Penny Ranger and the Lightning Thief

Chapter X: I Hunt Kids in Orange Shirts

I was happy to see that Percy had started to seem more comfortable at Camp. Max and Luke had helped him get settled in his cabin and he had developed a relatively normal routine.

The only problem that remained was his parentage. And this particular conundrum had practically all of the head counselors stumped. He didn't have much endurance or talent for growing plants, so we could cross Dionysus (thank Zeus!) off the list. Arts and crafts wasn't his thing either and he didn't have any idea how to work with machines, so Hephaestus was out of the question. Clarisse kicked his ass easily every single time, so not Ares either (could you imagine?!). Lee, Chiron and I also determined pretty quick that he was not a son of Apollo, after a disastrous archery lesson that ended with us pulling arrows out of Chiron's tail. Luke suggested he might be a son of Hermes, a Jack of all trades. But he didn't share any of the physical traits of the other Hermes kids.

Honestly, I was starting to feel like 'who's Percy Jackson's dad?' should have been the riddle of the Sphinx instead of the original one,

Of course, I was trying to answer this question while keeping up with my training. After all, I still had no intention of letting Clarisse win on Friday.

So it was after archery practice on Thursday that I decided to rest a bit and talk to someone about the million dollar question. That someone being Max.

I found him sitting on Half-Blood Hill, next to Thalia's tree.

"I thought I might find you here." I said as I approached him.

He turned to face me and gave me a small smile.

"Hey, Penny." he greeted.

I returned the smile and sat down next to him.

"What are you doing here?" I asked him.

He shrugged as he turned away and stared off into the distance.

"Just thinking. I like to come here to think. Makes me feel closer to her." he answered.

I knew he meant Thalia.

Glancing down, I noticed he was fiddling with his weapon, a black Swiss pocket knife. But it was way more special than that. It had three different blades that made it turn into a different weapon each. It could be a sword, a spear or an axe depending on which one he needed.

It had been a gift from Thalia. His first real weapon and the last reminder he had of her.

I'd noticed that Max tended to subconsciously seek a connection to her whenever he felt troubled about something. It made sense, seeing as she had been like an older sister to him. Probably even more than Luke, according to Annabeth (as ironic as that is).

"What's on your mind?" I asked him.

"Well, Percy had his first sword fighting lesson today."

"Did something bad happen?"

He shook his head.

"Not at all, but it was really weird. You know how Luke is the best swordsman of the century, right?"

"Yeah." I answered with a nod.

"Well, Percy managed to disarm him."

I was surprised by this. I knew my sword fighting skills weren't the best, so I definitely wasn't a good model for comparison, but I knew Luke was an incredible swordsman. All of camp did. The fact that he had been the only one to ever receive a quest was proof of that.

It made absolutely no sense how Percy had managed to beat him on his first lesson.

"How did Percy do it?" I asked.