Disclaimer: I don't own The Hunger Games, Percy Jackson and the Olympians or Heroes of Olympus. They belong to their respective owners: Suzanne Collins and Rick Riordan.
A/N: This is my first fic. It's a pretty huge project to undertake, so bear with me. If I screw up, please tell me. I'll take all constructive criticism and even flames…. And, by the way, this chapter is mainly just setting everything up. The real story probably won't begin till the second or third chapter.
Chapter One: Introduction
Dahlia stands at the back of the crowd of campers, clutching her bow. She hates archery, but it's necessary to get any kind of weapons training she can, especially these days. There's always the chance the Capitol will find out about Camp Half-Blood (or Camp Jupiter) and then they'll all be screwed. But they'll put up a fight before they crash and burn.
Demigods have a lot of trouble these days, more than they did even in the times of America. The technology is so much better, the gods have gone silent (and been that way pretty much since the beginning of the Hunger Games), and getting past the Peacekeepers and/or the district fences is so hard. Most half-bloods don't even make it to camp anymore. At the moment, there's a total of thirty-four kids at camp. Dahlia's heard rumors that in the old days there were sometimes a hundred or more half-bloods at camp. She can barely wrap her head around a number that huge. She wishes she lived then. Everything was so much easier. At least, she assumes it must've been. They didn't have to hide as much. Quests couldn't have been quite as dangerous back when they only really had to worry about getting caught by monsters. These days, quest-goers have to worry about getting caught by monsters and mortals. Peacekeepers who question why there are three unnamed kids sneaking around in the wilderness, or into districts. Citizens who, scared out of their wits at who these strangers might be, report them to the Peacekeepers and land three unlucky demigods (or the ones who can't manage to get away in time, anyway) in a holding cell in the Capitol, being interrogated until they end up dying.
Needless to say, quests are few and far between these days. And Chiron is endlessly worried that one day the mortals might actually find one of the camps. With the way everything's going, that gets more and more likely every day. Everyone at camp is constantly on guard, but they all know they don't stand a chance. The Capitol will think they're rebels, and they'll all die. In truth, they're not. They're all just very, very happy they've escaped the Hunger Games and keep trying to keep their old lives out of their minds. Not that the idea of rebellion isn't in their minds. They all just know they can't act on it. It'd just end with demigods going extinct.
Chiron is even more strict about the no-technology thing these days. There is none at all. Because monsters and mortals can pick up on signals, and if the mortals read these signals, they'll get suspicious. That can't happen. Even Iris-messages might be risky.
Of course, just the fact that there are thirty-four kids missing from various districts, without bodies or anything to say for it, might make people suspicious, but the government doesn't know about it. All thirty-four demigods at camp have been erased from the databases. According to the government of Panem, Dahlia Okelley and her siblings in the Demeter cabin, along with all the other demigods, don't exist. And they're all perfectly ok with that.
Children of Athena are rare and treasured, like precious gems, or Dahlia's dad's only keepsake from her mother: a necklace woven out of grass and leaves. At the moment, there is one. Her name is Diamond, and she's from District One. She's fourteen, like Dahlia, and has the trademark blond hair and gray eyes of Athena's child. For some reason, Chiron doesn't like being around her. He hides it, but Dahlia knows. He's told her that it's "too painful." Dahlia has never understood what that means, but she figures it must have something to do with the hall of fame in his office. He usually stares at an old faded picture from who-knows-how-long-ago as he speaks of it. The picture is hard to make out, but at close inspection, it reveals two teenagers, maybe sixteen or seventeen, one a boy with jet black hair and sea-green eyes, the other a daughter of Athena. They're both smiling widely, their arms hooked together, like they're with their very best friend.
The girl in the picture does bear a startling resemblance to Diamond (or maybe it's the other way around), more than just the blond hair and the stormy gray eyes. The way they hold themselves, the pride and certainty in their faces, even the features on those faces...they could be the same person. Except, of course, Diamond is probably several hundred years younger than the girl in the picture, and their names are different. Dahlia's pretty sure Chiron called the girl in the picture "Annabeth," and the boy was "Percy." Strange names, but Dahlia sort of likes them. If you ask her, they're not as strange as some of the names people in the Capitol and Career districts come up with (like Diamond, for example. She'll never tell her that, of course.).
Dahlia likes listening to Chiron talk about the past. It helps take her mind, and probably his too, off all the problems in the present. He tells her all sorts of stories, some from the times of Ancient Greece, some from just before Dahlia got to camp and some from somewhere between the two. He seems to especially like the 20th and 21st Centuries. That's another way Dahlia found out about Percy and Annabeth and a bunch of other people. She's heard stories about them so many times, she feels like she actually knows them, like she grew up in 21st Century America and went to camp with them. Then the story ends and she snaps back to the present, and she feels so disappointed because she's stuck in the dreary future instead of the past with them. Sure, their lives were fraught with peril, but she figures anything is better than this.
At least they had action. Dahlia's life at camp is full of waiting, and waiting and waiting and waiting. No one even knows if this infiltration by the Capitol will ever happen. They're all just waiting. Sure, it's better to be safe than sorry, but Dahlia wishes they had a little more action. Maybe not as much as Percy and co. had, but something. Of course, the kind of action they'd get would end in death, so...maybe she's wishing for the wrong thing.
There hasn't been a quest in seven years, way before Dahlia even got to camp. Half-bloods these days are just going through the motions. No one's really afraid anymore. They figure, just like Dahlia, that if the infiltration hasn't happened yet, it never will. Still, they train and train and train, which is really the only thing you can do here. They all know that if (and that's a big if) an attack from the Capitol happens, they won't stand a chance. They have nuclear missiles and other high-tech weaponry. Camp Half-Blood has bows and arrows and other such old-fashioned weapons. They work great for monster-fighting, but they're nothing compared to the mortals' weapons.
It's Dahlia's turn to shoot. Chiron has to call her name five times before she finally snaps out of her reverie. When she does, she finds her fellow campers staring at her, and she blushes.
"Sorry," she mumbles, and walks up to her place.
Dahlia Okelley carefully loads her bow and aims. Breathe in, breathe out, release. The arrow speeds from the bow and implants itself about three inches to the right of the bullseye. Dahlia allows herself a smile as her cabinmates clap politely. She did pretty well for a daughter of Demeter, especially one who got to camp only three years ago.
As she steps back for the next person's turn, she fiddles with the bow's string. She's been wishing for action for three years, and pretty soon she'll get her wish. And she won't like it.
A/N: Ok, so that last paragraph was pretty cheesy, but I couldn't think of a better way to end it. Make sure to leave a review to tell me what you thought. Bye till the next chapter!