Chapter 14

Piper was having a rotten day. First she had apparently blacked out when she was going to meet the oracle. Then she had woken up to find herself in the middle of nowhere. Then she found that she couldn't move because she was covered with mud from shoulder down. Great! Just great! Full gravity of her situation occurred to her when she heard earth rumbling beneath her. And slowly, hundreds, no thousands of earth trolls with six hands each rose from the earth. They occupied the entire valley. Piper stared. She had never seen such a large assembly of monsters in one place. She remembered how difficult it had been to kill such creatures when they were rescuing her father. Such a large army of them, it would be impossible to stop. She closed her eyes in prayer, sending a wordless plea of help to her mother, to Leo's and Jason's father or anyone who listens. Please guys! Camp will not be able to survive this. This time they had no Percy Jackson.

Meanwhile miles away from Piper's predicament, Percy was observing all this in a dream. Strangely, he could also listen to her prayers. He was dumbfounded when she mentioned him. How did she know about him? Knowing the campers, he was sure he would have become a just another campers who fled the camp. Yet she knows. Hmmm.
"Will you help her?"
Many people would have startled up alarmed that they were hearing voices in their head. But if your life is as messed up as mine, you know that a divine entity has decided to mess you up.
"So…you're still there huh. Haven't heard anything from you in a while. No call, no messages, no IMs, I was starting to get worried."
"As pleasing your company is to me, I do have my divine duties to perform. Don't worry. I didn't miss any action. It's all being recorded. I'll send you a DVD someday."
 "How touching. Just wondering by the way, was it you who send me that dream. Was it something that has happened or happening or is going to happen? That's if it was a typical demigod dream and not you messing with my head,"
 "I don't mess with people's head hero. That's the gods' job. And what you saw is what's happening right now. If you're specially brave and resourceful, you'll be just able to reach her before all is lost."
 "That's a quite hefty list. Are you sure got everything?"
 "Niet. Only thing left was ridiculous insanity. You've got plenty of THAT. So I think we got everything covered."
 "Thanks. I feel so loved."
The voice chuckled.
"Hurry hero, every second is precious."
That jolts me back to reality. Not bothering to waste time on an annoying not-so-morning-person goddess I quickly drenched her in ice cold water. Her startled expression was so good that I rolled on the floor laughing my head off.
"PERSEUS JACKSON! YOU NO GOOD SON OF A BARNACLE BEARD...'' she continued throughout the journey to the private airfield. Using the mist, Aer had managed to book a private aircraft to carry us to Florida, the valley where I saw the giant army and the pretty girl I met on mount Diablo. Her rant continued throughout the flight. I looked at her with amusement as the goddess trailed off to another language, one not yet discovered by mankind. Percy found it easy to ignore the tension that always accompanied him whenever he's airborne. The voice had told him that due to Aer's manipulation of mist, Zeus would not be able to sense him. This didn't do anything to ease his tension. So concentrated to figure out the meaning of the profanities the angry goddess was throwing at me.

Percy's pov

Time passed in a blur. I finally managed to calm Aer down by buying her an Italian Delight Dark chocolate Ice Cream with hazelnut and chopped cashews. The rest of the journey to the valley, the goddess settled on glaring at him and slurping her ice cream. Aah, the pleasures of being an 8 years old. When we finally managed to reach the valley by twilight, there what I saw made my jaws drop. The army was much larger than what I saw in my dreams. Apart from huge trolls with six arms that I saw on Mt Diablo, there were legions of dracaenaes, telkhines and unless Percy's eyes were deceiving him, hordes of Cyclops. And there were also scores of Canadians giants, though their original name Percy couldn't remember. Percy knew if this army managed to get through the camp borders, there will be no camp left. No matter what the campers did to him, he simply couldn't see the army meant for their demise march off so easily. He couldn't wish this kind of death to anyone mortal, emphasis on the word 'Mortal'. There were many immortals he would love to blast off to the depth of Tartarus.
"The army will march off at midnight and reach the camp within an hour by earth travel. By dawn, your precious camp will be nothing but a wasteland. So you have at least 4 hours to kill every single monster and of course if you're lucky, you also get to save the girl. Best of Luck hero. I'll be watching."