Tidal Wave (Luke Castellan)

The Gods

 I ended up on a beach. Percy and Annabeth helped me up as I gazed around. There was a cute little beach house off to one side. The lights weren't on. The waves were pounding against the shoreline. The sky was starting to get cloudier and thunder was rumbling in the distance. We were running out of time.

"What happened? Why did you come back late?" Annabeth asked.

I looked over and saw the god we were looking for, "Later. Right now we've got to get Hades's helm back."

Ares stayed a good waze away from us but called out, "Hey, kid. You were supposed to die," his eyes flickered towards me, "And Hades didn't kill you, what a surprise."

"You tricked me," Percy took a step forward, "You stole the helm and the master bolt."

"Well, now, I didn't steal them personally. Gods taking each other's symbols of power is a big no-no. But you're not the only hero in the world who can run errands," Ares grinned.

"We know Clarisse was in on it with you. She was there at the winter solstice."

It wasn't Clarisse. The look on Ares's face confirmed it. The sinking feeling in my stomach was back. Should I tell the others my suspicion about the real thief? No, I had to wait until I got more proof. I couldn't go swinging false accusations at Luke. If I did that and he wasn't actually the thief, I didn't know if I could forgive myself. Or if he could forgive me. Luke not forgiving me was something I didn't know if I could handle.

"We know you have the helm. I have a proposition for you to get it back," Percy took out his pen and uncapped it. He raised it towards Ares in a challenge, "Single combat."

"What?" Grover, Annabeth, and I asked at once.

"What?" Ares seemed equally confused.

"Single combat," Percy repeated, "If I draw first blood, I keep the bolt and you surrender the helm."

Ares started laughing. I wanted to face palm. My twelve-year-old brother was seriously challenging the god of war to a duel. There was no way this was going to end up well. I took a deep breath. No. Sure, Percy could be a bit stupid at times, but I had to trust that he knew what he was doing. If he was challenging Ares, he had to have some sort of plan in mind. Oh who was I kidding? This was Percy, he was going to wing it. But he was going to do what he did best and wing it well.

"Just to be clear: no funeral. Any trace of you leaves a trace of my plan and we can't have that."

"But it wasn't your plan though, was it?" Percy asked.

The look on Ares's face changed. He clearly didn't like being called out as someone else's pawn. Ares was always known as this badass that nobody told what to do. For us to know that someone else had created this plan he was following was embarrassing to him. When the god of war was angry, who knew what he would do.

"After you die, say hi to your mom for me," Ares growled.

Percy readied up. Ares lunged and Percy countered. Ares got the upperhand fairly quickly. He pushed Percy down to the ground and Percy blocked the strike aimed to cut him in half. Ares bent down to pick Percy up. He lifted Percy over his head and threw him down. Percy's body hit the ground harshly. I cringed at the sight of it. Since it was single combat, Annabeth, Grover, and I couldn't interfere. That made this all even harder to watch.

The ocean stirred. The water moved further and further up the shore with each wave. Annabeth nor Grover seemed to notice it but there was something off about it. Further back, a certain wave was starting to get bigger and bigger. This wasn't the work of Poseidon though. No, this was the work of Percy. The waves were responding to his emotions. The water was reaching out on the sand, trying to help him. The wave was his building frustration with this mission, with Ares, with everything.