Grover, The Chosen One (A Contest Entry)
Summary: The Great God Om has called everyone's favourite Satyr Grover to do his bidding in Camp Half-Blood. But with the Watch on the verge of a conflict with the Hunters, how can Grover stop it? Discworld/PJO crossover.
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson or Discworld. They belong to Rick Riordan and Terry Pratchett respectively.
A short while ago, in a land not too far away…
The great celestial tortoise, Great A'Tuin, plodded infinitely slowly in its journey across the stars, with a permanent expression of wisdom on its prominent face.
On its interstellar shell stood four mighty elephants, who in turn held up the grand Disc, a flat world populated by creatures and peoples of diverse proportions, whilst waterfalls trickled down the Disc's edges, pristine and beautiful.
And somewhere on the Discworld, in the sprawling city known as Ankh-Morpork…
A tall lanky figure slipped into the room, his floppy pointed hat making silhouettes on the wall.
He was carrying something that would change the world.
And only one person saw him.
His name was Googuff Spingo the Horizontally Challenged.
And by Horizontally Challenged, I mean that he had all the spine and self-control as a stampeding earwig on cocaine. His arms looked as if someone had snapped them off a tree, and his scar-ridden wrinkle rippled face gave most the impression that he had been dragged backwards through a cactus garden at some point during his life, and sadly this was indeed true. Let's just say that every time someone mentions the words 'curiosity,' 'valuables,' 'history book,' and 'virgin,' around him, they tend to stop showing up ever again.
He peered round the corner, suspicion twinkling in his beady brown eyes. Googuff's mind ran like a calculator, and so far the ingenious equation he had come up with was:
Pointy Hat plus mysterious object plus stupid walk plus midnight equals some random magical twat with a big wallet and an even bigger intention.
The figure sat down on a springy bed in the room, and set the object he was carrying down quickly.
"About time!" The object said.
Wait.
The object said?
It seemed to crawl slowly across the bed sheets, like a…tortoise?
"I keep telling you! I'm not a proper wizard; I'm just a guy in a hat with 'WIZZARD' on it! Honestly!"
"Just do it, you moron! I am your god!"
Googuff's eyes widened.
"Then why don't you do it yourself then?"
"I think that's pretty obvious," the object huffed. "I'm a tortoise, that's why!"
"Well, I know that," the person said, ambashed. "How about some lettuce?" Aloft in the silhouette's hand was the shadow of a bowl, prickling with the heads of several vegetables.
"Oh, lovely, thanks, just don't pour dressing on it, it makes it go – wait, we're not changing the subject!"
"Why not?"
"Because I need to get there, and fast!" the tortoise snorted. "My Chosen One is in the other world! Besides, you're going to have such a smashing adventure, so why n-"
"I DON'T LIKE ADVENTURES!" the person suddenly yelled, hands flailing in horror. "Please! I crave boredom! I've had more than enough of this saving the world mallarky! I had a little island once, and then, oh no, these –"
"Hey, hey! Oh, please, I've been bored for, oh, how many years now? Trapped in this inferior body? And then you come along and say you crave boredom? Insolence!"
"Come on now –"
"Heresy!" the tortoise spat.
"No, I'll –"
"A thousand calamities upon you! Haemorrhages for the rest of your days! Lack of toilet roll for –"
"Okay, okay, but I swear, if this favour results in requiring me running away from tribal madmen, having sharp pointy objects stuck in me and being generally deprived of Ankh-Morpork altogether, I'll seriously consider paganism. And I'll turn a tortoise on its back everyday."
"Fine!"
The figure sighed, and then shifted away, biting its nails.
"Kazizzi, kazam, huga buga, uh, zippity –"
"That's not magic!" the tortoise protested. "You do it like –"
"WHO THE HECK ARE YOU?" Googuff cried, darting into the room.
"YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!" The person whooped, his pointy hat tipping off his hand as he leaped like a suicidal dolphin out of the window.
"What the –"
"You there!" the tortoise commanded, and it was then that Googuff realised just how suckered he was.
"Um…" he mumbled unintelligently.
"Do this for me, and I shall hopefully mention you in the holy book of some generic religion I'm starting!" The tortoise demanded, glaring at him as much as it could with its glassy reptilian eyes.
Googuff paused.
"Right on, mate!"
"Fiddly diddly dee, no global warming for me, diddly diddly doo, pollution is not very good, fa la la, la la, you'd better, uh, do something…baa?"
"Grover, somehow I don't think this tune is working out," Percy said.
"Dammit!"
I hurled my panpipes into the volleyball sandpit, and scowled at it as it sunk. "I'm the biggest excuse for a satyr since the kid who gets to play the goat in a nativity play!"
"That's not true, G-Man!"
"Seriously, Percy! I can't even write a song about the environment!"
"Just you wait. You'll be the best satyr in the world. Plus, you're going to be the one who finds Pan."
"Puh-leaze!" I said,
Percy sighed, and rose from the bench. "Whatever you say, whatever you say…" he mumbled, making little loops around his ear with his finger and rolling his eyes.
"I'm not cray-zay!" I yelled back. He just chuckled, and sprinted back to his cabin.
I grunted.
Yes, I am Grover Underwood, world's worst satyr, and possibly the greatest insult to the music since Girls Aloud and the Sugababes did a cover version of Walk This Way. Have I mentioned that I am a total girl magnet? Well, the Ares' cabin girls, anyway. They like to wash my hair. With sand. And lighter fluid.
But anyway…
'Twas a fine Saturday morning in Camp Half-Blood, and once more I was forced to endure the rattling gossip of the female satyrs, who chatted about, oh, how-wonderful-the-trees-look-today-and-doesn't-your-dress-look-fabulous-honey-oh-you're-too-kind-and-oh-look-at-poor-l'il-Grover-over-there-ain't-he-such-a-cutie-but-SHAME-ABOUT-THE-LATE-BLOOM.
Just smile and wave, Mr. Underwood. Smile and wave, they're the tools of the trade.
(Cue a tedious hour of performing a concert for strawberry plants)
I love nature, really. I love the freshness that each countryside breath brings, I love the mountains and their mysterious beauty, held up so high amongst clouds, I love to hear the first bleats of a new born lamb and I love to see the very bottom of a pristine pond, speckled with beads of sunlight. I would die for it all, I would die to save it from being destroyed and forgotten.
It's just that leaves have very limited conversation topics.
"Uh, Grover…can you pass me that watering can?" someone called. I looked up and my eyes fell upon some dorky kid with huge green eyes and spiky ginger hair, probably from the Demeter cabin.
"Here," I mumbled flatly, and chucked the can at him as hard as I could.
"Thank – AH!" There was a metallic crash! And I couldn't but chuckle evilly under my breath.
I was just about to go back to playing my panpipes when –
In the beginning, there was the Word, and the Word was –
"Hey, you!"
AN: Yay! First chapter! I wanted to make Grover the Chosen One because not many PJO fanfics feature him as a main character...so I'm the first (I think) to write a story from his POV! Now tell me what y'all think.