PERCY
CAMP
Getting into Camp was…interesting. Honestly I think we could've just walked there and no one would've noticed. Travis had other ideas though.
When he arrived at Thalia's tree he told us that any minute an explosion was going to go off at the lake. Then he tossed sweatshirts at us and told us to put the hoods up. Travis went on to lead us on a roundabout way of getting to the Hephaestus cabin. When ever someone got too close he shoved us behind something and proceeded to scare the shit out of whoever was out there. We made it to the tunnels just fine though, so I suppose it doesn't really matter how we got here. It was kinda funny to watch Travis scare people too.
Now we were standing in front of a group of ten or so other demigods. I'm really hoping this isn't the whole rebellion, if it is we're screwed. I looked at the other demigods, there was Travis, Conner, Jake, Clarisse, Lou Ellen, two kids, a blonde guy, a biker girl, and a really buff guy.
"So are you guys going to introduce yourselves or are we just going to stand here staring awkwardly at each other?" Raven asked. "Percy, Thalia, and Nico probably know you guys and you people know my name, but I don't know who any of you are and it's really annoying."
Jake stepped forward. "I'm Jake, head of the Hephaestus Cabin. To my left is Conner and Travis Stoll, they're the head of the Hermes cabin. On my right is Clarisse, head of the Ares cabin. Next to Clarisse is Lou Ellen, she's in charge of the Hecate kids. Um the two kids are Nick and Angle, son of Hermes and daughter of Athena, who're suppose to be sleeping," The two kids smiled sheepishly. "Blondie is Will, the only Apollo kid we have. The last girl is Lea, she represents the Nemesis kids. Last but not lest is Butch and he's in charge of Iris's kids."
"That explains why he had a rainbow tattoo," Thalia mused. I looked back at the Butch and saw that Thalia was right, he does have a rainbow tattoo. That's still weird, I don't care who your godly parent is.
"Who are you're godly parents?" Nick asked.
"Well," I started, "I'm a son of Poseidon, Thalia's the daughter of Zeus, and Nico is the son of Hades." Nick scowled and crossed his arms. It might have looked more threatening if he was like ten.
"I meant the other two people, whose names I can't remember."
"I'm Raff, son of Apollo, and it looks like you guys need more of us Apollo kids."
"And I am Raven, daughter of Hermes. Unfortunately it looks like you guys have enough of Hermes kids." Conner grinned.
"So how did you guys get here?" Conner asked.
"We stole a car," Raven declared proudly. "Although it would have been much easier if Percy had agreed to my plan to rob the bank," Raven commented as an afterthought.
I was about to make a retort when Nico tapped me on the shoulder.
"I think there's something wrong with that Will guy." I glanced over and Will was really pale looking and staring open mouthed at Raff. Thalia walked up and poked him, nothing happened.
"Hey there's something wrong with this guy." This brought everyone's attention over here.
"You should try slapping him," Raven suggested.
Thalia pulled her hand back and slapped him really hard, nothing.
"Okay, why don't you blow this bull horn in his face and slap him?"
Raven tossed Thalia a bull horn, and Thalia slapped him while blowing a bull horn in his face. Of course nothing happened.
"I know! Have someone dump this icy cold water on him, while you slap him and blow a bull horn in his face."
Some of the other demigods gave Raven a weird look as she tossed a fairly large water bottle to Thalia. I walked up behind Will and dumped the water on his head, and Thalia slapped and blew the bull horn in his face. Nothing happened, are you really surprised?
Raff walked up then and pinched the guy's neck.
"Hey dude are you okay?" The guy jumped back and stared at us in confusion.
"Or you could do that," Raven muttered.
"Why am I all wet?" Will asked.
"He," Nico pointed an accusing finger at me, "poured water on your head."
"Hey it was Raven's idea!"
"I didn't Not! He's a liar, you can't trust that guy," Raven denied.
"You know what? I don't care that much," Will decided.
"So what was with the whole freeze up thing?" Raff asked.
"I know you," Will said to Raff.
"Really? You don't seem that old."
"I know of you, in our cabin we tell stories of you, so the others will know not to speak out against the gods. We tell about you and one other guy."
"Oh Thunder," I answered. Will frowned.
"No, his name was Aaron, but Raff, we have a picture a picture of you and I recognized you. It just freaked me out."
"Oh, that's why she was so familiar!" Travis and Conner exclaimed together.
"Now what?" Nico asked.
"So in the Hermes cabin we keep photos of our siblings from years back. There some of Raven i think, but there was one really memorable one of her."
Raven started smiling. "Do you know what day it was taken?"
"Uh July 14, 1990."
"Yeah, that was the day I was banished to Tartarus."
"Why are you smiling then?" Butch asked.
"Because it defiantly was a memorable photo."
"I think I have it, if anyone wants to see it," Conner said after a moment. We all crowded around him as he pulled the picture out. Raven looked about the same, except she had an orange Camp t-shirt on, and a bright red streak in her hair. She had a gash on her arm and was flanked by two Ares kids one had a black eye, and a slit lip, the other had a couple scratches cuts and had a bump on his head. There were weapons on the ground and it looked like some of the other people in the picture were in their pajamas. That's not the part that made us crack up though. Raven was glaring at the camera as she was being dragged backwards, with her hands up, flipping the camera off.
"Yep, Ares showed up and demanded I be brought to Olympus for a trial. Fortunately I was already awake and got to kick some butt."
"So what have the gods been doing that's ticking you guys off anyway?" Thalia asked. "Are they not claiming kids?"
"Oh no they're claiming kids alright, just not giving them any cabins. There's one cabin for the children of the minor gods in the woods, we've had to expand in twice already. Did I mention it's in the woods? Plus they haven't added the thrones for the minor gods on Olympus," Lea explained bitterly. I nodded in understanding.
"What else?" I asked.
"Oh where to start, let's sum it up. The gods have been giving us check ups, threatening some of us ,although that's not really new, giving strict rules, restricting things, and some people are over privileges and the rest are trash. Of course you can't forget there are repercussions for breaking the rules too," Butch told us.
"Who's over privileged?" Nico asked.
"Children of the top twelve, well most of us are. Hermes and Ares are not quite so much, because Hermes's kids are thought of rule breakers and Ares's kids are supposedly stupid, fighting machines. Hephaestus's kids are thought down on, because they lack social skills and are mere mechanics," Conner told us. "The nice thing about that is they all expect us Hermes and Ares kids to do something bad so the punishments aren't as bad. I think they labeled us with some sort of mental problem, and we can't help but be disobedient. They try to ignore the Hephaestus kids for a great deal of reasons too, so they got lucky."
"So how many people do you have in the rebellion anyway?" I asked curiously.
"Roughly one hundred forty," Clarisse replied immediately. That's not enough I thought to myself.
"How many kids are there in Camp?"
"That's a tougher one, we're still getting a lot of kids, I'd say we're in the 500's," Travis said thoughtfully.
"We need more kids before we can take any really big action, like declaring our independence," Thalia commented. I nodded in agreement.
"So what do we do?" Angel asked.
"Rebellion, we do something and get the word out. It's about time the gods know they're ticking someone of," Raven suggested. Clarisse grinned, and the Stoll brothers exchanged mischievous looks. The girl from Nemesis's cabin looked happy.
"Finally, I've been trying to convince them to do something for ages," she muttered.
"Now we really need a codename, and I think we defiantly still need to stay undercover. We can't let them get a spy in here," Raff added.
"Wait how do you put yourself out in the open, but stay undercover?" Butch asked.
"We let them know there are rebels, we're rebelling, but nothing else. Then we wait and watch, we see who's interested and who's a traitor, we recruit, and then we do something big. Soon we'll have to find somewhere else to be, it won't be safe in Camp for long," Nico planned.
"That's brilliant," I congratulated.
"Thanks."
"So what should we do?" Lea asked. The Stoll brothers stared at her.
"We destroy something, obviously."
"Hey is there any like posters and brochures proclaiming the gods greatness?" Raven asked suddenly. Butch nodded, and then it dawned on me what Raven was thinking.
"Well, we can get the word out through those."
"So we'll hijack the postal service? Anything else we could do?"
"Well I suppose we could vandalize their thrones, that would be really obvious."
"Those are great and all but the Athena cabin has everything under lock and key," The Apollo kid spoke up.
"I can take care of that," Angel piped up. "I've been in the printing area tons of times, and I know how they make the things. I could get one of you in there and while we're there we can grab the security plans for Olympus. Then we can figure out a way to get up there unseen."
"I think it'd be better to vandalize the thrones on the same night, that way they know we're serious," Jake said thoughtfully.
"So why don't we sneak in there and grab the plans tonight?" Nico asked.
"Yeah, they're already distracted, tonight would be perfect," Thalia agreed.
"Who's going then?" Clarisse asked.
"I think just Nico and Angel should go," Raff responded. "If they get caught Angel won't be questioned and Nico can just shadow travel away."
"That's a good idea, there's no point in putting too much at risk," Lea added.
"Alright then, Nico and Angel get the plans and then we can make a plan. The rest of us can come up with a code name," I decided.
Nico pulled up his hood and followed Angel out the door.
"A name huh? Well I think I'm just going to go back the my cabin, I gotta make sure everyone's okay," Lea said before slipping out of the room. Butch said something similar and left. Then the Apollo kid muttered about getting back to his cabin before someone did a roll count.
Clarisse rolled her eyes. "Wimp."
"So a name, Jake you should be good at this, since you have to name all that stuff you guys invent," Connor commented.
"Yeah and you should be good too at it because you have name all those pranks you pull," He shot back.
"Or as I have recently discovered, crimes you commit," I added. The kid, um Nick, yawned and all of our attention was on him.
"Why are ya starin' at me?" he asked sleepily.
"I should probably take him back to the cabin," Conner muttered as he took the kid's hand.
"And then there were eight," Travis said ominously. Lou Ellen pulled out a notebook.
"So who's the best speller?" She asked.
"Probably me, since we Apollo kids are talented at art and all. It's a nice little perk," Raff said as he stepped forward to take the notebook.
It was completely silent for minute. Then another. And another. And another. And then ten minutes passed.
"I got nothing," Jake said while rubbing his eyes.
"We need to think uprising, another side to the story, the rebels," I muttered.
"Big Stink," Thalia said.
"What?" we all asked.
"It could work, no one would suspect it," Thalia defended. After that names started rolling in.
"The Back Slide."
"Forward March."
"Forever."
"Survivor's Guilt."
"Part Two."
"Stumpers."
"Big Talkers."
"The Idea."
"Tic Tac." Everyone looked over at me when I suggested it.
"Like the breathe mint?" Lou Ellen asked.
"Yeah, no one would figure it out. Plus it's like a breathe mint it changes your breathe for the better, like what we're doing," I explained.
"That's really clever," Raven said.
"I don't know, it might make it sound like a joke," Clarisse argued.
"It is just a code name thing, we could call it like Freshmint, and then the people could be the Tic Tacs," Raff suggested.
"Where'd you get the idea for Freshmint?" Conner asked as he walked back in.
"One of the flavors of Tic Tacs is Freshmint."
"Oh, well I'm down with it. Do you guys like it?" We agreed on Freshmint, which really just proves how weird we all are. If we were smarter we probably could've come up with a codename that meant rebellion in German or something. Truth be told I only though of Tic Tacs because there was a container of them in my pocket. Now all we were waiting on was Nico.
NICO
Angel lead me through a much quicker path to the Athena cabin. Next to the Athena cabin was a building that was like a shed but three times bigger.
"You have to shadow travel us inside, the door will set off an alarm unless you enter a code into it. I don't know the code."
"Are there cameras inside?" I asked quietly.
"No, they don't think anyone could possible get inside with the code, the walls reinforced with steel, and the windows that set off an alarm if you touch it. The bad thing is it's on high alert on days, like today, when no one comes in here."
"What other days does no one come in?" I asked curiously.
"Two days from now, that would be Thursday, they never come in on Thursday." I nodded and pulled Angel into the shadows.
The inside of the building was like a high-tech CIA lab or something. There were computers, filing cabinets, lab tables, and whatever else goes in a lab. Angel passed a pair of gloves to me, and gestured toward a cabinet labeled 'Security'. That's handy, it's what you get for being so organized, I thought to myself.
I opened the drawer and quickly looked at the labels, not here. I found it in the third drawer, a single file named Olympus. I walked over to Angel who was operating what looked like a printer.
"This prints more than one thing at a time, did you find the file?" I nodded and handed it to her. The next ten minutes consisted of Angel and I printing the contents of the file as quickly as possibly, lucky the Athena cabin had all the high-tech equipment. Soon enough I was putting the file back, shadow traveling out of the room, and then watching Angel as she slipped back into her cabin. Then I slipped into the shadows, back to the tunnels.
"Welcome back my fellow Tic Tac," Travis greeted as he clapped me on the back.
"Tic Tac? Are you on crack?" I asked.
"Nah, Percy came up with it," Raven responded.
"Ah, so Percy's on crack."
"Yeah right, we gave the rebellion the code name of Freshmint, which is a flavor of Tic Tacs, and the people in the rebellion are going the be called Tic Tacs," Raff explained.
"Percy came up with it, now it makes sense," I murmured. Travis and Raven ,being the only people close enough to hear me, grinned.
"You have to remember we all supported it," Raven told me.
"I knew something was wrong with you people."
"So you got the plans?" Clarisse asked.
"I wouldn't be here if I didn't."
"Well let's look at them."
The plans showed security cameras in the elevators, from the looks of it you couldn't fly in there on a pegasus anymore, and there were scanners in front of the elevators to detect demigods. They didn't change anything else really, which is good because that just make it that much easier to get in.
"So," Clarisse said. "We get the one group into that little postal office/ control room thing and they turn off the cameras and the scanners. Then they work on sabotaging/making flyers proclaiming how the rebellion is rising up and crap. The other group will go up to Olympus and thrash the god's thrones. Sound good?"
We all agreed, the only thing left to figure out was the date and who'd be in what group.
"I think we should have a third group," Raven said after a moment. "A group to do distractions, so we don't get caught."
"If you're going there, we might as well have a group that does observations as well, so there's someone to tell the distraction group when to distract," Thalia replied.
"Okay so four groups, we can hold a meeting tomorrow and make those groups. We need a date and a time though," Travis told us.
"Thursday, we should do it on Thursday. Angel told me they never go into their shed thing on Thursday so that day would be perfect. We should do it once it gets dark too. By the way what it today's date?" I asked.
"It's the fourth of August, 2015. Thursday would be on the sixth, but if we wait a couple weeks a lot of campers will go back to school and we'll have less people to avoid," Jake answered. I was about to say something else when Percy yawned, then Thalia yawned, then I yawned, then Raven, and so on. Soon we were all yawning(be careful, yawning's contagious).
We decided to talk more about it in the morning, because no one thinks well when they're half asleep.