Demigod Falls {Completed}

CH. 1

A/N: Hey guys, thanks for giving this fic a chance. It's my first one, so I'm sorry if it isn't the best. It begins after Weirdmageddon, but before the Heroes of Olympus series. Hope it makes sense. Don't forget to comment and vote! (Original posted 3/7/16. Edited 7/19/17.)

I am awoken by my half-sister Annabeth's backpack being zipped open. The sun is just beginning to rise from the strawberry fields, so it must be around five in the morning.

I watch bleary-eyed as she shoves her bathing suit in her backpack. She slings the bag over her shoulder, faces the door, and takes a deep breath, almost as though she's about to sneak out. And, knowing her, I figure she probably is. She raises her blue Yankees cap to her head, but I stop her.

"Let me guess," I say. "You're going for an early morning swim with Percy again, aren't you?"

Her head swivels around to look at me. Her intelligent gray eyes, shining with guilt, meet my identical ones. She offers a sheepish smile.

"Sorry for waking you, Isabelle. You aren't going to tell Chiron about this, are you? You know he'll kill me."

I raise an eyebrow for a moment before sighing in defeat. I can't say no to her. "Nah... Have fun. Just be sure not to get caught." There's a soft knock at the door.

A gentle voice whispers, "Annabeth, are you ready to go?"

"Coming, Percy," she answers. She turns to me. "Thanks, Izzy. I'll be back soon." In a matter of seconds, she's gone. I sigh again and figure I might as well get dressed. I put on my usual outfit: my orange Camp Half-Blood t-shirt, jeans, and old black Converse. I shove my switchblade in my pocket and pull my boring brown hair into its usual low ponytail, revealing my leather necklace. Two clay beads are strung onto the strip of leather, one for every year I've spent at Camp Half-Blood.

I climb back onto my top bunk and pull my Combat Strategy book and flashlight out from under my pillow. Before I know it, I've finished the eight hundred-page book and sunlight is streaming in from the small window next to the door.

This sounds like a normal kind of routine, right? Well, it would be... if I wasn't a demigod. My home, Camp Half-Blood, is a safe haven for people like us-- Half-Bloods, half mortal and half god. And my switchblade? It's actually my ancient Greek dagger. I am a child of Athena. So are Annabeth, and my twenty other half siblings. Percy, Annabeth's boyfriend, is a son of Poseidon. So by "early morning swim," I mean that Annabeth and Percy are going to be sitting in a bubble, totally dry underwater.

You're probably wondering how I ended up here.

When I was 11, my dad, Samuel Carter, died in a car crash, making me an orphan. I was put in an orphanage in San Diego just a few miles from my old house.

The orphanage was crammed with kids. But at least I had food, clothes, and shelter. Most of the time.

Let's just say, some orphans like to steal your food, cut up your favorite shirt (the last remaining item from your childhood), and lock you out of the house in the rain for an hour. Just for kicks.

I did have one friend. His name was Jeffrey. He was taller than most of the kids. But he was also the nicest of all of them without a doubt. I told him about my dad. He understood. He'd gone through almost the same thing. His father had gone searching for some god, which was a tradition in his religion. No one had ever returned.

School for me was no picnic. I wasn't very focused. With ADHD and dyslexia, how could I be? At all of the schools I'd been to, I was well-known for fooling teachers. I would be staring out the window, maybe watching the squirrels, when a teacher would call on me. They would each have the exact same smirk. Gosh, I hated that smirk. The looks on their faces when I answered correctly without even flinching were priceless.

One day, as I walked to school, the unthinkable happened.

A hydra struck. A hydra is a 2-headed snake whose heads grow back in doubles when cut off.

For some reason, I knew exactly what to do, despite my inexperience. There was an old wooden chair on a nearby house's porch. I kicked the chair's leg off and used the sharp end to slice one of the hydra's nine heads off. To my surprise, two more heads grew back in its place. Then I remembered that a teacher at one of my previous schools said that the Greek hero Perseus defeated this very monster using fire.

Jeff conveniently happened to have a matchbook on him. I struck one on a wooden mailbox and lit the chair's leg on fire. I cut off all the heads at once and lit the necks (trying not to gag). Then the Hydra dissolved into yellow dust. I turned to look at Jeff, and jumped back in surprise at his legs. He was in what seemed to be a pair of fuzzy pants and hoof-like shoes.

"Uh, Jeff? Is it Halloween already, or am I hallucinating? Because I'm pretty sure you did not have goat legs earlier and snakes only have one head. Did that snake bite me at one point? I don't feel so well."

"Isabelle, this isn't easy, but I have to tell you something," he said.

"What, are you secretly a Harry Potter cosplayer?" I joked.

"Haha, very funny... But this is serious. Isabelle, you're a half-blood," he said in the most serious tone I'd ever heard from him.

"Half-blood?" I asked in confusion.

"The official term is Demigod."

"You mean like Hercules? The greek myth?"

"Yes."

I burst out laughing. "Jeff, it's not April Fool's Day yet. Are you feeling okay?"

"Isabelle, we need to go. You're not safe here anymore," he said, worry etched in his face.

"Wait, you're serious? Where am I safe then?"

"Camp Half-Blood."

"Where's that?"

"New York."

One surprisingly simple quest later, we were in New York.

The first month went by in a blur. I was taken to a camp for demigods. I was assigned to the Hermes cabin. I lived there for about a month. I met Annabeth and Percy. Then one day a glowing owl appeared over my head. I was moved to the Athena cabin and lived happily ever after with my new family. Life was peaceful. Unfortunately for me, I'd forgotten one simple little detail: A demigod's life never stays peaceful for very long.