Hiii, yes it took a while, no excuses. Sorry. Here's the next chapter, enjoy!
When Annabeth had fully woken we asked her what had happened, she told some half lies. She said she just fell and all that bullshit. The wounds she had couldn't be from just falling, something or someone with claws or a knife should've done it. After she lied I started to do some more research, I hacked SHIELD for Percy's file. I wondered how SHIELD didn't label him a terrorist yet. Apparently he destroyed the band room of his current school, shot a cannon ball at a school bus and he dropped his class in a tank with sharks. I also found a lot of articles on him and most of time he was with Annabeth. He was in a nationwide manhunt with Annabeth and another teenager. He was seen at Mount St. Helens before it erupted and he was in Greece when there was an earthquake. He basically was at a lot of places before something bad happened. He also got off grit in the summers, when he isn't roaming around the world.
Eventually I found more people who could be in his criminal circle. His mom had a hard past, with her parents in a plane accident, a sick uncle who died, unfinished school and a child when she couldn't even support herself. She eventually married an alcoholic, whose presumed dead, he went off grit when Percy's manhunt was over. I also found more friends, every single one had problems. There was a boy Leo Valdez, who got accused of killing his mother in a fire when he was 7. There was a Chinese looking guy, Frank Zhang, whose mom died in the army. His house got burned down and his grandma is presumed dead, although no body was found. Then there was a girl, Piper Mclean, a daughter of a famous actor, she had stolen a couple of cars and other stuff.
Then there were two boys and two girls without a file, which is a miracle because SHIELD had files of everyone. There was a blond boy with glasses and a small scar on his upper lip, an emo boy, a dark skinned girl and a blond girl. Then there was a punk girl who hadn't aged in 4 or so years, the file guessed her name was Thalia Grace. If it was Thalia Grace, she would fit right in, run away from her alcoholic mom when she was 7 and then she was seen on the streets, eventually also with Annabeth and a blond boy, named Luke Castellan, who is presumed dead. If it was her, the blond boy with glasses and the small scar on his lip could be Jason Grace, Thalia´s little brother. The scar and eyes matched a picture of Jason when he was 2 years old. I still had no clue about the 2 other nameless girls.
They all had a couple things in common. They all left in the summer to a place off grit, most had been send a couple of times from school, they are all children from a one-night-stand, most are dyslexic and have ADHD and most are in a relationship with someone from this club. Their age is all under 18, Annabeth is the oldest. I wondered if Annabeth was their leader, but I quickly dismissed that thought, Annabeth didn't have the time. I then decided to check some video cameras, to see if they have something interesting to show, eventually I found the punk girl, Thalia. She was with a group of girls in the woods, they had bows and seemed very exclusive. The girl I had my eye on seemed very strange, she wore goth clothes with a tiara. Strange. She seemed to be the second in command, the first in command was a girl around age 12. I tried to zoom in on some other girls, when the phone rang. "Who is it Jarvis?" I guessed it was director Fury, that he found out that I hacked him again. "It's Sally, Sir. Percy Jacksons mother." That piqued my interest. I picked up the phone. "Hello, with Tony."
"Hello, it's Sally Jackson. Percy's mom." She sounded very rushed. "Yeah, I remember you, what's up?"
"Can I speak to Annabeth?" I looked up, silently asking Jarvis whether she was home already. He told me she wasn´t here, she went to the library after school to make homework. "I'm sorry she isn't home yet." It was quiet on the line. "Hello?" "Hi, do you know where she is?" With that sentence I got suspicious. "Why?" "Just… Is she alright? You know where she is?" "Yes, why?" "Can you tell her to call me when she gets home?" She sounded incredibly worried. "You can also leave a message." "No I better tell personally." "Did something happen?" "No, nothing to worry about. Don't forget to tell her to call me tonight. I need to go bye." She hang up. Rude.
"Jarvis, where is her phone located?" "Manhattan, Sir. She called from their home." I hacked some cameras at their home and zoomed in on their window. My past mission forgotten. Sally seemed very distressed, she walked into the kitchen and started to bake something blue. I scanned the rest of their apartment, there was only one other person in the apartment, which was a small girl, probably Estelle. The rest of the afternoon I checked in on Sally and checked some other newspaper articles, looking if they told something I didn't know yet. I was so busy in my research that I almost didn't hear Jarvis, key word almost. "What's up Jarvis?" "It appears Annabeth has gotten here. Do you want me to inform her of Sally's call?"
"No, I will tell her. Where is she?" I stood up and walked towards the elevator. "She is in her room." The elevator went up automatically, when the doors opened I walked inside the living room. Steve was the only one present, he was struggling with a phone. I ignored him and walked towards Annabeth's room. Her door was slightly open, I felt the need to spy on her, I wanted to know what she was doing, but I didn't spy on her. I was kind enough to knock and walk in without an answer. "Come- Of course you already came in." Annabeth grumbled. "Hey! I am very well mannered. I knocked!" I told her defensively. "I came in to tell you something. I got a call from Sally today." I started to walk to her desk and watched her facial expression, it screamed worry. "She told me to tell you to call her." She stood up and walked directly into the bathroom. "Hey! Where are you going?" I started to walk after her. "Making a call." Said an annoyed Annabeth. "How? Your phone is on your bed…" I looked confused at the bathroom door. Annabeth had locked herself in. I thought of being a nice uncle and grand her space, but I needed to figure out the mystery that was Annabeth, so I started to listen in on her call.
Annabeth had put the shower on. As if I couldn't hear her anymore with the shower on. I heard Annabeth saying something, which had gotten muffled by the door. I put my ear on a spot where I could hear her a little better. "Hey Sally. I had to call you? Something wrong?" Why did she directly think something's wrong? "Hello Annabeth. Not completely. Just- just when was the last time you saw Percy?" I heard Sally's voice as clear as Annabeth, as if she was standing in the bathroom herself. "Why? Something wrong with Percy? I saw Percy a few days ago. We had a date in central park, we were attacked, and I lost consciousness. Percy got put out of the building by Steve. Remember?" Annabeth's voice was laced with worry. "Percy told me yeah. But Percy never came home yesterday."
"What?"
"I hoped he would be with you, seeing whether you would be alright. Paul hasn't seen Percy at school during his class. Paul saw him during lunch break but he was gone before English started. Paul says he never came in the classroom. It happens more often, then he's busy killing a monster," I heard enough, he kills people, maybe they're bad people, but that's no reason to kill them. "but he never came home." I heard a sob, I don't know whose sob it was. "I haven't seen him, Sally. I'll call Chiron and see if he is there, maybe he can try to figure out where he is. I'll see what I can do. I'll call you back if I have updates." "Okay, thank you. He'll come back Annabeth. You know Percy." "Yeah." I heard someone sniffling. "Bye." "Bye." I thought Annabeth would come out, but she didn't. I put my ear back on the door. I heard Annabeth sobbing, after a while she stopped and said something along the lines of: "O weasly, do me a solid. Khiron, camp half-blood." It sounded so weird. Maybe it's her camp she goes to every summer. I should ask her about it. "Hey, Annabeth." "Chiron, is Percy there?" A male voice was heard. "No, not as far as I heard. He would stay home right, as usual?" "Sally called, he hasn't been seen since yesterday before lunch. Could you try to figure out where he is?" "I'll see what I can do. Anything else?" "No. Bye" "Goodbye."
The shower got put off, which meant Annabeth would come out any second. I ran to her bed and sat down and did as if I was busy. When the door handle went down, I looked up. Annabeth came out with tears still streaming down her face. The moment she saw me she tried to wipe her tears away, which didn't work because the tears kept streaming out of her eyes. I went towards her and gave her a hug. She completely melted in my hug, she kept sniffing. I suppose my shirt will be destroyed but totally worth it. I tried to cheer her up. It didn't work. We stood like that for a long time. After awhile Clint walked in. "What's going on?" I looked helplessly to Clint. He understood me. "Hey, Annabeth. Come here." Clint took Annabeth from me. He slowly guided her to her bed. "Shhh. It'll be alright." He is way better at this, which is logical as he has children himself. Clint kept telling Annabeth it would be alright. Eventually Annabeth cried herself to sleep. "Hey, help me for a sec." Clint whispered. He pointed to Annabeth and her bed. We put Annabeth silently in bed and put her under the covers. We put the lights off and closed her door softly. We walked in silence for a few seconds when Clint spoke up. "What has made Annabeth so upset? She has never cried like this." "Something with Percy."
"Tony." He gave me a stern look. "Knowing you, you listened in on anything which could have to do with Percy." I denied Clint's idea. "Why where you there then? You would never walk into her room knowing she's in." "Sally called and I had to tell Annabeth to call her. She did and being the good Uncle I am I stayed in her room waiting for her." "You just wanted to know what Sally called about. Knowing Annabeth she wouldn't say a thing, so you probably listened to her conversation." I spluttered against his reasoning but I had no proof so eventually I just told him everything I heard. Eventually I had to tell it multiple times, almost to every member present in the tower. Yay.
Annabeth didn't show up the whole evening, the next day she still wasn't seen around the tower. Jarvis would watch out for her, he told us she hadn't left her room since she woke up from an hour sleep. When it was around 5 PM we thought we had to get her out her room, we decided to first make some food for her. We made some eggs and toast. We were just deciding who had to get her out of her room, when Annabeth walked in with a huge notebook. We were speechless, she seemed like a mess, messy bun, bloodshot eyes and a crazy look in her eyes. "Hey, how are you feeling?" Clint asked worriedly. "Fine. I have a question to ask you." "Sure, shoot." Natasha answered right back. "What were your professions again?" I looked shocked at her. "We are earth's mightiest superheroes." Annabeth send me an annoyed look. "No, your real professions."
"What?" I asked. "You are Stark right?" "Yeah, who else?" "Then you probably are a worker at the Stark Industries-" "A worker? I own the company."
"Even better, which means you can hack right?" "Yeah, but why do y-"
"Hack all video cameras in and around New York." I started to sputter against that. "Shush, you hack a lot of times so, move!" She looked at the next person which was Natasha. "What do you do?" I wondered what Natasha would say. "I am a spy." "Okay, can you-"
"What!" I exclaimed. "You believe Natasha and you don't believe me." "Yeah, Natasha seems way more credible than you." She gave me a death glare, which shut me up directly. She looked back at Natasha. "See if you can find anything of a place where Percy could be, Clint you seem like a spy too. You help Natasha. Steve?"
"I- um- don't have a job?" It sounded more like a question than a statement. "Alright, help were possible, you could keep an eye on Tony of course. Bruce, you are a doctor, right?" "Sort of." "Great, you can see if there could be any clues. That's it. Any questions?" "Everyone raised their hand. "Any questions about the task I just gave you?" All hands went down. "Good. Tony I'm coming with you." I was surprised. "Why? Because you love me?" I taunted her a little. "No, because you will probably find him first." I pouted.
Annabeth took the lead and walked to the elevator, she didn't even seem scared of the elevator. Steve tried to make a conversation during the elevator ride. "How did you sleep tonight?" "I didn't." I saw Steve turn into overprotective Steve. "What! You aren't grown up yet! You need your sleep!" "And you need to shut your mouth before I-"Luckily she couldn't finish her sentence. I must admit she was scary, like terrifying. "Where do you want to start looking?"
"Start looking for Goode 2 days ago in between 12 and 1 PM" "Sure." I started to hack the camera, I was in in a minute. "I'm in." I showed all the cameras looking at Goode in different viewpoints. I sped it up. Nothing happened the whole time. "Are you sure it's the right time and place?" "Yes. Check the rest of New York right now." I glanced at Annabeth she didn't seem frustrated that the cameras didn't see anything. I also informed Peter, he might have an idea of where he could be. We didn't find anything the whole day we were looking, I made Annabeth a little screen were she could get a notification when Percy was found and were she could check all cameras in New York.
After I heard Percy was gone again, I cried so hard. I don't remember a lot, I only remember crying in Tony's hug and then into Clint's. When I woke up I called Chiron to see if he figured something out. He had talked to all the heads of the cabins, they hadn't seen Percy. He even checked in on the Romans, they hadn't seen him either. Camp would notify every demigod who was outside of camp to look out for Percy. The yearrounders were going out camp as search parties. Grover also send satyrs everywhere to find him. I had a slight feeling of a dejavu, I didn't want to think about it, because the last time we were send on a quest. The seven all IM'ed me to tell me it would be alright. After all the IMs I started to form a plan, I was busy the whole night and day after. After a while I decided to make the tower mates help, I know Tony listened to my talk with Sally. He would've told the others already.
When they were informed I went with Tony. When he showed Goode I understood Percy probably wouldn't be seen, unless Percy wanted to leave. Which made me conclude he was kidnapped. That evening Tony gave me a screen connected to cameras in New York. I checked them the whole night, I didn't see anything. On Monday I hadn't made any homework, I seemed like a mess, I hadn't eaten in so long. My stomach ached, so I ate a little more than usual. My stomach kept aching the whole time, now it probably ached because I ate too much. I almost crashed the car because I fell asleep while driving. The day was terrible, I fell asleep almost every class. Peter left me alone for once. He was on his phone all the time, the same could be said about me. I checked the screen all the time.
During English I checked it almost every few minutes, when I saw a monster close to a pond. The monster had 3 eyes and 2 pairs of horns. I kept looking at the screen. After the monster destroyed a few trees the water started to bubble. I sat up straight to see it better. Percy jumped up, I wanted to scream for him to move. After a few seconds he saw the monster and he hit behind a tree. He seemed scared of the water. He also looked terrible, his hair was even worse than usual, he had a crazed look in his eyes. Well.. We usually have a crazed look in our eyes after the pit, but it was even more crazed look. I could count his ribs. He didn't seem able to fight. I suddenly stood up. "Annabeth?" Mrs. Winterhalter asked. "Do you need anything?" "Yes. I need to go to the bathroom." "I'm sorry but I can't Amy has the hall pass already. So sit back down." Shit, I needed to go. "But Mrs. I have a girl problem, I need to go." I saw her doubt. "Otherwise you can clean the chair." That was the breakthrough. "Alright, you can leave."
I basically ran out the school. I ran all the way to the park, when I rounded the corner I had to duck because a tree got thrown at me. I sled towards Percy who laid beside an uprooted tree. "You okay?" "Yeah, couldn't be better." Percy panted very loud. "Breath quieter!" I whisper-screamed. I looked over the tree and saw the monster look around. "Sorry." I looked at Percy and saw that his shirt was wet and red. I lifted his shirt and saw a big, deep gash. I checked my pockets and found some ambrosia. I put one square in his mouth. The gash started to heal slowly. "Wait here, I'm going to kill the monster." "No, wait. It's stronger than the usual monsters." I checked in on the monster again. It sniffed again. "It seems blind." "It's not. It's acting." I looked again, to check I threw a stone I found next to me, the monster saw the stone coming. It took a step to the left and the stone missed him. "You're right." I looked back at Percy "Can you fight?" Percy started to stand up slowly, he almost fell, which made me help him. "Just a minute." Percy panted. If the situation wasn't so dire I wouldn't let him fight, but otherwise the monster would kill less experienced demigods, which isn't an option. I started to make a plan, which I told to Percy. We modified it, there was a small chance it would work. After a couple minutes Percy started to stand up straight. "Ready?" "Ready." We both went a different way. I put my baseball cap on and Percy uncapped Riptide.
The plan was that Percy would distract him, then I would try to kill him, during my attack Percy has to run to the pond and heal. If I came away from the monster Percy will blast it with water. The plan didn't work, I can tell you that. First the monster apparently could see warmth. Because I probably seemed weaker he went for me. The first phase went already wrong. I screamed for Percy to go to the water. He luckily understood and started to stumble to the water. I tried to keep the monster off of me, but the monster was way stronger. After I blocked, slashed and paraded I knew I was going to lose. I even tried to Percy. Which meant I tried to distract the monster with some small talk, I praised and asked, while fighting. He just didn't want to answer, eventually he seemed very irritated that I still wasn't dead so it roared in my direction. It didn't have a tongue. That's probably why it didn't reply. He rushed forward with his head leaning forward, so his horns would pierce through me. I jumped to the side just in time. His horns got stuck in a tree which was behind me.
I had to make a different plan. I looked at Percy he was still stumbling, he was halfway there. I realised Percy wouldn't be healed in time to fight with me. I checked my surroundings once more. I saw nothing which would help me fight, but I did see a mortal filming it. He was hiding behind a car. The monster finally got free from the tree and threw the tree at the mortal, which put the car alarm off. We started to fight again, I put myself on auto pilot so I could make a plan. I first checked my mind for monsters with these characteristics, I couldn't think of any monster, then I checked if he had weak points, he had 3 eyes, so destroying an eye wouldn't work as it would if it were a cyclops. 2 pairs of horns, nothing came up. I thought it could be a brother of a Minotaur, a smarter Minotaur with more horns and eyes. But that was the problem, I couldn´t defeat him like a Minotaur. I didn´t know which monster it could be, or who defeated it once. Maybe his tongue got cut off so it would die. The problem, his tongue isn´t back, which means I´m not able to kill it by cutting its tongue. I felt so bad that I couldn´t come up with a plan.
After a while I noticed how tired I was, I hadn´t slept in so long, my legs felt heavy, I needed sleep. I knew that it would be over in 5 minutes if he wasn´t killed in those minutes. I wasn´t planning on dying. I glanced at Percy, he made gestures from the monster to the pond, which was slightly bubbling. I thought Percy was cooking the water, he has been practicing with cooking and freezing water. I started to go from defensive to offensive. I started to push him back. When there still were a few feet between the monster and the pond, Percy stood next to the pond.
He kept giving scared glances at the pond, as if he didn´t cook it. I started to act only on adrenalin, my energy was up. Percy saw that I was completely done, so he took over, wounded. I fell on the ground, I could stand anymore. I made sure I wasn´t in the way of Percy and the monster. Eventually I heard some zooming behind me, I looked behind me and saw a jet and a man with a red and gold metal suit. The jet opened and someone hang half out of the cock pit, the person was holding a bow. He aimed and let loose. The arrow hit the monster and blew up.
The monster started to stumble backwards, Percy saw the chance and gave the last push. The monster fell backwards, he put his hands out and grabbed Percy. He dragged Percy with him. I looked at Percy and saw his scared eyes. That was the moment I knew he wasn't cooking the water. I tried to stand which didn´t work, I crawled towards Percy. He didn´t move, as if he had given up any hope of saving. "Annabeth! I love you! I'm sorry! Please stay save!" He looked down, his neck was halfway in the water. "Tell everyone I love them! Promise you don't come after me!" His chin touched the water. "I- I can't" My voice broke. "Promise, Annabeth!" His mouth went under water, his nose followed fast. He gave me one last look, which told me everything he felt right now. He felt despair, hope, afraid as if he would die the second he submerged in the water, but most of all love.
His head went under. I crawled as fast as I could when I reached the pond I only saw one last strand of hair. The second the hair went under, Percy was gone. I tried to go in the water but something held me back. I looked behind me and saw the tower mates in weird costumes, the metal man held me back. He saw me looking and lifted his mask. It was Tony. I turned my back on him and tried to get in the water. I had to save Percy. He had a strong grip. "He's gone Annabeth, Shhh, let him go, shhh." The adrenalin seeped out, I had no energy left to make him let loose of me. "I promise I'll find you." I mumbled. I didn't have enough energy to care about the costumes, I eventually fell asleep while mumbling about Percy.
So, What did you think? I read it through for once. Something happens. I'm not completely happy with the fight, but you probably wanted a chapter and I wonder if it would've been better if I posted even later. The plot is finally starting sooo here you go?!
See ya later (don't know when)