Born to Die (Percy Jackson x reader)

6⭒ The Lightning Thief

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They exploded on the surface, in the middle of Los Angeles Bay. Percy knocked a surfer off his board with an indignant, "Dude!"

In the distance, Los Angeles was on fire, plumes of smoke rising from neighborhoods all over the city. There had been an earthquake, and it was Hades's fault. He was probably sending an army of the dead after Percy right now.

The surfer screamed something about bad mushrooms and paddled away from the four as fast as he could.

They had to get to shore. They had to get Zeus's thunderbolt back to Olympus.

A coast guard boat picked them up, but they were too busy to keep the kids for long, or to wonder how four children in street clothes had got out into the middle of the bay.

The coast guards dropped the four off at the Santa Monica pier with towels around their shoulders and water bottles. Percy was barefoot, because he'd given his shoes to Grover.

After reaching dry land, they stumbled down the beach, watching the city burn against a beautiful sunrise.

Y/N walked next to Percy. "You have weird toes. Have you ever considered getting a pedicure?" She asked.

"I know you're not saying that to me after I just saved you from drowning."

"You're right.. sorry. I'm also truly sorry about your mother, Percy."

Percy swallowed hard. "The prophecy was right," he said. "You shall go west and face the god who has turned. But it wasn't Hades. Hades didn't want war between the Big Three. Someone else pulled off the theft. Someone stole Zeus's master bolt, and Hades's helmet, and framed me because I'm Poseidon's kid. Poseidon will get blamed by both sides. By sundown today, there will be a three-way war. And I'll have caused it"

Grover shook his head, mystified. "But who would be that sneaky? Who would want war that bad?"

Percy stopped in his tracks, looking down the beach. "Gee, let me think."

There he was, waiting for them, in his black leather duster and his sunglasses, an aluminum baseball bat propped on his shoulder. His motorcycle rumbled beside him, its headlight turning the sand red.

"Hey, kid," Ares said, seeming genuinely pleased to see them. "You were supposed to die."

"You tricked me," Percy said. "You stole the helmet and the-"

"Master bolt." Ares grinned. "Well, now, I didn't steal them personally. Gods taking each other's symbols of power - that's a big no-no. But you're not the only hero in the world who can run errands."

"Who did you use? Clarisse? She was there at the winter solstice!"

The idea seemed to amuse him. "Doesn't matter. The point is, kid, you're impeding the war effort. See, you had to die in the Underworld. Then Old Seaweed will be mad at Hades for killing you. Corpse Breath will have Zeus's master bolt, so Zeus'll be mad at him. And Hades is still looking for this..."

From his pocket he took out a ski cap - the kind bank robbers wear and placed it between the handlebars of his bike. Immediately, the cap transformed into an elaborate bronze war helmet.

"The helmet of darkness," Grover gasped.

"Exactly," Ares said. "Now where was I? Oh yeah. Hades will be mad at both Zeus and Poseidon, because he doesn't know who took this. Pretty soon, we got a nice little three-way slug fest going."