The birds were small, but they were fast, vicious, and surprisingly strong. They stormed across the space in a wave of feathers and claws, shredding more furniture, scattering the customers, and driving up the high scores on the Dance Dance Revolution machines.
And normally, Percy would have been sick to his stomach leaving his girlfriend to fight off monsters while he ran away, but when he was in his 8-year-old body being chased by killer chickens that she was having a ball whacking around with her thyrsus? He wasn't complaining.
And as the three of them barricaded themselves into a kid's playground, Cressida was actually having fun knocking chickens over. They made the funniest noises as they were airborne for a few seconds.
"You guys better not be chicken feed!" Cressida spat into her walkie as it began beeping inside her boots, telling her that someone was trying to contact her.
"Not yet. But I have a plan."
"How bad is it?" Cressida asked Annabeth as she jumped up on a table and began swinging at the chickens like she was a baseball player.
"Grover is gonna help you distract the chickens. Think you can grab a baby chick and meet us in the karaoke bar?"
"Strange request, but yeah. It's doable."
"Make sure you don't hurt the chickens!"
"I'm trying. But I may have made a few of them airborne."
"Great!" Annabeth huffed.
"Get to the karaoke bar!" Cressida returned before stuffing her walkie back into her shoe and jumping off the table and into the sea of chickens who had turned their attention to something else.
A half-man, half-goat, screaming, "SQUAWK! CLUCK! CLUCK!" at the top of his lungs.
Cressida took full advantage of the distraction as she made it to the coop to discover that the fence had lowered to about half its previous height, short enough to let the adults out but keep the baby chicks inside.
Her eyes scanned the chickens before they narrowed on the one from before that had been nicknamed Li'l Killer by her boyfriend. The chicken charged at her.
"Thank you for volunteering," she said before her eyes flamed purple and the chicken's charge stopped as it walked over to her and allowed her to pick it up. "Good Li'l Killer," she said as the chicken clucked in her arms and she tucked it under her arm before breaking into a sprint back towards the karaoke bar.
Annabeth and Percy were already there and Grover reached it about the same time she did. He had feathers stuck in his fur, and the back of his shirt was shredded like he'd been rolling around on a really dangerous mattress.
"That was super fun," he wheezed.
"Get the doors!" Annabeth ordered as the two boys grabbed the big mahogany panels and started sliding them together as Cressida petted the chicken in her arms.
The doors had just closed when the flock slammed against them and began to squawk in outrage. The panels shuddered and creaked and would only hold for so long.
"What now?" Grover asked, gasping for breath. And he looked like a terrified 8-year-old.
"Now comes the hard part," Annabeth said.
"That was the easy part?" Percy demanded.
Li'l Killer squawked in Cressida's arms as she heeded its request to put it down so it could go and peck at the pizza crumbs on the carpet as it ruffled its blood-covered feathers.
"This karaoke bar is Hebe's temple, right? Her inner sanctum?"
"And?" Percy said.
"On Hebe's holy days, petitioners used to come to her altar," Annabeth continued.
"That's right," Grover said. "They'd ask forgiveness, and Hebe would give them sanctuary."
"But this isn't her holy day, is it?" Percy asked. "No way we could be that lucky."
"Probably not," Annabeth said. "But we'll have to try."
The doors shuddered, bending inward under the weight of the evil poultry.
"Ok, then let's do this quickly," Cressida said as she clapped her hands together. "Grover and I will barricade the doors while you two find a song to sing."
"Song?" Percy stammered. "You want me to duet 'Enchanted' with Annabeth?!"
"No, an apology song, Seaweed Brain! We beg Hebe for forgiveness. Once she shows, we ask for sanctuary and a second chance," Annabeth explained.
"What if she refuses?"
Annabeth looked at Li'l Killer who was trying to peck Cressida's legs in a request to be picked up again. The girl just lifted the chick onto her shoulder as she and Grover got to work pushing tables and chairs and trash cans against the doors.
"Then I hope Plan Chick works. Otherwise, we're dead."
********************************
Under any other circumstances, Cressida would be crying with laughter as she watched her boyfriend belt out the lyrics to John Lennon's 'Jealous Guy.' But the killer chickens were really ruining the moment as she and Grover continued pushing things against the door.
The chicken was currently trying to hide in Cressida's hair as if to escape the awful sounds of Percy's singing. And even when Annabeth joined in, it didn't seem to get any better.
As they launched into the second chorus/curse, a whirlwind of glitter and prize tickets materialized in the middle of the dance floor. Hebe appeared, her fingers wedged in her ears. "Stop it! Stop it, already!"
The karaoke machine died. Li'l Killer seemed as if it could breathe again as Cressida moved the chick back into her arms. The doors stopped shaking as the army of chickens ceased its assault.
"O great and extremely young Hebe!" Percy said. "We are so sorry—"
"Especially Percy," Annabeth said.
"I am ninety percent of the sorry!" I agreed. "Please forgive us!"
Hebe glared. "If that song was supposed to be an apology, you should direct it to John Lennon."
"Please, grant us sanctuary from your wrathful hens!" Grover called from the doors.
"And please return us to our proper ages!" Annabeth said.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Hebe T'ed her hands in a time-out sign. "First you desecrate my karaoke machine, then you barrage me with requests? Why should I return you to your former ages?"
"Because . . ." Percy faltered. "Because you are generous and good, and also super young."
"We are petitioners at your altar," Annabeth said.
"Your holiest of holy karaoke stages!" Grover said. "Most sacred of disco boogie venues!"
Hebe stared at him.
"Too much?" Grover asked. "All we want is to leave here in peace, at our normal ages—so we can spread the word about the wonders and terrors of Hebe Jeebies!"
"And with a little information about the chalice of the gods, please," Percy said.
Annabeth kicked him in the shin, but it was too late.
Hebe bared her teeth. "There it is again. That insolence. That slander. Perhaps I did not send you far enough back into your childhood."
"Ok," came Cressida's irritated voice as she moved further into the room, stroking the chicken as an evil villain would do a cat. "I think I've had just about enough of this. So, how would you like it, if we returned you back to your childhood?" she asked and Hebe turned on her, rage in her expression.
"Just because you are immune to my blessing, Daughter of Dionysus, does not mean that you have any power in here."
Cressida just grinned a completely wicked grin as she continued stroking Li'l Killer. "Are you sure about that?"
"YES!" Hebe screamed as she stomped her go-go boots which suddenly came up to her hips like waders. "You are all so - so yucky!"
Cressida's smile continued to grow as she caught onto Annabeth's plan and Hebe began to shrink before their eyes. Her minidress became a maxi dress, the paisley hem puddling around her ankles. Her cheeks filled out with baby fat.
"What is happening?" She shook her now-tiny fists. "I don't wike it!"
She was younger than the trio were now - maybe seven years old.
"Don't look at me like that!" she cried, her lip quivering. "You're a big dummy!" She shrank to kindergarten size, and then became a toddler.
Hebe always had to be the youngest one in the room. Her powers were reacting to the presence of the chick. As a goddess, she should've been able to stop the process, but they'd either taken her by surprise or it was against her nature to make herself older.
She fell over, unable to walk. She started to crawl towards them, but then she fell sideways, squirming, and began to bawl. The goddess of youth was now the youngest in the room: a cranky newborn with a bright red face.
"What just happened?" Grover asked.
Annabeth strolled over and picked up the baby, swaddling her in Hebe's paisley dress. "Li'l Killer pulled juniority on Hebe." Annabeth tickled the goddess's chin. "But you are so adorable."
Hebe squirmed and grunted. She tried to bite Annabeth's finger, but she didn't have any teeth.
"Now hold on," Annabeth told the baby. "I know you're fussy, but I'm sure you're not making an age-based complaint, are you? The chickens wouldn't like that."
Baby Hebe became very still.
"Great," Annabeth said. "Then here's what I suggest. We agree that some young ages are just too young. Then we remove Li'l Killer from the room so you can age yourself back up to at least elementary school. Then you accept our apology, put us back to our normal ages, tell us whatever you know about the chalice of the gods, and we all go our separate ways. Gurgle once for yes. Poop yourself for no."
Hebe gurgled. It might have been just a random gurgle, but Annabeth seemed to accept it as a promise.
"Grapes? Would you mind?"
"Not at all," Cressida replied as she stared down at the chicken. "Time to go back, little one."
The chicken seemed to make a sad squawk, reluctant to leave her arms.
"I'm sure you'll be fed more pizza. Now off you go," she responded, seeming to know what the chicken had said to her, but then again, her eyes were flaming purple so they supposed that she could see what the chicken was thinking.
Li'l Killer trotted to the doors and wriggled through one of the beak holes the hens had made. Judging from the clucking sounds outside, the hens welcomed the chick as a conquering hero. Then their cackling got fainter as they retreated to their pen. Supposedly, Li'l Killer had spread the word that we'd agreed upon a cease-fire.
Immediately, Hebe began to grow. Annabeth quickly set her down. We watched as the baby fast-forwarded into a kindergartner, then a fifth grader, and finally stood before us as the angriest-looking high schooler ever.
"You four . . ." she growled.
"We apologize, Great Hebe," Annabeth said.
"I don't," Cressida said, and Annabeth glared at her because not all of them had the protection of Dionysus.
"And ask for sanctuary."
"And information," Percy added.
Annabeth elbowed him.
"Please," he added.
The goddess fumed. She snapped her fingers, and suddenly they were their normal ages again.
"Thank the gods for that," Cressida said as she smiled at her teenage boyfriend once more.
"Amen," Percy agreed as he felt his body just to make sure everything was back to normal.
"You're lucky I like John Lennon," the goddess muttered. "Sit, and I will tell you what I know. But you aren't going to like it."
"You must go to the farmers' market," Hebe said as if she were sending them off for a particularly heinous round of standardized testing. They were sitting around the booth again, enjoying a second serving of pizza.
Grover swallowed a mouthful of greasy paper plate. "What's so bad about a farmers' market?"
The goddess wrinkled her nose. "Iris got it into her head that her organic store in California wasn't sufficient. Now she has to share her wares with the whole world! You'll find her hawking crystals and incense and Zeus knows what else this Saturday in front of Lincoln Centre."
But Annabeth narrowed her eyes. She studied Hebe as if the goddess might attack them with glitter again. "You think Iris took the chalice, then?"
Hebe shrugged. "That's for you to determine. All I can tell you is that it wasn't me, and Iris is the only other person who has ever served as divine cupbearer. Perhaps, behind that rainbow peace-and-love facade, she hates Ganymede more than she lets on."
"I've met Iris," Percy said. "She didn't seem spiteful."
"And I do?" Hebe asked and Percy wisely kept his mouth shut.
"Thank you for your guidance, Great Hebe," Annabeth said. "We ask your permission to leave here in peace."
"Hmph." The goddess crossed her arms. "Very well. But no prize tickets for you."
Grover cleared his throat, as you do when you've been eating greasy paper plates. "And, um . . . you won't tell anyone about the chalice situation?"
Hebe scoffed. "Of course not. I can't wait to see Ganymede fall on his face at the next feast and get blasted to ashes by Zeus. But mark my words: if you offend Iris the way you offended me, you will not escape so easily. You're going to wish you stayed small children."
Hebe then went off to welcome a group of millennials who were going to relive the 90's with Spice Girls karaoke and the group of four made for the exit. The three of them who had just recovered from being younged, were undoubtedly tense until they made it back into Times Square.
At the subway station, the couple went separate ways with their friends, all of them understandably shaken.
"Are you ok?" Cressida asked him as they sat beside each other as the subway rattled along.
"I don't - I don't know. I mean, yeah, I was still 17 in my head, but being 8 years old again - I don't know. It's all just a lot to process. I couldn't even use Riptide."
Percy leaned his head on her shoulder as Cressida kissed his head. "I know it was a bit of a shock, and that we've been through a lot of crappy things at such a young age, but I don't think I'm the best person to be talking to about this."
"Really?"
"Well, I mean, we only met when you were 12 years old. And beyond me, there's only one person who knows you better than I do. Your mom."
Percy groaned as he buried his face further into her neck. "You know I hate telling my mom all this crap. She already worries too much and she's pregnant."
"I know you do, Aquaman, but you need to talk to someone about it. And this was one of our more G-rated quests. I just want you to be ok."
Percy craned his neck back to look up at her. "I love you for taking care of me."
"Love you too," she returned as she pecked his lips and they sat like that until they reached their stop.