Son of the Moon
Chapter Five
-Percy-
A few seconds after Clarisse knocked on the door of the Garden Gnome Emporium it opened to reveal an elderly woman wearing a veil. "Why hello children," the woman said in a voice that, while kind, felt off for some reason "what are you doing out here all alone at this hour?".
"We were taking a hike and got a little lost," he said quickly "we know we have to meet our friends in the next town over, Dewfordshire (AN: That is completely made up), but we're not sure which direction it is and we are kind of hungry which led us here as we could smell hamburgers.".
"Oh you poor dears." the elderly woman exclaimed "You come in and I'll fix you some food before sending you on your way.".
The old woman then ushered them into the Emporium and towards an open air dining area in the back with four plastic picnic tables. Along the way he saw that instead of just the normal cheery Santa Clause-esque garden Gnomes there were many that were sculptures of just about every animal found near here and several humans. When she went back inside to get the food I followed her after gesturing to Clarisse and Amanda to stay where they were, "You statues seem very life like." I comment as I try not to be sick at the fact that almost every statue had looks of absolute horror and fear on their faces.
"Yes I have been working on them almost my whole life," the elderly woman said with notable pride in her voice, as well as a subtle hint of some other emotion, anger perhaps, he noted. "Their faces are always the hardest to get right." the old woman lamented "they always come out that way.".
Noticing a pattern he asked "Has anyone ever helped you these statues?".
"Why yes at one point I did have two sisters to help me but they are no longer and I am alone again, with only my statues." the woman said not realizing that she was giving away too much information.
"Your name wouldn't happen to be Medusa would it?" he asked, his hand gripping the silver rod that would turn into his falcata when he willed it.
The old woman tensed before chuckling without any humor in her voice "You are the first in many years to realize it so quickly demigod.".
His hand gripped the rod tighter "I wouldn't have fallen for your attraction enchantment at all but I'm a little drained from using too much mist control.".
The old woman nodded sagely, "Ah yes that would do it. Now while this has been a wonderful conversation you and your friends have to die." and with those words her hand shot to her veil.
The moment I saw her move I brought out the rod and willed it to turn into a sword as I swung and removed her head from her body but one of her talons cut a deep gash in my leg as she fell making me cry out at the pain.
At the sound of my yell Clarisse and Amanda ran into the kitchen area weapons bared "Percy what happened?" Amanda demanded while Clarisse looked for threats.
Grimacing he got to his feet, using the counter for support as his leg wouldn't hold him, he gestured to Medusa's severed head and the talons that had remained after the body dissolved "It was Medusa," he stated simply "I figured it out and loped off her head when she went to remove the veil. Unfortunately for me one of her claws cut my leg as she went down and it burns. I think it's because she hasn't cleaned her talons in a while.".
Both of his companions looked down at the talons and, in tandem, said "Ew.".
"Very," he said "now could you get me some water? I need to heal my damn leg.". Quickly Amanda ran to their packs and brought him a bottle of water which he poured over the cut on his leg letting out a moan of relief when the wound began to steam before closing "Ah that's better.".
"Was it just me or did that look like the healing powers from Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?" Amanda asked once the wound was gone.
"No it does," he said testing his leg "the director for the movie was friends with a demigod of a sea spirit that could do what I just did and he based it off that.".
"Cool." Amanda said.
"What are you going to do with the spoils?" Clarisse asked pointing to the talons and head.
Thinking for a moment he grinned at the idea that came to him, "I have just the thing." He walked to Medusa's office and, like he had hoped, there were some Hermes delivery service forms that he took as well as three boxes, a pad of paper, a pen, and some grocery bags. Walking back to the others he scooped up the talons into a box, wrote a letter and sent it on its way with the delivery form. With the head he double wrapped it in grocery bags before putting it into a box and placing a letter on top of it and putting those into another box and sending it off as well.
"Where'd you send them?" Clarisse asked curious.
"I sent the talons to my Uncle Apollo," he said shrugging as they looked around for some food "they seem like he could use them as plague arrows with him being the god of plague and all so I included a letter explaining my idea.".
"They were pretty nasty." Amanda commented as she opened a cupboard.
"And I sent the head to my mother along with a letter explaining what it was." he finished as he found several bags of chips and cookies as well as some food bars. "Alright this is probably the only food here that isn't laced with something guys so eat up.".
Later than night he was standing watch while Amanda and Clarisse kept watch in the spare storage room figuring that Medusa's lingering scent would keep most other monsters away. As he looked around he heard a crack of a branch on the ground and a bestial roar that made his blood boil as he remembered the last time he heard that sound. It was a year ago that he had last heard the minatour.
-Flashback-
Percy was running around camp cutting down dracaena as he went trying to get to the Minatour that was leading the attack on the Hunt's camp. As he ran he saw one of his sisters Elizabeth, a daughter of Apollo, hit with the club the Minatour was swinging and was sent flying into a tree were she dropped to the ground unmoving. Roaring in anger he had charged the minatour and cut his club in half before viciously attacking the beast and leaving several deep cuts on it. Before he could land a killing blow however his sword hand was stopped by a weighted net thrown by a dracaena, by the time he had freed his weapon and killed the monster the Minatour had called a retreat and escaped.
-end flashback-
Elizabeth had been unconscious for three days after that and had to spend a month and a half healing after that as several of her bones had been crushed and there was only so much magic and ambrosia could do. Even now when she was completely healed physically she still had nightmares from the incident.
Jumping down from his perch on the roof of the relatively small building he roared back at the Minatour and hoped it would come closer so he could kill it. He grinned when he saw the lumbering beast walk towards him carrying a double bladed axe that was covered with the beaded necklaces from demigods from Camp Half-Blood. Seeing the necklaces made his blood boil even further and he charged the beast, jumping into the air to avoid its first strike he swing his sword up to cut off one of the horns and swung it again as he landed to remove the other one knowing that losing its horns would throw it off balance.
Sure enough the creature stumbled and fell without the horns and he charged forward but the creature swing his axe striking me with the shaft and sending me flying one direction and my sword another. Standing up I reached for my blade but noticed where it was and quickly made my ring turn into its bow form and drew an arrow from the quiver that appeared with the bow and fired, striking the charging beast through the eye causing it to fall before disintegrating.
Just as this happened Amanda and Clarisse ran out wearing pajama pants and tank tops still only partially awake and trying to figure out what the commotion was. "Percy what happened?" they demanded when they saw me and I felt that it would probably be an oft repeated question in the future.
"Oh nothing much," he said shrugging "just killed the Minatour.", he said this as calmly as possible hoping they would be asleep enough to not care.
"Oh that's… WAIT THE MINATOUR?!" Amanda demanded then noticed the horns and the axe that were left behind.
"Why would you fight something like that on your own?" Clarisse demanded, "First Medusa and now this? Medusa I can let slide as you wanted to be sure she was a monster but this one wasn't like that.".
Sighing he sat down and explained what had happened to Elizabeth and that he had lost his temper when he heard it. Plopping down next to him Amanda pulled him into a hug and said "We understand Percy but we care about you and don't want to see you hurt.", Clarisse nodded in agreement.
Returning the hug he said "Thanks for understanding guys and I'll try to leave some of the monsters for you from now on.".
Chuckling Clarisse playfully punched his shoulder, well playfully for Clarisse meaning it hurt a good bit "You'd better half-pint".
"I'm not short!" he yelled making both girls laugh at him.
"Hey Percy what are you going to do with the new Spoils of War?" Amanda asked him curiously.
Thinking a moment he replied "I think I'll turn the horns into spears, one for Elizabeth and one for Ares. As for the axe I don't know.".
Nodding to himself to reaffirm his choice he went and used the axe to cut a couple branches off some sturdy looking trees and started matching the horns to the ends of the branches. "Go to bed Percy you need rest." Amanda said sternly at him.
"I'm fine," I try to convince her "really." before turning back to my work. In doing so I missed the look she had shared with Clarisse and was surprised when Clarisse slung me over her shoulder and Amanda picked up my weapons and the spoils before they took me and the items to the storage room where they had been sleeping.
"You can finish the spears but then it's bedtime for you mister." Amanda said sternly before closing the door and locking it from the outside.
"Not funny!" I yell through the door.
"We aren't joking!" they yelled back. Grumbling I finished the spears and went to sleep knowing that I wouldn't be able to win an argument with them.
AN: Okay everybody two things. One is that I would like to give a shout out to "FunahoMisaki" who is doing a reading story of this fanfiction and I suggest you check it out. Two is that it might be a little while before my next update as I want to spend some time working in my original novel I want to get published eventually.
