The 501 (A Rick Riordan fanfiction)

Chapter 1, Pura

Warning: contains slight violence and mentions of abuse.

Written by: BrookRogersKyloGrace
Edited by: KyloGrace
Published by: wattpad

Chapter 1
Pura

Pura sat on the edge of a fluffy couch in the middle of their Manhattan apartment, it was by far her favorite spot in the whole building. There, she could sit all day in the summer next to the window, reading and watching the New York traffic below.  Pura's cousin sat in front of the TV, where he always was, watching old gangster films. Sphinx, her twin sister, walked into the room, book in hand. "Hey Pura! I have a new chapter for you!" Pura smiled. She loved Sphinx's stories. They were always stories about daring adventures, amazing explorers, and heroic characters. She was currently writing a novel about Amazons, it was the biggest online hit since Charles Dickens, With a whopping one view! Pura heard screaming coming from next door, "Percy!" A middle aged woman yelled. "I told you no more baby sharks!" Pura groaned, "noisy neighbors," she grumbled. The kid next door had gone to summer camp, and came home singing a weird version of baby shark all summer. Something about "swords and sharks!! Doo doo doo! Baby sharks! Doo doo doo, Flying ships doo doo doo flying ships, doo doo doo, Leo's insane....." All day long.
"Go tell them to be quiet!" Pura's cousin, Lloyd, ordered.
"Do it yourself." Sphinx murmured.
"What was that?!" Lloyd asked.
"I said do it yourself!" Her fists were clenched, a ceramic pineapple bowl in the kitchen shattered.
"What was that?" Uncle Floyd yelled from his bedroom, he came out wearing a dark blue tux. Many would say he looked like a nice guy, but She and Sphinx knew how he really acted. Sphinx flinched back, and Pura raised her head defiantly.
"It was Sphinx!" Lloyd yelled, pointing his finger at Sphinx like an immature child.
Pura was quick to react. "LIAR."  Sphinx stepped forward and glared at uncle Floyd. "I did it." Pura and Lloyd blanched.
"We'll talk about this later!" He yelled in fury. Uncle Floyd grabbed his car keys and left. Growling as he exited. After a minute the door slammed closed, almost immediately, it creaked open again. Pura braced for the impact of uncle Floyd's yell. But instead, a boy that looked about seventeen entered, he had tussled raven black hair, and sea green eyes.
"Hey, I heard stuff breaking, and loud yelling, so I figured I would come make sure everyone was ok." He looked around, confused, probably by all the little cat statues. Uncle Floyd was superstitious, so we had a bunch of those little maneki-neko fortune cat statues. Also we had an emergency stash of salt, pura thought that was unneeded, and Sphinx and her were always joking about it. Pura recognized his voice as the boy who always sang about flying ships, which Sphinx incorporated into her books. "YOUR THAT KID WHO ALWAYS IS SINGING ABOUT SWORDS, BABY SHARKS, AND AN AWESOME SOUNDING GUY NAMED LEO!" Pura exclaimed. He grinned
"guilty as charged." The guy who I assumed was Percy, turned toward Sphinx.
"Uh hi." She said. they both had bad social skills, combine that with this situation, and a really cute boy, recipe for awkwardness. Sphinx backed away a tiny bit, she had a slight fear of men, because of the abuse they often endured from their uncle. Pura snorted, this boy could hardly be called a man.
"Leave our house, you creep!" Lloyd yelled at Percy. Pura and Sphinx turned toward each other, and simultaneously punched him in the nose. Lloyd was out cold.
"So what did the shattering noise come from?" Percy asked. Pura explained what had happened, leaving out what uncle Floyd had said.
Pura decided not to mention their sad childhood. Sphinx and Pura had always been abused by their uncle, and their Aunt was always off at some fancy lunch with all her Hollywood friends. Pura had always done her best to annoy her uncle, then she played her Aunt's favorite so that her uncle couldn't touch her, for fear of her aunt's wrath. When they were born, uncle Floyd had wanted to put Sphinx up for adoption because of her watery blue eyes. He saw them as a bad omen. When they were three, uncle Floyd had attempted to gouch out Sphinxes eyes with a kitchen knife, thankfully Pura was able to get there in time. As a result Sphinx now had a long scar over her left eyebrow, it extended from a little over the topmost hairs, all the way across her eyelid. She was also just slightly blind, where the knife left some lasting damage. Pura also had long scars across her back from a yew whip, when she tried to defend Sphinx from her uncle's harsh touch. "Did y'all ever notice anything about you that's....strange?" Percy asked.
"Sometimes when I get mad stuff breaks." Sphinx explained.
"Once I punched a kid at school, it wasn't even that hard. But he had to go to the hospital because he had seven broken ribs." Pura chimed in.
"Once," Sphinx continued. "This giant dog made of shadows, played with us in the park."
"that was fun," Pura remembered fondly.
"This gonna sound so weird but. You're demigods, and there's a special camp for people like us, and when we aren't at camp, monsters attack us. So I was sent here to take you to camp." Pura looked over at Sphinx, they each made a small nod of the head, then headed to their room. It was a small room, with an old wooden bunk bed, two cheap beaten up desks, and a small wardrobe in one corner. They entered together, "so are we going to address the elephant in the room?" Pura asked. "We have a stranger in our house, a lunatic no less."
"Eh, he's probably crazy, but anything is better than this place."
"Very true."
Pura grabbed her old mint green backpack, and packed it with all of her clothes, (which wasn't a lot), her few books, and a couple small trinkets. "You almost done?" Pura inquired. "Yeah," Sphinx replied. Pura looked over to see Sphinx was putting a small leather bound notebook into her backpack. Pura exited the room to the fridge, packed sandwiches, chips, some fruit, some water bottles, and a little chunk of cheese. Sphinx came out of the room with her backpack slung over her shoulder.
"Y'all ready?" "Ready as we'll ever be," Sphinx responded.
He led them up to the roof of the apartment building, via the fire escape. "I called an old friend to come pick us up." He said. Pura looked over her shoulder to see a black Pegasus, a horse made of storm clouds and lightning, and sitting on top of the creature was a boy who looked about Percy's age. He wore a purple shirt, blue jeans, his eyes were electric blue, and his hair was blonde. It reminded me of the style uncle Floyd always had his in.
"You called?" The boy asked Percy. Sphinx took a step back, backing into Percy. I knew exactly what she was thinking, this guy looked quite a lot like uncle Floyd. Same hair, same shape of face, and same body type.
"This is Jason," Percy explained. "Pura, why don't you ride with him." As he finished his sentence, he looked down at Sphinx, probably wondering why she seemed scared of Jason, little did Percy know. As they got ready to go, Pura could tell Sphinx was staying as far away from Jason as she could, and with good reason. Pura pulled herself up onto the storm horse, flinching back from Jason. She settled onto the creature's back, lightly grasping Jason's shoulders, and looked down at Sphinx. Percy climbed onto the black pegasus, and motioned for Sphinx to follow. She hesitated, before accepting his hand and allowing him to haul her up. She sat side saddle on the Pegasus, "ok, I'm reaaa-." Her words were blown away by the wind as they lurched into the sky. They tilted for a minute, as the horses got used to the new Weight, then they soared into the sky. Manhattan blurred passed Pura as they glided by. The skyscrapers no longer seemed so tall and intimidating. New York City was a big place, but here it was, so small it seemed as if it would fit in the palm of her hand. Jason shrugged his shoulders, almost knocking her off the horse, "what was that for?" Pura asked.
"I'm not a touchy-feely kinda guy."
"You almost knocked me off!" She hissed back."
"And?" He asked, ok, this guy was going down, Pura thought furiously. She was plotting, when the horses hooves set down on land. Pura and Sphinx dismounted and soon as possible, and gazed around at the valley before them. In front of them was a large strawberry field. It could have passed for a simple strawberry farm, except for the fact that there were kids racing Pegasi, a huge lake in the distance with beautiful girls sunbathing on the shore, and 20 large unique cabins in the distance. I didn't begin to fully believe it until that moment. A big blue house that was about four stories tall stood as the tallest building on the property. We stood at the top of the valley.
"Don't demigods have powers?" Sphinx asked.
"Yeah, I can control water and-." She stepped backwards. "What are you? Pura asked jokingly, a son of Neptune?" "Poseidon actually, he replied calmly. You get the basic gist." Pura's mouth dropped open, and Percy jogged towards the big blue house. "Sooooooo." Jason said. Pura had forgotten he was there. "I'm going to go talk to Leo." "THE LEO! Pura cried. THE REALLY AND TRULY INSANE LEO!" "Ughhhhh-" "great, Pura replied. Let's go." she grabbed him by the wrist with a grip made of steel and dragged him away.