Chapter 41
"No…" Piper said quietly. Her voice was barely above a whisper, and she gave me a shaky smile that didn't even come close to reaching her eyes. Her hands were wringing so tightly I thought she might break her own fingers. "I'm miserable here. This camp sucks. I was wondering if…if you could help me get out."
I blinked, completely caught off guard. Sure, I hadn't been at camp for very long, but I loved the place. Even with all the monsters, the weird training drills, and the occasional prophecy hanging over my head, it felt like home. Then again, I didn't know much about Piper's life outside of camp. For all I knew, she could be the daughter of some celebrity or billionaire who lived in a mansion with twelve pools.
"I'm sorry," I said automatically, a frown tugging at my lips. "I can't. Even if I wanted to, you'd need permission from Chiron or Mr. D, and, honestly, it wouldn't be a great idea. Leaving camp isn't…safe."
"Damn it," she muttered under her breath, pacing back and forth. Her movements were restless, her shoulders tight with frustration. She brushed her choppy brown hair out of her face, biting her lip as she stared at the ground. "Are you sure? Can't you just…I don't know, talk to them for me? Put in a good word or something?"
I shook my head. "I wish I could, but no. It doesn't work like that."
Piper stopped pacing, nodding slowly as if trying to accept the answer. But I could see the tension in her jaw, the way her hands clenched at her sides. "I get it," she said finally, her voice quieter now, almost resigned. "It's just…I haven't been having a good time here. Or since I became a demigod, really. It feels like the whole world's out to get me, you know?"
I wanted to say something—anything—to make her feel better. An apology for not checking in sooner, or some reassurance that things would get better. But the words stuck in my throat, heavy and awkward.
Because, really, how do you even start a conversation like that? What could I possibly say that wouldn't sound hollow? I looked at Piper, at the sadness behind her eyes that she was trying so hard to hide, and felt completely useless. 'Oh, hey, sorry we almost died and then I acted like you don't exist.' I don't think they make Hallmark cards for this sort of situation, either.
"Hey, uh, listen," I started, ignoring the slight chill that passed through my body as her multicolored eyes looked up at mine. "Sorry I didn't, you know…"
"It's okay, Percy," Piper said, her lip curling. She put her hands in her back pockets. "I get it. Go on a trip with someone, almost die a few times, and then act like they don't exist. Understandable."
I blinked. Yeah, I didn't handle the aftermath of that situation how I should've, but I had a lot more on my mind than just her. What was with the attitude? "I had a lot of stuff to do," I replied, my guilt replaced by annoyance.
"Like what?" Piper challenged. "Except for spending all your time running around camp and making googly eyes at my sisters? You have time to make out with Drew at the campfire but you don't have time to come say hi?" Not that it mattered, but Drew kissed me first. Sue me! She's hot! I called this out when I first got to camp!
"Like getting rid of my abusive stepfather," I said bluntly, ignoring her wince. "Maybe, making sure my mom was safe and sound after being involved in a borderline war between Olympians. How about training to fight other deities?"
"Percy, I—"
"It's alright," I said calmly, internally squashing the little feeling of sadness in my chest. [Gamer's Mind] really saved that situation from escalating quickly. "Sorry to disappoint, but I can't get you out of camp. See you around." I marched away to the dining pavilion, not even bothering to look back. Annabeth saved me a seat at the Athena table. She raised an eyebrow as I sat down, pushing my plate towards me. I gratefully accepted, biting into a slice of New York-style pizza.
"What did she want?" Annabeth asked, her tone just a touch too casual to be convincing. There was a slight predatory gleam in her gray eyes, and for a second, I felt like I was staring down the Minotaur again—except this time it had blonde hair and a Harvardlevel IQ.
"Nothing much," I said, trying to shove the mental image of the Annabeth-Minotaur hybrid out of my brain. "What's the story with you two?"
"Huh?" Annabeth blinked, clearly caught off guard, and promptly dropped her chicken nugget. The gleam in her eyes dimmed as her expression turned to something almost defensive. "Story? What story?"
We stared at each other for a beat too long, the kind of awkward silence that practically screamed guilty. "You're joking, right?" I deadpanned, raising an eyebrow. "With the way you two act around each other, I'm pretty sure even Malcolm noticed something."
To her credit, Annabeth's cheeks flushed just enough to make me feel like I'd hit a nerve. "I didn't think it was that obvious," she muttered, avoiding my gaze as she fiddled with her plate. Psh, and she calls me Kelp Head. You'd think a child of Athena would be better at covering her tracks, but nope. For someone so insanely smart, Annabeth could be hilariously oblivious about how she came across sometimes. Honestly, it was kind of refreshing— she wasn't perfect, even if she acted like it 99% of the time. "Well," she said after a pause, clearly scrambling for an excuse. "I guess there was this one…uh…instance. A while ago."
"Oh?" I prompted, leaning forward with all the curiosity of someone who knew a terrible lie was incoming. "Do tell."
Annabeth huffed, shooting me a glare that would've been intimidating if I wasn't so used to it by now. "Fine. It was when she first came to camp. She, uh, fell from the sky and landed right on top of me. And then she got mad at me! She was like, 'Oh, why didn't you catch me?' And I was like, 'What? How is that my fault?' And then we got into this big fight."
I raised an eyebrow, unimpressed. "Really?" I drawled, dragging the word out for maximum effect. "That's your story?" Annabeth's lips pressed into a thin line, but the faintest flicker of panic crossed her face. Her tells were painfully obvious—whenever she lied, her usually varied and precise vocabulary took a nosedive. It was like catching a little kid red-handed with chocolate all over their face.
"Yeah!" she insisted, nodding way too eagerly as she grabbed a loaf of bread slathered in orange jam and bit into it as if it could somehow make her look more casual. "The nerve of some people."
"The nerve," I echoed, giving her my best suspicious glance. This wasn't over. Annabeth might've thought she'd dodged the question, but I wasn't convinced. There was more to this story—way more—and I had plenty of time to figure it out. For now, though, I decided to let it slide. A peaceful week or two at camp sounded way better than poking the Athena-shaped bear.
A few hours passed, and I met some of the other campers at the bottom of the rock-climbing wall. I'm not the biggest rock climber, but even I had to admit, this thing was crazy. If the small plastic walls with the little colored holes drilled into them were the fish in the ocean, the Camp Half-Blood rock-climbing wall was the Kraken. It was a literal slab of Earth, stretching out towards Olympus. The holds? Half of the rock had weird indents, almost like it had been rammed into by two drunk giants. Swords and daggers were poking out of random spots.
At one point farther up the 'wall', there was the skeleton flailing against the wind. This wall had horrors sprinkled throughout, too. About a quarter of the way up, there was a nest of harpies, squawking loudly and looking down at us.
A wicked-looking scorpion crawled into one of the crevices towards the top. The monolith was constantly changing. It looked like a gigantic Rubik's cube at times, with parts of the wall just shifting and grinding against each other. Lava poured out of the cracks near the top, cascading down the sides of the rock. In case my description isn't doing it justice—this thing is amazing. I took a glance around at my competitors. Each of the cabins was required to put forward one camper to try to reach the top first.
Obviously, I represented the Poseidon cabin, seeing as I'm the only child of Poseidon. Clarisse Big Bitch LaRue—not my nickname for her, she actually gave it to herself—was representing the Ares cabin. She gave me a crazed grin and dragged her thumb across her neck when she saw me look at her. The Apollo cabin was headed by Lee Fletcher. Sort of a scrawny kid, if I'm being honest, but I've heard he's one of the best healers around.
Maybe they're going for utility rather than pure strength. At the moment, he was humming to himself as he checked his pockets. Athena had a big stocky kid named Gordon representing them. A quick peek at him showed that he had the highest [STR] out of any of the Athena kids I'd met, and his [INT] was up there, too. Interesting.
The Dionysus cabin was being represented by Castor—or was it Pollux? Leave it to Mr. D to have kids that look exactly the same. Either way, he looked like he was going to drop out the moment the race started. The cabin of Demeter had opted out of the competition, taking the penalty, instead. Unsurprisingly though, seeing as the penalty was having to tend to the strawberry fields for the duration of the race, so good move on their part. They're definitely lovers, not fighters.
Hermes put forward Connor Stoll, a thin kid who sort of bore a resemblance to Luke—I think he lost a bet or something. He waved happily to me.
The Hephaestus cabin got a free pass on this one since they were the ones who made the whole competition possible. According to my guy Charles Beckendorf, they developed some sort of cushy crash pad that could help someone survive a fall from all the way up there. I sure hope I don't have to test that out.
Last, but certainly not least, the Aphrodite cabin put out…Piper? I had to do a double-take—what the heck was Piper doing down here? I knew for a fact she wasn't going to win. I don't think she was forced to do it…I mean, I know a lot of the Aphrodite campers, and they're just skipping this. Was she just trying to get back at me for our conversation earlier, or something? I was drawn out of my thoughts as a loud gong sounded.
Chiron's voice boomed over all of us. "The first one to reach the laurel keeps it! Let the race begin!" And we were off. I ignored Clarisse's inhuman grunt as I clung to the wall, my fingers closing around one of the crude holds. This wasn't too bad at all. I continued my way up the rock fairly easily. SHINK! I held on for dear life as the part of the wall I was holding onto rotated incredibly fast. I felt like I was on one of those rides at the carnival. My stomach jumped into my throat, but thankfully, the rock settled back down.
"You okay, Prissy?" Clarisse snarled from somewhere next to me, just a bit underneath where I was. "Don't fall!" She held on with one hand, her other hand reaching into her pocket. Clarisse screamed loudly, sending a dagger hurtling toward my face. I yelped, letting go of my hold and rolling to the next one.
The dagger embedded itself where I'd just been with a loud clunk noise. I didn't know we were fighting on this thing! Then again, the laurel was priceless. "You psycho bitch!" I yelled back, pointing my palm at her. I felt the familiar drain of mana as my fingertips glowed red. A bright red torrent of fire blasted at her, churning and twisting in the wind.
"That's more like it!" Clarisse hollered back, weaving the fire. At this point, we were so high up that the other campers were starting to look smaller and smaller. "Fight me!"
How about no, I thought to myself, activating [Nike's Leap] with a yell. I made a big deal of going through the motions for a jump, only to surprise everyone as I ended up twenty feet higher. I ignored Clarisse's scream of confusion—or was it frustration? My eyes roved the area around me, trying to find a distraction so I could advance. A smirk formed on my face as I saw the harpy nest from before nearby.
"Yeagh!" I kicked the harpy nest down at Clarisse, the eggs splattering on her ugly mug.
"Prissy!" She roared in response, but I just grinned. Here comes the best part: The Mama Harpy came shooting out of the crevice, her eyes zeroing in on Clarisse. With a squawk, the harpy dived towards her. "Wait!" Clarisse tried to explain, wiping some of the yolks off of her face. The Mama Harpy screeched angrily, pecking at her hands. "Wait, it's all a misunderstanding!"
"Have fun in your fight!" I said cheekily, continuing to climb higher.
Based on what I could tell, my predictions were right. Gordon was in second place, a little higher than Clarisse. The only problem for him was that he just happened to come into contact with a particularly annoying little mole that was tossing small rocks at him.
Somewhere down below, Lee Fletcher was being tossed around like a ragdoll by the spinning wall. Castor or Pollux—I still don't know— was long gone. Piper, too, was nowhere to be seen. I shrugged to myself and continued climbing, the laurel glinting in the distance. It was so close now. I needed that thing. I flipped forward, hours of honing my reflexes allowing me to narrowly avoid the stinger of the scorpion that crawled into the wall earlier.
Let's dance, then, you little prick, I thought, staring it right in its beady little eyes. The all too familiar bold words twisted into life on top of it.
— - —
{Deathstalker (Mana Infused)}
[Description]: The Deathstalker is one of the most dangerous species of scorpions. Its venom is a powerful mixture of neurotoxins, with a low lethal dose. A sting from this scorpion is extraordinarily painful and drains the mana out of its opponent until they meet their demise.
[$]: $125 or 40D.
Monetary reward payout set as [$].
— - —
A hundred bucks for you, huh? I can work with that. I swung from the hold I was on, clasping onto one of the many daggers pointed out of the rock. My legs kicked out, but the scorpion hissed and jumped higher, sticking onto the wall. I couldn't help but think about the situation like another game of chess. The scorpion and I both stared at each other defiantly. Would he feint? What move would the little gremlin make to try to catch me off guard? Should I engage first and take advantage of the element of surprise? I could see the subtle glint of intelligence in the eyes of the scorpion.
Unfortunately, out of the corner of my eyes, I also saw Gordon struggle past the lava floor on the east side—he was almost up to my height! I had to end this quickly. I would've loved to stay here and test the Deathstalker, but I had priorities, man!
Deep breath. In, out. In, out. I started building mana in my pointer finger. Time to resort to my favorite finisher! I narrowly avoided the stinger again, my finger glowing an ethereal shade of blue. I kept the mana building as I switched holds left and right, dancing around the scorpion's attempts to hit me. A few moments later, the scorpion, deciding enough was enough, leaped at me. Well, I would've loved to charge it more, but…
— - —
[Hecatoncheire's Onslaught]
— - —
I jammed my finger into the small underbelly of the scorpion, completely focused. I watched in fascination as the mana drained out of my finger, exploding outwards at the scorpion with a loud bang! The now lifeless husk of the scorpion went rocketing off of the wall, flinging at the crowd below as if Kratos himself hurled it.
I grinned to myself.
That was one of the best investments of perk points ever. The rest of the climb was pretty light. I peered back down as I was about to grab the laurel, curious about where Gordon was. My eyes widened slightly as I saw Clarisse right behind him, her eyes ablaze with righteous fury. Props to her for fending off that harpy. Man, there were a lot of scratch marks on her face, though. And here I thought she couldn't get any uglier…
"Percy," A voice called from my left. I turned, and my eyes widened in surprise as I saw Piper, right on my level, about to grasp the laurel. "How did you get up here?" I questioned desperately, my eyes moving back and forth between her and the laurel, trying to work out a plan. "I didn't even see you!"
"I convinced the Hephaestus cabin to give me a little boost before I began to climb," She replied, gesturing to her belt, which had a glowing blue delta symbol. "Chiron never said we couldn't use outside help."
"You're smart, Pipes," I grinned. "But that isn't everything."
— - —
[Nike's Leap]
— - —
I flashed right above her, easily grasping the laurel right before she did. Her eyes widened, emotions flashing through her face like the colors of a kaleidoscope. I shot a dazzling smile at her as I gracefully twisted through the air again, swan diving towards the bottom as cheers rang out and confetti popped.