Life of A Young Demigod: Book 1 (Percy Jackson reader insert)

We Get Stuck In a Wormhole

I didn't have that much time to think about the warning. As soon as we got out, the street was in a bit of a panic, understandably so considering that three wild animals had just been released in the middle of a city. Realizing it would probably not be a good idea to hang around, we looked around for a place to lay low for a while.

We walked for a few blocks, passing stuff like Caesar's and what I thought was a frankly rather poor imitation of the Statue of Liberty. Eventually, Annabeth pointed to a building across the street. The Lotus Hotel and Casino. "There, we can hang around in the lobby for a few hours and wait for everything to cool down. Just pretend our parents are down on the gambling floor or something."

I didn't see much reason to doubt the plan, so I followed her, as did the rest of us. As we walked in, a man in an old fashioned bellhop uniform came running up to us. I was worried for a second he'd kick us out or something, but then he started speaking.

"Welcome to The Lotus! We've been expecting you, here are your Lotus Cash Cards!"

He handed us each a small plastic card with the hotel logo on it. I was about to tell him he had mistaken us for someone else when Percy elbowed me.

"Thank you sir, how much is on them?"

The bellhop gave us a quizzical look. "Funny joke. Now, your room and everything are all paid for. Room 4001, all the way up top. Enjoy!"

I was about to question this whole situation when I looked around a bit more. The lobby had every arcade game I could imagine, and several I'd never even heard of. There was no way I could resist this.

We made our way up to our room. As much as I wanted to head straight over the the arcade, I and everyone else were exhausted and smelly. A night spent in an animal transport truck will do that to you. We got up there, and took turns in the shower. I went first, so I got to pick the tv show when I got out. After surfing around a bit, I found a rerun of Mythbusters, and decided that was probably the best I'd find. 40 minutes or so later, the rest of the group had showered and changed into the clothes Ares had given us. They weren't particularly comfortable all things considered, they felt kind of cheap, but it was better than our smelly water park clothes. Percy threw those and the bag Ares had given us in the trash. I didn't blame him.

Annabeth was quite happy with Mythbusters, but it went over to some fishing show after the episode ended, and she took the opportunity to change it to a nature show of some kind.

Percy groaned at this. "Really Annabeth? We've got a full cable package and the best you can find is a gopher documentary?"

Annabeth and Grover looked at him and spoke in unison. "What? It's interesting!"

Percy sighed and turned to me. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

I grinned, and Andromeda smiled brightly. "Arcade time."

We eventually managed to convince Annabeth and Grover to get up from their gopher content and come with us. As excited as I was, I still had something nagging me in the back of my head, telling me that we should try to stick together as much as possible.

When we made it down to the arcade floor, we split up. Percy went to some old games from the 80's, Grover found some sort of light gun hunting game, and Annabeth's eyes gleamed as she saw some weird city builder thing I'd never even heard of.

I dragged Andromeda behind me for a bit, since neither of us could decide what to play first. Eventually though, my eyes lit up. Over there in the corner sat Time Crisis 4.

What the... this isn't even out yet!

I grabbed Andromeda excitedly. "Come on! It's two players!"

We spent the next couple hours glued to the screen. We ended up beating it a couple times, Andromeda was surprisingly good at it for never having played it before. Eventually, though, my eyes began to notice things that seemed... off. For one, the people around us were dressed in the strangest assortment of outfits imaginable. Now I knew this was Vegas and all, but this was weird even by Vegas standards. Some people looked straight out of the 1920's, like old timey gangsters. One guy near us was wearing a tie-dye shirt and what I can only describe as hippie glasses. I walked up to him.

"Hey, uh... what year is it?"

He glanced over to me. "1967."

My eyes went wide. Either this guy was crazy, or we were stuck in some sort of magical trap. I rushed back to Andromeda.

"'Meda, come on, something isn't right. We have to go."

She brushed me off. "Come on (Y/N), I've almost beat the game solo!"

I grabbed her. "'Meda. The people in here aren't from our time. This is a trap."

She just grunted and shoved me back. This wasn't working. If this hotel worked like I was beginning to think it did, we were in big trouble. I had to snap her out of it. I did the only thing I could think of. I kissed her.

It was quick, but as soon as our lips separated, her eyes went wide. "(Y/N)... what..."

I grabbed her shoulders. "Quest. Return the bolt. Sorry. Had to shake you out of that. Need to go."

She nodded. I could have sworn she was blushing a bit, but I didn't have much time to think on that.

We rushed around, looking for Percy and the others. Eventually, we ran into them.

Annabeth's eyes were wider than even mine. "You figured it out too?"

I nodded. "Let's go."

We rushed to the exit, but as we were about to leave, the bellhop from earlier came up to us.

"There you are! I've been looking for you, need to give you your platinum cards!"

He held out five shiny silver cards. Percy reached for one, but Annabeth slapped his hand away. I almost reached out too, but I knew if I took it, I'd never leave.

Grover managed to stammer out a "We're good!", as we rushed out the door. As soon as we exited, I saw that Percy had Ares' backpack over his shoulder. That was odd, but I didn't have much time to think on that.

I ran straight over to a news stand, praying to every god I could think of that we still had time. The good news? It was still 2006, and before the summer solstice at that. The bad news? It was June 20th. We'd been in The Lotus for five days. We only had one day left to finish the quest.