Daughter Of Lightning - Book 1(Percy Jackson x OC fanfic)

CHAPTER 33 (Part-1)

(Percy's POV)

A Coast Guard boat picked us up, but they were too busy to keep us for long, or to wonder how three kids in street clothes had gotten out into the middle of the bay. There was a disaster to mop up.

Their radios were jammed with distress calls. They dropped us off at the Santa Monica Pier with towels around our shoulders & water bottles that said I’M A JUNIOR COAST GUARD! & sped off to save more people.

Our clothes were sopping wet, even mine. When the boat had appeared, I’d silently prayed they wouldn’t pick me out of the water & find me perfectly dry, which might’ve raised eyebrows. So I’d willed myself to get soaked. Sure enough, my usual waterproof magic had abandoned me. I was barefoot too, since I’d given my shoes to Grover. Better the Coast Guard wonder why one of us was barefoot than wonder why one of us had hooves.

After reaching dry land, we stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise. I felt like I'd just come back from the dead-which I had. My bag was heavy with Zeus’s master bolt. My heart was even heavier from seeing my mother.

"I don’t believe it," Annabeth said. "We went all that way-"

"It was a trick," I said. "A strategy worthy of Athena."

"Hey," she warned.

"You get it, don’t you?" She dropped her eyes, her anger fading. "Yeah. I get it."

"Well, I don’t!" Grover complained. "Would somebody-"

Nora was silently thinking about something while we spoke.

"Percy..." Annabeth said. "I'm sorry about your mother. I’m so sorry..."

I pretended not to hear her. If I talked about my mother, I would start crying like a kid.

"The prophecy was right," I said. "You shall go west & face the god who turned.' But it wasn’t Hades. He didn’t want war among the Big Three. Someone else did the theft. Someone stole Zeus's master bolt, & Hades’s helm, & framed me because I’m Poseidon's kid. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown, there will be a three-way war. And I’ll have caused it."

Grover shook his head, mystified. "But who would be that sneaky? Who would want war that bad?"

I stopped in my tracks, looking down the beach. "Gee, let me think."

There he was, waiting for us, in his black leather duster & his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its headlight turning the sand red.

"Hey, kid," Ares said, seeming genuinely pleased to see me. "You're supposed to die."

"You tricked me," I said. "You stole the helm & the master bolt."

Ares grinned. "Well, now, I didn’t steal them personally. Gods taking each other's symbols of power-that’s a big no-no. But you’re not the only hero who can run errands."

"Who did you use? Clarisse? She was there at the winter solstice."

The idea seemed to amuse him. "Doesn’t matter. The point is, kid, you’ve got to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad at Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus’s master bolt, so Zeus’ll be mad at him. And Hades is still looking for this..."

From his pocket he took out a ski cap-the kind bank robbers wear-& placed it between the handlebars of his bike. Immediately, it transformed into a bronze war helmet.

"The helm of darkness," Nora gasped.

"Exactly," Ares said. "Where was I? Oh yeah, Hades will be mad at both Zeus & Poseidon, cause he doesn’t know who took this. Soon, we got a nice little three-way slugfest going."