{Chapter 6 : The Godlings & the Titan}
Moments after the boy spoke, Dionysus ushered him away, while Chiron quickly shooed everyone off except for the select few who were involved in bringing him into camp. It was hours later that Zoë, Ruin, Stein, and their parents were lead into a building in New Rome. It could've been a police station, if they had a reason to have police, they walked down a long bleached, white corridor, until they came to a signless door. When Chiron unlocked the door, they walked in, in a nice neat line, rather uniform for the situation, but she knew she'd get into trouble if she complained, so she kept quiet and took a seat between her Mom and Dad.
Chiron lifted the blinds that blocked their ability to see into the next room, sitting at a metal table in the middle of a blank, white room was the boy. His head was down so she guessed he was either asleep or close to it, nearby lying on the round was his griffen, it also seemed to be sleeping, but in a rather strange position, with its limbs tucked underneath itself, a content look on its face, and its tail halfway up the wall.
They all watched him for a moment before Dad asked an important question, "Firstly, why are we here and secondly, can he see or hear us?"
In his wheelchair Chiron looked older, Zoë wondered if it was just the dim lighting, but he looked like he'd aged twenty years in an hour. He had just opened his mouth to answer when the door to the sitting room opened once again, this time it was Mr. Grace, , and Mr. Zhang the took three seats to the left of Dad, all silent and wondering, still had his daughter's pacifier hanging from one of his belt loops too.
The aging centaur was finally able to answer Dad's question after it was quiet again, he looked through the window, "Well Percy, Dionysus wanted to ask the boy questions to see if what he says is truthful, so you all are here to hear the answers to those questions and to propose what questions we should ask him. As for seeing or hearing our conversations , the glass is a one-way mirror, and this room has been sound-proofed, the only way we'll hear him is through the speaker in the corner of the room and the other one beneath the table." She looked around as he finished speaking and noticed the atmosphere suddenly got incredibly serious, her father's eyes were for once bright with anger, while her mother's were as cold and hard as steel. Before anyone could speak again the door of the other room opened, and in walked herself, it was obvious she was as headstrong as ever, and by 's reaction she hadn't told him she'd be doing the questioning.
He was up and over to the door within seconds and was trying with no avail to open the door to get out, "I was not told about this!" Mr. Grace snarled as he tugged on the handle one more time, before he put his hands up, but surprisingly or unsurprisingly if you knew her well Lady Reyna was the first to open her mouth.
"Cut it out Grace, you're NOT going to blast through that door, because if you hurt my baby boy I will strangle every ounce of Lightning out of your body!" She didn't yell, but used a whisper that dripped with enough venom to kill an entire army of cyclopes.
Stopping he put his hands down for a moment, and looked over at the woman and saw she was completely serious. Next Chiron spoke up with more of a calm demeanor then the previous, "Calm down son, the boy is much too injured to do much harm, even if he wanted to." It didn't seem to diminish his worries or fears, but he did reclaim his seat once again.
Mrs. Grace took the seat on the other side of the metal table, the griffin quickly woke up and waddled over to her, it's beak came within an inch of the woman's nose before the creature withdrawled and instead began preening the boy's hair. When he didn't wake up, it quickly changed tactics, opening its beak, the griffin eagerly ran it's tongue over the side of the boy face, making him sit up quickly with his eyes still closed tightly.
The boy sat there a moment before he reached up and touched the right side of his face, his eyes opened slowly as if he was still processing that the creature had licked him. Startled dark grey eyes looked around the room before locking his eyes on the griffin who was trying to hide in the corner of the room. It looked back and saw he was looking, and slinked over slowly, almost as if it was guilty for waking him, he raised his hand to the creature, but it didn't flinch away surprising instead in plodded closer and allowed the boy to bury his head into it's chest.
He came out coughing lightly, a couple of feathers were stuck in his hair, but surprising the boy smiled a grin at the creature that made Zoë wonder why they were trying to interrogate him, his smile was one that reflected pure happiness, even injured and probably afraid, he could smile as if nothing was wrong, and at a creature whose species was known to be a dangerous man eaters. The boy suddenly spoke, he had a little bit of laugh in his voice too, "Spero you giant chicken, remind me to comb your feathers, you almost suffocated me." He then proceeded to drag his fingers multiple times through the griffin, Spero's chest feather sending multiple feathers into the air. The feathers made cough loudly, which made both the boy and the griffin turn to look at her, "Oh my gosh, I'm sorry!" He spoke as he tried fruitlessly to grab all the feathers, "I didn't see you there." He added before getting up and reaching over the table as if to help, but instead she flinched away from him, which the boy then looked bewildered at his hands and sat back down, his attention now focused completely on her.
Mrs. Grace cleared her throat, "I would like to ask you a series of questions, first off what is your name, so I know what to call you."
He sat there, shifting his weight from one side to the other, his eyes blanked for a moment, Zoë could sense he felt trapped, probably shouldn't have flinched, now he knew that he wasn't among friends. He let out a sigh, "My name is Hybrid." He mumbled quietly as he dragged one of his hands through his hair.
"Please tell me what your real name is young man." She watched as he stopped and from seemingly nowhere pulled out a pair of glasses, he put them on and fixed his hair to the left side, creating three prominent streaks of raven hair that stood out amongst the blond.
"I don't know what you want me to say, my name is Hybrid, I was named it by my mother because she thought it would be the perfect name for me." He was now more serious, and was no longer trying to be polite with his words.
"So you're being truthful?" Zoë heard the light charm speak, that lined the question as clear as day, her best friend Kala also had her mother's skill so it made it easy for her to pick up on.
"Yes." The boy's eyes unfocused and grew into a pale grey for a moment, he shook his head.
"Good Hybrid, you may call me Mrs. Grace if you'd like." Mrs. Grace was now laying the charm speak on thickly, the boy, Hybrid nodded slightly as if in a trance.
"Perfect, how old are you Hybrid?"
"Fourteen." Hybrid's voice had become painfully monotone.
"Now tell me, who are your parents?"
"My-" Suddenly he went stiff, his eyes starting darkening to the point of being completely black. Hybrid let out a hollow snarl his fingers raking at his throat, tears streamed down his face as his eyes started flickering between a terrified Dark Grey and a Horrifying Black. Falling out of his chair he tried to crawl over to Sparo, but he didn't make it before a loud screech exploded to life, Zoë couldn't see him until from the other side of the table he rose up slowly, Mrs. Grace was already out the room, when he reappeared so she didn't get to see the frightening spectacle.
Hybrid began laughing, quietly at first, but it soon rose in both volume and malice. He looked up with the most cynical grin on his face, and slowly crawled over the table, it was almost as if he saw them now standing, staring at him in awe. They all looked away towards the door as Mrs. Grace opened it from the outside, looking back they were surprised to see his face pressed against the glass, he now had eyes like a big cat stalking it's prey, "Silly, pathetic Godlings, I can hear your heartbeats, and once I stop them my ancestors will be even more proud!" He snarled viciously before throwing the entire steel table through the one-way mirror, but the demigods and their children were already gone running down the hallway by the time the demititan climbed through.
Chiron must've switched into his centaur form because as Zoë was running she felt a pair of hands lift her up and before she knew it she sat on the centaur's back, she looked back and immediately wished she hadn't. The boy was now riding on his griffin and was within moments of catching them, they burst from the building, but none of them stopped running until they noticed another boy standing in their path, and behind him stood two very pissed off parents, Prometheus and Pronoia.
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Prometheus without any permission marched into the building, to retrieve Hybrid, leaving Pronoia and the boy alone with the demigods.
Zoë slid off Chiron's back and walked over to where her parents stood, she noticed they were completely quiet, both had a look she wasn't used to and was unsure what exactly it was. She opened her mouth to speak, but the boy with now fearful Hazel eyes spoke first, "Momma is Hyd gonna be okay?"
Pronoia looked startled by the question, but smiled with such warmth that Zoë felt it was extraordinarily genuine, "Of course darling, this has happened before. He just needs time to calm down and then he'll be back to normal."
"Are you sure?" The boy whispered, they could now see tears in his eyes.
The nymph was on her knees in seconds, her arms wrapped around him gently, "Yes my little hellion, I'm sure, everything's going to be fine." The boy buried his head into his mother's shoulder, where he let out a sigh.
Before they could say anymore, Zoë watched as the man walked out, on his back was Hybrid. He was sleeping heavily as if tranquilized, trailing closely behind was Spero, lopping happily.
The titan approached his wife, a proud smile on his face, as he used his head to gesture at the griffin, who'd gotten distracted by a squirrel, "Look what Hyd made, isn't it brilliant!"
"Woah! Can we keep him?" The other boy ran over to the creature and hugged it, "He's so Fluffy!"
The woman looked at the creature with interest, before she too walked over, but instead she picked up his taloned paw and petted it gently, "He is absolutely gorgeous!" Muttering she then pulled her fingers through his crest of raven feathers, " We're keeping him aren't we?" She added looking at her husband.
Prometheus smiled sheepishly, "I didn't think I had a say in it, Love."
"You don't, it's already bonded to Hyd, so it'll be impossible to get rid of, and besides we don't want a repeat of the rock situation do we?" Pronoia asked leading the griffin with her.
"No we don't." He cringed slightly as he too tried to pet the creature, "Now let's leave, the Gods made it clear they didn't want us here any longer than we had to be." He added giving up after it made an attempt to nibble on his hand.
"Fine by me, the stupid Godlings don't understand that now my poor little Hellion is going to suffer, because they couldn't just leave him alone." She folded her arms in a surprising prouty fashion, making her husband shake his head, before placing his free hand on her shoulder. She in turn touched the griffin's wing and her healthy son's head, to which they all began to glow, ever so slowing disappearing more and more before vanishing entirely.
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Zoë and her parents drove to the house in silence, all three had different things on their minds. They all continued to bed after a somber dinner, but she couldn't help but think about the titan boy and his griffin, and the pain they've put him through.
