[Y/N's POV]
In short, it took me all of three minutes to pack. Plus maybe five minutes to get my stuff out. I grabbed my sword, put a few extra pairs of underwear and socks in a bag. I draped a flannel shirt over my camp one, and rolled the sleeves up my forearms. I also grabbed my bronze bracers and tightened them around my lower forearms.
Never hurts to have extra protection, especially on weaker parts of the body, even if it slightly limited my mobility. These were a joint work between me, and Hephaestus head counselor Charles Beckendorf. He did the metalwork and I was the moral support.
I was gifted a couple hundred dollars from Chiron, stuffed that into my bag and then I remembered I left my toothbrush.
But I didn't feel like running back to my place, so I just got a Hermes camper to steal me one and some toothpaste from the camp stores.
I reached the top of the hill, where Annabeth, Grover, and Percy were all waiting for me impatiently, with Argus and Chiron making their way up the hill as well.
Percy had a bag full of whatever crap he was given. Chiron gave each of us a canteen of nectar and a Ziploc bag full of ambrosia squares, to be used only in emergencies, if we were seriously hurt.
"It's good food," he reminded us. "It'll cure you of almost any injury, but it would very much kill mortals."
As expected, Annabeth was bringing her magic Yankees cap. She also had a book. I think it was something about architecture. She said it was to "pass the time." It was written in ancient Greek. I think it was the same book she was reading earlier this week. It wouldn't surprise me. It's a very thick book.
It hurt to be hit with. I took note of that. Don't annoy Annabeth on this trip. Wait until after.
Grover wore his fake feet and his pants to pass as human. He wore his green hat to cover up his horns. I heard his bag clinking around and I could only imagine how much tin was in there. I bet I could make a few dollars off of all of that.
He also had his reed pipes, which I tried my best not to bleed from the ears when he played. I loved him dearly, but man. He was not that good.
We trotted up the hill and past the pine tree. I laid a hand on it and said a silent prayer. I turned and took one last look at the place I had spent most of my life at, and took a brisk step through the barrier.
Down by the car, Chiron waited for us. Argus stood next to him. I liked Argus. He was a pretty cool dude, though I couldn't help but shiver when I saw him. He was covered in eyes and something about him having all those made me a little aggravated.
Chiron introduced Percy to Argus, and we got ready to get in the car. I heard manic footsteps racing through the grass behind us.
Luke made his presence known, carrying a pair of basketball shoes. "Hey!" he panted. "Glad I caught you."
Annabeth's face flushed, as it usually did when the Hermes head counselor was around. "Just wanted to say good luck," Luke told me. He turned to Percy with the shoes "And I thought... um, maybe you could use these, Percy."
Luke said, "Maia!"
White bird's wings sprouted out of the heels, startling Percy. He dropped the shoes, and the wings flapped on the ground.
"Awesome!" Grover said.
Luke smiled. "Those served me well when I was on my quest. Gift from Dad. Of course, I don't use them much these days...." His expression turned sad.
"Hey, man," Percy said. "Thanks."
"Listen, Percy..." Luke looked uncomfortable. "A lot of hopes are riding on you. So just... kill some monsters for me, okay?"
They shook hands. Luke patted Grover's head between his horns, then gave a good-bye hug to Annabeth, who looked like she was going to pass out.
He came up to me, gave a firm handshake, and waved goodbye to us when he walked out of sight down the hill.
After Luke was gone, I whispered to Annabeth. "Your brain is going to quit working if you don't stop hyperventilating."
"I am not hyperventilating." She snapped at me.
"You definitely are." Her face went back to red. I thought about the last capture the flag for a moment. Smirking, I turned to her again. I'd been sitting on this nugget of potential information for a few days.
"You tripped me during capture the flag so Luke could win didn't you?"
Her eyes widened. She starter stammering. "N-No. Nope..." I lifted an eyebrow. "I didn't mean to trip you that hard."
"Right, sure. Well, next time you want him to win, let me know instead of trying to break my wrist again, alright, Einstein?"
Her shoulders slumped. She crossed her arms and for a second I thought she might've tried stabbing me. Lucky for me though, she just huffed and left.
"Why do I bother trying with you, Y/N?"
She had a bit of a fit stomping down the hill. Argus shrugged and followed, his car keys jingled as he made his way down to the side of the road, where just about a week earlier, I met the Minotaur for the first time.
Sure, I didn't kill it. Percy did. But I was still there. I was still there!
Speaking of Percy, he gave Grover the flying shoes. He was so excited to put them on and take off until he went flying and dragging along the grass.
"Practice!" Chiron yelled. "You need practice young satyr."
Chiron gave Percy a whole spiel about how he wanted him to stay safe. He then gifted him the pen sword from earlier. Grover and Percy made their way down to the car. I went to join them, but Chiron put a hand on my shoulder. I sighed and turned to face him.
He had sadness in his eyes.
"Be safe, my boy. Alright?" he spoke somberly.
"I'll try my best." I smiled at him. I tried to turn and leave but he gripped my shoulder tighter, wheeling in front of me.
"Y/N, I want you to promise me, that you'll come back safe. Can you do that?" I'd never seen him this desperate for a yes. Not even when he was teaching New York's least intelligent private school kids.
"I will... Chiron. I will. I'll come back. Don't worry." He smiled sadly at me. I returned it somberly.
Patting me on the shoulder with both hands, he tightened my bracers quickly. He sent me on my way. I went down toward the car and rolled down the window, watching as Chiron shifted back to a centaur, and bid us farewell.
* * *
Argus drove us quickly through Long Island. Annabeth and Percy were arguing, and Grover had already made a considerable dent into his tin supplies.
"So far so good," Percy told Annabeth. "Ten miles and not a single monster."
"You ever heard of a jinx Percy?" I asked while watching the road fly past us. They continued to argue.
"It's bad luck to talk that way, seaweed brain."
"Remind me again. Why do you hate me so much?"
"I don't hate you."
"Could've fooled me."
She folded her cap of invisibility. "Look... we're just not supposed to get along, okay? Our parents are rivals."
"Why?"
She sighed. "How many reasons do you want? One time my mom caught Poseidon with his girlfriend in Athena's temple, which is hugely disrespectful. Another time, Athena and Poseidon competed to be the patron god for the city of Athens. Your dad created some stupid saltwater spring for his gift. My mom created the olive tree. The people saw that her gift was better, so they named the city after her."
"They must really like olives."
"Oh, forget it."
"Now, if she'd invented pizza, that I could understand."
"I said, forget it!"
"Oh for the love of the gods, you're giving me a major headache. Could you stop? For my own sanity? I beg of you." I whined.
They stopped arguing, but the tension was still thick enough that I could cut it with my sword. I rested my arm on a door and my head on my fist.
In the front seat, Argus smirked. He didn't say anything, but one blue eye on the back of his neck winked at me. I stared at him awkwardly, trying to get that weird image out of my mind. No matter how many crazy things I'd seen, Argus still weirded me out.
I'd been to New York once before, when I had gone to Olympus. Nothing had really changed since then. Traffic was still a mess. We'd gotten to Queens and sat in a standstill for a good while. The sun had started to set. I rolled down the window to feel the cool air, and then it started raining.
Argus dumped us at the same Greyhound station Percy had ditched me and Grover at.
"Does this place feel familiar, Percy?" I nudged him with my elbow. He just scratched the back of his neck as Grover tried to suppress his bleating.
I saw a picture of Percy taped to the wall. I chuckled and pointed it out to him. He swiftly ripped it down and crumpled the paper.
Argus kicked us out, gave us our bags and tickets and left. I waved goodbye and received one back thankfully. I put my bag on the shoulder as the others did the same.
Grover looked down the street with Percy. "You want to know why she married him, Percy?" Did not want to get involved in that conversation. Talking about family issues isn't exactly my A-game. So I tried the next best thing. Talking to Annabeth.
"So... Excited?" She just looked at me. Then she opened a map and looked at it instead. "What are you still mad at me for not telling you everything about the whole Olympus debacle?" She kept her face buried in the map.
I thought for a second about some conversation topics that might get her to stop being angry with me. How do you talk to someone who can probably figure out the secrets of the universe given a month. Like I said before. Her brain is scary. I settled on something that should work just fine. I turned to face her. She was studying the New York bus routes.
"Well... I guess I can't share my recently acquired, vast knowledge about the making of the Empire State Building then." I put my hands behind my back and rocked on my heels.
That got her interest. She folded the map back up and looked at me expectantly.
"Alright. What?"
Never thought I'd get this far. "Okay... well. Did you know. The building was the first to have-"
"Have a hundred floors. Yes. I did. Did you know, that it was built to compete with the-"
"The Chrysler Building! I do know that." She gave an impressed humph.
"I watched a Ken Burns documentary when I was at that school. It was better than trying to do English homework." I grimaced and she smirked at me.
We kept talking about certain architectural things with New York. Her eyes lit up with every new building we discussed. She looked like an unsupervised child in a candy store.
She told me a couple of facts about buildings in New York that really surprised me. Granted, the ones that didn't surprise me made no sense. 33 Thomas street sounded depressing. Some things were mentioned about Hearst Tower in Manhattan. That's a weird building.
The rain continued hammering down on us.
Eventually, we decided to play Hacky Sack with one of Grover's many apples. Annabeth was great. This really fed into my joke material about her being a surfer girl. I chose to keep that to myself for now so I wouldn't spoil the moment. Anyway, I was decent enough at the game. Took some warming up and a lot of trial and error, but I got the hang of it. Percy was... Getting better, to be polite.
Unfortunately, the game ended when I bumped the apple off my knee just a bit too close to Grover. Then... Well, blink and you miss it. Core and all the apple was gone. Sometimes I forget Grover's part goat. And then something like this happens.
His face burned furiously, he apologized frantically, but I could barely hear him over mine, Annabeth and Percy's laughter.
I doubled over, catching my breath and wiping a tear from my eye as the bus pulled up. Something strong hit my nose. I figured it was just the musk of a New York bus. Grover started looking around like a squirrel that spotted an acorn.
Percy leaned over and asked him about it.
"I don't know," he said tensely. "Maybe it's nothing."
I seriously hoped it was nothing. Mrs. Dodds was bad enough. And I was silently praying to whatever god would listen that we hadn't been jinxed.
We reached the back of the bus and put our bags up. Annabeth kept slapping her hat against her leg nervously.
She tensed and whispered to us as an old lady got onto the bus. She wore a velvet dress, gloves, and a malformed hat that looked like it was knit by a toddler. It shaded her face like a mask. She lifted her head.
My heart dropped when I saw her beady black eyes. Just our luck. Mrs Dodds. Percy did in fact jinx us. I put a hand over my face. Percy crouched low in his seat as Grover held his breath. Annabeth was ready for whatever. Except for when two more old ladies filed down the rows with Mrs. Dodds.
They looked exactly the same. Great. All three of them.
They sat in the front row, right behind the driver. The two on the aisle crossed their legs over the walkway, making an X. It was casual enough, but it sent a clear message: nobody leaves.
The bus pulled out of the station, and we headed through the slick streets of Manhattan.
"She didn't stay dead long," Percy whispered, a quiver present in his voice. "I thought you said they could be dispelled for a lifetime."
"I said if you're lucky," Annabeth said. "You're obviously not."
"All three of them," Grover whimpered. "Di immortales!"
"Percy what did you do to anger Tyche? Our luck should not be this bad!" I whisper yelled through clenched teeth. "What's the plan, Einstein?"
"It's okay," Annabeth said, obviously thinking hard. "The Furies. The three worst monsters from the Underworld. No problem. No problem. We'll just slip out the windows."
"They don't open," Grover moaned.
"A back exit?" she suggested.
"Nope. Not on this bus." I whispered, trying not to panic. Though, by that point, we were speeding toward the Lincoln tunnel, so a back exit wouldn't have been the best idea.
"They won't attack us with witnesses around," Percy all but whimpered. "Will they?"
"Remember the mist, Perce? It hides things from these 'witnesses.'" My heart was beating wildly.
"Mortals don't have good eyes," Annabeth spoke.
"Their brains can only process what they see through the Mist."
"They'll see three old ladies killing us, won't they?"
"Oh, they'll see something!" I seethed.
Annabeth thought about it. "Hard to say. But we can't count on mortals for help. Maybe an emergency exit in the roof?..."
We hit the Lincoln Tunnel, and the bus went dark except for the running lights down the aisle. It was eerily quiet without the sound of the rain.
Mrs. Dodds got up. In a flat voice, as if she'd rehearsed it, she announced to the whole bus: "I need to use the rest-room."
"So do I," said the second and third third sister.
They all started coming down the aisle.
"Fantastic." I muttered, trying to sink into the bus' seat.
"I've got it," Annabeth said. "Percy, take my hat."
"What?"
"You're the one they want. Turn invisible and go up the aisle. Let them pass you. Maybe you can get to the front and get away."
"But you guys-"
"They might not see us, Percy." I leaned towards him. "You're one of the big three's kids. Your scent might overpower them."
"I can't just leave you."
"Don't worry about us," Grover said. "Go!"
He reluctantly took the cap and vanished. I took a deep breath and leaned back in my seat, with a hand wrapped tightly on the hilt of my sword.
The furies neared us. Dodds sniffed and looked straight down the aisle. She must not have seen anything because she kept walking. Right past us. I nearly let out a sigh of relief. But then I heard their hideous wailing from the back row.
They weren't old ladies anymore. They took their true forms. The furies. Somehow uglier than before. They had turned into leather skinned, shriveled creatures with fiery whips and bats wings.
They had come right back to us, hissing, flailing their whips.
"Where is it? Where?"
I thought for a second. It? What did they mean by "It"?
The other people on the bus were screaming, cowering in their seats. They saw stuff. Not sure what, but it must've been scary.
"He's not here!" Annabeth yelled. "He's gone!"
The Furies raised their whips.
Annabeth drew her bronze knife. Grover grabbed a tin can from his snack bag and prepared to throw it. I pulled my blade out and readied for battle.
Suddenly the bus jerked left. We were all thrown to the right, and I, along with the furies, Grover and Annabeth, slammed into the windows.
"Hey!" the driver yelled. "Hey-whoa!"
The bus slammed into the side of the tunnel and screeched down the side, shooting down an exit off the highway. The furies screeched as we jostled for footing. I raised my sword and went to swing as we sped through countless stop lights.
The rain beat down on the bus as we were somehow still alive, despite ramming cars like a tank.
We managed to get to New Jersey now. I only knew that because Luke once described it to me. He was right. There was an unbelievable amount of nothing here.
The bus lurched. Someone had pulled the emergency brake. It wailed like a wounded animal and spun around. I was this close to vomiting. Then we crashed into the trees. I didn't vomit, but I definitely got whiplash. All of the passengers flooded out, and I held myself up, a hand gripping tightly into the bus' leather seats.
The furies regained their balance and brandished their whips at me, Annabeth and Grover. We all held our respective weapons.
Grover hurled a tin can and Annabeth swore at them in Greek. One of their whips were raised at me. They swung it. It wrapped around my bracer. It burned, badly. I pulled it towards me and hit it with the pommel of my sword. Luckily the whip came undone and stopped frying my arm.
Then Percy did one of the dumbest things I thought he ever could manage to do.
"Hey!" he yelled. Standing in the doorway holding the hat in his hand. Why he didn't leave, I'll never know. The furies turned to him.
The furies started crawling over the seats. The one that I guessed was Mrs. Dodds walked down the aisle toward him.
"Perseus Jackson," she hissed, sounding like someone from Georgia in the 1800's. "You have offended the gods. You shall die."
"I liked you better as a math teacher," he told her.
She growled at him, brandishing her whip. I looked at Annabeth and Grover. We stepped out from the seats, carefully towards them.
Percy took out the ballpoint pen he had used to kill Mrs. Dodds before. He uncapped it, and it opened into a shiny celestial bronze blade.
The Furies hesitated.
"Submit now," she hissed. "And you will not suffer eternal torment."
"Nice try," Percy told her.
"Percy, look out!" Annabeth cried.
Mrs. Dodds lashed her whip around his hand while the Furies lunged towards him.
Percy grappled with one and killed another, the fury exploding into dust. Annabeth grabbed Mrs. Dodds like a wrestler. That was pretty cool to see. Grover relieved her of her whip. "Ow!" he yelled. "Ow! Hot! Hot!"
I slashed my sword at the fury on top of Percy, showering him in monster dust. I grabbed his hand and helped him up.
Mrs. Dodds was trying to get Annabeth off her back. She kicked, clawed, hissed and bit, but Annabeth held on while Grover got Mrs. Dodds's legs tied up in her own whip. Finally they both shoved her backward into the aisle. Mrs. Dodds tried to get up, but she didn't have room to flap her bat wings, so she kept falling down.
"Zeus will destroy you!" she promised. "Hades will have your soul!"
"Braccas meas vescimini!" Percy yelled.
I have no idea what that meant. But I did know what it meant when I heard thunder rumbling loudly from outside. The hair on my neck rose and a smell like burning plastic filled the air.
"Everybody out!" I yelled. No one needed extra encouragement. We all raced down the aisle out of the bus and into the woods. I saw all of the other passengers moving around frantically.
"We're going to die!" A tourist in a Hawaiian shirt yelled out. Another tourist with a camera took pictures of us before we could conceal our weapons again. I both did and didn't want to know what they would see in the picture.
"Our bags!" Grover realized. "We left our-"
BOOM!!!
The bus exploded in a major blaze. The windows burst outward, showering us with glass. A huge crater was left in the roof. A loud screeching alerted me to the possibility that Mrs. Dodds wasn't quite dead yet.
"Run!" Annabeth said. "She's calling for reinforcements! We have to get out of here!"
We all barreled off the road and deep into the woods, leaving the metro inferno behind us and running off into the dark woodland ahead.