Hello there, gods, half-bloods and friends. Welcome to the next chapter of The God Hunter.
Wasn't planning on updating this story this week, but the Power Ranger chapter wasn't finished as I was working on Miraculous II and Avatar Heroes: Rebirth. And I already finished the events covering the first PJO book, so here we are.
Anyways hope you enjoy and now on to the review.
Necros The Saiyan knight: Good guess. But why would Lucifer care about a mere mortal.
Now story time.
Smoke came out of the Arch.
Matt laid in the ground as he looked up to the skies, blinking his eyes as he realized that he wasn't a Matt pancake on the ground.
He wasn't dead but it still hurt like hell.
Keeping his pained groans in as he stood up from the Matt shaped hole. Removing the dirt off himself as much as possible as he made his way back to the crowd as every emergency vehicle in St. Louis was surrounding the Arch. Police helicopters circled overhead.
A little girl said, "Mama! That boy jumped out of the Arch."
"That's nice, dear." her mother said, craning her neck to watch the ambulances.
"But he's alive!"
"That's nice, dear."
A news lady was talking for the camera: "Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get to some of the survivors, to question them about eyewitness reports of someone falling from the Arch."
Matt tried to push through the crowd to see what was going on inside the police line.
"...an adolescent boy." another reporter was saying, "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show an adolescent boy going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities..."
Matt looked up directly into the camera, his eyes widening when he noticed before quickly looking away but uniformed officers and news reporters were everywhere but he didn't spot Percy, Annabeth or Grover.
He was about to give up and head back to the RV and wait for them there until a familiar voice bleated, "Matt!"
He turned and the trio came running over to them. Grover said, "We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!"
"Which would be bad, aside from you being dead." Percy said, slapping him on the shoulder, "We need you to drive the RV."
Annabeth stood behind them, trying to look angry, but even she seemed relieved to see him. "We can't leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?"
"Got into a fight with a dog, got thrown out a hole in the wall and I fell down like..." Matt said casually as he turned to the burning, "How tall is the Arch?"
"You fell something like six hundred and thirty feet?" Annabeth said.
"Really? Felt a lot higher. First Medusa and now I survive this." Matt said looking back at them with a smug grin, "Honestly, at this point, I might be immoral."
"Don't you mean immortal?" Percy said.
"...Yeah." Matt said, "Yeah, that too."
Behind them, a cop shouted, "Gangway!" The crowd parted, and a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher.
Matt recognized her as the mother of the little boy who'd been on the observation deck. She was saying, "And then this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua..."
"Okay, ma'am." the paramedic said, "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."
"I'm not crazy! This boy jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." Then she saw him, "There he is! That's the boy!"
Matt turned around, quickly gestured the others to follow him and they disappeared into the crowd.
Before Annabeth could respond, they passed another reporter doing a news break, "That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have caused this explosion was accompanied by another boy who fits the description of Percy Jackson, a young man wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the boys are believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson."
They ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley.
"Get to the RV!" Matt said.
Somehow, they made it back to the RV and somehow managed to get out of the city without the police pulling them over. The RV drove over the highway as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind them.
The next afternoon, June 14, seven days before the solstice, the RV rolled up into Denver. They drove through downtown for about half an hour, before they found an empty do-it-yourself car wash. Matt parked the RV in the stall farthest from the street, as they kept an eye out for patrol cars.
The air was dry and hot, which felt weird after the humidity of St. Louis.
"Let's try to contact Chiron." Annabeth said.
"We can't use phones, right?" Percy said.
"I'm not talking about phones." she said.
"What exactly are we doing?" Percy asked, as Grover took out the spray gun.
"It's seventy-five cents." he grumbled, "I've only got two quarters left. Matt?"
"Got you covered." Matt said, passing Grover a quarter.
"Excellent." Grover said, "We could do it with a spray bottle, of course, but the connection isn't as good, and my arm gets tired of pumping."
"Then you need to train your arms more." Matt said, hands in his pockets, "But what are we doing?"
Grover fed in the quarters and set the knob to FINE MIST. "I-M'ing."
"Instant messaging?" Percy said.
"Iris-messaging." Annabeth corrected, "The rainbow goddess Iris carries messages for the gods. If you know how to ask, and she's not too busy, she'll do the same for half-bloods."
"You summon the goddess with a spray gun?" Percy said.
Grover pointed the nozzle in the air and water hissed out in a thick white mist. "Unless you know an easier way to make a rainbow." he said.
Matt clapped his hands together before slowly moving them apart, looking as if he expected a rainbow to appear between them.
"Guess my imagination isn't good enough." Matt said with a shrug.
Late afternoon light filtered through the vapor and broke into colors. Annabeth held her palm out, "Drachma, please."
Percy handed it over. She raised the coin over her head. "O goddess, accept our offering."
She threw the drachma into the rainbow. It disappeared in a golden shimmer.
"Half-Blood Hill." Annabeth requested.
For a moment, nothing happened.
Then through the mist the strawberry fields could be seen through it. On the porch of the Big House, standing with his back to us at the railing was a sandy-haired guy in shorts and an orange tank top. He was holding a bronze sword and seemed to be staring intently at something down in the meadow.
"Luke!" Percy called.
He turned, eyes wide. Through the mist it looked like he was standing three feet in front of them.
"Percy! Matt!" His scarred face broke into a grin, "Is that Annabeth, too? Thank the gods! Are you guys okay?"
"We're... uh... fine." Annabeth stammered.
She was madly straightening her dirty T-shirt, trying to comb the loose hair out of her face. Something that wasn't lost on Matt, "Can we speak to Chiron?" he said.
"He's down at the cabins." Luke's smile faded, "We're having some issues with the campers. Listen, is everything cool with you? Is Grover all right?"
"He's fine." Matt said, "What are the issues back at base?"
Just then a big Lincoln Continental pulled into the car wash with its stereo turned to maximum hip-hop. As the car slid into the next stall, the bass from the subwoofers vibrated so much, it shook the pavement.
"Chiron had to... what's that noise!?" Luke yelled.
"I'll take care of it.'" Annabeth yelled back, looking very relieved to have an excuse to get out of sight, "Grover, come on!
"What?" Grover said, "Why me?"
"Because I said so." she ordered, "Give Percy the nozzle and come on!"
Grover muttered something about girls being harder to understand than the Oracle at Delphi, then he handed Percy the spray gun and followed Annabeth.
"Chiron had to break up a fight." Luke shouted over the music, "Things are pretty tense here. Word leaked out about the Zeus—Poseidon standoff. We're still not sure how, probably the same scumbag who summoned the hellhound. Now the campers are starting to take sides. It's shaping up like the Trojan War all over again. Aphrodite, Ares, and Apollo are backing Poseidon, more or less. Athena is backing Zeus."
"Sounds like fun." Matt muttered before his hears picked up the sound of Annabeth and some guy arguing with each other, then the music's volume decreased drastically.
"So what's your status?" Luke asked, "Chiron will be sorry he missed you."
Percy told him pretty much everything, including his dreams. Even Matt didn't realize how long Percy had talked until the beeper went off on the spray machine.
"I wish I could be there." Luke told them, "We can't help much from here, I'm afraid, but listen... it had to be Hades who took the master bolt. He was there at Olympus at the winter solstice. I was chaperoning a field trip and we saw him."
"But Chiron said the gods can't take each other's magic items directly."
"That's true." Luke said, looking troubled, "Still... Hades has the helm of darkness. How could anybody else sneak into the throne room and steal the master bolt? You'd have to be invisible."
Matt and Percy fell silent for a moment as they looked at each other, but it seemed Luke realized what they where thinking.
"Oh, hey." he protested, "I didn't mean Annabeth. She and I have known each other forever. She would never... I mean, she's like a little sister to me."
Matt had a small grin on his face, thinking that Annabeth wouldn't like that description. In the stall next to them, the music stopped completely. A man screamed in terror, car doors slammed, and the Lincoln peeled out of the car wash.
"You'd better go see what that was." Luke said before turning to the blonde, "Listen Matt, are you wearing the flying shoes? I'll feel better if I know they've done you some good."
"Yeah, they have been a great help." Matt said giving him two thumbs up, "Came in real handy against Medusa."
"Really?" he grinned, "They fit and everything?"
The water shut off. The mist started to evaporate.
"Well, take care of yourself out there in Denver!" Luke called, his voice getting fainter, "And tell Grover it'll be better this time! Nobody will get turned into a pine tree if he just..."
But the mist was gone, and Luke's image faded to nothing.
Annabeth and Grover came around the corner, laughing, but stopped when they saw the face of the duo. Annabeth's smile faded. "What happened? What did Luke say?"
In that split moment, Matt and Percy gave each other one look and it seemed they immediately knew what the other was thinking.
"Not much." Percy said turning to the RV, "Come on, let's find some dinner."
A few minutes later, they were sitting at a booth in a gleaming chrome diner. All around them, families were eating burgers and drinking malts and sodas. Finally the waitress came over. She raised her eyebrow skeptically. "Well?"
"Well, we would like to order dinner." Matt said, looking up from the menu, "If that's alright with you."
"You kids have money to pay for it?"
"No, obviously we're expecting a hand out." Matt said with a roll of his eyes when a rumble shook the whole building; a motorcycle the size of a baby elephant had pulled up to the curb.
All conversation in the diner stopped. The motorcycle's headlight glared red. Its gas tank had flames painted on it, and a shotgun holster riveted to either side, complete with shotguns. The seat was leather, but leather that looked like... well, Caucasian human skin.
The guy on the bike was dressed in a red muscle shirt and black jeans and a black leather duster, with a hunting knife strapped to his thigh. He wore red wraparound shades, and he had the cruelest, most brutal face with an oily black crew cut and cheeks that were scarred from many, many fights.
As he walked into the diner, a hot, dry wind blew through the place. All the people rose, as if they were hypnotized, but the biker waved his hand dismissively and they all sat down again.
Everybody went back to their conversations. The waitress blinked, as if somebody had just pressed the rewind button on her brain. She asked, "So what will it be?"
The biker said, "It's on me." He slid into our booth, which was way too small for him, and crowded Annabeth and Grover against the window.
He looked up at the waitress, who was gaping at him, and said, "Are you still here?"
He pointed at her, and she stiffened. She turned as if she'd been spun around, then marched back toward the kitchen. The biker looked at Matt but his eyes are unable to be seen behind the red shades. He gave me a wicked grin.
"So you're Hera's newest kid? Don't look like much to me."
"So what if I am." Matt said, arms crossed.
Annabeth's eyes flashed him a warning. "Matt, this is..."
The biker raised his hand. "It's okay. I don't mind a little attitude." he said, "Long as you remember who's the boss."
"I wonder who that is." Matt said as he looked around, "Because it sure isn't you."
"You know who I am, little brother?" he said with a familiar vicious sneer.
"Ares, god of war." Matt said, "What do you want, bro?"
Ares grinned and took off his shades. Where his eyes should've been, there was only fire, empty sockets glowing with miniature nuclear explosions. "I heard you broke Clarisse's spear."
"Her fault, not mine." Matt said staring down the god, "Honestly, I think she has a crush on me. She keeps trying to pick a fight with me, sounds like something one of your kids would think is flirting."
"Sounds about right. But I don't fight my kids' fights, you know?" Ares said, "What I'm here for... I heard you were in town. I got a little proposition for you."
The waitress came back with heaping trays of food, cheeseburgers, fries, onion rings, and chocolate shakes. Ares handed her a few gold drachmas.
She looked nervously at the coins. "But, these aren't..."
Ares pulled out his huge knife and started cleaning his fingernails. "Problem, sweetheart?"
The waitress swallowed, then left with the gold.
"Well, since your paying for this food." Matt said as he took a fry, "I guess we could at least hear you out."
"Smart kid, maybe your aren't his child after all." Ares said, "So for my proposition. I need you to do me a favor."
"What favor could we do for a god?" Percy said.
"Something a god doesn't have time to do himself. It's nothing much. I left my shield at an abandoned water park here in town." Ares told them, "I was going on a little... date with my girlfriend. We were interrupted. I left my shield behind. I want you to fetch it for me."
"Why don't you go back and get it yourself?" Percy said.
The fire in his eye sockets glowed a little hotter.
"Why don't I turn you into a prairie dog and run you over with my Harley? Because I don't feel like it. A god is giving you an opportunity to prove yourself, Percy Jackson. Will you prove yourself a coward?" he said as he leaned forward, "Or maybe you only fight when there's a river to dive into, so your daddy can protect you."
"So... Your sending us on a quest?" Matt said annoyed, "But we're already on a quest!"
"I know all about that quest, punk. When that item was first stolen, Zeus sent his best out looking for it: Apollo, Athena, Artemis, and me, naturally. If I couldn't sniff out a weapon that powerful..." he said as he licked his lips, as if the very thought of the master bolt made him hungry, "Well... if I couldn't find it, you got no hope. Nevertheless, I'm trying to give Seaweed brain's son the benefit of the doubt. Me and his dad go way back. After all, I'm the one who told him my suspicions about old Corpse Breath."
"You did?" Matt said, "What made you think it was Hades in the first place?"
"Framing somebody to start a war, oldest trick in the book. I recognized it immediately." Ares told them, "In a way, you got me to thank for your little quest."
"Thanks." Percy grumbled.
"Hey, I'm a generous guy. Just do my little job, and I'll help you on your way." Ares said turning to Matt, "You seem smart, little bro. You should see the benefit of being owed a favor by a god. Help me out, and maybe I'll tell you something your buddy needs to know. Something about his mom."
"Okay." Matt said at once, "We'll do it."
He grinned, "That easy eh? The water park is a mile west on Delancy. You can't miss it. Look for the Tunnel of Love ride."
"Hold on, we need some more information." Matt said, "What are we expecting there? Something interrupted your date, what could scare you off?"
Ares bared his teeth, and Matt could see where Clarisse got it from. Though unlike Clarisse, there was something false about it, almost like he was nervous.
"Nothing you can't handle." Ares said, "I'll meet you back here when you're done. Don't disappoint me."
And Ares was suddenly gone, Percy, Annabeth and Grover looked around as well, Matt looked out the window to see the motorcycle has disappeared.
"Not good." Grover said, "Ares sought you out..."
"Percy?" Matt said, "Or me?"
"Yes!" Grover said, "This is not good."
"Depends, but having a god owe us a favor." Matt said with a shrug, "Could be useful down the line."
"Yeah, but it's probably some kind of trick." Percy said, "Forget Ares. Let's just go."
"We can't." Annabeth said, "Look, I hate Ares as much as anybody, but you don't ignore the gods unless you want serious bad fortune. He wasn't kidding about turning you into a rodent."
Percy looked down at his cheeseburger, "Why does he need us?" he said.
"Maybe it's a problem that requires brains." Annabeth suggested, "Ares has strength. That's all he has, even strength has to bow to wisdom sometimes."
"But this water park... he acted almost scared." Percy pointed out, "What would make a war god run away like that?"
"Is there someone or something that can permanently kill a god? Like erase them completely?" Matt said, "I mean, I might be immortal but you three aren't."
Annabeth and Grover glanced nervously at each other, "There actually is, though I doubt he would be in some random waterpark." Annabeth said, "I'm afraid we'll have to find out."
There you go, hope you enjoyed.
Many thanks to everyone who reads, reviews, favorite, or follows this story.
Take care of yourself, drink plenty of water and I will see you people next time.