A New Battle

Chapter 12: Return to the Journey

I rolled out of the way and glared at him. Set/Apollo shrunk down to his normal size and I charged at him. I stuck my sword out and jabbed at him. I hit my target, his chest.

"Gah," he groaned as gold ichor flowed out of his chest. He held his chest as it slowly healed. Suddenly, he shot another arrow at me. It hit me in the chest and I collapsed on the ground.

"Aaliyah!" Percy yelled, rolling a bottle of water out of his backpack to me. I pulled out the arrow and grabbed the bottle as blood started flowing.

I tried to pick it up, but I had already lost too much blood and dropped it. "Dam it!" I yelled angrily.

"Language!" Percy yelled as he ran over to me. An arrow flew right in front of him and he stumbled back.

"That was close. Be careful, Percy!" I yelled to him.

"Thanks, Captain Obvious!" He yelled back. He sprinted towards me, flipping over arrows. Percy leaned down and grabbed the water bottle and poured it on my chest.

"Th-," I started to say before I started coughing badly. It started healing and it would only take a little more time to heal. "Look out!" I said as I saw Apollo/Set charging at him with a dagger. Just as he was about to stab him, the dagger melted into a pool of water.

"What the Hades, Aaliyah? What was that?" Percy asked.

I frowned at him.

"Sorry, not that I'm ungrateful for you saving my life," he added sheepishly.

"That's what I thought. And as for your question, I have no idea," I said, shrugging my shoulders.

Suddenly a burst of light appeared out of thin air. "What is that?" Percy asked, shielding his eyes from the light.

"I don't know!" I said, shielding my eyes too. I looked through my fingers and the light had disappeared, along with Set/Apollo.

"He's gone. That was him disappearing. We lost him," Percy said, disappointment clear in his voice.

"We'll find him, Percy. We have to," I said, knowing he was a big threat. Combining Egyptian and Greek gods could not be good. Even with no information, I knew that we were in danger, along with the rest of the world. "Percy, we need to get to Camp Jupiter. Now. I should've already been to Camp Jupiter and back by now," I said, groaning angrily.

"Relax, Aaliyah. We will get to Camp Jupiter," Percy said comfortingly, putting his hand on my shoulder.

"I almost died, Percy. I'm scared," I said.

"I know," Percy said softly, pulling me into a hug. I rested my head on his shoulder and felt safe for the first time in a while.

I pulled away from the hug. "Let's go!" I said, a new feeling of confidence flowing through me.

"First things first, we need food! You probably haven't eaten in a week," Percy said, laughing.

"Okay. We can go anywhere except McDonald's," I said, "I need food, not to die at 20."

"Agreed. How about IHOP? I saw one on the way here," Percy said, smiling.

"Sounds good. I could go for some pancakes. And bacon. And sausage. And maybe everything else in IHOP," I said, laughing.

"Let me just call, Blackjack," Percy said before calling Blackjack. Ten minutes later Blackjack was there.

"Good to see you, Blackjack," I said, rubbing his back.

"Good to see you too, Captain," Blackjack said.

"Let's go, Blackjack!" I yelled, swinging my leg over his back and sitting down.

"Hey, I get to sit in the front!" Percy complained, crossing his arms.

"I will leave you here unless you get your water-loving butt on this horse," I said threateningly.

"Fine, fine," he said, climbing on behind me. I smiled smugly at him. "Haha. Can we go now?" Percy said angrily.

"Yep, let's go Blackjack," I said, holding on tight as we took off.

"The IHOP is somewhere to the west," Percy said, pointing to the left.

"You hear that Blackjack? Go left," I said to Blackjack. He obviously did because he turned to the left a few seconds later.

"We're finally back on track," I said as the IHOP came into view. It was close to a freeway, so I knew we were finally near a city. Blackjack landed roughly and Percy fell off.

"What the Hades, Blackjack?" Percy asked angrily, brushing the dirt off his clothes.

"You didn't feed me anything for giving you a ride," he said to us in our heads.

"Oh. My. Gods, Blackjack. I was going to give you a donut from IHOP, but I'm not anymore," Percy said.

Blackjack stomped his hooves angrily.

"Fine. I'll give you your gods dam donut," Percy said angrily. He stomped into IHOP.

"Nice, Blackjack," I said, rubbing his head. "I'm going to go into IHOP now, I'm starving."

I headed into IHOP and was greeted by the smell of pancakes, bacon, sausage, and many other delicious breakfast foods. "Mm," I mumbled as I looked for Percy.

"Aaliyah! Over here!" Percy called, waving his hand for me to come over.

I grinned at him. "I am going to order everything on this menu!" I exclaimed, looking over the items on the menu. I ended up ordering everything. The waiter had a heck of a time getting all the food to me.

"Is this for you and him?" The waiter asked, setting down the final plate.

"Nope. It's all hers," Percy said, grinning.

"Oh. Um, what would you like?" The waiter asked Percy hesitantly.

"I'll take pancakes, bacon, and sausage. Oh, can you make the pancakes blue?" Percy asked as the waiter walked away.

"Yep. We have food dye," the waiter said, "although we never thought we would use it." I heard him mumble the last part.

I dug into my food, shoveling pancakes, sausage, bacon, hash browns, French toast, and dozens of other stuff into my mouth. I chugged down my orange juice when I was done. I finished just as Percy's food arrived.

"Did you just eat all of that food while I was gone?" The waiter asked, looking at me with his mouth wide open. Percy just laughed.

"I did just eat all that food, so close your mouth," I said, grinning. When the waiter left, I burst out laughing, hard.