So, for those of you that know me, this is where a lot of my time has been spent, writing this. For those of you that don't know me, nice to meet you. Hope you like it.
This is a PJO universe fic. I began writing this before Heroes of Olympus came out, and didn't feel like changing it to fit that, so read this as if The Lost Hero and everything after that never happened.
For those that are wondering, there will be appearances of Percy, Annabeth, and others, but they won't be the main focus. Nor will my characters become best friends with them. For those that don't like reading about OCs, this probably isn't for you. But, I usually have trouble writing the main characters because I don't know if that's what the author would have wanted.
Disclaimer: I'm not Rick Riordan and I don't own anything from Percy Jackson, so all character's from that (aside from the gods and anything from the myths because those are public domain... so basically, the demi-gods from that and Rachel). I do, however, own Dawn, Mary-Ann, Troy, Mercy, Hermione, and any other main character that you don't recognize.
Mary-Ann: I Throw My Art Teacher Into a Kiln
I wasn't exactly what you would call a 'troubled' youth, but to my mother I was. Emphasis on the trouble. I could tell from a young age that my mother resented me. All she ever really saw me as was an annoyance. She tried to have me aborted... three times. Twice legally, but when neither of those worked (baffling the doctors) and the legal aborting period was over, she went to an underground doctor. He ended up in jail and I ended still being born a healthy, loud baby.
There were a number of reasons that my mother resented me. To list a few:
-She was a single mother that drank and became pregnant shortly after she became legal to drink (totally her fault).
-She always hated children (she even hates all my cousins).
-She thinks women are the inferior race (every time I find out she has another boyfriend, I know he's going to leave her because she's going to let him walk all over her, use her, and then move on to greener pastures with perkier breasts).
-I have dyslexia. And ADHD.
-We're broke poor (but maybe if she accepted help from her parents we wouldn't be).
While my grandparents do actually love me and buy me nice things, they won't raise me unless my mother got hurt or died. They didn't let her put me up for adoption either, threatening to change their will so that she's written out and I'm written in. They have, however, offered for my mother and me to move in with them (multiples times). My mother, however, doesn't want to be the only child of three that needs help from her parents.
So, instead, we live in what is best described as a hole in the wall, and loosely called an apartment. Because the schools around us don't have good programs for kids with dyslexia, I'm stuck always being confused in class. I get made fun of a lot for some of the stupid questions I ask, but as none of my past teachers had very clear handwriting, and don't make very good spaces, I often can't make out which letters go in which word. When the spaces are clear, it's easy to tell what the shorter words are, and most words are short enough. But when I can't distinguish where the spaces are, well, there are only two options, not understand what is on the board or ask. Only one teacher ever adjusted the way she wrote to accommodate me, and that was my sixth grade teacher. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on the way you look at it), I passed that level and moved on to the seventh grade, which is where my story began, with a month left in the school-year.
I sat cross-legged on the bathroom counter, a small amount of make-up in front of me. Just a light blush, eye-liner (in a medium brown), and mascara because that's all my grandmother will get for me until I'm fifteen, which is almost two years away.
"Why are you even putting on make-up, girl?" my mother asked, spotting me when she entered to take her morning shower. As you can tell, from the so endearing 'girl' comment, she obviously cares enough about me to know what gender I am.
"Because it makes me look older," I replied.
"You know what would really make you look older," my mother said. "If you took your hair out of those ridiculous buns."
Admittedly, I do wear my hair in two messy buns on either side of my head, and add that to he fact that my hair is bright red, well, it doesn't really do much to help me look any older. However, I ignored my mother as I carefully traced my gold-flecked hazel eyes with the eyeliner. A quick swipe of the blush so I don't look too pale, and a quick job of mascara, I hopped off the counter to leave the bathroom to my mother. It was time for me to leave anyway.
I ran into my room, quickly exchanging my make-up for my book bag, and then walked out, making sure I had the apartment key as I left. My best friend was already waiting in the hall for me.
Dawn smirked at me when I walked out. She lives in the building next to mine. Because each individual building is owned by different people, while my building is really crappy (the front door doesn't even lock), Dawn's building is amazing, as in it has security and doesn't smell like dirty gym socks in the halls.
Dawn and I have similar circumstances. She also has ADHD (though not dyslexia), and we both have no idea who our fathers are. However, unlike me, Dawn does live with her grandmother, mostly because Dawn's mother is a super famous train robber and is on the run from the law. She used to bring Dawn along with her on her adventures, but when she made the FBI's most wanted list, Dawn's mother decided to give Dawn a 'stable' life.
"How'd you get in?" I asked, even though I knew a kid in diapers would have no problem breaking into the building.
"Magic, Mary-Ann," Dawn replied with a smirk. Dawn always looked amazing. She's got an elegant face with high arched eye brows, a thin nose, and pointed chin. Her hair is dark brown, which she usually wears in a low pony-tail to the left so it falls in front of her shoulder. Her eyes are bright blue and sort of shine on their own. Today she was wearing a bright orange tee, a black suit vest, and black and white plaid pants with black flats. She always wears two pieces of jewelry, a white gold and yellow gold Star of David with a heart for one of the triangles necklace, and a gold ring with a yellow stone that was a gift from her mother. She suspected the ring might actually have been given to her mother from her father, but she never knew for sure.
"Funny," I said. We hurried outside and to the bus stop where several other kids from our school were standing. However, there was a new edition to the bunch. A kid probably our age. The other kids were all standing back from him, and whispering. It was weird with such a short amount of time left before the end of the year for someone to transfer.
"Nice skirt, Weston," George Michaels said when Dawn and I arrived. I was wearing a black mini-skirt over a pair of jean flares. "Too bad you blocked the view with those denims."
"I like it," the new kid said. He was kind of cute, I guess. He had a thin face with brown eyes and a massive jew-fro. He only had a notebook with him. George voiced my thoughts.
"Hey, new kid, keeping your pens and pencils in your hair?"
Dawn rolled her blue eyes. "Ignore the ogre," she said. Unlike me, people generally listened to Dawn when she talked. It was either because she was pretty, smart, funny, energetic, and all around cool, or they were afraid her mother might decide to take a break from train robbing to teach them a lesson. Anyway, George turned away and started talking with a few of his lughead friends. Dawn turned to the new kid. "I'm Dawn Westbrook. This is Mary-Ann Weston."
"My name is Troy," he said.
"Like the character from High School Musical?" I blurted out stupidly. Dawn hung her head for a moment. I will admit, I watched the Disney Channel every once in a while... or more like every afternoon between me getting home before my mom does. It's a habit I've been trying to get out of.
Troy, however, just gave me a blank stare. "I don't know," he said. "I'm not sure what that is."
"That makes you a lucky one," Dawn said quickly before quickly changing the subject. "So, where did you come from?"
He pointed at a building two down from Dawn's. "Apartment 205."
"I think she means before you moved here," I said.
"Oh..." Troy blushed a bit. "New Jersey."
"Cool," Dawn said. "I was there once. Only saw it from the windows of a train. Ever been to Manhattan?"
He nodded. "Went there a lot actually."
"I love it there," Dawn said. I sighed. She had spent a lot of time there before her mother brought her here. "When I grow up, I'm going to move there and be on broadway." Stars filled her eyes, as she thought about her lifelong dream of being on stage in front of hundreds. Personally, it sounded like a high risk job to me... and repetitive. Singing the same songs, repeating the same lines, and if you mess up, you could ruin the whole show. I would never be able to handle the pressure.
"Broadway? Really?" Troy asked. "What's the lure of that?"
"She's a great singer," I said. "And a great actress. Actually, she's great at just about everything she does."
"Talking down bullies included?" Troy questioned. George Michaels was still mumbling with his thug friends. I knew they were planning some sort of revenge for when Dawn wasn't around.
Finally, the bus pulled up and people started to get on. I noticed that Troy seemed to limp when he walked. I decided not to question it.
Classes were, as always, boring. My dyslexia really messed me up in math when I was getting the sequencing of numbers wrong. Unfortunately, I don't have Dawn in most of my classes. Just my Spanish class (and the only reason I'm not failing is because she helps me with it).
Troy, however, ended up in class with me. He sat next to me in every class, and whenever we were free to talk, he would ask me all about Dawn. It was kind of annoying, especially as I use the free time to finish taking notes and try to start homework. Or to ask the teacher about half of what is on the board. At least he seemed to be taking thorough notes, so maybe I would just ask to borrow his.
As we were walking toward art (the only class I was any good at), Troy asked, "Do you have dyslexia?"
"Yes," I said. "I do. Thanks for noticing. And before you ask, no, Dawn doesn't."
Oddly, his face fell a little at that. I didn't mention it, but I finally brought up his limp.
"Oh, I have a muscle disorder in my legs. It limits my ability to use my legs. I often have to use crutches, but today they were actually feeling okay so I went without them."
"That sucks," I said. "I guess you won't be able to keep up in the mile run."
"I don't have to participate in PE," Troy said.
"That's lucky," I said. "I'd love to get out of that class."
Once we were seated at the easels, blank canvases in front of us, our teacher, Ms. Whisk told us to close our eyes and imagine. She was a short woman with a bit of hunch at both shoulders. She wasn't number one on personal hygiene, and she really needed to clip and clean her fingernails. She began to hum a bit, and continued to speak. "Picture anything, but something with meaning. Don't think about what the meaning is, or even what it is. Just picture it." She waited a moment, then said, "Okay, open your eyes and paint it. Don't draw it first, just paint."
At every table there was a huge color palette with tons of colors. I grabbed a brush and dipped it into a dark red color. I quickly started painting as Ms. Whisk snapped at a few kids who hadn't started immediately.
Behind me, I could tell the George was ignoring Ms. Whisk's instructions, a he and a few of his friends were laughing. I heard one of them say, "add a zit there," and another saying "no, make the nose a big snout."
"Boys, this isn't a group assignment," Ms. Whisk said, walking over to them. I glanced back to see she was looking at their painting. "What are you painting, anyway?"
"My interpretation of Mary-Ann," George said. At this I turned all the way around in my stool. "Oh, you want to see?" He took the canvas off the easel and turned it so I could see. Basically, he had turned me into a pig with red Pippy Longstocking hair.
"Charming," I said. "Really going to win girls over that way."
"What, you don't like it?" George asked. "I think it's a fairly accurate portrait." I just huffed and turned back to my own work.
By the end of class, Ms. Whisk was going around to examine how far everyone was. She stopped when she got to me. I hadn't really been thinking about what I was painting, I was just painting. After all, it was what she told us to do. But the dark look on her face made me decide to examine what I had put up. It was a bottle of red wine with grape vines all around it with plump grapes ready to be picked.
"Wine?" she questioned.
"Um... sparkling grape juice, maybe?" I said. "I swear I just listened to your instructions."
She shook her head. "I would like to speak with you after class. You can help me with starting the kiln for the pottery next period."
After everyone left, I continued to sit on my stool. "I'm not angry with you," Ms. Whisk said. "But, the wine concerns me." She waved her hand, indicating for me to follow.
"I swear I don't drink," I said. "And if you're concerned about my house, my mother doesn't either. The most alcohol anyone in my family ever drinks is my uncle Ronald, and I only see him around Christmas time... and I'm not even blood related to him. He's married to my mother's sister."
"Shut it, child," Ms. Whisk said. We were in the pottery room with all the clay and the kiln. I noticed it was already burning. Ms. Whisk, however, was taking off her sweater.
I took a few steps back toward the door. "It looks like you've got everything covered in here..." I said nervously. However, before I got to the door, it slammed closed with a gust of wind. I noticed that Ms. Whisk had two large wings, which I guess explained her double hunch.
"I know who you are," she said. "And I know why you painted what you did. For this, I need to rid the world of you."
My eyes must have been the size of half the pots in the room. I grabbed the handle of door, but Ms. Whisk (or whatever she was, because she was looking more bird than human now and it wasn't just the wings), grabbed me and pulled me away from the door with inhuman strength. Her nails ripped through the skin of my shoulder as she threw me at the kiln. I barely managed not to fall onto the open door, which would have left some nasty burns. I grabbed a pot next to me and threw it at her. She just hit it to the side where it shattered against the wall. I threw a few more, that wound up with the same fate.
"What are you?" I asked, tears leaking from my eyes.
"I'm a Harpy," she said. And then she jumped at me. I grabbed another piece of pottery, this time something like a plate, and threw it kind of like a frisbee. It actually hit her face, knocking her head back. This made her fall, and against the kiln. It must have burnt her because she yelled. But I didn't hesitate, I just ran for the door, which luckily, wasn't locked. I was out the door in a moment, and then clean out of the classroom. It was lunch, so I ran to the lunchroom where she wouldn't dare come after me.
"Nice make-up," George said when I skid to a stop in the middle of the room. This meant that my mascara must have smeared, but that didn't exactly concern me at the moment.
Where was Dawn? She always saved a table for us, but I didn't see her. She must have gone to the lunch line, deciding that she would rather eat than wait all period for me. What I did see was Troy waving in my direction.
I made my way toward him, slowly as possible. I really didn't want to sit with him, but I figured that he was sitting there because that's where Dawn was sitting. I was right, as Dawn came out of the lunch line with enough food for two on her tray. The second lunch must have been for me, as Troy had a bag lunch.
"Hey, Mary-Ann," Dawn said, seeing me in her peripheral. Then she looked at me, worry in her eyes. "What's wrong? Why were you crying?"
"I don't think you'd believe me," I said as I took a seat.
"Sure I would," Dawn said, rubbing my shoulder to soothe me.
I shook my head. "I don't even know if I believe it, but I was there and I saw it with my own eyes." I took a deep breath. "Ms. Whisk is a monster."
"Well duh," Dawn said. "How many times have I told you-"
"No, I mean a real, claws and scales and deformed monster," I said. I tried not to be too loud, but I wanted to get my point across.
Troy's eyes were wide. "What kind?" he asked.
I looked at him. "I don't know," I said. "A bird something... she said a Harpy."
Troy swallowed something dry in his throat. "We have to get out of here."
I thought Dawn was going to just laugh, but she frowned a bit. "Harpies don't have scales," she said instead. "You're in shock, but you need to pay more attention."
Troy looked at Dawn for a moment in confusion. "Are you...?"
"Don't act so surprised, Satyr," she said. "But getting out of here is going to be a bit difficult."
"Why's that?" I asked. "And what is going on?"
"Mary-Ann, you're a Half-Blood," Dawn said. "But we'll get more into that later. Right now, Troy's right. We do have to get out of here."
I stared at Dawn, and then at Troy. "Half-Blood?"
"Later," Dawn said. "Three teachers here are monsters. Whisk, Johnson, and Fredrickson."
"How do you know this?" Troy asked.
"Okay," I shook my head as I spoke. "I'd like for this dream to be over. I'd like to wake up now."
"This isn't a dream, Mary-Ann," Dawn insisted. "But, if Whisk went after you, it won't be long before the others do as well. What we need is a distraction." She turned to face Troy. "How's your aim?"
"My aim?" he asked. He was getting really jittery.
"When you throw things?"
"Oh, um, it's okay..."
Dawn frowned. "Need better than okay. Guess that leaves me to do it."
"Do what?" I asked.
"You might want to duck, MA," she said. She scraped what looked like pudding onto her spork, pulled it back, and then let it fly across three tables so it hit one of George's friends. The guys at the table all began laughing except the guy with possible pudding on his face and shirt. He grabbed his juicebox, aimed the straw at one of his friends, and squeezed it tight so all the juice sprayed on the second guy. At that point, George grabbed a handful of mashed potatoes and yelled, "FOOD FIGHT!" before throwing the food at another table entirely. Within seconds, everyone in the cafeteria was throwing food or ducking for cover. Dawn pulled me down, and Troy followed us as we wormed our way toward the nearest exit. Mr. Johnson, who was the only teacher in the cafe that Dawn had mentioned, was too caught up in trying to stop the food flying to notice us, or so I thought.
Once we were in a hall, Dawn said we needed to make a quick detour to her locker.
"We don't have time for this," Troy said, gnawing on his fingernails.
"We don't want to cross half the country without protection either, Satyr," Dawn argued.
"Why's she calling you Satyr?" I asked.
"That's what he is," Dawn said. "Why else would he have such baggy pants? Those so went out of style, by the by."
Once at her locker, Dawn opened it and grabbed her backpack. She opened it and pulled out a bow and a few arrows.
"That's your bow?" Troy asked. "It's so small." I was shocked that she had a bow, and he was surprised that it was so short.
"My other one doesn't fit in my bag," she said, and we started for the nearest exit.
"You know, maybe it's not a good idea to leave the school," I said. "Maybe we should just tell Principal Bourke that some of his teachers are monsters and-"
"And wait for more to come kill us?" Dawn asked. "Or worse? So not an option here."
"But..."
"We'll explain on the way," Dawn said. "We'll go home, get supplies, money, call my mother."
"Call your mom?" I asked.
"How else do you expect us to get to Long Island?" Dawn asked.
"Okay, now I'm confused," Troy said. "Again."
"You're confused!" I snapped.
"Quiet, Mary-Ann," Dawn said. "At least until we're outside."
"Outside?" I heard Mr. Johnson's voice. "You three weren't thinking about playing hooky, were you?"
Dawn dropped her bag and all but one of the arrows. She aimed at Mr. Johnson, who was transforming into a monster just like Whisk had. However, before he could, Dawn pulled back on the string and then released the arrow, which flew at Mr. Johnson, hitting his head. He yelled, but Dawn was already grabbing what she had dropped.
"Let's go!" she said and was pulling me out the school door. I barely saw Mr. Johnson turn into gold dust.
"You just killed a teacher," I said in shock.
"He would have killed us," Dawn said. "He's been waiting all year to catch me one on one." She stopped and turned to face me. "MA, you know I love you dearly, but please trust me when I say that you're life is in danger. I thought I could protect you, but Troy's appearance must mean that I can't do it alone."
Edit date: 3/27/18
11:12 PM