Why a year? Demigods have so many advantages, I need a reasonable amount of time to give my oc a fighting chance... even the weakest demigod starts off super strong, faster, durable and they all heal faster. Some more so than others, I needed a realistic time to develop.
I am sorry for the change, but the last story sucked bad. All tell and no show...
Everything about this story is superior...
"Magica facie!" Rowan muttered, pushing magic into his eyes, a purple haze filling the world through his vision until he saw it. There, before him on Halfblood hill, was an extremely powerful silver barrier of magic emanating from the pine tree. "I can't tell what caused it but I am ninety percent sure it's selfless sacrifice, That is the only thing I can think of that would create a barrier this pure." He walked up the hill and brushed his hands along the barrier, amazed at the love and light that filled it, so potent that he almost started to cry from the sheer heart warming essence of it all. "Wait, how could a tree be producing this kind of barrier, was this...was this a person? There would have to be a soul in it, for this to work..." he pushed through but to his annoyance the barrier held him back, like walking into a beach ball. "Um Hecate, a little help here?" Another shudder of magic washed through the air, and he actually saw the barrier ripple and a hole form in front of him. " Thank you, My Lady, thank you."
Walking through it, he was amazed to see and sense an entire valley of mystical beings. Flying horses, literal freaking satyrs and children that oozed magic far exceeding his own power by miles. He saw the cabins from earlier, only they were crystal clear, each a different type and look, One was silver and the other a glowing gold, one had grass growing on it's roof! It was incredible!
"This... this is amazing." Stunned, he slowly walked down the hill and made his way towards the nearest group of children, at a volley ball pit, only to stop as a wave of intense power drew his attention. It spoke of darkness, nature and madness... and he knew he had to honor that power before he was smited by it. With dedications he made his way to the source of that power, which was at the big farm house's wrap around porch, only to see several people. A boy with black hair and green eyes, a boy with curly brown hair, a man in a wheel chair, and a grumpy looking pudgy man with black hair and the ugliest clothes in addition to bloodshot eyes. It was this last one that oozed the dark power. "Hello?"
They all jumped, even the source of incredible power. That man looked at him and smirked. "A witch, huh? Who led you here?"
"Hecate, I think..." He said, realizing that the man must have been a god if he oozed such power.
"Interesting..." The man gave him a once over. "Been a while since we have had a mortal witch here, that ought to be interesting."
The wheel chair bound man smiled at him, showing his beared face and thinning hair. "I am Chiron, and this is Mr. D. What is your name?"
"Rowan... sir."
"It is nice to meet you, I wish we could have been introduced more properly."
The boy, with black hair, asked. "Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"
Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at the boy like he was an idiot, but it was Rowan who said. "Names have power in magic, as powerful as Mr. D is, I am sure he would rather have people not know his name or say it at the least." He looked the man over, saw his tiger print shirt, put two and two together and knew his real name... and that was haunting.
"Very right."
"I must say, Percy," Chiron broke in, talking to the boy with black hair "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."
"House call?"
"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."
"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" Percy asked.
Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."
"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"
"Yes, sir!" Grover, the curly haired boy, trembled as he took the fourth chair. "You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed Percy suspiciously.
"I'm afraid not," Percy said.
"I'm afraid not, sir," he said, proving to be a douche.
"Sir," Percy repeated.
"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules."
"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said. "Mr. Rowan, do you know how to play?" Rowan nodded and soon was playing alongside the rest of them.
"Please," Percy said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"
Mr. D snorted, not an ounce of empathy in his voice or heart. "I asked the same question."
The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.
Chiron smiled at Percy sympathetically. "Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'
"She said ...She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."
"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"
"What?" Percy asked.
He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so the boy did. As he did, Rowan focused on his aura, and sensed tremendous strength, the feel of water and freedom. It was intense.
"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."
"Orientation film?" Percy asked.
"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"-he pointed to thehorn in the shoe box-"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods-the forces you call the Greek gods-are very much alive."
Rowan listend with rapture, even as Mr. D started yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.
"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"
"Eh? Oh, all right."
Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.
"Wait," Percy told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."
"Well, now," Chiron said. "God-capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."
"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about-"
"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."
"Smaller?"
"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."
"Zeus," Percy foolishly said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them." And there distant thunder on a cloud-less day.
"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."
"But they're stories," Percy said. "They're-myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."
"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson, what will people think of your 'sci-ence' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals-they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."
"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imag-ine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"
"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," Percy said.
"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that some-day people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"
"I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."
"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."
Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."
"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"
He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.
"Mr. D," Chiron warned, "your restrictions."
Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise. "Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!" More thunder. Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.
"Impressive magic, that is so far beyond me, I only finished my first grimoire. Took me a year..."
Mr. D turned. "That's rather impressive, takes most many times that number." He gave him an appraisingly sort of look.
Chiron winked at Percy. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."
"A wood nymph," Percy repeated.
"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time-well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away-the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tear-ing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair." Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.
"And ..." Percy stammered, "your father is ..."
"Di immortales, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."
"You're Dionysus," Percy said. "The god of wine." And Rowan smiled, he loved being right.
Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"
"Y-yes, Mr. D."
"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"
"You're a god."
"Yes, child."
"A god. You."
Mr. D then looked at Percy, and something in the air trembled with power, he could taste the illusionary magic, but he was unsure of what was being shown. All he knew is that Percy paled quite a bit.
"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.
"No. No, sir."
Mr. D turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."
"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."
Mr. D breathed through his nose, then got up, and Grover rose, too. "I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."
Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."
Mr. D turned to Percy. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners. Oh and Rowan, you may stay in the Big House. As a witch and Priest in training of Hecate, it would be unwise to deny you some hospitality."
He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miser-ably.
"Will Grover be okay?" Percy asked Chiron.
Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."
"Mount Olympus," Percy said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"
"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."
"That makes sense." Rowan said. " I always wondered why I sensed so much magic and saw so many Greek forces in America of all places."
"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in America?" Percy asked.
"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."
"The what?"
"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know-or as I hope you know, since you passed my course-the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps-Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on-but the same forces, the same gods."
"And then they died."
"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the archi-tecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Center, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not promi-nently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not-and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."
"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?"
Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair. "Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate." And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached. From the box had come a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.
"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson, Rowan. Let's meet the other campers."
Rowan clapped. "Excellent magic, I can only hope to accomplish such things soon!"
The man, Chiron smirked at him. "Maybe one day child, you will have to tell me what you've accomplished. That and how you found a genuine magical book and how you entered Hecate's service. So rare these days."
Chapter end, tell me what you think in the reviews.
This was a joy to write.
Love, your Ninja Overlord,
Mika.