Note, I'm skipping a lot of flavor text and background info, I figure if you're reading a fan fiction about a book, then chances are you've read the book and know, at least in part, that information.

I own none of the characters, not even the OC I made as she is part of the PJaO books and anyone is free to duplicate her for their own stories. Writing a story using characters from published books, I certainly can't complain if someone likes my idea enough to run it in a different direction, but please, no slash.

Rick Riordan and Patricia Briggs own all characters.

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The gun on the cover image is what I based Terry's on. It's a real weapon that fires real shells, shotgun in the case of the gun in the picture. Terry's has more decoration, including an engraving of the Drakkon she killed on the handle (made of Drakkon Ivory) and Greek lettering spelling out "End of Infinity" along the barrel. It's also a lot more powerful, but then, most of the weapons used by demi-gods are.

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The Ronald McDonald House Foundation is a real thing. They establish places for the families of children in long term care facilities to stay so they can be near their children, and the children can have someone from their family nearby. For instance; if a young child has leukemia, and the family lives a hundred miles from the nearest treatment center, The Ronald McDonald House would allow for some of her family to stay at low, or no charge, rather than forcing the parents to pay for a hotel room in addition to the hospital bills, or stay home and only visit once per week.

I strongly encourage everyone to give to this organization whenever you have some extra cash. Donation is easy, every McDonalds has a donation box near one of their registers. Please give generously; being alone while in the hospital sucks for an adult, for children, it's much worse.

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If anyone would like to do the story of Terry's first quest, or her parents, give it a whirl. Her father was a Miwok Indian, son of Hephaestus, his last name, Yutu, means 'Coyote out Hunting.' Her mother was the daughter of two different half-bloods, one the son of Aphrodite, the other the daughter of Hecate. Let me know if you're going to try, but bear in mind, the story I established for Terry pushes on some subjects that can easily offend, please tread carefully, and tactfully. Also, in both cases it'd be strictly PJaO, no crossovers.

I'm also still working out how I'm going to work children of two half-bloods. They'd still be half-bloods, but it'd be half-human, quarter one god and quarter another god. I've got a basic idea, but it hasn't played out completely in my mind yet.

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Λύκος meaning wolf is something I got off a translation program. Not all the other programs would say the same thing, but most didn't offer a substitute either, so I went with it. If it's incorrect, sorry.

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I'm not entirely sure of the cabin numbers; I was basing them off the order of seating in the counsel of Olympus from 'The Demigod Files.'

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We Finally Talk

Mercy

"We do not need a battle with the Vampires right now." Adam says with some amusement. "Though I must admit, turning you lot out against Marsilia and her people has a certain attraction, she has far too good of a connection to the 'Lord of Night' to risk open war at this time. Besides, they won't hunt here, so close to their homes, so their presence actually makes the tri-cities safer by keeping out the supernatural riff raff. If we can manage to get through the next couple of days though, we'll talk."

"Damn, I really dislike Vampires." Nico pouted; "Everyone has this idiotic idea that they're the height of coolness or something. They're really just an aberration in the cycle of life and death. They're not SUPERNATURAL; they're UNNATURAL; zits on the face of creation that need to be popped." Eeewww, nice analogy there.

"I wouldn't say that they're that bad, except, most of them are." I have to work on my comebacks, I've gotten rusty.

Nico looks at me; "You'd be the last type of person I'd think would be friends with a vampire. Now granted, the various types of creatures from our two worlds are clearly different, but most Spirit Walkers in our world would never consider making friends with an undead."

"Well, clearly you've never met a Walker who was raised by Werewolves and had no idea what she even was until a few months ago. So there!" I said while sticking my tongue out at him, "Wait, did you say SPIRIT Walker?"

"Yessss! You're actually a type of weak half-blood, like us, but based on some of the lower ranks of the upper echelon spirits, but really powerful in certain distinct areas, varied somewhat by who you're descended from, but mostly dealing with spirits and the dead. If you want, we can talk about it later, we'd need to figure out the differences anyway."

My flabbergasted limit has officially been breached. Its bulkhead has been opened, and my mind is sinking into the sea of numbness quicker than a Wile-E Coyotes plan. I have absolutely no idea what to say at this point, when suddenly Annabeth leans over and gives me a t-shirt; "Welcome to a half-bloods life, I'd give you the spiel about camp, but that might not exist here so, the shirts the best I can do for now." It's one of her orange t-shirts.

I'm feeling a little put upon at this point when I happen to look over at Molly, "You don't seem surprised at the reality of Vampires and Walkers, why?"

"The safety briefing police get in training isn't the only source of information on the supernatural."

"Care to explain that comment?" Adam asks in a surprisingly polite voice.

"I wasn't aware I had to explain anything to you. Or do you imagine some sort of special privilege for werewolves to access whatever they want and to not be made to reveal anything at all about themselves?"

"As a matter of fact, yes I do. We're walking a fine line here in keeping our freedom and preventing a bloodbath should the government not have learned its lesson with their screw up with the Fae. It's a fight that neither side can win, and will simply result in a lot of dead bodies and the collapse of leadership for both sides. So YES, if there is another source of information on supernatural creatures, accurate or not, we DO need to control the access to it!" Adams eyes are bright yellow now; his wolf is clearly impatient right now. "Besides, if you have any desire for our assistance with getting you out of the jam you've found yourself in, you'll damn well give me anything we ask for. After all, what is the penalty for shooting an unarmed civilian in the mouth?! Percy was right, you've got an ax to grind here, and something tells me, it won't take much of an investigation to reveal it to I.A., rendering anything you say against us as bigoted, maybe even bigoted enough to commit murder, or attempt to anyway. So start coming clean, I've had to many threats that I've ignored come back and bite us in the ass lately for me to NOT deal with you one way or another!"

She's looking straight at the ground now, her survival instinct might be kicking in late, but at least it's kicking in. "My father was a werewolf. We used to live in Barstow. The old Alpha was a complete jerk. He'd made the decision; back before you outed yourselves, that every child born from a pack member had to be made a werewolf by their fourteenth birthday, no matter what. I was nine when my brother died during the process. My mom ended up committing suicide and my father was almost destroyed, I think that if he didn't have me and my baby brother Mike, he would have joined my mom. So when Carter decided to challenge for the Alpha slot, my dad was more than happy to support him, and was quite happy that the first thing he did after killing the old alpha was rescind that order."

"But the Marrock had to intervene, after all, he'd said no challenges for position, therefore, what happened couldn't be allowed. So he sent his assassin, Charles to go and kill everyone involved, including my Dad. I spent the next decade in foster care with everyone thinking I was insane for believing in werewolves when after all, it was common knowledge that all those legends had been based on the Fae."

"I'd actually come to believe it as well you know. That I was just off my rocker, insane, clinging to a childhood fantasy to explain the death of my parents. Right up until you admitted you were real. Suddenly, I remembered. I remembered what it was like, who they were, and most importantly, what happened." At that, she choked up and couldn't continue and I heard a sigh come from the other side of the phone. I didn't know if it was Charles or Bran though.

Sam broke the silence; "I remember that. The old Alphas mate called Da' and complained that the pack had turned against her mate in open revolt, risking their exposure. It's pretty rare for an entire pack to turn against the alpha, so Charles was sent to find out what happened. In general, the reputation of Charles is such that most people will turn over any wrongdoers pretty quick and things work out with as little bloodshed as is possible, but sometimes, like in cases like this, his reputation works against him. Everyone thought that Charles would kill everyone, so everyone fought him. He ended up killing over a dozen that day before anyone was even willing to talk to him. When he found out what had happened, he killed the old alpha's mate, as it was her insistence that that idiotic rule existed. He later told me that if anyone would have bothered to explain, he would have let the challenge stand. The 'No Challenge' rule still exists, but it's never been completely closed to any challenges. If there is mitigating circumstances, then Da' will allow them, sometimes even after the fact."

"Had we known earlier, Charles would have been sent to take down the Alpha instead. All it would have taken was a phone call or a letter by someone, anyone, and it would have been dealt with!" Now Sam's eyes are glowing, he's pissed and wants us to know it. It's a continuing battle for Bran and his sons to get information from the lower wolves as to the true state of the packs, rather than the glowing reports some Alphas give, or the doomsday reports others give to get more money from the Marrock (those usually don't work, he sends people like Asil to find out what the problems are). Since that entire mess could have been avoided, he's making sure that Molly understands that her father had some blame in the mess as well, even if it was understandable.

After that episode, the meal in general continues without any major hitch. Afterwards, Percy and gang give us all a highly edited version of their story, one that I'm not entirely sure was edited just for the police. Their still not sure if they can trust us or not and I'm still reeling from Nico's little revelation earlier that I'm having a hard time processing it all.

Evidently, they go to a special camp for kids like them, with what family line you're part of determining which cabin you join. Percy is cabin three, Terry (and her father) is cabin five, Annabeth is cabin six, and Nico was cabin eleven, which evidently, in addition to its own blood-line, used to host all the lower lines as well, but is now in cabin thirteen. When Ben makes a comment under his breath about unlucky numbers, Nico just makes a comment about unlucky blood.

We get a pretty basic run down of the last six years or so, skipping enough to make me wonder why they're even bothering to tell us anything, but still giving us enough information to get an idea of who these kids are, personality wise, and how we can expect them to react to things, though that has changed somewhat, as evidently they've grown in power today, and the curse that Percy suffers under has gotten stronger. It must be horrible to be completely invulnerable, just horrible. His temper issues, while admittedly bad (OK, they are horrible), aren't that much worse than a werewolf. Of course, I gather pretty quick, he's got a smidgen more power at his fingertips then most werewolves.

The curse they talk about sounds a lot like the gift Achilles got from his mother, but I don't mention it. If we can cut off his foot and kill him, we've got an advantage if he turns against us, but only if he doesn't know we know. And that makes me wonder, why didn't Achilles ware shin guards? No one ever mentions that.

The first major surprise comes from Nico, who was evidently born in 1935. This led to a short discussion on WW2 and that there was a Hitler on our world, which seemed to surprise the kids as evidently, their version of Hitler had the same dad as Nico, and that he didn't exist here.

Hmmm. Not sure what to make of that. Nico is scary as crap in the best case, finding out he's Hitler's half-brother makes it that much worse. It's a reaction he seems to have expected, even embraced to an extent. Of course we find out their version was even worse than our version, having some actual supernatural power gave their version more motivation, and ended up killing about three times as many people. Nice!

Of course this leads to a discussion on the whole age twenty thing, but we find out from them, and their not lying at all here, that the years didn't actually pass for Nico, as he was somewhere that time wouldn't affect. And that wouldn't allow him to age or grow in body or mind, so he's still only thirteen.

Nico's revelation does cause us to start looking up their names on computer databases, and there are actually versions of them, though they have different parents and backgrounds. This worlds version of Percy for instance, was (he died in a drunk driving accident with his mom because of his stepfather Gabe) the son of Sally Jackson and a Sailor who died a month before they were to get married. Rachel's parents went broke in their first business venture, and she ended up getting killed in a gang fight in the ghettos of New York last year. We weren't able to find anything off Terry Yutu or Nico (but he would have been before computer records), but Annabeth is the daughter of a prominent scientist who just happens to work for Daryl's company. From that, we get access to fingerprints and discover that their prints, while similar enough to be siblings, maybe even twins, aren't the same. So there's no chance of mistaken identity from prints. And the photos are enough to show they have only a vague resemblance, I guess several years of intensive training and combat will alter someone physically.

As the conversation moves towards night we start to discuss the prophecy Rachel gave (Bran has had to change phones twice, on each end) and we decide to grill something outside. When Ben is lighting the fire, I hear a gasp from Bran and Charles over the line, and Sam from right in front of us.

"Da', was that what I thought it was?" Bran nearly hisses, but responds and starts to issue orders.

Tony, being one of the few who can't hear what's going happening on the other end asks; "What's going on?"

I reply; "We just lost a pack."

"What do you mean, you lost a pack?" He's nervous now, and even Molly looks afraid at that.

"Exactly what it sounds like Tony, someone killed an entire pack of werewolves. They were connected to the Marrock, so he and Sam and Charles felt it happen. This is not good."

Tony's reply of "SHIT!" just about sums it up. It doesn't take more than an hour before the bodies are discovered; Charles is already on his way to Atlanta GA, the home of the dead pack. Between the pegasus and dead pack, werewolves are going to be big news for a while.

When the food is done, and the news broadcasts have been reviewed enough to get what we can from them, we turn to start eating when I see the kids looking at their food, and the fire. Suddenly, Percy gets up, carries a large chunk of his steak over to the fire and starts speaking in Greek with the other kids right behind. I glance at Ben who says they're praying with a shrug. They throw the food into the fire were it is almost instantly consumed in the flames. That only happens when magic is involved.

"PERCY!" someone shouts' "Oh thank Olympus! Percy, and Annabeth, oh Terry, Nico, it's so good to see you guys!" The kids are completely flummoxed (and we're all standing ready to fight). There's a young girl, maybe eight or nine jumping from one to the other hugging them with another large man standing right off to the side of the grill who smells like a Fae.

Percy, who' still in shock looks at the girl; "Hestia?!"