Enjoy Chapter 8.

Disclaimer: I do not own HHO or PJO. All rights belong to Rick Riordan.

VIII Monster Fight II

(Jason)

Well, apparently praying to the gods didn't help. We were surprised by a huge group of monsters. We suffered two casualties and several more were severely wounded. Morale dropped, and almost everybody at the camp was at each other's throats. Thankfully, in two weeks, the campers from Camp Half-Blood arrived. The arrival raised morale slightly, but it fell again when two subsequent monster attacks came.

After three hectic weeks, I finally got some peace and quiet. Well, almost. There was a Greek new camper much like Dakota.

"Hey duuuuuuude, what's up, hun?"

He was drunk, as I hope you can tell. If he had actually called be hun when he was clear-headed, I would've either cut him in half or ran as hard as I could in the other direction. His name was Daniel.

"Don't come near me, go to sleep, and for your information, you're drunk."

"Everybody says that, but I'm not DRUNK!" he roared, drawing his sword.

I drew my sword, knowing that he can get violent, especially when he had had a lot to drink. At least Dakota had been restrained. I don't know why the Greeks let him drink vodka, gin, and other highly intoxicating drinks.

We sparred and I easily defeated him, since he was drunk, and he wasn't very good at sword fighting, because he usually wasn't clear-headed enough to take sword lessons. He wandered off to bother someone else. I don't know why we still kept him. I suppose since it was a favor for Chiron. Chiron had told Annabeth who had told me that he had nowhere else to go, so please take care of him and so on.

Percy came up to me and asked me to go and help him develop a strategy for fighting monster attacks when they surprise us. I went with him to the headquarters tent, and when I ducked inside, I found Annabeth and one of her siblings in a heated debate over a certain problem about the strategy. When they tried to explain it to me, I couldn't understand a word they were saying. When I looked at Percy, he looked just as clueless as I was.

"What are you talking about?"

"Look, if we place our lines here, here, and here, the lines of our demigods and the phalanx will work better. It will be harder to break through for the enemy. We should practice doing this in less than two minutes, because that's about as much time as we will have, if my calculations are correct."

"I'm sorry Annabeth, but I'm not understanding a word you are saying. What phalanx? What calculations? What? What? What?"

"The phalanx formation was invented by the Greeks. It was commonly known as the shield wall, with each man's shield protecting the person next to him. It was a matter of trust."

"So, a shield wall?"

"In essentials, yes."

"Well then, why couldn't you have just said shield wall?"

"The correct name, and I like to be correct, is phalanx."

"Ok, fine."

We discussed more, but I'm pretty sure Percy and I was just faking understanding just to finish this strategy planning. When we finally got down to what we had to do, I was shocked at the schedule Annabeth gave us.

"We won't have that much time!"

"Yes we will, as soon as we deduct some of your scouting missions."

"We can't do that, we have to know when monsters will attack!"

"With this drilling, it won't matter whether or not it was surprise or we knew about it, we'll be ready."

"It would be better if we had a notice, don't you think?"

When the heated argument finally subsided, we agreed on a compromise. Instead of the scouting missions, we would cut some of the miscellaneous people to train for this drill. Thankfully, the demigods understood the importance of this drill, and didn't complain about the lost sleep time. That was good, because if we had a mutiny, we would've been even more screwed than we already are.

(Percy)

I can't believe how Annabeth knows all those terms, vocabulary, strategies, and all that. I didn't even understand the language she was using, let alone all the points of her lecture. Jason and I were just sitting there not really listening to her sermon. When I finally got out of that tent, I went to the only place that I felt a little comfort. I went to the small river that was our water outlet.

I just sat there making different water formations out of the river water when Hazel came up to me.

"What's up?"

"Nothing much, just a horrible day."

"What happened?"

"Well first, I had a lot of people clamoring for my attention so that their plans would get heard. Most of them were just to benefit themselves and maybe some of their friends. Then, I had to fight off a surprise monster attack. After that, I get stuck with Daniel who called me 'hun', and then tried to kill me, and finally, I listened to an hour-long sermon of Annabeth's in which I didn't even understand a word that she was saying, let alone understand what the point of the lecture was all about."

"Yeah, that would be a pretty bad day."

"So, how was scouting?"

"There wasn't much to see. There were no monster camps anywhere around the route that we took. We didn't see any monsters, so we're assuming that no monsters should come to our camp from the route that we scouted. However, you never know, so always be prepared."

"So, you have free time?"

She was about to answer, when three solid bars of gold popped out from the ground. When Hazel had finished destroying or hiding them, she returned to the conversation.

"Yeah, for the next day or so. Then I have to do the drill for that phalanx formation thing that Annabeth came up with.

"Same, maybe we'll get put in the same class."

"That'd be nice. I hope you know something about the phalanx."

"All I know is that it was a shield wall, so just protect me with your shield and I'll protect the guy or girl on my left with my shield. That's what I gleaned from Annabeth's sermon about what we should do when a surprise monster attack comes."

"Oh well, we shouldn't be the worst in the class."

"I sure hope we aren't. Wouldn't that look nice? The seven demigods who were supposed to lead us in battle can't even do a shield wall correctly."

"Phalanx."

"Do you have to be the last bad thing that happened on to me on a miserable day?"

"You're right, sorry. I forgot about your miserable day."

"Sarcasm doesn't help you know."

"It's funny for me."

"Shut up."

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-RAfan2421