Okay, before you try to castrate me and rip me limb from limb, please if you do, this story will never end at all.
To everyone, i really am sorry for not updating sooner, because actually, i got bored for a while. But after seeing your reviews, it made me really happy and that i had to write. I understand if you want to leave this story because of my ass of an update time. I won't be mad... just a bit sad.
Okay answers. Yes Helena is Percy's Twin if you hadn't caught up on that. Nobody knows that their twins, even Percy. And secondly i would like to think that Percy is fluent in Latin and English. He's like one of those people that speak so perfectly that he has no accent. If that's possible. About, the Trojan demigods (Yup, I'm calling them that. I don't like leaving characters hanging where there's so much room for development. So i'll probably be making short stories about them, because i feel it would be dull if they didn't had any background whatsoever.
Someone told me that some of the Characters is similar to bleach. Believe me, i have never watched bleach when i was writing this. So i actually went to go and read the manga. I assume the similarities is with the Equitem and the Espada. If i'm correct.
I'm not going to make you guys wait anylonger. So read and Enjoy (P.s, im really sorry about the late update)
Densha,
Being blind is only unfortunate when what you miss seeing is something beautiful.
With how there's no beauty left.
Being blind is fortunate.
Percy never had an appeal in teaching others. It was just something that he didn't like to do. He had the skills for it but no patience. The only reason that he trained Erika was that because he was ordered, to which he obediently did. And the only reason he had continued training the mortal girl was he was never the person to finish things half-way. He would be sure that Erika would reach a high standard in fighting. At first, he barely tolerated on how weak and naïve the girl was. But after some time, it was pleasing and at the same time calming to watch his disciple make progress, it was like watching a garden grow. Even though he had passed his duties of training her to Wadjet, he still made it a habit to once in a while test her.
Looking back on his memories of training Erika, he never thought that anything else would be harder and more troublesome. He was wrong.
Percy's eye twitched in irritation as he looked on the beta group he was supposed to train. Luke, as temporary leader of camp, handpicked the first dozens of demigods he was supposed to train and so far he wasn't pleased with Luke's wondrous selection of able bodied campers. They were giddy, sloppy, and very well undisciplined. They took the training as if it normal school lesson. He was really considering adopting Sun Tzu's style of teaching large groups of people which involves in killing at least one of them.
After they dispersed at the call for lunch, Percy sighed in frustration as he leaned back on a random tree.
"You should try a subtle approach, Percy" A voice said from above him. Calmly, he cocked his head to see Aleva's half emerged body on the tree's trunk, looking down on him with a serene look.
"How did you know I'm having trouble?" He asked half-heartedly as he leveled back his gaze. "A nymph empathy link" he suggested.
She didn't know why, but somehow hearing that made her feel warm inside. Huh, funny. "Please" she scoffed as she made to ground level. "That's a goat thing and as you can see… I'm no goat" she claimed proudly as she put her fist on her hips.
He resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her. It was a weird feeling having someone to converse with normally outside his group. Even if said person was a wood nymph with an attitude that would surely be classified as unusual, or maybe it was the same for all the wood nymphs.
"Now about your problem, your way of teaching is a bit –"
"Efficient" Percy interjected.
"-harsh" she finished.
"Harsh?" he asked skeptically "We're demigods, it's the most dangerous life anyone can get in this world"
"That's a rather cynical perspective" she noted, as he pulled back his hood. She was curious why the demigod hid his features most of the time, surely he can't be ashamed of it. What with those alluring piercing sea green eyes, long black hair, pale –
"It's rude to stare" Percy said bringing her out of her thoughts. "You were saying?"
"Y-yeah" she stuttered. "Being a demigod maybe the most dangerous thing in the world but you shouldn't really go Spartan in the training"
"The Spartans pitted their children against each other and sometimes they fought to the death. They were thrown to the streets so they would learn to survive by themselves. They would steal and sometimes kill due to starvation." He would continue but Aleva had cut him off from explaining the brutality in more detail.
"Okay-okay, maybe I exaggerated a little bit" she said sounding appalled at his brief explanation of the brutalism of Spartan nature. "But I'm still right about what I said earlier. Thus bringing me to my second point of anti-socialism" she went on and on about what he did wrong in teaching the demigods and he was patient enough to hear what she had to say. He drowned himself in the dryad's constant chatter. When he had made his decision to come here he didn't expect that the camp was this quiet. He hadn't seen that much action since second he passed through the camp's boundary. Now that he thought about it, he really shouldn't be expecting much. They were basically oblivious that a threat of uprising was looming above them, so really he couldn't blame them if they were this lax.
It might make things easier but less… entertaining.
…
Helena tried to ignore the useless chatter inside the bus and focus entirely on the ride. But it was hard to do so considering the fact the other kids were talking like it was a damn fish market and the outside sights weren't appealing enough for her to ignore the noise. She slumped back into her chair in frustration, besides her was Grover who was looking rather agitated. If she knew it was going to be like this she would have skipped school and play truant somewhere less hectic. She smirked as she saw the guy who had bothered her yesterday. He came out with more bruises than she did in the fight yesterday and seeing his face today in that state suddenly lifted her spirits a bit. He caught Helena looking at him and immediately he averted his gaze to the bus floor.
'That showed him' she thought as the boy looked down in shame.
Helena was usually given a wide berth due to her aggressive attitude but there's usually some ballsy individual that wanted to go at the chance to tame her. Yeah, like they could do it. She was a trained martial artist, damn it. Because of her extra energy, her uncle had encouraged her to take a sport or something as long as it exerted energy, which she chose to learn self-defense. She had won tournaments before. Beating up school punks who thought they knew a thing about fighting was just a one-sided affair. Baking cakes was harder in her perspective.
The students clumped up in front of the museum as they waited for the teachers to exit the bus. Mr. Brunner was this guy around his forties with curly brown hair and a scraggly beard. And plus, he was on a motorized wheelchair, so it took a couple of minutes for him to get down from the bus. He by far was Helena's favorite teacher, considering that he's the only teacher that didn't make her feel sleepy in class, which was a miracle by itself.
The other chaperone was Mr. Dahaka, a dark broody man that taught biology. He had short ebony hair and light olive skin - Helena wondered whether the guy was of Egyptian descent. She knew for a fact that the teacher disliked all kids, making her wonder why he even took a job in a school full of children. And the next distinctive feature was his smell .She swore that every time that she walked past the guy, she would smell sulfur, it wasn't strong but it didn't need to be to be an annoyance. She could smell it from here. Haven't he heard of a shower? He was clearly due for one.
"C'mon, no slacking" he ordered as he herded the students up the stairs following Mr. Brunner. He was relatively fast for a man in a wheelchair. Not wanting to become a reason of discontent to Mr. Dahaka, Helena rushed to the entrance with Grover in tow.
Mr. Brunner led the tour. They passed large galleries, glassed exhibitions, and a few Greek potteries as Mr. Brunner gave brief history on almost each artifact they had passed. After going through a few galleries, they passed a large stone writing on the wall. Her gaze lingered on it for a while before the writings on it seemed to shift.
She blinked in confusion then rubbed her eyes and waited for the blurriness to disperse before trying to look at it again. Nothing changed. The writing on the wall still looked the same, just lines of writings in foreign language. It was at this moment that she had realized that she was all alone. Great, now she had to go and find them.
Before she even took a single step, a sleek voiced echoed through the exhibit.
"Putting up wards really is enduring." She spun around at the source of the voice to see, Mr. Dahaka, looking bored as he usually do and brushing his hands together as if he had just picked up something dirty. "This better be worth it"
"Mr. Dahaka" She called out sounding confused at what he was talking about.
He groaned hearing what she had called him. "I hate that name. I should have picked something more dignified than that horrid name"
"What are you talking about?" Helena asked as she grew more confused. She knew that the biology teacher was nutty but not this cuckoo.
"Never mind that" he waved it off, annoyance in the way he moved his hand. He stopped walking in front of her and held his pale palm out. "The master bolt, now"
"What?" she asked again as she took a cautious step back, her awareness training starting to kick in. Something's wrong, really wrong with her teacher.
Mr. Dahaka clenched his fist and ground his unreasonable pearly white teeth. "I swear demigod, if you're trying to play dumb, I will send you to the underworld before you past your prime"
Helena watched in unveiled shock as Mr. Dahaka's clothes began to shift slowly, as if it was a living entity. His brown blazer changed into a black over coat, his salmon tie turned into dark shade of red, and his beige trousers turned to the same color as his ebony coat. The only thing that remained the same was his white buttoned shirt.
Helena turned to run but she only managed to distance herself from her teacher before a black blob appeared from the ground in front her and morphed itself in the shape of a tall person. He looked like an exact copy of Mr. Dahaka. It had the same clothes and the same pale skin. Only this one was wearing black tinted glasses and had longer hair and the presence of a Tommy gun. Talk about outdated.
Helena turned around to find the only other way out was blocked by Mr. Dahaka and the appearance of two other people, each wearing the same identical clothes as Mr. Dahaka and each carrying Tommy guns.
"You almost let this one escape, Ceuthonymus" the one wearing glasses stated, his voice deep and calloused. "That would not have been a pleasant endeavor"
"Shut up" Mr. Dahaka countered harshly. "What's important is that the girl is here and she will make our master a king."
Glasses didn't say anything in return. Everything really wasn't making sense for Helena. Who the hell were these guys and what the hell did they want with her?
"Now, let's make it easier for all of us, demigod. Give us the lightning bolt and we'll kill you painlessly"
Gods, why are they so thick headed? "L-look, I really don't have what you guys are searching for"
Mr. Dahaka's eyes narrowed in annoyance. "Kill her"
"W-wait, why you guys don't kidnap me" Helena really didn't know where this was going. She was just trying to stall until someone -anyone- came.
"Tell me. In what world would that be a good decision in my part?"
"You guys are trying to find this lightning bolt, right? Then you could bring me to your headquarters and interrogate me. I'm sure whoever your boss is would give you recognition for being persistent"
Mr. Dahaka scoffed at the idea. "We'll kill you and then interrogate your soul before it reaches the underworld, even though it's against death etiquette. Besides, no one will know" he gave a sinister grin.
Helena didn't know what that had meant, but she understood enough to know she was dead.
She didn't move. The shock and confusion were crammed so much into her head that it didn't left any space for her to react properly. She couldn't even bring herself to close her eyes and shield herself from her unfortunate demise. In the middle of the chaotic turmoil that raged within her young mind, one coherent thought made it through. Her uncle was going to kill her for not arriving home before curfew.
She waited for the trigger, but before anything could happen, a large blur of blue and green crashed through a section of the wall and slammed into Mr. Dahaka, sending him far into the end of the corridor and into a glass exhibition full of precious and fragile artifacts. The museum officials weren't going to appreciate that.
The two other lackeys were the next to go as the large figure slammed them both into the wall. The ground behind Helena rumbled and jets of water broke through the floor and hosed glasses away from her and straight through the ceiling.
Helena stood unmoving as the sounds of water leaking from the broken pipes filled the silence. She was too caught in the familiar large figure that she didn't even consider the fact that a large portion of the corridor had been trashed and it would cost thousands to repair the damage.
It was when the large figure turned around that she recognized him.
"Uncle Rick?" she asked. The way she asked didn't have the tone of desperation and petrifaction that she had earlier. It was pure raw confusion that engulfed her tone. She was expecting some sort of response from her armor clad uncle, any kind actually. But she didn't expect the words to come.
"You forgot your lunch money" he stated deadpan.
She didn't know whether to kick her uncle in the shins or give him a big hug… well, she did want to kick him more than hug. But, even she understood the urgency of the situation, even if she didn't understand the situation itself. It took her a few moments to realize that her uncle had said something to her.
"What?"
"We need to go, now!" Her uncle ordered, his tone sounding a bit desperate. For some reason, her uncle sounded different. Maybe it was the whole situation making her mind a little bit askew. But she could have sworn that his voice sounded blurry all of a sudden, as if he was speaking underwater. Before she could ask anything relevant, she was suddenly picked up by her uncle and was thrown over his right shoulder without any grace.
"Hold on" he told her. It was at this time that she noticed her uncle's new distinctive feature.
"Your ears, they're fins!" she noted.
"No they're not"
In a blink of an eye, both disappeared leaving mist and the faint smell of the ocean to linger in the air.
Amidst the glass shards and rubble, Darius pulled himself out, his face etched with deathly malice. More shadows formed into men wearing black overcoats around his imposing figure.
"Get the girl" He growled, his voice no longer sounding sleek as it did earlier. "Kill the sea-dweller"
With a collection of silent nods, they disappeared, leaving the half-destroyed section of the museum empty.
…
"Who the hell are they?" Helena questioned, as they navigated through the urban maze with speed so fast that time seemed to stop around them. Although, his uncle was doing the strenuous act of leaping over cars and from building to building, he was somehow able to form a coherent response without panting.
"Hades' underground Mafia" he answered as he skidded and turned a sharp left.
"Who's Hades? Are we in debt or something?"
"Not exactly… he isn't a normal person"
Helena's eye twitched. "Of course he isn't normal!" she shouted at him "What normal person leads a Mafia cult?"
"Well you know those Greek stories I told you about when you were younger" Rick began to explain.
"Yeah" she answered skeptically, not knowing why it was at all relevant.
"The Hades that I'm talking about is from those stories"
It took her a couple of moments to get that information stuffed in her already overworked brain. She blinked once.
"What?" she jerked so much that she almost fell of her uncle's shoulder.
"Don't move so much unless you want to fall"
Noting her uncle's obvious warning, a slight feeling made her look behind over her shoulder.
There were dozens of them, she didn't actually know what they were, but they traced sharply on the surface of buildings and roads like moving shadows. They were fast, and they were gaining on them.
"Uhh… can you go any faster?" she poked her uncle.
Already knowing the reason that was causing Helena's distress, he made a cut into a park. Helena watched in trepidation as he uncle whizzed closer and closer to a lake. She braced herself for a sudden shower only to see her uncle running across the lake… with no trouble at all. She wasn't going to even to try and act shock anymore.
Helena couldn't hear what her uncle was muttering about as they surged through the lake, it sounded like some sort of incantation. For what, she wasn't too sure. The answer, however, came immediately as five humanoid shapes formed from the water, each holding a different type of weapon in their semi-solid hands. They stood, creating a wall between the shadows and them.
"They should be able hold them off for now" He said as they moved farther away from his summons of liquid golems. His tone however suggested that it won't be enough time.
…
They ran… however, Helena wasn't sure that what his uncle did was considered running, but as long as they were putting distance between them and danger, she didn't care what the method was.
"What the hell do they want?" She asked, taking advantage of the momentary peace.
Her uncle stayed silent for a while before answering, "They were after Zeus's lightning bolt?"
"Lightning bolt?"
"Yes, his sign of his domain, one of the most dangerous weapons made on earth"
"How did it even go missing in the first place?"
"It was stolen, by whom, it's still a mystery"
"Wow" she exclaimed, feeling astonished. "Something as big and dangerous as that could actually be stolen. You can literally steal anything here"
"Let's save the witty comments for later on" Her uncle replied.
"But" she continued, "How did I end up being the suspect?" she said sounding annoyed at the fact. "If what you say is true and this isn't some weird dream I'm having after eating something stale from the fridge, I've only known about all of this less than an hour ago" she groaned in frustration, wishing she just had normal school girl problems.
"Yeah, Zeus isn't actually thinking rationally during these times" Thunder rumbled above them as he said that. "He's in a really bad mood" he whispered.
"Why are you whispering?"
"Nothing" he answered back regaining his normal tone.
"Wait, if Zeus thinks that I stole his precious toy. Then why is Hades after me"
"Hades isn't actually after you. The ones that are hunting us down are one of Hades' groups of overzealous followers called the Cacodaemones, though they sometimes call themselves Hades' mafia. The only thing similar with them and real mafia is only the way they dress and the guns they carry"
"Yeah, I was actually wondering about that" she uttered out honestly.
"They think that they'll get on Hades' good side if they present the master bolt to him"
"But they won't right?" she asked hopefully.
He shook his head "Although Hades didn't order this, he will not pass the opportunity to usurp Zeus and gain the throne of Olympus for himself" he stated sounding dreadful.
"What about the other Olympians, you told me they were thirteen of them, right?" she asked, curiosity etched on her scared face.
Rick was honestly about to answer, but something blocked the path in front of them. The first thing that hit their senses was the horrid smell that, like the smell of sweat and fur meshed together. The smell made Helena pinch her nose shut. She had to struggle in her current position to see what had caused her uncle to stop abruptly in the middle of the road. It took Helena a couple of moments to comprehend what she was seeing.
Five blurry silhouettes of men, larger than her uncle, stood in front of them. She had never met anyone larger than her uncle, which was saying a lot considering that her uncle had larger than average body proportions. The air was dangerously still as her uncle breathed slowly and analyzed his targets. It was when his uncle placed her on the ground that she realized that the men in front of them all had the head of a beast: An Alligator, a wolf, a bull, a hog and an elephant. All standing up with bodies of built men, clad in light leather armor and each carrying different heavy weapons.
Her uncle kneeled down so that he could look at her eye to eye.
"I want you to listen to me, okay" Her uncle tried to sound confident, but the look on his eyes says otherwise. Helena nodded grudgingly as affirmation that she was all ears.
"I need you to run up that hill" he pointed to the one behind the five beastly headed men. "-as fast as you can, without stopping, can you do that?" His voice sounded oddly reaffirming even though the situation had just taken another turn for the worst.
"You're not going to do anything stupid are you?" she asked, sincerely worried about her uncle.
"No" he simply answered. What he was going to do was extremely stupid, but he wasn't going to tell her that.
Unfortunately, the half-beast didn't posses the decency to wait for the conversation to be over before trying to attack the both of them. In a blink of an eye, Rick caught the one with the wolf head by the neck, and threw him a couple of meters to the side, not before prying the weapon from out of its grip for his own use.
"Go now!" her uncle shouted as he kept her hunters busy. Helena wasted no time following her uncle's orders. The wolf picked itself from the ground and snarled in Rick's direction, obviously angry after being manhandled, and then gave a loud and shrill howl before catching sight of Helena running away from the fight.
Rick backpedaled as he avoided another swing of the spiked mace coming from the hog. He twisted his body as he sensed another danger from behind. Using his bracers, he blocked an incoming impact from a halberd. Though, it saved him from behind cut from behind, the impact to his right arm still hurt. He pulled himself away before the axe head could fully cut through the thick armor. He leaped to the sides, and ducked down below a horizontal swing of a double-ended axe. Using his legs, he swept the alligator beast off its feet causing it to fall backwards. Before its body could fully reach the ground, he took hold on one of its legs, and despite his smaller stature, threw the half-beast at another, ending it with a grunt of satisfaction.
The elephant swung his weapon from his side, hoping to catch him off his guard and aiming to break Rick's head into tiny bits. Rick, being the faster of the two, blocked the incoming attack with his own weapon. He struggled against the force of the larger monster, breathing heavily as he tried to think his way out of this losing battle, before he saw the wolf giving chase to his niece. His eye widen in terror and his heart quickened, panic slowly engulfing his mind. The push of the elephant grew stronger on him, and he almost lost his grip.
Cursing at the situation, he mustered all the strength he had and kicked the elephant man at the ribs with a thrust that was sure to damage some vitals.
He screamed when he felt cold metal cutting through deep behind his right calf. He felt something kicked behind the damaged leg, forcing him to kneel. He felt calloused hands and sharp claws taking hold of his head and yanked him to the ground. The alligator beast forced Rick's head to the hard ground, making sure he was completely incapacitated.
Helena heard the sound of the wolf howling and the sounds of metal clashing with each other as she stumbled up the hill. The feeling of dread kept her running at full speed between the tall lush trees. She briefly caught sight of a tall pine tree before she heard her uncle cry out in pain from behind. Feeling worried, she slowed down her pace and against her better judgment, turned around.
It was a bad mistake.
Before she'd even realize it, a muscled hand had pinned her on a nearby tree by the neck, impact making her teeth clatter. Thankfully, it didn't felt like anything was broken except maybe the tree. Her sea-green eyes stared into the eyes of another, more feral ones and that was filled with an animalistic desire to hunt and also to kill.
The wolf pulled his clawed hand back, getting ready to rip Helena's head off. Closing her eyes tight, she braced herself. Only that it didn't. The hand was still on her throat, what had stopped it? Not that she wasn't grateful or anything. She reluctantly opened her eyes to see an arrow had done the deed. The wolf, confused at first, pulled the offending object out of its shoulder and then both of then looked to where the arrow was shot from.
A boy stood readying his bow besides two others, a girl and another boy. Hope filled inside Helena as the boy released another arrow and it whizzed through the air and dug itself into the hand pinning her down. It growled menacingly as its hold on her. The other two darted to the front at the raging half beast, from different sides, and weapon in hand. Before the beast could do anything, one had sliced one of its legs off, and the other had jumped and stabbed it in the shoulder. The wolf gave one last roar, and then dispersed into sands of gold.
It only took a moment for her to register that the beast had turned into yellow powder.
"Are you alright?" one of the boys asked and he kneeled in front of her.
She was about to answer then she remembered that her uncle was still in a predicament. She wasted no time darting off to her uncle.
"Hey!" the boy shouted, firmly gripping her hand. "Where are you going?"
"My uncle's in trouble" she explained briefly. The boy looked to his other friends and they each gave him a slight nod. The boy released his hold on her then the three of them followed her downhill.
The sight that greeted her made her want to sob out. Her uncle was on the ground and she couldn't see his face. At first she had expected the worst, but the slight movement of his chest filled her with a bit of relief. The only problem now was trying to get her uncle away from trouble. She looked to the other kids, hoping that with their experience that they had devised some plan to save her uncle. But even they look perturbed, thinking how in Hades that this girl had attracted not one but five hallmark monsters, four of whom were still alive and kicking.
It wasn't a moment later that more guests arrived forming themselves from shadows.
Ceuthonymus stood, with visible tears on his coat, besides other men who were in the same state. His gaze was deadly as he looked on the small group of demigods. Oh, he could easily kill them and then be done with it. But the only problem was that he can't.
Killing the daughter of the sea god alone was the only kill that he could possibly endure, but if he killed other demigods, their parents might hold that grudge against his master. No, he didn't want to put the other Olympians against Hades, especially in the dawn of a possible war.
No, he couldn't…but he did have one thing left. He had a hostage.
He looked to the sea servant on the ground, injured but still alive, and then to Helena.
"Bring the bolt to Lord Hades" he said, "And you may well see your uncle Alive again"
"But I don't have it!" she shouted at him, holding back tears.
He however didn't do anything in reply, instead, his small army left like shadows being ripped apart, leaving nothing behind, even her uncle.
Helena fell on her knees, disbelieving eyes staring to where her uncle had gone. The three helpers exchanged looks of understanding with one another, knowing that being out of the camp's boundaries was already bad enough.
Helena just kept staring, even as they got her up to her feet and helped her cross the camp borders. She just kept staring…
Up on one of the trees, a lone figure perched on one of the branches went unseen as he surveyed the previous battle. His hidden face fixed on the new demigod, but not with interest or pity. It was a cold calculative glare, a glare that was kept on her until she had passed into the safety of the camp.
With nothing else, Percy stood up then simply disappeared.
…
After being treated for her minor injuries and a few bland words of sympathy, they left her to her own devices, feeling that she should be left on her own after what had happened. But she herself didn't know what to do. Should she cry? No, she never cried. She did however feel pathetic, she couldn't do anything to save her uncle, and even now she was stuck on a bed with nothing to do but watch the beautifully insulting view of the camp. She clenched her fist, how useless. No, she shook the thoughts out of her head. She wasn't one to sit and dwell, she needed to think of a way to save her uncle from the underworld, even if it sounded on the fringe of insanity. It wasn't impossible, other people had done it, albeit legendary people, but still… she had to do something.
"Still have a lot of energy, I see" a voice said in front of her. Looking up, made her forget what she was about to do - just for a bit. A handsome boy with dirty blond hair was walking towards her, followed by a younger girl with long blond hair. "I'm really sorry your unfortunate arrival here, it was really luck that someone heard the commotion. We should really schedule a patrol system around here" He muttered the last one to himself. 'Might even save lives'
Shaking out of her trance, "What do you want?" Helena rudely asked. His only reply was to smile at her while the blond girl besides her looked like she was about to pounce on her.
"My name's Luke Castellan, acting head of camp, and this here is Annabeth" he placed a hand on top of her head. She might have looked annoyed if it wasn't for the light blush that appeared on her face.
Helena narrowed her eyes, slightly irritated that he chose to ignore her question. "Helena" she reluctantly gave her name to the two strangers. "Where am I?" she asked as she gave another look around. The place was decent enough, but she wasn't going to judge the place by its appearance. For all she knew, this could be some kind of place where they teach people to handle dogs - or something equally ridiculous.
"Well, this is camp half-blood" he answered.
"Let me guess, it's a place for people like me" Helena half-heartedly said.
Luke's eyes seemed to widen a fraction, while Annabeth only looked at her suspiciously - well, more suspiciously than earlier.
"You seemed to be informative about this" Annabeth said to her.
"Hit it right at the head didn't I?" She said, not bothering to look at her. A tick appeared on Annabeth's head; she really was starting to dislike the new girl.
Oblivious to the tension, as most men would in his situation, Luke continued "Yup, you're right. But please don't say 'people like me', it feels like we're mental patients". Helena looked up at him that said 'Is there a difference?'Luke, however, ignored the glare directed at him. "Usually, Chiron or Mr. D would explain these things to you but since both aren't here at the moment, Annabeth and me would have to do" he rubbed his hands "Okay, since you already got some of the blanks filled, why don't you tell us what happened and we'll see if we can fill all the other blanks".
Normally, Helena wouldn't even give a damn, but her desire to know what happened to her uncle got the best of her and she told them the entire story. Both blonds absorbed the story, nodding occasionally and telling her to go on. After they finished, both of them looked at each other in silence. So this was the demigod that Chiron was looking after, Annabeth thought.
"Well, firstly" Annabeth began "We might think you're really deep in trouble"
"Gee, you think" Helena said sarcastically.
"Hey, I'm trying to help you here" Annabeth reprimanded.
"Then, don't say something that I already know"
"Aright - alright" Luke broke the fight apart before it got worse. This was camp half-blood; it was really not unusual to see a fight to the death break out just because of a few verbal abuses. "It looks like these Cacodaemones really were hell-bent in believing you had the master bolt."
"And not only them" a new voice suddenly added. Helena looked to see a middle age man, with slightly curly hair and was wearing a tiger patterned shirt. One of his hands stuffed inside his pocket as they walked towards them with a bored expression. "My old man seems to be adamant that you -" she looked to Helena before continuing "- have stolen his precious weapon, senile old bastard." He muttered the end of the sentence.
He then looked to Luke and Annabeth "I trust you haven't told her anything that isn't supposed to be told?" He asked firmly.
"No" was only Luke's reply.
"Good" He walked off. However before going farther he stopped in his tracks "Oh, before I forget. Welcome to camp Half-Blood, and at the moment, the only safe place for you now" then he continued walking.
A momentary silence passed before Luke spoke again, somehow the tone in his voice changed slightly "How about a tour of the camp before settling down?" Helena didn't protest. It was far better than just sitting there doing nothing. So he stood up, and followed Luke and Annabeth.
…
A frightful growl filled the empty corridors of Hades's underworld palace. Usually any other guttural sounds could be dismissed since it was the underworld, but this growl came from its king.
Hades, his eyes like cold fire burning, stared into the eyes of his subordinate. His hand firmly gripped on his Ceuthonymus's as the leader of the cacodemons clawed on the hand of his master, struggling to breath.
"I could easily break your neck" Hades stated without emotion. "A simple snap, then poof" Ceuthonymus's eyes were filled with panic and dread. "Tell me, what idiocy caused you to try to kidnap my niece?"
Of course, with a hand strangling his neck, Ceuthonymus could only manage to get out choked replies. Hades released him. He fell to the ground, breathing heavily as he rubbed his neck.
"I…" he began "-was trying to get the master bolt from her"
"And did you?" Hades looked down on his pathetic form.
"No…" he looked down in disgrace. "I accept any punishment that you deem fit for me"
"I don't want to waste my time anymore than I already have. Get out of my sight, and make sure I never see you again"
He remained silent "What of the prisoner?"
"Leave him with me. I feel this 'problem' will surely fix itself" Hades then waved him off.
Ceuthonymus bowed, and then disappeared all together, leaving Hades alone to his thoughts. 'Now to see what the fates have in store for him'.
…
So far, Helena didn't like where her first day was going. People kept staring at her whenever she walked by (as if the camp didn't have weirder things to look at than her). Luke and Annabeth did however, introduced her to some of the campers that she really had to know. It was hard however to do that considering she wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone.
They told her about the cabin systems, and even explained to her that she would be staying in cabin eleven, which was most of the time overcrowded, especially during summer time, which was just around the block…Great.
Stopping in front of the Hermes cabin, Luke turned around to face her. "Well, I guess that's it then" Helena was slightly relieved that the tour was over. She just wanted to be alone now. "You can roam around the camp, I guess. Until Chiron comes back"
"Chiron?" she asked.
"You'll meet him later" Annabeth promptly answered "But I'm sure you've already met him."
"Huh?"
Annabeth then walked off, without explaining what she had meant and muttering something under her breath.
"I really don't like her" Helena stated as she walked further away.
Luke chuckled lightly, "Don't worry about her, she just takes time to get used to… a lot of time actually"
Helena only frowned "So, what now?" she asked.
"Now" he said, as if the question was amusing to him. "It's two hours till dinner, I guess now, there's nothing to do"
She thought about it for a while. "Do you have a training ground?"
"We have a number of them, which one would you prefer?"
"Something to make me lose all this tension"
Luke gave a distracting grin. "I think I know where"
…
Luke led her to an empty plain ground area. A couple of marbled pillars stood erect above the ground, probably to indicate where the training boundaries ended. Within the columns were a couple of hacked up dummies and a simple weapon stand. Nearing closer, she could see a couple of other kids, sparing unarmed with each other and some practicing some basic stances. It oddly reminded her of her old dojo where she used to go for her martial arts training.
"This is where we usually train for unarmed combat, though I'll say this is a relatively new one and it's actually growing popular." He explained.
"New?"
"Yeah, we found an instructor just a week ago. Let's go meet him" For some reason, Luke sounded a bit jovial. As they stopped at the edge of the training, no one seemed to take a notice on them, probably fully absorbed in their training to realize they had visitors. "There he is" he gestured to the instructor. He was actually hard to miss, considering he was the only one not wearing the bright orange t-shirt that everyone seemed to be wearing. Not only that, his hood was pulled over his head, so you can't actually see his head.
"He seems fun" Helena said, as she watched him critically as he took some light punches on a dummy. Luke's only reply was to smile.
"His name's Percy. I never caught his last name though. And he's really tough"
Helena continued to watch, somewhat feeling entranced. Without even realizing, she started walking up to him.
"Hey" Luke called out, "What're you doing?"
"Seeing if he's really tough"
…
Percy sighed as he felt something bad about to happen. It may be a feeling, but over the years he learned it was better to actually trust his instincts, especially the bad ones. He turned his head slightly when he noticed that some had stopped not too far besides him, probably wanted to see him training. Seeing no harm being done, he just continued to let the person watch as long as she didn't bother him.
"Your stance is wrong".
One of his punches stopped midway as he heard what she had said. "What?" he asked, his voice betraying no emotion.
The arena had gone quiet and Helena realized that everyone there had stopped to stare at her as if she had just said the most ridiculous thing in the world. Luke however looked a bit amused at the proceedings.
"Your stance is wrong" she repeated as she looked back at him.
Percy almost grinned. 'This girl actually is trying to correct my stance, how cute' Percy turned around to face her, he was more or less a head taller than her and the hood did a good job in making him look intimidating. "Didn't it occur to you that this may be a personal style?"
"Really, because your feet work look a little bit weird" she said without a care.
"Was that an insult?"
"Nope, just an observation" she replied as she stretched her arms and legs. 'This girl is really blunt, almost reminds me of someone' Percy thought.
"What are you doing?" he asked as he watched her doing squats.
"I'm warming up to fight you" she said simply. Percy just kept looking at her then turned back to the dummy.
"Go before you really get hurt, I have no intentions in fighting you"
"Hey!" the girl shouted sounding annoyed "Don't you disregard me like that" Percy, of course, chose to ignore her.
In a state of slight anger, Helena leaped in front with her right arm pulled back and punched at him only for it to be caught in his grip. Helena then tried to kick him with his left leg and it was also caught.
Percy released his grip altogether with a light push, causing Helena to backpedal a few inches back so that she could regain her stance.
"If you want to fight, then make sure to bring out your all" Percy told her as he readied his stance. "But I assure you, you won't land a single hit on me"
Helena actually smiled a little, "If I do" she replied as she readied herself.
"Then you win"
Luke had to admit that things had gone interesting, there was even a crowd forming to see the fight. 'I better stop this before it gets out of hand' he thought as he looked on to the two fighters 'maybe give them a couple of minutes'
Helena wasted no time waiting, sending a fury of fist and swift kicks …that seemed to do actually nothing to the boy. He just simply slapped the punches away and dodged the more heavy attacks. Helena wasn't stupid enough to not know when her opponent was holding back, and it irritated her to know that the boy was not even breaking a sweat at her best. She had to give it to him, he was actually pretty good.
She kicked high to his face which was easily blocked by Percy's arms. Without batting an eye, Percy took grip on her ankle, spun her around and threw her away from him. Helena flew a couple of meters back and fortunately managed to land on her feet. This was getting annoying; she hadn't even managed to even land a hit on him.
Blowing a stray strand of hair from her, she ran to him. Percy, unperturbed by the action, stood motionless as he watched her attack him with renewed vigor. Percy however couldn't help but feel a little bit impressed, if that was somehow possible. By mortal's standard, she was actually pretty good. She knew her weakness and chose to compensate it with agility and speed.
Percy readied, wanting to end this so he could head back to his own business. As she got in his range, he punched her, but, to his surprise, it didn't connect. He watched as the girl, ducked down his arm while grinning, and then she thrust her own fist up to his unprotected jaw.
The crowd that had gathered to see was silent, only speaking with each other in hushed tones and shocked that the girl had actually managed to get a hit. Both fighters remained unmoving.
"Hurts, doesn't it" Percy said.
Helena's surprise was evident in her wide eyes. 'The hell' she cursed as she watched her arm starting to tremble. The pain… was something she didn't expect, it felt like she had punched metal, it hurt like hell. Percy, seeing his opponent still motionless, grabbed hold of her arm.
She winced in pain, trying to get out of his grip, but in doing that, the pain got worse. The only thing he could do now was just hope that he won't do anything to her hand. He then promptly pressed on it, causing a grunt of pain to escape from her, and then he released the hand.
She took hold of her own hand and checked on the healthy red swelling of her fingers. "But…" she looked to Percy "I won right".
He didn't say anything at first until, "Yes" Percy paused, slightly amused "Yes you did"
…
Luke watched the interaction between the Percy and Helena and found it somewhat amusing and impressive at the same time. While Percy was resilient as always, he actually underestimated the girl. She would have given Luke a run for his money. Luke kept on watching, even when he heard the clopping of hooves nearing besides him. He didn't need to turn his head to know who it was.
"Any good reason that you didn't try to stop them" Chiron asked, his voice not sounding angry, only a bit of concern.
"She needed to blow some steam off" Luke explained.
Chiron nodded understandingly, accepting the reason as good as any other. Chiron was always fond of the son of Hermes; he was a very astute and observant boy, seeing details that most people won't, and was very able in reading people's emotions. It wasn't a wonder that many looked up to him as a leader.
"How was New York?" Luke asked.
"Dangerous… as always" Chiron answered. "I trust that she has been informed"
"Yeah…except her parentage. She's very confused now and she told us she lost her uncle"
"I see" Chiron cursed himself; he should have just brought the girl earlier. He knew who her uncle was and he was a very noble and loyal man. He was sad to hear what had happened to him. But seeing that he couldn't do anything about it now, he chose not to dwell on the fact. Instead, he clopped forward.
The crowd, who saw the activities director coming, bowed gently and made way for the centaur. Helena, who just saw Chiron had a surprised look, which was really getting overused for the day, mouthed 'Mr. Brunner?'
"Helena Jackson" Chiron called out "It's good to see you nice and well. I'm sure Luke has already familiarized you with the camp. I am sorry that I couldn't be here upon your arrival. If you have any questions at all, feel free to ask anytime"
"You're a horse" was what she only said.
"Centaur, to be exact" he corrected. The age old centaur then turned to the hooded boy. "So you're our unarmed specialist. An honorable trade, I must say. There hasn't been any demigod that chose to fight unarmed in a very long time, prompting to use the more shiny toys, I suppose"
"I'm only doing what I can" Percy replied. This was the first time he had met with the legendary trainer and he wasn't sure what he felt of him. But one thing was for sure, the boy respected him for his experience and vast wisdom that carried with it, which was more than he could say for the Olympians.
"And for that, I thank you" Chiron bowed lightly. He then turned to address the crowd which was still there.
"Campers!" he bellowed. "Dinner is almost ready, go freshen up before eating" At that, the campers began to disperse. "Come Helena, we need to look at that hand of yours, and Grover's been worried about you".
"Grover's here?" she asked, sounding surprised.
"Yes my child, and to prevent any further surprises, I'll tell you now that he is a satyr"
"That actually makes a lot of sense" she muttered under her breath as he followed besides the Centaur, carefully cradling her arm.
Percy watched the retreating figure of the centaur carefully before picking up a fallen sword from the ground (probably left behind by some forgetful demigod) and placed it on one of the stands.
"She was pretty good, wasn't she?" Luke said from behind. "I got to say I was impressed"
"More training and she would be astounding" he admitted.
"Yeah, c'mon let's go to the mess hall before the seats are taken" Luke said.
"I…" he paused as he felt his head throb "-have something to do first" he stated as he held his head. "I'll go there later"
"Suit yourself, don't say I didn't warn you" he said as he began walking towards the mess hall. He then stopped and looked back. His face darkened considerably, his eyes lost its playfulness and became cold and calculative. The change was so significant that if some else had saw it, they would have thought he was another person.
Percy was already gone.
Regaining his normal visage, he continued walking as if nothing had happened.
…
Ceuthonymus - a mysterious Daimon (Spirit) of the Underworld.
Cacodaemones (Kakodaimones)- Evil spirits which issued forth from the underworld to cause harm.
A/N: I'm sorry if the chapter is not up to standards or confusing. I really hope it isn't. I was really rushing because i really wanted to update this chapter. Review!