Disclaimer- I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or the Heroes of Olympus Series. (One can dream though) All rights go to the proper parties.
Note***- This story is boy x boy. Don't like? You don't have to read.
ΩΩΩ
Travis sat down at the Hermes table and folded his hands under his chin. He gave his brother a serious look. "So, did you hear?"
Conner winced and nodded. "Ya, Malcolm just told me. It was going to be hard enough for us to beat the Ares cabin, but now Athena's aligned themselves with them? How in Hades are we supposed to beat both cabins?"
The older brother shook his head. "Don't know. Do you think we could bribe Athena to switch sides? I mean, I know our activity times suck, but we do have the largest amount of junk food in camp. That's got to count for something."
His brother snorted. "Not likely. I've never heard of Athena backing out once they've made a pact. Did we at least get Percy?"
Travis nodded with a smile, "Of course. If there's one thing we can always count on, it's that Clarisse can still hold a grudge. She'd never ask Percy to be on her team for capture the flag."
"Thank Hermes for small miracles. Okay, so who do we have then?"
Travis shook his head with a grimace, "Hypnos, Iris, Aphrodite, Poseidon, and Demeter. We had Jason, but he got called away to New Rome to deal with his whole Pointy Matrix thing. Something about a goddess whose mad because her temple hasn't been started yet. We'd probably be able to convince Nico to join us, but I doubt he'll be back by tomorrow."
Conner groaned. "So in other words we have us, the Demeter cabin, and Percy. We're so screwed."
His brother gave a mirthless laugh. "That pretty much sums it up, ya."
"Well what about Hecate? They're always on our team."
Travis shook his head. "Not this time. Lou told me that her siblings took a vote. Ares gave up their shower time and their archery spot to get them."
His little brother rubbed a hand over his face. "Ares is really going all out this time. What did we ever do to them?" He cocked his head as he reconsidered his words, "Well... recently at least."
"I think it's to do with the whole, 'letting a harpy loose in their cabin' thing."
"But that was weeks ago! And no one got hurt... badly."
Travis shrugged. "Once again, the Ares cabin is known for holding grudges."
Conner dropped his head onto the table in defeat. "We have to do something about this."
His brother nodded. "There is no way we can win if Annabeth and Clarisse work together."
"You think?" The younger Stoll brother laughed. "Mom always said you were the bright one."
Travis glared at his younger brother. "Shut it you. I don't hear you coming up with any solutions."
He shrugged. "I don't know. We could try forging a letter from Jason telling Annabeth he needs her help with the temple."
The older son of Hermes snorted. "Ya right, like that's really going to work. She'll know it's from us."
"Well how would you separate them oh wise one?" The older brother cast his mind around, trying to come up with a solution, when his eyes caught on the Hecate table. He felt a smirk bloom across his face and quickly looked away before anyone realized where he was looking. His younger brother leaned forward with a matching smile. "I know that face. You have an idea."
Travis glanced around to make sure that no one was within hearing distance before leaning in closer to his brother, "One word, magic."
Conner frowned. "We lost our mist users to Ares. Why would we want to introduce any more magic to the game?"
His brother shook his head. "No, you don't understand me. I wasn't talking about using the magic during capture the flag."
He gave his brother a look. "What do you have in mind?"
Travis did his best to look innocent, "Nothing dangerous... just a little cold, something that will last 24 hours, just long enough to take Annabeth out of the running. Without her we might actually stand a chance. Malcolm is good, but not as good as Annabeth."
Conner's eyes widened in understanding and the brothers both did their best to blank their expressions. They didn't want to give any of the other camper's reason to suspect them. He reached down and took a bite of his breakfast, doing his best to look casual. "You're talking about breaking into the Hecate cabin. You know what Lou-Ellen would do to us if any of her siblings caught us in there, right?"
Travis gave his brother a shocked look. "Since when have we cared about the possible consequences?"
He chuckled, "Never. But this is the Hecate cabin we're talking about here. Last time one of our siblings messed with them, he spent a week as an antelope."
"There are a couple differences though. He wasn't us and we won't get caught."
ΩΩΩ
It would have been easiest for the brothers to sneak in when everyone was at dinner, but their absence would cause suspicion. Conner and Travis tried their best to keep an eye on the Hecate cabin to see when it was empty, but they also knew they had to go to all of their daily activities as well. If it came to light that someone had used a potion stolen from the Hecate campers, the Stoll brothers would be the first suspects. That meant they had to be more careful then they normally would.
They got their chance shortly after lunch. Since Ares had switched their archery time to the less appealing 8 am slot, the members of cabin twenty were clear across the camp. Even better, Hermes Cabin had the showers directly after lunch so no one who saw them would question why they were on the green space.
As soon as Conner signaled that the last Hecate camper was out of sight, Travis snuck to the door and started picking the lock. Thanks to the gifts of Hermes, it only took a few moments before he signaled his brother over and the two of them slipped inside, shutting the door behind them.
Conner glanced around and shivered. He whispered to his brother, "I don't know what it is about this place, but it always freaks me out a little."
Travis found himself whispering back. "I know." The atmosphere in the cabin was silent and dark. Simply stepping into the cabin made one think of whispered words and archaic magic. If the older Stoll hadn't known that the cabin was only a few years old, he'd have believed it to be ancient. With difficulty, he shook off the spell and nudged his brother. "Come on, let's find that potion."
They split up and started searching all of the cupboards. Most were filled with personal belongings and dried potion ingredients. Finally, towards the back of the cabin, in a locked cabinet, Conner found what they were looking for. He raised his hand and snapped to signal his brother.
Travis walked over to where Conner was and started to look through the potions. After a few moments he realized a major flaw in their plan. "Why are none of these labelled?"
His brother shrugged, "Probably because they know which is which." He snickered, "Pun intended.
His older brother rolled his eyes, but still smiled. "Well, what are we going to do? I've never seen most of these before."
Conner shrugged. "I guess we could just grab one. It's going to do something. And this cupboard was locked. So it will probably do something big enough to keep her away for at least a day, right?"
The older son of Hermes hesitated for a moment, but couldn't think of any flaw in his brothers reasoning. "Ya, you're probably right." He reached out to grab a vile that was a pale yellow colour, but as soon as he touched the bottle, the whole shelf tipped. "Di Immortals!"
He tried to grab as many as he could on the way down, but dozens of bottles hit the floor and scattered in every direction. The brothers looked at each other before bursting into action. They gathered the fallen bottles as quickly as they could and started shoving them back in the case. There was no way to remember which went where, but they were hoping that the members of cabin twenty didn't know either.
Travis dropped a random potion into his pocket and tossed the last of the bottles onto the wobbly shelf. Conner went to peak out the window to see if the coast was clear while Travis locked the cabinet back up.
As soon as there was no one in sight, the brothers booked it back to their cabin, barely remembering to lock the cabin behind them.
Safely back in the Hermes cabin, they looked at each other and burst into laughter.
Conner shook his head, "Gods I hope we found all the vials."
Travis shrugged. "If that self is that wobbly, I'm sure some of them have knocked it down too. If we didn't find them all, then I'm sure they'll think that one of them did it."
His younger brother smiled. "So you have the bottle right?"
The older Stoll pulled the vial out of his pocket with a flourish. "Wa la. One certified potion made by the children of Hecate."
The light blue-green potion glimmered in the light. Conner took it from his brother with a smile. "Now we just need to get her to drink it."
ΩΩΩ
The daughter of Athena was sitting beside the son of Poseidon on the beach. They were enjoying what was probably going to be one of the last nice weekends of the year. The green eyed boy had his arm wrapped around his girlfriend's shoulders when he noticed the Stoll brothers sneaking along the beach. Judging by the backpacks they were carrying, it looked like they had just come back from one of their infamous junk food runs. The hero of Olympus smiled at them and flagged them down.
The brothers glanced around to make sure that neither Mr. D nor Chiron was around before walking towards the pair.
Conner smiled as Travis greeted the pair, "Hey Percy, hey Annabeth."
"Hey guys." The sea god's son smiled back and gestured to the bag. "What do you got?"
The brothers shared a glance before turning back with an innocent smile that wouldn't have fooled anyone. "Nothing..."
Percy pouted. "Oh come on you two, we're not going to turn you in."
Travis sighed and set down his bag, "Fine."
He pulled open the flap to reveal a few dozen bags of chips and about half a dozen bottles of pop. The son of the sea god's eye lit up when he spied the cherry coke. Seeing the longing way he looked at it the son of Hermes rolled his eyes and passed it to his friend. "Here Percy, on the house, just don't tell Chiron."
The son of Poseidon instantly opened the top and took a swig. He smiled at the taste before offering the bottle to his girlfriend. The daughter of Athena smiled but shook her head. "No thank you, I'm good. I don't really like coke all that much."
The brothers seemed to be having a silent conversation before it was Conner's turn to open his pack. "I feel bad giving Percy a drink and leaving you without. If you want, we have some of that weird water that Piper likes." The younger Stoll offered wisdoms daughter a bottle of carbonated water. Annabeth hesitated to take it and for a moment the brothers were worried that they had been too out of character.
Before they could worry too much though, the son of Poseidon smiled and took the offered drink to pass to his girlfriend. "Thanks you guys, and don't worry. We won't say anything."
Travis laughed. "That's why we like you Percy."
Conner nodded and continued for his brother. "You understand our business."
The two put their bags back on and walked away. They resisted turning around to look at the couple until they were almost out of sight, then they peaked back. Matching smiles split their faces when they saw the daughter of Athena sipping her drink.
ΩΩΩ
It was just before dinner when the daughter of Athena started to feel... not quite sick, but not quite right either. By the time dinner was over, she was feeling dizzy and there was a pain growing in her stomach. Halfway through the campfire, she had no choice but to go back to the Athena cabin. On top of the pain and dizziness, she was suddenly exhausted. Her siblings gave her worried looks, but she just waved it off.
She managed to get back to her bunk and was asleep within moments.
ΩΩΩ
Annabeth opened her eyes to light streaming through the windows. Wisdoms daughter was incredibly glad that the dizziness from the night before seemed to have disappeared completely along with most of the pain. She was still a little sore, but she felt quite rested. She stretched, waking herself up fully, when she realized something; the light was slanting the wrong way.
She sat up in shock and grabbed her alarm clock, but she knew what she'd see even before she did. The clock read 4 pm.
The child of the wisdom goddess jumped out of bed and had to catch herself as she tripped. Though it was unusual, she didn't think anything of it, just ran to her dresser and grabbed some clothes. She wrote off smacking her head on the shelf as clumsiness due to rushing. Wisdoms child ran into the bathroom and went to pull her hair back in a quick pony-tail when she realized that something was very wrong. Her hair barely brushed her chin!
She felt her jaw drop. For a second she wondered if someone had cut her hair in her sleep. Yet even with how exhausted she felt the night before, she deemed that it wasn't possible that she could sleep through that. She ran to the mirror, trying to see what had happened.
The reflection that greeted her made her freeze. She actually caught herself glancing over her shoulder to see if someone else was standing in the room. Even though she knew it didn't make sense, it still made more sense than what she was seeing. She turned back to her reflection, trying to wrap her head around it.
She was greeted by a pair of familiar grey eyes and blonde curls that, though shorter, were still her natural hair colour. But that was where the similarities ended.
Rather than the face she was used to seeing, she saw a strong jaw, defined cheek bones, and nose just a little larger than she was used to. She examined the stunned expression that she saw, but there was no mistaking it. Though her lips were just a touch too full to be masculin, she was still undoubtedly a male.
"Di Immortals..."
ΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩΩ
Authors Note
This was a request I had from a couple months ago. I needed something to get me back in the mood to write, and I thought this would be perfect. It was supposed to be one chapter but it took longer to write than I anticipated so I'll be posting the second/last chapter as soon as I am able. :-) Hope you enjoyed it.
For those of you who read my other stories, I get a four day vacation this weekend so I won't be updating A Glimpse in Mortality until July 18th but I don't see any reason, barring some unexpected disaster, that would cause me to delay my update past then. I know it is already very over due for an update...
