Recipe for Disaster
Chapter 7: Cultural Exchange
Once more, the weekly report of the events of Camp Half-Blood was centered around the ping pong table in the heart of the big house, the gathered camp councilors, that is, those who were still remaining, were seated at their appointed chairs. For the second consecutive week, Chiron was still on his self-appointed sabbatical, leaving Percy and Annabeth in charge of the running of the camp, much to the two heroes frustration.
As the meeting had gotten underway, Percy had let out an exasperated sigh, his head resting in his hands. "Okay," he began, yet never shifted his position. "So, I handed out all those assignments last week, and none of them got done...why?"
The collective demigods each turned to look at one another, seemingly waiting for someone to voice the obvious response to the acting camp director's crazy question. Finally, Piper, the consummate negotiator, spoke up, "Percy, you gave us all requests from the gods printed in hieroglyphics, we can't read that..."
"What, no they weren't," Percy replied, his voice sounded affronted as if he would dare print the godly requests of the Greek pantheon from the dead, Egyptian language. "besides, no one reads hieroglyphics any more...except maybe Carter and Sadie, but whatever, I didn't do that..."
"Then what do you call this?" Will Solace said, slapping the stack of papers given to him to distribute last week firmly on the table, each page showing a series of symbols and images upon the page.
"Wingdings," Percy said, as if the answer was not already obvious.
"W-what?" Will replied, his eyes staring in utter confusion at the page. "Why the hell would you print everything out in wingdings?"
"Dyslexia," the son of Poseidon said, as if the answer wasn't obvious.
"That doesn't even make sense!"
"Sure it does. Dyslexia makes all the letters swirl and change position when you try to read them normally, but not pictures, so, learn to read wingdings, have everything printed like that, and then you have no problems."
"Except for the fact no one knows how to read wingdings!" Leo remarked, as he began fiddling with a wire splicing kit that was part of the Demigod Army Knife he had bought from the Stoll brothers.
"I do," Percy arched his eyebrow while Annabeth raised her hand as well, also confirming she knew how to read the strange font. "Did nobody read any of this?" When the collective demigods all shook their heads in response, Percy pinched the bridge of his nose and shook his head. "Why didn't anyone ask for help?"
"We did," Lou Ellen remarked, arching an eyebrow as she crossed her arms over her chest. "You replied, and I quote, 'get good,'. I don't even know what that's supposed to mean."
"Oh, right, not my fault you're all a bunch of noobs," Percy chuckled as a chair was thrown backwards, Katie Gardner standing in fury as she pointed an accusing finger at Percy.
"You take that back!"
This time it was Annabeth who put her head in her hands as she shook her head in confusion of the situation. "What the shit Katie, what are you doing here? You're supposed to be with the Stolls."
It was at that moment that everyone realized that Travis and Conner was missing. It was bad enough that Laurel and Holly were still in the infirmary recovering from what Annabeth had done after trying to get with Percy, and Jason had been checked into his semi-permanent bed after falling into, yet another coma when he tripped and fell on his pillow, but there had been so many missing demigods of late, the brothers absence had been overlooked.
"Where are Travis and Conner exactly?" Leo asked, though not sure if he wanted to know the answer.
"Envelope 14," the strategist replied as though that answered everything, and much like Percy's use of wingdings font to relay the gods' ordered quests to their demigod children, the collective councilors were left significantly confused.
"Uh-what is...what is Envelope 14?" Piper finally voiced the question everyone was wondering, trusting her friendship with the daughter of Athena would not put her in the cross hairs of her vengeance.
"Obviously their punishment for trying to screw over Percy. I was hoping they would have picked Envelope 33, that would have real fun, but no, they picked 14..."
"What's Envelope 33?"
"Mess with Percy and you'll find out," Annabeth said simply as Percy took her hand affectionately. "Anyway, as for the Stolls, they're currently serving community service...in Hades. After they lost their janitor Bob, Hades has been clamoring for someone to clean up after them. You know, the dining room, the bed chambers, the bathrooms...which was almost a damn Greek tragedy, from what I understand, Tuesday was taco night. They'll be paroled whenever Hades feels like it, which begs the question, KATIE, you were an accomplice, why aren't you down there?"
"WHHAAAAATTTTT?" the high pitched voice extended the words like a blade as the botanist fixed, what she assumed was a cocky smirk, but only made her look constipated. "You think any jail can hold Bad Girl Katie? Girl, please. Besides, when your mom happens to be the mother-in-law of your jailer, certain perks and privileges are given to you. I mean, nepotism runs deep on Olympus. And lets face it, one look at this bad girl, and they were afraid I'd take over the whole operation..."
"Hades forgot you were down there and you just walked out didn't you?" Annabeth deadpanned, deflating the entire explanation.
"N—yeah..." she said sadly as she turned, set her chair back to its right position and slumped down in defeat.
"Right, then," Percy continued as though nothing had happened. "So, Annabeth and I have a few things to take care of..."
"Oh really," Malcolm spoke up, his eyes narrowed, "don't you mean more sponsors to slaughter?"
"Whatever makes you sleep at night Malcolm," the son of Poseidon replied with a shrug of indifference, "Anyway, Clarisse is in charge while we're away. Get to work on those assignments, or you know what, don't, I really don't care. Maybe if you all screw this up the gods will actually be pissed at someone besides me for a change," Percy said as he stood from his chair and, taking Annabeth's hand, the two left the big house to negotiate with whatever 'sponsor' was on their current hit list.
When the two demigod leaders had departed, Clarisse fixed the collective councilors with her steely snarl. "Okay you punks, before any of you ask why I'm in charge, well, after Annabeth, I am senior councilor, and the fact I could stomp a mud hole in all of your candy asses helps. Now, first order of business, you all are getting soft, like pathetically; so we going to double all training activities this week, sword fighting, climbing wall, foot races, obstacle course..."
"Archery?" Will asked excitedly.
"Hell no, archery is for weak ass limp-wrists too wimpy to hold a sword," Clarisse said, her sneer deepening as she glared at her fellow demigods. "Any questions before we get started?"
"Yeah," Malcolm replied, slamming his fist on the table before staring at the acting-acting director. "We need to discuss the cooking show..."
"Oh, yeah, right...that thing. Here, let me tell you something about that Malcolm..." Clarisse began as she leaned heavily on her hand, her forefinger tapping her lips as she continued to stare at son of Athena. For several minutes she continued as she was, silently watching at the young man, her finger continually tapping against her lips as the silence stretched out uncomfortably among the big house rec room. They had remained that way for 18 minutes, no one saying anything as Clarisse just stared fixedly at Malcolm.
Finally, unsure what everyone was expecting, Piper spoke up. "Clarisse…."
"Did you all get that?" the battle commander finally said, breaking the awkward and unsettling silence. "That was the number of shits I give. So you do whatever you want Malcolm, I could care less. We're not wasting any time on that garbage..."
"You just wasted 20 minutes staring at us and saying nothing..."
"And who's the idiot here?" Clarisse said, turning her attention to her fellow campers, "me for not saying anything, or you all for just sitting there like the lumps of lard you've all become!"
"You!"
"Triple activities for you the week Will, you big tubby, now get moving!"
-0-
Silence filled the studio, the darkness permeating every corner as the cooking program had being airing. And yet, the unnatural silence was murdered by the sudden flaring of brightly colored lights strobbing in response to the thumping techno track blaring through the enclosure.
As the music and lights played for the audience, the image of Leo Valdez slowly rose from behind the metal prep table, making his appearance known. As fireworks exploded behind Leo, a smile stretched across his face as he held out his arms, fire erupting from his fingers.
"Good evening Mt. Olympus!" he screamed, yet his voice was drowned out by the techno music continued to play. For a few moments, he remained in his strange posture, arms still outstretched while waiting for the music to stop, only for it to skip and repeat the entire choreography. Technical issues aside, it was quite an entrance.
"'Sup my peeps!" Leo yelled when the music track had finally ceased, his smile uncomfortably large as he moved from foot to foot, an obvious tell of his hyperactive excitement. "So welcome to Million Dollar Diner, hosted by yours truly, the hottest demigod on the planet...Leo! That's right ladies, I'm on fire!" he said again, his fingers bursting into flame once more. "Not that introductions are needed, I mean, who doesn't know me? Hero of Olympus, one of the seven greatest demigods alive, builder of the Argo II...my accolades are timeless...
"Now, after the whole Katie debacle, we've kind of been contractually obligated to have two co-hosts per show, and since we're starting to run out of victims, we've got a very special guest tonight. Originally, we were going to have my half-brother Jake Mason join me, but he somehow caught himself on fire while boiling water..."
"Stupid curse..." the bandaged demigod said from off camera.
So, all the way from San Francisco, or someplace sort of close, my homie, my sidekick, my brother from another mother...FRANK ZHANG!" Pulling a silver remote from his magic tool belt, Leo clicked a button as canned laughter erupted from the sound system. "That was supposed to be applause...oh whatever..."
Pushed roughly into view of the camera, Frank stumbled momentarily before righting his position and looking nervously at the camera. For a moment, he seemed to forget how to speak. Public speaking was bad enough, but to do so in front of a camera filming live to Mt. Olympus, not to mention being in a room of Greek demigods, Frank was, quite apparently petrified.
"So," Leo continued, turning towards the camera and fully ignoring the terrified look in Frank's eyes. "Frank, how are you feeling about being on the show?" When Frank did not answer, merely stood there, a smile crossed the smaller teen's face. "Fascinating." Again hitting the button on his remote, the prerecorded sounds of the fake audience's "AWWWW" filled the studio. "The heck is wrong with this thing, that was the same damn button."
Putting the remote on the side of the prep table, Leo turned his attention back to the camera. "Anyway, curious thing about tonight's meal. We are making Chicken Cordon Bleu. What's that, how do you define irony? By taking a smoking hot Latino-American Greek demigod, partner him up with a Chinese-Canadian Roman demigod, and have them make a French dish. What's wrong with this picture? Everything!"
At this, Leo grabbed his remote once again and pressed another button, only to have the fake sounds of applause echo throughout the studio. "What the?...that button says applause, this one says laugh track. Why is everything screwing up?" At this, Leo threw the silver remote to the ground, which somehow caused the camera to turn off, which made absolutely no sense given that the camera was on a completely different breaker system than the lights and audio that was controlled by the remote.
"Leo, what did you do?"
"I can fix it Malcolm, hold on..."
"You better, this is going to tank the ratings."
"And you're the only one who cares about that," Nyssa Barrera added as the sounds of Leo and Nyssa rushing to complete repairing the video equipment could be heard on Olympus, confirmed as Nyssa explained that the camera was still receiving audio, just no picture.
"Fine, go to commercial while you two sort this out," Jake said, frustration dripping from his voice.
-0-
The camera panned to a rustic cabin with a screened in porch, numerous statuary plainly visible to the watcher as an appealing, if not slightly middle-aged woman smiled into the camera. "Hello children, I am Aunty Em, owner and caretaker of Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium.
"I would like to welcome you to peruse our fine selection of statuary and decorative lawn and garden pieces. Our craftsmanship is second to none, and with every purchase, you are granted the Aunty Em guarantee that..."
"Marco..." a voice echoed from the distance, causing a slight furrowing of the brow to reflect just above the sunglasses Aunty Em wore. Ever the constant professional however, the matron of the fine Aunty Em Emporium soldiered on.
"Uh...anyway, we guarantee all of our work to be of the finest quality, and if you are at anyway dissatisfied with your purchase, we offer..."
"...Polo"
At this, Aunty Em craned her head to try to find the source of the intrusion of her commercial, yet garden and statuary made visibility difficult to locate the source of the uninvited voice.
"As I was saying, we have free delivery for any purchases over $500, and, if any of your statues start crying, do not be alarmed, we have affixed internal plumbing systems to some of our creations..."
"Marco…" the voice said again as the perpetrator of the intrusion came into view, as one Percy Jackson, his arms outstretched and a red blindfold tied around his eyes. Immediately Aunty Em was upon him, her tail wrapping around him in a snare as she held him firm before the camera.
"Well, well, well...Percy Jackson himself, come to join my collection?" Aunty Em hissed as a predatory smile danced across her features. "I bet I can get quite a bidding war going for your statue. So, for all the people watching at home, dear, dear Percy, do you have any last words?"
"Marco..."
"...Polo" the clearly feminine voice stated from behind Aunty Em as an unseen forced gripped the top of her head. Before she could even scream, the sound of metal against leather rang through the garden, and with a quick slash, Aunty Em's head was separated from her body.
Placing the head face down in the dirt, Annabeth removed her invisibility hat and smirked. "All clear Percy," she said, the black haired teen removing the blindfold while his girlfriend fished in the satchel she carried around her shoulder and retrieved a vial of green liquid. Moving some feet away, she tossed the beaker onto the corpse of Medusa, as the body was quickly engulfed in Greek Fire.
"I love watching you work," Percy said, his hands coming to rest on Annabeth's hips as he leaned back and smiled at his most treasured girlfriend.
"How exactly was that possible?" she smirked, an eyebrow arched in response. "I was invisible and you were blindfolded."
"And I have a REALLY good imagination..." his words danced through the open air with every implication applied, apparent in his hungry gaze.
"Let's see about that, shall we?" she said, returning his smile as she grabbed his hand and dragged him into the cabin. "The statues can watch..."
~Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium, just 4.7 miles southeast of the I-95 Turnpike, exit 67. You'll feel so at home, you'll never want to leave~
-0-
"GODS DAMN IT PERCY!" Malcolm screamed as the commercial ended, though no one was quite sure if he was upset that he and his sister were...well...or that the pair had successfully killed another sponsor of the cooking show. Smart money was on the latter. Either way, he buried his face in hands and began working on a series of breathing exercises he had studied to calm his stress.
While this was going on, Leo offered a cheeky smile while facing the camera, "As you can tell, we're back. Just a little hiccup on the video feed, just needed to calibrate the genoflange matrix supporting the dianetric recoil apparatus to accommodate digital clarity..."
"You just made all those words up, didn't you?" Frank asked.
"Every single one," Leo said, turning to his co-host, "and look to decided to join the land of the living, welcome to the show Frank."
"Uh, thanks..." the larger demigod said, an embarrassed smile tugging at his lips. "I'm...a little camera shy."
"Never would have guessed," Leo remarked, sarcasm dripping from every word as he opened up the refrigerator and pulled out the chicken, swiss cheese, ham, and creamed chicken sauce. Placing everything on the table, he handed Frank a pan to prepare the dish, to which Frank shrugged his shoulders. He wasn't sure why they needed this, from what he had heard of this program, no one ever finished cooking a meal anyway.
"Anyway, you know what you need?" Leo asked, a smirk crossing his face that made Frank rightfully suspicious. "You need a little reminder of home, that's what..." Leo said, moving off camera only to return with a big canvas bag. "Let's see what 'ol Santa Leo brought for my 'ol buddy." As he fished in the bag, continued to layer the ham and cheese on the placed chicken, then pouring the sauce onto the dish, until Leo extracted a bottle of amber liquid. "Here you are, should make you feel right at home."
"Maple syrup?"
"Well, yeah, I mean," Leo paused, looking from the bottle he had gifted to his friend, back to the larger demigod. "Don't all you Canadians love maple syrup?"
"What do you mean, 'all you Canadians'?"
"People of Canadian locality, what else. I mean, am I wrong?"
"Well, first of all, that's grossly stereotyping," Frank continued, moving off camera himself to retrieve a purple R.O.F.L. shoulder man satchel. "And second, being Canadian does not automatically predispose me to liking maple syrup, I mean...who doesn't?"
"Okay, fair point, but, I just thought you might be a little homesick and wanted to give you a gift."
"Well that's very thoughtful," Frank said, opening the maple syrup and taking a swig before pouring the rest of the contents over the Chicken Cordon Bleu, "but, I mean, assuming I like maple syrup just because I'm Canadian is like me giving you a jar of bacon grease because your American. It just doesn't mean you automatically have to like it."
"I'm not following," Leo said, looking at the chicken mean to which Frank had finished dousing with syrup.
"I mean, if we're getting into stereotypes, don't you Americans slather everything in bacon grease?"
"I'm not going to say no," Leo replied, wondering where this conversation was going. "Do you have a jar of bacon grease?"
"No, no I don't," Frank said, reaching into his satchel and retrieving his own jar before handing it over to Leo. "But I did get you a jar of salsa."
"Is this a Mexican thing or a me thing here?" Leo asked curiously, before popping the top and pouring the salsa onto the chicken. "I mean, I'm not complaining because I was running low of this stuff but..." pausing to read the jar after he had emptied its contents. Eyes fixing upon the label, his face burned with anger...literally, as his eyebrows burned off. "Frank, what in the depths of Tartarus have you done? This is mild salsa. That's blasphemy!"
"You want to talk blasphemy? You bought me LITE maple syrup, that's like water. It's sacrilegious, Leo."
"Well excuse me for not knowing anything about your place of birth, I just thought you'd appreciate the gesture," Leo said, reaching into his bag one more time and retrieving a black cylinder, perhaps half an inch thick.
"Is that a hockey puck?"
"I don't know, you tell me, your the Canadian," Leo said, shaking his head. "Went to Boreas' palace on my first quest and all his son Calais would say was hockey and pizza, I thought this stuff was a staple for Canadians...guess I was wrong..."
"Darn right you were wrong," Frank said, palming the hockey puck and slipping it into his pocket. "I mean, we're just back to stereotypes again aren't we?" Frank replied, reaching into his bag and pulling out a sombrero before slapping it on the table.
"D-did you bring a sombrero knowing I was going to bring you a hockey puck?" Leo asked, stunned at the implications. "Have I really gotten so predictable?"
"Yes, yes you have," Frank remarked as Leo grabbed the hat and angrily shoved it on his own head.
"You know what, more curious than that, how did you get a sombrero to fit in that bag anyway?"
Furrowing his brow in confusion, Frank looked at the satchel that was significantly too small to hold the hat he had given to Leo. "I'm not sure..."
"Crazy life we live right? I mean, heck, look at me, born of awesome and able to build anything my heart desires."
At this Frank burst into fits of laughter at the boast of his diminutive friend. "Really, build anything, but hope it actually works."
"Two words for you Frank, Argo II."
"Yeah, and where is it now, huh?"
"In a scrap heap over in Heroes Canyon."
"Uh-huh, and that proves your point how?"
"It was a good ship, and it only broke because Zeus spanked her bottom."
A deeply disturbed look crossed Frank's face as he tried to digest the words echoing from the mechanics mouth. "Not sure what is more disturbing, that you generalize your ship with a female gender, or that you imply an innuendo to Zeus' method of getting us across the ocean."
"Okay, first, it is a ship, all ships are female, you never heard, 'she's a good ship,'? You don't generalize ships as masculine. A good ship will keep you afloat in rough waters and take care of you give you a home and comfort, men are the anchors, strong," Leo paused, flexing his bony arms as if to accentuate the point, "tough, help keep things stable. And its only when a good man and a good woman work together that you ever get anywhere in life, no matter what the world throws at you."
The idea of the romanticized generalization of nautical transportation make many of the Aphrodite cabin residents swoon over Leo's statement, which was promptly ruined as he pulled a flashing, neon sign that read 'This Guy' and held it over his head.
"I somehow feel that's sexist, but not sure how it is..." Frank considered the statement, wondering if this too was simply over-generalizing roles of men and women. After all, Frank's mom was a soldier, and Leo's was a mechanic...surely they didn't fit into the traditional labels that Leo prescribed, yet, he couldn't fault the idea of men and women working together to fix problems as they arise and as his mom always taught him, a good man should always support a good woman and vice-versa.
The depths of Leo's assessment was once more ruined by his second point, "As for Zeus, everything he does is a sexual innuendo, so the female metaphor just fit."
"Wow, every time I talk to you I feel like I've just ridden a roller coaster."
"Yeah, because I'm pure AWESOME!"
"I was actually referring to feeling like I had whiplash," Frank replied, shaking his head.
The entire time this exchange had occurred, Malcolm had not stopped his breathing exercises, trying desperately to ignore the reality that he shouldn't be surprised, hyperactive demigods were easily distracted, and the only demigod who even came close to the excessively excitable energy level of Leo was Percy, who managed to make constellations on the ceiling with pizza dough when he was bored.
"Anyway we all know of my amazingness,"
"That's not a word."
"Why not show the lovely gods and goddesses watching at home how awesome you are Frank my friend," Leo said, patting his companion on the shoulder.
"What, you mean turning into a dragon isn't enough?"
"Please, the dragon is so last year," Leo said, wiggling his eyebrows in what he hoped was a comedic effect. "What new tricks have you got."
"Well, I have been working on something..."
"Then let's see it buddy," Leo burst excitedly, quickly shoving the chicken disaster to the floor to make room for Frank to stand on the prep table so everyone would get a better view. "You all want to see this right?" he asked, prompting the crew to encourage the often shy praetor to perform his newest transformation. When no one replied, Leo pulled the sparkly remote from his pocket and hit a button, resulting in a prerecorded "BOOO!" to play from the sound system.
"Damn it!" Leo screamed, throwing the remote once more to the floor before looking pleadingly at Frank. "Come on buddy, it'll be fine. Come on, Do It! Do It! Do It! Do It!" he continued, this time encouraging his friends to encourage Frank to show off his newest transformation. In time, Piper joined in, encouraged by Leo's energy, and with her charm speak active, it was little effort to get Frank to climb onto the prep table.
-0-
Chiron had made his way up the hill, his tweed jacket slung over his hindquarters, fedora on his head and suitcase in his hand as he approached Camp Half-Blood. He so desperately needed this vacation, his nerves simply could not handle much more stress.
After the battle of Manhattan, facing his father in battle and barely surviving, only to learn that Percy had trusted Luke enough to give him his knife so the fallen demigod could set things right, the ancient teacher had hoped they had earned a reprieve from the quests and dangers of their world. But NO, the gods weren't done with this generation of demigods as apparently one evil primordial entity wasn't enough, Gaea had to rise.
He had never felt more proud and more terrified for his students than he had at the end of the Second Giant War. All he needed was a bit of normalcy to make things right. So as he crested the hill and closed his eyes, taking in the scent of ripening strawberries, he breathed deeply, feeling comfort in his life.
Before of course, opening his eyes and realizing that where the production studio should have been, there was an enormous orca whale right in the middle of camp, with a number of demigods apparently pinned beneath.
"Well fuck," Chiron said, smashing his hat on his head, turning around with a flick of his tail, and walking right the hell out of camp.
-0-
A/N: So, newest chapter, in the reviews Riverann had said I needed to do one with Leo, and honestly, this was my next planned one, so, hope it was good. I've been dividing my time between writing these and the Homecoming story. I enjoy Homecoming more because of the deep, psychological examination of Percy and Annabeth and their trauma with dealing with Tartarus, but honestly, these are hella fun to write.
Anyway, hope it was enjoyable and that if you did like it, drop a review, add to favorites, follow, all that jazz. Thank you for reading.