The Path Of Glory (Annabeth Chase x Male Reader)

8. Garden Gnomes And Statues

So there they were, Y/N, Annabeth, Ethan, Percy and Grover, walking through the woods along the New Jersey riverbank, the glow of New York City making the night sky yellow behind them, and the smell of the Hudson reeking in their noses.

Grover was shivering and braying, his big goat eyes turned slit-pupiled and full of terror. "Three Kindly Ones. All three at once."

Y/N was pretty much in shock himself. The explosion of bus windows still rang in his ears. But Annabeth kept pulling them along, saying, "Come on! The farther away we get, the better."

"All our money was back there, Percy reminded her. "Our food and clothes. Everything."

"Well, maybe if you hadn't decided to jump into the fight—" Annabeth began.

"What did you want me to do?" Percy retorted. "Let you get killed?"

"You didn't need to protect us, Percy," Annabeth told him. "We would've been fine."

"Sliced like sandwich bread," Ethan put in, "but fine."

"Shut up, goat boy," Annabeth said.

Ethan bleated with indignation and rammed his sunhat on his head.

Grover brayed mournfully. "Tin cans...a perfectly good bag of tin cans."

They sloshed the mushy ground through nasty twisted trees that smelled like sour laundry. Y/N still held the sword that had come from nowhere, and he had no idea what to do with it. He tried to hang it to his belt, but it didn't work. He already missed his bag.

After a few minutes, Annabeth said to Percy, "Look, I...I appreciate your coming back for us, okay?"

"We're a team, right?"

"Yeah, but it still was stupid." She was silent for a few more steps. "It's just that if you died...aside from the fact that it would really suck for you, it would mean the quest was over. This may be my only chance to see the real world."

The thunderstorm had finally let up. The city glow faded behind them, leaving them in almost total darkness. Y/N couldn't see anything of the others except their dark shapes.

"You haven't left Camp Half-Blood since you were seven?" he asked her.

"No...only short field trips. My dad—" She stopped a moment. "It didn't work for me living at home. I mean, Camp Half-Blood is my home." She was rushing her words now, as if she was afraid somebody might try to stop her. "At camp you train and train. And that's all cool and everything, but the real world is where the monsters are. That's where you learn whether you're good or not."

If Y/N didn't know better, he could've sworn he heard doubt in her voice.

"Anyway, you're pretty good with that knife," he said.

"You think so?"

"Anybody who can piggyback-ride a Fury is okay by me."

He couldn't really see, but he thought she might've smiled.

"You know," she said, "maybe I should tell you...Something funny back on the bus...."

Whatever she wanted to say was interrupted by a shrill toot-toot-toot, like the sound of an owl being tortured.

"Hey, my reed pipes still work!" Grover cried. "If I could just remember a 'find path' song, we could get out of these woods." He puffed out a few notes, but the tune sounded suspiciously like Hilary Duff.

Instead of finding a path, Percy slammed into a tree with a dull sound. Y/N would've laughed if he hadn't bumped into one too. Add to the list of superpowers none of them had: infrared vision.