My story | PJO x male reader

Chapter 23:Flying by my own wings

Time does stuff weird when you are about to die. It almost slows down to help you cope. When I leaned back, the fire from the chimera made one of the most beautiful images I've ever seen. Just fire with a clear sky behind it. Everything was so... peaceful. It was as if the world wanted you to savor your last seconds and let you relax into it.

I turned over mid-free fall and saw the water getting closer. That sight wasn't beautiful.

"OH, MY GODS IM GOING TO DIE!!!!" 
I closed my eyes as I profusely prayed to my mother, uncles, aunts, anything to help save me.

"Are you so sure?"

The next thing I felt was a pain. It radiated out from my chest to my limbs. I didn't know I was at the water that quickly but one thing I knew was that I wasn't dead.

I opened my eyes but was met with a different vision than what I was used to. I was greeted with colors I'd never seen before, my vision was 100x better, and I could clearly see everything happening around me.

"Wh-what is happening?"

I looked down and saw water with a silhouette gliding over it. I focused on it for a second and saw... wings?

"Am I a fucking bird?"

"Language."

"Am I a bird?"

"A golden Eagle." She stated nonchalantly

"And you didn't tell me I could do this sooner?"

No reply.

Great.

I looked over myself and saw dark brown feathers flowing through the wind, while my arms had turned into powerful wings. I tried to look at my feet but I had a feeling that might mess my flight up.

I saw myself slowly descending toward the water and I tried to flap my wings. I thought it would be difficult so I pushed my arms down as hard as possible but doing that made my arms go like limp noodles so I tried calm flaps and surprisingly I was flying normally.

I leaned slowly to the left and looked over the water hoping to find Percy. The only thing I saw was water... water.... more water.

'Well he was a son of Poseidon he should be fine' I tried reassuring myself over and over again.

I then turned my attention back to the shore and saw Percy walking out of the water with a sword in his hand. "Thank gods."

I turned towards the coast and landed beside him. I towered over him. I finally realized how giant I was compared to him.

"Not another anteater child." He said readying his weapon.

I tried to turn myself back into a human and it didn't work, I tried again didn't work. I tried about two more times before I felt the same pain as when I transformed the first time, although it was in reverse, with the pain going from my limbs back into my core. The pain made me close my eyes and grit my teeth in a constant struggle not to scream.

The pain finally receded and I opened my eyes to see myself standing eye-to-eye with Percy who had one of the funniest faces I've ever seen.

"Di- bu- wh- I." He just kept going trying to formulate a sentence correctly.

"Intelligence: 100"
That seemed to snap him out of his trance.
"You can turn into a bird?"
"Apparently. Are you hurt?"
"I was," Percy said shrugging.

"That boy was just a bird!!!" A child said interrupting our conversation.
"That's cool, honey." The mother said disregarding her child's comment.

"Let's find the other two."

We made our way through the crowd full of bystanders, ambulances and news reporters. As we passed through the crowd I tried to hear what the reporters were saying,

"Probably not a terrorist attack, we're told, but it's still very early in the investigation. 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 someone falling from the Arch."

Ok, they have survivors. Relief shot through my body. Hopefully, they're alright.

I kept moving through the crowd hoping that I could see them,

"...two adolescent boys," a reporter stated. "Channel Five has learned that surveillance cameras show two boys, possibly working together, going wild on the observation deck, somehow setting off this freak explosion. Hard to believe, John, but that's what we're hearing. Again, no confirmed fatalities."

We quickly passed by the reporter and tried as hard as possible to keep our heads down. We had to go along the police perimeter while trying to avoid the police and reporters that could recognize us.

Our search for Annabeth and Grover was slowly turning into a hopeless endeavor before I heard a familiar voice bleat above the crowd,
"Perrr-cy!"

I turned around and saw Grover wrap Percy in a bear hug, "We thought you had gone to Hades the hard way."

I looked behind Grover and saw Annabeth with a mixed look of anger and relief.

"We can't leave you two for 5 minutes! What happened?"

"We tripped."
"Y/N! Six hundred and thirty feet?"

Behind us, I heard a voice yell, "Gangway!"
The crowd parted and a few paramedics came walking out with a woman on a stretcher. I recognized her as the mother of the little boy up on the observation deck. She rambled on about what happened, "And then this huge dog, this huge fire-breathing Chihuahua-"

"Ok ma'am," the paramedic said. "Just calm down. Your family is fine. The medication is starting to kick in."
"I'm not crazy! These boys jumped out of the hole and the monster disappeared." She glanced in our direction. "There they are! That's them!"

"Ok, time to go," I said as I grabbed Annabeth's arm and pulled us through the crowd, disappearing from the scene.

"Wait a minute," Annabeth said. "What's going on?"

"Well-" Percy then proceeded to tell them the story from his perspective. The only thing that was news to me was about a woman talking to him under the ocean. 'I wish I could breathe underwater' I thought before Grover spoke up.
"We gotta get you to Santa Monica! You can't ignore a summons from your dad."
Before Annabeth could say anything we passed another news reporter.

"That's right, Dan. Percy Jackson and Y/N L/N, the boys who might have caused the explosion fit the description of two young men wanted by authorities for a New Jersey bus explosion three days ago. And this duo is believed to be making moves westward. For our viewers at home, here is a photo of this duo."

We snuck around the news van and slipped into an alley.
"First things first," Percy told us. "We've got to get out of town."

Shockingly, we made it back to the train station without getting spotted. We got on board just before it pulled out for Denver. The train made it's way west as the moon shined on the smoking arch.