Okay, so I lost my iPod and I was already done like 8/10 of the chapter so I couldn't start over. It was inbetween the couch cushion where I looked like five times. Does that ever happen to you? Anyways today was chaotic at school. Weather problems in June. this chapter is very long...I think. I can't see the length until I update it. So here you go.
Percy's nightmares that night were terrible. His two cousins were snuggled up on his side (their first sleepover!), and their slow breathing was warming the whole cabin up, but this didn't make it any better.
It was too much to take in for a five year old but he just has to tolerate it.
He was in his small New York apartment. His mom was there. She had on a bright smile and was offering him blue cookies on a silver platter. She had on a white apron and was shaking a little.
Although her smile was friendly, Percy hesitates.
His right arm reaches out slowly for a cookie. His mom smiles but looks a little impatient, as if it was taking him years to grab the cookie.
Percy snatches the cookie off the platter. His mom smiles and tries to hug him, but he moves away.
He opens his mouth and tries to yell her no, but all that comes out is a gush of air.
His mom just frowns. Percy slowly takes a bite of the cookie but something tackles him.
He slams into the wall of the apartment.
Annabeth is there and she looks really mad as if that was the worst decision he could ever make.
It probably was.
He immediately spits out the cookie and drops the rest.
His mom growls and her fingernails grow. Her face melts away into something he couldn't possibly describe. Foamy stuff drips out of her mouth like an animal with rabies.
She tackled Annabeth and Percy and they both are awaken.
Percy hoped he didn't scream. He's in a pool of sweat and his head throbs.
Tears form in his eyes and he rushes out of the cabin, being careful not to step on anyone.
He didn't know where he was going, his feet just carried him away. He runs and runs to the edge of the forest where the lake is. He cries into the body of water until he was out of tears.
He hears slow, steady footsteps coming towards him. He just buries his head into his knees.
Percy feels someone sit down beside him and wrap their arm around him.
Percy doesn't look. He just lets his buckets flow as the person holds him tight into their side.
Once he couldn't possibly cry anymore, he looks up slowly at the person holding him.
It was Athena. Her of all the gods, comforting him.
He sniffs,"A-Athena?"
She shushes him,"Hush child."
But Percy continues to whisper to her,"What are you doing here?"
She smiles,"Disobeying my orders, I see? Gut instinct. And I never ignore those."
Percy smiles and just sits with Athena who has now let him go. She was wearing black leggings and a big red sweater. Didn't seem very Athena worthy, but it was night time-in Manhattan anyways.
Percy hears another set of footprints, slowly coming towards them. Athena turns around and smiles. She opens her arms for Annabeth.
Annabeth is wearing a simple blue silk night gown and is holding a pillow. Annabeth quickly disregards her pillow for her mother.
She runs over and buries her head into her chest.
She cries almost a a much as Percy did and her mother soothes her and pets her hair.
Once Annabeth is finished Athena speaks quietly. "Why the tears?"
Percy answers first,"bad dream."
Annabeth just nods her head agreeing.
Her and Percy exchange looks. Were their dreams connected?
"Is that why you came out here?" Athena asks.
"I was going to come and find Percy. He wasn't in his cabin and I needed someone," Annabeth says weakly. "To talk to," she adds quickly. She didn't want people to think she needed anyone. She can stand alone.
Athena wraps her arms around them both.
"Sleep," she demands but says it soothing. She leads the two of them down onto the grass so they can sleep. Percy watches Athena's own eyes droop. Did gods ever sleep?
He can hear someone sigh heavily so he snaps his head around.
But something quickly overtakes him. It catches his attention, but is too strong to against against.
Percy closes his eyes and has a dreamless sleep with Athena and her daughter.
Percy wakes to the someone shaking him lightly. Sunlight blinds him as he slowly opens his eyes. The sunlight is too much to bare, but he forces his eye open that way, he couldn't go back. He slowly stands up and faces the people.
Chiron and a group of campers are huddled around Annabeth, Athena and him.
Athena quickly gets up and dusts off her pants. She changes her outfit and helps Annabeth up.
The Apollo, Hermes and Ares kids are laughing, the Hephaestus and Demeter kids are smiling, the Aphrodite kids don't seem to care and the Athena kids look really mad.
Chiron clears his throat. "Um, Lady Athena it's a pleasure," he says bowing. The others follow his lead.
"Mother!" A girl yells pushing her way through the crowd. She has dirty blond hair and grey eyes. "What were you doing? We know she's your favorite, you couldn't have made it any clearer!"
Athena puts a hand on her child's shoulder. "Riley, Annabeth is my child as well. I came to comfort a cold lonely child in need. I do not favour one child over my others."
"What about him?!" She spits out pointing at Percy. "He is not even your child, did you come to comfort him too?"
Athena sighs,"I didn't mean to. I was going to leave as soon as I calmed them down. But something overtook me and caused me to sleep. Of course I blame Hephaestus and his stupid TV show."
All of a sudden a large scruffy man shows up. He has oil all over his face and looks like he's been working for days at a construction site without any time off. He wasn't the hottest god ever (that would be Aphrodite), but he seemed pretty put together.
He chuckles lightly at Athena who's arms are crossed.
"Dad?" Someone calls out. A girl with curly brown hair and a tool belt on comes through the crowd.
"Hephaestus," Athena growls lowly.
The man smirks. Annabeth studies the god. The campers seem sort of scared, like the two gods bickering would turn to them. Does this happen often?
"Athena. I watched the whole thing. I saw Percy and what you did for him. I saw you do the same for Annabeth, and that was sweet. Most of Olympus watched it too as it was on my network. I watched Aphrodite cry at what you did. Yes, I caused you to fall asleep with the children for a laugh or two, but instead..." He stops and sighs. "Instead it made Aphrodite cry harder. I know Poseidon watched it too."
Athena smiles but then her head snaps to Hephaestus ," You know?"
"I know a lot more then you think," he says. He winks and vanishes.
Athena, astonished, disappears after him.
Chiron tells everyone to get back to their activities and they all scatter.
Riley walks up to Annabeth. "You come here and steal our own mother away from us?! I will make your life miserable!" She yells in Annabeths face.
Annabeth fans her face back and forth and scrunched up her nose. "Have you brushed your teeth lately?" Annabeth asks.
Percy covers his mouth to keep from laughing. Riley growls and walks away.
Bianca and Nico come up,"You slept with Athena?" Bianca asks.
"Nevermind that," Annabeth says. "My cabins out to get me!"
Susan jogs up to them,"Since when do the Athena kids act like Aphrodite girls?" She's wearing an orange t-shirt that says camp half blood tucked into her jean shorts.
"We haven't been here for that long," Annabeth says. "And my whole cabin loathes me already. They already had a bile up for me."
"Loath? Bile? What?!" Percy asks.
Annabeth shoos him off.
1 Week Later
Annabeth sits down at her mothers table after shaving down half of her food.
Percy, Nico and Bianca are giggling at the Hermes table.
You can see a faint light glowing over Luke's head.
Chiron looks over at him,"all hail Luke Callestan, son of Hermes." He bows and so do all the campers. Even Percy, Annabeth, Bianca and Nico. Can you believe it?
The guy beside Luke slaps him on the back. "You're one of us!"
Luke flashes a grin. He's missing a tooth and you can see the adult one growing in if you look really closely.
Percy sighs,"Annabeth was claimed like 500 days ago! Now Luke is too. Why aren't we?"
Bianca shrugs.
"Tonight's capture the flag!" Chiron announces. "Athena, Ares, now that dinner is over, chose."
Riley stands up,"Hephaestus. We could use your maintenance."
Eventually it ends up with:
Athena: Hephaestus, Apollo, Aphrodite
Ares: Hermes, Demeter
Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Artemis and Dionysus didn't have anyone in their cabin.
Percy looks at the girl that showed him the "sacrifice to the gods" stuff in his cabin.
"Why can't Dionysus have children?" He asks.
"He can, he just chooses not to." She replies.
A guy beside her laughs,"I heard he can't get nobody!"
All the kids on that guys bench erupts in laughter. The people on Percy's bench nervously look upwards.
"Excuse me?"
They all hush and turn around. The guy that said the joke curses in greek and looks at Dionysus.
"Sup Mr.D?" He asks.
"We're starting," he growls.
The Hermes cabin all begin to rush towards the place where Percy, Annabeth, Nico, Bianca and Luke had started taking sword lessons a few days ago.
They go through layers of armor and trying on things.
Annabeth walks over to Percy, Nico and Bianca.
"Hey guys," she says. She's standing there sort of awkwardly like she really needed to go to the bathroom, but couldn't.
"You okay?" Bianca asks.
Annabeth puts a nail in her mouth and begins to chew it off. She looks paler than usual and her eyes seem weirder and more alert. "Nervous. We're not on the same team and I don't think this'll end well for me."
She nods her head towards the big kids fighting over swords. There was a variety if metals from gold to bronze. Some were about eight feet long, to five inches.
"I'm so alone," she whines. "We're against Ares, but I'm technically against my cabin too. They seem a lot madder about what happened a week ago."
All the campers were looking over at the four of them with weird looks. They didn't seem very willing to fight.
"How are we supposed to fight a bunch of three year olds?!" A big guy from the Ares team yells.
Annabeth quickly understood. They weren't the quickest, a fighter and most defiantly not the biggest.
Thu were half the size, maybe even one third of the kids they were going up against.
They weren't expected to fight, but people felt like they were untouchable. Out of bounds. Off limits. But they were still vulnerable.
If such young children get hurt in a game like this, people will probably hate that person for hurting a mere child.
Athena has already expressed a liking towards Annabeth. The other three claimed to each be a child of one of the Big Three. They were powerful.
And some would stop at nothing to protect they're child. Some even had trusted the sea god with their life. The sea god.
Imagine what would if happened if Poseidon was in charge in Thalia and she had died like that. Poseidon did seem to disappear during Zeus's temper tantrum.
Jerry walks up to Annabeth with a load of gear balanced in his cradled arms.
He dumps it on the ground before them and begins to shuffle through it. He takes a helmet with a bunch of red stuff sticking out of it and sticks it on Annabeth's head.
"Lucky for you, they had tiny helmets, " he says.
He also gives the other three each a helmet identical to Annabeth's, but with blue stuff on top instead.
He holds up some molded sheets of metal. "Okay, this'll be a lot harder. Most of the armor would be too big for you if you were twelve. So you'll just barely be able to walk around in this stuff. But it's the smallest we got. Or maybe just the smallest I could find," he shrugs.
He puts a large piece over the front of Annabeth. It slouches down to her toes.
Jerry frowns. "You can't play without armor, but I don't know if its against camp rules or-"
"Here," a voice says.
Jerry turns around and meets the persons eyes,"thanks Chiron."
The horse nods and trots away to two Hermes kids fighting over a helmet.
Jerry slides the suit off Annabeth and grabs the new metal. It was shiny like it had a shower without becoming rusted.
They were most likely new, because Jerry had never seen such small suits.
He sees Dionysus casually walking around. "Uh, Mr.D!"
Mr.D groans and begins to lead his feet words the five of them.
"Whaaaaaaaaat..." He whines.
"Where did Chiron get these?" He asks thrusting them forward.
Mr.D stares at him with an 'are you serious?' look.
Jerry nods. Mr.D heaves a loud sigh.
'You are serious.'
He sits down on the floor next to them.
"Around the time I started coming to this camp-"
"You had to come here?" Annabeth asks.
"No, no-" Dionysus says.
"When your daddy Soos made you?" Bianca asks.
"Yes and his name is-"
"Zeus!" Percy says.
"Yes so around that time-"
"Which was when Zeus made you come here, yes, go on," Jerry smiles. He knew he was making their camp director annoyed.
Mr.D scowls. His eyes seem to have fire in them and the smell of sour grapes fills their noses. "Do you want to hear the story OR NOT?!"
Their silence crisps the air.
"Good. So, as I was saying, it was several years ago. Long before that stupid oath that can't even stay put for a few years was issued."
Annabeth opens her mouth to inform him that that was a cuss word, but one look from Mr.D burnt the thought of even looking at him.
"Back then young children used to come to this camp all the time. Not quite as young as you four, but still quite young. Infact, Nico is the youngest demigod to ever set foot in this camp.
"Anyways, the suits were never used. When I said young children, I meant like eight and nine. Not babies. Those suits went into the attic and stayed there."
Jerry just nods.
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Annabeth walks around their flag with Susan and Jerry. They claimed they didn't want 'poor little Annie to get hurt.' They underestimated her. And they dare called her Annie!
As soon as Susan and Jerry had their backs turned, she dragged herself into the woods as quietly as she could with 50 pounds of armor on.
Percy sat on the edge of the river with his feet dangling in. He's never been completely underwater before.
Sea god? Annabeths words echoed through his head. He didn't bother playing the game. Sort of prejudice towards them, but what was he to do. He'd love to prove them wrong but he could hear the clanking of metal on metal and battle cries. He didn't want to get mixed up in that.
He sighs. Nico and Bianca are by his side. Bianca's legs are criss-cross applesauced and Nico's head is resting in her lap.
"Do you think we should help?" Bianca asks.
"What help are we?" Percy asks boredly as he leans down into the green grass.
He begins to whip his feet up and down in the water soaking Bianca and Nico.
He sits up and laughs at their expressions.
Bianca puts her hands in the water and throws a handful of water at Percy.
She laughs but is cut off when a wave of water overtakes her.
"How?..." Bianca asks startled.
Percy shrugs. "Sea god?"
Bianca laughs as she suddenly pushes Percy into the cold lake.
Her and Nico are lost in laughter when all of a sudden they both
end up in the water.
Bianca screams underwater and quickly grabs for her brother. Neither one of them no how to swim.
Percy, seeing their discomfort, grabs them and pulls them up to the surface.
"Per-cy!" Bianca yells. Nico bursts out laughing.
Soon all three of them are laughing.
Once their laughing subsides Bianca stares at Percy.
"How is it that your dry?" She questions.
Percy shrugs,"sea god?"
"Well I'll make you wet," Bianca decides.
"How?"
Bianca pushes him back into the lake. Percy quickly swims back up. Wet.
Bianca smiles satisfied,"good."
Percy pulled himself out if the water. "The only reason I'm wet was so I wouldn't have to go in again."
Bianca smiles,"Thanks."