Half-Blood Holidays
Easter: Find your possessions.
Part 1: Planning.
"Percy, this is a really, really, bad idea." Jason said slowly, looking at the grinning son of Posiedon. "I could think of a million ways this could go wrong."
Leo snorted. "That's all you've got? I bet I can think of a trillion ways this could come down in flames. Pun fully intended, thank you very much."
"Come on," Percy said, rolling his eyes and gesturing to the small group of people behind him. "We've got the best hiders in both Camps!" Behind him, Travis and Connor bowed graciously as Frank scratched his head doubtfully.
"Why didn't you get Annabeth, then?" Jason said, his arms flying around wildly in protest.
"Erm..."
"He knew she wouldn't approve." Leo said wisely. "Good move on his part, too. Anyway, why are we meeting up in the weapon shed again?"
"Because...I don't know." Percy admitted sheepishly. "Well, you guys will help me, right? Right?"
"Will most of the camp agree with this?" Travis asked warily.
"Erm...I don't think so." confessed Percy.
Will they be annoyed?" Connor queried.
"Eh...probably?"
"We're in." the Stolls said in unison. Percy grinned and Stolls as Jason groaned. This was going to be a long day.
Part 2: Collecting.
"I still think this is the worst idea you came up with, Percy." Jason complained as he begrudgingly followed to son of Poseidon to the pavilion.
"You wanna bet?" Travis whispered. "Is it worse than the time he sat on his dad's throne?"
"Worse than the time he thought fighting doggie-faced monsters at the edge of a volcano was a good idea?" Connor added discreetly.
"Worst than the time he let Leo loose on the sugar?"
"Worse than-"
"Fine!" Jason hissed. "I get it! He's had a lot of bad ideas I didn't know about- well, expect for the one with Leo, no one could miss that, but that's beside the point."
Leo rolled his eyes. "Says Mr Everybody-Likes-Goggling-At-Me-'Cause-I-am-a-Freakin'-Russian-Superman."
"Why Russian?" Frank wondered.
"Because I said so." Leo said frankly. "And because Jason should learn to chill."
Frank nodded his agreement.
"Why are you siding with him!" Jason hissed. "And you, Frank! You're getting the most embarrassing part in this, how come you're going along with it?"
"I don't know." Frank admitted with a shrug. "It just doesn't bother me. Kind of fun, actually." Jason looked scandalized.
"It's called good sportsmanship, Jace." Connor told him, shaking his head. "Why are you all against the idea anyway?" he asked.
Jason just groaned- The Stolls, Leo, and Frank failed to notice the devilish grin on Percy's face as they walked in silence. As soon as they reached their intended spot, Percy gave each of them sharp looks.
"Okay," he said in a commanding tone. "You all know why you're here. Easter's tomorrow, and since no one's making preparations, we have to. Travis, Connor-" he pointed a commanding finger at the Stolls. They immediately stood straighter and gave Percy a serious salute saying, "Sir, yes, sir!"
"You know what you have to do?"
"Collect the confetti and buckets of paint, sir!" Travis Stoll said, his jaw set.
"Collect the brushes and raid cabins fives to fifeteen, sir!" Connor Stoll continued, staring ahead.
"Good!" Percy said fiercely. "Are you up for it?"
"Sir, yes, sir!"
"Then off you go!" The Stolls gave Percy a mocking bow and then scampered off immediately. Percy then turned to the rest of them.
"Leo- do you know your part?"
Leo folded his arms and appeared to ponder. "Hm...let's see. Make an effective camera over night, help Jason and Frank decorate the eggs, after somehow squeezing a lot of things into really tiny spaces, and then start hiding them, and all that yadayadayada stuff. Whatever."
Percy blinked, dropping his commanding finger. "Uh...Okay. Go do your stuff, I guess."
"Sure." Leo shrugged nonchalantly and walked away.
"Right, guess that leaves us- Frank, you got the bow-tie thing handled?"
"Gottcha." Frank assured. "And I can paint alright."
"Great!" Percy said with a wicked grin. "Jason?"
"If Nico kills me," Jason started, "I'll come back and haunt you." Frank's eyes widened incredulously.
"You're making him raid the Hades Cabin?" he said. "Wow. That explains- but Jason, I thought you liked Nico?"
"I do!" Jason protested. "But you have no idea how that kid is when you wake him up! Like the devil on a doughnut marathon! In Seattle! Wearing Candy pajamas and red contact lens with a french mustache- "
"We get it...Kinda." Frank said, eyeing Jason sympathetically. "Nico is scary when he wakes up. Now we know. Really, we do."
"If you wake him up." Percy supplied. "Once Nico sleeps, it takes a heck of a noise to get him to even twitch. And at least you get a Cabin with two dead-asleep fourteen-year-olds, I get to raid the Zeus Cabin with Thalia in it. Hunter training will have her awake if I as much as sneeze, thank gods the Hunters aren't here."
"You know," Jason said, blinking. "You kind of have a point there. Raiding the Hades and Poseidon cabin is nothing compared to Thalia."
Percy nodded, his eyes glinting in the way only a martyr could managed. "Of course. Now, team- scatter!"
Part 3: Sneaking Around.
Jason's breath hitched as he stepped on a creaky floor-board. He grimaced almost involuntarily, as Hazel turned in her sleep. He let out a soundless sigh of relief and turned to Nico- the Son of Hades had a dreamy smile on his face, which must have meant he was having a good night- Jason hated to think what would come over him if he dared interrupt the Ghost King's sleep.
"Wha'd you mean, McFlurry's got more expensive..." Nico groaned, frowning suddenly. "That's stealing."
Jason froze again. He didn't dare move until he was absolutely sure Nico wasn't going to do anything else. Then, he slowly crept to Hazel's bed and tried to think about what she cared about most...He felt a little bad about raiding cabins, but at least the Stolls would be doing most of it. He slowly slid the drawer beside her bed open and almost huffed in surprise- the first one was freezing cold. It must have had some charm on it. When he saw what was inside the drawer, though, he understood, and let a somewhat evil smirk cross his face. He grabbed the object out of Hazel drawer, closed it mutely, and shoved the item into the sack he was holding. He never knew Hazel was a chicken-nugget obsess.
He cautiously moved on to Nico and stared at the son of Hades. He could really think of nothing the demigod liked. But then he stared at Nico's pale complexion and noticed what was special to him- he inwardly winced. Dare he do such a thing?
Pull yourself together, Jason. he chided himself, chilling his nerves and picking up bravery. Jason carefully extracted the tiny object and threw it in the sack as well.
Travis and Connor really wished they ever got a good challenge for once- raiding each cabin from five to fifteen was as easy as ambrosia. It wasn't like that was anything new to them- not like the other demigods needed to know, but still. They were done in a matter of an hour- (hey, it was big Camp, and 60 minutes was actually a record!) getting the confetti and paint buckets was easy enough too, though both of them were needed in large quantities. In quite a while, they met up with the rest of their partners-in-crime, grinning.
Leo took all the plastic and chocolate Easter eggs (the chocolate ones with plastic shells, too) and worked his magic on them- in another half an hour, somehow, Leo's job was done. He was grinning slightly (they had discovered Leo was very grumpy when awoken in the middle of the night, but keen on impressing Calypso either way) and handing them all the eggs to paint, as he sat down to do it himself.
"Jason and Frank, paint the plastic eggs- Leo, paint the chocolate ones, you can tell them apart 'cause the plastic is always a shade of blue, and no, you can't eat them-" Leo pouted here-" Travis, Connor, and I will paint the normal ones." Percy said calmly, with a lazy smile on his face. No one even minded being bossed around- the chaos insured next morning was just too big not to think about
"What's the point painting the normal eggs, again?" Jason asked, much more cheerfully now that he was in no danger of waking up demons on doughnut marathons hosted in Seattle with candy pajamas, and wearing red contacts plus French mustached sons of Hades. Hazel and Nico had no way of incriminating him now that the damage was done.
"Just to throw them off." Leo explained. "But they do have fireworks and confetti in there, so you'll still have a big show if you break one open."
"I still don't know how you managed to shove confetti and fireworks in with the yolk." Frank said, shaking his head.
"Meh, man's gotta have secrets." Leo grinned. "And it does help that I have a magic tool-belt and live in a magic camp with a magic bunker and magic friends." he completed.
"Are you Leo Valdez, or Harry Potter?"
"Since when did Harry Potter have a tool-belt?"
"Point taken." Connor admitted, painting a sappy clown on his egg.
"You guys read Harry Potter?" Jason asked incredulously, as he tried to paint Captain America's head right.
"Jason, my man, there are two kinds of books," Travis started
"ones that are utterly boring, unoriginal nonsense, and ones that have awesome one-year olds defeating freakish men called 'Tommy' that need a nose transplant." Connor finished.
That made them all chuckle.
An hour later, all the eggs were well decorated and complete.
Part 4: Hiding and Seeking.
Hiding the eggs proved to be a fun challenge too- the Stolls, of course, were the most original in that matter, although Frank and Jason weren't bad either. Percy, being naturally clumsy, almost dropped his eggs a couple times. Leo had given him the evil eye and warned him most viciously that if any harm got to the precious eggs he'd worked so hard on, not only would fireworks and confetti litter the place and wake half the Camp up, throwing all their work down the drain, but Percy would wake up with flaming underpants for the coming month. He walked much more steadily after that.
An entire night of hiding, threats, and scratching heads later, the six demigods bid each other goodbye for bed- however fun, their night was exhausting.
They were all looking forward to the chaos of tomorrow, though.
Part 5: Easter Bunnies and Explosions.
As the six has suspected, the camp was in Choas- every single demigod awoke the next morning, yelling and screaming for their prized possessions. The Stolls, Percy, and Jason had done their jobs well. Leo was beginning to feel sorry for them- if the Campers knew...
Thalia and Nico were especially livid- each with a missing hunter tiara and skull ring respectively. Hazel looked upset at having lost something, whereas Annabeth was deadly, looking around everywhere for Daedalus' laptop (Leo had to hand it to whoever made that tool-belt of his and Bunker 9, he had not idea it was possible to squeeze full-size laptops into chocolate eggs before then) as all the Aphrodite girls save for Piper, were squealing or in tears over their lost makeup and clothing products. Even the Hypnos Cabin couldn't sleep without their pillows and warm blankets. Naturally, everyone was in for blaming the Hermes cabin at first, until they figured that they, too, had been viciously robbed. Now that was what Leo could call double-crossing the double-crossers.
Leo realized that the Stolls had taken away one of Leo's prototype machines- he didn't really know what it was, but it was fun tinkering with it. That was fine- even if they had unsuccessfully wrapped it n toilet paper to try and conceal what it was from Leo as he was working on the eggs, that was really okay. Because Leo say the plot-hole in Percy's picture perfect plan- since the Stolls were raiding Cabins 5-15, including Cabin 11 along the way, they would most obviously leave themselves out of the raids, which was unfair- even Percy was allowing Jason to raid his own Cabin. So Leo very generously took it upon himself to sneak into the Hermes Cabin as soon as he was dismissed and steal the Stoll brothers' copy of '1001 Dirty Tricks and Pranks'. To his credit, storing the books in his tool-belt worked better than wrapping something in toilet paper, no matter how well concealed it looked to the normal eyes (Leo could always sense the gears turning around in his machine).
He innocently tried to act as annoyed as the others and purposely set his hair aflame.
"This is absurd!" Clarisse yelled, so loudly that she was heard over the muttering and shouting of the crowd. "Some has stolen all are belonging!"
"Now, now." Chiron said, trying to get everyone to calm. "I'm sure there's a good explanation for this.."
Leo looked at Jason discreetly and winked. Jason got the signal.
"Hey, Chiron!" he said pretty loudly. "I don't think there's really any explanation for why my gladius is missing- it's not like-" Jason cut himself off, gasping dramatically and pointing-
There were not many things that would surprise the son of Jupiter, so naturally, all those who had heard his turned to where he was pointing- and all the others do hadn't, saw everyone looking in a particular direction and followed their eyes. Soon enough, the entire camp, including Chiron and a nonchalant Dionysus.
There, right next to the pine tree with the Golden Fleece on one of its branches, was the largest Easter bunny anyone had ever seen- the bunny was white, fluffy , stood on its hind legs, and about half of Leo's size. It had brown eyes, and was carrying an elegant basket- but most importantly, it was Frank.
The Campers stared in silence an awe at the now almost uncomfortable 'bunny'. Slowly, Frank the Easter Bunny hopped over to the Campers, staying a fair distance away- that was where Percy came in.
Percy, looking actually convincing, ran up with a nervous expression on his face-no one was suspicious of this as Percy was always one to surge head-first into things. Frank the Bunny- or Mr Francis, as Leo thought was appropriate to call him now, placed the woven basket onto the floor.
Percy almost cautiously picked up a letter from the basket. All eyes were staring at Percy intently. Percy cleared his throat and began to read-
"Dear Demigods, Greek and Roman,
Happy Easter! Last night, a team of my bunnies have sneaked in your cabins and stolen your possessions- to find them you must search Camp Half-Blood for the several eggs that we've hidden. Of course, we do not expect you to find your own possessions, but if you find someone else's we 'll just leave it up to your morals to return it to them, or pile it in the pavilion. Or not return it at all and suffer whomever's wrath. But anyway, you can see what's inside the eggs by simply throwing them at the floor. Unless they're chocolate ones- the chocolate's pretty good.
I'm sorry we all couldn't just have a normal Easter, but my Bunnies and I have the strangest suspicions that none of you will cooperate willingly.
Sincerely,
The Easter Bunny."
There were a few moments of silence- then, everyone started talking at ones, protesting, sputtering, and generally not knowing whether to strangle Mr Francis or throw a bigger tantrum as they all stared dubiously at Percy.
"What!" the son of Poseidon said. "Don't look at me like that- I swear that's what it says!"
"Percy..." Annabeth called out threateningly. "You didn't take my laptop, did you?"
"No." Percy said, with a fake-hurt look, technically speaking the truth as Travis and Connor were the ones who had stolen it. "But I did read the letter correctly. Let's just get it over with and do what the bunny says- I lost my pillow-panda, too!"
Annabeth nodded slowly, but still looked suspicious as several campers started searching for eggs immediately.
Part 6: Accusations.
Explosions became a common occurrence after a while- the eggs were hidden in the most unpredictable of places. On roofs, chimneys, in several socks (ouch...that's gotta hurt) in shoes (double ouch) under bushes, and in hats and even burrowed beneath the ground- with them came a series of explosions, bright fireworks, and mountains upon mountains of colorful confetti. Campers also rushed to the pavilion every once in a while to see if their belongings had been found. Most of them huffed in frustration when they got simple, empty eggs.
But soon enough, Campers looked like they were starting to have a bit of fun. Nico and Thalia were soon competing on who would find their possession first. Even Clarisse didn't loo quite as agressive. Everyone was soon starting to find everything fun. Percy was feeling pretty smug about that until Annabeth pulled him aside with Dedaelus' laptop folded safely in her arms (the Stolls had wrapped that in bed sheets in case the impact of the fireworks could damage it).
"Percy," she whispered. "Why did you do this?" She didn't sound angry, but rather a little amused and curiously.
"Er- do what?" he said at first.
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Don't play me dumb. I know you, and at least three people have been up to all this- I know the 'Bunny' is Franks- seriously, all the Athena Cabin has figured that out by now. And I just know Leo's the only one who can manage that good of a worksmanship. You'd have needed some other people to sneak around the Cabins, too- Hermes children, I'll bet you anything. So tell me- why?"
"All right," Percy said, sighing in defeat as he dropped the Spiderman-paterned egg in his hand, pouting- it blew up in a shower of golden lights and confetti, dropping a black skull-ring on the floor. Percy picked it up.
"HEY NICO!"
"WHAT?" Nico yelled, pulling his head out of one of the bushes around the Demeter cabin.
"I FOUND YOUR RING!"
Nico ran up to Percy, grabbed the ring, and muttered, "Cool..Thanks!" before running off with a smug expression to where Thalia was searching her spare boots for eggs.
"I just thought it'd be fun to have a holiday together...you know? I mean, look at everyone! It's just so...normal. And fun, really fun." Percy admitted.
"Huh." Annabeth said, with a smile on her lips. "I thought so. So, who are your partners in crime."
"Leo," Percy admitted. "Travis and Connor Stoll, Jason, and Frank. But you won't tell anyone, will you?" he said with a panicked expression on his face.
"Oh, no I won't." Annabeth said. "But I can't promise the same for my siblings." Smiling slyly, the daughter of Athena started to walk away, as Percy was struggling to form words- the son of Poseidon fell on his knees. One word from the Athena cabin, and he was doomed.
A-N: Thanks for reading this! Most celebrations such as Thanksgiving, Fourth of July, Christmas, April's Fool's etc., will be here ;).
(P.S., I know most of those technically aren't even in the summer, but please, just bear with me.)
-AmbushImagine