Chapter 10: A magical surprise.
The trio was getting steadily close to the desert. Percy, while he was no geography wizard, had noticed the changes around him as they crept closer to their destination. The plants were getting thinner and more scattered as they pressed on, the ground was slowly turning from green into a shade of dry yellow, and the atmosphere was getting noticeably different, too: instead of the cool breezes he often received in Hyrule's field, the wind now carried a dry and bitter bite.
All things considered, the journey was going quite smoothly; too smoothly in fact. They hadn't encountered any monsters since the fiasco with the emposa, and the only problem they had at the moment was the lack of food, which could be easily solved.
According to the map on the Sheikah Slate, there was a little village called Samitto on top of a small mountain. The trio had decided to leave their horses at a nearby stable and went up there for more supply. Now, they were regretting that decision, since the rain was make the trudge up the slope absolute hell.
Percy didn't know how annoying rain could be, until he experienced Hyrule's rain. It had been pouring cats and dogs for over five hours now, and even though he couldn't get wet, the stormy atmosphere and the constant thundering and lightning were starting to get on his nerves.
His two Hylian companions didn't seem to be faring any better even though none complained out loud. Zelda was spotting a look of contempt on her face as she waddled through the soaked ground, constantly grimacing whenever her boot sank through a particularly muddy spot.
Link had once again slipped on his poker face, but Percy could still catch little instants when the Knight would look at the sky and muttered something under his breath. The demigod didn't comment on any of that.
Finally, they reached the village. Predictably, no one was outside in such weather, and the emptiness gave the place a certain depressing vibe to it. That didn't stop the trio from venturing deeper in. By the time they found the inn, they were so tired they just dumped their belongings on the floor and slumped down next to them, breathing heavily. The owner of the inn, a middle age lady with sleek black hair, took notice of them and, thankfully, came over with a pile of fresh towels.
"Thank you so much." Zelda said breathlessly and started drying her hair.
"Oh, it's no problem, you're soaking wet!" The owner dismissed. She ran her eyes over the three of them and smiled, "I reckon that you would like to rent a room, perhaps two?"
"Yes, of course, that would be lovely." The blonde nodded. She quickly dug out several Rupees and handed it to the woman, who took them and in turn, handed the Princess a pair of keys.
"Welcome to Samitto."
There was no point in trying to do anything while it was still pouring outside, so the trio went to their rooms and took turns with the showers. Of course, Percy had already dried all of them beforehand, but after a few days rolling around in the wilderness, no one turned down the thought of a real, hot shower. As expected, the boys offered to let Zelda go first, and this time, she didn't argue too hard.
To the trio's dismay, it was still raining when the three of them had finished, and it showed no sign of stopping either.
"I thought it wasn't supposed to rain in the dessert?" Percy groaned, feeling his ADHD acting up.
"It wasn't." Zelda mumbled, once again tapping away on her Sheikah Slate, "This is the very first rain in the area for fifty years."
"I don't care if this is the very first rain in the history; I just want it to stoooppp!" Percy complained, sounding very much like a whiny teenager.
"It will, eventually." Link retorted with a sigh.
Zelda tucked her Slate away and glanced impatiently at the raindrops beating against the window. "It had better end soon. There is no way we can reach the trading market in this weather, and our supply's low."
"Can't we just buy something in the village?" The demigod asked. "Isn't that why we're here?"
"We're here for the food. Yes." The Princess of Light explained, "But we are running out of arrows and heat-resisted elixir. I doubt we could find either in a simple village like this."
Percy didn't ask more, for he remembered drinking the last bottle of their elixir supply. Turned out the son of the sea god was much more sensitive to the desert's weather that they had initially thought. The silence stretched on until Link declared that he was going to take a nap and told them to wake him up if something happened.
For a moment, Percy considered following his friend's example and went to bed, but he soon dismissed the idea. All those water had already out his sense on high focus, and his ADHD was demanding him to do something other than staying still. So after a moment of mental debate, the demigod decided to go out there and have a look around the village.
The rain had covered the place in a thin veil of white mist, soaking up everything and making the ground muddy. None of that bothered Percy as much as the thundering sky. Following Zelda's advice, he had left every single metal thing he had with him behind to avoid the risk of getting hit by lightning. Still, every time the sky rumbled and flashed, he could felt the hair on his back stood up.
Like Zelda had said, Samitto was a simple village. There were barely more than a dozen houses here, with a few shops and stores. The people here really did depend on the trading market of the dessert. Either way, the demigod quickly grew bored after a lap of the place, having met no one and seen nothing interesting.
At times like this, his thought wandered briefly back home and he found himself wondering if his family was alright. He missed his mom, his dad, and his little sister. He missed Camp and gods know how much he missed Annabeth.
The rain was getting consistently worse. It was turning into a storm, and Percy found himself struggling against the harsh winds. The demigod ultimately admitted that going outside was pointless and started trudging back toward the inn. That's when something caught his eyes.
At first glance, they looked like storm clouds. But they were too dark, and they were moving too fast to be ordinary clouds. Immediately, the demigod knew he was in trouble, and he doubled the effort of running back up.
He got three steps ahead before the first lightning zapped down. Thanks to his demigod reflexes, Percy managed to rolled aside and not get burnt into a crisp. Cussing under his breath, he got back on his feet and uncapped Riptide. The sky thundered more as the Celestial blade came into view, confirming the demigod's hypothesis that he was being attacked by a Greek monster, or several of them.
The storm swirled above his head, flashing angrily, and descended. Percy made out misty horse forms galloping among the black clouds. The son of Poseidon even more as he realized he was surrounded by a herd of storm spirits.
The son of Poseidon had never like dealing these particular monsters. He wished that Jason was here. This would be so much easier with the Blond Superman. Nevertheless, Percy stayed calm and tried to get a grip on the situation.
What would Annabeth do?
"Hey there!" Percy yelled up at the horses in an attempt to negotiate. It was no use, the wind was beating away his voice, and the horses weren't exactly reasonable.
Alright, the hard way it is.
He tried to remember what Annabeth and Jason had said about storms spirits.
How to kill these things again?
Right. Jason electrocuted them.
This was bad news to the demigod. He had no power over electricity whatsoever. Percy's mind raced as he tried to find a way out. Then it hit him.
Link had shock arrows.
Percy risked a glance back at the inn. He was quite far away, but surely such a commotion like this would have drawn Zelda's attention, and the Princess would definitely go and fetch Link. If not, then the demigod guessed he was quite, pun completely intended, toasted.
Either way, he was not going without a fight. With his mind set, he raised Riptide in challenge, and the first storm spirit charged at him. The son of Poseidon didn't bother trying to hit it, knowing his sword would past right through the thing. He simply stepped aside and let the horse trampled past him.
Under the pouring rain, his sense was boosted to super alertness and he could feel his energy vibrating. His biggest problem right now would be the howling wind. True, he had somewhat control over storms, but in the mist of this, he was afraid his power would not make much difference. Still, it wouldn't hurt to try.
Percy bit his lip as he concentrated, then finally the demigod felt that familiar tug in his stomach and to his relief, the wind around his shifted and the thunder ceased. He could hear the spirits neighed nervously and agitatedly.
One particularly bold one tried to shoot him down with a lightning bolt. The son of Poseidon swung Riptide like a bat and deflected the hit, disintegrating one of the spirits, causing the other to shift even more nervously.
But the bolt sent a joint of pain up the Half-blood arm and he yelled as the current of electricity raced through his body. With his right arm numbed, Percy switched Riptide into his left hand, wincing internally. The monsters seemed to sense his hesitation as they neighed and started to surge toward him. The demigod managed to keep them at bay with an intense bust of wind, but he knew he couldn't keep this up for much longer.
Then, he heard a shout and nearly wept in joy as he saw his saviors came running towards in the form of a disgruntled, bed-dragged Hylian. Link drew his sword, looking very much impressive despite his bird nest of a hair. Zelda was right behind him, bow drawn and face determined.
"Stay away from him!" The Princess commanded, and the monsters steered back, momentary thrown off by the new comers and the sheer power radiated from Zelda's voice.
Using their distraction, Percy dropped the wind and dashed toward his friends.
"Are you okay?" The blonde asked with her eyes still steady on the horses.
"I'll live." The demigod wheezed.
"Good. What are these?" Even when in danger, trust Zelda to be fascinated by the monsters.
"Storm spirits."
"Uh huh. How do we deal with them?" Chimed in Link, who was as straight forward as always.
The Hal-blood looked around frantically, and on impulse, he said the first thing that came to his mind: "I, uh… We need electricity. Shock-arrows might work."
Zelda's frown deepened. "It's raining, Percy. We'll get electrocuted."
"Then… we don't let them get too close. Besides, I can control the rain well enough." 'I think.' Percy urged, hoping his voice sounded more confident than he felt.
"…Alright. But we don't have much more of those arrows."
"Just… hold them off until I think of something else!"
The two Hylians didn't have time to question the plan, since the horses had grown restless and decided to stop beating around the bushes and attacked. The whole herd, eight horses in total, galloped straight at the trio with the full intention of trampling, or electrocuting, them to death.
They didn't get very far. Zelda's bow sung a high note as it sent a glittering arrow soaring through the screaming air, and the nearest storm spirit went down in a yellow bust. Its fellow horses thundered angrily and steered aside from the blast, but they quickly rallied and continues their attacked.
Another arrow was released and another monster disintegrated, but the others kept coming. Soon enough, the trio was forced to retreat. They backed away until they were nearly on the front porch of the inn, and Percy's brain was scrambling to think off a new strategy, and the screaming, fleeing people around him was quite a distraction.
Percy swallowed hard as Link released another arrow. He knew he was fighting a losing battle, and part of him thought that it would be quite embarrassing to survive this far only to be brought down by a bunch of stupid lightning-breathing horses.
He thought about the last time he had faced these monsters. He remembered fighting back to back with Annabeth, Hazel, and Frank with Leo, Piper, and Jason soaring above the sky. He remembered how the sky lit up with fire that day, and the dread in him when he realized that Leo was nowhere to be found. Of course, the idiot had come back after ward with that same stupid smile and an ex-Titan for a girlfriend, but Percy remembered his grief well enough. He remembered how much it hurts to lose a friend.
Link and Zelda, Percy had known the two for barely a week, but they had fought together, they had shared together, and he considered them his friends. The demigod could not, would not, bare to loose another friend.
That thought surprisingly motivated him more than it should, and the demigod let out a battle yell as the wind picked up around him, sending the horses into a mad scramble.
"We have to go, now!" Zelda shouted. Link and Percy didn't need to be told twice. There was no time to retrieve their belongings, no time to even stop and think how humiliating it was, running away. The two Hylians and one demigod turned and ran without a second thought.
Somehow, they made it back to the down the mountain and toward the stable without tripping and falling flat on their faces. The stable owner, mercifully, caught on the situation fairly quickly and had alerted everyone inside. By the time the three of them made it to the stable, everyone had already evacuated, and the trio's their horses were ready and waiting for them. The company mounted in record time and galloped away even faster.
And then something truly miraculous happened.
One of the riders slowed down until they were neck to neck with the trio. The rider was a young man with brown eyes and light green eyes that, for some reason, looked very familiar to Percy.
The mysterious rider held the reign in on hand and raised the other, palm glowing green with runes. He pulled his horse to an abrupt halt and turned to face the storm. On impulse, the demigod also stopped, veered around and yelled:
"Dude! What in Hades are you doing?"
He was spectacularly ignored.
The rider started to chant in what Percy recognized as Ancient Greek. Shocked, the son of Poseidon stood there, frozen as the brunette's voice resonated above the thundering storm and the light in his palm grew brighter.
Then, with a shout, the searing light exploded, and the shock wave swept the thunder storm, almost knocking Percy off his horse in the process. When the light faded, the demigod's ears were ringing and his head felt like it was just tossed around like a dice.
He blinked the remaining stars out of his vision just as his two companions stopped at his side. Their senses slowly returned to them and they found the air around them thickened with tension. Out of the corner of his eyes, Percy saw his friends' hands inched toward their weapons, and he was only dimly aware that his were doing the same.
There was something very familiar about the savior, though the demigod couldn't quite pinpoint it. He watched, like a hawk, as the rider slowly turned to face them. The guy was young, probably around Percy's age, and had a tall, almost lanky, built. His face was mostly hidden by his loose grey hood but Percy could still make out slightly tanned skin and freckles. A lot of freckles.
Then he pulled his hood back and suddenly, the demigod understood why the rider seemed so familiar to him. The son of Poseidon had seen that same dark brown hair, that same green eyes and freckled face anytime he looked at Lou Ellen and her siblings, anytime he looked at a child of Hecate.
"Perseus Jackson," The rider said, his voice laced with grudging tolerance, "Alabaster Torrington. I've been waiting for you."