Coming of Age Ch. 26 (Percy Jackson) (Patreon)

A/N: Thinking outside the box... or rather, outside the bowl as it were.

-x-X-x-

“… No.”

His refusal sends a jolt of surprise through both Annabeth and Clarisse as they look at him with confusion and hurt in their eyes. But even still, it feels right.

“I’m taking neither of you down there.”

At this, the two young women exchange a glance and quite quickly set aside their differences.

“You can’t possibly go down there alone!”

“You need someone to watch your back!”

“Even if its her, it’s better than no one!”

“Tch, right back at you!”

The female demigods glare at each other for a moment but then their gazes soften. Percy tries not to laugh too hard at how swiftly they just managed to come to an understanding because they both thought he was being an idiot. He can’t hide the mirthful smile though, even as he shakes his head in response.

“I’m not going down there either. None of us are.”

That gives them both pause, with Annabeth furrowing her brow and frowning as she looks down into the bowl at the shield sat upon the seat of the marooned boat.

“… Are we giving up then, Percy? Or… no, wait… you don’t think?”

Percy grins and nods. He should have known Annabeth would pick up on it. She’s not the Daughter of Athena and his Wise Girl for nothing after all.

“It’s worth a shot, isn’t it?”

Annabeth bites her lower lip, looking around the bowl’s rim at the ominous cupid statues. After a moment, she finally nods.

“Y-Yeah. It’s better than willfully springing whatever Hephaestus’ trap for Ares and Aphrodite was. Ugh, can’t believe I said we had no choice…”

She actually looks upset at herself for not thinking it over longer. Stepping up to her side, Percy pulls Annabeth into a one-armed hug.

“Hey now. It’s fine. After all… this shit is a Hail Mary anyways.”

With that said, he tries to… reach out for lack of a better word. This isn’t something he’s done outside of practice just yet, but back when he and Annabeth had been messing around with his abilities, Percy had learned a lot about what it meant to be a Son of Poseidon. His father’s domain wasn’t just salt water or else Percy would never have been able to use the stream back at Camp Half-Blood like he had. On the other hand, would it work on an artificial, man-made water park like Waterland? Percy honestly didn’t know.

That said, when he reaches out… he feels something. Something stagnant. Not what he was hoping for but also not the end of the world. Looking down into the bowl, looking past the obvious trap… Percy sees piping. He sees where water must have once flowed back when this ride and indeed the entire water park was still in use.

And best of all, he sees a glass-covered building, what can only be this particular ride’s control room. Grinning, he nods over to Grover.

“Grover, see that booth there? I want you to try to turn the ride back on.”

It takes him a moment, but even Grover’s eyes widen in understanding at that, as do Clarisse’s. He nods enthusiastically and rushes over, while Percy and the two female demigods all remain standing at the rim, watching down below. A few moments later and Grover calls out, even as Percy begins to feel something in the stagnation starting to move.

“I pressed every button I could, Percy!”

“You did great, Grover!”

And really, he had. Percy focuses then. He focuses like he’s never done before. He focuses on the feel of the water he can sense thanks to his divine blood. He focuses on what the Mississippi River felt like when he, Annabeth, and Clarisse had all dived into it to escape Echidna. And… he feels something. Something good.

“Here it comes girls!”

Both Annabeth and Clarisse tense up as a moment later water explodes out of the pipes and into the pool, positively roaring. Percy has control of it though and he’s able to direct it down the sides of the bowl, under the boat instead of on top of it. In an instant, the boat jostles and begins to lift… and that alone turns out to be enough to activate Hephaestus’ trap.

“Percy!”

Annabeth shouts and points as the cupids all around the rim of the bowl drew their bows back… and fired not at them or at the boat, but at each other. Thick gold cables explode across the top of the defunct water ride, not quite covering the entire top of the bowl… but where they don’t cover, smaller threads quickly begin to expand between them, creating what can only be described as a net.

The boat was rising fast, but the webbing was blocking it off from them quickly. Percy grits his teeth and focuses on the water, trying to get the boat up faster for them. More specifically, he focuses on angling the seats of the boat in their direction.

“GET READY!”

Both Clarisse and Annabeth rush forward to the rim of the bowl, getting into position. Strands cover the surface just as the boat is pushed up by the water under Percy’s control, with Percy growling as he strains with all his might. The net holds… but Annabeth and Clarisse both snatch out their hands, grabbing something apiece from the boat’s seats through the gaps still present in the golden net.

“Got it!”

Clarisse’s voice rings out and Percy has to trust her on this because the net is pretty much complete and their window has ended. Indeed, this is no more clear then when the cupids around the rim all pop open their heads, video cameras sprouting from their necks. Big bright spotlights rise up from the ground as well, coating the bowl in their light as a voice comes from nowhere and everywhere at once.

“Live to Olympus in one minute! Fifty-Nine Seconds! Fifty-Eight Seconds-!”

As the countdown continues, Percy, Annabeth, and Clarisse all take several steps back, with Percy letting the tidal wave he’d summoned die down and carry the boat back to the bottom of the bowl. Not a moment too soon either it would seem, because after that all those mirrors that Ares and Aphrodite had probably chose this place for pop open… and a very different sort of tidal wave comes flowing out down the sides of the bowl.

As thousands, perhaps millions of mechanical spiders rush down towards the empty boat, Percy feels Annabeth tense up at his side in abject terror. Fortunately, the net is complete by this point and so finely woven that not even the robot arachnids can get past it. Still…

“We need to get out of here. Now.”

The countdown is still going after all, the droning voice of whom Percy can only assume to be Hephaestus reaching forty at that exact same moment. Grover comes out of the control booth at the same time and both he and Clarisse are nodding in agreement. Annabeth though, is a bit more frozen up, her hands clutching at something made of cloth that he doesn’t remember her having before.

In the end, Percy just grabs Annabeth by the shoulders and pulls her along, the four of them fleeing the scene as fast as they possibly can with the Daughter of Athena damn near catatonic. Fortunately, that’s still pretty fast. By the time Hephaestus’ countdown reaches zero and the video cameras begin transmitting to Olympus, they’ve slipped right back out of Waterland with hopefully nobody, deities or otherwise, seeing them.

-x-X-x-

That last bit is confirmed when they get back to the diner to find Ares waiting for them with a mulish look on his face.

“Clever brats, aren’t you? Got in and out with that cuck of a blacksmith being none the wiser to who actually sprung his trap. Though perhaps you shouldn’t have been so clever. Olympus might not have seen any of you, but they saw the water settling. Looks like Poseidon decided to help me out, you know? Might mean Hephaestus sides with Zeus in the coming war.”

Percy bristles, wanting nothing more than to tear Ares a new asshole right then and there. And maybe if he had a big enough body of water at his back, he might have even tried it. But… no. They’re nowhere near even a river and Percy… Percy is already a little tired from that stunt he’d pulled back at Waterland. He was pretty sure that application of his powers while he wasn’t submerged in water wasn’t something he was supposed to be doing much of yet.

Besides, Ares’ words were a whole bunch of shit-stirring for the sake of shit-stirring and that was incredibly obvious. The God of War might be right about Hephaestus siding with Zeus now, but seeing Percy himself on those cameras would probably have had the exact same effect. Not to mention there wasn’t going to BE a war if Percy had any say in things…

That all said… he swallows his pride while at the same time keeping his head held high. Tossing Ares his shield, Percy bites out his response.

“Time for you to hold up your end of the deal.”

Ares sneers as the shield melts in his hands, transforming into a bulletproof vest that he then puts on almost casually. Then, he gestures to a nearby truck.

“Your ride.”

Percy’s eyes narrow as he looks over the eighteen-wheeler.

KINDNESS INTERNATIONAL: HUMANE ZOO TRANSPORT

WARNING: LIVE WILD ANIMALS

Looking back to Ares, Percy wants to be snarky and sarcastic… but he holds his tongue again. Because even now, even after everything, he gets the impression that the God of War really, really wants him dead. But deals were deals, right? Ares had to hold true to his word… or so Percy had to hope.

After a beat of silence, Ares just growls at not getting a reaction from Percy and snaps his fingers. The back door of the eighteen-wheeler pops open half an inch right in front of their eyes and Ares smirks in a way that doesn’t quite reach his glowing, flaming eyes.

“One free ride west, punk. Straight to L.A. with one stop in Vegas. Have fun. Oh, and because I’m such a nice guy…”

He reaches back and grabs a duffel bag that Percy hadn’t even noticed slung over the handlebars of Ares’ motorcycle until now. Lobbing it in Percy’s direction, he forces Percy to catch it against his chest, grunting as he manages to keep his feet under him despite its weight. Not trusting it for a moment, Percy puts the duffel down on the ground and opens it up right then and there, uncaring of Ares’ reaction this time.

… Unfortunately, he doesn’t immediately find anything that might be a trap intended to kill him and his friends. Instead, there were four sets of fresh clothes, eighty bucks in cash, a pouch full of drachmas, and a bag of double stuffed Oreos of all things. Percy still doesn’t trust it for even a moment, but before he can reject the gift, Grover speaks up for them.

“Thank you, Lord Ares. For a generous boon.”

Heh, of course his best friend knew when he was about to be an idiot. The warning glance Grover shoots Percy tells him that it’s probably a lot more serious than just a massive social faux pas to refuse anything from a god. Even still, he knew for a fact that taking all of this was going to come back to bite them later on somehow. He just didn’t know in what way just yet…

Whatever. Percy zips the duffle bag closed and hoists it up onto one shoulder while giving Ares a begrudging nod. In response, the God of War just scoffs and gets on his bike.

“Good luck, kiddies. You’re going to need it. And you, Percy Jackson… I’ll be seeing you again. Real soon.”

Before any of them can say anything to that particularly ominous statement, Ares’ bike roars to life, damn near deafening in its sound as the God of War rides off. Percy exchanges glances with his friends, or at least with Clarisse and Grover seeing as Annabeth is still averting her eyes, but in the end… what other choice do they have? They get in the back of the damn Zoo Truck and latch the door behind them.

-x-X-x-

Hours later, after the Kindness International Truck has left the diner behind and begun barreling down the road towards what was hopefully the West Coast, Percy has gone through every inch of the damn duffle bag and its contents. But if Ares had trapped the thing… Percy couldn’t perceive it. He just has this feeling… but divine bullshit will be divine bullshit.

As he’s huffing and zipping up the duffel yet again, he suddenly has two bodies pressed up against either side of him. Annabeth is the first to speak, even as she runs a hand along his chest.

“S-Sorry… about earlier. Spiders are… a bit of a sore point for me. My mother Athena has a rather acrimonious relationship with the Mother of Spiders, Arachne. So… well, spider monsters tend to have a distinct fixation when it comes to me and other children of Athena. S-Still, I shouldn’t have frozen up like that. You had to pull me out of there.”

Shaking his head, Percy gives Annabeth a broad smile.

“It’s not an irrational fear if they really are out to get you, Annabeth. You didn’t have to explain yourself to me… but I appreciate that you did.”

The Daughter of Athena blushes at that… and then suddenly holds up something between them. It’s what she had in her hands back at Waterland but didn’t have visible when they met back up with Ares, Percy realizes.

“This… this is Aphrodite’s Scarf. Just like Ares’ Shield, it’s a powerful divine artifact. And I think you should have it. It could be a potent bargaining tool later on. Just be careful with it, okay? Aphrodite uses it to enchant those she takes an interest in…”

Percy blinks as he slowly takes the shimmering pink scarf from Annabeth’s hands. It has a very interesting scent to it. One that’s both intoxicating… and familiar? Why would it be familiar though? But then, maybe that’s part of the enchantment. Knowing about it from Annabeth, he can resist the scarf’s effect, rolling it up and tucking it away in the duffle bag for the time being. He gives Annabeth a grateful smile and also squeezes her hand comfortingly for a moment before turning to the OTHER woman pressed up against his side.

Clarisse La Rue is blushing profusely even in the darkness of the Kindness International Truck. The statuesque blonde bites her lower lip for a moment before taking his free hand and shoving it in between her legs so he can feel her heat and arousal.

“You still own me for the rest of this week, Percy. A-And as your maid… I’m beginning to feel a little neglected.”

Oh. Well then.