You didn't expect to see me again this soon, did you? Anyways, here's the new chapter:
I was woken up by Sally's voice the next morning. She came in with a cake (blue, who would have thought) and singing.
Happy birthday you two
(I have to give her credit for coming up with a way to seamlessly incorporate two people into the original melody)
Happy birthday you two
Happy birthday to Percabeth
(I noticed that this was not only the average birthday of Percy and Annabeth, but also the anniversary of Percabeth, as in our relationship)
Happy birthday you two.
When she leaned down to our bed, the cake almost fell off the plate it was sitting on, but a quick and carefully calculated hit to its underside fixed that. Of course, I would have been able to make better calculations regarding the required strength and angle if I had known the mass and structural integrity of the cake, but even without that information, I was still able to prevent a cake slipping disaster while also not having the cake be destroyed by the impact of my hand. The margin of error was however large enough for me to extinguish approximately 17.64 percent of the candles. I had only been awake for thirty seconds and had still done more math and logical thinking than Percy would on this entire day. "Wow, thanks Annabeth. What would I do without you?" "Eat cake the cake of the floor" Percy suggested. "It's also blue, so no one would even notice the leftover crumbs" "Unless you photograph your floor with a camera with like 144 pixels and/or then display that photo on some old operating system which only supports 16 colors, you'd totally see the leftovers" I explained. "Come on Annabeth. Why you always gotta be such a buzz kill?" "I am not a buzz kill, facts and logic are" "How about you two stop arguing" Sally suggested in that tone mothers have when their suggestion is actually a command. "It's your birthday after all. And it is illegal to argue on a double birthday" "Well technically, this is a triple birthday, as it is also our anniversary." "Well, it's even more illegal on triple birthdays. Now, I'd say you get dressed, or not if you want to have breakfast in PJs, and then you can come down."
We made a silent agreement to go with the second option and Percy put riptide's cap back on. Then we followed Sally down into the kitchen.
The entire room was decorated in shades of sea green (my favorite color, which is a bit surprising, even to me. Given that demigods are genetically hardwired for ancient Greek, the language of our parents, you'd think that the same might apply to my mom's hatred of Poseidon and everything related to him, but it apparently does not and my genes (I don't even know how the genes of demigods play out, let alone those of brain children, but I think Will is working on a theory) did not dictate that I hated sea green) and blue. She put the cake back on the table where Paul was already sitting. There was a mountain of presents on the kitchen aisle next to it. I scanned the pile, making note of every detail. "Let me guess, these ones are from you Percy" "How did you figure that one out wise girl?" "They're the only ones that have finger prints on the inside of the tape." "What can I say? Guilty as charged. I'll be honest 'has left fingerprints on the tape' has got to be the dumbest charge I've ever heard of" "So, enough of the presents for now, who wants cake?" All three of us, excluding Paul, who had asked the question, said "Me!" in almost perfect sync and Paul gave all of us a piece. It tasted very good and I made a mental note to ask Sally for the recipe later. Of course, I'd have to ask someone else to make it for me because I am absolutely terrible at cooking. I can make bread (and by that I mean putting butter on it, not baking it) and cereal. That's it. The last time I tried to make a toast, well, let's just say the Jacksons were lucky to have Percy sitting right next to the toaster. Another time, what saved me was my own inability to not analyze anything that happens around me. In that case, I had run a mental simulation of what would happen if microwave radiation were to hit aluminum just before closing the microwave door. So putting me in the kitchen is generally a terrible idea. But I guess you can't be good at everything. And I've got my various families (My mortal family, my friends and camp, that are all technically my third half cousins twice removed or something similar, and Percy's family) to do the cooking for me.
After breakfast, it was time for the presents. I got, among others, a book about the most impressive buildings and their creation (now I might finally be able to verify or falsify Percy's theory that the lowest part of the Hoover dam where built with the help of a child of Poseidon) and a custom made Lego set of the Parthenon with the Athena Parthenos included. That damn (Or, as Percy would say, dam) Statue had caused so much misery and suffering that I already knew I'd enjoy smashing it right after building it, because that's what Legos are for. Percy's first gift was titled "Percabeth: one year memory collection". It consisted of the few photos we had been able to make without getting ourselves killed by monsters and also a bunch of drawings Rachel and Hazel had worked on together. I had worked on it as well, which was why I was very surprised to also find a copy of the same book among my presents. Apparently, Percy and I had both helped out Hazel and Rachel, thinking it was only for the other one. Percy was just starting to unpack his next present when a bright light filled the kitchen. Did we have a divine visitor? When the light disappeared, I saw Hermes standing in the kitchen, his phone, which I knew was actually caduceus, in his hand. But he looked a bit different than the last time I had seen him, on Olympus after the titan war. Maybe this was Mercury, his roman form. But why was he here? Did he want to punish us for eating from his sacrifices? I bowed down before him, which is generally a good idea when encountering a god or goddess, not just when you might have pissed them off.
"Oh, the shrine thing, don't worry about that. You were starving; there was good food, who wouldn't have taken that? I was relieved. "I'm here for something else actually. Percy, I've got a birthday present for you. From the Romans. Mortal delivery would have reached you tomorrow or even later, so Reyna asked me. And as the one who reunited Greeks and Romans after more than two millennia and curing our split personalities, the gods owed her more than just a little favor. But I gotta go now. Got a lot of legal and maybe also illegal stuff to do. Happy birthday Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase, heroes of Olympus. He disappeared, leaving only a small package wrapped in purple paper on the ground. Percy picked it up and opened it. The first thing in the box was a letter. Percy looked at it for about 10 seconds before declaring "It's Latin. Can't read that. I can understand it, but written Latin is still affected by my dyslexia." "Let me see" Paul said. "It's the same letters as English, so it shouldn't be too hard." Percy gave the letter to Paul, who read out loud what it said while only slightly messing up the pronunciation. Percy translated.
Dear Percy,
Before the doors of death were closed, a lot of bad people and monsters came through. But they also returned some of the good guys like Gwen and Hazel. And there was one more. We know it makes absolutely no sense, but when does mythology ever make sense? Check the box…
Best wishes,
Praetors Zhang and Ramirez-Arellano
PS: Happy birthday to Percy and Annabeth.
Percy opened the box and pulled out a soft black and white thing. It looked like a squished panda. Was this the panda pillow pet that Octavian had murdered? "Well, who knew pillows could use the doors of death?" Percy said. It looked really soft and fluffy. Wait, did I just think that? It hadn't felt like my thought. I barely noticed myself grabbing the pillow from the box. "Uh, I don't think I'll be around much longer. Might switch" I warned the others. I took the PPP and felt its soft surface. After that, nothing.
Percy
"So this is what a switch looks like" My mom said as she watched Annabeth. As per usual, it wasn't very impressive. She just closed her eyes for a moment, like she was taking a micro nap. When she "woke up" again, she had the expression of a young child. She looked around curiously. "Why are there always new people? I know you, you're Percy. You kissed us last time I was out. But who are you? "I'm Sally, Percy's mom. And this is my husband Paul." "Percy's mom. I think you're nice. And if Sally married you, you must also be nice" "Well, whoever that is, she accepted us quickly." Paul said.
"Oh, I'm Annie. At least that's what he called me. I didn't really have a name before that, so I took it" "Wait, are you the one who came to my cabin a few weeks ago?" She seemed to think about it for a bit, which was, like everything else she did, extremely cute. "Yes, that was me. Then we slept together" my mom give me a judging/confused look. "Not like that." I told her. "She just spent the night in my cabin. Okay, we were also in the same bed. But beyond that, nothing happened." "Oh, okay. That's good. Go on Annie" "Well, I went to Percy because I was scared. There were big monsters and evil spiders" "In camp half-blood?" Paul asked. "No, she probably had a flashback" I explained.
"Percy told me everything was okay. He helped me. Percy is good. Percy is always safe. Even when everything is bad. He's was even there when…" She stopped. Her eyes seemed to sparkle with tears and I suddenly felt an extreme urge to hug her and so I did. "When we fell in the big hole" I nodded. "Hey Annie, don't worry, I will always, always be there for you and everyone else in here" I gently knocked on her head. She laughed. "Stop Percy. You're shaking up everything inside."
"Since Annabeth just left, do you want to continue with the presents?" I suggested. "Can I?" "Of course. These presents are for everyone" "Oh, okay" We continued unpacking our presents. Annabeth/Annie/the system got mostly books, which she ended up stacking into a weird tower. Apparently being seven didn't prevent her from being able to calculate the exact forces or whatever that she needed to make the tower stable. When she was about half way through her presents, Annie noticed the Lego set I had given her. "Oh, Lego. Can I build that?" She asked. "Sure, it's for everyone" I helped her open the box (demigod or not, I wasn't gonna give a seven year old a knife.) Once everything was opened up (I know you're not supposed to mix the different bags while building, but this set was made by me, so all the parts were mixed together anyways) Annie started building. After a while, she said quietly "I'll need a bit of help with this" I wanted to go and help her, but she already said "Okay, thank you" Apparently, she had gotten help from inside. All the while, Sally looked at her with amazement. "Wow. It's just like the movie. Never would have thought that was real. I still remember when you were this young. That was like last millennium. Well, 2000. Hey Annie, do you happen to know whether 2000 still part of the second millennium or already the third?" "Full year is still the old one" Annie told us without even looking up from the building. A few minutes later, her head slumped forward for about thirty seconds before coming back up. "Hi guys. It's Annabeth again. I think. What happened?" "You switched out for a little after touching my panda pillow pet. That was around half an hour ago. Then Annie started building the Lego set and suddenly you came back" I explained to her. She looked down at the Lego set in front of her. "Oh, looks like I just finished the statue. Sorry mom, but I have to do this." With that, she threw the Lego Athena Parthenos through the room. When it landed, it broke into pieces. The individual Legos stayed intact though. "Now mom's probably going to hate me, but what is she going to do. Make me do a suicide quest? I already did one, so my to-do-balance would only increase to zero. Or maybe she'll just hate you Percy" "Why me?" "Because by giving me the Lego set, you gave me the opportunity to destroy a statue of her. Also, you're a child of Poseidon, so she hates you by default."
That was true. But everything Annabeth said was true. Unless she was intentionally lying to get an advantage. Like what she had said to Nyx about the Tartarus travel guide, which of course didn't actually exist. But maybe we should write one. But it would probably take quite a while to recover from the trauma enough to write about it. Right now, even the few seconds I had just thought about it were problematic and I needed some sort of distraction. I watched Annabeth slowly and aggressively reassemble the statue of her mother. Distraction achieved. The statue seemed to be the last missing part since just seconds after finishing it, Annabeth said "Ok, were done" "We?" "Yes, me and Annie and maybe some others as well"
So, that was the beginning of their birthday. What do you think they'll be doing next? See you in the next chapter