Annabeth bolted upright with a scream, waking the others in the room, she was was in her old bed in the Slytherin dorms and the witches in the room were giving her dirty looks and telling her to keep it down. she ran her shaking hands through her hair as the thumping of footsteps echoed down the hall. The nightmare was different than usual. she usually dreamed about...that place, but this time she had dreamed about something worse. Something much, much, worse.
The door swung open to reveal Percy, with most of the seven and a few random campers behind him. He ran over, despite the witches protests, and scooped Annabeth into his arms.
He whispered into her hair in Greek, "What was it about?"
she steadied herself and spoke in English, unable to clear her head enough for Greek, "Take me to Chiron, something bad is coming," she turned to the rest of the demigods as Percy set her down, "The rest of you need to gather the rest of the campers, send a girl the wake the hunters, and Frank," she turned to him, "Send for troops, we'll need reinforcements." she marched out of the room, brushing off the witches, who were all asking a thousand questions at once.
she got to Chirons classroom and barged in, finding him in his wheelchair talking to Mr.D through an IM.
"Chiron, Mr.D," she said as she walked in, not bothering to ask permission, "The school is going to be under attack in about an hour, I need to talk to you."
Chiron nodded immediately, being used to this sort of thing, and Mr.D just looked bored, "Well then, Anniesweth Cheese," Mr.D drawled, "explain yourself."
she cleared her throat and hurried forward, sitting down on a chair that had been haphazardly shoved to the side of the room, and explained, "I had a dream, the monsters are preparing an attack, bigger and stronger than before, I have Frank calling support from New Rome and the campers preparing for a battle. They should be here in about an hour based on the landscape ao we have that long to prepare," she took a breath and continued, "Mr. D, if you could send some campers over with The Argo's four and five that would be splendid, maybe send the underworld children as well if you can spare them."
Dionysus just looked bores and waved his hand, "Fin, fine, I'll send them, but I expect an offering tonite miss Chopp." she thanked him and promised an offering, not bothering to correct him on her name. she continued to explain her suggestions for battle strategy with Chiron while Mr.D left the IM to do as Annabeth had requested.
~oOo~
Percy ran through the halls of the school, shouting to wake the demigods and rouse the Wizards, some of which had chosen to sleep in the halls with the demigods for some reason. He called them to arms and ordered them prepare for battle, though not like Jason or Frank, who were much more like drill sergeants, being at least partly Roman.
"Half bloods, wake up, weapons ready!" Percy shouted, "Be prepared for another Manhattan!" He added to encourage some of the older campers, who were at the battle of Manhattan and probably still had nightmares about it, just like Percy.
Frank had IM'd camp Jupiter and help was on the way in one of Leo's specialized flying warships, which had been mass produced until both camps had a full navy/air force. Percy assumed Annabeth had done the same for Camp Half Blood, she alway thought of those things. Piper used her charmspeak to make everyone move quicker and to shake the drowsiness from their spent bodies.
Percy speed walked through the halls, stepping over the extended limbs and backpacks of the drowsy demigods as he went. He found a sizable closet and opened the door, finding Nico and Will sleeping in a huddled mass. He chuckled and kicked Nico's foot, "Wake up death boy," He poked Will with the tip of riptide, "Upsi-daisy sunshine, war time." Nico groaned and wrapped an arm around Will, who tightened his arms around Nico.
"Okay lovebirds, UP." he kicked Wills shin, hard.
The boy cursed at him in ancient Greek and opened his eyes groggily, "Go away," He said and hugged Nico tighter, curling around his boyfriend as if he were a prized teddybear.
Percy kneeled down, "Okay doctor boy, I guess you'd leave the wounded on the battlefield to heal themselves."
Will cursed at him again and got up, lying Nicos head, which had been resting on his chest, on the ground, "Okay," He said quietly, Nico had apparently fallen back asleep, "let's go." They closed the closet door behind them and hurried down the hall, Percy explaining everything to him as they went.
"So Annabeth had a nightmare this time?" He asked, his mind clearly elsewhere.
"Yeah." Percy responded, noticing the distracted look on the usually hyper-alert doctor's face, "And we're going to use an army of hellhounds as the first defence, while the gorgons go attack from behind so the emposi can launch a solid frontal attack." Percy teased, his voice perfectly serious.
"Uh-hu." Will said, making for the medical tent as they reached the outside of the castle, "Sounds great."
Percy grabbed his arm, "What's going on with you?" He asked, worried, "You're usually at the top of your game at the start of a battle, especially when Nico's safe, which we both know he is, so what on earth are you thinking about?"
Will shook himself out of his thoughts, "Oh, um," He search for something to say but gave in, settling with the truth, "Nico and I met the mystery girl." Percy looked shocked but nodded for him to continue, his voice lowered, "she appeared out of nowhere, apparently she can shadow travel. she wouldn't tell us much, only that she's a demigod and I figured out that she can time travel."
Percy looked puzzled, "But how…" He let the question hang.
Will shrugged, "she wouldn't even give her name, said we'll meet her in two years, or Nico will, she seemed to know him better than most, and she hates Draco, called him a murderer."
Percy wasn't to surprised at this, he was an easy guy to hate, but murderer? That kid may be a bully but he hasn't killed anyone that Percy knew of. Then he remembered the time travel.
"You mean he will kill someone?!" Percy asked, hardly realizing that they had switched to Greek.
"she implied that she was from a sort of different timeline, I guess is how you would describe it, and that he wouldn't kill whoever it was he killed in this one, now that she stopped Nico."
Suddenly the air around them rippled. Percy felt a cold fist dread settle over him, he knew this feeling, and he dreaded it. The feeling was gone as soon as it had appeared and the dread disappeared, suddenly Percy could hardly remember what it was he was dreading. A girl shimmered into existence where the air had rippled, the mystery girl.
she was dressed in the same coat as before, buttoned up to her neck so it his any clothes except a pair of fishnet tights that extended down her legs and disappeared into combat boots. But the most unsettling thing about her was the monster dust that covered her head to toe. she had significantly more braids, all with something new attached to it, most notable of the new items being what appeared to be an engagement ring hanging down next to her ear.
"Percy," she addressed the boy, as if randomly shimmering into existence covered in monster dust were the most natural thing in the world, which, to demigods, wasn't to far off, "You need to get down to the lake, by now Will ought to have told you all about me so I won't bother with explanations," Percy wanted to shout, You never do! But he figured he shouldn't interrupt,
"The monsters are in four groups, one will attack near the lake, I figured you'd be most useful there, bring Annabeth and some other demigods to back you up, there's a sizable group coming." she turned to Will, "Nico will be injured, warn the stubborn little ghost king that the the forbidden forest may be considerably safer than the woods at camp half blood, but they are still woods and offer blind spots for monsters to hide in, tell him that no matter what he is to stay on the front lines with the Romans."
she tried to step into a shadow but Percy grabbed her sleeve, "Tell me your name, I won't keep calling you 'mystery girl',"
she looked slightly scared and looked down, not up like half bloods when they were afraid of doing something wrong, "Ever." Then she dropped into the castled shadow, presumably to give more orders to unsuspecting demigods. Percy and Will went to do as they were told, hoping that they weren't making a horrible mistake.
~oOo~
Ever melted out of shadow after shadow, navigating through them with expert ease and landing exactly where she wanted to be to instruct the half bloods. Annabeth had tried to question her and she'd barely managed to keep herself from scarring that no good prick Malfoy, but other than that she'd gotten off without giving more than her name.
"Ever," The voice cooed above her, "I thought I told you to be back here by seven fifty eight."
she looked up at the figure who had spoken, "I did." she practically spat.
"Oh, but you went somewhere before coming here, didn't you sweet Ever?"
she flinched and hung her head, "I have to go." she said, her voice hard. she stepped into her own shadow, which spread in front of her in a long spindly, reflecting her ever thinning frame. she passed through the shadow, not focusing on where she was going.
she materialized on the battlefield just before the second demigod/moster battle of Hogwarts. she sighed and spun her ring, muttering, "Défteros," under her breath. Might as well fight, she knew how this battle went.
she glanced to her left, she knew the somewhere, hiding in the trees of the forbidden forest, was one of her past selves, watching how the battle progressed so she could instruct the demigods on how to win.
she looked to her right to find a legion of staring demigods, "Figured I'd help out, some of you aren't convinced I'm here to help. Well here I am." she looked pointedly at Thalia.
Thunder rumbled above her, she glared at the sky, muttering under her breath as the demigods looked away, "Zeus, if you want to make me leave you'll have to get off your high horse and tell me yourself."
The thunder stopped, then a figure emerged from the trees, "EVER!" Zeus thundered, his voice booming over the crowd, "WHAT DID I TELL YOU ABOUT JOINING BATTLES!" she didn't even flinch, she stared the god in the face as the demigods seemed to contemplate weather to fall to their knees or sing out praises for the obviously angry god.
"You told me," she drawled, "not to." she stepped toward him, turning her sword back into a ring, "I didn't listen." There were nervous muttering through the ranks, the god's name was whispered around as the half bloods realized who this mysterious girl who appeared out of nowhere and ordered them around, was sassing off to.
"You little-" Zeus looked like he wanted to strangle her, "GO BACK TO MANHATTAN!" she pouted and put her hands on her hips, "THe battles going to start in," she looked at her watch, "three minutes, join us or go hide in your throne room." Zeus looked at her with pure murder but vanished. The muttering started up again but she ignored everyone else, focusing on the tree where she knew a hellhound would bound out from behind any minute now.
Sure enough, out came the hellhound, along with a hundred other monsters in just the first wave. There would be three more, along with three other groups of about three hundred on each of the side of the property. Ever had ensured that Percy, Annabeth and a small group of demigods were protecting the side near the lake, Leo was on Festus with Piper, who had a megaphone, enhanced to project her charmspeak over the enemy five times as powerful as it left her lips, blessed by Aphrodite herself. They protected the air. There were groups of skilled fighters on every side of the building, consisting of demigods and wizards alike.
Ever dodged the hellhounds first strike and landed one of her own, her stygian iron cutting into the dog's leg. It howled in pain and struck again. she rolled out of the way and landed on one knee. she yanked a charm from her hair and it grew into a bow with an arrow notched and a quiver appeared at her hip. she fired the arrow while dodging a cyclops' sword. The arrow impaled the monsters neck and it dissolves into dust. she whipped around to face the cyclops, not taking the time to revel in her victory.
The cyclops tried to slash at her with its sword but she was too quick, or, rather, her magic to powerful, for him to land the blow on time. she ran him through from behind and faced another monster, a telkine who was attacking the demigod at her back. she killed it before it could kill the Roman soldier. she cut a bloody canyon through the enemy, not stopping until the battle was over.
she stood ankle depp in monster dust panting. Nico was the only one who dared to came near her. she knew that during the battle her eyes had been angry red, as they always were when she fought, or wanted to fight.
"Um, so your name is Ever," He said awkwardly, clearly not wanting to upset her. He had seem what she had done to the monsters, the speed with which she moved, no, he didn't want this girl mad at him.
"Yeah," she gulped down another breath, "I shouldn't have told but Percy is kinda scary and Zeus is the king of drama." Nico glanced up at the sky, which stayed curiously silent.
"About that, um, what did you...who...how…" He struggled to find the right question.
she shook her head, "Two years, Nico, two years until I can tell you everything." He nodded, clearly confused. she shook her head again and brushed some of the monster dust off her coat, "I've got to go, can't let the gods think I'm a coward." He was about to ask what she meant when she vanished, shimmering out of existence as if she had never been there at all.
Yo! So my computer refused to load most of this, else I would have added it sooner so sorry, but here it is. It's not as long as I hoped it would be but I've got a book to write other than this one so I don't have tons of free time. Anyhow, as I'm writing this it's 11:30 and I'm tired so I can't brains now.
Tell me what you think in the reviews, your input is always welcome. I want to hear your guesses on Ever's parentage as well, I added a few clues and misdirects in here for y'all so I want to know if you noticed them.