This chapter is almost exactly the same as the OG story, it was too good to pass up, I just polished it up and made it nicer and less typo heavy.
The weirdness of having hundreds of stone eyes on them, all life sized, only made the situation worse, but the real clincher was the whimpers radiating off of Grover, who looked ready to pee his pants. He was shivering with twitchy wide eyes, bleeting every so often. It didn't matter that they were in a fast-food counter with a grill, a soda fountain, a pretzel heater, and a nacho cheese dispenser. The place was weird and it did not feel safe in the slightest. Something about it just felt wrong, and that was not even counting the strange lady who still unnerved Aaron.
"Please, sit down," Aunty Em said.
"Awesome," Percy's voice was strange, almost dreamy in nature. Aaron turned to face him and was horrified to see an almost high expression on his face. He looked entirely out of it.
"Um," Grover said reluctantly, "we don't have any money, ma'am."
Before Aaron could jab him in the ribs, Aunty Em said, "No, no, children. No money. This is a special case, yes? It is my treat, for such nice children."
"Thank you, ma'am," Annabeth said.
Like Annabeth had belched loudly at a party, Aunty Em stiffened. Disgust wavering in her dark eyes for just a moment before it faded away, a smile in her voice.
"Quite all right, Annabeth," she said, adding to the fear Aaron felt, wondering how she knew Annabeth's name. "You have such beautiful gray eyes, child." Then she left quickly, hurrying to the of her store to gather the food, something that only took a few minutes.
Aaron figured something was wrong about five minutes into their meal, mostly when he watched how ravenously Percy and Annabeth chomped into their food. They had eaten already not that long ago at Camp. They wouldn't be this ravenous, their eyes glazing over with hunger. He was half certain they'd bite his finger off if he tried to take their food away from them.
Like Grover, Aaron picked at his food, not really hungry since he had already eaten. It wouldn't have matter if he was starving, he was too nervous to take as much as a single bite. Something just didn't feel right...
Suddenly and without warning, Grover perked up and looked around. "What's that hissing noise?" He frowned, sniffing around.
Aaron panicked them, looking at the many statues, his mind connecting the dots.
"Hissing?" Aunty Em asked. "Perhaps you hear the deep-fryer oil. You have keen ears, Grover."
'"Wait we never introduced ourselves, how the hell did she know Grover's name... and Annabeth's earlier.'
"I take vitamins. For my ears."
"That's admirable," she said. "But please, relax."
"So, you sell gnomes," Percy, with a swollen belly and tired eyes, spoke up.
"Oh, yes," Aunty Em said. "And animals. And people. Anything for the garden. Custom orders. Statuary is very popular, you know."
"A lot of business on this road?"
"Not so much, no. Since the highway was built... most cars, they do not go this way now. I must cherish every customer I get."
'Hecate, please let me be wrong. Hundreds of statues, all looking terrified... she knows our names... please let me be wrong.'
"Ah," Aunty Em said sadly. "You notice some of my creations do not turn out well. They are marred. They do not sell. The face is the hardest to get right. Always the face."
Making a sad noise, Percy ignorantly looked at their hostess with empathy. "You make these statues yourself?" He asked.
"Oh, yes. Once upon a time, I had two sisters to help me in the business, but they have passed on, and Aunty Em is alone. I have only my statues. This is why I make them, you see. They are my company." The sadness in her voice sounded so deep, so intense that it made Aaron's heart ache for her.
But he knew he was right, he knew who she was. His hand reached for his fork, ready to stab the lady if she so much as blinked funny.
Annabeth seemed to have the same idea as she suddenly stopped eating and sat forward and said, "Two sisters?"
"It's a terrible story," Aunty Em said. "Not one for children, really. You see, Annabeth, a bad woman was jealous of me, long ago, when I was young. I had a... a boyfriend, you know, and this bad woman was determined to break us apart. She caused a terrible accident. My sisters stayed by me. They shared my bad fortune as long as they could, but eventually they passed on. They faded away. I alone have survived, but at a price. Such a price."
"Percy?" Annabeth was shaking me to get my attention. "Maybe we should go, we don't want to overstay our welcome."
"She's right, Percy, it wouldn't be polite." He prayed again, this time for his brother to listen to him but whatever Medusa had done to them, the magic or drugs that seemed to lure Annabeth and Percy in so easily, it seemed to dull his sense of panic.
Percy actually frowned at them.
"Such beautiful gray eyes," Aunty Em told Annabeth again. "My, yes, it has been a long time since I've seen gray eyes like those."
She reached out as if to stroke Annabeth's cheek, but Annabeth stood up abruptly.
"We really should go."
"Yes!" Grover swallowed his waxed paper and stood up. "Right!"
"Please, dears," Aunty Em pleaded. "I so rarely get to be with children. Before you go, won't you at least sit for a pose?"
"A pose?" Annabeth asked warily.
"A photograph. I will use it to model a new statue set. Children are so popular, you see. Everyone loves children."
Annabeth shifted her weight from foot to foot. "I don't think we can, ma'am. Come on, Percy-"
"Sure we can. "Percy glared at then all. "It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's the harm?"
"Yes, Annabeth," the woman purred. "No harm."
"Isn't it illegal to take our picture without parental consent?" Eager to stop them from being alone with the monster for any longer, he looked at Percy and begged him internally to listen to reason. "We have no parents so they can't give consent. I don't want you to get in trouble." He kept his tone low, soft and respectful like one would talk to a very angry dog.
The Monster waved her hand, dismissing his worries. " Oh, I am sure we can avoid all of that. No one would have to know."
Aunty Em to lead us back out the front door, into the garden of statues. Medusa, for that was who she truly was, directed the questers to a park bench next to the stone satyr. "Now," she said, "I'll just position you correctly. The young girl in the middle, I think, and the two young gentlemen on either side."
"Not much light for a photo," Percy remarked.
"Oh, enough," Aunty Em said. "Enough for us to see each other, yes?"
"Where's your camera?" Grover asked.
Aunty Em stepped back, as if to admire the shot. "Now, the face is the most difficult. Can you smile for me please, everyone? A large smile?"
Grover glanced at the cement satyr next to him, and mumbled, "That sure does look like Uncle Ferdinand."
Heart in his shoe, Aaron turned and looked the Satyr, realizing it looked a lot like Grover. The same chin and cheekbones, marred by a look of fear in his eyes.
"Grover, Aaron" Aunty Em chastised, "look this way, dear."
She still had no camera in her hands.
"Percy-" Annabeth said.
"I will just be a moment," Aunty Em said. "You know, I can't see you very well in this cursed veil..."
"Percy, something's wrong," Annabeth insisted.
"Wrong?" Aunty Em said, reaching up to undo the wrap around her head. "Not at all, dear. I have such noble company tonight. What could be wrong?"
"That is Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover gasped.
"Look away from her!" Annabeth shouted. She whipped her Yankees cap onto her head and vanished. Her invisible hands pushed Grover and Percy both off the bench just as Aaron dived away, hiding behind Ferdinand's statue with his eyes closed.
"PERCY, THAT'S MEDUSA KEEP YOUR EYES SHUT."
The sound of a growl and hundreds of tiny snakes filled the warehouse, an oddly frightening sound.
"Run!" Grover bleated. I heard him racing across the gravel, yelling, "Maia!" to kick-start his flying sneakers.
"Such a pity to destroy a handsome young face," she told Percy soothingly, her voice now oozing potent magic. "Stay with me, Percy. All you have to do is look up. The Gray-Eyed One did this to me, Percy," Medusa said, and she didn't sound anything like a monster. Her voice was inviting, potent and perfect and even where he stood Aaron felt the temptation to turn and look at her. "Annabeth's mother, the cursed Athena, turned me from a beautiful woman into this."
'She's not wrong, even if it was consensual sex in Athena's temple then it was an overreaction on so many levels and nothing but sadistically cruel.'
"Don't listen to her!" Annabeth's voice shouted, some-where in the statuary. "Run, Percy!"
"Silence!" Medusa snarled. Then her voice modulated back to a comforting purr. "You see why I must destroy the girl, Percy. She is my enemy's daughter. I shall crush her statue to dust. But you, dear Percy, you need not suffer."
"No..." He heard Percy mutter, and he would have tried to help his brother stand but he couldn't move.
Fear stalled his heart in a way that the Furies just didn't. This wasn't a monster he could rationalize, she had a grudge and was insane. Isolation had broken her, losing her sisters and never being able to speak to others ever again... never able to love and gain connections, it was a cruelty that had redefined her from powerful priestess and child of two gods into something darker and twisted and broken that she would so easily attack children.
"Do you really want to help the gods?" Medusa asked. "Do you understand what awaits you on this foolish quest, Percy? What will happen if you reach the Underworld? Do not be a pawn of the Olympians, my dear. You would be better off as a statue. Less pain. Less pain."
"Percy!" From somewhere as strange sound echoed in the air, like a two-hundred-pound hummingbird in a nosedive. Grover yelled, "Duck! Duck, I'll get her!" Almost certain that Grover would miss, Aaron said a prayer for the Goat boy but was pleasantly surprised when he heard a loud Thwack! Followed by Medusa's bellow of rage.
"You miserable satyr," she snarled. "I'll add you to my collection!"
"That was for Uncle Ferdinand!" Grover yelled back, his voice fading slightly as he seemed to rise above them all.
'So the shoes came in handy after all... I need to help... I can't see but If Grover can be useful so can I!' Waiting for Grover to take another pass, Aaron let his limbs become limber, ready to move at a moments notice.
Ker-whack!"Arrgh!" Medusa yelled, her snake-hair hissing and spitting.
He took a chance, following the magnetic pull as he ran with his body low. He felt contact, hearing a horrible gasping hiss as he tackled the monster and used his considerable weight to lift her into the air and smash her against a statue.
His hoodie only helped so much, he collapsed to the side and drug himself away, coughing and wheezing as he struggle to get the air back in his lungs.
"You useless mortal, I will enjoy crushing your statue to dust!" Her voice wheezed out, as out of breath as he was. He actually felt her knees hit the ground as she collapsed, struggling for breathe.
"Get over yourself you hateful cow." Using a statue to lift himself up, he managed to comfortably open his eyes where he knew she wasn't and ran away, weaving around statues. He finally got a good look at Grover, flying with a club in hand, eyes closed and navigating with sound and scent.
"Hey, guys!" Grover yelled somewhere above us. "I think she's unconscious!"
"Roooaaarrr!"
"Maybe not," Grover corrected. He went in for another pass with the tree branch, a fierce concentration on his face.
He didn't see it, but he heard Grover crash into a statue a few seconds later, along with a happy victorious growl from Medusa. He still heard Grover groaning, so he knew that the boy was still alive at the least.
"You wouldn't harm an old woman, Percy," she crooned. "I know you wouldn't."
Grover moaned, "Percy, don't listen to her!"
Medusa cackled. "Too late." Then, to the fear of Aaron he heard a horrible and sickening shlock!, then a hiss like wind rushing out of a tire. A soft thud came next, and he imagined Percy's head on the floor.
"PERCY!"
"I'm okay, she's dead."
"Oh, yuck," Grover said. "Mega-yuck." It was this that Aaron managed to follow back to the others, looking with his eyes open skyward.
Annabeth said, "Don't move. Are you okay?" she asked me, her voice trembling.
"Yeah. "Percy sounded sick and shaky, not that anyone could blame him. "Why didn't ... why didn't the head evaporate?"
Aaron laughed here. "It's like you to ask that... it's like your horn, a spoil of war. It's magical though, so it still has the power to petrify. Is it safe to look down."
"Yeah." Annabeth sounded ready to puke here.
Looking down, he saw Grover laying upside down against a grizzly bear statue. He had a big welt on his forehead. His green Rasta cap hung from one of his little goat horns, and his fake feet had been knocked off his hooves. The magic sneakers were flying aimlessly around his head. He looked hilarious and so Aaron laughed hard, helping the boy righten himself then stand.
"That was epic, see what I mean about having a weapon. If you had a sword she would have been dead first swing."
Grover blushed a little. " Yeah, I'll make sure I get one soon. That really was not fun, though. Well, the hitting-her-with-a-stick part, that was fun. But crashing into a concrete bear? Not fun." He snatched his shoes out of the air.
Eventually, as one they walked back into the warehouse and found some old plastic grocery bags behind the snack counter and double-wrapped Medusa's head. We plopped it on the table where we'd eaten dinner and sat around it, too exhausted to speak.
Looking peeved, Percy spoke up first but not at Annabeth. "So we have Athena to thank for this monster?"
Annabeth flashed a deeply irritated look, almost growling as loudly as Medusa. "Your dad, actually. Don't you remember? Medusa was Poseidon's girl-friend. They decided to meet in my mother's temple. That's why Athena turned her into a monster. Medusa and her two sisters who had helped her get into the temple, they became the three gorgons. That's why Medusa wanted to slice me up, but she wanted to preserve you as a nice statue. She's still sweet on your dad. You probably reminded her of him."
Percy's face turned beet red. "Oh, so now it's my fault we met Medusa."
Annabeth straightened. In a bad imitation of Percy's voice, she said: "'It's just a photo, Annabeth. What's th-"
"Stop it you two, seriously there is no point in this freaking argument." He growled this time, enjoying their shock. " Stop being your parents, you are no them. Annabeth, your mom overreacted and made Medusa an eternally alone monster. In ancient times she never attacked others, they attacked her. Your mom is the reason she went nuts." He turned to Percy, who looked like he was bracing himself. "Your dad disrespected Athena by having sex in her temple, that of a virgin goddess and then he abandoned Medusa when he could have easily helped her. Both of them screwed up... sigh... now instead of bitching at each other, lets do something productive. Grover, go get some food and steal her cash. Annabeth, help him. Percy go get some firewood."
Annabeth seemed annoyed at the scolding and orders but her curiosity overruled her anger. " Why firewood?"
"I want to cast a prayer and sacrifice the head to the gods. I am hoping to have someone bless these innocent people and Uncle Ferdinand. Hopefully they can be freed or at least given a peaceful afterlife since their only crime was getting caught by surprise."
Everyone bar Aaron looked ashamed, having not thought of that. Percy seemed particularly touched. "You... you asked me to bring my horn." He pulled it out from his pocket. "I liked keeping it on me... can I sacrifice this too?"
"It would only help I think."
'''
And so they separated, gathering the supplies and doing as he ordered and soon a fire was started right outside the warehouse in a concrete plant pot. Aaron lit it himself with a fire spell and a few drops of his own blood. The Fire shifted as he added his blood, infused with some of the magic from his talisman, turning a deep rich red that belied it's mystical power.
"This spell is to summon the gods, well ask for aid. It is like a general blessing, basically you offer your blood and then an object of value to the fire. Then you invoke the god in question. Normally there would be herbs but I don't have them. This will have to do." Gathering his strength, and ignoring the sting of his palm since he had poked it with a steak knife for the blood the ritual needed. " We each have to offer something and then beseech a god or goddess in question. Percy killed Medusa but we Grover played a big part in her death, so the head might be considered both of theirs.
I'll start."
Gathering his confidence he offered his burger from earlier and his fries, dumping them in.
"Hecate, I would have offered something better but I do not have anything that you may want. Still, I ask in return for this sacrifice that you help these poor souls. Either heal them, or if you cannot, help guide them to a peaceful afterlife. Be with them where no one else is willing to."
Percy was next, and he passed the head over to Grover before tossing in his horn, which started to glow a bright red. "Dad, I know you had your issues with Medusa but leaving these people is just messed up. Please, please help them by breaking their curse or helping them however you can. They deserve better then to be left here, their families never knowing where they are." His prayer done, the horn turned to ash and suddenly the fire doubled in size, turning a richer red.
"Mom... I... you... this isn't right." Annabeth turned a bright red of her own, turning away with some shame." Help them, they don't deserve to share her punishment. Please, help them all." She added some more food she had apparently found in the fast food section of the store. "Please."
Grover was the last, tossing in the head with a " Please, Lord Pan, help them all but especially Uncle Ferdinand. He didn't deserve to die, none of them did. He was trying to find you."
For a moment nothing happened and Aaron sighed in disappointment, expecting nothing less from the cruel gods… then the fire exploded, like a sonic burst that washed across their skin. It rose higher and higher before evaporating entirely, leaving them all blinking as black spots covered their vision.
Recovering the fastest, the Goat boy turned to the statue of his Uncle, screaming. " Uncle Ferdinand!"
Somehow the blackspots vanished enough for Aaron to turned to the Statue and see the cause. The statue had crumbled away, but rising fast was a beautiful yellow flower. A daffodil, a Greek Plant that felt fitting for someone who died at what he thought was a photo shoot.
Rushing inside, he saw the rest of the Statues had crumbled, and from their bodies beautiful flowers grew right in the pavement. A veritable garden growing in the midst of something terrible... it was beautiful, sad and useless, just like most things the Greek Gods did.
'I am not sure if I am angry or happy... they could have just saved them... or maybe they couldn't... sad either way.'
"Wow..." Percy whispered, looking around the room with awe. "That's amazing."
"I guess... let's go."
Annabeth, who had been oddly quiet, walked up to them with a piece of paper in hand. "I found the Underworld's address, apparently they buy her sculptures."
"Wow... "
They all basically agreed... they weren't surprised, not with what they just saw, but with the fact that the Underworld bought the butchered remains of so many countless innocent people slaughtered by a broken women cursed through getting caught between the feud of two petty gods.
As they left the store, a single prayer left Aaron's mind. Not to any god or goddess but to Medusa herself. 'One of these days, I will be back... and I will help heal you from the evils of the gods. That, I promise.'
Chapter end, tell me what you think in the reviews.
This was a fun chapter. Originally I was going to heal Medusa or at least make a promise too but I realized she was too broken to heal, her mind too fractured...
Love, your Ninja Overlord,
Mika.