Dehydrated Sugar And Poseidon's Scouts
Sally decided to accept the fruits and vitamins. "Thank you, I think fruit salad would make good desert," she said. "Do you want to stay for dinner?"
Poseidon did. While they were waiting he decided to give Percy yet another lesson. Poseidon took one sugar cube and suddenly there was a much bigger lump of coal in his hand. "I took the water out," he explained. "What's left is coal which does work against most poisons. It may have helped back when you were stung by that scorpion."
"So I may get some sugar after all," Percy concluded happily.
Poseidon handed him a cube. "Sure. Now try and dehydrate it."
Percy gave rolled his eyes but tried it anyway. Instead of coal, however, he got some water on his hand. He decided to play with the water. Poseidon chuckled.
"That's the normal process," he said. "Reverse of the synthesis that made the sugar in first place. That's water, energy and coal dioxide. The effect of sugar on you is greater than it is for other demigods – you get the normal energy boosted hyper –act and some extra from the water reviving you. And the water buffers the normal backlash when the sugar runs out. So when you have sugar-water you're getting really massive boost – with next to no backlash."
Paul figured that explained Percy getting expelled after extreme hyperactivity at a time. Knowing teens, only Poseidon could be telling Percy not to have some coke.
"That's good, right?" Percy said, making the water take different forms.
"Right now you need to know your strength without that boost," Poseidon told him. "At the camp of battling monsters is another matter entirely."
The dinner was delicious and blue. Afterwards Poseidon told Percy that he might be able to control some other liquids, and how most of human body consisted of water. "One of mine figured that out few decades ago," Poseidon told them. "That's when the war turned into our benefit. And Zeus got panicky about over-powerful demigods."
Thunder rumbled.
"And the Drama Queen just had to prove my point," Poseidon commented calmly, causing Percy to chuckle.
"Uh… right," Paul said uncertainly. Greek Gods being there had been one thing but to hear they were fighting each other in WW II – to learn that much of history wasn't quite as he knew it. Of course, he knew that the Greek gods used to punish mortals from the slightest offence. Particularly about history with someone who was there. He certainly didn't want to get between Poseidon and Zeus.
"So for now it's better to keep Percy off the coke," Sally cut in. "Now any ideas how do to get him clean up his room?"
"You ever heard of Augeas' stables, Percy?" Paul asked.
"Been there done that," Percy told him.
"Exactly," Sally said. "Percy will clean tons of dung but his room? No."
Poseidon chuckled. "I haven't heard that story. When was that?"
"A bit before the battle of the Labyrinth," Percy said. Then he began the story.
"They'd think of me as seafood?" Poseidon said indignantly when Percy told about his first chat with the horses. "I hope you taught them some manners."
"I did," Percy said. He went on, about talking with the river spirit and then calling up seawater from seashells. "Afterwards they WERE better behaved," Percy said. "They didn't like salt all that much."
"Good. That means they will behave – at least to me and mine from now on," Poseidon said.
Paul didn't know what to say – he understood why no one would clean the stables- and thought that Percy's method was better than Hercules'.
"So why would you NOT clean your room? No one's about to eat you there," Sally asked.
"Not messy enough," Percy told her, and Poseidon found that amusing.
"What about Mississippi?" Poseidon asked. "Think that's messy enough for you to clean?"
"I… I think we should," Percy said quietly. "Do you have any more Sand-dollars?"
"Oh no, too easy," Poseidon told him. "You want exercise. And I think you should involve some mortals too since they messed it up – how about setting up a group… call it Poseidon's scouts?" (A/N: Always wondered when Percy joined Poseidon's scouts that he'd worry about being kicked out. Yes, it could be a figure of speech – for anyone but Percy.)
"Sure," Percy said. "But we'd need to do something besides cleaning rivers."
Poseidon nodded and told Percy loads of things about travelling by sea like knots and navigation. They were enthusiastic about it – until Paul asked about Percy's homework. However, it was Paul who paled as both of them glared at him.
"Now Blowfish, we have something much more important to discuss," Poseidon told him.
"I'm sorry but you will be at school tomorrow, right?" Paul asked. "And Percy ought to be in my class and…"
"Fine, so what is it?" Poseidon asked.
"Just to- pick a poem," Paul said. "I'd expect you to recite it."
"I can't read, Paul," Percy protested.
"Audio books do exist," Paul told him. "Or you could ask someone else to read it aloud to you."
"I know exactly which one," Poseidon said. "And it also answers the question about rules for Poseidon's scouts."
"Excellent" Percy said. "What is it, then?"
"Poseidon's Law."
