"Welcome to Sex Education!" Mr. D says to the assembled campers, "Now, normally Chiron would do this, but since he's been banished for being the son of Kronos, the responsibility has fallen to me. He had notes, but those notes were boring! So we're doing it my way."
Most of the campers are assembled into the amphitheater. The campfire is burning low in the middle. Annabeth is sitting in the front near the exit pathway.
"Let's just start with the very basics. Dionysus' Top Ten Tips for how to survive a crazy drunken murder orgy. Tip 1: sacrifice a goat."
Annabeth raises her hand, "I thought this was the basics of sex education?"
"These are the basics! I don't know how much more basic I could possibly get. Demigods these days don't even know how to throw a proper drunken murder orgy. Now you're going to want to sacrifice the goat without cutting up the intestines."
Annabeth gets up and leaves. She doesn't have time for this. She has a war to win.
She walks through camp and heads back to the Athena cabin. More than half of the beds are empty. During the disastrous invasion of camp last year, half of her brothers and sisters had been killed. Several more had decided that it was safer to try to fight monsters alone than to stay at camp. A few left to work for Kronos.
Krono's forces had invaded camp last summer. They were able to push back the invaders and close the labyrinth entrance with Daedalus and Nico's help. But the victory had come at a great cost. Half of camp Half-Blood had been killed.
Annabeth has been trying to prepare people for a final battle. Percy's 16th birthday is coming up next month. They only have a few weeks. However, no one is particularly concerned because they believe Percy is dead, and Nico won't turn 16 for another few years. They'd held a mass funeral after the battle and burned a shroud for Percy along with the rest of the demigods that had died.
They were wrong.
Percy cannot be dead. He can't be dead because Percy and Grover have an emotional soul bond and Grover is still alive. Percy can't be dead because he's the most powerful demigod they have and he always finds a way to survive dangerous situations. Percy can't be dead because Annabeth had asked Nico to look for him in the Elysium and Percy hadn't been there. If Percy's not in Elysium, then he's not dead.
No one had believed her.
Annabeth grabs her notes and her dagger and heads into the woods for the war council.
.
Grover's already in the grove when Annabeth arrives. He's playing the Pan-pipes and several woodland creatures are flocking around him. Annabeth tries to smile at him as he stands up and walks toward her, but his wobbling is impossible to miss. Ever since Percy disappeared in the eruption, Grover has been walking around as if he's drunk. Over the last few months, a little hermit crab has been following him around and grabbing onto his shirt. Annabeth assumes it has something to do with becoming the new Lord of the Wild.
Over the next half an hour the other members of the War Council come to the glade. The council is made up of seven members: Annabeth, Grover, Clarisse, Michael, Conner, Salina and Nico. Only the councilors who are actively preparing for war are invited. Clarisse and Salina arrive together, holding hands. The two of them have been dating for a few months.
Clarisse was in charge of training the troops with Micheal Yew, head of the Apollo cabin, as her second in command. Conner Stoll from the Hermes cabin was in charge of supplies. Grover and his Satyrs were scouts. Salina was in charge of camp morale and making sure people didn't fall to Kronos' lies. Nico shows up occasionally. His contribution largely consists of being stressed and the occasional grunt.
Like most other campers, Clarisse does not believe Percy is alive, but she does think Camp Half-Blood should always be prepared for war with any and all gods. Because of this, Annabeth and Clarisse have been getting along well these last few months as they prepare for the upcoming war.
Clarisse is doing her best to be a general. Unfortunately, while she is the camp's best fighter, her rough leadership style doesn't mix well with the other cabins. The head of the Demeter cabin was left in tears last week after Clarisse said her cabin would be easy prey for monsters. Clarisse punched Pollux in the face two weeks ago and he's refused to fight since. Clarisse and Michael have been fighting over a chariot. Even if everyone got along, they don't have enough soldiers to defeat Kronos right now.
Annabeth pulls Clarisse to the side before the meeting officially starts. "Clarisse, you need to get over this argument with the Apollo cabin. We can't afford any infighting right now," Annabeth says.
"Then tell those bloody thieves to return our chariot! They can't whine their way out of it just because their dad is the god of sleazy lawyers!"
"I'll talk to them," Annabeth agrees, "But you need to tell Nyssa and the Hephaestus cabin to make more breastplates and helmets. I know it's not as fun as the statues and giant axes they like making but we really need to not die." The Nyssa has been the head of the Hephaestus cabin after Beckendorf's death during the invasion. Nyssa is young and had no time to train for the position. The cabin has been a disorganized mess these last few months.
Clarisse cracks her knuckles, "I'll make sure they're motivated."
Nodding, Clarisse and Annabeth return to the main council. Annabeth is able to convince Michael to give the Ares cabin the chariot by volunteering Conner to commit grand theft auto and get the Apollo Cabin a car. Grover reports on the movement of the Kronos' army. Previously, they had been on a cruise ship. However, a few months ago they had moved half of their army to a train. The "Murder Mystery Train" according to Conner. The name stuck.
"I think I've figured out what happened to Percy," Annabeth announces to the assembled group. Clarisse twitches in annoyance while most of the others look at her pityingly. "I think Kronos kidnapped him and is keeping him drugged. It explains why Grover is walking around drunk! Percy's been drugged! It's why Nico can't find him in the underworld. We all know Kronos has been trying to sway Percy to his side for years! Of course Kronos' minions in Mount St Helens kidnapped him! We need to send a group in to scout. If he's there, we can rescue him!"
Annabeth thinks her idea is pretty brilliant. It makes sense! And it explains why Percy hasn't come back yet! She's made three separate rescue plans.
"Annabeth…" Michael says with such pity in his voice that Annabeth glares him into silence.
"That makes sense," Grover says, "Sometimes I think I can still feel him, but his emotions are very weird and sleepy. So maybe he has been drugged!"
"Or maybe," Clarisse interjects, "This emotion bond you accidentally made as kids isn't as strong as you think it is and your stupid magic feelings are just broken. We are not risking our best strategist on some dumbass plan just so she can prove she's right."
"This isn't about proving I'm right! This is about getting our General back! Clarisse you are doing your best, but you need to be able to focus on fighting when you're on the field, not managing troops. Kronos has kidnapped Percy and is keeping it a secret so we are unprepared for his 16th birthday and enter the battle without our General!"
"Annabeth, we all know what you're going through. We've all lost people we love-" Connor starts. He lost his brother Travis in the invasion last year.
"He's not dead!" Annabeth screams back, "He can't be!" She knows she's lost this argument. She knows she looks like a little girl in denial, even though she ISN'T. This was a logical conclusion, not an emotional one. Still, the matter is dropped and the meeting continues about other things.
After the council concludes, Salina approaches her. "I think you might be right about Percy," Salina says.
She is the first person other than Grover who actually believes her and it's so validating. "Really?" Annabeth asks.
"Yeah," Salina says, "You make good points. I mean, Grover's still alive, right? I know the other cabins don't support you, but I do. Wouldn't it be great if we could find Percy and bring him back? He probably feels so abandoned. Still, that's a terrible idea. We just don't have enough demi-gods to be able to risk a rescue mission." Salina shakes her head sadly, then pats Annabeth on her shoulder and heads into the wood in the direction of camp.
Annabeth sits in the grove for a while after the meeting has ended. Does Percy think she's abandoned him?
She pulls out her scouting and rescue plans. A rescue is beyond her, but if she can bring back proof that Percy is alive, she should be able to convince the council to send a larger team. She pulls out her invisibility cap. It's risky, but so is war. Percy would do the same for her is she'd been kidnapped.
"I'm coming too," Grover says from beside her. Annabeth pretends she isn't startled. "I know that look. If you're rescuing Percy then I'm coming too. We should probably get a third. Three people on a quest and all." The crab holding on to Grover's shirt waves his little pincers in the air.
"This is a scouting mission. The fewer people, the better," Annabeth says.
"I could join. I'm pretty good at uhh… not being seen and getting in and out of places," Nico says, emerging from the shadows, hands digging into the pockets of his oversized hoodie.
Annabeth modifies scouting plan number 2 to fit her new crew. "Okay," she says, "Here's the plan…"
.
Annabeth's plan:
Grover's wild animals will keep an eye on Kronos' Murder Mystery Train.
Nico, Annabeth and Grover will use Nico's shadow teleport powers to stay in a nearby city.
Once one of Grover's animals see that Luke has left the train, the three of them will strike. Hopefully Luke will take most of the powerful monsters with him.
Nico will teleport them on top of the train, or in between some train carts if there's no shadow on top.
Annabeth will have her invisibility cap on and will explore the train. Hopefully she will find Percy. Then she'll have proof that he's still alive! Let him know they're coming back for him. (Kiss him)
Grover will keep watch. If Grover and Nico are discovered, Grover will play a goodbye tune on the Pan pipes and they are to teleport away without Annabeth. Annabeth will find her own way out if she needs to.
If Grover and Nico are not discovered, Annabeth will return to them and they will teleport away with news about Percy's kidnapping. If Annabeth stays gone for over two hours, they need to assume she's dead and leave her behind.
Once they have proof of Percy being alive, Camp half-blood will organize a full rescue and prepare for war on Percy's upcoming 16th birthday.
.
Grover has his squirrels and birds keep an eye on the Murder Mystery Train. Nico teleports them to Florida, where the train is currently located. This way, it won't take the animals long to report to Grover. The train was extremely long, with over seventy train cars, but it was currently stopped at a train station in West Palm Beach along the Brightline high speed rail. The animals report that Kronos' monsters are carrying in a lot of electrical supplies, and a few barrels of something they can't identify.
After four days, the birds report seeing a blond man with scars leave the train along with several large monsters. They slide open the side of one of the train cars and unloaded two car-cars from it. Perfect. Luke was out of the train and there was an empty train car they could use.
Nico teleports them through shadows to nearby the train station. Then, once he found the empty train car, he teleports the three of them into it. Annabeth was wearing her invisibility cap, which made the world grey and cold. Both sides of the train car are sliding doors, but they've been closed with chains and a lock.
Annabeth moves on to the next train car, leaving Nico and Grover behind to hide. The next train car door was open, which was a little TOO convenient for Annabeth. The train car is empty except for a "wet paint" sign in the middle of the room and a rolled-up carpet on the far side. She chose to climb on top of the train instead of walking through the door. She walks over the tops of four train cars this way, climbing down and back up at each new car because jumping would make too much noise. All the doors in the train cars are open. Weird.
As she crawls, she stops and listens in on the monsters below. In the second train car she hears two Gegne earthborn soldiers talking. They were talking about how cool it was that Typhon had joined their side. They couldn't wait for Typhon to kill all the gods so they could march into Olympus and destroy their base. Interesting. Annabeth takes note.
She moves on to the next train car.
There, five Empousai are lounging around throwing darts at the wall.
"I fucking hate this train. Why are we in a train?" One Empousai whines.
"We used to have a really cool luxury cruise ship. There was a spa, a swimming pool, personal rooms, a bar and everything!" Another Empousai says as she hides daggers in her shirt.
"I must have joined later. What happened to the luxury cruise?"
"It capsized. Half our damn military drowned including basically all the half-bloods. The emergency rafts also sank. The weird thing is, it wasn't even a stormy day! The damn boats just flipped and sailed straight to the bottom of the Bahamas."
"Poseidon. That bastard."
Annabeth will have to thank Poseidon later. Camp Half-Blood had assumed that when part of Kronos' military moved to the train the remainder was still out there on the cruise ship. If the cruise ship sank that gave them a fighting chance.
But if Percy had already been kidnapped, would he not have been able to escape when the ship capsized? Would Poseidon not have taken the opportunity to rescue his son? Unless Percy hadn't been on the ship…
Annabeth clears twelve more train cars using this method. Monsters, Giant spiders, robots, skeleton soldiers and more, but no Percy. Then one car has what looks like a map of the train on the table. There are several wolf-headed Telekhines as guards in the car. They are lounging and look bored. Occasionally one of them will open the car door to walk to the next train car.
The plan risky, but Annabeth needs that map. She climbs down from the rooftop to the platform outside and waits for one of the guards to open the door, then she slips in quietly. Slowly, Annabeth makes her way to the table with the train map on it. She's looking for a car that might be labeled "Prison cell", or maybe just "Percy".
The wolf headed monsters sniff the air. Annabeth keeps reading the map. There are 75 train cars. Sleeping quarters. Food supply. Weapons container. Kronos' personal car. Glue trap for demigods. What? More of the Telekhine soldiers sniff the air. One of them growls.
The captain of the Telekhines slams her fist into a red button on the side of the train. Suddenly, the train shudders and starts to move. The train gains incredible speed. Lights suddenly spring on in the car. Along the edges of the ceiling and floor, LED strips have been hung that create a bright diversified light throughout the train car. Behind her, Annabeth can see that the other train cars are also bright.
"Find the invisible bitch!" the Telekhine commander shouts. Suddenly all the soldiers pull out their swords and start slashing around them. One of the blades slices her right side but she manages to avoid most of the hit.
Annabeth ducks and runs to the door and pulls it open. Instead of running through, she jumps back into the car and ducks under the table as quickly as she can. The Telekhine soldiers shout and run toward the open door. She only has seconds before they realize their mistake. So Annabeth grabs the train map and run to the other door. This door had been left open. The train is moving quickly now, so getting on the roof would be stupid. But staying in the car would be stupider. Annabeth climbs back up. The wind whips at her face. She has to crawl along the roof to prevent being ripped off by the wind.
On top of the roof of the moving train, Annabeth hears Grover's Pan pipes play the panic song. They've been found! They'll have to teleport away and Annabeth will have to stay hidden for a while and make her own way back.
However, Grover doesn't play the "Goodbye" song. Instead, he continues to play the panic song. Why would he do that? Oh. The LED strip-lights means there are no intense shadows. Nothing for Nico to teleport away through. Annabeth hears the sound of fighting coming from her friends' hiding place.
Jumping from train car to train car as the whole thing shakes and moves at more than 100 miles an hour is terrifying. But she doesn't have time to try to fight through each car and there is enough noise coming from the battle to cover the sound of her jumping. Hopefully. One skeleton tries to climb on top of the train, but Annabeth sneaks up and pushes it off.
She gets to the empty train car that had been carrying Kronos' cars. She hears the sound of battle below her and sees Nico's standing at the entrance cutting down monster after monster as they try to enter. The hoard keeps coming. They're rolled the carper over what Annabeth now realized was a glue trap train car.
She jumps down on a scorpion man at the entrance to the train car, stabbing him in the back. Then quickly ducks under the stygian sword.
"It's me, let me in," Annabeth whispers. Nico's sword halts for a moment, allowing Annabeth to pass. Then the next monster lunges forward and Nico resumes fighting.
Inside, Annabeth can see Grover. His right hand is bleeding profusely and his pan pipes have been cut in half. He is trying to wrap his wound with his shirt. On the far side of the car, the door is welded shut.
It's the afternoon and they're traveling south. So Annabeth will need to open the left (East) sliding door for her plan to work. The problem is the doors in the carriage are sealed with heavy chains and thick locks. She goes over to the eastern sliding door and tries to wrangle it open. She tries to cut the chains or the lock shackle with her dagger, but it doesn't even make a dent. They're stuck in the garage train car that Annabeth is beginning to suspect is actually a prison cell. They're trapped and it's all her fault.
A seashell walks over to Annabeth. It's the little hermit crab that had been holding onto Grover for the last few months. It crawls up Annabeth's legs, turning invisible in the process. Annabeth goes to pick up the strange animal when it jumps onto the chains holding the sliding door closed. It uses its little pincers to grab the chain and *clink* cuts the chain in half as if it's no problem.
Annabeth stares at the crab in amazement. Then focuses. She pulls off the chains and turns to Nico. Nico is still standing at the entrance of the train car, cutting down monsters one by one as they try to enter.
"Teleport us as soon as you hit shadows. Go to someplace with water," Annabeth says to Nico.
"There is no shadow here!" Nico shouts back.
Annabeth pulls Grover to the sliding door entrance and keeps a tight hold of him in one arm. She then throws open the now-unlocked East-facing door, and pulls off her invisibility cap. "Jump Nico! We'll jump with you!" She says, holding out her other hand. The crab grabs onto Annabeth's shirt.
Nico stabs his opponent in the guts and uses the gold dust as cover for turning his back on the enemy and running toward the door. The monsters enter the car. An arrow flies a few inches from Annabeth's face. Annabeth grabs Nico's hand as he runs past and jumps with him out of the train traveling at 125 miles per hour. Since it's the afternoon, the bright Florida sun is casting a shadow on the east side of the train. The shadow of the train itself is enough for Nico to teleport them away.
The end up in a shadowy tree-covered everglade. They are launched directly upward out of the shadowy waters at 125 miles an hour, come to a brief stop mid-air and then plunge back down into the everglade waters below. Spluttering, Annabeth emerges from the algae-covered waters.
A boat from a dock a little way down the everglade unties itself and floats over to the three swimming figures. The little crab crawls on first. Annabeth will have to thank Poseidon later. Grover tries to pull himself up, but with only one hand, he doesn't have the strength. Annabeth is able to pull herself up instead. Using the oars, she is then able to fish Nico up and the two of them pull Grover into the boat.
Sopping wet and bleeding. An alligator tries to approach them but Grover orders it away and the beast obeys. Lord of the Wild powers, apparently. They spend a few minutes catching their breath on the boat. Despite his wounded hand, Grover is standing steadily for the first time in months. It's as if standing on this wobbly rowboat helps him balance.
"Did you find Percy?" Grover asks once he's regained his breath. He is keeping his wounded right hand pressed tightly between his torso and left arm to stem the bleeding. They'll need to get back to camp quickly to get some ambrosia before he bleeds out, but it's unlikely they'll be able to save the hand. Annabeth pulls out the map and looks through Krono's army. There is no prison car. Kronos doesn't keep prisoners.
Annabeth shakes her head, "No. Percy wasn't there. I don't think they ever had him."
"So Percy is dead," Nico says, "And the prophesy falls on me." He is keeping his face buried in his knees and won't look Annabeth or Grover in the eyes.
"It was a trap," Annabeth says, "They knew we were coming and they knew you were going to be there Nico, or else they wouldn't have added ambient light strips to every cart. If that crab hadn't broken the metal lock we likely would have died."
"No," Grover said, "Nico and I would have died. You would have found a way to escape. You're smart like that, and there's no reason for you to have died with us." That was likely true, but Annabeth didn't want to think about it.
"Percy is dead. Grover will lose his hand. We almost died. And everyone at Camp Half-Blood is going to be pissed at us. Great," Nico says.
"They knew we were coming," Annabeth repeats, "So someone must have told them. The only ones who knew we were planning to break in were the three of us… and if I'm not mistaken, Salina. She encouraged me to try to find Percy and she was the last one to leave the War Council. She could have stayed within earshot as we discussed the plan. We'll need to conduct some interviews, but I think we've found our spy." Clarisse was not going to be happy about this.
Sopping wet in the miserably humid swamp, Annabeth closes her eyes and lets herself think the one thing she's been avoiding for almost a year now.
Percy Jackson is dead.
Clutching her bleeding side, Annabeth ugly cries. She loves Percy, and Percy is dead.
.
.
.
Author's Notes:
Not a lot of notes on this one.
In ancient times they would take animal intestines (including goat intestines), cut it into a specific length, tie a knot in one end and use that as a condom. Some ancient world birth control facts for you. That might have been what Dionysus was trying to teach the demigods. It's hard to tell with Mr. D, he could have also just been drunk.