Okay, hi? Lets see where were we shall we? Yes that's right … Zia's at camp and knows Jason … Carter's probably condemning all of Brooklyn House to death … and does anyone know who Zia's former boyfriend is? … anyway onto the chapter.
Disclaimer: I own nothing, all rights to Rick Riordan (The Troll)
When Zia arrived back at camp half-blood she had no idea what to expect … she had been gone so long, and probably most of the campers she had known would have left … either to start lives in the mortal world or … Zia tried not to think about the other option. What she didn't expect to see however was Jason Grace running up the stairs from the basement, Imperial Sword in hand. So she did the natural thing, confused everyone by telling him he shouldn't be there and then fainting … not that she'd wanted to faint of course but it had just happened … and she'd let it … she didn't regret it though, he deserved it.
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After Zia had been taken to the infirmary all Annabeth wanted to do was go into the forest and hunt monsters … by herself. But unfortunately she was needed at the counsellors meeting which was getting kind of out of control …
"ZIP IT!" Annabeth yelled "Look I know we all want to know what the Hades is going on and our newer counsellors want to know who Zia is but by all talking at once we won't get anywhere," she looked all around the table, everyone's eyes were on her, gods I wish Percy was here, she thought to herself, not that he'd be able to help with explaining, actually he'd probably have doubled the noise, but it was somehow reassuring to have him at her side, but he's not here, she thought sadly before looking at Piper, who was smiling encouragingly if looking concerned, I can do this, Annabeth told herself, "Okay thank you for your attention, the best way to go about this at the moment would probably be having one or two people explaining who Zia is, then we'll move on from there," she looked around at the council then down at her hands again,
"Well Annabeth, you seem to know Zia the best, and I'm sure we all want to know what Jason's going on about so why don't you start then Jason can tell us what he's talking about?" Annabeth glanced up at Clarisse astonished that she had joined in with something non-war-related, Clarisse just nodded encouragingly
"Um, Okay, so Zia was a camper here eight years ago, when we were both eight, and I'd just come to camp, She is a daughter of Apollo and everyone knew there was something special about her, everyone could see that she was destined to some sort of prophecy, but when the Oracle was asked about it, she gave the first line then couldn't see anything else, she said Zia needed to search elsewhere for the Prophecy, which as far as we know has never happened before or since. Instead of Zia accepting the quest to find the prophecy about her future, she refused, she ran away from camp, saying that she'd never return, that she was going to track down her mother's family. As far as I know no-one has heard from her or seen her since – until today," Annabeth looked up to find everyone's attention locked on her, she turned to Jason "What did you mean she was your first quest?" she asked, turning everyone's attention away from her, to Jason, he looked at his hands and took a deep breath
"When I was seven, I was given my first quest, everyone argued about it, sending a seven year old on a solo quest, the senate discussion lasted a week, but eventually it was decided that I would go, because they all assumed that as the son of J-Zeus I was perfectly capable of looking after myself, so my first quest was to find a demigod who was reputed to be travelling through San Francisco by herself, after I found her I offered to help her, but she didn't take me seriously until we met some Hell-hounds and she realised that I was a demigod, she still refused to accept my help, saying that she'd rather survive on her own, after about a week of us arguing she finally agreed to try so I helped her find the wolf-house and then I left for camp thinking my job was done, everyone congratulated me, only she never showed up, we waited a full month before sending out a search party, eventually the search reached the wolf-house where Lupa told us that she had come and gone, heading off to camp. We never saw her again." he looked up at the room and Annabeth could see the pain hidden in his eyes at remembering this story, she didn't blame him, he was remembering failing his first quest, which was a horrible feeling, she knew. Leo broke the silence
"Guys, what do we do now?"
"Hu?" the reply came from the room in general, everyone looked at Leo with confusion
"Well there's a girl no-one's seen for years just show up at camp, the fact that Lacy's vanished and the ship that needs to be finished before the solstice … what are we going to do? Do we send out a search party for Lacy?, sit around second guessing ourselves about why Zia's here? wait until she wakes up and ask her? Do we continue building the Argo II or postpone it?, what's the plan?" the council fell silent as they thought about what Leo had said.
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Carter wished he had Sadie with him. He knew that he could go back at any time and get her, send a message through the Duat, - Could you do that? He wondered – but he knew if he did he would lose Zia's trail, he'd already wasted enough time with that ghost but had been able to find the trail again... barely, Carter wasn't a good tracker and the only way he had gotten this far was because Zia had trodden in a puddle, but that was drying out now and Carter wasn't sure he'd be able to follow it any further, he slipped his vision into the Duat and out again quickly, a trick he'd recently figured out which allowed him to see magic being used nearby. He was nearly ready to admit defeat when he saw a bright glow from the school, he dropped the vision spell and ran.
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Sadie screamed as loudly as she could again and again. She was standing on the roof of Brooklyn House and could see only too well the monsters flying towards them. They looked like a whole flock of Ba but they looked to solid and unlike Ba they were flying with a purpose, to attack Brooklyn House. Sadie reached into the Duat for her staff and flung a simple attack spell at them. The lead bird-lady simply lifted her wing and the spell bounced of and disintegrated leaving Sadie flabbergasted. She was working up a more advanced spell when a voice said
"That won't work you know," Sadie turned around to find Lacy standing there holding two throwing knives.
"Lacy! What are you doing here, you'll get yourself killed, you have no training and where did you get those knives!?" Sadie was astonished, even more so when in reply Lacy just smiled grimly and threw on of the knives.
"I have been trained in the art of fighting Harpies Sadie, which you apparently have not, I have survived fighting them before and I always carry these knives, though I usually use my sword, that got left behind when someone kidnapped me." She reached up and caught the knife which had sliced a Harpy in half and returned, kind of like a boomerang, she threw the other, caught it then took a fighting stance as the birds closed in.
"Sadie, I'm not going to be able to hold the Harpies of for long, if you have any defensive wards activate them now!" Lacy spun around holding the knives out and cut three harpies before stopping facing a fourth, this one parried her strike on it's claw and nearly sent her flying before she stabbed it with her other knife.
"Lacy, all our wards are active! I have no idea how these birds got in," Sadie was extremely confused and had no idea what to do.
"You have no wards against monsters?" Lacy stabbed another Harpy and it looked as if she might be able to beat them when the ones she had already killed (and had turned to dust) started to re-form. Lacy swore in Ancient Greek and yelled
"SADIE, GET EVERYONE IN THE BUILDING NOW! THAT INCLUDES YOU! RUN!"
Lacy stabbed one but another managed to scratch her left arm, causing Lacy to scream in pain and drop the knife she was holding in that hand, she stabbed the bird with her right hand and continued fighting with that hand, her left hand hanging limp, Sadie grabbed Lacy's dropped knife and stabbed a chicken-lady with it.
"SADIE! GET! INTO! THE! HOUSE! NOW!" Lacy screamed, Sadie stabbed another monster and said
"I'm not leaving you out here on your own!" Lacy cursed in Ancient Greek again, then started yelling at the harpies in Ancient Greek
"Why are you here? This is not your fight, leave this place now!" the harpies' response was
"Find the Daughter of Aphrodite, kill the ones who took her, return her home,"
"What? But Who?... MOTHER!" Lacy accidentally switched back to English freaking Sadie out a little
"You can talk to them?" she cried
"Well... yeah, but generally the don't respond, not very smart, Harpies,"
"Well tell them to go away!" Sadie cried. She was very much regretting not learning how to fight with a weapon, but generally that was Carter's job, Sadie did the spells, she stabbed another but it just started to reform
"I tried, they won't listen to me! I told you this would happen, you've pissed my mum of now, and she's not going to be happy till I'm back where I belong and you're dead, not sure why she wants you dead but still... you should know better than to piss of a go- mother!" Lacy screamed and Sadie glanced over to see a huge gash on Lacy's leg which was for some reason tinged green, Lacy tried to keep fighting but her legs buckled, Sadie grabbed Lacy and started to drag her towards the hatch, as she went she felt a sharp pain down her back and knew one of the birds had scratched her. She refused to buckle to the pain and kept half carrying half dragging Lacy (who had fainted) towards the door, but at the same time she yelled at the Harpies in Ancient Egyptian
"If you keep attacking your going to kill her, do you want that? You don't do you!" surprisingly enough it seemed to work, the Harpies flew away, leaving a few feathers behind, Sadie turned to open the door, then felt a tingling down her back like someone was watching her. Sadie turned around and found a woman standing there, she was amazing there was no other way to describe her, she was Sadie's image of perfect, yet appeared better. Sadie found herself frozen staring at this woman,
"So this is Sadie Kane, hm?" she asked "Well I must admit you're not what I expected, and you are very caring, according to Lacy, though not so much according to Drew, but Drew is wrong about many things, I warn you Sadie Kane, I do not call of my Harpies out of any kindness to you, I simply don't want my daughter to die, this is not over, I will be back, and I will have better warriors than simply Harpies, Miss Kane, you may have won the battle but I will win the war." suddenly the lady vanished and all Sadie could think to say was
"Your... Lacy's mum?" then Lacy groaned and Sadie glancing down saw the green patch on her leg spreading, she wasn't sure what it was but she was certain that it wasn't good so she opened the door and yelled down
"Medic! WE NEED HELP!" then she too collapsed from the pain in her back as her initiates came running up the stairs led by Jaz.
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When Lacy woke up she was lying in an un-familiar bed in what she assumed was the Brooklyn House hospital wing, there were curtains all around her bed and she could hear people murmuring behind them, she slowly sat up and checked herself out, she had a bandaged arm and a massive cut on her leg, the edges tinged the sickly green of poison. Lacy glanced around to check no one could see her and then down beside her bed to see if her pack was there with her emergency supplies of nectar and ambrosia, it wasn't, Lacy groaned and lay back down. The talking behind the curtain stopped and then the curtain was pushed back revealing Sadie and a girl Lacy didn't know.
"Lacy? Are you okay?" Sadie asked
"What happened?" she replied while the other girl, Lacy assumed she was some sort of doctor came over, before Sadie could reply she said
"Lacy? I'm Jaz, I'm uh... I guess... the doctor?" she looked at Sadie for conformation, Sadie nodded "I need to change the dressings on your arm if that's okay?" she asked, Lacy nodded then fixed her eyes on Sadie who sighed
"Honestly? I'm not sure, but those bird things cut you on your arm and leg, and they got me on the back. Jaz was able to heal me but you just seem to … resist the healing or something … we're not sure why but we've tried everything, all we can do is stop the bleeding and the spreading of the green stuff on your leg," she looked down at it then back at Lacy's face.
"Where's my bag?" Lacy asked, Sadie looked surprised while Jaz didn't look up from re-bandaging Lacy's arm. "My bag... it has my supplies, I can heal myself if I just have my bag..."Lacy could tell that Sadie didn't understand,
"Lacy, we've tried everything, I Don't know why but you just resist it all-"
"Well of course I resist it, it's Egyptian Magic and I'm not Egyptian, I'm as un-Egyptian as you can get,"
"Lacy, we've discussed this, I know you don't like it but your Egyptian – it's the only explanation," Lacy could tell Sadie was exasperated but she didn't care right then – so was she,
"Sadie, I've told you, I'm not Egyptian, and here's the proof – why else would I resist Egyptian magic? Why did those Harpies resist your magic, yet I could kill them with a knife?" Before Sadie could respond, the other girl – Jaz? Looked up
"Sadie, I'm no expert on this stuff but as far as I can tell, the only reason Lacy would be resisting my healing – if she is a mortal," Sadie looked at Jaz, then at Lacy,
"Are you really mortal?" she asked
"Depends on your definition of mortal" she replied, "but I'm not Egyptian,"
"What else is there?" Sadie inquired, "Egyptian, mortal, monster – even the monsters are Egyptian monsters," Lacy raised an eyebrow
"Were those Harpies Egyptian?" she asked
"So there's something else out there?" Jaz asked
"Oh, I'm sure there's many more things out there, but yes, I come from another mythology based society, NOT Egyptian,"
"What then?" Sadie asked. Instead of replying, Lacy gasped and glanced down at her leg, the green stuff had started to spread, Jaz moved towards it but Lacy held out her hand,
"That's not going to help in the long run," she said "I need my bag," Sadie sighed turned and ran of to get her bag,
"Why?" Jaz inquired
I'm so sorry, life got real hectic, but I'm trying to update more regularly now, not sure how that will work but still... anyway, anything is welcome in reviews, complaints, criticism, compliments, just say "hi", I really don't mind, anyways, hopefully be back soon by.