Disclaimer: We don't own Percy Jackson, Heroes of Olympus or Kane Chronicles.


The sword of Terraemotus

Prologue

Rachel had seen a lot of strange things since she met Percy, but this really took the metaphorical biscuit. Corpses were piled upon corpses, half eaten and carelessly tossed in piles like sacks of flour. The smell of their rotting flesh sent her head spinning; as if seeing their last moments before death wasn't bad enough. Those around her feet had died bravely fighting for what they believed was right, it was the same for all demigods Rachel mused thinking back to the burials of the demigods who died in the war. The bodies in front of her weren't helping, they looked too similar to her friends back at camp, dare she look to her left, slumped against their spear she could see Clarisse and to her right a tool belt exactly like Leo's lay in a heap.

In the corner of her eye she saw a mass of wriggling black tendrils, and turning fully she watched a spider crawl out from inside a nearby corpse, covered in what she realised must be the remains of the still pulsing intestines. How fresh were the bodies anyway? The spider froze mid-step feeling her gaze. Like a machine it spun around to meet her, its beady black eyes resting on her; all one hundred at once.

Shivers raced down her spine as their gazes locked, for such a gross creature its stare was captivating, almost intelligent. The contest lasted for what seemed like hours, then out of nowhere the spider turned back around and scuttled away. Rachel blinked, the effects of the glare wearing away; leaving her feeling dumb. Just when she began to suspect that the beast wasn't as brainless as she thought it reverted back to an ordinary creature.

Where the hell was she anyway?

It was then that Rachel had an epiphany. She must have fallen asleep thanks to Lacy's bad tastes in films and now she was dreaming of a mash up of Alice in wonderland, Saw and Tropic thunder. All she needed now was a sparkling Vampire and an angry prom queen, and she would officially be re-living all the films she had watched that night.

She scanned the area, half expecting a bunny in a waistcoat that she could chase when she spotted a trail of blood winding across the forest floor, leading deeper into the forest that hadn't been there a minute ago. Right before her eyes the little trickle of blood seemed to expand and she couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching her.

Rachel pinched herself hard, this world kept getting creepier and she had had enough of this bogus dream. If there weren't going to be any sparkling vampires or a possible fan war she was going to wake up, maybe if she found out what ever this dream was trying to tell her she could wake up and forget about it. Her mind made up Rachel walked in the opposite direction of the mysterious trail of blood positive that it would only lead to trouble. Not once did the thought occur that maybe, just maybe it might have been safer to follow the trail and take the expected danger rather than step out into the unknown.

When she finally tumbled out of the dense wood pulling dead leaves from the red mass that was her hair she looked up to see an arrow fly past and bury its self into a nearby tree, she was quite surprised to see that her life could be on the line.

"Now I see why they always follow the trail of blood!" She sighed readying herself to run away. It was a dream so she couldn't exactly get hurt, but its always nicer to be on the safe side.

"Die little girl!" A soft voice scuttled its way down from above her, accompanied by quiet giggles from what Rachel could only guess as the rest of the spider's family. Rolling her eyes she stepped back in time to see a sword fly past her face millimetres from her nose, and a long strand of thread in front of her.

Looking back at her next actions she probably should have seen this coming. Only today she and Annabeth had sat through 10 horror films and what had she learnt from that? Apparently nothing as she grabbed the string in front of her only succeeding in slicing her hand and dying the thread crimson, the string gave a sudden tug and the sword that almost killed her moments before flew backwards in the direction that it came from and was caught with a resounding click by a woman in what looked to be her late twenties. She had eight eyes, two with dark brown irises which was the exact same colour as her hair, the others located in the centre of her forehead in a circle all looking in different directions. Sheathing the sword the woman smiled lazily at Rachel revealing her razor sharp canines.

The woman wrapped the string around her index fingers like she was about to floss her teeth and proceeded to lick off the blood from the string. Her 8 eyes blinked in surprise and she grinned at Rachel all black eyes focused on her, sparkling intensely with cruel joy, just like the spider they had no whites.

"My dear how very rude of me! why did you not tell me your blood was this sweet? It is very wrong to kill before eating, the freshness of the blood simply disappears, and it is Such a waste!"

Rachel groaned she asked for a vampire and she got exactly what she wanted. Oh it was annoying when the fates decided to be 'nice'.

The lady advanced leaping nimbly from web to web licking her black lips as she got closer and closer to Rachel, about to close in and suck her blood. Clasping her fingers around a Egyptian scimitar she stole from a soldier earlier, Rachel waited for the spider-woman to be right in front of her and lobbed the weapon at her would be attacker. She had nothing to fear if the lady survived or if she missed, sure her hand stung a bit but this was only a dream, she probably knocked over a cup or something in her sleep. The sword whistled through the air, catching the woman unaware mid-leap.

It hit its mark: right in the centre of her circle of eyes.

The Lady recoiled, leaped back to the tree that she'd started from and drew the sword out of her head wiping the trickle of golden blood away, totally unaffected by the blow, just rather annoyed. She looked back at Rachel with disdain."I hoped you'd not do that I can't stand blood of one that's too smart for their own good, for example Athena. Now that minx never knew how to take a joke... A spider of all creatures! How horrid!" The Lady's tone changed from condescending to miserable and she began to wail softly "Even a silkworm..."

An old story that Annabeth was explaining the other day suddenly popped into Rachel's mind, who was that girl that Athena cursed again? Arancat? Acne? Ariandne? No... Rachel really hoped that goddess wasn't listening in right now... Her eyes widened finally remembering the name.

"Are you Arachne?"

"Who else? Insolent brat now I'm pissed"

"Why?" Rachel was confused what exactly did she do (other than throwing a knife) to offend Arachne so much?

"Don't you know..." The skin of the woman before her began to get hairier and she stooped as two pairs of spider legs shot out of her back. "That you should never question..." Her arms and legs grew longer and her elbows and knees bent backwards, until gone was the sort of friendly looking woman and in her place stood the mother of all spiders hissing angrily. "...a God!" The huge creature scuttled towards Rachel, a writhing black wave of smaller spiders behind her all looking hungry. One thing you learn whilst living with a bunch of demi-gods is if you ever find yourself about to be eaten by a pack of hungry spiders with no weapons, and they weren't a part of your quest. Simply walk away without a fight (this doesn't apply to the Ares cabin of course).

And so that is why Rachel found her self being chased back through a forest by a bunch of very angry spiders which made her do the second thing that you should never do in a horror film: run right into a tree. Especially if your surrounded by half eaten bodies which may or may not be your friends. Head still throbbing and the reality that this might not be a dream slowly beginning to sink in Rachel turned to face the mass of spiders, unnerved by all the eyes and fur that... eww had almost touched her.

Rachel didn't quite understand how all the Oracle stuff works but she could accurately predict in the next 3 minutes she was most likely about to suffer the same fate as the corpses surrounding her.

Her mouth fell open as a corpse began to rise, being animated by what looked to be another spider web. The corpse dangled above the army of spiders, weapon clenched in it's hands like a puppet on strings. No one else but Rachel had noticed. And for the umpteenth time since she had met Percy Jackson outside the Damn toilets she wondered if she was going absolutely crazy.

"Now my darlings, eat to your heart's content" Arachne cackled oblivious to the puppet behind her and the other corpses that were gradually beginning to join it. Rachel shrieked as millions of spiders of all sizes crawled up her arms and legs, she panicked and began to thrash around swatting them before they could bite. The largest of the spiders had just managed to reach her elbow when a dagger from one of the puppets embedded itself into Arachne's leg. The spiders on Rachel froze, confused as they tried to see what was wrong with their mother. But those ten seconds of hesitation were all Rachel needed to swat the remaining spiders off and to run off in the direction of the trail of blood.


Half and hour later Rachel crouched down, glaring at a furry spider dangling from its fly-filled web about two metres away from the equally fly-filled bush she was hiding under. If the damn spider would just turn around and eat its stupid fly buffet for five minutes; Rachel could make a run for it. It edged closer to the fattest fly on the web, and Rachel found herself silently cheering it on, not that she encouraged gorging on some poor fly's guts but if that spider didn't dig in soon she would become a popsicle. The fact that she had red hair and skin that was turning blue just rubbed salt in the wound.

The spider being the observant idiot that it was spun around to further survey the area. "For Pete's sake would it kill you to be a bad watchman for once in your miserable 30 day life?" Rachel muttered under her breath, then seeing a now familiar row of scorpions marching in her direction cursed.

It hadn't taken her long to figure out that all the spiders, scorpions and termites were in league with Arachne, nope Rachel had clued in somewhere between getting attacked by several angry ant-like things and being chased by the regular patrol of scorpions and boy did they run fast. The nerve-wrecking sound of scuttling anthropods got closer, and closer, and even closer. Rachel glared more at the annoyingly-good-at-watching-out-for-her spider, she was too angry to bother with thinking up a good insult so The A.G.A.W.O.F.H.S it shall henceforth be called, she grinned proud of her anagramic skills, but the daft spider turned round again!

There are times for thinking up elaborate plans and carrying said plan out perfectly, there are times in which you have a plan but it is better to wing it and there are times in which there is no need for a plan because in the next 3 minutes a lovely (heavy on the sarcasm) scorpion will find and kill you. Now was such a time.

Looking back at what she did next Rachel would probably agree that it was the dumbest thing she could have possibly done considering her circumstances, but then she would have laughed and said it was the most exhilarating experience she'd had in a long while, and probably go on to say it was the most exhilarating experience of that year but then she would admit she would be lying as there was lots more in store for her afterwards.

Rachel charged through the forest for the second time that day giving the A.G.A.W.O.F.H.S the middle finger as she ran past and using a tree branch that had broken somehow to leap over the stunned army of scorpions, hugging her knees to her chest Rachel ninja rolled for the hell of it, got up grinned and screamed "Up yours!" then turned and made a mad dash in the opposite direction.

Panting hard and sweat pouring off her, Rachel charged through the forest ducking and swerving around the trees but most at all regretting her decision, scorpions did not like being mocked by a half-crazed Prophetess' especially when there were orders to kill her anyway. Not only did this mean all chance at being allowed to go free had gone down the drain but all the nearby scorpion patrols, the A.G.A.W.O.F.H.S and for some reason a whole nest of termites were trying to track her down. Thanks again to the A.G.A.W.O.F.H.S she had lost the trail of blood and seconds after flipping the scorpion patrol and the A.G.A.W.O.F.H.S she accidentally ran into Arachne and two other huge insecty-things and now they had also joined the chase.

Oh frick, frick, frickety frickin frick f*cking fricksticks! She cursed as she raced through a pond Really? apparently having 8 legs made you an amazing swimmer too, why was it that only humans seemed to suffer in water? Panicking because the A.G.A.W.O.F.H.S just touched her she began to swim a cross between the doggy paddle and the butterfly in fact Rachel wasn't too sure was she was doing cos all she was thinking at the time was:

IT'S SO COLD! WTH? OH LOOK I'M PULLING AHEAD! WHY IS IT SO COLD?

Tired and questioning her sanity Rachel dragged herself out of the ice bath and resumed her run all the while wondering why she didn't take Mrs McHaggins up on her offer to join the track team or at least take Mrs O'Leary walkies.

Sunshine! Rachel blinked as she emerged out of the forest and she quickly stopped to rest behind... a wardrobe?

The spiders found her of course but as they all had 20-odd eyes each they were practically blinded when they ran out of the woods and into the suns glare, "Woohoo!" she yelled energised immediately catching the attention of more Spiders. "You'll never catch me!" she cried bringing even more Arthropods into the mix.

Apparently running for your life brings on extreme fits of stupidity and the crazy desire to start a conga line but that could be the hypothermia talking.

"You can't run forever, Little girl"

Good old Arachne you could always count on her to hold a grudge. Rachel thought sarcastically turning sharply to avoid being rained on by mini-spiders, It seemed Arachne's tactic to catch Rachel was to literally throw her children at her, what ever good that will do. It was only at the last second Rachel realised her mistake, she was now stuck between the edge of a cliff and a possibly 100ft drop, or a crazed mother spider intent on feeding her children. Somehow the rock and the hard place doesn't quite describe this situation. Rachel sighed she was starting to see purple dots... that wasn't good.

"We have you now!" Rachel blinked her eyes finally focusing on the collection of Arachnids before her, Arachne had taken Rachel's temporary blindness to revert back to her human-ish form and was now perched on the back of a gigantic Scorpion. "Meet my son Antares" she gestured to the giant scorpion "...and my daughter Briseis" she pointed to the huge Termite who was rolling around laughing "She's so fat!" "Mummy I want first bite!" "Are all humans that big? Will it grow that big?" The spider that said that was elbowed... legged? by a few hundred of its siblings. "We don't talk about that, EVER!" Arachne seemed really angry about whoever they were talking about.

"You've already met my other children." Arachne giggled at Rachel's glare

"Why should I care?" Rachel challenged. Arachne looked at her, all eight eyes focusing on the soon to be former Oracle. "Oh but I would feel so rude if you didn't know who was eating you." she sighed softly as if she was sitting at a tea party. "It was nice meeting you little girl I'm sure you will be most agreeable for dinner... wouldn't want any stomach problems so close to the completion of Gaia's plans" Arachne raised her hand and the army closed around Rachel "Obviously we're going to have to split you into thirds now, so don't struggle too much..." Her grin widened as she lowered her hand.

Fate seemed to be sort of on Rachel's side today as at that moment the same strings as before appeared behind Arachne each one of them growing out of the ground and slowly moving side to side creating cracks in the side of the cliff. The cracked earth crumbled under the weight of the entire Arachnid army and Rachel - she would have probably laughed at the irony - but then she was falling too. Quietly she watched the terrified faces of the spiders as the the ground rushed towards them, fascinated by their flailing legs. The fact that she was falling with them didn't occur to her and Rachel probably wouldn't have ever realised it if it wasn't the fact that when she hit the blood red lake: a reflection of the skyline. She might have really thought this whole experience was just a bad dream.


Percy grunted, for the last two no, three hours he'd been asleep in the most uncomfortable position, one leg was in the popcorn the other was curled underneath him, nerves tingling with pins and needles and the worst part was that Annabeth his girlfriend of almost 2 years was sleeping on top of him, now normally that wouldn't be a bad thing but as much as he loved her, death by suffocation wasn't how he planned to die. And now he was faced with a dilemma... Suffocate to death or die by Annabeth's hand if he dared to wake her up during the REM part of the sleeping cycle.

There was of course the other option of moving her gently off him but knowing Annabeth's half-asleep punching habit he'd rather not risking the chance of dying of internal bleeding especially since his invunerability was gone. That left him stuck between his girlfriend and a wall and if one didn't back up soon Annabeth was going to wake up in her dead boyfriend's arms. He looked over to Rachel for help, she was his only girl friend other than Annabeth and she might be able to help him.

But when he looked over to the oracle he noticed that she wasn't breathing, or moving for that matter, a chill crept its way up his back something definitely wasn't right here... Not caring what would happen to him he pushed Annabeth off him. As he predicted; her fist connected with his gut and she sat up glaring at him through half asleep eyes. "What was that for?" She hissed rubbing at her arm which was beginning to bruise. Whoops.

"Rachel." Percy whispered at the red head's side in minutes. Annabeth blinked and turned her grey eyes towards her ex-rival, upon seeing her friend she gasped and felt for Rachel's pulse.

There was none.

"Chiron!" She cried "Its Rachel! She's not waking up!" Everything seemed to slow down after that, He and Annabeth were on either side holding Rachel's hands, Chiron had called and Ambulance and manipulated the mist to make the paramedics believe that Camp half-blood was an ordinary camp site, then they had sped away to St Francis hospital. And now almost two hours later Percy and the other demigods at camp half blood gathered around the fire to hear of Rachel's sudden coma. Lacy was in hysterics moaning about how she could have gone another night without watching Twilight and the other campers were trying to calm her down.

"Alright listen!" Chiron stamped his hoof and the whole camp was in silence, every head turned around to face him and even the fire crackled a little quieter to hear him better. "Its seems that Rachel has fallen into a coma, according to the mortals a poisonous spider must have bitten her while she was sleeping and in order to preserve her life her body shut down... a hibernation if you will."

"Is she alright?" someone in the back piped up. "The doctors have already given her some injections that will hopefully counteract the poisons, all we can do is to sit and wait." Chiron sighed and began to trudge his way back toward the big house. Taking his exit as a cue to leave the demigods began to file back towards their cabins murmuring about the fate of there prophetic friend. Percy and Annabeth stayed behind for a few minutes staring blankly into the smokey fire thinking about what they had felt when they touched her. It was more than a spider bite that had her in that coma, they were sure of that; Her hands were too cold as if...

"She seemed dead." Percy looked up and saw his youngest cousin walking towards him his hands stuffed in his pockets. "Nico! when did you get there?" Annabeth sounded scared, not that she'd ever admit it. Nico rolled his eyes "I never left." He frowned, and chucked a piece of wood onto the fire. "Rachel's soul isn't with her anymore." He said casually as if informing them what he had for dinner that night.

"What do you mean?" Annabeth challenged standing up and looking down at him. "What I said." Nico replied not scared by Annabeth's menacing scowl in the least. Annabeth scowl grew and wrinkles appeared in her brow. "I meant what do you mean her soul isn't with her!"

"I'm a son of Hades, I know these things!" Nico groaned "Really don't you want to know what happened to her?"

"Yes, but do you know?" Annabeth crossed her arms and looked at him pointedly

"No..." He began slowly "But if you could figure out where her soul went to, you could... Oh its back"

Percy stared at him "What?" his trance was broken and he joined his girlfriend by the fire.

"...and its gone again." Nico informed them. Percy stared at his cousin "Like I said, what?" he asked again.

"Her soul came back to her body just then, I could have been a..." His eyebrows furrowed in concentration, "And its back again!"

"How can you tell?" Annabeth queried, she'd stopped scowling by then and her eyes kept flickering upwards like she was trying to remember something. Nico pointed to himself "Me. Son of death."

"I meant...!" She froze and jerked upright, the look on her face was one of such clarity Percy expected her to snap her fingers and yell EUREKA. "Be right back!" she yelled and ran towards her cabin. Moments later she came back with a huge book of Greek myths (all in ancient Greek of course).

"It should be here..." she muttered flicking through the pages. "Aha!" Annabeth beamed triumphantly and showed the boys a beautifully illustrated copy of the story of Orpheus.

Percy and Nico stared at her blankly.

Annabeth rolled her eyes and started to explain "Orphesus's wife Eurydice died on their wedding night so he traveled to the underworld to find her and he managed to charm both Hades and Persephone so they let him take her back on the condition that he doesn't turn around until they are both outside. But he does and she is dragged back."

The boys continued to stare blankly at her.

"Really?" She huffed "Anyway the story doesn't mention this but as her spirit was coming back to her it flickered in and out."

"So?" Percy asked honestly confused

"So, that's what's wrong with Rachel her spirit wants to get back to her!" Annabeth's smile widened "And If I'm correct we can find her in the underworld!"

"So its a quest?" Nico confirmed his dark brown eyes glittering, he turned to Percy "You in?"

Percy looked at Annabeth and grinned "Of course, I'll tell Chiron first thing tomorrow"


Rachel surfaced, at least she thought she had. Nothing made sense anymore and she kept slipping in and out of consciousness, She was aware of some sort of danger but at that moment she couldn't tell. Mustering all her energy she opened her eyes to see a kid of about 4 or 5 years old staring back at her. "Hi" She winced trying to get up, her body ached all over. In a second the boy crossed the floor almost as if he was levitating, gently he pushed her back down in to what looked to be a giant mound of cotton wool. "Don't move!" He commanded but his voice was more that of a terrified child than anything scary.

"You need time to rest." He explained not meeting her eyes directly, as if he was afraid of her. "Who are you?" Rachel asked feeling a little more relaxed now she saw the kid meant her no harm.

"Aischylos, I live here by myself" He answered coolly but his eyes glimmered with tears, and he began to absentmindedly check a bite mark on his hand. "What kind of name is that?" Rachel blurted out then tried to get back up again "Sorry I didn't mean..." She started to say but stopped when he raised a hand - it was almost like a skeleton, bony and fragile looking; with paper white skin stretched over it revealing the web of blue veins underneath.

The kid himself was sort of wimpy looking: he had a drawn out face and even though he was dressed in a hospital gown, his ribs were sticking out... he was far from healthy, for a moment Rachel wondered if the kid was anorexic... It would explain the hospital gown. She snapped out of her daydream as the kid made a high pitched strangled sound like a dying cat.

"It means Shame in ancient Greek, for I have shamed my family." Immediately after responding in his monotone voice he bit down on his lip with an extremely sharp-looking incisor. His black eyes now brimmed with tears and he unfurled his hands to wipe away the over spill. Rachel could tell that he honestly believed that he was despicable but she was shocked to hear that his family had kicked him out.

What for? She wondered what kind of family would kick there four year-old child out? Whatever this boy had done she was sure he didn't deserve this.

He bent over allowing his shaggy black hair to fall onto his pale face and touched a string, reminding Rachel sharply of Arachne. He stilled then looked up nervously at Rachel. "Mother's coming you should sleep..." Rachel was about to protest but Aischylos began to chant, her eyelids grew heavier and so did her body... sleep sounded like a good idea right now maybe she should... just take a nap...

Rachel felt the spirit of the Oracle take her body once more.

When Lands of Egypt and Greece combine

The hearts of 41 shall align

And together they will fight the Earth

To win but lose and await Re-birth

Of all 3 lands, yet Greece is stronger

The gods won't help you any longer

...

Despite all this, peace will remain

A year at most, beware champagne

For on the day love's child is born

The Earth's will join as I have sworn.

...

And she who chooses to follow night

Will grasp the moment and hold it tight

A day for each is all she can last

before she perishes in the blast

Time mustn't start or Earth will rise

And then begins the Gods demise


To Be Continued...