MAIN TITLE: The Keeper of Fate

WARNINGS: See first chapter for warnings.

NOTES: Thanks to starwarschic11 and lydia62 for reviewing this chapter!

DISCLAIMER: I don't own the PJO series. Rick Riordan does.

Chapter 6: Hellhounds Crash My Epic Fail of a Party

I hate waiting. Probably you already knew that, but I'm going to repeat it anyways, just to annoy you. What am I waiting for? Well, actually, I'm just counting down the seconds 'til a giant eagle rips out my liver.

You don't know what's going on, do you? Well, that's not exactly surprising. I mean, it's been a while since you last saw me. Approximately three years. Sorry about that, I'm just not a keep-in-touch kind of girl.

Now, I've only got a few seconds before I die, so I really don't have time to tell you everything that's happened since the day I met Luke for the first time. I can, however, back up to earlier today. Ah, the good old days. Back when the only thing I was waiting for was my brother to get out of the shower so I could brush my teeth.

'Kay, sorry, guess I should stop reminiscing and tell you how I went from waiting to polish my molars to waiting to have one of my organs violently torn out of my body, all in just a few short hours…

"ZETH! Hurry up and get out of the bathroom! I need to brush my teeth!" I yell the words as loudly as possible, at the same time pounding on the door with my knuckles. In my left hand I grip a bright purple toothbrush; in my right I hold a tube of Colgate Total toothpaste.

Honestly, Zeth takes more time in the shower than the rest of us combined. Well, that might be an exaggeration, but still. I go in, turn on the water, shampoo/condition my hair, rinse out said shampoo/conditioner, shave my legs and armpits, wash the rest of my body with soap and water, turn off the water, exit the shower, and dry myself off, all in ten to fifteen minutes. Zeth takes thirty. I know he's tall and he has more surface area to clean, but even when my hair was like twenty-five inches long (I cut it two years ago and I haven't let it grow that long since), I still took less time than him.

I wait a full two minutes for a response. The only thing I get is the sound of the water shutting off. I decide that I've given Zeth ample time to cover himself. I push open the door, which doesn't lock because Jake broke the lock a week ago and Beckendorf has been too busy 'being-taught-the-ways-of-the-almighty-head-counsellors-by-the-magnificent-Gareth' (Gareth's words, not mine) to fix it.

The door swings open and my eyes immediately fall on my half-brother, Zeth. My reaction is instantaneous.

"EWW!" I howl, at same time slapping my hand over my already closed eyes.

"Dess–" Zeth tries to interrupt me.

"EWWWWWW! Naked brother! NAKED BROTHER!" My horrified voice shouts the words at an extremely high volume.

"Dess–" Zeth tries again.

"OH GODS, MY EYES, THEY BURN!"

"Dess–" His third attempt. I can tell he's irritated by this point.

"MY EYES! My mind has been tainted! I'll never be the same again!" I contemplate pulling an Oedipus and blinding myself, but if I remember right the 'process' is extremely painful. Maybe I'll just wear a blindfold for the rest of my life. Or until I get over my disgust at having seen my half-brother without any clothes on.

"Dess. Listen. To. Me. I am NOT NAKED. I have my robe on."

I really, really want to believe that, but my mind keeps flashing back to that glimpse I caught of his turquoise skin–wait a second. Zeth doesn't have turquoise skin. I uncover my eyes, which snap open. To my intense relief, Zeth is indeed clothed in a turquoise bath robe.

"Oh. Right. I knew that," I say sheepishly.

Zeth rolls his eyes and walks past me, muttering "Sisters, honestly…", like I'm the most exasperating person he's ever met.

The worst part? I can't really argue with that statement.

Anyways, I brush my teeth and get ready for breakfast and all that jazz. Then I join my brothers at table nine and ignore their knowing grins. Obviously, Zeth told them what happened. They can barely eat through their constant snickering. They stop laughing, however, when Tantalus stands up to address the crowd.

If you don't know who Tantalus is, then believe me, you're lucky. He wears an ancient looking prison uniform, is extremely filthy and pale, and likes to eat children. And no, I'm not making up that last part, he really is a cannibal. Or at least he used to be. He's not one anymore–not because he had a change of heart, but instead because he died and his eternal punishment was to never again eat or drink. Which really sucked for him, because until recently, he spent his days drifting across a lake with a fruit tree constantly hanging over him.

Now, though, he spends his days chasing cheeseburgers around and telling anyone who will listen that Percy Jackson and his two sidekicks will be dead any day now. Who is Percy Jackson, you ask? My gods, you're behind the times. Jackson is the guy who prevented a war between his father, Poseidon, and his uncle, Zeus, last summer when he was only twelve years old. Why were Zeus and Poseidon about to go to war? That's not important.

Anyways, he saved civilization, blah, blah, blah, but recently Thalia's tree was poisoned and he, Annabeth, and his Cyclops half-brother Tyson snuck out to find a cure (and to rescue Grover, who got himself kidnapped by Polyphemus, the Cyclops who was blinded by Odysseus). See, if Thalia's tree is sick, than it can't protect camp. If it can't protect camp, than monsters can come and kill us.

Tantalus sent Clarisse to retrieve the Golden Fleece, which will definitely be able to heal the tree. Now, I have faith in Clarisse and everything, but I really don't think she can pull this off on her own. She's too impulsive, and I can see how her blood lust might lead her astray. I can see her charging into battle without thinking things through, just because she wants to conquer, to destroy.

So yeah, she's not exactly the best choice. Which is why I'm glad Percy and his 'sidekicks' snuck out. Honestly, a better title for Annabeth would be 'Percy's brain'. The kid's not exactly known for his intelligence. As for Tyson, well, Tyson is really strong, immune to fire, and capable of building deadly weapons and fixing things. So he'll definitely be useful.

What I really hate? While Jackson, Tyson, Annabeth, Clarisse and Underwood are all off doing their own thing, the rest of us are stuck here, with Tantalus. I mean sure, they're probably all in some sort of life threatening situation right now, but we have to participate in the cannibal's games, which include: first-one-to-make-me-a-latte-that-I-won't-be-able-to-drink-gets-a-day-off-from-KP, whoever-can-entertain-me-by-maiming-the-largest-amount-of-campers-wins-a-useless-first-place-blue-ribbon, and my personal favourite, let's-all-throw-darts-at-Jackson's-picture-and-imagine-how-miserable-he-is-right-now-while-Dionysus-orders-the-satyrs-to-play-Celebration-by-Kool-and-the-Gang-on-their-reed-pipes.

Everyone hates Tantalus, even Mr. D who, like me, is starting to appreciate how good life was when Chiron was the activities director. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I miss the old horse man, I really do. If Chiron was here right now, he'd be announcing that "Capture the Flag will take place today, young heroes, so prepare yourselves!"

Now Tantalus stands up in the middle of the mess hall, and all he says is, "Who's ready for a fun game of capture-the-barbecued-chicken-and-bring-it-to-me?"

There's a round of unenthusiastic applause and a few half-hearted cheers that are so pathetic that they can barely even be classified as half-hearted.

"Excellent," Tantalus beams at all of us, as if nothing makes him happier than seeing how unhappy we are. "Now off you go, that chicken isn't going to find itself!"

Obediently, we all file into the woods. As soon as we're out of Tantalus' sight (he usually doesn't bother making sure we're actually doing what he says, he just assumes that we'll follow his orders without question) a third of the Ares campers run off to find monsters to kill, half of the Hermes cabin leave so they can raid the camp store (which they run so it's really like they're stealing from themselves), the majority of the Aphrodite kids head over to Zephyros Creek so they can stare at their own reflections in the water, and a couple of the children of Demeter search for plants and flowers to add to their catalogue.

The rest of us work out the schedule for guarding Thalia's tree. Before Clarisse went on her quest, we had a lot less campers signing up for border patrol. Now that she's gone, monster attacks seem a lot more frequent and there are a lot more injuries. People are taking things more seriously now. Even all the campers that just left help out sometimes.

Once we've got the general order down, the remaining campers wander off in twos and threes so that if Tantalus happens to check in, it will look like people are actually looking for his stupid barbecued chicken.

I say goodbye to my siblings and head over to relieve Malcolm, who slipped away during breakfast to act as look out for monsters. We prefer to have two campers stationed there, but often we can only afford one person sneaking off right under Tantalus' nose. I think Mr. D knows what we're up to, but for some reason he's not ratting us out to our lovely new activities director. Maybe he's hoping that someone will get killed while guarding the tree. Whatever.

When I approach him, Malcolm is leaning back against the huge pine tree while looking bored out of his mind. He glances up when I reach him. "Are you taking over?" he asks hopefully, and then grins when I nod.

"Here you go," he says cheerfully, at the same time removing the bronze whistle from his neck and handing it to me.

"Thanks," I grumble, because I'd really rather be out in the woods, taunting Cheryl about her vanity.

He skips off and I sigh. There's really nothing else for me to do except put on the stupid demigod whistle and wait 'til my shift ends. If you don't know what a demigod whistle is, it's pretty much the same thing as a dog whistle, except it only works on demigods (well that was a toughie, you certainly couldn't tell that from the name).

What do we use the whistle for? Well, one person isn't really much against two huge bronze bulls (which we were fighting the day Annabeth returned to camp with Tyson and Jackson in tow), so the whistle is used to call on the other campers in case of a monster attack. I've been on border patrol three times, and I haven't been attacked once. Which just goes to show you, names don't have as much power over people as the gods seem to think they do. Just because my mother gave me a name that means unfortunate doesn't mean I'm unlucky all the time.

I sigh again and plop down on the grass at the base of the tree. I pass the time by tracing patterns in the fabric of my bright orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt and by playing with the bronze whistle that hangs around me neck. Now, if you've ever traced patterns and played with a whistle for thirty minutes straight, then you'll know it's extremely boring. It doesn't take me very long at all to grow restless. I start to tap my foot impatiently. My shift is an hour. I survived the first half of it; I can survive the second, too. Just thirty more minutes.

…Gods, I can't last another ten minutes, let alone thirty! It feels like I've been sitting here for five hours. I should just get up and leave right now. No monster is going to come–

Oh, man. I actually jinxed myself. I mean, I used to think that the idea that you could jinx yourself was a load of bull, but…I change my mind. Why do I change my mind? Well, it has a little something to do with the miniature army of hellhounds that is charging right at me.

I jump up like I've just been electrocuted. My right hand removes a celestial bronze sword from its sheath, while my left hand raises the bronze whistle to my mouth. I blow into the whistle with all my strength. I put so much air into it that when I'm done I feel dizzy from lack of oxygen. It pays off, though. The shrill blast that emanates from the whistle is so loud that it nearly shatters my eardrums.

Almost immediately, three Athena girls, one Ares boy (NOT Sherman) and both of Mr. D's twins come to my aid. The Ares guy lets out a battle cry and charges right into the mass of hellhounds. The Athena girls gesture for me, Pollux and Castor to join them, which we do right away, because to be honest, we would really rather leave all the fighting to the son of the war god.

"Okay," one of the girls shouts over the snarling of the hellhounds. "Mark is doing pretty well up over there," she starts.

"I'll say," Pollux interjects, and as I watch Mark hack up demon after demon, I have to agree.

The girl ignores the blond boy and continues, "But he won't last forever. There are too many of them. So we need a plan."

"And you guys are going to come up with this plan, right? 'Cause I'm all out of ideas for destroying a mob of angry dogs that are all as large as Clifford."

"Clifford? Who is–never mind. I'm better off not knowing. But yes, Castor, we will come up with the plan. Zeus knows the rest of you guys are entirely useless," the second Athena girl mutters under her breath. Though we all hear her, none of us argue. 'Cause lets face it, she's right.

"Now," says the third sister. "You guys help Mark out. Keep those Clifford-sized dogs distracted." Well at least one of them had a childhood that actually consisted of them watching cartoon shows about giant red dogs.

Castor turns pale. "Us? Why us? Why do we have to do the distracting?"

"Because we're coming up with the plan." The second girl smiles sweetly at him and then adds, "But don't worry, Dess will help you. Won't you, Dess?"

"I will?" I ask, and then hastily backtrack when I notice her glaring at me. "I mean, of course I will."

"Well that's reassuring," Pollux says sarcastically, but when his brother and I charge into the fray, he's right there beside us.

I head straight for Mark, who is in process of obliterating a hellhound. He's already destroyed more than a quarter of them, but the Athena girls are right; he won't hold up much longer. Using my sword, I slice up a monster that was about to attack Mark. Gold dust explodes around me but I ignore it. I cover the Ares' boys previously undefended back as best as I can while trying not to die.

I catch glimpses of Pollux and Castor fighting off the monsters. They both fight with swords and shields. Watching them fight is the most amazing thing I've ever seen (I'm exaggerating, I know). They both seem to know instinctively when the other one is in danger. A hellhound lunges at Pollux's side, but Castor is already there, running the huge dog through with his sword.

Somewhere off to the side, I can see the Athena girls conversing. Gods, could they take any longer to come up with a plan? I could have come up with a plan by now. Granted, it would most likely be an incredibly stupid plan that would somehow blow up all of Long Island (which is where Camp Half-Blood is located), but at least we would have a plan.

Then I notice that one of the girls seems to be missing. Oh my gods, she didn't go to get Tantalus, did she? No, there's no way she would get him. Her mother is the goddess of wisdom. Getting Tantalus would be the most idiotic thing to do in this situation. Children of Athena don't do idiotic. They just don't.

I duck as a hellhound attempts to scratch out my eyeballs. Mark stabs the red-eyed demon right in the face. Honestly, if I get anymore gold dust on me it's going to look like I bathe in the stuff.

Another hellhound leaps at Mark. It knocks him to the ground and his sword goes flying, landing at me feet. The huge hound snarls, baring his massive fangs at a now terrified Mark. I seize Mark's sword with my left hand. I've never used two swords in my life, but the characters in video games do it all the time, so how hard can it be?

Apparently, it can be very hard. The weight of two swords throws me off almost entirely. I swing wildly at the hellhound with Mark's sword and almost impale myself. Still, it distracts the hound, which was my intention (I think). Unfortunately, it decides that its next target is me. Mark is still lying on the ground, dazed, and I'm holding his only weapon. So yeah, things aren't looking so good for me.

I back up and hold the two swords up in a sort of cross formation, so that it looks like I'm trying to ward off a vampire. I feel warm breath and saliva–oh, gross, dog drool–on the back of my neck, and I realize there's another hellhound behind me.

Well, that's it then; I'm done for. I wonder what my shroud will look like. I know that the Hephaestus cabin usually uses metal shrouds, but I really don't want one of those. Hopefully my siblings know me well enough to go against tradition and make me a–what colour should my shroud be? Maybe purple? I like purple. And yellow. Yeah, so they'll make me a purple and yellow shroud. With jewellery on it. Only they don't know that I like jewellery. Crap. Maybe I should've written some sort of will. I wonder if Hades will let me mail my siblings one. Do they have paper in the Underworld?

I close my eyes and wait for–I don't know, some sort of tunnel with a light at the end of it? Flashbacks of my life? All I get is the feeling that ashes are raining down on my head. Ashes? I open my eyes, and am surprised to find that what I thought was ash is actually golden dust from a fallen monster.

Jake grins at me as he holds up a giant hammer with a sharp (and when I say sharp, I mean sharp) point on each end. I don't really know what it's called. All I know is that it saved my life. Suddenly I recall that there was another hellhound behind me. I whirl around, and there's Beckendorf, holding up a huge shield with his right arm, while a sword rests in his left hand (he's left-handed, in case you couldn't figure that out on your own).

Both of my brothers are staring at me expectantly, like they're waiting for me to praise their 'awesomeness' or something. So naturally, I do the exact opposite. "What in Zeus' name took you guys so long? I was two seconds away from being monster chow!" I exclaim, fuming.

Beckendorf takes a nervous step back. Suddenly I feel like laughing. Is he scared of me? He's at least a foot taller than me. Jake, on the other hand, takes a step toward me. "We came as soon as we could," he says earnestly, for once not making a joke. It's nice to know he takes the possibility of me dying seriously. "We would have gotten here faster, only Fiona asked us to bring the cannon–"

I turn pale. "Are you crazy? Why on earth would you bring that thing? It's–"

"I know, I know," Beckendorf says quickly. "It's stupid and idiotic and moronic. It hasn't been tested yet…"

"Aww, don't be so hard on yourself, bro, you know it will work. Your solution was pure genius," Jake praises, which seems to make Beckendorf feel a little bit better.

It does nothing for me, though. The survival of everyone on Long Island (I might be exaggerating just a little) is more important than Beckendorf's self-esteem (mostly because he has so much of it).

Probably you're wondering what could cause so much destruction. You remember that cannon I told you about a few years back? Probably not, so let me give you a refresher. My siblings had plans to make a cannon that could fire celestial bronze cannon balls at approaching monsters. The only problem was that normal explosives wouldn't be able to tear through the celestial bronze, and all of the alternatives that the boys (mostly Beckendorf) came up with were too dangerous to use.

Since Thalia's tree created a barrier that protected the camp from monster attacks, the cannon wasn't really needed. So the boys sort of gave up on it. But then the tree was poisoned and the barrier started to fail. So they started up their search for an answer again, only they searched with a lot more urgency. Finally, after many sleepless nights, Beckendorf found a solution.

See, if the inside of the celestial bronze shells are lined with Stygian iron (I'm not entirely sure what it is, but I know that is has something to do with the River Styx), then there's no possibility of the Greek fire escaping through a crack and making contact with the actual cannon and exploding. Or at least, Beckendorf thinks there's no possibility.

Beckendorf's theory hasn't been tested yet. Why? Because Stygian iron isn't exactly easy to come by; it's found in the underworld. Gareth managed to order some from our dad through the Hermes cabin, but he didn't get very much. It's a rare metal, and expensive. We only got a little bit, and we didn't want to waste it all on test runs. So Gareth decided we would only use it in emergencies. I guess me almost dying counts as an emergency. That's nice to know. Still, I'm glad that we didn't have to use it.

It occurs to me that I've been thinking about all of this for awhile. I can be pretty unobservant sometimes, but even I would notice if there were hellhounds attacking me. I glance around and am surprised to find that all of the hounds are gone. There's gold dust everywhere, as well as arrows embedded in the ground. I realize that a lot more campers have gathered to help out. Several Apollo campers are helping Mark and Mr. D's twins, while most of the Hermes kids are brushing monster dust off their weapons.

I notice that the Athena girl who ran off to get help–and the one that made me charge the hellhounds in the first place–doesn't look too happy. In fact, she looks downright furious as glares straight ahead. I turn to see what she's staring at, and the next think I know I'm clapping a hand on my mouth to keep myself from laughing.

"What?" Jake demands.

I ignore his question for the moment. "What's her name?" I ask, pointing at the blond-haired daughter of Athena.

"Jake mentioned her before, she asked us to bring the cannon. Her name's Fiona. But why are you laughing at her?" Beckendorf questions.

Quickly, I explain that I'm laughing because one of the female Apollo campers is tending to Castor's wounds while very obviously flirting with him, and Fiona has been glaring daggers at the girl for the past five minutes. My half-brothers immediately start snickering and saying 'Someone's jealous!' in mocking tones.

The campers all start to head back, the Apollo girl supporting Castor while Fiona walks behind them, absolutely seething with rage, and we decide that we should get the cannon and follow them.

"Shouldn't of brought this thing here, now we have to lug it all the way back," Beckendorf grunts.

"Well, since you two are the strong ones, I think you guys should drag it back to the Armory." I try to make my smile look as angelic as possible–which means that it probably looks a little demonic.

"No way! You guys are older than me, you should bring it back," Jake protests vehemently.

"That's right, Jake," Beckendorf agrees. "We are older. And you should always listen to your elders, so…" He grins at me mischievously and we both take off as fast as we can.

"Hey! Guys! You can't make be bring this back by myself! It's like a thousand pounds! Guys?" We run, laughing our heads off as we hear his increasingly frantic shouts.

And then something in his voice seems to change. "Guys? Come back! DESS, HELP!"

We wheel around, and my blood turns to ice. Jake is in trouble, all right. A massive shadow hangs over us as Beckendorf and I run back to our terrified half-brother. The shadow soars upward, and I recognize its owner as an eagle. Only about fifty times the size of the regular bird, with huge black wings and blood dripping from its talons. Please, please don't let that be Jake's blood. That had better not be Jake's blood.

Anger floods through me. Nobody–I repeat, NOBODY–messes with my little brother and gets away with it. My sword finds its way into my hand without any conscious command on my part. I charge the eagle, somehow ignoring Beckendorf who is screaming at me to stop, somehow ignoring my brain which is trying to make me realize that I have no chance against the eagle.

The giant bird's eyes are fixed on Jake, but when I come running at it while brandishing a celestial bronze sword, it switches its focus to me. It lunges at me, and it occurs to me that the bird's wingspan is about ten times longer than I am tall.

The eagle's talons rip through my right arm and my sword goes skittering across the grass. I feel like my head is going to explode from the pain. I barely even notice all the blood. It takes all my focus to keep my eyes open, to keep myself standing.

Yeah, I'm definitely going to die this time. My legs give out and my knees hit the grass. As my vision starts to blur from the pain in my arm (yeah, I'm a wimp when it comes to pain), I notice Jake's hazy form heading towards an unidentifiable shape. Or is that Beckendorf running towards me? I can't tell. Maybe it's both. I can sort of make out the eagle's wings flapping above me. Somehow, I can see its yellow eyes staring down at me as it gets ready to go in for the kill. My sight seems to fog up even more.

And then, I'm waiting.

Author's Note: For the next while, Luke will only be in flashbacks (though there will be a lot of flashbacks, starting in chapter 9) for the most part, but eventually he'll be back in the actual story.

Reviews are appreciated.