The rights to the series have been disclaimed.
Author's Notes: As a rule, I avoid half-bloods in PJO, possibly because mortal characters interest me more. Except in this case, where she waltzed in and made me grin. This is strictly a oneshot. There will be no continuations. Thank you for reading.
It had all started out with a school trip.
Something really boring, of course. It wouldn't be a school trip otherwise. Art, for Pete's sake. And old, dead, naked guy art to boot. When there was a swimwear exhibition happening at the mall? It didn't take an IQ of one-sixty to figure out which one was better.
Then again, what could you expect with Mrs. Ecredia? The woman wore a disgustingly old flowery dress paired with mouldy sandals.
She really couldn't imagine how humanity could have sunk to those depths, and she was pretty sure her friends/cheerleading colleagues would agree with the sentiment. And imagine coming to school with hair like that…
She repressed a small shudder and painted a bright smile on her face as Justin Garner obviously leered at her. The guy was a little dim, but he was cute. She could always stomp on him if he got too close; heels didn't just look great, they were near-perfect weapons to boot.
She brightened her smile by a couple of watts.
Justin beamed. Mrs. Ecredia pounced.
"Miss Mosby, can you tell us what this statue indicates?"
"Umm," she snapped around to stare at the marble statue. "They didn't have fig leaves in Ancient Greece?"
There were titters. She smiled beguilingly at Mrs. Ecredia, who glared back with considerable venom.
"Not what I was looking for, Miss Mosby, but I supposed I shouldn't be surprised. Who else?"
Somebody said something about Greek gods of the sun. She idly decided to see if she could find any actual Greek gods wandering around the place (yeah, right) instead. It turned out to be a very good move, because she saw the projectile hurtling towards her in time to duck.
Something smashed into the Sun god's stomach hard enough to take out giant chunks of marble. People screamed, and shattered. She was at the front of that line. At least until Justin Garner passed her in his mad dash for the exit.
Huh, loser. Like she'd let him take her to the spring formal now.
Something flashed in front of her, and she stumbled. An ugly, monstrous face flashed in front of her, a woman with soulless eyes and a snake's body. Literally a snake's body.
She rolled out of the way of a violently stabbed spear, her mind working overtime. What on earth was that? And what the hell did she do to piss it off? It only needed to ask for an apology. She was prepared to descend to many layers of groveling right now.
In fact, she was pretty sure she didn't even have to be asked.
"I'm really sorry," she told the thing evenly, "for whatever I did. Or whatever you think I did. Did I comment on the hair or something? Because the do's great. I mean, in this light, it looks just-"
The thing, which'd paused to glare at her in disbelief, gave a short scream and vanished in a puff of dust. In it's place was a dark-haired teenager wielding a shining bronze sword.
"-gorgeous." she finished happily, beaming at him, "Hello, handsome."
He went red. She decided that made him look even cuter. And those eyes were to die for; she didn't even know that shade of green existed.
"Aren't you supposed to help up the damsel in distress, Sir Knight?"
He went redder and looked nervously over her shoulder. She followed his look to see a tall girl glaring daggers back at him.
"She's a little old to be a half-blood, don't you think?" the girl said, transferring her glare onto her. "Most of them are claimed before twelve now."
"The dracnae was after her," her rescuer shrugged uncomfortably, "they don't directly attack mortals."
The girl's scowl deepened, and her next words were decidedly rude.
"What's your name?"
"Sarah Kimberly Mosby," she told the guy, "very pleased to meet you. What's your name?"
"Uh, Per-" he looked over her shoulder again and winced, "never mind."
"Weird, but I'll live with it," Sarah decided, still beaming, "Anyway, the entire day's been weird. I like this kind of weird."
There was a lot of obvious inflections in her tone, which was probably why-
"Hey, ouch!" Sarah yelped, "watch it. That sweater's not exactly Gap, you know."
"Half-blood," the girl pronounced, obviously irritated. A flash of bronze disappeared into her sleeve, "no points for guessing cabins."
"Aphrodite?"
"You think?"
"Umm…not understanding a word here." Sarah added.
The girl gave her a look of pure contempt. "I didn't think you would," she hoisted her backpack over a shoulder, "come on, Seaweed brain. Let's get her to camp."
Twenty minutes later, she was sandwiched in a cab between Seaweed brain and the malicious mauler.
Hey, it wasn't her fault they were being mysterious with the names.
She stretched languidly, smiling at the cab driver. The bloodthirsty blonde gave her another look.
"What, I'm not allowed to be nice to people?"
The jealous Jezebel gnashed her teeth. On her right, Seaweed brain looked uncomfortable.
"I guess not. I mean, pretty easy to see someone who attacks random people with knives not sharing the sentiment?"
"Who says it was random?" the angry amazon muttered.
"Now I'm really shocked," Sarah said solemnly, "I don't know how Seaweed brain stands you."
The maddened maiden reached for her neck, before Seaweed brain hissed an "Annabeth, stop it!"
"She's damn annoying," Annabeth (Sarah was running out of alliterations anyway) snarled, "we really should have let the dracnae eat her."
"With that hairstyle? And the teeth, seriously. Don't dracnae have dentists?"
Annabeth spared her a glare before looking pointedly at Seaweed brain. Seaweed brain appeared to be struggling with a grin.
"Annabeth,"
"Shut up, Percy," Annabeth said, "that tone only works on Nico."
"Is Nico cute? Only because you're so obviously shackled- uh, I mean taken."
Annabeth's fists clenched. Sarah's smile didn't waver one little bit.
For one of the occupants at least, the rest of the drive turned out to be way too long, and utterly irritating.
'Here' turned out to be a strawberry farmhouse. Sarah looked around curiously before telling Percy she didn't think there was anything much out here.
Then they led her to a pine tree, and she saw a dragon appear out of thin air.
"Oh. Not bad," she said, impressed, "can't you guys do something about the smell, though?"
"We're trying." Percy's tone made it pretty evident how much they were trying.
"Ah."
"Let's just get her to the Big House already." Annabeth's voice was tight.
The Big House turned out to be a farmhouse building, where a centaur showed her a dramatic video (she thought the big, booming voice was a bit much) which told her one of her parents was a greek god or goddess. As she was pretty sure her Dad wasn't an immortal being, she figured it had to be her nonexistent mom. She told as much to the centaur.
The centaur's name turned out to be Chiron, and he turned out to be pretty nice. He took down her father's number and promised to call him and let him know she was safe. She told him it might be better to call after seven, because till then he'd be dead to the world.
Chiron agreed, then entrusted Percy and Annabeth with the task of showing her around. Annabeth didn't like it.
"Get someone from Aphrodite. She's going there anyway."
"Annabeth," Chiron gently chided, "she's new."
Annabeth muttered something. She was pretty sure it included the phrases utter idiot and budding hussy.
Obvious jealousy. It was actually kinda cute.
There turned out to be a lot of Greek demigods.
They were scattered all over the camp; the Pegasus stables ("What happened to the unicorns?"), the lake ("Are those girls drowning? Do you know what they use on their hair?"), the woods ("It must be really boring to be a tree. Have you considered trimming those branches?"), the cabins ("Hey, was the Architect drunk? Did he know anything about coordination?"), the archery range ("Why are there so many arrows stuck to the ground?"), the arena ("Hey, cool. Gladiator. Russel Crowe's kinda cute."), the tables ("Umm…what if it rains?) and so on…
With each stop, the tortured expression on Annabeth's face grew. She kept glancing over her head, for some reason. Percy seemed to be doing it too.
"Is that it?" she asked.
"Pretty much," Percy grinned, "except for the beach and stuff. And some parts of the woods, but I doubt you would want to go there."
"I don't know. I'm supposed to be a really nosy person."
"Are you sure it wasn't annoying?" Annabeth wondered out loud from behind her. Sarah considered it seriously.
"Hmm… possible. But that was my English teacher and sub-humans don't really count, do they?" Sarah shuddered, "man, she had this tacky flower-print thing she always wore and-"
"Oh for Olympus' sake, someone claim her NOW!" Annabeth yelled out to the sky, "I can't take this anymore!"
Lightning flashed in the sky, and Sarah noticed a glow. It looked like it was coming from over her head.
"Thank you," Annabeth didn't even bother to look at her, "now let's just hand her over to cabin ten and-"
"Uh, Annabeth," Percy cleared his throat, "I think you should take a look at this…"
"Connor Mosby here. Can I help you?"
"Uh, yes," Chiron said, "Mr Mosby, I'm Chiron. Your daughter is at Camp Half-Blood."
There was a pause at the other end of the line, followed by a whoosh of breath.
"Is she okay?"
"Completely fine, as far as I can tell. She doesn't even appear to be fazed much."
"Oh thank god," Connor Mosby sounded very worried, "it's just that she's very curious; she might just take after some creature to find out where it come from or it's breeding habits or- I once caught her dissecting a lizard and wondering where all the blood was; when she was five, mind you. I only stopped her when I pointed out it was ruining her shirt. And-"
"Dissecting?"
"Oh yes. Regular spawn of her mother, that one."
"This has got to be a joke."
"Not really. It sort of looks like an olive tree."
"Joke. Someone got mad at me for yelling."
"Annabeth, she's blonde and she has grey eyes."
"She's a boy-crazy walking fashion plate. She is not a daughter of Athena."
"That's my Mom?"
"No." Annabeth stated.
"Yes." Percy said at the same time.
"Goddess of beauty?" she asked hopefully.
"War, wisdom and the arts," Annabeth forced out, "so obviously something is wrong here-"
"And beauty?"
"No."
"Ah well. I suppose I'll have to live with it," Sarah decided, "How do these things glow, anyway? Are they holograms? There's got to be a lot of energy behind them…"
In epilogue, Sarah K. Mosby moved into the Athena cabin, bunked herself near a window, and proceeded to colour-coordinate the place. Annabeth Chase has spent very little time in her cabin since said incident.
End Note: Apologies for any punctuation/cannonic errors I failed to notice. Feel free to set me straight.