Author's Note: I'm about a week ahead on my coursework, and this chapter has been rattling around in my head for a while. Since I've got the time, I figured I'd write and post. It's a little shorter than normal, but I really didn't want to diminish the last scene by moving on quickly.
Chapter Twelve: Under Pressure
Arcee could feel an odd frustration she knew wasn't hers when she looked over at Jack's outburst. The two-wheeler looked at him and frowned. As she looked down at Jack, the femme felt her spark go out to him. "Loss is a part of command, Jack." She knelt down to meet his optics. "Plans don't survive first contact. We adapt and move on to the next mission."
Jack looked up at Arcee and smiled with a nod. "Thanks, Cee." He said softly with a forced smile. Jack could feel the weight of his failure on his back even as he tried to ignore its imagined mass and pretend nothing happened. As Jack shut the door, the son of Primus thought he could hear Optimus try to give him words of encouragement, but Jack ignored the Prime as his mind moved back to the quest. Now is not the time for blame, Jack thought, only vaguely aware that he sounded like his dad or Optimus in his own mind at that moment. Now is the time for action!
With Jack wrapped up in his own thoughts, he failed to notice the hurricane duo as they looked at Jack in worry. Thalia knew the withdrawal for what it was. Thalia gritted her teeth as her instincts told her to meet the problem head-on right there on the bridge, but a hand on her shoulder stopped the daughter of Zeus, "What?"
"Wait," Percy advised. "Can't you feel the tension?" He asked as he shook his head and laughed. The situation brought Percy back to his duel with Ares at the tender age of twelve. Quietly, he muttered, "I can't believe Uncle Iroh was right!" Percy shook his head and let the chuckle in his throat evaporate before he walked off to afford some privacy for himself and Thalia. Then, Percy turned to Thalia and began. "If we take wisdom from only one place, say Greek stories for example, it becomes rigid and stale." Percy's eyes shown with glee at the chance to apply lessons from one of his favorite shows. "However, if a person takes wisdom from multiple places, it leads to better outcomes. Energy ebbs and flows much like water through people. Blood pumps as directed by energy from the brain. Muscles move by a similar instruction, one voluntary and the other not." Percy tapped his head and gestured to his body in an attempt to indicate the nervous system and to lesser extent, the vascular system with it. Then, the son of Posidaeia relaxed and closed his eyes. "If you don't learn to flow with that energy, problems will rise." Percy smiled as he thought of a certain blind Earthbender, "Wait and listen. The time to help Jack will come, but now is not that time."
Thalia glared at Percy. "Did you just compare me to Zuko?"
Percy shrugged, "It made sense to me." He laughed. "You both are serious hotheads if pushed too far."
Thalia opened her mouth to retort but closed it and settled on an annoyed shock to Percy's arm. The young man man only sighed and shook his head. Oddly, his powers seemed to limit the effect the shock had on him. Percy shook his head at her antics, but a small smile found its way onto his face as the pair climbed into Jack's alternate mode. Percy and Thalia talked quietly among themselves and, though neither voiced it, both were curious as to why they had yet to see any monsters since The Sleep Away Motel.
The tension seemed to lessen for almost forty-five minutes. Then, as the group passed over into Beaumont from the Louisiana border, a Harley rumbled against the ears and adios of everyone. Jack growled and tried to keep his temper in check. However, with the obnoxious Harley thundering in his adios, the young Prime couldn't hear himself think. With a deep draw on The Key in a bid to calm his mind, Jack willed his windows up and sighed in relief when the engine became a muted roar behind the glass-like alien material of Jack's windows. Without conscious control, Tal Bachman's "She's So High" begin to play over the son of Primus' speakers. The young Prime snarled and thought about cutting off the damned biker.
A look in his rearview froze Jack cold, though. Percy was holding his fists at his side so tightly, his palms bled. Thalia didn't seem to be doing much better. Her fists arced with visible streaks of electricity as she tried to bore a hole into the floorboard with her eyes. For a moment, Jack didn't understand why the Greeks were behaving this way. Then, he looked at the woman on the back of the Harley and gasped. Everything in the teen told him he was looking at Sierra. However, the Biker Dude definitely wasn't Vince. However, Jack swore the two were related. The thought of Sierra made Jack's chest explode in a moment of blinding pain.
"…I know where I belong/And nothing's going to happen, yeah
/'Cause she's so high /High above me /She's so lovely/ She's so high/ Like Cleopatra, Joan of Arc, or Aphrodite…."
As "Aphrodite" sounded from Jack's speakers, his alt mode hit a tree on the side of the interstate. The only thought on Jack's mind before impact was: ARCEE! Naturally, the car didn't have so much as a scratch on it with it being forged of Cybertronian alloy. Regardless of Jack's state, Sadie was off her bike form a moment later and next to Jack, helping him out of the car as Thalia and Percy helped each other out of Jack's back seat.
"WHO THE FRAG DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!" Sadie roared as she glared at The Biker Dude. "Do you know what you could have done?!"
"Arcee," Percy growled through gritted teeth. "Don't push the buttons of The Slayer of Men." He took a deep breath and soldiered over to the God of War. "How's the ankle?"
Jack closed his optics and groaned as he held head, his processor spinning while his chest continued to burn in pain. "What…did you…do?" Jack managed even as his chest felt as if it might explode.
"YOU!" The Sierra Lookalike screeched at him as she glared at him and walked up with all the bravado and contempt of a spoiled rich brat. "How DARE you think this emotionless MACHINE is better than ME!"
Jack forced his optics to focus on Sadie and Arcee's inert bike form some two hundred yards away on the shoulder of the interstate. A part of him wanted to turn and listen to "Sierra", but the desperate and strangely quiet voice of Solus helped muddle the enchantment in Aphrodite's voice. Silently, Jack thanked his sister and found as long as his eyes stayed on either form of the two-wheeler, the pain in the demigod son of Primus' chest eased away. A moment's glance toward "Sierra", and agony would blossom anew and radiate out from his Spark. The young Prime found the strength to stand as Sadie steadied him. "The Lady of Doves," Jack coughed and felt a small amount of something hit his fist as he tried to block the cough. "I guess you really are as petty as the old stories suggest."
Aphrodite shrieked again and glared daggers at Thalia, "You, you are supposed to be a damned Hunter!"
Percy said nothing. Instead, he uncapped Riptide and felt around for groundwater or city plumbing. Finding nothing, Percy returned his full attention to Ares. Every fiber wanted Percy to fight. Aphrodite's angry whining didn't help the son of Posidaeia's mood. He could almost hear The Queen of the Seas in his head.
Know this more than anything, my son. Her soft voice lapped at him like the gentle waves of Montauk. No immortal can hope to control The Sea. Rather, The Sea only can be nudged in a direction. Any stronger force given, and The Sea becomes an uncontrollable destroyer!
Percy's eyes flashed dangerously. "(Lady Dove,)" the child of The Sea said in Minoan Linear B. "(Some stories say you were born of The Eldest Sea and the manhood of The Sky.)" Percy twirled his blade as he spoke. "(Proclaim your blood!)"
Ares paled. He knew that language from long ago when Aunt Posidaeia ruled in place of his father. Shit! Shit! Shit! "Um…Babe, maybe we should go!"
Aphrodite glared at Percy, heedless of her lover. The Goddess of Love's eyes glowed with the violence of landless seas. She reached up and smiled at Percy as her form shimmered into a flawless facsimile of Annabeth. "Kill Thalia, dear boy. You cannot resist my will forever."
A storm roared to life around Percy as he fought the influence of the goddess. However, the young man maintained enough will to keep Thalia and himself dry as the rain began to pour. "(The Sea does not like restraint,)" Percy countered, continuing in the dead language without any stumbles. He remembered all the times he took beatings for Grover. Percy relived every punch at the hands of Gabe Ugliano. His mind flashed to the condescension in Annabeth's tone every time she spoke to him. Brain Boy, Seaweed Brain, idiot, moron, and Nobody… Finally, it all snapped almost audibly. With a quick slam of his hand, Percy willed the Ichor in Aphrodite's body to force her into a submissive bow before him. "(You want to control me, Spineless Diva?)" He looked her in the eyes. "(Do so at your own peril!)" When Percy released Aphrodite, the goddess curled in on herself, weeping and shaking.
Venus shakes, and The Sea rages, an unknown voice spoke in Jack's mind as he watched Percy come back to himself. It sounded old and wise, like a mentor, rather than the almost fatherly voice Optimus had. Beware, for Mars shall not run forever.
Thalia could only stare as Percy walked back up to her. She wanted to be terrified, to run, but something in Percy's movement and body language said he would die before he turned that rage on her. Instead, Thalia walked up to him and caught the son of The Sea Queen as the adrenaline of the fight left him. Percy stunned Thalia when he began to quietly sob into her. His mind was too much of a mess like normal to get much, but what she did understand chilled Thalia to her soul: "The Puppet Master". "Percy," Thalia whispered gently. "Oh, Percy, I'm so sorry." Percy whimpered in response even as Thalia continued to rub his back and try to bring him some comfort as he stood there, racked with quiet sobs.
"She was going to make me kill you." He managed in broken heaves of breath. "I couldn't…I didn't want to…She made me do it!"
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