the great wave | percy jackson

𝑥𝑥𝑖 - leonidas

Leo's jaw dropped. Aeolus' pad? Seriously swanky. The central section of the fortress was as big as a cathedral, with a soaring domed roof covered in silver. Television equipment floated randomly through the air–cameras, spotlights, set pieces, potted plants. It would have been great if there was a floor.

This time, it was Jason's turn to grab Ash by the scruff of the neck as she walked straight out onto the enormous circular pit in the middle of the room, legs continuing to move almost comically until she screeched and Jason yanked her back and her wings bloomed automatically from her shoulderblades, smacking the boy in the face and making him sputter indignantly.

"Holy–!" Leo exclaimed, steadying the boy as he staggered, spitting out feathers. "Hey, Mellie. A little warning next time!"

The gaping chasm before them plunged straight into the heart of the mountain. It was probably half a mile deep, honeycombed with caves, and some of those tunnels probably led straight outside. If you weren't someone who could fly, that would be a very long, very fatal fall.

"Oh, my," Mellie gasped as if just realizing the issue. "I'm so sorry." She unclipped a walkie-talkie from somewhere inside her billowy robes and spoke into it: "Hello, sets? Is that Nuggets? Hi, Nuggets. Could we get a floor in the main studio, please? Yes, a solid one. Thanks!"

A few seconds later, an army of harpies rose from the pit all carrying squares of various building material. They went to work hammering, gluing, and slapping on duct tape, and in no time there was a makeshift floor snaking out over the chasm. Honestly, Leo was pretty impressed. He probably couldn't have done any better with carpet squares and wedges of sod and random slats of wood... As the harpies soared away, Ash called out after them: "Thank you, Nuggets!"

"That can't be safe," Jason said as he examined their path forward.

"Oh, it is!" Mellie assured him. "The harpies are very good."

Easy for her to say. She just drifted across without touching the floor, but a certain few of them didn't have that luxury. After a quick exchange of furtive glances, Jason and Ash stepped out first as the most likely to survive. Amazingly, the floor held.

Piper reached out and latched onto Jason's arm as she followed. "If I fall, you're catching me."

"Uh, sure," Jason said, very clearly trying and failing to conceal a fierce blush.

Leo stepped out next, similarly attaching himself to Ash. "I will catch you if you faaaaallllll," he sang under his breath in a high falsetto, and Ash had to let out a snort, recognizing it as that one Justin Bieber song Grover liked to belt when he was in his feels.

"Sure you will, hun," she said, and so they allowed Mellie to lead them toward the middle of the chamber, where flat-panel video screens floated around some kind of control center. A man hovered inside, checking monitors and fervently reading paper airplane messages, paying them absolutely no mind as they approached.

Mellie pushed a forty-two-inch Sony out of their way and led them inside, Leo whistling lowly as they entered the sphere of television: "I got to get a room like this." Each screen showed something different, some channels Leo recognized, like news broadcasts, but also some that looked a little strange, like gladiators fighting, and reality shows of demigods battling monsters.

The man in the middle of it all was talking rapid-fire into a Bluetooth earpiece. He had a remote control in each hand and was pointing them at various screens seemingly at random. His business suit looked like the sky, mostly blue with dapples of clouds that changed and darkened and moved across the fabric. He had a shock of white hair and a ton of stage makeup slathered over a smooth, Ken-doll-esque face. His eyes darted from screen to screen, and they kept twitching. He was either highly caffeinated, highly crazy, or both.