For any of you major PJO fans and haven't heard yet, the first couple chapters of the follow up series, Hero's Of Olympus: The Lost Hero, is posted on . The password to access it is newhero- no space or capitalization. I got the italicized part from that, retyped by yours truly. Hope you enjoy!
Copy write: Percy Jackson unfortunately belongs to Rick Riordan. It was all his idea for the story, and I just choose to write my intake on that. I own nothing.
"Look up there and tell me if those are flying horses.
At first, Jason thought Leo had hit his head two hard. But then he saw a dark shape descending from the East- too slow for a plane, too large for a bird. As it got closer, he could see a pair of winged animals- grey, four-legged, exactly like horses- except each one had a twenty-foot wingspan. And they were pulling a brightly painted box with two wheels- a chariot.
"Reinforcements," He said. "Hedge told me an extraction squad was coming for us."
"Extraction squad?" Leo struggled to his feet. "That sounds painful."
"And where are they extracting us to?" Piper asked.
Jason watched as the chariot landed on the far end of the sidewalk. The flying their wings and cantered nervously across the glass, as if they sensed it was near breaking. Two teenagers stood in the chariot- a blond girl maybe a little older than Jason, and a bulky dude with a shaved head and a face like a pile of bricks. The girl leaped off before the chariot was even done moving. She pulled a knife and ran towards Jason's group while the bulky dude was reining the horses.
"Where is he?" The girl demanded. Her grey eyes were fierce and a little startling.
"Where's who?" Jason asked.
She frowned like the answer was unacceptable. "What about Gleeson? Where's your protector, Gleeson?"
The coach's first name was Gleeson? Jason might've laughed if the morning wasn't quite so weird and scary. Gleeson Hedge: Football coach, goat man, protector of Demigods. Sure. Why not?
Leo cleared his throat. "He was taken by… some tornado things."
"Venti," Jason said. "Storm spirits."
The blonde girl arched an eyebrow. "You mean anemoi thuellai? That's the Greek term. Who are you and what happened?"
Jason did his best to explain, though it was hard to meet those intense grey eyes. About halfway through the story, the other guy from the chariot came over. He stood there glaring at them, his arms crossed. He had a tattoo of a rainbow on his bicep, which seemed a little unusual.
When Jason had finished the story, the blonde girl didn't look satisfied. "No, no, no! She told me he would be here! She told me if I came here, I would find the answer!"
"Annabeth," The bald guy grunted. "Check it out." He pointed at Jason's feet.
Jason hadn't thought much about it, but he was still missing the one show that had been blown off by the lightning. His bare foot felt okay, but it felt like a lump of charcoal.
"The guy with the one shoe," said the bald dude. "He's the answer."
"No, Butch." the girl insisted. "He can't be. I was tricked." She glared at the sky as though it had done something wrong. "What do you want from me?" She screamed. "What have you done with him?"The skywalk shuddered and the horses whinnied urgently.
"Annabeth," said the bald dude, Butch. "we gotta leave. Let's take these three to camp and figure it out there. The storm spirits might come back."
She fumed for a moment. "Fine." She fixed Jason with a resentful look. "We'll settle this later." She turned on her heel and marched to the chariot.
Piper shook her head. "What's her deal? What's going on?"
"Seriously," Leo agreed.
"We have to get you out of here," Butch said. "I'll explain on the way."
"I'm not going anywhere with her," Jason gestured towards the blonde. "She looks like she wants to kill me."
Butch hesitated. "Annabeth's okay. You gotta cut her some slack. She had a vision telling her to come here, to find a guy with one shoe. That was supposed to be the answer to her problem."
"What problem?" Piper asked.
"She's been looking for one of our campers, who's been missing three days." Butch said. "She's going out of her mind with worry. She hoped he'd be here."
"Who?" Jason asked.
"Her boyfriend," Butch said. "A guy named Percy Jackson."
No one ever said being a demigod would be easy. Especially for Annabeth Chase. Running away from home at age seven, having to hold the weight of the sky on her shoulders, then having to save the world. But listen. They had been together for ten days. Ten. Days. Then some Titan or monster thought it would be funny to kidnap her closest friend (and now boyfriend) Percy, just a mere ten stinking days after they got together. I would be mad, too.
But it wasn't something she could've stopped. It was like he just… disappeared from under their noses.
It was the morning ten days before he vanished. Percy was back of course for the Summer. Ever since their underwater kiss, they hadn't really talked much- cell phones attracted monsters- and Annabeth was so caught up with her AP classes and extracurricular that she didn't really have time to waste on Iris messages. But as soon as she saw him run up over the hills and into the camp, she felt her heart beat faster. She rolled her eyes. He was just Percy, nothing special.
But she couldn't help thinking that there was something different about him… she just couldn't put her finger on it. Or maybe it was just her. She couldn't help but notice his charismatic smile, or the way the sunlight played on his perfectly windblown hair. But what really made her smile was when his eyes locked with hers and all of the times they had together came rushing back. It was like they hadn't even spent a whole year apart.
She wanted to run over to him, tackle him to the ground and just hug him. But she decided not to. Instead, she tucked her hands in her jean pockets and strolled over to him. "Hey, Percy. How was your school year?"
"You want the honest answer or the fake one?" He laughed.
"Hmm…" She thought. "Let's hear both."
"Alright. Fake: It was awesome! Kept up with my studies and totally rocked my sophomore year! And monster attacks were pretty low too. No stresses at all!" He couldn't help but roll his eyes to add to his own sarcasm.
She laughed. "And what really happened…?""I came this close to failing." He held his two fingers an inch apart. "The only reason why I didn't was because Paul offered to help me with my finals. We went over things for hours! I'd rather be up fighting monsters." He laughed. "Aw, well. What about you?"
"It could've been easier. I think I was probably in over my head in homework- I was taking way too many classes-"
"You just decided this now?" He interjected.
She rolled her eyes and continued. "And being dyslexic definitely doesn't help. But whatever. I managed." She shrugged.
"You know," Percy said, nudging closer to her. "I was thinking about you a lot."
"Were you?" She played.
"Yeah, I was."
"Hm. What about?" She inquired.
"About you and me… and our kiss…" He said, sneaking a smile.
"What about it?" She asked, edging him on.
"I just thought it would be about time that we… I don't know… get together, maybe."
She picked up her pace, holding back a grin. She kept going, Percy trailing behind her.
"Annabeth?" He asked, waiting for an answer.
"I suppose," She turned to look at him nonchalantly, then turned her back to him and walked away.
After she was completely gone, Percy whooped. "Yes! Whew! Alright!" And proceeded to his cabin.
Annabeth made her way to her cabin, then closed the door behind her and sunk giddily to the floor. "Yes!" She cheered silently.
...
Eight days had gone by since they first got together- Annabeth was keeping count- and by now, of course, the whole camp knew. The couple spent the late hours of the night making out by the lake. Then, at about midnight, they would go back to their cabins. Percy always got in with no problem- Tyson could slept through a tornado, but as for Annabeth, her siblings always yelled at her for waking them up. Ha. She could care less.
And each morning, he would saunter over to her cabin and knock on the door. She would greet him with a smile, but her siblings would throw pillows and books at him, cursing him for interrupting their studies or sleep. And she expected him to on the tenth morning, too. But he didn't. And that seemed wrong. Her siblings thought that he had finally been smart enough not to come back and interrupt them, but a nagging thought in the back of Annabeth's mind told her otherwise.
And that's when she found out her worst nightmare was a reality.
...
"Where is he?" She stormed into the Big House.
"Ugh, Annabeth. What could you possibly want from me at this early hour?" Mr. D moaned.
"Percy. I went to his cabin and Tyson said that he hadn't seen Percy since the night before. But their cabin was trashed. He didn't just run away. He was kidnapped."
"Peter? Ah, I'm sure he's fine." He tried to shoo her away. "Chiron, are you up for a good game of Pinnacle? I need something to do so I have an excuse not to help look for Peter-"
"Percy."
"Johnson."
That got Chiron's attention. "What happened to Percy? Is he alright?"
"I went to his cabin this morning and he wasn't there. I'm sure he's been kidnapped."
Chiron glanced at my sympathetically, then answered quickly, "Go find Rachel. She can help you."
And that's exactly what she did.
...
"The boy with one shoe." She muttered to herself. "What the heck?" She was walking back to her cabin, thinking aloud when she saw a buff kid she recognized as Butch, son of Iris, talking to a Satyr dressed in a gym uniform, swinging around a baseball bat via Iris message.
"I'll come over with the extraction team and get the kids safely to camp." Butch was saying. "Just stay put and guard them for three more days. We'll try and be over there ASAP."
"Alright. Just hurry. I've been smelling monster for days. I don't know how much longer they can go unknown."
"That's why we're hoping to be as fast as possible. And the kid with the one shoe…? Is he there yet?" Butch asked. Annabeth was amazed at just how fast news travels at camp. He had already figured out where the one-shoed kid was supposed to be along with some new half bloods? Nice.
"No. But I'm keeping my eye out for him."
"I have to go find someone from the extraction squad to come with me, grab some equipment, and-"
"I'll do it." Annabeth rushed over to him.
"You're not on the extraction squad…" He squinted his eyebrows together.
"I need to find the kind with the one shoe." Annabeth grabbed his collar even though he was about a foot taller than her. "He's the answer to finding Percy."
Butch could understand that. "But I don't know if you qualify-"
"Butch," I threatened.
"Stop fighting, cupcakes," The satyr said. "We can all work this out."
"Shut it, Satyr." Annabeth growled.
"I prefer Gleeson." He murmured.
"And if you ever call me 'cupcake' again, I'll rip your head off." She turned back to Butch. "Now help me find Percy!" Instead of yelling at him, she was almost pleading.
"Fine. But you'll have to be focused."
"Try me."
And that was all he needed.
The end. I know it's a rather weird ending, but it basically rolls back into the beginning of the story. Hoped you enjoyed… Plz review!