Embrace the Shadows

Ch 14

-Percy-

Standing by the moving floor panel in his 'pit stop' at the chariot track Percy smirked while checking out the competition for the big chariot race. Where before there was actually some decent competition making it a relatively even race now his 'opponents' weren't a challenge in the least.

Originally Beckendorf had designed and built a solid bronze chariot as well as horse automatons to pulls it. With Beckendorf a part of his 'Chaos Cabin', even with the new status as god of automatons, the Hephaestus Cabin was run by Nyssa who drove the chariot while it was defended by Jake Mason and simply had bronze plating on certain parts along with armored horses.

The Ares Cabin had originally had a blood red war chariot pulled by skeletal horses given to them by Ares and was manned by Clarisse. With Clarisse as one of his Lieutenants the chariot was manned by two of her brothers, Sherman and Mark, and without Ares to help them they only had access to regular flesh and blood horses.

The Apollo Cabin in the original timeline had a sleek golden chariot that was pulled by two beautiful palominos while their fighter, Will, fired blunted arrows at the other racers. This time around the entire cabin had joined him and so they weren't even in the race.

The Hermes Chariot looked the same as it did last time, a worn out old green chariot that looked like it hadn't seen the sun for years only this time it wasn't manned by the Stolls so he wasn't worried.

To his surprise the Demeter cabin had made a chariot this time around which was manned, or womanned in this case, by Katie and Miranda Gardener. The chariot was painted to look like a wheat field on a farm. The two daughters of Demeter each had a sword but he could tell that they weren't accustomed to the weapons.

Annabeth and Paris had teamed up to his surprise at first before he remembered that without Tyson to start their argument they wouldn't have broken up their chariot team so it wasn't that surprising. The two stooges' chariot wasn't half bad he admitted to himself, it was a solid build and had an Owl clutching a trident surrounded by waves painted on it with powerful looking horses harnessed to it, likely a gift from Poseidon.

"What's the matter Percy?" Paris tried to sound superior but came across as constipated "Weren't able to get a chariot?".

When everyone turned to him he smirked and snapped his fingers causing the panel to move to the side as his chariot was raised up. Smirking he thought back to when it was finished.

-Flashback-

"Done!" Damian cheered from the other side of the chariot while whipping the grease of his face while Percy reflected the action.

"All that's left is to get something to pull the damn thing." he said grinning.

"Where the hell did you guys learn to build something like this?" Will asked from the doorway in awe "It's amazing!".

"Hephaestus taught us about mechanics a few years ago," he told the son of Apollo with a shrug "and we took it pretty well. We have to with all the monsters that step on our bikes.".

Damian groaned at that before whining, "I still think that Apollo and Hermes cause most of those 'accidents' Percy, they always seem to know about it when it happens.".

"Oh I know," he said shrugging before giving a shark like grin "that's why I got a little payback.".

"Payback?" Will asked warily as if unsure whether or not he wanted to know.

"I kicked their asses in poker," he laughed "they have a horrible poker face.".

Will face palmed before walking out muttering about immature man-child gods before Damian raised an eyebrow at him, "What you win off them?".