Hi, this is me, the original author of the horrible story called Mickey Evans with a Black Hole for a Stomach in 2011. I told you guys that I would be rewriting the story, and I have finally come to it.
For those who slightly remember the horrible story two years ago, you'll know what will likely happen, and thank you to everyone who will read this story.
I hope you'll like it this way, especially since my stupid sense of humor has completely faded since sixth grade.
*Warning: Slight cursing involved
"Mickey, darling. You do know, that, the point of the game of dodgeball is to throw the ball to the other team right?" Conner said, bringing the ice-pack closer to his swollen eye, glaring at his half sister with the other.
"I said I was sorry, let it go! Even the Ares girls didn't whine as much as you when they were hit by a ball!" Mickey exclaimed, not yet admitting that the entire incident was her fault. An incident that started with an innocent malfunctioning in her arm and the fact that the Ares kid on the other side ducked, and Conner happened to be behind said person. Needless to say, he has a enough rubber in his diet now.
"That's because they're Ares girls! They would have eaten you!" Conner replied, throwing his free right arm in hysterics.
"If Mickey didn't eat them first." Travis joked, earning a high-five from Mickey and a harder scowl from his twin.
"Oh, hardy-har-har. Let's all laugh at Conner the whiny teenager with a half-sister that eats beyond human limits and a twin brother who cares not a bit for him, ha, ha, HA!" The curly-haired boy exploded, throwing his hands in the air, his ice-pack in his left hand.
The ice-pack soon flew out of his fingers and was soaring through the air, though the trio didn't really mind. After all, the one who needed that was in a hyper anger mode and couldn't care less where the thing landed.
"We'll make it up to you, stop shouting." Mickey said, trying to calm Conner down, who was breathing heavily, his swelling showing completely, making her whisper 'ewe'.
"'We'? I, did absolutely nothing to give my baby brother a shiner as big as his butt. You threw the ball, so you need to make it up to him. I am neutral party in this courthouse." Travis said, washing his hands of all responsibility in the matter.
But his half-siblings were frozen, staring in shock and morbid fear. Travis froze, unable to understand what had made his siblings act like so.
"What? Jealous?" Travis joked, only to have his siblings suddenly run away from him.
Curious, he looked behind him and gasped.
"So, it was you dickhead?" Clarisse said, looming over his head. On her head was the icepack that Connor abandoned earlier. The violent Aries girl must have thought it was Travis who did it, as he was now alone.
Travis, noticing the icepack perching firmly on Clarisse's, slowly started backing away.
"Clarisse! Darling! I... like what you did with your hair? Is that French vogue? Ha ha, well today I'm busy busy busy, so see you soo-" The older twin rambled, trying to be inconspicuous in his escape, when Clarisse grabbed his collar.
"I'm going to pummel you inside out, Pebbles." She said, glaring venomously.
Immediately Travis tried running, but her grip was like stone.
"Connor! Mickey! Where the hell are you two traitors?!" Travis shouted and saw Clarisse pivot her arm back for a matching black eye with Connor.
"Wait! I'm your boyfriend's brother!" Travis tried to compromise, which looked pathetic from the vision of two 'innocent' bystanders hiding near the Aphrodite cabin.
"Like she hasn't heard that one before." Conner scoffed, half of his desire of revenge satisfied.
"Yeah. And it's half brother. He of all people should know the difference by now." Mickey said, resting her chin on her hand.
"All the more reason to punch his face in." Connor turned to his half sister, and looked dangerously happy at her.
A few seconds went by before Mickey asked,
"What?"
"Seeing Travis like that means karma's at work, and being a really big bitch about it, so, that means it's gonna get you next." Connor said happily, a little too happily.
Mickey scoffed and put her arm around her half brother's neck, and started walking.
"Connor, darling. You do know that karma is a total sweetheart for me, right? I've done so many many many MANY things to deserve quite an ass kicking from her, and I have yet to endure it." Mickey said.
"That's how Travis was like, and now he's getting a fist delivery from Clarisse." Conner replied, looking back to said twin, then wincing.
"Oh, that must of hurt." He whispered, and unconsciously moved his hands to the front of his pants.
"What hurts?" Mickey asked, trying to look back, but then was stopped by Connor.
"You don't want to know."
Soon the half-siblings found themselves in the archery practice center, not really caring that the Hermes cabin was supposed to be at the climbing walls then.
"Hey, Kevin! Over here!" Mickey suddenly shouted, drawing his attention.
"Hey Mickey. Hi Con- Holy smokes man what happened?" Kevin exclaimed, looking at his half-blood brother's black eye.
"Oh this lovely thing? Well, I got this half the price at the GET YOUR FACE RAMMED BY A BALL YOUR SISTER THREW." Connor started, directing his whole attention in the last part to Mickey.
"It's your fault for standing there." She replied, looking at the other direction.
"I am completely innocent in the matter." Mickey continued.
"I sincerely doubt that." Both Kevin and Connor said, the two then high-fiving each other.
"Look, if you guys want to blame somebody, blame the god of physics or Isaac Newton. Actually the one who was really at fault is still Connor himsel-" Mickey had started walking in a random direction until she crashed headfirst with another person.
"Ow." Both people muttered as they fell. Mickey looked up and suddenly her eyes was met with a wall of black.
She stared for a bit, trying to separate and piece together a human from the block blob she was seeing, until it started walking away.
"Oh, sorry dud-"
"Watch where you're going next time." The person's gruff voice rudely cut through Mickey's stilted apology, earning quite a reaction from the girl.
"Excuse me? Sorry I crashed into you, dude, but I believe we're both at fault here." Mickey exclaimed, though tried being calm. She did not want to start an argument when she was already having one with her half-siblings.
The boy turned around and let his sharp eyes glare at Mickey's.
"Actually, it was your fault, and your fault in this matter was standing at the entrance and blocking the way with a stupid chat. And you might want to stop being so short. Try to grow some why don't you, you vertically challenged munchkin." He quipped, his eyes showing a slight humor but mostly a disinterest for the conversation, and then went on his way to preparing a bow.
Mickey stood dumbfounded, and then got the inane urge to punch the guy's lights out.
"Woah, woah there, Chuckles." Connor said, and gripped her arm.
"Nico probably's peeved off about something. Usually he would just ignore you." The younger twin said, noticing the steam whistling out of Mickey's ears.
"Really? I think he's being the jackass he usually is." Kevin sneered, casting his gaze at the son of death.
"You're not helping me by saying that." Connor said.
"Like you can actually cover the guy. Even after the whole war he still acts like a jerk." Kevin replied, crossing his arms, but keeping his attention to Connor's intact eye.
"Hey hey, you haven't even directly talked to Nico. Heck, you weren't even here for the war-"
"Where's Mickey?" Kevin interrupted, looking for the trouble-making (which is basically everyone in the Hermes cabin) half-witted half sister.
"What? She's gone?" Connor twisted to the left and right, and spotted Mickey standing next to Nico, probably asking for a challenge.
"Oh gods, what's she gonna do now." He grumbled, then started making his way to the two.
Kevin, also noticing Connor's line of sight followed behind.
While her two half-brothers were having a small talk whether or not Nico was really the jackass his first impression gave, Mickey had strode to the far end of the archery range where Hades' son perched himself and was already pulling the arrow back.
"Hey." Mickey said, trying to get his attention, only to have him ignore her. He seemed wholly focused in the far-away bullseye. The Hermes girl huffed, not wanting to be that nagging annoying chick, but then met the conclusion that she already crossed that line.
"HEY!" She shouted, though no reaction ensued from the opposing side. A few seconds later though Nico let go of the arrow, however it landed two inches right of the red bullseye.
Mickey, noticing the blunder scoffed.
"Ha, you didn't match the target. I bet I could've got it." Mickey said, now purposely trying to annoy the boy.
"Could you, tiny? I seriously doubt that a pint size like you could even hold the bow right." He smirked, going along with the pathetic defense the Mickey girl was trying to make.
Right there, though, something immediately snapped in her head that urged her to make a challenge. Coincidentally, the thing that snapped was her tolerance (though really, it should have been Nico in her place. He seemed to have a shitload of patience that Mickey has never seen before.)
Just then, Connor and Kevin made their entrance between their sister and Nico, both of them seeming peeved.
"Mickey, what are you doing?" Kevin beat Connor to it, asking the question that even the demigod herself wanted to know.
"How about we make a bet? If I make more bullseyes than you, out of three, then you have to do stable duty for two weeks." Mickey proclaimed. Maybe she was being pushy, maybe she could've ignored his comments, but she wasn't like that. She was an immature fourteen-year-old and she was going to live up to that name until she becomes an adult.
Nico raised an eyebrow and let his bow lean against the rack, then stood in front of Mickey.
Perhaps this could let him off some steam. He's been stressed lately with the new job his father had given him of collecting souls from the dead in Manhattan, and defeating an annoying little girl would actually give him a little joy.
So he would play along. It didn't hurt he was bored as well, and the latter both annoyed and amused him.
"And if I win?" Nico asked. Steam whistled out Mickey's ears once again.
'Jackass'
She thought and motioned Kevin to hand her a bow.
"Whatever you want, I don't care." She said then stopped when she saw the curved and arrows given to her by Kevin. They were the ones people regularly used, except, Mickey didn't use them. She used the training bow and arrows, much smaller and lighter than the real deal.
Hesitantly Mickey grasped the wood, and when her half-brother let go, she and the bow went crashing down on the floor.
'My gods, this is heavy. How do the Apollo kids handle this?!'
Mickey then heard a small snicker from the son of Hades.
"Does Tinker Bell need some help holding her heavy bow?" Nico cooed, obviously noticing Mickey's red ears and let her walk past him to the next target.
She wasn't very sure she was going to win the dare, and Mickey could only imagine what horrid things the Nico kid was going to make her do.
Taking a large breath, Mickey stretched the string, stopped stretching because it was too hard, pivot her arm back and... Let go. Mickey closed her eyes because in her happy place she was wishing that the arrow did land on the red dot, until that hope was crushed when she heard:
"Ooh, sorry Mickey." Connor said, using his hands as binoculars, and saw it landed in the yellow zone, no where near the bullseye.
"But not bad for your first time using the regular bow." Connor said.
"How is not bad?!" Mickey asked. How could she have done any worse?
"You could've shot someone." Oh, right.
Mickey then turned to Nico.
"Five out of seven!"
"No. I don't have that much free time." He replied, then proceeded to pivot the arrow backwards.
The next moment he shot the arrow, landing perfectly on the bullseye.
'I'm so gonna lose.'
Mickey thought, until Kevin clapped her shoulder.
"C'mon, win that guy! Focus just above the target, Mickey!"
"Why are you so fired up?"
"I just made a bet with Connor!"
Mickey made an exasperated face, knowing that her siblings were going to make a bet sooner or later, but took in Kevin's advice.
Making her right arm straight in front of her, Mickey aimed for the small space above the red bullseye. A tiny speck that hovered above the target that would probably be impossible to hit.
Her face turning red because she was running out of air, Mickey closed her eyes once again and let go.
"There you go!" Kevin exclaimed. Mickey peeked and saw the arrow lodge itself in the bullseye.
"Ha ha! See that, ghost boy?" Mickey shouted, her hands clapping Kevin's from above, and then below.
Nico ignored her and prepared for his turn.
'Goddamn jerk.'
Mickey thought sourly, then quickly turned to her half-brother.
"Interference required, interference required!" She whispered, earning a nod.
Mickey looked in the direction opposite of Nico while Kevin crept to a distance behind the boy, left of him.
With Mickey at Nico's right, and Kevin at his left, there was no way he could escape what the two had planned.
Nico let go of the arrow, and as it soared through the air, time seemed to slow down a bit.
In the few seconds before it landed on the target, A small paint ball was blown in the direction of the arrow, disrupting its path.
The change was subtle, as the color of the paint was white like the shaft, and it landed to the right of the red dot, just a few centimeters away from the center.
Nico narrowed his eyes as he thought he saw something coming from his left, but when he looked over what he saw was just Kevin, crossing his arms and seeing whether or not Nico's turn could be counted as a win. The change was barely noticeable to the three, until Mickey literally ran to the target and inspected it closely.
"Mickey! Get out of there, you'll get shot!"Kevin exclaimed. Mickey spent a few more seconds looking at it, right and left, until she cupped her hands to the two.
"It's out!" She shouted, then sprinted back.
"Hey where's Connor? I didn't see him."
"He went to get another ice pack. It'll take a while for him to get back."
"Anyways, good job!" She whispered.
"Close one though."
"Yeah, too close."
"Hurry up. I don't have all day." Nico said, glaring at the two's suspicious conversation.
Mickey walked back in front of her target and started to gulp a large breath or air when she suddenly stopped and said,
"Hope you enjoy stable duty." Nico's monotonous face didn't change as he replied,
"Says Tinker Bell before she reveals where Peter Pan lived."
Mickey, still mad, tried to conceal her rage with a good-hearted smile and put her arrow in position.
Then suddenly, Kevin felt an itch inside his nose. Then the indescribable urge to sneeze came upon him.
'Oh shit.'
He thought and immediately pinched his nose
'Just until Mickey makes her shot.'
He repeated to himself, holding his breath. It didn't matter to him how stupid he looked or the fact that Nico was watching him with slightly confused eyes. When it came to him that the boy was about to sneeze, he smirked.
Kevin didn't hear Mickey let go of the arrow yet. Heck, he couldn't even see because he squeezed his eyes shut in order to help him keep the sneeze in.
But it was too much, because in 1... 2... 3...!
"ACHOO!"
Startled, Mickey jumped and let go of the arrow at the same time, only to make a horrified face.
"Dude!" She shouted, putting her face right in front of Kevin in pure horror.
"I'm sorry!"
"Why didn't you hold it in?!"
"Don't you think I tried to do that?!"
While the two were having their argument, Nico's eyes quietly followed the awry arrow Mickey let lose. He watched as the arrow bumped against an Ares' kid's shield, then to the lantern in the ceiling, only to hit a flying shield that was conveniently being a frisby and made its way to the ground when...
"Hey, I'm back! Did anybody win yet?" The two Hermes kids that were arguing stopped their conversation just in time to see the stray arrow fly in and land. It made its landing between the spaces of Connor's fingers and onto the ice pack it was holding. Stunned, Connor stopped walking and closed his fingers, definitely feeling the arrow. Then with his left hand he pulled the arrow out of the icepack.
A moment of silence ensued before Connor dropped the pierced ice pack and shouted to Mickey,
"Are you literally trying to KILL me?!"
He bounded to Mickey and fiercely shook her shoulders.
"STOP TRYING TO PIERCE MY EYE!" He shouted, making Mickey dizzy.
"I'm-Sor-Ry!" She said as Connor continued to shake her.
"Okay, from now on, you are not allowed to touch things that can be thrown, shot, or spat, do you understand?" Connor said.
"Per-fect-ly!" With that, the twin let her go, and turned to Kevin.
"Did anybody win, because I would seriously like those twenty-five dollars I betted on Nico."
"Nobody won yet." At the same time Nico let go of his arrow and it hit the bullseye without fail.
Kevin sees it and tells Connor,
"Never mind, you win." Then gets his wallet out of his pocket and hands Connor the bills.
"Mickey, you okay there?" Kevin then asks, seeing his half-sister on the ground, face flat.
Mickey doesn't hear Kevin's question and promptly stand up, though a bit too quickly.
"Oh gods, I think I'm gonna hurl." She mutters, and holds her forehead in an attempt to stop the headache forming.
When she saw three Nicos standing in front of her she thought Hell came to Earth.
"Stop moving, you're making me dizzy." Mickey said, still holding her forehead.
Nico allowed a vexing moment for Mickey so she could regain the mind that she didn't lose, and when she did she shook her head a couple of times and stuck out her hand.
"Good game." Nico looked at the hand as if it was infected, which was actually very noticeable in Mickey's woozy eyes.
"You won, the least we should do is a handshake to formally end this competition."
"As if you can call this a competition." Nico replied, but obliged to shake her hand anyways.
"Now. What have you planned for me you vile demon of darkness?" Mickey snapped, placing her hands on her hips. She was going to meet his dare head on, no matter how disgusting, embarrassing, or just plain wrong it would be, Hermes' Child's Honor.
"Later." He simply said and walked away.
"Ex-cuse me?" Mickey asked quickly. What was going on in that kid's head?
"I'm saving it for later. When I need it." He continued, at least five feet away from Mickey now.
"W-wait a second there! That's cheating!" She exclaimed, pacing to his side.
"So is using a small paint ball to change the course of my arrow." Nico quipped back.
"W-what paint ball? What arrow?" Mickey said, looking away from Nico's eyes and started whistling.
'Gods, she's bad at lying on the spot for a Hermes kid.'
The son of Hades thought, but sensed a tiny ringing in his ear.
He sighed and began walking to the shadow of a nearby tree.
"Hey! This conversation isn't over! What about the dare?!"
Nico ignored her shout and sank through the ground, shadow traveling to Manhattan.
Mickey stared at the ground that he once stood, wondering where the heck he went.
But she had to admit, what just happened there was pretty cool. The only thing she hated about that phrase was that she was basically calling Nico cool.
"Mickey! Lunchtime!" Mickey turned around and saw the Apollo kids in the archery range begin leaving, and both of her half-siblings far away from her.
But they said that heavenly word! The absolute manifestation of happiness that Mickey will candidly devour, in a burst of adrenaline and her sanctuary...
Lunchtime.
Forgetting entirely of Nico, Mickey bounded to the lunch pavilion, running past Connor and Kevin, and quickly stood at the buffet table, immediately piling mountains of food onto her plate.
No more archery, no more bets, no more stinking bows, no more Nico! Just some alone time between Mickey, and her food.
With a towering pile of food resting on top the plate, Mickey carefully dodged the campers that passed her, eyeing the turkeys, hamburgers, salads, cheeses and muffins. A whole load of muffins that could feed an army.
Gently placing the dish on the table, the Hermes girl hopped on the seat in front of it and neatly placed a napkin, making sure that it wasn't creased.
Then all the politeness was forgotten and her carnal instinct took place, as she stuffed a chicken leg into her mouth and then spooned some mashed potatoes while still chewing the chicken, and then drinking some milk to wash it down.
Just as her hand was speedily reaching for the ham, someone else's stopped her.
What's this? Someone is actually trying to stop her from reuniting her with her happy time?
Just as Mickey was about to bite the offender, she saw Allison.
"What, what's wrong? There better be something wrong or else I'll bite your hand off for getting in the way between me and my foo-" Mickey said, speaking quickly, until was interrupted.
"Where were you? And Connor, and Travis, and, hell, even Kevin? Where were you guys?" Allison inquired. Allison was always a responsible one, basically that nagging older sister to everyone she meets, especially to the ones that were already her siblings. She was also the first one that Mickey actually befriended in the camp, despite her being albeit closer to the guys rather than the girls, so when Mickey hears her talk in a tone like that, she knows better than not to listen.
"What do you mean?" She asked, not seeing the problem. From the fourteen year old's point of view, she saw nothing wrong.
"What do you mean? What do you mean?! Mickey, you and the guys weren't at the climbing wall! Do you know what happens to an economy-sized group of hyperactive thieves that see four people missing and two of them are their cabin leaders, 'cause I'll tell you, it is NOT pretty!" Allison shouted, shaking the half sister, bringing back the migraine Mickey hoped that she would not feel again in the same day.
"Woah. Woah. WOAH." Mickey exclaimed, tearing away Allison's hands from the collar of the orange camp T-shirt.
"Why the heck aren't you talking to the mentioned camp leaders? Or Chiron so he can whoop the boys' butts and not mine?" She asked, staring at the older girl intensely, especially on the second part.
"Because Travis is unconscious in the infirmary, Chiron's busy introducing a new camper, and he kind of intimidates me when he's in horse form, and I spotted Connor a few minutes ago but he and Kevin immediately ran away and I couldn't catch up! So, really, you're the only one I can shout at now." Allison explained, making Mickey raise her eyebrows at the last sentence. The rest of the Hermes cabin was at the tables by then, the people abuzz, asking questions about Travis.
"What happened?" A boy asked, curious to what happened to the sleeping cabin leader.
"Oh, he just got beat up by Clarisse." Mickey casually said, shrugging off the incident.
"Mickey! Don't avoid the question! Where were you guys?" Allison asked again.
"Look, we were just at the archery range, and we, I, got in a competition with some guy-" Mickey started, not wanting to mention Nico in the conversation, but knew better than to leave out the most important event, or at least the only thing that actually happened.
"What guy?" Allison asked.
"Just some guy." Mickey answered, trying to avoid bringing up Nico's name.
"Which guy?" Her sister asked again.
"A guy."
"Mickey, just tell me! What's his name?" Allison pleaded, now too curious. Just as Mickey was going to answer 'no', she felt a draft, and then heard a shout.
The shout came from above and the source fell right above the Hermes table.
Right on Mickey's food.
Mickey stared, paralyzed, unable to process what just had happened. There was food, and now there was a person.
Suddenly, it occurred to her that she recognized the person that just landed on her precious food she was still eating.
Her face turning red as she tried to keep the scream in, but as the few seconds passed, her siblings already running for cover, she screamed,
"NICO DI ANGELO!"
Well, I hope that you enjoyed this rewritten chapter, which I feel is both longer and much better than the one I wrote two years ago.
If there are any people who did read the original story, I also hope you've seen the improvement (mostly of grammar).
With what's been done, I think Nico will be a dead guy in the next chapter (no pun intended), and hopefully you'll be interested enough to read it!
So, Thank You for reading! Chapter Two will be updated probably somewhere in the next two weeks.