Bianca is awesome, and things aren't looking good for inter-pantheon relations.
Replies:
AlexusAP: Bianca is wonderful and I love her! How rude of you to say kill her off lol, though the reactions would be funny, though I think I can get entertaining reactions without hurting her too much lol.
Undeath9087: Piper and Annabeth will be very single minded when they find out their Seaweed Brain might be in trouble. Honestly I pity anyone who gets between them.
MKDemiGodzilla-Warrior: Well, things are tense there in general because they don't know what's really going on much- they don't exactly have details lol. And most of them basically assume Annabeth is dead.
Wisestriker: Don't worry I don't plan on killing her.
Ant-death: Bianca is gonna be awesome. And if she died Bianca might sense it too depending on how far away she is, but they have no clue where she was taken and like you said, no one knows what would happen when she dies- other than the fact that Hades and Osiris would bicker over who got to keep her lol.
Bianca had cried when Nico had left her room. It was strange- she felt almost pathetic for it but she hadn't been able to stop herself. Leaving him behind was the right thing to do even if she was terrified. Even if she knew that she was going to have to go alone. It was strange to think that there had been a time when a part of her had wanted to flee, to leave him behind. Now that she wasn't responsible for him, now that that pressure was lifted she found that she didn't want to leave him.
And that was the scary part- Bianca wasn't used to having to deal with things on her own. Not any more at least. One upon a time she'd felt alone, looking after Nico. But now she was used to having her friends and family around. But she could do it. She had to do it there was no other choice. She had to do it for Percy's sake if nothing else. A war between the Greeks and the Egyptians was the last thing she needed to deal with. Even if she did know without hesitation which side she'd be on.
Once she managed to compose herself Bianca made sure that she had her daggers strapped to her belt, made sure that she was ready for what was about to come. She briefly considered going and fetching Argos but he only really listened to his beloved mistress and he was still a puppy. Sure he might be able to assist her with the shadow travel- though with his age it would exhaust him to even travel through the shadows once and he was big enough to cause some damage to their enemies but he was still so young. He could easily get hurt, especially if the demigods panicked at the sight of the Hellhound and Bianca knew how much Percy loved her loyal hound.
No. Bianca would be better off travelling there on her own, no matter how frightening that thought was. It wasn't like she didn't know where she was going. She knew the location thanks to things she'd heard from Annabeth, Percy and Piper, and she had seen it before. It was mostly just a matter of making sure that she aimed right. On one occasion she'd wound up in England- which had been quite fun in the end, Percy and Sadie had had to come and fetch her but she'd still gotten the chance to explore London when she'd recovered from the initial sickness that came from shadow travel.
That wouldn't happen this time. This might be the single most important thing she'd ever done and Bianca knew she couldn't mess it up. Not for herself but for Percy.
Her back straightened and Bianca took a deep breath. At least there were plenty of shadows in the room. She closed her eyes, focusing on where she wanted to go, and she let herself slip into the shadows. And she had to admit that it was exhilarating. The feeling of shadow travelling would never cease to amaze her. She never knew quite how to describe it. She'd been on a roller coaster before of course- she could see why Nico said it felt like that. But Bianca more felt like it was like falling from an insane height- at least in a roller coaster your were strapped in securely, and there was nothing secure about Shadow travel. Fun yes, but not secure.
And it did require focus too, hard to do when the shadows were whipping you through them faster than the blink of an eye.
But focus Bianca did- picturing the hill she'd seen in her dreams, the thick layer of snow that seemed to glisten slightly in the soft light of the winters morning, the way it coated the branches of the tall pine tree.
Then she was stumbling, letting out a winded gasp as she dropped to her knees in a thick layer of snow. Her eyes snapped open automatically, flicking around. And yes, yes this was right, this was just like her dream, though the cold felt sharper in real life and she shivered as she scrambled to her feet, already feeling the melted snow soaking her jeans as her head snapped this way and that. She was next to the pine tree, she could see the camp below, spanning away towards the sea on one side, and she turned her head to the other side, tensing slightly.
She couldn't see any people- but she could see footprints in the snow. It was a strange sight, the way the snow shifted under invisible feet. She quickly shook off any tiredness. The dream had just been a warning, it wasn't exactly how things were she knew that. Which explained why they'd been visible in the dream but not in real life.
Well. She was about to make them regret coming here at all. She couldn't tell how many there were, at least a dozen or so based on the mess their feet were making as they crunched their way up the hill- they'd reach the border and attack Bianca was sure. At least they hadn't seen her yet. That was a small mercy.
"Who the hell are you?" the voice came from below, on the camp side of the hill and Bianca turned her head sharply, her eyes widening as her gaze focused on a girl at the base of the hill, glaring up towards her.
The girl was twelve, maybe thirteen at a push Bianca wasn't sure. She had short spikey dark hair, ripped up looking jeans, an orange tee and a leather jacket on over the top of it. She was clutching some type of spear with her right hand.
"My name doesn't matter, you're about to be under attack!" Bianca called down, "Go warn your camp!" and then she turned away again, focusing on the tracks of footprints.
She focused, drawing the shadows all around her, the shadow beneath the snow itself, and with a wave of her hands the shadows surged up in a wave in front of the advancing Egyptians, shoving them backwards hard. Hard enough to disrupt the invisibility spell and reveal their numbers.
Fifteen Bianca counted quickly, watching as they all scrambled to get to their feet, there were fifteen enemies. Bianca gritted her teeth, pulling her daggers out in a smooth motion and sprinting down the hill.
She could hear the girl from the other side of the hill yelling something, probably warning her fellow campers that there was an attack coming. That meant that Bianca wanted to limit the use of her powers- she knew how little the Greeks thought of her father. Idiots all of them. In time she and Nico would change their opinion of the children of Hades but right now was not the time to try and pull that off. Now was the time to deal with the attackers. And a force of fifteen magicians weren't likely to breach the barriers Bianca had been told surrounded the camp. This was most likely a show, to start a war. It wasn't meant to actually do any real damage it was symbolic.
She gritted her teeth as she hit the enemies ranks, whirling with her blades, slicing one of the magicians arm before he could draw his wand, though only her instincts making her duck saved her from the spell that another magician aimed at her- and she was surrounded by them- she summoned up shadows every few moments to block blows and spells, they formed shields and disappeared seconds later, she'd brush her hand against their arms- drawing their very lifeforce from them. She'd been working on that trick with Percy but it was dangerous to say the least.
And she was tiring. The ambrosia had helped a lot with her recovery after the attack at the school but she still wasn't up to 100%, and shadow travel and shadow manipulation were tiring at the best of times, though she was holding up well- until one of the magicians staff got past her shadow shields and caught her stomach.
She cried out as she doubled over, lashing out with one of her daggers desperately- stabbing the magician who'd caught her with his blow in the thigh.
She would have probably been killed by the next blow aimed at her head she realised as she lifted her head, if an arrow hadn't suddenly sprouted from the back of his neck, she cried out, startled as he toppled forward and she sensed the life draining from him.
She dropped, screaming as she threw her arms up to cover her head, curling into a tight ball to avoid the worst of the sudden hail of arrows, though she felt a sudden sharp pain in her arm.
Then the sky seemed to darken. Bianca felt fear curling in her belly as the hair on her arms stood on the ends. A storm. Lightning. Fuck had Zeus found out she was alive. Was he trying to finish what he'd failed to do so many years ago?
But the lightning didn't strike her. She was about the only person that it didn't strike but it didn't hit her. After the deafening crack there was a moment of stunned silence and then- "Don't shoot her you idiot!" that was the voice of the girl who had been at the bottom of the hill, "She's the one who yelled out the warning- gods above but you're stupid-"
"Thy should watch your tone-"
"Both of you be silent!" the bellow made Bianca lift her head- and she saw a group gathered at the crest of the hill. There seemed to be two groups amongst the gathered people- there were maybe seven girls clad in silver parkas with bows either out or already back over their shoulders, clearly led by a girl who looked around 14, she couldn't see her that well from the distance, but she could see the glint of a silver circlet on her head.
The other group was maybe ten kids in orange tees, several of them had blonde hair- though there was one with bright green hair, with their own arrows, along with the dark haired girl with the scary looking spear.
And between the two groups was a centaur. Bianca wasn't stupid, she knew who that had to be- there was no one else it could be after all.
Chiron.
Bianca swallowed hard, pushing herself to her feet, ignoring the pain from her arm- one of the arrows had grazed it- nothing serious but it did sting she knew that much. "Uh." she swallowed hard, tucking her daggers into their sheaths- showing off Stygian Iron probably wouldn't be a good idea right now. "Hi. My name is Bianca." she called up. "Can I-" she pointed up the hill, "Y'know, come up to talk without getting shot?"
"Of course." Chiron nodded, trotting forward, followed closely by the black haired girl and circlet girl. "You're the one who raised the alarm?"
"Yeah." Bianca nodded, "Yes I am."
"Then it seems we owe you thanks, and I have questions of course."
"Of course." Bianca started trudging her way up the hill to meet them halfway, watching as Chiron glanced back and waved for the curious looking group to disperse.
"You're wounded child." Chiron spoke as they drew closer, "We'll get you some ambrosia." he spoke firmly, "And get you to the infirmary. You look tired too."
"I am." Bianca gave a wry smile, "You have no idea."
"Do you know who those guys were?" That came from the spiky haired girl, who was scowling, "They were- I've never seen anything like that before, it was like-"
"Like magic." the circlet girl spoke up imperiously, "It was like magic because it was magic," she shot spiky haired girl a dirty look, "Any fool could see that."
"It didn't look like any magic I've ever seen before-" the other girl snapped back, "I've never seen children of Hecate summon fire balls and shit by waving a freaking stick."
"A staff." Chiron corrected. "I fear that our attackers were no children of Hecate sent by our enemy. No this cannot be the Lord of Time-" he exchanged a worried look with the circlet girl, who's brows were furrowed.
"But surely they have faded away by now." the girl spoke up, "There has been no trace for over a thousand years. Even if the House remains... they cannot be more than weak bands of magicians- not after so long."
"What in my dads name are you both talking about?" Spiky haired girl demanded, looking furious. "Someone explain what's going on right now."
"Our attackers appear to have been practising Egyptian Magic." Chiron announced slowly, "If they still exist- even diminished... an attack like this is an act of war."