The Blood of Olympus

Chapter 21: Annabeth

Heyyyyyyyyy everyone, great to see you again! I don't really have anything to said besides enjoy the chapter cupcakes!

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Chapter 21: Annabeth

Annabeth was understandably surprised when the first thing she saw upon entering the Mess Hall was Reyna's face. The second thing that she saw was that it was just an Iris-message, but that didn't stop her from taking an involuntary step backwards.

"R - Reyna?" she spluttered, suddenly feeling like she had run a marathon, "What's up? Why - "

"Woah," came a voice behind Annabeth, and she turned to see Percy gaping at the Iris-message, "Reyna? What's wrong?"

Reyna took a deep breath, and as Annabeth watched her, she felt a small twinge of pity. There were deep shadows under Reyna's eyes, indicating that she probably hadn't been getting a whole lot of sleep, and she was holding a rag to her upper right arm, a rag that was already soaked in blood. They had barely made it to Greece with seven demigods,and Reyna was having to make the journey back with a maniacal satyr, a son of Hades who probably spent the majority of the time crashed out from the effort of shadow traveling, a forty foot tall statue, and most likely a whole bunch of monsters after them.

Not exactly an easy task.

"Is - is everything OK?" Annabeth asked, trying to start over.She squinted at the Iris Message, trying to get a clearer view. From what she could see, Reyna was sitting next to a dirt road, and behind her were a couple of abandoned shops - at least that was what Annabeth thought they might have been. Now they were in smouldering shambles.

"We just got to Portugal - " Reyna started, but Percy interrupted.

"Yeah, and the laistry - the cannibal giants attacked you! I had a dream about that."

Well that explained the wreckage of the shops behind Reyna.

Reyna frowned, "Did you see what happened after?"

"No, but obviously you kicked their butts." Percy said with a sarcastic smile that Reyna did not return. Instead she rubbed her hand on her forehead, and closed her eyes.

"Reyna...what happened?" Annabeth asked, worry starting to gnaw at the pit of her stomach. Reyna never beat around the bush, and for her to call them, something either really good or really bad had happened. Annabeth wasn't normally a pessimist, but she would have bet a thousand drachmas on the second one.

Nico came into view. If anything, he looked even worse than Reyna, his eyes sunken, his cheeks hollow, and a bandaged wound on his leg that also looked fresh. But his eyes were alert, and when he saw Annabeth and Percy they flashed with a strange anger.

"Reyna," he said flatly, "is trying to tell you in the nicest possible way that we lost the Athena Parthenos."

Annabeth could almost feel the color draining from her face and her legs gave way. "Nico," she said weakly, "tell me you're joking. Please tell me you're kidding."

"I never joke or kid," Nico said, "it's true."

Reyna shook her head, "I don't even know what really happened," she said, her voice hollow, "all I know is that Hedge and I were attacked by the laistrygonians, and after we fought them off and came back here, we found Nico and the Athena Parthenos sinking in the soil. It took both of us to drag Nico out, it was like the ground was sucking him in, and when we pulled him out we found the wound on his leg. Like a clawed hand had been pulling him down. And we tried to get the Athena Parthenos out, but it was too heavy..."