I'll be honest, this is more of a publicity stunt for a few (just a few, because I have many more that I couldn't seem to fit) of my favorite authors or my favorite stories. So go check out these guys/gals if you think they're interesting. I'm only going to use snippets and such (I don't think you'd enjoy reading something that's over 20 pages long).
It's not my best, but don't hate me. I only had a few hours to get permission, put this together, and publish. And copying took a lot of time.
Oh, shout out to StarlitReader, FoalyWinsForever, and SuzieQluvsU! I've asked for permission from all of them and they didn't seem to mind. They might when they read this one chapter… but I might make up for it later.
Clichés
-Discovering FanFiction-
These days, things like this just… didn't happen.
Well, to be honest, this had never happened as far as any of the campers were concerned. They were heroes, for the gods' sakes, saviors of the world. They had risked their lives with death-defying stunts that usually had their mothers—and a select few fathers—in hysterics. They swung swords around as casually as an heiress went shopping in the most expensive stores in existence. They… well, they also did normal teenage stuff and worried about how to escape punishments for doing the wrong thing.
Like Travis and Connor Stoll were currently doing. From the slim chance that they had mocked some poetry in rather severe manners. Like, say… dressing up as women and parading around the camp screaming out limericks and haikus left and right that they had stolen from Apollo's more, ah, sensitive campers. And when said campers had gotten a hold of the brother's necks, Chiron was blessed with the difficult task of separating them.
And then the whole situation, of course, was explained in full to the centaur, to which the Stoll's earned a stern look.
"Boys," Chiron crossed his arms like a peeved mother would do. If truth be told, he felt as if this camp had been demoted from demigods to delinquents in less than a week. Because really, the war had just come to an end and the Hermes cabin was back to acting out.
The pair began sputtering their reasoning, begging for understanding. They were shouting over each other and tossing blame for whose idea it was and that they weren't the only people involved.
"It's not that bad, Chiron."
"Everyone else thought it was funny."
"Not my fault they don't have a sense of humor…"
The last one had a little blond girl lunging wildly, trying to sever Connor's head from the rest of his body.
Another squirmish between the three resulted in Chiron gripping both Travis and Connor's wrists in his rigid grasp, the little girl being restrained by her older siblings.
"Enough!" Chiron's eyes had gone from disappointed to absolutely livid, his whole form stiff with disbelief at the boys' childish antics. "I have had enough of this. Now you will both apologize this instant or by the gods I will have to go to Tartarus for the punishment I am about to inflict."
They stared defiantly at the Apollo campers, eyebrows lowered in a hard line, their jaws set stubbornly. With a quick side glance to the other, they crossed their arms and mumbled under their breath.
"Boys."
"We're sorry," Travis forced through gritted teeth and let his arms hang limply at his sides.
Chiron relaxed his posture, seeming to recollect his easygoing essence. "There," he turned to the Apollo campers, about to shoo them off to archery with the absolute certainty that shooting things would ease their rage when Connor piped in.
"Yeah, we're sorry you've got your dad's dry humor."
"AHHH!" the little girl latched onto Connor's back with a firm arm wrapped around his neck, her free hand smacking him on the top of his head; she continued screaming and growling in rage. Travis, about to run to his brothers side—who was making a mad grab at his neck and wincing every time she smacked him—was pulled back by the older boy who had been restraining his young sister and soon landed a solid punch to his jaw. Travis held his cheek with minor disbelief etched onto his mischievous face.
"It wasn't that bad!" he tried, knowing that they had been wrong but also believing firmly that the prank wasn't their worst.
By now, Connor's face had turned to that of a ripe strawberry and he was on all fours gasping for air. Grabbing her arms, Chiron pried her off and swung her onto his back where she couldn't escape him without his knowledge.
So, yeah. Maybe the prank wasn't their nicest or smartest. And they probably shouldn't have continued taunting Apollo's children. And maybe, just maybe they could have laid off of turning every form of punishment into a joy ride (like washing dishes at dinner time, fighting for the cleanest looking spoon to sterilize, where they soon flooded the sink and lava started to eat away at the now ruined counters. Or cleaning the stables which resulted in both of them covered in horse manure and grinning, trying to give their friends in the Aphrodite cabin hugs.)
Now the whole camp decidedly hated their guts, having to face the punishment along with them, save the victims of their original prank.
Something about appreciation for the Apollo kids' wonderful writing styles and creative poetry.
It was something the gods had created a while back, just to see how the mortals could amuse them. It started out fabulously, wonderful fictions based on other authors' works, each as intriguing and beautifully put together as the last. Then, at the turn of the century, after a major glitch in the system, the work—years of sweat and blood—was wiped away. Destroyed. Multiple authors had made a comeback and tried to restock the shelves of the gods, but it was slowly failing. The website had become overrun by fan girls and Mary Sues to a point of bringing even Ares to tears whenever he even cast the website a sparing glance.
And now the campers had become fully aware of the gods' pain. Reading fiction after fiction, they flinched or refreshed the roaming page of their category (Percy Jackson and the Olympians, to which Clarisse sneered) all wishing they could understand their intentions—why would anyone write something so… so horrendous? Annabeth had even fingered her dagger upon reading a fiction that involved her and Percy going way beyond any boundaries she had really hoped to maintain. She quickly flamed that (yes, Chiron had them make a profile and she only commented on the OOCness of it all) and backed out of the webpage, her breathing a little awkward. It wasn't necessarily bad—the story was written with…fascinating detail—but she could hardly think past the mental images that were now clouding her mind.
Then the new assignment.
"Write something."
He looked serious. That was the scary part.
"It can be fictional," he promised. "Or go off of personal experience."
Connor had grumbled something about there being no point to this at all, and Chiron's reply was a rant on how writing something and putting it on display was difficult. That campers shouldn't have laughed just because Connor and Travis knew how to make the writing look pathetic. That Connor and Travis should have taken time to admire the Apollo campers' courage and ability.
Snickers.
"And if you don't participate, then you can take your chances sleeping in tents outside of the boundaries." Every head snapped to the irritated Mr. D standing in front of a building that hadn't been there before. They were all standing in the pavilion enduring this chat when he made his same sudden entrance, only now he had brought a shack. It was really just a box of concrete that didn't look like it could hold anything more than ten or twenty people if they were crammed together. However, stepping inside they found rows and rows of computers all with blank screens. At least two hundred monitors were set up.
"If you don't write something worthwhile, I may turn you into a dolphin."
It was hard imagining Dionysus getting excited over reading but it seemed like this had been his entertainment in a rather boring time period. Apparently the website used to be an escape to a lot of gods and goddesses after the Big Three took that stupid oath that ultimately failed. The trio was moody and snapped at a majority of the crowd, and so they were either soothed with high praises written by mortals (not in the PJO category, seeing as it didn't exist at the time) or the others could forget what was happening around them. Dionysus was no exception.
What were they to do other than sit at those (insert select curse) computers and write something that would ease the two camp leaders?
Chris, once he really got started on typing, seemed to be okay with the assignment. Others would pick up on his habits. He'd sit typing furiously, occasionally facing the wrath of spell-check—he was still dyslexic, so of course he'd have to stare at the words before deciphering how he was supposed to spell that one—and then he'd pause. His eyes would flutter closed and his fingers would remain poised on the keys, his breathing heavier and slower than it had been. He'd remain frozen in his own frame of time like he was either thinking rather deeply or trying to forget whatever he had just typed.
I never meant to be a traitor.
I'm not saying I wasn't one, because I may have been. Betrayal is subjective. I'm just saying that it was never my intent.
Clarisse backed up from his monitor, understanding what exactly he was writing about. And she somehow knew that it wasn't going to take one sit down, to write about. He would be up and out and then come and sit right back in that spinning chair and type. She muttered under her breath something that strangely resembled 'wuss', even if she really didn't mean it, and then stared at her screen.
Chris' eyes snapped open and he picked up typing out what he needed to say.
"Are you here to train or not?"
He glanced at his girlfriend in his peripherals and gave a small grin.
Percy however was having a harder time. He didn't really want anyone else to know that it was his story that he was writing out. He didn't really feel like allowing others inside his mind. So he was taking on a different point of view than his own.
He really was clever, despite what others thought.
And really, this story was more of a dream he'd had one night. No, a nightmare. It kept him from sleeping for nights on end but he had brushed it off.
"Okay," he mumbled, eyes squeezed closed. "How to start?"
"Xiang," Percy called over the wind rushing in his ear, "You can't do that! Get back over here now!"
The little boy laughed happily, holding on to the side of an attic window with one hand. He stood lightly on the gutter at the very top of the Big House, leaning forward as if he was about to fly.
"Why? I don't want to. I wanna jump!" the young son of Poseidon yelled gleefully. His face was split into a wide grin that was missing a few teeth.
Percy's heart beat wildly in his chest. How could he have let this happen? He should have done something before his brother's problem got out of hand. It wasn't… natural for any child of Poseidon to be comfortable with heights, let alone want to fly.
But Xiang was different from Poseidon's other children, apparently. Ever since the six year-old had come to Camp Half-Blood after his mother's death, he'd been fascinated with flying. When he wasn't chattering about how happy he was that Daddy claimed him, he was talking about birds and airplanes and other things that belonged in Zeus's domain. And then there had been that terrifying stunt with the Pegasus—Xiang had jumped off and free-fallen towards the ground from hundreds of feet up. If Guido hadn't caught up to him at the last second, the boy would have been killed.
Percy'd tried going to Chiron, and even talking to Poseidon. He tried explaining to his brother that being up high was dangerous, and that Uncle Zeus would get angry. That when you fell, you died. But Xiang had simply looked up at him with that adorably frustrating, innocent expression and said, "But I want to."
And now Percy was half-slipping on the shingles of the Big House, ready to fling himself down at a moment's notice to stop his little brother from jumping off the roof.
"Xiang. If you come over here, we can go play with the Pegasi later. We can see Guido, and Blackjack…" The desperation in his voice was barely concealed as he tried to coax his brother from the ledge. "Or we can do this the hard way, and you won't get to see them for a month."
Campers were starting to gather at the base of the house…
Percy's eyes snapped open and he scanned the page.
He tried to dismiss the story and spared a glance at Annabeth who was staring with the utmost look of admiration at her screen.
"Go away, Seaweed Brain." He shook his head but looked back at his own screen, still shaken by how vividly he remembered the nighttime vision. He picked up from where he had left off.
Annabeth was grinning on the outside but inside she was hardly breathing, reliving that sort of guilt. Sure, she felt like she had mastered the writing style, though she would make sure to have the Apollo kid that had talked Rachel through her story check hers. She was acutely aware that Rachel's eyes seemed to have spaced and they were glassy but she was too used to the nature of the Oracle to worry.
"But you'll be killed," you whisper furiously, wishing that you could scream it at him, but you'll both be caught if you talk too loudly. You can't believe he's doing this. This idiot, this complete and utter Seaweed Brain is going to sacrifice himself to save you. You know he'll lie and say that he'll be fine, that he'll find a way out, when both of you know perfectly well that he won't be fine.
He's going to die.
You've both been in this situation before, many more times than you care to remember. But the odds have never been this bleak. There's no escape. At least, not for him. Your survival instinct is nearly overcoming you, telling you to flee, and you know that it's going to win.
Both of your faces are flushed from the heat of the volcano. A bead of sweat runs into your eye, and you blink it away.
"I'll be fine. Besides, we've got no choice." His voice is shaking, but you can tell he's trying to hide it. He's scared. You've seen the look enough times to know.
You memorize the way he looks, because you know you're not going to see him again after this, and your stomach drops. Under that messy, sweat-soaked hair, his green eyes are bright, too bright, and determined. You can tell from the stubborn set of his mouth that he's not going to let you stay and fight.
He wants you to live more than he values his own life.
And suddenly, another instinct overcomes you, and your lips collide with his. It's nothing more than a peck, but your heart aches anyway. You realize something: you don't want him to die. You knew this before, of course. Wasn't that the point of this whole argument? But now it really hits you. If he dies—and you know he will—you'll be devastated. Because you might kinda sorta like your best friend more than you should.
Annabeth took a slow, shaky breath and glanced at her best friend—now boyfriend—with some sort of admiration. His scream echoed through her ears, loud and full of agony. She would be sure to make the gods understand this—he was tortured more than her to make sure they could fulfill that stupid promise to a stupid god. She winced when the scream hit her full force and she shoved it out of her mind.
Rachel relaxed in her seat and studied the page. She was used to her prophetic powers, but she had never been able to look it over or really admire how poetic the Oracle's nature was. Well, until now.
And what she had written made her incredibly uncomfortable. Especially after reading a… uh, racy story about Percy and Annabeth. She figured that if someone else had clicked on that story, then read a story they knew was by the all seeing Oracle, two and two would come together and make the answer of hello, Percy and Annabeth are getting it on and that would open a whole new can of worms. One that she couldn't afford to pull back the lid on. She pursed her lips and dipped into her creation.
From a distance, Jason and Piper watched Percy Jackson and Annabeth. Annabeth was lying prone and unconscious on a cot in the infirmary, her chest rising and falling slowly. Percy was sitting in a chair next to the bed, his eyes were closed and shoulders tensed, and he was muttering under his breath in both English and Ancient Greek. He had one of her hands clasped in his two and leaned his forehead against them. The accident had happened the day before in the attack.
Lycaon and his beasts— along with a host monsters— had launched an attack on the Legion camp about a week after the Greek demigods had arrived. It was obvious that the Giants had ordered the attack, but the target was unclear at first. The battle was fierce, and replaying it in his mind, Jason became aware of just how close and in synch Annabeth and Percy. The two fought shoulder to shoulder, facing different directions. They anticipated each others next step and moved with an accord that comes from years of training with a person you completely trust. Jason had heard Percy yell "Duck!" and without hesitation, Annabeth had crouched under his wide swing that took out all enemies for 360 degrees. And a second later, they were back to hacking and slashing without breaking rhythm.
Then, there was a deadly silence. Percy was standing face to face with Lycaon himself. Jason was too preoccupied with monsters to hear the actual conversation between the two, but he did hear Lycaon's call of ceasefire. The monsters that were still alive slowly retreated behind their master and then slipped away into the darkness of the forest. Lycaon stood facing Percy, who had his sword brandished. Annabeth was right next to him with knife in hand. Lycaon had an evil sneer on his face as he taunted the hero, smiling like he had won a great victory. Annabeth was glancing around nervously like she didn't believe the fight was over. And sure enough, Lycaon said he would leave his little friend to do the work, and disappeared with a flash. The cry that came from Annabeth was something Jason would never forget.
Now, looking back, Jason realized that the small bug that had appeared after Lycaon was a scorpion had crawled out of the ground behind Percy and leaped with the intention of driving its stinger into the hero. What confused Jason was the fact that Annabeth had— at the exact moment the bug leaped at her boyfriend— squashed it in her hand and fallen to the ground. As she fell, she dropped the scorpion and sliced it with her knife. A moment later, Percy was on the ground hunched over Annabeth, shouting her name.
Maybe four seconds had passed and Annabeth looked deathly pale with the exception of her hand, which was oozing yellow and green. Jason and Piper had rushed over to help, but Percy was yelling for Chiron. The centaur was at his side in a moment, frantically retrieving medical supplies from his saddle bag.
"Chiron, you can heal her, can't you?" Percy pleaded, not taking his eyes off of Annabeth's face. The rising and falling of her chest was almost nonexistent.
Chiron worked quickly. "The poison is deadly, but we have caught it early enough. Do you remember—"
"Pit scorpion. Yeah, I remember." Percy said with a dark look.
The camp had become a crowd around the prone daughter of Athena. When Chiron said it was time to move her, the crowd had parted as Percy carried her limp body in his arms, but what was most frightening was the pure rage in his eyes and the hard set of his mouth. No one said a word.
That night, there had been an emergency war council with the Camp Half-Blood members (save for Annabeth) and the leaders of the Legion Camp. Percy had to be all but dragged from Annabeth's side, but Chiron said it was of the utmost importance that he be present. They had decided that as soon as Annabeth was well, they would set sail for Greece. Lupa had insisted that this was too much of a delay, but Percy was adamant that he would not leave her. There were some angry shouts from some of the Legion campers, but Jason had quieted them. "We need her," he insisted. "She's the best strategist and we'll need all the cooperation we can get." Most of the people just grumbled, but shut up nonetheless. Percy shot a silent thank you to Jason, who nodded in return. The council broke and Percy returned to where he wanted to be most.
At present—the day after the invasion— Annabeth was slowly but steadily recovering, though she had yet to become conscious. Piper and Jason looked on at Percy's constant vigil, since they both had a free period in their training schedule. They had tried to talk to Percy about the reason for the attack, but he had winced and said it was the same reason as always.
"It doesn't make any sense," Piper insisted, once she and Jason were in private. "Send in an attack force, retreat, and then try to assassinate Percy— who by the way is invincible?"
Jason couldn't quite figure out the theatrics of it, but he remembered what Chiron said at the council meeting regarding Percy's situation. Jason shook his head and replied, "He's not invincible. He bears the curse of Achilles, which means he's only mostly invincible."
Piper took a second to digest this. "So he has a weak spot then. But no one knows where it is. Do you think that bug could have sniffed it out?"
Jason nodded. "That's what makes the most sense. But why miss out on the opportunity to kill us all? We know Percy is one of the seven, and if they do too, why try to kill only him?"
"Maybe…" Piper said, "maybe they were trying to get rid of the peacekeepers. Like, with Percy out of the way, the other Romans wouldn't trust us?"
Jason considered this. "That's a possibility. We should tell Chiron and Lupa." Piper looked back at Percy, as did Jason. They studied him for a minute, each wondering what would have happened if the bug had been successful.
"It's a good move," Piper said suddenly. "Getting something that could find his one, mortal vulnerability. It's too bad for them that bug missed his Achilles Heel."
Jason was silent for a moment. He gazed at Percy who had the look of someone who had just realized what he could have lost. The pain in his face was undeniable and it made Jason feel cold all over. Finally, Jason looked Piper dead in the eye and said quietly, "I'm starting to think it didn't miss."
Connor grinned stupidly next to his brother, both jumping whenever an idea hit them only for them to lean forward and write it out victoriously. Neither Chiron nor Mr. D realized that this was just the opportunity they needed to pick on people.
Their story wasn't near as serious or heart-breaking as their friends', but they definitely used serious situations to their advantage, twisting it to an almost humorous form.
Only, if you thought about it, you could see how they had taken real life occurrences and made it something of a joke.
"Holy Zeus," muttered Pollux.
"I'm just guessing," said Connor, "that there's no food here."
Everyone stared at him.
"What?"
Connor hurried through the filler section, not really caring how many spelling and grammatical mistakes he was making, and typed out Percy's name with his brother's approval.
"Okay," Travis raised an eyebrow. "He's gonna take a dare."
"But what's it gonna be?"
Travis grinned wickedly.
Drink the water.
"Drink…? Oh."
A glass of murky black liquid had appeared. At the same time, the light formed numbers—10, 9, 8…
Nico gasped. "That's not—"
"Yeah, it is," Percy said with a grimace. "Water from the Styx." He glanced up at the light. 4, 3…
"You're a jerk."
"Thanks," Travis smiled. He picked up his typing and tried to think up what Percy would feel, despite lack of personal experience.
"Uh, Percy?" came Travis's voice. "It might be best if you didn't break the cup." Percy heard a sharp smack, and then a resentful "Just saying…"
"Connor! You had someone hit me?"
"You deserved it…"
"…I'm gonna hurt you now."
Chris had been put on hold from typing, fully aware of Clarisse standing over him and reading exactly what he was feeling as he thought and wrote and lived through the insanity of the Labyrinth.
"I believe her exact words were 'Nobody pulverizes Rodriguez but me'."
Clarisse hesitated, having read that line aloud and decided it was probably her favorite of her boyfriend's work in progress.
Chris glanced at her. "Can I just finish the story and then let you read it?" He felt like that may have deserved a punch in the shoulder, and he anticipated it, but it never came. She just slumped in her chair that was facing him and she crossed her arms, both brows raised.
"Well?" she asked. "What are you staring at, Rodriguez? Finish the stupid thing."
He resisted an eye roll and gave her a grin before looking upon his monitor. He scrolled down through the over-forty-pages and found the blank space that had yet to be filled with words that he still remembered as perfectly as if she had just said them.
"Are you a traitor?" Clarisse asked bluntly. "Because I've been beating up anyone who said you were, so I'd really hate to have been doing that for nothing." It was amazing how such an innocuous sentence, coming from her, could carry such a wince-worthy threat.
"It's kind of complicated. But, uh, I appreciate that. I think," I added after a moment of thought.
"You better. Now tell me before I kill you."
"Um, Clarisse," Chiron said carefully, "The boy did just wake up from a week-long coma. Maybe you should..."
"I'd rather get it out of the way." And it was true. I had a feeling that I was sort of in shock right now, and that in half an hour it would all hit me and I'd break down in tears or something. I told the story as fast as I could, plowing tonelessly through the nasty parts without letting myself think about it. It took longer than I had expected, even though I edited out almost all of the details, since most of them were basically the specifics of my nightmares and I didn't really think the two of them needed to know what those were. Chiron looked increasingly sympathetic and I could tell he knew I was glossing over a significant part of my misadventure, but Clarisse's face was blank. I still couldn't meet her eyes.
Chiron patted my shoulder. "I realize that there isn't much I can say to help, but in my subjective opinion, you acted admirably. Any hero would have done the same." I bit my lip and kept my eyes downcast, remembering my disastrous Kelli-related decisions and spectacular lapse in judgment at Antaeus' arena, but kept quiet. Chiron clopped from the room without another word.
I glanced up hesitantly, wondering whether I was about to get my neck broken or not. Clarisse was staring after Chiron. Before I could look away, her eyes snapped back down to me.
"You're an idiot, Rodriguez," she finally said. "But you're not a traitor."
"Thanks," I replied as wryly as I could manage, trying not to show the enormous rush of relief her pronouncement brought.
"Anytime. I'll get a newb to grab some of your clothes; you look like a hospital patient. Oh, and most of my cabin is going to try to kill you. Good luck." She grinned sardonically and left before I could say anything else.
"You know," she whispered from right beside him which scared the crap out of him. He gritted his teeth and glanced at her as she read over the new part. "You have to tell me the whole story now."
"What the Hades. Clarisse, you're gonna read the whole freakin' thing. Can't you wait?" He honestly doubted that she could. She was the most impatient, self-pleasing, B.A. girlfriend he could've asked for. How did he get so unlucky that he would fall for the one girl that could beat him up? This was the gods pulling his leg again, but he didn't really mind.
"No, Rodriguez, I can't," she grumbled. "And if you do keep me waiting, I'll have to beat your face in."
"Whatever," he muttered, typing from the cliffhanger he had absentmindedly created.
When everyone had completed their assignments, some stuck with the website. They would check E-Mail accounts that had to be created in order to be a member of the online hotspot for story alerts or they would write what they had recently experienced. Some even wrote out fantasies in the purest of forms to keep themselves occupied. Updates from them weren't frequent but they were so real and raw that mortals and immortals were drawn continuously to the godlike skill they demonstrated in relaying their lives to others.
Of course, they did take detours on quests to find the location of Mary Sues in order to kill them. But everything else brought an improvement—well, everything in general brought an improvement to their moods.
Holy crap that was long. And bad. Aside from the italics, I think this was generally the worst one. It's hard to come up with something original, so I shied away from trying to think too far out of the box and really just made this different. People generally only talk about the bad fictions and leave out all the good. So I brought it back through this chapter.
Verge by FoalyWinsForever
The Boy Who Wanted to Fly by StarlitReader
Echoes by StarlitReader
Achilles Heel by SuzieQluvsU
The Ultimate Truth or Dare Challenge by StarlitReader
Verge by FoalyWinsForever
Check these people out. It's worth it.
