Chapter Thirteen - Stoll-less

A few hours later after numerous shots of nectar, Connor left the infirmary feeling perfectly well. He left just in time for dinner so he ran to his cabin and met up with Travis and together they led their cabin to eat. Whilst they were sat at the tables, Connor looked over to the Apollo table and saw Will, Kayla and Austin in a conversation, each one of them glancing at Connor in turn. Connor felt the tops of his elfish ears, inherited from his father, flame red with rage but he managed to keep a cool face and even smile at Austin. Once the Apollo’s went off to shoot arrows, Connor turned to Travis and demanded “I want revenge and I want it now!”

Travis grinned at his brother and said “I wondered when you were going to say that.” but Connor barely heard what he said, he was consumed with an uncharacteristic rage. How dare those good for nothing Apollo’s do that, it wasn’t even what they did to him personally, but the fact that their “pranks” were more bordering on physical abuse. Lou Ellen’s face was scarred because of their stupid pride or whatever it is that they’re so godsdamn upset about. Connor didn’t know how, but he would make the whole Dark Side pay for it. The ultimate revenge.

Except neither he, nor Travis had any ideas how to pull it off. They decided to involve as least people as possible considering the consequences of last time, but that did limit them. Connor didn’t care. He’d make Will, Austin, Kayla, Clarisse and all her pig-head siblings pay. He went to sleep that night deep in thought.

The following afternoon, the Stoll’s monster fighting class were on a practical which means venturing into the woods to defeat some of the nasty things that live there. With his sword in his hand and Travis by his side holding only his shield as he lost his sword somewhere, Connor felt pretty confident, he slew a few monsters and felt invincible. It made him feel even better knowing that Clarisse’s magic spear number 2 was malfunctioning so she wouldn’t be top of the class again, and that Will and Kayla were having trouble shooting their arrows as their stench was rather distracting. 

Connor was stood in a small clearing with Travis both on the lookout for any monsters that dare mess with the Stoll’s when he caught a glimpse of a shiny, silky package. Now given his past history with objects he knows nothing about, Connor thought he should be more cautious but what more did he have to lose? He went racing over leaving Travis to trail behind after him. They dived through the bushes and looked at the parcel, it seemed familiar. Travis was the one to name it 

“Dude, isn’t that the package we were meant to find when Annabeth and Percy found the labyrinth? And Quintus strapped it to one of them massive scorpion things?”

“Who’s Quintus?” Connor asked with his eyebrows raised in a quizzical look.

“Daedalus, same person, whatever.”

“Oh, sorry I guess I forgot about that with everything else that happened, I just remember the Battle of the Labyrinth and the rest of it’s a blur..” Connor said looking slightly ashamed of himself.  A thought suddenly occurred to Connor. “Wait, if this is the monster’s package then where is the monster?”

They both started looking around their immediate area which was mainly trees. After assessing the coast as clear they turned to each other

 “So what do we do with this?” Travis asked pointing to the silk package. 

“Do you think the scorpion is still guarding this?”

“Erm, maybe, in fact it probably is because if anyone killed it, they’d of taken the package wouldn’t they?”

“Probably,” Connor was in deep thought when an idea struck him. “Maybe we could use this to our advantage, we could use it to get our revenge.” Connor barely registered the worried look Travis shot his brother.

“Bro, don’t you think it’s a bit extreme getting monsters involved?” asked Travis in a wary voice.

“Well they boast about being the best all the time so why shouldn’t they get the chance to prove it?”

Travis had to admit that the Ares’ and Apollo’s bigheadedness was really annoying. Connor continued on before Travis had a chance to think any of it through “What I think we should do is gather the Dark Side in the amphitheatre or somewhere close to the edge of the forest and hide the package so the scorpion can come and look for it and give our buddies a surprise!”

“Connor, are you sure about this?” Travis asked with concern.

“Yes, now you can hide the package and stay with it to make sure we get no-one ruining our revenge and I’ll gather them round in the amphitheatre, okay?” Connor asked, Travis could see how much this meant to him and so he agreed, besides a little revenge would be sweet. Travis nodded at his brother and picked up the silky package and together they headed back towards the camp.

 Connor didn’t realise how late it was as the sun was setting casting a lovely deep orange glow over the camp, Connor couldn’t help but think of how much Lou Ellen would love this. If he moved quick enough he could catch her after her Pegasus riding lesson and they could miss the evening meal and just sit together on the beach looking at the beauty of it. 

“Yo man, I’m going to go and find Lou, that okay?” Connor asked almost cautiously.

Travis raised his eyebrows and replied “You better go now because this pretty sunset you’ve been staring at isn’t going to last forever,” he smirked just for effect “I’ll just go wait near the ampithreatre with the parcel.”

“Alright bro, won’t be long, don’t miss me too much!” Connor added with a wink. Travis blew him a kiss and they both walked in separate directions laughing to themselves.

Connor caught Lou Ellen and wrapped his arms around her waist whilst kissing her hair, “Hey my enchanting enchantress, how would you care to watch the sunset on the beach with me?” Lou spun around in his arms to face him and gave a shy giggle and replied,

“Whisk me away my troublesome trouble maker!” 

They sat together on the sandy shores of the beach with his arm around her shoulders and her head nestled into his chest until the last of the sun disappeared over the horizon “It never gets any less beautiful no matter how many times you see it.” Lou Ellen speculated. Connor pulled away and looked into her face and said from the bottom of his heart,

“That’s how I feel every time I see you.” They stared at each other for a moment, but then each gradually started to smile and then giggle, and then ended up rolling around in hysterics.

Connor didn’t realise just how late it was getting and Travis would be waiting with a potentially dangerous monster on his trail. Then Connor remembered that Travis had no weapon other than a shield, he had to go and check if everything was okay. So he got up and ran off towards the amphitheatre leaving Lou Ellen shouting after him.

Travis reached the structure and found a nice comfy spot in the shadows just in front of a large column of the ampithreatre while he waited for Connor and the others, if he got spotted he might even be mistaken for Nico Di Angelo, not that they looked anything alike, merely their fondness for shadows. Thinking about it, Travis might like the shadows because he’s always in them, he found himself thinking that if maybe he stepped out of the shadow and at least spoke to Piper then they could be friends, nothing more of course because anyone can see that Piper is completely smitten with Jason. For some reason he was having all these deep thoughts, thoughts he wasn’t even aware he had, especially not shared. Maybe it was time to move out of the shadows Travis thought. He looked to his right where his shiny shield was, except it had a bit of dirt on it so he reached to his left to use a bit of the silk from the package to clean it but realised it had some black fluid on it that wasn’t there before. Travis put together the pieces just as the tail of the scorpion came swooping down, he had just enough time to grab his shield and the piercer impaled the shield instead of him. He quickly scrambled up and ran to grab the nearest weapon he could, he dived for a sword when he heard a screeching noise of something flying through the air at high speeds, he thought ‘this is it, I’m going to die without even saying goodbye to Connor..’ but instead of pain, he didn’t feel anything so he turned around and saw that the monstrous scorpion had an arrow in his side and was flapping desperately at it. Travis looked around and saw Will Solace with a grim smile, never before had he been so grateful for an Apollo camper. 

“TRAVIS BEHIND YOU!” He heard Connor shout although he couldn’t see him yet, and he turned just in time to see the scorpion’s tail come flying down straight towards his chest, he moved his sword hand but too little too late. A searing pain entered his chest just underneath his lung, or maybe in his lung, there was too much pain to specify. He vaguely heard a battle cry from two sides, his brother and Will, Travis guessed. Within a minute the two were leaning over his face meaning that the monster had been quickly disposed of and Will was trying to assess Travis’ injuries while Connor was staring at Travis with love, worry and a desperate look on his face, each time Travis winced in pain Connor glared daggers at Will. 

Travis couldn’t help but feel strangely guilty for that, it wasn’t his fault that all this had started, sure, he played a part in it, a pretty big part but he didn’t start it. No-one did. All’s he wanted was for Connor to live a long, fun, happy life surrounded by amazing people. The people at this camp were amazing, Will was amazing, that’s pretty evident in the fact he’s working away over him after everything that’s happened, Travis thought. They all need to just get over it, it was his dying wish. He’d never felt more sure of it in his entire life, sure it wouldn’t be as influential as Ethan Nakamura’s , but as long as it helped Connor, that was all he could ever ask for because he was sure that Connor would do the same in his position. He found a sudden burst of strength and gripped his brother’s hand whilst he fought for breaths and rasped out “forgive and forget Connor, okay, promise me?” Connor nodded vigorously as if to shake the tears from his eyes. Travis smiled, and then everything went black.