「018. she said powerful, what about it 」

BARBIE WAS pretty sure every demigod had a special talent. whether that be their really cool and dangerous powers (hint, jerald) or something like her amokensis (which she still didn't really understand. making people fall in love? against their will? i mean, could she have a refund?). percy could talk to horses (a weird but cool power), cherry could speak to plants (apparently roses were the bitchiest sort), val had this sort of charming smile (that's what the hermes children said anyway. she was pretty sure at least all of them had had a crush on val at one point) which was linked to this sort of aura around him, making him somebody you instantly like. and annabeth? well, she was crazy smart, even without being the child of athena, she'd still be that kid who was way too smart to be in the same grade as you.

what does that have to with percy whistling six times like he was impatiently calling a cab? not that much (except she was pretty sure he was calling six pegasi). just an observation that had for some reason come to barbie as they climbed out of the labyrinth, her clothes still wet and gross.

rachel let out a gasp, pointing to the sky where six pegasi were flying, her eyes wide and full of excitement like she was some child. the pegasi flew towards them, one of them pure black which was very rare for pegasi (which made barbie guess it probably was blackjack).

"they're beautiful," rachel spoke with awe laced into her voice.

a pegasi came over to barbie, it's main was like a honey colour, and to be honest, the rest of the horse looked like that shade too. the pegasus trotted around her before neighing and moving its head towards her, moving in an affectionate manner. she let out an excited giggle (very different from her jealous giggle) and began to coo at the pegasus.

behind her, she heard what sounded like a snort (but from a horse) and turned around. percy nodded as if he understood the black-coloured pegasus named blackjack. he looked back to barbie and translated, "blackjack says the pegasus who's taken a liking to you is called honey. they're really cool."

"they?" asked barbie.

"they're non-binary," explained percy after blackjack neighed and he added, "you're not against that, right?"

"oh hades no," rushed barbie, "that's so cool! hey there, honey!" she cooed.

honey, if possible, seemed to adore barbie more, and they neighed happily. i guess that means you're my ride, barbie thought.

she thought to herself for a few minutes how exactly she was supposed to get out a pegasus (look, she skipped pegasus riding a lot) before she remembered she didn't even need to try clambering on, she could just use her powers. it was a simple thing she was able to do, and she'd gotten used to the pain by now (which wasn't much when she was doing something simple like this). she made a platform underneath her and lifted herself up just enough to be able to climb onto honey, who didn't seem spooked at all.

she heard talking behind her as she settled herself and turned to see percy talking to rachel who seemed to be fliting it up with him. she narrowed her eyes as she looked at the seen, muttering a few pieces of colourful language. she sat awkwardly waiting for nico and annabeth to climb onto their pegasi too.

after what seemed like ages (which was really barbie just being really impatient), percy returned from talking to rachel, and began pleading for nico to get on his respective pegasus.

"go on without me," was nico's only stubborn reply (not really) before he added, "i don't want to go to camp anyway."

this was probably a tipping point (or maybe a tipping point for her previous tipping point, if that makes any sense) for barbie. she'd had enough shit today and really wasn't bothered to deal with nico's teenage angst that seemed to be his only personality trait as of now.

"nico di angelo," she said in a stern voice, "you get on that pegasi, now."

"what she means to say," cut in annabeth, before barbie could even continue, with a glare (the two still weren't speaking to each other), "is that we need your help, nico."

"oh how eloquently said," mocked barbie in a toxic tone.

"such a big word," snapped back annabeth, not missing a beat "you couldn't have learnt that from your stupid fashion magazines."

"uh-"

"i'll go," interrupted nico, "but only for you guys," he pointed at annabeth and barbie, "but i'm not staying. got it?"

percy looked between the two of them, as if asking how in hades had they got nico to come just by arguing with each other. annabeth shrugged as if having no idea, shooting a bitter look at barbie. barbie shrugged too, before sending a glare just as potent back to annabeth.

sometimes barbie was glad her mom had given her a dagger as a gift instead of a sword. sure, with swords you had a longer range weapon than a dagger. but swords were too bulky for her and way too heavy. percy had previously tried to convince her swords weren't so bad. that they were actually really ok if you got a balanced sword. but barbie wasn't convinced. swords were ugly (nothing like her gorgeous heartbreaker) and were not as cool as some of the weapon's she'd seen in the shed at camp.

she jumped off of honey the minute they reached camp and turned to the pegasus and murmured, "thanks, honey."

honey neighed back, clearly telling her to go help the camp. and barbie wasn't about to say no to the pegasus, who was currently neighing in a stern tone.

"i know, i know," she said, looking back at the pegasus once more before saying, "bye!"

they snorted, as if saying, good luck!

this better not be your way of saying i'm being replaced, jerald spoke in her mind suddenly.

fighting time right now jerald, talk later.

yeah, i'm getting kicked out.

as soon as all of them had dismounted their rides, they all ran off to different areas. barbie raced to her cabin mates, who were running around making sure people's armour wasn't crooked. she quickly grabbed her armour, which was normal in most ways except for swirls of pearl that hat bean crushed and reformed to make patterns in her armour. she quickly rushed around, helping her cabin mates, trying to spot val or cherry within the large crowd of demigods.

she bumped into a few of her siblings, and greeted them quickly before she heard shouts from clarisse (who was a big scary ares kid. actually, they weren't that scary), "lock shields!"

then, the titan lord's army appeared out of the labyrinth. and very soon, all hades broke loose.

barbie liked fighting. not in the sense of like actual battle. but she didn't mind doing some extra training. she liked the adrenaline rush, the fact she could fight out her anger. as a daughter of aphrodite, she knew that keeping your emotions bottled up too much was harmful, and one of her ways of letting that go was fighting.

but an actual battle and an army? she usually would've passed. usually. but after luke (or kronos. whatever) had brought in an illusion of her dad being beaten up, she was ready to take all her anger at his cruelty of not caring, and slash the sould out of some of his stupid army.

laistrygonian giants climbed out and began yelling loudly. the ares cabin tried to defend but was brushed aside like a bunch of rag dolls by the gians. she heard people shouting at the wave of laistrygonian giants before another wave of monsters came. but she was pretty sure she saw a few vines of poison ivy and some other poisonous looking plants swirling around the giants.

the next wave was about maybe fourty or thiry dracaenae dressed in full battle armour, surging out of the maze with hisses and snarls. barbie charged at the dracaenae with her dagger in one hand, and all of her anger and every single emotion she could recall feeling in the past day fueled into her mist, which was dangerously strong and seemed to be fueling her as of now. she saw lines of demigods yell war cries, running to the monsters with their weapons held with a determined grip and fierce faces.

she and val ran beside each other, yelling curse words mixed in with war cries. val used his celestial bronze sword (which he'd managed to ingrave a smiley face on) and slashed a dracaenae's head clean off it's head, not even looking back as he raised his arm, brushing away his curly hair that had gotten longer, slashing a dracaenae at the same time. barbie ran around the group her and her brother had attracted and was blasting mist in the shape of arrows at their necks and stabbing whatever piece of unprotected flesh she could get with her dagger. within a few minutes, the group of dracaenae had vanished away into a plie of dust with a severed head (thanks to val) and a bunch of greek armour left as war spoils. the two jokingly saluted each other before running off in separate directions.

val was pretty sure the extra training was worth it. he'd heard barbie rave about training before. but he really wasn't about it unless they actually had to (and even then, it took silena and barbie pestering him and forcing him to actually move for him to even think about it). and sure, he'd done extra training a few times, before he remembered every single time why he didn't. let's just say some straight girls at camp didn't know boundries.

he got the fact he was an aphrodite kid. you know, bingo, you get great looks (he might as well be honest) but some people didn't know when to give him some space. he was pretty sure he would've trained more had it not been for a group of girls at camp who'd basically followed him around for a period of his life this summer. he called them stalkers. annabeth (when he told her about it in the period of percy being missing) called them 'bitchy little fucks who should respect boundaries' which wasn't wrong. but it was harsh.

in the end, the extra training he'd been doing the past few weeks was probably worth it. now he was able to dodge things almost on autopilot, not getting hit much. he and a hermes kid were fighting off a laistrygonian giant along with a bunch of ares kids when he got swatted to the side like he was some kind of gnat. he tumbled into a bunch of dracaenae being fought by what looked to be annabeth and her brother, malcolm.

"hi tino!" yelled annabeth as she stabbed a dracaena, managing to cut a wound into it's arm before dodging and kicking down said snake-monster. she let out a loud, "shit!" as a dracaenae managed to slice her arm a bit, she continued to curse and val scrambled up, grabbing his sword and running at the dracanae, finally ending their life with a single stab in the gut.

"nice swing," she managed to say before she shoved what looked to be a small (very small) square of ambrosia in her mouth, munching quickly before sicing her dagger again.

"you know they say you should rest for half an hour before you do exercise," teased val.

"when did you become so smart?" she responded, before letting out a, "take that!" and throwing her dagger as if it were a throwing knife and sticking a dracaenae dead center, causing it to disintegrate.

"sick throw," val complimented, "are we gonna keep a tally?"

"sure," she grinned, "be ready to lose, lover boy."

(she won).

monsters should really take an anti-bullying course. they love to gang up on demigods. to be honest, monsters should have and antibullying week, where they just, don't kill anybody. of course that's a joke, monsters are strange and cruel and almost always pains in the ass (except for mrs o'leary. she's a real one). but really, monsters were totally bullies. and barbie ws almost certain they were asking for it when five dracaena's thought it was even acceptable to surround her adopted (not exactly but we go with it) child, cherry adams.

"get back!" yelled cherry, "i can grow hemlock like that! and i am willing to risk cramps for that!"

the dracaena didn't seem to be phased, because one of them tried to jab cherry, yelling a few words in ancient greek (which roughly translated to something barbie was pretty sure was a bunch of swear words). fortunately (or unfortunately for the dracaena) they should've heeded cherry's warning because as she yelled, cherry shot a bunch of white looking small flowers (which barbie assumed was hemlock) into the dracaena's mouth.

the dracaena began to hiss and run away, as if scared they'd die within an instant. as they ran away in a flurry of panic, an arrow shot them in the neck (props to the apollo cabin for that). cherry continued to throw hemlock at the dracaena, swapping from doing that and using her sword to slice some of the dracaena.

"cherry!" called barbie, running forwards to help, the pink mist now swirling around her like a cyclone.

she lifted her arm that was currently not holding her dagger and the mist gathered there and she blasted it towards two of the dracaena, causing them to tumble back like a bowling ball (with the bonus of them both being impaled). within seconds, the two dracaenas disintegrated.

"i could've handled that on my own!" pouted cherry, "there were like ten of 'em before you came!"

"everybody needs a little help whether they like to admit it or not," teased back barbie as they two of them twisted around each other, not a word was spoken as they both fought off the remaining three dracaenae, the dynamic duo demolishing the monsters within a few minutes.

"good work, soda pop," grinned barbie.

"you too moma barb!" cherry teased back, her smile never leaving her face.

there was a distant yell which sounded like katie gardner yelling, "cherry, get your ass over here! we need more hemlock!"

"duty calls," grinned cherry, "bye moma barb!"

"bye soda pop!"

laistrygonian giants, in barbie's opinion, were like, the worst monsters ever. they smelt bad, had weird eyes and teeth, and looked really fucking creepy. ever seen something that looks like a vampire had a love child with hagrid from harry potter? yeah, i don't think anybody wants to see that. but laistrygonian giants were generally just, horrible. and they were stupid as fuck (and this is coming from barbie who could barely spell even if she wasn't heavily dyslexic).

after splitting off on her own, barbie was having a semi-fun time. halfway through she'd gotten board of normally swiping her dagger and was now trying her hand at throwing knives (and she was doing pretty well id she does say so herself). she threw her dagger at the laistrygonian giant. and whilst it was distracted, she summoned as much mist as she could, and sent it towards the unsuspecting laistrygonian giant, who ended up getting launched into the woods. a loud thump heard.

however, there is always a price to that much mist when playing laistrygonian golf where the golf ball is a laistrygonian. and the consequence was the fact barbie had stumbled onto the floor, black spots in her eyes with ears ringing and feeling like somebody had just stabbed her in the stomach.

"can't," she rasped to herself, "must-"

"finaly," hissed a dracaena, "ssssssome willing pray for me to kill."

the dracaenae slithered towards her, hissing and snarling, a wicked smile graced (or cursed) their face. she pushed herself up, grabbing her dagger that had reappeared as her sunglasses and swung them down, and stumbled wearily around with it, her vision spinning.

"how brave you musssst be," hissed the monster, "sssssso sssstupid and brave. die demigod! die!"

a roar was heard, and barbie swore she saw a familiar half-dragon lady. the dracaenae closing in on her, laughed, which sounded like hissig but more breathy as she said, "you have no hope. die peacefully."

"fuck no," was her only response as she swung her dagger blindly.

it ended up missing, but for some reason, the dracaenae still died. it disintegrated, the dust of the dead monster flying into the sky. but behind it, revealed somebody she thought she'd never see again.

"daedalus?" she croakey, pressing a bloodied hand to her head, trying to subside the pain and see daedalus clearly.

"thought you looked like you needed some help, my dear," grinned daedalus, whistling slightly. a loud yap was heard and a large animal bunded behind daedalus, grinning happily.

"t-thanks, i guess?" she croakey, walking around, her vision clearing slightly, "sorry for being 'n asshole i guess."

"water under the bridge, my dear," grinned the inventor.

hurt barbie was bad. like, emotional barbie was bad. hurt physically barbie was bad. but hurt physically and tired out from using her powers barbie? the worst. her head felt like she was renting it to a greek deity (which as to say, migraine central) and she had a few cuts and nicks all over her body (her poor sailor moon shirt was splattered with blood. but since it was enchanted it kept making the blood fly away. she couldn't say that for the rest of her though) and she was stumbling around blindly, having no idea where the hell she was going.

the monsters just kept running, bodies of demigods strewn on the grounds (some barbie didn't even get to know) and hissing from the monsters. the group of dracaenas came and ran at her (as if she wasn't unlucky enough) and began to close in on her. the clashing of swords sent shockwaves of pain in her mind, the hissing of the snake-women made her ears sting and from using so much power against the giants made her weak and ready to pass out at any given moment.

she doubled over as one of the monsters kicked her to the ground, another shot a knife into her skin, lodging it painfully there. she didn't have the strength to cry out in pain, but her eyes stung and blood flowed from her leg, her jeans ruined. stinging pains ran through her, like a hot searing heat which was killing her. her eyes stung and she felt herself go slack. the group of the snake woman came closer to her and barbie's body shook with pain. she was going to pass out. she was going to pass out.

don't pass out, jerald pleaded, don't pass out-

she passed out. pain consumer her. the last thing she remembered seeing was some sort of sparkly pink tint on the world.

rosie speaks!

honestly this isn't as
wordy as usual but hi?
lil battle thing for y'all.
idk headcanons?

thoughts?

mwah mwah

word count: 3,224 words