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I'm so sorry i haven't wrote or updated in a while, the holidays have been apon us. Happy new year! Merry christmas, happy hanukkah, or whatever holiday you celebrate. Well a few more chapters then it's all over! My editor had time to edit, so thanks to lovegreeneyes001! Should have better grammer this chapter. It's also the longest one yet, enjoy!
Disclaimer- I own nothing.
Percy's POV
Soon Annabeth just went back to what Annabeth does best: research. Research, battle plans, sparring, kissing, she's good at a lot of things. She pulled out her laptop and immediately started typing away, while I sat watching her. A few blond curls fell into her focused stormy eyes and she hadn't even noticed. I reached a scarred hand out to brush them away, and she hastily smacked my finger away from her face. Annabeth never lost focus, well very rarely, and now wasn't an exception.
I raised an eyebrow and slowly inched closer to her. She probably wouldn't have paid me any mind unless I decided to go streaking through the train. So I decided to suggest just that.
"Hey Annabeth, I'm thinking about streaking all the way down the dining car, would you mind?"
She grunted and waved her hand at me, with an air of indifference.
I suppose that I was wrong, she didn't pay me any attention even if I did. I sighed and put my arms behind my head.
Soon I heard hard footsteps and Nico slid the compartment door open with an air of importance. He inched closer to Annabeth who continued typing, and then put her hands on her cheeks, obviously reading.
"Research?" He asked knowingly.
"Yeah, didn't even care when I suggested streaking to get some food." Percy said, shaking his head sadly.
Nico suddenly slammed the laptop closed, finally capturing Annabeth's attention.
"What do you think you're—" Annabeth started to rant angrily, before Nico cut her off.
"I was thinking we should discuss battle strategy, considering Thalia is sleeping. It's good to have a plan; I've learned that after charging into fights blindly." Nico said, acting oddly serious.
"Well I don't think it's a good idea to be doing this while Thalia is asleep. Unless you plan on going through the trouble of filling her in afterwards, and having her completely change the strategy." Annabeth said, still irritated at Nico.
"There is no way she is strong enough to face Nike, end of story." Nico said, rigidly.
Annabeth let out a cruel high-pitched cackle, "You think she's going to lie down and let us go off to fight without her? Well you're in for a rude awakening. Do you not know her well enough to understand that?"
I held up a hand confused, trying to follow the rapid words spitting out of the two stubborn demigods mouths, "Wait, tomorrow is the opening ceremony, correct?"
Nico rolled his eyes, "Yes, tomorrow is the opening ceremony. We've been over this already."
"It probably isn't starting till at least sunset, because of the fireworks and all. We can't get her strong enough by then? It is, after all, only late afternoon." I said, trying to give Nico an out here.
If he honestly thought that Thalia wouldn't fight, and would forgive us for preventing her too, he was seriously off his rocker. I mean, I wish we could put a stop to her from attacking Nike the first chance she gets, but we can't. I understood where Nico was coming from, he had good intentions, but they weren't going to stand with her.
"That's only a little more than twenty four hours! She can barely stand up without help, and she looks terrible! I mean, she's completely beautiful, but there's no life in her. It'll take a while for that to replenish." Nico said, the volume and intensity of his voice dwindling as he spoke.
I sighed running a calloused palm down my face; I was starting to see why Thalia swore off men for a while. I am a male, but sometimes we could be a little, overbearing and protective. I never saw that in myself when I was the culprit, but I saw it in others. She's as independent as they come, and she doesn't welcome that in most cases.
"You have to ultimately leave that up to Thalia! She can choose herself, which will save us a lot of unneeded storms over the Utah area." Annabeth said, muttering the last part softly.
"We all know she'll go charging into battle, thinking she's strong enough, and will get herself killed! We can't deal with that, hell I can't deal with that. We don't know what were up against." Nico said, trying to get the power couple to see his point of view.
"The best we can do is to attempt to make it as safe as possible for her, give her a lesser role. If we tie her up or something, she'll find a way out of it, and go charging in even more oblivious." Annabeth said, her Athena heritage coming through.
Nico sighed, his posture slumping looking defeated, "I suppose that's the best we can do."
Annabeth nodded, proud at being correct again, "Now if you would excuse me, I would like to get back to researching. Percy, you could streak all over Manhattan and I wouldn't give a damn. Now go get everyone some food so we can start planning."
Annabeth often had these outbursts of control where she demanded everyone to do something productive, I wasn't in the mood for arguing anymore, as I had a pounding headache. To keep Nico's mind active, and to prevent him from having another fit of gallantry, I took him with, claiming I only had two arms to carry food with.
The heavy thumping of Nico's combat boots where starkly different from the light treading in my casual trainers, I liked to think that this reflected our fighting styles. I was slightly more swift and calculative than Nico, and more likely to use a blade as my weapon. Nico usually fought on instinct alone, as his powers were his weapons of choice; he tended to not be as tense. We were, by no means, polar opposites in strategy. That would be like Clarisse and Annabeth, swift and cunning, against brute strength.
I found myself distant from reality as I thought about Nico. He seemed to be ever changing, his personality especially. He had recently become more humorous and relaxed, instead of withdrawn from most people. Percy liked to think this was because of Thalia, but a few months before he had even met her, he had started to shift. He always seemed to snap back to his old distant self every once and a while. Percy had decided to drop it when he came to the buffet style packaged meals.
"Get something for Thalia and yourself, nothing too heavy." I instructed picking a turkey sandwich and an orange for Annabeth, while I got myself a ham and cheese sandwich with a pear.
Nico came back with two cookies and two cokes and a huge excited grin on his face, "I haven't had sugar in a while, and I could use some."
I glared at him, "I said light! Thalia will probably upchuck all of this stuff with her weak stomach, and you'll be bouncing off the walls, and will crash later. This has no nutritional value either, and we need to get our strength up."
I felt oddly like his parent when I chided him for grabbing that food. I thought about being in this situation in several years with my own child. I shook my head quickly; I was running from the gods, not sure if I would live into next month. I didn't have the luxury of thinking about several years in front of me.
"Relax, grandma, I grabbed two cookies for all of us to share, and the cokes were just to see your reaction." Nico said smirking and putting the cokes back in the cooler, and grabbing sandwiches and two green apples.
"Go get us four bottles of water; no one really needs pop right now." I said, chuckling lightly.
Nico obliged, and I watched him grab all the waters, putting them on top of the towering tray. I leered slightly, as two girls at one of the miniscule tables in the car giggling and sneaking glances at my shaggy haired friend. I shook my head grinning as Nico looked at me confused.
"Couldn't even turn off that Italian charm for a little while Di Angelo?" I asked him as we set down the two trays that looked like dual Leaning Tower of Pisa.
Nico's eyebrows furrowed as I shook the hair out of my eyes and nodded my head slightly in the giggling girls' direction. He rolled his eyes and shoved me towards the hallway.
"Do you think he's single?" I said giggling and talking in high pitched voice, mocking them.
Nico shoved my shoulder and scoffed, "Girls constantly want a piece of the boy next door charm. Even though you look like the type who would cause a lot of commotion at a mall or skate park. Your sort of half-breed confuses the girls and makes you a challenge."
"Oh no, they like the bad boy, dark and brooding. Constantly mysterious and radiates fear, literally in your case."
He started to laugh hysterically when we heard a distant scream. He quickly became serious, as fire ignited once again behind his pupils.
"That's Thalia." He said sure of himself and speeding up.
"I know, I recognized it," Taking long strides we made it to her compartment quickly.
Nico opened the compartment door quickly and bolted inside, Thalia thrashed and groaned in her sleep clenching the thin sheet draped on top of her. Nico quickly set down the tray on the ground and knelt beside her and started to shake her. This seemed to agitate Thalia more as the thrashing became more erratic.
"Thals, wake up, you're just having a nightmare, please wake up." Nico whispered to her in despair, running his hand across her forehead.
She whimpered and her eyebrows furrowed, and she seemed to calm down a little. I stood shocked by the door, unsure of where my place was in this situation.
Nico whipped towards me, eyes wide and blazing, almost angry looking, "Go get Annabeth! Go!"
I nodded, and put the food down next to the other tray and left quickly, swerving into the next compartment.
I found the blond-haired beauty slumped over her laptop snoring softly; I almost didn't have the heart to wake her up. We had been gone for less than twenty minutes, and she had fallen asleep, she must be tired. I remembered Thalia next door, and shook Annabeth and she jolted awake hitting her head on the bunk above and she groaned.
She gingerly put a hand on her head and glared at me, "What?"
"It's Thalia, she's having a nightmare and she won't wake up." I said, quickly already rushing her out and into the other compartment.
Annabeth gasped as she saw Nico practically screaming at her to wake up.
"Percy hand me the water." Annabeth said, almost impassively.
I handed her one of the bottles, and she opened it hastily and splashed a small amount on Thalia's face. She gasped and opened her eyes, as they darted around the room quickly. Her face tightened as she squeezed her eyes shut. I recognized that look, she was trying to squeeze the tears back in.
Thankfully Nico did too, as one hand grasped hers, and the other ran through her tangled raven hair, "It's fine, let it out."
Thalia shook her head refusing to cry, she opened her eyes, chin trembling, "I don't understand, tell me why?"
Thalia's watery electric blue eyes shifted, meeting all different eye colors and finally settling on the stormy gray pair, "Did you find anything on the pharmacides?"
Annabeth pursed her lips, "Why don't we all sit down and eat, there's a lot we have to talk about."
Thalia steeled herself and used her arms to hoist herself up, she winced and Nico practically lifted her up and onto the hard floor, setting her down gently. We all sat in a circle munching silently on our food. There wasn't much room in the tiny compartment so we had to sit on the threadbare carpeted floor. When Thalia reached for her water I saw the white bandages traveling up her arm and disappearing underneath her sleeve.
I guess she saw my eyes and she snatched her arm back quickly, and stared at me with a look that defiantly said, 'say anything and I'll murder you.' Well at least I know she could still use her glares as a weapon. Annabeth clapped her hands together loudly when everyone was finished, signaling something serious was about to take place.
"Well I've done some research and I'm pretty sure the woman who attacked was a pharmacide of Hera. Since she's a sorceress it explains why she could do that with the blade and barrier, but why would she decide to attack you now? She's an old servant of Hera not Zeus. I understand the grudge; Hera hates children of Zeus, but still." Annabeth said, obviously not enlightened much by the internet.
"Maybe Zeus decided to utilize her strong grudge against children of his, to try and slow us down?" I suggested.
"That women could've killed me she had the chance. So I don't think Zeus sent her, maybe Hera," She paused and took a shaky breath in, Nico took her hand and nodded encouraging her, "took this opportunity, where Zeus wouldn't care about me to get her revenge on one of the children of Zeus."
"That completely makes sense, but could I see your arm Thalia?" Annabeth asked tentatively.
Thalia swallowed and nodded, Nico looked at her and motioned to the bandage, silently asking for permission. She nodded again, and he slowly began to take off the bandage, she hissed slightly as the air hit the aberrations. He removed the bandage all the way up to the shoulder pulling the sleeve as he went.
I clenched my jaw and fist as I saw the vain like raised flesh traveling all the way up her arm to her shoulder. I noticed a small pattern on her shoulder. Confused, I leaned closer to her to get a better look at it. It was so little I was surprised I noticed it. Carved into the angry red skin was the miniscule ancient Greek word, Θάνατος.
Death.
(I was thinking about ending it here, but I decided to give you guys a little more.)
My eyes widened and looked to Nico, he nodded slightly and somberly, indicating he had seen it. I looked to Annabeth she nodded, "I don't think this woman wanted to kill you, she wanted to mark you, to brand you."
"Makes sense, could you bandage me back up?" She asked Nico, he assisted her while Annabeth moved off topic.
"We need a plan to defeat Nike; we can't just go in there blind." Annabeth said, saying what she knew was on all our minds.
"I was thinking about that, when we get to Salt Lake City we should find a hotel, sleep and then we need to look around the arena before the crowd sets in. If we knew our surroundings well it would give us an advantage."I suggested.
Everyone agreed so Nico added, "We need armor, well we don't need it, but we need all the help we can get. If I could get into the underworld my armor is there, and I could grab some extras. I think my father should be able to help us."
"Okay, Nico will go to the underworld grab some armor; I think we should try to find the blue prints. They could help us find a way in." Annabeth said, the gears in her head whirring.
"Of course, you would want the blue prints Annabeth." Thalia said in an attempt to tease her.
Annabeth laughed half-heartedly, "They could really be to our advantage. Where do you think Nike would even be in the stadium? We aren't even sure she'll be here, it's just a tip off of Hades."
I began to notice how ridiculous that sounded. If Nike wasn't there all we'd been working toward would be for nothing.
"Okay then we can meet back at the Hotel and really plan our actions. All though the most carefully laid plans can crash and burn. She has to be there, she's an Olympian and everything lines up. What other 'games' could he even be talking about?" Nico said, bemused.
"Maybe Nike would be in the stands or some V.I.P spot. Maybe even behind the scenes. We won't know for sure until we get there." Thalia said, interjecting slightly into the conversation.
"Okay, we should be near-" Annabeth was cut off by the perky women's voice announcing they would be arriving in thirty minutes time.
"Let's get off this train it's making me nauseous." I said, quickly skipping out and standing in the dim hallway.
If this was going to work we would need an Olympic sized dose of cold, hard, luck.
R&R
Favorite line from this chapter, and what're your opinions on Harry Potter, i finished reading it finally, and i loved it. Took alot of convincing, it was great. I'm thinking about writing a few of thoose fics after i'm done with my other PJO fic.
R&R