haunting ＊ percy jackson

ii. apparently vanishing into thin air has consequences

"Oh man," Annabeth groaned, rushing out of the taxi with a grim look on her face. "Not again." Amos followed swiftly after, though much less gracefully, as his knees were still weak and exhaustion was beginning to creep up on him. He shared a look with his friend, silently communicating with her about how screwed they were. This is really, really not good. Percy and Tyson stumbled after them wide-eyed at the sight they saw. Amos couldn't exactly fault them for their shock, it certainly wasn't a typical sight for camp.

Ever since Thalia's tree was poisoned, attacks were becoming more and more frequent. At first, it was more minor monsters, things that while annoying to deal with, were manageable. The more time camp spent unguarded however, the worse things got.

As the Gray Sisters zoomed off in their taxi, Annabeth pulled out her dagger, gripping it tightly in her hand as she readied herself to join the battle. To their credit, the other campers — Clarisse's border patrol, which she was immensely proud of — were doing a decent job holding their own, but the more the bulls charged, the more the campers began floundering. "Border patrol, to me!" Clarisse's voice commanded, attempting to rein them in.

"We've got to help them," Amos said, worried for his tough friend.

As he fished around his pockets searching for his retracted spear, Percy gave him a skeptical look. "You're going to help? No offense, Amos but you almost collapsed not even an hour ago." His green eyes shone with concern, and at any other moment Amos would have appreciated it, but there was no time to be concerned about his well-being.

Finally pulling out his spear, he pressed the small button on the side to make it full-sized. "I'll take ambrosia after," He shrugged, acting as if it was no big deal that he was headed off to fight deadly monsters. Before Percy could get another word out, Amos had charged into battle, tired, weak, and without armor.

"Is he crazy?" Percy sputtered out, feeling his anxiety rise at the carelessness of his friend. He pulled out Riptide right after, uncapping it to reveal its shimmering celestial bronze form.

Annabeth winced, "Look it's- it's complicated. There's a lot going on, but we don't have time to talk about it right now." Her eyes darted to Tyson, eyeing the young cyclops with apprehension.  "We have to help him... and we need your friend to do it."

＊＊＊

Amos wasn't an impulsive person, at least not usually, but there was something about having your whole world change that tended to make people do uncharacteristic things. He knew he was being stupid, rushing into a fight when he was weak and without protection, but in the moment it felt like the right thing to do. It wasn't that he was disregarding his safety entirely, it was just that compared to everything else going on, Amos didn't think he mattered too much.

Camp Half-Blood needed Clarisse; she was one of their best fighters, she had organized the border patrol and its rotations, she was strong, and brave, and absolutely killer with a spear. They needed Percy, the son of one of the Big 3, with powers greater than anything they'd ever seen. They needed Annabeth, the best strategist they had at camp, who was loyal and stubborn to a fault. But with Amos? They didn't need him. In fact, they'd prefer if he went away, something he was certain of after all the encounters he had after his mother had blessed him. So yeah, when push came to shove Amos was willing to put himself in harm's way if it meant it helped his other friends.

As he joined the fray, he quickly made his way to Clarisse. He wasn't technically a part of her border patrol, mostly because the other campers were too wary around him, but fighting by Clarisse's side was surprisingly easy, almost natural. He supposed it must've been due to all the months of sparring together. "Hey," He said, whacking a bull with his spear — which didn't really do damage but pushed the beast back nonetheless —  "How can I help?"