Quickly muttering a slight protection spell on his bag and placing it inside the sleeping bag. He headed outside and went to the shore, seeing the gentle waves and the smell of the ocean relaxing him. He hopped this summer was normal.
3rd Person P.O.V.
Draco was fighting along other campers against the bulls. They seemed to be coming from everywhere and the wall protecting the camp seemed to be failing. He stabbed, dogged, kick, and yelled warnings at the others when the bulls got a bit too close to his liking. Clarisse was yelling at them to get to the phalanx formation. It was a good idea. The few who were listening lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, locking their shields to form an ox-hide—and-bronze wall, their spears bristling over the top like porcupine quills.
Unfortunately, Clarisse could only muster six campers, himself included. The other four were still running around with their helmets on fire. Draco saw Annabeth running towards them, trying to help. She taunted one of the bulls into chasing her, then turned invisible, completely confusing the monster. The other bull charged Clarisse's line.
Draco slashed at one of the bulls weak points on their legs. Effectively crippling it and then stabbed its head, effectively killing it. Draco was going to go help one of the campers that got injured when he noticed something on the corner of his eye. Another bull.
The bull moved deadly fast for something so big. Its metal hide gleamed in the sun. It had fist-sized rubies for eyes, and horns of polished silver. When it opened its hinged mouth, a column of white-hot flame blasted out.
"Hold the line!" Clarisse ordered her warriors.
Whatever else you could say about Clarisse, she was brave. She was a big girl with cruel eyes like her father's. She looked like she was born to wear Greek battle armor, but Draco didn't see how even she could stand against that bull's charge.
Unfortunately, at that moment, the other bull lost interest in finding Annabeth. It turned, wheeling around behind Clarisse on her unprotected side.
"Behind you!" Draco heard someone yell. "Look out!"
Whoever said that shouldn't have said anything, because all they did was startle her. Bull Number One crashed into her shield, and the phalanx broke. Clarisse went flying backward and landed in a smoldering patch of grass. The bull charged past her, but not before blasting the other heroes with its fiery breath. Their shields melted right off their arms. They dropped their weapons and ran as Bull Number Two closed in on Clarisse for the kill.
Draco saw a figure lunged itself forward and grabbed Clarisse by the straps of her armor. And dragged her out of the way just as Bull Number Two freight-trained past. They gave it a good swipe with their sword and cut a huge gash in its flank, but the monster just creaked and groaned and kept on going.
It hadn't touched the person, but Draco can imagine they could feel the heat of its metal skin he felt the phantom pain in his right thigh. Its body temperature could've make a dragons fire seem as a hot bath.
"Let me go!" Clarisse pummeled the person- Percy's hand. "Percy, curse you!"
Percy dropped her in a heap next to the pine tree and turned to face the bulls. They were on the inside slope of the hill now, the valley of Camp Half-Blood directly below us—the cabins, the training facilities, the Big House—all of it at risk if these bulls got past us.
Annabeth shouted orders to the other heroes, telling them to spread out and keep the bulls distracted.
Bull Number One ran a wide arc, making its way back toward Percy. Draco got his sword in position when it passed the middle of the hill, where the invisible boundary line should've kept it out, it slowed down a little, as if it were struggling against a strong wind; but then it broke through and kept coming. Bull Number Two turned to face Percy, fire sputtering from the gash he'd cut in its side. Draco couldn't tell if it felt any pain, but its ruby eyes seemed to glare at Percy as if he'd just made things personal.
Percy couldn't fight both bulls at the same time. He'd have to take down Bull Number Two first, cut its head off before Bull Number One charged back into range. Draco ran towards him, "I got your back just as long as you got mine." Percy looked at Draco with gratitude, obviously tired and out of shape with his sword.
Percy lunged but Bull Number Two blew flames at me. Percy rolled aside as the air turned to pure heat. Draco noticed Percy's foot caught on something—a tree root, maybe—and quickly slashed at Bull Number One respecting his early strategy. Running towards Percy but before he could, Percy had managed to slash it with his sword and lop off part of the monster's snout. It galloped away, wild and disoriented. Percy tried to stand up, but his left leg Buckeyes underneath him. His ankle was sprained, maybe broken.
Another Bull that Draco failed to noticed charged straight toward Percy. No way could he make it in time with the burn in his leg. Draco ran towards him before he heard Annabeth shout: "Tyson, help him!"
Somewhere near, toward the crest of the hill Draco could hear, Tyson wail, "Can't—get—through!" Draco quickly yelled, "I, Draco Black, give you permission to enter camp!"
Thunder shook the hillside. Suddenly Tyson was there, barreling toward Percy, yelling: "Percy needs help!"
Before anyone could say anything, he dove between Percy and the bull just as it unleashed a nuclear firestorm.
"Tyson!" Percy yelled.
The blast swirled around him like a red tornado. Draco could only see the black silhouette of his body. Draco knew with horrible certainty that whoever this Tyson fellow was had just been turned into a column of ashes.
But when the fire died, Tyson was still standing there, completely unharmed. Not even his grungy clothes were scorched. Draco's eyes widen as he looked at Tyson's face. 'He only had one eye!' The word cyclops he registered in his mind. The bull must've been as surprised as he was, because before it could unleash a second blast, Tyson balled his fists and slammed them into the bull's face. "BAD COW!"
His fists made a crater where the bronze bull's snout used to be. Two small columns of flame shot out of its ears. Tyson hit it again, and the bronze crumpled under his hands like aluminum foil.
The bull's face now looked like a sock puppet pulled inside out.
"Down!" Tyson yelled.
The bull staggered and fell on its back. Its legs moved feebly in the air, steam coming out of its ruined head in odd places.
Draco and Annabeth ran over to check on Percy.
Annabeth gave Percy some Olympian nectar to drink from her canteen, and gave some to Draco too. He immediately started to feel better. There was a burning smell that Draco didn't know if it was himself or Percy.
"The other bull?" Percy asked.
Annabeth pointed down the hill. Clarisse had taken care of Bad Cow Number Three. She'd impaled it through the back leg with a celestial bronze spear. Now, with its snout half gone and a huge gash in its side, it was trying to run in slow motion, going in circles like some kind of merry-go-round animal.
Clarisse pulled off her helmet and marched toward us. A strand of her stringy brown hair was smoldering, but she didn't seem to notice. "You—ruin—everything!" she yelled at Percy. "I had it under control!"
Percy was too stunned to answer. Annabeth grumbled, "Good to see you too, Clarisse."
"Argh!" Clarisse screamed. "Don't ever, EVER try saving me again!"
"Clarisse," Draco said, "you've got wounded campers."
That sobered her up. Even Clarisse cared about the soldiers under her command.
"I'll be back," she growled, then trudged off to assess the damage.
Percy stared at Tyson. "You didn't die," he said.
Tyson looked down like he was embarrassed. "I am sorry. Came to help. Disobeyed you."
"My fault," Draco said. "I had no choice. I had to let Tyson cross the boundary line to save you. Otherwise, you would've died."
"Let him cross the boundary line?'" Percy asked. "But—"
"Percy," Draco and Annabeth both said, "have you ever looked at Tyson closely? I mean ... in the face. Ignore the Mist, and really look at him." Percy looked at Tyson with a focused look. Realization quickly came on his face.
"Tyson," Percy stammered. "You're a ..."
"Cyclops," Annabeth offered. "A baby, by the looks of him. Probably why he couldn't get past the boundary line as easily as the bulls. Tyson's one of the homeless orphans."
"One of the what?" Percy questioned, face full of confusion.
"They're in almost all the big cities," Annabeth said distastefully. "They're ... mistakes, Percy.
Children of nature spirits and gods ... Well, one god in particular, usually ... and they don't always come out right. No one wants them. They get tossed aside. They grow up wild on the streets. I don't know how this one found you, but he obviously likes you. We should take him to Chiron, let him decide what to do."
"That's quite a harsh way to put it," Draco commented.
"But the fire. How—" Percy questioned before Annabeth interrupted.
"He's a Cyclops." Annabeth paused, as if she were remembering something unpleasant. Draco frowned knowing what she was thinking about. He had heard Luke tell them once he was claimed by Hermes.
"They work the forges of the gods. They have to be immune to fire. That's what I was trying to tell you."
Percy looked completely shocked. Probably because he had never realized what Tyson was. Draco looked around the mountain.
Wounded heroes needed attention. And there were still two banged-up bronze bulls to dispose of, which he didn't figure would fit in our normal recycling bins.
Clarisse came back over and wiped the soot off her forehead. "Jackson, if you can stand, get up. We need to carry the wounded back to the Big House, let Tantalus know what's happened."
"Tantalus?" Percy asked.
"The activities director," Clarisse said impatiently.
"Chiron is the activities director. And where's Argus? He's head of security. He should be here."
Draco made a sour face. "Argus got fired. You two have been gone too long. Things are changing."
"But Chiron ... He's trained kids to fight monsters for over three thousand years. He can't just be gone. What happened?"
"That happened," Clarisse snapped.
She pointed to Thalia's tree.
Every camper knew the story behind the tree. Six years ago, Grover, Annabeth, and two other demigods named Thalia and Luke had come to Camp Half-Blood chased by an army of monsters. When they got cornered on top of this hill, Thalia, a daughter of Zeus, had made her last stand here to give her friends time to reach safety. As she was dying, her father, Zeus, took pity on her and changed her into a pine tree. Her spirit had reinforced the magic borders of the camp, protecting it from monsters. The pine had been here ever since, strong and healthy.
But now, its needles were yellow. A huge pile of dead ones littered the base of the tree. In the center of the trunk, three feet from the ground, was a puncture mark the size of a bullet hole, oozing green sap.
A sliver of ice ran through Draco's chest. Just looking at the tree made him know that it was really happening. The magical borders were failing because Thalia's tree was dying and someone had poisoned it.
oOo
When Draco said he wanted a normal summer this wasn't it. Thalia's Tree has been poisoned and the main suspect is Luke. Clarisse was in a pissier mood than normal and Annabeth was able to get Percy to come back (As well as a cyclops named Tyson, he is a sweetheart by the way,) here when the news spread like wildfire. Camp wasn't the same as when he first got here it didn't change that much but there was a type of vibe in the air. As if something was wrong, dangerous. Campers keeper to themselves and whenever they saw Tyson some did double takes when they saw Tyson, but most just walked grimly past and carried on with their duties—running messages, toting swords to sharpen on the grinding wheels. The camp felt like a military school. And believe me, Draco knew. He've heard Percy tell him some of the stories of how he had been kicked out of a couple.
None of that mattered to Tyson. He was absolutely fascinated by everything he saw.
"Whasthat!" he gasped.
"The stables for pegasi," Percy said. "The winged horses."
"Whasthat!"
"Um ... those are the toilets," Draco said. Slightly smiling at the excited child.
"Whasthat!"
"The cabins for the campers. If they don't know who your Olympian parent is, they put you in the Hermes cabin—that brown one over there—until you're determined. Then, once they know, they put you in your dad or mom's group," Percy explained.
He looked at Percy in awe. "You ... have a cabin?" Tyson asked.
"Number three." Percy pointed to a low gray building made of sea stone. Tyson looked at Draco and said, "Do you... have a cabin too?"
Draco nodded, "Number eleven." He pointed at the messy cabin. Many campers coming and in and out of it.
"You live with friends in the cabin?" Tyson asked.
"No. No, just me." Percy said. Trying to avoid the embarrassing truth: he was the only one who stayed in that cabin because he wasn't supposed to be alive. The "Big Three" gods—Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades—had made a pact after World War II not to have any more children with mortals. They were more powerful than regular half-bloods. They were too unpredictable. When they got mad they tended to cause problems ... like World War II, for instance. The "Big Three" pact had only been broken twice—once when Zeus sired Thalia, once when Poseidon sired Percy. Neither of them should've been born.
"I just sleep in mine. Don't have too much friends since they tend to steal things from me, or well try too. Well I'm not even a member of the cabin, I'm just there since I'm unclaimed," Draco said trying to get the awkward silence to stop. Percy looked thankful and both showed Tyson the rest of the camp.
The next day Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson followed Draco to the Big House, there they found Chiron in his apartment, listening to his favorite 1960s lounge music while he packed his saddlebags. Draco guessed he should mention—Chiron is a centaur. From the waist up he looks like a regular middle-aged guy with curly brown hair and a scraggly beard. From the waist down, he's a white stallion. He can pass for human by compacting his lower half into a magic wheelchair. In fact, he'd passed himself off as a Latin teacher when he teaches all the young Demi-Gods.( They might be Demi-Gods that die at a young age, but they still need their education.) But most of the time, if the ceilings are high enough, he prefers hanging out in full centaur form.
As soon as they saw him, Tyson froze. "Pony!" he cried in total rapture.
Chiron turned, looking offended. "I beg your pardon?"
Annabeth ran up and hugged him. "Chiron, what's happening? You're not ... leaving?" Her voice was shaky. Chiron was like a second father to her.
Chiron ruffled her hair and gave her a kindly smile. "Hello, child. And Percy, my goodness.
You've grown over the year!"
Percy visibly swallowed. "Clarisse said you were ... you were ..."
Draco stayed quite and looked at Chiron.
"Fired." Chiron's eyes glinted with dark humor. "Ah, well, someone had to take the blame.
Lord Zeus was most upset. The tree he'd created from the spirit of his daughter, poisoned! Mr. D had to punish someone."
"Besides himself, you mean," Percy growled. Draco frowned, as if 'accidentally' turning him into a dolphin when he first got here wasn't enough. His hand absently clutched the black bead with the picture of a dolphin in it.
"But this is crazy!" Annabeth cried. "Chiron, you couldn't have had anything to do with poisoning Thalia's tree!"
"Nevertheless," Chiron sighed, "some in Olympus do not trust me now, under the circumstances."
"What circumstances?" Percy asked.
Chiron's face darkened. He stuffed a Latin-English dictionary into his saddlebag while the Frank Sinatra music oozed from his boom box.
Tyson was still staring at Chiron in amazement. He whimpered like he wanted to pat Chiron's flank but was afraid to come closer. "Pony?"
Chiron sniffed. "My dear young Cyclops! I am a centaur. "
"Chiron," Percy said. "What about the tree? What happened?"
He shook his head sadly. "The poison used on Thalia's pine is something from the Underworld, Percy. Some venom even I have never seen. It must have come from a monster quite deep in the pits of Tartarus."
"Then we know who's responsible. Kro—"
"Do not invoke the titan lord's name, Percy. Especially not here, not now."
"But last summer he tried to cause a civil war in Olympus! This has to be his idea. He'd get Luke to do it, that traitor," Percy said. Draco noticed Annabeth clench her hands at the mention of her crush.
"Perhaps," Chiron said. "But I fear I am being held responsible because I did not prevent it and I cannot cure it. The tree has only a few weeks of life left unless ..."
"Unless what?" Annabeth asked.
"No," Chiron said. "A foolish thought. The whole valley is feeling the shock of the poison. The magical borders are deteriorating. The camp itself is dying. Only one source of magic would be strong enough to reverse the poison, and it was lost centuries ago."
"What is it?" Percy asked. "We'll go find it!"
Chiron closed his saddlebag. He pressed the stop button on his boom box. Then he turned and rested his hand on my shoulder, looking at Percy straight in the eyes. "Percy, you must promise me that you will not act rashly. I told your mother I did not want you to come here at all this summer. It's much too dangerous. But now that you are here, stay here. Train hard. Learn to fight. But do not leave."
"Why?" Percy asked. "I want to do something! I can't just let the borders fail. The whole camp will be—"
"Overrun by monsters," Chiron said. "Yes, I fear so. But you must not let yourself be baited into hasty action! This could be a trap of the titan lord. Remember last summer! He almost took your life."
It was true, but still, Draco knew Percy wanted to help so badly. He also wanted to make Kronos pay. You'd think the titan lord would've learned his lesson eons ago when he was overthrown by the gods. You'd think getting chopped into a million pieces and cast into the darkest part of the Underworld would give him a subtle clue that nobody wanted him around. But no. Because he was immortal, he was still alive down there in Tartarus—suffering in eternal pain, hungering to return and take revenge on Olympus. He couldn't act on his own, but he was great at twisting the minds of mortals and even gods to do his dirty work.
Draco clenched his jaw the poisoning had to be Luke's doing. Who else would be so low as to attack Thalia's tree, the only thing left of a hero who'd given her life to save her friends?
Annabeth was trying hard not to cry. Chiron brushed a tear from her cheek. "Stay with Percy, child," he told her. "Keep him safe. The prophecy—remember it!"
"I—I will."
"Um ..." Percy said. "Would this be the super-dangerous prophecy that has me in it, but the gods have forbidden you to tell me about?"
Nobody answered.
"Right," I muttered. "Just checking." Percy looked at Draco in the eye. Draco mouthed 'I'll tell you later,' before looking back at Chiron.
"Chiron ..." Annabeth said. "You told me the gods made you immortal only so long as you were needed to train heroes. If they dismiss you from camp—"
"Swear you will do your best to keep Percy from danger," he insisted. "Swear upon the River Styx."
"I—I swear it upon the River Styx," Annabeth said.
Thunder rumbled outside.
"Very well," Chiron said. He seemed to relax just a little. "Perhaps my name will be cleared and I shall return. Until then, I go to visit my wild kinsmen in the Everglades. It's possible they know of some cure for the poisoned tree that I have forgotten. In any event, I will stay in exile until this matter is resolved ... one way or another."
Annabeth stifled a sob. Chiron patted her shoulder awkwardly. "There, now, child. I must entrust your safety to Mr. D and the new activities director. We must hope ... well, perhaps they won't destroy the camp quite as quickly as I fear."
"Who is this Tantalus guy, anyway?" Percy demanded. "Where does he get off taking your job?"
A conch horn blew across the valley. Draco hadn't realized how late it was. It was time for the campers to assemble for dinner.
"Go," Chiron said. "You will meet him at the pavilion. I will contact your mother, Percy, and let her know you're safe. No doubt she'll be worried by now. Just remember my warning! You are in grave danger. Do not think for a moment that the titan lord has forgotten you!"
With that, he clopped out of the apartment and down the hall, Tyson calling after him, "Pony! Don't go!"
Tyson started bawling almost as bad as Annabeth. Draco alongside Percy tried to tell them that things would be okay, but they both didn't believe it.
The sun was setting behind the dining pavilion as the campers came up from their cabins.
They stood in the shadow of a marble column and watched them file in. Annabeth was still pretty shaken up, but she promised she'd talk to us later. Then she went off to join her siblings from the Athena cabin—a dozen boys and girls with blond hair and gray eyes like hers. Annabeth wasn't the oldest, but she'd been at camp more summers than just about anybody. You could tell that by looking at her camp necklace—one bead for every summer, and Annabeth had four. No one questioned her right to lead the line.
Next came Clarisse, leading the Ares cabin. She had one arm in a sling and a nasty-looking gash on her cheek, but otherwise her encounter with the bronze bulls didn't seem to have fazed her. Draco himself still had bandages around the burn in his thigh. As well as a patch on his check. Both boys noticed someone had taped a piece of paper to her back that said, YOU MOO, GIRL! But nobody in her cabin was bothering to tell her about it.
After the Ares kids came the Hephaestus cabin—six guys led by Charles Beckendorf, a big fifteen-year-old African American kid. He had hands the size of catchers' mitts and a face that was hard and squinty from looking into a blacksmiths forge all day. He was nice enough once you got to know him, but no one ever called him Charlie or Chuck or Charles. Most just called him Beckendorf.
Rumor was he could make anything. Give him a chunk of metal and he could create a razor-sharp sword or a robotic warrior or a singing birdbath for your grandmother's garden. Whatever you wanted.
The other cabins filed in: Demeter, Apollo, Aphrodite, Dionysus. Naiads came up from the canoe lake. Dryads melted out of the trees. From the meadow came a dozen satyrs, who reminded Draco painfully of Lucas. Looking at how Percy saw it too, he most been thinking of Grover.
Draco always had a soft spot for the satyrs. When they were at camp, they had to do all kinds of odd jobs for Mr. D, the director, but their most important work was out in the real world. They were the camp's seekers. They went undercover into schools all over the world, looking for potential half-bloods and escorting them back to camp. That's how he'd met Lucas. He had been the first one to bring him to camp when he was running away as a kid. He always thought it was weird how Lucas found him, but the satyr said it was his smell that was strong. Draco was weirded about of why he had a strong smell at a young age but looking back on it. He was pretty big for three almost four year old.
After the satyrs filed in to dinner, the Draco's cabin brought up the rear. They were always the biggest cabin. Last summer, it had been led by Luke, the guy who'd fought with Thalia and Annabeth on top of Half-Blood Hill. For a while, before Poseidon had claimed Percy, he'd lodged in the Hermes cabin too. Luke had befriended him like he had Draco when he learned his age... and then he'd tried to kill Percy.
Now the his cabin was led by Travis and Connor Stoll. They weren't twins, but they looked so much alike it didn't matter (They reminded Draco of a certain pair of ginger twins back at Hogwarts.) Draco thinks Travis is the older one, but he isn't sure. They were both tall and skinny, with mops of brown hair that hung in their eyes. They wore orange CAMP HALF-BLOOD T-shirts untucked over baggy shorts, and they had those elfish features all Hermes's kids had: upturned eyebrows, sarcastic smiles, a gleam in their eyes whenever they looked at you—like they were about to drop a firecracker down your shirt. Draco always thought it was funny that the god of thieves would have kids with the last name "Stoll," but the only time Draco mentioned it to Travis and Connor, they both stared at me blankly like they didn't get the joke.
As soon as the last campers had filed in, Draco saw Percy lead Tyson into the middle of the pavilion.
Conversations faltered. Heads turned. "Who invited that? " somebody at the Apollo table murmured.
Draco glared in their direction, but he couldn't figure out who'd spoken.
From the head table a familiar voice drawled, "Well, well, if it isn't Peter Johnson. My millennium is complete."
Draco saw Percy grit his teeth. "Percy Jackson ... sir."
Mr. D sipped his Diet Coke. "Yes. Well, as you young people say these days: Whatever."
He was wearing his usual leopard-pattern Hawaiian shirt, walking shorts, and tennis shoes with black socks. With his pudgy belly and his blotchy red face, he looked like a Las Vegas tourist who'd stayed up too late in the casinos. Behind him, a nervous-looking satyr was peeling the skins off grapes and handing them to Mr. D one at a time.
Draco sighed and sacrificed all of his food he wasn't hungry, so he used all of his food as an apology to all the 12 Olympic Gods, Hecate, Hestia, and Hades included. Draco putted his head down and stayed like that until Tyson was claimed as a son of Poseidon.
Wait what...?
Aaaannndddd done! Did this at 3:40 A.M. since I couldn't sleep ;-; but anyways I hoped you liked this chapter and if you were wondering I changed the time Percy came to the summertime and not that he's still in school, so just see it as his last day of school...?? -(•-•)/- IDK bye see you on the next chapter!
-D