Yo guys I'm back... and dying from school. Homework's too much sometimes and yeah... ONTO THE STORY...
Annabeth and the others woke up in the morning. Annabeth of course immediately noticed that she wasn't in her normal bed and rolled off the bed, grabbing her dagger which was on her bedside table next to her, she landed in a crouched position. Her body tense until she saw Piper sleeping on the bed next to her, and realized that she was on Olympus. Her brained played around with a few ideas of why she was here until she remember that the demigods were back in the past.
"Really? She groaned quietly not to wake up Piper "I thought it was a dream," Annabeth got out of bed and grabbed random clothes of the closet, that Aphrodite made to have everyone's sizes and preferences.
She went and took a quick shower and came bad to Piper whom was now sitting cross legged with Hazel. Hazel had a small stuffed house that looked a lot like Arion. Who sweared a lot evidence by Percy.
Soon enough Rachel, Katie, Thalia, Calypso and even Reyna and Gwen came in. Reyna had a stuffed pegasus, that look like Scipio. Eventually they came up to the kitchen, with Percy try to make Blue pancakes and Jason, Frank, and Leo trying to clean up the messing. Somehow Percy is winning as Jason, Frank and Leo look tired. Grover, Chris, Clarisse, Connor, Travis, and even Datkota were to the side eatting cereal, and sandwhiches. Nico and Will were there talking to the side as well Then Leo snapped
"FOR THE LOVE OF GOD..S!" Leo yelled "LET ME MAKE PANCAKES!"
"No!" Percy countered.
"Percy let Leo make the pancakes you have the batter, and Leo can cook them without burning Olympus." Annabeth told him pointing to the supposedly indestructible kitchen with had a hole. Where did the hole even come from?
Percy begrudgingly gave Leo the batter, and went to help Jason and Frank
Leo poured the batter in a condiment container and poured the batter onto the pan and made pancakes. He placed them on the table, and Jason, Frank, Leo and Percy started eating.
"Why do you guys get to eat this?" Percy muttered mouth full of pancakes.
"We cleaned after your mess." Frank answered stuffing a sasuage in his mouth. "Why does this remind me of Rudolph?"
"Cause you ate him in Alaska." Hazel reminded him as she got some egges out. "I'm making Omelettes!" She started cracking the eggs as Piper grabbed the pan that leo just used and washed. She slide the pan back on the stove after it was clean. Annabeth grabbed some Olive Oil and poured some on the pan.
After Hazel poured the bowl of mix eggs. and grabbed a pair of chop sticks
"What?" She asked when the others looked at her. "Oh the chopsticks..." She didn't say anything else as she added cheese to the omelette and grabbed one side of the omelette with the chopstick and fold the omelette in half. She slid it on to the plate and started on the next omelette. This time she added a bunch of berries and gave that one to Piper. She made more for the girls. She made one for herself and sat down to eat.
Will and Nico appear later after diappearing earlier with a bag of McDonalds, Nico ate the fries and played with the toys that came with the meal as Will ate a McMuffin and blueberries Muffin.
Everyone finished their breakfast and left to get ready. They walked to the throne room where the gods were arguing.
"No we can't trick-" Athena yelled until she saw them "We disgusted this yesterday."
Flashback.
"How are we going to find out?" Zeus asked
"I know Truth or Dare!" Aphrodite yelled.
"WHat?" EVeryone looked at her.
"What, it was a good idea" She whinned.
"We can trick them," Mr. D said.
"How?" Demeter said accusingly worried for Katie and Gwen her roman form's daugter.
"Get them drunk," He said cooly with a glimces of excitement.
"NO!" Athena and Poseidon yelled at the same time.
"Fine we can-," Mr. D started
"Nope we'll do it in the morning." Zeus dicided "When you are all rested. This is the few moment where Zeus let down his gaurd enough to show he cared. Being a leader was hard on him, he had to escape sometimes, sadly that mostly ends up with a pregnant women and an angry Hera that he hurted to much. The last few decades was hard on him after he had no way to escape all his stress. (Had to have a Zeus moment here guys)
End of Flashback
"Fine Let's get reading the book." Athena grumbled as she pasted it over to Hades. He grumbled too before reading
5. I PLAY PINOCHLE WITH A HORSE
A bit of Awkward silence there.
I had weird dreams full of barnyard animals. Most of them wanted to kill me. The rest wanted food.
"What?" Nico and everyone else looked at Percy "What is going on in your brain sometimes."
I must've woken up several times, but what I heard and saw made no sense, so I just passed out again. I remember lying in a soft bed, being spoon-fed something that tasted like buttered popcorn, only it was pudding. The girl with curly blond hair hovered over me,
Annabeth blushed
smirking as she scraped drips off my chin with the spoon.
Annabeth's face flushed and everyone snickered at Percy.
When she saw my eyes open, she asked, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"
"I forgot how straight to the point you are.
I managed to croak, "What?"
She looked around, as if afraid someone would overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"
"I'm sorry," I mumbled, "I don't..."
Somebody knocked on the door, and the girl quickly filled my mouth with pudding.
Artemis let out a laugh suddenly making some of the demigods and the gods jump. She quickly clamp her mouth with her hand, and looked at the ground.
"I don't remember doing that!" Annabeth argued, everyone focused their attention on the Annabeth and Percy. Artemis let out a small sigh.
"Yeah you did!" Percy countered back
"Where's your evidence!" Annabeth retorted
"Duh! um," Percy suddenly looked a bit surprised at how the tabled turned
"See!" Annabeth started "You were half awake and brain dead at that moment! How could you possibly think I would just stuff your mouth with PUDDING OF ALL THINGS "
Hades started laughing then Hermes and Apollo started as well.
Annabeth turned and Glared at Hades, dispite him being able to kill her in a snap. He rolled his eyes and started reading.
The next time I woke up, the girl was gone.
A husky blond dude, like a surfer, stood in the corner of the bedroom keeping watch over me.
"Husky Where did that come from," Connor asked high-fiving his brother for no apparent reason.
He had blue eyes— at least a dozen of them—on his cheeks, his forehead, the backs of his hands.
The Demigods bursted out laughing.
"Oh dear Percy if that's what you use to describe- ha Husky haha," Grover was hugging his stomach
When I finally came around for good, there was nothing weird about my surroundings, except that they were nicer than I was used to. I was sitting in a deck chair on a huge porch, gazing across a meadow at green hills in the distance. The breeze smelled like strawberries. There was a blanket over my legs, a pillow behind my neck. All that was great, but my mouth felt like a scorpion had been using it for a nest. My tongue was dry and nasty and every one of my teeth hurt.
On the table next to me was a tall drink. It looked like iced apple juice, with a green straw and a paper parasol stuck through a maraschino cherry.
My hand was so weak I almost dropped the glass once I got my fingers around it.
"Careful," a familiar voice said.
Grover was leaning against the porch railing, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. Under one arm, he cradled a shoe box. He was wearing blue jeans, Converse hi-tops and a bright orange T-shirt that said CAMPHALF-BLOOD. Just plain old Grover, Not the goat boy.
Travis and Connor snickered, at the name Goat Boy.
So maybe I'd had a nightmare. Maybe my mom was okay. We were still on vacation, and we'd stopped here at this big house for some reason. And ...
Hades for some reason paused and read the next part slowly and emotionless.
"You saved my life," Grover said. "I... well, the least I could do ... I went back to the hill. I thought you might want this."
Reverently, he placed the shoe box in my lap.
Hades paused again
Inside was a black-and-white bull's horn, the base jagged from being broken off, the tip splattered with dried blood. It hadn't been a nightmare.
"The Minotaur," I said. Instead of Hades saying the name he said. "The Mino- The half bull man, creature"
"Urn, Percy, it isn't a good idea—"
"That's what they call him in the Greek myths, isn't it?" I demanded. "The Minotaur. Half man, half bull." Again Hades said half bull man creature.
Grover shifted uncomfortably. "You've been out for two days. How much do you remember?"
"My mom. Is she really ..."
He looked down.
I stared across the meadow. There were groves of trees, a winding stream, acres of strawberries spread out under the blue sky. The valley was surrounded by rolling hills, and the tallest one, directly in front of us, was the one with the huge pine tree on top. Even that looked beautiful in the sunlight.
My mother was gone. The whole world should be black and cold. Nothing should look beautiful.
Everyone was quiet at this part. Annabeth and Thalia were tearing up a bit and Percy had to keep wiping his eyes off his cheek.
"I'm sorry," Grover sniffled. "I'm a failure. I'm—I'm the worst satyr in the world."
He moaned, stomping his foot so hard it came off. I mean, the Converse hi-top came off. The inside was filled with Styrofoam, except for a hoof-shaped hole.
"Oh, Styx!" he mumbled.
Thunder rolled across the clear sky.
As he struggled to get his hoof back in the fake foot, I thought, Well, that settles it.
Grover was a satyr. I was ready to bet that if I shaved his curly brown hair, I'd find tiny horns on his head.
"WHAT?!" Grover grumbled at Percy who shrugged.
But I was too miserable to care that satyrs existed, or even minotaurs. All that meant was my mom really had been squeezed into nothingness, dissolved into yellow light.
I was alone. An orphan. I would have to live with ... Smelly Gabe? No. That would never happen. I would live on the streets first. I would pretend I was seventeen and join the army. I'd do something. Nope, probably Percy would have died if you joined the army, but pasted that...
Grover was still sniffling. The poor kid—poor goat, satyr, whatever—looked as if he expected to be hit.
I said, "It wasn't your fault.". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Yes, it was. I was supposed to protect you."
"Did my mother ask you to protect me?". . .
"No. But that's my job. I'm a keeper. At least... I was."
"But why ..." I suddenly felt dizzy, my vision swimming.
"Don't strain yourself," Grover said. "Here." He helped me hold my glass and put the straw to my lips.
I recoiled at the taste, because I was expecting apple juice. It wasn't that at all. It was chocolate-chip cookies. Liquid cookies. And not just any cookies—my mom's homemade blue chocolate-chip cookies, buttery and hot, with the chips still melting. Drinking it, my whole body felt warm and good, full of energy. My grief didn't go away, but I felt as if my mom had just brushed her hand against my cheek, given me a cookie the way she used to when I was small, and told me everything was going to be okay.
Before I knew it, I'd drained the glass. I stared into it, sure I'd just had a warm drink, but the ice cubes hadn't even melted.
"Was it good?" Grover asked.
I nodded.
"What did it taste like?" He sounded so wistful, I felt guilty.
"Sorry," I said. "I should've let you taste."
His eyes got wide. "No! That's not what I meant. I just... wondered."
"Chocolate-chip cookies," I said. "My mom's. Homemade."
He sighed. "And how do you feel?"
"Like I could throw Nancy Bobofit a hundred yards."
Everyone laughed. "Everyone has this OMG face when they drink it for the first time." Athena mumbled and Poseidon looked at her.
"omg?" Hades snickered and started reading at a faster pace
"That's good," he said. "That's good. I don't think you could risk drinking any more of that stuff."
"What do you mean?"
He took the empty glass from me gingerly, as if it were dynamite, and set it back on the table. "Come on. Chiron and Mr. D are waiting."
The porch wrapped all the way around the farmhouse.
My legs felt wobbly, trying to walk that far. Grover offered to carry the Minotaur horn, but I held on to it. I'd paid for that souvenir the hard way. I wasn't going to let it go.
As we came around the opposite end of the house, I caught my breath.
We must've been on the north shore of Long Island, because on this side of the house, the valley marched all the way up to the water, which glittered about a mile in the distance. Between here and there, I simply couldn't process everything I was seeing. The landscape was dotted with buildings that looked like ancient Greek architecture—an open-air pavilion, an amphitheater, a circular arena—except that they all looked brand new, their white marble columns sparkling in the sun. In a nearby sandpit, a dozen high school-age kids and satyrs played volleyball. Canoes glided across a small lake. Kids in bright orange T-shirts like Grover's were chasing each other around a cluster of cabins nestled in the woods. Some shot targets at an archery range. Others rode horses down a wooded trail, and, unless I was hallucinating, some of their horses had wings.
"Dang that's a good description," Nico added
Down at the end of the porch, two men sat across from each other at a card table. The blond-haired girl who'd spoon-fed me popcorn-flavored pudding
... Travis, Connor, Hermes, Apollo, and Thalia bursted out loud laughing. The other gods were barely holding back smiles. Looking back at Annabeth on the other hand had her mouth pressed into a thin line.
Haded continued
The blond-haired girl who'd fed me popcorn-flavored pudding was leaning on the porch rail next to them.
The man facing me was small, but porky. He had a red nose, big watery eyes, and curly hair so black it was almost purple. He looked like those paintings of baby angels— what do you call them, hubbubs? No, cherubs. That's it. He looked like a cherub who'd turned middle-aged in a trailer park. He wore a tiger-pattern Hawaiian shirt, and he would've fit right in at one of Gabe's poker parties, except I got the feeling this guy could've out-gambled even my stepfather.
"What!" Mr. D yelled in outrage "But it's true for the gambling part." He slipped on fizzy grape Kool-aid and sighed.
"That's Mr. D," Grover murmured to me. "He's the camp director. Be polite. The girl, that's Annabeth Chase. She's just a camper, but she's been here longer than just about anybody. And you already know Chiron... ."
He pointed at the guy whose back was to me.
First, I realized he was sitting in the wheelchair. Then I recognized the tweed jacket, the thinning brown hair, the scraggly beard.
"Mr. Brunner!" I cried.
The Latin teacher turned and smiled at me. His eyes had that mischievous glint they sometimes got in class when he pulled a pop quiz and made all the multiple choice answers B.
... "Man I wish I got those tests," Travis and Connor crowed high-fiving their dad.
"Ah, good, Percy," he said. "Now we have four for pinochle."
He offered me a chair to the right of Mr. D, who looked at me with bloodshot eyes and heaved a great sigh. "Oh, I suppose I must say it. Welcome to CampHalf-Blood. There. Now, don't expect me to be glad to see you."
"Uh, thanks." I scooted a little farther away from him because, if there was one thing I had learned from living with Gabe, it was how to tell when an adult has been hitting the happy juice. If Mr. D was a stranger to alcohol, I was a satyr.
"Hey!" Grover let out his goat sound...
"Annabeth?" Mr. Brunner called to the blond girl.
She came forward and Mr. Brunner introduced us. "This young lady nursed you back to health, Percy. Annabeth, my dear, why don't you go check on Percy's bunk? We'll be putting him in cabin eleven for now."
Annabeth said, "Sure, Chiron."
She was probably my age, maybe a couple of inches taller, and a whole lot more athletic looking.
"Yes whole lot more athletic looking than the great Percy Jackson!" Percy got smack by Thalia "The twelve year old Percy that had no idea what an exploding zombie was," He fixed but got smack by Thalia again
With her deep tan and her curly blond hair, she was almost exactly what I thought a stereotypical California girl would look like, except her eyes ruined the image. ("Ruined huh?") They were startling gray, like storm clouds; pretty, but intimidating, too, as if she were analyzing the best way to take me down in a fight.
"Yeah.." Annabeth mumbled
She glanced at the minotaur horn in my hands, then back at me. I imagined she was going to say, You killed a minotaur! or Wow, you're so awesome! or something like that.
"Annabeth and Thalia snorted "when is she ever going to say that?!" She laughed
"Yeah You killed a mino... taur!" She said sarcastically.
Instead she said, "You drool when you sleep."
"What?" Zeus asked
Hades looked over again "You drool when you sleep.."
The brothers looked at Poseidon and back at each other "Totally his son."
Then she sprinted off down the lawn, her blond hair flying behind her.
Travis and Connor mumbled something quietly to Hermes, something with looks like... someone ... a crush! (Looks like a certain someone has a crush on Percy!)"
"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?".
"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex—Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."
"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"
Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. Instert snicker her "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."
"Oh. Right. Sorry."
"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."
"House call?"
"My year at YancyAcademy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."
I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.
"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.
"Don't get too big-headed, the world doesn't need another male like Heracules." Thalia crowed.
"What?" Zeus demanded
"Didn't you know?" Thalia said coolly "That Heracules tried to rape someone and didn't get the golden apples by himself?" Hera stood up.
"SEE! I told you there was somethine wrong but noo you just had to make that bastard (sorry) son of yours into a damn god!" Hera would have continued to talk but Hestia patted Hera on the shoulder and started to calm her down. She looked at Hades and he tossed her the book.
Chiron nodded. "Honestly, I wasn't sure about you at first. We contacted your mother, let her know we were keeping an eye on you in case you were ready for CampHalf-Blood. But you still had so much to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that's always the first test."
"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"
"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.
"What?" Mr. D grumbled.
"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.
"I'm afraid not," I said.
"I'm afraid not, sir," he said.
"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.
"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilized young men to know the rules."
"I'm sure the boy can learn," Chiron said.
"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun—Chiron—why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"
Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question."
Mr. D snorted at that.
The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.
Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.
"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'
"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."
"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"
"What?" I asked.
He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.
"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."
"Orientation film?" I asked.
"You know I never got to see that film! Can i see it!" Percy asked
"You're late by almost 8 years though." Mr. D frowned. He waved his hand and everyone watched the Orientation film.
"It wasn't as great as I thought it would be." Percy whinned "You need to make a better one you know?" The gods looked at him unsure to kill him or now (save Hestia, and Poseidon and Hades.)
"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"—he pointed to the horn in the shoe box—"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods—the forces you call the Greek gods—are very much alive."
I stared at the others around the table.
I waited for somebody to yell, Not! But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.
"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"
"Eh? Oh, all right."
Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.
"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."
"Well, now," Chiron said. "God—capital G, God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."
"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—"
"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavors: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."
"Smaller?"
"Smaller?" Zeus mumbled
"Yes, quite. The gods we discussed in Latin class."
"Zeus," I said. "Hera. Apollo. You mean them."
And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloudless day.
"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."
"But they're stories," I said. "They're—myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."
"science!" Zeus scoffed. Hestia giggled in her seven year old form before continuing
"Science!" Mr. D scoffed.
A god mostly like Hermes or Apollo hid a laugh behind a cough.
"And tell me, Perseus Jackson"—I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody—"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. "Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."
...
I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.
"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"
I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.
"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.
"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that someday people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"
"Dang That's rough," Will said quietly.
My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."
"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."
Grover said, "P-please, sir. He's just lost his mother. He's in shock."
"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"
He waved his hand and a goblet appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had bent, momentarily, and woven the air into glass. The goblet filled itself with red wine.
My jaw dropped, but Chiron hardly looked up.
"Mr. D," he warned, "your restrictions."
Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise.
"Feigned surprise?" Zeus glared at his son.
"Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"
More thunder.
Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.
Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."
"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.
"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time—well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away—the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha.' Absolutely unfair."
Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.
"Eh?" Frank asked sounding like a true Canadian (An: Which I am)
"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."
"Di immortales, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."
I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.
"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."
Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Grover? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"
"Y-yes, Mr. D."
"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"
Some people snickered
"You're a god."
"Yes, child."
"A god. You."
Some of the demigods looked at the book in a don't push it manner.
He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.
"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.
"No. No, sir."
The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."
"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."
I thought Mr. D was going to vaporize Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.
"I'll beat you on day" Mr. D mumbled.
"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."
Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."
Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."
He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.
"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.
Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."
"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"
"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on MountOlympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."
"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like ... in America?"
"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."
"The what?"
"I know Percy it was very confusing in the beginning." Nico said
"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilization were obliterated. The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know, since you passed my course—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps—Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods
"And then they died."
"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings. And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in RockefellerCenter, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either—America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."
It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.
"Who are you, Chiron? Who ... who am I?"
Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.
"Or is he?" Nico asked
"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."
And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realized that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur. And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached..
I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.
"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."
Hestia place the booked down. "That was a very long chapter, now we should do something about this Heracule business."
"I Vote that he should be shripted of his immortalilty and sentenced to the fields of -" Hera
"No He should be just punished!" Zeus
"How about he losses his honor and gets banished from Oly- Artemis.
"Yeah" Hades joined in.
"Naw he was Zeus's child so Hera had to make his life hard!" Ares argued
"You're my son!" Hera
"You still suck,"
"How would you like it never being able to do anything about your husband cheating on you all the time huh? huh?" Hera
"Follow Arty's idea Make him lose his honor anf banish him from Olympus!" Apollo
"Thank's Apollo but don't call me Arty!" Artemis
At this point the demigods slowly slipped away to one of the amusement rooms. Everyone got to this room with a giant playground and everyone's inner child was like YES PLAY!
so they did
End of Chapter
Sorry for the bad chapter I know.. it was rushed a bit. I'm also very late yeah. Sorry. Hopefully I will be able to get the next chapter out soon but it's sometimes very boring to right this out and it's also time consuming. I'm sorry this is a very short chapter.
Words: 6, 4006 Date Feb 7, 2017