WARNING! CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR CERTAIN FANDOMS! READ AT OWN RISK! :)
"This is it." The speaker of these words was Perseus Jackson (Percy for short), a teenager with black hair and eyes that echoed the sea. He was speaking to a group of other teenagers, all standing around a ping pong table in the Big House at Camp Half Blood. The first one, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, had auburn hair and electric green eyes. A huge black dragon was snoring in the corner of the room behind him. The second one, Sophie Foster, had blonde hair and brown eyes. She kept nervously fingering the pair of gloves she had on. The third one was Will Treaty. The brown-haired boy had a solemn look on his face that contrasted his normally cheerful grin.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Sophie asked, worriedly. "I mean, can't they control what happens to us?"
"They need to pay!" growled Will, his eyes glowing. "Do you know how much pain we've gone through for their pocketbooks? Alyss..." he trailed off, voice breaking.
"Do you know how many times I've been burned?" Percy complained. "There's only so much a guy can take, even with water powers."
"I lost a leg." Hiccup said shortly. Everyone looked at him sympathetically.
"That's horrible," Will said, frowning.
"Yeah," everyone chorused. There was an awkward silence in the room.
"It's all right, though!" Hiccup laughed. "Peg leg!" He held out his left leg for everyone to see. A metal prosthetic was attached just below the knee.
"We're going now," Percy spoke, diverting everyone back to the main subject, "before we can change our minds. Do you know where to take us, Sophie?"
Sophie sighed. "Yes. All of them are going to be at a book signing. I can light-leap us there."
"Well, daylight is wasting. Let's get this over with," Hiccup remarked, tapping his dragon Toothless on the head to wake him up. Everyone held hands in one long chain and Sophie, who was on the end, held up a light-leaping crystal.
"If only Keefe could see me now," she muttered, before dragging everyone into the light. "He would never let me hear the end of it."
The four teenagers materialized in a school gym, which had white tables set up everywhere. School banners were hanging on the walls. Cartons of books were stacked on the tables, authors peeking out from behind the volumes. There were at least half a dozen scribes there, but only four of them were targeted. Each book character marched over to his or her target.
"Hey! I want a word with you!" Percy bellowed. Middle school kids parted like the Red Sea to let the son of Poseidon through to Rick Riordan's table. "What did I ever do to you?" Percy questioned.
Hiccup slowly walked up to Cressida Cowell, his peg leg making a metallic clink every time his left foot hit the ground. His dragon, Toothless, trailed behind him with his tail sweeping across the floor. Hiccup spoke methodically, gesturing wildly with his hands. "I lost my mom. My father didn't understand me the first fifteen years of my life. I lost my leg. I got my mom back, but then immediately lost my dad! Do you know what that's like?"
John Flanagan actually screamed as the hooded figure of Will rose up in front of him. Will's soft, menacing voice had the effect of a whip. "You had to! She was the love of my life! You had to take her away from me!"
Sophie's eyes filled with tears as she faced her creator. Her words were flowered with emotion. "Why? Why did you do that? They were my parents!"
Hiccup's problem was resolved first. Cressida's face filled with sympathy. "I'm sorry, but I didn't write any of that," she said.
"What?" Hiccup responded, confused.
"I didn't plan any of what you just said. Dreamworks, an animated movie company, did."
"Movie? Animated?"
"Moving pictures. Drawings," she explained. "Dreamworks changed the plot line. The way I wrote it, your parents are alive and both of your legs are intact. Read the book if you don't believe me." Hiccup grabbed one of the copies of How to Fight a Dragon's Fury and flipped through it. As he did so, his face lit up in relief.
"This means I can go home and Dad will be there!" he beamed.
"I'm sorry, it doesn't." Cressida said sadly, shaking her head.
Hiccup frowned. "Why not?"
"Despite not being the world I intended for you, it's still the world that Dreamworks created for you. To put you, as the movie character, in the book would be disastrous. Two different Hiccups would be running around."
Hiccup nodded thoughtfully. He didn't like it, but he understood the necessity of it. "I guess I'll have to live with that. At least I can still know that Dad's still 'alive', even though he's not there with me." He looked Cressida in the eye. Hiccup thanked her for easing his mind. She nodded. He whistled to Toothless, interrupting his sniffing of a terrified fourth grader's fish sandwhich. The dragon bounded over and Hiccup clambered up in the saddle.
"If you ever see the Hiccup in the book, let him know how fortunate he is, would you?" Hiccup said wistfully. And with that parting remark, he swooped out of there on the Offspring of Lightning and Death.
Meanwhile, Will stood in front of John Flanagan. Will's fists were clenched, and he was shaking in rage. "She was the love of my life!" he roared.
John nodded in understanding. "I know, I know." John's Aussie accent stood out compared to the other authors. "Don't worry, mate! I'm planning on bringing her back in the next book, but I needed to give you a reason to get an apprentice."
Will narrowed his eyes. "I never wanted an apprentice! Why do you keep allowing your own characters to get beat up by new ones? The Brotherbands ring a bell? Gilan is way better than how you portrayed him. I disapprove of this!" He gestured to the stacks of The Royal Ranger on the table. John started to speak, but Will interrupted him.
"Nope." Will grabbed John by the collar and dragged him to the gym entrance. "Now get going! Start writing... something good!" he demanded. "I want Alyss back! I want the Brotherbands humiliated. Make me apprentice-less. And here's something to help you on the way!" Will shoved him roughly out the door. Unknowingly, he had just quoted his mentor, Halt's, very own words. Will nodded, satisfied, and leaned against the wall in the shadows to wait for the others to finish their business.
Sophie wiped her eyes as she stood in front of Shannon Messenger. "They were my parents!" she cried.
"Your human parents," Shannon corrected. "I didn't want to torture anyone (even if it is an added bonus), but it was necessary for the plot."
"It doesn't matter if they are human or not! They took care of me! Loved me! You kidnapped them for the sake of your stupid plot? And what about Wylie? Hasn't he gone through enough?"
"Wylie was mandatory. You and the others needed to find the Lodestar symbol and the secret room in the silver tower."
"Wylie's in a lot of pain right now. What you did was just plain evil!"
Shannon gestured to the copies of Lodestar on her table. "There's nothing you can do."
"That's where's you're wrong." Sophie said. She held up an elixir bottle. "Dex whipped me up a little thing this morning. Drink it."
Shannon's eyes grew wide. "No!"
"Drink. It. Now." Iggy, Sophie's pet imp, currently had bright purple curls. Shannon Messenger received something slightly worse. Instead of hair, bright orange feathers poofed out from her head. Giggles were heard all around the gym. Sophie stepped back, satisfied. She hadn't opted for anything drastic. After all, elven minds can't handle violence. It was revenge, Keefe style!
Meanwhile, Percy faced down Rick Riordan. His sea-green eyes were cold, more like a hurricane than calm waters.
"Do you know what Tartarus is like?" Percy asked coldly. "Do you know what it's like to lose six months of your life?" Riordan had nothing to say to that.
"My family almost thought I was dead! And what's up with making us Greeks look like a bunch of warriors who run around in chaos while the Romans sweep in to conquer us?" Percy shouted. He raised his arms up, summoning water from all of the drinking fountains and bathrooms in the building. Water gushed from them, and then leaped up, encasing Riordan. Percy's face was a mask as he commanded the waters tighter around the man. Riordan was flailing his arms wildly, panic etched on his visage.
"Percy!" Sophie shouted, grabbing Percy's arm. "Release him! He's had enough." Percy wasn't convinced.
"We're not murderers," Sophie whispered, her voice breaking on the last word. After a long hesitation, Percy nodded and released the water. Riordan fell to the ground.
"We're finished," Sophie declared. Percy and Will nodded. The latter pushed himself up from his comfortable position against the wall.
"Sophie, you need to hide these children's memories," Will said authoritatively, gesturing to all the children there. "They must not remember what happened here. You can do that, correct?"
"Yeah. Sir Tiergan showed me how." Sophie closed her eyes and concentrated, carefully hiding the memories of the day's events from the children's minds. A few minutes later, she opened her eyes. "We're good. Let's go!"
The characters held hands again and light-leaped back to where they had come from. The book signing continued, and everyone agreed that the past few minutes were the result of a freak mushroom accident in the cafeteria. They went on with their normal lives. All except for one Sophie had missed in her memory hide. That BookRider raced home and began typing furiously...