Two Warriors; Salvation.
Chapter One: Pool Noodles.
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Percy felt odd as he rode Chiron towards the rising sun.
For one, it was the first time in what felt like a lifetime that he had a true, honest-to-Zeus quest—one not sought-out by him, or even invented by him, but one where he was actually needed to be a hero again. It was a rush, and a bit odd, like walking on a numb leg. Percy kept expecting it to fall out from under him.
For two, he was riding on a centaur. Holding onto a pool noodle. And he'd noticed about an hour ago that someone—probably a younger demigod—had woven colored yarn into the growing locks on Chiron's head. And then beaded them with bright, neon plastic beads.
"That's some hair-do." Percy noted out loud. It was the first time he'd spoken for a while—running full-out cross-country while towing an overweight god in a chariot and carrying two teenagers was apparently a bit tiring. Chiron was focusing all his breath on that, so he hadn't been able to talk much. Or, any. Percy was dying to know what they were supposed to be doing, and he could practically feel Nico shaking with curiosity.
"Yes." Mr. D. drawled. "After thousands of years inflicting young heroes with the pressures of life, they finally fight back. With rainbow beads."
"How cruel." Nico deadpanned behind Percy.
"So, what's going on at Olympus again?" Percy asked the lethargic-looking deity, for the third time. And received the same answer as the previous two attempts:
"It's a long story, and Chiron will do it better justice." Then, after a second: "And I don't want to tell it." Mr. D. drank down his Diet Coke with all the intent of an alcoholic after a bad day.
"Still on the bottle, I see." Percy muttered quiet enough that Mr. D couldn't hear him.
"Still underestimating godly prowess, I see." Mr. D. muttered back, apparently quite within range of godly hearing. Percy would have to remember that—despite the 'used-car-salesman' appearance, Mr. D. was a god.
"Could you not have picked a better word than 'prowess'?" Nico said at the same pitch.
"How did that medical education coming along?" Mr. D changed the subject. He seemed about as interested in Nico's education as Percy was in the functions of graphs in geometry. Which was to say, not at all.
"Very well, thanks." Percy remembered Nico attending classes, but he couldn't think of the last time Nico would have had a chance to actually attend one, what with running all over the country after Percy.
"Obviously." Mr. D. said sarcastically. Behind his more-for-fashion-than-darkness sunglasses, his eyes lingered on Percy's bone arm, a scratch on Nico's hand from a wayward branch, the bruises that littered the two of their arms.
"If you can't say something nice. . ." Percy said in a sing-song tone of voice. He left the rest implied, but Mr. D. didn't appear to be particularly worried about Percy's ideas of censorship.
"When have us gods ever been nice?" Mr. D. snorted.
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Some time later, Percy was clumsily dismounting from Chiron and tenderly stretching from side to side. All of his muscles seemed locked up and knotted, with the exception of the ones that didn't really exist.
It was odd, the way he kept reacting to his new almost-arm.
Every morning, he'd startle when he'd see it there, and it would twitch with his surprise, bones clacking. After so long of not having anything there, he'd forget its very existence—things that he could now kind-of do, like tying his shoes, would be easier if he could every remember that he could now do them. Usually, he didn't remember. Other times, he used the arching line of bones as instinctively as he once used his real arm, like when he scratched an itch. It took him a couple seconds to even realize he had, in fact, used the arm at all.
Percy wrapped his bone-fingers around the wrist of his other hands and pulled, stretching out the kinks in his right arm.
"How is the arm working?" Chiron asked, a little wheezily, from where he was shifting a few yards away.
"Good." Percy reflected a moment.
"The grip sucks." Nico noted from the grass behind Percy. He appeared to be trying in vain to become one with the earth.
"That's true." Percy had discovered that the morning he truly, actually woke up from his magic-induced coma the week previous. He'd tried to turn on a lamp with the arm, thinking it was a good a time as ever to figure out how to function as a bi-armed being again, only to find that smooth bone just slides straight off plastic.
Refusing to use his other arm and admit that this failure-of-a-limb just might be somewhat useless, Percy sat there in the dark for an hour swearing at the lamp and trying to turn it on, until Annabeth came in and turned it on for him.
"Hm." Chiron shook his hair back, bright beads swaying. "I'm expecting a story there, Perseus."
Percy swallowed and turned slightly, not meeting Chiron's eyes.
Then, he turned back, because he was sick and tired of hiding and apologizing for trying to do something for him—just because his life had never been anything more than a pawn, a martyr for the gods and their children, he'd always thought that that was all he was. Now, he deserved to try to fix things for himself.
"I'll give you a story then." Percy promised. "Later. First, what the heck is going on?"
Chiron's face turned grave and dark.
There were times when Chiron projected youth, vitality, strength. There were times when Percy forgot who Chiron truly was.
Then, there were times when the full fury of thousands of years burned in Chiron's eyes, and he seemed to fold inward on himself, like the weight of training and losing hundreds of sons and daughters had finally collapsed on him like the sky onto Atlas.
This was one of those darker times. Percy saw once again the figure of the Chiron of legend, the one sane centaur who lived amongst the very gods.
"You're scary, dude." Nico summarized behind Percy.
Chiron startled back a bit to his unassuming, softer self. "My apologies. We're all under a lot of stress."
"What's wrong?" Percy inquired. When Chiron didn't immediately speak, he stepped closer. "Chiron? What happened?"
"The gods are ill, Percy. The gods are dying."
The gods are dying, Percy thought.
The gods might die.
"Fuck." Percy said aloud.
"Rubber bands!" Nico practically yelled from behind him.
Simultaneously, incredulously, Percy, Chiron, and a begrudging Mr. D turned to look at Nico.
"What?" Chiron looked about as confused as Percy felt.
"Nothing." Nico rubbed his foot back and forth on the dirt.
The trio continued to stare at him.
"I just realized—if we wrapped rubber bands around Percy's finger bones, he'd have a grip." Nico mumbled.
Percy looked down at his hand and nodded. That might, actually, work.
"Di Ablo has his priorities straight." Mr. D said sarcastically. Chiron was looking from Nico to Percy to Dionysus with an odd look.
"Sorry." Nico muttered. "But, if Percy's your 'only hope' and all that, you're gonna need him at peak condition, right? So, rubber bands."
"Thanks." Percy said, honestly meaning it for the first time in a long time. "If the gods really are dying, I'm going to need all the help I can get."
"They are." Mr. D said unhelpfully.
"Lovely." Percy said.
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A/N: Part II is officially up! Also, I'll be going through and edited Part I as I go, to finally fix my little mess-ups.
Tell me what you think, luvs!
Tobi.