(Yes, this is an edit to a chapter - I wasn't happy with it, so I went through and changed a few things to fit with what I'm narrating in my head - chapter four will be out soon!)

So, here is the third chapter!
I will not make excuses for why I haven't been posting - though part of the actual reason is that I have not picked up this computer for a while and I've had... other ideas.

So, after last chapter's nice segue into Titan's Curse (which will be most of this book - oh yes, this is gonna be a series), we now have Sol's discovery of certain things.

Also, an apology in advance: after a dive into my own lore, I will not be explaining Phoenixes. At least, not until Sol knows every single factor of her powers (which includes some stuff from weird places that you will not know yet because spoilers) and then, and only then, will you guys get a full summary of her powers.

So, dear, valued reader; read on

-Wolf

A couple of weeks later they had a dance at Westover Hall, which, in Sol's opinion, was worse than the actual classes (she couldn't dance, nor did she want to find a date).

She hadn't really made any friends, though she had quickly become the 'popular girl' through the fact her family was rich and everyone always wanted to be 'close' to the rich-kid and shit like that.

Anyway, back to the dance.

Sol stood by the wall by herself. She'd put on a suit (a black one) in a streak of rebellion against society, and also because if something went wrong, she could not run in a dress to save her life (it was learnt the hard way, actually. A run-in with a wannabe assassin who thought that killing Tony Stark would be a good achievement. It wasn't. Sol had the scar to prove it, because the bullet meant for her father had gone straight through her shoulder by some immense mis-calculation and she'd had to walk to the paramedics waiting outside, and she'd nearly tripped four times. Worst day of her life).
She held a cup of lemonade in her hand, and looked to the door which the principal and vice-principal had disappeared out of, following one of the other boys who'd mysteriously ran off (his name was Grover and he'd probably have a week of detentions with her – she'd covered a wall in melted gum and made bubbles with it. Dr. Thorn hadn't been impressed), and saw them return with Grover and three kids she didn't recognise; two had short, black hair and blue eyes – albeit different shades of blue and the girl had electric blue and the boy's and probably more-so the green than blue, like the sea, but it looked kinda blue – and the girl was taller and older than the guy, who looked to be twelve and she seemed to be four years older (do the math yourself), and there was a distinct air of 'we don't like each other' around them as the third kid – a girl with curly blonde hair and stormy-grey eyes – was between them, seemingly to keep them from gutting each other.

They talked a little bit, and then Sol was forced to stop watching them by one of the older guys – Dylan who was a creep, a prick, an idiot and a dickhead all rolled into one body – talking to her.
"Hey, are your eyes a maze? Because I'm lost in them," he said, grinning his stupid 'I am so proud of myself' grin. Actually, everything about him was stupid and Sol had succeeded at avoiding him the whole dance so far, so she was disappointed that she'd failed to do so when it was so close to being over.
"Are you a bucket of popcorn? Because I think I've found the un-popped kernel," she replied smoothly, and walked away.
He followed her.
"Can I at least get your number –"
"Can I at least get a refund for this stupid dance? No, I'm stuck with it, which means you're gonna be stuck alone. Eyes off my boobs," she growled. With a flick of her finger that you wouldn't notice unless you were looking for it (unless you were Natasha Romanoff – she'd figured out that this was Sol's favourite way to get people to leave her alone and had gone to wearing fire-proof shoes), his shoelaces went up in flames.

Sol grinned wickedly before climbing the bleachers, aiming for the large empty space up the top where the lemonade had been put for a refill of her favourite soda.
She reached the top, and stopped, admiring the view. There were a couple of guys playing basketball in the corner, a few girls with their make-up out, gossiping, and the kids who definitely didn't attend Westover Hall dancing their way through the crowds.

She refilled her cup and was about to de-scale the stairs when Dylan began catcalling her. I swear, someone's spiked the punch, she thought sarcastically, eyeing the red cups of it in each of the boys' hands and she turned to face them with a tired 'I'm so fucking done with this. Whatever deity is watching us just kill them now or I will' expression. Yes, she was a very expressive person when she wanted to be.

It didn't deter them.

Dylan walked up, the drunken sway of his body telling Sol that her previous thought hadn't been wrong. He got a little too close, saying things in a flirtatious manner that were so slurred she could barely make out the phonetics of each syllable.
So, she did what something she'd been aching to do since this creep had first laid eyes on her.
She punched him, square in the jaw, then brought her other fist down on his nose.

Blood dribbled down from it, but it didn't really dribble, as such. It looked more like sand falling through a child's fingers, the small grains forming rock-like constructs as they fell.
She delivered a knee to his groin for good measure, before regarding her cup – which was now on the floor of the gym, about three or four metres below her.

Oh well.
She could get a new one later.

She descended the stairs, and swept her gaze over the crowd again; the boys had taken over the snacks, the girls were walking around now, and the kids who didn't attend were still dancing.
Well, Grover and his partner were, the other two had split up, and the black-haired boy was looking at something on the floor that Sol's sight zoomed in on and –

Oh no.
Oh shit.
Oh shit oh god oh fuck.

The prized belongings of two of the other students were strewn on the floor – the floppy green hat of Bianca di Angelo and the Mythomagic cards of Nico di Angelo – and Sol knew those two would never let these out of their sights.

Sol's eyes flashed orange before she calmed and reminded herself that she was in public. A 'Phoenix Freak-Out' wasn't going to help, so she busied her hands with fixing her tie, which they eventually just ended up fiddling with and incinerating after giving up.

She got to their stuff, and began to gather Nico's cards, placing them in Bianca's hat so she could carry them easier.

"What are you doing?" the boy asked her.
"Gathering some kids' things for them," Sol replied, somewhat nonchalantly. "Bianca's particularly protective of this hat."
"Do you know where they went?" he asked.
She looked up at him, eyebrow raised.
"I'm sure I can find them – can't be much harder than fighting aliens, can it?" her sarcastic tone was no-where to be seen, instead replaced by a delicate coldness, like ice.

He rolled his eyes, and held out a hand, which Sol ignored. "My name's Percy, by the way."
"Nice name – Solana, but you can call me Sol. Now, I'm gonna go find my friends." She said this in a tone that was hard to argue with (unless you were Pepper Potts or Tony Stark) and got up to leave, scouring the gym for the di Angelos.

She walked off, towards the opposite end of the gym – Dr Thorn's distinct smell of cat and decay was stronger that way (she'd been convinced that he as another guy trying to kill her throughout the term, and this only increased her suspicion of him more).

She made it to the corridor and entered the darkness before letting her wings loose – ruining yet another perfectly good formal outfit – to provide light. She spotted the vice principal after a few minutes of walking, steering Bianca and Nico by the scruffs of their necks, as if they were kittens.

Eventually, though, Percy caught up with her, slowing Sol's charge upon the vice principal – rather pausing it. He held a sword in his right hand which had a leaf-shaped blade.

"What are you doing?" Percy said, his disturbingly sea-like eyes looking into my own. "You're gonna get yourself killed-"
She pushed him out of the way and kept going, but he ran back into her path.
"Dr Thorn probably isn't human-" he tried again, and Sol whirled on him.
"And you think I care?" she hissed at him. "Do you see these wings, Percy?" she flared them from their previous carefully mantled position.
He had the sense to nod, and the audacity to reply. "Yes, I do see them, Sol. I don't think you've faced this sort of monster before though."
She rolled her eyes and tried to push past him again. He continued to block her path. "Try attempting to keep two very big and very hard to hide wings away from the public eye."
"Should be eas-"
"When your father is Tony Stark."

That stopped him cold.

"Let me reintroduce myself; hello, Percy, my name is Solana Stark. Please called me Sol," she said with false cheerfulness before her voice hardened again. "Now piss off."

The sounds of a scuffle echoed down the hallway as the pair dissolved into silence, and there was a painful grunt.

Sol's eyes widened, and she looked at Percy who brought a finger to his lips.
It conveyed a simple message; 'be quiet'
Sol responded with a single finger also, raised in a universally rude gesture.
It conveyed a not-so-simple message that Sol didn't feel like translating right now.

They found themselves in the lobby of the school (why Westover Hall has a lobby, Sol couldn't guess), where Nico and Bianca stood frozen in horror, staring right at them.

Sol handed them back their things, which they took wordlessly as Percy lowered the tip of his sword.
"It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you," he told them. Something wasn't right about this… something seemed off.

Percy introduced himself to the siblings, before turning and raising his sword just in time to miss a large, dagger-like black projectile that pinned him to the wall as Dr Thorn's cold laughter echoed through the hall.

Sol went with her first instinct; summoning a fireball and throwing it at him.

The firelight lit up his (now somewhat ghoulish) form, as his heterochromic eyes and perfectly white teeth reflected the light of the small fireball before it disappeared, having missed him entirely.

"Yes, Perseus Jackson," he said, his French accent mangling the 'j' in her new not-really-friend's last name. "I know who you are."
She could see why he preferred Percy – 'Perseus' was a mouthful.
Said teenager was now struggling against the spike that had him pinned to the wall as Dr Thorn stepped into the circle of dim light cast by Sol's wings and Percy's sword.
"Thankyou for coming out of the gym," Thorn said – Sol had decided he was now unworthy of his title of 'doctor'. "I hate middle school dances."
"Honestly, same," Sol replied, not a hint of sympathy in her voice, and threw another fireball, which was intercepted by a second spike that pierced and extinguished the flames, landing barely a millimetre from Bianca's face, who yelped in surprise and fear.

The most puzzling part, however, was that Thorn hadn't moved anything except his face muscles.

Wait… that might not be real, Sol thought, and brushed her wing against the spike to check, pretending she was spreading them protectively (fighting Loki had taught her a thing or two about illusions).

It was tangible alright.

"All four of you will come with me," the ghoulish man said. "Quietly. Obediently. If you make a single noise, if you call out for help or try to fight, I will show you just how accurately I can throw."

And, of course, her phone chose that exact moment to ring.
She sighed, picked it up, and held out a hand to Thorn with her pointer finger up.

From the ringtone, she could tell it was her father, and you never hang up on Tony Stark, so she simply told the vice principal; "I won't tell him, don't worry – I haven't told him I even smothered the wall in gum!" The yet was implied, and Thorn simply glared at her.

She answered.

"Sol, you good?" the unmistakeable voice of Tony Stark came down the line – she'd put the phone on speaker.
"Yeah, I'm good Dad," she responded. "How's the Tower?"
"Going well – Capsicle finally decided on an 'A' for it," Sol laughed, "How's the dance?"
"Fine – I think I knocked a kid out earlier, though. He was trying to flirt with me. I think someone spiked the punch."
"Wouldn't be the first time someone's done that."

The conversation kept going like this, and Thorn made them shuffle along.

"Any problems with teachers?"
"Yeah – I'm pretty sure the vice is trying to kill us-" She cast an unsure look over at Thorn, whom she was pretty certain had his invisible trebuchet aimed right at them, so she made sure her tone was somewhere between joking and sarcastic – "but of course you can never be sure. This uneasy feeling might've been influenced by the Alien Invasion that happened not three months ago."
"Well, you can never be sure – I'm working on your suit as we speak," he said, the smirk being pretty much audible in his voice, "It'll be sent over when it's done -" There was a crash, a string of rather creative swearing, and a yell of 'Tony!', which Sol was pretty sure had come from Pepper.
Sol chuckled. "You do that then – ask Pepper to make sure you don't kill yourself?"
"That's my normal job," Pepper replied directly, making clear that she was still in the room and the phone was on speaker. "And JARVIS', too."
"And J's been doing a fine job of it for most of my life-" Tony snarked, right as Thorn snatched the phone and crushed it under his foot, cutting her father off mid-sentence.

"No more calls," he hissed.

Sol shrugged. She'd find some way or another to let her father know she was fine.

Percy closed his eyes – why he would while there was a spike-throwing maniac in the hall with them she couldn't guess.

"What are you doing Jackson?" Thorn said attention turning to Percy. "Keep moving!"
He opened his eyes and kept shuffling forwards, seemingly slower than her had before.
"It's my shoulder," he said, sounding miserable. "It burns."
"Bah! My poison causes pain. It will not kill you. Walk!"
Any drug, even if it's just a simple sleeping agent, can be lethal in the right dose, Sol remembered Bruce telling her once. It goes for poisons as well – non-lethal can quickly turn lethal.
This coalesced into one thought;
That's so fucking untrue.

The vice-principle herded them through the corridors, and outside, guiding them into the woods.

Sol was tempted to throw a fireball at one tree and see how long it took for the forest to burn down, but she knew that was unwise as she was the only one in the group that was fireproof (as far as she knew) and they would all likely die from smoke inhalation, as her powers didn't extend to 'oxygen isn't a requirement for life' as far as she knew, and probably wouldn't test it.
There was that and the fact that Thorn could probably send a spike straight through her chest as soon as she summoned the fire needed to do so.

They followed a well-trodden path filled with fresh snow dimly lit by old-fashion lamplights (which weren't really needed as it was about 10am local time), and the cold breeze went straight through her suit, changing her body temperature from 'fire hot' to 'ohmygodit'scoldit'scoldit'scold' within a minute.

"There is a clearing ahead," Thorn stated. "We will summon your ride."
"What ride?" Bianca demanded. "Where are you taking us?"
"Silence, you insufferable girl!" Thorn shouted.

There were two responses to this;
The first was Nico; "Don't talk to my sister that way!"
The second was Sol; "Bianca isn't insufferable – honestly, do you pay any attention to character?"
She couldn't help herself; it was in her blood to be annoying and insolent.

Thorn growled.
Not the human way of lowering your voice in a threatening manner, but the animalistic one that most made when they were being threatening or threatened just before, in the middle of and after a fight.

Percy kept walking, not saying anything, but his face was screwed up tight in concentration.

Eventually the woods opened up, and they reached a cliff that Sol had used many times as a landing strip at night when she snuck out to grab snacks from the nearest convenience store. She knew it overlooked the sea, with the waves constantly crashing against the cliff over 100 metres down.
But all that was visible was heavy mist.

"Halt," Thorn told them, even though most of them had already stopped, and he pushed them toward the edge.

Percy stumbled, and Bianca caught him. They had a whispered exchange.

Sol was working on how she could brute-force her way out of this.
She still had her wings out, and was standing between Nico and Bianca, who had Percy on her other side.
"I'm scared," Nico mumbled, fiddling with one of his Mythomagic figurines.
"I know," Sol replied in what she hoped was a soothing tone and not her usually sarcastic-humour one. "We'll get out of this – I promise."
He seemed a little more at ease.

"Stop talking!" Thorn ordered. "Face me!"
The four of them turned to face him as the vice-principal's eyes glittered hungrily and pulled something from under his coat; a phone.
He pushed a button on the side of it and spoke into it; "The package – it is ready to deliver."

There was a garbled reply, as if it was actually a walkie-talkie.

Percy glanced behind them.
"It's a 300-foot drop," Sol said, quickly doing the conversion in her head. "There's no way you'll survive it."
Thorn laughed.
"By all means, son of Poseidon. Jump! There is the sea – save yourself!"

"What did he call you?" Bianca asked him.
"I'll explain later," he replied.
"You do have a plan, right?"
"I mean, if he doesn't have one, I can probably get you all about ten miles away," Sol butted in.
Percy looked at her, surprised.
"We conducted an experiment to see how much I could lift," she explained. "Turned out it was about 4 tons."

"I would kill you before you ever reached the water, let alone the highway," Thorn growled, "You do not realise who I am, do you?"
Sol bit her tongue to avoid replying and sending them into an even deeper deep end.

There was a flicker of movement behind him, and another spike flew past Percy's head, clipping his ear, and Thorn now had something of a tail behind him, though, if Sol was honest, it looked more like a catapult.

"Unfortunately," the trebuchet-man said, "you are wanted alive, if possible. Otherwise, you'd already be dead."
"All of us?" Sol asked, but Bianca's voice overrode her's;
"Who wants us?" she demanded. "Because if you think you'll get a ransom, you're wrong. We don't have any family. Nico and I…" her voice broke. "We've got no-one but each other."
"Aww," Thorn said, looking more and more like the war-beasts from The Hobbit: Battle of the Five Armies (the movie, not the chapter in the book) every minute, "do not worry, little brats. You will be meeting my employer soon enough. Then you will have a brand-new family."

Sol nearly laughed.

True, family didn't always end in blood, but abducting orphans for whatever no doubt twisted purpose? That was pushing the limits.

Three fireballs were suddenly in the air, which Thorn countered with his tail.

"Luke," Percy said. "You work for Luke."
Luke? Sol thought, confused. Okay, this kid knows waaaaaaaaaaay more than he's letting on.
Thorn's mouth twisted in distaste.
"You have no idea what is happening, Perseus Jackson. I will let the General enlighten you. You are going to do him a great service tonight. He is looking forward to meeting you."
"Are we talking about General Ross or are you being cryptic and vague again?" Sol questioned.

He didn't answer, instead looking the horizon. "Ah, here we are. Your transportation."
Cryptic and vague it is, she concluded in her head.

There was a distant noise of helicopter blades slowly getting louder and closer.
"Where are you taking us?" Nico said.
"You should feel honoured, my boy. You will have the opportunity to join a great army! Just like that silly game you play with cards and dolls." Thorn said.
"They're not dolls! They're figurines! A-and you can take you great army and-"
Thorn cut him off before he could get to the 'shove it up your ass!' bit he'd gotten from people (definitely not Sol) swearing just a little too much; "Now, now, you will change your mind about joining us, my boy. And, if you do not, well… there are other uses for half-bloods. We have many monstrous mouths to feed. The Great Stirring is underway."
Sol laughed – she couldn't help herself. "What's that? A soup?" she said and laughed even harder.
"The stirring of monsters," Thorn said as Sol recovered. "The worst of them, the most powerful, are now rising. Monsters that have not been seen in thousands of years! They will cause death and destruction the likes of which mortals have never known. And soon we shall have the most important monster of all! The one that shall bring about the downfall of Olympus!"
"Right, yup, thanks for the monologue – what is it with bad guys and monologuing anyway?" she said, getting slightly off topic, before returning to her original question; "is it really that easy to cause more death and destruction than a nuke?"

That made him pause.

"… no. It is not easy," he settled on.
"Right, cool, see you in a month – I'm gonna go get my hands on one and tear you to shreds with it," the sarcasm had returned.

And right then, and invisible force slammed into them, knocking all four of them to the ground (thankfully not over the cliff) just as Thorn's first volley of spikey missiles flew right above their heads.

Aha! Yes, a cliffhanger. Sorta. Someone might've fallen off the cliff but that's fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine, right?
Oh, wait, it's not?

Anyway, I realised something while going through Titan's Curse to write this chapter; Typhon isn't really as strong as a nuke, is he? I have added to my list of plot points (hint hint: not every SHIELD agent is mortal).

And, well, review for me? I'm still astonished this fic - which has the second-highest amount of view out of the fics I've posted (first place is taken by What Could Go Wrong?) - has zero reviews. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Nothing.
Please review? I mean you don't have to but I'd like it?

-Wolf