Pairings: Thalia/Reyna, Thalia/Piper, one-sided Percy/Nico, Annabeth/Clarisse, eventual Jason/Piper. If you have any pairings you'd like to see, let me know in a review. I do plan on having M/F couples as well, so feel free to suggest one. Especially one for poor lovable Leo.

Homophobic comments spread only hate, and they are far from being constructive criticisms; they will be deleted for there is really no use in posting them.

Warning: This is not exactly the Thalia we all know in love; in fact, a lot of things about this story will be violent, and most of the characters will seem harsher. Do keep in mind that Thalia is the daughter of Jupiter in this, and not Zeus. She is going to be even more assertive, even more temperamental, and even more dry and sarcastic.

AN: The first chapter resembles the Lost Heroes in many ways, and most of the scenes are from the book, but things will be very different from this point on. Thalia thinks similarly to her brother because, as children of Jupiter, they have much in common. I did not copy the story word for word. You will see that many things are different.

Disclaimer: Rick Riordan wrote, published, and owns The Heroes of Olympus. I'm just having a little fun.


Thalia I

Stranger in a Strange Land


Aut vincere aut mori.

Conquer or die.

The words held no true meaning to Thalia, and yet she felt like they should have.

She was asleep, that much she was positive of. As for everything else…well, the rest of her knowledge was a blur. She was sure of her name and state of mind, but she didn't know anything else about herself. What did she look like? How old was she? Was she cute? Did wondering that mean she was arrogant?

Thalia could feel her eyebrows furrow. A giggle broke through her sleepy concentration, and slender fingers settling onto her scrunched brows fully awoke her. She was on-alert immediately, her eyes of an unknown color flickering open quickly. She barely saw her own pale arm reaching out to strike her potential assailant.

The giggling ceased instantly, and Thalia found her obviously powerful hand tightly wrapped around the column of a girl's throat. She stared blankly into a pair of beautiful eyes that seemed to be constantly shifting their color.

The eyes were panicked and filled with surprise, and Thalia grew even more confused. Why had a harmless, pretty girl been attacking her?

"What are you doing?" a boy's voice broke through the awkwardly-exchanged stare competition. A brown head of curly hair popped up in front of the two girls, and the owner of the voice spun around in his bus seat to see them properly. "You two aren't getting kinky again, are you?"

Thalia's hand fell from the girl's throat and before she even realized what she was doing, she grabbed the boy by his hair and tugged him half-way over the bus seat. The Latino boy struggled, eyeing her in something akin to annoyance.

"Ow! Watch the hair, dude! When the hell did you get so strong?"

She didn't know who these people were, but something about them was sending her nerves into a wild craze. She had to defend herself. She didn't know where on earth she was, or why she was there. She had to get some answers.

"Thalia, what are you doing?" the girl spoke for the first time, one of her hands rubbing her throat sorely. The other hand gripped Thalia's wrist, willing her to loosen her grip on Leo. "Let Leo down. What's gotten into you?"

Despite being disoriented, Thalia released the young Latino boy.

"Who are you people?" Thalia asked, staring at the two of them in distrust. Her eyebrow arched over at the girl, who she realized had to be of some Native American descent. "And how do you know my name?"

The girl next to Thalia, very much shorter than her, ran her hand through her choppy brown hair. "It's just me, Piper, silly." Thalia was caught off-guard when Piper didn't take advantage of her confused state and lunge out at her. Instead, the girl looked sincerely concerned. "Did you have another nightmare?"

"I think she's sleep-walking again," the Latino boy, Leo, responded. Bravely—for someone who wanted to lose an arm—he reached out and playfully patted her on the head. "Come on, now, buddy. Wake up!"

"I'm not sleeping," Thalia replied evenly, swatting away his offending hand. "Where are we?"

"Oh my god, you really don't know, do you?" Piper asked, bewildered. "Thalia, did you hit your head or something?"

"I'm not supposed to be here," the pale girl insisted, not bothering to answer any of Piper's questions. Her head swiveled as she took in everything going on around her—the desert passing them by, teenagers playing around on MP3's and chattering. "This isn't right."

Leo snorted. "Sure," he said sarcastically. "You don't belong here. You aren't a delinquent like the rest of us. C'mon, dude, knock off the act. It was funny at first, but now it's getting kind of irritating."

"Leo, hush," Piper commanded unthinkingly. The pale girl was surprised to see that the Latino boy complied without question, without hesitance. Piper glanced back at Thalia worriedly. "How is it not right?"

There was hopeless, nervous edge in her voice that made Thalia seriously consider her next response. Even though she was absolutely positive that she had never seen either of the teenagers in her life, she felt a strange inclination to make Piper feel assured.

"I…I don't know you," the tallest of the three found herself uttering. "I don't know anyone. I'm sorry."

"Thalia…" the small brunette girl looked genuinely hurt.

"Um, I don't—"

Thalia was cut off by the sound of a loud man bellowing, "All right, puny brats! Listen up!"

For some reason, Thalia found herself irritated. What made him think that he could sit there and talk to her like that? She was the daughter of…someone important?

She furrowed her eyebrows. Well, that was certainly strange. She shook it off, dismissing it as yet another confusing aspect of the day.

The man who had spoken stood from his seat, and Thalia had to bet that he came up to her collarbone on a good day. He was dressed like the typical coach, with a baseball cap pulled low over his hair and an orange polo pulled tightly over his buff chest. He also wore running shoes and loose nylon workout pants. His goatee was sparse and his expression unnecessarily stern like he was trying way too hard to appear intimidating.

Some kids yelled hateful things at him, and he angrily scanned the aisles for the troublemakers. When his beady eyes landed on Thalia, his face transformed into an expression that made him look like he had just stuffed eighteen jalapenos into his mouth all at once.

She didn't know why, but his eyes on her made her feel a sense of anxiousness. Maybe it was the way the coach looked at her—as if he knew that she didn't belong there. He was the only one so far to stare at her like he didn't recognize her.

Coach Hedge (Piper whispered to Thalia to reveal his name) looked away and cleared his throat pointedly. "We'll arrive in five minutes! Stay with your partner. Don't lose your worksheet. And if any of you precious little cupcakes causes any trouble on this trip, I'll send you back to campus the hard way."

Worksheet? Thalia couldn't remember anything about her past, but she had a feeling that schoolwork wasn't her forte.

She didn't even know who she was, but she was really starting to hate this guy.

Piper must have noticed Thalia's sudden fury, because she reached over and grasped her forearm as if to calm her temper.

"He gets away with disrespecting me...I mean, us like that?"

Piper sighed long and nodded. "He always talks to us like that. It's the Wilderness School."

"Where kids are the animals," Leo agreed, smirking.

I'll show the bastard an animal, Thalia nearly growled. She stopped herself just barely, realizing that such an action would have caused her new old friends to glance at her in fright. Before she had lost her memory, what kind of psycho had she been? There were dangerous instincts coursing through her veins, encouraging her to fight, to conquer, to kill.

She was reminded of those words that first came to the front of her mind: Conquer or die.

A sudden sound jolted her from her inner monologue. It only took her seconds to trace the sound, and she frowned when she realized that it was just the curly-haired boy tapping his fingers restlessly on the bus seat.

"I hope you brought your worksheet, Amnesia Girl," Leo was saying, obviously trying to find some humor in their desperate situation. "I used mine up as spit wads days ago. You should have seen Ms. Rigby's face when I pegged her in the forehead with one."

Unable to help herself, she felt the corners of her lips almost twitch up into a smile. Leo looked pleased at the sight, but wisely avoided commenting further.

Thalia just couldn't help but find the mental image funny. C'mon—a red-faced teacher with a spit wad sticking to her forehead?

Piper laced their fingers together, giving Thalia a sheepish look whenever the taller girl eyed her in surprise. "Even if you don't remember it, you're my girlfriend and I'm going to hold hands with you. If you don't like that, tough luck, pal."

When Thalia failed to acknowledge the girl's action, feeling highly uncomfortable, Piper frowned. "You really don't remember us."

"It's…worse than that," the tallest of the three muttered. "I don't even remember who I am."

Before any more could be said, the bus suddenly came to a stop in front of a large crimson stucco building. One glance around confirmed that they were in the middle of nowhere, in some desert or another. A cold breeze, out of place and definitely unwelcomed, chilled Thalia.

It was then that she bothered to check what she was wearing. She seriously doubted that gray jeans, combat boots, a purple t-shirt, and a thin leather jacket would sufficiently protect her from the brisk temperature.

On instinct, she pulled back the sleeve of her jacket. There was something she was wearing that caused a jolt of recognition to shoot through her. She had a wide and lengthy, pure silver bracelet on her left forearm. There were strange engravings in the metal—serpents, ancient symbols, and a minuscule lightning bolt.

"Before Coach Dipshit makes us get off the bus, we should at least inform you about some things," Piper pointed out. "I don't want anyone to realize that something is wrong with you."

"Please," the Latino boy snorted. "She's totally tugging us around, Pipes."

"She is not," Piper argued. "She's too sweet to do something like that. We'll figure this problem out later. For now, we just need to act as normally as possible."

Thalia would have taken offense if the girl didn't look so sincere.

Leo smiled, rubbing his hands together as if preparing for something. Thalia had a feeling that it wasn't going to be something she would like. "Crash course, anyone?"

Piper rolled her eyes. "Leo—"

"We go to the Wilderness School, which means we're 'bad kids'. Troublemakers, hooligans, you name it. Your parents or the government was sick of putting up with you and decided to ship you off to this lovely prison—sorry, boarding school—in Armpit, Nevada, where you learn to do a lot of creative bullshit with nature and frolic through cacti. And, like we're doing now, we occasionally go on educational field trips, directed by the remarkable Coach Hedge, who undoubtedly has a lower IQ than mayonnaise."

"Any of this ringing a bell?" Piper asked softly, patiently.

"No," Thalia responded reluctantly as she observed the people around her. They were all around her age—sixteen, maybe seventeen. Try as she might, she did not recognize a single one of them.

The Latino boy rolled his eyes good-naturedly. "You're really going to continue this, aren't you? Okay, so the three of us started here together this semester. We're the best of friends. You do everything I say, I'm a much better athlete than you, you worship the ground I walk on, I always steal your super hot lady-friends, and you shine my shoes twice a week."

Thalia highly doubted she ever did any of that for anyone.

"Leo Valdez!" Piper reprimanded. "Don't tease her. You're messing around with her head."

"Fine," the Latino boy relented. "Those last few comments were just jokes, but we really are friends."

Ah, that was better.

"Well, Piper, as you have already probably assumed, is a little more than your friend."

The Native American girl blushed although she snuggled a little into Thalia's side. "Leo, would you stop it?"

Thalia honestly didn't remember a damn thing about this girl, but she felt that she very much liked pretty girls. Piper was indeed a pretty girl, so she frankly didn't seem the harm in their closeness.

"Seriously," Leo prattled on, unaffected. "Though I have to say, I didn't know you two would actually end up dating, what with Thalia's flirtatious ways."

Flirtatious ways? She had flirtatious ways?

Piper blushed but smiled teasingly. "She gets it from her father."

It was really bothering Thalia that they were speaking as if she wasn't there.

"My father?" Thalia echoed.

When she repeated the word father in her head, she saw no image. There was no man coming home in a fancy business suit or playing catch with her. There was no man punishing her for coming home late or grounding her for the rest of her life. She saw nothing.

"C'mon," Piper urged Thalia to her feet, pulling her up by their connected hands. "Coach Hedge is letting us off the bus."

Leo grumbled something about not getting to use a megaphone, before he followed after them. Once they were all off of the bus, Thalia found that it was much easier to survey her surroundings. It was all desert land, as far as she could tell. She didn't like not knowing where she was.

Finally, giving in to temptation, she questioned Piper: "Where are we?"

"The Grand Canyon," Piper supplied helpfully, squeezing her hand affectionately.

"How grand," Thalia mumbled joylessly.

"How canyon," Leo added. "Do you think they have food here?"

Before either of his acquaintances could answer him, one of the other boys walked towards them. He rudely nudged himself between Thalia and Piper, breaking the handhold that the pale girl had just been starting to enjoy, and he knocked Leo down.

"Yo, Piper," he said, giving her what he must have thought to be a charming smile. The bits of chocolate between his pearly molars drastically ruined the image.

Even though he didn't have an accent, he wore a pair of hunting boots, blue jeans, and a camouflage hunting jacket. He wore a trucker's hat over his greased black hair.

"Don't talk to these bottom-feeders. You're my partner, remember?"

Bottom-feeder? Thalia was no bottom-feeder.

Thalia decided that she hated him.

"Go away, Dylan," Piper grumbled. "I don't want to work with you."

"That's no way to be!" the boy argued, although he didn't look the least bit upset. He hooked his arm through hers, and Thalia had to resist the instincts that were telling her to snap the bones of his forearm. "Think of this as your lucky day."

He dragged her away, but not before she was able to send her friends a helpless glance.

Thalia exhaled through her nose, attempting to calm what she realized was her violent and sporadic temper. She stretched a hand to the Latino boy, lifting him to his feet swiftly. Leo brushed himself off, muttering under his breath.

"I hate that guy!"

"Dylan, was it?"

"Yeah," Leo affirmed, thumbing the belt loops of his jeans and releasing a goofy, false chuckle. "I'm Dylan. I act like I'm from Texas, but I'm actually from California. Look at me, I'm so hot. I'm so cool. I wish I could date myself, but since I can't, I'm just going to force myself on Piper! Isn't she so lucky?"

Thalia smirked. "You're a strange one, Leo Valdez."

"So you tell me." Leo gave that mischievous grin. "But, seeing as you don't remember me, I can reuse all of my jokes." He wagged his eyebrows in a way that roused a snicker from Thalia. "We should probably follow the rest of them. Come on!"

They trailed after the other students, making their gradual way through the building while Coach Hedge stopped every few minutes to ramble on about the tribe that owned the museum.

Thalia just barely heard a girl behind her remark something about Piper.

Arching an eyebrow, the pale girl briefly glanced over her shoulder to see the devil incarnate. The girl's face was loaded with enough makeup to last a troupe of rodeo clowns a decade and her clothes looked like they had come straight from a crappy chick flick. Her friends were all dressed to match their ringleader, which was beyond disturbing.

The lead girl, who had muttered something before, spoke loudly, "Hey, Piper, does your tribe run this place? Do you get in free if you do a rain dance?"

Her disciples all laughed when she did although most of the girls appeared as if they hadn't gotten the joke.

A subtle red wave traveled the length of Piper's cheeks, and she was obviously clenching her fists in anger. "My dad's Cherokee," she spat. "Not Hualapai. 'Course, you'd need a few brains cells to know the difference, Isabel."

"Ooh, shit," Thalia couldn't help but mutter. She was beginning to understand how she could be dating this girl.

Isabel, not even missing a beat, widening her eyes mockingly. "Oh, sorry. Was your mom in this tribe? Oh, that's right. You never knew her."

Piper charged her, but Thalia, with good intentions, stepped in front of her. The smaller girl seemed to catch herself and realize what she was doing, because then she smiled apologetically at the pale girl.

"Calm down, okay?"

Piper nodded, reluctantly returning to Dylan's side. Even though she had avoided confrontation, Thalia could still hear the annoying girls rudely commenting on everything about Piper.

"Thank God your girlfriend stopped you, you savage native."

"Wouldn't want you to scalp us."

Thalia finally couldn't take any more of their taunting and started to turn around to scalp them herself. If it wasn't for Leo tugging her to face him, the girls would have been hysterically sobbing over their skinless heads.

"Be cool, man," Leo advised. "Piper doesn't like for us to fight her battles for her. I know it kills you, but she doesn't like it when you play her protector."

Thalia had a feeling that protecting was one of the things she did, but she chose not to comment any further.

Once they reached the far end of the hall, they could see huge glass doors that led out onto a terrace.

"All right, cupcakes," Coach Hedge bellowed. "You're about to get your only glimpse of the Grand Canyon. Try not to break it. The skywalk can hold the weight of seventy jumbo jets, so you featherweights should be safe out there. If possible, avoid tossing each other over the edge. I don't feel like doing any more paperwork."

He opened the doors and allowed the students to step outside. Thalia wished that she could have been amazed by the thing, but it wasn't anything spectacular; it was just a giant hole in the ground to her. It was just there. It just was—like Thalia.

The glass, see-through skywalk was in the odd shape of a horseshoe.

"Man," Leo said, releasing a loud whistle. "That's wicked."

Finally leaning over and feeling a twinge akin to fear, Thalia couldn't share his opinion. The canyon was massive, with a single strip of a river below. They were so high that Thalia could spit on a bird if she wanted to. The place was just jagged rock to her—jagged, threatening, and murderous rock.

Thalia pulled herself from the railing, turning to observe the many faces around her. She could not recall what she looked like, but from the way the others were staring at her, she could tell that she didn't exactly belong. There was something odd about her, and the delinquent teenagers knew that.

Thunder rumbled above, but the pale girl barely flinched at the frightening sound. Leo and the rest of the students jumped and began talking hurriedly. A cold, strong and argumentative wind blew against Thalia's body, trying yet failing to budge her.

"There is no fucking way this is safe," Leo muttered, peering up at the sky. "Storm's right over us, nowhere else. Weird, huh?"

Thalia bravely glanced upwards. A ring of smoky black clouds had accumulated directly above the glassy skywalk, but the rest of the sky above appeared to be clear.

Her nose cringed, her eyebrows furrowed, and her eyes narrowed. Nothing about the day was right.

"All right, cupcakes!" Coach Hedge bellowed. "Let's hurry up and fill out the worksheets. We may have to leave sooner than planned."

The clouds above shook and released gasps of thunder once more, and it began to make Thalia uneasy.

Unthinkingly, as a means of comfort, she reached into the pocket of her leather jacket and pulled out a golden coin. It was no bigger than a half-dollar, but it was definitely older. Its gold was worn but sturdy. It felt heavy in her palm. On one side of the coin was the right profile of a young man with wildly curled hair, wearing a headband with the horn of some animal; on the other side, the inscription magnus alexandros and a long sword.

Magnus alexandros.

Great Alexander.

…Did she know an Alexander?

"Shit," Leo whistled. "Is that gold? You been holding out on us, man? Gotta say; kind of always suspected that you were loaded with cash. You have that royal attitude, you know?"

"It was in my pocket," Thalia answered simply, slipping it back where she had gotten it.

Leo didn't push the subject. He shrugged, smirking a little. "Don't look now, but those hot chicks are checking out your goods."

She glanced over her shoulder, glaring at him when he nudged her roughly. "What?"

"I said don't look!"

"I don't like that they're looking at me."

"Dude, we have to get started on this worksheet," Leo switched the subject, nervously making eye-contact with the rude girls. Although he didn't seem too excited about it, he took out a pencil. His brown eyes scanned the piece of printed paper. "Number one: list three examples of erosion."

"What the fuck is erosion?" Thalia was pretty sure that she hadn't even known that before she lost her memories.

Leo snorted. "Even if you don't remember anything, you're still the same, Freckle."

"Freckle?" Thalia repeated. "My name is Thalia."

"Oh, right," the Latino boy responded, frowning. "You don't remember your nickname. I call you Freckle, 'cause you've got these light freckles that run across your nose."

"I do?"

"You don't even remember what you look like?"

She stubbornly remained silent.

He dug around in his big army jacket before he pulled out a circular object. Flipping open its lid, he surrendered it to her hesitant hands.

Thalia stared into the little mirror, and it took her a moment to realize that she was the brunette peering into it. Leo was right; the freckles ran from cheek to cheek, traveling over the prominent bridge of her aquiline nose.

Her hair was dark black, curly, cropped and messy. It appeared as if it had never been combed. Her eyes were bright and big; they seemed to be a highly noticeable feature of hers. Within those optics, electric blue rings guarded the black sphere of her pupil. She surprised herself by the harshness she could spot. Her expression was unintentionally stern, and her eyes were almost angry as they stared back at her.

She supposed she could have been worse off. Her face was clear of any obvious blemishes, but there were subtle dark circles underneath her eyes. It was apparent to her that she had trouble sleeping often. She didn't like how pale she appeared to be. Some of her features were too sharp for her taste, too rough. The fierceness of her attributes gave her an almost intimidating appearance; it was no wonder why the other kids hadn't directly approached her yet.

Her face itself was one set in stone—statuesque, she thought, with the superlative lines and angles of a likeness of one of the gods.

Gods? Where had that come from?

She felt a dull thrumming in her temple and quickly pressed her hand against it. Something struck a chord within her, but it was lost as soon as it had afflicted her.

"You okay, man?" Leo asked, cautiously taking back his handy mirror. "Please don't say you're going to puke. The one day I don't bring my camera, something priceless like this happens."

"No," Thalia spoke clearly, softly. "It's just a headache. I'll be fine."

Minutes later, Thalia struggled to find answers for the questions on the worksheet. She didn't understand any of it. She couldn't even read the damn thing. The words and letters were jumbled and unintelligible. Something was seriously wrong with her.

Leo was of no help. He was creating miniature doodads, which might have impressed her if she hadn't been so preoccupied with being bewildered by everything.

"Sweet!" the Latino boy exclaimed, watching as some pipe-cleaner helicopter he made sailed into the canyon. "Did you see that?"

Thalia barely glanced up from the worksheet. "Yeah, yeah." She hummed a little in thought as she scribbled down yet another bullshit answer. "Leo?"

"Uh huh?"

"Are you sure that we're friends?"

"What do you mean?" he asked her, his bushy brows furrowed.

"Like…are you positive that we're even friends at all? I don't remember you. I don't remember any of this," she replied, waving her hands around. She incidentally flung the pencil over the railing, and she flushed in embarrassment as he laughed at her expense.

"You think you just appeared here, and we all have fake memories of you?"

Thalia nodded, but then stopped almost immediately. "Well, yeah, except for that Coach Bush guy."

"Coach Hedgehog," Leo provided, cracking a grin. "Get it right, Freckle."

"Whatever," she said. "If we're such good friends, tell me about myself. Seriously this time. No jokes."

"You're a lot meaner than you were—sterner," he answered, almost looking hurt. "You get in a lot of fights because you don't like people that act like they're above you. That's why so many of the kids here haven't said anything to you; they're scared of you. Uh, you like cheeseburgers…and Piper. If you could find a way to combine the two, you probably would."

"Who are my parents?"

Her eyes snapped shut as she felt a startling pain reside behind them. Unlike before, she saw a face at the mention of her parents. A blonde woman—tall, disorderly, wobbly—pulled her along as they bustled through an expensive store. It was the only face she saw.

Leo shrugged. "You never talk about them." He watched as she shakily opened her eyes. "Headache still?"

She nodded. In the distance, she spotted Coach Hedge, leaning against his baseball bat. "Hey, hold this," she said to Leo, handing him to worksheet. "I'll be right back."

Piper met her gaze and shot her a helpless look. Dylan was relentlessly hitting on her, touching all over her shoulder.

"I'm probably going to regret this, big time," Thalia muttered to herself, changing direction to get to the girlfriend she didn't remember at all. She didn't know why, but she felt a strange inclination to help these unfamiliar friends of hers—like it was a duty of hers or something.

"Pipes," she said, coming to stand in between her and Dylan. The boy had the nerve to look affronted as his arm was forced away from Piper's shoulder. "How's the worksheet coming along?"

The girl smiled widely at the question. "It could be going better, honestly."

Dylan scowled. "Why don't you go away?"

"I haven't heard of any law that states I can't check up on my friend."

"Girlfriend," she heard Piper correct under her breath.

Dylan snickered. "All you demigods are the same."

Demigods? Thalia's so-called headache came back full-force. Lightning sprinkled the oily sky, and the brisk wind burst through her jacket, tousled her cropped black hair, and nearly knocked her over. The skywalk shuddered from the sheer force of the storm, and the students of the Wilderness School screeched as they struggled to keep from falling into the steep canyon below.

Hedge screamed over the rush of the wind and lightning. "Everyone inside! Now! Off the skywalk!"