All right, let's get to business with a few things…AUTHOR'S NOTE! I'll be doing this at the beginning of each chapter and save you from hearing me rant at the end of the chapters—which happen to be pretty long chapters, mind you. ;) Anyway, before my ADHD makes me switch topics, I do not own PJO. If I did Lazel would be an official couple, there would be more Jasper moments, Reyna would show up more, the ISWASS characters would be in PJO, and Nico di Angelo would be MINE. XD I'd tell you I was kidding but I'm not.
Secondly, this story "It Started With A Shooting Star" is written by two people with special help from my friend who we will be calling Kitty since I won't use her real name here. It's a collab by me, xxxSilver-Nightlarkxxx, you can call me Aris or Eve E, and my friend NovemberRain29 (if you want you can search her since she has her own profile). You can call her Rain. Yup, we go by our ISWASS (it started with a shooting star) character names. I'm Aris. Rain is Rain. Kitty is Kass. I write for Kass, Aris, and later on, I'll be writing as Will Solace. Rain is writing for Rain, Jake, and Nico…yes, di Angelo.
Third, FLAMES WILL BE TAKEN CARE OF BY LEO AND JAKE (OC). Don't like, don't read it. I'm not forcing you to so, hopefully, I won't have to deal with flames. Not being mean, just being blunt.
Fourth, hope you like it. It's set in between The Last Olympian and The Lost Hero so no, Nico is less…um…emo? Depressive? Whatever word you want to use for that, Nico isn't as dark as he was in The Battle of the Labyrinth and in Mark of Athena. I don't really know if he's OOC because Rain's doing a pretty good job of his point of view (that's my opinion). There's a Nico/OC and OC/OC and a future Will/OC pairing.
Lastly, we've gotten really far into the story but I've only started posting it now so don't worry. You won't have to wait too long for updates. WARNING: This story is rated T because of mild cursing (mostly in Latin but to be safe…), talks about things like bras on flagpoles, and other very strange crap…so parental supervision is not advised (because we might be shipped to the asylum if anyone else found out about this). We're really like this on school and stuff so you can't really judge. XD
Point is, read on and enjoy! Reviews are really welcome! I'd love to hear from you!
-Eve E/Aris
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Prologue
-Aris-
It wasn't supposed to come true. In fact, it wasn't supposed to even be real. It started with a shooting star on a cold, December night. It had started with us, three ordinary—well as ordinary as we can get—girls watching movies and throwing popcorn and pillows at each other, enjoying the Sunday before Monday morning could come and ruin our fun. It was just the same old tradition on another boring Sunday. Nothing was supposed to be different. Nothing was even out of the ordinary until it flew across the night sky and like normal people would've done, we wished.
It started like this. "KASSIO CORALOV, YOU ARE SO DEAD!" I screamed, throwing a pillow at my childhood best friend and the girl who we had taken in when she was little. The blonde, rainbow-eyed girl ducked just as the pillow flew at her and missed her by just a hair. Kassio—or who had always been called Kass or Kassie Cat when we were teasing her—let out a loud whine. "RAIN, HELP ME! Aris is being mean to me!" Kass called, diving behind my sister who looked at me with raised eyebrows. "She dumped the half of her chips on my head!" I snapped, glaring at the rainbow-highlighted blonde behind her. "Because you dumped my popcorn down my shirt," Kass protested, "and now it's in my bra!"
Rain laughed and tucked her black hair behind her ear as she regarded me with wicked eyes. "Don't pick on Kass without me!" She said before diving at me, holding a bag of peanuts in her other hand. I screamed and pulled myself up on my bunk bed. Rain turned and laughed when she saw me. "Coward of a Nightlark," She called and I proceeded to climb up the ladder leading to Kassio's bunk bed over mine. "HELP ME!" I screamed to no one in particular. "I'M ALLERGIC TO PEANUTS!" But to be honest, everyone in our room knew that was a lie. I lived for peanut butter. Rain climbed up the ladder after me and I huddled at the far corner of Kass's bed. She made it to the top before I came to my senses and threw a pillow at her face. She growled and I jumped off the side of the bunk bed before she could catch me.
Kass froze—her rainbow-highlights standing out on the right side of her hair like a red flag—when she saw me and I pulled her in an arm lock. "HUMAN SHIELD," I announced as Rain turned around to look at me. Her black hair was in disarray and the red tips at the bottom shone like fire. Her eyes were full of mischief but even so, I didn't flinch under her gaze. She wasn't much stronger than me and I was much quicker than her. She charged at me and I shove Kass into her. They landed on the floor with a loud thump and if our mother was here, I knew she would've come in and looked at me instantly. Of course, most of the mischief was done by me but did everyone feel the need to rub that in? I mean, I wasn't always the reason for every prank or injury in this house!
Rain and Kass struggled to get up but I ran over and sat on them, getting a loud groan from Rain and more struggling from Kass. I flicked her on the forehead. "Now, now, now, be a good little Kassie Cat and stay still." I chided. "Besides, I'm only 87 pounds! Rain is the fat one!" Rain pushed me off her—glaring at me probably—"I'm not even 100 pounds, you midget!" She shouted. "I'm not a midget! I'm 5'1 and I'm so sorry I'm not as tall as you and Kass!" I snapped. Then she grabbed the peanuts. I started to scream and she grabbed a hold of me and shoved half of the case of peanuts down my shirt but instead of freaking out, I began to laugh. "I don't care!" I sang and Rain and Kass looked at me like I had grown another head. "What?" Kass exclaimed. "I don't wear a bra when I go to sleep, idiot! It's not uncomfortable." I giggled as I shook out my shirt and all the peanuts fell out of it.
"You get breast cancer from sleeping with a bra on, you know." I told them matter-of-factly and I saw Rain roll her eyes. "You say that all the time. I think I would remember that." She said, looking exasperated. Kass, on the other hand, sighed. "Can we not talk about this?!" Kass pleaded. "Yeah, we can talk about how we need to go to sleep." Rain replied. Kass began to whine and I groaned. "BUT I DON'T WANT TO!" Kass and I shouted in unison. Rain's smile darkened and she smirked as she dragged both of us by the collar and over to the mess on the floor. "Then you can clean up." She said, looking evilly at us. "NO!" We screamed in unison and she laughed. "Go to sleep and I'll go get the broom." She said and her tone was final. "Fine, Rainy," I replied and when she left, Kitty and I ran to the balcony and stepped out.
We looked up at the sky and I smiled to myself. "There aren't a lot of stars in Manhattan, huh, Kassie Cat?" I remark. "I know and it's sad. Stars are really pretty." She answers. "Always the simple-minded, aren't you?" I comment and Kass laughs. "I'm Kassio. It's in my blood or whatever." She replies and I laugh. Suddenly, Kass grabs my arm and points at the sky. Her eyes light up in excitement. "It's a shooting star! Quick, make a wish, Aris!" She exclaims and I look up to see a star fly across the sky. "I wish…there were such things as magic and if there already is magic, I'd be a part of it." I wished out-loud. "I wish…that dream I had last night had been real." Kass wished and I turned to her. "What dream?" I asked. "I'll tell you tomorrow. Rain will freak if she finds out we're not in bed." She promises and I nod.
When we climb into our beds—my bunk bed under Kass's and Rain's twin-sized bed next to ours—I can't help but pray that my wish would come true because all my life, weird things had always happened. There was that time in kindergarten when I made a toy levitate and fly towards me and Mom had taken me out of that school when she had found out. Rain had an incident during our uncle's wake—when I was only a year old—where she had started crying and the gravestones started vibrating and Mom had to take Rain—who was a three that time—out of the graveyard before she started anymore trouble. When Kassio's father had went missing—her mother was already dead—we took her in and she had this weird aura around her that looked like a rainbow.
There were other times that strange things had happened as well. In third grade, Kass and I had been in the same class and she was dancing around on the playground. A huge rainbow had appeared above her all of a sudden even if it hadn't rained. When Rain was in second grade, she was on a field trip to a war museum and she made all those weird skeletons move. In fourth grade, I got really mad at my classmate and I had said something like, 'Temerarius' and she suddenly got rashes and had to be sent home.
Another time, during fifth grade, Kass and I had gone on a field trip to a museum full of Greek and Roman artifacts. Kass had translated a bunch of inscriptions on the pottery and weapons. When we were walking around the Roman wing, Kass had sworn that I had spoken fluent Latin while passing the displays and the caretaker—who happened to speak Latin—had conversed with me. She told me that we had talked for over five minutes and she swore she wasn't kidding but I don't speak Latin and Kass doesn't speak or understand Greek.
Rain had an incident in sixth grade when she had sworn that her Science teacher had fangs, talons, and leathery wings. Mom had moved her to another school in seventh grade when she heard. When Kass and I were in sixth grade—she had been eleven and I was turning twelve—we were followed around campus by a guy with hooves and goat horns who ate tin cans for lunch. Mom had played it cool when we told her but I could tell she was anxious and torn between taking us out and letting us stay. Rain had talked to her but Kass and I hadn't been able to hear a single thing they had said so, we had begun to suspect. But we had stayed in the same school. But so far, this seventh grade, nothing out of the norms had happened.
I wondered if we were all different and that we weren't just normal first year high school and seventh grade girls. Rain was the one who seemed to know what Mom did and maybe that was because she was fourteen and Mom must've trusted her with information she never told either of us but I was dying to know because honestly, I knew we didn't belong here in a place full of mundane people. There was others like us and I swore it was true but if I asked Rain, she'd never tell me even if she knew and even I wouldn't be able to tell much besides whether she was lying to me or not. I couldn't ask Mom because when I did, she hadn't even said a thing to me until the next day. But I swore on everything I believed in, something was going on and if that shooting star worked, I was going to find out.
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AN: I've uploaded this at the same time as the other chapters so read on…! (Unless you don't like it then never mind that)
