❝𝘴-𝘴𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘵 𝘢𝘨𝘢𝘪𝘯❞
❝𝙞 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚 𝙮𝙤𝙪.❞
𝗣𝗘𝗥𝗖𝗬 𝗝𝗔𝗖𝗞𝗦𝗢𝗡 had met a lot of people and he had seen a lot of things that had caught his eyes. But she was a different story. The girl with the long hair was just someone he coul...
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XXXV. THE DAY YOU LEFT ME AND I COULD TELL THROUGH THOSE EYES
━━━━━━
"But I still want to hold onto it,
wherever you are I'll find you"
FOR A SHORT, TERRIBLE MOMENT, they had thought that they had actually lost the stupid mechanical spider until Tyson had heard a faint pinging sound in the distance. They made a couple of turns and backtracked a few times when eventually, they caught sight of the annoying spider banging its tiny heads against a metal door.
Dodie studied it for a moment; the door resembled one of those old-fashioned submarine hatches you'd usually in a museum — you know, oval and with metal rivets around the edges and a wheel for a doorknob. Where the portal should've been was a big brass plaque, green with age, with a Greek Ȇta inscribed in the middle. They all looked at each other.
"Is this... is this actually it? If it is, isn't this kinda a bit... anti-climatic?" said Dodie, perplexed.
"It is," Annabeth confirmed.
"Ready to meet Hephaestus?" Grover said nervously.
"No," Percy admitted.
"Yes!" Tyson said gleefully, and he turned the wheel.
As soon as the door opened, the spider scuttled inside with Tyson right behind it. The rest of them followed, not quite as anxious.
It almost didn't feet like they were somewhere in the Labyrinth... again. The room was ginormous — it looked like a mechanic's garage almost, with a several hydraulic lifts. Some held cars, while others contained peculiar creations – a bronze hippalektryon with its detached horse head and exposed rooster tail, a metallic lion tethered to a battery charger, and a Greek war chariot ablaze with flames. Worktables were cluttered with various projects, and tools adorned the walls, each pegged on a Peg-Board outline, but nothing was where it should be. Hammers were misplaced alongside screwdrivers, and staple guns resided where hacksaws belonged. Beneath the nearest hydraulic lift, supporting a '98 Toyota Corolla, protruded the lower half of a colossal man in dingy grey pants, sporting shoes even larger than Tyson's. One leg was encased in a metal brace.
The spider scuttled straight beneath the car, and the banging sounds ceased immediately.
"Well, well," A deep voice emerged from under the Corolla. "What have we here?"
The mechanic rolled out on a back trolley and sat upright. Dodie had glimpsed of Hephaestus a few times, albeit briefly on Olympus, and she thought she was prepared for their reunion, thinking she had his appearance in mind already. However, she was unequivocally wrong.
