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[jflashandclash]

Attrition of Peace

WARNINGS: This novel will contain Swearing, Graphic Depictions of Violence, Death of a Main Character,  Vulgar and Dark Humor, Adorable Weasels, and a healthy dose of Random Shirtless People.

Jack’s Note: Looky at who gets an early release on tumblr? ;P

 One: Percy

The Triumvirate of Awesome is Back in Action… to Climb Some Stairs

 After climbing the 360th step of a Mesoamerican temple, Percy decided something: if the Mayans were so smart, they should have invented the elevator. He may have been a demigod with super strength and endurance, but he figured he deserved a lift after saving the world a couple dozen times.

At least it was a beautiful day to die from exhaustion. There was a warm breeze drifting in from the San Francisco Bay, keeping the December air comfortable… unlike the freezing chill they left in his hometown, Manhattan. He had half a mind to travel to Canada to punch Boreas in the face and demand summer back. But the God of Winter probably wouldn’t take kindly to some surprise sock ‘em bop ‘em from a rogue demigod.

As they approached the boxlike top of the temple, Percy was impressed Annabeth wasn’t winded, especially since she hadn’t stopped talking since they got to Berkeley Hills. She was too giddy about the architecture.

The mortals walking by on their lunch breaks must have thought she was crazy, gesturing towards a supposed warehouse and talking about Mayan stelea. However, it was California. They might have just thought she was an art student.  

Mortals had a hard time seeing through the Mist, a magical camouflage that kept them from panicking every time a wild minotaur grazed through their backyard. While those mortals might have thought his blonde, grey-eyed girlfriend was crazy, he thought she was wonderful.

Annabeth kept a few paces ahead of him the whole time, going on about the nine tiers in the temple, the jaws of Xibalba, and something about corn. He wasn’t sure he’d heard that last one right.

As much as Percy hated climbing this temple, he had to give it a fair chance. Anything that made Annabeth smile like that and made the sunlight sparkle along the curls of her ponytail was worth giving a fair chance. Except homework. Especially when she tricked him into thinking they were doing something fun outside and “fun�� really meant “study session.”

At the last tier of the temple, they were greeted with a familiar face.

“You two are so slow,” Grover said. He had his hands on his hips. He tried to smile about getting to the top first, but his lips twitched with worry. His horns—oh yea, Grover was a satyr and had horns—peeked out of his curly brown hair, casting shadows on his goatee. He wore a Rastafarian hat and a shirt that said Pick Flowers, Not Fights, though Percy was pretty sure the nymphs said that was the same thing.

Annabeth gave Grover a half-grin. “We’re not exactly built for climbing mountains like you are.”

“Not without proper snacks,” Percy agreed. “Do you think you can magic us up some blueberries and a coke with your reed pipes?”

Grover sighed and touched the instrument in his pocket. “I wish. A tin can does sound delicious right now. But we shouldn’t relax here. That new grove is under our feet and Rosen was right—it feels weird.”

Some of the nature spirits in the area—or traveling to the area in Rosen’s case—had reported sensing a new grove. Normally, Percy might shrug it off, but he’d seen how dangerous trees could be. Both in the Battle of Manhattan and one of the times he ticked off a Camp Half-Blood nymph named Olive. She could throw a platter of brisket with precision.

Along with his dislike of getting whacked in the head with dinner trays, the nature spirits said there was another reason to investigate this grove. They sensed it sprouted up overnight about three weeks ago. Around the same time the seven new members from Camp Half-Blood had gone missing.

Chiron, their camp counselor, thought it must be connected. Plus, a friend of one of the missing campers, a child of Hephaestus named Mathias, put a tracker in their Donkeymobile—yea, Percy didn’t ask about that part of the story—and the last coordinates before it broke were located here.

Percy took a deep breath. He was going to have nightmares of climbing stairs for weeks. “Lead on Goat Boy.” He motioned Grover towards a rectangular window in this tier. It must have been some kind of dome that dropped into the room below.

“Ba!” Grover bleated. “I’m not going down first. What if there’s another jaguar? That girl bullied me!”

For being a Lord of the Wild, Grover was surprisingly startled by the animal they met by the caved-in front entrance. Percy thought he might have been acting overdramatic. Juana—the jaguar’s name according to Grover—had only tried to rip out Percy’s throat once before Grover gave her the satyrs sanctuary blessing and released her into Berkeley Hills.

Don’t worry. It wasn’t the first time they’d released a wild animal into the city. Last time it was a lion in Las Vegas and that seemed to work out okay for the locals.

Annabeth strode past Grover. She took off her backpack and fished a grappling hook out. After testing one of the rocks on the edge of the window, she hooked it on and tossed a rope into the opening.  

“Are you two coming along or are you going to have a picnic up here?”

If Percy ever forgot he loved Annabeth—which he couldn’t, even with godly intervention—he’d remember after seconds of watching her. She looked awesome while disappearing into the void.

But after his moment of awe, he had a moment of panic. He scrambled to the edge to make sure her descent was steady, controlled, and had an end to it.

Annabeth gripped the rope to pause, glanced up, and gave him a gentle smile. “It’s okay, Seaweed Brain,” she said shakily.

He tapped his pen and nodded for her to continue. “Be safe, Wise Girl.”

They both hated falling now. Even the rock and lava wall at Camp Half-Blood sometimes made him hesitate, and he could forget any of Jason’s “free fall” tricks that the son of Zeus occasionally did if the younger campers begged him long enough.

That past summer, Percy and Annabeth had an unfortunate vacation to Tartarus, complete with complimentary monsters, a continental breakfast composed of fire river, and angry gods. The whole thing had started with a fall into darkness.

Let’s just say Percy was happy when he heard Annabeth’s feet hit the floor below and he calculated it to be the specific distance of not-very-far.

Percy slid down seconds after.

Weird is the word all the nature spirits used. Creepy is what Percy would call this place. But at least it was no Tartarus.

There wasn’t any light in the room, only the dim rays that crept down from the rectangular ceiling dome. The temperature dropped at least twenty degrees, way colder than it should have been, even with those openings. Other than his feet brushing against the stone floor, the room was unearthly silent, like the descent had shifted them out of a busy metropolitan town and into the middle of the woods. As a New Yorker, he found it a crime against nature if he couldn’t hear at least one car horn every ten minutes.

They’d landed on a fallen tree. Percy had always found the California decoration style a little hippie, but he’d have to ask the Romans about fallen foliage decor. Annabeth had already stepped off the tree, narrowly avoiding some kind of pit buried underneath the rotting branches.

There were a lot of other trees. Again with the new age décor. A dozen of them were clustered against the far wall, around a long oak table and a smaller one beside it. Those and the upturned chairs around them looked like they’d been abandoned for years, not weeks. The branches of the trees smashed up to the lower portion of the ceiling, seeming to support it more than the walls themselves.

On the other side of the room, there was a throne made from bones. Percy wanted to groan. He hated thrones made from bones. They usually entailed some jerk who thought those kind of thrones were the best way to pick up ladies and henchmen. Percy really needed to ask his friend Piper, a daughter of Aphrodite, to give seminars on The Myths of Being a Villain to dispel such nonsense.

Dust trickled through the little light they had. The corners were completely dark. He’d have to warn Grover that mean jaguars could be lurking anywhere.

As Percy went to check out the throne and Annabeth went to investigate the tables, Grover crashed from the roof opening into the fallen tree. Hooves: great for climbing temples, not for scaling ropes.

There was a single portrait on the wall to the side of the throne, in between some extinguished torches. Percy went to take a closer look as Grover clopped up behind him.

“Oooh! Percy! This isn’t good. These trees don’t feel natural,” he said.

Percy had been trying to calculate exactly how long it took Grover to eat furniture when he got nervous. Now would be a good time to start counting.

“Aren’t all trees natural?” Annabeth mused.

Grover whined, “You know what I mean!”

Percy wanted to tease him, but he knew what Grover meant. Maybe it was their empathy link, but Percy could tell these trees were more the Die Intruder! type.

Once Percy got close enough, he realized the picture on the wall was a family portrait: a father and five children. Percy couldn’t imagine that big a family. He only had one infant sister and he was still trying to figure out the big brother thing. Although anyone forced into a photography studio had a right to look unhappy, these smiles looked particularly fake. There was something else a little weird about the photo. All the children seemed to be different ethnicities from the Hispanic father, except one: Ajax Pax. One of the campers who went missing.

Percy had only seen the unclaimed kid a few times—mostly while Ajax… or did he go by Pax? But mostly while Pax was helping the Stoll brothers terrorize the Ares cabin. That earned him a gold star in Percy’s book.

Another missing camper was in the photo beside the Stoll minion: Axel Pax, Ajax’s older half-brother. Annabeth and he suspected they were ex-members of Kronos’s army. But their group had convened and decided: just because the Pax brothers tried to destroy all of Western culture, didn’t mean they didn’t deserve a second chance.

Percy didn’t recognize the other children or the father, but something felt off about the photo.

“I found something!” Annabeth called.

He and Grover stepped, and clopped (respectively,) back towards the oak table and whatever Annabeth had there.

As they passed the fallen tree, Percy felt something crunch under his shoe.

He withdrew his foot to find a human jaw bone. Great. Exactly what he needed. More bones. He’d stepped on bones before, but that didn’t mean he was excited about it.  

“Di Immortalis!” Grover cried. “That looks like a satyr’s jawbone!”

Percy wanted to argue, but realized he didn’t actually know the difference between satyr and human dentistry and didn’t care to learn. After a quick scan of the room, he could tell there were bones littered around the grove, like the world’s most unnerving fallen leaves.

“Let’s stay away from the man eating trees?” Percy suggested, giving this one a wide birth the rest of the way to Annabeth. Yea, they’d landed on it, but maybe that meant it would have a taste for some demigod milkshake and a satyr salad, since satyrs were probably on the healthier side of things for monsters trying to watch their figure.

When Percy got to Annabeth’s side, she was flipping through a notebook with one hand and holding her iPhone up with the other. There was another smartphone on the table, though that one was an older model. The screen was locked, presenting a number pad for password entry.

“Did you find out this grove was into ancient technology?” Percy asked. “What model is this? The Clunky Brick 9,000? I’ll bet it can’t Snapchat.”

“I don’t think the trees are interested in Snapchatting, Percy,” Annabeth said as she flipped to the front of the notebook.

Percy gave Grover a grin. “I don’t know. I think some nymphs are pretty into it.”

Grover’s face went bright red. “Percy! You promised never to talk about that!”

And the Stoll brothers had promised never to steal anyone’s phone again, print out conversations and embarrassing images, and hang them all over the forest, but Percy could guarantee they would repeat the actions faster than you could cry, “For Hermes!”

Percy grinned and wrapped an arm around Annabeth’s shoulder. “So, what did you find?”

The journal in her hands was covered with vertical columns depicting birds, odd half-circles, and tiny people. With Percy’s dyslexia, he was lucky if he could read English, let alone other languages. He wasn’t well versed in Avian Script, but he recognized it from one of their friends.

“It’s a journal in Egyptian. I think this first page has the number code for this phone. I recognize them as numbers, but I can’t remember what they mean.” Her brow furrowed. She sighed and shrugged. “I sent a picture over to Sadie to see if she can give us a general idea what this is.”

“Is Sadie someone who works at your dad’s university?” Grover asked.

Both Annabeth and Percy bit back smiles. They’d promised to keep the Greeks half-bloods and Egyptian magicians separate, but they’d have to let Grover in on it at some point.

“No,” Annabeth said calmly. “She’s a friend.”

“Who… reads Egyptian?” Grover asked skeptically.

“Let’s just say she was born with it,” Annabeth said.

“If we’re going to be waiting for a translation, I guess that means we’ll be missing that tour group. Darn,” Percy said.

That was the real reason they went to Cali. Yea, Chiron needed someone to look into the missing campers, but—as soon as the child of Hephaestus pinpointed it to Berkeley—Annabeth and Percy were the natural pick.

They were supposed to be doing a tour of the University of New Rome. But you know how it is when you’re a demigod, Percy thought. One minute you’re on a bus to try some cafeteria cheese and wieners and the next minute you’re looking at an Egyptian journal in a Mayan temple, searching for Greek half-bloods. He was just shocked he hadn’t almost died yet. The jaguar didn’t count.

Normally, Percy would have been excited to visit his friends in New Rome. But Reyna had assured Annabeth that the University wouldn’t take Percy unless he actually passed his exams. No slack for saving the world or anything like that.

Fortunately, Rome did their test in Latin, to decrease dyslexia problems, but it didn’t come as naturally to him as Ancient Greek did. Strangely, a lot of Romans didn’t want their entrance exam translated into Camp Half-Blood’s home tongue. Something about not wanting “that Greek life” on their campus.

He wanted to study and do well. It made Annabeth and his mom happy. But it could also make a guy wanna scream when the excuse, “but monsters ate my homework” didn’t work.

Annabeth scowled at him. “Percy,” she snapped in a voice that said she wouldn’t bring him a surprise blue Slurpee after his next swim meet. She knew how to wait for it to hurt the most.

Fortunately, that’s when Annabeth’s phone pinged back.

In proper Sadie fashion, the girl had attached a picture of her brother, Carter Kane, with a shabti attacking his hair. Shabti were little people made out of clay… yea, Percy thought they were weird too. But Percy could totally see her using clay people for sibling warfare. If they ever found Leo, one of Percy’s good friends, he’d have to introduce the two. Leo would fall head over heels.

Percy tried not to frown at the thought of Leo as Annabeth punched in the number code. Leo had gone missing after the war against Gaea. Gone missing, Percy thought. Not dead.

“Sadie says it’s some kind of tracking journal on two people named Wheel and Peace,” Annabeth reported, a slight grin forming at the edge of her lips. The picture must have distracted her from her prior irritation. Percy would owe Sadie a stick of gum.

Annabeth punched in the numbers for the phone.

“Axel and Pax,” Percy said. He might not have been as smart as Annabeth, but he could figure out the basics.

“So, this grove does have to do with the missing campers,” Grover said. He nibbled nervously at the ends of his shirt. His eyes darted around the ominous trees. “That’s great, but can we learn more about them outside? These trees make me anxious.”

Normally, Percy might point out that everything made Grover anxious, but he did have a particular dislike for places that felt underground. And apparently for unfriendly foliage.

“Oh my gods! Percy!” Annabeth shouted and grabbed his arm.

Percy gripped the fountain pen in his pocket, scanning the room for what Annabeth saw. “What?!”

“The video—there’s two of them—this can’t be a fake—it looks like it’s—”

Percy glanced down at the old phone’s screen. His eyes widened. “That’s Leo! He’s alive!”

Sure enough, on the tiny, unlocked phone screen, Percy could make out the unmistakable elfish features of their Latino friend. As per usual, the son of Hephaestus was dusted with soot and in workman’s clothing. Unlike usual, his face was twisted in a grimace. He looked exhausted and worried in the freeze frame. There was some kind of sword half-slipping out of a beach towel in his hands.

“Where is he? Do you think—”

“Let’s see,” she cut him off.

Annabeth pressed play eagerly.

Leo took several steps diagonally away from the camera, towards a forge in the distance. He looked like he was shouting angrily over his shoulder, but there was no sound from the video. A person clad head to toe in a silver mesh suit rapidly approached him from behind. The scene felt bizarre and made Percy want to shout out, “Look out, Leo! You’re about to be attacked by the Tin Man!”

But the next part wasn’t funny. The silver figure wrapped an arm around Leo’s neck, picking him up in a chokehold. Although Percy wasn’t sure from the awkward angle, the figure seemed to break the hand Leo had on the sword.

The image went white as Leo erupted into flames. That part wasn’t the scary part. Leo had a tendency to explode into hot stuff.  Really, Percy figured that would be the end of the video, with a so long to that sucker to the man in silver.

But as the flames died down, Leo wasn’t the one left standing.

The camera trembled and blurred. When it came back into focus, some other girl knelt beside Leo. The silvery figure appeared unmarred beside her and Leo. He’d taken off his jump suit, revealing the stoic face of Axel Pax.

Rage boiled inside Percy. He’d trusted that ex-Kronos jerk and his slimy little brother. He and Annabeth had defended their right to Camp Half-Blood. Hades, he’d even told Connor to sneak in some proper Coca-Cola for them and you never scorned fresh, outside Coca-Cola.

By this point, Grover had nibbled off the bottom corner of his shirt.

Annabeth’s lips were pressed in a firm line as the image froze on the three.

Over his time as hero, Percy had heard some pretty creative cusswords from Coach Hedge, various gods, and unsettled guidance counselors. He was about to combine them all. “That—”

“There’s another one,” Annabeth cut him off. She flicked the image away to pull up another video.

Leo wasn’t in this one. Neither was Axel, or if he was, he was intermixed with a party of people. At first glance, Percy thought it was some kind of celebration at a banquet hall. When Percy noticed the particular bone throne, he realized this was security surveillance footage from the room they were standing in, pre-killer grove. The camera must have been somewhere above the bone throne.

In the video, there was a fire pit—where the fallen tree was now—roaring with turquoise flames. Since that was the only lighting and the angle was awkward, Percy couldn’t make out much more than the dim figures of party guests at the tables, where he, Annabeth, and Grover were standing now.

Facing away from the camera, there was a man in a suit standing by the fire pit, leaning heavily on a cane. Before him were three figures. Without any motion from Annabeth, the image zoomed. Despite the pixilation, Percy could make out the faces of three of their missing campers: Kalypso Cassand, daughter of Apollo, Euna Song, daughter of Demeter, and the slimy dirt bag, Ajax Pax, who had yet to be claimed.

They were all armed, looking ready to attack the seemingly feeble man; though, Percy had learned that seemingly feeble men could be shockingly spry. Then he noticed the weapon in the daughter of Demeter’s hands. One of Percy’s old scars burned.

“That’s Backbiter!” he cried.

“They must have tricked Leo into reforging it,” Annabeth said.

“Oh! I don’t like this,” Grover moaned, halfway through eating his shirt now.

The image zoomed back out. As it did, the daughter of Demeter raised Kronos’s scythe and the room devolved into chaos. Sound kicked in, startling all three of them.

Screams. They were quiet in the recording, but at least a dozen people wailed in agony. Percy felt his mouth drop as tree saplings burst through the guests’ chests, shoulders, and heads.

The man with the cane was the worst. The others were out of focus and darkened in the background. The man was closer, in fancy HD that Percy didn’t want, so he could see the man tear leaves from his face.

When Euna Song slammed the scythe into the ground, a walnut tree exploded into existence, growing out from inside him and literally tearing the man limb from limb.

Once done, the video stopped and the smartphone shut down.

Annabeth, Percy, and Grover stared at the blank screen.

Annabeth tried to restart the phone. “I’ve never seen a child of Demeter do something like that before,” she whispered. Her voice shook.

The smartphone wouldn’t turn back on. Percy had a feeling it never would. He hoped not. Regardless of why Annabeth would want to rewatch that, he never wanted to see that extended version of Planet Earth again.

“They—they can’t,” Grover stuttered. “That was some expert level nature magic. She shouldn’t have been able to do that.”

Percy had to admit, he’d seen Grover do some amazing things, but he’d never seen him grow so many trees at once, out of people no less.

“They tricked Leo into reforging Kronos’s scythe, and attacked him,” Annabeth muttered to herself. She tapped her finger against the Egyptian notebook, probably mad each tap didn’t give her another clue.

Percy stared at the trees. They were once people. Not monsters. Probably not even demigods. “And recycled a bunch of people into compost for trees,” he finished summarizing.

“But why?” Annabeth said. She stood up and shook her head. “This doesn’t add up.”

He, Grover, and Annabeth exchanged a glance. Percy gripped his fountain pen. “I don’t know what they’re up to,” he said. “But we need to find the new Seven and stop them before they hurt anyone else.”

Thanks for reading the first chapter of Attrition of Peace, the third volume in the Traitors of Olympus series! For those of you who are new readers, welcome! To those of you that are my veterans and put up with all of my nonsense, welcome back! I hope you enjoyed this chapter and will continue the adventure with me, the Heroes of Olympus, and the "traitorous" seven!

I normally only update once a week but there's going to be a double release this weekend with Leo's Chapter: Movie Night is On Me. I hope you stay tuned!