Hi! Yet again! We are back to irritate you guys with our dodgy story!

We currently have way too much homework, considering the fact that half of our teachers are away on various school trips, so be glad that we are procrastinating by writing this wonderful (and awful) fic for you.

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AHermioneH and StormSunfire


Renee Lindsay-Jones POV

Fine, I'll admit it. I was kind of surprised to see the weird bunch appear at school again after their week-long absence. And I wanted explanations.

Now.

For everything!

I mean, they said they would explain, and then they go ahead and disappear for a couple of months. Great job at explaining, guys.

Annabeth appeared to have her arm in a cast while her boyfriend Percy was walking very, very slowly. They limped over to me, and Annabeth smiled weakly. "Hey, I guess we need to talk."

o0O0o

"I don't believe you!"

It was impossible, gods didn't exist. These two were absolute nutjobs; they seriously needed to get off of whatever they were on. I was tempted to yell in their faces, then call the teachers, then take them to a lunatic asylum, then punch them. Not necessarily in that order. On second thoughts, punching them might ruin my manicure.

Then I contemplated it; the possibility of all of them being on exactly the same crack and have exactly the same hallucination.

Also, Annabeth wouldn't do crack.

So. I guess the existence of gods would explain a lot, such as that massive gas leak a year ago, and mass hallucinations. Were they of two suns? Random flashes of light? Or was that the year before? Yes, this year it was flying horses.

I brushed my perfectly styled hair out of my eyes. "Okay. So what do I have to do with this?"

"Those dreams you've been having. They are of things that actually happened. So far, the two people that have had similar dreams have also been demigods."

"So you're trying to say that I'm a half-god creep like you?"

"That's nice. But yes, you are quite likely to be a half-god creep like us. Sorry." She winced as I groaned. Loudly. "Yeah, well, please don't be too loud. I've got a permanent headache as it is. Side effect of being attacked by an ancient goddess of darkness."

"I'm going to pretend that you didn't speak to me and just leave now, okay?" I turned to go, blonde hair swishing behind me.

Annabeth grabbed my arm with her cast-free hand. Her grip was surprisingly powerful.

"Not okay. You have to listen to us, Renee! I fell out with pretty much half the camp and nearly killed myself to get here and speak to you! You can't just walk away! Your heritage is not something that you can just walk away from."

"Maybe not for you. But I know my heritage, and I'm not one of you!" I pulled my arm free, making Annabeth stumble and swear, although it had to have been in some weird language, because it had a funny accent. And I know pretty much all of the swear words.

Neither made any move to come after me, probably to do with their 'injuries'. I mean, they had been virtual snails coming over.

o0O0o

I had another nightmare that night. I jumped down into a circle of giant people, swishing a jagged sword in front of me and yelling, not that I could hear what was being yelled. Within seconds I had been plunged into a ferocious battle, running around and stabbing anything that came close. One giant turned to ice when I stabbed it.

"Right!" I yelled, although the voice didn't belong to me. "Who wants to be the next Popsicle?" The giants were backing away, then attacked again, with far more ferocity. I was being overwhelmed.

I was going to die! Can you die in a dream?

The giants appeared to be taunting me, but the dream had gone silent again, until another voice cut through loudly above the clash of weapons.

"She's not alone."

I glanced up to see a small group arranged at the top of one of the columns. Yeah, I kinda forgot, I was in some creepy ruined Roman place or whatever. At the head was a pretty hot guy, with a gold sword that was crackling with lightning.

Cool.

There was a boy next to him, and a girl on a horse. Ugh, I hate horses.

Suddenly, a warship rose above the columns and fired-wait. Rose? It was flying? The ship fired, and then turned to me, a huge ball of creepy green fire rushing forwards...

I woke with a start, seriously considering taking up Annabeth's offer.

Drew was staring at me in anticipation. "You didn't take up Annabeth's offer, did you?"

I decided the best idea was to act confused at the question. "What offer?"

"The offer she made to you yesterday. The one that she came all the way here to give?"

I furrowed my eyebrows. "How do you know about that?"

"Summer camp."

I stared at her. "Now you go to that creepy summer camp as well?"

She rolled her eyes and wiggled her hands. "Yes, I do. It wasn't my idea!"

I flopped back onto my bed. "Do we have lessons today?"

"Yes. It's Monday, remember?"

"Ugh."

"Come on, Renee. We can see what the teachers have to say about the three vanishing students! Don't you just love gossip?"

Damn, she was right as well.

"Really? What time is it?"

"Wakey wakey time!"

o0O0o

The principal was furious about the vanishing students. It was hilarious. Percy, Annabeth and Ellie were all called to her office over the loudspeaker during Greek, and they sighed and limped out, as if expecting this kind of thing.

They came back after about half an hour. Ms Yew smiled at them apologetically. What was it with her and those guys? I mean, it's not like they were related or anything.

They stayed behind after first lesson to 'have a chat about why they were missing'. Yeah, right. I stayed by the door and listened in. I wasn't missing anything, it was the last lesson of the day. Homework would just have to wait.

"What happened to you three? And there's no point in lying. Michael often came back covered in bruises for no apparent reason. And then he didn't come back at all."

"Ms Yew, I am really sorry about what happened then. I could've just-"

"If Michael had his heart set on something, nothing you could have said would have changed anything, Percy. I don't blame you for his death, and never have."

I jolted back from the wall. Percy had been responsible for the death of Ms Yew's kid?

The conversation continued. "I know, I just wish that I could have done something. I mean, I was stood above the river! Sure, it was pretty polluted and stuff, but I should have done something."

Ugh, if this was just going to be a boring counselling session I wanted out.

"This is irrelevant. We were talking about this week, not about how you blew up Manhattan two years ago."

"Similar stuff happened. Primordial. Destruction. Swords. Stabby stabby. Ouchy. And here we are now, looking like we just fought in a huge battle. Which we did."

"Well, I should have guessed that, shouldn't I? Isn't that your whole life?"

"Pretty much. Wish it wasn't, but it is." He was really skirting around the subject. It was starting to annoy me.

"Well, then, I presume that you may be able to give a few details on the past week?"

"A few. We got to camp and Ellie got given a prophecy of doom. She chose us two to quest with her because we were experienced or something. We hadn't a clue where to start, as there were no directions in the prophecy, so we headed to New York."

Ok, random much.

"And then the first part of the prophecy came true - we nearly froze to death on the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty. Then we met Moros, a son of one of our least favourite primordials. Nyx, in this case. Then he lobbed a few knives at us and I got hit. Yay. And, to add insult to injury, the knife was made of a weird metal that was worse than getting stabbed with Celestial Bronze or Imperial Gold. Yes. Double yay. Then we headed up to Big Z's throne room-" a rumble of thunder cut off what he said next. "-And nearly got us smited! Then we reached Central Park and got attacked by Erebus, and I went kinda dark and he got more than he bargained for. Then we woke the next day to a message from Mother Night herself, who then paid us a visit. Annabeth got hit badly by a weird darkness bolt, and I taunted Nyx, which in hindsight was a bad idea, and in return got walloped by a darkness bolt and chewed by her evil horses. Which, for the record, are incredibly rude and need their mouths washing out! Luckily for Annabeth's health and the functionality of my arm, we'd brought Will with us."

Wait, Will Solace? He's a demi-whatsit too, now?

"He managed to keep us alive for a bit, until Lord Thunderpants himself showed up, shooed off Apollo so we couldn't be healed, and banished Nyx for a bit. Then we went back to camp and lay there for a few days, saying 'ow' a lot."

"I won't ask about 'kinda dark', shall I?"

"Good plan. You might lock me in a cell with padded walls. And machine guns for if I escape."

His attempt at dry humour was falling painfully flat. Maybe it was the fact that he was speaking as if he was trying not to think about something rather painful. Humour and pain don't really go very well together.

"I'm sure it won't come to that, Percy."

First name terms with the teacher? With two teachers?

"I'm not. And I don't fancy telling you how I developed that particular skill, either."

"Skill?"

"Well, taking a primordial god and turning him into water. And scaring the hell out of Annabeth. No pun intended."

Pun? These people were weird.

"I won't push it any further. I just needed to know about what you did to injure yourself."

"And now you know."

"Yes. And, a suggestion for you, please."

"Yes?"

"Don't do anything reckless. I don't want you to suffer the same fate as Michael."

"There are worse things than death," Annabeth cut in, her voice flat. "Things that land you in counselling for the rest of your life and give you flashbacks and nightmares. Things like last summer, I guess."

Those two had counselling? Really?

"Yes, maybe. Good luck, though. How did the Greeks put it? Oh, I don't know. May the wind be ever strong in your sails, or similar."

"You too, Ms Yew."

Chairs scraped as they stood up. I started. Where to hide? I jumped over the corridor and pretended to be engrossed in my locker.

"How much did you hear?"

Annabeth wasn't going to beat about the bush, clearly. I put on my best confused face.

"Hear what?"

She glared at me. "Hear our conversation with Ms Yew? And don't lie, that doesn't get you anywhere."

"Not really anything, just a couple of bits and bobs."

She hardened her stare, making me feel like her eyes were going through me. "I said, don't lie."

"Fine! Everything!"

"And have you reconsidered our offer?"

"Of course not."

"Even after hearing all of that?"

"Yes." I stood up brazenly, determined not to back down in front of this other girl, who, despite being far stronger than me, was my age.

"Fine. Do you think we won't wash you in the River Lethe, the river that makes you lose your memories? Because we can if you'd rather be ignorant and killed by the monsters." She drew a vial of a milky liquid out of her bag and waved it in front of me. "See? One drop of this on your skin and you'll begin to forget who you are, Renee."

Percy stared at her, eyes wide. "You keep Lethe in your bag? Isn't that dangerous?"

Annabeth shrugged, before turning back to me, tossing the weird vial back into her bag. Percy flinched. "So are you going to agree or do we have to do this the hard way?"

I shrugged halfheartedly. "I'm not really willing to lose my memories, so I guess so."

"Excellent."


This is a lot shorter than last chapter, but I guess it evens out. Thanks for reading! Don't forget to follow, favorite, review etc. Because we just like feeling slightly appreciated.

StormSunfire and AHermioneH