The Nature of a Demigod

Fighting with a Shadow

I felt well rested, surprisingly, but the hippocampus I was riding on with Annabeth clearly wasn't feeling very good. She was right about that. They were whining and swimming in circles, sniffing the water.

I looked around at the others. Percy was looking intently at one of them as a hippocampus sneezed harshly. "This is as far as they'll take us," he said. "Too many humans. Too much pollution. We'll have to swim to shore on our own."

"Oh great." I muttered.

We weren't very thrilled about having to swim to shore, but we thanked Rainbow and the others for their help. Tyson barely managed, blabbering like a baby. He took his custom made saddlebag, which held his tools and some stuff he got from the wreckage of the Birmingham, off of Rainbow.

Tyson hugged the hippocampus around the neck and gave it a wet fruit from the island. I don't know why I didn't take something to eat from the island, because my stomach was rumbling. It knew I hadn't eaten real food in a few days. Not since the Hydra incident I think. That powdered donut crashing to the ground will haunt my nightmares forever.

Once the horses of the sea descended back into the ocean, we shrugged it off and started swimming for shore. I put the still healing Annabeth on my back and just took as many deep breaths as I could, while churning along with my own weight, the surprisingly heavy fleece, and Annabeth.

Eventually though, we reached a dock for cruise liners, shoving through a bunch of tourists ready to go on summer vacation. People were pulling their luggage along with them, while taxi drivers yelled at each other and into their phones with varied foreign accents. They tried cutting each other off, and that just led to more yelling.

If anyone noticed the six kids soaking wet and smelling like salted, decayed meat, they didn't mention it. Now that we were back among the normal people, Tyson looked like he had two eyes again, Grover just looked like a kid who walked weirdly, and Annabeth was wearing an oversized lettermans jacket with a large greek symbol on the jacket pocket.

She ran towards the nearest newspaper dispensers, probably checking the dates and she swore loudly. "June eighteenth! We've been away from camp for ten days!"

"That's impossible!" Clarisse said.

"It's definitely not, Clarisse. Trust me." I muttered. We had gone through the same thing last summer with the Lotus hotel. Honestly, I could use a few weeks there. Arcade, snack bar, deceptively comfortable beds. That card I took from there was very useful though. It's how I paid for school and anything else that you wouldn't be able to pay for with drachmas.

"Thalia's tree must be almost dead," Grover wailed. "We have to get the Fleece back tonight."

Clarisse slumped down on the pavement. "How are we supposed to do that?" Her voice trembled. "We're hundreds of miles away. No money. No ride. This is just like the Oracle said. It's your fault, Jackson! If you hadn't interfered-"

"His fault?!" Annabeth exploded. "Clarisse, how can you say that? You are the biggest-"

"Stop arguing!" I shouted. "This is getting us nowhere." They stopped. Annabeth stamped her foot on the ground. Clarisse sat dejectedly, with her head in her hands.

In the chaos that was this last couple of weeks, I'd forgotten Clarisse was supposed to be leading this quest. And then I remembered what Ares said. What he threatened to do to her if she failed. If Percy or I stole this from her.

Ares could give less of a damn about the camp, and I couldn't care less what Ares thought about any given person, but it made me feel bad for Clarisse, reading things from her perspective. The four of us, Annabeth, Percy, Tyson, and I just stormed in, and hijacked her quest.