THAT NIGHT AFTER DINNER, QUINTUS HAD THEM SUIT UP IN COMBAT ARMOR LIKE THEY WERE GETTING READY FOR CAPTURE THE FLAG, BUT THE MOOD AMONGST THE CAMPTERS WAS A LOT MORE SERIOUS.
"Right," Quintus said, standing on the head dining table. "Gather 'round."He was dressed in black leather and bronze. In the torchlight, his gray hairmade him look like a ghost. Mrs. O'Leary bounded happily around him, foraging for dinner scraps. "You will be in teams of two," Quintus announced. When everybodystarted talking and trying to grab their friends, he yelled: "Which have already been chosen!"
"AWWWWW!" everybody complained.
"Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silk package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurels. You must find the wreath before the other teams. And, of course...you will have to slay the monster to get it, and stay alive."
The crowd started murmuring excitedly. The task sounded pretty straightforward. Hey, they'd all slain monsters before. That's what they trained for.
"I will now announce your partners," Quintus said. "There will be no trading. No switching. No complaining."
"Aroooof!" Mrs. O'Leary buried her face in a plate of pizza.
Quintus produced a big scroll and started reading off names. Beckendorfwould be with Silena Beauregard, which Beckendorf looked pretty happyabout. The Stoll brothers, Travis and Connor, would be together. No surprise.They did everything together. Clarisse was with Lee Fletcher from the Apollo cabin—melee and ranged combat combined, they would be a tough combo to beat. Annabeth was with Blake. Quintus kept rattling off the names until he said, "Percy Jackson with Viviene Smith."
"Nice." Percy grinned at Viviene.
"Your armor is crooked" was her only comment, and she redid his strapsfor him. Then she got on her tiptoes and placed a kiss on his cheek. Percy smiled down at her and wrapped an arm around her shouldes, pulling her closer to him.
" Grover Underwood," Quintus said, "with Tyson."
Grover just about jumped out of his goat fur. "What? B-but—"
"No, no," Tyson whimpered. "Must be a mistake. Goat boy—"
"No complaining!" Quintus ordered. "Get with your partner. You have two minutes to prepare!"
Tyson and Grover both looked at Percy and Viviene pleadingly. They tried to give them an encouraging nod, and gestured that they should move together. Tyson sneezed. Grover started chewing nervously on his wooden club.
"They'll be fine," Viviene said. "Come on. Let's worry about how we're going to stay alive."
***
It was still light when they got into the woods, but the shadows from thetrees made it feel like midnight. It was cold, too, even in summer. Viviene and Percy found tracks almost immediately—scuttling marks made by something with a lot of legs. They began to follow the trail.
They jumped a creek and heard some twigs snapping nearby. they crouchedbehind a boulder, but it was only the Stoll brothers tripping through the woods and cursing. Their dad was the god of thieves, but they were about as stealthy as buffaloes.
YOU ARE READING
THE PROPHECY ² / Percy Jackson !
FanfictionViviene Smith finally has it all- she's in a happy relationship with her soulmate, she's moved on from Holden, she's learned to control her powers- it seems like her life turned to perfection. That is until her insecurities come to the surface when...
