Author's Note:
Welcome to a fanfiction set in Rick Riordan's world of gods and demigods. In this fanfiction, new heroes will drive the story, but you can fully expect to see characters and locales from Riordan's stories throughout.
This fanfiction will tell the story of a team-up of epic proportions, as demigods from different pantheons join forces to combat a monstrous evil. This fanfiction is set during the current continuity, where all events in all the novels up through The Burning Maze have taken place. During the struggle against the evil Roman emperor's, another world-threatening conflict took place. Welcome to the Secret War.
Chapter 1: Zoe
My Girlfriend Punches a Really Buff Guy
Zoe sat at a table near the front of the dining hall. At the very front of the room, a massive brazier contained a bonfire that sent tendrils of flame licking all the way to the open roof of the hall, bright against the night sky. Excited demigods sat around the room at other tables. They teemed with excitement at the coming ceremony, where the newly-arrived would be claimed by their godly parent and meet their new half-siblings.
Empty tables also ringed the hall - a fair amount of them. The world had gotten increasingly dangerous over the last few years, ever since Kronos's return. Gaia had followed, then the evil Roman emperors, and those were just the problems the Olympian demigods had faced. Zoe had heard of Loki's escape and the subsequent struggle around Ragnarok in the Norse neck of the woods.
Demigods had always had it tough, but in the last few years, it had been worse than any time in recent memory. Zoe knew it was all connected somehow, she just didn't know how.
Still, the demigods in the hall filled it with their cheer and excitement. The claiming ceremonies were a big deal, especially among those who remembered when gods seemed more willing to ignore their children.
Generally, everyone got excited when new demigods joined up. Everyone except Zoe's brooding girlfriend, Charlie.
Charlie sat opposite her, her leg on the bench so she could rest her arm on it and look casually disinterested.
Charlie went against everything Zoe's mother would have approved of, and she disapproved accordingly. Or actually, Charlie looked exactly like the same type her mother had, and that was more the problem.
Rule number six in Aphrodite's dating handbook: Always steer clear of war gods and their children.
Charlie, as Zoe liked to tease her about, couldn't have screamed 'bad girl' harder. She wore beat-up leather jackets, ripped jeans, steel-toed boots, and fingerless gloves. She had a bracer and a chain wound around it cuffed to her left arm because a traditional sword knot would have been edgy enough.
Her dull, green eyes always seemed like they could see straight to Zoe's soul, and she had a scar over her right eye and marring her cheek. She had them all over, actually. Her hair was messy black and she had an inch in height on most dudes.
She looked ugly, mean, and tough, and Zoe had run right for her. She liked to blame genetics: Ares was way uglier and meaner than Charlie.
Ultimately, it was kind of fun dating someone her mother and sister (mortal blood not godly) disapproved of, especially when Charlie was secretly a total pushover when it came to her.
She realized she'd been staring when Charlie met her gaze and smirked slightly. Zoe touched her tongue to her upper lip and winked.
Charlie rolled her eyes and Zoe laughed. She liked hamming it up with the "daughter of Aphrodite" stereotypes.
At the front of the room, Chiron, mentor of heroes, kicked the brazier with a hoof, sending a metal clang reverberating through the hall. A hush swept through the room and all eyes went to the front.
The ceremonies always reminded Zoe of Harry Potter and the Sorting Hat, only the gods tended to be much more showy.
When Zoe's mother had claimed her, a storm of slightly-singed white doves had exploded from the brazier, accompanied by a rainbow shower of cartoony hearts. Zoe had loved it.
There were stories even better than that. When Zeus had claimed Jason Grace, lightning had struck at the campfire, leaving Camp Half Blood smelling like ozone for two days.
Of course, not all the gods loved pomp and circumstance. When Charlie's mom had claimed her, she'd simply sent Charlie's Stygian iron behemoth of a hammer as the only indication of her acceptance. The goddess of war wasn't big into spectacle, unless it involved conquering all of Rome or some other equally-impressive feat.
Three new demigods, all wearing camp Half-Blood orange and all just barely teenagers, stood by Chiron, looking nervously about the hall. They each had a plate with an offering of food on it, which they would offer up in the flames to the gods.
Chiron murmured some reassuring words to the first in line, a petite, anxious girl. She stepped up to the brazier, which stood as tall as she was, and raised her plate. The anticipation in the hall reached palatable levels. Zoe watched eagerly. Silence overtook the room.
The quiet helped ensure everyone heard it when the hall's doors banged open with a peal like a thunderclap. The girl squeaked and dropped the plate to the ground with a clatter. Every eye turned to the hall entryway.
A ridiculously well-muscled young man stood in the doorway, cald in nothing but a short loincloth with leather straps crossing over his chest and an axe hilt poking over one shoulder. Zoe made the quick assessment that each one of his pecs was the size of a dinner plate, and his biceps were as large as the petite girl's head.
He had a handsome, chiseled face, and long, golden-blonde hair. Several of Zoe's sisters (godly blood this time) let out appreciative "hmm" sounds from all across the room.
"CHARLIE SOUL!" the buff guy boomed, his voice carrying easily through the quieted hall.
"For god's sake," Charlie sighed, looking over to Zoe.
Zoe shrugged, stifling a laugh.
"Hercules 2.0 over there is looking for you," she said helpfully.
"Soul!" the buff guy shouted again, stepping forward into the hall.
Nobody moved, unsure of how to react to the underdressed bodybuilder suddenly in their midst.
"Bearer of the Curse of Achilles!" he continued, walking amongst the tables, smiling genially at the seated demigods as he did. "Hi, how are you? Just passing through here, don't mind me." He knocked into a girl as he strode by. "Oh! Sorry miss."
The girl looked like she might swoon. Zoe fought harder not to laugh.
"Thanatos's bane! Slayer of Koios, Lord of the North!" buff guy shouted.
Zoe raised an eyebrow. She'd forgotten about that one.
Charlie mouthed 'Thanatos's bane?" at Zoe. Zoe nodded encouragingly.
"I would invoke the Challenge of Ares!" buff guy proclaimed, sweeping his arm through the air.
Charlie sighed and stood. "You guys really gotta stop with this Challenge shit."
Buff guy's eyes lit with joy upon seeing Charlie. "Aha! But are you afraid you might be defeated by Ajax, not the one you are thinking of, but trust me, at least as equally as heroic?"
Zoe burst into gales of laughter, as did much of the room. Buff guy, Ajax, basked in it, nodding appreciatively and spreading his arms.
Charlie regarded him balefully.
"You're serious?" she grunted.
"Absolutely," he replied. "I have come bearing news. Grave news. But first, I would try my hand against yours under the Challenge of Ares."
Charlie still looked mostly bored. Then, she began striding toward Ajax. The demigods continued to laugh and looked on, interested.
"Wonderful!" Ajax grineed, pulling his battleaxe off his back. The weapon's head was as wide as his shoulders.
Demigods at the adjacent tables scrambled back as Charlie closed the distance. Zoe wiped her eyes and watched as Charlie closed within striking distance and Ajax attempted to sever her head.
The axe blade hit Charlie's neck and bounced off, inflicting no visible damage. Charlie punched Ajax across the face, and he dropped immediately.
Zoe whistled and grinned, and demigods across the hall cheered in awe. Charlie shook her head and walked back to their table.
Halfway there, Ajax stood and let out a great shout. Charlie started to turn back as Ajax hurled his axe and then charged after it.
The crowd of demigods, Zoe included, let out a collective gasp. Chiron, determining enough was enough, drew his bow and shouted for order, but the command was drowned out by the crowd's cheer as the axe struck Charlie in the face as she completed her turn.
The force of it snapped her head back, causing her to stumble, and Zoe winced. Being invincible didn't mean attacks couldn't hurt, and even with the Curse dampening the pain, eating an axe had to sting.
Ajax followed up half a second later, tackling Charlie to the ground. Zoe stood to get a better view of the action.
Ajax punched Charlie solidly on the jaw. She responded by delivering another blow to his face, which forced him off of her. She rolled to her feet, delivered a kick to Ajax's knees, dropping him again, and scooped up his axe.
The crowd gasped. Zoe smiled. Ajax might have been handsome and buff, but Charlie was Charlie. She'd never lost a fight she'd been in.
Charlie raised the axe over Ajax's head, and he threw up his hands in surrender, beaming.
"What a foe!" he cried. "I gave you no trouble at all. You will be as great an ally as promised, I expect."
With his surrender, Charlie dropped the axe. He reclaimed it and stood, strapping it to his back again. He turned to address the hall and spread his arms again.
"Promised ally?" Charlie growled.
"Yes," Ajax winked.
"Demigods!" he boomed again. "I bear grave tidings — but really, who doesn't these days? However, I realize I interrupted something important. Please, finish this first."
He turned and inclined his head to Chiron, who snorted and slung his bow back into his quiver. As Charlie rejoined Zoe, Chiron managed to restore order to the hall.
"I don't know," Zoe frowned. "That was a little sloppy."
Charlie deadpanned her.
"Next time, you fight 'em," she grunted.
"Not if they so dramatically call you out like that again," Zoe grinned.
She watched one of her sisters call the handsome warrior over to her table, and Ajax complied, smiling broadly.
"Grave tidings?" she mused.
Charlie shrugged.
"Oh yes, I forgot, Charlie-the-apocalypse-can-bite-me-Soul," she teased.
"Never said that," Charlie grunted.
"You didn't have to," she grinned. "The last time the world was ending because of a supervillain's dastardly plot, you just looked bored the whole time."
Charlie shook her head in protest, but after several seconds, a faint smile played across her lips.
The young girl whose offering Ajax had disrupted secured a new plate and tipped it into the fire. After a long pause, a spectral image of a grey owl appeared in the air over the brazier: Athena's symbol. Chiron pointed out some of the girl's new siblings, and she rushed over to join them.
The other two boys were claimed by Nike and Dionysus, and left to join their fellows as well. After the smell of grapes from Dionysus's claiming faded, Chiron addressed the hall.
"Well, we may as well hear this Ajax's news. Come forth, boy, and speak."
The warrior stood again, sweeping his gaze across the hall.
"Friends!" he said. "I do not wish to stir up chaos, but I have been afforded the rare opportunity to come warn you of a great threat."
Zoe thought "rare opportunity" and "great threat" should hardly occur together.
"And this threat?" Chiron prompted, a hint of impatience in his tone.
A solemn expression overtook Ajax's face for the first time.
"War is coming," he said.
"War?" an Ares camper from Camp Half-Blood yelled. "We love war!"
His fellow siblings nodded approvingly and gave each other high fives. Zoe wiggled an eyebrow at Charlie. Charlie crossed her arms.
"From what, where?" Chiron asked.
"From another world," Ajax proclaimed.
Concerned murmurs swept through the hall.
"So, like, aliens?" a demigod called.
"Yes," Ajax nodded. "Aliens."
Chiron looked puzzled. Charlie looked like she was going to hit Ajax again. Zoe rolled her eyes.
"All right, not aliens," Ajax grinned. "Rather, children of the other pantheons, the other spheres of influence." He paused dramatically.
"The other gods."
"Oh," Zoe said. "That's much worse. And probably the only thing we haven't fought yet. Good."