GothicShadows21: Welcome back to the Percy Jackson Commentary Corner, starring Percy Jackson and Grover Underwood! How are you doing today, guys?
Percy: Oh my Gods, not this again…why do you have to do the color commentary on my fanfictions? And who is he?
Percy gestures at a muscular boy in black clothing and makeup. Grover clears his throat.
Grover: This is Tobias Rayne, son of Hades. He's Nico's brother. I brought him to camp last week with a pride of Manticores on our heels.
Percy: Oh no, not another prophecy…
GothicShadows21: Nope! Not another prophecy, just the new face of Camp Half-Blood! I'll introduce you guys better later. You mind doing the disclaimer for me?
Percy: Kinda…
GothicShadows21: Percy…
Percy: Fine…this clown by the grace of Zeus does not own my franchise
GothicShadows21 dives on top of Percy.
Grover: Roll the story! Roll the story! (Tries to separate them and gets sucked into the brawl)
Chapter One
Percy POV
'Tis the season for Fall cabin inspections, and with about a billion more cabins here, Chiron thought it necessary to have three camp counselors in charge. And, because I can't just seem to get ahead, he chose the three most neat-freak counselors in the whole darn camp: Silena Beauregard from the Aphrodite Cabin, Katie Gardner from Demeter, and of course, Annabeth…And just like last time she inspected my cabin, I didn't have Tyson to tidy up, so I got hit pretty hard.
"You can't depend on Tyson, you know," she said, moving a pair of my boxers from the floor to my bed with her pencil. "Good Gods, Percy; this place is almost as dirty as Geryon's stables."
"That's not true!" I protested. Annabeth hadn't been with me when I cleaned those things, and the smell alone would have made any Mom faint. "Geryon's stables didn't have any of these lovely light-up corals…"
I clapped my hands and on cue, the lights dimmed, and a barrage of colors filled the room.
"To light up the place," I finished.
For a second, I thought I had Annabeth convinced, and I probably would have gotten a really good score if I hadn't forgotten about the empty pizza box full of two slices of three-day old mushroom pizza.
"Three out of five," Annabeth decided as she scribbled on her clipboard. "And I'm being generous, Seaweed Brain." She looked over my shoulder as though to make sure no one was outside the cabin and kissed me softly. She clapped her hands and the corals darkened and the dull overhead light flicked on again. She looked uneasy, as though something was weighing on her. She squeezed my hand as though to reassure herself and strode out of the cabin.
"What's up?" I asked, jogging after her. Annabeth didn't say anything, choosing instead to check up on Thalia, who had just hung Aegis over her bed.
"Clean as usual, Thalia," Annabeth commented, writing a distinct 'five' on her clipboard while Thalia grinned smugly at me.
"What did Seaweed Brain get?" Thalia asked.
"Only Annabeth gets to call me that," I reminded her warningly. "Want to rephrase that one?" Thalia raised her eyebrow as she pretended to think for a few seconds.
"Kelp-breath?" I rolled my eyes, but nodded reluctantly. Thalia grinned once more and looked at Annabeth again. She seemed to notice what I had noticed in Annabeth earlier, that her heart just wasn't in the inspection at all. "What's up, Annabeth?"
"It's nothing…" she lied, and was almost through the door when Thalia grabbed her wrist.
"What's wrong, Annabeth?" Thalia asked again, much more firmly as she emphasized her name. Annabeth shut her eyes and sighed, as though she knew this was something we were going to find out eventually.
"It's Grover," she said as though this was supposed to clear things up, her hands falling to her side. Thalia and I gaped at her until she went on, "He came across the hill with a whole pride of manticores behind him! A whole pride!"
My mind was still stuck on the fact that Grover almost became an appetizer for a group of crazed monsters when Thalia was already on the bigger picture.
"That many manticores?" Thalia questioned. "But that must mean he found a powerful demigod! A really powerful demigod…" Her eyes narrowed in realization and she now bore the same worried expression as Annabeth.
"I'm going to see Chiron," she announced, and before either of us could protest, dashed out of the cabin and into the snow, slipping and sliding slightly across the frozen ground. I turned back towards Annabeth, who was running her pencil down her clipboard as though to see who was next.
"Is somebody going to fill me in on what's going on?" I asked. Annabeth shook her head wordlessly and strode out of the Zeus cabin. "Hey! Annabeth!"
It was amazing how much ground Annabeth could cover when she was worried about something. She probably would have left me in the dust if I hadn't slipped and knocked her and her clipboard into the snow.
"My Gods, Percy," she sputtered, spitting snow out of her mouth as she got to her feet. "For a son of the sea god, you really aren't that balanced on ice."
"Ha, ha," I remarked, handing back her clipboard. "Are you going to tell what in Hades has you and Thalia so worried?" Thunder rumbled overhead, drawing a nervous glance upwards from Annabeth.
"You just put your finger on it," she said simply.
"What? What in Hades?" I repeated. The thunder clapped harder overhead; the campers around us were staring nervously up at the sky and around, as though they expected a monster to just appear out of thin air and eat them.
"Percy," she said nervously. "Stop saying his name! That's the problem!"
I hate it when she does this… I thought bitterly.
"What's the problem?" I demanded, extremely frustrated with her. "What is wrong with me saying…" Annabeth stared threateningly at me, as though daring me to say Hades' name again. Probably was going to stab me in the chest with her pencil or something like that.
"It's him…Grover found a demigod a few weeks ago; a really, really powerful demigod," she hissed, looking around to make sure no one was eavesdropping. "And I don't mean like a child of Apollo or even Athena, either."
"So, the Big Three?" I clarified. Annabeth looked around once more, and nodded. "Another one? Which one? Who is it? Where are they? Is it Ha…" Annabeth wrapped me up in a sort of full-nelson, her hand clamped over my mouth.
"Don't say his name, Percy!" she hissed more urgently into my ear. "Grover told me about it on the camp chatroom. But yeah, he thinks he's a son of Hades." Thunder rumbled overhead once more, though not near as bad as when she said his name.
"So…it's a guy," I said wearily. I glanced over at the Hades cabin, which was unfortunately not on Annabeth's list. There was definitely movement in there as one of the dark curtains over the windows shifted and an ominous face peered past them briefly, and then quickly vanished behind them. That definitely wasn't Nico in there.
"Yes, it's a guy," Annabeth cleared up, glancing down at her checklist for a split second. "Look, don't be mad at Grover. He's probably still shaken up about the whole thing. We'll probably meet him later on tonight during dinner. I've got to get these cabin inspections done or else I got kitchen duty for a month."
"But…" She put her hand on mine, an insistent look on her face.
"I got to go Percy; go find Grover. He'll explain this to you," she said. "I'll see you tonight, Seaweed Brain!" She kissed me quickly and hurried off in the direction of the Ares cabin. I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, not at the thought of Clarisse's reaction when Annabeth failed their cabin, but at whatever I was about to hear from Grover. I strode off past the basketball courts, where Apollo and Hermes were squaring off; this has been a morning tradition since Halloween and neither side had been able to scrape together a win streak longer than one in a row. I found Grover sitting on a hill, a half-chewed Green Giant can sitting beside him. He looked even more tense than what I had imagined, and he wasn't remotely amused at his fellow satyrs' failed attempts to seduce the local nymphs.
"What's up, G-man?" I greeted, sitting down beside him, my frustration with him not telling me that he had almost been eaten ebbing away.
"The snow, clouds, increasing levels of carbon dioxide," he mused in a dull voice. Never gets old, that one. Honesty seemed like the best plan of attack in this situation and some part of me, the part that Grover had attached the empathy link to, was pretty sure Grover knew that I had already known.
"Good one, buddy," I said, making Grover snort. "I uh, heard you almost became an entrée for some manticores last night." Grover raised up slightly and looked down his back. A clump of hair was missing near his buttock and the skin was inflamed, like the hair had been ripped off.
"Good thing, because I would have met Tobi's father last night if I had," he remarked. My suspicions were confirmed.
"So he is a child of…"
Grover dove on me, clapping a hand to my mouth like Annabeth. Seriously? Why was everyone so uptight about me saying Hades' name today?
"Don't…say…his…name!" Grover warned as I managed to push his weight off of me. "Yes, he is. His name is Tobi."
"Tobi?" I repeated, raising my eyebrow.
"Well, Tobias, actually," Grover corrected. "Tobias Rayne. He was hanging out with a bunch of guys smoking pot whenever I saw him, but he would refuse every time they passed him the joint. The stench though…that's probably how he's been alive all this time. His parents are heavy drug users, too. That's probably masked his scent from monsters all the way up until…well, a few days ago."
"How old is he?"
"Sixteen," Grover said casually. "Has a driver's license and everything. He stopped hanging around the potheads and next thing we knew, that empousa, Kelli, pretended to seduce him and lead him into the band room, only to try and rip his throat out. I don't know how he got out of that one. We snuck out of school and made for Camp Half-Blood the second he told me what had happened. Only problem is that it's a pretty long drive from Chicago…the minotaur showed up again and destroyed his car when we pulled over into a Waffle House in Philadelphia."
"The Minotaur?" I echoed in awe. "How in the Underworld did you guys escape that?"
"Turns out this kid being involved in the Theater for most of his life taught him sword play," Grover went on. "Freaking wicked. I don't know how he got a hold a Celestial Bronze blade though. Everything went really bad right after he killed the minotaur, because Echidna and her little chihuahua showed up. And they weren't the only ones, either. The hydra, a few giants, that pride of Manticores. Everything that weren't the Kindly Ones was on our tail. His Dad must have been looking out for him too, because we escaped a lot of situations that we shouldn't have." Grover was speaking more quickly the longer he went on, and when he stopped, he gulped nervously. He looked as though someone had just told him that he was going to have to marry Polyphemus after all.
"Has he met with Chiron and Mr. D yet?" I asked him. Grover nodded. "That should have gone over well. Mr. D probably fancies him more than he ever did me."
"He's definitely a looker," Grover remarked, looking pitifully down at a satyr, who had just slipped on ice and knocked the legs out of his three other compatriots. "Like, seriously. He looks like he should be in a band or something. He's got muscles I didn't think ever existed."
Great, now the whole Aphrodite cabin is going to be after him…
A thought had just occurred to me.
"Wait, how did you know he was a son of…our friend downstairs?" I asked.
"He must have been watching Percy, because his mark appeared over his head before I could even get him to the Big House," Grover explained. "Nico doesn't know about him yet, but Gods, I'd hate to be in the Underworld cabin when that family reunion takes place."
He glanced back down at the satyrs; one of them had managed to get himself a full head of steam and was gaining on one of the nymphs before she turned into a snow-covered tree at the last second, causing the satyr to slam face first into the trunk and get blanketed in snow as he lay unconscious. (You know, Titan's Curse?)
"Poor saps," Grover remarked.
"Good one, buddy," I added. Grover snorted for real this time. Thalia came sprinting across the field towards us, her Marilyn Manson hoodie flapping behind her, and her legs distorted muscularly as she drew closer towards us.
"Grover! Percy!" she shouted. Her combat boots lost traction and she collided with us, sending all three of us tumbling down the hill, half buried in snow. "Sorry!"
Grover bleated and pushed himself to his feet, shivering violently as he tried to brush snow out of his fur. I guess if you have fur, the cold sinks much deeper into you. Course I'm more concerned with the possible concussion Thalia just gave me rather than impending frostbite if I didn't get back to my cabin soon.
"Grover, why didn't you tell anyone that you found another child of Hades?" Thalia demanded.
"Thalia…" Grover started, glancing nervously up at the sky as thunder crashed overhead once more.
"Oh, I don't give a damn about that," she excused. "Well, Grover? You didn't bother telling me, or Percy, or even Nico for that matter, you know, 'children of the Big Three'."
"I mean, I told Annabeth," he excused lamely, rubbing his head nonchalantly, looking as though he was bracing himself for Thalia's explosion.
"Oh, you told Annabeth!" Thalia half-laughed, half-shouted indignantly. "But you couldn't tell us! Do you not remember how many of us it took to extract him and his sister from that military school? Don't you think that it would have been smart of you to bring us along for the trip?"
"It isn't that simple, Thalia!" Grover argued back. "You know how hard it was to pinpoint where he was? He definitely knew how to hide himself from monsters. His scent was masked by like, twenty thousand pounds of marijuana, but when it did flicker on, it was strong. Stronger than yours, Percy."
Yeah, because that's not weird at all, your goat best friend saying that someone else's scent is stronger than yours.
"Yeah, so?" Thalia excused.
"So, by the time I found him, he had already ditched his pothead friends and monsters were starting to close in. There wasn't time for me to call for backup!"
"But you had time enough to stop at Waffle House," I pointed out. Grover glared indignantly at me.
"Blah-ha-ha! You try being attacked by monsters every other hour; you work up a real appetite," Grover excused. "Plus, we didn't even get to eat! Stupid minotaur showed up and…" Grover launched into the story about how the minotaur had barreled out of nowhere and nearly flattened them inside a 2016 Camry. Thalia, despite this kid's surprising prowess in combat, looked unimpressed. The conch shell sounded in the distance, signaling dinner.
"You're one lucky goat-boy," she remarked as we started up the hill. "Is he in the Dead Kids cabin?"
"Probably," Grover confirmed. "We'll probably get a glimpse of him at dinner. Just try not to be all 'gaga' over him, Thalia. Last thing I need on my resume is that I dragged back a player demigod." Thalia punched Grover's shoulder hard before she slid into a seat at the 'Big Three Table'. Chiron decided that since there were so few kids of the Big Three that having separate tables was a waste of space, and consolidated them into one. Grover being a satyr could technically sit wherever he pleased, though he usually sat with me whenever Poseidon still had his own table. Nevertheless, he plopped down onto the bench beside me. Thalia and I kept our eyes peeled for the newcomer, trying to pick him out of the mass influx of campers into the pavilion. Thalia, after a few minutes, spotted him skulking behind the Hephaestus cabin.
Grover hadn't overexaggerated this kid at all. He looked at least as old as me. His long black hair, which was strategically messy and somewhat spiked in the back and tumbled into his face so that only one of his eyes was obscured, was flecked with snow. The eye that wasn't covered was boldened by black makeup. His nails were painted black and he wore tight black, pyramid-studded leather fingerless gloves. He sported tight black jeans, knee-high combat boots with chains and spikes dangling from the sides, and a slightly loose leather jacket, in which he had shoved his hands into the pockets. There was upside down star with some sort of squiggly design plastered on what we could see of his black shirt, a design that Thalia seemed to recognize. He looked as though he belonged to a really popular metal band. His muscles bulged through his shirt when he removed his jacket, and as he strode over to the Big Three table, girls' eyes were turning and following him as he walked. The exceptions were Clarisse, and to my relief, Annabeth's. This kid however, was oblivious to it all.
"Ooh! Is that him Grover?" Thalia asked eagerly, her eyes glued on Tobias as he drew closer to our table. Grover nodded his confirmation and, seeing the look on Thalia's face, grinned teasingly.
"Careful Thalia," he crooned. "Artemis will gut you if you jump Tobi's bones."
"Just because I'm a huntress doesn't mean that I can't look!" Thalia retorted. "And plus, she amended that rule that Huntresses aren't allowed to get married. Plus, look at him…"
She made a low humming noise that nearly killed my appetite. Grover and I scooted away slightly on the bench.
"Talk about a child of Hades…"
"Would you like me to get a picture of him for you?" Grover mocked. Thalia kicked his leg hard the table. "Ow! Jeez, I was only joking Thalia!"
"Hey Grover," Tobias greeted, sitting in the seat that Grover and I had vacated. Grover seemed to have developed OCD, or maybe he just didn't like being in the line of fire of Thalia's punter's leg, because he stood up and filled the spot beside her. His voice was low and sounded almost identical to a band I knew Thalia had forced me to listen to before.
"You like…the Black Veil Brides too?" she asked him, almost breathlessly.
"Yeah, they're my favorite band. I've seen them every time they come through Chicago," he replied in his low, seductive voice. "I'm friends with the guitar player Jake Pitts. He gave me a guitar pick." He fished a black guitar pick out of his pocket and held up to Thalia, who blushed so deep that her face was almost he exact shade of the strawberries sitting in front of us.
He held out his hand towards her, in which Thalia shook, her hand trembling violently.
"I'm Tobias," he introduced. Thalia's eyes were larger than moons. "And you are?"
She stuttered for a good five seconds before she managed to regain herself…albeit partially.
"Th-Th-Thalia…" she said almost breathlessly. "Th-Thalia Gr-Grace."
Grover couldn't contain himself; he was giggling uncontrollably, all dignity forgotten, earning himself a sharp elbow to his ribs from Thalia.
Chiron stomped his hoof onto the ground and raised his goblet in the air to toast the Gods. Tobias seemed already aware of the proceedings because he didn't seem at all confused at the campers' tribute into the fire. In fact, he seemed eager to take part in that because he had tipped nearly half of his bowl of beef stew into the brazen.
"O Great Dark One, thank you for watching me on my journey to Camp Half-Blood. May your realm bloom evermore," he muttered ironically. Grover and I exchanged glances with one another, but Thalia looked as though Tobias had just spoken Shakespeare's sonnets to her.
"Hey!" Annabeth's voice hissed into my ear, prodding me sharply in the small of my back with her fork. I nearly leapt out of my shoes at her touch, almost knocking Grover and our plates onto the ground. "Sorry, I forgot…invulnerability."
"Yeah," I breathed, trying to slow my heart rate.
"The whole Athena cabin is talking; is that him?" she hissed, peering past mine and Grover's shoulders, trying not to get caught staring.
"Yep," Grover confirmed. "That's Tobias." He scraped his food into the brazen and mumbled a prayer to Pan.
"Looks like Thalia's smitten," Annabeth commented, watching her smile stupidly as she walked side-by-side with Tobias. "My Gods, she's actually smitten! I haven't seen her like that, ever! She's going to be in a lot of trouble with Artemis if she's not careful!"
"Apparently, Artemis changed the rules about Huntresses not being able to marry," I told, scraping some fruit, steak, and potatoes into the fire and saying my bit to Poseidon. Grover grinned.
"And how she has taken advantage of that!" Grover mused. "Look at her!"
Thalia was twirling a length of her hair with her finger and staring at Tobias with such rapture that I was kind of amazed he didn't have a burn mark in between his eyes…or anywhere else on his face. Annabeth kissed me on the cheek and returned to her table, leaving me and Grover to awkwardly join the Big Three table beside Thalia and Tobias.
"Grover, Grover, did you know that Tobias can play the guitar?" she demanded quickly, looking so impressed that it seemed like no other feat was greater than this one. Grover leaned back slightly and nodded awkwardly.
"Yes, Thalia, I did know that," he said slowly. "He's pretty good at it too. Playing it and smashing it over monsters' heads."
"Yeah, too bad about that," he agreed, stabbing a carrot with his fork and popping it into his mouth. He glanced over towards me. "I'm sorry, I promise I'm not ignoring you, bud. I didn't catch your name earlier."
It was my turn to be shocked and entranced. His eyes were gray; not like Annabeth's, but almost a baby blue. I couldn't help trusting him, that everything he said was scripture, but the sound of Grover clearing his throat jarred me back to reality.
"Oh, um, Percy…Percy Jackson," I said lamely. We shook hands and listened to Tobias tell stories about Chicago, about how he once dragged his mother into the house after she passed out drunk on the doorstep, about how he saved money to go to the Super Bowl and then had to use his money to bail his dad out of jail, about how he made a few mobsters disappear through a fissure he made in the street when they threatened his mother, how the love of his life died from cancer. Thalia gripped every single word he spoke and patted his forearm in comfort, even though Tobias didn't look at all upset.
"Bears' games are something else though," he assured us. "You have no idea the kind of atmosphere in that stadium. It's they electrify the place to make you feel even more excited. I've seen them play in Cincinnati and Cleveland and those places are nowhere near as exciting as Chicago. No offense to you guys if you're Giants fans."
"Nope, Chicago, Chicago all the way," Thalia said quickly. "You caught me! Been a Bears fan since birth!"
Riiiiiiiight…
"I'm more of a Jets fan," I commented, and, seeing, the dumbfounded look on his face, nudged Grover hintingly with my toe.
"Oh, uh, yeah, me too," Grover said, nodding quickly. "Big Jets fan. Go NFL!" I buried my face in my hands, trying to shove what Grover had just said out of my brain. Tobias seemed to have missed it, though; I didn't have to guess whether or not Thalia would have caught it.
Thalia had kicked me and Grover off to the side with Annabeth so she had a log seat with Tobias all to herself at the campfire. She roasted a marshmallow and attempted to share it with him, only for him to turn it down on the premise that it was pure sugar and almost nothing else. She looked extremely put out by that.
"So, what have you guys found out about him?" Annabeth asked. Grover and I glanced over at Tobias and Thalia, who were too busy talking with each other to notice us.
"Well, he's involved with the Theater, his mom is a drug addict and alcoholic, the love of his life died from cancer, he can play guitar and smash it over monsters' heads," I listed off.
"Not that kind of stuff!" Annabeth discarded. "The important stuff! How much does he know about…his world? Our world?"
"Well, he's really good at sword fighting," Grover piped up. "And he's a good enough with music to pass as a child of Apollo, but that's about it. Other than that, he just talks about normal teen stuff, like music and sports."
He glanced over at Thalia and Tobias again before turning back to us.
"Apparently, he's a big Chicago Bears fan, and so is Thalia apparently," he joked. Annabeth squinted in disbelief at Thalia.
"Thalia?! A Bears fan?" she repeated, sounding slightly affronted at this. "She doesn't even follow sports!"
"Caught on, have you?" I remarked. "If Artemis hadn't changed the rule about the Huntresses, she would have thrown herself out. She's in love with him!" Thalia was gazing at Tobias as though he was the sole most beautiful thing in the universe. We tried to ignore them by losing ourselves in the sing-along, but that didn't work, especially since we heard Thalia mention having a record player and a lot of Black Veil Brides vinyl.
"You can come over to my cabin later if you want," she suggested. "Listen to some better music than this."
"Alright, that's it," Annabeth decided, and she stood up and interjected herself into their conversation by asking Tobias if she could borrow Thalia for a minute.
"Ten dollars says that Thalia punches Annabeth for killing her vibe," I bet Grover.
"You could bet a hundred and I still wouldn't take that bet," Grover whispered back, watching as Thalia glared reproachfully at Annabeth. "I hadn't seen Thalia like this, ever. Especially with Nico, and you'd think she'd have been smitten with him, given the way he acts."
Percy: (Holding an ice pack to his head) You didn't have to stick your fingers up my nose, you know…
GothicShadows21: You didn't have to call me a clown either. All you had to say is that I have no control over your franchise and that I shouldn't be sued.
Percy: Should get punched though.
Grover: (Holding his hand to his lip) And why did you punch me in the mouth? I was trying to break you two up.
Percy: I thought you were him! And I already apologized for it like, three times!
Grover: It still hurts…
GothicShadows21: I'll get some ambrosia and nectar in here. Review please, in the meantime!