So, hello you wonderful folk!
Whether you be human, supernatural, magical, half-god, alive, dead, immortal or alien, welcome back to Phoenix! (Okay, why did that sound so much like the intro to a YouTube video?)

I might be a little late jumping on this bandwagon, but have any of you seen the trailers and promos for Wednesday yet?
As a fan of the Addams Family, I am in full support of what this show will become (or is hoping to become), and, well... the Ideas have already invaded (mainly things like 'Hey, Nevermoor Academy advertises as the school for outcasts. The demigods are outcasts- and I will stop you right there because I don't even know what happens in this show yet.').

So, well, if you have stuck with Sol 'till now, why stop?

Read on, folks.

Sol climbed out of the lake and shook out her wings.
She was drenched.
Oh well; the suit had already been ruined.
And then she remembered her Glocks – guns don't work if they're wet.
People could be persuaded to get her more.

The entire valley was covered in light snow, frost covering what seemed to be a running track and fields of plants.
The cabins she'd spotted from the sky were decorated with what seemed to be fairy lights, but from the way they poked at her mind, she could tell they were real fire.
More lights glowed in the woods, lighting up the otherwise dark spaces between trees, and overall, the valley had a sort-of homey feeling about it.

Sol found where everyone was after they disembarked the bus.

She chuckled as Grover tripped over a canoe, before Thalia came over to her.
"Thanks for helping with the brakes," she said.
"You're welcome," Sol replied. "So I'm guessing that research I did for three weeks is gonna help with… whatever the hell this is." She gestured at the camp.
"What was the research on?" Thalia asked.
"Various mythologies," Sol answered, "so I could A, kick their ass or asses if someone from another mythology attacked and B, make fun of them." The second point made the blue-eyed girl laugh.

Sol heard the clomp-squelch of wet feet as Apollo boarded the bus. She looked over at him for a split-second, and he winked at her.
She hated it when guys winked at her.
"Later Thalia!" he called from the entrance to the now partially-flooded bus. "And, uh, be good!"
He sat down in the driver's seat, closed the doors and revved the engine, taking off in a blast of heat that would've destroyed any normal person's eyeballs had they been watching. A red Maserati flew away from them, heading west.
At least he took my advice on something, Sol thought.

A streak of yellow appeared on it.

Dickhead, she thought, before turning away back to her previous conversation.

Percy had walked over.
"Um, hi Sol," he started, and his cheeks coloured slightly.
Sol sighed internally; the 'Hey I'm talking to an attractive woman!' stage was one she'd been suffering with for the whole female-loving populous of those who hung out with her since puberty started.
"Thalia, should we tell Chiron we have new campers and the Hunters are here?" he asked.
"Yeah, probably," Thalia agreed.

As they walked, they spotted a few kids running around – one boy was stoking the forge outside an armoury, while another two who could've been twins were picking a lock. A few others were having a snowball fight against some young women at the edge of the woods.
Percy and Thalia pointed out various structures as they walked, pretty much giving Nico and Sol an impromptu tour as they approached a big farmhouse, which was decorated by more strings of fireballs (this time alternating yellow and red – Sol swapped a few around just to mess with people as they approached) that made the porch warmer, but nothing set alight.
Inside, flames were cracking in the hearth, and two middle-aged men were playing a quiet game of cards in the parlour.
One had a shaggy beard a curly hair, and had a blanket on his lap which hid the wheelchair he was sitting in almost completely. He wore a sweater with a hoof-print design on it as well.
The other had hair so black that in the right light it would seem purple, while his eyes were actually purple. He wore a neon-orange leopard-skin warm-up suit and purple running shoes, and a golden laurel wreath was tilted sideways on his head.

The first man smiled when he saw them.
"Percy! Thalia! Ah, and these must be –"
"Nico di Angelo and Solana Stark," Percy said. "Nico and his sister are half-bloods."
The man breathed a sigh of relief. "You succeeded, then."
"Well…"
Percy's tone caused Chiron's smile to melt. "What's wrong? And where is Annabeth?"
"Oh, dear," the purple-eyed man said in a bored voice that fringed on sarcastic, "not another one lost."

Sol wondered if he was related to the Starks, but with that sense of sarcasm he'd fit right in anyway.

"What do you mean?" Thalia asked. "Who else is lost?"

Grover chose that moment to return, trotting into the room grinning like crazy with a black eye and red lines that resembled a slap mark.
"The Hunters are all moved in!" he announced.
The man with the shaggy beard frowned. "The Hunters, eh? I see we have much to talk about." He looked at Sol and Nico. "Grover, perhaps you should take our young friends to the den and show them our orientation film?"
"But… Oh, right. Yes, sir."
"Orientation film?" Nico asked. "Is it G or PG? 'Cause Bianca is kinda strict –"
"It's PG-13," Grover answered.
"Cool!" Nico said, and they followed him.
"I'm pretty sure I've seen R-rated films…" Sol wondered aloud, and the boys looked at her, surprised. "I forced Dad to let me watch Star Wars when I was six – you think I would be satisfied with PG and PG-13 films for eight more years?"
"Fair…" Grover muttered.

Nico began to pepper Sol with questions about being a Stark and being an Avenger and whatnot (she'd been walking around the valley with her wings out the entire time, so she was pretty sure everyone who'd seen them knew her secret by now) – mainly things like 'How many Chitauri did you kill?' and 'Did you learn to fight from the Black Widow or from Captain America?' (for that last one, Sol had told him that it was a combination of watching action movies, learning from Natasha while she'd been undercover as Natalie, and adrenaline).
They climbed a flight of stairs, and Grover opened the door to the den, which was a pretty comfy-looking area filled with beanbags and cushions and pillows with a projector settled upon a table looking at a screen.

Grover began to set it up as the other two got comfy, and they did.

It began.

Sol immediately regretted going to watch this film.
Grover winced the whole time.
Nico paid his utmost attention to the screen.

As they watched it (or Nico watched it), Sol tinkered with the projector, eventually working out how to make it unable to be turned on, but easily fixable after a routine inspection.

Looking back on it, the only part of the film Sol actually remembered was one where Apollo was running along the beach with a bunch of demigods in full combat armour with their weapons and shields in their hands doing a call-and-response song, and Apollo fell over.

It did finish while Sol was tinkering – mainly because she'd gotten to the memory card that the film was saved on – but Nico was super hyped.
He ran down the stairs and Sol slid down the railing behind him to keep up, wings flaring to help keep her balance when she nearly fell off half-way down.

Nico burst into the room.
"SO COOL!" he yelled, holding his hand out to the man the film had identified as Chiron. "You're… you're a centaur!"
Chiron smiled nervously. "Yes, Mr di Angelo, if you please. Though, I prefer to stay in human form in this wheelchair for, ah, first encounters."
"And, whoa!" Nico turned to the other man, who seemed to have been arguing with Percy a few minutes earlier. "You're the wine dude? No way!"
The newly dubbed 'Wine Dude' gave Nico a look of loathing. "The wine dude?"
"Dionysus, right? Oh, wow! I've got your figurine!"
"My figurine."
"In my game, Mythomagic. And a holofoil card, too! And even though you've only got, like, five-hundred attack points and everybody thinks you're the lamest god card, I totally think your powers are sweet!"
"Ah," Dionysus said, seemingly perplexed as to why this eleven-year-old was explaining his card game to him. "Well, that's… gratifying."

"Percy," Chiron said quickly, "you and Thalia go down to the cabins. Inform the campers we'll be playing capture the flag tomorrow evening."
"You guys still play capture the flag?" Sol cut in.
"Take Ms Stark as well," Chiron said as an afterthought, completely disregarding Sol's comment. "Give her tour while you're at it."
"But we don't have enough campers –" Percy began to protest.
"It is a tradition," Chiron explained. "A friendly match, whenever the Hunters visit."
"Yeah," Thalia muttered. "I bet it's real friendly."

Chiron jerked his head towards Dionysus, who was still frowning as Nico talked about how many defence points all the gods had in the game.
Sol could sympathise with the Wine God – she'd received the same talk from Nico when they'd met and she'd asked about his card game (never ask Nico about Mythomagic if you wish to keep your sanity intact – that was something she warned everyone about, or those who cared to listen, anyway).
"Run along now," he told them."
"Oh, right," Thalia said. "Come on, you two."

She grabbed Percy by the collar and Sol happily followed, not-at-all intending to intercede in the argument between the two that was very likely to happen.

"You've already got Ares on your bad side," Thalia berated Percy as they trudged towards the cabins, Sol enjoying every second of it. "Do you need another immortal enemy?"
"Sorry," Percy said. "I couldn't help it. It's just so unfair."

The two stopped by the armoury and Thalia looked out across the valley which Camp Half-Blood called home, towards the top of the hill. There was a singular pine tree there, big enough to pass for a White House Christmas tree (Sol had seen those in person – they were huge). A golden sheepskin glittered in the lower branches.

Maybe she should've interceded at some point, but the two black-haired teens kept talking.

The three of them made it to the basketball courts, and Thalia left Sol and Percy to break up a spat between a Hunter and a kid who had his hand on his sword.

"That was fun to watch," Sol noted as Thalia trudged off, causing Percy to jump.
"You've been here the whole time?" he said.
"Yeah – you two hyper-focus while you're arguing," Sol replied. "You should've taken the captaincy."
"What?"
"You should've taken the chance to be team captain."
"Oh."
"Yeah, 'Oh' all you like but it's true. It was nice of you to offer it to her though."
"What do you mean –"
"Gods – you're seriously bad at reading people and understanding certain topics, aren't you?"
"Like?"
"Nuclear physics would probably be somewhere on that list, but girls is what I meant."
Percy was stunned.
"What?"
"You confused and informed me at the same time," he admitted. "I think you're the only one who could do that."
"SHIELD agents, my dad, and Bruce Banner could probably do it too, ya know."
There was a pause.
"Remind me not to ask," Percy eventually said.
"Cool – don't then," Sol replied rather cheerfully. "Besides, you guys should probably host a tactics meeting somewhere soon – assess everyone's strengths, their weaknesses, what they've been assigned to in the past, etcetera-etcetera."

Percy's lack of response told her more than a response would (mainly that he wouldn't take her advice, but reality was reality).

Half an hour later, everyone had been told about capture the flag, and Sol had a basic idea of the camp's layout.

Percy took her back to the farm house (which, funnily enough, was called the Big House because of its size) afterwards, where Chiron was standing in full centaur form on the porch.

"I'll, um, leave you here," Percy said.
"Sure thing," Sol replied, before suddenly realising something she should've noticed way earlier. "Did Annabeth find her own way back? Or was she left behind? Or –"
"She was taken by Thorn."
"Well shit, then."
"Language," Percy muttered half-heartedly.
"I hope you find her soon."

Percy didn't reply, instead nodding and walking back towards the cabins.

"I see you've gotten to know Percy, then," Chiron said suddenly, watching his student walk away dejectedly.
"Kind-of – I mainly just watched him argue with Thalia, though," she replied. "It's way more entertaining than watching Dad annoy the shit out of everyone in the Tower – employees included."
"Well, I see no reason why he should not," the centaur responded, after giving her a displeased look about her language (it was thankfully not as bad as the Capsicle's 'Eyebrows of Disappointment', which made whoever was at the receiving end of them instantly guilty, even if they didn't do anything).

Nico ran out of the Big House at that exact moment, a huge grin on his face.

"This place is so cool!" he said, however out of breath he seemed.
Sol grinned, as the youngest di Angelo's smile was rather infectious. "I know, right?" she looked over at Chiron. "Where will we be staying?"
"Cabin 11," Chiron said. "The cabin of Hermes."
Nico opened his mouth (predictably to babble about Mythomagic and Hermes' stats), but Sol beat him to responding.
"Great! So, either our godly parents will or will never claim us, and if the former happens, we will stay there forever if we're the child of a minor god, right?"
Chiron's nod wasn't reassuring.
"Why aren't there cabins for them, then?"
"It's a long story I'd rather not tell," Chiron said.

As they talked (and Nico interrupted with Mythomagic stats), they began to walk towards the cabins – more specifically Cabin 11.

When they arrived outside it, Chiron knocked on the door, which one of the boys Sol had spotted picking a lock earlier, opened. As soon as they saw Chiron, they stopped talking and the chatter died down.
Gazes settled upon the two demigods – stares, glares, calculating assessing gazes, all of it – but, more specifically Sol's wings.

The Phoenix persona had become internationally famous since the incident with Obadiah Stane, and even more-so after the Hammer droids went rogue at the Stark Expo – Loki's invasion had just been the cherry on top. All the civilians who'd been displaced or put in danger by the Chitauri had seen her flaming blur across the sky (thankfully no-one had gotten an actual picture or look at her face).
Sure, the Avengers had been blamed for the massive amount of collateral damage done to New York in the invasion, and the damage done in their own adventures, but the Phoenix had never been found working alone – at least, not yet. The Phoenix had been suspected to be an accomplice of Iron Man (which, since Sol was Tony's daughter, made sense in some way), and the conspiracies into her real identity had (finally) begun to die down after the Expo – then she'd appeared in New York along with the rest of the Avengers.

Sol could practically sense the burning questions in the campers' stares (which they had the sensibility to keep to themselves).
She began to feel uncomfortable – everyone was usually looking at Tony, usually assuming Sol was an assistant and electing to leave her alone, so she wasn't all that used to the limelight being solely focused on her.

Nico half-hid behind Sol, peeking out from behind her right wing, his black eyes nervous (could someone even have black eyes? part of Sol's mind wondered, completely off-task – as per usual – or is that just a demigod-thing?).

"New campers?" Someone asked – upon searching for the owner of the voice, Sol's eyes found the sibling of the guy who had opened the door (they were probably twins, what with how much they looked alike).
Chiron nodded in response.
"Permanent or undetermined?" another person asked.
"Undetermined," Chiron answered.

Everyone groaned.

Chiron half-smiled.
"Please make these two feel at home," he said, before turning and galloping off.

So, naturally, as the stares and glares and everything in-between settled upon Sol and Nico, the pyrokinetic decided to use her favourite conversation starter:
"So, who here knows what a Furby is?"

That night at dinner, Sol was having a blast.

She'd already made a friend, whose name was Jasmine Rinsher and was a daughter of Hecate, and Nico seemed to be getting along with the Stoll brothers – the two boys who had been picking the lock on what Sol now knew as the camp store – other than the fact that they were trying to get the wrong person to play poker with them.

The inhabitants of Cabin 11 had reacted well to Sol's Furby question, as a few of them had discovered they were demigods through their parent's Furby (or Furbys) attracting monsters to their location, and since they had stopped becoming monsters' favourite way of catching demigods off-guard, they'd become popular within the half-blood community of those who liked to tempt fate.

Either way, she'd pitched her Furby prank ideas to them, and they'd agreed to help her with them (if, of course, she didn't test said pranks on them, and waited until the summer to really work on them).

Even though Sol had introduced herself with the Stark last name, these people seemed to really be her friends, and not her fame's.

Anyway, things were going well; Jasmine had explained to her and Nico about the sacrifice to the gods and about the goblets that filled themselves up with whatever drink you wanted and the Stoll brothers had told them about the adventures that various half-bloods had gone on (like the fact that George Washington had been a son of Athena, and the tale of Luke Castellan, the previous head-councillor of the Hermes cabin, who had joined Kronos' growing army the previous year, and the recent adventure of Percy's quest for the Master Bolt and Clarisse La Rue, daughter of Ares, going to find the Golden Fleece), and Sol was entertaining the idea of asking Chiron about a way of contacting her father to tell him she was okay.

A few other tables were occupied, but only the Hunters' table looked as if they were having a good time – they laughed and drank and ate like one big, happy family. The girl who sat at the head of the table wore a silver circlet amongst her dark braids and didn't laugh as much as her fellow Hunters, but she did smile sometimes.

She was starting to remind Sol of Natasha; scary as hell when she needed to be, and still scary as hell when she didn't need to be, but dialled down several notches.

Percy and Thalia looked pretty miserable, as they had to sit alone (apparently you could only sit with your cabinmates. Sol thought it was a stupid rule), but that was probably just the salt being rubbed in the wound of Annabeth having been kidnapped.

I'd only known her for, like, five minutes and I already miss her, Sol thought.

Once everyone had finished eating, Chiron raised his goblet to the sky.
"To the gods," he announced.
"To the gods," everyone echoed, somewhat half-heartedly.

"Now, as some of you might've noticed, we have some guests joining us – please welcome the Hunters of Artemis."
The campers clapped with the same energy they'd echoed Chiron's toast.
"And, as tradition states, we will be playing a goodwill game of capture-the-flag against the Hunters."
This was welcomed with three times as much energy as the last two announcements had been.

Dionysus glared at them all.
"Now, I suppose you'd all be off to bed now," he grumbled.

Aha!
I said Furbys would be a recurring theme - did I?
*checks*
No, I did not, so I will say it now; Furbys will be a recurring theme.

And am I the only one who has been pronouncing Thalia's name like 'Tahlia'? Because I have only just recently found out and gods is that embarrassing.

And a Life Update:
My birthday's just been (like, two weeks ago but this chapter was still in the works)!
So, happy birthday to me, I guess?

Anyway, this will be all from me today - look out for a new chapter of whichever story you're following (unless it has got '[RE-UPLOAD FOR ADOPTION]' in the summary) soon, and a very, very big shoutout to everyone in general.

Read, review, (uh, what else starts with R?) revise(?), and repeat.

Also eat two-minute noodles. Those are very delicious.

-Wolf (: