𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐒𝐎𝐏𝐇𝐎𝐁𝐈𝐀, percy jackson

05. percy jackson is ridiculously stupid

❛ ━━･❪ ❁ ❫ ･━━ ❜
chapter five: percy jackson is ridiculously stupid

[a/n]: enjoy the chapter!
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━━━ THE FOUR KIDS RAN ACROSS the train tracks, breathing heavily. Once they were a considerable distance from the train, they skidded to a halt. Percy furrowed his brows in confusion. "Why isn't it still chasing us?"

"Echidna said whatever she was hiding in that carrier, it's young," Annabeth answered. "It won't venture too far from her mother. She's learning to hunt, and this seems like the hunting part."

Isabel gulped.

They continued to trek further from the train, Isabel struggling to keep up with the rest of the group's long and brisk strides. "We aren't going to be able to outrun them for very long," Grover said nervously.

"We shouldn't have to," Isabel refuted. "We just need a safe place to stay before we can continue on the quest."

"Someplace safe," Percy repeated. "Any ideas where we might find one of those?" 

"I do," Annabeth chimed in. "A sanctuary, dedicated to Athena, built by one of her demigod children a long time ago."

"There's an Athenian temple hidden somewhere in the middle of downtown St. Louis?" Grover asked incredulously.

"Sure," Isabel remarked. "I mean, the Underworld is in L.A. None of these places seem to be very glamorous. Besides, this one isn't hidden. At all."

"It's six hundred and thirty feet wide, six hundred and thirty feet tall, both to within an inch," Annabeth recited as the quartet approached the remarkable masterpiece. "It's got no internal support. Each side is balance perfectly against the other. The arch is held up by symmetry. It's held up by math."

They bounded down a set of stairs, to where a crowd of kids their age seemed to engrossed with it. "And it's earthquake proof," Annabeth added. "So Poseidon can't ruin it." Isabel looked around in wonder at the architectural beauty. It was so simple, but somehow so fascinating. "This is how you show Athena your love. A monument to the power of perfection."

"It's a monument to some other stuff, too," Grover said solemnly, looking at the animal skulls presented proudly in glass display cases.

"You're talking about what some humans want this place to be about," Annabeth argued. "I'm talking about what it actually is."

"Whatever," Grover scoffed. "We're safe here, right?"

"No monsters can enter," Annabeth said. "Not even Echidna. We're safe."

"Great," Grover said simply. "Well, since our train exploded, I'm gonna see if there's another one we can get tickets on. We can't stay here forever." Isabel followed Grover's eyes to a graphic illustration of a couple of humans bearing guns and hunting wildlife.

She reached out to pat his shoulder, then decided against it.

"Just because we're prey," Grover said, the determination returning to his eyes, "doesn't mean we need to be helpless." With that, he walked away.

"He doesn't like it when people mess with animals," Percy explained when Grover was gone.

Isabel cleared her throat, and Percy nearly jumped. She hadn't spoken a lot since the events that transpired on the train. "Mhm," she hummed. "We know. We definitely know."