Crossroads(Riordan)-1

"Huh, one person missing." One of my siblings said as he gazed at the newly arrived schoolboy that had almost crashed into the lake and somehow caused it to evaporate. "Guess Chase didn't make it."

"You can at least act like you care, Alabaster."

"So can you, Alpheus."

"Don't call me that." I said with a groan as I got up from my seat and walked away. 'So can you' my ass, I actually had the excuse of knowing that the daughter of Athena was still alive; Alabaster had no excuse other than his own pettiness towards the children of 'major' gods. Petty little shit, beating him up and taking his place as the strongest among our siblings was my best decision to this date.

Long story short, my name is Alpheus Sanders; I mostly go by Al though, and I am a person with the distinct misfortune to be reincarnated in the universe of Riordan books as a son of Hecate.

Yup, the three faced goddess of magic and many other things was my mom. I only ever saw her once in my life though, right after leaving the orphanage when she appeared before me and said 'You will do.' Fucking gods, she could have at least tell me something about my father or even a 'hello, I am your mother'.

Though the fact that I was a son of Hecate brought me to the fact that much like many other demigods, my siblings had a tradition too.

For example, the children of Aphrodite had a passage of making someone fall in love with them like crazy and then break their hearts. Children of Hephaestus needed to make something, anything, in order to get respect; otherwise they would be considered to be the runt of the litter . The children of Ares... they just punched each other in the face, they were kind of weird. Our small family of the Hecate demigods on the other hand, had a different but very simple tradition.

You obeyed the strong, end of story. Every child of Hecate listened to the orders of the strongest child of Hecate among them, something about how mages were meant to be followers who supported the king from behind or something. To me, it just sounded like an excuse to hide the fact that they were pansies.

When I came to the camp a few years ago, the strongest among the children of Hecate was Alabaster C. Torrington. A kid with an inferiority and superiority complexes almost as big as a god's ego. The moron thought that he was better than others because he was the strongest child of Hecate but also thought that the children of the Olympians looked down at us because we were the children of a 'minor' goddess.

Yeah, I beat him up like a redheaded stepchild before all of our siblings and took his spot. It wouldn't do well if the rest of our siblings had to listen to a moron like him. Like, dude, you were the son of the goddess of magic. If people looked down on you and you had a problem with that, you should just go and teach them a lesson. It wasn't rocket science. 

Though Alabaster did not seem to appreciate my words much. Oh well, I didn't really care about it as long as he didn't get other people involved with his stupidity.

Still, Chase missing in the winter right after the whole Sea of Monsters debacle in the last summer; guess that meant Artemis was about to get caught by the Titans and forced under her great grandfather's weight soon. Not that such a thing had anything to do with me, Jackson and his friends could deal with all that bullshit from the gods. I had absolutely no intention to get into the mess that they would call plot.

"Hey Al!" But we don't always get what we want.

The reason why I don't get what I want was currently running towards me. Thalia Grace; the daughter of Zeus and, until a few months ago, a former pine tree since her father turned into one when she almost died to a monster horde sent by Hades. Did that technically make her a Dryad?

"Can you come with me to the arena? I need a sparring partner." She asked with a smile, but it did not truly reach her eyes. I had a rough idea why and that was telling me that I should get away from her immediately.

That's right. That was what I needed to do. Just walk away from the clearly distraught girl that was trying to distract herself from the fact that her oldest friend was missing and that she was not allowed to go search for her. No matter how much I felt for her after all the bullshit she endured through her life. I just needed to...

"Sure." I hate myself.

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She really was the worst. She knew that what she was doing was wrong yet she just could not stop it.

The last few months had been... uncomfortable. The last thing she remembered before turning into a tree, cause that was apparently the 'only' way her father could help her, was that she was going to be sacrificing herself in order to protect Annabeth; Grover and Luke, her friends. Only to learn after waking up that it had been years, Grover and Annabeth had both grown up and Luka had turned traitor. That he had poisoned her tree. And now, she had just lost Annabeth to a monster and her own incompetence! Her little sister in all but blood was missing and she was not even allowed to go search for her!

All of which had led to her getting Al for a spar and her getting all of her frustrations out on him through training. It felt even worse considering that Al was not exactly among the strongest in the camp like she and Percy were but... spending time with Al helped.

Maybe it was because how he never seemed to care much about the fact that her father was Zeus. There were times he would avoid her but it was because, in his own words, 'too troublesome'. Not because he feared that he might end up angering her father if he did something she didn't want. The genuine 'fuck this shit' attitude he had made her feel like... like she was normal.

"Raagh!" As normal as a pair of teenagers who were fighting with spears at speed most people couldn't follow could be anyway. Though even that was over since her last blow had broken Al's spear.

"That bad huh." The son of Hecate said as he gazed at the broken remains of the spear. "You feel better yet?"

"...yes." Thalia admitted as she averted her gaze. "Sorry about... all of this. I shouldn't have just taken my anger out on you like this."

"Meh, still better than dealing with Alabaster." He said with a shrug and Thalia chuckled.

"So, now that you got some of your aggression out, you wanna talk about anything?" He asked as he walked to one of the seats at the edge of the arena and sat down, with Thalia following after him.

"Well, it all started with us going to some military school after Grover sent a distress signal. Then we..."

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