warriors (wait and watch)

by D_captain

Summary:

"Raise above the best and prove yourself
Your spirit never dies"

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》🏹《

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Moss reincarnates again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again, again but has cool powers (they hadn't figured out which ones, tho).

Or: how I reincarnated as the mean girl and had to suffer for twelve years.

(And Moss is a neglected child, and Moss makes friends, and Moss saves people, and Moss isn't a mean girl anymore.)

Alternative name: Moss and the Weird Redhead.

(The Unwanted)

Chapter 1: Personality traits—

Summary:

—asshole.

I’ve lived through twenty-three different lives.

Some were glorious, legendary, even. I was a hero, a villain, a king, a knight, a nobody, a monster. Every world had its own rules, and I adapted. I fought. I died. And then, I was reborn. Again and again.

But this was new.

(Not true at all, in my sixteenth life happened the same.)

I woke up in a body too small, too fragile, too not mine. A baby. That part wasn’t strange; I’d been reborn young before. But this time, something was wrong.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't speak.

I couldn't even think properly.

I was just… watching.

A prisoner behind my own eyes.

At first, I thought it was temporary. Maybe I just needed time to regain control, like I had in my other lives. But days turned into months, then years, and I realized the horrible truth: I was trapped.

Trapped inside this body. A passenger. An observer.

And worse? This body belonged to Nancy Bobofit.

Yeah. That Nancy Bobofit. The mean girl from Percy Jackson. The one who bullied Percy. The one who got shoved into a fountain at the Met. The one who barely existed in the grand scheme of things but was still so incredibly annoying.

I was her.

And I couldn’t do a single thing about it.

---

Nancy Bobofit was a menace. And I should know, I spent twelve years watching her torment Percy Jackson, boss around other kids, and be the general worst. Every time she stole a kid’s lunch, pushed someone, or laughed at a cruel joke, I wanted to scream.

But I couldn’t stop her.

I tried. Gods, I tried.

I fought against the invisible restraints keeping me locked away. Sometimes, I thought I saw hesitation in her actions, like she was second-guessing herself. But in the end, her body kept moving, kept sneering, kept being Nancy.

It was hell.

And then… the field trip happened.

And I knew this moment. 

This exact moment.

Yancy Academy. The fountain. The museum trip. Mrs. Dodds.

Percy Jackson.

I watched as my body (Nancy’s body) started her usual routine. She tossed bits of food at Grover. She made snide comments. She laughed.

I tried to stop myself. I tried to push back, to do something.

Then Percy turned, his sea-green eyes flashing with barely contained fury. His face twisted in that specific, too-intense way that I knew meant divine power was messing with him.

And suddenly...

I could move.

Or at least, I could resist.

It wasn’t much, just a moment of hesitation. A second of awareness.

But it was enough.

Percy grabbed me.

(No, it wasn't him.)

And I let him.

The world tilted as my body went flying through the air towards the fountain.

I hit the water.

And for the first time in twelve years, I breathed.

Not as Nancy. 

Not as an observer.

As me.

And I had one singular thought: 'Mrs. Dodds is about to kill that boy.'

I gasped, breaking through the surface. My mind, my body, everything felt like it was clicking into place, like I was waking up from the longest nightmare of my existence.

I turned, soaking wet, heart hammering.

Percy was standing there, looking just as shocked as I felt.

And behind him, Mrs. Dodds was watching, her eyes glowing with something ancient.

'This is it,' I realized. 'The start of the canon timeline.'

Their new life had officially begun.

And I wasn’t just an observer anymore.

I was free.

Chapter 2: Dying's the easy part, living's the—

Summary:

—trick.

I stood there, drenched to the bone, my heart still racing as Mrs. Dodds (Alecto, one of the Furies) loomed over me. My body, Nancy’s body, was still shaking, but it wasn’t from the cold water. It was from the near brush with death.

My first instinct had been to run, to push myself to the limit and escape the unyielding force of Mrs. Dodds’ power. I knew she was one of the Furies, one of the ancient goddesses of vengeance. The sheer presence of her, glaring at me with those glowing eyes, was enough to make anyone’s blood freeze. But somehow, I knew that this wasn’t the end. Not yet. I wasn’t going to die today.

And then something strange happened. Mrs. Dodds’ demeanor softened, her eyes no longer seething with fury. She had a look in her eyes, like she had been waiting for this moment for a long time. And in that instant, I knew why.

It wasn’t about me.

It wasn’t about Percy.

It was about him.

"You're okay, sweetie," Mrs. Dodds purred, her eyes gleaming with something I knew was far more dangerous than concern. She spoke like a caretaker, a guardian, but there was an edge to her voice that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

As Mrs. Dodds shifted her gaze to Percy, I could feel the anticipation building inside her. A triumphant fire flickered in her eyes as she stood up straighter, a predator watching its prey. Percy, to his credit, didn’t look nearly as terrified as I thought he should. Maybe that was the one thing I’d give him, he wasn’t exactly an average kid. He had something , some kind of innate strength. But even he couldn’t sense the danger lurking so closely.

“Now, honey–” Mrs. Dodds began, her voice smooth and cold.

“I know,” Percy grumbled, his tone tired. “A month erasing textbooks.”

I could see it in Mrs. Dodds’ expression as her lips twisted into a tight smile. “Come with me,” she commanded, her voice as sharp as a knife.

“Wait!” Grover suddenly yelped, his voice filled with panic. “It was me. I pushed her.”

I blinked at him.

He was trying to cover for Percy. Grover was trying to protect Percy from a Fury.

Percy looked at him, stunned. But I could sense the hesitation in him, the conflict. (Nancy) I would’ve called him a coward if I didn’t understand the gravity of the situation. Mrs. Dodds was terrifying. Grover was just trying to save his own skin, and in his mind, maybe this was the way to do it.

Mrs. Dodds didn’t care for Grover’s attempts at playing the hero. She turned on him, her eyes narrowing, and I saw a flicker of recognition in Grover’s face. He was scared.

Scared as hell.

(Or was it Hades? Lol.)

Her glare was enough to make the kid tremble, her eyes like burning coals, with nothing but malice underneath them. She tilted her head as she looked at him.

“I don’t think so, Mr. Underwood,” she purred.

“B-but–” Grover stammered, his chin trembling.

“You-will–stay–here.”

Grover blinked, looking at Percy, his desperation growing.

Percy, because he was Percy, gave him a reassuring look, a grin that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “It’s okay, man,” he said, his voice strained. “Thanks for trying.”

Grover nodded, his eyes full of uncertainty.

“Honey,” Mrs. Dodds barked, her voice commanding. “Now.”

(I should’ve been afraid. I should’ve been running, doing something to get out of here, but instead, I found myself frozen in place, just watching.)

Percy gave me one last glance, and for a moment, it felt like his eyes were saying everything: You better not get me killed.

But it wasn’t his anger that frightened me. It was Mrs. Dodds’ eyes.

Her gaze flickered towards the museum entrance, and without a single word, she was gone.

In the blink of an eye, she had gone from standing in front of us to perched on top of the museum steps, waiting for Percy to follow. The sheer speed with which she moved was unsettling, like she was a being born of shadows and nightmares.

The Furies. They weren’t just ancient beings, they were predators, with powers beyond mortal comprehension. 

I could feel the shift. Something had changed in me. As the moments passed, my mind swirled with the weight of it.

This wasn’t the same life.

No. Something was different. I wasn’t just watching Percy from behind the veil anymore. I wasn’t just trapped in Nancy’s body. I was part of this world now, this timeline.

And the more I thought about it, the clearer it became:

I wasn’t a mortal anymore.

I couldn’t be.

Nancy Bobofit, in the original canon timeline, was a mortal, someone with ADHD and dyslexia, someone prone to theft and petty mischief. I had lived her life for twelve years, observed every minute of it, but I was not her anymore.

I had changed .

The puzzle pieces were falling into place, one by one. I knew who I was. I wasn’t just anyone; I was a demigod.

My memories from my past lives flickered in and out. I had been a demigod before. I had been Hermes’ child in my fifth life. I had felt the pull of the god of thieves’ domain before. And in my most recent life, I had been Apollo’s child. The connection to the bow and arrow made sense; I had always felt an affinity for archery, even in my mortal life. It was a comfort, something to hold on to in this sea of confusion.

But…

Was I really Apollo’s child again?

Or had I been conceived by another god?

I couldn’t tell. I felt like I should know, like there was a sign hidden just beneath the surface of my mind. Something about this world, this timeline, was pulling at me. It was a constant hum, an undercurrent of something far more powerful than I had expected.

I could feel it.

But it wasn’t the time to figure it out yet. Percy was about to face something he wasn’t ready for, something (Nancy) I might not be ready for either.

And I wasn’t about to let Mrs. Dodds get away with whatever twisted game she had in mind.

So, while the world shifted and Percy followed Mrs. Dodds to face whatever fate awaited him in the museum, I made my decision. 

I wasn’t just watching anymore. I was going to change this timeline.

And to do that, I would need to keep my eyes on Percy Jackson. Because in (every timeline) this new life, everything depended on him.

(And on me, but I didn't realize it back then until lots of years later.)

Chapter 3: The strongest people have a past filled with chaos, heartbreak and—

Summary:

—disappointment.

People think that when you come back into your own body after twelve years of being a passenger, you'd be bursting at the seams to live, like you’d crave experience, affection, chaos, the human stuff.

I wasn’t.

Even when the strings cut and I finally got control, I didn’t celebrate. I didn’t scream or cry or laugh. I just… drifted.

I’d been a hero in other lives. A gangster. A demon. A volleyball player. A pirate. A girl and a boy and a thing with four eyes and four arms.

---

I stopped talking to people.

Not in a dramatic, moody way; no tears, no slammed lockers, no “I hate everyone” diary scribbles. I just stopped. Somewhere between Percy facing down a Fury and Mrs. Dodds vanishing like a puff of brimstone, I began to slip out of focus. I’d go to class, sit in the back, do the work. Silent. Composed. Polite.

Kids didn’t know what to do with me. I wasn’t throwing pencils anymore. I wasn’t tripping Grover in the cafeteria or mocking Percy’s grades.

I wasn’t fun anymore.

"Hey, Nancy," someone would mumble at lunch. A nudge, a fake-smile. "You good?"

I’d blink at them like they spoke another language.

I wasn’t trying to be cold. I just… didn’t see the point. These weren’t people I trusted. They weren’t people who knew the twenty-four other lives I’d lived, who knew what it meant to get used to dying, waking up, repeating.

(Now I was alive and conscious again, and I didn’t feel real.)

Even the teachers noticed.

"Miss Bobofit, would you like to stay after class?" one of them asked once. I don't remember which. History, maybe. Or English.

I nodded, mechanically, and waited as the room emptied.

They hesitated. Rubbed their forehead. Then said, "Never mind."

(Cowards.)

Nobody said anything else after that.

The school year ended in a blur.

My grades weren’t great, but they weren’t failing either. Nobody made a big deal about them. Nobody asked me to explain.

"Yo! Bobofit!"

I blinked, pulled out of my daze by the familiar gravelly voice of our PE teacher. He was holding a clipboard and gesturing toward the parking lot. "You're dismissed. Your old man's here."

I stood up slowly, my chair scraping the tile like a scream. "Yeah, I'm coming."

My sneakers hit the pavement hard as I stepped outside, and the early summer air slapped me in the face. The sun was brutal, shining off the blacktop, making everything too bright. My duffel bag was slung over one shoulder, too light and too heavy at the same time.

By the last week, my locker was already empty. I didn’t want to come back in September. I didn’t want to stay. I didn’t want anything .

But the moment I saw him, Luke Bobofit, leaning on the rusted hood of his ancient Dodge pickup, stained Yankees cap pushed up on his curly hair, arms crossed, eyes squinting into the sun…

I couldn’t help it. I smiled. Just a little.

He was grinning like someone who’d never stopped smiling in his life. He leaned against a beat-up green truck with peeling paint and a “Brooklyn Archers Club” sticker slapped across the rear windshield. His work shirt was stained with oil and sawdust. His black beard was patchy but well-kept, his dark brown skin sun-worn and lined with honest wrinkles. And when he saw me, his eyes lit up like I was still his little girl coming home from kindergarten.

(I felt something in my chest crack open.)

"Nance!" he yelled weaving at me. "Hey, sweetheart!"

This man had taught me how to string a bow, how to gut a fish, how to fix a tire, how to throw a punch, how to laugh even when my mother called me a mistake.

"Hey, Pops," I said, my voice thick with the Brooklyn rasp I never bothered to hide around him.

He came over and pulled me into a bear hug that squeezed the wind out of me. "You got taller. What are they feedin' you in that place, Amazon protein shakes?"

"Cafeteria sludge and regret," I muttered into his shoulder.

He laughed, pulling back to look at me, his callused hands still on my shoulders. "Still got that mouth, huh? Let's get you home, kid." 

The truck smelled like pine air fresheners and sawdust. A quiver of arrows rested on the back seat beside a folded-up bow. Pops had left the window cracked, letting in the hot breeze from the city.

The drive home was as fun as always, he tapped the wheel to the rhythm of old Springsteen songs and told me about a raccoon that'd gotten into the back shed. "Little bastard chewed through three of the archery targets," he said with mock outrage. "I think he thinks he's a goddamn Viking or somethin'."

"You still usin' the straw bales?" I asked, leaning my head on the open window.

"Nah. Upgraded. Got some foam blocks from a guy in Bay Ridge. Might actually hold an arrow this time." Drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, he asked softly, "Still shooting?"

I looked over at the bow. "Sometimes. Not as much."

He sighed. "You used to love it. You were good. Scary good. Made me wonder if maybe we had some Olympic blood in us or somethin'."

I smiled faintly. 'If you only knew, Pops.'

Pops had never known about the monsters, the gods, the Furies. He never questioned the weirdness around me. Never tried to understand why Valerie, my mother, treated me like an unwanted project. He never once asked if I was really his kid, even when I started to look nothing like him.

We drove past the deli where he used to sneak me cherry soda in a coffee cup so my mom wouldn’t freak about the sugar. Past the park where we’d go practice when I was seven. Past the corner where I got in my first real fight and came home with a split lip.

Home was the same. A squat, narrow two-story rowhouse with rust stains on the bricks and plastic flamingos in the yard that he thought were classy, had been knocked sideways by the wind. The screen door flapped lazily in the breeze.

Inside, it smelled like lemon cleaner, tobacco, and something faintly metallic… blood, probably. Pops had been trying to fix his tools again.

And she wasn’t home, of course. Probably at a gallery opening, or a yoga retreat, or screwing another immortal in a hotel in Soho, who knew.

"Your mom's got some charity thing," Pops said without looking at me. "Fashion or foundations or…I dunno, somethin' Vee thinks makes her important."

I shrugged and dropped my bag at the door. "Doesn't matter."

He studied me then. Really looked. "You straighten your hair again?"

"Yeah."

"You know you ain't gotta do that for me, right?"

"I know."

He nodded. Let it go. "Dinner's in the fridge. I'll heat it up."

"Dinner's in the fridge. Leftover lasagna," Pops said, dropping his keys in the bowl by the door.

Later that night, I stared at myself in the mirror.

Slanted jawline like my mother’s. Her lean frame, her sharp cheekbones, her red hair But not her freckles.

The orange dots splattered across my cheeks and nose looked fake up close. That was the point. They were fake. Makeup, smudged with sweat and summer.

Underneath them were marks; swirls, speckles, faint shimmering sigils I still couldn’t quite explain. Almost like someone had painted me with coal dust and it hadn’t ever washed off.

(The black constellations on my cheeks shimmered faintly under the moonlight.)

The first time I saw them, I was ten and thought I was cursed.

Now I was pretty sure they were divine.

Perfect white teeth. Skin that tanned too fast, too deep. Eyes so black they looked like obsidian under sunlight. And the hair, tight coils that wanted to spring back no matter how long I spent ironing them flat.

That wasn’t Luke’s doing.

That was them.

Because I knew that my mother had cheated. She had an affair with something not human. And then left me with the wreckage of it.

Hermes, maybe?

I crept down to the basement later. Found my old bow.

I’d been his kid in a life before. 

Pops had kept it oiled, the string was replaced and the wood polished.

But the marks didn’t look like his.

The arrows, too; some with blunt tips for practice, some real. The way they felt in my hand? Like breathing again.

Apollo?

I nocked an arrow. 

I remembered being able to call light through my hands.

Drew. 

And hearing melodies in wind.

Released.

Thwap!

Dead center.

(Maybe someone else.)

I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at my hands. Callused fingers. A crooked scar across my knuckles from a splintered arrow shaft. These were my hands again. But I didn’t recognize them in the mirror.

"Still fit?" Pops asked from the doorway. His voice was soft, like he was trying not to spook me. He meant the bow, I'd brought it upstairs.

"Like it never left me," I murmured, not looking up. I held the bow gently across my lap, the way one might hold a sleeping animal.

He leaned against the doorframe, baseball cap in his hand now, revealing his messy curls of graying brown hair. "I got you new string for your birthday, y'know. Didn't know if you'd want it anymore."

"I do."

A long pause stretched between us. I didn't want to say what came next. I knew he wouldn't get mad, but that almost made it worse.

I exhaled sharply through my nose and met his eyes. "You're not my dad."

The silence that followed wasn't awkward. It wasn't loud or dramatic. It was quiet in the way grief is quiet.

He nodded, slow. "Yeah," he said finally. "I figured."

"You did?"

"You think I ain't noticed the way she always avoided talkin' about your baby pictures? Or how your freckles don't show up in the sun, but glow under a full moon?" He gave a sad chuckle. "I may be a dumbass sometimes, but I ain't blind ."

I swallowed. "She lied to you."

"Yeah. And I lied to myself, hopin' she was just scared. Hopin' we could still be a family. But... I love you. Lie or no lie." He took a breath. "I taught you how to shoot a bow. How to sharpen a blade. How to stitch a wound. How to stand your damn ground." His voice cracked. "You're my kid , Nancy. God or no god."

My throat burned. I hadn't cried in years. Not in this life.

"I have to go," I said quietly.

"I figured that, too," he murmured. "I had a feeling. You've got a... look in your eye, like your bones are humming."

I blinked. "Yeah," I said. "Exactly that."

"I packed some food. Some of your stuff's already in the truck. Figured it'd happen eventually." He looked away. "You want me to drive you anywhere?"

"No." I bit my lip. "I can't go to Half-Blood Hill. Not yet."

Pops' eyebrows rose slightly. "That place with the border magic? The pine tree? Yeah, I know it. Got some... friends who've talked about it. Thought you'd go straight there."

I shook my head. "There's something I have to find first."

"Where?"

"I don't know." I glanced at the window. "Vegas, maybe."

He paused again. "You trust this feeling?"

"I always do," I said. "It's never been wrong."

He nodded like he respected that. "Then go with it. Just... don't let it eat you alive, kid."

I stood up and crossed the room. I wrapped my arms around him, and his shoulders sagged with the weight of all the years we'd lived in pretend.

"I'll write," I promised.

"You better," he said hoarsely.

Valerie came home that night like nothing was wrong, she smelled like champagne and hairspray and entitlement.

When she found her safe empty, no credit cards, no wads of emergency cash she kept from Luke "just in case", she shrieked like her soul had been sliced in half.

I watched from the shadows of the alley, clutching the train ticket in my hand.

I didn’t feel guilty.

---

Day 1

I caught the 3:15 AM Amtrak at Penn Station, duffel bag slung over one shoulder and my bow strapped in a disguised cello case. I slept on and off in the first twelve hours, lulled by the rhythmic rattle of steel on track.

I didn’t talk to anyone. I had window seats and thoughts.

I watched the city vanish, swallowed by woods and wheat and rusted barns, blinking between moments of déjà vu and humming undercurrents of a presence I couldn’t name.

Day 2

I remembered being a child of Hermes; quick, clever, always three steps ahead. But this… this felt different. I felt heavy. Not slow, but dense , like something lived underneath my skin.

In my reflection on the train window, my pitch-black eyes looked too deep. Not shiny. Not like glass. Like a void.

I thought of Nico di Angelo and his sister, both with those same abyssal eyes. Children of Hades.

Could it be… one of them?

Maybe not Hades. But something like him. One of the chthonic gods. The ones who didn’t dwell on Olympus but in shadow and stone. The gods of the underneath.

The black marks on my cheeks, the ones I painted over with orange freckles, they didn’t look like Apollo’s light. They shimmered in moonless dark.

I thought of Melinoë. Hecate. Thanatos. Nyx.

I touched the edge of my bow and felt the weight of a thousand unspoken names.

Day 3

The train rolled into Las Vegas at dawn.

The city didn’t sleep, but it did watch . Neon bled from every corner like veins in a wounded beast. The lights didn’t make the darkness disappear, they just tried to drown it.

I walked down the strip in a hoodie three sizes too big, duffel dragging behind me, bow case on my back. Tourists didn’t look twice. No one does in Vegas.

I didn’t know what I was looking for. Not really. But the pull in my chest buzzed louder here, like a tuning fork vibrating behind my ribs.

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 27 of Not-so-Deathly Moss
• Part 3 of Moss and the Deathly Demigod