Chapter 3
Percy
You know what I hate worse than arguing with Reyna? Fighting her in front of about 300 people.
"You're joking." I turned to Gwen, "I have to fight a girl?"
"Reyna's the best in her class. You should be happy to fight her."
"I don't want to hurt her."
Reyna was strapping on her shoulder pads with vengeance.
"You don't need to worry about hurting her."
I sighed, "Ok."
Gwen had become pretty much my only friend over the last weeks and I'm sure she wouldn't have been if she didn't want Reyna and I to hook up. She kept talking to me about getting over our differences even though I knew that was never going to happen.
It wasn't as if Reyna wasn't pretty, but she was evil and didn't care about what happened to me just because I was a Greek. Sometimes I wished she would be a little nicer to me, just because her anger was interfering with what I did every day. She would start arguments in my classes so that I couldn't focus and get pulverized by whoever I was fighting. I was seriously starting to hate the girl.
Gwen helped me strap on my armor as the wolf, Lupa as she was called, made camp announcements over the loud speaker on the podium.
"Jennifer Reed, Darryan Ruche, Dawn Ruede, Tommy Poll are wanted in detention tonight for threatening to overthrow a senior counselor. John Rutledge hasn't been in detention for the last five nights so he needs to get out of here unless he wants to get eaten by the harpies."
A random kid in the stands catapulted out of his seat and ran for the woods, the harpies in hot pursuit. I guess he was John Rutledge.
"And now it is time for the tournament."
Gwen nodded at me, "Good luck out there Percy."
I shrugged, "I need it."
I approached Reyna in the middle of the arena. I could definitely tell who the favorite was as loud as the crowd was booing in my direction. Reyna drew her sword and placed her shield over her chest. She looked pretty darn fierce for a girl, and it made me nervous to fight her.
"3, 2, 1…" Lupa shouted, "begin!"
Reyna immediately scraped me across the chest with her sword and sent me sprawling across the ground. It probably should have scraped me up really badly, but it didn't hurt. Reyna stared at me in shock.
"You're invulnerable?"
"I guess so," I shrugged then gave her a winning Percy smile.
I regained my barings, pulled myself up and slammed her back so hard she fell on her butt. Then she stood up. We looked at each other for a second and then our swords connected with a loud clang.
For once I was doing something that felt natural. I'd been doing this before. Our feet dug into the sand as we walked in circles pressing each other. But Reyna fought differently than I was used to. Her style was less straight forward, more…fancy for lack of better words.
I took deep breaths trying to draw strength from somewhere inside of me, and then suddenly felt a surge of energy. I slammed her harder than I ever could have imagined, and she pressed me as hard as she could, but she was no match and she fell to the ground, my sword pointed at her throat.
She breathed heavily in through her nose, her chest rising and falling. The arena was silent. No one had wanted me to win.
Then Lupa yelled into the megaphone, "All hail Percy, the son of Neptune!"
I turned to Gwen who was staring at me in shock. What had I done to make them think I was the son of Pos- Neptune? Then I looked down. The ground was covered with water. I'd made my own personal stream. How sick was that?
Everyone was staring at me, including Reyna who was now standing and glaring at me murderously.
I went and sat down next to Gwen while Lupa called the next pair. I guessed something like a claiming (that's what they call it when you find out your parent) happened all the time around here. Something must be weird though because no one was focusing on the battle anymore. Everyone was staring at me. I shrunk down in my seat so low I fell out of it. I heard people sniggering and straightened.
"I'm going to my cabin," I announced, "So if anyone wants to come and stare at my there, be my guest."
I climbed from the stands and ran all the way to my bunk. I was dog tired and horribly embarrassed. I couldn't believe that had happened. I shut the curtains just in case anyone wanted to take me up on my little announcement in the stadium, and laid down in bed.
I didn't even know that I had started dreaming when it happened. The last thing I knew, I was sitting in my bed. Then very suddenly I was somewhere else entirely, laughing so hard I could barely breathe next to some pretty girl with beautiful blonde hair and amazing gray eyes. On my other side sat a kid who was half goat with a weird goatee. He could have been older than me, but his rosy cheeks said otherwise.
"Grover… you idiot…" I tried to speak, but couldn't I was laughing so hard. The girl next to me was too, her hands over her face. Then I heard someone yell, "Picture opportunity!"
I looked up and saw a girl with spiky black hair, holding a camera up to her eyes. The goat boy scooted out of the picture and I put my arm around the girl next to me. I looked into the flash and the place turned a bright white. Then… boom… the scene switched.
The next thing I knew the wind was blowing in my hair the blonde-haired girl next to me. We were in a chariot, or what looked like one, and going as fast as I had ever dreamed of going. The girl aimed perfectly and threw a chain that locked around the wheel of the chariot next to us flipping it.
I laughed, "Nice one, Annabeth!"
She smiled at me as if she hadn't heard it very often and turned back to the track.
The dream switched again and the girl's face appeared above me, her head tilted to the side. She was looking at me, but only for a second and then she turned to the door and spooned some popcorn-flavored pudding in my mouth. A second later, the rational dream faded into something strange.
A string of images made its way through my head like a movie reel. It was the strangest thing I'd ever seen.
The girl named Annabeth pulled me out of a river.
"Not on my watch Seaweed Brain!"
The half-goat, Grover, was chewing nervously on a couch in a hotel.
"It's just Louis the sixteenth furniture… delicious!"
Annabeth, Grover, and I were sitting on the floor of a huge room next to a boy with a scar down his face. He looked like he was in pain.
"Annabeth," he coughed, "Did you love me?"
She turned to me and I could see tears in her gray eyes.
"No, I never loved you."
And I could feel my heart flutter with happiness that she was there. That she was the one in my same situation.
And then, very suddenly, I was lying in my bed. This was insane. Who was playing with me dreams like this? All I wanted was answers, now I had names. But that wasn't enough. Who was I? Who was I really?
