Wasssup,
Alright guys Let's do this, I think I have a plan for the pairings and a jealous Jason and I have a surprising reason to why Apollo acts so "Player" and dumb, it will involve emotions of course but that's how it goes. Anyway on with the story.
My Mom Teaches me bullfighting
"Oh no not this chapter" Percy groaned, Most Demigods and Gods shot him weird odd looks while Poseidon was starting to worry at what was going to happen.
We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.
"That's my kind of driving" Ares stated
"And that's why your bike ends up in my shop all the time" Hephaestus said
"And you end up in my infirmary" Apollo said
"Don't you get tired of fixing his bike all the time" Aphrodite whispered to Hephaestus
"I do, but I still fix it because when he is happy your usually happy" Hephaestus said while smiling at her. Aphrodite's heart speeds up and she blushes and mutters a thanks while moving closer towards her Husband.
Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.
"Man your thoughts are comedy relief Percy" Hermes said while everyone else was laughing at Grover temporarily removing the tension in the room.
But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.
All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom... know each other?"
"Way to break the ice Percy" Nico said with sarcasm dripping out of his mouth
Graver's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."
"Stalker Alert" Thalia said
"Watching me?"
"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."
"Best Friends" Percy said correcting that statement
"Urn ... what are you, exactly?"
"Percy!" Hera shouted at his blatantly
"I know that was rude but I was in shock" Percy defended
"That doesn't matter right now."
"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"
"Uh-Oh" Hermes said
"You should never call a Satyr a donkey, most of them will trample you for that" Dionysus said
Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"
I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realized it was more of an irritated bleat.
"Goat!" he cried.
"What?"
"I'm a goat from the waist down."
"You just said it didn't matter" Thalia said
"You just said it didn't matter."
"Oh no, my sister is starting to think like the idiot Percy" Hercules said, Nico Shadow traveled towards him and Punched him in the face so hard he got knocked out.
"I was sick of him" Nico stated, Zeus wanted to blast him out but a glare from Hades caused him to stay in his seat. Thalia smiled at Nico, which made his heart skip a beat.
"Goat!" he cried
"What?"
"I'm a goat from the waist down."
"You just said it didn't matter" Piper said
"You just said it didn't matter."
"Oh" Piper said while blushing, Jason was starting to get a bit angry at Percy First he steals my sister and now he's trying to steal my girlfriend.
"Blaa-ha-ha! There are satyrs who would trample you underhoof for such an insult!"
"Told you" Mr.D said
"No one said you were wrong" Theseus said, Dionysus just glared at him for leaving Ariadne on the island
"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like ... Mr. Brunner's myths?"
"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"
"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"
"Not the time Percy" Orion said
"Of course."
"Then why—"
"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes. We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realize who you are."
"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"
The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.
The tension in the room rapidly increased
"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."
"Safety from what? Who's after me?"
"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."
"Grover!" Annabeth said
"Grover!"
"You think like aunt Sally" Katie said
"That's a good thing" Annabeth replied
"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"
"Yes I agree with the Grover please drive faster Sally" Poseidon pleaded
I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination. I could never dream up something this weird.
"Are you sure about that?" Nico said
My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.
"Oh, good they are close" Poseidon said
"Where are we going?" I asked.
"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."
"The place you didn't want me to go."
"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."
"Because some old ladies cut yarn."
"Hehehe" Hermes laughed weakly trying to release some tension, it didn't work.
"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to ... when someone's about to die."
"Good job at giving him a heart attack Grover" Reyna said, Grover just blushed in embarrassment.
"Whoa. You said 'you.'"
"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"
"You meant 'you.' As in me."
"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."
"What is going on here" Artemis said voicing many of the people thought
"Boys!" my mom said.
She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.
"What was that?" I asked.
"Monster" Odysseus said
"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."
"I agree, please please please reach there safely" Poseidon said in worry of his child
I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.
As did everyone in the room
Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.
"No shit Sherlock" Clarisse said
Then I thought about Mr. Brunner ... and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.
"What!" Everyone shouted
I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time. I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."
"His car explodes and all he says is ow" Nico said
"Percy!" my mom shouted.
"I'm okay... ."
I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.
Lightning.
Everyone glared at Zeus.
"You lucky he isn't hurt or I would've thrown you into Tartarus" Poseidon promised
That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road. Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"
"You better not have hurt Grover dad" Thalia says to Zeus giving her an evil stare that would be rated 10/10.
He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!
That statement released all the tension in the room.
"Man I wish you were my son Percy" Apollo said laughing.
Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.
This brought even more laughter to the throne room.
"Percy," my mother said, "we have to ..." Her voice faltered.
I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl. It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.
"NO!" Theseus and Poseidon shouted.
"Why does my son have the worst luck" Poseidon said while shaking his head.
I swallowed hard. "Who is—"
"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."
My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.
The tensions suddenly came back
"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"
"Yay, I'm mentioned" Thalia said, many people gave her weird looks including Jason.
"It'll be explained in the books" She said as if it explained everything.
"What?"
Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree-sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.
"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."
"He won't do that, he's too loyal" Annabeth said fondly. Athena thought that this could be a bad flaw as he might value someone he knows over the weight of the world.
"Mom, you're coming too."
Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean
"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."
"Stubborn to protect the ones he loves, just like Poseidon" Hestia said showing that there are more similarities between the father and son duo than anyone ever imagined.
"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.
The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises. As he got closer, I realized he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head ... was his head. And the points that looked like horns …
"They are horns Kelp head" Thalia said rolling her eyes.
"I Know Pinecone face" Percy replied.
"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."
"But..."
"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."
I got mad,
"Uh-Oh, Percy is mad that's not a good thing" Nico said remembering the time he beat His dad and his army in less than a minute.
then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat,
"Grover the goat, I like that" Leo said snickering
"I'm not a goat" Grover said trying to defend himself
at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull. I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."
"I told you—"
"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."
"You are a brave hero with a kind heart" Hestia said making Percy blush.
"I'm not that brave" he mumbled but only Hestia heard him. She frowned, why does this boy have no self-esteem, he's achieved great things and is very sweet.
I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid. Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.
"We should really cut that grass" Katie said
Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin. He wore no clothes except underwear—I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms
Everyone started laughing as they imagined the scene.
—which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.
His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns— enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.
Everyone turned green at the thought while Aphrodite was vomiting in a bucket provided by Hephaestus. Once she was done she applies her makeup. and smiled at Hephaestus who smiled back.
I recognized the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.
"Think again" Nico muttered.
I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"
"Don't say it, names have power." Athena said.
"I know but I barely care." Percy said Athena frowned at this if he doesn't care then what dangers does he bring to his daughter.
"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."
"But he's the Min—"
"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."
"How in the world did you get such a smart woman" Athena asked.
"I have my ways" Is all Poseidon said
The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.
"Don't think like that Percy" Travis said
I glanced behind me again.
The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.
"Food?" Grover moaned.
"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"
Annabeth was about to open her mouth when Percy said "It will explain it"
"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."
"See"
As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.
Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.
Oops.
Everyone laughed as Percy got a tiny bit of revenge on smelly Gabe.
"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"
"How does she know all this" Hazel asked
"How do you know all this?"
"Oh dear, now I think like Percy" Hazel said.
"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."
"It is not called selfish if a mother stays near her son because she loves him" Hera said.
"Keeping me near you? But—"
Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.
He'd smelled us.
The tension was so thick it, it seemed that it could burst with the touch of a needle.
The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.
"You just called Grover fat" Frank said.
"Hey!" Grover said
The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.
My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."
I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.
He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.
"Please son, move." Poseidon started muttering the same thing over and over again.
The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing. So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.
Everyone released a breath.
The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.
"Oh no" Poseidon said.
We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.
"Such negative thoughts for such a young child" Hestia said
The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.
"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"
But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her. She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away. He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummeling the air.
"NO" Poseidon said.
"Mom!"
She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!"
Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply ... gone.
Poseidon started crying, Athena felt the need to help him but refrained as she would not help her rival.
"No!"
Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.
"Oh Shit, He dead" Piper said
The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.
I couldn't allow that.
I stripped off my red rain jacket.
"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"
"That's not a bad insult but could use improvement" Hermes said trying to lighten the mood.
"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.
"Don't do anything stupid son" Poseidon said.
I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all. I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.
But it didn't happen like that.
"Of course it didn't." Nico said
The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.
Time slowed down.
All the present demigods tensed at that. Did Kronos start intervening with Percy so early.
My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.
"What the…" Ares muttered.
How did I do that?
"That's what we'd all like to know." Jason said
I didn't have time to figure it out. A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.
"Oh, so that's what I felt" Thalia muttered. Percy sent an apologetic look her way, she waved it off.
The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.
Aphrodite and most of the Goddesses turned green.
The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realize that this thing had only one gear: forward.
"Finally." Athena said
Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.
"Well that's not good" Connor said.
"Food!" Grover moaned
The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might.
"That's not going to happen, you need to have the strength of a god to do that, only I could do that but even that takes some effort." Hercules said
The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap!
Everyone snickered at Hercules's face, his face started getting purple as rage was building inside of him. He pushed it down thinking that he would deal with him later. Zeus was getting paranoid with Percy's power and was thinking that he shouldn't be alive. He formed a plan and gave it to Hercules mentally who nodded.
The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock. When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.
The monster charged.
Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling. As the monster barreled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.
The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate— not like my mother, in a flash of golden light, but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.
The monster was gone.
Everyone cheered, happy that he was safe.
The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking. My head felt like it was splitting open.
Zeus flinched at that as he remembered hen Athena was born.
I was weak and scared and trembling with grief I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse. I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.
"Good loyalty" Artemis said stunning everyone as she never complimented a man.
The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's. They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."
"She was probably your daughter" Athena said to Aphrodite who nodded along.
Thalia, Nico, and Grover snickered knowing who this person is.
"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."
Everyone stared at Annabeth and then burst out laughing while Athena was upset. Clarisse closed the book.
"That's the end of the chapter.
"I think we should take a break" Annabeth said. Everyone agreed.
"Ok we shall take a break, be back here in 90 minutes" Zeus said and struck his lightning bolt on the floor and disappeared, every thought drama queen.
(A/N)
That's the end, the next chapter will be what happens in the break, guys tell me who I should add and what I should improve on, I am going to make the pairs I made in the previous chapter transitions at medium rate as it would be hard to make Artemis suddenly love Hermes in five chapter same for Athena. I will give hints every chapter and there will be something major with Apollo coming up.
Cya in a bit,
beeastmode.