Note, I'm skipping a lot of flavor text and background info, I figure if you're reading a fan fiction about a book, then chances are you've read the book and know, at least in part, that information.

I own none of the characters, not even the OCs I made as they are part of the PJaO or Mercy Thompson books and anyone is free to duplicate them for their own stories. Writing a story using characters from published books, I certainly can't complain if someone likes my idea enough to run it in a different direction, but please, no slash.

Rick Riordan and Patricia Briggs own all characters.

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My other story is going up with this chapter. Hope you like it.

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You know what; I'm not even going to bother apologizing for the delay. February was hell, and March began with a chunk of ice coming through my windshield and nearly impaling me. The last two months have NOT been conductive to writing anything you want people to read and associate with your name.

So yes, plot filler it is again. A lot of it was needed for the story anyway.

I at least hope my fight scene last chapter caught you all by surprise.

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Really guys, No one's posted on my forum!

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Plot Filler

Percy

I let the water construct of my new combat form fade away, returning to my normal human form under water. I joined Annabeth, Nico, Hestia and Julius who were having a conversation with a middle aged woman with no eyes and a crow on either shoulder. The crows apparently acting as her eyes. All five breathing and moving across the bottom of the river-lake thanks to my powers (though in all honesty, I doubt Hestia really needed it). "So people, how was that for a nice, 'non-lethal' way of dealing with the scumbags?"

Nico just giggles; "The only reason it was no-lethal was because I kept it that way Perce. Honestly, six of them would've died otherwise. The driver of the first van still will if I wasn't actively keeping him alive. What went wrong? It looked like they figured it out right before you attacked."

Crow lady 'looks' over at us; "The very perceptive and those with extraordinarily strong will can sometimes see through the glamour. Whoever it was, that one should be watched, even more so if it wasn't their officer in charge. Whoever it was was able to convince the entire unit to go on alert; that means either it was someone who commanded the unit into action, or someone who is persuasive enough to convince everyone that what they are seeing with their own eyes is false. That is not something that is easy to do under normal circumstance."

"Well bully for him then." Annabeth says. "They're lucky we really don't want a body count considering how they treated those kids."

Nico looks at her; "You do realize those kids are older than I am right?"

And unspoken is the fact that they really do look like monsters. It's a little unsettling to suddenly realize that of all the monsters I've slain (banished more to the point), there's only been a couple that I actually KNEW where outright evil. Although, with just as much honesty, none of their actions have ever led me to believe they weren't evil either. I only rarely slay monsters that aren't trying to kill me, so it's kind of a moot point.

"So what's going to happen to the kids now?" Annabeth asks the group at large.

"Julius and I have been working on a place of safety for half-bloods and others connected to us." Hestia speaks up, "But it's not done, or even all that close to being done. Right now it's just a single cabin in the woods with some really strong protections on it. We haven't secured a competent adult guardian yet that we completely trust and can handle the normal drama that is a half-bloods life, and where it is located, may require permission from Mss. Hauptman. For now, I've asked Sam to speak with his father about possibly taking the three of them in for a while."

"Any idea what their abilities are, or even if they'll have them?" I ask her.

"To early to tell, though there are some obvious physical changes to them."

I just snort at that comment; the oldest girl has become a half snake centaur, called a lamia by Julius. Not what a lamia looks like in our world, but not everything is the same here. Casey is a perfectly normal fourteen year old girl from the crotch up, but right below that, her legs fuse together into a snake tail about twelve feet long (not including her upper part). Her hair had changed to match the color pattern of her snake tails scales however.

The other girl, Carol, at fifteen, had also developed a snake like appearance, but for her, it was traditional snake hair, like Medusa (thankfully, she hasn't developed the ability to turn people to stone, at least not yet). The snakes, about the thickness of her thumb, or a little thicker, and varied in length, about eight inches or so in the front, and about arm and hand length (and about two or three times thicker) in the back (when she let them relax) though there was some shorter ones throughout, mostly she just uses them to watch all around her. Not really sure if they were good for anything else, but they did have mouths and fangs.

The boy, Kevin, at fourteen was either the luckiest of the three, or the unluckiest, depending on how you view the world. He had become the traditional cat boy/girl from Japan. He had orange shoulder length hair with a pair of cat ears on the top of his head (in addition to his human ears), an orange furred cat tail just a bit shorter than his legs and small retractable claws on his fingers and an oddly feminine beauty to him that was either going to get him really lucky with the girls someday, or lead to endless harassment from the guys. Of the three, he showed the most physical abuse, at his age, most boys are more than a little mouthy and rebellious. Combine that with his appearance, obvious weapons and an over inflated view from the agents of their authority; the agents probably felt the need to keep reminding him of his place.

Thankfully, none of the three showed signs of sexual abuse, even though they had no clothes when they were rescued, it's likely their captors just thought of them like animals and therefore not needing clothes. That wasn't going to keep any of us from implying otherwise however. If this was going shape itself into a battle of perceived morality, than I not going to let a weapon like that go. Besides, just because this batch was simply racist bigots didn't mean the next batch wouldn't be worse. The three of them did show signs of non-sexual abuse as well, so all the more reason to not let them off. People might be willing to let torture go unpunished if they thought the people doing the torturing were trying to protect them, but there was almost no way they'd let sexual abuse slide.

And speaking of perception and getting people on our side, time for part two. "Ok guys, you ready?" I ask everyone as I shift form again. "Annabeth, you sure you can disguise the rest of you completely? For this to work, no one can ever know."

"Don't worry Percy; I've got the rest of us covered. You're going to be doing most of talking anyway. Just make sure no one sees YOU changing forms."

"I must admit, I'm somewhat curious about this second stage of your plan Mss. Jackson." Crow lady tells Annabeth; "Why was it necessary to have Cynthia set up near the Strip?"

"You'll see." I hear her tell her just as I'm exiting the water. Luckily, Annabeths use of the Mist is effective, as Ms. Cynthia Morgan is just a couple of hundred feet away. Show time.