#happy the dragon

[ssavinggrace]

FESTUS BABYYY

#pjo #toa #hoo #leo valdez #festus the dragon #happy the dragon #Leo's awesome

[halothenthehorns]

Chapter 2: THE BRONZE DRAGON

Magnus saw that last word and just stopped. Just sat there frozen and looked like he wanted to cry. Why? Why was Percy's life like this?

"Magnus?" Under any other circumstances, Magnus would have been equally confused and delighted why Alex sounded so concerned over him.

"The, Bronze, Dragon," he slowly drug out every word like he was trying to suck the water off of a rock. A very pointless and disgusting task.

"Whatever nice things were said about Hephaestus need to be revoked right now!" Percy agreed with every dreaded line on Magnus's face.

Nico made a little yeep noise as well, his first thought being Bianca leaping into that thing's mouth and making it do the chicken dance as well.

"Please let this be an adventure about you getting shrunk down and fighting an armadillo lizard*," Jason was the only one who sounded excited. Then Percy considered for a moment and even nodded like that could have some fun before Magnus read on in dread before anybody else got crazier ideas.

One dragon can ruin your whole day.

"One dragon can ruin someone's whole life Percy!" Magnus groaned. He begged of the following words to please be something like Peleus with a stomach ache! An actual, made-up bad dream? A very oddly themed birthday party for some kid not cursed by the universe?!

"Surely that's why I'm there, to make it go from one to the other," Percy offered with half-hearted hope of his own he just had to help a dragon egg hatch or something cute and innocent... like his life was ever that easy.

Trust me, as a demigod I've had my share of bad experiences. I've been snapped at, clawed at, blowtorched and poisoned. I've fought single-headed dragons, double-headed, eight-headed, nine-headed and the kind with so many heads that if you stopped to count them you'd be pretty much dead.

"Nobody was ever going to ask you to reminisce about the hydra Percy," Thalia sighed. Why couldn't that have been his worst dragon experience?

"Frankly all that just made me think to ask you, again, how are you alive?" Jason nodded.

"Luck and some mild skill," Percy reminded.

But that time with the bronze dragon? I thought for sure my friends and I were going to end up as Kibbles "n" Dragon Bits.

The evening started simply enough.

"It always does with you," Will nodded without surprise. He alone seemed to have a pretty good idea what this one was about, and aside from rubbing Nico's arm to help chase those shivers away he didn't want to spoil the fun for anyone.

It was the end of June.

"Oh," Percy said in surprise as he did a double take. "This happened, before that thing with Clarisse though! That explains the weird smell!"

Nobody else had a clue what he was talking about, they just all kind of assumed Clraisse smelled like motor oil.

I'd come back from my most recent quest about two weeks before, and life at Camp Half-Blood was returning to normal. Satyrs were chasing the dryads. Monsters howled in the woods. The campers were playing pranks on one another and our camp director, Dionysus, was turning anyone who misbehaved into a shrub. Typical summer-camp stuff.

Magnus stopped cold like he'd been the one turned into a shrub. Which was ridiculous, he didn't have a single leaf on him.

"He turns them back Magnus," Will shrugged.

Magnus counted to ten in his head before deciding against asking for further details.

After dinner, all the campers were hanging out at the dining pavilion. We were all excited because that evening capture the flag was going to be totally vicious.

The night before, Hephaestus's cabin had pulled off a huge upset. They'd captured the flag from Ares – with my help, thank you very much –

"Nobody was thanking you Percy," Thalia scoffed.

"Well maybe more people should," Percy tried to give her big pouty eyes, but it was ruined by everybody laughing to much and he couldn't begin to hold it.

which meant that the Ares cabin would be out for blood. Well... they're always out for blood, but this night especially.

On the blue team were Hephaestus's cabin, Apollo, Hermes and me – the only demigod in Poseidon's cabin. The bad news was that for once Athena and Ares – both war god cabins – were against us on the red team, along with Aphrodite, Dionysus and Demeter. Athena's cabin held the other flag and my friend Annabeth was their captain.

"I need politics and details stat!" Jason turned and pleaded to Percy like he was going to fall on his knees.

Will lit up, clearly all for going into the latest drama that had caused such shifts in dynamics to occur, but Thalia and Percy groaned in sync, quite loudly. Seems as if unless they were the ones running the teams they weren't going to happily sit around and play back who had pranked whom, what revenge was needed, and the height of impressing others.

Jason sighed but reluctantly gave in that could take hours just to get caught up on a week's worth, but gave Will a very obvious look as if book marking him for later.

Annabeth is not somebody you want as an enemy.

"Which is why Percy seems to make a life goal of it!" Alex chuckled with a very pointed gesture at him like they'd missed her target.

"I only aim for the best," Percy puffed his chest up with pride and swooped back his hair.

Thalia smacked him in the stomach, causing him to deflate and the gray strands of hair to fall back in place as she smirked, "in everything except grades."

Right before the game, she strolled up to me. "Hey, Seaweed Brain."

"Will you stop calling me that?"

"I didn't call you anything," Will said innocently.

Only Nico laughed while the others groaned even louder at the terrible pun. Though Magnus ignored them all with interest. That was, in fact, the first time he'd heard Percy wanted her to stop that, and as far as he could tell from the light-hearted smile on his face now and the passive eye-roll, Percy hardly meant it.

She knows I hate that name, mostly because I never have a good comeback.

"The worst atrocity I could name," Alex sighed.

"You should never be brought to a comedy show," Percy said with a hint of dread. She'd heckle anybody and get herself thrown out...though Percy wouldn't believe that wasn't her goal going in.

She's the daughter of Athena, which doesn't give me a lot of ammunition. I mean, "Owl-head" and "Wise Girl" are kind of lame insults.

"Lame but classics," Alex nodded contemplatively. "Surely you could get creative with all the world of nerd insults. Poindexter might suit her, or-"

"We are not going to sit around and make up insults about her, or her cabin," Thalia sighed.

"Just trying to keep the playing field even," Alex said, though raised her hands quickly in surrender.

"You know you love it." She bumped me with her shoulder, which I guess was supposed to be friendly, but she was wearing full Greek armour, so it kind of hurt.

"Both," Jason snorted.

"Definitely both," Percy agreed as he rubbed his shoulder with the biggest smile.

Her grey eyes sparkled under her helmet. Her blonde ponytail curled around one shoulder. It was hard for anyone to look cute in combat armour, but Annabeth pulled it off.

"Cute, huh?" Will's little laugh was so infectious even as he rolled his eyes hard. "How, on earth, Travis ever bet against me that you two would end up together I'll never know when you literally had these thoughts running through your brain."

"Why were there bets?!" Percy seemed to be missing the teasing part of that as he once again frowned at Will. "Where is this magical bulletin board?"

"Right next to the one with play tryout dates," he said saintly. "Up in the Big House, don't know how you've missed it."

Percy didn't seem able to close his mouth to properly get anything back and Magnus took pity on him and moved on before he'd have to.

"Tell you what." She lowered her voice. "We're going to crush you tonight, but if you pick a safe position... like right flank, for instance... I'll make sure you don't get pulverized too much."

"Retreat! Re-treat!" Jason enunciated very clearly. "This is a trap! Percy, please run for your life!" He said it in a pretty bad imitation of a robotic alarmed voice for some reason like a crappy fire drill.

Probably because it would have had as much effect on Percy then as it did now, who was to busy grinning at the challenge to hear a word.

"Gee, thanks," I said, "but I'm playing to win."

She smiled. "See you on the battlefield."

She jogged back to her teammates, who all laughed and gave her high fives. I'd never seen her so happy, like the chance to beat me up was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

"Percy is doomed," Thalia agreed casually. "Apparently even without fighting with me he can't avoid screwing up these games."

"I helped win the last one!" He spluttered, breaking out of his delusion of her hair escaping its helmet to glare at Thalia non-effectively. "You could have a little faith in me, I know her, her tricks!" He ended with a pretty sad stutter and crossed-eyed concern if this was a trick in a trick to make that any kind of believable.

Beckendorf walked up with his helmet under his arm. "She likes you, man."

"Sure," I muttered. "She likes me for target practice."

"Both," Jason said again with absolute confidence.

"Definitely both," Alex chuckled.

"I almost believed you that time," Percy sighed.

"Oh we're serious," Jason and Alex assured.

"Nah, they always do that. A girl starts trying to kill you, you know she's into you."

"What is this, playground rules?" Magnus sighed. He was no fool, he knew full well his cousin liked Percy back, but it was clearly complicated with her for several reasons and he assumed that's why she didn't act on it more. Who was this ding-dong, whose name he only vaguely recognized, trying to assure Percy of anything?

"Makes a lot of sense."

Beckendorf shrugged. "I know about these things. You ought to ask her to the fireworks."

Percy sighed. He'd really been wanting to talk to somebody about this back then, and Beckendorf seemed like the guy all of a sudden, but now that the moment was here...it felt like a waste of breath. What could he say Percy didn't already know?

I couldn't tell if he was serious. Beckendorf was lead counsellor for Hephaestus. He was this huge dude with a permanent scowl, muscles like a pro ballplayer, and hands calloused from working in the forges. He'd just turned eighteen and was on his way to NYU in the autumn. Since he was older, I usually listened to him about stuff, but the idea of asking Annabeth to the Fourth of July fireworks down at the beach – like, the biggest dating event of the summer – made my stomach do somersaults.

Then Silena Beauregard, the head counsellor for Aphrodite, passed by. Beckendorf had had a not-so-secret crush on her for three years. She had long black hair and big blue eyes, and when she walked the guys tended to watch. She said, "Good luck, Charlie." (Nobody ever calls Beckendorf by his first name.) She flashed him a brilliant smile and went to join Annabeth on the red team.

"I think she was beckoning to him," Alex said with a brilliant smile. Will and Nico both laughed hard at the pun while Jason and Magnus joined the groaning this time.

"Uh..." Beckendorf swallowed like he'd forgotten how to breathe.

I patted him on the shoulder. "Thanks for the advice, dude. Glad you're so wise about girls and all. Come on. Let's get to the woods."

Percy laughed along loudest of all. Finally, somebody else's girl misshaps wasn't at his expense!

...it felt a tad forced in his throat for some reason though he didn't like. A nagging idea in the back of his mind that had sporadically been cropping up. Now here, thinking of the beach, talking to Silena, the thought tried so hard to crystalize into something- but the idea was gone as his stomach pitched in pain and his skin felt a great flush of heat. He knew that feeling, he knew better than to mess with a memory like that.

Naturally, Beckendorf and I took the most dangerous job.

"Naturally," Will repeated in a very posh, british voice.

"Because if we gave Will the most dangerous job he'd stop to sniff the oranges to much," Nico smirked.

"We all have our strengths," he agreed without batting an eye.

While the Apollo cabin played defence with their bows, the Hermes cabin would charge up the middle of the woods to distract the enemy. Meanwhile, Beckendorf and I would scout around the left flank, locate the enemy's flag, knock out the defenders and get the flag back to our side. Simple.

Why the left flank?

"Because Annabeth wanted me to go right," I told Beckendorf, "which means she doesn't want us to go left."

"Please tell me you at least considered a double cross? Then a triple cross. Then a quadruple cross-"

"Jason!" Percy groaned. "I'm well aware Annabeth's going to pull one over on me, but I had to pick a lane! I'm sure I threw off her whole plan by just showing up."

Jason just shook his head at him, but then, he also would have been interrogating Annabeth about every layer of her plan if she were here and refused to tell him, so Percy didn't feel that bad about stopping him from pitching every way he was going to be wrong.

Beckendorf nodded. "Let's suit up."

He'd been working on a secret weapon for the two of us – bronze chameleon armour, enchanted to blend into the background. If we stood in front of rocks, our breastplates, helms and shields turned grey. If we stood in front of bushes, the metal changed to a leafy green. It wasn't true invisibility, but we'd have pretty good cover, at least from a distance.

Alex threw her head back laughing. "Somebody got jealous of Annabeth's hat!

"Ooo," Thalia said with interest. "Where's mine?"

Percy had some half-baked remark about her doing extra chores for him to help get Beckendorf's favor, but he choked on the words and nothing really came out except some spit while Thalia patted him on the back with a troubled smile she tried hard to look real.

"This stuff took forever to forge," Beckendorf warned me. "Don't mess it up!"

"You got it, Captain."

Beckendorf grunted. I could tell he liked being called Captain.

Thalia was still listening with great interest, and clearly decided she had her own turn at co-captain with him stuck in her craw more than letting him dwell on why he kept pressing his thumb between his eyes.

"Oh sure, him you just conceded the throne to! I was born to be a righteous, mighty warrior to lead armies, but this guy you just hand the crown."

Percy's shaking hand fell, a teasing smile instantly back. "Try getting accepted into college Thals, then maybe I'll watch you run your own team right into the river."

They even started bartering back and forth about who would get which cabin before Magnus bravely cleared his throat and waved the book around before they realized Annabeth would have to pick a side. That was a blood bath waiting to happen.

The rest of the Hephaestus campers wished us well, and we sneaked off into the woods, immediately turning brown and green to match the trees.

We crossed the creek that served as the boundary between the teams. We heard fighting in the distance – swords clashing against shields. I glimpsed a flash of light from some magical weapon, but we saw no one.

"No border guards?" Beckendorf whispered. "Weird."

"Overconfident," I guessed. But I felt uneasy. Annabeth was a great strategist. It wasn't like her to be sloppy about defence, even if her team did outnumber us.

Jason was over there muttering, "trap, this is a trap," and even spelling it out under his breath repeatedly while Thalia was still smirking and muttering about Percy botching this up like he had to hers. Percy sighed again about what great faith his friends seemed to have in him, but at least the headache was staying at bay.

We moved into enemy territory. I knew we had to hurry, because our team was playing a defensive game, and that couldn't last forever. The Apollo kids would get over-run sooner or later. The Ares cabin wouldn't be slowed down by a little thing like arrows.

"What about trick arrows?" Alex asked with interest. "Tip them in all kinds of fun stuff, or attach any number of things to activate-"

"I think we should just ban Alex's desert privileges before she even gets there," Percy grinned.

"Take away my chocolate, dudette, see what happens," she smirked.

"That sounds like a Chiron problem," Percy shrugged, picking at the hem of his shirt without concern.

We crept along the base of an oak tree. I almost jumped out of my skin when a girl's face emerged from the trunk. "Shoo!" she said, then faded back into the bark.

"Dryads," Beckendorf grumbled. "So touchy."

"Am not!" a muffled voice said from the tree.

Magnus was pretty proud of himself for laughing along at the mild moment instead of, say, freaking out the tree's could decide to kill them all in their sleep. Again.

We kept moving. It was hard to tell exactly where we were. Some landmarks stood out, like the creek and certain cliffs and some really old trees, but the woods tended to shift around. I guess the nature spirits got restless. Paths changed. Trees moved.

"They what?" Magnus yelped like his tail was on fire. "They just, move their whole tree, and roots, and plant them, and, they what?"

"It's pretty funny to watch, they just hike their leaf skirts up and their branches get top heavy sometimes so they-"

Thalia finally smacked Percy to get him to stop while the others couldn't stop snickering at the look of miserable acceptance on Magnus's face when he couldn't decide if Percy was telling the truth, or worse, nobody had any clue how or why the dryads did that and it was just another level of crazy.

Then suddenly we were at the edge of a clearing. I knew we were in trouble when I saw the mountain of dirt.

"A child of the ocean's worst enemy," Thalia snorted. "Take notes Nico."

"I've never tried just throwing soil around," he admitted with a smile that didn't mean he wouldn't be willing.

Percy narrowed his eyes contemplatively who would beat whom, earth-shaker versus child of the Underworld. He'd just have to challenge him to a digging competition to prove it later.

"Holy Hephaestus," Beckendorf whispered. "The Ant Hill."

"Do you all take your parent's names in vain?" Jason startled in surprise.

"Well it would just be weird if he said Holy Aphrodite, now wouldn't it," Percy shrugged.

"So who should Jason pray to? Merlin's Mankini," Alex smirked.

"If I've ever dabbled in witchcraft Alex, I would use whatever spell I could to burn that image from my mind," Jason sighed.

I wanted to back up and run. I'd never seen the Ant Hill before,

Why is Ant Hill capitalized, Magnus let the stray thought flit through his mind without interrupting to point it out. He just wanted a few more seconds of delusional peace this was just a sacred place and they were in awe of all its nonlethal help.

but I'd heard stories from the older campers. The mound rose almost to the treetops – four storeys at least. Its sides were riddled with tunnels, and crawling in and out were thousands of...

"Myrmekes," I muttered.

"Oh this is bad," Jason already realized. Percy never remembered the name of a monster otherwise.

That's Ancient Greek for "ants", but these things were way more than that. They would've given any exterminator a heart attack.

"Me too," Magnus promised with an opener like that.

The Myrmekes were the size of German shepherds. Their armoured shells glistened blood-red. Their eyes were beady black and their razor-sharp mandibles sliced and snapped. Some carried tree branches. Some carried chunks of raw meat that I really didn't want to know about. Most carried bits of metal – old armour, swords, food platters that had somehow found their way out here from the dining pavilion. One ant was dragging the glossy black hood of a sports car.

Magnus face planted the pages and groaned with misery. He'd been expecting a dragon, he'd been trying to mentally prepare himself for scaly beasts that could eat them! Now there were two, or more likely two thousand more deadly things running around! Why was Percy's life like this?!

"Now those are the kind of bugs that can take over the world, survive the apocalypse and become our new lords of the land," Alex grinned with wild delight, wondering if she could turn into something metal.

"They have to work on their infrastructure before I'd consider it," Percy said, resisting the urge to plug his nose through memory.

"They love shiny metal," Beckendorf whispered. "Especially gold. I've heard they have more gold in their nest than Fort Knox." He sounded envious.

"Don't even think about it," I said.

"Now that's a roll reversal if I've ever heard one," Nico chuckled in surprise. His stomach was pitching in disgust at the idea of mounds of treasure, he could all to easily picture Bianca in there picking up a hair pin and his old figurine again...so it was much more fun to imagine Beckendorf holding Percy's straps back at the idea of these things getting their jaws on a gold skateboard.

"I was not one of those weird kids who tried to drown and burn ant hills," Percy sniffed.

"Dude, I won't," he promised. "Let's get out of here while we..."

His eyes widened.

Fifteen metres*50 feet away, two ants were struggling to drag a big hunk of metal towards their nest. It was the size of a refrigerator, all glittery gold and bronze, with weird bumps and ridges down the side and a bunch of wires sticking out the bottom. Then the ants rolled the thing over, and I saw a face.

Magnus was about one word away from throwing this book in that trashcan that vanished things to nowhere. He'd give Percy better memories, he'd make up ones that didn't involve...all of this.

I just about jumped out of my skin. "That's a –"

"Shhh!" Beckendorf pulled me back into the bushes.

"But that's a –"

"Dragon's head," he said in awe. "Yes. I see it."

"So it's only his head," Magnus sighed in relief, the book's saving grace. "I can live with that."

"Right, buddy, you keep thinking that," Will muttered low enough Magnus only squinted suspiciously at him. What on earth made the poor guy think the rest of the body wouldn't come with the head?

The snout was as long as my body. The mouth hung open, showing metal teeth like a shark's. Its skin was a combination of gold and bronze scales, and its eyes were rubies as big as my fists. The head looked like it had been hacked from its body – chewed by ant mandibles. The wires were frayed and tangled.

"Robot dragon," Magnus sighed, trying to decide if that made this horror better or worse. On one hand he could imagine Tyson punching it in the face a little easier. On the other...robot dragon!

"I bet Percy sticks his head in that and tries to scare Annabeth," Alex snickered.

"I'm worried where the rest of the body is," Jason frowned how a camp had a whole dragon buried somewhere in there and what else was just under their feet.

"Hey, I just realized," Magnus looked a little extra miserable now for some reason. "Where's Tyson? I'd feel better with a fire-breathing machine around if he was."

"He went back to the Cyclops forges the week before," Percy said reluctantly. "Trust me, I was missing him right about then too."

The head must've been heavy, too, because the ants were struggling, moving it only a few centimetres with every tug.

"If they get it to the hill," Beckendorf said, "the other ants will help them. We've got to stop them."

"I take it back," Nico said with a puzzled frown. "Everybody at your camp is just nuts."

"So glad to not be the exception for once," Percy nodded his agreement.

"What?" I asked. "Why?"

"It's a sign from Hephaestus. Come on!"

Magnus dropped the book in his lap and pressed his hands to his ears. "I never want to hear of another sign from your parents!"

"This is a good one," Will tried to soothe, though his voice hitching a bit gave away the lie, so he finished, "eventually."

Magnus gave him a baleful look and wondered how many people the robot dragon killed just by stepping on them before that eventually happened. There really was just no point arguing though he should skip to that, Percy's reaction was probably going to be worse than whatever the dragon did.

I didn't know what he was talking about, but I'd never seen Beckendorf look so determined. He sprinted along the edge of the clearing, his armour blending into the trees.

I was about to follow when something sharp and cold pressed against my neck.

"Surprise," Annabeth said, right next me. She must've had her magic Yankees cap on because she was totally invisible.

"I guess that makes sense," Jason chuckled. "She'd know better than to take her eyes off of you."

"She just wanted to jack that armor for herself," Alex smirked.

"She doesn't need it," Magnus said blankly.

"But I'm sure she has a whole speech ready about Percy stealing her thing," Alex insisted.

I tried to move, but she dug her knife under my chin.

"You've been held at knifepoint enough in your life," Nico shook his head, "I think I'm with Alex, she's just jealous she never got her turn at that too."

"I'm sure Annabeth has a list somewhere of what she wants revenge on Percy for and this was just a convenient outlet," Will chuckled.

Silena appeared out of the woods, her sword drawn. Her Aphrodite armour was pink and red, colour coordinated to match her clothes and makeup. She looked like Guerilla Warfare Barbie.

Thalia laughed way to hard at that one, but she'd been making Barbie jokes about that cabin for years and was probably just mad and appreciative of Percy getting to that one first.

"Nice work," she told Annabeth.

An invisible hand confiscated my sword. Annabeth took off her cap and appeared before me, smiling smugly. "Boys are easy to follow. They make more noise than a lovesick Minotaur."

Magnus looked newly traumatized at that sentence. "Who, who would he be lovesick after?"

"Geryon probably, he's the only monster with enough heart and a love of cattle," Alex said slyly.

Most of the others didn't seem to know whether to laugh or gag at that input and Magnus decided to read around her for it.

My face felt hot. I tried to think back, hoping I hadn't said anything embarrassing.

"You did not actually," Jason said helpfully, for once. "Though I'm sure it's just a matter of time."

There it was.

No telling how long Annabeth and Silena had been eavesdropping.

"You're our prisoner," Annabeth announced. "Let's get Beckendorf and –"

"Beckendorf!" For a split second I'd forgotten about him, but he was still forging ahead –

"Right towards the deadly ants," Will sighed.

"Annabeth truly will block out any other thought," Nico sounded grudgingly impressed.

straight towards the dragon's head. He was already twelve metres *40 feet away. He hadn't noticed the girls, or the fact that I wasn't behind him.

"Not the, greatest backup," Jason frowned.

"Credit for determination," Thalia shrugged.

"I bet he invents something that forces people to eat his dust," Alex chuckled.

"Come on!" I told Annabeth.

She pulled me back. "Where do you think you're going, prisoner?"

"I imagine her dragging you all the way back to Alcatraz and throwing you in the cell Braries used to be in just to prove her point," Magnus admitted.

"Labyrinth or no Labyrinth," Percy agreed.

"Look!"

She peered into the clearing and for the first time seemed to realize where we were. "Oh, Zeus..."

Beckendorf leaped into the open and struck one of the ants. His sword clanged off the thing's carapace. The ant turned, snapping its pincers. Before I could even call out, the ant bit Beckendorf's leg, and he crumpled to the ground. The second ant sprayed goo in his face, and Beckendorf screamed. He dropped his sword and slapped wildly at his eyes.

The collective shudder that went around the room may have knocked a few more support beams off their hinges. That went from zero to a hundred real quick from a friendly game to a death sentence. If this kid died, or even was maimed from these horrible injuries Percy was going to take that very personally...

I surged forward, but Annabeth pulled me back. "No."

"Charlie!" Silena yelled.

"Don't!" Annabeth hissed. "It's already too late!"

"What are you talking about?" I demanded. "We have to –"

Then I noticed more ants swarming towards Beckendorf – ten, twenty. They grabbed him by the armour and dragged him towards the hill so fast he was swept into a tunnel and disappeared.

Magnus was left sitting there shivering for several moments at the brutality of that. Bianca's and Zeo's deaths had been blunt, but not so much an out of the blue considering who they'd been fighting and the quests they'd been on. They didn't even know this guy, and it had just shot out of nowhere, like all those shrouds at camp were still waiting to float up.

"No!" Silena pushed Annabeth. "You let them take Charlie!"

Jason took an uneasy breath, trying to keep well off his face he wasn't sure how to take that. She'd saved Percy and Silena's life by doing so, but the cost felt ruthless.

"There's no time to argue," Annabeth said. "Come on!"

I thought she was going to lead us on a charge to save Beckendorf, but instead she raced to the dragon's head, which the ants had momentarily forgotten. She grabbed it by the wires and started dragging it towards the woods.

Percy's mouth was a fantastic showing of his feelings for that. She had never once shown an inclination for stuff over somebody's life, she hadn't even blinked at throwing Deadlus's wings away, she was as much a figurehead in that camp as him for kids to look up to. He'd follow her lead, but not exactly without hesitation when she was going to be crazier than an automaton about it.

"What are you doing?" I demanded. "Beckendorf –"

"Help me," Annabeth grunted. "Quick, before they get back."

"Oh, my gods!" Silena said. "You're more worried about this hunk of metal than Charlie?"

"Did that sign from Hephaestus involve some part of saying a child of Athena would become addicted to dragon heads?" Magnus asked in absolute concern for her mental health.

"You'd be lucky if a sign from a god had a message that clear," Thalia scoffed.

Annabeth spun around and shook her by the shoulders. "Listen, Silena! Those are Myrmekes. They're like fire ants, only a hundred times worse. Their bite is poison. They spray acid. They communicate with all the other ants and swarm over anything that threatens them.

"I liked my world better when I didn't know all of that," Magnus huffed, doing a poor job of ignoring Alex grinning in fascination and studying her hands like she was already imagining them with feelers.

If we'd rushed in there to help Beckendorf, we would have been dragged inside, too. We're going to need help – a lot of help – to get him back. Now, grab some wires and pull!"

Will watched as Percy clenched his hands and prepared to do as asked. He'd been about to follow Beckendorf without a clue. As much as everyone at Camp considered him a leader, it was really they all followed Percy's lead. Annabeth keeping Silena's head on was something to be proud of, Percy was the camp's beacon of who to shine the light on.

I didn't know what Annabeth was up to, but I'd adventured with her long enough to figure she had a good reason for what she was doing. The three of us tugged the metal dragon's head into the woods. Annabeth didn't let us stop until we were fifty meters* 55 yards from the clearing.

Magnus whistled in appreciation. "You drug that thing half a football field!"

"Almost a full blue whale," Alex grinned.

"At minimum as long as these books are laid out," Thalia rolled her eyes.

"It felt as long as the Jersy Turnpike," Percy groaned as he rotated his shoulder in vivid memory.

Then we collapsed, sweating and breathing hard.

Silena started to cry. "He's probably dead already."

"No," Annabeth said. "They won't kill him right away. We've got about half an hour."

"How do you know that?" I asked.

"Is she an entomologist too?" Jason sighed with envy.

"She's a Greek-ologist," Percy reminded with pride.

"I've read about the Myrmekes. They paralyse their prey so they can soften them up before –"

Silena sobbed. "We have to save him!"

"What Silena's siblings are probably thinking of her being in Annabeth's company for to long," Nico muttered. That girl didn't have an ounce of tact...and he was kind of annoyed he probably would have gone into details of their eating habits too without realizing that wasn't helping.

"Silena," Annabeth said. "We're going to save him, but I need you to get a grip. There is a way."

"Call the other campers," I said, "or Chiron. Chiron will know what to do."

"I don't think an exterminator has enough bug spray for this problem, let alone him," Magnus shivered.

"Where's a monster ant eater when you need one," Jason agreed.

"Why would you want Echidna back right now?" Will looked at him strangely.

Annabeth shook her head. "They're scattered all over the woods. By the time we got everyone back here, it would be too late. Besides, the entire camp wouldn't be strong enough to invade the Ant Hill."

"Then why is it there?!" Magnus cried in exasperation, he looked very near tears. "I demand an explanation why you and your entire nutjob of a family feel the need to have this in your backyard!"

"Lots of monsters got in before Thalia's tree was blessed," Will shrugged, completely unphased by his minor tantrum. "As you just read, we can't exactly kick them all out even if there was a reason to."

Magnus sighed and muttered an apology, reminding himself there was just no point in arguing any of this.

"Then what?"

Annabeth pointed at the dragon's head.

"Okay," I said. "You're going to scare the ants with a big metal puppet?"

"Annabeth does love taking part in our play, she's nearly always the star," Will snickered.

Percy gave him a long-suffering sigh. He was not going to strangle Will, he promised himself. He was just having fun, that was overkill, he would not strangle this idiot because of a joke...

"It's an automaton," she said.

That didn't make me feel any better. Automatons were magical bronze robots made by Hephaestus. Most of them were crazed killing machines, and those were the nice ones.

"What does that make Daedalus?" Alex mock whispered.

"The best of the worst," Percy snorted.

"So what?" I said. "It's just a head. It's broken."

"And sadly, I think the mermaids realize that, considering they dragged it there," Magnus sighed.

"Myermeks," Thalia corrected.

"Not if they're going to kidnap people back to their lair and drown them in acid they're not," Magnus sniffed.

"Percy, this isn't just any automaton," Annabeth said. "It's the bronze dragon. Haven't you heard the stories?"

I stared at her blankly.

"How to sum up these books in one sentence," Nico smirked.

Annabeth had been at camp a lot longer than I had. She probably knew tons of stories I didn't.

"Percy, you really don't have to keep repeating yourself," Jason shook his head.

"We just assume Annabeth knows every story ever, she's read every book and probably sleeps on a throne of them," Magnus rolled his eyes.

"I bet her favorite is probably still something mundane, like Star Wars," Alex said with a little wrist wave.

"Star Wars has a book?" Percy asked blankly.

"Would you guys stop trying to confuse the poor guy," Thalia said with a tragic expression as she moved to cover his ears, "you're crumbling his entire worldview!"

Percy smacked her away and called them all clowns and a few other choice words.

Silena's eyes widened. "You mean the old guardian? But that's just a legend!"

"Whoa," I said. "What old guardian?"

Annabeth took a deep breath. "Percy, in the days before Thalia's tree – back before the camp had magical boundaries to keep out monsters – the counsellors tried all sorts of different ways to protect themselves. The most famous was the bronze dragon. The Hephaestus cabin made it with the blessing of their father. Supposedly it was so fierce and powerful that it kept the camp safe for over a decade. And then... about fifteen years ago, it disappeared into the woods."

"Ooooh," Nico said in surprise. "Beckendorf's reaction actually does make sense now."

"Better than some other ancient prophecy about the end of the world," Percy agreed.

"And you think this is its head?"

"It has to be! The Myrmekes probably dug it up while they were looking for precious metal. They couldn't move the whole thing, so they chewed off the head. The body can't be far away."

"But they chewed it apart. It's useless."

"Not to mention, um, why did its batteries run out?" Magnus frowned. What did these things even run on? He'd never thought to ask.

"I'm pretty sure Annabeth could make a toadstool useful," Percy reminded.

"Not necessarily." Annabeth's eyes narrowed, and I could tell her brain was working overtime. "We could reassemble it. If we could activate it –"

"It could help us rescue Charlie!" Silena said.

"Hold up," I said. "That's a lot of ifs. If we find it, if we can reactivate it in time, if it will help us.

"I'm surprised that has you pausing," Thalia said. "Your life is a big series of what if's."

"What if I die, what if I die, what if I die?" Jason repeated, throwing up a finger for each.

"The day I stop worrying about that is the day I get cursed with immortality," Percy reminded with nothing but dread.

You said this thing disappeared fifteen years ago?"

Annabeth nodded. "Some say its motor wore out so it went into the woods to deactivate itself. Or its programming went haywire. No one knows."

"Do they hibernate?" Alex grinned. "Did it go off looking for a mate? Maybe he wanted to go on a better adventure where some poor farm boy finds him and saves the world."

"I need you to keep your ideas far away from Cabin 9," Will frowned at her. "If they make these things any more realistic, I will cry right along with Magnus."

"I'm just trying to foster encouragement and creativity," but Alex batted her eyes in a purely menacing way, a clearly deep want to have a robot dragon that she could ride into battle and slay the entire planet.

"You want to reassemble a haywire metal dragon?"

"I want Annabeth to have normal hopes and dreams," Percy sighed.

"Sorry Perce, wanting to date you doesn't fall on that list," Jason smirked.

Percy considered for a moment if the trade would still be worth it for his bladder's sake, but he didn't get the chance to linger on it.

"We have to try!" Annabeth said. "It's Beckendorf's only hope! Besides, this could be a sign from Hephaestus. The dragon should want to help one of Hephaestus's kids. Beckendorf would want us to try."

"Never have I yet heard being related to any of this stuff has made it more friendly! With the exception of Tyson!" Magnus balked.

"Exactly, I think some of the other kids are due for some," Thalia shrugged.

I didn't like the idea. On the other hand, I didn't have any better suggestions. We were running out of time, and Silena looked like she was about to go into shock if we didn't do something soon.

Will had a very unpleasant bubbling feeling in the pit of his gut. Wondering at Silena's decisions, if she'd been considering calling Luke for help in some deluded idea. He'd gotten a first hand look at the kind of despair that had been on her face for days and had no wish to keep thinking on all this in the slightest, but it's not like he could boot her out of Percy's memories.

Beckendorf had said something about a sign from Hephaestus. Maybe it was time to find out.

"All right," I said. "Let's go find a headless dragon."

"Maybe if you don't attach his head back he'd be less scary?" Magnus sighed.

"I hope they name him Reid!" Alex grinned.

We searched forever, or maybe it just seemed that way, because the whole time, I was imagining Beckendorf in the Ant Hill, scared and paralysed, while a bunch of armoured critters scuttled around him, waiting for him to be tenderized.

"To bad you can't start a bucket brigade from the kitchens," Jason frowned, "dish soap and lava would probably clear this problem up easier."

"We'll call that plan B," Percy shivered, well aware they only had one chance at plan A for Beckendorf to live...and there was a really horrible feeling deep inside him that made him worry if he even did...

It wasn't hard to follow the ants' trail. They'd dragged the dragon's head through the forest, making a deep rut in the mud, and we dragged the head right back the way they'd come.

"Talk about going around in circles," Percy sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck, "this head's doing full 360's."

"And somehow still making more progress than you on your capture the flag game," Jason muttered, well aware that wasn't on anyone's radar right now, but a part of his mind that never stopped working regardless.

We must've gone five hundred meters* over 500 yards – and I was getting worried about the time – when Annabeth said, "Di immortales."

We'd come to the rim of a crater – like something had blasted a house-size hole in the forest floor. The sides were slippery and dotted with tree roots. Ant tracks led to the bottom, where a large metal mound glinted through the dirt. Wires stuck up from a bronze stump on one end.

"You just know that thing would have some crazy rumors about it if you didn't know what it was," Alex chuckled. "Zues's wifi hotspot, tree that used to house a magic tree house that went evil, flying fish spawn from there."

"I am convinced you are the child of whatever god of stories is out there," Thalia shook her head in pure endearment of her.

"And I love it!" She threw her arms wide and smacked Magnus in the face while the others got a mild laugh from her antics.

"The dragon's neck," I said. "You think the ants made this crater?"

"Ant's are great at excavating their own mounds, but how well do they dig up stuff?" Magnus agreed in surprise that sounded kind of deep in the earth for them to have just found.

"Annabeth would know," Percy frowned he had no clue what was really going on, as usual.

Annabeth shook her head. "Looks more like a meteor blast..."

"Though now I am absolutely over here wondering if Hepeahsuts's big sign was his recreation of the dinosaur event or something," Nico grumbled if he'd thrown a meteor to take this thing out and his kids were just uncovering the remains.

"Hephaestus," Silena said. "The god must've unearthed this. Hephaestus wanted us to find the dragon. He wanted Charlie to..." She choked up.

Jason winced, that didn't seem very in line with these gods he'd heard of. Heaphusts hadn't even flinched when told the camp might be overrun, but he wasn't going to argue the point with anyone right now.

"Come on," I said. "Let's reconnect this bad boy."

Getting the dragon's head to the bottom was easy. It tumbled right down the slope and hit the neck with a loud, metallic BONK!

"I wonder if he enjoyed the ride," Thalia chuckled.

"That had to have been better than getting dragged away from his body," Will nodded, while Percy shivered at the idea of this thing being awake while all that happened.

Reconnecting it was harder.

We had no tools and no experience.

Annabeth fiddled with the wires and cursed in Ancient Greek. "We need Beckendorf. He could do this in seconds."

Alex took a deep breath before saying, "The man who built it doesn't want it, the man who bought it doesn't need it, the man who needs it doesn't know it."

"Are you seriously invoking the freaking sphinx right now?" Percy groaned. "One monster at a time isn't enough?"

"Oh, I know!" Jason waved his hand.

"Poor timing Alex," Magnus agreed while Jason was still glaring at Alex with his hand raised.

"I just thought it particularly appropriate right now," Alex said with the whole hope it didn't actually come true. "And since when do you need permission to talk around here Jason?" She shot at him in exasperation.

"The answer's kind of morbid, just making sure I should," he finally lowered his hand with a shrug.

"No morbid jokes until after the person is rescued," Thalia said swiftly as Percy started looking a little gray around the edges again the longer this dragged on.

"Isn't your mom the goddess of inventors?" I asked.

Annabeth glared at me. "Yes, but this is different. I'm good with ideas. Not mechanics."

"There's an I in both of those words though, so I'm kind of surprised to hear that," Jason chuckled.

"Annabeth's never claimed to be a solo act," Magnus reminded with a hopeful smile. "Even from Percy's first quest she knew she needed someone to get her out of camp rather than trying to go it alone."

Percy grinned with delight at that nugget while Jason nodded his agreement in mild apology.

"If I was going to pick one person in the world to reattach my head," I said, "I'd pick you."

I just blurted it out – to give her confidence, I guess – but immediately I realized it sounded pretty stupid.

"Well at least you finally realize the stupid shit that comes out of your mouth," Thalia chuckled. "Progress."

"Will it stop him from doing it? No," Nico smirked.

"Stop me from doing what?" Will asked innocently.

"Stop encouraging him Nico! You did that on purpose!" Percy groaned in protest to every word of this. Nico was to busy snickering to even pretend otherwise, and it was so far removed from the depressed little kid Percy only had memories of he didn't have the heart to act on that strangling threat again.

"Awww..." Silena sniffled and wiped her eyes. "Percy, that is so sweet!"

"Was it?" Nico asked blankly. Well crud, he clearly had no idea how to flirt.

"Annabeth wasn't impressed, so it's anyone's guess," Percy sighed, a slight blush still on his cheeks.

Annabeth blushed. "Shut up, Silena. Hand me your dagger."

I was afraid Annabeth was going to stab me with it.

Causing very unfair laughter around the room while Percy hung his head. He already had no clue what was going on, did he need a live audience for it?

"Does she kiss you again?" Alex asked eagerly, leaning on the edge of her seat.

"Then we'd have to call her out on bad timing," Magnus shook his head. "Beckendorf's about to die, not him."

Percy was rubbing his lip with a mosh pit of butterflies in his stomach, he couldn't make himself speak or they'd all come out. It's not like he was opposed to the idea, though that was ten times more morbid than even Alex could probably ever be if it was some odd new tradition like holding his hand underground was...

Instead she used it as a screwdriver to open a panel in the dragon's neck. "Here goes nothing," she said.

And she started to splice together the celestial bronze wires.

It took a long time. Too long.

I figured capture the flag had to be over by now. I wondered how soon the other campers would realize we were missing and come looking for us. If Annabeth's calculations were correct (and they always were), Beckendorf probably had five or ten minutes left before the ants got him.

"I trust Percy's internal clock pretty accurately too," Thalia shivered for that poor guy, even knowing the other Huntresses would consider her a traitor for doing it. "He always gets to the microwave right before it goes off."

"The one thing I've never managed to explode, it was to vital to my life," Percy agreed.

Finally Annabeth stood up and exhaled. Her hands were scraped and muddy. Her fingernails were wrecked. She had a brown streak across her forehead where the dragon had decided to spit grease at her.

Percy's fingers curled tight around his camp necklace to try and hide the fact his heart skipped a beat. How was it possible the worse she looked the more he couldn't look away?

"All right," she said. "It's done, I think..."

"You think?" Silena asked.

"It has to be done," I said. "We're out of time. How do you, uh, start it?

Alex frowned and paused and sighed. She knew she shouldn't get offended at them calling the dragon an it, but she'd have preferred if they just kept referring to the creature as the dragon, or even used they, them pronouns. This was a machine though, and she didn't want to start picking fights about that kind of topic right now.

 Is there an ignition switch or something?"

"I really hope nobody left the key in their pocket, we don't have time to find out where the hotwire is," Nico frowned.

Annabeth pointed to its ruby eyes. "Those turn clockwise. I'm guessing we rotate them."

"Are we sure she doesn't have a manual shoved up her sleeve somewhere," Jason looked fascinated how she'd found that out from some wiring and was probably going to be picking up a new hobby soon...hopefully not specifically of the metal dragon variety.

"If somebody twisted my eyeballs, I'd wake up," I agreed.

"Good to know," Thalia nodded to Percy's eyeballs great concern. "My next course of action was to start cutting out teeth if you didn't soon."

"I wake at the drop of a hat," Percy tried to defend.

"When your life's in danger," she completely agreed while Percy looked pleadingly at the ceiling.

"What if it goes crazy on us?"

"Then... we're dead," Annabeth said.

"I always admire her confidence!" Will burst out laughing.

"Yeah, because you've never been on the receiving end of it," Nico muttered.

"Great," I said. "I'm psyched."

"Psyched as an ADHD kid in a filing cabinet," Thalia snickered.

Together we turned the ruby eyes of the dragon. Immediately they began to glow. Annabeth and I backed up so fast we fell over each other.

"Awww, the first thing it sees is what we all put together in the first five seconds too," Alex said with a posh wave of her hand. "So sweet of you guys not to leave him out!"

"You're lucky that dragon's probably color blind Alex, or you'd be his dessert," Percy rolled his eyes.

The dragon's mouth opened, as if it were testing its jaw. The head turned and looked at us. Steam poured from its ears and it tried to rise.

When it found it couldn't move, the dragon seemed confused. It cocked its head and regarded the dirt. Finally, it realized it was buried. The neck strained once, twice... and the centre of the crater erupted.

The dragon pulled itself awkwardly out of the ground, shaking clumps of mud from its body the way a dog might, splattering us from head to toe.

Percy had gotten some in his mouth and he spat nothing out in here in disgust. Silena had looked more like Mud Bath Barbie, and Annabeth seemed to have gone brunette there for a strange moment she was so caked down.

It was, by far, the least important thing to be happening in this memory, but struck Percy as strange all the same why he couldn't get the idea out of his head.

The automaton was so awesome, none of us could speak. I mean, sure it needed a trip through the car wash,

"Which Percy has ample practice in," Jason chuckled.

"I still might need a few test runs to make sure I get the settings right," Percy gave him an obvious look. "Are you volunteering?"

"Only if you promise no flesh eating horses or robot dragons are in there at the same time," he sighed because he knew he wasn't getting out of it now.

and there were a few loose wires sticking out here and there, but the dragon's body was amazing – like a high-tech tank with legs. Its sides were plated with bronze and gold scales, encrusted with gemstones. Its legs were the size of tree trunks and its feet had steel talons. It had no wings – most Greek dragons don't – but its tail was at least as long as its main body, which was the size of a school bus. The neck creaked and popped as it turned its head to the sky and blew a column of triumphant fire.

The longer the description dragged on the quieter Magnus's voice got, until he was sunk far enough back into his seat it looked like it was eating him and he was whispering.

Alex sighed and had no other clue how to get him out of this silly funk, it's not as if a dragon was going to appear in here. So she leaned very close to his ear, he didn't even notice as his eyes never left the page, and casually said, "boo."

Magnus startled, fell out of his chair still hugging the book to his chest, and then lay across Alex's feet for several moments glaring up at her before raising the book to hide her face and continuing to read in a normal volume like nothing had happened.

"Well..." I said in a small voice. "It still works."

"Thank you Percy!" Magnus jabbed at him, letting the book fall against his nose for a moment without care.

"Here to help man," Percy nodded, studying him in concern what they were supposed to do if Alex stepped on his face.

Unfortunately, it heard me. Those ruby eyes zeroed in on me, and it stuck its snout five centimetres* an inch from my face.

Magnus shivered from head to toe, probably causing a new crack in the floor where he lay. He was likely to curl up into the fetal position in moments, and Percy couldn't blame him as he gagged on the remembered smell of gasoline and tabasco filling his nose and the pitiless hunger in those ruby sockets.

Instinctively, I reached for my sword.

"Dragon, stop!" Silena yelled. I was amazed her voice still worked. She spoke with such command that the automaton turned its attention to her.

Silena swallowed nervously. "We've woken you to defend the camp. You remember? That is your job!"

The dragon tilted its head as if it were thinking. I figured Silena had about a fifty-fifty chance of getting blasted with fire.

"The other half is getting her head ripped off like a real Barbie," Thalia informed in case they'd missed that.

"Nah, she's got this," Will grinned. There was a lingering sadness to his smile nobody else understood, but he had full knowledge she could lead anyone into battle, even a dragon.

I was considering jumping on the thing's neck to distract it

"Percy!" Thalia smacked him upside the head. "Why, in the gods names, is that, your, first, thought?" She started smacking him repeatedly on the arm.

"Because I'm pretty sure it would work," Percy shrugged, watching in mild fascination as it seemed to hurt her hand more than he felt it the longer she kept going.

when Silena said, "Charles Beckendorf, a son of Hephaestus, is in trouble. The Myrmekes have taken him. He needs your help."

At the word Hephaestus the dragon's neck straightened. A shiver rippled through its metal body, throwing a new shower of mud clods all over us.

The dragon looked around as if trying to find an enemy.

"We have to show it," Annabeth said. "Come on, dragon! This way to the son of Hephaestus! Follow us!"

Just like that, she drew her sword, and the three of us climbed out of the pit.

"For Hephaestus!" Annabeth yelled, which was a nice touch. We charged through the woods. When I looked behind us, the bronze dragon was right on our tail, its red eyes glowing and steam coming out its nostrils.

It was a good incentive to keep running fast as we headed for the Ant Hill.

Magnus's voice was pitching in and out like bad reception now, ignoring the glitter of Alex's toenails in the corner of his eye easily enough as he still wasn't as convinced as Percy seemed to be that dragon probably wasn't so much as following them but chasing them.

When we got to the clearing, the dragon seemed to catch Beckendorf's scent. It barrelled ahead of us, and we had to jump out of its way to avoid getting flattened. It crashed through the trees, joints creaking, feet pounding craters into the ground.

It charged straight for the Ant Hill. At first, the Myrmekes didn't know what was happening. The dragon stepped on a few of them, smashing them to bug juice.

"Good dragon," Alex crooned.

Then their telepathic network seemed to light up, like: Big dragon. Bad!

"Somebody get me a magnifying glass!" She yelped.

"Alex, it was dark out when this was happening," Nico reminded.

"I can use the moonbeams, I'll get creative," she promised.

Nobody was really sure how that was going to start or end, and they were kind of scared to ask. Magnus, however, finally sat up and leaned against his seat now that at least the dragon's focus wasn't on Annabeth and Percy anymore.

All the ants in the clearing turned simultaneously and swarmed over the dragon. More ants poured out of the hill – hundreds of them. The dragon blew fire and sent a whole column of them into a panicked retreat. Who knew ants were flammable?

"Every psychopath I've ever met," Magnus scoffed.

"Guess you meet more interesting people than I do Magnus, and that's saying a lot," Percy said with a raised brow. The place had been lit up like a bonfire in seconds, how the rest of camp hadn't come running was an honest mystery.

But more kept coming.

"Inside, now!" Annabeth told us. "While they're focused on the dragon!"

Silena led the charge; it was the first time I'd ever followed a child of Aphrodite into battle.

A hiss of pain fell from Percy's lips this wouldn't be the last, but though he rubbed his temple he was almost smiling at the bad feeling too. It was kind of cool to realize in the moment this was Silena coming into her own, getting a chance to realize a memory was so awesome the first time doubled.

We ran past the ants, but they ignored us. For some reason they seemed to consider the dragon a bigger threat. Go figure.

"Their mistake," Jason scoffed.

"I'm not arguing the point," Percy rolled his eyes.

"Because you're an idiot," Thalia chuckled with nothing but affection.

We plunged into the nearest tunnel and I almost gagged from the stench. Nothing, I mean nothing, stinks worse than a giant ant lair. I could tell they let their food rot before eating it. Somebody seriously needed to teach them about refrigerators.

"Would Chiron and Mr. D be okay with them piggy backing off their electric bill though?" Nico smirked. "I already don't think they're holding up their share of the rent."

"It smelt worse than Smelly Gabe," Percy insisted. "I would donate- okay, I don't even get an allowance there, but if this is a recurring problem I'd flip the breaker switch or something!" He smiled at the others getting a laugh out of this while he fought the urge to gag. He was happy for them, truly, they only had to hear about this and not live it...though it only made him miss Annabeth more every word she'd be plugging her nose same as him.

Our journey inside was a blur of dark tunnels and mouldy rooms carpeted with old ant shells and pools of goo. Ants surged past us on their way to battle, but we just stepped aside and let them pass.

"To bad they're not all storming out to argue which is better, Antz or Bugs Life," Alex sighed.

"I'm sure they'll go back to their clubs and debats as soon as their home isn't under attack and the kiddos are full of goo," Nico said with her level of chipper, which was kind of starting to concern Percy. He hadn't sounded depressed in hours.

The faint bronze glow of my sword gave us light as we made our way deeper into the nest.

"Look!" Annabeth said.

I glanced into a side room, and my heart skipped a beat. Hanging from the ceiling were huge, gooey sacks – ant larvae, I guess – but that's not what got my attention. The cave floor was heaped with gold coins, gems and other treasures – helmets, swords, musical instruments, jewellery. They glowed the way magic items do.

"That's just one room," Annabeth said. "There are probably hundreds of nurseries down here, decorated with treasure."

"That's kind of cute," Magnus grudgingly admitted, all of his long, messy blonde hair still mostly on one side he was ignoring and reading through. "I wonder if they burst out and pick a favorite toy or something."

Alex resisted the urge to run her hand through the mess and straighten it out for him as she instead hummed in agreement.

"It's not important," Silena insisted. "We have to find Charlie!"

Another first: a child of Aphrodite uninterested in jewellery.

"I bet if it was cursed jewelry she'd at least hesitate," Jason said in mild defense.

"Nah, she'd find a way to work that curse with her outfit, it's their own magical gift," Percy sighed.

"Right up there with yours getting into trouble," Thalia shook her head.

We forged on. After six more metres* 20 feet, we entered a cavern that smelled so bad my nose shut down completely.

"I'm going to be sick," Percy promised, his stomach rolling at the memory alone.

"This is not class Mr. Jackson," Alex said in a snooty voice. "You were not excused!"

"Does anything get us out of your class Miss Fierro?" Will asked curiously.

She thought about it for a moment before shaking her head. "Nope, you will all sit and listen to my brilliance or so help me you will get homework!"

"You're not even reading," Magnus frowned up at her accusingly, giving her the excuse to swat his bangs into his face and watch him for a moment shake his long hair out to fix it.

"You're more evil than Mrs. Dodd's," Percy frowned, though his hand fell lax from his stomach at the distraction.

"I'm not the one forcing you to read this," she reminded with a touch of hurt, "and the homework is encouraged to be worked on together."

"Okay, just as evil as Chiron," Percy chuckled.

The remains of old meals were piled as high as sand dunes – bones, chunks of rancid meat, even old camp meals. I guess the ants had been raiding the camp's compost heap and stealing our leftovers. At the base of one of the heaps, struggling to pull himself upright, was Beckendorf. He looked awful, partly because his camouflage armour was now the colour of garbage.

"Damn, I don't even think Silena could find a way to match shoes with that," Jason heaved a tragic sigh.

"Hospital gown," Thalia said flatly.

"Charlie!" Silena ran to him and tried to help him up.

"Thank the gods," he said. "My – my legs are paralysed!"

"It'll wear off," Annabeth said. "But we have to get you out of here. Percy, take his other side."

Silena and I hoisted Beckendorf up, and the four of us started back through the tunnels. I could hear distant sounds of battle – metal creaking, fire roaring, hundreds of ants snapping and spitting.

"What's going on out there?" Beckendorf asked. His body tensed. "The dragon! You didn't – reactivate it?"

"Afraid so," I said. "Seemed like the only way."

"But you can't just turn on an automaton! You have to calibrate the motor, run a diagnostic... There's no telling what it'll do! We've got to get out there!"

"I'm now imagining him with seven kinds of wrenches having a fit over a monkey belt or something," Nico admitted.

"Think it's just called a tool belt Nico," Will offered. Nico smiled as he imagined Will pouring over car manuals to try and impress his dad, and then Will showing him a few.

As it turned out, we didn't need to go anywhere, because the dragon came to us. We were trying to remember which tunnel led to the exit when the entire hill exploded, showering us in dirt. Suddenly we were staring at open sky. The dragon was right above us, thrashing back and forth, smashing the Ant Hill to bits as it tried to shake off the Myrmekes crawling all over its body.

The sudden blast of air and light felt like a second rise out of the underworld. Percy remembered gaping up at that monstrosity, fire and smoke setting its golden face like the sun of a new day, sparks flying from every scale as it roared in pain. That dragon had saved their life, and he was once again just left wondering if Grover would want a hug from it or would consider that a first class meal.

"Come on!" I yelled. We dug ourselves out of the dirt and stumbled down the side of the hill, dragging Beckendorf with us.

Our friend the dragon was in trouble. The Myrmekes were biting at the joints of its armour, spitting acid all over it. The dragon stomped and snapped and blew flames, but it couldn't last much longer. Steam was rising from its bronze skin.

Even worse, a few of the ants turned towards us. I guess they didn't like us stealing their dinner. I slashed at one and lopped off its head. Annabeth stabbed another right between the feelers. As the celestial bronze blade pierced its shell, the whole ant disintegrated.

"Great, another thing to lug back," Alex huffed.

"We did not need a trophy of this event," Percy groaned.

"Slackers!" She sniffed.

"I – I think I can walk now," Beckendorf said, and immediately fell on his face when we let go of him.

"There's a right and wrong place for a pratt fall man," Jason said with a nervous laugh.

"Nobody ever said to Percy," Thalia finished for him.

"Charlie!" Silena helped him up and pulled him along while Annabeth and I cleared a path through the ants. Somehow we managed to reach the edge of the clearing without getting bitten or splashed, though one of my sneakers was smoking from acid.

"What is it with your bad luck and shoes?" Jason frowned.

"I was destined to be bigfoot in another life?" He shrugged.

Back in the clearing, the dragon stumbled. A great cloud of acid mist was roiling off its hide.

"We can't let it die!" Silena said.

"Awww," Alex grinned. "Don't ever let someone say I never agreed with a child of Aphrodite!"

"How I wish that would have been her mother's response," Thalia nodded along sternly. The goddess of love was probably up on Olympus somewhere watching and applauding at all the drama instead of actually swooping in to help, if she wasn't engrossed in a hollywood celebrity magazine first.

"It's too dangerous," Beckendorf said sadly. "Its wiring –"

"Charlie," Silena pleaded, "it saved your life! Please, for me."

Beckendorf hesitated. His face was still bright red from the ant spit, and he looked as if he were going to faint any minute, but he struggled to his feet. "Get ready to run," he told us. Then he gazed across the clearing and shouted, "DRAGON! Emergency defence, beta-ACTIVATE!"

The dragon turned towards the sound of his voice. It stopped struggling against the ants, and its eyes glowed. The air smelled of ozone, like before a thunderstorm.

Thalia gave a not-so-quite chuckle at the rare power she allowed to course through her. It was a heady feeling she wouldn't ordinarily enjoy sharing with a dragon for a moment, but this one had saved a camper's life.

ZZZZZAAAAAPPP!

Arcs of blue electricity shot from the dragon's skin, rippling up and down its body and connecting with the ants. Some of the ants exploded. Others smoked and blackened, their legs twitching. In a few seconds there were no more ants on the dragon. The ones that were still alive were in full retreat, scuttling back towards their ruined hill as fingers of electricity zapped them in the butt to prod them along.

Magnus snorted fantastically and threw his head back laughing.

"Are you done acting like the world is ending again?" Alex asked as she watched the nerves twitch around in his throat. He had a really strong jawline usually obscured but for this angle.

"For now," he agreed as he hoisted himself back into his usual seat.

The dragon bellowed in triumph, then it turned its glowing eyes towards us.

"Now," Beckendorf said, "we run."

This time we did not yell, "For Hephaestus!" We yelled, "Heeeeelp!"

Magnus immediately groaned again, eyeing the floor as if considering how much less he'd looked like a dragon sized snack from down there.

"Don't even think about it," Alex huffed as she grabbed the back of his shirt.

"I am being punished for a crime I did not commit!" He huffed.

"The two kind of sound the same," Will offered in a not at all helpful kind of voice. "Maybe the dragon just thinks they're charging off again to a wasps nest next."

"Will, that's worse," Magnus yelped. "You hear how that's worse, right?!"

Percy finally cleared his throat and reminded him to either get it over with or give it up, because, you know, he'd already lived through it.

The dragon pounded after us, spewing fire and zapping lightning bolts over our heads like it was having a great time.

Jason couldn't help a little snort of laughter he tried his hardest to pass off as a muffled sneeze. He couldn't help it, that dragon had been through it and sounded more like a puppy having fun without yet realizing his playmates weren't squealing with delight.

"How do you stop it?" Annabeth yelled.

Beckendorf, whose legs were now working fine (nothing like being chased by a huge monster to get your body back in order)

"There's a whole world of self-motiavting posters and workout videos missing out on this dragon marketing," Thalia nodded.

"One that the mist should keep them very far away from!" Percy frowned accusingly at her.

shook his head and gasped for breath. "You shouldn't have turned it on! It's unstable! After a few years, automatons go wild!"

"Would he have rather they left him for dead?" Nico asked conversationally.

"Not a hundred percent sure being rescued into a dragon chase is what I'd call great," Magnus reminded with exhaustion in every syllable.

"Good to know," I yelled. "But how do you turn it off?"

"Someone really needs to tell Hephaestus it's a design flaw not to be voice activated shut down with a secret password," Will would give them that.

"I'll do it," Percy said without hesitation, which was pretty much the worst person to be sent to do it and also the only one who would tell a god to do it.

Beckendorf looked around wildly. "There!"

Up ahead was an outcrop of rock, almost as tall as the trees. The woods were full of weird rock formations, but I'd never seen this one before. It was shaped like a giant skateboard ramp, slanted on one side, with a sheer drop on the other.

"You guys, run around to the base of the cliff," Beckendorf said. "Distract the dragon. Keep it occupied!"

"That, is the worst sentence, in the English language," Magnus looked pained he'd said those words together.

"Followed very closely by, look, I didn't want to be a half-blood," Percy actually nodded his agreement.

"What are you going to do?" Silena said.

"You'll see. Go!"

Beckendorf ducked behind a tree while I turned and yelled at the dragon, "Hey, lizard-lips! Your breath smells like gasoline!"

The dragon spewed black smoke out of its nostrils. It thundered towards me, shaking the ground.

"Maybe that's a compliment in dragon?" Jason asked bemusedly.

"You are way to calm about this man!" Magnus groaned.

"Percy's not freaking out," he reminded, throwing a thumb at him. "He just kind of looks annoyed at this, I'm betting because he lost his chance to win capture the flag more than this."

Percy smiled his automatic reaction was to agree with that...but it didn't erase the insistent strain on him through all of this. There was something he was forgetting about all of this, something about Beckendorf and Silena, but the circumstances didn't feel right. This did feel like just another day at camp, so it wasn't bothering him to much.

"Come on!" Annabeth grabbed my hand. We ran for the back of the cliff.

"So we can now put underground, and being chased by a dragon on that list," Thalia snickered.

"I, have a minor preference," Percy said, smiling like a dope and not like someone who was being threatened by a dragon. Magnus really felt alone that should be a bigger concern than it was.

The dragon followed.

"We have to hold it here," Annabeth said. The three of us readied our swords.

The dragon reached us and lurched to a stop. It tilted its head like it couldn't believe we'd be so foolish as to fight.

"No, no, like a baby unsure what to do next," Jason grinned in delight. "Think a puppy waiting to see if he gets treats for doing a good job."

"Jason, you are not adopting the electric murderous dragon," Will sighed.

"Aw, come on!" Jason frowned. "He sounds so cool, and I bet Beckendorf keeps him in great order."

"Mrs. O'Leary has a playmate her size," Nico couldn't help but chuckle along.

Alex whooped in delight and loudly seconded that, well hiding Will's wince and no actual answer.

Now it had caught us, there were so many different ways it could kill us it probably couldn't decide which to use.

"Well the fire's obviously his go to, but he probably used up all that on the ants," Magnus said with dripping disdain.

"Stomping you means he'd have to dig out Percy from between his toes, I don't know if they like to groom themselves as well as cats," Thalia nodded along.

"I bet his bite force is, the best, he might want to slice you up just for fun so you don't go down in one swallow," Alex said seriously.

"I am going to find a way to bury this dragon back where he came from," Percy frowned.

"Aww," they all mock groaned like Sally had just threatened to take their new toy away before busting out laughing.

We scattered as its first blast of fire turned the ground where we'd been standing into a smoking pit of ashes.

"Still think this is cute Jason?" Magnus shot at him.

"Like a puppy who doesn't understand he shouldn't bite," he agreed with a sunny smile.

Then I saw Beckendorf above us – at the top of the cliff – and I understood what he was trying to do. He needed a clear shot. I had to keep the dragon's attention.

"Yaaaah!" I charged. I brought Riptide down on the dragon's foot and sliced off a talon.

Its head creaked as it looked down at me. It seemed more confused than angry, like, Why did you cut off my toe?

"Percy, that was just rude and a complete overreaction," Thalia couldn't help but play along with Jason's joke now.

"I got Mrs. O'Leary already trained," Percy said deadpan. "I'm sorry if I hurt the murder-happy dragon's feelings!" He finished in complete exasperation at the pair.

Then it opened its mouth, baring a hundred razor-sharp teeth.

"Percy!" Annabeth warned.

I stood my ground. "Just another second..."

"Percy!"

And just before the dragon struck, Beckendorf launched himself off the rocks and landed on the dragon's neck.

The dragon reared back and shot flames, trying to shake off Beckendorf, but he held on like a cowboy as the monster bucked around. I watched in fascination as he ripped open a panel at the base of the dragon's head and yanked a wire.

"I want that engraved on the cabin's door," Alex said in awe.

"That's, not a bad idea," Will agreed, his tone as light as usual, but a little more wistful than it should have been.

Instantly, the dragon froze. Its eyes went dim. Suddenly it was only the statue of a dragon, baring its teeth at the sky.

Beckendorf slid down the dragon's neck. He collapsed at its tail, exhausted and breathing heavily.

"Charlie!" Silena ran to him and gave him a big kiss on the cheek. "You did it!"

Annabeth came up to me and squeezed my shoulder. "Hey, Seaweed Brain, you okay?"

"Fine... I guess." I was thinking how close I'd come to being chopped into demigod hash in the dragon's mouth.

"You were great." Annabeth's smile was a lot nicer than that stupid dragon's.

"We all have our own idea of beauty," Jason snickered.

"I'm more surprised he's not thinking, monkey see monkey do?" Thalia rolled her eyes at where he kept touching his cheek as if Annabeth had abandoned him on a real reward.

"You, too," I said shakily. "So... what do we do with the automaton?"

Beckendorf wiped his forehead. Silena was still fussing over his cuts and bruises, and Beckendorf looked pretty distracted by the attention.

Percy huffed and grumbled for a moment he wouldn't know what that would feel like, since Annabeth had gone to studying the dragon like it was another Parthenon she'd need to know every detail of. At least he'd been a part of this story, he realized with a surprised smile. Now next time some idiot kid didn't know the story of the bronze dragon, Percy would get to enlighten them for once.

"We – uh – I don't know," he said. "Maybe we can fix it, get it to guard the camp, but that could take months."

"Worth trying," I said. I imagined having that bronze dragon in our fight against the Titan lord Kronos. His monsters would think twice about attacking camp if they had to face that thing. On the other hand, if the dragon decided to go berserk again and attack the campers – that would pretty much stink.

"Or we could host cowboy events to see who can wrangle it into submission again," Alex offered.

"Chiron will make you sleep in the strawberry fields if you suggest any such thing!" Percy tried to splutter and protest, but some part of him worried their activities director would go for it as some kind of communal practice.

"I can live with that," she grinned in delight, and Percy felt a smile tugging at his lips in admiration. Nothing scared Alex, not a threat even Mr. D could try to put against her would dampen her.

"Did you see all the treasure in the Ant Hill?" Beckendorf asked. "The magic weapons? The armour? That stuff could really help us."

"And the bracelets," Silena said. "And the necklaces."

"There it is!" Thalia nodded like a heavy weight of concern had been lifted away.

"What would you do with all your free time at Camp if you didn't have a feud with them?" Will snorted.

"Be very bored I'm sure, probably help Alex bring more fun into that place. You boys could use the practice," she grinned a smile worthy of a dragon that made all of them silently weep a bit.

I shuddered, remembering the smell of those tunnels. "I think that's an adventure for later. It would take an army of demigods even to get close to that treasure."

"Maybe," Beckendorf said. "But what a treasure..."

Silena studied the frozen dragon. "Charlie, that was the bravest thing I ever saw – you jumping on that dragon."

Beckendorf swallowed. "Um... yeah. So... will you go to the fireworks with me?"

Percy still vividly remembered the first time he'd gotten a compliment from Annabeth, after he'd run that bus with the furies off the road. It was a feeling of such power flowing through him, like he could do anything in that moment.

Sadly, Annabeth was rather stingy with her compliments, or he probably would have been able to defeat Kronos by now.

Silena's face lit up. "Of course, you big dummy! I thought you'd never ask!"

Will savored the laughter that blasted through the room with his eyes closed for several moments. It was probably the last laugh Silena and Beckendorf would ever get. Even Nico and Thalia probably didn't know in detail what was about to happen. They knew she was the traitor, but they probably didn't even know Beckendorf as more than just another name in a long list of people they'd lost in the war, they just weren't around camp enough to know as he did what was soon coming.

Beckendorf suddenly looked a whole lot better. "Well let's get back, then! I bet capture the flag is over."

I had to go barefoot, because the acid had eaten completely through my shoe. When I kicked it off I realized the goo had soaked into my sock and turned my foot red and raw. I leaned against Annabeth and she helped me limp through the woods.

The laughter increased ten-fold, Will's always somehow had the power to do that as Percy's tapered off with a flush of embarrassment. "It, it really hurt guys, have you ever walked on twigs barefoot, and um, there were rocks around-"

"Just stop Percy," Thalia was rubbing a stitch in her side, her eyes swimming with delighted tears.

"Yeah," he agreed with a shameless sigh. He'd been trying to find any excuse to pluck up the courage and ask her, having her to lean on so close just like always felt like a comfort rather than a hindrance.

Beckendorf and Silena walked ahead of us, holding hands, and we gave them some space.

Watching them, with my arm around Annabeth for support, I felt pretty uncomfortable. I silently cursed Beckendorf for being so brave, and I don't mean for facing the dragon. After three years, he'd finally got the courage to ask Silena Beauregard out. It wasn't fair.

"Some things never change," Jason said with a shake of his head that didn't suit him, he had that tone like one speaking twice his age again. "You'll be fifty and still stumbling over a compliment for her again."

Percy smiled at the dream he was painting, he found it hard to imagine he lived another birthday, let alone so many compliments later, but it was a nice idea.

"You know," Annabeth said as we struggled along, "it wasn't the bravest thing I've ever seen."

I blinked. Had she been reading my thoughts?

"Um... what do you mean?"

Annabeth gripped my wrist as we stumbled through a shallow creek. "You stood up to the dragon so Beckendorf would have his chance to jump – now that was brave."

Percy's mind froze...and then went more haywire than a dragons. Wait, she had been talking about him, right?! Not some other doofus who stood up to a dragon and cut its toe off? Did she want him to ask her out or was she just mocking him? Had she ever called Luke brave? What if he asked and she looked at him like he was covered in ant goo-

"Or pretty stupid."

"Percy, you're a brave guy," she said. "Just take the compliment. I swear, is it so hard?"

We locked eyes. Our faces were, like, centimetres apart. My chest felt a little funny, like my heart was trying to do jumping jacks.

"I really thought reading the rest would help him break out of, that," Magnus said, gesturing at his sagging face.

"Guys, I think we broke Percy," Alex announced grandly.

"It was bound to happen eventually," Thalia sighed, waving her hand in front of his face. "I half expected this back when she kissed him in the volcano."

"I'd just go ahead and finish man," Jason said without bothering to hide the laugh in his voice. He always was extra animated when a capture the flag game went on, and this seemed to have surpassed the others. "She'll call him an idiot here in a sec and things will go on like normal.

"So..." I said. "I guess Silena and Charlie are going to the fireworks together."

"I guess so," Annabeth agreed.

"Yeah," I said. "Um, about that –"

I don't know what I would've said, but just then, three of Annabeth's siblings from the Athena cabin burst out of the bushes with their swords drawn. When they saw us, they broke into grins.

"You're alive!" Jason mock cheered. "We already had the search parties assembled and everything with practice!"

Percy finally gave himself a little shake and looked around at him. "How terribly inconvenient of us, how about we skip back into the woods and play hide and seek next, oh wait, we just ruined that game!"

"The game probably wasn't ruined for everyone," Magnus offered, "I'm sure somebody had fun tonight." It just never seemed to be him.

Judging by the smile lingering on Percy's face though, they were pretty sure he was happy with his hour returned of seeing her covered in a new coat of mud, oil, and sweat as his arm stayed around her only in his mind.

"Annabeth!" one of them said. "Good job! Let's get these two to jail."

"Doesn't defeating a dragon and living through Myrmekes get him a get out of jail free card?" Magnus protested.

"I never even manage that in Monopoly," Percy sighed. She was as scary as Tyson, he usually went broke before he even got close to drawing his first card.

I stared at him. "The game's not over?"

"Damn," Nico said in surprise. "I really think Percy spaced out watching her a little to much, I thought much more time had dragged on too."

Magnus was at least laughing in surprised agreement again while Jason was looking at the book with a very calculating expression.

The Athena camper laughed. "Not yet... but soon. Now that we've captured you."

"Dude, come on," Beckendorf protested. "We got sidetracked. There was a dragon, and the whole Ant Hill was attacking us."

"Uh-huh," said another Athena guy, clearly unimpressed. "Annabeth, great job distracting them. Worked out perfectly. You want us to take them from here?"

Annabeth pulled away from me. I thought for sure she was going to give us a free walk back to the border, but she drew her dagger and pointed it at me with a smile.

"Nah," she said. "Silena and I can get this. Come on, prisoners. Move it."

I stared at her, stunned. "You planned this? You planned this whole thing just to keep us out of the game?"

"No way," Thalia sounded way to proud even if she shook her head. "No way she managed all of that."

Magnus didn't really think so either. As clever as she was, even she couldn't have put all that together.

"Percy, seriously, how could I have planned it? The dragon, the ants – you think I could've figured all that out ahead of time?"

"She did!" Jason gasped, causing a flare of jealousy in Percy at the look of admiration on his face. "She totally did! Oh my gosh, this girl is a genius!"

"Annabeth wouldn't put those two in danger like that," Magnus insisted.

"Not on purpose," he still had a wild grin in place, "but I'll bet you anything she somehow tracked down where that dragon was buried, unearthed it just enough to show the head, and then waited, hoping the ants would time it with her game."

"Her game?" Percy groaned. He thought Annabeth was a genius too, but she might believe someone as smart as Jason over him.

"That's a lot of if's," Magnus looked personally offended now if his cousin had decided to put a deranged dragon back into activation for a flag.

"It probably all didn't go according to plan," Jason was getting wound up now as he babbled excitedly. "I bet she planned on Percy and Beckendorf seeing this by telling them which direction to go and hoping Beckendorf would spend his time fawning over the dragon and forget about the game, not go charging the ants!"

"How on earth did she excavate a whole crater and find that thing and I didn't even notice?!" Percy demanded.

"Maybe she got Tyson and the forest dryads to help before he left," Jason shrugged, "maybe she-"

"Guys!" Thalia finally interrupted with a bright smile as Percy was clearly winding up to argue back. "One of these days, we're going to get out of here and you can interrogate Annabeth all day."

Jason still had a smug, 'I'm right,' look on his face while Magnus and Percy exchanged, 'I hate every minute of this' expressions, but Magnus was almost done with one more of these, and that was enticing enough for now.

It didn't seem likely, but this was Annabeth. There was no telling with her. Then she exchanged glances with Silena, and I could tell they were trying not to laugh.

"Yeah, I'm on Jason's side," Alex grinned along. The plan had probably gone to hell, but those two badasses had brought it back and still come out on top.

"Well don't look at me," Will reminded as Nico was watching him as if waiting to see if he was holding out. "I was on Percy's team! They weren't going to be sharing that kind of info with the enemy!"

"You – you little –" I started to say, but I couldn't think of a name strong enough to call her.

"Owl breath," Alex offered.

"Traitor," Magnus grumbled, she was the cause of this heart attack.

"Genius!" Jason crowed.

Thalia couldn't stop laughing at all of them, she had a pretty good idea Percy wasn't going to be the only one tackling Annabeth when they met now.

I protested all the way to the jail, and so did Beckendorf. It was totally unfair to be treated like prisoners after all we'd been through.

But Annabeth just smiled and put us in jail. As she was heading back to the front line, she turned and winked. "See you at the fireworks?"

Kronos might as well have appeared and trapped him in a time bubble. Percy froze with whatever expression was on his face. Had she just asked him out?! Like on a date!? The fireworks were on a beach, where they might just stumble into the ocean and, and... he sighed as the rest of the night's events swam easily to mind now. Still a little foggy around the edges, but with clarity that he was trying to connect two events that were not having it. The fireworks had been a spectacular show, he'd watched every color of the rainbow flash across her face that night and heard her laugh at the amazing designs their fellow campers created. She had gone down to the ocean and rinsed herself off, but there had still been mud creased into her skin and a streak of oil in her hair that nearly covered up her gray bangs.

She had been happy, on this night, but when Connor and Travis went racing past yelling in delight and throwing popcorn and hotdogs around from a stand no one seemed sure where it had come from, and Chiron announced how good it felt to have so many here on this night as he held a moment of silence for those they lost, Annabeth had bowed her head and clutched the beads on her necklace Percy had never been a part of. She wasn't there yet, with him or Luke.

She didn't even wait for my answer before darting off into the woods.

I looked at Beckendorf. "Did she just... ask me out?"

He shrugged, completely disgusted. "Who knows with girls? Give me a haywire dragon any day."

So we sat together and waited while the girls won the game.

Percy laughed along with everyone else. There was a relief in it, the tension in the room always just under the surface at being locked in here managed to vanish for just that moment that they knew they couldn't hang on to. Percy's life was hectic and chaotic, sometimes it felt like his closest friends made that worse rather than better, but it was his life being shared with them, and he wouldn't have it any other way...otherwise he might not ever find out how he got down here.

PJOPJOPJOPJO

Annabeth absolutely planned this and you cannot convince me or Jason otherwise.

Though I don't think she meant for Beckendorf to get captured. Most likely she expected Percy and him to try and find the dragon's body and for Beckendorf to fix it and wake it up while they followed invisibly to keep an eye on them and all that would have taken up time until the game was won. Annabeth only stepped in when she realized Beckendorf split off, but I don't think she saw or heard where he split off to.

*Not a goofy name I made up by the way, but a real animal. Go look them up, they're adorable!

#pjo #Percy Jackson #Thalia Grace #Jason Grace #nico di angelo #will solace #Alex Fierro #Magnus Chase #happy the dragon #charles beckendorf #silena beauregard #annabeth chase #percabeth #solangelo #big three kids

[annabeth-katniss-granger]

I have the worst luck. I just now read the part where Festus died and tomorrow is Leo’s birthday. I feel so bad and nobody understands me. 😢😭

#leo valdez #festus #happy the dragon #festus’ death #the lost hero #lost hero #dragon festus #leo’s birthday

[wataksampingan]

In mine and many other east Asian cultures, the dragon traditionally symbolises things like power, wealth and strength (imperial symbol and all)

I think we often forget that in the story of the Great Race, the dragon came in fifth because it'd stopped to give people rain. Then it'd stopped again to push a rabbit adrift on a log across the wide river so it reached the shore safely (that's why the Rabbit year comes before the Dragon).

Dragons aren't meant to just be powerful - they are meant to do good with such power, and to help those in need.

So in this lunar new year, I hope you gain more power, so that you might be able to help others. I pray you have abundant resources so you may give to yourself and those around you. I wish you courage, endurance, kindness and generosity, for yourself and your people.

I hope you, and I, will be rain givers, life preservers, joy bringers.

I hope we will be dragons.

Extremely belated postscript that should have been here far earlier:

Free Palestine, Free Sudan, Free Congo 🇵🇸🇸🇩🇨🇩

#lunar new year #happy year of the wood dragon

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Knowledge Revenge.

#dungeon meshi #chilchuk tims #senshi #Somewhat of an unofficial sequel to the Dragon Comic. I promise I have more versatility in my jokes. I just had to take this opportunity. #Senshi is pretty much a recluse. I think he would know a few of these 'gottems' but not all. #Chilchuck would know gottems that are nearly lost to time. The deep cuts. The ones that you fall for because they are that obscure. #I would also like to take a moment to confess that after the last comic in which I posed a gottem - #I fell victim to a Mind Goblin Attack. I was thoroughly got. I will be on higher alert this time. #So NOBODY be funny in the tags. I am gullible and I like to share things with my friends. Who are *ruthless*. #I have a mild resistance to Vicious Mockery at this point but I can only take so much. #Happy Thistle Thursday Everyone! See you next week!

[jramseyi]

Happy New Year!!

Starting off 2024 with a dragon and some bunnies.

#happy new year #digital art #art #artists on tumblr #illustration #jramseyi #rabbit #animal art #music #original art #drawing #year of the dragon #dragon

[fishtrouts]

Happy Halloween to all the little wyrmlings!! I’m in university now so there’s been a loooong wait for the next comic, but here it is!

Patreon | Redbubble | Webtoon

#Comic #dragon #halloween #happy halloween

[monstermonger]

Spring omen.

#dragons #fantasy art #i’m extra happy seeing spring this year #dragon #fantasy creatures #inks #spring #fantasy forest

[pichiicake]

#Happy Lunar New Year! #Tiny dragons for the Year of the Dragon #dragon #pokemon #gible #goomy #dreepy #jangmo-o #bagon #dratini #frigibax #axew #deino #larvitar #pseudo-legendary #Trying out a new brush I really like #I never understood why they made Beldum a psudeo-legendary but not Axew

[emproleon]

-Princess of Dragonstone and Heir to The Iron Throne-

#rhaenyra targaryen #house of the dragon #game of thrones #asoiaf #house targaryen #a song of ice and fire #hotd #hotd art #rhaenyra art #asoiaf fanart #fanart #my art #happy women’s day to targ ladies yall deserved better

[nkim-illustrates]

Cat Family and the Dragon.

#nkim-illustrates #Happy Year of the Dragon

[acchuli]

critical decision

#totk #tears of the kingdom #loz #zelda #light dragon #art #artists on tumblr #illustration #dragon #happy year of the dragon !!

[ovopack]

あけましておめでとうございます！

Happy new year 2024!

#artwork #happy new year 2024 #dragon

[cassandrajean]

Happy New Year!!! 2024! 🤍

The year of the dragon in the woods.

#original characters #happy new year #dragon

[shaniacsboogara]

liking dnd is so funny because yeah you play the actual game sometimes but mostly you just think about the game and watch other people play the game and slowly go insane thinking about how much you wish you could play the game and hoping that buying more shiny rocks will fix everything

#dnd #dungeons and dragons #not going through something rn wdym haha... #i am FINE i have DEFINITELY played at least once in the last seven weeks #i am also definitely not the scheduling person in my group i am not stressed that no one has time for dnd apparently #i'm fine i just started another critical role campaign im fine im so stable #*screaming* #it provides seratonin but WHEN IS IT MY TURN TO BE HAPPY TO ROLL MY LITTLE DICE FUCK #it's okay i just need to buy more dice #that will fix me

[dragondawdles]

the beastie <3

#totk spoilers #<- (? yet another schrödinger's spoiler she shows up during the beginning sequence but uhhh just 2 be safe) #totk #light dragon #the light dragon #totk light dragon #loz #tloz #zelda #id in alt #dragon doodles #(I don't know the TAGS for this fandom grrgrhgrgrhg I'll decide eventually) #hiiiiiii so the uh new zelda game was good. I beat that after 140 hours like a week ago (explode emoji) #and now I'm brainrotting zelda HARD which means I have feelings about like 17 dudes all at once #we'll have to see if that means I'll bombard you with characters!! lately art's been blah but I've got some stuff cooking hopefully #hey I'm happy with this tho!! happy with tha beastie :] #this worm is my best friend