TheRealEvanSG
Not From Another World
- Location
- United States, Oho
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Goddammit. Why is my brain on a really bad auto-correct?
GG, Kronos, But I Have Foresight (PJO Self-Insert)
- Thread starter TheRealEvanSG
- Start date
Malbutorius
C'est le bien qui fait mal
Well gee willikers it really does seem like she has no choice but to mess with fate as she already did merely by showing up! Hoopla!
Doomed Wombat
Let's go Darling!
- Location
- Dancing on wires!
Having thought about it, it'd be easy to assume that Dyonisis was just being an ass, but I'm pretty sure that isn't the case.
In fact I recall him being one of the more intelligent Gods and moral of the Gods as well as insightful... he's just sober ATM and like most gods doesn't like giving straight answers.
I have no doubt that it's as obvious to us that him telling her not to mess with fate is a waste of time and since it's obvious to us it is probably to @TheRealEvanSG.
Nah I think the Old Drunk did exactly what he wanted got her to think and plan rather than rush head first into things, I mean technically Eve isn't changing the future... she just thinks she is.
If she had been forced in by an out of universe rob she might be, but she was called by an in universe god, so technically this is how it has always been in this percy jackson universe as the fates would have woven the God's making the decision to bring her here.
TheRealEvanSG
Not From Another World
- Location
- United States, Oho
- Pronouns
- He/Him
So I have a little bit of explaining to do before I start writing the next chapter, as well as fixing the previous chapter.
The monster at the end of the chapter, hinted at by Kronos, was not actually meant to be Chrysaor as in Percy's pirate half-brother from Heroes of Olympus. I apparently was looking at the wrong myth, because in the version of events I was looking at, Chrysaor was not Percy Jackson's human Chrysaor. And anyway, the guy is so powerful it just makes no sense for him to have been killed. Therefore, I will be going back and fixing things in the chapter to align with what I wanted it to be.
My apologies. Greek mythology is really annoying sometimes because of all the differences in myths from teller to teller...
The monster at the end of the chapter, hinted at by Kronos, was not actually meant to be Chrysaor as in Percy's pirate half-brother from Heroes of Olympus. I apparently was looking at the wrong myth, because in the version of events I was looking at, Chrysaor was not Percy Jackson's human Chrysaor. And anyway, the guy is so powerful it just makes no sense for him to have been killed. Therefore, I will be going back and fixing things in the chapter to align with what I wanted it to be.
My apologies. Greek mythology is really annoying sometimes because of all the differences in myths from teller to teller...
Chapter 9 - Murphy's Law Sucks, Really Badly
TheRealEvanSG
Not From Another World
- Location
- United States, Oho
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A/N: Phew, this is done at last! It's a lot longer of a chapter because I wanted to cover Percy's trip to Camp Half-Blood in one go. Oh, look, there's a butterfly! How beautiful! Oo, another one! And another! And another...!
I swear that I wasn't trying to get pigs to fly. I really, really wasn't. But the universe seems to hold some kind of grudge against me that I'm not aware of, if what happened at the end of my school year is telling of anything.
Allow me to back up a bit.
The rest of the school year passed without incident after Eve left Yancy. The only thing that was different was that I was getting steadily more and more frustrated; everybody else seemed to be of the belief that Mrs. Dodds had never been our teacher. Whenever I'd ask someone, they always looked at me blankly or stared at me like I was some hallucinating weirdo. It got so bad that I actually almost ended up believing I'd had some bad mushrooms or something.
Almost. Grover and Eve were the evidence I needed to know I wasn't just dreaming everything up.
I'd been able to tell from Eve's reactions when I talked to her in the dorm that I was right on the money and that she was lying about Mrs. Dodds being real. She hadn't been able to look me in the eyes, and she'd denied the woman's exist almost immediately after the question had left my mouth. And whenever I asked Grover about how Eve had been uninjured from the sword she'd somehow gotten stuck in her hands, he'd always flinch and stutter before claiming to not know what I was talking about.
Something was up. I just had no idea what.
One other thing that was bothering me was the weather. With each passing day, it gradually grew more and more furious and random. It was as though the sky was trying to wage war with the sea, or at the very least out do each other. One day, a twister ripped through central Manhattan, miraculously damaging only a few buildings and killing no one. Scientists on the news had been completely unable to explain how it had formed so suddenly. The next day, twenty foot waves crashed against Long Island Sound, flattening several miles of forest. It was all over the papers.
With end-of-the-year exams approaching, I was already stressed enough about getting passing grades so that I'd be allowed to return next year and my mom wouldn't be disappointed in me again. I didn't need all the distractions of the howling wind outside, or the intense pitter-patter of rain hammering against my window. All the noise and commotion from the ever-increasingly potent weather phenomena was driving my ADD through the roof. I was also worried about what had happened with Mrs. Dodds and Eve at the museum, especially since the former had disappeared off the face of the planet and the latter had left the school that night.
I might've gone crazy thinking I was… well, crazy, if it wasn't for my near certainty about being right since Eve and Grover weren't able to lie about it well enough. I was still overworking my poor brain trying to figure out why no one else except us three was able to remember Mrs. Dodds, but I made a mental note to find Eve and ask her about it next time I saw her. Having that goal helped calm me down. From what I'd been able to tell about her in the short time I'd known her, she was a far less stubborn person than Grover, who I knew would never tell me anything.
She had promised that she'd call and visit me sometime, after all, so I was sure I'd see her sometime over the summer.
All of this in mind, I focused on studying as hard as I could for the exams. I was even able to achieve some peace and quiet from Nancy, who was almost too scared to be in the same room as me anymore after Eve punched her in the face (which had been ridiculously cool, by the way). A part of me was almost disappointed by the fact that she wasn't trying to antagonize Grover or me anymore, because now I had no excuse to re-break her nose, but I managed to ignore it in favor of focusing on my work.
Finally, exam week rolled around, and I… wasn't quite ready, exactly, but at least confident that I wouldn't fail every class.
Each of the longer-than-usual tests took either two or three hours to complete, and we took two a day. We were allowed a half-an-hour break between each hour of the given exam. I sat nervously in my seat, squirming about and chewing my thumb as I desperately tried to think about what the answers to these tests might be. Some of the content in the questions (well, a lot of it, really) I simply couldn't remember having ever learned in class, and so I resigned myself to filling in a random bubble. Others I actually remembered, or was kind of sure that I did.
Latin, quite expectedly, was the test I did my best on.
I'd studied hardest for Latin, mostly to impress Mr. Brunner, who was the best teacher I'd ever had. And it had paid off. I remembered the difference between Chiron and Charon, and was able to recount how Perseus (no, not me, the mythological Perseus) decapitated Medusa in her sleep (sounds like the kind of awesome thing I would do if I was in a myth, though). The only part I didn't do so well on was conjugating those Latin verbs, but then, I don't think anyone could do well on that.
At last, the Latin test was over, and relieved to be done with the grueling exams, I got up, handed my test to Mr. Brunner, stretched, and started to make my way out of the classroom.
"Percy, may I have a word with you?" the wheel-chaired man in his tweed jacket asked.
I paused and looked back, curious. What did Mr. Brunner want with me? "What is it, Mr. Brunner?" I said, raising my eyebrow.
"You have performed remarkably well in this class," he said with a pleasant smile. I frowned at that. That was certainly not true; I would probably be passing with a grade halfway between a B and a C. It would definitely be the only B on my report card. "You have improved greatly from the beginning of the school year. And from what I can see of your exam so far, it seems like you have much care for my class."
"Uh… yeah," I said, blushing a little from the praise. I'd never been told that my school work was great before, and coming from someone who'd almost become a hero to me, I couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed. However, I'd feel bad telling the coffee-smelling man that it was only because he was so cool and kind that I was trying so hard.
He'd been the first teacher I'd had to accept my random bursts of inattention, staring into space, and completely forgetting things said mere moments before, and to give me personal attention to help me improve. I didn't want to bring him down by telling him that I actually didn't really care a whole lot about what twelve things Hercules did to maintain a goddess's favor.
"There is a summer camp for people who enjoy mythology which I help teach at," the greying old man said, handing me a card. I narrowed my eyes at the information on it. Why was it called Camp Half-Blood? And was that street address the number pi? "Grover goes there, too. I hear it's also where Eve moved to."
I tilted my head at that. "But wait, if it's a summer camp, then how did she get in during the—?"
"It also functions as a year-round learning institution," Mr. Brunner interjected easily, shifting a bit and glancing away for just a flicker of a moment. I furrowed my brow at that; I got the sense he wasn't telling me the full story, but I didn't press the matter.
"I see."
"I think you would greatly enjoy this camp, Percy," he said warmly. He smiled and folded his arms on his desk. "I hope to see you there soon."
I hesitated, looked at the door, then looked back at Brunner. "I'll think about it," I promised sincerely. It did sound fun; at the very least, if my favorite teacher and my only friend were going to be there, too, I wouldn't have to be the new kid with no one to talk to. I'd been in that position far too many times already. I waved and headed for the door. "See ya later."
"Have a good evening, Percy."
Before I knew it, it was the final day of school.
Things like that happened a lot to me. I'd blink, read the time over on the nearest clock, and realize hours had passed. It made me late to a lot of different things, and was really just annoying, especially since it never seemed to happen when I was in a boring lecture.
Hurriedly, I packed all of my belongings that I'd brought with me to Yancy into my suitcase. There was no concern of something not fitting, simply because I didn't have enough to fill the darn thing. I was still mulling over Mr. Brunner's request in my head while I packed. Should I go to that summer camp he was talking about? I desperately missed my mom, Sally Jackson, who was just about the kindest person you'd ever meet. I wanted to spend the summer with her since I'd hardly ever gotten to see her after school had begun last September. But I couldn't deny that I was also very interested in the idea of hanging out with Mr. Brunner and Grover a lot. It would be fun.
Which should I choose?
Frowning at my luggage, I sighed and rubbed my hand through my hair.
"Are you alright, Percy?" Grover said from behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to seem looking at me concernedly while he packed his own suitcase.
"I'm fine," I reassured him with a smile. "Just trying to decide what to do for the summer."
My best friend stopped packing and sat on his bunk, shaking his curly-haired head. "Don't worry about it, Perce. What are your options?"
"Well…" I shrugged. "Mr. Brunner told me about a summer camp he thought I might be interested in. Camp Half-Blood, I think it's called. Do you really go there?"
"Yeah, I do," he said. "It's practically my home. Just about everyone's really nice. Well, except for Clarisse, but she's..." He paused and flinched. "Um, well, yeah."
I thought about that for a bit. It'd be great to be able to get the gang back together again—just let the days go by as I relaxed eating s'mores with Grover and Eve, and having Mr. Brunner challenge me chalk-to-sword to spell all the Latin names correctly that I could.
"A lot of the campers have something like ADD or dyslexia, too, Perce," he said suddenly, leaning forward. "You wouldn't be alone."
I looked up at that, my eyes widening. "What? You're kidding."
"Nope." Grover shook his head, laughing a little. "You know me; I'm bad at jokes."
"Can't argue there." We chuckled and I grinned, happy to have been able to meet someone as awesome as Grover. He'd been the thing that had kept me from cracking and going Karate Kid on Nancy Bobofit all year, which would've probably gotten me expelled. If it wasn't for him, I'd have hated Yancy. But I was really looking forward to next year, all things considered. It really wasn't anywhere near as bad as my other schools were.
After that, we finished packing up, left our dorm behind us, and maneuvered through the school's halls and out the door. We kept walking together all the way to the Greyhound station. I was worried I'd have to say goodbye to him there, but as it turned out, he was riding the same bus as me, so we ended up sitting beside each other.
Everything was going fine until the Greyhound broke down.
We were in a country lane, next to one of those old fruit stands, the kind you might expect to spot in a medieval film. The driver had us all get out because there was a lot of black smoke coming from the engine and the bus was getting swelteringly hot. On our side, the right side, rows upon rows of maple trees swept into the distance with a disgusting amount of McDonalds bags, styrofoam cups, and cigarette boxes slooowly decaying near the road. The fruit stand was on the opposite side, and the fruit it sold looked like it could have been grown in the Garden of Eden. Even looking at them from twenty or so feet away was making my stomach growl.
Strangely, there were no customers in the fruit stand. I would've thought that with apples that red and strawberries which looked that juicy, there'd be at least one or two people browsing the overflowing boxes of produce. But nope, there wasn't anyone buying, just three old ladies whom I assumed to be the owners of the stall, sitting there on a simple wooden bench and knitting a pair of electric-blue socks large enough to fit a giant. The women on the left and right knitted one sock each. The middle one had a big ball of yarn.
I nudged Grover and discreetly jabbed my thumb at the old ladies. "Hey, who do you think could wear those socks? Godzilla, maybe?"
He tilted his baseball cap down to stop the sun from getting in his eyes and looked where I pointed. His eyes widened and his face paled.
"Percy, we need to get back on the bus," he said very quickly, turning rapidly and tugging at my arm.
I pulled against him. There was no way I was purposefully frying myself. "What!? No way, man, it's boiling in there!" I glanced back at the old ladies; for some reason, I felt drawn to them, like some kind of gravity. And although I had no idea why, all three of the grandmas were staring directly at me.
"Man, that's kinda creepy," I said, my skin crawling a little. "Are they looking at me?"
Grover's face somehow grew even paler. "Sixth grade," he whimpered under his breath, then tugged on my arm more desperately. His nose started twitching. That was how I knew he was really upset. "Percy, we have to get back on the bus! Don't look at them."
"The old ladies? Why?"
As we spoke, the middle one reached into her pocket and took out a pair of shears, like she was going weeding after this. One of the blades was golden, the other silver. As I watched, confused, she cut the yarn once, then unwound another piece of string and cut it, too. Each snap of the shears was audible all the way over here, on the other side of the road, even atop the overheating engine and the Greyhound driver's cursing. Then the ladies folded their socks up, not taking their eyes off of me one second.
Grover's face lost any color it had left.
"Percy. Now."
"Yes, mother," I said with a roll of my eyes, briefly wondering why the sunlight didn't feel as warm as it had a second ago. We'd barely pried open the door and stepped inside the unbelievably hot Greyhound when the engine suddenly rumbled and came back to life with a growl like its namesake waking up from a nap. The driver emerged from under the open hood, wiping his brow and coughing.
The other passengers cheered.
"Darn right!" he yelled, slamming the hood down triumphantly. He quickly jumped onto the bus and into his seat, grinning out the door. "All aboard!"
Once everybody had piled back on, the Greyhound rumbled down the road again, and cooled down considerably. Even once it had gotten back to a normal temperature, though, I felt strangely feverish—sickly hot and freezing cold at the same time.
Grover didn't look any better than I felt. His teeth kept chattering and his hands didn't stop trembling. "Always sixth grade," he muttered, as if I couldn't hear him. "Why sixth?"
I put a hand on his shoulder. He yelped like a ghost had flown through him.
"Are you alright, man?" I asked, worried.
When he looked at me, he was trembling so bad it looked like he might Pogo-stick right out of the bus. "No, Percy," he said seriously. "No, I'm not. Percy, promise me you won't go looking for trouble."
"I'll go looking for trouble when pigs fly," I said flatly.
Grover didn't seem amused. "Not funny, dude. Let me walk you home from the Greyhound station. Promise me."
"Um… alright."
Okay, I'll admit it: I kind of wanted to ditch Grover. The whole way to the next stop, he kept muttering about sixth grade, and looking at me like I was already in a coffin. I knew his bladder would act up, because it always did when he was nervous, and sure enough, he got up and immediately sprinted for the bathroom at our terminal.
I wanted to ditch him.
But I didn't.
I wasn't sure why, but somehow I felt vulnerable, ever since the bus breaking down. I couldn't shake the cold that had fallen over me like a shroud. I wanted Grover's company more than I wanted to leave him, even in spite of how he seemed to be mentally preparing my funeral. So I waited for Grover to do his thing and stared with an inexplicable paranoia at all of the people milling around the terminal. When he came out a minute later, we caught a taxi and stuffed our suitcases inside, us following them.
"East One-Hundred-and-Fourth and First," I told the driver.
It took us a while, but we finally reached our stop. I paid the driver with my last twenty, and we wheeled our suitcases into my apartment building. We lugged them up to my apartment and I opened the door, ushering Grover inside.
"Feel free to stay a while," I told him. "If she's home from work, Mom won't let you leave without hearing your life story and showing you all my baby pictures anyway."
"Sure," Grover said, smiling. He looked better than he had on the bus. He'd managed to calm down during the taxi ride over. He still was kind of ashen-faced, but he wasn't muttering nonstop anymore. "I don't have a lot I was gonna do, so it's fine."
"I'm home!" I called, stepping in.
Immediately, I coughed. Smoke hung in the air, the smell of third-rate beer mixing in with it and making it even worse. Grover wrinkled his nose in disgust. The living room was dimly lit, and ESPN blared on the TV at full volume. The carpet was littered with empty beer cans and stray chips.
"Looks like Smelly Gabe's having a poker party again," I muttered to Grover, frowning at the four men sitting around the table in the center of the living room. My aforementioned step father was one of these four, chubby and stinking up the place like a skunk with bad breath. He wore cheap thrift store clothes, the kind that don't even pretend the person wearing them is wealthy. The three hairs on his head that had yet to lose the battle to balding were combed back in a poor effort to make him appear handsome.
The other people playing poker were just a few of Gabe's friends from the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, where he managed the store. The only one of his friends' names that I remembered was Eddie, who was the only one of the four men who'd ever been the least bit nice to me. When he was here, he would at least try to calm my stepfather down when he'd get angry at me. I felt bad for him that he'd gotten himself involved with people like that. It was going to bite him in the butt someday.
Gabe didn't even look up. "You got money?"
Grover gaped. "Excuse me? You see your stepson for the first time in months and all you say is, You got money?"
"Eh?" That drew the resident walrus's attention. Eddie locked eyes with Grover and cut his hand across his neck, trying to signal for my friend to not go any further. Gabe looked over at us and frowned. "So you brought a friend, kid?" He stood up and frowned at my fellow middle schooler. "Something wrong with your leg there, slick?"
"Yeah, I brought a friend," I said, a growl entering my voice, "and that's none of your business. Come on, Grover, let's go to my room."
My obviously drunk stepfather watched us move to my room, no doubt considering whether to steal whatever remaining money I had from the taxi like he usually did. Then his eyes fell on Grover again and he sat back down. "I wouldn't be sounding so smart if I were you!" he warned me through his cigar as he returned to his poker game. "Your report card came home, brain boy. I saw that F in English."
I'm dyslexic, I thought furiously. It's a miracle that I got any of the questions in English right at all!
My friend beside me scowled. "Is he always like this?" he demanded, plugging his nose from the stench and shaking with anger.
"Usually worse," I sighed. "He didn't take my money today."
"Blaa-ha-ha!" Grover's fist shook with fury. "Percy, you've been having to live with this your whole life?"
I opened the door, and we were immediately hit by the stench of Gabe, as if it hadn't already been stuffing our noses from the moment we'd walked into the door.
Grover actually gagged as we walked in my room and shut the door. He quickly scampered over to the window, avoiding the beer cans, bottles, and old car magazines that Gabe had strewn about all over my carpet. "I'm sorry, Percy, but I can't handle this smell any longer," he choked out, flicking up the latch. "I need to open this window. I need fresh air."
I groaned, made room on my bed by shoving aside a stack of magazines I'd never touched in my life, and nodded. "You and me both. I can't stand his cologne or the stink of those cigars. He literally couldn't be more gross if he tried."
"You weren't lying when you called him Smelly Gabe," my best friend grumbled. He drew in a long, relieved breath as a nice breeze of fresh, unsmelly air trickled into my room and, bit by bit, washed away the smell of nastiness in human form. "How have you been able to stand him?"
"I haven't," I hissed, glaring at my shut door. "I wish he'd never entered my mom's life. It's always like a pigsty in here, because he's just that. A pig. It's my mom who's put up with him, not me."
The other boy's eyes widened, and something like… realization passed over his face. "Oh. I see."
"My mom doesn't deserve him." I punched my bed, imagining it was Gabe's face. "She deserves, like… a prince or something."
Grover stood smiling for a moment, then pointed at our suitcases, which we'd left leaning against the wall by my door. "What should we do with those?" he wondered.
I shrugged. "Just leave them be for now."
At that moment, the door opened, and my mom stepped through with a smile brighter than a thousand suns. Instantly, all of my anger at Gabe melted away like butter in a microwave, replaced with nothing but fuzzy, warm love for the nicest person in the entire world. I felt more relaxed than I had in months. I heard Grover's breath hitch.
"Hello, Percy," she said, holding up bags of blue candy and shaking them. "I brought home free samples!" Then she looked to my left, where Grover stood with wide, awed eyes, and she stood upright in surprise. A moment later, her bright smile returned. "And who might this be? Won't you introduce me to your friend, sweety?"
A blush immediately flooded my cheeks. "Mom! Don't call me that, that's embarrassing!"
Grover straightened his back. "My name is Grover Underwood, ma'am," he said. I could tell he was much more relaxed now, far less angry about Gabe. My mother just had that effect on people; a single smile from her could warm even the coldest hearts.
"Oh!" Her eyes lit up with recognition. I'd written her many letters about my life at boarding school (terrible spelling mistakes no doubt riddled throughout them), and Grover had been in a lot of them. "So you're the famous Grover I've heard so much about. I'm glad my son has found such a well-mannered young man for a friend."
Now we were both blushing.
"I'm sorry I came here without your permission, Mrs. Jackson," he began, "but we encountered a bit of a… problem on the Greyhound."
My mother's eyes widened and her face paled. "What happened?"
"Nothing too serious," I mumbled, frowning at Grover and hitting him lightly on his arm. He didn't have to make Mom worry like that. "The bus broke down for a few minutes and we had to get out. Nothing more than that happened."
"Tell her about the ladies, Percy," Grover prodded. Mom's brow wrinkled with concern.
I rolled my eyes, somewhat nervous on the inside. I didn't want to talk to her about it, because frankly, after we'd left that fruit stall, I'd realized that I had been terrified of those three knitting grandmas. Even though they hadn't even done anything, ripples of fear had swept over me since witnessing them cut the string.
Mom's gaze fell on me, and something about the fear in her voice made me unable to not listen to her. "What ladies, Percy?" she demanded.
Now I was getting scared all over again. I'd practically never seen my mother afraid my whole life. Sad, angry, disappointed, yes, but almost never fearful. The only times she had been was when I told her about that weird guy who I swore to this day had just one eye staring at me through my elementary school window, or when she'd found little little kid me strangling a venomous snake with my meaty toddler hands.
I chewed on my lower lip and rubbed my arm. "There were three old ladies at a fruit stall across the road from us when we got off the bus. They were knitting a big pair of socks, and the woman in the middle cut two pieces of her yarn."
"Two?" Mom stared. "You're certain it was two?"
"Y-Yes." I was very scared now. Mom was somewhere between extreme fear and extreme confusion.
She was silent for a few minutes, then sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "Percy… I'm so sorry. I had planned to take us to Montauk today. I'd rented out our usual cabin and everything…" Her eyes grew downcast. "But it looks like we'll have to wait to do that. I thought if I could keep you by my side, you'd be safe, but…"
"Safe?" My voice cracked. "Safe from what?" I looked at Grover, who wouldn't meet my eyes. "Do you know what she's talking about?"
"Percy, your dad wanted you to go to summer camp," Mom said when Grover didn't speak. She opened the door again and beckoned us out. "It's the only safe place for kids… kids like you."
"Kids like me?" I demanded, my voice rising with sudden hurt. "What do you mean?" And a summer camp… my mind jumped. "Do you mean Camp Half-Blood?"
"What!?" Mom stared. "How do you know about it?" She gave a suspicious frown to Grover.
"My teacher at school, Mr. Brunner, told me about it," I said, reassuring her. "What's so special about it?"
She looked thoughtful at that, but sighed and shook her head. "We can't explain it here. They might smell you otherwise, and if they do, then we'll have a hard time getting away."
"Who will smell me? Get away from what? Can somebody please give me some answers!?"
Mom shook her head sadly and left the bedroom. "Percy, Grover, grab your suitcases. We need to leave, now."
My mom's voice had a sense of urgency to it I'd never heard before. Immediately, we both got up and grabbed our suitcases before following her into the still-smelly living room, where Gabe's poker party remained raging on.
"Gabe, the boys and I are leaving," she said hastily. "I'm taking Percy to a summer camp."
Gabe stood up immediately, furious. My mom flinched. "What? But we're in the middle of our poker game! Who's going to make us bean dip, Sally?"
"I will when I get home," Mom growled, and everyone in the room was surprised by the ferocity of her glare. "We will be gone for about an hour, maybe more. Once I get back, I will make triple the amount of bean dip as usual. Seven layers. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."
Gabe hesitated, looked at Grover and I, looked at his friends, and then frowned at my mom, who flinched again. Why was she reacting like that?
"That car better not have a scratch on it," my stepfather said testily to me. "Not. A. Scratch."
Grover did his funny little angry bleat. "Blaa-ha-ha! It's not like Percy'll be driving the thing!"
"Can it, wise-ass, or I might not let you in this apartment anymore," Gabe returned evilly.
I opened my mouth to protest his treatment of my friend, but Mom shook her head warningly at us and we both calmed down. Don't upset Gabe when he just gave us permission to ride in his Camaro. The message came across crystal clear.
We threw open the door to the stairwell, raced down it without worrying about the incessant bonks and bangs created by Grover's and my suitcases bouncing down the stairs, and ran as quickly as we could to the bottom of the apartment building. Once we got to the Camaro, Grover and I fit our suitcases into the trunk, piled in the back, and snapped on our seat belts. After my mother handed us some blue candy for the road, she hit the gas.
The whole way to Camp Half-Blood, my mother clenched the wheel like someone afraid of heights might tightly grip the railing of a high bridge or of the viewing platforms on the Empire State Building. Grover and I chewed on our blue food, but even the deliciousness of pure sugar and fat couldn't distract me from my confusion.
"Can somebody please tell me what's going on?" I demanded at last, as we drove up into a hilly part of Long Island that was all countryside and nothing else. "You both are acting like my life's in danger and I have no idea why."
"Those old ladies…" Grover shook his head, munching mournfully on a blue twizzler. "They're not good news, Perce. Not good news."
"Have you met them before or something?" I stared at him. "Are they, like, serial killers?"
"You could say that," he said darkly, gazing with a crushing sadness out the window. "Always sixth grade…" he muttered under his breath, so that I could barely catch it.
Whoa.
What?
Was I getting chased by some mass-murdering grandmas, or what? Did they kill their victims by cutting them up with shears and then stuffing their bodies in oversized socks?
Left even more confused than I had been before Grover had said anything, I groaned and banged my head against the back of my seat in frustration. I made a big show out of chewing down some blue jelly beans.
"What about Mrs. Dodds?" I asked, and Grover froze.
"Mrs. Dodds?" my mom called back. "Who's that?"
"She was our Math teacher. She was really mean and gave me a lot of detentions for no reason, but one day this girl I met punched another girl, and Mrs. Dodds dragged her away for it, and then suddenly just vanished." I didn't mention the part about Eve having a sword stuck in her hand and somehow not being injured in the slightest. I didn't want my mom thinking I was completely crazy.
"What!?" Mom turned around quickly, eyes wide. "All of this happened at Yancy?"
"Y-Yeah," I stammered. "And it was really weird, like everyone just forgot about Mrs. Dodds after she disappeared."
She frowned worriedly and faced front again. "I see," she said quietly. "It's a good thing we're not going to Montauk after all."
Several more moments of silence passed. Montauk… the thought of our favorite beach in New York brought up some inner thought within me. While I sat silent, an uncomfortable aura arose in the Camaro. Unable to take the tension anymore, I finished off my jelly beans and sat up straight in my seat. "Mom?" I said, a little nervous about the subject I was going to be bringing up. "Can you tell me about Dad?"
In her reflection in the rear view mirror, I saw her face grow soft, years of stress working to keep our family happy eddying away from her forehead and cheeks. "He was the kindest person in the entire world, Percy," she said gently, keeping her eyes on the road. "He was handsome, intelligent, strong. You're a lot like him, Percy, and not just because you have the same hair and eyes." She paused, perhaps recalling some distant, whimsical memories of happier days before Gabe and poker parties. "If he could see you now, I'm sure he'd be very proud."
"Proud of me?" I repeated, choking on my words. How could he be proud of me? I'd barely passed most of my end-of-the-year exams. I'd failed English altogether. I couldn't pay attention if a gun was pointed to my head and I was told to do so, and I could barely read anything without every letter floating in front of my head.
"Very proud," my mother told me sincerely.
Grover smiled sadly at me. I swallowed a lump in my throat, tears on the edge of my eyes. Blinking, I wiped them away before anyone could notice.
I needed something, anything for a distraction. My eyes happened to catch something standing tall and proud out on nearby hill. Closer inspection told me that it was a pine tree. "What's that pine tree doing out there, you think?" I asked Grover, tapping him on the shoulder and pointing. "It's kind of in the middle of nothing, huh? Weird place for a pine."
My friend's gaze fell on it, and he swallowed. "Um… I… d-don't know," he said guiltily. He quickly faced forward to stare directly at the back of my mom's headrest. With surprise and concern, I noted that tears hung in the corner of his eyes, and his lower lip was quivering. I immediately felt bad. I didn't know why, but for some reason, I felt like seeing that tree was bringing up some bad memories for Grover, and it was my fault.
"Hey, sorry, man," I said, wincing.
He sniffled. "I-I'm okay."
Thankfully, before any awkwardness could rise up between us, Mom pulled over on the side of the road.
"Everybody out!" she said hastily, and Grover and I each opened our doors, unclasped our seatbelts, and jumped out of Smelly Gabe's Camaro. We opened the trunk and pulled out our suitcases. Mom raised a curious eyebrow at Grover. "Are you going here, too, Grover?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "I'm a Keeper."
Understanding dawned in her eyes, although mine just narrowed in confusion.
"I see," she said gratefully, and she leaned down to give him a small hug. Her next words were so quiet I almost didn't hear them. "Thank you for keeping my boy safe for me. I cannot repay you enough."
"I-It's alright, ma'am." Grover's ears turned pink.
When my mother released him, she straightened up and smiled proudly at me for a while. Just when I was starting to get embarrassed and antsy, she swept over to give me a tight hug, and kissed me on the forehead. It was still warm when she stood up all the way again.
"I love you, Percy," she said warmly. "Stay safe and take care of yourself. If you can, please come back at the end of summer. You still have a place at Yancy."
I blinked. "Wait. You're not coming with us? But what if there's something you need to—?"
"I'm sorry." She shook her head and opened her car door again. "I can't enter the camp's borders. Only you and Grover can. When you're inside, go up and register at the Big House. Either Chiron or Mr. D will be there. They'll tell you what to do."
I deflated. I'd been hoping that Mom would take us in all the way to Camp Half-Blood. I had no idea what she meant by she couldn't enter the camp's borders, but I didn't want to say goodbye to her already.
"I love you, Mom," I said quietly, leaning forward, standing on my tiptoes, and giving her a goodbye kiss on the cheek, acutely aware of Grover watching us. "Drive safe."
"I will," she promised, and she stepped in her car and closed the door. The engine roared, and she backed up to make a 3-point turn. I watched her drive off sadly, an ache burning in my chest. I always hated to leave her, and having to say goodbye so soon after we'd finally gotten to see each other for the first time in six months hurt like a knife.
Grover patted my back reassuringly. "She'll be fine," he said, his eyes unintentionally flicking to the single pine tree standing on the hill. "Don't worry about her. Come on. Let's go to camp. It's just over this hill." I watched as her car disappeared below the crest of the hill, and with a heavy heart, I nodded, turned around, and wheeled my suitcase down the other side of the hill.
"Sorry, Gabe. Looks like I'll be later than I said I would be."
The sun beginning to hang low in the sky, the blue Camaro rattled through the streets of a New York town, Sally Jackson completely silent inside. She dared not even breath as she rounded a corner, thinking about what her son had told her.
A monster in the school, she thought furiously. There could be more that Grover was unable to detect. It's harder to pick out the scent of monsters for a satyr when there's multiple targets concealing themselves in a large body. It is very likely that the only reason Percy was able to escape Yancy at all was because of Grover keeping an eye on him, that teacher he told me about who'd mentioned Camp to him, and Gabe's smell covering up his demigod scent. And since Percy could be returning next year, if there's any monsters there when he gets back, he'll be in huge danger. I can't let him go to school anywhere unsafe.
Her car rumbled up to a large building with ornate stone bricks making up its exterior walls and strong columns holding up a pyramid arch for the entrance. Painted above the doors in red and orange were the words Yancy Academy.
Even though it's the end of the year, Sally reasoned as she slowly pulled up to a stop and looked out the window, the faculty should still be around. It's only the last day of school after all. They likely won't let things be until next week. And no monsters will be want me because I'm a mortal.
She scanned the perimeter, looking for any signs of monster activity. No suspicious mounds of dirt in the schoolyard. No mars on the walls. No blood on the columns.
The snorting of a pig happened to catch her ear, along with the flapping of wings, and she rolled down the window to stick her head out of it and looked upwards.
Her eyes widened.
"Echidna's son!" she gasped.
Flying around the top of the school was a huge, pink pig, snorting in annoyance. It was enormous, easily as large as Gabe's stupid Camaro, and its skin appeared quite hard indeed. The moment the word Echidna left her mouth, its attention fell down to her, and she thought she heard it sniff. Apparently unsatisfied, it started to turn away. Then it happened to sniff again, and suddenly it charged down through the air at her.
"What!?" she demanded, quickly turning her key in the ignition. She wasn't a demigod, and she hadn't even said its name—so how had it known where she was?
A raspy gasp escaped her lips.
Percy. She'd been around him a fair bit today and he'd spent six months away from Gabe's stench; it was probably a lot weaker on him then it usually was. Some of his scent must have rubbed off on her, and knowing whose son he was, even a single whiff of it must be incredibly potent. It had probably picked that up from her.
"Come on, come on," she begged, slamming her hand against the wheel. "Start!"
On cue, the engine whined to life, and she slammed down the gas pedal. With a squeal of rubber on pavement, Sally blasted forward, climbing from zero to fifty-five in record time. Screw speed limits; when one's life was on the line because they were being chased by a flying pig of all things, one was very reasonable to throw caution to the wind.
She glanced desperately in the rearview mirror. A cold beat of sweat rolled down her head. It was catching up. How fast could that enormous monster fly?
She stepped up the gas. Sixty, seventy. Sally was lucky that she was driving in the straight, grid-like streets of a quiet suburb. Otherwise she would've had trouble maintaining this speed. But was it even working?
Another glance stolen from the rearview told her that no, no it wasn't. In fact, the Crommyonian Sow was even closer now, closing the distance between them at an incredible pace. And in no time at all, there it was, flying next to her in the other lane of the road. A single beat from its wings was strong enough to shatter her window, glass spraying all over her.
Biting her lip, Sally increased her speed even more. No difference in their chase was made. It was over.
The Sow turned diagonally, gave an almighty flap of its wide wings, and smashed her car door, its snout sticking through the broken window and biting down on her head. It pulled at her hard, and she screamed in pain. The only thing keeping her from being dragged out of the car was her seatbelt.
Her skin curiously glowed yellow. The pig grunted at that; it had no idea why its prey felt as though she were quickly being shrouded in magic.
In the split second left that she had, one more thought shot through Sally's brain: I love you, Percy. I'm sorry.
Then she burst into light and left the car to careen down the road crazily, until it would eventually crash into an oak tree outside someone's house.
Chapter 9 - Murphy's Law Sucks, Really Badly
:: PERCY ::
:: PERCY ::
I swear that I wasn't trying to get pigs to fly. I really, really wasn't. But the universe seems to hold some kind of grudge against me that I'm not aware of, if what happened at the end of my school year is telling of anything.
Allow me to back up a bit.
The rest of the school year passed without incident after Eve left Yancy. The only thing that was different was that I was getting steadily more and more frustrated; everybody else seemed to be of the belief that Mrs. Dodds had never been our teacher. Whenever I'd ask someone, they always looked at me blankly or stared at me like I was some hallucinating weirdo. It got so bad that I actually almost ended up believing I'd had some bad mushrooms or something.
Almost. Grover and Eve were the evidence I needed to know I wasn't just dreaming everything up.
I'd been able to tell from Eve's reactions when I talked to her in the dorm that I was right on the money and that she was lying about Mrs. Dodds being real. She hadn't been able to look me in the eyes, and she'd denied the woman's exist almost immediately after the question had left my mouth. And whenever I asked Grover about how Eve had been uninjured from the sword she'd somehow gotten stuck in her hands, he'd always flinch and stutter before claiming to not know what I was talking about.
Something was up. I just had no idea what.
One other thing that was bothering me was the weather. With each passing day, it gradually grew more and more furious and random. It was as though the sky was trying to wage war with the sea, or at the very least out do each other. One day, a twister ripped through central Manhattan, miraculously damaging only a few buildings and killing no one. Scientists on the news had been completely unable to explain how it had formed so suddenly. The next day, twenty foot waves crashed against Long Island Sound, flattening several miles of forest. It was all over the papers.
With end-of-the-year exams approaching, I was already stressed enough about getting passing grades so that I'd be allowed to return next year and my mom wouldn't be disappointed in me again. I didn't need all the distractions of the howling wind outside, or the intense pitter-patter of rain hammering against my window. All the noise and commotion from the ever-increasingly potent weather phenomena was driving my ADD through the roof. I was also worried about what had happened with Mrs. Dodds and Eve at the museum, especially since the former had disappeared off the face of the planet and the latter had left the school that night.
I might've gone crazy thinking I was… well, crazy, if it wasn't for my near certainty about being right since Eve and Grover weren't able to lie about it well enough. I was still overworking my poor brain trying to figure out why no one else except us three was able to remember Mrs. Dodds, but I made a mental note to find Eve and ask her about it next time I saw her. Having that goal helped calm me down. From what I'd been able to tell about her in the short time I'd known her, she was a far less stubborn person than Grover, who I knew would never tell me anything.
She had promised that she'd call and visit me sometime, after all, so I was sure I'd see her sometime over the summer.
All of this in mind, I focused on studying as hard as I could for the exams. I was even able to achieve some peace and quiet from Nancy, who was almost too scared to be in the same room as me anymore after Eve punched her in the face (which had been ridiculously cool, by the way). A part of me was almost disappointed by the fact that she wasn't trying to antagonize Grover or me anymore, because now I had no excuse to re-break her nose, but I managed to ignore it in favor of focusing on my work.
Finally, exam week rolled around, and I… wasn't quite ready, exactly, but at least confident that I wouldn't fail every class.
Each of the longer-than-usual tests took either two or three hours to complete, and we took two a day. We were allowed a half-an-hour break between each hour of the given exam. I sat nervously in my seat, squirming about and chewing my thumb as I desperately tried to think about what the answers to these tests might be. Some of the content in the questions (well, a lot of it, really) I simply couldn't remember having ever learned in class, and so I resigned myself to filling in a random bubble. Others I actually remembered, or was kind of sure that I did.
Latin, quite expectedly, was the test I did my best on.
I'd studied hardest for Latin, mostly to impress Mr. Brunner, who was the best teacher I'd ever had. And it had paid off. I remembered the difference between Chiron and Charon, and was able to recount how Perseus (no, not me, the mythological Perseus) decapitated Medusa in her sleep (sounds like the kind of awesome thing I would do if I was in a myth, though). The only part I didn't do so well on was conjugating those Latin verbs, but then, I don't think anyone could do well on that.
At last, the Latin test was over, and relieved to be done with the grueling exams, I got up, handed my test to Mr. Brunner, stretched, and started to make my way out of the classroom.
"Percy, may I have a word with you?" the wheel-chaired man in his tweed jacket asked.
I paused and looked back, curious. What did Mr. Brunner want with me? "What is it, Mr. Brunner?" I said, raising my eyebrow.
"You have performed remarkably well in this class," he said with a pleasant smile. I frowned at that. That was certainly not true; I would probably be passing with a grade halfway between a B and a C. It would definitely be the only B on my report card. "You have improved greatly from the beginning of the school year. And from what I can see of your exam so far, it seems like you have much care for my class."
"Uh… yeah," I said, blushing a little from the praise. I'd never been told that my school work was great before, and coming from someone who'd almost become a hero to me, I couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed. However, I'd feel bad telling the coffee-smelling man that it was only because he was so cool and kind that I was trying so hard.
He'd been the first teacher I'd had to accept my random bursts of inattention, staring into space, and completely forgetting things said mere moments before, and to give me personal attention to help me improve. I didn't want to bring him down by telling him that I actually didn't really care a whole lot about what twelve things Hercules did to maintain a goddess's favor.
"There is a summer camp for people who enjoy mythology which I help teach at," the greying old man said, handing me a card. I narrowed my eyes at the information on it. Why was it called Camp Half-Blood? And was that street address the number pi? "Grover goes there, too. I hear it's also where Eve moved to."
I tilted my head at that. "But wait, if it's a summer camp, then how did she get in during the—?"
"It also functions as a year-round learning institution," Mr. Brunner interjected easily, shifting a bit and glancing away for just a flicker of a moment. I furrowed my brow at that; I got the sense he wasn't telling me the full story, but I didn't press the matter.
"I see."
"I think you would greatly enjoy this camp, Percy," he said warmly. He smiled and folded his arms on his desk. "I hope to see you there soon."
I hesitated, looked at the door, then looked back at Brunner. "I'll think about it," I promised sincerely. It did sound fun; at the very least, if my favorite teacher and my only friend were going to be there, too, I wouldn't have to be the new kid with no one to talk to. I'd been in that position far too many times already. I waved and headed for the door. "See ya later."
"Have a good evening, Percy."
Before I knew it, it was the final day of school.
Things like that happened a lot to me. I'd blink, read the time over on the nearest clock, and realize hours had passed. It made me late to a lot of different things, and was really just annoying, especially since it never seemed to happen when I was in a boring lecture.
Hurriedly, I packed all of my belongings that I'd brought with me to Yancy into my suitcase. There was no concern of something not fitting, simply because I didn't have enough to fill the darn thing. I was still mulling over Mr. Brunner's request in my head while I packed. Should I go to that summer camp he was talking about? I desperately missed my mom, Sally Jackson, who was just about the kindest person you'd ever meet. I wanted to spend the summer with her since I'd hardly ever gotten to see her after school had begun last September. But I couldn't deny that I was also very interested in the idea of hanging out with Mr. Brunner and Grover a lot. It would be fun.
Which should I choose?
Frowning at my luggage, I sighed and rubbed my hand through my hair.
"Are you alright, Percy?" Grover said from behind me, and I looked over my shoulder to seem looking at me concernedly while he packed his own suitcase.
"I'm fine," I reassured him with a smile. "Just trying to decide what to do for the summer."
My best friend stopped packing and sat on his bunk, shaking his curly-haired head. "Don't worry about it, Perce. What are your options?"
"Well…" I shrugged. "Mr. Brunner told me about a summer camp he thought I might be interested in. Camp Half-Blood, I think it's called. Do you really go there?"
"Yeah, I do," he said. "It's practically my home. Just about everyone's really nice. Well, except for Clarisse, but she's..." He paused and flinched. "Um, well, yeah."
I thought about that for a bit. It'd be great to be able to get the gang back together again—just let the days go by as I relaxed eating s'mores with Grover and Eve, and having Mr. Brunner challenge me chalk-to-sword to spell all the Latin names correctly that I could.
"A lot of the campers have something like ADD or dyslexia, too, Perce," he said suddenly, leaning forward. "You wouldn't be alone."
I looked up at that, my eyes widening. "What? You're kidding."
"Nope." Grover shook his head, laughing a little. "You know me; I'm bad at jokes."
"Can't argue there." We chuckled and I grinned, happy to have been able to meet someone as awesome as Grover. He'd been the thing that had kept me from cracking and going Karate Kid on Nancy Bobofit all year, which would've probably gotten me expelled. If it wasn't for him, I'd have hated Yancy. But I was really looking forward to next year, all things considered. It really wasn't anywhere near as bad as my other schools were.
After that, we finished packing up, left our dorm behind us, and maneuvered through the school's halls and out the door. We kept walking together all the way to the Greyhound station. I was worried I'd have to say goodbye to him there, but as it turned out, he was riding the same bus as me, so we ended up sitting beside each other.
Everything was going fine until the Greyhound broke down.
We were in a country lane, next to one of those old fruit stands, the kind you might expect to spot in a medieval film. The driver had us all get out because there was a lot of black smoke coming from the engine and the bus was getting swelteringly hot. On our side, the right side, rows upon rows of maple trees swept into the distance with a disgusting amount of McDonalds bags, styrofoam cups, and cigarette boxes slooowly decaying near the road. The fruit stand was on the opposite side, and the fruit it sold looked like it could have been grown in the Garden of Eden. Even looking at them from twenty or so feet away was making my stomach growl.
Strangely, there were no customers in the fruit stand. I would've thought that with apples that red and strawberries which looked that juicy, there'd be at least one or two people browsing the overflowing boxes of produce. But nope, there wasn't anyone buying, just three old ladies whom I assumed to be the owners of the stall, sitting there on a simple wooden bench and knitting a pair of electric-blue socks large enough to fit a giant. The women on the left and right knitted one sock each. The middle one had a big ball of yarn.
I nudged Grover and discreetly jabbed my thumb at the old ladies. "Hey, who do you think could wear those socks? Godzilla, maybe?"
He tilted his baseball cap down to stop the sun from getting in his eyes and looked where I pointed. His eyes widened and his face paled.
"Percy, we need to get back on the bus," he said very quickly, turning rapidly and tugging at my arm.
I pulled against him. There was no way I was purposefully frying myself. "What!? No way, man, it's boiling in there!" I glanced back at the old ladies; for some reason, I felt drawn to them, like some kind of gravity. And although I had no idea why, all three of the grandmas were staring directly at me.
"Man, that's kinda creepy," I said, my skin crawling a little. "Are they looking at me?"
Grover's face somehow grew even paler. "Sixth grade," he whimpered under his breath, then tugged on my arm more desperately. His nose started twitching. That was how I knew he was really upset. "Percy, we have to get back on the bus! Don't look at them."
"The old ladies? Why?"
As we spoke, the middle one reached into her pocket and took out a pair of shears, like she was going weeding after this. One of the blades was golden, the other silver. As I watched, confused, she cut the yarn once, then unwound another piece of string and cut it, too. Each snap of the shears was audible all the way over here, on the other side of the road, even atop the overheating engine and the Greyhound driver's cursing. Then the ladies folded their socks up, not taking their eyes off of me one second.
Grover's face lost any color it had left.
"Percy. Now."
"Yes, mother," I said with a roll of my eyes, briefly wondering why the sunlight didn't feel as warm as it had a second ago. We'd barely pried open the door and stepped inside the unbelievably hot Greyhound when the engine suddenly rumbled and came back to life with a growl like its namesake waking up from a nap. The driver emerged from under the open hood, wiping his brow and coughing.
The other passengers cheered.
"Darn right!" he yelled, slamming the hood down triumphantly. He quickly jumped onto the bus and into his seat, grinning out the door. "All aboard!"
Once everybody had piled back on, the Greyhound rumbled down the road again, and cooled down considerably. Even once it had gotten back to a normal temperature, though, I felt strangely feverish—sickly hot and freezing cold at the same time.
Grover didn't look any better than I felt. His teeth kept chattering and his hands didn't stop trembling. "Always sixth grade," he muttered, as if I couldn't hear him. "Why sixth?"
I put a hand on his shoulder. He yelped like a ghost had flown through him.
"Are you alright, man?" I asked, worried.
When he looked at me, he was trembling so bad it looked like he might Pogo-stick right out of the bus. "No, Percy," he said seriously. "No, I'm not. Percy, promise me you won't go looking for trouble."
"I'll go looking for trouble when pigs fly," I said flatly.
Grover didn't seem amused. "Not funny, dude. Let me walk you home from the Greyhound station. Promise me."
"Um… alright."
~o~
Okay, I'll admit it: I kind of wanted to ditch Grover. The whole way to the next stop, he kept muttering about sixth grade, and looking at me like I was already in a coffin. I knew his bladder would act up, because it always did when he was nervous, and sure enough, he got up and immediately sprinted for the bathroom at our terminal.
I wanted to ditch him.
But I didn't.
I wasn't sure why, but somehow I felt vulnerable, ever since the bus breaking down. I couldn't shake the cold that had fallen over me like a shroud. I wanted Grover's company more than I wanted to leave him, even in spite of how he seemed to be mentally preparing my funeral. So I waited for Grover to do his thing and stared with an inexplicable paranoia at all of the people milling around the terminal. When he came out a minute later, we caught a taxi and stuffed our suitcases inside, us following them.
"East One-Hundred-and-Fourth and First," I told the driver.
It took us a while, but we finally reached our stop. I paid the driver with my last twenty, and we wheeled our suitcases into my apartment building. We lugged them up to my apartment and I opened the door, ushering Grover inside.
"Feel free to stay a while," I told him. "If she's home from work, Mom won't let you leave without hearing your life story and showing you all my baby pictures anyway."
"Sure," Grover said, smiling. He looked better than he had on the bus. He'd managed to calm down during the taxi ride over. He still was kind of ashen-faced, but he wasn't muttering nonstop anymore. "I don't have a lot I was gonna do, so it's fine."
"I'm home!" I called, stepping in.
Immediately, I coughed. Smoke hung in the air, the smell of third-rate beer mixing in with it and making it even worse. Grover wrinkled his nose in disgust. The living room was dimly lit, and ESPN blared on the TV at full volume. The carpet was littered with empty beer cans and stray chips.
"Looks like Smelly Gabe's having a poker party again," I muttered to Grover, frowning at the four men sitting around the table in the center of the living room. My aforementioned step father was one of these four, chubby and stinking up the place like a skunk with bad breath. He wore cheap thrift store clothes, the kind that don't even pretend the person wearing them is wealthy. The three hairs on his head that had yet to lose the battle to balding were combed back in a poor effort to make him appear handsome.
The other people playing poker were just a few of Gabe's friends from the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, where he managed the store. The only one of his friends' names that I remembered was Eddie, who was the only one of the four men who'd ever been the least bit nice to me. When he was here, he would at least try to calm my stepfather down when he'd get angry at me. I felt bad for him that he'd gotten himself involved with people like that. It was going to bite him in the butt someday.
Gabe didn't even look up. "You got money?"
Grover gaped. "Excuse me? You see your stepson for the first time in months and all you say is, You got money?"
"Eh?" That drew the resident walrus's attention. Eddie locked eyes with Grover and cut his hand across his neck, trying to signal for my friend to not go any further. Gabe looked over at us and frowned. "So you brought a friend, kid?" He stood up and frowned at my fellow middle schooler. "Something wrong with your leg there, slick?"
"Yeah, I brought a friend," I said, a growl entering my voice, "and that's none of your business. Come on, Grover, let's go to my room."
My obviously drunk stepfather watched us move to my room, no doubt considering whether to steal whatever remaining money I had from the taxi like he usually did. Then his eyes fell on Grover again and he sat back down. "I wouldn't be sounding so smart if I were you!" he warned me through his cigar as he returned to his poker game. "Your report card came home, brain boy. I saw that F in English."
I'm dyslexic, I thought furiously. It's a miracle that I got any of the questions in English right at all!
My friend beside me scowled. "Is he always like this?" he demanded, plugging his nose from the stench and shaking with anger.
"Usually worse," I sighed. "He didn't take my money today."
"Blaa-ha-ha!" Grover's fist shook with fury. "Percy, you've been having to live with this your whole life?"
I opened the door, and we were immediately hit by the stench of Gabe, as if it hadn't already been stuffing our noses from the moment we'd walked into the door.
Grover actually gagged as we walked in my room and shut the door. He quickly scampered over to the window, avoiding the beer cans, bottles, and old car magazines that Gabe had strewn about all over my carpet. "I'm sorry, Percy, but I can't handle this smell any longer," he choked out, flicking up the latch. "I need to open this window. I need fresh air."
I groaned, made room on my bed by shoving aside a stack of magazines I'd never touched in my life, and nodded. "You and me both. I can't stand his cologne or the stink of those cigars. He literally couldn't be more gross if he tried."
"You weren't lying when you called him Smelly Gabe," my best friend grumbled. He drew in a long, relieved breath as a nice breeze of fresh, unsmelly air trickled into my room and, bit by bit, washed away the smell of nastiness in human form. "How have you been able to stand him?"
"I haven't," I hissed, glaring at my shut door. "I wish he'd never entered my mom's life. It's always like a pigsty in here, because he's just that. A pig. It's my mom who's put up with him, not me."
The other boy's eyes widened, and something like… realization passed over his face. "Oh. I see."
"My mom doesn't deserve him." I punched my bed, imagining it was Gabe's face. "She deserves, like… a prince or something."
Grover stood smiling for a moment, then pointed at our suitcases, which we'd left leaning against the wall by my door. "What should we do with those?" he wondered.
I shrugged. "Just leave them be for now."
At that moment, the door opened, and my mom stepped through with a smile brighter than a thousand suns. Instantly, all of my anger at Gabe melted away like butter in a microwave, replaced with nothing but fuzzy, warm love for the nicest person in the entire world. I felt more relaxed than I had in months. I heard Grover's breath hitch.
"Hello, Percy," she said, holding up bags of blue candy and shaking them. "I brought home free samples!" Then she looked to my left, where Grover stood with wide, awed eyes, and she stood upright in surprise. A moment later, her bright smile returned. "And who might this be? Won't you introduce me to your friend, sweety?"
A blush immediately flooded my cheeks. "Mom! Don't call me that, that's embarrassing!"
Grover straightened his back. "My name is Grover Underwood, ma'am," he said. I could tell he was much more relaxed now, far less angry about Gabe. My mother just had that effect on people; a single smile from her could warm even the coldest hearts.
"Oh!" Her eyes lit up with recognition. I'd written her many letters about my life at boarding school (terrible spelling mistakes no doubt riddled throughout them), and Grover had been in a lot of them. "So you're the famous Grover I've heard so much about. I'm glad my son has found such a well-mannered young man for a friend."
Now we were both blushing.
"I'm sorry I came here without your permission, Mrs. Jackson," he began, "but we encountered a bit of a… problem on the Greyhound."
My mother's eyes widened and her face paled. "What happened?"
"Nothing too serious," I mumbled, frowning at Grover and hitting him lightly on his arm. He didn't have to make Mom worry like that. "The bus broke down for a few minutes and we had to get out. Nothing more than that happened."
"Tell her about the ladies, Percy," Grover prodded. Mom's brow wrinkled with concern.
I rolled my eyes, somewhat nervous on the inside. I didn't want to talk to her about it, because frankly, after we'd left that fruit stall, I'd realized that I had been terrified of those three knitting grandmas. Even though they hadn't even done anything, ripples of fear had swept over me since witnessing them cut the string.
Mom's gaze fell on me, and something about the fear in her voice made me unable to not listen to her. "What ladies, Percy?" she demanded.
Now I was getting scared all over again. I'd practically never seen my mother afraid my whole life. Sad, angry, disappointed, yes, but almost never fearful. The only times she had been was when I told her about that weird guy who I swore to this day had just one eye staring at me through my elementary school window, or when she'd found little little kid me strangling a venomous snake with my meaty toddler hands.
I chewed on my lower lip and rubbed my arm. "There were three old ladies at a fruit stall across the road from us when we got off the bus. They were knitting a big pair of socks, and the woman in the middle cut two pieces of her yarn."
"Two?" Mom stared. "You're certain it was two?"
"Y-Yes." I was very scared now. Mom was somewhere between extreme fear and extreme confusion.
She was silent for a few minutes, then sighed and ran her hand through her hair. "Percy… I'm so sorry. I had planned to take us to Montauk today. I'd rented out our usual cabin and everything…" Her eyes grew downcast. "But it looks like we'll have to wait to do that. I thought if I could keep you by my side, you'd be safe, but…"
"Safe?" My voice cracked. "Safe from what?" I looked at Grover, who wouldn't meet my eyes. "Do you know what she's talking about?"
"Percy, your dad wanted you to go to summer camp," Mom said when Grover didn't speak. She opened the door again and beckoned us out. "It's the only safe place for kids… kids like you."
"Kids like me?" I demanded, my voice rising with sudden hurt. "What do you mean?" And a summer camp… my mind jumped. "Do you mean Camp Half-Blood?"
"What!?" Mom stared. "How do you know about it?" She gave a suspicious frown to Grover.
"My teacher at school, Mr. Brunner, told me about it," I said, reassuring her. "What's so special about it?"
She looked thoughtful at that, but sighed and shook her head. "We can't explain it here. They might smell you otherwise, and if they do, then we'll have a hard time getting away."
"Who will smell me? Get away from what? Can somebody please give me some answers!?"
Mom shook her head sadly and left the bedroom. "Percy, Grover, grab your suitcases. We need to leave, now."
My mom's voice had a sense of urgency to it I'd never heard before. Immediately, we both got up and grabbed our suitcases before following her into the still-smelly living room, where Gabe's poker party remained raging on.
"Gabe, the boys and I are leaving," she said hastily. "I'm taking Percy to a summer camp."
Gabe stood up immediately, furious. My mom flinched. "What? But we're in the middle of our poker game! Who's going to make us bean dip, Sally?"
"I will when I get home," Mom growled, and everyone in the room was surprised by the ferocity of her glare. "We will be gone for about an hour, maybe more. Once I get back, I will make triple the amount of bean dip as usual. Seven layers. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."
Gabe hesitated, looked at Grover and I, looked at his friends, and then frowned at my mom, who flinched again. Why was she reacting like that?
"That car better not have a scratch on it," my stepfather said testily to me. "Not. A. Scratch."
Grover did his funny little angry bleat. "Blaa-ha-ha! It's not like Percy'll be driving the thing!"
"Can it, wise-ass, or I might not let you in this apartment anymore," Gabe returned evilly.
I opened my mouth to protest his treatment of my friend, but Mom shook her head warningly at us and we both calmed down. Don't upset Gabe when he just gave us permission to ride in his Camaro. The message came across crystal clear.
We threw open the door to the stairwell, raced down it without worrying about the incessant bonks and bangs created by Grover's and my suitcases bouncing down the stairs, and ran as quickly as we could to the bottom of the apartment building. Once we got to the Camaro, Grover and I fit our suitcases into the trunk, piled in the back, and snapped on our seat belts. After my mother handed us some blue candy for the road, she hit the gas.
The whole way to Camp Half-Blood, my mother clenched the wheel like someone afraid of heights might tightly grip the railing of a high bridge or of the viewing platforms on the Empire State Building. Grover and I chewed on our blue food, but even the deliciousness of pure sugar and fat couldn't distract me from my confusion.
"Can somebody please tell me what's going on?" I demanded at last, as we drove up into a hilly part of Long Island that was all countryside and nothing else. "You both are acting like my life's in danger and I have no idea why."
"Those old ladies…" Grover shook his head, munching mournfully on a blue twizzler. "They're not good news, Perce. Not good news."
"Have you met them before or something?" I stared at him. "Are they, like, serial killers?"
"You could say that," he said darkly, gazing with a crushing sadness out the window. "Always sixth grade…" he muttered under his breath, so that I could barely catch it.
Whoa.
What?
Was I getting chased by some mass-murdering grandmas, or what? Did they kill their victims by cutting them up with shears and then stuffing their bodies in oversized socks?
Left even more confused than I had been before Grover had said anything, I groaned and banged my head against the back of my seat in frustration. I made a big show out of chewing down some blue jelly beans.
"What about Mrs. Dodds?" I asked, and Grover froze.
"Mrs. Dodds?" my mom called back. "Who's that?"
"She was our Math teacher. She was really mean and gave me a lot of detentions for no reason, but one day this girl I met punched another girl, and Mrs. Dodds dragged her away for it, and then suddenly just vanished." I didn't mention the part about Eve having a sword stuck in her hand and somehow not being injured in the slightest. I didn't want my mom thinking I was completely crazy.
"What!?" Mom turned around quickly, eyes wide. "All of this happened at Yancy?"
"Y-Yeah," I stammered. "And it was really weird, like everyone just forgot about Mrs. Dodds after she disappeared."
She frowned worriedly and faced front again. "I see," she said quietly. "It's a good thing we're not going to Montauk after all."
Several more moments of silence passed. Montauk… the thought of our favorite beach in New York brought up some inner thought within me. While I sat silent, an uncomfortable aura arose in the Camaro. Unable to take the tension anymore, I finished off my jelly beans and sat up straight in my seat. "Mom?" I said, a little nervous about the subject I was going to be bringing up. "Can you tell me about Dad?"
In her reflection in the rear view mirror, I saw her face grow soft, years of stress working to keep our family happy eddying away from her forehead and cheeks. "He was the kindest person in the entire world, Percy," she said gently, keeping her eyes on the road. "He was handsome, intelligent, strong. You're a lot like him, Percy, and not just because you have the same hair and eyes." She paused, perhaps recalling some distant, whimsical memories of happier days before Gabe and poker parties. "If he could see you now, I'm sure he'd be very proud."
"Proud of me?" I repeated, choking on my words. How could he be proud of me? I'd barely passed most of my end-of-the-year exams. I'd failed English altogether. I couldn't pay attention if a gun was pointed to my head and I was told to do so, and I could barely read anything without every letter floating in front of my head.
"Very proud," my mother told me sincerely.
Grover smiled sadly at me. I swallowed a lump in my throat, tears on the edge of my eyes. Blinking, I wiped them away before anyone could notice.
I needed something, anything for a distraction. My eyes happened to catch something standing tall and proud out on nearby hill. Closer inspection told me that it was a pine tree. "What's that pine tree doing out there, you think?" I asked Grover, tapping him on the shoulder and pointing. "It's kind of in the middle of nothing, huh? Weird place for a pine."
My friend's gaze fell on it, and he swallowed. "Um… I… d-don't know," he said guiltily. He quickly faced forward to stare directly at the back of my mom's headrest. With surprise and concern, I noted that tears hung in the corner of his eyes, and his lower lip was quivering. I immediately felt bad. I didn't know why, but for some reason, I felt like seeing that tree was bringing up some bad memories for Grover, and it was my fault.
"Hey, sorry, man," I said, wincing.
He sniffled. "I-I'm okay."
Thankfully, before any awkwardness could rise up between us, Mom pulled over on the side of the road.
"Everybody out!" she said hastily, and Grover and I each opened our doors, unclasped our seatbelts, and jumped out of Smelly Gabe's Camaro. We opened the trunk and pulled out our suitcases. Mom raised a curious eyebrow at Grover. "Are you going here, too, Grover?"
"Yes, ma'am," he said. "I'm a Keeper."
Understanding dawned in her eyes, although mine just narrowed in confusion.
"I see," she said gratefully, and she leaned down to give him a small hug. Her next words were so quiet I almost didn't hear them. "Thank you for keeping my boy safe for me. I cannot repay you enough."
"I-It's alright, ma'am." Grover's ears turned pink.
When my mother released him, she straightened up and smiled proudly at me for a while. Just when I was starting to get embarrassed and antsy, she swept over to give me a tight hug, and kissed me on the forehead. It was still warm when she stood up all the way again.
"I love you, Percy," she said warmly. "Stay safe and take care of yourself. If you can, please come back at the end of summer. You still have a place at Yancy."
I blinked. "Wait. You're not coming with us? But what if there's something you need to—?"
"I'm sorry." She shook her head and opened her car door again. "I can't enter the camp's borders. Only you and Grover can. When you're inside, go up and register at the Big House. Either Chiron or Mr. D will be there. They'll tell you what to do."
I deflated. I'd been hoping that Mom would take us in all the way to Camp Half-Blood. I had no idea what she meant by she couldn't enter the camp's borders, but I didn't want to say goodbye to her already.
"I love you, Mom," I said quietly, leaning forward, standing on my tiptoes, and giving her a goodbye kiss on the cheek, acutely aware of Grover watching us. "Drive safe."
"I will," she promised, and she stepped in her car and closed the door. The engine roared, and she backed up to make a 3-point turn. I watched her drive off sadly, an ache burning in my chest. I always hated to leave her, and having to say goodbye so soon after we'd finally gotten to see each other for the first time in six months hurt like a knife.
Grover patted my back reassuringly. "She'll be fine," he said, his eyes unintentionally flicking to the single pine tree standing on the hill. "Don't worry about her. Come on. Let's go to camp. It's just over this hill." I watched as her car disappeared below the crest of the hill, and with a heavy heart, I nodded, turned around, and wheeled my suitcase down the other side of the hill.
~o~
:: LATER THAT EVENING ::
:: LATER THAT EVENING ::
"Sorry, Gabe. Looks like I'll be later than I said I would be."
The sun beginning to hang low in the sky, the blue Camaro rattled through the streets of a New York town, Sally Jackson completely silent inside. She dared not even breath as she rounded a corner, thinking about what her son had told her.
A monster in the school, she thought furiously. There could be more that Grover was unable to detect. It's harder to pick out the scent of monsters for a satyr when there's multiple targets concealing themselves in a large body. It is very likely that the only reason Percy was able to escape Yancy at all was because of Grover keeping an eye on him, that teacher he told me about who'd mentioned Camp to him, and Gabe's smell covering up his demigod scent. And since Percy could be returning next year, if there's any monsters there when he gets back, he'll be in huge danger. I can't let him go to school anywhere unsafe.
Her car rumbled up to a large building with ornate stone bricks making up its exterior walls and strong columns holding up a pyramid arch for the entrance. Painted above the doors in red and orange were the words Yancy Academy.
Even though it's the end of the year, Sally reasoned as she slowly pulled up to a stop and looked out the window, the faculty should still be around. It's only the last day of school after all. They likely won't let things be until next week. And no monsters will be want me because I'm a mortal.
She scanned the perimeter, looking for any signs of monster activity. No suspicious mounds of dirt in the schoolyard. No mars on the walls. No blood on the columns.
The snorting of a pig happened to catch her ear, along with the flapping of wings, and she rolled down the window to stick her head out of it and looked upwards.
Her eyes widened.
"Echidna's son!" she gasped.
Flying around the top of the school was a huge, pink pig, snorting in annoyance. It was enormous, easily as large as Gabe's stupid Camaro, and its skin appeared quite hard indeed. The moment the word Echidna left her mouth, its attention fell down to her, and she thought she heard it sniff. Apparently unsatisfied, it started to turn away. Then it happened to sniff again, and suddenly it charged down through the air at her.
"What!?" she demanded, quickly turning her key in the ignition. She wasn't a demigod, and she hadn't even said its name—so how had it known where she was?
A raspy gasp escaped her lips.
Percy. She'd been around him a fair bit today and he'd spent six months away from Gabe's stench; it was probably a lot weaker on him then it usually was. Some of his scent must have rubbed off on her, and knowing whose son he was, even a single whiff of it must be incredibly potent. It had probably picked that up from her.
"Come on, come on," she begged, slamming her hand against the wheel. "Start!"
On cue, the engine whined to life, and she slammed down the gas pedal. With a squeal of rubber on pavement, Sally blasted forward, climbing from zero to fifty-five in record time. Screw speed limits; when one's life was on the line because they were being chased by a flying pig of all things, one was very reasonable to throw caution to the wind.
She glanced desperately in the rearview mirror. A cold beat of sweat rolled down her head. It was catching up. How fast could that enormous monster fly?
She stepped up the gas. Sixty, seventy. Sally was lucky that she was driving in the straight, grid-like streets of a quiet suburb. Otherwise she would've had trouble maintaining this speed. But was it even working?
Another glance stolen from the rearview told her that no, no it wasn't. In fact, the Crommyonian Sow was even closer now, closing the distance between them at an incredible pace. And in no time at all, there it was, flying next to her in the other lane of the road. A single beat from its wings was strong enough to shatter her window, glass spraying all over her.
Biting her lip, Sally increased her speed even more. No difference in their chase was made. It was over.
The Sow turned diagonally, gave an almighty flap of its wide wings, and smashed her car door, its snout sticking through the broken window and biting down on her head. It pulled at her hard, and she screamed in pain. The only thing keeping her from being dragged out of the car was her seatbelt.
Her skin curiously glowed yellow. The pig grunted at that; it had no idea why its prey felt as though she were quickly being shrouded in magic.
In the split second left that she had, one more thought shot through Sally's brain: I love you, Percy. I'm sorry.
Then she burst into light and left the car to careen down the road crazily, until it would eventually crash into an oak tree outside someone's house.
Last edited:
Chapter 10 - I Narrowly Avoid Being Smote
TheRealEvanSG
Not From Another World
- Location
- United States, Oho
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Chapter 10 - I Narrowly Avoid Being Smote
It was while we were playing a game of basketball that the news reached me.
Well, all the other kids in the Apollo cabin were playing basketball. I was mostly just sprinting around the court and trying to keep between a couple people who had the ball (and failing). The demigods were faster than me and a lot of them were taller. The cons of being in a twelve-year-old female body; whereas I'd been 5'9" back in my home world, now I was just barely reaching over five feet. Another thing that was helping me fall behind the others was the fact that the Apollo kids' mastery over projectiles transferred to basketballs as well, whereas I did not have these perks. This meant that while they were landing nearly every hoop they shot, any balls I managed to get my hands on and throw wound up skipping along the rim and falling away from the basket, or bouncing off the rim, or falling short, or (don't even ask me how I managed this one) accidentally braining Lee Fletcher in the head despite him having been fifteen feet behind me at the time.
"Ow," he said, rubbing his head gingerly as he spun the ball on the pointer finger of his free hand like a Harlem Globetrotter. He flicked it up, juggled it between his feet, kicked it, rolled it down his back, spun, and caught it again. "Where were you even aiming at that time, Eve?"
I harrumphed and folded my sweaty arms, glaring and pointedly ignoring his question (mostly because I didn't know the answer myself). "Now you're just showing off."
"Guilty as charged." He spun the ball on his finger again, and I stared, my eye twitching.
I'd always wanted to be able to do that.
"Oh, screw off," I said, shaking my head. "You Apollo guys are all way too full of yourselves. Except Will and Michael."
"See?" Michael grinned and jabbed Lee in the side with his elbow, causing the cabin counselor to drop his basketball. "I told you I'm her favorite."
A flat expression overtook my face. "Actually, I take that back. Only Will's not full of himself."
"I'm not really as cool as you always try and make me sound…" the annoyingly gorgeous blond said awkwardly, standing a few feet away from the hoop, skirting around it back and forth in wait for a rebound.
"My point exactly."
As some of my cabin mates chuckled in response, I grinned and maybe blushed a tiny bit at Will's kicked-puppy face. A man had absolutely no right being that cute. The worst part was that I couldn't even blame it on my girl's body being hormonal; this was one hundred percent me reacting this way. It was just... I was in full support of the LGBT+ community, gods bless them, but it felt weird wondering if I was now a member of them. Then again, I suppose I'd been a member of said community ever since coming to this world.
Did being forcibly genderswapped by a mythological, all-powerful being count as being trans?
...I wasn't sure of the answer to that question. I made a mental note to ask my sister whenever I'd manage to make my way back home. She was taking a Women's Studies course and a Gender and Sexuality course in college. She'd know better than I would ever hope to.
My sister was pretty cool like that. We used to have great conversations about politics, what makes a person a person, and stuff. Watching the Apollo kids bicker about who was my favorite among them like normal brothers, my mood saddened. Not for the first time over the course of the previous month or so, I missed my family—my real family—terribly.
I was shaken out of my homesickness by the sight of two distant people picking their way down Half-Blood Hill into camp. I'd only just picked them out from my peripheral vision, and it was only because of my ADD drawing my attention to movement that I'd noticed them in the first place.
My eyes widened.
"What day is it?" I asked, turning to Will, who blinked and tapped his chin.
"May 31st," he said after a moment. He tilted his head. He looked like a kitten trying to understand some new sound. "Why? ...Is something important happening today?"
I caught myself staring at his (nope, not cute!) expression and quickly turned away, my face hot. A mental image of a short, angry old lady slapping me with a rolled-up newspaper came to mind. My gods, pull yourself together! "Mm, not really," I said mysteriously, giggling a little at the disbelieving Ehh? Will gave me. "Just the beginning."
"The beginning?" Lee, who'd been busy bouncing his basketball off of Austin Lake's blond head, looked at me with a confused furrowing of his eyebrows. "The beginning of what?"
I hummed. "Of everything."
"Eeeeeeve, you're doing that thing where you're not making sense again."
I cackled at my cabin mates' faces, all scrunched up, trying to think of what I meant. Did I enjoy picking on them and dangling my future knowledge right in front of their faces, then snatching it away at the last minute, way too much? Probably. Did I care? Not in the slightest. "Things will make sense when they're supposed to make sense," I said, wearing a vulpine-eating grin. "Things won't make sense when they're supposed to not make sense."
Michael Yew raised an unimpressed eyebrow. "Ehhh? You just like teasing us."
"Well, can't argue with that."
All the Apollo kids, save for Will and Lee, suddenly gained a furious twitch of the eye. "This girl…" they ground out, several of them facepalming.
Joking aside, the fact that Percy and Grover were here in the early evening of today, the thirty-first, concerned me. Bored one day some years ago, I'd pulled up some calendars of 2005 and used the date of the summer solstice—June 21st of that year—to pinpoint roughly the exact days of the events of the first book. If I'd been correct, then Percy and Grover's arrival at Camp Half-Blood and the kidnapping of Sally Jackson was supposed to take place today. It was supposed to be in the nighttime, though, after Percy had gone to sleep and started dreaming about Zeus and Poseidon's fight. But this was probably around six o'clock, maybe a little past that, and Beckendorf and I had already fought the Minotaur; did that mean that Sally hadn't been kidnapped by Hades? I hoped that was the case. Percy didn't need to have his quest complicated by a revenge subplot.
There is a reason why prophecies always happen, Mr. D's words echoed in my head.
I squeezed my eyes shut and desperately forced them in the back of my head. Shut up, shut up, shut up!
"I'm going to go say hi to a couple of friends," I said with a wave to the other kids in my cabin as I jogged off the basketball field. "Is that alright?"
Lee blinked. "A couple friends? Yeah, sure. It's our free-time, so I don't really care. Just be back before cabin clean-up in an hour and a half." He was a pretty kind, laid-back guy. All of Apollo's kids were that type of person, really, with varying levels of narcissism. Well, they were laid-back unless you insulted music within earshot of them. The last time that had happened, the Ares cabin had been cursed to only talk in one note all the time, completely unable to raise or lower their voices. The campfire sing-along that week had been hilarious.
"I'll be there then!" I promised, and ran off to go meet up with my Yancy friends for the first time in a little over a month.
I was stronger than I'd been last month, that was for sure. The training here was rigorous, dangerous, and had nearly killed me countless times, but thanks to it I was a different man… um, woman than I'd been in April. Or all my life, really. I'd never been this limber, never felt this fast. My lethargic, sedentary self almost hated admitting this, but it felt… good. By the time I'd sprinted over to Percy and Grover, I was only panting a little bit instead of bent over my knees, gasping for air.
"Oi!" I called wildly. Their now much bigger and closer figures were clearly Percy and Grover indeed, as I'd suspected, and even better, it looked like they hadn't fought any battles at all. Percy wasn't beat up in the slightest, and most importantly, Grover was on both fake human feet and not moaning unconsciously for food. A ridiculously happy grin spread across my face. I'd done it! I'd made them not have to fight anything and had therefore saved Sally!
Percy glanced up from chatting with Grover, paused, said something I couldn't hear from this distance, and waved cheerfully. "YO!" he shouted down the hillside.
"In your face, Mr. D!" I cheered, punching the air triumphantly.
The demigod and satyr picked up their paces, running all the rest of the way down Half-Blood Hill to greet me. Grinning joyfully, I turned to walk between them and clapped my right hand on Percy's back and my left hand on Grover's. "The band's back together!" I said.
Grover snorted in amusement. "You're in a good mood," he observed.
"Oh, please, I'm an optimist," I informed him with a snort of my own. "That's literally in the job description."
The son of Poseidon tilted his head and frowned. "There's a job description for optimists?"
"Well… no. But that'd be there if there was one!"
"No kidding." Percy chuckled and folded his arms behind his head. "Well, anyway, when she dropped us off on the crest of that hill, my mom said that I'd have to register at the Big House." He pointed to the huge, multi-story house not too far away at our left. "I assume that's the place there?"
"Correctamundo!" I confirmed with a thumbs-up.
Percy looked out over the camp again, humming thoughtfully. "So what is this camp, anyway? Chiron said it was for people who liked mythology, but some of those cabins look… well, er, kind of over-the-top."
I followed his gaze to the Ares cabin, all blood-red and screaming danger. This impression was further insinuated by the stuffed boar's head above the cabin door, the barbed wire rolling all over the rooftop, and a few arrows lodged into the outside walls.
"Crash course for the newbie," I said, making Percy roll his eyes and Grover shake his head at me rapidly, a bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. I raised an eyebrow at him, like, what? "We're inside camp borders and all, there's no way a monster'll attack us now." I thought about that and fixed my statement. "Er, except for the hellhound that will appear during next Friday's capture-the-flag game."
Grover sweatdropped. "Huh?"
Percy gaped. "Um, sorry, what? Monster? Hellhound?" He blinked and pointed at my hand. "Oh, also, what the HECK happened at the museum?"
"Mrs. Dodds was literally a demon and I killed her by catching a magic sword with my palm," I said flatly. I returned my dark-haired friend's skeptic stare with a deadpan of my own. "I couldn't even make this up if I tried."
Oh, wait, I was very likely a self-insert.
I guess I could make this up if I tried.
Moving on.
"Eve!" Grover yelped, waving his hands around desperately. "Don't overwhelm him!"
"Overwhelm him, you say? On it!" At this statement, the poor satyr wilted, buried his face in his hands, and groaned while I turned back to a very confused Percy. "So, everything you know is wrong. Mythology isn't mythology, science is just primitive mumbo jumbo, and magic is a thing. The weather going wild is the Greek gods fighting over Zeus's missing thunderbolt which airheaded Zeus thinks you stole despite the fact that you still have no idea Poseidon is your father, and you're about to go on a narrowly completed quest to Hell in order to prove your innocence before you get smote by a trigger-happy nymphomaniac, despite the fact that Hades isn't evil and Zeus is just a jerk."
The sky rumbled and rain poured down around me. Literally only me.
"YOU CAN'T DENY THE TRUTH!" I shouted at the cloudless sky. I blinked at that. How was it raining when there weren't any clouds overhead? You know what, whatever, I'm going to dumb it down to all-mighty sky god logic.
But wait, I thought Poseidon was the master of water? Shouldn't he have control over rainstorms? I didn't insult Poseidon.
This raised some questions. Could Jason make storms? Could Jason and Percy combined make Level-5 hurricanes? You know what, I bet they're somehow going to be responsible for Harvey, Irma, and Jose in the future, because as we all know, CLIMATE CHANGE DOESN'T EXIST! *cough* sarcasm *cough*
Hey, wait, when did Katrina take place? This year, right? Was it a result of the argument over Zeus's Master Bolt? Wait, never mind, it happened—happens—in August and as we've already discussed, the summer solstice is on the twenty-first of June. I made a mental note to send an anonymous warning to NASA or whatever to evacuate people around the Gulf Coast, after the completion of Percy's quest.
"Eve!" Grover waved in front of my face, making me jerk back in surprise. "You're staring off into space."
I rubbed the back of my now-wet head awkwardly. "Ah… hahaha… sorry."
Percy stared, his jaw dropped as he looked up to the sky, down to the rain drumming down on me like Eeyore, back up to the sky, and down to me. "How is it raining on literally only you? And wait, did you say my dad's Poseidon? As in, the ancient Greek god of the sea? The Greek god of the sea who's not supposed to exist?"
Grover stared at me in sudden horror. "You're not serious."
"Yes I am," I replied casually, wiping my soaked forehead with an annoyed huff. "And as for you, Percy, what was the first thing I said?"
He furrowed his brow. "Everything I know is wrong?"
"No, after that."
"Uh… mythology isn't mythology?"
"Ding ding ding! We have a winner! And do you think you would like being told you weren't supposed to exist by someone who is basically on the level of an ant compared to you?"
Percy gaped at me. "You're insane," he decided.
"Obviously," I agreed, "but I'm also right. Grover, tell him."
The satyr stiffened as Percy looked disbelievingly at him. "U-U-Um, well… Eve is r-right about the gods being real, but…" He paled. "You can't be Poseidon's son."
"Prove it," Percy demanded. "Prove the gods are real."
Grover sighed and glared at me. "Well… alright. I wanted to save this for after orientation, but I suppose some people leave me no choice." With an annoyed bleat, he stiffly pulled his fake feet out of his sneakers, kicked them off, and rolled his pants up.
Percy's eyes nearly popped out of his head.
"W-WHOA!" he gasped, pointing at Grover's legs. "Dude, you need to shave."
"Rude!" I reprimanded him, bopping the boy upside the head while Grover glared at him. "He's a satyr, obviously. Just look at the hooves."
"So… beneath the waist, my best friend is half-goat?"
I blinked. "Good for you, I thought you were gonna mix it up with a different animal."
"Hey, I'll have you know I actually learned things in the final month at school!" Percy huffed, rubbing his sore head.
...Did I unintentionally make Percy smarter?
Huh.
"Still…" Grover gave me a nervous frown. "How can Poseidon possibly be Percy's dad. The pact—"
"Has already been broken by Zeus twice," I deadpanned, "with both his Greek and his… oh wait, you guys don't know about that yet, do you? Heheheh… I can blackmail a god…"
The rain poured down on my head considerably harder, and I think I felt the ground crackle with electricity. All the color drained from my face and I waved my hands before me pleadingly. "WAIT, WAIT, WAIT, IT WAS A JOKE! A JOKE! I'M A FUNNY GUY, ER, GIRL, I MAKE JOKES! PLEASE DON'T SMITE ME!"
The ground stopped crackling, and I breathed a very long sigh of relief. I didn't have a whole lot of life to flash before my eyes, and most of it was pretty boring anyway, so I refused to come near death until I had at least a few interesting adventures to relive.
I could literally feel Percy and Grover staring at me.
"Note to self… do not antagonize kings of gods," I muttered, the color oh-so-slowly returning to my cheeks.
"Do you have a death wish or something?" Grover asked, his face looking like he couldn't quite believe I wasn't more roasted than a Thanksgiving turkey.
"What just happened?" Percy asked nobody in particular.
We both ignored him.
By this time we'd finally reached the Big House, and the overhang on the porch did absolutely nothing to shield me from the apparently omnipresent rainstorm cascading over my head. I much preferred heaving water-heavy clothes, though, to wandering the Fields of Asphodel for my eternity, so I took what I had and I didn't complain about it. Mr. D was sitting on a chair next to a table on said porch, a glass of Kool-Aid in his hand and a deck of cards laying on the table's surface.
"New camper?" Mr. D said lazily, staring at Percy like he didn't quite want to get up from the chair at the moment and the demigod's presence was ruining his evening. "Luckily for me, Chiron came back just a little while ago. Go on and meet him inside, boy. Eve, why is it raining around you?"
"Pissed off Zeus," I replied.
Mr. D sighed. "Somehow that doesn't surprise me," he mumbled. Shaking his head, maybe in half amusement and half what-in-the-fuck-is-this-girl-on, he tapped his cards expectantly as Percy nervously opened the doors of the Big House and stepped through. "Pinochle?"
I exchanged a glance with Grover, who nodded hurriedly. Right. I didn't want to piss off more than one god today.
"Pinochle," I decided, and both of us pulled up a chair which promptly got covered in water due to the storm surrounding me. "Just warning you, though, I suck at card games."
~o~
"Eve," Grover said slowly, staring with a dumb expression at the final hand of the game, "how on Olympus did you manage to beat both of us, despite having absolutely no idea what even the rules of the game were starting out?"
I stared helplessly, flabbergasted myself. "I… I have no idea. And for the record, I still don't know the rules."
Mr. D actually looked mildly interested in something, for once. He stared at me through the still-pouring rain quizzically. "Do you have time for another round?" he asked.
No, way, man, I'm stopping while I'm some-fucking-how ahead. I needed an excuse, though. I glanced at my wristwatch, gazed blankly at it for a moment or two, then remembered I didn't have a wristwatch and looked up at the nearest clock. Aha! Saved!
"No, sorry," I said politely, "but I have to go. I'll be late for cabin clean-ups if I spend more time playing pinochle."
"Go clean up your cabin, then, Ivanka," he said with mild disappointment, scooping up and shuffling any cards Grover hadn't stress-eaten.
"Hey, I am not a Trump!"
The water currently pouring down around me instantly turned into Kool-Aid, before it was replaced by new water.
"I am just really good at rubbing gods the wrong way today," I sighed despairingly before standing up and shoving my chair back in. I saluted Mr. D and Grover, then made off for the stairs off the porch. "Well, I'll see you guys at dinner."
The resident wine god made no attempt at good-byes and instead grunted a very bored and very judgemental grunt. Grover waved back at me, then paused and stood up.
"Eve…" he said, looking away at first and then slowly looking me in the eyes. "Is…" He glanced at Mr. D and flinched. "Is you-know-who really Percy's dad?"
"Did you honestly expect them to keep a promise?" I deadpanned. "And besides, remember the fountain?"
Grover's brow furrowed. "The fountain?"
Oh, right, he'd been talking with Chiron about Mrs. Dodds in the museum when Percy had started to accidentally show off his water powers. He wouldn't have seen the fountain start to swirl unnaturally before I punched Nancy and made the demigod calm down.
"Never mind. But why else do you think Percy likes the beach so much? Why Mrs. Jackson said Percy's dad disappeared the way she said? I mean, do you know about that, or…?"
"She told us in the car," Grover said, his face growing increasingly more worried by the second. "Still, that can't be true…"
"Who are you two talking about?" Mr. D asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Um…" I froze, thought about my options, didn't like any of them, and settled for speeding off to the Apollo cabin. "JUST REMEMBERED THAT I NEVER MADE MY BED!" I shouted. "SAYONARA!"
Mr. D stared after me, a complete deadpan coating his features.
"...How that girl has survived this past month is still beyond me," he muttered, shaking his head once I was out of earshot. Grover could only laugh nervously and silently agree with him.
Krazyfan1
Worrying for the future.
- Location
- Australia
Hades: "I like the kid already"
I always thought the myst was a stupid idea. Just arm mortals with machine guns with celestial bronze coated bullets, reforge bullets after use, tell humanity about evil monsters that prey upon them and suddenly they'll join in a crusade to kill all the monsters. Of course the should go after the gods also since they created them mostly one way or another. Either by breading them from themselves, 'minotaors, cyclopse, various other monsters,' or by cursing some mortal whose blamless (Medusa, raped by Poseidon and cursed by Athena because it happened in her temple), Arachne woman cursed to be a spider because she spun thread better than a goddess.
So will Eves preseance effect the other pantheons we know exist alongside the greeks, like the Asgard and the Egyptians. Isnt weird how Egyptians are the only ones that are spirit only and need mortal magicians to be bonded with as avatars to manifest physicaly? And they don't have demigods.
So will Eves preseance effect the other pantheons we know exist alongside the greeks, like the Asgard and the Egyptians. Isnt weird how Egyptians are the only ones that are spirit only and need mortal magicians to be bonded with as avatars to manifest physicaly? And they don't have demigods.
TheRealEvanSG
Not From Another World
- Location
- United States, Oho
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The problem with that is that metals like Celestial Bronze and Imperial Gold are pretty rare. As for the other pantheons, that's something I haven't really considered yet.
Assembler
Rocking the life
The monsters are the ones who made the Mist in the first place. Demigods can manipulate it but not remove it entirely, and even then they can be affected in some cases. Only monsters and specific mortals are completely immune to the Mist, even with supernatural intervention.
Malbutorius
C'est le bien qui fait mal
Come! See the violence inherent in the system!
Chapter 11 - Lady Luck is Literally Against Me
TheRealEvanSG
Not From Another World
- Location
- United States, Oho
- Pronouns
- He/Him
A/N: Surprise!
I think someone upstairs wasn't too happy with my little info-spilling stunt upstairs, because fate seemed to be against me as I was helping to clean up my cabin.
It started off simple enough. I wasn't perfect at making my bed wrinkle-free yet, simply because I hadn't bothered to make it even once back home, but it looked decent enough, anyway. The yellow bedsheets were on pretty neatly, the orange blanket laid over the sheets with only a few noticeably large wrinkles, and my pillow was only a tad crooked at the head of my bed. None of this bothered me very much, thanks to the fact that OCD was not one of the things I suffered from. Except when it came to writing. Bad grammar and improper usage of dialogue techniques, and other stuff like that, always got on my nerves.
That made it a little hard to find fanfiction with interesting premises that I could actually read without tearing my eyes out of my head… But I digress.
My evening started going bad when I stepped on the piece of Five gum I'd carelessly dropped on the floor earlier that day.
"Aw, really?" I sighed, staring at the bottom of my grey sneaker (white shoes were a huge no-no) with a disappointed frown. Even if it was my own gum, it was still chewed up and dry, and had my teeth marks dented into it. Grody. I shuddered and gingerly reached down to pick it off. When it came off, strands of the green gum still stuck to the sole. I groaned and ran my non-yucky hand through my long, chocolate hair. Greeeeeat.
Well, at least Percy was here. He'd be able to wash off the gum with water soon enough. Until then, I'd just have to live with it. Unless Annabeth knew of a way to get it off?
No, wait, hadn't there been a One Piece episode where the Barto Pirates called Bartolomeo's grandmother to ask what to do about the gum that covered their deck? I think there was. What had she suggested…? Something about using the cold hail—
WHACK.
"Ouch!" I yelped, my train of thought immediately derailing as I whirled around to glare at a sheepish Michael Yew, who appeared to have hit me over the head with the end of the broom he was carrying. "Watch it!"
Michael winced, his blond locks bouncing as he rubbed his head. "Sorry," he said with a wince. "That was an accident."
I shrugged and made my way over to the trash can that sat next to the cabin door. "Ah, don't sweat it," I told him. I waved my hand to show that I wasn't angry. "It's no biggie." Besides, the momentary pain had already subsided.
Now at the trash can, I carefully judged the distance, then the weight of the ripped-off gum in my hand. I hesitated a moment, then threw the gum. Or tried to, anyway. It stuck to my fingers. A grossed little ew escaped my lips, and I made to throw it again, but it didn't make any signs of coming off. At last, I cut my losses and simply scraped off the gum into the trash can. Thankfully, this time it all came off.
At the same time as I turned around and started walking back to my bed, Lee Fletcher was mopping the floor. I wasn't paying attention, already lost in a fantasy world of intense battle music and imaginary fight scenes. I hummed something that sounded rather like RWBY's Red Like Roses Part II, earning me some rather curious looks from my other cabin mates as they went about cleaning their own areas. Unfortunately, due to my self-induced distraction, I walked right into the wet floor and the world suddenly flipped.
My long hair fell over my face, and I choked when some of it went into my mouth. The back of my head struck the wooden floorboards hard.
"Ow," I said again, a little louder this time, and immediately lifted myself up to a sitting position. Ruby Rose and Ichigo Kurosaki stopped fighting Roronoa Zoro in my head.
Man, that had been weird. Normally, I had a rather good sense of balance even on slippery floors. My time as a McDonalds' employee had taught me that. Grease commonly got on the floors when the grease traps got too full and we tried to empty them, and of course that required a full mop-up of the area. So why had my foot fallen in just the wrong way there?
Hmmm.
All of Apollo's actual children rushed over to me, looking down over me with concerned frowns.
"You alright, Eve?" one of them—crap, I forgot his name (I'd always been bad with names)—said, offering me a hand.
I knocked it away and got to my feet by myself. "It's okay, I'm fine." My head ached annoyingly now, though. I scratched the point of impact tenderly, and my friends looked at me like they didn't quite believe me. I rolled my eyes and continued back to my bed, making extra careful to watch where I stepped this time. "Seriously, you guys, I'm fine. It just aches a little."
Will glanced at Michael, then shrugged. "If you're sure," he said, and I sighed. Gods, he was such a mother hen sometimes.
"I'm sure."
"Alright, people, back to work," he said, and the tall kid clapped his hands. My cabin mates stopped staring at me and went back to whatever it was they'd been doing. I peered under my bed, looking for any chip wrappers or stray papers filled with writing notes that might have happened to have found their way underneath. (Hey, just because I was in a fantasy world didn't mean I would stop having ideas for fantasy books.)
Nothing.
Well, if that rat that was scurrying towards me counted as nothing. I yelped and dived onto my bed, my heart pounding from the unexpected furry rodent. It scuttled away, getting lost somewhere under Lee Fletcher's bed. Good. He could deal with the evil little bastard. Mice were adorable, but rats could go to hell—or, rather, Hades—for all I cared. They were evil little sons of bitches, to be topped only by skunks and spiders.
I sat on my bed, panting a little bit. That had jump-scared me more than I would've liked to admit.
"Man, this evening is weird," I muttered to myself, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. Were rats even able to get into this cabin in the first place? That seemed kind of like the thing that shouldn't be possible for the sleeping quarters of the kids of ancient gods—especially for the kids of ancient medicine gods. When one adds in the factor of rats being known to have carried several rather potent diseases in the past, the ability of them to infiltrate the Apollo Cabin was highly questionable.
Whatever. That now familiar clenching in my waist was back again. I needed to go to the bathroom, and the bathroom was a time for thinking deeply about what could happen if Rick and Morty were to fight Bill Cipher with the Gravity Falls cast, not to worry about my chances of finding a likely evil rodent under my bed.
"I'm going to the bathroom," I announced, and stood up and went to leave the cabin.
Michael, fluffing his pillow, nodded, his back turned to me. "Be quick. Dinner starts soon."
"I know."
Outside, the first of the evening stars poked their way out of the darkening blue canvas above me. A cool breeze carried briny air from the sea, pleasant to breathe in. The climbing wall flashed and glowed with lava out in the distance as some poor campers tried to scale it. Away at the lake, the Aphrodite cabin worked together to heave a couple canoes back to the canoe storage racks. The Demeter cabin swooped through the sky on Pegasi with the desire to get in a few more rounds of flying before dinner.
And then there was plain ol' me, human extraordinaire, singing Ed Sheeran softly as I went to a bathroom I would've had no rights being in just barely over a month before. And also somehow managing to step into every single mud puddle that lay between the cabins and the bathrooms.
"Seriously?" I groaned after the fifth time I happened to step in a puddle of wet earth. "How is there even mud here anyway? This is Camp Half-Blood. There isn't supposed to be any rain to create mud in the first place. Like seriously, what the fuck is going on with tonight?"
Mumbling about bad luck, I entered the women's bathroom and found an empty stall.
For a camp that was made for the gods' children, the bathrooms were every bit the rundown piece of junk that Percy had described in the books. The doors were partly rusted, with the common unnecessary swears inscribed by pen and knife on many of the stalls. Except this time, the swears came in 100% more Ancient Greek, meaning I couldn't even amuse myself by reading them. At least the girls' toilet seats were a thousand times cleaner than the boys' seats in my school's and every public bathroom I'd been in were. Seriously, guys, if you're gonna have bad aim when you're shaking hands with the president, at least lift up the seat of the goddamned toilet!
Grrrgh.
But again, I digress.
I walked across the mucky floor, speckled with dirt from people's shoes and some dried leaves from the forest here and there. I chose a stall and entered it, shutting the door behind me and latching it. I then turned around and shoved my shorts and… dear gods… panties down. Now, don't get me wrong. I'd seen my own parts by now more than enough times to be entirely desensitized to them. Heck, they felt as natural as my old body had. But the fact that I had to wear panties and a bra now? I didn't think I'd ever get used to that.
As I was sitting down and preparing to do my business, people entered the bathroom. I didn't pay them much attention, mostly focused on Saitama's theme song, which was playing in my head. It always took a little bit to get going, since although it felt natural having the parts there now, I still wasn't entirely used to the differences in how they functioned compared to my old parts.
Man, what an awkward subject…
Anyway, it wasn't until the water started making sounds below me without my doing anything to it that I pulled myself from my thoughts. Frowning, I looked down, but of course I could only see a little of the toilet seat between my mostly clenched legs. I got up and turned around to get a better look at what was going on. I blinked and frowned deeper.
Was toilet water supposed to swirl around in a mini whirlpool like that, before it's flushed?
Out of the corner of my ear, I happened to hear a mean, smug voice say, "Taste that water, punk."
Even with my aforementioned bad memory of names, I didn't even need to see the face of the voice's owner to immediately know it was Clarisse. No one else was as eager about being mean as Clarisse, and she also called literally everybody punk, except Mr. D. Not even Clarisse was stupid enough to call the wine god punk, although sometimes I wished she was. Her sword training sessions belonged in the Fields of Punishment.
Now, why did Clarisse calling someone punk in the girls' bathroom feel familiar to me?
I had one moment to think, Oh, shit, this is that scene in the books, and another to hastily pull up my panties. I tried to get my shorts, too, but I wasn't that lucky. The toilet water arched up out of the bowl before I'd gotten them past my thighs. I drew in a quick breath of air and tried to plug my nose, but the entire contents of the plumbing knocked into me like one of those six-foot tall waves I'd played in during a vacation to New York City with my grandparents as a kid. And just like back then with my light little kid body, the water tendril pushed me back with surprising force.
I slammed into the stall door with a surprised yelp, which somehow blew open. I had no idea how, since I'd definitely latched it closed. Whichever way, I was washed out of my stall and I tumbled across dirty tiles, sputtering and cursing. Water had managed to get up my nose, and despite it being 100% water, it still reeked just because of the type of water it was.
"Eve?" came the smooth alto of Annabeth Chase's worried and surprised voice. I looked to my right once friction stopped my tumbling, and I could actually tell where 'right' was. She stood there by the door to the bathroom, her Disney princess blonde locks of hair waterlogged and heavy. Near her, several of the Ares kids were groaning and dazed on the floor of the bathroom, Clarisse among their number. "You were here?"
"Yeah." I coughed the terrible taste of toilet water out of my mouth, and little drops of the nasty stuff splashed into the rest of the water that now coated the evenly placed tiles. "Bad day to go to the bathroom, huh?"
"Of all the times you picked to go to the bathroom, you had to pick the period when Clarisse tried bullying Percy but got everything turned back around on her," Annabeth deadpanned. She splashed through the centimeters of water and offered me a dripping hand. "You have the worst luck in this entire camp."
I accepted it and she lifted me up. I pulled my now sopping shorts back up all the way.
Quick footsteps rang out, and we both looked left to see none other than Percy, who looked equal parts excited, flummoxed, and worried, coming out of the stall Clarisse and her gang had forced him into. "Eve?" he said, and as he walked forward, the water just around his feet parted so that he wouldn't get them wet. I was instantly jealous. I'd always wanted water powers. "Geez, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were here too."
I sighed. Twelve-year-old Percy was freaking adorable, and even if I hadn't been mad, that wrinkled brow would've taken all my anger right out of me. "It's okay, Perce. You couldn't have known there was anyone else here. It's not your fault."
"How did you do that, anyway?" Annabeth wondered as Clarisse, half-conscious, groaned weakly.
Hah. Serves her right.
"I remembered Eve mentioned that my father was Poseidon," Percy said, nodding in my direction, and I blushed as Annabeth stared at me.
"That can't be true!" she denied, shaking her head rapidly. "I mean… yeah, you have those little… premonitions or whatever they are, but that can't be true. The Big Three took an oath."
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that I'd dropped that bombshell. "Well, um… they're gods and are kind of really, really bad at keeping oaths? Like, really bad? Did I mention how really bad they are at that?"
Thunder rumbled overhead. I winced.
Annabeth's face paled. "What."
Percy raised an eyebrow at that whole 'premonitions' and 'oath' thing, but carried forward with his explanation. "Er… anyway, at first, I didn't believe her, but after Grover revealing that he's a freaking satyr, Mr. Brunner revealing that he's actually freaking Chiron, and the orientation video, I was a little more open to what she was saying. Plus, it… kind of made a lot of sense to me, deep down. The beach or the pool had always been the only places where it felt like everything didn't matter so much."
The Daughter of Wisdom gaped. "What. No, no, no, that can't be true… Can't be…!"
"So, anyway, I just kind of imagined Clarisse getting splashed with water instead of me, because I really did not want to get dunked in that stuff, and then the plumbing just kind of… responded." He winced at Annabeth and me. "Er, sorry again, you two."
"None taken," I said, and grabbed some of my hair, then twisted. Water oozed out of it like it was a wet towel. Beside me, the resident blonde was just staring at Percy like he was some incorrect information in a textbook. I blinked up at her. "Oh, by the way, notice how Percy's standing in the only dry section of the entire floor?"
Annabeth's silver orbs rolled down to the floor around Percy. Her jaw dropped even further in disbelief. A dry sound came from the back of her throat, and then she just stared blankly. Percy and I exchanged looks, and I leaned forward and waved my hand in front of her face.
Nada.
"Percy," I said, somewhat amused at Annabeth's real-life reaction, "I think we broke Annabeth."
The poor kid's brow wrinkled even more with concern. "Yeah, no kidding," he said.
"Well, you take her to my buds at the Apollo Cabin; they'll be able to snap her out of it if she doesn't do it on her own. As for me, I'll go back to what I'd been doing before the toilet exploded on my face."
Percy got a horrified look on his face that sent me breaking down into snickers, and nodded quickly. "Uh, yeah, er, you do that. I… I'm leaving now. Bye." He grabbed the pretty much comatose Annabeth and, with surprising strength, rushed out of the bathroom with her. I snorted as Clarisse and her cronies slowly started sitting up, and went back into my stall. Water had for some reason already filled back into the bowl. I turned, shut the latch very firmly, and started to lean back to sit on the toilet seat.
And I promptly lost my balance again and ended up falling into the toilet bowl.
"…ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME."
It was just the start of a long, long string of really bad luck.
Post A/N: Want some spooky, scary skeletons in a brand new creepy story with all sorts of other monsters and ghosts, and the people that hunt them using a mysterious power that manifests in the right hand? Check out my new, original urban fantasy story, Right Hand of God!
Chapter 11: Lady Luck is Literally Against Me
I think someone upstairs wasn't too happy with my little info-spilling stunt upstairs, because fate seemed to be against me as I was helping to clean up my cabin.
It started off simple enough. I wasn't perfect at making my bed wrinkle-free yet, simply because I hadn't bothered to make it even once back home, but it looked decent enough, anyway. The yellow bedsheets were on pretty neatly, the orange blanket laid over the sheets with only a few noticeably large wrinkles, and my pillow was only a tad crooked at the head of my bed. None of this bothered me very much, thanks to the fact that OCD was not one of the things I suffered from. Except when it came to writing. Bad grammar and improper usage of dialogue techniques, and other stuff like that, always got on my nerves.
That made it a little hard to find fanfiction with interesting premises that I could actually read without tearing my eyes out of my head… But I digress.
My evening started going bad when I stepped on the piece of Five gum I'd carelessly dropped on the floor earlier that day.
"Aw, really?" I sighed, staring at the bottom of my grey sneaker (white shoes were a huge no-no) with a disappointed frown. Even if it was my own gum, it was still chewed up and dry, and had my teeth marks dented into it. Grody. I shuddered and gingerly reached down to pick it off. When it came off, strands of the green gum still stuck to the sole. I groaned and ran my non-yucky hand through my long, chocolate hair. Greeeeeat.
Well, at least Percy was here. He'd be able to wash off the gum with water soon enough. Until then, I'd just have to live with it. Unless Annabeth knew of a way to get it off?
No, wait, hadn't there been a One Piece episode where the Barto Pirates called Bartolomeo's grandmother to ask what to do about the gum that covered their deck? I think there was. What had she suggested…? Something about using the cold hail—
WHACK.
"Ouch!" I yelped, my train of thought immediately derailing as I whirled around to glare at a sheepish Michael Yew, who appeared to have hit me over the head with the end of the broom he was carrying. "Watch it!"
Michael winced, his blond locks bouncing as he rubbed his head. "Sorry," he said with a wince. "That was an accident."
I shrugged and made my way over to the trash can that sat next to the cabin door. "Ah, don't sweat it," I told him. I waved my hand to show that I wasn't angry. "It's no biggie." Besides, the momentary pain had already subsided.
Now at the trash can, I carefully judged the distance, then the weight of the ripped-off gum in my hand. I hesitated a moment, then threw the gum. Or tried to, anyway. It stuck to my fingers. A grossed little ew escaped my lips, and I made to throw it again, but it didn't make any signs of coming off. At last, I cut my losses and simply scraped off the gum into the trash can. Thankfully, this time it all came off.
At the same time as I turned around and started walking back to my bed, Lee Fletcher was mopping the floor. I wasn't paying attention, already lost in a fantasy world of intense battle music and imaginary fight scenes. I hummed something that sounded rather like RWBY's Red Like Roses Part II, earning me some rather curious looks from my other cabin mates as they went about cleaning their own areas. Unfortunately, due to my self-induced distraction, I walked right into the wet floor and the world suddenly flipped.
My long hair fell over my face, and I choked when some of it went into my mouth. The back of my head struck the wooden floorboards hard.
"Ow," I said again, a little louder this time, and immediately lifted myself up to a sitting position. Ruby Rose and Ichigo Kurosaki stopped fighting Roronoa Zoro in my head.
Man, that had been weird. Normally, I had a rather good sense of balance even on slippery floors. My time as a McDonalds' employee had taught me that. Grease commonly got on the floors when the grease traps got too full and we tried to empty them, and of course that required a full mop-up of the area. So why had my foot fallen in just the wrong way there?
Hmmm.
All of Apollo's actual children rushed over to me, looking down over me with concerned frowns.
"You alright, Eve?" one of them—crap, I forgot his name (I'd always been bad with names)—said, offering me a hand.
I knocked it away and got to my feet by myself. "It's okay, I'm fine." My head ached annoyingly now, though. I scratched the point of impact tenderly, and my friends looked at me like they didn't quite believe me. I rolled my eyes and continued back to my bed, making extra careful to watch where I stepped this time. "Seriously, you guys, I'm fine. It just aches a little."
Will glanced at Michael, then shrugged. "If you're sure," he said, and I sighed. Gods, he was such a mother hen sometimes.
"I'm sure."
"Alright, people, back to work," he said, and the tall kid clapped his hands. My cabin mates stopped staring at me and went back to whatever it was they'd been doing. I peered under my bed, looking for any chip wrappers or stray papers filled with writing notes that might have happened to have found their way underneath. (Hey, just because I was in a fantasy world didn't mean I would stop having ideas for fantasy books.)
Nothing.
Well, if that rat that was scurrying towards me counted as nothing. I yelped and dived onto my bed, my heart pounding from the unexpected furry rodent. It scuttled away, getting lost somewhere under Lee Fletcher's bed. Good. He could deal with the evil little bastard. Mice were adorable, but rats could go to hell—or, rather, Hades—for all I cared. They were evil little sons of bitches, to be topped only by skunks and spiders.
I sat on my bed, panting a little bit. That had jump-scared me more than I would've liked to admit.
"Man, this evening is weird," I muttered to myself, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. Were rats even able to get into this cabin in the first place? That seemed kind of like the thing that shouldn't be possible for the sleeping quarters of the kids of ancient gods—especially for the kids of ancient medicine gods. When one adds in the factor of rats being known to have carried several rather potent diseases in the past, the ability of them to infiltrate the Apollo Cabin was highly questionable.
Whatever. That now familiar clenching in my waist was back again. I needed to go to the bathroom, and the bathroom was a time for thinking deeply about what could happen if Rick and Morty were to fight Bill Cipher with the Gravity Falls cast, not to worry about my chances of finding a likely evil rodent under my bed.
"I'm going to the bathroom," I announced, and stood up and went to leave the cabin.
Michael, fluffing his pillow, nodded, his back turned to me. "Be quick. Dinner starts soon."
"I know."
Outside, the first of the evening stars poked their way out of the darkening blue canvas above me. A cool breeze carried briny air from the sea, pleasant to breathe in. The climbing wall flashed and glowed with lava out in the distance as some poor campers tried to scale it. Away at the lake, the Aphrodite cabin worked together to heave a couple canoes back to the canoe storage racks. The Demeter cabin swooped through the sky on Pegasi with the desire to get in a few more rounds of flying before dinner.
And then there was plain ol' me, human extraordinaire, singing Ed Sheeran softly as I went to a bathroom I would've had no rights being in just barely over a month before. And also somehow managing to step into every single mud puddle that lay between the cabins and the bathrooms.
"Seriously?" I groaned after the fifth time I happened to step in a puddle of wet earth. "How is there even mud here anyway? This is Camp Half-Blood. There isn't supposed to be any rain to create mud in the first place. Like seriously, what the fuck is going on with tonight?"
Mumbling about bad luck, I entered the women's bathroom and found an empty stall.
For a camp that was made for the gods' children, the bathrooms were every bit the rundown piece of junk that Percy had described in the books. The doors were partly rusted, with the common unnecessary swears inscribed by pen and knife on many of the stalls. Except this time, the swears came in 100% more Ancient Greek, meaning I couldn't even amuse myself by reading them. At least the girls' toilet seats were a thousand times cleaner than the boys' seats in my school's and every public bathroom I'd been in were. Seriously, guys, if you're gonna have bad aim when you're shaking hands with the president, at least lift up the seat of the goddamned toilet!
Grrrgh.
But again, I digress.
I walked across the mucky floor, speckled with dirt from people's shoes and some dried leaves from the forest here and there. I chose a stall and entered it, shutting the door behind me and latching it. I then turned around and shoved my shorts and… dear gods… panties down. Now, don't get me wrong. I'd seen my own parts by now more than enough times to be entirely desensitized to them. Heck, they felt as natural as my old body had. But the fact that I had to wear panties and a bra now? I didn't think I'd ever get used to that.
As I was sitting down and preparing to do my business, people entered the bathroom. I didn't pay them much attention, mostly focused on Saitama's theme song, which was playing in my head. It always took a little bit to get going, since although it felt natural having the parts there now, I still wasn't entirely used to the differences in how they functioned compared to my old parts.
Man, what an awkward subject…
Anyway, it wasn't until the water started making sounds below me without my doing anything to it that I pulled myself from my thoughts. Frowning, I looked down, but of course I could only see a little of the toilet seat between my mostly clenched legs. I got up and turned around to get a better look at what was going on. I blinked and frowned deeper.
Was toilet water supposed to swirl around in a mini whirlpool like that, before it's flushed?
Out of the corner of my ear, I happened to hear a mean, smug voice say, "Taste that water, punk."
Even with my aforementioned bad memory of names, I didn't even need to see the face of the voice's owner to immediately know it was Clarisse. No one else was as eager about being mean as Clarisse, and she also called literally everybody punk, except Mr. D. Not even Clarisse was stupid enough to call the wine god punk, although sometimes I wished she was. Her sword training sessions belonged in the Fields of Punishment.
Now, why did Clarisse calling someone punk in the girls' bathroom feel familiar to me?
I had one moment to think, Oh, shit, this is that scene in the books, and another to hastily pull up my panties. I tried to get my shorts, too, but I wasn't that lucky. The toilet water arched up out of the bowl before I'd gotten them past my thighs. I drew in a quick breath of air and tried to plug my nose, but the entire contents of the plumbing knocked into me like one of those six-foot tall waves I'd played in during a vacation to New York City with my grandparents as a kid. And just like back then with my light little kid body, the water tendril pushed me back with surprising force.
I slammed into the stall door with a surprised yelp, which somehow blew open. I had no idea how, since I'd definitely latched it closed. Whichever way, I was washed out of my stall and I tumbled across dirty tiles, sputtering and cursing. Water had managed to get up my nose, and despite it being 100% water, it still reeked just because of the type of water it was.
"Eve?" came the smooth alto of Annabeth Chase's worried and surprised voice. I looked to my right once friction stopped my tumbling, and I could actually tell where 'right' was. She stood there by the door to the bathroom, her Disney princess blonde locks of hair waterlogged and heavy. Near her, several of the Ares kids were groaning and dazed on the floor of the bathroom, Clarisse among their number. "You were here?"
"Yeah." I coughed the terrible taste of toilet water out of my mouth, and little drops of the nasty stuff splashed into the rest of the water that now coated the evenly placed tiles. "Bad day to go to the bathroom, huh?"
"Of all the times you picked to go to the bathroom, you had to pick the period when Clarisse tried bullying Percy but got everything turned back around on her," Annabeth deadpanned. She splashed through the centimeters of water and offered me a dripping hand. "You have the worst luck in this entire camp."
I accepted it and she lifted me up. I pulled my now sopping shorts back up all the way.
Quick footsteps rang out, and we both looked left to see none other than Percy, who looked equal parts excited, flummoxed, and worried, coming out of the stall Clarisse and her gang had forced him into. "Eve?" he said, and as he walked forward, the water just around his feet parted so that he wouldn't get them wet. I was instantly jealous. I'd always wanted water powers. "Geez, I'm sorry. I didn't know you were here too."
I sighed. Twelve-year-old Percy was freaking adorable, and even if I hadn't been mad, that wrinkled brow would've taken all my anger right out of me. "It's okay, Perce. You couldn't have known there was anyone else here. It's not your fault."
"How did you do that, anyway?" Annabeth wondered as Clarisse, half-conscious, groaned weakly.
Hah. Serves her right.
"I remembered Eve mentioned that my father was Poseidon," Percy said, nodding in my direction, and I blushed as Annabeth stared at me.
"That can't be true!" she denied, shaking her head rapidly. "I mean… yeah, you have those little… premonitions or whatever they are, but that can't be true. The Big Three took an oath."
Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that I'd dropped that bombshell. "Well, um… they're gods and are kind of really, really bad at keeping oaths? Like, really bad? Did I mention how really bad they are at that?"
Thunder rumbled overhead. I winced.
Annabeth's face paled. "What."
Percy raised an eyebrow at that whole 'premonitions' and 'oath' thing, but carried forward with his explanation. "Er… anyway, at first, I didn't believe her, but after Grover revealing that he's a freaking satyr, Mr. Brunner revealing that he's actually freaking Chiron, and the orientation video, I was a little more open to what she was saying. Plus, it… kind of made a lot of sense to me, deep down. The beach or the pool had always been the only places where it felt like everything didn't matter so much."
The Daughter of Wisdom gaped. "What. No, no, no, that can't be true… Can't be…!"
"So, anyway, I just kind of imagined Clarisse getting splashed with water instead of me, because I really did not want to get dunked in that stuff, and then the plumbing just kind of… responded." He winced at Annabeth and me. "Er, sorry again, you two."
"None taken," I said, and grabbed some of my hair, then twisted. Water oozed out of it like it was a wet towel. Beside me, the resident blonde was just staring at Percy like he was some incorrect information in a textbook. I blinked up at her. "Oh, by the way, notice how Percy's standing in the only dry section of the entire floor?"
Annabeth's silver orbs rolled down to the floor around Percy. Her jaw dropped even further in disbelief. A dry sound came from the back of her throat, and then she just stared blankly. Percy and I exchanged looks, and I leaned forward and waved my hand in front of her face.
Nada.
"Percy," I said, somewhat amused at Annabeth's real-life reaction, "I think we broke Annabeth."
The poor kid's brow wrinkled even more with concern. "Yeah, no kidding," he said.
"Well, you take her to my buds at the Apollo Cabin; they'll be able to snap her out of it if she doesn't do it on her own. As for me, I'll go back to what I'd been doing before the toilet exploded on my face."
Percy got a horrified look on his face that sent me breaking down into snickers, and nodded quickly. "Uh, yeah, er, you do that. I… I'm leaving now. Bye." He grabbed the pretty much comatose Annabeth and, with surprising strength, rushed out of the bathroom with her. I snorted as Clarisse and her cronies slowly started sitting up, and went back into my stall. Water had for some reason already filled back into the bowl. I turned, shut the latch very firmly, and started to lean back to sit on the toilet seat.
And I promptly lost my balance again and ended up falling into the toilet bowl.
"…ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME."
It was just the start of a long, long string of really bad luck.
~o~
Post A/N: Want some spooky, scary skeletons in a brand new creepy story with all sorts of other monsters and ghosts, and the people that hunt them using a mysterious power that manifests in the right hand? Check out my new, original urban fantasy story, Right Hand of God!
Last edited:
- Location
- Finland
MY EYES!!!So, I only just realized I forgot to upload this picture to here, but I made some art of Eve today because I was bored. Here y'all go!
So, bad jokes aside, ya mind if I do a profile pic for Eve?
Tl; dr: Zeus is a dick-headed moron, actually no, Gods in general are.
...Wow, real mature Zeus.
Zeus: Like hell I can't! Poseidon, throw more water at him!!
My best guess is that Zeus' bullying Poseidon to smite the mean girl who's calling him out on his shit.
...Plot armor be wack, yo...
Or... and hear me out, just sit for both number 1 and number 2? I mean, just saying, pretty much a sure-fire way to not make a mess, and hey, if you just feel the need to go number 2, or if Diarrhea strikes, no problems, just let loose.
Your point? Zeus is married to Hera, and yet, we have all these demigod bastards* running about.
*:I mean the literal definition of the word, not the insult one that's a lot more common these days.
Plus, even if they don't keep their promise, there's no higher force to punish them.
Ach, blow it out of your arse, you sparking rapist!
Last edited: