Chapter 23: The Mississippi
A/N: Here's the new Chapter! Which also means the next four chapters are up on my for early access as well as the chance to vote on the direction of the story!
Percy and the ladies go for a swim~
-x-X-x-
No. It was a bad impulse, in the end. As much as Percy wanted to fight and kill Echidna and her Chimera, it wouldn’t be permanent. They would just come back down the road madder and meaner. On the other hand, the same couldn’t be said for Percy or his friends. And while he might be willing to put his own life on the line for a temporary victory, he couldn’t say the same about Annabeth or Clarisse. If something happened to them because he insisted on standing their ground and fighting monsters, he would never forgive himself.
Which meant it was time to implement his other crazy plan instead.
“She’s right. We don’t have to fight.”
The female demigods at his sides both look at him askance, their eyes widening with incredulity. Even Echidna looks surprised, the grotesque Mother of Monsters tilting her fat head to the side, making her numerous double-chins jiggle as she chuckles.
“Oh? Going to sacrifice yourself so they can go free, boy? How very, very noble of you. Mm, if you all play nice and the boy comes quietly, I see no problem with this arrangement. Might even be a reward in it for you on our way to Zeus, boy~”
When Echidna licks her lips suggestively, Percy’s stomach curdles at the thought. Her… intentions are obvious and he’s starting to really wonder what it is about him that seems to draw women in like moths to flame. He’s also starting to realize it’s not always going to be a boon, all of this female attention.
Needless to say, Annabeth and Clarisse are not on board with that plan. Like, at all. But even as they bristle and start to both snarl, Percy reaches out and grabs them by their shoulders, tugging them a half-step closer to him and causing them to look him in the eye.
“Girls. Trust me? Please?”
Both Annabeth and Clarisse look as unhappy as they can while Echidna just watches on in amusement. The Chimera is still hissing and growling, but the Mother of Monsters seems content to hold her ‘son’ at bay for the moment, especially since she thinks she’s going to get what she wants.
Percy, meanwhile, tries to explain without explaining that he has a plan… one that requires the two girls to be fully committed. Thankfully, it doesn’t take too long for both Annabeth and Clarisse to catch on that not all was as it seemed. Clarisse is the first to nod, with Annabeth right behind her.
“I trust you, Percy Jackson.”
“Don’t fuck this up, Seaweed Brain.”
Fuck, he hopes not. Unfortunately, the moments of him looking at both girls meaningfully are also enough to begin to arouse Echidna’s suspicions as well.
“If you really mean to turn yourself over, boy, step forward. You’ll leave with my sonny and I first and then these two can make their way back down once we’re gone. No funny business now.”
Rather than obey, Percy just smiles and speaks as quietly as he can out of the corner of his mouth.
“Relax your bodies… and get ready to jump.”
Annabeth and Clarisse go wide-eyed as they do what they’re told, which Echidna, clearly not hearing his actual words but seeing him speaking all the same, gets more suspicious.
“Boy-!”
Percy doesn’t give her a chance to speak again though. He could have grandstanded a bit more, he supposed. He could have said something like ‘I only said we didn’t have to fight… not that I was going with you’ or something suitably badass like that.
He doesn’t say anything though. He doesn’t waste words on this creature and her pet monster, not when actions will suffice. Both Annabeth and Clarisse have relaxed when he abruptly moves his hands from their shoulders to around their waist. Grabbing them both as securely as he can, pulling them tight against his body, he spins with the two of them and together, they all jump over the railing.
“NO!”
Whether Echidna really doesn’t want him dead or somehow immediately understands his plan, Percy doesn’t know nor does he care. The Mother of Monsters and her Chimera don’t leap after them, even as Annabeth and Clarisse cling to him, wrapping their bodies around his. In turn, Percy stares down at his target below as they go hurtling through the air.
The Mississippi River grows bigger and bigger as they fall and Percy can tell they’re going to hit it, just as planned. Of course, under normal circumstances, diving from this high up into a river is no guarantee that you’ll even survive. There’s a reason a lot of people commit suicide by jumping off of bridges. At a certain height, water becomes as ‘solid’ as any other surface for the sake of going splat against it.
If he were a normal human being, even being the best swimmer in the world wouldn’t save him from breaking his body on this dive. But Percy isn’t a normal human being. He already knows the power of running water for someone like him, a Son of Poseidon. And that was just a creak of all things, really. A stream of sorts, one that you could wade through. A river… well, it might not be the ocean, but that didn’t… shouldn’t change things.
There’s just one part about all of this that Percy isn’t too sure about. Whether he can transfer his protection to other living things or not. As he, Annabeth, and Clarisse get closer and closer to the water, Percy turns onto his back, making sure both girls are pressed against his chest. It’s hard because while Annabeth is small enough, Clarisse has a stockier, more Amazon-like build. But he does his best to put himself between the impact and them all the same.
The two are just starting to realize what he’s done when they hit, which is probably for the best because otherwise they might have tried to stop him. As it is, Percy strikes the water… and any pain he might have felt from the impact is immediately diminished by how GOOD he feels at being in water.
They still sink all the way down to the bed of the Mississippi River of course, the height they’d fallen from sending them deep. But Percy doesn’t have to wait even a moment before kicking off the muddy floor and pushing his legs to start shifting back and forth so he can swim upwards. Annabeth and Clarisse had felt heavy when he’d thrown the three of them over the railing up on the Arch. But now, they’re as light as a feather while he’s in his element.
The three of them breach the surface of the river in mere moments, with Percy making sure the girls are held above the water most of all. After all, he can breathe underwater, so it’s not like he needs the oxygen. Instead, he’s far more concerned about making sure Annabeth and Clarisse are uninjured. He can’t heal them like he can heal himself… but from the way they’re gasping for breath but not screaming in pain or unconscious with broken bones… he think he managed it. He got them all out safely.
“P-Percy… you… you’re fucking i-insane…”
Before he can pull his head above the water to respond to that, a voice calls out to him. A voice that sounds strangely like his mother’s.
Percy… please hold for a moment… we must speak…
It’s not his mother. That much, he instinctively knows. But at the same time, he can’t help but be curious. And while it might be a monster, the fact that both he’s in water and they’re asking to talk rather than attacking right off the bat gives him confidence. Instead of answering Annabeth’s words when he finally breaches the water’s surface, Percy has a serious look on his face.
“You two… you both alright? Nothing broken?”
“F-Fine… just… wet…”
“Nothing broken…”
“Great. Need you both to get to shore together. Can you do that? I’ll join you soon.”
“What? Percy!”
“… Very well.”
Annabeth squawks when Clarisse is so quick to agree, but Percy just gives his Wise Girl a wicked grin.
“Looks like one of you remembered that you said you’d trust me.”
That brings a flushed scowl to the blonde Daughter of Athena’s face, but in the end she huffs and pulls away as well, and together she and Clarisse begin making their way to the shore. Percy watches just long enough to make sure they’re both alright before dipping back below the surface. Immediately, that same feminine voice from before assails him.
I cannot stay, Percy. The river is too foul to abide by my presence for much longer.
Percy frowns and nods at that… before a thought strikes him and he opens his mouth.
“What can I do for you?”
As expected, if he can breathe underwater, it seems he can talk underwater as well. That’s nice to know, he supposes.
You must not go West immediately. Your father bids you come to Santa Monica, to the bay there before you journey West. Please promise you will do this for me…
His father. Poseidon. Percy has never met the god and all he really knows about him is the tales as well as his interactions with those Poseidon has touched. First there was the Sea God claiming him after his and Hestia’s first encounter, and then there was his experience with Medusa. In the end… Poseidon wasn’t a bad or evil person, Percy didn’t think. Or at least, Percy hoped.
Letting out a shuddering breath, he nods.
“Alright. We’ll go to Santa Monica first then. I promise.”
He didn’t like that whatever this creature was, it had his mother’s voice. But if she spoke with his father’s authority… and if she didn’t, surely Poseidon would have stepped in by now, right? So that meant she had to be here for him. Made sense, really. If Zeus and Hades both got to have their own monsters at their beck and call, surely Poseidon would have water-themed creatures as well to do his bidding…
Thank you, Percy. Thank you. Go to Santa Monica. And Percy, do not trust your gifts...
Wait, what? Percy goes wide-eyed at that.
“Gifts? What do you mean? My powers?! Something else?!”
He gets the impression that the voice tries to talk one last time before ultimately fading away. Great, she’d told him just enough to leave him with more questions than answers. Fucking hell.
Well, he was still on a time table. And now he had a divine order from his godly father himself to go the opposite direction that his Quest said he needed to go. With a grunt, he pushes back up out of the water and begins making his way to the shore of the Mississippi River. No rest for the wicked, Percy Supposed.
-x-X-x-
Once he spoke to Annabeth and Clarisse they had been… understanding about things at least. To a certain extent. Apparently, what Percy had talked to was almost certainly a Nereid, one of the fifty Nereids as a matter of fact. They were minor sea goddesses, which would explain why the Nereid hadn’t been able to stay in the Mississippi River for too long before having to return to the sea. Or maybe it was just that the Mississippi River was an overly polluted fouled up waterway. One of the two, anyways.
Regardless, they’d eventually picked up Grover, only to find out that Percy was on the news in a bad way. Echidna hadn’t taken his, Annabeth, and Clarisse’s escape well. She’d gone on a rampage and done some damage to the Arch before leaving. But nobody had seen her or her ‘dog’ because… well, they were monsters and mundane people couldn’t apparently comprehend them properly or something.
However, who HAD been seen? Percy Jackson. On security cameras. And wouldn’t you know it, his description had also been recorded by the survivors of the bus that the Furies had attacked him on and Zeus had eventually blown up with his lightning bolt.
… Nobody was using the word ‘terrorist’ yet, but Percy was decidedly a ‘Person of Interest’ that was currently being hunted by the authorities. Even if he hadn’t technically done anything wrong, the fact that he was at the scene of two crazy events apparently had everyone suspicious.
Fortunately, it didn’t stop him and the others from sneaking onto the train, taking them away from the area and up to Denver. Percy could only hope that the investigation wouldn’t follow him too hard. At least the video they were showing of him from the security cameras at the Arch was pretty blurry…
So yeah, should be fine. At least, that’s what Percy was telling himself as he, Annabeth, Clarisse, and Grover all stopped off at a Car Wash in Denver.
“… Err, what are we doing here, exactly?”
“Iris-Messaging, Percy. Thankfully, Medusa saw fit to give us some drachmas as a parting gift. Basically… we can talk with the people back at Camp Half-Blood through a rainbow. Director H probably isn’t back yet but Chiron should be able to give us some advice about the Nereid’s offer.”
Ah, right. Well that seemed fair. It wasn’t right to expect them all to follow him to Santa Monica without getting confirmation from one of the primary sources of authority in all their lives. Truthfully, Percy wouldn’t mind getting some advice from the legendary Hero Trainer either if he was being honest.
Watching Grover set up the car wash nozzle and feed some quarters into the machine before setting it to mist and turning it on, Percy gets a front row seat to seeing Annabeth toss a drachma into the ensuing rainbow.
“O goddess, accept our offering.”
Seeing as the drachma disappears in a golden shimmer, it certainly seems like Iris, Goddess of Rainbows, has accepted their offering. Something Annabeth clearly agrees with because she clears her throat before making a polite request.
“Half-Blood Hill, please.”
In an instant, the mist suddenly transforms into a shimmering vision. Percy’s eyes widen as he takes in the sight of the Big House’s porch. Unfortunately, Chiron isn’t there at the moment… instead it’s Luke, wearing shorts and a tank top and holding a sword as he stares off in the opposite direction of them. Annabeth, Clarisse, and Percy all exchange glances before Annabeth shrugs and calls out.
“Luke!”
Turning, his eyes wide, the scarred young man takes them all in for a moment before grinning.
“Annabeth! Percy! You’re all right then!”
Nodding, the Daughter of Athena shrugs.
“As alright as can be considered. We were hoping to talk to Chiron though…”
“Yeah, he’s down at the cabins right now. We’ve been having some unfortunate issues with some of the campers. What’s this about exactly? Maybe I can help?”
Annabeth looks to Percy at that, clearly expecting him to take over as ‘leader’ of their quest. Percy steps forward and opens his mouth, not quite sure what he’s going to say. Tell Luke everything? Or hold something back? He really didn’t know the other man all that well yet…
Ask about what's happening at camp instead, tell Luke as little as possible - 77%
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