If any boyfriend of mine brought me to where Ares brought his girlfriend, I would not be impressed. It was a completely rundown water park that clearly had seen better days. The gate was locked and the fence outlining it was topped by barbed wire. Inside I could see litter scattered around everywhere and graffiti painted on numerous walls. The sign in front probably once said WATERLAND, but now only said WAT R A D. The setting sun only made the place look creepier, casting long shadows.
"If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date, I'd hate to see what she looks like." Percy commented.
I would have agreed, if I hadn't been looking at him fearfully expecting him to turn into toad. Unless I had read the stories wrong, Ares's girlfriend was not someone you wanted to cross. After all, she was responsible for one of the bloodiest wars in history.
"Percy, be more respectful." Annabeth warned.
"Why? I thought you hated Ares."
"Well, he's still an almighty god. And his girlfriend can be really temperamental." I agreed.
"You don't want to insult her looks." Grover added.
"Who is she? Echidna?"
I took the fact that Percy was still the same fish-brained idiot and hadn't been turned into some repulsive life form an indicator that either the goddess wasn't listening, or she had better things to do than to curse a twelve year old boy, no matter how dumb he was.
"No. Aphrodite, goddess of love." Grover answered with a dreamy sigh.
Percy frowned, confused.
"I thought she was married to somebody. Hephaestus." he pointed out.
"What's your point?" Grover replied.
"Back on track, people. How are we going to get in?" I asked.
Grover had a pretty good solution.
"Maia" he yelled.
The wings sprouted from his shoes and he took off. He flew over the gate, adding a somersault for extra flair, and brushing himself off at the end like it was nothing.
"You guys coming?" he asked.
Of course, the rest of us who didn't have flying shoes had to do things the old fashioned way: climbing over. We held down the barbed wire for each other as we crossed the top and easily got inside the water park.
It progressively darker as we walked, the only sound the eerie blowing of the wind. As we looked for the Tunnel of Love, we found a lot of other rides. There was "Ankle Biter Island", "Head Over Wedgie", "Dude, Where's My Swimsuit". None of them had water obviously.
At one point we found a souvenir shop. Surprisingly, it wasn't in too bad shape.
"Clothes. Fresh clothes." Annabeth said, her eyes fixed on the clothes racks.
"Yeah, but you can't just..."
"Watch me." Annabeth interrupted, grabbing several pieces of clothing and disappearing into the changing rooms.
When she came back, she looked absolutely ridiculous. Her Waterland shirt combined with the flower-print shorts made her look terrible. The final touch was the Waterland backpack she brought along as well.
We sniggered amongst ourselves, probably the only time we would manage to do that without suffering physical harm. But then we began to notice how clean she was. My clothes were ripped, lightly scorched from the Chimera and they did not give off a flattering odor at all. In comparison, Annabeth might look ridiculous in the Waterland merchandise, but she was wearing clean clothes. Grover, Percy and I shared a look, collectively calculating whether or not fresh clothes were worth looking as ridiculous as Annabeth.
"What the heck." Grover said, voicing our collective conclusion.
I went for a similar style to Annabeth's with the red shirt. But I picked a pair of lime green shorts instead. You wouldn't catch me dead in those flower-print monstrosities. I also kept my backpack. I wouldn't do my arrows the injustice of stuffing them in the tacky Waterland backpack.
We continued our search looking like walking advertisements for the abandoned water park. But hey, half-bloods can't be choosers.
As we walked, Percy inquired about the Ares-Aphrodite affair. So Annabeth began explaining the stories. Honestly, it was one of my least favorite stories in all of mythology. I really didn't need to waste my time with gossip about the cheating wife of Hephaestus. In fact, the only reason I had bothered to look the story up at all, was so I could find out more about Hephaestus's net. And I didn't even find anything about that! Three hours wasted, let me tell you.
Annabeth was currently in the process of explaining the reason for Ares's choice of venue, when we finally found our goal.
"Like that." Annabeth finished.
In front of us was a large, completely empty circular pool. There were several pipes through where the water used to flow into the pool. At one end was the entrance to the tunnel. All around the pool were several bronze Cupid statues, bows at the ready. I was slightly unsettled by how sharp their arrows looked. There was a sign advertising it as the "Thrill Ride O'Love". I didn't bother to torture my poor dyslexic eyes by trying to read the rest.
"Guys, look." Grover said, motioning towards the pool.
In the center of the empty pool was a canopied boat. And on one of the seats was a large bronze shield.
Something felt off about it. There was no way it was this simple, right?
"This is way too easy." I said warily.
"Do we just go down there and get it?" Percy questioned.
"There's a Greek letter here." Annabeth noted as she examined one of the statues.
"Eta. I wonder..."
"Grover, you smell any monsters?" Percy asked.
Grover sniffed around a bit.
"Nothing." he said.
"Nothing like, in-the-Arch-and-you-didn't-smell-Echidna, or really nothing?"
I glared at Percy. Grover already felt bad about that, and with the track record he had there was no need whatsoever to throw salt in the wound.
"I told you, that was underground." Grover protested.
"Okay, I'm sorry ." Percy apologized, noticing Grover's distress.
"Penny, you see anything?"
I did a quick sweep of the area with my eyes. Apart from the really sharp arrows the statues were armed with, nothing jumped out at me. But something still felt off.
"I can't spot anything. But be careful. Something's not right." I warned.
He nodded. He then rolled his shoulders as if preparing to do something uncomfortable.
"I'm going down there." he announced.
"I'll go with you." Grover volunteered.
I got the feeling he was trying to make up for the St Louis fiasco.
"No, you stay up top with the flying shoes. You're the Red Baron, remember? I'll be counting on you for backup, in case something goes wrong." Percy told him.
Grover seemed to swell with pride.
"Sure. But what could go wrong?"
"I don't know. Just a feeling." Percy admitted.
"Annabeth, come with me..."
"Are you kidding?" she exclaimed, cutting him off.
I looked over at her to see she had halted in place with an expression of horror painted on her face, her cheeks colored a bright red.
"What's the problem now?" Percy asked in confusion.
"Me, go with you to the... "Thrill Ride of Love"? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?"
I had to resist the urge to laugh as Percy realized what Annabeth meant and began blushing as bad as her.
"Who's going to see you?" he inquired.
Annabeth stayed silent, clearly not having a suitable response.
"Fine, I'll just do it myself." Percy decided.
Now that was not something we could allow. If he went down there alone he would definitely find some way to mess it up.
"I can go with you." I offered.
As soon as I said that, I was pulled back quite roughly by Annabeth, who marched forward into the pool with a scowl on her face and muttering something about boys. Percy followed right after.
I glanced over at Grover with a confused frown.
"What was that about?"
He shrugged.
"No clue. Girls are weird."
My confused frown turned into a slightly annoyed one. Luckily for him, Grover noticed.
"I mean... most girls. Most girls are weird, yeah. Not you, definitely not you." he quickly amended.
"I'll let you off the hook this time." I told him.
I turned back to the pool, looking for anything out of the ordinary. It was hard to find anything in the pool itself, as the inside was lined with various mirrors. Instead, my eyes were once again drawn to the Cupid statues. I found the Greek letter Annabeth had mentioned on the base of all of them. It was odd to say the least.
That's when it clicked. Eta was H, the initial of Hephaestus. A god whose favorite hobby just so happened to be catching his wife and her lover and humiliating them.
"Percy, Annabeth, don't touch the shield!"
"Too late." Percy replied, holding up a golden tripwire.