The twins stood at the side speaking quickly in amphritian trying to come up with a plan. It'd probably be easier if they knew how Thalia got out of this the first go round.
The kids stared at them. Suspicion and questions churning in their guts. Luke was pale. He had heard them clearly stating that he had been destined to die. He had blood on his hands.
And Ariadne called him her grandfather's scapegoat. If her dad was Poseidon… then that meant… but Zeus chopped him up? What- [They changed their future. So what did that mean?]
Thalia, on the other hand, was completely hurt and betrayed. Their words were worrisome, but she had more important things to worry about. Luke was right. They shouldn't have trusted the pepsi-dispensing goat. She should've left it in storm mode and sent it off to Olympus.
She just didn't understand. "Why would Father send me here? What kind of treasure could be worth this?"
"Treasure," Hal perked up. His eyes tracked over them all. "Ah, so it seems despite the changes in the timeline then…"
Ariadne turned from her brother. A look of reluctant pity entered her gaze, "You know how this ends."
Hal nodded sadly, "You are not destined to die here." Standing up, he led the group to the walk in closet. Jewels upon jewels lined the walls. The twins eyed the different weapons in contemplation before grabbing a few bags and stuffing them full.
Hal rearranged boxes on top of boxes, pushed away a basket of diamonds and some gold bars. Behind it all stood a metal safe about two-foot-four. He gestured towards it in excitement.
"Can you open it," Luke questioned even though he supposed he already knew the answer. Behind them, the twins were still talking as Percy looked over a scimitar.
Hal shook his head. "It's trapped," Luke guessed with a decisive nod. The twins moved closer to them having finally finished raiding the man's closet. They held two more bags full and Luke had the sense that the man's jewel collection was in there.
"Whatever is inside must be important," Percy noted before sighing as he looked at the kids. "And you want to open it."
Ariadne scrunched her nose up. If Thalia had her spear then..."Percy, do you think the shield came from here?" Percy startled before grumbling under his breath, "If that's true, we should find an escape plan and I can just track down the actual face and make her a shield myself ."
"Whoever touches it gets burned to a pile of ash," Hal's voice echoed from the other room. Ariadne scowled deeply, "Oh you better be glad you've already lost your voice. I'm this close to ripping out your vocal cords."
Hal stuck his tongue out at her and Ariadne let out a strangled sound. "It's the second trap that I'm worried about."
"Oh geez, like being turned to ash isn't already a problem. You get a nifty little surprise right afterwards," Percy snorted. He turned towards his twin, "Your boyfriend is an asshole."
"Hey," she protested before quickly backtracking, "We're not dating."
"But you'd like to be," he teased. She grumbled, "Shut up or I'm feeding you to the drapes."
"What's the second trap," Thalia demanded from Hal. The man stared at Ariadne in bemusement. He was probably wrapping his head around the fact that she and his father had relations. He shook his head before turning back towards the safe, "One wrong move and the whole apartment will fill with a poisonous gas. We'd all die."
Again, considering that the twins were fully immortal… they wouldn't die. Be extremely sick, sure. But they wouldn't die.
"No one is dying today," Percy declared even though he shared a look with his sister. Thalia and Luke somehow made it out of this alive, but they never spoke of it again. It could only mean one thing.
"Luke, do your thing," Ariadne deflected.
Luke stared wide eyed as if she didn't just put the biggest amount of pressure on him. He turned to look at Thalia, who swallowed but nodded her head, "I trust you. Just… don't mess up."
It was obvious that this was going to be something else that she got her way in regards to Luke because the boy turned right back towards the safe. He touched the combination lock while Percy had his hands on his shoulders. A thin… very thin strip of water laid over his fingers.
It was quiet as they watched before Luke saw something , fingertips moving around the safe before he extracted an unbroken vial of green liquid. The twins gasped at the sight of it. Thalia tackled him in a hug which was something that she shouldn't have done since he was still holding a tube of deadly poison.
"You're so good," Thalia praised. Ariadne and Percy can see the literal hearts floating around the boy's mind. If it weren't obvious before, it was obvious then that there was no way that Grace was going to become a huntress.
Looking into the safe, Ariadne and Percy were not surprised to see the familiar row polished silver links.
Aegis. 2.0
Ariadne reached for it before turning to secure it around the child of lightning's wrist. The twins stared in silence. It was a familiar sight.
Hal cheered despite himself. "The curse… Father stated that the curse would end when the owner of the treasure claimed it." He then shot a look over to Ariadne, "Which meant that I had every right to save that little girl."
"Say one more word and I will gut you like a fish then skin you like a snake," she sneered.
Hal turned away from her before trailing is hand over the bracelet. "Thank you. I-thank you. For your help, I shall.. I shall use my gift once more to see how you get out of this."
Ariadne turned to her brother incredulously. There was no way. He just broke his curse and now he wanted to do the same thing that got him cursed in the first place? Percy shrugged, eyes pinned on the man as he carefully wrapped his hand around Thalia's wrist.
"You, Thalia Grace. In order to protect your friends, you will sacrifice yourself. You will change once, and then change again. Your path will be sad and lonely. But someday you will find your family again."
"Well, that's a lie," Percy retorted. "We won't leave her alone."
Ariadne nodded her head in agreement. "There won't be any sacrifices." And they highly doubted this version would become a tree or a huntress with the way that they changed her fate.
Hal grasped onto Luey and the boy's hand rising was the only reason she hadn't taken his arm off at the wrist. He frowned as he looked at him, "Your future is uncertain. I see a sacrifice in your future. A choice. But also a betrayal. But I see strength and love also. Understanding and truth. An outburst that would overwhelm you like a fire in a den-"
"Fire," Luke suddenly stated. "Don't you all know how to make greek fire?"
The twins grimaced, "Uh… no. We failed that class." After their alchemy teachers almost lost their fins, it had been decided that the twins would just skip that class in general.
Ariadne perked up, "Though you should be able to make some. Your father is Hermes Trismegistus. He's considered the founder of science, religion, mathematics, geometry, alchemy, philosophy, medicine and magic." The adoration on her tongue made Hal look at her in suspicion. Percy inwardly snorted. The old man who had just met her could easily point out the weird love triangle she had going on.
[He refused to believe the trio, insisting nothing was going on between them.]
Hal pressed his fingers together, "Well, I do have the recipe."
The twins stared at him in suspicion, "Now why do you have it?"
"How come no one has managed to recreate greek fire now? Why didn't you try to use it to escape" Thalia demanded as the old man rushed upstairs to get the paper. The monsters growled but did nothing to stop him. Idiotic things were probably convinced that they wouldn't be able to escape.
One thing monsters should learn is to never count out demigods. They had more than one way to surprise them.
As they rushed around getting the ingredients together. Ariadne and Percy shrugged in answer to her first question, "Those that managed to create it usually had the blood of deities in their veins. Archimedes had been the one to discover how to create it through mirrors and it only worked due to the godly blood in his veins and the godly blood of his enemies."
Percy nodded, "We could never get the lightning outtake right. And then there was the time that Ariadne managed to create primordial fire that sunk into the core of the ocean and Lord Pontus had to come and put it out himself."
The girl didn't even look embarrassed. In fact, she seemed almost in awe, "He complimented my whirlpool."
Percy nudged her lightly as they mixed the ingredients into the pot on the old stovetop, "So, he said my ice senbons were the most creative thing he had ever seen."
Ariadne swooned a little as she smiled proudly, "He called us dad's most destructive children."
And with those cheerful words, the twins cut their hands open pouring as much blood as they could over the ingredients.
Hal looked around at them before smiling lightly. He had handed Luke a diary, "I think this might help you. I've written my predictions down in it. Though they may be a moot point as long as the Fated continue to interfere."
"Damn right we will," Percy muttered. Luke shook his head, "Hal, this is yours. Keep it."
The man only smiled sadly, eyes turning towards Ariadne in understanding, "Sometimes the future really is better left a mystery."
The girl closed her eyes in grief. The man handed him a celestial bronze dagger from his belt. "I can't.. I mean…"
"Please. Take it. This is the dagger the little girl gifted me. She promised me it would always protect its owner," he declared. "It can be an excellent weapon in the right hands."
Percy and Ariadne shared another look. Luke had gifted Annabeth a dagger. Percy knew in his heart that it was the one they were looking at.
"Come on," Percy muttered as Luke stared silently at the dagger in his hands. "We have only one chance at this."
They ventured back towards the staircase, but they didn't go up. There was no reason to put themselves at such a disadvantage. The curse would lift just enough for the monsters to attack at sundown. They could do it. Thalia and Luke somehow made it out when it was just the two [and a half] of them against a house full. They'd do it again.
[Ariadne had the sneaking suspicion that the monsters only attacked at sunset because thats when Apollon was no longer in the sky.]
The bars receded and the monsters came out to play.
The twins fought off the monsters as they tried to buy the kids time to escape. The bags were weighing them down but they refused to let them go. Percy stopped his feet making a large hole appear in the floor. Water shot out of the pipes in the floors pushing the monsters away.
It was like the most beautiful dance as the twins ducked and twirled around the room. The drapes would shoot out towards them, spinning them in different directions. Percy did a front flip, slashing the air twice and the curtains fell down in rags in front of them.
Ariadne stood in front of one, keeping contact as she boiled the monster from the inside out.
And Hal…
"Go," he yelled. The twins almost lost their concentration. But- Ariadne pushed her way to his side. "Are you sure about this?" The man nodded, "I've never been more sure about anything else." The girl stared at him once more before patting his shoulder, "He loves you despite everything." He gave her a watery smile, "Please. Let him know that I loved him too. Now go ."
Ariadne nodded her head, slipping three golden drachmas into his suit pocket before rushing out of the room and pulling her brother with her.
Hal stood in the middle of the room, one arrow left in his bow, "For Apollo!"
The arrow soared through the room bypassing the leucrotae in front of him. It hit the tube of poison, knocking it into the potion. Thalia hefted her spear summoning a large bolt of lightning, the potion ignited into a recognizable green substance. The resulting explosion mixed with the quakes from the sea twins set off a shockwave throughout the mansion.
The four of them were thrown from the building, tumbling across the ground outside. They stared at the burning building in shock as the flames at everything its path. The screams from the monsters almost mad them feel bad.
[Then they remembered that one leucrotae that seemed more human than the rest with his knife and lemon pepper seasoning.]
It was the sound of sirens that got them moving. Ariadne walked forward towards the house. "May your memory be a blessing," she whispered as she poured nectar over the land.
And then they hightailed it out of there.