A/N: The beginning's kind of slow. Sorry. Oh, and here's a disclaimer:
Any character that you recognize belongs to Rick Riordan and all other copyright holders. There's also some Harry Potter (copyright J.K. Rowling) references in this chapter, which I also do not own. I am not (sadly) making any profit from this.
Arrow of the Fallen - Chapter Two: The Gorge
Later on, I had to grab my stuff from my locker.
I crept back into the school about the time fourth period started so there was no one in the hallways which meant Reese couldn't find me or kill me at my locker. Cres waited impatiently as I cleaned my locker out, and it took a while. There was this huge pile of crumpled worksheets, notes, and love letters (no kidding), gum, cookies, chips, candy wrappers, and dirt, caked up at the bottom of the locker. The whole thing smelled like a wet sponge in a boy's locker room.
"Oh, that reminds me," I said to Cres. "Do you want to get anything from your house to bring to camp?"
She raised an eyebrow. "What, they're not sent to camp automatically?"
"This ain't Hogwarts, muggle."
"Then I wish I was a wizard, then."
"Don't we all," I said pointedly towards my locker. I was pretty sure there were some papers that I needed to save were in all that mess, but gum was sticking every single paper together in some way. It was long going.
"And besides," she said, "my mom will freak if I tell her about this camp. She's really protective of me and won't let me go anywhere. That's why I sneak out all the time."
I looked back to her.
She had the signature half-blood look on: annoyed at the world and a little sad at the same time. Her red hair was pulled into a messy bun and random locks curled around her face. She had taken off her black trenchcoat – no wonder since it was summer, hello – and underneath she was wearing a grey button up tanktop tunic with fishnet tights and knee high combat boots.
"Hey, Nico, what if I told you that I know who my father is?" she said carefully.
"You would be lying." I replied flatly, stuffing random junk into my bag.
"No," she frowned, "my dad's still alive. I know for sure he's my father. I'll bet you a million dollars that if I went into DNA testing right now, he'll be the perfect match."
"I really want to believe you, but you're obviously a half-blood, Fallen. Though that does bring up a good point – how old are you?"
"How old am I?"
"Weird question, I know," I said.
"I'm fifteen."
"Huh." I was afraid to tell her that it was basically illegal for gods to not claim their children. Chiron could tell her that.
I slammed the locker shut and locked the lock for the last time until the coming September and waved Cres over. "This way," and we walked out to the main entrance which had a pick-up point.
The sky was partly cloudy; the sun tugging the clouds apart at random areas. Cars honked, cats shrieked, pots and pans banged, doors slammed, and cell phones rang in New York City's signature soundtrack. My school, Wyldson School of Arts and Technology, shared an eight story building called Wyldson Place with a music studio and a realtor agency. The school occupied floors one to six, the music studio on floor seven, and the realtor agency on floor eight. We also had the roof top of Wyldson Place for science activities and a field behind the building for P.E. The main entrance to Wyldson Place was on a secluded little road that was never visited by that many taxis. So, endearingly, I dug out my phone ready to call the taxi hotline.
"Are you calling a taxi?" said Cres.
"Yeah, why?"
"Hang up. I have a better ride," she told me. She dug out her own phone, a HTC Touch, and dialed a number from her contacts.
Almost immediately, a black limousine pulled up into the driveway.
"Fallen, what the hell is that?"
The limo slicked up to the road and stopped where we were standing. A dude in a white chauffeur uniform jumped out from the driver's seat while the passenger door slid open automatically. "Miss Fallen, where to?"
I gaped at him, and then gaped at Cres. "Uh . . ."
"Nico, snap to it! Where are we going?"
"Uh . . . right . . . Long Island – OW!"
Cres shoved me into the limousine.
It was even cooler inside the limo than outside the limo. The black leather seats were arranged around a small coffee table and colorful throws were thrown about everywhere. The purple carpet underfoot was plush and furry, and a large, modern looking refrigerator stood in the corner. Alternative rock music was playing from the radio and AXN flickered onto a large flat screen TV. I was pretty sure there was WiFi too. Cres settled into one of the lounges and pressed a button on the ceiling that brought up a thick back pane of plastic separating the driver's seat with the main room. Another button set the windows dimmer than regular shades and a third button readjusted the room's light to a glow of multicolor, mimicking lava lamps. She flung her trench coat onto a coat hook and reached into the fridge.
"Root beer?" Cres offered, pulling the tab of her own can.
"Sure," I said. "So, what's the deal, Fallen? Are you like the United States president?"
"Of course I am," Cres said. "No, Nico, duh."
"I thought so, I never see you on TV."
"Shut up. My mom's really famous and rich, ok? She can afford to have limo escorts and stuff. She's a celebrity."
"Well, who is she?"
She slammed her root beer onto the table and glared at me. "My mom spent all her life keeping me secret from the paparazzi. I've only known you for, what, an hour? I don't trust you, Nico di Angelo, so you can stop with all the questions."
I was really taken aback. Cres did not seem the kind of girl who would lash out at people for the sake of her mother. And now I was way too curious who her mom was. She didn't look like any celebrity I knew, though she did have much the same hair like Mitchell Fallen – wait, Mitchell Fallen, the star of all those movies?
"Mitchell Fallen!" I blurted, and Cres squeaked.
"WHAT?" she yelped, leaping up and banging her head on the roof of the limo. "OW!"
"Your dad is Mitchell Fallen?"
"No, he's not!" Cres yelled, which totally gave it away.
"But then who's your mom?"
She downed all her root beer and opened up another can, and didn't speak at me for the rest of the drive only to say, "This Camp Half-Blood better not be full of all the outrageous crap you're spewing."
"di Angelo, we're in Long Island now. So where exactly is this place?"
"Huh?" I said dumbly, looking up from the TV. The limo was stocked with the best video games, and incredibly recent ones like COD 6, a game I wanted to get ever since it came out a few days ago. Call of Duty had to be one of the best games ever invented, but I preferred the World War II stuff better than Modern Warfare.
I stuck my head out the window and gasped. "Tell the limo driver dude to turn right! Like right now!"
"Thanks for the warning, di Angelo!" She tore a black thing from the ceiling and spoke into it, "Hey, Drew, turn right! Right!"
The limo swerved as it attempted to turn right onto the dusty road outside and I lost my balance and crashed into Cres. She was sort of standing up so she lost her balance too and we fell onto the black plastic divider thing separating the limo driver – Drew – from us.
"God, di Angelo, way to suffocate me!" Cres groaned and sort of collapsed onto the floor of the limo.
"No problem," I scowled, rubbing my elbow which had somehow jabbed her head in the losing balance process. "Your head is –"
"WHAT?"
"– is nice. Your head is nice. Will you stop glaring at me like I'm a constipated hippo who stole your baby chicks?"
She didn't say anything and I wanted to scream. But that would kind of be a girly move. Who did she think she was? Some ruler of the universe? Her father may be Mitchell Fallen and her mother may be as popular as him, but that didn't mean you could shove everyone you saw around. Gods.
I was about to launch into an angry rant about her stupid little attitude, when I noticed the strawberry fields and the green hill leading into camp. "Oh, look. We're here."
We got out of the limo, and Cres waved Drew off. "We're fine, Drew, and don't tell Mom, 'kay? It's a summer camp that I get to be like a normal kid for a while. So no calling of the police, Drew, tell all that to Mom."
"Yes, ma'am."
"It's just up here," I told Cres after the limousine was gone. I led her up the grassy hill and once up on top, I was immediately reminded of home. The Greek buildings were spread out throughout the valley: the Big House, the dining hall, the amphitheatre, and the cabins, which looked like small dots. You could even see the fighting arenas and the Poop Pile from atop the hill.
After I took it all in, I turned back to Cres, who was staring in horror at something.
"HOMIGOD," Cres moaned. "Is that a dragon I see before me?"
"Did you really go all 17th century on me?"
"I hate your stupid literalism," she said, slowly backing away from Peleus, the dragon that guarded the Golden Fleece.
"Come on, it's just a dragon. Haven't you seen worse?"
"But it's like tame and all!"
"Is that what you're so amazed at?" I tugged at her shoulder and we walked down the path to the Big House.
When we got to the bottom of the hill, Chiron was teaching a bunch of campers an outdoor history lesson on Thalia and her tree. He was in full horsey form and looked up when we approached. His face was all surprise when he asked, "Who's this?"
"This," I said, pointing, "is Crescent Fallen. Who likes to be called Cres. She's undetermined."
"Undetermined?" Chiron asked in a confused tone of voice.
"She's fifteen," I whispered at him.
Cres was staring at us like we were crazy. "Is my age so important to you guys? And are you really a centaur?"
"Crescent – Cres – this way. You need to see the orientation video first." Chiron gave me a look before leading Cres away to the Big House. "Nico, we're playing Capture the Flag later on this evening, and Percy wants to see you. He's teaching a sword fighting class in Arena One."
"Capture the Flag?" I winced. Camp Half-Blood's Capture the Flag somehow never turned out like it did in normal mortal's games. The last time I played it, my friend James, a son of Aeolus, the wind god, nearly speared open my head and he was on the same team as me. It turned out that his twin Roxy had somehow taken control of James's own powers but suddenly lost control and the spear rammed into my head from sheer force of the wind. I was wearing a helmet but the helmet dented and cracked, giving me a huge gash near my forehead –
Anyway.
Arena One was overfilled with six year old kids running around. It seemed like they were practicing thrusts, but only the boys were and the girls were hiding away, giggling. Everyone looked up when I came into the Arena and they all started pelting towards me.
Oh, gods, this was going to hurt.
"NICO! NICO! NICO! YAY!" they screeched and I was knocked down by all fifteen of them barreling into me.
"Ow, guys, come on, you've grown a lot since last year," I laughed as they all hugged some part of my body.
"Guys, guys, get off from my brother," Percy said, amusement twinkling in his sea green eyes.
Tall and smug looking, my adoptive brother slunk into view. He was wearing an orange camp shirt with the word "Counselor" emblazoned across the back and carrying a wooden sword. "Didn't think you would get out of school this early, Nic."
"Um, yeah, I kind of recruited a new half-blood."
He raised an eyebrow.
"I mean, she's not really like a half-blood. I don't know who she is. It's kind of weird. But she's gets mad at me a lot. So I don't really care what she is. I'll own her in Capture the Flag tonight. Such as butthead."
His other eyebrow raised.
"Ok, Perce, did you really want to drag me all the way to camp just to remain silent and raise those eyebrows theatrically?" I ask, annoyed.
"Right," he said. "Dylan, Dylan, c'mon, you'll get to see Nico later." He waved away my biggest fan and then turned to me. "Let's go."
I followed him down to the cabins, but he didn't stop there.
"Where are we going?" I complained.
"Just around the cabins. There's something I want you to see that no one knows about except for me, Chiron, and Grover."
"Grover?"
"You'll see."
The opposite bank of the cabins was mostly just forest and secluded forest, at that. Percy walked up a small hill and said to me, "Down here."
"Oh my gods," I gasped in horror. "What is that?"
A gorge the size of a canyon cracked its way between trees and shrubbery. I closer – it spanned nearly eight feet from edge to edge and looked in. There was no telling how far down it went. It reminded me of that silly apocalyptical movie, 2012, but for some reason, the gorge looked more sinister than any of the cracks in the film. It was just yawning blackness inside.
"It starts from here and goes all the way to Long Island Sound," Percy explained. "That means water gets into the crack, but I don't know where it goes, because you can never see the water level. It's a bit like Tatarus. I've thrown rocks into it and they don't make a noise when they hit the bottom. If there is a bottom.
"Grover and I have been having the same nightmares about this crack that skeletons will leap out from it and drag us in. So we both guessed it opens to the Underworld, but Chiron isn't so sure. He says it doesn't smell of the Underworld."
"It doesn't," I said, looking down at the crack. "Did you recognize the skeletons? What were they wearing?"
"Only necklaces with pendants of eyes on the chains," said Percy with a shiver. "They blinked if you looked at them too hard."
I've heard of naked skeletons, skeletons that were into goth clothes, skeletons dressed in uniform, even the skeletons in camo that chased Percy and the others one summer, but I've never heard of eye necklaces that blinked. It creeped me out, and I'm the freakin' son of a god of death. The whole gorge creeped me out. Which was the deciding factor that this gorge was not from Hades. I knew it.
"I'll close it," I said. "It's definitely not from the Underworld, but I have control over all land."
"I was hoping you would say that," Percy said with relief, and stepped back.
I bent down and shut my eyes in concentration. To close a crack this big, it would take a lot of effort. I would have to close one section at a time, so I started from the beginning.
"I'm the son of Hades," I whispered. "You will act on my command." Talking to inanimate objects was just part of being a half-blood. I concentrated on the tug of the earth and the spirits of millions of dead people helping me along.
Sucking it all in, I slapped the ground, my left hand on one side of the crack, my right on the other.
But why wasn't anything happening? I mentally tugged harder, my knuckles turning white from the pressure I was putting on the ground. "Cleiste, cleiste, sas diatazo ston peribolo!" the Greek poured out of my , close, I command you to close!
The earth still stayed stubborn beneath my fingers; even when I used the power of soul after soul extracted from the Underworld, the crevasse was still irritatingly gaping. "I can't do it," I panted. "There's something wrong with this earth. It could be like space rock or something!"
Percy opened his mouth to say something, then his eyes widened in shock. "NICO! GET BACK FROM THE CRACK!"
"What?"
He knocked into me and we went sprawling away from the gorge.
"What the hell was that about?"
But he wasn't looking at me, or apologizing. He was staring openly at what was coming out of the ground.
With the sound of a giant wave crashing into a cliff, five skeletons wearing only Aviators and huge chain pendant necklaces with blinking eyes on them leapt out of the canyon, clattering their teeth threateningly and wielding huge swords and battle axes. Their bones were shockingly white and seemed polished and they made the strangest sound when they moved, like rustling paper.
"You never told me that those skeletons had a good taste in sunglasses!" I screamed at Percy.
"Nico, that's hardly the point!"
He was right. The skeletons were advancing on us and had us backed up against a formation of trees. I fumbled for the Stygian cigarette lighter in my pocket and drew it out with a curse. Flipping it out, I pointed it at the skeletons, but between Percy and me, we only had one weapon.
"Can you summon water from here?" I hissed at him.
"Can you summon your Underworld friends from here?" Percy replied. "This morning I was doing a training session with the little daughters of Poseidon and they dared me to summon water from as far away source as I could, and I still haven't recovered! They made me do it repeatedly and summon greater amounts of water each time!"
"Enough chitchat!" shrieked the lead skeleton in the most hideous tone I had ever heard. It sounded nails on a chalkboard, haunted house screaming, and mice squeaking all at once.
"By the gods, what happened to your voice?" I couldn't help asking him.
"Shut up!" The skeleton brandished an axe at me. "Now which one of you is Perseus Jackson and which one of you is Nico di Angelo?"
"Are we that popular?" I snickered, and then jabbed at him with a slice that should have cut him apart into two pieces.
He didn't, however. The blade just went inside his "body" and then out again in a fluid moment, like he was just colored air.
"Ah, shit," I frowned at the advancing skeletons. It seemed like ten more, all decked out in Aviator sunglasses and eye pendants, had jumped out of the crevasse while the lead dude had us cornered. "Why aren't these guys from the Underworld? Killing them would be so much easier."
"There's no way we can defeat these guys," Percy announced, brow furrowed.
"I thought as much," I said.
A/N: Blah. Blah blah blah. I practically butchered the Greek language back there. I hope Yahoo Babel Fish is accurate, but whatever. REVIEW!!! NOW. Next up is a bit of Cres's real history and Capture the Flag! Oh yeah, and the outcome of the skeleton attack. Haha.
