chapter II

🧸 Annabeth's day was going horribly, thank you for asking. If realising she had no place in her fathers new family wasn't enough, she had to sit on a seedy old bus for hours until it was promptly set on fire by some sort of monster she was too tired to fight. She managed to escape by using her magic Yankee cap which turned her invisible, but not without a few burns on her arm.

Daphne was sure she looked super sketchy hanging out on a street corner, but her anxieties flew out of the window when she laid eyes on her best friend.

Annabeth Chase was breathing heavily as she ran over to her, and honestly? She looked like a mess. There were twigs in her braids and there were a few cuts over her face. Daphne knew she looked a bit beaten up too, but less visibly than Annabeth did.

Still, she didn't care how dirty her friends clothes were and enveloped her into a big hug. They'd gone the longest they ever had without seeing each other aside from the obvious five years, which was only a week and a half but it still hurt nonetheless. Daphne felt a part of her always sick with worry when Annabeth wasn't under her wing.

And then they had to get a taxi down to Percy's house, which she was definitely overcharged for, by the way.

Maybe the only good part about her day was seeing Daphne again, but it was quickly stamped on when the one and only Percy Jackson was as clueless as ever and couldn't hear them whispering his name as he walked to a very crowded subway station.

There was never a good time to talk to him alone. He was always with someone - whether it was his mom or his new friend, they couldn't approach him and pluck him away as easily as they had first thought.

Especially when Annabeth caught a full glance of who his new friend really was.

She had frozen in horror, eyes narrowing and stuck on the boy - Cyclops, she corrected herself. He seemed harmless enough to Daphne, though he was great and tall and muscly he had the brown eyes sort of like a baby cow. And he had obviously latched onto Percy.

Annabeth didn't agree with her sentiment. She refused to step any closer to him than she had to, eyes of loathing never leaving the one eyed man.

Daphne glanced at the school Percy and the Cyclops had just entered. "Annabeth, we're gonna miss them if we wait any longer."

"Him," she snarled. "Not them. I won't work with a cyclops, Daphne."

Daphne sighed."Give me your cap then. If you wait here, I'll quickly grab him and we can leave in minutes, okay?"

She didn't look convinced. It had been a new advancement with Annabeth, Daphne had realized after emerging from her tomb of stone. The child of Athena hated cyclopses.

Still, she handed over the Yankee cap and made her promise to be as fast as she could. Daphne agreed and slipped it onto her head.

Making her way into the school while invisible was the easy part. She waded through the sea of somehow already sweaty highschoolers and followed the path Percy and the cyclops had taken. Unlike Annabeth, Daphne was quite happy about his new friend because his height made him a lot easier to spot in crowds.

Daphne tried, she really did - but there was just no good time to pull him away. Either he was talking to someone and being teased or comforting his friend, Daphne couldn't weave herself into conversation. In the morning, they had a lesson called 'Form', where they took registration for the day.

During Form, Percy opened his notebook and stared at two of the the photos inside. Daphne couldn't see what it was from her angle as she was squishing herself into the corner of the room so that nobody would bump into an invisible her.

She was too curious for her own good, and resigned herself to this fact when he was about to close his notebook, and a great, ugly guy who was missing about three teeth reached over and ripped the two photos out of the rings.

From where Daphne was stood, she got a good glance of the picture on each one. The first one was a picture of Daphne and Annabeth on vacation in Washington, D.C. She had gone with her family for the day and invited Daphne for the trip. Annabeth was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt, her blond hair pulled back in a bandanna. Daphne wore about the same, except her jeans were baggy and must've had a lot of effort put into them considering all sorts of flowers and stars were embroidered on the cuffs and sides. Her hair, impossibly curly as always, was let loose in the wind behind her.

They were standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, Daphne grinning with her fingers up in peace signs and Annabeth with her arms crossed, looking extremely pleased with herself, like she'd personally designed the place. (Annabeth wanted to be an architect when she grew up, so she's always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She's weird that way.)

The second picture was one of Daphne, alone. The sentiment was enough to make her blush hard enough she was sure Olympus could see it through the invisible cap. She was only in half of the image as she had tried to take a terrible rendition of a selfie. Behind her was a horrible mess made of the camps kitchens, clumps of food splattered all over the walls and floor as though a bomb of undercooked pie had exploded. The half of her face that was included, though covered in mush, was flushed and beaming, a sense of determination in her almond eyes.

Since they had first met, Daphne had become a lot more tan. She was basking in the camps sun for most of the days, allowing her skin to be kissed by the sun. It showed in the pictures too.

Daphne had emailed both of them to Percy, even though half-bloods weren't really supposed to use technology. He kept them with him, possibly to remind himself that their world was truly real and that he wasn't just crazy.

"Hey!" Percy protested. He tried to grab it back feebly from the brute who'd ripped it from his hands.

The big guy who'd taken it from him checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. "No way, Jackson. Who is that? She is not your-"

Don't finish that sentence. Daphne inwardly begged, glad she was invisible so nobody could see her blush.

"Give it back!" Percy snapped, his ears burning up.

Sloan handed the photo of Daphne to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spit
wads, followed by the one of her and Annabeth. They were new kids who must've been visiting, because they were all wearing some stupid HI! MY NAME IS: tags from the admissions office. They must've had a weird sense of humor, too, because they'd all filled in strange names like: MARROW SUCKER, SKULL EATER, and JOE BOB. No human beings had names like that.

She had to get Percy out - now. Either they were monsters or just creeps, but Daphne didn't like the idea of Percy hanging around them either way.

But... if she pulled him away now, he'd know that she saw the picture of her in his notebook! How embarrassing would that be?

Daphne faltered, and when she did, she lost her chance. The bell had rang and the two photos were sufficiently chewed.

The kids got up and started leaving the class. Seeing no other choice, Daphne took off her cap and whispered, "Percy!" when he was almost alone in the halls. Someone's head swung around to her, however, and she had to slip it back on her head before they managed to see her fully.

Percy turned, but before he had time to consider whether or not he'd been imagining things, a crowd of kids rushed for the gym, carrying him and his friend along with them.

Daphne groaned and followed them, being less careful to avoid bumping into people. She was getting antsy now, knowing that Annabeth would be fuming waiting for her. The gym uniform at Meriwether High School was sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts, which Daphne thought looked pretty ridiculous on everyone there.

She went to follow them out into the gym but paused. If she just waited outside then maybe - hopefully - she could grab him on his way back to the locker rooms and pull him away. Even better, he might leave earlier to grab a drink or go to the toilet.

Daphne sighed and leaned against the wall, crossing her arms and preparing herself to wait about an hour for a bunch of kids to stop kicking a ball around.

Now, her first mistake was probably taking her eyes off of Percy. Her second one would've been leaving the gymnasium entirely to grab some air, considering the musty smell which was coming from the locker rooms (yuck! Daphne remembered why she didn't attend school), and the third was most definitely when she took out her banned iPod and earphones and started listening to some songs.

In hindsight, it was a terrible setup. But Daphne just couldn't sit still and wait, she needed some sort of stimulation, and well, it proved pretty well. She sat there for about ten minutes, tapping her feet along to the song as she sat on the bench outside.

Until the gymnasium exploded.

Her mouth hung open and she dropped her earphones from her in a scramble to get them off. Half a second later, her bronze knife was unsheathed and clicked into a sword. The wall which had blown off left dust and rubble in its wake, and she leaped through the opening and ran towards where a large voice was booming.

Her heart was beating in her ears. In the rubble of the locker rooms sat Percy, being over-loomed by a monster she assumed had to be some sort of giant. Percy's eyes were darting around to find his sword, but it was helpless.

His cyclops friend stood and leaped in from of Percy as the giant lobbed a large red dodgeball at him. It caught the new guy square in the chest. He slid the length of the court and slammed into the back wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto Church Street. If he was truly a human he wouldn't have been alive, but he only looked dazed. The bronze ball was smoking at his feet. The guy tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stunned, into a pile of cinder blocks.

"Well!" the one with the name tag which read Joe Bob gloated. "I'm the last one standing! I'll have enough meat to bring Babycakes a doggie bag!"

He picked up another ball and aimed it at the cyclops. Daphne snuck behind them, trying to keep low, stepping carefully so she wouldn't tread on any rocks which would make too much noise.

"Stop!" Percy yelled. "It's me you want!"

The giant grinned. "You wish to die first, young hero?"

Percy stood. You idiot! Daphne wanted to scream. He was unarmed and not wearing armour, and yet he still charged at the monster.

The giant laughed. "My lunch approaches." He raised his arm to throw and Percy braced himself to die.

Before he could, however, Daphne finally lunged. Suddenly the giant's body went rigid. His expression changed from gloating to surprise. Right where his belly button should've been, his T-shirt ripped open and he grew something which looked almost like a horn - no, not a horn - the glowing tip of a blade.

The ball dropped out of his hand. The monster stared down at the knife that had just run him through from behind.

He muttered, "Ow," and burst into a cloud of green flame.

Percy staggered back in confusion when Daphne took off the cap. She was breathing heavily, and she seemed to have some monster dust over her shoulders. Her face was grimy and scratched. She had a ragged backpack slung over her shoulder and she tucked Annabeths baseball cap in her pocket, a bronze sword in her hand, and a wild look in her lovely almond eyes, like she'd just been chased a thousand miles by ghosts.

Some guy who had ripped up her picture, who'd been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses. He blinked at Daphne, as if he dimly recognized her from Percy's notebook. "That's the girl... that's the girl-"

Daphne turned and hit him in the nose with the hilt of her sword, knocking him flat. "And you," she snapped as she glowered down at him, "stay away from my friend."

The gym was in flames. Kids were still running around screaming. She heard sirens wailing and a garbled voice over the intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, Daphne could see somebody she assumed was the headmaster wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him.

"Daphne.." Percy stammered. "How did you... how long have you..."

"Pretty much all morning." She admitted and sheathed her bronze sword back into a knife. "I'm sorry, but I've been trying to find a good time to talk to you, and you were never alone."

"The shadow I saw this morning - and the voice that woke me up - that was-" his face felt hot. "Oh my gods, you were looking in my bedroom window?"

"There's no time to explain!" she quickly interrupted, though she looked a little red-faced herself. "I just didn't want to-"

"There!" a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.

"Meet me and Annabeth outside, we've been waiting for you." Daphne told Percy. She glanced over at Percy's friend, as though she was debating what to do.

She couldn't very well leave him here, could she? After all they'd seen, he wasn't mentally capable enough to explain this. But Annabeth truly hated cyclopses...

"And him." She pointed to him, who was still sitting dazed against the wall. Percy heard a tone of uneasiness in her voice he didn't quite understand. "You'd better bring him; but don't tell Annabeth I let it happen, okay?"

"What?"

"No time!" she said. "Hurry!"

She put on Annabeths Yankees baseball cap and instantly vanished.

That left Percy standing alone in the middle of the burning gymnasium when the headmaster came charging in with half the faculty and a couple of police officers.

"Percy Jackson?" he helplessly said. "What ... how ..."

Over by the broken wall, the cyclops groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder blocks. "Head hurts."

The dude Daphne had punched was coming around, too. He focused on Percy with a look of terror. "Percy did it, Mr. Bonsai! He set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!"

The coach had been dutifully reading his magazine, but just Percy's luck-he chose that moment to look up when Sloan said his name. "Eh? Yeah. Mm-hmm."

The other adults turned toward him. Percy knew they would never believe him, even if he could tell them the truth.

He grabbed Riptide out of his ruined jeans, told his friend, "Come on!" and jumped through the gaping hole in the side of the building, following the shimmering form of Daphne.

🏛️

Daphne raced ahead of them, taking the cap off and running into an alley down Church Street. Percy and the cyclops stumbled behind her, following the flip of her dark curls as she shimmered back into sight, tucking the Yankee cap under her arm.

Annabeth stood from where she was leaning against the wall. "Where have you been?" she fumed at her friend, grabbing the cap back from her. Annabeth was really on the edge after her fight and seeing the cyclops.

"Got caught up," Daphne managed. "No time. There were giants attacking him, and one of them exploded a bit of the school. Long story, I'll explain the rest later. Did you find the drachma?"

Annabeth held it up. "Where's Perc-"

Just then, Daphne turned and poked her head out of the alley. She pulled the cyclops and Percy off the sidewalk just as a fire truck screamed past, heading for Percy's school, Meriwether Prep.

Annabeth saw the cyclops and turned to Daphne with indignation in her eyes. "Are you kidding me? Are you being serious?"

"Annabeth, listen-" Daphne started, holding her hands up defensively. "he was going to be in trouble! I couldn't just leave him."

Percy looked between the two of them, barely concealing his own annoyance. He'd been pretty lonely other than his new friend, relying on Daphnes emails and letters as a tie to the Half-Blood world. And under different circumstances, he would've been really happy to see Annabeth and Daphne again after last summer.

But he'd just been attacked by cannibal giants, Tyson had saved his life three or four times, all Annabeth could do was glare at him like he was the problem, and all Daphne could do was act as though she didn't want to really save him.

That one hurt him more than the others, for some reason.

Annabeth pushed her braids back from falling in her face. Daphne had once watched some kids from the Aphrodite cabin thread her hair for her, but couldn't sit still throughout how long the process took. Luckily, one of the shy younger boys asked to practice makeup on her, and the time passed by quite quickly.

"Nice to see you both too, by the way!" Percy said sarcastically.

Annabeth turned to him like she'd just noticed he was there. Her grey eyes were angrily stormy, and he'd never seen her so aggressive against Daphne before. "Where'd you find him?" she demanded, pointing at Tyson.

"He's my friend," he shot at her.

"Is he homeless?"

"What does that have to do with anything? He can hear you, you know, and he is called Tyson. Why don't you ask him?"

Daphne looked surprised, her head whipping towards him. "He can talk?"

"I talk," Tyson admitted. "You are pretty."

"Ah! Gross!" Annabeth snapped, yanking Daphne away from him.

Percy glowered at them both. He couldn't believe she was being so rude, and that Daphne was simply going along with it. She usually defended people who were shot down, not grimacing as they looked at her.

He decided to distract himself by examining Tyson's hands, which he was sure must've been badly scorched by the flaming dodge balls: but they looked fine. Grimy and scarred, with dirty fingernails the size of potato chips-but they always looked like that.

"Tyson," he said in disbelief. "Your hands aren't even burned."

"Of course not," Annabeth muttered, looking at him with distaste in her eyes. "I'm surprised the monsters had the guts to attack you with him around."

Tyson seemed fascinated by Daphne's dark curls. They seemed to be more springy than the last time Percy had seen her, the pretty coils thicker and wavier. Tyson tried to touch it, but Annabeth smacked his hand away and glowered at him as though he had tried to kill her.

"Stop it, guys." Daphne interrupted them before Percy could ask what she meant. "We're really wasting time here. We need to get going, okay?"

"The police'll be after me." Percy reminded them. "And probably looking out for you, too."

"That's the least of our problems," Annabeth said. "Have you been having the dreams?"

Percy hesitated. "The dreams ... about Grover?"

Daphne's face turned pale. She'd written her dream about Grover off as some sort of fantasy, but she wanted to hit herself. They were demigods, dreams always meant something. "Grover? What about him, what did you see?"

Percy told them about the dream he had that morning. It was the same one that Daphne recognised, with Grover in the wedding dress. "Why? What were you dreaming about?"

Annabeth's eyes looked stormy, like her mind was racing a million miles an hour. "Camp," she said at last. "Big trouble at camp."

"My mom was saying the same thing!" Percy snapped his fingers. Tyson was starting to twiddle his thumbs, obviously bored. "But what kind of trouble?"

"We don't know exactly." Daphne chewed on her bottom lip. "But something's wrong. We have to get there right away. Monsters have been chasing Annabeth all the way from Virginia, and I haven't been left alone since I left camp. Have you had a lot of attacks?"

Percy shook his head. "None all year ... until today."

"None? But how ..." Her eyes drifted to Tyson, who had moved on from Daphne to look at Annabeths hair with fascination. "Oh."

"What do you mean, 'oh'?"

Tyson raised his hand like he was still in class. "Canadians in the gym called Percy something... Son of the Sea God?"

Annabeth and Daphne exchanged a look which Percy was really annoyed about not being part of. It was like they knew something he didn't, and he hated when that happened. Which was quite a lot, actually.

He didn't know how he would be able to explain it, but Percy figured Tyson deserved the truth after almost getting killed. "Big guy," he started, "you ever hear those old stories about the Greek gods? Like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena-"

"Yes," Tyson said.

"Well ... those gods are still alive. They kind of follow Western Civilization around, living in the strongest countries, so like now they're in the U.S. And sometimes they have kids with mortals. Kids called half-bloods."

"Yes," Tyson said, like he was still waiting for Percy to get to the point.

"Uh, well, Annabeth and Daphne and me are half-bloods," Percy said. "We're like ... heroes-in-training. And whenever monsters pick up our scent, they attack us. That's what those giants were in the gym. Monsters."

"Yes."

Percy stared at him. He didn't seem surprised or confused by what he was telling him, which looked like it confused him. "So... you believe me?"

Tyson nodded. "But you are ... Son of the Sea God?"

"Yeah?" he wondered where Tyson was going with his questions. "My dad is Poseidon."

Tyson frowned. Now he looked confused. "But then ..."

A siren wailed. A police car raced past our alley.

"We don't have time for this," Annabeth interrupted impatiently. "We'll talk in the taxi."

"A taxi all the way to camp?" Percy glared at her. "You know how much money-"

"Trust me."

Percy hesitated. "What about Tyson?"

He imagined escorting his giant cyclops friend into Camp Half-Blood. If he freaked out on a regular playground with regular bullies, how would he act at a training camp for demigods? On the other hand, the cops would be looking for them.

Annabeth opened her mouth to snap something, but Daphne placed a hand on her shoulder to reel her back.

"We can't just leave him," she tried to coax Annabeth. "He'll be in trouble, too."

"Fine." Annabeth looked grim, but she'd finally given in. "Okay. Whatever. Now come on."

Percy didn't like the way she said that, as if Tyson were a big disease they needed to get to the hospital, and let it show on his face as he followed them down the alley.

Together the four of them sneaked through the side streets of downtown while a huge column of smoke billowed up behind them from Percy's school gymnasium.

"Here." Annabeth stopped them on the corner of Thomas and Trimble. Daphne had to grab on the back of Percy's collar to stop him walking. Annabeth picked out a golden drachma from her jean pocket.

Percy paused, seeing how both of them had looked even worse than he'd realised at first. Annabeths chin was cut and she had twigs and grass tangled in her ponytail, as if she'd slept several nights in the open. The slashes on the hems of her jeans looked suspiciously like claw marks.

Daphne was wearing a pink cardigan which had been absolutely covered in dirt. Her hands were scratched as though she'd gotten into a fistfight with a rose bush, and she had a pink hello kitty plaster on her left cheek. The dark bags beneath her eyes were joined with mascara which had rubbed off.

All around them, sirens wailed. Daphne figured it wouldn't be long before more cops cruised by, looking for juvenile delinquent gym-bombers.

"Uh, what's she doing?" Percy whispered to Daphne as Annabeth stood forward, holding out the drachma in the palm of her hand. The coin was familiar, the currency of Mount Olympus. It had Zeus's likeness stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other.

"I'm not actually sure," Daphne muttered back.

"Annabeth," Percy said stupidly, "New York taxi drivers won't take that."

"Stêthi," she shouted in Ancient Greek. "Ô hárma diabolês!"

As usual, the moment she spoke in the language of Olympus, Daphne somehow understood it. She'd said:
Stop, Chariot of Damnation!

That didn't exactly make Daphne feel really excited about whatever her plan was. Annabeth hadn't explained it fully to her, just pegging her explanation down to 'I've got us a ride, don't worry about it.' She had to stop believing her when she said those sorts of things.

She threw her coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the drachma sank right
through and disappeared.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened. It melted into a rectangular pool about
the size of a parking space-bubbling red liquid like blood. A taxi erupted from the ooze, but unlike every other taxi in New York, it wasn't yellow, it was a smoky gray. Daphne marvelled at how it managed to look like it was woven out of smoke, like anybody could walk right through it. There were words printed on the door which read 'THE GRAY SISTERS'.

The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop of grizzled hair covering her eyes, and she spoke in a weird mumbling way, like she'd just had a shot of Novocain. "Passage? Passage?"

"Four to Camp Half-Blood," Annabeth commanded. She opened the cab's back door and waved at the rest of them to get in, like this was all completely normal.

"Four?" she screamed. "No room!"

"We'll fit into one seat." Annabeth tried to convince her. Daphne knew that it would've been her and Annabeth again, but she didn't really mind. They'd cuddled more when they were younger, so she had a hard time figuring out personal space with people anyway.

"Ach!" the old woman screeched. "We don't take his kind!" she pointed a withered finger at Tyson.

"Extra pay," Annabeth promised. "Three more drachma on arrival."

"Done!" the woman screamed.

Reluctantly, Percy got in the cab first. Tyson squeezed in the middle and Daphne and Annabeth crawled in last. They all squeezed up as much as they could, but Daphne still had to sit over half on Annabeths lap.

The interior was also smoky gray, but it felt solid enough. The seat was cracked and lumpy, no different than most taxis. There was no Plexiglas screen separating them from the three old ladies driving.

Wait a minute.

There wasn't just one old lady. There were three, all crammed in the front seat, each with stringy hair covering their eyes, bony hands, and a charcoal colored sackcloth dress.

The one driving said, "Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!"

She floored the accelerator, Daphne narrowly avoided slamming Annabeth in the face, her head instead slamming against the backrest. A prerecorded voice came on over the speaker: Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up!

"Oh my gods," Daphne whispered. "I'm gonna die."

౨ৎ ˖ ࣪⊹𝒂𝒖𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒓'𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕𝒆
🌷🪷🌊

ʚɞ I wanted to include the taxi ride in this chapter but there was too many words hehe....its just so fun

ʚɞ i love conflict, so im just making them annoyed at each other cause puberty and teenage angst you know ???

Also, who do Daphne and Percy remind you of?? Their relationship is going to be like Miles and Gwen from spiderverse mixed with Rapunzel and Eugene🙈🎀