Hi everyone! Welcome to my story! :)

Now, before delving into the world of Lauren, let's get something straight.

I have an old story called "My Salve". It's a Harry Potter / Avengers crossover fanfiction. It was one of my first ever stories, so the writing isn't that good, but it's got a respectable number of reviews, followers and favorites, so I won't say more about that.

BUT, My Salve is Part 1 of this story arc - the "Avenged" story arc. You don't necessarily have to read it in order to understand this story, I'm just putting it out there.

This is Part 2 of the "Avenged" story arc. :) I'm planning for a Part 3, but that won't come until two years or so. Such is the life of a writer.

ANYWAY, I WILL say that knowledge in the Rick Riordan universe is imperative if you plan on taking this story seriously. I sure as hell know that I did.

That's all, I think. There will be more author's notes in the following chapters, anyway.

Without further ado, I give you the first chapter of "Rage against the dying of the light". Enjoy!

(The things you might recognize are under the possessions of Rick Riordan, Stan Lee, and Marvel.)

It is well into the evening; darkness has long descended. Tree branches peek out from their trunks like arms, scratching my face as I thunder past them.

Behind me, I hear the monster crush the tree between its pincers. I flinch as large splinters fly past me, some embedding themselves into my back. I ignore the pain and the blood flowing through the cuts, pulling another arrow out from my sheath and turning around, releasing it towards the monster in the blink of an eye. I don't have time to consider whether the arrow penetrated its skin, as a rather large tree almost slams into me and I have to graze past it.

Thinking fast, I take hold of one of its larger branches, pulling it along with me for a fraction of a second before letting go. There is a loud crunch, followed by the ear-splitting screech of the monster. I must have hit it.

I start to run faster, knowing that I had just angered the creature. It would not die from a simple blow to the head, or with arrows. But there has to be a way to kill it, perhaps a chink in its armor. My mind flashes back to an hour previous, when the creature stood before me and stared at me.

Oh, if I hadn't started running! Perhaps it wouldn't have attacked. There is nothing I can do now—only hope that I find a way to kill it before it kills me.

Where is Artemis? Where are her Hunters? They were there—they were all there when the monster sprung forth from the ground. Surely they would come and help me! I am snapped out of my thoughts when a wolf howls in the distance.

The monster wails again, making the ground tremble beneath my feet—as if its footfalls weren't factor enough. I reach back again and pull another arrow from my quiver; my heart drops when my finger grazes only one. I look down to find that it is the last one.

You must make it count, I tell myself, and I have never felt so afraid. In all my years of hunting, no creature has ever bested me. This one, however… this could be the one.

I steel my gut, plant my foot, and push upwards off the ground. I grip the tree branch that nearly impales my head and pull myself onto its shaky hold, crouching there with my arrow already nocked. For the first time since an hour, I see the creature in full view.

Its broad back and tail are shielded with some kind of dark armor, as well as its eight, clawed legs. Its stinger has the same color and shape of an almost-ripe pomegranate, but much, much larger—perhaps the size of my own head. Looking at everything else, I realize that it is the only part of its body that is not shielded by armor; or, I am desperate enough to assume this.

It is getting closer, now. My hand is shaking as I grip my bow, and I force it to still. I only have one shot. The tip of my arrow hones in on the creature's unmoving stinger, and I hold my breath.

The monster is ten feet away when I let my arrow fly.

A sharp clicking sound and it scrapes past the monster's tail.

"No…" The creature had angled its tail only an inch downward, narrowly avoiding my arrow. Creatures such as this are not supposed to be so intelligent!

I've been staring at it for a moment too long. I whirl around and make a move to jump back onto the ground, but the creature snaps at the trunk of the tree and I fall with it. Upon impacting the ground, searing pain shoots up my stomach, making my breath hitch in my throat. Through the snow billowing about from the skirmish, I see one of the branches has fallen on top of me. I struggle to get out from underneath it but it only brings me more pain.

There is a loud hissing sound, accompanied by sharp clicking.

"ARTEMIS!" I scream. "ARTEMIS, PLEASE! PHOEBE! ADA! LENORE! HAYLEY—"

The creature appears behind the thinning cloud of snow, its pincers clicking menacingly as it approaches me. I continue shouting, desperately wondering why all of them were gone. Surely this creature did not maim them so easily? There were more of them than one of me! Now, I have no knife, no more arrows, and a bow that is long past my grasp.

The branch atop me seems to have molded itself against me as it has become impossible to even shake it without hurting myself.

The monster hovers over me, hissing. Its tail bends backward first, and I know what comes after. Several drops of yellow liquid oozes out of its stinger and falls onto the branch, where it starts eating away at the bark.

"Gods above," I plead, closing my eyes. "Please… HELP ME!"

Nothing happens. In the distance, I hear the sound of a Hunter's horn being blown. Hope flares inside me, before the monster lets it tail fall forward and into my chest—

Ethan gasped awake, wildly looking around, searching for the monster that had him pinned down.

There was none.

He was in the Hermes cabin, sitting up on one of the bunk beds, with the entire room looking very musty and dark except for the sunlight that was streaming through the blinds. Around him, (and also above him) there must have been three or four other Hermes campers who were sleeping.

What had woken Ethan? Perhaps it was the disturbingly vivid nightmare… he had never had one of those before. Then he realized that the sound of a horn being blown in his dream was happening in real life as well. There was a pause before the steady blast of it cut into the silence a third time. Being inside a cabin, Ethan, who was already awake, could barely hear it, so the campers who were asleep wouldn't have even registered it.

How had Ethan, though? He was fast asleep as much as them, and lost in a dream that required much of his awareness… He stopped questioning it. He was rather grateful, in fact, that he had been pulled out of the nightmare's clutches. But why did he have a dreadful feeling in the pit of his stomach? Frowning, and with very light feet, Ethan got off the bed and walked to the door.

Judging from how cold it was, it must have been a little past noon. Yet Ethan's forehead was beaded with sweat, from the nightmare, but he paid no attention to that. His attention was caught by the group of girls standing in the middle of the clearing.

Quickly, Ethan counted in his head and found that there were twelve of them. None could have been more than twenty years old. They all looked quite diverse from each other, with some of them having dark skin, some porcelain white, some having light hair, some raven-black. All of them, however, wore ski parkas with jeans and hunting boots, wore their hair tied into braids down their backs, and had quivers of arrows at their sides with bows in their hands.

Ethan stared at their parkas with slight envy, rubbing up and down his arms as his sweat started to freeze over.

Chiron, the centaur Ethan knew to be Camp Half-Blood's activities director, stood before the group with a thoughtful expression. Beside him were Jason Grace and Piper McLean, the famous counselors from the Zeus and Aphrodite cabins. They were speaking with the two girls at the head of the group: one with short, choppy, russet hair—obviously older than the other one, who had auburn hair tied up in a ponytail.

Ethan noticed that more than a dozen campers had gathered behind Chiron, listening in, so Ethan was not so ashamed to join the mass, but he made sure to be as subtle as possible.

He settled beside George, a boy from the Hermes cabin and someone Ethan had presumed was a friend… or, at least, an acquaintance.

"What's happening?" Ethan murmured.

"It's the Hunters of Artemis," said George. "I don't understand why they're here… They rarely visit—"

"Hunters?" said Ethan. "Where's Artemis though?"

George pointed to the girl with auburn hair. "The one in front speaking with Chiron. That's her lieutenant beside her. Lauren, I think."

That's Artemis? Ethan stared at the girl with wide eyes, and several questions sprung into mind: Were those other girls her daughters? No, Artemis was a maiden goddess, Ethan knew. Why was she so young? Or was that just the kind of body she preferred?

He was yet to know how the Olympians acted; he hadn't even met his godly parent yet. The other campers had said that it usually took more or less four days for the signs to appear. Ethan had been staying in the Hermes cabin for a week and still nothing happened.

He was getting anxious, but truthfully he hoped he would be a son of Hermes. He'd grown rather close to the inmates there.

"… dreams are starting to become very dangerous business, my Lady," Chiron was saying. He looked nervous and fidgety beneath the goddess' gaze, which Ethan assumed was normal for anyone to feel.

"Which is why we cannot let this go unnoticed, Chiron," Artemis replied coolly. "Has your Oracle spoken of a new prophecy?" Ethan glanced uneasily at the Big House, recalling what everyone said about the girl that lived there.

"Nothing yet… but isn't that a good thing?"

"This is important, Chiron. I've spoken to my brother and it is not his doing. He has not been sending dreams for the good of two years, not since the war with the Earth Mother. I fear something is about to happen… And the signs—"

"The signs," said Chiron, pushing his wheelchair forward the slightest bit. Ethan noticed the girls behind Artemis shift, almost threateningly. "Signs… from the dream?"

"Yes, it wasn't supposed to be snowing," Artemis said quickly, frowning at the ground. "And we had chased away all the wolves within the perimeter already…"

"No offense, Lady Artemis," Piper McLean interjected gently, "But I'm afraid your words offer us no clues. You haven't told us what happens in these… dreams yet."

For a moment, Ethan thought she was going to get disintegrated on the spot, but Artemis' gaze remained distracted and thoughtful. She waved a hand to the girl beside her, Lauren, in what seemed to be a sign of permission. Lauren nodded briskly.

"It always starts the same, I am always running through a forest," she started, and Ethan couldn't help but to notice her light accent. "It was dark and there was something chasing me. In the dream, I always thought of it as just a monster—I never had a name for it. Then as soon as I wake up, I know that it is a scorpion. A giant scorpion."

Ethan's heart skipped a beat.

"None of my arrows worked on it. The scorpion always had this sort of armor on it, like the Nemean Lion's pelt... I remember being so desperate for help. Eventually the monster had me pinned and I started calling for my Lady Artemis." Lauren's eyes flickered to the goddess beside her, who was no doubt listening to the story with attentive ears. "Her and the other Hunters. I do not know how myself, in the dream, had come across to know of them, but—"

She stopped talking. Her eyes turned from neutral to furious as they turned to him, and Ethan was alarmed to find that he had stepped up from the mass of campers, in full view of the conversing group. Ethan glanced behind him fearfully and found the same expression on George's face. The son of Hermes had apparently tried to stop him from walking forward, but Ethan had been relentless.

He stood, now, in front of two immortal beings, two older camp counselors, and eleven armed girls with boy issues.

Jason Grace turned around slowly and looked down at Ethan with gentle, but confused eyes. "Woah, dude," he said. "I wouldn't go after these girls if I were you. They'd tear you to shreds."

"Not literally," his girlfriend, Piper, quickly added. They looked at each other uncertainly, and their smiles did nothing to put Ethan at ease.

"Ethan Lane," Chiron said, facing him. "Is there something you wish to say, child?"

Ethan didn't know what to do. All eyes were on him now, even the campers'. No doubt, Artemis was watching him as well. His hands started to shake, but miraculously, he found the will to speak:

"Yeah, I, uh…" Yeah, real great job, Ethan. He cleared his throat. "About the dream… I… I have them too."

The way he said it, through his ears, couldn't have sounded more mediocre. In his head, he imagined slapping himself for being so pedestrian. Artemis and her lieutenant were looking at him with wary eyes, and something George had said earlier in the week popped into mind: They don't like boys very much, from what Jason says.

A lump formed in Ethan's throat and he opened his mouth to speak, just to tell them to forget everything he'd said and clarify that he was, in fact, going to whack himself with a bat that night, but Lauren spoke first: "Prove it," she said.

"S-sorry?"

"Prove it," she repeated coldly. "Give me the details of the dream."

Oh, well… "It was snowing," Ethan slowly said, but they already knew that. He rummaged his brain for the remnants of the dream, struggling to remember the little things. "While you… while I was running, a wolf howled." He watched Artemis' face for anything that could suggest she was about to shoot him down; thankfully, there was none. "And the scorpion's stinger sort of looked like a pomegranate." Lauren's eyes widened. "And, uh… I had one arrow left but I missed, so the monster snapped the tree trunk I was standing on and took me down with it. It was about to stab me and eat me for dinner, I think, when—"

"When the dream ended," Lauren finished, her voice laced with astonishment… either that, or she had finally found a reason to shoot Ethan. She looked at Artemis and said, "What does this mean, my Lady?"

Artemis gripped her bow tightly. "Something is coming," she said vaguely. At the uneasy breaths that the girls behind her drew, she added, "Perhaps nothing bigger than Gaea, or the Titans, or the Giants… but one in particular…" The last bit, she had said under her breath, and Ethan had barely heard it. But everyone else around their huddled circle did, though.

"Orion?" Lauren said, looking upset.

"That's impossible," Jason spoke up. "Reyna strangled him to death two years ago. That's where she got the Aegis!" He seemed to think about what he said for a moment. "Or at least, a part of the Aegis… but my point still stands. Orion's supposed to be dead."

"Monsters never truly die, Jason Grace," said Artemis. "The same goes for Orion; though I'm afraid, he has returned from Tartarus too soon… so soon, in fact, that I have cause to worry…"

Ethan's brain felt like it was about to explode, which was the main reason he found the courage to hold his hands up in a time-out sign. "Hold on," he started lamely. "Who's this Orion guy? And who's Reyna?" Both names sounded familiar, but he was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Artemis was standing right in front of him.

Ignoring him, Artemis turned to her lieutenant and said, "I must go to Olympus, perhaps my father knows something about this. You and the others will stay here, in my cabin—"

"But—"

"—and try to think of why it would be snowing in your dream." She paused, frowning. "When Orion was slain originally by the giant scorpion Gaea had sent, it was midsummer… the snow is a sign. I know it. You will explain to Ethan everything about Orion and the war, and what he did." Her eyes flashed dangerously. "That's an order, Lauren."

Lauren wouldn't meet the goddess' eyes. "Yes, my Lady."

"I will be back as soon as I can. And if anything happens, make sure to keep him safe."

"But he's a boy!" Lauren complained, and Artemis smiled.

"I know, but it's only until I get back. Do well, Lauren." The goddess turned, strolled past the other Hunters, who reverently parted like the Red Sea. As soon as she was separated from everyone else, the snow rose from behind her, covering her from view. When the snow returned to the ground, she was gone.

Once she was gone, the air in the clearing lightened up, but only slightly. Ethan released a breath he didn't know he had been holding, and watched as the crowd of campers dispersed, returning to their cabins or anywhere else they wanted to. George ran off to the direction of the volleyball court, not even giving Ethan a sideward glance.

Jason and Piper walked off, holding hands and disappearing behind the Mess Hall, and Ethan could only assume that they were headed for the beach. Before they got too far, he heard Piper say, "I've seriously had enough of Giants." Jason laughed.

Meanwhile, Lauren had led the Hunters past the fountain and into the Artemis cabin. It seemed they'd been cooped there sometime before, for there were groans of displeasure that came from inside. Ethan was starting to think it would be best not to stare after them when Chiron suddenly clapped his shoulder. Ethan's head snapped up to find the centaur looking down at him with what seemed to be sympathetic eyes.

"Come, my boy," he said, gently pulling Ethan away. "We have much to discuss, preferably with a goblet of Coke, wouldn't you say?"

Mr. D wasn't in the Big House while they spoke, which originally concerned Ethan because he was always there. Chiron told him not to worry too much about him. "He wouldn't try to escape," he said, and Ethan didn't know the wine god too much, so he wasn't in any place to argue.

On his first day at camp, Ethan had already been brought up to speed about the gods, Olympus, demigods, and everything that could have possibly been in-between. Now, however, Chiron was addressing him about the so-called Titan War, and the Second Giant War.

He said that the Titan War was over and done with, but the Second Giant War had only taken place two years prior to Ethan's arrival, and that made Ethan very worried. Chiron told him about the Prophecy of Seven and the seven demigods who were in it: Jason Grace, Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Piper McLean, Leo Valdez, Frank Zhang, and Hazel Levesque. The two latter names were all but alien to Ethan, and Chiron explained that they were Roman demigods.

The centaur had already explained everything about the Roman demigod camp in San Francisco, and Ethan would have liked to think that he was all over it, though he was still hazy with the whole Greek-Roman god personifications. But he knew enough.

Towards the end of the story, Lauren walked into the house and sat down two seats away from both Chiron and Ethan. Ethan knew that she was going to come eventually, as was Artemis' order, but he was still slightly awestruck.

She started immediately. "So, two years ago, there was this big—" Chiron stopped her by holding one hand up; she regarded him with aloof eyes. "You have told him everything there is to know, then?" The centaur nodded. "I have nothing else to explain?" Another slow nod. "Good. Let's get right to business then: the dream," she said. "You have given me reason to believe that you've been having the same—"

"No," Ethan interrupted. Her eyes narrowed and he knew that he probably shouldn't have cut her off, but he continued anyway. "I've only had it once before. Just today, actually. I was asleep in the Hermes cabin when I heard a horn…"

Lauren nodded. "And you've never had these dreams before today?"

"Not that I can remember."

"Strange."

"Very strange," Chiron agreed, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

"Does this usually happen?" Ethan asked, looking to the centaur. "Two demigods having the same dream?"

"I'm afraid not," he said. "Dreams are very powerful in a demigod's reality, Ethan. They always have some hidden meaning to them. Sometimes, it shows an event that has happened, is happening, or will happen; sometimes it is a demigod's means of communicating with somebody. Two demigods having the same dream doesn't happen very often, but when it does…"

"We never know what to think," Lauren hastily finished. "That is why we have to get this sorted out before anything happens. The snow—what do you make of it?"

Ethan took a moment to think. "Maybe it means that something bad's gonna happen in Christmas?" At Chiron's warning look, he slinked deeper into his chair. "Or some time near Christmas, I don't know…"

Lauren nodded. "There is a possibility," she said. "I do not know about the 25th, but this year the winter solstice will happen in the 22nd. It is when the gods meet up at Mount Olympus to discuss important events."

"That happens every December?"

"And June," she replied. "Twice a year, during the winter and summer solstice. Maybe something will come at December 22nd… I cannot be sure if it is Orion or not—"

"Is there a god of snow?" said Ethan, mentally hitting himself. I seriously have to stop interrupting her. "Or god of ice or something. I mean, if it was snowing in my dream, maybe it was caused by him."

It was a lame suggestion, but not as lame as he had thought. Chiron shared a look with Lauren, and said, "There is a goddess of snow, yes. Khione. She took part in the Second Giant War, as an ally of Gaea."

Ethan frowned. "Is there a possibility of her being back already, like Orion?"

"She was never killed, my boy," said the centaur. "She escaped." He once again looked to Lauren, and her finger started tapping on the table.

"I will tell Artemis of this as soon as she gets back," she stated grimly. "Have you any more suggestions?"

In fact, he did. Ethan was just about to inquire about the howling wolf in the dream—a tiny detail, but like the snow, it could have been important—when a tremor ran through the earth.

The Big House shook, and dust motes fell from the ceiling. Lauren's hand shot for her bow, which she'd placed on the floor beside her. There was another tremor, followed by a shrill scream that reverberated all throughout the room.

Lauren shot to her feet and was out the door in seconds. Chiron had reached for his sword, which sat on the mantel at one corner of the room, while Ethan remained, pinned on his seat, pupils dilated in fear.

"Rage against the dying of the light" is a line in a poem by Dylan Thomas, called "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night". It's one of the main inspirations of this story, and it'll come up in the latter portion, so watch out for that. ;)

What'd you think so far? Yay or nay? Make sure to leave a review!