DESTINY ↳ WILL SOLACE

10. I Ruin A Perfectly Good Bus

CHAPTER TEN

I Ruin A Perfectly Good Bus

I don't own Percy Jackson.

NOTE: Do you guys prefer the cover I have up now, or this one? My new one gives me more fantasy-fanfic vibes and isn't hard to make. I just feel like my old one is kind of boring.

It didn't take Percy long to pack.

She didn't have anything to bring. Even with everything she had, minus the Minotaur horn, since she didn't want to accidentally lose it, it barely filled the backpack Grover had found for her. All she ended up bringing was an entrachange of clothes and a toothbrush, though she wondered if she could swing by the cabin she and her mother had abandoned in their haste to get to camp and grab her stuff back, if it was still there.

The camp loaned her a hundred dollars in mortal money and twenty golden drachmas. They were as big as Girl Scout cookies and had images of various Greek gods stampd on one side and the Empire State Building on the other. Chironsaid that they would come in handy for non-mortal transactions, whatever that meant, but Percy found herself wondering if, worse came to worse, she could just sell them. Sure, it might've raised some eyebrows about where she got it, and how she got it, but gold was probably pretty valuable, right?

Will, on the other hand, had been given two canteens of nectar and Ziploc bags full of ambrosia squares, to be used in emergencies, of course. Actually, Chiron had given them both one of each, but Will had taken hers as soon as Chironleft, claiming that, as the quest's medic, it'd probably be best if he held onto it.

Chiron seemed a bit relieved when he explained to her how too much of it would make her very, very feverish, or that an overdose would burn her up, literally, probably because he knew that Will was their best shot at keeping that from happening. After all, Percy had known about the mythological world for all of two weeks and Grover had never needed to eat any of that god food, and as Will was one of the best medics at the camp... Well, so long as Percy didn't steal it and start eating the squares as a snack, there was no way she'd manage to kill herself.

Will, on the other hand, had been at camp for four years, and his father never missed giving any one of his kids a present during their birthdays; he had a collection of goodies to choose from, especially with his siblings all offering their own gifts to up his chances of coming back alive. He refused their gifts, though, claiming that, in case he died or lost the item or something, he didn't want to feel responsible for losing it. They had all protested, agreed after a lot of arguing.

In the end, Will decided to bring his magic bow and his magic ukulele, which had been a twelfth-birthday and tenth-birthday present, respectively, from his dad. His bow could turn into a wristwatch when he tapped it and said, "Apollo!" and had a somewhat unlimited stock of arrows, though Percy found the logic behind it confusing when he tried to explain it to her. It had a cooldown period, Will explained, between fights—the more arrows he used, the more cooldown time it needed before all of its arrows were replenished. He could still use it before its cooldown time was completely finished, but it just meant only a part of the arrows were available for use.

What Percy found confusing was that if Apollo was a god, why couldn't he have created a gift that didn't need the cooldown period? Sure, it was already a great gift, and way better than anything she got from her dad as a birthday present (anything could beat nothing... unless it was a bunch of turds or something), but still. Maybe it was because every gift needed weakness or whatever, but why did it even need to come with a weakness? Why couldn't it have just been a nice gift?