Hey guys! I hope you enjoy even if it's not as different as I'd like- and hey, I think you'd all like the last couple of chaps that I write- they are emotional, with lots of yelling- also, we love and cherish Frank Zhang and I would love one of his hugs but he also messed up- whoops.
Replies:
The Official Clarisse: Yeah, Hera and Gaea are bitches and Percy's gonna go through it- after all her memories are also a lot more traumatic than canon Percy's so that's fun.
Quip Scarlet: At the end of the chapter? Toward the end of the fic? Well it has one of my favorite lines just because it's a massive fuck you to Hera.
JjlovesPJO: Yep, your sentiment is shared by everyone.
Weirdhead: It makes me laugh because pretty much every review right now is 'screw Hera'.
Drizzle: See I get what you mean, but it seemed so similar to how he picked up Greek that it got me thinking about it.
Undeath9087: Yeah, the gods are assholes. And I imagine the curse of Achilles would stay- and yeah- but there's still Frank and Percy doesn't take well to people going for her friends.
Captain Abvious: All demigods are technically, through the gods anyway.
Percy was very proud of the fact that she didn't shriek as she whirled around.
At first she thought it had to be her old buddy Beano sneaking up on her, but the old lady sitting in the bushes was even more repulsive than a Gorgon. She looked like a hippie who'd been kicked to the side of the road maybe forty years ago, where she'd been collecting trash and rags ever since. She wore a dress made of tie-dyed cloth, ripped-up quilts, and plastic grocery bags. Her frizzy mop of hair was gray-brown, like root-beer foam, tied back with a peace-sign headband. Warts and moles covered her face. When she smiled, she showed exactly three teeth.
"It isn't a maintenance tunnel," she confided. "It's the entrance to camp."
A jolt went up Percy's spine. Camp. Yes, that was familiar. A camp. Maybe this was her home. Maybe Annabeth and Rachel were close by.
But something felt wrong.
The Gorgons were still on the roof of the apartment building. Then Stheno shrieked in delight and pointed in Percy's direction.
The old hippie lady raised her eyebrows. "Not much time, child. You need to make your choice."
"Why?" Percy's voice was almost pleading, "I don't understand any of this- who are you?" though a part of her wasn't even sure she wanted to know. The last thing she needed right now was to find out that the harmless looking hippie lady was actually an evil monster.
"Oh, you can call me June." The old lady's eyes sparkled as if she'd made an excellent joke. "It is June, isn't it? They named the month after me!"
"Okay…Look, I should go. Two Gorgons are coming. I don't want them to hurt you."
June clasped her hands over her heart. "How sweet! But that's part of your choice!"
"My choice?" Percy resisted the urge to groan, "What-" she glanced towards the hill, face paling at the sight. The Gorgons had taken off their green vests. Wings sprouted from their backs—small bat wings, which glinted like brass.
Since when did they have wings? Maybe they were ornamental. Maybe they were too small to get a Gorgon into the air. Then the two sisters leaped off the apartment building and soared toward her.
Oh just great, Percy let out a groan, "Why me?" she muttered the words.
"Because you are special Percy Jackson." the hippie lady- June, as she'd called herself, spoke up, "You have a could leave me here at the mercy of the gorgons and go to the ocean. You'd make it there safely, I guarantee. The gorgons will be quite happy to attack me and let you go. In the sea, no monster would bother you. You could begin a new life, live to a ripe old age, and escape a great deal of pain and misery that is in your future."
Percy was pretty sure she wasn't going to like the second option. For some reason the old lady gave her real bad vibes "Or?"
"Or you could do a good deed for an old lady," she said. "Carry me to the camp with you."
"Carry you?" Percy hoped she was kidding. Then June hiked up her skirts and showed her her swollen purple feet.
"I can't get there by myself," she said. "Carry me to camp—across the highway, through the tunnel, across the river."
Percy didn't know what river she meant, but it didn't sound easy. June looked pretty heavy, and while Percy knew she was strong she did not like the idea of having to carry some complete stranger to safety while being chased by monsters.
The gorgons were only fifty yards away now—leisurely gliding toward them as if they knew the hunt was almost over.
Percy looked at the old lady. "And I'd carry you to this camp because—?"
"Because it's a kindness!" she said. "And if you don't, the gods will die, the world we know will perish, and everyone from your old life will be destroyed. Of course, you wouldn't remember them, so I suppose it won't matter. You'd be safe at the bottom of the sea.…"
Percy swallowed. The gorgons shrieked with laughter as they soared in for the kill.
"If I go to the camp," she asked, "will I get my memory back? Will I find out who Annabeth and Rachel are?"
"Eventually," June said, and Percy thought she saw a flicker of annoyance in the womans eyes but it was gone so fast that she had probably just imagined it. "But be warned, you will sacrifice much! You'll lose the mark of Achilles. You'll feel pain, misery, and loss beyond anything you've ever known. But you might have a chance to save your old friends and family, to reclaim your old life."
The gorgons were circling right overhead. They were probably studying the old woman, trying to figure out who the new player was before they struck.
"What about those guards at the door?" Percy asked.
June smiled. "Oh, they'll let you in, dear. You can trust those two. So, what do you say? Will you help a defenceless old woman?"
Percy resisted the urge to growl at the old woman.
She knew way too much to be defenceless, this was probably a trap- and yet- what if the woman was defenceless. She didn't want to leave the woman behind if it meant that the monsters would eat her.
Or it could be a test- Percy hated tests, especially since she'd had her memories stolen, it just wasn't fair. She didn't know anything so why couldn't she just be left alone until she figured things out? And a huge part of her wanted to turn and run to the sea- but- she thought about the flashes she'd had- she had Annabeth and Rachel- she had family. "Why should I trust you?"
"Perhaps I can give you a hint." June prodded, "The brother who killed Medusa is named Luke-" and Percy felt as if she'd been stabbed- pain shot through her head and her eyes filled with tears as a rush of strange confusing emotions flooded through her.
She knew the name- she heard a voice in her head, "Come on Sephie, you know what you have to do. You're not the type to run and hide- gods above I wish you were"
Percy swallowed hard, her gaze focusing on June, "I'll carry you. Because I need to know who I am. I need to know who I'm missing." She bent down, scooping up the old woman.
She was lighter than Percy had expected- and she tried to ignore the womans sour breath and the calloused hands clinging to her neck.
She made it across the first lane of traffic. A driver honked. Another yelled something that was lost in the wind. Most just swerved and looked irritated at them, as if they had to deal with a lot of ratty teenagers carrying old hippie women across the freeway here in Berkeley.
A shadow fell over her, Stheno called down gleefully.
"Clever girl! Found a goddess to carry, did you?"
"A goddess?" Percy's voice was incredulous as June just cackled with delight.
"Whoops!" she muttered that as a car almost killed them, Percy cursed under her breath, tightening her grip on the woman.
Somewhere off to their left Euryale screamed, "Get them! Two prizes are better than one!"
And something about that set Percy's teeth on edge.
She was no prize, she was her own person. She let out a little growl, pushing herself harder as she sprinted across the remaining lanes, reaching the median alive by some miracle.
She could see the Gorgons swooping down, cars swerving as the monsters passed over head.
She absently wondered what the mortals were seeing but she couldn't waste time with that as she kept running towards the door in the hillside.
June seemed to be getting heavier with every step Percy took, her heart was pounding in her chest, her ribs ached.
One of the guards yelled something but Percy couldn't make it out- though she saw the guy with the bow nocking an arrow.
"Wait!" Percy screamed the word, expecting the arrow to come speeding towards her- and as she was in that moment she didn't stand a chance of ducking away- she might not get hurt by the arrow but June might- Percy didn't know if she was really a god or not- if she was clearly this was some sort of test, and she was pretty sure that failing a godly test was a good way to get yourself killed.
Thankfully she quickly realised that the boy wasn't actually aiming at her, the arrow flew over Percy's head and a Gorgon wailed in pain.
The second guard readied her spear, gesturing frantically at Percy to hurry.
Percy gritted her teeth harder- and honestly she'd be lucky if she didn't grind them down into little stumps by the end of this nightmare.
"Gotcha!" the shriek of triumph came from Euryale, Percy turned her head, expecting claws to grasp at her any moment- and an arrow thudded into the Gorgon's head- Percy would have whooped in relief if she wasn't so breathless. And she watched Euryale tumble into the fast lane. A truck slammed into her and carried her backward a hundred yards, but she just climbed over the cab, pulled the arrow out of her head, and launched back into the air.
Percy reached the door, trembling with her exhaustion as she gasped out, "Thanks, good shot Ka-" she shook herself off, brows furrowing- thankfully if either of the guards had noticed her moment of confusion. She didn't even know who's name she'd been about to say.
"That should have killed her!" The archer's voice was frustrated and Percy let out a snort.
"Yeah, welcome to my world they've been on my ass for days, I've killed them like, a bajillion times."
"Frank," the girl said. "Get them inside, quick! Those are gorgons."
"Gorgons?" The archer's voice squeaked. It was hard to tell much about him under the helmet, but he looked stout like a wrestler, maybe fourteen or fifteen. "Will the door hold them?" In Percy's arms, June cackled. "No, no it won't. Onward, Percy Jackson! Through the tunnel, over the river!"
"Percy Jackson?" The female guard was darker-skinned, with curly hair sticking out the sides of her helmet. She looked younger than Frank—maybe thirteen. Her sword scabbard came down almost to her ankle. Still, she sounded like she was the one in charge. "Okay, you're obviously a demigod. But who's the—?" She glanced at June. "Never mind. Just get inside. I'll hold them off."
"Hazel," the boy said. "Don't be crazy."
"Go!" she demanded.
Frank cursed in another language—was that Latin?—and opened the door. "Come on!"
Percy followed, staggering under the weight of the old lady, who was definitely getting heavier. He didn't know how that girl Hazel would hold off the gorgons by herself, but she was too tired to argue.
The tunnel cut through solid rock, about the width and height of a school hallway. At first, it looked like a typical maintenance tunnel, with electric cables, warning signs, and fuse boxes on the walls, lightbulbs in wire cages along the ceiling. As they ran deeper into the hillside, the cement floor changed to tiled mosaic. The lights changed to reed torches, which burned but didn't smoke. A few hundred yards ahead, Percy saw a square of daylight.
The old lady was heavier now than a pile of sandbags. Percy's arms shook from the strain. June mumbled a song in Latin, like a lullaby, which didn't help her concentrate.
Behind them, the gorgons' voices echoed in the tunnel. Hazel shouted. Percy was tempted to dump June and runback to help, but then the entire tunnel shook with the rumble of falling stone. There was a squawking sound, just like the gorgons had made when Percy had dropped a crate of bowling balls on them in Napa. She glanced back. The west end of the tunnel was now filled with dust.
"Shouldn't we check on Hazel?" she asked, her voice suddenly filled with worry. She didn't like the thought of leaving people behind. "She'll be okay—I hope," Frank said. "She's good underground. Just keep moving! We're almost there."
"Almost where?"
June chuckled. "All roads lead there, child. You should know that."
"Detention?" Percy asked, resisting the urge to drop the old woman on her ass.
"Rome, child," the old woman said. "Rome."
Percy wasn't sure she'd heard her right. True, his memory was gone. Her brain hadn't felt right since she had woken up at the Wolf House. But she was pretty sure Rome wasn't in California.
They kept running. The glow at the end of the tunnel grew brighter, and finally they burst into sunlight.