Percabeth's Selection

20: Councilwomen Athena

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"Be careful of love. It'll twist your brain around and leave you thinking up is down and right is wrong."
― Rick Riordan, The Battle of the Labyrinth.

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Rachel was weak, hurt and out of options. He grabbed her by the neck. "That's not payback enough, don't you thi-"

All of a sudden, something flew through the air and he screamed in pain. When Rachel looked back, two arrows were struck on, one to his chest and another to his right shoulder - by luck - exactly to the spot where she had stabbed him before.

She didn't know why but the first thing she thought was 'Percy'. She knew it wasn't possible though. He must be in a safe room by now. This was one of the guards.

No one showed up for a second and Rachel panicked.

Was this another intruder?

To her relief, a girl came out of the shadows about 50 feet ahead.

To her utter surprise, it was Annabeth.

Wait, you're telling me that she threw these arrows FROM 50 FEET AWAY and it hit him and not me?

That too, two arrows.

In one shot.

Wasn't she horrible at archery?

In a second, she was next to her and she kicked the guard until he stopped moving. Rachel turned around and saw that he had a face shield on this time.

So that's why Annabeth didn't go for the head...

Would she kill though? That's...

The thought scared Rachel.

Rachel gaped in wonder. "Aren't you bad at archery?"

Annabeth snickered. "No thank you? No gratefulness for saving your life? That's what you ask?"

Rachel was still stunned. "But..."

Annabeth took a look at her leg. "We need to take that out. You'll hurt yourself if you walk with that."

Suddenly Rachel's leg felt numb. She leaned harder on the wall and hissed. "My legs... they feel..."

Annabeth was alarmed. "Shit, it could be poisoned."

Annabeth had a lot of annoying habits - calling Percy out in between meals and making random conversation, having a gang of actual friends in between Selection, knowing the palace like...you get the idea. Rachel didn't want to dislike Annabeth. She knew it was all because of the Selection. Maybe in another world, if these things weren't bothering them, they could have been friends - assuming Percy wasn't in the equation of course.

But this minute she purely hated her because Rachel didn't know one of the annoying habits she had was removing knives out of hurt people without a prior warning.

She hollered in pain and glared daggers at Annabeth.

Annabeth scoffed. "I'm doing this for you."

"Yeah right."

Annabeth tore a long piece of fabric out of her grey dress and used it to cover her wound as she watched in amazement.

"I fake it." Annabeth said.

"What?", asked Rachel.

"The archery. I always hit right where I want to."

Rachel's face must have done something weird because Annabeth laughed. "Why?"