━━ chapter ten
bob the titan

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    FIONA tried to reach him. She could've died doing it; she was making herself vulnerable, but she saw him, struggling to get to her with them on his back, teeth sunk into his shoulder. She wanted to sob, crying out a weak, "Percy," as if that would save him━as if that would stop the monsters from tearing the two of them apart. But she hurt. Her back screamed with pain. And he was too far away ...

     That was when the shadow fell onto them. A huge, silvery figure dropped from above like an angel with a deadly curse, stomping down onto Kelli flat until she was nothing more than a mound of monster dust. He glanced at her, and Fiona's scream hitched in the back of her throat. He was a Titan; a ten-foot-tall Titan with wild silver hair, pure, glistening mercury eyes and muscular arms protruding from the ripped-up sleeves of a blue janitor's uniform. In his hand was a massive push broom, and his name tag read: BOB.

     He paid no attention to Fiona. He just looked away and turned to the two remaining empousai who stood over Percy. 

    One was foolish enough to attack. She lunged, but never stood a chance. Bob the Titan spun his broom, and a spearhead jutted out from the end. With a single deadly swipe, he cut her to dust. The last vampire tried to run. Bob through his broom like a massive spear; it sliced through the vampire and then magically returned to his hand. 

     "SWEEP!" the Titan grinned with delight and did a victory dance. "Sweep, sweep, sweep!"

     Fiona couldn't speak. Her heart pounded, and her back was sticky━probably the blood from the gigantic gash she could feel like hot iron against her skin. She managed to meet Percy's gaze. Despite looking dazed and horrible, even he matched her confusion. Fiona pushed herself to manage a dry, "H━how...?"

     "Percy called me!" said the janitor happily. "Yes, he did."

    Fiona realised, and her disbelief only grew. She wanted to crawl away, but if she moved, she feared that her back would just rip itself in half. "Called you? He━wait ... you're Bob? The Bob?"

     The janitor frowned when he noticed her wounds. "Owie."

     He tried to get closer to her but she flinched. She wanted to get out of here━she tried to crawl, but it only made the pain worse. The last Titan she fought almost killed all of her friends. 

     "It's okay," Percy said, swaying a little, but he managed to move just a bit to try and be closer to her. "He's friendly."

      Fiona didn't really have a choice. She closed her eyes tight as the Titan loomed over her. She felt him touch her back ... and miraculously, the pain slipped away like a zipper up a jacket, before disappearing completely. She gasped, her eyes snapping back open as she sat up, not sure whether to be grateful or horrified.

     Bob chuckled, pleased with himself, then bounded over to Percy and healed his bleeding neck and arm. "All better!" he declared. "I am Bob, Percy's friend!"

     Fiona pushed herself back onto her feet. She stumbled, she swayed, but that didn't matter. She just tripped and stumbled forward, hands stretched out towards her boyfriend who let her fall into him. Fiona hugged him tight, eyes closed as she let her shoulders slump for a moment to feel his arms around her. He was okay ... He was okay ...

     She didn't let go as Percy looked up to meet Bob's gaze. "Uh ... yeah," he croaked. "Thanks for the help, Bob. It's ... really good to see you again."

    "Yes!" agreed to Titan. "Bob. That's me. Bob, Bob, Bob!" He shuffled around, obviously very happy with his name. "I am helping. I heard my name. Upstairs in Hades's palace, nobody calls for Bob unless there is a mess. Bob, sweep up these bones. Bob, mop up these tortured souls. Bob, a zombie exploded in the dining room."

     Fiona was very puzzled with that. Percy shrugged, as if knowing exactly what she was thinking, and was answering with a: I don't know, it's your dad's palace. 

     "Then I heard my friend call!" beamed the janitor. "Percy said, Bob!"

     "That's awesome," said Percy, loosening his hold on Fiona so she could cling on to his side. "Seriously. But how did you━?"

     "Oh, time to talk later," Bob's expression turned serious. "We must go before they find you. They are coming. Yes, indeed."

    "They?" Fiona didn't have a good feeling about that. Call her a demigod (oh, wait...).

     Percy scanned the horizon, she tried to join, to think, but she was so tired, and she was hungry, and Bob might've healed her back, but her knee and everything else ached; her joints felt like hinges in need of a good oil. 

    "Yes," said Bob. "But Bob knows a way. Come on, friends! We will have fun!"

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    SHE AND PERCY supported each other as they walked. They followed Bob through the wasteland, tracing the route of Phlegethon as they approached the storm front of darkness. Every so often, they stopped to drink firewater to keep themselves alive, but Fiona hated it━she felt like she was swallowing her own stomach acid. It made her a bit bitter, and she couldn't help but grumble to Percy as they limped on━

    "Can't your friend just heal my knee?" she clung onto his side tightly, keeping herself and him up. He had a similar grip on her. "Would make life here so much easier."

    "It's okay," Percy promised her, squeezing her side gently. "Bob knows what he's doing."

    "You have interesting friends," she muttered truthfully. "How many other monster friends do you have?"

     "I mean ..."

      "Actually, maybe I don't want you to answer that."

     "Bob is interesting!" the Titan turned and grinned. "Yes, thank you!"

     Bob had good ears. Fiona needed to remember that. 

      "So, um," she tried to speak well, but every word felt like she was talking through ash and smoke, "Bob, how ... how did you get into Tartarus?"

     "I jumped," he told her.

     "Right," Fiona did her best not to sound sarcastic. "You jumped into Tartarus ... because Percy said your name?"

     "He needed me," those mercury eyes gleamed in the darkness; swirling like they were truly made out of liquid. "It is okay. I was tired of sweeping the palace. Come along! We are almost at a rest stop."

     Rest stop.

     Fiona needed rest. She wanted to lie down. She wanted to lie down in her own bed, under her own covers with her head on her own pillow in her Mom's house back in New Rome. She wanted to be home. She didn't want to rest here. But rest in the most dangerous place in the entire Greek and Roman world was the best she was going to get right now. 

     She and Percy continued to hobble along. Fiona tried to ignore the rumble in her stomach, but as she thought about home, and her Mom, she thought about adobo, she thought about tocilog ... sweet cured pork, egg, garlic fried rice ... and she wanted Buko Pandan for dessert ... she wanted to eat every single thing in the world. She wanted ... she wanted her Mom. Even if it was her just to tell her to to do her best, to give more than one-hundred-and-ten per cent. To just get up, to win from the bottom. Fiona needed that right now. She needed her mother to tell her to keep going, to push through more than anything. 

    She would also say following a dangerous Titan through Tartarus was a risky, horrible idea. What if Bob suddenly remembered who he was? She was sure before he was a friendly janitor-ninja broom master, he was a horrifying, deadly Titan with a thirst for blood, and probably a harbouring a very deep grudge over Percy dousing him with the River Lethe and making him lose his memories. 

     And now he was working for her father and step-mother. Was he paid? How was he treated? Fiona never really thought about Pluto, since after turning a blind eye to her staying alive, he could no longer contact her or talk to her. But it was hard for a daughter to imagine her father, even if he was a god, as somebody cruel to his enemies, even if they didn't remember being one.

     The three of them picked their way across the ashen wastelnd as red lightning flashed overhead in the poisonous clouds. Fiona couldn't see far in the hazy air, but the longer they walked, the more certains he became that the entire landscape was a downward curve. 

     Fiona has heard conflicting descriptions of Tartarus. Everyone knew of this place; it was the nightmare of demigods, gods and monsters alike. It was meant to be their horrors, their darkest fears; the dephts of punishment. The birthplace of monsters: the birthplace of every living nightmare. 

     But there was one story that described it as the inverse of the sky━a huge, hollow, upside-down dome of rock. That seemed to be the most accurate; though it Tartarus was a dome Fona guessed it was like the sky━with no real bottom but made of multiple layers, one each darker and less hospitable than the last. They were stepping down and down and down, and Fiona had a feeling where they were meant to go was the worst layer of them all.

     And even that wasn't the full, horrible truth ...

     Tartarus was a God. He was a God, just like Gaea was the goddess of the earth, and Uranus was the God of the sky. Tartarus was a living, breathing entity that they were walking through, watching him bring to life their horrors from his very skin, stepping down his very throat, living and breathing his ecosystem that was his blood, his breath, his lungs ... He was the most ancient incarnation of evil, and he inhabited it.

     Kelli was right, Fiona had no domain whatsoever down here. She was merely an unwanted guest who thought she had more power than she dared. But it was the only thing she had left. 

     "Here," said Bob finally. 

    They stopped at the top of a ridge. Below them, in a sheltered depression like a moon crater, stood a ring of broken black marble columns surrounding a dark stone alter.

     "Hermes's shrine," explained Bob.

    Percy frowned. "A Hermes shrine in Tartarus?"

     Bob laughed in delight. The sound didn't belong here. "Yes. It fell from somewhere long ago. Maybe mortal world. Maybe Olumpus. Anyway, monsters steer clear. Mostly."

    "How did you know it was here?" asked Fiona.

     Bob's smile faded. He got a vacant look in his eyes. "Can't remember."

     Percy tensed. He gripped Fiona tighter, "That's okay," he said quickly, though his tone was shrouded with guilt. 

     But Fiona was cursing herself over another thing. Before Bob was Bob, he was Iapetus, and like all of his brothers, he had been imprisoned in Tartarus for aeons. Of course, he knew his way around, and if he remembered this place ... what was the likely chance he won't start to remember more? That this shrine won't trigger anything? Because that would be worse than not good.

     She said nothing else as they climbed into the crater and entered the circle of columns. Fiona couldn't stop herself from collapsing down onto a broken slab of marble, too exhausted to take another step. She held out her knee, staring, miserable at the sight of the red, inflamed skin. Percy stood over her protectively, scaning their surroundings. The inky stormf ront was less than a hundred feet away now, obscuring everything ahead of them. The crater's rim blocked their view of the wasteland behind. They were well hidden here, but Fiona didn't want to know what lied beyond.

    And if monsters did stumble along them, they would have no warning.

    Bob notcied Fiona's leg. Finally, he said, "Here," and carefully touched a finger onto the red skin. She winced, gritting her teeth, but just like he had healed her back, the inflamation of her knee subsided, and her kneecap morphed back into place better than before. Fiona sighed in relief, dropping forward to put her head in her hands to hide her want to cry. She didn't know how long it'd be until she'd dislocate it again, but right now, she was so relieved, she had a lump forming in her throat.

    "Thank you," she whispered, taking a deep breath and looking back up. She swallowed her tears and nodded at Bob. "Thank you..."

    "Bob is happy to help!" Bob smiled, and Fiona managed a weak one of her own. 

    "You ... you said someone was chasing us," she then asked. "Who?"

    Bob swept his broom around the base of the altar, occasionally crouching to study the ground as if looking for something. "They are following, yes. They know Percy is here. Giants and Titans. The defeated ones. They know."

    The defeated ones ...

     Fiona's stomach dropped. She glanced up at Percy, who had gone suddenly even more rigid. She didn't know everything. She knew bits and pieces, but in reality, her and Percy have only spent just over two weeks together━it felt like years, after everything they've been through, but Fiona had a shocking realisation that there was so much to Percy she didn't know. Especially his past. And that didn't bother her until now, knowing that he wouldn't want to talk about it until he felt ready, and they were alone, and he didn't feel like everyone was watching him; he could allow himself to be just a boy, for once, since he started this journey, but Fiona had no idea what monsters he fought, what giants, what Titans, except for the ones they fought together, and the big names: like Saturn (or Kronos, whatever).

     But she knew they were bad. She knew they were horrible. She knew they could be the worst of the worst. And if all of them were down here in Tartarus, and were actively hunting Percy ... and what about the enemies she had made? She didn't exactly have a clean ledger towards monsters, either.

     She tried to keep her fear to a minimum. She couldn't let that control her, not now.

    "So, why are we stopping?" she demanded. "We should keep moving."

    "Soon," said Bob. "But mortals need rest. Good place here. Best place for ... oh, long, long way. I will guard you."

    Fiona wasn't sure. Actually, she was completely against that idea. She glanced at Percy, sending him the silent message of: not a good idea. 

    "You sleep," Percy told her. "I'll keep the first watch with Bob."

     But Fiona didn't know how to tell him that she didn't think she could sleep. Not without knowing he was still here with her. Not without knowing she wasn't alone. Even him standing there, at her side, wasn't enough. She needed him to hold her, or for her to hold him ... just to make sure everything was okay, that they were okay, that they were safe━

    Bob rumbled in agreement. "Yes, good. When you wake, food should be here!"

    Her stomach growled at that, desperate. Fiona didn't see how Bob could summon food in the midst of Tartarus, but her stomach held onto to hope.

    She didn't want to sleep. She refused to sleep without knowing anything, but her body was betraying her. Her eyelids were turning to lead. "Percy?" she whispered, hating how weak her voice sounded. 

     He turned back to her, "Yeah?"

     "You won't leave me?" Fiona murmured. "You won't ... you promise me you'll wake me for second watch? You promise me you won't be a hero? You'll ... you'll be here when I wake up?"

     Percy's gaze softened. "Who, me? Being the hero?" he attempted that stupid smirk, and Fiona felt better for it. 

     He leaned down, tilting her head up so he could meet her lips. They were parched and feverishly warm, but Fiona didn't care one bit. Because she knew her own were the same. Percy moved away to kiss her forehead, brushing her hair off her face. "I'll be here," he promised her gently; like the carress of a distant ocean wind. "I'm not leaving your side for one second, I promise." He met her gaze, their foreheads touching. Percy smiled. He looked a little flushed. Fiona suspected she was, too. "Sleep."

     She nodded and let herself curl up on the marble. Unlike everything else, it was cool, and that comfort surprisingly sent her straight to sleep.   

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    a/n: okay, i listened to trainwreck on repeat for this chapter, and you probably can definitely feel it. it has limited editing (sorry, it's always like that), but hope y'all still enjoy. 

     can i have a percy? please, i'm begging.

    also, casting for annabeth and grover has begun, and they're still looking for their percy. but since they're starting the call for annie and grover, i'm guessing they're gonna be doing pair auditions for call-backs and such for chemistry. these three are gonna be growing up together, so, they all gotta get along as friends ahaha.

     man, i wish i was still twelve ... just with the personality i have now ... because you do NOT wanna know twelve-year-old me.