Annabeth

It was the fall of yet another year. The historic city of Kyte was covered in red and yellow maple leaves as slight breeze moved them in a flurry of crimson and amber. The wind was cold, indicating that winter was approaching and that sweaters and woolens would soon be in fashion. City buses rolled lazily through the lanes with hardly any passenger in them as it was noon. Everyone was either in their offices or in their houses. For kids it was school of course. The tall yellow towers of Brial High stood handsomely to the far east of the city. It's gardens and play areas stretched to kilometers as it was clearly the largest and the most élite high school in the city. The building also had a great past though. It was considered to be the cradle of the Kytian revolution, named after Sir William Brial, the first president of Kyte.

There was a huge fountain statue of him just outside the huge main entrance of the school, reminding people of him, even after a century of revolution. Anyway, present day Brial High was like any other high school with foot ball teams, lockers and detentions but it was highly rated somehow. The kids who went there were often obnoxious and full of themselves but that wasn't really the complete truth or so they thought.

Sitting in the math class room of the west block, student council president, an honors student, Annabeth Chase stifled a yawn as she pushed back her golden hair and tried to concentrate on what she already knew. The teacher was going on and on about some calculus problem. Annabeth didn't see why it was such a big deal but Mr McBee, their oh-so-stupid math teacher was convinced that the question was going to be on their final paper. Annabeth sighed as she tried to smooth her princess curls a bit. She was waiting for the bell to ring desperately. Not only she had another meeting with the council before the school closed for the winter breaks but she also was planing to surprise her boyfriend, Luke Castellan with a picnic basket and some canned apple juice.

She didn't understand why, but she just felt like spending the last day of fall curled up in a blanket in the back yard of Luke's house. Everything was so quiet and peaceful there. Plus Luke would be really glad if she were there at his house with his lunch after he returned from a hard day's work. Luke had just passed out from a nearby university, nothing too big, and had joined as a trainee in a near by courier office. The pay was good and Luke got plenty of time to spend with Annabeth who lived just a few blocks away with her mom and dad and her horde of brothers and sisters.

The bell rang shrilly, pulling Annabeth out of her daydream of Luke's backyard and pushed her into reality. She stood up hastily as Mr McBee handed over their winter assignments. Everyone seemed to either groan or glare at the stupid teacher but Annabeth just waltz past him after exchanging a polite goodbye. She sped up as she headed towards her locker to get all her books and stuff before the school closed. It was already hard to move in the busy corridor as the hall was filling with students, chattering excitedly about where they were going to spend their holidays.

Luke had promised Annabeth to take her to the nearby hiking point for the weekend and stay there in a hotel, just the two of them. The thought had made Annabeth blush to her roots but Silena had practically engraved her lecture into her brain saying, 'It's high time for it Annie! Of course he wants to, he is seven years older than you for heaven's sake!"

Annabeth ran face first into the crazy elf kid from mechatronics honors and fell hard on her butt. She straightened her uniform skirt as she stood up. Brushing the dirt of her checked dark grey skirt she glared down at Leo Valdez. He had just ruined her perfectly white button down uniform shirt and even her grey tie looked a bit crumpled.

"Oh sorry Prez! Didn't see ya there." He said in a carefree tone and he stood up and brushed his grey full trousers. Annabeth was thankful for their almost black grey skirts or other wise it would have been embarrassing to walk around with a dirty patch on.

"Watch where you are going Valdez." She said as she glared at him with her stormy grey eyes.

The poor guy paled and put his hands up in his defence as he said, "My time machine is almost complete. It just needs a few more-"

"Save it." Annabeth said as she pointed a sharp index finger at him and turned on her heels. She was getting late, she didn't really have time to have another argument with Leo about how a time machine could never exist. You see they all were a group the whole student council and somehow Leo was a part of it too who rarely attended the meetings though it didn't matter much and even though Annabeth was quiet mad at Leo for ruining her shirt then, he was a really funny guy to hang around with.

As Annabeth opened the door to the council hall she sighed in relief, she was not too late. Half of the members were yet to arrive. She smiled at Silky, the petite blonde with shiny white teeth, and Jascar her vice president. Soon the other members were there and the meeting was in full swing. They talked about the winter fest and about the up coming foot ball tournament and then some more about the fest. At last the meeting was over and she was free to go home.

"Nice work Prez." Everyone said softly to her before they left.

It was a relief. Finally Annabeth was walking out of the main entrance when she heard voices from the garage.

"Ouch! That hurt!" Leo whined and Annabeth rolled her eyes as she sped across the street and hailed a cab because a bus would take forever and she wanted to be at Luke's as soon as she could.

Annabeth paid the cab and entered her noisy house. Her little brother Malcolm came running after her toddler twins who were not behaving... again.

"Hey Sis! How was your day?" Malcolm asked, panting as he clutched the coat hanger for support.

"It was okay. You have been busy if I am not wrong?" She said wile kicking her shoes off and heading for the kitchen.

"You should try babysitting them for a change- Bobby! don't burn the curtains!" Mal dashed up the stairs to their parents room to get a hold of the twins.

"I babysitted you remember!" Annabeth called after him with a smile tugging the corner of her lips.

"I was the best toddler ever!" She heard him say before he disappeared into their parents room.

Annabeth sighed and pushed open the fridge to grab a cold bottle of water. Everything was sort of crazy in her biggy family after all. As she shut the fridge she found a note stuck on it for her.

Honey

Me and your Dad are busy working over this new plan we have to hand over this week.

Well be back pretty late. Could you please take care of Malcolm, the twins and Vera? Please Anna? We owe you one sweetie!

Mom.

Annabeth cursed under her breath and tossed the paper to the dust bin. She had already started cooking for Luke but it seemed like her parents just had to ruin everything after Leo had ruined her uniform. A nagging feeling about how everything was slightly off beat today bothered her. It was as if something big was going to blow on her face pretty soon. She sucked in a deep breath and looked around the house. It was big with three bedrooms on each floor, had an airy room as kitchen come dining room and a well planed drawing-room, but appeared to be crowded because of its inhabitants of two adults and five children. Malcolm, Vera and Annabeth were kids from their father's first marriage and the twins were from his second. But now he was back again with his first wife after a rocky relationship with his second and everything seemed to be fine now.

Annabeth quickly switched her phone on and called her sister Vera, she was just a year below her.

"Hey Anna!"

"Get back home."

"What?"

"Mom and dad are out and you are in charge."

"But-"

But Annabeth had hung up by then. She had already pulled on her sneakers and was heading for the door again. She was afraid that she would miss that something big if she wasn't at Luke's at once. She could always cook at his apartment and still surprise him by just being their all of a sudden. Annabeth grabbed her red coat and opened the door a crack as cool wind gushed in. She shivered a little as the temperature had certainly dropped a few degrees. It was going to snow in a few days.

"Mal! I am heading out!"

Annabeth called out over her shoulder.

Her brother came running out and bent at the railing as he asked back, "Again?"

Annabeth felt a little guilty about leaving her brother alone with the twins but Vera was just cooling off in the gym. She would be back soon and besides, Luke lived just a block away.

"Yeah but Vera would be back soon. Don't worry." Malcolm nodded and ran inside the room just as she saw one of the twins punch the other.

She sighed and closed the door behind her. Those twins were the devils. She could have sworn that. As she walked the short distance to Luke's her phone buzzed. It was a text from Silena, actually a picture of her and her boyfriend Charls outside an ice cream shop. Both of their faces were aglow as they clung to each other and smiled for the camera. Annabeth shook her head and placed her phone back in her coat's pocket. Maybe everything wasn't off beat as it was so like Silena to click photos of every date of hers and send them to Annabeth. This brought a kind of relief in Annabeth's chest. Maybe nothing big was going to happen just yet.

She reached Luke's building and nodded at the gruff guard as she passed through the gates. The roads had been vacant and cold if not for the frequent flickers of the street lights. She pulled her coat closer to her as she made her way towards Luke's apartment. He lived on the ground floor so she just ignored the lift and knocked on his door. It flew open. Strange. Luke was never the careless sort. He always made it a point to do things right.

Cold fear gripped her heart as she stepped inside his house. Everything was dark and-

"Oh Luke you abs are the best!"

Suddenly Annabeth turned around. No. There was no one outside the house, just the windows and doors of the other apartments. Their red walls were pale and chipped but that as just the ordinary, the voice must have come from inside. Annabeth tiptoed her way inside the appartment, careful to not make a single noise and alert the intruder. She almost tripped over the sofa set as she heard again, "Your body's the best too."

Her breath hitched at her throat. It was Luke. The voices were coming from his bed room. Annabeth quietly walked over to it and opened the door just a crack to peer inside. Luke was busy making out with a slender girl with straight brown hair.

"I thought you had a girlfriend." Her black eyes twinkled as she pushed Luke away playfully.

"She's Just a kid." Luke smirked as he picked that girl up and advanced towards his bathroom.

"Yeah that's right, let's cool off a bit." The girl giggled.

Annabeth ran out of his apartment. Her eyes were threatening to tear up. What had just happened? Who was that girl? Luke and she had been together for about two years! Is this the first time he was cheating? Or had he always been that way? No. He couldn't possibly have been. He was her Luke. Kind and honest and handsome for her even with his nasty scar running down his cheek from his baby blue eyes. Her hands ached as they remembered all the time she had spent stroking his soft blonde hair. Everything seemed unreal all of a sudden.

Her mobile buzzed again with yet another lovey dovey photo of Silena and Charls and she hurled her phone at the nearest wall in a furry. All those pictures were like a salt on her fresh wound. How did Silena know that Bekendorf was her perfect boyfriend, not cheating on her? Maybe he was and Annabeth would love to see the day when she found out about it. But somewhere deep inside she knew that Charls loved Silena and that they both loved Annabeth a lot which made her feel a whole lot bad all over again. She stuffed her hands in her pocket and walked out of that cursed building. She hoped that it would fall on Luke's head some day.

She realized that she had come home before she really registered it. She raised her hand to knock but noticed that their parent's cars were still out meaning that she would be immediately ushered to run after her siblings if she went inside at that moment when all she really wanted to do was to curl up on her bed in her bed room and curse Luke for all he was worth. So instead she took a bus to Brial High. The ride was uneventful as the view of thousand fallen maple's flashed past Annabeth. Except for her there was just another elderly couple, enjoying their days together. Seeing them made her heart ache and wish to stop. She still couldn't believe that all this was real, that Luke had actually cheated on her and above that he had called her a kid. Had he planed on being alone with a kid in a hotel this weekend? The thought somehow disgusted Annabeth now. She wished that this day had never come, that she had never come to Luke's apartment in the first place but then she would have been in the dark, which she hated above all.

As Annabeth jumped off the bus and started to stroll aimlessly around the campus there was an explosion. Something was happening in the garage. In Leo's garage. Annabeth's heart raced as she felt that something big approaching her in an antique rhythm. It was as if something was ready to consume her. She pushed it at the back of her mind and hurried over there to see if Leo was okay. He seriously was going to blow the school apart one day.

As she reached his garage she stopped in her tracks. Her mouth flew open as what she saw in front of her threw her out of her minds. Leo had somehow built a giant chair car with thick wires flying from one cabinet to other. The thing was huge and shaped like and egg with a seat in it with the dash board of a car inside it. The way the car gave off a feeling of old bones reminded Annabeth of the Pre- revolution periods. They had been thought that about hundred years ago such cars were used by the blonde haired, blue-grey eyed tyrant nobles to dispose off the dead bodies of the resistors. Annabeth felt her body recoil back at that horrible memory.

"Leo! What the hell is this?"

The car was earlier hanging on a metal from the roof but it had crashed down with a loud thud which she had mistaken for an explosion. Leo came around from it with grim covering his features as he coughed and said, "Don't move. Something has gone wrong. I-"

But before he could say anything there was a huge flash. Annabeth squinted and moved back as the light grew on her. It felt as nothing but suddenly her heart was racing a mile per minute. This was her something big. Leo's stupid project was. Her ear drums popped and her blood seemed to pulse through her neck as she stifled a scream. Her muscles had gone rigid and she could feel her hair flying everywhere. She was too afraid to open her eyes. She wondered if she could open them. She tried to lift her hand but it was useless. Cold fear bled through her as she dreaded being paralysed. Has Leo's stupid project ruined her body? Why wasn't she moving. And then the light went away all of a sudden.

Annabeth heard Leo scream her name but his voice was so distant, he could have been standing out on the entry gate and calling out for her.

And then Annabeth landed on something cold and slippery and slipped down the path and landed on her knees pretty hard. She was sitting on snow. Snow? Where had it come from? There wasn't any snow a moment ago and now she could feel it in her hair in her coat... everywhere. And then the blinding lights where back. Annabeth shielded her eyes as she heard footsteps running towards her. What was happening? Where was she?

"She could be a Noble! She had blonde hair." She heard a feminine voice scream heftily.

"Her eyes?"

"I caught a sight of them they appear to be like them all right!" Yelled back another one.

What was happening? Why were people talking about her hair and her eyes? Who were they. Annabeth realized that the lights were actually torch lights. Something clicked into place, making Annabeth looked up slowly. She gulped at what she saw. A revolver of the last century was pointed at her. Fear gripped her heart as her mind struggled to process everything that was happening. These people were nuts. She had to get out of there fast and-

"Say your prayers Noble." A calm and cold voice of a man tore through her momentary deliria as she looked further up. In the darkness of the hour all she could see of her possible assassin were his sharp blue-green eyes, glowing with hatred, all of it pointed at her.

"Huh"

His squeezed the trigger as the gun fired and stilled the already deathly still night.

Guys I know this chapter might have been a really quick one but I have this idea and I can't help it go on so fast. So do you guys wanna read further? Tell me what ya think!