A/N: You have spoken, and here is your plot summary of Percy Jackson and the Olympians! It picks off right where the other chapter left off, and is still from Jason's POV. For anyone who does not want to read this, I have also included some non-adventures review at the bottom; you can just skip to the next bold line. Enjoy!
Piper and Leo nodded. Reyna, Bobby and I had never been to normal school, so we wouldn't really know. "So we were on a fieldtrip one day when my math teacher, Ms. Dodds, gets mad at me for "pushing" a girl who was bullying me and my friend into a fountain."
"Why'd you put quotes around pushing?"
"Because I'd controlled the water and thrown her in by accident," Percy countered Leo's question quickly before continuing with the story. "But instead of punishing me, she tries to kill me, because she's actually the fury Alecto. But my Latin teacher, Mr. Bruner, gave me a pen, which is actually a sword, which I managed to use to vaporize her, sort of accidentally." I blinked. He'd "sort of accidentally" killed a fury?
"Anyway, then everybody in my class starts talking about this Ms. Kerr we'd supposedly had all year as though Ms. Dodds never existed, which started to make me think I was insane. So then I went home for the summer, but our bus broke down and I saw these three old ladies knitting a giant blue sock. Then they snipped the thread, which made my friend, Grover, freak out."
"The old ladies were the Fates of course," Annabeth injected.
"I was getting to that," Percy grumbled, then realized everyone was staring at him like he was going to die. "See, this is how Grover reacted! No, I'm not going to drop dead in a second; it'll make more sense later. Anyway, then I tried to go home to have a normal summer with my mom and evil step dad but when we tried to go on vacation, Grover shows up in the middle of the night not wearing any pants which shows he's half goat, and freaking out about something, then it turned out my mom knew Grover, and then we're running from the Minotaur, who really doesn't like me by the way, but we got in a car crash because of a lightning bolt, and Grover got knocked out, and the Minotaur got my mom before I managed to vaporize it with its horn and drag Grover across the border into camp."
"Which is where I met Percy," Annabeth supplied. "Practically carrying a half conscious Grover up to the Big House before he passed out. Then Chiron had me take care of him."
"Her first words to me were 'you drool in your sleep,'" Percy reported.
"How romantic," Leo teased.
"Were not!" Annabeth retorted. "I asked you about the solstice."
"Oh, and you said 'He's the one, he must be.' to Chiron before I passed out if you want to count things I wasn't fully conscious for," Percy grumbled.
"Awwww," Piper said, grinning before she realized what she was doing and grumbled something about stupid Aphrodite.
"Anyway, when I actually woke up, Annabeth informed me I drooled in my sleep, and then I found out that my Latin teacher was actually Chiron and that I was a half blood. Annabeth showed me around, which led to an incident with Clarisse and the bathrooms in which I realized I had control over water, then I met the councilor for the Hermes cabin, which I was put in because I was undetermined. His name was Luke, and he seemed to actually like me."
"Why is this important?" Piper asked.
"It is," Annabeth said. "Just wait."
"Anyway, then I played my first game of capture the flag, in which I nearly got eaten by a hellhound then was claimed by Poseidon. Next I learned that I needed to go on a quest to retrieve Zeus' master bolt because Zeus was of the opinion that I'd taken it and there was going to be a war between Zeus and Poseidon if I didn't bring it back by the summer solstice. Chiron and Mr. D said that Hades had probably taken it, so Grover, Annabeth and I set out to find it. Annabeth had made it very clear that she was only coming because she'd waited forever for a quest, not because she actually liked me, just to be accurate. But before we left, Luke gave me magical flying shoes to help me on my quest. Of course, I couldn't wear them, because I can't fly, so I gave them to Grover. But I got Riptide, so in the long term I did pretty well. We'd been on our quest for all of ten minutes when the Kindly Ones attacked our bus…did I forget to mention that Alecto really hates me too? Anyway, we escaped before someone blew up the bus with lightning."
"Then we nearly got petrified by Medusa, but Percy chopped her head off," Annabeth started.
"With your help."
"He then shipped the head to the Olympians because he was having some issues with them," Annabeth continued. Percy frowned at her. "Next, we met a pink poodle named Gladiola who let us turn him in to his owner so we could use the reward money to take a train to Denver. It's worth mentioning that during all of this, Percy had become a national fugitive because he had supposedly killed or kidnapped his mother and blown up a bus. But so we had a layover in St. Lewis, and I dragged Percy and Grover to the top of the Gateway Arch. Then Grover and I had to get onto the elevator down without Percy, and he got attacked by Echidna and the Chimera, blowing a hole in the side of the building and falling into the river below. We then managed to get back on the train and head for Denver, despite Percy now being blamed for blowing up the Arch as well."
"When we got to Denver, we met Ares, who asked us to do him a favor and retrieve his shield from a water park where he'd left it meeting his girlfriend. This got us on a crazy tunnel of love ride booby-trapped by Hephaestus where I learned that Annabeth hates spiders. Oh, and this experience also was broadcast live to Olympus. But we got the stupid shield, and Ares gave us transportation in a van with a zebra and a lion, who we freed in Las Vegas before getting stuck in the Lotus Casino for a while, then we got to L.A, Annabeth and Grover nearly got killed by Procrustes, but we managed to make it to the underworld without getting killed, where we met Charon who really doesn't like to be called Chiron, and Cerberus, who likes red balls and Annabeth. On our way to find Hades, Grover's magic shoes suddenly activated and nearly drug him into a creepy cavern thing. Then we met Hades, who really doesn't like me, and he accuses me of stealing both the Master bolt and his helm of darkness, and it turns out that I actually did have the master bolt in the back pack Ares gave me. So we escaped the underworld, triggering an earthquake, and met up with Ares again, who turned out to be the jerk who'd set the whole thing up."
"So Percy does the logical thing and challenges Ares to single combat," Annabeth grumbled.
"I won, didn't I?" Percy countered. "So Ares pretty much hates me too."
"Which god's like you?" Bobby asked, regarding Percy skeptically.
"A few," he offered. "Anyway, when I won, Ares was going to kill me, but instead something stopped him and he disappeared. Then we gave Hades back his helm, were cleared as fugitives, flew back to New York…that's when I flew because we had hours until the solstice… gave Zeus his bolt, he decided not to kill me, I got my mom back, my mom used Medusa's head to petrify my evil step dad and things seemed to be going well. But then, my friend Luke tried to kill me with a pit scorpion, revealing that he was the one who stole the bolt and the helm because he was working for Kronos, who had also convinced Ares to help. That's why he'd given me the shoes, he wanted them to drag me into Tartarus." Percy suddenly wrapped his arm around Annabeth, pulling her into his chest. I'd been too busy processing what Percy was saying to notice Annabeth looked upset.
"Luke's betrayal really affected me," Annabeth started, her voice less steady than usual. "When I was seven, I ran away from home. I was living in the streets, running from monsters when I met Luke and Thalia. They looked after me, and we were a family for a little while, just like Luke promised. But then Grover tried to get us to Camp, and the monsters got Thalia…"
"WHAT?" I yelped, looking between Percy and Annabeth in alarm. I'd seen Thalia just a few weeks ago. What monsters had gotten her?
"We weren't going to make it," Annabeth explained. "Thalia made her last stand on Half-blood hill, but Zeus turned her into a pine tree as she died." I blinked. Thalia was NOT dead. But there was a pine tree on the hill… "Well, from then on, it was me and Luke. I actually…I actually had a crush on him for a while." I blinked. It was pretty hard to picture Annabeth with anyone but Percy at this point, especially after seeing her missing him for three months. From the surprised faces in the rest of our group, I assumed I wasn't the only one having this difficulty.
"Anyway, Percy and I both went home for the school year, until monsters attacked and I ran away again," Annabeth forged on, her voice becoming stronger. I suspected it had something to do with Percy wrapping her firmly in his arms from behind her and whispering something in her ear. "I met up with Percy on his last day of school when he nearly got killed by Lastragonian giants. Then the two of us plus his little brother, Tyson the Cyclops, went back to camp in the Grey Sister's Taxi…"
"Aren't the grey sisters the ones who told Jason where the Golden Fleece was?" Piper asked.
"Yes. And they actually told me where to find it too, but I didn't realize that yet," Percy replied. I blinked. Yes, I had noticed the Golden Fleece on the tree but… REALLY?
"Anyway, we got back to camp and learned that Luke had… Luke had poisoned Thalia's tree," Annabeth explained.
"HE WHAT?" I yelled. Piper put a hand on my shoulder.
"Thalia's fine Jason, remember?" I nodded, reluctantly calming down. As of now, I really hated this Luke guy.
"Chiron was fired for not being able to cure it (and suspicions of him infecting it, but that was just ridiculous), and we got a new camp director, Tantalus, who assigned Clarisse the quest to go find the Golden Fleece to heal the pine, even though Percy and I had figured out what Grover was talking about in Percy's dreams and wanted to go save Grover…"
"Why does Tantalus sound familiar?" Bobby asked.
"Guy who feed his kids to the gods and consequently is punished for all eternity," Annabeth offered. "Not very nice, or reasonable."
"And why are you dreaming about Grover?" Leo asked Percy. "Not that I'm judging or anything but…"
"Grover was kidnapped by Polyphemus because Polyphemus thought he was a lady Cyclops and wanted to marry him," Percy explained. "To call for help, he made an empathy link between us."
"Please tell me this isn't the Polyphemus who Ulysses tricked," I asked, daring to believe it wasn't.
"Unfortunately, it is," Percy offered. "Anyway, we weren't going to lie down and let Grover get eaten… or married for that matter, so with a little help from Hermes, Annabeth, Tyson and I snuck onto Luke's monster infested cruise ship to hitch a ride to the Sea of Monsters."
"Sea of Monsters?" Leo asked. The enthusiasm was gone from his voice, I think we were all just accepting that there was more stuff here than was processable.
"The sea where heroes sail through in their quests," Percy explained. "Odysseus in particular was stuck there for a while. Like Olympus, it moves around. Currently, it's known as the Bermuda Triangle."
"He only knows all this because I explained it while we were going there," Annabeth cut in. Percy frowned at her, but since he still had his arms wrapped tightly around her waist I assumed he wasn't actually mad. "So the stowing away on Luke's monster infested ship thing didn't work so well, then we got attacked by a hydra somewhere in Virginia, were saved by Clarisse who we caught a ride with until her old Confederate Battleship blew up trying to get past Scylla and Charibdis, that's when Percy and I wound up at Circe's island and met Blackbeard, then stole his ship to keep sailing, where we got into some trouble with the Sirens, but eventually reached Polyphemus' island. There we found Clarisse, who Polyphemus decided to marry instead of Grover when he found out Grover was not female. I distracted Polyphemus with my invisibility cap pretending to be Nobody while Percy rescued Grover from being eaten and Clarisse from being married." Percy's grip on Annabeth seemed to tighten, which told me something bad was coming.
"Polyphemus caught Annabeth," he explained. "But then Tyson showed up, and he got the Fleece from the man eating sheep, and we managed to use the Fleece to heal her as we escaped on hipocampi after Polyphemus sank our boat. We arrived in Miami, Clarisse took the Fleece and flew to camp, then Luke caught us and I dueled him after proving Chiron's innocence to Dionysus, which did not turn out so well for me because Luke was an amazing swordsman."
"But we were saved by Chiron and the Party Ponies, who are a very… strange group of centaurs," Annabeth spoke again. "And we got Blackjack."
"Who still calls me boss because of it," Percy grumbled.
"But we got back and healed Thalia's tree, and things looked like they were going back to normal until Thalia reappeared because the Fleece healed the tree so completely that it brought her back to life." What's sad is that I almost wasn't surprised. It was starting to seem like if Percy and Annabeth were involved, anything could happen.
"The next winter, Thalia, Annabeth and I went to a military academy dance to help extract two half-bloods, the di Angelos, who Grover had found, but I screwed up, and a manticore nearly killed us all until the Hunters showed up, then Annabeth saved us by tackling the manticore and they fell off a cliff…" Percy trailed off looking highly distressed. Annabeth looped her arms over his around her waist as though reminding him she was there.
"I really freaked out. I didn't pay much attention to meeting Artemis, or the Hunters, despite their leader, Zoe, really not liking me. I managed to pull myself out of it when Bianca, the older di Angelo, decided to join the Hunters, causing her brother to sort of latch onto me. We also met Apollo, who let Thalia drive the sun, which was a bad idea regardless of how close to sixteen she was, because Thalia and heights do NOT get along. Anyway, we were at camp for a little while when Zoe realized Artemis was missing, so they were assigned a quest to go find her. I was convinced this was the answer to finding Annabeth, and wanted to go too, but the hunters were very against having a boy come, and the five were already filled with Zoe, Bianca, Grover, Thalia and another hunter. But the other hunter got pranked by the Stolls and couldn't come, so I snuck after them. They let me join the quest after I helped get rid of the Nemian Lion with freeze dried food at the Air and Space Museum in DC. Unfortunately, in preventing Atlas and Luke from setting creepy dinosaur-teeth skeletal warriors after the Hunters, I got them coming after me instead."
"You killed the Nemian Lion," Reyna confirmed, her voice more exasperated than disbelieving.
"No, Zoe shot it, I just forced it to open up its mouth with freeze dried food so she could," Percy dismissed it. "Though she insisted that my food had killed it, so she let me have the pelt…" I rolled my eyes. Of course, the Nemian Lion's pelt, why not?
"Okay, but ATLAS?" Leo interjected. "Isn't he supposed to be holding up the world?"
"No, that's what I was doing," Annabeth spoke quietly. Six pairs of eyes settled onto her. "The Titans used me as bait for Artemis. They made me hold up the sky so Artemis would take it in my place, trapping her." She pulled a lock of hair from her head, and I realized with a start that it was grey. Percy put one hand over Annabeth's, looking as though this was all his fault.
"Souvenir." The word sounded so strange when referring to something so dark.
"Anyway, we traveled for a while, received the Erymanthian Boar as a present from Pan which…"
"Oh sure, why not?" I heard Reyna remark, rolling her eyes in a "how on earth did all this happen to one person?" way.
"…we used as transportation to the junk yard of the gods, where I met Aphrodite, who does not hate me, and her boyfriend Ares, who still really hates me, but won't kill me for her sake. Bianca tried to take a statuette of Hades from the junkyard for Nico…"
"The creepy kid?" Bobby asked.
"Her little brother," Percy agreed. "Anyway, Bianca awakened the prototype of Talos, which she destroyed, but only by sacrificing herself." Percy paused for a minute, appearing to mutter something to himself. Annabeth responded with "it's not your fault." "Well, we got to the Hover Dam, which is where I met Rachel by nearly chopping her in half, at which point she saved my life from killer skeletons. Oh, and I met Athena in an elevator. We got to San Francisco via flying statues, and after I wrestled Nereus, he told me this seacow that'd been following me around (I'd named it Bessie) was the Ophiotaurus which we had been supposed to find the whole time. Then Luke showed up and tried to convince Thalia to kill the Ophiotaurus and destroy Olympus because she was going to be the child of the prophecy. However, Thalia didn't, we send Bessie and Grover to Olympus using the Nemian Lion's pelt, then Thalia, Zoe and I borrowed Annabeth's parent's car to go up to Mount Orpheus…"
"Annabeth's parents?" Piper cut in.
"They live in San Francisco," Annabeth explained. "My Dad remarried and I have two brothers." We nodded, and allowed the story to continue.
"So we got to the Garden of the Hesperides, who were Zoe's sisters until she betrayed them to help Hercules who dumped her right afterwards," Percy continued. I wasn't sure whether to be more surprised about the contempt in his voice when he said Hercules, who had always struck me as one of the better heroes, or the fact that Zoe was a Hesperide and knew him. "Getting through there, Ladon the dragon bit Zoe. She seemed okay, but in the battle with Luke and Atlas, Atlas, who is her father, killed her before Artemis forced him back under the sky."
"How'd Artemis get out from under the sky?" Reyna asked, looking at them skeptically. Percy reached up and pulled a grey lock identical to Annabeth's from his own head.
"I held the sky while she fought him."
"Thalia knocked Luke off a cliff, but he survived for reasons that will be explained later," Annabeth offered. "Then we all went back to Olympus where it was decided that both the Ophiotaurus and Percy could live, since Thalia became the Lieutenant of Artemis so she would never turn sixteen and have to bear the prophecy."
"You guys are insane," Leo announced. Percy and Annabeth looked slightly affronted.
"I think its romantic," Piper snapped. "Percy going all that way to get Annabeth." She was grinning in a way I don't think I'd seen her grin before, but I sort of liked it. Suddenly her face contorted. "Gods, what am I saying?" I smiled: I liked this Piper better.
"That's probably your mother talking," Percy said sympathetically. "She told me a very similar thing when I met her during that quest."
"How many more quests have you guys been on?" Bobby asked, sounding a little exasperated.
"One, plus the Battle of Olympus," Annabeth replied.
"What can there possibly be that you hadn't already done?" I asked.
"Annabeth led a quest through Dedaulus's Labyrinth the following summer," Percy replied simply.
"Isn't that in Greece?" I had to agree with Reyna. Plus, why would anyone want to go through the Labyrinth?
"No, it grows and develops by itself. It's..it used to be under the entire country," the way she said "used to" sort of scared me. After what I'd heard so far, something ominous sounding could end really badly.
"You see, we learned that spring that Kronos' forces where scouting into the labyrinth," Annabeth forged on. "It seemed like a weird thing to do, until Percy and I accidentally fell into the labyrinth during a game that our new sword master, Quintus, had arranged.
"So we knew that Kronos' forces were trying to find a way through the Labyrinth into Camp. But they needed Ariadne's string to do it, so we had to go get it first…"
"Please tell me you didn't go meet Ariadne," Leo requested, looking as though much more weird stuff just might make his head fall off.
"No, we were looking for Deadalous," Percy cut in. Leo shrugged, muttering something that sounded suspiciously like "oh, why not?" "Now let Annabeth narrate." Annabeth smiled back at Percy.
"I was selected to lead the quest. I brought Percy, Grover and Tyson with me," she explained. "Though, the Labyrinth is hard to navigate, and we wound up at Alcatraz, where we rescued Briares the Hekatonkheires from Kampe, which made Tyson happy because he was his idol.
"Then we ran into Janus who was trying to make things difficult…"
"Janus god of doors?"
"That's the one," Annabeth replied, a hint of annoyance in her voice. "We also met Hera, then wound up on Geryon's farm and finding Nico, who at that point blamed Percy for Bianca's death. Oh, and he was under the influence of an evil ghost. Anyway, Percy cleaned out the stables of the man eating horses so Geryon wouldn't kill us, then he tried to anyway but Percy killed him first. Nico was successfully convinced that he shouldn't kill Percy, and we continued on to find Hephaestus. On the way, Grover and Tyson split off to find Pan. Hephaestus then sent us to find out what was going on at Mt. St. Helens before he'd help us, where we found a bunch of telekhines trying to reforge Kronos's scythe. They found us, and Percy had me run away while he stayed to fight…"
"That didn't go well, and I made the volcano erupt by accident," Percy summarized quickly. "Then I wound up on Calypso's island for a week until Hermes and Hephaestus got me out of there. Then Annabeth nearly killed me…"
"I thought you were dead! For a week," Annabeth countered. "Anyway, Percy had also figured out how to get through the Labyrinth, we needed a clear sighted mortal. This is when we went and found Rachel again, which may not have gone so well for a while. Then we ran into Luke, Percy fought a giant son of Poseidon and Gaea, we managed once again not to get killed, oh, and met Ethan."
"Who's Ethan?" I cut in, partly to stop the rapid inflow of information so I could process it, and partly because I didn't think I'd heard the name before.
"Son of Nemesis. He'll also become important later," Percy explained.
"We managed to find Deadalus's lab, and found out that he actually was our sword teacher Quintus, Quintus of course meaning five in honor of this being Deadalus's fifth body. Kronos' forces barged in then, along with Nico whose ghost friend, Minos, which ended in the whole workshop being set on fire while Percy, Rachel, Nico and I escaped. Unfortunately, Kronos' forces also found out that Nico was a son of Hades, making him a possibility for the child of the prophecy if Percy had died. We started on our way back to camp, but met Kronos first (he'd risen in Luke's body), then ran into Grover and Tyson then watched Pan die. By the time we got back to Camp, the battle had nearly started. The battle wasn't pleasant, but it got better as Daedalus, his pet Mrs. O'Leary, and Briares showed up to help.
"The situation was ultimately resolved when Grover caused a Panic and scared Kronos' forces away. So, we recovered and began preparing for the full out war which was coming," Annabeth finished. We all froze. There was only one thing that could still be coming: The Battle of Olympus. I still had bad memories of the Battle of Mt. Orpheus, and I assumed the Battle for Olympus was worse.
"Early that next summer, we were running almost non-stop combat missions," Percy picked up the narration, his face probably as serious as I'd ever seen it. "But things really went crazy with Beckendorf."
"The head Hephaestus councilor?" Leo asked, his voice way more perky than anyone's had been for the last while. I figured he assumed that learning about Beckendorf would help him live up to his reputation. Percy and Annabeth nodded.
"We were trying to blow up the Princes Andromeda, Luke's monster infested cruise ship, so it couldn't be used to invade Olympus," Percy continued. "But the mission went bad and… Beckendorf blew the ship while he was still on board." He paused, and I know I was feeling as though I'd just lost a friend. Maybe Percy just had some strange ability to make other's understand exactly what he was feeling.
"Anyway, I wound up at my dad's Palace, where he was fighting his own battle against the Titan Oceanus. This served to further depress me, then I headed back to camp." I wondered why this was important, but I just stored it with Ethan and the fact that Luke had known Annabeth. "Camp wasn't doing so well. Silena broke down as soon as I told her, and Clarisse and the Ares cabin had declared that they weren't fighting because they were disrespected by the Apollo cabin… it wasn't good. Then I heard the Great Prophecy for the first time. A half-blood of the eldest gods, will reach sixteen against all odds. And see the world in endless sleep, the hero's soul, cursed blade shall reap…"
"WHAT?" I was surprised by the four other voices backing me up.
"A single choice shall end his days, Olympus to preserve or raze."
"Raise is good, right?" Bobby asked, his voice amazingly timid considering Percy obviously wasn't dead. Annabeth snorted, accompanied by a chuckle by Percy.
"R-A-Z-E, it means to destroy," Annabeth offered. "Though Connor said the same thing."
"But for obvious reasons, that didn't exactly make me feel better," Percy observed dryly. "Not to mention, Kronos had told me we had a spy at camp and Typhon had awoken and was heading towards Olympus to destroy it. I ran into Nico the next day, and decided to take him up on the plan he'd suggested on my 15th birthday. So I shadow traveled on Mrs. O'Leary to meet Luke's mom."
"How'd you get Mrs. O'Leary?" Leo interjected.
"Oh, he inherited her since Deadalus died in the battle of the Labyrinth," Annabeth replied immediately. "Did I forget to mention that?" We all nodded. "Sorry."
"So we met Luke's mom, who had tried to become the Oracle without knowing that Hades had cursed the last Oracle since her Great Prophecy had resulted in Zeus killing Maria, Nico and Bianca's mom. She wound up half crazy, which is what drove Luke to running away in the first place, as well as made him hate his dad Hermes. We also learned he'd come by and asked her for permission to visit a river. So Nico and I went and visited my mom, so I could ask for permission to go to the Styx, though we met Hestia first. Next, we found Grover who had been put to sleep by Morpheus for the last three months, and he opened up the door of Orpheus so we could go into the underworld. Then it turned out Hades wanted to capture me because he was of the opinion that by locking me in his dungeon, he could hold out by himself until Nico turned sixteen, became the half-blood of the prophecy, and defeated Kronos so Hades would rule the gods. Fortunately, Nico rescued me (though I nearly strangled him), and I made it to the Styx, which was probably the most painful experience of my life. Nico stayed behind to try to talk Hades into helping.
"Meanwhile, I called up camp half-blood so we could hold Olympus and keep Kronos' invasion out. Morpheus had put all the mortals to sleep, and the invasion force was coming. With the help of the Hunters, we split up and covered all the tunnels and bridges. Annabeth activated the statues which were actually automatons (curtsy of Deadalus) to help. I had a… interesting talk with the spirits of the Hudson and East Rivers, and bribed them to not let any monsters across. Then Annabeth and I tried to help the Apollo cabin hold the Williamsburg Bridge, and I fought the Minotaur again (I mentioned he doesn't like me?). However, Kronos showed up, Annabeth nearly was killed by Ethan Nakamura (remember him?), Michael Yew was killed, and I destroyed the bridge. Fortunately, the monsters retreated, enabling us to regroup at the Plaza Hotel. Prometheus showed up and told us we were fighting the Trojan War over again, and we were Troy, which wouldn't turn out well for us. He also gave me Pandora's Box, or pithos more accurately, and told me that when I was ready to give up, I just had to release hope and Kronos wouldn't kill us all, just destroy Olympus.
"Now, we learned Hyperion was leading an army into Manhattan, which the Athena cabin, Nature spirits, Hunters and I had to hold off in Central Park. This led to me fighting Hyperion, which is when I learned I could do that whole "storm" thing, total accident, and Grover and his nature spirits managed to turn Hyperion into "a very nice maple tree." Then the Cla…"
"Clazmonian Sow," Annabeth interjected.
"Yeah, that showed up, and I went flying through most of Manhattan attached to a pig flying at a hundred miles per hour before Blackjack intervened and the pig got killed by a statue of Hermes and the marble lions from the main public library."
"Meanwhile, we weren't doing so well," Annabeth narrated. "Prometheus had been right about one thing, we were insanely outnumbered. By the time Percy got back, we'd retreated to 33rd and the Park Avenue Tunnel. Eventually, we were only holding a block radius from the Empire State Building. I'd just convinced Percy to fall back to the doors when the Party Ponies showed up."
"The weird centaurs?" Bobby confirmed. Percy nodded.
"They are pretty much insane, but by a combination of shock and numbers, they managed to drive the enemy away. I should probably mention they were only attacking at night because they're stronger then," Annabeth realized. "We started to recover and solidify our lines at a two block perimeter."
"Then I found myself in a bar in the middle of nowhere because Mr. D had decided to talk to me with part of his spirit while he recovered after being blasted out of the battle with Typhon. He decided then would be a good time to tell me that the gods needed heroes, and we needed to save Olympus for them. Oh, and Kronos was preparing to ascend to his true form, which would make him... well, a bigger problem than he was at the time and that's pretty hard to imagine. Then we found my parents unconscious in a car, Pandora's pithos tried to tempt me into opening it (it sort of followed me around), and Rachel showed up in a helicopter, but her pilot passed out and Annabeth saved her."
"Apparently Rachel was already having visions and had come because she felt she needed to tell Percy something important," Annabeth explained. "Not that I was exactly listening to any of that at the time…"
"Don't worry about it," Percy told her. "Either way, Rachel's message was 'Perseus, you are not the hero' which just helped my sense of dread astoundingly. Of course, what helped more was that Kronos sent a Lydian drakon after us, one destined to be killed by a child of Ares. As you may remember, Clarisse was being stubborn, and the Ares cabin wasn't with us. However, Silena, who I'd sent back to try to convince Clarisse to come, stole Clarisse's armor and lead the Ares kids both to Manhattan and in a charge against the drakon. Unfortunately, Silena was hit in the face with poison, but Clarisse showed up with Chris, and Clarisse got very angry and killed the drakon." Percy paused, as though unsure of how to go on. Annabeth seemed to set herself, then she continued.
"Silena revealed that she was the spy as she died. Luke had tricked her into it." I was now certain of one thing: this Luke guy was a jerk.
"Then we had a little down time while Clarisse went all "Blessing of Ares" and drove a chariot with the drakon carcass behind it back and forth around 5th Avenue. Anyway, I talked to Rachel, who had pretty much figured out she was going to be the next Oracle at this point, and I finally got rid of Pandora's pithos by giving it as an offering to Hestia."
"Why?" I couldn't help the question. It just seemed like an out of the blue decision.
"Hope survives better at the hearth," he replied with a shrug. "Anyway, then I sat on my dad's throne, nearly prompting him to kill me, but managed to convince him that if Olympus fell, his palace wouldn't matter before spontaneous combustion occurred. Then Thalia charged in and told us that Kronos was leading a charge of the enemy. When we got down to the street, the only thing left between Kronos and Olympus was Chiron."
"Kronos batted Chiron aside, but not before we discovered that Luke was fighting from inside Kronos. Then I… well, I attacked him," Annabeth explained. "And severely messed up my arm."
"Then Nico arrived," Percy explained, a small smile on his face for probably the first time in the last hour, "With Hades, Persephone, Demeter and an army of the undead in tow. Kronos collapsed the magical barriers around Manhattan, sealing only Annabeth, Thalia, Grover, Ethan, two Hyperboreans, me and himself in with the Empire State building, letting all the mortals wake up, including my parents…"
"Who promptly picked up a shotgun and a sword and joined in the fighting," Annabeth interjected, a small grin on her face too. "Anyway, Thalia and Percy took out the two Hyperboreans, which Kronos had left to deal with us while he went to smash Olympus. On our way to the throne room though, a statue of Hera nearly squished us, because Hera hates me, and landed on Thalia's legs. We had to keep going though."
"Then we fought Kronos," Percy said.
"You fought Kronos," Annabeth corrected. "Grover used nature magic to bother him and I got injured again because I was trying to reason with him."
"Before I let Annabeth completely understate her part," Percy cut over her. "I should explain about Ethan. He knew how to kill me, and Kronos told him to, but he lunged out at Kronos instead, because he realized that the minor gods not being acknowledged wasn't fair, but ending everything wasn't right either. Kronos killed him, but he made a difference." I wasn't sure how that figured, but I guess not killing Percy helped. "Anyway, Kronos then showed us Typhon approaching, in an attempt at one of those 'look, I've won, and you should give up' type things, but instead we watched as Poseidon and the Cyclopes, led by Tyson, took them down. Anyway, Kronos attacked again, Grover got knocked aside, I was disarmed, and Annabeth began reasoning with Luke again. Kronos knocked her down, but that snapped Luke back in control long enough for me to give Luke Annabeth's knife and for him to stab himself in his Achilles spot."
"That's why it was important that I knew Luke," Annabeth explained. "The knife was cursed because he broke his promise that we'd be like a family." I blinked. I did not see that coming.
"And the yarn that I saw the fates cut was Luke's too," Percy continued. "They were showing me what had to be done to put things right. Then the gods got back and awarded us with fabulous prizes…" Annabeth wacked his arm lightly. "Like Annabeth became the official architect of Olympus."
"Woah!" Leo exclaimed. "Think of all the things to build!"
"That is really cool," Reyna agreed. Annabeth was grinning.
"Not to mention Grover being the Lord of the Wild, and Tyson being general of the armies of Olympus." Reyna and I exchanged a look. Our reward for toppling the Titan's base was a triumph, a week off, and less chores.
"That's really cool," Bobby offered.
"And Annabeth's designed a few buildings already, right?" Annabeth grinned.
"Yes. I started with a…" she trailed off, then pulled her way out of Percy's arms, shooting him a dark look. "Perseus Jackson, you tried to distract me with architecture!" She wacked his arm.
"Ow!" Percy protested (I'd figured out it was more of a protest than actual pain at this point if he could do all that stuff). "Come on, I was going to mention it…"
"Oh, sure," Annabeth retorted before turning to face all of us again. "Seaweed Brain here is trying to leave out that the gods offered him immortality." I just gaped, and when I looked at everyone else, they were doing pretty much the same thing. "And he turned them down."
"You what?" Bobby asked after a few seconds to digest what had just been said.
"The Styx gives you a good sense of what keeps you mortal," Percy offered with a shrug. I assumed this "keeps you mortal" thing had a lot to do with Annabeth by the grin on her face and the way he was looking at her as he said it. "And there were other problems that needed fixing. Ethan was right, it wasn't fair for the minor gods to be ignored and demigods to go their whole lives wondering who their parent was. So I convinced the gods to claim all their children by the time they're 13, acknowledge the minor gods, and free minor titans imprisoned for no reason."
"Convinced?" Annabeth parroted innocently.
"Okay, I made them swear on the Styx, but… can you stop looking at me like that?" I, for one, shook my head. I don't think I could turn down immortality because there were "other problems". Percy was clearly one of a kind. "The best part is the mortals dismissed it as…"
"Wait, I saw something on the news last year," Piper suddenly jumped in. "That freak solar flare in New York? All that damage? That was you guys?"
"I think we can credit the Titan's with at least half of it," Percy replied. Annabeth laughed, and I rolled my eyes. Newfound respect for him or no, he was clearly still very… Percy.
NON SUMMARY (Sorry that was really, really long). And now, I'm doing something crazier than bringing Blackbeard back…
Clarisse's POV
I stood outside the sword arena. I knew what I had to do, but I didn't have to like it. I'd made this mistake once, and I was not about to let it happen again. I had stood by at camp doing nothing while my friends (yeah, friends, got a problem with it?) fought for Olympus. Silena had died trying to counter my stupid stubbornness. So this time, I was taking action. Whether or not Prissy and his group realized it, they were going to need help taking down Gaea, and I was going to provide it, because the gods might help with the Giants, but someone needed to be there to row down monsters.
Which brought me back to the sword arena. I walked in, and sure enough, there Dom was, chopping up practice dummies with his weird sword. I scoffed under my breath. Romans.
"Hey!" I yelled, succeeding in getting his attention. He sheathed his sword, glaring at me.
"What do you want La Rue? Trying to distract me from training so I can't take over your stupid cabin?" I glared, but counted silently in my head until I remembered why I didn't want to beat him to a pulp right now.
"What, a conversation beyond your comprehension?" I retorted. He raised an eyebrow, which I took to be a sign to continue. "We've got a war meeting going on. You planning on attending?"
"What war?" he retorted. "Last I checked, we sent the chosen seven off already."
"You stupid enough to think they won't need backup?"
"They needed back up they'd ask for it."
"Unless they're… oh, on the other side of the world before they know they need help," I retorted. "You just don't make sense, do you Peters?"
"I obey orders," Dom retorted. "But I know that's something you Greeks can't understand."
"Oh, I understand perfectly," I replied, smiling slightly. I got him. "You're just too chicken to get in on the action. No Ares kid would wimp out like that, but I guess you Mars kids…"
"Shut it La Rue," Dom snarled. "When's this meeting?"
"Half an hour, cabin one," I replied. "Make sure the rest of your legion comes." He nodded and walked off.
"He go for it?" I turned to meet Chris with a smile on my face.
"Too easy."
"I'm still impressed you're doing this," he informed me, lacing his fingers through mine as we headed toward cabin one.
"I'm not sitting out another fight," I replied. Chris chuckled.
"And you like Percy and Annabeth."
"I owe Jackson, I don't…" Chris rolled his eyes.
"You need to let more people in," he commented.
"I let people in!" I protested.
"Other than me." I shot him a glare, but he didn't seem affected. I suspect it's because I was still holding his hand. It occurred to me that I should remind him of exactly what I could do, but another part of me (probably the one Silena had carefully constructed over a year or so) knew that I wasn't going to regain my ability to scare Chris. I just wish it would stop affecting everyone else. Can't I have a boyfriend and still beat the crap out of you for looking at me wrong? Sheesh!
"So we've collected everyone now?" Chris confirmed. He always knew better than to expect me to admit it. It's why I love him so much. (Yeah, love, got a problem with that too?).
"Got them all," I agreed. "Just gotta convince them to come."
"I don't think that'll be a problem," he commented dryly.
"What's that supposed to mean, Rodriguez?" I demanded. He chuckled.
"You're very persuasive," he replied. "Especially when defending your friends." I decided not to bother arguing the point. I'd concede Chase, she was alright. And…as much as I hate to admit it, I no longer hate Jackson. I do not like him, I just didn't enjoy camp so much when he was missing. Only because everyone was all depressed though. I did not like the guy. I just tolerated him, and was used to him being around.
Chris and I arrived at cabin one and knocked on the door. Almost immediately, Thalia Grace opened it, wearing her usual silvery hunter garb and circlet. Her hair was still spiky though, which I'll admit I always liked. The girl's got spunk.
"You got that idiot?" she confirmed. I nodded. She quirked an eyebrow, and for her sake I assumed she was impressed. She moved aside, letting us into the cabin. Inside were a dozen or so people, the leaders of the cabins (The ones with battle experience. I wasn't going to bring that princess, Drew, or snooze-a lot on a combat mission.)
"The first legion's in," I announced to everyone. "What're the travel plans?"
"Shadow travel is fastest," di Angelo announced from the corner. "Between Mrs. O'Leary and myself, I can get us over in a day."
"Gee, that's really fast," I commented. He glared.
"I'd like to see you shadow travel," he snapped.
"Shadow travel it is," Katie Gardener of the Demeter cabin stepped in.
"That's also the best way for us all to get out of here without Chiron noticing and trying to stop us," Malcolm threw in.
"Then we'll get going as soon as we work out the details with the Romans," I announced.