WORLDS BEYOND ( pjo )

𝐯𝐢: we will be free

Quick recap, Percy gets irritated by being called boss by a horse, saves a weird snake-cow-animal thing and then hides behind a column to eavesdrop on two pretty girls whilst spying on a little boy with his missing crush's baseball cap that somehow turns him invisible.

Okay, that sounded weird, he'll admit. But hey, it was life or death, okay? Some things can be excused if it's the end of the world at stake!

Little dramatic, but whatever.

The two pretty girls, Zoë and Bianca, had been arguing for a while before Bianca fell silent.

"You should tell Thalia the rest of your dream," she said.

"No. It would not help."

"But if your suspicions are correct about the General—"

"I have thy word not to talk about that," Zoë said, sounding anguished. "And we will not speak of the lines about the daughter of Morpheus, we will find out soon enough. Now come. Dawn is breaking."

Nico, who was in front of Percy, scooted away much quicker than Percy could.

Percy watched with panic-stricken eyes as Zoë stopped before she nearly ran into him. Her eyes narrowed, her hand creeping to her bow, but then Bianca interrupted, probably saving Percy's life, "The lights of the Big House are on. Hurry!"

Thankfully, Zoë opted to follow her.

Percy could imagine what Nico was thinking, stopping him from running after his sister and taking off the invisibility cap. "Wait."

Percy could feel himself shimmering into existence as Nico nearly slipped down the stairs, spinning around to face him. "Where did you come from?"

"I've been here the whole time."

He mouthed the word invisible to himself, in awe. "Wow. Cool."

Cue the sequence to a monumentally bad promise to make. If you guessed that he made a very impulsive promise to Nico that he'd protect his sister, you get a free cookie!

...as soon as they stock up on those.

He hopped onto Blackjack who was unrealistically conveniently up for a trip that would definitely char his brain-cells. But donuts exist for a reason, right? Plenty of incentive.

They flew for all about five minutes before landing on Chrysler Building, preparing to leap off before they ran into... an intermission, ah, of sorts. By that, he means that a vine curled around his leg, appropriately giving him a mini heart-attack; as a son of Poseidon, he'd never felt seaweed touch his foot but he imagined this was around a million times worse. Blackjack whinnied and panicked, tuckering anxiously. The realisation that these were grape vines dawned on Percy, who internally whined like a child having a fit.

"Going somewhere?" the one and only Dionysus asked.

He leant against the building with his feet levitating in the air, wearing his questionable choice of outerwear—a leopard skin warm up suit—and his black hair whipping around, making him look more like something a delusional person would see than a god, in Percy's opinion.

Ah, the respect Percy spread onto his breakfast toast.

God alert! Blackjack yelled, rather unnecessarily, in Percy's head. It's the wine dude!

Sighing exasperatedly, Mr. D said, "The next person, or horse, who calls me 'the wine dude' will end up in a bottle of Merlot!"

"Mr. D," Percy said, gathering all of his mental strength and all his united brain cells to keep his voice level, despite feeling the vines creeping further up his leg. "What do you want?"