Jason was confused. He didn't understand half of what just happened with Piper. All he knew was that she was angry at him for something he had no control over. It wasn't his fault that the crazy Queen Goddess had robbed him of his memories and shoved him onto a bus with two people she forged memories of him for. He wasn't the one that strung Piper on, and it wasn't his fault that he was slowly remembering Reyna and what they might have been. It wasn't his fault that he was torn between the what could have been of his past and the what can be in the present. The more he sat at the Zeus table alone, picking disinterestedly at his food, the angrier he got over the situation. He watched Piper smile and joke around, getting petty pleasure over the half-hearted laughs and smiles.
Lunch passed quickly, the cleaning harpies trilling angrily at him for wasting his food and Leo slipped beside him, hands rapidly twisting tidbits onto a new mechanical toy of unknown use. After a few seconds he put it down and it ran around, zapping pieces of dirt and crumbs left by the cleaning harpies. He smiled ruefully at the gadget before turning towards Jason.
"Thalia's with Annabeth and their friends," Jason told him tonelessly, raising a pale finger to point towards the Hades table where Thalia sat surrounded by Annabeth, Nico, and Grover.
"Good to know, but that's not what I was gonna ask," Leo gently pushed his little maid away from the edge of the table, "What's going on with you and princess?" Jason was astounded; both on the fact that he was so obvious that even his less than observant friend Leo had noticed and that aforementioned friend had managed to speak so loudly that half of the camp turned towards them curiously, Aphrodite table included. He looked away from them after catching eye with Piper who merely lifted an unintentionally perfect eyebrow before turning pointedly away from him as well.
"Could you talk any louder Leo?" He hissed, a bit of a flush tainting his skin as his back prickled from all the stares of impatient campers wanting their fix of entertainment. Leo merely smiled at him cheekily, and waved towards a couple girls sitting next to Piper. Jason stared at Piper but she was now purposely staring up at the Head table, awaiting Apollo's return from wherever. "I don't know what's going on. It's confusing." Jason admitted. Leo smiled sympathetically and was about to speak but was interrupted by a brilliant flash from the Head table. Wincing slightly, he turned towards the now fading light where Apollo stood, grinning with the book tightly clasped in his hands.
"Hello demigods, Chiron," he bowed his head down slightly in greeting towards the centaur before sitting back down. "We shall now commence the reading of Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief!" Jason dimly noticed that Apollo's bright smile was very nearly blinding and wished he would close his mouth. Leo murmured some explicit words in Spanish Jason doubted his mother had taught him and looked at the table.
"Are we actually going to get anywhere in the book this time?" One of the Ares cabin members spoke up, his bulky frame tensing as soon as he spoke. Dimmed memories appeared to Jason as he recalled the punishments directed by the praetors at the Roman camp. He prayed that the Greek god didn't carry a sack full of badgers for insubordinate nephews.
"Maybe if you stopped talking, we could." Apollo shot back, still smiling brightly as he cracked open the book.
"The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses. Grover and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson." I knew that was coming."
"Oh I hate that moment," Leo groaned, grabbing some new bolts and things from his tool belt. Jason looked at him, confused.
"What moment?" Leo looked at him as if he were crazy as did some of the other demigods that had heard him. "What moment?" he repeated. "I never went to school remember?" He prodded. Leo's eyes slowly went back to their normal size and he sighed, shaking his head as if disappointed.
"I forget sometimes," His hands were quite a distraction and Jason found himself what kind of mechanical device needed a mini pink boa. "Yo, Jason! My eyes are up here!" Leo snapped his fingers and Jason looked up, flushing slightly from Leo's words that had quite a few people looking at them now. Leo grinned and Jason shot him a glare that clearly stated 'you do it and I'll electrocute you'. Leo heeded the moment and continued, "The moment is this look or way of speech, like calling your name back, that means you are about to be in trouble. I hate that moment." Several other demigods were nodding in agreement. Jason just shrugged, maybe it was a school thing.
"I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?" Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go— intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything."
"You know," a girl from the Hermes cabin whose name was either Natalie or Maddie, spoke, "You don't always realize because he's always doing stupid or reckless things, but Percy's actually quite observant." Several other campers nodded thoughtfully and Grover responded.
"Yeah, that was one of the problems with keeping him safe when he didn't know about himself yet, he just saw things. Like if I'd lied to him, he just knew." He shook his head, horns swaying back and force with the action. Both the Stoll brothers snorted at that.
"Well, that might simply be because you are a terrible liar," either Travis or Connor retorted. Several of the campers laughed at that, sharing times when Grover was apparently in charge of secrets and blurted them out or they were caught because they knew he was lying. Grover flushed red and bowed his head.
"Grover is right, as is Natalie," Chiron stated calmly, "Percy's observance skills do not leave much to be desired, and with his curiosity, it has gotten him in quite a lot of trouble through the years." Grover smiled brightly once Chiron came to his rescue and even Jason laughed when he promptly stuck his tongue out at the Stolls.
"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told me.
"About the Titans?"
"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."
"Oh."
"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."
"Percy's not going to like that," Annabeth stated with a sad, small smile. Jason contemplated briefly, accede to his curiosity and ask her what she meant and brave her anger or let it be and eradicate all possibilities that she would stab him. Before he could make his decision, however, Leo took it from him and asked her instead. Annabeth looked at the two for a moment and Jason honestly thought she was going to take out her dagger and make Leo a shish-kabob when she sighed and answered them.
"I forget that you guys didn't know him, anyone else here wouldn't have asked that," and there she went again, the daughter of Minerva/Athena making him feel as if he didn't know anything. He brushed his irritation aside and listened as she explained. "Percy is the son of the sea god, and the sea's never liked being tamed. Percy hates when anyone tells him what to do, or more specifically for this moment, what they will or will not accept from him. He's impertinent like that." Thalia, Grover, and Nico all nodded in agreement, having been on tasks with him before. Even Chiron smiled ruefully in remembrance. Jason nodded. It made sense in a way, the mysteries and temper of the sea was why the Romans always feared it, it was too unpredictable.
"I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard."
"See?" Annabeth smiled victoriously as if she was proving to a medieval architect that great stone arched ceilings in a cathedral were possible without caving in. Jason just bit back a roll of his eyes.
"No one disagreed with you, owl-face," Leo told her without looking from his distinctly odd looking machine, first the boa, then the make-up? Jason wondered briefly if his friend was that desperate and vowed to find him a nice girl to date. Not at the moment though, because Annabeth was glaring angrily at them now and he didn't think it would be fair to set a girl up with a man with a death sentence.
"I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped."
"That does seem pretty cool," Jason stared long and hard at his friend, shock written on his every feature. The entire camp, he would've noticed had he not been staring, was mirroring his exact actions. Leo didn't seem to notice for a while, murmuring some song in Spanish as he swiftly bolted the arms of his machine into place, until he realized it was quiet. "What?" He asked when he finally looked up to see why the reading stopped. "Do I got something on my face?" His hand went up to feel around his mouth, before taking it back down after not feeling any form of leftover lunch. "What?" he repeated, a flush on his tanned skin as everyone continued looking at him.
"You admitted to liking a class. A class in school." Jason stated slowly, wondering if he should be concerned for his friend. Leo flushed darker and ran a hand through his curly mess of hair.
"Well yeah, it sounded cool. Like it actually wouldn't bore me to tears. It happens sometimes, so?" The last word came out a bit defensive and his hand twitched towards the tool belt around his waist. A few hastily turned around and back towards Apollo who was watching the whole thing with a mixture of amusement and irritation. The people who had turned were the ones unfortunate enough to have met with the now legendary Valdez temper. Leo was calm, a joker and trickster, but his temper was as fiery as his hands when provoked far enough. The Ares cabin had found that out when one of theirs, a burly seventeen-year-old, made a comment about Leo's mother. The end results had been terrifying.
"Let's continue reading," Katie Gardener, one of the few who had witnessed the fallout, stated hastily and the others turned back towards Apollo who resumed reading. Jason peeked again at Leo and watched in slight amusement, slight worry as Leo angrily muttered in a rapid mixture of Spanish and English that only a child who had grown up in a household speaking both can accomplish. His cheeks were still a dark flush and Jason caught a 'never again, stupid school' that had been followed by a string of Spanish profanity and wasn't worried. Leo was more embarrassed than anything.
"But Mr. Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C— in my life."
"It really is hard," Annabeth said, to the agreement of the entire camp, "that's one of the problems me and my stepmother had. She didn't think I actually had all these problems, she just thought I was lazy and didn't like learning." She smiled sadly and many people gave her looks of sympathy and shock. Thalia just patted her back comfortingly.
" No—he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral. "
"I had," Chiron confirmed softly, "she was a daughter of Athena right after the problems with Arachne. She was bitten by a poisonous spider and I was unable to save her in time," Jason watched as the entire Athena table and Annabeth shuddered violently at that. He himself felt irritation; a girl had died because her immortal mother had cursed a woman. Stupid gods.
"He told me to go outside and eat my lunch. The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.
Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas."
"More observations," the same girl, Natalie muttered. "I never noticed anything like that back then, and I was actually at the camp and knew something was off." Many others murmured their assent at that. Even Rachel Elizabeth Dare, the mortal prophetess that generally made Jason uncomfortable was surprised. He could have sworn he heard her mutter 'but he couldn't tell I was human and tried to kill me with his damned sword' but brushed it off as his imagination. That was too odd to explain.
"We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in."
"Wow," Piper remarked. It had been the first time she had spoken since their fight and Jason wondered if he was imagining the subdued tone or not. His chest felt uncomfortably tight and he couldn't look at her as she spoke. "The gods must have been really angry." Chiron nodded and Jason wondered what could have happened that caused such strife between the gods.
"Nobody else seemed to notice."
"That would be the mist," Almost everyone said at the same time. Some sounded irritated or annoyed as if the blindness had greatly hindered themselves while others like Rachel Elizabeth Dare, looked wistful, obviously wishing they themselves could return to blissful unawareness. Jason himself didn't know which side of the fence he stood on, although both Leo and Piper (from a quick glance) looked as if they were both firmly on the wistful side. Even with his memories slowly returning, he couldn't remember a time that he didn't know about monsters and so didn't know what it was like to be an unaware mortal.
"Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing."
"Of course not," Nico snorted while others looked disgusted or angry at the actions of the students. Some bird lovers, such as Demeter's children who recognized birds as an important part of agriculture for their ability to spread out seeds, were angry at the treatment of the pigeons and looked quite like they wanted to find out who was in Percy's class and pelt them with crackers. Others, like Annabeth, were irritated at Nancy for pickpocketing and even some from the Hermes cabin, like Travis and Connor, looked angry although, Jason reasoned, more likely because of whom it was rather than what they were doing.
"Of course," Natalie from earlier stated sarcastically, irritably brushing a honey blonde/brown curl from her olive skin. Jason noticed that she was pretty in a child of Aphrodite way despite her father, but she was more like Piper in that her short curls were messy and that she wore no makeup, her light dusting of freckles proudly displayed across her upper cheeks and nose as opposed to being hidden shamefully. Her lack of makeup didn't seem to bother Nico who Jason was shocked to see flushed a bit as she spoke. "Why bother noticing a child doing something wrong when you can bug the other kid because he's a demigod? Whole lot is a bunch of smarmy prejudiced jerks."
"Well, although that's true, she's probably not paying attention because she was on a mission, she's only focused on Percy to try to find out if he's a demigod." Nico seemed to have a faint pink color in his normally deathly pale cheeks as he spoke but no one seemed to notice besides Jason. Natalie frowned.
"How do you know she's on a mission?" She prodded and Jason watched Nico's eyes widen minutely as Natalie's strange mix of dark green and brown eyes locked onto him. Jason caught eyes with Piper who had seen the same thing as him and smiled as she pretended to swoon. For a moment, they forgot their anger as they both silently laughed at poor young Nico being subjugated to Natalie's infallibility at getting her answers.
"Let's move on," Nico said turning to Apollo and ignoring Natalie's chagrin induced glare. Jason chuckled when Leo muttered that Grover wasn't the only horrible liar.
"Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school—the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere."
"Sounds like they'd fit right in," Clarisse snorted along with several of her mean-faced siblings. Jason found out that he was quite angry at Clarisse for starting that stupid fight he and Piper had had and glared angrily at the burly girl. He didn't even realize his temper was going unchecked until Leo was none too gently pulling incessantly at his sleeve.
"What?" He practically growled, turning his glare to his elfish friend. Said friend smiled nervously, hands stilled for once on his half-finished project.
"Well, as much I would totally love to see you send that overgrown muscle-brained girl over there," he cocked a finger towards the Ares table, "You're charged enough to send this whole pavilion to Hades and I got the feeling my grand-uncle or whatever is only willing to see one here and it either of our beautiful selves so can you unplug or something sparky? My eyebrows just grew back from your lovely sister's bolt and I ain't all too willing to sport the look again, ya know?"
Jason realized Leo was rambling and that he only really did that when he was nervous. He looked around to see the campers all looking up at him and then up to see the storm cloud brimming with electricity he had conjured up in his irritation. With a shaking, calming breath he forced the lightning cloud to dissipate before turning towards Clarisse. She stared defiantly calm back at him but with a grim sort of pleasure, Jason could see the slight fear in her dark eyes. "Just stop it with the rude comments, okay? No one wants to hear them and all it is doing is halting the reading. So stop."
With a deceptively calm face, he turned back to Apollo, careful to not look at Piper who was probably angry that he had lost his temper and threatened Clarisse after he berated her for doing it. His brother, conflicting with Chiron's stern, worried gaze, was smiling benevolently at the whole camp and winked at Jason before continuing the reading.
"Detention?" Grover asked.
"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean—I'm not a genius."
Clarisse looked like she desperately wanted to say something but the sky rumbled its dissent and Jason glared sharply at her so she kept her peace. Beside him, Leo chuckled as did several other campers, including his sister. Not many could get Clarisse to stay silent, especially on one of her favorite subjects such as Percy-bashing.
"Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"
There was quite a bit of laughter at that, even from the satyr in question but most feared Jason's temper and so didn't say anything else.
"I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it. I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me."
"Percy really cares for his mother, doesn't he?" Jason asked, mostly out of curiosity but also partly to show everyone he wasn't going to bite their heads off if they actually spoke. He didn't remember his mother but parts of fuzzy, child memories that were slowly coming back, but even in those it was mostly Thalia than his actual mother.
"Yeah," Annabeth nodded, "especially back then, when she was with her first husband. He was only twelve but Percy was extremely protective of her over him," her face darkened at the thought of whoever was Ms. Jackson's first husband. Judging from the dark faces on both Annabeth and Grover, he decided he didn't want to ask.
"Yeah, Percy's mother is really something incredible." Nico said, a small smile on his lips. He looked completely different, as if he was actually a normal twelve year old boy and not an extremely powerful, possibly deranged son of Hades. "And she makes great blue birthday cake," he added, ignoring the strange looks. Annabeth smiled ruefully.
"The blue will be explained later, I'm sure." She explained, adding that it was something between Percy and his mother before turning back to the reading.
"Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized café table."
The Stolls mischievous hazel eyes lit up as they silently formed an idea. Jason made a mental note to watch out for any random wheelchairs or café tables; he really didn't want to get involved in one of the brothers' pranks. He wondered how long it would to take for the Hermes children to manage to steal the old centaur's wheelchair and if the whole cabin would help on such a big thievery scheme. Probably.
"I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends"
"That's one thing I love about Percy," Thalia said with an amused smile, "If he doesn't like the main person, all of their friends are ugly by default." Jason laughed at that.
"Aren't you the same?" He called over, the smile not falling even as Piper turned to look at him. He could deal with that later, right now all he wanted to do was push it aside like Leo did and joke around. Thalia smirked at his words.
"Not always, I don't like fire boy, but I still think you are my adorable little brother," she smiled as he blushed and Leo sputtered indignantly.
"Don't call me fire boy!" He practically snarled, all joking manner gone as he glared at Thalia angrily. Thalia raised a dark eyebrow in response, arms folded as she stared down Leo. Normally Leo would have cracked a joke or even just looked down to escape Thalia's gaze but now he held his ground glaring right back at her. Jason groaned inwardly; Leo was pissed at something Thalia normally did and no one knew why but him and Piper.
"Of all the things I've said to you, Valdez, you take offence on fire boy?"Jason could practically taste the incredulous that toned over his sister's words and he had to admit that if he didn't know why Leo was so opposed to it all, he would have found it odd too. Despite his own inhibitions, he locked eyes with Piper and mouthed a silent plea for help.
"Just. Don't. Call. Me. That." Leo gritted his teeth, his fists clenched tightly on either side of him. If Jason hadn't known that Leo had amazingly excellent control on his power and had for years he would have been worried that he was going to explode on his sister. He could tell from the edgy looks some of the campers were giving them, they thought the same. Thalia was looking at him, shocked and if Jason wasn't currently worried about his friend exploding angrily, he would have laughed. Thalia could talk about how much she hated Leo but Jason knew that he was almost a friend to her, someone she could ridicule all she liked and would still like her at the end of the day.
"Hey guys!" Piper called out and Jason could feel his tense muscles loosen. Thank the Gods for her gift, only she (and Drew but Drew would never use it for this) could calm the entire camp down with words and her voice only. "Why don't we get back to reading, huh? It's been forever and we haven't even finished the first chapter, that's pretty bad." She smiled cheerfully as if one of her best friends wasn't about to explode on the sister of the other, possibly literally.
The entire campers dazedly agreed and even Chiron was looking a little bleary-eyed as everyone turned back to the extremely amused Apollo. "I knew coming to read this myself would be worth it," he chortled, "you demigods are just so entertaining!" he smiled brightly and then continued reading.
"—I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists—and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap."
Several people, especially the girls, stated their disgust but the discussion remained quiet as they were still being influenced by Piper's charm-speech to start a true conversation. Leo himself was back to dreamingly humming his Spanish lullaby and twisting his little female robot together.
"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos."
"That's an insult to the wonderful cheesy goodness that is Cheetos!" Grover stated, taking an empty bag of Cheetos from someplace Jason was sure he didn't want to know about and chewing it. Everyone else just stayed at the satyr before slowly turning back to Apollo and pretending they didn't hear him.
"I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears."
"A wave?" Annabeth suddenly scoffed, laughter clear in her eyes. "Only Percy." She shook her head amusedly and several others that were close with Percy did the same.
"I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!" Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us."
Nico suddenly sat up straighter, pale face alit with some sort of frenzied anticipation. Jason wondered if Hades looked as deranged as his son did now on a regular basis. "She saw him and knows what she did. It's high time we reached action." Annabeth looked as if nothing could be worse than finally reaching action in the story and Jason winced at her angry, biting tone.
"That means he's going to be in danger! The monster's going to try to kill him!" Jason admired Nico's bravery (or was it stupidity) for being able to stare down a suddenly overbearing, livid Annabeth. If Percy could deal with that one a daily basis, he mused as he watched the interaction, maybe there was some basis on the campers' avid adoration of him.
"Try being the key word Annabeth. We all know he doesn't get killed or have any lasting damage. So relax and enjoy the fight as it is." Nico stated back calmly, reclining on his spot of the picnic table bench as if to prove his words. Annabeth looked ready to slit his throat as he sat there but Apollo quickly began reading although Jason couldn't detect any actual sense of emergency in his words.
"Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see—"
"—the water—"
"—like it grabbed her—"
"It's always creepy when Percy does that." Natalie from the Hermes cabin shuddered. Jason watched as Piper gave her an odd look.
"Why it's just water, isn't it?" she asked. Natalie shuddered delicately.
"Yeah, but it shapes itself like a gigantic hand. It's terrifying when you see a giant hand reaching from the water like Poseidon himself come to exact his revenge." Piper joined her in the light shudder and Jason himself felt more than slightly weirded out at the revelation.
"I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again. As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey—"
"I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks. That wasn't the right thing to say."
"That is never the right thing to say!" Leo blurted out from beside Jason. "I mean, even if you had a normal teacher and not some crazy Georgian monster that wants to harness your brain or something, you don't guess your punishment!" Leo berated the book and Jason was too relieved that his friend was back to normal (in relative terms) to tell him he was scolding a book.
"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.
"Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."
"That was brave of you," Thalia said. Jason wondered why she sounded so surprised, Grover always seemed plenty brave to him, but then again it might simply be that the fauns at home do so little anyone doing anything seemed brave.
Grover flushed. "Always the tone of surprise, always." He murmured to the laughter and amusement to the campers.
"I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. "
"Percy agrees with me," Thalia told Grover who flushed angrily and muttered something about children of the big three and where they could stick themselves. Jason figured it would be rather unpleasant if they were actually forced to do so.
"Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death. She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.
"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.
"But—"
"You—will—stay—here."
Grover looked at me desperately.
"It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."
"Percy's pretty nice, you know, even when he doesn't understand everything that's going on." A small Apollo child spoke up. Jason had no idea who it was but from his size and the way the entire camp (besides his siblings and father) seemed to struggle on who it was, he assumed the child was a new addition to Half-Blood Hill. Annabeth, to Jason's surprise, didn't smile but nervously ran her bottom lip through her teeth as she thought of an answer.
"Percy is loyal. Extremely loyal. It's actually his greatest flaw; he'd do anything for a friend. Even if that friend hates him, he'd go anywhere for them because he's determined to right them, to help them and bring them into the light. Even if it was an enemy demigod from Kronos's side of the war, he'd try to protect him, to save him from themselves. It can be fatal to him," Nico explained, surprisingly subdued. Everyone, even Jason, knew that Nico had briefly flirted with enemy lines. He'd never join Kronos, but there had definitely hated Percy, and they all knew that Percy had somehow managed to bring him back.
"Only Percy can take a good quality and turn it into a bad thing," Thalia joked, trying to break the tension that had descended on the camp. Some laughed, but most, even Thalia herself, seemed tense and alert. Jason wondered if they all thought that was why Percy went missing, to help someone that didn't want help. He realized it was probably very likely to them. He worried if the Romans had hurt him, if he was there.
"Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."
Nancy Bobofit smirked."
"Okay, seriously? Is she a monster or just a mean, mean person?" Natalie from the Hermes table demanded, looking at Grover. Jason watched as Grover flushed and tried to think of an answer. "Come on Grover, yes or no? Monster or bit-"
"Hermione Nataline! Don't you dare finish that statement!" Katie Gardener shrieked at the girl. Jason jumped slightly, Katie was a sweet girl and he had never heard her raise her voice to scold let alone yell at a girl that wasn't even from her cabin. Her dark eyes slid across the older children, glaring at all of them. "She's only twelve! Where did she learn that kind of speaking?" She demanded. Several shifting shoulders and suddenly the Stoll brothers were the only ones facing the Demeter cabin. Jason winced as Katie started tearing into the two devils.
"Okay, really?" Natalie rolled her eyes at Katie, "One my name is Natalie, stop calling me by my full name, second I'm thirteen, the same age as Nico over there," she paused to put to said boy who flushed, "and third, I live in a cabin as one of the youngest kids, which means everyone around me is in their late teens, so I learn things. Plus, my mother wasn't exactly the queen of etiquette, she cursed. Now stop berating me like your my mother I swear to the gods up high I will steal and hide every single thing you own and all of your gardening tools." She turned away from the irate and over-motherly girl to turn to Grover irritably.
"Just a jerk, she was mortal though," he told her quickly. Jason didn't blame him. Natalie may look and seem different then her siblings, more like a yet unclaimed daughter of Aphrodite, but her attitude was definitely all Hermes. He wouldn't want to wake up with all his things gone either. She nodded and thanked him before turning back
"I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare."
Several people snorted at that, including Jason who was raised to value the importance of a good glare, simply because Percy had named and apparently categorized his stares which was hilarious in itself, and then add the image of a little twelve year old boy glaring in the first place and even Annabeth was giggling a bit.
"Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.
How'd she get there so fast?"
Several people tensed, even Nico. "She's really impatient," he started slowly, turning towards Chiron, "and Percy doesn't have a weapon, are you going to leave him to himself like that?" He asked, a little angrily. Several other campers were also angrily muttering or giving Chiron sharp looks, including Jason. He, being from the Roman camp, knew well the reasons for the 'hands-off' approach of the gods and Lupa, but even the great mother-wolf wouldn't leave a boy who didn't know anything about this world defenseless. Jason, who expected the centaur to deny the claim, was surprised when he looked away.
"I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counselor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things."
"I don't think that's it," Annabeth stated worriedly, torn between biting her lip and shooting angry glares at Chiron, silently telling the old centaur to do something. Everyone was tense as they listened to Percy about to have his first fight with an actual monster and despite even her greatest protests, Jason noticed Clarisse was tense, hand squeezing Chris Rodriguez's from the Hermes table hard, as she listened.
"I wasn't so sure. I went after Mrs. Dodds."
"He shouldn't have! Gods Percy, why are you so daft sometimes?" Annabeth shrieked shrilly, her stormy eyes wide and angry. "Why didn't you go to Chiron? Get another teacher? Something?" Annabeth was terrifying and no one bothered to correct her that this already happened and Percy had survived it.
"He thought she was just another teacher, teachers aren't supposed to hurt their students so he wasn't worried." Jason stared at Leo shocked. Annabeth terrified Leo when she was in such a towering anger, and here he was practically opposing her. He didn't even so much as flinch when Annabeth turned to him, eyes narrowed and hand twitching for her dagger, he just smiled, shrugged, and went back to his mechanism. Jason marveled at his friends sheer bravery (or was it stupidity?) before, like the others, returning the book. He never knew it was so hard to ignore someone death-glaring, but he was prone to fits of inattention whenever Annabeth turned to them and glared angrily. He sarcastically thanked Leo for putting him on Annabeth's hit list.
"Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his novel."
"A novel is more important than your charge? With your inattention and Percy's blatant stupidity it's a wonder that he made it off that field trip, let alone to camp!" Not even Leo with all of his craziness and apparently diminishing self-preservation (if he had any, Jason wasn't sure) braved tempering Annabeth that time. Jason assumed they all (like him) liked having all of their internal organs to remain internal.
"I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall. Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop. But apparently that wasn't the plan."
"Of course not," Nico scoffed, "even if she was a mortal teacher, no one would make you buy a shirt from a museum gift shop, they're horrible." Everyone looked at Nico oddly. "What? They are," he shrugged at their continuous stares. "Please keep reading Lord Apollo," he requested after a bit, finally shifting uncomfortably at everyone's odd looks. "I lived by myself for quite a while, I had to wear what I could get and sometimes it was that crappy museum cloths, alright? Now let's read."
Thalia and Annabeth glared at everyone who continued to stare at Nico. If anyone knew what it was like to be a demigod on the run, Jason mused, it was those two. Very few others at the camp knew the feeling and Jason doubted they would ever want to, despite the thirst to prove themselves they all had. The reading continued after everyone was scared off by the two angry girls and a dark look from Nico.
Jason figured that even if Nico was emanating extreme power, someone whose father had the power to determine whether you'd live in paradise or be tortured forever probably wasn't messed with. He wondered if messing with a kid of Hades earned you the elusive punishment of getting sewn into Hades's underpants. Then he figured with slight horror that he was thinking like Leo and went back to listening.
"I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section. Except for us, the gallery was empty."
Annabeth started praying quietly that Percy would be alright and the entire camp held their breath. It would be just like a monster to attack as soon as no one else was around.
"Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling. Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it..."
"So observant, yet no brains to know to get out!" Annabeth hissed, angrily digging her nails into the table they were clamped to.
"You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.
I did the safe thing. I said, "Yes, ma'am."
"That's not the safe thing," Nico said, shaking his head. "The safe thing is to get back to the group of kids, Chiron and Grover can help you there."
"Weren't you the one that thought this would be all good fun? 'We all know he doesn't get killed or have any lasting damage. So relax and enjoy the fight as it is'." She quoted angrily. Jason was surprised she had remembered that much of it. "Now you are worried?" Nico just stared at her calmly, dark eyes the only part of his face that gave away his annoyance, they were black, but a luminescent one, more like his sword than anything. It made even Jason shudder.
"That's when I thought it would happen with Chiron and Grover by him, not by himself. It's a heck of a lot more terrifying to deal with your first couple monsters by yourself than with someone to help you, you know that." Annabeth bit her lip but didn't say anything, forming a silent truce with Nico for the moment.
"She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?" The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.
Jason tensed as he listened. If Percy could notice that, it would mean the monster was beginning to shed its human persona; it also meant that it would attack soon and unless someone came to help Percy pretty soon, it wasn't going to look good, past or not past. All the others must have been thinking on similar lines as everyone was tensed up.
"She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me."
"Just 'cause it's a teacher, doesn't mean they ain't gonna hurt you, monster or human." Leo said beside Jason, hands still as he finally gave his undivided attention to the book. Jason gave him an odd look but Leo just shook his head, curls flying and he had such a far away, darkened look on his face Jason knew not to ask. Leo didn't pry on his past; he wasn't going to do the same.
I said, "I'll—I'll try harder, ma'am." Thunder shook the building.
Thunder, Jason thought quietly, and then his eyes widened. He turned to look across the pavilion at his sister who was tense, one hand clenching the bench hard enough to turn white, the other on Annabeth's back to comfort her, "is this dad's doing?" he could hear the incredulity in his voice and mentally berated himself. His father was extremely strict, he highly doubted that he would hesitate to kill Percy in lieu of his father for breaking the pact, never mind that he broke it twice.
Thalia thought for a moment, "I don't think this is, not the monster anyway. I think he's noticing the storm because of dad's anger more than the monster being connected to him." No one noticed Nico's suddenly pale face as he figured who the monster was. Annabeth was going to kill him.
"We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain. "I didn't know what she was talking about."
"No one does," Travis Stoll said, surprisingly serious, "If Thalia says it's not from her dad, I don't know who she's talking about. Was something else taken on the solstice besides the lightning bolt." Annabeth's widened and she glared at Nico. Jason was surprised at the turn of events, what did Nico have to do with any of it?
"Nico…." She hissed quietly. Nico shied away from her and her itchy fingers.
"I don't know if he's involved, it's likely, after all he thought Percy had done both," Annabeth growled angrily but they stopped speaking and refused to answer any of the questions shot towards them. Jason was inwardly happy that he wasn't the only confused demigod this time. Only Grover, Annabeth, and Nico seemed to know what was going on, even Thalia was staring curiously at her friends.
"All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book."
The paragraph of Percy's mundane worries did the trick, the whole camp was cracking smiles and laughing, even Annabeth who moments ago looked like she was going to murder someone was laughing lightly at it. "Only Percy would worry about having to actually read the book," she said with a disappointed shake of her head, "it's actually pretty good if you got a mom who's willing to translate it to Ancient Greek for you." Several of the campers looked as if they greatly disagreed but Jason wondered if he could convince Minerva to translate one to Latin for him.
"I'm more interested in the candy, think he's still selling?" Travis asked Connor, who shook his head.
"His mom doesn't work at the candy shop anymore, remember? She's off writing books and marrying her English professors." Travis scowled as if by being happy, Mrs. Jackson had become a great malefaction in the demigod world. Jason sighed when he realized Leo looked the same. Sometimes he worried.
"Well?" she demanded.
"Ma'am, I don't..."
"Your time is up," she hissed."
Everyone tensed again, all thoughts besides wondering how Percy was getting out left them. Jason didn't even have his problems with Piper running through the back of his mind anymore, his entire being was tense, breath held along with the rest of the demigods as he awaited the fight.
"Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons."
"A kindly one…" Annabeth said slowly, deceitfully calm as she turned towards Nico who, for the first time, looked frightened of Annabeth, "Your father sent a kindly one after Percy before he even knew if Percy was a demigod! To watch him! And you didn't know it? Didn't warn me when we started reading?" Nico shrank back but Jason could tell from the look in his eyes he was still going to fight back. Jason doubted Nico even knew what the meaning of 'self-preservation' was.
"I wasn't sure, you are one of the only ones that knew besides me on why he would even do it in the first place and he generally doesn't mention it because Demeter likes to ridicule him about it so much, ever since Persephone accidently let it slip out when they were hiding from Kronos. So no, I didn't know that he had sent Ale- the kindly one after Percy until the bus incident, I swear," Annabeth was still angry but she seemed to be appeased by Nico's words as she turned towards Grover to question him.
Grover bleated nervously and mumbled something about it 'slipping his mind' before quickly turning towards Apollo, eyes begging the god to continue reading. The entire conversation was lost on Jason who had no idea what was going on. What was the bus incident? What did Demeter have over Hades that she enjoyed teasing him with? Would they find out in this book or not until the very end?
"Then things got even stranger."
Annabeth paled at that and the entire camp tensed. If one kindly one had made her appearance, could the others be hiding, waiting for the moment that their sister called out for fresh demigod blood? Jason shivered at the morbid thoughts. Everyone held their breath as they waited for Apollo to read the next line: "Mr. Brunner," every one released their breath but continued to tense up, Chiron being there didn't mean Percy was safe, him being in a wheelchair and still undercover probably made the chance of him killing the kindly one even less. It was still up to Percy.
"-Who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand."
"You have riptide, thank gods," Annabeth breathed deeply obviously relieved. Jason wondered vaguely what good a pen would do. He doubted the old expression 'then pen is mightier than the sword' was relevant in the face of a kindly one attack. Leo and Piper (his heart jumped erratically as he finally remembered their fight and his conflicting feelings) also looked confused but everyone else was obviously relieved at the sudden change. Some were even smiling excitedly and waiting for the next moment eagerly, most notably from the Ares cabin. If the entire camp wasn't a bit more relaxed, Jason would have figured it was because of the seemingly imminent demise or injury of the boy in question.
"What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air. Mrs. Dodds lunged at me."
Everyone tensed again; worried the pen wouldn't get to Percy in time. Monsters weren't known for their patience and Jason doubted that even if the pen could help Percy, he could get to it before Mrs. Dodds got to him. He wondered how it was possible that Percy hadn't become mince-meat and wondered if Chiron had taken care of the kindly one himself to save Percy. It made more sense than all of this madness about a pen.
"With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear."
"Thank the gods for quick-action reflex," Thalia said quietly, one hand comfortingly rubbing circles in Annabeth's back to try to ease her worry. Jason wondered if that was the only thing Thalia would ever thank the gods for; her electric blue eyes were cold and angry at the moment and she looked as if she would sooner yell at her father than truly thank him.
"I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword—Mr. Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day."
Oh, Jason thought. He should have known that the pen would turn, after all his sword is – was also like that, turning from a golden denarii to either a spear or a sword depending on how it landed. He was glad everyone, including Leo was so absorbed into the book as he could feel his cheeks heating up warmly at having not come to that idea sooner.
"Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes. My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword."
"Now is not the time for nerves!" This surprisingly came from Piper who was staring at the book incredulously, "Swing the sword and kill that she-demon!" She told the book angrily. Jason couldn't help himself; he chuckled a bit at the whole situation. Piper and a few others turned to him, and Jason was sad to see that the anger in Piper's eyes didn't fade when she looked at him. She merely 'hmphed' and turned back to the book, a light flush on her cheeks from the outburst.
Leo swore, eyes wide slightly from the interaction, "you really did it this time, I'm impressed. You have officially pissed Princess off more than I ever did, and that includes the time that she chased me across the entire camp with her dagger, trying to kill me." Jason didn't ask Leo what he did for that one; odds are he'd already forgotten. Instead he glared at his so-called friend and told him to shut up. And no, he wasn't bitter about it, he merely wanted to keep reading. He ignored Leo's snort.
"She snarled, "Die, honey!" And she flew straight at me."
Annabeth and several others close to Percy closed their eyes, praying for his safety. Everyone tensed again.
"Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword."
"It comes naturally to him?" One of the boys from the Hermes cabin asked. "That's strange," he mused. Jason watched the mixture of faces on the campers, all from the Ares table looked like they disagreed, some of the Hermes, some of Athena, very few from the Aphrodite and so on. Jason figured that it all depended on your father or mother. If your parent was a fighter, like Ares, you'd be more comfortable with weapons whereas if your parent was less of a fighter, like Aphrodite or Hermes who preferred more of the background, you'd have to learn weapons more than others did.
"The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!"
"Pretty good swing," Nico said appreciatively as everyone relaxed. No monster could survive a hit like that, not even a strong one like a kindly one. "For probably never holding a sword before in his life," Clarisse and several of her siblings grudgingly agreed while others more warm to Percy enthusiastically did so. Jason nodded his head in agreement, for a terrified twelve year old with no sword training, managing a kill shot so easily on the first try was incredible.
"Water reference is strange though," Natalie from Hermes added, "Guess it makes sense considering his daddy though," Jason wondered if thirteen year old Natalie actually called her own father that. He laughed inwardly at the thought of a god being a 'daddy'.
"Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me."
"Creepy. Observant and descriptive, he must get that from his author mother," Natalie mused, "Cool, but I definitely wouldn't want to hear a scary story from him," Natalie, Jason mused, was one of the few demigods who maintained her innocence after discovering there was a world a monsters that would just love to rip her to pieces. Maybe that was why Nico, who was the same age yet worlds different, was so seemingly drawn to her.
"You wouldn't want a story, Nat?" Jason laughed with the rest of the group as Travis got backhanded by his younger, only sister.
"You deserved that one," Piper told him with a laugh as she high-fived the girl. When had they become friends? Jason surely would have noticed if Piper was hanging out with the girl, wouldn't he? Piper caught his eye and the look she gave him, a mixture of anger and sadness, told him no, he wouldn't have. He felt oddly guilty at that, and then angry that he felt guilty. He had to agree with Leo on this one – stupid confusing, conflicting women.
"I was alone. There was a ballpoint pen in my hand. Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me. My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something. Had I imagined the whole thing?"
"The mist is still controlling him," Annabeth said, surprised. "After my first monster, I saw them everywhere, why is it still confusing Percy?" She looked to Chiron who smiled slightly.
"That was my doing, I'm afraid; Percy was obviously quite powerful and needed to go to camp, but at the same time he wasn't quite ready yet and his mother was quite adamant about him staying with her until absolutely the last minute, it was probably the only selfish thing she's done in her entire life, but she didn't want him gone, and she had sacrificed so much in her life for him, I thought it unfair that I took him away because of my carelessness at not recognizing the kindly one, so I manipulated the mist so he did not realize what he had seen, I did not think he would assume someone had drugged him though." He smiled wryly at the thought.
Jason turned to the slightly grinning Leo, "You are not allowed to," he told him without preamble. Leo pouted and turned to Piper across the pavilion. Jason was reminded of young children who turned to the next parent after the initial one said no. Then he shook the odd thought from his head.
"Jason's right, you poison someone's food with hallucination drugs and I swear I'll tie you to one of the targets and let the Apollo cabin take target practice on you, got it?" Leo nodded, but pouted. Jason shot her a gratified smile, hoping for a truce but she just looked away. Leo smiled. Jason backhanded him.
"I went back outside. It had started to rain. Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."
"Who?" No one answered, most not knowing, Grover and Chiron simply not telling.
"I said, "Who?"
"Our teacher. Duh!"
Everyone looked to Chiron and Apollo laughed. "Sure hit the mist pretty hard on that one didn't you?" He asked good naturedly. Chiron just flushed which was a surprise, his whole torso seemed to darken slightly, reminding Jason slightly of Argus rolling his eyes, the way his entire body turned.
"I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about. She just rolled her eyes and turned away. I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was."
"And you grew more suspicious because Grover is the world's worst liar," Thalia surmised. Grover blushed and glared which only enforced the idea.
"He said, "Who?" But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me."
There was more chuckling at that and Grover blushed darker. Jason would have pitied him if he wasn't wrapped up in laughing himself at his sister's smug smile.
"Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious." Thunder boomed overhead. I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved. I went over to him.
He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson." I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it."
"Really, really good mist control," Apollo whistled appreciatively, "Guess it comes from years and years of fooling demigods. It's a shame, you are probably a great liar but you are horrid at changing subjects, old man," Chiron blushed again but didn't say anything. Jason wondered why Apollo got away with calling Chiron 'old' when he was nearly as old as western civilization itself. He figured it had something to do with being able to look twenty something old while Chiron was salt and peppered.
"Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"
He stared at me blankly. "Who?"
"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher." He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned.
"Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"
"See?" Apollo told them, "Grover, my lovely satyr, that is how you lie." Grover blushed more and mumbled something before asking Apollo to just please keep reading. Apollo shrugged, "end of the chapter, should I keep reading?" Nearly everyone in the entire camp screamed 'yes' at him and he reopened the book. ""Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks Of Death" he read before stopping as Jason had stood.
"I was wondering if me and Piper can please go and speak briefly, you can continue reading we can catch up, but I really need to speak with her," he added as he saw all of the murderous glances he got at the possibility of stopping the already slow reading. "Please?" he added for Piper as she stared at him impassively. She sighed loudly before getting up and gesturing towards him.
"Ten minutes," she told him, "then I'm coming back here." Jason nodded and got up to go, but not before catching Leo's pitying, 'better you than me look' his friend sent him. He glared silently thanking him for the nonexistent support he showed him. He made his decision while reading, and now it was time to talk to Piper, and he could have used friendly advice, even if it was completely useless like Leo's probably would have been.
Bracing his shoulders he followed the already retreating form of an angry Piper, silently praying to Aphrodite that he would have mercy on him, at least for her daughter's sake then his own. He doubted she could take much more, he knew he couldn't.
I'm sorry for such a long wait, but on the (slight) plus side, it's the rest of chapter one, and it's nearly double the size of the last ones! Kind of a moot point, but I hoped you enjoyed irregardless. I will try to get the chapters up a full one at a time but I also want to get them up more timely. I decided to go in order for point of views, so next will be Leo's, then Piper's, then Jason's. If you don't like that just tell me and if enough people complain, I'll change it somehow. I hope you liked it and I hope you enjoy the new year. Until next time, then.