Percy Jackson x Male Reader The Lightning Thief

Water Beds Suck

Y/n's POV

It was Annabeth's idea.

She loaded us into the back of a Vegas taxi as if we actually had money, and told the driver, "Los Angeles please."

The cabbie chewed his cigar and sized us up. "That's three hundred miles. For that you gotta pay up front."

"You accept casino debit cards?" Annabeth asked.

He shrugged. "Some of 'em. Same as credit cards. I gotta swipe 'em through first."

Annabeth handed him her green Lotus Cash card.

He looked at it skeptically.

"Swipe it." Annabeth told him.

He did.

His meter machine started rattling. The lights flashed. Finally an infinity symbol came up next to the dollar sign.

The cigar fell out of the driver's mouth. He looked back at us, his eyes wide. "Where to in Los Angeles. . .  uh, Your Highness?"

"The Santa Monica Pier." Annabeth sat up a little straighter. I could tell she like the new title.

"Get us there fast, and you can keep the change."

I felt like that was a bad idea.

Because soon our driver made sure that the speedometer never dropped below ninety-five the whole way across the Mojave Desert.

On the road, we had plenty of time to talk. Percy started by informing us about one of his latest dreams. Though he seemed to have a hard time remembering many of the details. The Lotus Hotel and affected all of us. But Percy did remember that the monster in the pit that was usually the subject of his dreams. Had been called something other than my lord, a different title he couldn't remember.

"The Silent One?" Annabeth suggested. "The Rich One?"

"Or maybe the Unseen One." I added. "They all relate back to Hades in some way."

"Maybe . . ." Percy said, but I doubted he thought any of those was the answer.

"That throne room you mentioned sounds like Hades's," Grover said. "That's the way it usually described."

Percy shook his head. "Something's wrong. The throne room wasn't the main part of the dream. And that voice from the pit . . . I don't know. It just didn't feel like a god's voice."

I thought over it for a moment before responding. "I mean it could be the Giants or even the Titans. Or maybe just an extra powerful monster of some kind."

Annabeth shook her head. "The Titans and the Giants are all imprisoned, and there isn't many monsters that powerful or really fit with what Percy described. No, it has to be Hades."

Annabeth took on her same puzzling, inquisitive look. "Maybe he sent this thief, this invisible person, to get the master bolt, and something went wrong-"

"Like what?"

"I-I don't know," she said. "But if he stole Zeus's symbol of power form Olympus, and the gods were hunting him, I mean, a lot of things could go wrong. So this thief had to hide the bolt, or he lost it somehow. Anyway, he failed to bring it to Hades. That's what the voice said in your dream, right?" The guy failed. That would explain what the Furies were searching for when they came after us on the bus. Maybe they thought we had retrieved the bolt."

"But if I'd already retrieved the bolt," Percy said, "why would I be traveling to the Underworld?"

"To intimidate Hades," I replied. "To bribe or blackmail him into releasing your mom."