The Ghosts Among Us: A Percy Jackson Halloween Special

3 | In Which Will Solace is a Swordman

Percy had finished breakfast, and was leaving the pavilion when he ran into Piper, quite literally. They fell to the ground and bonked heads with each other. "Gah!" Piper screamed.

"Oh!" Percy said. "Sorry!" He looked up at her and, well, she looked different. Not that drastically, but she wore black jeans and a black long sleeve shirt. She also seemed very, very angry, which was pretty out of character for her.

"Whatever," Piper grumbled, climbing to her feet, Percy doing the same.

"So... whatcha wearing?" Percy chuckled nervously, trying to find the reason for her dark outfit.

"You can clearly see what I'm wearing, Jackson," Piper snapped, hissing the word 'Jackson' like venom.

"Yeah, yeah, but why?" Percy asked, tilting his head to the side.

"Because it's what I put on this morning, idiot! Now go leave me alone," Piper growled, storming away. Percy just watched her walk away in utter confusion, wondering what the heck just happened.

Muttering to himself, Percy began to walk in the opposite direction of Piper towards the cabins. Not towards his, but Annabeth's, the Athena cabin. She would know what to do. As Percy walked past the arena, he saw another weird sight. Will Solace training.

Yeah, Percy knows, they're half-bloods. That's not exactly that unusual, but it's how he was training that confused him. He was using a sword. At first he didn't really care and was about to just walk away, then he remembered that Will's preferred weapon is a bow and arrow and he's horrible with swords, pretty much the opposite of Percy.

Maybe he was just trying to work on his swordsmanship skills? But as Percy continued to watch him, he realized that he was actually incredibly good with the sword. Since when was he so good?

Percy thought about just going up and asking him, but from Piper's weird attitude, he was frankly kind of scared. Percy broke into a sprint, and ran towards the Athena cabin. As he raised his fist to knock on the door, it swung open, and my fist met air.

Standing behind the door was one Annabeth Chase. She looked worried and anxious, probably how Percy assumed he looked at the moment. "Percy!" Annabeth said.

"Hey, Wise Girl," Percy said, out of breath, and quickly kissed her lips. "There's some weird stuff going on."

"Tell me about it!" Annabeth threw her hands in the air, suddenly angry. "I mean, Leo's going around acting like a jerk and calling everyone 'Greek scum,' Grover's acting all tough and building stuff in the forge for some reason, - and he's actually real good - Clarisse is actually acting pretty nice and she's wearing a skirt and makeup and actually brushed her hair!

"Then on top of all that, Will's being all serious and doing tons of training but with a sword, Rachel's acting a lot less wild and saying you're the cause of her death and he needs to pay, whatever that means! And Piper is acting all moody and grumpy and dressed in all black? I know I shouldn't be so worked up, but something terribly wrong is going on," Annabeth said, taking a deep breath.

"I agree," Percy said casually, causing Annabeth's eyes to widen. "I mean, for starters, you're Annabeth Chase. You're always right! But I also ran into Piper and Will this morning and they were definitely acting strange. It's not hard to believe that other people are acting weird too."

"So are we going to get to the bottom of this?" Annabeth asked.

Percy smiled, taking a step closer to her, and tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear, "Of course we are, Wise Girl."