The Other Castellan

The Mississippi is the US's Second Most Polluted River, But No One Cares

Chapter 34: The Mississippi is the US's Second Most Polluted River, But Honestly? No One Cares

As they're plummeting towards the Mississippi, it occurs to Lucas that hitting the water from up high was as bad as hitting the pavement. He'd die.

Granted, he probably should've realized that sooner. But in his defence, he'd rather die from blunt force trauma or drowning than die for getting poisoned or burnt alive. Besides, demigods survive from injuries that would kill most people all the time. Maybe he'd be fine?

Anyway, it was too late now.

Lucas hit the river with a loud splash, and he thrashed about, gasping for air when his head finally breached the surface. He kicked frantically, trying to keep himself afloat. He absolutely hated swimming. He was never going into the water again. That was a promise. Oh, gods. He could've died. He definitely wasn't ever going into the water again.

Percy was nowhere to be found, but Lucas wasn't too concerned. After all, Poseidon was his father. He could probably breathe underwater or something like that. Ignoring the junk floating on the current (gods that was disgusting, why did he decide jumping in the Mississippi was a good idea?), Lucas made his way to the bank, occasionally wrinkling his nose. He was not doing a good job of ignoring the garbage.

It was only until he pulled himself out of the river and into the bank, sopping wet, while wringing the water out of his ash-blond locks, that he remembered that the Mississippi was known as the US's second most polluted waterway, after the Ohio River.

If he had known that, he wouldn't have jumped out of the Arch. Getting blow-torched or poisoned beat swimming in an incredibly polluted and quite frankly, absolutely disgusting river any day.

Lucas waited for a bit until he finally caught sight of Percy. Well, Percy's head. "I can't believe we did that," he said once Percy came ashore, huffing out a laugh.

"Those poor people are probably dead," he replied glumly.

"They're fine," Lucas shot back. "Monsters have no interest in Mortals. The only reason they'd be dead is if they were in the way. Why do you think you haven't ever seen a monster specifically attack a Mortal?"

"Okay, but..." Percy hesitated. "Okay. What do we do now?"

Lucas shrugged. "Find Annabeth and Grover?" he suggested. "And avoid the reporters and police, of course. The Mist has probably warped the Mortals' minds so they think we blew up the Arch." He paused, sighing. "I wish."

Percy stared at him. "Okay..." he said, stretching the word out. "I guess, if you like that sort of thing." He moved to turn him around by grasping Lucas's shoulder, then stilled when he noticed that he had dried Lucas off by accident.

"Nice power to have," Lucas commented, barking out a laugh of disbelief.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The two of them tried to find Annabeth and Grover, avoiding officers and reporters along the way. Even so, they couldn't help but overhear what some of the reporters were saying.

"Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation," a news lady was saying. "The damage, as you can see, is very serious. We're trying to get some of the survivors to question them about eyewitness reports of two people falling from the Arch."

"... two adolescent boys," another reporter was saying. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show two adolescent boys going wild on the observation deck, one of them with a gun, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities..."

They backed away, trying to not be recognized by anyone. At least Lucas's gun was back in the holster. Unfortunately, it didn't help much. There were officers and reporters everywhere.

Percy seemed to have given up hope when Lucas happened to glance behind him, to find Grover running to them, with Annabeth following, bleating their names.

They turned around, and Percy tackled them, pulling them into a bone-crushing bear (goat?) hug.

"We thought you two had gone to Hades the hard way!" Grover exclaimed.

Annabeth was behind him, looking a bit furious, but Lucas could tell that she was secretly relieved. "We can't leave you two alone for five minutes!" she said. "What happened?"

"We sort of fell," Percy explained.

"Six hundred and thirty feet?"

"We jumped," Lucas corrected them. "And it was the most fun I ever had."

Annabeth shook her head. "You're insane." She opened her mouth to say more, but before she could, a cop came onto the scene.

"Gangway!" the cop yelled. The crowd parted before him, and a couple paramedics ran out, with a woman on a stretcher. She was the mother of the little boy. She was glancing frantically around, mostly at the paramedics. She was saying, "And then this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua..."

"Okay, ma'am," the paramedic replied. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."

"I'm not crazy!" the woman protested. "These two boys jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." She seemed to have spotted them, because then she said, "There they are! Those are the boys!"

Percy quickly turned and dragged the three of them along with him into the crowd, where they hopefully wouldn't be noticed.

"What's going on?" Annabeth demanded. "Was she talking about the Chihuahua on the elevator?"

Percy explained the entire situation, but he also mentioned his part in the river, which somehow involved a message from a Nereid.

"Whoa," Grover exclaimed. "We've got to get you to Santa Monica! You can't avoid a summons from your dad."

Lucas was going to ask what Percy planned to do once they got there, but before he could, they passed yet another news station, and the four of them nearly froze in their tracks when they heard a reporter say, "Percy Jackson. That's right, Dan. Channel Twelve has learned that one of the boys who may have caused this explosion fits the description of a young man wanted by authorities for a serious New Jersey bus accident three days ago. And the boy is believed to be travelling west. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of Percy Jackson."

"First things first," Percy said as they ducked around the news van. "We've got to get out of town!"

A/N

This was incredibly short, and I can't stress how many times I felt like crying while writing this, but I finished it! I finished this before I posted chapter 33, actually, so that was pretty fast. Hopefully I can keep this up.

There's honestly nothing special about my thought process in this chapter. Probably because it's so short.