To The Future

Chapter 3

Annabeth had been certain that Percy would not lose to a dart. But no. He had fainted. She knelt over him and examined the dart and took his pulse. He was alive but unconscious.

Annabeth focused on the girl now, the one that shot Percy. After Frank had slashed at her neck, a paneling had been ripped out and a couple of wires were on the floor.

Leo was frowning, after a few moments, he announced, "my guess is that that..." He paused to poke the girl with his foot, "is a robot! Yay. Now we are going to have SOOOOOO much fun, being put unconscious by a lovely robot! Did I say yay?"

She can't be a robot, Annabeth thought, she must be a ... What is that word? Before she had any chance to search her mind, the door was flung open and three figures walked in.

Their expressions changed from started to worried to suspicious to curious. Well only two of people's expressions changed, the third, some guy that look like a...young man playing as an old one. He then asked a girl with strawberry blond hair, "Cress, what's going on?"

The girl, ( Cress?) looked at them and said, "Cinder's on the floor, her err... Wiring is showing, a couple on the floor. There's, umm, twelve people? Nine are wearing armour? Yeah armour. One boy has fainted...Tranquilized I think, by Cinder. Oh, and Kai's trying to put the wiring back."

"Kai, you're a horrible mechanic, let Cress do it."

"Ohh I'ma mechanic, can I have the robot? Her parts could come in handy!!!!" Leo was smiling.

The boy( Kai? ) glared at Leo. "She's not a robot! She's a cyborg."

"She's half-human?" Annabeth's eyes grew wide. A cyborg, half human, half robot. Kai scowled at her. "Most human cyborg I've met, and I've met a few."

A groaning sound was heard. Percy rolled over and puked all over the floor.

"Percy!!!!!!" Annabeth ran to his side.

"I'm ok." He mumbled.

"OWW!!!!!" Kai had succeeded in fixing Cinder's wiring. As if by instict, she punched the first thing she could see. With the metal hand. Who was Leo. Who had been bending over her.

"Stars, Kai," Cinder scowled, feeling at her wiring,"you're a HORRIBLE mechanic. Everything is in the wrong place!!"

"You're welcome" Kai grumbled.

"Do you have a port?" Cinder asked Annabeth.

"Ummm I have a phone?"

"A what? From the second era? Sweet!! pass it here, please? I need the...never mind!" this was all said in one breath, with barely contained energy.

After Annabeth handed over her phone, Cinder sat cross-legged on the floor and started taking apart Annabeth's phone.

Then she proceeded to fix her wiring.

"Ewwww!!!!!" Leo screeched.

Kai gave him a death glare.

Cress started introducing them. "That's Cinder, the mechanic. Captain Thorne, call him either Captain or Thorne, for now he's blind because of an, ummm, unfortunate accident, still unsure how that happened. There's someone else on the Rampion too. There's Wolf, Iko and a girl, Scartlett, but she was kidnapped. I'm Cress I think-"

"You're the hacker." interjected Thorne.

"-thanks, I guess. And this is his imperial majesty, Kai."

"Tell me you were being sarcastic." Leo had turned pale. probably because he was rude to the, ummm, emperor.

Annabeth shut him up with a glare. "This is Leo,-" she started to introduce everyone, gesturing at the person who she named until she finish. "Anyway, you mention a few others? If they're you know-" she gestured towards Cinder."-Or anything ... different."

"Oh Iko's an android-"

"She has a programming 'error' or she'll be like Darla up there." Cinder cut in. "expressionless and blah." she pulled a face.

"Well yeah, I'm a lunar shell, Wolf was a lunar special operative. Cinder is a lunar-cyborg." Cress looked nervous.

"Relax." Piper was using her charmspeak."Would you tell us what a lunar is?"

To their surprise, Cress looked unaffected by Piper's charmspeak. Instead, she looked even more nervous.

"You're lunar?" Cinder sounded surprised.

Piper shifted uneasily. "No, I don't know what a lunar is."

Kai explained about how lunars were a species on the moon, how they could use magic (Cinder had argued that it was manipulating the bioelectricity waves around a living being) to control people. The evil queen, Levana killed her sister and her niece to accend to the throne. The niece was alive and going to overthrow Levana. And Cinder told them how lunar shells, the lunars without magic, could resist the bioelectricity manipulation.

It was very facinating.

"So...who's the niece?" Leo asked.

"Me," Cinder said it so matter-of-factly that Annabeth didn't know what to say.

"Why do you think I'm lunar?" Piper looked worried

"Never mind. You're obviously not lunar. Anyway... Wolf and Scarlett were together and the Scarlett went missing and ... it's like he died. Scarlett looks like you-" She gestured towards Rachel."-but her eyes are brown and bigger. And ... never mind." Cinder looked nervous. "She-"

Cinder was cut off abruptly when two figures fell through the air and landed on Percy's head.