Selene: Okay guys, this is Annabeth's view one the guy with one shoe... Can you guess how is he?
Andro: Oh come on! Everyone knows the answer! Its J- (Selene covered her mouth)
Selene: Be quite! Just say the disclaimer and continue the story!
Andro: We don't own the Camp Half-Blood Series by Rick Riordan! Happy reading!
The guy with one shoe...
Annabeth collapsed on her bed instantly, it had been 2 days 14 hour and about 37 minutes since Percy disappeared. And it had been the most dreadful 2 days 14 hour and about 37 minutes of her life. People couldn't just poof and vanished into thin air.
Annabeth turned back and forth in her bed; they tried everything to find Percy. They tried Iris message, video shield, empathy link; they search the whole camp, contacted his mother hoping he was with her, no luck. They started looking at places he used to hang out, still no luck.
They divided into groups; Nico will find Percy and get some information from ghosts. Grover gathered up sprits of the wild to help him. Tyson will search Percy with Mrs. O'Leary by sniffing Percy's scent. Annabeth will search everywhere she can think off.
Annabeth had searched his room hoping to find some clues, no letter saying goodbye, nothing was stolen, and his clothes were still there. If he not planed about leaving maybe he was kidnapped but for a past two days with no ransom. Monster attacks? Impossible! No monster can get through the boundary line. Annabeth tried to think back Percy had pissed off quite couples of gods Ares, Mr. D… yet they didn't seem like a kidnapping type.
Then a suspect started to pop up in Annabeth's mind: Hera, the Queen of the gods. But why? Maybe Hera did that to annoy her? She imagined the Queen of the gods laughing in her throne as she sees Annabeth worrying her mind off Percy. Annabeth's eyelids started to get heavier then she fell asleep.
Annabeth found herself standing in mid air but under her feet was something like glass. She looked around and she found herself standing at the Grand Canyon Skywalk. The skywalk was one of Annabeth most favorite architecture.
The Skywalk width is 65 feet and it length extending out from the post supports closest to the canyon wall is 70 feet. The outer and inner 32-inch-wide by 72-inch-deep bridge box beams are supported by eight 32-by-32-inch box posts having four posts on each side of the visitor's center, once completed. The eight posts are anchored in pairs into four large concrete footings that are in turn anchored to the bedrock by ninety-six 21⁄2-inch-diameter of high strength steel threaded rod rock anchors grouted 46 feet deep into the rock. The Skywalk's deck has been made with four layers of low iron glass with interlayer. The deck width is 10 feet 2 inches. The Skywalk glass railings were made with glass with fewer layers bent to follow the walkway's curvature. The glass railings are 5 feet 2 inches tall and have been designed for high wind pressures. The Skywalk deck was designed for a 100-pound-per-square-foot live load along with code required seismic and wind forces. The foundation can support the equivalent of 71 loaded 747 aircraft or an 8.0 magnitude earthquake within 50 miles. Two tuned mass dampers were installed inside the outer box beam as well as one inside the inner box beam at the furthest extension of the Skywalk to reduce pedestrian footfall vibration. The walkway could carry 822 people that weigh 200 pounds each without overstress, but maximum occupancy at one time is 120 people. The Skywalk was assembled on top of the canyon wall in line with its final placement and moved into final position by a jack and roll rig. The Skywalk infrastructure itself weighs a little over 1,000,000 pounds without counterweights but including the tuned mass dampers, railing hardware, glass rails, glass deck and steel box beams. At the time of roll-out, the Skywalk weighed approximately 1.6 million pounds.
The Grand Canyon is a chasm 277 miles long and up to 18 miles wide. Below Yavapai point is 2,400 feet above sea level, about 4,500 feet below the South Rim and 5,400 feet below the North Rim for an average depth of about one mile. And it took about 3 to 6 million years to form by the Colorado River, which flows west through the canyon and averages about 300 feet width, 100 feet in depth and flows at an average speed of four miles per hour including erosion continues to alter its contour. (Yes, Annabeth had memorized all of these.)
Then a voice echoed around the walls. "You will find the answer to your problem here" It said. The voice was soft and motherly but it was full of irritation and strictness. Annabeth knew the voice instantly: it was the royal highness herself! Why her? Annabeth thought the gods have gone silent for months but why only she spoke.
"What do you want from me?" Annabeth asked "What had you done with him?"
Hera ignored her questions "Go to the Grand Cannon and find the guy with one shoe. He will give you the location of your missing boyfriend,"
The guy with one shoe? Annabeth thought. Like Jason of the Argonauts.
"Why did you take him away from me?" Annabeth shouted. "Where do you hide him?"
Much to Annabeth's irritation Hera ignored her questions again "No more silly questions! I can't repeat this again! Just go to the Grand Cannon and find the guy with one shoe. You will find the answer there!"
With that little information, Annabeth woke up. She ran as fast as she could toward the big house banging on the door. Chiron was wearing his pajamas with his tail in curls and his hair was very messy. Annabeth eyes were near tears after two horrible days, she finally found a clue to find Percy even the information was a little untrustworthy. Chiron clopped to Annabeth's side trying his very best to comfort her. "Calm down. Tell me what had happen, child,"
Annabeth stood silently in the flying chariot, her mind was counting how long it going to take to find her missing boyfriend. 10 minutes had gone and it felt like ten hours. 11 minutes, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17….120, 247 minutes…. About three and a half hours had passed and Annabeth was starting to get reckless. Standing at the chariot for hours wasn't good for any ADHD demigods.
Then the beauty of the Grand Canyon loomed in front of them. It was so beautiful; Annabeth just couldn't find a word to describe it: Majestic? Fantastic? Unbelievable? No, those words didn't seem to fit it well. And all those silly facts she memorized about the Grand Canyon didn't seem appropriate either. The Canyon walls were more than a mile in height. A thousand feet of this is up through granite crags; then steep slopes ... raise one above the other to the summit. The gorge is black and narrow below, red and gray and flaring above, with crags on the walls, which, cut in many places by side canyons, seem to be a vast wilderness of rocks. In the wilderness, a small architecture out stand it all, a simple horse shoe shape structure sitting at the edge of the cliff. No skyscraper could give a view like this. It was all simply—
"Breathtaking," Butch murmured and Annabeth agreed.
But it the surrounding sky seemed grey like a storm had passed and Annabeth stopped three kids trapped in the skywalk and none of them look like Percy Jackson. As they got closer, Annabeth saw three teenagers, two boys and a girl. There was a boy lying down on the glass floor, his army jacket and curly brown hair was covered with golden sand—monster dust. There must be fight here at the skywalk and somehow they destroy the monsters. The girl wore faded jeans, hiking boots, and a fleece snowboarding jacket. Her chocolate brown hair was cut choppy and uneven, with thin strands braided down the sides. The most unsettling of all, a boy with blond hair was standing next to her. He was wearing jeans and a purple t-shirt under his windbreaker.
The chariot landed on the far end of the skywalk. The pegasi tucked in their wings and cantered nervously across the glass, as if they sensed it was near breaking. Annabeth leaped off before the chariot had even finished moving. She pulled a knife and ran toward the group while Butch was reining in the horses.
"Where is he?" Annabeth demanded.
"Where's who?" The boy with blond hair asked.
She came all the way from the east and didn't see Percy! It was simply unacceptable. Annabeth remembered Gleeson Hedge a protector satyr supposed to be there and care take two demigods. Then this morning, he was informed that they will be here to fetch up a special package.
Then she turned to Leo and Piper. "What about Gleeson? Where is your protector, Gleeson Hedge?"
The boy with curly hair cleared his throat. "He got taken by some…tornado things."
Annabeth's mind ran through the list of monster related to storm. But before she could put a name to them, the boy with blond hair interrupted"Venti," he said. "Storm spirits."
Annabeth arched an eyebrow. Venti ? She thought. Isn't that a Latin name?
"You mean anemoi thuellai? That's the Greek term. Who are you, and what happened?"
The boy did his best to explain but Annabeth just could not accept the truth. About halfway through the story, Butch came over from the chariot. He stood there glaring at them, his arms crossed. When Jason had finished his story, Annabeth wasn't satisfied. "No, no, no! She told me he would be here. She told me if I came here, I'd find the answer."
"Annabeth," Butch grunted. "Check it out."
He pointed at Jason's feet and her worst fear had been realized. Annabeth examined and found Jason was missing his left shoe and it looked disturbingly like a charcoal. She tried to guess what had happen to the foot. Lightning blasted it? Somebody tried to barbeque it?
"The guy with one shoe," said Butch. "He's the answer."
"No, Butch," Annabeth insisted but it was pretty obvious he was the guy with one shoe but she said. "He can't be. I was tricked."
She glared at the sky, all her hope was gone! Anger raised inside Annabeth.
"What do you want from me?" She screamed. "What have you done with him?"
Then skywalk shuddered, and the horses whinnied urgently.
"Annabeth," said Butch, "we gotta leave. Let's get these three to camp and figure it out there. Those storm spirits might come back."
She fumed for a moment. "Fine," But she fixed Jason with a resentful look. "We'll settle this later."
She turned on her heel and marched toward the chariot leaving the three demigods with Butch.
The day after that was beyond strange for Annabeth's standard. And Annabeth was a demigod, if there something stranger than that, Annabeth couldn't tell.
When she noticed Jason's tattoo, a shivered chill sent down her spin. It was darkly etched with a dozen straight lines like a bar code, and over that an eagle with the letters SPQR. SPQR— it couldn't be. But the image burnt into Annabeth mind when she read a book about Rome. Senatus Populusque Romanus, it was their motto. She didn't mean the modern Rome in Italy. She meant Ancient Rome, one of the most successful empires in Europe who conquered many countries including the Greek isles. Why in world Jason had burn it his own arm? Maybe Chiron can figure that out.
Then Rachel was possessed by the spirit of Delphi and caused Piper to pass out. She had said something about freeing her or the earth swallowing them all. Then she and Rachel carried Piper all the way to the big house, they need to find Chiron fast. Things got even more confusing; Jason claimed he got a vision of a goddess too, asking him to free her. At least she knew that Hera was capture, but still why she asked Jason and Piper to free her? Chiron was being secretive to Annabeth. That's impossible for him to do that, Annabeth was one of his favorite students. Now he was keeping quite…
If he was not going to help her, Annabeth had to find out herself. She took Jason to cabin fifteen where children of Hypnos lived. Hypnos was the god of sleep, his children might help. They had found out that Jason's mind wasn't wiped, and his memories weren't buried. They've been stolen by Hera. To Jason, he claimed that Hera was Juno. And for some reason, Jason likes the Roman names of the gods. To Annabeth they're the same gods with different names. But Romans gods are more warlike, discipline… but what did it had to do with Jason?
During campfire when Rachel recited the second Great Prophecy, Jason interrupted and continued it in Latin—the langue of Ancient Rome. Most demigods recognize a few phrases of Latin, but Ancient Greek was their mother tongue. Not many can speak Latin fluently without practice, even Annabeth tried. Jason had claimed himself as the son of Zeus by summoning lightning and hit the campfire. But how in the world Jason can be the son of Zeus? The pact of The Big Three was not to have any demigod children. How could camp don't known about Jason sooner? Chiron kept quite that made Annabeth more frustrated.
Later on, Jason was given a quest to save Hera accompanied by Piper (who turned out to a daughter of Aphrodite and turned dazzling beautiful) and Leo, the son of Hephaestus. The prophecy gave Annabeth the goose bump: Why beware the earth? The giants' revenge? They couldn't be that unfortunate? And death unleash through Hera's rage?
All these ran through Annabeth's mind as she fell asleep. She felt like boxes of puzzle pieces from different picture had felt on her. No matter how much she tried to arrange them, it formed an impossible image. Complicated! Everything was too complicated even for a child of Athena, Annabeth need to know more. She turned to the nightstand and found it was dawn. She got up, changed her clothing and went to cabin 1.
Went she got there; she found Jason was looking at Thalia, Luke and Annabeth's photo. She peered over Jason's shoulder. She knew that photo. It was taken at a mall in New York, a week before Thalia turned into a pine tree. Annabeth introduced Thalia to Jason and suggested him to go to Quebec and find Boreas. He might give Jason a clue on finding storm spirits and eventually Hera's prison. Jason asked her more about Thalia and Annabeth tried to explain. Then he asked something she didn't expect: "What's her last name?"
Annabeth didn't want to answer that. Thalia hated her last name and she might kill Annabeth for splitting it out but she answered "Grace, Thalia Grace."
The photo fluttered to the floor as if Jason's fingers are melting butter.
Then he insisted Annabeth to swear not to tell anyone what he was about to said. Annabeth hesitated, but her curiosity won out and she swore it on River Styx. Thunder rumbled louder and Jason picked up the photo.
"My last name is Grace," he said. "This is my sister."
Annabeth turned pale. This was all impossible; Thaila never mentioned she had a brother. They looked nothing like! Was he joking? Suddenly the doors burst open, Butch led a half a dozen campers in. "Hurry!" he shouted "The dragon is back."
As Annabeth saw Jason and his friend rode on the Bronze Dragon off to their quest. All Annabeth could think of Jason Grace wasn't just a typical guy with one shoe...
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