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Chapter Text

"That's not good," Arthur muttered to himself as he stared at his phone.

His older sister Frankie peered over his shoulder to look. "I don't see anything?"

That was the problem: the screen was blank. His phone should have charged overnight but seemed to have run out of battery instead. 

"Have you tried pressing the power button?" his older brother Dallas offered helpfully.

"It was the first thing I tried!" Arthur replied sincerely, his brother's sarcasm going over his head. Actually, he was thinking that he already knew the problem was with his charger. He had told his parents, Will and Eliza, about this yesterday, but between their work (Will was a veterinarian; Eliza was an aerospace engineer) and the fact that they had six children to look after, he knew that they were busy and that it would be some time before he would actually get a new one.

He peered into the charging port. There didn't seem to be anything, but maybe cleaning it out would help somehow? He grabbed a paperclip from the kitchen's junk drawer, untwisted it as much as he could, and picked at the inside of the charging port with it.

There was a sharp tingling sensation at his fingertips. Thinking he had been electrocuted, Arthur instinctively dropped his phone and paperclip. But nothing had happened, other than that he now looked like an idiot in front of the whole family.

"Jeez Arthur, just let me do it," said his other older brother Cillian as he reached down and picked up the phone. He pushed the power button; the phone turned on.

Arthur was baffled. "Wait-"

"It's like Dallas said, you just have to press the power button. C'mon Arth you're thirteen, you should know these things by now," Cillian winked as he handed Arthur back his phone.

"But..." Arthur trailed off as he picked up his phone. The battery was completely charged. But he was sure he had tried turning it on earlier?

Well, there was no time to think about it now, he had to leave for school. Now that his eldest sister Frankie was back from college for the summer, mom had asked her, as the oldest sibling, to pick up and drop off Arthur and his youngest sister Bryony at middle-school "just for their last week", and although she wasn't a bad older sister, she understandably didn't want to spend too much of her summer break driving some kids around and could get impatient rather quickly.

As they pulled into the school driveway, Arthur mused over how peculiar they must have looked. Between his dark hair and pale skin, Bryony's blonde hair, and Frankie's red hair, they didn't look like they belonged in the same family. 

The reason for this was that they had all been adopted, their biological parents victims of a terrible pandemic that had swept the world over ten years ago. Arthur was only a newborn baby at the time, so he couldn't remember any of it, but he had been told that there had been a worldwide quarantine for over two years, during which everyone who went outside had to wear masks. When he mentioned his background, people typically responded with pity over the fact that he never got to know his real parents. Arthur always nodded along to whatever they said, but to him, Will and Eliza were his real parents and he liked being a part of some wacky big family where everyone looked different. Sometimes though, he did wonder what his biological parents had been like.

As Arthur made his way through a sea of students through his locker, he noticed that he was attracting some strange glances. That in itself was unusual; Arthur was one of those kids that tended to go unnoticed, being neither one of the popular kids nor one of the "losers."

"Hey, you've got some stuff on you."

Arthur felt something brush the back of his neck, followed by another sharp tingle like the one from this morning. Behind him, someone let out a surprised yelp and he turned around. He now stood face-to-face with a dark-haired girl. Apart from her name, Valerie, and the fact that she was one of the more popular girls, Arthur didn't really know anything about her. She looked embarrassed to have been caught touching him.

"You had some fluff or something on your shirt," she explained hastily. He looked down at his body and was surprised to find that it was indeed covered in "fluff or something." It certainly explained the strange looks. He brushed the dust off the front of his shirt while Valerie covered his back.

"Thanks..." said Arthur, feeling more than a little embarrassed that a girl was brushing dust off his shirt in front of the whole school. Occupied by his embarrassment, he failed to notice when his fingers tingled again as he opened his locker and how several people next to him suddenly snatched their hands back from their lockers.

The first class of the day was science. His teacher started class with a surprise announcement: as an end-of-the-year activity, they would each get to dissect a cow eye and identify its components.

Arthur headed to the front of the class and got his tray, his dissection tools, and of course, his cow eye, which smelled strongly of preservatives. The other students were already at their seats, some of them carefully dissecting, some of them messing around and threatening to either throw them at their friends or even eat them, and some of them just plain grossed out, reluctant to touch theirs or cut it open for fear of what they might see.

Meanwhile, Arthur was getting lost in his thoughts as he aimlessly poked and prodded the eye with the scalpel to make it look like he was doing something. So far, it had been a pretty weird day. First, there was the thing with Cillian and his phone. He was certain that he had at least tried turning on his phone first before assuming it was out of batteries. Then of course there was that other thing with getting covered in fluff; that had been pretty weird too. He tried to think of anything else today that qualified as "pretty weird."

There was another sharp tingle, the fourth one this morning. This one was followed by an unpleasant smell and a low sizzling noise. Arthur looked down.

The eye appeared to have been burnt, its fluids were bubbling slightly and the whole thing was giving off a thin wisp of smoke.

Okay. That was definitely "pretty weird."

Arthur picked up the cow eye, unsure of what to do. There was no way to explain his way out of this, and Mr. Darwin was hard on lab safety and was sure to think Arthur had been playing with the bunsen burners.

He raised his hand. "Mr. Darwin? I uh...messed up my cow eye."

"That's okay," his teacher replied from his desk. He didn't even look up from his computer. "Just turn in what you've got."

That was definitely out of the question. "Can't I just get another one?"

Now his teacher looked up from his computer, one eyebrow raised. "Uh...yeah sure, I guess. They're in Mr. Mendel's classroom, you know which one that is right?"

As a matter of fact, he did; it was the other science classroom down the hall where all the lab supplies were kept. Arthur got up and left the classroom, tossing the ruined cow eye into the trash bin on his way out. He headed towards Mr. Mendel's classroom, wondering how this day could get any weirder. He quickly got his answer.

At the end of the hall, the double doors leading outside opened and 5 people walked into school. No wait, not people. They had red glowing eyes, pale skin, and flaming hair. Each had one leg that looked like it was made of bronze or copper and another leg that looked like the leg of some kind of hoofed animal. In addition to all of this, they were all teenage girls, teenage girls wearing loose-fitting brand name tops and denim shorts. They were vampires, teenage vampire girls with...robot and animal legs.

A million thoughts flashed through Arthur's mind. Were they real? They looked real. Wait vampires exist? Why were they dressed like they're from the 2000s? Why there's no way vampires exist. Could they be dressing up? But Halloween was months from now. If they weren't real, why were high schoolers at the junior high? What was going on?

The teenage girls looked straight at Arthur and grinned, revealing fangs as well. One of them even snarled a bit. Arthur felt a kind of impulse kick in, overriding all the other thoughts he had and replaced them with two simple ones: 1) the teenage vampire girls were real, and 2) they wanted to kill him. 

He immediately turned around, nearly tripping over himself, and ran for the stairwell. He wasn't really thinking about what to do other than that he knew he needed to get away from them.  but just as he was about to turn into the stairwell, he crashed into someone.

It was Valerie.

Chapter Text

Valerie woke up feeling...weird. Like really weird. Even weirder than that one time when Chad Williams found a hot cheeto that resembled Don Cheadle and held an auction during lunch for it; "Don Cheeto" ended up getting sold to Kyle Murphy for $10. Yeah...that had definitely been really weird.

To begin with, Valerie woke up...on her own. In fact, she had woken up right before her alarm had been about to go off. Usually, she'd wake up to her phone's alarm, turn it off, then go back to sleep until her dad came to wake her up, just as he was about to right now.

"Val!" her dad cried as he opened the door, "how many times do I have to tell you not to go back to sleep after the- oh you're awake." He looked stunned for a moment then struggled to regain composure. "Well...good. It's nice to see you waking up responsibly for once." Then he awkwardly turned on his heel and left, muttering something about puberty.

"Yeah that's right! Me! Responsible!" Valerie thought to herself smugly, and then the realization of what had just happened sunk in. How did she know her dad was about to walk in? Probably because that's what he always did? Yeah that must have been it. In fact, now that she thought about it, it was pretty obvious-

"Val! Breakfast is ready!"

Breakfast was always Valerie's favorite part of the day, especially when her dad made waffles, like he had today. As Valerie changed into her clothes, grabbed her backpack, and dashed down the stairs, she wondered in the back of her mind how she'd known that. The smell? Still, it'd seemed strange, as if her intuition had told her what she smelled before she could consciously comprehend the smell. She brushed the thought aside as she sat down at the breakfast table and quickly made what she called a "waffle taco," which was literally just a waffle with syrup on it that was folded in half. She grabbed it, eagerly bit in, then suddenly stopped. There was a piece of hair in her food.

That was odd. Valerie's father was usually too careful to let something like this happen. This much had been apparent ever since Valerie was little. Valerie's father had always had a cautious approach to raising Valerie, as if he were afraid that raising her in a household with only a single father would mess her up. Fortunately, Valerie never had any interest in "girly" things and was perfectly fine with growing up not knowing how to do her hair. Valerie was sometimes curious about her mother but when she tried to ask her father about her, he would only answer mysteriously, "she was a goddess, a literal goddess." As a child, this would mystify Valerie, but as a pre-teen she would roll her eyes at the cheesiness and vagueness of such a statement.

Valerie gingerly reached into her mouth to pulled the hair out; as she did so, she felt a sharp pain on the tip of her finger as if an arm hair had been ripped out. "Ow!" Instinctively, she put her finger in her mouth...and found another hair? Before Valerie could think too much about it though, her dad told her to hurry up. She gulped down the rest of her waffle taco, grabbed her bike, then set out to school. 

It was a cloudy morning, and she could feel the cold air brushing past her short dark hair as she pedaled on her bike as fast as she could. There was something unnatural about the clouds that made her stared as she biked to school, like the fact that they were much darker and heavier than normal.

"It should be raining," she thought, surprising herself in the process.

"Huh, that's a weird way to look at it" Valerie thought, as she slid into the school's bicycle rack.

Valerie made her way through the sea of students towards her locker. She was greeted with a series of 'Hi's and 'Good morning's. This wasn't unusual, as Valerie was one of those kids that everyone "sort of knew" and liked and would talk to from time to time. For example, this morning some girl named Maddie she barely knew asked her how her day was even though school had barely started.

"Oh you know it's fine..." Valerie replied without really paying attention. Someone was right behind her; it was probably Alex, who liked to start each day by sneaking up behind Valerie and tapping her on the shoulder opposite to the side he was on. This typically worked but today, Valerie saw it coming and reached behind to grab his wrist before he could do it.

"...just a normal day I guess," Valerie finished before continuing her way down the hall. Maddie and Alex exchanged some very confused looks.

And finally, just before class, she tried to help a stranger, a boy named Arthur but didn't know anything else about. For her selflessness, she received a massive shock; literally she had been shocked with static electricity. Arthur also seemed to act a bit strange when she helped clean the back of his shirt. What else was Valerie supposed to do though? He was covered in hair and dust and...car lint? Seriously though, that boy had the worst case of static electricity she had ever come across...that is, if people had "cases" of static electricity. Even if she hadn't been getting these strange "revelations" all day, this alone would have made today the weirdest day ever.

Her first class was math class; having completed the Algebra curriculum a few weeks ago, their teacher, Ms. Gauss, had spent the past few weeks preparing them for next year's Geometry class. Despite having excelled in Algebra, Valerie now found herself floundering, as Geometry was based more on logic and intuition, which she apparently lacked.

"Valerie can you come up here and solve this proof?"

"No," she thought to herself as she got up from her desk. Although math was one of Valerie's best subjects, she hadn't been paying attention at all. She stared at the problem on the SMART board dumbly, trying to reason it out. Then, she snatched the SMART board pen and started writing.

"Well...these angles are the same...and that's the midpoint so these sides are the same...and since these lines are parallel then these angles are also the same...so these two triangles are the same."

Before Valerie knew it, she was done. She looked at Ms. Gauss, certain she had gotten it wrong as usual even, though somehow she felt she got it right. Instead of correcting her however, she just gave her a look as if she thought Valerie was playing a trick on her. "Yes that's correct Valerie...though next time you should use the actual names of the postulates and theorems and remember that angles and polygons aren't 'the same', they are 'congruent'." Valerie hastily nodded in agreement and grinned sheepishly as she scurried back to her seat, wondering what had just happened.

There was a tapping on her shoulder and Valerie turned towards the boy sitting behind her.

"I wasn't ch- oh. What?"

"There's a loose thread from your shirt? It's on your hand."

"Oh. Yeah. I knew that."

She turned back around and looked down. There was indeed a loose thread at the tip of her right index finger. She traced along it her other hand, searching for the source of the thread, only to find that it was loose on the other end too. She shook her hand to shake the string off...only to find that it wasn't actually loose on the first end; the string was apparently stuck to her finger. She pulled but it wouldn't come off. She tried again, harder this time...and the string grew longer. Valerie blinked. She pulled hard again and again, and each time the string grew longer; Valerie sat at her desk stunned, looking at the now fairly large pile of string in her lap. She looked around to see if anybody had been paying attention, balled up the string into her right hand, which she shoved into her pocket, then raised her left hand.

"Yes Valerie?" Ms. Gauss asked. Though she didn't look it, Valerie somehow knew she was annoyed.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" There she could deal with her "issue" away from potentially prying eyes.

"This part is very important, can't you wait just two more minutes?"

"It's...an emergency?" That wasn't technically a lie.

There was a sigh. "Yeah alri-"

Valerie dashed out of the classroom and began speedwalking down the hallway, her right hand still in her pocket such that her movement was lopsided.

What the hell was going on? Why did something feel weird with her mind? And why was there string coming out of her? As a typical 13-year-old, Valerie could only think of one place that might have the answers.

"String....coming...out of hands..." she muttered as she typed into the Google search bar on her phone. Nothing. Not a single reddit thread about anything similar happening to anyone. She was on her own for this one. Also, someone was coming right around corner.

"Wait! There's someone around the corner!" she thought, as she turned a corner and...

...and immediately skidded to a halt in front Vice-Principal Crubbs, the bane of all students in Foothill Junior High. Brad Moore once referred to him as "The Hitler of Vice-Principals" only to find out immediately afterwards that said Vice-Principal had been standing behind him the whole time. He was promptly assigned three weeks of detention and a two-page essay titled "Why our Vice-Principal isn't Hitler."

"And where are you going in such a hurry?"

"To the bathroom?" Surely he wouldn't think there was anything wrong with that.

"I see. And why is your hand in your pocket?"

Uh oh. "Because," Valerie thought hard for an excuse, "only my right hand is cold?"

"Uh huh. Take your hand out of your pocket please."

For the next second, Valerie considered the possibilities. On one hand, she could run away, try to get rid of the string, and suffer three weeks of detention and write a two-page essay titled "Why running from the Vice-Principal is wrong". On the other hand, she could just pull her hand out of her pocket and it's likely nothing would happen. Maybe he wouldn't even see the string. And even if he did, maybe he wouldn't care too much about it. And even if he did care about it, maybe he wouldn't end up finding out that the string was being magically produced at her fingertips and change her life forever with the revelation that she's apparently some freak of nature. Weighing her choices, Valerie made her decision.

She booked it.

Ignoring the loud cries of protest coming from behind her, Valerie was filled with instant regret. "Why'd I do that?" she thought, thinking she'd made a terrible mistake; despite that however she had a gut feeling that she'd actually made the right decision? That didn't make any sense. She passed her classroom and made a beeline for the stairwell, knowing (again, how?) that she could definitely make it to the first floor bathrooms. Suddenly, for what must be the fifth time that day, Valerie's intuition kicked in: someone was running towards the stairwell from the other end.

Unable to react fast enough, Valerie, for the second time that day, ran right into another person she somehow knew was right around the corner. This time however, instead of stopping right in front on an unpleasant authority figure, she full-on collided with another student...it was Arthur.

"Ow! Watch where you're going!" Valerie said rather hypocritically as she got back up. "Where are you going in such a hurry any- " Valerie asked, then stopped as she got a good look at Arthur's face. It was pale and he was a bit sweaty: even if her intuition hadn't been on point all day, Valerie would have known that he was terrified. Arthur didn't say a word, but raised a trembling finger and pointed down the hallway. From the direction he had come from, there were five girls walking towards them.

Chapter Text

"That's it? You're running from a bunch of girls? A bunch of...wow really...really hot girls...with perfect skin and- HEY!" Valerie, seemingly dazed, had started to walk towards the vampire girls to get a better look at them when Arthur pulled her back hard.

"Do you...do you not see the red eyes? The pale skin?..."

"Okay whoa I don't...I don't really like to look at people you know...'in that way.'"

"...the legs? The fiery hair?"

"Oh their hair is fire alright," replied Valerie, slowly drifting towards towards the teen vampires again. This time, Arthur pinched her, and Valerie felt a shock.

"Ow! Hey what's the deal with- whoa," Valerie stopped mid-sentence. The shock had knocked her out of her stupor, and for a moment, she could see the girls as Arthur described them. "Ok what are they and why are they dressed the way old people dressed back in the day?"

The vampire girls continued to approach them. "Hey like don't be afraid little hero, it'll all be over soon."

Despite her ridiculous valley girl accent and horrendously outdated clothing, Arthur found himself frozen in fear. But what could he do? It was obvious from Valerie's reaction that whatever they were, most people not only wouldn't be able to see them they'd be completely mesmerized by them. If he tried to explain things to a teacher it would likely take too long. 

He took a deep breath, and mustered what remaining courage he had left. "We have to split up. You run that way," he said, pointing down the other end of the hallway, "and I'll run up the stairs." Then he added grimly, "I think they only want me so you'll be safe and I...I'll think of something."

The vampire girls were even closer now. "Yeah like, we just wanna eat you and your friend too, you know?"

Valerie winced, "Yeah that's really heroic of you and all, but I don't think that's gonna work here. C'mon, follow me!"

 Valerie pulled Arthur up and ran up the stairwell, dragging Arthur along. 

Foothill Junior High was, unsurprisingly, built at the foot of a hill. Its unique location was reflected in its architecture: unlike most middle schools which consisted of multiple single-story buildings covering a large area, Foothill Junior High comprised a single U-shaped multi-story building opened up towards the south end. Its 1st floor was level with the ground on the south side, its 2nd floor was level with the lunch area in the center of the 'U', and its 3rd floor was level with the ground on the north side; above all this was another floor's worth of classrooms to accommodate the entire student body. There were two stairwells, one at the west, and the other at the east, which was the one where Arthur and Valerie had crashed into each other.

Valerie grabbed Arthur's arm and dragged him up the stairs. As they ran, Arthur noticed that for whatever reason she was running with her other hand in her pocket. As they turned down the hallway on the second floor, Valerie remembered that was where the Vice-Principal had been ("Nope! Not that way!") and, yanking Arthur's arm, led him back up the stairs. They made it to the 3rd floor and were just about to reach the north exit when they ran into their English teacher, Ms. Austen.

"Valerie? Arthur? What are you two doing? Shouldn't you both be in class right now?"

"Uh!" Embarrassed, Valerie quickly let go of Arthur's hand, "We...um..."

"We should ask her for help," Arthur said, trying to remain sensible.

"Would she believe us?" Valerie asked, "I mean she wouldn't be able to see them right? I mean, I couldn't see them until you pinched me!"

"Things?" Ms. Austen said, "You mean those girls?"

She was looking over their heads. They turned around. The vampire girls were making their way down the end of the hallway.

"Quick Arthur, pinch her!" Valerie cried

Arthur dutifully did as he was told and pinched his teacher on the arm.

"Arthur!" Ms. Austen gave a startled shout. She looked extremely annoyed, but unfortunately gave no indication that she could see any vampires.

"Okay I guess we know that doesn't work now!" Valerie said, "Run!"

The two of them ran past Ms. Austen on opposite sides further down the hall. With their attempt to take the north exit foiled, and the Vice-Principal still on the second floor, there was only one place left: the 4th floor. They reached the west stairwell and ran upwards. They came across an empty classroom, which was quite dark as the lights were turned off and the blinds were drawn. They ran inside, and Valerie locked the door behind them.

"So...what now" Arthur gasped. He against the wall, catching his breath. "What can we do about the vamp-"

"No don't use the v-word!" Valerie cried.

"What? Vampires? Why not?"

"Because the moment you call them vampires, this turns into a vampire story and literally nobody wants that."

"Okay. But what do we do about those...monsters?"

Valerie thought about this. They had about one minute before the hot vampire girls would reach their location. How did she know that? Doesn't matter, just focus on finding a solution, she told herself.

------

A minute later, there was the sound of a jiggling door handle, followed by a loud banging on the door, and then a heavy thud as a metallic leg kicked the door off the frame.

The leg stepped through the doorway, and five vampire teens entered the classroom. It was quite dark but that didn't seem to bother them at all, as they simply started sniffing around for their prey.

At the back of the classroom, Valerie and Arthur huddled under their desks in the dark, Valerie near the window, and Arthur in the front near the Smartboard. They both tried not to breathe too loudly has they pondered on the events that led them to this situation...

60 seconds ago

Valerie considered their options. Going to a teacher was even less of an option now than it had been before. There was nowhere left to run, as they had effectively cornered themselves when they climbed up to the 4th floor. That left fighting as their only option. Or was it?

She looked out the window overlooking the central lunch area. The ground was two floors below them.

"Yeah I think we're just gonna have to fight them. Look around there's gotta be something we can use."

They both looked around the classroom. There were bookshelves filled with textbooks, teacher's desks containing pens, a stapler, a pair of scissors, and the other usual supplies, and of course, the desks and chairs arranged in neat rows and columns. Aside from the pair of scissors, there was nothing that seemed potentially useful in a fight.

But there had to be some way for them to get out of this. Valerie sat down on the floor and tried to think; where was that super intuition now that she needed it, the one that allowed her to get through math class? Her mind went into overdrive, and as she desperately tried to think of a solution, she idly plucked at the string coming from her finger, lengthening it one inch at a time.

Meanwhile, Arthur was at an equal loss for ideas. Everything seemed to be going wrong today. First he managed to fry a cow eye, now he was on the run from vampire teens. Suddenly the incident with the phone and in the hallway didn't seem important anymore.

An idea crossed his mind, one that could potentially explain everything that had happened this morning: the phone, the "fluff", and the fried cow eye. Well...almost everything anyways; he still couldn't explain the vampires teens.

He went to the nearest chair; its legs were made of metal. He slowly moved his finger towards it. He felt another tingling sensation.

There was a sharp zapping sound and a small but bright flash of light where his finger touched the chair leg.

Electricity.

Somehow he had become some kind of human battery.

Everything made sense now. His phone. It wasn't being weird, it had run out of battery overnight and he had charged it with the paper clip. The fluff. It had clung to him because of his static electricity. And the cow eye...

The cow eye had been fried, burnt to a crisp without the slightest effort.

Okay, Arthur thought, trying to process this revelation. So maybe he could fight them? If he could fry a cow eye when he didn't even know he had powers, imagine what he could to a person if he were actually trying. Could he do it though? He would still be outnumbered 5-to-1 (well 2 if you counted Valerie). And weren't vampires supposed to have super speed and super strength? He imagined he could at most stun or even kill one before he got overwhelmed.

Resigned, Arthur turned towards Valerie, hoping that perhaps she was able to come up with a plan. She was still staring straight ahead, evidently deep in thought, as was pulling a string out of her finger.

Back in the present, one of the vampire teens sniffed in their direction. She started to make their way towards the back of the classroom, squeezing between the chairs and desks as she did so.

45 seconds ago

Arthur watched as Valerie stared straight ahead, evidently deep in thought, as she pulled a string out of her finger.

Wait a minute.

Arthur stopped and stared in morbid fascination as Valerie idly kept pulling a string out from her finger, which now formed a very large pile in her lap. Valerie noticed this and blushed.

"Yeah okay, I have string coming out of my finger. Big deal." She rolled her eyes but continued looking embarrassed. "I uh...didn't say anything about it earlier because there was more important stuff going on. Actually it's still going on but you know what I meant."

Barely paying attention to what she said, Arthur leaned forward with curiosity. He reached out and touched the string. There was a now familiar tingling sensation at his fingertips.

"Ow!" cried Valerie, as she got electrocuted. "How do you keep...doing that?" asked Valerie, her anger fading as an idea formed in her mind. "Do that again?"

Arthur looked confused, but nonetheless reached out again, this time thinking about what he wanted to do. There was that same tingling sensation but slightly more intense this time and Valerie cried even louder in pain. Arthur opened his mouth to ask what she expected but stopped as he noticed that she seemed to be in even deeper thought, now idly pulling at the string faster, causing it to spill out more rapidly.

"Are you-" he asked.

"Yeah," Valerie interrupted. "I think I have a way we can beat those things.

Back in the present, the other vampire teens also noticed the scent of the demigods coming from the back of the classroom. They followed suit, slipping between the chairs and desks as they made their way towards the back of the classroom. Arthur watched their feet as they drew closer. He swallowed hard, then gripped the string in his hand more tightly.

30 seconds ago

"We make a net out of my string," Valerie said simply, "and you electrify it." She began to untangle the mess of string in her lap.

"A net?" asked Arthur. "Do we really have the tools for that? How would we even get them to walk into it anyway?"

"Not like a real net," Valerie explained. She handed Arthur the loose end of the string and started scuttling between the chairs and desks with her hand hanging low to the ground. "More like a web of string. We'll place it on the ground so they'll walk over it at first but then when they're all inside it, we lift it up all at once and chances they won't be able to move without touching the string if they're not touching it already. We'll also turn off the lights so they can't see it. Do you think you can send a stronger current? One that'll really hurt?"

He could. In that sense, Arthur knew that Valerie's plan was better than she knew, since he knew from yesterday's experience that he could kill one of these things easily if he could. Her plan still seemed sketchy to him though. "Yes but what makes you think they'll fall for it? What if they just turn on the lights and kill us quickly?"

Valerie thought about this. "I don't think they'd do that," she mused. "I think if they wanted to kill us quickly, they'd have done so already. I think they're taking their time because they're careless which is lucky for us."

Back in the present, all five vampire teens had made their way into the center of the classroom. Arthur and Valerie jumped up and pulled. The string went taut and the web was lifted above the ground and around the legs of desks and chairs and the ankles of the vampire teens.

15 seconds ago

"And that's the gist of the awesome plan I came up with on such short notice," Valerie said somewhat smugly. "Am I forgetting anything?"

She went quiet for a moment, then suddenly gave a start, causing Arthur to jump back a little. "The string's still on my finger!"

"Can't your rip it off?" said Arthur.

"I don't know. I've never done this before...the scissors quick! And turn off the lights!"

Valerie ran into position near the windows. Arthur dashed to the teacher's desk, grabbed the scissors, and tossed them to Valerie, who caught them with a surprised yelp. He ran to the lights, turned them off, and ran to his corner of the room just as he heard the door handle begin to jiggle...

Back in the present, the vampire teens gasped and cried out as they realized that they'd been caught in a trap.

"Now Arthur!" Valerie cried out, as she snipped the string off of her finger. Arthur focused as hard as he could, mentally channeling all of his energy into his hand that held onto his end of the string. A small part of him wondered how awful it would be if he failed to activate his powers right now.

But he didn't fail. And suddenly three of the vampire teens exploded into dust, having been instantly electrocuted to death. However, the remaining two had sensed danger right before and exploded into flames instead.

"We did it!" Arthur put up his hand and Valerie rushed forward to embrace him before awkwardly switching to a high-five instead.

The flames caught onto desks, the wall, and parts of the carpet and grew. Their brief moment of victory was interrupted as the sprinklers in the ceiling activated, putting out the fires and soaking them. Outside in the hallway, the fire alarm blared loudly.

"Okay then," said Valerie. "Now let's get the hell outta here."

Chapter Text

They didn't make it very far.

The second Arthur and Valerie stepped out of the classroom, they were confronted by Vice-Principal Crubbs and Ms. Austen.

"Hey guys." Valerie grinned nervously up at the two adults glaring down at them. She and Arthur stood just outside the doorway, water dripping from their hair and clothes. Behind them, the room was filled with rising flames, smoke, and steam. 

 "So what's up?"

The next hour or so was tense. The school's automated system made an emergency call when the smoke detectors were triggered and first responders quickly arrived on the scene. The paramedics weren't needed, as Arthur and Valerie were uninjured and nobody else had even been close to the fire. The firefighters made short work of the fire, which was limited to just the one classroom. The law enforcement officers however, the Vice-Principal told the children, had a few questions for the two kids who had apparently ditched their classes to commit arson.

"Well legally they're innocent until proven guilty...obviously," Officer Thompson hastily added. "Though I must admit the situation's not looking very good for the two of-"

"Indeed, not very good at all the two of you at all," interrupted his partner Officer Thomson, much to the annoyance of the other. "I received testimony from your Vice-Principal and your teacher as well and it seems all four are in agreement that you were both in the room when the fire began. Is that true?"

Arthur and Valerie nodded in silence.

Thomson opened his mouth to speak again but Thompson beat him to it. "And the two of you say that there was no one else in the room at the time?"

There was a pause this time. Though each wanted desperately to tell the truth about what had happened, Arthur and Valerie both knew that he was asking them this as a courtesy rather than actually giving them the benefit of the doubt. The firefighters hadn't recovered any bodies from the fire. Nobody claimed to have seen anyone strange near the area around the time of the fire, as the empousai had apparently managed to evade detection. Finally, the forensics team had even concluded that the windows hadn't moved since before the fire began, meaning that they couldn't have escaped through the window even if that had been a possibility. If they told the truth, they'd simply appear to be lying.

Arthur and Valerie shook their heads.

Thomson sighed regretfully. "Then I'm afraid we have no choice but to bring you two down to the station."

Arthur and Valerie were lead into a crowd of students which had formed around the "scene of the crime". News had spread that Arthur and Valerie had started a fire...which at one point somehow devolved into a rumor that Arthur and Valerie ditched class to make out in an empty classroom. As they made their way through the crowd, there seemed to be a great deal of suspense, as they felt all eyes bearing down on them and heard the buzz of whispering in the crowd.

This suspense was abruptly broken by a cry of "Ayo while we were all in class, Arthur and Valerie were getting busy!" This elicited a rumble of laughter from everyone.

Arthur's face burned. "No we weren't!" he said, quite lamely, realizing how pathetic his comeback was the moment it came out of his mouth.

Valerie groaned. "Seriously?  That's  the best you've got? Watch this." She turned towards the direction of the heckler. "HEY YOU!...SHUT UP!" Though he didn't say anything, Arthur raised an eyebrow. "Shut up! I couldn't think of a good comeback okay?" Valerie retorted.

The two of them entered the backseat of the squad car with Thompson at the wheel and Thomson in the passenger seat, they took off. The ride was mostly silent. Valerie fiddled around with her hands, trying to summon string from her finger again. She thought perhaps if she could show that the magical string was real, the law enforcement officers might be more willing to hear her out when she explained to them that all this was somehow the fault of some teenage vampires. "Yeah, like that'll work," she thought to herself, quickly dismissing the thought. She continued to try to summon string, however.

Arthur on the other hand, merely stared out the window at the sky. The clouds had darkened significantly since the day began and it had started to rain. He tried to imagine what he could have done differently which might have resulted in a series of events that didn't end with him sitting in the back of a squad car. But between the fact that nobody else apparently witnessed the vampire teens and the fact that they barely managed to outwit the empousai with the electric net (which had mostly been Valerie's idea anyway), it seemed that he had practically been destined to be arrested.  The thought of this mildly annoyed him. Shouldn't some elder mentor figure have shown up at this point? Arthur was pretty sure there weren't any young adult adventures that began with the hero being arrested. Perhaps he wasn't a hero, but rather just a forgettable side character.

Arthur's train of thought was interrupted by a roaring sound that had gradually grown louder until it registered in his mind. He realized it was the sound of the rain, which had steadily gotten louder and louder until now he could hardly even hear his thoughts. Even with the rapid flurry of the windshield wipers, the road ahead could hardly be seen now. He turned and saw that Valerie was looking squinting upwards out the window. The rain was falling much harder than was normal, she thought.  It was as if they were in the middle of a hurricane, only there were no gale force winds and they were much too far inland. She watched as the raindrops on the window started to descend more vertically, rather than towards the back of the car; the car was slowing down, evidently the heavy rain had flooded the roads to such an extent that the car could no longer move.

The car came to a complete stop. Thompson grunted and floored the gas pedal repeatedly but to no avail. The engine made grinding noises but the car remained still, and then the grinding stopped. Thompson banged the steering wheel in frustration (both kids jumped at the sound of the car horn) and then unbuckling his seat belt, mumbled something about having to fix the blasted engine.

Thompson opened the door and stepped out. The moment his hands left the car the rain intensified beyond what Valerie thought was possible. The flood grew and Thompson lost his balanced; he waved his hands around trying to grab at the car but he slipped. Arthur and Valerie stared out the back window, mouths open, as Thompson was swept down the road in the direction they came from, spinning around as if he were on a water slide. The rain slowed just as quickly as it had come; the kids could see that although he had stopped sliding down the road, Thompson was struggling to get up.

Thomson cursed. "Wait here and don't move," he told the two kids who merely nodded, too stunned at what had happened to speak. Thomson stepped outside the car and just as before, the moment his hands left the car, the rain intensified.

"WHAT THE F-" Thomson cried out, but was interrupted as he fell backwards into the water. The current surged and the kids watched as both Thompson and Thomson slid down the road and out of sight. In spite of Thomson's orders, Arthur and Valerie got out the car and looked around.  Though the clouds remained, the rain around them suddenly came to a halt. Actually, Valerie observed, only the rain around them had suddenly come to a halt. Everywhere around them, the rain continued to pour as heavily as it had before. Valerie's instincts told her something was above her so she looked up; she gasped.

A large, dark, and unfamiliar shape descended upon them, breaking through the clouds and revealing the sun. Blinded by the sudden light, Arthur and Valerie turned away. They looked back up; the spot of the road they were standing on was now the only area around them not blocked by rain clouds and the sun shone on it like a natural spotlight. Parked on the road next to the law enforcement vehicle was a chariot that was driven by two teenagers and pulled by two pegasi, which were now pacing in place and flapping their wings in front of the chariot. But for some reason the part that caught Valerie's attention wasn't the teenagers or the magical creatures, but the chariot itself.  

Unlike the ones depicted in history books, which were small and could fit only one or two people, this chariot was much longer and was clearly designed to hold more people. It housed a second pair of wheels near the back, which was open just like on a regular chariot so that it overall resembled a massive bathtub on four wheels with the back end cleaved off.  In addition, just above the back wheels on either side of the chariot were two protrusions which pointed outwards and upwards with helicopter rotors at the top.

"To create lift for the back of the aircraft," thought Valerie. Then she blinked. It seemed obvious now, but how had she known that in the first place?

The two teenagers climbed out of the chariot and approached them. As they drew nearer, Valerie was able to get a better look at the two.  

One of them was a boy, with messy jet-black hair and sea green eyes. Walking beside him was a girl with blonde hair and grey eyes.

Chapter Text

The two teenagers hopped out of their chariot and approached Arthur and Valerie. They appeared to be bickering. When they got closer however, they stopped arguing and the girl put on a smile.

"Hi!" she said, drawing out the last syllable with a forced cheerfulness. "We're here to pick up a um..." she stopped and pulled out her phone for a moment, "...an Arthur Foxglove?"

She turned towards Arthur expectantly, having figured that if either of them were Arthur it would more likely be the boy.

Arthur raised his hand timidly. "That's me."

The girl clasped her hands together. "Excellent.  Now I don't want to be 'that person' but I'm technically supposed to ask you why you went to school instead of waiting at home when the letter clearly tells you that doing so would put you at risk of monster encounters."

Arthur visibly paled at the question, which Valerie found odd. "The letter?"

But rather than getting mad, the girl sighed and elbowed the boy. "You idiot I told you paper mail was a dumb idea. I mean who even uses the US Postal Service these days?..."

"Millions of sellers online who want to deliver packages, for starters," the boy replied smoothly.

"...I thought you were the smart one!" the girl finished, completely ignoring the boy's response.

She turned back towards and apologized. Valerie turned to look at the dark-haired boy to see his reaction. He met her gaze and shrugged. "I don't know it seemed like a good idea at the time."

Meanwhile the girl had just finished filling in Arthur on all the important details he'd missed in the letter. Something about a summer program?

"...and of course we'll let your parents know where you are of course. So are you ready to go?"

This caught Valerie's attention. "Whoa whoa hang on, what about me? Don't I also get to go to this...thing?"

The girl facepalmed herself. "Ugh I forgot about the mortal." She waved her hands around mystically. "We are just taking your friend for a ride in our fancy helicopter." Then she snapped her fingers in Valerie's face

Valerie blinked. Then looked back at the strange chariot. "By helicopter do you mean that weird looking chariot thing?"

The girl stared dumbfounded. The boy rolled his eyes. "You idiot. She can see through the Mist dummy."

"Right! Of course! I knew that!" said the girl. "But how do we know if you're a demigod or just a mortal who can see through the Mist?"

Valerie didn't know how to respond to this but this time Arthur spoke up.

"She's a demigod too! She helped me fight off some monsters! She can shoot string from her finger!"

The girl looked at Valerie quizzically. "You can shoot string out of your finger? That doesn't sound like any demigod power I've ever heard of. Show me."

Valerie wiggled in fingers as if to warm them up. She held both hands close to her waist and then thrust them outwards if she were shooting a Kamehameha.

Nothing happened.

She turned her palms towards her face as if to examine them, then shook her hands. Instantly pools of string shot forth from all ten fingertips into her face. She recoiled in surprise. After several seconds the string stopped shooting out of her fingertips. Valerie turned her palms outwards to show the teenagers the string victoriously, as if that had been her plan all along.

"Yeah ok," said the girl, "she can come along I guess."

Arthur and Valerie climbed into the chariot and they took off, rising above the cloud layer.  Valerie noticed that as they flew, a cloud seemed to follow along directly beneath them. The blonde girl told them that the ETA to their destination, Half-Blood Hill, was several hours so they may as well exchange names and stories to pass the time.

"I'll start.  My name's Sophia Jackson though most people know me as the daughter of Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase...but I guess you don't know who those are yet. Dad's like this son of Poseidon and I got the power to make rain from him. It's where all the rain from earlier came from plus it comes in handy to provide cloud cover for the chariot," she said, indicating the cloud that was following them underneath. "It's kind of ironic because mom named me after the Greek word for wisdom but I ended up getting the water powers in the family. Also I can talk to horses and sea animals I guess."

"Yeah, and also because you're clearly the dumber one," the boy, who was evidently her brother, interrupted.

"Shut up Stephen!" Sophia retorted.

"Stephen?" Arthur looked up, suddenly interested. "Did your mom name you after the legendary Stephen Hawking?"

Stephen groaned. "No.  It was dad's turn to name me.  I'm named after Stephen Hillenburg. He was apparently this marine biologist and..." he sighed, "...he also created some famous old cartoon show or something. I don't know. Dad always had a weird sense of humor. But like my sister said, she was named after wisdom but got the water powers and I was named after the marine biologist but I'm," he paused, "slightly smarter or wiser than the average person I guess? Also I'm apparently good at driving chariots so there's that too I guess." He held up the reins to the chariot as he said the last part.

Next, Sophia suggested that they exchange interesting stories. Arthur began by talking about the incident with his phone and continued on, mentioning the incidents in the hallway and with the cow eye. However, Sophia interrupted him just as he brought up the vampire teens.

"Hang on, did you just mention vampire teens??" asked Sophia.

"Yep," replied Valerie. "Well they mostly just looked like normal teenager girls to me except whenever Arthur did his zappy fingers thing. But Arthur said he only saw them as vampires?"

She turned towards Arthur for affirmation and he nodded in agreement.

"Oh cool!  You've got True Vision!"  Sophia said to Arthur.  

"True Vision?"

"It's when you can see through the Mist.  It's a pretty rare ability for both mortals and demigods.  Not like "Chosen One rare" more like...ambidextrous rare? Like it's cool but it's not that useful or anything 'cause most demigods can see through the Mist enough to get by anyway."

"Mom and dad only got through the Labyrinth because Rachel could see the Mist." Stephen mentioned.

"Yes. Thank you for pointing me out I'm wrong once again, brother," she said mockingly.  Stephen took one hand off the reins long enough to flash a thumbs-up of acknowledgment. "He's is right though," she admitted to Arthur and Valerie.

Valerie continued telling her story, ending with the story about how she and Arthur defeated the empousai by combining their powers and luring them into their trap.

Sophia whistled, impressed and even Stephen showed unusual emotion by nodding along during the climax.

"Hey that's pretty good!" Sophia complimented, then pulled out her phone. "I mean yeah it says here you're supposed to be a Son of Zeus so the shock powers check out." She looked around at everyone looking at her. "What?  Was that supposed to be more of a big reveal? Oh I'm sorry I meant to say umm...'I don't know who your godly parent is it's an absolute mystery! You will have to wait until the mysterious Claiming Ceremony to find out!'" she said, dragging out the syllables to "mysterious Claiming Ceremony" to accentuate its alleged spookiness.

"But you," she turned towards Valerie now. "You, I can't tell at all though. Is there a minor god or goddess of string I don't know about? Who's your mortal parent?"

"Um, uh, I live with my dad," Valerie stammered, taken aback by the directness of her question, "And I've never met my mom before."

"So your mom's a goddess," Sophia stroked her chin, "Mmkay. Well that should help limit it down some..."

She sat back and began to ponder on Valerie's godly parentage. While this was going on, Valerie concentrated on trying to produce string from her fingertips. She tried to remember how magic worked in every fantasy book series she ever read and held her hands outward, like a wizard casting a spell, trying to will the string into existence, visualizing it forming on her fingertips and extending outwards.

It didn't work.

She tried again, this time concentrating even harder. Suddenly she felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Arthur.

"Uh...hey."

Startled, Valerie put her hands down on her seat. "Yeah of course.  Why wouldn't I be?"

Arthur looked somewhat nervous. "I should've said this earlier but thanks for saving my life. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't come up with that plan"

"Yeah. No problem." Her mind went back to the incident earlier that day. It was as if her mind had kept calling attention to details before she herself realized she noticed or knew about them. "But I didn't really think of it."

Arthur frowned. "What do you mean?"

"It felt like...the plan just appeared in my head." She noticed Arthur raise an eyebrow. "Not like in a normal way! Somehow I just realized that we could just do that? I guess I figured that out because you shocked me when you touched my string but I wasn't thinking of that when I came up with the plan...am I making sense?"

Arthur was about to shake his head no but was interrupted by Sophia returning, having given up on coercing his brother for information.

"We still have a long time before we get there so I guess I should just fill you in on some background info." Sophia sat down and began to tell Arthur and Valerie the lore of the entire universe. To begin with, Greek mythology was real.

"Wait! But does this mean..." Valerie started to ask. She stopped, afraid of looking stupid, but now Sophia and Arthur were watching her expectantly so she continued. "Does this mean...the Earth is flat?"

"No," Sophia replied. "No definitely not."

"Oh thank god!" Valerie cried, clutching at her chest. "Er...thank the gods? Is that a thing you people- is that a thing we say? (Sophia nodded). Yeah thank the gods. I don't think I'd be emotionally read for a flat Earth."

Sophia continued describing the "lore of the universe." Over the course of history the gods had followed western civilization, moving from Greece to Rome, across Europe and finally, across the sea to North America. The gods and monsters have all adapted to modern day times and now lived in the United States and all surrounding regions. In addition, there were many other related entities ("Or whatever you want to call them," said Sophia) such as the Amazons and centaur tribes that had also shifted to the west. And of course, there were also the demigods, half human children of the gods who tended inherit certain aspects of their godly parents. 

And out of all of these, it was the demigods and gods who were the most important, with the gods watching from up above as the demigods influenced western civilization by shaping history as its most famous people for the past three thousand years.

"Which I never understood," lamented Sophia. "It's supposed to be difficult to survive to adulthood as a demigod but I mean with all the historical figures that were actually demigods surely it isn't that bad? It's probably like a 50% survival rate? Er I mean definitely at least a 50% survival rate," she added hastily, seeing the look of alarm on Arthur's and Valerie's faces.

"I mean dad was a son of Poseidon so he was supposed to attract all sorts of monsters. But it wasn't too bad.  He even had fun on all of his adventures with mom." Sophia went on to describe how people regarded their parents to be the greatest couple ever or something and how her everyone talked about how their dad Percy had been this snarky good looking guy with dark hair and their mom Annabeth had these fierce grey eyes so nobody every saw her as just a dumb blonde.

"So kinda like you and your brother," said Valerie.

Sophia cringed. "See a lot of people say that, but like they're married and also our parents and we're siblings so like that's super weird,"

"I don't know sis I think maybe all those people are onto something," called out Stephen from the front of the chariot. "Or should I call you...'Wise Girl'?"

"Ew! No!" Sophia cried as she punched her brother's in the back. "That's what dad calls mom!! Don't be gross!!"

"You mentioned that your parents saved the world. Can you tell us what happened?" Arthur asked, hoping to switch to a less awkward topic.

"Sure thing," said Sophia. "So it all started almost 30 years ago at this place called Yancy Academy..."

Sophia began to tell the story of how her father Percy discovered he was a Poseidon and went to camp where he met her mother Annabeth. She was actually quite a good storyteller, Arthur noted, pausing during big reveals to allow time for the appropriate responses. Valerie quickly stopped paying attention, instead opting to continue trying to hone her abilities. However, neither Arthur nor Sophia noticed as they were both absorbed with what they were doing.  Sophia went on to tell Arthur about how Percy was framed for stealing Zeus' Lightning Bolt and how he and Annabeth journeyed to the Underworld to retrieve it as well as save his mother, how he was betrayed by a young man named Luke Castellan whom he thought was his friend but was secretly working for Kronos. She went on to describe how they sailed to the Bermuda Triangle together to rescue Percy's friend Grover and save the camp, how they revived a daughter of Zeus named Thalia then Percy travelled to San Francisco again to save Annabeth (and also the goddess Artemis), how they wandered through the Labyrinth together and found out Daedalus had actually transplanted his soul into a robot, and finally how they fought in the Battle of Manhattan and Percy saved the world and vanquished Kronos once and for all.

"Well actually he technically didn't do it. The hero in the prophecy was actually Luke. But dad gave him the knife so he could stab himself in his Achilles' Armpit and destroy Kronos. Then he made all the gods swear on the River Styx to do the bare minimum for their children. And yeah that's pretty much it. There were a few other stories but for the most part nothing really happened afterwards. They went to college, dad got into marine biology and mom became an architect, they married and has us and that's it. The End."

"Wow that was a really fascinating story," said Arthur, as he nudged Valerie now that he finally noticed what she'd been preoccupied with.

"Huh?" Valerie put her hands down as if nothing were out of the ordinary. "I'm listening. So what happened after he killed the math teacher?"

Sophia ignored her. "Alright we're about to start landing so we should get ready now."

The three of them held on tightly as the "stretch chariot", as Valerie had come to call it began to descend.

"Welcome..." Sophia paused for dramatic effect, "...to Demigod Academy!"

Chapter Text

As they descended, Sophia willed the clouds she had been keeping beneath them to move aside, revealing the land underneath. Arthur and Valerie stuck their heads out to look at the land below.

In the distance, they could see a beach and a harbor leading to the open sea. To the left was a small forest and to the right was an open area featuring, among other things, a volcano. At least, it looked like a volcano. Upon closer examination, Valerie realized it was far too small and perfectly shaped like a cone to be an actual volcano. She spotted movement and squinted; she could now see that there were people scaling the surface of the volcano, which was not actually perfectly smooth, but was covered with small protrusions and depressions of varying bright colors, like a rock climbing surface, albeit one that had bits of lava running down parts of it. From the direction they came from, next to a large manor, were rows of small bushes. "A berry farm," Valerie thought to herself, though how she knew that or what type of berries they were, she couldn't say.

At the center of everything was the strangest assortment of buildings and structures Arthur and Valerie had ever seen. At the heart of the compound was a series of buildings arranged in a U shape. Except for their size and shape, as each was about 2 stories tall and had a generic log cabin shape, the buildings could not have been more different. They flew overhead too quickly for Valerie to catch all the details but she was able to get a good look at two buildings near the bottom of the "U": one was white and gold and appeared regal whereas the other had a bluish tinge and was made of colorful stones that give it the general appearance of a coral reef. There was a racing stadium with a large sign on the side that Valerie could barely make out from the chariot ("Circus...Minimus," she read), a miniature version of the Colosseum, an amphitheater, an unidentifiable building that look like what would happen if a steampunk train covered with Tesla coils were to crash into a reconstructed Parthenon, and what looked like a Roman villa. The buildings were connected with concrete pathways and any leftover spaces were filled in with a variety of plant life such that the whole area resembled a college campus or fancy boarding school.

"It was originally a camp for demigods called Camp Half-Blood. But then we got more people and built more buildings to accommodate everyone and became more of a school than a camp so it turned into Half-Blood Academy," Sophia explained. "But some people considered the term half-blood offensive so they changed it to Olympus Academy but then children of non-Olympian gods felt they weren't being represented so eventually they settled on the name Demigod Academy."

The stretch chariot hit the landing strip, bouncing a few times before its back wheels settled into a consistent roll. The helicopter rotors slowed, and the pegasi's galloping slowed to a trot before they coming to a complete stop. Arthur and Valerie hopped out of the back.

Sophia led the pegasi back to the stables, leaving Stephen to take them to Orientation. Having had few interactions with him on the chariot ride, Arthur and Valerie quickly learned that Stephen was a generally moody individual. He led them on a rather unceremonious tour, explaining things in a casual irreverent manner such as the background of the institute...

("This is the Institute, the only safe place for young demigods. Used to be just a camp, but after dad's big adventure he made the gods give more of a crap so we started getting more kids and we had to expand and stuff.")

...information about parts of the school...

("That building over there that looks like a Roman villa is where classes are held. Mom designed it. She came up with the name for the Institute too, said it sounded 'distinguished' or whatever.")

...and finally, the locations of key buildings.

"Bathroom's that way," he said, pointing. Arthur lowered his hand, nodded in thanks, and ran off in the indicated direction.

When he returned, the three of them proceeded towards their destination, a house that Valerie hadn't noticed when they were flying by earlier. The house was very ordinary looking, especially when compared to motley of other buildings which were all Greek, Roman, or something else entirely. It was quite large, Valerie noted, standing at 3 stories tall. Because it was so big, Valerie mentally referred to it as...

"...the Big House," said Stephen, as they walked through the front door into a living room. "It's sort of a multi-purpose building. It's part Orientation center, part meeting room, part quest trophy room, part infirmary, and part...place where our dean hangs out I guess. Anyways here's the orientation room."

He led them into a small office; there was a old computer on the desk next to a flat screen television in front of a couch. Stephen gestured them to sit down on the couch, turned on the TV, then told them to enjoy the orientation film.

At least, that's what Stephen called it. But the truth was it wasn't much of an orientation film. In fact, it was hardly a film at all, but rather a compilation of short video skits involving generic school activities, each featuring the same handsome young blonde guy and ending with some kind of punchline or dance number accompanied by 20 year old pop music. It was clearly meant to be "cool", but instead had the opposite effect, coming off as horribly dated and reminding Arthur of the "Vines" and "Tiktoks" from the 2010s that Will and Eliza showed him when he was younger.

The skit compilation lasted twenty minutes, though to Arthur and Valerie it felt like an hour. The credits scrolled up on the screen.

HIH Orientation Film

Directed by Apollo

Produced by Apollo

Written by Apollo

Music by Apollo

Edited by Apollo

Starring Apollo as Apollo

And at the end, in much smaller text...

Also featuring miscellaneous demigod students as themselves

Arthur thought it was quite possibly the worst thing he had ever seen in his life, which was saying a lot considering he had watched The Kissing Booth 4 last year. Evidently, Valerie had similar thoughts.

"What the hell was that?" she cried.

"The orientation film," replied Stephen innocently. Then he explained, "Apollo made it. He's the god of music and art, but not the god of theaters and film. That job belongs to Dean D."

"Your dean's the god of theater and film?" asked Valerie. "Then why didn't he make the orientation film?"

"I did make one," said a voice behind them dryly, "but it was deemed...oh what did the old horse call it? 'Not very child friendly' I think?"

Startled, the three of them turned around. There was a man at the doorway. He was middle-aged, with dark hair and a beard. He looked like he could have been handsome, like an older Hollywood actor, if it weren't for his disheveled hair, unkempt beard, and ruddy complexion. Worst of all however, was his outfit. The man sported an unbuttoned leopard print Hawaiian shirt, matching shorts, and purple sneakers. He looked like he belonged at a rave rather than at a school.

Despite his ridiculous outfit, Valerie got the distinct impression that he was not to be trifled with.

Unfortunately, Valerie had a tendency to speak before thinking.

"You're the dean?" she blurted out incredulously.

The dean raised an eyebrow. "Yes, I am the dean of this institute. Until a few decades ago I was merely a camp director until father was kind enough to promote me. Now instead of overseeing unruly campers, I get to oversee unruly students." As he said "unruly students" his eyes zeroed in on Valerie. Valerie wasn't the type to imagine things, but she could have sworn she saw a purple tinge in the man's eyes as he said this.

"Arthur and Valerie, meet Dean D," said Stephen, his moody demeanor had vanished and his irreverent tone was replaced with a much more respectful one. "Also known as Dionysus, the god of wine, partying, theater, and madness if I remember correctly." He turned towards the dean. "I was just showing them the orientation film. They're new students."

"Oh really? I thought they were old students and you were introducing me to them for reason," the dean retorted sardonically. "New students," he scoffed. "After all these years I still don't understand the point of this place. You're all the same as mortals anyway; just as selfish as they are."

The three of them stood there uncomfortably in silence until Dionysus gave a disdainful grunt and left, having nothing else to say. Stephen mentioned something about showing them the houses as he herded them out. None of them spoke until they were well out of earshot of the Big House.

"That's Dean D," he said quietly, even though they seemed to be alone. "Don't think too much about what he says. He's like that to everyone, even towards dad, who's actually allegedly his favorite demigod because a long time ago he proved he wasn't selfish or something, but he still calls him Peter or Perry and acts like he hates him whenever he visits the school."

Stephen continued the tour. As he led them down a path towards the center of campus, he continued to describe that the academy had to offer. For one thing, should any monster-related incident happen that resulted in them being accused of any crimes, the school would manipulate the Mist so that they would be exonerated of all charges. The school would also explain to their parents what had happened and that they would be staying at the Academy, since it was the only place where they would be safe from monsters.

"I knew I was forgetting something!" cried Valerie as she smacked her forehead. "Yeah, not having a criminal record at the age of 13 would be really nice.

Arthur said nothing. He was too busy thinking about the last thing Stephen said, about having to stay at the Academy. He hadn't seriously considered that he'd be end up living here, he had assumed that at some point he would ask to go home and figured Stephen would simply...let him go or something. The truth was he had no interest at all in starting a new life, learning about Greek mythology, how to use his powers, and how to be a hero or whatever, he just wanted to go back home, pretend nothing had happened, and just live a normal life, and he would have done just that except....

He thought about the empousai from this morning, how they had shown up out of nowhere, and how he and Valerie were only alive because they both happened to be in the same place and worked together. Even if he could just ask to go home and Stephen let him, what was the point? More of those things would probably just show up again, only this time he would be alone, and they'd probably kill him and his whole family or whatever it is that monsters did. 

And so, Arthur quietly decided, that he would attend the Academy, and that he would go along with the whole demigod hero thing, at least until he felt that he could return home and live a normal life.

The three of them reached an open compound surrounded by the strange buildings Valerie had spotted earlier from the chariot. Stephen explained that each building was a residence hall or "house" for children of a certain god and that originally there had been twelve cabins, one for each Olympian, but now there were about twenty or so and had been rebuilt into houses ("designed by mom") in order to accommodate the rapidly growing student body.

And evidently, Arthur's house was right at the entrance to the compound, a large, regal, white and gold building that Stephen said was called "Jupiter House".

"Well technically it's not official until the whole claiming process but when it's that obvious we just put you in the right house anyway," explained Stephen. He went on to explain that since most demigods usually arrived at school getting chased by monsters or after monster encounter incidents similar to theirs, they typically didn't have time to pack. Because of this, all clothes, toiletries, school supplies, and backpacks would be provided for them by the school and would be waiting for them...

"...right in your room, which I have the number for right over here." Stephen pulled out what appeared to be a label gun. He asked Arthur to hold out his hand, which he did. Arthur then watched as Stephen punched the number '1' on the label gun and then pulled the label gun's trigger, slapping a sticker that read "DA ROOM ASSIGNMENT" onto the middle of Arthur's palm. Arthur watched as the ink shifted around the sticker to form the words "Jupiter House" followed by what he assumed was his room number. Arthur picked at the edges, but the label was stuck fast.

"Don't worry. It'll fall off in about an hour," said Stephen. They exchanged goodbyes and Stephen headed off with Valerie, leaving Arthur all by himself.

"But wait!" Arthur wanted to call out. Stephen never told him how he figured he was a son of Zeus.

Chapter Text

Arthur turned back towards what was apparently "Jupiter House." Arthur really hadn't thought about it, but if he'd been asked how he would have imagined a place for the children of Zeus, the king of the gods, he probably would have imagined a grand temple similar to the Parthenon. This was nothing like that; instead the building before him had a very modern design. It was made mostly of steel and glass, and the actually building itself was raised above the ground by several steel columns, so that it essentially looked like a giant box propped up on stilts. The only apparent way in was an elevator which Arthur entered and rode into the lobby.

The sun shone through the wall at the front of the building, which was essentially one large window, lighting up the mostly white interior of the building.. Scattered throughout the lobby were several empty chairs and coffee tables and at the center of the common area was a statue of what had to be Zeus, but it was like no depiction of Zeus Arthur had ever seen before. He was used to Zeus being portrayed as a muscular old man with a wild beard dressed in a toga, often wielding a large lightning bolt and usually in the form of a marble statue. This statue however was made of steel, and depicted a man with a neatly trimmed beard wearing a sleek business suit (Arthur noticed a small lightning bolt tie clip) and holding a smooth cylinder sitting casually on a throne. He looked more like a younger Christian Bale holding an oversized lightsaber than the mythical king of all the Olympian gods.

Arthur stopped staring at the statue, remembering what he was there for. Following the signs, he went what he figured was the right direction down one of the hallways. Each door has a plaque with a room number and some other words beneath that Arthur didn't really pay attention to. He walked down the corridor, tracking the room numbers as drew closer and closer to his room.

He stopped in front of his door. There was a plaque on it that read the room number and below that, a name: "Halcyoneus Lazuli". "What a particular name," Arthur thought. As he touched the door handle, another name appeared beneath the first one: "Arthur Foxglove".

The room was quite ordinary. In fact, except for the fact that the wall on the far side of the doorway was a large glass window overlooking the rest of the school, it looked much like the one at home that Arthur's brothers Cillian and Dallas shared. There was a bunk bed in the corner farthest from the doorway and two desks, one opposite to the bunk bed and one adjacent to it. Sitting at the desk opposite to the bunk bed was a blonde boy reading a book.

He was tall and thin in a fit sort of way, and he was extremely attractive. He was dressed like a prep boy, sporting a collared shirt that was unbuttoned near the top which he left untucked out of his cargo shorts.

Arthur groaned inwardly. He was reminded of his Cillian and Dallas and how they would constantly get into fights that made Arthur feel lucky that as the youngest sibling, he had the privilege of having a room to himself. Now, it seemed that he was in that situation himself. He knew demigods were supposed to take on the qualities of their godly parent. As a son of Zeus, he should have guessed that his roommate/half-brother would be some kind of snobby rich kid.

Or was he? As Arthur looked around the room he reconsidered. Around the desk on the left side of the room, which was obviously the one the blonde boy had claimed for himself, there were paper books on the shelf above the table as well as movie posters hanging on the walls. One of them was for a movie called "Back to the Future", but not the new one with Tom Holland and Robert Downey Jr that Arthur had seen and thought was awful, but the older one which featured actors Arthur didn't recognize. And of course, he was reading a book; Arthur knew lots of kids who read for fun but he didn't know anyone who owned an actual book made of paper.

And so Arthur decided that he would give his roommate the benefit of the doubt.

"So...what's that?" he asked, hoping to come off as casual and friendly.

The blonde boy looked up in surprise, having apparently been so absorbed with what he had been reading that he only just noticed Arthur. He started blankly and suddenly Arthur felt uneasy, wondering if he had misjudged things.

But the blonde boy just stuck a bookmark careful into the book and closed it. Arthur craned his neck a bit to try to see what the boy had been reading. It wasn't hard, as the book's extremely long title took up much of the cover.

"Edith Hamilton's Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes (Edited and Annotated by Annabeth Chase"

Before Arthur could do anything, the blonde boy started talking. He spoke quickly yet monotonously.

"Greek mythology, It's actually pretty interesting. You know growing up, I always thought Greek mythology was a lot of boring magical baloney. You know, like Harry Potter or The Bible."

He shifted around so that he was now sitting in his chair backwards. Slightly intimidated, Arthur backed off a bit. The blonde boy gestured with his hands as he continued speaking.

"Like I'd always figured Daedalus was just some guy who built wings and then his son dies in some on-the-nose allegory about human arrogance, but he was actually much more than that. He was this morally ambiguous genius who spent years running away from this crazy king, then backstabbed his nephew because he was smarter than him. And according to this, to further avoid having to face judgment from the crazy king, he turned himself into an android to cheat death. So, if you really think about it, he's like Tony Stark, Mark Zuckerberg...the one from The Social Network, not the real life one...Jean Valjean, and Robocop all rolled into one person."

Arthur remembered the other name on the door"Are you Halsi-...Hal-...uh...?"

Hal extended his hand and Arthur instinctively grabbed and shook it. "I'm Arthur. I guess we're roommates." He said this slowly, as he was still trying to process everything he had just heard. Truthfully though, he hadn't caught much of what was said or even recognized about half of the names that were mentioned. "And yeah I guess that's one way of looking at the myths," he ended up saying somewhat lamely. "

Fortunately, Hal didn't seem to have heard or really care about Arthur's lackluster response. "Roommates huh? I've always wanted one. I mean I've had few since I arrived last week, but each time I got a new one, they'd get transferred away within two days. Weird" He paused, then said, still in a monotone and with a completely straight face, "But hey we're roommates now right? Race you for the top bunk. One, two, three, go!"

Before Arthur could react, Hal leapt out of his seat, dashed to his bed, and heaved himself into the top bunk where he sat with his legs crossed. He looked back down at Arthur who still hadn't moved from his spot. "I win," he said, matter-of-factly with barely any hint of excitement. He looked back down at Arthur, who still hadn't moved from his spot. "What's wrong?" he asked.

Nothing, Arthur started to say. But when he thought about it, he realized that wasn't true. Sure it was amazing that Greek mythology is real, and sure it was really cool that it turns out he's a son of Zeus like the ones in the myths (or at least he was supposed to be; he still hadn't figured out why Stephen was so sure he was), and sure it was really great that he was now attending a school for special kids where he would learn to hone his great powers.

But great powers were supposed to come with great responsibilities and Arthur was certainly not prepared for the latter, I mean he was only thirteen for crying out loud. He thought back to the conversation he had with Stephen and Valerie several minutes ago. Stephen had pointed out that Arthur and Valerie were unique because they actually cared that their parents wouldn't know where they were. Maybe that was why he had reservations about being a demigod hero when it was apparently so easy for the others. Because for them it wasn't a big deal to forget about their parents and leave behind their mundane lives but that wasn't the case for Arthur. Unlike the others, he actually liked his parents, Will and Eliza, and also unlike the others, he didn't want to leave behind his mundane life because he actually had a lot going for him in the real world.

No, not the real world, Arthur corrected himself. This...this Greek mythological universe and this school...this was the real world now, and this meant that it was actually he who had nothing going for him in the real world, not everyone else. This revelation sobered him greatly.

Meanwhile, his silence spoke volumes to Hal. Despite the fact that social interaction wasn't his strong suit, Hal knew enough to figure out that if you asked someone "What's wrong?" and they didn't reply, it meant something was wrong. He didn't know what was bothering Arthur, so he simply tried to think about what he would want a roommate to say if something were bothering him.

"Alright I know what we're going to do now," Hal said, as he hopped out of the top bunk bed. He went to his desk and retrieved a laptop. He then sat down on the bottom bunk bed then motioned Arthur to sit next to him, which he did. He opened the laptop and accessed some files, revealing the largest collection of movies Arthur had ever seen.

"Ok. The Lord of the Rings or The Dark Knight Trilogy?" asked Hal.

Arthur blinked. Though he recognized those names, he didn't really watch old movies.

"Uh...I don't know, I haven't seen either of them."

"Pick one."

"Uh...I don't know which one do you think we should watch?"

"No, Which one do you think we should watch first," Hal corrected.

Arthur blinked again. "Really?"

Hal nodded seriously. "The total runtime adds up to a little less than 17 hours. It's about 11am right now so if we start now, we'll finish at around 4 am in the morning, giving us at least 4 hours of sleep." With the way he rattled off the numbers, Arthur got the impression that he had thought this through. Arthur hesitated, having never stayed up late on a school night before.

"Don't we have homework or classes or-?

"It's summer school," Hal replied without missing a beat. "Come on, Lord of the Rings or Dark Knight?"

Arthur looked back and forth between the thumbnails. "Dark Knight?"

"Good choice," replied Hal. "If we start with the shorter one, we can make it to dinner between trilogies." Arthur now got the impression that Hal hadn't just thought this through, but had actually done this several times already.

And so Arthur and Hal began their 17-hour long movie marathon, stopping only for food, drinks, and bathroom breaks between movies. And for the first time since he flew into camp on a flying chariot, Arthur felt like he was at home.

Chapter Text

After watching Arthur enter Jupiter House, Valerie turned towards Stephen with eager anticipation.

"Alright, my turn," she said, "Who's my god parent?"

"To be honest...I don't know," Stephen admitted.

"You don't know?"

"I mean I have several theories, but each only explains some not all of your powers."

"Can't you just take your best guess? You gave Arthur his room!"

Stephen shook his head. "That was different: it was super obvious that he was a son of Zeus. And I'm not allowed to assign you to a room unless I'm absolutely certain who your god parent is, not since..." he paused, "...not since I sent that one kid into Mars House."

His eyes glazed over as he stared into the distance frowning, as if reliving a painful memory. After a moment, he snapped out of it.

"Yeah, it was really fortunate the Apollo kids with healing powers were nearby at the time; really makes you wonder if Mars House and Apollo House are right next to each other by coincidence, or if that's by design."

"Anyways, don't worry about it," he continued, "You'll get claimed after dinner this evening it's not like the old days where we just shoved you into Mercury House, or whatever it was called back then."

"Dinner? Well, what the heck am I supposed to do until then?"

Stephen shrugged. "I dunno. It's a big school, there's a lot to check out. Here..."

He pulled out a map of the school.

"Just don't go near Mars House," he said, as he crossed off part of the map with a red pen, "Or the woods, those can be dangerous...lava climbing wall is probably a bad idea too...also Mr. D likes to hang around the Big House..." 

Stephen continued to list the "forbidden" parts of campus, drawing a red X over each as he went along. He handed the map to Valerie, wished her luck, and left.

"Uh...thanks...I guess." Valerie inspected the map; most of it had been crossed out with red X's, leaving Valerie to choose between checking out the classrooms ("Mmm...no"), the houses ("Mmm...yes"), and the bathrooms ("Ehh...maybe?"). In the end, she decided that the different themed Houses look the most interesting; she could meet new students, see what the children of each god was like, and hopefully even figure out who her god mom was supposed to be.

She flipped the map over. Along with descriptions of the other parts of campus, there was a section dedicated to listing which god each house was for. Luckily it seemed that it wouldn't be hard to visit only the houses for her possible parent, as all the houses for the goddesses were even-numbered, and therefore on the same side of the quad, so she wouldn't have to cross back and forth between buildings.

Huh, she thought to herself as she looked in the map again. Although she was slowly beginning to get used to her "Super Intuition", as she decided to call it, having random revelations pop into her head was still somewhat strange. They were like a "pulse" or "burst" of thoughts. Luckily as the day went on, they seemed to be occurring with lower and lower frequency. In addition, her hand had even stopped producing string and the string from earlier had fallen off by itself too.

The first on the list was Juno House, which was right next to Jupiter House. Valerie walked up and peeped inside the door.

It was dark and there was no one inside.

She turned back out and tapped the shoulder of a boy who was passing by.

"Excuse me, do you know where everyone from," she checked the map, "Juno House is?"

The boy sneered. "There's no one in Juno House. Hera doesn't have demigod children because she's loyal to her husband Zeus. Didn't you know what?" he said derisively.

Valerie winced. No of course she didn't know that, why would she be expected to know that? Like most kids she learned the basics about Greek mythology in school and had watched Disney's Hercules movie but beyond that she really didn't know anything. She never understood how some kids got so obsessed with that sort of thing. After all, it's not like any of it was real.

Okay so that last part turned out to be false, but still.

Next up was Ceres House, a light green building with a rooftop garden. The walls were lined with trellises on which tomato and cucumber vines grew. Valerie inhaled; the place smelled of grain and reminded her of bread crusts.

Valerie hated tomatoes, cucumbers, and bread crusts.

The next building over was Minerva House, which was very ordinary compared to the other houses. Colored plain grey and olive green, the only thing remotely noteworthy about the building was that it was surrounded by a grove of small thin-leaved trees that Valerie hadn't seen anywhere else on campus.

Valerie considered for a moment. Could Athena be her godly parent? She wasn't the smartest kid she knew, she had pretty good grades but she wasn't a huge fan of reading, and most people on the internet seemed to think the latter was more important. However, she didn't have any traits that screamed any other particular goddesses so it didn't seem unreasonable to suspect that she could be a daughter of Athena. Satisfied with this logic, Valerie opened the door and stepped inside.

The common area was just like the old library she would frequently visit when she was younger before it was closed. There were bookshelves full of real paper books, tables, chairs, and couches arranged around the bookshelves for the kids to sit at, and kids crowding around the fiction section, leaving the non-fiction section remained noticeably untouched. The whole scene made her feel extremely nostalgic and at home.

A couple of guys and girls started to approach her. Almost all of them had grey eyes; in fact, almost everyone there had grey eyes, which Valerie thought was a strange thing for her to focus on since it didn't seem that important.

One of the girls, who looked about seventeen years old and stood just a bit in front of the others, introduced herself.

"Hi. I'm Sage. I'm the head of Minerva House. As I haven't seen your face before, I presume you're new. Welcome to the Academy." She extended his hand and Valerie shook it. Sage reminded her of the kids on the debate team, who spoke with the same confidence and assertive attitude whether they were on or off the podium.

Some generic small talk was made, during which Valerie revealed that she didn't know who here godly parent was yet. This elicited some excitement from the Athena kids.

"Hey we can help with that!"

"Who's your mortal parent?"

"What are your powers?"

Valerie was surprised by their eagerness, finding it strange how keen they were to find out who her mom was. But since she was curious as well, she decided to go for it.

"Okay to start off, I live with my dad, so I guess my god parent would have to be mom. As for my powers, well this morning I..."

She stopped. Crap! How do you even describe "super intuition" to someone who doesn't have it?

"I started getting these like...thoughts that just...randomly appear in my head?"

Everyone was giving her weird looks. One person spoke up.

"You mean 'an idea'?"

"Yes..." she admitted, cringing at herself. "But it's more than that. They thoughts just magically come into my head out of nowhere but they're all either something to do with my surroundings or things that are about to happen. It's as if there's a little voice in my head pointing out the details in things or telling me when something's about to happen."

Upon hearing this, the Athena kids immediately launched into a very animated discussion about the possible god parents.

"Oh oh oh! I know!" one of them piped up. "She can tell when something's about to happen right? Maybe she's a daughter of Apollo with like the gift of prophecy or something!"

Valerie was about to say that that didn't sound right, as her power didn't really feel like prophecies, that even then it only explained part of her powers, and also that her godly parent would be her mother so Apollo didn't fit. But before she could say anything, everyone else started pitching in.

"Oh wow, I totally see it!"

"Yeah, it really makes a lot of sense if you think about it!"

Valerie was baffled. She didn't want to be mean but...weren't these supposed to be the smart kids at the school?

The Athena kids then descended further down the rabbit hole, trying to reconcile their theory with the other aspects of Valerie's powers ("Maybe she's able to sense her surroundings and stuff because Apollo's the god of archery and archers have to mind their surroundings!") as well as come up with explanations for how Apollo could be her mother. At this point, Valerie wanted to leave, but she didn't know how to bring this up without being rude about it, so she simply sat with the Athena kids while they kept coming up with more theories, each more absurd than the last. Two hours flew and the conversation had now turned towards the possibility that her mother was one of the Fates themselves, even though none of them had ever been known to have children. Valerie found herself feeling mind-numbingly bored as she listened to the Athena kids talking, vaguely paying attention to their discussion on which Fate she was most likely a child of or even of all three "somehow."

"Maybe it would help if we had more information," said one of the boys. He turned to Valerie. "Is there anything else you could tell us?"

"Well, I guess there's the string powers," Valerie said, "Yeah, probably should've mentioned that like two hours ago."

"String powers?"

"Yeah, I can apparently shoot out string from my fingers, kinda like Spider-man," she replied. "I mean it's not exactly the same, 'cause his webslingers are on his wrists and they're not organic, but you get what I mean. It feels a little weird too, to be honest. Kinda feels like peeing out your finger."

She cringed at herself, then looked up. The mood of the room had rapidly shifted, and everyone now seemed repulsed by her. Damn, why'd she have to say something stupid like the peeing thing?"

"I'm sorry," said the same boy from earlier, "But did you say...like Spider-man?"

Valerie nodded, thinking it was a bit weird that that was the part he had focused on. "Like Spider-man," she said, then to emphasize her point, she shot out a short length of string from her finger. All of the Athena kids visibly tensed. 

"Hang on," Katrina narrowed her eyes. "Do you guys not like Spider-"

The whole room tensed up again.

"Wow," she marveled, "Really?"

"Don't you know?" the boy spoke up again, "About the myth of Athena and Arachne and the origin of spiders?"

"No, sorry," Valerie replied, "I'm not really a fan of Greek mythology-"

Evidently this was the wrong thing to say, as now the entire room seemed thoroughly offended. The boy she'd been talking to looked like he was about to say something when Sage stood up, diverting all attention towards her.

"Thank you for sharing this with us Valerie," she said diplomatically. "Unfortunately, I don't think we're able to help deduce the identity of your godly parent at the moment. However, the children of Hecate over at Trivia House are very well-versed on the subject of magic, and since all demigod powers could technically be considered magic, I recommend consulting with them on the matter...as soon as possible, perhaps."

She said this last part pointedly, and Valerie didn't need any further encouragement. She said a quick thank you and quickly dipped out of Minerva House.

Next to Minerva House was Diana House, a massive hunting lodge that appeared to be completely made of silver. Curious, she peeked through the window, only to find that it was completely empty. Meanwhile, she heard a loud voice coming from across the quad. The source of the noise turned out to be Apollo House, which was a mostly uninteresting building except that it was golden and, more interestingly, covered with loudspeakers that were currently broadcasting some obnoxious poetry by someone named...Roopy Core?

As she continued down the line, an extremely attractive student crossed her path. Valerie's eyes followed her as she ran up the stairs to the next residence hall: Venus House. Architecturally, its design was almost identical to that of Minerva House, the main difference in their color: rather than being grey and green, Venus House was red and white with hints of pink. Despite the building's plainness, there was something about it that mystified her and drew her in. Or maybe it was the really hot girl. Or maybe it was both.

She headed up the stairs after . As the girl opened the door, she noticed Valerie following her, and turned around.

"Can I help you with something?" the girl asked, in a tone that implied the last thing she wanted to do was to help Valerie with anything.

"I uh..."

Valerie stared, speechless. Up close, the girl, who was about a year older than her, was even more beautiful, impossibly beautiful even, as if somehow, despite the position of the sun, her face was perfectly lit and photogenic. Also, there was something peculiar about the way she was glaring down at her with her arms crossed, like she was posing. Valerie realized that she must be looking at a daughter of Aphrodite.

"What's going on here?"

A different voice: this one was kinder, and came from inside the house. The door widened to reveal another girl. This one was older than either of them, about 17 or 18, with short blue hair that was shaved at the sides of her head. Though their aesthetics were completely different, she had the same "perfect lighting aura" and "model posing look" as the first girl did.

"She was following me," said the first girl. "I've never seen her before, so I'm assuming she's new and hasn't been claimed yet, but it's obvious she's not one of us."

Valerie's face burned. Of course she knew she wasn't as attractive as they were, but the comment still stung.

"Hey, whoa, not cool Michelle," said the blue-haired girl. "We've talked about this before, remember? Real beauty is on the inside, and anyone welcome here even if they're not a child of Aphrodite."

She sighed and turned towards Valerie, giving her a warm smile. "Sorry about that, why don't we start over? Hi. My name's Ally. I'm the head of Venus House but honestly I like to think of myself more as...a group mom." She opened the door wider and gestured inwards. "You can come inside if you'd like."

Valerie hesitated, but Ally seemed sincere, so she went in.

Ally gave her a quick tour of the house, first leading her through the Venus House common area. It was beautiful in a surreal sort of way, with vases of deep red roses that contrasted with the rest of the room's sterile white floors, walls, furniture, and statues of swans and naked people. There one was one statue in particular that stood out: it was of a woman stepping on a man who was on all fours. The woman was naked except for her high heels and the man was wearing some weird mask that covered his entire face except for a hole where his mouth was.

Man, classical art sure is weird, Valerie thought. 

There also some Aphrodite kids in the common area, just casually relaxing yet looking magically perfect. There was even one boy who was picking his nose yet still looked super cute.

They sat down at one of the couches and exchanged life stories. Valerie's dad was mostly a regular guy (another thing that made it hard to figure out who her mother was). He was an actuary, and was kinda nerdy and dorky at times, but that was about it. At school she was moderately popular with everyone but didn't have any friends she was particularly close with. Overall, her life had been fairly good and normal before she discovered she was a demigod.

Ally's father was also fairly normal, just a very nice and sometime funny man who had managed to catch the attention of the goddess of love. Raising a daughter as a single father had been fairly difficult for him, but the two of them always managed to get by. Even though she did fairly well at school, she always felt bad for the other kids who struggled in classes or got bullied, having been instilled with a strong sense of compassion.

Valerie was somewhat surprised. She hadn't been expecting the head of Venus House to be so...like this.

"Yeah, I get that a lot," said Ally. "Look, I get it. I know the stereotype. Aphrodite's the goddess of love and beauty so everyone expects us to be led by a himbo or a shallow blonde cheerleader or something. To be honest, that's what made me want to be the head of Venus House in the first place.  wanted to show everyone that we're not just a bunch of ditzy hot teens, that beauty isn't just about the physical and love isn't just about romantic love, it's about being positive and being nice to others."

Ally's friendly demeanor had disappeared, replaced by a look of serious conviction that inspired a sense of awe within Valerie. She was reminded that in spite of her gentle kindness, Ally was still in fact a child of one of the Olympians, and a powerful and/or important one enough to be the head of her house at that. 

Their conversation turned towards powers now. Ally admitted that she was a fairly run of the mill child of Aphrodite who had no powers beyond their supernatural attractiveness. 

"But to be honest, I consider my real powers to be my ability to get along well with others."

Valerie told her about her string and premonition powers, how she'd only just discovered them that morning, which felt like so long ago but was really only about 5 hours ago. She even described her and Arthur's fight with the empousai.

"Wow, it's really amazing that you were able to come up with a plan on the spot like that involving your powers, which, by the way, sound really unique," Ally remarked. "Have you been claimed yet or do you have any clue who your godly parent is?"

"No..." Valerie moaned. "I tried talking to the Athena kids about it, but they weren't...able to figure it out." She was about to say "weren't very helpful," but stopped herself.

"I see," Ally nodded sympathetically. "Well, I'm sorry, but if the Athena kids couldn't figure it out, I doubt I could. My best advice would be to ask the Hecate kids over at Trivia House. Hecate's the goddess of magic and since all demigod powers could be considered magical, maybe they might be able to help."

Valerie nodded, impressed. Not only was Ally much nicer than she would've have expected, but she also seemed smarter and insightful than the Athena kids had been.

As a final gesture of kindness, Ally walked her to the door. 

"And just remember," she said as Valerie stepped through the doorway, "if you ever need anything, feel completely free to come to me. Venus House will always be inclusive towards the good people of this school."

Feeling much better now, Valerie found herself walking further down the quad with a certain pep in her step.

Trivia House was a large and glorious mansion, with several spires poking up above its roof, and several tall, beautiful stained-glass windows lined up next to each other. It's most notable trait however, was that it appeared to be made mostly of some jet black metallic-looking bricks that glowed a brilliant violet at its edges.

It all probably looked amazing at night, but right now in broad daylight, it all looked like a bunch of cheesy special effects.

She walked up the steps only to realize that what look like tall black double doors weren't in fact doors at all, but engravings in the stone made to look like doors. She was just wondering how anyone was supposed to get inside, when she found herself being sucked into the door.

For a second she found herself in complete darkness, feeling as if she were flying at hundreds of kilometers per hour. Then, as abruptly as it began, it stopped. 

She was now indoors, in what could only be Trivia House's common area. It looked like an old-fashioned parlor, only much larger, with black walls, and purple furniture and decor. The room was surprisingly well-lit, considering the only sources of light were some torches on the walls, a large chandelier that hung from the center of the ceiling which held several more torches, and a fireplace in the corner that burned with eerie lime-green flames, though Valerie noticed that in spite of the ample light, the black walls didn't reflect any. 

There was only one person there, an older boy lying across an enormous purple armchair, his back against one armrest, his feet hanging over the other. He was busy playing on a gaming console of some kind. Valerie looked over at his screen: there appeared to be a green dinosaur fighting a small pink blob.

"Uhh...hello?" she said tentatively.

The boy's eyes darted towards her for instant before darting back to his game.

"Uhh...hang on, I..."

The button tapping intensified.

"No no no! Fuck! Dammit!"

The boy dropped his console into his lap, let out a huge sigh, then tilted his head backwards to face Valerie.

"Sup?...Wanna play? It's more fun when you're in the same room."

The game was called Super Smash Brothers, and although Valerie had heard of it and recognized most of the characters, she'd never actually played it before. At first, she was no match for Will, but after a few games, she began to get the hang of the game, and she started to lose by less and less. Something peculiar happened. She started to get a feel for their matches, anticipating Will's moves and planning ahead.

Was this a part of her super intuition? Valerie wasn't sure. It felt different, more natural somehow.

As they played, they started to talk and get to know each other.

His name was Will, and he was a son of Hecate, goddess of magic. His father was a stage magician, and he considered himself lucky for it, since most of the men Hecate was attracted to these days were avid Potterheads, Potterheads who didn't know any better when it came to naming their children.

"So we've got several Hermiones, Dracos, Nevilles, Siriuses, Remuses, Albuses, and of course, Harrys. Yeah, we have like nine fucking Harrys, it's like the dumbest shit ever."

"You guys have nine Harrys?" Valerie asked, amused.

Will nodded. "Yep. There's Harry B., Harry E., Harry C., Harry T., Harry P., Harry G., Harry V., Harry Z., and..." He coughed once. "...Harry D." 

Valerie giggled.

Their conversation then turned towards their powers. Valerie showed and explained hers to Will, then asked if, being a child of Hecate, he knew anything about who her godly parent could be.

"Nah, sorry, that's not how it works," he said. "

All demigod powers are technically magic, like how Poseidon kids can waterbend and some Hephaestus kids can firebend, but it's not like 'magic magic' like manipulating the Mist or telekinesis."

"You guys can do telekinesis?"

"There are a few of us that possess such a rare and precious gift," Will said mysteriously.

He extended a hand outward. A moment later, a bag of chip flew out of a nearby hallway and into Will's hand. He tried to open it with his hands, so couldn't, so he tried telekinesis again. The bag burst open, and chips flew everywhere. Will made a vague hand gesture, and the chips began floating towards his mouth.

"Mmm...yes...truly, only the most skilled...of Hecate's children...could master this art," he said inbetween chips. "But yeah, sorry. I don't know who your godly parent is, but for something as oddly specific as string and premonitions, it's not Hecate."

He checked his phone and announced that he had to go to his next class, but that Valerie was welcome to come by any time if she wanted to Smash.

"As in, play Smash, not...you know what I mean."

They headed back outside through the Shadowtravel door and parted ways. Valerie, not knowing where to go, wandered off to the side, and sat down at the steps of the next house over. It was much smaller than the other Houses, just a simple log cabin with a small porch and a triangular roof, which Valerie found strange since all the other Houses were much larger, even the one belonging to Hera, which didn't even need to house any demigod children. So, what made this one special? The number on the door read "14", but Valerie couldn't remember which goddess that belonged to.

She wasn't sure why she'd come here. Maybe it had something to do with how plain it looked: after a day of vampire girls, crazy nerds, impossibly beautiful people, and Shadowtravel doors, there was something comforting about something so completely normal and totally unremarkable. 

"Enjoying the view?"

Valerie jumped a little. There was a girl standing on the porch behind her: she had brown hair, brown eyes, and wore a plain brown dress, but her head was wrapped with a bright red shawl. Valerie was surprised that not even her super intuition had picked up on anything: no sound of the door opening or any footsteps on the porch. It was as if she'd simply appeared out of nowhere.

"Uh, yeah kinda, I guess," she said awkwardly, then tried to change the subject.

"So...do you live here or something?"

 "Only sometimes," she replied enigmatically. "Most of the times I'm off to go wherever I'm needed."

That probably meant hero quests, which meant demigods did live here after all. But then why was it so small? 

"So, how many others live here?"

The girl smiled at her. She looked amused, but not in an unfriendly way. 

"No one else at the moment," she responded. "However, this place is to open anyone looking for a place to belong, a place to call home."

Valerie didn't get it. "I thought all kids were assigned to housing based on their godly parent?"

"They are, but there is more to a home than just the family you're born into. A home is a place of comfort, where one belongs."

Valerie noted that she spoke oddly formally, especially for her age. Who was this girl? Why did she live alone in this one little house? She looked up at the log cabin, searching for any hints as to what god it could belong to, but found none. It was just a regular, cozy little house.

"Hey, if you don't mind me asking, who's your..."

She looked back down, but the girl had disappeared.

"...god parent?" 

She shrugged, got up and left. But she didn't forget about what the girl said.

It was late in the afternoon now. She spent the rest of her time exploring the rest of campus ("Holy shit! Is that real lava?! How is this legal?!"). Finally, it was time for dinner.

The dining pavilion was massive, its long tables arranged in five rows of four. At first she wasn't sure where she was supposed to sit, but then a satyr (turns out those were real too) directed her to the "1/6/11/16" row, explaining that traditionally, unclaimed students sat with the children of Hermes at Table 11. She felt distinctly out of place among the rambunctious Hermes kids, and started to look around. Behind her, at Table 16, she spotted Will on his Switch, trying to finish a game quickly before dinner began. In front of her, she recognized Sage and some of the other Athena kids she'd met earlier that afternoon, and way at the front, she saw Arthur at Table 1, who seemed to be listening intently to an extremely attractive blond boy.

Dinner itself was amazing. A team of wood nymph servants-

"What?" cried the boy next to her, "No they aren't our servants! The ancient Greeks were very progressive. They never owned any slaves-" the girl next to him whispered something in his ear. "Oh...I see. Well at any rate they nymphs aren't our servants, they work for the school because they want to."

Dinner itself was amazing. A team of wood nymph volunteer workers brought out platters of a wide variety of food. Everyone took a moment to burn some of the food for the gods because "they liked the smell" apparently. When the meal began, Valerie quickly became obsessed with the school's magical goblets. She quickly ate all her food in a few minutes, then spent the remainder of the lunch hour trying out precise combinations of various drinks for fun. She was just about to try the "50% Dr. Pepper, 30% Root Beer, 20% Coca-Cola" when it was announced that the claiming ceremony was about to begin.

A dapper looking centaur wearing a tweed jacket and a waistcoat called her and Arthur out by name and asked them to step up onto the podium to the side. They both stepped onstage, stealing nervous glances at each other. Then they turned to face the rest of the school. Valerie could feel all the eyes burning into her. There was a moment of tense silence.

Valerie tugged at her shirt a bit. "So uh...do we just stand here or...?"

She was answered by a clap of thunder and a bright flash of golden light to her right. She turned and saw a glowing symbol of a thunderbolt above Arthur's head. 

"Hail, Arthur Foxglove, son of Zeus, ruler of the Olympians, and god of the sky and lightning," the centaur's voice boomed. The entire dining hall applauded and there were some cheers from Table 1.

Valerie clapped along. She looked out at the crowd because, well, that was what you were supposed to when you were onstage. She saw the girl from earlier, the one in the brown dress. Unlike the other kids, she wasn't seated at her table, which was empty, but standing in the back.

She thought about what the girl had told her, how one's home was more than the family you were born into. Venus House, with its foreboding alien beauty, was led by probably the nicest person Valerie had ever met, and Will had also been pretty cool, considering that he lived in a dark arcane manor. Likewise, in contrast with the obsessive Athena kids, Valerie had quite liked Minerva House's library, which she had found comforting and nostalgic and-

Wait.

Oh shit! 

Something clicked in her mind. She suddenly remembered a story she had read as a young child, about how the goddess of weaving had won a contest, and how the first spider was created. Her powers, which had seemed random and unrelated, now made complete sense. In the exact moment she realized this, there was a flash of silver light above her head...

"Hail, Valeria Green, daughter of Athena, goddess of wisdom, war...and weaving."

Valerie jumped slightly at the sound of her middle initial. Thankfully Chiron had taken mercy on her and hadn't read out her full name. She looked up and found herself staring at the feet of a silver hologram of some kind of bird floating above her head. She tried to get a better angle but whenever she moved her head, the hologram moved along with it. The dining hall applauded. There was lackluster applause and no cheering at all from Table Six.

With the ceremony concluded, everyone headed to their dorms for the night. Valerie somewhat reluctantly followed the other children of Athena back to Minerva House. Inside the common area, there were some half-hearted welcomes, but overall, a general air of discomfort remained. A pit formed in Valerie's stomach. It was strange: she didn't even know these people, and she thought the whole spider thing was stupid, yet she still cared about getting along with them.

"Valerie, may I speak to you for a moment?" said Sage.

Oh boy, here it comes. Valerie trudged over to the corner where Sage was standing as all the other Athena kids headed off to their rooms.

"First of all, I'd like to formally welcome you to the Academy, and to Minerva House," she said.

"Yeah, thanks" Valerie replied, then waited. There had to be more: there was no way Sage called her over just to say that.

"Second, I'd like to ask you...are you alright."

"Yeah, everything's great. I'm just so excited to be an Athena kid you know?" she lied. She just wanted to go to sleep. Sage raised an eyebrow.

"Valerie, I am the head of the children of Athena, goddess of wisdom. I think I can tell when someone's bothered by something."

She sighed.

"I know that many of the Athena kids can be a little...enthusiastic, and even superstitious sometimes. Unfortunately, as the head of Minerva House, I must remain unbiased, and I can't force students to simply...get along with someone. However, if you ever want someone to talk to about it, I'm here for you."

Valerie nodded thanks. Sage exhaled.

"A child of Athena huh? I guess the string is for weaving. And the thoughts popping into your head, I guess that's like magically enhanced wisdom?" She shook her head. "Damn, how did I not realize that sooner?"

Valerie thought back to that morning, to the geometry problem. She hadn't magically remembered the theorems, she just came up with them independently on the spot, which was why she didn't know any of the names. The other incidents were like that too: she didn't just magically know something, she just noticed or realized something that was right in front of her the entire time.

"You're lucky," Sage continued. "Your weaving powers. Athena kids almost never get actual superpowers, it's extremely rare. Your enhanced wisdom is also extremely rare, much more than the enhanced knowledge that Athena kids usually get. Much harder to utilize too, but I believe that you'll become a great hero one day."

She gave Valerie a pat on the back and walked her to her room. She was assigned to a room by herself, which was just as well. Exhausted from a day of fighting monsters and meeting new people, Valerie quickly collapsed in her new bed and fell asleep.

Chapter Text

In the following days, Valerie quickly accustomed to life at Demigod Academy.

The academy's curriculum was surprisingly similar to that of a normal school's. Apparently basic math was considered a universal skill required for everyone, including Greek heroes, and despite the fact that Greek mythology was real, most of science was actually still correct (and the rest were simply constructs provided by The Mist to fill in the gaps). The classes that were the most unique were "History" (which Valerie thought should be changed to "Greek Mythology Literature", since that was what it really was) and "Ancient Greek". Valerie learned from the boy sitting next to her that their teacher for Ancient Greek would be the very same centaur who had declared her a daughter of Athena at the claiming ceremony, and that his name was Chiron. The boy had said this so seriously, that Valerie guessed that "Chiron" was supposed to be someone important, and she nodded back seriously while trying to sound impressed.

Surprisingly, Valerie found that she did well in all her classes, especially Ancient Greek. In fact she often found herself winning the daily Kahoot! rounds that Chiron would host in class, such as this one right now:

"Now as I've mentioned earlier, the winner of the Kahoot will earn extra credit points for the class. And the winner is...Mike Hock!...Wait a minute..."

The whole class lightly chuckled except for Valerie, who had both hands clasped over her mouth as she tried, very unsuccessfully, to stifle her snickering as she shook with laughter.

Chiron signed. "Congratulations Ms. Green, you will receive five extra points on your next test," he said resignedly. Valerie pumped her fist victoriously then high-fived the people sitting around her while the rest of the class looked on, thoroughly amused.

The only people who didn't join in the laughter were the other children of Athena who happened to be in the same class. The advantages their "super knowledge" provided in learning a new language had been offset by the fact that they, like most demigods, were dyslexic, and this made them somewhat bitter.

Which was Valerie thought really unfair. After all, she and probably lots of other kids were jealous of their super knowledge without being bitter over it. It seemed unfair that they should resent her for something she had no control over either, such as her lack of dyslexia.

Or her string powers.

Her situation with the other Athena kids hadn't changed. They didn't relentlessly bully her or even ignore her, the way kids tended to do in YA fiction and anime. Instead they were much more subtle about it, generally avoiding or ignoring her if they could: she often had to ask questions twice before getting an answer. It wasn't anything dramatic and certainly not enough to go to Sage about, and even if it had been, Valerie wasn't the type to go to higher-ups for help anyway. At most it was just mildly annoying that she often had to ask questions twice before getting an answer.

Besides, it wasn't as if she had anyone else to talk to. Thankfully, due to pure luck, the tables of the dining pavilion were arranged such that Tables 1 and 6 were next to each other, and that was how Valerie found herself sitting next to Arthur and that cute tall lanky blond guy he was always with one day.

"Hi, I'm Valerie," Valerie introduced herself. "I'm a daughter of Athena...I mean that's kind of obvious I guess, since I'm sitting here."

"Hello, I'm Halcyoneus," the blond guy stated, "and I am neither gay or asexual." He said this last part matter-of-factly.

"Uhhh..."  Valerie looked to Arthur. Arthur gave her a little shrug as if to say "just go along with it"

"Hello Halcyo-...Halcy-...Hal," Valerie replied. "I'm Valerie, I'm a daughter of Athena, though you probably knew that because I'm sitting here. Wow, not gay or ace huh? How very um...very interesting! Same here as a matter of fact. Wow it's crazy we have so much in common huh?"

Arthur gave her the lore dump later on in private: that the Athena kids often liked to speculate about peoples' sexualities and it had gotten particularly worse after a game of Truth or Dare where Hal had been unable to name a crush he had because he didn't have one, so this became how he introduced himself to children of Athena.

"That's..." Valerie was going to say something a little bit mean but instead ended up saying, "...kinda relatable actually. Like wow, I really hate how relatable that is."

From then on, the three of them would always meet at where the two tables touched during meals. During these moments, Valerie and Hal found out that they pretty much had nothing in common. She liked science and math; he was more into history. She spent time touching grass and socializing; he read books and watched movies and TV shows, or as he called it "consumed media." Valerie learned that he actually took this quite seriously during an interaction they had one day.

"I prefer the older movies," Hal had said when describing his opinion on Star Wars.

"Oh, you mean like the ones from the 2010s? Me too! I love Rey and also Kylo Ren's pretty hot," Valerie replied.

He wouldn't talk to her for the rest of the day, but the next morning he was back to normal as if nothing had happened.

Despite this, they did seem to share some small connection over their feelings towards the Athena kids, which Valerie found quite interesting, since as far as she knew, the Hal and the Athena kids liked to do all the same things: deeply analyze and heavily discuss YA series and children's cartoons.

"That's true I suppose," Hal said when she brought it up during lunch one day. "I guess the main difference is...hmm how do I put this..." he paused. "I guess the main difference is I like to adhere to the details of the text while they like to invent details and discuss them as if they were real."

Valerie's eyes widened. She definitely hadn't been expecting that. Luckily nobody at her table had overheard.

"Dude!" Arthur hissed. He also look surprised, but less so, like this was this kind of thing Hal said all the time just usually not in public like that. 

"What?" asked Hal. He sounded genuinely puzzled.

"Bro, you can't just say stuff like that...even if it is kinda true." Valerie whispered, suppressing a laugh.

"Why not?"

"Why-?" that caught her off guard. "Because...because you're just not supposed to."

"Why not?"

Valerie didn't have a good answer so she tried to think about what adults in her life would say. "Because it's rude, I guess? I don't know."

"How can a factual statement be rude?" 

Neither Arthur or Valerie could answer that.

One morning, the three of them were sitting at their usual spot, chatting while eating. Today they were talking about that new book that came out that everyone was talking about.

"I haven't read the series yet, but almost everyone I know who's read it says it's really good," Arthur was saying. "Have you read it?" he asked Valerie.

She shook her head. "Nah. Not really into that fantasy stuff." Her eyes narrowed. "But I bet Hal has."

Hal nodded. "Yes. I've read all 54 books in the series actually" 

"Oh so they're probably pretty good then" Arthur said.

Hal shook his head. "They're probably the worst books I've ever read."

"Wait," said Valerie. "They're the worst books ever...but also you've read all 50 of them?"

"Well what didn't you like about them" asked Arthur

Hal set his fork down. Valerie shot a look at Arthur, who was filled with instant regret. Once Hal started talking about something he was passionate about he was unlikely to stop any time soon.

"Let's see, where do I even begin..." he murmured. "Well in the beginning of the first book, The City of Bones-"

Just then, Valerie became aware of something happening in the background and looked up; Arthur followed suit and Hal turned around to see what they were looking at. There was some sort of commotion at the Apollo table, followed by all the Apollo kids leaving the dining hall. To Valerie's surprise, everyone else got up too and followed them out. Instinctively not wanting to be left behind, the three of them followed the other Zeus and Athena kids.

"What's going on?" Valerie wondered aloud at nobody in particular. As usual, the Athena kids ignored her.

Someone, one of the daughters of Zeus, spoke up from behind her. "Claire, one of the Apollo kids had a vision."

"What did she see?"

"Some girl being chased by a monster. She's on her way here, right now."

Chapter Text

Valerie had no clue why this was apparently such a big deal, but luckily Hal was there to explain it to her.

Up until the dawn of the 21st century, life for demigods had been extremely difficult to say the least. The gods were negligent of their half-mortal children and typically left them on their own to fend off against monsters. To make matters worse, demigods were often ostracized by mortals due to inherent differences that were perceived as disorders, most commonly ADHD and dyslexia. Over time however, due to a combination of American society changing its views towards the neurodivergent and the effects of "The Perseus Jackson Pact" by the gods following the end of the Second Titan War, both these things became things of the past and the lives of demigods greatly improved.

Ironically, the very things that had made the lives of past demigods difficult was now romanticized by current demigods. Demigods who had a rough childhood or had to fight through monsters to reach school were expected to become great heroes. It didn't help that Percy Jackson himself had been through both of those things and he turned out to be quite easily the greatest living hero.

And that was why this crowd had gathered. Everyone wanted to meet the new demigod who didn't fly into school by chariot who was surely destined for great things.

They reached the entrance to the school at Half-Blood Hill. More accurately, the front of the crowd reached the entrance to the school at Half-Blood Hill. From their spot near the back of the crowd, all Valerie could see were the backs of people's heads; if she craned her neck she could just make out the top of a pine tree near the entrance, but that was about it.

"Hang on I'll be right back," she said, then before Arthur could protest, she began to squeeze her way through the crowd to the front. Her super intuition kicked in, and her mind rapidly scanned the crowd for relatively large spaces to squeeze through for optimal pathing. She quickly reached the front of the crowd, just inside the arch that had "Demigod Academy" spelled out on top. Off to the side was a dragon, who looked into the forest alert, as if waiting for something. It was sitting next to great pine tree that stood taller than all the other trees and on its lowest branch was something that looked like a big yellow blanket. Valerie knew the dragon was named Peleus and remembered vaguely that there was some history behind the tree and the blanket but she couldn't remember exactly what. Next to him stood Chiron, who had his bow out, ready for action.

She looked out into the forest as everyone else did, scanning the trees for signs of movement.

Nothing.

Then she saw it. Two figures emerged from the forest and into the clearing. There was a satyr who looked about thirty (so he was probably actually around sixty), his arm around the shoulder of a blonde girl about the same age as Valerie, who appeared to be half carrying him. It was obvious that the satyr was injured, and immediately, several of the Apollo kids went down to provide assistance.

What happened next occurred so quickly, that Valerie wasn't even able to fully process what happened until afterwards. Something else burst into the clearing with incredible speed. It moved too quickly for Valerie to get a good look at it, but she could make out that the creature looked like a large lion but with a long tail covered with spikes like the back of a porcupine and...a human face? Chiron and Peleus reacted almost instantly, the former quickly drawing his bow but unable to get a clear shot and the latter spreading his wings and lifting off but was already too late. Valerie heard the sound of a whip crack as the creature flicked its tail faster than the speed of sound, launching several spikes at the girl and the satyr. Everyone was too stunned to react, everyone except for the girl that is. She picked up a branch lying on the ground, dropping the satyr she had been supporting in the process, and twirled it like a baton. The branch struck the spikes mid-air, deflecting them away from her, but not without reducing the branch into pieces. She was now unarmed but she had defended for just long enough, as Peleus was now in position. He opened his mouth and a stream of flames shot out of his mouth. The creature was instantly incinerated. In about three seconds it was all over.

A group of satyrs came and lifted the injured satyr onto a stretcher; as they carried him away, Valerie could have sworn she heard him mumble something about cheese enchiladas. With the satyr clearly in no condition to talk, everyone naturally turned to the girl to tell them what had happened.

Just then, the bell rung. Chiron announced that it was time for everyone to go to class. There was a collective groan, as everybody wanted to hear the new girl's story, but they grudgingly did as they were told and headed off to their classes. The rest of the morning was the same as usual and things didn't get interesting again until lunch.

Valerie sat down at her usual spot. Arthur and Hal asked where she went and she filled them in on what had happened. Just as she finished describing how Peleus "totally destroyed that manticore," she overheard someone talking from further down her table. It was Weiss, the same girl who had thought that Valerie might have been a daughter of Apollo.

"I heard from one of the Apollo kids that turns out, it wasn't just that satyr who got poisoned by the manticore, the new girl was also hit by one of the spikes and they had give her some nectar and ambrosia to get the poison out of her system. Do you realize what this means?! It means she literally carried that satyr through the whole forest while under the effects of the manticore poison!"

Valerie was impressed, and it seemed everyone else was too. At that exact moment, Valerie noticed that the new girl herself was passing by their table.

"I have a theory," Weiss prattled on, "I think the fact that she was able to do that while being poisoned means that she might have powers related to poison resistance. She's probably a daughter of Achlys!"

Achlys? Really? The idea that the primordial deity of poison (among other things) would ever come to the surface and have an offspring with a mortal was far-fetched, even for Weiss. Valerie had heard a lot of dumb ideas in her life, but that one just might have been the dumbest idea ever.

"Achlys? Really? I've heard a lot of dumb ideas in my life, but that one just might have been the dumbest one ever."

Valerie jumped a bit, startled to hear her thoughts voiced aloud. She turned around to see who spoke. It was the new girl.

Weiss was taken aback, and seemed like she was about to say something to defend herself when the new girl spoke up again.

"Which table is this?"

"Table 6, for the children of Athena, the smartest kids at school," Weiss replied, as if saying that she was a daughter of Athena would help her case. It didn't.

"Smartest kids at school huh?" the new girl said dryly. "Well then what are you doing here then?" she said, as she shot Weiss a withering look. Then she continued towards Table 11, where the unclaimed kids were supposed to go.

"See?" Weiss continued on after making sure the new girl was out of earshot. "She even has a toxic personality! It makes total sense when you think about it!"

After that there were several more similar incidents. Before lunch ended, there was a scuffle at Table 11. Evidently Robert had tried to pick the new girl's pocket but had been caught in the act. Everyone watched as Katrina tightly squeezed Robert's wrist as he sputtered in pain before finally letting him go.

Lunch ended and everyone left for their afternoon classes. During this time, stories began to spread about the belligerent new girl who constantly got into fights with people. It seemed that everyone knew someone who had been insulted by her. By the time dinner rolled around there was general consensus from everyone (everyone except Weiss that is) that she was probably just another run-of-the-mill daughter of Ares, who certainly wasn't destined for great things. So it came to everyone's surprised when a hologram of an owl popped up above her head during the claiming ceremony.

"Hail Katrina Valentine, daughter of Athena..." Chiron said. There was lackluster applause throughout the dining hall. Valerie looked at the rest of the Athena kids and grinned; they seemed just as uncomfortable as they'd been when she was claimed. This could be interesting, watching how they handled the new girl. And one of them would be living with her too. Valerie felt bad for whichever unlucky girl was to be the new girl's roommate.

Wait.

She was the last daughter of Athena to arrive. That meant she was the unlucky girl who was to be the new girl's roommate!

Her heart sank. If even half the stories that she had heard this afternoon was true, her life was probably about to become a living hell. As she followed the rest of the Athena kids back to Minerva House, she looked back and saw Katrina still at the dining hall, talking to Chiron about something.

"So..." Valerie said conversationally to her siblings once they reached the common area of Minerva House. "I don't suppose any of you would be willing to switch rooms with me would you?"

As usual, everybody pretended not to hear her. She sighed inwardly. She hadn't really expected that to work anyway: she only tried it as a last ditch effort and now she felt a bit pathetic for even attempting that.

"Why are you all ignoring her?"

Valerie felt her soul leave her body. It was Katrina. She must have caught up earlier and overheard what she said. She turned around, fearing retaliation. But strangely enough Katrina didn't seem angry with her. She simply looked at Valerie intently as if studying her, then examined the faces of the other Athena kids too.

"Why are you all ignoring her?" she asked again, this time more forcefully.

Weiss, who evidently hadn't learned to keep quiet, answered her.

"It's not intentionally, it's just you know...the spider thing."

"Spider thing?" Katrina asked coldly.

Weiss timidly explained to her Valerie's string powers and how because of the myth of Arachne, the children of Athena learned to fear spiders as their mortal enemies. Valerie was somewhat impressed: clearly Weiss liked to talk about Greek mythology more than she feared Katrina. Once she was finished, Katrina snorted.

"You're kidding with me right?" she said, smiling incredulously like she thought it was some kind of prank. She looked around the room at the faces of the other Athena kids and her face fell. "No...you're not kidding."

She seemed angry now, pinching the bridge of her nose in frustration. Nobody moved. Finally she said...

"Wow that's...that's honestly horrible. You're telling me you're all children of Athena yet you can't even be rational over something this girl clearly has no control over?"

Terrified that this would kill what little connection she had with her siblings, she turned around and desperately gestured to Katrina to stop, but to no avail.

"And you guys are allegedly the smartest kids in this school too. Well if that's true, I sure wouldn't want to meet the rest of the people here. Seriously all of you disgust me."

She stormed out of the room. Nobody even tried to stop her or respond, they were all too ashamed. Valerie quickly ran after her.

The rest of the night was quiet, with the two of them relaxing in their rooms without saying anything to each other. Despite the fact that Katrina had stood up for her, Valerie was still somewhat intimidated by her. But she felt that it would be wrong not to thank her so just after the lights turned off and they both got into their beds, she said...

"Hey....thanks for earlier and stuff."

"Oh," Katrina sounded a bit surprised. "Yeah well I mean it was really messed up them to do that."

Valerie felt guilty for trying to switch rooms earlier. "So...you're not mad at me?"

"What? No! Why would I be mad at you? You haven't done anything wrong." She sounded mildly annoyed, as if she thought her being mad at Valerie was offensive to her. Valerie decided not to say anything else that might offend her.

Before she fell asleep she lay in bed thinking. Despite the impression Katrina left on the whole school that day, Valerie was cautiously optimistic that maybe her new roommate wasn't so bad after all.

As her roommate and also probably the closest thing Katrina had to a friend, Valerie felt she had an obligation to show her around the school, and so that's what she did early next morning. It was during this time that Valerie got to see first hand the kind of person Katrina was and why everyone at school had been talking about her yesterday.

"What's that building??" Katrina asked, pointing over at one of the Houses. It was almost pure black with "Hades House" written in chrome spray paint over the door. There were several kids wearing black perched on the rooftop.

"That's Pluto House," Valerie replied.

"Then why does it say 'Hades House' on the front?"

"I think it's because they thought 'Pluto' sounded lame or something like that."

"Why are there people sitting on the rooftop?"

"If I remember correctly it's because children of Hades tend to be outcasts tend to sit on top of the roof to brood and be alone."

"If they're so alone, why don't they just hang out with each other?"

"Because..." Valerie faltered. "Uh...well umm...wow that's a pretty good question actually."

"Wow! That's some serious self-victimizing!" Katrina called out loudly enough for the people on the rooftop to hear. "Maybe if they spent more time trying to make friends instead of feeling sorry for themselves, they'd actually have friends."

Valerie cringed. The kids in black sitting on the rooftop looked down upon them. One of them called down in a trembling voice, "W-we're not self-victimizing! We're disliked by a society that misunderstands and fears death because its full of negative bullies like you!"

"Oh yeah?" Katrina retorted. "Well I'm not scared of death and I dislike you. How does that work out? Oh wait, it's because I'm a 'negative bully' isn't it? Basically any answer's fine as long as it doesn't include the possibility that there's a reason people don't want to be your friend right?"

She stormed off mumbling something about how pathetic some people were and Valerie hastily followed, keeping her head turned so that the people on the rooftop wouldn't recognize her. When they were at a safe distance, her curiosity got the better of her and she said,

"What makes you think they're outcasts because of them and not because of society or whatever?"

"I can tell just by looking," Katrina replied simply. Valerie decided not to pursue the subject any further and together the two of them headed towards the dining hall for breakfast.

Arthur was already seated there, quietly thinking. Yesterday had been his second most eventful day at school yet (it didn't beat the time that one of the children of Zeus stuck a fork into an outlet and summoned lightning to strike it, overloading all the electrical devices and blowing up every light in the house because he "wanted to see what would happen.") There had been that new kid who arrived and although he was stuck in the back of the crowd and didn't see it, he had been later filled in by Valerie about the "super epic" manticore fight that had ensued near the school entrance. Then of course, like everyone else, he had overheard many stories about the new girl Katrina and her combative ways and had made a mental note that avoiding her might be a good idea.

As a result, he was greatly dismayed to see Katrina walking into the dining hall with Valerie and take a seat across from her.

He shot Valerie a look.

She looked back at him, then looked at Katrina. Katrina was looking at Hal.

Hal wasn't looking at anyone. In fact he wasn't even sitting at the table. He was off to the side doing...something. Arthur wasn't really sure what he was doing actually. He appeared to making a twirling motion with his hands followed by a short hop. He repeated this series of movements several more times, unaware of the strange looks he was getting, until...

"What are you doing?" Katrina asked somewhat coldly.

Hal stopped and looked at her. Unlike the others, Hal hadn't heard any rumors because nobody at school talked to him and he was usually lost in his own thoughts and as such, didn't often overhear conversations.

"I'm trying to make an air scooter," he said, as if that explained everything, then went back to making the weird movements.

"What's...what's an air scooter?" Katrina asked.

"An air scooter. From Avatar: The Last Airbender," Hal replied.

"Oh is that the show you were watching last night with the guy and his boomerang?" Arthur asked.

Hal nodded and launched into a lengthy explanation. Something about an air scooter being some kind of ball made of air that a person would sit and roll around on...or something like that anyways, Valerie didn't entirely understand it. After Hal finished, he continued trying to make an air scooter, still ignoring his breakfast.

Given her reputation and what they've seen, Arthur and Valerie expected Katrina to launch into some rant about how watching cartoons was stupid or that he was stupid for trying something out of a cartoon, but instead she just nodded approvingly.

"So is that your superpower? 'Airbending' or whatever you called it?"

Hal explained that his power was similar to airbending except it appeared to be far weaker, as he was never able to manifest anything more than some light breezes. He recalled the time when he first entered camp last year, and people thought that he was a son of Aeolus despite the fact that Aeolus hadn't been known to mingle with mortals...ever.

"They were quite surprised when I was revealed to be a Son of Zeus. To be honest, I never understood why. Zeus is best known as the god of lightning, but he's also the god of the sky as well and it's not uncommon for demigods not to inherit every aspect of their godly parents. The first child of Zeus born after World War II, Thalia Grace, had inherited only the power to bring forth lightning and nothing else and as far as I know, Arthur's only ability is to electrocute things upon physical contact."

"And I can make string and think of stuff sometimes!" Valerie blurted out. The other three stared at her and she faltered slightly. "Just....you know just throwing that out there 'cause we were talking about our powers and stuff." She cleared her throat and recovered her composure. "So uh anyways...what about you Katrina? Got any special powers related to wisdom or war or weaving or even uh...I don't know. What else is there? Olives I guess?"

The three of them leaned forward slightly in anticipation. Some of the other kids sitting around the four of them stopped to tune in. Even a few Apollo kids sitting at the table behind her turned around to listen.

"My powers?"

Katrina's eyes darted around at all the expectant faces around her and groaned.

"Seriously?"

Nobody said anything, but it was clear that it would be easier to give in an answer than to try and get out of answering them.

"Fine," she relented. "I have just the one power actually. I can read people's minds."

Chapter Text

"I can read people's minds."

Actually, that wasn't technically true, as she didn't actually possess any telepathic abilities. She did however, have the ability to deduce what people were thinking based on their body language, mostly facial expressions. As a result she lied, since it was easier to do that than go through the trouble of explaining exactly how her powers worked. She had already had to do that with Chiron yesterday...

The two of them were sitting in the Big House. Katrina had just woken up a few minutes ago, after the manticore's poison caused her to black out and she had to be carried to the infirmary. Chiron had asked her fill him in on everything that had happened, since Grover was still out of commission.

"It's like this..." she said, as she struggled to find the right words. "If you see someone smile, without thinking about it, you recognize that they're happy. Maybe if you look closely you'll see their smile is strained and you can sense that they're actually uncomfortable. My power's like that, but I'm able to read even more subtle expressions and also be able to interpret more complicated thoughts from them." For example, tight now she could tell by looking at Chiron's face that he was beginning to comprehend what she was saying.

"So...you can interpret microexpressions," he said it as a statement, not as a question.

Katrina nodded. "Basically yeah."

Despite having the ability to tell what people were thinking just by looking at them, Katrina had actually led a fairly normal life up until about a few days ago, when she had been attacked by a manticore after school. She had instantly recognized from the look on its face that it had killing intent but the monster had been too fast for her. Fortunately the school guidance counselor Mr. Underwood had come to the rescue and revealed that he was a satyr who possessed magical powers.

Katrina had always suspected there was something more to Mr. Underwood than he let on. Her ability to read people's faces meant that she could also roughly estimate their mental ages. Despite looking like he was in his late twenties, Grover had the face of someone who was twice as old.. Chiron was the same too, but more. On the outside, the man part of him looked to be about in his 40s, but Katrina could tell from his face that he was actually much older. How old was he though? 100? 200? She couldn't tell; she had never met anyone that old and therefore had no basis for comparison.

Mr. Underwood then proclaimed that Greek mythology was real and that the two of them would have to embark on a journey across America to reach a school for others like her. Any normal kid might have needed time to process such a massive information dump, but Katrina could tell Grover's face that he was telling the truth and that time was of the essence, so she quickly agreed to go along with him.

They headed east, travelling mainly by high speed rail. Evading the manticore had actually been fairly easy. Katrina quickly came to find out that Mr. Underwood's, or Grover, as she came to know him as, mild-mannered demeanor belied his true power, as he was very adept at playing the reed pipes and other forms of woodland magic. Perhaps his greatest power of all was something Katrina called "The Scream," where he would create what was best described as a wave of fear that caused mass pandemonium amongst humans and would send the manticore running off in fear...until it would wore off. Then it would pop back up again days later in whatever city they were at. This strategy worked for almost the entire trip until the very end, when the manticore had managed to catch them off guard, poisoning them both and incapacitating Grover with those deadly tail spikes. It was at this point that something new was triggered inside her: whether it was some demigod ability or just an adrenaline rush, Katrina didn't know, but somehow she found the willpower to carry an injured Grover through the forest, relying on stealth to evade the manticore, all while being poisoned. She had mostly succeeded until the very end, when the manticore caught up to them, but then luckily Peleus and the rest of camp had showed up to save them.

Funnily enough, the manticore had actually been the least of their worries. The most difficult part of the journey had been trying to travel without attracting unwanted attention. In a very unfortunate twist, it turns out the Mist had warped public perception so that everyone believed Katrina was the victim of a kidnapping by Grover, the leader of a pedophile sex cult, and that the manticore was a concerned citizen who was out to exact his own brand of vigilante justice. As a result, during the whole trip, they were forced to lay low to avoid detection.

"Ah yes. Unfortunately I can confirm that the Mist sometimes creates such...undesirable illusions" said Chiron when he heard of this. He sounded as if he was speaking from personal experience. "Not to worry, I shall simply manipulate the Mist to erase this little incident from public memory and clear Mr. Underwood's good name."

Satisfied with what he had been told, Chiron thanked her and her that she was free to explore the campus as she wished before dinner.

Unfortunately, things quickly went downhill afterwards when she started to meet all the other demigods. Growing up, Katrina never really got along with the other kids, as her ability to read people's faces made it so that things that were normally kept hidden such as stupid thoughts or annoying personality traits were readily apparent to her. In addition, as far back as she could remember, Katrina always had a certain fondness for intelligence, rational and logical thought. The combination of these two traits made it so that Katrina was easily annoyed by what she saw as her peers' stupidity and would often engage in seemingly unprovoked arguments with them.

What made things even worse was that she found that the students at the academy seemed "even dumber" than what she was normally used to. Wherever she walked, she could sense the other students analyzing her, trying to figure out what her powers were, what her backstory was, and who her godly parent was (they were REALLY obsessed about that last one). The worst theory she'd come across so far was from that one girl who claimed that she had poison resistance and so she must have been a daughter of some poison goddess or whatever. As the day went by, she realized that she must have built up something of a reputation, as the looks of curiosity became replaced by something that resembled disdain. Good, she thought. Maybe they'll leave me alone now.

Then the claiming ceremony happened. With everything that had been going on, she hadn't really given any thought towards who her godly parent would be, but now that it was revealed to be Athena, it actually kind of made sense in a weird way. It explained why she cared greatly for intellect (and why she became easily irritated when it became clear that certain people lacked any). Moreover, it explained her ability to read faces: wisdom could be described as having the ability to properly judge something based on experience, and she was doing exactly that: determining what people were thinking based on her experiences with what different microexpressions indicated.

Okay that second part was pretty big reach, but honestly if children of Hades could teleport anywhere where there was a shadow, then surely children of Athena being able to tell what people were thinking by observing them wasn't out of the realm of possibility.

And speaking of children of Athena...

When Grover told her that they were going to a place with "people with abilities like you," she had been elated at the prospect of finally being able to meet someone who understood people the way she did, someone whom she could relate to.

That idea quickly got scrapped when, to her dismay, she found that not a single other child of Athena had her face reading ability. In fact, few of them seemed to even have wisdom-based abilities in general, as the only other one with a remotely similar power was Valerie, whose ability to subconsciously analyze situations was somewhat reminiscent of her own ability to subconsciously recognize what people were thinking. The rest of the children of Athena however all seemed to possess the generic ability of being able to easily process and retain large amounts of knowledge, which they seemed to mostly waste on Greek mythology and their idiotic theories.

After the claiming ceremony, Katrina made it for about two minutes without picking some sort of fight. She really hadn't planned on getting involved in one so close to bedtime, but she had noticed all the other children of Athena scorning Valerie for something really stupid (something about spiders?) and was overcome with the urge to speak out. After all, the whole situation was completely ridiculous. Like really? Spiders? Her mind raced with questions. Why were the Athena kids so scared of spiders? Even if there were spiders, why did they hate Valerie for something she was clearly just born with? Did this also mean that they were afraid of Spider-man too? The fact that these were legitimate questions only frustrated her even more. She struggled to wrap her mind that there were people who could be this unreasonable, people who were supposedly children of a wisdom goddess. Seriously, why did people have to be so fucking stupid?!

And that was how she fell asleep, angrily trying to deal with the fact that this was apparently her new family now. Her first day at school was finally over. She could already tell that this was going to be a long and extremely painful summer here.

Chapter Text

Starting the next day, Katrina would sit with their group at the dining hall. She wasn't their friend or anything, in fact, quite the opposite, Arthur got the distinct impression she only sat with them only because she disliked them less than she disliked everyone else. That is, he thought this was the case until one day, when a couple of giggling girls happened to walk past their table.

"Oh my gods, there is no way I'd be able to handle a relationship like that."

"Right? Like are the straights even okay?"

"Oh, is something happening to the water?" 

It was Hal. Arthur and Valerie sank in their seats and groaned a little. Katrina, who had never seen a "Hal moment" before, leaned in curiously.

One of the girls wrinkled her nose. "The water?"

Hal nodded. "You said something about the straits?"

"Oh!" The second girl, realizing Hal misunderstood her, chuckled. "No, not like water straits, like straight people!"

"I see," Hal replied. "Well, what's wrong with them?"

"Huh?"

"The straight people. You said 'are they even okay?'."

"Oh well um..." The girls' smiles dropped. "It's because straight people are always...you know..."

"I'm sorry I don't know, could you explain it to me?"

Katrina, who had been following their conversation like a tennis matched, gazed intently into Hal's face. Nothing. Not a crumb of ragebaiting intent; he was just genuinely confused and asking for clarification.

"It's...too complicated to explain" the first girl said, and the two of them left hurriedly muttering something that sounded like "endy sis hets".

"What a strange thing to say," Hal murmured. Then he simply shrugged and went back to eating. Katrina just kept on staring at him.

"Nice," she murmured while nodding.

After this, Arthur was left as the one she had the coldest attitude towards, but even then, it wasn't that bad. In fact, she had come suspiciously close to acting nicely towards him a few days ago. The four of them were racing to class and Katrina had crashed into Arthur, stepping on his foot in the process. Being the good kid he was, Arthur instinctively began to apologize when Katrina took one look at his face and cried out "Don't!"

Arthur froze to avoid doing whatever it was Katrina was referring to. "Uh...don't do what exactly?"

"Apologize," she answered. "You do it all the time, even when it's not your fault. Just now you were about to apologize even though I crashed into you. I should be the one saying sorry."

"Oh...yeah. Sor- (Katrina flashed him another look)-er, I mean, yeah you're right. I was just trying to be nice I guess."

"Yeah, I know, and that's nice and all but you shouldn't feel the need to cave in to others when you haven't done anything wrong" she looked at him sternly, but not exactly unkindly. "Now come on, let's get to class. If we're the last ones there we'll have to sit next to Tommy Ato and he always smells like stale ketchup for some reason."

Arthur knew that despite her rough attitude, Katrina meant well. Most of the other students had readily dismissed her as "too judgmental" or "just a bully" but Arthur suspected that was just a result of her ability to read faces: many thoughts that people tended to keep to themselves were displayed plainly on their faces for her to read, it was no wonder she was quick to judge. From his experience, bullies tended to have fun tearing down people they didn't like for no real reason: Katrina never did it for fun, and it was never for.

It had now been two weeks since they've arrived at school and Arthur had grown quite used to life at the academy. All the strange buildings, the Greek mythology-focused classes, the kids walking around with superpowers, and even the mythological creatures who ran the school, now all felt very familiar and commonplace. Arthur didn't even care that he was spending summer at school. Most of the material they were learning was interesting and more importantly, the classes weren't as stressful since apparently the school didn't consider grades to be very important.

"Why do I even care about your grades?" Dionysus repeated the question posed by one of the other students in Arthur's class, sneering as he did so. "Quite frankly I couldn't care less if you failed your classes. However, it would certainly be in your best interest to try, since failing to learn anything here would likely result in your death in the outside world, or worse, some eternal punishment from angering the wrong god." He took another sip of his Diet Coke, as the class stared in terrified silence.

Classes were also more enjoyable due to the fact that he shared all his classes with Hal, Valerie, and Katrina. In fact the four of them had recently decided to form a study group as well. First, they had to find a good place to meet.

"What about the library at Minerva House?" Arthur suggested. "It's right next to where you two live, and plus we'll be surrounded by all the really smart and helpful Athena kids."

The other three considered this for just a second before all of them spoke at once.

"I am firmly against this proposal."

"Good idea, but how about instead of that, we did literally anything else?"

"I think I'd rather bathe in centaur's blood."

Okay, so the location was still up for discussion; the four of them ran through their options. Jupiter House's common area didn't have really good spots for a group of people to sit at, none of their rooms also had places for all four people to sit at.

"You know," said Valerie, after the four of them spent a moment quietly thinking. "I think I have a good place in mind."

A few minutes later, the four of them were standing in front of a log cabin situated between Bacchus House and Trivia House.

"Here we are!" Valerie gestured grandly at the log cabin. "A girl I met on our first day here said that I was welcome here anytime, and I assume she totally meant that literally and not figuratively."

"What is this place?" Katrina asked. Neither she nor Arthur were familiar with this House.

"This is uhh..." Valerie looked to Hal.

"This is Vesta House, the honorary House for the goddess Hestia," Hal finished.

That name was unfamiliar to Arthur. "Which one was that one again? Is she an Olympian?"

"She was, but she was replaced by Dionysus. I do not remember the details."

The four of them ventured into the log cabin and found...nobody. There was nobody there at all.

"What the...where is everyone?" Valerie cried as she looked around. She noticed that unlike the other Houses, there were no hallways leading to students' rooms.

"Oh, I thought you knew. As a virgin goddess, Hestia has no children and in fact, rarely interacts with humans ever. Not that any of this matters to the Athena kids, who insist that every child of Hephaestus with fire powers 'probably could' be a child of Hestia. There are also rumors that Hestia sometimes appears at the school, taking the form of a girl wearing a red shawl, but those claims are unconfirmed."

"A girl? Red shawl?" Valerie's eyes widened. "But that's...no!...unless?...but it can't be!...but what if?..." she went on like this for quite sometime, clutching her head in disbelief. As she did so, Katrina looked on in mild amusement.

Meanwhile, Arthur looked around the Vesta House. It appeared to be one big room that looked like the inside of a log cabin. There were several armchairs and a large rectangular table on top of an enormous shag rug. In the back of the room was a fancy fireplace, its flame blazing even though it was the middle of the day.

He turned around, everyone seemed content, and since Hestia herself hadn't appeared out of nowhere to smite them, they were all agreed: this was to be their meeting place outside of classes.

There was just one thing about the academy that he wasn't particularly thrilled about, and that was that he got the impression that children of Zeus weren't very much liked. In his two weeks at school, he had observed that few children of Zeus had friends outside of Jupiter House. On the opposite end of that spectrum were the children of Poseidon, Athena, and surprisingly, Hades, who were quite popular and generally had many friends from other Houses. It made sense to him that Neptune and Minerva House were the most popular, as Percy and Annabeth were children of Poseidon and Athena. However this didn't explain why the children of Hades were particularly popular or why the children of Zeus were particularly unpopular. When he dared to ask Katrina about this, she just scowled.

"Oh you've noticed that too huh? Yeah, try not to let it bother you too much. People are just stupid like that," she said. Arthur took her response with a grain of salt, since "people are just stupid like that" was Katrina's reaction towards a lot of things.

As they entered their third week at school, their classes started to get more serious, in particular Arthur, Valerie, and Katrina had finally started to learn how to use weapons in Physical Education. Their PE teacher was a geriatric Satyr who went by "Coach Hedge" who looked, and acted, like an army drill Sergeant.

"Alright cupcakes, listen up! I'm sure by now you've all fantasies about going out and slaying monsters with your magic sword," he paused and leered at them. "Well I want you to forget about all of that stuff right now!" He explained that this class wouldn't be about swords, which were "for Democrats," and instead they would learn how to fight using spears, which were for "real Republicans!" According to Hedge, the spear was the single greatest weapon in all of human history, having been used by humans since tens of thousands of years ago, when they used it to hunt Pleistocene megafauna to extinction. In the back of his mind, Arthur wanted to ask Coach Hedge how he knew so much about paleolithic times and how prehistory could possibly be reconciled with Greek mythology, but like everyone else in class, he was too intimidated to say anything

"If you wanna kill some other unarmored opponent, then okay fine use a sword, but if you want to be a real hero and slay some fucking monsters, then use a goddamn spear. Of course we'll be starting you out on wooden staffs because Chiron thinks 'Oooh they're too young!' or 'What if they eviscerate themselves?'"

And that's what they ended up doing: over two hours of tedious training exercises with a long wooden staff. Fortunately, their teachers were sympathetic, as they remembered Coach Hedge from a time when they were kids and the school was still a summer camp.

"Oh gods, you guys are training under Hedge now?" said Mrs. McLean, their Greek Mythology teacher, after asking why everyone looked much more exhausted than usual after their first day of training. "I'm surprised he's still around. He was actually the satyr who brought me to camp when I was you guys' age. Wow really so he's like a real coach now? I can't believe they'd let him around children....uh please don't tell him I said that. But you know, I think you kids are pretty lucky, he really mellowed out after he found a wife and settled down."

If this was mellowed out Coach Hedge, Arthur was glad he never got to meet the satyr back when he was in his prime.

The second day of training was even worse, because everyone was still tired from the first day. Today, the class had been broken up into pairs to take turns practicing overhand thrusts at their partner, who would block with a shield. Arthur's arms ached as he hoisted his staff into an overhand grip for what felt like the millionth time. He looked off to the side at Valerie and Katrina, both of whom had rapidly picked up spear training and were handling the exercises with ease; apparently combat aptitude something all children of Athena had in common. Interestingly enough, Valerie was gripping her spear "the wrong way." Was she left-handed?

Right in from of him, Hal was also doing fine, having arrived at the academy a year earlier and had some training under his belt already. The only person in their group who was really struggling was him.

Arthur thrusted, and Hal blocked. "Urgh...how many do we have left?" he moaned. He was asking rhetorically, but as always, Hal took it literally.

"You have completed 9 out of 10 repetitions of the 6th out of 14 sets, putting at just about halfway done," he answered helpfully. Arthur wanted to retort with a sarcastic "Gee, thanks!" but he was too out of breath. Instead, he merely began to lift the staff over his shoulder for the 70th time. As he pulled back, his grip loosened, and the staff flew backwards out of his hand. Arthur turned around just in time to see the staff hit the ground then bounce up slightly to bonk another student in the back of the head. His hands instinctively flew to his mouth.

"Oh no! I'm so sorry! Are you alright?"

The other student turned around, groaning and clutching his head in pain. Arthur recognized him as a Son of Poseidon named Derek.

"Ah it's alright," he looked up and down Arthur. "Oh you're that new son of Zeus huh? Heh. Go figure."

Arthur was caught off guard by his comment. "What?"

"Oh you know, because in Greek mythology all Zeus does is ruin everything by going around and having sex with women?" Derek noticed the blank look on Arthur's face. "It's just a nerdy mythology reference, forget I said anything."

Arthur nodded, and was about to dismiss this weird exchange when...

"Your statement is inaccurate." It was Hal. "While it is true that Zeus has done what you've mentioned, his main role in mythology was that of an impartial judge. This is most evident in The Iliad, when he is one of the few gods to refuse to take sides, as well as his decision in the Olympian Court's landmark case of Demeter v. Hades."

Derek shrugged. "Whatever you say dude. No need to get so offended over it.

Hal tilted his head, apparently confused. "I am not offended, I was just pointing out that your statement was inaccurate."

Derek raised his hands in mock surrender. "Whoa calm down! It was just a joke!"

At this point, the people around them (including Valerie and Katrina) were starting to listen in. In particular, Arthur noticed that Katrina had that look on her face that she got whenever she was about to start arguing with someone.

Hal was even more confused now. "So you don't actually think what you said about Zeus is true?"

"What? No of course that stuff's true. Everyone knows that."

"But that doesn't make any sense: either you truly believe it and therefore I'm right to correct you or you don't truly believe it and it's just a joke, but it can't be both."

This logic didn't go over very well with Derek who responded with, "Wow you must be really fun at parties. Like I said, it was just a joke dude. Maybe if you knew that, you'd have more friends, no offense."

That did it. Katrina immediately started marching over, with Valerie right behind her trying unsuccessfully to hold her back.

"Alright dude, we get it: you don't like children of Zeus, and you also can't admit when you're wrong. Now why don't you fuck off and we can all go back to pretending you don't exist."

"Oh yeah you'd like that wouldn't you?" Derek leered at Katrina, it was the same one she'd seen hundreds of times before, from people who were too stubborn to admit they were wrong. "Yeah I know you. You're that new Athena girl that nobody likes. What's the matter? I thought you didn't have a problem with brutal honesty."

"I call out people for their insufferable behavior. You use your 'brutal honesty' as a shield to avoid admitting when you're wrong about something. We are not the same." For a fleeting moment there was clarity in Derek's eyes, and then it was gone. Katrina groaned inwardly. He knew deep down that she was right, but just decided to ignore the thought. He really was the worst kind of person. Katrina read his face again: he was probably going to say something off-topic now, like some kind of deflection or-

"Yeah, you're right. We're not same. You like to talk shit, but you don't like to back your words up with actions. Bet you'd be too afraid to 1v1 me in the arena later."

Katrina wanted to tear her hair out. "So unless someone's willing to get into a physical fight, they're not allowed to talk? What kind of logic is that?"

"Ha! See? I knew you couldn't do it," he smiled victoriously. Katrina gritted her teeth. This was always the worst part, when they would just walk away, acting smugly as if they'd won an argument. Well not this time.

"Fine."

Derek turned around, and Katrina met his gaze.

"I'll do your stupid fight," she said.

Hal grabbed her shoulder. "No. This argument started when I corrected him. Therefore, if anyone should be fighting him, it's me."

"Pfft. Fine. A 2v2 then," Derek said before Katrina could tell Hal no. Behind him, his training partner stepped up. "Ray and I will face the two of you."

"You mean the three of us" Valerie suddenly jumped between Hal and Katrina, putting her arms around the two of them in a show of solidarity. "Count me in too."

"Wha- who even are you?" Derek stammered, taken aback by the fact that Katrina apparently had more than one friend. "Aren't you like just her sister or something?"

"I'm not just her sister...I'm her roommate!" Valerie answered defiantly, then hastily added, "...and her friend. I'm also her friend. Should've led with that part."

Derek groaned in exasperation. "Okay fine. Now unless anyone else wants to fight..." He paused, waiting for anyone else to say something. Nobody did. "...a 3v3 it is then. Me and my friends versus you three bullies. Meet us at the arena: 6pm."

Katrina had a few more choice words for him but instead she simply replied with, "Alright. 6pm it is."

They glowered at each other for one last time before parting ways.

Chapter Text

During the next break, the gang had gathered at Vesta House as usual, though this time instead of studying as they normally did, they spent their time talking about "what a total dick" Derek was, as middle school kids sometimes do during their free time.

"I mean the guy just goes 'Duh I bet you wouldn't fight me so therefore you're wrong," Katrina said, in a surprisingly accurate imitation of Derek's voice. "But I can tell he doesn't really mean it so of course I call his bluff. I mean what kind of idiot challenges someone to a fight when they don't actually mean it?"

"Indeed," Hal agreed. "He also seems to be unusually stubborn and belligerent when having his beliefs challenged. I'm typically opposed to resolving conflicts through violence but I suppose in this case I was reluctant to back down because I didn't want you to fight my battles for me and I wanted to stand up for what I believed in." He paused, then added, "In addition, "fighting the bully" appears to be a popular trope in fictional stories with school settings. Perhaps this may end up becoming a valuable experience. What about you Valerie? What made you want to join the fight?"

"Me? I'm just a simple girl. I see someone picking on my friend and of course I'm gonna fight. Plus....I dunno, I just thought it might be fun. Come on Arthur you should do it."

At this point, Arthur began to feel very self-conscious because the truth was he didn't want to fight and he felt bad for not wanting to fight. Everyone else had stood up to Derek, even having their own reasons for why they were willing to fight him whereas he had been too intimidated to even say anything to him. The fact that this ordeal started because he had been too weak and let his staff slip out of his hands just made him feel even worse about the whole thing.

Apparently Katrina read all this on his face because she suddenly said, "Uh I mean you don't have to if you don't want to. Really, it's fine. We don't want to peer pressure you into doing anything and honestly this wasn't your fault. Derek's just an asshat and we probably would've ended up fighting him even if you hadn't bonked him on the head...or at least I would have anyway."

The rest of the day passed painfully slowly for everyone except Arthur, as they eagerly anticipated the fight to come that evening. Finally, it was 6pm; the four of them showed up at the arena as planned. They learned that Derek's "friends" were actually just some of his older brothers whom he'd told about their "bullying." Arthur headed towards the stands where several students were seated already: kids he recognized from their class who must have overheard them talking about a fight, some children of Poseidon (no doubt Derek had told his brothers and sisters about the fight), and several other students Arthur didn't recognize, probably some students Katrina had offended and now wanted to see her get beaten up. As he took his seat, he overheard several students talking.

"So what's this fight about anyway?"

"I heard that during PE, one of Zeus kids hit one of Poseidon kids in the back of the head with his staff. And then, when the Poseidon kid tried to defuse the tension with a joke, another one of the Zeus kids came in and tried to pick a fight with him and then that new Athena girl...you know the one that hates everyone?...she also joined in on the bullying and challenged the Poseidon kid to a fight. So he got a few of his brothers together and now the sons of Poseidon are gonna fight the bullies."

Arthur's face flushed. That wasn't what had happened at all! He wanted badly to set the record straight, to explain that he hadn't intentionally hit Derek, and more importantly, that his friends weren't the bullies in all this. And he would have except well...it was just that there were so many people and they probably wouldn't believe him anyway and he should just keep his mouth shut. Yes, it was for the best, he told himself...so then why did he still feel the burning of shame?

Meanwhile, down at the arena, the other three were preparing for their fight. They all agreed that each of them would use quarterstaffs, as none of them had actually trained with "real weapons" before and nobody wanted to get seriously injured. Valerie, Hal, and Katrina stood on one side of the arena. On the other side stood the Poseidon boys: aside from Derek and ray there was also third brother.  He looked older than all of them, was tall and handsome, with dark brown hair and ocean blue eyes. According to Hal, his name was Marlon and he was a revered by all the other students for being a great hero who had already been on several quests. He wasn't the brightest, but he had lots of heart and was known for fighting for those who were too weak to stand up for themselves...which was apparently what he thought he was doing right now.

"Derek told me all about you bullies. I'm going to make you regret what you did!" When they didn't seem very intimidated, he added, "You know I eat little pieces of shit like you for breakfast!"

This didn't have the intended effect, but rather it made Valerie bust out laughing. "You eat little pieces of shit for breakfast?!"

Marlon paused. "....n-no!" he yelled, a bit too late.

The fight was about to begin now. From the stands, Arthur looked down at his friends. Hal gave him a stoic little nod. Valerie waved wildly at him, grinning. And Katrina...

...Katrina gave him a stern acknowledging stare. There was something vaguely familiar about it. Suddenly Arthur remembered: it was the same look she'd given him last week. Her words echoed in his mind...

"If we're the last ones there we'll have to sit next to Tommy Ato and he always smells like stale ketchup for some reason."

No, not that part. The part before that.

"You shouldn't be afraid to speak your mind."

Yes, that part. Arthur thought that maybe it was about time he took her advice.

Back down at the arena, the fight was just about to begin when suddenly...

"Wait!"

The six of them turned to see Arthur sprinting towards them.

"Wait...guys...come on," he said, huffing and puffing. "This whole thing is stupid.

"Uh...yeah?" said Valerie. "It's a middle-school fight. Of course it's stupid."

"But don't you see?" he cried. "We don't have to do this!"

He turned to Derek. "I'm sorry I hit you in the back of the head. The truth is I was tired and it just slipped out of my hands by accident. Now...can you call off the fight?"

All eyes were now on Derek; everyone held their breaths. Finally, after a tense silence...

"Alright," said Derek. "We're cool."

A wave of relief washed over Arthur. Now that he'd finally said it, it seemed so easy and he even felt a bit silly for lacking confidence earlier. Really now that he thought about it, he should just approach everything with the same level of self-assuredne-

Arthur's thoughts and newfound confidence came to an abrupt end when he suddenly felt something strike the back of his head. There force of the blow made him stumble and fall face first into the dirt. Through the sharp pain in the back of his head, he could just barely make out a very annoying voice saying "Oops! It was an accident guys, it just slipped out of my hands because I was tired!"

That was when all hell (or "all Hades," as they were apparently supposed to say now) broke lose. Upon seeing Derek attack Arthur while the latter's back was turned, Valerie and Katrina instantly moved to retaliate; however, before they could close the gap on Derek, they were blocked by Marlon. At the same time, Hal and Ray began to fight.

Arthur picked himself up from the ground. There was still a dull pain radiating through his head. He looked around him, still dazed. He could see Hal on the defensive, being pushed back by Ray's aggressive attacks. Katrina and Valerie seemed to just managing to keep Marlon busy. Last but not least, Derek, who had just noticed Arthur getting up, was now running directly at him with his staff pointed at him.

Arthur's mind instantly cleared as he quickly leapt to the aside to dodge the attack. Derek pushed forward, jabbing the spear at him as Arthur did his best to avoid getting hit. Luckily for him, it seemed that out of the three Poseidon boys, Derek was the weakest and least skilled of them all. Despite this, Arthur was still unarmed and he knew he couldn't dodge Derek's attacks forever so he had to do something. He went with his instincts and simply grabbed Derek's staff when he tried jabbing him with it again. The two of them were now caught in an awkward tug of war over the staff. 

Arthur had never read, watched, or heard of any fight where someone simply grabbed the other person's weapon. He wasn't really sure what he was supposed to do now so he simply held on as tightly as he could, afraid of what would happen if he let go. Derek kicked at his shins angrily, and Arthur tried to sidestep his kicks, suddenly feeling rather self-conscious about the fact that he was involved in what must look like the stupidest fight ever. Derek tried pulling harder, but to no avail. Finally, having apparently reached an all new low, he moved his grip up the staff towards Arthur and began prying at Arthur's fingers while still trying to pull it out of his hands.

"Come on...I thought you said...this just happens...on accident...right?" said Derek, as he strained to loosen Arthur's grip. "Just...let...go!"

Arthur's felt one finger loosen, and then a second. He began to think about how much he didn't want to let go, how much he didn't want Derek to win, and as the third finger loosened, he felt a familiar tingling sensation. There was a loud zap, and Derek suddenly jumped back from him, and Arthur stumbled backwards due to his own inertia. He recovered, and was shocked to see that Derek had fallen unconscious, and now lied spread eagle on the ground in front of him, a bit of drool leaking from the side of his mouth. Everyone in the stands was looking at him. His friends and the Poseidon boys had even stopped to see what had happened.

"Woo! Nice one Arthur!" said Valerie as she caught her breath. "See?...Told you....this would be fun!"

Katrina had a different reaction. "Arthur....what the fuck?!"

"I'm sorry!" Arthur stammered. He hadn't meant to electrocute Derek, it just came out. "I...I didn't know...I didn't mean to-"

"What no, don't apologize! Do it again!" Marlon jabbed at her again, and the fight resumed.

"But..." Arthur faltered. Speaking up for himself had already brought him out of his comfort zone, to go so far as to hurt someone just didn't seem possible. And yet, despite believing this, as he looked at the other three on the brink of defeat, he knew deep down that if he stood by and did nothing, things could only get worse. If one side had to win this fight, wouldn't it be better if it was the "right" side?

Arthur made his decision.

Ray and Hal were closest. As sons of the Big Three who were the same age and had received the same amount of training, physically and skill-wise they were evenly matched. But whereas Hal was unemotional and had no desire to actually injure anyone, Ray was fueled by spite and determination "not to lose to a nerd." As a result, Ray had managed to back Hal up against the edge of the arena, leaving no space left behind him. Arthur reached them just a little too late and watched as Ray slammed his staff into Hal's stomach, causing him to keel over. Arthur felt a tinge of rage as he grabbed Ray roughly by the wrist and electrocuted him. Ray went down. 

This left just Marlon, who was still fighting Valerie and Katrina. Fighting him was a peculiar experience for the two girls, to say the least. Valerie's super intuition told her exactly what she needed to do to beat him, and Katrina was able to anticipate every move he made from reading his face; however, he was simply too strong and fast for the both of them to do anything other than hold him off as long as they could. Valerie discovered this the hard way when she shot her string at his left hand to restrict his movement ("Ha! I gotchu!") only to find out that this allowed him to pull her closer to him ("Oh no no no no no no no!") allowing him to send her staff flying out of her hand before smacking her in the face, knocking her out. With Valerie down, Marlon was able to make short work of Katrina, and Arthur watched as Marlon knocked her out as well.

Now it was just the two of them.

Marlon, having seen what Arthur was capable of, was warily keeping his distance, trying to come up with the optimal strategy for taking his opponent down. Arthur's thought process was much simpler: he was just scared of fighting Marlon. Could he grab Marlon's hands? Unlikely. He wasn't that stupid. But maybe there was some other way to defeat him...

The two of them circled each other, neither of them willing to make the first move. The entire arena was silent, and everyone in the stands was leaning forward slightly. Until finally...

Marlon jabbed his spear forward. Arthur dove at his feet.

"What the...?!" Marlon said with genuine surprise as Arthur grabbed onto his ankle. Instinctively he lifted his feet and tried to shake him off but Arthur held on. Marlon raised his staff to bring it down on Arthur as he summoned the energy to his fingertips and...

There was a loud zap, and Marlon fell over. Arthur let go of his ankle and slowly got up. The fight was officially over. He had won; he had actually won! He looked around. Everyone around him was down on the ground. The people in the stands were quiet; they seemed disappointed by the anticlimactic ending.

"What the fuck was that?!" one guy shouted. "That was the weakest shit I'd ever seen in my life!"

With the fight over, most of the people in the stands began leaving quietly. A few of them stayed around to help the injured. They brought over cups of water and poured them on the Poseidon boys until they felt better. For Hal, Valerie, and Katrina it was more complicated: several of the other students helped carry the three of them towards the Big House. There the three of them laid in the Big House's infirmary, where they were revived and fed ambrosia and nectar. 

"Did we win?" Valerie asked when her health was restored. Arthur told her that they had. "Wait we did? Really?! You beat Marlon?! Er I mean uh..." she looked around nervously. "Yeah! Of course you did! I never doubted it for even a second!"

"Yeah...good job," Katrina said.

"Yeah...thanks I guess," Arthur blushed, feeling embarrassed. He hadn't done anything really, just...ran around touching people, nothing worth being proud of at all. He looked down at his shoes.

"No really, I mean it," Arthur looked up, and Katrina looked straight into his eyes to let him know she was serious.

That was surprising. Although they had been friends for a few weeks, he still wasn't completely used to the fact that she could read his thoughts. Actually he wasn't used to people know what he was thinking in general. He usually kept his thoughts to himself, and when someone complimented him he tended to just brush it aside immediately. It suddenly occurred to him that Katrina was the only person who knew how he felt about things...and that she cared.

"Yeah...thanks I guess," he didn't really know what else to say, and that was fine; she knew how he felt.

Chapter Text

After their wounds had healed and they were dismissed, they all headed off to Vesta House to celebrate with a little party and once again avoid doing their homework. It was the first time they felt like Katrina was really one of them rather than just someone who had nowhere else to be because she hated everyone else. Who would have guessed that all she needed was a dumb fight brought about by a petty argument to really become one of the gang. 

The next morning, the four of them were sitting at their usual spots for breakfast when they were approached by a very tall son of Ares. He was dressed in all black: a leather jacket, black jeans, sunglasses, and even a black Demigod Academy shirt, such that he looked like a younger version of his father. This was Marshall, the head of Mars House. He looked down at the four of them.

"Which one of you is Arthur?" he said, lowering his sunglasses and looking between Arthur and Hal.

The other three all looked at Arthur, who swallowed, then timidly raised his hand. Marshall looked at him.

"You're the one who beat up Marlon and those other kids?" 

Arthur nodded, fully intimidated by Marshall's figure, which towered over him now. He was expecting some kind of death threat or something but on the contrary, Marshall seemed delighted.

"He got his ass beat by a kid like you? Dude that's incredible! And you're a son of Zeus too? Wow!....just wow! Oh man, that's gotta hurt. Oh my gods that's...that's amazing. It really is. Holy shit, good job dude."

He held his fist out, and Arthur slowly bumped it. Satisfied, Marshall went back to the Ares' kids' table.

"Wow...so I guess that's a thing now," Valerie said as Marshall left. She looked around at the others to see their reactions. Arthur was slowly lowering his fist from midair, still dumbstruck. Hal just sat still, thinking. Katrina was watching Marshall as he walked away, her eyes narrowed.

"Well...he seemed genuinely sincere..." it was the first time any of them had seen her look confused. "I mean I suppose there's technically a chance I read his face wrong but...I don't think so? I guess he really does just like you," she said to Arthur, shrugging.

Arthur looked around him with mild trepidation. A few people had taken notice of this little encounter. There weren't too many, after all not many people showed up to the fight to begin with. Still, all the attention he was suddenly receiving made him feel...strange. It probably isn't going to be a big deal, he told himself, and he felt better as he went back to eating his food. 

And sure enough, by the end of the day, the four of them had completely forgotten about this little incident. The rest of the week went just as smoothly. Beyond occasionally shooting unfriendly glances, Derek seemed to have learned his lesson and avoided causing trouble. As the week went on, training became less painful and their bodies stopped hurting after class every day. Coach Hedge even began giving them time to work on their powers. This turned out to be quite exciting for Valerie and Hal, who had both initially found their powers underwhelming, but quickly improved their abilities during this time. Unfortunately, the same couldn't be said for Katrina (who quickly got bored with reading Arthur's face to predict his moves) and Arthur (who quickly realized that having a super power that operated based on physical contact was difficult to pull off in armed combat).

"Come on cupcakes keep it up!" Coach Hedge barked at them. "The Summer Solstice Capture The Flag game is coming soon and trust me, you don't wanna be an embarrassment to your House!"

"Ugh who cares? It's just a game right?" one student lamented.

"I heard that!" Coach Hedge snapped. "And I'll have you know that Capture The Flag isn't just a game at this school, it's a time honored tradition meant to teach you cupcakes the power of teamwork and to prepare you for fighting monsters in the outside world. It should be taken very, VERY seriously. if you die in Capture The Flag, you die in real life!"

"Teamwork?" Valerie scoffed. "That doesn't sound like any Capture The Flag game I've ever been in."

"Coach Hedge?" Hal raised his hand. "How is Capture The Flag supposed to prepare us for fighting monsters in the outside world?"

Coach Hedge paused for a moment, then simply said "Shut up!" and they went back to sparring. 

The weekend came and passed uneventfully, with the gang hanging out, doing homework, and occasionally wandering around the school as they usually did. The only thing remotely interesting that happened was when Hal announced that he had finally finished watching of Avatar: The Last Airbender. 

"How the- didn't you start watching that like two weeks ago?" Valerie exclaimed.

"Fifteen days ago actually," Hal replied, pulling out a notebook and flipping it open to reveal a time table for all the books and shows he had read and watched and planned on reading and watching for the entire year.

Finally, it was Monday.

Arthur, Hal, and Katrina were at their usual spot at the beginning of lunch when Valerie ran in, waving her phone.

"Guys guys guys! Check out the school news website!"

"We have a school news website?" Katrina asked.

As a matter of fact, they did. Demigod Academy featured a Digital Media Club, whose members would regularly post content on their website. Such content included news articles...among other things.

"10 Reasons Why Poseidon Is the Best God?" Katrina read. "Why Medusa Is a Misunderstood Feminist Icon- What the fuck? Who reads this stuff? No. Who WRITES this stuff?!" She continued scrolling. "Take This Quiz to Find Out Who Your Godly Parent Is. Oh come on they weren't even trying with that one! Valerie why are you making us look at this?"

"You're looking at the front page. You have to click on the news tab," she explained.

Hal had his phone out first and could read the fastest. In just a few seconds he had scanned the entire article and said, "Well...the journalistic integrity of this news article is...questionable, to say the least."

Arthur started reading, but as soon as he read the headline, his heart sank.

"Son of Zeus and Accomplices Ruthlessly Gang up on Group of Brothers in Unfair 4v3."

The article went on to describe how a certain son of Zeus did a completely unprovoked attack on a son of Poseidon during P.E. class. The son of Poseidon then demanded a fair fight, but the son of Zeus responded by bringing multiple friends to gang up on the-

He stopped reading. It was evident that the entire article just went on like this. He looked at the others. Katrina was angrily gritting her teeth, while Valerie was gleefully reading aloud the parts that she thought were "hilariously awful."

"Stop that!" Katrina cried. "This isn't funny!" She paused. "Well...okay it's a little bit funny."

"This has to be some kind of honest mistake," Arthur said. "I mean it's not like anybody would just go on the internet and post lies right?"

Nobody said anything. Katrina looked like she was about to say something, but changed her mind. Valerie smiled, as if she found his innocence charming. Hal even looked as if he were wondering the same thing himself.

They sat there in awkward silence. Finally, after a few moments of thinking, Katrina spoke up.

"I think you'll be okay," she said. "We're teenagers. We don't read the news. Pretty sure nobody will read this and it'll be even less likely we actually know any of them."

"Yeah dude it's gonna be okay," Valerie said nonchalantly. "I mean what's the worse that could happen? A bunch of people read about us and encourage the Poseidon kids to challenge us to a rematch, a rematch in which they bring more people and are also more aware of how to fight against you now that they know what your power is?"

This had quite an effect on their group. Hal raised an eyebrow at her. Katrina facepalmed. Arthur froze, as Valerie was seemingly confirming his worst fears. Upon seeing this, Katrina elbowed Valerie hard.

"Hey ow!" she cried.

"Don't be ridiculous," Katrina retorted. "That's not gonna happen. And if it does..." she paused for a moment to think of something, "...then we uh...we just gotta say no." 

She looked at their surprised expressions; they'd been expecting her to say something about rising up to the challenge instead. 

"What?...I'm belligerent, not braindead."

At that point Coach Hedge passed by and scolded them talking, so they went back to training. It was now a week since they'd started and they had very basics down to pat.

"Don't you be getting cocky now cupcakes!" he growled. "You all still have a long way to go, but hopefully you won't make fools of yourself during the big game tomorrow."

"That's right!" Arthur remembered. Everyone had been talking about and making a big deal out of it all of last week, but he had been so focused on school and worrying about unwanted attention that he hadn't given it much thought. It was the 20th already.

That meant the Capture The Flag was tomorrow.

Chapter Text

The Summer Solstice had arrived, and even the students who weren't looking forward to the Capture The Flag game were excited. This much was obvious from the fact that in spite of their teachers' best efforts, nobody was paying attention during their morning classes, as they were eagerly anticipating getting out of school early.

Right now, for example, the gang was sitting in class, having finished their in-class assignments, and were waiting impatiently to be excused. Hal was reading yet another book he didn't like, his eyes darted back and forth as he spent just seconds on each page before turning over to the next. Arthur sat still, staring at his desk, as he had nothing better to do. Katrina did the same, but for a different reason: she wanted to avoid looking at her classmates and accidentally ruining her day by finding out that they were thinking of something really stupid. Finally, Valerie was idly pulling a string out of and around her index finger into roughly the shape of a ball. She had managed to get it to about the size of a baseball when finally, the bell rang. Almost everyone leapt from their seats and hurriedly rushed outside. Hal speed walked with his face still buried in his book, using his peripheral vision to follow the flow of the crowd. Arthur walked beside him, intuitively sticking by his friend and roommate. Valerie dashed past the two of them, almost tripping over herself in her haste. On her way out the door she deftly plucked the ball of string from her fingers and tossed it into the trash can. Katrina initially chased after her, but changed her mind after looking back at the boys and walked alongside them instead.

The first thing they had to do was change into their P.E. clothes. Usually, it was just their P.E. class but now everyone in school was here, and none of them had ever seen the locker rooms so crowded before. In the girl's locker room, hanging out with the rest of the Aphrodite kids was Ally, who waved amiably at her and Katrina happened to pass by.

"Hey, I haven't see you in a while! How's everything going at school. You finding everything okay?" she asked.

Valerie told her how she enjoyed her classes and how everything was just fine...well, except for the situations with her siblings. That still hadn't improved.

"Ugh. Bullies," Ally replied. "Sometimes I wish I could just make 'em disappear you know what I mean?" After a short pause, she added, "So who's your friend here?"

"Ah I've heard about you," she said after Katrina introduced herself. Then expecting her to snap back, she added, "Don't worry, I'm not here to argue with you. But just as some friendly advice, maybe if you weren't judgmental, you'd be happier? Just a thought."

Valerie expected her to argue back, but Katrina simply just nodded as she stared at Ally's face. Ally then wished the two of them good luck as they parted ways (for the Aphrodite kids were assigned to Blue Team). Katrina's eyes followed her as she walked away.

"I don't like her," she said, her eyes still narrowed.

"Oh? what's that? You don't liked the girl who said the way you judge people is bad?" Valerie feigned astonishment. "What a shocker."

"Yeah...it's probably just that," said Katrina, her gaze still lingering in the direction Ally had headed.

Meanwhile in the boy's locker room, Arthur was having a bad time. At his regular school pretty much nothing out of the ordinary happened: there were some good and some bad days sure, but there had never been crazy good days or crazy bad days. This place was different though: he could sense the tension in the air, as if in one day everyone had read that article about him and now their eyes were like lasers boring into him.

Or maybe he was just being paranoid, and nobody actually read the school news. Or maybe the truth was just somewhere in the middle of these two extremes. It was hard to tell objectively when you were the one in the middle of this sort of situation.

Thankfully nothing dramatic happened in the locker room. Actually, there was one moment where someone randomly started talking about how Zeus was a rapist, but Arthur had no way of telling if that was supposed to be directed at him specifically or if it was just unprompted pre-game trash talk.

"...the way he does it all the time, it's probably one of those 'fundamental godly aspects' like I bet he's straight up passing those traits down to his kids."

That one went too far. People, other sons of Zeus, were stirring around the locker room and Arthur braced himself for a fight or some kind of argument at the very least.

"Person who failed and had to retake Mythology 10 detected! Opinion disregarded!" someone called out loudly.

Immediately all the tension disappeared and was replaced with a round of laughter. The person who had made the offending comment left, muttering something about Chiron and different but equal interpretations. Arthur looked up to see who had made the joke and made eye contact with somewhat normal and friendly looking person. The other guy gave him and acknowledging nod. Arthur had no way of knowing this but this happened to be Will, the son of Hecate who had met Valerie when they first arrived. 

Having changed into their P.E. clothes, the gang met up at the source of the creek near the edge of the woods, where the rest of the school had gathered as well. There were two outdoor armories, each on opposite sides of the creek. Between them stood a billboard, on which were two lists of the Houses that each team comprised. The four of them scanned the tops of the lists.

Red Team (North Side)

Zeus, Ares, Athena, etc...

Blue Team (South Side)

Poseidon, Demeter, Apollo, etc...

They rejoiced in that way kids do when they're on the same team as their friends, but their brief moment of joy was interrupted by a loud groan from behind.

"Oh come on the Poseidon kids on the opposite team?! That's not fair!"

It was Sheldon, another son of Athena...one of Valerie and Katrina's brothers. None of them was still quite used to the fact that they were technically living with siblings.

"What's so bad about the Poseidon kids?" Arthur asked. He knew as children of the Big Three they were strong but wasn't aware of anything especially dangerous about them.

Katrina literally watched as Sheldon shifted into know-it-all mode. "Um hello? Isn't it obvious? The creek serves as the boundary for Capture The Flag games. Whichever team has the Poseidon kids has automatic control of the creek, making it nearly impossible for the other team to cross into the other side. If we can't cross the creek, we can't get the flag, and if we can't get the flag, we can never win, so we're stuck with playing defensively for as long as possible. That's just the current meta for Capture The Flag, which by the way, is an acronym for 'Most Effective Tactic Available'."

That wasn't true. "Meta" was actually shorthand for "metagame," and Sheldon was actually kind of an idiot. Despite that, it seems that he was actually right about the Poseidon kids and the Capture The Flag meta." As the four of them aimlessly wandered around Red Team's side of the woods near the frontlines, they overheard the Athena kids discussing defensive strategies, spotted the Hephaestus kids setting up traps and noticed the Hecate kids setting up magical force fields. Everyone who was taking the game seriously was clearly preparing for a defensive game.

"Teamwork? Strategy? This isn't like any Capture The Flag game I've ever played before," Valerie remarked.

They went around asking what they could do to help, but each time their offers were met with polite refusal and the suggestion that they hang back to defend the flag if the enemy team ever broke through the frontlines. It didn't take Katrina's powers for them to realize that this translated to "stay out of our way" so they decided to move away from the creek and further to the north, where their flag was placed.

Here they were greeted with a much more familiar setting. The girls, most of them daughters of Aphrodite, were huddled together gossiping. The boys with swords sparred playfully, mimicking lightsaber noises, singing Duel of the Fates, and occasionally throwing out lines such as "It's over Anakin! I have the high ground!" and "I am the Senate!" Even the Dionysus kids, known for being the weird film buffs and theater kids, were in on the fun: Valerie spotted two sons of Dionysus taking turns feigning kicking each other in the chest while shouting "This is Sparta!", doubtlessly a reference to one of those obscure plays or movies they were so fond of.

"Oh yeah," said Valerie, "Now this is more like a school Capture The Flag game."

Suddenly Chiron's magically amplified voice boomed throughout the entire forest. "Attention, students. The preparation period is over. Let the game commence! And...go!"

Everyone around them cheered, and Valerie joined in (the other three just stood there quietly). After a few seconds, the cheering stopped. Then for a few minutes, basically nothing happened. The four of them just stood there awkwardly in their armor.

"So uh..." Valerie said, as her eyes darted around in case anything was about to happen (nothing did). "....now what do we do?"

"I think we just stay here and defend if the other team get past. That's what the older kids said right?" said Arthur.

"Ugh but that's so boring!" she said, dragging out the last word and fidgeting as much as her armor would allow, as if the idea of waiting and doing nothing was physically painful. "Everyone knows waiting and doing nothing is lame and for losers."

"Well..." said Hal pensively. "We've been at this school for three weeks. Usually, at this point in the story, the protagonist rises up to the occasion and sets themself apart from their peers. It's a bit lazy, but a tried and true trope."

"Oh...my gods!" Katrina cried. "How many times do we have to talk about this Hal? This is real life, not one of those shitty YA novels you like to read because you like how bad they are!" Then she said to Arthur calmly, "They're right though, hanging back and doing nothing is pretty lame. I think I'm gonna go back to the creek. Whatever's happening there has to be more interesting than what's going on here." And with that, Katrina, Valerie, and Hal began heading back to the border.

"Wait!..." Arthur cried. He wasn't sure how to say it, but the truth was he liked the idea of staying back and not having to do anything and honestly, he felt that he had participated in enough fights for the entire summer.

"It's alright just stay here and hang back you don't have to come with us," Katrina said, as if she were reading his mind...oh wait she probably did. And with that, the three of them headed off into the woods towards the creek.

They walked in the general direction of the creek until they heard the sounds of battle, which they followed. The sound grew louder and louder as they came closer, until they finally reached a clearing and entered what appeared to be a warzone. Valerie's and Katrina's "Athena battle senses" kicked into overdrive, and they looked around, trying to absorb all the things that were happening at once.

Immediately, they saw how and understood why the Poseidon kids singlehandedly defined the Capture The Flag meta. There was a great wall of water, roughly four meters high, spanning the width of the creek, and seeming to run along the entire length of the creek. Floating around inside the wall were about several Poseidon kids, each spaced several meters from one another. Tentacles of water lashed out towards them, blocking projectiles and knocking weapons out of people's hands. Anyone who stepped too close would be immediately grabbed and rapidly "passed" down the creek, presumably towards Blue Team's Capture The Flag "jail." Meanwhile, everything on the enemy team slipped through the wall with ease, whether it was the magical arrows the Apollo kids were firing from the other side, or the Ares kids charging through the water barrier shouting their battle cries. On their side, Red Team was doing their best to hold on. The Hephaestus kids' sentry guns as well as the Hades kids' hordes of skeletons held the attackers at bay. Some of the Dionysus kids attempted to convert the creek water into wine but to little avail, as the creek was connected to the ocean and the Poseidon kids simply replaced the water faster than the Dionysus kids could transform it.

Valerie's first question was why didn't the Zeus kids just summon lightning onto the Poseidon kids, but her question was quickly answered. There were dozens of metal poles about six meters long, jutting from the creek bed on Blue Team's side, each forming roughly a 30 degree angle with the ground as if they were a row of giant pikes that had been planted into the dirt to defend against a cavalry charge. Right as Valerie noticed this, there was a loud crack of thunder and a bolt of lightning came out of the sky and towards the creek. However, instead of making contact with its intended target, the bolt of lightning struck one of the flagpoles, missing the Poseidon kids entirely. Another child of Zeus tried to attack, this one summoning lightning from her fingertips, and shooting them outwards. However, because the flagpoles were so long and stuck out far past the edge of the creek, these attacks were also redirected towards the lightning rods and into the ground. It was obvious that Blue Team had prepared for this, and that the children of Zeus would either have to get a lot closer to the water barrier or that the lightning rods would have to be taken out, with neither option seeming very plausible at the moment.

"Okay..." Valerie said once she had taken in everything "This isn't exactly what I had in mind."

"You said, and I quote 'Waiting and doing nothing is lame and for losers'," Hal replied.

"Ah...yes...well, you see, the reason for that is that I thought Capture The Flag would have a lot more running around, and a lot less..." she twirled her hand, gesturing at the battle that was going on, "...crazy magical fighting. I'm just going to go see if there's anything to do that doesn't involve...any of this." She ran off to the right, hoping to find some part of the creek that wasn't controlled by the Poseidon kids.

"I'm going to keep her out of trouble," said Hal, and he chased after her.

Katrina raised a finger and opened her mouth to say something, but then just sighed instead. Then, noticing that her team was having trouble defending, she joined the fray. Despite her contentious personality and godly parentage, she was still relatively weak and inexperienced in combat, so instead of fighting, she chose to support her team through reading the faces of the enemy and calling out their next moves in advance. Not only was this effective in helping her team defend, it was also effective at making the enemy team extremely frustrated, as her actions were deliberately making the game less fun for them. She could see the resentment building up on her faces, backed up the hate they've built up from the past few weeks and...

An idea occurred to her. Not a good one, in fact it was really quite stupid if she had to be honest with herself about it. If it didn't happen, then there was no harm done, and if it did happen, then at least it would happen on her own terms...plus it might be kind of fun actually. She grinned, then started sprinting eastwards along the creek, in the opposite direction of where Valerie and Hal had gone. She stole some glances to the side. A group of people had formed and were following her along the creek. Good, she thought, that was what she wanted.

Meanwhile, Arthur was still in the same place as before. He was in the middle of staring at the wood grain of his spear handle when he heard something rapidly approaching and looked up. One of the other students was running towards him.

"Are you Arthur?" he asked while panting, apparently out of breath.

"Yeah," Arthur replied. "And you are...?"

He was Conrad, a son of Hermes who was also his age. Arthur didn't know him, but he knew Arthur...from a school news article about a fight he'd read. He was also the one spying on him earlier, and when he noticed Arthur's friends leaving him, he came up with the greatest idea for a prank...

"Look it doesn't matter who I am," he said impatiently to distract from the fact that he didn't actually answer the question. "The upperclassmen told me to come and get you. We need backup at the border immediately!"

"The team needs reinforcements for Capture The Flag?" asked Arthur. "But then...why isn't everyone else also going?"

Ah crap! Conrad hadn't thought of that. "Ah well you see..." he said, sweating nervously. "Er uh actually it was Katrina who told me to come get you. She said she and the other two really need you with them right now." Yes, that was good. Name dropping always made things much more convincing. Surely he would fall for it now.

"Katrina?" asked Arthur. "But right before she left she told me I should just stay back here if I wanted to."

Ah crap...again! Conrad groaned inwardly. There's no way Arthur was going to fall for his prank now. Not even the most innocent, trusting-

"But if you say she needs me, then it must be true," he said, getting up and prompting Conrad to lead the way. Conrad blinked, scarcely believing his luck, then headed towards the creek, with Arthur following him.

Meanwhile, in a distant part of the woods, Valerie was running parallel to the creek. She had run far from the action now, but in spite of that there was still the water barrier at the creek with a child of Poseidon ever few meters, so she kept running while keeping at a safe distance from the creek. Hal was close behind, determined to keep her from doing something stupid. She was still trying to find a hole in the water barrier, some part of the creek that wasn't being guarded by a child of Poseidon, but the wall of water seemed entirely continuous so far, and so she (and Hal) simply kept on running.

On the opposite side, Katrina decided she had run far enough from where she started and stopped in an isolated part of the woods. She looked towards the creek, and to her dismay, though not her surprise, a band of demigods, the ones who had been following her.

She considered her options. She could try to run, but that just seemed so...pathetic. Also, they were likely faster and were going to catch up to her anyway. No, no running, she was going to embrace her fate.

"Alright, come on," she said, bracing herself for the worst, "Let's get this over with."

Meanwhile, Conrad and Arthur finally made it to the creek, entering the same clearing that Valerie, Hal, and Katrina had been several minutes earlier.

"Where are they?" he asked, ignoring the action going on in the background and focusing on scanning the crowd for familiar faces.

"They're further up near the creek," Conrad replied, pointing at the massive wall of water the children of Poseidon had created. "C'mon! They're waiting for you."

At this point, a normal kid would have been at least slightly suspicious about what was going on, but Arthur wasn't a normal kid, he was much too good-natured and trusting. It was the reason why earlier he couldn't believe that the school news website would intentionally lie, and it was why right now, he didn't even consider that Conrad was playing a joke on him and ran towards the creek without hesitation.

He broke through the crowd and turned around to get a better look. His friends weren't there, and moreover, everyone around him was staring at him with a shocked expression. That was strange: what did he do? And why were all of them so far back away from the border? He turned and for the first time, saw what he should have seen the moment when he had first arrived: the massive wall of water he'd somehow managed to ignore while trying to search for his friends. He only had an instant to process all of this when suddenly a massive tentacle made of water whipped outwards, snatched him, and then lifted him up into the air. Much too late, he realized what had happened: he'd been tricked. Honestly, he wasn't even angry about it, he merely felt silly and embarrassed that he'd fallen for it so easily. He raised his spear instinctively, not really thinking about what he was going to do with it, but it didn't matter as the tentacle further shifted up and around him, its tip plucking the spear of his hands and tossing it aside. A son of Poseidon, one he didn't recognize, floated towards the wall closer to him.

The son of Poseidon said something, though Arthur didn't know what as he couldn't hear anything from outside the water. The four children of Poseidon closest to him drifted closer and looked out a him. Some laughed at how helpless he looked at the moment, while others glared with disdain. Arthur watched their mouths move from outside the water barrier, nervously waiting for what would happen next.

Suddenly, the tentacle's grip tightened. Arthur gasped reflexively, then immediately wished he hadn't done that because he couldn't inhale, and now he had let go of his only breath. The children of Poseidon looked at him smugly from outside the water. Desperately, clawed at the tentacle, which of course did nothing, and he began to lose consciousness. His last sensation before he passed out was a familiar tingling sensation at his fingertips...

Chapter Text

Valerie was still running through the woods when super instinct suddenly made her aware that something was different. At first it was almost nothing, just the subtlest shift in the background noise, then it seemed to get closer and louder. She turned her head just in time to watch the water barrier at the creek come crashing down. Water gushed downstream back towards the sea and over the bodies of the Poseidon kids lying in the creek. For a second, Valerie dumbly wondered if they were all dead, but then her super instinct pointed out that there chests were moving up and down, indicating that they were merely unconscious.

"What happened?" she wondered aloud.

"All the Poseidon kids are mysteriously knocked out so now their water barrier is down," Hal observed.

Valerie huffed. "Okay well I knew that much. I meant how did that happen?"

"It could have been a variety of things," Hal answered. "It seems that all of them were knocked unconscious at once, which helps limit it down to fewer possibilities. Usually that means a child of Hecate managed to cast a powerful spell, or a child of Zeus managed to strike the creek with lightning, but neither seem very likely since we didn't hear anything."

"Or maybe we're just that good at the game," Valerie replied. She meant it as a joke, but as always, Hal took it seriously.

"No," he said firmly. "Typically when the Poseidon children's defenses are breached, it's not a result of great strength or strategy on the opposing team's part, but rather carelessness on their and/or their teammates' part."

Their attention turned back to the present. Valerie scanned the stones in the creek and quickly hopped along the shortest path to the other side of the creek, with Hal following closely behind.

The moment she stepped into enemy territory, her super instinct kicked in. Aside from her fight with the empousai the day she arrived at school and the fight with the Poseidon kids, her super instinct mostly remained inactive, so she still wasn't used to the way thoughts and ideas forced their way into her conscious mind. It was a peculiar sensation to say the least. Right now she was in the middle of discovering that her mind had automatically created a sort of mental map that automatically tracked the places she'd been and gave her a rough idea of which way the enemy flag was. Her sense of curiosity took over, and she twirled around rapidly from time to time to see if it would "confuse" her sense of direction; it didn't. During all this, Hal was following along right behind her. He watched her as she looked around them, staring at random trees, and even became mildly concerned when she started spinning around for no apparent reason at all. In the end however, he decided not to say anything about it.

Valerie also found that through listening, she could sense the presence of those around her. At the moment it was just Hal; there were no enemies close by. Well that was obvious, she thought, of course they wouldn't be here. Earlier there was no reason for anyone else to defend the border because the water barrier was all the defense Blue Team needed. Now that it was down, everyone would be rushing towards the center of the woods (where the she, Hal, and Katrina had split up) to provide reinforcements for the big fight.

She blinked. Was that obvious? That didn't feel very obvious...and yet it was? This was strange. Usually when a thought "magically" presented itself to her, it was a thought she could have come up with on her own given enough time. This wasn't that: her mind had just strategically analyzed the situation by itself. But Valerie didn't know anything about battle strategy...or at least she was pretty sure she didn't? Perhaps this wasn't her usual super instinct, but rather part of her "Athena battle senses?"

She was still in the middle of trying to figure out her powers when something triggered in the back of her mind, telling her to get down. NOW.

She looked at Hal. Without warning she dove at the ground, pulling down Hal with her. Less than a second later, an arrow sailed overhead, passing directly through where Hal stood just a moment ago. How'd she see that one coming? "The sound," she thought. It was subtle, but somehow she must have heard the change in the background noise as the arrow flew towards her and been able to react in time.

She got up on her hands and knees and looked down at Hal. He lay underneath her and said nothing, just stared up at her with a strange serenity. She hastily moved off of him and sat against the tree next to them. Hal did the same.

"Uhh...haha, wow!" she said, clearing her throat awkwardly. "They were really going for the kill there huh?" She was exaggerating of course, just blurting out the first thing that came to her mind to stop the awkward silence.

"Not really," Hal said, as he was looking off to the side. Valerie followed his gaze. The arrow that had been shot earlier was lying nearby, but instead of arrowheads at the tip, there was a boxing glove. Strangely enough it seemed to be covered in blue paint, as the surrounding dirt and plants were now stained blue. Seeing an actual boxing glove arrow in real life was so surreal, she almost laughed, but sobered up as she remembered the situation they were in.

She focused on coming up with a plan. Back at the school, she'd managed to come up with a plan based on her and Arthur's abilities, so maybe the same thing could work here. She had her super instinct which allowed her to dodge arrows. Hal had his wind powers....

"Hey 'Zac," she said. "Can you blow or airbend or whatever you want to call it those arrows away?"

Hal considered this for a moment, then stuck his spear out from behind the tree with one hand while using the other to generate wind. Another boxing glove arrow flew out of the trees and struck it. The wind didn't change its course even a little bit.

"No," he shook his head. "It's too fast and narrow."

What to do, what to do? Her mind raced as she tried to think of what had happened and also come up with a course of action.

"There's only one of them," she said. She wasn't sure how she knew that, she just did.

"Yes. There was only one arrow. Had there been more than one of them, they would have tried to take us both out at the same time, or surrounded us by now," he said, putting into words what Valerie knew but couldn't explain. He then added, "The one arrow also tells us something else: our attacker is likely not a child of Apollo, as they're typically skilled enough in archery to fire two arrows at once."

"So what you're saying is...they can only target us one at a time?" Valerie nodded while stroking an imaginary beard. So their mystery archer could only target one person at a time...and she could dodge arrows...an idea began to form inside her head.

"I have a plan," she told Hal...

STEP 1: Create a diversion so Hal can escape...

Valerie stepped out confidently and shouted "Hey!" In the distance, a dark figure wielding a bow revealed himself then fired an arrow at her. The world went into slow motion and she dodged the arrow Matrix-style.

"Go!" she gave Hal the signal to run for it while she kept the archer's focus.

"Wow Valerie! You're so incredible and stuff!" he said, before running to safety.

"Oh yeah? Now tell me something I don't know," she replied, as she put on a pair of sunglasses that materialized out of thin air.

STEP 2: Turn the tables...

She ran towards where the arrows were coming from, dodging as they came at her one by one. She got on top of the enemy archer

"Wait! I surrender!" he cried, dropping his bow and getting on his knees with his hands raised. "You're just too amazing and skilled!"

"You're goddamn right I am," she replied suavely.

STEP 3: Capture the flag...

Valerie shows up at Zeus' fist where the flag was. The guards raised their weapons but Valerie effortlessly fought through them.

"Yoink!" she said, as she grabbed the flag.

STEP 4: Return with the flag and earn the praise and admiration of her peers, especially her siblings...

Valerie returned with the flag. Blue Team's side of the woods exploded behind her as she jumped over the creek in slow motion. A crowd gathered around and cheered for her.

"Hi Valerie, I'm a reporter for the school newspaper. Can I interview you for an article about how super awesome you are?"

"Oh my gods Valerie that was the most genius plan ever!" Sage gushed. "On behalf of all the children of Athena, I'd like to apologize for all the stupid things we've said about you. Could you please take over as the leader of Minerva House?"

The students lifted her up and carried her through the crowd. Valerie basked in the glory of her-

"What is the plan?"

"Huh?" She felt someone tapping her shoulder and snapped out of her daydream.

It was Hal. "You said 'I have a plan.' Then you stopped talking and just stared off into the distance."

"Oh...right..." she replied, her mind snapping back to reality. The plan. The plan was...

"Okay so our plan is to run away," she said. "But not together. Because you know, then they'll just shoot at the both of us and I can't keep jumping on top of you every time that happens." She blushed a bit at the idea.

"So we have to split up," she continued. "I'll run out first to draw their attention. They'll try to shoot me but I'll just dodge their arrows...maybe...probably... Anyways when that happens you run in the other direction. They'll be forced to choose one of us to track and at least one person will be able to get away."

Unable to find anything wrong with her reasoning, Hal nodded consent. Valerie nodded back, then stood up. After looking back at Hal one last time, she sprinted out from behind the tree. In the back of her mind, she heard the arrow and instantly dived towards the ground. Another boxing glove arrow flew by, passing harmlessly over her. She heard the sounds of leaves rustling and of rapid footsteps behind her and knew that Hal was running in the other direction as planned. As she got back on her feet, she wondered if for whatever reason the enemy archer changed their mind and decided to focus on Hal instead. She got her answer when she sensed another arrow coming her way. She flicked her head forward, and felt the arrow brush past the back of her head Just like their fight with the Poseidon kids, everything was happening much too quickly. There was no time to think, just do. This wasn't like the Matrix. This wasn't like the Matrix at all!

She took cover behind a tree and caught her breath. If she kept on running like this, she would only end up making herself exhausted and an easier target. But what else could she do? Her super instinct helped her dodge arrows, but it wouldn't matter if she ended up being too tired to react in time. Fighting was impossible, as she couldn't even begin to guess where her attacker was.

She had her string ability (or her spider ability, as her siblings would call it), whatever that was worth. Now that she thought about it, her string powers had mostly been useless aside from the fight with the empousai when she'd made a web. Maybe her siblings were right and she really was just some kind of demigod spider. Whereas other heroes would go on quests and heroically charge into battle with their swords raised, she would create massive webs made of string, waiting for some monster to accidentally get tangled in it. She would sense the vibrations of the web, then crawl along it towards her victim, and then-

Wait.

Webs. Vibrations. That was it!

She pointed her arms forward and shot ten lines of string roughly in the direction of where the arrows had been coming from. The strings snaked around the trees and through the forest. When she was finally satisfied, she stopped.

Valerie was now at the tip of a giant web that ran between every single tree in a cone shaped area up to 50 meters in front of her. She sat down with her legs crossed, closed her eyes, and concentrated. Through her fingers, she could feel the vibrations of her string that now ran through a large area of the forest. She waited. Her attacker would surely get impatient from waiting for her to emerge from behind the tree. They would try to move to a different position to get a shot at her, and when they did...

SNAP!

She felt it. Somewhere in the distance, someone had stepped through her string, breaking it. To Valerie it was like a blip went off on her internal radar, telling her exactly where the string had been broken...and where whoever had tripped her wire was located.

They were roughly 45 meters away....

She tore the string off her fingertips, grabbed her spear, and ran in the direction of the "blip." 25 meters away.

25 meters away...

Her attacker shot another boxing glove arrow, but this time she knew exactly where it would come from. She dodged the arrow without stopping, still running towards her attacker.

Just 5 meters...

She could hear the attacker's movements now and track them with her super instinct. They were just behind this tree right in front of her and-

"HA!" Valerie cried victoriously as she leaped out, ready to knock out her attacker with her spear. As she jumped out from behind the tree, she got a good look at her attacker.

It was a little girl.

She looked at Valerie with shock, and Valerie stopped. After all, she couldn't just hit a little girl. During this moment of hesitation, the little girl quickly pulled out an arrow from her quiver. A boxing glove magically materialized at the tip of the arrow and the little girl promptly shot it at Valerie, point blank. There was no time to react, and Valerie was hit squarely in the chest. She stumbled backwards from the impact. It felt like...well it felt like being punched in the chest.

The little girl slung her bow onto her back. "Haha! I got you! I got you!" she screamed with delight.

"No but that's...I won that" Valerie said, momentarily in denial.

"Nuh-uh! I killed you first!" the little girl said, and pointed at Valerie's armor. Her chestplate had a large blue splatter on the front. So that was what the blue paint was for.

"Okay yeah you won," she admitted "Now what?"

"Now I take you to jail!" The little girl grabbed her by the hand and began to lead the way, and the reality of her defeat finally sunk in.

"Oh gods. I can't believe I really just got tagged in Capture the Flag by a little girl," Valerie moaned.

"Hey! I'm not a little girl! My name is Katniss and I'm seven and a half years old!" the little girl declared proudly, as she held up 7 fingers and also half of her fourth finger. Valerie groaned loudly. As Katniss lead her through the woods towards Blue Team's Capture the Flag jail, she wondered what Hal was up to right now.

Chapter Text

According to the plan, Hal ran for it while Valerie distracted their mystery archer. Even after he'd left the two of them far behind, he simply kept running deeper and deeper into Blue Team's territory until just now, when he finally reached the flag.

Well...almost.

He had reached the part of the forest where he could just make out the peak of Zeus' Fist, a giant rock shaped like....well, Zeus' fist, which stood about 15 meters away. Blue Team's flag stood at the top, and in accordance with the rules, there was only one guard, sitting at the edge of Zeus' Fist. She wore sunglasses, a golden Demigod Academy shirt, and a bow and quiver strapped behind her. Even from this distance, Hal was able to recognize her.

Guarding Blue Team's flag was none other than Maddie Murdock, daughter of Apollo and head of Apollo House. Like most children of Apollo, she was a superb archer, and like most heads of Houses, she had gone on many quests and accomplished many great feats. However, there was one thing that made Maddie stand out amongst the rest: Maddie was blind.

The details were mostly unknown, since Maddie never talked her past, but most people knew the gist of it, which was that she had been cursed by some god to be born blind but also she had been blessed by some other god to have her other senses enhanced. You know, just your standard superhero origin story stuff.

Hal weighed his options, all two of them. In combat he stood no chance against her superior range, experience, and skill. That meant he would have to try to sneak in, get the flag, and sneak back out somehow. He removed his armor, which he figured would only weigh him down for this sort of thing, then, as gently as he could, stepped into the clearing.

The second his foot touched down, he saw Maddie's head perked up. In less than a second, she had her bow whipped out and an arrow notched. Hal had just enough time register this and forward towards the closest tree. Maddie fired, and the arrow flew through where Hal had been just an instant ago, past the tree he dove behind.

"An intruder!" she thought. She knew it was just one just by sound. How had they even gotten past the Poseidon kids? Not that it mattered, she thought. Whoever it was had stumbled inside her zone, and that meant there was virtually no chance of escape.

Her zone, a circle with 15 meter radius with her at the center. Inside this zone, she could hear just about anything, and smell things too depending on how close they were and how strong their odor was. Hal hadn't known it, but when he had dove behind the tree earlier to dodge her arrow, he had just crossed the 15 meter line. He was only a few feet away from safety, but there was no way he could cross that distance without being heard, and now that Maddie knew where he was, she wasn't going to miss a second time.

Maddie heard something move through the air coming from behind the tree, but the faint sound it made as it flew told her that it wasn't a person, but something much smaller and lighter.

"Really?" she called out. "A rock? Come on do you really think I'm gonna fall for something as stupid as that?" She sounded slightly insulted, but mostly amused by this pathetic attempt to trick her.

Meanwhile, back behind the tree, Hal bit his lip. He had terribly underestimated Maddie's abilities. He should have known better than to expect any less from the head of Apollo House.

Hal was out of ideas. The rock thing was really all he had and the only reason he thought of it was because it seemed to work in movies. Unfortunately, unlike Valerie, he really wasn't the type who could come up with ideas on the fly, he was much more of a "textbook person," literally.

His mind flashed back to about five years ago, when he was eight when his mom's boyfriend had bought him a science textbook because apparently he was the type of kid that liked to flip through textbooks. He remembered flipping through its pages for hours at a time, reading whichever sections interested him and ignoring the rest, becoming lost in all the knowledge within it. At one point, he had read the section of the encyclopedia on sound.

"Sound is created when an object vibrates, which causes its surrounding molecules to vibrate. The vibration then propagates through the medium surrounding the object (a gas, liquid, or solid) via sound waves."

Hal snapped out of his nostalgia trip. He had an idea. But could he actually pull it off? There was only one way to find out.

Focusing his powers on the air around him, he stepped out from behind the tree.

He looked up at Zeus' Fist again. This time, Maddie was just sitting there, completely unaware of his presence.

Using his powers, Hal had willed the air around him to remain still wherever he moved. No vibrations meant no sound waves, and therefore no sound. Not only that, the "bubble" also trapped odor molecules, meaning Maddie's enhanced sense of smell didn't work either.

More confident now, Hal walked faster towards Zeus' fist. It was a peculiar sensation, as the bubble worked both ways, meaning that he couldn't hear anything outside of the bubble, not even his own footsteps. The only sound he could hear was the sound of his own breathing.

He climbed to the top of Zeus' Fist without incident. Maddie's back was still turned, unaware that there was anyone else there. Without thinking, Hal picked up the flag.

Immediately, he realized his mistake. Having forgotten to manipulate the air around the flag, it made the slightest of noises as he picked it up.

Maddie gave a startled jump. From her perspective, it sounded as if the flag had just magically moved by itself. Realizing what was happening, she grabbed her bow and fired half a dozen arrows at roughly where the flag had been.

Any other person would have likely panicked and revealed their position, but not Hal, who wasn't fazed by anything. When Maddie turned towards him, he just quickly crouched behind the flag. All six arrows flew overhead. During all this, he remained focused, not letting up the sound barrier for even a moment. He watched as Maddie notched six more arrows and aimed them in his direction. He braced himself, expecting her to shoot.

She didn't. Instead she just aimed around him, apparently unsure of where to fire.

She couldn't sense him, he realized. She heard the flag move, but she didn't know he was there because he was still blocking her from hearing or smelling him. He manipulated the air around the flag so that the bubble now expanded to cover the flag as well, then climbed back down the rock, leaving behind a very clueless and confused daughter of Apollo.

He retreated back into the woods and started running back towards the creek, picking up his helmet and armor along the way. Almost half an hour had passed since the game started, and he wondered what everyone else was doing and, more importantly, if there would be anyone on the enemy team waiting at the creek to stop him. 

He soon got his answer. As he came up to the creek, he could see a few skirmishes here and there. Without the Poseidon kids and their water barrier, Blue Team had been forced to spread thinly along the entire creek to hold back Red Team. His own teammates spotted him first, or rather, they saw the blue flag moving towards them before spotting the tall blond boy carrying it. The enemy took longer to notice him, in part because as he got closer to the creek, Hal focused his powers again so that they failed to hear him running up from behind. Putting all of his energy into a final sprint, he reached the creek and leaped across the boundary into Red Team's side of the woods where a crowd of cheering demigods were waiting.

Chapter Text

Valerie sat in the Capture the Flag jail tapping her feet and playing with her string. She had been stuck here for the past fifteen minutes or so doing absolutely nothing. A few children of Hermes had managed to sneak deep into enemy territory to free them, but naturally they all chose the older and stronger heroes, not the new kids like her. She felt like she was literally going to die of boredom...okay not literally, but still.

Eventually, someone from the enemy team came over and told them that the game had ended.

"Who won?" someone asked.

The boy sighed. "Red Team."

Everyone in the jail cheered as they were released, and everyone headed back to the school feeling pretty good about Valerie. Everyone except Valerie that was for whom the victory was somewhat bittersweet as she had been hoping to do more than just enter enemy territory only to get quickly beaten by a seven (and a half) year old girl.

She wondered who captured the flag. The other kids were saying that someone had managed to sneak in and get the flag: the enemy team never even saw it coming because somehow the one person guarding it hadn't even noticed the flag was missing which struck Valerie was strange, but whatever. It was probably a child of Hermes then, she figured, one of the sarcastic and cocky hero types who liked to talk a lot and seemed to easily sneak out of any situation-

She stopped. Having just reached the part of the school where everyone was gathered at after the game, she spotted a crowd of people carrying the demigod who had won them the game, whom to her surprise, looked very familiar.

"'Hal?" she said, incredulous. Hal gave a little wave.

"I did it. I won the game, just like every YA protagonist in every YA novel series ever," he said. He sounded surprisingly apathetic for someone who was surrounded by a crowd of people cheering for him. For a moment, she was overcome with envy, but it quickly became replaced by pride and happiness for her friend.

"Dude! How did you even- No, wait. Don't tell me yet. Let's wait for the rest of the gang first," she said, and looked around. "Where are they...?"

As a matter of fact, Arthur and Katrina were currently getting treated at the Big House. Luckily for the two of them, neither of them were seriously injured.

Arthur had simply blacked out after getting strangled by the water tentacle. When he had finally regained consciousness, he found himself in the Big House, having been carried there by a classmate, and had been told that the game had ended already. Arthur felt quite embarrassed, believing that he had been knocked out without doing anything useful for his team. On a completely unrelated note, he had overheard some students talking about how almost immediately after he had lost consciousness, there had been a loud zap followed by a great explosion that knocked out all the children of Poseidon; Arthur wondered who could have possibly been responsible for such a thing.

Unlike Arthur, who only needed a small cup of nectar to get back on his feet, Katrina's situation was much more complicated. During her first three weeks at school, her tendency to pick fights with people she read as irrational or annoying (which happened to be most people) caused her to garner a hate following. This led to the formation of small but determined group of angry students who singled her out during the Capture the Flag game, and of course, Katrina realized what was going on because she could read their faces. Rather than run and hide from them however (which in her opinion, would make her look weak), she instead chose to make herself into a diversion, and ran towards the eastern end of the woods to draw their aggression away the real fight which was taking place in the center of the woods, a tactic she had picked up from reading the autobiography of a certain famous son of Poseidon. The downside of course was that Katrina ended up facing the full wrath of the angry mob.

When Valerie and Hal found Katrina in the Big House, she was lying on a recliner underneath a heavy blanket, with Arthur sitting beside her, holding a box of tissues. Her face and arms were covered in rashes that she scratched at non-stop while quietly singing to herself. When she saw the two of them, she immediately sneezed, then began to grin widely.

"My friends! You're here!" she said sappily, and then immediately sneezed again.

"Uh...what's going on here?" Valerie said at nobody in particular.

"Katrina got ganged up on by a bunch of people, but they couldn't beat her up because that was against the rules, so instead they just used a ton of different demigod abilities on her," Arthur answered. He explained that her current condition included poison ivy rashes from a child of Demeter, a curse of drunkenness from a child of Dionysus, narcolepsy from a child of Hypnos, and wide variety of afflictions from some children of Apollo, which included getting a cold and a really catchy song stuck in her head.

Arthur shook his head. "I still don't get why you confronted them instead of just backing off," he said.

"I answered that one already," Katrina replied. "It's 'cuz I'm not a fuckin' coward, that's why!" She postured aggressively for dramatic effect, but then suddenly fell asleep.

"Ok but actually though, it was all part of my plan," she said after Arthur tapped her awake. "Because all those idiots ended up chasing me, I ended up wasting their time and our team has an easier time fighting at the center of the woods. That's what I would call 'totally worth'."

She sneezed again and scratched at her rashes, causing Arthur and Valerie to think that it wasn't "totally worth" at all. However, not wanting to put down his friend, Arthur said, "Sounds like it was a pretty good plan."

Katrina frowned thoughtfully. "I wouldn't say it was good plan. It wasn't even original idea. It was just the same trick Annabeth used with Percy in that one Capture the Flag game everyone talks about even though it was like thirty years ago, only instead of using someone else as bait like an asshole, I just used myself. I don't get how people today are still falling for that. The plan didn't work because it was good, it worked because everyone who's out to get me is stupid." She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose.

"I think you did more than you realized," said Hal, who was silently thinking this entire time. "Because you drew their aggression from the center to the east, the players in the west had to go towards the center to compensate, which allowed me to sneak out with the flag virtually unopposed."

"Hang on...it allowed you to do what now?" Katrina asked.

Hal filled in Arthur and Katrina about what had happened, starting from when the water barrier barrier collapsed, allowing him and Valerie to cross the creek.

"Wait wait wait wait wait," Katrina interrupted, "All the Poseidon kids were taken out at once? How'd that happen?"

Hal shrugged. "Valerie and I were on the opposite side of the woods at the time so we didn't see what happened. Perhaps Arthur knows?"

They all looked at Arthur, who shook his head. "I uh....got knocked out before I could do anything so I didn't see what happened," he admitted bashfully.

Hal continued on to the part where he and Valerie hid behind a tree from a mysterious archer shooting at them, and finally to the part where he manipulated the air to dampen any noise he made to sneak up to the flag."

"Then after that I won the game," he concluded matter-of-factly. "I don't know what happened with Valerie after I left though. What happened with the archer? Did you end up getting away from them?"

"Huh?" said Valerie. "Oh yeah. Yeah I definitely got away. Mhm. Yep. For sure." She looked at Katrina to see if she gave any indication she knew that she was lying, but Katrina wasn't even paying attention to her, she was too busy smiling about something.

"Uh...what are you smiling about?" Valerie asked.

"Oh you know," Katrina replied with a silly look on her face. "Cuz of the things...you know....the thing with the Poseidon kids and Zeus kids...and the thing with the game....you know...those things?" Then before anyone could ask her to elaborate, she promptly fell asleep.

The bell rang, and the three of them left the Big House.

"Do you know what 'things' Katrina was talking about? I didn't really get what she was saying" Arthur asked, wanting not to appear dumb but wanting even more to not be out of the loop.

Valerie shrugged. "Shit if I know. I don't even get her sometimes when she isn't drunk. It's probably just some of her usual 'Hey look at me, I'm Katrina and I can read people's minds but not really but basically yes and I hate everyone around me and think they're dumb!' nonsense." Her imitation of Katrina made the boys snort in spite of themselves.

On the way to class however, Valerie and Arthur both noticed that they were attracting an unusual amount of attention from the other students. They soon realized that it was actually Hal who was eliciting excited whispers or upset glances wherever they went, though Arthur could have sworn that he saw some children of Ares glaring directly at him. The cause for all this attention remained a mystery until dinner, when seeing all the demigods at each of their tables made Valerie realize that their reactions were based off which Capture the Flag team they had been on.

"Yes," Hal replied simply when Valerie told them of her discovery, causing her to flip out.

"What? What do you mean 'Yes?' Why didn't you tell us if you knew?! We've been trying all day to figure out why people were looking at us all strangely."

"You never asked," Hal replied serenely, and took another bite of his cake. Valerie gritted her teeth.

Hal explained (after Arthur asked him to) that here at Demigod Academy, Capture the Flag games were considered important and-

"Wait wait wait!" Valerie interrupted. "Hold up. I'm sorry, but did you just say that the kids at this school take Capture the Flag seriously?" Hal nodded. "You've got to be kidding me! Why would people ever take Capture the Flag seriously? It's literally just a game!"

Nobody knew how to answer her, so they just looked around them. They noticed the strangely upbeat Zeus kids sitting right next to them and then the unusually downbeat Poseidon kids two tables down. It suddenly occurred to them that Katrina's drunken ramblings hadn't been "just nonsense."

Strangely enough, the children of Athena were also being quite sullen, and the stark contrast between their gloominess and the children of Zeus' happiness was particularly obvious to the gang from their usual spot at the intersection of their tables. Since Katrina wasn't there to read their faces, and Valerie was already on their bad side already, the three of them were simply left to wonder for the rest of dinner. They didn't speak about it until dinner was over, when the three of them made their way to the Big House to check on Katrina.

"Okay so we're at some kind of wacky school where people care way too much about Capture the Flag games. That's fine. But why did the other Athena kids look so depressed? We won didn't we?" Valerie said, the moment they were out of earshot of her siblings.

"Yes, but I think the issue isn't that they won, but how they won," Hal replied. He had spent the entirety of dinner pondering about this and had secretly been waiting for a chance to express his thoughts. "The Athena kids wanted to win, but they didn't want the Poseidon kids to be humiliated and they didn't want the Zeus kids to get the glory of being the ones who captured the flag."

"Wait I thought it was supposed to be the other way around?" Valerie interjected. "I thought Athena and Zeus got along because she's his favorite kid or something. And didn't Athena and Poseidon have that whole 'olive tree versus saltwater thing' that we learned about in class?"

Hal shrugged. "Times have changed. The Poseidon kids and Athena kids started getting along after the whole Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase thing," he said. "Around the same time, people began labelling Zeus as some sort of crazed sex maniac who did nothing but cause trouble in ancient times. That's why nowadays you have kids like Derek who go around talking about how Zeus is one of the worst Olympians. I suppose people don't believe things necessarily because they're true, but just because they get repeated a lot, which ironically seems very unwise, now that I think about it."

They reached the Big House, and just managed to catch Katrina just as she was saying goodbye to Chiron. She appeared to be back to normal: no rashes, no sneezing, no humming, no random bouts of falling asleep, and most of all, her silly drunken smile was gone, replaced by her normal sullen stare. She noticed the serious looks on their faces.

"So what did you and Chiron talk about?" Arthur asked, hoping to start a conversation about something more pleasant.

"Oh, nothing important really," Katrina replied somewhat evasively, then changed the subject. "How about you guys? What have you guys been talking about?" She squinted at them closely, trying to analyze their faces. "I can tell that you guys have been talking about 'people being stupid,' but I'm gonna be honest with you guys, knowing that literally doesn't help me limit it down at all."

"We'll tell you about it later," said Valerie. "But first, let's celebrate our boy 'Hal carrying all of us in Capture the Flag! We can finally watch those really old Spider-man movies he's always talking about...you know...the ones with Tom Holland?"

And with that, the gang headed off to Vesta House.

Chapter Text

"Alright, that's it! We finally got everything! You're good to go."

The daughter of Apollo finished scanning around Katrina's body with her enchanted stethoscope for the last time. It had taken hours to remove all the different curses that had been inflicted upon her, which, all things considered, hadn't been terrible. The poison ivy rashes and cold hadn't really bothered her all that much, and the narcolepsy had merely annoyed her. For her, the worst part about the whole thing was that she had been drunk. Katrina hated being drunk. As someone who placed great value on her ability to think logically and analyze people, she absolutely despised the mental haziness that came with being drunk, feeling that it took away an important part of her and turned her into a completely different person.

Thankfully she hadn't done anything too stupid, other than launch into that drunken rant about the children of Zeus and Poseidon. It was true though: over the past few weeks she had noticed that many of the students here seemed oddly obsessed with their godly parents. On a somewhat related note, it seemed that many of them revered the children of Poseidon, while having an unspoken disdain for the children of Zeus, something that was especially obvious during "The Derek Incident." The whole thing struck her as very strange, and it reminded her of people on the Internet who divided themselves based on what shows, movies, or books they liked. With this in mind, she secretly looked forward to seeing the entire school's reaction to the humiliation of the children of Poseidon and the subsequent victory by the children of Zeus, not because she cared about "petty" things like Capture the Flag games or who people's godly parents were, but because she knew everyone else cared about them.

Just before she reached the door however, a satyr stopped her, and told her that Chiron told him to tell her that he wanted to meet her inside his office.

She was filled with a sense of mild trepidation, which was unusual because she wasn't ever intimidated by teachers. This was because she knew that deep down, most teachers were just like other adults, trying to live out their lives. Chiron was different: he was over three thousand years old, with the wisdom and experience to match. Other demigods seemed to overlook this fact, as to them, Chiron was just like any other teacher (one who just so happened to be a centaur). Katrina knew better of course. Her ability to read faces meant that she was constantly reminded of whom Chiron really was, and as a result, she actually respected him. In other words, Katrina was nervous about meeting Chiron in his office because she looked at him the way normal kids looked at regular teachers.

She reached Chiron's office, and as expected, he was already waiting for her.

"Please, have a seat," he gestured at the nearby couch. His tone seemed friendly, and a quick look at his body language confirmed that he was. She instinctively scanned his face to read what he was thinking, and immediately figured out that their conversation was going to be about what had happened today.

"I would venture a guess and say that you have read my face and know what you're here for, so I will be straight to the point. I understand that there was a kind of 'incident' during the big game today involving you and some of your fellow demigods?"

Katrina was impressed at Chiron's ability to keep up with her. Most adults would have wasted time with polite small talk before bringing up the subject. But then again, she probably shouldn't have been surprised. Like she said, Chiron was different.

"Yeah I...guess you could call it that," she replied.

He stroked his beard. "And how do you feel right now?"

She shrugged. "Fine, I guess. The Apollo kids got rid of all the curses so everything's all good now."

Chiron nodded thoughtfully. "That's good. Even so, I do believe there is a possible issue."

"Oh!" Katrina didn't want Chiron to think of her as a victim, as she was perfectly fine with dealing with the other kids on her own. "No really sir, it's fine. I-"

"Actually, the issue I was referring to is the fact that you don't respect anyone in this school enough to treat them as being as equals."

His words triggered an alarm inside her head. Reflexively, Katrina scanned Chiron's face. The look on his face was difficult to describe, however she could tell that he wasn't angry or upset, which was a relief.

"But that's not true!" she said defensively, before attempting to come up with a counterpoint to follow up with. "I respect lots of people here. I respect Grover; he nearly died trying to get me here safely. I respect Dean D. I respect....you!" 

Although she had told the truth, she could see that he response did little to change Chiron's mind. "Yes I'm sure you do," he replied. "But what about your peers? Are there any students you respect, ones that you know personally?"

His question caught her off guard. The truth was she couldn't think of anyone. The heads of the different Houses had all gone on many quests and had accomplished many great feats, but that didn't mean Katrina respected them. After all, she could see that deep down, underneath the epic adventures, the superpowers, and monster fighting, they were just regular teenagers.

Then there were the kids in her class and the other Athena kids. Her opinion of them had only lowered as she spent more time with them. Each day when she went through classes and waded through a sea of faces, she could see that they were all thinking about the exact same things: "Greek mythology is so cool", "Zeus likes to have sex", and in the case of her siblings "Athena kids are so quirky and nerdy!" Katrina remembered a particularly painful incident during class about a week ago. As usual, most of the children of Athena had finished their classwork already and were talking about whatever. Katrina just so happened to be sitting next to two of her sisters.

"So I just finished reading the seventh book, and I came up with a theory. What if the whole series had been a dream the whole time, and then Harry wakes up and finds out he's still in the cupboard under the stairs?"

"Oh my gods! My mind is so blown right now! You should totally become a writer someday."

Katrina had promptly raised her hand and asked to go to the bathroom so she wouldn't have to hear any more. She shuddered at the memory.

Finally, this left her with her friends: Arthur, Hal, and Valerie. Did she respect  them? They were really cool and unlike the other students, they didn't make her head her but "respect"? That seemed like such a strong word to use here...

Chiron watched her as her mind went over all this. Her silence told him everything he needed to know.

"Don't worry, you're not in any trouble. I understand that with your unique ability to perceive others in the way that you do, that maintaining a certain mindset towards your peers can be...difficult."

Katrina was relieved that Chiron was being so understanding. She knew that he was very wise, but she also knew that he was a teacher, and was expecting him to chastise her as "part of his job."

"However, you also understand that I also can't just let you go around calling people idiots and provoking fights," he added quickly. "I will not punish you, as I think it would be unfair to force you to follow rules that apply to you differently. I also believe you've proven yourself to be quite strong-willed today, and if a dozen curses couldn't make you change your mind, then certainly any punishment I can give would be pointless."

His insightfulness surprised her, as he was absolutely correct. If he had tried to punish her or lecture her to "be nicer," she would have done everything she could to resist.

"So instead, I would simply like to ask you if you could do your best to be tolerant of others, and that you try your best to find at least one other student to consider as being worthy of your respect."

She examined his face, which was looking kindly down upon her. She could see that he wasn't feigning politeness just to get her to do what he wanted, which was something many teachers had tried and failed to do, but that he was genuinely asking a favor of her, as if they weren't teacher and student, but equals. She was moved by his sincerity, and she neither wanted to lie to him or disappoint him, so she nodded yes. He smiled.

"Thank you. Now, I think it's about time for you to return to your classes."

As she exited the Big House, she ran into her friends and they headed off to Vesta House to celebrate their victory with a movie night. Katrina didn't really care much for live action movies. Whenever she tried watching one, she couldn't help but look at actors' faces and read what they were really thinking and so for her, watching movies was essentially watching two hours of heavily edited footage of actors pretending to be her characters. However, she was still able to enjoy the movie, and by the time it was over, it was quite late and they all had to return to their rooms.

"I don't get it," Valerie said as they approached Minerva House. "Why didn't Thanos use the Infinity Stones to make more resources instead? I mean if you kill half of everyone in the universe wouldn't their populations just grow back in like two generations or something?"

Hal opened his mouth, probably to give a very lengthy canon explanation, but Katrina beat him to it.

"Because the movie establishes that he's literally insane and plus if he had a plan that actually made sense, then the movie wouldn't have a bad guy, and none of the cool superhero things in it would've happened, and the whole thing would've been super lame and boring. Okay, that's the real answer, goodnight everyone!" Katrina said, as she quickly dragged Valerie into Minerva House. The boys waved goodbye before heading back to their own room.

Later that night, while Hal was already asleep, Arthur lay in his bed, thinking about the events of that day, how Hal had snuck his way deep into enemy territory and used his cleverness to retrieve the flag. In contrast, he had dumbly fallen for Conrad's stupid pranked and was unconscious for most of the game. He lay there in the dark, wishing that he could have been better, more heroic.

Then, he felt a pair of hands grab him.

Chapter Text

Arthur's eyes flew open. In the dark, he could just make out three shadowy figures surrounding him, their hands moving quickly to restrain him. Arthur instinctively tried to cry out, but...

"Silencio!" one of the shadowy figures cried out. Arthur's mouth opened, but no sound came out. Above him, Hal moaned and rolled around in his bunk bed, slightly disturbed by the shouting, but not enough to be fully awoken.

"Dude shut the fuck up!" another one of his assailants hissed. "You almost woke his roommate up!"

"No you shut the...frick...up...you muggle!" the first person hissed back, putting as much disdain as possible into the last word as he held Arthur's struggling body still.

"We've been over this a million times already," the second one replied as he pulled the burlap sack over Arthur's body. "We're not in Harry Potter: we don't need to say the names of spells to use magic, especially when it can actually get us caught!" Spells...magic...Arthur thought. Evidently these two were sons of Hecate. What could they possibly want with him?

"How about both of you shut the fuck up and help me carry him?" the third attacker whispered louder than the other two. His voice was mildly familiar, but before Arthur could place it, he felt himself being lifted up and over his kidnappers' shoulders. The next several minutes passed uneventfully, as Arthur simply waited for his captors to carry him towards their destination. Still paralyzed, there was nothing he could do but ponder on where they were going, what were they going to do with him, and how the inside of the sack smelled a little bit funny.

Eventually, they reached their destination, and Arthur suddenly felt himself being flipped upside down-

"You idiot, his head's on the other end!"

Arthur felt himself being flipped right-side up. There was a bit of fidgeting near his feet and the sack was lifted over his head. For a moment, the light blinded him, but his eyes soon adjusted.

He looked around, and found himself dumped in a chair, in a dimly lit room surrounded on all sides by about forty boys. One of them sat directly in front of him in the only other chair in the room. Arthur recognized him as Marshall, the head of Mars House.

"Arthur Foxglove..." Marshall spoke dramatically, "...welcome!" He extended his arms outward grandiosely.

Arthur didn't reply. Instead he looked around the room to get a better look at the other boys. They seemed to be about sixteen years old on average, with only a few of them around his age. More importantly, he realized with a start, a majority of the boys there were sons of Ares. What could they have possibly dragged him out here in the middle of the night for?

"I suppose you're wondering what we dragged you out here in the middle of the night for..." Marshall said.

Nothing good that's for certain, Arthur thought. The Ares kids had a reputation for violence, as evidenced by the many stories that he had heard during his time at the school despite having only been here for a little less than a month. He had no idea what he had done to provoke them but that didn't matter now, he needed to decide what to do. Katrina was the smartest kid he'd ever met. What would she say?

"Arthur..." Katrina's voice echoed from the depths of his mind. "...Arthur...beat the shit out of all of them! Fucking kick their asses...asses...asses..."

Imaginary Katrina had a point! He had proven twice now that as a son of Zeus, he was fairly strong. Maybe he couldn't defeat all forty of them, but he wasn't about to go down without a fight! As he thought this, he felt a jolt racing down each of his arms and a determination he'd never felt before coursing through him...

Suddenly Marshall got up from his seat "We've brought you here for one simple reason Arthur," he approached Arthur with his fist in his palm.

Arthur felt all of his determination slip away as he looked up at Marshall towering menacingly over him. On second thought maybe he would pretend to get knocked out after the first punch. It wasn't that he was afraid or anything, it was just that suddenly de-escalation seemed like the much wiser move. Besides, it wasn't as if there were other people here to watch him get beatdown anyways...

Marshall stopped right in front of him.

"And that reason is..."

Marshall suddenly moved his hand. Arthur flinched, expecting to get hit, but instead found that Marshall had merely extended his hand outward.

"...to offer you an invitation to join our club," he finished.

"..."

His answer was so surprising that Arthur's brain stopped working for a second.

"W-what?" he heard himself say after awhile.

"I said," Marshall repeated, speaking slower this time "We brought you here so we could invite you to join us."

The gears in his head slowly started up again. Who was 'us?' And how could he even be sure this was real? What is this was some kind of elaborate ruse? What if they were planning on doing that Carrie thing where they pretended to be his friends only to turn against him and... do whatever it was they did in the story (Arthur had never actually read the book or watched either of the movies, just knew that something bad happens to Carrie).

No that's not it, he realized, shaking his head inwardly. According to their reputation, Ares kids liked to go for quick revenges, not elaborate long cons, and even if that weren't the case, they wouldn't have had to go through the trouble of dragging him out of his bed in the middle of the night just for something like that. Okay then, so this probably wasn't some kind of trick, that still left a couple of questions though...

"So who are you guys exactly?" Arthur asked, still somewhat wary. "And why do you guys want me of all people in your team of...whatever?

Upon hearing his question, Marshall's face broke out into a grin.

"We are...The Gang of Delinquents!" He spread his arms outwards dramatically.

This was met with a round of hooting and cheering...from half the room. 

"Hey wait a minute! We didn't agree to this!" one of the boys from the crowd cried out. Arthur recognized him as another son of Ares. Behind him, several other boys shook their heads in agreement.

"Wait what?" said Marshall as he whipped his head around. "What do you mean? I thought we all agreed that we'd be 'the Delinquents'."

"Yeah, but a 'Gang' of Delinquents?"

"What's wrong with calling ourselves a gang? It sounds cool!"

"No it doesn't, it just makes us sound like a bunch of assholes!" Several of the other Ares kids nodded in assent.

Arthur looked back and forth between the two as they argued. He could feel the tension in the room rising from their bickering.

"Well then..." Marshall growled, as he rolled up his sleeves and approached the other boy. "...seems like there's only one way to resolve our disagreement."

Arthur braced himself for a fight, but Marshall just sighed and pulled out his phone. "Alright, everyone get in the group chat, we're gonna vote on this." He turned back at Arthur and added, "Sorry, this is probably gonna take awhile."

They spent the next few minutes setting up a poll and voting. During this time, Arthur simply waited patiently, more confused than anything else.

A few minutes of democratic voting later, Marshall announced the results.

"Alright so we've got 40 percent of the votes for 'Gang,' 45 percent of the votes for 'Brotherhood,' and 15 percent of the votes for 'Guys with Big Fat C-' ok I'm not reading that one aloud." In the back of the room, a group of Hermes kids snickered.

He turned back to Arthur. 

"Now where was I?...oh right!" He cleared his throat. "We are...The Brotherhood of Delinquents!" he spread his arms outwards dramatically....again.

Once again there was loud hooting and cheering, this time from everyone. Arthur relaxed a little, seeing as the boys were no longer as menacing as they had been before. In fact, for a group of self-proclaimed delinquents, they were surprisingly welcoming...and democratic?

"So what exactly is 'The Ga-...Brotherhood...of Delinquents'?" he asked.

"Hmmm, that's a pretty good question," Marshall said, frowning slightly. "Honestly we kinda just like to hang out and do whatever."

"Sometimes we like to do a little bit trolling..." one of the Hermes kids piped up.

"...some tomfoolery even..." continued another.

"...AND BEAT OUR ENEMIES INTO SUBMISSION!" one of the Ares kids declared proudly, eliciting many looks of annoyance from those around him. "Er, I mean..." he paused as he read the room, "...we uh...like to do a little rough-housing?"

"Wait a minute!" Arthur interrupted. "So you guys go around picking fights with people??"

"Eh...only sometimes," Marshall replied casually. "And only to those we deserve it."

"Yeah it's kinda why we have to hold our meetings in the middle of the night," one of the other boys chimed in. "Because technically we're not allowed to have this club, so it's a secret club now."

So his initial assumptions about the Ares kids and the other boys hadn't been entirely wrong. But if they really were a gang (or brotherhood) of delinquents who enjoyed picking fights with others, then...

"But...why would you want me of all people to join?"

Now it was Marshall's turn to be surprised. "Are you...are you being serious right now??" Arthur nodded.

"Dude!" Marshall threw his hands up in his air. "Uh okay where do I even begin? First, you're a son of Zeus. Second, you beat up Derek after he was being a little piece of shit, then third, you proceeded to take him and all his friends on in a fight and won. And of course there's everything you did today."

Arthur blinked. "Today?"

"Yeah, you know...that thing today? Capture the flag?" Marshall looked at Arthur expectantly. Arthur stared back blankly. What thing today? As far as he knew he had done nothing except sit around and then get knocked out. 

"You're gonna make me say it huh? Alright. Fourth, you walked up right into the creek and shocked all the Poseidon kids, singlehandedly turning the tide of the game into Red Team's favor."

Arthur nearly laughed aloud. Clearly there was some sort of mistake and Marshall had him confused for some other, much more competent hero. 

Yes that was it, he thought, looking back on his swift defeat. He could still remember the sensation of being lifted into the air, the cold wet tentacles wrapping tightly around his body, the tingling in his fingers as the world went dark-

Wait.

Tingling in his fingers? 

No.

Freaking*.

Way.

Arthur froze. Did he really?...he couldn't have...and yet...

Marshall's voice snapped him out of his thoughts. "...and yeah we think you'd be a great fit for the club."

What could he do? This was all just some kind of crazy misunderstanding. He wasn't some kind of tough jock or chad or whatever who went around taking out anyone in his way, he was just Arthur, the timid kid who was too afraid to answer questions in class even if he knew he had the correct answer.

And that was exactly the problem he faced right now. He simply wasn't bold enough to tell the boys no, that they were mistaken about him and also he'd only manage to do all of those things on accident.

"So what do you say?" said Marshall, extending his hand. "Are you in?"

Besides, what if they turned on him after finding out he wasn't like them? Or worse, if they found out that he wasn't as strong as they thought. Surely it would be much safer to just go along with everything they said?

Arthur took his hand and shook it.

The other boys hooted and cheered (for like the third time that night).

Chapter Text

Despite the cultural importance of Capture The Flag games, things at the academy didn't just seem to magically change afterwards. In fact, the only real impact the game seemed to have was that Jupiter House seemed somewhat more lively during meals now.

And to be honest, that was just the way the four of them liked it. While Hal did enjoy his "Harry Potter Quidditch moment," he later stated that the idea of being a YA protagonist sounded like much more hassle than it was worth, which led to a whole conversation about quests during lunch one day.

"No. A hundred percent 'no' and it's not even close," Valerie said after Hal asked her if she would ever want to go on a quest. "Like there's literally like a billion reasons why staying at school is better than going on a quest. Number one, uh...." She paused. "Free food! We get like the greatest free food here, and the only downside is that we're obligated to burn the best parts as offerings for the gods is a little weird and kinda sucks but definitely still a net positive. And number two..."

"Wait, people don't just choose to go on quests do they?" Arthur interrupted her. "I thought people only went on quests because the Oracle tells them to."

"Basically. And also because you know...the world would probably blow up if they didn't" said Katrina. "Val's got a point though. Pretty sure nobody with half a brain cell would actually want to go on a quest."

Her comment attracted a few dirty looks, which she promptly ignored. One of them came from a certain daughter of Apollo who was watching them from the next table over.

Her name was Jandice. The most notable parts of her appearance were perhaps her curly brown hair and paint-stained cargo shorts with enormous pockets.

Like most demigods, Jandice had lived a rough life before she arrived at the academy and learned about her true identity.

Even from a very young age, Jandice knew that she was different. While all the other girls would do plain, boring things like lead active social lives and go outside with friends, she would do nerdy, quirky things like read Greek mythology or YA novels featuring teen girl protagonists who acted like mature adults except when it came to choosing between their childhood friends and the alluring boy they just met 5 seconds ago. Her favorite myth was the one about Hades and Persephone, something she talked to her therapist about in great detail.

"Hang on a second" her therapist interrupted her during a session one day. "So you're telling me that you actually idealize this relationship?"

"I ship it if that's what you mean yeah," Jandice replied.

"I see," her therapist replied, as she jotted down something on her notepad.

"Wait is that a bad thing?" Jandice asked.

"Well..."

"Because I see you writing stuff down on your notepad."

"I mean..."

"Do you think there was anything wrong with what I said?"

"Do I think there's anything wrong with the fact that you idealize a story where a random guy kidnaps her and holds her hostage underground?" She paused. "Umm....no. No I think that's a perfectly okay and not weird at all."

Jandice hadn't even told her therapist the whole truth, which was that a big part of why she liked the Hades and Persephone myth was her mom. Jandice's mother was a doctor who constantly nudged her daughter towards a future in science. Unfortunately, Jandice was a daughter of Apollo (though she didn't know it at the time of course), and like most children of Apollo, she was interested in art rather than science. In fact, Janice actually hated science. She hated how science only cared about objective facts and had only one "right answer," how it made the other kids look smarter when they knew those answers and she didn't, and most of all, how her mother acted like it was more important than art.

As a result, the day she discovered she was a demigod was the greatest day of her life. She had discovered that she was special, been born with special powers, and now she could become just like the heroes she would read about. Even better, this confirmed that her mother was wrong about everything. After all, in a world where myths and magic were real, how important could science really be?

There was just one thing standing between her and her perfect fantasy life now.

Demigod Academy was still a school, and like every school it had a variety of students, some good, and others...not so good. Jandice wasn't a fan of bullies, or at least those she considered bullies. As an unpopular kid, she had always been targeted by them. Back then she would just do her best to keep her head down and avoid them, then maybe post about it on social media later. However, things were different now. She was no longer just some weird kid who liked to read for fun (reading for fun was totally a unique trait that people bullied you for right?). She had powers now, powers she could use for good, and put those who deserved it in their place.

And she was looking at four of them right now.

Why she disliked Katrina was pretty obvious. Everyone in their grade and even quite a few people outside of it knew who she was and what she was like sometimes.

Next was Arthur, the guy who'd picked a fight with those Poseidon kids a few weeks ago and won. Everyone else had been surprised by the outcome, and Jandice couldn't understand why. She thought it was a known fact that children of Zeus had the best things in life handed to them, including demigod powers. Jandice never heard about the details of the fight but she figured the only way a new kid like Arthur had been able to win was with some crazy Son of Zeus power.

There was also the fact that he was apparently on good terms with the children of Ares. Starting the day after the Capture The Flag game a few days ago, she started seeing sons of Ares greet him as they passed each other between classes. Jandice had no clue what was going on, but given the Ares kids' reputations for being belligerent assholes, she was certain it was nothing good.

Then, there was Hal.

Hal briefly became the center of everyone's attention when he became the one who crossed over the river with the flag. Jandice still remembered the way he had dashed past her and leapt across the river, just another cocky son of Zeus. What made things worse was later on when she asked Maddie what had happened, and Maddie couldn't explain it. One moment she could sense his presence, and then she couldn't, and the flag was gone. Hal must have gaslit her! Jandice wasn't entirely sure what that word meant, but she was pretty sure she was using it correctly.

And so over the past several days, Jandice kept a close eye on Hal. From watching him, discovered that he was one of "those kids" she hated, the kind who was good at math and science and only looked at the world through objective facts. Even in English class, it seemed that was the only thing he cared about. Whenever he would give a book report, he would talk about the book in terms of the author's intentions, as if that was the right way to do literary analysis.

And that was the exactly the kind of shit that pissed Jandice off, people regarding an artist's intended meaning as "the true meaning" of their work. What about her interpretations? Why weren't they just as valid as those of the actual creators? That was the problem with this world, she thought. People was so concerned about knowing "the truth," that they didn't consider different truths. This was the type of thing she wanted to fight for as a hero. In her ideal world, everyone's interpretations would be equally valid, everyone's truths would be just as valid as "the" truth.

Last but not least, was Valerie.

Okay, Valerie actually hadn't ever done anything wrong.

But she was friends with the other three, so that meant she was probably a bad person too, right?

And with that, Jandice made up her mind.

The bell rang, and all the students left the dining pavilion. Valerie, Hal, and Katrina walked with the crowd, still carrying on the same conversation they were having during lunch.

"Okay but what happens if I just decide not to go on a quest?" Valerie asked.

"We talked about this during class already," Hal replied. "Those who attempt to avoid prophecies end up inadvertently fulfilling them in the end anyways. Remember that Oedipus guy?"

Valerie cringed. "Ugh, yeah, no need to remind me. But what if I just decided to sit in my room and do nothing instead of going on a quest? How would it physically be possible for the prophecy to be fulfilled then?"

"I'm not sure," said Katrina. "But I think you should test it out."

"You think so?" Valerie asked.

"Oh yeah definitely," Katrina replied. "Here's how we'll do it. When you get assigned your first quest, just sit in our room and do nothing. Then I'll sit at a safe distance and see if anything bad happens to you."

"Hmmm...." Valerie gave her a skeptical glance. "I don't think that's very good idea..."

"No trust me it's a great idea," Katrina said. "Watch. Arthur agrees with me. Right Arthur?" She turned, expecting him to be right behind her, but he was lagging several meters behind.

"Coming!" Arthur cried. However, as he rushed to catch up, he ran straight into the path of another student, and the two of them crashed and fell.

"Sorry! I'm so sorry!" Arthur hastily apologized as they both scrambled to pick up their things. At one point their hands awkwardly touched ("Sorry!"). Then, having recovered his belongings, he hurried to rejoin his friends.

It was a Saturday. Despite the importance of preparing demigods for monster encounters in the outside world, Demigod Academy did still allow them to spend their weekends as they pleased. Of course, this meant different things for different types of people, something Valerie found out when she asked Hal how he planned to spend his afternoon.

"Are you kidding me?" she exclaimed. "Why would you spend your free time during the weekend reading?"

"I want to finish this book," Hal explained matter-of-factly.

Valerie was about to open her mouth to say something along the lines of "But you already read every day!" but something made her stop.

"Wait a minute..."

Her super instinct called her attention to the cover of Hal's book, which she had just realized looked a little familiar.

"This is..."

She took a closer look at the book, taking note of the page number. Her eyes widened.

"This is the new book we were assigned in English class yesterday!" Valerie exclaimed. "It's only been one day and you're already two hundred pages past the assigned reading! Why are you still going?"

"I told you already, because I want to finish this book," Hal said simply. He didn't get why this was such a big deal. Reading ahead on assigned books was something he had always done. Seeing that Hal was unlikely to change his mind, Valerie gave up.

"How about you Arthur? What do you wanna do today?"

Arthur coughed. "Um...I don't know," he said." Just..." he coughed again. "Just whatever you wanna do I guess." Then he broke into a short coughing fit.

"Are you alright?" Valerie asked, but even as she spoke, she knew this wasn't just a regular cold. Hal and Katrina also looked over with some concern.

"I'm fine," Arthur said. "I'm just a little bit..." He coughed several times. "...sick."

Katrina frowned. "You don't sound very fine to me. I think we should get you over to Apollo House. Here, I'll walk with you," she said. They left, leaving Valerie and Hal alone in the room.

Or so they thought.

Behind her, someone was watching her from up above through a window.

It was Jandice.

Jandice had been watching with great satisfaction as everything unfolded before her. So far everything had happened just as she wanted it to.

As a daughter of Apollo, Jandice had all the basic traits expected of her and her siblings: she was proficient at archery and held much interest in the arts, but she also had another special ability. Though most people only cared about the sun and archery aspects, Apollo was the god of many things, and one of the lesser known aspects of Apollo was his power over healing...and disease. It was from this aspect that Jandice derived her special ability.

The ability to create disease.

There were limits and rules of course, it wasn't as if she could just cause a pandemic whenever she wanted to. She first had to come into physical contact with a person who would be her "Patient Zero," while having the intent to infect them with her ability. This would plant the "seed" of the disease. Once she did this, she could then decide afterwards what disease they would be infected with, causing the "seed" to "sprout." The disease would always be a "real" disease, meaning that it would be a disease that mortals were aware of, and her ability would take on all the traits of that disease, including methods of transmission. The only difference between her ability and an actual disease was that the rate of spreading was initially much slower, but later on would become much faster. Finally, Jandice herself wasn't immune to her own diseases, but she still had the advantage of being able to prepare ahead of time.

While this may have seemed complicated, it was actually much simpler than it sounded. Jandice's power didn't require her to have detailed knowledge of mortal diseases. She simply needed to have a set of traits in mind as she mentally "turned on" her ability after touching someone, and her ability would simply activate into a mortal disease with the traits she had in mind. However, if the traits she selected didn't apply to any mortal disease, her ability would simply give them the closest existing mortal disease. Jandice had discovered this during the first time she tried using her power at her regular school outside of the Academy. She tried to give a bully she didn't like the worst disease she could think of but ended up "only" giving them the Bubonic Plague.

As for the change of its rate of spread, that was also fairly unimportant. Initially, Jandice had thought it was weird, but as time passed, she came to realize that it mostly didn't matter. The original slowness of spreading simply gave her time to avoid catching the disease herself, and the rapid rate of spreading later on simply made her power deadlier.

The hardest part was simply coming into physical contact with Patient Zero, which Jandice had done earlier when she ran in front of Arthur. Earlier, she had been worried that her hand touching would be too obvious, but fortunately, like a typical son of Zeus, Arthur had been too stupid to suspect anything. After that it had been fairly easy to follow them to their regular hangout spot at Vesta House, climb up a tree, and reach her vantage position at the window located above them. After popping the window open slightly, she had watched, almost gleefully, as her ability began to take hold of Arthur.

For this disease, she had avoided choosing something lethal. After all, her plan was to put them in their place rather than kill them, as Jandice firmly believed that she was a good person doing a good deed. As a result, she had willed the disease to simply give Arthur "something that would make him cough a lot," and that seemed to do the trick.

Jandice had also overheard Katrina when she said she was planning on taking Arthur to Apollo House. One would assume that this would be a cause for concern, but Jandice actually cared very little for this.

She knew that for them, going to Apollo House would only be a waste of time.

Chapter Text

Arthur and Katrina stood at the bottom of the steps leading up to Apollo House in all its grandeur, with its gaudy golden bricks and massive speakers. Neither of them knew the song that was currently playing, which was Too Well by Taylor Swift. It had been playing for 8 minutes, and Katrina wasn't sure if the Apollo kids had it on repeat or if that was just how long the song was, because she had already mentally tuned it out more than 7 and a half minutes ago.

Katrina knocked, and one of the Apollo kids answered the door. She recognized him as someone she had gotten into a fight with at one point.

"Hey..." she said, doing her best to sound friendly and hoping this guy wasn't the type of person to hold grudges. "So...my friend here won't stop coughing." She gestured at Arthur, who was in fact coughing as she said this. "So yeah, if one of you guys could do whatever it is you guys do and fix him, I'd really appreciate it."

Fortunately, judging by his face, it seemed the son of Apollo was indeed willing to help. He went back inside for a moment and returned with a celestial bronze stethoscope. He hovered the chestpiece of the stethoscope near Arthur as he listened. Katrina observed the son of Apollo as he worked, using her ability to monitor his thoughts.  A look of recognition flashed across his face, and Katrina's heart leaped with joy, for that could only mean that he knew how to cure him.

But then the son of Apollo merely set the stethoscope down somberly.

"Sorry, there's nothing I can do." He was lying.

"What?" Katrina cried angrily. "What do you mean there's nothing you can do?"

"I mean we can't cure him." Another lie. Now Katrina was really getting pissed. At this point she was seriously considering beating the truth out. However, before she could do anything, a few other Apollo kids showed up, asking what was going on.

"Her friend's sick," the son of Apollo explained. "I gave him a checkup, and there's nothing we can do for him." He gave the other Apollo kids a meaningful look.

"Oh," said one of the other Apollo kids, who then turned to Katrina. "Yeah sorry, but there's nothing we can do for him."

More lies, which infuriated Katrina, as one of the things she hated most was when people lied to her face when it was painfully obvious to her with her ability that they were lying. But she also wasn't stupid and knew that there was no way she could take them on in a fight, not when Arthur needed her.

"Don't worry," one of the daughters of Apollo said. She seemed genuinely sympathetic. "I'm sure he'll recover soon." Strangely enough, Katrina could tell that she was telling the truth.

Seeing that there was no way of changing their diagnosis, Katrina left Apollo House with Arthur in tow. As she headed back towards Vesta House, she started thinking. There was something about the Apollo kids that struck her as odd. She was certain that they had been lying to her about being unable to cure Arthur, yet the first one they'd met had genuinely wanted to help, as Katrina saw no ill intent written on his face. In addition, how had the other one been so sure that Arthur would get better soon? None of it seemed to make any sense, and as a person who was used to readily knowing what people were thinking, not knowing why and what she was being lied to greatly frustrated her.

The two of them returned to Vesta House, where Valerie was waiting.

"Where's Hal?" Katrina asked.

"Oh, he said he had to go to the bathroom. Kinda sucks that this place doesn't have its own bathroom for some reason, I guess because nobody actually lives here," Valerie replied. "So how's Arthur? Is he alright now? Did they cure him?"

Arthur answered by falling into a coughing fit.

"Okay...I'm gonna take that as a no then."

"It was those damn Apollo kids," Katrina sat down hard in her chair. "At first they said they were willing to help, but when they looked at him they said they couldn't cure him, and I could tell from their faces that they were lying."

Jandice watched smugly as Katrina raged down below. Yes, of course that's what they told you, she thought. All of the Apollo kids were in on an unspoken agreement, that if any one of them inflicted any diseases or curses on other campers, that there would be no interfering or snitching as long was permanently harmed or killed. Several minutes had passed now since she had activated her ability, and now she was looking forward for to watching it spread.

"The weirdest part though, was that one of them was actually telling the truth when they said they were sure that Arthur was going to recover soon," Katrina concluded.

"That's strange..." Valerie murmured thoughtfully. "Maybe they just realized whatever he has is harmless and figured it wasn't worth their time and effort?"

"I don't think so," Katrina replied. "If that were the case, they simply would have said so instead of lying. But if they wanted to lie to us...why even let us in and assure us they would cure him in the first place?" 

"Maybe it's something we could cure by ourselves. Quick, do we have any medicine?"

"No, but we could buy some off of the Hermes kids. That's not the problem though, we don't even know what it is."

"And how are gonna be able to do that? Ugh! This whole thing is pointless!"

Pathetic! Jandice thought as she watched the two of them go back and forth. Two children of Athena, and these were the best ideas they could come up with? Jandice had already been fairly confident that she could win, but this just confirmed that it was all too easy.

Suddenly Katrina's expression hardened.

"You're right Val," she said. "This whole thing was pointless."

"Umm...yeah?" Valerie said, not really sure where this was going. "I know. I just said that."

"No but don't you see? We've been trying to approach this problem like normal people this whole time."

"Yes...because we're normal people," Valerie said, still unsure where Katrina was going with this.

"Yes, but we should've been considering the fact that we're at a magical Greek mythology academy where all sorts of bullshit can happen," Katrina's mind was racing now. "About two weeks ago, after the Capture the Flag game. I got sent to the Big House because a bunch of guys put like a million curses on me."

Uh oh. Jandice didn't like what she was hearing.

"I remember that. You were super drunk and sneezing all the time."

"Right. I was sneezing because one of the Apollo kids shot me with an enchanted arrow that gave me a bad cold. I think this is like that. I think one of the Apollo kids infected Arthur with whatever he has."

"Yes, it all makes sense now," Katrina continued. "It explains why the Apollo kids were acting the way they were. Middle school kids hate snitching. For some reason they think it's better to let another student suffer than to tell the teacher on someone. I bet the Apollo kids have some kind of pact where they agree not to tell on each other or mess with each other's curses, but secretly they do feel kinda bad about it." 

"But Kat," Valerie said, "Nobody shot an arrow at Arthur today."

"I've been thinking about that," Katrina replied. "And I think there has to be something we're missing. Something other way he must've contracted that disease. But we've been with him all day, if somebody got close enough to do anything to him, we would have-"

"That girl!" Valerie cried excitedly. "The one he ran into right after lunch! She must be the one behind all this. I remember her too. She's a daughter of Apollo from our grade. I think her name's Jaudice or something?"

Shit, Jandice thought. This was not good, not good at all.

"It has to be her then," Katrina said. "Come on. Now that we know who did it, we have to tell Chiron about this."

Fuck! Clearly, they'd been smarter than she thought. What could she do? What could she do? She didn't want to reveal herself, and even if she did, she couldn't stop both of them by herself. Jandice started panicking when something miraculous happened.

Katrina coughed.

She and Valerie exchanged terrified glances. Jandice was elated.

Just in time! The initial stage where the disease spread slowly had ended. Now it was beginning to spread rapidly. Katrina had been several feet away from Arthur, yet still managed to get infected. Now it was only a matter of time before Valerie got infected too. There was no need to reveal herself after all. Jandice watched with anticipation, eagerly awaiting Valerie to start showing symptoms. She wondered what was going on inside her mind. Was it fear? If it was then she was doing a pretty good job of hiding it.

Because down below, Valerie seemed strangely calm.

Valerie's mind had started to race, as her super instincts kicked in and tried to force her to figure out a way to survive. The problem was, she knew next to nothing about diseases and her powers were useless without any prior knowledge. But it wasn't completely hopeless, as she did know some very basic things. For example, Valerie, like all children, learned at a very young age that when you needed to cough, you were supposed to cover your mouth.

Valerie knew what she had to do now.

She held out her hands with her fingers pointed towards each other and began shooting string out of her fingertips. Katrina watched with astonishment as the strings flew towards each other and began weaving themselves into a tight rectangular section of cloth with loops at the edges. Valerie examined it for a moment, then satisfied, donned her creation.

She had weaved a face mask out of string.

"I don't really know much about diseases or anything," she said, "But I'm pretty sure any diseases that makes you cough would have evolved to spread through the air, or vice versa." 

She noticed Katrina glaring at her in the middle of her coughing fit. 

"Hey why are you looking at me like that? Is it because I didn't give you a mask?"

Katrina opened her mouth to say something but all that came out was another coughing fit. However, her glaring intensified.

"I'm sorry okay? Look, it's not my fault I only get good ideas when I'm under stress!"

Up above them, Jandice started to panic again.

This is not good, she thought to herself. Now that Valerie had managed to cover her face, it seemed that there was no way for her to get infected by the disease now. Jandice cursed under her breath. Who would have thought that something so simple and stupid would have worked. She certainly wouldn't have thought of it. In fact, in all the time that she knew she had this power, she never once thought of it from a scientific point of view.

And even now, she still refused to. It was a clever trick, she admitted, but it still didn't matter. Earlier she didn't want to engage directly because she was certain she would lose two against one. But now Katrina was incapacitated, huddled up in her chair just like Arthur, and she was pretty confident about her chances against Valerie in a 1v1.

"Go...Val..." Katrina managed between coughs. "Get...to Chiron."

Jandice gritted her teeth. It was now or never.

Valerie nodded and started making her way towards the door.

But suddenly, her super instincts activated, telling her to dodge. She did so, but was just a bit slow. As she strafed to the left, she felt a series of sharp pains along her right arm, as if someone had jabbed it with a pencil several times.

"Ow!" she cried, then turned her arm to inspect it.

The back of her arm was covered with about half a dozen tiny little holes that were all bleeding slightly.

The standard choice of weaponry for a typical child of Apollo were of course a bow and arrow, due to their natural talent for archery. However, as any demigod who has ever tried playing a game as basketball against them could tell you, their talent wasn't limited to just archery, but applied to any kind of projectile in general.

BB shots and a slingshot that fit around her index and third finger.

These were Jandice's secret weapons of choice.

A bow and arrow would of course work better against a monster, but Jandice didn't just want to fight monsters. She wanted to fight against the evil bullies at her school, and even with the Mist, there was no way she could bring a weapon like that into school and get away with it. But a slingshot could be easily snuck inside her backpack, while BB shots dealt a decent amount of damage without being straight up lethal. The combination was more dangerous than it sounded. Just as children of Apollo and Hunters of Artemis could fire multiple arrows at once with extreme accuracy and shoot much further than any mortal archer could, Jandice could shoot multiple BB bullets from her slingshot with great accuracy and at a speed as if they had been shot from an actual BB gun.

Plus it was also quirky and random.

Unfortunately, they were proving to be quite ineffective at the moment. Somehow, at the last second, Valerie knew to strafe to the side, such that her BB shots had just narrowly missed their target: the straps on the side of her mask, which were the only thing saving Valerie from becoming infected with the disease.

She grabbed another fistful of BB shots from one of her oversized pockets, and loaded them into the sling. But as she prepared to fire a second time, she noticed something.

There was some string wrapped around her slingshot.

In fact, it was actually wrapped all around her hand and upper arm.

Before she fully registered what this meant, she felt herself being pulled forward. She let out a surprised scream as she fell through the window and into Vesta House. She fell hard on her butt, which cushioned most of the impact. She looked up to see a triumphant Valerie standing several feet away from her.

Despite having just been shot, Valerie, had kept her head cool just enough to remember what general direction the BB shots had come from. She didn't know exactly where, but enough to know that it came from above which made her look up and spot an open window with a certain daughter of Apollo sitting just outside of it.

For her part, despite having the wind knocked out of her by her fall, Jandice also remained calm and focused. The first thing she did was put on a face mask that she carried around in one of her other oversized pockets for exactly this type of situation.

Both Valerie and Jandice knew vaguely what was about to happen. It was something that Coach Hedge had covered in great detail in their PE classes, and something they both had experienced before in Capture the Flag.

The "Melee" versus "Ranged" matchup.

Valerie, who had nothing but her fists, would try to close in on Jandice, who would try to stay away from Valerie until she could shoot her down.

Valerie charged. Jandice pulled back on her slingshot and fired. The BB shots flew at Valerie. However this time, she was far more prepared, and with her super instinct she easily dodged the shots. She was already nearly halfway across the room now. 

But Jandice, for all her flaws, wasn't completely stupid, and was a very good shot. She grabbed another fistful of BB shots, loaded them into the sling, pulled back, and fired again. Valerie's super instinct kicked in, and once again, the shots flew past her.

But this time they didn't just hit nothing. The shots flew past her...and flew straight at the table leg, ricocheting off of it back towards Valerie. Valerie sensed something coming from behind her, but the distance was too short for her to react. The BB shots flew her, grazing the side of her head and snapping the strings that held the mask up.

"What the-" Valerie was taken by surprise. Taking advantage of this, Jandice charged right into her and pushed her as hard as she could.

Valerie fell hard against the table...

...right next to where Katrina and Arthur were having their coughing fit.

Valerie gasped, which was probably the worst thing she tried to do. She came to her senses, and quickly tried to weave another mask, but it was too late. She coughed.

Jandice brushed herself off, victorious. To be honest, Valerie had her worried there for a moment, but in the end it was nothing. Valerie had said it herself: she was just a normal person, who could only try to think of normal boring solutions to problems. Jandice wasn't normal, she was special. Even before she knew she was a demigod, she tried to think like the characters in the books she read, trying to think like a true hero would. Admittedly, her mask solution had been somewhat clever, but not nearly as clever as her own idea to ricochet the BB shots off of the table leg. A strange sense of elation came over Jandice, and she couldn't help but pose triiumphantly. Not only had she won, but she had once again proven that in this world of myths and magic, her way of thinking was superior. Now Arthur, Katrina, and Valerie all lay at the table, coughing uncontrollably. There was just one more person left to take care of.

Jandice heard the door to Vesta House open.

And here he was right now.

Chapter Text

Hal was somewhat surprised to say the least when he finally returned to Vesta House from his bathroom break.

The first thing he saw was Arthur and Katrina sprawled across the table. They were apparently unconscious, having coughed themselves into exhaustion (though Hal didn't know this of course). Valerie was still conscious, though she seemed to barely be holding herself together as she coughed repeatedly. Somehow in the time it took for him to go to the bathroom, Arthur's disease must have spread to Valerie and Katrina. This struck Hal as strange, since he was pretty sure diseases didn't normally spread this quickly, but he didn't say anything about it.

The next thing he noticed was that there was a girl with curly brown hair wearing a face mask pants with strangely large pockets standing beside the table with her hand on her hips wearing a smug expression on her face.

That was definitely also very weird. In fact, things were so weird, that Hal was actually beginning to suspect something was wrong. His suspicions were confirmed, when Valerie was finally able to stop coughing for a moment.

"Hal!" she cried out, then immediately went back to coughing.

"What's going on?" Hal said. If he was at all surprised or concerned for his friends, Jandice couldn't tell.

"Jandice," Valerie managed to sputter. Her voice was beginning to sound raspy "The disease. It's her demigod power. Also watch out for her slingshot. She shoots-" She was overcome with another coughing fit. Her throat was also starting to burn now, but she had to try to warn Hal.

"The disease. It's transmitted through-" Once more she was overtaken by a coughing fit. It was no use, she thought. She just couldn't do it. And the coughing was getting worse every moment. Not only was she finding it difficult to breathe in-between coughs now, her sides were starting to hurt. She tried once again, but this time she could barely get her mouth open before she was forced into another fit. The coughing intensified to the point that she now felt like she was about to throw up. It was genuinely the most pain Valerie had ever been through in her entire life. She could barely move now, and her whole body was in pain now. She felt like giving up. After all, what did it matter? Even if she were able to warn Hal, she didn't have the energy to weave another mask for him anyways.

Valerie collapsed in a fit of coughing and fell out of her chair and onto the floor.

Jandice froze as Hal slowly approached the table. Her instinct was to run away. After all, he was a son of Zeus, likely gifted with extremely powerful lightning abilities, and she was just a daughter of Apollo.

But the more she thought about it, the less intimidated she became.

Although children of Zeus were generally more powerful than children of Athena, Jandice was a lot less threatened by Hal than she had been by Valerie. The reason for this was because although children of Zeus were stronger, their lightning powers tended to be ineffective in indoor environments. Even if Hal didn't strictly have to summon the lightning from the sky like many of his siblings did, the fact that Jandice was standing so close to where his friends were meant that there was no chance he could electrocute her without hurting any of his friends. She on the other hand, had the complete advantage, as Hal couldn't get closer without risking getting contaminated by the disease, and if he chose to distance himself from her, she could just easily shoot him down with her BBs.

She also began to remember what she already knew about Hal. He was an unthoughtful individual, someone who was only good at regurgitating facts he memorized for a test at school. If she could beat someone like Valerie, who was admittedly a little clever, then someone like Hal would be easy.

"I must say, after seeing you in person, you're a lot shorter than I...um..." she faltered as Hal ignored her completely and instead began looking at something on the ground. "Hey! I'm talking to you!"

But Hal seemed dead set on ignoring her. Now Jandice found him staring at the table instead of at the ground. It seemed he still hadn't realized the type of situation he was currently in. Did he think that he could just ignore her like this? Did he think she wasn't a threat to him just because she was a daughter of Apollo and he was a son of Zeus? His arrogance infuriated her, and she felt something inside of her snap.

"Hey! Dumbass!"

Hal finally looked up, just in time for Jandice to slam his face onto the table. She then kicked him savagely, and he fell to the ground.

Right next to Valerie.

Who was still coughing.

Hal moved slightly, and Jandice instinctively leaped back, expecting to get hit by a lightning bolt or something. She wasn't, and this emboldened her to move back just a bit closer. Had she really just won?

She must have. Katrina had been sitting further from Arthur when she caught it, and this time Hal had been right in front of Valerie. She had initially been unsure of it only because it seemed much too easy but there was no doubt she had done it. She had defeated Hal.

It shouldn't have come as a surprise, Jandice thought. After all, she had already established earlier what type of person Hal was, so it was only inevitable that she could outsmart someone as simple as him. Her victory here confirmed beyond a doubt, that everything she believed in was right, and thinking this made her feel elated once more, the same elation that came over her when she had beaten Valerie, only more intense.

"What?" she said, mustering as much disdain as she could into her voice. "Did you think I'd just stand there and do nothing during a fight? You think you're hot shit just because you're a son of Zeus with cool lightning powers huh? Well, what good did it do you now?"

It was a rhetorical question, as Jandice knew the next time Hal opened his mouth, it would be to let out a coughing fit. But that was exactly what Jandice wanted. She knew that eventually she'd have to "turn off" her ability and after that she'd probably get in trouble, but none of that mattered to her. The only thing she cared about was that she had taught the bad kids at her school a lesson, and the only thing left to was ensure Hal had learned his lesson.

"There's a book called The Art of War...you've probably never heard of it, but whatever. In it, it says that 'A skilled warrior doesn't just win, they win with ease.' I've seen the way you act in our classes. You think you're so smart just because you can memorize shit from a textbook, but in reality, you don't know how to think at all, and that's why someone like me was easily able to be someone like you. That's why I'll be a greater hero than you could ever hope to be. Do you understand what I'm telling you?"

Here it comes, she thought. Hal was getting up from the ground now. Any second now, he would start coughing, proving everything Jandice said to be true.

Hal was standing now.

But he still wasn't coughing.

He was probably just trying to hold it in, she thought. After all, there was no way he hadn't been infected by the disease. She also noted that he didn't seem at all hurt from the way he shoved his face towards the table earlier. That was strange, as she was certain he'd shoved his face hard enough to at least give him a little nosebleed.

Another second passed, and he still hadn't coughed. He didn't seem to be straining to hold in anything either, in fact if anything he seemed to stand straighter and taller than ever.

That's because he was. It had taken awhile for her to realize, but Jandice could see now that Hal's feet were actually floating several centimeters above the ground.

And he still wasn't coughing.

Why wasn't he coughing?

60 seconds earlier...

Hal watched as Valerie collapsed before she got to tell him whatever she wanted to say. His immediate reaction was to go and help her, but just as he was about to do this, something made him pause.

There was something strange about the way Valerie was lying on the ground. It took him a moment to realize it, but it seemed that she was pointing at something as she lay unconscious. Hal traced the line from her finger but couldn't tell what she was pointing at. He tried looking closer, and then finally he saw it.

There was a line of string protruding from her fingertip. It was very thin, and colored the same color of the floor such that it was almost invisible. It would have been so easy to overlook, but fortunately Hal was the kind of person who cared about such seemingly unimportant things. He followed the string, as it ran up the table leg and onto the table, which were the same color as the floor.

Hal could see now that there was a cluster of string on the table. Had Jandice noticed? No, she was prattling on about something. Good. Whatever it was, it was obvious that Valerie would rather Jandice not know about it. But how could he see it without alerting Jandice?

A moment later, he figured it out. He sent a small puff of wind across the surface of the table. It was just barely perceptible, certainly not enough for Jandice to notice, but it was strong enough to move the string, and for a moment Hal saw it, the message Valerie had left for him.

It was true that Valerie hadn't had enough energy to weave a mask for him, but she had done the next best thing. With her last remaining energy, she had shot out enough string to send Hal one last message.

Written on the table in loopy cursive with string, were the words...

"airborne"

It wasn't much, but it told Hal everything he needed to know. He was ready now, and so he slowly got up to face Jandice.

"Let my friends go," he said.

Jandice stared back in disbelief.

It wasn't possible.

It just wasn't possible.

Anyone who didn't have protection should have definitely contracted the disease by now.

So why was he not only not coughing uncontrollably in front of him, begging her to make it stop, but floating above the ground, looking down on her?

"You don't know what my powers are do you?"

Jandice was so surprised, she forgot to be angry. "What?"

"Earlier, you said something about sons of Zeus and lightning powers, but I don't have lightning powers. I can control the air, which is how I'm able to form an airtight bubble around me. Since your disease is transmitted through the air, there's no way for you to infect me now."

Jandice was in awe. She had never bothered learning anything about diseases, because she had simply thought of her power as just being demigod magic: it never occurred to her that knowing boring mortal science might actually be important.

And it still didn't. So she couldn't infect Hal, but she still had her BBs. Grabbing a fistful of them from her pocket, she loaded them into her slingshot and fired them straight at Hal's face.

She quickly loaded a fistful of BB shots into her slingshot and fired them straight at Hal's face. The shots flew towards him...and then suddenly veered in different directions away from him. Most of them fell harmlessly towards the ground, but a few of them continued spinning around Hal, like asteroids caught in a planet's gravitational pull.

"In addition," Hal continued. "I also have the ability to control wind. It's pretty weak compared to the powers of my brothers and sisters, if you fired something like an arrow at me, there'd be nothing I could do. But with something as light as your BBs, it's actually pretty easy to blow them off course"

Jandice stared at Hal as he floated, BBs orbiting around him like tiny comets.

"I've seen the way you talk in our English class. You always talk about how every reader's interpretations are valid, as if they're just as important as the author's. You think that just because a person can imagine a thing, that thing is somehow real, but that's not true."

He spoke with the calm demeanor of someone who wasn't speaking to hurt someone's feelings, but just to plainly speak the truth. Jandice seethed. Now he was giving her an English lesson in the middle of their fight? Who did this guy think he was?

Hal went on. "Everything you said earlier, about children of Zeus, about heroes...you insist on believing those things. You insisted you knew who I was, and now look where it's gotten you. You mentioned The Art of War. Well, there's a part in it that says 'If you know neither your enemy nor yourself, you will lose every time,' which by the way, you'd know if you'd actually read it."

Jandice seethed quietly. The humiliation, the burning humiliation, it was too much for her to handle.

Not only had this condescending prick effortlessly beaten her, but now he was taking his time to lecture her of all things, and above all, he'd dared to quote the same book she herself had referenced earlier. How dare he? How DARE he?!

But this didn't prove anything. It was true that she had made a mistake when she made assumptions about Hal's powers, and it was also true that he was smarter than she originally gave him credit for, but that didn't suddenly mean that she was wrong about everything. The fight wasn't over: there was still one last thing she'd yet to use.

Her fists.

Hal had turned away just a little bit. She would take him completely by surprise, save the day, and get the last laugh.

Jandice leapt at him with her fists ready to swing, but Hal was one step ahead, and had already begun moving out of her way. He whipped out some finger guns and pointed them at Jandice. The BB shots that had been orbiting around him suddenly flew in straight lines along each of his arms until they shot out towards Jandice. She could see them coming towards her, and instinctively blocked her face.

But Hal wasn't aiming for her face.

The BB shots flew past her head, and although they were much slower than when Jandice fired them from her slingshot, they were still enough to slice through the straps of her mask.

Asshole! He'd pulled the same move she'd pulled on Valerie! Luckily, she wasn't anywhere near the infected-

Hal floated towards her and socked her in the face.

"Ow!" she cried, startled.

"You sound surprised," Hal mused. "But this is a fight. We're fighting right now, aren't we?"

Jandice didn't answer, as that one punch had rendered her mute. She stumbled backwards, trying to cope with the pain from the punch, and tripped and fell.

Right next to Valerie.

Who was still coughing.

Now Jandice was coughing too.

Hal sighed inwardly with relief. Earlier when he'd noticed that Jandice had bothered to wear a mask, he'd hoped that it wasn't just for aesthetics, and that it meant that she wasn't immune to her own diseases. Hopefully she had the kind of magic where she'd be forced to life the plague on everyone and not just herself because otherwise, he'd probably be forced to beat her up, and he really wasn't the physical type and to be honest, plus right now all he wanted to do was watch a movie or something...

Meanwhile, Jandice did her best to endure her own powers, but found that the pain was unbearable. How had Valerie been to fight back against her through the coughing as much as she had? To someone with a victim complex like Jandice, the thought of someone being able to endure suffering better than her was genuinely baffling.

She relented and lifted the magic. The intensity of the coughing in the room gradually died down. Seeing this, Hal lowered himself to the ground. It was over now.

Jandice instantly felt better...and immediately began planning her next move. Hal was out of BB shots now. If she could just get her hand on him, she could reactivate her ability again with Hal as her 'Patient Zero.' However, as she was deciding how to do this and what disease to give him, she heard something stirring nearby. It was Arthur.

"What happened?" he said groggily. "Is it over?"

Crap! Jandice thought. She had completely forgotten about the others! Before she could move however, she felt a hand grabbing her by the collar.

She turned around.

It was Katrina.

"Alright you little-" she growled, but Jandice didn't even give her a chance to finish: she simply let out a yelp and immediately twisted away from Katrina's grasp. Whatever Katrina had planned on doing, she settled for a well-placed kick to the butt, sending Jandice swiftly stumbling out the door and off the porch.

Valerie and Arthur had fully recovered now. The four of them gathered to the door and watched as Jandice ran off with her tail tucked between her legs.

"Well, that's that, I guess!" Valerie remarked. The four of them stood at the doorway in awkward silence as the adrenaline from the situation wore off. "So...we should probably tell Chiron or someone about this, right?"

"That seems like a good idea," Arthur replied.

"I mean don't get me wrong," said Valerie. "I'm not like a snitch or anything, it's just that...isn't biological warfare a straight up war crime?"

"Oh yeah," answered Katrina, who was obviously still pissed. "We're definitely reporting this."

"Actually," Hal interjected. "That's probably not a very good idea since we...did technically fight back."

"What do you mean?" Katrina demanded. "She unleashed a whole plague on us how is that not reportable?!"

"Yeah, but I punched her, and you kicked her through the door, plus the whooping cough and the slingshot didn't really leave any marks on us that we can use as evidence. The nymphs at the main office are really fickle about these things."

"You're kidding!" Katrina exclaimed, then read Hal's face. "You're not kidding."

Hal nodded. "The important thing is we know who she is and what she looks like, so we can handle her if she ever tries something like that again."

Meanwhile, outside in the courtyard, Jandice slowly limped back towards Apollo House. Her butt and her pride still bruised from the encounter.

"Hal Lazuli..." she said as she walked up the front porch. "I swear I'll make you pay."

"Bro, did you hear that?"

Jandice turned her head to see who had spoken. It was one of the two sons of Ares who had been loitering by Mars House. Jandice didn't know it, but they members of the Brotherhood of Delinquents.

"Yeah bro, she mentioned Hal Lazuli. That's Arthur's bro right?"

"Yeah! She just said she was gonna make him pay right?"

Jandice panicked. "N-no!" she sputtered. The Ares boys frowned.

"No I'm definitely sure that's what you said. Right bro?"

"Yeah! She said she was gonna make our bro's bro pay, bro!"

"Aw shit! I guess that means we're gonna have to make her pay first...bro!"

A second later, Jandice could be seen tearing across the courtyard with the sons of Ares in hot pursuit. Her screams could be heard by those nearby.

"Did I just hear someone screaming?" Valerie said, from back at Vesta House.

Arthur shook his head.

"No, I do not," Hal said, as he pulled out his laptop to watch a movie.

"Hey, wait a minute," Valerie said. "Didn't you say you wanted to finish that book you were reading earlier??"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"I finished it."

"What? When?"

"When I went to the bathroom earlier. I was gonna come right back afterwards, but I was almost done, so I ended up staying in my room and-"

"Are you kidding me?" Valerie moaned. "If you had just come back just a minute earlier, we could've fought her together, and then I wouldn't have had to get sick!"

"Oh gee what a shame," Katrina said, feigning sympathy. "You know what this reminds me of? It reminds me of how if a certain somebody had weaved me a mask, then the two of US could've fought her together, and then I wouldn't have had to get sick either!"

"Mi mi mi I'm Katrina! We could've fought her together! That's what you sound like right now."

"You were literally saying that exact thing first!"

The girls continued bickering back and forth like this while the boys settled in for a long relaxing weekend. Interestingly enough, Jandice never ever tried to bother the four of them ever again.

-----

Chapter Text

"This isn't fucking right! They can't get away with this!" Valerie cried

"Come on, it's going to be okay," Arthur said.

"No, it's not going to be okay!" Valerie cried. "Why the fuck do we have two tests on the same book for two different classes? It's not right!"

It was true. For the past week they'd been reading The Odyssey (or at least parts of it) both for English class and Greek Mythology/History class and by a cruel twist of fate, were also being tested on it on the same day for each class. They were currently using the last ten minutes of class to study for these tests, just as they had been doing every class for the past few days.

"I agree," Katrina pitched in. "But complaining isn't going to do anything about it.

She looked back to her study guide. "Ok so the next bullet point says that we're expected to be able to explain the themes of the conflict between Odysseus and the suitors. Hal?"

Everyone looked at Hal expectantly, as they always did for anything Greek mythology related.

"Is that for the English test or the Greek Mythology test?"

Katrina glanced at the top of her paper. "English. But maybe go over it for both just in case?"

"Ok," Hal replied. "For our English test, we're supposed to remember that the ancient Greeks society had a sense of hospitality known as 'Xenia.' Xenia describes a relationship between hosts and guests in which both sides were expected to follow a certain etiquette. The suitors didn't follow this etiquette essentially by being bad guests in his house and so when Odysseus killed them, he wasn't just reclaiming his house, it was symbolic of him saving Greek society in Ithaca."

Nobody else even remembered when the teacher talked about this during class.

"Okay..." Katrina said slowly. "And how about for our Greek Mythology test?"

"Let me see..." Hal sifted through his notes. "Ah here it is. Just remember that it literally happened in real life."

The bell rang, and everyone quickly got up to leave. Unfortunately, Hal was having a hard time fitting his textbooks into his backpack along with all the books he had for casual reading. 

"Couldn't you just keep the books you read for fun in your room?" Valerie asked.

"But what if I want to read one of them?" Hal answered.

"You could just read it later in your room?" Valerie said.

"But what if i want to read one of them like right now?" Hal replied.

He kept on trying for several more seconds while his friends waited until Valerie finally got fed up.

"Oh for fuck's sake just give them to me," she said, taking all of his casual reading books and stuffing them into her backpack. Unlike Hal, Valerie didn't really carry many books with her wherever she went. Actually, she just didn't own a lot of books in general.

"Finally!" Valerie said as they headed towards Vesta House. "A break from all this studying!"

"You go take your break," said Katrina, "I'm going to head to class early to keep studying."

"Are you serious?" Valerie said. Studying during break? Unheard of! That was what class was for after all.

"Same here," Arthur said. "I don't really think I'm ready yet...or that I'll ever be."

"Hal, you know everything already," Katrina said. "Can you help us?"

Hal nodded. The three of them turned towards Valerie.

"Um..." Valerie didn't want to study any more, but she didn't want to be the one to say no. "Yeah sure! Just let me go to the restroom first. I'll catch up with you guys later."

And so, they split up and headed in separate directions.

Awhile later, Valerie left the restroom and headed towards her next class. 

It was a beautiful day outside, too beautiful to ruin by spending an entire break studying. She ended up taking the longer path to class, hoping to put off studying for as long as possible. She looked around as she passed the other kids her age. They were all standing or sitting in circles, either chatting to each other or typing on their phones. She was almost tempted to join in, but knew better than to try to break into a friend group in middle school mid-semester.

Next, she passed through the area where the younger demigods were playing games during recess. She passed by a mural of the Battle of Manhattan where some kids were playing handball, a small field where some kids were playing kickball, and a ditch where some kids were playing...some other kind of ball. Finally, she passed by a part of campus she had never been to before. It was a large square of pavement, roughly twenty meters long on each side. Arranged on top of the square were a hundred Greek columns arranged in ten rows of ten spaced about a meter apart. The columns were arranged by height with the tall Corinthian columns in the center rows the short Doric columns at the edges, and the middling Ionic columns in between. There was a sign nearby explaining that it was some kind of art installation named "Greek Columns" and that the creator had been inspired to make this after visiting the Urban Lights in Los Angeles.

"Hey you!"

She turned around. It was one of the kids playing tag around "Greek Columns." His name was Johnny Steele had wild blond hair and looked to be about ten years old. He introduced his other friends, named Ava, Billy, and Cat.

"Do you wanna play tag with us?"

Valerie raised an eyebrow. "Tag? Tag's a little kids game." 

But Johnny wasn't deterred. "Well what do you do during recess?"

"We don't have recess," Valerie retorted. "We get breaks, and we use the time to go on our phones and show our friends videos from the internet."

"That sounds lame," Johnny shot back.

"No!" Valerie said defensively. "It's actually very cool, you're just too young to get it. When you get to my age, you'll understand. At the very least it's more fun than tag"

"Not the way we play it!" Johnny said.

"Oh?" Valerie figured she would indulge him. "And how do you kids play tag?"

Johnny paused.

"We bet money on it."

"Aw cute!" Valerie said. "How much do you guys bet? Like a quarter?"

"No," Johnny said seriously. "The minimum bet is ten dollars."

That got Valerie's attention. Ten dollars was enough for a week's worth of soda from the Hermes kids' black market.

"Interested?" Johnny asked.

Valerie was, but of course she had to play it cool. "Yeah...I've got some time for a game...I guess..."

Johnny smiled, and then called his friends over to tell them that Valerie would be joining them. He then explained the rules to her.

They were going to be playing a variation of tag that Johnny liked to call "Bomb Tag." The players were limited to staying inside the boundaries of "Greek Columns" and the game had a time limit of three minutes. First, all players would start on the edges, away from another, then one person would be randomly selected to be "it." Whoever was "it" had a "bomb" on them which they would try to pass to someone else by tagging them. At the end of three minutes, whoever was it would get "blown up," and lose all the money they bet. Everyone else would gain money, but to make things more interesting, the second to last person who was it would be declared the winner and gain the most money. In addition, whoever set foot outside of the boundaries would automatically lose, and the person who was currently it would automatically win.

"Do you have any questions?" Johnny asked. 

Valerie thought for a moment. "Are tagbacks allowed?"

Tagbacks: the act of immediately tagging back the person who tagged you in a game of tag before they're able to move back out of arm's reach. Truly, no honorable child would ever let tagbacks to be allowed by the rules.

"Yes," Johnny said. "Tagbacks are allowed."

They agreed that they would start off one game with a bet of twenty dollars. Johnny explained that because of the nature of the bets, money wasn't redistributed until after the game to avoid complications: because it was simpler to have the loser hand everyone their winnings instead of having everyone put in money at the beginning then redistributing it earlier. 

"Oh yeah, there's just one last thing," he said.

"What's that?" Valerie asked.

Johnny paused.

"You must swear on the River Styx that you'll follow the rules of our game."

There was a dramatic silence. Then...

"Yeah okay," Valerie said.

Valerie had no idea what swearing on the River Styx meant, but she figured it was some kind of quirky demigod thing like how they said "Oh my gods" instead of "Oh my God." It was probably their version of a pinky promise or something like that.

And so the five of them swore their oath on the River Styx: that they would abide by the rules of the game and whoever was the loser would pay up the money they agreed upon, which currently stood at fifty dollars. Valerie could have sworn she heard thunder as they finished their oath which didn't make sense because it was a perfectly sunny day, but whatever.

All the kids got into position, and the game began.

Game 1: Start
Bet: $10.

The first game passed by fairly quickly and uneventfully. There were a few close moments, but for the most part Valerie found herself easily evading the little fifth graders. She did have to admit that in spite of herself, she was having quite a bit of fun.

Game 1: End.
Valerie's Net Gain: $2.

Ava handed out her money, giving Valerie her eight quarters. It was basically nothing. She glanced enviously Billy, who was clutching his three and a half dollars.

Johnny came up to her. "What'd you think? Wanna play again?"

Valerie continued staring at the money. "Yeah...but let's raise the stakes this time."

Johnny grinned. "Alright! That's what I like to hear. How much?"

Valerie pretended to think about it for a moment. "What about fifty dollars?"

That was quite a lot for a middle schooler, and even more for someone in elementary school, but strangely, Johnny and the other kids seemed unfazed. They agreed that the next game would be played for a bet of fifty dollars.

Game 2: Start
Bet: $50.

Once again, the kids got into their positions and the game began. Valerie started out playing similarly to how she did last game, darting in and around the columns. This time however, she was going for first place, and she had a trick up her sleeve to help her win.

As the oldest kid, Valerie was quite a bit bigger than the fifth graders, and having longer arms meant she had the longer reach. She could use this to her advantage, she thought, by waiting to get tagged near the end of the game and then using her long arms to quickly tagback without being able to get tagged back herself, securing the first place money. 

The second game was almost over, and currently Johnny was it. With ten seconds left, Valerie put her plan into action, acting like she was still trying to play the game, but subtly positioning herself so that Johnny might try to tag her. It seemed to work, since with five seconds of the game left, he started chasing Valerie. Valerie used her super intuition, listening to the sound of Johnny's running and visualizing exactly where he was behind her. At the same time, she felt a tap on her back, she whipped around and brought her hand down right on where Johnny was supposed to be.

But she missed.

Somehow Johnny wasn't where he was supposed to be. He was just out of arm's reach, safe from any tagbacks.

But that was impossible, Valerie thought. It had only taken her an instant to turn around, how could he have moved half a meter away in that amount of time? No kid could have been that agile.

But Johnny wasn't just any kid.

He was a son of Hermes.

In fact, all the other kids playing Bomb Tag were children of Hermes, and they weren't just playing for fun, they were playing to win. Every recess, the fifth grade Hermes kids would gather at Greek Columns, hoping to attract unsuspecting kids to join them. The first game was always played straight, with the random player neither winning or losing to both avoid discouraging them from playing another game, and bait them into playing a second game and trying to win. Then during the game, Johnny and his friends would play to guarantee their loss and walk away with all of the loser's money.

And that was exactly what they were trying to do to Valerie right now.

Demigods inherited a variety of interesting abilities that are based off of their godly parents, such as Valerie's super intuition and Katrinas face reading. These abilities tended to be distinct and unique with not every demigod having them, though it was possible for two demigods to have the same power. For example, some children of Zeus could summon lightning but couldn't control the winds, some could control the winds but couldn't summon lightning, and some could do both.

However, these weren't the only abilities demigods inherited from their godly parents. There were also "basic" or "passive" abilities as well. For example, being able to learn Greek and Latin easily was something that all demigods shared. In addition, there were also traits inherent to children of certain gods, such as the Poseidon kids with their ability to heal from water, the Apollo kids with their natural skill in archery, and the Hermes kids with their extra speed and agility.

And it was with this speed and agility with which Johnny intended to game with, now that it was time for them to win the game and claim their reward. And so at the last second, he had used his agility as a son of Hermes to tag Valerie and dash away out of arm's length faster than what would have been possible than a mortal his age, leaving Valerie stuck with the "bomb" with only one second left. 

It really was too easy, he thought, as he continued running away.

But the game wasn't over just yet.

Valerie wasn't smart in the traditional sense the way Hal and the children of Athena were. She didn't know a lot of random Greek mythology facts, and she wasn't good at memorizing stuff for tests, but she was good at thinking on her feet.

In the space of a single second, she realized that there was no way she could win unless she could somehow use her string. But if she simply snagged Johnny with her string, then it would have been obvious that she'd cheated.

Unless...

Valerie shot her string out from her finger towards Johnny. However instead of using it to latch onto his arm or legs, she snagged onto the bottom of his shirt, the part that was the closest to her, pulled herself forward and pulled Johnny back at the same time, then tagged him with her other hand. To Johnny, it had simply felt like she had managed to grab on to the back of her shirt.

The alarm went off signaling the end of the game. Valerie had won.

Game 2: End
Valerie's Net Gain: $22.

Chapter Text

Valerie should have felt like celebrating, but she was just relieved that the game was over. She'd almost lost $50, which was a large sum of money to someone her age. Despite this, she managed to play it cool.

"Oh man, that was pretty close huh?" She said, smiling while trying to sound as innocent as possible.

Nobody smiled back.

The other Hermes kids ran up to Johnny.

"What happened?" Billy asked.

"I don't know," Johnny said, shaking his head. "Somehow she managed to grab the back of my shirt...but that's impossible? Did anybody else see what happened?"

The other three shook their heads. Because of the arrangement of the pillars, none of them had been able to see exactly what happened when Valerie tagged Johnny.

Something was up, Johnny thought. There was no way she could have been fast enough to grab onto his shirt as he ran away. It didn't matter that she was three years older, there was just no way someone who wasn't another child of Hermes could have reacted and moved that quickly.

"So, um...do I get my money now?" Valerie asked innocently.

Johnny gritted his teeth. He didn't want to concede, but unfortunately, he had no choice. Earlier they had all sworn on the River Styx that they would uphold the rules of the game. It was a little excessive, but the fifth graders really didn't have a better way to enforce the rules of the game, since more often than not, the loser would simply refuse to pay up the bet. Ironically, this time they were the ones being forced to pay up.

And so, Johnny handed over her winnings, which Valerie blissfully received, unaware of the daggers the Hermes kids were staring into her.

It was quite strange Johnny thought. Usually, it took some convincing to get other kids to swear an oath on the River Styx, even over something as small as a game of tag. But Valerie had gone along with it without hesitation.

Crap! Johnny thought angrily. That could only mean one thing! Valerie knew what they were up to and had a way to beat them at their own game from the very beginning! That was the only possibility! The only other explanation that was remotely plausible was that Valerie didn't know what an oath to the River Styx entailed but surely that couldn't be it.

It was time for Johnny to activate his power, the power to steal other people's powers.

It wasn't nearly as powerful as it might sound. The truth was, he could only steal people's powers for a few seconds at a time. When he did so, he also gained innate knowledge about their powers, such as their applications and limitations. While this sounded extremely powerful, the truth was Johnny generally avoided using the powers he stole, which could often be dangerous. For example, stealing a child of Poseidon's powers and using it to summon a tidal wave only to lose his ability to breathe underwater a few seconds later could have dire consequences. Instead, he opted to use his powers to deprive his opponents of their abilities at random moments during combat while also gaining knowledge of their abilities in order to figure out how to fight against them when he had to give them back. It was the perfect ability for a child of Hermes, god of thieves and cunning.

And so, Johnny used his ability to steal Valerie's powers.

Immediately he felt his senses being flooded. Valerie's super intuition was overwhelming to him, just as they had been to her when she first discovered her powers. Then, as quickly as it came, it was gone again. Valerie's powers had returned to her, but Johnny's understanding of her super intuition remained. There was also something else: her weaving powers. So that was how she'd snagged the back of her shirt. Given her powers, Johnny also guessed that Valerie was a daughter of Athena.

Now the Hermes kids were ready to get back at Valerie in the next game. Not only that, but they were raising their bets once again, so that they could win back what they had lost, and more.

"Our next game will be played with a hundred dollars," Johnny announced.

Valerie was somewhat caught off guard by this. A hundred dollars? Over a game of tag? This was slightly suspicious to say the least. However, living at Demigod Academy for over a month had helped Valerie build up an immunity to wackiness, and she decided to go through with it. Besides, the only thing that really mattered was that she didn't lose, and she had her powers to help with that.

Just as they'd hoped, Valerie, who was still oblivious to exactly what was happening, was willing to play one more game. In her mind she figured that between her string and her super intuition, there was no way to lose, and therefore no reason to stop playing.

And so once again, the five kids swore on the River Styx to uphold the bet. It was randomly determined that Billy would be it this time, and the game began.

Game 3: Start
Bet: $100.

Valerie knew right off the bat that something was very wrong. It seemed that Billy only intended to chase her and nobody else. Not only that, but super intuition made her aware that there was something different about the way the other kids were playing this time around. Also, was it just her, or were all the kids a lot faster now too?

While Billy chased Valerie, Johnny, Ava, and Cat did their best to act like they were playing like they normally would, while secretly positioning so that at least one of them would have vision on Valerie. At the same time, Ava and Cat kept an eye on Johnny as well, so that he could signal them at any time he needed to.

The plan was straightforward: tag Valerie. If she tried to tag someone back, Johnny would steal her power as she did so. After that with their speed and agility advantage, they were practically safe. Each of them would take their turns being it both to tire Valerie out and avoid it appearing as if they were targeting her. Then Johnny, the fastest of them all, would be the one to tag Valerie before the end of the game.

Most of the game went by according to plan. Valerie still had the distinct feeling that something was wrong. Despite having never been tagged, she felt as if she was the one being chased the entire game, and she was exhausted. She looked down long corridor between the pillars and saw Ava tag Johnny. Hopefully he would go after somewhere else, and she could take a moment to rest.

Johnny turned, looking down the hallway back at her...

...and immediately began sprinting towards her.

Valerie ran as fast as she could. She knew that if she got tagged now, the game was basically over, since she was too tired and there wasn't much time left. She considered trying the same tagback move, but decided it was much too risky. There was only one thing for her to do: Valerie kept running as fast as she could. Unfortunately, she was tired, and Johnny was freakishly fast for a kid his age. She could hear him getting closer and closer and knew that if she tried to turn a corner, she would slow down just enough for Johnny to catch up and tag her. But she was also approaching the edge of Greek Columns. She would have to come up with something fast.

This was it, Johnny thought. If Valerie stopped to turn a corner right now, he would catch up to her, and she was getting closer and closer to the edge. Soon there would be nowhere left for her to run.

Valerie kept running. She ran closer and closer to the edge until...

She leapt off the pavement.

As she did so, she shot a length of string that wrapped itself around one of the pillars near the edge of the pavement, then started swinging around the outside. As long as her feet didn't touch the ground, she was technically still in the game.

Johnny watched with awe. He hadn't expected Valerie to make a move like this. Luckily for him, it didn't matter, as she had basically lost the game right there.

He activated his ability and stole Valerie's power.

Valerie was still in the middle of her swing when suddenly the world suddenly felt a little bit darker. Whereas a moment ago she was fully aware of her surroundings, she now sensed nothing around her. At the same time her string snapped off, and she fell to the ground just outside of the boundary.

She had just lost.

Game 3: End
Valerie's Net Gain: -$78.

Valerie sat up, dazed and confused. What just happened? Both her super intuition and her string failed her at the same time. It was as if for a moment, she had somehow lost her powers. But before she had time to completely process what happened, she noticed Johnny and the other kids standing over her.

"Unlucky," Johnny said. "Sorry, but it's time for you to pay up now. One hundred dollars please." He held out his hand in anticipation.

Well, that's not good, she thought. She had only taken the bet because she thought she couldn't lose (which admittedly, had been really stupid). Now she had no choice but to try to find a way to get out of paying them.

However, just as she finished thinking this, something strange happened. The world seemed to suddenly grow darker and quieter. Johnny and his friends suddenly froze. It was as if time had stopped. While she wondered what was happening, she felt a hand clasp her shoulder.

Valerie turned around, expecting to find someone standing over her, but there was no one there. She lowered her gaze.

The hand was coming out of her shadow.

Valerie watched, mortified, as the rest of the body rose out of the ground from her shadow.

Standing before her was a beautiful dark-haired woman wearing a black dress, tall leather boots, leggings, and a choker. Despite the bright morning sun, her pale skin appeared to be bathed under a dim blue light. Strangely enough, nobody else seemed to

"Valeria Green," the woman said, her voice booming with authority. "You have taken an oath in my name, and now you must fulfill it or suffer the consequences!"

"Who are you?" Valerie asked, though she had a sinking feeling she already knew the answer.

"I," the woman replied, "am the goddess Styx. Three thousand years ago, I sided with Zeus when he defeated the Titans, and in return he declared that all oaths made in my name would be binding. Today, I appear before you to hold you to your promise."

She twirled a finger, and all of Valerie's money came flying out of her pocket, including the $37 she had won earlier.

"Hey! That's mine!" she cried, but Styx didn't seem to care.

"You must fulfill your oath, or face the consequences!" she repeated, as she quickly counted the wad of cash.

"It seems there is not enough," she muttered. "No matter, there are still other ways to pay. The oath must be fulfilled!"

Styx twirled her finger again, this time summoning Valerie's backpack. She opened it, revealing Valerie's school supplies, some junk...and Hal's books.

"Yes..." she said, peering at the books. "The monetary value of these are approximately enough to cover your remaining debt. If you give these up, then I will consider your oath fulfilled."

"But I can't give these away, they aren't mine!" Valerie protested.

"You should have thought of that before swearing on my name," said Styx, "Now you must pay, or you will face the consequences, and trust me, you don't want to face the consequences. And now, let the flow of time resume."

Styx blinked and disappeared. Valerie found herself sitting back on the ground, right she she had been when Styx showed up. Her backpack was also lying on the ground where it had been earlier. Johnny and the other kids unfroze.

"Well?" Johnny said, his hand still extended. For a brief moment, Valerie could swear she saw the ghostly form of Styx standing behind her, giving her a stern look.

"Yeah okay," she said grudgingly, and handed over the money. "I don't have any more cash with me, but I think if you take these books they should just about cover it. She winced as she opened her backpack.

Johnny looked over Hal's books. They were all poorly written YA novels featuring seventeen year old teen protagonists who acted and spoke with the maturity of twenty year-olds except when it came to romance, in which case they acted like they were twelve. As a son of Hermes, Johnny knew that he could easily sell these to the Athena kids for over sixty dollars.

"Alright, that's acceptable," he said, as he divvied up the winnings, giving his friends some of the cash, and keeping the rest of the cash and the books for himself.

"It's been a pleasure playing with you today," Johnny said, as he and his friends turned and left.

As Valerie watched them walk away, she became overcome with a sense of dread...and shame. She certainly couldn't go to class now! What could she say? "Hey Hal! Sorry but I kinda bet all your books on a game of tag and the goddess Styx made me give them away." Sure, Hal wasn't like one of those rabid internet nerds who bragged about how they loved books more than people, and he'd be willing to forgive her for losing his books, but she wouldn't be able to. No, she wasn't going back until she at least tried to get them back.

"Hey!" she called out. "How about another game?"

Johnny and his friends stopped. They couldn't believe their ears.

"Are you...are you serious?" Johnny said.

"Yeah," Valerie nodded. "One more game. After all, you said you guys would allow losers a chance to win some back, right?"

"But you don't have any money left," Johnny pointed out. "You literally had to give us books to pay us back. What are you going to bet with?"

It was true that she didn't have any money, but something about Styx being willing to accept offers of equivalent value gave her an idea.

"Your homework," she said. "I'll do your homework for you.

She was desperate. They had no reason to take her offer they could just as easily have said no. But Johnny was interested. Having a child of Athena offer to do your homework for you was basically like hitting the jackpot.

"Alright I'm down," he said. "What should our bet be?"

"Four hundred dollars," Valerie replied.

Four hundred dollars was an absurd amount of money, and Valerie was worried that Johnny would simply say no.

"We accept," Johnny said, much to Valerie's surprise. He smiled inwardly. Between him, his friends, and his ability to steal Valerie's powers, the game was basically as good as won.

They came to an agreement: if Valerie won, she would be paid in cash, but if she lost, she would have to do the winner's homework for a week and everyone else's homework for a day. Having established this, the Hermes kids swore on the River Styx to abide by the rules of the game and honor the bet.

Valerie swore too, though this was the first time she did so knowing exactly what the bet entailed. She knew that she wouldn't have time to do everyone's homework and keep up with her classes. She also knew that if she lost, Styx would make sure she held upheld her promise. She had no choice but to not lose.

And so, the fourth game began.

Game 4: Start
Bet: $400.

As soon as the game began, Valerie put her plan into action. Earlier, when she called for a bet of four hundred dollars, she hadn't simply picked a random number, she had actually bet just enough for her to buy back Hal's books with as long as she didn't lose. Luckily, she had a new trick up her sleeve this time. One of the quirks of playing tag in Greek columns was that the pillaras made it hard to keep track of where people were. Valerie realized that by using her super intuition, she could keep track of the Hermes kids' movements by the sound of their footsteps, which would allow her to react to their movements and outpace them, even with their increased speed and agility. In other words, this time as long as she had her super intuition, there was no way for her to get tagged.

There was just one thing nagging her in the back of her mind. Last game, when she tried to swing around one of the pillars, her string and super intuition both failed her. If it had been just her string, she would have dismissed it as a coincidence, but the fact that both her powers stopped working at the same time, right when she needed them the most, was suspicious to say the least. Could it be that one of the demigods was somehow using their ability to negate her abilities? She remembered how last week, during their "battle" with Jandice, Katrina had pointed out that they weren't at a normal school, they were at a magical Greek mythology school. Maybe the same thing was happening here. But what kind of god could produce a demigod who could negate another demigod's powers? She ran through the list of gods in her head. She knew it wasn't one of her siblings. Hera and Artemis didn't have kids. Not Zeus, not Poseidon, not Demeter, Ares, Apollo, Hephaestus, Aphrodite...

...Hermes?

Hermes, the god of merchants, trickery, speed, and thieves. It explained everything why they invited them to a game of tag where bets were involved and why there were so fast: it was all part of their ploy to take her money. That explained why they swore oaths on the River Styx, so that even if someone figured out what they were up to, they were still bound to their promise. It could even explain why her powers failed her at the worst possible moment last game: someone could have used their demigod ability to temporarily "steal" her powers. Of course, there was no way Valerie could be certain that's what happened, but it seemed reasonable to assume that a child of Hermes could have a thievery-related power like that. Regardless of the details, it meant Valerie could expect her powers to fail her at any time during this game as well. This was bad news, as she relied on her super intuition to stay one step ahead of them. She would have to find a way around this or else.

Meanwhile, Johnny watched Valerie from a distance as she desperately tried to evade Cat, who was it. He noted that whenever Cat moved, Valerie would respond instantly, even if she wasn't in her line of sight

"She must be using her super intuition," he concluded, "to track our movements by listening to our running."

With this in mind, Johnny came up with a plan, and slyly moved into position behind a pillar near Valerie, who currently appeared to be running in a circle to try and shake off Cat. He waited patiently, and a few seconds later, Valerie passed by where he was hiding.

It was time. He triggered his ability, stealing Valerie's powers.

Valerie was still running from Cat when suddenly felt her powers leave her, and she suddenly lost track of where everyone was. She was forced to turn around just in time to see Cat disappear behind a pillar. Good, Valerie thought. She knew which way Cat was going and headed the other way. In a few seconds her powers would return and she would be fine again.

But as soon as she finished the thought, Cat appeared from behind another pillar to the right of her and started running in her direction. Valerie instinctively ran, assuming that she was it, and ran forward, towards the spot where Cat had turned just a moment earlier.

Suddenly, Johnny leapt out from behind one of the pillars, and then, with a triumphant "Tag! You're it!" slapped Valerie hard across the back, then ran off in the other direction. Valerie was so surprised, she didn't even try to tag him back. Finally, her powers returned to her.

Everything had gone according to plan. Johnny had stolen Valerie's powers just as Cat ran to where he was waiting and tagged him. Without her super intuition, Valerie wouldn't know where he was or heard the sound of him being tagged, giving Johnny the element of surprise and the opportunity to finally tag Valerie. The game was all but over now: all they had to do now was avoid getting tagged in the last few seconds of the game.

However, as Johnny ran away from Valerie, he felt something catch onto his leg. He was running so quickly he had no time to react, and tripped, hitting the ground hard. He stood up, but just as he got to his feet, he felt a hard clap on his back.

"No, you!" Valerie cried, for she was the one who had managed to tag Johnny back. Before Johnny could react, the timer sounded, indicating the game.

Valerie had won.

"So...I guess I win," she said, trying her best to sound casual in spite of the whole thing.

Johnny said nothing. Instead, he simply stood there in a state of shock and disbelief, wondering how could he have possibly lost? How could he have tripped there of all times?

He looked to the ground and noticed something. There were two broken ends of string connected to the two pillars next to him. He hadn't just tripped for no reason, he had ran straight into a tripwire.

Valerie had anticipated that her powers would get stolen and figured that the only way for her to overcome this was by using her string before her powers got stolen. When she sensed that Johnny moved to the pillar near them, she suspected something was about to happen, and began letting out a line of string which she wrapped around the pillars as she ran around them. The result was that the string formed a kind of "ring" around the pillars where she and Johnny were which acted as a tripwire to anyone who would try to move in or out of the encircled area. Though she hadn't predicted that Cat and Johnny would switch, she knew that whoever tagged her would immediately try to get as far away from her as possible, which would mean directly running into the tripwire ring she had created.

"I believe the exact amount you owe me all my books plus...$82?" she said.

That triggered Johnny.

"I don't owe you anything!" he cried. "You used your string. That means you cheated!"

"I don't think so," Valerie said calmly. "Our agreement was that we would abide by the rules of the game which included the bet, the time limit, and the boundaries, but there was nothing about not being able to use our powers. You can feel free to complain, but I think a certain goth lady will agree with me on this one."

She seemed to be looking at something behind him as she said this last part, and in that same moment, Johnny felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Johnny Steele..." he heard a voice whisper into his ear. He swallowed hard. Unlike Valerie, he knew exactly who it was.

"Alright," he said grudgingly, and gave Valerie her winnings and Hal's books back. Valerie breathed a sigh of relief as she put the books back in her backpack. Everything was back to normal now. Now all she had to do was get to class. She checked her phone to see what time it was.

Break had ended about a minute ago.

She ran across campus as quickly as she could. It wasn't easy, since her backpack held about seven of Hal's books, which was about seven more books heavier than it normally was. After about two minutes she finally made it to her classroom. Class had already started and everyone stared at her as she burst through the doorway and ran to her seat.

"Do you have my books?" Hal asked.

Valerie nodded and kicked her backpack towards Hal. She then collapsed into her seat, exhausted from all the running.

"Dude, where have you been?" Katrina hissed. "You said you were going to the bathroom but then you just disappeared for the whole break."

Valerie inhaled deeply.

"Don't. Play. Tag. With. The. Hermes. Kids," she said. "Biggest. Mistake. Of. My. Life."

Game 4: End
Valerie's Net Gain: $82.

Chapter Text

It was a bright and beautiful Friday morning at Demigod Academy. Of course, mornings were always beautiful at the academy and Fridays were always looked forward to, but this one was special. Not only was it their last day of testing, but they only had one class before getting the rest of the day off. On top of it all, their one class for the day happened to be their Forge class, with their class's "test" being that they had to present what they had been working on in the forge over the past three weeks, and everyone was looking forward to seeing what kind of cool things the Hephaestus kids made for their projects.

As an additional bonus, the four of them have had no strange encounters with any demigods that week (even the Gang of Delinquents had cut back on the secret midnight meetings), likely as a result of everyone having to study for their tests. No water tentacles or crazy diseases, just a week of relative peace and quiet, something Valerie was quick to point out.

"Holy shit guys, I can't believe we've made it through a whole week without any crazy encounters," she said as the four of them were on their way to their first class of the day.

Arthur and Hal looked at each other. Katrina facepalmed.

"What do you mean?" Hal asked.

"Well because...you know..." Valerie said slowly, hoping someone would 'get her' so she wouldn't have to explain what she meant, "We keep on getting into wacky fights with the other kids at this school?"

"Is that a thing now?" Arthur asked.

"No, it's not," Katrina said firmly. "It's not a thing."

"What do you mean it's not a thing?" Valerie asked.

"It just isn't!" Katrina cried. "It hasn't happened enough times; it's got to happen like three times for it to be 'a thing'."

"Three times huh?" Valerie said. "Alright. There's the fight with the Poseidon kids."

"Okay that's one."

"Then there was that one crazy girl who tried to give us all ebola!"

"I mean I'm pretty sure it wasn't ebola but yeah, that's two."

"Then there were those fifth graders who tried to take all of our money by making us bet money on games of tag!"

"Ok first of all, that was you , not us , so it doesn't count," Katrina retorted. "And second, they didn't 'make' you do anything, you just went with it and realized way too late that you fucked up."

"Okay fine," Valerie admitted. "But then there's still that Capture the Flag game where a bunch of crazy shit happened. Boom! That's three!"

"Nope," said Katrina. "That one was a school activity, so it doesn't count either."

Valerie let out a sort of frustrated whine.

"Just you guys wait!" she said. "I bet like fifty bucks that before next Monday, we'll end up getting in some fight with some other crazy demigod. Like there's gonna be like a child of Dionysus with like wine or theater powers and they'll...I don't know, try to wine or theater us to death or something."

They finally reached the school's forge where forge classes were held. Their teacher, Mr. Valdez, gave a quick announcement at the beginning of class, and then presentations began. Mr. Valdez had all the non-Hephaestus kids go first, since their projects were generally the easiest to grade.

"Okay first up is Arthur Foxglove," said Mr. Valdez.

Arthur felt his face getting warmer as he shuffled out of his seat. He always hated speaking in front of the class, and the fact that he wasn't very good at forging didn't help.

"So uh..." he stammered. "For my project, I umm...I made this knife."

He pulled out the Celestial Bronze knife he forged and turned it to show it off from all sides. It was rather unimpressive-looking and mediocre in quality.  

"I chose to make a knife for my project because umm....I think knives are cool," he said. He didn't actually think knives were cool, but the real reason he forged a knife for his project was because knives were the easiest to forge and he just wanted an easy A, but obviously he couldn't let Mr. Valdez know about that.

Arthur went on to blandly talk about the techniques he used, making sure to include the terms they learned about in class. Initially, he was very nervous, but then he realized the class wasn't paying any attention and relaxed a little. For the final part of his presentation, he stabbed a dummy with the knife as a test of quality: it went in fairly easily. 

Mr. Valdez nodded. "Not bad. You get an A minus" he said. 

Arthur hurried back to his seat, relieved that it was over and that he didn't get bad grade.

Mr. Valdez called on the next student, a son of Demeter, to give his presentation.

"For my project I umm...also made a knife."

He pulled out a knife. It was also plain looking and in fact from a distance it was barely distinguishable from Arthur's.

"I decided to make a knife because uh..." he paused for a moment. "Because I think they're really cool and stuff?" Katrina could read from his face that he was lying.

The son of Demeter went on to give a presentation that was very similar to Arthur's. Mr. Valdez gave him an A minus as well then called on the next student, a daughter of Hermes.

"I also made a knife for my project," she said pulling out yet another knife that looked very similar to the first two. She got an A minus as well. The fourth kid was called on for his presentation. He made a knife for his project too.

"Fucking Hades did all the non-Hephaestus kids just make knives?" Valerie asked.

"Probably," said Hal, "After all, it's the easiest option. I made one too." He pulled out his knife, which was actually substantially average compared to those of the rest of the class.

"Same here," said Katrina, and pulled out her knife too.

"Oh my gods," Valerie said. "I can't believe you guys all just made knives."

"Why? Did you not make one?" Hal asked.

"No I did," Valerie admitted, and pulled out her knife. Katrina glared at her. "What?" she said? "I want an easy A too!"

About twenty mediocre knives and twenty A minuses later, it was finally time for what everyone had been waiting for: the Hephaestus kids' presentations. Unlike the rest of the class, there was a great deal of variety in what the Hephaestus kids chose to make for their projects. One kid presented a Celestial Bronze suitcase that opened and expanded into a turret when thrown onto the ground, one kid presented a portable Iris Messager that projected a rainbow onto a surface, shot a coin into it, and played audio of someone making an offering to Iris, and another kid presented a handheld pencil sharpener he claimed didn't break off the tips of your pencils or force you to sharpen forever until your pencil was super short. 

"That's bullshit!" one kid called out. "A handheld sharpener that doesn't suck? I don't believe you!"

As proof of his claims, the son of Hephaestus sharpened ten pencils with it.

The class cheered as the tenth pencil was sharpened. Not a single one's tips had broken and each had only taken a few turns to sharpen.

"Dude..." Valerie said, dumbfounded. "No...fucking...way!"

Finally, it was time for the final presentation. The last student to present was a daughter of Hephaestus named Alexa Tie (pronounced 'T-yeh'). She wasn't as big and strong as the other Hephaestus kids, but she made up for it by specializing in complex gadgets. The four of them didn't know much else about her other than that she was really smart, got good grades, and liked to hang around the Athena kids.

Alexa headed to the back of the forge. A few seconds later, she came back out, wheeling in her project. Immediately, there were some oohs and ahs and whispers from the class.

"For my project, I chose to build an automaton," she announced. "Or a robot, as most of you might call it."

The robot was humanoid and had been built with the shape and proportions of a teenage girl. Standing at a height of 1.7 meters, most of the robot's features, including its perfectly circular skirt, bob cut and bangs, had been sculpted with such detail such that it looked more like a bronze statue than a machine. The only part that didn't appear human was its face which was currently just a black featureless screen.

Alexa continued with her presentation, stating that she had named the robot Pandora, after the first human that Hephaestus 'built.' She stated Pandora's intended functions, which were simply to help Alexa with things like doing her homework or fighting monsters, as well as boring presentation stuff like how she designed and built Pandora and some of Pandora's basic robot traits.

"And finally," Alexa concluded, "Probably the most unique thing about Pandora is that I was able to give her a human-like AI and speech capabilities, so she can actually talk and have conversations like a real person!"

Now she had everyone's attention. Everyone had seen plenty of automatons before, but none that could talk like humans. The ones at school were either silent or they were based off of animals and only made animal noises. They were intelligent and could understand and take orders from humans but couldn't say anything back. Basically, they were somewhere between "quiet obedient slaves" and "Disney animal sidekicks." In fact, aside from Hephaestus, the only human known to have created automatons that could speak and had complex human personalities was Daedalus, so the fact that Alexa had created one too was a big deal, and everyone knew it.

"Okay so I guess for the final part of the presentation, I'm going to turn her on..."

"Hehe," one of the Hermes kids snickered. "She said 'turn her on.' Hehe."

"...just to show you guys what she's capable of."

She pulled out her phone and pressed a button. The robot's face screen lit up with a pixelated smiley face. Its first words were...

"Oh. My. Gods!" she cried. "Hi everyone!"

She gave the class an enthusiastic wave. 

"You guys are the demigods, right?" she gushed. "Alexa told me everything: how the Greek gods are real and exist modern times and how you guys all go to this school and go on quests and stuff. I think it'd be totally cool to go on quests and fight monsters and save the world and be a hero and stuff! Do you guys have houses like in Harry Potter? I'd be a total Slytherin. No wait, a Ravenclaw. No wait...a Slytherclaw! Oh my gods, someone should totally write a book about demigods being sorted into Hogwarts houses! I would totally read that book!"

The entire class stared, unsure of how to respond. They knew the robot was supposed to have a human personality, but they hadn't been expecting her to be so...vivacious.

"Would like to tell the class about yourself?" Alexa said.

"Certainly!" said Pandora. "Well, I was technically born yesterday so there's not too much to talk about, but basically I want to fight monsters and do other hero things alongside Alexa! I've been reading up on Greek mythology, and my favorite Olympian is probably Artemis because she has that fae sapphic energy you know? I feel like if I were a demigod, I'd totally be a daughter of Artemis. Oh my gods, someone should totally write a book about that! If such a book existed, I would totally read it!"

"But Artemis doesn't have demigod children?" Valerie blurted out without really thinking about it. Pandora turned towards her.

"Ok look it was just my headcanon okay?" Pandora replied. The pixelated smiley face on her face screen had shifted into an annoyed face (it looked something like >_<). "You don't have to be so rude about it."

"Right...sorry," Valerie said. She was unsure how to feel about being told off by a robot, but there was something weird about Pandora that she couldn't explain, and she felt it was better to just drop the subject.

The rest of the presentation featured Pandora performing various tasks in order to show off her physical capabilities. The entire time she talked animatedly about things like how movies adaptations always messed up by deviating from the source material, which Doctor from Doctor Who was the best, how absolutely underrated Disney movies were, how awesome it would be to be a hero and fight bad villains, and how movie adaptations always messed up by deviating from the source material.

Mr. Valdez nodded approvingly as he watched Alexa's presentation. When it was over, he announced that Alexa had gotten an A+, and class was dismissed.

"So, Alexa's robot is pretty cool huh?" Arthur said as the four of them headed towards their next class.

"Mmm yeah I guess," Katrina replied absentmindedly. The truth was, she thought the robot had been kind of annoying, but somehow she didn't care about it as much as she did when she found people annoying. Normally, this would have struck her as strange, but she was preoccupied by something more important: the fact that she couldn't read Pandora's mind at all. It made sense, she thought: Pandora was a robot, so naturally she wouldn't have any of the "tells" a normal human would have and therefore Katrina's body language reading wouldn't work on her. Still, it was quite peculiar, looking at a person but being unable to tell what they were thinking. In fact, though Katrina didn't know it, her inability to read Pandora's mind was exactly why she hadn't been too annoyed by Pandora, since often the reason she got pissed off so easily was because she could tell what people were thinking right as they said stupid things. At the same time, it also made her uncomfortable, not being able to tell what someone was thinking just by looking at them.

"The robot was definitely super cool," Valerie agreed. "But like...also a little weird?"

"Weird in what way?" Hal asked.

"I don't know, like...." Valerie tried to put into words the vague feeling she had earlier. "...like the way she kinda repeats herself a lot...and the way she's just constantly excited, even over little things like random book or movie details. Like when Alexa made her show off her sword fighting skills, and the whole time she ranted about this one part where Dumbledore didn't say a line calmly or whatever."

"I've noticed that as well," Hal replied. "It's a bit weird, but I guess it's just the way she was programmed. Let's not forget, aside from Hephaestus, only Daedalus was ever able to create automatons with human AI, so even if the robot's a little weird, it's pretty amazing that someone our age was able to make this."

"Well yeah of course, but like..." Valerie paused. "...but like Alexa still programmed her. That means she made Pandora like this and was like "Yep. This is totally fine." But Pandora's supposed to be her companion on quests and stuff, right? Why would anyone want a companion who just talks about random dumb shit all the time and never shuts up?"

"I don't know Val, that's a good question," Katrina said in a funny voice. "Why do the three of us hang around you all the time?"

"Ha. Ha. Ha," Valerie replied. "Fuck you too Kat."

It was lunch now, and the four of them headed to their usual spot between the Zeus and Athena tables, where the Athena kids were chatting about books and fandoms as usual. Often it was hard for the four of them to ignore the Athena kids since they were sitting right next to them. Sometimes Valerie and Katrina would listen in on their conversations for laughs if they had nothing better to do. Today for example they were listening to the Athena kids talk about their fan theories and headcanons as always until the subject turned towards Alexa's project.

"Have you seen Alexa's new automaton yet?"

"No, not yet. I can't wait to see it! I remember her thinking that we would get along with it really well?"

"Oh, you have no idea..." Katrina whispered. Valerie snickered.

"Is it finished already?"

"Yeah, her project was due today, but where is she?"

"I don't know. She hasn't shown up at lunch yet."

Valerie and Katrina quickly turned towards the Hephaestus table, then scanned the rest of the dining hall. It was true, Alexa was nowhere to be found.

"Where could she be?"

"She's probably at the forge?"

"Come on let's go look."

And with that, a few of the Athena kids got up and left. Valerie and Katrina exchanged glances. A bunch of fandom nerds exchanging fan theories and "in depth analyses" with a robot sounded too good to be true.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Valerie said, grinning suggestively.

"Yeah. Come on, let's go!"

The two of them quickly finished the rest of their meal and grabbed their backpacks.

"Wait where are you guys going?" Arthur asked.

"To the forge," Valerie replied. "To watch the Athena kids react to the new robot."

"But why?" Hal asked.

Valerie and Katrina looked at him as if such a thing didn't need explaining.

"Because..." Valerie said. "it's funny."

There was a pause.

"Okay then," Hal shrugged.

And so, they the four of them left and followed the Athena kids. There were usually at least one or two children of Hephaestus hammering away at the forge during lunch but today it happened to be surprisingly empty.

"Huh..." one of the Athena kids said, looking around the forge. There was still no sign of Alexa. "I guess she's just not here. Come on guys, let's go look somewhere else."

"Ah forget it," Katrina said. "Let's just go back to Vesta House."

Katrina and the boys turned to leave but Valerie didn't move. Her super intuition pointed her attention towards the ground. There was some kind of trail on the ground, so subtle that nobody but Valerie could have noticed it and even then, it was only due to the coal dust from the forge that the trail had been visible to her at all. It didn't necessarily mean anything, but it made her think of how earlier that day, Alexa had wheeled out Pandora from the back of the forge, the one place nobody bothered to check.

"Wait," she said. The other three stopped. She moved towards the back of the forge, moving past all the furnaces. She slowly rounded the corner of the very last one, turning towards where students stored their various projects.

Lying on the ground was Alexa, and Pandora was nowhere to be seen.

Chapter Text

"Holy fucking shit!" Valerie cried, "Is she dead?!"

The other three rounded the corner and saw what she was looking at: Alexa's motionless body...well, not quite motionless. Her chest was slowly moving up and down.

"She's not dead dumbass!" Katrina said, "She's obviously still breathing."

"Oh yeah..." said Valerie, whose momentary panic had overwhelmed even her super intuition, "So what do we do now?"

Katrina thought for a moment.

"Okay, Arthur and Hal, you guys take Alexa to Apollo House and I don't know tell an adult or something. Valerie, come with me."

"Where are we going?"

"We're going to look for Pandora."

And so, the four of them split up and headed their separate ways, with the boys carrying Alexa towards Apollo House while the girls tried to track down which way Pandora went. It was the boys who reached their destination first, with Hal so as to let the Apollo kids know they were there without dropping Alexa.

"Yes?" said the bored Apollo kid who opened the door. Then, he recognized Arthur. "Oh gods it's you again. Okay, what is it this time?"

"We didn't do anything," Hal replied calmly, "We just found her unconscious."

The Apollo kid glanced at Alexa and nodded. "Alright, bring her in."

The boys carried Alexa inside, and some of the Apollo kids took over taking care of her while Arthur and Hal sat quietly in the "waiting room" portion of the common area listening to the Enya that was playing over the loudspeakers that covered the outside of the building.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the school, Valerie and Katrina were busy searching for Pandora.

"Do you really think Pandora had something to do with this?" Valerie asked, "I know she's kinda weird, but she's not...bad...right? Just...different."

Katrina hesitated. The truth was she didn't know, and she hated not knowing. Despite trying her best to let it go, she just couldn't get over the fact that she couldn't read Pandora at all. Having had her powers since she was a baby, Katrina couldn't even remember a time before she could read people's faces, and so the fact that she couldn't simply look at Pandora and tell what they were thinking or what type of person they were deeply bothered her.

"I'm not sure," she admitted, "But I think Pandora disappearing at the same time we find Alexa's body is too much of a coincidence and I think chances are she knows something about what happened."

This was good enough for Valerie and so the two of them kept on looking. It was proving difficult, as Valerie's intuition only did so much and after about half an hour, the girls were close to giving up.

"Dude, this is complete bullshit," Valerie moaned, "Let's just give up already."

"No. We have to keep searching," Katrina insisted, "There's only so many places that robot could be."

"But it's impossible!" Valerie whined, "We've already asked everyone around and none of them saw anything either."

It was true. The two of them had searched almost everywhere around the forge, asking anyone they came across if they had seen any robots. The only place they hadn't been to yet were the tennis courts.

The tennis courts were where the Ares kids liked to hang out during their free time. Like the arena, they were a wide open space and were located near the armory, but unlike the arena, there usually wouldn't be a lot of students around (surprisingly, most students thought training was more fun and cooler than playing tennis). This made it the perfect place for the Ares kids to spar and do other "Ares kids things" since it was less likely that there would be other kids there to challenge or snitch on them. Gradually, the Ares kids started just hanging around the tennis courts in general while the other students stopped going there altogether. Now, every new student is told not to go near the tennis courts, and Valerie was just thinking about this when she noticed Katrina giving her a peculiar look.

"No. Oh no..." she started to say.

"Could be worth a shot," Katrina said thoughtfully, with her hand on her chin, "After all, it's the only place near the forge we haven't checked out."

"Dude we can't go there!" Valerie argued, "That's where the Ares kids hang out; they'll kill us!"

"Oh, don't be such a baby," Katrina said, "Come on, let's go."

Soon, they reached the tennis courts, which were surrounded on all sides by wire fencing that stood 5 meters tall and completely covered with a dense net designed to block the wind that also prevented anyone from looking through. Instead of the loud hubbub they would've expected from the children of a war god, the two of them were met with silence.

"Well...that's not suspicious at all," Valerie said, trying to lighten the mood.

Katrina unlatched the gate and pulled it open and the two of them stepped through.

"What...the actual...fuck?" said Valerie.

"Oh jeez..." Katrina muttered.

Strewn across the tennis courts were the unconscious bodies of some twenty children of Ares, and standing amongst them was none other than Pandora. She noticed Valerie and Katrina. Valerie and Katrina instinctively backed froze, but strangely, Pandora didn't attack them. In fact, she almost seemed happy to see them.

"Hi there, Homo sapiens!" she said, giving a friendly wave, "That's the scientific term for humans by the way. Yeah, I'm kind of a big science nerd if I'm being honest."

The girls stared. Between all the bodies and Pandora's strangely cheerful demeanor, they weren't sure whether to try and fight her, run from her, or explain to her that everyone knows what 'Homo sapiens' means and knowing what it meant doesn't mean you're a science nerd.

"What the fuck did you do?" Valerie asked, as she and Katrina slowly approached her, looking around at the bodies as they did so.

"Huh?" Pandora put on a confused face, then looked around at the Ares kids' bodies, as if just remembering they were there, "Oh, you mean these guys? Oh, just don't give them any attention: it's exactly what they want."

Valerie stared with a mixture of shock and disgust. Katrina almost did too...but there was just something that about Pandora's wording that made her stop and think twice.

"Hold on..." Katrina said, "What did you mean by 'it's exactly what they want'?"

"You know, the bullies!" Pandora said, as if it were the most obvious thing ever, "They're just the most miserable people who feed off of making others miserable, and if you don't give them the attention they want, they'll just die. Like they're literally like joy vampires, because they totally exist just to suck the joy from regular people. Actually, no. That wouldn't be fair to vampires, because vampires are severely misunderstood gay icons, and I bet every vampire would be best friends with the Addams family or something. Wait! They should make a movie about that! Dracula and the Cullens visit the Addams family! Oh my gods, I would totally watch that!"

Her words brought forth a sudden pang of annoyance, but for once Katrina resisted the urge to say something. Pandora was unpredictable, at best annoying and at worst dangerous, and the fact that Katrina couldn't read her body at all made her feel that much more uneasy about the situation.

Valerie, on the other hand, had no such reservations.

"Oh, well, I mean, if they were being bullies then that's fine then?...Keep up the good work I guess?" 

She noticed Katrina shooting her a withering look. 

"What?...Okay look, I'm not saying I agree with it, I'm just saying that's the sort of thing that just happens at this school, right?" 

She turned back towards Pandora, "Say, just out of curiosity, what were the Ares kids doing anyway?"

"Oh you know, just the usual dude bro stuff," Pandora replied, "Calling things people like 'cringe' and whatnot."

Cringe? What a peculiar word, Katrina thought. She'd never heard that word before, and so had no idea what it meant, but she assumed it must have been something really awful from the way Pandora said it. Strangely enough, judging by her reaction, Valerie did seem to know what it meant.

"Are you serious right now?" she said.

"I know right?!" Pandora exclaimed, "I couldn't believe it either, but it's true! I was walking by when I heard one of them say that Mortal Instruments was 'cringe.'  Like why would someone do something so terrible? Why can't people just let people enjoy whatever they want?"

"Okay..." Valerie said slowly, "Now see, that's called 'beating people up for having different opinions,' which is generally something that we humans look down upon, as it is usually done either by assholes or by the insane, so-"

Pandora suddenly froze. Her human-like movements were gone, and Katrina could hear the gears clicking inside her as she, very slowly, turned to face Valerie.

"What...did you...just say?"

"I said, " Valerie repeated, "You can't just beat the shit out of people just because they-"

Pandora suddenly dashed forward in front of Valerie. She moved so quickly, it was as if she'd taken a single step and then teleported (a "flash step," if you will).

"Did you just call me insane?"

"I...wait what?" said Valerie, surprised by Pandora's response.

Before either of the girls could react, Pandora grabbed Valerie by the throat, lifting her up into the air.

"Did you just use an ableist slur against me?!"

It finally dawned on Valerie what was happening. "Okay wait, let's just calm down for a second-" she started to say, but Pandora was having none of it, and, still holding Valerie by the neck, slammed her into the ground.

"Are you aware," she screeched, "that when you use words used to describe neurodivergent behavior in a negative context like that, you are in fact reinforcing negative stereotypes of neurodivergent people? Are you trying to foster a society that views different people as lesser?"

"No I swear I wasn't! I was just trying to call you crazy," Valerie cried, which promptly made Pandora slam her into the ground again, "Oh gods! Kat! Do something!" but Katrina didn't respond, and Pandora slammed her into the ground one last time, then pummeled her with her metal fists until she lost consciousness.

"Sorry you had to see that!" she said, reverting to her cheerful demeanor, "I just really can't stand it when people belittle those they don't understand." 

She turned towards where she last saw Katrina, but she was no longer there. Pandora looked around wildly, and then she saw her. Katrina had made her way to the shed where the tennis racquets were kept. Pandora narrowed her eyes.

"What are you doing?" she asked

What was she doing? Katrina thought, her hands trembling as she grabbed the two of the Celestial Bronze tennis racquets hanging in the shed. She didn't know, and the truth was, she almost felt like doing nothing. She had faced deadly foes before, but she could always read their faces, and understanding what she was up against always put her at ease. Pandora however, was immune to Katrina's abilities, and Katrina had no clue what her intentions were, whether she was simply strange, actually insane, or perhaps both. And so, for the first time in her life (or at least, that she could remember), Katrina felt fear. 

What if, she thought, what if she just didn't fight? It would be so easy to just pretend to agree with Pandora and then ditch Valerie to go run for help. It was probably the safest and least painful option too honestly.

But then she looked back to Pandora, at the way she stood there with her pixelated self-satisfied look like she'd actually done nothing wrong, and felt a fire ignite inside her. Suddenly it didn't matter to her that she was feeling fear for the first time in her life, she wasn't about to let that just change who she was. Pandora needed to be stopped, Katrina wanted to be the one to stop her, and she wanted to do it her way.

And so, in spite of everything, she charged forward with her tennis racquets.

-----

Meanwhile, about five minutes earlier at Apollo House, Alexa woke up with a loud cry.

"You're safe," Hal said as he and Arthur rushed over to her side, "You're currently in Apollo House. We found you unconscious at the Forge and brought you here," he explained calmly.

"Where's...where's Pandora?" she said, looking around wildly at her surroundings.

"We don't know," Hal replied

"Fuck!" Alexa cried, as she leaped out of bed, looked around, spotted her backpack (which Arthur had been kind enough to go back to the Forge to get for her earlier), ran to it, and began rummaging through it.

"Actually, we were hoping you could come with us to tell Chiron what you knew when you woke u-"

"NO!" Alexa cried, suddenly whipping around, "We can't go to Chiron!"

"Why not?" Hal asked flatly.

"Because!" Alexa cried, "Because...I really don't want to get into trouble for this."

She gazed pleadingly at Hal, whose face appeared blank and unsympathetic. He seemed to hesitate.

"Please," she insisted, "Just let me take care of this myself. I promise you, Pandora isn't dangerous. She just...has issues."

Alexa and Arthur (who was the type of kid to leave decision making to others) watched with bated breaths as Hal thought things through.

"Maybe...but on one condition."

"Which is...?" Alexa asked, and Hal looked at her seriously.

"Earlier you said that Pandora wasn't dangerous, that she just had issues," he said, "I'd of course much prefer to resolve this issue by ourselves without telling Chiron, but if we're going to do this, you're going to have to provide some reassurance that she's not as dangerous as she appears to be, that she's not a threat the three of us can't handle."

Alexa sighed.

"Yeah, okay..." she said, as she pulled what she'd been searching for out of her backpack: some kind of handheld device, "Follow me. I'll explain along the way."

She pressed a few buttons on her device, which she explained was a tracker that would lead them towards Pandora, and together the three of them left Apollo House.

"So what did you guys think about Pandora personality-wise?" Alexa asked, as she headed in the direction indicated by her tracker.

The two boys thought about it for a moment.

"She's a little bit weird," Arthur said, "But not like bad or anything," he hastily added to avoid offending Alexa. 

"Right, well, there's a reason for that," said Alexa, "When I made her, I may have...cheated a little...no, not like that kind of cheating!" she quickly added after seeing the boys' reactions, "I just meant that Pandora wasn't built in the typical way automatons are built."

To greatly simplify things, there were two main parts to building an automaton: building the body, and creating the AI. For Alexa, the first step had been easy, but when she tried to create an AI with human intelligence and personality, she ran into trouble.

"I mean, it shouldn't have been a surprise since, yeah, only one mortal had ever been able to create human-like AI and that had been Daedalus," she said, "So I sort of got stuck for awhile, and then I thought...what if I tried to use the internet?"

The internet was a vast place, full of all kinds of different people interacting with one another and expressing themselves. Alexa figured that, since she had been unable to create human-like AI on her own, she would try to use a shortcut, and create a human-like AI based on all the posts and comments humans put out on the internet."

"At first it didn't work," she said, "The problem with this method was that literally everyone uses the internet and there's all kinds of different people around the world, so the AI ended up being kind of....well, you can imagine."

Arthur tried to imagine a robot whose personality was a combination of everyone on the internet, which seemed to consist mostly of people disagreeing with one another. It was pretty easy to imagine why it didn't work out.

"Well you must have gotten it to work somehow," Hal reasoned, "So what happened?"

"Well I got more and more desperate, so I began digging deeper and deeper through the internet (by which she meant she Googled stuff for hours)." Her face darkened. "And then, after hours of searching...I found it ."

"It?" the boys thought.

"It was an ancient social media website," she continued, "it reached its peak sometime around twenty years ago but by about fifteen years ago, it was basically dead. The story behind that is super interesting actually!! Basically, what happened was that the website decided to start banning porn, and as a result-" She caught a glimpse of the boys' faces, "Right, not important. Sorry."

"Anyways it was a blogging site that was a place where teens who were somewhat different from other teens could express themselves and discuss about art, science, fandoms, and other 'nerdy' niche interests."

"That sounds kinda cool actually," Arthur said.

"It was at first," Alexa agreed, "But then, things started going terribly wrong. You all know what an internet troll is right?"

Hal nodded. "Of course," he said, "It's a person who posts inflammatory opinions on the internet with the intent to provoke others. Almost always, the troll doesn't believe in the things they say, they're just saying it to get a reaction."

"Right," said Alexa, "Well, this was still during a time when the internet wasn't very mainstream, and the concept of internet trolls was still pretty new. Somehow, this idea got started that if anyone disagreed with you, then they were 'just a troll' trying to get a reaction for you, and you should ignore them because, well, that's what you do with trolls. As a result, everyone on there stopped listening to people with different opinions, and began just listening to each other, and whenever someone new came along, they would do the same thing. Pretty soon, the website no longer became a place for people to have discussions about things, it just became this kind of...collective hive mind that would shut out anything that was different. There were no original ideas anymore: everyone just came up with the same stories, the theories, the same crossovers, the same movie ideas..."

Same crossovers and movie ideas? That sounded awfully familiar to Hal.

"No..." he muttered.

"Yeah, it was pretty bad," Alexa said somberly, then suddenly brightened up, "But it was really great for my project! With all those millions of people sharing the exact same personality traits, I had a large amount of data I could use to create an AI with a specific personality, all in one place! So that's what I did, and that's how Pandora came to be."

The boys took a moment to process all of this.

"So, in other words, you wanted to make a robot that acted like a person, but you weren't genius enough to do it the normal way, so you went on the internet, downloaded a bunch of posts and comments made by millions of people with identical personalities, and used those to create a robot with the very same personality as all those people?" Hal summarized.

"Basically yeah," Alexa replied, "So now you understand what I mean when I say Pandora's not dangerous or anything. She's not like rogue machine bent on killing all humans, she's literally just the embodiment of quirky nerdy teens from over twenty years ago!"

Arthur seemed fine with this reasoning, but Hal wasn't so easily convinced.

"If there's nothing wrong with Pandora, then how did you end up lying unconscious on the ground at the forge?"

Alexa's face fell and she sighed, "Okay yeah, that was Pandora," she admitted, "But it was kinda my fault to be honest?"

"What did you do?" Arthur asked.

"I..." Alexa paused, seemingly embarrassed at what she was about to say, "I...may have called something cringe."

"Cringe? Really?" Hal repeated, "What kind of person gets that angry at someone over calling something cringe?"

"Well, the 2010s were a really different time," said Alexa, "Social media was starting to become popular enough that kids were getting into it, but it was still really new so I think the kids of that era just couldn't handle the idea of being criticized."

"Hang on a second, what's 'cringe'?" Arthur asked innocently.

Alexa and Hal exchanged glances, with Alexa looking at Hal as if to say, "You explain it."

"Well..." Hal said, trying to find the right words, "I think the best way to put it is that cringe is like secondhand embarrassment. If you see someone else doing something that you would consider embarrassing, you would feel embarrassed 'for them.' For example, do you remember when that assembly we had a week ago?"

"You mean the one where all the teachers dressed up as Greek mythology monsters and sang songs about why you shouldn't do drugs? And then everyone laughed at them afterwards and all it really did was make everyone in class want to try drugs more? Yeah, I remember that," said Arthur, "Wait! So cringe is just laughing at someone who you think is silly? Isn't that just...being mean?"

"It can be that," Hal admitted, "But it doesn't have to be that. Cringe doesn't have to mean making fun of someone, it can present itself in a lot of ways. In fact, it doesn't even have to be at other people. You can cringe at things you did when you were younger that seem embarrassing to you now, like how I cringe at the fact that when I was a kid, I thought Return of the Jedi was better than Empires Strikes Back."

Hal shook his head ruefully at the memory before continuing.

"So, yes, sometimes when people find something to be cringey, they can be really mean about it, but that's not all what it is. Cringing is just a natural response to some things that happens simply because people have empathy, and it can often be an opportunity to grow as a person. Does that make sense?"

Arthur nodded, even though he didn't really get it. Satisfied, Hal turned back to Alexa.

"Okay, so we've established that your robot's essentially a temperamental teenager from the 2010s. What's our plan? To just force her to come with us?"

"Hades, no!" Alexa cried, "Pandora was built to be much faster and stronger than the average demigod. She'd destroy us in hand to hand combat."

"What?" said Hal. "But I thought you said she wouldn't be an issue, that we wouldn't have to tell Chiron about this."

"It won't," Alexa promised, "Because when I built Pandora, I installed an emergency shutdown system. There's a small spot on her back just below her neck. If I can send an electric shock into that spot, it'll deactivate her, which I can do with this..." 

She reached into her backpack, and pulled out something that looked a lot like a sonic screwdriver. She pressed a button.

Nothing happened.

"What?!" Alexa cried, as she proceeded to try turning the device on and off several more times (it didn't work), "No! This can't be happening right now! There's no time to fix this!"

"Wait," said Hal, "An electric shock? That's all that's needed?" Alexa nodded, and Hal turned towards Arthur, "So you could activate the emergency shutdown right?"

"What?" said Arthur, flinching at the sudden pressure of responsibility, "Well...yeah...I guess."

"Alright," said Alexa, "That's what we'll do then. We'll distract Pandora, while you go from behind and try to shock her on the back." 

The boys nodded, and with their plan in mind, the three of them continued their way towards the tennis courts where Pandora was.

-----

The first thing Katrina learned was that duel wielding doesn't really work in real life.

As soon as the fight began, Pandora struck out, knocking a tennis racquet out of Katrina's left hand. She was forced to wield her remaining racquet with both her hands, which was just as well since it took all her strength to hold onto it as she blocked Pandora's attacks. Unlike Valerie and the Ares kids, Katrina had a moment to prepare and grab a weapon (if you could call a tennis racquet that) so she wasn't instantly wiped. Unfortunately, Pandora had been extremely well-constructed, and her natural speed and strength was much greater than the average demigod's. Katrina felt herself being gradually worn down and was on the verge of collapsing when Pandora made the mistake of talking.

"Oh Em Gee! LITERALLY, why are you fighting me?!" she exclaimed as she threw several punches at Katrina, "Okay, first of all, I LITERALLY haven't done anything wrong. All I did was punch someone who LITERALLY used an ableist slur, so I'm on the good side here. Second, I'm like a week old, so basically you're defending a bigot while LITERALLY bullying a child who's thirteen years younger than you!"

Something about this triggered something inside of Katrina. She felt annoyed, but more than that: there was just something about Pandora's self-victimizing dramatic tone that filled her with rage: she wanted to beat Pandora into submission, until she learned to shut up. Katrina felt a rush of adrenaline, and began fighting back with renewed strength, feeling a burst of elation each time her tennis racquet struck Pandora, and although she couldn't see it, Ares was looking down at her from above with a sense of grudging approval at the daughter of Athena's display of bloodlust. 

The gate creaked Pandora, who had heard it, suddenly stopped fighting, and Katrina, who was so surprised by this, also stopped. Then the gate fully opened, and through it stepped Arthur, Hal, and Alexa. 

"What happened here?" Hal said, looking at all the unconscious bodies lying around, "Valerie?"

"Katrina?" said Arthur, who had just noticed her.

"Hey, isn't that that one girl who hates everyone and everything?" said Alexa.

"Yes! You guys found us!" Katrina cried, her heart leaping with joy, "And I bet you guys brought Chiron and some help with you guys and now we can finally put an end to this psycho! (Hey! Pandora cried)"

"Ummm...actually we didn't," said Arthur, "We agreed not to tell anybody anything so that Alexa wouldn't get in trouble."

"Oh...." said Katrina, then looked back at Pandora, who was currently glaring at her with a pixelated angry face, "Well, shit."

"But we did learn something cool!" said Hal, who was always ready to share fun facts with his friends, even in moments like these, "We learned that Pandora's AI was based off of the millions of posts and comments made by a bunch of nerdy teenagers on a social website that peaked over twenty years ago."

Katrina blinked, "...What?" (Meanwhile, Alexa took the opportunity to try to sneak around.)

"Yes!" Hal continued, "Apparently she picked that particular website to download information from because all of its users had the exact same personality. Quite fascinating wouldn't you say?" He had Pandora's attention now as well, which was just as well because Alexa was sneaking closer and closer.

Katrina stayed silent for the longest time. She almost looked like she was going to throw up. And then...she laughed. 

"Uh, is she alright?" Arthur whispered.

"I'm not sure. I think this is the first time we've ever seen her laugh before," Hal replied.

Katrina laughed louder and louder until she was practically doubling over and cackling. Eventually, Pandora couldn't hold it anymore.

"What's so funny?" she demanded.

"What's so funny?" Katrina said, trying to catch her breath, "What's funny is that this whole time I was caught up with trying to figure you out. I had no idea who or what you're supposed to be, what you wanted, and the truth is, you scared me. But now, I finally know: you're just a kid! You're nothing but a sad little kid!"

Pandora clenched her fists, "Stop it," she said.

"It's true isn't it?" Katrina pressed on viciously, "Actually, it's worse than that isn't it? You're not just one sad little kid, you're a million sad little kids, each thinking they're so unique, but really they're just the exact same person, all with nothing better to do than to post the same inane made up fantasies on the internet because they all share a single brain cell that's incapable of coming up with an original thought on its own. Then they wonder why nobody likes them decide that it's society that's at fault and that it must change to accept them." 

"Stop!" Pandora cried again, "Stop that!"

But Katrina didn't care. Having finally obtained an understanding of Pandora that had been evading her all day, she was euphoric, feeling as if a weight of ignorance had been lifted off her shoulders.

"It doesn't matter!" she cried, "Literally nothing you do to me will ever change the fact that you are literally the most pathetic-"

Pandora flash stepped towards Katrina and knocked her out with a single punch.

"You know, she's kinda got a point, but man that girl really needs to learn when to shut up," Alexa said.

"Somehow, I don't really see that happening," Hal replied.

For a moment, Pandora, merely stood there, doing nothing. If she hadn't been a robot, Arthur would have thought that she was taking a moment to breathe.

"You know you don't have to do this" someone said.

It was Hal. Pandora slowly looked up.

"Dude, are you crazy?" she whispered loudly, "She's the incarnation of millions of teens on the internet! She literally cannot be reasoned with!"

"You're almost certainly correct," he admitted, "However, I believe that no matter how futile it may seem, using logic and reasoning is always worth a shot...also if this doesn't work, then Arthur could use this opportunity to get close enough to shut her down."

Arthur nodded and began sneaking around in order to get behind Pandora. Luckily for him, her attention was focused solely on Hal.

"But why?" she asked, "Literally all I want is for people to let others enjoy whatever they want without any risk of being exposed to negativity! How could anyone be against something like that?!"

"Because some people enjoy critical thinking," Hal replied, "And that means recognizing that not everything is good, which is fine! Not everything has to be good, and understanding that some things are bad isn't an inherently awful thing, because when you understand what makes something bad, it also helps you understand what makes something good, which helps you enjoy good things even more and helps people create better things."

Out of the corner of his eye, he watched as Arthur moved into position. He resisted the urge to look over and risk giving away the plan, but luckily Pandora hadn't noticed anything yet.

"Well okay, that's fine I guess," Pandora said, sounding as if she were reluctant to admit that things could be bad, "But I still think it's wrong for people to express their opinions other people might not want to hear. It's called having consideration for others' feelings!"

"If your goal is to limit what others say to avoid having your feelings hurt, it's not empathy, it's just selfishness."

Pandora froze, and her expression shifted into one of visible distraught. She covered the parts of her head where her ears would be if she were human, hunched over, and began to shake.

"No..." she began to mutter, "No no no no no no no..."

"Look, I understand how it feels to be invested in niche interests. You feel like it's a huge part of who you are" Hal said, as Pandora continued her muttering in the background, "But if it becomes such a huge part of you to the point that you feel like you're being personally attacked just because someone else doesn't like it, then maybe the solution isn't to force everyone else to accommodate you, it's to become less insecure about the things you like."

This last phrase seemed to trigger something inside Pandora. In an instant, she rose up from the ground, flash stepped directly in front of Hal, grabbed him by the neck, and lifted him up in the air.

"No no no no no NO!" she cried, getting louder with each 'no' until her voice turned into a metallic screech, "I'm not insecure! You're the one who's insecure...and heartless...and pathetic! That's why you literally support all this bullying and negativity, because you just want to bring others down to your level! That's it! There's no other possible reason!"

She looked up at Hal to see his reaction, only to find that he wasn't looking at her. Instinctively, Hal had looked towards Arthur to see how close he was, and so Pandora followed his gaze. She turned around, and spotted Arthur slowly sneaking towards her. Arthur froze. Alexa's heart sank. It was all over now.

"You there!" Pandora cried, pointing at Arthur with the hand that wasn't holding up Hal in the air. "Yes, you! Don't think I can't see you. Are you on my side, or the wrong side? What's your take on cringe culture?"

A million thoughts raced through Arthur's mind. Pandora had seen him, and yet she didn't seem to realize what he was up to. He cautiously took a step forward; Pandora didn't make any moves against him. But she was still waiting for him to say something. What should he say?

"Well, when I first about it, I immediately thought it sounded like kind of a mean thing to do" he admitted.

Pandora's face broke out into a pixelated grin.

"Oh Em Gee! See? This guy gets it!" she gushed enthusiastically, "Thank you for LITERALLY restoring my faith in humanity and showing me that there are still people who are good and positive in this world!"

"But at the same time," Arthur said, as he took a few more tentative steps towards Pandora, before breaking out into a full-on walk, "It's weird to me that some people care about this so much, as if calling the things they like 'bad' is some morally wrong thing. It makes it seem like what they really want isn't for people to be nicer, they just want to never have to hear things they don't like. If that's the case, then I think I would rather have a little 'negativity' in my life than be that type of person."

Arthur suddenly became aware that he had just given a bit of a speech, and that everyone - Pandora, Hal, and Alexa - were looking at him.

"I mean, that's just...that's just my opinion," he finished bashfully.

For once, Pandora was speechless. She simply stared at Arthur as he slowly made his way towards her, unable to comprehend that any person could be okay with something like that, and she remained this way up until Arthur reached her.

"Oh yeah, one last thing," he said, "I'm really sorry, but I'm going to have to do this."

He put his hand on Pandora's back, and before she realized what was going on, he sent a jolt of electricity into her, activating the emergency shutdown system. Pandora's face went dark, and she slumped over, letting go of Hal.

"Holy shit! You guys did it!" Alexa said, rushing to their side. "Are you guys okay?"

"Yes..." said Hal, catching his breath as he looked past the other two. "I think the others are starting to wake up."

Actually, the Ares kids had already started waking up a few minutes earlier. Everyone had just been so distracted by Pandora, that they failed to notice two sons of Ares who had woken up just in time to watch Arthur activate Pandora's emergency shutdown system. Coincidentally, they also happened to be members of The Gang of Delinquents.

"Bro, did you just see that?" one of them said.

"Bro, I totally just did!" the other replied. "That little guy just walked up to her, tapped her on the back like it was nothing, and just completely one shot her!"

"Bro, we gotta tell the other guys about this bro!"

"Yeah, totally bro!"

Arthur, Hal, and some of the other Ares kids carried the unconscious to Apollo House, while Alexa took Pandora back to the forge.

"Thanks for everything guys," she said, as she slung Pandora's metallic body over her shoulder like it was nothing and headed the other way.

When they all arrived, they filled up the entire lobby to Apollo House, as makeshift beds were quickly pulled out or built. Arthur was concerned at all the space they took up, but the Apollo kids assured them it was nothing, and that children of Ares kids coming in en masse was a fairly common occurrence at the school.

The first one of their friends to wake up was Valerie.

"No! I didn't call it cringe! Please! I'm sorry" she screamed as she suddenly sat up in her bed, then she realized where she was.

 "Oh...hi guys..." she said as smoothly as she could.

The door to Apollo House opened, and someone stepped in.

"Hiya friends!" she said, waving cheerfully at everyone around her. Her appearance had changed somewhat since the last time they saw her: her hair had grown out somewhat, and was now dyed such that it was half-orange on top of the original blue.

She spotted Valerie, who recognized her and gave her a friendly wave back.

"Someone told me they saw a bunch of Ares kids being brought into Apollo House, so I figured there was some incident with them again and thought I'd just drop by to make sure everyone was okay, and hopefully spread some positive vibes," she explained.

"Wow thanks that's really nice of you!" Valerie said, "But actually, it wasn't the Ares kids' fault for once."

"Oh really?" said Ally.

Valerie nodded. "So there was this robot-"

"An automaton?" Ally gasped, "But why would an automaton have a problem with the children of Ares?"

"It was something really stupid," Valerie replied. "Apparently all they did was call something she liked 'cringe' and she just lashed out on all of them, it was pretty fucked up."

"Hey now, don't victim-blame," Ally chided, "So it sounds like what you're saying is, the Ares kids were somewhat asking for it."

Before anybody could say anything, she added, "All the same though, I'm glad it seems that nobody was really hurt. I'm a proponent of non-violent solutions and would only turn to violence as a last resort. I have go get going now. Have a nice rest of the day y'all."

And with that, she left.

"Violence as a last resort huh?" Valerie said, "No wonder Kat doesn't get along with her. Good thing she wasn't awake for that."

"Doesn't get along with who? Wasn't awake for what?" came a voice from behind them. The three of them turned to see Katrina, finally awake.

"Hey," she said, "We won." It wasn't a question; she knew it the moment she looked at the boys' faces. "How?"

"Arthur did it," Hal explained. "Alexa told us there was a shutdown switch on her back and Arthur managed to get close enough to her and then used his powers to trigger it."

"It wasn't as cool as he makes it sound," Arthur quickly interjected, "I think she hesitated because I agreed with her at first, and that was the only reason I was able to get so close, it wasn't anything I did."

Katrina nodded, evidently impressed "Not bad. I never would've gone for something like that," she said, and gave Arthur what was meant to be a friendly punch on the shoulder but ended up actually hurting a little. Katrina saw this, and instantly apologized, which just made Arthur feel embarrassed.

"Ok now let's get the fuck on back to Vesta House. I am just so done with school this week," she said.

And so, the four of them headed back to Vesta House together, filling each other in on the parts they weren't there for (or in Valerie's case, the parts they weren't conscious for).

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait," Valerie said, stopping Hal in the middle of his story, "So you're telling me, that Pandora was based on a million teenagers who all had the same personality and happened to use the same website like twenty years ago? Dude that's fucking awesome!"

"No, it's disturbing!" said Katrina, "That means that somewhere out there, there's millions of teenagers just like Pandora! Gods, just thinking about it makes me want to kill myself."

"Well probably not, right?" said Arthur, "I mean, this was all stuff from twenty years ago, right? So they're not teenagers anymore then, they're adults now who get to do stuff like vote and have children and -"

"Umm, is that supposed to make me not want to kill myself?" Katrina said, interrupting him.

"Hey! I just remembered!" Valerie cried, "You guys all owe me like fifty bucks!"

Everyone else looked at her in confusion.

"This morning!" she cried excitedly, "I was all like 'Dude crazy shit happens to us all the time!' and you guys were like 'Nuh-uh! That's not a thing!' so then I was all like 'Yuh-huh, it's totally a thing! I bet you fifty bucks that some crazy demigod's gonna attack us before the end of this week.' Well it happened! We got into a fight with Pandora! That means I win the bet!"

"Ah, ah, ah, not so fast!" said Katrina, "Pandora attacked us yes, but she's not a demigod, she's just a robot."

"Same thing!" Valerie complained.

"Nope!" said Katrina, "That'd be the same as saying Frankenstein's monster is Frankenstein, and we both know how the other Athena kids feel about that."

Valerie looked like she wanted to say something, but instead she just sucked her breath, then hung her head on the rest of the walk back to Vesta House.

Chapter Text

"Okay, here's a question for you guys," said Valerie, "Would you join the Hunters of Artemis?"

It was the Tuesday after their fight with Eve, and the four of them were hanging out at break, doing what they always did: talk about random stuff.

"No," Hal said simply.

"Why not?"

"Because I'm not a girl," he replied.

Valerie's face shifted to a disappointed expression, clearly having hoped for a more interesting response.

"Okay yeah, no shit, but I meant like, 'what if you were one', you know?"

"But I'm not", Hal replied without missing a beat.

Valerie groaned, then turned to Arthur.

"Okay what about you? Would you join the Hunters of Artemis?"

"Ummm..." he said, his voice gradually fading. It didn't look like he had anything else to say, so Valerie turned to Katrina.

"Would you-"

"No," Katrina said immediately.

"What the Hecate?!" Valerie said with exaggerated surprise, causing the boys to smile and forcing Katrina to bite her lip, "Why not?"

"Because it sounds super terrible?" Katrina said in a tone that implied she thought it was obvious, "All you do is just hunt down monsters and that's it. I wouldn't want to spend my whole life on something like that."

"But Kat, what about the immortality?" Valerie coaxed, "What about all the forever sisters?"

"Yeah, exactly!" Katrina cried, which wasn't the response Valerie had been expecting, "You're not even allowed to die, you're just stuck with them forever! The only way to escape is to die in combat which, on its own, is pretty bad, but also until then, you're just trapped in the body of a child forever, and the only other people you get to hang out with are the other Hunters, who are probably all super messed up because at one point, they thought that everything I just mentioned sounded cool!"

She stopped. Her friends were now looking at her with mild concern.

"Well jeez, that's one way of looking at it, I guess," Valerie said.

"Okay well, what's your answer then?" Katrina asked.

"Oh, I don't know, probably not?" she said, then saw Katrina glaring at her for judging her when she herself didn't have a good answer, "What? Dude I'm thirteen! I'm not old enough to make a commitment like that, and by the time I'm old enough to, I'll probably have done a ton of stuff and they wouldn't let me in anymore."

Katrina gave her a weird look. Hal's face was as blank as always. Arthur...looked confused.

"What kind of things?" he asked.

"Like uh..." Valerie tried to give him her best meaningful look, "Like...you know..."

"No I don't know," he replied.

Valerie sighed, reluctant to say what she was thinking. "Like uh...hand-holding," she lied. Arthur nodded in apparent understanding as Valerie did her best to ignore Katrina's amused expression.

"Oh, I think you'll be fine then," Hal pitched in, "The Hunters won't exclude you for something like holding hands, only if you've done something like have se-"

The bell rang loudly just then, covering up whatever Hal had been trying to say, and the four of them headed towards their final class of the day. Halfway there, Valerie stopped.

"Hang on, I gotta go to the bathroom," she said, then looked at Katrina expectantly. Katrina nodded, and started to follow her.

"Wait a minute, why do both of you have to go?" Hal asked, "Why can't Valerie just go by herself?"

"Because!" Valerie replied, as if that answered anything

"Because what?" Hal asked.

"Because girls always go to the bathroom together," Valerie answered, as if it were obvious.

"But why?" Hal asked.

"Because um..." Valerie looked to Katrina for help.

"It's just a girls thing," she said, "Don't worry about it."

Hal looked to Arthur for an explanation, but he merely gave a confused shrug. Meanwhile, the girls headed towards the restrooms. Awhile later, they came back out

"Ah shit, we're gonna be late again!" Valerie cried, and the two of them began sprinting towards their next class. Somewhere along the way, it turned into a race to see who could get there first.

Physically, the two girls were matched evenly, and of the two, Katrina was more aggressive and competitive. However, Valerie's powers turned out to be more useful when the two of them were met with a large crowd of students waiting outside their classrooms. Katrina ran around them, but Valerie ran straight through, using her super intuition to expertly dart between the other students. Her powers had been steadily improving, and she was even more adept than she had been during her game of tag with the fifth graders. She no longer suffered from random bouts of sensory overload, and could chose what to focus on. Unfortunately, this also made her susceptible to tunnel visioning, which became apparent when she failed to anticipate one of the students in the crowd changing directions and crashed into them.

She raised herself up from the ground, a little bruised, but overall fine. She looked around; the other students had moved out of the way of their crash, forming a small clearing in the middle of the crowd, otherwise though they were unconcerned. She spotted her victim, some guy, lying less than a meter away.

"Hey, sorry about that," she said, as she moved to help them up.

The first thing she noticed about him was his clothes. Despite the fact that it was a warm summer day (actually, every day was a warm summer day here), he were dressed warmly and completely covered, sporting a black hoodie and black jeans, even wearing thin black gloves that were tucked into his hoodie sleeves so that no part of his wrists were exposed. He turned towards her, and Valerie saw that even his face had initially been covered by a black facial mask and black sunglasses, though the sunglasses had been knocked aside by the impact of their collision in such a way that one of his eyes was now uncovered.

Valerie looked into his eye.

It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

------

Katrina was running as fast as she could. She was just outside the classroom now, but Valerie was still nowhere in sight. This worried her. Could she have gotten so far ahead of her by cutting through the crowd that she had made it to class already?

She burst into the classroom. No, she realized. Valerie wasn't there yet! And more importantly, there was only one spot left next to Arthur and Hal. Ignoring the look of disapproval from her teacher, she dashed across the room and slid into her seat.

She turned back to the door, grinning as she anticipated getting to talk shit to Valerie as she walked in, that way that friends do when they're messing around with each other.

A few moments later, Valerie stepped through the doorway just as the second bell rang.

"Hey guys," she said, giving a little nod at the three of them, "Sorry I'm late."

Arthur and Hal nod back. To them, Valerie seemed normal, maybe a little bit dazed, but otherwise fine.

To her however, something was off. She wasn't sure what it was or how it happened, but she could tell that Valerie was different somehow.

Her smile vanished.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine!" she said. Katrina scanned her face. She was telling the truth, or at least she thought she was.

At the same time, Valerie looked around the classroom. The only remaining available seat was on the other side, near the back.

"I'll talk to you guys after class," she said, as she walked towards her seat.

Katrina wanted to call out her, to ask her more questions, but class was already starting. She would simply have to wait until later to figure out what was going on.

Author's Note: The "What the Hecate?" thing originated as a conversation about how silly demigods sounded whenever they tried to force Greek mythology references into common expressions ("That's minotaur poop!", "What the Hades?"). This devolved into an entire afternoon of the four of them coming up with variations of "What the hell/what the heck?" that referenced Greek mythology, each more ridiculous than the last ("What the Hecate?", "What the Helm of Darkness?", "What the Hector, Prince of Troy?").

Somehow the joke stuck, so now the four of them use these phrases ironically all the time.

Chapter Text

"I could not tell you if I loved you the first moment I saw you, or if it was the second or third or fourth. But I remember the first moment I looked at you walking toward me and realized that somehow the rest of the world seemed to vanish when I was with you."

That's a quote from one of those really bad YA books Hal loves to cringe at. At the time, I thought it was really cheesy and we both laughed at how bad the writing was.

But now, I think I actually kinda get it.

Oh yeah, I guess you're probably wondering what's going on right now huh?

My name is Valerie P. Green. I am thirteen years old, with midnight black hair and storm gray eyes, and also I am left-handed. About six weeks ago, I discovered that the Greek gods were real, that my mother was Athena, and that I was destined to go to school with other demigods and become great heroes or something.

You'd think that'd be what this story is about, but actually that part's not really important. What was really important was the day I met...him.

That's right.

This is the story about how I met my soulmate.

So there I was, racing through the crowd, using my powers to dodge my way through the obstacle of bodies, when suddenly, this guy comes out of nowhere and we crash into each other.

Yeah yeah, I know what you're thinking. "But Valerie, you have your super intuition, how do you get blindsided by something like that?"

Look, just because I have superhuman perception, doesn't mean I have superhuman reflexes, alright?

We crashed, and I fell head over heels.

Little did I know, that would only be the first time I fell head over heels that day.

I turned to see who I'd crashed into. It was some guy who was completely covered in black, which was a little weird, but honestly everyone who goes here is a little weird. As I moved to help him up, I realized that actually he wasn't completely covered: his sunglasses had been knocked aside, leaving his eye exposed.

You see, that's where the trouble began.

That eye.

That damn eye.

It was the most captivatingly beautiful thing I had ever seen, like a shining brown orb...no, wait. Not brown. Brown wasn't a sexy word. Chocolate? Yes, that was it. His eye was like a shining chocolate orb. That should adequately describe how sexy and beautiful his eye was.

I blinked, and suddenly the entire world seemed to shift back into focus. What just happened? Did I really just think those things? 

I realized that I was still staring into this dude's eye. The eye stared back. It seemed kinda startled. The boy in black quickly fixed his sunglasses, then ran off.

"Wait," I called out, but he was already gone. 

I jogged the rest of the way to class, still super weirded out by what just happened. I mean, come on, 'a shining chocolate orb?' Where the Hades did that come from?

Ah well, doesn't matter. No time to think about it anyways, class is about to start. In fact, I can hear the bell ringing just as I dash in through the doorway. The first thing I see when I enter the room are my friends sitting together near the front

"Hey guys," I say, giving them a little nod, "Sorry I'm late."

Arthur and Hal nod back. 

A little bit of backstory: Arthur — he's the quiet one with the black hair — and I have known each other since elementary school and we even discovered we were demigods at the same time and defeated a pack of empousai together.  We're like friends for life now, but nothing more. The other guy, Hal, the tall blond one who always wears shorts and sandals, I've only known for about six weeks. He's stereotypically hot, which I guess you'd expect from a son of Zeus, but he acts like such a nerd most of that time that I just think of him as just my quirky autistic-coded friend or something. Basically, despite being good friends, neither of them were really my type. If I were to date someone, I'd probably want to date someone less boring, like maybe someone who was a bit of a bad boy, someone more mysterious, like maybe...

The image of the eye flashed in my mind for just a moment.

Then I snapped back to reality.

Whoa! 

What is wrong with me today?

Before I had time to think about all the horrible things I just said (said like, in my head...you know what I mean), I noticed Katrina looking at me like I'd just killed her dog or something.

Oh jeez, is she doing that thing where she reads my face and it's basically like she's reading my mind? Oh gods, PLEASE don't be reading my mind right now.

The image of the eye lingered in my head, beautiful, and haunting.

"Are you alright?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I said. 

More than alright actually. I felt strangely good, excited even, like there were butterflies in my stomach but in a good way.

Katrina looked like she wanted to say more but class was starting, and I was forced to make my way towards the only seat left in class, on the far side, away from where my friends were sitting. 

"Good morning everyone," said Mrs. McLean, "Okay so, today we're actually going to go over a Roman myth instead of a Greek myth, so everyone get out your tablets for popcorn reading time."

Oh gods, not popcorn reading. Popcorn reading at Demigod Academy is like the most boring thing ever, like way worse than popcorn reading at regular school.

The reason? Okay so you know that one kid in middle-school who, when the teacher calls on them to read, they read...super...slowly...like...this? (Don't lie, yes you do, every class has like one of these guys).

Now imagine if almost everyone in class read like that because...you know...dyslexia and stuff.

I'm not blaming them or trying to be mean or anything. I know it's not their fault that most demigods have dyslexia because minds programmed to read Ancient Greek blah blah blah. I'm just saying that because of it, it gets a little boring, you know?

I did what I always do during these things: I read the whole thing in like five minutes. 

The myth was about this fruit goddess named Pomona. A bunch of gods all want to woo her but she's way more into tending her orchard than into she's into guys, so she rejects all of them. Then Vertumnus, who's like god of seasons and growth or something, decides to be all sneaky about it and disguises himself as an old lady and tells Pomona that she should stop rejecting dudes and date someone and actually she should specifically date this guy named Vertumnus because he's like really cool and sexy or whatever. Then he turns back into himself and asks Pomona out and she says yes because...I guess she fell for his trick? Then the two of them got together and lived happily ever after tending to Pomona's orchard and stuff. The End.

What the Hector, son of Priam?

What was even the point of that? What's my takeaway supposed to be? That some light manipulation in a relationship is okay or even good? Jeez, this was almost as bad as the Hades and Persephone myth. I mean, ok not nearly as bad because kidnapping is a lot worse then a little manipulation, but still also bad.

So anyways, now I have a new problem: it only took me five minutes to read the whole thing, but there was probably at least half an hour of popcorn reading left.

Normally I'd just pass notes or talk about random shit to Hal something, but he and all my other friends were on the opposite side of the classroom.

The image of the eye pierced through my mind, entering into focus. The butterflies returned to my stomach, as if suddenly my puberty went into overdrive.

Why did I feel this way about a strange boy I'd never met before. Who was he? Why did he dress in all black?  And most of all, why was I so captivated by the memory of his eye?

I held onto the memory of that eye, and tried to remember what it, and the rest of him, looked like. Had I seen him before? I must have; I mean, you'd think I'd remember a guy who was completely covered in black. Time passed. I looked up at the clock after what felt like ten minutes...only to realize that over half an hour had passed. I'd just spent half my class daydreaming over this random guy I've only met once!

My mind was racing now. I needed to find this boy, and find out what was it about this him that made me so obsessed.

What? No you can't just go up to some random guy and tell him you can't stop thinking about his eye that's fucking crazy-

No, that'd be crazy, a little head voice in my head nagged, and yet, it seemed so right. In a world where Greek mythology was real, maybe doing something crazy, actually made sense.

I could feel my mind rapidly making all the mental connections between different things. It vaguely reminded me of the way the other Athena kids would see a guy pass another guy an apple and then whisper about how they were secretly gay and were totally going to get married. Back then I'd sneer at how ridiculous their theories were, but now...they were actually starting to make sense. Wow, was this what it felt like to be smart?

Yes, the way forward was clear now. I needed to find this mysterious boy dressed in black, find out the secret of his enchanting eye.

The popcorn reading ended, and everyone was getting ready to move on to the discussion portion of the class now.

"So class," Mrs. McLean said as she clasped her hands together, "What did you all think?"

The class responded with a resounding negativity that caused her to recoil. 

"Wow, really?" she marveled, "That bad?"

One of the students raised his hand and she, sensing an opportunity to steer the class into more serious discussion, eagerly called on him to speak.

"Mrs. McLean, I've gotta be honest with you," said the kid who raised his hand, "That was literally worse than Oedipus Rex."

"Okay, now you guys are just being silly," she replied, "Vertumnus is bad, but there's NO way what he did was worse than incest, I mean come on!"

The discussion continued on like this for awhile. Normally, I'd at least put in the minimum effort for participation points, but today my mind was on other things. Once again, my train of thought had made its way back to that mysterious boy's eye. I decided I was going to try to look for him during dinner, which would be coming up soon after class, since that was when everyone at school would be gathered at the same place.

As I daydreamed, my gaze turned back towards my tablet, to the text of the myth of Vertumnus and Pomona, then something occurred to me.

Earlier this summer, we'd learned that there was a trio of goddesses who controlled our fates. Was it really just a coincidence that we decided to read this for class on the same day I happen to run into this strange boy? Maybe this was the fates' way of trying to tell me something. Were they trying to tell me that I needed to be assertive, just like Vertumnus? That I was fated to be with this boy? Or maybe both?

My heart fluttered, and I immediately stopped myself. Don't be silly, you don't even know this guy, I told myself. But it was too late, for I could already feel the seeds of a crush beginning to take root.

Chapter Text

As soon as the gang met up after class, Katrina began keeping a suspiciously close eye on Valerie.

Outwardly, she seemed perfectly fine, acting the way she always did by saying dumb things and teasing the boys.

And yet, whenever Katrina looked at her face, she could see that underneath the surface, something was just a little bit off. 

For a moment, she questioned wondered if maybe her powers were just wrong, before quickly dismissing the thought. Her powers had never been wrong before, Valerie had fundamentally different, and at this school, it was certainly possible that some kind of magic was behind this. Katrina just didn't know what it was yet, and she wouldn't get an answer until later, during dinner.

They were sitting at their usual spot. The boys were on Hal's phone, watching dumb funny Youtube videos dating back to the late 2000s. Normally, Valerie would have joined in, but today she was looking around the dining hall.

Katrina's eyes narrowed.

"Whatchu looking at?" she asked, trying to sound as casual as possible.

Valerie turned with a bit of a start, "Nothing!" she said quickly. That was a lie. Katrina frowned.

"Nothing huh?" she pressed on, trying to get a better read on Valerie. Based on the look on her face, she was currently trying her best to keep a neutral face in order to avoid scrutiny.

"Hey, stop it," said Weiss, who typically ignored them in favor of her siblings, but decided to speak up for once, "If she doesn't want to talk about it, then just leave her alone, and stop reading her mind."

Her words made Katrina falter.. Despite being an idiot about 99% of the time, Weiss actually brought up a good point for once: if she was wrong about something weird going on with Valerie, then whatever was happening was really none of her business and all she was doing was being a nosy prick to her friend.

That is, IF she was wrong.

And Katrina was quite sure she wasn't wrong. Unlike the other demigods, she didn't just discover her powers recently, she'd lived with them their entire life. For her, reading faces wasn't like a superpower that you turned on and off at will, it was just a part of her existence, something that came as naturally to her as breathing, and so to put it mildly, she was quite sure that what she was sensing from Valerie wasn't normal.

Regardless, Katrina decided it would be wise to stop questioning her. Valerie was obviously hiding something, but whatever was possessing her didn't seem to be an immediate danger to her, and for once, Katrina didn't feel like causing  a scene with Weiss and the other Athena kids.

But she didn't let it go.

Dinner turned out to be quite a disappointment, as Valerie was unable to find her mystery boy. The four of them began making their way back to Vesta House. The girls walked silently in the back, with Katrina continuing to keep a close eye on Valerie, and Valerie vaguely aware that she was being studied. The boys walked in the front, cracking jokes and referencing things, oblivious to the tension behind them.

Finally, Valerie spoke.

"Wait Kat, let's go to the bathroom," she said, motioning for Katrina to follow her.

But Valerie didn't need to go to the bathroom. Katrina narrowed her eyes. "Why?" she asked suspiciously.

"Because that's just a thing girls do!" Hal piped in, causing the two girls to turn towards him in surprise. "I mean, that's what you said this morning right? That girls going to the bathroom together is just a thing you guys do?" he added, looking at Katrina.

"Yeah," she replied, still keeping her eyes fixed on Valerie, "Yeah, I guess we do."

A few minutes later, the two of them were in the restroom. Valerie immediately rushed over to the sink and began rubbing water on her face. Katrina stayed close to the door...just in case some crazy Greek mythology shit was about to go down.

"So...what did you want to talk about?" she asked.

Valerie didn't answer. Instead, she just kept staring at her reflection in the mirror, like some kind of brooding fanfic OC. 

"Kat, does someone like you get crushes?" Valerie suddenly blurted out.

Katrina didn't know what she was expecting, but it wasn't that.

"UMMMMMM..." she said, trying to think of how to answer. Of course she got crushes. Everyone got crushes. But the thing about her crushes was that they usually lasted about five minutes, which was how long it took for her to read their faces and realize that having crushes was dumb. As a result, she never got hung up on crushes the way normal people did, which she figured was an important part of the experience.

"Uh...I mean technically 'yes,' but like, 'not really'," she ended up saying. "Why do you ask?"

"I think I have a crush on someone."

Her words took Katrina completely by surprise. 

"Umm...okay," she said, as she struggled to think of what to say, "Okay first of all, you know we're only here for like one and a half more months right? Like that's how this place works: we get 3 months of magic Greek mythology school here and then the other 9 months we're supposed to go back to our regular schools. Also who is it? Is it Arthur or Hal? Oh gods, PLEASE don't tell me it's one of the boys. I don't think I could handle that level of drama in our friend group. Actually is it even a boy? Sorry, I probably should've asked that first."

"No it's not one of the boys," she said. She sounded distracted, no doubt by her crush. "But yeah, he is a boy."

"Oh thank gods...so who is it then?"

"I don't know."

Silence.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I mean I don't know!"

"What's his name? What does he look like?"

"I don't know and I don't know!"

"How the fuck do you not even know what he looks like?"

"Okay look, we ran into each other once and I didn't get his name, and his face was covered except for like one eye, which was like the hottest eye ever, but basically I didn't get a good look at him! Also, I think he's like a bit older than us too."

Silence again.

"Valerie...Valerie wha- what the fuck?" Katrina closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. "So you met an older dude who was completely covered in black and you don't know what he looks like except for one eye but you think his eye is hot and now you just...have a crush on him? Do you have any idea how terrible all of that sounds?"

Valerie began talking quickly, trying to justify her crush. Katrina tuned out her ramblings (some stuff about eyes or whatever) and tried to think.

First of all, she'd been surprised when Valerie revealed she had a crush. That wasn't supposed to happen, and she didn't mean that in some edgy "Nothing ever surprises me way," but literally, in a "I can read minds so nothing surprises me because I know what people are going to say before they say it" way. And yet somehow, she hadn't been able to read that Valerie had a crush, and that surprised her more than the crush reveal had. 

Second, Katrina had seen a lot of teen crushes before; she knew what they looked like, and so she knew that whatever she had been reading from her earlier wasn't that. Stranger still, she could read that Valerie was in fact telling the truth about her crush. 

So out of nowhere, she begins reading that something's wrong with her friend, then a few minutes later, she suddenly reveals that she has a crush on a strangely dressed person she only met once, a crush that she hadn't been able to predict? She wasn't absolutely certain, but Katrina strongly suspected that the two were related, she just needed more information.

Valerie was looking at her now. Uh oh. She'd been lost in her own thoughts for too long and now she had to come up with something quick. She scanned Valerie's face and read that she was looking for some form of approval.

"Congratulations?" she tried. 

"Ugh, you're not even listening!" Valerie cried. Evidently, that was the wrong answer, "I asked where do you think is a good place to start looking for this guy. I have to find him somehow!"

"You mean, where's a good place to start looking for an suspicious looking older dude you don't even know but have a crush on?" she asked, "No idea, but also, that's a terrible idea."

Valerie ignored her, and began to ramble on about her ideas as they left the restroom ("I wonder who his godly parent could be. Hey I know! He wears all black right? So maybe he's a son of Hades? Ooh, that'd be kinda hot! Maybe I should snoop around Pluto House.")

But Valerie never got her chance to snoop around Pluto House (or anywhere else) since, as it turned out, their teachers had happened to assign them all an inordinate amount of homework that night which, while annoying on a regular night, proved to be almost impossible for Valerie to concentrate on as images of her mystery boy's enchanting eye plagued her all night.

Because they were such good friends (and also because they had nothing better to do), Arthur and Hal stayed by to help. Katrina watched the two boys, who were blissfully unaware of what was going on, unable to see what she could see. Should she tell them? What was she supposed to say? "Hey guys, something's wrong with Valerie. She says she has a crush on a guy but I can read her mind and I can tell you that's not true. Help me figure out what's going on." What if she was wrong? Then she'd just kinda be a dick for outing her friend's crush. No, she would have to do this one without the boys. Luckily, she already thought of someone who could help her.

It was around 10PM, yet in spite of that, most of the other Athena kids were still up and about at the Minerva House library, either doing their homework, studying, or just reading recreationally. Try as she might, Katrina still couldn't bring herself to think of them as her siblings; even Valerie was still just a friend/roommate to her.

She quickly glanced over all the tables, long enough to register their faces without catching any of their thoughts, until she found her.

Sage McLaren, the head of Minerva House and also the (probably) smartest kid in school, sat by herself at one of the tables, evidently out of necessity, as laptop, notebooks, and textbooks took up the entire table. She was currently alternating between looking between her notes, her Calculus textbook, and a Youtube video of an Indian guy in front of a blackboard.

"Hello..." she said without looking up before Katrina had even said anything, "Just a second," she added, then quickly finished scrawling something in her notes before finally looking up at Katrina, "What's up?"

It was well known that Katrina wasn't exactly on good terms with the other Athena kids, but she had always thought Sage was alright. She even sympathized with her sometimes, wondering what it must be like to be the head of Minerva House and having to deal with the Athena kids all the time.

"I need help with a...thing," she started, trying to figure out what to say, and then deciding it was best to just get it over with, "So basically there's something wrong with my friend slash roommate and I don't know what it is."

"What do you mean? What happened?"

"Nothing. That's the thing. She's acting normally on the outside, but I can read her mind and tell that something's different about her. I'm thinking one of the other kids did something to her but I have no clue." 

"This sounds quite serious," Sage replied, touching her chin, "Is there anything else I should know that's potentially important?"

"Well..." Katrina hesitated, but a quick glance at Sage told her that she could be trusted to keep a secret, "Sometime after dinner, she pulled me aside and told me...that she had a crush on some guy."

"Oh really?" said Sage. Katrina noted that her interest sharply increased.

"Yeah, but the weird thing about it was that somehow I couldn't read that she had a crush, it just looked like something was different about her but like...more? So I suspect that her crush and whatever's happening with her are somehow related."

Sage pondered this for a moment.

"Have you considered the possibility that this 'weirdness' you're getting from her is just a simple crush?" 

"I did. The things is, I've seen people with crushes before and I know what that looks like, so I know that's not what's going on with Valerie."

"Okay but..." Sage paused to choose her next words carefully, "Have you considered the possibility that you're wrong?"

"Well no because..." Katrina tried to think of how to explain something that was just obvious to her, "Because she's my friend and I can tell when she's acting out of character?"

"Ah, but how are you so sure she's acting out of character?" Sage continued, "You know, feelings manifest themselves in different ways for different. Crushes can mean different things for different people, and the same type of crush can make different people respond differently because we're all unique on the inside."

And there it was, the "I know you read minds but somehow I still don't think you know what you're talking about" speech. Katrina had heard it many times before, and it always irritated her every time. It reminded her of the time she got into an argument in fourth grade.

"I finished Order of the Phoenix yesterday," her classmate Mackenzie had been saying, "And I think that Sirius and Lupin are-"

"No, no, no! Stop! Please, just stop!" Katrina had interrupted her before she could continue.

Mackenzie let out an angry huff. "You didn't even let me finish-"

"You're gonna say they were boyfriends. Every week you talk about how these two guys from some book or movie or show are boyfriends and it never makes any sense!" Katrina cried, holding the sides of her head as if she were in pain.

Mackenzie pouted. "Well actually it makes a lot of sense because-"

"No! Shut up! Just shut up! Every time you say that 'it actually makes sense' but then when you try to explain how they're in love but you just end up describing the two of them being friends and it's so pathetic! Like you think it makes you look smart and thoughtful but really it just makes you look stupid because it shows that you don't know what it's like to have friends because you think being in love with someone and being friends with them is just the same thing!"

Katrina panted, relishing the feeling of euphoria she got from finally let it all out after weeks of putting up with her classmate. She looked victoriously at Mackenzie, whose face was scrunched up as if she were about to cry.

"Ms. Nelson! Katrina called me stupid!"

Back in the present, Sage was still lecturing her. Katrina just stood there silently, desperately wanting to lash out the same way she'd lashed out at Mackenzie, to remind Sage that she could literally read minds and she didn't know what she was talking about and needed to shut the fuck up. But she stayed quiet, suspecting that telling the head of her House to shut the fuck up would not turn out very well.

"I know you're just trying to help your friend, and I think that's really nice of you, but in order to do that, you have to accept that you're capable of being wrong, and that there's nothing crazy going on and your friend is just going through some teen stuff. Just talk to her about her love life stuff and I'm sure things will turn out fine."

Katrina seethed. "So...basically, you're not gonna help me at all," she said.

"I am helping," Sage insisted, "By trying to get you to understand that it's okay to be wrong, and that you don't have to try so hard to be right all the time.

As if I ever have to try to be right, Katrina thought. 

"Fine!" she said, getting read to turn around and leave, "I'll just ask Chiron for help then."

"No!" Sage said sternly, and Katrina jumped a little. Sage hadn't been particularly loud, but it was the first time Katrina had ever heard her raise her voice, "You do that, and I'll give you detention for the rest of the summer," she said.

"Seriously?" Katrina cried, "For trying get a friend some help?"

"It's not about stopping you from 'saving' your friend from a crush, it's about you learning to accept that you're not always right, and that you should just let people do their own thing!" Sage replied fiercely. 

Katrina looked into her eyes: she could see that unlike most of the other Athena kids, Sage had actually been through stuff before, stuff that truly earned her the title of 'hero.' She wasn't someone to be trifled with, and she had meant what she said about the detentions.

Sage looked straight back, glaring at first, but then her expression softened.

"Look, I know this all probably seems super unfair and you're probably super mad at me right now, but trust me, one day you'll get it." 

She turned back to her books and laptop, and Katrina sensed that their conversation was over, whether she liked it or not.

Chapter Text

Katrina left Minerva House feeling considerably dejected. Going to Sage had been a huge waste of time, and to make matters worse, now she couldn't even go to Chiron for help either.

She was considering just giving up and returning to Vesta House, when she got an idea as she passed Venus House on her way back.

Ally, the leader of the Aphrodite kids.

She was far from Katrina's favorite person at school: there was just something off-putting about like being positive was the most important thing in the world. Despite their differences, Katrina sensed that Ally genuinely tried to do the right thing, and that she could always depend on her to be kind and helpful.

It seemed worth a shot.

This was Katrina's first time inside Venus House, and though she had expected the interior to be beautiful as it was, she hadn't anticipated that it would be so...'soulless' was probably the best word for it?

It wasn't too long before Ally showed up, dressed in a blue and orange outfit that matched her hair, its vibrant colors providing a nice contrast to the austere whiteness of the Venus House common area.

"Well this is...quite a surprise," she said when she saw who had come to visit. "Katrina Valentine...what can I do for you?

Katrina retold what had happened starting from their race to their final class of the day up to when Valerie told her about her newfound obsession with the boy dressed in black. She chose to leave out her conversation with Sage.

"Alright...so I think I was able to follow all of that," Ally said, nodding along as Katrina finished her story, "So what exactly is it that you need from me?"

"You're the head of Venus House right? I'm guessing you're familiar with all the Aphrodite kids and their powers, can you think of any that could've caused this?"

"Yes, several actually," Ally replied, "There are numerous sources of love magic that may have caused this, and they aren't even limited to Venus House either."

"Really?" Katrina lit up. She hadn't been paranoid or overthinking after all, "Great! Let's go ask around!"

"Wait!" Ally said, frowning, "I can't just begin interrogating the other students over something like this. How are you so sure that foul play was involved?"

Katrina repeated to Ally the same explanation she had given Sage a few minutes earlier.

"Hmm..." Ally hummed to herself as she thought about what Katrina just said, "Could it be possible that this is just a regular crush? Because that's what it sounds like to me. After all, you know love manifests itself in different ways for each person right?"

"I mean, that's what Sage said, but-"

Too late, she realized her mistake.

"Oh, so you've talked to Sage about this!" said Ally, "What did she say exactly?"

Katrina groaned inwardly.

"She said it was probably just a crush and that I should stop 'trying' to be right all the time...whatever that's supposed to mean."

"Well," Ally said gently, "Sage is the smartest kid in school. I think it would be wise to trust her judgment...and it also probably wouldn't hurt to take her advice either."

No! Katrina thought. She had been so close to finding this mystery boy.

"So that's it?" she said bitterly, "You're not going to help me just because you think Sage knows my own powers better than I do?"

Ally looked at her sympathetically.

"I know it's not what you wanted to hear, and I'm truly sorry. But if you ever want to talk about it, you can feel free to come talk about it with me."

"What's the point?" Katrina hissed "I mean you're all just convinced that I'm wrong right?"

"Yes, I do," said Ally, "But being right isn't everything. You can be completely wrong and still have your feelings be valid."

She put what was meant to be a comforting hand on Katrina's shoulder, but somehow it just felt condescending.

Katrina left Venus House feeling even worse than she had already been feeling before. Two times, she tried to ask for help, and both times, she'd been dismissed. Not to mention that both Sage and Ally had questioned her understanding of her own powers. That had been the worst part, being treated like one of the other kids who had just learned a few weeks ago that they could do a new trick, as if she hadn't literally been able to do this since she could walk.

Later that night, she lie wide awake in her bed, thinking. How could she possibly find whoever was behind this? Even if she did find him, what could she do about it? And what if she was simply wrong about all this? These

She simply ran these thoughts through her mind over and over again until eventually, she simply fell asleep.

Morning arrived. Katrina turned over in her bed and found Valerie already awake.

As Katrina brushed her teeth, she watched with a growing sense of dread as Valerie struggled to pick between two identical shirts, spent copious amounts of time applying makeup, and stared obsessively into the mirror. Evidently whatever was wrong with her was still there, since Valerie, to put it mildly, typically didn't care at all for her appearance. She spent so much time in fact, that despite having woken up much later, Katrina found herself waiting for Valerie to finish getting ready.

Katrina prayed to the gods that the rest of the day would go by normally, but turns out the gods either hated her or just didn't care. The two of them arrived at breakfast and had barely sat down when Valerie immediately got back up, claiming she "had to do a thing."

When she was finished eating, Katrina looked around the dining hall to check on Valerie. She couldn't find her, and it didn't help that she kept getting distracted by this one boy she'd never seen before running around the dining hall. He wore a sports cap backwards and had a small handlebar moustache, and there was something vaguely familiar about him.

Wait a minute.

That wasn't a boy, it was Valerie! For whatever reason she decided that a disguise was necessary, so she had apparently used her string powers to weave herself a handlebar moustache, and somehow managed to hide all her hair under her cap (maybe she weaved a hairnet?). It actually would have been quite funny if it weren't so utterly embarrassing, and Katrina watched with great secondhand embarrassment as Valerie went from table to table, putting on her "manliest" voice to ask about her crush, getting many strange looks along the way.

That was it. That was the last straw. Clearly, something needed to be done about this.

"Guys, I think we need to do something about this," she said to the boys.

"Do something about what?" Arthur asked.

Oh, that's right. Katrina had forgotten that the boys were unaware of what was happening and quickly explained everything.

"Wait, Valerie has a crush on someone here?" Arthur asked.

"Yes, but it's not a real crush, it's like some demigod enchantment or something, and I'm pretty sure one of the students here did this to her!" Katrina cried, only vaguely aware of how crazy she sounded.

"Are you certain this was the result of demigod magic?" Hal inquired, "She seems fairly normal to me."

"Oh come on," Katrina said, "Is this normal?"

She gestured at Valerie, who was still running around in her sports cap and fake moustache made of her own string.

"Umm..." Hal froze, unsure if this was a trick question. To him, this seemed like just the sort of wacky thing Valerie would do.

Katrina sighed. "Okay bad example I guess," she relented, "But just trust me on this one!"

She glared at the boys, as if daring them to challenge her, but they simply looked at each other and then shrugged.

"Ok," said Arthur, "So what are we supposed to do now?"

"We need to find out who this mysterious boy dressed in black is," said Katrina, "I'm sure that he's the one behind all of this, and we just have to find him and stop him. The problem is that I have no idea where to begin looking. I don't even know who their godly parent could be because apparently this type of love magic isn't even unique to Aphrodite kids and-"

"Do you know what class they're in?" Hal asked.

Katrina frowned. "Well, no but-" She stopped and froze.

Holy shit.

That was it! The answer had been right under her nose the whole time. She just hadn't realized it sooner because she'd been so caught up in the school's "culture" of caring about who everyone's godly parents were that she hadn't even considered the obvious until Hal brought it up.

"Oh, my gods, you're right!" she cried, then quickly got up and left.

Arthur looked at Hal, confused. "I don't get it. What were you right about?"

Hal shrugged then went back to his book.

Katrina raced across school, determined to get to their next class. She didn't know who the mystery boy was yet, but she was pretty sure she knew where his next class would be. Like most schools, Demigod Academy rotated its classes daily, with each period shifting forward by one spot, and the last period shifting to the first. In other words, their first class today was the last class they had yesterday, the same class they had right when Valerie started acting strangely.

Katrina remembered vaguely how she and Valerie had raced to class yesterday, and how she had tried beating her by cutting through the crowd. That must have been where it happened, right outside one of these classrooms. The culprit must have been one of the students in the crowd, waiting for his class to start.

Which meant that all Katrina had to do was show up early and wait for him to show up. This was of course assuming that he would wear the same clothes he'd been wearing yesterday, but Katrina was willing to bet that a guy who liked to cover himself in all black during the summer probably wore the same thing every day.

Katrina arrived at area just outside of her classroom. She had arrived quite early and there was still twenty minutes of lunch, and as a result there was only one other person there: a boy sitting under a tree, reading on his phone.

He was a little older than her and completely covered in black. Even his face, wrist, and ankles had been carefully covered so as to not show the tiniest bit of skin. Katrina realized who he was immediately.

Well, this was...convenient, Katrina thought suspiciously, and began to approach him from behind. As she drew closer to the tree, she wondered if she was falling into a trap of some kind but quickly dismissed the idea. More likely, it really was just a coincidence, or he had expected Valerie to come looking for her and decided to wait. The thought of the latter disgusted and infuriated her, and she dashed forward and pounced on him, wrapping her arms around his neck. The boy was so surprised, he dropped his phone.

"Alright you sicko," she growled, "What the fuck did you do to my friend?"

The boy in black gave a surprised yelp. "Get off me!" he cried, pushing Katrina away.

But he hadn't even needed to, for the moment he spoke those words, Katrina let go of him. As a result, she was pushed back much farther than he had expected, crashing against the tree. This hurt considerably, but somehow, she didn't care, as her attention was currently focused on something else.

His voice.

It had been the most beautiful voice she'd ever heard.

The boy reached to pick up his phone. For some reason Katrina felt compelled to help him and reached for it at the same time. Their hands touched, and she touched her lips as she blushed, feeling the cool black leather of his glove pressing against her skin as he-

NO!

She screamed, and her mind cleared, as if she had been underwater and just breached the surface. It took all of her concentration just to maintain her clarity. She felt herself slipping back under again and try to stay focused on beating him.

But maybe she didn't have to fight him. Maybe he wasn't actually a bad guy, he was just misunderstood, and that was why he dressed in all black. What was he hiding underneath, Katrina wondered. Was it the scars of his traumatic past? She found herself overcome with curiosity. Maybe I could help him she thought. Maybe I could fix him.

The mysterious boy spoke once again

"Clear your mind," he said...

...only his voice was a lot less beautiful now. And with that, her mind was suddenly clear again.

Holy shit, what was that? It was the most peculiar sensation she had ever felt in her entire life, but not necessarily in a bad way. Somehow, it felt like she had been a completely different person, like a romance novel protagonist or bad fanfic self-insert. She now understood why Valerie had looked like a completely different person when she tried to read her face before.

She blinked. The boy had picked up his phone and was rapidly typing something into it. He showed her his screen. There was something written on his notepad

"Are you normal now?"

"Uh...yeah," she said, surprised by this turn of events, "Thanks?"

The boy nodded, then typed out another message.

"Sorry about that. I didn't mean to Charmspeak earlier, it's just that you kinda startled me when you jumped on me and started choking me."

"Oh uh...yeah, sorry about that."

She slowly got up off the ground and stared dumbly at the boy. She'd found him, and just as she'd suspected, he was the source of whatever was going on with Valerie. And yet, he obviously had no intention of using his powers for any sinister purposes. Clearly there was something more to all this that she didn't know about.

"Alright," she took a deep breath, "Who are you and just what the Hellenic League is going on here?"

The boy began typing rapidly on his phone...

His name was Adonis. He was a son of Aphrodite two grades above her, and-

"Wait, seriously?" Katrina asked, "Like your dad looked at you as baby and went, 'Oh yeah I'm gonna name him after the hot guy in Greek mythology?'"

Adonis let out an irritated sigh, deleted what he'd been typing, rapidly typed out something else, and showed it to Katrina.

"Yes. Now let me finish!"

"Sorry," Katrina said, "Go on."

Adonis started typing again...

He was a son of Aphrodite, and depending on how you looked at it, he had been blessed or cursed with the greatest power any child of Aphrodite has ever had. From the moment he was born, he was the most beautiful baby anyone had ever seen, and it was clear that he would grow up to become the most attractive child of Aphrodite ever-

"Okay sorry for interrupting again, but how does that make any sense? Like how can a baby be so beautiful that you can tell just by looking at them that they're gonna grow up to be hot?"

Adonis didn't say anything; he simply turned and faced Katrina. She couldn't read his face, but based on his body language, she could tell that he was giving her a mildly annoyed look.

"Oh right. 'Magical Greek mythology stuff that doesn't really make sense.' Gotcha. Go on?" she said, passing him back his phone.

But his attraction powers weren't limited to just his physical appearance. As if he weren't already handsome enough, he had been gifted with one of the rarest and most powerful abilities a child of Aphrodite could have, the ability to Charmspeak.

"What's Charmspeak?" Katrina asked, but then remembered what had just happened to her, "Oh right. Nevermind."

Not only that, but his Charmspeak was extremely potent, as he was literally unable to speak at all without triggering it. At first all of this proved to be a great advantage, since any monster who approached him would become enamored on sight, and then he would simply tell them to go away. However, as he grew older, his powers became stronger, and they began to interfere with him having a normal life. He could use his Charmspeak to clear people's minds, but it wasn't a permanent fix, as they would simply become charmed again if they ever looked at or listened to him speak again. This was when he began to wear clothes that covered his body completely and speak as little as possible in public to avoid "incidents." He also started doing little things like avoiding washing his hands around other people or taking lunches in parts of the school nobody went to in order to avoid any part of him from being seen.

"So that's why Valerie couldn't ever find you at the dining hall," Katrina said. Everything was starting to make sense now.

Although this helped him avoid charming the students at school, it did little against the unwanted attention he received from his stepmother, who even threatened to tell his father that he started it if he ever tried to use Charmspeak to rebuff her advances.

"Wait what?'" Katrina said, looking up from his phone, "What do you mean by unwanted atten-'"

The meaning of his words suddenly hit her, and she felt a chill run down her spine.

"Oh gods, I-" she said. For the first time in her life she found herself at a loss for words, "I'm...I'm so sorry."

And so he never told his father, in part due to his stepmother's threats, but also because he was a boy, and knew that nobody would believe him anyways. Eventually he couldn't take it anymore, and ran away. He was soon picked up by a satyr and brought to the academy, where he stays all year round now. He keeps in touch with his dad, though he still doesn't know how to tell him about his stepmom.

"I see."

Was all Katrina could say after all that.

"Honestly, I wish I could have a more 'normal' demigod power that you can just turn on and off like everyone else does."

Katrina understood, having grown up with her abilities (though obviously hers were much easier to keep under control). She had thought about the way growing up with the ability to read people's thoughts had made her cynical, and often wondered what type of person she would have been without this ability.

"Now, you mentioned something about a friend earlier?"

Katrina nodded and quickly told him about how strange Valerie had been acting since yesterday. Adonis suddenly sat up straight as if he remembered something.

"There was a girl yesterday. She ran into me and we fell and my sunglasses slipped a little. She must have seen a part of my face then?"

"That's it! That's why she was talking about how hot your eye was!" she cried, "But you can fix her right?"

"Yes. I just need to Charmspeak to her to lift the magic."

Katrina almost laughed aloud in relief. It was literally that easy! Thank the gods she managed to locate Adonis as quickly as she had. Between his reclusiveness, and Sage and Ally's unwillingness to help, Valerie might have been stuck like this for weeks!

The next five minutes passed by in a blur. Katrina raced back to the dining hall, found Valerie (still in her disguise), and dragged her along with her.

"Where are you taking me?" she cried, struggling to keep up with Katrina.

"It's um..." she considered telling Valerie the truth, but decided against it, as she didn't want her to freak out over the prospect of meeting her crush, "...it's a surprise!"

They were now back at the villa where their classes took place. The two of them spotted Adonis, who had been waiting for them, still sitting under the same tree. Valerie gasped.

"Oh gods, is that-" She cut herself short with a loud squeal, as she had apparently only just now realized that she was still wearing her hat and fake moustache, and tore both off, "No, not now! I'm literally unpresentable!"

Katrina groaned inwardly. Didn't you spend like the last twelve hours looking for this guy? Like make up your fucking mind, she thought. Eventually she gave up on dragging her and simply picked her up and carried her over to the tree instead.

"Here!" he said, plopping Valerie down triumphantly in front of Adonis, "Now go do your thing!"

Adonis turned towards Valerie, who had been reduced to a quivering mess. She looked up at him shyly.

"H-hey," she said, as she pressed her index fingers together in a cutesy fashion.

Adonis wasted no time.

"Clear your mind," he said, at the exact same time the school bell began to ring. Though her mind was already clear, Katrina still felt a wave of clarity wash over her as he said this, and marveled at his power. She looked over at Valerie, watching as the effects of the magic left her, and her old personality returned, like color rushing back into a pale person's face.

"You're back!" she cried.

Valerie blinked.

"Holy shit," she said. "That was...oh my gods, that was literally the worst thing ever. It was like...it was like when you're in a dream, and you do a bunch of stuff that you think makes sense, and then you wake up and you realize that actually nothing you did made any sense at all!"

She put a finger to Katrina's chest. "You will never speak of this to anyone ever!" she declared, before grabbing her backpack and running away.

"What she meant to say was 'Thank you'," Katrina said. Adonis nodded.

"Also I just want to say...I'm sorry. For you know...tackling you and calling you a sicko and all that stuff," she added. Adonis shrugged, indicating that it was no problem.

"I just have one last question," she said, "You said that anyone who looked at or listened to you talk would immediately fall victim to your love magic. So if you ever met someone and you both fell in love, how would you know it was real?"

Adonis didn't say anything. He simply turned and left. As she watched watched him leave, Katrina felt a tap on her shoulder. It was Valerie, who had returned with Arthur and Hal.

"Hey, come on. Let's get to class," she said.

Katrina's gaze remained for just a moment longer.

"Yeah...okay..."

Chapter Text

It was Saturday morning, and Arthur was running across the courtyard towards Vesta House, where his friends were waiting for him. He had woken up late (even by weekend standards) due to the fact that he had stayed up past 2am after having been dragged to yet another one of The Gang's "secret meetings," which had literally just been a "Try Not to Cry Challenge" watch party for Terminator 2: Judgment Day.

Although he had initially been apprehensive of them, Arthur quickly found that he enjoyed spending time with The Gang. He had been under the impression that the sons of Ares were either aggressive jocks or angsty delinquents, but in reality, they were just normal boys, channeling their "child of Ares aggression" into doing "typical guy stuff."

Running up the stairs to Vesta House, Arthur flung the door open. Inside he saw his friends huddled around a laptop: Hal, Valerie, Katrina, and...

...and Pandora?

"Hi!" the robot waved at Arthur excitedly.

Hal quickly filled him in. Following their encounter a few days ago, Arthur's words apparently had such a profound impact on Pandora that upon being revived by Alexa, she had promptly turned over a new leaf.

"That's right!" she declared happily, "I realized that lashing out violently when people criticize things I like isn't very healthy. From now on when that happens, I'll just blog long paragraphs about it on social media. Much healthier, wouldn't you agree?"

She looked around the room proudly. Nobody replied.

Pandora revealed that this incident also made her realize that she had much to learn about human socialization, and as a result, she now wanted to study humans to better understand them...starting by hanging out with the four of them.

"Yeah sure, why not," said Arthur before the other three could stop him. He had never been the sort of person to hold grudges or say no to anyone, and this included formerly violent machines.

"Great!" Pandora said, clapping her metal hands. She hopped onto the table and crossed her legs, her face-screen displaying a friendly smile at the four of them "So, what do humans usually do for fun?"

"Well, it depends on the human," Katrina explained, who never missed a chance to share her knowledge of human behavior.

"Okay, so what do you guys like to do?"

"Oh, we uh..." she looked around, unsure of what to say, "We kinda just hang out and...talk I guess..."

"Okay, let's do that then!"

Nobody said anything because of course it's hard to have a normal conversation when you know a robot's watching you.

"How about we watch a movie instead?" Valerie suggested after about a minute of silence.

"Oh, I love movies!" Pandora exclaimed.

Hal perked up a little. "You do?" he asked, sensing common ground. "Why don't you pick then?" He offered Pandora his laptop.

"Yeah, sure!" she exclaimed. "I'm a huge nerd when it comes to analyzing Disney movies. Like, did you know that Frozen was a subversive masterpiece by not making the princess marry the prince?!"

Upon hearing this, Hal tried to retract his arms, but it was too late. Pandora had grabbed his laptop and was already scrolling through his list of movies rapidly, scanning their titles much faster than any human could. After just two seconds, she stopped and pointed at the screen.

"According to my databanks, this is a very well-known and well-received movie."

Katrina glanced over at the screen. The thumbnail featured several extremely pale but otherwise generic looking young adults set against a grey background staring languidly out from the screen. She read the title.

Twilight.

"Oh, hey! I know this one!" she heard Valerie exclaim behind her.

"Oh really?" Katrina replied, "Is it any good?"

"Yeah, it's really good!" Valerie replied. "Or at least my aunt says it is. She said it was like her favorite movie when she was our age and that she and her friends watched it multiple times in theaters when it came out."

"Alright, guess we're watching Twilight then. You guys are fine with that right?"

She looked to the boys. Arthur nodded in assent, but Hal seemed to be hesitating. In fact, Katrina noticed, he was actually visibly stressed, which was strange considering that Hal never got stressed about anything.

"Uh..." Hal chose his next words carefully, "Actually, I just realized, I have to go somewhere and do...Zeus kid things...with Arthur.

Technically, that was mostly true, he thought, as he grabbed Arthur's hand and dragged him out of the house. He did indeed "just realize" he wanted to do something else and by definition, anything he did with Arthur were "Zeus kid things."

Katrina watched narrowed eyes as the two boys left. She had of course known immediately what Hal had really been thinking. It wasn't that surprising actually: Hal was as nerdy as most other Athena kids thought they were, and he was sometimes extremely picky about movies, like that time he refused to sit through the second half The Lion King (2019) because it was "so much worse than the original." Honestly, the movie was probably fine, and he just didn't want to watch it because it doesn't have "well-developed characters" or "good writing", she figured.

"Alright, guess it's just the three of us then," she said, looking back towards Valerie and Pandora. "Let's do this thing."

Meanwhile on the outside, Arthur was finding it awkward to keep pace with Hal, who was taller, took longer strides, and seemed to be speedwalking as fast as he could away from Vesta House. When they were apparently far away enough, he finally let go of his arm.

"What was that all about?" Arthur asked, rubbing his wrists.

"Don't worry about it," Hal replied. Arthur noticed that this didn't answer his question at all.

"Wait a minute," he said, folding his arms. "Is this just like that one time when you couldn't finish The Lion King because you were complaining that it wasn't as good as the original or whatever?"

"That's because it really is that much worse than the original!" Hal uncharacteristically cried. He took a second to regain his composure. "And no, it's not the same thing, because this one is actually much worse. Trust me."

"If you say so..." Arthur sighed. "So now what?"

"I estimate that we have a little over two hours until the movie ends, so we'll just have to find something to do during that time. I was thinking we could go to the library and-"

"Let's go hang out with the other Zeus kids!" Arthur piped in suddenly.

Hal wrinkled his nose. "But why?" he asked.

"I don't know..." Arthur replied. Admittedly he had only come up with the idea just now. "Because they're our siblings?"

That last part felt weird coming out of his mouth. Most demigods were either "only children" or only had half-siblings that they rarely got along with. Arthur was different: since all the kids in his family had been adopted, none of them were considered "the odd one out." As a result, Arthur was probably one of the only demigods ever to grow up in a normal household. To him, his siblings were back home, and the Zeus kids were just a bunch of kids who all shared a common theme when it came to their superpowers.

"I mean..." he tried again, "...it's just that we never spend time with them. We're always either hanging out with the girls, or doing nerd stuff up in our room. Even when we're sitting right next to them at meals, we always end up ignoring them. I just think we should try hanging out with them at least once, you know?"

"But why do I have to come along?" Hal asked.

"Because...because we're friends?" Arthur said with a little shrug.

Hal made a noise halfway between a thoughtful "Hmmm" and an exasperated groan.

"I suppose I can't argue with that," he conceded. "Very well...let's go hang out with the other Zeus kids then.

Arthur's first instincts were to head to the Jupiter House common area, but Hal shook his head and pointed out that, unlike the other demigods, the Zeus kids never hung out in their common area. Arthur stopped to think and realized he was right. He had walked in and out of Jupiter House countless times over the past few weeks, and he couldn't recall a single time he had seen anyone hanging out in the common area. He thought back to his first impression of Jupiter House, with its cold hard floors, somewhat foreboding metallic statues, and less than cushy chairs that populated its lobby. It was easy to see why nobody ever hung out there.

Luckily, Hal seemed to know where the other Zeus kids would be based on his experience at the school last year, and so Arthur let him lead the way.

The field, or technically, "The Big Field," since that was name that ended up winning the official student vote, was a relatively newer addition to the school. Even from a distance, Arthur could just make out the clashing red and green of a typical high-school racetrack and field. As the two of them drew closer, he was able to get a better look at the students, most of which were children of Zeus he recognized either from the dining hall or from walking down hallways at Jupiter House.

They had reached The Big Field now, and Arthur could see that there were several different activities going on at the same time. At one end of the field, there was a game of full-on tackle football without equipment, involving mostly the high-school aged sons of Zeus (though Arthur did spot a senior year daughter of Ares). This was an obvious hard pass for both of them, so they kept walking. In the middle of the field was a soccer game with the Zeus kids on one side and the Hermes kids on the other; the Zeus kids appeared to be using their wind powers, while the Hermes kids were relying on their natural speed and trickery. Unfortunately, this was also a pass since the teams would be uneven if they joined and Arthur didn't have the right powers anyways, so they continued walking. As they walked, Arthur looked up at the bleachers on the other side of the track. It seemed that most of the daughters of Zeus had gathered here, along with children of some other gods, such as Aphrodite, Dionysus, and Persephone. They were all sitting in circles, either blithely chatting to each other about the latest internet drama or scrolling through their phones. It didn't seem like he had much in common with them, and at any rate, as a middle-schooler, he knew better than to just walk up to one of these circles and try to be friends with them (that sort of thing stops working after elementary school).

Finally, they reached the end of the field, where a group of students were playing what looked like a completely normal game of Ultimate Frisbee. As they passed by one of the players called for a timeout and started running towards them. Upon seeing them, Arthur recognized them immediately, while Hal let out a quiet groan.

She was none other than Skylar Kennedy, the head of Jupiter House, and also the most popular girl at Demigod Academy. She was tall, athletic, and pretty, with wavy blonde hair that reached her shoulders. In addition to her regular clothes, which consisted of the same sky-blue school shirt that all the Zeus kids wore (Arthur and Hal had them too) and dark blue running shorts, Hal noticed that she was wearing three Celestial Bronze bracelets, and a pair of flying sneakers (which were currently turned off for the Ultimate Frisbee game). The bracelets were her main weapons: the one on her left arm turned into a shield, while the two on her right arm turned into a sword and a spear. Hal wasn't too familiar with her "lore," but he knew that they had been a gift from her father Zeus, after she had gone on some crazy quest to fulfill some crazy prophecy in her very first year at the Academy. Likewise, the flying sneakers had been a gift from Hermes for saving his children from Penia, the goddess of poverty; he had given them to her so that she could fly back to prom just in time for the big slow dance with her mortal boyfriend. She had other similar gifts from other gods, but the bracelets and sneakers were the only ones she wore regularly; the rest she kept on a shelf in her room, next to her trophies and medals from her regular school.

"Hey, you guys!" she said, waving at them excitedly. "Arthur and Hal right? It's so good to see you two out here!" She sounded genuinely happy to see them. "You guys wanna join our game? We could definitely fit in two more players."

"Yeah sure!" said Arthur

"No thank you," Hal replied.

"Wait what?"

Arthur and Hal turned towards each other. Skylar looked back and forth between them.

"I see..." she said knowingly. "Well, I'll just let you two talk it out then. Just come back if you guys end up deciding to join. But if not, it was cool seeing you guys! You all should come outside more often! Especially you!" She pointed at Hal while grinning playfully (Hal groaned softly). And with that, she went back to her game.

Arthur waited until Skylar was out of earshot before asking, "I don't get it, why'd you say no?"

"I'm not really into sports," Hal replied. "Or social media stuff for that matter. In fact, it's the main reason I never hang out with the other Zeus kids: all they do is compete with each other in guy stuff or talk about drama. I'd much rather just stay inside and read. I guess Skylar's noticed that which is why she's always trying to get me to come out."

"I see where you're coming from," Arthur said, nodding. "But maybe it's not as bad as you think? Like, I don't think Ultimate Frisbee is like a "jocky" sport, it's more of a..."for funsies" sport...you know? Maybe you could give it a try?"

He looked to Hal for a hint of understanding or a change of his mind, but all he got was a blank stare back. Arthur sighed softly.

"Or...we could just look for something else to do I guess..."

They walked down the remaining length of the track and out the gate opposite of the one they had entered from. This led them down a path that ran right along the edge of a small hill: on their left was a grassy slope leading to the bottom of the hill, and on the right was the school's basketball court, where about a dozen boys a few years older than them were currently playing. Looking more closely, Arthur noticed that there were in fact two concurrent 3x3 games, one on each half of the court. On one side, there were sons of Zeus, recognizable by their sky-blue school shirts, and on the other side there were sons of Ares, who were wearing red shirts. Arthur even recognized one of them as a member of the Gang of Delinquents. He decided it was best not to even bother asking Hal if he was down for a game of basketball.

Just as the two of them passed the court, something very peculiar happened: a powerful gust of wind blew in from the side of the hill, catching both basketballs in midair and redirecting them. Arthur and Hal watched in surprise as both balls were blown off the court, flew right past them, and bounced down the hill.

Seeing as this was someone else's problem, Hal ignored them and continued walking, but Arthur, helpful as always, instinctively moved to chase after the balls.

"Wait," Hal started to say, as he made a weak attempt at grabbing Arthur to stop him, but it was too late, as he'd already moved out of arm's reach and was running towards the edge of the hill. Hal groaned inwardly, then began jogging after him.

Arthur reached the edge of the hill just half a second before everyone else did. From where he was standing, he could see where the two balls had rolled to a stop at the bottom of the slope.

Then he noticed something strange. A very pale boy in a purple shirt. around the same age, maybe slightly older, was running towards the balls. He grabbed one of them and looked up the hill.

Arthur looked right back.

The pale boy gazed at him mysteriously. He looked as if he might say something but then simply ignored Arthur and ran away with one of the balls. All of this happened in less than a second, such that at this point, the Ares kids and Zeus kids had caught up to Arthur and ran past him down the hill. Arthur expected them to chase after the boy who he had clearly just seen take one of the balls, but instead they simply ran down to where the remaining ball was and began fighting over it. He felt a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's go," said Hal, but Arthur wasn't quite ready to leave yet. He could sense something was very wrong and headed down the hill where the Ares and Zeus kids were. Hal reluctantly followed.

At the bottom, the two biggest boys from each House were doing a sort of tug-of-war over the ball, while the other ten boys had devolved into shoving and pulling each other to keep them away from interfering. The two boys holding onto the ball were exchanging heated words.

"Let go our ball asshole!"

"You mean YOU let go of OUR ball!"

"No, you stupid fuck! It was rolling down the hill from our side of the court, so this one is clearly ours!"

"Then you're either a liar or as blind as you are stupid because that ball clearly rolled down the hill from our side!"

The tug-of-war intensified. Arthur had the feeling that if someone didn't stop them, both sides would come to blows with each other.

"Guys, stop!" he shouted, but they ignored him.

"I think I saw who took your ball."

That got their attention. Both sides slowly deescalated, though the two main boys on each side were still careful to maintain their grip. All the boys turned their attention towards Arthur, their eyes focusing on his blue Zeus kid shirt.

"Ah, it's just another Zeus kid," one of the Ares kids cried. "Probably just trying to trick us or something." He postured aggressively towards Arthur, but then...

"Hold up Kyle," said the main Ares kid. Now that Arthur was able to get a better look at everyone, he realized he recognized him. It was one of the guys from the Gang of Delinquents. He thought he remembered the other Delinquents calling him...Chad?

"Let's hear him out," Chad commanded, and Kyle backed off.

"Hey, I know you," said the main Zeus kid. "You're that new kid who moved in down the hallway." Arthur nodded. He'd also seen the boy around Jupiter House before. He was pretty sure his name was Brad or something.

"Alright, so spit it out," Kyle demanded. "Who did you see take our ball- I mean their ball? Because this one is clearly ours of course."

Arthur's mind raced. They had calmed now but he sensed that if they didn't like what he said, they might get violent again. He decided to start with the truth and told them what he had seen.

"But that can't be right!" said Brad. "We were right behind you. If someone took one of the balls, we would've at least seen them running away!"

Arthur had literally been thinking the same exact thing. Why could only he see the mysterious pale boy? Maybe it was a ghost or whatever ghosts were called in Greek mythology...a shade! He'd been at this school for weeks, but he still wasn't an expert on Greek mythology lore or history or whatever. Meanwhile, the big scary looking boys were clearly expecting an answer...

"He was...running at super speed..." he lied slowly. "Yeah. That was probably why you weren't able to see him." This caused the Ares and Zeus kids to start mumbling to each other.

"Speedster powers? Who has that again?"

"It's gotta be one of the Hermes kids, right?"

"Fucking Hades, come on guys let's go fuck 'em up and get our ball back."

Arthur panicked. This was the exact opposite of what he'd wanted to happen.

"Wait!" he cried. "Let me do it!"

The boys looked at him curiously. Hal cringed.

"You want to...get the Zeus kids' ball back?" asked Chad.

"I mean, I don't know whose ball was stolen," he said diplomatically, "but yeah, I'll get go get it. (Hal groaned.) I mean, it makes the most sense because I'm the only one who saw who did it right?"

Chad and Brad exchanged glances, then...

"Alright, I'm cool with this," Chad said.

"You are?" asked Brad.

"Yeah. Are you not?"

"No, I am...I just think it's weird you'd trust a Zeus kid over this."

"Let's just say I have a good feeling about this one." Arthur got the distinct impression he was referring to being in the Gang of Delinquents.

"Alright that's fine and all, but who's gonna take this ball that we have here?" asked Kyle.

"You guys can hold it for now," Brad replied.

"You're okay with us having it?" said Chad.

"I'm trusting Arthur to deliver on what he's saying," Brad answered. "If he doesn't, then well, we know who our ball's with, and we'll simply take back what's ours."

He let go of the ball and turned to the other Zeus kids. "Come on boys, let's go." And with that, the Zeus kids left.

"Gods he's such a prick," Chad muttered. Then he turned to Arthur. "Hey, you'd better deliver on this. Brad's an ass, but he doesn't fuck around so if you mess up and they end up taking our ball from us...well I'm sure you get the point."

He motioned to the Ares boys. "Come on guys, let's go." And with that, the Ares kids left.

"I feel like you should've just done nothing," Hal muttered. "I mean what's the worst thing that happens? The Zeus and Ares kids get into a race war over a basketball of all things? Big deal...alright I suppose I understand why you intervened, even if I'd rather not get involved. I suppose you'll want my help on this search too."

Arthur nodded.

"Very well, I suppose we'd better get started then."

The two of them shuffled along back towards the main area of the Academy.

"I wonder what the girls are doing right now," Hal mused.

------

Meanwhile, back at Vesta House, Valerie, Katrina, and Pandora sat on a couch watching Twilight. The three of them were almost an hour into the movie, their eyes on the laptop screen as Edward crouched on a tree branch, looking down on Bella.

"Your scent...it's like a drug to me," he droned. "You're like my own personal brand of heroin."

Valerie and Katrina burst out laughing. Pandora's face-screen shifted to a frown.

"What's so funny?" she asked. She sounded slightly offended.

"Just...everything!" Katrina replied. "You're telling me this was a huge hit back in the 2000s? That people watched this and actually thought it was good?"

"It is good!" Pandora cried. "You know, the only reason people hate this movie is because teenage girls like it, and society loves to hate things that teenage girls like."

As she said this, the movie continued to play in the background.

"I'm not afraid of you....I'm only afraid of losing you," Bella murmured.

"Yeah, you know what, you're absolutely right," Katrina said. "Anyone who thinks this movie is bad just hates us. Literally no other possible reason."

She leaned back as Bella and Edward talked about what stupid lambs and sick lions they were.

------

Author's Notes:

1) Skylar doesn't have any special and rare powers; she just has a wide variety of common Zeus kid powers. In fact, on a scale of 0 to 10, where 0 is most specialized and 10 is most general, Skylar sits at a 9, since the only generic Zeus kid power she doesn't have is the ability to fly. For comparison, here is where other canon characters and OCs lie on the spectrum...

0: Arthur and Hal are both extremely specialized: Arthur has only electric and no wind powers, while Hal has only wind and no electric powers.

2: Hazel Levesque's primary ability is her ability to control precious minerals, but she does have some death sense and shadow travel powers.

5: Will Solace has both healing and archery powers but is stated to be less skilled in archery compared to his siblings and leans more into the healing aspect.

9: Percy Jackson has many powers associated with Poseidon, but he can't summon earthquakes. Thalia Grace might also be here, since it's uncertain whether she can't fly or just doesn't fly.

10: Jason Grace and Nico di Angelo have an extremely wide variety of powers that cover every aspect of their respective godly parents.

2) The reason the Zeus and Ares kids care so much about their basketballs is because they were magical spoils of war obtained from a quest. Years ago, Jupiter House and Mars House teamed up to take on the Erymanthian boar. Upon its defeat, the beast dropped a pair of oddly textured and very bounceable balls, and each House took one for itself. As the Erymanthian boar has yet to respawn, these balls are one of a kind, and each House treasures theirs greatly, so it's almost understandable that they'd be willing to go to war with each other over them.

Chapter Text

"Superspeed hmm?" Hal mused as the two of them walked back towards the heart of the Academy. "That does sounds like a Hermes thing. I suppose this means we're going to Mercury House then?"

"Well...not exactly..."

Arthur told Hal what he had seen: the strange pale boy whom nobody else seemed to see running off with one of the balls as everyone ignored him and began quarreling with each other. Hal listened to all of this without saying a word and Arthur thought maybe he wasn't paying attention or ignoring him until he said...

"Why didn't you just tell them that instead of lying?"

Arthur was stunned. "I don't know. I guess it felt like they were going to start killing each other unless I said something, and I wasn't sure if they would've believed me if I'd told the truth. I mean, seeing things nobody else can see isn't exactly normal, even in this place, right?"

"No," Hal shook his head. "Normal Academy magic is like how every week one of the sons of Neptune blows up the toilets then claims it's "an homage to Percy Jackson" or someone gets in trouble for trying to grow a weed plant on the roof of Ceres House. What you're describing -- a person able to be seen by only one other person -- seems like the type of thing a god would do."

"A god? Seriously?" he cried, his voice higher than usual. "You think a god revealed themself to me? But why?! Do they want something?!"

In contrast, Hal sounded completely unfazed. "Perhaps...but unlikely? I mean, why would a god steal some kids' basketball but choose to show themself doing it to you specifically?"

He thought deeply about his own question. "I suppose Hermes is the god of thieves and trickery so this would technically be related to his domain. Also, the gods in general do sometimes have 'peculiar' motivations. So, I guess it's technically not impossible, but just because it's not impossible, doesn't mean we should focus on it, I mean that'd literally be following headcanon logic."

"A... a what logic?"

"A headcanon. It's like a fan theory unsupported by evidence so it's basically just a validated delusion."

"Oh, is this one of those nerdy things again?"

"My point is, we can't be completely sure it's not a god, but let's just assume it wasn't because that's a more constructive way of thinking"

"Alright. I mean I'd definitely prefer not to think about it if a god were singling me out." Arthur said, considerably relieved. "But if it's not a god, then what else could it be?"

Once again, Hal went quiet for so long that Arthur wasn't sure if he was thinking or just being quiet. Finally, he broke the silence.

"I can only think of one Greek mythological entity that's not a god, could be in this school, AND accounts for what you saw." He paused dramatically. "An eidolon."

"An eidolon? Aren't those the ghosts don't have any form or substance until they take over your body and then you get golden eyes?"

"Well...I don't know about the golden eyes thing," Hal answered, which was his way of saying 'I can't prove it, but that sounds fake and stupid.' "I have heard of the myths where they possess people, but it's not their defining trait, and they definitely aren't amorphous. In fact the mythology behind them is pretty interesting..." he kept on going, and Arthur could sense a classic Hal nerd lecture incoming.

"Eidolons were actually primarily featured in Euripides' Helen, where it's often translated as 'phantom', but they're way more than just ghosts. Basically, Helen the play states that Helen the person was never actually involved in the Trojan war, it was an eidolon version of her created by Hera who ditched Menelaus to be with Paris and caused the entire thing to go down, while the real Helen did nothing wrong. So obviously for that to make sense, the eidolon isn't really a ghost, and more like a... a 'spirit clone', which is why it's also often translated to 'image' or 'likeness', but it also has substance too: Helen the play specifically states that Paris held Helen the eidolon in his arms. To be honest, if Greek mythology weren't real, I'd have said that it was painfully obvious that the whole concept of an eidolon was just made up by Euripides just to shamelessly retcon Helen's involvement in causing the Trojan War by claiming 'it was a fake', but since Greek mythology is real I'm not really sure which version is true, but I think Chiron teaches us about it during our Junior or Senior year here."

(THIS IS ALL REAL BY THE WAY! EVERYTHING Hal SAID ABOUT HELEN, EIDOLONS, AND HELEN'S EIDOLON ARE LITERALLY 100% TRUE! YOU CAN LITERALLY LOOK THIS STUFF UP ONLINE!)

"Anyways my point is that while I think maybe they can act as real ghosts and disappear, they definitely can also take on the form of a person, and maybe that would explain what you saw."

"Ok..." was all Arthur could say. "That was...extremely informative and strangely detailed at times. So, I guess basically, the boy I saw was actually an eidolon, maybe a god, but probably just an eidolon."

"Precisely."

"But how do we track down an eidolon and get the ball back?"

"I'm not sure, but I figured we could try going to the library, the school one not the Minerva House one of course, and start there. Also, we'd better hurry because again, if we fail, the children of Zeus and Ares will have a race war against each other so...no pressure!"

The two of them speedwalked the rest of the way across campus to where the library was. It was large, much larger than the high-school library he'd passed by on his way to see Cillian's school play, and more like the one at the university they'd always get dropped off at when they visited his brother Ezekiel.

They pored over the books for over three hours. Rather, Hal pored over the books while Arthur struggled to keep up a normal reading pace. It wasn't even an ADHD and dyslexia thing, he just wasn't a very good reader, and the fact that he could see the other demigods who probably did have ADHD and dyslexia sitting at the other tables maintaining better focus than him made him feel even more embarrassed. While the two of them (again, it was mostly Hal) learned quite a lot about eidolons (turns out the golden eyes thing wasn't true), they weren't any closer to finding out how to track down an eidolon or anything else that could help them recover the lost basketball.

"Oh, this is hopeless," Arthur groaned. "Why'd the stupid ghost or spirit clone have to steal one of the balls? And why do the high-school boys have to care so much over a literal basketball of all things that they'll literally kill each other over it?"

"Can I just say that I like how you use the term literal properly and the term literally hyperbolically in the same sentence?" Hal remarked. "Also, if it makes you feel better, I think things aren't as bad as you might think. Those older sons of Zeus should beat the sons of Ares pretty easily, I mean they are children of Zeus after all. And considering that one ball that was left belongs to the sons of Zeus anyways, it's only fair that they get it back? If anything, the sons of Ares should be grateful we're looking for their ball when it's not our job to do so."

Something Hal said that caught Arthur's attention. "Huh?" he said. "Wait what do you mean it's their ball?"

"The ball they were fighting over, remember? That one's the one that belongs to the older Zeus kids."

"How do you know that?"

Hal shrugged. "The way it was rolling down the hill, it seemed to be coming from their side."

Something clicked in Arthur's head. "You're absolutely sure?" he asked.

"Yes," Hal answered. His eyes narrowed. "Why? What did you see?"

Arthur thought back to when Chad and Brad were having their tug-of-war over the ball while the other boys were pushing each other around. Both of them had been insisting that the ball had come from their side of the court. At the time, Arthur had assumed that the boys were both sides were blatantly lying because...

"I didn't see it rolling at all. It had rolled to a stop at the bottom of the hill when I saw it," he replied. Arthur remembered how he had been the first one to reach the edge of the hill, so it was impossible for the boys who reached there later to see the ball while it had been rolling.

But now Hal was claiming that he saw the same thing as the older Zeus kids, and unlike the older kids, it wouldn't make sense for Hal was almost certainly telling the truth, which meant...

...somehow the Zeus kids were telling the truth about seeing the ball rolling from their side of the court!

Arthur quickly relayed this information to Hal. "Could an eidolon do something like that?"

"I don't think so," Hal shook his head. "Maybe as 'phantoms' they could make themselves appear to just one person, but I don't think they can create two different versions of events like that? It would have to be some kind of illusion-"

"What about the Ares kids?"

"What do you mean?"

Arthur thought about the Ares kids, how Chad seemed to know that Brad and the other boys would win their ball back. They seemed stubborn, too stubborn to back off from a fight, but not so stupid and bull-headed that they would chase a fight with children of the Big Three. What if...

"What if the Ares kids weren't lying either?" Arthur said aloud. "If the Zeus kids weren't lying about thinking the ball had come from them, maybe Ares kids weren't lying about it either?"

"It's...a distinct possibility," Hal said slowly, as if he adjusting to the idea that not all Ares kids were belligerent NPCs. "So that makes three different versions of the events, one of which only you saw?" His eyebrows furled in concentration. "But that's so strange. Why all the different versions? Even on a technical level -- the amount of control over The Mist required to create two different illusions thick enough to fool demigods is-"

"The Mist?!" Arthur knew this was the answer to everything, but he had to be sure. "You're saying The Mist has to do with this?"

Hal nodded. "Most people assume that The Mist is just a passive effect that stops mortals from finding out about Greek myth stuff. It does do that, but it can also be actively manipulated to change what people see and remember and even warp reality sometimes? I think Chiron does it whenever he leaves a school he's scouting: he'll just use the Mist to create an entire teacher out of nowhere to take his place."

Arthur thought back to the day he discovered his powers. He had been able to see the empousai clearly for what they were, which was what saved them. When he'd told that one girl, Sophia, she had told him that he had a special power. He quickly told all of this to Hal.

"Which means that it's not three illusions, it's two illusions and one reality," Hal concluded. "This simplifies everything. All the children of Zeus received the illusion that it was their ball, while all the children of Ares received the illusion that it was theirs."

"How did they know who to give which vision to though?" Arthur asked, then realized the answer as soon as he finished asking. "Oh duh, our shirts. All of us were wearing the colors of our Houses."

Hal nodded. "I'm almost certain that you were meant to receive the first illusion too, it just so happened that you were able to see right through it with your True Vision." He continued thoughtfully, "Also, now that we know that what you saw wasn't a phantom, but 'the truth you weren't supposed to see', I'm pretty sure the pale boy you saw stealing the ball was probably the person behind the illusion."

"That's good, but how are we going to find him? Are we just going to have to wait all the way until dinner? What if the Zeus and Ares kids kill each other before then?"

"Oh...I think I know a way."

10 seconds later, the two of them were at the front desk of the library where a pretty librarian with cat eye glasses was working at.

"Hello, we'd like to borrow a copy of last year's yearbook please?" said Hal. "My friend's new here and I just want to show him some club stuff."

The librarian nodded, disappeared for awhile, then returned with a hardcover book titled in symbols of the gods stylized to look like something a teenager might doodle in their notebook. At the dead center of the cover, in Comic Sans, read the title "Demigod Academy 2032"

10 more seconds later, and Hal and Arthur were sifting through the Trivia House section: the children of Hecate were renown for their manipulation of the Mist and of course their school shirts were purple. After a few minutes of page turning, they finally found him. Judging by his photo, paleness that Arthur had assumed was some kind of phantasmic aura was just his normal skin tone. Arthur scanned the side of the page for the corresponding name. "John Geimercel."

"Well," said Hal, "Now we know his name, we know where we can find him."

The two boys started out walking towards Trivia House, but then broke into a light jog, as the anticipation of concluding this mystery got the better of them.

"One thing I still don't get is..." Arthur pondered as he ran, "...why did this John guy make two different illusions? All it did was get the Ares and Zeus kids pissed off at each other."

"Well...maybe that was why he did it," Hal replied.

Compared to the basketball courts, the Houses were only a short distance from the Academy Library. The two of them entered Trivia House and began scanning the doors for their names. It was slow work at first, as the names written as indentations in the obsidian plaques were difficult to make out until Arthur realized that if you put your finger near them, the writing magically glowed like violet embers shining through the black glass. After that, it became much easier to scan everyone's names, and eventually they came across a room at the end of a hallway with only one name on the plaque: John Geimercel.

"Huh, I guess he doesn't have a roommate," Hal remarked. "Let's just try knocking first and seeing what happens."

He knocked the door. A moment later the door slowly creeped on, and from the inside a skinny pale boy peeked out cautiously. His eyes widened as he recognized Arthur, and he rushed to shut the door. Arthur instinctively moved to stop him, and his quick thinking was rewarded with getting his fingers slammed.

Pain seared through his hand, and he activated his powers without meaning to, sending a spark to his injured hand, which was touching the metal door latch that was also connected by metal to the metal doorknob. There was a zapping sound followed by a loud yelp from inside the door and the door casually swung open.

Hal pulled open the door and stormed into the room, followed by Arthur nursing his injured hand. They took half a second to take in in their surroundings.

Despite being built for two people and currently having only one person living in it, the room was messy. The bottom bunkbed was unmade, with half the blanket slipping over the edge and onto the floor. The top bunk bed was filled with a clutter of cardboard boxes labelled with familiar things like "board games" and less familiar terms like "40k tyranid army" The two desks, normally on opposite sides for different roommates, had been shoved together to make space for two large HD monitors and a black keyboard with flashing lights, which were connected to a custom-built PC under the table, all sitting in front of the largest and fanciest gaming chair that Arthur had ever seen.. There were random bits of trash, homework, and textbooks strewn on the floor, along with a growing laundry pile in the unused corner of the room. The wall between the bed and the desks where the window presumably was, had been covered by a massive shelf filled with different anime and video game figurines, some of which were still inside their boxes.

At the foot of his bed sat the pale boy, no longer as mysterious as he had been earlier.

"It's him!" Arthur cried. "It's John Geimercel!"

"Don't call me that!" the boy shouted indignantly. "It's pronounced 'Guy-mercel'! It used to be Geimerdinger, but my family changed it when we moved to America in the 1930s to escape the Nazis."

"Oh..." said Arthur, feeling embarrassed and silly in that way one does when they find out they've been mispronouncing a word this whole time.

"What do you guys want from me anyways?" John whinged. "I didn't- I didn't do anything."

Hal ignored him as he scanned the room. Nothing. He opened the closet, which strangely enough didn't have any clothes as all of those were on the floor, just boxes of Mythomagic cards and...

He spotted something peaking out in the back, reached in...and pulled out a basketball.

"Get your hands off that, that's mine!" John cried meekly from the floor.

"I think you know it isn't," Hal replied, then turned to Arthur. "Alright, that's it I guess, let's go return this to the other Zeus kids."

"Not so fast." a voice boomed from behind them as they turned to leave. At the same time, a gust of wind blew past their ears and shut the door close.

They turned around. John was standing now. His eyes glowed blue as he glared at them, a glowing ember in one hand, and sparks between his fingertips on the other. Surrounding him was a tornado that was picking up on loose pieces of trash and laundry on the floor. He has control over the elements Arthur realized. That was how he made the wind blow those balls over the hill!

John menacingly aimed the sparking fingertips at them. "You two shouldn't have-"

Hal didn't even give him the chance to finish his monologue and flung a gust of wind at John. John tried to sidestep but was too slow; the gust blew right through his tornado, extinguished the glowing ember in his hand, and flung him backwards against his bed and bookshelf. Several of the figures on the shelf fell, including a box that opened up and spilled out its figure: it was a green alien wearing sci-fi armor with a blaster in one hand and a yellow lightsaber in the other.

"No, my limited edition Mandalorian Knight Grogu Funko Pop!" John squealed. "Alright I'm sorry for real this time, ok? Please, just leave me alone!"

"I must admit I'm a little curious, why would you do all this?" Hal asked. "Did the big kids do anything to you? Make fun of your name or anything?"

"Yes!...No!...Kinda!" John cried. "They're always just...being dudebros and doing dudebro things and shoving their dudebro lifestyles down my throats I'm so fucking sick of it! Also why, what's wrong with my name?"

"Nothing at all! And I'm in the same boat as you are to be honest," Hal replied. "But why not just ignore them if they make you this angry? Just focus on your own... (he looked around the room) ...hobbies?"

"Because I don't want to focus on my own hobbies," John yelled. "I want to make the dudebros pay!"

"Uh-huh, uh-huh, I see," Hal said while nodding. "Well, I'll be sure to tell that to the 'dudebros' when I return their ball to them."

"Wait you can't do that!" John screamed. "They're going to kill me! Please, have mercy!"

Hal pretended to give the matter a lot of thought, then he said. "Okay, but only if you promise not to do anything like this anymore."

"I won't! I promise!"

"Swear it on the River Styx!"

"Don't you think that's a little...much?" Arthur asked.

"It's only too much if he's dumb enough to break the oath," Hal whispered, then turned back to John. "Do it, or I won't just tell the dudebros it was you, I'll...I'll...I'll use my son of Zeus lightning powers that I totally have on your Baby Yoda Funko Pop!"

"His name is Grogu and also fine, I'll do it." He took a deep breath. "I swear not to use my powers to manipulate people into turning against each other...on the River Styx."

"Very well," Hal replied, "And I swear on the River Styx that I won't tell the sons of Ares and Zeus about your involvement..unless someone like Chiron or Dean D makes me do it because I wouldn't want to get into really big trouble or go insane but honestly I think that's fair because if this ever reaches them, I think you'll have much bigger concerns."

And so, it was done. Arthur looked at the floor, half expecting holes to open up and the souls of the damned to drag John and Hal down into Tartarus, but nothing happened.

"Well, that's that I suppose," Hal said, casually giving the basketball a toss. "Come on, let's get this back to the other sons of Zeus." And with that, he and Arthur left John to start cleaning up his fallen anime and video game figures.

Two minutes later, they were at Jupiter House. Luckily for them, they didn't have to look hard, as Brad and a large group of older boys and girls were gathered in the common area, apparently planning for a worst-case scenario situation with Mars House.

"You did it!" Brad exclaimed as Arthur presented the recovered ball toe the room. 

"You're a real hero dude, you know that?" said one of the Zeus kids who had been at the basketball court whom Arthur didn't recognize. "A true child of the Big Three. I have a feeling you're going to be one GOATs." Arthur was surprised by this high compliment, but before he could even say thank you, the boy grabbed the ball from him and started bouncing it on the marble floor, as evidently, that was what he really cared about.

There were a mix of a few cheers, some acknowledgements of their deeds, and people leaving as there was no longer a need to plan for war between the Houses anymore. The other Zeus kids ended up ordering pizza from the Hermes kids and throwing a bit of a party in their honor. For the first time, Arthur really felt that he was "one of them."

Once the party was over and cleaned up, Arthur and Hal were left alone.

"That was kinda fun, wasn't it?" Arthur said. "Aren't you glad we ended up doing this?"

"What do you mean?" Hal asked.

"Come on, you know exactly what I mean!" Arthur replied. "Mister 'I never want to interact with the other Zeus kids'."

"Now see here Arthur..."

"I think we all learned a valuable lesson here today..."

"Lesson? I don't know what you're talking abo-"

"...about sometimes we should give new experiences a chance..."

"No, I don't think that's the lesson to be learned here, actually. The real lesson is..."

"...and not to judge people by their covers."

"No, the real lesson is judging people by their covers is perfectly fine actually, and!...and!...and!...and it's only wrong to do so if you use your superpowers and actually act on such judgments!"

The boys continued bantering like this as they left Jupiter House to return to Vesta House.

"You think the girls will be mad at us?"

"Well, we did leave them alone with a robot to watch Twilight then disappear for about four hours."

"Just another typical Saturday at the Academy, huh."