Short End of the Stick
By PrincipessaBel
Chapter 1 : Blueberries Solve Anything (Julia)
The sun was setting at this point of the day. Juniella Montenegro-Valdez wasn't too excited in the fact that she is going home. Most students would like that. . .
. . . but she isn't part of that 'most'
See, she lives alone in her own house in Crystal Subdivision, Manila, Philippines. Her needs all provided from her mother's legacy before dying. Apart from total privacy Julia is having, she's left with no siblings to take care of, having her focus on her studies.
Problem is, her studies isn't just academics. It's all about physical strength. Yes, she had been 'accidentally' enrolled in a martial arts, all girls school. The prestigious Romeo Sansone Martial Arts School for Girls.
She hated the fact that all of her classmates are well prepared for battle so she couldn't really pick fights. And the fact that Juniella was proclaimed as the schools' "queen" for winning a lot of tournaments even at her age of sixteen.
"Hey, Julia!" A voice said behind her. It was her friend, Duncan. He was a tall blonde guy around eighteen years old and he's Julia's only friend in the world. (Aside from her childhood crush that was so years ago.) "I brought blueberries today! Bake these! Bake these!" Duncan told her as he thrusted the basket of blueberries at Julia's hands, whining like a kid who wants ice cream.
"What. . . Blue tarts again?" She asked, with edginess in her tone. Her fiery brown eyes were focused on her friend. Julia was never the socialite. She was the kind of person who was distant. Her reason of it was debatable, though.
"Uh-huh! Then let's train after." He said, eyes sparkling.
Julia considered this and agreed, "Alright, but buy me some baking soda in Aling Ronna's sari-sari store first. I forgot to add it to my cart last week." She said, getting the basket from Duncan and reaching on her skirt pocket for the money. The girl gave it to him and he ran to the store like a lost puppy.
She sighed as she fished her keys from her bag. Her house was too big for her, seeing that she's the only one living in it. It was good that Duncan always hangs around but Julia prefer to spend her days alone, in her gym.
By the time she had entered, she locked the door, knowing that Duncan can just ring the doorbell. Julia put down her bag in the chair in the kitchen and prepared the ingredients in the counter. "Flour. . . Sugar. . ." The girl one by one picked out the ingredients when a successive knock on her door was heard.
Her brownish-black hair flowed up and her head quickly whipped to the sound. Glaring, she stomped to the front door. Julia opened the door with such force that it nearly slammed to the wall. "Ano ba- Duncan- (T: What the- Duncan-)" She blurted out Tagalog words out of annoyance but her voice faltered, seeing a bunch of strangers outside her porch. Six people in total, if she's not mistaken.
"O-Oh! We're so sorry, miss." A black haired girl in a Victorian era dress apologized, nudging a curly haired boy with an impish face that Julia knew so well. What the heck? Julia cussed in her mind seeing her cousin, Leo Valdez in her doorstep.
"What. Are. You. Doing. Here?" She glared at him, grabbing his collar. The others gasped at her actions but she'd care less.
"W-Whoa! E-Ella? Geez- You scared me!" Leo tried to smile at her, sadness was in his eyes. She saw it but she didn't budge. His friends tried to tell her to stop. She don't want any of this reunion. She don't want to see anyone from her extended family ever again.
"Don't call me like that, understand? Now, why are you here?" The girl ordered the son of Hephaestus who was trying to loosen her grip on his clothes.
"Your father told us to find you!" He said, panicked.
With that, she let go and stared at him like he was a lunatic. . . but he was. Her father was dead. She never knew him and her mother told her he died in a car crash just before she was born. "Imposible." Juniella muttered.
"It's true! Ella, he told me to give this to you. You're supposed to help us! Please, for Atha." He looked at her with desperation as he gave her a scroll. Who writes in these things these days? This had to be a prank, she thought, yeah, he's getting back at me for the things I've done.
"Come inside and we'll discuss this." She opened the door widely, noticing the glances her neighbors are giving her. Julia glared at them then closed the door once the teens had stepped inside. "The living room is this way." She said, walking grumpily towards the room opposite to the kitchen.
"Uh-" Leo started to say as their group was heading on the living room "Ell-" -She glared at him-" I mean, Julia, where's auntie?" He asked in a manner where Julia stopped on her tracks and looked at him in a deadly stare.
"What did you say?"
"U-Uhm. . N-nothing!" He gulped.
As the six people made their selves comfortable, Julia observed them one by one in the doorframe. Leo, he was the same impish Hispanic looking person since she last saw him. Minus the height difference and some more curly hair.
The one beside him was a girl with uneven brown hair. Julia could've sworn she saw the girl's eyes changed color. Impossible. She thought. This is all impossible.
Sitting beside the girl with changing eyes was a guy a bit taller than her. If Julia's eyes don't deceive her, he had a small scar just by his upper lip. She didn't find him appealing nor handsome but had the feeling that he seemed to be the star in the group.
Across those three, there was the girl in the dress with black wavy hair and sea-green eyes as if saying she's born from the sea. Che. Lens. Julia thought sarcastically in her mind.
Then there was this guy who got Julia's attention, he was blonde and had those same blue eyes that had stared at her the night before. Shaking the thought, she moved on in staring at the last person.
A person, who have a mess of long black hair, dark eyes with eyebags and the smell of incense that Julia would never forget, was sitting at her living room.
Nearly losing her cool, Julia was never been happy that Duncan is going at her place. That moment, she heard the doorbell rang and hearing her friend's cries for being let in. "I'm going to get that. You guys. . . Whoever you all are. . . Be nice and. . . I dunno, you tell them Leo." She said awkwardly, trying to excuse herself.
"Let me get this straight, Julia." Duncan said, unbelieving. "You let in a bunch of strangers just because you're bored?"
The girl nodded, a phone in her ear, waiting for the delivery line of McDonalds to pick up. "My cousin is there, mother would not like it if I slam the door on his face."
Duncan let out an exasperated sigh as he banged his head on the counter, his blonde hair slightly flowed because of the wind. "Excuses! How are we gonna-"
"Shush. Hello? Is this McDonalds?" Julia inquired. "Yeah. I'd like to order seven Chicken McDo, all drinks are coke. Uh-huh. Oh, and two happy meals. Yeah, still Chicken McDo." Julia paused for a bit, seeing her friend waved at her frantically, mouthing the words: blueberry sundae. The girl sighed and rolled her eyes, "And a blueberry sundae."
"I love you!" Duncan whispered to her, smiling like a kid, "Your treat, right?"
"Yeah, Julia Valdez, number 13 Amethyst Street, Crystal Subdivision, Manila. Bring change for one thousand pesos. Okay. Twenty minutes? Alright." Julia put down the phone and looked at Duncan with her fiery eyes, as if wanting to burn right through him. "You owe me a lot, Dunc. Be ready to pay when I ask for it."
He widened his eyes in mock surprise, "I thought I'm paying you by pretending to be your boyfriend-"
The girl glared at him hard, making Duncan shut his lips. "You'll pay me by bringing juice, tea or whatever. . ." Julia hesitated in her choice of words but said it nonetheless, ". . to my guests."
"What?! No way, you do it, I'll wait for the sundaaaae~"
Julia sighed in annoyance then prepared a quick drink for Leo's friends and decided to bring them in herself, only to hear them talking in a different language. She stopped on her tracks when she heard them talking about her. Funny how she seemed to translate and process everything in her head.
"You really think she's a daughter of Ares?" Nico asked them with slight hesitation and uncertainty. Ares. The god of war? How can he be my father if he's a Greek god, and myth? Julia thought angrily, for they were disrespecting her father's death. Julia was sure she never felt godly her whole life. And she was sure her mother wouldn't lie at her.
Leo shrugged, "I don't know but it will be very weird. Knowing my mom and her mom are sisters, then my dad and her dad are brothers." Julia wasn't too sure of what to think of that, knowing Leo's father left Esperanza even before her cousin was born - that is, from Tia Callida's stories.
The girl in the dress talked, saying, "Well, she has Lord Ares' eyes. From her glare at you before, Leo, that is."
"So." Julia barged in, giving them a shocked reaction, her now-cold gaze lands on them one by one, as if scrutinizing them in her mind - in which she is doing at that moment. She slammed the tray with ice tea in each tall glasses. "I can't help but hear your conversation, why do you guys think you all know my father, when he is dead?"
"Is that what auntie said to you?" Leo asked. "Can we talk to-"
"No, you can't." Julia cut off his sentence rudely, making the blonde guy with the scar stand up and face her.
"What is it with you, where you always treat Leo rudely?"
Julia's eyebrows raised, in a manner of mocking him. She stood six inches lower than him but she was not intimidated by his electric blue eyes. "What is it with you, where you raise your tone in the owner of the house you're in?" She spat his statement back at him. They glared at each other, his electric ones against her fiery ones.
Now, the girl with the kaleidoscope eyes stood up, "Please, guys stop?" She said with great persuasive skills. Jason retreated, seating on his seat, pouting like a child. However, Julia remained rooted from her place, now glaring at the girl.
"No one tells me what to do on my house." Julia said, unnerving the girl and everyone in the room. Duncan was lucky he remained in the kitchen, or he'll face all the wrath himself, even if he wasn't the cause of her anger.
"Yup. She is a daughter of Ares." The guy in Julia's dreams clapped happily, not helping in the situation.
"Can we talk to auntie-" Leo asked once again, earning another glare from her cousin. "This is really important, Ella." He pleaded.
"You cannot." She took a deep breath shakily and said, "She died, years ago."
"Hey, Juls, your delivery is heeeere!" Duncan said from the hallway, in which Julia quickly went to. She didn't know she had left Leo and the rest in deep mystery.
"Thanks, Dunc." In which she didn't really said in a tone of gratefulness. "Here." Julia said to the delivery man, giving him her payment. Closing the door, she brought the food to her guests(glaring piercingly at the blonde guy she had argued with), giving them their food one by one, except for Nico.
Once Leo and his friends have their share, Leo spoke up. "Why do you have two happy meals?" He said but immediately regretted it. Julia's gaze softened for unknown reasons and she give it to Nico.
"I know how to repay debts." She said, smiling for the first time that day. "Hello, Nics."
Nico's eyes widened in surprise, "Y-You remember me? Oh my gods, Yessa. You don't have to-"
ROOOOOOOOOOOOAAAR!
Duncan, eating away his blueberry sundae, looked around as if he heard the sound. "Uhm. What's that?"
Julia frowned upon this. Everyone of them seemed to have heard it, too. "I hope it's not what I think it is." Leo said in a really confident manner. Cue sarcasm.
"Yessa, grab your pack. Quick, we're getting outta here. They've tracked us." Nico said in haste, ushering Julia towards the stairs. The other six was also alerted, leaving Duncan and Julia in the shadows. Leo and the blonde douche (Julia refers to him as that, now.) went outside her house into who-knows-where.
"WHO?" Julia asked in mid-panic. "Who's they? THE MOGADORIANS?" She said in a bit of a sarcastic tone despite the tension. She was resisting Nico's attempt to send her to her room and get her stuff. The girl could have sworn that what they heard are chimeras. Since when did her cousin was of alien-ish blood?
"WHAT?" Duncan screamed in Julia's hypothesis.
Nico shook his head. "Yessa, this is not I am Number Four. We're demigods. That, my friend, is a chimera!"
"Oh crap. What, you think I'm gonna listen to-" She was cut off by Nico as soon as she tried to start the debate.
"Please, you've known me do. . . things. And this is a part of it." Julia felt a shiver ran down her spine as he stared at her intently with his chocolate-colored eyes. "Ever wondered why you never see me anywhere except in the cemetery? Because I never lived here!"
"Well, fuck it. I'll be right back." She stomped upstairs, practically grumbling about what a hassle and how impossible this was and things Nico thought are Tagalog swear words.
"Uhm. Blueberries anyone? They solve everything!" Duncan said, a bit calm now, finishing off his sundae.
Nico had the weirdest urge to stop himself from punching Julia's friend when he really deserve it.
Chapter Two : Big Girls Don't Cry (Nico)
Julia glared at him, "Don't count me with that 'we're'. I prefer to be human. Pure mundane. No half mortal, half something."
