The Theater was as quiet as the grave.
No one wanted to say anything. Silently, they sat staring at the blank wall in front of them. The image of Percy falling from that large white arch still playing through their mind.
They didn't know what to do.
Their brains knew that there was no way for him to die. The book still had a few chapters left after all. How could he die now when he hasn't returned Zeus's bolt yet?
But a little part of them couldn't help but wonder. If they kept reading, were they going to watch as Percy died?
The next person who opened the book, would they have to listen as they describe Percy hitting the ground? Hear his death in all its gory details?
Nobody wanted to be the first one to find out.
Finally, Freya stood up.
Handing Ottar her glass of wine, she gracefully made her way over to Syr. Her heels clicking against the tile echoed through the theater, grabbing everyone's attention.
Syr flinched at the sound of her heels. The girls of The Hostess of Fertility, seeing Syr's reaction, turned toward Freya. Watching Freya get closer with bated breath, they positioned themselves so that they could rise to Syr's defense at the first sign of trouble.
Mama Mia watched her out of the corner of her eye. What was she thinking, that Freya?
Stopping in front of Syr, Freya smiled kindly at her, her eyes halfway closed. Holding out her hand, she asked in a gentle voice.
"May I read?"
To anyone who might not have known her as well, that might have sounded like a request. But Syr, or rather Horn, knew her Goddess very well. That was a demand, one that promised great pain if she didn't agree within the next five seconds.
Horn felt a cascade of sweat run down the back of her neck. It wasn't a coincidence that Freya chose to walk over herself, instead of having Ottar or Horn bring the book to her like she normally would.
Standing in front of Horn like this, no one else could see Freya's real face, certainly not Bell, who Freya had specifically positioned so that her back was to him, blocking his view.
That, plus the way that Freya was pushing her backside out towards him, knowing full well of Bell's tendency to get all flustered and turn away from such displays, she had made doubly sure that he wouldn't be looking this way… even if deep in her heart she wanted him to.
Like this, no one could see how Freya's kind smile looked more like cut glass chipped at the edges, or how, through the slits of her eyelids, her eyes became ice cold, colder than the most desolate tundra
Good, Freya thought as she looked into Horn's frightened eyes. She should be scared. She could have ruined everything. All their years of subterfuge, all those long years of just barely skirting past Ouranos's Divine gaze.
All of it, gone up in smoke thanks to this small-minded mortal.
Thankfully, she didn't stray too far from 'Syr's' normal manner; otherwise she might not have been able to hold herself back as well.
Whether that was because, after all these years, Horn no longer knew how to disobey her or because she was too focused on Percy's plight to keep up the act, she didn't know.
What she did know was that she had to quickly bring everyone's mind away from 'Syr' before they stopped thinking about Percy.
She wasn't sure about the others, but Loki, Hermes, or Ouranos could have caught on to something. And the only reason why they might not have was because of the appearance of this 'Mother of Monsters' character.
A being that, while content to play a background role in this interaction, was something that the Gods were going to have to discuss when their children all turn in for rest tonight.
But that was for later. Right now Freya had some work to do to fix her child's little slip-up.
After their next break, though-
"Thank you, Syr." Freya said, taking the book from her shaking hands.
Afterwards, the two of them were going to have some words.
Freya almost let herself chuckle at that. If only words were enough to describe just how angry she really was.
Taking the book back to her seat, Freya thanked Ottar, took one last sip of wine, and opened it to the next chapter.
"Chapter 14 I Become a Known Fugitive." As soon as the title left her lips, some of the younger kids gave out sighs of relief. The breath that they had been holding this entire time was finally being released.
"Oh, thank Heavens, he's alive." Lefiya placed a hand on her chest as he tried to calm her heart.
She had been scared for a second there, but if he was saying that he was a wanted man, then that obviously meant that he was alive, right? After all, how could you be a fugitive but dead at the same time?
Bete scoffed.
"Of course he's alive; who else would we be reading about?" Bete didn't understand why everyone was acting like it had been a question whether the little brat was going to live or not.
He was the main character of the story, of course, nothing bad was going to happen to him. What kind of story killed off the most important people?
Riveria turned angrily towards Bete.
"Bete! This isn't an actual book. These are real people, real kids, and they can really die."
Bete grunted. Let her believe what she wanted. He knew that there was no way this kid was ever gonna die. Casue otherwise, what would be the point in learning from him?
I'd love to tell you I had some deep revelation on my way down, that I came to terms with my own mortality, laughed in the face of death, et cetera. The truth? My only thought was: Aaaaggghhh-chkk
Crickets
No one could believe what they just heard. This was unprecedented. No one knew what to do. Never had anyone in either Heaven or Earth ever witnessed what they just saw.
"Snrk~"
"Tiona, don't laugh." Tione whispered, punching her sister in the shoulder. Her voice, a little shaky as she struggled not to smile.
"Sorry, sorry, I just couldn't hold it in." Tiona covered her mouth, trying to hold in the giggles, but it was impossible. It was just so out of character that she just had to laugh.
She had been expecting some kind of harrowing reading where they were forced to listen as Percy fell to his death….Not that.
Others in the room were fighting to keep quiet. Their faces turned red as they held in their laughter. Everyone beside Loki that was.
"HAHAHAHA!! What was that! Did your voice crack!" Loki laughed so hard she fell of her seat. Clutching onto her sides, she wiggled across the ground.
Freya tried to fight the blush creeping across her cheeks. Keeping her eyes firmly on the page, she ignored their eyes on her.
Her fingers tightened against the book.
Until now, she had thought she knew what hatred was. Knew what it meant to truly and fully hate something. But now, after reading this book, she experienced a true hatred.
Damn this book for forcing her to scream like that. She'll get back at it if its the last thing she does.
Tossing a lock of hair over her shoulder, she pushed through her shame and continued reading whether anyone else was ready or not.
Hitting the water, Percy felt as if he had hit a soft mattress instead. Slowly, he sank into the water, eventually sitting at the bed of the river.
"Incredible," Finn said after calming down.
"What is? I think it was pretty smart to aim for the water." Welf asked as he wiped a tear from his eye.
Man, who knew hearing such a serious Goddess scream like that would be so funny?
"Except anyone else would have died," Finn said seriously. Any previous mirth gone from his face.
Tione whipped her head around towards Finn.
"What!? But it's just water."
Gareth sighed.
"You kids have never seen it, but if you fall high enough, not even water will save you."
"We witnessed that firsthand during our first few expeditions at the Great Fall." Riveria looked away sadly. Years of memories clashing behind her eyes.
"See, while it's true that water can soften your fall, that's only because the water is sort of catching you. But if you fall too fast, your body will crash into the water before it has time to catch you." Finn shook his head.
"So then Percy-" Lefiya looked fearfully at Percy, calmly sitting at the bottom of the river with no clue what he had just survived.
The image of his body breaking apart as soon as it hit the water playing in her mind instead of the soft landing that they just witnessed.
"If he wasn't Poseidon's son, he would have died." Hermes looked serious as he watched the image play out.
A catfish the size of my stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage—beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags—swirled up all around me. At that point, I realized a few things: first, I had not been flattened into a pancake. I had not been barbecued. I couldn't even feel the Chimera poison boiling in my veins anymore. Next, he noticed that he was dry, nearly a hundred feet underwater, and his shirt was still as dry as when he put it on.
"Good, the water's healing him." Haruhime breathed a sigh of relief. The poison had been the last thing threatening his life. And now that too was gone.
He was safe.
"How strong is his regeneration in water?" May couldn't help but wonder.
"Yeah, it looks like he just drank a whole bottle of elixir." Tsubaki chuckled.
"Or that Ambrosia stuff." Hephaustus imagined.
Ais looked jealously at Percy. One of the main reasons why she was unable to train as much as she wanted in the Dungeon was the cost. Cost for maintenance on her gear, cost for supplies, and most importantly, the cost of potions when she got hurt.
If she could heal like Percy, a whole third of her training costs would go down the drain.
Just how much money would an ability like that save a person anyway? A hundred, two hundred million Valis. Instead of expensive potions after every Dungeon dive, just jump into a nice, relaxing hot spring, and you're good as new.
But while everyone else was intrigued by how quickly Percy was healing. Others were focused on more important things.
"Disgusting." Riveria placed a hand over her mouth, looking sick as trash and old food drifted around Percy. "Is this how people here treat their drinking water?"
Lefiya looked queasy next to her. Just imagining drinking water from such a source was upsetting her tummy. She already had to deal with subpar water in Orario compared to the water from the Alf Forest, but to find out that it could get even worse!
She couldn't handle this.
Tione tried to calm them down
"They must be getting water from somewhere else if they're ok living near water like that."
"THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT BETTER!"
Probably still in shock from jumping off a 190-meter Arch, Percy kept experimenting with his water powers under the Mississippi River. First by flicking a lighter on, then by turning a wrapper dry, only to then use the lighter to light the wrapper on fire. And then, after all of that, did he finally realize, hey, he's breathing underwater.
"Holy hell he's breathing." Welf stared wide-eyed at the boy, just now barely noticing that he was breathing underwater, and then treated it as if it was just another Tuesday for him.
"That looks so cool. Do you think there's a water-breathing potion or something?" Bell asked with stars in his eyes.
"Lili don't know, but it would have been awesome if we had some when we went to the beach." Lili pouted.
"Forget that. Look how he can make things dry underwater." Yamato pointed out.
"It's not even like he's removing the water; it just…changed." Ryuu said.
"Imagine if we had that four years ago; we wouldn't have lost all those supplies from water damage," Gareth said, nudging Finn.
Finn gave him a small smile. He was right. The Great Falls were a nightmare on logistics. Not only because there was only one narrow path down that was constantly being attacked by monsters. But also because of the amount of money they were forced to spend on making sure their perishables were dry during the journey.
They've tried using mages with water spells before in the past, but none of them could do what Percy just did just by thinking it. Truly, Finn thought, Demigods were just too unbelievable.
But after the novelty wore off and his heart calmed down, Percy started getting depressed. Why had Poseidon saved me? The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I felt. So I'd gotten lucky a few times before. Against a thing like the Chimera, I had never stood a chance. Those poor people in the Arch were probably toast. I couldn't protect them. I was no hero. Maybe I should just stay down here with the catfish, join the bottom feeders
"Hmph, just another weakling." Bete clicked his tongue at Percy. His arms crossed in front of him, he snorted.
Look at this, one loss and already he was thinking about running away. Bete tightened his hand around his arm. A memory rose within him before he mercilessly crushed it down.
Bete turned away from the Black wall; he no longer wanted to look at this weakling's pathetic face.
Riveria stood up angrily.
"Bete, that's enough already; he is a child, they all are. This problem started with the Gods, and they should be the ones to fix it. They shouldn't be putting all this pressure on one kid. He should be with his mother, worrying about normal stuff not-"
"But he isn't!" Bete yelled.
Everyone froze. Never did they think that Bete would ever be brave enough to scream at Riveria to her face.
Bete Stood up and stared into Riveria's wide eyes.
"He's already here, fighting for his life. And there's nothing that he can do about it. So he either gets up or he watches everyone die. There is no in-between, not for him."
The room got tense after that. No one said anything. Riveria narrowed her eyes, at Bete, but Bete refused to back down. He knew he was right, and she knew it too.
Weaklings could scream and cry about unfairness all they wanted. But when the chips are down, and you're the only one who can do something, then the responsibility falls to you, whether you want it or not.
Riveria opened her mouth, ready to say something to Bete as Bete stood taller, anticipating what she was about to say.
"Just like-"
"That's enough."
Both of them turned.
Loki sat on the sofa, cross-legged, resting her face on one fist as she stared lazily at her kids. "Don't embarrass me by showing everyone our dirty laundry. Let's finish this, and you guys can hash it out later."
Riveria and Bete looked around the room. Everyone's eyes were on them, waiting to see what they would do.
"Che~" Bete scoffed, turning back to his seat.
Watching him go, Riveria let out a sigh. Taking her seat again, she ignored teh looks Finn and Gareth were giving her. Instead focused on her nails as Loki waved Freya on.
I heard that woman's voice again: Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you. This time, I knew the voice wasn't in my head. I wasn't imagining it. Her words seemed to come from everywhere, rippling through the water like dolphin sonar. "Where are you?"
"Who is that?" Ais sat up straighter. T-That- it sounded familiar.
"I-It feels like a spirit." Lefiya said, clutching her dress. It wasn't the same, obviously, but from what she could feel from the magic, it felt pretty similar.
"Like an Undine!?" Tsubaki asked.
Hephaestus shook her head.
"I think they call them Niyads here." She remembered.
"What would an Undine, or a Niyad, be doing there?" Hermes wondered.
"Especially with all that trash?" Hestia curled her lip as she watched the image of a dirty diaper float across the wall.
I called aloud and saw her through the gloom—a water-colored ghost floating above the sword. Her long, billowing hair and barely visible green eyes resembled mine. A lump formed in my throat. For a second, he thought it was his mom. "Go to Santa Monica beach. It's your father's will. Before entering the Underworld, you must go there. Please, I cannot stay long; the river is too foul." "But..." I thought she was my mother or a vision of her. She reached out, and I felt the current brush my face like a caress. "You must go to Santa Monica! And, Percy, do not trust the gifts". . . . Her voice faded. "Gifts?" I asked. "What gifts? Wait!" She made one more attempt to speak, but the sound was gone. Her image melted away. If it was my mother, I had lost her again. I felt like drowning myself. The only problem: I was immune to drowning.
"Well that was useless."
"Tiona" Riveria hissed.
"What? She was. Just shows up out of nowhere tells him to get up, go to some beach and oh, by the way don't trus the gifts. What gifts women!? Next time jsut say the important things first, don't waste time. She's just given him something else to worry about when he's already dealing with a supposed traitor."
Your father believes in you, she had said. She'd also called me brave . . . unless she was talking to the catfish.
"Hahaha." Everyone laughed.
"That was funny… and kind of depressing." Hestia said.
"Fressing?" Loki suggested.
Percy got up, he knew what he had to do. Grabbing his sword he turned it back into a pen. "Thank you, Father," I said again to the dark water. Then I kicked up through the muck and swam for the surface. Already around the Arch reporters and civilians crowed around. The only one that saw him crawl out of the water was a little girl but thatfully her mother wasn't paying attention. 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." Survivors.
"Good, he's moving." Finn nodded.
When the little girl cired to her mother about the dry boy coming out of the water many people chuckled.
"Man parents will not pay attention at all to their kids." Tsubaki laughed.
But to Mama Mia didn't find it that funny.
"You're telling me." She growled. "You know how many times I've had to parent some kids when their actual parents aren't even five feet away. Huff, if I have to deal with one more parent not noticing their child breaking our dishes, I'll throw them out the window."
Percy heard what they said. He breathed a sigh of relief, good it sounded like Annabeth and Grover made it out ". . . 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 . . ."
"Does that mean-" Lefiya looked to Loki with hope.
Loki held up her hand, slowing her down.
"Don't get your hopes up just yet; they said no confirmed deaths."
IT didn't take long for Grover and Annabeth to find him. Grover tackled Percy with a hug."We thought you'd gone to Hades the hard way!" Annabeth stood behind him, trying to look angry, but even she seemed relieved to see me. "We can't leave you alone for five minutes! What happened?" She asked, "I sort of fell." Percy said sheepishly."Percy! Six hundred and thirty feet?" Behind us, a cop shouted, "Gangway!" The crowd parted, and a couple of paramedics hustled out, rolling a woman on a stretcher.
"They'll alive too!" Bell cheered, seeing the women being carried out.
Welf leaned over to Ryuu. "Wouldn't that be the easy way to Hades?"
"Shush."
I recognized her immediately 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 me. "There he is! That's the boy!"
"What's wrong with her? I thought they couldn't see mystical stuff because of that 'Miss' thing or whatever." Haruhime asked, worried about the lady.
"It did." Hephaestus sighed.
"What!? But she just said-"
Finn's eyes widened.
"She saw a dog breathing fire, not a monster." He muttered.
Loki nodded.
"The Mist hides all things mystical. It is one of the most powerful illusions that I have ever seen. Able to cover everywhere in the world as well as work autonomously without a caster's input. But there are two glaring weaknesses to it. One, the Mist only covers the subject, hiding its real form, not making it disappear. And two, it only works when the subject in question is mystical. The lion-headed, snake-tailed monster was changed to look like a regular dog, but its fire was kept the same."
Everyone got quiet. When they had heard of the Mist, they thought that it would offer more protection for teh regular people than that. But if hiding the monster was all it did, then doesn't that also mean that the monsters could kill people and they wouldn't be able to defend themselves, or at the very least know when to run away?
"I feel kind of bad for her." Lefiya muttered.
"Why? She's fine." Ais asked
"Yeah, but not only is she and her family gonna be traumatized by being forced to see all of that, but now everyone is gonna think she is crazy. She might think even think she's crazy one day."
I turned quickly and pulled Annabeth and Grover after me. We disappeared into the crowd. "What's going on?" Annabeth demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?" I told them the whole story of the Chimera, Echidna, my high-dive act, and the underwater lady's message. "Whoa," said Grover. "We've got to get you to Santa Monica! You can't ignore a summons from your dad."
"That's the only thing he gets from that. No, hey, good job on surviving, or hey, are you all right? Just, let's go follow your dad's crazy summons, not like we got other things on our minds." Tsuabki looked at Grover in disbelief. Come on, kid, your friend just survived a deadly encounter, and you're immediately moving on to his Dad's message?
"That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that the boy who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young man wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the boy is believed to be traveling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson." We ducked around the news van and slipped into an alley. "First things first," I told Grover. "We've got to get out of town!" Somehow, we made it back to the Amtrak station without getting spotted. We got on board the train just before it pulled out for Denver. The train trundled west as darkness fell, police lights still pulsing against the St. Louis skyline behind us.
"And that is the end of that." Freya snapped the book shut causing a few of the younger kids to flinch back.
"Let's break for lunch; I'm feeling quiet… famished." Freya let her eyes gloss over towards Horn.
Horn, feeling her gaze, froze up.
Loki thought about it for a second, checking the clock on the wall.
"Sure, I guess we can get some grub. Come on, kids, last one there is a rotten goblin."
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Hey, sorry. This was a pretty short chapter that I wanted to get out a bit sooner, unfortuany work is being done around the house, and these idiots cut the internet wire twice when they were digging back there.
I know a lot of people would wish I published quicker. I feel the same way with some fanfics, and some of them even publish more frequently than I do. Guess I'm just not as good a writer compared to them.
But thanks for being patient and sticking around.