she was thunderstruck.
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"thanks, brainiac"
"don't mention it, sleeping beauty"
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annabeth chase x fem!oc
percy jackson x male!oc
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the lightning thief → the last olympian
--
part one of the 'skyfall' series
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THE TAXI DROPPED THEM AT THE BEACH IN SANTA MONICA BY SUNSET.
It looked exactly the way L.A. beaches do in the movies, only it smelled worse. There were carnival rides lining the Pier, palm trees lining the sidewalks, homeless guys sleeping in the sand dunes, and surfer dudes waiting for the perfect wave.
The four questers walked down to the edge of the surf.
"What now?" Annabeth asked.
The Pacific was turning gold in the setting sun. Aurora breathed in the sea air, it made her nervous; this being her uncle's turf. But then she remembered that no one knew she was Zeus' daughter.
Percy stepped into the surf.
"Perce" Aurora asked, "What are you doing?"
He kept walking; up to his waist, his chest.
Annabeth called after him, "You know how polluted that water is? There's all kinds of toxic—"
She didn't get to finish as his head went under the surf. He stayed down for five minutes, then ten, it had been fifteen by the time he resurfaced, as dry as if he'd been laying in the sun all day.
He quickly explained what happened; The woman, the three pearls; a gift from Percy's father.
Aurora winced, "No gift comes without a price, Percy."
"They were free."
"No." She shook her head. "'There is no such thing as a free lunch.' That's an ancient Greek saying that translated pretty well into American. There will be a price. You wait."
On that happy thought, they turned their backs on the sea.
With some spare change from Ares's backpack, they took the bus into West Hollywood. Percy showed the driver the Underworld address slip they'd taken from Aunty Em's Garden Gnome Emporium, but he'd never heard of DOA Recording Studios.
"You remind me of somebody I saw on TV," he told Percy. "You a child actor or something?"
"Uh ... I'm a stunt double ... for a lot of child actors."
"Oh! That explains it."
They thanked him and got off at the next stop.
The four questers wandered for miles on foot, looking for DOA. Nobody seemed to know where it was. It didn't appear in the phone book. Twice, they ducked into alleys to avoid cop cars.
After watching a depressing interview of Percy's stepfather, wandering for another hour, and strange characters starting to come out after dark, they found themselves in the middle of a gang of kids.
Percy and Aurora both pulled their swords, most of the gang of kids backed away. The leader was either the stupidest or the bravest person ever, because he continued at them with a switchblade.
