Hiya there! I'mmmmmmmmmm back! Again! For the... uh... *counts on fingers* fourth time! Wow, I am racing through these chapters! Well I hope you enjoy! *Walks off stage*

Kendra: Oh NO YOU DON'T *yanks back on stage*

*Tries to look innocent* wot is it?

Kendra: *glares* Do you own me?

Ummm... maybe?

Kendra: *glares some more*

Ugh, fine, you're persuasive. I, Jinglebells852, am not secretly Rick Riordan or Brandon Mull, so therefore I don't own Kendra or anyone else I write about in this fanfiction other than the plot. That's why it's called a fanfiction. Because I'm a fan of these characters, they are not mine!!! You people never get it.

Lol.

Enjoy!

~~~~~~~1st Person Bracken~~~~~~~

I walked into the spare bedroom after hearing snippets of conversation that seemed to involve me. I assumed it was a good time to walk in from that, and my suspicions seemed to be proven true by the triumphant smile on Seth's face.

"Are you sure about that?" Seth said gleefully. I followed his playful glance to the unknown boy standing in front of me. He looked about Kendra's age, maybe a bit younger, with messy black hair and a pale complexion. His eyes were pitch black, so much so that you couldn't tell where the pupil ended and the iris began. He wore a black shirt, jeans, and an aviator jacket, and he looked frustrated.

"Alright you two. I don't know what kind of peek-a-boo is going on here, but I literally just woke up two minutes ago, have no idea where I am other than Connecticut or 'Modly Raven', and I would really just like to get back to camp. Is that okay with you creeps?" He said.

I blinked. Camp? Moldy Raven? Peek-A-Boo? I honestly didn't know much about what was going on either. Kendra had contacted me the previous night and asked for me to come help with an issue involving some strange teens that had showed up. I assumed this kid was one of them. I looked to Seth for help on what to do, not leaving my position at the doorway as not to let the stranger out of the room.

"Nico, this is Bracken. We're gonna ask you and your friends some questions, and then you can go. How does that sound?"

Nico seemed to think about it for a second, then answered. "Yeah, sure, fine, whatever. Can you just let me into the main room to talk to my friends about it? As I said, I only just woke up."

"Oh, sure," I said, stepping aside from the doorway. Nico walked through, and I followed him through the halls until he stopped near two other teenagers. They looked a few years older than him, and were eating oatmeal for breakfast at the table.

One of them was a guy with messy raven black hair and green eyes that reminded me of the ocean. The girl next to him had blonde hair curled like a princess's, but her stormy grey eyes contrasted the similarity.

Nico walked right next to them and placed a hand on each of their shoulders. "Alright, we're going now guys," he said, already heading to the entrance of the house.

Seth looked upset. "What do you mean? You can't! We won't let you. We need to question you guys since you're... suspicious."

The girl rolled her eyes, ignoring Seth, and stood up. "Nico, you can't. You'll pass out again."

"I don't care. Will can yell at me all he wants, but I want to leave this place. Now."

The unknown guy frowned as well. "Annabeth, I think we should listen to him. We can talk privately when we get to camp." What was this camp? This was the second time the newcomers had mentioned it.

Nico smirked triumphantly as the other guy took his hand and the girl, Annabeth, reluctantly did so as well.

"Hasta la vista, suckers!" The older boy said with a wide grin. We were all staring at the trio, utterly confused, until the younger boy led the two back a step, and the shadows swallowed them.

Everyone looked expectantly at Seth.

"It wasn't me! I swear! I'm pretty sure Nico's a shadow charmer too, because he was the only one of them who could see me when I was shadewalking," Seth replied indignantly.

"Well, then, let's go find them!" Kendra said, getting up from the table.

Kendra rushed outside, leading everyone to find an angry Nico yelling at his companions by the gate.

"No it's not broken. It can't break! If I go too far, I pass out. I would have at least gone as far as possible, maybe FARTHER THAN THE FRONT GATE?!?!"

"We have company," Annabeth said, turning to face us with a stern expression. "Why can't we leave?"

"Because you haven't answered our questions yet," Seth replied with a smirk, "Like I asked you to before."

Nico groaned. "That doesn't explain why my SHADOW TRAVELING CAN'T GET US FARTHER THAN THIS LOUSY GATE, which is LOCKED."

"And why my sword can't break the gate," the older boy, who's name I still had yet to learn, added helpfully, pulling out a ballpoint pen from his pocket. A ballpoint pen? Why did he have a ballpoint pen?

"Shadow traveling?" Kendra wondered aloud.

The older boy groaned. "Ugh. To Hades with it! We might as well tell us all of our secrets anyway, since you seem to have a good way of finding them out."

"Don't curse with my dad's name," Nico mumbled halfheartedly. The older kid either didn't hear or didn't care.

"Uh, well, I'm Bracken-" I started, but I was interrupted by a snort from the older kid.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Sorry, nothing. It's just the kids from Cabin 4 are always off about different plants and, well," he snorted again, "Bracken is a type of fern!" he exclaimed, sending himself into a fit of giggles.

I blushed, and tried to ignore his comment. "Well, ok. I think I know that you're Nico, and you're Annabeth, but I haven't caught your name yet?"

"Oh," he said, calming down and becoming more serious, "Percy. But you still haven't answered our question yet. Why can't we leave?"

"Because I have made it so that you cannot leave this preserve until we allow you to," Stan spoke up, making his way from the back of the group to the front.

"So, what? Now we're your prisoners?" Annabeth asked, getting angrier by the second.

"More like pets," Seth mumbled to himself, but Annabeth seemed to hear his comment as well as she narrowed her eyes on him. (If you're confused as to why Seth says this, it's because on the treaty, usually you can't leave if you're a magical creature / animal, but humans can, so that's how I imagine Seth to think of it (and how I think of it lol))

"Not really," I said, "Well, in a manner of speaking... it doesn't matter. Now, will you three please come inside so we can question you, or would you like a fight?"

Annabeth seemed to narrow her eyes even more as she scanned everyone present. She slowly shook her head 'no', and led her group to follow us back indoors.

~~~~~~~1st Person Annabeth~~~~~~~

There would be a fight, and these mortals, or whatever they were, were sure to lose. We were three of the most powerful demigods alive and had fought in two wars. We had beaten titans, giants, and gods. We could win against these people.

I had come up with a signal the previous night with Percy just in case we had to attack: three snaps of my fingers. Nico didn't know it, but he'd figure it out once we started bashing heads.

As they walked us in, I saw Percy glancing at my fingers every few seconds, trying and failing to do it inconspicuously. He was getting weird stares from Seth and Kendra, but most of the adults were in front of us, so they didn't really notice.

Finally, when I decided the crunching of leaves under our feet was loud enough that nobody but Percy would notice me snapping, I did the signal. I looked Percy in the eye for a split second before I heard the shing! of Riptide being uncapped as turned around and judo-flipped our nearest captor. It was a young man with dark, curly hair, hazel eyes, and fairly handsome features. I think he had said his name was Warren.

Warren grunted in surprise as I took him down and winced once he tried to get into a fighting position.

"Why always me?" he muttered mournfully, then laid down in defeat. I moved on to take down someone else, and saw Percy and Nico both fighting. From what I could see, the only one with sword wounds right now was Bracken, the new guy. He had silvery hair that was fairly long - it just about reached his shoulders, and his silvery-blue eyes shone as he fought diligently. What confused even me was that he was fighting with what looked like a... unicorn horn? How that managed to work as a weapon made no sense, but it seemed to be harming Percy as they fought.

I glimpsed Nico stand still to take a breath for a second, and suddenly there was a dart in his leg. He blinked drowsily a few times, but then moved on to fighting. I looked for where it came from, and found a confused Vanessa holding her blowgun.

Vanessa threw her weapon to the ground and grabbed some more darts from the pocket of her jeans, proceeding to fling them at my companions. I rushed to knock her down, but by the time I got there, another had already hit Nico. He managed another wobbly step before he fell down, unconscious.

I wrestled Vanessa to the ground and tested if my dagger, newly removed from my jeans, worked oh her. Luckily, it did. Unluckily, she managed to worm out of my hold and throw another dart toward Percy, which miraculously hit its target. Percy looked confusedly down at his leg, and Bracken took the opportunity to conk him on the head with the horn, knocking him out.

Schist, I thought, It's only me. All of my opponents surrounded me, weapons at the ready, minus Warren, who was still laying on the ground, and Stan, who had been taken down by Nico before he was darted unconscious.

I thought about why we had lost. First of all, there had been the fact that we probably underestimated them and assumed we could do anything. Also, we had been outnumbered, so it was overall an unfair fight.

"Do you yield?" Vanessa asked with mock sweetness, "Or should I dart you as well?" I glared at her in frustration but put my hands up in the air anyway. Bracken grabbed my wrists and pulled them behind my back, leading me inside by the hand, hopefully not to my doom.

Yay! Hope you all liked the fight scene and that it was realistic lol. See you next chapter!

Chapter word count: 1675

Date published: 7/23/20 (M/D/Y)