Chapter 1.

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. All characters within this story belong to Rick Riordan except for Damien Black.

Damien Black scanned the decked out gymnasium for the fifth time in three minutes. He had never been one for middle school dances, especially not when they were held at military academies. The kids always went absolutely nuts as soon as they heard about any sort of special event held at the school. Usually, Damien would just sneak off to the dorms and spend the whole of his night there, but Westover Hall had taken extra measures to make sure that every student was forced to attend the dance by locking the doors to the dorms until the dance was over. This meant that Damien was stuck in the gym with the rest of his annoying schoolmates for the whole night

Red and black balloons were scattered all over the gym floor, and some kids from the fourth grade were already kicking them in each other's faces. Then there were a few that had decided to strangle each other with similarly coloured crepe-paper streamers. Damien supposed that he should have felt more than a little twinge of annoyance at the sight after spending most of that weeks' worth of community service helping out the homecoming committee with the decorations but he couldn't care less. There were a couple of people around that shared in Damien's boredom, but that was probably less than one percent of Westover Hall's military cadets. Girls huddled together much like Damien would imagine a pack of piranhas did, garbed in garishly coloured pants, tops that would probably freeze them solid if they took a step outside and enough make-up to make a clown cringe. Every once in a while, they'd catch sight of a poor guy and surround him like they'd scented blood, shrieking and giggling before they moved on, leaving the victim with ribbons in his hair and lipstick marks all over his face. Damien made sure that he stayed safe and comfy in his little shadowy nook and away from their line of sight.

Across the room, Damien glimpsed a couple of his underclassmen arguing near the bleachers; the di Angelo's. Bianca di Angelo, the older of the two, was a girl of average height with silky black hair that was always hidden beneath a floppy green cap-which was one of the reasons she was often sent to detention, she refused to take it off-and dark eyes. She was in the sixth grade, while her brother was in the fourth. Her brother, Nico, shared her dark hair and olive skin. He was pretty obsessed with a trading card game called Mythomagic. It was pretty annoying really when the kid talked about the game pretty much in every other sentence. But he was a good kid; pretty protective of his sister too. Damien didn't mind admitting that he'd come to be somewhat fond of the two of them, especially as he had shared most of his detentions with the brother-sister duo. They were much like him, in that they were orphans with only a somewhat lucrative trust fund to their names. At the moment, Bianca was scolding Nico again, but every few seconds she would glance around like she could sense something, much like Damien could. The air was tense.

Damien would have been sipping on a cup of punch just to distract himself if the thing they were serving hadn't tasted like someone had dumped a whole vending machines' worth of soft drinks into the bowl. While the sugar may not actually kill him, he did not want to be bouncing off the walls for the rest of the night, he was anxious enough as it was.

The whole month, Damien had been feeling on edge and as the dance had neared the more jittery he'd felt. Which was why Damien had been given an in-school suspension and two weeks' of community service by Ms Gottschalk for busting up Brad Muller's nose the last time the bully had attempted to try something at the dorms again. Then there had been the dreams that he'd been having with increasing frequency that week, the flashing of bronze claws and bright glowing blue eyes kept waking him up in a cold sweat whenever he closed his eyes for longer than a minute. There was just a feeling about that night however that made him like everything was culminating to it, like something was going to happen that night.

Damien shifted his shoulders, feeling the comforting weight of his guitar case press against his shoulders, and fiddled with his sleeve, making sure the leather holster he wore was completely concealed. He breathed easier knowing he had his possessions on him. And then shook his head for feeling that way. He was sounding like a paranoid old man. Perhaps he should take a sip of the punch, then maybe his stomach wouldn't feel like there was a lead weight in it.

Looking around to make sure that the coast was clear, Damien made his way towards the food table as quickly and sneakily as possible, probably looking like an idiot as he did as well, ducking and weaving in between students whenever one the girls turned his way. He breathed a sigh of relief when he finally made it to the punch bowl without being accosted.

He was ladling a spoonful of the drink into a plastic cup when someone said, "Nice moves there, James Bond."

Damien refused to admit that the noise he made when he dropped the ladle and cup sounded anything like a shriek, at all, no matter how many times anyone said otherwise.

He whirled around, wild-eyed and arm raised-he wasn't sure if it was too punch someone or protect his face, really-but the owner of the voice quickly took a step back arms raised in an act of reassurance. "Whoa!"

It was a girl, so Damien remained tense until he realised that she wasn't doing anything except giving him an amused look. She was about his age, seventeen years old, and had spiky black hair that reached the top of her shoulders. The mix of punk and Goth clothes that she wore made her pale skin stand out even more under the lights of the gymnasium. And her eyes were such an electric blue that they looked like they were made out of pure electricity. The arching of a dark eyebrow made him realise that he had been staring at her like an idiot with his arm raised in mid-punch.

He immediately dropped his hand back to his side and cleared his throat, ears burning in embarrassment. When the heat in his ears had receded, Damien looked back at her to find the girl smirking at him. He scowled right back. "Who the hell are you?" he asked gruffly.

The girl's eyes narrowed and she crossed her arms. "Thalia," she said curtly. "My friend Grover here told me that you helped him out a couple of times." The sceptical look in her eyes told Damien that she doubted that statement right about then.

He looked at the form that seemed to be cowering behind her and his eyes widened when he realised that it was indeed Grover Underwood, one of his fellow eight-graders and the only person in the school that looked older than Damien was aside from the teachers. Grover was a small boy despite his apparent age, shorter than the Thalia girl even, and had a wispy brown goatee that the teachers somehow let him get away with. Some of Damien's dorm mates-who were also in the same grade as he was-liked to pick on Grover because he always seemed like he was going to cry whenever he was pressured and the fact that he had a muscular disease in his legs that made him walk funny. Damien had indeed helped the guy out a couple of times when Brad Muller and his goons tried to mess with the guy right in front of him but otherwise they'd never really interacted much.

"Grover," Damien greeted when the guy peeked over his friends shoulder.

"Oh, hey, Damien," Grover responded nervously. He looked like he wanted to be doing anything but talking to Damien at that moment, but that was what Grover always looked like most of the time so Damien wasn't really offended. "How's the punch?"

"It tastes like someone mixed together every soda that has ever been made," Damien answered.

"Oh," Grover looked crestfallen.

Thalia glared at him, looking like she actually was going to punch him for somehow hurting the boy's feelings, but before that happened, another girl's voice cut through the bad music that was currently playing. "Thalia! Grover! There you are!" a blonde girl suddenly emerged out of the crowd looking frantic. "Thank the gods."

"Annabeth? What's wrong?" Thalia and Grover immediately turned to the girl. "Where's Percy?" Grover asked.

Annabeth whirled around to look at where she'd come from. "He was just behind me! Ugh, that stupid Seaweed Brain!"

"What did you come looking for us for?" Thalia demanded instead.

"The di Angelo's, they're gone!" Annabeth said.

Damien frowned. "What do you mean the di Angelo's are gone?!" he said, his tone coming out harsher than he meant to.

"Hey, back off!" Thalia growled, shoving him back.

Damien glared at Thalia. "Don't tell me what to do!" Damien growled back, resisting the urge to shove her back. His father may not have been the best man-father or otherwise-while alive but the one thing he'd stood by was to never hit a woman, and Damien was willing to honour to only noble thing Alexander Black had ever taught him.

"Thalia, it's okay," Annabeth quickly interjected. "We have to go. Thorn's probably got them, and knowing Percy, he's probably doing something stupid right about now."

"Wait, Dr Thorn?" Damien asked. "Tall, middle-aged, grey hair, stick stuck up his arse, French accent, glowing blue eye and gives you the heebie-jeebies?"

Annabeth arched an eyebrow, grey eyes confused-which from the frown on her face, Damien was sure she hated. "Yes."

"And you think he has the di Angelo's?" Damien questioned again. That lead weight in his stomach felt like it had gained a couple hundred pounds.

"YES!" she huffed impatiently. Thalia was glaring at him while Grover looked confused.

Damien cursed before taking off for the exit close to the bleachers, where he had last seen the two siblings.

Damien came to a skidding stop, his blood running cold. On the gym floor close to where they had been was a familiar floppy green cap. A few trading cards with the faces of monsters were scattered near it. Thalia, Annabeth and Grover came to a stop behind him. Damien whirled around searching for any sign of Dr Thorn, as a last wild hope, but he was the only chaperone not to be seen around the gym.

Grover started sniffing around, like some sort of bloodhound or something, before suddenly straightening up. "The empathy link," Grover said wide-eyed. "This way!" He took off to the opposite side of the gym, running faster than a boy with muscular disease possibly could.

Thalia and Annabeth didn't look surprised. They ran off right after him. Damien followed.