DISCLAIMER: All the characters except the OC's belong to Rick Riordan.
Chapter 21: I hitch a ride on a zoo truck.
Annabeth guessed it was—perhaps—her day to run into creepy guys and awkward situations.
To begin with, it was her massive screw-up at the Arch back in St. Louis. Then she woke up, mid-sleep, to their toppling train. In a way, she was thankful for the existence of Greek gods; she had somebody to blame when things go wrong. Before she could reel in from the shock, a group of officers circled them suspiciously. After everything she'd seen, Annabeth wasn't afraid of mortals, but you never know which one might be a monster.
She reached out for her knife, but realized her mistake quickly—Celestial bronze is ineffective against mortals. Her weapon might be her defense against the monsters, but it wasn't going to do much good against regular monsters with nightsticks and maybe even guns.
The downfall of being a demigod: you could die at the hands of monsters and mortals.
Perhaps, they weren't meant to get caught in the incident, the blast behind them provided enough leeway to slip past the mortals. The trio raced down the forest. They were good runners, but they didn't know the area. Unless they found a place to hide, the monsters would catch them eventually.
So it came as a surprise to watch her companions come up with ways to evade monsters and wild animals alike. After a busy day, she nearly drooled at the incongruous smell wafting over from the meat. She shook her head.
Keep you cool, Annabeth. You're only going to embarrass yourself. She chided herself mentally.
Watching the two of them get busy, Annabeth reminded herself how similar they were to Luke and Thalia. It was the same lifestyle on the run. The thought brought forth sad memories. But everything flew out of her mind at Percy's next words.
"Take off your shirt and face away from me."
With her back facing him, Annabeth waited in trepidation and anticipation. Standing in her ripped tank-top, she knew her face was flaming hot, which had nothing to do with her palpable heart. Then her whole body felt hot like she was set on fire. She felt pressure from behind, even though she knew Percy wasn't touching her.
Annabeth shivered when she felt like some slimy invisible things crawling across her skin. Multiply that feeling a hundred times and that was exactly what being confronted by monsters felt like. Goosebumps ran across her body at the sudden thought of an ambush.
Once she was done, everything became sharp in her vision. Her heightened senses caught the tiniest movement around her. She turned around to face him. Standing partially naked before Percy made her embarrassed beyond belief. She wanted to slap her cap on her head and vanish forever.
To forget about everything, she tried her usual small talk. "This is amazing, Percy. You drafted a technique useful for every demigod." she praised.
He let out a humorless chuckle. "Accidentally stumbled across it." he corrected. With that, he climbed onto the tree to sleep.
Her days kept on turning around in awkward corners with armed mortals, dealing with the campers split back at camp, and rich, entitled pedophiles. Her admiration for Piper shot through the roof when she didn't even flinch at the teenager's suggestive tone and actions. She had led things smoothly which couldn't be said about Percy, though.
Her mood was all-time down by the time she sat in the booth in a diner. They hadn't sat for five minutes when a loud motorcycle pulled at the entrance and a gangly rider stomped into the restaurant. He made a beeline to their booth. After her encounter with the punk teenager, Annabeth wasn't thrilled when the biker slipped right up to her and squashed her into the corner of the booth, up against the window.
Her mouth felt dry, and red-hot rage filled her. She might have repeated Percy's stunt with the punk teenager if the biker hadn't said, "So, you're old Seaweed's kid, huh?"
The familiarity in his tone rang alarm bells in her head. Annabeth groaned at being targeted by one of the psychopathic gods. She took a closer look at him, and her mother's collected voice—calm even in the face of war—rang in her mind, in contrast to the war god's infuriating tone. With that, she wrestled her emotions out of Ares' control.
Percy wasn't quick on the uptake. "What's it to you?" he growled like a feral animal.
She tried to cut in with an introduction. "Percy, this is—" Ares raised his hand to stop her.
Annabeth had the strange feeling that they were all experiencing Ares in different ways. She could tell because Percy and Piper both seemed to be responding, too, but not in a relation to what Ares was talking about. It happens with the gods, sometimes. They exist on so many planes and in so many mortal minds, that their essence had basically split, even though they've picked a form.
Sometimes, they could appear to a single mortal while everyone around them goes about oblivious to their presence. That wasn't the case now—she was fairly sure everyone could see him—with the stunt he just pulled and the dazed look on every customer. He appeared like an abnormal biker. It was more like he was having an individual conversation with each of them simultaneously.
"Well, now, I came looking for Seaweed boy; wasn't expecting one of old Gray Eyes. All hoity-toity. Blonde, though. That's different."
Annabeth bristled a little. She tried to keep her emotions at bay. It wasn't her fault that somehow Athena managed to pass down a hair color everyone associated with airheads. The waiter returned with trays of food, but Annabeth wasn't in the mood to snack on while listening to Ares threaten them.
"I see it now, trying to be all nonchalant. Your mom's the same way, doesn't like emotions much now. But they're fun. War's built on emotions, girlie." He grinned at her. "Speaking of war, you realize you're on the wrong side? Athena's being her usual daddy's pet self, you know. And here you are, hanging out with fish-boy."
That last line felt like a punch to her gut, but Annabeth kept her voice steady. "Sometimes, we have to put aside rivalries for the sake of the quest," she told him. Athena had imparted her wisdom to her; she just recounted the lines. Annabeth believed Athena would always have a strategy for everything.
"The quest!" Ares sneered. "I know all about it. Good luck with that. Despite all her brains, your mom couldn't locate the bolt. My old man put me on the case, too."
"And you didn't find it either." she threw back hotly.
"Nah...but I had a...theory. Your mom thinks it's a codswallop, so, of course, Zeus dismissed it. But my uncle—the salty one—thinks I'm on to something. So his son here gets to do him a big favor and chase down my creepy uncle."
"So, Hades does have the bolt?" she asked uncertainly.
"Sure, wouldn't be a proper family feud if he didn't get involved, would it? You're Bird Brain's youngling, you ought a recognize a strategy when you see one. Nick something, frame someone. BOOM! World war III. Old Skeleton-Head's an expert at that! Why, the Persephone incident, and the last World war...maximum carnage." he licked his lips.
"But he couldn't have stolen the bolt by himself." she pointed.
"Of course, he doesn't have a kid anymore, so he had to find someone else to do his dirty work for him—"
"Who?"
Ares looked unsettled for a moment, as though he suddenly lost the information about the thief. He swatted the air around his ears like an invisible fly was pestering him. His hand involuntarily connected to a half-eaten fry Percy flicked at him.
"Why don't you fetch it yourself?" Piper scowled at Ares, in her personal conversation with the god. They'd already gone further into whatever Ares had intended for them. His arrogant look returned.
"Uh, not important." he evaded her question. "Anyway, the point is, I know you guys are in a pinch here, so I'm gonna offer you some help. But my cousin here's gonna do me a favor first," he said, pointing at Percy, who was glaring at the god like he wanted to rip his head off. He sneered at the god sarcastically and his next few words evaded her.
"Nothing much," her facet of Ares said, but the stifling feeling intensified around her. "Just picking up something I left behind on a date. It's not far from here." he gave her the address and route. "In return, I'll get you a ride."
"B-but, we're searching for the bolt." she protested.
"Oh, yeah. I can see the boy's reluctant. He's a little punk, this one. You're one too, eh? I'd like to see how you keep your smart mouth if I make him a prairie rat. I did one kid in Boston just the other day..." Ares cracked his knuckles and looked at Percy contemplatively, as though already imagining him in a rodent form.
"Please don't, Lord Ares."
"That's good. You've got some brains in that head of yours," he said mockingly. "So you're smart enough to know what to do when a god asks for a favor?"
The sad thing was, she did. You only ignore a god's direct request at your own, very great, peril. They weren't going to have a choice; their quest was about to take a little detour. They still have six days, and if Ares was promising to get the transportation, it wasn't such a bad deal.
"Wait," she said. "We were just having three different conversations with you. Did you tell us all the same thing?"
"Oh, yeah," he considered for a minute. "I did the whole split appearance things, didn't I? Mortals don't usually catch it when that happens." he looked at her with a newfound interest. "but yeah, you got all the basics: waterpark, shield, fetch it, and get rewarded. Easy-peasy. Now get to it!"
Ares snapped his finger and he was gone. Annabeth wasn't squished up against the window any longer. She took a long sip of chocolate shake, to forget about Ares and his emotion-stirring aura. She hoped the side quest would be as easy as Ares had said it'd be.
Percy looked thoughtful, staring out of the window, while Piper looked unsettled. "There's something fishy about Ares seeking us out."
"It's not something we need to care about," Percy told them. "Forget Ares, let's be on our way."
"We can't," Annabeth objected. Her friends exchanged a glance at her protest. "Look, I hate Ares as much as anybody, but you don't ignore the gods unless you want serious bad fortune," Percy cracked a grin and Piper stifled a smile at that. Annabeth wondered what was that about.
"He wasn't kidding about turning you into a rodent," she warned.
"You're not serious, are you? The gods simply couldn't do everything on the mortal plane just because they felt like it. There are ancient laws here, forbidding them to walk the mortal world in their divine forms and disrupt the natural flow of order. Why did he appear as a biker? Why does Artemis look like a twelve-year-old." he countered.
Annabeth thought about it for a minute. What Percy said made sense, but common sense rarely applied to gods and monsters. They're the arch types, the immortal beings, who rule the mythical world.
Piper agreed with him too. But Annabeth insisted they take up on Ares' offer and get his shield back for faster transportation. The trio arrived at a stalemate.
"Why did Ares need our help anyway? This water park..." Piper mused. "He acted a little strange, like scared. What could make a god so scared to avoid the place?"
Annabeth slurped on her chocolate shake. "Maybe it's a problem that required brains?" she offered. "Ares has strength. That's all he has. Even strength has to bow to wisdom sometimes."
Piper sniggered at that.
Annabeth shot her a look. "What's so funny?" though her voice her steady, she couldn't help the mild annoyance flaring up inside her. Piper raised her hand in surrender.
"Percy says something similar occasionally." They turned to him. He sipped at his milkshake and shook his head in refusal. Piper scowled at him. Then she raised her finger piously. "In front of absolute strength, all schemes are pointless."
"But still, even strength bows before love, you know," she proclaimed.
Percy smacked his forehead in exasperation. "It was irrelevant and unnecessary," he told amidst her giggles. Annabeth observed them argue about small and irrelevant things. She could see they were a lot closer than she'd initially thought.
"Finish up. We'll think after that."
They wandered downtown for about half an hour until they arrived at an empty car wash attached to a small convenience store. An idea sparked in Annabeth's mind.
"Let's try to contact Chiron," she said. "I want to consult him about Ares and your talk with the river spirit." Annabeth dragged them to the stall farthest from the street, keeping her eyes open for patrol cars. They were three adolescents hanging out at a car wash without a car; the police would soon reach Denver in search of the culprits responsible for derailing the Amtrak train last night.
"Percy, you wait here. The store security cameras might record you. We need some change." she pointed at the spray gun. She took the Medusa credit card from him and sauntered into the store with Piper.
They veered through the aisles, picking up essentials. Unfortunately for Annabeth, she failed to find some clothes to replace her tattered ones. While picking up some protein bars, Piper grumbled beside her.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing. I hate the guy." she spat.
"Who, Percy?"
Piper rolled her eyes at that. "No, Ares." she corrected. "Always messing around with my mom." they stepped out of the store.
"What about him?"
"There wasn't much about him. It was my first time meeting him. Similar to my mom, Ares messes with emotions, cranks up passion, and clouds your judgment to rush in headfirst. He makes you remember the person you hate and loathe the most."
"What took you so long?" Percy grumbled, taking out the spray gun. Annabeth fed seventy-five cents into the machine and set the knob to fine mist.
"I never thought of summoning a goddess with a spray gun." Piper wondered. Annabeth found it funny too. Percy pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. He manipulated the mist until it formed a mirror.
Annabeth held her palm out to Piper. "Drachma, please." As soon as the rainbow flickered in the mist, she threw the coin.
"O goddess, accept our offering, and show me Half-Blood hill."
She felt a pang of homesickness as the view of the campgrounds appeared, exactly as it would look from the Big House. The familiar strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance from the back porch and the lawns.
For a moment, no one showed up. Annabeth realized she had to specify who she was calling as well as where; it'd been years since she'd last done this. Fortunately, the rainbow appeared at the Big House, near Chiron's office.
"Not a wise move, eh, Wisegirl?" Percy joked, and she knew her face was flaming hot.
Percy chuckled and raised his free hand, facing the rainbow. Annabeth watched in amazement as the images in the rainbow slowly moved away from her until she saw Chiron in his office. He'd a prism set on his table, with a flashlight beam directed at it. She realized Percy had directed the rainbow to catch the overflowing beams from the flashlight to sustain their Iris message.
Before she could call out to her mentor, the rainbow filtering out from the prism changed and a multi-colored face of a pretty young woman with flowing hair appeared. Her hair was literally flowing—it undulated along her back like the waves of the ocean. Her eyes were deep, although their exact color was distorted by the shades of the rainbow and the rippling around her.
Annabeth faintly realized the rippling wasn't part of the Iris message. The pretty young woman was calling from underwater. Annabeth glanced at Percy, who was observing the nereid, listening in on their conversation.
"The division in the camp has caused you inconvenience." the water spirit said apologetically. "We're sympathetic to your predicament. Lord Poseidon has taken his stance on the matter. No one shall cause you trouble on this issue."
"It is inconsequential." Chiron waved it off. "Regarding your message, I have heard no news since the questers set out. By the laws governing a quest, I'm forbidden to initiate contact, unless they call me." Chiron massaged his neck.
Annabeth took it as her cue to announce their presence. "Chiron." he inclined his head slightly to notice another rainbow hovering above his window sill.
"Thank goodness." he took in their appearance, and for once, Annabeth was thankful for the timely clean-up before their contact. Though they were still dressed in wrinkled and torn shirts, their hungry and beat-up was long gone after a quick grab at the diner. She didn't want Chiron to worry over their troubling quest.
"Chiron, is everything alright at camp? What happened?" she fired her questions. He grimaced at that.
"I had to break a few brawls and settle several disputes between the campers. We've yet to find out who had summoned the Hellhounds, but the word on Olympus has been leaked. Almost all the campers knew about the Zeus-Poseidon standoff and they started to take sides."
"What about you? What's your status?" he asked.
Annabeth almost told him everything, excluding her dreams. Even for a few minutes, it felt good to be back at camp. When she mentioned Ares and his side quest, Chiron had a troubled look, mirroring the water spirit in the rainbow.
"I advise you to follow along with Lord Ares and help him out with his agenda. I won't pretend to understand the war god's motives perfectly, or why he'd choose this time to interrupt your quest, but one thing is certain. You must resolve Ares' debt before you step into the Underworld." he finished.
"Speaking of Underworld," the water spirit interrupted. She observed Percy for a while. "We tried to intercept you during your quest. My sisters scouted the rivers inland, though they cannot stay in one for long. Have you met one?"
"Yes, I have. I was told to report at Santa Monica Beach before diving into the Underworld. I'll arrive at the destination in a few days." he clipped.
"Wonderful. Someone has succeeded then. I shall recall them. One of us will meet you personally. Until then." with a static she was gone.
"Chiron, we were ambushed by monsters since the Grey Hound station in New York. There has to be some foul play because never had we been faced with such a high frequency of monsters in the mortal world. It was no coincidence. Do you know anything about it?" Piper asked.
Chiron looked thoughtful for a minute. Annabeth waited patiently while her brain worked non-stop to come up with strategies to lose the monster trail.
"You said you've lost your bags, then where did you get the money to contact me?" he asked out of the blue. Annabeth raised the card they'd been plundering on their way to Chiron and told him about its history.
Chiron looked appalled. "Annabeth," his tone befuddled and rebuking. "Don't you know the currency used by arch types has always been infested with their aura? We've covered this in camp lectures on many occasions. Every camper going out into the mortal world has been warned repeatedly to never use things from a monster lair." he looked at her dubiously.
Annabeth groaned and mentally facepalmed. It was a 101 for campers to avoid things from monster lairs. Just because it was digital money doesn't make it less infested with Medusa's aura. No wonder monsters came out in droves, seeking one of their own in the open.
Percy took the card from her, snapped, and threw it in the nearby bin. "There, problem solved. Now, what do you intend to do with the camper's division?"
"I've been agonizing over it for days now. They're pretty stubborn about upholding their parent's honor and wouldn't listen to reason. I need to calm them down before Dionysus takes drastic measures." his old face looked even more haggard.
"I think it's stupid. I mean, should we follow our parents blindly? Or make our own choices?" he spat. "Chiron, who's behind you?" he pointed to the faint shadow by the door, eavesdropping on their conversation. Whoever it was, disappeared immediately.
"One of the campers, perhaps. I guess they came looking for me to report something. I shall see to it then." he stood up from his wheelchair. "Many lives depend on you three. Stay safe, and may the gods be with you." The spray gun stopped, and Chiron's image faded to nothing.
Though Annabeth felt the changes around her, her mind was occupied with other thoughts. Percy's words rang in her head. As a cabin counselor, she was supposed to lead her siblings, but she had no clue what was happening to them back at camp. The Athena cabin supported Zeus in this endeavor. Those words left her breathless and jittery.
"I'm going to use the restroom," she announced and sprinted back to the store. Annabeth washed her face thoroughly and took a few deep breaths to clear her mind.
"You okay?" she heard Piper behind her. Annabeth turned, but carefully avoided Piper's eyes. She felt her confidence wane, considering her cabin's standoff.
"Yeah." she lied. Piper frowned, her brows furrowed and her eyes dark with concern.
"Annabeth..." her tone stern, "What happened?"
She relented and relayed her troubles. "I don't know how to face Percy anymore. All along, I've been nothing but baggage to him. Someone he needs to be on a constant lookout for." she cried.
Piper gave her one of the 'big sister' smiles and handed her a tissue to wipe her face. "Annabeth, you don't need to concern yourself with Percy. He would flat out tell you to buzz off if you're being a burden. He imparted his technique because he trusts you and needs your help to complete this quest."
"Ares had fed me with something similar too." she said after a pause. "I felt a little put out in the beginning, but it's fine. We're friends. As Percy said, should we follow our parents or make our own decisions? It's your call."
"Heck, I don't believe Percy cares about stuff like that. He's not someone who agonizes over something like this." she added at the end.
When they arrived at the wash station, Percy had been tapping his foot against the floor impatiently. "What took you so long?"
"Uh.." Annabeth tried, but nothing verbal accompanied her.
"There was a long queue at the restroom. We got held up." Piper smoothly lied. It was amazing how she seemingly made a barefaced lie sound like the truth.
"I can tell a lie when I hear one," he grumbled. Piper stuck her tongue. They asked around for the water park and set out immediately.
To begin with, Ares' idea of 'not far' could use some revision. They walked for miles in the blistering heat and found it in the evening. During their stroll to the park, Annabeth resumed her previous conversation about Ares with Piper.
"My mom's the same as Ares. Looking at her makes you see the person you like or simply find attractive, albeit with magnified proportions. She's too good at playing with emotions." she said.
"Is that what you were talking about earlier?" Percy interjected. They both silently agreed to his misconception and fed him more lies.
"Yeah, you know...girls are into gossip and all," Piper said nonchalantly. To Annabeth, "you know how she came to be and was thus married to Hephaestus, right?"
"Yeah, and she hooked up with Ares, to spite her husband, the genius mechanic. Hephaestus isn't exactly handsome because he was crippled when he was a baby, thrown off Mount Olympus by Hera. He's clever with his hands and all, but Aphrodite isn't into brains and talent."
"She likes crazy bikers," Percy added.
"Whatever." Piper shot. "Aphrodite's arrival put a lot of strain on marital relationships on Olympus and was thus agreed upon to be married to Hephaestus. I think Hera planned this to salvage her marriage but the council had other agendas. But godly marriages are not without complications. Heck, even the goddess of marriage couldn't retain her ideal marriage proposition."
"Pipes, don't use their names if you intend to belittle them," Percy warned her. Piper poked her tongue out at him.
"It's not like my mom hates her husband or anything. It's more like she isn't compatible with him." she tried to explain Aphrodite's plight, but it made Annabeth even more confused.
"The genius mechanic isn't good with living things ever since his...uh...accident. It's his fear and weakness, I don't know. He couldn't bring himself to show his affection to his wife, thus creating a rift between them." Percy supplied. Walking in the middle, Annabeth listened to them rant about Ares, Aphrodite, and Hephaestus.
"Meanwhile, love, war, and death have always been bound to each other strongly. We have the Underworld bunch and this trio as references. I believe the best solution for the genius mechanic is to sabotage his wife's time with Ares. It boosts his vanity and confidence, and involves himself with the living."
"Though the crazy biker is a grade-A jerk, he would never try to separate my mom and her husband apart. He knows he wouldn't cherish her anymore. Sneaking away with her, destroying the traps laid gets him the exhilaration of battle. I think he knew Hephaestus' past and their rocky relationship with their mother. It's a symbiotic relationship. They need each other for existence and were already used to this type of life where they seek their benefits from the setup."
To say Annabeth was overwhelmed was an understatement. She'd always thought poorly about Aphrodite and supported Hephaestus to trap the adulterous couple. She had held a lot of prejudice against Ares to share the war domain with her mother, Athena.
"Then there's my mom. She didn't want to set brother against brother. She couldn't help but sate her vanity when they fought over her. Love is fickle; it's cruel and was never easy to control. You don't know who you'll fall for. My mom's the same. Perhaps, she loves her husband, but couldn't get whatever she wanted from him. She might get that from Ares, but couldn't stay with him all the time because of her marriage contract."
"Their relations are a lot more complex and complicated than what we might've imagined. It's one giant, messy family."
Annabeth watched the duo laugh and joke around with each other. They looked far more mature than their ages suggested. At times like these, she realized her initial impression of Percy couldn't have been farther from the person he is.
"What happened after that?" she prompted.
Of course, this all is just our speculation and analysis from the history. Most of it might not be true, but I believe that it shouldn't be too far off the mark." Percy paused and looked ahead. "There's the old water park." he pointed to the padlocked main gate with a barbed fence.
Judging from the big sign, it had once been called WATERLAND, but some of the letters were smashed out. The place looked like it had been abandoned for centuries. On either side of the cracked asphalt littered with old advertisement fliers, it was full of buildings with peeling paint that stood with doors ajar, and water slides that didn't look like they'd pass state regulations.
They found an open gift shop that hasn't been closed for too long because it still had stacks of clothes and merchandise lined on the shelves, free for taking.
"Clothes," Annabeth exclaimed. "Fresh clothes."
"Yeah," Percy agreed. "But they're—"
"Watch me." she ignored his protests and disappeared into a changing room with a stack of clothes. You take what you could find , living on streets.
She came out looking like a walking advertisement for a defunct theme park in flower-print shorts, a big red Waterland t-shirt, and surf shoes. She had a Waterland backpack slung over her shoulder, stuffed with more clothes.
"How's it?" she twirled before him, to show off her goodies. It had been embarrassing to walk in a ripped clothes.
"Tacky." he gave her a thumbs up. Piper shrugged and they continued to search for the shield.
They found the entrance to the Tunnel of Love in the heart of the water park, past the creaky roller coaster and attractions with tacky signs. Seriously, who named a ride 'Head over Wedgie'? The entrance was propped between two bronze Cupids. One of them had something carved into its neck: Eta, the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet.
Annabeth traced the letter thoughtfully. Maybe Ares had meant to carve his name in the statue. It was the third letter of his name in Greek, which didn't make any sense—surely you'd leave your initial if you wanted to leave your mark. But Ares wasn't known for his brains. For all she knew, he couldn't even spell his name.
Through the Cupid statues, an algae-covered path led to a bowl-shaped pool. In the left seat of a canopy-topped boat in the marooned pool was a polished circle of bronze—Ares' shield. A dozen Cupid statues stood guard around the rim of the pool, with bows ready to fire.
"What now?" Piper asked. "Should I fly down there to pick it up?" she proposed.
"No, I need you to stay at the controls, ready for help, if any. If Ares doesn't wish to be here, then it's not something we should take lightly. We'll search for traps."
We? If we take Piper out, that leaves us with...
She had a sudden vision of Ares and his girlfriend Aphrodite sitting wrapped around each other in the love boat, except in her head, the gods were replaced with adolescent teens. The image of her sitting next to Percy in the boat popped into her head. Her face burned.
"Annabeth, come with me—"
"Are you kidding?"
He looked at her as though she'd grown a second head. "Huh?"
"Me, go with you to the...the 'Thrill Ride of Love'. How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?" The Aphrodite cabin would have a field day if they catch this scene. Speaking of, Annabeth glanced at Piper, who wore a knowing smug grin, and winked at her.
"You know this is a shutdown park, right?" he looked at her weirdly. "And nothing works here. I'm not asking you to ride or anything." he shook his head. "Fine, you two stay as a backup." he trudged along the narrow path.
"Boys," Annabeth muttered. Of course, she had to go with him. But...he didn't need to state the obvious. Come with me, Annabeth. Her heart did a little somersault. What did he need to say that for?
It occurred to her that she might not be being exactly fair. Like when they'd met Ares, some other force was driving her anger and embarrassment, which didn't make her feel any better about it.
As she hopped down the last step into the pool, she caught his cheeky grin. His eyes twinkled in the night sky.
"Shut up." she snapped.
"Whatever you say." his smirk grew wider.
While he searched for any traps around the boat, Annabeth's eyes darted around to the carving etched on the side of the boat. Another Eta. She could write one-off, but another one?
"Wait," she stopped him from picking up the shield. Lying innocently on the seat next to the shield was a flimsy pink scarf—just your average female token. It came along with the shield. Percy picked it up, holding it to his nose. A vague mountain laurel fragrance drifted to her and a dreamy, scattered look overtook his face.
Innocent scarf my ass!
Annabeth snatched it away quickly. "Oh no, you don't," she told him sternly. "Stay away from that love magic."
Percy stared at her stupidly. "What?"
Annabeth rolled her eyes. "Just get the shield, Seaweed Brain."
The moment he touched the shield, Annabeth knew they were in trouble. She vaguely noticed a strand of cobweb attached to the shield, but up close, it was some kind of metal filament, so fine it was almost invisible strung to the shield.
A trip wire.
A grinding noise erupted underneath them. The bronze Cupids came to life, shooting thin golden threads with their bows, and weaving a net over their heads. With another whirring noise, all the statues' heads snapped open, popping out video cameras like jack-in-the-boxes. The entire pool suddenly felt like a grand stage, with white-hot spotlights and an invisible host crying, "Annnd...we're going LIVE to Olympus in one minute."
As the hidden loudspeaker counted down, Annabeth realized exactly what the Greek carving meant. "Hephaestus!"
"What?" Percy stared at the spotlights and cameras.
"I'm so stupid! Eta is 'H'. He made this trap to catch his wife with Ares. Now we're going to be broadcast live to Olympus." The thought of looking like absolute fools in the Olympian Council TV show made her embarrassment shoot up.
And then, things got infinitely worse, when thousands of creepy, black, little things crawled towards them.
Annabeth had been terrified on the journey, a lot of times. The Furies were an old nightmare. Medusa had been horrifying. She'd been devastated when she thought they'd lost Percy. But nothing—absolutely nothing—compared to the terror she felt when the wave of mechanical creepy crawlers came flooding out of the net.
Spiders.
"Spiders!" she screamed. "Sp-sp-aaaah!"
She forgot about Ares' shield, forgot about the cameras waiting to humiliate them on Olympus, forgot everything except the only that mattered, getting away from the deadliest creatures in the world. Her brain turned to mush in their presence. She screamed and tried to run, but her legs had long turned into jelly with all the spiders swarming her.
Arachnophobia was the curse of every child of Athena, a legacy passed down ever since the ill-fated weaving contest between Athena and the arrogant Arachne. Her children tormented them mercilessly, seeking them out whenever possible, never letting go of the ancient grudge.
Annabeth vaguely felt Percy drag her into the boat and shove the spiders away from her. but he wasn't having much success. They overwhelmed him with numbers, the entire surface of the boat was a thriving colony of them. She believed she would die here, overcome and swallowed by spiders, prey to her worst nightmares. She covered her face and sobbed.
She was once again seven. The cobwebs, the droves of spiders in her room, the memories were still fresh. Her fear and terror. Her stepmom's scorn and disbelief, her dad's indifference and exasperation. Everything came flooding back. She screamed again, or had she ever stopped?
WHOOSH!
Then she was surrounded by blue. A giant colossal wave slammed down on them. Percy leaned over her, covering her from the wave. He pulled a strap across her chest and sat before her. The boat kept tossing in the whirlpool.
"Annabeth, look at me." she lowered her trembling hand from her face. The canopy had been torn off completely. Percy leaned above her, his hand held up like a magician's "Just look at me. It's alright. I need you to keep your focus on me and drone out everything around you. That's it."
The spider clicking stopped, and they sloshed off the sides. Annabeth mentally rejoiced at the demise of the creepy crawlers. She could feel the glaring spotlights, the recording cameras, the bursting pipes, and mirrors, but everything drowned while she gazed into his eyes.
Percy's deep sea-green eyes.
Things started to make sense again. The churning boat on the rising water, Percy keeping them steady and afloat, the currents carrying them towards a looming tunnel. The boat picked up speed and dived into the tunnel. Annabeth screamed again, half from giddy excitement as the boat jerked. Next to her, Percy sat and looked at her blankly. Ironically, they'd ended up holding each other's hand tightly on the Thrill Ride of Love—in front of a live Olympus audience.
"Unfasten your seatbelt!" Percy cried.
That jarred her out of her stupor. "Are you crazy?"
She looked ahead and saw they were headed straight towards a chained gate. It looked like a badly painted forbidding steel grate, with two smashed-up boats lying at its foot. They were about to become minced thrill-riders.
"I can get us some boost. We're going to have to jump for it," he said. Annabeth saw what he meant. There was no stopping the boat from capsizing at the gate, but if they sprung from their seats, there was a chance they could clear the gates instead. It was a crazy yet brilliant plan, given the madness of their situation.
"On my mark." she realized he meant to leap right away. If they jumped before they were close enough, the momentum of the boat would suck them downward.
"No, on my mark." she countered.
"What—"
"Simple physics!" she formulated an equation out loud. "Force times the trajectory angle—"
"Okay, okay. On your mark."
"—between our current vector and the desired resultant vector, oh gods..." she kept a close eye on the gate, estimating, and praying to get the timing right.
"Now!"
They jumped, just before they could get stripped to ribbons flying through the gates. Her plan worked as their trajectory took them sailing over it, high enough to avoid getting speared at the top, but also high enough to fly past the pool outside and fall freely towards the solid asphalt.
Annabeth screamed again, half out of fear.
"Anytime now," Percy yelled. Someone grabbed her free hand. Their flight slowed down momentarily. Piper, her flying shoes flapping away desperately, trying to keep them from plummeting to their deaths. The three of them together were too heavy for the shoes.
"Percy!" Piper panted, her hand gripping onto each other. All three of them held onto each other tightly as they descended rapidly.
The pool beneath them erupted and a giant hand made of water tore through the surface, accompanied by a loud rumbling as it ascended. The hand engulfed Annabeth and others in a water bubble before setting them gently on the asphalt.
They rolled off in different directions, breathing hard.
"Everyone okay?" Percy panted somewhere to her left. He got to his feet and held out his hand to her. She took it and pulled herself up.
"That was awesome. One more time." Piper laughed maniacally, a crazy glint in her eyes. Annabeth didn't share the same sentiment.
"Yeah," she said. She was completely drenched, badly bruised, and let's not forget the complete arachnid-induced meltdown she'd had.
Percy looked at her for a long time and she was sure he was going to say something about the spiders, but he just nodded and dropped her hand. They were silent for a moment, and then the sound of mechanical sounds made them turn back to the gates they'd flown over. The dozen Cupid statues with camera heads followed them.
Annabeth buried her face in her hands. Her humiliation at the hands of Hephaestus' mechanical spiders was broadcasted all over Olympus. Judging from the grim looks on Percy's face, he wasn't too thrilled with the setup either.
He shook his fist at them. "Show's over! Thank you! Good night!" A swarm of water vines crawled along the pool surface and pierced through the statues, short-circuiting the cameras. It wouldn't do any good to their humiliation but relieved their frustration a bit.
"Ares owes us big time. Lets go." yeah, definitely. But what can they do about it?
Annabeth sighed and followed them. The sooner they got out of there and back on their real quest, the better.
oOo
As promised, Ares had been waiting for them at the diner parking lot. He leaned on his bike nonchalantly, while the mortals milled around him nervously. The psychopathic god grinned upon noticing them.
"You should've given a heads up about the trap. Easy-peasy, my ass." he tore off the band-aid quickly.
"Where's the fun in that? Bet that cripple was surprised when he netted a couple of stupid kids. You looked good on TV." he gave them a wicked grin.
Percy shoved the shield at Ares. The latter caught it and spun it around like a frisbee. It morphed into a bulletproof vest. Then he pointed to the opposite road.
Annabeth didn't know what she expected from their promised ride to Los Angeles. A private car, perhaps, or at the very least a taxi. She certainly felt, given how they'd taken the flack for Ares in such a huge way, they'd earned it. What they got. however, was a huge carrier with caged zoo animals.
And a backpack with fresh supplies.
The eighteen-wheeler had a sign on the back: KINDNESS INTERNATIONAL: HUMANE ZOO TRANSPORT. WARNING: LIVE WILD ANIMALS.
It was almost insulting, but she knew better than to quibble with a god—especially one who was a loose cannon like Ares. Percy wasn't as astute. He seemed to thrive on getting as much up in Ares' face as he could since he knew the god couldn't do anything unless challenged.
"Watch your mouth, kid. Not all Olympians are as unforgiving as I am. The next time we meet..." he left the threat hanging, revved his bike, and roared off the street.
"Um...guys, if we are going to take the zoo express, we better get moving." And sure enough, the truck engine hummed to life. The demigods scampered after the truck, got in, and locked it from the inside. The smell inside was horrendous, like a sewage tunnel. Piper threw a few glowsticks to light up the inside.
The carrier held a zebra, a male albino lion, and an antelope, all cramped up in too-small cages that hadn't been seen washing in ages. The albino had a sack of turnips, the other two had a hamburger steak on Styrofoam plates. They had a hungry look and paced the stuffed cages.
"This is kindness" Piper just about hit the roof. "Humane zoo transport?"
Annabeth nudged Percy for an explanation. "It's her hunter side speaking up," he whispered to her.
"We should let them out." she agreed. She couldn't bear the misery in their eyes. The antelope looked at her sorrowfully. It had a balloon stuck in its horns.
The trailer bumped on the road, shaking the cargo. They cannot leave now or help these animals, especially the lion, who was pacing dejectedly, but decidedly a carnivore. They swapped the food. Piper swore to see the end of the business. Annabeth had no complaints about that.
She opened the backpack Ares had given them. There were clean clothes, but she thought she'd save them when they reached their destination, given the stench in the trailer. He'd topped up their cash, too—dollars and drachmas—and thrown in a pack of Oreos, the twice-filling kind. She broke open the pack and started on one.
Piper curled up to one side and she was fast asleep. As usual, she was going to take the third watch. Annabeth couldn't mimic her, not with a hungry albino staring at her.
How long has it been since they'd left the campgrounds? Four days? So much had happened: the Furies, Medusa, a Chimera blowing up the Gateway Arch, a pack of monsters derailing an Amtrak train to chase them. And now Ares and his little Hephaestus TV trap. Annabeth vaguely wondered if this was how a quest was supposed to be. Crazy and confusing.
Had Luke's been like this, too?
Annabeth glanced at Percy. He was staring at his sword, his face unreadable. She could tell he was still hung up on the Waterland trap, with his time to time mutterings of 'stupid immortals', and 'not to be bullied easily.' Just thinking about the whole debacle made her cringe.
Percy hadn't said anything about her going ballistic over the spiders, but she remembered his calling for help while she just cried and screamed her head off. She wondered what he thought of her. She felt like she owed him an explanation and a thank-you.
"Hey," she called out softly. "I'm sorry for freaking out back in the waterpark." he glanced at her, the bronze light reflected in his eyes, giving them a nice tint.
"That's okay."
"I hate them, you know...spiders." she couldn't help shudder at the word.
"Because of your mother's rivalry with Arachne? I get it." She didn't remember covering that in Greek lessons, but she was nonetheless grateful that he recalled the story.
"Arachne's children have been taking revenge on the children of Athena ever since. If there's a spider within a mile of me, it'll find me. Whenever I see one, all my rationale collapses and I turn primal. Anyway, I owe you."
"We're a team, right?"
Annabeth smiled, remembering the first time Piper had said it after they fought Medusa. It had overwhelmed her then; now it felt like a simple truth coming from Percy. She split the Oreo in half and offered it to him.
Percy's voice cut through her rumination. "That pine tree bead, is that from your first year?"
Annabeth looked down and realized she'd been fiddling with her necklace while she thought. "Yeah, every August, the counselors pick the most important event of the summer, and paint it on the year's bead." Their dramatic arrival at camp had, of course, topped the list that year.
"I've got Thalia's pine tree bead," she showed him. "A Greek trireme on fire," (Charles Beckendorf had crashed that into the surf the year he learned to make it), "A golden apple, and a centaur in a prom dress—now that was a weird summer..."
"And the college ring. Is that your dad's?" Percy zoomed straight into the one odd item on her necklace.
"That's none of—" she started to tell him to butt out, but then she stopped. Percy had already heard half of the story from Grover. He hadn't even pried, even until now. Plus, he hadn't laughed about the spiders. Annabeth decided he'd earned the right to know.
"Yeah," she agreed. "Yeah, it is."
"You don't have to tell me—"
"No... it's okay." She told him about the letter from her dad, explaining the significance of the ring. "The ring was like a keepsake from Athena, from their time together...Anyway, he sent it to me in a letter apologizing for everything and wanted me to come home."
"You have yet to tell why you left your house."
Annabeth took a shaky breath. "My dad resented me since the day I was born, Percy. He never wanted a baby." She explained his desire to send her back, his reluctance to keep her, and the new family he'd finally gotten himself. She was supposed to be a miracle, a gift from gods, like in stories. But unlike the stories, she was the only unwanted demigod child.
"You're kidding." she was jealous of the pure disbelief in his voice like he couldn't fathom a mortal parent giving up on their children. He must be incredibly lucky to have a mom could love him that deeply.
Annabeth's experience with her parents had been quite the opposite. Her story wasn't as bad as Luke and Thalia's—their moms had actually been batshit crazy—but it was no picnic being the unwanted black sheep of the family, either. She still remembered the little things that had tormented her.
Even at seven. she'd known her dad hadn't wanted her, not at all, from the day Athena delivered her to him. She didn't remember the part personally, but she'd seen it in dreams—a memory of her dad and stepmom talking about it.
A child, Helen, just like that. As if I can suddenly put aside everything and raise a kid when I'd just gotten the junior lecturer position.
Couldn't she have done, I don't know, shared custody or something?
Apparently, it's not the way. They—heroes—have to be raised by mortals.
Mortals? A five-year-old needs her mother.
I wish she'd warned me about the monsters that would come after her. If I had known...
Percy was still staring at her. It wasn't much, but she couldn't stand that he might be thinking of her as heartless and cynical.
"His new wife—my stepmom—treated me like a freak," she said. She remembered Helen's unending exasperation at her learning disabilities, the lower scores and complaints she'd brought home, and the monsters that kept coming back, especially when half-brothers came along. "She wouldn't let me play with her children and my dad went along with her. Whenever something dangerous happened, they would look at me resentfully, like, 'how dare you put our family at risk'.
"I really didn't blame them—I'd felt so guilty for always attracting trouble. Finally, I took the hint that I wasn't wanted. I ran away." But now, her mind relayed the information Percy had told her, about her aura alone capable of killing mortals. Is that why her parents kept her brothers away from her?
"But you couldn't have gotten to the camp alone," he countered.
"No, not alone." She'd had Athena's guidance in her head, a voice telling her where to go, but she wouldn't have lasted long if Thalia and Luke hadn't found her. "I made a couple of unexpected friends..." she carefully avoided his eyes.
"So Grover had been the satyr to rescue Thalia and her companions. The ones who got safely to camp.. that was you and Luke." it was an unexpected astuteness from him, and it surprised her.
Annabeth sighed. She told him how Athena had guided her to Thalia and Luke. They hadn't been much older than she was now at the time, and they hadn't had any training at all, but they'd already been living on their own and fighting off monsters for almost two years. They hadn't complained about taking a kid like her with them.
They were a pretty formidable team. She found herself wondering—out of the blue—if maybe she and Percy could make a great team like that too.
"What happened to Thalia then?" he asked.
"Grover... it was his first escort job. He panicked and made a couple of wrong turns, which slowed us considerably." Annabeth shuddered. One of those wrong turns had been straight to a Cyclops' den, but that hadn't been Grover's ineptitude. If anything, it ought to have been her fault; she was the kid they'd to take care of, the one who had slowed everyone down. "Thalia sacrificed for us to survive."
"So you went home back home? That doesn't sound so bad. When was it?" he changed the topic.
"Yeah, it was two summers ago. I believed my dad and tried to go home for the school year, but nothing changed. My stepmom was still the same. Monster attacks and arguments remained the same. My dad had worked as much as ever. I had asked him if we could go away for the winter break, just him and me, but he denied and I came back to camp."
The memory stung. Don't be so selfish, Annabeth. We're a family, right? She'd called Chiron right after that and had gone straight back to camp. Her dad had made his choice to who he wanted to live with and that's not her.
Silence enveloped them, as she gave a watered-down version of her past to Percy. "I know it's not my place, but can I say something?" he asked at the end. She nodded and settled into a comfortable position. Her fingers brushed over his.
"You see her," he gestured at the sound asleep Piper. "Her dad was absent for most of her life. He grew distant as she grew up, perhaps reminded him of Aphrodite, or got busy." He gave her a watered-down version of Piper's past, her troubles to get her dad's attention. "Her dad still doesn't know about Aphrodite and this side of her life. She doesn't have anywhere to go talk about her godly side, except my mom, which was a little complicated."
Then he spun around a hypothesis on her dad's predicament, about how he had been passively pushed around by circumstances, by Athena, his work, Helen, and the monsters. He weaved an amazing story that highlighted her dad's faults and probably a few speculations about the reasons behind his decisions.
Annabeth wanted to counter that her dad did a good job being a father to the twins and that her stepmom ignored her fears of spiders at night. And the adults wouldn't allow the twins with her alone. She wanted to tell Percy that her dad had never seen her as a daughter, only a burden left behind by a goddess.
"Your presence made him prepared for your brothers. He probably got engrossed in his work, believing you both got along well. Things didn't go as planned, sure. There was a lot of hurt and resentment between you, sure. But I can tell you one thing." his voice turned grave and resolute.
"Demigods don't give their mortal parents the credit they deserve to put up with us and the weird world we live in. It's a lot harder than we could ever imagine. They care about us."
Thalia and Luke had taken her story as a matter of course. They knew what it was like to have parents who didn't care. Percy's perspective made a sliver of doubt creep into her head; his view of things was so naïve. Or was it?
She thought of the attempts her dad continued to make. The guilt gifts, the letters sent to Camp Half-Blood.
"He doesn't care about me," she told him harshly, although her memory unhelpfully supplied a fuzzy recollection of running through a room like a plane and being taught how to read. She bristled a little and pushed them aside. Her dad had gone back on all the promises when he remarried Helen and let her take over the parenting duties.
She didn't dare say anymore. Her eyes felt hot and teary. But a thought continuously poked at her: just who had abandoned whom?
"I'll take the first watch. Rest now." she lay down, pulling the backpack as a pillow.
She faintly heard Percy mutter, "This 'mouth as loud as a drum' method definitely came from Athena. Humans are incapable of it." her lips involuntarily curled into a smile. She fell asleep to the rumbling truck wheel beneath her.
xXx
A/N: Sorry, it took me a while. My computer crashed and I had to move across the country. This chapter is freaking huge. You know the drill: reviews are always appreciated.
