It took a lot to make Kiara Warsamè completely lose her cool. The girl was calm and rational in most stressful situations, her many years of being chased by monsters giving her some sort of an immunity to freaking out, well publicly. However, certain things managed to rouse a strong reaction even out of her, and her best friend Percy Jackson being missing certainly made that list.
Much like the rest of the camp her initial response was that of nonchalance, Percy wasn't the most serious person so everyone dismissed his initial disappearance as some sort of joke, but as the day grew it became abundantly clear it certainly wasn't that.
The first hint was his mother contacting the camp wondering if they had seen him as apparently he was supposed to go somewhere with her, but he never showed. This worried Annabeth who immediately attempted to Iris message him, but to no avail, as it didn't go through.
All tracking of Percy had been virtually impossible. Kiara, and by default the rest of the Hecate cabin, had attempted to use their magic to track him, but they got nothing. Yelena claimed that she felt like she found a tiny piece of his aura, but as soon as she reached out it fizzled away. That was the first time Kiara had lost it; she began screaming obscenities at her, upset that she had let it get away. This resulted in her being pulled out of the room by Lou-Ellen and her brother, Kaiden, until she managed calmed down.
The second time she ended up destroying Clarisse's second electrical spear, and ironically enough, the first one was broken by Percy. The pair had gotten into a heated argument and Clarisse ended up shoving Kiara away in anger, a move that would normally be ignored but not in her current state. The brunette muttered an incantation and then snapped her fingers, the electrical spear exploding into nothing in Clarisse's face. The Daughter of Ares did not take kindly to this and probably would've strangled her right there if not for Chris calming her down, which turned her murderous rage down quite a bit.
It was obvious then that Kiara needed to get some fresh air, and at the very least be away from camp for a while, and luckily, or not Annabeth had a vision, one regarding the whereabouts of Percy while also needing to travel outside of Camp Half-Blood. The blonde had already planned on taking Kiara with her, she was one of her closest friends and also the closest to Percy. But, even she couldn't anticipate the unexpected turn the trip ended up taking.
"What do you mean 'tornado things'?" Kiara demanded, "There are so many things that could be, can you narrow it down?"
This question was directed at one of the three demigods that she, Annabeth, and Butch had found in place of Percy. An irrational sense of anger built in Kiara's throat at the sight of them, but even when she was this upset she knew she couldn't be mad at them personally. They were like her when she was first thrown into this world, totally unsuspecting and innocent to the horrors that would soon plague them.
"Uhm, narrow it down?" A voice replied and the slight tremor more than gave away its nervousness. She turned to observe the boy who had first described the monsters they faced as 'tornado things'. With his rich caramel skin, curly black hair, and warm brown eyes he reminded her of a cute latino elf, looking deeper into his eyes she thought that certainly suited him. They danced with some sort of mischievousness, a spark that most spawn of Hermes shared, but she knew better than to assume anything this early on, godly parents were always a surprise.
"They were venti," someone else answered, cutting off the answer the latino boy had prepared, "storm spirits," it concluded with finality.
Kiara and Annabeth both turned to each other, a quizzical expression on their faces. No one ever used the Roman terms when referring to monsters, well unless they were in Latin class that is. The Daughter of Hecate turned back towards them while attempting to keep arising suspicion off her face, who was he?
Annabeth had the same idea as Kiara, but she vocalized her confusion. "You mean anemoi thuellai?" She asked with an arched brow. "That's the Greek term. Who are you, and what happened?"
While he relayed his story Kiara took the time to look over the boy, well she supposed it was Jason now since he had introduced himself, but it didn't really matter as she'd probably get his name later. For some reason Jason seemed oddly familiar to Kiara, though it could be that he looked very stereotypically like the typical American golden-boy, what with his blond hair, tall and athletic form, and his blue eyes, but she shook her head at the notion, she knew it certainly wasn't that. She glanced over again before she realized what had stuck out the most, it was his eyes. They weren't the normal sky blue she was used to seeing on so many people, no, they were sharp, a deep cobalt even. She knit her brows in confusion, where had she seen them before?
She didn't get to finish mulling over possibilities as his story ended far too soon, and the tale didn't satisfy Annabeth at all.
"No, no, no!" She seethed. "She told me he would be here. She told me if I came here, I'd find the answer!"
"Our fault for believing Hera," Kiara murmured in response as her right hand curled up into a fist, her thumb rubbing over the leather that covered her knuckles. If she could punch any god it would be Hera, by a long shot, which was saying something since she certainly wasn't considered an angel in all of the gods eyes.
"Annabeth," Butch grunted causing the blonde to pause her assault of the floor momentarily. "Check it out."
The son of Iris pointed to Jason's feet and Kiara turned curiously wondering what he could be referring to before her eyes widened in realization. Annabeth had explained the vision she had, in scary detail, to the two of them and it made sense right away.
"The guy with one shoe!" Kiara exclaimed as she let out a sigh of relief, this was a step in the direction of locating Percy. "Annabeth, he's the answer!"
"No, it can't be," Annabeth insisted, the news not relieving her emotions the slightest bit. "I was tricked!" She turned to glare at the sky, and Kiara knew exactly which Olympian she was gonna curse at. "What do you want from me?" She screamed instead. "What have you done with him?!"
The skywalk shuddered loudly as if the bitch, Hera, was responding herself. The horses looked nervous before they began whinnying urgently and Kiara took that as their sign to leave.
Butch had the same idea and he began making his way to the horses. "Annabeth, come on, we gotta go."
The blonde didn't reply and Kiara sighed.
"Annabeth," she tried, again, no response. Kiara placed a hand on her friend's shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. "Come on, we do have to go, these three," she gestured to Jason and the other two half-bloods, "have to get to camp safely, and the anemoi thuellai may come back," the brunette then frowned as she closed her eyes in concentration, and not too far away, she could sense the magic signature of them clearly. "Actually scratch that, they are coming, and I don't think they want to go through another fight with those things."
She fumed for a moment, no doubt locked in some form of internal debate before she sighed. "Fine," she caved but not before fixing Jason with a resentful glare, one that Kiara winced as she remembered the numerous times she was on the receiving end of it. "We'll settle this later."
She turned on her heel and marched back towards the chariot where Butch was attempting to calm down the horses who were beginning to panic. Kiara glanced at the floor below, she certainly understood their worry, she didn't think this place was safe to be at too.
She then turned her attention back to the new trio who looked beyond confused and Kiara frowned, she supposed they really did do nothing to explain anything to them, but right now they didn't have the time. The storm spirits were bound to be upon them soon.
"Hey, hate to interrupt, but we really should be going." The brunette declared as she took a step forward in their direction. "We'll explain everything to you on the way, but we don't have that luxury right now."
"I'm not going anywhere with her," Jason gestured towards Annabeth who was now tossing something around. "She looks like she wants to kill me."
"Yeah," Kiara replied after a moment's hesitation because blondie number two had really hit the nail on the head, she didn't doubt that Annabeth would have no problem doing what he just described. "I wouldn't worry, she's actually a great person," she trailed off thinking how to word her next claim. "She's just on edge, we all are," she said gesturing to her, Butch, and Annabeth. "We came here to find an answer to our problem, but she isn't convinced."
"What, we're not good enough for you?" The girl asked and Kiara offered her a small smile before noticing her eyes, they were strange, but really pretty. A kaleidoscopic mix of blue, green, and brown.
Blinking out of her momentary lapse Kiara shook her head. "Nope," she answered simply and she didn't miss the way the girl's eyes narrowed at that. "But I don't think anything will be good enough until we find what we're really looking for."
"And what's that?" Jason pushed.
"More like who," Kiara corrected a small reminiscent smile taking hold as she thought of him. "Her boyfriend, and one of my best friends. Percy Jackson."
Kiara fixed her gaze at the horizon, attempting to find something to focus on, but she found herself turning around again, still very weary. The storm spirits were nowhere close to them, at least from what she could see, but that didn't set well. They should've found them a while ago, especially with how many of them there were now.
She sighed before forcing her gaze forward, she was most likely just being paranoid, but she knew that wasn't the case.
An excited gasp then caught her attention and she turned her head to look at the latino boy, he was looking at everything with a sort of excitement akin to that of a child receiving a new toy. She then swiveled her head out of the way, narrowly missing a feather that had fallen out of his mouth, the wind blowing it right towards her face. She had to stand in the back with the trio since there was no room in the front and she had no skills that were needed up there; she couldn't guide the horses, and she was shit at directions.
"You look like you're having fun," Kiara commented with a small smile.
It took a few moments, but the latino boy finally realized she was talking to him.
"Yeah," he replied with a large grin. "This is so cool! Do you get to do this all the time?"
"Not, all the time," Kiara answered. "But there will be other things that are even cooler, I can promise you that, uh…"
She trailed off expectantly, waiting for him to give his name since the Jason kid had only introduced himself in his explanation. Though she couldn't blame him, he was under a lot of pressure, mainly Annabeth's death stare.
"Oh, I'm Leo."
"Well, Leo, I'm Kiara," she held out her hand which he stared at for a second before shaking it, she had a slightly weird habit of having to introduce herself formally, something her dad always made sure she did, but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She smiled at Leo before turning her attention to the girl of their little trio. "And your name is?"
"I'm Piper," was her clipped response. Kiara pursed her lips Piper seemed super apprehensive about everything, but she could understand, when her life was uprooted and she found out she was a demigod it was a lot to take in.
"Where are we going?"
Leo's random question brought her out of her thoughts and she opened her mouth to respond but Annabeth beat her to it,
"We're going to a safe place, in fact it's the only safe place for people like us. Camp Half-Blood."
"Camp half-what?" Piper said with what might've been a bit too much venom, "what is that supposed to be some sort of a bad joke?"
"Half-blood, it means we're demigods, half god half mortal," Jason answered and with that Kiara's suspicion of him was pushed into overdrive. He knew a lot… too much for someone who hadn't been to CHB before. It was odd.
Annabeth looked back and she could tell in her eyes that she thought the same of him too, they'd most likely talk later for now Kiara just raised her eyebrows and looked at him.
"Dang Jason, you sure seem to know a lot, I'm sure your history teacher loved you," the brunette smiled a bit as she could basically feel Annabeth rolling her eyes at her. "But yes, we are demigods, Annabeth is our resident Einstein because she's daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom and war strategy. Butch here is the son of Iris, goddess of rainbows. And I'm a daughter of Hecate, goddess of magic and the mist."
Leo snorted, "Your mom is a rainbow goddess?"
Butch narrowed his eyes, "Yeah, you got a problem with that?"
"No. no," Leo assured him, "Rainbows, super duper macho."
Kiara smiled a bit at him, she was right about him being mischievous, but at least he seemed like he had a good personality, honestly he kinda reminded her of Percy. She frowned when she thought it over again… maybe just a tiny bit.
A sense of anticipation washed over her and she whipped her head around quickly before cursing under her breath, the anemoi thuellai had found them.
"ANNABETH, BUTCH WATCH OUT!"
She had called out too soon and a flash of lighting got a little too close to them. Opening her eyes she saw that none of them had gotten hurt.
"Shit…"
The left wheel of the chariot was burning, the chariot that wasn't there and belonged to the Apollo cabin who most definitely did not want it destroyed.
She raised her hand and called on her magic power, hands already beginning to glow the faint purple they always did when she used her magic.
"Incantare: evanescet flamma!"
The flame slowly began to fade out and white puffs of smoke took its place, disappearing in the atmosphere behind them as Butch was really starting to go hard at the reigns. Kiara braced herself as she knew they were going to start going inhumanly fast.
"You might want to hold on tight," she warned the other three.
"Wh-aaaaa!"
Kiara squeezed her eyes shut as even the second she had them open had started to make her quesy. Travel wasn't always her thing, especially by air, the prospect of falling to death wasn't necessarily attractive.
The chariot had begun to shake violently and Kiara could assume that the fast spurt was over. She dared to open her eyes and sighed realizing that the anemoi thuellai had stopped following them, however, a glance around revealed that the wheels of the chariot were missing.
Shouldn't we be falling? She thought with a slight frown, she wasn't complaining by any means but it was just odd. Then she realized she should've kept her thoughts quiet because fall they did.
Her heart began to pound she seriously wasn't about to die on a chariot without even finding Percy, and with three new demigods they were supposed to be leading to safety.
Looking down below she could see plenty of orange shirts, meaning they were in CHB territory… which meant-
"The lake!" she yelled, "Aim for the lake!"
Butch and Annabeth gave no signal that they had heard her, but she sure hoped they did, she'd rather freeze than go splat!
BOOM- she supposed she got her answer as she submerged in the water that was unfairly cold. She laughed stupidly, Percy would think this was perfect, too bad she wasn't a child of the sea god so she wouldn't have to worry about drowning.
But apparently it wasn't going to go down like that, a pair of hands grabbed her shoulders and hauled her up to shore.
She got up immediately coughing and shivering, she usually liked the cold but this wasn't her cup of tea.
A camper immediately dried her off with their magic hair dryers, keeping it on for longer than needed, she rolled her eyes when she saw it was Kayla, an Apollo kid who she played volleyball with quite a bit. Kayla grinned and tossed her a fluffy blanket.
"So nice of you to drop by, need anything else princess?"
"Awh, tell me why you're so nice," Kiara responded sarcastically, "want to grab me a red velvet cupcake? Hadn't had one of those bad boys in a while."
Kayla opened her mouth to respond but Annabeth called Kiara over to where she stood with Will Solace who seemed pissed, and she could definitely guess why.
"Why haven't they been claimed yet?"
Kiara frowned, that was odd the gods were supposed to pay more attention to their kids after Percy made them promise in the Titan War, but she wouldn't be surprised if some of them ignored that.
"Well, I hope they're worth it,"
Kiara immediately sulked upon hearing that voice, here strutted in the person she disliked the most in the camp, Drew Tanaka.
Her hair was styled in perfect ringlets, makeup glammed to a tee, and perfectly placed dainty jewelry. As much as Kiara didn't like her she envied the fact that Drew managed to make a pair of jeans and the camp shirt glamourous.
Leo snorted in annoyance. "Gee, thanks. What are we, your new pets?"
"No kidding," Jason added. "How about some answers before you start judging us—like, what is this place, why are we here, how long do we have to stay?"
"Jason," Annabeth replied, "I promise we'll answer your questions. And Drew"—she frowned at the daughter of Aphrodite, which Kiara took as an opportunity to do the same—"all demigods are worth saving. But I'll admit, the trip didn't accomplish what I hoped."
"Hey," Piper cut in, "we didn't ask to be brought here."
Drew rolled her eyes. "And nobody wants you, hon. Does your hair always look like a dead badger?"
Piper took a step forward and Kiara wouldn't be surprised if she hit Drew, in fact she'd applaud her. But, she stopped when Annabeth told her to which was a smart move for her. Kiara however didn't have to worry about the Daughter of Athena regulating her.
"Well, Drew you have a personality that's about as good as a burnt potato but we still keep you around," she put on a small petty smile, "besides we're all friends here, right sweetie?"
Drew was fuming, that much was easy to see, but she didn't say anything else which surprised Kiara. She then noticed that the Daughter of Aphrodite kept glancing at Jason and she couldn't help but roll her eyes, Drew was seriously trying to act like a good person just so she could basically get him, but was Kiara surprised? No.
"Okay, so can someone please tell me what claimed is?" Piper blurted out.
After that there was a collective gasp, which Kiara took part in as well as raising her eyebrows, she didn't expect that.
A bright red light had bathed everyone and it was coming from the holographic fiery hammer than was floating over Leo's head.
"What'd I do?" Leo backed toward the lake. Then he glanced up and yelped. "Is my hair on fire?" He ducked, but the symbol followed him, bobbing and weaving so it looked like he was trying to write something in flames with his head.
"This can't be good," Butch muttered. "The curse—"
"Butch, shut up," Kiara whispered harshly.
Annabeth then chimed in. "Leo, you've just been claimed—"
"By a god," Jason interrupted. "That's the symbol of Vulcan, isn't it?"
Kiara raised her eyebrows in suspicion in what felt like the 20th time today, what was up with this kid?
"Jason," Annabeth voiced carefully, "how did you know that?"
"I'm not sure."
"Well that's interesting…" Kiara whispered, how would he not know?
"Vulcan?" Leo demanded. "I don't even LIKE Star Trek. What are you talking about?"
"Vulcan is the Roman name for Hephaestus," Annabeth answered, "the god of blacksmiths and fire."
"But in Greek that's Hephaestus, which just so happens to be who your godly father is," Kiara said taking a step towards the latino boy. "Annabeth, I think I'll take good ole Leo a tour."
The blond shook her shoulders, and Kiara figured as long as Annabeth didn't have to do it she didn't really care who did.
"Just make sure you introduce him to Cabin Nine and all his bunkmates."
"You got it."
"Hey! What the heck is Cabin Nine?" Leo exclaimed. "And I'm not a Vulcan!"
Kiara rolled her eyes, in amusement not annoyance, and put her arm around his shoulder "Come on, Mr. Spock, I'll explain everything." and with that she began to steer him off to the cabins and introduce him to what would be his fun new life.