Chapter 14: Hijacking a van with a girl

[Percy's Pov]

I'll admit it. I wanted to go on a quest.

And yes, I believe that I'd do better than David.

I know that it made me biased to say stuff like that, but come on.

He was skilled at combat, but he still has a lot to learn. He was the reason why we won the Capture the Flag, sure, but Capture the Flag and quest had a big difference.

I had two years of training and questing. The kid was here for 2 days. But Zoë Nightshade won't allow a boy-except for him, for whatever reason.

Yes, I know I'm being grumpier than usual. I don't know why. Maybe it was puberty. How should I know about it, or anything?

Annabeth tried her best to comfort me from right outside the cabin. Our parents, Poseidon and Athena were in bad relationships in an 'I'll zap your offspring into dust if I can' kind of way, so it was smart for her to not enter my cabin.

But it didn't boost my mood at the moment.

"Annabeth, I'd like to have a word with Percy. Alone."

"…Ok."

Soon enough, Annabeth's footsteps shuffled away, which made my heart even heavier as Chiron clopped inside to my cabin.

I sat up from my bed as he did, and Chiron sighed before kneeling on his horse legs.

"Percy, I don't pretend to understand prophecies."

"Yeah. Well, maybe that's because they don't make any sense."

At least, not until the thing happened.

Which blew the entire reason of a prophecy in the first place, if you think about it. Isn't getting a prophecy was done to get guidelines to the future, and not to be "I told you so." scolded from a hundred-year-old mummy?

"Perhaps it is for the best." Chiron mused. That didn't lift my spirit either. "You can go home to your mother for the holidays. If we need you, we can call."

"Yeah, maybe."

I pulled my ballpoint pen out of my pocket and set it on my nightstand. It didn't seem that I'd be using it for anything but writing Christmas cards. Come to think of it, I never tried to write something with this…

When he saw the pen, Chiron grimaced.

"It's no wonder Zoë doesn't want you along, I suppose. Not while you're carrying that particular weapon."

I didn't understand what he meant. Then I remembered something he'd told me a long time ago when he first gave me the magic sword:

{"It has a long and tragic history, which we need not go into."}

I wanted to ask him about that, but then he pulled a golden drachma from his saddlebag and tossed it to me.

"Call your mother, Percy. Let her know you're coming home in the morning."

He was about to leave the cabin when I called at his back.

"Chiron, you know what this Titan's curse is, don't you?"

His face darkened. He made a claw over his heart and pushed outward. An ancient gesture for warding off evil.

"Let us hope the prophecy does not mean what I think. Now, good night, Percy. And your time will come. I'm convinced of that. There's no need to rush."

He said your time the way people did when they meant your death. I didn't know if Chiron meant it that way, but the look in his eyes made me scared to ask.

I stood at the saltwater spring, rubbing Chiron's coin in my hand and trying to figure out what to say to my mom. I wasn't in the mood to have one more adult tell me that doing nothing was the greatest thing I could do.

After some more consideration, I threw the coin in the fountain. It sank to the bottom while causing a small ripple on the surface of the water. I'll call her tomorrow. It's not like I had a reason to rush.

And, as I usually was with many things, I was dead wrong.

THUMP. THUMP.

I woke with a start in my bed. My biological clock was telling me that I had only gotten a few hours of sleep, and it was still dark outside.

Another set of thumping rattled the door. I uncapped Riptide and got out of bed.

"Hello?"

Then, the outside went silent. I took the chance to fling open the door and found myself face-to-face with a black pegasus.

"Whoa, boss!" Its voice spoke in my mind as it clopped away from the sword blade. "I don't wanna be a horse-ke-bob!"

A pair of black wings spread in alarm, and the wind buffeted me back a step.

"Blackjack!" I said out of relief and irritation. Blackjack was a Pegasus that I sort of rescued from Luke a year ago, and even though it was more of a coincidence than anything, he became my No.1 fan from that day.

"It's the middle of the night, what are you doing banging on my door?"

Blackjack huffed.

"Ain't either, boss. It's five in the morning. What are you still sleeping for?"

"How many times have I told you? Don't call me boss."

"Whatever you say, boss. You're the man. You're my number one."

I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and tried not to let the pegasus read my thoughts. That's the problem with being Poseidon's son: since he created horses out of sea foam, I can understand most equestrian animals, but they can understand me, too.

"Aren't you supposed to be in the stables? How are you even out?"

Blackjack puffed a gust of air through his nostril.

"Meh, the stables. You see Chiron staying in the stables?"

"Well…no, but-"

"Exactly, boss. This hunter girl with a horrible accent said she needed a word with you. She has tons of sugar cubes!"

"Excuse me?"

I was starting to suspect that this was a dream when someone slipped down gracefully from Blackjack's back; well, tried to, before she stepped in her ankle and whimpered in pain.

It was indeed, a hunter from cabin 8. A young one. I vaguely remembered her fighting Travis at the creekside during Capture the Flag.

She stood up, brushed her knees, twirled her ankle around, and gave a wide smile.

"Hello! You're Percy Jackson, right?"

"Uh, yeah?"

"The one who has craving for a maiden?"

I had to restrain myself from strangling the kid.

"I don't have craving for Annabeth!"

"Who said anything about Annabeth?"

It has been 30 seconds since I've struck a conversation with this girl, and she was already pushing every button on me like a mad pianist. I put a hand over my eyes to keep them from throbbing from being woken up too early.

"What do you want? And make it quick."

"I am going to hijack on the quest for Lady Artemis. Are you going to come?"

[Line Break]

"I regret my decision about everything!"

That was the first thing Luna (the young hunter's name was Luna. A bit on the nose if you ask me) shouted when Blackjack soared up into the sky, her small hands hanging tight on my waist for dear life.

I didn't know what she was expecting; flying a pegasus was a lot different from riding a horse, mostly hinging on the fact that it can fly.

Also as a bonus, if you are flying with it in the daytime overcrowded traffic, you needed to be careful not to be seen. Even the mists have their limits on concealment, and it has trouble hiding stuff that's flying in the air at 70 kilometers per hour.

We darted around, trying our best to keep up in the clouds, which didn't suit Luna very much.

"It's so cold! And wet!"

"I thought hunters were impervious to cold?"

"Not when I am drenched from head to toe!"

Ok, so hunters could still get hypothermia. Good to know, I guess.

I wasn't affected by water, being the son of Poseidon and all that so tried my best to keep an eye on the white CHB van. I lost it twice, but I had a pretty good sense that they would go into Manhattan first, so it wasn't too difficult to pick up their trail again.

I landed Blackjack near the top of the Chrysler Building and watched the white camp van, thinking it would pull into the bus station, but it just kept driving.

"Where's Argus taking them?"

"Dunno, boss. Hey, there is a doughnut shop! Can we get something to go?"

"I-I'd, l-like to g-go ins-side s-some-where a-as w-w-well."

To be honest, I was getting hungry myself. It was almost breakfast time by now, and as dry as I was, I was shivering down to my bones. A nice doughnut in a warm shop sounded closer to Elysium than anything.

But the van kept moving up even as we fantasized about those. It went inside the Lincoln Tunnel and disappeared out of sight.

"Come on, let's go."

Blackjack and Luna both groaned but didn't protest a lot as we leaped off the Chrysler Building.

We kept flying for what felt like several hours, much to Blackjack's dismay.

Seriously, Argus drove away like a serial killer on a run. We were approaching Maryland before finally pulling over a rest stop, where a bunch of water trucks lined up. Probably stopping before going delivery elsewhere.

"Blackjack, can you land over the hill right there?"

"Land," Blackjack puffed. "Yeah, no problem boss."

He almost did a 180˚ spin as we landed, nearly throwing us off his back for a 20 feet dive, but I really couldn't blame him. His black fur was dripping with sweat and he was panting like a horse that ran miles at top speed; which was technically what he did.

"Thanks, a lot."

Luna, slightly pale and green from the mid-air pirouette, patted his nose for a thank you and fished around her small camping bag. She pulled out a zip-lock bag full of sugar cubes and opened it, and Blackjack dove his nose right into that.

"Ooooh, good stuff. High-quality sugar."

"100% natural ingredients as well."

I let Blackjack stay here to rest and paced down the hill with Luna. I saw 4 people excited out of the van to enter Starbucks, which puzzled me; maybe they're just having a break or something.

I had a funny feeling that Argus was staring at us, but that was impossible. The hill was still quite far away from the stop, and 100 eyes don't mean he has super-enhanced vision, right?

As we went closer, the three people who left turned out to be Annabeth, David, and Zoë Nightshade. Annabeth and Zoë seemed to be arguing? Discussing something, while David was looking over the menu.

"Can we get a hot chocolate? Or coffee? Anything warm?"

I looked back at the hunter. She grabbed the hem of my sleeves and gave me one of that big-pleading-grey-eyes things Annabeth once did when…never mind. The point is, it was impossible to say 'no' to an eye like that.

"How are you a hunter?"

"Shoot me."

We were going to sneak inside the shop when Luna gave a small yelp, and we were both grabbed by our necks and dragged to an alleyway.

We were both unceremoniously thrust on a pile of garbage bags. I quickly stood up and drew Riptide, only to see Argus looking down at me with stern eyes all over his arms.

"Uh, hi Argus."

I lowered the blade, but Argus still grunted in displeasure. He did some sign languages that I didn't recognize.

Luna squinted at his sign language as if trying to decipher the meaning.

"He is, asking if you have seaweed for a brain…?"

"So you do have a sense of humor."

Argus rolled his eyes, which made it look like his entire body swirled around. Another set of sign language.

"He says go back to camp now, or he'll show why he was tasked at guarding Io from Hera."

Argus raised his arms like a professional boxer.

Oh boy.

So the only myth I remember about Argus was the very story, where he was killed by Hermes after he was put to sleep by his magic singing or something. It didn't say how strong he was in that myth, but when a god of thieves couldn't just break through I'd say he was pretty up there.

Also, I couldn't fight Argus; he was the camp's protector. Even now, some of his eyes were drooping down as if he wasn't thrilled at the idea of punching me into the Underworld.

I raised my hand.

"Argus, listen to me. I have to be on the quest. I can't just sit back while my friends are going on one."

"And I, uh, I owe a lot to Lady Artemis, so I'm not going back as well."

Argus grunted again and made three sign languages. Luna let out a small squeak of terror.

"He says, then brace yourselves."

BOOM!

At that exact moment, Starbucks exploded right next to us.