Disclaimer- I do not own the Percy Jackson series
Percy and Annabeth are dating at the moment
Chapter 1- My Eardrums Suffer Because Of A God With A Megaphone
Annabeth's POV
"Annabeth!!! Come on!!!"
I turned to see Percy beckoning to me from my cabin, through the open door. My heart skipped a beat. I wasn't used to seeing Percy without some form of grime and/or monster dust on him, and he looked great. I smiled, and finished packing up Daedalus's laptop. Two years and I still hadn't gotten even a tenth of the way through.
"Oh my gods, Annabeth. We spent so much time putting together that chariot, and now we're going to miss racing it??? Come. On."
I sighed, and left the Athena cabin. It was one of those days that I felt like doing nothing. There was fog outside camp, and if you got close enough to the magical camp borders, you could hear rain. Wonderful. The only reason I was actually going to the chariot race was because Percy was my partner.
As we neared the clearing, the sounds of chariot racing got louder and louder. I could hear Clarisse shouting to her cabin mates to get her third electric spear, seeing as Silena Beauregard broke her second one last year, in Manhattan. I could hear the horses neighing and prancing. The race was between the Ares, Hades, Athena, and Poseidon cabins. Normally, I would be with one of my siblings, but Percy was alone. No new siblings had come for him… yet. Tyson had left two weeks back, to work on fixing Poseidon's castle under the sea, which was pretty much trashed.
We got to our chariot. It was made of many pieces of metal, but it looked as if it was made from one gigantic piece. It was smooth, and flowing, so that it looked like waves. Tyson had helped us make it the day before he left. Percy and I had done all the rest. It was painted silver and blue-green, with a trident on one side and an owl on the other, in honor of our godly parents. The inside was equipped with many cool tricks to make sure we were first.
"Hey, Percy, Annabeth."
Percy and I turned to see Nico diAngelo, son of Hades. He had grown quite a bit, and his hair was as shaggy and long as ever. He had a leather jacket on, a shirt from some punk-rock band I had never even heard of, and black skinny jeans. He started to remind me of Thalia, our friend who had joined the Hunters of Artemis.
"Hey there, Nico. Did you meet your new cabin mates???" Ever since Percy made the gods promise to claim all of their children last year, new demigods arrived at camp every single day. Nico had welcomed two new campers into the Hades cabin, Jack and Lily West. They were brother and sister, and reminded me of Bianca and Nico. I hadn't known Bianca for long before she died, but I had known that Nico had gotten more sullen and depressed thann usual, even for a son of Hades.
"Yeah, I have. They're cool. About my age, which is good, too."
"At least you won't have to--" I was interrupted by the sound of a megaphone. Nico, Percy, and I all groaned in unison. Mr. D had just gotten a megaphone, and now, you could hear him from a mile away. As if you couldn't hear him before.
"Attention campers." We heard the unmistakeable, uninterested voice of Mr. D. "The chariot race is about to start. The oh-so interesting prize for the winners will be first dibs on dessert, and no welcoming committee duties for a month." At that, everyone started whispering. Everyone hated welcoming committee. The new half-bloods were always so distraught and confused that it made them VERY hard to deal with.
"So," Mr. D continued in a bored voice. "Everyone, get your chariots ready, because the race is about to begin. Yay. And remember, no intentional maiming." I heard him mutter something like "But some accidental maiming could be nice" under his breath.
Percy and I boarded the chariot, which was drawn by hippocampi… with legs. I didn't ask Percy how he did it, and he didn't tell me. I stood on my tiptoes to whisper in his ear. "Good luck, Seaweed Brain."
He smiled sweetly. "You too, Wise Girl."
I hear Mr. D clear his throat. "Are you two lovebirds done???" he said through the megaphone.
I felt myself blushing. "Uh, ye-yes, sir."
"Wonderful. The race will begin when Mr. Shoelace over here shoots out his loud little arrow." He meant Will Solace, from the Apollo cabin, who would shoot out a sonic arrow to mark the start of the race. Will fumbled with his bow, and spilled his arrows all over the ground. Mr. D sighed. "We are experiencing minor technical difficulties."
I took this delay to look over our opponents. Ares was in their old, bad-paintjob, hunk-of-steel chariot. It was pulled by, as usual, their skeleton horses. Nothing new there. The Hades chariot was made out of what looked like Stygian Iron, the same stuff that Nico's sword was made out of, but I couldn't imagine where they could have gotten some. They had jars of Greek fire lined up along their chariot. horses were huge, and jet black, with red eyes. The Athena cabin's, well, MY cabin's, chariot was all silver, with gilded designs all over, with gray horses pulling it. Fortunately, having used that chariot before, I knew all of the little tricks they could pull.
"The minor technical difficuly has been solved, so we can proceed with the race. Yipee. Now, Bill Shoelace, shoot that arrow and let the fun begin."
Will burned bright red, but notched a special light blue arrow in his bow. He aimed at some unseen point in the sky, and released. The arrow flew along for about thrity seconds, then let out a tremendously loud sound, like a power chord on a guitar, set on full volume.
Mr. D spoke through his megaphone. "And we have begun."
The horses rushed off, and the race began.
Little did I know this would be the most memorable chariot race ever… though "memorable" could be a bit too optimistic for what was about to happen next.