The Son of Neptune
This is what I imagine when I think of the next book after the Lost Hero. Spoilers are likely, sorry but it's hard to avoid when making a sequel. Hopefully the real thing will be even better than this :D
Sadly, I do not own the Heroes of Olympus or any part of it, including the characters :(
Chapter One
Percy awoke with a major headache and a group of girls standing over him. He didn't recognize any of them and he didn't know why they all swooned at the same moment.
"They're green," one girl sighed dreamily. Percy moved his eyes in her direction. She was blonde. That's about all he could take in at one moment. She stuck her hand out, palm up. "Pay up," she said.
Percy scrunched his eyes together and wondered what he could possibly owe this girl that he couldn't recall knowing.
The girl to the left of girl that spoke first sighed. She had a glazed look in her eyes. "He's so cute when he's confused." With that Percy straightened out his expression and just stared. She looked slightly depressed at that.
The door burst open and hit the wall. Percy had to bite his lip to stop from crying out in agony. His head started throbbing in rhythm it seemed. Almost like the sound of the door slamming again and again to the beat of the tide.
"Out," a voice said. Percy hadn't even realized until then that he closed his eyes. He slowly peeked through his eyelashes and saw a girl standing in the doorway with her hands on her hips. One of the girls next to him started to whine in a very unattractive manner. "But why?" she asked the one in the doorway.
"He doesn't need to be bombarded with questions by girls that don't even care. Now don't make me say it again. Out."
The girls shuffled out slowly and grumbled the entire way. "You still owe me ten. I got it right. His eyes are green," the blonde mumbled.
"You didn't guess. You're not even smart enough for that. You must have peeked."
"How could I peek? It's not like my eyes are the ones that were closed." The girl sounded completely flabbergasted.
"Maybe you really did guess…," the second girl mused. "Why do you get to stay Reyna?"
"Because I have a purpose behind my questions," the girl still standing in the doorway said. She stepped aside as the girls walked past and then slowly shut the door behind them.
Percy didn't understand any of what was happening, all he knew was that his head felt like it was being hit with a pick axe.
"How are you?" the girl asked as she came closer. She still stood in the shadows of the room so Percy couldn't make out her face.
"I'm good. I guess. I have a headache but that's okay. It's not too bad. Can you tell me where I am?" he asked her.
"I'm afraid I can't." That was all that she said. Percy just stared. Was he being held hostage or something?
"What's your name, boy?" the girl asked him, almost degrading him with the way that she said "Boy."
"Percy. My name's Percy."
"What's your last name Percy?" she said quietly.
"It's," Percy paused. What was his last name? Why couldn't he remember it? What was going on? He started getting frantic. "I don't know my last name," he said quietly.
The girl seemed to pause at that. "How did you get to be this age without being found or attacked or sought out by a faun?"
"A faun? Like a deer or something? That's what it sounds like. Well, I don't know why I haven't been found by a deer, but if I see one I'll be sure to let you know. And who's going to attack me?" Percy mumbled, stumbling over the words a couple times because he couldn't focus very well.
"Why in Rome are you still asking questions?" the girl interrupted before he could continue.
"Because I have no idea what's happening. Shouldn't I be asking questions if I don't know what's going on?" Percy questioned honestly.
"Maybe you annoyed the monsters away," she muttered under her breath.
Percy just stared at her for a moment. "What's your name?" he asked.
"Reyna," she replied simply.
"I…okay," Percy said.
Reyna took a deep breath and then her own questions started flowing out. "Do you know of a person named Jason Grace? Are you a half-blood? Do you have a patron? Have you already been to see Lupa? Why are you in orange? And what does…," she paused as she read the words on my shirt. "What's Camp Half-Blood?" she asked me in a suspicious tone, like he'd suddenly stopped the world from spinning.
Percy racked his brain as he tried to remember, but couldn't come up with anything. "I'm sorry, but I don't know," he admitted to her.
"Do you know anything?" she asked almost rudely, but I didn't get the feeling that that was how she had meant it. It was more stress forcing it out to be harsh sounding.
"My name is Percy. Your name is Reyna. My eyes are green." He looked down at his shirt. "Before I was here I went to a camp called Camp Half Blood. Or I took somebody's shirt that went there." Percy trailed off.
Reyna seemed to relax slightly when she realized that Percy really didn't know anything about what was happening any more than she did. "Come on," she said, "time to see if you belong here or not."
Percy didn't really like the sound of that, but he followed her, not wanting to make her mad. He stepped out of the small room and into the open air. He noticed that Reyna had thin brown hair that blew softly in the light breezes. After following Reyna for a short while, he realized that they were headed toward some kind of battle arena. Percy heard the sounds of clashing metal and yells of fury to go along with it. He trailed Reyna until they reached a fully blown Roman amphitheatre. Then he just stopped and stared at it.
"Well, are you coming or not?" she called out to him when she realized that he had stopped.
Percy swallowed air since his throat was already so dry. He felt his tongue stick to the roof of his parched mouth and he took a few steps into the amphitheatre, just far enough to see what was going on in there.
In the center of the arena there were two men fighting. This was no ordinary fist fight either. They were both fully clad with metal armor. And they had swords. As if on instinct, Percy stuck his hand into his pocket and pulled out a little ballpoint pen. He hadn't noticed before that he'd had it, but he had no idea what he was doing with a pen, so he just put it back in his pocket.
"Boys!" Reyna called. Her voice reverberated though the large area. The two fighters stopped jabbing at each other with their swords and turned to look at her. The one on the right slid off his helmet and with a shock, Percy realized that they weren't men. They were just teenagers. "I'd like you to meet someone. This is Percy." She gestured vaguely toward him. The two teenagers regarded him slowly.
"And?" one of them called out, the one with his helmet still on.
"We're here to test him," Reyna said calmly.
"Test?" Percy whispered to her. "You never mentioned anything about a test."
"That's the point," she said calmly. Now get up there and choose your weaponry. We can talk later." She paused. "If you survive," she added.
Well that was reassuring. Percy made his way to the arena without really thinking much. His head was still throbbing too much to understand what was going on here. The boy that had taken his helmet off stepped up to greet him.
"Hello Percy. No need to look so worried. It won't be two to one or anything. We're not that evil here." He shot Percy a ten thousand watt smile. Percy just blinked. "My armor looks like it might fit you okay, you can have mine and I'll leave you and Bobby to duke it out. Good luck, man." He shed his armor and slapped me on the shoulder as he walked toward Reyna. He looked even younger without armor since his slightness was hidden beneath the layer of metal before. Percy glanced down at the pile of bronze at his feet and then up to the one called Bobby. Bobby didn't look quite so little. He slid on the armor and felt like he'd just gained twice his body weight. He picked up the sword from the ground and looked at it in his hand. The muscles in his arm seemed to be used to holding swords, but it was too heavy. The weight was off balance and Percy couldn't get a good grip on the leather hilt before Bobby started to charge him.
Percy back tracked to try to stay away from the Bobby person. He seemed to have a better balanced sword than Percy did, either that, or he was just a lot better at using a sword. Either was possible at this rate. Percy lost his footing and slipped, but Bobby kept on charging him. Percy jabbed instinctively with his sword when Bobby got closer, but somehow just ended up without a sword and now his enemy had two.
"What now, pretty boy?" Bobby sneered at him, waving both of his swords at Percy. Once again, he reached in his pocket and pulled out his pen. "What are you going to do? Write a letter to your mommy?" Bobby cackled with delight.
Do I have a mom? Percy's mind wandered for a short moment. He shook off the thought and grabbed the cap of the pen.
"Oh, now he's going to draw on me. I'm so afraid!" Bobby mocked a female scream. He actually did it pretty well for only mocking.
Percy tugged on the lid and felt the pen growing in his hand until it was no longer a pen at all, but rather a perfectly balanced sword. Seeing the sword, Bobby tilted his head.
"Okay, that I didn't see coming," he admitted.
Percy was the one this time to be doing the charging of his opponent. Bobby may have had more weapons and may have had better skill, but Percy got a rush of adrenaline and went with the flow. He sliced his sword through the air and heard Bobby's first sword clatter to the ground. Now they were even. Bobby seemed to realize this and stopped fooling around.
They were pretty evenly matched, amazingly. Percy had no idea what he was doing, but he just kept going. He seemed to be holding his ground, so he pushed harder. He heard a faint roar in his eardrums, but kept going. His head started pounding again and he felt a tug in his gut, but he wasn't going to let Bobby win this one. He heard a crash and both he and Bobby were distracted momentarily to see that Reyna was standing by a cracked open water cooler and was soaked. Percy couldn't wonder what had happened anymore before everything started getting fuzzy and he blacked out.
So what do you think? I have no idea if it's good or not since it's like really late and I'm writing this in bed, but that's okay. I won't get it posted tonight since they don't actually have the series up yet and I don't have any internet because I'm typing in bed at one in the morning. Need to be up early tomorrow. Today really…Oh well. I'm obviously delusional and I'm rambling, not a good combo. I'll stop now:) so R&R. Let me know what you think of it.