TAW Productions
PJO series is for Rick Riordan and not for the TAW so please do not accuse any members of the TAW on Anything…thank you.
Note: the TAW got quite a few personal messages directly to our e-mail, almost half of which said that they didn't really like the explicitness of the so called 'sex scenes' and the other half which appreciated that there in fact was mature themes such as sex. I myself, (Asshole #3), wrote the first chapter and came up with the storyline, where the other two assholes before myself, 1 and 2, agreed to it. So due to the mixed feedback I will keep writing the way I was in the first chapter.
Speak of the Devil!
Percy sat himself down on the uncomfortable seat near the terminal of flight 28A going to Cairo in OR Tambo International Airport. The airport was loud and extremely crowded, but fortunately not many people were travelling to Cairo at five am. Annabeth appeared to his right, with a reassuring look on her face. To his left, Travis sat, twitching and scratching his arms.
"Percy, can I talk to you for just a minute?" a voice came from above him.
It was Chiron, in his wheelchair disguise, in front of him with a tranquil face and concerned eyes. "It will only take a minute."
Percy stood up and sighed. It was quite a long day. First they had to trek from the Nemean lion death site to the airport in Madagascar and then fly to Johannesburg, where there next flight to Cairo was already in order.
When at a few meters away from the campers, Chiron started talking. "It was an amazing thing you did back there, Percy. Few survive the wrath of the Nemean lion. And only one did it twice." His eyes twinkled with pride.
Percy felt his tiredness shake away by the sound of the praise. "Thank you, sir. I was doing what I can."
"Yes, indeed you were. Now let me draw your attention to something. You are on demand now."
"What do you mean?" Percy asked, confused.
"I mean the gods see that you are a person that can get things done. They will ask you to do tasks that no one can do quite frequently, either to get you killed, or to just entertain themselves." Chiron looked at him intently.
"You don't say." Percy wasn't surprised. He could imagine the gods getting bored now that the war with the Titans was finally over.
"Yes, you are part of a game now. They gamble on your health, I should say. The Nemean lion was planted by Ares as a test of strength." Chiron replied.
"I should've known." Percy shrugged. "Will there be constant tests like that?"
"They happen randomly. Don't let it get into your daily routine to be cautious, though. I'm sure that you are ready at any time of the day." Chiron nodded at him, expecting him to comply.
"Certianly, Chiron." Percy nodded back.
"And how is it going between you and Annabeth? Since the…separation?" Chiron paused before considering the last word he said.
"What? Hm, it's going well, Chiron. Better than I expected." Percy lied.
"It's too bad that you had to go your separate ways. You are still talking to her, I gather?" Chiron inquired, curious.
"Of course, Chiron." Percy forced out. He usually couldn't speak about his breakup with Annabeth with anybody. Not even himself.
"Great, great, yes, great, Percy." Chiron muttered. "If anything changes, I will update you. In the meantime, have a great flight." He smiled a centaur smile and wheelchaired away.
Percy sat back down beside Annabeth. She gave his neck a squeeze to let him know that she was there for him. And Percy couldn't ask for more than that.
The flight to Cairo was quite long but the plane was for the most part empty. The second half of the plane, from its middle to its tail, was void of life. So the camper spread themselves out and got comfy for the time being. Percy was searching for a place to rest his head.
He found a combination of three seats and after removing the seat separators, lied down and closed his eyes momentarily before being disturbed once again.
It wasn't Chiron this time. Or Annabeth. It was Selena, the leader of the Aphrodite cabin. Her hair was dyed blonde today, which really suited her. She had very smooth skin and a overtly beautiful face, her lips small yet pronounced, her eyes shiny and smoothly shaped, and her cheeks perfectly giving a girl next door accent to her whole look. She was wearing a tank top with a pair of hiking shorts and flip flops.
"Percy. I know you're tired and everything but I just wanted to talk to you for a second." Selena began slowly.
"So does everybody." Percy sat up straight to give her room to sit down. "What do you want? To talk about, I mean." Percy shook his head, embarrassed.
"Just stuff. I haven't talked to you in a while. I just wanted to see how you were doing after the lion incident." Selena looked pryingly at Percy's face.
"I'm fine, thank you. It's just been a very long trip for me and I'm just glad we're going back to camp." Percy replied, keeping his true feelings reserved. He didn't feel like Selena was the right person to tell what he felt to.
"I saw you with Joanna last night. It wasn't the impression I wanted to give her about you but, what the hell." Selena smiled a small but sincere smile.
"It's not what you think. I didn't-" Percy started, but got cut off.
"Do the nasty? Well, I guess that's pretty disappointing for her, considering she's had her eye on you ever since you got dumped by Annabeth." Selena said flatly.
Percy felt his mouth go dry. "Yeah. Look, I'm really tired, and I need to just rest my head, alone, for a minute."
Selena didn't reply, but gave him a look that said, "Just get over it." She then stood up and left.
Percy stretched his legs again and rested his head on the hard pillow of the airplane seat. Annabeth didn't dump him. Her no good mother just told her to break up with him or else she will never get what she wants in life. And apparently Percy just wasn't one of those things.
They arrived in camp approximately the next day. A celebration was to be held for Percy, who had defeated the Nemean lion for the second time. He didn't manage to get the pelt, yet there were enough eyewitnesses to confirm the tale. There was a lot of dancing, cheering, and clapping for Percy, who was not used to the attention before.
In the middle of the festivity, ambrosia glasses were raised by the demigods and they chanted, "Speech, speech!" at Percy, hoping he would indeed give them a speech.
Percy, encouraged by Annabeth, stood on a table and addressed the audience.
"Fellow demigods! To say I am happy is an understatement. I am truly grateful for the whole event today, organized by Chiron and Mr. D. Although it is not in my best interest to say this but it seems that that I don't know you all as well as I should like, and I don't like more than you think than you deserve." Percy said smartly, and the half-bloods glanced at each other, confused. "Believe in yourself, is my theme, and you will conquer all!"
They cheered. Percy clapped and everybody else followed. It was a truly joyous scene, and Percy enjoyed it not because of the attention, but because he was back home, in a familiar scene. Things might just go back to the way they were back here, but no way in Madagascar.
After he jumped off the table, he hugged Annabeth. She was all smiles, and so was he, because it was a truly joyous moment. He had survived the wrath of the Nemean lion, and he lived to tell the tale, twice!
"You wanna go watch a movie?" Percy shouted over the cheering. He was hoping he could celebrate alone a bit with Annabeth.
"Sure, of course!" Annabeth nodded while she screamed back.
"What would your mother think?" Percy replied loudly.
"To tell you the truth, right now I don't really care!" Annabeth smiled.
And so they went to downtown New York, where everything happens and the city never sleeps. It wasn't a trip of lust or love, but just a trip that two friends would normally take when they are adventurous.
They got to the Upper East Side of New York fairly quickly. They took a taxi to the outskirts of the sector and then walked to it, and in the meantime talking about everything they had encountered in their life up until now.
They finally arrived at the movie theatre. There weren't many interesting new movies, but there was a reshow of a movie called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. They decided to watch it, given that they didn't really come all the way to the Upper East Side for nothing.
The movie was very depressing at first, but it ends on a very happy note. It says that all relationships can work, given that the right amount of work is put into it. Annabeth was teary in the end, but it was nothing that Percy couldn't handle.
"Don't cry Annabeth, it's all good now. They decided to give it another shot." Percy said reassuringly.
"I know, I just can't help it." Annabeth hugged Percy tightly as he helped her stand out of her seat.
They got out of the theater and started walking around the crowded street. It was so crowded they could barely sustain a conversation without breaking apart to dodge crowds of people passing by in the opposite direction. They finally decided to cut through the crowd and walk through a dark alleyway that would take them to the other side of the theater building. At first it seemed like a good idea.
As they walked through the alleyway, they got a sense of how long and black it actually was. Percy stopped for a second and Annabeth glanced at him with cautious eyes.
"What is it? Because I hear something too." Annabeth asked quietly.
"I don't know. But stay on your guard." Percy resumed walking very slowly, trying not to alert anything that might come up or that might be there.
After a few minutes of cautious walking, they hear a voice behind them, deep and menacing, but strangely familiar to them.
"Perseus Jackson…" the voice said, and then faded back. Percy turned around swiftly and opened his hands. He could usually sense their movement from his palms.
"Perseus Jackson…"another voice said, but from his right.
"Perseus Jackson…" from his left.
"It's the Furies." Annabeth muttered.
"The Furies? What the hell do they want?" Percy stared back at her, confused. "Show yourself! I command you to show yourself!" Percy demanded commandingly.
There was a synchronous laughter from all three. Faint red lights then appeared in the alleyway, which gave the appearance of three, ugly and menacing creatures. Each had an open mouth with a different number of teeth, all were sharp and their faces were uglier than Percy could ever imagine.
"Die, Perseus Jackson, in the name of vengeance." One hissed, and in a split second it leaped towards Percy, almost knocking him off guard.
"Ahh!" Percy shouted. He dodged her attack, barely, and uncapped Riptide. He saw Annabeth pull out her dagger. They were after him, again. What could he have done wrong now?
After a succession of strikes from one of the Furies Percy was disarmed. He couldn't dive for the sword because that would give them a clear strike at his back, which he would greatly regret. Instead he decided to fight with his bare hands, like he did the Nemean lion. The Furies slashed with sharp nails and claws as well as rushed him head first. Percy smartly dodged all subsequent attacks and waited for the right moment to strike. He saw Annabeth fending off one of the Furies, so he had two all to himself.
One of them charged, and Percy, noticing it's slithery figure, waited for the right moment and gave the incoming Fury's face a furious punch that slammed it face first into the ground. The other Fury did something similar and started swiping its long, sharp claws at Percy, and he dodged almost all of them, leaving the remaining few to scar his face and his arms. He then managed to grab one of it's arms while it was jabbing and make a little return to sender, where he used the Fury's arm to nearly cut off it's own neck.
Glancing at Annabeth once again, he saw that she was almost finished with the Fury. She skillfully dodged three swipes from the Fury and stabbed it in between it's eyes. The Fury fell to the floor, defeated. She was controlling her breathing, a skill that barely anybody can do while in such a challenging encounter with such violent enemies. She then sheathed her dagger and looked expectantly at the Fury, waiting for it to fade into dust.
And it did, as Percy walked over to her to ask her a pretty stupid question. "These weren't actually the Furies, were they?" he inquired incredulously.
"No, they weren't. These were women seeking revenge on their lover's sins, powered by the Furies' blessings. I could imagine who they'd want revenge on." She turned to look at Percy, eyebrows raised.
"What, me? I've only had one lover in my life, and I'm pretty sure she doesn't have sharp teeth and claws." Percy seemed offended.
Annabeth chuckled. "I didn't mean you, Seaweed Brain. I was just looking at you to acknowledge your presence."
"Oh, ok. You scared me there for a minute…" Percy turned around, to survey the alley. It seemed as if nothing happened at all. All the evidence that could have shown that a fight had indeed ensued here was nonexistent because it vanished with the dust of the Fury-possessed women. He then heard a phone ringing.
He turned to look at Annabeth and heard it coming from her jeans pocket. It was the traditional phone ringtone from the early 90s. Who the hell would be calling Annabeth at three am?
"Who's calling you?" Percy asked, curious.
"I don't…I can't get it out of my pocket!" Annabeth struggled to get her hand into her pocket at all. "Percy, a little help please?"
"But of course. Why are you wearing such tight jeans anyways? I know you don't like tight stuff." Percy shook his head, displaying fake disappointment.
"But I know you do." Annabeth said, and almost immediately laughed out loud at her dirty reference. And since she does these references almost all the time when with Percy, his natural reply would be a sincere laugh and a,
"ZING!" Percy said emphatically. He tried to shove his hand in Annabeth's pocket, but in the dark he could barely make out where it was open from. While trying to dig into the pocket, he accidentally ripped the zipper and the button of the jeans, but he succeeded in extracting the phone from the pocket, which was still ringing.
"Here you go." Percy handed it to Annabeth, who still had a smile on her face. She answered the phone and the expression on her face immediately changed.
After a couple of nods and a couple of 'okays' she said, "I'll be right there. See you in a few."
"Where we goin'?" Percy asked loosely, sticking his hands in his jean pockets because he was feeling a little chilly.
"I have a meeting. You have to come with me." Annabeth said vaguely. "Come on, I'm already late."
"Ok." He replied, surprised by her sudden matter of fact-ness. She started walking out of the alley rather quickly and Percy followed. They came to a quicker pace once they reached the main street. Generally, any human being can cover more ground by foot than by car in the Upper East Side of New York when there is an extreme amount of traffic around the main streets. And if you were a demigod, you would cover much, much more ground.
They headed back in the direction of the Camp, but then ventured off to the south, where they found a fairly large house, with a fairly spectacular architecture. There were two stairways that led up to the same door, with an elegant and different design on each. To the left and right of the door, there were large columns, ones you would see in Ancient Greece ruins in Athens of the old temples where they used to worship the Gods in. Of course, they are not of much use now as they were back then, but they were amazingly reincarnated in this house.
After examining the fantastic architecture, Percy followed Annabeth, who treaded up the stairs in a hurry. She then knocked to the double door, painted a dark mahogany. After a few seconds, the door opened, and a large figure came to greet them.
"Lord Hephaestus," Annabeth bowed her head to the god. Percy, stunned, did likewise. He heard tales before of the ugliness that has had a stranglehold on Hephaestus since his existence, but he thought that was just exaggeration. Unfortunately, it's very much true.
"I come here to take classes on being an architect. Lord Hephaesus teaches me the civil and mechanical aspects of it, and I also learn the math behind it here." Annabeth informed Percy promptly.
"And who teaches you math?" Percy inquired.
Hephaestus laughed at his inquiry. "Is that even a question, hero? It would be none other than-" he started, but was cut off by a woman's voice, strong and full of confidence, a voice that Percy had dreaded since the first time he heard it.
"Her mother."
Endnote: The movie mentioned in this chapter, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, is highly recommended. We all watched it and it was rather spectacular, but it was never very famous. It was one of those indie movies.
-Asshole #3
