A/N:

Welcome to Stolen. This is an AU of HOO and non-canon complicit since the end Son of Neptune, having been planned before the release of Mark of Athena. As of the 26th of September, 2015, I am going through and rewriting the chapters up to 15 and adding edits to the chapters thereafter. For the most part, things will stay the same, but things will be added, dropped, and expanded upon. I hope you enjoy!

~lupuscarmen13

"From the ashes a fire will be woken

A light from the shadows shall spring"

- J. R. R. Tolkien

1

RIVER

Percy Jackson was dead.

Percy died back when his ridiculous need to sacrifice himself for everyone else had landed him back in Tartarus for the second time in two months. This time, he didn't come back.

I did.

I was once Percy Jackson, but he is long gone, killed by the torture an ancient freak put him through. Unfortunately, that freak was even older and stronger than Gaea. Let me tell you, it was one hell of a time getting out of there.

I have few memories of my- Percy's life before Tartarus. Annabeth's kisses. Grover's curly horns. Flashes, dreams, a constant sense of déjà vu. Nothing tangible.

After nearly a year of imprisonment, I finally escaped Tartarus and my captor. I was skinny, traumatized, and close to death. At seventeen, I should have seemed young. Instead, my cheeks were sunken and scars covered my arms like a coat. My eyes held something different then most seventeen year olds, something I could see every time I looked in the mirror. Shattered, mature, old eyes. The kind that just didn't belong on any seventeen-almost-eighteen year old's face. They held something dangerous. And that's how I knew Percy was gone, because I wasn't him. We looked different. We thought different. We felt different.

But there are also times when I wonder if Percy's really gone, or if he is just hiding under the surface. Sometimes I swear I can hear whispers of a sarcastic voice, of the boy I knew I had to be before Tartarus. When it happens, I have to force myself to not go running back to Camp Halfblood, to warn them about the evil beneath the earth. I hear the voice more sometimes, when I do something he wouldn't approve of, when I panic and begin to break down. Times when I have to be ruthless. Times when I feel like throwing up when I think about what I had to escape. The deaths I caused- evil or not.

I don't know what happened to me to change everything I was. All I know is I can never return to my old life, thanks to one certain goddess, and that I can't even let my mother know I'm alive.

I can't, not without bringing destruction to everything and everyone I love. Loved.

The streets are cold and dangerous, but I like it. It makes me feel more alive than I have any right to be. I can't dwell on Tartarus when my stomach is cramping or when I'm running from anything and everything.

Unfortunately, being a powerful, delicious-smelling demigod, the monsters leave me next to no time to rest. I can't remember the last time I slept more than a few hours.

I have no friends, only a few temporary allies.

Rising from the curb where I had been resting, I dusted off my tattered jeans. I had been running and fighting monsters for days, but I thought I had lost them, at least for a little while. Long enough to take a nap, at least.

It was late, and I decided to find a place to get some rest. My body and back ached, and I knew thatApollo's cure was wearing off...again.

I walked for maybe a half hour, until I came upon a good-looking tree. It was big and leafy and had thick branches, the kind that could hold my six-foot frame, even disguised as shorter by Hera's illusions. But then I realized where I was.

The forest surrounding Camp Halfblood. I felt a shiver run down my arms, hating the fact that I was so close to my old home, knowing I was too tired to try finding a better place to sleep. I was dead on my feet, and the forest was the best chance I had of being safe while resting.

I shifted, staring up at the large oak and wondering if I should just work past my exhaustion. What if the monsters ran me into camp; could I risk it? My tired body was screaming for me to sleep and my mind was telling me to run, but it was the memory of the size of the pack of monsters chasing me that convinced me. I chose to sleep.

I shimmied up the wide trunk and clambered through the branches until I found a thick branch high enough for me to be out of the reach of most monsters.

Leaning back, I felt completely sound. I had spent so much time sleeping in trees I never worried about falling out anymore. Or it could be the exhaustion from running with virtually no sleep that last few days. Take your pick.

I closed my eyes, wishing for at least an hour of rest before the dogs of hell caught up with me again.

Howls and screams broke the night.

Eyes bursting open, every muscle in my body went taut. I knew the chase was on. The sky above me was blood red, and I sincerely hoped that it wasn't telling the future.

Standing on the wide branch, I leapt to the next and then the next until I was ensconced within the branches of another tree. Repeatedly, I bounded forward in an attempt to temporarily loose the pack, knowing the trees would thin out soon, and that I didn't want to be in the air when that happened. With a deep breath, I leapt.

And hit the hard earth running.

My heart pounded in my chest, and although I was as scared as hell, exhilaration roared in my veins.

Basic plans ran through my mind, having had strategy shoved into my skull by both my captor and my savior, but before I could put anything into place, I was surrounded. Alright, I thought. Back to instinct, River.

The hairs on my arms stood up then as I took in the pack of monsters, mouth drying.

What the…?

The monsters had split into two separate groups and had closed in on me. This was unusual; most monsters were only smart enough to maybe set up a very basic ambush or split up groups of demigods. Even during the wars, monsters never had the intelligence to split up and make complicated plans on their own. These were smarter than what I was used to.

Thankfully, that was as far as their intelligence seemed to go. I sliced down hellhound after hellhound, monster after monster. I had drawn Riptide and my new sword Shadowfoot, gifted to me by my savior, and quickly dispatched the small army until I stood alone, covered in monster dust in an empty clearing surrounded by trees.

I let down my guard, breathing hard from adrenaline and nursing the wounds I had picked up in the short battle. This was a mistake.

Years of training and demigod senses were what saved me then; there was something behind me!
I barely reacted in time, spinning to block the blow from the Omega-shaped axe. I was facing the Minotaur.

A memory sliced into my head, and I stumbled. Holding my head in one hand, I held back a cry. The pain…it was explosive, as if someone was shattering my skull into tiny shards.

I was twelve, and my mother disappeared into a shower of gold…the Minotaur charged at me as I waved a red jacket, and I leapt on it's head in a weird spin…..I was stabbing it with it's own horn, which I had ripped off…

I was fifteen or sixteen, and the same monster faced me. I taunted it….

I gasped and dived, pulling myself out of the memory just in time to avoid getting stabbed by the monster's horns.

Shaking my head, I swore at myself. Stupid. I needed to get my head in the game. If I hadn't been out of it, this monster would have been dead already. I wasn't bragging either. It was just the simple truth.

I calmed myself down, ignoring the pain in my head. Narrowing my eyes, I lopped off one of the horns and then the other. I let out a breathy, trembling laugh. It was almost over.

The Minotaur roared, and I aimed for its big hairy neck.

Riptide connected, and the monster exploded into yellow sulfurous sand. The axe took a little longer, and I quickly realized that it wasn't going to dissolve in time. I threw myself to the side and just barely missed the falling axe. What I didn't miss, however, was the trunk of the tree. That I hit straight on with my head.

I cried out, head bursting with stars and pain. With trembling fingers, I sat up, leaning heavily against the tree and sheathed my swords. That was when the burning started.

The scar on my back cracked open with a spray of hot blood dribbling down my back and I knew that the poison had overcome the cure. Heart racing, knowing I had very little time before the pain would be so terrible I couldn't move, I scanned the area frantically for my backpack. It had to be near me.

Desperately, I staggered to my feet as the pain roared through my veins at a steadily increasing tempo, but my backpack was nowhere in sight. Fear curled in my stomach.

I struggled to swallow and my vision blurred. The pain in my back became unbearable as my legs shook. Falling to my knees, I retched, agony striking my entire body. Blindly, as I sprawled across the forest floor, my hand searched for my backpack and the vial of cure I knew was there. My heart was pounding, pounding, pounding and as my screaming head and body made it difficult, pure panic and fear shrieked in every frantic thought. I'm going to die. I'm going to die. I need the cure. Save me!

The poison had not reached the strength it was currently wracking my body at since I had left Tartarus. The gods had saved me then, and given me the cure.

Since then, I had always had my bag and cure on me whenever the poison activated, and had gotten the antidote before I became helpless

Coughing blood, I screamed and tears streamed out of my eyes. My vision flickered and a hot liquid began flowing out of my nose.

Someone was screaming and my blood was on fire and I was dying.

Body feeling as if it was exploding like a supernova, I was glad when the sweet relief of unconsciousness struck me, and I fell into a world of darkness and half-forgotten memories.

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edited 9/26/15, originally posted 9/11/13.