Penny Ranger and the Lightning Thief

Chapter XI: Zeus Rains on Our Parade

The revelation of Percy's parentage only brought more problems.
Because of what had happened in the woods, the cabin eleven kids were now afraid to share their sparring lesson with him. So, I offered to share mine. The two of us had fallen into a regular routine of training with Luke and Max. I noticed Luke seemed more determined to get Percy to learn, going much harder than he had before. It came to the point where sometimes Max had to tell Luke to take a break while he sparred with Percy.

Annabeth also seemed more distant. She still had some activities with me, but her mind was never really there and she would always wander off muttering to herself afterwards. I reckoned it was due to the Athena-Poseidon rivalry. She had probably hoped that if Percy was the one, they would be able to work together. That plan was shot down by that little glowing trident.

I was also more on edge, but mostly because of the hell hound. Monsters like those were extremely dangerous, not the kind of creatures we kept in the forest. It would never have gotten past the barrier by itself. Which meant that, like Chiron said, it had been summoned. There was someone at camp who deliberately wanted to kill Percy.

I would have pointed my finger at Clarisse, were it not for the fact that she was as surprised as we were when it appeared. Also, I didn't think she would be the kind to have others do her work for her. She preferred to get her own hands dirty.

It didn't help that my nightmares were constantly making me feel even more worried. It was always variations of the same dream.

I was standing in the middle of a forest, heavy fog obscuring my vision. There was a figure in front of me. It was covered in shadows, so I couldn't make out who or what it was. It spoke with a distorted voice, sounding ancient, far older than the gods, and unpleasant, like a knife scraping on chalk.

"Come, little light. Bring me the weapon."

I didn't know why it called me that. I tried to locate the speaker, but the figure had vanished and the voice seemed to come from all around me.

"No, I won't." I refused firmly.

The voice laughed, as if it found my resistance amusing.

"You can't stop this war. Join me, and you won't suffer."

"No! I will stop you!" I replied defiantly.

The voice chuckled again, the unnatural sound sending chills down my spine. Then, the ground opened beneath my feet, dragging me down into a dark bottomless abyss no matter how hard I struggled.

I woke up immediately after in my bed with a jolt and breathing heavily. These nightmares always left me with several questions. The two most important ones were: who did the voice belong to and what weapon did they want.

I used my sparring session with Max to discuss this with him, hoping he would have an idea.

"I have no idea about the voice. But if I had to guess, I'd say someone or something connected to the Underworld." Max said as he sliced at me.

"What about the weapon? Any ideas?" I asked, blocking his attack.

"Well, Annabeth suspects something was stolen, right? What if the thing that was stolen is a god's weapon?" he suggested:

It did make sense. From what I had read, the gods' weapons were incredibly powerful. One of those would definitely give anyone the edge in a battle. If you could withstand its power.

Our conversation/sparring session was interrupted by Grover, who trotted into the arena looking extremely nervous.

"Penny, Mr. D wants to see you."