III

Percy

BREAKING NEWS: Hurricane Percy becomes the first recorded tropical cyclone to ever hit the west coast. Massive flooding and high winds ravage northern California. Authorities have issued a state of emergency, imploring the citizens in affected areas to not partake in any outdoor activities. This includes: backyard barbecues, walking the dog, beach parties, outside sports...

Thoughts of what tomorrow's headlines could be flashed through Percy's mind—the part of his mind that wasn't screaming unintelligibly as his body flailed around, subjected to what felt like a Sea World ride gone horribly wrong. He done goofed. Making a high octane storm of death near the west coast was probably not the brightest thing to do, especially not on the doorstep of the Roman camp one was fleeing to. He blamed the swirling vortex in the sky for giving him ideas.

For some reason, there was a sense of déjà vu in all of this. But he quickly brushed that off. It wasn't like he had done something similar in the past...right? The daily life of Percy Jackson surely did not involve creating natural disasters, property damage, and possible civilian casualties.

No, don't be ridiculous. Gods forbid.

Several small, uprooted trees slammed into his side, sending one unfortunate demigod spiraling through the whirling waters. Definitely a Sea World ride gone wrong all right. The current game of underwater pinball needed to stop. While his physical body seemed impervious to almost any form of damage, his mental health was not. It was becoming difficult to tell up from down.

Percy willed the eye of the storm to center on him. Immediately, the violence of the sea subsided. No more flying trees. No more Sea World pinball.

Back to trying to run—uh, swim—for his life. If he remembered right, there were extraordinary terrestrials on his tail. With any luck, the three stooges were experiencing firsthand the insides a food blender. One can only hope.

He shot up like a corkscrew, breaking the surface of the recently demigod-made lake. Several pairs of glowing green eyes greeted him.

Did he wrong Lady Luck somewhere down the line before he developed amnesia?

"I'll admit: I didn't think you had this much left in the tank." Green tendrils lifted the king's ambassador high in the air. His literal wing-man hovered beside him, obsidian-black wings extended. The hooded abomination was nowhere to be seen. Earth gathered in the leader's hand, forming a crude sword, its jagged tip inches away from Percy's throat. "That strength will prove very useful to our king."

"You guys don't know when to quit." Riptide shone defiantly in the wavering moonlight. "I assumed the hurricane would speak for itself but let me spell it out for you: I don't want to join your little freak show."

"It's three to one. You can either surrender peacefully or die pitifully. At least, you might have a chance to save your friends if you are alive."

"I'm not sure if you've noticed but hooked hoodie isn't with you guys anymore. Maybe he's taking the long trek back all the way from Tartarus." Percy regarded the two. "And besides, notice the change of scenery?" He gestured around him at the ongoing tempest. "We're in my arena now."

"Last chance, Jackson." The tone of the tendril soldier changed; the once soft spoken voice of reason was now sharp as a razor wire. "And I don't mean this as a threat."

There was a brief pause before the leader lowered his sword in a failed attempt to seem less threatening.

"Have you any idea what the rebound your little stunt will have on your body once you leave the water? Any more of these wild antics and you're all but guaranteed a one way trip to the Underworld. Not even Achilles' curse can protect you from self-combustion."

"What are you? My mother?" Percy chuckled. He couldn't help but notice his laughter sounded an octave too high. The tendril man's words had an uncomfortable ring of truth. He was on a high right now—a high with a very steep drop. Even now, with his physical strength restored, the mental fatigue of the past week remained. It was like a rubber band drawn taut, stretched to the breaking point.

He looked down at his reflection in the water. Despite all the science behind it, Percy still found it weird how at the center of the storm everything was so calm—like finding a peaceful meadow in the middle of a dense, violent forest. The sudden change of pace was disconcerting.

A droplet of crimson hit the surface of the calm waters, its ripples pulsed with the rhythm of a war drum. The same drum that throbbed in his temple—his vision flashed red. The same drum that beat in his chest, pounding away like a hammer to anvil. When the disturbance cleared, he found a weary teen staring back from under the water, rivulets of blood flowing down from his nose.

The water was so inviting. Maybe a little nap on the sea floor wouldn't be so bad.

Not good.

"It's three to one," the king's knight repeated, green eyes staring pointedly at the ripple of blood blossoming under the water's surface. If a lifeless mask could wear an 'I-told-you-so' expression, it would be wearing one now. "Restrain him."

Suddenly, he was swallowed from behind by a landslide. Mouths with gnashing teeth and fangs the size of daggers tore at impervious demigod flesh. The cacophony of anguished voices moaned from all around the son of Neptune. Thousands of smoldering green eyes bore into Percy, fixing onto him with such terrible intensity. The third member of the king's misfits must have come from behind.

Cursing at his lack of awareness, Percy slashed at his living cage but his movements felt sluggish. Then he realized: he wasn't in the water. The sudden wave of exhaustion and pain hit him harder than the impact of a 40-ton truck against a brick wall. The metallic taste of iron rose from his throat. His vision grew hazy. Time slowed. The visage of a great she-wolf came into clarity for a second, then it was gone—replaced by the glowing green galaxy with its myriad of gaping mouths.

The earth started to seep into his body. Was it trying to eat away at him from the inside?

Somewhere outside the nightmarish confinement, the leader of the king's envoys was roaring in frustration. The living cage recoiled from Percy, the anguished moaning, snarling, hissing, shrieking reached an earsplitting pitch. At some point, Percy joined the chorus of screams, yelling as he attempted to move his aching body.

Then he was free, floating spread-eagle on his back in the waters again, retching furiously. Strength returned for the second time albeit to a lesser degree. Above him, the abomination that was once his prison had been split open by the obsidian angel's great sword.

"What do you think you are doing? The vessel must remain intact. Disobey the king's orders again and I'll send you back to Tartarus myself." Percy's ears, ringing as they were, perked up. Vessel? That word fell heavy and cold over his thoughts like a coffin of ice, a suffocating space no different from the recent confines of the earthen monstrosity.

"He refused allegiance to the king. You said it yourself that the alternative was death."

"Read between the lines, you oaf. That was just a negotiating technique. Carrots and sticks. I was trying to make the former idea of surrender more enticing versus the latter of a painful death. I knew I should've lent you Diplomacy 101." The leader continued on his tirade. "Once we get back, I'm adding to the group's reading list. AND we're doing book reviews."

There was a collective groan that came from the mouths of the hooked goliath. The winged humanoid slightly inclined its head. Percy wondered if the angel could read without any eyes. Did the king have books in braille?

Percy frowned, staring up at the ominous vortex that had nothing to do with the storm of his making. It was closer than before, almost looming right above them. His nerves tingled. He hurt everywhere. It was like his body had gone through a full course of Dr. Frankenstein's 1,000,000-volt shock therapy. But he needed to move. As dire as his current circumstances were, Percy's instincts warned him that if the second storm hit, the window of escape would close for good.

He tried summoning a wave. The world capsized. Stars danced in front of his eyes. It was like suddenly being placed inside a snow globe that a child was shaking furiously. His vision swayed. His ears popped. Cold began to creep into his bones. Creating a second maelstrom was probably out of the playbook. Riptide, his ball point pen/sword, dug into his thigh.

Before he could contemplate drawing his weapon, emerald vines coiled around one half-dead demigod, slowly raising Percy from the sea. He stared helplessly, upside down, at his misshapen captors. Delirium blunted the oncoming panic like a tranquilizer drug, replacing it with thoughtful madness. He wondered if he would have to participate in the review sessions of the king's book club.

The jingling of bells barely could be heard over the violence of the two storms. Wait. Bells? In his daze, Percy searched for the source. His eyes honed in on a blinding star streaking through the skies in the distance, over the shoulders of Tendril Man and his two goons. Percy squinted at this newly found object invading the dark scenery. It looked like it was coming towards them.

A volley of silver light—arrows that seemed to be molded from stars—rained down upon them. And while they bounced harmlessly off of Percy, the king's men were not so resistant. The unsuspecting eldritch horrors were Swiss cheese to the onslaught. The torrent of pointy objects tore gaping holes into flesh made of dirt and green goo.

The jingle of bells grew louder. Then—

Christmas came to visit the month of June. A deer-drawn sleigh turned Mister Hook and Tendril Man into roadkill in the weirdest drive-by/traffic violation Percy had ever witnessed. Rudolph led the charge of the North Pole brigade, followed by Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Dunder, and Blixem. Why would Saint Nick decide to visit San Francisco, California in the middle of Summer?

Before Percy could give that question much thought, a hand reached out and hauled him onto the sleigh. He collapsed unceremoniously onto his shotgun seat in a daze, staring in front of him with eyes glazed over at Rudolph and co. cantering in thin air. They flew at full deer-power away from the scene of the crime, leaving the Lovecraftian monsters to reform by themselves.

"Water," Percy gasped. "Need. Contact. Water. Or death." He could still taste blood in his mouth. But also brownies and hot cocoa. Wait, brownies and hot cocoa?

It tasted like your typical night time snack but spiked with a bajillion grams of caffeine. He realized someone was force-feeding him nectar and ambrosia.

"I'm glad to see you alive and kicking," commented a girl around his age, giving him a once over.

Percy's breath caught as their eyes met. He was like a deer in the headlights.

The person with the reins next to him was a far cry from jolly old Saint Nick. She had dark hair tied in a pony tail with a crescent moon hair pin. The girl wore modest clothing—a silver tunic with black leggings—that would still put a model to shame on the runway. There was a royal dignity in how she carried herself—a similar aura to that of Lupa. She wasn't mortal. Maybe it was the large silver bow in her hand that gave away her more-likely-non-mortal status. Or her inhuman beauty. Or maybe...the magic flying sleigh. The girl looked detached from time.

He felt somewhat betrayed. It was almost as if an older sibling had spilled the beans that there was never an old man living with elves and reindeer in the North Pole.

"You're not Santa."

"What?" The girl tilted her head in confusion. Her eyes flashed with brief annoyance, then realization, and settled on exasperation—the silver and gold of her irises shone with amusement. "No, sorry. The name is Artemis, a Legacy of Jupiter. And it's still June anyway...unfortunately." She said the month with a hint of distaste.

Legacy?

"Second generation+ of a god or goddess." She supplied, reading his mind. "Now, let us head to Camp. Hopefully it's still above sea level." Eyes like twin moons fixed pointedly on Percy. He laughed nervously.

"Um," a panicked voice interjected from behind them.

Percy jumped and whirled around. Two young demigods—a boy and a girl—in Roman armor were cowering in the backseat, clutching their gold weapons and the sleigh's railings for dear life.

The boy was firing arrows furiously at the cloud trail the sleigh left. He was of Asian descent, had a baby face, and was built like a bear. He also had a wild look in his eyes that made Percy slightly afraid for him.

The girl wasn't handling the situation any better. Her shoulder-length cinnamon hair was plastered to her olive skin from the earlier downpour of Percy's storm. Blood ran down from the side of her head, closing one eye. She was chucking what seemed to be her rock collection behind them, producing gems and other precious stones from different pockets of her jacket, her Spatha hung useless at her side.

Both were so young. 13? 15 years old? And already in the service of the Roman Legion.

The girl continued from her interjection, "Can this thing go any faster? Because there's a flying tentacle monster chasing after us and it's getting closer."

"That is a problem," Artemis admitted, frowning as she glanced back. She produced a key fob from thin air and then cut the reins, letting the deer scamper into the night. The thought of Wile E. Coyote running in thin air crossed Percy's mind as he felt his stomach plummet. Their mode of transport began to descend into a hurtling nosedive. Everyone besides Artemis screamed.

Then the sleigh changed. Metal, glass, and machinery enveloped them. Percy found himself suddenly sitting comfortably in the confines of a vehicle. It was like something straight out of Harry Potter. Artemis floored the accelerator and Percy's head snapped onto the seat's head rest like a magnet. He glanced over at the driver's seat and gaped at the brand on the steering wheel.

"You have a Lambo."

Artemis regarded Percy. "Yes, your eyes do not deceive you." She looked around the car with disinterest. "Thalia kept pressing me to upgrade ever since my brother let her ride his Maserati way back when. So I force—convinced Vulcan's children to help me out."

"I see." He chose to ignore her slip of the tongue.

"Do the car doors open upward?" chimed in one of the Roman kids in the back. "Ow!" He received an elbow to the gut from his companion.

"Yes, they do." Artemis returned her focus onto Percy. "Speak your mind."

The oddity of the current scenario was ever so prevalent now. But it wasn't the awkward overlap of the world of gods and the world of men that jolted him. Again, there was that feeling of familiarity.

"I don't know." Percy scratched his head. "It just...feels kinda off when I think about you and sports cars in the same vein."

The voice in the back of his head asked: Why?

Artemis raised her eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

"Because being frivolous isn't like you." He blinked. That almost sounded like he knew her before today—like she was much more than the-girl-who-saved-him-from-book-club-monsters. Did the bizarre adventures of the Percy Jackson in the past entail being acquainted with a strange girl who owned Santa's Lamborghini/sleigh? Apparently so.

Artemis studied him more carefully, narrowing her eyes, her gaze—already sharper than the pen blade in Percy's pocket—now pierced his soul. "You make it sound like we've met before." That was a test. At least, her cautious tone made it sound like it was.

"Have we? I—I don't know. I...can't remember anything past the last week. But sometimes, it's like something's telling me that I should know this or that." He bit his lip in frustration. Like being reminded of a dream where all the details, that were there when one is asleep, are not present when one is awake. Like trying to catch smoke with one's bare hands. Elusive and fleeting.

Artemis grimaced. "Your conscience has forgotten," she flicked his forehead. "But your soul remembers." She returned to the road—skies ahead. "I hope your amnesia gets cured, son of Neptune."

She trailed off, casting a sidelong glance at him questioningly. It took a second for Percy to realize she was looking for a name.

"Percy Jackson," Percy asserted. He still couldn't shake off the feeling of déjà vu. This girl with striking gold-silver eyes definitely knew more than she let on. But her tone of finality on the subject of his amnesia indicated she wasn't willing to tell.

"Percy," she nodded. She checked the rear-view mirror at the other two demigods in the back. "And how about you two?"

"Frank Zhang. Centurion of the fifth cohort. How fast can this thing go—ow!" He received a second elbow to the gut.

"Hazel Levesque. Centurion of the same fifth cohort. The tunnel entrance to Camp Jupiter is flooded. Can this car go underwater?"

"No need." Artemis waved, dismissively. "We'll get there by air."

"But the Mist—"

"—will not affect us." Artemis finished. "Don't worry. In the off chance we get lost, this car has GPS." She winced and put a hand to her temple.

"You okay?" Now it was Percy's turn to look concerned. He kicked himself for not considering her situation. Now that he thought about it, she must also have been running for her life before their rendezvous today. "Did you hit your head?"

Artemis shook her head. "It's fine." It didn't look fine. In fact, her condition seemed to grow worse by the second. The whites of one eye had wisps of red. Blood. She was shivering now. Her breathing, now audible, was hitched, uneven.

A dark cloud blanketed the car windows, obscuring their vision outside. And for a moment, all Percy could see were a pair of glowing silver-gold eyes, narrowed in pain. She was pushing herself. But then again, they all were. The harrowing events of the past week weighed on his shoulders as heavy as the sky. The two Roman kids were just as worse for wear, an assortment of cuts and bruises patterned their body.

Static from the car radio broke the brief, awkward silence. "We're close." She fiddled with the channel dial, perhaps trying to tune into her favorite radio station. White noise persisted but she didn't seem to mind. "Once we enter Camp perimeters, we need to get in touch with air control."

Air control? More questions.

"Buckle up."

A sheet of white loomed ahead of them like a Goliath's colossal dwelling. The fog was like a barrier, protecting what was ahead. The Lambo rammed right through it. Turbulence became the rails of the roller coaster ride that was the fortress of Mist. They hurtled onward in a sideways spiral, unable to see anything but marshmallow white and condensation on the windows.

Everyone—except Artemis—was screaming again.

Percy almost preferred the earlier Sea World ride to this. At least he had some degree of control in the water. In the air, he was a sitting duck. A sitting duck inside an extremely expensive metal cage that was flying at some ungodly speed through the blank nether.

Then, they were out. Sunlight refracted through the many droplets of water on the glass.

The stomach-churning sideways spiral continued.

Percy looked over to Artemis. Her eyes had rolled over, tears of gold ran from the side of her cheek. She was clutching her head with both hands. Her legs were drawn to her chest, no longer on the petals. Her body curled in the fetal position. It didn't look like carsickness.

He reached out to her, touching her shoulder. She gritted her teeth, regaining some fragment of consciousness, stretched one leg out and hit the brakes. Forward momentum brought Percy to kiss the windshield. He bit his tongue and cursed.

He looked over at Artemis, who was groaning, a new bruise on her forehead. Hazel and Frank were unconscious in the back, foaming at the mouth.

The radio started to blare more loudly. A voice could barely be heard through the static.

"To the pilot—kshhhh—passengers of the flying Lamborghini—kssshhh—NOT cleared for landing. If you proceed past the river—zzzzzzsssttt—shoot you down. State your ID please."

"Uh...the name is Percy Jackson. I have a Legacy and two of your soldiers with me. I ask for safe passage."

"—hostages?!" The voice sounded indignant. Percy could hear the other side conversing. "It's Gaea's forces. Prepare the artillery." The connection to Camp's air control seemed to be clearing up. But not in time to stop one possibly fatal misunderstanding.

Percy could feel his pulse rising. He moved closer to the speakers. Where was the mic? "Wait! Hold your fire. You misheard. I'm Percy Jackson, a demigod, an ally. Lupa sent me from the Wolf House." His eyes darted to each window, bracing for the aforementioned artillery.

"Then why is there a giant, winged, tentacle monster on the roof of your vehicle?"

As if on cue, tentacles slithered into view, snaking itself across the surface of the car. Percy leaned over to Artemis' side and adjusted the rear view mirrors upward. Ice filled his veins. The featureless angel grinned down at them, wings outspread, squid arm latched onto Mr. Weasley's upgraded vehicle. They had failed to shake off their pursuers. Not only that but because of Percy, they had led them straight to the headquarters of would-be allies.

Now they were stuck between friendly Roman fire and enemy Eldritch torture.

"Just stay still over there so we can blast you out of the skies. It will be quick and painless. Promise."

"Wait, what about the hostages—I mean, your soldiers?" Percy tried to reason but the transmission had ended. He looked around helplessly.

"Ugh, migraines..." Artemis muttered, still clutching her head in one hand. She weakly punched Percy's shoulder to get his attention. "You still got fuel left in that beat-up body of yours?"

"I think?" Riptide the pen felt heavy in his pocket.

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. "Good." She produced the key fob again and pressed a button. The roof detached, discarded to the earth thousands of meters below.

This brought them face to face with their unwanted hitch hiker. Percy rose to meet it.

"Set us free." Artemis murmured, blinding light shone through half-closed eyelids. She cut the engine.

Riptide responded in a whirlwind of flashing celestial bronze that severed their suction-cup entanglement.

They fell. The winged horror shrieked in outrage and dove after them.

"Close your eyes." Artemis whispered.

Percy complied, squeezing his eyes shut from the flash bang.

...

Note: Sorry for the long absence. Going to try and update more consistently. Illustrations will have to wait. Anyway, lend an upvote and leave a comment if you enjoy the story. Feedback is always welcome. Thanks.