The Winged Warrior

Chapter 6

Percy's POV

Over the next few days, I toughened myself up. What was done was done, and that was that. No more tears.

Annabeth was avoiding us of course, but occasionally I would catch her staring at me. I knew she was seeing me as though she could see under my hood. It made me slightly uneasy.

Nico and Luke did and excellent job keeping Annabeth away from me, and I heard that Lexi sprayed Annabeth's pillow with Nacho Cheese so that her hair was all orange and sticky in the morning.

It was a prank worthy of Leo Valdez .

Me and Lexi also began divising a training program for the campers, as they needed serious improvement. The training started with five laps around the camp, five-hundred pressups, dummy training and then duels for five hours, as well as extra bits thrown in. No breaks.

For us, this was a piece of cake, but for the campers, it was quite the opposite. Most of them only managed two laps around the camp before collapsing in a heap, a few of them just making three before passing out cold. We didn't stop, however, and the rigourous training continued as we shouted tips and improvements from the sidelines.

Luke and Nico enjoyed it immensely, as even though they still had to do it, it was nothing to the usual torture Lexi put them through on Chaos' planet.

To be honest, I would do it if I wasn't the fated son of the sea. Whenever I gained more stamina or a new skill, I couldn't lose it, so I could just chill from the sidelines. I only had to get it right once before I knew I could do it forever.

The primordials, especially Themis and Aether, were a little jealous. It was very funny to watch them glower at me as they hobbled, wrinkled and decrepid, to Chaos' table for a boost of power that would return them to their usual selves.

Surprisingly, the one camper who stood out the most during training was a daughter of Aphrodite. Her name was Chloe according to Luke (Who'd had a few friendly chats with her).

She would usually finish training early, and I couldn't help noticing Luke a couple of times, staring at her legs as she swigged from a bottle of water.

We also trained the smaller campers. They ranged from six to eleven years old, and we taught them how to use a sword and bow properly.

I trained a seven year old boy called Saven. He was a son of Apollo, with blue eyes and golden hair, and he was the sweetest thing imaginable. After training he used to run up to me and sit on my knee, stroking my wings. Though a few small children were alarmed at my cloak and hood, he wasn't fazed at all. He also was always asking stupid questions like "Why do you have a sword when you have powers?" but it didn't annoy me.

***

I was lying in my bunk three days after the start of training, staring at the ceiling in my bedroom in the chaos cabin, trying to fall asleep after a busy day. It had gotten harder and harder for me to fall asleep these days, especially with thoughts of Annabet and new training ideas with Lexi.

Tha was when I heard the conch horn blasting around the camp, urgently, not stopping.

We were under attack.

I slipped on my armour bracelet and ran outside, uncapping riptide, not caring if anyone saw it. Soulcleaver wasn't the sword for the moment, I needed experience.

But before I could do anything, I spotted what was coming.

I stopped in shock.

A huge shadow seemed to be moving across the base of the hill towards us. I squinted and realized it wasn't a shadow at all, but a huge mass of hellhounds moving across the ground, at least two hundred of them. There were no other monsters in sight.