Thank you guys so much for all the support. We're reached the 30 mark in favs/follows in under a week, which is mad.
Sorry about the wait. I don't really have an excuse but summer holiday is coming up so you should get pretty consistent updates from then on.
Anyway, Part 2 is going to begin now. It's probably gonna have around 8 chapters, but I haven't planned anything, so who knows?
Chapter 5:
Part two: The short, eventful life of a demigod
Chapter four: The grand tour
My head was ringing. How bad? Like really bad. Like one of those old alarm clock levels of ringing, bad.
"Ooooowwww" I moaned as I tried to get into a sitting position. I was immediately pushed back onto the bed, and force fed a small square of crumbly food.
It tasted, and felt, like heaven. An explosion of home cooked cookies went off in my mouth, and a warmth like none I'd ever felt spread through my body, filling every vein and firing every nerve. Instantly my headache went away.
I looked around, my vision clearing. I seemed to be in some sot of hospital, except it was less, uh, sterile. There was no smell of cleaning fluids, no beep of a heart rate monitor.
"He should be fine now." A melodious voice interupted my thoughts, and I spun to see a tall boy with short blond hair, bright blue eyes and a blinding smile. Next to him stood Annabeth Chase.
"Thanks Will. I'll handle it from here." She said in a friendly way. The boy, Will, walked out into the open sun and seemed to bask in it for a second, before walking off. There was a small moment of silence between me and Annabeth as I tried to gather my thoughts.
"You drool in your sleep." She blurted out, before blushing, obviously embarrassed.
I turned around, and saw a small wet patch right where my mouth had been. "Smooth."
I turned back to face her, and she seemed to be struggling to come up with something to say.
"You aren't very good at this thing, are you?" I asked.
"And what would you be talking about. I think you'll find there's very few things I'm bad at." She said confidently, as if she had something to prove.
"The whole talking deal." The look she had seemed a bit offended, so I decided to change the subject. Maybe I'm not so great at this whole talking thing either.
"Where's Bianca?"
"She's in another infirmary. She wasn't lying when she said she couldn't swim." Oh. Well now I feel bad. She must have noticed the look on my face, because she said:
"Get over it. She's fine, Nico's fine, me and Butch are fine, and you seem to be recovering at an unnatural pace for the average demigod. Not to mention the fact that Grover and Chiron got back largely unharmed."
"Largely?" I interrupted.
"Chiron got an arrow in his hind quarters." I would have smiled if it weren't for the look of rage in her eyes, but it quickly passed. "All in all, that's a very good demigod rescue mission if everybody lives." She declared solemnly.
"That's very, um, depressing." I told her.
"Well get used to it. You live in the demigod world now. It's worse than it sounds." She started to walk off.
With great amount of effort, I managed to pull myself from the infirmary bed, and hobble after Annabeth. "And where do you think you're going, miss sunshine and rainbows."
"Listen Percy, a tour guide will be around in a moment. You'll be fine." She spun around. "They'll show you aro-" She stopped talking, blushing.
"Yeah but I want details you know it all! Tell me what happened after the chariot was struck down by the king of goddamn Olympus. Which brings me onto another point. The gods are real? What about like world hunger and war and extra maths homework. Why does this all happen? And also, what sor-" This time I was interrupted as a new boy, around fifteen years old, came up from behind and ruffled Annabeth's hair, but she seemed too flustered to notice.
"You should probably put some clothes on, new kid." He said in a deep voice. "I think Annie might pass out.
Oh, please tell me he's pranking me. I looked down to see myself in just my pants (or underwear for people who speak incorrectly), and blushed furiously. I sprinted back inside the med tent and rushed around looking for my clothes, but struggled to find any. Where had they put them?
"Hey, new kid, they've probably taken your clothes somewhere. Either that or some of my siblings took them." The boy shouted from outside.
"Yeah, I can't seem to find them." I answered back.
I heard sprinting from outside, and continued to look around for my clothes when the sound of sprinting retuned twenty seconds later. The boy thrust his arm through the door and held an orange t-shirt, jeans, socks and trainers in his hands.
"Thanks," I said as I grabbed the clothes from his hand, "do you just have piles of these clothes hanging around?"
"Yeah, for emergencies and stuff." He replied.
Half a minute later I emerged from the tent in the new clothes. The t-shirt, like the ones everyone else wore, said 'camp half blood' on them in ancient Greek, which was fine as I could read Greek better than I could English.
"The names Luke by the way." The boy said to me, extending a hand.
"Percy." I said shaking his hand.
"While this is all very nice and formal, you should really get back to the med tent Percy. A tour guide will be here any moment. Just sit back and relax." Annabeth said, Luke and I turning to face her. I started to nod my head in acceptance.
"Tour guide? Why, Annabeth, I thought Chiron said you should show him around." She immediately started glaring at Luke.
"Wait really? You're just going to ditch me like that on the first day?" I asked, slightly annoyed.
"Well no, erm, I mean-" Luke gave her a knowing look. "Fine! I'll show you around. Come on, Percy. And I guess you won't be coming, Luke?"
"I'm actually on a bit of a schedule. I should be getting a signal to run and hide any time soon." He replied.
"And that signal would be?" I asked. Luke held up his hand, and five seconds later, a sound like a clap of thunder came from behind him.
"That." He started to run away.
"What did you do to her this time." Annabeth shouted after him, but he was already gone. Wow, that was fast.
"Well, I guess I'm showing you around." She said tiredly.
"What made that noise just now." I asked.
"Oh, that would be Thalia. You'll meet her soon."
She started to walk away, and I followed behind her, in a thoughtful silence. We eventually reached the top of a big hill, and as I turned around, I could see the entire camp. It does look impressive. With it's massive strawberry fields, numerous large buildings that he could only assume were some sort of dorms, and an entire god-damn amphitheatre. Somehow all hidden from normal view.
"This, is half-blood hill. There's a pine tree here that was supposedly created by Zeus to protect the camp, and it creates a magic barrier around the camp that prevents mortals and monsters from entering." Annabeth said, interrupting my thoughts. I looked up and saw a glowing gold fleece hanging from the branches.
"What's that?" I said, pointing at the fleece.
"That's the golden fleece. It creates a powerful healing aura around it that makes the entire camp more healthy." She reached into her pocket, and pulled out a chocolate bar, unwrapping it and tossing it at the fleece. A humongous snake, with a mouth easily as big as me, shout out form one of the branches and snatched the chocolate from mid air. I may have screamed a little.
"That would be Peleous." Annebeth explained, laughing. "He guards the fleece, so unless you want to be eaten alive, I don't suggest trying to steal it."
"I wasn't planning on it."
"Good. As you can see, this hill is the highest point in miles, and the entire camp can be seen from here." A flash of lightning illuminated the forests. "Including Thalia frying Luke."
"Is he dead!? That looked pretty powerful." I asked with concern.
"No, that's barely a fraction of what she can do. Luke will barely be hurt. Anyway, the next stop on our tour is the big house." She pointed at, surprise, the biggest house in the area, then looked up at the sun. "Hopefully we'll be at the cabins by five. That way you can meet your cabin and hopefully get to dinner in time."
"Sounds good to me." With that, we set off down the path back towards the centre of camp.
The big house was, well, big, and that was about the extent of it. It was painted baby blue with white trimmings on the windows, and the only unique feature was a weather vain shaped like a bronze eagle. It also held an infirmary, yet I had to be moved to the med tent as Chiron and Grover were taking up all the room.
As we carried on we passed the volleyball courts, where there seemed to be about thirty average campers versus five, all with golden blond hair. They didn't seem to miss a shot.
"Children of Apollo," Annabeth said, noticing my gaze, "they're blessed with the incredible accuracy of their father. Just like how I am blessed with wisdom as a daughter of Athena."
"And how I'm blessed with card tricks." I responded sarcastically, to which Annabeth gave a short laugh.
"You should be more grateful than that." She scolded, "Many kids here would be very happy with any godly powers."
"I thought everyone here would be superhumans or something."
"Our powers vary. Most demigods could probably lift twice as much as they would usually be able to, and would be quite a bit faster too. But it all depends on power, really. Thalia could lift a car if she wanted too. But those aren't 'godly' powers, just physical boosts." Annabeth explained.
"You seem to go on about Thalia alot." I noted.
"She's a friend of mine. She also happens to be the most powerful demigod in generations, so she's a good person to compare power to." She said.
"So are the rest of you just completely outmatched then." I asked.
"Pretty much." Annabeth said back, "I mean, she can beat up the majority of the Ares cabin al by herself."
I nodded, not really knowing what else to say. The tour continued on in relative silence, as I simply absorbed all the weirdness around me. We passed by the stables where, sure enough, there were about twenty real pegasi just eating hay or sleeping. They seemed to n ot like me very much, and after on bared its surprisingly long teeth at me, I decided to back away.
"Did I do something to them?" I asked.
"Not particularly. They just don't like children of certain demigods. I don't know why they would have a problem with a child of Hectate though. Maybe her and Poseidon fell out." She said.
"Poseidon?"
"Obviously. He's the father of horses after all." She replied. Well I didn't know that.
There was an armory stock full of weapons, and they al seemed to glow just like my riptide. Then there was the massive arena, which was currently being used for sword fighting. Luke was apparently supposed to be instructing, but was hiding due to his girlfriend's wrath. Then we passed the forge woks where it seemed to be over a thousand degrees even from fifty metres away.
Finally we arrived at the cabins. Arranged in a clockwise fashion around a massive hearth, they were massive, easily big enough to fit twenty people inside whilst giving them room to live in. The first cabin was green, and covered with grape vines whilst still giving the impression of a fancy wine. The second cabin on the left was painted blue with huge marble pillars holding it up, almost like a temple. Despite its grand look, I could hear the sound of giggling even from the hearth.
The third cabin looked fairly normal, and I couldn't here any sounds coming from it. The fourth cabin was the plainest looking of them all, with plain grey curtains pulled tight, and an owl engraved above the door. I guessed that would be Athena's cabin, the one where Annabeth would stay. The next cabin along was coloured a light brown, and wildflowers and tomato plants seemed to sprouting from any and every crack in the ground, leaving only a short path to the cabin door available.
The last cabin on the left hand side, which was one of the two located in the middle instead of the edge, and was a very elegant mix of pillars and white marble. Peacocks were carved into the walls, and pomegranates sprouted here and there around the cabin. The cabin next to it was very similar, but while the previous one gave off elegance, this one gave off grandness. It had the thickest pillars, the most intricate carvings, and a huge set of double doors that seemed to ripple with lightning. If that wasn't enough, the small thunderclaps that sounded every now and then were indication enough that this was Zeus' temple.
Next to that was a narrow building with all of its windows facing towards the sea, and its walls were full of seashells. The one next to it seemed to exert aggression, with deep red walls and a boar head mounted above the door. And that's not even mentioning the barbed wire roof, or what appeared to be mines dug into the floor. The cabin next to that was made of gold, like real, solid gold, and reflected so much sunlight, even in the setting sun, that it was almost hard to look at.
Then the next one looked almost like a factory, and had smokestacks raising from the top of its soot-stained red-brick walls. Finally, the last cabin looked by far the worst of all of them. It had brown paint that was slowly peeling off, and had caduceus above the door. It was by far the loudest, sounding lie it was filled to the brim.
"It's a lot to take in." Annabeth said, jolting me out of my thoughts.
"You're telling me." I muttered.
"Anyway, if you need me, I'll be in the Athena cabin. You should be in the Hermes cabin." She said, pointing at the last cabin. I raised my eyebrow in a questioning manner. She sighed.
"As an unclaimed demigod, you must stay in Hermes cabin until your parent claims you." I looked at her in disbelief. What sort of system is that?
"Go on, I think Luke's waiting for you." I turned around and sure enough, Luke was outside the Hermes cabin. As I turned away o say thanks to Annabeth, it appeared she was already at her cabin. With an exasperated sigh, I walked over to the Hermes cabin.
"So, you managed to survive Annabeth then?" He asked jokingly, and I gave him a small smile.
"So I hear this is where I'm staying." I said.
"Sure is, and as head councillor, I should probably show you around." He said back, "Now have you got anything on you that could be easily stolen?" I looked at him in confusion.
"Why?"
He just smiled and pushed me through the door.
I know Percy and Annabeth don't have much chemistry at the moment, but I personally think it fits her character better.