𝐦𝐢𝐫𝐫𝐨𝐫𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 - 𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐜𝐲 𝐣𝐚𝐜𝐤𝐬𝐨𝐧 𝐱 𝐨𝐜

‧⁺˚*･༓ 𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧 ༓･*˚⁺‧

The river raced toward them at the speed of a truck. The wind ripped the breath from their lungs. Steeples, skyscrapers, and bridges tumbled in and out of their vision.

And then, BOOM!

A whiteout of bubbles.

The impact of the water hadn't hurt Percy.

They were falling slowly now, bubbles trickling up through Percy's fingers.

They settled on the river bottomsoundlessly.

Percy managed to cage him and Phoenix in a giant bubble so she could breathe. She was unconscious but Percy could still see the rise and fall of her chest as she lay in his lap as he sat on the floor of the bubble.

Percy glanced around at his surroundings in the river.

A catfish the size of his stepfather lurched away into the gloom. Clouds of silt and disgusting garbage-beer bottles, old shoes, plastic bags-swirled up all around him and Phoenix.

At that point, Percy realized a few things:

First, He and Phoenix had not been flattened into a pancake and Percy had not been barbecued. He couldn't even feel the Chimera poison boiling in his veins anymore. He assumed it was from the water but it was mainly from the touch of Phoenix as she was trying to heal him on their trip down.

At any rate, they were alive, which was good.

Second realization, Percy wasn't wet. He could feel the coolness of the water. He could see where the fire on his clothes had been quenched. But when he touched his shirt, it felt perfectly dry. Phoenix was most definitely not dry. Here blond hair was floating around all around her head and the t-shirt she was wearing stuck to her skin and wrinkled up.

Percy looked at the garbage floating by and snatched an old cigarette lighter.

He flicked the lighter. It sparked. A tiny flame appeared, right there at the bottom of the Mississippi.

He grabbed a soggy hamburger wrapper out of the current and immediately the paper turned dry. He lit it with no problem. As soon as he let it go, the flames sputtered out. The wrapper turned back into a slimy rag.

Weird.

"Are you playing with trash Fishface?" Phoenix spoke as she woke up.

"No," Percy replied then cleared his throat and looked at the girl in his lap "You're awake."

"Mhm," She nodded sitting up and moving to sit across from him, her cheeks a bright shade of red. "Are we in a bubble?"

"Only the finest best bubble of all, made by me of course," Percy smirked then changed his voice as if he was the speaker on a train ride at a zoo. "If you look to your left ladies and gentlemen you will see the gross litter of the Mississippi River and if you look to your right you will... also see the litter of the Mississippi River."

Phoenix laughed, "Look at us! We fell from a 600 ft tall monument and survived. Are we awesome or are we awesome?"

"Obviously, we're awesome."

Fump-fump-fump.

A riverboat's paddlewheel churned above them, swirling the silt around.

There, not five feet in front of Percy, was his sword, its gleaming bronze hilt sticking up in the mud.

Percy, take the sword. Your father believes in you. A voice spoke.

Percy and Phoenix glanced around in confusion.