Annabeth

I woke up to a still suspended Castor hanging upside down, his face flushed from the cold.

A smirk lazily lit up my tired face, and I yawned once before stretching and standing to walk over to my poor brother. His teeth chattered as he grinned at me and asked, "Let me down? Please?"

Chuckling, I glanced over my shoulder to see if Thalia was awake. She wasn't. I took out my knife and sliced the rope, causing Castor to fall head first into a pile of leaves.

"Thank you!" he said before rushing over to get some clothes on. I waved it off, cracking my neck and knuckles before looking around.

I was the only one awake, other than Castor, so I decided to go for a walk. Usually if I went for a walk, some of my guards would have to come with me. But the birds were welcoming the sun cheerfully, a misty curtain wrapped the earth in a blanket, and golden rays were peeking from behind tree trunks—a peaceful walk alone sounded like Elysium.

So while Castor wasn't looking, I strapped my knife scabbard to my belt and slipped into the forest. I walked between the trees, every once in a while marking one so I wouldn't get lost. It was a beautiful forest, with towering trees, small creeks, and a ground filled with rich, earthy-smelling soil that held many wild flowers. They dotted the ground like rubies and sapphires, and my eyes delighted in finding every new flower. Soon enough I came upon a clearing that was filled with the pretty flowers. There was a big tree in the middle of the empty area, and colorful petals painted the portrait around it.

Walking up to the mighty trunk, I sat and rested my back against the hard bark. I rested there for a little while. It was a peaceful morning, with no wind and and a cloud free sky.

But as I was sitting, I felt something uncomfortable on my back—something hard sticking into my skin. I turned around.

A yelp shot from my throat as I jumped back in surprise.

On the tree were claw marks. And I'm not talking about just mini claw marks that are on a lot of trees—these were huge. Not even a large dog could make those.

There were many, and it looked like the tree was slashed by this . . . whatever it was. But I also noticed hints of darkness among the indents made by the claws. I hesitantly put a finger to the dark spots. Crimson liquid came back on the fingertip.

I looked up and realized the scratches reached about eleven feet up the trunk. This thing was huge. How did I not notice these when I came to sit against the trees?

Suddenly I whipped my head over my shoulder, my hand darting for the hilt of my weapon. Something was here. I just felt it. I looked around, but saw nothing. The air appeared to take on a eerie silence. Even the birds had stopped chirping. I could feel something evil. My hand absentmindedly fingered my knife. Right about now, I really missed my guards' swords or Thalia's bow at the moment. But I was on my own.

Wait . . . what was that sound? I heard something. It was coming from the north side of the clearing. It sounded like a low and menacing growl.

The answer to all my questions were sitting right in my head, but I didn't want to acknowledge it.

I kept my eyes peeled on the north side, but then I heard another growl from the opposite end—at the same time that I heard the growl from the north again.

Great, there's more than one. I pivoted, trying to focus on one spot, straining to see the thing that was making all these threatening growls.

Then I saw them. Hellhounds. Hellhounds were basically larger than normal dogs that came from hell—hence the name "hellhounds." The ebony fur on their back glistened in the sun, and their eyes glowed with a bloody light. Their fangs appeared as they snarled in turn—as sharp as Thalia's arrows.

There were nine of them—no wait, eleven. Two more just came down from trees.

I spun around, swinging my dagger whenever one got too close, making them back off.

I had no chance. There was just one me, and eleven huge, bloodthirsty dogs. One jumped at me and I sidestepped, waved my dagger, and sliced the hellhound open. Dust flew everywhere as the monster disintegrated. After seeing me kill one so easily, the others were less eager to attack, but their fear would soon leave and they would charge again.

Another one came at me and I dodged again, but as I went for the kill, a different hellhound had come up behind me and slashed at me, making three identical marks that went from my shoulder blade down to my elbow on the back of my right arm. I yelled in pain and dropped my dagger, grabbing my wound with my uninjured arm. Blood instantly started seeping around my fingers. But I had no time to whimper in pain—the hellhounds were seizing their chance to attack. I stooped and swept up my dagger, feeling it slip around in my bloody hand. I managed to slash at the first, and then the second, hurting them both.

But then they all came at me. Well, this is great way to die. Sarcasm intended in my thoughts.

I was just about to make my last stand when all of a sudden, a black streak came from the sky and landed on top of one of the murderous dogs.

I looked closer and realized that the black streak was a muscular male pegasus, as dark as twilight. On its back was a boy about my age with equally dark hair, wielding a large bronze blade.

The boy wasted no time in sliding off smoothly and getting to work, chopping hellhounds from side to side. He was amazing—fast in agile, not letting any slashes reach him. After he had slaughtered three, more horses broke from the trees, carrying more warriors with swords. I noticed another young man about my age, with sandy blond hair and electric blue eyes. He yelled and swung down from his horse, killing a hellhound with a bronze spear as he jumped to the ground.

Another boy with dark hair raised his hand and yelled, "SERVE ME!" I almost laughed, because he looked ridiculous yelling to air to serve him.

But then a skeletal hand broke free from the ground, about a foot away from me. I shouted in surprise and stumbled back. But in falling away, my injured arm hit the trunk of the tree, and I shouted again, but this time in pain.

Another bony hand broke free from the surface, and in the end, three skeletons stood around me. But they didn't attack me—it was almost as if they were protecting me from the hellhounds. Panting, I made sure they weren't going to attack me, then took a look at my arm. It was almost too bloody to see anything, but I could make out three black lines that were oozing all the blood. I turned my gaze back to the fight and realized it was over.

The boy on the black pegasus shouted some orders to the rest of the men. There were about sixteen guys altogether, but it looked like the boy on the pegasus was the leader.

He turned to me and my jaw dropped. It was Poseidon.

But then I realized that it couldn't be, for a couple of reasons. One, Poseidon was much older than this boy; two, this boy had a different style; three, he didn't have a trident; and four, he was more handsome than Poseidon.

Wait, WHAT? Annabeth! I screamed at my self. Scratch number four.

But other than those four—I mean, three, things, he looked like Poseidon. He was about three inches taller than me. Ruffled jet-black hair hung in crazy, untamable mess on his head. A lean, muscular upper torso twisted as he turned to shout something else towards the rest of the demigods.

His eyes . . . oh wow. His eyes were gorgeo—umm . . . I mean his eyes were cool. Yeah. Just cool. They were sea green, but they seemed to change color from blue, to teal, to green, then back to blue. They were hypnotizing, making me just want to sit there and drown into his eyes. Wow, that sounded extremely mushy. Snap out of it, Annabeth. I told myself.

"Are you alright?" he asked with a deep voice.

I couldn't look like a wimp, so I stood up and said confidently, "I'm fine, thank you." I attempted to take a step, but apparently I had lost more blood than I realized. Everything went dizzy. I stumbled and fell, but the boy caught me.

"Yeah, sure. You're doing just fine," he said sarcastically.

I glared at him. "I'm just a tad bit dizzy."

He grinned lopsidedly—it was definitely a troublemaker's smile, with one dimple under his eye that lit up like its pair when he grinned.

"Come on, lets get you fixed up. My name's Percy, by the way. Percy Jackson." I took his hand and replied.

"Annabeth Chase."

"Well, Annabeth, let me introduce you to my two main lieutenants. The blondie is Jason Grace, and the blackie is Nico di Angelo." The two lieutenants looked at Percy with contempt.

"Really Perce? Blondie?" Jason said. Jason was tall, probably as tall as Percy. His electric blue eyes seemed to sparkle with energy, but he also looked like a nice guy. Nico, on the other hand, was probably an inch shorter than the both of them. He had dark brown hair that almost look black reaching his shoulders. At the moment, it was pulled back in a messy pony tail, but he managed to pull it off. He was wearing all black, and he had a skull ring. His ebony eyes had a small light of humor in them, but also a tint that told you not to mess with him. This guy would get along well with Thalia, I thought. I remembered that this was the guy who summoned those skeletons. I think we could all guess who his father was.

Percy smirked at them. "And this is Leo Valdez, and the bear over there is Frank Zhang. Frank is our number one scout, and Leo is our mechanic guy who can fix anything. And—yeah, never mind. I'm not going to introduce everybody. You can meet them all for yourselves. But everybody, this is Annabeth Chase." They all smiled, nodded, or waved at me. He was right, Frank did resemble a bear. He was huge and buff, probably two inches taller than Percy. He had really short black hair, and brown eyes. Leo was quite the opposite, small and wiry. Probably as tall as me, if not smaller. His brown curly hair was on the longer side, and fell across his eyes and his pointy ears. He had a smile that was similar to Percy's in the trouble maker category, but it was more crazy, like he had had too much sugar. Definitely not as nice as Percy's smile. Annabeth . . . stop those thoughts. I told myself.

I gave a small smile and waved at them with my left hand, seeing as my right one was covered in blood.

Percy seemed to remember that I was hurt and called, "Will, grab me some bandages, will you?" A young man, who I was assuming was Will, grabbed some linen wraps and a water flask, tossing them to Percy.

Percy caught them, then said to everybody, "Alright, I'll take care of Annabeth. You guys clean up any mess. Frank, take Chris and go see if you can find a river to clean us off. Jason, can you tie up all the horses? We will probably camp here for the night. Nico, you and the others set up camp."

He then turned to me, took a linen cloth, wetted it, and started to clean my arm off.

"I can clean it," I said.

He shrugged. "Nah, I can do it. After all, the knight in shining armor is supposed to help the damsel in distress," he replied with a smirk.

I scowled. "I am not a damsel in distress. I can defend myself quite well." This sounds really familiar to my conversation with my brothers yesterday, I thought.

"Whatever you say, m'lady," he said disbelievingly with a mocking bow. I was slowly becoming to dislike this boy. I could easily take care of myself. I was not some useless maiden.

I sighed angrily, then shot my hand out with snake-like speed and snatched the wet cloth from his hand. I then proceeded to clean my own arm off.

He stared at his empty hand in surprise, then looked at me with raised eyebrows, proclaiming, "Well, you are pretty fast, aren't you?"

I said nothing, but just continued to scrub off the blood on my arm. When I was done, I grimaced at the sight of three long slits, still bearing blood, but not pouring it. Percy, meanwhile, had sat watching me. He then smirked once more and held up the linen bandages, which I needed now before my arm got dirty again. I glared at him, then tried to grab them. But he was expecting this and pulled them away before I could snatch them.

"Ah ah ah! I have them, and I will bandage your arm. You can't really do it well with one arm could you?" I huffed and realized he was right. He smiled and came closer, wrapping up my arm. His hands were gentle, and I felt almost no pain while he wrapped my arm. Soon my arm was bandaged fully, and I looked at the annoying boy.

"Thank you," I mumbled quietly, knowing that I should thank him, but not really wanting to praise him.

"What was that?" he said. I know he heard it, he was just trying to annoy me. He came closer and sarcastically put his ear near my mouth.

I rolled my eyes, and shouted, "THANK YOU!" Right into his ear. As loud as I could.

And I could shout pretty loudly when I wanted to. And I wanted to now.

Percy jumped back in surprise and glared at me.

"Gods, I asked what you said, I didn't ask you to blow out my eardrum." He started to bang the side of his head, probably to clear the ringing in his ears. It looked pretty stupid.

"You didn't say to whisper it either," I said in a snarky tone. I couldn't help it, this boy was aggravating.

He frowned and stuck his tongue out at me, and I returned the gesture. Gods, we are acting like a bunch of kids.

"Wow, you guys look like five-year-olds," Jason told us, as he finished his task of tying up the horses and walked over to us. He basically just voiced my thoughts.

"Percy started it," I said, realizing later that that was just more kiddish.

"Um, nope. You actually did by blowing out my ear drum." Percy replied.

"Yeah, right."

"Yeah, too."

I sighed in irritation. "You're so aggravating."

"You're ungrateful," He retorted.

"You're impossible."

"You're exasperating."

"Congratulations! You used a difficult word, was it hard to think of such a big word in your tiny brain?" I asked with sarcastic incredulousness.

"My brain is so enormous you couldn't even imagine it!" Percy sputtered with rage.

"That's why you have such a big head."

"At least I have a head."

"Just shut up."

"You shut up first."

"You—"

"SHUT UP!" The roaring voice that came from Franks lungs was deafening and unexpected, causing me to flinched largely.

"Ah, young love," Leo said idiotically.

I glowered at him, and Percy and I both said at the same time, "Shut it."

Then we glared at each other and said simultaneously, "Be quiet."

Percy and I scowled at each other again, and again we said at the same exact time, "Stop copying me!"

Then we both threw our hands in the air, infuriated, at the same time, in the same gesture.

"ARGH!" We shouted at the same exact time.

We both took a deep breath and glowered at each other. At what time? Yeah, the same exact time. This is so annoying. Why are we doing everything simultaneously? We do not think alike. I'm way too sophisticated for him.

Jason, Nico, Frank, Leo, and the rest of the people in the group were chuckling at our little "show."

I heard Jason say, "Wow, she can rival Percy in being annoying."

Nico chuckled and proclaimed in a whisper, "They are perfect for each other." But I caught his words and glared daggers at him. My glare can get pretty fierce when I'm mad or annoyed. Nico stopped chuckling instantly and looked sheepishly down at his feet. But the corners of his mouth still twitched in amusement.

I looked back at Percy, who then said, "So, who are you? Some commoner from Larissa who decided to take a death walk through the forest?"

I gave him a dirty look, and was about to answer when an arrow came out of the forest and caught the scruff of Percy's sleeve, pinning him to the tree trunk he had been leaning on. Percy shouted in surprise, and I noticed that it was a silver arrow. I smirked.

Thalia.