Chapter 26

The days after retrieving the fleece for Thalia’s tree were magnificent. Chiron gave a sudden announcement that the Chariot races would be out back into place in two days time. The weather in camp was sunny, any rainstorms or cold weather swerved right around the borders. The strawberry fields were blooming, Demeters cabin was rebuilt and covered in flowers. Athena and Hephaestus kids had worked together to redo the Arts and Crafts hall.

Kayla had no plans for the chariot race- she wasn’t even going to watch it this time. Not from what she witnessed last time. She would curl up in bed listening to Clarisse’s tapes on the Walkman on full volume. That was her plan, until she got a knock on her cabin door a day before the race.

Kayla opened it to expect Malcolm, or maybe that one boy that wouldn’t leave her alone recently, what was his name… Fritz?

Instead, Clarisse stood there, hands in her army cargo pockets with a nonchalant look on her. “Chariot race?”

“…What?”

“So, my brothers are fighting over who is going to assist me tomorrow, but I have a really cool idea with your wings as a line of defense. So… do you want to be my teammate for the races tomorrow? Yes or no?”

Kayla paused, opening her door up more. “My wings are not being sacrificed.”

“No, no, i want to make armour for them. But we’ll have to do it ourselves, cause like… Hephaestus aren’t taking any orders right now until the race’s over, rightfully so.”

Kayla rubbed her face, pushing away from her door to let her inside. She let out a sound of confusion. “Uh, my plan for the race was to stay here. Like, right here. With your Walkman.”

“Come on, the birds are gone. Camp is extra, super duper safe. I have an amazing plan. Got all the books I need to build the armour.” Clarisse barely even looked around the Thanatos cabin. She took her place against the wall, crossing her arms.

“Fine?” She mumbled, reclining her head worriedly. “I do not want to sacrifice me or my wings so you win.”

“So we win. Besides, you said yes, so follow me.” Clarisse exited once again, walking off. Kayla groaned. She put some shoes on and plodded out of the cabin, back to Clarisse’s. Kayla firstly stood there for the first fiteen minutes at the entrance as Clarisse had an argument with all her brothers, that were cursing the fact she had chosen someone who wasn’t even from her cabin. She used Athena cabin as an excuse, and how Annabeth was doing the same. With that, Kayla made her way through into Clarisse’s room.

Her bed was messy with blue prints and war books. She had a ton of metal scraps in the corner where her wardrobe was, and a pile of daggers.

“Lay on my bed, get you wings out.”

“Could that sound any more wrong, you freak?”

“How else was I supposed to say it!? Just shut up, I’m taking measurements.”

Kayla groaned and lay down on her stomach, closing her eyes. She was like that for atleast an hour. Clarisse was mapping everything out like crazy. She explained what she had in mind; warrior-armour for wings. She had said it wouldn’t be the best, since she was no Hephaestus child, but it would work. She also planned to dismember the daggers and weld the blades onto the circumference of the wing armour, which Kayla had to admit, sounded pretty badass.

“So how will they go on? That will be hard.” Kayla asked, finally sitting up after a long talk on her stomach.

“You know how a clothes hanger goes on a rail?”

Silence.

“Sorry. What?”

“Ugh! Like- when a hanger goes over a rail. Like that. The top part will go over your wings, tightly. Stupid.” She spat in annoyance, drawing out a wing layout on the metal scraps she had as she sat cross-legged on the floor.

“Okay, jesus. Aslong as you know what you’re doing, dumb ass. Cause I don’t.”

Clarisse nodded in concentration, saying nothing more on the matter.

The girl was up until five in the morning creating those wings. Kayla fell asleep around one in the morning, curled up like a cat on the edge of her bed. Kayla sure hoped the rest of her chariot was done, or they were screwed. Clarisse most definitely knew what she was doing when it came to races and competitions, however. And when Kayla tried on those wings at seven in the morning? She looked so badass. Like a Valkyrie warrior that could take down all seven worlds.

She crashed out along with Kayla for four hours after finishing, giving them an hour or so to wake up before the race. The armour was put back on, they got their weapons ready and made sure their Chariot was set and ready to go.

No one knew Kayla was the Ares team member. It felt pretty good when people were stunned and unable to not cheer when Kayla walked onto the race tracks with wings that screamed “battle.” Anyone in their right mind would know Clarise had created them. They were just messy enough that it was obvious a Hephaestus kid hadn’t been involved with it, yet they looked way too cool to be deemed ugly.

The hour before the race, Clarisse had screamed at every single one of her brothers because they were still in a mood. Long story short- if they didn’t cheer for her, she would beat them all to a pulp no matter the consequences.

You could bet they were the loudest of demigods.

With these wings, Kayla’s mission was to block oncoming spear attacks and anything that might be able to harm them. That, and to use her ‘freaky draining powers’ as Clarisse called them, to put any close Chariots off track.

The Ares Chariot looked similar to last time. This time however, Clarisse and her brothers had done the same thing that Clarisse had done with Kayla’s wings: dismembered possibly about two hundred daggers and superglued them wherever they could to the exterior of the chariot. That was probably another reason they were mad- Clarisse had been ordering her brothers around to work on the chariot for the past two days only for them to find out none of them were being chosen.

None of the other chariots looked too special. Hephaestus had their mechanical horses, Clarisse had her skeleton horses, which was fitting for Kayla’s parentage, too. Demeters chariot was covered in poison ivy and Venus fly traps. No one wanted to get close to that. Aphrodite’s chariot was being held by two gorgeous white cob horses that were all dressed up in baby pink bows and ribbons.

“Clarisse?” Kayla asked as they waited for Chiron to blow the conch horn. She hummed in reply.
“Make sure to target Athena cabin, yeah?”

Clarisse nodded, taking hold of the reins. The conch horn blew, Chiron moved away, and all chariots raced off. Kayla almost fell off the back immediately, but she flapped her wings and pulled herself back upright.

Almost instantly, Hermes cabin came straight for them with javelins. Kayla contorted her wings to fend them off. “Sorry, Kay! You betrayed us this time! Hermes is your home!” The Stoll brothers teased, trying to find a gateway to hit her somewhere. Clarisse let out a war cry, sending their chariot into  Hermes as Athena got a whole chariot length ahead. Kayla cursed, flapping her wings at Connor and Travis who screamed in terror, backing onto one side of their own chariot and making them focus on not toppling over. She extended her hands to drain Annabeth. She got Percy instead, who put himself infront of her and was trying not to keel over.

“Ugh, move, you seaweed brain!” Kayla yelled.

“We should have had that on our team!” Someone from Hephaestus yelled, jealous for not thinking of armour for giant avian wings. They took Hermes place, trying to get close enough to put a spear in their wheel. “Clarisse, hit the gas on those things, you slow coach!” Kayla yelled, hearing a few threats slip from Clarisse’s mouth after daring to say such a thing.

Thankfully, they did escape Charles Beckendorf’s grasp, nearing up on Athena who was now half way. Kayla had lost focus in draining a long time ago.

Apollo was gaining on Ares while targeting Athena- they threw a javelin right into a wheel of Annabeth’s chariot, making them lose a few spokes. Kayla cheered since they unknowingly helped them out, so she tried to drain Apollo from here, making them clutch their heads in dizziness.

“Losers! Take that, you-” Kayla’s cheering turned into a scream as Demeter came out of nowhere, Katie wrapping one of her wrists in poison ivy. She immediately tried to contort one wing infront of her, but the ivy simply wrapped around her wing, too. Get, off, you flower freaks! Clarisse!”

“Copy!” Clarisse yelled back at Kayla, quickly handing her a grenade without losing focus. She threw it into the Demeter chariot. Her wrist was let free. “That was with so many hard feelings, Katie! Your all freaks!” She stuck her tongue out, turning her back for the time being to defend with her wings for a while. Her wrist hurt like a bitch. But the fact that the Demeter chariot blew up into smithereens made her feel a little better- not too much harm done to anyone; they all dived out of the chariot before it blew up.

Hephaestus had moved on from their chariot- now infront and going for Annabeth and Percy. Kayla had half a good mind about that; if they threw Athena off, maybe they wouldn’t have to do as much. But then Hephaestus would still be in the way.

Clarisse sent her reigns down on the horses again, prompting them to go faster. “One more grenade for Hephaestus!” Clarisse yelled to Kayla, “Then the real show for Athena, I have it all planned!”

“Move the chariot up the tracks, then! I need to get closer!” Kayla yelled. Their chariot swerved around the corner the same time they neared Hephaestus, who did not look happy. “Oh, please!” Charles rolled his eyes, pressing a single button somewhere on his chariot that shot out iron ropes at their wheels. Kayla yelped, snatching the grenade from Clarisse’s hidden drawer.

“Take that!” Kayla yelled, throwing it into their chariot as Clarisse started to pull away with great effort. But it was pulling them in. And the chariot wasn’t exploding.

“What is going on?! We’re losing speed!”

“Uh, anytime now, just-” Finally, Beckendorf and his partner Nyssa leaped out of the chariot just as it blew up, making the iron rope go slack. The iron ropes dragged against the floor as they drove, but didn’t slow them down any.

“Now Athena!” Kayla put her wings up fully as she stood with her back towards the edge of the chariot for a massive shield, grabbing the sword that was propped against the chariot for incoming. “Pass me the bag!”

Clarisse quickly handed her a small leather pouch. They neared the Athena chariot, Percy immediately trying to push Kayla off with his sword. She threw the leather pouch into the chariot. It was silent- then:

“GREEK FIRE!” Percy yelled, trying to stomp it out. Kayla smiled, keeping her defense up. Percy fumbled about until he snapped his attention back up to her. Amnabeth was trying to keep their chariot away from the spear heads on their chariot, yet Percy had other plans. He pressed some weird button on a watch, which morphed into some thick metal shield, like something you would see from Iron Man. With that, when Kayla went to parry, it immeidately turned her sword into shambles.

It wasn’t fair she couldn’t use her scythe. That definitely would have held up.

“What the-!” Kayla stumbled back, and Percy took that as an opportunity to send her flying with the blunt end of his sword. The speed from the chariot made her easily stumble off the chariot, ending up in a heap left behind.

Clarisse had none of it. She had taken her hands off the reigns, tried to use her own spear to counter Percy with some horrible words combined, yet the shield held up, making Clarisse’s spear also crumble into bits.

Athena won by centimeters, and the crowd errupted into cheers after they had been cheering for Percy for the last two minutes. He was so dead.

Kayla stood up, her twisted wing unable to readjust itself due to the armour that had twisted around with it. She grunted, storming along   with no regards for how fucked her wings were, or her wrist. Or whatever else. Percy did not get to enjoy the victory cheers after diving out of their burning chariot with Annabeth. He only just managed to recieve his kiss on the cheek from her, before he was ragged harshly from Annabeth’s reach onto the floor from behind.

“Kayla!” Annabeth scolded.

Clarisse, too, watched with a stubborn, unmoving look on her face. She was not saving Percy.

Gods, she had created a monster in the time they had been forced to spend together, hadn’t she?

“You, and your stupid tricks!” Kayla growled, making sure to tug him around by his shoulders to rag him around on the dirt. It was admittedly to a few, kind of funny. “Pull something like that again, my Stygian Iron scythe is going to come in real handy, Jackson!” Kayla finally let go, pushing his back into the dirt and leaving him to rest. Annabeth had been bickering at her, yet hadn’t intervened. And many demigods in the crowd were either “ooh”ing comically or laughing at the theatrics. Clarisse hummed with crossed arms, nodding in approval from where she stood on their chariot. It stood unmoving, just past the victory line. Second place.

“And here we have it!” Chiron had been hurrying down to the scene to stop it, but Kayla had already backed off by the time he had arrived. So instead he announced the winners.  “Athena winning, with Annabeth Chase, Percy Jackson, and Tyson!”

The crowd errupted in more cheers, Athena cabin rushing down from their stand to lift all three winning demigods onto their shoulders.

Kayla scowled, storming around to Clarisse and their chariot to retrieve her things. “You’re being a sore loser.” Clarisse mumbled bluntly, still eying as Percy, Annabeth and Tyson got carried off to the mess hall.

“Stop trying to be better. If it wasn’t for that stupid shield thing, we would have won! That was something from Hephaestus, so that’s not even-“

“Tyson made it. They let him use the forges because they like him like one of their own.” Clarisse explained. Her voice was lost of humour. She was very clearly trying mediation in her mind right now instead of pulverising a bunch of kids who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

“It’s not fair,” Kayla repeated as she moved her back to Clarisse, who already got the jist she wanted her armour removing.

“Don’t worry. I need to go into the forest tonight. Come with me. I need a jar of spiders.”

The armour was tugged harshly from her wings, thrown into the greek fire that was still ablaze on Athena’s chariot. Her wings gave a vicious flap as they both contorted back into their natural, un-bent shape.

“And what for Percy?”

Clarisse hummed, grabbing her backup spear. “The spiders. Annabeth is Percy’s weakness, we saw that the other week, come on. He’s gonna be devastated if his lovely little girlfriend is all sad and sensitive for a few days.”

Kayla flicked her eyes to Clarisse. That was… smart. Kill two birds with one stone. “I like your thinking.”

“Mh, me too.”

With that, they walked off with the end of the crowd back to the main camp, plotting out their villainous revenge like two petty little criminals.

Clarisse really had created a little monster, hadn’t she?

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End of book 2, bonus chap of Clarissa revenge coming however. Shows a lil bit of their bonding over the summer😝