A/N: So sorry for not updating in forever! Since it's summer, I've been doing all the things I couldn't do while school was in session. I've getting into a show called The Walking Dead (I'm obsessed now), I've been drawing, I went to Vegas for a cousin's wedding, I'm going to Hawaii in a week, I've been reading fan fiction and I'm writing other stories but I don't know if I should post them. (Maybe you guys can help me decide?) But this is a pretty big chapter so forgive me? Anyways, thanks for the reviews and enjoy!
"I'm sure you will like your new cabin, Apollonia. It's been kept clean and tidy for any new children of Khione." Chiron said. He was in his wheelchair with a few of the girl's things on his lap.
The sun was bright and shining but the day did nothing to lift Apollonia's spirit as she walked beside the camp's activity director. After the fight with Stacy, Dr. Schmidt demanded that Apollonia come to his office so he could check her health. The aging doctor came back with news about her disease. The doctor said that she needed a transplant. The sooner the better. The only thing was that Apollonia didn't have a donor and her father was out of the question. The only other option was that she was emitted to a mortal hospital and be put on a waiting list. But it was too risky, if any monsters picked up her strong scent she'd be screwed.
Chiron and Apollonia stopped walking when they arrived at her new cabin. It was breath taking. The cabin was painted different shades of blue with a few streaks of white in the blend. Carvings of snowflakes and curved lines, that represented the winds, were on the walls and door of the cabin. It was decent sized for a few people. It looked to be able to fit about five or six campers.
"What do you think?" Chiron asked.
"It's okay." Apollonia responded. Her sunglasses protected her sensitive eyes and she was a bit anxious to get inside. Not because she was excited about moving into another cabin but because she was already tired.
She sat on one of the steps to the cabin and took off her sun glasses to rub her eyes. Things weren't necessarily going well for Apollonia. She wasn't even the same person before any of this and she knew it worried Chiron. Maybe her friends were worried too but she wouldn't know that. They haven't talked in weeks. It wasn't something Apollonia was proud of but she couldn't be around them, not while she was like that.
"I noticed your friends haven't been helping you cope with your illness." Chiron said.
"Because I haven't told them." Apollonia mumbled. Her hands started to frigid with her glasses.
"I noticed. But sooner or later, you will have to tell them. You need someone to be there for you throughout all of this."
"I got you," Apollonia said, lifting her gaze, "and I got Mr. D and Dr. Schmidt. I think that's more than enough."
"It's not. You have wonderful friends that be more than happy to help you. They might even give you that transplant you need. For the sake of the gods, they've even came to me to help them talk to you. They think you hate them, Apollonia."
"I love my friends." She said. "But I have to separate myself so they won't mourn when I'm gone. This is my problem and I don't want to drag my friends down with me."
"What are you trying to say?" Chiron adjusted himself in his chair as he prepared for his answer.
"I'm saying that I'm dying." She replied. "I've accepted it and I'm welcoming death with open arms." The tone in her voice was serious. It was also tired and worn out.
"You can't be serious." The centaur leaned toward the younger girl with his face scrunched in confusion. "You can still survive, Apollonia, you just need a transplant!"
"Who's going to give me half their liver?" Apollonia yelled. Luckily no one heard and didn't look back at the cabin. "I'm finished, Chiron. I'm dead as it is and there's no point in fighting this! I've accepted it and and you need to as well."
Being as taken back as he was, Chiron couldn't find the right response to what Apollonia said. When he opened his mouth to speak, there was serious of screams coming from the entrance of the camp. Several campers ran away from the barrier. Some ran for their weapons and some ran for cover.
"What's happening?" Chiron yelled. Campers ran right passed him and didn't give him a second glance. The centaur stopped a young man and asked about the situation.
"The barrier is down!" He yelled and ran away.
Apollonia shot up from her step. "What about Peleus? He's supposed to protect the camp!" She yelled.
"Something must've happened to him but we can't waste any time. If the barrier is down and the dragon isn't doing it's job, we must prepare for any oncoming monsters." Chiron stepped out of his chair and stood tall in his true form.
"So, we're preparing for a battle?" Apollonia asked, rummaging through her boxes in search of her armor.
"I'm afraid so." Chiron said and rode away.
"Are you sure Abby didn't say anything to you? Anything that would hint about her mood?" Becca asked her blonde girlfriend as she paced back and fourth. They were in her room and away from their friends who were downstairs.
"I told you, she was distant and wanted her space." Elsa said, sitting on the bed.
"Did she say anything else?"
Elsa was currently reading a book but she closed in frustration. "Why is this so important? Apollonia was angry and I left her alone."
"Abby's my best friend!" Becca said. "I've known her since the day she arrived and we talk about everything. But lately she's been cold. She hasn't spoken a word to me since her birthday and I think it's because it was something I did. Maybe she's angry at me."
"She hasn't spoken to any of you." Elsa said. "What makes you think she's just mad you and isn't just having a bad time?"
"That could be it but she still worries me."
Elsa stood up from her seat and approached her girlfriend to make her stop her pacing by holding onto Becca's shoulders. "I'm sure she's fine. You just need to give you some time and-"
There were screams. Loud ones and they were close. The couple waited for a minute to pass before going down stairs. Their friends were already scrambling to put on their armor and strap their weapons onto themselves. "What's going on?" Becca asked through the commotion.
"Monsters broke through the barrier! Get your armor on!" Nicole yelled and ran outside who was followed by Victoria and, surprisingly, Anna.
Apollonia ran out her cabin with her sword and shield in hand. She didn't know how anyone was going to stop this from going any further but someone had to have a plan. The camp has dealt with this kind of thing before and they turned out fine. She finally reached where Chiron had called an emergency meeting, though Apollonia didn't see the point in it because monsters were already breaking through.
The centaur waved his hands to make people quite down and they eventually did. "Now, I know that our camp is being attacked but we must form a strategy to handle this. We will need some people to take to the woods, surround the camp to prevent any more monsters from entering and we need people to stay here. To fight and protect. Who will volunteer to scope out the woods?" Chiron asked. A dozen hands shot up immediately. "But, if you go into the wilderness, you have to fend for yourselves."
Over half of the hands were slowly lowered and there were only three hands remaining. "Very well, head out now and separate yourselves. Go, now."
Apollonia and a few other campers ran to the depths of the woods. They weren't any older than she was but she knew them and their advanced skills. If they focused on the task on hand, the three of them would be fine.
After they had split up, Apollonia took the northern part of the woods and kept her sword in her hand. Not knowing what could happen, she was careful in making little to no noise while she scoped things out. So far nothing seemed out of place and that was something she was thankful for. Even if she was able to fend for herself, she wouldn't have enough energy to summon her abilities. But maybe her mother would have mercy on her and give her a helping hand.
After twenty minutes of searching Apollonia thought that maybe things were going to be alright. Maybe monsters didn't get to her part of the woods and were focused on the campers. But this was serious and she didn't want to be too reckless. A small rustling made Apollonia stop in her tracks and crouch down. She hid behind a tree and peered her head around the trunk and waited. Soon enough a few campers ran through her trail and disappeared into the trees.
She sighed in irritation and stood up. She rubbed her temples and closed her eyes. Suddenly an arrow lounged itself into an opening on her armor. Apollonia screamed in pain and fell onto her knees while clutching her side. "What's wrong, Andolini?" A deep, female voice yelled to her from a few feet away. "Too weak to handle an arrow?"
Apollonia turned her head and saw the short, brown hair sticking out of a helmet. Stacy stood proudly and prepared another arrow on her how. Before the crazed girl could fire, Apollonia willed herself to stand up, despite the searing pain coming from her side. She grabbed her sword and ran as fast as she could. Anywhere was better than being around Stacy. "Where you running, huh? Let's just end this!" Stacy yelled.
Apollonia looked back and was relieved to see that Stacy had went back to the main fight. She sighed in relief but she wasn't watching where she running towards and fell down a large land slide. While her body was tossed around, the arrow went in even deeper into her side. It went all the way through when she crashed into a rock at the bottom, making the end stick out like a stub on her back. A branched scraped her right eye, leaving a deep scar that ran from her eyebrow to the top of her cheek bone. Her screams filled the air as she finally stopped. Apollonia's vision was getting blurry and things were getting dark real fast. Her breathes were labored and shaky as she laid on her back and over the fallen leaves. The warm sun beat down on her face.
She couldn't find the strength to yell out for help but she heard leaves crunch under the weight of someone. 'Thank the gods.' Apollonia thought.
When the mysterious person walked over to the fallen girl and towered over her, their face being shadowed by both her blurry vision and the lack of sunlight on their face. She still couldn't speak so she hoped this person would be merciful enough to help her. But Apollonia could tell it was a woman, judging by the long hair and the shape of the body. Finally the woman keeled down and peered at Apollonia. The woman had brown eyes framed by long eyelashes and dark eyebrows, high cheek bones graced her pale face and skin. Her black hair fell over her shoulders as the woman's white sun dress was getting ruined by all the dirt and mud. Her facial features were delicate and but also sharp. The woman looked to be wearing makeup judging by her beauty but she looked worried about Apollonia.
The woman's eyes gazed at the arrow sticking out of Apollonia's side and the blood spilling out of the wound. "Why don't you pull the arrow out?" The woman asked, her eyes now staring into Apollonia's.
Apollonia tried to form words to speak but she found herself to be too weak.
"If you pull the arrow out, you'll be able to slow the bleeding by tying something around your waist and blocking the openings." The mysterious woman continued. "I know you are only a teenager, but you must be smart enough to know this."
"Shut up . . ." Apollonia breathed out, her eye lids feeling heavy.
"'Shut up'?" The woman repeated. "Is that anyway to speak to your mother?"
Dull, grey eyes fought to stay open as the younger woman heard what the stranger said. She had to be hallucinating. Olympian parents rarely, or better yet never, visited their demigod children. And considering Khione's lack of presence in Apollonia's life, she would rather believe that this was a mortal talking to her than her mother.
"You're Khione?" Apollonia asked.
"Yes," the woman said, "now answer me this: why are you risking your life for this little camp?"
"It's my home." Apollonia said, in a quite tone. "This is my family and they need my help."
"But why?" Khione asked again. "After all, you said so yourself, you're dying. So why waste what little time you have left by helping this little place?"
"It's just something I need to do."
"Well, fine. But if you ask me, these people take you for granted. They don't respect you and they treat all of you like servants. You risk your life constantly and all they do to thank you is by putting you into even more dangerous situations and attacking you. Specifically by that Stacy. She's the one who did this to you, correct?"
All Apollonia could do was nod, seeing as how she slipping away.
"Well, I'll be seeing you, Apollonia. Do as I said and try to get yourself back to your camp. Goodbye, for now, my daughter." Khione placed a hand on Apollonia's bloody and dirty cheek and placed a gentle kiss on her forehead. Right when Khione rose to her feet, Apollonia's vision went dark as she passed out from her exhaustion.
A rough tugging on her foot made Apollonia stir in her sleep. The pull made her whole body move and soon her body was being dragged along the ground. Finally she opened her one good eye and saw numerous of trees pass her line of vision. Someone was definitely dragging her by her feet. Apollonia lifted her head far enough to see who- or better yet, what, was pulling her a long. To her amazement, it was a Cyclops. It definitely wasn't Percy Jackson's brother, Tyson, that was for sure. It didn't look familiar and to be honest, she couldn't tell if it was a male or female. Her eye searched for her sword and found that she still managed to hang onto it. Maybe the Cyclops was too stupid to realize she was alive or to take it away.
Seeing as how, being dragged through the dirt could give her wound an infection, she readied her sword and plunged it into the back of the monster. It gave a mighty roar of pain and distinguished into a large pile of dust. Apollonia sat up and clutched her side. She looked down and saw the arrow had even penetrated through the fabric of her orange t-shirt. The breastplate must've fallen off when she fell.
Apollonia took her sword and cut her shirt through the middle and carefully took off the dirty fabric. She was careful around the arrow and cut a large strip of her shirt to tie around her torso. Once she did, she took in big gulps of breaths and wrapped her fingers around the bloodied arrow and yanked it out. She dropped the piece of Celestial bronze and bit back a scream. She wrapped the rest of her tattered shirt around her wound and stood up with the help of her sword. She stood with her shirt wrapped her while her bra was exposed to the world. Her shield was long gone but that was the least of her worries. As for her eye, she left that alone for the moment and decided to worry about it later.
How long had she been asleep? Was anyone looking for her?
She looked up to the sky and realized she must've been knocked out for a few hours. Seeing as how the sun was setting and the sky was painted in a blend of orange, red and purple. Apollonia spun around and saw the same hill she fell off of just a few yards away. The Cyclops must've found her recently. She walked back to her former resting place and saw how incredibly steep it was. Maybe it was fifty to seventy feet high. Sighing, she grabbed her sword and stabbed it into the side of the hill. If she wanted to get back to the others, there was only one way.
The campers all gathered around dining pavilion, all murmuring amongst themselves. Some talked about their own battles with a monster and others talked about how some were missing. They were all tired and sweaty, some even bleeding but they still attended the meeting Mr. D had called.
Chiron waited in front of all the campers as Dionysus made his way next to him.
"Alright, everyone be quite!" Mr. D yelled, making everyone stop their conversations.
"Now, you guys fought pretty well but I'm sure that some of you noticed that we are missing some people. Do any of you know which ones are missing? We need names."
A few names were yelled out from the crowd. So far there had only been five names.
"Wait a minute . . ." Victoria mumbled. She stood on her toes and looked at every face in the dining pavilion. There were two of her friends that weren't in the crowd. "Nicole is missing!" She yelled. "And so is Apollonia."
"So that means we only have to look for seven people while nine others are injured. I must say, those numbers are a lot better than I expected." Chiron said to Dionysus, who nodded in agreement.
"Everyone, separate into different groups." Mr. D yelled. "We have to find them before night fall."
Without suffer instructions, the campers broke up and started to search the large wilderness that surrounded the camp. Apollonia's friends formed their own search group and set of toward the west. They weren't fully sure if the woods were completely monster free but they had friends missing and things weren't always safe during the night.
Elsa and Becca stayed close to each other while Victoria and Anna led them through in the lack of sunlight. "Did anybody see where Abby went when she volunteered?" Victoria asked.
Her only answer were the head shakes and shrugs from her friends. "Then we better get serious because it's getting dark and for all we know, Abby or Nicole could be dying under a tree right now." She said and started to walk faster.
"Damn it!" Apollonia yelled as she fell on her back for the third time. Her head was throbbing as she banged it against the hard ground and her sword was still in her hand.
' They treat all of you like servants.'
Apollonia huffed and puffed as her mother's words replayed in her head.
"Son of bitch," she sighed, "she was right."
She picked herself up and started to climb as she plunged the blade of her sword into the dirt again. Her muscles and side protested and begged for her to take a break but she wanted to keep climbing. She plunged the blade into a higher spot as she managed to get higher off the ground. She just had to concentrate on getting to the top. She's dealt with worse so she should be able to do something like this easily. If she could climb up a wall with lava flowing down, she could do this.
She was seventeen feet off the ground, only a few more to go. Her vision in her right eye was blurred by the blood surrounding it. She wiped some of it off with her bare shoulder but she smudged it further into her cheek. Apollonia's grip on her sword started to slip so she grabbed a root sticking out of the hill. "C'mon, damn it, almost there." She gritted her teeth and lifted her body higher until her feet stuck themselves into the side of the hill.
The brunette lifted her gaze and was thankful that there was only a few feet left. All she needed was to will herself for a few more lifts and she'd be done. When she grabbed another root, she pulled too hard and lost her balance. Apollonia yelled out a curse and reached out for her sword but it was too late as she fell back and tumbled down the hill once again.
When she landed on her stomach, she heaved and shut her eyes as she tried to endure the pain. Apollonia slowly flipped onto her back as she took in large breaths. "Why?" She asked. "Why are you doing this to me? I'm not an awful person, I'm not great either, but I'm decent. I don't hurt people and I'm a loyal person. So why are you doing to me, Khione?"
The sun was set and the majority of the sky was now a deep set of purple. Most of the missing campers were found and were taken to Dr. Schmidt but there were still two people missing.
"I can't believe we didn't find them. We searched everywhere and we found nothing!" Becca said as she and her group walked toward the dining pavilion .
"It's okay, we'll search again tomorrow." Elsa said.
"They could be dead by then." Victoria grumbled. "I'm still convinced that there's a spot we missed."
"Like Becca said, we searched everywhere." Anna mumbled. All eyes turned on her as she stood behind them. "I think we might have to rest and start up again tomorrow. Nicole is a good friend and I want to find her."
"What about Abby?"
"I think she can fend for herself." Anna said. She walked forward to get to the cabin but was held back by a hand in her shoulder.
"Look," Victoria began, "I know the break up between you and Abby wasn't pretty but she was your friend way before you two started dating. And if you're just going to look for Nicole and forget about Apollonia, then we don't need you or your help. But if you truly want to prove that you care about our friends and our camp, you will look for your friend Apollonia, too. Because as of right now, she is no longer your ex-girlfriend, she is your old friend. Do you understand?" She said, her grip was only tightening around the red head's shoulder.
Anna showed no fear as she listened to everything Victoria said. As much as she hated to admit it, she has been thinking about not so pleasant thoughts about Apollonia. She was still angry about, well, everything. But the one thing that was killing her was that Apollonia cheated on her and she wanted to know it was with. But she had to push her anger aside because there were still two good people missing and she had to get her head straight.
"I'm sorry," Anna said, lowering her head. "I'm just angry."
"You can't let your feelings get in the way, Anna. I understand that you're still heartbroken but you have you push that away until we find Nicole and Apollonia." Victoria let her hand slip from Anna's shoulder and placed it on her bow and arrow.
"I know but-"
"What the Hades is that?" Becca said, pointing to the unoccupied archery field as a figure limped its way closer.
Others noticed and suspected it was a monster that was wounded as they drew their weapons. Only it was too small for any kind of monster the camp has ever seeen. Becca squinted her eyes and tried to make out a face from the figure. She focused a little more when it came closer and her brown eyes widened in horror. "It's Abby! Don't hurt her!" She yelled and ran to her half naked friend. Victoria ran after her too but Elsa and Anna stayed behind.
Right as Becca and Victoria were five feet away from their friend, an arrow flew right passed them. Before they could process what happened, they heard a scream coming from their left. They turned just in time to see Apollonia fall on her side, unconscious. The arrow was embedded into the side of her head.
"ABBY!"
"NO!"