Darlyng wondered helplessly in forest, her shoes seemed to be weighing her down and the cold winter air sent chills through her clothes. The whistle of the wind as she ventured into the woodland. Elle was no help, not much of a surprise but... At last there was a sign of civilization. Resting upon a hill was a castle like monument, a smile graced the fairy's face as she broke in to a slight sprint but then came to an abrupt halt; setting Elle down she dug through her bag for a jacket, quickly fishing one out. Trying desperately to will her wings into her back she threw a yellow raincoat on. Picking Elle up and onto her head she jogged lightly up the hill.
Before Darlyng could even knock on the door it was thrown open and she was dragged inside. A middle aged woman shushed her and continued to pull her into the building. Once the woman was satisfied she dropped Darlyng's hand
"Do you have any idea how late you are? I could lose my job".
A look of confusion made its way onto Dar's face
"I'm sorry but what exactly am I late for?"
the woman rolled her eyes before shoving a key and some papers into Darlyng's arm.
"Floor 3 , room 204. Go quickly and go quietly , I don't need you to go and wake everyone up"
Dar stood there for another second processing before she realized the lady wasn't going to answer her. She scurried of into the dimly lit hallway.
Ｉn Darlyng's many adventures with education she had never been to a boarding school, a military one no less. Elle had to be caged at all times, the food was disgusting and now they were holding mandatory dances. The girls on her floor had all gone out shopping for dresses eventually dragging Darlyng along with them. Jump to the present and here she is ,in a short puffy pink dress. If she was being honest she didn't hate it, point blank she loved dresses she just didn't like the dance. At some point she excused herself but as she pushed past the hoard of girls one caught her wrist and shoved something into her palm,
"You're gonna need this" she stated before winking at her.
That confused Dar even more, another reason to get out of the stuffy gym hall that was poorly decorated. Opening her hand as she exited the hall she found a cigarette case and a lighter.
Noticing the cameras Darlyng head outside, she was frozen to the bone and couldn't be bothered to go back inside to grab her jacket. Her hands clenched trying to keep the warmth in and she was reminded of the nicotine given to her, she had taken a health class on drugs and alcohols a few weeks prior; she knew it was bad.
She looked around for a place to sit, seeing no options Darlyng stuck out her hand and willed a tree to bend into a chair like form. Pleased she could still produce magic Dar took a seat , staring intently at the cigarette box she opened it, curiously placing one to rest between her fingers. Her other hand playing with the flame of the lighter, watching as it dwindled due to the harshness of the cold air.
Cautiously she brought the fire to the end of the cigarette, before putting it in her mouth inhaling. Her chest was filled with warmth and her throat craved for more. The winter breeze no longer affected her. The sense of addiction was new to Dar, where she came from drugs weren't a thing, they had there own methods of alcohol and the only way smoke would go into your mouth was if you accidently inhaled it in a forest fire.
Darlyng sat on the tree repeating the action for a bit. Suddenly the doors were pushed open and the vice principle stormed out with three kids in toe, she could never remeber his name; Thorpe? Thorn? Thorn sounded about right. Dar hid behind the wood to try and make herself less visible. Sticking her head out from her hiding spot, she recognized two of the kids The Di Angelo's or the school freaks; Dar didn't really know why they were called that.
"What are you doing, Jackson?" hissed Dr. Thorn. "Keep moving"
'Jackson' kept shuffling forward. "It's my shoulder, it burns." He sounded to be in some sort of pain.
"Bah! My poison causes pain. It will not kill you. Walk!" Thorn replied.
Poison? What poison, were they roleplaying? Was the vice principle some kind child-luring, roleplaying pedophile?
As they moved further into the woods Darlyng had an inkling to follow them, just incase he was a pedophile. Slowly crawling through the snow, cigarette still hot in her mouth.
"There is a clearing ahead," Thorn said. "We will summon your ride." Was he planning on kidnapping them? And where would he find a ride in the middle of a forest?
"What ride?" The girl Di Angelo demanded. "Where are you taking us?" She was a few grades below Darlyng and on a completely different floor.
"Silence, you insufferable girl!" This was some serious roleplay, maybe she should be intervening.
"Don't talk to my sister that way." The boy Di Angelo said, quivering. Dar smiled at the boys courage towards the man. Her palms were starting to get cold and she took a break from crawling to seek the warmth from her cigarette.
Dr. Thorn made a growling sound, "Halt" Thorn said.
The woods had opened up. They'd reached a cliff, Darlyng hung back as she would no longer have the coverage of the trees. Dr. Thorn pushed them toward the edge. 'Jackson' stumbled, and girl Di Angelo caught him.
The kids seemed to be communicating between each other. "Stop talking!" Dr. Thorn said. "Face me!" Wow he was controlling.
Dr. Thorn laughed speaking towards 'Jackson'. "By all means, Son of Poseidon. Jump! There is the sea. Save yourself." The smoke currently inhabiting Dar's lungs sent her into a coughing fit as she struggled to keep quiet. What the hell did he just say?
"I would kill you before you ever reached the water," Dr. Thorn said "You do not realize who I am, do you?" Something told Darlyng that this roleplaying had left the play zone, she slowly stood still hiding behind the tree line. Her scepter was still in her room, so was Elle and all her 'magical' items. Cigarette still in mouth she whispered an incantation, practically begging all her necessities into her satchel. She drew a square in the air and reached her hand inside the portal into her room. Feeling around for her bag, hurrying as she knew Elle would be squished inside.
"Unfortunately," Thorn said, "you are wanted alive, if possible. Otherwise you would already be dead." That was a bad sign, Dar hurried frantically searching for her bag.
Deciding to poke her head into her portal she spotted the satchel, grabbing hold of it before closing off the portal. Opening it she rummaged threw it.
"Elle?," She whispered "Ellie? we need to hurry." The frog jumped up onto her hand filling her mind with despicable curses. Darlyng rubbed her head softly before placing Elle on her head and peering back to her predatorial vice principle.
"Ah, here we are. Your transportation." Thorn stated. Dar took a drag of her cigarette.
"Where are you taking us?" boy Di Angelo said.
"You should be honored, my boy. You will have the opportunity to join a great army! Just like that silly game you play with cards and dolls."
"They're not dolls! They're figurines! And you can take your great army and-"
"Now, now," Dr. Thorn warned. "You will change your mind about joining us, my boy. And if you do not, well... there are other uses for half-bloods." Was that a slur? It sounded like slur to Darlyng." We have many monstrous mouths to feed. The Great Stirring is underway."
"The Great what?" 'Jackson' asked.
"The stirring of monsters." Dr. Thorn smiled evilly. "The worst of them, the most powerful, are now waking. Monsters that have not been seen in thousands of years. They will cause death and destruction the likes of which mortals have never known. And soon we shall have the most important monster of all-the one that shall bring about the downfall of Olympus!" Darlyng was starting to think the school gave crack to their employees. Did humans have monsters? Surely not.
Just then an invisible force slammed into them.
A girl with a shield ran towards them "For Zeus!" She had spiky black hair and the most beautiful electric blue eyes Darlyng had ever seen. She handled the spear in her hand like an instrument and she was a musician. The girl jabbed at Thorn and they fought.
"A manticore!" said a random blonde girl, where the fuck di she come from?
"Who are you people?" girl di Angelo demanded. "And what is that?"
"A manticore?" boy di Angelo gasped. "He's got three thousand attack power and plus five to saving throws!" Yep. Every human was on drugs.
The group of wannabe heroes attacked and they seemed to be loosing. Darlyng sighed, she would probably regret this decision for the rest of her life but nonetheless she ran into the battle field, scepter in hand and wacked Thorn's leg from behind causing him to fall to his knees. The kids stopped to stare at her or more likely the frog on her head. She smiled sheepishly before she was dragged to the floor by Thorn.
"Foolish girl! Why must you stand in my way" Dr. Thorn hissed as he threw Dar aside, he laughed. "Now do you see how hopeless it is? Yield, little heroes." Darlyng stumbled on to her feet, clutching her scepter angrily.
Then they heard a clear, piercing sound: the call of a horn blowing in the woods.
The manticore froze. For a moment, no one moved. There was only the swirl of snow and wind and the chopping of the helicopter blades.
"No," Dr. Thorn said. "It cannot be-"
His sentence was cut short when something shot past them like a streak of moonlight. A glowing silver arrow sprouted from Dr. Thorn's shoulder.
He staggered backward, wailing in agony.
"Curse you!" Thorn cried. He unleashed his weird body spikes, dozens of them at once, into the woods where the arrow had come from, but just as fast, silvery arrows shot back in reply. It almost looked like the arrows had intercepted the thorns in midair and sliced them in two.
The manticore pulled the arrow out of his shoulder with a howl of pain. His breathing was heavy. 'Jackson' tried to swipe at him with his sword, but Thorn wasn't as injured as he looked. He dodged the attack and slammed his tail into his shield, knocking the boy aside.
Then the arrow owners came out from the woods. They were girls, about a dozen of them. The youngest was maybe ten. The oldest, about fifteen, like Darlyng. They wore silvery ski parkas and jeans, and they were all armed with bows. They advanced on the manticore with determined expressions. That looked like a cult to Darlyng.
"The Hunters!" blonde girl cried. Didn't that mean they were all going to be hunted? Why was this chick so excited?
Behind Darlyng, the beautiful blue-eyed girl muttered, "Oh, wonderful."
One of the older looking archers stepped forward with her bow drawn. She was tall with coppery colored skin. Unlike the other girls, she had a silver circlet braided into the top of her long dark hair, so she looked like some kind of princess. "Permission to kill, my lady?" Oh great heavens, Dar wished she could go back to dance and just drink the disgusting punch that smelled of wet dog, she slowly back up as everyone's attention was on the cult of child girls.
The manticore wailed. "This is not fair! Direct interference! It is against the Ancient Laws." Dar had almost reached the tree line when another girl came forward.
"Not so," the girl said. This one was a little younger than the other, maybe twelve or thirteen. She had auburn hair gathered back in a ponytail. Her other features were to far away for Darlyng to see. "The hunting of all wild beasts is within my sphere. And you, foul creature, are a wild beast." She looked at the older girl with the circlet. "Zoe, permission granted."
The manticore growled. "If I cannot have these alive, I shall have them dead!" Shit, that's not nice to here is it?
He lunged at 'Jackson' and beautiful girl, knowing they were dazed.
"No.'" blonde girl yelled, and she charged at the monster. This whole thing was starting to play out like some cliché human rom-com. Fairy Television was never this complicated.
"Get back, half-blood!" the girl with the circlet said. "Get out of the line of fire!" Again Dar didn't know what a half-blood was but it sounded pretty insulting.
But blondie leaped onto the monster's back and drove her knife into his mane. The manticore howled, turning in circles with his tail flailing as the blonde hung on for dear life.
"Fire!" 'Zoe' ordered.
"No!" 'Jackson' screamed. That looked like a hidden romance waiting to boil, very dramatic.
But the Hunters let their arrows fly. The first caught the manticore in the neck. Another hit his chest. The manticore staggered backward, wailing, "This is not the end, Huntress! You shall pay!"
And before anyone could react, the monster, with blondie still on his back, leaped over the cliff and tumbled into the darkness. He was suicidal. Apart of Darlyng wanted to try and use her magic to save the child but she knew she shouldn't, it wasn't her place to interfere.
"Annabeth!" 'Jackson' yelled. Yep, this kid definitely had a crush on the blondie.
He started to run after her, but there was a snap-snap-snap from the helicopter-the sound of gunfire.
Most of the girl-cult scattered as tiny holes appeared in the snow at their feet, but the girl with auburn hair just looked up calmly at the helicopter.
"Mortals," she announced, "are not allowed to witness my hunt." Was she a fairy to? Mortals? Only someone who wasn't mortal would say that, right? This was all to confusing so Dar sat down and re-lit her cigarette hoping she could get the same jacked-up mind Dr. Thorn had.
She thrust out her hand, and the helicopter exploded into dust-no, not dust. The black metal dissolved into a flock of birds-ravens, which scattered into the night.
The Hunters advanced on group of children as Darlyng watched the scene playout.
The one called Zoe stopped short when she saw the beautiful girl. "You," she said with distaste.
"Zoe Nightshade." blue-eyed girl replied voice trembling with anger. "Perfect timing, as usual."
Zoe scanned the rest of us. "Four half-bloods, a satyr and a human, my lady." She listed six people Dar wasn't a satyr nor a half-blood but she wasn't human either, was there someone else here?
"Yes," 'my lady' said. "Some of Chiron's campers, I see." Who the fuck is Chiron?
"Annabeth!" 'Jackson' yelled. "You have to let us save her!"
The auburn-haired girl turned toward him. "I'm sorry, Percy Jackson, but your friend is beyond help." So this kids name was Percy? Heavens his parents must hate him.
He tried to struggle to his feet, but a couple of the girls held him down.
"You are in no condition to be hurling yourself off cliffs," the auburn-haired girl said, a statement Dar had to agree with.
"Let me go!" he demanded. "Who do you think you are?"
Zoe stepped forward as if to smack him. This was like watching those telenovelas the girls on Dar's floor had showed her.
"No," the other girl ordered. "I sense no disrespect, Zoe. He is simply distraught. He does not understand."
The young girl looked at him "I am Artemis," she said. "Goddess of the Hunt." What the fuck. Darlyng could hear Elle freaking out in the back of her mind but she tried to tune it out because her frog was starting to use some language that a frog shouldn't know.
The other boy gasped, then knelt hastily in the snow and started yammering, "Thank you, Lady Artemis! You're so... you're so... Wow!"
"Get up, goat boy!" Darlyng's girl crush snapped. "We have other things to worry about. Annabeth is gone!"
"Whoa," girl di Angelo said. "Hold up. Time out." Dar had completely forgot about her or her brother.
Everybody looked at her. She pointed her finger at all of them in turn, like she was trying to connect the dots. "Who... who are you people?" Maybe Darlyng could still sneak away as the attention was turned to the little girl.
Artemis's expression softened ."It might be a better question, my dear girl, to ask who are you! Who are your parents?" The cigarette in Dar's mouth was short so she put it into her hand and crumpled it into stardust before pulling out another and lighting it.
girl di Angelo glanced at her brother, who was still staring at Artemis.
Our parents are dead," she said. "We're orphans. There's a bank trust that pays for our school, but..."
She faltered. "What?" she demanded. "I'm telling the truth."
"You are a half-blood," Zoe Nightshade said. Her accent was hard to place. It sounded old-fashioned, like she was reading from a really old book. "One of thy parents was mortal. The other was an Olympian."
"An Olympian... athlete?"
"No," Zoe said. "One of the gods."
"Cool!" said boy di Angelo.
"No!" his sister's voice quavered. "This is not cool Nico!" Darlyng had to admit it was kind of cool tho.
'Nico' danced around like he needed to use the restroom. "Does Zeus really have lightning bolts that do six hundred damage? Does he get extra movement points for-"
"Nico, shut up!" his sister put her hands to her face. "This is not your stupid Mythomagic game, okay? There are no gods!" That was a bit harsh especially since one was right in front of her.
"Bianca, I know it's hard to believe. But the gods are still around. Trust me. They're immortal. And whenever they have kids with regular humans, kids like us, well... Our lives are dangerous." said the beautiful girl.
"Dangerous," 'Bianca' said, "like the girl who fell." Too soon, definitely too soon.
They continued talking as Dar took out some flies to feed Elle with, the fairy and frog engaging in their own conversation. Suddenly an arrow whizzed by Darlyngs ear landing just a millimeter away from her. Frightened she looked up placing Elle on her head and taking the cigarette out of her hands and placing it in between her fingers.
"We have been calling thee" Zoe said, an annoyed expression on her face as the group stared at Darlyng. "Come mortal we have no time to waste"
Dar stood up confused and followed the girl into a tent not before glancing at the spiky-haired female who happened to already be looking at her.
🇷🇦🇪 🇷🇦🇩🇮🇴
🇮 🇭🇦🇩 🇱🇴🇹🇸 🇴🇫 🇫🇺🇳 🇼🇷🇮🇹🇮🇳🇬 🇹🇭🇮🇸 🇨🇭🇦🇵🇹🇪🇷 🇧🇺🇹 🇮🇹 🇼🇦🇸 🇬🇪🇹🇹🇮🇳🇬 🇹🇴 🇱🇴🇳🇬 🇸🇴 🇮 🇭🇦🇩 🇹🇴 🇪🇳🇩 🇮🇹 🇸🇴🇲🇪🇼🇭🇪🇷🇪.🇭🇴🇵🇪🇫🇺🇱🇱🇾 🇲🇴🇷🇪 🇨🇭🇦🇵🇹🇪🇷❜🇸 🇹🇴 🇨🇴🇲🇪
🇭🇦🇵🇵🇾 🇳🇪🇼 🇾🇪🇦🇷 , 🇲🇴🇳 🇨🇭🇪🇷🇪❗
(not proof read and probably doesn't make any sense)