Prized Possession
10: Out of Joint
"Sound trumpets! Let our bloody colours wave!
And either victory, or else a grave" - William Shakespeare
"I'd bend over backwards to live in Bend!" declared the billboard.
"I hope whoever came up with that tagline got fired," said Nico.
The group had spent the night in a lay-by a little further south than the spot where the others had buried Morris while Percy and Annabeth had dealt with Lamia. Percy suspected that no-one had slept particularly well, but Will had proven gods-sent, waking everyone up at the crack of dawn and chivvying them along with such cheerfulness that no-one could really complain. He seemed to have a sixth sense that no length of sleep would be enough after the previous day's events, and had made the wise decision to make the group move on in every meaning.
Now, almost halfway to Othrys from Spokane, everyone seemed to be managing to act more or less like themselves again, even if that wasn't particularly different for Nico or Clarisse.
The group picked up lunch with some of the money Phillip had given them and settled down to eat it in the car. All of them were itching to stretch their legs, but any urban area carried the risk of recognition, which was one none of them were willing to take. Instead, they parked at the side of the road under the billboard which had offended Nico, and hoped that no-one came close enough to get a proper look at them.
"When we get there," began Jake, very slowly. "I know there's no concrete plan, and if there was it would go wrong anyway, so it's probably not worth having – I'm just wondering what the outline is?"
Percy was halfway through his next mouthful when he realised that the silence which followed Jake's question was because everyone was waiting for him to answer. He swallowed hurriedly. "Cause trouble. Fight what we can fight and hide from what we can't. A lot of it will depend on what Othrys is like when we arrive. More of it depends on luck. If anyone has any ideas then I'm all ears, I know it's not exactly" – he glanced at Annabeth - "not exactly a plan worthy of Athena, or anything."
Jake took an extra large bite of his burger as Percy finished speaking, which he guessed was the son of Hephaestus' way of avoiding thinking of an answer.
They finished eating quickly.
"Do you want me to take a turn driving?" Annabeth asked Clarisse.
The daughter of war gave her a sideways glance. "You don't have your license yet," she said. "I'm fine."
"I was thinking on the way here," said Annabeth, "anyone who tries to check will probably find they have a bigger issue to deal with pretty quickly."
There was a pause, and then Clarisse snorted. "We're so dumb," she said.
Everyone cracked a smile at that. Now that it had been pointed out, it made sense that they'd be found out the moment someone actually looked closely at them.
"Alright, who can drive well enough that you're not noticeably useless from the outside?" asked Clarisse. "We should make a rota."
It turned out that Annabeth and Jake were the only two who could confidently handle a vehicle– and Jake's leg was still stiff and sore, so he wasn't confident he could drive safely – but Clarisse seemed happy enough not to be the only driver, so Annabeth took a shift as they headed back to the main road.
"Left here," said Nico. Will must have given him the map at some point, though Percy didn't remember when.
He was jolted from thinking about the map when Annabeth spoke again. "What's that, up ahead?"
They all looked, and Percy stuck his head out of the window to get a better view.
The road was clogged with a long line of cars, which developed into a crowd of people a few hundred metres further on.
In the crowd, there were a handful of heads which loomed over the others just a little too much for a demigod not to notice.
"Monsters ahead," he said, as they pulled into the back of the queue. "I think they've set up some kind of checkpoint."
"Do we push through, or…?" asked Will.
"I've been wanting something to crush," snarled Clarisse.
"I thought we were trying to stay unnoticed," Annabeth said.
"We should try to find another way around," said Percy.
Annabeth pulled the car around and took the first turning off the road they came to.
"There are more ahead," she said.
"And behind," said Jake.
"Where've they all come from?" hissed Percy as they took another turning.
"I don't think we're getting past that block," said Nico, as Annabeth pulled over to the side of the road and the car slowed to a halt. Ahead of them was another crowd of monsters, loading trucks and carrying boxes. They didn't seem to have noticed the demigods, but they were all over the road and would have to be passed at a crawl.
"Should we ditch the car?" asked Will.
"Cyclopes behind us too," said Annabeth.
It only took a glance in the mirror to make up Percy's mind. "Everybody out," he said. The six of them spilled out over the sidewalk, and Percy led them across the sidewalk to the nearest shop, a Blockbuster.
"Look like you're browsing," he told the others. "I'll watch the window."
They duly split up, leaving Percy to pretend he was trying to pick between renting The Dark Knight, Iron Man, or Wall-E. Every few seconds though, he snuck glances out of the window to keep track of the situation outside. Somewhere not too far off, a dog barked.
The gaggle of monsters which had been approaching the car from behind moved slowly past the shop window, and like the others, they were carrying boxes. One drove a forklift truck down the road, clumsily weaving between the mortals and his comrades.
"I think this must be some kind of supply depot for them," came Annabeth's disembodied voice to his left. She continued: "All the monsters seem to be carrying boxes or driving chariots, or whatever. Like they're some kind of warfare delivery service. And there's an armoury in the employees-only room in the back here."
He looked at her, or at least the spot where he was pretty sure she would be if he could see her. "There's a what-now in the back? In Blockbuster?"
"An armoury. You can use my hat to go check it out, if you want," she said materialising as she offered him the Yankees cap.
He shook his head. "So what now? I'm beginning to feel like there's something too important going on here to just sneak away and carry on south. Can we lie low for a night or two to scout the place out?"
Annabeth grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him down an aisle. "Not anymore," she said, and pointed.
One of the monsters must have caught the scent of demigod, as suddenly there were a dozen or so of them crawling all over their former transport. A dracaena turned towards them, and beckoned the other monsters to follow her up the verge towards the shop.
Percy and Annabeth turned and hurried to the back of the store, catching the others' eyes on their way. "Is there a back way out?" he asked.
"Through the armoury," said Annabeth. "This way."
They hurriied through a door marked 'Employees Only', into a room lined with deadly weapons. Most of the walls were covered in swords, but Percy also saw bows and arrows, axes, maces, and even one vicious-looking creation it took him a moment to identify as a morningstar.
There was also a hellhound on a chain, which snarled at them as they approached. Clarisse hurled her spear down its throat, killing it instantly.
They spilled out through another door into an alleyway lined with dumpsters, which they hurried along until it joined up with another street.
"We can't just walk through the whole city," Clarisse hissed.
"We're not going to," answered Percy. He dashed out into the street, holding his arms out, and an incoming car screeched to a halt as its driver slammed on the breaks. He drew Riptide and hurried over to the driver's seat, beckoning the others. "Sorry," he told the woman inside. "We need to borrow this."
They made it about two blocks before they ran into another roadblock – a proper one this time, rather than just a crowd of monsters milling around. Cars were being checked and let through one by one.
"We should just push through," said Clarisse. "They already know we're here."
"They know there are demigods," said Annabeth. "They can't be sure that it's us."
The daughter of Ares snorted. "'Cause there'll be so many others who made it out of camp that'd be stupid enough to go towards the enemy."
Percy swung the car around and started heading west in the hope that the monsters might only be guarding the routes which obviously led to Othrys. It was a hope which lasted all of five minutes as they ran into another checkpoint.
Except, this one seemed to be managed by humans.
"Are we chancing it?" asked Will.
"Humans give us better odds than monsters do," admitted Annabeth.
Since no-one else contributed anything, Percy took his foot off the accelerator and let the car glide into place in the back of the queue that had formed up to the block.
The car was silent while they sat and waited to reach the front of the line.
When they got there, two police with friendly smiles on their faces approached the car, one of them leaning in at the driver's window, which Percy rolled down at her knock.
"Hi folks," she said, the friendly smile unerring. "Where are you headed?"
"Oh," said Percy, "we were just going for a drive. Trying to find somewhere to eat."
"Nice day for it," said the officer, gesturing lazily up at the clear sky. "Can I see your I.D.s?"
"I.D.," Percy repeated. "I… don't think I have any. Left it at home."
"Not to worry, the new rules are catching us all out," said the woman. "Do your friends have theirs?"
Percy looked around the car. No-one leapt out at him with ready-made fake passports. "I think we've all left them behind," he said, his mouth dry. "My fault. I rushed everyone out of the house. Didn't want to miss the good weather."
He made an attempt at a smile, which the officer answered with a slow nod. "Well, that does make things tricky for us," she said. "Whereabouts have you come from?"
Another time, Percy might have been proud of how quickly his brain processed the fact that he had no hope in Hades of naming a suburban part of Bend as his home, but then for that to be the case he would need a better lie than the one he came up with: "Fort Worth," he said.
The officer raised her eyebrows. "You left your I.D.s in Texas?" she asked.
"Oh, no," said Percy. He moved to wipe his forehead, catching himself as he realised that it might look like the sort of thing someone would do when they were lying, and instead making an awkward transition to fiddling with one of his earlobes. "We're on holiday," he said. "Staying with a friend. We've just come a few blocks today."
"You picked quite the time for a holiday," smiled the officer. "You know the name of your street?"
Percy shook his head. "Sorry," he said, "We're not being very helpful, are we?"
She laughed. He couldn't tell if it was forced or not. "Don't worry about it, lots of people are getting caught out here. Is it one of these friends in the car you're staying with? Would any of you know the street?"
She was met with a chorus of shaking heads. Percy cursed inwardly that none of them had noticed a single residential road sign. "He stayed at home today," he explained. "Wasn't feeling that well."
"I hope he's feeling better soon," said the woman. "And you'd best too, since it'll speed up your journey through these things. Could you just step out of the car, please? We'll need to make a phone call to confirm who you are; I'm sure you understand."
Percy swallowed. "Yeah, sure," he said.
The group of demigods gradually clambered out of the car, trying not to look as reluctant as they really felt. They were led up to a tent at the side of the road, where a couple of other police were waiting, and a man behind a temporary screen scrutinised them carefully.
"If you'd wait here, we'll be with you in a moment," said the officer who'd first stopped them. She walked over to the car and checked the licence plate. She frowned.
The man behind the screen continued to stare at them intently. His eyes flickered to something to his left that Percy couldn't see.
The son of Poseidon looked around at the others. Do they know? he tried to ask silently.
"We need to leave," murmured Annabeth. "I think they're waiting for back-up."
Percy looked around. The police were standing tensely, whispering to each other. The man behind the screen had stood up and left for gods-knew where.
"We need to lose them," said Percy, nodding. "How's your leg?" he asked Jake. "Good enough to run?"
The son of Hephaestus nodded. "Good enough," he said.
Percy looked around once more. "That street, straight behind Annabeth," he said. "You all see it?"
A hushed chorus of yeses.
"Everybody go," he said, and started sprinting.
Percy had always been a pretty horrible runner by the high standards at camp, especially when compared with, for instance, the average Hermes kid with their father's gifts, or the Athena children with their perfectly practised technique, but next to a normal mortal, even a fit and healthy one, he could still put together a fairly strong hundred-metre time.
There was a bang behind him.
Percy looked back over his shoulder and realised that his speed didn't actually matter too much: one of the police was talking urgently on his radio, the others, instead of chasing, had drawn their guns and were aiming at the fleeing demigods.
Another shot sounded, then another – and then Percy was alongside Clarisse, following Annabeth and Will around a corner and into cover.
More shots.
Nico skidded as he rounded the edge of the building, but was otherwise unscathed.
A bullet caught a nearby window, shattering it.
Then, all of five or six seconds after Percy, Jake was there, and also into shelter.
"Are you OK?" asked Percy.
"I'm fine, I'm fine!" gasped Jake. "Just no more running, please."
"We still need to move, they'll want to keep track of us," said Percy. "Come on."
They hurried down the city streets as quickly as Jake's leg would allow, twisting and turning, trying to lose anyone trying to tail them. They'd been going for five or ten minutes when the sound of a helicopter engine buzzed into existence from somewhere above them.
"We need to get inside, quickly," hissed Annabeth.
They vaulted a fence into a back garden, where Clarisse shoulder-barged in the back door of a house and, mercifully, no alarm sounded.
Percy propped a stone hippo against the door to stop it from swinging open, and took a deep breath.
The house was a fairly typical suburban dwelling. Its owner or owners were clearly relatively well-off: the sleek design was well-kept and complimented by assorted pieces of new technology and fancy-looking art around the house. It was empty, or at least, the demigods didn't meet anyone as they explored. Upstairs, there were three bedrooms: two of them were clearly unused; the third held a double bed with a single crumpled pillow at its head.
Percy checked the window overlooking the street, careful not to get too close to the glass, where he might be seen from above.
The sound of the helicopter persisted, but the street remained empty.
He heard Annabeth come stand in the doorway behind him. "We can't stay here long," she said. "By this time tomorrow, they'll be onto us."
"Yeah. We'll stay the night, just long enough for the search to cool a little. Then..." he trailed off. A man was coming off the sidewalk and towards the house's front door. Percy muttered a curse under his breath and dashed for the door, taking the staircase three steps at a time and hiding himself behind the door just as the key could be heard turning in the lock.
The man stepped inside his house. He looked a little like a caricature of an ambitious businessman, with a pinstriped suit, a briefcase, and dark slicked-back hair that looked like it could be peeled off from his head like dried glue. He was perhaps a little younger than might be expected of someone wearing his style, but even the fast reflexes of youth did not allow him to stop Percy from kicking the door shut and holding Riptide's blade to the man's Adam's apple.
"Stay quiet," said Percy, remembering a moment too late that his celestial bronze sword wasn't exactly much of a threat to mortals. He hoped that the man didn't know.
The man swallowed. "You're half-bloods," he said quietly. "Oh God. I mean, oh gods. I…" He started hyperventilating, looking around the room at the other demigods. "Oh no," he said quietly. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed heavily again.
"We're not here to hurt you," said Percy. "But you have to understand we can't trust you blindly either. Sit down."
The man backed over to sit down on the sofa, looking around again at the assembled demigods as if to double-check that they were really there.
"We're only going to be here for the night. We'll leave tomorrow, as soon as it's safe to," said Percy. "but we'll need to keep you under guard until then."
He nodded, his head wobbling like a dashboard toy: desperate to give the impression that he was worth more to them than he really was.
Percy looked out of the window again. The street was still empty, for now.
He woke early, as he had done since the Battle of Manhattan, showered quickly, and pulled on his t-shirt and jeans. They were still in pretty good condition considering what they'd been through since the group had left Philip's, but he didn't like to think about how long it might be before he had the chance to wash them again. Even so, he wasn't about to take clothes from a man whose house they'd already broken into.
Downstairs, Annabeth had taken the final guard shift for the night, watching the businessman for any escape attempt and the street outside for any prying eyes. The man was fast asleep on the sofa, but Annabeth was sitting by the window shuffling through the briefcase he'd been carrying the day before, worry lines on her forehead. She looked up as he came in. "You'll want a look at this," she said, tapping the briefcase.
He padded gently across the carpet to look at the densely typed sheets of paper that she was holding, wincing as he saw the sheer quantity of words that she'd had to read. "Can you sum it up for me?" he asked.
She gave a tired nod. He wouldn't have been surprised if she was simply feeling so drained that she'd forgotten his dyslexia was as bad or even worse than hers.
"Our new friend here – Darren Monkman, according to his papers – works for a manufacturing company. They used to do machinery, car engines, farming equipment and so on, but after the Battle of Manhattan, it looks like they spotted an opening in the market. They've branched out into forging weapons for the Titan army, mostly of them from steel, but with a few special orders for Celestial Bronze here and there. Beating ploughshares into swords and pruning hooks into spears," she said with a grimace. "As far as I can tell he's in charge of the paperwork for packaging and delivering shipments to their destinations. And since we know he walks to work, I would guess that means that the Titan army is being supplied right here in Bend."
Percy strode over to the sofa and prodded Darren awake, who flinched nervously as he opened his eyes and came face to face with an angry son of Poseidon.
"Where do you work?" asked Percy.
"The – the – the –"
"How far is it from here?"
Darren's eyes darted left and right. "A factory," he said. "Just down the road from here. Less than a mile, I think."
"How difficult would it be to get in?"
He rubbed at his eyes, trying to dispel the sleep. "There's security," he said. "You couldn't."
Percy didn't pointing out how stupid that sounded. "How many people would you need to destroy the machinery? To shut down the factory? Two or three could do it, right?"
There was a silence in which Darren tried and failed to disguise the fact that he was trying to think of a lie. "Maybe," he eventually admitted, and Percy could see the twitch in the man's shoulders as he suppressed a shrug, presumably worrying about seeming flippant in front of armed demigods. "But it's a busy place too… I don't think it would work."
Percy ignored him. "Where do you ship the weapons once you've made them?"
"I don't know."
"Don't even try it," snapped Percy. "Where do the weapons go? What happens to them once they're finished? Even if you don't know exactly where, you'll know how."
"We don't ship them ourselves," said Darren. "There's a depot just down the road under Blockbuster we take them to before opening every morning – believe me, I don't know what happens to them after that!"
Percy blinked. Under Blockbuster, of all places?
"Alright," he said. "Annabeth, Jake, take the factory. The rest of us can take the depot." He looked around at his friends, this mad band of demigods who'd followed him across the country on no basis stronger than the fact that he was their friend.
Or perhaps, a less charitable corner of his brain whispered, they simply had no other choice. Their home had been razed to the ground before their eyes, of course.
Either way, it was about time they stopped running. "We've spent months hiding," he told them. "I think it's time to start fighting again. They won't be expecting us to attack their production, but if we win today, it hurts them badly. We'll set off in half an hour. I'm going to pack some food."
He headed to the kitchen to see if he could raid Darren's cupboards for supplies. He started to put together backpacks, mostly canned and other long-lasting food, not knowing when they might have another chance to pick some up and figuring that the arms dealer could probably afford the loss. He was wrestling to fit a packet of jerky into the last few cubic centimetres of the first of them when Annabeth appeared over his shoulder.
"Hey, let me take care of that," she said, and he handed it over silently, watching as she rearranged his clumsy stacking for maximum space efficiency, zipping it up neatly once she was done.
"Thanks," he said, as she handed it back. He put it on the table and started rifling through the fridge. "I guess you can tell he lives alone from his cupboards," he said over his shoulder. "There's not much in them. Not much in here either, from the looks of it."
"I'm sure we can find some bits and pieces," she said, pulling some of the drawers and cupboards open to browse.
They'd managed to dig out a couple of cans of beans when Annabeth spoke again.
"Percy..." She said it quietly but purposefully, like it was the real reason she'd come in here at all.
"Uh-huh?" he asked, turning back to face her.
She looked over at the wall between kitchen and living room, and he realised that she'd pulled the door shut.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Just… are you sure we need to pick this fight?" As she spoke, she kept her voice low.
"What do you mean? They already know we're here, and they've got the whole city locked down."
"I know, we definitely need to fight our way out of the city, I'm not arguing with that, but it seems risky to me to go and attack the factory and the depot in the hope they might be important, especially if it means us splitting up. We're stronger together."
"It's not ideal, for sure," Percy admitted. "But it's too good an opportunity to pass up. We hit their production and their stockpiles at the same time, and they'll have no way to supply their army. If we pull it off then we might even have an advantage for the first time. For sure we'd have some momentum. I can't remember the last time we had that."
She nodded. "If it comes off then it's brilliant. But the Titans run the country now, and I'd be surprised if they were concentrating their whole army production in one factory. The longer we stay in the city the more likely we are to run into a serious force of monsters. I just feel like it's a lot of risk for uncertain reward."
"Yeah, I get that. It's a risk. But unless an actual Titan turns up, I think we can move faster than any army too big to fight. And in the whole country, there can't be that many places that could support an army. People have only even known they exist for a few months, and even if they are getting their weapons from other places, this could still dent them by half or a third. I don't think it's right to just run away again."
"Is that right morally, or tactically, or something else?"
"Does it matter?" he snapped. "You don't have to fight if you don't want to. I'm not forcing you to do anything. We can manage without you."
When Annabeth spoke again, her voice was tight. "Percy, you know that if you asked me to walk up to the gates of Othrys and give myself up to the Titans then I'd do it. You're my friend, and you're our leader, and there are things I'd do for you that I know my mother would hate because they're not wise, but I trust you and I owe you my life enough times over to carry out any crazy plan you feel like coming up with. But, speaking as your friend, I don't think this is wise. I -" her voice caught and she swallowed before continuing. "I'm not always right." she admitted. "Sometimes I get things wrong. Maybe I'm wrong about this and it's actually the best thing to do. And if it is, then all I'm asking you to do is explain why you think that, because it's not fair for you to risk our lives on something reckless."
"We can't just do nothing" said Percy.
"Sometimes nothing's all you can do, while you wait for a better opportunity to come."
He frowned and set his jaw. "Sometimes it is," he said. "But not today."
Outside, the light was still dim and grey, giving the streets a distinctly Victorian feel of cramped misery. The small group of demigods, with Darren in tow, hurried along the pavements as fast as they could without drawing too much attention towards themselves, taking advantage of the mostly empty, lightly guarded streets.
"This is where we split up," said Annabeth. "You're headed that way." She pointed down a side-street. "We'll try to meet back here after we're finished, if we can do it without too much attention from the monsters. Otherwise…" Percy met her gaze for a moment as she trailed off, but she looked away instantly. "Percy has my number, anyway, and you can steal a phone or something. Good luck."
Percy watched Annabeth and Jake corral Darren along the road ahead for a moment, trying to remember a time when he hadn't known her number by heart. He came up empty-handed, then shook his head and led the other demigods down the road towards Blockbuster.
"So once we've taken the depot out, what's the escape plan?" asked Will, jogging up alongside Percy.
The son of Poseidon dipped his hand into his pocket to reassure himself of Riptide's presence.
"Here's the plan," he said. "If we have to, we fight our way out."
Blockbuster was a blunt instrument by the side of the road, an ugly pimple in the middle of the city. Two Cyclopes stood talking by the entrance, but it was otherwise unguarded. They noticed Percy approaching too late and the first was a pile of dust before he could pick up his club, the second joining him moments later.
Inside, the dracaena at the front desk fled the moment she saw him, disappearing into the backroom. Percy followed her.
He kicked the door back on its hinges as he entered the armoury, just in time to interrupt a trio of Cyclopes in the process of pulling weapons from the walls – and to see the trapdoor in the centre of the room clicking shut. A morningstar crashed to the floor as Percy dispatched its wielder. He ducked beneath the swing of a huge broadsword, gutting the Cyclops holding it, and turned to face the third, only to see it collapsing to the floor in a cascade of dust as Clarisse pulled Lamer out of its eye, crackling gently with electricity waiting to be unleashed.
"Help me with this," he said, crouching over the heavy-looking trapdoor in the centre of the room.
Nico hunkered down opposite him, and between the two of them they heaved the door open, dropping it onto the floor with a clang that would put any monsters somehow unaware of their presence onto high alert.
An arrow flew out of the hole and bounced off Percy's forehead. He flinched before remembering the Curse of Achilles, but still had time to catch it on the rebound.
He snapped it with a grimace and flung the two halves back down into the dim half-light below. A second later, he followed it, landing lightly on a concrete floor and dodging just in time as a Cyclops tried to impale him on a trident.
All it took was a swing of Riptide for the monster to be just another pile of dust on the ground.
Blockbuster's basement level looked more than anything like a nuclear bunker from a bygone age: the main structure was all solid concrete – inexpertly laid, if Percy's uneven footing was anything to go by – lined with ancient-looking metal pipes along the walls, and all lit by flickering fluorescent lights of the dim kind which throw yawning shadows over any room they occupy.
The only incongruence with this image was the twenty or thirty monsters, mostly Cyclopes and Dracaenae by Percy's first glance, which stood in a vicious circle around the spot in which he had landed. Among them was the Dracaena from the shop desk, standing just behind the shoulder of the largest Cyclops, holding a bow which he suspected was the one which had fired the arrow at him moments earlier. Her forked tongue was flickering nervously throught her front teeth as she looked at him.
He pivoted slowly on the spot, meeting as many of the monsters' eyes as he could, lazily twirling Riptide in one hand as he did.
"Right," he said. "Who's first?"
When the dust had settled, the small group of demigods found themselves in the middle of the largest weapons stockpile Percy suspected that any of them (with the possible exception of Clarisse) had ever seen. Just off from the entrance were half a dozen side-chambers stuffed with rows upon rows of makeshift shelves sagging under the weight of tonnes of Celestial Bronze. None were elegantly made, with faults in the forging clear at first glance even to Percy, who had never taken much interest in weapons-making at camp, but then again any demigod faced with a hundred monsters would struggle to take much comfort from the knowledge that they had higher-quality weaponry.
The process was obvious: mass-produce enough weapons to arm every monster in the US, and with Olympus having fallen, even the gods wouldn't save those demigods unfortunate enough to be left alive.
"We have to bury this," he said. "We can't let the Titans get their hands on all these. There's enough for an army here."
"How exactly do we do that?" asked Clarisse sceptically. She kicked her heel against one of the concrete walls to demonstrate their structural integrity, though the whole place felt so poorly made that Percy felt there was a non-zero chance of one of Clarisse's kicks bringing it down around them.
"Everyone get back upstairs," said Percy. "I can handle it."
There were some of Percy's powers that he avoided calling on if he could possibly help it, including those he'd inherited from the 'Earthshaker' side of his father's personality. Though he knew he could cause powerful earthquakes – and had done, most recently at Michael Yew's prompting in Manhattan and most explosively when he caused Mount St Helens to erupt a year and a half ago – they'd been uncontrollable and violent. But then again, he'd never really tried to control them. If he could just focus the energy on the bunker…
"Grab a car," he told the others as they emerged into the sunlight. They obeyed silently, and he turned to look back at Blockbuster. He raised Riptide and held it tip downwards. The energy was easier to unleash if he had a point through which to focus it. He took a deep breath, ignoring the mortals in the street and the monsters he knew would be on their way already.
Riptide sank into the tarmac like it was no harder than flesh, and Percy roared as he channelled his father's powers.
The ground gave a small tremble beneath his feet for a moment before it gave way fully to his will and jolted beneath him as though mankind were an unwanted passenger from which it was trying to rid itself.
Percy held onto his sword, feeling energy flowing through him and swaying with the ground as it moved like waves on the ocean, rumbling lowly as it did so.
A fire hydrant burst nearby, and he heard the first shouts of panic from the mortals on the street.
He screwed his eyes shut and pushed.
Over the rumbling there came a sudden sound of shattering glass as windows gave way to his assault, then, moments later, the unmistakable crunching and grinding of mortar and concrete relinquishing their structure and collapsing to the ground.
He forced his eyes open, seeing Blockbuster shake like it was made of rubber until its front doubled over, the wind crushed out of it and its edges crumbling to pieces. As he watched, half the roof slid from the top of the building as smoothly as he might slide a playing card from the top of the pack.
The power went from his arms as Percy released the earthquake, and his legs turned promptly to jelly. He sagged, catching himself at the last moment on Riptide's handle and propping himself up as he tried to reorientate himself.
Somehow, brief though it had been, the earthquake had torn down every building in the street, and likely more besides. He dimly registered screams in the air as mortals ran from the piles of rubble that had once been their homes.
A hand landed on his shoulder, and it took him a moment to recognise it as Clarisse's. She pulled him to the road, where the other demigods were waiting in a car they must have found somewhere, and bundled him into the back.
"We need to get to the factory," he said as Will hunched over the steering wheel and goaded the engine into life. They needed to get Annabeth and Jake and leave the city as soon as possible.
"After that?" asked Clarisse.
"What d'you mean?" he asked. Some of the words might have come out a little slurred, but Clarisse seemed to understand what he was saying.
"Every monster in the city noticed that earthquake, Prissy! Right now, the most dangerous place in the country is wherever we are. We can worry about the others once we're out of the city."
The car jolted as Will mounted the verge to avoid the motionless traffic ahead of them, but he swore under his breath and they shuddered to a halt as its cause became clear: a roadblock of monsters and mortals packed too tightly to push past or through. In the passenger seat, Nico stuck his head out of the window to look behind them.
"We need to go by foot," said Percy.
"Don't be stupid, you can barely stand up," said Clarisse.
He yawned, which didn't exactly disprove her point, but he pressed on. "There are enough monsters to block off every road in the city, and even if we get past one or two checkpoints they'll just attract more and more attention. If we go on foot, we have a better chance of slipping by. And hopefully we won't have to do as much running and fighting."
Clarisse grimaced, but didn't argue further. She dragged Percy out of the car by the scruff of his neck with a terse "Grab his other side," to Nico.
As he stood, helped by the others, the blood rushed to Percy's head and his vision swam. He took three steps forward.
And then everything went black.
Percy woke on something soft.
For a split-second, he had the feeling of having awoken from a nightmare, before he turned his head slightly, the full force of his fatigue hit him, and he remembered that the nightmare was real.
He was on the sofa in Darren's house, and he was hit with another wave of deja vu and a reinforced sense that the day before had all been a dream.
But Will and Clarisse were the only other people in the room; the son of Apollo dozing in an armchair and the daughter of Ares staring out of the window, her hand on her chin and her eyes washed in shadows like she hadn't slept in days. She turned her head as Percy groaned and jabbed her foot into Will's leg to wake him. "How are you?"
Tired and achy, was the most accurate answer Percy could have given. "Fine," he said. "What's going on? Where's Nico?"
"Keeping watch," she said. "City's in lockdown. Blockades on every street, almost. We could never have snuck you out, so we came back here to lay low. It's just gone three in the morning. No word from the others yet. They're searching houses, so we'll be found today if we stay here, not that we can make it out either."
Percy sat up slowly, testing his arms and legs, which seemed just about solid enough to work now.
"Ever used those earthquake powers of yours before?" asked Clarisse. He got the sense it was something she'd been itching to ask since she'd seen them.
He shrugged. "On Mount St Helens. A little on the Williamsburg Bridge in Manhattan."
"Huh," she said. Then, like she'd given it careful thought, "A hell of a time to bust that out."
He swung his head sluggishly from side to side as he tried to clear it. "I was just so…" he said, wishing he had a dictionary, or, better still, Annabeth to help articulate why he'd done what he had.
"Incredibly stupid," Clarisse filled in the gap he'd left.
"Hey…"
"You thought you could cause a, a natural disaster without consequences, Prissy! What's that supposed to be except -" she hesitated – "they haven't come up with a word for the kind of idiot that makes you, Jackson. You didn't think about what it meant for us, let alone all the mortals you could've killed by -"
"I didn't kill any mortals," insisted Percy. "It was only supposed to be serious under Blockbuster. I don't know why it was so strong."
Clarisse stood up abruptly, like she was about to lunge at him, and Percy's breath caught in his throat. Upright, the whole upper half of the daughter of Ares' body was in shadow, her expression totally unreadable.
"I'm going to take a look from the roof," she said finally. "See if Nico's spotted anything."
She climbed the stairs slowly, leaving finger-marks in the bannister as she went.
He tilted his head over to Will, who was sitting looking uncomfortable. "Yeah, I know," said Percy, before the other boy could speak. "I know."
Will shrugged, which Percy interpreted as a she's right. "Can you stand up by yourself?" he asked.
It took longer than it should have, but Percy managed to force himself upright, and only stumbled a little before he corrected himself.
"That's good," said the son of Apollo. "Let's walk around the room then?"
Feeling like a child but knowing that Will was trying to help him, Percy shuffled in circled around the couch, gradually regaining steadiness on his feet. Will walked beside him, a hand out to catch him if he fell, but as the feeling returned to his legs and his head began to clear a little Percy waved him off and started stretching. "We need to get out," he said, feeling a flicker of determination return, "and we need to reach the others. Is there a phone here?"
Will shook his head. "I haven't noticed a landline around, and I guess Darren had his cell with him. We should've taken it off him."
"It doesn't matter," said Percy. "We can call them once we're out. Is there a block on the street outside?"
"There's one at the north end of the road," said Will. "There's a little gap to the one to the south."
"Okay," said Percy, trying to think. "Okay. You've both got your weapons, right?"
Will gestured to the bow beside him. The quiver, which he'd spent the months at Philip's stocking up, was almost full.
"So we need to go through the blocks, or around them without being noticed," he said.
"You need a diversion," contradicted Clarisse, coming down the stairs. She was holding Maimer under her arm and wrapping tape around her hands.
"What do you mean, 'you'?
"I'd wait maybe two minutes after I've left," she said, ignoring him. "Use the smallest, darkest alleys where you can, but if you have to fight through a roadblock, go for the ones on the biggest roads; they're the hardest to keep secure. With some luck, you'll be able to make it…" she paused to flex her fingers. "…wherever you want to go." She met Percy's eyes with a sidelong glance, but dropped her gaze after a moment.
"It should be me," he protested, stepping towards her. "I'm not letting you just give yourself up to them to let us get away."
She raised her hand to his chest and gave the slightest of pushes, sending him toppling backwards onto the sofa. He lay there, stunned, as she looked down at him. "And how are you going to stop me?"
"Clarisse…" said Will.
"You have a better plan? I'm all ears."
He fell silent.
"I've got a better plan," said Nico quietly.
The three of them all turned sharply to look at him. Percy hadn't noticed him come down the stairs, and doubted the other two had either.
"You don't need to cause a diversion," said the son of Hades, "because I think I can shadow travel with only two others, at least a little way."
Clarisse looked like she was about to object, but Will beat her to it.
"You think?" he demanded.
Nico shrugged. "I haven't had a lot of practice lately," he said. "It should work."
"We're not letting you just head out into the enemy army anyway!" Percy protested again.
"I'll make a break for it on my own then," said Clarisse, like she hadn't even heard him. "Maybe we'll meet up again. Maybe not." She laid a hand on the door and paused. "Don't hang around," she said.
And then she was gone.
The room felt like all the air had rushed out of it as Clarisse opened the door, leaving them in a vacuum.
"Is she serious?" said Percy, beginning to think he might still have been delirious.
"Come on," said Will, offering Percy his hand. "We need to move."
Percy knocked the hand aside and stumbled through the front door, where the lower levels of the night sky were painted burning red, casting an eerie glow over the city where it should have been pitch black. It took Percy several seconds to trace the source of the light to the east, in the direction of the factory he'd sent Annabeth and the others to destroy. He could just about make out a plume of smoke rising on the horizon, and knew that they'd done what they'd set out to do. Clarisse, though, already seemed to have vanished as he swung wildly around looking for her.
Will caught him by the shoulder, pulling him back from his search, and Percy dimly registered Nico emerging from the house behind them, but all three demigods froze as shouts sounded in the next street. Then, with an eruption of noise as something exploded, a new splash of orange leapt up into the sky, too close to them not to be Clarisse's handiwork.
Percy saw monsters rushing down the street towards them, weapons drawn.
Then he felt Nico's hand on his, and the onrush of shadows.
In theory, this is the halfway point.
Then again, the number of chapters is the only thing in the plan that's still the same as it was when I started this fic, uh, five years ago, so it would be no surprise if that changed too.
I picked Bend because it was just a city roughly en route from Washington to California, but while I was reading about it I found out it's got the last Blockbuster in the world! Crazy, right? So, now I have a fantastic quiz answer for the future, and an obvious location for literally anything I write set in Bend, Oregon.
I'm sure I'll write lots set in Bend, Oregon, OK!?
I know that this part of the story is technically taking place in 2009, when Blockbuster was still a thing and so not actually a very noteworthy landmark, but I had to use it as a setting – I've got a lot of fond (if a little distant) memories of that chain. That said, I'm aware that some of this chapter isn't very realistic: out of The Dark Knight, Iron Man, and Wall-E, it's impossible to pretend you wouldn't pick Wall-E.
Also, writing this chapter made me think there's mileage in a fic where all the banks and things are tied to monsters, like the doughnut hydra in Sea of Monsters, and so demigods hunting them down leads to a global recession. I'll almost certainly never write it, but I think it's a fun idea, and anyone who wants it is very welcome to it.
Many thanks to those who've been reading and especially reviewing over the long absence - it's really gratifying to see people enjoying something I've made even when to all appearances it looked like I'd abandoned this it, and goodness me that's been nice to have for the last couple of years in particular. I'm sorry it's been so long between updates, if nothing else because I know I don't like having to reread entire stories to understand what's going on in the latest chapter!
To answer a couple of specific things in reviews:
Basileos, well, yes and no and wait and see and damn I hope I haven't misjudged how I'm pitching this! There is indeed an endgame in Kronos' mind, but even evil geniuses can be short-sighted in some areas.
NerdyFangirlFeels, thank you, that's exactly the reaction I always want to have when I'm reading, so it's really high praise! Like I said last chapter, Kronos and Percy are definitely not gonna stop being mortal enemies any time soon, but to be fair there is also a touch of the Holmes-Moriarty, Batman-Joker vibe of almost needing the enemy as part of their own identity.
elexiacharlie, good point! I'd honestly not really considered Percy being more Kronos-like in his efforts to resist, but now that you've pointed it out, I'll have to think on it a little and see how that might play into later events...
Anyway, see you all at the next chapter, which will hopefully be at least a little more prompt than this one was.