Chapter One

Wind blew gently against Jay's face as he turned the boat towards the tiny island. It fiddled with his bangs and caressed his high cheek bones. Looking back through chocolate eyes, he noticed that his sailing class was doing a fine job of keeping up. Grinning, he shouted, "Keep going!" Hoping to challenge them a bit more, he let out more sail, heightening his speed.

Suddenly a huge foot came out of nowhere and crashed in front of him, causing his sailboat to tumble about, threatening to overturn. Jumping off, he landed in the sea, coughing out salt water as he surfaced. Treading water, he searched around frantically to see what had upset his boat. His jaw dropped as he came face to face with a huge green giant, who raised his club to bash him in the head. Jay dove, dodging the blow, but it managed to hit him in the leg. Wincing, he swam up to break through the waves.

Then he was being lifted upwards as a burly hand grasped him. Kicking viciously, but without success, he was carried away, leaving a bunch of terrified children in his wake. Jay wondered what this beast could possibly want with him. Fear surged through him, and he wished he had never waked up that morning.

Meanwhile, a young girl of fifteen raced through the forest of evergreens, leaping logs and stumbling down steep hills to pursue her prey.

"Hey, wait for us!" called two harried voices. Two young boys, one tall and skinny, the other stout and plump, scurried along behind her. She sighed. Brothers; why did she have to have them?

"Hurry up," she cried irritably. "And for goodness' sake be quiet!" She turned back and cast hazel eyes over the small clearing she had entered. Frowning, she knelt and felt the ground. It was soft, as though cloven hooves had trampled the ground into a soft mush. They were close. Sniffing, she wrinkled her nose at the revolting smell of urine. The deer probably wasn't the only deer around.

Stringing her bow, she crept behind a bush and peeked around it. She nearly whooped with glee as she spotted her target: a young buck, probably only a yearling, eating lush grass across the tumultuous stream. Aiming, she was about to fire when a massive tremor shook the ground, sending her off balance, and knocking her bow and arrow out of her hands and into the rushing river below.

"What the…"

"Atlanta!" screamed a horrified voice.

"What…" her voice trailed off as she looked to see an enormous red monster clomping its way through the woods towards her. There went all her years of tree planting. Angry, she faced it, twirling a huge stick she had found as a weapon.

"You want a piece of me?" she yelled. "Well, come and get it, you big monster freak!"

Peeved, the giant took a swing at her, but she used the speed she had discovered earlier in her life to propel her away from him. She then sped towards him, thrashing him with her weapon as she dashed between his legs. A yowl like none she had ever heard arose, and she cried out, dropping her stick to slap her hand over her ears. In this moment, she was grabbed from behind and struck over the head with a blunt instrument. Before she could fight back, she was rendered helpless.

Pleased that they had completed their mission, the giants lumbered away, two descendants down and accounted for and only five more to go.

Hermes arrived at the scene of the crime a tad too late. Five young children sobbed out their story to local authorities, who scratched their heads in disbelief as the kids hiccupped and wept inconsolably. He gulped and listened closely.

"These big monsters… took him!" One girl shrieked, trembling. "They might eat him!"

Or worse, Hermes thought grimly. He groaned. Hera was going to kill him. This was definitely Cronus' work. He reined in his griffins and directed them north, hoping against all hope that the next hero was all right.

What he found was even more depressing. Far from being safe, the heroine had been stolen away as well, leaving two frightened little boys to tell her story. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had just as hard a time believing their story, and checked her off as a runaway. Hermes snorted in disgust and wheeled the griffins away south to see if he could possibly have some luck today in finding heroes alive and well.

"Doe rah me la so fa ti doe!" Herry sang as he jumped from fence post to fence post on his parents' farm. It was a typical day: the sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the tall prairie grass rippled in the breeze. He flexed his muscles and grinned. Trotting up to one of the many apple trees that dotted the farm, he reached up to take one. But suddenly it was uprooted by a very vicious looking thing.

"I haven't seen you on the farm before," Herry commented. The giant roared and swung the tree at him. Paling, Herry grabbed it before it could kill him, or at least injure him badly. Using his tremendous strength, he swung it around, with the giant on the other end, and let go, sending the beast hurling through space.

He wiped the dust and grime off his hands, and then mourned the loss of the beautiful tree. But his victory was short lived as a net came sailing out of nowhere and encased him. Struggling to snap it, he found it to no avail; it was as strong as he was. And he found himself to be getting very sleepy. The knockout gas did its work, and the giants harvested their latest hero to pack in beside the other two in their large canvas bag.

Hermes knew that he was doomed the moment he arrived at the farm. No birds sang, and the sun had disappeared. A gaping hole smiled up at him from which the apple tree had come, and Hermes knew that once more he had failed. He had to get faster griffins. And he had to get to the next hero. Before Cronus' minions did.

Jay woke up to a musty smell and a feeling of being suffocated. Groggy, he glanced around to see a brawny guy with dark brown hair and olive skin, and a tiny redhead with a tee-shirt and cargo pants sprawled out. The girl slowly blinked her eyelashes, groaning and flinching as blood spurted from a tiny cut on her head.

"Are you alright?" Jay asked anxiously.

Shuddering, she nodded. "It's a good thing I always carry bandages with me," she joked dryly, plastering one across her forehead. "I have really clumsy brothers, so when they come hunting, there's always accidents." Frowning, she glanced around. "Where are we?"

"In some kind of enclosure. By the way, I'm Jay."

"The name's Atlanta." She noticed the other boy. "Who the heck is he?"

Jay shrugged. "I have no clue. I don't even know why we're here."

"Maybe he knows." She turned to shake him awake. He shifted, muttering something about food, and then opened his eyes.

"Whoa, where am I?" he exclaimed.

"Never mind," she said dully to Jay. "We don't know," she answered the boy. "But who are you. I'm Atlanta, and that's Jay," she said, pointing.

"I'm Herry." He scratched his back. "This stuff is really itchy."

Atlanta ran her hand over the material that caged them. She could feel movement from outside of it, and the rocking feeling suited her deduction that they were being lugged around. "It feels like canvas. You know, like those shopping bags you can get?"

"So we're being carried around in a large shopping bag… by those things that captured us?" Herry questioned. Jay nodded.

"I wonder what they want with us…"

"Me too," Atlanta and Herry chorused. "And maybe there's going to be more of us. Considering that there are only three of us that may be a good thing."

"What do you mean?" Herry asked. Atlanta tried not to roll her eyes. How thick was this guy? "I mean that the more of us there are, the better the chances at defeating these brutes and getting home. There's safety in numbers. Haven't you ever heard of that?"

A/n: Another story that I thought would be cool to write. So this is kind of an alternate beginning, you may say. What would have happened if the giants in Chaos 101 had captured all the heroes, and they met under different circumstances? Will they still work together? Would Jay and Theresa, and Archie and Atlanta, still be coupled? Now this isn't going to be mainly about couples, but more about how they manage to (maybe) save the world without the help of the gods. Please review and tell me if I should continue. Luv, Becky