Chapter IV:
Reyna wrapped the blindfold tightly around her eyes and sat cross-legged on a simple bamboo mat, her sword rested peacefully in the palms of her hands. The silver metal glinted in the light of the setting sun. A calm fall breeze filtered past the fragile branches of the forest, rustling the leaves and carrying the faintest scent of firewood.
Breath in. Breath out.
Her ears sifted through the background noise, straining to discern any disturbance. That was when she heard it, the sound of footsteps, quickly approaching from her south.
She waited patiently until the attacker was almost on top of her, before leaping off the ground with inhuman movement, connecting with the tip of a spear in the process of completing a backflip. The ringing sounds of clashing Adamantine vibrated the forest floor.
Guided by the sound of her opponents rough movements, Reyna repositioned herself for a counter attack. The telltale sound of the spear slicing through the air allowed her to parry it easily, and with a simple flick of the wrist she sent the weapon flying into the undergrowth.
"Stop." A deep voice said from the side. "You may remove your blindfold, Reyna."
Reyna slipped the piece of cloth off, and took a moment to adjust to the sudden brightness. Thalia stood a couple feet away, her spear casted off to the side from their sparring. Sun Tzu, the legendary battle tactician, came forward with Zia by his side.
He placed a rough hand on her shoulder. "All of you have come a long way, and done well. You have learned and mastered the necessary physical and mental skills of a warrior. I believe my time here has unfortunately come to an end."
"Don't have to tell me twice, master." Thalia joked. "That black dragon we fought the other day makes Peleus back at Camp Half-Blood look like a hamster."
Reyna and Zia grimaced simultaneously at the gruesome memory. They had tricked the wicked beast into literally eating itself by running up the length of its tail. They only survived the resulting firebomb because of Zia, who used her staff to contain the explosion. Otherwise, they would've been freshly baked demigod crisps.
All of a sudden, a brilliant ball of green light flashed, and Hemera stepped out wearing one of her silky ornamental gowns.
"Master Tzu," the primordial said cordially. "You have summoned me?"
"Yes, Lady Hemera. They have squeezed every drop of knowledge out of me." He said with pride. "As much as it pains me to leave them, I know that I have greater matters to attend too."
The humble general took each of their hands, and whispered an ancient spiritual blessing before disappearing into the flowing wind. Reyna was going to miss him, she had spent countless nights in his tent, where they discussed humanistic values until the roosters crowed at dawn.
"Well, where are we going now?" Zia asked.
Hemera gave them a slight smile, like she was reminiscing about a long lost lover. "Someplace a little warmer, where the greatest parties in history were thrown."
Thalia had retrieved her spear and was now twirling it around her head like some sort of deranged helicopter. "Great, what the hell are we going to do in Las Vegas?"
The one thing that the daughter of Zeus never changed, her innate ability to not give a damn about what she said to people, even when said person had the ability to wipe her off the face of the Earth.
The primordial gave Thalia a side-eye, before snapping her fingers and sending them across the world.
-Ω-
They found themselves inside the great Leonardo da Vinci's workshop, a place plucked straight out of the Renaissance. It was a lot bigger than Reyna imagined it would be, an entire Boeing 747 could fit inside with room to spare. On a Camp Jupiter scale, it was about double the size of one of the Legion's barracks.
Ambient light filtered in through massive windows that were yellowed from years of use. It even smelled like fifteenth century Italy, or maybe it was just da Vinci's horrid body odor.
The madman, who so happened to carry the blood of Athena, was in the middle of his mess, surrounded by the thousands of sketches, contraptions and machines that had made him world-famous. The three of them stood silently, watching him idly talk to himself as he put together what looked like a large pale potato.
"Uh, hello?" Reyna said cautiously from a distance. "Mr. da Vinci?"
The super-genius looked up from his workbench, and gave them a toothy smile. "Ah, yes, the great heroes that Lady Hemera and Lord Aether were boasting about. Come, gather around."
They all slowly approached da Vinci, and peeked over his frame to see what he was working on.
"Is that...a human?" Zia whispered frighteningly. Thalia, on the other hand, seemed morbidly intrigued.
Reyna had seen her fair share of injuries, thanks to the biweekly war exercises back at Camp Jupiter. But for some reason, the sight of a full body of blood-drained human, with their stomach cut open, made her want to throw up.
"Yes, my dear." da Vinci waved his hand over the exposed intestines. "It is important to not only know what you are made off, but what your opponent is made off too."
This was one of the lessons that Reyna wasn't looking forward to.
"Let's begin." He said happily, with a childish glint in his sharp grey eyes. "How many quarts of blood do you think the human heart…"
-Ω-
Reyna drew back the string of the bow and held it tightly. She honed her senses, listening for the faintest of noises. A lesson that she learned from Sun Tzu.
Crack.
Twang. Thunk.
"Excellent job." Atalanta, the mythical huntress said with utter satisfaction. "You may remove your blindfold now."
Reyna slipped the cloth off of her head, and saw the dead rat lying fifty meters away from her on the forest floor. The arrow was placed perfectly in between its eyes.
"Yawn. Not bad Roman." Thalia muttered from behind her. "About time you made that shot. We've been at this for years already."
Zia hit the daughter of Zeus with her own bow. "Don't act like being a Hunter of Artemis didn't help."
Thalia snorted obnoxiously and twirled her silver spear in the air. "Then don't act like your magic stick didn't help when we had to climb Mt. Vesuvius."
Reyna was about to voice her opinion on the matter, but made a business decision when she saw the hieroglyphs appear over Zia's head. Purple ribbons, the same ones that she had used to fight the hybrid monster almost eight years ago, appeared out of nowhere and wrapped Thalia in a floating cocoon.
"I like you better when you can't talk." The magician said smugly.
Reyna playfully poked Thalia as she struggled against the Seven Ribbons of Hathor. "I agree, your mouth didn't exactly help us when we were fighting those Mongols."
"MMPPH!" Thalia howled through the gag.
"Enough." Atalanta chided. "Lady Artemis won't be happy if I injure her lieutenant."
It was times like this that made Reyna wish that they had spent more time with Queen Victoria, who had tried to get them to act 'lady-like.' The former matriarch of the House of Hanover quit after a week.
-Ω-
Reyna definitely preferred the allegedly 'boring' job of planting rows of corn over learning battle strategies from Shaka Zulu, the crazy and deranged son of Ares. Jungles were not exactly her forte. Neither were dealing with crazed maniacs who add one point had every pregnant woman of his kingdom killed.
It helped that they were learning framing from Pocahontas herself, who was wearing a simple brown tunic and down on the ground next to them.
"I know that you heroes have the ability to summon food and find water, but it's also useful to learn it the old fashion way." The daughter of the great Powhatan expertly moved the soft soil with her hands, and placed a handful of seeds into the ground along with her natural fertilizer concoction.
Reyna definitely saw the value in the skill, in her head she was mentally keeping a list of things that she wanted the Legion to learn. Of course, she would have to discuss it with… Jason.
Jason.
At this point, it had been almost a decade since she had been plucked out of downtown San Francisco by the charm. She would be lying if she told you that she didn't think about him from time to time.
She could see the longing in her sisters too. Somedays, Thalia was even more moodier than normal, which led her to lash out randomly at insignificant things. But when Zia was sad, she got really quiet and didn't talk to anybody.
Reyna tried to be their rock to lean on, but she wasn't sure how much longer she could do it. Hemera or Aether never gave them any indication as to when they would be done with their training.
The glow of being a champion was starting to wear off.
Author's Note:
Sorry again for how long it took this one to come out. Life's been, well, crazy to say the least. Same for combatwombat14. Please give me criticisms on my writing so far. Adios.
Chapter V:
"What do you mean she just disappeared?" Jason Grace interrogated Dakota, the senior centurion of the Fifth Cohort as they stormed towards the pegasi stables. "That's impossible!"
Dakota raised his arms up helplessly. "I'm telling you, that's what Scipio said happened!"
Jason didn't trust Dakota for a second, choosing to believe that the son of Bacchus was on one of his infamous Kool-Aid highs. There had to be somebody more qualified for the centurion position than him. The standards were apparently low, even for the Fifth Cohort.
Reyna had left Camp Jupiter to deal with a rogue monster just earlier in the afternoon, but now it was nightfall. And all that returned was her loyal pegasus, with no sign of his co-praetor anywhere.
Jason and Dakota made a beeline towards the black steed, straight across the Fields of Mars, who was already busy being questioned by a couple other legionnaires.
"The war eagles have just come back." Mavis, a daughter of Venus reported as they arrived. "Scipio says that Reyna was calling for backup."
The son of Jupiter knew that Reyna rarely asked for help, and he cursed himself for not coming along with her. It was all because of Octavian, the bloody augur had held him back because of some stupid Senate gathering about budget allocations.
"Well, let's leave then. What are we waiting for?"
Frank Zhang, who was one of the newer legionnaires, stepped in. "We can't leave camp after nightfall. Octavian's orders."
"One of his teddy bears told him so." Dakota added, which didn't exactly help the situation. "Or so I've heard."
Jason knew it wasn't their fault, or anybody's except for Octavian. Sometimes, he wanted to smite the wretched legacy of Apollo clean off the face of the Earth. They could just chalk it up as a simple war games accident and carry on. He was sure that his father, and the Legion, wouldn't mind.
He was also sure that if he broke the rules, it would be political suicide. Octavian would have the ammunition needed to kick him from his rank of praetor. There was no way that was going to happen. Him and Reyna were the only ones keeping the place afloat, and if Reyna was truly missing, he needed to be the anchor.
"Ok, we leave first thing tomorrow."
-Ω-
Phoebe was worried.
Not because Thalia hadn't returned. She was known to go AWOL for days at a time when tracking down a particular target (usually she had personal history with said target).
She was worried because Thalia had never needed to go West before. The Hunters tried to stay away from anything that required them to travel past Oklahoma or Kansas. Weird, unexplainable things seemed to happen whenever they did.
The moon had already been up for hours. Phoebe, who was in command of the Hunt when both Lady Artemis and Thalia were out, positioned the group on the high ground overlooking a small valley. Their white tents dotted the sides of the mountainside like freshly fallen snow.
There had been a relatively peaceful period ever since the conclusion of the Great Prophecy. But things were now starting to change. Just a couple weeks ago, they had made contact with a pack of lycanthropes in Maine. And sightings were getting even more frequent.
Monsters that should've still been in the pits Tartarus were running around as well. There were reports from Camp Half-Blood about a minotaur attack, and an increase of hellhounds in the woods.
It was early, but Phoebe feared that something sinister was at work. Something much more dangerous than the Titan Lord ever was.
The huntress took one last look at the night sky, saluting her immortal comrade in the stars, before calling it a night.
-Ω-
"Hey, do you know where Zia is?" Carter asked Sadie, who was busy clowning around with Felix and his merry band of misfit penguin buddies that basically ran the Brooklyn House.
Khufu was doing Khufu things with Freak outside, who didn't seem to be enjoying the baboon's love and affection if the loud thumping coming from above was any indication.
"Hmm? Zia? I figured she was with you."
Carter had just gotten back from his nightly run, and still had a nasty pattern sweat droplets across his face. He had put on a considerable amount of muscle ever since they had vanquished Apophis. Hosting Horus might have also played a big role in his magically increased metabolism.
Sadie looked up when Carter didn't respond, and rolled her eyes. "I'm sure she's fine, maybe she went back to the First Nome or something. She's there almost every week."
"Yeah… but when she does that she usually tells me." Carter said with slight hesitation.
"You're making a mountain out of a molehill, brother dear." Sadie sighed dramatically when the penguins began to waddle off. "She's not cheating on you."
Jasmine, who Carter guessed had been listening in on their conversation, patted him on the shoulder. "Have a Snickers, Carter. You're not you when you're hungry."
To his surprise, she actually did have a Snickers in her hand. And it tasted pretty good. He was going to have to talk with Sekhmet about making the candy a mandatory staple for any healer.
Maybe he wasn't himself when he was hungry, Sadie was probably right.
-Ω-
The first thing Annabeth heard that morning were two words, "Percy's missing."
He hadn't shown up to breakfast at the pavilion, and he wasn't in his cabin either. Him and his sword. His bed was left in its typically messy state, but that was all. Nothing else.
Yeah he often did random stuff from time to time, but never this, and usually not for long.
Trying to Iris message him from the fountain in the room didn't work either, all that turned up was static fuzz and a weird bubbling sound.
The stares and hushed voices directed at her throughout the day on top of that was enough to make her head explode into a million pieces.
And that's how Annabeth found herself by the ocean, sitting with her feet dug into the sand. The exact same place where she and Percy had watched the fireworks just days ago.
She didn't want to believe that he had disappeared. There was no valid, logical reasoning to any of it.
She was exhausted. The sounds of the crashing waves, bringing cold water that threatened to wash over her, lulled her into a restless sleep.
And Annabeth began to dream.