Camp Hermit-Blood - The Sea of Monsters

Bdubs

I was bored so I drew a picture of Annabeth, Grian, Gem, and Ren in the Lotus Casino, casually watching cartoons with sharp objects next to them

Grover is in the bathroom eating the tissue box. Percy discovered the snack bar. That's why they're not in there.

~~~

The monsters were getting out of hand. And since Bdubs had dumped his trusty diamond sword into a cactus, he had no real way to fight them off.

And in case you were wondering: no. An iron sword did not count.

Bdubs didn't know why there were so many zombies in the first place. It was weird, but maybe it was just a glitch or something. Or maybe Doc had done something crazy like usual. It was day three, well, technically day four since midnight had passed. Yet Bdubs had heard that Doc already had full diamond armor, enchanted and all.

Speaking of crazy, Bdubs had built his starter base in the birch forest.

Yes, Gem was very proud. Now shut up.

AND. It was going to be a diorite monolith. Iskall would be less than thrilled. But Bdubs wanted to try some new things this season.

And he would be already building it, if it weren't for the shtupid mobs.

(That was their cue to leave. It didn't work that well.)

Bdubs added a few more blocks of diorite to his chest of materials. At the rate he was going, this was going to take a very long time. He stopped to kill another zombie.

Maybe it was just the beginning of the season. There always seemed to be more mobs when the Hermits didn't have much to defend themselves with.

Or maybe it was something to do with being a demigod. Chiron had said that once a demigod knew that they were one, the monsters came for them even more.

Yeah, it was probably that.

Bdubs tried again to sleep.

You may not rest now, there are monsters nearby.

"GO AWAY!" Bdubs yelled.

"Why?" A familiar voice asked.

Bdubs jumped. "CLEO!"

Cleo laughed. "I heard you wanted diorite."

"Yesh! I don't want you to go away if you have diorite. I wasn't talking to you in the first place!"

Cleo looked confused. "Okay... I didn't understand a word of that."

"Good!" Bdubs said.

He wasn't really sure what he was saying, but whatever. That was a pretty bad time for Cleo to turn up.

Cleo opened the chest where Bdubs was collecting diorite for his monolith. Bdubs peered inside to see how much she had brought.

"THREE STACKS?" Bdubs shouted.

"I don't know where it came from," Cleo said. "I think it was Iskall, trying to get rid of it when he didn't have a flint and steel or something."

"Oh," Bdubs laughed. "Oh, that makes sense."

Cleo didn't reply.

Bdubs closed the chest and looked at her. "Cleo?"

She was standing rigidly. Her already-green skin had gone greener.

"Cleo?!" Bdubs said, starting to get scared.

Maybe he had put her to sleep... standing up...

No, that wasn't it.

She took her sword out.

"CLEO?"

"Avoiding death," she mumbled, her eyes glazed over.

Bdubs scrambled backward, only to run into a tree.

The other Hermits didn't know about Hades... they didn't. Right?

Wait.

Hades was the lord of the dead... Cleo was pretty much a dead girl reanimated...

"HADES, YOU LITTLE COW PIE, GET OUT OF HER!" Bdubs yelled, then immediately regretted it. That sounded really wrong.

Cleo - no, Hades - attacked. Bdubs switched to his sword and blocked.

There really was no other choice but to kill her. Otherwise, Cleo would kill him, and Bdubs didn't really know what would happen after that.

Bdubs ran, trying to buy time for himself. He ended up tripping over a rock. Classic horror movie.

Bdubs got up and kept running, down the hill towards where he knew several people, including Tango and Gem, had settled. They would probably understand his situation.

"HELLO?" he shouted.

"Bdubs?" A voice asked. Impulse came out of his house. "What's wrong?"

"CLEO'S TRYIN' TA KILL ME!"

Impulse raised his eyebrows. "I don't know if I want to get in between that."

Bdubs dove past him into his house anyway.

Impulse slammed the door behind him. "What's going on? Did you do something?"

"NO!" Bdubs said. "Well, yes, but-"

"Bdubs!" Impulse chided.

The door flew open, and Cleo was there.

"There's no time to explain," Bdubs said. "Run!"

Impulse did without question once he saw how she looked.

Bdubs followed and was about to jump out a window when Impulse grabbed him and pulled him into a room, then blocked the door with some deepslate. They both sneaked to hide their names. They saw Cleo's name go past them, and then again. And then again, but this time, she was moving a little bit faster. "Bdubs? Impulse?"

They didn't respond.

"I don't know what came over me!" Cleo called. "Sorry!"

Bdubs looked at Impulse and shook his head.

Then they heard her footsteps receding, and then they were gone.

Bdubs let out the breath he had been holding. "Okay."

"What's going on?" Impulse asked, glancing around nervously.

"You know how we went to the demigod camp?" Bdubs asked. "Well, there's this guy named Hades who is kind of after us because of the respawn mechanic."

"He's the lord of the dead," Impulse said. "Gem told me."

"Yeah," Bdubs said. "Well, from what I've figured out, Hades has somehow found a way to get to us. That also might be the reason for the mobs - have you noticed how many there are?"

Impulse nodded.

"And Cleo, well, technically she's already dead."

"Her soul already belongs to Hades," Impulse realized. "So he can control her."

Bdubs nodded. "That's what I think."

"Is Hades just after you demigods, or..." Impulse trailed off.

"I'd assume that he's after all of us," Bdubs said. "We might not be safe."

Impulse gulped. "I think X needs to hear about this."

"I think everyone needs to hear about this," Bdubs agreed.

Impulse sighed and pulled out his communicator. "Okay... time to get this chaotic bunch of teenagers together. This is not going to end well."