A/N: I feel stupid, I almost forgot. Why? Well, I am desperately trying to find time to finish chapter three of Birthed by British Waters so I can post it, and get onto my own book. I may be published in a year! So anyways, I remembered to update – so here you go! Oh, and someone said that Percy seemed freaked out when Cora lashed out - not true. He was just surprised because he didn't know of her defense mechanisms. Yeah ... you surprise Cora awake, she attacks you. Percy just didn't know.

Cora: I Am Such a Fool

The second day of our boat trip could have gone better. We didn't actually get attacked or anything – which was odd, considering for the most part I was sitting on the prow. But we accidently came to a fishing boat and there was a mythical creature as well as a dolphin that had gotten caught. I was going to shoot at it and cut the net, but my brother had other ideas. He just drew Riptide and dove off the side. Percy did save the creatures, but we had to wait for him to come back up and explain to the fisherman we hadn't done anything. That kind of delayed us a lot.

The rest of the time I was sitting around thinking. Okay, so when I suddenly broke into a run, I had thought I had seen someone. I thought I must have been hallucinating from stress; because who I thought I saw, it couldn't have been. As well as I felt like we were being watched. Not by the gods (they probably were though) but by someone else. It was weird.

Anyway, the quest really seemed to begin on the third day. Somehow we all managed to sleep in, which was odd for me since I didn't have a dream. It was about noon or thereabouts when I woke up. The first thing that hit me was the noise. It sounded like cars and shipping freights. That was the first tip-off something was wrong. Then next I noticed Percy was up and heard him swear from above deck.

That woke Annabeth up too. She looked at me and I gave a half shrug. Then we both ran out. It took me about thirty seconds to figure out where we were. Somehow the boat had turned from the current and off the sea and had done so in less than a night. Now we were on the St. Lawrence River.

I scanned the shore. To the south was the USA; to the north was Quebec City, Canada. What in Hades name were we doing here? We were way off course! Percy was just standing and watching the shore. I went up and whacked his shoulder (it doesn't really hurt him) to get his attention.

"What's going on? How did we get here?" I demanded, confused and upset this had happened.

Percy gave me a small shrug. "I have no idea. I just woke up a minute ago and here we are," he said.

"Someone's messing with us," I muttered. "We need to get out of here." I looked around; we first needed to turn around. Percy nudged me and pointed, we were on a collision course with a dock! But . . . we weren't going the same speed. We were slowing down. Without us meaning to, the boat docked and the ropes started to tie us up on their own.

Then my day got even weirder. That annoying voice popped up in my head again; it had been a while since it had last voiced itself.

Go, it coaxed in my mind. You will find something here. Go. I started to smack the side of my head absent-mindedly, because it left an echoey feeling. Percy looked at me kind of startled; Annabeth walked up and look at me like I was insane.

"Uh, let's just go . . ." I said. Annabeth and Percy talked with a look at each other and shrugged. They ducked back below and grabbed their bags. While they did so I swung myself over the boat's railing and onto the wharf. The dock was a shipping dock. Full of freight ships and other transport ones. We stuck out.

Quickly the three of us walked out of the shipyard and into the city. The first thing we come to were the ruins of the old fortress and city. They were on the edge of the river. Well, they weren't really ruins, but it wasn't all intact. I got a chill on my spine walking among them, like ice was running up and down it; something was wrong.

Percy nudged me. "So, what are we looking for?"

I looked around. "I'm not sure . . . for some reason we're wanted here," I said quietly.

"Whoever wants us here must have some important reason," Annabeth said.

Percy looked at the fortress suspiciously. "The only question is what reason."

I turned away from the ruined buildings and looked out towards the river. My eyes flitted around to all the tourists. There were many, it was the beginning of summer after all. Everyone was taking vacation - and then there were the three half-bloods on a dangerous quest.

I saw one person, far away so they were just a tiny figure, smaller than an ant; but I still distinctly saw the person look in our direction, then run away into a group of people. In a moment I lost sight. I blinked, confused, and turned back; suddenly I was conscious of how noticeable I was. Annabeth and Percy were looking around some old building. I walked back to them, a bit confused.

"Uh, are you guys looking for something? Did Percy drop something?" I asked. Percy glared at me and I flushed red while shrugging – he did tend to drop things while distracted.

"I heard something," Annabeth explained. I nodded and then scanned the area. Somehow I knew we wouldn't find anything here. Whatever the sound had been was gone. I glanced up at the fortress's walls, the barrior overlooking the water.

On an impulse I started walking silently on the path leading up there. Something was lurking up there. I could feel it in my gut. I heard Annabeth and Percy stop looking and follow me. I barely glanced back at them, instead I let my senses lead me up. I climbed up the tourist stairs and eventually I reached the top of the wall.

"Cora, what is it?" Percy asked.

I stopped dead and looked around uncertainly. "There's something here . . ." I murmured.

At that moment a low growl emitted from below us, ringing through the air, along with a hissing sound, a bit like laughter. More and more of the sounds joined in. Annabeth, Percy, and I instinctively moved back to back. Annabeth drew her knife and Percy uncapped Riptide; I reached into my pouch and pulled out my charm. I slowly slide my thumb along it and my sword shimmered into existence.

Then they came.

There had to be over a hundred. They clamoured up the stairs or jumped onto the ledge. Hellhounds and Dracaena started to swarm towards us. With a deafening sound they attacked us with all fury; howling and hissing and growling. All three of us slashed and hacked our way through them. I spun my sword in deadly arcs, but it seemed that the more we killed the more that came up. This made us slow to defeat them.

Suddenly in the middle of the battle the monsters backed off and it was almost calm for a moment. Then the majority of the monsters regrouped and charged me. Either it was because I (apparently) had a stronger scent, or I was a bigger threat. High chance it was both.

I used every advantage I could, but it wasn't easy. Some part of me was reluctant to attack, as if I wasn't used to actual killing. My silver sword stabbed and slashed. I heard more hisses and growls beneath me. It hit me, of course! That was why they kept coming; they had been hiding below and behind the piles of ruined rocks.

More monsters went to attacking me. Because of their numbers, I slowly was backing up to the wall - and there was limited space on the ledge. Unfortunally I was being backed up to a destroyed section of the wall, so it was well below my waist. One hit to close and I'd probably tumbled down. And it was oh, more than six-stories straight down onto rocky ground.

The monsters suddenly stopped attacking me directly and took to trying to knock me off balance. They were strangely smart. I dodged and struck back the best I could, but there were so many of them. Dracaena formed a tight ring around me and I had to focus on blocking, only getting the odd chance to stab.

A Hellhound leapt from the ground over top of all of them, to come directly on top of me. It was about to pounce on me when I leaned back and thrust my sword up into the monsters neck; disintegrating the Hellhound into nothing but golden dust. Gods, I should never have done that.

The second I killed the Hellhound, I felt a tremendous blow on the back of my legs. It pulled them out from under me and I had been closer to the wall then I realized. My sword flew out of my hand in my surprise as I lost balance. I didn't even have time to react.

In a flash there was no ground beneath me and I was falling beside the wall. It flew by in a grey-brown blur. I did that only thing I could – scream. I didn't scream long, just one ear-shattering sound, then the breath was ripped out of me.

Everything blurred as I fell, I was sure I would fall and become a grease spot on the ground. I had no idea how close the ground was. I couldn't make sense of what I felt. Suddenly I felt a shock on my back and knees and I jolted to a painful stop. I had landed unharmed somewhere. During the fall I had squeezed my eyes shut, and now I blinked them open.

I stared in complete and utter shock at the person who had just saved my life. I couldn't speak I was so surprised, all I got was a squeaking sound. He set me on the ground gently. I didn't get a chance to say a single word, before I felt a tingling in the base of my skull.

I managed to whirl sideways just in time to see the base of a spear swing in line with my head. Instead of the spear butt hitting me; I saw it fly right into the forehead of someone I wished it would never happen to.

The boy flew backwards and landed in a heap. My heart all but stopped and I screamed. Blood trickled down his face thickly. I darted to his side, tears rising in my eyes and threatening to overspill. It couldn't be happening! I had tried to prevent this from happening, yet it had happened anyways. This just couldn't be happening to me. I cradled his head and lost it.

I crouched there crying, looking into the unconscious and bloodied face of Hunter.

A/N: *hides behind shield* DON'T KILL ME! I only tell what happened! And he was only gone for one chapter ... I just realized that. I wrote this, like over a year ago. So tell me what you thought through a review or fav or alert just DON'T KILL ME! PLEASE! *scrunches further behind shield*