A/N Yeeeeah, I re-wrote the first chapter AGAIN, just a few minor changes, maybe 535 extra words total so it wouldn't sound so rushed to me …
Disclaimer
Me: Percy agrees with me that PJO or HP doesn't belong to me, right Perce? *holds shotgun to head*
Percy: Frost does not own PJO or HP, in addition her name is not Rick Riordan nor is it JK Rowling.
Me: Good, for that you can have the first PoV!
- indicates a line brake (intentional typo, yup!)
Chapter 1
Percy
Skydiving is a great idea!
WithOUT a parachute.
Okay, so skydiving from the Astronomy Tower is a fun thing to do, it really is! But I don't recommend it if you didn't plan further ahead than 'jump!' and improvise on the way down. But you should really know what happened in between first.
Me, Nico di Angelo, and Thalia Grace were headed up to the six hundredth floor of the Empire state building to check up on Annabeth's progress on the New Olympus. Yeah, Olympus is hanging above the Empire State building, go figure. She was the official architect and we wanted to visit. Thalia was off duty as hunting season for the Hunters of Artemis was over. Sure, they could always visit some foreign land where hunting season has begun, but that would be beyond the land of the gods. So the Hunters were cavorting in some forest where Artemis had enchanted immortal deer to hunt while they wait out the seasons. With nothing major to hunt, Thalia joined us to meet up with Annabeth. Nico was here, simply because he wanted to check up Olympus. He said it was for his own reasons, but I had a hunch that Hades was currently remodelling his own Olympus in the Underworld to match this one, which was heading towards 'Far superior to the last' and needed Nico to take some notes for him. So with all children of the Big Three Olympians headed to the Empire State building you can imagine how much monster attention we attracted, nothing we couldn't handle, though, the Empire state building will need to put out all the fires in their lobby and repair the blasted wall that scared the clerk out of his mind. Oh, and New York will need a replacement State of Liberty after I accidently activated it (Daedalus's automatons)
We had boarded the elevator and then the horrible typical elevator music finally stopped. Being slightly claustrophobic, I practically barreled out, past Thalia and Nico, and into open air.
'Ahh!'
I felt that funny feeling where you feel weightless right before a bone shattering fall when my feet stepped outside the elevator box and I began to plummet. I reached out desperately with my hand and Nico, noticing my fall quickly grabbed onto me, as Thalia grabbed onto him.
'Don't fall Kelp Head!'
'Pull me back!'
I certainly did NOT want to be staring at nothing but blue sky and clouds with potential lightning while hanging from a godly elevator and certainly not with nothing but grass far, far, far below me to cushion my fall.
As I dangled from the elevator, screaming my head off with ungoldy cussing at Nico to pull me the (censored) Hades up, my ADHD mind imagined what the casual mortal's point of view would be if they could see through the Mist. Maybe he/she would be having a picnic, enjoying the soft breezes and warm sun when they suddenly feel an urge to look up in the sky, and do a little bird watching. They they'd look up in terror, and the classic comical thought of 'It's a bird it's a plane it's an ... elevator?' would pass through their heads. I pictured there would appear to be a golden random rectangle hanging six hundred floors above a medieval castle with three hovering teenagers inside.
Then the thundering started.
'Oh Zeus, please don't electrocute us now!' Nico whimpered as the altitude caused him to become visibly dizzy.
'Nico! Don't fall out too! You owe me 5 Drachma!'
Too late, his nausea kicked in and he was coughing up the cookies I gave him earlier and tumbled out and I tightened my grip on him when he fell. I swear if I died, Nico sure as Hades was not going to get to live for letting me go because of stupid nausea! The unpleasant mixture of chewed up cookie and stomach acid continued to rained down on any poor mortals far far below as I struggled to get a better grip with both my arms. Thalia had to ram her legs, pinning them to the rail of the elevator to stop herself toppling out due to our weights combined hanging out the square into space.
'You two so called almighty heroes of Olympus need to lose some weight you fat derrieres!'
Because I was depending on her for my life, I did not engage her with small talk about how she suddenly could say butt in French, but tried to climb up a vomiting Nico instead to get back into the elevator. That, to put it blandly, was not a pleasant experience. I was never giving the Son of Hades cookies ever again.
Unfortunately, despite her Hunter of Artemis strength, Thalia still began to slowly slide towards the edge of the floor of the elevator, and she caught a glimpse of the ground far, far below. She paled and snapped her eyes shut tight. Did I forget to mention she had a fear of heights? This was bad, and kind of pathetic. You'd think between the tree Big Three gods a least one of us wouldn't have a fear of airplane heights. But because I was depending on her for my life I did not curse Thalia for being possibly the only child of Zeus to fear his domain and I put on my calming a scared horse voice and tried to calm her down.
'It's okay Thals, just don't look down,' I tried to be reassuring and not terrified as I hung six hundred floors from my potential death.
'Just take very sturdy, steady steps back from the edge of the elevator, and-'
'PULL ME UP BEFORE YOUR FATHER (CENSORED) US ALL!'
Thanks Nico, so much for sounding calm and reassuring.
Thalia was caught off guard by Nico's screams as her eyes snapped open in flaring anger and took a long peer at the ground below.
'O-oh-ohhhh that's a long way d-down!'
I saw her legs go slack from fear.
'THALIA NO!'
As if in slow motion, she plummeted, face first out the elevator that closed with a soft 'ding' as its passengers 'disembarked', and the golden window closed, revealing only only blue sky behind the elevator doors, leaving no trace that it had ever been there.
We were falling six hundred floors to a green pasture flashing past windows of a fourteen story tower so fast if you stared at them you'd pull a Nico, meaning you'd barf up your cookies. The tower was decorated with telescopes ant it was the tallest of the towers, spires and turrets of a ... castle?
'Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!'
'AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!'
'GEEEERONIMOOOOOOOO!'
Guess who said that.
We were screaming ourselves silly, wind whipped the hair out of my face and we streaked past a few unwary birds that squawked in alarm as crazy teenage demigods went skydiving without parachutes. I always wondered what it would be like for Zeus to blast me out of the sky, I guess I was finding out now, even if Zeus wasn't directly responsible. But you know what? This thought didn't cross my mind, neither did 'I'm going to Hades the hard way!' All I really thought of was AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
I flailed my arms in a desperate panic attempt to fly as all idiots skydiving without parachutes do. It was pointless, I know, it looked stupid, I know, but I was trying to live anyway I could, looking stupid or no.
'Grab my arm!'
A scrap of what Nico was yelling at me and Thalia burst through my blind panic stricken thoughts
'Huh?!'
'Grab my arm, and hold on tight!'
'You want me to hold your hand in a time like this?'
'Trust me!'
Thalia was not catching any of this through her own panic-screaming and closed eyelids so I grabbed her flailing duck arm and snatched at Nico's.
'Okay Percy, I'm going to shadow travel into our own shadows right before we hit the ground!'
My eyes must have been dinner plate wide as I realised what he was going to do.
'Are you crazy? We'll get flattened!'
'Well it's either we could get turned into demigod pancakes, or we will get flattened into demigod pancakes.'
'Just don't leave us behind!'
'Do I have to? I could deal with less chatter and generally Seaweed Brains in my life ...'
'Nico!'
'Joking.'
'When we're falling to our deaths?! Is this the time?'
'Hmm, I guess not, don't let go!'
We were plummeting past the last seven floors ... six ... five ... four ... three ... two ... I couldn't bear to look. I hear that if you fall for more than three seconds you'll likely black out from the fear as your brain is unable to cope with the fear. I think we've only been falling for two seconds, I hoped Nico was focused enough to not black out and doom us all because his brain decided to take a fear induced nap. I looked away at the last second and shut my eyes, the sound of the wind whipping at my Camp Half Blood clothes seemed to fade and quieten. Crap! Not now! Not the crucial moment of life and death was I going to black out! I was a son of Poseidon damn it! I forced myself to focus of the quickly oncoming familiar shadow and I heard a loud 'NOW!' and I prepared for impact. I felt nothing, I blinked my eyes and saw only darkness and wondered if I even opened my eyes at all. Did I black out? Am I dead? I wondered. Touch returned to my senses and I felt Thalia scrabbling for a better hold on my fingers which I realised had begun to slacken, I gripped my friends tight as we burst out of the shadows of a willow tree, stumbling onto the shores of a nearby lake.
'Di immortales Percy! Hold my arm tight but don't try to rip it off!' Nico yelled as he flopped on the grass we so very nearly smashed into.
'KELP HEAD I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO LEAVE ME BEHIND!'
'Guys, guys,' I waved my arms to get their attention, shut them up and swat away the negative anger directed at me.
'We're alive!'
This realisation ended all arguments as we burst out laughing, giggling, cackling, chuckling, and generally being relieved, adrenaline high demigod idiots.
Behind us an unfamilliar voice interrupted our chorus of laughter, saying 'Are you quite done?'
Yeeeeah, still a bit short, 1900 ish words, pitiful right? I'll try make chapters longer in say … 5 chappies?
Yeah, let's go with that, wish me luck in lengthy posting!
R&R IF YOU WANT TO LIVE, I HAFF CWOOKIES! *Is going through a cookie phase*
