INSTANT HERO (just add water)

By Becky Creighton

Welcome, one and all, to my first (proper) fic! This idea came to me one night when I was flicking through the Percy Jackson books, and I thought, "Hey! How come Demeter hasn't been mentioned much? I mean, without her, no-one would be able to, like, grow stuff!" So I came up with this tale about one of Demeter's unfortunate children. Please note that this is a Beta version of the story, so forgive me if it sucks.

Disclaimer: Rick Riordan owns the Percy Jackson series, including Annabeth, Grover and pretty much everyone else, but I did make up Marlin and all the other people in the Demeter cabin, plus Murphy the satyr, so HA! Contains spoilers to both books.

Chapter 1: Marlin really annoys Dionysus

'Please...wait..up!..' the Satyr moaned, struggling to keep up with the boy who was bounding excitably up the hill. He hadn't been expecting much physical effort for this one. Neither did he want it; for Murphy had only just eaten a whole load of Pepsi cans and pizza boxes, and as you can probably guess, his stomach was engaged in the equivalent effect of being thrown off a cliff, with weights attached. It had taken three days to bring Marlin to Half-Blood Hill, more like sixty anyway, because Marlin was a very inquisitive person, constantly wanting to do strange and impulsive things, like running down dark alleyways and throwing matches into liquids and seeing what happens next. In the end that trait was what had piqued Murphy's interest in the boy; that he might be a half-blood. So Murphy scooped Marlin up from Manhattan Middle School and decided to take him here, to Half-Blood Hill. He didn't seem concerned that in fact the Olympians were alive and kicking and still as irritable as they were two thousand years ago, his dad wasn't that happy about it, as he was a very over-protective person, and had jumped to the conclusion that Marlin was a member of some creepy cult; therefore instead of the usual hoards of monsters that followed potential heroes to Long Island, it was Marlin's father. After the amount of things that had happened to them as a result, Murphy couldn't decide which was worse. Marlin finally turned around to face the panting Satyr, sat down to rest beside a peculiar looking pine tree, and started to laugh at the small speck of his dad's car in the distance. 'I'M FREEEE!' Marlin yelled, cupping his hands together. Murphy had noticed something odd about Marlin the very moment he'd set eyes upon him, one day, in the middle of Latin. Maybe it was the boy's glossy auburn hair, that was strangely feminine and rather long, or his impossible gooseberry green eyes that stood out like huge caterpillars. Well, Marlin had just translated a sentence from Vigil as 'On Sundays, sardines park their helicopters outside Wal-Mart', which, Murphy pondered, was probably what he noticed first. Murphy had suspicions as to who were Marlin's real parentage, but for now he was going to keep that to himself. There were cans to be eaten. The satyr finally caught up with Marlin and crouched down beside him, looking out to the horizon at his dad's car.

"Funny lookin' tree. A bit out of place, too. What is it anyway? Pine, probably." Marlin plucked off one of the tree's dark green needles. Murphy winced.

"DON'T DO THAT!" he cried. Marlin was taken aback, and chuckled.

"Dude, it's a tree!"

Murphy pointed an accusing finger at him.

"Trees are people too! Plus, it ain't any random tree. That's Thalia's tree, or rather, was, Thalia's tree…after an, er, incident last summer. It protects the borders of the camp, and by plucking that leaf, you have just weakened the barriers that save your butt from being kicked by every monster on the planet. Think about it."

Marlin looked guiltily at the leaf between his fingers. Murphy was a very passionate environmentalist, even though by satyr standards, he was only fifteen. And with big dreams; for him to make them a reality, he had been told to find at least three campers and take them safely to Camp Half-Blood before he could start training as a Searcher for Pan. Marlin was his second assignment.

"I suppose you're right."

"Damn right." Murphy got up, sighing, but there was a tinge of bleating in it.

"Come now, Marlin. I must introduce you to Chiron, and Mr.D the camp director. You will welcomed by the other members of the camp, and will be sent into the Hermes' cabin, and will remain there until you are cla"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, DUH! Let's go. Show me the swords! Show me the chariots! Show me the gir- mmf!"

Murphy covered Marlin's mouth and rolled his eyes.

"Come on now, dreamer boy."

As the two travellers entered a clearing, Marlin looked around erratically at his surroundings. At first, he thought they were so strange that he half expected to see a random McDonald's Drive-Thru in the middle of it, but later on he would have done ANYTHING to see any fast-food at all. The first thing he realised was the sensation of loads of people's gazes falling on him at once. The next thing was the people themselves. All eerie looking, yet familiar, as if they were all related somehow… It's like those bits out of Western movies, when the outlaw is walking out of town into the sunset and the entire population is scowling at him, polishing their shotguns. Except these people were polishing spears, swords, gladiuses and bows, Greek battle armour and bucklers. Marlin suddenly felt very out of place. The next thing he noticed, after all the campers were bored of him and tired of waiting for him to do something stupid, was the satyrs. They were all wearing orange T-shirts, labelled Camp Half-Blood, and playing panpipes. Some of them noticed Murphy, and bleated in excitement, waving at him. Murphy smiled, realising the expression on Marlin's face, which was similar to the sort you would wear if one day, you opened your bedroom door after coming home from school, only to find the floor covered in layers and layers of £1000 bills, diamonds, video games and a Spanish villa buried somewhere underneath it. Then Marlin flicked back to reality when one last detail stuck in his mind. It was the vineyard and strawberry fields that caught his eye, and brought back a torrent of memories about his dad's old gardening shop….

It had been when he was only six or seven, and then there had been him, his dad, and his step-mum, living like one happy family. He had been amazing at, like, growing stuff back then. Marlin would only have to water the flowers, whistle and sing, and then the soil would soften, leaves would darken and spread and the petals would shine. He never knew why it happened, why he had this crazy effect on plants, but his father joked and said, "Must be the good influence!" And then he would giggle and smile at his step-mum, named Grace. Grace. She was a young, pretty thing; Grace had studied horticulture and agricultural technology at college; She almost screamed intelligence. Short caramel coloured hair, purple-ish blue eyes and hands that looked as if they had been through everything and were not afraid to go back. Marlin had always felt happy when he had been growing and planting the flowers with his family in the store, he had decided to devote his life to plants; but then Grace died. Murdered. Strangled. Dad wasn't able to afford to keep the store, he didn't want to anyway because that was where Grace had been killed, and so they moved away, to noisy gloomy Manhattan. Marlin had long since put his passion for growing things behind him, and tried to forget about his step-mother, but seeing the strawberry fields and vineyards now just shoved it all in front of his mind again.

What Marlin didn't know was that as he pondered his past, Murphy, some other kids in the strawberry fields and a porky, black haired middle-aged man were staring at him.

"Umm, Marlin?"

Marlin blinked. "Yeah?"

"You're drooling."

Marlin blinked again, wiped the drool from his mouth and said, "It's the, uh, strawberries…I mean, dude, have you ever seen bigger fruits before in your life?"

And he wasn't totally lying, either. Surrounding the strawberry patches were satyrs and other kids rather similar to himself. As the music rang out from the satyrs' panpipes, mere water was sucked up greedily by the soil like it was some sort of magic potion, and at once leaves unfurled and the fruit reddened to a deep, bright vermilion, almost like blood.

"The strawberries? They're all mine, punk!"

Murphy and Marlin jumped and turned around startled. When Murphy saw who it was, he started shaking and sweating, as if this guy owned him. It was the porky man. He was slouching on a garden chair next to a scratched circular table, where he, a centaur, another satyr and a young man were playing a card game, but Marlin knew by the powerful energy that was leaking out of both humanoids like a tap that they were no ordinary people, at all. Marlin suspected that it was just alcohol, and he wasn't right off the mark. Although there was no wine on the table, the porky man simply reeked of it like he was the very essence of the stuff itself. He had insanely dark black curly hair, wore a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt (which was covered in stains; cola probably), and had huge watery eyes that were a deep purple. He seemed like someone who'd been really cute a couple of centuries ago, but Time had taken over and his body hadn't caught up yet, left in last place. He didn't have much of a smile about him, and his face was red from shouting and generally being grouchy. On the table, a can of Diet Coke materialised. The man stared at it loathsomely, groaned and pulled the ring. Murphy swallowed and finally said,

" Th-th-is-is is Mr.D, the camp director. Mr.D, this is Marlin. I success-cess-fully f-f-fulfilled your request, s-sir…"

As they both went forward, Murphy whispered, "Be very polite…"

"So where did you get this guy, Murphy?" Mr.D almost spat the name, and as he did so, the other satyr flinched. The young man beside him smiled. Marlin thought he'd seen him somewhere before, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. That face, that beautiful face, waxed blonde hair put into a fringe, perfect features, soft glowing blue eyes. He was wearing long flowing white robes adorned with gold letters, and swung over his shoulders was a long silver bow and quiver. Marlin noticed that the arrows had, instead of flights, golden hearts.

"You're Cupid," he said almost dreamily, "the god of Love."

Mr.D almost choked on his Diet Coke.

"I'm Cupid?" he retorted, looking extremely offended. "If I'm Cupid, you're Hercules, shrimp!"

Both satyrs cringed in embarrassment. Murphy tried not to go green in the process.

"Oh, er…" Marlin whimpered. "I didn't mean you, sir, I, uh, meant the other guy is, er, Cupid…" His voice trailed off into the distance, taking tumbleweeds with it.

"I'm Cupid," the youth said finally, "Although my name is Eros, really. Why do mortals always call me by my Latin name? I hate being addressed as Cupid!" Eros' voice sounded like a harp being plucked, like silk, and had a subtle English accent. Had Marlin not been reasonably sane enough to resist, any regular mortal could've forgotten completely about reality just by listening to him.

" Mother and Father have punished me for ruining one of my missions by coming here to teach you archery. I was supposed to make two people called Romeo and Juliet fall in love, but they ended up killing themselves, and someone called Shakespeare wrote a play about it…"

Eros seemed like a perfectionist, wanting everything to go perfect, and could get extremely annoyed and ashamed if something went wrong. He buried his face in his hands, as his infinitely accurate memory recounted the exact episode. In his soft blue eyes, Marlin could see such horrible pictures, of lovers burning, blood spilling, Troy falling because of Helen's beauty, of Romeo and Paris fighting to the death, and Juliet slumping over Romeo's body, impaling herself on a dagger. Marlin shuddered. "The rest is history."

"Well I'm going to call you Cupid whether you like it or not, lover boy, 'cos I'M the camp director around here, so HA!" Mr.D ordered.

The centaur finally opened his eyes, for he had been sleeping while the fight had raged. Marlin got the impression he was used to seeing Eros and Mr.D argue. "As far as I am fully aware of, your father and his brothers in fact run this joint."

"I know, I know. I'm not that incredibly stupid, Chiron." Mr.D moaned. Under his breath, he muttered, "Killjoy…"

" I would like to challenge your proposition to call me Cupid, cousin, over a good game of pinochle." Eros said.

"Capital!" Mr.D replied, rubbing his hands together in delight, "Grover, re-shuffle the deck!"

Grover nodded vigorously, and set about gathering all the cards that were thrown haphazardly around the table. Grover was much older than Murphy, his horns were longer, and the goatee on his chin was thicker than a carpet.

Chiron stood up, allowing Marlin to see his four hooves clopping on the ground. He batted Grover's hands away from the cards and said, "That's enough, Mr.D and Mr.E. It is time for me to show our new arrival around the camp." In the confusion over Eros, both deities had completely forgotten about Marlin and Murphy.

"You're still here?" Mr.D said grumpily. "I have a bone to pick with you, Marlin, uh, what's your surname?"

"Mason. Marlin Mason." Marlin said boldly. He disliked Mr.D already. 'Perhaps,' he thought, 'I should keep calling him Dionysus.'

"Well, Marilyn Manson, I would like to remind you that you are named after a fish."

Chiron smiled at Murphy and said, "You have done well, Murphy. Marlin is the second camper you have brought to Half-Blood Hill. I am sure you will make a great Searcher once you complete your task."

Murphy swelled with pride. Marlin was happy for his friend. He'd explained the nature of the search for Pan to Marlin, but he was rather concerned about the fact that not a single satyr had succeeded.

"Come, Marlin," Chiron said, beckoning to where twelve, ornately designed cabins lay in a courtyard, "We must take you to cabin eleven, where there are new friends to be made, where training ensues, where glory is to be found, and where a great adventure lies ahead."

And so Marlin followed the centaur into a world, which was far greater than he could've ever anticipated.

Chapter 1 END.

AN: So the first chapter has ended! Which Olympian will claim Marlin? (You sort of know already, but..) What adventures will face him in his time at Camp Half-Blood? How can he possibly live up to the likes of Percy Jackson? And will Eros be any good at teaching? Find out in chapter two! Please review; all critique is welcome.