Chapter Text
There is a reason I am strictly against flying.
Planes hate me for what I bring to the economic size table: a well-documented record of misfortune incidents starring one son of Poseidon and one handful of Olympian curses, lightning bolts and promises of painful deaths.
My presence caused enough trouble while on Argo II to confirm Zeus’ still jarring aggravation whenever I’m in the sky, especially high up.
It’s only natural that after all these bad, and frankly very educational experiences my feet like to stay firmly rooted down to the ground.
The problem was; my preferences meant very little when a giant eagle kidnapped me after class.
Surprisingly, the day mostly started out okay.
Odd and pretty uncommon for someone trying to stay afloat in classes they haven’t attended for a year of memory loss and war.
Normally I’d get up, freshen up, eat breakfast and then fall into an existential crisis over the three forgotten assignments my ADHD kindly erased from my memory. Sometimes, I’d even forget that I have school altogether. Except this morning was a little different.
Opening my sleep-heavy eyes, I was met by the most beautiful face in the entire world, and all the thoughts of potential failure faded away into nothingness. Annabeth was right next to me, asleep. Her hair, all tangled up, was a mountain of golden curls obstructing my vision. She snuggled against my famous, dolphin blue blanket, which only my most treasured guests had the honour of ever witnessing.
Her presence in our flat was always welcome.
Mom was glad of the company, clearly appreciating her intellect and sarcastic nature. They often talked about stuff I was not invited to discuss, which was a good thing supposedly. It did, however, worry me they could secretly be laughing at me or something.
For other obvious reasons, I was also glad she spent time with me. I love her so much.
Annabeth moved a little.
“Mmhm”, she muttered softly. “Percy?”
“That’s me”, I chuckled, smiling wildly when she opened her eyes, her expression adorably bewildered.
A gaze of sharp gray eyes slowly met mine, as her brain took a moment to realize she was awake. Then, her eyes flashed attentively, looking at something behind me. I completely forgot, that even half-awake my girlfriend was a hundred times more observant than I could ever hope to be.
“You overslept.”
I turned around to look at the clock.
“Oh crap.”
So much for laying there forever.
Credit where credit is due. I have a knack for forgetting about school, but I’m very talented at getting ready quickly.
In the five minutes it took me to get dressed, pack and devour a sandwich Paul left in the fridge yesterday, Annabeth got up herself and helped me find the biology textbook, I so haphazardly left lying behind the door. I probably wouldn’t have found it on my own, running around Mom’s apartment like Mrs. O'leary herself was chasing me.
“Here”, said Annabeth, handing it over, and I stuffed it all into my backpack. The weight of the textbook she gave me was almost enough to make me want to abandon this cursed Friday and stay with her at home, but before I could even voice any doubts, she read right through my expression, and assured me:
“I know, but you can survive one more day, drama queen. And after you’re all done revising osmosis and cell biology, we can have a movie night, what do you say?”
“Alright, wise girl”, I smiled, trying to hide the fact that I forgot what osmosis was again.
I was only 20 minutes late to class.
Pretty good, considering I didn’t always have a safe route to get there, without getting into demigod trouble.
Even my teacher had little to no objections, aside from a slightly disappointed glare he sent me while I was trying to quietly sneak in.
Hours later, after lessons and lessons and lessons that made me want to scream, but also made me increasingly more confused, I honestly felt like I never wanted Mr. Thomas to explain osmosis again. It was enough that my notes swam across the pages, and the people in my class sent glances of annoyance at my bouncing leg. Still, that comforting promise of a worry-free weekend with my other half made it all seem a lot less… discouraging. It helped me get through math, that’s for sure.
When I walked out of the building, again a free man, I was utterly exhausted. Sure, you can throw me into battle and make me run for miles, but nothing tires me out like paying attention for hours on end.
Maybe it was because of that brain-deep fatigue. Maybe the slight hunger from having skipped lunch. Or maybe just my bad luck, that I didn’t see the huge shadow traveling across the school patio's pavement, approaching like a shadow bogey monster.
In a breathless moment, a threatning, golden claw appeared right above me, and before I could do so much as step back, grabbed me in a violent clutch.
Needless to say, I screamed.
Very loudly, may I add, because, in just a couple of seconds, I was twenty meters above the ground, with metal talons digging into my ribs.
I desperately tried to free myself, but my tugging only made the creature that so rudely kidnapped me, more angry.
And what a creature it was. When it screamed in a screechy, dry call after I tried to wiggle out of its claws, its voice almost ruptured my eardrums. With hair hitting me in the face, and the sky and the ground twisting and turning, it was difficult to understand what exactly happened. I then looked up to face the feathered belly of the thing, and it became very clear I was carried by a Lord of the Rings size eagle.
Its enormous body was sprinkled with specks of gold throughout its mostly white and grey plumage. The beak, slender and as long as my entire arm, glinted brightly in the sunlight, almost as if it was coated by gold. And then there were the eyes; dark little holes mounted just low enough for me to see. The intense glare, filled to the brim with something like hunger, or maybe murderous intent, rang alarm bells in my head.
I desperately searched within my mythology knowledge, looking for any sort of bird that had a taste for abducting demigods, but when I looked back down, that stopped being the most important thing at the moment.
We were ascending into the clouded sky so quickly, that I could barely see my school now. My immediate thought was, Holy cow, Zeus. I am going to die a fried man.
My second thought was, Annabeth wanted to do a movie marathon.
After that, It took me a few seconds to finally fumble for Riptide and assess my situation.
The eagle was holding me with one of its huge claws in a closed, three-talon grip. The ground was looking miniature. If I would fall now, I’d die. Even if I managed to fall near some fountain, where I could cushion the fall, I knew for a fact, there wasn’t any near enough. Although one thing was for sure; godly interference, a hungry monster or just a weirdly big eagle, it sure was taking me somewhere undesirable. The eagle was also dead-set on getting me exactly where I shouldn’t be, or rather already was; Zeus’ domain. I could have sworn, my hair started standing up.
“Hey!”, I shouted over the wind howling in my ears. “Put me down, you big pigeon!”
It screeched again, the noise drilling into my head like a lecture on osmosis, but it didn’t proceed with any human-like noises. Voiceless then. If I was lucky, maybe it wasn't intelligent enough to know, I was about to do something a little crazy.
With a swing of Riptide, I slashed at the claws, simultaneously gripping tightly at the bird's legs.
One moment I was clenched tightly in its grip, and then the eagle's claw let go and my legs hung free a hundred meters above Manhattan.
I have to admit, my heart wasn’t taking so much stress in one day lightly.
With one hand in a death grip around the slightly hairy leg, I tucked my sword away with the other and then started climbing. As I managed to get as high as the bird's chest, its centre of mass shifted, and it started slightly dipping its steep flight upwards. The bird’s big head ducked momentarily towards me in confusion.
“That’s right! We’re going down, mister!”, I screamed over the noise, no nervousness at a vision of a possible death in my voice. None at all.
The bird, however, didn’t seem to be a fan of my messy schemes, because it suddenly steered sharply right.
My previous comment about pigeon brains might have been more accurate than I meant it, because the way it flew, it was almost like it wanted us to hit the building right in front…
CRASH
We collided with the glass window of a skyscraper, and my vision went momentarily white.
I was tossed into a cubicle office space, flying over a dozen employees, before unceremoniously, and very violently, may I add, hitting the far-end wall of the grey office.
My world spun.
Faintly, I felt something warm trickle down my head, and it wasn’t the office-free complimentary coffee.
When the ringing in my ears slowly started easing out, I heard the commotion and people screaming around me. Also, the horrible screech of one, very angry pigeon.
Terrified by whatever it looked like to mortals, the room quickly became empty, as people tossed their things where they stood and started running for the elevators. On the other end of the room, unharmed by the ungraceful window-bird collision, my kidnapper, Pidgey the Eagle was eyeing me like I was prey.
I hated to admit, maybe it was smart enough to see through my half-cooked escape plan.
Now that I was on the same level as him, it was much easier to see how he looked.
Besides his obvious size, he appeared to be a regular bald eagle. Aerodynamic body, scary claws, slightly bewildered/angry expression on its face. The golden spots and white plumage also reminded me of a certain lightning bolt-loving uncle. Which… well.
I wasn’t the most polite demigod out there. You could even say I often appeared to have a dead wish whilst talking to divine beings because I just said what was on my mind, but having a creature that looked like it belonged to the King of Olympus chase me? Well, that just didn’t add up.
Gods weren’t supposed to directly involve themselves in the half-blood business. Or at least... technically.
My thoughts were interrupted, when Pidgey decided to start running towards me, at a speed uncharacteristic for huge-taloned birds. Meaning: fast. Really fast.
I groaned trying to push myself up, but pain flared up at my side. Broken ribs, probably. Before I could fight away the pain, he was already above me and would have turned me into a Percy-kebab, if I didn’t roll away.
Ribs protesting, I managed to plant my feet on the floor, barely reacting in time to then dodge another swipe from its golden beak.
The turkey was quick, I’ll give him that, but I managed some distance between us with an ungrateful stumble backwards.
“Okay, Pidgey”, I said, uncapping Riptide, while the eagle angrily eyed me again. My breath was a little short, but I sure as hell wouldn’t die in an office to a big, bland bird. “Let’s get this bread.”
Thankfully, restricted by the confines of human architecture, he wasn’t able to properly stretch its wings in reaction to my bad joke. Meaning, that he also wouldn’t be able to fly and swoop in from above.
Could I harm it? Chances were, it did belong to an Olympian. Getting hit by lightning wasn’t a fun way to go. On the other hand, if this was just a pretty monster that was out to kill me because the fates were particularly funny today, fighting could probably get me out of this before dinner. Then again, the potential chance of disrespecting a god, while seemingly embedded in my DNA, was too dangerous. Which meant that I had to avoid fighting at all costs, and get away. So my safest bet was to stay inside.
So when it lashed out again, claws reaching towards me, instead of cutting him right then and there, I swung my blade to the side.
Before the deadly appendages could slash me, Riptide reached its destination; a water dispenser standing innocently under a badly designed commercial poster. As soon as it made contact, I called the water and tossed a wave at its face.
Then I turned and made a run for it.
The bird gave off another frustrated screech, as it supposedly didn’t like the extensive moisture on such fancy feathers and, judging by the noise, stumbled into the wall, dazed. It wasn’t long, however, that the clicks and clacks of his talons echoed against the floor.
Running out of the office area, I rushed towards the sign that indicated the exit, right at the end of the hall. Behind me, Pidgey collided with cubicles with a loud screech. The sound of breaking glass shattered desks and the carpeted floor ripping violently made me think about the poor people who will have to explain all of this later to someone very important. I was glad no one would willingly hire me for a desk job.
To my great surprise and horror, as I reached the elevator hall and staircase exit, I was met with the sorry sigh of a tightly packed and panicking crowd in a small room with a single, big window behind them. Apparently unaware of the stair rule in emergencies, the employees were waiting for the elevator, nervously and hysterically pressing the call button like that would make it go faster.. They were also looking at me like I just crashed into their office.
“It’s him!”, one guy shouted, pointing at me with a shaky finger.
“Don’t hurt us!!”, another one pleaded.
Hearing footsteps behind me I turned around and held out Riptide, as Pidgey crashed in through the hall.
It wasn’t often I fought with civilians in the crossfire, so my expertise with it was lacking, but I couldn’t just ignore them. The guilt would eat me right up, even if they thought I was a terrorist or something.
“Take the stairs!”, I shouted, hoping my voice was loud enough to win in volume over the avian and human screams. “I’ll hold it off!”
I wasn’t sure if anyone took the advice, because the next second, I had to parry a beak trying to catch me in my abdomen, and all I could see was white and gold. With a practised move, Riptide turned flat-side up and met the bone with a metallic CLING!, that reverberated in my ears even worse than the squeaks and screeches.
“Now, hold up, buddy!”, I choked out, feeling the ache of my ribs again. “No need to eat me!”
Pidgey sent me a stern look, that may have also been his regular expression, and threw out his head again, this time higher, aiming for my head. I parried it too, ducking slightly. Then he attacked the same way again, and again. Its beak was a blur, and my sword hand felt like I was getting hit by cars falling from the sky.
Some woman was shouting in the background to the sound of doors slamming. I couldn’t focus on it. Parry, hit, parry, hit, parry, hit.
Out of nowhere, he threw out its right wing. I barely evaded it by throwing myself to the left, tumbling to the ground in a painful roll that turned the world momentarily white and blurry. I was just about to stand up, hearing the eagle’s legs ripping the carpet underneath in a sudden turn when something hit me in the head.
Everything swirled in a mess of colours, but mostly blinding light. Then, I felt the very sharp, very deadly talons rip through my chest.
With a shout and slightly in shock, I desperately forced myself to roll away and command my shaky legs to work. On my feet, but slightly crouched down, I parried another attack from the eagle's beak, this one sending a paralyzing wave of pain through my arm. I screamed again, frustration getting the better of me.
The room was still blurry, the shapes of the last people finally escaping through the staircase door all blending, the light from the window making it very hard to concentrate, but…
Right, window.
Window.
Glass.
Big, heavy eagle.
With a short breath and every part of my body begging me to stop moving and maybe just let the monster kill me, I itched closer to the window, arm busy parrying and blocking. Once I was in a direct line between it and the glass, I screamed as loudly as I could:
“Come and get me!”
The eagle, frustrated beyond measure, screeched loudly in response and then rushed towards me, talons at the ready to rip me to shreds. They meet air.
I rolled away in a feat of breathless desperation and got on the floor as low as I could, while the glass behind me shattered with a familiar CRASH, and the bird fell through it.