A/N: Sorry for the hiatus. I just started school this week, and have ALREADY had homework to deal with. Only at my school...
Thanks again to everyone who has read or reviewed.
Disclaimer: Rick Riordan has not given me the copyrights to Percy Jackson, therefore, I own nothing except my OC's. And a bipolar cat.
3) Dress up as Gandalf, ride on a giant eagle, and leap in front of a fort during the middle of a war game and shout to the invading team "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!"
Bobby's POV
It was about a year and two months before Percy Jackson would come to camp. Ro and I were sitting on Ro's bunk playing poker when Ariel came in, scowling and muttering, "...Bad news, why can't they see that?...Camp Jupiter's gonna fall apart if they keep letting maniacs like that in..."
"What'd Ivy do?" asked Ro, confused. It had been weeks since Ivy's last prank, Ariel had no reason to be annoyed at her (then again, Ariel seems to be annoyed at all of us even when we're acting like model soldiers...).
"I wasn't talking about her, I was talking about that Nico DiAngelo kid who just showed up!" retorted Ariel.
"Who?" I questioned. I hadn't heard anything about a new kid, and thanks to my connections with the lares and nymphs, I usually know about newcomers practically the minute they cross the border. Still, the name itself sounded vaguely familiar...
"Nico DiAngelo, a son of Pluto. He just showed up in the middle of camp. He's talking to the praetors right now," replied Ariel.
"Whaddaya mean, 'just showed up in the middle of camp'?" inquired Ro.
"He just randomly appeared. He tumbled out of thin air and landed right at my feet. He seemed to have no idea where he was, but he acted calm enough when Jason and Reyna led him away to interrogate him." (By then, Reyna had become praetor). Ariel shook her head, "Octavian is going to have a cow when he finds out about this. A son of Pluto showing up just as we're in the middle of a war with the Titans..."
"What's wrong with a son of Pluto?" I questioned. Ro and Ariel both stared at me.
"Have you ever paid attention during Mythology?" demanded Ariel.
"Yeah. Why?"
"Then you do know that Pluto is the ruler of Hades, the Underworld?"
"So?"
"So, Romans don't like the Underworld. Generally the only way to get there is to die. And most sane people see dying as something to avoid if you can help it."
"And so Romans don't like Pluto, and since they don't like Pluto, they don't like children of Pluto. Having one in camp is a bad omen, like smashing a mirror or having a black cat cross your path," concluded Ro.
"Bad enough that we're fighting Saturn. Now we have to deal with some creep who's probably half-crazy and who'll make Octavian throw a hissy fit the size of California!" grumbled Ariel.
"Wot did I do?" cried Ivy indignantly as she walked in. (She was speaking in a Cockney accent that day). "For your information I 'aven't pulled anything for two weeks, no one's got any reason to be rantin' about 'ow I'm a dangerous maniac...well, Octavian does, but..."
"She was talking about someone else this time, Ivy," I said hastily.
"Oh. Wow, really?" asked Ivy, impressed. (It wasn't that often that Ariel found someone besides Ivy worth complaining about). "Is it that Nico DiAngelo kid 'oo was just in that meeting with Reyna and Jason? 'E said 'e wasn't going to be a camper, if that 'elps calm you down, Ariel. Apparently 'e's just 'ere to 'elp us with the war effort, maybe by spying on Mount Diablo..."
"Wait, how do you know what they said in the meeting? Were you spying on them?" demanded Ariel. Ivy turned towards us, pointedly ignoring Ariel's last question, "You realize 'oo DiAngelo is, right?"
"A son of one of the most powerful and feared gods of Rome? An Italian? A guy with an angelic last name?" suggested Ro dryly.
"Well, yeah, and 'e reminds me weirdly of Gaara from Naruto too, but that's not the point! 'E's Nico! You know, from the list?" said Ivy. Realization hit me. Of course, THAT'S where I'd heard the name before! We were supposed to give some girl named Hazel a Happy Meal in front of him, or something along those lines.
"Are we supposed to do it now?" I asked. Ivy shook her head, "No, there isn't anybody named 'Azel 'ere yet. Nico's arrival did make me think of another prank, though, that I've been itching to do..."
"It better not involve Octavian. He's on a short fuse as it is; I, for one, really, really want to avoid dying at the hands of a teddy bear serial killer. After all I've been through, that would be a huge rip-off," said Ro.
"Don't worry, I don't plan to prank our dear power-hungry creeper Tavey-kins until after the war is won and all of Rome is celebrating," said Ivy. (She still referred to Octavian by sickeningly sweet nicknames, quite often when he was only standing a few feet away. It was a miracle she hadn't "mysteriously" fallen down some stairs and broken her neck yet). "Before Nico came I was eavesdropping on a conversation between Reyna and Jason about the war games tonight-"
"So you WERE spying on them!" cried Ariel.
"-and Cohorts Five and Three are defending the fort tonight. So I was thinkin' the time is ripe for number three," concluded Ivy.
"Is that the Gandalf one?" I asked. Ivy nodded, went into her closet (in our barracks, we each get our own closet, albeit tiny ones), and closed the door. A few minutes later she emerged wearing a Gandalf the Grey costume, complete with beard, long grey hair, bushy grey eyebrows, and staff.
"'A wizard is never late, nor is he ever early. He arrives precisely when he intends to'," she said in a gruff voice. I love her, I thought, shaking my head and smiling.
"Where did you get that?" asked Ariel, eyeing "Gandalf" in shock.
"I know a guy," Ivy answered in her normal voice, waving a hand dismissively.
"You should've seen her imitating George Bush the day we met," Ro told Ariel. "I thought I really had been knocked over by the president of the U.S."
"That was probably just 'cause you 'ad a concussion. I wasn't THAT good," said Ivy modestly. Ariel moaned and rolled her eyes, "Have I ever mentioned that you're nuts?"
"You never really stop," Ivy replied, shrugging.
Three Hours Later
Gwen and Dakota were our centurions by now, and once we were all in the fort for the war games, Gwen divided people up. Some went to the water cannons, some defended the gate, etc. Ro was a medic and was thus in the air on a giant eagle, on standby for any potential injuries, and I was working a water cannon.
The game began. Somehow in the heat of battle, while I was busy blasting people with water, I had time to look behind me, and could barely suppress a grin when I saw someone riding towards the fort on a giant eagle. Someone dressed as a certain Middle Earth wizard.
An archer nearby cocked an arrow, ready to shoot the strange newcomer out of the sky. I shouted quickly, "Don't! She's one of us!". Apparently he heard me, because he lowered the bow.
A moment later Ivy leapt from the eagle to the outside of the gate, did a little roll to break her fall, and then stood up straight just as some campers from the Fourth Cohort came up to the gate.
It is rare for Romans in the heat of battle to become so stunned that they freeze up, but the Fourth Cohort people did.
"What the- Lokison?" sputtered a blond boy. Ivy/Gandalf slowly lifted her staff up in the air, then screamed out in a voice that could be heard by almost everyone, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!". She slammed the bottom end of her staff into the ground, and a bright light flashed, blinding me. When I could see properly again, I realized that everyone in the invading army was covered in glitter. They looked, as Ro put it, "Like Edward Cullen had exploded on them". All of them had frozen up by this point.
Oh. So THAT'S what the glitter was for was my first thought. My second thought was, Crap. Octavian got the worst of it. How's Ivy going to talk her way out of being excommunicated and/or killed THIS time?
Three hours, two long rants about maniacs from a ticked-off Octavian, several lectures, and more glares than I can count later, it was decided to let Ivy off easy. Well, the Roman version of easy, which is not being excommunicated or killed. Instead she was forced to clean out the stables, scrub all the toilets in camp, and give pedicures to all of the people she'd hit with glitter. (No, that is not a typical Roman punishment. Octavian came up with that one, and in my opinion, it was far too cruel. Ivy has a pathological phobia of touching other people's feet).
On the plus side, though, that Halloween, she had an excellent Gandalf costume to wear.
A/N: Wow, there wasn't that much prank in there this time. The first part is so long because I wanted to establish some background, tie the story in with events in the actual timeline. (A year and two months before Percy arrived at Camp Jupiter, it was August, the month the Titan War really became serious and I assume the Romans were as much at war with the Titans as the Greeks at that point. Nico DiAngelo discovering Camp Jupiter then is pure guesswork, based on my theory that he was spying for Camp Jupiter in Percy's vision in The Last Olympians). I tried to make it as funny as possible, but I'm not sure that it worked.
