Hello, wonderful people in the world! This is a cute little one-shot I came up with. Clara and Elizabeth are based off of a close friend and me.
Clara's over-energetic, peppy, a prankster, and, somehow, she's also dating Nico di Angelo.
Elizabeth is very calm and smart but does have ADHD as well. She keeps her boyfriend, Leo, and her best friend, Clara, in line (who else will?).
And now, before this turns into a rant, here you go:
The Wonderfully-Awesome Prank
It was a cool day in California.
Clara Carter, now fourteen, was planning a lovely prank with the best pranksters at Camp Half-blood, Leo Valdez, and the Stoll brothers.
Now, you may be wondering what those four were doing in California. Well, let's just say they stole four magical Pegasi and did that cool time-warp thingy all the way across the country. That's simple enough, right?
Clara had been scheming something evil to do to the Romans for months now, ever since Octavian stole her favorite teddy bear and gutted it right in front of her (it took her two weeks and several million tissues to get over it). Of course, nobody was supposed to know she had a teddy, but, whatever.
The prank they were planning would definitely make up for that.
It was going to be very simple: Clara would sneak into the first cohort's barracks and plant pink paint-bombs everywhere, and then run for a dear, non-pink life. The Stolls were supposed to make sure the sparkle bombs were in place, and then run out as well. And, finally, Leo, in all his awesomeness, would light the fuse. And then, well, KABOOM!
"Everything's in position," Clara said, speaking to the other three boys through her walkie-talkie. "I'm waiting outside the baths with Brownie, prepared to pick Leo up then leave."
Leo was one of her closest friends, as he was dating her even-closer-friend, Elizabeth Sun. So, now Leo was her favorite accomplice, even if it did make Elizabeth blow her top whenever they came back from blowing something up.
"Connor and I are both back from planting the sparkles," Travis said through the small device. "Gods, that sounds so wrong."
"I'm in position with the fuse on the Caldecott Tunnel," Leo promised. "Are you guys absolutely sure everything was put in properly?"
"Yes, Flame-head, we're sure," Clara teased, mounting Brownie as she prepared to ride away. She could easily see Connor and Travis mounting their Pegasi, Root Beer and Yoshi (she named them), by the other opening to the baths. One gave her a thumbs-up and started flying upward.
Suddenly, there was a loud, well, KABOOM! from inside the barracks. Pink paint flew out of the window, covering the grass and Clara thoroughly.
But she also heard the sounds of angry Romans and multiple footsteps coming down the stairs. She hastily urged Brownie into the air, but a very pink Octavian ha6+d already spotted her.
"CLARA MAIRE CARTER!" he yelled, aiming a spear at her. "YOU WILL COME DOWN NOW AND LET US KILL YOU!"
"Nah," Clara said nonchalantly, waving her left hand as the other held on to the reins. "I think I'm going to escape on a magical pony instead."
So, she pulled out her sword and deflected arrows as she raced to the Caldecott Tunnel. Leo swung on the second he saw Octavian and his pink army racing toward them, and they flew off.
INCREDIBLY AWESOME LINE BREAK RIGHT HERE!
The four demigods met up in Las Vegas, not exactly sure what to do. Octavian would surely be hunting them down, and Chiron would probably make them turn themselves in. The life of a prankster was a lonely, confusing one.
They told the Pegasi to get Percy, hoping he'd be able to reason with the Romans.
So, for the next three hours, they roamed the streets, four penniless demigods with only swords and extreme ninja skills.
Finally, they spotted a certain black-haired boy wandering the streets.
"Nico!" Clara yelled, running up to her boyfriend (yes, the second most energetic girl at camp is dating the son of Hades. Shocker, isn't it?) and hugging him around the neck.
"What are you guys doing here?" he asked, hugging Clara slightly in turn.
"It's a long story," Clara explained, "but we need a special place to hide from angry Roman demigods."
"What in Hades did you guys do now?" Nico demanded, looking Clara right in the eye. He was the only person in America who knew how many pranks she'd gotten into, and how many times she'd asked for his help to hide.
"I promise we'll tell you as soon as we get to the Underworld."
"Whoa, wait, hold up," Connor stuttered, shaking slightly. "Did you say the Underworld?"
"Yeah," Clara said nonchalantly. "I've hidden there dozens of times. You guys wanted to know how I've lived two years without getting murdered by every living demigod. I just hide down there for a few weeks until things cool off. Now, Nico, can we go please?"
Clara begged her boyfriend with her big, sad blue eyes. He cracked almost immediately.
"Sure, fine, but Dad has to say that it's okay," he said. "You know how much he hates you-"
"Yes, but Lady Persephone loves me," she smiled, fluttering her eyelashes slightly. "She would have turned you into a pansy two years ago if I hadn't shown up."
Nico grumbled as Clara grabbed his hand and Leo's wrist. Leo grabbed Connor and Travis a second before Nico shadow-traveled (he'd gotten MUCH better over the last six years).
The five kids ended up in Hades' throne room. But, luckily, the Lord of the Underworld wasn't there.
However, Persephone was sitting on her throne, a bored expression on her beautiful face. Her eyes lit up as she saw the new arrivals.
"Thank Demeter!" she yelled, running up to the small group. "I was getting so bored down here without Hades. Now I finally have Clara back!"
The said girl smiled widely as well, hugging one of her favorite goddesses (next to Aphrodite and Artemis).
"Hello, Lady Persephone," Clara said, curtsying awkwardly in her pajamas. "We were wondering if we could stay here so Octavian doesn't kill us."
"First of all, you may refer to me as mom, " she started. Nico's usually-pale cheeks turned a deep shade of red, and the other three boys snickered. "And, of course you're always welcome here. We still have your room prepared from last week."
She led the kids up a side staircase and into a long hallway with doors on both sides.
Each boy had their own room, which was a rare occurrence. Clara's large bedroom had already been painted her favorite shade of blue, and she had tons of outfits and other necessary items there. She always had to be prepared, just in case she was forced to spend a few weeks down here.
They did, in fact, spend a week in the dark, depressing Underworld. The boys had to be reminded thirteen trillion times that they couldn't eat down here, but Clara had a secret elevator in her closet (what? It wasn't like she would store actual clothes in there!) that led to a tiny hut somewhere in northern Mexico where they could easily stuff their faces.
Hazel and Frank had actually visited once, and they gave the four rouge demigods an update on the surface world.
"Percy and Jason are attempting to calm the first Cohort down," the daughter of Pluto had said. "By the way, what did you put in that paint? Nobody can get it off."
"It's a mixture of Drew's month-long mascara, some weird chemicals, and about one trillion cans of pink spray-paint," Connor explained. "We have a way to get it off, but even that hasn't worked very well on Clara's hair."
Poor little Clara had been thoroughly drenched in the gooey paint, and even though she'd managed to get every bit off of her body, her hair refused to cooperate. So now she had to live with bubblegum-pink hair until the month was over.
The two Romans promised not to tell anyone about their hiding place, so they stayed there unnoticed, even by Hades, until the eighth of October.
On that day, Percy, Jason, Annabeth, Reyna, and a very angry Elizabeth marched down to the Underworld and yelled at the foursome.
Sure, Percy, Jason, Annabeth, and Elizabeth knew the group well, and Reyna had agreed not to kill them after the monkey-in-a-watermelon incident they'd caused, but at that moment they looked truly terrifying.
Hades had gone out somewhere again, and Persephone was tending to her garden. The three boys were discussing something random in Connor's room, and Nico and Clara were out on a lovely walk in the Fields of Punishment.
The three Furies had brought them back to the castle, saying they had visitors. As soon as they were harshly carried through the front door, Reyna threw her dagger at them. She'd missed, luckily, but that didn't help her mood.
"How dare you pull of such a childish prank as that!" she screamed. "Honestly, you're fourteen! You'd think someone like yourself would grow up eventually."
She yelled even more once Leo, Connor, and Travis entered, and once she was done, Elizabeth took her spot, scolding her boyfriend and best friend fiercely.
"I honestly don't know why I ever started dating you!" she yelled at poor little Leo, who was trembling in terror in a corner. "You'd think you could finally grow up at age SEVENTEEN, but that is probably never going to happen!"
"Whoa, babe, calm down," Leo said, finally getting a few words in. But Elizabeth continued her never-ending rant.
"Don't you dare call me babe when you did something that embarrassed all of Camp Half-blood! I can't wait until Octavian gets his hands on you, personally, so I won't have to do something myself, you-"
Annabeth confined Connor and Travis to their cabins once they were done with Reyna's punishment, which just happened to involve scooping up Unicorn poop for a week.
Leo would be forced to clean the first Cohort's barracks until it was free of pinkness.
But Clara's punishment was worst of all.
She had to apologize to Octavian. That was probably the worst possible thing anyone could ever make her do. Sure, there was also the matter of cleaning all of New Rome's streets with a toothbrush, but she could just attach one of Leo's giant toothbrushes to Mrs. O'Leary and ride her around. The real problem was the apology.
And after that perilous week of cleaning up terrible, terrible things, the four trouble-makers met back up at Camp Half-blood.
But instead of not blowing anything up or pulling any more pranks, the four kids spent another week in the Hermes cabin, planning revenge on Percy, Annabeth, Jason, and Reyna (nobody wanted to get on Elizabeth's bad side again).
So, Percy, Annabeth, Reyna, and Jason all ended up with magical mustaches, and the four demigods took refuge once again in Hades' Palace.
Hope y'all enjoyed that one-shot. Please tell me if it was too confusing, weird, or you just want to know more about Elizabeth and Clara.
Also, if you read Two Worlds Collide, you've probably been expecting to see an update. Well, I'm not giving you one until I see REVIEWS! Seriously, I have not gotten a single review on chapter 5, so I've basically had no inspiration to write it much.
So, REVIEW on both stories, if you will.
Thanks, 3CREAMTHERABBIT773