I'm back again! Are you getting sick of me yet?

Happy December 9th and happy reading :)

A Very Percy Jackson Advent

December 9th

Reyna was hacking away at the practice dummy in her room. After what must have been her 50th blow, the arm of the dummy fell off. But she didn't stop there; she kept hacking at it until there was nothing but a pile of wood chunks on the floor.

"We don't need that much fire wood when you've got me," Leo said. He stood in the doorway to her cabin calmly as she glared at him, panting for breath. "You're supposed to be getting your strength back, not wasting it on practice dummies."

"I can't let myself get out of practice. I won't regain my strength if I don't train," Reyna growled.

Leo held his hands up in defence. "Reyna, I know everything that goes on in this ship." At her alarmed expression Leo backtracked. "Chill, I don't listen in on conversations or watch people doing... personal things..." Though Reyna now looked even more alarmed, he continued with his first line of thought. "I know when people are using Practice Dummies; they're part of the ship and I also know that in this week alone you've gone through about fifty. If you keep this up along with Coach Hedge, I'm gonna run out of materials to make replacements!" Reyna looked even more confused at this which made Leo throw his arms wildly into the air. "What? You think that the Argo II just magically makes a new dummy for you after you go through ten a day?! We have readily made ones in storage, yeah, but eventually that storage runs low and someone," he pointed at himself, "has to make new ones!"

"Sorry," Reyna said, the angry look left her eyes. "It just annoys me how calm you all are. You're messing about with Christmas trees, cookies and movies and just ignoring the fact that there's a war going on!"

Leo raised his eyebrows. "You think that's how it is huh? Because we take a couple hours out of the day to have fun instead of making more firewood than necessary, you think we're not prepared?" He shook his head in disgust – the gesture seemed joking and friendly instead of the stern look Reyna was expecting of him; it appeared now that Leo and maybe even the rest of the crew had been working harder than she'd thought. "Festus!" he called. "Send down screen five."

"Screen five?" Reyna asked just before a screen descended from the ceiling.

Leo messed with the controls on the side for a second and then the screen flickered to show Percy sat by a bathtub full of water making Minnie tsunamis and whirlpools. The screen changed to show Frank and Annabeth in the middle of an extravagant game of chess that involved three boards all in play at the same time (the figures looked suspiciously like Mythomagic figurines). The screen changed again to show Piper and Hazel in the middle of sword practice and again to show Jason sat atop the mast keeping watch and every now and again stirring the air around him into tiny whirlwinds.

"So you see," Leo said. "We're not just messing about. We're doing all we can to stay prepared for this war but until we get to Rome there's not much we can do."

"Wait... What's Nico doing?" Reyna asked. "And coach hedge?"

"Nico and Coach Hedge are in their cabins. I didn't put cameras there for obvious reasons," Leo replied.

"But you put a camera in the bathroom?" Reyna asked, crossing her hands across her chest.

"That's not a bathroom; it's a salt water spring. Annabeth insisted I put one in there for Percy while we were building the ship."

"Oh." Reyna was beginning to realise how moody and un-co-operative she'd been lately. "I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it. I get that you're stressed. Now that you mention Coach and Nico though... they've been in their rooms all day... Maybe we should just check on them."

Leo walked over to Coach Hedge's cabin. "Coach?" he called as he knocked on the Satyr's door. There was the sound of a dead bolt unlocking and then the rattle of a chain and then Coach's head poked around the door. "You're going senile, you old goat," Leo said jokingly.

"Shut up, boy. What do you want?" Coach grumbled. "Does somethin' need killin'?"

"No Coach, I was just worried about you," Leo explained.

"I'm fine," Coach said. "Now go away." The door slammed in Leo's face. He thought about knocking again but he knew it'd do no good so he shrugged and turned away to find Calypso.

At the same time, Reyna was approaching Nico's room. She was just about to raise her hand to knock when the door flew open. "Nico?" she cried.

"Reyna," he nodded. There was an angry glint in his eye. Not the usual moody one that promised death to anyone that looked the Wrong way at him but a kind of look more commonly found in small children when one of their siblings had stolen a toy.

"Are you alright?" Reyna asked

"Yeah I'm fine," he replied. "Frank's just stole my... uh... never mind." Without another word, he carried on running down the hall.

Annabeth was just about to move her final piece that would win the game when Nico burst into the room. "Frank! You son of a mother!" he exclaimed.

Annabeth stared at Nico in shock.

Frank grinned at him like a child who knew he'd been caught doing something he shouldn't but hoped maybe he might yet get away with it.

"Don't you have your own?" Nico asked.

"Own what?" Annabeth asked.

"Yeah but your collection is better," Frank explained, completely ignoring Annabeth.

"Oh I thought these were odd chess pieces!" Annabeth said. "Frank, did you take Nico's Mythomagic collection without asking?" Frank looked down at his feet in shame. Annabeth chuckled, made her winning move and then scooped the figures into a back before giving them back to Nico.

"Oh come on!" Frank sighed in defeat.

"Ask next time; it took me ages to recollect those," Nico said before returning to his room, clutching the bag of figurines to his chest.

I know Nico got rid of all his Mythomagic stuff when he was off all alone but lets pretend that he took the time to recollect (or maybe steal) a new collection because they the root to his childhood and a symbol of his happiness so I had to have him with some Mythomagic stuff :)

expa: So do I! I've never played it myself but after writing it I kinda wanna try it.

HolbyCityFan13: Glad you like it, thanks for reviewing :)

nevah nyrum: I hope this chapter was sufficient in showing you exactly what was going through Reyna's head all this time. As for the Sub-par word choice, I don't think you can really apply the word sub-par to stories. because sub-par means not measuring up to traditional standards of performance, value, or production and I don't believe, in my heart, that there truly is a traditional standard to writing. If it entertains, then it is meeting the correct standard. The eloquence of the writing doesn't matter too much, in my opinion (though I do try to make it of a some-what high[ish] standard), because if you can draw a drawing with a ballpoint pen and still make it beautiful then why can't a story with simple language not still be good? That's just how I see it though, thank you for giving me your opinion. As you can probably tell I tried to show that I, in fact, do have an okay vocab range... I'm glad you still like the story though. Every cake needs a pinch of salt :) thanks for reviewing x

Isabella Frida-Marie Cullen: glad you like it, thanks for reviewing :)

butterflygirly99: Glad it made you happy, thanks for reviewing :)

thefangirlthatwon'tshutup: I'm really trying to bring Nico out of his shell without writing him as out of character now. thanks for reviewing :)

YeahI'mWeirdAndILoveIt: Hyper is good! Thanks for the review

Ana-DaughterofHades: So Hedge didn't exactly come out of his room but I managed to mention him :)

Aly kitten: Team hot stuff 4eva! thanks for the review

Guest: I'm glad you think so, he's one of my favorite character too. Thanks for reviewing

Goddess TimTam: *gasps* I hypnotized a goddess!? That's one thing I can tick off my bucket list :D Thanks for reviewing oh goddess x

Remnant of Life: Yeah, sorry I couldn't get Hedge out of his room; he was too stubborn! hope you liked the chapter though :)

LeeOfHermes0330: I can read your mind. That's how I knew you loved Christmas cookie Roulette ;) Glad you liked it, thanks for reviewing x

ddddddd: you did mention that :D thanks for the reviews (plural. Wow!)

Christmas is getting closer with every chocolate I eat. I'M SO EXCITED!

see you all tomorrow x