The Mortal God

II

Disclaimer: I do not own Percy Jackson and the Olympians or The Heroes of Olympus. Uncle Rick does.

Again, feeling out of the loop, Athena brought herself back into the conversation by coughing. This effectively ended the silent conversation between Minerva and Percy, who both looked at Athena.

"Well, while you get to doing that, I'll get to planning some schematics for you Percy, I'll present them for you to review, after you've approved of a design, I'll get with Hephaestus and we'll get to building. How's that sound?"

Percy nodded twice, being snapped out from Minerva's eyes brought him back to his solemn mood. "That sounds good. While you take care of that, Athena, I will stay in the library and start on reading some things I have in mind, meanwhile Minerva can go ahead and start working on the two extra wings."

Both nodded and began to walk away in their different directions. When they did Percy stayed behind, and began to look around to his surroundings. He realized that the jungle that he found himself in was covered in vegetation and creatures that were both mortal and mythical.

Percy crouched down and found a line of ants. Each ant followed the next and acted in autopilot, as if they shared a single conscious.

Percy looked closer when he noticed a particular ant that wants following the natural flow. It began to waver from the line and began eventually it started to go una totally different direction. The and began to walk weirdly and eventually froze.

What came next intrigued Percy. Black tentacle-like organisms began to sprout out of the ant. Parasites? Whatever it was, it had Percy thinking again about the meaning of life and it's value.

Life is supposed to be a gift. It's supposed to be beautiful and priceless. However, at the same, time it's within nature, not human nature, but nature as whole, to disregard the lives of others in order to benefit the individual.

Whether it's stepping on your coworkers back in order to get a promotion, or killing thousands in a war in order to gain wealth.

After a few more moments of contemplation, Percy stood back up and walked over to the library. There, Athena was found with a troubled look.

Her tipycal majestic and noble features were distorted by frustration. "What bothers you?"

This brought Athena's attention away from her planing and onto the demigod by her side. "It would seem that you've become quite comfortable with us gods now, huh?"

"If you're referencing to my manner of regarding you and Minerva as if you were my equal, it's because to me, you are." The words coming from Percy surprised Athena and even ticked her off a bit. However, she was curious as to why he would say such a thing to her face without a hint of emotion.

It held the same tone that teenagers' used with their single word responses to their parents whenever they get asked about anything.

It was a disregarding tone, almost as if he's in some way ignored the question. Once Percy saw Athena's reaction to the response, he decided that it would be tactful to further explain himself. "I am a demigod, and you are a goddess. Yeah, okay, but that no longer means anything to me. In all honesty, I'm stronger than most gods, and those that are strong enough, if they were to kill me, well they'd be doing me a favor."

Having explained himself, Percy made Athena felt guilty again. She nearly said something but last moment caught the letters by the tip of her tongue before they could escape. She thought for a second longer and finally nodded slowly, as if she'd reached some sort of epiphany.

Percy made his way up the stairs to the library's main door. In the tropical forest that they found themselves in, despite the many sounds from different creatures echoed throughout, each step Percy took resonated through the forest.