Disclaimer:
I do not own the PJO characters.
I walked up the hill to be met by campers in armor, most of which hated me and wanted me gone. Nico pulled me and Coral along past them as a few of them gave me an evil eye.
"What's with the perimeter defense?" I whispered to Nico.
"Just precautionary measures in case of an attack," he replied.
We got all the way to the Big House before anyone said anything and saw two people. Thankfully, one out of two of the people was Clarrise. The two walked passed and, who I'm pretty sure was one of Clarrise's brothers whispered, "Great, the cursed one has returned."
Clarrise, having none of it, smacked him in the back of the head so hard he stumbled a bit. She gave him a glare then looked over at me. "Hey, Girly," She said.
"Hey," I responded shyly.
The next one to say anything was Mr. D. Nico and I walked up on the big porch of the Big House and were greeted by Mr. D along with Chiron. "Oh, lookie here. Taylor's back," Mr. D said with the roll of his eyes.
"Hello Ms. Sutton," Chiron said, glaring at Mr. D, "We weren't expecting you so soon, and with your sister as well."
I looked down where Coral was standing, she looked up at me. "Well I wasn't going to leave her again and I wanted to get this done and over with as soon as possible."
"Well we're glad to have you here, even if it is for just a short while," Chiron said, pushing his wheelchair away from the table, "I must warn you, the campers are not going to enjoy you coming back. Most of them, at least." Chiron looked into the distance. I followed his gaze to a tall dark-haired boy waving like an idiot while a blonde girl stood next to him shaking her head and her hand resting on her forehead like why did I choose him?
The two came running towards us. Well, Percy was running while Annabeth walking and still shaking her head.
"Hey!" Percy said when he got to the porch, not even out of breath.
Coral went up to him and hugged his legs. "Hey Perce," Nico said.
"What are you guys doing back?" Annabeth asked as she walked up behind Percy.
"Immortal wanting me to do a quest, what else would it be?" I laughed. This made everyone else chuckle a bit.
"HEY SUTTON!" I heard some yell. I looked to where the voice had come from just as hundreds of tomatoes came straight at me. I simply stuck my hand in the air like a stop sign and the tomatoes stopped in mid-air.
The people who had thrown the tomatoes just stared at me. Two in the front, who I'm guessing were Hermes children, looked at each other. Once out of there dazed the one smacked the other and said, "You should have known she would've used her curse! We're screwed now."
The crowd had looked up at me expecting me to throw them back, but instead, I gently placed them in a huge pile at their feet. I wasn't going to play their games.
"Well," I said turning back towards Chiron, "can I talk to Rachel and get this over with before any more pranks get pulled on me?"
"Yes, Rachel should be in her cave at this time, she usually isn't up just yet, if she is, she's painting." And with that, Nico, Coral, and I headed up to Rachel's cave while Annabeth had to force Percy to stay down at the Big House.
Thanks for reading! Sorry that the chapter's a bit short but it's kinda late so I thought I'd stop here.
-Lou Ellen and Sydney the editor