Clint's POV
I had just returned from my shift at the school, when Tony ran into the kitchen. "Ah good there's someone in here. I've been looking for one of you guys for ages, but for some reason everyone seems to be doing something." I tried to stifle a laugh at Tony's forlorn words, knowing full well that he had probably been wrapped up in researching and forgot that everyone was following the schedule he had set up. "Anyway I've literally just had a text from that girl – Annabeth Chase." Suddenly Tony had my full attention. He flashed the phone at me which allowed me to read the full message.
Hello. Presumably this message has reached Tony the man we spoke with over the phone. We have received confirmation from our families and friends as to how much we can tell you. We can meet you at the house we took Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff to before at 5pm. You should already have the address. We'll expect at least one of the people we previously met to come, to ensure we are giving the correct people this information, but otherwise you can bring who you want, and as many – or as few- people as you prefer. Once you are at the house you can use whatever technology you wish to broadcast or record the conversation for the other members of your team/s as long as you promise not to reveal our secrets to others unless necessary. Thanks, AC
"Soooo?" Tony drew out the sound of the questioning word. "Are you down to come with me in an hour?" I need to find either Natasha or Steve, but I thought I'd just text out her message to all the others, and see who turned up."
"Tony, Nat and Steve and have been out keeping an eye on those guys. They seem to have a routine of studying at the library and then heading either home, or to visit Elsie. They're probably on their way to Elsie's house now. And Bruce is upstairs, we both just got back from our shift. He'd probably like to come, we can ask through JARVIS in a minute. We know that Thor isn't even on the planet right now, so it seems unlikely that he would be able to join us, but otherwise I think we'd all go. Give me five minutes, and then we should really start driving over - traffic at this time of day is horrific."
Within five minutes Bruce and I were strapped into the back of a car, whilst Tony drove us towards the address Steve and Natasha had been teleported to the other day. We'd agreed to meet the others there, and sure enough when we pulled up outside the house at just past five o'clock Steve and Natasha were sitting on the sidewalk, backs pressed upon a brick wall.
"Hey guys," Steve greeted us, Natasha offering a silent nod in our direction. "Percy and Annabeth arrived about half an hour ago, and said that as soon as you guys appeared to just head in." They both got up from where they were sitting on the floor, and began to walk up the path, not even bothering to look back to see if we were following them. After a second I shrugged and followed them, sensing rather than hearing Tony and Bruce's movement behind me. Crowding around the front door we were about to knock when the door swung open, revealing Annabeth on the other side.
"I take it this is all of you?" She asked, gesturing us to head towards the back of the house once she heard Tony's positive confirmation of our numbers. I recognised the glass conservatory from the video footage taken from Steve and Natasha. It seemed that this was the unofficial meeting space in this house. "Percy is just making some food for Elsie, he'll join us in a minute. Till then, can I get you anything to drink?" After listening to the numerous requests for coffee Annabeth slipped out of the room to prepare our drinks, leaving us to awkwardly stare at each other.
Thankfully Percy poked his head into the room within minutes, then bringing in several mugs on a tray. As he placed each mug on the table he listed off what was in it, allowing each person to take the drink intended for them. Just as he was handing out the last drink Annabeth came in holding two bottle of Gatorade, handing a blue one to Percy. He tried to hide the little smile that the sight of the blue drink brought to his face, but all it did was make me curious as to what about the colour blue made him so happy. The two of them made eye contact briefly before pulling themselves up to sit on one of the window ledges. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Tony take theopportunity to turn on his camera, to record whatever the teens were about tosay.
"So," Annabeth started, taking a small sip of Gatorade. "We have something to explain to you, but it is going to sound rather farfetched. So I ask that you let us get through the basics before you interrupt with any questions." After a second Percy let out a snigger before muttering something in another language. "You sound like a teacher asking them to leave their questions till the end, are you gonna grade their homework next?" Annabeth let the corner of her mouth be tugged up into the beginning of a smile before restoring her neutral expression, and shoving Percy off the window ledge. Despite the loud thump as Percy hit the floor neither of the teens seemed to care too much about the injuries that fall could have caused, Annabeth taking the moment of silence to continue what she was saying. Percy seemed content to continue laying on the floor, propping his legs up on the window ledge he'd been on moments before.
"There's no easy way to start this off so I'm just going to say it. My Mom, and Percy's Dad, are not human. Which makes both of us only half human. However we are more commonly known by the term Demigod, because we are descended from Greek Gods, and Goddesses." Annabeth paused, taking in the shock that was clearly plastered across each of our faces. "I am a daughter of Athena, the Goddess of Wisdom, battle strategy and a bunch of other things. It means that I excel at academics, despite my dyslexia, and that battle strategy is one of my strengths. Whilst my school record has me as smart, my abilities are hindered by dyslexia, a condition caused in part by me being a descendant of a Greek Goddess. And Percy's biological dad is a Greek God." She kicked Percy in the shin, prompting him to introduce himself.
"Oh yes, hey. I am a son of Poseidon the Greek God of the sea, storms, earthquakes, droughts, floods and horses. There's probably something I've forgotten in his title, but you get the general gist of it. That allows me some control over water, and the ability to talk to horses, and some sea creatures. Although seemingly not sea cows – which is a great story but probably too much to take in right now."
Again, Annabeth allowed us a minute or two to silently take in what we had just been told before continuing. "As demigod's we are the primary target for the enemies our godly parents have made. Whilst our Godly parents are either immortal, or incredibly hard to kill, demigods are actually quite easy to kill. So as young children there are basically three options for you. Either you're lucky enough to be found by someone looking for demigods, and taken to safety, killed by monsters, or are somehow able to evade the monsters notice till you are old enough to defend yourselves. The final outcome is incredibly unlikely, especially for those who either don't have a family to support and keep them safe, or are unaware of their godly parentage. Unfortunately for many demigods, especially those unaware that they are demigods, they will unknowingly be broadcasting a signal to monsters. Like we told some of you the other day technology acts as a signal booster to us, which is why many demigods unknowingly become targets for monsters. This usually results in deaths, or injuries, unless a scout from our camp is able to find them. Percy here is a rare example of the third option, because his mom Sally was aware of who his father actually was. She stayed in a relationship with a man whose soul had such a toxic smell that it hid Percy from monsters till he was twelve."
Annabeth took another sip of her drink, before looking expectantly at us. "I think that's enough of the basics out of the way that if you have any questions Percy and I can try our best to answer them – but I can't guarantee that we'll know all the answers. We don't tend to know much more than the basics about ourselves, but we should be able to contact our camp leader if there's anything we don't know."
Immediately Tony rattled off several questions which I tried my best to listen to the answers to, but I was too busy trying to process everything I had just learnt. Until I heard Tony loudly ask Percy to show us what he meant by 'control over water' Suddenly I was interested again, and turned back to the teen, to see him catch a water bottle Annabeth must've brought in with her initially.
"Well typically I wouldn't use water out of a bottle, I would either use water vapour In the air, or large bodies like lakes or the sea, but this will be the most convenient way of showing you." He sat up, placing the open bottle of water in between his legs. After a few seconds where I felt like a huge prank was being pulled on me, I was shocked to see the water in the bottle begin to rise, and exit the bottle, into the air above. Slowly the water thinned out till it was in a shallow layer, and then began to shape its form to that like a hand. The water shape waved back and forth, essentially waving at me. "I can do more useful stuff with it too, for instance if I wanted to I could will myself to say dry when its raining, or when swimming, though that wouldn't be very subtle of me. I would list all of my water related abilities, but I think that might be a lot to take in." The water that had been swaying back and forth in the air returned to the bottle, allowing Percy to neatly screw the lid back on.
Annabeth glanced at her watch, and pulled out her phone. "A friend of ours sent over some weapons for you that will work against monsters, so he's going to iris message us to explain how you need to use them. He seemed to have a rough idea of who you are, and your preferred weapons, so he basically adapted or added to what he knows you have or use. Iris messaging is a way we use to communicate through a God, so it doesn't increase the demigod scent, or signal, like communicating through technology does." She dialled a number on her phone, before keying in a short message. "He should message us in a minute, and he'll be able to explain what you guys need to do with the random shit he sent us. Percy can you go and grab the bag of stuff, I left it in my school bag."
There was a minute of quiet whilst we waited for Percy to return. As he walked back into the conservatory, carrying a small drawstring bag, the air in front of Annabeth began to flicker, an image of a Hispanic boy, with wild curly brown hair, appearing out of nowhere. "Leo," Annabeth and Percy chorused. "Hey guys," The boy called back, fiddling with what looked like a pile of scrap metal, and some bolts. "Hang on Leo, I'm going to move where I'm sitting so that all these guys can see you properly. At the moment I'm the only one who can really see you." Annabeth moved to sit on the floor next to Percy, facing where the boy was still fiddling with his metal scraps. He looked up after a few more awkward moments of silence, to see us all looking at him expectantly.
"Okaay, so hey guys. I did some basic research on you guys, and by the way the Avengers is a pretty cool superhero group name – okay I'm distracted, one second, I'll get back on track. I found your usual weapons, and I thought of some ways to adapt the ones necessary to damage Greek monsters too. Annabeth did you explain the whole celestial bronze thing yet, or do I need to do that?"
Annabeth shook her head, and gestured for Leo to continue. "Oh- okay. So Greek monsters can only be harmed by two types of metal – celestial bronze, or imperial gold. Typically we work with bronze, but we do sometimes use gold weapons, or work with imperial gold, its just a little harder to come by. These metals can also harm demigods, due to their Godly half, which suck ASS. However demigods can also be harmed by all the normal stuff that harms humans, because of their human half, which double sucks. It's part the reason that demigod lifespans are usually pretty short, because everything is dangerous. Did I miss anything, guys?" he asked, aiming his question down towards Percy and Annabeth.
"I think you got everything you needed to say Leo," Percy replied. "There's not much else that I can think of. Oh I suppose that now would be a good time to explain that monsters respawn. A certain amount of time after a specific monster is killed – for instance Steve and Natasha met Tammi, an empousa we've encountered frequently – they will respawn somewhere. Typically they respawn somewhere with a high demigod scent, but it can be random too. It's another reason that being a demigod sucks."
Leo was nodding along with Percy's words, before realising that everyone's attention had returned to him. "So basically because celestial bronze doesn't harm humans, I had to make either additions to existing weapons or removable covers for things. So for Natasha, I know that you like using guns so I tried making some bullets, but I'm not sure how effective they'll be. Let me know what they're like and I'll try to improve them for the next round. I've never had a chance to work with bullets before, so it'll be exciting to see how I did. However for now I crafted two bronze skins, and one bronze dagger. You should be able to slide the skins over your average size 5 or 6 inch long dagger, and so if there are multiple targets, where only some are monsters, that should work, as the celestial bronze part will pass through a human, whilst the actual weapon will still hurt them. The covers should mold, to an extent, to your weapon so don't worry too much about whether it'll be sharp enough." The smile on his face, and the excitement in his voice, made it seem like he was talking about toys and gadgets, rather than deadly weapons. He actually reminded me of Natasha in that sense. Percy, who had been digging around in the drawstring bag reached up to place the items their friend had described on the table.
"Steve I couldn't find an accurate description of the exact diameter of your shield, so I made a cover that should shrink to the size of your shield, and when you press a button to remove it it would grow again. It's a thin enough layer that it should just give your shield a slight gold glow, you should still see the design on it, through the cover. And for Clint I included some spray celestial bronze, and a few premade arrow heads. You should be able to cover your arrows in the sprayable bronze, and if you send me the exact size of your arrow heads Will and I should be able to custom make some for you. Will also should have put a few of his arrows in, so that you can look at our typical design, and specify the changes you would want on custom ones"
Once again Leo waited for Percy to hand out the weapons he had described, before starting to speak again. I just about registered him telling Tony and Bruce that their weapons – as primarily focused on force, would be effective regardless of any bronze additions before zoning out. I was so focused on examining the bronze arrow heads, which were a little heavier than my usual metal tips, that Steve nudging my side a few minutes later made me jolt in surprise. "Clint Annabeth just removed the mist from us all again, and we're heading back to the tower now. She's said until they can contact a friend of theirs – Hazel - the effects will be temporary, so they'll check up on us in a few days, and remove the mist again. Till then we're just going to go away and process, and then they'll tell us a bit more about them, and their camp, when we meet up again."
Walkingout of their house I caught a glimpse of what appeared to be a large amount ofmeal prep going on in the kitchen. Surely these guys weren't the sole peopletaking care of Annabeth's great aunt? From the extensive pile of Tupperware onthe table it seemed like Percy hadn't just been preparing one meal for Elsiewhen we had arrived, but more like several days' worth of meals. I tucked that informationinto the back of my brain, and headed towards the car I had arrived in.Suddenly I was aware of the fact that there would be three people squashed onone row, whilst one lucky individual would be shotgun. It seemed that theothers around me came to the same realisation as I began to sprint towards thepassenger door, hearing several heavy footfalls behind me. Oh boy, did I hopethat everyone had put on deodorant this morning.
Hey guys!
I am aware that there's been a bit of a gap between updates recently and I would like to apologise. I promised regular updates, but I don't have the time right now to make sure an update comes out every weekend. For those of you who are unaware as I am writing this (28/09/2018) I am coming to the end of my first week at university. I've struggled to find enough time to write a decent chapter last week, and this week, and I haven't even had any proper assignments/ exams to prepare for yet. I will be trying my best to get out content, but I can't promise that it will be weekly. However I will be trying to at least reply to comments every week, even if there is not enough time to write a chapter, so I hope you leave some comments :)
I can sense that I've started to ramble so heres a TLDR: there'll be sporadic updates for a while, because of things. I'm trying to get on track, but no promises.
Thank you guys for all your continued support ( I can't believe that not only have PJMTA still on the # pjo ranking, at number 3, despite my lack of recent posts, but also that it hit 3k reads!) Your support means so much to me <3
- Emily