Bandages and Salt (PJO X BSD AU)

Chapter forty

A/N: Normally I like keeping the pictures going with the time period that we're in, like pics from 15 when were were in the 15 era and now pics from the dark era since we're currently in that time.But I saw the lures and thought that it was too perfect to not use it.

Chuuya POV

We walked for a solid twenty minutes to what I assumed was supposed to be the Plaza Hotel. Gazing up at the tall building, I couldn't help but wonder what idiot chose this place as our headquarters of operations for the war. The hotel wasn't the tallest building in the city by any means, meaning that we could use the height as too much of an advantage while looking over the other buildings, and it wasn't the most centrally located between all of the invasion spots or the Empire State Building either. I knew that there had to have been some kind of demigod relegated reason for picking such a spot as this, but I was too tired to draw up the energy to care about something that will only affect me for the day or so.

As we walked closer to the hotel, I saw one of the Apollo cabin demigods in front of Dazai and I veered violently to the right as something crashed to the ground right where the demigod had been standing. Those that could move easily fell into sloppy fighting stances, their reflexes were dulled by exhaustion and pain, but the efforts weren't necessary.

"It's alive," I whispered, not bothering to move from my place in the crowd even as the demigods took cover from what they thought was a larger threat.

There was a life sized bronze statue standing in the middle of a granite basin in front of the hotel. A bronze sheet was wrapped loosely around the statue's body, dipping much lower than it had any right to and still be a public display, while a basket of metal fruits was hanging from the statue's arm, one being tossed up and down in her hand, metal clanging with each movement.

"Sure, just walk past me as if I'm not here," the statue complained, her voice shrill and metallic in nature.

I looked at Dazai and found an analytical expression on the younger boy's face, telling me that talking statues was not a normal occurrence for even the mythological world that I had stepped into. "This must be plan twenty-three," he reasoned, gesturing mutely at the moving statue.

I thought back to the walk here, to how we had occasionally passed what had looked like empty pedestals. I hadn't thought much of it at the time, jacking the entire thing up to strange monuments as all of the pedestals still had places attached to them that were too far away to read.

But now...

"Do you think that all of the statues in the city are going to come alive like that?" I asked, nodding my head at the screaming metal goddess that was still throwing fruit at the nimbly evading demigods after one of them had asked if she was Demeter (she was not).

The other teen picked lightly as the bandages lining his neck unconsciously as he thought, something that made me reach up and pull his arm down, momentarily forgetting that the other couldn't actually do any damage to himself at the moment. The younger boy shot me a dirty look, but obediently shoved his hands down into his pockets.

"Not all," he decided, "but a good enough number to actually do some damage, hopefully."

We walked past the horde of demigods running around like rats towards the hotel doors, not caring if either of us got hit with the metal fruit as it would be about as effective as hitting us with a marshmallow would have been at the moment. I thought about kicking one of the fruits back at the goddess, but she was largely ignoring the pair of us at the moment so I figured I would let it slide.

Stepping inside of the Plaza Hotel I didn't know what I was expecting after the sights of the past few days, but I knew that my sense of what is impressive was dulled after my time with the Port Mafia and the earlier visit to Olympus. I knew that sight before me would have been something of a luxury to most people, with the crystal chandeliers and walls lined with more expensive paintings than most people would probably ever see in their lives, but none of it really registered to me. Honestly the more alluring sight than all of that was the copious amount of rich people all passed out like perfect marks that you didn't even have to scam.