The Missing Prophecy (pjo/kotlc) book 3

Chapter Fourteen

Flashback:

It was dark out. Ana's bike sped through the streets of New York, headlights bathing the traffic below her. The hoverbike allowed her to hover up to ten meters off the ground, all while dampening her scent to monsters. It could also travel upwards of 500 km/h and could function as a motorcycle. Plus, the built-in weapons and weapons storage. All in all, it was a demigod's most useful thing.

Ana was going about 200 km/h. She was going fast enough to be able to see the cars and traffic jams below her, but the lights were a blur. Ana watched mortals going about their daily night life, never a change of pace. New York really was the city that never sleeps.

She swerved around a building, looking for a hotel or an inn or somewhere to crash for the night. It was four am in the morning, so not many places were open. Ana kept driving. Her computer told her it'd take about forty-two hours to get to San Francisco. But Ana couldn't wait. She wanted to save her parents now, not in two days. Putting the car on autopilot, Ana pulled up the Disney+ app on the dashboard computer and turned on Moana.

A/N: y'all I love Moana so much it's such a banger.

However, the movie had barely started when the bike crashed. Into a minotaur.

"GRARRR!" It shouted, knocked back a few steps.

"What?" Ana paused the movie, flipped her knives into her hands and jumped off the bike. The vehicle had anti-crash measures that had kept Ana alive and the car undamaged.

"Ah, they have sent the youngling. The weakest." A voice came from the Minotaur. A female voice.

"Who are you?" Ana demanded.

The voice merely laughed. Not a wicked laugh, a beautiful, human laugh. "Oh, delusional child," it said. "Nothing but a child. Incapable. They should've sent your brother."

"I am no child!" Ana yelled. She'd always been compared to her brother, how he could win the canoe races easily, how he was the best at sword fighting in the camp, how his team always won Capture the Flag- what they hadn't seen was Ana, in the background, who had chosen brains over power, who could beat anyone else but her siblings in canoe races, who was the best at knife fighting, who'd taught her brother how to be that good, who'd come up with the winning strategy.

"Ahh," said the voice. "Your brother. Matt, always the hero. Matt, who always wins. Why, might some say Matt is the best of the Jacksons? Maybe better than Percy Jackson, for all he accomplished, he was as dumb as a bag of rocks." The voice said with venom.

"You- you! I'm just as good as my brother! My father-" that stopped her. Her father was as dumb as a bag of rocks. Or so he acted. It was her mother in the background who gave him plans, who called him Seaweed Brain. What would Percy do in this situation? Probably charge the Minotaur and summon an earthquake or a giant wave to kill it. But Ana didn't have those powers. What would Annabeth do? She would probably come up with some genius plan to make the voice overthink. But Ana didn't have that brainpower. She was nine! What would Char do? Distract the Voice and kill the minotaur. Ana decided that was the best plan.

"Poor, poor Ana. The baby of the family. The one nobody likes-"

"I know who you are," Ana interrupted.

"Really?" Said the Voice, amused. "Who am I, then?"

"You're some selfish wannabe who's trying to convince me you're someone important. You're speaking through your minion because you believe you're important, when you're really just some pawn in Echidna's final scheme, and the minion's life means nothing to you and your boss. You're trying to stop me on my quest to find the prophecy because you want to get there first. Hey, that's probably why you killed my mom and tried to kill Hazel!" Ana finished. She felt a glow of pride. She didn't know where the insults had come from. The minotaur was looking above her head, and the Voice was silent for a minute. Ana looked up. Hovering above her head was a holographic owl. Athena had claimed her!

However, Ana didn't have time to celebrate. The minotaur charged. Ana waited until it was close, then sprang up onto its shoulders and drove her knives into its neck.

"That's what happens when you talk bad about my family," she growled. But later, when she was back on her bike, she wondered. Was the Voice right? Matt had always been stronger than her, more powerful. Ana was always smaller than her brother, faster, smarter. But what did those qualities mean? So what, she was smarter? Brains didn't win battles. At least, that's what she'd been made to believe. As the Ares kids liked to say, math problems don't kill monsters, big weapons do. Big, fancy swords. Long, sharp spears. Bows, knives- weapons for weaklings. Ana looked at her own knives. They were silver, beautifully crafted by her aunt. They were similar to hunter knives, but not the same. There was a message inscribed in ancient Greek on one of them.

αυτοί που κερδίζουν δεν πετυχαίνουν πάντα τη νίκη

'Those who win do not always achieve victory.' Ana had never been able to understand the quote, but Thalia said she'd understand eventually. Ana had begged Thalia to tell her, but the huntress had instead told her to take it as a pearl of elderly wisdom, and that she needed to find the meaning on her own. Inscripted on the other knife was a name for the pair: Grigoriroi – Swift Stream. Thalia said she'd had one of her hunter friends name the weapons. She'd been inspired by Ana's grandfather, Poseidon, and her grandmother, Athena. Swift knowledge and powerful streams.

But knife fighters had always been frowned upon because it was hard to defend yourself with them. Ana's mother, Annabeth, had always been proud to wield her knife. She'd told Ana stories about the knife she'd received from Luke Castellan. However, Ana found it hard to believe. When she was alive, Annabeth stayed at home and cared for Ana and her siblings. Percy and his big sword, Riptide, went out to fight the battles. Sure, Annabeth would occasionally go with him, but Ana had rarely, if ever, seen her in action.

Ana growled in frustration. She slipped her knives back into her sleeves. But the negative thoughts didn't go away.

Flashback ends