Chapter 1: Anakin's discovery
Chapter Text
Anakin knew as soon as he finished his test in front of the Council that the result wouldn’t be what Master Qui-Gon was hoping for. Anakin began to wonder what the point of him leaving Tatooine was if he couldn’t become a Jedi as he had hoped.
Shivering, the nine-year-old boy did his best to remember how to walk back to Master Qui-Gon’s quarters. Anakin found himself longing for the Jedi Master’s calm and soothing voice. Anakin had just drawn level with the door that led to Qui-Gon’s quarters and he was about to press his hand to the pad to unlock the door when raised voices floated through the air.
“He is dangerous Master!”
“What you are sensing is your own fear Obi-Wan.”
Anakin’s breath hitched and he took a step backwards. Unbeknownst to him, his eyes became glassy as tears pooled in them.
“I don’t want to be the cause of another fight!” Anakin despaired in his mind. He ran back the way he had come, dodging children that were about the same age, if not a bit older than him. As Anakin ran, he ignored the curious, worried, and concerned looks he received. Anakin weaved his way through the halls; he had no idea where he was going. The only thought in his mind was that he needed to get away before he made someone else upset.
Eventually, Anakin found an empty room with dim artificial lighting and a large window on the left side of the room. The boy sped into the closest corner of the room and pulled his knees up to his chest. He hugged them tightly as the tears streamed down his face. His thoughts were a mess; jumping from “I miss mom,” to “I’m going to go back to Tatooine and I’ll be a slave again,”, “I’m all alone here! I want a friend!”, “I wish someone could understand” and “I let Master Qui-Gon down.”
Anakin stayed in that position for a long time. He only realized that it was getting dark when the shadows around him began to grow in length. Anakin sniffed miserably and climbed to his feet. As he did so, he braced himself and walked over to the door that he had run through earlier.
Anakin was in the middle of the doorway when a book fell in front of him and landed at his feet. Temporarily forgetting about his troubles, the boy bent down and picked it up. The title was written in Basic and the cover had a green background with a boy with dark brown hair and a glowing sword sitting in a boat on more water than Anakin had ever seen.
He tipped his head to the side, “Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters. I wonder what it’s about.”
Cautiously, Anakin turned the book over and read the text on the back aloud to himself. “You can't tell by looking at me that my dad is Poseidon, God of the Sea. It's not easy being a half-blood these days. Even a simple game of dodgeball becomes a death match against an ugly gang of cannibal giants - and that was only the beginning. Now Camp Half-Blood is under attack, and unless I can get my hands on the Golden Fleece, the whole camp will be invaded by monsters. Big ones...”
“Wizard,” Anakin whispered in awe after he had finished reading the text. Then he frowned as he felt a vibration in the air. Another note sounded and Anakin felt hope swell inside of him. Then Anakin felt himself flying through the air and he squeezed his eyes shut tightly.
Anakin stopped moving as abruptly as he had started and he cracked open an eye only to see that he was back in the Council chambers. Reflexively, Anakin took a step backward, clutching the book tightly and looking around the room for an exit.
“Calm yourself you must, young Skywalker.”
Anakin tried to follow Master Yoda’s command. He really did. It’s not like he was trying to be disobedient. He just couldn’t do what the Jedi Master ordered him to do.
Through the haze of his feelings, his racing mind, and his thundering heartbeat, Anakin saw Master Qui-Gon kneeling down in front of him. The Jedi Master didn’t need to say anything because his calming presence washed over Anakin in waves and slowly but surely, Anakin began to calm down.
Anakin gazed into the Master’s eyes and the older man sent him a small, gentle smile. Without any prompting, Anakin handed the book over to Master Qui-Gon. It didn’t take long for the Jedi to read the title and blurb and once he had finished, he passed it to Master Yoda. Anakin felt a stab of possessiveness at the way his book had been taken from him.
“It’s okay.” He reassured himself, “Master Qui-Gon wouldn’t have given it away without a very good reason. I’ll get it back.”
“Confusing this is.” Master Yoda remarked, “Appeared in front of you, this book did?”
“Yes,” Anakin confirmed.
“It appears that we have only one choice.” A Jedi Master with a stretched head stated. Anakin racked his brain trying to remember his name but couldn’t. “The Force sent us this book to read. And read it we must.”
“I concur,” another male Master agreed. He moved so he was looking at Anakin, “Welcome to the Jedi Temple and welcome to Coruscant Anakin. We haven’t met yet as I just returned from a mission. I am Jedi Master Plo Koon.”
Anakin smiled, he liked this Master. Plo Koon reminded him of Master Qui-Gon. They both projected tranquility, kindness, and compassion.
“Would you like to sit next to me as we read Anakin?” Master Plo asked.
Anakin looked to Master Qui-Gon for permission and the Jedi nodded once, as if to say, “It’s okay with me.”
Anakin focused on Master Plo again and nodded, “Thank you, Master.”
Master Plo removed one of the cushions from his throne and sat it next to his feet. He then motioned for Anakin to sit down. Anakin did so, grateful for the Master’s kindness.
“How should we decide who reads first?” Master Windu inquired as Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan found seats on the floor.
“They should have at least given Master Qui-Gon a seat,” Anakin fumed in his mind. “He’s a Jedi Master like them.”
“I could start,” Master Plo offered. “Then Master Windu could read the next chapter and Grand Master Yoda could read the following one.”
“Propose that we go anti-clockwise, you do. Agree, I do.”
The book made its way into Master Plo’s grip and the Jedi opened it. “My best friend shops for a wedding dress.”
Chapter 2: My best friend shops for a wedding dress
Summary:
Master Plo reads the first chapter and Anakin feels connected to Percy.
Notes:
“Pulled in different directions on Earth the Force is.” Master Yoda thought. “Perhaps talk with my former padawan I can. Know more about Earth he does.”
Chapter Text
“Propose that we go anti-clockwise, you do. Agree, I do.”
The book made its way into Master Plo’s grip and the Jedi opened it. “My best friend shops for a wedding dress.”
Master Plo wrinkled his brow, “Not the strangest title I’ve heard but it is definitely a unique one.” There was a slight pause before he continued reading.
My nightmare started like this. I was standing on a deserted street in some little beach town. It was the middle of the night. A storm was blowing. Wind and rain ripped at the palm trees along the sidewalk. Pink and yellow stucco buildings lined the street, their windows boarded up. A block away, past a line of hibiscus bushes, the ocean churned.
Master Adi Gallia sighed quietly with a hint of longing. The description reminded her of her home planet. She had very few memories of her time on Tholoth as she had been brought to Coruscant when she was very young but in her dreams, she saw the powerful swaying trees and tasted the sweet waters.
Florida, I thought. Though I wasn't sure how I knew that. I'd never been to Florida.
Then I heard hooves clattering against the pavement. I turned and saw my friend Grover running for his life.
Anakin furrowed his brow, “What could Grover be running from?”
The Jedi on the Council were silent. Few Jedi had visited Earth as the older reports of the terrestrial planet had stated that it was in a constant state of chaos and it was harder (not impossible) to access the Force on the planet. Because of their unfamiliarity with the planet, none of the Jedi present were able to answer Anakin’s question.
“Pulled in different directions on Earth the Force is.” Master Yoda thought. “Perhaps talk with my former padawan I can. Know more about Earth he does.”
Grover is a satyr. From the waist up, he looks like a typical gangly teenager with a peach-fuzz goatee and a bad case of acne. He walks with a strange limp, but unless you happen to catch him without his pants on (which I don't recommend), you'd never know there was anything un-human about him. Baggy jeans and fake feet hide the fact that he's got furry hindquarters and hooves.
“The satyrs on Earth sound just like the half-Bothans from Farfalla that I learned about as a youngling.” Obi-Wan thought. Aside from their physical description and a few stray facts, Obi-Wan didn’t remember much about the planet or its inhabitants.
Grover had been my best friend in sixth grade. He'd gone on this adventure with me and a girl named Annabeth to save the world, but I hadn't seen him since last July, when he set off alone on a dangerous quest—a quest no satyr had ever returned from.
“Sending a satyr the same age as our protagonist on a dangerous quest by himself with no aid sounds rather irresponsible to me.” Plo Koon stated, interrupting himself. He had raised two padawans to Knighthood and with every fiber of his being, he absolutely refused to even consider the notion of sending his padawans into unfamiliar situations while withholding support and knowledge.
Anyway, in my dream, Grover was hauling goat tail, holding his human shoes in his hands the way he does when he needs to move fast. He clopped past the little tourist shops and surfboard rental places. The wind bent the palm trees almost to the ground. Grover was terrified of something behind him. He must've just come from the beach. Wet sand was caked in his fur. He'd escaped from somewhere. He was trying to get away from ...something. A bone-rattling growl cut through the storm. Behind Grover, at the far end of the block, a shadowy figure loomed. It swatted aside a street lamp, which burst in a shower of sparks. Grover stumbled, whimpering in fear. He muttered to himself, Have to get away. Have to warn them!
It was almost impossible but Anakin felt Grover’s fear as if it were his own. He shifted on the cushion that he was sitting on and tried to reassure himself that everything would be okay.
I couldn't see what was chasing him, but I could hear it muttering and cursing. The ground shook as it got closer. Grover dashed around a street corner and faltered. He'd run into a dead-end courtyard full of shops. No time to back up. The nearest door had been blown open by the storm. The sign above the darkened display window read: ST. AUGUSTINE BRIDAL BOUTIQUE.
A warm pulse reached Anakin and he relaxed slightly. He looked up at Master Plo Koon and while the Jedi hadn’t stopped reading, Anakin knew that he had been the one to send the Force to calm Anakin.
Grover dashed inside. He dove behind a rack of wedding dresses.
The monster's shadow passed in front of the shop. I could smell the thing—a sickening combination of wet sheep wool and rotten meat and that weird sour body odor only monsters have, like a skunk that's been living off Mexican food.
Obi-Wan winced in disgust at the description of the smell (despite not knowing what Mexican food was) and from the corner of his eye he could see that his Master was a tad paler than normal. That was the problem with having enhanced senses as a Jedi and it didn’t help that Obi-Wan had had his fair share of missions where smells weren’t always pleasant. A flicker of annoyance crept up through Obi-Wan and he wondered why his brain found it so easy to remind him of fouler smells when there were so many more pleasant ones throughout the galaxies.
Grover trembled behind the wedding dresses. The monster's shadow passed on.
Silence except for the rain. Grover took a deep breath. Maybe the thing was gone.
Then lightning flashed. The entire front of the store exploded, and a monstrous voice bellowed: "MIIIIINE!"
I sat bolt upright, shivering in my bed.
There was no storm. No monster.
Obi-Wan had a bad feeling that that would change within the next few chapters. He glanced over at Master Windu who, instead of the usual serene expression that Obi-Wan often saw him wearing, had a distant look in his eye and was sporting a pensive expression.
“He’s using his Shatterpoint ability,” Obi-Wan realized. “I didn’t know that it could even work on a fictional character.” Then a thought occurred to Obi-Wan that made his heart drop into his stomach.
Morning sunlight filtered through my bedroom window.
I thought I saw a shadow flicker across the glass—a humanlike shape. But then there was a knock on my bedroom door—my mom called: "Percy, you're going to be late"—and the shadow at the window disappeared.
It must've been my imagination. A fifth-story window with a rickety old fire escape ... there couldn't have been anyone out there.
Master Ki-Adi-Mundi also wore a pensive expression, “It must be hard for demigods like Percy to exist in two different worlds. On top of that, they would constantly be concerned about the possibility of their mortal parents being drawn into their other world and being placed in danger.”
"Come on, dear," my mother called again. "Last day of school. You should be excited! You've almost made it.'"
"Coming," I managed.
I felt under my pillow. My fingers closed reassuringly around the ballpoint pen I always slept with. I brought it out, studied the Ancient Greek writing engraved on the side: Anaklusmos. Riptide. I thought about uncapping it, but something held me back. I hadn't used Riptide for so long...
Besides, my mom had made me promise not to use deadly weapons in the apartment after I’d swung a javelin the wrong way and taken out her china cabinet. I put Anaklusmos on my nightstand and dragged myself out of bed.
Obi-Wan did his best to hide a smile when Master Koon read the part about Percy taking out his mom’s china cabinet by accident with a javelin. It reminded him of the time that he was practicing a kata in his and Qui-Gon’s quarters. He had been startled by a sudden noise and his lightsaber had flown out of his hand.
As it spun through the air, Obi-Wan’s lightsaber slashed the dining table and gouged a decent-sized hole in the table. Not only that, but Obi-Wan’s blade had also left a black mark around the hole, so it was pretty noticeable and obvious what had happened.
Luckily for Obi-Wan, Garen and Bant had been able to help him repair the table before Qui-Gon returned to their quarters. Obi-Wan did end up telling his Master what had happened and he was forbidden from using his lightsaber in their quarters ever again.
All things considered, Obi-Wan felt he got off rather lightly for that mistake.
I got dressed as quickly as I could. I tried not to think about my nightmare or monsters or the shadow at my window.
Have to get away. Have to warn them!
What had Grover meant?
I made a three-fingered claw over my heart and pushed outward—an ancient gesture Grover had once taught me for warding off evil.
The dream couldn't have been real.
Last day of school. My mom was right, I should have been excited. For the first time in my life, I'd almost made it an entire year without getting expelled. No weird accidents. No fights in the classroom. No teachers turning into monsters and trying to kill me with poisoned cafeteria food or exploding homework. Tomorrow, I'd be on my way to my favorite place in the world—Camp Half-Blood.
Only one more day to go. Surely even I couldn't mess that up.
Master Windu blinked as his vision returned to normal after examining multiple Shatterpoints. “Why do I have the feeling that Percy just jinxed himself?”
As usual, I didn't have a clue how wrong I was.
My mom made blue waffles and blue eggs for breakfast. She's funny that way, celebrating special occasions with blue food. I think it's her way of saying anything is possible. Percy can pass seventh grade. Waffles can be blue. Little miracles like that.
I ate at the kitchen table while my mom washed dishes. She was dressed in her work uniform—a starry blue skirt and a red-and-white striped blouse she wore to sell candy at Sweet on America. Her long brown hair was pulled back in a ponytail.
The waffles tasted great, but I guess I wasn't digging in like I usually did. My mom looked over and frowned. "Percy, are you all right?"
"Yeah ... fine."
But she could always tell when something was bothering me. She dried her hands and sat down across from me. "School, or ..."
She didn't need to finish. I knew what she was asking.
“Percy’s mom sounds a lot like my mom,” Anakin thought longingly. He hoped that his mom was okay.
“Maybe I can ask Master Qui-Gon to check on her after we finish reading this book and the Council finds out who attacked him on Tatooine.”
"I think Grover's in trouble," I said, and I told her about my dream.
She pursed her lips. We didn't talk much about the other part of my life. We tried to live as normally as possible, but my mom knew all about Grover.
"I wouldn't be too worried, dear," she said. "Grover is a big satyr now. If there were a problem, I'm sure we would've heard from ... from camp...." Her shoulders tensed as she said the word camp.
“There’s something wrong.” Anakin breathed, “What could be wrong at the safest place for demigods?”
Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan shared a look as the council chambers remained silent. It seemed as if no one had an answer for the boy or if they did, they were choosing not to voice it. Obi-Wan was worried about the similarities between Anakin and Percy. The most obvious thing that the two had in common was their attachment to their mothers. From what Qui-Gon had told him, despite being excited to leave Tatooine, Anakin had been incredibly reluctant to leave his mother. Obi-Wan was concerned that if something happened to Percy’s mom in the book, Anakin would react negatively to the event.
Especially if Obi-Wan’s feelings about the Percy Jackson characters were proven to be true.
"What is it?" I asked.
"Nothing," she said. "I'll tell you what. This afternoon we'll celebrate the end of school. I'll take you and Tyson to Rockefeller Center—to that skateboard shop you like."
Oh, man, that was tempting. We were always struggling with money. Between my mom's night classes and my private school tuition, we could never afford to do special stuff like shop for a skateboard. But something in her voice bothered me.
“Perceptive he is,” Master Yoda commented. “Know his mother too well, he does.”
Anakin shifted on his cushion again. He wondered what the Grandmaster thought of Percy and Anakin also wondered whether Master Yoda would see the two boys in the same light. Already, he could see the similarities between him and Percy and without fully understanding how he knew it, he just knew that he and Percy would react in the same way if their mothers were ever in any danger.
"Wait a minute," I said. "I thought we were packing me up for camp tonight."
She twisted her dishrag. "Ah, dear, about that ... I got a message from Chiron last night."
My heart sank. Chiron was the activities director at Camp Half-Blood. He wouldn't contact us unless something serious was going on. "What did he say?"
"He thinks ... it might not be safe for you to come to camp just yet. We might have to postpone."
"Postpone? Mom, how could it not be safe? I'm a half-blood! It's like the only safe place on earth for me!"
“I wonder if there are entities more powerful than these gods. Perhaps there was a historical conflict between the elder beings and the gods that are now ruling. That would explain why it’s not safe for Percy to go to camp just yet. But does that mean that it’s safer for other demigods? What about the demigods that are already at camp? Are they exposed to a higher level of risk or does the amount of risk depend on a demigod’s immortal parent?” Ki-Adi-Mundi rubbed the sides of his head, near the first bulge that sat above his eyebrows as he felt a headache coming on.
“The lack of information that we have is frustrating.” The Jedi Master admitted to himself, “If we only had more pieces of the puzzle. Then we would be able to…”
“To do what?” Another voice in his head argued, “These characters only exist on the pages of this book. If we were truly meant to help, why didn’t the Force send us the first book instead of the second? Had we received the first book, things may have been clearer.”
"Usually, dear. But with the problems they're having—"
"What problems?"
"Percy ... I'm very, very sorry. I was hoping to talk to you about it this afternoon. I can't explain it all now. I'm not even sure Chiron can. Everything happened so suddenly." My mind was reeling. How could I not go to camp? I wanted to ask a million questions, but just then the kitchen clock chimed the half-hour.
My mom looked almost relieved. "Seven-thirty, dear. You should go. Tyson will be waiting."
"But—"
"Percy, we'll talk this afternoon. Go on to school."
Anakin inhaled sharply. The words that Percy’s mom spoke to him reminded him so much of the last words his mom said to him before he left Tatooine. He felt many of the Jedi in the room focus on him and defiantly he raised his eyes and met their gazes. Anakin refused to show that he was embarrassed about his reaction to the last sentence that Master Plo read.
That was the last thing I wanted to do, but my mom had this fragile look in her eyes—a kind of warning, like if I pushed her too hard she'd start to cry. Besides, she was right about my friend Tyson. I had to meet him at the subway station on time or he'd get upset. He was scared of traveling underground alone.
I gathered up my stuff, but I stopped in the doorway. "Mom, this problem at camp. Does it...could it have anything to do with my dream about Grover?"
“I don’t think so Percy,” Qui-Gon stated with an undercurrent of worry in his voice. No one in the room commented on the fact that he was talking to a book because they were also worried about the teenager and they were thinking along the same lines that Qui-Gon was.
“I have a feeling that Percy is the only demigod who knows that something bad has happened to Grover,” Obi-Wan added.
Anakin found himself nodding. At the same time, Anakin mulled over the possible ways that Percy could have had the dream about Grover.
“What if their friendship has something to do with it? Percy did say that they were good friends and that they had worked together last year on a quest with a girl. What was her name? Anna? Adeline? No! Neither of them sounds right! What about Annabelle? No, that doesn’t sound right either.”
Anakin stared at the floor as he tried to remember the girl’s name. He could feel his annoyance rising and he vowed that he wouldn’t stop trying.
“Maybe the girl that Percy went on the quest with had the same dream that Percy did and can help explain it.”
She wouldn't meet my eyes. "We'll talk this afternoon, dear. I'll explain ... as much as I can."
Reluctantly, I told her goodbye. I jogged downstairs to catch the Number Two train.
I didn't know it at the time, but my mom and I would never get to have our afternoon talk. In fact, I wouldn't be seeing home for a long, long time.
The hairs on the back of Qui-Gon’s neck prickled and it felt like dread was slowly spreading through his body and wrapping its poisonous fingers around his heart as he heard the last word in the sentence. Unlike many of the other Jedi, Qui-Gon knew a bit about his family history and there was an old legend that had been passed down through the generations in his family about a being so powerful that it could manipulate time. Specifically, this being could slow it down.
Qui-Gon had noticed the subtle references to time and manipulation. His mind was spinning as he fought to control his dread.
“The being was destroyed. He, if I remember correctly, was cut into pieces with his own weapon. Why then am I so worried?”
As I stepped outside, I glanced at the brownstone building across the street. Just for a second, I saw a dark shape in the morning sunlight—a human silhouette against the brick wall, a shadow that belonged to no one.
Then it rippled and vanished.
Master Plo exhaled deeply. “I’m sure that the chapter that we’ve just finished reading has raised questions for everybody present. We must remember that we were sent this book for a reason and while there is a possibility that all of our questions may not be answered, we must continue reading the book.”
Master Plo then handed the book to Master Windu who, with an air of hesitation, accepted the book. “I play dodgeball with cannibals.” The Korun Jedi Master read before releasing a long-suffering sigh, “I hope that this chapter title doesn’t prove to be as literal as the previous one did.”
Chapter 3: We play dodgeball with cannibals
Summary:
Master Windu reads chapter two and another Jedi Master joins the reading.
Notes:
“Glad to see that you are in good health, my old padawan. Unexpected your arrival is.”
Now Anakin frowned, “This man was trained by Master Yoda?” Truthfully, Anakin couldn’t imagine Master Yoda training the newest arrival. They didn’t seem to complement each other very well. The concept of Master Yoda training anyone was so foreign to Anakin, it was like when he thought about the fact that his mom had a life before she was his mom.
Chapter Text
Master Plo then handed the book to Master Windu who, with an air of hesitation, accepted the book. “I play dodgeball with cannibals.” The Korun Jedi Master read before releasing a long sigh, “I hope that this chapter title doesn’t prove to be as literal as the previous one did.”
Before Master Windu could read any more of the chapter, the doors to the council chambers opened with a quiet hiss. Everyone in the room was distracted and with varying degrees of curiosity and concern, they turned around to see who was entering the room.
As the figure drew closer, the posture of many of the Jedi in the room changed and became a tad more relaxed, though some Jedi were still tense. Anakin glanced over to Master Qui-Gon and took in the tranquil expression on his face. Satisfied with the knowledge that he was still safe, Anakin allowed his limbs to relax. He studied the newest visitor with interest.
While the man was tall, Anakin knew that he wasn’t as tall as Master Qui-Gon yet the visitor had an air of authority to him. As Anakin examined the man, he realized that he also had a regal air to him similar to the one Queen Amidala had on The Naboo Royal Starship when he had met her after the ship had left Tatooine.
Anakin continued observing the man. His thick brown hair had many streaks of grey through it and while his ochre eyes seemed calculating, Anakin spied a glimmer of amusement in them when the man noticed the book in Master Windu’s grip. The man’s robes were dark brown. The color reminded Anakin of the robes that the Jawas wore. A curved depowered lightsaber hung on the man’s belt which struck Anakin as odd because none of the other lightsabers he’d seen had a curved hilt.
“Glad to see that you are in good health, my old padawan. Unexpected your arrival is.”
Now Anakin frowned, “This man was trained by Master Yoda?” Truthfully, Anakin couldn’t imagine Master Yoda training the newest arrival. They didn’t seem to complement each other very well. The concept of Master Yoda training anyone was so foreign to Anakin, it was like when he thought about the fact that his mom had a life before she was his mom.
“But Master Yoda wouldn’t have been allowed to sit on the council if he wasn’t qualified.” A voice argued in Anakin’s mind. “And the best way to prove that he was qualified to sit on the council would be to train students, right? By doing that, he would prove that he’s a good Jedi.”
Movement caught Anakin’s eye and pulled him from his thoughts. Seconds later, he realized that the movement was Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan standing to greet the new arrival and bowing.
“Master.”
“Grandmaster.”
“So this man trained Master Qui-Gon? Wizard! Master Qui-Gon and this man seem to fit together a bit better than this man and Master Yoda. I wonder if Master Qui-Gon’s former master is like him. It’s interesting that Obi-Wan considers this man his grandmaster; maybe it’s because the Jedi leave their families so young and the Jedi become their new family. So a Master is like a father and a grandmaster is like a grandfather. Do other Jedi keep in contact with their former masters? Do they have grandmasters too?”
“…. And this is Anakin Skywalker. We encountered him on Tatooine on our last mission to protect the Queen of Naboo.”
Anakin blinked when he heard his name and quickly scrambled to his feet to bow just like Master Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan had. He didn’t want to appear rude or accidentally insult Master Qui-Gon by not behaving the right way.
After Anakin straightened up from his bow, his mind registered the sudden stillness in the room.
“Did I do something wrong?” He asked the room tentatively.
The visitor was the quickest to recover, “Not at all. The council is merely surprised at how quickly you adapted to our beliefs. You may call me Master Dooku, youngling.” Master Dooku’s voice was deep and soothing and exactly like Anakin had imagined it would sound. However, there was something in his voice that made Anakin slightly nervous.
Master Dooku turned his attention back to the council as Anakin retook his seat next to Master Plo. The Jedi Master smiled reassuringly at him and with a few short sentences, Master Windu explained how the book had appeared to Anakin and that the council had decided to read it. The Master also summarized the past chapter for Master Dooku, added that the book was the second book in the series, and explained that the book takes place on a planet called Earth. Anakin noticed Master Dooku occasionally glancing at him inquisitively as Master Windu spoke.
Once Master Windu finished speaking, Master Dooku had many questions about what he had just learned but he chose not to voice them. Instead, Master Dooku moved across the room to sit on Master Qui-Gon’s other side on the floor.
Anakin felt himself becoming annoyed again, “Why aren’t there more chairs in here? Why didn’t they offer Master Dooku a seat? It’s just like before when no one offered Master Qui-Gon a seat!”
“Now that the introductions have concluded, we shall read the chapter.” Master Windu cleared his throat and began to read.
My day started normal. Or as normal as it ever gets at Meriwether College Prep. See, it's this "progressive" school in downtown Manhattan, which means we sit on beanbag chairs instead of at desks, and we don't get grades, and the teachers wear jeans and rock concert T-shirts to work.
“I have a bad feeling about the fact that Percy used the past tense to describe how his day started.” Obi-Wan sighed.
That's all cool with me. I mean, I'm ADHD and dyslexic, like most half-bloods, so I'd never done that great in regular schools even before they kicked me out. The only bad thing about Meriwether was that the teachers always looked on the bright side of things, and the kids weren't always ... well, bright.
“For these demigods to be struck with adversity so early on in their lives, I fear that not many of them make it to adulthood.” Master Dooku commented somberly.
“Why would the gods have children if they didn’t care about them enough to ensure they survived?”
“Because the gods need the demigods for something,” Anakin replied. He missed the wary glances that Obi-Wan, Master Qui-Gon, and Master Dooku shared at the easy way the answer leaped from his lips.
Take my first class today: English. The whole middle school had read this book called Lord of the Flies, where all these kids get marooned on an island and go psycho. So for our final exam, our teachers sent us into the break yard to spend an hour with no adult supervision to see what would happen. What happened was a massive wedgie contest between the seventh and eighth graders, two pebble fights, and a full-tackle basketball game. The school bully, Matt Sloan, led most of those activities.
“End badly, those activities would have. Fear that there are more to come, I do.”
Sloan wasn't big or strong, but he acted like he was. He had eyes like a pit bull, and shaggy black hair, and he always dressed in expensive but sloppy clothes, like he wanted everybody to see how little he cared about his family's money. One of his front teeth was chipped from the time he'd taken his daddy's Porsche for a joyride and run into a PLEASE SLOW DOWN FOR CHILDREN sign.
“It’s children and people like this that give the wealthy and nobility a bad reputation,” Master Dooku uttered, rubbing at his temples.
Anakin stared up at the detailed ceiling as the Jedi Master spoke, “Master Dooku and Queen Amidala use the same kind of words when they’re talking and have the same kind of confidence. And the Queen would only speak and act that way because she’s been taught to. Does that mean that Master Dooku is a prince? Did he have to give that up to become a Jedi?”
Anyway, Sloan was giving everybody wedgies until he made the mistake of trying it on my friend Tyson. Tyson was the only homeless kid at Meriwether College Prep. As near as my mom and I could figure, he'd been abandoned by his parents when he was very young, probably because he was so ... different. He was six-foot-three and built like the Abominable Snowman, but he cried a lot and was scared of just about everything, including his own reflection. His face was kind of misshapen and brutal-looking.
Master Windu paused slightly after he had finished reading the sentence. Tyson had featured in quite a few of the Shatterpoints that he had examined but in them, Tyson was a strong, confident warrior unlike how the book was depicting him now.
“Perhaps we are reading about the start of Tyson’s journey. For him to feature in the book so early, he must have a connection with Percy. What role will Tyson play in this book and why do I sense that Percy has only encountered Tyson recently?”
I couldn't tell you what color his eyes were, because I could never make myself look higher than his crooked teeth. His voice was deep, but he talked funny, like a much younger kid—I guess because he'd never gone to school before coming to Meriwether. He wore tattered jeans, grimy size-twenty sneakers, and a plaid flannel shirt with holes in it. He smelled like a New York City alleyway, because that's where he lived, in a cardboard refrigerator box off 72nd Street.
“I sense that Tyson will play an important role in the book,” Master Plo stated. “In that paragraph alone, there have been many clues dropped that Tyson belongs to Percy’s world.”
“How so, Master Plo?” Master Adi questioned.
“I could never make myself look higher than his crooked teeth,” Master Plo quoted. “That sounds a lot like Force compulsion to me.”
Anakin felt a chill sweep over him, “The Jedi can use the Force to control others?” “I thought the Jedi were the good guys. Why would they do something so evil?
Meriwether Prep had adopted him as a community service project so all the students could feel good about themselves. Unfortunately, most of them couldn't stand Tyson. Once they discovered he was a big softie, despite his massive strength and his scary looks, they made themselves feel good by picking on him. I was pretty much his only friend, which meant he was my only friend.
Still upset about finding out that the Jedi had a way to make people do what they wanted by controlling them, Anakin drew his legs up to his chest and hugged them tightly. On Tatooine, Anakin had had far too much experience being bullied like Percy and Tyson; Anakin remembered the time he had been testing his pod racer, and everyone except for Kitser had told him that it wouldn’t work. They had even laughed as they ran away to play and Anakin knew that they would have been meaner if Master Qui-Gon hadn’t been there.
My mom had complained to the school a million times that they weren't doing enough to help him. She'd called social services, but nothing ever seemed to happen. The social workers claimed Tyson didn't exist. They swore up and down that they'd visited the alley we described and couldn't find him, though how you miss a giant kid living in a refrigerator box, I don't know.
Anyway, Matt Sloan snuck up behind him and tried to give him a wedgie, and Tyson panicked. He swatted Sloan away a little too hard. Sloan flew fifteen feet and got tangled in the little kids' tire swing.
For a moment, Anakin forgot about his anger and he smiled at Tyson knocking Sloan away into the playground but a sharp look from Master Qui-Gon had the smile melting off his face as he remembered the Master’s reaction to his fight with Greedo.
"You freak!" Sloan yelled. "Why don't you go back to your cardboard box!"
Tyson started sobbing. He sat down on the jungle gym so hard he bent the bar, and buried his head in his hands.
"Take it back, Sloan!" I shouted.
Sloan just sneered at me. "Why do you even bother, Jackson? You might have friends if you weren't always sticking up for that freak."
I balled my fists. I hoped my face wasn't as red as it felt. "He's not a freak. He's just..."
Obi-Wan shifted his position on the floor as Sloan’s words reminded him of the way that Bruck used to taunt him when he was younger. To this day, Obi-Wan could hear the nickname that Bruck had gifted him with in his initiate days as he walked through the Temple.
I tried to think of the right thing to say, but Sloan wasn't listening. He and his big ugly friends were too busy laughing. I wondered if it were my imagination, or if Sloan had more goons hanging around him than usual. I was used to seeing him with two or three, but today he had like, half a dozen more, and I was pretty sure I'd never seen them before.
"Just wait till PE, Jackson," Sloan called. "You are so dead."
“I doubt you’re right, Sloan, otherwise this book would be much shorter than it is.”
“Grandmaster Dooku, you’re talking to a book.”
“My apologies.”
When first period ended, our English teacher, Mr. de Milo, came outside to inspect the carnage. He pronounced that we'd understood Lord of the Flies perfectly. We all passed his course, and we should never, never grow up to be violent people. Matt Sloan nodded earnestly, then gave me a chip-toothed grin.
“He would not think of demonstrating that behavior if he were my padawan!” Master Saesee Tiin stated with an air of forced calm.
I had to promise to buy Tyson an extra peanut butter sandwich at lunch to get him to stop sobbing.
"I ... I am a freak?" he asked me.
"No," I promised, gritting my teeth. "Matt Sloan is the freak."
Tyson sniffled. "You are a good friend. Miss you next year if ... if I can't ..."
His voice trembled. I realized he didn't know if he'd be invited back next year for the community service project. I wondered if the headmaster had even bothered talking to him about it.
"Don't worry, big guy," I managed. "Everything's going to be fine."
Tyson gave me such a grateful look I felt like a big liar. How could I promise a kid like him that anything would be fine?
“A liar is someone who intentionally tries to deceive others,” Master Eeth Koth disagreed. “Percy is not a liar. He’s too loyal for that.”
Our next exam was science. Mrs. Tesla told us that we had to mix chemicals until we succeeded in making something explode, Tyson was my lab partner. His hands were way too big for the tiny vials we were supposed to use. He accidentally knocked a tray of chemicals off the counter and made an orange mushroom cloud in the trash can.
After Mrs. Tesla evacuated the lab and called the hazardous waste removal squad, she praised Tyson and me for being natural chemists. We were the first ones who'd ever aced her exam in under thirty seconds.
“There should be a higher standard for exams at this school,” Master Even Piell scowled. “First the pitiful excuse for a Standard exam and now this?”
I was glad the morning went fast, because it kept me from thinking too much about my problems. I couldn't stand the idea that something might be wrong at camp. Even worse, I couldn't shake the memory of my bad dream. I had a terrible feeling that Grover was in danger.
In social studies, while we were drawing latitude/longitude maps,
“Finally, something relevant and potentially useful,” Master Piell muttered.
I opened my notebook and stared at the photo inside—my friend Annabeth on vacation in Washington, D.C. She was wearing jeans and a denim jacket over her orange Camp Half-Blood T-shirt. Her blond hair was pulled back in a bandanna. She was standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial with her arms crossed, looking extremely pleased with herself, like she'd personally designed the place.
See, Annabeth wants to be an architect when she grows up, so she's always visiting famous monuments and stuff. She's weird that way. She'd emailed me the picture after spring break, and every once in a while I'd look at it just to remind myself she was real and Camp Half-Blood hadn't just been my imagination.
Anakin understood that feeling. He had been so excited to leave Tatooine that he had spent the night in the meeting room because it provided him with the best view of the stars. Then he’d got cold and Padmé had covered him with her shawl.
I wished Annabeth were here. She'd know what to make of my dream. I'd never admit it to her, but she was smarter than me, even if she was annoying sometimes. I was about to close my notebook when Matt Sloan reached over and ripped the photo out of the rings.
"Hey!" I protested.
Sloan checked out the picture and his eyes got wide. "No way, Jackson. Who is that? She is not your—"
"Give it back!" My ears felt hot.
Sloan handed the photo to his ugly buddies, who snickered and started ripping it up to make spit wads. They were new kids who must've been visiting, because they were all wearing those stupid HI! MY NAME IS: tags from the admissions office. They must've had a weird sense of humor, too, because they'd all filled in strange names like: MARROW SUCKER, SKULL EATER, and JOE BOB. No human beings had names like that.
“Master? Are you well?” Master Depa Billaba inquired with concern after spying Master Windu freezing once he had read the last sentence.
“I do not think that Sloan’s new friends are there by coincidence.” He replied uneasily.
"These guys are moving here next year," Sloan bragged, like that was supposed to scare me. "I bet they can pay the tuition, too, unlike your retard friend."
"He's not retarded." I had to try really, really hard not to punch Sloan in the face.
"You're such a loser, Jackson. Good thing I'm gonna put you out of your misery next period."
His huge buddies chewed up my photo. I wanted to pulverize them, but I was under strict orders from Chiron never to take my anger out on regular mortals, no matter how obnoxious they were. I had to save my fighting for monsters.
“You will be.” Master Yoda thought. He too had the feeling that Sloan’s friends were more than what they seemed and his eyes cut over to Anakin Skywalker who had been noticeably quiet ever since the topic of Force compulsion had been brought up.
“Bad memories, fear, and anger that topic has stirred in him.”
Still, part of me thought, if Sloan only knew who I really was ...
The bell rang.
As Tyson and I were leaving class, a girl's voice whispered, "Percy!"
I looked around the locker area, but nobody was paying me any attention. Like any girl at Meriwether would ever be caught dead calling my name.
Before I had time to consider whether or not I'd been imagining things, a crowd of kids rushed for the gym, carrying Tyson and me along with them. It was time for PE. Our coach had promised us a free-for-all dodgeball game, and Matt Sloan had promised to kill me.
Master Yaddle shook her head, “Why do I have the feeling that the social studies teacher was the outlying teacher in this school?”
The gym uniform at Meriwether is sky blue shorts and tie-dyed T-shirts. Fortunately, we did most of our athletic stuff inside, so we didn't have to jog through Tribeca looking like a bunch of boot-camp hippie children.
“If all of the students are wearing the same type of clothing, why would Percy be less than enthusiastic about being seen wearing the uniform by members of the public?”
“Personal preferences,” Master Dooku said sourly. “For that matter, I wouldn’t be too keen on wearing that uniform myself.”
I changed as quickly as I could in the locker room because I didn't want to deal with Sloan. I was about to leave when Tyson called, "Percy?"
He hadn't changed yet. He was standing by the weight room door, clutching his gym clothes.
"Will you ... uh ..."
"Oh. Yeah." I tried not to sound aggravated about it. "Yeah, sure, man."
Tyson ducked inside the weight room. I stood guard outside the door while he changed. I felt kind of awkward doing this, but he asked me to most days. I think it's because he's completely hairy and he's got weird scars on his back that I've never had the courage to ask him about. Anyway, I'd learned the hard way that if people teased Tyson while he was dressing outside, he'd get upset and start ripping the doors off lockers.
“There’s yet another clue that Tyson belongs in Percy’s world. It’s almost as if Tyson knows he needs to stick close to Percy.”
When we got into the gym, Coach Nunley was sitting at his little desk reading Sports Illustrated. Nunley was about a million years old, with bifocals and no teeth and a greasy wave of gray hair. He reminded me of the Oracle at Camp Half-Blood—which was a shriveled-up mummy—except Coach Nunley moved a lot less and he never billowed green smoke. Well, at least not that I'd observed.
“Is the smoke dangerous?”
Master Dooku shook his head, “My travels on Earth have never permitted me to experience an object billowing green smoke so I cannot say. It appears that Percy is in good health after his experience with this so-called Oracle.”
“Have you heard of the Oracle before, Grandmaster?”
“I know of stories. In Ancient Greece, there were five oracles that were said to utter prophecies in times of dire need. Four of them were associated with the Greek God Apollo, the immortal lord of archery, music and dance, truth and prophecy, healing and diseases, the Sun and light, and poetry. I strongly doubt that this Oracle is one of the four that existed in that time.”
Matt Sloan said, "Coach, can I be captain?"
"Eh?" Coach Nunley looked up from his magazine. "Yeah," he mumbled. "Mm-hmm."
“Stars, this isn’t going to end well.” Obi-Wan thought.
Sloan grinned and took charge of the picking. He made me the other team's captain, but it didn't matter who I picked, because all the jocks and the popular kids moved over to Sloan's side. So did the big group of visitors.
On my side I had Tyson, Corey Bailer the computer geek, Raj Mandali the calculus whiz, and a half dozen other kids who always got harassed by Sloan and his gang. Normally I would've been okay with just Tyson—he was worth half a team all by himself—but the visitors on Sloan's team were almost as tall and strong-looking as Tyson, and there were six of them.
Matt Sloan spilled a cage full of balls in the middle of the gym.
"Scared," Tyson mumbled. "Smell funny."
“Would it be too bold to assume that Tyson can sense threats to Percy before Percy can?” Master Plo questioned as he shot a worried look down at Anakin. The boy’s lips were pressed into a thin line and he was avoiding making eye contact with any of the Jedi in the room. Master Plo sent reassurance to the boy through the Force but Anakin shied away from the mental contact.
“Time he needs,” Master Yoda explained telepathically. “Shocked he is. Know that we can influence others with the Force, he did not.”
I looked at him. "What smells funny?" Because I didn't figure he was talking about himself.
"Them." Tyson pointed at Sloan's new friends. "Smell funny."
The visitors were cracking their knuckles, eyeing us like it was slaughter time. I couldn't help wondering where they were from. Someplace where they fed kids raw meat and beat them with sticks.
Master Dooku felt his leg twitch – the place Percy described sounded similar to Dathomir. On that planet, children were separated due to their gender and the planet’s inhabitants believed in the survival of the fittest. Those who survived were deemed powerful enough to live on the planet.
“I recall reading about a place in Ancient Greece that adopted the same policy.”
Sloan blew the coach's whistle and the game began. Sloan's team ran for the center line. On my side, Raj Mandali yelled something in Urdu, probably "I have to go potty!" and ran for the exit. Corey Bailer tried to crawl behind the wall mat and hide. The rest of my team did their best to cower in fear and not look like targets.
"Tyson," I said. "Let's g—"
A ball slammed into my gut. I sat down hard in the middle of the gym floor. The other team exploded in laughter.
“Either that ball was not one of the standard balls used in PE or whoever threw it is not mortal.”
My eyesight was fuzzy. I felt like I'd just gotten the Heimlich maneuver from a gorilla. I couldn't believe anybody could throw that hard.
Tyson yelled, "Percy, duck!"
I rolled as another dodgeball whistled past my ear at the speed of sound.
Whooom!
It hit the wall mat, and Corey Bailer yelped.
"Hey!" I yelled at Sloan's team. "You could kill somebody!"
“Whoever is throwing these balls is aiming to kill,” Anakin remarked dully.
The visitor named Joe Bob grinned at me evilly. Somehow, he looked a lot bigger now ... even taller than Tyson. His biceps bulged beneath his T-shirt. "I hope so, Perseus Jackson! I hope so!"
The way he said my name sent a chill down my back. Nobody called me Perseus except those who knew my true identity. Friends ... and enemies.
What had Tyson said? They smell funny.
Monsters.
“Now that Percy has realized what he is up against, he can fight to protect himself.”
“How can he Master Qui-Gon? His sword is with his other clothing.” Anakin protested.
“There are many ways to defend yourself without using a weapon,” Qui-Gon answered him. While he was relieved that Anakin was talking again and hadn’t shut down completely, Qui-Gon sent a Force probe in the boy’s direction and once it connected, Qui-Gon recoiled slightly. Anakin’s mind was nearly consumed by the fear that the Jedi would use Force compulsion on him to send him away because none of them wanted him to be a Jedi. Qui-Gon also felt the boy’s horror at learning that the Jedi could take away people’s choices and control people if they felt that they needed to.
All around Matt Sloan, the visitors were growing in size. They were no longer kids. They were eight-foot-tall giants with wild eyes, pointy teeth, and hairy arms tattooed with snakes and hula women and Valentine hearts.
Matt Sloan dropped his ball. "Whoa! You're not from Detroit! Who ..."
The other kids on his team started screaming and backing toward the exit, but the giant named Marrow Sucker threw a ball with deadly accuracy. It streaked past Raj Mandali just as he was about to leave and hit the door, slamming it shut like magic. Raj and some of the other kids banged on it desperately but it wouldn't budge.
"Let them go!" I yelled at the giants.
The one called Joe Bob growled at me. He had a tattoo on his biceps that said: JB luvs Babycakes. "And lose our tasty morsels? No, Son of the Sea God. We Laistrygonians aren't just playing for your death. We want lunch!"
He waved his hand and a new batch of dodgeballs appeared on the center line—but these balls weren't made of red rubber. They were bronze, the size of cannon balls, perforated like wiffle balls with fire bubbling out the holes. They must've been searing hot, but the giants picked them up with their bare hands.
Tension filled the air and many of the Jedi Masters found themselves wondering unwillingly what would happen if a mortal were to be hit by one of these balls. They all knew that it wouldn’t end well for that person but they couldn’t see how Percy and Tyson would be able to protect all of the students and the Coach at the same time.
"Coach!" I yelled.
Nunley looked up sleepily, but if he saw anything abnormal about the dodgeball game, he didn't let on. That's the problem with mortals. A magical force called the Mist obscures the true appearance of monsters and gods from their vision, so mortals tend to see only what they can understand. Maybe the coach saw a few eighth graders pounding the younger kids like usual.
“Like usual,” Master Dooku echoed dangerously. “Why did the Coach choose not to intervene if that was what he saw?”
Maybe the other kids saw Matt Sloan's thugs getting ready to toss Molotov cocktails around. (It wouldn't have been the first time.) At any rate, I was pretty sure nobody else realized we were dealing with genuine man-eating bloodthirsty monsters.
“Again, why is nobody intervening even if what they are seeing isn’t what is truly happening?”
"Yeah. Mm-hmm," Coach muttered. "Play nice."
Master Dooku sighed in disappointment. He was not alone; many of the other Jedi had similar reactions and his grandpadawan was resolutely shielding his thoughts from him, his former Master, and his former Padawan.
And he went back to his magazine.
The giant named Skull Eater threw his ball. I dove aside as the fiery bronze comet sailed past my shoulder.
"Corey!" I screamed.
Tyson pulled him out from behind the exercise mat just as the ball exploded against it, blasting the mat to smoking shreds.
"Run!" I told my teammates. "The other exit!"
They ran for the locker room, but with another wave of Joe Bob's hand, that door also slammed shut.
"No one leaves unless you're out!" Joe Bob roared. "And you're not out until we eat you!"
Master Plo felt the same wave of frustration as before as his mind reminded him that Percy was still young and inexperienced. Taking a deep breath, he released his emotions into the Force and hoped that Percy and Tyson found a solution to the situation they were in.
He launched his own fireball. My teammates scattered as it blasted a crater in the gym floor. I reached for Riptide, which I always kept in my pocket, but then I realized I was wearing gym shorts. I had no pockets. Riptide was tucked in my jeans inside my gym locker. And the locker room door was sealed. I was completely defenseless.
Another fireball came streaking toward me. Tyson pushed me out of the way, but the explosion still blew me head over heels. I found myself sprawled on the gym floor, dazed from smoke, my tie-dyed T-shirt peppered with sizzling holes. Just across the center line, two hungry giants were glaring down at me.
"Flesh!" they bellowed. "Hero flesh for lunch!" They both took aim.
"Percy needs help!" Tyson yelled, and he jumped in front of me just as they threw their balls.
"Tyson!" I screamed, but it was too late.
Anakin shivered and covered his ears. He didn’t want to hear Percy losing his only friend at Meriwether Prep.
Both balls slammed into him ... but no ... he'd caught them. Somehow Tyson, who was so clumsy he knocked over lab equipment and broke playground structures on a regular basis, had caught two fiery metal balls speeding toward him at a zillion miles an hour. He sent them hurtling back toward their surprised owners, who screamed, "BAAAAAD!" as the bronze spheres exploded against their chests.
The giants disintegrated in twin columns of flame—a sure sign they were monsters, all right. Monsters don't die. They just dissipate into smoke and dust, which saves heroes a lot of trouble cleaning up after a fight.
Anakin cautiously lowered his hands, “Tyson is okay.” He reassured himself, “Two of the monsters are gone now.”
"My brothers!" Joe Bob the Cannibal wailed. He flexed his muscles and his Babycakes tattoo rippled. "You will pay for their destruction!"
“Oh, so when they fight back and begin to gain the upper hand, it’s a bad thing.” Obi-Wan sassed as he thought of some of the enemies he had faced on and off of the battlefield.
"Tyson!" I said. "Look out!"
Another comet hurtled toward us. Tyson just had time to swat it aside. It flew straight over Coach Nunley's head and landed in the bleachers with a huge KA-BOOM! Kids were running around screaming, trying to avoid the sizzling craters in the floor. Others were banging on the door, calling for help. Sloan himself stood petrified in the middle of the court, watching in disbelief as balls of death flew around him.
“This is bound to be making a lot of noise!” Master Depa exclaimed, “Surely it has to have drawn attention by now!”
Coach Nunley still wasn't seeing anything. He tapped his hearing aid like the explosions were giving him interference, but he kept his eyes on his magazine. Surely the whole school could hear the noise. The head-master, the police, somebody would come help us.
"Victory will be ours!" roared Joe Bob the Cannibal. "We will feast on your bones!"
I wanted to tell him he was taking the dodgeball game way too seriously, but before I could, he hefted another ball. The other three giants followed his lead.
I knew we were dead. Tyson couldn't deflect all those balls at once. His hands had to be seriously burned from blocking the first volley. Without my sword ...
I had a crazy idea.
“Oh no.”
“Master?”
“Let’s just say your grandmaster has heard that explanation before.”
I ran toward the locker room.
"Move!" I told my teammates. "Away from the door."
Explosions behind me. Tyson had batted two of the balls back toward their owners and blasted them to ashes.
That left two giants still standing.
A third ball hurtled straight at me. I forced myself to wait—one Mississippi, two Mississippi—then dove aside as the fiery sphere demolished the locker room door. Now, I figured that the built-up gas in most boys' locker rooms was enough to cause an explosion, so I wasn't surprised when the flaming dodgeball ignited a huge
WHOOOOOOOM!
The wall blew apart. Locker doors, socks, athletic supporters, and other various nasty personal belongings rained all over the gym. I turned just in time to see Tyson punch Skull Eater in the face. The giant crumpled. But the last giant, Joe Bob, had wisely held on to his own ball, waiting for an opportunity. He threw just as Tyson was turning to face him.
"No!" I yelled.
The ball caught Tyson square in the chest. He slid the length of the court and slammed into the back wall, which cracked and partially crumbled on top of him, making a hole right onto Church Street. I didn't see how Tyson could still be alive, but he only looked dazed. The bronze ball was smoking at his feet. Tyson tried to pick it up, but he fell back, stunned, into a pile of cinder blocks.
“TYSON!” Anakin cried out in horror. Anger rose up inside of him and he hated the fact that he was powerless to do anything to help. All he could do was sit and listen to the story.
"Well!" Joe Bob gloated. "I'm the last one standing! I'll have enough meat to bring Babycakes a doggie bag!"
He picked up another ball and aimed it at Tyson.
"Stop!" I yelled. "It's me you want!"
The giant grinned. "You wish to die first, young hero?"
I had to do something. Riptide had to be around here somewhere.
Then I spotted my jeans in a smoking heap of clothes right by the giant's feet. If I could only get there.... I knew it was hopeless, but I charged.
The giant laughed. "My lunch approaches." He raised his arm to throw. I braced myself to die.
“Thinking like this, a child should not be.”
Suddenly the giant's body went rigid. His expression changed from gloating to surprise. Right where his belly button should've been, his T-shirt ripped open and he grew something like a horn—no, not a horn—the glowing tip of a blade.
The ball dropped out of his hand. The monster stared down at the knife that had just run him through from behind. He muttered, "Ow," and burst into a cloud of green flame, which I figured was going to make Babycakes pretty upset.
Obi-Wan coughed quietly to hide his amusement at Percy’s comment.
Standing in the smoke was my friend Annabeth. Her face was grimy and scratched. She had a ragged backpack slung over her shoulder, her baseball cap tucked in her pocket, a bronze knife in her hand, and a wild look in her storm-gray eyes, like she'd just been chased a thousand miles by ghosts.
Matt Sloan, who'd been standing there dumbfounded the whole time, finally came to his senses. He blinked at Annabeth, as if he dimly recognized her from my notebook picture.
"That's the girl ... That's the girl—"
Annabeth punched him in the nose and knocked him flat. "And you," she told him, "lay off my friend."
“Is violence the first choice for every demigod?” Master Windu objected.
“If Annabeth had been pursued by monsters like Percy had, she wouldn’t have had time to take herself out of a fighting mindset Master,” Obi-Wan suggested. There was so much that he wanted to say about this topic and he wanted to remind the other Jedi that he had a similar experience on Melida-Daan but he also didn’t want to overwhelm Anakin with stories of what being a Jedi was actually like, “It requires time.” He eventually said.
The gym was in flames. Kids were still running around screaming. I heard sirens wailing and a garbled voice over the intercom. Through the glass windows of the exit doors, I could see the headmaster, Mr. Bonsai, wrestling with the lock, a crowd of teachers piling up behind him.
"Annabeth ..." I stammered. "How did you ... how long have you ..."
"Pretty much all morning." She sheathed her bronze knife. "I've been trying to find a good time to talk to you, but you were never alone."
"The shadow I saw this morning—that was—" My face felt hot. "Oh my gods, you were looking in my bedroom window?"
“That’s-”
“There must be a reason for Annabeth’s actions. I’m sure whatever she has to say to Percy is important.”
"There's no time to explain!" she snapped, though she looked a little red-faced herself. "I just didn't want to—"
"There!" a woman screamed. The doors burst open and the adults came pouring in.
"Meet me outside," Annabeth told me. "And him." She pointed to Tyson, who was still sitting dazed against the wall. Annabeth gave him a look of distaste that I didn't quite understand.
Master Adi frowned, “Have they met before? Or is Annabeth projecting her past experiences with someone that looks like Tyson onto Tyson?”
"You'd better bring him."
"What?"
"No time!" she said. "Hurry!"
She put on her Yankees baseball cap, which was a magic gift from her mom, and instantly vanished.
“Wow.” Anakin breathed.
“But Annabeth's invisibility cap doesn’t really help Percy. I’m sure the teachers and officials have hard questions for Percy to answer.” Obi-Wan mused thoughtfully.
“If he answers them.” Master Piell argued.
That left me standing alone in the middle of the burning gymnasium when the headmaster came charging in with half the faculty and a couple of police officers.
"Percy Jackson?" Mr. Bonsai said. "What ... how ..."
Over by the broken wall, Tyson groaned and stood up from the pile of cinder blocks. "Head hurts."
Anakin’s anger disappeared when Master Windu read that Tyson stood up and spoke, “Now that Tyson is okay, they can leave the hall before they get into too much trouble.”
Matt Sloan was coming around, too. He focused on me with a look of terror. "Percy did it, Mr. Bonsai! He set the whole building on fire. Coach Nunley will tell you! He saw it all!" Coach Nunley had been dutifully reading his magazine, but just my luck—he chose that moment to look up when Sloan said his name. "Eh? Yeah. Mm-hmm."
“Is this teacher masquerading as a parrot with a limited amount of phrases that he can utter?” Master Dooku expressed in a tone of polite disinterest and calm. His brow twitched at the complacency that the administration staff demonstrated at Meriwether by continuing to pay this teacher to do nothing.
The other adults turned toward me. I knew they would never believe me, even if I could tell them the truth.
I grabbed Riptide out of my ruined jeans, told Tyson, "Come on!" and jumped through the gaping hole in the side of the building.
“All that’s done is make him appear guiltier,” Master Windu grimaced as he finished reading the chapter.
“You heard him, old friend.” Master Dooku stated sorrowfully, “Percy knew that the adults would never believe his explanation, no matter how truthful it was. I would not be surprised to hear that the Mist that Percy mentioned ensured that Percy appeared guiltier than he was.”
Master Windu bowed his head in acceptance, “That is the end of the chapter. Here you go, Grandmaster Yoda.”
“My turn to read is it?” Master Yoda accepted the book, and gazed at the next page, “Very well. Strange title this chapter has too.” He observed, “We hail the taxi of eternal torment.”
Chapter 4: We hail the taxi of eternal tourment
Summary:
Master Yoda reads the next chapter, and Dooku begins to wonder what he's got himself into.
Notes:
Hey everybody.....
It's been a while, huh? As an apology, have two chapters.
“He negotiates like you, Master,” Qui-Gon grinned and conjured a shield with the Force to stop his grandmaster’s walking stick from hitting him.
“Use my walking stick as a tool in your disagreement, you will not!”
Chapter Text
Annabeth was waiting for us in an alley down Church Street. She pulled Tyson and me off the sidewalk just as a fire truck screamed past, heading for Meriwether Prep.
Master Dooku’s jaw clenched as his former master read the sentence. A pointed, biting remark about the incompetency of the adults on Earth sat on the tip of his tongue, but just before it fell, the master froze.
“Perhaps their negligence is not by choice, but a side effect of the Mist.”
"Where'd you find him?" she demanded, pointing at Tyson. Now, under different circumstances, I would've been really happy to see her. We'd made our peace last summer, despite the fact that her mom was Athena and didn't get along with my dad. I'd missed Annabeth probably more than I wanted to admit.
But I'd just been attacked by cannibal giants, Tyson had saved my life three or four times, and all Annabeth could do was glare at him like he was the problem.
Anakin shook his head to clear his mind; Percy’s words reminded him of a time he went to the markets in Bestine with his mom. As they walked through the markets, Anakin remembered both he and his mom being glared at, and merchants were unwilling to sell products to his mom for the same price that they normally would. Later that night, Anakin asked his mom why everyone was glaring at them. Shmi smiled sadly and replied that the reason they glared at her was that she reminded them of someone they didn’t like.
Anakin couldn’t remember ever going to the markets in Bestine after that.
"He's my friend," I told her.
"Is he homeless?"
"What does that have to do with anything? He can hear you, you know. Why don't you ask him?"
She looked surprised. "He can talk?"
"I talk," Tyson admitted. "You are pretty."
"Ah! Gross!" Annabeth stepped away from him.
I couldn't believe she was being so rude. I examined Tyson's hands, which I was sure must've been badly scorched by the flaming dodge balls, but they looked fine—grimy and scarred, with dirty fingernails the size of potato chips—but they always looked like that. "Tyson," I said in disbelief. "Your hands aren't even burned."
“Strange that is.” Master Yoda hummed. “Yet harm Percy the monsters did. Questions I have.”
"Of course not," Annabeth muttered. "I'm surprised the Laistrygonians had the guts to attack you with him around."
“The who?” Master Adi questioned.
Tyson seemed fascinated by Annabeth's blond hair. He tried to touch it, but she smacked his hand away.
“Need proper manners, this one does. Not appropriate to smack it is.”
Obi-Wan snorted quietly; this coming from the Grandmaster, who liked to whack people around the shins with his walking stick when he wanted to make a point. Had Obi-Wan been looking at his grandmaster, he would have noticed the twitch of the man’s lips as he fought to contain his own amusement.
"Annabeth," I said, "what are you talking about? Laistry-what?"
"Laistrygonians. The monsters in the gym. They're a race of giant cannibals who live in the far north. Odysseus ran into them once, but I've never seen them as far south as New York before."
“The enemy lurking in the shadows must be growing stronger then,” Mace announced mournfully.
His former padawan frowned at him, and he sighed, “A vast number Shatterpoints are surrounding this book. While they lead to different paths, all of them have one thing in common. They all point towards a darkness that is older than Earth’s civilized history.”
Qui-Gon felt the blood leave his face.
"Laistry—I can't even say that. What would you call them in English?"
She thought about it for a moment. "Canadians," she decided. "Now come on, we have to get out of here."
"The police'll be after me."
"That's the least of our problems," she said. "Have you been having the dreams?"
"The dreams ... about Grover?"
Her face turned pale. "Grover? No, what about Grover?"
“Clearly, their dreams weren’t the same.”
I told her my dream. "Why? What were you dreaming about?"
Her eyes looked stormy, like her mind was racing a million miles an hour.
"Camp," she said at last. "Big trouble at camp."
"My mom was saying the same thing! But what kind of trouble?"
"I don't know exactly. Something's wrong. We have to get there right away. Monsters have been chasing me all the way from Virginia, trying to stop me. Have you had a lot of attacks?"
Mace rubbed his temples as ten of the Shatterpoints unexpectedly disappeared, “The mastermind behind this is playing a very dangerous game on multiple fronts. I cannot see a clear path ahead.”
Obi-Wan gulped, “That means whoever is behind this,” he gestured to the book and then waved his hand in a circle, wordlessly explaining that he was referring to them reading the book as well. “At this point, has nothing to lose but everything to gain.”
Qui-Gon’s eyes cut over to his padawan. Those words didn’t come from the young man who Qui-Gon had mentored since he was thirteen. Those words, those toneless, emotionless words, came from a soldier and a general who had seen far too many wars and watched countless people die.
His eyes stayed on his padawan as his mind drifted to the condition he’d found Obi-Wan in on Melida-Daan. The second he spotted the exhausted and traumatized teen, Qui-Gon understood why attachment was dangerous; all he wanted to do in that moment was to cut down any threat that would stop him from approaching his padawan and taking him back to Coruscant for proper medical treatment.
I shook my head. "None all year ... until today."
"None? But how ..." Her eyes drifted to Tyson. "Oh."
"What do you mean, 'oh'?"
Tyson raised his hand like he was still in class. "Canadians in the gym called Percy something... Son of the Sea God?"
Annabeth and I exchanged looks.
I didn't know how I could explain, but I figured Tyson deserved the truth after almost getting killed.
"Big guy," I said, "you ever hear those old stories about the Greek gods? Like Zeus, Poseidon, Athena—"
"Yes," Tyson said.
"Well ... those gods are still alive. They kind of follow Western Civilization around, living in the strongest countries, so like now they're in the U.S. And sometimes they have kids with mortals. Kids called half-bloods."
"Yes," Tyson said, like he was still waiting for me to get to the point.
"Uh, well, Annabeth and I are half-bloods," I said. "We're like ... heroes-in-training. And whenever monsters pick up our scent, they attack us. That's what those giants were in the gym. Monsters."
"Yes."
I stared at him. He didn't seem surprised or confused by what I was telling him, which surprised and confused me. "So ... you believe me?"
Tyson nodded. "But you are ... Son of the Sea God?"
"Yeah," I admitted. "My dad is Poseidon."
Tyson frowned. Now he looked confused. "But then ..."
Master Plo’s mind was racing. “He knew about the Greek Gods and the Greek pantheon before Percy told him. Tyson must have had more connection to that world than Percy knows. But then, to be confused after Percy’s reveal of his parentage? Whoever taught him about the Greek pantheon must have worded it in such a way that Tyson believed that he was the only son of Poseidon.”
Anakin’s jaw fell open at Master Plo’s words; now that Master Plo explained it, Tyson’s reaction made perfect sense, and it was easy to understand Master Plo’s logic. If he couldn’t have Master Qui-Gon as a mentor, and he had a choice, he’d like to have Master Plo.
A siren wailed. A police car raced past our alley.
"We don't have time for this," Annabeth said. "We'll talk in the taxi."
"A taxi all the way to camp?" I said. "You know how much money—"
"Trust me."
I hesitated. "What about Tyson?"
I imagined escorting my giant friend into Camp Half-Blood. If he freaked out on a regular playground with regular bullies, how would he act at a training camp for demigods? On the other hand, the cops would be looking for us.
"We can't just leave him," I decided. "He'll be in trouble, too."
"Yeah." Annabeth looked grim. "We definitely need to take him. Now come on."
I didn't like the way she said that, as if Tyson were a big disease we needed to get to the hospital, but I followed her down the alley. Together the three of us sneaked through the side streets of downtown while a huge column of smoke billowed up behind us from my school gymnasium.
"Here." Annabeth stopped us on the corner of Thomas and Trimble. She fished around in her backpack. "I hope I have one left."
She looked even worse than I'd realized at first. Her chin was cut. Twigs and grass were tangled in her ponytail, as if she'd slept several nights in the open. The slashes on the hems of her jeans looked suspiciously like claw marks.
"What are you looking for?" I asked.
All around us, sirens wailed. I figured it wouldn't be long before more cops cruised by, looking for juvenile delinquent gym-bombers. No doubt Matt Sloan had given them a statement by now. He'd probably twisted the story around so that Tyson and I were the bloodthirsty cannibals.
"Found one. Thank the gods." Annabeth pulled out a gold coin that I recognized as a drachma, the currency of Mount Olympus. It had Zeus's likeness stamped on one side and the Empire State Building on the other.
"Annabeth," I said, "New York taxi drivers won't take that."
Despite the worry that Master Mundi felt after hearing about Annabeth’s condition, he managed to hold on to the flicker of hope that burned inside his chest. “I doubt Annabeth is calling a New York taxi, Percy.” He chided.
"Stêthi," she shouted in Ancient Greek. "Ô hárma diabolês!"
As usual, the moment she spoke in the language of Olympus, I somehow understood it. She'd said: Stop, Chariot of Damnation!
“Not the best choice of uplifting words.”
“I must have missed the previous uplifting parts of this book then, young Kenobi.”
That didn't exactly make me feel real excited about whatever her plan was. She threw her coin into the street, but instead of clattering on the asphalt, the drachma sank right through and disappeared. For a moment, nothing happened. Then, just where the coin had fallen, the asphalt darkened. It melted into a rectangular pool about the size of a parking space—bubbling red liquid like blood. Then a car erupted from the ooze.
It was a taxi, all right, but unlike every other taxi in New York, it wasn't yellow. It was smoky gray. I mean it looked like it was woven out of smoke, like you could walk right through it. There were words printed on the door—some-thing like GYAR SSIRES—but my dyslexia made it hard for me to decipher what it said.
“What’s dyslexia?”
“It’s a condition that makes it harder to read and write in Basic. Essentially, it disrupts how the human brain processes written language.”
Anakin’s mouth formed a small o, “Wouldn’t that make the demigods stand out more if there was a monster pretending to be a teacher or some other adult who helps younglings?” He stumbled slightly as he tried to remember how to pronounce the unfamiliar word that Master Dooku used earlier.
“Yes, Anakin. It would.” Master Depa said kindly. “It seems as the monsters evolved, the Gods stayed the same.” She concluded softly.
The passenger window rolled down, and an old woman stuck her head out. She had a mop of grizzled hair covering her eyes, and she spoke in a weird mumbling way, like she'd just had a shot of Novocain. "Passage? Passage?"
"Three to Camp Half-Blood," Annabeth said. She opened the cab's back door and waved at me to get in, like this was all completely normal.
"Ach!" the old woman screeched. "We don't take his kind!"
She pointed a bony finger at Tyson.
What was it? Pick-on-Big-and-Ugly-Kids Day?
"Extra pay," Annabeth promised. "Three more drachma on arrival."
"Done!" the woman screamed.
The words Qui-Gon uttered on Tatooine about greed came rushing back to him.
Reluctantly I got in the cab. Tyson squeezed in the middle. Annabeth crawled in last. The interior was also smoky gray, but it felt solid enough. The seat was cracked and lumpy—no different than most taxis. There was no Plexiglas screen separating us from the old lady driving ... Wait a minute.
There wasn't just one old lady. There were three, all crammed in the front seat, each with stringy hair covering her eyes, bony hands, and a charcoal-colored sackcloth dress. The one driving said, "Long Island! Out-of-metro fare bonus! Ha!"
She floored the accelerator, and my head slammed against the backrest. A prerecorded voice came on over the speaker: Hi, this is Ganymede, cup-bearer to Zeus, and when I'm out buying wine for the Lord of the Skies, I always buckle up! I looked down and found a large black chain instead of a seat belt. I decided I wasn't that desperate ... yet.
Master Dooku groaned, “If these ladies are who I think they are, Percy should have put the chain on the second he settled into his seat.”
The cab sped around the corner of West Broadway, and the gray lady sitting in the middle screeched, "Look out! Go left!"
"Well, if you'd give me the eye, Tempest, I could see that!" the driver complained.
Wait a minute. Give her the eye?
“Not a typo that was.” Master Yoda stated before anyone could ask, “Only referred to one eye, they did.”
I didn't have time to ask questions because the driver swerved to avoid an oncoming delivery truck, ran over the curb with a jaw-rattling thump, and flew into the next block.
"Wasp!" the third lady said to the driver. "Give me the girl's coin! I want to bite it."
"You bit it last time, Anger!" said the driver, whose name must've been Wasp. "It's my turn!"
"Is not!" yelled the one called Anger.
The middle one, Tempest, screamed, "Red light!"
"Brake!" yelled Anger.
Instead, Wasp floored the accelerator and rode up on the curb, screeching around another corner, and knocking over a newspaper box. She left my stomach somewhere back on Broome Street.
Anakin felt excitement shoot through him. It sounded like Percy, Annabeth, and Tyson were travelling as fast as he was when he was podracing in the Boonta Eve race.
"Excuse me," I said. "But ... can you see?"
"No!" screamed Wasp from behind the wheel.
"No!" screamed Tempest from the middle.
"Of course!" screamed Anger by the shotgun window.
Master Dooku’s head fell into his hands. If Jocasta could see him now….
I looked at Annabeth. "They're blind?"
"Not completely," Annabeth said. "They have an eye."
"One eye?"
"Yeah."
"Each?"
"No. One eye total."
Obi-Wan blanched, trying to ignore the voice at the back of his mind that wondered what would happen if none of the guides had the eye.
Next to me, Tyson groaned and grabbed the seat. "Not feeling so good."
"Oh, man," I said, because I'd seen Tyson get carsick on school field trips and it was not something you wanted to be within fifty feet of. "Hang in there, big guy. Anybody got a garbage bag or something?"
The three gray ladies were too busy squabbling to pay me any attention. I looked over at Annabeth, who was hanging on for dear life, and I gave her a why-did-you-do-this-to-me look.
Depa shifted on her chair, trying to stop the smile blossoming on her face. During her time as a padawan, she had given her master that look more than once, and judging by the way he was gazing at her now, not only was she unsuccessful at preventing the smile from appearing on her face, but he was remembering those moments too.
"Hey," she said, "Gray Sisters Taxi is the fastest way to camp."
Master Dooku bit back another groan, “Kark, I wish I wasn’t right.”
"Then why didn't you take it from Virginia?"
"That's outside their service area," she said, like that should be obvious. "They only serve Greater New York and surrounding communities."
"We've had famous people in this cab!" Anger exclaimed. "Jason! You remember him?"
"Don't remind me!" Wasp wailed. "And we didn't have a cab back then, you old bat. That was three thousand years ago!"
"Give me the tooth!" Anger tried to grab at Wasp's mouth, but Wasp swatted her hand away.
"Only if Tempest gives me the eye!"
"No!" Tempest screeched. "You had it yesterday!"
"But I'm driving, you old hag!"
"Excuses! Turn! That was your turn!"
Wasp swerved hard onto Delancey Street, squishing me between Tyson and the door. She punched the gas and we shot up the Williamsburg Bridge at seventy miles an hour. The three sisters were fighting for real now, slapping each other as Anger tried to grab at Wasp's face and Wasp tried to grab at Tempest's. With their hair flying and their mouths open, screaming at each other, I realized that none of the sisters had any teeth except for Wasp, who had one mossy yellow incisor. Instead of eyes, they just had closed, sunken eyelids, except for Anger, who had one bloodshot green eye that stared at everything hungrily, as if it couldn't get enough of anything it saw.
Finally Anger, who had the advantage of sight, managed to yank the tooth out of her sister Wasp's mouth. This made Wasp so mad she swerved toward the edge of the Williamsburg Bridge, yelling, "'Ivit back! 'Ivit back!"
“I’m surprised it took her that long to think of that.” Master Eeth Koth commented wryly.
Tyson groaned and clutched his stomach.
"Uh, if anybody's interested," I said, "we're going to die!"
“Been there, said that,” Obi-Wan muttered quietly.
The quick turn of his grandmaster’s head told Obi-Wan that he hadn’t been as quiet as he hoped.
"Don't worry," Annabeth told me, sounding pretty worried. "The Gray Sisters know what they're doing. They're really very wise." This coming from the daughter of Athena, but I wasn't exactly reassured. We were skimming along the edge of a bridge a hundred and thirty feet above the East River.
"Yes, wise!" Anger grinned in the rearview mirror, showing off her newly acquired tooth.
"We know things!"
"Every street in Manhattan!" Wasp bragged, still hitting her sister. "The capital of Nepal!"
"The location you seek!" Tempest added.
Immediately her sisters pummeled her from either side, screaming, "Be quiet! Be quiet! He didn't even ask yet!"
“And now he’s going to ask and cement his involvement in yet another adventure.”
“To the Sea of Monsters,” Master Yaddle complained, remembering the title of the book. “Why can’t this child stay put?”
"What?" I said. "What location? I'm not seeking any—"
"Nothing!" Tempest said. "You're right, boy. It's nothing!"
"Tell me."
"No!" they all screamed.
"The last time we told, it was horrible!" Tempest said.
"Eye tossed in a lake!" Anger agreed.
"Years to find it again!" Wasp moaned. "And speaking of that—give it back!"
"No!" yelled Anger.
"Eye!" Wasp yelled. "Gimme!"
She whacked her sister Anger on the back. There was a sickening pop and something flew out of Anger's face. Anger fumbled for it, trying to catch it, but she only managed to bat it with the back of her hand. The slimy green orb sailed over her shoulder, into the backseat, and straight into my lap.
Obi-Wan recoiled instantly as a wave of sympathy for Percy crashed over him.
I jumped so hard, my head hit the ceiling and the eyeball rolled away.
“Understandable reaction,” Master Fisto quipped with a disgusted grimace on his face.
"I can't see!" all three sisters yelled.
"Give me the eye!" Wasp wailed.
"Give her the eye!" Annabeth screamed.
"I don't have it!" I said.
"There, by your foot," Annabeth said. "Don't step on it! Get it!"
"I'm not picking that up!"
Anakin nodded in agreement. He was fine with getting dirty when he was building machines and droids, but touching something gooey like an eye? He shuddered at the thought of it.
The taxi slammed against the guardrail and skidded along with a horrible grinding noise. The whole car shuddered, billowing gray smoke as if it were about to dissolve from the strain.
"Going to be sick!" Tyson warned.
"Annabeth," I yelled, "let Tyson use your backpack!"
"Are you crazy? Get the eye!"
“Sort out your priorities!” Master Dooku commanded, raising his head from his hands.
Wasp yanked the wheel, and the taxi swerved away from the rail. We hurtled down the bridge toward Brooklyn, going faster than any human taxi. The Gray Sisters screeched and pummeled each other and cried out for their eye.
At last I steeled my nerves. I ripped off a chunk of my tie-dyed T-shirt, which was already falling apart from all the burn marks, and used it to pick the eyeball off the floor.
"Nice boy!" Anger cried, as if she somehow knew I had her missing peeper. "Give it back!"
"Not until you explain," I told her. "What were you talking about, the location I seek?"
“Picked the wrong time to barter, Percy has.”
“When else will he find out what is going on?”
"No time!" Tempest cried. "Accelerating!"
I looked out the window. Sure enough, trees and cars and whole neighborhoods were now zipping by in a gray blur. We were already out of Brooklyn, heading through the middle of Long Island.
"Percy," Annabeth warned, "they can't find our destination without the eye. We'll just keep accelerating until we break into a million pieces."
"First they have to tell me," I said. "Or I'll open the window and throw the eye into oncoming traffic."
"No!" the Gray Sisters wailed. "Too dangerous!"
"I'm rolling down the window."
“He negotiates like you, Master,” Qui-Gon grinned and conjured a shield with the Force to stop his grandmaster’s walking stick from hitting him.
“Use my walking stick as a tool in your disagreement, you will not!”
"Wait!" the Gray Sisters screamed. "30, 31, 75, 12!"
They belted it out like a quarterback calling a play.
"What do you mean?" I said. "That makes no sense!"
"30, 31, 75, 12!" Anger wailed. "That's all we can tell you. Now give us the eye! Almost to camp!"
We were off the highway now, zipping through the countryside of northern Long Island. I could see Half-Blood Hill ahead of us, with its giant pine tree at the crest—Thalia's tree, which contained the life force or a fallen hero.
The mood, which was a bit more cheerful due to Qui-Gon’s comment, soured again at the reminder that demigods often faced extreme adversity and died young.
"Percy!" Annabeth said more urgently. "Give them the eye now!"
I decided not to argue. I threw the eye into Wasp's lap.
“Wise choice,” Master Dooku nodded approvingly.
The old lady snatched it up, pushed it into her eye socket like somebody putting in a contact lens, and blinked. "Whoa!"
She slammed on the brakes. The taxi spun four or five times in a cloud of smoke and squealed to a halt in the middle of the farm road at the base of Half-Blood Hill. Tyson let loose a huge belch. "Better now."
“Well, that’s a relief,” Obi-Wan commented, satisfied that one of Percy’s problems had solved itself.
"All right," I told the Gray Sisters. "Now tell me what those numbers mean."
"No time!" Annabeth opened her door. "We have to get out now."
I was about to ask why, when I looked up at Half-Blood Hill and understood.
At the crest of the hill was a group of campers. And they were under attack.
“End of the chapter, that is. Have less questions but more worries, I do now.” Yoda passed the book to Master Eeth Koth, who closed his eyes. When Master Koth reopened them, Master Yoda was still holding the book with an expectant look, and the Master reluctantly reached forward to take the book from the grandmaster.
“Tyson plays with fire.” The Iridonian Zabrak read loudly. “Didn’t he do that in the chapter we just finished reading?”
Chapter 5: Tyson plays with fire
Summary:
Master Eeth Koth reads the next chapter. The Jedi encounter an unexpected and potentially unwelcome visitor.
Notes:
All eyes turned to Master Dooku again, and Qui-Gon’s former master grimaced, “After this chapter, I’m going to speak with Master Nu. Perhaps she will permit me to borrow an anthology of myths and legends from the Greek pantheon.”
“Do they all end as badly as Medea’s?” Anakin inquired.
Chapter Text
Master Eeth Koth hoped to the Force that the book would disappear from his grasp before he had to read the next chapter. Unluckily for him, the Force wasn’t feeling merciful today, so he heaved an aggrieved sigh and began to read.
Mythologically speaking, if there's anything I hate worse than trios of old ladies, it's bulls. Last summer, I fought the Minotaur on top of Half-Blood Hill. This time what I saw up there was even worse: two bulls. And not just regular bulls—bronze ones the size of elephants. And even that wasn't bad enough. Naturally they had to breathe fire, too.
“So much for a calmer start to the chapter. Although considering how the last one ended and Percy’s adventures so far, this seems pretty consistent.” Obi-Wan thought to himself, resting his chin in his hand.
As soon as we exited the taxi, the Gray Sisters peeled out, heading back to New York, where life was safer. They didn't even wait for their extra three-drachma payment. They just left us on the side of the road, Annabeth with nothing but her backpack and knife, Tyson and me still in our burned-up tie-dyed gym clothes.
"Oh, man," said Annabeth, looking at the battle raging on the hill.
Master Koth’s eyes scanned the next paragraph, and he gulped, “Annabeth could give some of our younglings some tips about the best ways to respond when they’re under pressure.”
Anakin bristled at the Master’s statement, guessing that he was referring to how Anakin reacted when Master Yoda asked him how he felt. A slight movement caught his gaze, and he noticed Obi-Wan looking guiltily down at his lap.
What worried me most weren't the bulls themselves. Or the ten heroes in full battle armor who were getting their bronze-plated booties whooped. What worried me was that the bulls were ranging all over the hill, even around the back side of the pine tree. That shouldn't have been possible. The camp's magic boundaries didn't allow monsters to cross past Thalia's tree.
But the metal bulls were doing it anyway.
“In more danger than usual, the demigods are. Broken the barriers have been.”
One of the heroes shouted, "Border patrol, to me!" A girl's voice—gruff and familiar.
Border patrol? I thought. The camp didn't have a border patrol.
"It's Clarisse," Annabeth said. "Come on, we have to help her."
Normally, rushing to Clarisse's aid would not have been high on my "to do" list. She was one of the biggest bullies at camp. The first time we'd met she tried to introduce my head to a toilet. She was also a daughter of Ares, and I'd had a very serious disagreement with her father last summer, so now the god of war and all his children basically hated my guts.
For the second time, Obi-Wan had a flashback to Bruck and his mind started drawing parallels between himself and Percy.
Still, she was in trouble. Her fellow warriors were scattering, running in panic as the bulls charged. The grass was burning in huge swathes around the pine tree. One hero screamed and waved his arms as he ran in circles, the horse-hair plume on his helmet blazing like a fiery Mohawk.
“Stop, drop and roll.” Master Dooku instructed forcefully.
Then he remembered he was talking to a book and stared frustratedly at the book as if he was blaming it for the added stress he was experiencing.
Clarisse's own armor was charred. She was fighting with a broken spear shaft, the other end embedded uselessly in the metal joint of one bull's shoulder.
I uncapped my ballpoint pen. It shimmered, growing longer and heavier until I held the bronze sword Anaklusmos in my hands. "Tyson, stay here. I don't want you taking any more chances."
"No!" Annabeth said. "We need him."
I stared at her. "He's mortal. He got lucky with the dodge balls but he can't—"
"Percy, do you know what those are up there? The Colchis bulls, made by Hephaestus himself. We can't fight them without Medea's Sunscreen SPF 50,000. We'll get burned to a crisp."
“Who is Medea, and what is Annabeth talking about?”
All eyes turned to Master Dooku. He felt the weight of their gazes and switched his focus from glaring at the book to staring back at the masters, apprentice, and youngling with mild confusion, “Yes?”
“Know about Medea, you do?”
It had been a while since his last visit to the terrestrial planet. The Force had guided him there and then been annoyingly just out of reach – it was almost like the planet was holding its breath, but the Serennian noble still couldn’t figure out why he’d been drawn to the planet in the first place. Racking his brains, Yan Dooku tried to remember why the name was familiar.
“Medea was what the ancients called an enchantress,” he began. “She conspired to help a hero, Jason of Corinth, to steal the Golden Fleece from her own father. It is said that Medea was descended from Titans herself and had the gift of prophecy. After turning against her father, she accompanied Jason back to his homeland and married him. They even had some children together.”
“So she is someone the demigods can count on? She means them no harm?” Qui-Gon questioned.
A polished expression crossed his former master’s face, and Qui-Gon felt his heart sink when he saw the familiar expression. During his apprenticeship, the only time his master wore that mask was when he was preparing to deliver bad news.
“Medea would harm them if she were given the opportunity,” the Jedi Master disagreed. “Upon his return to Corinth, he discarded Medea and chose another bride, Glauce. While the poets disagree on how it happened, they agree that Medea’s children were murdered.”
Anakin felt queasy at the thought of innocent children being murdered.
“She fled the place that she thought would be her new home, but not before poisoning Jason’s new wife, father, and children.”
The council chamber fell deathly silent after he concluded the story and ducking his head Master Koth resumed reading without anyone needing to prompt him.
"Medea's what?"
Annabeth rummaged through her backpack and cursed. "I had a jar of tropical coconut scent sitting on my nightstand at home. Why didn't I bring it?"
I'd learned a long time ago not to question Annabeth too much. It just made me more confused. "Look, I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm not going to let Tyson get fried."
Master Plo looked worriedly over at Anakin who had pulled his knees up to his chest again. The master could sense the pain roiling off of the young child in waves and pushing himself out of his chair, the Jedi Master settled himself next to Anakin and pulled the child to his side.
"Percy—"
"Tyson, stay back." I raised my sword. "I'm going in."
Tyson tried to protest, but I was already running up the hill toward Clarisse, who was yelling at her patrol, trying to get them into phalanx formation. It was a good idea. The few who were listening lined up shoulder-to-shoulder, locking their shields to form an ox-hide—and-bronze wall, their spears bristling over the top like porcupine quills.
Unfortunately, Clarisse could only muster six campers. The other four were still running around with their helmets on fire. Annabeth ran toward them, trying to help. She taunted one of the bulls into chasing her, then turned invisible, completely confusing the monster. The other bull charged Clarisse's line.
I was halfway up the hill—not close enough to help. Clarisse hadn't even seen me yet. The bull moved deadly fast for something so big. Its metal hide gleamed in the sun. It had fist-sized rubies for eyes, and horns of polished silver. When it opened its hinged mouth, a column of white-hot flame blasted out.
Anakin blinked back the moisture that pooled in his eyes. He was still listening to the story and felt a little bit guilty about thinking about how cool the bulls sounded after Master Dooku’s retelling of the story of Medea.
“We can only learn from history, young Anakin. If we dwell on it, we lose ourselves to the desire to change the impossible.” Master Plo projected into his mind.
"Hold the line!" Clarisse ordered her warriors.
Whatever else you could say about Clarisse, she was brave. She was a big girl with cruel eyes like her father's. She looked like she was born to wear Greek battle armor, but I didn't see how even she could stand against that bull's charge. Unfortunately, at that moment, the other bull lost interest in finding Annabeth. It turned, wheeling around behind Clarisse on her unprotected side.
"Behind you!" I yelled. "Look out!"
I shouldn't have said anything, because all I did was startle her. Bull Number One crashed into her shield, and the phalanx broke. Clarisse went flying backward and landed in a smoldering patch of grass. The bull charged past her, but not before blasting the other heroes with its fiery breath. Their shields melted right off their arms. They dropped their weapons and ran as Bull Number Two closed in on Clarisse for the kill.
I lunged forward and grabbed Clarisse by the straps of her armor. I dragged her out of the way just as Bull Number Two freight-trained past. I gave it a good swipe with Riptide and cut a huge gash in its flank, but the monster just creaked and groaned and kept on going. It hadn't touched me, but I could feel the heat of its metal skin. Its body temperature could've microwaved a frozen burrito.
"Let me go!" Clarisse pummeled my hand. "Percy, curse you!"
“She should be thanking him,” Anakin muttered morosely into Master Plo’s side.
The Master exhaled slowly, “Clarisse is a warrior, Anakin. In her mind, she owes Percy a debt for saving her life when she was fully prepared to die defending her home and the demigods who cannot defend themselves.”
I dropped her in a heap next to the pine tree and turned to face the bulls. We were on the inside slope of the hill now, the valley of Camp Half-Blood directly below us—the cabins, the training facilities, the Big House—all of it at risk if these bulls got past us.
Annabeth shouted orders to the other heroes, telling them to spread out and keep the bulls distracted.
Bull Number One ran a wide arc, making its way back toward me. As it passed the middle of the hill, where the invisible boundary line should've kept it out, it slowed down a little, as if it were struggling against a strong wind; but then it broke through and kept coming. Bull Number Two turned to face me, fire sputtering from the gash I'd cut in its side. I couldn't tell if it felt any pain, but its ruby eyes seemed to glare at me like I'd just made things personal.
“The bulls are thinking and adapting,” Mace breathed in horror.
I couldn't fight both bulls at the same time. I'd have to take down Bull Number Two first, cut its head off before Bull Number One charged back into range. My arms already felt tired. I realized how long it had been since I'd worked out with Riptide, how out of practice I was. I lunged but Bull Number Two blew flames at me. I rolled aside as the air turned to pure heat.
All the oxygen was sucked out of my lungs. My foot caught on something —a tree root, maybe—and pain shot up my ankle. Still, I managed to slash with my sword and lop off part of the monster's snout. It galloped away, wild and disoriented. But before I could feel too good about that, I tried to stand, and my left leg buckled underneath me. My ankle was sprained, maybe broken.
Bull Number One charged straight toward me. No way could I crawl out of its path.
Annabeth shouted: "Tyson, help him!"
A blur surged past me and instantly I felt despair settle into my lungs. It felt like my lungs were on fire and the oxygen around me felt thick and poisonous. The blur solidified into a person and she reached out a hand to me while she faced the bull. I wanted to take it, I really did but I knew my ankle wouldn’t support my weight. At first I thought it was a trick of the light but as the bull galloped closer, I realized it was losing some of the magic that enchanted it. I could see more of the metal gears that made up the bull and the ruby red eyes dimmed to the point that they were dully glowing.
Somewhere near, toward the crest of the hill, Tyson wailed, "Can't—get—through!"
"I, Annabeth Chase, give you permission to enter camp!"
Thunder shook the hillside. Suddenly Tyson was there, barreling toward me, yelling: "Percy needs help!"
Before I could tell him no, he dove between me and my mysterious savior and the bull just as it unleashed a nuclear firestorm.
"Tyson!" I yelled.
The blast swirled around him like a red tornado. I could only see the black silhouette of his body. I knew with horrible certainty that my friend had just been turned into a column of ashes.
But when the fire died, Tyson was still standing there, completely unharmed. Not even his grungy clothes were scorched. The bull must've been as surprised as I was, because before it could unleash a second blast, Tyson balled his fists and slammed them into the bull's face.
"BAD COW!"
His fists made a crater where the bronze bull's snout used to be. Two small columns of flame shot out of its ears. Tyson hit it again, and the bronze crumpled under his hands like aluminum foil. The bull's face now looked like a sock puppet pulled inside out.
"Down!" Tyson yelled.
The bull staggered and fell on its back. Its legs moved feebly in the air, steam coming out of its ruined head in odd places.
Annabeth ran over to check on me, meeting my savior’s eyes as she did. Something passed between them and my savior dashed off.
“There’s no rest on the battlefield.”
Across the room from Depa, Yan shifted in his seat. His leg was beginning to cramp and he stretched it out reflexively. His thoughts strayed to Jocasta again and he found himself wondering why she always wore a small, secret grin whenever someone asked about legends and myths.
My ankle felt like it was filled with acid, but she gave me some Olympian nectar to drink from her canteen, and I immediately started to feel better. There was a burning smell that I later learned was me. The hair on my arms had been completely singed off.
"The other bull?" I asked.
Annabeth pointed down the hill. Clarisse had taken care of Bad Cow Number Two. She'd impaled it through the back leg with a celestial bronze spear. Now, with its snout half gone and a huge gash in its side, it was trying to run in slow motion, going in circles like some kind of merry-go-round animal. My savior rematerialized in front of it and the bull screeched to a halt in front of her. She turned her hand palm up and whisps of black smoke shot out of her palm, striking the bull in the eyes and in the mouth. The bull fell in a heap with its legs splayed outwards and it bowed its head before crumbling away into ash.
“Have some serious power, Percy’s savior does. Relieved she controls it, I am.”
Clarisse pulled off her helmet and marched toward us. A strand of her stringy brown hair was smoldering, but she didn't seem to notice. "You—ruin—everything!" she yelled at me. "I had it under control!"
I was too stunned to answer. Annabeth grumbled, "Good to see you too, Clarisse."
"Argh!" Clarisse screamed. "Don't ever, EVER try saving me again!"
"Clarisse," Annabeth said, "you've got wounded campers."
That sobered her up. Even Clarisse cared about the soldiers under her command.
“They may not see eye to eye, but it’s clear Percy respects her because she cares about her soldiers.”
"I'll be back," she growled, then trudged off to assess the damage.
I stared at Tyson. "You didn't die."
Tyson looked down like he was embarrassed. "I am sorry. Came to help. Disobeyed you."
"My fault," Annabeth said. "I had no choice. I had to let Tyson cross the boundary line to save you. Otherwise, you would've died."
"Let him cross the boundary line?'" I asked. "But—"
"Percy," she said, "have you ever looked at Tyson closely? I mean ... in the face. Ignore the Mist, and really look at him." The Mist makes humans see only what their brains can process ... I knew it could fool demigods too, but...
“He talks like a child, has problems entering a camp that’s made for demigods and latched onto Percy as if he knows he needs to stay close to him,” Obi-Wan summarized. “What if Tyson’s not a demigod but he’s still somehow related to Percy and Poseidon?”
“Well thought out, Obi-Wan.” Qui-Gon praised, “I have a feeling we’ll see if you’re right soon.”
I looked Tyson in the face. It wasn't easy. I'd always had trouble looking directly at him, though I'd never quite understood why. I'd thought it was just because he always had peanut butter in his crooked teeth. I forced myself to focus at his big lumpy nose, then a little higher at his eyes.
No, not eyes.
One eye. One large, calf-brown eye, right in the middle of his forehead, with thick lashes and big tears trickling down his cheeks on either side.
“Does he think Percy’s going to reject him because of the way he looks?” Anakin fretted, “I hope he doesn’t. Then Tyson will be all alone.”
“I too hope he doesn’t reject Tyson, youngling,” Master Plo replied.
"Tyson," I stammered. "You're a ..."
"Cyclops," Annabeth offered. "A baby, by the looks of him. Probably why he couldn't get past the boundary line as easily as the bulls. Tyson's one of the homeless orphans."
"One of the what?"
"They're in almost all the big cities," Annabeth said distastefully. "They're ... mistakes, Percy. Children of nature spirits and gods ... Well, one god in particular, usually ... and they don't always come out right. No one wants them. They get tossed aside. They grow up wild on the streets. I don't know how this one found you, but he obviously likes you. We should take him to Chiron, let him decide what to do."
Now Obi-Wan shifted where he sat. He could hear the hidden message in Annabeth’s words and he wished she had told him that he was wrong. Tyson was a son of Poseidon but he was a cyclops and there was a moment in Annabeth’s past that she was being forced to confront every time she interacted with Tyson. Obi-Wan bit down on his lip as the thought of Annabeth taking out some of her anger and resentment on Percy because of his loyalty to Tyson and their shared parentage occurred to him.
"But the fire. How—"
"He's a Cyclops." Annabeth paused, as if she were remembering something unpleasant. "They work the forges of the gods. They have to be immune to fire. That's what I was trying to tell you."
I was completely shocked. How had I never realized what Tyson was?
But I didn't have much time to think about it just then. The whole side of the hill was burning. Wounded heroes needed attention. And there was still one banged-up bronze bull to dispose of, which I didn't figure would fit in our normal recycling bins.
Clarisse came back over and wiped the soot off her forehead. "Jackson, if you can stand, get up. We need to carry the wounded back to the Big House, let Tantalus know what's happened."
All eyes turned to Master Dooku again, and Qui-Gon’s former master grimaced, “After this chapter, I’m going to speak with Master Nu. Perhaps she will permit me to borrow an anthology of myths and legends from the Greek pantheon.”
“Do they all end as badly as Medea’s?” Anakin inquired. His voice was so soft that Master Dooku could only hear a few of the words, and Master Plo had to repeat Anakin’s question.
Not wanting to lie to the child, Yan chose his words carefully, “The Greek legends and myths were created to remind people to remember what was important and to remember that the gods held absolute power. There are a small handful of legends that have what you would term a positive and satisfying ending.”
"Tantalus?" I asked.
"The activities director," Clarisse said impatiently.
"Chiron is the activities director. And where's Argus? He's head of security. He should be here."
Clarisse made a sour face. "Argus got fired. You two have been gone too long. Things are changing."
A figure approached Clarisse. She made no noise and moved gracefully. With a start, I realized that my savior was (Name). She was one of the unclaimed demigods, yet she spent most of her time around Clarisse and the Ares cabin. Speaking of Clarisse, the demigod didn’t even stiffen as (Name) drew level with her. Either she was so familiar with how (Name) moved and was used to it, or she had some freaky Ares power that no one told me about that allowed her to sense whatever was happening on the battlefield.
“Clarisse. You can’t fault them for not knowing what they don’t know.”
Clarisse stared at (Name) and lifted her chin as if she expected (Name) to back down. The other demigod met her gaze evenly, and I heard Clarisse’s teeth grind together.
"But Chiron ... He's trained kids to fight monsters for over three thousand years. He can't just be gone. What happened?"
"That happened," Clarisse snapped, shooting (Name) a look as if to say ‘There. I’m being civil. Happy now?’
Mace closed his eyes as another hundred Shatterpoints disappeared. The remaining Shatterpoints danced across his vision, clamoring at him to focus on them and as they fought for his complete attention, the Shatterpoints grew bigger and Mace caught glimpses of their futures.
For a second, in his mind’s eye, he thought he saw the Jedi archives.
She pointed to Thalia's tree.
Every camper knew the story behind the tree. Six years ago, Grover, Annabeth, and two other demigods named Thalia and Luke had come to Camp Half-Blood chased by an army of monsters. When they got cornered on top of this hill, Thalia, a daughter of Zeus, had made her last stand here to give her friends time to reach safety. As she was dying, her father, Zeus, took pity on her and changed her into a pine tree. Her spirit had reinforced the magic borders of the camp, protecting it from monsters. The pine had been here ever since, strong and healthy.
Anguish and bewilderment battled inside Plo, and he did his best to release those emotions into the Force, yet he was unable to release his thoughts into the Force, and they persistently buzzed around his mind.
“If Zeus is truly as powerful as he boasts, why didn’t he prevent Thalia from being injured so severely? Surely there must have been other ways to save her life? Unless because this threat that the demigods are now facing is rising and has been for a while, Zeus’ power is diminishing by the day.”
But now, its needles were yellow. A huge pile of dead ones littered the base of the tree. In the center of the trunk, three feet from the ground, was a puncture mark the size of a bullet hole, oozing green sap.
A sliver of ice ran through my chest. Now I understood why the camp was in danger. The magical borders were failing because Thalia's tree was dying.
Someone had poisoned it.
“That’s the end of-”
A shroud of darkness fell on the council chamber. Every flickering torchlight behind the Masters' chairs was suddenly extinguished at the same time, and the darkness grew so thick that Anakin was wrenched away from Master Plo. He cried out but couldn’t hear the sound of his own voice, and then he heard the buzz of Master Qui-Gon’s lightsaber.
Anakin couldn’t explain how he knew that it was Master Qui-Gon who had ignited his lightsaber; he just did. Obi-Wan ignited his own a heartbeat later, and the darkness began to lift. Hope blossomed in Anakin’s chest, and then he heard a foreboding hiss.
Two red blades appeared in what Anakin was guessing was the center of the room. “The only person I’ve ever seen with a red lightsaber was the being who attacked us as we tried to leave Tatooine with the Queen! It must be him again!”
Just when Anakin was about to fall into despair, a purple lightsaber flung itself through the air and slashed downwards. The glowing blade sheared straight through the metal part that connected the two blades and they clattered to the ground, fizzing out as they did so.
The darkness lifted. Anakin watched the purple lightsaber soar back through the air, and Master Windu snatched it from the air with a stern, focused expression. Anakin was right. It was the being who attacked them on Tatooine.
Master Qui-Gon looked as shaken now as he did then while their assailant was frozen in astonishment in the center of the room and staring at the broken halves of his lightsaber.
“Quick thinking, my old friend.” Yan praised, his hand resting on the curved hilt of his own lightsaber. He lifted his hand and gestured. The intruder slid backwards and sent the Jedi Master a contemptuous look, raising his hands to his temples. He was careful to avoid his horns, but he was unable to resist Dooku’s compulsion for too long, and his body sagged, falling onto the tiled floor in an unconscious heap.