Chapter 35: I Get By With A Little Work From My Friends[1]

(Peter)

I was making my way home after another meal and feeling great! I couldn't wait to tell Anna what happened!

Amazing Ally and I officially had an expo idea. We were going to do a silver and gold harpy bot which would net us a shit ton of points for sure. Not to be outdone, Beardless Eugene wanted my help in his latest bet against the Musicals. This time it was a race to build underwater pianos. I knew my productivity percentage would suffer a bit and we'd probably lose the bet, but come on:

Underwater crafting?

The only answer I could give was:

Fuck yes!

When the conveyor belt deposited me into my workshop, I was already saying, "Hey Anna, you'll never guess what…the fuck?"

"Welcome Home, New Peter. I Apologize For The Incursion. Our Visitor Was Just Leaving," Anna said. Her voice was even more monotone than usual, probably due to the fact that she was distracted.

You know when they do that thing in Dragon Ball Z where they fight and teleport around?[2] That's what Anna was doing with our 'visitor'. She and the other robot were moving so fast that the sounds of their collisions were happening after the collisions themselves. And yes, that meant my beloved workshop looked like a fucking war zone with papers and tools scattered about and wrenches and other metal pointy bits embedded in the walls.

The blurry outline of the intruder spoke, "Since You Have Refused To Respond To My Master's Entreaties, I Have Come To Deliver Their Request In Person." While they said this, the widescreen TV that I had watched my orientation video on started to lower.

"You Will Not," Anna said before there was another clang of metal meeting metal and the monitor went back up.

"I Will!" the bot replied. It went down.

"Stop This!" It went back up again.

"No!" It went down again.

As I watched the screen continue to go up and down with each exchange of blows, my mind filled with questions:

What the fuck was going on? Whose bot was that? Was it Bianca's? Or was this about Miss Sunshine finally arriving to cause trouble and jump-start the plot?

None of that matters right now. This chaos makes the perfect opportunity to find the hunters and the satyr. If haste is made, escaping will be—

I shook my head. I wasn't going anywhere.

But staying here and not completing this quest will result in the unbalancing of the entire western world. Escaping is the only—

"No." I wasn't going to get involved in all that high-stakes end-of-the-world bullshit. Miss Sunshine could deal with it.

Whether Andromeda Sunshine can 'deal' with this or not is irrelevant. As the girl is missing, it is unwise to rely upon her. Escaping is—

"I said no," I growled.

Simply repeating a refusal of responsibility does not refute facts. Esca—

"Shut up! I'm not fucking escaping!" The words came out like a roar.

The room went quiet and the robots turned their heads to face me at the exact same time. Both managed to make their blank stares look intimidating.

I fake-coughed and made an attempt to sound sane by adding, "What I meant to say is I would like you both to be quieter since I can't 'escape' into the zone with all this noise and stuff. This is my workshop, so uh…my rules. Right, Anna?"

"Of Course, New Peter. I Apologize," Anna said bowing her head slightly. "I Did Not Mean To Escalate The Situation To A Point Where You Could Not Work. I Will Be Quieter And After Our Unwanted Guest Leaves, I Will, Of Course, Clean Up."

"I Will Not Be Quieter Or Leave Until I Have Delivered My Message. I Must Fulfill My Master's Orders," the other bot said stubbornly.

Now that she wasn't moving around, I got a good look at her.

At first, I thought I was facing Bianca's or Zoë's Artemis bot, but no. This bot had a heart symbol on her cheek just like Anna. That meant this robot was actually a customized Aphrodite model.

"Who's your master?" I asked.

"His Designation Is—"

"Plain English, please," I ordered.

"He Has Asked Me To Call Him G-Man," the bot answered.

G-Man? That meant, "Grover?"

The bot nodded.

"New Peter, With Your Permission, I Could Report This Automaton To People's Resources For Disturbing The Peace," Anna offered.

"There's no need for that, Anna." I knew she was trying to help, but this was probably just another appeal for me to leave T.R.A.S.H. It would be faster and less effort to just hear what the bot had to say. So, I told the visitor bot, "Deliver your message."

"Thank You," the bot said. She waved her hand and the screen above my workbench came down again. As soon as it was fully extended, a video began to play.

It showed a workshop a bit like mine but it was a hell of a lot messier with plants and stuff growing out of their pots. The camera moved and I saw Grover standing awkwardly in front of his bed which was piled high with comics or maybe magazines. Well, I, at least, hoped that they were just comics and magazines and not—

"Maple," Grover said, thankfully interrupting that string of thought, "are you sure it's working?"

"Yes," I heard Maple's mechanical voice say off-screen. "You Are Live, Grover."

"What happened to G-Man?" Grover whined.

"You Know What Happened," Maple replied.

"Fine," Grover sighed. Then he turned to look right into the camera and said, "So…um…Peter. I know we haven't really seen a ton of each other since coming back here, but…I maybe sort of need your help. It's actually a funny story. I…um…got into some trouble with PR?"

Uh-oh.

"I didn't do anything wrong," Grover said, too late to be comforting. "I just…um…was trying to talk to Pan?"

Pan?

"It Was Not Pan, Grover."

"Yeah, it was!" Grover said fiercely, "I'm sure of it!"

But why would Pan be here?

The young hunter did speak of this perplexing situation.

"Focus, Grover," Maple said, snapping me and Grover out of it.

"Right, so Peter," Grover said, coming uncomfortably close to the camera. "Bianca says you want to stay here forever."

I tensed.

"So, I know you get it. We already got thrown out of here and lost our bots once and Maple says if I lose this case, they'll take her away from me for good. I can't let that happen, so I need your help, Peter. Will you please please please add yourself and Anna to the witness list and testify for me? I promise I didn't do anything wrong. I just wanted to talk to Pan…" Grover's lip trembled and he wiped at his eyes. "Please, help me, Peter, you're my only hope."

"Is Now The Time For Star Wars References?" Grover's bot asked.

"No!" Grover wailed and then the waterworks really started. "I just want to stay here with you, Maple! I'm stressed and you said no more cans so…so…!"

"Enough!" Anna trilled, waving her hand and clicking the video off. "That message contains an excess of pathos. New Peter," she turned to me. "Do Not Be Swayed By This Propaganda. G-man Grover And His Errors Are None Of Your Concern."

Before I could respond, Maple spoke. "The Trial Is In [T-9:42:03]. People Are Expected To Arrive 15 Minutes Early To Be On Time. You May Tell The Conveyor Belt System 'Pan Trial 41678'. It Will Take You To The Correct Location. In Addition, I Have Just Emailed You The Trial Information For The 131st Time, So Please Stop Your Automaton From Deleting It And Read It Over. If You Wish To Provide Testimony, Email Me, Grover, Or The PR Department With The Subject Line 'Pan Trial 41678'. I Hope Grover And I Can Count On You. Good Day, Master Peter."

"That is the wrong epithet," Anna muttered as Grover's bot finally stepped into the conveyor belt tube and left.

I turned to Anna. "131 times?" I asked.

"Repetition Does Not Make A Message More Important," Anna stated.

"Anna…"

Yes, this does raise the question of what other secrets this automaton might be—

"Anna," I repeated, coming over to my best friend. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"

Anna looked at me and simply asked, "What are you going to do?"

My mind went back to the image of Grover crying all over the camera. He just wanted to stay here with his bot like me. He just needed me to testify and it was Grover. He'd always been nice and he was…

A good ally? Indeed. Despite his maleness, helping the satyr is the—

I shook my head sharply.

"New Peter?"

"I'm going to get started on my next project, of course," I told her.

What?

"Really?" Anna asked, hopefully.

No. Make the right—

"Yeah!" I said a bit too loud even to my own ears. "Really. I could use the work. I'm not feeling like myself at the moment."

Anna understood. "I Will Get You Started On Something EXP Worthy," she promised. "How About A Bronze Wing Repair?"

A pointless distraction. There is—

"Sounds good," I said. "Thank you, Anna." Anything would be fine if it let me focus.

But—

"Would You Like To Do A Post-Meal Chat As I Prepare?" Anna asked.

No!

"Yes!" I said.

"Tell Me About Your Meal, New Peter," Anna said.

I rushed to tell Anna about the harpy expo idea as she retrieved all the materials needed for the bronze wing repair. I got started melting some metal to make feathers and tried to forget Grover's tear-stained face because it didn't matter how badly Grover was fucked. Miss Sunshine would handle it. She was a Mary Sue. It was basically a given that she'd be able to swoop in and save the day. Logic optional.

I knew her and this shitty fucking fic. In addition to fixing Grover's problem, the spoiled Sue would probably somehow convince the school to give everyone in the party their own bot while she got a specially designed male Luke bot just for her or something.

I didn't need to get involved with that stupid bullshit.

I didn't want to get fucked over again for trying.

All I wanted to do, at the moment, was to complete my bronze wing repair, earn some points, and maintain my hold on my sanity, so I focused on doing my job.

Before I knew it, I was finished and Anna was saying warmly, "Excellent work, Peter."

I looked up. "How many points?"

"15.8," Anna said proudly.

I smiled. "Nice! I bet Beardless Eugene will be jealous." Oh right! "Anna, I forgot to mention that at my last meal, I promised Beardless Eugene that I'd help him fix up some underwater pianos."

Anna nodded. "You Received A Message From Beardless Eugene While You Were Working. He Wanted To Schedule A Joint Workshop. I Will Book Your Meeting For After Meal Time."

My stomach growled. Despite the couple of snacks I'd had, I was hungry. "When is mealtime?" I asked.

"It Is Happening Right Now," Anna began, "But—"

I hopped up.

"New Peter, Are You Certain You Wish To Attend?" she asked. "I Can Prepare Something Substantial For You Here."

"No. That's okay." I was already at the tube door, typing in a code on the console to calibrate the conveyor belt system. "I want to see my artisan friends." We were finally supposed to discuss Amazing Ally's fic recommendation this meal. There was no way I was missing Beardless Eugene's confession that something that included My Little Pony was actually good. "I'll see you later, Anna. Bye!"

I was gone before she could say anything else. I had chosen the expedited delivery mode which meant I basically rode a giant slide to the cafeteria. I arrived wind-swept and out of breath from all the screaming I'd done. The belt had been crazy fast.

When I approached my friends after zipping through the cafeteria food line, Amazing Ally waved at me and exclaimed, "New Peter! There you are! Beardlesss Eugene thought you had bailed on usss."

"What?" I said, sitting down. "I would never bail on my friends."

Liar.

"Well," Beardless Eugene said, "I just figured you might have been sucked into that big PR trial that's happening soon. They asked me to participate a while back. I said no. I can't respect a satyr who chooses Artemis over Athena. He might as well be announcing to the world that he has zero imagination."

I just stared at Beardless Eugene. I had somehow completely forgotten about the trial.

Hollow-hearted cow—

"Beardlesss Eugene," Amazing Ally hissed, "G-Man Grover isss New Peter'sss friend. Don't be rude." She turned to me, "Sssorry, New Peter. I sssent in my written tessstimony for what it'sss worth."

She what?

"You can send in written testimony?" I asked.

She nodded. "They prefer that you deliver it on the ssstand, but I abssstained. Public ssspeaking makesss me nervousss."

"You wasted your time," Beardless Eugene claimed. "I've seen enough of these trials to know how they go. As a second time offender, he's going to get reassigned for sure."

"But the forgotten rebellion wasssn't hisss fault," Amazing Ally argued. "I wasss there, Beardlesss Eugene. It wasss all Annabeth."

Annabeth did what?

Amazing Ally glanced at me. "Sssorry, New Peter. I know you don't like to talk about your passst."

"Neither do I," Beardless Eugene grumbled. He said more but I didn't hear him.

There was a lot to unpack here and I didn't want any of it, so I said, "Guys, can't we just talk about Rise of Spider-Mane?"[3]

"Yeah, even ponies is better than all this trial talk," Beardless Eugene agreed.

"Is it?" I prodded with a suggestive look.

Amazing Ally was more direct. With a heavier lisp than usual, she asked, "Doessss sthat mean you liked it, Beardlessss Seugene?"

Unlike me, she hadn't been positive Beardless Eugene would enjoy Spiders and Magic. I had been the one to insist we give her tentative fic recommendation a try.

Beardless Eugene kept us in suspense, looking between Amazing Ally's nervous but hopeful expression and my knowing smirk. At last, he admitted, "I mean it wasn't the worst Spider-Man fic I've ever read."

"Told you so!" I declared, offering Amazing Ally a high-five. The two of us celebrated while Beardless Eugene started grumbling again.

The rest of the meal was spent egging Beardless Eugene on, discussing the merits of Twilight Sparkle vs Gwen Stacy vs Mary Jane, and all of our favorite scenes. The long-awaited interesting discussion was more than enough to keep me from derailing things by switching topics.

Even so, the questions continue to fester. What is this mysterious Forgotten Rebellion? And how were the satyr and Annabeth allegedly involved?

But I let the meal end without asking because Amazing Ally was having a great time and Beardless Eugene, despite his bias against pastel-colored horses with dumbass names, was totally right about one thing:

Getting all worked up over Grover was a waste of time.

After my meal and another project from Anna, I kept being productive and happy by joining Beardless Eugene in the underwater workshop Anna had booked for us. He and I were nearly done with our first obsidian oak piano. All that was left was a final inspection and tuning.

While I was double-checking the sound chords inside the piano, Beardless Eugene was testing the keys and foot pads. As he pressed down on another one of our newly made pearl white keys, he said, "It's pretty cool that you can breathe underwater without gillyweed. The stuff is disgusting, almost as bad as this wetsuit getup which you don't have to wear either. Super convenient to be you right now isn't it, New Peter?"[4]

"I guess so," I admitted, not looking up from the other side of the instrument.

"You guess so," Beardless Eugene repeated, incredulous. "Whatever. What I'm trying to say is you were so the right person to ask for help on this. I'm glad you could make it. Practically everyone else is at the trial. Even Thena wanted me to go, but I thought it would be better to use this time to get ahead of the Musicals. It's not like I care about the trial anyway."

"Yeah, you said so before," I agreed, hoping that would end things.

However, Beardless Eugene wasn't done.

"I mean sure," he continued, "I've dreamed about bringing the 'Great God' Pan back to the overworld. It's how most of us satyrs end up down here, but the smart ones like me get the message and don't mess with him."

I looked over at Beardless Eugene. Before I could stop myself, I asked, "Wait, are you saying Pan is actually here?"

Beardless Eugene pressed down on another key, avoiding my gaze.

"What's the god of wild things doing in a place like this?" I wondered. Shouldn't he be holed up in the maze right now?[5]

"He's hiding, just like the rest of us," Beardless Eugene answered.

"I'm not hiding," I said.

"Yeah, whatever. It doesn't really matter what the reason is anyway."

For a second, I thought that was all Beardless Eugene was going to say, but then he added in an angry grumble so low I almost didn't hear, "No one can make my dad do anything he doesn't want to do."[6]

His "What!" I yelped.

Eugene winced. "It's a long boring story," he said, trying to wave me off. "The important bit is that I'm way more powerful than I look and even I don't want to risk bothering my dad and getting reassigned to an Oizys or Ker bot."[7]

When I continued to stare at him, Eugene let out a stream of bubbles and said, "Come on, New Peter, stop being such a noob. I know you know what I'm talking about."

I did. Rumors said people who had Oizys or Ker bots were basically test dummies for Hephaestus's most dangerous mechanical monsters and weapons, but…"I thought that was a myth."

Eugene laughed. He actually laughed.

"It's not funny," I said.

"New Peter, you're breathing underwater without assistance and talking to a satyr. Come on, it's hilarious."

"Grover could die."

Yes. The satyr's life is in mortal peril.

"Uh, yeah?" Eugene stopped laughing, but only because he looked confused. "That's what a life-or-death case means. Didn't you read the…shit, you didn't read the memo, did you?"

The image of Grover begging me to testify played in my mind again. If I was wrong and Andi didn't show up…"Eugene, Grover could die."

As foretold by prophecy and ensured by selfish and incessant ignorance.

"No," I pushed back, "that can't be right."

"Well, it is," Eugene said, "but there's nothing we can do about it, so…"

"Nothing we can do?" I repeated.

"Yeah man, the doors closed like an hour ago. Since we didn't put our names on the witness list, they definitely won't let us in late and even if we could get in, you had Anna book this room in No-Disturb mode: we can't leave this workshop until our time is up."

"No…" This couldn't be happening. Anna and I had been so sure that I was doing the quest group a favor by opting to be the one lost. I thought we had figured it all out, but…

It is unwise to assume a prophecy can be outwitted or avoided through rebellion alone. Many have tried, but that is what tragedy is made of.

"New Peter," Eugene said, touching my shoulder.

I started.

He looked at me, concerned. "I'm sorry, man. I really thought we were on the same page, but obviously not. I get that you're in shock so if you need a break to process or whatever, go for it. I think there are snacks in that mini-fridge?"

I nodded.

"Cool," Eugene said, his face clearing. "When you're ready to work, lemme know, okay? We need to finish up another piano by our next meal if we're going to win my bet."

His bet? "You're still worried about your bet?"

Why!?

"Of course," Eugene said. "Gotta stay sane somehow, amirite?"

Then he clapped me on the back and did as he promised. Even though we both knew there was a person being sentenced to death right now, Eugene did indeed get back to work.

Footnotes

[1] I got this one without looking anything up. It's a reference to the Beatles' song: With A Little Help From My Friends.

[2] Speaking of Dragon Ball Z, my Delta reader is still writing a fantastic Dragon Ball Z Abridged fic called Puddin - The Adventures of the Demon Demigoddess. Puddin, part demon, part cat, and full-on joy to read, is on a quest to be the best time-travel warrior ever! So far, the fic has laughs, violence, and a Christmas I will never forget. If any of that is of interest to you guys:

Check it out!

[3] I believe this refers to the first entry of the Spiders and Magic series by Maximus-Reborn, Spiders and Magic: Rise of Spider-Mane. Also, I too was a little surprised Peter wasn't anti-pony, but I guess he is a fanfic nerd. I haven't had the pleasure of reading this fic, but my Delta reader tells me it's good.

[4] Peter doesn't get that reference, but I do. Gillyweed is the substance used in Harry Potter to let him breathe underwater.

[5] As y'all might remember, the missing god Pan was found in PJO Battle of Labyrinth using Daedalus's maze.

[6] This isn't a stated demigod power on the wiki, but considering how Andi acted in the underworld, I like to think that Peter was only able to hear Eugene's comment because Peter was getting a passive power-up to his senses due to being underwater.

[7] Oizys is the goddess of misery, anxiety, grief, depression, and misfortune and the Keres are goddesses who personify violent death and are drawn to bloody battlefield deaths. So yeah, not exactly encouraging.

A/N: So...yeah, Peter has some stuff to work out. There are a lot of twists in Sue's Curse, but I do really like this simple change to this part of the story. Instead of Bianca, it's Grover who's in trouble. It would not have made sense for PJO, since Grover was in trouble for the entire Sea of Monsters book, but here it works well since Peter wasn't around for that book and is way closer to Grover than he is to Bianca. That concludes my gushing for now.

Next time we'll check in on Andi for more sidequest adventures. I know this upload took a while. Honestly, I kept hoping to unravel a quirk of the next chapter...but I couldn't figure it out...sigh...My delta reader kindly reminded me that I am not obligated to solve every word choice mystery, so the show goes on...soonish. While I've been tackling the mysteries for this fic, I also have been working hard on my other stories...Peter isn't the only person going through a rough time. I am particularly proud of a one-shot called Venus is High on the Horizon And Mars is Bright Tonight. It's about centaurs. Plus a new chapter of Puddin came out and I beta edit for that story. As I said in the footnotes, it's a fun time full of tears and laughter, y'all should check it out.

That's it. I'll see you later!