Author's Note:
Buckle up, buttercups, this is gonna be a long one (hence the lack of my usual bold text; if I struggle to read that in large amounts, probably others will too).
First let's talk about the rating: after much debate I went with "M" over "T", and I'm gonna tell you guys why right here: there's gonna be some strong language, there's gonna be violence, and there's gonna be adult themes. What there's not gonna be is intercourse, the usual reason for the "M" rating.
This story takes place at the end of 2009; there's gonna be some values dissonance because of that. Not a lot, mind you, but some. This was the age of Twilight and Justin Bieber. Don't worry, pop culture barely matters in this fic, but y'know what does matter? RuPaul's Drag Race and Modern Family might've come out that year, but we were still six years away from legalizing gay marriage in the U.S. and I wanted to make you guys aware of that. People used the "r-word" casually (I won't be doing that, in any context) as well as "spaz". We had a completely different political climate - not nearly as much social media, for one thing. And as old as it makes me feel to have written that last paragraph, I know that some of you reading might not have any memories of this time period.
And here's the big thing: I haven't read Trials of Apollo and I have no interest in doing so. I looked up who the HCs of each cabin were when The Hidden Oracle came out, as well as what the cabins looked like, so what little information I have on the series is woefully outdated. You'd think this wouldn't matter since my series takes place concurrently with Heroes of Olympus but it does. If I've gotten core facts wrong about a character, like their age or gender, let me know via PM so I can make corrections. If I've messed up on appearance or personality… at the last time of researching minor canon characters, I was lucky if there were personality traits even given, let alone physical descriptors. Personality might require too many edits but absolutely correct me if someone has a canon appearance.
While we're gonna stay mostly canon-compliant, there's a couple things that are changing. First, in order for the gods to keep their promise to Percy, they haven't stopped at twenty cabins - they're still building, but certain events are gonna interrupt construction. Second, I nailed down numbers for how many people actually exist so if the population seems off it's probably because of not-summer school breaks. And finally, Kieran exists. You'll see what's up with him in a few chapters.
General trigger warnings and disclaimers (more specific will be present when necessary): One of our main characters uses a gun as her primary weapon and doesn't always use proper safety procedures. As I mentioned before, there will be swearing, fairly realistic depictions of violence and its aftermath, and I'll try not to get too descriptive with that but it has the potential to occur. Oh, also, I'm not a native Spanish-speaker; this will be important a few chapters from now. Don't worry, guys, I'll make footnotes for translation purposes. That goes for any non-English language that isn't a monster name; if it isn't translated in the story itself, it will be in the footnotes.
If this story seems familiar to you, it's probably because I had horrible, horrible timing when I initially wrote it and it went through several re-writes before I finally removed it from the site. Like, to give you an idea of how bad it was, the posted version before I deleted it contained chapters from three different time periods because every time a new Heroes of Olympus book came out, there was something that changed the whole story drastically. Hence why I've chosen to pretty much ignore Trials of Apollo.
Now that all that's out of the way, I hope you enjoy this story, and feel free to ask me any questions you might have in reviews or PMs.
Arianna's day was majorly sucking – even before she almost died.
First, she slept through her 5 o'clock alarm and her dad poured a bucket of water on her. Then while she was milking the cows, Lucy kicked the pail over. At least the barn cats were happy. She didn't even want to think about what had happened while she was cleaning out the stalls.
After she finished her chores, Arianna stomped into the kitchen covered in milk, straw, and what she hoped to God was mud. Her dad looked up from the newspaper that he had been reading. To her annoyance, he was smiling. "Corn prices are up," he commented as he sipped his coffee, "and so's your bagel."
The prospect of food brightened Arianna's mood considerably. She quickly washed her hands, spread a thick layer of strawberry cream cheese on her bagel, and sat down across the table from her dad. "How much time do I have?" she asked, barely understandable through her large mouthful.
"Depends on if Gary's late again. Maybe half an hour. You gonna need school breakfast, too?" he said, raising an eyebrow. Arianna slowed down slightly and shook her head, hoping to avoid a lecture on the dangers of eating too quickly. "Hm, better grab yourself a bowl of cereal, just to be sure."
Something was up. Ben Parker was never this talkative – or cheerful – before sunrise. "Uh… okay," she replied, remembering to swallow first this time. "This is a school day, right?"
"Of course," he answered, running his fingers through his unruly straw blond hair. Arianna had inherited both the color and the curls. His face was red, but no more so than usual. "You think I'd use cold water if it wasn't?"
Okay, whatever was up, her dad didn't want to talk about it. "Be right back, I've gotta shower." Arianna ran up to her bathroom, trying to figure out what was going on with her dad as she threw her dirty clothes in the general direction of the hamper. Maybe he had found help for next year's harvest season… but he would've told her about that. He could've finally asked Millie Bjornstad out. Or maybe he'd put Irish cream in his coffee by mistake. Again.
Arianna miraculously made it through the rest of her morning routine without running into any furniture, still thinking about her dad. She didn't notice that the clock read 6:25 when she made it back to the kitchen. "For God's sake, Ri, put a shirt on!" her dad yelped.
Blushing furiously, Arianna ran back upstairs and grabbed the first shirt she saw – one of many 4-H t-shirts. Good thing she hadn't gone to school like that. It would've been worse than the time her dad had driven her there in a tractor. As she ran back downstairs, she saw the yellow bus approaching. There was no way it would wait for her if she wasn't outside. "Bye, Dad! Love you!" she called as she frantically tried to pull her shoes on.
"Love ya too, Ri-Ri!" her dad called back. He hadn't used that nickname in years – they'd agreed it was too embarrassing. "After school we'll –"
The sound of the bus pulling to a stop drowned out the rest of whatever he'd been about to say. Arianna almost turned back, but Gary really didn't wait around, especially for freshmen. She threw her backpack over her shoulder and ran.
"Did I actually do any of this?" Arianna muttered to herself as she dug through the entire contents of her backpack. She had barely made it to the bus on time, but her usual spot right behind the driver's seat was empty. "Yep, yep, due in a week… huh."
Usually she did all of her homework on the bus, so she had no idea when she'd gotten all her assignments done… and nothing to do for the rest of the ride. It was times like this when she wished she had a cellphone, like most of her classmates, but her dad wouldn't let her. What she did have was the ability to fall asleep in seconds, pretty much anywhere.
Well, she was still a bit tired… maybe taking a nap would stop her from sleeping in class later.
Sleep proved to be a bad decision. Moments after she closed her eyes, Arianna found herself looking at a large stone room with a slab of marble in the center and various bones scattered around the floor. Bloodstains marred the floor and walls, which were also adorned with various instruments of torture… or at least, that's what she assumed the strange metal devices to be.
Two women walked in through the single door, far too large and… glowy… to be human. One of them seemed to have been touched by King Midas; everything but her purple dress was gold, including her skin and eyes. The other had dull brown hair and piercing grey eyes. If she hadn't been glowing silver, she would've looked like some sort of scientist.
The "women" were locked in conversation. "Ugh, out of all the places you could've chosen for the ritual, why did it have to be the most boring part of this stupid country?" Goldie complained.
"There are far more 'boring' places I could've chosen, dear sister. Nebraska, for one," Silver stated calmly. Goldie shuddered. "I've asked around Tartarus, and most demigod quests have destinations on the West or East Coast; therefore, many of them pass through this region."
"'Many' isn't exactly a guarantee," Goldie pointed out, inspecting the marble. "What if there aren't any quests going out?"
"I have a contingency plan," Silver said matter-of-factly. "Neither camp knows about our nephew's order yet, though the Eastern one will likely find out soon, so it should be a simple matter of waiting for them to investigate the gods' silence."
Goldie grumbled, "'Simple.' Oh, I hate it when you say that." She looked directly at Arianna, making a chill run down her spine. "You also said their stupid dreams couldn't detect us here."
"They can't, as I reminded you the last five times you accused my magic of being faulty."
"Well, then who's…"
"Probably a mortal! Honestly, Theia, you're making a fuss out of nothing," Silver chided. She followed her sister's gaze. Arianna felt like a cornered mouse. "I can't sense any trace of the accursed gods or their spawn here. Still, just to be safe…"
The room disappeared in a flash of silver.
Arianna woke up clutching her head, a ten-minute bus ride away from hell. What the heck was up with that dream? She'd seen weird stuff while awake before, like the field hand with one eye in the center of his face and those people attacking the… thing inside the storm system that had ravaged most of the Midwest back in August. But nothing like the scene that had just finished playing out in her head.
"Oy! Freshman! You going to class today?" a boy yelled as he ran past her seat, laughing like a madman. That jolted her back to reality. She must've zoned out for a while. The bus was almost empty. Arianna grabbed her backpack, thanked the bus driver, and made a mad dash for the school building, narrowly avoiding a collision with a beat-up school wheelchair as she burst through the door. Late November was a horrible time for her to have forgotten her jacket.
The hallways were less crowded than usual, which made sense for the Monday after Thanksgiving. People were either travelling or trying to get that last deer before gun season ended. Arianna's locker was close to where the bus usually dropped off students, so she ditched her backpack there before heading to the bathroom. There she discovered that someone had drawn on her face while she'd been asleep. "Wow. A mustache. How original," she grumbled, scrubbing at her upper lip with a sheet of wet paper towel.
Once she was satisfied with the results, she put her still-damp hair into a ponytail and walked to the cafeteria. Most of the students hung out there before school, usually eating breakfast or doing last-minute homework. "Hey, Arianna, over here!" called a girl from across the room. Only one person at school called her by her first name: Skye.
It was never too hard to find Skye in a crowd. She always wore something white, though it made her already pale skin appear almost translucent. That day, it was a white peasant blouse and jeans. Her black hair, normally resembling a cloud that hung around her head, was condensed into two braids. "Did you see it's s'posed to snow today?" Arianna asked after making her way over.
"Ha! That'll change in twelve minutes," Skye replied. "Gotta love Wisconsin weather, huh?"
"Definitely," Arianna agreed. "Ready for bio lab today?"
"Um…" Skye trailed off, suddenly looking nervous. "…that's today? Seriously? We just got back!"
Arianna smiled. Her friend frequently forgot her class schedule, even after three months. "Yeah, it sucks. But hey, at least you don't have to do a two-mile run afterwards."
"True. And before you ask, Mom, I packed a lunch today."
"Good," Arianna said, nodding in approval. "Did you finish your homework?"
"I should ask you that. 'I've got two whole periods left, that's plenty of time!'" Skye teased, perfectly imitating Arianna's voice. She could do that with pretty much anyone, and it was always creepy.
"Joke's on you, I'm done with it. Well, except for that paper, but it's due next week, so it doesn't matter."
They continued discussing schoolwork and how one would go about painting a cow orange until the bell rang. Arianna said goodbye to Skye and headed for the band room. It was finally time for everyone to get their Christmas music.
"Parker! You're late!" her section leader barked as she entered. Maybe she should've left the cafeteria after the first bell. "You've got the sleigh bells for the first song, then you're taking over the bass drum for Nelson." Two sets of sheet music were shoved into her hands: an arrangement of "Deck the Halls" and one of "Silver Bells".
Aside from the new music, band was uneventful. As usual, the director yelled at the trumpets and the percussion section didn't even get to play until the last fifteen minutes or so. Art didn't go much better. They were supposed to be carving soap animals, but Arianna's turned out so badly that she smashed the vaguely rabbit-like blob of soap with her fist and turned it in as roadkill. Her teacher was unimpressed.
Finally, it was time for Biology. Her favorite class with her least favorite teacher. Ms. Greene hated teenagers in general, but had a particular dislike for Arianna. She'd once joked to Skye, "If she ever gives me a detention, tell my dad I love him, 'cause I prob'ly won't be heard from again." To her surprise, Skye had nodded gravely and quickly changed the subject.
"Hey! Parker!" called a voice from behind Arianna, making her jump. She turned around to see who it was and groaned. Of course it was Elijah Nelson, a sophomore with wide-set brown eyes, long, spindly legs like a newborn calf, and the biggest motormouth in the whole school. "Wanna switch parts? In the new songs? I mean, it'd be easier for you if you didn't have to change instruments and all," he said quickly. "I can give you my music during lunch break if you want, I've just gotta go drop off a late assignment and then…"
"Uh… can we talk about this later? Class is in a couple minutes," she interrupted, glancing nervously at the clock. She'd barely made it halfway to the biology classroom.
Elijah nodded, but continued to stand there. "What class is it? I've got Algebra. We do this thing where if we've got a quiz, we can write down a math joke and we get extra credit if the teacher's never heard it before. Wanna hear mine?"
"Uh… look, I've really gotta go…"
"It won't take long! Okay, so this blonde is taking a math exam, and she wants to do well on it, so she copies off the kid next to her, who's the smartest kid in the class. The next day the teacher wants to talk to her. She expects him to tell her how well she did, but instead he says, 'I know you cheated on the test.' And she says he can't prove it but then he says, 'You crossed out your name and wrote "John" instead.' Isn't that great?"
"Well, there goes my test strategy," Arianna commented, smiling. As Elijah tried to explain that he hadn't meant it that way, she made her escape. She felt guilty for ditching him. He wasn't a bad guy; heck, he was probably the person she talked to most after Skye and her dad. They'd been going to the same schools (by default) for years. She'd have to apologize for cutting out later.
Despite her best efforts, Arianna walked into Biology a few seconds after the bell rang. Some kids giggled. Ms. Greene shot her a murderous glare. "Misss Parker, I'll be ssseeing you after classs," she hissed, then continued to take attendance. There was always an extra hiss on the letter "s" when she spoke, but no one dared to make fun of it.
Arianna gulped and sat down in her usual seat in the back next to Skye, fidgeting more than usual. Which was saying a lot. "Of all the classes you could be late to…" her friend whispered, looking absolutely terrified.
I know, I know, but Elijah caught me in the hallway and I couldn't get away in time, Arianna wrote on a piece of notebook paper. The last thing she needed was to get caught talking in class. Ms. Greene finished taking attendance and began to explain the lab. Arianna always found herself staring at the teacher's weird, swaying walk as she moved around the room. Something about it was almost mesmerizing. Skye had to elbow her more than once to get her to write down the directions for the lab. Watching Ms. Greene's grey bun wobbling back and forth was more interesting. They were supposed to be figuring out their blood types in preparation for the coming blood drive, though not a single student in the class was old enough to donate.
"Let's finish this fast," Skye said once Ms. Greene had finally finished talking. "How good are your acting skills?"
"Huh?" Arianna asked, still frantically trying to copy down words. "What do I do with these cards again?"
"Give me those," Skye instructed, taking the two indicator cards that they had been given and adding four drops of water to each. "We need to get out of here."
"You wanna skip class? Okay. But we can't – she'd never let me leave."
Skye blinked in surprise, then absentmindedly picked up one of two needles from the table and began wiping off the tip on her jeans. Clearly she hadn't expected an agreement. "Must've gotten water on this… anyways, there has to be something we can do!"
"We could always fake fainting at the sight of blood," Arianna suggested, inspecting the other needle. The tip definitely looked wet, but if Skye said it was water it was probably still fine.
"Did you steal that idea from Twilight?" Skye accused. She had already pricked one of her fingers and was using her applicator to add the blood to her indicator card. "How wussy would we have to be to faint after seeing a singular drop of blood?"
"Point. Normal teachers'd let us go if we said we had to puke or something, but I don't think that'd work," Arianna said. She could feel Ms. Greene watching her, and it was making her increasingly uncomfortable. "Should I try it?"
Skye sighed. "Not like we've got any better ideas… but you should probably finish the lab first, so she won't think you're just trying to get out of it."
Arianna reluctantly picked up her needle. Her teacher seemed to be watching her even more intensely than before, which didn't make things any easier. She was fine with shots and everything, but for some reason the prospect of pricking her own finger made her nervous. As if she hadn't done that enough already during her attempts at sewing.
Eventually, she managed to do it. After quickly smearing blood on her card (apparently she wasn't just supposed to use her finger?), she raised her hand. "Ms. Greene? I've gotta puke."
The rest of the class looked panicked and gave her lab table a wide berth, but Ms. Greene was unimpressed. "There'sss trasssh cansss," the teacher said dismissively. "I don't care what you have to do. You are not leaving thisss room, Misss Parker."
"At least you tried," Skye grumbled. "Don't worry. I'll stay after with you."
"Thanks," Arianna mumbled, propping her head up with one hand. Over the next twenty minutes, she half-legibly scrawled answers to the lab questions, her movements sluggish. Suddenly, she really did feel like throwing up. "Maybe I'll go down to the office and call home after we get outta here. I don't feel so good."
Her friend looked skeptical. "You were fine just a minute ago."
"I know, but I –" Arianna's hand slipped; only Skye's quick reflexes saved her from banging her head on the table. "Whoa. That's not good."
Skye cursed in another language. "I'm such an idiot!" she exclaimed. "Arianna, was there –"
Whatever she'd been about to ask was cut off by the bell. "Classs disssmisssed," Ms. Greene announced. Within seconds, Arianna and Skye were the only people left in the room. "Misss Fairweather, I don't recall asssking you to ssstay."
"I don't recall asking you to poison my friend, and yet here we are," Skye retorted, positioning herself between Arianna and their teacher.
"Wait, what?" There was no way Arianna had heard that correctly. With difficulty, she managed to stand, leaning heavily on the table. "What's going on?"
Both Skye and Ms. Greene ignored her question. "A sssimple tessst," the teacher stated, "to make sssure I wasssn't wasssting my time with a mortal. Your presssencce ssshould have been a dead giveaway, but I like to be thorough."
"You mean you like to fight dirty," Skye said, reaching for something in her book bag. "I shouldn't have expected any better from a dracaena."
"Jussst count yourssself lucky, nymph, that you'll be fighting without a handicap." Arianna saw the teacher's face shift, her pupils becoming elliptical and her nose diminishing. The biggest change happened to Ms. Greene's lower body: where her legs had been, there were two green snake tails.
This was not happening. It had to be some kind of hallucination. Although it would explain that weird hissing thing she did… no! Hallucination. Arianna began to inch slowly backwards along the table. Her legs felt like they'd fallen asleep. They couldn't handle too much more movement without giving out completely. "Here, take this," Skye whispered without turning around, setting a freaking knife on the lab table. She held a similar knife in her left hand. "You know, I thought it was weird that freshmen were doing a lab like this," she continued more loudly.
"Yesss, well, I wanted a guarantee. Sssimply having ssharp objectsss around meansss nothing," Ms. Greene explained, pointing a spear at Skye. "For example, giving Misss Parker accesss to a knife doesss not give her a better chanccce againssst me. In fact –" She thrust the spear at Skye's stomach. Arianna gasped, but Skye became transparent and the spear passed harmlessly through her, instead taking a chunk out of the table leg. "Hmph. I do hate dealing with nebulae."
"You seriously thought that would work?" Skye asked incredulously, becoming solid again and crouching in what Arianna guessed was a defensive stance.
Ms. Greene smiled, curved fangs protruding from beneath her upper lip. She slithered closer. Before Arianna could react, there was a spearhead flying towards her legs. Just as quickly, Skye was in front of her, groaning as the point sank into her thigh.
"Skye! No!" Arianna cried, grabbing the knife. Without the support of both arms holding her up, her legs buckled underneath her and she fell on her back. Her head hit the tile floor, causing her vision to become blurry.
This was real. Her best friend was Kitty freaking Pryde or something, she had apparently been poisoned, if Skye was right, and her teacher was a monster who wanted her dead. Well, that last part she'd known already.
Ms. Greene began to hiss-laugh uproariously. "And I thought thisss might be difficult?" She reclaimed her spear from Skye's leg, causing her to groan again. "Pathetic. I wasss jussst going to impale you and be done with it, but consssidering all the trouble you –"
"Trouble?" Arianna interrupted, silently cursing herself. "What? I wasn't even late for class 'til today!" Suddenly, the room turned upside-down and she dropped her knife in shock. It took a few seconds for her to realize that she'd been lifted by the ankles. The teacher was stronger than she'd thought.
"Precccisssely! Almossst an entire sssemessster, and jussst now do I finally catch a break! Normally demigodsss don't lassst thisss long without misssbehaving," Ms. Greene hissed angrily, unceremoniously dropping her onto the lab table. She picked up the fallen knife. "Yesss… thisss will do nicccely."
"That's enough!" Skye roared. "I'm not going to sit back and let you do this!"
Arianna sighed in relief. Her head was pounding like crazy, but Skye was okay. Well, she hoped, anyways; she couldn't really see her from her new position atop the table. She tried and failed to sit up. "Oh, are you ssstill alive?" the teacher asked, sounding bored.
She felt something sharp pressing against her throat and desperately tried to push upwards. Her hands connected with one of Ms. Greene's arms; she made some headway, but her own arms were beginning to tingle. What was worse, it felt like the teacher was letting her succeed. This was a game to her. "Go on, Misss Fairweather. Stop me. You have until her armsss give out."
Ms. Greene ducked suddenly, and for a brief moment Arianna was able to wrench the object – one of the knives – out of her hands. She turned her head to the left and weakly thrust the knife in the teacher's general direction. Her arms flopped to the side, one falling across her chest and the other hanging limply over the edge of the table. She heard Skye cursing in the same language as before, and found she could understand some of it – she heard the words "Iris" and "colon" pretty clearly.
The teacher began to laugh again; clearly, the knife had not found its mark. "If it'sss any consssolation, you lasssted longer than I thought you would, Misss Parker." Ms. Greene bent over and pried the knife from Arianna's fingers. "I'll wrap thisss up sssoon. I have a classs next hour."