Confidence & Pride// [Percy Jackson OC]// Book 5

{Chapter Fifteen}

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"As you fade away I realize/ It's all over
And nothing stays the same/ The skulls and bone remain"
- Remains (Bastille)
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D.B.S

ALL THE GROUPS HEADED OFF at different times in different directions. Percy and Annabeths were among the first ones to leave, they had the farthest to go and the most to do. Arya stuck around and made sure no one else had any questions. She also made sure everyone exchanged numbers so when they needed to reconvene they knew how to reach the others.
   
"Hey Arya, you're heading out right?" Jake Mason called, "Why don't you walk with us?"
   
Arya thought the request was odd, she would understand if this was coming from Connor and Travis, or Selina, as a one-last-talk-before-the-end-of-the-world type thing. But she hardly knew Jake. They weren't really friends and the only times they had really talked was in passing when Arya was spending time in Cabin Nine, or when she was teaching him and his siblings in the fighting ring.
   
She agreed anyways, and with one final look behind her to make sure no one was left waiting in front of the Empire State Building, she fell into step with Jake Mason, and the other dozen or so followed behind them.
   
Jake was fiddling with his hands, running them up and down the straps on his bag. Arya might not have known a lot about Jake, but she knew he didn't want to be a leader. He was always pretty in-kept, he liked being a follower and doing his own thing. Even in the moment she could see that the pressures of leadership were making him uncomfortable, but she respected him. Charles was gone and he stepped up into the position he was thrust into. He was dealing with it as well as to be expected, not complaining, trying his best, Arya hoped that after all of this he would advocate for himself and step down if that's what he really wanted.
   
"I wanted to let you know, Bekendorf appreciates your friendship." He said once they were about five blocks down the street, well on their way to Holland Tunnel.
   
She wished she could be surprised but she figured this was coming, Charles was the only common connection between them too.
   
"I appreciated him too, more than I ever got the chance to tell him."
   
Jake still looked torn up about the whole thing, she imagined she looked the same way. This wasn't an easy thing to deal with. Charles was like an older brother to anyone who got to know him, it was just the kind of energy he radiated.
   
"We spent most of yesterday going through his stuff." He cleared his throat, and reached for his back. He pulled something out of the side pocket, it was the metal pieces Argus had handed him earlier. He messed with them for a second before handing them over to her. "He made them for you."
   
Arya took the metal pieces out of his hands and looked at them. Turning them over and over to try and figure how what she had been given. They looked like cuffs, but she couldn't figure out where they would go. On one side was just regular metal that looked like something was supposed to lie in it. On the flip side, was an intricate design that looked like fish scales, when the light hit them, they shone a subtle sea green, the exact same color that matched the glow of her trident.
   
"What are these?" She gave in.
   
"An upgrade. He had been working on them for weeks before... You know." He then pulled out a little book from the other side of his bag and pushed it her way.
   
"They're called the DBS Mark 1. Everything else is in here. His idea book"
   
Arya stopped walking when the book fell into her hands, and she felt her breath leave her body. It felt like she had just been handed the key to the Lost City. Charles workbook was his lifeblood. He took it everyone and used for any though that could become something more. The book was everything he used to be. Why was it being handed to her?
   
"Are you sure?"
   
When she looked back up Jake was well ahead of her, the bridge was within they're sights.
   
"Positive!" He called. "They're not that hard to learn, so don't take too long, we gotta build a bridge to blow up!"
   
She saluted them to show she had heard them, before finding the closest bench to sit on and open the book. It was an old leather bound thing that looked like it had caught on fire more than once, the pages were no longer white because it seemed every single one of them had been covered in oil stains. That's what it got for being carried around everywhere all the time.
   
Flipping through the pages seemed like a ton of nonsense, she didn't understand any of it, it was a lot of equations, and what looked like potion and magic recipes. Diagrams on top of diagrams, that Arya didn't even have the brain capacity to process. She flipped looking for something that looked like these pieces of metal that were just aimlessly sitting in her hands, and eventually stopped when she saw the drawing of them, with a note tape to the backside of the page.
   
She hesitated and then opened it;