Replies:
I love how Percy really wanted that question answered XD –ImpossibleThings12
That was just the mad fanboy part of me who hates awkward details that never made sense in the canon. I've made a list. :P
I expected that people will learn about his dad after he beats everyone at capture the flag and beats Clarisse. –OrangeOreo
Yeah, I just didn't really want to rewrite too much of the book. I'm planning on going through maybe four books in twenty-five chapters. Obviously, I want to skip a few minor details.
Though I'm fine with Hestia, and i don't really dislike her character at all, I am frustrated by how big of a role she plays in some fics. Hestia, even after knowing Percy, in the book NAMED after her, is still almost always in the background. I dont think she was mentioned through all of HOO, either, actually. In my opinion, she should still be a background character, no matter how much you like her, kuz its just her personality, right? Anyway, that's just my opinion. –some fucking random guy
I often get a headache about topics like these. While I completely agree that the gods shouldn't have too much of a sway in stories like these, this site was made so you can rewrite stories in the way you want. And many people love having more gods/goddesses in the stories. I mean look at Percy/goddess stories. Like, oh my gods Pertemis is so overdone (even though I'm guilty to reading them XDD). I will assure you though that I won't be making gods too influential in this series.
Oooooh! I like how you added the earthquake :) –Earth'sChild93
I guess any child of Earth would appreciate earthquakes. :)
DAMMIT WHY COULDN'T YOU HAVE HER ANSWER THE QUESTION BEFORE HE LEFT A GUY NAKED! that aside good chapter. I'm proud of you for not putting in any extremely noticeable foreshadowing (you're learning) in this chapter (for once) –Omega Alpha Hydra
Yay me!
I can't wait for you to post a new chapter. Lately it's been difficult to find a truly enticing story such as this one where the author actually understands the basics of grammar. I do hope the next chapter is in Piper or Jason's point of view! Please update soon! –PeaceLoveandFandoms
I'm glad you like the story. I do my best to try and correct my own grammar, but I apologize in advance if my work has some errors now and again. I'm going beta-less at the moment. And yes, your guess was right. PIPER! (also sorry for the late update)
-Part One: Pressed-
Chapter 10: Piper
At what point, should a person be worried for a friend?
Piper shook her head from the stiff pillow that leveled her head, as she awoke. Her eyes tired, but well rested. Letting out a gaping yawn – her mind cleared away, escaping from drowsy thoughts as she lazily awoke from a dreamless and strangely pleasant night of rest.
The sun's ever pleasant and welcoming rays cascaded from the Infirmary's many tinted skylights, pouring down plenty of healthy sunshine that sparkled in the cooling air in a wide spectra of colors.
But before she could fully enjoy the luminescent moment – the first time of peace in three long days of stressful anxiety, her ears caught the sound of a low mumbling front the adjacent bunk. Piper recollected her thoughts, remembering why she was in the infirmary. She wasn't here for her own sake, but Annabeth's.
"Annabeth, wake – " she began, before she gazing over to the sickbed right next to her own, which housed the previously injured daughter of Athena.
Annabeth appeared awake but awfully worn out. Her appearance revealed a distinct lack of sleep. Her blonde hair was disheveled and faded; evidence of a lack of a nice shower. Her normally tanned skin from her time in California looked transparent in the winter sun. Her silver brilliant eyes looked, but without luster, like she'd been hollowed out.
She sat upright on her bunk – her cast and covers tossed away, like just commonplace distractions.
Piper then noticed what laid in place of the normal orange blanket. A long worn parchment.
"Annabeth? What are you…" Piper started saying as she threw off her covers, and hopped off her bed to look at what Annabeth was so interested looking at.
At the front of Annabeth's lap laid the rough page, a piece that on one edge looked as if it had been ripped from an ancient book. The page looked wrinkled and had suffered a great deal of water damage.
On it, were presumably words, but in a language foreign to anything Piper had ever read. Looking at the words, which unlike normal words, didn't jump across the page. The torn page gave Piper goosebumps – like a hidden message never meant to be seen by mortal eyes.
"Hey Piper, is Annabeth –" came a feminine voice. From the front corridor, popped out Thalia Grace, lieutenant of the hunters of Artemis. Thalia peeked her head out from the door. " – awake… guess so."
Thalia grinned, and hopped into the room, making a beeline and hugging the daughter of Athena. The daughter of Zeus wore her infamous gray 'Death to Barbie' tee and a thin gleaming white winter coat. Atop the hunter's short chopped raven hair, was the lieutenant's tiara, sparkling with glee, yet radiated with a silent power. Ripped jeans and what probably used to have been a white pair of converse rounded out her look.
"Annabeth! I'm so sorry I couldn't have come sooner. I told Phoebe, get out of that thrift store, but she was really adamant that a limited edition collectible was somewhere in there," Thalia explained. "You know how she is with those Artemis collectibles. Anyway, I'm here now. And we'll get Seaweed Brain back. He'll round up somewhere, and we'll find him before you know it," Thalia soothed, holding the daughter of Athena within her grasps. Annabeth, in turn hugged her back, smiling.
Piper sat back down – feeling like an intruder on a precious moment between two childhood friends.
Thalia backed off, to look at her friend with her electric blue eyes, before noticing the page that laid on Annabeth's lap.
The huntress picked it up to read, but frowned. "I know I have really bad dyslexia, but this is all Greek to me. If it even is Greek."
Piper piped up. "Annabeth. What is it?"
The blonde held her temples, as if formulating words out her mouth required a great effort on her part. Her eyelids closed, hiding Annabeth's silver orbs.
"I think it's a ransom," she stated.
"What?" Piper and Thalia both said at the same time.
A ransom?
"I had a dream last night," Annabeth started slowly, "The details… they're already started to get away from me. There was this figure. A figure that I couldn't make out. He asked me for a payment and he would return Percy." Annabeth grabbed her head, as if under a great headache. "I – There was Manhattan. I saw it. The figure is going to tear New York to the ground. When I woke up, I was hugging this –"
Annabeth held a twitching finger, and touched the paper as if it were an illusion.
The daughter of Athena's gaze looked strange. Tired. Calculating. But distressed. Annabeth never looked distressed.
Piper had a knack for reading emotions, but couldn't find anything but stress under Annabeth's tired expression.
Thalia leaned in at the page. "What does it say?"
Annabeth frowned and her head fell back onto her pillow. "I don't know," she said in frustration. "It's some foreign language I don't recognize. The thing is, I think I saw the same alphabet in my dream…"
Thalia retracted the parchment from Annabeth – who looked on edge of having a fit. Maybe not having it present would calm her nerves, but the idea failed.
"Isn't there that kid who can read all sorts of languages? Victor or something?" Thalia said, scratching her head.
Annabeth and Piper both lightened up.
"What's wrong with me?!" Annabeth said, "Why didn't I think of him sooner?"
LINEBREAKDIDNTGETPRESENTS
"So, explain it to me again," Thalia pressured as they walked to the Athena cabin. "What in Hades did that guy say to you?"
Annabeth looked away, distantly. The daughter of Athena had been silent and acted completely off for the entire discussion, which was quite one sided. Then again, Annabeth's mood only seemed to reflect the landscape of the camp's current predicament. Looking out at the distant horizons of the camp, the camp's borders – which normally played as the camp's first line of defenses, now acted as the campers' imprisoner.
The normally invisible barriers were now tinged blue, and blocked anyway of escaping the camp's borders. The camp had tried almost anything. They had tried digging under and flying up high. Powerful Automatons from the Hephaestus' cabins had tried barraging and assaulting the walls. They tried sailing out sea but two canoes now lied at the bottom of Long Island Sound. Even Nico's shadow travel only allowed him as far as where the boundaries stood.
Iris Messaging had also seized to function. After a half weeks' worth of struggles, the camper's had unsatisfyingly deduced that the new barriers – unknown in origin – had caused the isolation between the camp and the rest of the world. But as far as they knew – it was for a completely different reason.
No escape. No communications with the outside world.
No help would be coming.
Beyond the transparent borders, a wild storm that had been blowing for two straight days rumbled. No rain or clouds penetrated the metaphysical walls, but freezing damp winds blew throughout the grounds of camp. The low hanging sun peeked slightly over the dark clouds.
The barriers had appeared the morning after the night of the game of capture the flag. While the oracle Rachel Elizabeth Dare and the hunters of Artemis had found their way in to Camp Half-Blood. Beforehand, Jason was last seen going off on his solo mission to Quebec. After three days with no word, Piper had grown worried for him, like she was worried about everything else; including Percy Jackson.
And with Annabeth unconscious for the last few days, the camp had looked up to her for leadership, which she wasn't sure she was quite ready for. Chiron had proved that he would only act as a teacher and guide and that the demigods themselves were always destined to have to lead themselves. She wasn't a natural leader, despite how vivid and swaying her words could become. Piper had tried to fill in that roll once during the journey to Greece, but it still didn't deter the fact that Annabeth was always the one with the plan.
But at the moment, Annabeth looked too somber to calculate a new plan.
Piper sensed Thalia was on the edge of taking out her hunter's bow and shooting herself in the foot from the lack of communication.
"Come on, Annabeth. You've got to give me something," Thalia complained, but Annabeth kept her mouth shut; shivering as a cold breeze blew by.
Piper shivered as well. The Infirmary had a severe lack of coats; which Piper was sure to hopefully change in the near future.
"Let's just find out what this says." Annabeth said analytically, still looking over the scribbled marks on the worn page. "I need to know what it says."
"And I need to know what's going on in your head of yours." Thalia said once more, but now collected.
Confession time: Piper wasn't honestly sure what to make of the lone son of Calliope at camp. The boy was quite a question mark, even to the emotion reading daughter of Aphrodite.
The legacy of Calliope had appeared a few weeks ago, and was the first legacy or any descendent of a muse to make their home at Camp Half-Blood. Apparently it wasn't too uncommon for Camp Jupiter, but it was a first for the Greek camp. Van liked often kept to himself – writing in his little warm corner of the Athena cabin.
By fault, he was more related to the Apollo kids, but everyone agreed cabin six would be the best fit for kids knew not to disturb others during their thoughts.
The girls barged into Cabin six, and approached the lone teen inside; who laid on his bunk facing down a one garbled pile of about four or five notebooks – scribbling down ideas and thoughts at random. A small lamp hung giving a source of light that wasn't really needed. Around him, laid about twenty scrunched up pages – evidence of writer's block
"But if I make them stay and fight, then they'd have to kill him... Wait, do I want him dead? I mean I could but…" the boy mumbled, before engaging in a rapid pace of scribbling long strings of words – oblivious to the girls that had approached him, as he was lost in his thoughts and facing away from them.
Thalia coughed trying to gain the legacy's attention.
"What – huh, is it lunch already?" Van said, before turning around. A shy awkward smile appeared on his face. "Annabeth, you're okay! A little bit tired, but –"
Thalia coughed once more telling the boy to seize his words. She brought out the rolled up page and shoved it at him. "Hey Van. We could really use your help with translating. Make it quick."
The boy sat up, and took a long stretch – ignoring the need for speed. He readjusted his thick glasses and took the page from Thalia gingerly. He flattened out the page and stared at it curiously.
"I can't read it," he frowned.
Piper grew confused. "I thought with your ability you can read anything. Any language. As long as it's written down? Right?"
The boy shook his head. "I can read most languages, but a few just don't click with me. Like Japanese – I've had trouble figuring that mess out. But usually, I can at least tell what language it is. This –" he gestured, "this looks like gibberish to me. See, you can tell by the curvature of this letter, it resembles a type of Bantu but–"
Thalia interrupted the boy impatiently. "So you're saying you can't tell us what it says?"
Van smirked. "Maybe not but… Wait right there!" The next thing Piper saw, the boy scurried off towards the back of the Athena cabin – where the library and cabin storage room was. A minute later, the boy came back with a long briefcase. "Calliope gave my mother this little tool, and my mother passed it down to me. It helps if I ever couldn't read something. I've never needed it myself, but –"
The legacy opened the briefcase and pulled out one of those normal squirters they used for Windex and such. But instead, the bottle was labeled with the brand: Readex.
"What's it do?" Piper asked curiously.
Van raised an eyebrow and looked at his counselor. "You want to explain?"
Annabeth sighed. "It's like a translator. It temporary translates written texts," she said flatly.
Van laughed. "I don't like being bothered often. 'Read this, Read that.' Ever since the library remodeling, they wanted me to get everything translated. So I let them use the spray. Quick and easy, and the words change back to their original form unchanged after a couple of hours. No damage done."
He gave Piper the bottle and Piper held it, not knowing what to do with it.
"Spray the page. There's no harm," he said coolly.
Thalia looked at Piper expectantly, and Piper pumped the bottle. Sparkling purple mist covered the page and the paper grew aflame.
Thalia looked shocked and rushed to Van's bunk but then the flames tendered away as quickly as they had appeared; revealing a loose cursive writing.
To receive who's been lost,
You must pay the total cost.
And face much of the past,
before the equinox's surpassed.
Be my demands, you must find:
The Golden Fleece.
A Scarf of Doves.
1qt. Chiseled Victim.
24 hours; Moonlight.
13 Persephonean Seeds.
They all stared at the page.
Van looked confused. "Umm, what exactly is…"
Annabeth grabbed the paper from Van's bunk and rolled it before turning on the heel. "Thanks Van. You'll get to see later today. Right now, we need to Chiron to call a meeting."
Overall, I'm unhappy with this chapter, but this was the seventh draft and I'm tired of rephrasing the same scene so many times. So this is what you got. But if you guys want, I'll give it another whirl… And then there's the fact it's third person. I'm still working on finding a comfortable writing style, so apologies there.
Also, an OC. Son of Calliope. Admittedly, I based some of the things on me, some I threw up in a mad scramble to find a way to move the plot along. Pretty ambiguous though, since I'm not sure I'll ever use him again, but if I do I can add detail later.
Best Wishes, from a Junior Scribe of Camp Half Blood. Happy New Years. See you guys soon.
~VCRx
(This chapter has not been betaed.)
[Last Edited: 4.18.2017]