HEY! I haven't written a Percabeth fic in a long time, so here is a multi-chapter. Sorry if you don't like it, but hey, don't like, don't read. Try not to flame me for retarded things like spelling, grammar, and the fact that you don't like my plot. If you have a problem, keep it to yourself and just read the fic already. Bear with me the first page or so. It gets better.
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters or places mentioned in the fic. So R&R.
"Crazy idea time." said Percy. He looked warily at the huge metal monster that was about to kill him and his friends. He couldn't die, he just had to save Annabeth.
"Anything" Bianca nervously agreed. Percy quickly explained about the maintenance hatch at the bottom of Talos's enormous foot.
"There may be a way to control the thing. Switches or something. I'm going to get inside." said Percy. To the untrained eye, he looked confident, but the skeptical look in his eyes and his tense muscles said otherwise.
"How? You'll have to stand under it's foot! You'll be crushed." said Bianca flatly. She just met Percy not too long ago and he was a decent guy. He was one of her first real friends. She would not let him get killed like this.
"Distract it. I'll just have to time it right." Percy said. Bianca's jaw tightened. He was stubborn, but she was even more so. Having a little brother did that to a girl.
"No. I'll go." Bianca said with bravery that surprised even her.
"You can't. You're new at this! You'll die!" stated Percy. His attempts to dissuade her didn't work.
"It's my fault this thing came after us. It's my responsibility. Here." Bianca said as she handed Percy the little god statue. That little metal figure that probably cost less than a few bucks may cost the whole group their lives. The irony of it fit right in to Percy's lists of things in his life that could have gone right but didn't thanks to his bad luck.
"If anything happens, give that to Nico. Tell him… tell him I'm sorry." Bianca said. Her brown eyes looked sad as she spoke her last words to him.
"Bianca, no!" shouted Percy, but Bianca charged off toward the monster. Percy couldn't let Bianca leave Nico alone in the world, an orphan. He knew too many half-bloods that were alone and he didn't want to see Nico be one of them. Yes, he was annoying, but he didn't deserve to lose his only caring relative like that. He promised Nico that he would protect Bianca the best that he could, and he wasn't taking it so lightly.
Besides, I'll survive. I'm used to this kind of stuff. Percy thought in an attempt to reassure himself. It was unnecessary, because he was most definitely sure that he was doing the right thing.
Percy threw Riptide in front of Bianca, and she tripped like he hoped. Percy sped up to the enormous foot and leaped into the maintenance hatch.
Bianca glared at Percy as he disappeared from her sight.
Inside of the rusty robot, it was dimly lit by flickering light bulbs, but Percy could make out a large control panel. Lights flashed a number of different colors and switches gleamed despite the bad lighting. Some parts of the walls and floor and even a few knobs and levers seemed to be rusted away, and Percy sure hoped that the rusted-out levers weren't important. He then noticed a large joystick like the one from those Pac-Man games that Dionysus loved so much. Percy toggled the joystick and the monster stopped.
Well, that was easy. Percy thought, slightly relieved.
He could hear the rusty gears creak as the huge metal monster turned his head. It sounded like someone was plucking a live harpy when the metal monstrosity moved it's joints. Percy started flipping the joystick like a maniac trying to get the useless pile of scrap metal to do something. He felt the metal creature vibrate as it punched itself. His legs wobbled unsteadily as the metal beneath him shook.
"Go Percy!" Bianca yelled from outside. He did it! He was doing it! She would definitely apologize to everyone after this mess. It seemed like she caused more trouble than she was worth, but she was so, so glad that Percy had followed them. She totally owed him now. Were Huntresses of Artemis allowed to hug boys that saved their lives?
"Percy is inside? Zoë asked disbelievingly. She stared at the statue in a mixture of horror and begrudging awe. A flicker of respect leaked into her voice, but it was too faint to be of any significance.
"How will he get out?" yelled Thalia. The enormous figure shuddered then staggered as it ran… right into the power lines.
"Percy, watch out!" yelled Bianca. It was a little late for her outburst, but she couldn't help herself. It was better than shrieking. Zoё and Thalia would probably think of her as weak if she did.
Percy couldn't see where he was going inside the robot, which was probably one of the reasons that it ended up in the junkyard in the first place. The metallic giant snagged on the thin power wires and electricity danced along the monster's body in bluish-white arcs. Percy was burned in the process and fell on the panel of switches. His fingers were blackened by the force of the shock. He looked a bit charred all over. Some of his black hair was still smoking. He certainly felyt like Zeus had blasted him with a whole arsenal of lightning bolts.
Soon, the metal monster fell to pieces until there was just a pile of scrap metal. A huge cloud of red dust puffed up and concealed the chunks of what used to be Talos, the defective model.
"Perrrrcy!" bleated Grover as he ran around the pile of destroyed robot pieces. His face was a heart wrenching mixture between terror and worry. His hooves clopped on the metal as he leaped like a mountain goat from one large piece from the other. It was hard to see with all the dust in the air, but it wouldn't stop him from finding his best friend.
"Percy! Where are you!" screamed Thalia as she threw pieces of metal in a frantic search for her friend. She heaved a huge sheet of steel in the opposite direction, but was cut on the palm by one of its jagged edges. Red blood gushed from her split palm. She growled and furiously ripped a shed off of her Green Day t-shirt and wrapped it tightly around her bleeding palm. Her anger caused clouds to rush into the once clear sky.
"Show yourself, you foolish boy!" yelled Zoë. "This is no time for games!"
"Shut up you conceited little brat! Percy is not a fool for saving Bianca's life and…" ranted Thalia as the clouds grew dark and stormy to match Thalia's anger. Thunder rumbled and the air crackled with electricity. The wind picked up and even more dust swirled around them. Thalia reached instinctively into her pocket where her spear was hidden; in its travel-size version as a mace canister.
Bianca got a strange buzzing in her ears that somehow told her that Percy was slipping from one world, to another. She was perplexed on the reasons why she knew this, but she was somehow sure that it was true.
"Stop it!" yelled Grover. The two girls stopped bickering and looked in shock at the normally calm satyr.
"I've found Percy and he's badly hurt. He needs help! Now, would be great!" shouted Grover as he led the trio to see Percy. They ran towards a large clump of particularly large clumps of metal. Nearby was the large foot of Talos that had intrigued the group in the first place.
Percy's legs were pinned under a hopelessly heavy hunk of metal. A large gash sliced into Percy's forehead and lastly, a long, sharp metal shard had pierced Percy through his stomach. Percy was gasping to breathe. Tears ran down Grover's cheeks and the usual playful and fierce fire in Percy's eyes was fading. He looked more tired than anything.
Bianca covered her mouth and let tears spill freely down her cheeks. Thalia wiped tears away from her intense blue eyes. She didn't want Percy to see that he was in terminal condition. There were no doctors, no hospitals, no medics, not even a decent first-aid kit out here. If any god wanted to help, Thalia prayed to anyone that would listen to help Percy get better.
"I'm sorry if you wanted a turn to pla with the big metal thing. I kind of broke it." said Percy who had managed a smile despite the gruesome pain that he was enduring. Thalia, Bianca and Grover tried to smile, but Percy's shallow breathing was enough to send them to tears again. They tried to be happy-ish, for Percy's sake.
"Grover, thanks for being there for me, man. You'll definitely be the searcher to find Pan, I'm sure of it." croaked Percy as his eyes made contact with the satyr. Grover wanted to protest that Percy wasn't going to die, that he was going to remember a nature spell that would heal those cuts and bruises right up. But Grover knew no song like that, and with no life at all in the desert, it would be difficult, if not impossible to conjure anything by nature magic.
He then looked at Bianca. Her pretty brown eyes were watery as she looked at the boy who had taken her place. It should have been her who was lying in a junkyard, impaled by metal and dying. This whole stupid situation was her fault. The only one who deserved that fate was her.
"You're new at this, but be careful. Be sure never to forget Nico." whispered Percy. It was becoming too much of a strain for him to talk in a regular tone of voice. It was urgent that he told them this. There were too many things that went unsaid among them, and he wanted to make sure that he got the important stuff out. He then looked at Thalia.
"I'm sorry we got into so many fights, but hey. We're kids of the Big Three. What'cha gonna do? I'm sorry about that capture the flag thing." Percy said. Thalia could only nod as she wiped more runaway tears away.
"And Zoë, take care of Bianca. Don't let her steal any more toys for Nico." whispered Percy. He slowly lifted up his clenched hand, his arm shaking like a brittle leaf in a gale. Zoë just looked at Percy with a little remorse.
"Thalia?" said Percy in a barely-there whisper. His green eyes, which normally looked so electrifying were now reduced to a spark.
"Yes, Percy?" Thalia said quietly. The group of girls and Grover knelt around Percy. Their eyes gave him all their attention, and shone with terrible sadness that no one of their age should ever have to feel.
"Tell Annabeth one thing for me. Tell her that I'm sorry and… I wished that I could tell her this myself, but… I love her…I love her a lot." panted Percy. Perspiration glistened on his face so that his black hair stuck to his forehead. Percy let out one last shallow, quiet breath. His eyes fluttered closed, and the last sight that he saw was his best friends. He only wished that he could see Annabeth one last time.
"No!" screamed Thalia as she stabbed Talos's deformed head with her spear out of pure grief. She imagined that Percy could have cracked a joke about that being overkill. The thought of him caused her to sob unabashedly.
Bianca cried on Zoë's shoulder and Grover burst into tears. Zoë stood up, stoically. She looked almost pained as she looked at Percy's body. He had saved them all, even though he could have easily let Bianca be the one to destroy the monster. He was nothing like Hercules at all. She was wrong about him.
"It.. should've…been…me!" Bianca sobbed. Zoë patted Bianca comfortingly on the shoulder. Before anyone could classify this action as strange or abnormal, the zombie skeletons that had been pursuing them since Washington D.C. appeared in a cloud of dust.
"Go away! Go back to where you came from!" shrieked Bianca. The skeletons immediately fell into a crack in the ground and were swallowed up by the earth with a large crunch.
"Bianca, how did you…?" stuttered Grover. Only a god could do something like that; or a creature from the Underworld. Bianca couldn't be a child of the Underworld, could she?
"You're a… You're a…" stammered Thalia. Thalia slowly walked towards Bianca, her knuckles a bright white from clenching her spear.
"A daughter of Hades." finished Zoë. Zoë took a small step back from Bianca.
This event had made four things very clear. One, Bianca was a daughter of Hades. Two, Percy or Thalia might not be the prophecy child. Three, Percy loved Annabeth, which was probably obvious to everyone except for Annabeth. And lastly, Perseus Jackson, son of the Sea god, was dead.
It does not end here, so just chill out! I promise to update by either today or tomorrow! Try not to flame me too bad. But review PLEASE!