Percy Jackson, the Son of Olympus: The Lightning Thief

| Chapter XIII | I Nearly Lose My Ear |

*January 3 XXXX*
*Percy's Point of View*

***

When we reached our stop, Annabeth quickly grabbed Travis' ear in her left hand and my ear in her right hand－having also seen the creepy old ladies－and pulled us off the train, looking back over her shoulder every once in a while to see if we were being followed.

Once she let go of my poor ear, I massaged it, surprised that she hadn't pulled it off. I turned to her. "Okay, first of all, ouch! And second, what was so important that you had to yank us off the train, as well as at least half a block by our ears?" I demanded.

I could see that Travis' ear was red, and he was rubbing it in attempts to ease the swelling. My guess was that he was trying to regain feeling in it. He sent me a grateful smile. Probably because I was the one yelling at Annabeth for both of us. I internally sighed at the thought. He was too scared of Annabeth to stand up to her, just like most of the other campers I'd met back at Camp Half-Blood.

Annabeth just glared at me. "Do you have any idea who those three ladies were? I thought you grew up on Olympus?" she asked.

"Of course I know who they were! It's not like I always slept through Athena's history classes...right?" I chuckled nervously.

Travis burst out laughing, but quickly shut up from the glare that Annabeth sent him. She fixed me with a hard look. It resembled Artemis' so much, but worse. Artemis could never stay mad at me. Annabeth could. That another difference between the two of them.

I cracked. "Okay, fine! Maybe I did sleep through one...maybe two classes. Just tell me why they were so important. They were creepy, sure, but I didn't feel anything evil in their auras," I said.

She just gave me a look. "Percy, they were the Three Fates! You saw them cut a string didn't you? If they were looking at you when they did it, that usually means that you're going to die!" she said. She was completely blowing up at me.

I put my hands up in the universal 'I surrender' gesture. "Okay, okay. Don't get so angry. You need to relax. Go with the flow," I said.

She just threw her hands up in another universal gesture: 'I give up!'. She walked away, muttering about wasted knowledge.

I turned to look at Travis. He just stared back. Simultaneously, we both burst out laughing. We both then ran after Annabeth, who had hailed a taxi. We all climbed in and the taxi took us west.

Now, travelling from New York to Los Angeles was difficult enough. I didn't need any monsters messing up our journey. But of course, the Universe just loves to prove me wrong.

As soon as we got out of the taxi, we came face to face with a lady. This lady had a wrinkled face and kind brown eyes. Her hair was pulled up in a dark purple head scarf－completely covered. It seemed that she had just gotten up from a nearby bench, because there were a few bags and a light spread of bread crumbs surrounding the one that was just five feet away from the curb that we'd been dropped off at.

"Hello dearies. You look tired, why don't you come with me and I'll give a place to sleep for the night," she offered.

"Um...no thanks," I said. "We have to go." I pulled Annabeth and Travis with me as I walked away from the lady, but she followed us.

"Come now, deary, you can't possibly stay out here for the night. It gets so cold and damp. Nice children like you don't belong on the street," she said.

"Look, we're fine; we're going to meet our parents at the hotel they booked. Now please, leave us alone," I said.

She looked sad, and I almost regretted what I said, but reminded myself that she was a monster. I could sense it in her aura. No matter how they manipulated the Mist around them, they were still the same underneath. The very definition of monsters was that they lived to hunt and eat demigods.

Her sad expression suddenly turned to rage, and she lunged at me, the Mist wearing off, revealing her to be a gorgon. I dodged to the right, and the other two ducked. I pulled out my bronze-coloured pen and removed the cap. As soon as the cap was gone, the pen elongated into a gleaming bronze sword. Anaklusmos, the sword my father had given me for my most recent birthday.

"Stheno," I said, glaring. I held my sword in front of my in an aggressive defensive stance, warning her to back off.

Her forked tongue slipped between her lips as she hissed. "Perseus Jackson. I cannot allow you to retrieve that Lightning Bolt. You will ruin my master's plans!" she exclaimed.

I narrowed my eyes. "Your master? A god?" I asked, trying to trick her into telling me.

"Me? Serve a god? Never! I serve a titan! The greatest titan! Foretold to rise again—" she screamed, right before I cut her in half, using her moment of distraction. She was talking crazy anyways. A titan rising? They were all gone for good. Still, I'd have to let the gods know about this new revelation.

"Well, that was easy. I would have expected a well-known monster to be smarter than that, but still, it's a monster," I said as I high-fived Travis. "Now, who wants a burger?" I asked, pointing at a fast food restaurant nearby. Travis raised his hand, causing me to chuckle.

We walked in and went up to the counter. Once we had all ordered, I paid the nice lady at the till, and she handed me a table number, smiling.

As we waited, I pulled out my wallet again. Opening it, I stared down at the photo of Artemis that I kept in there. On one side was a photo of all of the Olympians and me—including Hades and Hestia. And then the other side had a picture of Artemis and me alone.

I suddenly felt a presence very close to me and looked up. Annabeth was sitting beside me, looking over my shoulder. "You miss her don't you?" she asked. There was an edge in her voice, but I couldn't recognize it. I assumed that she was still mad at me from before when we had an argument about the Fates.

I nodded, looking back down at the photo. We had been laughing, because I had just told her a joke.

"You really like her," Annabeth observed. "More than a friend," she said, causing me to blush deep red.

"No! Of course not! W-we're friends! Partners in crime! You know...friends," I said, kicking Travis' shin since he was laughing behind his hands.

He yelped, and immediately shut up, grumbling about embarrassed lover boys. I gave him another kick, just to be sure.

Just then, our food arrived. I sighed, and grabbed my burger, fries, and coke. The others grabbed their food as well, eating happily. Annabeth had thankfully dropped the subject and ate her food, only giving me knowing looks now and then.

Once we finished eating, we stood up and left, walking west from there. I couldn't spare any more money on taxi fare or train tickets. We walked in an awkward silence, the only noise being the soft chirping of crickets and our footsteps.

We stopped in a clearing as it got too late for travelling by foot. I pulled out a tiny silver square that Artemis had given me and pulled the tiny tab. It expanded into a medium-sized tent and I walked in, changing into my pyjamas. As I walked out of the walk-in closet－which extended off from the tent with a curtain－I saw Annabeth and Travis walk into my tent, looking around in amazement. I couldn't blame them, as the tent was like something out of a Harry Potter book.

I only knew about the Harry Potter books because Athena had gotten the books for me on my tenth birthday, and had even translated them into Greek, saying that some good, hard literature would help me be more academic. I assume that she got them for me because she knew that it would be more interesting to me than the architecture books and encyclopedias she usually got for me.

"Welcome to my humble...uh...tent," I said, bowing, but just sending us into more awkward silence. "Well...make yourselves at home, I'm going to bed," I said.

Annabeth stopped me. "Shouldn't one of us stand guard?" she asked.

I shook my head. "No. This tent has a built in monster sensor, any time a monster gets close, my alarm will go off. And it won't even alert the monster because you can only hear it when you're inside the tent."

"Now, I need my beauty rest. Goodnight." I then retired to my curtained-off room and slid under the covers, falling into a peaceful sleep...

***

Published: Saturday, November 19, 2016

~CSP2708~