Just a little warning on this chapter, there is a kinda dark scene, probably the darkest in all of the story, so please stick with me. The scene is in italics so when you get to that part, you can skip and I will brief you at the end. :)
When we got back to camp, we went straight to a counselors meeting that lasted for about two hours. During that time, Connor decided to shove pencils up Clovis' nose. We started talking about how to accommodate so many people, and then some that were coming. We also talked about what the week would entail.
"I do think we should talk about what's going to happen when the gods get here." said Connor, still shoving pencils up Clovis' nose. Everyone is the room groaned, and some sighed. I shook my head and then felt something slide into my hands. I look down and it was Annabeth's hand. I turn my head up to her and smile. I squeeze her hand and take a deep breath.
"Oh my gods, Connor you should know that they won't show up!" Clarisse exclaimed. She had her feet up on the table, and was holding her spear. She gave Connor a glare. She stood up suddenly,slamming her feet down on the ground and with her heavy boots, pounding on the floor, walked over to the middle of the room.
"You guys, we may have fought in their wars, done quests for them, but they have sat by and watched us die." she begins, looking at all of us in the eye. "How many of us have died for their own causes? Silena, Beckendorf. Bianca. Lee Fletcher, who, I remind you, was crushed by a giant!" she emphasises. Some people look away or some look down.
"Okay, Clarisse, we know. But we can't-" Will starts.
"No, I need to remind you guys that we have fought, and fought, and fought. But we never get anything, just painful deaths." she interrupts.
"Why are you so passionate about this, I mean, you don't really ever comment on things like this." Leo asks, sitting forward in his seat. Every head in the room turns to Clarisse. She looks at all of us and sighs. It takes her a few moments to respond.
"Guys, I'm just really tired. I can- can't do this anymore. I have to be tough around everyone. Act like nothing's wrong, like I haven't fought for all of my life, almost lost my life several times. I've watched family, friends, and people I didn't even know die. I've suffered through so many traumatic experiences in my life, that...that I can no longer be tough." she explains at a low whisper.
The mood shifts in the room, everyone knowing exactly what Clarisse is feeling. We've all seen terrible things. We've all watched loved ones die, and if they didn't die, we saw them get seriously hurt, suffered through not knowing if they would make it out of the infermieri alive. We have all gone through countless injuries, and somehow have made it out alive.
"We are all trying, Clarisse." Annabeth whispered. I follow her eyes to my hand, and squeeze her's in reassurance. "And, it's hard for all of us, but, you don't have to be tough anymore. It's no longer our turn. We- we are the last generation. It's time for a new one. I think it's time what we a a breather you know?" Clarisse smiles at her, and lets her head fall into her hands. After a moment or two, she looks up at Annabeth.
"How do you always know what to say, Annie?" she questions, giving Annabeth a smirk. I look at Annabeth, and in return she smiles at me and at Clarisse.
"It's kinda like my job." she starts. "You are all pinheads, and I always have to keep your heads screwed on." everyone in the room laughs, and I am surprised that Jason hasn't said anything, because he is usually wanting to be the leader, to give those encouraging pep talks.
"We should just wing it when/if the gods come. I mean, that's pretty much what happens when we all go on quests. We plan for something and then it all goes to shit, right." Katie says, making a laugh go throughout the room.
"Well, my girlfriend is not wrong." Travis says, putting his arm around Katie and giving her a kiss on the cheek. Katie "tries" to push him away, but ends up just laughing and falling in towards him.
"We'll have to be up bright and early tomorrow to be able to welcome the Romans." Annabeth whispers to me while watching the sunset on the dock, with me hugging her from the behind. I take in a deep breath and let my head fall into her perfect, golden curls. I smell her lemon shampoo, the type she has not changed ever since I commented that I liked it. My arms circle her waist and I close my eyes and just take in the moment. Suddenly, the ring feels really heavy in my pocket.
"Yeah, but like, do we have to? I mean, they know who we are, why do we have to be there?" I ask into her hair. Annabeth twists around into my arms and looks up at me. I give her a small smile and a soft kiss on the lips.
"Percy, it's a thing. We are kinda obligated to do it." she whispers against my lips, looking up into my eyes and then back to my lips.
"Yeah...that may be a thing...but this is a better thing!" I yell, picking her up by her waist and running off of the dock and into the water.
"PERCY!" Annabeth screams and laughs out just before we hit the water.
"GABE NO!" Mom screams when she sees that he had picked up the gun and pointed it at Andy. my heart drops, and I wish that I could get up and try to get in front of Andy, but I am paralyzed.
"She needs to die, Sally. I told her to do multiple things, but she never listened. She deserves to die." He repeats what he had said earlier. He had been drinking since nine this morning. But I don't think that's made a difference.
"Gabe...please don't, I'll do anything." Andy's small voice pleads as she begs for her life, sitting on her knees.
"Gabe I will leave you!" my mom threatens, her voice cracking. But now I know that she couldn't do that. She had to stay with Gabe, to protect her children. But right now, he was going to kill Andy.
"Gabe...don't.."I barely manage to get out. I try crawling towards them, but Gabe sees this and steps on my hand. I cry out in pain, and stop.
"No, this time Sally, she is dead." Gabe says, and he cocks the gun.
"GABE NO I'M SERIOUS PLEASE DON'T!"
"I will behave Gabe, I promise."
"No."
"Andromeda, look at me honey, please." my mom begs, cries out and tries to move her hands from the restraints.
"Mommy?" Andy asks.
"I'm right here, you are going to be okay. I love you sweetheart." my mom cries. I see tears fall down both of their faces and then a shot rings out.
I sit up so quickly, I am surprised that I don't get whiplash. I am sobbing and sweating. I try to breath, catch my breath, my heart is racing and pounding in my chest and I can't stop it. I take deep breaths and put my head in my hands.
"Hey. it's okay love. I've got you." Annabeth moves in front of me, grabbing onto me, but I pull away from her. I try to untangle myself out of the sheets, but I just end up falling on the ground.
"Percy!" Annabeth exclaims. She jumps from her spot on our bed and gets down on the ground with me. I am breathing heavily when she wraps her arms around me.
"I saw him killing her again." I quietly tell her, my voice hoarse. After a few moments I look into her eyes and see tears forming. I sigh and stand up. I walk back and forth in the cabin and then finally sit on the edge of the fountain in the cabin. There, again, I put my head into my hands.
"I'm sorry." she whispers into the dark room. I look up at her, seeing that she hasn't moved from her spot. Sitting with her back to me.
"We are going to get through this Perc, I promise." she says to me after a few minutes of us being quite. Annabeth turns around and stands up walking towards me, and then sits next to me on the fountain.
"You know what Piper does when she has really bad dreams?" I ask Annabeth. She raises her eyebrow and smirks at me.
"No, what?" she asks, giving a little chuckle to me. I give her a smile and bit my lip.
"She watches Mamma Mia…"I trial off. I sneak a quick glance at Annabeth to see her with her hand on her face, trying not to laugh at me.
"OkaY! I knew you would laugh at me!" I yell out, and then Annabeth releases her angelic laugh and throws her head back.
"Annabeth, it's a good movie!" I protest, standing up and walking forward to my dresser, where I pull out the movie. When Annabeth sees this, she starts laughing louder and almost falls into the fountain.
"Okay Wise Girl, you can stop laughing now." I grumble, hanging my head. She continues to laugh, but only in small amounts and then proceeds to stand up and walk over to me.
"Okay seaweed brain, I'm sorry. I just didn't expect this from you. I love the movie, lets watch it if you think it will help." She says smiling at me.
"Yeah, well I don't think that this will help, I know that this will, help, c'mon." I say grabbing her hand and placing her on the bed, while I put the movie in.
I was eating breakfast in the dining pavilion, with the Romans now in here as well, when I felt the wind pick up. And that wasn't normal. The weather doesn't just drastically change, I had learned that my first time here. Some people seem to notice it too, because the pavilion got quieter. Someone asked Chiron what was going on, and he replied that he didn't know. I wasn't too worried at this point just because I knew that we were safe and everything and-
"OH MY GODS" someone screams, and then some screams are let out, while a bolt of lighting is thrown down just behind my seat. I jump up out of my seat and stand on my table when the second one hits.
"JASON?" I worriedly call out. I pull out Riptide and uncap it.
"That wasn't me!" Jason shouts, jumping over his table and runs towards me. It suddenly dawns on me that, of course it wasn't him. Jason isn't a show boat type when both Camps have seen what he can do.
"Are you okay Perc?" he asks me frantically looking up and down, trying to check if I had any injuries, when I started to laugh. Jason looks up at me and gives me an odd look.
"Dude why are you laughing? I mean, something just shot out of the sky at you and your-"
"Bro," I say "who else is a child of Zeus? And who else likes to make an entrance?" I ask him, still laughing. It then dawns on him and he slumps back.
"Yeah, sometimes when people haven't seen you in a while, you kinda just have to make one." a strong feminine voice calls out, and both Jason and I turn to the voice.
There in her silver jacket, lieutenant crown and hunters behind her, is a smirking Thalia Grace. I throw her smirk back at her and pat Jason's back. He looks at me with a confused look and takes a deep breath. He shakes his head.
"Yeah, it's true, we haven't see you for a while. Whatcha been up too Thals?" I ask her with a smug look on my face. She shakes her head and walks over to me and punches me in the shoulder.
"Good to see you cous." she responds, with then giving me a bro hug. I smile at her and hug her back.
"Would Artemis be happy with you hugging me?" I ask her, raising an eyebrow. She smiles at me and then gets a little bit of a serious face.
"You are one of the few that she respects, Percy. I think she would be just fine." she answers, patting my back. She then goes on to hug Jason and Annabeth, when she came up to her, while the hunters sat down at Artemis's table.
"Well, good to know that we can now welcome the Hunters to this splendid celebration! Welcome, ladies, we are very happy that you could be joining us." Chiron's voice booms out once everyone has sat down.
"It feels good to have her back." Annabeth says to me, hugging me from behind, and resting her chin (or trying to, she is way too cute) on my shoulder.
"Yeah, well she is part of the family and has always been part of a bigger conspiracy, so yeah it feels great to have her back." I respond, smirking when she hits my back.
"No seaweed brain, it feels good to have a friend back and to know that she is safe. I feel a little more relaxed now." I turn around and hug Annabeth.
"Like you said, everything is going to get easier and like my mom said, we are going to return to some normal. We've got this Wise Girl." I say to her, watching her smile.
"Yo Jackson! Get over here and help me tell these youngsters about that time that I saved your ass!" Thalia calls out to me. I just hold up my middle finger.
"What time is she talking about?" Annabeth asks me, and I just shrug my shoulders.
"To many to count I feel like." I respond, smirking.
"Everything is set in place for you all to appear tomorrow at the party." Zeus says to us. I roll my eyes and look towards Thysia who just smirks and shakes her head.
"And, what are those plans, dear brother?" Thysia asks, squinting her eyes and focusing her attention on Uncle Zeus. He huffs out and purses his lips together.
"Thysia, I can not have you challenging me in front of the demigods. Or anyone for that matter." Uncle counters. She just smiles at him, and replies "why of course, I am so sorry, your majesty."
"Watch it, girl." Hera warns, throwing a glare in Thysia's direction. She only sticks her tounge out in response.
"Maybe we should tell them what will happen tomorrow at the party. Just so that they are prepared." Athena interrupts, trying to distract the three. I take a deep breath and focus my eyes on Apollo. He only gives me a tiny smile and a covered thumbs up. You've got this his eyes seem to be saying, and instantly I feel better.
"Once we announce you all tomorrow, you will come out in the order that we discussed. Then we will tell the demigods that the party will be able to commence as it was before." Zeus explains, keeping his glaring eyes on Thysia.
"Well that's a terrible plan." Frankie out right says. All eyes turn on her when she speaks.
"With all due respect, I think that all of the demigods will have a lot of questions, some may even be mad at who they see-"
"They will get over it, Frankie. They have too. You guys are now here to protect them. You all have been training ever since you-"
"Okay brother. I think what she is trying to say is that we have to be prepared for the demigods outburst. I mean, these are our children and Hunters. We have let them die for our petty things, and yet, we throw this into their faces. I know that my son will have a lot of questions." Dad says, trying to make Zeus understand.
"Poseidon is right, we must think logically about this. Our children will be confused, and in the cross, we might have some very upset kids on our hands." Athena says, somehow agreeing with dad.
"I think that maybe we should at least warn that camp leaders." Hermes suggests. Hades shakes his head at that idea.
"Oh no, those kids are the ones who are going to be most upset. I think we should just stick to the plan of just showing up. I mean, lets just rip the band aid off, right?" Hades asks, shrugging his shoulders.
"I agree with my brother. I think we should just rip this band aid off. I mean they will be happy once they know what this is for right?" Uncle insists. I roll my eyes and shake my head, wanting to say something.
"I think you all know what's best, but I don't really feel like we should even be revealing ourselves. I mean, you want us to have no contact with them after this, and we know how hard that will be for some of us, so while dangle the carrot?" I argue.
"Because, they need to see this fearless team, and what you all stand for. You are going to make it possible for them to have their lives back and have them be safer." Aphrodite explains. I let out a deep sigh and let my head fall back to the pillow that is on the couch.
"You guys may be the people that take care of things, but you need to know that we are the ones that are calling the shots. " Hera tells us, in her threatening voice.
The mood in the room shifts after that and then I look back at Apollo again. This time he isn't meeting my eyes, which means that I know that he is agreeing with the Olympians.
"You still need to know your place and that is to do what we tell you. You all signed up for this, you all knew what this job would entail and you know the consequences. When you show up to the party, and the people that you love see you, and you see them, your job will become immensely harder.
"But you still have to understand that this is what it will take for you to do this job correctly. We must have a successful outcome so that we can continue this." Hera tells us. That shut us all up pretty quickly. We were just pawns in a huge chess game that was taking forever to be won.
"We understand. We just want you to know, that we are also your children. And that we still have feelings." Beck says. I nod in his direction.
"Some of us may not come from the same background, done good things in our past life, but we still have family we care about. So when we fight you about this, it's only because we want to protect them. That's why we signed up to do this." He continues.
"We gave our lives up to let others live." B adds. The rest of us just nod our heads solemnly.
"And we understand that, but you have to trust us on this. We know what we are doing." Athena replies.
After a few moments of silence, Uncle Zeus speaks up.
"So it's decided then. Tomorrow, we will show up to the party and announce this new taskforce." everyone murmured in agreement.
Well there you go, chapter three is done! So summarize what happened in the italic part, it was when Percy's sister, Andy (Andromeda) was killed by Gabe. I just wanted to warn you guys about it, because I didn't know how it would go across.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed and please leave a review, I love getting them and reading them! I am still trying to figure out how to reply to them, because it still isn't working, but just know I see all of them and love every single one of them!
I do not own anything, all rights belong to Rick Riordan.