"Speaking of here at home, it looks different from when I left it few weeks ago. Or rather nine years. What happened?" "We moved house two and a half years ago. This is San Francisco in California." "Woah cool. San Francisco. I've always wanted to go to the Golden Gate Bridge. Can we see it? Please?" "If you really want to see it, I guess we can take a look. It was getting boring anyways, so why not drive there. Or not drive." "What do you mean, not drive?" "I meant we could go there by plane. I think I'm a good enough pilot to fly close by the bridge. Would you like that?" Luisa's face lit up with excitement. Percy and I were less thrilled to enter a plane, but Annabeth's father was already convinced. "However, my plane only has four seats, so three of you will have to stay here. Mrs. Chase decided that her sons would voluntarily stay here and they left the room. We could finally talk freely again without worrying about hiding the godly side of our lives. "Then I'll be the last one to stay here " I said. "No, I need you on the plane. Zeus would smite me otherwise. His daughter being only a few meters away should at least make him hesitate a good while." "Fine, I'll be coming with you. But don't expect me to open my eyes once we take off. Since no one was surprised at finding out I didn't like heights, Annabeth must have told them. Instead of me, Annabeth's stepmom stayed home with her sons.
Ten minutes later, we were ready to start. Frederick had put a bad of undisclosed content into the plane's trunk, then we all got inside. The motor turned on and our plane began to roll. Luckily, the Chase family lived at the end of a long and empty road. We rolled down this slightly sloped road while getting faster and faster and just before the end of the street, the plane took off barely missing a large roof. I closed my eyes before anything else would happen. When Luisa told me to open them again, I could see the bridge in the distance. We approached it and I let out a scream that was definitely unworthy of the lieutenant of the hunters when we flew below the cable. Luisa was completely astonished by the architecture. After cruising around for a bit, Frederick told us that he had supplies for a picnic in the trunk and was now looking for a suitable place to land. We eventually performed a water landing in front of the beach. The plane wasn't made for water landings, but Percy wasn't the son of Poseidon for nothing; he did something to the water to make it more solid. We landed on the water (finally) and rolled onto the beach. "That was soo cool" Luisa told her dad. Personally, I'd disagree, but I did think the bridge would have looked amazing, had I not been so busy with being scared. We got the supplies from the plane and had our picnic on the beach. When we finished, the sun was only a few degrees away from the horizon. "Do you want me to fly us back home, or do you want to watch the sunset?" "I don't know. I don't like being out in the dark. That's when the big monsters come." "If it's only about the dark, maybe we can do something about that." Percy told her. "Okay, can you make a fire? Maybe Thalia can light something with lightning." "That's a great idea" Percy told her. He then walked into the ocean. Understandably, Luisa was scared for him, and I had to explain to her that he'd be fine. He came back about five minutes later, followed by a large wave that brought with it a piece of driftwood. It immediately dried up as soon as Percy touched it and I shot a small beam of lightning at it, creating a fire. "Look Luisa, now it's not gonna get dark. Do you want to stay now" "Yes, with the fire it's warm and safe and we can watch the sunset."
This is how you deal with problems. You find whatever solution is best suited for your current situation and then you execute that solution. I'm by no mean an expert, but I think that if adults solved problems in the same straight forward fashion as this mental equivalent of a first grader just did, the world would be a much better place.
Just as the fire on the log started burning properly, the sun touched the horizon, flooding everything in a red light. For a moment, I was worried that this might remind Percy or Annabeth of Tartarus and cause a flashback, but it didn't seem to affect either of them. Luisa sat down next to her dad and leaned against him. I sat down next to Percy. "Isn't Artemis gonna get mad at you for that?" He asked. "For what? Sitting next to you closely? Is that considered romantic or what?" "One might consider it romantic." "We hunters spend most of our time camping in the woods. With so many people in tents it's often crowded and sometimes it also gets cold. If we weren't allowed to huddle together because that's supposedly romantic, well it'd be a stupid rule." "But you're all girls, wouldn't that make it different?" "Artemis stems from a very bi culture, so I think she, like all other ancient Greek deities, doesn't really differentiate between homo and hetero relationships, meaning that she doesn't approve of either. Therefore, if two girls doing something isn't worthy of her wrath, then a boy and a girl doing that same thing should be fine as well."
A few seconds later, the sun disappeared completely, and the moon appeared behind the buildings of San Francisco. When the moonlight hit me, I had a feeling that Artemis was approving of what I had said. "I think Artemis agrees with me, that should end the discussion. Now I'm wondering: if this had escalated into a proper fight, who would have won?" "We could try it out. But maybe we should get Nico or Hazel first, that way we'll have all of the big three covered." I thought about his suggestion. "Camp Jupiter is only a few kilometers away, so we could get Hazel. That's the only good part of your idea. Having us three fight each other would probably force us to max out our powers, and three big three children at maximum power sounds like a bad idea. I don't know everything about your powers and I've never even met Hazel, but still I can tell that it's not a good idea to battle near other humans." "Fine, I won't battle any other super powerful demigod near humans."
"Honestly, this sounds like the kind of idea I'd come up with only after getting drunk." "Good thing I might not even be able to get drunk." "Why wouldn't you be able to?" "Smelly Gabe. The smell of alcohol might very well give me flashbacks. I wouldn't even get a single sip in before my brain decides to… well, let's not think about what would happen if I smelled alcohol. Fact is that I likely can't get drunk, so I'm forced to have stupid ideas while sober." We sat on the beach for a while longer and we caught Luisa up on modern stuff like the fact that her family didn't actually feel burdened by her very existence. When it got cold, we packed our stuff together and put it into the plane. Percy then poured water over the burning wood until it stopped sizzling, indicating that it had sufficiently cooled down to not be a danger anymore. We then all climbed back into the plane and I got ready to constantly fear for my life for the second time today. Only then did we notice that we had no real way of talking of from the beach, but Percy had another ace up his sleeve. Or was it a trick? I had a feeling that the term ace usually referred to something that was kept secret or hidden, but spending most of my time with people from five different millennia (Perhaps even six, we had a nine year old in the hunt, but I didn't know whether she had been born in 2000 or 2001, so the current millennium may or may not also be represented) kind of messed with your perception of language. Also, I wondered about the other kind of aces and whether he had ever had those up his sleeve. "Hey Percy, when you give your jacket to Annabeth, does that mean there's an ace up your sleeve?" "I guess so. I'll ask Annabeth once she's available again. But now, hold on tight as we might be experiencing some slight turbulences" I had been so occupied with different types of aces, that I had not even noticed out plane drifting out to sea. Now Percy counted down from three before making the ocean below us explode. We shot upwards and Mr. Chase started the motor to get us staying in the air. I tried not to think about how high we were and instead focused on the adorable little kid that my friend had turned into. She was visibly excited about this flight in a way that you only see in people this young. After what felt like hours of flying (though it was probably only like fifteen minutes, but fear really messes with your perception of time) we finally reached the street the Chases lived in, but something was wrong. "Ah damnit" Annabeth's dad said. Percy and I looked at each other and mentally counted down from 3. "DAM" Then we laughed. "What's so funny about dam" Luisa asked. "Sorry, I'm too little to know everything. I don't like that" "Oh, don't worry, I don't get it either" Her father assured her. "Anyways, what's the problem?" I interrupted "And why the Hades haven't we landed yet?" "Well, there's a few more cars parked on the road than when we took off, and I don't have the space to roll out if I'm coming in at flight speed" "couldn't you just slow down in the air?" I asked. "I could, but then we wouldn't have enough lift, and we'd be losing height too quickly. I either need a longer street or less gravity. The former should be easier to find." Luisa turned around to me and told me something. "I can't remove gravity, but would a strong upward wind work?" "That might actually work. Can you do it?" "I can at least try" I had never before created an upward wind strong enough to lift a large weight. In fact, I hadn't even considered that I should be able to do it until Jason had asked me whether I could fly. Since I was afraid of heights (I know it's embarrassing, especially for a child of the sky god, and it was sort of a secret) I had never attempted it, but if it could help me to stop flying, I wouldn't hesitate one second. I waited for the plane to turn around and head towards the correct street again, then summoned a powerful wind below us. The additional lift was so strong that we shot up a few meters before Annabeth's dad could slow us down again. We landed on the street and rolled out for another few meters. I helped brake by creating a strong wind blowing from the front. We then rolled into the plane parking spot next to their house. I wanted to get off, but felt electricity building up in the air.
"Percy, I have a feeling that my dad's going to smite you as soon as I'm far enough away, so you probably shouldn't remain on the plane without me." Percy followed my advice and got off first, which saved him from getting smitten by my father. Or maybe he hadn't killed Percy and account of being reasonable for once and recognizing that that might have caused a godly war, similar to what had almost happened in 2006. Luckily, Percy, Annabeth and Grover had been able to do undo the cause of the war by returning Zeus's master bolt. I hadn't noticed much of the approaching war because I had been a tree. I had had some awareness of what had happened during that time, but not much. It had been like a long sleep, occasionally interrupted by an annoying fly, except in this case, it was less a fly and more like a large scale attack on camp. Despite all these sensations, in my memory the six years only felt like a few hours. I had also heard that Nico had been turned into a corn plant a few months ago and I considered making a temporarily botany club with him. Maybe we could expand this to any non-intentional transformations to non-humans, in which case Percy would be allowed in as well.
I got out of the Plane and waited for Luisa, only to notice she was already asleep. Understandably so, it was far beyond bedtime for any seven year old, especially for those who still had some jetlag remaining. With the help of Percy, I carried her to the house. When her dad unlocked the door and the inside lights flooded the front yard, she woke up again. "I think I can take her alone now" I told Percy. "So could I, and I'm her boyfriend." "Well, I'm her oldest friend and short term replacement mother. Also, do you have any real experience with seven year olds? Because I do" For some reason, the littles always activated some old instinct to protect Annabeth. "Fine, you might actually be better at this." Percy finally gave up. I helped Luisa get ready for bed, then dropped her off by her bed where Percy was already waiting. I then got ready for bed myself and climbed back into my tent.
Hey, look, a chapter that was posted on time. From what I remembered, that trip to the beach had been a good bit longer, enough to be a chapter of its own, but apparently I was wrong. Well, you'll just have to make do with ~100 words less than usual.