Discalimer : I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians much to my dismay. For if I did unspeakable things would happen that are best not mentioned here but let it be know that is was definitely the fault of the Stoll brothers and I had nothing to do with it. Rachel Elizabeth Dare is my witness.
YAY!~ I finally pubished something after almost... uhhh two years (Give or take) of being idle and not posting anything. And it's about NICO! The little twerp *cough* I mean... Nerd...wait... The guy just needs some love. Who says children of Hades have to be emo kids? Not me!~ Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 1
Over the course of my many years at Camp Half-blood Chloe had made a list of way in which she would not want to be woken up while at camp. She would never again want to wake up to the Stoll brothers snickering about something while sitting next to her bed, nor would she want to be woken by a herd of 'Party Ponies' which was the direct result of Connor and Travis's snickering in case you were wondering. However her least favorite way to wake up was with a screeching harpy less than an inch from her face. Sadly she tended to wake up this way more often than not, she supposed she should stop sneaking out of her cabin and falling asleep on the Big House roof.
It was another usual night when she was woken once again by this particular method, she had gone to the roof of the Big House to star gaze and had fallen asleep only to have one of the cleaning Harpies find her during the midnight rounds. Chloe cried out in surprise loudly when she was woken with the Harpy close to her face and jumped backwards to get some space but this only resulted with a nasty bump to her head courtesy of the Big House chimney which was behind her. At least she hadn't fallen off of the roof again.
Now Harpies aren't the most pleasant creatures to wake up to in the middle of the night. They were ugly creatures that looked like a mix between an old lady and a giant chicken. Their humanoid faces were wrinkled with sun spots everywhere and their scraggly black hair was always tied back and in a hairnet. Their arms were almost human, if not for the feathers protruding from them, and they had fat feathered bodies with wicked sharp talon's feet. Not to mention that their voices are possibly the most insufferable sounds on the entire planet. No, she really wasn't fond of these creatures.
"I'm going I'm going." she mumbled as she rubbed the now sore spot on the back of her head. It wasn't bleeding or anything like that, but a nasty bump had already formed. The Harpy was glaring at Chloe with her beady eyes but left, flapping her arms awkwardly as she descended from the roof more gracefully than a chicken lady should have been able to. She watched the creature disappear then looked around her. It had to be past midnight and the camp seemed virtually silent save for the occasional noise from some monster that lived in the woods nearby or the chirping of crickets.
Chloe was very sorely tempted to just lie back down and go back to sleep, but she knew that the Harpy would be back to make sure she had gone back to her cabin. The young Demigod stifled a yawn as she climbed off of the Big House; or more like jumped off the edge, landing in a crouching position. She had always hated how sleepy she felt after being abruptly woken, especially when her sleep had been uninterrupted by the prophetic dreams that usually plagued half-bloods. Even so she headed back to the Hermes cabin as quickly as she could lest the Harpies find her again.
Even though Chloe was a member of the Hermes cabin she was not actually a daughter of the god of thieves. She was the only camper who had not been claimed in the years since Percy Jackson had made the gods vow to claim all of their children. She hadn't really been expecting to be claimed anyway; she's spent almost her whole life at the camp. She'd been brought here when she was three from an orphanage where she had been found by an old satyr who had since retired from his days as a protector. The old goat had brought Chloe to Chiron to raise as a proper half-blood fighter, because even at the age of three monsters were able to smell her out from miles away. How she had managed to survive until she was found was a complete mystery. But now she was at camp, still an orphan and still unclaimed. She didn't even have an idea as to who her mortal parent could be, or even if she had a mortal parent.
Chloe entered the Hermes cabin quietly, lest she wake any of the troublemakers that slept peacefully in the numerous bunks around the cabin. It wasn't exactly a wise decision to wake a child of Hermes unless you really wanted to end up with a giant scorpion in your bunk. So Chloe went about getting herself ready for bed as quietly as she could then crawled into her bed and curled up under the blankets to drift into a sleep she had a feeling wouldn't be very resting.
Chloe gasped as she fell to the ground, rolling to lessen impact and avoid crushing the detailed gazelle horn bow in her hands. She looked behind her frantically as she pulled herself up onto her knees she couldn't see much in the dark area she was in but the sound of something slithering towards her caused her skin to crawl and enforced her feeling of urgency to escape this place.
"Chloe come on!" A voice somewhere ahead of her called and she turned her head to look at a figure some feet ahead of her that was motioning for her to get up and follow. She couldn't see him very well because of the poor light but she knew he was a friend.
Scrambling to her feet she unstrung her bow as she began running and fluidly put it in the quiver of arrows on her back. Arrows would do her no good here, they'd already tried to fight their way out and it hadn't worked the first two times.
"Where are we going?" Chloe asked between gasps for air as she caught up with the boy who had been ahead of her. She didn't bother slowing to glance at him. She knew without looking that he was keeping pace with her. "Don't tell me you know your way around here."
"We have to find Harmony and get out of here before that crazed snake finds us. I'm just hoping we'll find a dungeon as we run." He replied as he abruptly rounded a corner. He grabbed her arm and pulled her along with him before she ran past and she almost tripped again as she was pulled through a door that was closed quickly behind her.
The room was significantly lighter than the dark hallway in which they had been running and she chanced a glance beside her to her companion as he caught his breath. His back was turned to her so all she really saw was the back of his jacket but the fact that he was there was still a relief. In the dark one could never really be sure who was with them, especially in a place like this.
"Think we can hide out here for a while?" She asked after she had caught her breath. She leaned against the door behind her and looked around the room. It was exotic looking, like they were in an indoor jungle. Palm trees and ferns were everywhere and she even thought she saw a few coconuts on the ground.
"Uh... maybe not."
Chloe looked over at her companion and noticed the tense posture of his shoulders as he looked at something ahead of him. It didn't take the girl long to notice what had his attention because she saw it just as she heard a menacing hiss come from the large black mass that rested on the floor several meters away from the two demigods.
"Please don't tell me that's another snake!" Chloe groaned even as the mass began moving.
The hissing became louder as the small black mountain moved and after a moment the head of the serpent became visible. It was the head of an enormous black king cobra, hood open and looking at the two demigods as if they were lunch. The cobra's head swayed back and forth and Chloe drew out her bow swiftly even as her companion pulled out his sword. The snake hissed at them and its mouth opened to reveal dozens of large, sharp and poisonous looking teeth.
"I so blame you for this!" Chloe shouted as she fired an arrow just as the snakes head shot towards them.
Chloe woke with a start, cold sweat making her hair stick uncomfortably to her face and neck. Her head was pounding as if a construction crew was working with a bulldozer inside her skull. She held her head in her hands trying to think coherently around the aching. What in Hades was that dream about? And what was making her head pound as if she had taken a hit, if not several, from Clarisse. She had a feeling that it had something to do with how she had bashed it on the chimney the night before. As for the dream... it gave her a bad feeling. It had all the tell tale signs of one of those prophetic dreams demigods sometimes had and it looked like she and some other hapless camper were going to become snake chow. Great.
After a few minutes her head didn't hurt quite as much and her thoughts became clearer but her mind was still consumed with thoughts of the bizarre dream. Still thinking about it she got sluggishly out of bed to get ready for the day since it was about the time that she usually got up anyway. Quickly she took a shower and dressed in her usual camp T-shirt and a pair of shorts. She was already brushing her teeth before anyone else started to get up but she didn't notice them immediately because she was staring blankly at her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she brushed her teeth.
"Hey, hello... Earth to Chloe!" A hand waved in front of her face and her eyes snapped over to the nearly identical faces of Connor and Travis Stoll. They were staring at her intently and immediately she was out on guard.
"You alright? You've been staring into space for almost ten minutes while we called your name." Travis said casually as if it was no big deal. "Other people want to use the bathroom so hurry up or we'll be late for breakfast."
Chloe blinked a couple of times then slowly nodded and finished brushing her teeth. She watched the brothers invade the bathroom with a wary expression; it was unlike them to act concerned, especially towards her, she had made it very clear to them that she could take care of herself. She was probably being paranoid, but one had to be wary of the children of Hermes, especially after last week when a few of the newly claimed campers had thought it would be funny to throw Chloe's bow and quiver into the lake, along with her hunting knives. Now her knives were rusted and her bow and arrows were logged with water. In not so many words they were totally useless.
A scowl crossed her face as she thought about her ruined weapons; weapons she had had almost her whole life. Chiron had given her those weapons when she had first started training to fight when she was six. Sure they were old and worn and the bow was too small for her now, but these weapons were much like old friends. Needless to say that the new campers had quickly learned not to touch her belongings ever again and Chloe refused to help them figure out how to turn the kids newly acquired paws back into hands but eventually the satyrs had used some nature magic to help fix the problem. The kids still wouldn't go near Chloe if they could help it.
While Chloe waited for her cabin mates to get ready she made her bed, probably the only clean thing in the cabin, and pulled on her worn sneakers. She went over a list of her activities in her head and then went and began helping a few of the younger camper try to clean their bunks before they left for breakfast.
Breakfast was uneventful as ever, Mr. D made some very lack luster announcements but no one really paid hi much attention until Chiron stood and announced that they would be playing another game of capture the flag tonight. The entire camp had been on edge since the last game when Percy had stolen the flag from the Ares cabin. That meant that tonight it would be Poseidon against Athena, and the dream team of Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase would be going head to head against each other. All the cabins had already chosen sides and the teams were pretty even, if you were going by body count alone but there were a lot of bets going that Annabeth's team would win. Not only did she have the strategic power of the entire Athena cabin behind her, but she had managed to acquire the Ares, Apollo and Hephaestus cabins; that meant all the best fighter and archers were on her team along with the Hephaestus cabin's traps which would be laid out in places where people were guaranteed to get hit. Chloe almost wished she was on Annabeth's team. Almost. Chloe was one of the best at capture the flag, she had an uncanny ability to vanish into the woods almost as effectively as Annabeth's invisibility cap and she was confident that her team could pull off a victory.
When breakfast had finished the campers went to their morning activates but Chloe found that she couldn't concentrate on anything because her mind kept going back to her dream which was little more than a fuzzy memory by this point. She was wondering who the boy in the dream was and what exactly the two had been doing to get into the mess that they were in. She was suddenly broken from her thoughts when a hand descended on her shoulder and the bench she was sitting on moved slightly as someone sat on next to her. Chloe glanced to either side of her and was not at all surprised to discover that it was her two best friends who had come to disturb her.
The one with her hand on Chloe's shoulder was Sophia Pyros, daughter of Hephaestus. She was a girl with dark hair and intelligent green eyes; her face and arms were almost always smeared with dirt and grease along with the rest of her. The only things free of grime were the dog tags around her neck that had one belonged to her grandmother and then her mother who had both been mechanics in the army.
The other girl was the exact opposite being much smaller and cleaner than Sophia, who was tall and toned with lean muscles. This was Samantha Hearst, she was a pretty daughter of Aphrodite and like all of her siblings she had perfect makeup and clothes. Not to mention her hair which was honey blonde and styled with ringlets that cascaded out of a high pony tail and down her back. Her eyes were never quite the same color, but seemed to rest most often on a deep sapphire blue. Her father had been a French supermodel, but he had died in a tragic accident that Chloe had learned not to mention. Both girls were year-rounders like Chloe was and many people were amazed that the three got along do well considering how different they all were. Samantha was the girliest of girly girls, Sophia liked to be in the forge up to her elbows in ash and grease while Chloe could always be found outdoors, more often than not in the woods or the stables.
"Hey Knickers, you've been distracted all day. What's eating you?" Sophia asked in her husky voice that was a result of spending too much time inhaling smoke in the forges of her cabin. Chloe's face turned red at the nickname, Sophia had been calling her that since their first embarrassing meeting which had involved some pegasi, a magic marker, an hour glass, a lyre and a pair of underwear. The name never failed to light up Chloe's face like a Christmas tree.
"Would you stop calling me that?" Chloe grumbled and out of the corner of her eye she saw the dark haired girl crack a smug grin.
"Chloe, answer the question!" Samantha scolded in a sing song voice and rested her head on Chloe's shoulder as she put and appealing pout on her face. "If you have your head in the clouds you're not going to be very useful at capture the flag tonight."
"Is that all you're worried about?" Sophia snapped gruffly. "What about her well being?"
"I do care about her well being! But I also care about winning tonight's game and showing up the Athena cabin." Samantha protested.
Chloe sighed. She was used to their bickering by now. "You just want to show off for Malcolm."
Samantha gasped as if in shock, like the idea was totally preposterous, but her face had turned red none the less. The other two just grinned; it was painfully obvious that Sam had it really bad for the son of Ares. Thing was that she'd never even spoken two words at a time to him and he didn't even seem to know that she existed. Talk about a tragic love story.
"Stop changing the subject!" Samantha exclaimed with the most adorable pout she could muster on her face. "The issue at hand is Chloe's obliviousness to the world around her! Are you having boy trouble dear?"
Chloe raised an eyebrow as if to say 'seriously?' She had never in her time at camp had any interest in dating or giggling about boys. She was about as knowledgeable about love and boys as Sam was about the inner workings of Leo Valdez's automation Dragon. But she didn't say anything and just shrugged and rubbed her head.
"It's nothing like that. I just had a weird dream last night and it's really been bugging me. There was this giant snake and a boy..." She stopped abruptly knowing she had said more than she should. Sophia simply grunted in acknowledgment; Sam however looked a bit dazzled.
"So it IS about a boy!" She practically squealed. "What was his name? Was he cute? What were you doing?"
"You know I would have paid attention to all that stuff had we not been running for our lives and getting attacked by a great dirty snake!" Chloe said a little irritably. What did it matter if he was cute or not? They were about to be eaten!
"No need to get snippy. It was just a dream after all." Sam said with a huff looking put out and Chloe felt a little guilty. She wasn't normally so snippy with Sam, but for some reason she was suddenly feeling very touchy, as if Sam's concern for the boy in the dream had touched a nerve.
"Maybe it wasn't just a dream." Sophia said. "Chloe has prophetic dreams more than anyone else at camp aside from the Apollo campers and Rachel. Though usually only in short snippets that have no significance or make no sense. Maybe she was having one of those." It seemed reasonable but this only seemed to serve to make Chloe even more worried about the dream.
"Great... I'm destined to become an evening snack with some boy I don't even know." She sighed throwing her hands up into the air exasperatedly. "Maybe I should talk to Rachel about this."
"It would be a good idea, but you should wait till after tonight's game otherwise you'll be thinking about it all night and get pulverized by the Ares kids." Sam said and smiled charmingly when the other two girls sent her deadpanned looks.
Chloe sighed and got up from the bench. "I suppose you're right. I'll go talk to Rachel tomorrow, but right now I need to eat some lunch and then take a nap."
After lunch Chloe went back to the Hermes cabin and tried to fall asleep but all she could do was manage to toss and turn on her bunk without feeling the slightest bit of sleepiness. She wondered if maybe she should visit the Hypnos cabin and see if Clovis could give her something to sleep, but she knew very well that if she went into that Cabin she may never come back out.
Finally though, Chloe managed to doze off into a half sleep. It wasn't resting, or anything of the like. Instead another vivid dream came to Chloe.
This dream seemed more sinister than the last. Chloe was in a dark room once again. This one lit only by a handful of candles that lined the large room one shelves of varying height. The room itself was undecorated aside from various scenes of death that were painted onto the walls. Upon closer inspection Chloe recognized them as scenes from the famous Trojan war that had taken place more than a millennia ago.
Something in the room moved, gaining Chloe's attention and she turned, though she wasn't actually physically there, a woman was sitting on a large throne like chair at the head of the room that she hadn't noticed before. She was looking at something behind Chloe but the girl found that when she looked she could see nothing at all but the dark hall around her.
"Everything is set to begin. Strife and Discord will soon create another war. A war to put the Trojan, World Wars and the War with Kronos to shame." The woman said with a wicked smile on her face. "We just have one more errand to finish. I trust you have that covered?"
"Yesss Missstresss" A silky slithering voice that made the hair on Chloe's neck stand on end answered from somewhere in the room. Chloe couldn't see the source of it but she could feel the presence of the person... or thing that it belonged to. "Everything isss ssset. But what ssshall we do about the demigodssss? Sssurely they will try to interfere."
"Don't worry about them. Within the week everyone in that camp will be pitted against each other. No one will care to tamper with our plans. Even the gods will feel my wrath in this war." The first woman responded with an uninterested shrug. "And even if they do I'm sure you can handle a couple of the god's whelps without much trouble."
"Of courssse."
Once again Chloe found herself waking suddenly and sitting up so fast her head began spinning, even so she looked around wildly and upon realizing she was in the Hermes cabin she relaxed. She was no longer in that dark room with the sinister voices and plans of war, she was warm in her bunk at camp where she would be playing a nice and (relatively) safe game of capture the flag. It took her several seconds to realize what time it was. She had already missed supper and the game would be starting soon if the watch on her wrist was anything to go by.
With a curse she grabbed her armor and the spare sword she had borrowed from the camps weapon's stock and dashed out of the Hermes cabin, hastily pulling on said armor as she bolted toward the forest where Chiron was just finishing going over the rules. The centaur spare her a glance as she joined the crowd of campers who were to be her teammates but didn't say anything to draw attention to her lateness. Somehow she suspected that they'd be having a long talk about why she had missed supper and was late for the game.
Samantha and the Stroll brothers greeted Chloe with small smiles as she joined them and she gave an encouraging nod to Percy who somehow managed to look excited, determined and terrified all at the same time while he constantly glanced over at Annabeth who was talking quietly with some of her siblings. Chloe was glad that he wasn't given the chance to worry long because soon the teams split up to find good places to set their flags and set up a strategy of attack.
"I'll be in charge of the defense of our flag." Percy declared once they had put their flag in a place that it would be visible to the other team, as was the rule. The team was gathered around him listening closely.
"Don't want to face your girlfriend?" One camper called out and several others snickered.
""No..." Said Percy with a serious face. "Annabeth will probably lead the attack to get our flag and she'll be using her invisibility cap to do it. I'm fairly certain I can predict her teams plan of attack. That being said, Chloe and the Stolls are going to be in charge of the attack team so listen up."
By the time the strategy had been decided on the team only had a few seconds before the conch horn blew, the signal to begin the game. Chloe was heading the attack team with Travis, Connor and a small group of Hermes campers along with Sam and one of her braver brothers. The plan was to let the two Aphrodite campers cause a distraction so the others could slip by and noticed. It was a simple plan that could be foiled easily but it was a chance they were willing to take.
Chloe was ahead of the rest of the group, leading them silently and stealthily through the trees since she had excellent night vision and was almost like a ghost passing through the trees, without her in the lead the team would have been caught on enemy territory at least seven times. She'd also ha to back track at least twice since they had lost her track. The sounds of battle were all around them but they managed to pass by all of the fighting undetected and followed the shouts of enemy campers all the way to where they had their flag set up.
The blue flag had been set high in a tree that was at least four stories tall and stood alone in the middle of a clearing lit up by the nearly full moon above them. It was almost guaranteed that archers were hidden among the trees waiting for anyone who got too close to the tree. There were probably traps around the clearing as well, pits of Greek fire and land mines filled with laughing gas that would go off and leave anyone in a ten foot radius easy pickings for the archers.
"I'm going for it." Travis said but Chloe caught his arm and pulled him back.
"That's what they want you to do. As soon as you get close... if you can get close, they're going to have you on the ground looking like a pin cushion." Chloe said as she scanned the trees looking for any of the archers hidden nearby.
"If that's the case no one will be able to get out there fast enough." Connor argued but they had to admit, she had a point.
"Cause a distraction, I can get up there and get the flag while their busy with you. Just make sure they think you're going for the flag." Chloe said edging back into the trees and disappearing into the foliage, one of the archers had spotted them. The brothers nodded and motioned for the other campers to follow them into the clearing. Almost immediately they were fending off arrows but Chloe didn't stay to help. She skirted around the edge of the clearing until she found an area where she was sure there weren't as many traps, then dashed over to the tree, setting off an obnoxious alarm that alerted the whole camp that the Athena flag had been found.
Chloe couldn't do anything but ignore the alarm and began climbing the tree as fast as she could. The flag was a fair way up so it took her a minute or two to reach it. It was when she had finally grabbed the flag that everything started to go horribly wrong. The ground shook violently and the branches of the tree trembled. Chloe looked down and saw that one of the campers had tripped over a nearly invisible string in an attempt to avoid an arrow that was covered with Greek fire. The arrow in turn had tripped a land mine at the base of the tree and suddenly the branches were catching fire.
No one seemed to notice the fire spreading up the trunk of the tree immediately and it was only when the dryad who lived in the tree shrieked in pain over the alarm did everyone stop what they were doing and noticed the fire, but it was already too late. The tree was old and beginning to rot through the trunk, with the fire added the tree snapped like a dry twig and lurched as it began to fall. Campers stopped fighting and scattered to get out of the way but Chloe didn't have time to get out of the tree and as it fell she lost her grip on the branch she was on and was thrown into the air with a cry of panic.
Hate it? Like it? Reviews would be much appreciated so I could get some input! No flames though please they depress me, although constructive criticism and suggestions are always welcome!~
I have a few more chapters typed up on my computer (I usually do a rough draft in my scribbler) and they will be posted according to how the response to the story is.
PartÃdes tou lov~(Yeah that's Greek for "Lots of love" at least that's what Google translate tells me.)
Peter~