Chapter 7: Piper
I can't believe what I'm seeing right now. When we got through the door and fell on a hill, we saw an enormous city not too far in the distance. The city was beautiful and I'm an Aphrodite girl, so I know what I'm talking about. We got down from the hill and had to walk through a small forest. 'Man this is where Brian came from?' I kept thinking. Wherever I looked I saw small creatures watching us. One time I say a baby ram playing with another one and then a multi-colored lizard that kept changing colors from time to time. We heard a rustle in a nearby bush and everybody stopped in their tracks. Brian looked back at us and put a finger to his lip. He was trying to hide a smile. Then a small squirrel jumped from the bush near Leo and landed in front of him. Leo's reaction was priceless; he fell back and screamed like a little girl.
Everyone broke out laughing while Leo's face was bright red and he accidently said his hands on fire. "Not funny man that thing could have given me rabies" Leo said. "Oh come their harmless the worst thing it could have done was stuffing acorns in your mouth" Brian replied as he hoisted Leo up. We continued down the path to the city for about 20 minutes until we heard another sound, this time even louder. Leo tensed up "dude if it's one of those squirrels again I might burn it to a crisp". This time Brian wasn't playing around, he took out his scythe and pulled his hoodie over his head. Then Annabeth screamed "Duck!" as a Fireball came hurdling passed us. When we looked to where it came from, we soon became surrounded by a group of people with swords, bows and other various weapons you can think of pointed straight at us. "Surrender now and tell us who you are" A boy with a red suit of armor and a mask yelled. We all put up our hands up except for Brian who still had his scythe. "Hey wait a minute we come in peace man" Frank said. Apparently this wasn't good enough and the guy had his sword right at his neck. Suddenly a bright flash blinded us and when it cleared the people around us were disarmed and I think Brian grabbed them all and put in the middle of us in a pile. "A little warning next time Brian" Leo complained as we took out our weapons and pointed them at the people. "Yah sorry about that but if I didn't stun them Frank would have probably been decapitated" Brian said while still having his scythe close to the guy with the mask.
Then a voice yelled out "wait a minute" and a girl calmly walked up to Brian. She took off her helmet letting all of her hair out and revealing her face. She stared at him for a while. "Brian is that you?" she questioned. Brian turned towards the girl and lowered his hoodie. There were gasp all around as Brian looked at the girl and his eyes widened. "Heather is that you?" he asked. Suddenly the Girl jumped on him and started hugging him while he just lifted her up like they were returning from a long distance relationship. 'Uh-oh' I thought, and then I turned to Zoey. She was staring at them with jealousy in her eyes. I felt bad for her; this was like how I saw Jason returning to camp Jupiter and how I thought he would go back together with Reyna. He lowered her down and everyone started to relax. Then she slapped him across the face and Zoey raised her bow again at the girl. "THAT'S FOR LEAVING FOR ONE WEEK WITHOUT TELLING ME!" she screamed. "I guess I deserved that" he answered while he rubbed his cheek. She lowered her voice "Where have you been? You had me worried sick about you I was about to have the entire ravenwood school search for you"
"Wow you were that worried about me? Gee I almost feel guilty for you having to go through all this trouble"
The girl named Heather hit him again. "WILL YOU STOP HITTING ME!" he yelled. Then she grabbed him by the collar and probably made Zoey want to shoot a storm full of arrows at her. She kissed him. It soon ended after he pulled away after three seconds. "Please don't do that … again" he said. She rolled her eyes and smiled. He remembered we were still here and quickly turned back to us. "Um sorry forgot to introduce my friends, these are my friends that helped me get back here" he said. Soon everyone that surrounded us took off their mask and smiled. Heather turned to us and waved. "Hi sorry for attacking you like that. We thought you were bandits. So who are you guys by the way?" She asked. "Hi I'm Piper and um, we're from Earth" I stick my hand out and she shook it. "Yah and my name's Percy" Percy said as he turned his sword back into a pen. After everyone greeted each other and talked, I realized we're still on a quest. "Brian um how much longer until we reached the city, we only have 16 days left until we probably all die" I said. Suddenly all the talking stopped and they all looked at me confused. "What do you mean by we're all probably going to die?" she said curiously. "Heather I'll explain on the way but for now we need to see Merle Ambrose" Brian said, and then we continued our journey to the city.
I locked arms with Jason as we walked down and gazed around the forest as we passed by. Zoey was still keeping a close eye on Brian and Heather seeing if she would make another move on him. Those two kept arguing on the way about stuff like 'how are you a son of a god?' or 'what happened to the school while he was away'. Leo muttered "Does those two ever stop arguing?" The guy who had his sword at Frank's neck walked up to Leo. "Nah that's always been like that ever since they met, names Dante by the way" They start bragging about themselves trying to see who's the better man. I just kept walking with Jason tuning out everyone's conversations. Soon we arrived at a gate and a twenty foot wall. Two guards walked up to us and bowed. They turned around and signaled for the other guards on top to open the gate. Man the city was better up close. We walked in and immediately I could smell fresh baked breads and cake as we passed by a bakery. Then we saw statues of various people. We all stopped by one statue that had a template that said 'Brian Strider, Defender of Wizard City and for defeating Malistaire'. He was still arguing with Heather to notice us stopping. Me, Hazel, Annabeth, Jason, and Percy exchange looks, looked at the statue and looked back to each other. We all laughed. We couldn't believe that they made a statue of him like that. We're not saying that he doesn't deserve the recognition he deserves but it didn't look like Brian. They made him look like Dionysus after a Bachelor party. As we made our way to a giant stone building we noticed people looking up to see Brian. They all had smiles on their faces while a few girls giggled and squealed. Apparently Brian is a big deal around here. We were soon at the steps of the stone building. Brian and Heather stopped arguing and turned back to us. "You guys want to come in?" he asked and we all nodded. He opened the door and we were in an office of someone. There behind the desk was an old man with a long white beard. He looked like Dumbledore from Harry potter. I saw books flying around; literally books were coming and going being put into shelves and piles. The man looked up and his eyes widened. "Brian! Where have you been my boy? And agh, I see you brought friends" he turned to us and smiled. " Hello Master Ambrose sorry I was gone for some time I had to go somewhere but right now I need the spiral key for Drangonspyre" he replied
He looked at Brian with a shocked expression. "DragonSpyre? But why do you need to go there after you defeated Malistaire?" he questioned. "It's a long story sir" He replied.
He starts telling him about how he was taken to earth and about the prophecy. He and Heather were both listening to Brian with amazement. "That's why we need the key" he said.
"I understand but the key isn't here it's with Katie and Jonathan down by the camps for safekeeping" The old man replied.
Suddenly another flash came from the opposite side of the room. After the light faded Artemis was standing before us. We all started to bow as we were shocked to see her here. "Lady Artemis, um may I ask but what are you doing here?" Percy said. Artemis turned to us and answered "Well to kill Brian of course" she said as she aimed her bow at Brian
