A Very Cold Reunion

Piper hated getting monster blood on her brand-new clothes. She stared disgustedly down at her expensive, sludge-splattered jeans. “If this doesn’t wash out, I swear to all the gods,” she muttered.

“Why did I have to come with the cleanup crew?” she called to her boyfriend Jason, who only grunted a reply as he plunged his Imperial gold gladius cleanly through an ogre’s chest, splashing green goo everywhere, before the monster dissolved into dust.

“No one buys your ‘useless daughter of Aphrodite’ excuse anymore, Piper,” Annabeth smirked as she buried her drakon-bone sword in the flank of an unruly centaur.

“Yeah. You’ve saved our braccae more than once,” Percy added, slicing a dracenae in half with Riptide.

Piper frowned. “That’s Latin for...”

“I picked it up from Jason,” Percy broke in, his face turning pink.

“Well, at least you’re learning SOMETHING,” Annabeth remarked, blowing a curl of golden hair out of her face. Jason snickered, but when Percy turned his direction, he made a very dramatic show of coughing and waving the monster dust away from his face.

Piper smiled, her heart warming. These were her friends, and she loved them more than anything else in the world. After all, they’d gone through hell together. The threat of war with the Romans from Camp Jupiter had been stopped just in time, and Gaia had finally been defeated, thanks to their friend Leo Valdez...but unfortunately, the son of Hephaestus hadn’t been able to escape the massive fireball that blew the Earth Mother to cinders. Although Piper missed Leo, she had a feeling they hadn’t seen the last of him just yet.

Meanwhile, the monsters that the unstable Roman leader, Octavian, had recruited for his army...they were running wild. Because the borders of Camp Half-Blood had been weakened by the fight, groups of demigods had to either kill them or chase them away...not an agreeable task, but much better than fighting the Earth itself.

Piper was torn from her thoughts by Percy’s confused voice. “Hey, guys, you should come see this,” he called. Annabeth ran to her boyfriend’s side, but she, too, quickly took on the same puzzled expression. Piper glanced to where Percy was pointing...and saw nothing but a light dusting of snow on the ground. It took Piper a second to register what was wrong with that picture.

“Wait, snow?” Piper mused. “Aren’t the camp’s magical borders supposed to keep out harsh weather?”

“Usually, yeah,” Annabeth replied, frowning. “But maybe the snow is just another problem caused by the camp’s weakened defenses.”

“Probably,” Percy agreed, his ebony hair falling over his eyes as he leaned forward, inspecting the snow. “And who cares, right? Snow is cool. For example, I could just scoop some up and pelt Annabeth with snowballs.” Percy was reaching for the snow when Annabeth grabbed his wrist and twisted it. “OW!” Percy complained, yanking his arm free and smirking at Annabeth.

Jason cleared his throat, his electric blue eyes sparkling with humor. “We should probably get back to camp. It looks like this area is clear, anyway.” He ran his fingers through his short blond hair, trying to clear away some of the monster dust and gunk.

“It’s hopeless,” Piper informed him, reaching for his hand. The four demigods headed back to Camp Half-Blood, forgetting all about the out-of-place snow.

Notes

The rest of the chapters will be at least a little bit longer, since this is just the introduction. Updates should be weekly, on Tuesday evenings (EST), but sometimes school will get a little hectic, so I make no promises. Feedback, ESPECIALLY constructive criticism, is welcomed, but please be polite. I have a basic idea of how the story is going to go, but if you have ideas or suggestions, or experience a sudden flash of inspiration, feel free to let me know and I might mix it in there!