Annabeth

I woke up to something extremely cold. I didn't know what it was at first, but I definitely know who would be that mean to wake me up like that.

"THALIA!" I screamed, shooting out of my covers to start chase the guffawing hunter. She was too fast though, and I eventually gave up. I shot her a dirty look, filled with loathing.

"You should see your face! You look-" She got interrupted by a sudden wave of water crashing onto her head. She spit some water out of her mouth, and finished her sentence, "- ridiculous." (

I stared, dumbstruck. But I soon got over my shock and doubled over, laughing hysterically.

I looked back up to see a grinning Percy. The son of Poseidon stated, "That was mean Thalia. But I got Annabeth's revenge for her."

"You did that?" I asked when I could talk.

He shrugged, which I took as a yes.

"Thank you, Seaweed Brain. I guess I should've known that you can control water and all. Can you show me?" I questioned.

"Well yes, but who do you want to get soaked?" He asked curiously.

I laughed, "You're choice! You're doing all the work!" He grinned, then his hand moved up and he made a swishing motion, and a bucket of water that we used to wash our clothes yesterday emptied it's contents, causing the dirty water to rise up into the air.

I stared, astounded at the brown liquid suspended into the air. Then Percy flicked his hand, and the water moved to directly over Nico and Jason, who were talking about something by the fire.

Percy then smiled, and his hand relaxed, falling to his side. The water suddenly lost it's floating ability, and fell right onto the son of Zeus' and the son of Hades' head. They swore and turned to Percy.

"REALLY?!" They both yelled simultaneously. Percy and I started to laugh.

"I hate you, Perce." Jason said hostilely.

Percy grinned, "Nah, you love me. You just don't like me at the moment."

I laughed, then shivered. I'm don't know how Thalia got her hands on some ice, but there was ice in the water that she threw on me to wake me up. I got an ice chunk down my shirt, and just now got it out. Percy noticed me shivering and said, "Here, let me."

He walked up and gently put his hand on my left shoulder. The butterflies flew around again in my stomach, just like they had last night.

He concentrated, then I felt the coldness leaving me. I felt warm again, then the warmth and coldness went away, and I looked at my shirt. It was dry. Not a drop of water was on it. It was totally dry. I felt my hair, and it was dry and curly again.

I looked astonished at Percy, and he smiled, "I made the water on your body warm first, to get you not as cold, then I took it all away."

"Thanks, again!" I said.

He grinned in return, then Thalia came up to us and said, "Hey Kelphead, do that to me too."

He frowned at his new nickname, then said, "If you ask nicely."

She snorted. "Never. I'll just go dry by the fire."

"Okay," Percy said simply. Jason and Nico didn't look like they wanted to ask nicely, so they went and sat next to Thalia by the fire.

Percy chuckled beside me, "They just needed to ask nicely. They kinda need to bring their pride down a notch, don't ya think?"

I laughed as well, then and idea struck me. "Wait, can you make water stay on someone?"

Percy scoffed, "Course I can!"

"Well, then why don't you make their pride go down a notch?"

He frowned. "How exactly can I do that?"

I sighed. Stupid Seaweed Brain. "Well, they are wet, and you can make someone stay wet." I did a hand motion that basically yelled "Duh!"

He gave me a blank look. I rolled my eyes, muttering something about how boys are so dumb. "Percy, make the water stay on them."

I said it really slowly and softly, like I would speak to a child. Understanding dawned upon Percy's face, and he grinned evilly. Then he turned towards the group in front of the fire. We sat there, and chatted for a bit, and every time Percy would feel that one of them was drying, he would make them wet again.

I was surprised they weren't figuring out. And they wouldn't of, if Thalia hadn't said, "DARN WATER! Why won't I get dry?! It's not like water can stick to me. Poseidon must be controlling this water. I don't think I did anything mean to him."

Then the three froze, and turned towards me and Percy, who quickly turned away and pretended not to notice them talking about water.

"PERCY!" They all three yelled Percy's name with hatred at the same time.

I stared, then said out of the corner of my mouth to the pale son of Poseidon, "You better start running."

He nodded slowly, "Yeah."

~-:-~

After we had convinced Thalia, Jason, and Nico to not kill Percy, who was hiding behind me (go figure, he uses me as a shield from them all when there are tons of trees, some tents, logs, or even horses to hide behind) we set off.

At the rate which we were traveling, we were going to reach our destination in about two days.

Most of the morning was spent by lots of chattering and giggles, coming from Thalia, Piper, Lacy, Hazel (who is a daughter of Hades, the step sister of Nico) and I. It felt so nice to be with my best friends again, and Lacy and Hazel were quickly growing onto us. It was good that we all got along, since we were the only females out of the thirty some people in our group.

Now, hold your questions! I know I started out with just ten guards, but then we met Percy's group, and he had about fifteen people in his group, and Piper's mom made her take guards as well. Piper had taken eleven guards, all male, and one friend, Lacy.

So yeah, we were the only girls! But it's not that bad.

When we stopped for lunch at a small clearing along the way, Icarus started acting weird.

Well, okay, more than weird, since "weird" is normal for him.

But he was more bouncy than usual, and it didn't feel like he was just playing. It was like he was scared and wanted to bolt. I had no idea why, cause I'm willing to bet that even though my horse is young and playful, he is still one of the bravest equestrians I know.

"Icarus, what is the matter?" I asked quietly, wishing I could understand my horse's frantic jitters and whinnies.

"You can ask Percy, because he can talk to horses." Jason had come up beside me, and his sentence surprised me.

"He can?" I asked, surprised.

Nico came up to the other side, "Yep. He's just weird like that. You know why he can speak to horses? Yeah, it's because he's half jack as-"

"Nico! Watch your tongue." Hazel scolded, and Nico shrugged. It was apparent that he was still miffed at Percy because of this morning.

Jason shook his head at Nico, then looked at me, "Yeah. Percy can speak to horses cause he is the son of Poseidon, and Poseidon is the maker of horses, therefore direct conversing is possible."

I nodded, thinking that I should've known this. Some daughter of Athena, I told myself, chuckling inwardly.

I made a mental note to ask Percy what was troubling my horse. Percy wasn't here at the moment, we had sent him to scout ahead. Normally we wouldn't do that, but considering our large group, we thought it wise to do so.

You see, a large group isn't that quiet. And every single one of us are demigods. All of my group were demigods, and we found out that Percy's group were all demigods that were under Percy's charge (I'll explain that next) and Piper was a demigod, and her guards were demigods as well. And having all these demigods together is extremely dangerous. Each and every demigod has a godly scent that immediately alerts bloodthirsty monsters. We can't hide our scents, trust me, we've tried. But it's impossible. And each demigod has a different scent, whether it be stronger or not as strong. The ones with the stronger scent are usually children of important or powerful gods, or really important demigods.

Consequently, this group of demigods smell las strong sweaty clothes that have been thrown into sewage, then trapped inside a tiny space with no air for a month. Now, we don't smell as bad as that, just as strong as it would smell.

Why is our group that strong smelling? Well, here's why. We have five demigods that are kids of the big three, and that by itself is an immense scent. Then I and my brothers are well known demigods, especially Darryn, so there's another kicker. And Piper is quite the important demigod as well, believe it or not. She got her fame from going on a quest with Lacy. The quest saved Thessaloniki from destruction, therefore earning them praise from all of Greece.

So, yes, we were very smelly. If that's how I should put it.

Anyways, to the topic of explaining Percy's group. Well, you see, Percy isn't very favored by the gods. His father loves him, but he's about the only Olympian that does. Some minor gods don't dislike him, and actually some of the Olympians don't exactly hate him either, but the most important gods, except for Poseidon, don't like him much at all.

So you think that if the gods dislike him, then the people do as well? No. Actually the opposite. The gods dislike him cause the people love him. Percy has always had a soft spot for the commoners, as Jason explained (he, Nico, and Percy had told us all of this earlier today) and when he was old enough to help them, he started right away. At this time, Percy didn't have a group of demigods under his charge.

It began as small but helpful things. Like once he helped a family out when they had no food. He worked hard, earned money, and was able to help that family, even though he wasn't related to them, or didn't even know them that well. He just knew that they needed help, so he provided that help. A different instance, he helped to calm a reckless storm that was going to kill a man on a fishing boat. He merely calmed that part of the waters, allowing the man to get safely back onto land.

Then those small things started to get to be bigger and more helpful things.

For instance, an inn once collapsed, trapping at least twenty people inside. They were still alive, but it was impossible to clear the wreckage in time to save them from dehydration, or hunger. But luckily, there was a large water pipe underneath the inn. Percy willed the water to come up through the ground, pushing the wreckage out with an amazing display of strength, therefore enabling the trapped people to be able to come out.

Another time, the stables in Thessaloniki (the town where Percy grew up) got lit on fire from a carelessly placed torch. The horses, each of which were prized throughout Greece, were going crazy. They were bucking and kicking so hard, that nobody could come near to help get the horses out. But Percy got his way through and into the quickly burning stables. He managed to talk to and calm each horse, leading them out of danger. In this way, he saved every horse.

He was twelve at the time, so about six years ago. After he had done this amazing feat of strength and ability, he was called to Olympus to have a talk with the gods.

When he got there, the gods started explaining how Percy needed to let all of these things happen, the things that he was stopping. When Percy asked why, the gods started getting uncomfortable. They replied that the people need to always be wary, and know that things can happen, and that they mustn't get to comfortable in this world of problems.

Percy then knew that the gods were making all these things happen. And they were doing it to show the people that the gods were powerful, and they mustn't think otherwise. In different words, the gods were afraid that the people would rebel against them, so they sent terrible things after the people, making them know there place, and also creating fear and awe of the gods. Fear because the people would know that the gods were powerful. Awe, because every once in a while, a god would indiscreetly set a terrible monster out onto a town, and then miraculously (sarcasm meant) come down and save the town, making the people praise the god for saving them from the terrible monster.

But the people didn't know that the gods were the ones who sent the monsters. Percy grew disgusted, and refused to stop helping the people, putting up an argument against the gods about what he had just figured out. When he left, he was determined to help the people, and the gods were determined to make sure he didn't.

After that incident, the gods came up with an idea.

They said that Percy could take charge of any fifteen or so demigods, and become their captain. Only if he would do quests for the gods. He would be famed and glorified by everybody for doing these mighty quests, and the gods thought that Percy was like most demigods. Demigods that would beg and give up their family for fame and riches. But Percy knew better than that.

He knew what the gods were trying to do, and what they were trying to do was occupy Percy's time so he couldn't help the commoners any more than the gods let him, which would be by quests. But Percy saw this as a different opportunity, so he accepted their offer, and chose his friends out of the group of the demigods. His friends were ones that were with Percy on trying to help the commoners.

Then Percy set out to do whatever quests the gods chose for him. But what the gods didn't foresee was that Percy still had time to help the commoners. He did it a lot while on his quests, and he also befriended the people. Percy wasn't mean enough to tell the people that the gods were liars, cause for the most part, the gods were good. They were just scared.

The gods didn't know Percy was helping the commoners still, cause he kept it a secret from the gods, and asked everyone else to as well. He just didn't tell them why.

But he told us, and his story gave me a new perspective of the gods.

Back to the present, I said, "Well, I'll ask him to talk to Icarus when he comes back. When is Percy gonna be back anyways?" Shouldn't he be back already? We only sent him up a mile or so."

Jason and Nico, Thalia, Piper and Lacy, and Hazel all looked as confused and worried.

But I knew that Percy could handle himself, so I tried not to dwell on it too much.

"He'll be back soo-" Jason was cut off mid sentence by his horse, which reared up and whinnied loudly. Nico's copied it's actions. Piper's horse started bucking, and Thalia's merely took off running in the opposite direction, disappearing around the bend, much to Thalia's anger. Hazel's horse, Arion, froze, and wouldn't move whatsoever.

I noticed that everyone's horse was acting this way, and Icarus was mimicking every other horse. We were all trying to quiet down our horses, when Percy suddenly burst through into the clearing on his horse (which he had told me earlier was named Blackjack). The panicked look on his face clearly said that something was not good.

And that something showed itself soon enough. About ten steps behind Percy's galloping horse was a hydra. This was a big hydra, bigger than any I've every seen. It's seven heads roared. It was a violet colored beast, and was a fascinating creature, but right now, that fascination was dimmed by the fact that it wanted desperately to kill us. Everybody in our group drew our weapons, while our mounts reared and kicked.

Percy finally reached us, and shouted, "Hydra!" Well, could he be more obvious? Seriously.

But his next words washed away all my sarcasm, and replaced it with fear, "And three serpents! And a drakon!"

Sure enough, three serpents serpentined their way into the clearing. The serpents were all relatively big for their race, each about five feet in diameter, and were about fifteen feet long. Their fangs were green with poison, and the green matched their emerald skin. The poison splashed about when they hiss, and their sound just makes you want to bolt, like my horse. Their yellow eyes were slitted, much like a cats. Their scales sparkled in the sunlight, casting a radiant glare upon the drakon.

The drakon, which was about twenty feet tall, was a dark black color. This drakon had wings, which was very unfortunate. It's fangs were black as well, and filled with it's acid spit. I can't tell you what color it's eyes were, cause if you look into a drakon's eyes, it paralyzes you. Not literally paralyze, it just makes you not able to move because of fear. It roared, and everything went quiet from the massive and intimidating bellow it had produced, but then everything went back to normal. Or, in other words, chaos.

So lets take this all in, and see if we have a chance of living. Okay, the hydra would be pretty hard to defeat, for the only way to kill it was to cut off it's heads. And with each head you cut off, two more grow from the stump. That is, unless you burn the stump. But I don't see how we can procure fire right now, so that may be a problem.

I pushed aside the thoughts of the hydra, and moved onto the three serpents. If it was just the three serpents attacking, then I'm pretty sure we would be able to defeat them, considering how there was thirty of us demigods, and just three of them. But they were still very formidable opponents. Their scales provide a pretty good protection from blades or arrows, and their poisonous fangs wouldn't be very nice. Okay, moving on.

The drakon... yeah. We're dead.