Making his way through the halls of the museum, Percy did not expect to come across Mr. Brunner on his journey back to the rest of the class. He wasn't exactly surprised, however. It simply seemed… Natural. Crows always flock to the carcass, after all. Along with the beasts, but that was irrelevant at the moment.
"Mr. Jackson? What are you doing in here?" Mr. Brunner asked casually, his eyes lighting up with delight. Whether it was because he had survived his encounter, or because the man was genuinely happy to see one of his favorite students, Percy could not tell. He had a gut feeling as to which one it was, though.
"I could ask the same of you, sir."
"Ah, I was just on my way to find a bathroom. It seems the… Special, ones, are a fair bit elusive."
"And this has nothing to do with Mrs. Dodds?"
"Mrs. Dodds? Who is that?"
Percy fixed his Latin teacher with a withering glare.
"Nobody in particular, sir. I'll leave you to your business. I think it is best if I rejoined the class for now."
"Grover."
"Yeah man?"
"Who is our Pre-Algebra teacher?"
"Um… Mrs. Kerr. Why?"
"It's nothing, really. I just have a bit of a hard time remembering her name, for some odd reason."
Grover had hesitated before answering.
The fruit stand across the street looked innocent enough. Fortunately, Percy had enough experience to not judge so quickly. Though the beasts normally took on grotesque, horrific forms, there was occasionally the clever one hiding behind a disguise. For example, the Suspicious Beggar. Then again, he had been eating a corpse when Percy had found him, so…
The three old ladies staring at him put him on edge. They were powerful, he could tell that much, but they also seemed… Friendly? Well, he wouldn't go that far, but they didn't seem to want to brutally murder him, either. They observed him with a sort of curiosity, the kind a scientist stared at a lab rat with. For all he knew, he was just a rodent to them.
The two ladies on the sides were knitting massive socks, one each, while the one in the center simply held a large basket of electric-blue yarn. They watched him with the same intensity he watched them, their deceivingly-wrinkled fingers moving the entire time with a dexterity that would likely escape people a quarter their age.
"Percy, those old ladies… Are they looking at you?"
The woman in the middle reached into the basket in her lap, then pulled out a pair of large scissors. Large enough, in fact, that Percy wouldn't hesitate to call them shears. She looked Percy straight in the eye, then snapped the shears shut on the yarn. The sharp snip crossed the busy, car-ridden highway, reaching his ears.
For a reason unbeknownst to him, he shivered.
Percy waved farewell to Grover as he entered his apartment building. For some odd reason, the boy had asked to accompany him to his home, and Percy saw no reason to refuse. He had had a chance to escape after they got off the bus, when Grover went to use the bathroom, but Percy thought that would be in bad taste. Plus, the other boy looked so worried, he felt a bit guilty to have even considered the notion.
The walk had done wonders for Grover. With every block they covered on the way to his miraculously-remembered apartment in Upper East Side Manhattan, more tension seemed to melt off his friend, until Grover was finally the relaxed- if somewhat timid- boy he remembered from his time at Yancy Academy.
Opening the door to his own apartment, Percy was momentarily stunned by the atrocious smell. It assaulted his enhanced nose, and his eyes watered slightly. It was slightly amazing; he had waded through oceans of blood and stumbled through fields of corpses, but the stench of one human man managed to make him cringe.
He had forgotten about the man his mother had married. Gabe was a pig, even worse than the Man-Eating Boars of Yharnam. Fat like a walrus, and bald as a mole rat. Empty beer bottles and cigarette packages littered the floor, making walking a strenuous task. A miasma of smoke lingered in the air, blocking the dim fluorescent lights slightly. At a round table, Gabe sat, with some of his equally disgusting friends, gambling on a game of poker. They must have been irrelevant, because they didn't trigger any memories like his step-father did. Not like Gabe was actually that important, though. In fact, he slightly regretted having to remember this foul creature, but what's done is done.
"Oh, you're back. You got any cash?" Gabe asked, once he finally caught sight of Percy. He simply shook his head. Gabe raised an eyebrow.
"Sure. You probably took a taxi, paid with a twenty, and got six or seven bucks in change. Someone expects to live in this house, then they gotta pull their own weight, am I right guys?"
Percy tilted his head sideways slightly. "I walked from the bus station."
Gabe's eyes widened, before they narrowed in frustration. "Well, all the better- means you got more money for me. So fork it over, kid!"
"I don't carry money on me."
Gabe's face contorted into a fierce scowl, red rising to his face, before he decided to let it go and save his meager pride in front of his friends. "Whatever, kid. Get outta my face," he grunted. "Ungrateful brat," he added quietly. Percy heard it, but ignored it.
His bedroom was better than the living room, but only marginally. It still stank of cigars, car magazines covered most of the surfaces, and a crusty pair of muddy boots sat on the windowsill, but at least there were no worthless beasts. The open window helped, barely.
Percy dropped his suitcase on the floor, not bothering to unpack his things. He would simply take his clothes from the container as he needed them, until it was empty. For now, though, he had a mother to meet. His own, to be specific.
Hopefully, she was just as great as he remembered.
Montauk set him on edge and relaxed him at the same time. It was quite the odd sensation.
Sitting in front of the campfire, the sun setting on the horizon, Percy had plenty of time to analyze the cause of his anxiety. There was a vast amount of arcane energy swirling on the beach and in the surf, which spoke of the presence- or recent presence- of a Great One. Yet, that same energy also reacted with the well inside him. A wave of warmth washed over him, and the scent of sea salt sharpened his senses nearly imperceptibly. It was… Pleasant.
What was the link between him and this eldritch being? Was he bound to serve it, and it simply had no use for him yet? Had he been marked for death? Or…
"Mom… Can you tell me about Dad?"
Grover had hairy legs- enough to make the beast which was once Vicar Amelia feel bald.
"So… You are a satyr."
"Yeah."
"As in, one of the figures we studied in Mr. Brunner's Latin Class."
"Yeah."
"And you were disguised as a student to…"
"To find you, and protect you if any monsters found out, too. Although, I guess I didn't do a good enough job if Mrs. Dodds nearly got you." Grover looked down in shame. Percy clapped his friend on the shoulder.
"If I remember correctly, then Mrs. Dodds greatly resembled one of the Furies, the personal servants of Hades, God of the Underworld. I do not think a satyr would have been able to do anything other than provide it with a nice side dish."
"Yeah, but I should have at least tried!"
"There is no shame in wanting to survive. It is the basic instinct of all living beings, and can sometimes be hard to overcome in the face of a being which can strike you down with impunity."
Grover looked at him in surprise. "Yeah… I guess it is. Than-."
Lightning tore the car apart.
"This beast is the Minotaur?" Percy asked his mother. She cringed at his casual manner. They were running through the pouring rain, Percy carting Grover on his shoulder in a fireman's carry, away from a monster which shouldn't exist, and her son sounded like it was just a normal day.
"Yes... But don't call it that. Say… Pasiphae's son, instead. Names have power, Percy," she gasped, doing her best to keep up. Her baby boy was fast.
"The Minotaur," Percy repeated, nodding his head with finality. Sally would have sighed, if her lungs weren't already working overtime. She just settled for moving a little faster.
Finally, mother and son reached the crest of the hill with the massive pine tree, which was probably too large to be indigenous to New York. Sally stopped running, soon followed by Percy once he realized she was no longer next to him.
"Mom, what are you doing?"
"I… Can't cross the barrier, Percy. I'm sorry, but this place wasn't meant for mortals." Sally's face was twisted with grief, and if the ocean wasn't falling from the sky, then he knew he would have seen the tears running down her cheeks.
"This barrier, it keeps out humans?"
Sally nodded.
"What about the beasts?"
Sally nodded again, slowly.
"Do you know where the border is?"
Sally furrowed her eyebrows, confused. "I- It's right in front of the pine tree, but why-?"
Percy wordlessly dropped Grover to the ground in a heap, then once more walked past the pine tree to stand next to his mother.
"Percy!?" she shrieked, grabbing him by his arm. "What are you doing!? I told you-!"
Percy gently pried his mother's hand off him. "Calm yourself. Even without a weapon, the Minotaur will not best me. So long as you stay back, everything will work out in the end."
Sally wanted to protest more, but the words died in her throat, their corpses littering her tongue. Her son's calm face, barely-tense posture, and unwavering tone had convinced her of his confidence, and against her better sense, she found herself unable to refute him. For some reason, she began to believe that he might actually be fine.
The ground was shaking under mighty hoofs, and angry bellowing ripped through the sound of the storm. At the bottom of the hill, she could see the dark silhouette of the monster which threatened their lives.
Sally began to put distance between herself and Percy, desperately hoping her son was correct. Either way, they would find out soon enough.
The first thing he noticed was the golden nose ring, glinting in a flash of lightning. Second was the raging red eyes, which nearly glowed in the dark. Finally, the smell hit him; rancid meat, wet fur, and excrement. The mixture was a familiar, if unpleasant, scent, which had run rampant through the streets of Yharnam.
The beast was charging at him with great speed, feet pounding heavily against the mud, massive arms swinging at its sides. With a loud roar, the Minotaur sped up even more, and Percy realized it had no intention of stopping. So, he did what any rational person would do; he stood still.
At least, until the last second, when he leapt sideways, out of the path of the beast's massive horns. The base of the horns were about as wide as his torso; had he been hit, he would have been torn clean in half. As it was, he was perfectly fine, if a bit dirty from rolling.
The Minotaur, however, was not. It did not have the ability to stop very easily, even in the best conditions, and the slippery mud simply added to those problems. The beast dug its hoofs into the wet ground, but continued sliding forward until it slammed face-first- or rather, horn-first- into the invisible barrier. With a great bellow, it staggered backwards, clutching its sharp protrusions in pain.
While the beast was swaying, almost drunkenly, Percy was not idle. He dashed forward, ignoring the treacherous terrain, and went straight to his foe's unguarded back. With a vicious momentum-powered kick to the back of its knee, the Minotaur went down, hard, causing the ground to shake. Percy paid this no heed, and instead jumped up onto the bent form of the half-man. WIth the angle the beast was hunched over, standing on its back was difficult, but not impossible. Grabbing onto a massive shoulder for support with his left hand, Percy drew back a claw-shaped right hand, and struck.
His technique had not failed him before, and this time was no different. His hand tore into the Minotaur's human flesh like a hot knife through butter, separating thick, corded muscle as if it were so much wet paper. For all its bulk, the Minotaur was not incredibly wide from front to back, therefore allowing Percy to reach its heart without having to go all the way up to his shoulder in its torso. Without ceremony, Percy drew back his hand, taking a heart the size of his head out along with it. He immediately dropped off the Minotaur's back.
WIth a final, confused "Moo?", the beast dissolved into golden dust, which glinted in a flash of lightning before being scattered by the hurricane-force winds.
Flexing his hand, Percy crushed the large heart in his hands effortlessly. He grinned ferally when the thick, crimson liquid scattered across his face. After a few moments, it sunk into his skin, invigorating him. A few memories flashed through his mind, of a woman whose face was contorted in disgust, centuries spent wandering a maze, a seemingly simple man finally defeating him, and a place that could only be described as Hell. Shaking away the images, Percy began to walk over to where he had left his mother.
She was lying on the ground in a heap, similarly to how Grover was when he was dropped. Percy panicked, rushing over, and quickly checking for a pulse and if she was breathing. Her heart beat strongly, and from the way her chest rose and fell evenly, Percy could tell she had simply passed out (it was difficult to feel for something as weak as human breathing, considering the strong winds buffeting him). Perhaps from the shock of watching her only child go face-to-face… Or rather, face-to-pelvis, with a beast which should, by all means, be a simple myth, had gotten to her. She was only a normal human, so she could not be faulted for her faint-heartedness. That did beg the question, however; why was more surprised by the appearance of the Minotaur, as opposed to its very existence?
Queries for another time, such as when she was awake. Percy gently scooped his mother up in his arms. She was a fair bit heavier than Grover, but still not too burdensome. Percy walked back to the massive pine tree, where he left Grover, who seemed to be stirring now. The cold rain and crashing thunder must have shocked him awake.
"Food… Percy!?" Grover cried, once he realized where he was. The satyr shot up, glancing around wildly. Percy could just barely make out the way his friends pupils were now horizontal slits. Grover called out a few more times, clambering to his feet hurriedly, before Percy finally took pity on him.
"I'm fine, Grover," he told the boy, shouting loud enough to be heard over the storm. Grover whirled around, and when he caught sight of his friend, sighed heavily.
"Oh thank the Gods- wait, what happened to Sally!?"
"Nothing, really. I think she just passed out from shock. What do we do now?"
"Wait, what happened to the- the…?"
"The Minotaur?" Grover nodded frantically. "I killed it. I'm pretty sure it dropped something, but my hands are kind of full. Think you could go get it for me?"
Grover stared at his friend with something akin to awe at the casual way he mentioned killing one of the most bloodthirsty monsters in Greek legends. He nodded dumbly, then followed Percy to where the beast breathed its last. Indeed, lying on the ground was a pair of horns, the very same that had adorned the Minotaur's head mere minutes ago.
"The spoils of war…" Grover breathed reverently. He stooped down and grasped them lightly, mindful of the edges. With how loose his grip was, Percy almost believed his friend was scared of them.
"These belong to you now, you should take…" Grover started, before remembering that his friend was currently occupied. He smiled sheepishly. "Right. I'll hold on to these until your hands aren't full.
Percy nodded, smirking in amusement, before the reality of the situation finally came crashing back in. "Where do we go now? I have to get my mom out of the rain- she's a normal human, she'll get sick."
"Oh, right! I knew I was forgetting something," Grover cried, rubbing the back of his head nervously. "Well, follow me." Percy acquiesced, falling into step behind his friend. "That massive pine tree marks the border of Camp Half-Blood, and is also the source of the border that keeps out monsters and mortals alike."
"Will we be able to get my mother through?" Percy asked worriedly, glancing down at the woman in his arms. She seemed peaceful enough, but the circumstances which led to this situation definitely were not.
"Yeah, no problem. Unauthorized beings can enter Camp so long as they're invited, and with me here, it's basically the same thing."
Percy nodded, relieved.
"At the bottom of Half-Blood Hill is the Big House," Grover continued, "And that's where we'll be going. It's literally just a big, white house- hence, the Big House. There, we can get your mom out of the storm, and into a nice bed. Although, we'll probably have to stop by the infirmary in the morning to make sure that all of us are okay. Speaking of which, the infirmary is run by the children of Apollo, since, you know, God of Healing. And a bunch of other things."
Grover didn't realize his friend had stopped walking alongside him until he glanced sideways and was met with darkness.
"Percy?" Grover called to his friend, concerned at the sudden pause.
"The children of Apollo? As in, the Greek God of the Sun, Healing, and Prophecies?"
"Yeah…? Oh- oh my Gods- you didn't know!? And- and you killed a Kindly One and the Minotaur!?" Grover shrieked, reverting to his panicked mindset.
"Nobody ever bothered to explain this to me, so I just went with the flow," Percy replied, shrugging.
"And you didn't ask!? I just… Assumed you knew…"
"Well, assumptions do tend to lead to all sorts of unpleasant misunderstandings."
"Yeah, I guess they do… I'll have to remember to tell Chiron to show you the orientation film. Not that it'll be much use, but there's still some stuff there that should help you get around Camp."
"Chiron? Orientation film?"
Grover pursed his lips, unsure what to say next. "You'll figure it out once we get to the Big House. Speaking of which, there it is!" Grover pointed at what was, indeed, a Big House. It was three stories tall, and a fair bit wider than the entirety of Percy's apartment building.
Percy had to crane his neck a bit to see the top of the building, and would soon come to regret his decision. On the third floor, a single window was visible on the front of the house. It was circular, portioned into four panes by a cross, and seemingly covered by a purple curtain.
Lightning flashed, and Percy could see a vaguely human-shaped head peering at him from around the curtain, with glowing emerald eyes that pierced him to his core. Lighting struck once more, revealing that the figure on the third floor had vanished behind the drapes once more.
That did nothing to reassure the boy. He knew, without a doubt, that this being was far more important than it seemed. The question was, how?
And why did it send his blood into a frenzy?
For those who are curious, yes, this is a Bloodborne crossover. I just didn't label it as such, because more people would find it if it was just listed under PJO.