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All four of them making it to camp was a pipe dream.
No matter how many bolts of lightning Thalia summoned, no matter how many hellhounds Luke slashed down, no matter what strategy Annabeth came up with, and no matter what Grover tried to do, someone wouldn’t make it to camp. The hellhounds seemed to multiply, and the furies were relentless.
They were being hunted, like animals. All Thalia had done for so long was run. Run from her shitty mother, run from whatever prophecy these mythical beings babbled on about, and run from the monsters that wanted to rip her to shreds. She was so sick of it. Electricity coursed through Thalia’s very being, tempting her to show them just what she was capable of. She could show them that she didn’t need to run, and she could finally stop being hunted. She would free herself from this life of running away or die trying.
Thalia stopped in her tracks, turning to Grover. “Get them to camp.” She had said, and the satyr frantically tried to talk her out of it. Eventually, he realized it was futile. He couldn’t just drag her to camp, because all of these monsters were after her. Her family would not die because she was a coward, too afraid to fight.
No matter how this fight ended, Thalia would never run again. The world around her became irrelevant as she fought hellhound after hellhound, she was a storm of electricity. There came a sick sense of joy with fighting. She was powerful, and there was no denying that. Even so, there were always more hellhounds. She was outnumbered, dozens to one. No matter how much power Thalia possessed, she still wasn’t a god. She was mortal and her injuries were a testament to that.
A claw ripped across her chest.
In the moments following, Thalia accepted her fate. She would not be walking away from this fight, but she would be the last one standing. No monster would make it past her.
So she let go.
Thalia summoned every ounce of power she had, and even more that she didn’t.
A horrible scream escaped her.
Lightning rained down.
Something shattered.
For a glorious moment, Thalia stood victorious.
Then there was nothing.
And then there was everything.
For a moment, Thalia would have convinced herself that it was all a dream, but what dream left you on the ground where you died in the dream?
Somehow, Thalia knew that she shouldn’t have been alive. But here she was, in one piece, and in a body larger than she remembered. It was then that she became aware of the eyes on her. It was wrong, so incredibly, indescribably, wrong. She should’ve died.
Then someone pushed through the crowd, someone she’d never met but someone she recognized nonetheless.
Percy Jackson, that’s how he introduced himself.
So she introduced herself too. She was Thalia, daughter of Zeus. As much as she’d meant to introduce herself to him, she was reminding herself of it too.
Shortly after, she was whisked into the camp she’d died trying to reach, and into a building where she was checked for injuries. All that was left of her final stand upon Half-Blood Hill was the scar of claw marks across her chest, and she was sure that they were remnants of the attack that’d spelled her not-death. Apparently, her father had come from the heavens and took pity upon her. He turned her into a tree that created a barrier that protected Camp Half-Blood. All things considered, there were worse fates to have than protecting kids for an eternity.
Then she made the mistake of asking about Luke and Annabeth.
Chiron had started with the good news first. They had both made it to camp safely. Bad news: Luke was apparently leading an uprise to destroy the gods. Never let it be said that Thalia was Olympus’ greatest fan, but she would’ve never done that. She was left alone to come to terms with that, and that was when two mostly familiar faces walked in.
One of them was Annabeth. She was all grown up, about the same age as Thalia had been when she was turned into a tree. She wasn’t taller than Annabeth anymore, compared to the foot and a half she’d had on her last time she had seen her. Six years ago. Six years had passed in what had felt like an instant.
Behind her was Percy Jackson. Despite just meeting him today, something was familiar about him, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, almost as if they’d met before.
“So, Percy Jackson, who’s your godly parent?” She decided to ask, trying to break up the silence in the room.
“Poseidon,” He said, thinking for a moment before continuing, “I guess that makes us cousins, even if it doesn’t really count,” Thalia just about jumped with surprise. She had always thought she’d know if she met another forbidden child. She wasn’t sure how, but she’d always assumed she’d just know. That belief didn’t make Thalia doubt his claim at all though, because Percy looked every bit the child of Poseidon he claimed to be. His eyes were the exact same green as the sea, and his hair looked like it’d been tousled around by the wind despite the calm weather.
She had no clue what to say. “Well, nice to meet you then cousin.” That’d work for the time being. A few days passed, and the stares Thalia was getting did not escape her. Randomly she’d catch someone staring at her like she had grown an extra eye. She got to know Annabeth again, and it was almost funny how she was nearly the same as she’d been when she was seven. Granted, she could definitely convey what she was thinking better, rather than being annoyed when someone didn’t understand what she meant when she offered a handful of seemingly random words. When she was younger, Annabeth’s mind worked much faster than everyone else’s, but she didn’t realize that. So whenever she’d spit out a couple words that Luke and Thalia had no clue how to interpret, she’d get frustrated that they didn’t understand her plan.
She joined up with Percy throughout the day for activities, trying to ignore the stares from other campers. Percy was a cool guy, funny, he always had an impressively quick comeback time. Thalia could mess with him, and he would mess with her right back. Even if he was one to joke around, he took training seriously, which she liked. Thalia decided pretty early on that she liked Percy, he could match her energy. Even if he wasn’t what she expected of another forbidden kid, she certainly wasn’t disappointed with him. To be honest, she would much rather have Percy than whatever she expected him to be.
“Do they ever stop staring?” Thalia eventually asked Percy during archery. She had been growing more impatient with the gawking of campers by the day. If they didn’t stop soon, she might lose her mind.
He shrugged, “They will, the novelty will wear off eventually,” He then waved for Thalia to get behind him, “Right now though? They’re just scared of whatever is going to happen when I shoot this arrow.” After that, Percy shot off an arrow that somehow made an impossible turn, hitting the edge of the target next to his. He sighed, apologizing to the Apollo kid whose target he’d somehow hit. Thalia wasn’t quite sure how someone could be that bad at archery. Out of the five arrows Percy shot, not one of them hit his target, and that was somehow an improvement from the year before.
“The first time I shot a bow and arrow, I hit Chiron in the tail,” Percy had explained when she asked, and before Thalia could say anything, he continued, “He was standing behind me.”
Thalia laughed a bit harder with every disappointed, but not surprised sigh after he shot. Percy had rolled his eyes in response to the laughter, clearly used to the reaction his archery prowess garnered.
She’d laughed even harder when she took her first shot, where an Apollo kid complimented her, calling her a natural archer.
For all the lack of talent Percy had in archery, he made up for with his sword fighting. He was easily one of the best at camp, even if he was far from being the oldest. The only people she thought could give Percy a run for his money were herself, a few members of the Ares cabin, Annabeth, and Luke.
Luke. Someone she’d once known so well was a complete stranger now. She knew he was technically evil, but she still wanted to know what the hell happened while she was dead. Chiron had neglected to tell her what Luke had done, but she had an idea of what had happened. She’d heard whispers that he was the one who poisoned her tree, and that he’d stolen something. There were no facts though. Annabeth, at the mention of Luke, seemed uncertain, a look that was so foreign on Annabeth’s face, so Thalia decided against asking her. So she asked Percy.
Percy was probably the worst person to ask.
When Thalia asked about what Luke had done, Percy’s reaction surprised her.
Percy, who in Thalia’s experience was a go-with-the-flow type of guy who didn’t take insults or threats seriously, almost always just making some sort of sarcastic remark, had an outright vicious look on his face. His fists were clenched and his eyebrows were furrowed. To be honest, if Thalia hadn’t spent the past few days with Percy, she’d think that he was the evil one.
A quick glance at his lonely bead confused her, since Percy probably had barely known Luke if he’d only been at camp for a year.
“He stole your dad’s Master Bolt, and the Helm of Darkness,” The noise Thalia made was one that she had no clue that she could make, but Percy didn’t so much as look at her, “Made it look like it was my dad’s doing, and who else would Poseidon send to steal his brother’s symbols of power other than his kid?”
Oh.
That made sense actually.
Then, much to Thalia’s horror, Percy continued, he dryly recounted how Luke had summoned a hellhound into camp, how he gave them his flying shoes, and the Iris message. How the shoes were supposed to drag Percy into Tartarus. How the idea that Luke had betrayed him never even crossed his mind, even as the shoes Luke gave him nearly dragged Grover in Tartarus.
Percy looked like he wanted to run Luke through with his sword.
“A few days before summer ended, at the firework show, Luke invited me to the woods with him, to hang out before summer ended. Of course I trusted him. He was the only one who acted like I was a person. I thought he was my friend.” Thalia pretended not to notice the tears budding at the corner of his eyes. “When we were alone, he confessed to being the thief. After that, he summoned a scorpion from Tartarus, and set it on me. He said the poison would kill me in one minute, then he left me alone to die.” The venom with which Percy spat the words almost shocked Thalia into forgetting what he’d said before that.
Luke had tried to kill Percy. Multiple times. He’d nearly gotten Annabeth killed. His gift had damn near dragged Grover into Tartarus.
She very quickly understood why Luke had become taboo at Camp Half Blood.
Thalia didn’t bring up Luke after that.
Partly because she didn’t understand how. How Luke, the same guy who would give a kid the shirt off his back if they asked, turned into someone who could try and kill a kid. It didn’t make any sense. Sure, Luke was angry, but they all were. Even here, at camp, they were all angry with the gods, but they weren’t trying to destroy Olympus.
Luke had fucked up majorly, and he had a lot to answer for, but nobody truly evil would willingly surround themselves with essentially danger beacons because they asked him for help. There had to be good left in him somewhere, because although he’d done unforgivable things, it came from a place of care for all the demigods who met the same fate as Thalia, but without her luck.
That sentiment died with Bianca DiAngelo. It died with Zöe Nightshade, and it died like Luke should’ve when she kicked him off that cliff.
It was ironic really, that Thalia had died so that she’d never have to run again, but here she was, still running like the coward that she knew she was. She didn’t deserve to be the lieutenant of the hunt just like Percy didn’t deserve the prophecy she’d dumped on him. It wasn’t fair that she’d essentially killed Percy Jackson while she got to run with the hunters. (Funny isn’t it? She was still running, but now she was doing the hunting).
It was an unfairly beautiful summer day when Thalia realized what a fate she had doomed herself to. The hunters had paid a visit to Camp Half-Blood, and she’d been taking some time to catch up with Annabeth, who was telling her about one of her classes at New Rome University. Annabeth who she was five years older than. Annabeth who was eighteen while Thalia was still fifteen, and would be until the day she died.
It was that day that she truly realized what she had done by joining the hunters. If she did her job right, she would outlive everyone she knew and loved at camp.
Becoming part of the hunters of Artemis was the greatest honor ever bestowed upon Thalia, and she loved being a hunter.
What she didn’t love was the fact that she’d be the last one standing of her friends, and wasn’t that a sick twist of fate?