"What?!" Draco demanded, whipping around to face the captured boy.
"You heard me." Will said, clearly uncomfortable.
Darco ran a hand through his hair whispering, "I can't believe this...but how...why?" He turned back to Will,
"What do you mean, parity." Will tried to resist the potion, but he finally failed,
"We train as heroes at our camp." He clamped his mouth shut. Draco wasn't satisfied,
"Why?" He asked, stepping closer, unable to mask the curiosity in his eyes.
"We have to." Will said, then muttered what sounded suspiciously like a string of greek curses under his breath.
"Why would anyone have to do that?" Draco asked, sitting across from the boy on the floor.
"Because we have to protect ourselves from the monsters." Will spat, his glare like an inferno in his eyes.
Draco averted his eyes and asked, "Why would you have to do that, it's not like they would attack all the time, and you all are so young. Why not leave the fighting to the adults?" Will's humorless laugh sent chills down Draco's spine.
"Most of us don't live that long." Draco's eyes widened and he made the mistake of looking Will in the eyes. His eyes may as well have been the sun itself. The glare of hatred in them made Draco want to die many times over. Guilt ran through his body. He wanted to let the boy go. He hated himself, he hated music and poetry and everything beautiful in the world. He hated the sun. He deserved to be infected with the most painful of diseases and left to die. Then he looked away.
The guilt went away. Mostly. He gulped. Will smirked.
"You felt it didn't you." Will said, a statement, not a question. Draco didn't answer and asked his next question,
"Why would the monsters target children. And what are the monsters anyway." Will's face darkened and he flexed his jaw, trying to keep the answers in.
"The monster are," He clamped his mouth shut, "They target children because they can, we are defenceless then. If they only attacked adults they would never kill anyone." Draco's eyebrows drew together in confusion, "Why would you be that much more powerful as adults?" He asked, knowing the answer, to a degree.
"We will have had time to train, to master our powers." His mouth once again clamped down on his words and Draco had to drag them out of him, "What powers?" He had seen them on the battlefield, very few used wands at all. If they used magic it was mostly wandless or from enchanted weapons, not wands.
"The powers we inherit." Draco opened his mouth to respond but just then a voice behind him spoke up, "What. Did. You. Do. To. Him." A shiver ran down his spine, Nico.
"How did you get in here, I sealed the room?" He asked, whipping around with his wand ready. Nico was behind him, a black sword in hand and a deadly look on his face. He had no armor, but Draco knew then that he would lose. Just the look on the skinny emo boy's face made him want to run to his mommy. His hand shook, ever so slightly.
"I wanted to get in." Was the only explanation he got.
"God's I love you." Will said, pulling himself to his feet, the spell apparently worn off. Draco's confusion was overshadowed when the boy ran at him. Nico charged, cutting his wand in half before Draco could fire off a single spell, and pinning him to the wall with the shadowy blade at his neck.
"You will explain," Nico growled, "Or I will not hesitate to send you to my father."
"Nico, don't," Will said from the other side of the room, "He only wanted answers to a few questions, I'm fine. Do not kill him." He enunciated the last sentence, as if he were a parent telling their child not to touch a fragile plate. Nico gave Draco one last glare and dropped him. "Next time you try something like that. I will have your head." Then he ran to Will, wrapping his arms around the boy as if he couldn't live without him.
~oOo~
That night the campers slept outside, a few in the Argo 3, which was about half the size of a helicarrier, and some in tents or just under the stars. The hunters set up camp in their enchanted tents a distance away from the others, but a few girls went over to chat.
Leo stood at the helm of his ship. The masthead was a replica of Festus, but it wasn't alive like he was, it was just a regular machine. He watched Festus flying through the air with a few campers who had wanted to ride him. He sighed. Calypso was at camp with Juniper. The two had become friends pretty quickly and Leo hadn't wanted to interrupt girls night to announce his quest. He had told an Aphrodite camper to tell her later and left. He missed her.
"Yo Leo!" Jason called, running over, "What's up?!" Leo plastered on a smile, "Hey superman," He said and swung over the rail onto the bridge.
"You wanna join the school? I bet I could get us in, they have this sport here with broomsticks where you fly around and there are these balls and…" he stopped, "Something's bothering you." He said, fixing his glasses, "What is it?" Leo took a deep breath, "I didn't say goodby to Calypso. I know it's kinda silly, but I still could have died and I never would have said goodby." Jason put an arm around his friend and they sat down, "She will forgive you, you know that. You died for her. You went back to that island for her, no one before you did that. You were the first one to come back." Leo laughed half heartedly, "You know you just dissed Percy right?" They shared a laugh and Jason got up, "You should head back in the morning with the others, I'll stay a little longer with the hunters, to say goodby to Thals."
They exchanged goodnights and went to bed, Leo still haunted by his choice. His small, insignificant, choice, that still managed to haunt him to his very core. Why? Because he could have died, and just the possibility of that, of him leaving her like every other boy to set foot on her island, to die without her knowing where he was or even when it happened. To have left her like that would have been the ultimate betrayal as far as Leo was concerned. He didn't have pleasant dreams that night, but then again, what demigod ever did.
~oOo~
Hermione mulled over what she had learned in her head. She had a feeling that if she told anyone bad things would happen. Thunder didn't follow just any oath. She took out her wand and practiced a levitation spell on a stray dagger, which had been left by one of the demigods in the hall. The spell bounced off the blade and hit a pebble, sending it floating to the ceiling. Apparently the enchanted bronze could not only deflect but also change spells ever so slightly, severing the spell from the caster.
She looked at it with interest, picking it up gently. The handle had a leather grip, intricately woven to depict a great battle, with different colored leathers bringing out the figures of human looking people and monsters. The humans, she guessed, were the gods. She identified a few, Zeus, Poseidon, Hades, Apollo, a girl who looked to be around thirteen whom she guessed was Artemis, and Ares. She didn't recognize the rest of them, but all of them looked powerful. The design continued onto the blade, fading into a scene with a boy who looked suspiciously like Percy, standing over a blond boy with a knife in his hand, ready to stab himself.
She gasped and dropped the knife when she saw the entire scene play out, the image on the blade moving in a repeating loop. She saw the boy hurt Annabeth while he battled Percy, his eyes going from gold to blue. She watched him take the knife and drove it into his body.
"Luke." Annabeth said, startling her.
"He was a friend...before," She shook her head as if the clear it and turned back to Hermione, "He found me when I ran away, protected me. He got angry at his dad and made some bad choices. He became...something else...he changed," She took a shaky breath, "That dagger was mine, he gave it to me when he and Thalia found me with a promis. He promised that we would be a family, that we would protect each other. When he hurt me, it let him gain control. The prophecy was supposed to be about Percy, 'A hero's soul cursed blade shall reap' but it turns out it was about him, the blade was cursed because of his broken promise, and he was a hero." Her eyes were closed, as if remembering. When she opened them there was a kind of sadness in them Hermione could only imagine. The kind of sadness that came from losing a family, and from being betrayed, all at once.
"What had he become?" Hermione asked quietly, as if a loud noise would break the warrior in front of her.
"A monster." She whispered back and gently took the knife from Hermione, walking down the hall toward the Slytherin girls dorms.
~oOo~
Nico was sleeping next to Will, traveling through the dream world. He sifted through the dreams of campers, filled with monsters and memories, and through the dreams of monsters. The monsters dreams were the most scary. Not because they showed the demigods losing, but because they showed them winning. Seeing himself and his friends the way the monster saw them, as monsters themselves, was truly terrifying. He felt the monsters pain as they slowly pulled themselves back together after being killed, their suffering as they went through Tartarus, and their resentment as they did it all again.
Nico stopped on one monster in particular. This one had most interesting dreams. It was an empousa, but that wasn't the interesting part. This one dreamed of it's master. The monster he recognized as Kelly stood in a large stone room like a cave with hundreds of monsters behind her.
"Master," she said, stepping forward, toward the obsidian throne in front of her, "Are you sure it's a good idea to attack the wizarding world, I mean, I'm all for a good fight, but I prefer to kill demigods to puny legacy's who think their special." the figure in the throne, who was clad in an array of colored robes that hid any possible way to identify them, spoke in a muffled voice, that somehow carried further all the way over the crowd, "That," the enormous room went silent, "is precisely why we have to attack." murmuring broke out over the crowd. Kelly picked at her fingernails, "I don't follow."
The figure got up and the murmuring stopped, "They think they are special. We need to show them that there are those who are more powerful than them. I made sure that the demigods will get a forewarning so they can send troops there. The wizards will feel threatened, and the demigods will hesitate to reveal themselves. This will be their undoing. The wizards will feel threatened, they are just like animals when that happens. They will attack and the demigods will defend, this will nearly wipe out the wizards and weaken the demigods, then we will attack. Then, and only then, will we have a chance at winning."
There was an uproar of applause. Kelly just gave a pleased smile. The cloaked figure continued, holding up colorful arms, "I was part of the last war! I have seen their 'seven' in action. I know their power and I know that we do not stand a chance, not with the greek and roman alliance. We need to weaken them and this is how!" More cheering. The dream changed to Kelly killing Annabeth in a particularly gruesome way and Nico bolted upright, walking Will.
"What happened?" Will asked, fully alert, "Are we under attack, what did you dream, are you okay?" Nico held up a hand to silence him and stood, Will following a second later."What is it Nico?" He asked, more gently.
"I saw our enemy." He said as he pulled on a shirt. They had been sleeping in an empty storage closet in a remote corner of the castle. Will followed him silently, knowing he would say what he needed to.
"I never saw his, or her, face but I know their plan. That want the wizards to attack us when we don't tell them who, or rather, what we are. They want us to get into a war and obliterate them, then they will come in and strike us while we're weak." WIll nodded, "So what do you propose we do?" He asked, knowing full well what Nico would say, "I say we reveal ourselves, they do have godly blood and we need to catch our enemy off guard. We need an alliance now if we fight the wizards, we will win, but it will be taxing. I need to talk to Chiron, you go wake the wizards, tell them to gather in the great hall, send Percy and Annabeth to get the campers and the hunters." Will nodded and left while Nico sped up, rushing into Chiron's office.
Chiron was awake, shooting a bow at a target he had set up on the ground outside his window. "Chiron!" Nico shouted as he burst in, out of breath, "We need to tell the wizards who we are, I'll explain on the way to the great hall, everyone should be gathering there now." Chiron gave him a stiff nod and followed him out the door. He tried to explain Kelly's dream as best he could as he walked next the the wheelchair bound centar.
Chiron agreed when he finished as they reached the great hall. They pushed open the doors and went up to the front, motioning the demigods to follow. They did, hesitantly. Nico spoke up, "I know what our enemies plan is." This brought an uproar from the wizards, who assumed that he and his friends were working with them.
Piper shouted over them, "SHUT UP!" they obeyed immediately. There was a moment of dead silence before Nico continued, "They want you to get suspicious of us, to attack us. They want a war to break out between us and for us to win," he said, gesturing to the demigods assembled behind him in what passed for a war formation among the greeks. That thought made a smile just barely tug at the edges of his lips.
The wizards were shouting again, this time in offence, "Come on, if you knew even half of what we went through you would run for cover." Jason stated, making them all shut up once again for Nico to finish, "They wanted us to be weakened enough for them to stand a chance at winning. This person was a part of our last war, they know how strong we are, especially now, and they don't want to attack us head on in fear of the seven." That got grim laughs from everyone, especially the seven, "They wanted us to keep a secret." He said when everyone quieted down got him and uproar from the demigods, "NO!" "We can't!" they screamed. Chiron managed to get them under control.
Nico turned to the demigods, "If we don't tell them a war will break out. Do you want that? So soon after the last one? Leo just got back! We don't want anything like that again do we? We have fought for so long. We fought so many creatures from all the layers of Tartarus. We don't need another war. Even if it's an easy one compared to the others, we can't afford it, too much is at stake." He turned to the wizards, "We are not wizards and witches, as you may have guessed from our lack of wands. We aren't muggles, as you call them, we aren't even mortal," he took a deep breath, ready to reveal them all, when the wall exploded.
Hey y'all! I hope you enjoyed that! I decided to followed the Riordan tradition of cliffhangers, because I am a terrible person. Yay! I want to hear your predictions, I am genuinely curious of what you think will happen next. And if you are a future reader and the next chapter is out, tell me anyway, I want to know. Okay, I need sleep so I better finish adding this before I fall asleep on the keyboard. Hope you enjoyed! One last thing. I'm adding an original character to the story. She will be a demigod. I need y'all to tell me in the reviews who you think her godly parent should be. If you want me to make the godly parent a...particular...deity, whom I have picked out but haven't decided weather to use or not, comment ?. Thanks! This demigod has to be in the next chapter so I'll need some ideas before I can post it.