A.N Here's the second part enjoy and Review!
Chapter 2: Stay golden
Lyric woke up that morning the same she always did, running late.
"No bother rushing." Nico said, reading his book while Lyric scrabbled to find clothes. "You already missed breakfast."
Lyric narrowed her eyes. "Any particular reason why you didn't wake me?"
Nico just shrugged and returned to his book.
As Lyric was running down the halls, looking for the training center, she realized something major.
She was lost.
Which was predictable seeing as though she was in a random building and no one looked particular helpful. She's pretty sure she's been running in circles.
"You look lost." Lyric turned when she heard the sound of a voice. She turned toward the woman in the doorway with caramel skin, warm brown eyes, and a soft smile. She looked at Lyric with a mix of worry and amusement.
"What was your first clue?" Lyric asked.
"The fact this is your 3rd time running past my garage." The lady smiled. "You new?"
"Yup. Just got here yesterday, I was supposed to go to training after breakfast but I woke up late and missed breakfast, now I can't find the training center."
"Oh, you don't want to go training and you haven't eaten anything, you'll crash in minutes. Luckily for you, I packed a lunch and I'm not going to show you where the training center is until you eat the whole thing."
Lyric looked around before following the nice lady into the ominous garage.
"Alright, so what's your name?" The woman asked.
"Elisa lírica." Lyric shrugged. "I go by Lyric though."
"Ah, hablas español?"
"Sí , desde que era una niña" Lyric mumbled. "What about you?"
"Esmeralda." She smiled and held out her hand for Lyric to shake then disappeared into her office. She came back with a lunch box and tossed it to Lyric. "Here you are, you eat that and I'll text my son so he can show you were the training center is."
"Thank you for your help." Lyric smiled. She watched Esmeralda work before she started to physically itch with questions. "So what are you?"
"Human…" Esmeralda answered slowly.
"No, I mean your power you. Are you a fire, water—"
"Spirit." Esmeralda smiled. "Spirit Elementals are tricky because there is no set power you can have. Like if you're a fire elemental you have the ability to control fire, same with water, earth and air. Spirits however can be anything, for example, I fix things."
"What do you mean?"
"Meaning you can hand me any broken machine and I'll automatically know how to fix it." Esmeralda smiled warmly. "It just comes to me like a second nature."
"What about the other Spirits?" Lyric asked.
"Well, like I said, spirits are tricky. Annabeth is super smart, Octavian and Rachel can see the future, or maybe you have really good leadership skills like Chiron and Reyna. Or you can shift into animals like Lupa and Frank—"
"Wait what?"
"It's weird, I know." Esmeralda laughed. "But trust, end of this month you're going to forget that there was even a normal way to live life." She smiled before walking towards Lyric. "I called my son he's on the way to show you too the training center."
"Thanks again, Esmeralda." Lyric smiled.
"No problem, novia" Esmeralda replied. At that moment, there was a knock at the door. "That must be him."
Lyric looked towards the door, and with the luck she was having this morning she shouldn't have been surprised it was Leo.
"Hey, my baby." Esmeralda smiled, hugging Leo. "Have you met Lyric? Es muy bonita , ¿no? Me gusta , deberías invitarla a salir ."
"Ma!" Leo said pulling away from his mother's grasp. "She speaks Spanish!"
"Oh, I know."
"How do you know?" Lyric asked, tilting her head in confusion.
"It was on your file." Leo said, blushing hotly… a little too hot…
"Miel, you're smoking." She said, trying to put out his arms. "Now, calm down and get out of here, you're going to burn down my garage."
Lyric followed Leo out the door as he started up the hallway.
"Sorry about that, I know my mom can be a bit overwhelming."
"No, I love her." Lyric laughed.
"That's because you two are just alike."
"I'm going to take that as a compliment." Lyric smiled, falling into stride with Leo. "You're mom's cool."
"Hey, I'm sorry I didn't come get you this morning. I just figured Nico would be a decent enough roommate and show you where things were, not to mention wake you up. Though I shouldn't have expected that either, that kid sleeps like the dead." Leo came to a spot at a complete separate wing of the building. "Here's the training center, Percy's waiting for you in the Room 1."
"Thanks again, Leo." Lyric smiled. "It's been a real slice." She saluted him before walking into the training wing.
XXX
"You want me to do what?" Lyric said, eyebrows practically at her hairline.
"Make the water in that bottle, come out of the bottle" Percy said, crossing his arms.
"Alright." Lyric said, dumping the water out of the open window.
"Thanks for that." Percy scoffed. "Smart ass."
"Any other pointless things you want me to try and do next." Lyric paced. "Maybe you could teach me how to shoot rainbows out my ass."
"No, I'm not Iris." Percy laughed. Lyric looked at him with a face of disgust. He pulled out another water bottle. "This isn't some pointless magic, it's who you are. Just try it."
"This is bullshit." Lyric sighed. "You do it." She looked up, pushing the bottle towards Percy.
"This isn't about me, I'm trained."
"If I'm going to learn then I should at least be able to see it in action."
"Alright fine." Percy laughed. Lyric watched as he concentrated on the bottle until the water shot out of it and stayed in the air. Lyric's eyes widened as he slowly began to put the water back in the bottle. "You try." He smiled, pushing the bottle toward her.
"Alright, show off." Lyric sighed. She tried to focus on the bottle just like Percy did.
"You see this vein right here?" Percy said, tapping her forehead with a pen. "You're trying to hard."
"Then how am I supposed to try, Yoda?"
"Do you like the beach?"
"Random…" Lyric pointed out. "But yes, I love the beach."
"Elementals have a natural habit of being happy in the places closest to their element." Percy explained. "Leo likes burning buildings, Jason likes airplanes or mountain peak, Grover and Juniper just like being outdoors, and Water Elementals like the beach."
"You've lost me on the point you were making."
"You ever play that game when you were a kid where you would stand on the surf while the wave washed away, and the sand would shift and make it feel like the ground moved, so you'd pretend you could control the sea?"
Lyric smiled. "Yea."
Percy pushed the water bottle towards her. "Do it."
Lyric looked at the bottle, trying to will the water out. All of a sudden, a calm feeling washed over her like autumn on the beach and she closed her eyes.
She opened when she heard Percy sputtering. She held back her laughter when she saw Percy drenched in water.
"What happened?" Lyric asked.
"You." He smiled, gesturing towards the now empty bottle. "Nice going, Skywalker."
"I did that?" She asked, he nodded. "Fuck yea! Come on, what's next?"
XXX
"Thanks for taking me back to my room, Will, I never would've found it by myself." Lyric said, as she walked in her room, Will following her in.
"No problem really, People forget that we all used to be new here."
"You never told me what yours was."
"My what?"
"Your power, you told me you were a Spirit but Spirits have all sorts of powers so what is it?"
"I heal people."
"How so?"
"Like if you cut your arm now, I could heal it."
"No shit!" Lyric exclaimed, presenting her arm. "Do it!"
"I'm not cutting your arm just to heal it."
"Why'd you have to tease me like that?" Lyric said, they both laughed loudly.
"Can you guys have the dumbest conversation ever somewhere else?" A third voice chimed in. They looked over to see Lyric's gloomy roommate, Nico, who hadn't moved since they talked that morning though he was farther in his book.
"I didn't know Nico was your roommate."
"We share a room, yes, though the mate part, I plan on being his best friend by the end of the week." Lyric smiles at Nico's horrified face.
"Ah, Nico's not that bad." Will said, walking over and ruffling Nico's hair. "He may act big and bad but he's just a softie."
"Please go away." Nico sneered, narrowing his eyes at Will as if trying to look menacing but Lyric didn't miss the flush that suddenly dawned his face. She was going to have fun with that.
"Alright, I'll see you later, Will."
"Okay, and if you need help finding anything just bang on the wall, I'm right next door." Will called as he exited.
"Will do." Lyric replied and waited to hear the click to show that the door was shut. "So, Will huh?"
"What about him?" Nico stammered, blush filling his cheeks.
"Nothing, he's pretty cool. He walked me here because Percy had to go meet Annabeth and I didn't know how to get back." Lyric smiled. "What do you think?"
"I don't think anything."
"Nico, I know you have a monster sized crush on him." Lyric replied. "I'm very intuitive on these things, it's like a sixth sense."
"Knowing when someone's into someone else?" Nico asked.
"Yep." Lyric responded. "Just like how I know you used to have a big crush on Percy for a long time but recently got over it, I'm guessing that was when you met Will."
"How did you know that?" Nico demanded. "Who told you?"
"No one had to tell me, I told you I'm good with these things."
"So you know about Leo's obvious crush on you?"
"Leo doesn't have a crush on me." Lyric shrugged. "He may be attracted to me, I wouldn't be surprised if he was, but Leo has other things to worry about. So do I."
"What do you have to worry about?"
"Dangerous people trying to take me because I'm special for some reason, dealing with the fact that I have a long lost brother all while trying to deal with it without my best friend—Oh, my god, Ellie!" Lyric said suddenly dawning on her that she's been missing for an entire day and didn't call her best friend. She grabbed some shoes and headed out the door. "This conversation isn't over."
"Yea it is." She heard as she run out the door.
XXX
On the search for a phone, Lyric ran into Leo.
Literally ran into him.
"OOF!" Lyric huffed before falling on the ground.
"How come every time someone finds you, you're running in the halls."
"Because I don't know where anything is." Lyric shrugged. "This time I'm looking for a phone or something."
"You can use mine but it's in my room."
"Alright." Lyric replied. "Lead the way."
The walk to Leo's room was short so they spent a majority of the time in comfortable silence.
When they got to the room Lyric sat in the desk chair, Leo handed her the phone. "Here, I'll just be right here." He said, pointing behind him. Lyric nodded and hastily typed in the number.
"Hello?"
"Elle, Don't scream."
"Lyric, you rotten piece of shit! What the fuck is the matter with you? Why the fuck did you run away."
"Whoa! I thought you didn't curse like that because it brings forth bad energy?"
"Let the bad energy come! Why did you just leave like that?"
"I know, but things are difficult and I don't know if I can explain it." Lyric sighed. "How's my mom?"
"Strangely calm, she didn't even call the police she said she knew this would've happened on day."
"Good, That's Good."
"Lyric, What's going on?"
"You know, you can tell her if you want?" Leo chimed in.
"Really?" Lyric asked, Leo nodded. "Ok, Elle. I'm going to tell you some things that won't make sense but trust that I'm not crazy."
"You were already crazy before, it can't get any worse."
"Elle listen, I don't know how to explain this over the phone so I'm going to do it very dumbly." Lyric said. "Remember when we used to watch The Last Airbender together?"
"Yes, we still do that."
"Well, it's kind of real." Lyric shrugged. "And I'm kind of on of them."
"Are you fucking with me right now?"
"Nope, I made water come out of a bottle today with my mind." Lyric sighed. "It's kind of weird and really freaky… and I'm scared." Lyric felt an involuntary tear escape her eye. Leo is up in seconds putting a hand over hers and rubbing his thumb over her knuckles.
"Okay… okay, now I know this is serious. The last time you cried was 6th grade."
"I know!" Lyric sighed. "You know I hate feeling things."
"That I do know." Ellie blew out an exasperated breath "So is that it? I'm not going to be able to see you again?"
"Well, What I've been told is that once I learn control you can visit me, but I still have a lot to learn."
"Then get your training." Elle sighed. "And you better learn fast, because I need to see you. I'm sorry but I have to go… I have a date."
"With who?"
"Hot Mark's sister, Malia, who is even hotter." Elle replied. "I'll talk to you soon."
"Yea, I'll talk to you later."
"Stay gold, Ponyboy."
"Alright, Weirdo, bye!" Lyric smiled, hanging up the phone.
"Nice to see you smiling." Leo commented after a few minutes of comfortable silence. "You haven't smiled since you've been here."
"What do you mean? I smile all the time."
"Yea, but not a real one." Leo shrugged. "This one just seems more genuine… It's nice."
"Thanks, I guess." Lyric smirked. "Come on, It's time for lunch and I'm starving."
XXX
"You're staring." Annabeth said, offhandedly eating a pile of grapes.
Leo snapped his eyes to Annabeth. "At what?"
"You know at what?" Percy replied. "You've been watching Lyric for the past 10 minutes."
"I'm just trying to figure out why she's sitting with Will." Leo sighed. "I mean we rescued her, right? She should be with us!"
"She's allowed to make her own friends." Jason supplied. "Besides, some of us haven't been the most welcoming." Everyone turned and faced Nico, who was more into his book then the conversation at hand.
"What?" Nico said, looking up.
"Were you mean to Lyric?" Annabeth asked.
"No!" Nico replied. Everyone gave him a dull stare. "I wasn't! I just didn't help her or anything."
"Why not?" Jason glared.
"Because I didn't think it was my responsibility." Nico stared back, more intensely. "Leo's the one with a crush on her, let him deal with her."
"I don't have a crush on her." Leo snapped. He was met with dull looks from everyone. "I don't!"
"Yea, ok." Piper said, rolling her eyes.
"Are you trying to die today, Pipes?"
"Don't threaten my girlfriend." Jason said, dully, not serious at all.
"I'm about to threaten you too."
"Who are we threating?" Everyone look up to see Lyric standing behind Leo.
"No one." Leo said giving a pointed look to everyone at the table as if daring them to say something from their last conversation to her.
Lyric just shrugs and straddles the bench of the lunch table, Making Leo immediately aware of how close she is to him, and how it doesn't really bother him, and how she smells faintly like strawberries…
Okay, he needs to quit while he's ahead.
"Hey, sorry I ditched you back there. I was in line behind Will and we started talking about music and he said that Fall Out Boy's new stuff is better than the old stuff. And I said that they're new stuff is good but you don't just shit on the classics, you know?"
"You're really into music?" Jason pointed out.
"Yea, I want to be a Vocal teacher."
"Can you sing?" Piper inquired.
"I'm okay, I guess." Lyric shrugged. "Enough to know what sounds good."
"That's cool."
"Eh." Lyric sighed. "So, Yoda, When's our next training session, because I kind of want to go take a nap."
"We can do tomorrow."
"Alright." Lyric turned to walk away.
"Wait!" Leo called before his brain caught up to what he was doing. "Let me walk you to your room?"
"Ok, you'll have to give me a sec though, I've got to ask Will to let me use his Vinyl player later." She smiled at him before jogging away.
"What are you doing?" Jason asked.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, if you don't like her like you say you don't, then why are you offering to walk her to her room?"
"I'm being friendly."
"Yes, because friends totally stare at you like you hung the moon and lowkey smell you."
"You do that with Percy."
"Yea, Percy's my bro." He said reaching out his hand to Percy; both fist bumping without looking at each other.
"Yea, Ok."
"I'm just saying it's ok to admit you like this girl." Jason sighed. "I mean, I know it hasn't been that long since Calypso—"
"Stop." Leo said, gaze suddenly turning into a deathly glare. "I don't want to talk about that."
"Leo you have to—"
"I don't have to do anything!" He snapped.
"Hey." Lyric smiled. "You ready?"
"Yea lets go." Leo said turning his back on his friends.
XXX
The walk back to the room had an uncomfortable air to it, Lyric didn't know why.
But she was definitely going to find out.
"Hey stop." Lyric said, moving in front of Leo. "What's wrong?"
"I don't really want to talk about it."
"And we don't have to." Lyric said. "I'm not going to push but you can talk to me." Lyric shifted from foot to foot. "Did I do something?"
"What?!" Leo said, shocked. "No! Lyric, you're perfect."
Lyric huffed, taken aback by the comment. "Shut up."
"I mean, you're super nice and talented. And, not to mention, Outgoing. You've been here less than 24 hours and you already have more friends than me."
"You have good friends." Lyric smiled.
"They'll be your friends too, if you'll hang out with us."
"Sorry, I just thought you guys wouldn't want to hang out with me."
"Why not?"
"I don't know." Lyric said, continuing to walk down the hallway. "I did kind of freak out on the ride here I just thought you guys would think I'm crazy."
"No one thinks you're crazy, we had our moments when we found out." Leo smiled. "Hell, Piper threw a brick at Jason."
"Really?" Lyric laughed.
"Yea, he got a concussion and everything." Leo smirked.
"They're dating now though, right?"
"Yea, she basically wouldn't leave his side when he passed out, they've always been inseparable."
"What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Are you dating anyone?" Lyric inquired.
"I've only dated one girl in my entire life." Leo sighed. "It wasn't a happy ending." Leo paused, deciding that was all he was going to digress.
"That's too bad." Lyric sighed, not asking him to be more specific. Leo was really grateful for that. "The only guy I ever dated was in 6th grade and he forgot we were dating after a week."
Leo snorted. "Really? You haven't dated anyone after that?"
"Shocking?"
"Yea, you're gorgeous." Leo blurted. Lyric raised an eyebrow at him. "I mean it's just hard to believe you've never dated anyone."
"That's because I'm extremely bad at it." Lyric said. "If I'm into a guy I'll just dedicate my time into being his friend. And if my sarcastic personality and depressive demeanor doesn't scare him off, we'll end up being really good friends and I never say how I'm feeling."
"Maybe you should just be up front with people then."
"How so?"
Leo stopped to look her in the eye. "Like if you like someone then just tell them you're into them, I just don't the big deal."
"So every girl you've liked you've told them."
"Yea."
"Even Piper?"
"Uh…"
"What about that weird thing you had for Annabeth for like 2 weeks?"
"How do you even know about tha—"
"And that weird girl with white hair and really blue eyes, always looks at you like she's plotting her death?" Lyric asked. "Did you tell her too?"
"Ok 1, I don't know how you know any of this information."
"I'm very intuitive."
"2, I didn't even like Chione, I just had a weird dream about her in 8th grade and it still makes me uncomfortable."
Lyric snorted and stopped in front of her door. "Well, this was an extremely long but satisfying walk." Lyric smiled. "We should hang out more."
"Yea, definitely."
"I'll see you at dinner, right?"
"I'll be there."
"And I'll sit with you this time." Lyric said. "I mean, if it's cool with your friends."
"Absolutely, do you need me to walk with you later?"
"No, I'll find it fine this time, thanks though."
"Alright, see you later."
"Stay golden!" She yelled, closing her door, between them.
XXX
Leo all but sprinted to the Mess Hall and sat at the table where his friends were seated.
"Okay, Lyric's eating dinner with us so under no circumstances can you guys be rude or embarrassing."
"I'm never rude." Nico shrugged.
"That's the biggest lie I've ever heard."
"And we never embarrass you." Piper added.
"Yea, you mostly just do that to yourself."
"Shut up, Rachel."
"Make me."
"The point is," Annabeth said, immediately taking control of the table. "That you shouldn't be worried, we're your friends and if you really like this girl we like her too."
"I don't like her."
"Then why did you just yell at us?" Jason asked.
"Because she already thinks you don't like her that's why she didn't sit with us at lunch. I want her to feel like she has friends here, I mean, we were all new once."
"And that's the only reason you want to help her?" Jason asked. "The kindness of your heart?"
"Yes."
"Bullshit." Nico snorted.
"Nico, I will go over to Will right now and tell him exactly how you feel about him." Leo threatened.
"I don't feel anything."
"Nico, we've all read your diary." Jason shrugged.
"Ok 1, I'm not an 11 year old girl I do not have a diary, I just write down what I do."
"Ok, so you didn't spend a page and a half writing about his hair and the other page on how soft you think his tan skin would be or did we just imagine that?" Reyna piped, uninterested in everything other than the book she was reading.
"This is such a major invasion of privacy, and I will kill all every last one of you violently if any of this conversation is ever repeated." Nico said coldly, though it didn't have its usual effect because his face was beat red.
"Aww, leave Nico alone." Juniper smiled over the plant she was treating at the moment. "I think it's great and perfectly healthy for him to have a crush and a diary. We all need to digress sometimes especially in the world we live in and a crush is the only normal teenage thing he has right now, let him live. Besides he can't be any worse than Percy when him and Annabeth weren't dating."
"I haven't said anything this entire time, why am I being attacked?" Percy asked.
"Yea, this isn't about Percy or Nico, this is about Leo needing to admit that he likes this girl so we can all move on."
"I don't like her!"
"Who do we not like?" Everyone looked up to see Lyric standing there, smiling and holding a bowl of grapes.
"Nothing, no one!" Leo said, a little too quickly and a little too loud. In his peripheral vision he could see his friends snickering.
"Okay, weirdo." Lyric said, sitting down, draping her legs over Leo's. "I'm exhausted, I didn't sleep well last night and I didn't even get to take a nap, so that's messing up my appetite and I can't eat a lot so all I got is grapes and I don't even want all of them so you're going to share with me. Deal?"
Leo raised an eyebrow at her and shrugged. "Yea, deal."
"Sweet, and I'm going to steal some of your fries now."
"I don't remember that being part of the deal."
"Tough noodles, dude." Lyric smiled.
"What kind of phrase is that?" Percy joked.
"Mine, you jerk." She laughed, throwing a grape at Percy.
As Leo watched Lyric and Percy joke and make fun of each other, her laughing with the others and trying to pinch Nico's cheeks only to get her hand swatted away, all he could focus on her legs draped on his. How his hand migrated on its own to her knee, holding her there. And he thought this is exactly where they should be.
This is exactly where they should be.
Review Please! I'll try to be quicker with updates but I'm in college so…