Alright I may as well elaborate a bit upon the previous chapter real quick. (Apparently some people couldn't figure out the order I laid out.) To start with it was in order that the story is being posted. The First is Phantom Spell (the Harry Potter story). The Second is right here, Blood Of The Phantom. And the Third has yet to be written and will be titled Secrets Of Azarath, (that one will be the Teen Titans portion of Project Phantom). I welcome anyone willing to try and decipher my plans from it. Some are obvious but most of them are a tad subtle.
After this chapter I have two more in reserve, so I feel that I must explain my writing process here a little bit. I write in chunks, as in a couple of chapters of a single story at a time. I wrote 12 chapters for Phantom Spell and then the 7 chapters for this story. All of the intermission chapters have been spontaneous quick writes that I've done. Currently I haven't written anything in a little while due to final exams (which my last one is today) and work which has drastically increased due to a coworker being hospitalized. She's fine but due to her being one of the hardest working employees her hours have been shifted around to split among all the other workers. (For example, I work a nine hour shift today). So in a way this chapter is for you Smalls!
Review Time!
randomphandom (Guest) - I'm glad you're enjoying it so far. I'm actually surprised at how well everything has been flowing together for me. Though as for your too many ideas problem. I'd recommend just organizing them and write a bit of each until you get going. After all that's what I'm doing.
To everyone who supports my previous statement on how I'll be updating everything from now on, Thank You. It truly means a lot to have a such a group of wonderful readers such as you all.
Without further ado, I present Nightly Travels!
Chapter 05: Nightly Travels
New York – Travelling Huntresses
The huntresses had arranged themselves into a tear-drop shaped formation. Artemis had the point leading them, Thalia followed on her right while Sabrina was on her left, and Phoebe walked between the two of them. And though they were originally walking in silence, Sabrina had questions. "Why are walking in this ridiculous formation? Zoe at least had the decency to learn better formations."
Artemis didn't say a word, Thalia however snapped. Sabrina hadn't stopped comparing Thalia to her predecessor, Zoe, since she had reemerged from Medusa's lair. "This formation, is to protect an incapacitated huntress! Its shape shouldn't be important!"
"Well don't you have a short fuse?" Sabrina sneered at Thalia, clearly pleased with herself for undermining her. "I don't see why we don't just leave the little screw up. If the oath didn't save her than nothing can."
A sharp slap echoed out throughout the group. Thalia and Sabrina looked in shock at Phoebe who had tears in her eyes. Her arm still in the air after she had slapped Sabrina. "Do NOT call her that! You have no right, you're just bitter that none of us could get you out of the stone. We didn't have any way of saving you, without accidentally killing you. We can still try with her! And I'd sooner give up my oath than ignore a friend in need! So shut up and shape up!" Phoebe then turned and walked deeper into the group of huntresses, no doubt going to check on the huntress that was being carried on a stretcher by two of the stronger huntresses.
Artemis finally spoke, "Sabrina, we had all thought that Medusa's curse killed you, due to so many of her victims appearing in Hades' domain. When I asked him, he told me that your souls never appeared, I was unable to honor you in the stars as I had originally intended." She then stopped causing the remaining huntresses to stop as well. "I believe that she can still somehow be saved. If worst comes to worst, then I shall ask Clockwork for his assistance. Begging if need be." She then muttered under breath something that sounded suspiciously like 'he owes me that much at least.'
New York – Travelling Danny
"Stupid stopwatch, probably his fault that I have to walk the entire way…" Danny was muttering darkly to himself as he walked into a large clearing. For some reason, he was unable to turn into his ghost form, forced to walk to the camp. He then looked up at the night sky and smiled, "At least it's a nice night."
Danny sat down next to a tree, pulling out a map that he had… acquired from a nearby gas station. He suspected that Clockwork had something to do with his wallet being missing, but it wasn't like Danny could contact him whenever he wanted to.
He sighed looking at the map, he still had a number of miles to go. He figured that if he continued going without stopping then he would arrive early in the morning. He smiled, then frowned after he let out a long yawn. Or he could go to sleep and continue in the morning, arriving closer to noon.
Danny yawned again and then leaped into a tree using a large branch as a bed to rest in. It wasn't long before his low breathing could be heard echoing through the otherwise silent clearing.
New York – Travelling Huntresses
Thalia and Artemis watched the male across the clearing suspiciously, Artemis had noticed the boy travelling parallel to them a while ago. He hadn't seemed dangerous at first glance, but he also seemed to radiate power around him. And the way he nimbly jumped into the upper boroughs of the large tree seemed to suggest that her observation was correct.
Thalia glanced at Artemis and said, "What do you want to do? The Huntresses may be a little tired but we can go on till morning if need be." She smirked for a second before she said, "Or we can try to scare him away."
Artemis shook her head, "There is something off about that boy. He radiates power as if it were second nature to him." She paused before she continued, "And then there's the fact that he has been traveling parallel to us for the last five miles."
Thalia looked at her shocked, "How could he have avoided all of us for that long?"
She shook her head, "He moves like an expert hunter himself… It couldn't be…" She looked shocked for a second before Thalia interrupted her thoughts.
"Lady Artemis?"
She shook her head, "It's nothing. We leave immediately, I'd like to avoid any chance of him noticing us." Thalia nodded hesitantly, and then moved back to direct the remainder of the huntresses.
Artemis just looked at the boy, with a mixture of fear and sadness.
Long Island – Camp Half-Blood – Cabin of Athena
Annabeth Chase was staring at the Iris Message slack jawed, as was the rest of her cabin. Athena's children were used to Iris Messages, just not directly from their mother. Athena looked at her children sadly and said, "My apologies children, but I need to speak to Annabeth privately for a moment."
The other children looked at Annabeth jealously for a few seconds before grudgingly leaving their respective bunks. Annabeth, however, was just looking at her mother confused before sudden realization hit her. She waited until her half-siblings had left before she said, "Is this about the new Half-Blood?"
Athena looked slightly surprised for a fraction of a second before she nodded. "I suppose Dionysus has revealed this information to the entire camp already?"
Annabeth shook her head, much to Athena's relief. "No Percy and I were there when he told Chiron."
Athena nodded. "Good, this information must remain private for now. It's bad enough that Clockwork took him all those years ago. But apparently he was powerful enough to defeat an enemy we all struggled with."
"What do you mean?"
Athena sighed before she said, "I may as well tell you. Knowing you, you'd figure it out yourself in a week or so." At Annabeth's smile Athena continued, "Centuries ago a being, whose origin we still don't know, named Pariah Dark appeared. He began destroying Greece in an attempt to subjugate our world under his reign. With Clockwork's assistance we were barely able to seal him in an artifact called the Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep. Earlier Clockwork notified us that Pariah had been freed a year ago, apparently this demigod single handedly was able to reseal him back within the Sarcophagus." She paused before she said, "It took the full power of all of us to trap him in that cursed coffin. Yet now we're told that a single demigod was able to duplicate the feat."
Annabeth stared at her mother in shock, "How is that even possible?"
"Clockwork didn't elaborate upon the subject. He has informed us that the demigod is extremely modest, and will push off most praise given to him, so it may be unlikely that you'll get the full story from him. But I'd appreciate if you could try. The sooner we can figure out his godly parentage the faster we'll be able to carry on with our own business."
"So you want me to try and get stories out of him? To try and figure him out?" At Athena's nod Annabeth continued. "Is there any reason why you can't just bring him to Olympus and question him there?"
Athena sighed as she said, "Clockwork is heavily interfering with our powers. He claims he is forging the boys' future along the best possible path. Not to mention the fact that he has kept the child blocked from us since before his birth!" At Annabeth's questioning glance, she elaborated. "It would appear that no god even remembers the child, or at least the parent refuses to admit that the child is theirs. The only thing that Clockwork has told me is that I am not the mother. But that leaves eleven other Olympians. Nine if you exclude Hera and Artemis, who have either sworn off children in general or relationships other than with Zeus in Hera's case."
"Well if no god remembers it, then we can't really exclude either of them."
Athena smiled, "Exactly my thoughts. The huntresses of Artemis will arrive early tomorrow. And the boy will probably arrive sometime around tomorrow as well. If you end up coming up with the correct guess before it's announced, I may just reward you. Good night, Annabeth. I look forward to hearing from you. Oh, and please keep in mind that this conversation is just between the two of us. I don't even want that boyfriend of yours to know." Annabeth grumbled to herself but nodded, agreeing that she'd keep it a secret.
As the Iris Message faded, Annabeth let her half-siblings back into the cabin, who were still grumbling about being excluded from what must've been an important conversation.
Annabeth merely sat on her bunk looking out of a window, wondering about who this new half-blood, and just how powerful he must be…
New York – Travelling Danny
Danny awoke when he collided with the ground, six hours after he had fallen asleep. He groaned as he stretched. He'd overheard two more huntresses talking about him last night. His enhanced senses came in handy for eavesdropping, but it wasn't a power that he liked to advertise that he had, people probably wouldn't like him even more if they knew. It was fine for people to know that Phantom had it, but if freaky Fenton had it too, he'd be hated.
The younger, or at least the one that had appeared younger, had concerned him. She radiated more power than the Fright Knight, and when the other girl had called her Artemis, Danny had recalled his conversation with the other three huntresses.
That had been the Goddess Artemis, mistress of the hunt, and the god that Danny respected the most. He had always loved astronomy, and when his history classes had introduced Greek Mythology, he had been disinterested at first. But when they reached the legends about the constellations he had taken great interest. The one he had found the most interesting had been the story of Orion. Artemis had fallen in love with him, and her twin brother, Apollo, had gotten angry (Danny blamed overprotective siblings). So he tricked Artemis into killing Orion, he had gone to Orion and convinced him to wade out into a lake, then he had told Artemis how she wasn't good enough to shoot a target he had set up in the middle of the lake. Artemis proved him wrong by striking the target with her arrow. She soon discovered, however that the target had been Orion, in grief she sent him up into the stars as a constellation. She then swore off all men, and became a goddess of maidenhood.
Danny had never been sure as to why he had liked the story so much, but he had. After that unit in class had ended, Danny had gone repeatedly to Pandora in the Ghost Zone, learning as much as he could about the legends surrounding the stars.
Danny shook himself from his thoughts and looked around. The night sky was still just barely visible, leaving Danny with enough of the stars to lead him properly, but before he took off he noticed a small bag sitting at the base of the tree he had slept in. Emblazoned on the side of the leather bag was Clockwork's emblem.
Slightly exasperated he opened the bag. Inside was a small locked case, a small key with a note that read 'You'll know when to open the case.', and a small flash drive with the Greek letter Delta on it. While he wondered what they could be for he just shook his head, whatever Clockwork had left him, he had left them for him for a reason. And no doubt he'd need it later. He carefully put the objects in his pockets before continuing towards the camp.
Alright, I'll say it again here. This story ignores any and all events that take place after the Last Olympian simply because I never finished the series and I'd rather stay away from having to study the books and the events surrounding it.
Also sorry if you were expecting more Danny here, but please bear in mind that he isn't the only important character here in this story. In addition to that note I kind of want to say that I feel that this story has a set of Story Arcs. The first being the reveal of Danny's godly parent, (Which shall be called the Lineage Arc! ...I think). Next would be a sort of settling in and dealing with his new family. Then we have the Quest... The event that'll connect back to The Shadow Wars. I think that's how this story will work at least. (That was all spontaneous... Isn't in-prov marvelous?)
With that done, I'll see you all next Thursday for Arrival.
