Chapter 2

It's been two weeks since Naruto joined Thalia, Luke, and Annabeth and to say things were interesting was an understatement. Every few miles they encountered a monster or two, but Thalia and Luke mostly took care of them. When Naruto showed them his ability by flattening a tree and making the ground flutter, it was after that demonstration that both Luke and Thalia convinced Naruto to incorporate the ground rippling aspect of his powers for fighting. They reasoned that by making the ground unstable, the monsters would have a harder time attacking them. This tactic proved successful on the next monster, a cyclops. As the cyclops was wobbling, Thalia and Luke swooped in and hit it in the chest. The beast vanished in a shower of golden dust and left behind a tanned hide. The group collected their prize and continued on their quest.

It was almost a month when the pressure increased as instead of one monster it was a pack of Hellhounds that attacked them, and it was only thanks to Thalia's quick thinking that saved them from being eating. She told Naruto to flatten and fold several trees into an interlocking pattern, but that will only hold for so long as it is still wood. That's the current situation that forced Naruto and Annabeth to hug each other in fright with Luke and Thalia trying to defend them.

"They're getting closer," said Naruto in a frightened tone

"I know," said Thalia as she readied her spear, "Just stay behind me while Luke and I handle the Hellhounds."

The hounds were a half an inch from destroying the barrier when the unbelievable happened, silver arrows rained from the sky and pierced the hide of the Hellhounds. They were reduced to golden dust after the dust was cleared that the group of four received a clearer sight of what saved them. A group of females wearing parkas made out of silver fibers with wooden bows drawn and ready to fire. The girls didn't see any more danger but didn't relax as danger could come around the corner. The hunters than began to inspect the demigods for any injuries.

It turns out that the groups of girls that saved them were the hunters of Artemis, or her, handmaidens, and they heard the pack of Hellhounds nearby and decided to investigate further. After eliminating the threat and inviting the group to recuperate at their camp, it was more of an invitation for the girls than the boys. Annabeth and Thalia were received nicely while Luke and Naruto were looked at with distaste. Naruto wasn't paying attention to them as his eyes were was drawn towards something else, looking at their bowstrings. He didn't know why but the way they shined in the moonlight and the elasticity they displayed interested him. Naruto placed his hands on the log he was sitting on, and for once it didn't become flat but converted into strings. This startled both his group and the hunters resulting in Naruto having multiple arrows pointed at him.

"What have you done male," asked on the hunters in a stern tone.

"Trust me this is new to me," said Naruto, "It usually flattens and becomes as light as a flag."

"We should bring him to Lady Artemis," said a hunter, "she would know what to do."

This comment was met with an argument between Thalia and the hunters until a woman of 5'9" wearing the same clothing as the younger hunters. She had brown hair that was styled in a topknot, and her eyes were sharp, like those of a hawk. Artemis excited the largest tent and walked toward the commotion. Her name was Artemis, the Goddess of the hunt and the moon.

"What is going on here!" said a demanding Artemis

"Mistress, we were just securing a possible threat to the camp." replied one of the hunters

"What threat?" asked Artemis

"That would be me," said Naruto as he was getting back up, "I accidentally turned one of your logs into a bundle of string."

'Interesting,' thought Artemis, 'He reminds me of Athena, but none of her other children displayed this ability.'

"Child do you know who your godly parent is?" asked Artemis

"No. All I know is that it was my mother" replied Naruto

"I see," said Artemis, " Zoe, invite the girls to my tent as soon as possible."

"Yes mam!" replied the Zoe

The morning after was tense as the hunters glared at the group as they left and Thalia wasn't helping with the situation. Apparently, Annabeth and Thalia were offered the opportunity to join the hunters but declined. The hunters weren't happy and Thalia electrocuting some the hunter made things worse. Naruto really wasn't paying attention because he became fascinated with his new ability that he discovered last night. He began to think about the possibilities for his new power, he could now tie the opponent up or even trap them in a net. He discussed this with Luke, and he agreed and also asked if he could use the thread to sew materials together.

This peaked Naruto's interest, and while they walk he would try to manipulate the string to pass through some of the spared cloth he had, he was the one that took care of all the rips and tears in their clothes. It was difficult at first as the string was blunt and took a lot of energy to penetrate the fabric. It takes a week of trial and error, but he did make a small breakthrough, it was a lot easier to use a needle to penetrate the cloth. He could do it without the needle, but it tired him significantly. He put his new sewing to use by making armor for Thalia and Luke since they did most of the fighting. He flattened of the larger rocks they come across, flattened them and than sewed them to fit both Thalia and Luke's bodies. They later discovered that the weight disappeared and they could keep the armor on for hours. The new armor was even tested and could take hits that would typically break bones, and they only suffer mild bruising. This was Naruto's first job as he provided the armor and shields for Thalia and Luke to fight with. This worked out significantly as they didn't need to spend so much on medical supplies and the materials Naruto needed could be found locally.

Things became routine until they encountered a weird creature, it looked like a boy, but from the waist down he was a goat, being attack be a cyclops. They did what any kid would have done; Annabeth and Naruto hide behind Thalia while Luke takes care of the monster. It was over quick as Luke had previous experience dealing with Cyclopes. They found out that his name

is Grover and he was satyr assigned to guide them to Camp Half-blood, which took off a considerable amount of stress off them as they were primarily lost. They shortly found out that Grover was new at recruiting and guiding demigods as they apparently missed a few turns and had to turn around.

The group of four have been traveling with Grover for about a week, and so far nothing has happened as Grover was able to smell the monsters and navigate around them, not all of them but some. It wasn't really complicated to incorporate Grover into their group as all he did was guide them and the prepared food they had could only feed four people, but that was quickly solved as they saw Grover eating grass.

They were near the end of their journey when the worse happened. Hades heard news of Zeus's newest spawn and sent a variety of monster to eliminate her and the group she was in. Hades's attackers consisted of several hellhounds, a minitour and a cyclops or two. The group of monsters managed to find their target in a matter of days and chased them towards Camp Half-Blood. Thalia told Annabeth and Naruto to run to safety while she and Luke fend off the monsters. Annabeth managed to cross the border, but Naruto tripped and twisted his ankle. Some of the hellhounds managed to bypass the two fighters and spot the wounded demigod. Naruto panicked as the demonic canine came closer the unexpected happened, the forest and the ground surrounding Naruto converted into string and wrapped around the hellhounds, reducing them into golden powder. Noticing that he out of danger Naruto got back on his feet and run the camp as fast as he could. Naruto looked back and saw that the last moments of Thalia's existence. One of the cyclopes managed to grab Thalia's legs and swing her towards the nearby trees. As she lay dying her Father decided to give her one last mercy by transforming her into a tree, Zeus also made his daughter the pinnacle of the camp's defense.

This broke Naruto mentally as another person that was close to him died and he could do nothing about it. He situated himself in Hermes cabin, never socializing and just coming out for meals. This went on for about a week until Annabeth slapped him, literally, out of it and lectured him for about ten minutes about how Thalia would want them to enjoy the camp and not wallowing in self-pity. It was on that day two things happened; Naruto got out of his funk and Annabeth was claimed by Athena. Luke and Naruto helped her move her stuff to Athena's cabin with her new brothers and sisters. Naruto was happy that Annabeth finally got the family she wanted and now that he thought about it the more it made sense as she was into architecture and managed to retain the knowledge she read about. At the same time, Naruto was jealous of Annabeth. The only family he was slowly being driven apart.

As the months went by, and Naruto began to adjust to the camp and even his camp mates, although he quickly found the need to sew his possesses to the roof of the cabin. Luke's father was Hermes, the god of messengers and patron of roads and since he was already in the Hermes cabin, he didn't need to move, this comforted Naruto as his big brother wasn't leaving. The only one not claimed was Naruto and it was hard to deduce who his godly could be. To their knowledge, no one demonstrated the set of powers Naruto had. The closest would be Athena, but her children retain some of her intelligence and photographic memory. Another and weirder possibility would be Hephaestus, as they are gods and really don't have a defined gender and could masquerade as male or female. He is the god responsible for the weapons the gods use, but his problem laid in the process; Hephaestus's children used the materials in their raw state, while Naruto flattened and converted the materials into strings. It caused Chiron, the Trainer of Heroes, and the Athena cabin to have massive migraines for several days and it only made it harder because Naruto didn't fear spiders, the fear that all of Athena's children had. They discovered this fact when they found Naruto making spider webs from the strings he could produce with his hands and even make a black widow spider his pet. This fact both spooked and fascinated Athena's children. The answer came in December, Naruto was currently doing the hobby that he liked and had a good grasp on, knitting. He found a book on it in the Athena cabin, he paid tribute to Athena beforehand and became fascinated with the intricate pattern and history behind it. He acquired a pair of knitting needles at the camp store, and for some reason, the needles just sat there gathering dust. He had a basic understanding of it but lacked structure. He started out with redoing the basic shapes and just move on from there. It took about an hour for Naruto to begin with the intricate designs and the mark above Naruto's head that showed astonished the whole camp. They finally got their answer, and all it did was confuse most of them, how could Naruto be a son of Athena when he didn't have any of the standard behavior patterns: he doesn't fear spiders, he wasn't interested in architecture, and his interests were more in common with Hephaestus's.

Things were tense during the moving process as in the eyes of some he didn't deserve to be the child of Athena and should be placed in Hephaestus's cabin or even Aphrodite's, the girls insisted after see his sewing technique, but Chiron wouldn't hear of it. The selection for his bed was easy as Athena placed an old fashion loom near one of the corner beds and had several spools of thread sitting on the comforter. Naruto was truly happy as he gained his little sister, Annabeth, back and finding out that the two of them was related. This was also good news for Luke as Naruto's depressive atmosphere was really bringing down his mood.

It's been a month since Naruto was claimed and unfortunately little has improved. Some of his siblings still haven't accepted him as their brother; he could tell by the way they isolate him

from the group. Some of his siblings might exclude him, but he has acceptation from the rest of the camp. The daughters of Aphrodite love him because he makes them nice clothing and even

repairs their other clothes for free, that seems to happen a lot. The children of Hephaestus liked him because he was like them, master crafter and like their father, he was an outcast. Things got really interesting when he received an order from the gods. This was a rare event, since the gods only have so much time to spare, but Aphrodite heard her daughters talk about the clothes

they received from the new son of Athena and decided to put Naruto to the test and sent him a simple dress order, a dark purple evening gown with gold vine embroidery on the collar, cuffs and at the edge of the dress with a lighter blouse that stopped precisely at 161.8 cm and had slightly flared cuffs. Aphrodite also wanted this dress in a week. This was Naruto's hardest test as he stitched and sewed for five days straight to get the exact measurements right and not make a single mistake when making something for the Olympians it must be perfect or else. When he was finally done, he paid Hermes to deliver Aphrodite order, and Naruto waited for two days to see if he lived or died, as only the best for Aphrodite and her children.

Luckily she was happy and even spread the news about him to the other goddess on Olympus, or in the case of Persephone below. He was busy for the first few months working on gowns and other assorted female clothing, but it was thanks to Hermes that he made an acceptable contract for business so he can enjoy life and make some money on the side. It was also thanks to this agreement that Naruto had the opportunity to see the world as some of the orders took place in where Hermes couldn't get to such as the Underworld, Naruto had to go their once a month as Persephone especially liked his designs.

This was Naruto's life until four years went by and he encountered a forbidden son of the sea.