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chapter nineteen.
(  battle of labyrinth  )
❝ juniper's blues! ❞

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     Quintus's grey hair made him look like a ghost. Seriously. It shone against the lit torches at the pavilion, and he might as well be a ghost in the gloomy light.

     We were dressed in battle armour—as if we were going to play capture the flag, but that wasn't the plan. Quintus had these crates, you see. They had been in the sword arena all day; huge, with DO NOT OPEN painted all over them, and when I went to practice before dinner, I saw that they had disappeared. I knew they had something to do with tonight, so I knew we weren't playing capture the flag (and when my adoptive mother is also an activities director, I kinda got the snoop we were fighting monsters).

      Even when people were unsure on what we were doing, they were still excited. There were murmurs as people gathered weapons, whispered as we huddled together in the pavilion.

     "Right," as soon as Quintus spoke, everyone fell silent. "Gather round."

    Everyone came together by the head table. Behind Quintus, his large hellhound, Mrs O'Leary bounded happily, foraging for dinner scraps.

     "You will be in teams of two," Quintus announced. At this, everyone started to talk and try to grab their friends, and so he yelled, "Which have already been chosen!"

     "AWWWWWW!" Everyone complained. I just rolled my eyes.

     "Your goal is simple: collect the gold laurels without dying. The wreath is wrapped in a silk package, tied to the back of one of the monsters. There are six monsters. Each has a silk package. Only one holds the laurels. You must find the wreath before the other teams. And of course ... you will have to slay the monster to get it, and stay alive."

      This was easy—I've fought tonnes of monsters before. I feel like everyone else was thinking the same thing. Killing monsters is what we were trained for—this would be a piece of cake.

      "Here are your partners," Hannah then spoke up, having stayed rather quiet throughout the whole thing. "No trading, no complaining—"

      "Arooof!" Mrs O'Leary buried her face in a plate of pizza. Hannah turned her nose up at her. I don't think she particularly liked having a hellhound just casually walking around camp. But either way, she looked down at the list in front of her and began listing off names.

      Beckendorf was paired with Silena Beauregard (which he looked pretty happy about). The Stoll brothers would be together, which was no surprise. Connor and Travis did everything together. Cain—who I was kind of hoping to be paired with—was placed with Annabeth, which he seemed very unhappy about. All though, he didn't say anything. They would be tough to beat, as would Lee and Clarisse. Hannah kept rattling off the names until she said, "Percy Jackson with Claire Moore."

     Percy, who had been standing beside me, grinned. "Nice!"

     I arched my brow at him. I went to say something similar but then I noticed his armour straps, "Your armour is crooked."

     He frowned and glanced down, "Huh?" and so I rolled my eyes and redid the straps for him.

     "Grover Underwood," continued Hannah. "With Tyson ..."

      Grover gaped. "What? B-but—"

    "No, no," Tyson whimpered. "Must be a mistake. Goat boy—"

    "No complaining!" Quintus spoke up. "Get with your partner. You have two minutes to prepare."

    Tyson and Grover both looked at Percy pleadingly. He tried to give them an encouraging nod, and gestured that they should come together. Tyson sneezed. Grover started chewing nervously on his wooden club. I managed a small, amused smile. "They'll be fine," I said. "Come on—let's win this."

° ° °

      It was still light as we went into the forest, but it seemed like the middle of the night. Shadows from the trees above us danced at our feet, and the whispers of the wind rustling the ferns made me feel like there was a monster at every turn. It was cold, too, even in summer. However, Percy and I found tracks almost immediately—scuttling marks made by something with a lot of legs—and so we followed the trail.

     I'm ambitious, I've realised. I wanted to be a famous singer, and I wanted to win this. (Or maybe it was just healthy competition against Annabeth and Cain. Maybe I'm just competitive). We jumped a creek. Some twigs snapped and I pulled Percy behind a boulder. It was only the Stoll brothers, tripping through the woods and cursing. I rolled my eyes, idiots.

     Once they passed, we forged deeper into the woods surrounding camp. We were standing on a ledge overlooking a marshy pond when I realised something. I tensed, recognising the rock— "This is where we stopped looking for Nico."

      There was a bitter look on Percy's face. He gave me a glance, "I saw him last night."

     I frowned, "What do you mean?"

     He told me about the Iris-Message. When he was done, I cursed. "He's summoning the dead? Gods, what is he doing?"

      "The ghost was giving him bad advice. Telling him to take revenge."

     "Yeah ... ghosts are never good advisors. They've got their own agendas; grudges, you know ... they resent the living."

       Percy frowned at me, "You told me that you knew there was an entrance here to the Labyrinth at camp. You don't sound surprise that Nico is chatting with the Dead. You know Nico's coming after me—through the maze."

      I pursed my lips. "I didn't know he was coming after you. I just thought Nico was lost in the maze—the Cercopes gave us objects to answer our questions. I got a small statue of Icarus and the symbol of Daedalus after I asked Nico's whereabouts. I asked them where to look, and they gave me an old camp necklace. I thought—well, I didn't know about this ghost thing, or Iris Message thing ... I just thought he was lost and Luke might come and find him—we don't want that."

       "No," Percy sighed. Then frowned. "Icarus is the guy that flew too close to the sun and his wings burnt, right? He's like the metaphor for deadly ambition?"

       I arched a brow, "Well—it isn't a metaphor, it actually happened."

      "Right."

     I shook my head. I glanced down at the marsh, "We gotta find the entrance. We gotta find Nico, help Grover, stop Luke..."

     "Maybe," Percy shifted uncomfortably. "But who sent the Iris-Message? If Nico didn't know I was there—"

      He stopped. A branch snapped in the woods. Dry leaves rustled. A human couldn't have caused that much damage and sound—it was something big, moving in the trees just beyond the ridge.

      Percy and I froze. "That's not the Stoll brothers," I whispered.

     He uncapped Riptide, and I unsheathed the kopis, holding it out in front of me. When nothing came out, we continued, our eyes wide open.

     We managed to get to Zeus's Fist. It was used as a rendezvous point for a lot of hunting expeditions and capture the flags, however, at the moment there was no one here. The sound was still around us, and I wasn't sure where it was coming from.

     "Over there," I nodded to our right.

     Percy shook his head, "No, wait," he glanced back. "Behind us."

    We curled the boulders, our swords drawn when someone behind us said, "Hi!"

   Juniper screeched and jump backwards when he whirled around. "Put those down! Dryads don't like sharp blades, okay?!"

     I lowered my weapon, my heart still racing. "Juniper! What the—what are you doing here?"

    She frowned, "I live here."

    Percy tilted his head, "In the boulders?"

    Juniper and I both gave him a glance. We shared the same look on our faces. Juniper pointed towards the edge of the clearing. "In the juniper. Duh."

    Percy had a oh moment.

    "Are you guys busy?" Grover's girlfriend then asked.

    "Well," Percy shifted on his feet, "we're in the middle of this game against a bunch of monsters and we're trying not to die—"

     I gave him another look. "We're not busy," I said. "What's wrong, Juniper?"

    She sniffed. She wiped her silky sleeve under her eyes. "It's Grover. He seems so distraught. All year he's been out looking for pan. And every time he comes back, it's worse. I thought maybe, at first, he was seeing another tree."

     "Oh, no, Juniper," I whispered gently as she started crying. "I'm sure that's not it."

     "He had a crush on a blueberry bush once," she said miserably.

     "Juniper," I placed my hands on her shoulders to make her look at me. "Grover would never even look at another tree. He would never. He's just stressed about his searcher's licence."

      "He can't go underground!" Juniper sobbed. "You can't let him."

      I shared a glance with Percy, "It ... it might be the only way to help him; if we just knew where to start—"

     "Ah..." Juniper wiped a green tear from her cheek. "About that ..."

     The rustling returned, and Juniper gasped, "Hide!"

     It was easy for her, she could just poof! into green mist. Percy and I had to turn around and see the three metre long monstrous scorpion come out of the woods. It's skeleton glimmered amber, and its pincer was as long as Percy's sword. tied to its back was a red silk package.

     "Okay," I muttered as the thing clattered towards us. "Easy. One of us gets behind it, cuts off its tail while the other distracts it in front."

      "I'll take the point," said Percy. "You go front."

      I nodded. We've fought together so many times that we knew each other's moves and tendencies like the back of each others hands. Like I said, easy—too soon, however, for two more scorpions appeared from the woods.

      "Three?" I cursed. "You've got to be kidding me! The whole woods, and half of the monsters come after us? Is this some sick trick or something?"

      Percy glanced at me. I knew he was thinking the same; we could take one, easy. Two, with a little luck. Three? Well ... let's just pray to every single god out there for our lives and then maybe.

     The three scorpions scurried towards us, whipping their tails menacingly. We backed against the nearest boulder.

     "Climb?" Percy suggested.

     I shook my head. "No time."

    He cursed. My mind raced, trying to find a way out of this. We didn't have enough time to climb, there wasn't a creek close enough for Percy to rage full Poseidon on them, and I definitely couldn't do anything. We were screwed. Gods, this is embarrassing. Imagine dying during a drill?

      Well, it's about to be us, so...

    "Look out!" I parried away a sting with the flat of my blade. Percy stabbed Riptide, but he was out of range. I pulled him sideways and we clambered sideways along the boulders, but the scorpions followed us. Percy slashed at another one, but he knew that offence in this situation was way to dangers. If he went for the body, the tail would stab downwards, and if he went for the tail, he would be grabbed by the pincers on either side. We could only defend—and we wouldn't be able to keep that up for long.

      I parried another pincer, slicing it away when Percy spotted something. "In here!"

     I managed to glance back at what he was looking at: a crack between two of the largest boulders. It was barely big enough for me to be able to slip through. He was crazy. "What? No! That's way too narrow!"

    "What else is there? I'll cover you. Go!"

    I sighed but ducked behind him and started to squeeze between the boulders. I don't even know how I was managing it, but I was about to go into the other side when—

     "Percy!" I shouted for him and grabbed his straps as I fell back. The crack had opened up—and we were tumbling into a pit that hadn't been there before. The scorpions were there above us, scuttling amongst the purple haze of evening and the trees before the hole closed up, like the else of a camera.

      It was dark.

      Too dark.

     I couldn't see anything. The only way I knew Percy was beside me was his breathing. It echoed against stone. It was wet and cold. My hands felt the floor beneath us, and it was bumpy against my fingertips—like bricks.

     My heart caught in my throat. Percy lifted his sword, and the faint glow of the blade was just enough to illuminate his face and the messy stone walls on either side of us.

     "W-where are we?" I muttered, shuffling closer to Percy now that I could kind of see him.

      We stood up. "Safe from scorpions, anyway," Percy sounded a lot more braver than he looked. I have no idea what had happened. I was just squeezing through the crack and then—it was like I was being swallowed.

     By the earth.

     Gross.

     Percy lifted his sword again for light. My breath hitched at the corridor that stretched out in front of us. I knew where we were, I gripped his arm. "Percy," I whispered.

     "What?" he frowned.

     "We ... we need to get out of here."

     Percy glanced back at me, his gaze concerned. "Yeah—look, the exit's right ..." he faltered. There was no exit. Where we had come from had been completely sealed in. The ceiling was solid stone, and the corridor just seemed to wind endlessly on either side of us.

     The Son of Poseidon's breath quickened. "Great ... just great ...  we're closed in—is it just me or is this place really small?"

      Panicked, Percy went to walk forward, but I reached out and grabbed his hand. "No! Don't move. We need to find the exit."

      "Claire, the exit is no longer there."

      I linked our fingers together, just so I knew where he was. "Percy, listen to me. Two steps back."

      Together, we stepped back like we were in a minefield. I closed my eyes, and remembered what Annabeth and Clarisse told me. How do I get out, how do I get out, come on, come on Claire!

       I then thought of it. "Okay, help me look at the walls."

      "What for?"

     "The Mark of Daedalus," I told him and placed my free hand against the wall. I ran my fingers across the stone as Percy frowned.

      "Uh, okay. What kind of—?"

      "Yes!" I cried out in relief when I felt the bump coming out of the stone. I pressed my hand against the fissure, pushing it in. It began to glow blue, and a Delta appeared.

      The roof slid open, and there was the night sky. It was a lot darker now—I was scared to think how long the maze had kept us down there. Metal ladder rungs appeared in the side of the wall, leading up. Outside, people were yelling out our names.

      I recognised Tyson, Annabeth and Cain amongst them all. Percy gave me a nervous look. Then we began to climb.

° ° °

      We ran into Cain, Clarisse and a bunch of other campers carrying torches.

     "Where have you two been?" Clarisse demanded. "We've been looking forever."

     Percy frowned, "But we were only gone for a few minutes."

     Cain shook his head. "No ... you were gone for an hour."

    Chiron trotted up, followed by Tyson, Grover and Annabeth.

     "Percy!" Tyson said. "You are okay?"

    "We're fine," said Percy. "We fell in a hole."

     The others looked at him skeptically. And then to me. I knew exactly what they were thinking. I blushed and stepped away from Percy, coming up to Cain.

     "You've been missing for almost an hour," Cain said again. "The game is over."

    "Yeah," Grover muttered. "We would've won, but a Cyclops sat on me."

    "It was an accident!" Tyson sneezed helplessly.

    Clarisse wore the gold laurels, but she didn't even brag about them. "A hole?"

    I met Annabeth's grey eyes. Just by the look on my face, she knew. She gasped. "You found it, didn't you?"

     I chewed on my lip. "Yeah ... yeah we did."

    A bunch of the campers started to ask questions, but Chiron raised his hand for silence. "Tonight is not the right time, and this is not the right place." He stared at the boulders, grave. "All of you, back to your cabins."

      The rest of the campers left—with a lot of mumbling and complaints—but they left, leaving Chiron, Cain, Annabeth, Clarisse, Percy, Grover, Tyson and I.

      "You were right," Clarisse muttered. "This is what Luke is after."

      "Wait a second," Percy held up his sword. "What do you mean? What did we find?"

      I stepped back towards him. "We-we found it Percy. The entrance to the Labyrinth—the invasion route straight into the heart of camp."

° ° °

      I feel kind of stupid hoping it would be Hades that wanted to talk to me in my dreams that night. Like, really stupid. Why would the god of holding grudges forgive me? I don't know ... he just. It was weird, but Hades spent more time with me in a few weeks than my father has in fifteen years.

      I did have a dream that night, but it wasn't Hades that talked with me. Actually, no one talked to me. I woke up in the same corridor in the Labyrinth that Percy and I fell into. It was just the same in real life as it was in my dream; the same cold, wet walls and long, dark winding hallways. Complete darkness, and beating inside my chest like itself was alive.

      I dared not move. I couldn't see anything, and I didn't want to leave the entrance. I placed my fingers against the stone walls, feeling around for the Mark of Daedalus. I had to get out of here. For a second, I didn't think it was a dream. I thought I really was back in that terrible place. The only reason I knew it was a dream was because I—without any hesitation—made a ball of light float up so I could see.

      Not for a few seconds did I realise that—hang on, I can't do that anymore!

     And so I froze and turned towards it. It was small, it was bright, and I haven't seen something like it in two years.

     "So this is a dream," I muttered. "Cool. Who wants to talk to me tonight?"

     No one answered. That was strange. Usually the gods liked to show themselves after I'm like, I know you're there, there's no point in a cool entrance anymore. But no one showed, not even some weird monster, or disembodied voice. There was just me, the Labyrinth, and this light—

     Oh.

     "No way..." I walked towards the light, watching it hover over my shoulder like a best friend.

     I don't know who sent me here, or who wanted me to know this. But this was answering the greatest question of my life right now.

     I was going to get my powers back, and the Labyrinth was my answer. 

    When morning came, also came a war council. Chiron had us meet together in the sword arena to discuss the fate of camp with Mrs O'Leary chewed on a life-sized squeaky rubber yak.

    Hannah stood up the front with Chiron and Quintus. Cory sat—rather awkwardly—to the side with Connor and Travis. Clarisse and Annabeth sat next to each other and led the briefing. Tyson and Grover sat as far as possible, but even then, Tyson sneezed into his sleeve. Lee and I walked into the arena together.

     I migrated towards where Percy sat, and Lee rolled his eyes before following. I sat beside him, muttering a quiet, "Hey," before focusing on the others. Every cabin councillor was here: Katie Gardiner of Demeter, Castor and Pollux of Dionysus, Beckendorf from cabin nine, Silena from cabin ten, the Stoll Brothers, and obviously Annabeth and Clarisse. I knew it was serious when even Argus was here.

     "Luke must've known about the Labyrinth entrance," Annabeth said. "He knew everything about camp."

     She was right. Luke knew this camp back to front, that was what made it so worrying. If there had been an entrance here we didn't know about, Luke definitely would've known, and now that we do know there is ...

     Juniper cleared her throat, glancing at Percy and I. "That was what I was trying to tell you last night. The cave entrance has been there for a long time. Luke used to use it."

      Silena frowned. "You knew about the Labyrinth entrance, and you didn't say anything?"

     Juniper's face turned green. "I didn't know it was important. Just a cave. I don't like yucky old caves."

      "She has good taste," said Grover.

      "I wouldn't have paid any attention except ... well, it was Luke," she finished, looking a little greener.

      Grover huffed, "Forget what I said about good taste."

     "Interesting," Quintus polished his sword as he spoke. "And you believe this young wan, Luke, would dare use the Labyrinth as an invasion route?"

      "Definitely," said Clarisse. "If he could get an army of monsters inside Camp Half-Blood, just pop up in the middle of the woods without having to worry about our magical boundaries, we wouldn't stand a chance. He could wipe us out easy. He must've been planning this for months."

      "He's been sending scouts into the maze," Annabeth said. "We know because ... because we found one."

       "Chris Rodriquez," Chiron said. He gave Quintus a meaningful look.

       "Ah," look of recognition crossed his face. "The one in the ... Yes. I understand."

      "The one in the what?" Percy asked.

      Clarisse gave him a glare. "The point is, Luke has been looking for a way to navigate the maze. He's searching for Daedalus's workshop."

       "The guy who created the maze," Percy realised.

      "Yes," Annabeth nodded. "The greatest architect, the greatest inventor of all time. If the legends are true, his workshop is in the centre of the Labyrinth. He's the only one who kew how to navigate the maze perfectly. If Luke managed to find the workshop and convince Daedalus to help him, Luke wouldn't have to fumble around searching for paths, or risk losing his army in the maze's traps. He could navigate anywhere he wanted—quickly and safely. First to Camp Half-Blood to wipe us out. Then ... to Olympus."

       Mrs O'Leary broke the silence with a SQEAK SQUEAK! of her toy.

      Finally, Beckendorf leaned forward. "Back up a sec. Annabeth, you said, 'convince Daedalus'. Isn't Daedalus dead?"

       Quintus grunted. "I would hope so. He lived, what? Three thousand years ago? And, even if he were alive, don't the old stories say he fled from the Labyrinth."

      Chiron shifted his weight back and forth, his hooves clopping against the stone floor. "That's the problem, my dear Quintus. No one knows. There are rumours ... well, there are many disturbing rumours about Daedalus, but one is that he disappeared back into the Labyrinth towards the end of his life. He might still be down there."

      This made Cory frown. "For like, over two thousand years?"

      Hannah glanced at him. "He's half god, Cory."

     He gave an awkward shuffle, "You're not gonna live that long are you?"

     "Cory."

     "We need to go in," Annabeth announced. "We have to find the workshop before Luke does. If Daedalus is alive, we convince him to help us, not Luke. If Ariadne's string still exists, we make sure it never falls into Luke's hands."

      "Wait a second," Percy said. "If we're worried about an attack, why not just blow up the entrance? Seal the tunnel?"

     "Great idea!" Grover said. "I'll get the dynamite!"

      "It's not so easy, stupid," Clarisse growled. "We tried that at the entrance we found in Phoenix. It didn't end so well."

       I turned to Percy, "What would happen if you tried to blow up your extra skin, Percy? The Labyrinth is magical in itself—it would take a huge amount of power to seal one of its entrances. Clarisse like demolished a whole building with a wrecking ball, and the maze entrance only shifted a few metres. All we can do is prevent Luke from learning to navigate it."

      Lee glanced at me. "We could fight," he suggested. "We know where the entrance is. We can set up a defensive line and wait for them. We got new archers who are pretty talented. If an army tries to come through, they'll find us waiting with our bows."

      "We will certainly set up defences," Chiron agreed. "But I fear Clarisse is right. The magical borders have kept this camps safe for hundreds of years. If Luke manages to get a large army of monsters into the centre of camp, bypassing our boundaries ... we may not have the strength to defeat them."

       Nobody seemed happy about the news. Chiron usually tried to be upbeat and optimistic. If he was saying we couldn't hold them off if they came in, then there was no point in trying.

       "We have to get to Daedalus's workshop first," Annabeth insisted. "Find Ariadne's string and prevent Luke from using it."

      "But nobody can navigate in there," Percy said, "what chance do we have?"

      "I've been studying architecture for years," she said. "I know Daedalus's Labyrinth better than anybody."

       "From reading about it."

      "Well, yes."

      "That's not enough."

      "It has to be!"

       "It isn't!"

      "Are you going to help me or not?!"

      Everyone watched them. Usually it was Percy and I that fought, seeing Percy and Annabeth—who usually had quite a good relationship—was something new. The silence was deafening when—EEK! Everyone jumped. Mrs O'Leary ripped off the yak's pink rubber head.

      Chiron cleared his throat. "First things first. We need a quest. Someone must enter the Labyrinth, find the workshop of Daedalus and prevent Luke from using the maze to invade this camp."

       "We all know who should lead this," Clarisse said. "Annabeth."

      There was a huge murmur of agreement. Annabeth has been waiting for a quest since I can remember, however, she looked uncomfortable now. "You've done as much as I have, Clarisse," she said. "You should go, too."

      Clarisse shook her head. "I'm not going back in there."

      Travis Stoll laughed. "Don't tell me you're scared. Clarisse, chicken?"

     Lee and I shared a nervous look. Clarisse got to her feet. I expected her to pulverise him—I kinda hoped she would. But, instead, she said in a shaky voice: "You don't understand anything, punk. I'm never going in there again. Never!"

      She stormed out of the arena, passing a confused Cain on the way. He passed the arena, watching us converse, before going on his way. I think he was heading to the Lava Wall, which had a small tournament happening at the moment.

     Travis looked around sheepishly. "I didn't mean to—"

     Chiron raised his hand. "The poor girl has had a difficult year. Now, do we have agreement that Annabeth should lead the quest?"

      Everyone nodded except for Quintus. He folded his arms and stared at the table. No one else seemed to notice except for Percy. He glanced at me.

      "Very well." Chiron turned too Annabeth. "My dear, it's time to visit the Oracle. Assuming you return to us in one piece, we shall discuss what to do next."
*

      a/n: Cory is my sprit animal. Also, I'm so excited for what's to come hehehe, especially after reading everyone's predictions for the prophecy ahahah ... I'm so satisfied with the reactions cos it took me ages to figure that prophecy out. So it's glad to know it was worth it.

      Also, I suck at writing Cain's character from Claire's point of view. He's so complex and Claire—who already has trouble understanding complex emotions—just doesn't help in knowing him ahah. Which is why I can't wait until heroes of Olympus where I'm gonna include multiple p.o.vs of my oc's.

     And finally, l have a question. What are the predictions??? How do you think Claire will get her powers back??