. And then came the school dance, you all came charging in."

"You knew we were demigods?" Bianca gasped.

"I figured it out." Luna shrugged and smiled. "Afterwards, I couldn't leave you alone. And we're friends now, so that was a very good decision."

"A dangerous one still," Artemis said

"Yes, but I couldn't leave them alone. Dangerous monsters don't stalk demigods for weeks. That's not how it works. They either attack and kill them as soon as they find them or they go after more convenient prey. I could have ambushed Dr.Thorn, but what if there were other odd monsters at his beck and call?"

Bianca shuddered. Luna hugged her tightly.

"I wanted to know what Dr.Thorn was doing, and I couldn't simply drag Bianca and Nico away, so I had to stay."

"Just like that?" Percy couldn't believe what he was hearing - and he was the guy who'd once had a Fury for a pre-algebra teacher. "You stuck around, just like that?"

"Yes. It was a good experience. I made new friends, and I fought a monster I've never met before." Luna smiled secretively. "Besides, Dr.Thorn was hardly the worst teacher I've ever had. Between a fraud, a friendly werewolf, a murderous imposter, a toad, and a couple more murderous lunatics, he comes out solidly near the top.

...

Percy... didn't know what to say.

"No, still got nothing."

"You are brave, child," Artemis said at last, taking the burden off of him. "A credit to yourself and to your parent, whomever that may be. And you have given me much... much to think about. But we have tarried too long as it is. Bianca."

Their other girl snapped to attention.

"M-my lady?"

"I would have your answer now."

"I'm - I'm still thinking."

Something about the way she said it, wary and bordering on scared had all of Percy's alarm bells ringing.

"Wait," He said, sitting up straight and leaning forward. "Thinking about what?"

"They… they've invited me to join the Hunt."

For a moment, the words just didn't compute. Then Percy looked to Artemis, whose face gave nothing away, and Zoe, whose expression still took on a disdainful edge whenever she turned to him, and he felt a part of himself go cold.

"What? But you can't! You have to come to Camp Half-Blood so Chiron can train you. It's the only way you can learn to survive."

"It is not the only way for a girl," Zoe said.

He couldn't believe He was hearing this.

"Bianca, camp is cool! It's got a pegasus stable and a sword-fighting arena and… I mean, what do you get by joining the Hunters?" "

"To begin with," Zoe said, "immortality."

Percy stared at her, then at Artemis.

"She's kidding, right?"

"Zoe rarely kids about anything," Artemis said. "My Hunters follow me on my adventures. They are my maidservants, my companions, my sisters-in-arms. Once they swear loyalty to me, they are indeed immortal… unless they fall in battle, which is unlikely. Or break their oath."

"What oath?" Percy asked.

"To foreswear romantic love forever," Artemis said. "To never grow up, never get married. To be a maiden eternally."

"Like you?"

The goddess nodded.

Percy tried to imagine what she was saying. Being immortal. Hanging out with only middleschool girls forever. He couldn't get his mind around it.

"So you just go around the country recruiting half-bloods—"

"Not just half-bloods," Zoe interrupted. "Lady Artemis does not discriminate by birth. All who honor the goddess may join. Half-bloods, nymphs, mortals—"

"Which are you, then?"

Anger flashed in Zoe's eyes. "That is not thy concern, boy. The point is Bianca may join if she wishes. It is her choice."

Bianca, this is crazy," He said. "What about your brother? Nico can't be a Hunter."

"Certainly not," Artemis agreed. "He will go to camp. Unfortunately, that's the best boys can do."

"Hey!" Percy protested. "

You can see him from time to time," Artemis assured Bianca. "But you will be free of responsibility. He will have the camp counselors to take care of him. And you will have a new family. Us."

And oh, low blow. Percy was beginning to understand why Thalia hated these people so much - you don't tempt an orphan with the promise of family to get them to do what you want.

That's just low.

"A new family," Bianca repeated dreamily. "Free of responsibility."

Hook. Line. And gods-damned sinker.

"Bianca, you can't do this," Percy said. "It's nuts."

She looked at Zoe. "Is it worth it?"

Zoe nodded.

"It is."

And for one horrible moment, Percy thought that was it. He was terrified that Bianca would just up and abandon her brother, and leave all of them twiddling their thumbs and watching miserably, unable to do a thing.

But at the last second, Bianca hesitated.

With almost visible effort, she turned to Luna, who had remained silent and almost disturbingly expressionless throughout the entire exchange.

"Lu? What do you think?" She hesitated, and suddenly she looked so young and unsure Percy almost flinched from second-hand misery himself. "Do you think I should join?"

Luna didn't even hesitate.

"No."

Percy exhaled in relief, Zoe bristled, and Artemis remained still as a statue and gave nothing away.

"Lady Artemis's offer is generous, and joining the hunt is a great honor," Luna explained gently, gaze flickering to Artemis before refocusing on Bianca. "But being a hunter isn't just a great opportunity, Bianca. There is a price to it."

"A trivial one-" Zoe started, but Artemis cut her off.

"Zoe."

The Leitunant went silent at once, though she was still fuming. She turned to glare at Percy, as if saying 'see?! This is your fault!'

He resisted the urge to say something rude.

"I know it doesn't seem important - Love, and all that." Luna smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "It isn't anyone's choice to give that up but yours - but Bianca, you're twelve. You don't even know what you'd be giving up, and I don't like that. Even if you were to join the hunters, don't do it before you understand exactly what it would cost. What it would take from you, and Nico too."

Percy could almost see Bianca's resolve crumble by the end of that little speech. "But.. Immortality?"

It was a weak complaint - He could tell that Bianca was just arguing for the sake of arguing, but Luna just laughed, loud and airy.

"Bianca, excluding Lady Artemis's blessings, I know about six different ways that a mortal can receive immortality." Wait, what? "None of them are easy to come by, but it can be done if you're determined enough, and there are probably at least half a dozen more that I don't know about. Immortality isn't the problem here, silly, it's experience. Lady Artemis is not one to deny maidens who honor her a chance to join the hunters, even if they've rejected it before."

Both girls turned to the silent Artemis, who slowly nodded. Once.

"See? You don't have to choose now. You're scared, Bia, and there's a whole world out there you should get to know first before you choose an eternity you know next to nothing about. You have to be smart about this."

Luna's smile turned slightly melancholy for a second.

"'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure.' Live a little. Explore. Learn. Spend a few years growing and thinking, and when you're done, if you still want to be a Huntress, you can join knowing that it's your own choice and free of all regrets."

"But what about you? You've seen the world. You know everything about this demigod stuff" Bianca swallowed nervously. "Would you join, if it were you?

"I barely know a thing, Bianca. There's so much out there that I haven't seen yet and that I still want to see, but none of that's important. What matters is what you choose, and I won't bias you by trying to explain my choices. It has to be your choice, in your own time, by your own free will."

Percy was almost gaping by the end of that little tirade - where the hell had the ditzy, slightly (definitely) crazy girl from before gone? This was borderline Chiron-level advice.

He just prayed it would work (No seriously, Poseidon, if you're listening, please let this work!)

The silence stretched on, low and steady and full of tension.

And at last, finally, Bianca di Angelo turned back to Artemis and shook her head.

"I'm sorry, my lady. But I don't want to be a hunter now."

Yes!

Percy almost jumped up and danced a victory jig - only the sight of Zoe's clenched jaw and the threat of Artemis's 'poof! you're a jackalope!' threat kept him down.

Even still, he had a huge grin on his face. "You're going to love camp, Bianca. You too, Luna."

She smiled nervously. "Thanks!"

Luna just nodded. "I'm looking forward to it - I've been meaning to seek out Chiron for a while. I wanted to ask him what his stance on the Party Ponies growing monopoly on laser tag centers across the midwest and how it affects inter-species relations."

...

"Nope." Percy shook his head and leaned right back again "Still got nothing."

"Unsurprising," Zoe muttered.

Artemis just sighed

"Dawn is approaching. Zoe, break camp. You must get to Long Island quickly and safely. I shall summon a ride from my brother. Girls, go with her."

Zoe didn't look really happy about this idea, but she nodded and told Bianca and Luna to follow her.

"I wish you both the best." Artemis intoned as they left, nodding her head in farewell. "Perhaps we shall continue this discussion another day."

"Thank you for your generosity, my lady, and farewell."

Luna bowed at the waist and tugged Bianca with her, and then the two of them vamoosed, and he was left alone with the twelve-year-old goddess.

Yeah, he hadn't thought this last part through.

"So," Percy said awkwardly - the goddess didn't seem upset that she'd lost one, maybe two potential followers, but you never knew with gods. "We're going to get a ride from your brother, huh?"

Artemis's silver eyes gleamed. "Yes, boy. You see, Bianca di Angelo is not the only one with an annoying brother. It's time for you to meet my irresponsible twin, Apollo."

...
​

The Underworld - Present time

Deep in the darkness where mortals dared not dwell, a figure with golden eyes and wings as black as primordial darkness shifted.

Another appeared before him - vaguely humanoid, if just barely, and promptly took a knee.

"My lord."

The winged figure raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

"The young lady has encountered the hunters of Artemis. She and her compatriots are to be escorted to Camp Half-Blood by Apollo himself come dawn."

...

A long, tired sigh broke the silence eventually.

"Typical. I tell her to avoid the Olympians, and she goes and runs into two right off the bat. And she's going to camp, too. Now she'll inevitably be drawn into this infernal war where I cannot help her!"

There was a sudden burst of fury, though it dissipated as quickly as it came.

Instead, the winged figure paused and began to think.

"...Fine." He shook his head. "Fine. I won't begrudge her the freedom to make her own choices, but I'll not have her stumble into the machinations of gods and titans unprepared. Daimon."

The servant snapped to attention. "My Lord?"

"Fetch me a hunk of Stygian Ore from the banks of the Styx, and summon a cyclops."

"At once, my lord."

As the servant departed to carry out his will, the winged figure finally allowed himself a smile. Grim, perhaps, but when was death anything but?

"There's still plenty of times before the curtains close, daughter of mine." Golden eyes glinted and flared in the dark. "Let's see what you're up to now."

...​

As always, leave your comments and ideas and if you don't like it, please be courteous.

 

[Kaiserfrost]

Is her father Thanatos?

 

[Raphiel]

Thanatos is very unhappy with you, dearest daughter
Watch out, before he catches you and tickles the stupid out of you into Styx.

 

[DracoArgentum]

Hmm, so Thantos is her father, and considering that she is called a Demi-god it cant be through simple adoption, there has to be something more to it than that.

I am really curious what the explanation will be for Luna being his daughter despite having randomly spawned from the Void.

Great chapter btw, I do love Lunas quirky, yet very wise and kind, nature catching everyone off guard.
The fact that she kept Bianca from just bailing on Nico the first chance she got without thinking it through only makes the scene better.

 

[Akuma-Heika]

Is her father Thanatos?

Click to shrink...

I thought it was obvious with his description in Ch1 (reinforced by what her spear is made of). Haven't kept up with the PJO series, so maybe other Greek gods were revealed possessing wings though

 

[StrawberrySunshine]

So i'm assuming she's not actually Thanatos's daughter but instead he adopted her. So i'm wondering who her actual parent is. Although maybe she really is Thanatos's daughter. Im excited to find out.

Finally, one of the Hunters brought him his backpack. Grover and Nico came back from their walk, and Grover helped him fix up my wounded arm.

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Nico rummaged through his own bag, which the Hunters had apparently packed for him, though how they'd snuck into Westover Hall unseen, Percydidn't know. Nico laid out a bunch of figurines in the snow—little battle replicas of Greek gods and heroes. I recognized Zeus with a lightning bolt, Ares with a spear, Apollo with his sun chariot.

Click to shrink...

"What?" I asked

Click to shrink...

He figured any second he was going to ask me how many hit points he had, and he'd lose my cool completely, but then Zoe Nightshade came up to them.

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In this section there's some spots where you accidentally switch to first person with Percy.

 

[Firewillreign]

So i'm assuming she's not actually Thanatos's daughter but instead he adopted her. So i'm wondering who her actual parent is. Although maybe she really is Thanatos's daughter. Im excited to find out.









In this section there's some spots where you accidentally switch to first person with Percy.

Click to shrink...

Thanks, errors fixed. Reveals will be made soon

 

[diriatzin]

Just finished reading this in one go. I quite like it so far, especially the decision to show the plot and Luna's involvement through other people's perspectives. She's quite a refreshing character— no angst, no oh woe is me, I'm a Greek tragedy, just her doing what Luna does. Which is, being awesome!

 

[Jao]

they had been treading marking the point where the spells collided.

And in the end, how Voldemort's spell rebounded, his wan slipping loose

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wand*

Luna screamed and screamed until her throat was hoarse and bloody, but she didn't burn.

Not when the Fienfyre washed over her cloaked form, not when it rampaged past the hall and into the castle proper, and not even when it consumed everything within Hogwarts's ward line before it was snuffed out by their collapse.

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Fiendfyre*

The end of Luna Lovegood.

And the Hallows, ever and always obedient once their loyalty was secured, dis as their Mistress commanded.

The wand went first, crackling with power that shook the forest entire. In the blink of an eye

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did*

"Then let's dance," Thalia declared with a nod. "Who's the monster?"
"Oh," Grover said, and glanced around shiftily. "You just met him — it's the vice principal, Dr.Thorn

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Dr. Thorn*

Dark jeans, with a bright yellow t-shirt and a pink vest over it that was covered in bright blue and silver sparks. She had a necklace made up of corkscrews and bottle cops of all things wrapped around her neck, and a pair of bright gold and silver-blue sunglasses with star frames that absolutely dwarfed her face.

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bottle caps*

They're not dolls!" Nico snapped, anger overtaking his fear for a moment. "They're figurines! And you can take your 'great army' and—"

Now, now," Dr. Thorn warned. "You will change your mind about joining us, my boy. And if you do not, well. . . . there are other uses for half-bloods. We have many monstrous m

Click to shrink...

"Now, now,' Dr. Thorn*

A bolt of purple light materialized about six feet to Dr.Thorn's right and hurtled towards him like a basketball lobbed at full force. It looked like he managed to catch sight of it near the end, but he didn't have a chance in hades of moving out of t

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Dr. Thorn

There was a band like a gunshot and a gust of air that blew his hair out of his eyes, and then they all watched in disbelief as Dr.Thorn went flying, blasted away some thirty feet in a rising arc that ended with him crashing back on to the ground with an explosion of scattered snow and wind and a roared greek curse so vile Percy's mom would have fed him a

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Dr. Thorn*

Sorceress!" the monster roared.

"Almost!" Luna agreed, and her hand dropped. The dome followed suit, dissolving into blue light, and Dr.Thorn must have taken that as some kind of weakness, because his tail bristled and rose in clear threat and he bellowed again.

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Dr. Thorn*

And just as soon as he thought it, Dr.Thorn got a lucky hit in. Luna raised her spear to parry, but the manticore stunned them all by leaping back and swiping at her full force with the entire length of his tail.

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Dr. Thorn*

Thalia's roar of surprise was cut short when another crack sounded, and Dr.Thorn and Annabeth appeared right in front of him, the still-bleeding Luna somehow on top of both. Before he could do much more than roar in surprise, the girl was yanking Annabeth off of him and leaping well clear of the firing zon

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Dr. Thorn*

Curse you, Hunters!" Dr.Thorn snarled and backed away, falling over his own feet in his haste to escape. "Curse you, Goddess! May Lord Kronos destroy you all!"

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Dr. Thorn*

And then Luna drove her spear clean through the back of Dr.Thorn's skull with such force that the tip erupted out of his snarling mouth

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Dr. Thorn*

Perhaps he will." The young girl from before stepped forward, eyes cold and dangerous - Percy almost stepped back when they flickered to him and his friends. "But you won't live to see it. Zoe-"

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Zoë*

Zoe's eyes flickered and grew wider in disbelief, and Percy didn't blame her - he'd known the girl for all of five minutes and he was already starting to suspect that was the default response to speaking to her.

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Zoë*

Most of the demigods back at camp had never even met a major Olympian besides Mr.D and maybe their divine parent, and even then most likely only on the annual field trips to Olympus every winter solstice.

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Mr. D*

You are a half-blood," Zoe Nightshade said bluntly. Her accent was hard to place. It sounded old-fashioned, like she was reading from a really old book. "One of thy parents was mortal. The other was an Olympian."

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Zoë*

parents was mortal. The other was an Olympian."

"An Olympian… athlete?"

"No," Zoe said. "One of the gods."

"Cool!" said Nico.

No!" Bianca's voice had quavered. "This is not cool!"

Percy would have argued, but... she wasn't exactly

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Zoë*

"No!" Bianca's voice*

Bianca," Thalia stepped in right about then, finally turning away from where she'd been glaring unabashedly at Zoe unclenching her fists. "I know it's hard to believe. But the gods are still around. Trust me. They're immortal. And whenever they have kids with regular humans, kids like us, well… Our lives are dangerous."

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Zoë*

She turned to stare at Zoe - maybe because she appeared to be the oldest, or maybe just because she was the one nearest to her. "Is Luna a demigod too?"

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Zoë*

Zoe exchanged a quick glance with Artemis and nodded. "Indeed."

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Zoë*

And she got hurt fighting Dr.Thorn"

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Dr. Thorn*

There is another option," Zoe said.

Thalia's head snapped back to her.

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Zoë*

We have troubled the children enough." She intoned gravely, and her hunters snapped into motion and began unpacking their knapsacks and making camp. "Zoe, we will rest here for a few hours. Raise the tents. Treat the wounded. Retrieve our guests' belongings from the school."

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Zoe gave Thalia one more evil look, then left to oversee things.

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Zoë*

Right. The freaky bolts of something that her flinging Dr.Thorn around like a bowling pin and somehow maybe teleporting.

Click to shrink...

Dr. Thorn*

He figured any second he was going to ask him how many hit points he had, and he'd lose his cool completely, but then Zoe Nightshade came up to them.

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Percy exchanged one last, loaded look with Grover (Don't get smote, Grover's mind screamed over the empathy link) before following Zoe as she led him to the largest tent by the arc of the central campfire.

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Zoë*

Zoe sat down at Artemis's right. She glared at him as if all the stuff Artemis had just said was his fault, like he'd invented the idea of being a guy. Maybe he would have said something if things had been a little different, but the olympian goddess was literally right there.

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

You must forgive my Hunters if they do not welcome you," Artemis said. "It is very rare that we would have boys in this camp. Boys are usually forbidden to have any contact with the Hunters. The last one to see this camp…" She looked at Zoe. "Which one was it?"

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

That boy in Colorado," Zoe said. "You turned him into a jackalope."

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Zoë*

Zoe sat forward. "The scent, my lady?"

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Zoë*

Zoe's face paled.

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Zoe looked like she was trying very hard not to be afraid, but she nodded. "We will leave right away, my lady."


"No, Zoe. I must do this alone."

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

What?" Zoe blurted out. "But, Artemis, we hate that place. The last time we stayed there—"

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Zoë*

Yes, I know," Artemis said. "But I'm sure Dionysus will not hold a grudge just because of a little, ah, misunderstanding. It's your right to use Cabin Eight whenever you are in need. Besides, I hear they rebuilt the cabins you burned down." Zoe muttered something about foolish campers. "And now there is one last decision to make.

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Girl, watch thy tongue-!" Zoe almost hissed, but Artemis just raised a hand again.

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Percy didn't know what that meant exactly, but Zoe started spluttering in disbelief

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Zoë*

"You were searching..." Artemis was impassive again, but Zoe was staring at the other girl like she was some new and heretofore unknown kind of creature she'd never encountered before. "for a sphinx

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Zoë*

And Zoe evidently agreed, because she didn't do more than purse her lips and frown severly in response

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Anyway, when I got to Westover and I realized that Dr.Thorn was a monster who wasn't attacking any students, I stayed to have a bit of a look around. I used the mist to pose as one

Click to shrink...

Dr. Thorn*

Yes, but I couldn't leave them alone. Dangerous monsters don't stalk demigods for weeks. That's not how it works. They either attack and kill them as soon as they find them or they go after more convenient prey. I could have ambushed Dr.Thorn, but what if there were other odd monsters at his beck and call?"

Click to shrink...

Dr. Thorn*

I wanted to know what Dr.Thorn was doing, and I couldn't simply drag Bianca and Nico away, so I had to

Click to shrink...

Dr. Thorn*

"Yes. It was a good experience. I made new friends, and I fought a monster I've never met before." Luna smiled secretively. "Besides, Dr.Thorn was hardly the worst teacher I've ever had. Between a fraud, a friendly werewolf, a murderous imposter, a toad, and a couple more murderous lunatics, he c

Click to shrink...

Dr. Thorn

"It is not the only way for a girl," Zoe said.

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

joining the Hunters?" "

"To begin with," Zoe said, "immortality

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

"Zoe rarely kids about anything," Artemis said. "My Hunters follow me on my adventures. They are my maidservants, my companions, my sisters-in-arms. Once they swear loyalty to me, they are indeed immortal… unless they fall in battle, which is unlikely. Or break their oath

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

"Not just half-bloods," Zoe interrupted. "Lady Artemis does not discriminate by birth. All who honor the goddess may join. Half-bloods, nymphs, mortals

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Anger flashed in Zoe's eyes. "That is not thy concern, boy. The point is Bianca may join if she wishes. It is her choice

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

"Bianca, you can't do this," Percy said. "It's nuts."

She looked at Zoe. "Is it worth it?"

Zoe nodded.

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Percy exhaled in relief, Zoe bristled, and Artemis remained still as a statue and gave nothing away

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Zoë*

"A trivial one-" Zoe started, but Artemis cut her off.

"Zoe."

The Leitunant went silent at once, though she was still fuming. She turned to glare at Percy, as if saying 'see?! This is your fault

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

ercy almost jumped up and danced a victory jig - only the sight of Zoe's clenched jaw and the threat of Artemis's 'poof! you're a jackalope!' threat kept him down

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Dawn is approaching. Zoe, break camp. You must get to Long Island quickly and safely. I shall summon a ride from my brother. Girls, go with her

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

 

[Gaming Geek]

Noone cares about that e, you're the only person I've ever seen who has said anything about it.

It's not even a standard American letter for names.

 

[Firewillreign]

When Luna Lovegood first showed up at Westover Hall, Bianca didn't think much of her.

Well, actually, no. She did think something of her - the same thing everyone else in their uptight military academy of a school thought at first sight of her.

Wow, that girl is a weirdo.

Yes, it was snobby and more than a little mean, but come on.

Bianca hadn't been able to help it - with her mismatched and oddly colored clothes, the outlandish accessories and that bottle cap necklace she never went anywhere without, Luna was a show and a half right from the beginning.

Her fashion sense was a serious hit against her - it looked like someone had pulled their best wardrobe picks out of a used-goods charity drive and accessorized out of a dumpster for good measure.

Stack that on to the fact that she was, at first glance, a total airhead who went off on tangents no one understood almost every time someone asked her a simple question )or talked to her period) and her getting labeled as the school loser was a done deal by the end of her second day at Westover.

Bianca was pretty sure Luna set a record for the fastest anyone's ever been ostracized by everyone in their year group - They even gave her a spiteful little nickname and everything - Luna 'Loony' Lovegood.

Yeah. Someone probably thought they were being clever.

For the first week, Bianca didn't pay her much attention.

How could she?

She was busy enough as it was, and it wasn't like she could exactly afford to be more unpopular. Before Luna showed up, it was Bianca who was their year group's outcast - odd, friendless, never-knew-what-to-say-or-when-to-say-it-Bianca who none of the other girls wanted anything to do with and was already run ragged trying to wrangle class work and a much too excitable ten-year-old of a little brother who was all she had in the world.

She just didn't have time to be nice to the one person in school who was lower on the totem pole than she was - and wasn't that a heck of an achievement - no matter how appealing (very) it would have been to make a friend (Finally).

In her defense, it didn't look like Luna ever needed it.

No, for all that the other girl stuck out like a square peg in a round hole, no one ever went out of their way to bother her.

Oh, there were mean whispers and snide insults and all the other garbage you could've expected, but there was something about Luna that meant no one ever said anything to her face or tried to start something with her head-on.

Most even went out of their way to avoid her.

No one could put their finger on why, though.

Maybe it was because they saw the way Luna walked through Westover Hall without a care in the world - like nothing and no one could bother her, eyes always at least a little distant, head lost in the clouds.

Maybe it was because even the teachers seemed at a loss as to what to do with her - none teachers ever called her out on the blatant dress code violations, her strange way of speaking, or anything else. Not even one - Once, Bianca caught Ms. Gottschalk blinking and looking at the girl with this odd, mystified expression - it was as if she'd forgotten she even existed.

(Or maybe everyone avoided her because of the feeling - the flash of something that Bianca had once felt the first time she and Luna had locked gazes, black on cloudy grey, and an odd, eery shiver had run down her spine in the half second before the other girl turned away.)

In the end, it didn't matter. The student body ignored her, Luna kept to herself, and Bianca was fine doing just the same.

Until eventually, and rather quickly, things started to change.

...

Bianca couldn't even remember the exact thought process that led her to try her luck. Maybe it was the exhaustion - she blames the sleepless nights she spent preparing for their pre-algebra test that week on her bout of temporary insanity.

Either way, instead of sitting with Nico at their designated lunch table (and inevitably having to sit through an hour of mythomagic babble), she tried to grab the sit next to Lori Templeton.

Lori was as close to a big deal as an eighth grader could get at Westover. Smart, pretty, and friends with everyone - except Bianca Di Angelo.

Typical

That day, though...

She was lonely, alright?

She just wanted to try something different (Less Lonely), maybe have a conversation or two.

(Try and make one friend. That's all she wanted. Just one.)

Needless to say, it didn't work out for her.

At all.

She's not sure how it happened, exactly, but one thing led to another and the next thing she knew someone was shoving her out of her chair. She landed roughly on the ground and managed to avoid bringing her tray of food down over her clothes by the skin of her teeth.

Not that that helped much.

"As if, loser." Lori had spat, looking down at her contemptuously. Her friends and hangers-on all tittered and giggled "Get out of here. And brush your hair while you're at it. It's gross."

Bianca didn't yell, or burst into tears (that was the hardest fight of her life). Instead, she silently snatched her bag, left her half-eaten lunch and walked out of the lunch room and out into the yard. She found herself a nice, private corner where no one could find her and plopped down with all her stuff.

Then she started crying

(It wasn't fair, being this alone. She didn't do anything to be treated like this - it wasn't her fault she never knew what to say, had no idea how to make friends. She never understood the other girls her age. All the secrets and the gossip and the fun they had- all of it flew right over her head. It was like they lived in an entirely different world, one where she didn't belong, and it wasn't fair. Even Nico had a handful of friends to play that stupid card game with - Bianca didn't have anyone.)

She was getting herself back together (crying her eyes out), knees hugged to her chest and head pressed down when she felt someone plop down next to her.

"You shouldn't listen to them, you know."

When Bianca blinked and looked up, she found Luna sitting beside her and smiling at her gently.

"Your hair looks wonderful. I think Lori thinks so too. She's nasty to you because she's jealous. It's very spiteful of her - She'll attract all sorts of nargles like that."

Bianca had never spoken to Luna before then, but she leaped into the conversation almost before she was even aware of it (She was that desperate for someone to talk to)

"What are nargles?"

"They're funny little creatures that like to live in mistletoe. Whenever they come out, they're known to cause all sorts of mischief, and they often like to go after the most mischievous or mean-spirited people they can find."

...Was this a joke? Or some kind of children's story? But Luna was nodding and staring at her very seriously as if imparting some great wisdom.

"I don't get it." She said at last. It didn't seem like she was joking, and Bianca didn't want to push the other girl away by mentioning how stupid the words sounded, so settled for not mentioning them at all.

"That's alright. Most people don't."

... Right

Luna tilted her head - Bianca could have sworn she looked amused.

Bianca should have been upset - she didn't need yet another person out to make fun of her or have a laugh at her expense, but instinct stopped her. Nothing about Luna's words or mannerisms was malicious. Odd, far out, and most of it went right over her head, but she could tell that none of it was meant to hurt.

A refreshing change of pace.

"Why did you follow me?" She paused and frowned. "How did you follow me?"

She was sure no one had seen her squirrel herself away, and she'd deliberately found the most isolated place she could hide in and didn't intend to stray.

"I don't like it when nice people get upset by silly words. It's familiar, in a bad way. You're very clever, Bianca Di Angelo, and you love your brother a great deal. Those are good qualities for a good person - don't let the drivel weigh you down. It's no good for you" Luna tucked a lock of blond hair behind her ear and hummed lowly. "And as for finding you - I just followed the wrackspurts."

Bianca paused, frowning from underneath the haze of pleasant embarrassment that had flushed through her system at the unexpected (and almost painfully earnest) praise.

"Wrackspurts?" She shook her head. "What are those?"

In response, the blonde girl hopped up to her feet and extended a hand. "Come with me and I'll tell you. It's still lunch, after all, and you've barely eaten a thing. I've got some old fish crackers in my dorm - always good to have a food stash handy."

Bianca hesitated - Was this really happening? With Luna Lovegood of all people?

"Are they any good?"

Apparently so.

"No. They're absolutely disgusting. But I think company will make them taste better. Care to find out?"

Bianca didn't have anything to say to that, either, so up she went.

And you know what?

Those crackers were the most god-awful, revolting thing Bianca ever tasted, but damn if Luna wasn't right - company really did make them taste better.

(It wasn't much - Just two girls, two packets of hideous crackers and a half hour of a conversation she could barely make heads or tails of.

And somehow, it still meant everything)

The next morning, a commotion spread through the dorms.

Lori Templeton woke up half the school an hour before breakfast, screeching and screaming like a wild banshee, completely inconsolable at the sight of her formerly blonde hair, which had somehow been dyed a bright, hideous shade of neon-green that refused to wash out for days afterward.

No one knew who did it, but everyone - everyone, even her so-called friends were happy to laugh themselves sick at the sight of her.

Bianca tried (and failed) not to feel too viciously smug about that.

And later, when she sat by a certain blonde girl at lunch and told her what happened, Luna just smiled, cloudy eyes suddenly a bit too sharp and smile just a little too knowing (and just a teensy, tiny bit vindictive)

"Oh dear. I suppose the nargles got her after all."

Nargles, she said - the creatures that supposedly went after mischievous, mean-spirited people.

According to Luna.

"Oh."

And just like that, Bianca knew and understood exactly what had happened and why, even if she had no clue how it had been accomplished.

"I-" She swallowed the lump in her throat and focused very hard on keeping a straight face. "...Thank you."

The words felt so inadequate, but they were all she could bring herself to say.

Luna just frowned (the sharp awareness never left her eyes).

"For what? Never mind, you can tell me later. It's time for class."

She grabbed Bianca's hand and tugged her behind her, and Bianca went right along with her.

And that's how she and Luna became friends.

...​

It took Luna all of five minutes to wrap her brother around her little finger - or was it the other way around?

Eh, who even knew?

All that mattered was that over the course of one conversation of mythical (probably) nonexistent (hopefully) creatures that Luna always went on about and a single one-on-one match of Mythomagic, Luna and Nico became the best of friends.

"She's so cool!" Nico had beamed, almost bouncing off the walls with how excited he was.

"Sit down, you little lunatic." Bianca had chided, but she grinned despite herself - He wasn't wrong.

Luna really was cool.

Their life took an immediate upswing after that.

Bianca wasn't alone. She had a friend who had her back, who smiled and listened to her day in and day out and told her the oddest, most fascinating stories and helped her with her school work (And wasn't that a surprise, learning that for all of Luna's apparent air-headedness, she was almost terrifying smart and witty in anything even vaguely academic. She ran circles around Bianca almost without trying, and she was so helpful about it Bianca couldn't get upset about it even if she wanted to - which she categorically didn't)

That was probably why Nico loved her too - She indulged him almost every chance she got. She played games with him and indulged his endless questions and even managed to sneak herself and Bianca into his dorms past curfew (somehow, no one ever noticed them) to have these big late-night get-togetheres (Somehow, no one ever heard them, or even saw them - really, Bianca should have started questioning why that was, but she hadn't dared for fear of it all coming apart)

Those nights were unironically the best of her life (As far as she could remember, anyway). They shared stories and played card games and told silly, stupid jokes that had them laughing themselves to stitches. Best of all, they brought on Luna's horrible snacks and dared each other to eat them.

Bianca was sure that stunt alone shaved off some thirty years of their collective lifespans, but she didn't care. None of them did.

(Because they were warm, those moments. Warm in a way that had nothing to do with a temperature and meant everything to all of them, she could tell. It was obvious, from the achingly melancholic, bitterly grateful light in Luna's eyes that she only partially understood and the way Nico clung to her almost without noticing, the way Bianca never strayed too far from both of them herself.)

It was amazing and special, and it was theirs.

And that was all that mattered.

And then came the school dance.

...
​

Dr. Thorn turned out to be a manticore and tried to kidnap them, the asshole

Gods and demigods turned out to be real because the vice-principal with the ugliest mug she'd ever seen clearly wasn't enough.

A goddess tried to recruit Bianca to an immortal (and very tempting) eternal grils club complete with matching outfits and a mission to kill savage monsters for sport. Somehow, she turned her down and lived to tell the tale.

And Luna, predictably, knew all about everything all along and was more concerned with finding a way to corner the goddess of the hunt and asking her about something called a 'crumple horned snorkack'

Because of course she was.

...​

"So this.. mist is why none of the teachers ever seemed to notice you?" Bianca asked dubiously, still struggling to wrap her mind around it all.

Her life had gotten so, so weird.

"They noticed me." Luna countered, still staring up at the dark sky expectantly. "They just never noticed that I didn't belong. The mist - the topmost layers, anyway - alters perception more than anything else. The more experienced you are in directing it, the more focused, the better the results."

"Oh, that's how Dr. Thorn turned into a manticore!" Nico piped up, jittery as a four-year-old on a sugar high.

"Not quite - Dr. Thorn was always a manticore. He used the mist to alter the perception of his appearance - all monsters can do it, more or less, but only the very intelligent ones can consciously use it to disguise themselves from even demigods like he did with you. Very clever, and very patient."

Bianca frowned. "That sounds... bad."

Monsters as a concept were something she'd only had a couple of hours to digest, huddled against Luna in the tent the campers had set up for her and the other two demigod girls - Thalia and Annabeth. The idea of any monsters at all was bad enough. Intelligent ones - more intelligent ones like Dr. Thorn - that just sounded horrifying.

"Bad? No, it's awful. Monsters this patient are almost unheard of. Very ominous." Luna smiled. "I like it. Life is going to get very exciting, I can tell."

...

"Of course you think that." Bianca sighed - why was she like this? "So... what is the mist? Is it magic?"

To which Luna smiled even more brightly "I have no idea."

"You don't know?"

"Not at all!" She replied cheerfully. "Father wasn't very forthcoming on the topic and my prayers to Lady Hecate haven't been answered, so I suppose I'll have to figure it out myself. Isn't it exciting?"

No. No, it really wasn't.

"Sure, Lu."

Gods give her patience.

She paused as the thought registered.

... Did that count as a prayer? Did she just talk to the gods?

... No.

Bianca shook her head, this time to herself.

Best not to think about it - that way lay madness. The scary, lock-you-in-a-padded-room kind, not the Luna kind.

"How much longer do you think we have to wait?" Nico asked for both of them, piping up from where he'd been reshuffling his deck (Bianca silently despaired - he'd already been way too obsessed with that game before finding out that all of this Greek mythology stuff was real. How much worse would he get know?)

"I don't know," Luna answered patiently, still staring up at the heavens unerringly. "Whenever Lord Apollo's schedule permits, I suppose.

The three of them stood in the snow, unbothered by the biting chill (Luna had tapped each of their shoulders and a burst of lingering warmth spilled over them - 'warming charm' she had explained over Nico's gleeful questions) and tentatively watched as Artemis stared into the east like she was expecting something.

Thalia, Annabeth, Grover and Percy sat off to one side, whispering among themselves and pointedly steering well clear of the goddess's hunters, who seemed to return the whole I-want-nothing-to-do-with-you vibes and occupied themselves with packing up their tents faster than should have been humanely possible. They broke camp as quickly as they'd set it up.

Artemis assured them that dawn was coming, but you could've fooled her. It was colder and darker and snowier than ever. Up on the hill, Westover Hall's windows were completely lightless. Bianca wondered if the teachers had even noticed that the three were missing yet.

There was a sudden burst of light on the horizon. A blast of warmth. "Don't look," Artemis advised, her voice ringing loudly. "Not until he parks."

Parks?

Bianca averted her eyes, and saw that the other kids were doing the same. Luna slapped a hand over Nico's face when he tried to take a peak. The light and warmth intensified until Bianca felt almost too warm, between the warmth and the heat.

Then suddenly the light died.

She looked.

She hadn't known what she'd been expecting, but what she found was... a car?

A red sports car, like the kind she saw hanging on one of the posters in their art classroom. A bit on the small side, but Bianca didn't know whether or not that was a good thing.

The heat wafting off of it almost fooled her into thinking it was summer - even the metal was glowing red-hot. The snow had melted around the Maserati in a perfect circle, which explained why they were now standing on green grass and why her trainers were wet.

The driver got out, smiling. He looked about seventeen or eighteen, with short sandy blonde hair, blue eyes and sharp features. If she squinted, she could even see the resemblance to Artemis even if the coloring was all off. He wore jeans and loafers and a sleeveless T-shirt.

"Wow," Thalia muttered a distance away. "Apollo is hot."

"He's the sun god," She heard Percy whisper back.

"That's not what I meant."

Bianca didn't get it either.

"Little sister!" Apollo called. If his teeth were any whiter he could've blinded us without the sun car. "What's up? You never call. You never write. I was getting worried!"

Artemis sighed. "I'm fine, Apollo. And I am not your little sister."

"Hey, I was born first."

"We're twins! How many millennia do we have to argue—"

"So what's up?" he interrupted. "Got the girls with you, I see. You all need some tips on archery?"

Artemis grit her teeth. "I need a favor. I have some hunting to do, alone. I need you to take my companions to Camp Half-Blood."

"Sure, sis!" Then he raised his hands in a stop-everything gesture.

"I feel a haiku coming on."

The Hunters all groaned. Apparently, they'd met Apollo before. He cleared his throat and held up one hand dramatically.

"Green grass breaks through snow.
Artemis pleads for my help.
I am so cool."

...​

"Well." Luna hesitated (and it should say a lot that even Luna hesitated at all). Her voice echoed in the clearing. "That... was, in fact, a haiku."

Yeah, the most gods-awful one she'd ever heard. Bianca was pretty sure a part of her soul just shriveled up and died on the spot.

"Except for the last line." Luna muttered under her breath, though Apollo seemed to hear her anyway "That was four syllables"

Apollo frowned. "Was it?"

"Yes." Artemis said - she sounded like Bianca whenever Nico drove her up a wall - devoid of patience and on the edge of exploding "What about I am so big-headed?"

Definitely like Bianca then - good to know.

"No, no, that's six syllables. Hmm." He started muttering to himself.

Suddenly, Bianca was struck by how surreal all of this was. How ridiculous. Last night, she'd been just another student at Westover - and now she was watching the actual, literal god of the sun argue poetry semantics with his irate sister.

What even was her life?

"Luna," Bianca said. "I think your crackers might have been spiked with something."

She was only half joking too.

"Now-"

Luna paused, expression shifting contemplatively.

Bianca whirled to face her.

No.

"You know," Luna tapped her chin thoughtfully. "That might explain a few things. Carli gave them to me, so you may not be far off the mark, actually."

"Luna!"

"What? I told you she was dotty."

Bianca nearly tackled her, and Nico's laughter could have roused the dead.

...​

Things moved quite quickly after that.

Artemis entrusted them to Apollo, who turned his odd-looking car into a decent-sized bus for them to ride.

"All aboard!" He said, clapping h. "Great - Who wants to drive?"

Oh, heck no.

She smacked Nico's hand down the second it started twitching.

"Hey!"

"Over my dead body - no, not even then."

"She's right, Nico." For once Luna didn't let him have his way, even when he rounded on her with eyes full of betrayal. "You're far too young. Remind me to tell you the story of the last child who rode the sun-chariot - it isn't a pleasant one."

And wasn't that ominous?

Eventually, though, Apollo's eyes snapped to Thalia and pinned the honor of driving the legendary camper bus of the sun to camp half-blood on her.

She didn't look very honored (low-key terrified, actually)

"I know what you're going to say," Apollo said when she tried to protest. "You don't deserve an honor like driving the sun chariot."

"That's not what I was going to say."

"Don't sweat it! Maine to Long Island is a really short trip, and don't worry about what happened to the last kid I trained. You're Zeus's daughter. He's not going to blast you out of the sky."

"Um... Luna?"

"Don't worry, Bianca." Luna's hand latched onto her wrist and gripped tightly. Her free hand snagged the back of Nico's shirt "I'll apparate us out if we're in trouble."

Now, see, that was supposed to be reassuring (and in some ways it was) but the implication that even Luna was a little worried had her blood pressure tripling in under a second.

Nico just seemed delighted, bless his little idiot soul.

"Go on then." Apollo dragged Thalia to the driver's seat and manually placed her hands on the steering wheel (yeah, she was that reluctant) "Take it from the top - Trust me, you'll be a natural!"

Thalia was not a natural. Thalia was very much not a natural.

"We're going to die!" Bianca hissed as the sun chariot rocketed across the heavens, its trip wild and disjointed and constantly at risk of ending via them crashing into a mountain!

They arrived at Camp Half-blood with a thunderous, disastrous landing, Thalia slamming the brakes hard enough that Bianca imagined she could feel the impact at the back of her teeth. The sun bus pitched forward and nearly flipped off-kilter, slamming into a canoe lake with a massive FLOOSH!

A great big billowing cloud of steam exploded up, sending several terrified naiads scrambling out of the water with half-woven wicker baskets.

"Well," said Apollo with a brave attempt at a smile. "Let's go see if we boiled anyone important, shall we?"

...​

Apollo disappeared with a wink and burst of golden light (sunlight, because sun god, of course)

Camp Half-Blood was a sight.

Snow had been allowed to fall lightly. Frost covered the chariot track and the strawberry fields. The cabins were decorated with tiny flickering lights, like Christmas lights, except they seemed to be balls of real fire. More lights glowed in the woods, and weirdest of all, a fire flickered in the attic window of the Big House, where the Oracle of Delphi dwelt, imprisoned in an old mummified body.

"Whoa," Nico said as he climbed off the bus. "Is that a climbing wall?! Why is there lava pouring down it?"

"Little extra challenge," said Percy, patting Nico on the back. "Come on — We'll introduce you guys to Chiron. Zoë, have you met—?"

"I know Chiron," Zoë said stiffly. "Tell him we will be in Cabin Eight. Hunters, follow me."

"I'll show you the way," Grover offered.

"We know the way."

"Oh, really, it's no trouble. It's easy to get lost here, if you don't" — he tripped over a canoe and came up still talking — "like my old daddy goat used to say! Come on!"

Zoë rolled her eyes, but it was clear she figured there was no getting rid of Grover. The Hunters shouldered their packs and their bows and headed off toward the cabins.

"Well then." Annabeth turned to them clapping her hands, but her smile was strained - clearly, the Hunters' dismissive attitude was starting to rub even her the wrong way. "Let's go meet Chiron."

"Say, who's Chiron?" Nico asked. "I don't have his figurine."

"Our activities director," answered Annabeth. "He's really nice, and he's—"

"Let's let them see for themselves," Thalia cut in with a smile. "It'll be a good surprise."

The Big House was decorated with strings of red and yellow fireballs that warmed the porch but didn't seem to catch anything on fire. Inside, flames crackled in the hearth. The air smelled like hot chocolate. Mr. D and Chiron were playing a quiet game of cards in the parlor.

As for being a surprise, it was.. sort of.

Aside from the sheer mind-bender that seeing an actual centaur was (Grover being a satyr only halfway prepared her for the sight) meeting a third god in less than twenty-four hours almost had her sitting down from how weak in the knees the concept made her.

The fact that Mr. D looked one step removed from being a homeless bum and was clearly, unrepentantly a jackass didn't help any.

"Hoo-rah," The god had said in a bored voice after they were introduced to him. He wore a neon orange leopard-skin warm-up suit and purple running shoes. A golden laurel wreath was tilted sideways on his curly black hair, which must've meant he'd won the last hand of cards they were playing. "More brats hanging around."

"Come now, Mr. D. These new campers need their orientation tour."

"Yes, yes. You deal with it." He dismissed them with an almost contemptuous wave of his hand, and Bianca was perfectly happy to split - Between Nico's mythomagic comments almost drawing his attention to them and the fact that he obviously wanted as much to do with them as she wanted to with him (nothing), she was more than happy to be led away.

(No one noticed the way his brows furrowed and his eyes lingered on Luna as she stepped away, uncharacteristically silent. No one but Luna herself)

Outside, they explained the layout of the camp and cabins. The cabins were the oddest collection of buildings you've ever seen. Zeus and Hera's big white-columned buildings, Cabins One and Two, stood in the middle, with five gods' cabins on the left and five goddesses' cabins on the right, so they all made a U around the central green and the barbecue hearth.

The architecture varied - some of it was almost what you'd expect for the home of the children of the gods - archaic, glamorous buildings shaped almost like temples in some respects.

Others, Like Poesidon's cabin, looked like a high-end beach cabin. The kind you'd find in a fancy vacation resort.

Over at the basketball court, a few of the Hunters were shooting hoops. One of them was arguing with a guy from the Ares cabin. The Ares kid had his hand on his sword and the Hunter girl looked like she was going to exchange her basketball for a bow and arrow any second.

"I'll break that up," Thalia said. "You guys check out the cabins. Tell everybody about Capture the Flag tomorrow."

"Uh, what is Capture the Flag?" Nico said.

"It's a war game, of sorts," Annabeth said, then she paused.

Something must have flashed across Bianca's face, and even Luna had stopped in her intent inspection of everything around them to turn and frown.

"War game?"

What the heck kind of camp was this?

"It's nothing dangerous." The daughter of Athena hurried to explain "It's a traditional camp exercise - A mock battle between cabin-groups. It's good practice for combat tactics and strategy preparation. It prepares untrained campers for real fights without the risk of setting them up against monsters, and a victory reflects well on you. It's even a way of honoring your godly parent, by showing off how capable you are."

"Our parents want us to fight?"

"No-" Annabeth looked pained "They want us to prove our capability - they don't want us to get hurt if we can avoid it."

"Probably," Percy muttered, then flushed when Annabeth rounded on him with a withering glare.

"It's alright, Bianca." Luna finally interrupted, nodding reassuringly. "It's only standard practice - far better to learn in here than you would out there."

Annabeth nodded "Exactly."

"Besides, a war game is hardly the worst way to practice. On my tenth birthday, Father set me up against a trio of Laistrygonian Giants to train my spear work."

Nico grinned, the little monster "What are those?"

"Eight-foot-tall cannibal giants"

See, it was hearing stuff like that that did bad things to her heart.

"Cool!" Nico cheered.

"Not cool!" Bianca snapped back

Annabeth and Percy just looked incredulous.

"Wait, what?"

"Oh yes. It was quite awful. Two of them were completely irredeemable, so I had to send them to Tartarus. The third was just a baby, though, and we got along wonderfully after I convinced him to switch to a poultry-based diet. Better for his teeth." She smiled wistfully. "Ah, I do miss Larry. I wonder how he's doing?"

She shook her head and resumed walking, Nico hot at her heels and already spitting out a hundred and one questions. While Annabeth stared after her, Percy just turned to look at her with the expression of a man desperately trying to hold on to the few scraps of sanity he had left.

"What the hades?"

"Don't ask." Bianca shook her head miserably. "Just don't ask. It always gets worse when you ask."

...​

After that, it all became a little much.

The events of the last day and everything that had happened all caught up to her, and Bianca just... stopped caring.

She filtered out the rest of the world.

(Luna must have noticed because she didn't leave her side the entire night.)

She was silent when they set the three of them up in the Hermes cabin (She missed Luna's displeasure at the sight of all the crammed kids and how they barely had space to move around), and even silent when they got to dinner.

Torches and braziers kept the outdoor pavilion warm. Every cabin had its own table, and campers were apparently expected to sit only at the table assigned to their cabin. She wound up silently squeezed between Nico and Luna, and even the infinite variety of food and drink didn't manage to stir her out of her stupor.

(Was this shock? What was even happening to her?)

She startled as Luna grabbed her hand and squeezed It tightly. "Don't worry, it'll be alright."

I hope so, she wanted to say, but settled for a nod instead.

She followed the other campers' lead after that. She dumped pretty much all her food into the brazier, a wordless, vague attempt at prayer on her mind, (No more surprises, please and thank you) and the slightest hint of a question to her divine parent (Who are you?)

(She wasn't sure she wanted to know, actually. It all still felt like a dream. Knowing proved beyond a doubt that all this craziness was real, and Bianca still couldn't decide whether that would exciting or viscerally horrifying.)

And that was it.

That night, they ended up back at the Hermes Cabin, Nico already off with a bunch of the younger campers on the other end of the gender partition while Luna and Bianca got a couple of sleeping bags and laid them out side by side.

"Hey, Lu?"

"Yes?"

"This is insane."

"That's true."

"Like, crazy insane."

"That's also true."

"And you're a bit insane for being so okay with it."

"Subjective, but also true."

Bianca laughed at that. It sounded a bit hysterical (and a little choked up)

Luna's hand found hers again, even in the dark.

"It's okay to be uncertain, you know," Luna whispered in the dark. "It's okay to be scared. I often am. But don't let it ruin the future for you. It's a whole new world for you, Bianca, and you're going to be amazing. Don't ever doubt that."

...

"...Thanks, Lu."

Loony her ass. Luna was the smartest person she'd ever known, period.

And hey, that meant she was probably right. Things would work out. They always did.

With any luck, tomorrow would be better.

...​

It wasn't.

It really, really, really fucking wasn't.

Bianca woke up, had breakfast, and before she knew it she was being fitted and decked out in armor. The leathers were worn, but the bronze plating gleamed and her helmet settled over her head snugly, blue feathers distinctive.

Frankly, she thought it was all a bit much, but no one asked her and she didn't offer her opinion either way.

Then the participating cabins got together to prepare, and the game of Capture the Flag began with a thunderous announcement from Chiron.

"Heroes!" he called. "You know the rules! The creek is the boundary line. Blue team — Camp Half-Blood — shall take the west woods. Hunters of Artemis — red team — shall take the east woods. I will serve as referee and battlefield medic. No intentional maiming, please! All magic items are allowed. To your positions!"

The fact that the activities director had to declare maiming off limits should have been warning enough - seriously, what kind of hell hole was this?

As always, Nico was ecstatic.

"Percy, this is awesome!" Nico crowed from where he was trailing after the older boy. His blue-feathered bronze helmet was falling in his eyes, and his breastplate was about six sizes too big. Bianca would have laughed at how ridiculous he looked if she wasn't having heart palpitations at the idea of him getting maimed.

"He won't get hurt," Percy promised, clearly picking up on her worry. "Don't worry, no one's been seriously injured for a while in one of these games, and he won't even be on the front lines."

"I'll keep an eye out for him," Luna murmured lowly, which did more to reassure her than anything else she'd heard as of yet. The other girl wore the same leather armor as the rest of them (and it suited her far better than it did Bianca, or so she thought) and her black spear was already resting against her side, the black metal gleaming and almost appearing to drink the surrounding light.

(It had gotten her more than a couple of looks - some people had even flinched at their proximity to the metal, which Bianca didn't get. They acted like it was cursed, but it felt fine to her)

Her spear made her look like a warrior. By comparison, the off-balanced sword Bianca was holding in her hand just made her feel stupid.

True to Percy's word, the three of them were put into guard positions by the edge of the creek, a distance away from where the blue team had stashed their flag.

"Just don't go anywhere," Annabeth instructed them. "Unless the other team makes off with our flag, do. Not. Move."

Then she put on her cap and vanished.

("Cool"

"Nico, shh!")

And that's how they spent the match - Hearing shouts and scuffles and the occasional explosion (that she would not be asking about, for her sanity if nothing else) that all came to a head when a silver figure darted past them and into the underbrush.

"Well, that's bad," Luna murmured as Zoë Nightshade darted right back out, hefting their flag and making like a cheetah for their base.

"Finally! Let's go!" Nico roared and bolted, and Bianca and Luna were after him about half a second later.

What they would do when they even caught up, she had no idea - probably sic Luna on her or something.

But it was clearly already too late.

"No!"

Percy showed up, hefting the red flag (wasn't he supposed to stay behind?) and Zoe was so clearly going to beat him to the punch that Bianca just acted without thinking.

(It was instinct, more than anything else)

She didn't know why, but she found herself screaming and lifting her leg, before she stamped down hard.

The earth rumbled like it was in the middle of an earthquake, and the dirt beneath her foot tore as a crevice erupted from the point of impact, a massive sinkhole tearing through the ground and growing, appearing to chase after Zoe.

At the last second, the Huntress looked back - her eyes widened, and she leaped straight up and to the side before the pseudo-sinkhole swallowed her, Percy following her lead almost at once. They managed to get clear by a fraction of a second.

Abruptly, the rumbling died. The sinkhole settled, and the earth slammed back shut with a thunderous CRACK.

And Zoe stood back up, eyes wide and staring at them, flag held aloft.

Bianca could almost feel the eyes on her, their gazes burning against her skin.

"I-"

"Sorry about that, everybody!" Luna's loud cry silenced them. "My new explosive spell is still a work in progress."

What?

When Bianca turned to her, Luna shook her head almost imperceptibly, grey eyes steely.

The message was loud and clear.

'Don't say a word.'

"Wait, what?" One of the campers bellowed - a son of Ares. "I thought she was one of Athena's kids!"

"The hell kind of godly parent even comes up with that kind of power?"

"Hecate, maybe?"

"Bullshit!"

The argument probably would spiral on from there, but it was Nico of all people who killed it dead.

"Hey, didn't Zoe cross the line? Isn't the game over?"

...

Slowly, everyone turned to stare at Artemis's Lieutenant, suddenly remembering what they were all doing and all hyper-aware of how she'd landed right over the edge of the hunter's territory line.

"Oh," The Ares Kid snarled and ripped off his helmet. "Son of a-!"

The Hunters cheered as both sides converged on the creek, and Luna and Bianca were quickly forgotten (Zoe's eyes still lingered)

Chiron appeared out of the woods, looking grim. He had the Stoll brothers on his back, and it looked as if both of them had taken some nasty whacks to the head. Connor Stoll had two arrows sticking out of his helmet-like antennae.

"The Hunters win!" Chiron announced without pleasure. Then he muttered, "For the fifty-sixth time in a row."

Perseus Jackson!" Thalia cried, storming toward him. She smelled like rotten eggs, and she was so mad that blue sparks flickered on her armor. Everybody cringed and backed up because of Aegis. It took all Percy's willpower not to hold his nose and retreat.

"What in the name of the gods were you THINKING?" she bellowed. "You were told to stay at your post!"

"I got the flag, Thalia!" He shook it pointedly. "I saw a chance and I took it! And it almost worked out! What's your problem?"

"I WAS AT THEIR BASE!" Thalia yelled. "But the flag was gone! You cost us the win!"

"You had too many on you!"

"Oh, so it's my fault?"

"I didn't say that." He spat "You're the one tossing blame!"

"Alright, enough" Annabeth shimmered into existence, yanking off her cap. "Thalia-"

"Argh!" Thalia pushed Percy, and there was a burst of light that blew him backward ten feet into the water.

"Thalia!" Annabeth yelled, and the other girl paled.

"Sorry! I didn't mean to-"

A stream of water erupted out of the lake and blasted her in the face, dousing her from head to toe.

"Yeah," Percy said coldly. "Neither did I."

Thalia was breathing heavily.

"Enough!" Chiron ordered.

But Thalia held out her spear.

"You want some, Seaweed Brain?"

"Thalia!" Annabeth snapped

"Bring it bring it on, Pinecone Face!"

"Percy, don't!"

Percy raised Riptide, but before he could even defend himself, Thalia yelled, and a blast of lightning came down from the sky, hit her spear like a lightning rod, and slammed into his chest. He sat down hard.

Thalia!" Chiron said. "That is enough!"

Bianca and everyone present bar Luna reared back as Percy leapt to his feet, looking downright apoplectic this time around. Behind him, the water of the creek exploded. It swirled up, hundreds of gallons of water in a massive icy funnel cloud.

"Percy!" Chiron pleaded.

And then the son of Poesidon's gaze focused on something over Thalia's shoulder, and his expression went slack. The funneling cloud of water collapsed, and the water crashed back down into the creak.

"What-"

All of them whirled around.

Someone . . . something was approaching. It was shrouded in a murky green mist, but as it got closer, the campers and Hunters gasped.

"This is impossible," Chiron said. None of those present had ever heard him sound so nervous. "It . . . she has never left the attic. Never."

It was... Bianca swallowed.

It was a mummy a withered mummy draped in light fineries that was stalking towards them, the pits of its eye sockets glowing a baleful green, as if the mists were piloting it somehow.

Luna stepped in front of her as if to shield her.

"Stay behind me." She ordered quietly.

Bianca didn't have the presence of mind to argue.

No one dared to move until the mummy shuffled in between their group. Then her voice was hissing inside their heads. Everyone could hear it because several clutched their hands over their ears to protect themselves from the hideous rasp.

'I am the spirit of Delphi,' the voice said. 'Speaker of the prophecies of Phoebus Apollo, slayer of the mighty Python.' She turned unmistakably toward Zoë Nightshade. 'Approach, Seeker, and ask.'

Zoë swallowed.

"What must I do to help my goddess?"

The Oracle's mouth opened, and green mist poured out. There was the vague image of a mountain, and a girl standing at the barren peak. It was Artemis, but she was wrapped in chains, fettered to the rocks. She was kneeling, her hands raised as if to fend off an attacker, and it looked like she was in pain.

The Oracle spoke:

Seven shall flee west to the goddess in chains

All will fall in the land without rain

And witness firsthand the wisest kin slayer's pain

The giant to snuff out the heroes's breath

And the daughter's strife to invoke death

Campers and Hunters combined prevail

The Bane of Olympus shall lead the trail

Freedom won forth with sacrifice

And twelve at last pay the greatest price​

And just like that, the future was sealed.

...
​

As always, leave your comments and ideas and if you don't like it, please be courteous

 

[I'm horny 123]

I thought it was obvious with his description in Ch1 (reinforced by what her spear is made of). Haven't kept up with the PJO series, so maybe other Greek gods were revealed possessing wings though

Click to shrink...

Nix the primordial of the night also has wings

 

[StrawberrySunshine]

Nix the primordial of the night also has wings

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The whole Chaos thing at the beginning makes me think she probably is the daughter of a primordial.

 

[Jao]

A goddess tried to recruit Bianca to an immortal (and very tempting) eternal grils club complete with matching outfits and a mission to kill savage monsters for sport. Somehow, she turned her down and lived to tell the tale.

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girls*

Percy showed up, hefting the red flag (wasn't he supposed to stay behind?) and Zoe was so clearly going to beat him to the punch that Bianca just acted without thinking.

Click to shrink...

The earth rumbled like it was in the middle of an earthquake, and the dirt beneath her foot tore as a crevice erupted from the point of impact, a massive sinkhole tearing through the ground and growing, appearing to chase after Zoe

Click to shrink...

And Zoe stood back up, eyes wide and staring at them, flag held aloft

Click to shrink...

"Hey, didn't Zoe cross the line? Isn't the game over

Click to shrink...

Zoë*

Perseus Jackson!" Thalia cried, storming toward him. She smelled like rotten eggs, and she was so mad that blue sparks flickered on her armor. Everybody cringed and backed up because of Aegis. It took all Percy's willpower not to hold his nose and retreat.

Click to shrink...

"Perseus Jackson!" Thalia cried,*

 

[DracoArgentum]

Nice Prophecy, I find that those are usually the hardest to get in a PJO fic if they are changed at all.
Its pretty dang hard to come up with one that makes sense and doesnt read like one of Apollos Haikus.

Great chapter, I really enjoy the impact Luna has been having, even if it appears very miniscule till now in the grand scheme of things, on a character driven level it has already done so very much.