I am so sorry for the delay! I now am the owner of a PlayStation 4! I have been marathon playing this game called 'Tales of Zestiria'. I am in love with this game! It is now my number three favorite. my numbers one and two are, in order: Final Fantasy 7 and Undertale. When I get a PSN account, I will post my username. When I do, feel free to come and play games with me and chat about this or any of my other works. or just shoot the shit with me! As for Xbox users, My Username is NanashiAckerman. if you wish to play a game with me, send me a message asking which games I play that support online multi and Mention that you came from here and I will gladly chat! Your best bets, though are Minecraft and Terraria.
To SoulEmporor7: I like that you and I are thinking along the same lines. Poor Elias doesn't need to live Percebeth. The poor little guppy. The Chimera fight is a turning point for him, he found his courage. Don't worry, It won't go to his head. He knows it was a lucky shot. The guppy is blind without his spectacles~ As for the chapter, yeah. I didn't like it, either. It was just giving me issues, unfortunately. Also, I was working through the pain of falling off some concrete stairs at home and rolling and twisting my ankle at the same time. I am trying to update every two days, now. I don't want to burn out on this story. It may not be very popular, but it is my all time favorite to work on. *glasses smile emoji*
IMPORTANT!
I am happy to answer any questions you guys have, if it doesn't spoil the plot. As it is, I am sad that there was only one review last chapter. I know, fishing for reviews is lame and weak, but they really do make me happy! They make me smile. Except flamers and people who ask me if I am twelve because they have an issue with my writing style.
To be frank with all of you, I have several learning disabilities and severe memory issues. I try my hardest, but I will never be up to professional writing standards that some readers demand. Again. I try my best. Please, please, bear with me.
SORRY FOR THE LONG AUTHORS NOTE! NOW ON TO THE STORY!
Disclaimer: See CH.1
I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera.
The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhhhh!
(For some reason, Eli was thinking about whether this counted as bungee jumping without the cord, or sky-diving without a chute.)
The river raced toward us at the speed of a truck. Wind ripped the breath from our lungs. Steeples and skyscrapers and bridges tumbled in and out of our vision.
And then: Flaaa-boooom!
A whiteout of bubbles. We sank through the murk, I was sure that I was about to end up embedded in a hundred feet of mud and lost forever. Elias groaned at my imagination.
But my impact with the water hadn't hurt. We were falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through our fingers. We settled on the river bottom soundlessly. A catfish the size of our stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage, beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags-swirled up all around us.
At that point, I realized a few things: first, we had not been flattened into a pancake. We had not been barbecued. I couldn't even feel the Chimera poison boiling in our veins anymore. We were alive, which was good.
"No shit, Sherlock." Eli said, sarcastically. He had come forward more in our mind.
Second realization: we weren't wet. I mean, I could feel the coolness of the water. I could see where the fire on our clothes had been quenched. But when I touched our shirt, it felt perfectly dry.
I looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter.
'No way.' I thought.
I flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi.
"That is so cool!" Eli gushed.
I grabbed a soggy hamburger wrapper out of the cur-rent and immediately the paper turned dry. I lit it with no problem. As soon as I let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag. Weird.
"It's super cool, though. Am I right?" my twin asked.
'Yeah, it's cool.'
But the strangest thought occurred to me only last: I was breathing. I was underwater, and I was breathing normally.
I stood up, thigh-deep in mud. My legs felt shaky. My hands trembled. I should've been dead. The fact that I wasn't seemed like ... well, a miracle. I imagined a woman's voice, a voice that sounded a bit like my mother: Percy, what do you say?
"Um ... thanks." Underwater, I sounded like I did on recordings, like a much older kid. "Thank you ... Father."
"Ya know, we are the sons of Poseidon. None of this should really surprise you. And yeah, thanks dad." Eli commented
No response. Just the dark drift of garbage downriver, the enormous catfish gliding by, the flash of sunset on the water's surface far above, turning everything the color of butterscotch.
Why had Poseidon saved us? The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt. So I'd gotten lucky a few times before. Against a thing like the Chimera, I had never stood a chance. Elias did more than I ever could have. I was no hero. Maybe I should just stay down here with the catfish, join the bottom feeders.
"Like I was any better. I just made a lucky shot. I was terrified. I couldn't let you die, dearest Percy. You are my whole world, brother. I don't even care about what happens to me, as long as you are safe, whole, and happy, then that's all that I care about." Elias told me, his consciousness wrapping around my own and radiating love and comfort.
Fump-fump-fump. A riverboat's paddlewheel churned above me, swirling the silt around.
There, not five feet in front of us, was my sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.
I heard that woman's voice again: Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you. This time, I knew the voice wasn't in our head. I wasn't imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar.
"Where are you?" I called aloud.
Then, through the gloom, I saw her: a woman the color of the water, a ghost in the current, floating just above the sword. She had long billowing hair, and her eyes, barely visible, were green like mine and Eli's.
A lump formed in my throat. I said, "Mom?" Eli was speechless and choked up, himself
No, child, only a messenger, though your mother's fate is not as hopeless as you believe. Go to the beach in Santa Monica.
"What?"
It is your father's will. Before you descend into the Underworld, you must go to Santa Monica. Please, boys, I cannot stay long. The river here is too foul for my presence.
"But ..." I was sure this woman was our mother, or a vision of her, anyway. "Who-how did you-"
There was so much I wanted to ask, the words jammed up in our throat.
I cannot stay, brave one, the woman said. She reached out, and I felt the current brush our face like a caress. You must go to Santa Monica! And, boys, do not trust the gifts...
Her voice faded.
"Gifts?" I asked. "What gifts? Wait!"
She made one more attempt to speak, but the sound was gone. Her image melted away. If it was our mother, we had lost her again.
I felt like drowning myself. The only problem: I was immune to drowning.
"I wouldn't let you, anyway." Eli said, quietly, sadly.
Your father believes in you, she had said.
She'd also called me brave ... unless she was talking to the catfish.
I waded toward Riptide and grabbed it by the hilt. At the very least, the mortal police would be arriving, trying to figure out who had blown a hole in the Arch. If they found us, they'd have some questions.
I capped my sword, stuck the ballpoint pen in our pocket. "Thank you, Father," I said again to the dark water.
Then I kicked up through the muck and swam for the surface.
I came ashore next to a floating McDonald's.
"Huh, never seen one of those before." my brother commented. I rolled my eyes at him. He blew a raspberry at me.
A block away, every emergency vehicle in St. Louis was surrounding the Arch. Police helicopters circled overhead. The crowd of onlookers reminded me of Times Square on New Year's Eve.
A little girl said, "Mama! That boy walked out of the river."
"That's nice, dear," her mother said, craning her neck to watch the ambulances.
"But he's dry!"
"That's nice, dear."
"Great parenting lady." Elias snorted.
A news lady was talking for the camera: "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."
Survivors. We both felt a surge of relief. Maybe the park ranger and that family made it out safely. Elias and I hoped Annabeth and Grover were okay.
I tried to push through the crowd to see what was going on inside the police line.
"... an adolescent boy," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescent boy going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities ..."
I backed away, trying to keep our head down. I had to go a long way around the police perimeter. Uniformed officers and news reporters were everywhere.
I'd almost lost hope of ever finding Annabeth and Grover when a familiar voice bleated, "Perrr-cy! Elias"
I turned and got tackled by Grover's bear hug, or goat hug. He said, "We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!"
"Oh my gods! We love you too, G-man!" Elias squealed, feeling all of the warm fuzzies. My twin was so weird.
Annabeth stood behind him, trying to look angry, but even she seemed relieved to see us. "We can't leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?"
"We sort of fell."
"Percy and Elias! Six hundred and thirty feet?"
Behind us, a cop shouted, "Gangway!" The crowd parted, and a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher. My twin and I recognized her immediately as the mother of the little boy who'd been on the observation deck. She was saying, "And then this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua-"
"Okay, ma'am," the paramedic said. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."
"I'm not crazy! This boy jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." Then she saw me. "There he is! That's the boy!"
I turned quickly and pulled Annabeth and Grover after us. We disappeared into the crowd.
"What's going on?" Annabeth demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?"
I told them the whole story of the Chimera, Echidna, Elias' lucky shot, our high-dive act, and the underwater lady's message.
"Whoa," said Grover. "We've got to get you two to Santa Monica! You can't ignore a summons from your dad."
Before Annabeth could respond, we passed another reporter doing a news break, and I almost froze in my tracks when he said, "Percy Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young man wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the boy is believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson."
"Son of a bitch!"
We ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley.
"First things first," I told Grover. "We've got to get out of town!"
Somehow, we made it back to the Amtrak station with-out getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.
...~...
The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, our train rolled into Denver. We hadn't eaten since the night before in the dining car, somewhere in Kansas. We hadn't taken a shower since Half-Blood Hill, and I was sure that was obvious. Elias was in control today, I had insisted. I wanted him to get out more, so to speak. (Also, he seriously needed friends.)
...~...
Elias' POV
"Let's try to contact Chiron," Annabeth said. "I want to tell him about your talk with the river spirit."
"How do we do that, Annabeth?" I asked her.
We wandered through downtown for about half an hour, though I wasn't sure what Annabeth was looking for. The air was dry and hot, which felt strange after the humidity of St. Louis. Everywhere we turned, the Rocky Mountains seemed to be staring at me, like a tidal wave about to crash into the city.
'I think that being the son of the sea god is getting to me.' Percy laughed hysterically at my dry thought.
Finally we found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. We veered toward the stall farthest from the street, keeping our eyes open for patrol cars. We were three adolescents hanging out at a car wash without a car; any cop worth his doughnuts would figure we were up to no good.
"What exactly are we doing?" I asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.
"It's seventy-five cents," he grumbled. "I've only got two quarters left. Annabeth?"
"Don't look at me," she said. "The dining car wiped me out."
I fished out our last bit of change and passed Grover a quarter, which left us two nickels and one drachma from Medusa's place.
"Excellent," Grover said. "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."
"What are you talking about, exactly?"
He fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."
"And that is?"
"Iris-messaging," Annabeth told me. "The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."
"I take it a rainbow has to be involved?"
Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. "You catch on quickly."
"Percy is the fighter, I am the thinker." I smirked. "Even though I'm sure I'm the younger brother."
"Hey!" Percy yelled. I mentally sent him a raspberry.
Annabeth held her palm out to me. "Drachma, please."
I handed it over.
She raised the coin over her head. "O goddess, accept our offering."
She threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer. 'Pretty.' I thought absently.
"Half-Blood Hill," Annabeth requested.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then I was looking through the mist at strawberry fields, and the Long Island Sound in the distance. We seemed to be on the porch of the Big House. Standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandy haired guy in shorts and an orange tank top. He was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow. I fought a grin.
"Luke!" I called.
He turned, eyes wide. I could swear he was standing three feet in front of me through a screen of mist, except I could only see the part of him that appeared in the rainbow. I was happy to see him.
"Eli!" His handsome face broke into a grin. "Is that Annabeth, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?"
"We're ... uh ... fine," Annabeth stammered. She was madly straightening her dirty T-shirt, trying to comb the loose hair out of her face. I knew her struggle. "We thought-Chiron-I mean-"
"He's down at the cabins." Luke's smile faded. "We're having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Grover all right?"
'How sweet!' Percy was poking me, trying to ask me why I was acting and feeling different. 'Think about it for a bit, if you can't figure it out with the data you have, then you need to observe more.' I told him.
"I'm right here," Grover called. He held the nozzle out to one side and stepped into Luke's line of vision. "What kind of issues?"
Just then a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum hip-hop. As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated so much, it shook the pavement. 'Ugh. I hate people that do that!' I groaned to my brother.
"Yeah, jerks." Percy agreed.
"Chiron had to- what's that noise?" Luke yelled.
"I'll take care of it.'" Annabeth yelled back, looking very relieved to have an excuse to get out of sight. "Grover, come on!
"What?" Grover said. "But-"
"Give Eli the nozzle and come on!" she ordered.
Grover muttered something about girls being harder to understand than the Oracle at Delphi, then he handed me the spray gun and followed Annabeth. I couldn't help but to agree. Bianca was hard to figure out sometimes. She was still lovely though. (I once had a short lived crush on her. After a short time it faded into a more sibling like feeling.)
I readjusted the hose so I could keep the rainbow going and still see Luke.
"Chiron had to break up a fight," Luke shouted to me over the music. "Things are pretty tense here, Percy. Word leaked out about the Zeus-Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how, probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus."
"It's understandable. Herd mentality. Also unsurprising, Athena and my father are rivals/enemies." I managed to say without stammering. My brother's cheeks were lightly dusted with pink, though. Percy still didn't get it.
"Very true." Luke nodded.
In the next stall, I heard Annabeth and some guy arguing with each other, then the music's volume decreased drastically.
"So what's your status?" Luke asked me. "Chiron will be sorry he missed you."
I told him pretty much everything, including Percy's dreams. It felt so good to see him, to feel like I was back at camp even for a few minutes, that I didn't realize how long I had talked until the beeper went off on the spray machine, and I realized I only had one more minute before the water shut off.
"I wish I could be there," Luke told me. "We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen ... it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him." I inwardly frowned.
"But Chiron said the gods can't take each other's magic items directly." I pointed out.
"That's true," Luke said, looking troubled. "Still ... Hades has the helm of darkness. How could anybody else sneak into the throne room and steal the master bolt? You'd have to be invisible."
We were both silent, until Luke seemed to realize what he'd said.
"Oh, hey," he protested. "I didn't mean Annabeth. She and I have known each other forever. She would never ... I mean, she's like a little sister to me."
I wondered if Annabeth would like that description. In the stall next to us, the music stopped completely. A man screamed in terror, car doors slammed, and the Lincoln peeled out of the car wash. I snorted in amusement.
"You'd better go see what that was," Luke said. "Listen, are you wearing the flying shoes? I'll feel better if I know they've done you some good."
Oh yes, they've come in handy." I lied smoothly. I thought back to all of the times I lied to get Percy out of trouble. Said brother didn't even have the grace to try and fake being ashamed of himself. He just laughed!
"Really?" He grinned. "They fit and everything?"
The water shut off. The mist started to evaporate.
"Well, take care of yourself out there in Denver," Luke called, his voice getting fainter. "And tell Grover it'll be better this time! Nobody will get turned into a pine tree if he just-"
But the mist was gone, and Luke's image faded to nothing. I was alone in a wet, empty car wash stall, now slightly damp and cold from the spray..
Annabeth and Grover came around the corner, laughing, but stopped when they saw my face. Annabeth's smile faded. "What happened, Eli? What did Luke say?"
"Not much," I lied, Percy's stomach feeling as empty as a Big Three cabin. "Come on, let's find some dinner."
A few minutes later, we were sitting at a booth in a gleaming chrome diner. All around us, families were eating burgers and drinking malts and sodas.
Finally the waitress came over. She raised her eyebrow skeptically. "Well?"
I said, "We, um, want to order dinner."
"You kids have money to pay for it?"
Grover's lower lip quivered. I was afraid he would start bleating, or worse, start eating the linoleum. Annabeth looked ready to pass out from hunger.
I was trying to think up a sob story for the waitress when a rumble shook the whole building; a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant had pulled up to the curb.
All conversation in the diner stopped. The motorcycle's headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns. The seat was leather, but leather that looked like ... well, Caucasian human skin. I admired the craftsmanship of it all... I had weird tastes, sometimes.
The guy on the bike would've made pro wrestlers run for Mama. He was dressed in a red muscle shirt and black jeans and a black leather duster, with a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. He wore red wraparound shades, and he had the cruelest, most intimidating face I'd ever seen- handsome, but wicked, with an oily black crew cut and cheeks that were scarred from many, many fights. The weird thing was, I felt like I'd seen his face somewhere before. Percy thought he had, too.
As he walked into the diner, a hot, dry wind blew through the place. All the people rose, as if they were hypnotized, but the biker waved his hand dismissively and they all sat down again. Everybody went back to their conversations. The waitress blinked, as if somebody had just pressed the rewind button on her brain. She asked us again, "You kids have money to pay for it?"
The biker said, "It's on me." He slid into our booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Annabeth against the window.
He looked up at the waitress, who was gaping at him, and said, "Are you still here?"
He pointed at her, and she stiffened. She turned as if she'd been spun around, then marched back toward the kitchen.
The biker looked at me. I couldn't see his eyes behind the red shades. I felt a tingle run through Percy and I's shared body, like something was trying to take root. I was now on alert.
He gave me a wicked grin. "So you're old Seaweed's kid, huh?"
"Greetings, I am Elias. May I ask who you are, sir?" I tilted our head to the side, staring the man in his eyes. I was impressed, he actually held my blank, dead looking, gaze for thirty whole seconds. Even our mother couldn't do that sometimes. Only Percy could, so far. (Will could look me in the eyes for fifteen seconds and Bianca for twenty.)
"Aww, don't you recognize me, little cousin?" he asked
Then it struck me why this guy looked familiar. He had the same vicious sneer as some of the kids at Camp Half-Blood, the ones from cabin five. Percy was getting worked up, he was being reminded of Gabe. I told my dearest brother to go take a nap. Annabeth and Grover were both staying silent and they both looked sort of scared.
"You're Miss Clarisse's father," I said. "Ares, god of war."
Ares grinned and took off his shades. Where his eyes should've been, there was only fire, empty sockets glowing with miniature nuclear explosions. "That's right, punk. I heard you have charmed her like a kid of Aphrodite. You also hooked old grape breath" My two companions looked fairly sick at the thought of Mr. D creeping on me.
"I know. I am flattered, of course. She is a lovely young lady. But, I prefer blond hair and blue eyes." I grinned. Ares snorted loudly at that. "As for Lord Dionysus... I believe I need a responsible adult to chaperone when I am around him. Again, I am flattered, but remember my previous statement. Also, he only desires me for my 'exotic eyes', I believe." At that Ares was full on laughing. It was somewhat grating on my nerves. "May I ask you what you are here for, Sir?" I asked, my smile now somewhat strained. The tingle was getting worse.
"What I'm here for? I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you."
The waitress came back with heaping trays of food: cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings, a big salad, macaroni salad, and chocolate shakes. I quirked an eyebrow at the salads. 'I guess the gods have found out about me being a vegetarian. Wonder what they think about that?' I thought with a snort.
Ares handed her a few gold drachmas.
She looked nervously at the coins. "But, these aren't..."
Ares pulled out his huge knife and started cleaning his fingernails. "Problem, sweetheart?"
The waitress swallowed, then left with the gold.
"Interesting way to get what you want, if a little uncivilized" I told him, a hint of disapproval in my voice. Annabeth elbowed me in the ribs and Grover looked at me like I had lost my mind.
Ares laughed. "Are you kidding? I love this country. Best place since Sparta. Don't you carry a weapon, punk? You should. Dangerous world out there. Which brings me to my proposition. I need you to do me a favor."
"I use a bow. A gift from both Will Solace and his father. Now, what favor could I do for a god?"
"Something a god doesn't have time to do himself. It's nothing much. I left my shield at an abandoned water park here in town. I was going on a little ... date with my girlfriend. We were interrupted. I left my shield behind. I want you to fetch it for me."
"I would love to, sir, unfortunately we are on a time crunch with our original quest." I said, trying to be diplomatic.
Ares's fiery eyes made me see things I didn't want to see, blood and smoke and corpses on the battlefield. "I know all about your quest, punk. When that item was first stolen, Zeus sent his best out looking for it: Apollo, Athena, Artemis, and me, naturally. If I couldn't sniff out a weapon that powerful ..." He licked his lips, as if the very thought of the master bolt made him hungry. I shuddered lightly. "Well ... if I couldn't find it, you got no hope. Nevertheless, I'm trying to give you the benefit of the doubt. Your dad and I go way back. After all, I'm the one who told him my suspicions about old Corpse Breath."
"You told him Hades stole the bolt?"
"Sure. Framing somebody to start a war. Oldest trick in the book. I recognized it immediately. In a way, you got me to thank for your little quest."
"Thank you, sir" I drawled sarcastically
"Hey, I'm a generous guy. Just do my little job, and I'll help you on your way. I'll arrange a ride west for you and your friends."
"I'm sure we can manage-" He cut me off.
"Yeah, right. No money. No wheels. No clue what you're up against. Help me out, and maybe I'll tell you something you need to know. Something about your mom."
"Our mom?"
He grinned. "That got your attention. The water park is a mile west on Delancy. You can't miss it. Look for the Tunnel of Love ride."
"What interrupted your date, If I may ask?"
Ares bared his teeth, but I'd seen his threatening look before on Clarisse. There was something false about it, almost like he was nervous.
"You're lucky you met me, punk, and not one of the other Olympians. They're not as forgiving of rudeness as I am. I'll meet you back here when you're done. Don't disappoint me."
After that I must have fainted, or fallen into a trance, because when I opened my eyes again, Ares was gone. I might've thought the conversation had been a dream, but Annabeth and Grover's expressions told me otherwise.
"Not good," Grover said. "Ares sought you out, Eli. This is not good."
I stared out the window. The motorcycle had disappeared. I was slightly sad. I liked that bike much more than its owner. Ares and I were on opposite sides, after all. I, a pacifist. Ares, the god of war. I did not think he and I would ever be besties.
Did Ares really know something about our mom, or was he just playing with me? Now that he was gone, the tingling had stopped and my nerves were settling down. I was glad Percy had taken my advice and was napping. He would have lost his temper. I had the feeling Ares was trying to mess with my emotions, only it did not work. For some reason.
"It's probably some kind of trick," I said. "Forget Ares. Let's just go."
"We can't," Annabeth said. "Look, I hate Ares as much as anybody, but you don't ignore the gods unless you want serious bad fortune.
I looked down at my salads, which suddenly didn't seem so appetizing. "Why does he need us?"
"Maybe it's a problem that requires brains," Annabeth said. "Ares has strength. That's all he has. Even strength has to bow to wisdom sometimes."
"But this water park ... he acted almost scared. What would make a war god run away like that?"
Annabeth and Grover glanced nervously at each other.
Annabeth said, "I'm afraid we'll have to find out."
...~...
Percy's POV:
The sun was sinking behind the mountains by the time we found the water park. Judging from the sign, it once had been called WATERLAND, but now some of the letters were smashed out, so it read WAT R A D.
The main gate was padlocked and topped with barbed wire. Inside, huge dry waterslides and tubes and pipes curled everywhere, leading to empty pools. Old tickets and adver-tisements fluttered around the asphalt. With night coming on, the place looked sad and creepy.
"If Ares brings his girlfriend here for a date," I said, star-ing up at the barbed wire, "I'd hate to see what she looks like."
"Percy! Be more respectful!"
"Percy," Annabeth warned. "Be more respectful." I was going to ignore the fact that Annabeth and my brother thought the same.
"Why? I thought you hated Ares."
"He's still a god. And his girlfriend is very temperamental."
"You don't want to insult her looks," Grover added.
"Who is she? Echidna?"
"No, Aphrodite," Grover said, a little dreamily. "Goddess of love."
"I thought she was married to somebody," I said. "Hephaestus."
"What's your point?" he asked.
"Oh." I suddenly felt the need to change the subject. Elias just laughed at me. "So how do we get in?"
"Maia!" Grover's shoes sprouted wings.
He flew over the fence, did an unintended somersault in midair, then stumbled to a landing on the opposite side. He dusted off his jeans, as if he'd planned the whole thing. "You guys coming?" Eli gave him a 10/10.
Annabeth and I had to climb the old-fashioned way, holding down the barbed wire for each other as we crawled over the top.
The shadows grew long as we walked through the park, checking out the attractions. There was Ankle Biter Island, Head Over Wedgie, and Dude, Where's My Swimsuit? My more mature twin showed his less than mature side as he laughed himself silly at the names.
No monsters came to get us. Nothing made the slightest noise.
We found a souvenir shop that had been left open. Merchandise still lined the shelves: snow globes, pencils, stuffed toys, postcards, and racks of-
"Clothes," Annabeth said. "Fresh clothes."
"Yeah," I said. "But you can't just-"
"Watch me."
She snatched an entire row of stuff of the racks and disappeared into the changing room. A few minutes later she came out in Waterland flower-print shorts, a big red Waterland T-shirt, and commemorative Waterland surf shoes. A Waterland backpack was slung over her shoulder, obviously stuffed with more goodies.
"What the heck." Grover shrugged. Soon, all three of us were decked out like walking advertisements for the defunct theme park. Elias had even had me snag a few plushies for him. One of which was a fish backpack. He thought it was cute and witty, considering.
We continued searching for the Tunnel of Love. I got the feeling that the whole park was holding its breath. "So Ares and Aphrodite," I said, to keep my mind off the growing dark, "they have a thing going?"
"That's old gossip, Percy," Annabeth told me. "Three-thousand-year-old gossip."
"What about Aphrodite's husband?"
"Well, you know," she said. "Hephaestus. The blacksmith. He was crippled when he was a baby, thrown off Mount Olympus by Zeus. So he isn't exactly handsome. Clever with his hands, and all, but Aphrodite isn't into brains and talent, you know?"
"She likes bikers."
"Whatever."
"Hephaestus knows?"
"Percy, dearest brother pf mine, the relationships of the gods are enough to make your head spin!" Elias warned me.
"Oh sure," Annabeth said. "He caught them together once. I mean, literally caught them, in a golden net, and invited all the gods to come and laugh at them. Hephaestus is always trying to embarrass them. That's why they meet in out-of-the-way places, like ..."
She stopped, looking straight ahead. "Like that."
In front of us was an empty pool that would've been awesome for skateboarding. It was at least fifty yards across and shaped like a bowl.
Around the rim, a dozen bronze statues of Cupid stood guard with wings spread and bows ready to fire. On the opposite side from us, a tunnel opened up, probably where the water flowed into when the pool was full. The sign above it read, THRILL RIDE O' LOVE: THIS IS NOT YOUR PARENTS' TUNNEL OF LOVE!
Grover crept toward the edge. "Guys, look."
Marooned at the bottom of the pool was a pink-and-white two-seater boat with a canopy over the top and little hearts painted all over it. In the left seat, glinting in the fading light, was Ares's shield, a polished circle of bronze.
"This is too easy," I said. "So we just walk down there and get it?"
Annabeth ran her fingers along the base of the nearest Cupid statue.
"There's a Greek letter carved here," she said. "Eta. I wonder ..."
"Grover," I said, "you smell any monsters?"
He sniffed the wind. "Nothing."
"Nothing-like, in-the-Arch-and-you-didn't-smell-Echidna nothing, or really nothing?"
"Percy!" Eli scolded me sharply.
Grover looked hurt. "I told you, that was underground."
"Okay, I'm sorry." I took a deep breath. "I'm going down there."
"I'll go with you." Grover didn't sound too enthusiastic, but I got the feeling he was trying to make up for what had happened in St. Louis.
"No," I told him. "I want you to stay up top with the flying shoes. You're the Red Baron, a flying ace, remember? I'll be counting on you for backup, in case something goes wrong."
Grover puffed up his chest a little. "Sure. But what could go wrong?"
"I don't know. Just a feeling. Annabeth, come with me-"
"Are you kidding?" She looked at me as if I'd just dropped from the moon. Her cheeks were bright red.
"What's the problem now?" I demanded.
"Me, go with you to the ... the 'Thrill Ride of Love'? How embarrassing is that? What if somebody saw me?"
Elias was excited for some reason.
"Who's going to see you?" But my face was burning now, too. Leave it to a girl to make everything complicated. "Fine," I told her. "I'll do it myself." But when I started down the side of the pool, she followed me, muttering about how boys always messed things up.
We reached the boat. The shield was propped on one seat, and next to it was a lady's silk scarf. I tried to imagine Ares and Aphrodite here, a couple of gods meeting in a junked-out amusement-park ride. Why? Then I noticed something I hadn't seen from up top: mirrors all the way around the rim of the pool, facing this spot. We could see ourselves no matter which direction we looked. That must be it. While Ares and Aphrodite were smooching with each other they could look at their favorite people: themselves. Eli snorted and agreed.
I picked up the scarf. It shimmered pink, and the perfume was indescribable-rose, or mountain laurel. Something good. I smiled, a little dreamy, and was about to rub the scarf against my cheek when Annabeth ripped it out of my hand and stuffed it in her pocket. "Oh, no you don't. Stay away from that love magic."
"What?"
"Just get the shield, Seaweed Brain, and let's get out of here."
The moment I touched the shield, I knew we were in trouble. My hand broke through something that had been connecting it to the dashboard. A cobweb, I thought, but then I looked at a strand of it on my palm and saw it was some kind of metal filament, so fine it was almost invisible. A trip wire.
"Crap" Eli said.
"Wait," Annabeth said.
"Too late."
"There's another Greek letter on the side of the boat, another Eta. This is a trap."
"No shit" my twin snapped.
Noise erupted all around us, of a million gears grinding, as if the whole pool were turning into one giant machine.
Grover yelled, "Guys!"
Up on the rim, the Cupid statues were drawing their bows into firing position. Before I could suggest taking cover, they shot, but not at us. They fired at each other, across the rim of the pool. Silky cables trailed from the arrows, arcing over the pool and anchoring where they landed to form a huge golden asterisk. Then smaller metallic threads started weaving together magically between the main strands, making a net.
"Looks more like a spider's web to me." Elias casually commented. I mentally rolled my eyes. He loved spiders.
"We have to get out," I said.
"Duh!" Annabeth said.
I grabbed the shield and we ran, but going up the slope of the pool was not as easy as going down.
"Come on!" Grover shouted.
He was trying to hold open a section of the net for us, but wherever he touched it, the golden threads started to wrap around his hands.
The Cupids' heads popped open. Out came video cameras. Spotlights rose up all around the pool, blinding us with illumination, and a loudspeaker voice boomed: "Live to Olympus in one minute ... Fiftynine seconds, fifty-eight ..."
"Hephaestus!" Annabeth screamed. "I'm so stupid.' Eta is H.' He made this trap to catch his wife with Ares. Now we're going to be broadcast live to Olympus and look like absolute fools!"
"Oh! We're gonna be on TV! Can I say 'hi' to dad if we make it out of this?" Eli asked absently, already sending me plans.
We'd almost made it to the rim when the row of mirrors opened like hatches and thousands of tiny metallic ... things poured out.
Annabeth screamed.
It was an army of wind-up creepy-crawlies: bronze-gear bodies, spindly legs, little pincer mouths, all scuttling toward us in a wave of clacking, whirring metal.
"Spiders!" Annabeth said. "Sp-sp-aaaah!"
"Oh my gods! I want one!"
I'd never seen her like this before. She fell backward in terror and almost got overwhelmed by the spider robots before I pulled her up and dragged her back toward the boat. Being the good, amazing, and loving twin I am, I wrapped one of the spiders up in a Waterland handkerchief for my twin, jambing up it's gears in the process. It stopped moving. (Even in situations like the on we were in, I tried to make him happy.)
The things were coming out from all around the rim now, millions of them, flooding toward the center of the pool, completely surrounding us. I told myself they proba-bly weren't programmed to kill, just corral us and bite us and make us look stupid. Then again, this was a trap meant for gods. And we weren't gods.
Annabeth and I climbed into the boat. I started kicking away the spiders as they swarmed aboard. I yelled at Annabeth to help me, but she was too paralyzed to do much more than scream.
"Thirty, twenty-nine," called the loudspeaker.
The spiders started spitting out strands of metal thread, trying to tie us down. The strands were easy enough to break at first, but there were so many of them, and the spiders just kept coming. I kicked one away from Annabeth's leg and its pincers took a chunk out of my new surf shoe.
"Ouch! that would seriously do some damage to us. Try to not get us bit while looking around us a bit. I need to see our surroundings better." Eli told me.
Grover hovered above the pool in his flying sneakers, trying to pull the net loose, but it wouldn't budge.
The Tunnel of Love entrance was under the net. We could use it as an exit, except that it was blocked by a million robot spiders.
"Fifteen, fourteen," the loudspeaker called.
"Oh my Jesus! I am such an idiot! Percy! where are we?" Elias asked me. It took am moment to catch on.
Waterland. Specifically: the tunnel of love!
Then I saw them: huge water pipes behind the mirrors, where the spiders had come from. And up above the net, next to one of the Cupids, a glass-windowed booth that must be the controller's station.
"Grover!" I yelled. "Get into that booth! Find the 'on' switch!"
"But-"
"Do it!" It was a crazy hope, but it was our only chance. The spiders were all over the prow of the boat now. Annabeth was screaming her head off. I had to get us out of there.
Grover was in the controller's booth now, slamming away at the buttons.
"Five, four-"
Grover looked up at me hopelessly, raising his hands. He was letting me know that he'd pushed every button, but still nothing was happening.
I closed my eyes and thought about waves, rushing water, the Mississippi River. I felt a familiar tug in our gut. A tingle across our skin. I tried to imagine that I was dragging the ocean all the way to Denver. Eli was thinking along with me, adding his power to my own.
"Two, one, zero!"
Water exploded out of the pipes. It roared into the pool, sweeping away the spiders. I pulled Annabeth into the seat next to us and fastened her seat belt just as the tidal wave slammed into our boat, over the top, whisking the spiders away and dousing us completely, but not capsizing us. The boat turned, lifted in the flood, and spun in circles around the whirlpool.
The water was full of short-circuiting spiders, some of them smashing against the pool's concrete wall with such force they burst.
Spotlights glared down at us. The Cupid-cams were rolling, live to Olympus.
But I could only concentrate on controlling the boat. I willed it to ride the current, to keep away from the wall. Maybe it was my imagination, but the boat seemed to respond. At least, it didn't break into a million pieces. We spun around one last time, the water level now almost high enough to shred us against the metal net. Then the boat's nose turned toward the tunnel and we rocketed through into the darkness.
Annabeth and I held tight, both of us screaming as the boat shot curls and hugged corners and took forty-five-degree plunges past pictures of Romeo and Juliet and a bunch of other Valentine's Day stuff. Eli was whooping in absolute delight. He loved wild rides like this one.
Then we were out of the tunnel, the night air whistling through our hair as the boat barreled straight toward the exit.
If the ride had been in working order, we would've sailed off a ramp between the golden Gates of Love and splashed down safely in the exit pool. But there was a problem. The Gates of Love were chained. Two boats that had been washed out of the tunnel before us were now piled against the barricade-one submerged, the other cracked in half.
"Huston, we have a problem!"
"Unfasten your seat belt," I yelled to Annabeth.
"Are you crazy?"
"Yes!" Eli confirmed to no one.
"Unless you want to get smashed to death." I strapped Ares's shield to our arm. "We're going to have to jump for it." My idea was simple and insane. As the boat struck, we would use its force like a springboard to jump the gate. I'd heard of people surviving car crashes that way, getting thrown thirty or forty feet away from an accident. With luck, we would land in the pool. Eli agreed with my plan and was sending me waves of courage as I did the same to him. Positive cycle.
Annabeth seemed to understand. She gripped our hand as the gates got closer.
"On my mark," I said.
"No! On my mark!"
"What?"
"Simple physics!" she yelled. "Force times the trajectory angle-"
"Fine.'" I shouted. "On your mark!"
She hesitated ... hesitated ... then yelled, "Now!"
Crack!
Annabeth was right. If we'd jumped when I thought we should've, we would've crashed into the gates. She got us maximum lift.
Unfortunately, that was a little more than we needed. Our boat smashed into the pileup and we were thrown into the air, straight over the gates, over the pool, and down toward solid asphalt. Elias was praying for a swift death and not all of our bones being broken all at once from impact.
Something grabbed us from behind.
Annabeth yelled, "Ouch!"
Grover!
In midair, he had grabbed us by the shirt, and Annabeth by the arm, and was trying to pull us out of a crash landing, but Annabeth, Eli and I had all the momentum.
"You're too heavy!" Grover said. "We're going down!"
We spiraled toward the ground, Grover doing his best to slow the fall.
We smashed into a photo-board, Grover's head going straight into the hole where tourists would put their faces, pretending to be Noo-Noo the Friendly Whale. Annabeth and I tumbled to the ground, banged up but alive. Ares's shield was still on our arm.
"We're alive!" Elias cheered. I mentally smacked him on the back of his 'head'.
Once we caught our breath, Annabeth and I got Grover out of the photo-board and thanked him for saving our lives. I looked back at the Thrill Ride of Love. The water was subsiding. Our boat had been smashed to pieces against the gates.
A hundred yards away, at the entrance pool, the Cupids were still filming. The statues had swiveled so that their cameras were trained straight on us, the spotlights in our faces. 'Have fun with this, Eli.' I told him as I put his glasses on our face. He grinned as he took over.
"Ladies and Gentlegods! Greetings! I am Elias. You have just witnessed my friends and my brother outsmart your admittedly clever trap! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the show! I would like to say a few things, if you will permit me to. Firstly, I would like to say 'Hi dad!'. Second, Thank you Lord Apollo for granting me the gift of my Bow, Tempest, and my dagger, Ripple. Next. Lord Hephaestus, I would be ever so grateful if you would allow me to keep the mechanical spider. It has such beautiful design and craftsmanship. Not to mention that I adore spiders. Such marvelous creatures! Goodnight, Olympus, goodnight" Eli bowed as the cameras turned off. Annabeth had the most gob smacked expression on her face as Grover burst out into bleating laughter at my brother's theatrics. Elias loved theater. He had fallen in love when our mother had taken us to see Wicked once. Eli had really hammed it up, though. He was livid that this whole thing was for the amusement of the gods. He hated how they loved to toy with each other and the lives of other demi-gods. If they wanted a show, Elias gave them one.
The Cupids turned back to their original positions. The lights shut off. The park went quiet and dark again, except for the gentle trickle of water into the Thrill Ride of Love's exit pool. I wondered if Olympus had gone to a commer-cial break, or if our ratings had been any good. "They damned well better be!" Elias said out loud as he stalked forward.
We hated being teased. We hated being tricked. And We had plenty of experience handling bullies who liked to do that stuff to us. He hefted the shield on our arm and turned to our friends. "We need to have a little talk with Ares." He grinned wickedly. Let the game begin.
Please review and favorite! (But mostly review~ They give me the will to go on~)
Fan art gets people goodies
I would love to see Elias and Percy together!
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