A/N: No more exams, no more projects!!!! Winter break starts in a few days, and then I'll be able to update like a normal person!!! Hooray!!! Disclaimer on second chapter, read on!
Arrow of the Fallen - Chapter Four: Thirty Years Ago
I woke up feeling cheerful and well-rested, albeit a little light-headed. "Whoa," I said, "that was the best sleep I've had in ages."
My eyes focused on several people sitting beside my bedside. "Whoa," I repeated. "Stalker much? Do you guys usually watch me sleep or something?"
Roxy let out a strangled sob and launched into my body. "We thought you were dead! We thought everyone was dead when they called for me and James to lift you out of the clearing! Chiron said you were just asleep, but you were hardly breathing! And you didn't stir at all, none of you did! Do you know how horrible it's been, these last few days?"
"Wait, slow down," I told her. Everything came rushing back, the crazy mind fight with Michael Night and Lily Raemon of the Morpheus cabin, how I'd beaten them, but how I passed out right after that. How everyone else in the clearing looked like they had died. "A few days?"
A boy leaned forward on his chair, and I realized it was James. He looked harassed, dark circles under his eyes, hair all mussed up. "You were the last one to wake."
"I can't believe this," I groaned. "What happened?"
"The fast Hermes kid, Kian, had already taken off with our flag and was heading towards the boundary line. We had barely any campers left to fight, so blue team – your team – won. Chiron blew the horn three times to signal the end of the game and the blue team's victory, but after ten minutes, you guys from the clearing weren't appearing. Chiron sent Percy and Annabeth to go find you, and Annabeth ran back asking for the Aeolus twins to lift the bodies – the people. Rox and I could barely channel any wind at all when we saw you passed out like that. All of the other people around you were asleep too, because of the power you were discharging from the battle with Michael and Lily. We lifted you guys to the infirmary but you wouldn't wake up until a day after; then all the bystanders were revived. You, Michael, and Lily were still out cold. Twenty or so hours after that, Michael and Lily woke up around the same time. Two more days passed, and now you're finally awake. Everyone was losing hope. They brought in Michael and Lily to see if they could awaken you, but they couldn't. No one knew how, so Chiron just told us to wait."
"I'm really glad you're alive, man," someone else said.
"Shoots!" I grinned, "Didn't know you arrived."
"I had a sleepover movie marathon with a few friends in Philly, and I came back yesterday to hear that you were dead to the world. Almost literally."
Vincent "Shoots" Barrel was a year older than James and I, but he was one of our best friends. A demigod from the cabin Apollo, he loved poetry. It got annoying.
"Yeah, so you have like fifty more fans waiting for you outside this room," Shoots reported. "Dylan, go run and get Chiron."
I sat up higher in my bed to look down at Dylan. I had no idea he was there.
"Your mommie came over to campie and yelled at Percieee for a longie time," Dylan reported in a cute baby voice.
"Oh, gods, was Sally that mad at Percy? It's not like he did anything wrong."
"Yeah, well," James said, shrugging.
"NICO!" Chiron shouted, entering the infirmary. "You're back with us, boy!"
"I guess I am," I laughed.
He leaned over me and whispered into my ear. "We're having the meeting tonight."
I nodded.
"What meeting?" asked Dylan.
"It's secret business," I said. "You don't need to know."
The camp nurse declared me physically and mentally healthy at noon, and Roxy, James, Shoots, and I played a rousing game of volleyball before dinner. Michael and Lily came up to the Hades table just to tell me their apologies and I apologized back. We laughed at each other for being so powerful that we could put other people asleep that were just next to us at the time. But Lily kind of creeped me out with all the eyelash batting. I can take flirting, of course, but not excessively from a girl who was twelve years old. Afterwards, me and Percy met up in the Rec Room with Cres a few minutes before seven o' clock. Cres was pacing the room, eating Cheetos with an obsessive abandon. She looked up when we arrived.
"You actually kind of had me worried there," she said, disgust clouding her features. "I can't believe I said that."
"Don't worry, all the girls said the same."
She made a face at Percy and muttered something like, " . . . huge ego . . . thinks he's God's gift to women . . ."
"Oh, but I am God's gift to women."
"You know who really is? Van Ryon."
"No way!" I exclaimed. "That psycho kitty? I can't believe you said that!"
"Don't say you don't like him," Cres crunched on a Cheeto. "I think you think that he's really cool and smart and a good leader, but you're too manly to admit him as a friend."
"Manly, I am, alright."
She rolled her eyes mightily and opened her mouth to speak again, but Chiron had galloped into the room. "Sorry for the hold-up, had to talk to Dionysus about our strawberry farm. You are all here?"
We nodded.
"Then I should get right down to business. These skeletons I have no knowledge over, but I'm sure you would like to know a bit about Mitchell Fallen."
Percy frowned, disappointed. I think he and I were both looking forward to learning what those skeletons were and how to kill them.
"Alright," Chiron sighed, opening a bag of chips. "Here we go.
"It was, let's see, about thirty years ago, when the Fallen triplets were seven. Mitchell, your father, and his brother and sister, Rhys and Katrina, arrived at the foot of Half-Blood Hill just as dawn showed on the horizon. It was early June, and they told me that a man in a business suit called a taxi for them to this address. I took them in, of course, and made them campers. They stayed undetermined for eight summers, and I couldn't understand why. They were extremely powerful and for some reason could handle all weapons like the gods themselves when it came to defense and their strength grew when the sun was out. They could control water as skillfully as any children of Poseidon, but they weren't demigods of him for they could only use fresh water. They were mysterious in a lot of ways; I could never tell if they were 'good' or 'evil.'
"Mitchell made many friends and was one of the most popular boys at camp back then. Katrina was extremely pretty but used her beauty as a weapon." Chiron laughed. "All the boys fell for her and were scared of her at the same time. Rhys was quiet and always looked like he was waiting for something to happen.
"During the summer of the year the triplets were sixteen, none of them showed up at camp. I grew worried. Where had they gone? I knew they went to a private school up in Connecticut and lived with their father Seth Fallen, but I couldn't contact any of them. In the newspaper, I read that Mitchell had done a few commercials, auditioned for the main role in a new TV show, and had gotten that role. Over that summer, he would be filming season one in L.A. My concern over the youngest Fallen triplet was quenched, but the newspapers said nothing about Katrina and Rhys – or Seth, for that matter. In a rising teen idol, shouldn't family history be one of the categories that the paparazzi attacked? There was no information about the other triplets, and Mitchell wouldn't reveal anything in the interviews. After two years or so, I stopped searching feverishly for Katrina and Rhys. By that time, Mitchell Fallen had become the next big thing in Hollywood. If anything was discovered about Mitchell's family, it would make front headlines, I was sure."
"So that's it?" Cres had her head on the ping pong table, a bag of Cheetos forgotten in front of her. "You don't know who gave my father his god blood?"
"Unfortunately, I do not."
Percy slumped backwards into his chair. "Who is Cres's mother?"
I looked at Cres almost expectantly, waiting for her to leap out of her chair in fury, like she did with me. Instead, to my annoyance, she parted with the information without protest. "Shannon Pike. But you would know her as Cheneyney."
"CHENEYNEY?" Percy and I exclaimed as one. "No way!"
"It's true," Cres said. "You know the movie My Own Guardian Angel?"
"Yeah, it starred Mitchell Fallen – and – oh – Shannon Pike," I realized.
Cres nodded. "She turned into Cheneyney once she left her acting career and went for singing instead. I mean, why am I telling you this? You guys all know Cheneyney, Billboard Top 100 ruler and all that. I'm sure she wasn't like, I don't know, a goddess, and she sure wasn't a half-blood either. Mitchell didn't seem like a half-blood when I met him for the first time last year . . ."
"Crescent," Chiron tried to say.
"I just can't handle this. I need answers. I'm not going to be the only undetermined person in this camp, hell, I didn't ask for this. I may sound like some brat in a fantasy movie like – like Eragon or something, but isn't this one big fantasy movie? I mean Greek gods were fantasy like before today and stuff, I knew I could see weird monsters, but that just seems so normal now, now that I have some weird uncle and aunt that I haven't ever heard about. And you guys are all taking this so calmly, but I was like a – what do you call it? – a mortal before today and I'm not used to this kind of groundbreaking stuff! And f*ck you, di Angelo, I know you have a stupid smirk hidden on your face!"
I stood up calmly. "Fallen, that was uncalled for. We've all been through what you're going through right now, especially Percy. He's been through a bigger hell than you have, Cres. We're trying to help you here, so you can take our help, or leave it, your choice."
The girl glared at me, right hand twitching like she was about to flick me off.
Chiron patted her shoulder kindly. "I'm sure we will find the truth about your heritage soon, Cres. I intend to start hitting the books immediately, in the meantime: you can continue your training here at camp."
"I'm afraid I can give you some of the answers you're looking for," a cool female voice interrupted Chiron.
We all whipped our heads back to face her, a girl leaning on the doorway of the entrance to the Rec Room. She looked about thirteen years old, with a beautiful face and red hair pulled into a French braid down her back. Her eyes glittered intensely into each of ours in turn.
"Lady Artemis?" I gasped. My body tingled. It was all because of her and her Hunters that Bianca died way earlier than her prime . . . . I forced the thought down. Bianca's fate was laid out for her ever since she was born. Even Artemis was a pawn of Fates'.
"Lady Artemis, I did not receive any news of your arrival and didn't have time to prepare –"
The moon goddess interrupted Chiron for the second time. "It is fine, dear Chiron." The words coming out of her mouth did not fit a thirteen year old. "Percy Jackson." A shadow of a smile flickered onto her face and then disappeared. "And Crescent Paula Fallen."
She said nothing and did nothing else and we stared at her for a while.
"There is something you should know about Shannon Pike, your mother," she said to Cres. "You are right; she is no more half-blood than Barack Obama."
Percy's eyebrows quirked up from hearing the strange comparison between the singer, Cheneyney, and the current president of the United States.
"No, she has no god blood in her, yet she has been touched by a god. I, Artemis, the goddess of the moon, the Lady of Wild Things, sole protector of women, blessed Shannon Pike many years ago. I blessed her and gave a mortal the strength of the moon."
A/N: Hated the conclusion of this chapter, too abrupt. PLEASE REVIEW!!!! Thanks for all the people who already reviewed, alerted, and favorited this story (and me). And if you haven't already, spread the holiday cheer!
