Xenomorphic

Chapter 20:The Lightning Thief Part 1

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December 21, 2005

6:00 P.M.

Cabin 3 of Camp Half-Blood

Asteria lowered herself into her massive, personal bathtub, the water at a comfortable temperature for her ultra-heat resistant exoskeleton (anyone that hopped in with her would've been fried). It was the day of the Winter Solstice, and the campers were all getting prepared to go to Olympus and see their parents for the first time in a year.

As she relaxed in the water, Asteria reflected over the past six months.

The first thing that came to mind was Annabeth Chase. Surprisingly, progress had been made. Of course, the first few days had been about as hellish as you could imagine, with the brat acting the way she was dressed, snapping at everything, saying bad things, and just being a nuisance. Still, a few hard swats to her padded-butt and a few bars of soap fixed the problem.

Another blow to Annabeth's draining pride was from a combination of a store's worth of laxatives, and her babysitters waiting to the absolute last moment to take her to the potty. Against all common belief, girls did, in fact, poop, and Asteria was cursing her telepathy whenever she was around a messy Annabeth, because the girl's foremost thoughts were about the uncomfortable squishiness in her pull-up.

Eww. Just...eww.

It almost made Asteria lift the punishment up, if not for the positive effect it was having on Chase's psyche. Her pride was lowering, her demeanor was improving, her attitude was getting better, and she was so much more mellow now. She listened to other's opinions, did what she was told without complaint, and was less prone to argue every minute detail.

But, speaking of psyche, the human mind worked in very mysterious ways. Certain events would be remembered in perfect clarity for a lifetime, some memories would be repressed due to a plethora of reasons, most of them being embarrassment, fear, or extreme shock, and some memories would be discarded due to triviality, like what you had for dinner three weeks ago on a Sunday night.

Annabeth's mind, due her changing personality, and long exposure to regression, was subconsciously making a link between the two phenomena. In other words, young Annabeth's mind was getting attached to her new lifestyle. The campers had made a bet that Annabeth would get addicted to her new underwear, and it was looking like those people were going to cash in.

It wasn't like that was a problem. All it would take was a simple mental nudge and Annabeth would be dying for panties again.

Moving on from the daughter of Athena's mental state, Asteria thought about her friends. Yes, by gods, you read correctly. Friends. Of all things, the genocidal daughter of Poseidon had made friends at this boring camp. She and Clarisse had bonded over their regular fights, with the daughter of Ares progressively getting better with each spar (Asteria actually had to try in order to win now). Drew had become a mainstay in the hybrid's life, and filled the position of a big sister Asteria would never admit to finding pleasant. Silena had, to a lesser extent, also become a bit of a sister. Beckendorf had become a sort-of role model for Asteria, and had helped her craft her celestial bronze bullets (that worked smashingly). The Stoll siblings served as comic relief in Asteria's life, the twins always trying to win her heart in as juvenile a way for twelve-year-olds.

It was sweet, but with the happenings going on around camp, Asteria was not in the mood for puppy love.

Several campers' minds had gone dark to Asteria's telepathy, and there was a very short list as to why that was. Considering just who was on the rise, against all denial by Zeus and others, the most plausible theory was that those select campers had gone over to the proverbial Dark Side.