CHAPTER TWO

A Field Trip to Olympus

At the end of the day, the most overwhelming factor key to a child's success is the positive involvement of parents.

Jane D. Hull

IV

Annabeth I

Annabeth Chase gaped.

The train rumbled slightly, the winter wind howling against the windows as it smoothly moved above the tracks. Her cheek felt cold as it rested on the window, which was being pelted by small but a constant load of snowflakes. She watched as they whizzed by the Bay Shore. Yachts were parked side by side as pedestrians strolled near the shore. It was the Twenty-First of December, the Winter Solstice, the Gods wintertime meeting, where all Twelve Olympians would meet and discuss matters of the utmost importance. For this Solstice, Zeus had granted special permission to the head counselors of Camp Half-Blood to a field trip at Olympus for a day.

She was excited, of course. It was the first time in years since Annabeth had taken a step outside of Camp Half-Blood. Camp didn't even feel like the right word to Annabeth. It was her home . The first place ever that she had felt welcome. The first place where she was treated with kindness, respect, and love. Camp Half-Blood was her life. She felt small now that she was outside, having forgotten just how big the world itself really was. Annabeth had wished for a quest for so long, and while this was not one, the refreshing feeling of finally going somewhere else cooled the adventurous spirit in her, for now.

The train whizzed by other trains, trees, and bushes, buildings here and there. Now that they were getting closer to Manhattan, no more farmhouses were to be seen. The rural areas were now behind them, and Annabeth couldn't wait when they would reach the actual city. She was excited that she would see the metropolis of Manhattan up close and all sorts of interesting buildings that she wished she could spend hours if not days exploring, sketching, and redesigning on a notebook. As attractive as that thought was, monsters would make such a feat practically a death wish. Manhattan itself wasn't the destination anyway. Their field trip to Olympus itself was her main course to satisfy her architecture hunger. When Annabeth would have free time in camp, she would daydream and imagine all sorts of beauty Olympus contained within. She would think of the great statues of heroes and Gods. Annabeth always loved designing statues for Athena in her private notebook. She wished she could give shape to one someday. She imagined pillars with all sorts of unique designs, buildings of all variety, temples of the Gods and Goddesses, roads and pavements…

She felt her heart beat with excitement at another thought.

She was going to meet her mother.

Athena had sent her a magic Yankee's cap that would make her invisible when she put the cap on at her twelfth birthday as a gift, a very convenient gift, and Annabeth couldn't wait to see her mother in actual form.

She held her mother in high regard. She tried to always follow her example, never step out of what a daughter of Athena should be. She secretly wished from time to time she would be there for her as an actual parent, like all the other campers who craved the attention of their parents, but Annabeth knew better than to dwell on it. Her mother was an Olympian Goddess that had no time for such things, and Annabeth did not spare much attention to her emotions, and she stayed away from them like they were a dangerous monster. In fact, they were the most dangerous monster sometimes.

Follow your brain, not your heart. Her mother would say wisely, emotions were a dangerous trap. And she had no intention of being caught in one.

But knowing that she would soon be meeting her mom made her feel butterflies in her stomach anyway, a feeling, she presumed, that all the campers in the train shared.

Expect one.

Luke sat uneasily at the seat along with Lee Fletcher in front of her. Chiron rested next to Luke, since he was in his wheelchair form, reading a book. Luke seemed bothered, and Annabeth knew what it was.

When Annabeth was just seven years old, after being mistreated so much in her ' home', Annabeth scoffed at that word, home, where she was treated like she was a freak, a danger, but the one that hurt the most, was as if she was a mistake. After years of enduring the torture, Annabeth had run away from her 'home' and through the guidance of her mother, and a heavy-headed hammer to make the monsters, and the gods-damned abominations named spiders think again before approaching the little girl, had met Luke and Thalia.

Thalia.

Gods, how she missed her, her rebellious nature, her fantastic and charming, yet scary personality… And she had to die, because of a stupid oath.

Annabeth remembered how after smashing a couple of spiders furiously with her hammer, making sure they were dead,

and then checking again to make sure they were really dead so they wouldn't come after her by playing dead and then rising up when she would turn away, which made her laugh softly as the memory now felt ridiculous to her. Luke and Thalia had discovered her hiding underneath an iron sheet when she had mistaken them both for monsters.

They were not. They were her family, and Annabeth still remembered that conversation at Richmond like it was yesterday.

"Annabeth?" Luke asked from the other side of the campfire. Thalia had fallen asleep, her face resting peacefully as she curled up inside the warm comfy blanket. Her face was so calm. She looked like a saint.

Annabeth had just finished munching a marshmallow. Luke had brought a packet of marshmallows to the group as a gift (he swore he did not steal it.)

"Yes?" Annabeth looked up to him, her huge eyes, looking even larger because of her petite frame, glittered as they reflected the camp fire. She reached for another marshmallow to hold over the campfire. She was hungry.

"Why did you run away from your house?" He asked after stabbing a marshmallow with a stick and brought it over the campfire.

Annabeth frowned at him.

"I…" She hesitated. Annabeth remembered and cringed at the memories of her stepmother. The memories flooded her brain.

"You freak!" Charlotte shouted, frustrated at her after Annabeth had wailed for hours after seeing a tiny spider in the corner of a room in the middle of the night. Frederick had left to West Point to give a lecture.

She remembered the way her stepmother spoke, even till this day, word for word.

"It is a spider, Annabeth." She mocked, "You, little brat, can't even confront a spider. What kind of hero are you going to be? One who freezes up at the sight of a small spider?" as Annabeth sniffled at the corner of her room, hugging her knees, her teary eyes still wide, glued to the dead corpse of the spider her stepmom had smashed with a newspaper, but that had not calmed Annabeth. Their persistent assaults on her while she was asleep were horrific enough, but this one had tried to get in her mouth while she was sleeping.

As much as these memories were painful, their wounds no longer made her feel sorrow or lost.

She shivered and wiped furiously at her cheeks, it was cold. Even the campfire hadn't warmed her up yet.

She hated crying. Even at a little age, Annabeth would never cry. As a baby, at the rare, near none existent moments of contact with her father, he had said to her that she would never cry, just stare at the world with huge eyes ogling the world around her.

"Hey," Luke said, getting up. He came around and sat down next to her.

"Sorry," Annabeth mumbled and took a deep breath. She turned to look at him.

"I… I ran away. My family hates me. They don't want me there. My dad thinks I'm a mistake. My actual mom sent me to him, and he didn't want me. He married another woman, who hated me. She thinks I'm a freak. They don't understand. They—"

"I know," Luke said softly as Annabeth silently cursed as she felt her cheeks get softly wet again. He hugged her for a while.

Annabeth remembered her promise to herself to never cry about that cursed, damned house ever, ever again. She never broke that promise.

When they broke apart, she looked straight into his eyes. They were now filled with fear and panic.

"I don't want to go back. Please, don't… don't take me back to them."

"Annabeth—"

"Please," Annabeth felt so lost, and Luke was the only torch that she felt could help her navigate through the darkness.

"Okay." He said with a deep breath, "I promise. You're part of our family now, me, Thalia, and you. Forever."

"Forever?" Annabeth asked hopefully.

"Forever." He smiled, and she smiled. She finished her marshmallow and snuggled in her blanket.

"Annabeth?" Someone poked her, and she had nearly jumped ten feet into the air. She slightly blushed, her gray eyes were still distant.

"Yes?" She had been so deeply lost in her memories, it took her a moment to normalize. It was Lee. He was the head counselor of the Apollo cabin, and had just stirred her from her memory trip,

"Just wanted you to know Chiron said that we're an hour away from Penn Station. You wanted to know when we would be close, so…"

"Oh," Annabeth blushed, "Thanks." She managed a soft smile, and Lee returned to staring outside the window, getting lost in his thoughts. Annabeth glanced around and saw Beckendorf, who was sitting at the right side of the cabin, the seats next to theirs. He was the Hephaestus Cabin's head counselor and was chatting with Silena Beauregard, who was sitting right next to him. She was the head counselor of the Aphrodite Cabin and Beckendorf's new girlfriend.

She turned back to stare outside of the window, but her eye caught Luke first. She looked at him. He had headphones on, listening to some music on his MP3 player. Luke, to Annabeth… Well, she didn't know. She saw him as her hero. Even after that damned quest, it was not his fault that he had fail— No, it wasn't even a failure. He had simply been sent to a quest that was not just out of his league, but of everyone's league. And even then, he had managed to injure that darn dragon. Annabeth still had one hundred percent trust in him. And while she for a long time had seen him as a brother, her heart tugged at her. Something… more?

She shook her head.

Emotions are a trap. She reminded herself. Like a bear trap. And I am not going to get caught in one. Never.

She instead focused back on the road and started to once again daydream about how Olympus looked like.

" Now — arriving at — Penn—Station." A woman's soft robotic voice blared through the speakers.

"Well," Luke turned back to them. Annabeth smiled at him. "We're here. Keep your weapons close just in case some monster is around, guys."

They began to walk, Chiron in front. It was a five-minute walk from Penn Station to the Empire State Building, and they reached there without any problem, which was abnormal. Annabeth had anticipated monsters to attack them at some point in their trip, but so far, everything had been calm.

Luke opened the door into the building, and they went in. She smiled at him as she moved by him at the door, and they approached the receptionist who was lazily slouched in his seat, watching TV.

" The New York City Transport Workers Union's strike over pension and wage increases are still ongoing. With nearly all metro stations closed, Mayor Bloomberg has announced that they are still negotiating with the strikers over reaching a resolution about the ongoing strike. Furthermore, on the news, the DOW Jones…"

"Hey," Luke approached the receptionist, and the head counselors all stood behind him, as if they were children awaiting their parents to finish their job with the receptionist. As he began to talk with the receptionist, Annabeth looked at Miranda Gardiner, the head counselor of the Demeter Cabin during the winter, as Katie was with her parents at Montana. She was tucked in a warm cozy blue winter coat, her brown hair in a ponytail just like Annabeth. They stood side by side.

"Hey, Annabeth." Miranda greeted her. She was always a bit shy, having taken on her mother, Demeter's, depressed side when winter would roll around.

"Hey. How is it going?"

"Good, I'm excited to meet my mom. And I suppose you are excited to visit all those architectural beauties up there, and meeting Athena?"

"Yeah. Let's hope nothing goes wrong. It's been eerily calm so far."

Chiron rolled over to the reception as he claimed that he had never heard in his life of a six hundredth floor but sighed at the sight of Chiron in defeat. "Okay, okay. Take this key, and you'll see the security slot for a six hundredth floor button, make sure to give it back when you come down." The receptionist finally conceded, and Luke indicated to all of them to wait.

He pushed the call button, and they waited for the elevator to come down.

"Excited, aren't you?" Luke said, was it too obvious that she was excited? She didn't know, but she was fidgeting with her fingers, a habit she had when she would get excited, or emotional.

"Yeah," Annabeth tried to sound upbeat, "We're gonna see Olympus for the first time. And all those buildings, pavements, statues, temples, the Throne Room…"

"I'm sure you and Chiron will guide us through." He smiled and winked at her, and Annabeth blushed severely, if a knife so much as came into contact with her cheek, it would probably cause a nine-one-one emergency situation level of bleeding.

The elevator finally arrived with a ding!, the doors moved aside, and they all went in. Luke inserted the key into a six-hundredth-floor button's slot, and the doors shut.

The elevator started to hum as it went up, and the usual waiting muzak began to blare through the speakers.

Raindrops keep falling on my head

They keep fallin'

So I just did me some talking to the sun…

They waited in silence the rest of the ride, apparently reaching Olympus takes some time, and after around a minute, the doors slid open.

Ding!

V

Annabeth II

Olympus.

The abode of the Gods, the grand bastion of western civilization, floating defiantly at the top of the Empire State Building, covered by the Mist so that the mortals, who looked like ants from this altitude, saw nothing but a clear sky atop the building. Olympus, of course, was in the United States, the current bastion of western civilization, but it hadn't always been. It had been present in London, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Paris, Constantinople, Rome… and of course at where it all began, Greece.

In her dreams, Annabeth always dreamed of the pure beauty and awesomeness of Olympus, but nothing that she ever imagined came close to what she was seeing.

They stood on a narrow stone path, and after a few steps, they stood on lush green dirt. It was humming with power. There was a soft golden haze over it, and in front of them was a golden gate between rocks. The left side had a beautiful waterfall, and the scent of nature re-freshened her and made her travel lag go away.

Behind the entrance was a large, lofty mountain that rose upwards like a rugged pyramid. Its top was covered with dove-white snow, its body the color of rock-gray. Its slopes had cities all around it that seemed ancient. It was hard to make up much from this distance, but terraces, palaces, castles, forums, temples, and gigantic statues were to be seen.

They stepped forward, and the golden gates magically swung open, greeting them inside to Olympus. A path made of rocks on the floor began right before the entrance, and the group started to walk.

Past the gate stood great twelve statues lined up next to each other. There was a statue of Zeus with the Master Bolt as he glared, wearing nothing but a toga. Next to his statue was Hera, who was holding her staff. She had a dress on. At the other side of the rocky path, another duo was present. First was Poseidon, holding a trident and also wearing nothing but a toga. Next to him was Hades, who was also standing in a toga holding a spear as a miniature Cerberus, the three-headed guard dog of the Underworld, seemed to be growling while standing near Hades' legs. Annabeth's eyes shifted once again to the left, and a lovely statue of Demeter stood, in a dress and a laurel wreath on her head. Next to her, Annabeth smiled, was Athena. Her statue was, without a doubt, the best one around. She held an owl in one hand and a spear on the other. Her signature gladiator helmet with fur was highly detailed, while a beautiful dress waved down all the way down to her feet.

In front of this duo, at the right side, stood the statues of Ares and Apollo. Ares was totally naked, save for a loincloth, and everyone snickered as Clarisse muttered for them to shut up, as he held a shield in one hand and a spear at the other. He also had a helmet on his head. Apollo also was nearly naked, also a loincloth warped around his waist, as he held a lyre in one hand. Whoever had designed the statue had put extra effort into his six-pack. In front of this duo stood Artemis and Aphrodite. Artemis was pulling an arrow out of her quiver as she patted a deer. She was wearing a chiton. When Annabeth looked at Aphrodite's statue, she blushed pink. Aphrodite was completely naked and was scrubbing off something off her legs. The boys seemed to have their eyes glued on the statue. Next to her stood the statue of Dionysus. He was raising a cup in one hand and grapes in another. The poor man could not, for the moment, drink wine, and there seemed to be a drunk expression plastered over his statue's face as he was laying down on some rock. The other statue belonged to Hephaestus, who had a hammer raised to the sky as he was forging a sword above an anvil.

The final statue that Luke was glaring daggers at was the statue of Hermes. He seemed to be running as he held a caduceus. He had boots with wings at his feet and also a helmet with wings on.

They continued on their path, but stopped when they saw a raven-haired kid standing in front of them.

A/N

In my opinion, Annabeth is the hardest character to write, and the character so many people get wrong while writing about her. I hope I can succeed with her.

Ah, coming from Chapter One, let's talk about her character as well. To understand who she is, let's ask a simple question.

Who is Annabeth Chase?

Now yes, you will say she is the head counselor of Cabin Six, daughter of Athena, Percy's friend and eventual boyfriend, all that jazz. And you are right, but we are talking about her character.

First of all, Annabeth is not a Mary Sue, nor is hubris her only flaw.

Annabeth Chase is a loyal character. I have no idea from what hellhole these Annabeth betrays/cheats Percy stories came out from, but they could not be further from the truth. She is loyal to all of her friends, and yes, even to Luke. Many people consider Annabeth's attitude towards Luke even after the pit scorpion attack and betrayal as bad, but from her point of view, Luke is her family, all she has left (well, till the end of SoM but even then.) And it is applaudable, as she puts friendship (and some interesting feelings) above everything. From her point of view she sees Luke as not a lost cause, even if everything points at another direction. I don't even need to talk about her loyalty to Percy or her other friends.

She is very intelligent and competent, she is a walking brain, making decisions on the spot. She is completely self-assured, and takes no orders from anyone else. She knows what is best for her, and acts accordingly.

Although emotions are her bane, she seems to be very bad at controlling them.

Anyways, let me know what you think, drop a review.