Hi there! This chapter is the start of the second book's adventures, still in Ben's POV. This is a story request from sketchywolf, so this is actually their idea. .
Also, I apologize for the VERY off-script-ness of this fanfic.
Mark's POV:
They arrived back during the school week. Annabeth came in first, with a scowl on her face as usual, she'd come back partway through the school year after family troubles and had gone for Percy first thing this morning. Percy looked confused, and everyone in Camp winced and froze as two bronze bulls tore through the barrier. Thalia's tree had been dying for a while now but we still hadn't expected the barrier to go so soon. A Cyclops followed them both, his face in pain as he was unable to get past the barrier, and Percy was set upon by a bull soon after, and Annabeth's face only showed desperation and pain as she watched Percy and the Cyclops, and Clarisse, who had fought the other bull.
"I, Annabeth Chase, give you permission to enter Camp." The Cyclops was inside but started to kill the other bull and help Percy, who looked kind of dazed and horrified as he stared at the one eye in the middle of its forehead. Annabeth didn't look very happy either, but it was what was helping Percy and that was what Annabeth needed to have happen, even though Clarisse, after killing one of the bulls, looked ready to fight some more.
"…Tyson? You're a Cyclops?" I heard Percy's voice faintly, he was bleeding and scratched but it was obvious he was more concerned with the Cyclops he apparently knew. Annabeth crossed her arms but didn't say anything, Cassandra was frozen in shock, staring at something above the Cyclops' head.
A glowing green trident exactly like the one that claimed Percy last year.
After that, there was a lot of movement, as there was now a Cyclops son of Poseidon in Camp that Percy knew but hadn't known and had saved Percy's life, and he now had permission to enter Camp whenever he pleased thanks to Annabeth.
Oh. Maybe I should fill you in on what happened to Cassandra and me over the past year.
We spent some time with our adoptive mother, Amanda Snow, in her new apartment in New York, and Cassandra had gotten less weird, though she and Mom had had several odd talks about some sort of organization or school but Cassandra didn't open up to me. We'd gone on the field trip up to the Spring Solstice where the Olympians weren't having a council but more like some weird sort of party, where Cassandra and I had taken the opportunity to try and get more information out of Artemis, though Cassandra kicked me out halfway through our conversation with our true mother and Artemis didn't tell us anything more than she already had. When Cassandra finished her own private talk with our mother, she looked apprehensive and wouldn't tell me anything…again. I was getting really tired of it.
Grover Underwood, the satyr who had been on our quest, had been missing for a while because he was searching.
For Pan, apparently. And now, Thalia's tree had been poisoned and no one knew what to do, because the pine was dying and nothing had helped, even the nectar Apollo's cabin tried to water it with.
Dinner was subdued, but Mr. D appeared to have other plans. Percy was sullen, most of Camp had teased him about his new Cyclops brother and Tyson was confused, Annabeth seemed kind of angry, and most of the Camp was muttering about the new developments. Cassandra and I were never gossiped about anymore, but the occasional new camper would throw a glance our way.
"Attention!" Mr. D called. Everyone started. He never did anything but make nasty comments or glower at people or call them the wrong names. "Chiron. You are a son of Kronos. I think that means you may have poisoned that girl's tree."
"Thalia's tree!" Annabeth said indignantly. As someone who had been friends with Thalia, she could get very defensive about her old friend.
"Yada yada yada. Chiron, I hereby fire you from your post as Trainer of Heroes, and am hiring Tantalus, straight from the Underworld." I cringed back. The man definitely looked dead. His hair was greasy and stringy, and his long fingers were bony. His smile was definitely, well…malevolent, you could say.
"Demigods!" he raised his arms as if hoping for applause. None was given. "I am Tantalus, your new, uh, leader. As my first act, I am reinstating the Chariot Races!" some applause this time. Clarisse was looking up in approval, as was most of the Ares cabin and a child of Nike in the Hermes cabin. "Each cabin will have two members in their team, and three days to construct their chariot, and in three days we shall have the first race!"
From then on, Camp was a whirlwind of fending off the monsters crossing Thalia's border and also building chariots. Cassandra and I were obviously the ones in our cabin on the team…since we were the only ones in our cabin. Every cabin was tight-lipped about their chariot and what they were doing to it, and since we weren't the Hephaestus cabin, we were basically just trying our best on not getting it to blow up or something.
Our chariot was silver and Cassandra had somehow scrounged up to deer- not any sort of deer, I don't know how many prayers and sacrifices she made to Artemis but these were her sacred animal, golden deer. She was driving them, something I approved as I knew me and I'd mess it up, while I was the fighter who was basically going to keep the other chariots away while making sure our chariot wasn't used for Hermes tricks or something.
On the day of the race, Cassandra was up before me, a regular occurrence, and busy soothing the deer, feeding them some sort of deer food, and the teams racing were apprehensive and on edge.
The Artemis, Hephaestus, Hermes, Apollo, Ares, Athena, and Poseidon cabins were going up today. The Aphrodite cabin hadn't actually made a chariot, and Demeter's cabin was busy growing strawberries. Dionysus's cabin was, well, Dionysus's cabin, and while his two twin sons weren't as bad as the god himself, they weren't racing either. Most of Camp was in the stand about to watch.
The Ares chariot was red like blood, pulled by the skeletons of horses. I noticed Clarisse had a bunch of nasty-looking weapons at her disposal and her fighter grinned wickedly at my gaze.
Hephaestus's chariot was made of Celestial Bronze and a rare metal from the Underworld called Stygian Iron. Their horses were also mechanical, magical automatons that reminded me sickeningly of the Colchis Bulls- the metal bulls that had attacked Percy upon arrival at Camp three days ago.
Hermes's chariot was green and looked kind of old, but the Stoll brothers were manning it. They were smiling crazily with that twinkle in their eyes and looked like mischievous elves, and I made a mental note to try and keep them away as much as possible.
Apollo's chariot was completely golden, their fighter had only a bow but their cabin was notorious for bow skills. It looked a little like our chariot, ours silver even though I might not use a bow, instead my sword, Tenebris- Stygian Iron and pure black, with a silver guard and a brown leather hilt and a black pummel, it was a version of a Roman Spatha, with a slightly curved tip. I would, however, also be using my silver compound bow, a gift from Artemis during the school year, along with a backpack transforming into a quiver of arrows that return when shot.
Athena's chariot was grey, a lot like Annabeth's eyes, and she was driving it. Her fighter was using a javelin and grinned cockily. Percy's chariot was sort of sea green and Tyson, his newfound brother, was fighting while Percy drove the horses.
"Charioteers!" Tantalus called. "To your mark!" I climbed aboard our chariot. We'd constructed it well for children of Artemis, I thought. There were a lot of pigeons in the woods, beaks glinting in the light, though they looked like metal. I frowned.
"Charioteers!" Tantalus seemed to be very into the chariot races. "Attend your mark!" Waving his hand, the starting signal dropped and Cassandra started driving the deer, and I jumped as a loud crack came from behind. Apollo's chariot had flipped and Hermes had rammed into it, maybe by accident maybe not, but they were laughing as the riders were thrown free and horses skittered frantically. However, they crashed into the horses and flipped as well, leaving a bunch of broken wood and rearing horses behind us.
I looked in front, even though Hephaestus remained behind us, Cassandra seemed pretty determined. Ares was next to us but Annabeth was way ahead, Percy a little in front of us but not by much. The Hephaestus chariot sent three sets of balls and chains toward Percy's chariot and as I met Beckendorf's eyes I knew we'd be the next.
By now, Ares had gone past us and Percy, and Annabeth stayed ahead. Cassandra's knuckles were white on the reins of the deer harnesses, and I knocked a jar of what appeared to be Greek fire into the dust as Beckendorf threw it at our chariot. Those pigeons I mentioned?
Bad news. They were swarming the crowd watching our race and I saw Clarisse's fighter throwing a net over their chariot, and the skeletal horses kept going, but the I could see Percy and Annabeth up ahead whispering conspiratorially, Annabeth slowing down to Percy's chariot where I could see Tyson's eye on us worriedly, but we weren't planning on trying anything.
"Ben!" Annabeth called. "Do you know about Chiron's, uh…music?" I groaned. Cassandra shook her head frantically. They weren't bad, exactly- but outdated and…jazzy…were some adjectives. "I'm guessing you do." Cassandra pulled our chariot up to theirs, just behind them.
"Cassandra, you and Annabeth are the fastest," Percy said, staring at the Big House a ways away.
"Your point?" she arched an eyebrow up at him. Cass was fast, but she also didn't like calling attention to herself.
"Annabeth, you know where Chiron keeps his music." Annabeth's eyes looked kind of misty, Chiron had been a father figure to the daughter of Athena ever since she arrived at camp six years ago.
"Your point, Percy?" I asked him. He chose to ignore the question again but he definitely had some sort of plan.
"Ben is good with arrows and I can do well with Riptide." He reasoned to us, but we were all clueless and confused.
"Your point, Percy?" Annabeth's voice turned deadly and Percy paled, her gray eyes stormy and almost angry.
"You guys run and we'll protect you. Tyson, keep our chariot running. Clarisse will win anyway, but who cares, it's just Tantalus's stupid race and he hates us." Annabeth and Cassandra nodded, and I did too, and took the reins.
Annabeth and Cassandra were off the chariots before I could blink, and while the crowd would've stared at them, they were being attacked by those Stymphalian Birds or something, and before long they were a blur. Tantalus was the only person who seemed to notice as he watched them go with narrowed eyes.
I jumped off the chariot, Hephaestus was officially ahead of us and Clarisse had passed the finish line, but the birds flying for Cassandra and Annabeth were right now my top priority, as it was my twin sister and a girl I'd gone a quest with.
"The fight is here, cowards!" Clarisse yelled after us. I slashed at the nearest birds stabbing at Cassandra's arms where she was protecting the disks full of Frank Sinatra and other Greatest Hits of Jazz or something.
It was, of course, Frank Sinatra that started playing, and while the birds were undoubtedly scared away, nobody in camp was particularly partial to it and nobody really liked it.
"The winner of the Chariot Race is…Clarisse!" Clarisse smiled even though it was a little obvious what other people had been doing while she had been driving a box of wood with wheels down a track twice. "And now…" Tantalus turned on us, "we'll deal with the people who have been disrupting our races."
"You, Peter Johnson, Annie Bell, Brad, and Cleopatra were so bad with your chariot driving that the birds simply couldn't help attacking. Because of it being your fault, you can all clean the dishes after our feast to honor our winner, Clarisse." There was a laurel wreath around her head but I didn't even care at this point. Why, oh why, had
Tantalus decided to use Mr. D's names for us? And only us? Mr. D wasn't even here.
"Go chase a donut, Tantalus," Percy said in disgust, I noticed the eclairs on a plate next to him that his right hand was currently chasing. He curled his lip but didn't say anything and dismissed us all.
First part of The Sea of Monsters started!
