𝑨𝑪𝑻 𝑶𝑵𝑬 ━ 𝑪𝑯𝑨𝑷𝑻𝑬𝑹 𝑭𝑰𝑽𝑬

𝐂𝐇𝐎𝐀𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐎 𝐅𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐎𝐖 𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐒 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄, 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐈𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐎𝐒 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 was none other than the son of Poseidon — oh wait not the only son of Poseidon, Percy Jackson, he seemed to have stuck more to his only close friends, excluding Iris but since she was always with Annie and Grover — it seemed like she had to be there, he kept saying that he was staying with them because of Tyson.

Iris never understood why Percy couldn't stay with Tyson, he was such a sweetheart. Iris knew she would rather stay with Tyson than Percy and it was a fact. The next few days after the the arrival of Tyson were pretty much torturous for Percy and Iris was living for it.

First there was Tyson moving into the Poseidon cabin, giggling to himself every fifteen seconds which Iris found cute since he was so innocent and saying to Percy,"Percy is my brother?" like he'd just won the lottery — it wasn't as bad as Iris would have thought but to Percy is wasn't like that. "Aw, Tyson," he'd say which was cruel if you asked Iris. "It's not that simple."

But there was no explaining it to Tyson, he was in heaven. And Percy as much as he liked the big guy, he couldn't help feeling embarrassed. Ashamed. It was what he was thinking every time — he was seen with Tyson.

His father, the all-powerful Poseidon, had gotten moony-eyed for some nature spirit, and Tyson had been the result. Percy had read the myths about Cyclopes. He even remembered that they were often Poseidon's children. But he'd never really processed that this made them his family. Until he had Tyson living with him in the next bunk in the cabin.

And then there were the comments from the other campers that was making it harder for Percy and Tyson. Suddenly, he wasn't Percy Jackson, the cool guy — more like the idiot who was framed thought Iris but whatever — who'd retrieved Zeus's lightning bolt last summer. Now he was Percy Jackson, the poor schmuck — greatest nickname ever given to him per Iris's say, with the ugly monster for a brother which utterly cruel if you asked Iris.

"He's not my real brother!" He would protest whenever Tyson wasn't around and Iris was livid inside every time. "He's more like a half-brother on the monstrous side of the family. Like...a half-brother twice removed, or something."

What was wrong with this dumbass? Would think Iris every time, she would see Percy doing this or saying this to anyone who would talk to him. Iris could never understand those campers that would make comments, what if they were Tyson — what would they do if people were making fun of them.

But nobody bought it when he would say these things, it was an amazing sight for Iris, the look of embarrassment as he was told off by others, it made laugh every time.

Percy was angry at his father and he felt like being his son was now a joke to everyone. Annabeth tried to make him feel better which wasn't the most amazing thing since Iris was always there and would make little comments on how Percy was an idiot for saying these things about Tyson. Annabeth wouldn't deny those and Percy knew it wasn't the best thing to do.

She suggested they all team up for the chariot race to take their minds off his problems. Iris wasn't really keen on this idea since she was forced to by Annabeth. They all hated Tantalus and they were worried sick about camp — but they didn't know what to do about it, it wasn't as if they could just walk up to him and demand for better care of the camp.

Until they could come up with some brilliant plan to save Thalia's tree, they figured they might as well go along with the races which wasn't the greatest idea if you asked Iris. Why would you want to race to death? Iris didn't know.

One morning Iris, Annabeth and Percy were sitting by the canoe lake sketching chariot designs — it was mostly Annabeth and Percy, Iris was just sitting next to Percy making comments every now and then when one of Iris's half brother, she thought it was Tom Cheshire and Jamie Hayes, they were the jokesters of the Aphrodite's cabin — walked by and asked Percy if he needed to borrow some eyeliner for his eye. "Oh sorry, eyes." joked Tom.

Iris rolled her eyes as she and Jamie made eyes contact, Jamie looked a bit guilty as he saw the look Iris was giving him. He made a mental note to apologise to her later during dinner.

As they started to walk away laughing, Annabeth grumbled, "Just ignore them, Percy. It isn't your fault you have a monster for a brother."

"Annabeth! Come on!" exclaimed Iris as she looked disappointed with Annabeth's description of Tyson. Annabeth looked apologetically to Iris knowing she didn't like the way people would treat Tyson. Iris knew that Annabeth wasn't the biggest fan of cyclops.

"He's not my brother!" Percy snapped. "And he's not a monster, either!"

Annabeth raised her eyebrows. "Hey, don't get mad at me! And technically, he is a monster."

"Well you gave him permission to enter the camp." argued Percy as he looked towards Annabeth.

"Because it was the only way to save your life, I didn't know he was a cyclops okay! I mean...I'm sorry, Percy, I didn't expect Poseidon to claim him. Cyclopes are the most deceitful, treacherous—" said Annabeth.

Iris scoffed at Annabeth who still looked at her apologetically but Iris knew her dislike which made it more difficult to be mad at her. "He is not! What have you got against Cyclopes, anyway?" exclaimed Percy.

Annabeth's ears turned pink. Percy got the feeling there was something she wasn't telling him — something bad. "Just forget it," she said trying to change the subject. "Now, the axle for this chariot—"

"You're treating him like he's this horrible thing," said Percy, and Iris knew this wasn't going to end well so she got up from her place next to Percy to which Percy frowned. She walked next to Annabeth who looked at her before turning to Percy again. "He saved my life."

Iris huffed as Annabeth threw down her pencil and stood up while Iris also stood up, glaring lightly at the fourteen year old boy. "Then maybe you should design a chariot with him." said Annabeth angrily.

"Maybe I should." said Percy as he got angrier at Annabeth but didn't dare to look at Iris who was still glaring at him.

"Fine!" said Annabeth.

"Fine!" said Percy as well and Annabeth stormed off and left him feeling even worse than before with Iris still glaring at him as if he was an idiot which he was.

"You really are an idiot are you?" said Iris as she walked backwards towards Annabeth who was waiting for Iris a few meters away. "Yeah! Well I don't care what you think Princess!" exclaimed Percy.

"Good, cause I don't care either!" and with this Iris left him alone and walked towards Annabeth as she put a comforting arm around her shoulders.

Percy frowned, Iris and him usually quarrelled a lot but this time was different, Iris wasn't arguing with him because of her dislike towards him, she was defending her friends and that made her ten times scarier.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐍𝐄𝐗𝐓 𝐅𝐄𝐖 𝐃𝐀𝐘𝐒 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐔𝐍𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐅𝐔𝐋 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐈𝐑𝐈𝐒 𝐖𝐀𝐒 sick of it, where was the adventures and activities they usually did when they went to camp? Iris again didn't know. Tantalus was being an arse and wasn't making things fun around camp and the campers were getting tired of doing the same things over and over again. You couldn't blame them, they were waking up and eating and then just training for the rest of the day.

Silena Beauregard and Iris gave Percy his first riding lesson on a pegasus, to be honest Iris was still mad at Percy but Silena had asked her to be there just because she would be a familiar face to the pegasus but Iris was just making fun of Percy every time he failed. Silena explained that there was only one immortal winged horse named Pegasus, who still wandered free somewhere in the skies, but over the eons he'd sired a lot of children, none quite so fast or heroic, but all named after the first and greatest.

Being the son of the sea god, Percy never liked going into the air. His father had this rivalry with Zeus, so he tried to stay out of the lord of the sky's domain as much as possible. But riding a winged horse felt different to him and it didn't make him nearly as nervous as being in an airplane.

Maybe that was because his father had created horses out of sea foam, so the pegasi were sort of neutral territory to him but he wasn't the best rider either and Iris could tell by her first hand sight. He could understand their thoughts. Iris wasn't surprised when Percy's pegasus went galloping over the treetops or chased a flock of seagulls into a cloud.

But there was another problem and that was that Tyson wanted to ride the "chicken ponies," too, but the pegasi got skittish whenever he approached, Iris felt bad for the cyclops — he just wanted to ride a pegasi. Percy told them telepathically that Tyson wouldn't hurt them, but they didn't seem to believe him and that made Tyson cry.

Iris had ran over to try and comfort Tyson and he just hugged her for what seemed like hours to Percy, Iris had taken Tyson to her side and said, "It's okay, one day you'll be able to ride one." Tyson had just sniffed and nodded.

The only person at camp who had no problem with Tyson was Beckendorf from the Hephaestus cabin. The blacksmith god had always worked with Cyclopes in his forges, so Beckendorf took Tyson down to the armory to teach him metalworking. He said he'd have Tyson crafting magic items like a master in no time.

After lunch, Percy worked out in the arena with Apollo's cabin. Swordplay had always been his strength although Iris would say it was just because he was overconfident about it. People said he was better at it than any camper in the last hundred years, except maybe Luke to which everyone seemed to always compare him to Luke.

Percy thrashed the Apollo guys easily, he should've been testing himself against the Ares and Athena cabins or even Iris who was one of the best — he would have taken a beating, since they had the best sword fighters, but he didn't get along with Clarisse and her siblings, and after his argument with Annabeth and Iris, he just didn't want to see them.

Percy went to archery class, even though he was terrible at it — Iris had seen him almost take out Will's right eye if Will hadn't move out of the way, and it wasn't the same without Chiron teaching. In arts and crafts, Percy started a marble bust of Poseidon, but it started looking like Sylvester Stallone and some Ares kid had laughed behind him, so he ditched it.

Percy scaled the climbing wall in full lava-and-earthquake mode. And in the evenings, he did border patrol. Even though Tantalus had insisted they forget trying to protect the camp, some of the campers had quietly kept it up, working out a schedule during our free times. Iris had gone the day before and it wasn't as easy as it sounded.

He sat at the top of Half-Blood Hill and watched the dryads come and go, singing to the dying pine tree. Satyrs brought their reed pipes and played nature magic songs, and for a while the pine needles seemed to get fuller. The flowers on the hill smelled a little sweeter and the grass looked greener. But as soon as the music stopped, the sickness crept back into the air. The whole hill seemed to be infected, dying from the poison that had sunk into the tree's roots. The longer Percy sat there, the angrier he got.

Luke had done this and he didn't even care. Percy remembered his sly smile, the dragon-claw scar across his face. He'd pretended to be his friend, and the whole time he'd been Kronos's number-one servant.

Percy opened the palm of his hand, the scar Luke had given him last summer was fading, but he could still see it—a white asterisk-shaped wound where his pit scorpion had stung him.

At night, Percy had more dreams of Grover. Sometimes, he just heard snatches of his voice. Once, he heard him say: It's here. Another time: He likes sheep.

Percy thought about telling Annabeth and maybe even Iris — but she would most likely make fun of him — about his dreams, but he would've felt stupid.

The night before the race, Tyson and Percy finished their chariot, Tyson had made the metal parts in the armory's forges and Percy had sanded the wood and put the carriage together. It was blue and white, with wave designs on the sides and a trident painted on the front. After all that work, it seemed only fair that Tyson would ride shotgun with Percy, though he knew the horses wouldn't like it, and Tyson's extra weight would slow them down.

As the Poseidon cabin were turning in for bed, Tyson said, "You are mad?" Percy then realised he'd been scowling. "Nah. I'm not mad."

Tyson lay down in his bunk and was quiet in the dark. His body was way too long for his bed. When he pulled up the covers, his feet stuck out the bottom. "I am a monster."

"Don't say that." said Percy as gently as he could.

"It is okay. I will be a good monster. Then you will not have to be mad." added Tyson. If Iris was here, she would have comforted the cyclops more.

Percy didn't know what to say. He stared at the ceiling, a feeling of despair creeping over him. "It's just...I never had a half-brother before." He tried to keep my voice from cracking. "It's really different for me. And I'm worried about the camp. And another friend of mine, Grover... he might be in trouble. I keep feeling like I should be doing something to help, but I don't know what." continued Percy as Tyson said nothing.

"I'm sorry," Percy told him. "It's not your fault. I'm mad at Poseidon. I feel like he's trying to embarrass me, like he's trying to compare us or something, and I don't understand why."

Percy heard a deep rumbling sound which came from Tyson was snoring, Percy sighed. "Good night, big guy." And he the closed his eyes, too.

𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐄 𝐇𝐀𝐃 𝐁𝐄𝐄𝐍 𝐀 𝐓𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐒𝐎𝐌𝐄 one for Iris as she prepared to race, which was a complete chaos in the Aphrodite Cabin — everyone was screaming for something and the others were getting ready. They were trying to make final touches to their chariot and Iris had given her all in decorations and preparations. She had slept later than usually the night before and so did the rest of her siblings.

The morning had been hot and humid as fog laid low on the ground like sauna steam and millions of birds were roosting in the trees—fat gray and white pigeons, except they didn't coo like regular pigeons. They made this annoying metallic screeching sound that reminded Iris of submarine radar.

The racetrack had been built in a grassy field between the archery range and the woods. Hephaestus's cabin had used the bronze bulls, which were completely tame since they'd had their heads smashed in, to plow an oval track in a matter of minutes. There were rows of stone steps for the spectators—Tantalus, the satyrs, a few dryads, and all of the campers who weren't participating. Mr. D didn't show of course, he never got up before ten o'clock.

"Right!" Tantalus announced as the teams began to assemble around him. A naiad had brought him a big platter of pastries, and as Tantalus spoke, his right hand chased a chocolate éclair across the judge's table.

"You all know the rules. A quarter-mile track. Twice around to win. Two horses per chariot. Each team will consist of a driver and a fighter. Weapons are allowed. Dirty tricks are expected. But try not to kill anybody!" Tantalus smiled at us like we were all naughty children. "Any killing will result in harsh punishment. No s'mores at the campfire for a week! Now ready your chariots!"

Beckendorf led the Hephaestus team onto the track. They had a sweet ride made of bronze and iron—even the horses, which were magical automatons like the Colchis bulls. Percy had no doubt that their chariot had all kinds of mechanical traps and more fancy options than a fully loaded Maserati.

The Ares chariot was bloodred, and pulled by two grisly horse skeletons. Clarisse climbed aboard with a batch of javelins, spiked balls, caltrops, and a bunch of other nasty toys, the Ares cabin always played dirty.

Apollo's chariot was trim and graceful and completely gold, pulled by two beautiful palominos. Their fighter was armed with a bow, though he had promised not to shoot regular pointed arrows at the opposing drivers.

Hermes's chariot was green and kind of old-looking, as if it hadn't been out of the garage in years. It didn't look like anything special, but it was manned by the Stoll brothers, and Percy shuddered to think what dirty tricks they'd schemed up.

That left three chariots: one driven by Annabeth, the other by Iris and the other by Percy. Before the race began, Percy tried to approach Annabeth and Iris to tell them about his dream, the one he had overnight.

Iris and Annabeth perked up when he mentioned Grover, but when he told them what he'd said, they seemed to get distant again, suspicious. "You're trying to distract me," Annabeth decided as she helped Iris with her armour.

"What? No I'm not!" said Percy.

"Oh, right! Like Grover would just happen to stumble across the one thing that could save the camp." said Annabeth in disbelief as she stared at the boy.

"What do you mean?" asked Percy in a confused matter, Iris rolled her eyes and turned to Percy as she said. "Go back to your chariot, Percy."

"I'm not making this up. He's in trouble." exclaimed Percy as he looked at Iris in desperation.

She hesitated, Percy could tell she was trying to decide whether or not to trust him or maybe she was coming up with another remark on how stupid he was. Despite their occasional fights, they'd been through a lot together, the three of them. And Percy knew she would never want anything bad to happen to Grover.

"Percy, an empathy link is so hard to do. I mean, it's more likely you really were dreaming." Said Annabeth since Iris wasn't saying anything. "The Oracle," I said. "We could consult the Oracle."

They both frowned, last summer, before his quest, Percy had visited the strange spirit that lived in the Big House attic and it had given him a prophecy that came true in ways he'd never expected. The experience had freaked him out for months and they both knew he'd never suggest going back there if he wasn't completely serious.

Before anyone of them could answer, the conch horn sounded. "Charioteers!" Tantalus called. "To your mark!"

"We'll talk later," Annabeth told him, "after I win." Iris giggled and said, "Or I win, you never know, Annie."

As Percy was walking back to his own chariot,  he noticed how many more pigeons were in the trees now—screeching like crazy, making the whole forest rustle. Nobody else seemed to be paying them much attention, but they made him nervous. Their beaks glinted strangely. Their eyes seemed shinier than regular birds.

As all the other participants made their way towards the starting line, Percy noticed that Iris was frowning as she looked towards their chariot, she was looking at Tyson rather than him. She looked worried.

"No hitting ponies with the stick," Tyson insisted as he looked at the reins and back at Percy who was still starring at Iris, she had already looked away a few minutes ago.

"No," He agreed. "Or people, either, if you can help it. We're going to run a clean race. Just keep the distractions away and let me concentrate on driving."

"We will win!" Tyson beamed but Percy wasn't thinking the same, they were going to lose against either the Ares, Athena or Aphrodite cabin, and he knew it...

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❪ ៸ 𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 ━━━━━ ! ﹆◞ ❫
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❪ . . . the 5th chapter for LOVE STORY everyone, but I know that I've been updating love story more so that's that! ❫
❪ . . . THIS IS 3.5k which way more than I expected but I had pre written this! ❫
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