I own nothing. Most of this belongs to Rick Riordan. Please review and let me know what you think.
A/N: So, as you have noticed this series will be set from The Titan's Curse onward. I could have done the usual and started this from The Lightning Thief but I went with this. Hopefully you guys will enjoy it.
Hephaestus. God of forges, fire, and volcanoes. To most, this is just another ancient myth. But to Jack Green, the god of the forges is something that strikes much closer to home. Jack first appeared at the age of nine to Annabeth Chase, Thalia Grace, Luke Castellan, and Grover Underwood during their flight to Half Blood Hill. No one knew where he came from as he never spoke about it. The nine year old made it known about his father when he used fire to fight off the army of hell hounds climbing the hill, refusing to leave Thalia's side. Since the battle, he had spent much of his life living at Camp Half Blood.
In all the years that had passed since his arrival, Jack did his best to stay out of the camp's general eye. Although this proved to be rather challenging. Jack was one of the only campers to use a firearm. His first year in camp he had created an 1887 lever action shotgun using wood and celestial bronze. Among other things, he dominated the training ground with his battle skills. Only Percy Jackson, son of Poseidon, had bested him. Percy, a first year camper, had managed to secure Jack's respect before anyone else.
As the year came to a close, Jack befriended Percy. Although this didn't matter much during the chariot races as the two had fought rather hard in an effort to win. In the end, Jack admitted that Percy and Annabeth had won the race fair and square. Later, after Thalia's revival by the Golden Fleece, Jack agreed to accompany Percy to New York, reentering the world of mortals for the first time in several years. Now, the four of them are making their way north with Percy's mom in order to answer a distress call.
Jack
Snow has always been both an opportunity and an annoyance to me. When winter comes it means I get to test out some new snow devices me and my brother Charles Beckendorf built. But it also means that the forges have to be stoked and checked even more so then usual, which means more work. And then of course there are moments like now, when snow has the possibility of killing you.
The highway was a gray white mixture with the amount of snow that was falling. I sat in the front passenger seat of the car while Percy, Annabeth, and Thalia sat in the back with Percy's mom driving. Ms. Jackson was blathering on about something Percy had done when he was a little. Judging by his appearance in the rear view mirror, he found it embarrassing. I had stopped listening and was instead trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with the car. For the fifth time, I deduced that it needed an oil change before I leaned my head against the cool glass of the window.
In the mirror, I caught Thalia looking at me before she looked away, out into the storm. When she had been turned into a tree, Thalia was twelve, three years older then me at the time. Now she was roughly fifteen, a year younger then me. Don't get me wrong, it was nice to have her back. But something about her had changed to me. She looked...different somehow.
"Jack why didn't you shave before we left?" Ms. Jackson asked, bringing me out of my thoughts. I had the forming of a mustache and a small beard on my chin, something I had started doing both for the cold and to annoy people who thought I looked better clean shaven.
"Cause it's cold?" I replied, hoping to try and turn her attention back to Percy.
"She has a point, Jack, this is a military school we're going to after all," Annabeth said from the back seat. I rolled my eyes before looking back out the window, choosing to save some of the retorts I had come up with for later. The car came to a stop in front of what appeared to be the castle from a Frankenstein movie. It was impossible to miss in the snow as it was lit up like a Christmas tree.
We had sat still for less then thirty seconds before I bounded out of the car, eager to stretch my legs after the long car ride to Maine from New York. I loved Ms. Jackson like a second mother, but her choice in vehicles simply did not suit a guy with my kind of frame.
Percy
"Thanks for the ride Ms. Jackson," Jack said as he leaned against the car door before closing it. He was big, like most children of Hephaestus, and I guess being folded up into the car wasn't helping him much. He wore a brown leather aviator's jacket with blue jeans and a black cylinder strapped around his back. I knew that this was just the Mist fooling my eyes, as the cylinder was in fact Jack's weapon of choice; his shotgun. This wasn't his only weapon of course, but it was the one he preferred.
After we climbed out of the car and wished Mom luck on her return trip, we turned and faced the school. None of us spoke as we looked up at it's size. After a moment, Jack blew into his his cupped hands, allowing flames to shoot out and causing the rest of us to jump back a bit in surprise.
"What?" he asked, the corner of his mouth cocked into a grin. Both Annabeth and Thalia rolled their eyes before they started for the front door.
"Is it really necessary to be breathing fire?" I asked as we began to follow them.
"I'm not breathing fire, and in case you haven't noticed its frickin' freezing out here," he said, pulling the jacket a little tighter around him. We managed to catch up with the other two before we continued the walk.
"Your mom is so cool, Percy," Thalia said.
"She's pretty ok," I admitted.
"Pretty ok? Dude she's one of the best cooks I've ever met. You should consider getting her a job at Camp," Jack said. I looked up at the dark towers of Westover Hall. Whatever was here that made Grover send a distress call wasn't good.
The massive oak wood doors opened for us, allowing us to enter the hall in a swirl of snow. The place was huge, and the amount of weapons hanging on the walls was overkill, even for a military school.
"Anyone else got a bad feeling about this? No?" Jack asked as we stepped into the hallway. Behind us, the doors groaned closed again.
"How 'bout now?" he asked. We stashed our bags behind a nearby pillar before we began to follow music down the hallway toward what appeared to be a gymnasium. Out of no where, a man and a woman marched out of the shadows and intercepted us.
"Well? What are you doing here?" the woman demanded.