So this has been kicking around on my hard drive for a while and I figure maybe I should post it.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians. Nor do I own the song Empire State of Mind for which this story's title is based off of.
Chapter 1 – The Plunge
Talia Strachan figured that for as long as she lived, she would always be envious of her older sister, Jasmine. As the eight year old ("I'm turning nine in November!" she insisted to anyone who would listen) trudged along the sandy shores of the Long Island Sound, she retraced the steps of the childhood she had had up until exactly one year ago.
Because Jazzy was older than Talia, she got the head start on everything. Jasmine had learned to read and write her name before Talia during Kindergarten, something Talia didn't attend till the following year. Jazzy had also started figure skating before Talia, and was doing a lot better. She was almost finished the primary level while Talia still couldn't do a Lutz.
When they arrived at camp, Jazzy had been claimed almost immediately by Zeus, King of the Gods. Talia had been ecstatic for her sister, but as the months ticked by and Talia wasn't claimed, a new thought was added to that part of her heart she kept specially for the envy that was aimed at Jazzy.
And now Jazzy was being given the spotlight again.
In half-hearted anger, Talia scooped up a rock from the soft sand beneath her and chucked it as far as she could into the open water of the sound. It made a soft sploosh as it landed and the eight year old was slightly disappointed. She was hoping for something a bit more impressive.
Talia took a seat on the sand and brought her legging-clad legs up to her chest before resting her chin on her knees. After two hundred and fifty years the biggest quest in Half-Blood history had returned, and Jazzy had been chosen to take it.
Talia wouldn't have been so choked up if it had been some other camper. A lot of people had expected Bradley Collins of the Apollo cabin to get it. He was strong, skilled and a favourite among the female campers, but instead it had fallen upon Jazzy, the single daughter of Zeus, to take the quest.
This thought only trailed back to the fact that Jasmine was always doing better than Talia. There would never be another chance in their lifetime for this quest, and even though Talia didn't want it anyway, it wasn't fair that Jazzy got it.
Looking over her shoulder, the little blonde watched as many campers crowded around a table at the dining pavilion. Talia could only guess who was in the middle of it all, but she was pretty sure that her guess was right.
She stood up, her anger fuelling her again, and began heading down the length of beach again, her ballet flats sinking into the sand before kicking it up onto her flowery tunic top. She needed to relax.
Soon, the sounds of the camp faded as Talia found herself along the stretch of beach that ran parallel to the forest. She was feeling reckless though, so without a second thought she dove into the heavy underbrush.
If Jazzy had been there to accompany Talia, she probably would have told her that this was a stupid idea, and in fact it was. Being one of the youngest campers, Talia didn't carry a weapon around with her. It probably wouldn't have mattered though. She'd only used one weapon in her life, and that had been a bow and arrow in hopes of seeing if she was a daughter of Apollo.
The scraggly bushes scratched and tore at Talia's leggings and she scowled angrily at them, willing them to move. Maybe if they did she could go live in the Demeter cabin, but the plants failed to respond. In anger, she glared at a tree, waiting for a lightning bolt to fall out of the sky and knock it flat. If that happened then she would be Jasmine's full sister and they could share the Zeus cabin like they used to share a bedroom, but the lightning bolt never came.
Talia screamed loudly, kicking the nearest tree. Immediately, its wood nymph appeared and gave her a hearty shove before disappearing into the tree, leaving the blonde sitting on the ground with torn leggings and a bruised pride.
She didn't belong at Camp Half-Blood, she finally decided as she stood and continued down a small path that she uncovered. She was never going to be claimed and she was never going to do something amazing like Jazzy.
The path became surprisingly clearer, and the little girl figured she must have stumbled upon a well-used capture the flag trail. It sloped downhill for a moment before pausing in a clearing where Talia was surprised to find someone already waiting for her.
The man that stood opposite Talia wasn't very tall. He was rather short and as skinny as the twigs that had been catching at Talia's clothing for the past half an hour. He wore a dark red running suit with a matching bandana and a messenger bag that hung limply at his side.
Wait, if she weren't imagining this, did that mean that Talia had gone outside the camp borders? She looked behind her quickly, searching for the trail that she had just travelled, but it seemed to have been swallowed by the dense bushes again.
"You don't have to worry, Talia," the man said and the skater swiftly turned around again.
"How do you know my name?" Talia asked, placing her hands on her tiny hips. "I know kung-fu, you know. You better not be one of those guys that kidnaps people. My sister told me all about those kinds of people." In truth, Talia didn't know how to do kung-fu. She had never tried it in her life. She just wanted to sound mean and threatening, use her words to bite, the way Jazzy did sometimes.
The man chuckled. "Don't worry so much, I don't have any intentions on kidnapping you." He paused, scrunching his brow before pulling a cell phone out of his pocket. Two snakes were coiled around it and Talia choked back a sob. Jazzy hated spiders but Talia didn't mind them at all. They were interesting to look at. Jazzy loved snakes, but Talia would rather watch them get run over by a steam roller.
Sensing Talia's discomfort, the man glanced up from his mobile. "Oh, sorry," he said, pocketing the phone. "I forget sometimes that George and Martha can be a little unnerving for some people."
Talia straightened herself. "I wasn't scared," she retorted. "I just stepped on a really hard rock. My shoes aren't really made for taking long walks in the forest."
"Right," the man replied with a smile. "Listen, Talia. You have every right to be angry at Jasmine, but maybe you should go talk to her. She's probably looking for you right now."
Talia wanted to ask the man how he knew what Jazzy was up to, but she figured it would sound too childish. "How do you know Jazzy's name too?" she asked, setting her feet in a position that would allow her to make a hasty getaway.
The man seemed a little nervous about answer this question, and the blonde watched him pull his cell phone out again. His two snakes, George and Martha, were still wrapped around it tightly, and Talia thought she felt lunch coming back.
"I know a lot about you." The sentence snapped Talia out of her own thoughts and brought her attention back to the situation at hand. "I've known you all your life, Talia. I've been watching out for you, making sure that you made it to Camp Half-Blood safely. I promised someone I'd make sure my kids were safe."
"You're not my father," Talia snapped. She hoped she sounded like Jasmine when she screamed at their step-father when he told her she was grounded. She hoped she had that anger and authority in her voice.
The man smiled a little sadly before tucking his phone away. "Think what you like," he told her, "but you should be getting back to camp. The others are probably looking for you."
Talia nodded, not sure what to say. She seemed to have lost a large amount of confidence after the man smiled. The skater turned around to look for the path again and was surprised to find it with ease. She had been standing in front of it the whole time. She turned around to ask the man a final question, but was equally surprised to find that he was no where to be seen.
/The Plunge\
The first thing Talia asked when she got back to camp was, "Can I have a glass of water?" It wasn't 'Have you seen Jazzy?' or 'Do you know where Jasmine is?' It wasn't even included in the second question. She later asked if she missed dinner and was disappointed to find out that she did. However, the Hermes cabin had stolen a bag of marshmallows from Mr. D last week and had promised her half the bag for her dinner at the camp fire.
Talia tried to avoid Jazzy for the rest of the day, but when night fell she felt like she couldn't keep hiding. They always said goodnight to each other before turning in.
The younger sister found her elder down at the canoe lake. Jasmine was skipping flat rocks across its motionless surface, watching them sink into the cool depths.
"Jazzy?" Talia's voice broke the silence and her brunette sister jumped, clearly startled.
"Oh, Talia," Jasmine replied, relieved when she found it was only her sister behind her. "I'm glad you finally came to talk to me. I've been meaning to get a hold of you all day."
This comment made Talia a little nervous and guilty, but she only nodded her head. "I heard from another camper that you wanted to talk to me."
Jazzy cocked an eyebrow, but took a seat on the rocky shoreline anyway. "Well, you're here, and that's all that really matters."
Talia joined her sister on the rocks, letting the water splash onto her ballet flats. They were already ruined from her trek through the forest, so she figured that a little water wasn't going to hurt them much. She noticed Jasmine stayed a little farther back from the water, and Talia remembered Zeus and his brother Poseidon's agreement over turf. She figured it must apply to their children as well.
The silence fell between them again and Talia shifted nervously. Jasmine was usually so straight-forward when it came to matters between the two of them. What was going on?
"Talia?" Jazzy asked, suddenly breaking through the invisible barrier between them. "Do you know a lot about this quest that I was given?"
The question surprised Talia, and she was about to respond when she decided that maybe for once it would be better to think before speaking. Did she know a lot about it? Not really. Not at all, actually. She shook her head, not trusting her voice, and Jazzy sighed.
"It's The Quest of a Lifetime, Chiron tells me," she says as she pulls her long legs up and rests her chin on her knee. "He told me that the Gods have hidden themselves somewhere, and it is up to one demigod to find them. When they do, the Gods will tell that demigod their most important personality trait, the source to all their powers. Without believing in this trait, you can't be nearly as strong as you potentially could be."
"What does 'potentially' mean?" Talia asked, still not being able to grasp some of the longer words Jazzy had picked up from some of the other campers.
Jazzy sighed and shut her eyes, wishing that Talia was just a little older so she would understand. "It means 'possible', or something like that. I don't know! Can we just focus please?"
Talia nodded again, but Jasmine didn't see, still having her eyes closed. "The thing is, I'm only ten years old. Sure, I'm turning eleven in June, but that's still a long way's off. Your birthday's coming faster than mine."
There was a brief silence again and Talia worried Jazzy had fallen asleep, but the older girl started up again.
"I can't do this, Talia."
The younger skater snapped her head over towards Jazzy and sighed as tears ran down her sister's cheeks. Jazzy wasn't supposed to cry. Jazzy was tough and strong and reliable. When Talia lost at figure skating competitions, she'd cry and sob until there wasn't anything left in her eyes to leak. When Jazzy lost she just shrugged it off and went right back to skating, working hard to win the next competition. It was like the roles had now suddenly been reversed.
"Why not?" Talia found herself asking as her mind still wandered. Her thoughts trailed back to what she had been thinking of earlier, before she met the strange man in the forest. She would never get a chance to do this quest in a lifetime...
"I'm too young, I'm too scared, I could keep listing forever. I'm not courageous and I'm scared to find out in the end. I don't want to know the source of all my power. I just want to be normal."
Chiron had once told Talia that everyone told him they just wanted to be a normal kid within their first week of staying at Camp Half-Blood. "Nothing like a good old centaur to scare the good sense out of you," he told her one day as he helped her aim her bow and arrow at the target. It was only four feet away and Talia still failed to hit the target. That was the day they had decided she was not a daughter of Apollo.
"What are you going to do, Jazzy?" Talia asked, rocking backward slightly. "It's not like you can just send someone in your place. Once you're chosen, you have to go, right?"
But Jasmine wasn't looking so down anymore. Instead, she had this wicked gleam in her eye that reminded Talia of all the times they had pranked their step-father.
"Talia, have you ever wanted to be a brunette?" Jazzy asked, the smirk on her face widening.
/The Plunge\
When Talia had said she wished she were more like Jazzy, she wasn't sure if this is what she meant.
While on the shores of the lake with Jasmine, Talia had been told of a plan, a plan that involved sending someone else in Jasmine's place. At first, Talia hadn't clued in, but she seemed to get the message after Jasmine explained everything to her.
"Talia, you're so much better at these things than I am," Jazzy encouraged. "You'd love to do a quest like this."
Being only eight and three-quarters, Talia agreed.
They came up with a daring and devious plan, and the next day at nine in the morning, both Jazzy and Talia were sitting in a small clearing not too far into the forest with two children from the Aphrodite cabin.
Marina Henderson and Caleb Brown were known for their superb abilities at transforming people's looks. The two shared the spot as Head-of-Cabin and there was speculation on them dating.
"So, what are we doing here again?" Marina asked, twirling a long, spindly comb expertly between her equally long and spindly fingers.
"We need you to give us the best transformation possible," Jasmine replied. "We need you to turn us into different people."
"I'm going to look like Jazzy," Talia explained, hoping she could clear things up a bit. "And she's going to look like me!"
The two older campers exchanged looks and then began blabbering very quickly in a language that was completely foreign to Talia, meaning it wasn't English or Greek.
"Fine, we'll do it," Caleb agreed. "But you have to tell us why, or else the deal's off."
Talia and Jasmine exchanged nervous glances. There was a possibility that Marina and Caleb would tell Chiron about their plan on the quest.
"Can you keep a secret?" Talia blurted finally, causing Jazzy to groan.
Marina laughed. "Honey, you're talking to two kids from the Aphrodite cabin. We're the kings and queens of gossip."
Talia wasn't sure what gossip was, but she thought maybe it was something good, like keeping secrets.
"Well, Jazzy doesn't want to go on her quest so she's sending me instead," Talia chirped proudly, but Jasmine didn't seem to share the enthusiasm.
The older sister turned to the Aphrodite campers and said, "If you tell anyone about this before tomorrow night, I will personally make sure that your make-up helps aid the next bonfire."
This remark seemed to fuel the older kids into preparing to continue the transformation, and within five minutes Talia and Jazzy had switched hair colours.
"Now remember," Marina began, combing through Talia's new brown hair, "the spell will only last until your guys' bond is stretched to a certain length. Now, I don't know how long that goes, but you guys seem close, so it might get Talia out of New York."
"New York City, or New York State?" Jasmine asked sharply as Caleb handed her a mirror so she could glance at Talia's strawberry blonde hair on her head.
"State," Marina corrected, shooing the sisters away. "Now you guys better get a move on before somebody clues in on what we've been up to."
Jasmine and Talia thanked Marina and Caleb before pausing outside the Zeus cabin, where Talia had stowed her things the night before.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Talia?" Jazzy asked, fidgeting again.
Talia nodded. "I'll be okay, Jazzy," she assured. "It's only for a few days, right?"
The blonde-turned-brunette watched as her sister's eyebrows rose, but she nodded anyway. "Right," Jazzy said. "Just a few days."
"Good," Talia continued. "I'd hate to be away for so long."
There was an unnerving silence between them again before Jasmine pulled something out of her pocket. It was a sheathed dagger, the only weapon Jazzy owned.
"I want you to take this with you," Jazzy said as she handed her sister the dagger. "It will keep you as safe as I can hope."
Talia nodded, rather speechless, which was a first for her. She was normally so bubbly and energetic while Jazzy seemed to have grown in the year that they had stayed at Camp Half-Blood.
"Do I have to tell Chiron I'm leaving?" Talia asked as she stuck the dagger into the pocket of her skating jacket. She had to make sure no one saw the name by the collar because it read 'Talia' instead of 'Jazzy'. Jasmine's would be too big for her and would surely get caught on branches and such on her journey.
Jazzy shook her head. "I told him yesterday I'd leave whenever, so he might not see me off."
Talia nodded slowly, suddenly realizing that yesterday, this sounded like a great idea. She, Talia Aimee Strachan would be taking on the most famous quest in all of Half-Blood history. She would be remembered long after her lifetime. However, as appealing as it sounded, she wasn't sure if it appealed to her as much anymore.
"You better get going, Talia," Jasmine said as the two began making their way to Half-Blood Hill. "I want you to have a good head start in case Chiron decides to send people out to retrieve you."
At the top of the hill, Talia paused again and glanced back at the Camp. She hadn't left it since the day she arrived, and it suddenly felt strange to be leaving it behind. She wouldn't wake up in the morning to see Jake Anderson, her cabin leader, telling her to get up or they'd miss breakfast. She wouldn't have a chance to go riding with the Apollo cabin or strawberry picking with the satyrs. She was being thrown out into the big, bad world again.
I have to be strong, she found herself thinking. I have to be like Jazzy.
"I'll miss you," Talia said, giving her sister a hug. Jasmine didn't reply with words. She had turned her head away, and with a start, Talia realized that this was the start of the greatest adventure she would ever know.