If I had to decide, I would definitely say that having your ribs broken is an awful way to start off your day. I wasn't expecting my morning to be easy, but when I sat down for breakfast at the pavilion, I wasn't thinking, I'm gonna eat some pancakes and go get my face rearranged! I guess I should explain. See, ever since Gaia's rising was put down two years by yours truly (and some help from six other equally insane demigods) monsters just haven't seem to have gotten the memo that Gaia was tossed back into Tartarus. Chiron has given permission for campers to leave whenever they want, as long as they alert him to their intentions, to go on "combat missions", which is a fun activity where we go out and kill some monsters and probably die.
At least I wasn't alone on this mission. Jason had decided to tag along with me, and oddly enough, Jake Mason volunteered to go as well. He said that some Cyclops broke one of his siblings' leg, and he wanted to settle the score. I wasn't about to deny help from the senior counselor of the Hephaestus cabin. Adult Cyclopes can be very dangerous if not handled correctly, which is exactly why I told Annabeth that she couldn't go. When I saw the look on her face when I told her she was staying at camp, I thought she was about to kill me. Truth being I didn't want some past memory of that cyclops she and Thalia and Luke had encountered all those years ago surfacing mid-fight, and getting her injured, or worse. The look on my face probably got some message like that across to her, and she didn't argue. She did, however, give me a kiss for good luck, which made my morning. Up until the cyclops' club slammed into my chest.
I sat up dazed, leaning on my arms behind me, surveying the battle. The sun was blinding in the mid-summer morning, dew still sticking to the grass. The air reeked of rotten meat and whatever other scent you could imagine from a fifteen foot tall giant wearing nothing but a loincloth. We were probably just a few miles from camp, on the outskirts of the city. No one else was brave enough to take the mission for the cyclops, except this Son of Poseidon and his two trusty compadres. Jason had his coin in javelin form, trying to stay out of reach of the giant's club and stab at its toes, with some success. Jake was backing away from the thing, keeping an eye on it while trying to dig through his backpack for something.
I tried to sit up, pain shooting through my abdomen, and I managed to restrain myself from crying out in agony. I checked myself out for bones sticking through my shirt. When it seemed that all of my insides had remained inside, I stood up, and looked around for Riptide. The sword had flown from my grasp when I was knocked aside like a bowling pin. I didn't find it anywhere near me, so I decided to hold out till it reappeared in my pocket. I ran over to Jake to see what he was up to; Jason couldn't hold the cyclops off for very long by himself, and Jake wasn't helping. He saw me coming over.
"You gonna be alright, man?", he asked. I just nodded, and took a kneel next to him.
"What are you doing? Don't you have some kind of anti-cyclops bomb in there or something?" He pulled out a leather pouch like a bladder bag, and handed it to me.
"I'm sure you're familiar with Greek fire by now. Hope your aim is good. I got something else in here to bring it down, but I need you two to keep it busy for a few minut-", he was cut off by a strangled gasp, and Jason was grabbed out of flight by the cyclops and hurled into a tree about thirty feet away. It was about to go after him and finish the job, but I got its attention.
"Hey, slug-breath!", I called. "Hope you skipped breakfast!" The cyclops turned its head toward me, and I pitched the pouch of Greek fire straight into his gullet. My mom always said I should go out for Baseball. The pouch stuck in his mouth and began sparking with green light.
"AAHCK!", the cyclops cried. He didn't have time to get any other words out before green flames erupted from his mouth, making it look like some kind of demented dragon-cyclops hybrid. Unfortunately, it didn't kill him, but he was stumbling around batting at his mouth like he just ate a bunch of ghost peppers long enough for Jake to run up and place two bronze rods about ten feet apart, and I realized they were connected with some kind of wire. The cyclops stumbled right into the trap, and the ground shook as he face-planted in the dirt, fire still billowing up from the sides of his head. I ran up and plunged Riptide into the thing's neck, and he slowly began dissolving into golden powder, the wind blowing the rest of him away. I fell to my knees, clutching my sides; the adrenaline had numbed the pain while I was fighting, but now it was back with a vengeance. I saw Jake run over to where Jason had been lying and help him up. He had a good sized gash across his forehead, blood trickling down over his eyebrows and down into his face.
We all regrouped near Jake's tripwire, and Jason collapsed onto the ground next to where I was kneeling. Jason just put his arms at his side and smiled contently.
"That was fun! Cyclops, zero, Cabin nine, 1.", Jake said. I just gave him a look that said Glad you had fun. Wincing, I stood up, and began to pick up Jason, until Jake intervened.
"Hold it there, Jackson. I'll carry Cloudbeard's son. It looks like you can hardly carry your own weight." I definitely was not going to argue, and began walking along the side of the gravel road we had walked here on. Jake jogged up next to me, Jason tossed over his shoulder like he was carrying a carpet. We walked for about half a mile before I pitched in my two cents to break the silence.
"That… sucked..", I panted out. Jake laughed.
"That pretty much sums it up. I wish I had brought some nectar with me; I knew I was forgetting something when I left." I could only think about how if Annabeth were here, we'd have enough Ambrosia and Nectar to last us a few months, just in case we got stuck somewhere in a freak accident. That was Annabeth: Always planning for the future. Not that I didn't have plans for the future of my own. I can still picture Annabeth and I living somewhere together, somewhere safe, raising a family. I had a gut feeling that that was going to come true someday, I just had no idea when. My dream no longer had to take place at New Rome, ever since Zeus gave permission to Chiron to begin building a sort of New Rome of our own, right there in Camp Half-Blood. The Athena cabin was put in charge of that job, so of course the place was going to be called New Athens. No one at the camp was really sure what to think of this idea. Camp Half-Blood never had anything like this. It was always "Oh, you're eighteen now? Bye! Don't die! Send us a postcard!" Unless of course you stayed on as a camp counselor. But now, it wouldn't be an uncommon sight to see middle-aged demigods raising families right there in the camp. It was like a dream come true, and I could only hope that Annabeth felt the same way. She had to… right?
"I could really go for a taco right now.", Jake said. The comment was so out-of-the-blue and random that I couldn't help but laugh, despite my ribs being pointed at odd angles. The laugh quickly turned into a groan of agony, and I had to pause for a second to regain composure.
"Uh.. sorry." I waved my hand dismissively. Not like he'd meant to torture me.
"Let's just get back to camp.", I said.
My fear of being stomped under a cyclops' huge, gross foot might be sizable, but nothing compared to my fear of an worried girlfriend. Annabeth had been waiting by Thalia's pine (she claims that she was just there reading a book, but I knew she was keeping watch for us), and she rushed up to us to ask how it went. Of course her curiosity ended almost as fast as it began when she realized Jason and I were banged up pretty good. She tenderly put her hand on my chest.
"Does it hurt here?", she asked. I shook my head, and grabbing her hand, I lowered it to the spot on my midsection where fire shot through my nerves. She knit her eyebrows. "Percy, I thought I told you to be careful…" I tried my best for a smirk.
"I guess that kiss you gave me wasn't so lucky. Try giving me another one, I'll tell you if I feel luckier." I could tell she wanted to smile, but she went into her 'stern girlfriend' pose: arms crossed, feet apart, eyebrows lowered.
"After we get you healed up. C'mon." She took my hand and led me down the hill and toward the Big House. Jake went with us, intending to drop Jason off and get himself checked out, just in case. I was confused when Annabeth walked past the Big House, and toward the boat dock.
"Annabeth, you've been here longer than I have. I think you know where the Big House is." She just kept walking, as if everything was going to plan.
"I'm not taking you to the Big House. Before you take Ambrosia you need to get some salt water healing first. I don't want your ribs healing in some odd position." We walked to the end of the dock, passed some Hephaestus campers hammering dents out of a trireme's hull armor, where she stopped both of us, and looked me in the eye. "I'm doing this because I care about you." Then she shoved me into the ocean.
Now, under circumstances where I wasn't the son of Poseidon, I would've been mad. But you see, saltwater can heal me from most types of wounds. I fell into the cold water, and rested at the sandy bottom, ten feet below. I took a look around. There was a school of fish swimming a hundred feet out, and I could see the sun reflecting off of their scales through the water. A crab decided to try to make friends with me, but I remembered the giant crab I had fought aboard the Princess Andromeda four years ago: Frothy mouth, pincers, disturbed eyes. I shooed the crab away. Despite the rib issue, it was good to be back at camp for the summer. Annabeth and I had arrived early to camp, just to make sure we could milk this summer for everything we could get.
I finally came up and put my hands on the dock to climb up, but Annabeth was standing there insisting that she help me out of the water. I looked up at her face: blonde hair cascading down her shoulders, the sun making it glimmer with golden light. Her grey eyes were full of amusement. She offered me her hand.
"C'mon, take my hand.", she smiled. As soon as I took her hand, a cold shock ran through me. I had been in this situation before. A memory of me boiling alive in the River Styx, turning invulnerable. This was almost the exact same situation. The pain from that moment reignited, and the next thing I knew I could hear Annabeth cry out as a distant voice on the wind, "Percy?! Someone help!"
I slipped back into the water, and darkness enveloped me.