The Demigod Games

Chapter Thirty-one

"How did you get here?" Jason hissed, aggravated by Reyna's very presence. He pressed her against a tree, holding her back with one strong arm.

Without her purple and gold robes, Reyna looked plain. With her hard expression, Reyna remained undeniably powerful and intimidating. Her eyes were almost black in color. "Get your hands off of me!" She shoved Jason away from her harshly.

"Answer the Hades damn question!"

Reyna gritted her teeth. "My mother, Bellona, has forced me to participate by the Gods' will."

"For what reason?"

Angrily, Reyna ripped a branch from a three and threw it to the ground. "Do you think I really know what the Gods are thinking, Jason Grace? They want drama, you idiot!"

She began to walk away before Jason abruptly stopped her. "I'm sorry, I'm just high-strung," he said softly. "It's been a long week."

Reyna's anger remained, her blood boiling with fury. "Where's Piper?" she asked, hissing Jason's ex-girlfriend's name as if it hurt her.

Jason sighed, then darted his gaze away from Reyna. "We broke up," Jason said blandly.

"Why?" Reyna demanded, not believing his weak response. Last time Reyna checked, they were pretty much madly in love.

Pain seemed to seep through Jason as he recalled the day they had decided it was for the best to split. Even more pain stumbled through him when he remembered the sight of Piper's and Leo's lips pressed together-a sight he wished he could forget. "She broke up with me," he whispered.

The praetor of New Rome lips twitched, caught in a conflict of smiling and remaining serious. "That's a shame, yet ironic considering I'm here now."

"True," Jason acknowledged. "That doesn't change anything between us."

Reyna's muscles tensed upon hearing these words. She had never quite gotten over Jason's rejection, nor had she recovered from her recent experience with the son of Neptune. "You still love her, don't you?"

Jason faltered, unsure of himself. To tell Reyna the truth would mean breaking her heart again, but lying to her would give her false hope.

The son of Jupiter's hesitation was enough for Reyna to deduce the truth. "I see," Reyna said disappointed, brushing her fingers through her beautiful, not to mention majestically clean, waves of brunette locks that rippled over her shoulder in a shiny wave. Somehow the darkness of her physical features represented her inner conflict. There was a constant battle within Reyna that she had struggled to settle. "But mark my words, Jason. If I am no friend to you, then I must be an enemy."

Reyna fled, leaving Jason in a heap of emotional turmoil.

He wanted nothing more in that moment then to feel the life reaped out of him.

That way, he wouldn't have to think of the heart he had broken.

Jason wouldn't even have to think about his own.

--

Annabeth and Percy found themselves, yet again, running for their lives.

The Gods got creative this time and sent in a mix between a dracenae and a hippocampi. It had been chasing Annabeth since she had been looking for a source of food, and just when she thought she lost it, it found Percy.

It's normally green scales shone with nearly every color imaginable. The hippocanae was a rainbow of light, that was until you reached its horrendous fangs and pointed horn. Not to mention the snake legs as well.

"What the Gods have gone through for this..." Annabeth panted as she leaped over some shrubs.

Percy shot her a wary grin. "Do we really want to know?"

It was one of those small moments were Percy and Annabeth felt like normal teenagers. The screams of the hippocanae reminded them of their misfortune. "At least we're healthy now," Annabeth commented.

"I'm still surprised they didn't poison the water or something. It was totally to my advantage."

They stopped in the middle of a prairie, only to be met with something even more bizarre.

In the light that shrouded the arena, there was darkness to be had as well. Annabeth swore under her breath upon seeing a large patch of darkness etch through the sky, making it impossible to see anything from the other side. "Apollo," Ananbeth concluded. Saying that, she took a brief step back and turned around. "He must have taken the sun away."

"What does that even mean?" Percy scratched his head in confusion.

Annabeth gestured to the wide oak tree that blocked them from the hippocanae. "Incoming."

With a mischievous grin, Percy aligned his back to the tree trunk. "Its sense of smell is limited, so let's give him something to smell."

That cue basically indicated Annabeth's need to plug her nose immediately. Her boyfriend, while finally maturing still found the same old jokes hilarious that Annabeth found distasteful.

Percy yanked his smelly shoe from his foot and threw it into the darkness ahead, surprsing Annabeth greatly. The hippocanae bounded ahead, completely ignoring the two.

Before Annabeth could comment on Percy's genuis, the sound of a yelp filled their ears followed by silence.

Nothing needed to be said, Percy and Annabeth turned and ran from the patch of darkness without looking back. "What happens when the Gods run out of ideas?" Annabeth asked, absolutely bewildered by these new challenges. "We're only eight days into this and apparently they let someone with Apollo's creativity decide what's going on."

The sky seemed to rumble in response to Annabeth's sass. "What no haiku in response, Apollo?" Percy taunted. At this point, the seriousness seemed to fade. The Gods were just playing tricks on them with the hippocanae. Seriously who came up with that crap.

Somewhere along their way along the edges of the forest, Percy and Annabeth forgot to be cautious in the mix of their utterly terrified state and new sense of carelessness. It was that point where they just couldn't take it seriously. The world wasn't at stake, it was only the demigods who would save it at stake. No biggie.

So unfortunately for them, they didn't see the figure tracing their steps as they tossed around jokes and theories about the following challenges.