How Do You Say Gods- Battle of the Labyrinth

4: WE PLAY TAG WITH SCORPIONS

"Relax Will," Nico finally said casually enough while Percy ungracefully balanced on one foot. "If what they said bothered me, I'd tell them." As much as it still surprised him Will did it at all, Percy would never stop seeing him as a kid if Will kept this up.

Percy cautiously put his foot down instead of pretending he was a flamingo and began his cautious walk to get the book from Alex.

Will wasn't so sure, Nico spent to much time bottling up everything, the guy was like a pincushion for everybody else to put their problems in.

Percy was wandering back over to his seat with the book like the instance had already left his mind, and he shared why as he read the new chapter title with a wince for getting five minute glimpses into the next thing he'd be dealing with. "Haven't I had enough of these things?" He groaned, waving his hand around so the old scar of his last interaction with a scorpion would have been on display if it was still there. "I really hope I'm not it!"

"I bet they're cheaters anyways," Alex sniffed.

"It does seem a little unfair to you, playing against someone with so many extra legs," Magnus agreed, trying his hardest to mind wave away the obvious deadly aspects of this game like a champ. He was almost succeeding. "Hopefully you don't try playing jax with ambidextrous people too."

"His brother played fetch with a hellhound earlier that week," Thalia needlessly reminded. "It's good to see him branching out, trying new games."

"How do you think ISpy with a cyclops would go?" Jason grinned. "Is his vision better than yours because his brain doesn't have to filter twice as much?"

Percy groaned loudly and started reading.

The next morning there was a lot of excitement at breakfast.

"I didn't realize your dreams were such high class news," Thalia snickered.

"Obviously we all got super excited hearing Nico's alive," Will said as dramatically as possible.

"It's probably because they all heard Quintus beat Percy's butt in sword practice and are all a flutter about it," Jason chuckled.

Percy kept reading loudly over them, knowing full well they wouldn't take the hint.

...a drakon had been spotted at the borders of camp. I slept right through the noise.

"I will never get over dragon or drakon attacks being normal," Magnus sighed.

"And I will never get used to their eyes," Will agreed. Those disturbing, yellow, soleless slits.

...stay alert, but stay calm. This has happened before."

"Exactly how many times have you guys been attacked by dragons?" Alex asked with intrigue.

"Hey, that's my line," Jason smirked.

"More than enough," Will assured them both. "We have one of those, It's Been Blank Days Since Our Last Attack, signs up on the side of the Big House. Last I saw it, I think it was 37, but Gavin forgets to erase those sometimes."

Magnus looked ready to go into a corner and pray for his sanity to stay intact.

...Some had died. Some had joined Luke. Some had just disappeared.

Will shifted around restlessly in place. Names didn't always have a face attached anymore, and visa versa. There had just been to many to keep track of, and most hadn't bothered to try. The jumble got confusing, sickening if he tried to think of them all to long.