Son Of The Cup Bearer {Percy Jackson x Ejen Ali}

Khai Has A Girlfriend? Cue Dramatic Gasp

Honestly, could Moon get just a simple warning like 'Hang on tight, because we're gonna smash into a glass and it's really gonna hurt' before they actually do it? Is a fair warning simply too much to ask? 

Well, whatever. They were panicking after all; but that doesn't excuse for a warning. 

Iman, who was previously running in the speed of light, suddenly came to a halt. Obviously, as anyone would have expected, not everyone would be able to follow in the sudden change of velocity. Moon gracefully ran into Iman, making both of them topple down on top of each other.

"Moon!" Iman groaned.

OK, geez, what is with her falling on top of people today?

"Sorry!" Moon exclaimed squeakily, quickly getting up. Then she realised that the entire street had somehow decided that Dunkin Donuts was a profit-maker. And for some reason, large boulders were scattered around the road randomly, but she chose to ignore that.

"Whoa, what happened here?" Moon asked quizzically. "Wasn't there like, a mamak there just now?" She pointed towards the corner of the street, where in its place stood another Dunkin Donut. This did not pair up with her memory thirty minutes ago.

Iman dusted off herself upon getting up and squinted towards the top of the Dunkin Donut Original, and her eyes went as wide as plates.

"Holy Hephaestus, they actually killed it," she whispered.

Confused, Moon followed Iman's gaze to find her mouth crashing to the ground too. Where the once live hydra stood was now a dead one, with about a dozen blackened stubs for heads dangling over the edge and an enormous scaled tail Moon did not notice previously hanging on the opposite edge. How the building is not collapsing under the weight of the hydra Moon did not know. She is not Lord of Physics, so ask Bill Nye the Science Guy or something. 

And - guess what? - Ali and Alicia were arguing on the rooftop right beside the hydra's corpse. She was surprised (not) to see this happening. 

Before either she or Iman could call down either two of them, Alicia noticed their presence, shouted something at Ali and leaped down from the thirty feet building unsupported, finishing it off with a somersault. 

Moon whistled, because it was cool. "Dayum, Licia."

Alicia glared at her like she wanted to melt her. "You're not sticking with that, are you?"

Moon shrugged. "Well, I like it, so probably, yeah."

Alicia sighed and Moon grinned. In a way, she liked to annoy people like that, but obviously, she was careful not to go too far from people's boundaries. 

Ali took a little more time to get down. He used the old, classic way ahead, which was going down by the stairs. Not that impressive, but well, Moon appreciated that he wasn't that showy-off as Alicia.

"Where's Khai?" was the first question Ali asked upon approaching them. He sent a scowl in Alicia's way in acknowledgement of her presence, but the Hunter barely spared a glance at him. She was too busy looking into the sky (read: sulking).

"What?" Moon asked, startled. "I thought he was with you guys?"

Alicia's eyes widened and she made a strangled noise in her throat. "What do you mean he wasn't with you guys?"

Iman winced. "Yeah, me and Moon were the only ones in the store - unless if you count a shopful of monsters drinking coffee."

Ali and Alicia exchanged a worried look that did not sit well in Moon's stomach. In between both of them, a crisis critical enough to make them ignore any ongoing argument was enough to make Moon flip. 

"What happened?" Moon gulped.

Iman nodded, urging the question on, added, "Did Khai say he was going after us? Did he enter the donut shop?"

Ali bit his lip. "Well, no."

"He simply disappeared from our midst," Alicia said, her eyes misty. "He might have been knocked off the building by the swinging tail, but I don't know."

Without needing to look in a mirror, Moon literally felt her face whiten. She whipped around, scanning for the slightest traces that could possibly indicate a missing child of Vulcan, but nothing. 

"What are those boulders, though?" Iman's question interrupted her thoughts. As she was curious about that, Moon grudgingly returned her attention to the conversation.

"What boulders?" Ali asked sheepishly.

"They mean the hydra heads, you idiot," Alicia hissed, then addressed Iman professionally. "Not a few moments ago, Ali not only decided to try a piggy-back ride on the hydra, but tried to sever all its nine heads off."

Iman stared at Ali. "You didn't."

"What's wrong with that?" Moon interjected. "What happens if you cut a hydra's head off?"

Alicia crossed her arms, clearly displeased to have to explain things to a clueless person like her. But she can't blame her, she was a newbie in this demigod affair after all. 

"Two more grow in its place," Alicia said. "Thus, the many hydra heads around here. Me and Khai had to do all sorts of stuff to get Ali's attention before he stopped severing their heads."

"I was just trying to help, OK?" Ali muttered shamefully. 

Moon smiled apologetically at Ali. "You did your best, anyway."

Again, Ali peered up from the ground surprisingly in Moon's direction, but quickly decided the look did not suit him and tried to appear analytical by observing the Dunkin Donuts around them.

"So..." Iman said after a few moments of silence. "I'm guessing Khai was responsible for the black stubs of the hydra?" 

Alicia looked impressed, but nodded in approval. "That's right. You might have thought it would've been Ali's yoyo's work." She sent a scathing look in his way. "But Khai did it. Didn't know how, but he was suddenly able to summon some-"

"A lot," Ali corrected under his breath.

"-fire to burn off the severed stubs of the hydra's heads. That ended it."

"Just like Hercules," Moon said, finally remembering something from Greek mythology. Some guy named Hercules had been given a task to kill the hydra, and he faced the same issue. He managed to stop the multiplying heads the same way Khai did. Or Khai managed to stop the multiplying heads the same way Hercules did. Whatever.

"Guys," Ali said. 

"What?" Moon, Iman and Alicia replied at once.

Ali raised a shaky finger to point at somewhere behind Moon. Moon turned around, expecting to see the Cyclops manager, but was instead faced with something completely different.

A very beautiful woman was cat-walking towards them, her features ever changing, every new appearance beautiful than the last. One moment she was an Chinese woman with short, puffy black hair, a red gown, black leggings and matching red heels. In her next few steps, she became a Malay woman with straight, long brown hair, a black T-shirt, white jeans and brown furry boots. She stopped short in front of them in that form, though she kept changing her looks. But that wasn't the thing that shocked her the most.

With her perfect brown skinned hands clamped around his shoulders was Khai, and he didn't look one bit unfamiliar with the woman escorting him.

"Hi guys," he said with a forced smile.