Okay, I know that last time I forgot to include an author's note. I'm forgetful like that. Anyway, this chapter focuses mainly on Percy and Nico's quest to find Zahi and Zyli, and continues where the last chapter left off after delving into a little bit of backstory. This, and all other chapters not focusing on Zahi or Zyli, will be written in third person to prevent the confusion of shifting first person among the characters.
On a side note, I realized, with the help of Daughters of Night, that the line used to signify the flashback got moved up a couple of lines. The first line is supposed to be three spaces down and the second is supposed to be two spaces down. Sorry for any confusion that that may have caused.
Disclaimer: I don't own Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Rick Riordan does. If you didn't know that, you probably shouldn't be reading this.
"Which way did you say they were heading, Nico?" Percy said as he attempted, unsuccessfully, to decipher a map of the surrounding area with his dyslexic eyes. They were sitting on a hard, green bench at bus stop. They weren't really trying to catch a bus, unlikely due to the huge amount of traffic on that particular winter morning, but they were getting frustrated with their quest to bring the two new half-bloods to Camp. They never seemed able to catch them at an opportunity that would be suitable for convincing them to come to Camp Half-Blood. It doesn't make sense, Percy found himself thinking more and more often, The male should have been claimed by now, and their names aren't on the list of the gods' children either.
"They were heading north when they blew the pumps of that gas station to Tartarus. We could always summon Mrs. O'Leary to sniff them out," Nico suggested as he peeked at the map to provide deciphering assistance. "The maps upside down."
"Really?" Percy questioned as he squinted his eyes to see the map clearer.
"Yeah, the N's backwards, I think," Nico replied while also squinting his eyes.
"Screw this," Percy said as he crushed the map angrily in his hands. "Call Mrs. O'Leary." Nico nodded and used his black as a black hole, Stygian iron sword to summon a spirit, give it orders to get Mrs. O'Leary, and dismissed it. A few moments later, an impossibly large, black dog appeared and tackled Percy. "Down, girl, down!" Percy exclaimed while laughing and receiving many odd looks from passerbys.
After calming the big dog down, they gave her the scent sample, hopped on her back, and told her to find the half-bloods. "Once we get there, how are we supposed to get them to come with us?" Nico asked as Mrs. O'Leary dashed among the pedestrians on their way to the target. "They dash off every time they see us."
"I don't know. We could try kidnapping them, but I don't think Chiron would approve of that particular method," Percy replied while scratching his chin thoughtfully. "We could also try blocking all the exits in order to force them to listen to us."
"Yeah, let's go with that plan," Nico said as he yawned loudly, "I think we should get a little shut eye before we get there though."
"Okay, but how are we going to sleep on Mrs. O'Leary without falling off?" Percy said as he too succumbed to the contagious yawns.
"I have rope," Nico stated as he reached around in his backpack for the rope. Several minutes later, Percy and Nico were sleeping on the back of Mrs. O'Leary, tied down with the rope, as she sped toward the elusive demigods.
Two hours later (they were really off in their calculations) Mrs. O'Leary stopped at a mall complex and shook herself until her passengers were fully awake. After slicing the rope, Nico and Percy hoped off of Mrs. O'Leary and entered the complex, excited, well-rested, and ready to go. Thus, they entered, after Nico had picked the lock to the entrance, with Mrs. O'Leary riding point. Eventually they were lead to a small shop that was located towards the back of the complex and Nico picked the lock again. Just before they entered, however, they heard shuffling feet, snarls, and other odd sounds for that time of night. Then they heard the girl demigod yell, "They're here, Zahi! Wake up!" before the large glass windows to their right exploded inward as several empousai, hellhounds, and telekhines jumped in and started to charge their way to the two demigods.
"Come on! We need to get to them before the monsters do!" Percy yelled as he pulled out Anaklusmos and started charging while also slashing at monsters if they got too close. Nico followed suit, running after Percy after drawing his pitch black, Stygian iron sword. When they arrived at the source of the earlier yell, the monsters were already there, but instead of two dead demigods, they saw a multitude of physical, 3-D shadows that were holding sick, wicked swords, spears, and axes, as well as the occasional hammer-type weapon.
Among the shadows, however, were flying balls of light that sought out the monsters and exploded in their faces, which should have also cleared away the shadows, but they just stood here and there killing monsters that got too close. On the back of every shadow was a black cord-type thing that led to the small girl's fingertips, many on each finger. The fingers remained still, but every so often the cord connecting to the back of a shadow twitched and the shadow moved to strike down an enemy.
Percy signaled to Nico and began walking around the shadow beings with Nico following the older boy's lead. Once they made it to the end of the shadow beings, they turned a corner and they attempted to finally talk to one of the two demigods while the monsters were being kept busy by the shadow beings. "Hey," Percy began, but was cut off by a ball of light to the face.
As Percy vigorously rubbed his eyes to remove the spot of light that spread across his vision, Zahi yelled, "Call off your monsters! Your outnumbered, there's no way you can win."
"They're not our monsters, you dolt! Or haven't you noticed the fact that they try to kill us too?" Nico yelled back as Percy finally stopped scraping his eyelids off.
"We've been trying to talk to you and tell you about a safe place that you can come with us to," Percy added in as his eyes finally adjusted to the lack of light.
"Yeah, well what if I don't believe you! I wouldn't trust you stalkers as far as I could throw you!" Zahi shouted back, preparing another ball of light.
"Listen, you little..." Nico started to say, but was cut off by a soft, but still audible, thud from behind Zahi, and the mysterious disappearance of the shadow beings. Zahi turned around and was struck speechless as his eyes took in the arrow protruding from his little sister's prone form. Immediately, he was over the prone form, examining the arrow and amount of blood lost.
"Percy, can you take down all of the monsters?" Nico asked as he also examined the wounded area of the little girl. Percy nodded before he jumped over the barricade of couches, chairs, tables, mattresses, and other furniture that the two children had set-up, and started slashing his way through every monster that happened to land in his field of vision. Because Percy had bathed in the River Styx two years ago, he was invincible. The monsters learned this when their weapons shattered on contact with his skin, but they didn't have much time to retain that info due to Percy slashing them to dust two seconds after being hit.
"Don't remove that arrow!" Nico shouted as Zahi grabbed hold of the shaft. "We need something to cauterize the wound and prevent further bleeding."
"Well how do we do that?" Zahi replied desperately, just wanting the arrow to be removed from his sister's limp form.
"We need something really hot, something that will dry the blood quickly when we remove the arrow," Nico replied, looking around for said source of heat.
"Oh, well I can create the heat. You just remove the arrow," Zahi responded as he rubbed his hands together in preparation. Nico, seeing the determined look on the younger boy's face and knowing that he wouldn't listen to reason, complied and yanked the arrow out. Zahi placed his hands on the wounded area and Nico was tased by the steam coming from the wounded area. After about ten seconds, Zahi withdrew his hands with a mumbled, "Don't want to burn her," as Nico touched the, now dry and non-bleeding, wounded area. Percy had also finished killing all of the monsters at about the time that this happened and thus came to examine the arrow while Nico got over his shock.
"C'mon, we need to get her to Camp," Percy stated matter-of-factly after he had finished examining the arrow.
"Wait a minute! Who says we're going with you guys anyway?!" Zahi shouted as he picked up his limp, seemingly lifeless, sister.
"This arrow was poisoned," Percy stated as he tossed it into the trash. "It wasn't a super strong poison, but it still stronger than the resources we have with us. The way I see it is that you can come with us to Camp, or you're sister dies. That's all there is to it."
"Okay, we'll come, but how do you expect us to get there quickly, genius?" Zahi questioned with an severely sarcastic (you'd have to be denser than a black hole to miss it) tone after what had been a long pause.
"We'll need to Iris message Chiron and have him send Argus to come get us," Nico said quickly, signaling to Percy to do his water-voodoo-magic thing and create a mist in the air. Percy complied and pulled out a Drachma, Olympian money, and handed it to Nico.
"Oh, Iris, Goddess of the Rainbow, accept my offering," Nico said as he tossed the coin into the mist. "Show me Chiron, Camp Half-Blood." Shortly afterward, an elderly looking man in a wheelchair appeared in the mist.
"Nico?" He inquired, but didn't seemed fazed by the fact that he was seeing a person in a cloud of mist. "Is everything alright?"
"Yeah, well, no not really. We found the half-bloods, but one of them got poisoned and we don't have the resources to heal her," Nico explained quickly, "We need you to send Argus as fast as possible so that we can take them to Camp."
"Okay, but where are you," Chiron asked as a man in the background walked by holding a can of Diet Coke and playing a Gameboy Advance.
"Oh dangit! I don't know where we are! Well, um, wait a minute! Nevermind, Chiron I have a better way to get to camp," Nico said as he swung his hand, rather violently, through the mist.
"What's this 'better' way of travel you're talking about, Nico," Percy inquired as he sat in one of the easy chairs.
"We're going to shadow travel, Percy," Nico declared with a smile at his brilliant idea. "We can use Mrs. O'Leary and I to take all of us to Camp. I'll take Zahi, while you and the girl can travel on Mrs. O'Leary." Upon hearing her name, Mrs. O'Leary bounded and hopped her way over to the group away from her chew toys (aka the furniture). Then Percy wasted no time in taking the girl from the boy and hopping onto the back of Mrs. O'Leary, despite Zahi's protests about not going with his sister.
"Don't care," Nico snapped as he grabbed hold of the boy's arm and shadow traveled at the same time Percy told Mrs. O'Leary, "Camp Half-Blood," and she too shadow traveled to the specified location.
Hope you enjoyed chapter two, but I must ask. Do you think that the chapters are two short? I considered making this one longer, but I decided that that was a good place to end it. Also, what do you think of the plot? The spelling? Please tell me what you think in a review, or pm if you're not comfortable typing a review, but don't send flames, there really isn't any reason for that.
PS: Can anyone guess who Zahi/Zyli's godly parent is/are?