A/N: So, this is Shrrg again. We were going to write an author note, but Will disappeared-that's Spiffy to all you readers out there. Anyway, there's not much to say except to thank Xed for letting us borrow the Chart O'Gods and announce that nothing else will be borrowed from anyone else's fandom. From here, it's all Guardian.
I'm sorry, is a man not allowed to watch some awesome World of Warcraft cinematics for a geek moment or two? And youhave no ground to stand on about disappearing, Jo!
Anyway, that aside, she's right. Nothing will be borrowed in quite this manner, from here on out. However, there will be plenty of geeky references to catch! Now go read, before Shrrg hijacks my damned author's note-
William. Let the nice people-
NO! I SAY IT! Go read!
"Gods, Mister Appleton," the leopard-spotted gym teacher chided, arching a brow. He gave me an appraising look-that is, appraising in the way one determines whether or not an ant on the sidewalk is worth stepping on.. He must have decided against the squashing after a few moments, because he continued on to say, "If you are going to invoke us, at least have the courtesy to invoke all of us."
I took a long moment to fully process the fact that someone had just read my mind, gotten my name wrong twice, and then claimed to be a god-and another moment to come to terms with the fact that, given the circumstances, there was a very good chance the claim actually wasn'tjust a claim and that I shouldn't try to correct him. Somewhere in that time, my mouth decided to drop some words in the air of its own accord, and I asked the man, "But it's not very likely that any of you would listen either way, is it?"
I... just snarked at a god. I was really glad I didn't regret my life, because after that there's no way I'd have time to.
The still-nameless deity made a thoughtful sound as he gave me another good look, as if finding some little detail he hadn't seen before. "Smarter than your average bear, eh?" he asked with a very sudden lack of sarcasm. "Keep that, boy," I was instructed as violet eyes bore into mine. "You might just need it."
By the time I opened my mouth to start asking what suddenly kept him from rolling his eyes every three words, the leopard-print tracksuit and its owner were back out the office door, leaving quite an awkward silence behind.
"You are mortal, then," Chiron spoke up after a few seconds. He must have pulled himself back out of the wheelchair-dummy some time during the last few minutes, because there was a large mass of centaur in front of me as opposed to a seemingly crippled forty-some year old man. A low sound of consideration rumbled from Chiron's throat as he looked over at the door, and then back to me as he noted, "Lord Dionysus doesn't usually go out of the way interact with people less than a couple of centuries old. Though, I suppose, given the circumstances..." The brown mane of his hair flew a bit as Chiron shook his head, looking back to me with honest, non-bug-squashy interest.
I met his calculating gaze, probably looking about as confused as I felt. I voiced that confusion with a tactful, articulate, and not at all pathetic, "What... I... just... What is going on?" I didn't feel that got the entire point across, though, so I followed through on the question with some clarification, practically ranting as I crossed the study at Chiron's flank. "In the past six hours I've watched somebody die, been packaged up and delivered to a place I never knew existed, ran from a pack of dogs the size of trucks, and then gotten called the wrong name by a god after he read my mind. Twice!"
I looked over at the centaur, taking a breath to ready myself for the next salvo of my rant-and then I ran into the door to the office. It took a minute for me to realize that as I stumbled back, blinking and staring at the wooden surface in front of me. Hello, door.
A warm chuckle sounded from off to one side as a muscled arm reached over to the doorknob, twisting and opening it as Chiron's voice offered, "After you, Patrick. We'll talk outside, I think you could use the fresh air." Some forward locomotion was involved from there, maybe a turn or two, and soon we were out on the same deck from before I came inside. Nothing had changed in the time we had been in there... nobody else was dead... no monsters.
I exhaled more breath than I thought I was even capable of holding, shoulders slumping and my neck suddenly a whole lot more grateful without all the tension. I had a lot of questions all burning at me, like why Amanda died when she was the demigod, how come Sylvus hadn't come with me, where the hell was I and how could I get back home, and what was I supposed to do as the one normal guy among a bunch of gods' kids. I wrestled around with each of those questions for a bit, trying to figure out which one I should ask first, and eventually just decided to let one fall out of my mouth.
"Why did you burn my tongue?"
Okay, didn't expect it to be that one.
If Chiron hadn't been either, he didn't show it. In fact, he nodded as if I asked a perfectly normal question about math, or chemistry, or something that didn'thave to do with hydrochloric acid of the gods. "A bit of a gamble on my part," the centaur admitted. "Thankfully, as Lord Dionysus said, that nectar was diluted. Half-bloods are more than capable of handling it in reasonable amounts, which is why I keep that flask in my desk." A little more apologetically, he added on, "There has never been a situation quite like yours before, thus worrying about someone drinking too much had never been an issue."
"Guess I can't argue with the logic," I said, running a hand back through my hair. Granted, I couldn't argue with it because I was still trying to figure out why I even ended up here to begin with if I wasn't a god's kid, but whatever. My tongue tingled as I tried to work out how that stuff could be anything but painful to drink for anybody, half-blood or no. I put it out of my mind when my tongue went from tingling to throbbing. "Might want to water it down a little bit more," I suggested, finally turning to fully face the camp's director. "I don't think drinking straight hot sauce would have sucked that much."
Chiron gave a smile you only develop when you've dealt with kids-lots and lots of kids-and opened his mouth to say something. For a minute I thought that 'something' was the sound of a blazing fire, but the centaur closed his mouth and the sound kept going. In fact, it was getting louder, too, almost like it was...
… getting closer. Of course it was.
And then itroared overhead, and I made the mistake of looking up. I snapped my head back down with a yelp, rubbing at my eyes with one hand while the other one shot out to grab some part of the horse-half of Chiron before I stumbled. What looked like a small sun roared over the Big House, melting the weather vane, and landed somewhere farther off with a crash, splash, and the hiss of a few hundred gallons of water evaporating all at once. I let go of my eyes and Chiron's side in that order, blinking a few times, and looked over to where I'd heard the crash.
Now I don't claim to be able to run faster than a horse and I don't have even the slightest hope of it ever happening, but I'm pretty sure the reason I was halfway to the half-evaporated lake before Chiron caught up to me was because I took off before he had time to think about it. Hell, I took off before Ieven had time to think about it. I started hearing the sound of galloping off behind me, and looked over my shoulder to find Chiron making up the lost time pretty quickly. "No," I shouted back to him, unneccessary as he was cantering to a stop even as I spoke. "It's not safe." That was the truth, too; I'd just gotten out of a life-threatening event, so I had no idea why I was running towards what was probably, the way this day was turning out, an alien crash site.
There was a feeling in my gut that felt suspiciously like something rolling its eyes at me to stop worrying about it and keep going, and for a second I thought Chiron was reading my mind when he said, "You are more than welcome to check the scene, if you're really set on it." I shot him a questioning look, and after a moment of visible consideration, with generously applied care and tact evident in his voice, he clarified, "I will need to respectfully ask that Lord Dionysus refill the lake in a... controlled manner."
"Controlled... oh, right," I said, wincing as the meaning dawned on me. Dionysus was the god of alcohol and madness. Asking him to do anything gently probably took some convincing. Not wanting to take the chance that the aforementioned god was reading my mind even from over here, I nodded and turned back toward the lake-turned-landing pad. The steam had pretty much stopped rising once I finished jogging over there, and I saw a good dozen slightly shaky people climbing out of the passenger-side of a red sports car. I was in the middle of wondering how that many people could fit in one sports car when I blinked, and then there was a bus bobbing on the water instead.
I didn't question it.
What I did question was the strange gut feeling I got when I caught site of a blonde guy who couldn't have been much older than me stepping back into the bus. For a second I thought it was Chris, but looking at Chris didn't make the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I squinted at the bus as I got closer to the group next to it, wondering who this guy was and why he was making me so edgy. The bus turned back into a car, prompting me to look away to avoid being blinded by any more fireballs, and it dawned on me that I had the same feeling when Dionysus walked into the office. That meant I was looking at Chris' dad, the sun god himself... well, now I was looking at his car flying through the air, but whatever.
The flying car, I realized, was the most normal part of my day. I decided not to think about that either.
A fast, excited voice made me look back down to find a group of younger kids headed by girl in a silver jacket and the satyr-shaped source of her annoyed expression, coming in my direction.
"... but you guys would know all about how she does that, wouldn't you? You probably think I'm silly for asking, right? I mean, getting to camp out in the woods all the time and being with Lady Artemis, you really have..." Oh dear actually-existing and hopefully merciful gods, I could immediately see why the girl looked like she was contemplating homicide.
"Uh, hey," I said over the gangly-looking satyr, hoping to shut him up for even just a few seconds. "Ridiculous question, I know, but are you guys alright?" He stopped to nod, grabbing his big rasta hat to stop it flying off his head as it bobbed eagerly.
"Oh, yeah!" he gushed. "That sort of thing happens all the time to us satyrs, we're used to it! We're the engine behind Camp Half-Blood, you know-we're the ones who go all over the country finding heroes and fighting evil, so stuff like that doesn't even phaseus! And I bet Zoë's seen way more interesting stuff, she's-"
"Okay!" I said, hurriedly cutting him off as I fought an urge to clamp a hand over his mouth, "Just... checking. So, ah..." I glanced over to the girl again, getting a much better look now that she was closer. She had dark hair in a braid that hung down to her waist, a silver band around her brow, and a look on her face that could have frozen the lava wall. There was a regal air about her, even as cold as her expression was, that I just couldn't pin the origin of. Of course, maybe I couldn't pin it because she was stalking away from me, followed by the rest of the group.
"...Nice to meet you..." I muttered dryly as the last one even went so far as to bump me out of the way with her shoulder. "Fine," I grunted to myself as I turned to watch them. "You can keep the freakin' satyr."
"They're not as bad as they seem," a voice said from behind me as a hand gave me a pat on the shoulder. I looked to my right and found the man Chiron had been talking to earlier, armor and all, watching the girls head toward the ring of temple-sized cabins. He directed a kind smile my way, raising tree branch-sized arms up to fold over his breastplate. I answered with an unconvinced grunt as I looked the armored man up and down, realizing just how big he really was. The guy was only a few inches taller than me, but he was close to twice my size around the shoulders with the breastplate on, and he couldn't have weighed less than two-hundred pounds without all the armor.
He looked over, chuckling with the same kind of warmth Chiron did as he grinned. "It just takes a couple centuries for them to warm up to someone male, but once they do you couldn't ask for a more dedicated bunch," the man assured me, a surprisingly friendly light in his blue eyes for someone who could probably bench me without much effort. "I'll introduce you once they get settled in, if you're up for it, stranger."
"Why are you in all that armor if they're so nice?" I asked, unable to keep from lightening up in the face of such honest friendliness.
"Hrm?"
I reached over and tapped the mailed leather gauntlet on one of his forearms. "All this," I clarified, "makes you look like you're going to either a Renaissance fair or a war."
"Oh, right," he said, looking down as if actually noticing he was wearing the plate and mail for the first time. Large shoulders shrugged up and down as he made a vague sound and answered, "Habit. I get into a lot of trouble when they're not keeping an eye on me." I arched a brow at that, but he just shrugged again before extending a hand and asking, "All that aside, got a name you don't mind me using?"
I reached out to take his hand, shaking it up and down once as I answered, "Pat Alexander." I couldn't tell you why, but it suddenly dawned on me how gender-neutral my name really was. Good thing I was hard to mistake for a girl.
The man nodded, but before he could answer-and almost before he could let go of my hand!-a red and silver blur impacted his side with an excited shout of "MARCUS!" Any other man might have toppled over, but the brick wall named Marcus just caught the blur, which had thrown its arms around him, and twirled it around in a bear hug.
"Ari!" he laughed happily, squeezing a little squeak out of what soon revealed itself to be girl no older than ten, wearing an oversized silver jacket like the group of girls who'd breezed right past me a minute ago.
"You were gone a long time this time!" she exclaimed excitedly. "We killed a whole nest of drakens and I rigged Phoebe's flamethrower so only I can use it and some half-blood crashed Apollo's bus and I got to rob a bank!" The girl was actually leaping up and down by the time she finished her sentence, eventually getting so much air with each hop that Marcus stopped her with a hand on top of her head.
"A bank, Ari? You know I need to tell Artemis if you took more than a thousand dollars, right?" Marcus mock-scolded, making a show of shaking the finger of his free hand at her. The disapproving frown turned into the kind of smile somebody's uncle would give when he buys them ice cream, and its owner offered, "But tell you what; I'll let it go this time if you say hello to Patrick."
She turned around to regard me, head tilting in an impishly curious manner. I was suddenly glad I hadn't grabbed my wallet today, because I was very positive that it would have ended up missing for an hour and about twenty bucks lighter upon its mysterious return.
"I dunno..." the redheaded girl said after a minute, looking back over to Marcus as if to criticize somebody on the friend they brought home. "He's kind of a boy..."
At this point I couldn't stop myself from slapping a hand against my face, and from the sounds of it Marcus couldn't stop himself from laughing at my expense. "He's a really nice boy, I promise," I heard him chuckle, and lowered my hand in time to see him crouch down next to the much smaller girl. "And besides, what am I?"
"You're a Marcus," she answered incredulously. "Duh."
"Does that mean I'm manlier than you?" I asked, pointing out, "I mean, at least I'm kind ofa boy, apparently, and you do have longer hair." My grin, by the end of that sentence, could be described as eating a certain substance better left unnamed.
Marcus drew himself up to his full height at the slight against his dirty-blonde hair, crossing both thickly muscled arms over his chest as he retorted, "Oh, alright, Patricia. Mid-neck is not that long, and youdon't have a beard."
"I shave!" I said defensively, trying to turn the impromptu contest back in my favor, but it was too late. Even as closely trimmed as it was, I couldn't really argue with the beard that was much more full than I could ever get my own facial hair to be.
"Ariana!" a girl's voice called out from farther ahead, startling me with the sheer amount of authority behind it-and the slight murderous undertone didn't really help. The minuscule redhead in question winced sheepishly as she turned around to face the opposite direction and the dark-haired girl from earlier... and the satyr who followed her.
He was still talking.
You know, even with the cold shoulder she gave me earlier, I really felt sorry for the girl-whose name must have been Zoë, because her admirer babbled it no less than four times-after hearing what she'd been dealing with this whole time. In about six seconds, the satyr had managed to suggest his favorite restaurant, wonder what it must be like going hunting with Artemis (goddess of the Hunt, go figure) and even ask if Zoë would like to go on a date-
SMACK!
I cringed when the slap landed, uttering a sound of sympathetic pain as the satyr brought his hand up to his cheek... and then I almost gaped in disbelief when he looked back at his hand with awe. I mean, I know what it's like to want a girl to touch me, but... seriously? I have absolutely no problem admitting I took a half-step back when I saw the look on herface, because, quite frankly, I value my life and would rather not tempt the murderous looking girl into taking it away. Marcus decided to step in at this particular moment, placing himself between the satyr and the enraged object of that satyr's affection, and moved to lead the rambling goat-boy away with kind instructions to 'go tell Chiron that the hunters were moved in for a while'.
I followed the tracks that the unwilling satyr's hooves were making as he dug them into the dirt, marking him as suicidal in my head before looking back up to the pair of girls in silver jackets. "So... never ask you on a date, right?" I offered, breaking the silence after a moment.
Zoë directed a frigid glare at me before looking down at Ari, who gave an apologetic grin and a half-wave.
"Ari..." she said warningly. "What have you done, what kind of explosives did it involve, and did you at least manage to remember our conversation regarding the health hazards of nuclear radiation?" Her words were carefully enunciated, with a strange accent-almost like she picked something up from a few different places.
The little redhead huffed. Counting the questions off on her fingers, she replied, "Nothing dangerous, none, and that was just one time!"
"I kept her out of trouble, Zoë," I heard Marcus call from farther down the hill, plate and mail clinking together as he walked back up toward us. He shot a quick look over his shoulder, muttering something or another about satyrs under his breath, and then looked back to us. "Kept your new Hunter out of trouble, too. According to Bianca you were trying so hard to get away from that satyr that she lost track of you," he added, sounding vaguely amused.
Bianca, I assumed, was the girl following a good half-dozen steps behind, clad in the same silvery-looking jacket that all the other boy-hating girls happened to have on. You know, I was really starting to feel outnumbered here. It was almost like someone was going out of their way to make sure every single one of the seemingly infinite, feminist girl scouts bumped into me. Don't get me wrong; I don't mind a girl who's proud to be a girl, I just don't particularly like getting death glares from people I haven't even actually met yet.
"H-Hey, Zoë," the girl said nervously, giving a meek little wave. Call me a cynic, but I was honestly a bit shocked that she didn't start off by disapproving of me. I gave her a look over, the annoyed edge draining out of me as I caught something. I almost didn't pin it until I glanced back over to Zoë, but then it hit me just how experiencedthe others were compared to this hushed-up new girl. What kind of stuff did this girl scout militia do for a living?
More importantly, when the hell did I start analyzing people like I was going to have to fight them? I mean, I kept my eyes on the jocks in the hallway, but this new train of thought was something entirely different.
Zoë gave an exasperated sigh, like an older sister who was called to babysit at the last minute, and with the loss of that ice-cold glare I realized how youngshe was. Sixteen, absolute tops, but damn if she didn't look like she was carrying the weight of the world itself in her brown eyes.
"Ari McMurphy," she sighed, sounding a lot more human now than she had before. "What am I going to do with thee?"
Ari, who had been clicking absently through the menu on a cheap cell phone, looked up and cocked her head thoughtfully. "Last week you were going with drawing and quartering, I think, and the week before that there was something about fire ants...?"
Zoë closed her eyes for a few seconds, and I swear I could hearher counting to ten. Finally, she just shook her head and ruffled Ari's hair with tired affection. Now, I'll admit that it wasn't the most diplomatic thing I've ever said, but I was beyond caring by the time I asked, "Holy crap, you're actually capable of physical contact that isn't violent?"
Ah. Welcome back, Glare of the Ice Queen.
"Bianca, Ari, come." she said shortly. Bianca glanced at me before falling in beside Zoë, and the little redhead huffed as she shoved the phone back in her pocket.
"Bye, Marcus," she sighed, managing to get her arms most of the way around his treelike bulk. I couldn't help but snicker when he squeezed another little squeak out of Ari in return, lifting her up to over-exaggerate the bear hug before dropping her back down to her feet. She spared me a speculative look before following the other two down the hill.
"Alright, what's the deal?" I asked Marcus after the trio was safely out of earshot, causing him to look over. I tossed an arm out toward the departing girls. "The silver girl scout street gang. Do they hate boys, or just me?" Marcus gave me a nod as he folded the mail-and-muscle arms over his chest.
"The Hunters of Artemis," he said after a thoughtful exhale, "don't hate men just for the fact that they're men. They're actually quite capable of growing to trust a boy or two, after enough time." Marcus frowned, like he was thinking hard about how to word something, and eventually settled on, "Many of them, Zoë especially, just have their own reasons for not being fond of us. Good reasons, but sometimes they're a bit more zealous than they need to be."
I suppose I couldn't argue with that; I wasn't exactly innocent of generalizing, myself. There was just something about his tone, though, like he was talking about something a lot longer-running than just some high school cheerleader troubles. "They seem alright with you. Especially Ari," I pointed out, meeting his blue eyes curiously.
A grin slipped onto his lips at that, and soon the larger man was chuckling. Mark's chuckle really made him seem like the kind of friendly guy you could get along with, but even that wasn't quite enough to keep me from being blindsided by his response.
"I've been with them since the Crusades."
