Chapter 19: I Find Some Plot Armor

(Peter)

I was running toward the Air and Space Museum when something bright shot out of the front doors. I dodged, but somehow it still managed to smack me in the face and make me fall on my ass.[1]

"Fuck!" Why was this world so fucking stupid!

Someone burst into laughter as I scrambled to get up. "Ha!" they cried. "That was super funny!"

I turned and saw Pony Sue coming towards me, still braying with laughter.

"This is why four legs are better than two. You're so clumsy," Pony Sue told me.

"It wasn't my fault," I said, "That thing hit me." I gestured angrily at the ground at a fuzzy pile of…

"Yeah, sure," the horse began, "Blame the inanimate object for getting ser—"

I wasn't listening. I was too busy staring at the pile of fur that had come from the museum. It had to be…

I knelt down and picked it up. The fur gave off a golden sheen for a moment before it transformed into a golden-brown full-length duster coat.

Fuck yes!

I rushed to put on the coat. It fit perfectly and suddenly I felt warm and badass and…

"Peter Johnson, you did not just put on that piece of trash," Pony Sue snapped, finally piercing through my thoughts.

"It's not trash!" I said, indignantly. "It's a coat." I pulled on the coat's lapels for emphasis. "See!"

"It's dead lion's skin i.e., trash," she claimed.

I opened my mouth to protest. This wasn't just any dead lion skin. It was the Nemean Lion pelt. It could stop bullets, for fuck's sake.

But before I could say any of that, Pony Sue added, "Even if it wasn't trash. It should be due to pure gaudiness."

"Says the horse wearing a golden saddle," I shot back before she could launch into another monologue.

"Excuse me!" Pony Sue said affronted.[2] "My saddle is chic as Hades, solid gold, and totally vegan. Not a single animal was harmed in the making of it, unlike your manmade disaster."

I rolled my eyes. We were really doing this? My coat was literal plot armor. Who the fuck cared if it was vegan? "Whatever," I said. I was not getting into this with her. "I have more important things to do than argue about whether or not you like my coat. There are skeletons coming here and I have to warn the others about it. Plus, I need to help them fi…"

Fuck.

I was wearing the Nemean Lion pelt which meant they had already dispatched the lion without my help. Percy had earned his place on this quest by defeating the lion. What was I supposed to do now?

"Uh…hello~? You wanna finish that sentence and share those thoughts with the rest of us? Or are you just gonna keep muttering to yourself like a crazy hobo?" Pony Sue sassed.

I glanced over at where the van had been parked. It was still there and unoccupied. Thank God.

"I have to go," I said, trying to get by the horse. I needed to get to the museum before Sunshine and the others left, but Pony Sue held up a wing to stop me.

"Hey!" I protested, pushing away her wing.

"You don't want to go in there," Pony Sue warned me. "There's a bunch of evil bird ladies—"

Evil. Bird. Ladies? What?

"—in there. I was waiting for Andi to come out. Actually. You should wait with me. You're a horrible listener and your fashion sense is abysmal, but at least your equine is fluent."

"I'm sorry. Did you say, evil bird ladies?" I repeated.

"Like I said, a horrible listener. Yes, I literally just said that. Plus, maybe use your eyes?" She jerked her head to point at the museum. "And humans say they have the better vision." [3]

I ignored the insult and looked past her. I had been too busy with Pony Sue and my new coat to really notice what was going on at the museum. However, now that I was looking at the lobby through the large full-length windows of the museum, I saw that Pony Sue hadn't been joking.

The scene inside looked like Birds, the movie. A whole flock of winged creatures was swarming around on the ceiling with small groups of them swooping down to attack at random intervals. The creatures weren't just birds either. As Pony Sue said, they were 'evil bird ladies.' Each one had the size and golden beak, wings, talons, and torso of a large bird of prey, but their heads and legs were human. It was fucking wrong. Something about the beaks coming out of their human heads and the pale legs sticking out of their bird torsos turned my stomach.

What even were they?

If I had to guess, I'd call the evil bird ladies, harpies, but that wasn't it. They weren't furies either. They had no arms and then there were those beaks…

I tried to think of some human bird hybrid creature with golden feathers, talons, and beaks. I mentally flipped through the PJO books, but nothing stuck. Only after my mind had shifted away from PJO lore to straight-up Greek mythology, did I figure it out. My research into the mythological basis for all the PJO books' quests paid off. I realized the creatures weren't gold. They were bronze which meant…

But that shouldn't be right.

I turned to Pony Sue. "Are those Stymphalian birds?" I asked in disbelief.

"So, you do know a thing or two," Pony Sue said, in a condescending voice. "That sounds about right. Though I've never been the best at remembering petty details like Grecian species names."

Ironic, considering what her name was.

"Cause like who cares about that," she insisted, "What matters is that those things have a nasty temper. They like to peck and claw at anything in their way when they are in a mood and this is, like, the moodiest I've ever seen them."

"But…" It did matter. They weren't supposed to look like that. I distinctly remember that Stymphalian birds were, you know, birds, even in Greek mythology.[4] In PJO, they were pigeons.[5]

Not creepy nightmare fuel.

"So, you're staying out here, right? Maybe we can have a serious discussion about what is and isn't appropriate human wear," Pony Sue said.

"No," I said both to her and myself. "I'm going inside." The damn birds might look different, but I did know how to defeat them. I just needed a loud sound to drive them away. That was how Heracles and Annabeth had done it. I didn't have a boombox or pair of magical maracas, but thanks to my new friendship or rather old friendship with Percy, I already knew exactly what sound to use.

The fire alarm.

That's how little Percy managed to get kicked out of kindergarten the second time. He'd pulled it 6 times. The alarm would be plenty loud and I could just make out where it was. The red box was on the far side of the large lobby near a set of bathrooms.

"Are you sure?" Pony Sue pressed. "Cause you don't seem sure and—"

"Yes," I said, cutting the horse off. I wished I still had the invisibility cap, but "I'm sure." I readjusted my coat armor, got out my sword, and headed towards the stairs of the museum entrance.

I was going to earn my spot on this stupid quest and go home.

Pony Sue refused to take a hint and followed me. "But are you like doubly, no, triply sure?" Pony Sue asked again right before we reached the stairs.

"Yes, I'm fucking sure. I've been through shit alright?" I said, shooting her a look before beginning my climb.

"I think most animals have?" Pony Sue said, confused. "That's not really impressive."

God fucking damn it! I stopped and turned around to glare down at the dumbass animal.[6] I swear this was worse than dealing with Miss Sunshine![7]

"I didn't mean actual shit," I growled. "I meant metaphorical shit. I've done stuff, gone on adventures," with Percy and just now with New Moon, "so yes, I think I can handle some fucking birds!"

"Oh~ I get it," Pony Sue said in that annoying, I understand type voice. "That makes a lot more sense."

"No shit," I grumbled.

"What was that?" Pony Sue said sharply.

"Never mind." Experience with Miss Sunshine had taught me, it was sometimes best just to end the conversation. I jogged up the last few steps and said, "Just watch out for skeletons while I'm gone, Pony Sue."

Pony Sue huffed out an angry breath. "Excuse me! My name is not Po-nay-su, Peter Johnson," she cried. "How would you like it if I called you—"

Luckily, I didn't hear the rest of Pony Sue's lecture because when I opened the doors, the screeching from the hellish bird hybrids and the sound of Zoë shouting drowned out all other noise. For a moment, I just stood there watching the chaos, and then things turned to shit.

It started with the sun. It had been hidden behind overcast skies all morning, but suddenly it burst through the clouds so that sunlight bounced off the bronze birds like they were a bunch of fucking disco balls.

"Fuck!" I hissed. I raised up my right arm to shield my eyes without thinking and my sword came up with it, my shiny sue-tastic sparkle sparkle sword.

Damn it.

I was still half-blind, so I couldn't see the difference but I could hear it. The sudden silence.

"Peter?" It was Miss Sunshine's voice. It held a mixture of confusion and fear.

Then Pony Sue who had already flown in the air and away from the line of fire gave me the more concrete command of, "Don't just stand there, PJ. Run boy, run!"

Footnotes

[1] Again, I sometimes wonder if this story is a revenge fic against someone.

[2] You're excused, Princess.

[3] Horses have 20/60 to 20/30 vision.

[4] So…Peter is right. Kind of. Stymphalian Birds are usually depicted as birds (they look like geese most of the time). However, if you do some more digging, they are occasionally shown to be female bird hybrids with human faces, fleshy tails, and sometimes super beefy arms. So, this fic's representation is unorthodox, but not completely without precedent.

[5] The Stymphalian birds, in the guise of pigeons, showed up during the PJO Sea of Monsters chariot race, but that race never happened in the Sea of Monsters fic.

[6] In my headcanon, most people hear Peter through a profanity filter (Andi being the most obvious exception and the gods as a possible second). So, Pony Sue may not be acting as stupidly as Peter believes.

[7] I believe Pony Sue was made for Andi specifically. She was a gift from a god after all. So, it makes sense to me that Pony and Andi have similar personalities, though Princess is, on the whole, more temperamental.