Three Worlds Clash

Chapter five

Annabeth's POV

Chiron led the new visitors into the big house and charged me with rounding up the cabin leaders. 

It wasn't too hard, since they were all in the battle. Will Solace and the Apollo kids were running around patching people up, so he told Nico to fill in for him. I knew Nico would tell him everything later anyway. 

Leo was representing the Hephaestus cabin since Nyssa was away for the week, and he was in charge of keeping Clovis awake for the walk to the big house. 

When we got there, Keefe was arguing with the guy with silver-tipped bangs whose name I couldn't remember. As they talked, the shadows in the room darkened. Nico stiffened beside me. 

That happened when Nico was mad too, but he was the only child of Hades in the camp.

As far as I knew, no other god could control shadows. 

And the girl who was helping Percy fight with water... Who was she? She couldn't be Percy's sister, right?

I sat down next to Percy and decided to find out when the meeting started. 

The two arguing boys were finally separated by the girl who kept blinking in and out, Biana, I think was her name, and they sat down to let Chiron begin.

"So, it appears we have some new things to find out about each other. Will my cabin leaders please introduce themselves, I'm afraid we didn't get to that  before we were attacked."

Jason nodded and started first.

"My name's Jason Grace, son of Jupiter."

"Piper McLean, daughter of Aphrodite.

"Percy Jackson, son of Posiedon."

Leo elbowed Clovis, who sat up and sleepily muttered, "Clovis, son of--" Before he fell back asleep.

"Leo Valdez, son of Hephaestus, your super-sized mcShizzle, flaming hot--"

Nico interrupted him. "Nico Di Angelo, son of Hades." The room grew slightly darker. "I'm also filling in for Will Solace, son of Apollo."

It was my turn next. 

"Annabeth Chase, daughter of Athena."

And so it went around the table, with each Demigod calling out their names until it fully circled back to Jason. Sophie shot Fitz a look, and they silently communicated for a second. Keefe muttered something like, 'Fitzphie.." under his breath. Then Sophie spoke up.

"So, you guys are the sons and daughters of Greek gods, which are apparently very real, and you inherited some of their power? That's why you're called half bloods. And I bet those monsters are attracted to you because of it, that's why there's a border around this camp that Chiron mentioned."

She crossed her arms and sat back in her plastic folding chair. Leo and Jason exchanged a glance, then Leo went back to butchering a ping-pong ball until it sprouted wings and flew around the room, stopping in front of Dex. He grabbed it out of the air.

"Hey, how'd you do this? That's some crazy balance you put in this, and you made it really light, but if it was a little..."

Dex pulled a tiny piece of circuit board out of his pocket and started tinkering with the ball.

I'd thought Leo was the only one who carried tools around in his pockets. Dex tossed the ball in the air, where it spun in circles and flew at incredible speeds around the room before stopping and landing on Nico's head. Leo whistled.

Chiron snapped out of the trance watching the ball had put him in. 

"Yes, Sophie, I'm surprised you figured that out. Now that introductions are through, let's share stories. We'll start first, Percy, stick with the short version this time, we don't want to be stuck here for four hours again.

"Okay, well, it started when I first came to camp..."

Percy went over everything from sacrificing food during meals to being claimed, to the sea of monsters and Circe, to blue plastic hairbrushes and Rachel Dare, our oracle,  to the war with Gaea and meeting the Romans. That's where Jason butted in and told them about Roman and Greek god differences. Then Percy told them all about the Mist and even went as far as telling them about Tartarus, which made him a little pale. He told them about Leo and Festus, and Calypso. He told them about each god and what powers they held. When he finished, the Elves were sitting in shock with their mouths open.

"Wow... this whole time we've had our own war happening, and we didn't even know about this whole society that existed."

Sophie turned toward her friends, who nodded.

"Basically, Elves get abilities genetically. It's strange that some of our abilities are just like yours. All elves' eyes are blue, except mine, because I was born in a human city, and..."

She told us her whole story, and a few things about elves. She told us about being kidnapped by a ruthless gang called the Neverseen, fighting them, and meeting Tam and Linh at Exilium, their crazy school for skills like levitating and night vision. She went over battles they'd fought and lost, and some they'd won. She explained elves' matchmaking system and genetic traits that gave abilities to elves younger than 16. When she was finished. Percy almost fell out of his chair. He drew a ball of water from Nico's cup and played around with it like he does when he's thinking. Leo's nose caught fire, making Sophie and Dex cringe.

Chiron nodded and took a moment of silence to digest everything.

"This still doesn't explain how you were able to enter the camp... perhaps teleporting through as you described had something to do with it--"

At that moment, Dex, the one who had made the ping-pong ball fly, gasped as a red hammer appeared over his head. Leo cheered and Dex squeaked, trying to sink into his chair to get away from it. The hammer vanished, leaving the entire room completely shocked. Chiron recovered first, and quieted Leo's happy sounds.

"Well, it appears your friend might be more than just an elf. We have a Demigod on our hands. Welcome, son of Hephaestus."