Annabeth told Piper, Jason and Leo the story about how some guy named Luke became Kronos's host. She seemed a little sad whenever she mentioned the guy's name.
Piper wondered whether they had a history together. She was scared, though. Scared for what had happened to Percy. Scared for what might happen. Scared of being a demigod. As little as she wanted to admit it, she never really like being a demigod.
The only perks of being one was that she had met Jason and Leo. And also the fact that she was a daughter of Aphrodite made her want to puke up rainbows.
A few moments of silence followed the end of Annabeth's story, broken only by a sound coming from Percy's bed. Will had left in the middle of Annabeth's story so it couldn't have been him.
They looked towards the bed that was occupied by the son of Poseidon to see that he had woken up and was currently rubbing his head.
"Hey, Seaweed Brain. You're up," said Annabeth, sounding relieved. "Well, of course I'm up. I'm not down, am I?" Percy joked. Annabeth rolled her eyes.
"So, um, are we not gonna talk about you attacking Chiron?" asked Leo. Percy's sea green eyes widened. "I attacked Chiron?!"
"Yeah, you don't remember?"
"All I remember is talking to him, then..." Percy trailed off. "Yes?" Piper pressed on. "I don't remember much of anything else," he answered. It didn't take a lie detector to know that he was lying.
He wouldn't meet any of their eyes and kept twiddling his thumbs. Piper debated on whether to use charmspeak on him or to use violence. As much as she sort of wanted to try the latter, she decided to charmspeak.
"Percy, look at me," she said, pouring as much charmspeak into her words as she can. She could see the others trying not to look at her out of the corner of her eyes.
Percy struggled to keep his eyes away from here but failed. She looked directly into his eyes. "What happened after you talked to Chiron?"
The son of Poseidon's eyes glazed over. "My head started to hurt really bad and then I heard laughing. Then I remember opening my eyes to darkness and I saw Kronos. We talked and then I-" Percy shook his head as if he didn't want to continue.
Piper didn't press him, though. She had heard enough, anyway. "Percy," Annabeth said quietly. "Get some rest." Percy looked like he wanted to protest but a quick glare from Annabeth sent him to sleep right away.
He shut his eyes and made cartoony snoring noises, you know, the ones that sound like people trying to make pig noises and then exhaling.
"Come on, guys. Dinner time," said Annabeth, turning to the door. A conch horn sounded, proving Annabeth's statement to be true.
They trudged to the dining pavilion along with their cabin mates, Jason pecking her on the cheek as they separated.
Piper walked into the pavilion, noticing that Chiron was in wheelchair form and was wincing every few seconds. She offered part of her food (Vegetarian burgers) to the gods, muttering the name of her godly mother as she did so. "Help Percy with his problem," she added.
They sat down to eat and afterwards, when all the Ares kids had licked up the scraps from their plates, Chiron cleared his throat. "Campers! As you all know, capture the flag is tonight! But, as I am currently, er, out of service due to an...accident, I shall not be able to referee this match. So I have invited Frank Zhang from Camp Jupiter to be the referee and medic for tonight's game. Now, to the forest!"
The campers cheered and hurried to the forest to get the best equipment. As usual, the Aphrodite cabin weren't competing, but instead, were staring at their reflections in the lake and applying makeup to their faces.
Piper's cabin mates might not be competing, but she sure as Hades was. She was on the blue team, along with the Athena, Aphrodite, Hermes, Zeus and Apollo cabins. Percy was supposed to be there, but it was obvious he wouldn't be competing. The red team had Ares, Demeter, Dionysus and Hephaestus cabins.
Piper thought that was pretty good. They had numbers and the best strategists in the entire camp. They were bound to win.
As soon as the conch horn sounded, signalling the start of the game, half of the Hermes cabin disappeared deeper into the forest and spread out. A few seconds later, the rest of the Hermes cabin followed. The Apollo cabin started to climb the trees, leaping gracefully from one tree to another. Soon, only the Athena and Zeus, plus Piper were the only ones left.
They waited until the sounds of the Hermes cabin crashing in the forest, trying to draw the red team away, faded and ran deeper into the forest themselves, leaving two Athena campers to guard their flag which was perched on top of Zeus's fist.
They fanned out into teams of two. Piper and Jason were in the same team, of course. They sprinted behind a large tree. Sounds of battle were coming from up ahead but they didn't engage in the fight. They went ahead to find the flag.
They sprinted until there was no sound whatsoever, other than the sounds of leaves crunching under their feet. "Found it," said Piper, pointing to a red flag in the distance.
"Come on," said Piper. Silence. "Jason?" When she didn't get an answer, she frowned and turned. Her boyfriend was lying in a small pool of his own blood, unmoving. A boy with raven black hair was standing over him, holding a Celestial bronze sword which had blood running down its blade.
"Percy?!" Piper noticed one of his eyes was golden. "Oh my gods." The demigod smiled cruelly, something that wasn't meant to be on such a kind face.
Percy slowly walked forward and Piper backed up. Suddenly, with a move as quick as lightning, Percy rushed forward and plunged Riptide into Piper's stomach.
Piper fell over and scrambled backwards, holding a hand over her wound. Percy looked about ready to finish her off when a large brown bear jumped out of the woods and crashed into him. It must have been Frank.
They fought for a while but then, when Frank had Percy pinned down by the shoulders, Percy stopped struggling. His eyes were their normal sea green.
He looked confused for a few seconds but his eyes started to widen. "Piper! Oh my gods, I'm so sorry!" Frank got off of him and turned back into a human. He turned to Jason to give him some ambrosia while Percy headed over to Piper.
He kept mumbling, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry," as he looked through his pockets for ambrosia. He gave it to Piper who took it gratefully. The pain was killing her.
"We have to get them to the infirmary," said Frank. Percy nodded and carefully picked up Piper and put her on Frank the bear's back, next to Jason. After that, she passed out, the pain from the wound in her stomach thankfully being taken away along with her conciousness.
So? How was that? Longer than the other three chapters, huh? Anyway so this kid at my squash (it's a sport) training kept annoying me and I kept threatening to smash his head off of his neck with my racket. Ah, don't you just love kids?
-Destiny
