A Favor

Chapter 5: Meet the Crew

Two days later Percy, was waiting with the Empire State Building security guard. Percy had grown close to them after learning they were in fact the creator of everything. Greeks called them Chaos, Egyptians called him Ma'at, Hindus called him Brahma, and so on. They had asked in return for the demigod to not reveal their secret, and to just hang out occasionally. Percy's immediate response to this reveal that he had threatened the creator of the universe numerous times was to ask why in the name of Hades they worked as a security guard for Olympus. Chaos never got back to him.

As Percy waited, he realized he had no idea if the gods had actually told Diana where she was supposed to pick him up. He hadn't had much time to think about it when explaining to the Camps and Hunters where he was going. And a few divines who had no chill at all. To be fair, Percy was severely lacking in chill, but there were a few who outclassed even him.

He looked toward the two animals who decided to accompany him, at least for now. One was named Gary, due to beast's absolute obsession with the Pokémon anime. It took severe convincing for the demigods to not kill Gary on sight. This is perfectly valid since he had been known a year and a half ago as the Chimera.

This may require an explanation.

You see, apparently there's a stupidly small chance of certain monsters returning from Tartarus completely reborn. While Echidna usually finds her Sonny immediately, Gary was spat onto Percy and Artemis' front porch. The son of Poseidon had felt so bad for the pathetic furball on his porch that he made the executive decision to adopt Gary. The monster had grown to absolutely adore Percy and his girlfriend, and even grew out of his hunger for demigod flesh. Plus he looked far healthier with Percy than he did when the boy first met him on the Arch. 

If you asked Percy how he managed to tame one of Typhon's original brood, his answer would vary from Artemis to leftover Pan-wilderness magic to a secret blessing by a forest god to a natural affinity to animals to an 'I dunno'. The second animal that accompanied him made a bit more sense. She was a seagull named Credo Edepol, or Cred for short. It meant 'little bastard' in Latin, and she was quite proud of this. 

Despite being small compared to many of his other animalistic partners, she was still a force to be reckoned with. Once when Percy was attacked by a horde of Lastrygonians, Cred had single handedly (wingdedly?) killed one by pecking out it's eyes and tearing at important arteries with a celestial bronze beak cover. 

Percy waited as patiently as ADHD would allow as Cred preened herself and Gary stretched as best he could with a goat head on his back when Chaos suddenly said, "She's waiting in the alley behind us." 

Percy thanked him slinging a backpack over his shoulder filled with only the survival essentials for a demigod. AKA two and half dozen Tupperware containers of blue cookies. Don't look at them like that, they were really useful. Everything agrees that Sally's cookies are holy artifacts of every religion. There is quite literally an underground market where gods, monsters and others will trade Sally's cookies for high value items and favors. 

Seriously. 

Satan himself, the embodiment of all evil and malice in the universe, once traded three no-strings-attached deals for half of a cookie. That meant whoever gave him the cookie got three deals that they could only benefit from. They wouldn't even lose their souls.

The main reason they were so valuable was because of the short supply available. And they were in such short supply because only two people could make them right (Sally showed Percy her secrets). One was perhaps the single most dangerous being in myth, and the other was his mother whom had proven to be a force to be reckoned with on her own.

Anyways, Percy thanked the guard for waiting with them, called over Gary and Cred, and made his way to the alley. Diana was waiting with her back to him, before turning to face the trio before her.