CHAPTER FIVE
—stupid pigeons

🗡🗡🗡

  —THE sun was unbearable. The heat waves were bearing down on Judith, threatening to give her third degree burns from exposure. The girl had no doubt in her mind that the Apollo kids were behind it, giving them yet another boost in the chariot race.

  The Ares cabin had gone to Tantalus immediately, hoping to get the sun cabin disqualified for interference. It seemed as if the man was actually considering it before dismissing their concerns, deciding it would add another challenge to an already troublesome event. Lee Fletcher and Michael Yew smirked as Judith and Clarisse left the big house that morning.

  Judith was livid.

  But now she was even more determined than before to win the race. Casting a scalding glare in the two boys' direction, Judith turned to her sister. Clarisse was stretching out her muscles, preparing for the intense amount of movement that was about to go down. Judith was also doing some light stretches, but hers didn't need to be as in depth.

  As driver, there wouldn't be as much moving. In fact, she would need to stay as still and balanced as possible to not jostle the reins the wrong way. The girl was a little miffed that driving would be the only thing she'd be doing, but she had to remind herself that she could be easily replaced by Ellis or Sherman. She would not complain.

  The two brothers in question were helping to harness the skeletal horses in place while Judith and Clarisse finished out their pre-race run through. Mark refused to be any help after Clarisse told him off the other night, and Maya Brown, their sister, was assembling all the javelins, spiked maces, and caltrops. They may have had their qualms about not being on the chariot themselves, but they knew how important it would be for the Ares cabin to win this.

  "Right!" Tantalus shouted. "You know all 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," snickering came from the Stoll brothers and the daughters of Ares knew to anticipate something of the sort from them, "but try not to kill anybody!"

  "No promises," Clarisse muttered, making Judith chuckle under her breath.

  "Any killing will result in harsh punishment. No s'mores at the campfire for a week." Harsh. Good thing Judith didn't like s'mores. "Now ready your chariots!"

  Judith stepped on the platform and wrapped the leather reins around her hands tightly before unwinding them and coiling them up again in anticipation. Her hands were probably going to lose circulation mid-race, but so long as she kept her arms steady, they'd be fine.

  "Charioteers!" Tantalus shouted out again, everyone in the stands around them turning quiet. "Attend your marks!" Clarisse stepped into the chariot with a spear in hand. He swung his hand and the flags on the sidelines fell to the floor.

  All Judith could feel was the shaking of the chariot and the thundering of hooves. She smiled at how they were successfully near the front ... thanks to her fast reflexes.

  "Hermes and Apollo are down," Clarisse lightly mentioned over her shoulder gaining a nod from Judith. "Take the inner lane, we can cut off Beckendorf."

  Judith did just that, minutely pulling on her left hand to urge the horses that direction. "What the —" She stopped herself at the sight of swarming pigeons. They were dive bombing the stands, circling their targets once, twice, before swooping down to peck relentlessly. "'Risse, we've got an issue."

  "Don't stop," Clarisse replied as she looked at the attack. "Did we install the camouflage net?"

  "Uh, yeah." Judith looked down at her panel for a second to press the button that resembled a camo print pattern. Just as the tarp sailed over the top of them, the birds began their assault on them.

  Judith's hands, stuck holding the reins, were the only things out of their protected covering, allowing the birds to poke their celestial bronze beaks at them. She could feel the puncture wounds and warm pulse of her blood and willed away the pain.

  "Power on!" Clarisse shouted and Judith became acutely aware that Percy and Annabeth were actually trying to drive the birds away in the opposite direction so they had the win in their hands without any other hindrances.

  They both grinned as they passed the finish line first. Technically, they'd be the only ones to cross the finish line as the other cabins had abandoned their chariots to join the fight or to flee. The two hopped out from underneath the camo shell and wielded their weapons at the oncoming monster birds.

  Judith scowled as she noticed the Poseidon-Athena chariot fleeing the scene. Clarisse noticed the same thing as she yelled, "You're running?! The fight is here, cowards!" Judith couldn't agree more, yet another reason Percy was on her bad list. Pulling out her broadsword, she looked away from the retreating pair in disappoint and aggravation.

  Landing a successful hit on the birds happened rarely, but each time, she felt a surge of satisfaction as they burst into billowing gold dust. As one got close enough to chip at her temple, the girl raged.

  With one fatal swing, the pigeon-beast evaporated, raining gold on Judith's hair.

  "How do we get rid of the demon-pigeons?!" Judith yelled into the fray, not really expecting a response, but also hoping someone would have an answer soon.

   With no clear response, it seemed hopeless. But then there was the distant sound of music ... swing — or jazz, Judith didn't know, and she didn't care for it. Why the horrid music was playing, the girl also didn't know. It got louder and louder until Judith could just make out the words, the chorus went a little something like this:

  Go, go, go, go.

  Judith rolled her eyes, how catchy. She looked over briefly to see Percy with a boom box settled on his shoulder, turning a dial to its max. He'd gone crazy, obviously. But as she looked back at her enemies, there was a change in the tides. Judith hated to say it, but it did the trick. The birds halted their onslaught in order to get as far away from the stereo's racket as possible, swirling around in circles of confusion.

  "Archers!" Judith heard Annabeth shout. "Now!"

  A girl standing next to Judith knocked five arrows at once and fired them into the sky. All of the arrows hit different birds and Judith was impressed by the accuracy. An injured bronze bird landed by Judith's feet and she kicked it away with the toe of her boot, seeing it turn into gold powder as it died.

  Yuck.

  The amount of arrows being shot into the sky dwindled as the last few of the pigeons flew off to the horizon. There was one last squawk as they disappeared. Judith huffed as her adrenalin settled.

  "Bravo!" Tantalus cried joyously. The daughter of Ares turned to look at him, and he was looking in her direction. She looked beside her and saw Clarisse had walked up next to her. "We have our first winner!" He picked up two golden laurels and placed them around the two girls' necks.

  Judith stared at him, shocked that he didn't even mention the demon bird attack. Clarisse just looked stunned into permenant happiness. Judith kept watching Tantalus as he swiveled around to look at the two who had brought out the stereo ( which was still playing its horrific music, by the way ). "And now to punish the troublemakers who disrupted this race."

  The girl scoffed and Tantalus turned back around to narrow his eyes at her. "Got something to say?" He looked all the ready to take the laurel off her neck and tear it up.

  "Yeah, actually, I do —" Judith could see the look of thankfulness on both Percy and Annabeth's faces over the man's shoulder. But she suddenly felt an immense pain in her toes and gritted her teeth. "— not."

  Tantalus grinned in pleasure. "Good."

  As he reprimanded Percy and Annabeth, Judith looked at Clarisse. "What was that for?" She curled her toes to try and gain feeling back.

  "You could have ruined it for us," she hissed.

  Judith looked at her like she was crazy. "Clarisse, they saved the camp."

  "So what, we were handling it. Eventually the birds would have tired out," the older girl said. "Then we would have shot them all out of the sky."

  "Look at all the injured campers," Judith said, pointing at some of the more unfortunate campers. Judith could feel her own temple split open.

  "Babies," she mumbled. "Whatever. It's not like those two deserve special treatment."

  "But they don't deserve a punishment. They didn't do anything other than help."

  Clarisse eyed her. "You friends with Percy or something?"

  Judith wanted to guffaw, the thought was so far from the truth. "He's a thorn in my side, but Annabeth doesn't deserve this."

  "Whatever," Clarisse groaned again, stalking off, no longer interested in the beat down on their fellow campers.

  Judith stayed behind, feeling a surge of regret as she thought of her earlier opinion of Percy and Annabeth. She snuffed it out immediately, but it had definitely been there. The son of Poseidon and daughter of Athena only received dish duty for a week; not that they deserved it, but it wasn't awful.

  After their lashing, the campers were ordered to clean up the mess. As Judith stared out at the scene in front of her, it looked like a category four storm had come through and overturned their whole set up. Chariots were on fire ( how they were, Judith didn't know ), the stands were caved in, and the ground was saturated in shimmery gold and littered with arrows. Also, the music was still playing, and was still annoying.

  "Can someone turn that freaking music off?" Judith called out, tempted to slash her sword through the boom box.

  She saw Percy go over and press a singular button, looking back at her with expectant eyes — happy?

  Judith rolled her eyes but nodded nonetheless, finally resuming her work on disassembling the Ares chariot. The fires had ensured that they couldn't just roll them out of the area, burning the wheels just enough to melt them down. Maya was the only one there to help her, but even she was doing the bare minimum. Her brothers must have followed Clarisse out of the clearing in order to ditch cleaning duty. Judith promised to get them later for it.

  "I'm going to bring the horses back to the stables," Maya said eventually and left, the skeletal animals towing her as she held their reins.

  "Need help?" A voice asked.

  Judith knew exactly who it was considering she had heard it for the past few days against her will. "No, not from you. There's plenty of other things you could be helping with."

  "The Hephaestus Cabin has taken over most of the building jobs, so there's not really anything else," Percy said, rolling on the balls of his feet as he stuffed his hands in his pockets.

  "Then go to your cabin," Judith suggested, grunting as she tried to shove the camouflage tarp back into its compartment. To no avail, it popped right back out and made her stumble backwards.

  "You sure you don't need help?" He asked again.

  "No matter how many times you ask, my answer is not going to change. Don't you have your own chariot to take care of?" Judith huffed, turning to him finally. She looked over his shoulder to look at the chariot in question and gasped as Tyson full on carried it away with ease.

  "It's taken care of." Percy smirked devilishly.

  "Okay, in that case, I need your brother's help, not yours," she remarked. "So if you could ask him to help me then that would be nice."

  The boy blinked, having not expected that answer. "But I can."

  "Oh, my gods, whatever," Judith finally breathed. "Help me get this thing back in."

  And together they managed to force the camo blanket in its little space. And then together, they carried the chariot off to the cabins, even though Judith commented that Tyson could have just as easily done it himself in a quarter of the time.

  The daughter of Ares sighed in exhaustion as they let the chariot fall to their feet. She turned to the boy. "Alright, you've helped me, goodbye."

  "Right," he muttered. "Congrats ... on the win."

  Judith frowned as he refused to return her farewell, trapping her in an awkward conversation. "Uh, yeah. The stereo thing, that was smart."

  "Annabeth's idea," Percy admitted bashfully.

  "I figured," Judith didn't hold back. It was obvious that Annabeth was the brains of the operation.

  The boy shrugged, not surprised by her bluntness. "Um, what time is your patrol tomorrow?" Judith groaned and debated leaving him right there, but he stopped her as he hurriedly said, "Just to make sure I don't show up!"

  The girl conceded, hoping that he was telling the truth. "3:10. If I see you there, I'll —"

  "'Kill you,' I know," Percy interrupted, chuckling. "Don't worry, no more coincidences from me."

  "Better not be," Judith mumbled. "Well, bye ... again." This time, she gave him no chance of holding her down, stepping away and up to her cabin door.

  "See you," Percy called before realizing his mistake, "I mean, won't be seeing you!"

  Judith only rolled her eyes, forcing a smirk down as she closed the door behind her.

NOTES ;

edited : idk actually