The Journey
A
Heroes Of Olympus
Fanfiction
By SB
I
The Awakening
"Annabeth!"
Annabeth woke with a start, half-expecting a monster to come out of nowhere and eviscerate her with one blow. She had already begun to stand, to draw her knife, but then a voice called her name.
"Annabeth."
She turned to find the source of the voice and found herself staring into a pair of sea green eyes.
"Percy." She sighed, relaxing.
"Another nightmare?" Her boyfriend asked, staring at her with concern.
She nodded miserably.
"That's the third time this week."
"Fourth." Annabeth corrected.
She rubbed the sleep out of her eyes and looked around blearily as her surroundings came into focus. They were in the poseidon cabin, as usual, their only company being a half-dozen empty bunk beds.
"What time is it?" She asked, yawning.
Percy squinted at the clock.
"One AM."
"Gods." Annabeth said, surprised.
She'd never woken up at one in the morning before. Usually, the nightmares happened around six or seven.
"You want to talk about it?" Percy asked.
Annabeth shrugged.
"It was back when Grover had just found us. One of the events that happened on the way to Camp. You know." She said, her face darkening as she recalled the events that had led to the death of one of her best friends.
"You know, you never really told me about it." Percy said.
"I didn't?" Annabeth said, surprised.
"No." Percy said. "Is it gonna be a long story?"
Annabeth nodded.
"I'll get the popcorn." Percy said, swinging his legs off the bed.
"Don't be ridiculous!" Annabeth said. "It's not that long. And it's not very pleasant, either. I don't want you to choke on popcorn."
Percy grinned slyly as a thought occured to him.
"You could perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation." He said. "I'd think you'd want an excuse to kiss me."
Annabeth swatted his shoulder.
"Please." She said. "I'm not in so desperate. And since when do I need and excuse to make out with you? It's not like you're doing anything now."
"Told you I was irresistable." Percy said childishly, puffing out his chest.
Annabeth punched him in the ribs.
"Stop that, or I'm not telling you the story." She threatened.
"Ok, ok." Percy said, calming down. "But mark my words, you'll be making out with me by the end of-Aaah!"
Annabeth had just tickled him.
"All right, all right, stop! I surrender! Surrender!" He screamed.
Annabeth stopped tickling him. They both quieted down, and Annabeth began.
II
Doomed By Doughnuts
Everything was fine until Thalia decided to stop for doughnuts.
"We shouldn't be stopping." Grover the satyr said nervously. "They're not far behind us. I can smell them. We need to keep moving."
"I don't see how a couple minutes is going to affect anything." Thalia said stubbornly. "We'll just go inside, get the doughnuts, and leave. And it's not like we haven't fought monsters before."
Grover looked like he wanted to argue some more, but he closed his mouth and sniffed the air instead, glancing around nervously.
"They're getting closer." He said. "Make it fast, Thalia."
"One minute, no more." Luke said. "We'll cut the queue if we have to."
"One minute." Seven-year-old Annabeth said. "Starting...now." She announced as Thalia reached for the handle of the doughnut shop's door.
"This won't take thirty seconds." Thalia scoffed at Grover.
Famous last words.
One moment she was opening the door and taking a step in, the next she was flying out, landing on the heap on the pavement right next to Grover, who jumped a foot into the air with surprise.
Luke pulled Annabeth out of the way as a heavily built three-metre-tall laistrygonian giant appeared in the doorway.
"Foolish half-bloods." It boomed, baring it's fangs. "It's breakfast, all right. For me."
He took a lumbering step towards Thalia, who was just sitting up on the pavement, holding a hand to her head and looking dazed.
"Don't even think about it." Luke said, coming between Thalia and the advancing giant.
He drew his sword in one smooth moment as Grover and Annabeth closed ranks on either side of him, the latter drawing her long knife.
The giant looked annoyed as he caught sight of the celestial bronze weapons. Luke and Annabeth fully expected him to attack, but he did something totally unexpected instead.
"Joe!" He yelled over his shoulder. "We got some half-bloods! They're armed. I could use a little help here."
Luke and Annabeth paled in alarm as three more giants emerged from the doughnut store, all of them as tall and strong-looking as the first.
"A little help." Luke muttered. "That's an understatement."
Annabeth swore under her breath.
"Run?" Grover asked.
The satyr was visibly shaking, his knees knocking together.
But Luke tightened his jaw defiantly.
"We can take them." He said.
And at that exact moment, the doughnut store exploded.
Everyone had forgotten about Thalia. As the thunder of the lightning strike faded in their ears, Thalia charged the disoriented giants, apparently fully recovered from being socked in the face.
The giants didn't stand a chance. Thalia speared the first one in the stomach and it disintegrated before even having a chance to fight back. Luke sliced another across the waist and it crumbled into powder. Annabeth sneaked around and stabbed a third in the back.
The fourth giant looked around incredulously as his three friends disintegrated. He looked back at the half-bloods just in time for a stone thrown by Grover to hit his head.
"Ow!" He stumbled backwards.
Thalia and Luke pounced immediately. The poor giant didn't even have time to run before he too disintegrated.
"Nothing we can't handle." Luke repeated, although this time he didn't sound so sure.
"Stupid giants." Thalia kicked a pile of dust resentfully. "All we wanted was doughnuts."
"I think that big signboard up there that said 'Monster Donut' mean literal monsters." Luke said, sheathing his sword. "Oh well, back to the road. You think you can hot-wire another car, Thalia?"
"Um, guys?" Annabeth called nervously, staring at the charred remains of the Monster Donut store.
She pointed to what looked like another piece of rubble, except that this one was moving.
"Do you think we should be concerned about that?"
"Shit." Luke said.
"A hydra." Grover said, sniffing like he had a runny nose.
"No shit, sherlock." Thalia said sarcastically. "How do we kill it?"
Apparently the hydra didn't like the word kill. It reared forward, fangs bared, and spat a stream of acid at them.
"Scatter!" Grover yelped.
He jumped to the right just as the acid stream dissolved the pavement right beside him.
Luke charged, swinging his sword. The hydra snapped at him and he cut it's head off without thinking.
"No!" Grover yelled. "Don't!"
But it was too late. The flailing stump swelled, split, and Luke was now facing an eight-headed hydra. All eight heads hissed at him angrily. He gulped nervously.
"Oops." He said. "I didn't know that would happen."
He retreated hurriedly as the hydra lunged, avoiding it's fangs by a hair's breadth.
"How do we kill it?" Annabeth shouted.
"You have to burn the stumps before they can regrow!" Grover shouted.
"How do we do that?" Annabeth asked. "We don't have fire!"
"Uh, guys? A little help here?!" Luke called.
The hydra was on the verge of overwhelming him.
"Run!" Grover yelled. "We have to run!"
"Like hades we are!" Luke shouted back. "No monster's gonna get the better of me!"
Surprisingly, the mortals weren't taking any notice of them. Across the street, one guy was mowing his lawn, oblivious to the burning doughnut store or the commotion beside it.
"Luke!" Thalia called. "Fall back! I've got a plan!"
Luke fell back at last, the hydra waddling after him. Thank the gods, it couldn't move very fast. That, at least, was one advantage they had over it.
"What's the plan?" Luke asked, breathing heavily.
"When I say so, you're going to slice all the hydra's heads off, then run like hell."
"What?" Luke screeched.
"Just do it!"
"I hope you know what you're doing." He said nervously.
"Ready? Now!" Thalia shouted, her face contorting with some unseen effort.
Luke charged.
As the hydra came into range, hissing, he slashed his sword in a wide arc, effectively cutting off all eight heads. Then he sprang away like he'd been scalded.
BOOM!
Luke barely made it clear before the lightning bolt hit the hydra with a blinding flash. As it was, his shirt was peppered with holes and charred.
"Holy hermes!" He yelped. "Thalia, you could have told me you were going to do that!"
Thalia shrugged.
"There was no time."
"You could have killed me!"
"Of course not!" Thalia argued. "I waited until you were out of range!"
"You call this," Luke gestured to his blackened shirt. "out of range?"
"Um, guys?" Annabeth said nervously. "I think it's still alive."
"Oh, styx." Grover mumbled.
Thunder boomed.
True enough, the hydra was alive and kicking. And judging by the volume of it's hissing, angry as hell. The only difference about it was that it only had three heads attached instead of eight. All three of them turned towards them and hissed in unison.
BOOM!
This time, Thalia didn't miss. The hydra exploded into freshly-fried scraps of flesh and elastic strands of warm hydra blood, some of which splattered onto the three half-bloods and satyr.
"Eww!" Annabeth screamed.
"Gross." Thalia said, wiping a green mess from her face.
"Damn." Luke said. "Looks like I'm down to my spare shirt."
He took off, or rather tore off his half-destroyed shirt, knelt on the ground, and started digging into his backpack. Annabeth and Thalia stared at him as he straightened triumphantly, his spare shirt in hand.
"Got it!"
He pulled it on, then looked at Thalia and Annabeth quizzically.
"What?"
They had both gone red.
"Nothing." Thalia mumbled, looking away hurriedly.
Grover whistled.
"Now can we keep moving?"
"Fine." Thalia said. "Didn't even get doughnuts." She said ruefully.
"That looks like a nice car." Annabeth said, pointing to a silver Mercedes parked across the street.
"Nice job, Annabeth." Thalia said, ruffling her hair affectionately. "You've got an eye for nice cars."
The four of them crossed the street, trying not to look conspicuous. Luke put his hand on the driver's side door and it unlocked.
"Presto." He said.
It took a minute for Thalia to hot-wire the door, then they were roaring down the streets of Maryland, Thalia at the wheel.
III
Epilogue
"So that's how it went." Annabeth said.
Percy was silent for a moment.
"Reminds me of my first encounter with a hydra." He said.
Annabeth laughed.
"Yeah, and how Clarisse saved our butts with her celestial bronze thirty-two pounder."
"Those good old days." Percy said wistfully.
He yawned.
"Well, I don't know about you, but I'm exhausted. Goodnight, Wisegirl." He said, suddenly sleepy.
"Goodnight, Seaweed Brain." Annabeth replied. "Sleep tight, and don't drool on me."
Percy huffed and turned over so he was facing the other direction.
"Good night."