Hello all! This is my newest story, and I'm pretty excited about it!

This story is a prequel to my other story "Sunshine", which is a cross-over fanfic with PJO and ROTG. "Children of the Sun" takes place about 5-6 years before "Sunshine" and has no cross-over things going on.

Set before The Lightning Thief.

Enjoy :)

It was early June in a small town in Florida, a picturesque sort of day, with the sun shining and puffy white clouds dotting a baby blue sky as spring began it's slow decent into summer. A younger Darcy paced in the living room of a cute two story beach house. She was ten years old and her sun-bleached-blonde hair was wrestled into a curly ponytail near the top of her head. Her skin was sun-kissed and covered in freckles, lightly dotted from head to toe, and concentrated on the bridge of her nose. Clear blue eyes watched the door impatiently.

Not a moment past 3, a young boy just two years older than Darcy strode through the front door, a dark blue backpack bobbling along behind him. He was roughly 5 feet tall with a mop of white-blonde hair, lightly freckled skin, and the same blue eyes as his sister.

"Michael!" Darcy exclaimed, hugging the older boy tightly around the middle. She grinned up at him, revealing a gap where her top left canine should have been.

"Hey Darce, miss me?" Michael replied, returning her embrace.

Darcy nooded vigorously and led him into the kitchen, where their mother, a short, slim woman with light brown hair that brushed against her shoulders and kind blue eyes, was pulling a tray of chocolate chip cookies out of the oven. Once the tray was safely on the counter, she spun around to face her children.

"Welcome home, sweetie, how was your last day of the sixth grade?"

"It was alright," Michael flicked a few strands of hair out of his eyes "I couldn't wait for it to be over, though."

Mom smiled softly and turned back to the cookies. She began moving them from the tray to the cooling rack. Darcy eyed them hopefully. The smell was intoxicating, and she wanted to get one before they cooled, while the chocolate chips were still melted and gooey and amazing.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door. Well, several rapid knocks on the door, as though the knocker had just eaten thirty-two pixie sticks and couldn't sit still. Mom walked out to investigate and Darcy slowly walked closer to the cookies. Michael stayed at the table, watching. From her spot against the kitchen counter, Darcy could hear a few frantic words from the stranger at the door.

"Michael... camp... right NOW... danger..."

She paused, what the heckwas going on? She cast a quick look at the cookies above her and snatched one. Having gotten her prize, she hurried back to the living room to see for herself.

Standing at the door was an awkward, scrawney looking kid about Michael's age. He had curly brown hair, olive skin, and dark eyes that were ficking back to look at Michael every few words. He wore a T-shirt, jeans, and a pair of sneakers that didn't seem to fit quite right. Michael seemed to recognize him.

"Carter? What are you doing here?"

The boy, Carter, nervously let out a strange noise that reminded Darcy of the goats at the petting zoo. He locked eyes with Michael, who was now walking foreward at a steady pace, and shifted nervously on his feet.

"Well, uh, you see, the thing is-"

"I've invited Carter to stay the night, " Mom interupted cooly "I'm a friend of his parents and they're going out of town for a little while."

Carter nodded vigorously, confirming her statement. Michael eyed them suspiciously, but accepted the answer none the less. Darcy watched them all curiously, before taking a bite out of the cookie she'd almost forgotten she had.

Shortly after Carter arrived, things calmed back down, though mom looked more skittish than usual. The three children spent a few hours bumming about the livingroom, watching whatever shows were on, before they were called out for dinner.

Mom had pulled out an extra chair for the small wooden table, that was now cramped with four large plates of her signiture breaded parmesian chicken. Well, three plates; the fourth plate was covered in mixed vegetables with a few specs of what looked suspiciously like aluminum. Carter had explained earlier that he was a vegetarian. The siblings climbed into their chairs eagerly, as this was their favorite meal. Carter rushed behind them, his nerves subsided at the thought of food. They ate in silence for a while, but Darcy could feel her mother shifting nervously across the table.

"So, " mom said finally "how do you two feel about going to a summer camp this year?"

Darcy and Michael stopped eating and looked up at her in confusion. She'd never let them go to summer camp before, so why now?

"I thought we weren't allowed to go to summer camp" Michael answered, his eyes locked with his mothers.

"This camp is... special. You'll be safer there."

"You say that like we're in danger right now."

...

...

...

"We AREN'T in danger, right?"

Mom shifted nervously again. She refused to meet his eyes, she chewed her lip and stared at a knot in the wood of the kitchen table. Carter gnawed on his fork nervously.

"Right?" Michael prompted again, his voice raising a little.

"Honey, it's..." she sighed and turned to look at him "it's complicated."

"Complicated how?" he demanded, clenching his fists, his eyes searching for answers.

"There's something I have to tell you, something very important. I've put off telling you two for as long as I could, I've been trying to protect you, I-"

"What haven't you told us" Michael interrupted, sitting up straighter in his seat.

"It's about your father" Mom said quietly, she locked eyes with Michael before they flickered down to Darcy.

They all went silent after that. The topic of their father didn't come up often, and when it did, it never stayed long. Darcy stared at her plate, her small brow furrowed in confusion. What could her mother possibly be hiding from them that was so important? Important enough to put their lives in danger?

Carter got jumpier than he had been all day, his nose started twitching and his eyes got wide. After a minute of wriggling in his seat, he suddenly shot up faster than Darcy thought possible. He looked absolutely terrifed.

"We have to go" He managed to choke out, his eyes darting around as though he expected someone to jump out of the shadows and attack at any second.

Michael and Darcy opened their mouths to protest, but were silenced by the look of terror in their mother's eyes.

"Go, quickly, run upstairs and pack only the essentials. I'll explain on the way." She said with a shaking voice.

The siblings didn't dare argue. Darcy raced up the steps and grabbed her newly emptied school backpack off the floor and began stuffing it with clothes and toiletries. Only the essentials, her mother had said. She glanced over at her bed and grabbed the doll she'd had since she was a baby. She was pretty sure it counted as an essential, she couldn't sleep without it. She ran into Michael as she tumbled down the stairs, he was carrying a small duffle bag, which was probably a lot more practical than the small schoolbag Darcy had taken.

As soon as they reached the ground floor, their mother ushered them quickly out the door and into the dark blue Jeep. Their mother kept wispering words of comfort as she pushed them along. 'It'll all be okay' 'You'll be safe soon' 'everything will be alright' Darcy wasn't sure if she was comforting them or herself.

They raced down the road, going speeds that were almost definetly over the legal limit. Carter sat in the passenger seat, wipping his head back and forth with wide eyes, sniffing like a tracking dog. Darcy sank deeper into her seat, holding her backpack to her chest. It was safe to say she was sufficiently freaked out. She had hardley any idea what was going on, except that they were in extreme danger, they had to go to some camp, and it had to do with her father, who she'd never met before. She glanced over at Michael, he sat uncomfortably in his seat, his gaze flicking between Carter and Mom as though he thought they'd completely lost it.

A few minutes in, while they were speeding down a highway, they felt a large /thump/ as though they'd run over a ridiculously oversized squirrel. Darcy peeked through the window to see what they had hit and her eyes grew wide. She wished they had hit a mutated squirrel.

Chasing after their car was a woman, at least that's what she looked like at first. But from the waist down, where her legs should have been, where two large serpent tails.

Just what Florida needed, Darcy thought, more snakes.

She was too shocked to scream, she couldn't even bring herself to move. She sat frozen, staring out the window at the snake woman- a dracaenae, her brain told her, but she wasn't sure how she knew that. The car sped up, and Carter started fumbling with a reed pipe Darcy had never noticed he had. Vines and grasses from the forest bordering the highway started growing towards the dracaenae, and eventually wrapped around it until they had formed a dense cacoon around the monster.

"That should hold her off for a little while, but there's no doubt in my mind that she'll be back." Carter looked exhausted as he spoke to Mom.

She nodded curtly and glanced at her children in the mirror.

"We're going to have to drive through the night, so you two should try to get some sleep."

"Not before you tell us what's going on" Michael answered after a moment. Mom sighed and glanced at the two over her shoulder.

"Well, " She watched the road carefully, checking her mirrors for more monsters "I'm taking you two to a camp. A camp where you will be safe. Your father wanted me to take both of you there, when you're old enough, or when it's too dangerous to keep you at home."

Darcy stared at her, trying to soak in the words. Why would her father want her to go to a camp? What could possibly be so special about it?

"It's for kids like you two, kids who aren't exactly... normal. It's in Long Island, New York, just outside of the city." She continued.

"What do you mean we're not normal? Are you calling us freaks?" Michael asked, his voice a mixture between hurt and anger.

"No no! Of course not! You two are just, not the same as your peers. You're..." Mother answered frantically, covering her mistake.

"You're half-bloods" Carter stated bleekly, turning around to face us.

"Half-blood?" Darcy asked "like half-human?!"

Carter nodded.

"If we're half human, " Michael asked "Than what's the other half? Guinea Pig? Wherewolf?"

"no no nothing like that" Carter said dismissively.

"Half god, " Mom said quietly "you two are half-human and half-god."

Aaand there we have it! I hope you guys liked it!