ʜᴜɴᴛ ϟ ʀᴇss

But honestly anything would be better than the pieces of junk they’ve been handed. Without any real weapons, Thalia’s right. The two of them are defenceless. Well… unless they run into something that’s afraid of a flimsy cardboard spear and the idea of getting some splinters, that is.

Eventually they end up sitting together on a wooden bench, watching the people of Hive City go about their day. The comfortable silence between them isn’t odd considering Thalia is family. It isn’t tight like it can be between strangers. It’s nice.

Thalia mentions being restless and Annabeth hums for a second. “Hmm… Yeah I guess sitting around like this was never your style, was it? You and your hunters must always be on the move.”

There was a time Annabeth considered joining the hunters, and while there was more than one reason she didn’t, one of the reasons she didn’t join was because she needed somewhere to call home. She’d spent so long running with Thalia and Luke that once she finally got to Camp Half-Blood, the first place she could call home, she couldn’t give it up.

Thalia wanders alongside Annabeth, checking her map occasionally; the closer they get to where Epsilon is supposed to be, the worse Thalia feels about the place. Her suspicions are only confirmed when she finds the entrance to Annabeth's new home: a rotting spiral staircase leading down to what must have once been a handsome library. Thalia coughs as they descend, shielding her mouth and nose.

❝Gods, it reeks.❞ Thalia wrinkles her nose. ❝It's like there's mold growing on the air molecules in this place.❞

With her feet firmly on the ground of Epsilon, Thalia looks around, taking note of the Greco-Roman architecture; the towering, decaying shelves; and the scrolls and scrolls of molded-over knowledge, spanning seemingly forever. Thalia snorts.

"I’m not the type to judge, but…"

Or stole their kill. The dead rabbit in Thalia's pack doesn't need to come to the other girl's attention, though. The last thing she wants is some stranger pitying her because she needs to scrounge for food. Again.

❝Thanks for helping me,❞ Thalia grunts, shocking one of the mutts as it lunges for her. ❝Sorry for leading them to -- Hey, watch it!❞

She frowns as Thalia tells her that there is no way out of the city. Annabeth has spent more than enough time being trapped inside things. The labyrinth when she was fourteen; the confrontation with Arachne not that long ago; Tartarus even more recently. Hive City is ust another to add to the list it seems. 

This time she’s the one to stop walking. “The end of the world again? Murderers?”

"How are we supposed to protect ourselves in this place with a wooden knife and a cardboard spear?"

Annabeth can deal with the end of the world. She can deal with things trying to kill her. She’s been dealing with both those things since she was born. But she has to wonder if she deserves a break from it yet. 

Still, Thalia has never stopped thinking about Annabeth as her best friend -- as a part of her family. It's a relief to hear that Annabeth feels the same way about Thalia, even after all this time.

❝I started making myself an alternate spear,❞ Thalia explains, ❝out of a pipe I found in my district. It's going to take awhile to finish it; I only get to use electrokinesis three times a day, and my stove is kind of a crappy welding instrument.❞ She chuckles. ❝The point is, though, I bet we could make you a knife out of some stone if we worked at it. It's really not enough for us to defend ourselves with toy weapons.❞

At some point, the girls find themselves sitting on a wooden bench, watching passers-by. Thalia heaves a sigh.

how dare they place her, asuka langley shikinami, in an area surrounded by losers and weirdos, how dare they strip her of her well-earned titles and place her in the wreck they call an apartment! she was fuming silently as she made her way down one of the streets, head down, red hair blowing in the wind as her lower lip stuck out in a pout.

it didn’t help that she was lost.

❝You're asking the wrong person. I'm new here.❞ Thalia gestures vaguely around. ❝All I know about this place is that it's the sector where all the stores are. Beyond that, it's all --❞

Thalia trails off as a second, angry voice filters into her awareness -- that of the store owner whose strawberries she just stole. He's barreling down the street, directly toward Thalia and the stranger, shouting, YOU TWO! STOP RIGHT THERE! Thalia clucks her tongue in dissatisfaction.

❝Crap.❞

The man is faster than she anticipated -- he's upon them in a few short strides, and before Thalia can think, her reflexes take over. She presses a hand to the man's chest, administering an electric shock. It's not much -- just enough to knock him backwards and stun him a little -- but Thalia feels a flood of panic all the same. It's been a long time since she's accidentally used her powers.

"Oh I know the feeling! Not that I’d change for them anyway! I think they look awesome so I do what I want!” 

He beamed at her as the last of the first section of red string came out between his fingers, the thread coiling within his palm before he tossed it away.

Thalia grins and giggles when the guy offers his hand, along with his name. She takes his palm against hers, feeling the serration of stitching against her skin as she shakes hands. ❝You're kind of a weird guy, huh? Well, that's cool with me. Weird is kind of the norm where I'm from.❞

❝I'm Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus. You haven't seen me because...well, I'm new here. Like...brand new. I hardly know my ass from my elbow.❞

It's a little embarrassing, honestly, for someone as skilled at navigation as Thalia to be so hopelessly lost, but...she isn't interested in preserving her pride at the moment. In fact, if this guy is a veteran...

" Fifteen, huh? Call me in five years and we got a deal. " He replied nonchalantly back to her. Despite everything Kagura was he didn’t chase around after minors. 

" Discreet? Portable? " He let out an amused laugh. " Sounds kinda boring, sunshine. Where I’m from it doesn’t matter how subtle or portable your weapon is if it doesn’t kill the enemy in front of you. And some are quite stubborn.

I’m a, well, I used to be a General. Let the assassins carry the daggers, I need something that suits me on the battlefield where anything from knights to dragons may appear. “

Men are honestly baffling. Thalia never ceases to be amazed at how they can all be the same: arrogant, egocentric, self-serving, pompous. Any qualms she's ever had about joining the hunters of Artemis, and ridding herself of men altogether, have since officially been stomped down.

❝Let me give you some advice, dude: If you go around assuming every girl in the world wants your nuts, you're going to make people think you're an asshole. Honestly? You come off as kind of an asshole to me. I get the feeling you're not a terrible person, though, so...just...consider changing the way you talk to girls. You're not some great prize to be won, even if you are moderately attractive and apparently good at some stuff.❞

"Hhhhhiiiiiiii." He drew the word out long. The scene was set as such; a cute young man (Onda), knelt in front of a freshly dead man (Considering how the pool of blood wasn’t dried or anything), and Onda currently had his chest open and was extracting organs. 

As sanitary like as he could, of course. Rubber gloves, properly sanitized tools. He might be taking organs from a dead man in an alleyway, but he had standards. 

This, though...this is something different.

Thalia doesn't know if this guy killed the person whose organs he's apparently harvesting, but she doesn't care; he's desecrating a corpse, which means burial rites can't be properly performed. She thinks Nico di Angelo's eyes would just about roll into the back of his head if he got a load of this mockery of the dead. Her eyes narrow.

❝Put the organs back.❞ 

She reaches behind herself for the crude spear she fashioned for herself out of a pipe; it cost her three days' worth of electrokinesis, and she burned her fingers a few times welding with a lighter, but it was well-worth it. Certainly better than that cardboard hunk of crap they gave her.