{ ' A GOD BUYS US
CHEESEBURGERS ' }

007. . . ( fugitives in a diner )

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...       𝐄verything seemed to go by in a blur. For one moment, Pandora was at the top of the fire exit stairs, pounding on the door and pleading for Percy to let her in, and the next she was sitting on the grassy curb outside, playing with the laces on her shoes. Grover and Annabeth were conversing behind her quietly, but the whole world seemed to be silent for her.

All she could think about was the burning hole in the bottom of the arch and the lack of Percy's body. So, through process of elimination, he had to be alive somewhere. Or maybe that was just optimism speaking, but Pandora was completely and utterly in denial of the young demigod being dead. He couldn't be. His quest had just started.

Pandora kept her head down as she observed the, now very interesting, concrete floor. She didn't look up at any of the police officers or firemen, she didn't try and butt in on Annabeth and Grover's conversation, she just sat in silence. Like always. Watching the world pass her by.

"Hey, come on." Grover tapped Pandora's shoulder lightly. "We're going to go find Percy."

She stood up with the help of his hand, and they ran along the dock, calling out of the curly-haired boy, desperately. They ran down a short flight of stairs until they reached the edge of the dock, with only the length to walk down. Pandora was still staring at her feet, until she bumped into Annabeth's back.

She looked up, and there Percy was, in all his soaking wet glory. He raised his hand as a wave before smiling awkwardly. "Hi."

Annabeth broke into a slow jog before wrapping her arms around him tightly, moving away after so Grover could also greet his best friend. Then, Pandora was left.

She walked over to him, looking up with squinted eyes, the sun practically blinding her. Percy opened his mouth to speak, "Look, I'm sorry about shoving you into the stairwell. Even hearing myself say that sounds really bad. But, I just—" I knew you'd never agree, and there wasn't enough time—"

Percy was cut off by Pandora wrapping her arms around his neck tightly, burying her face into his shoulder. He smiled into hers, before encasing her waist in his arms, sighing contently at the warmth her body brought him.

"Never do that again." Her voice broke, making her swallow audibly and squeeze her eyes shut. "I thought I lost you."

"So. . ." Grover started, making the pair slowly unravel themselves, but Percy still kept an arm around her waist. "You're not as dead as we thought you'd be."

"Surprise." Percy smiled, his voice slightly weak.

"What happened?" Grover asked breathlessly, curious to know how his best friend had survived a 630 foot drop into the water.

"Short version, we need to go to Santa Monica." Percy summed up very quickly, cutting off all the useless story-telling and ranting.

"What, like now?" Grover exclaimed in surprise.

"My father's going to meet me there. . . He's going to help us." Percy said confidently, looking at Pandora with a broad smile, which faltered when he saw her staring at the floor.

"Okay." Grover nodded. "Uh, just one problem with this plan: the police think that we crashed an Amtrak train, and then did that." He gestured to the dark grey smoke billowing from the curve of the arch.

"The cops are after us?"

"Yeah."

"Isn't that going to make it hard for us to get on a train? Or a bus? Or really anything you need tickets for?" Percy's realisation came a little while after his friends'.

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...        𝐖alking across the United States of America was not the most ideal plan in the world, but what other choice did they have really. It was going to take a ridiculous amount of time, full of excruciating pain in the feet and low tolerance/ patience for anyone's bullshit. Never mind having to possibly deal with monsters.

The four walked alongside each other, Percy and Pandora sandwiched between Annabeth and Grover. The highway road was quiet and desolate, a dry landscape where there was no road.

"Hey, guys." Percy suddenly spoke up, breaking the blissful silence. "I think this quest might be harder than we thought." Grover and Annabeth shared incredulous looks as Percy kept talking. "I've been thinking, I didn't steal the master bolt. You guys didn't steal the master bolt. We're pretty sure Hades has the master bolt, but he couldn't have stolen it himself. I mean, we don't even know who actually stole the thing, or why, or how deep this goes. . . I'm the last person to realise this, aren't I?"

Grover and Annabeth snorted at the boys obliviousness, when the one thing he caught onto, was Pandora's silence. He reached a hand out to hold hers, but Grover slapped it away and shook his head, mouthing the words, 'Leave her'. Percy looked at him with confusion, to which the satyr nodded in Annabeth's direction. She then rolled her eyes and sighed.

"Okay, so, maybe when we started, my head wasn't fully in this, but since the river. . . it all feels different somehow." Percy carried on with the previous topic. "He saved me. My dad. I guess I just never really thought that's something he'd do for me. So maybe I gotta take things more seriously now."

The sound of an engine neared, making the four veer off-road and walk in the sandy, dried grass. "Car."

"That's not a car, it's a bike." Annabeth corrected Grover's previous warning. "Just let it pass, come on."

They crouched down behind the road-to-path barrier, shielding them from any passing vehicles. Pandora sat hunched forwards with her hands hugging her legs to her chest and resting her chin on her knees.

"I'm saying, we're not just trying to retrieve a thing. I think we might need to be detectives here, too." Percy looked at Pandora to see if she had any input, which she didn't. His hand rested in the dirt beneath them, slightly inching towards hers. She pretended not to notice.

"Yeah." Annabeth grumbled, stretching her legs out.

"Why are you being weird with me again? I thought we weren't doing that anymore." Percy asked her, scrunching his eyebrows.

"I'm not being weird." Annabeth denied, shaking her head.

"Yes, you are." Percy pushed, determined to get an answer out of her. "You've been weird since we left the arch." Annabeth awkwardly turned away. "Oh. . . I get it. It doesn't have to be a thing, you know. That you hugged me?"

"Oh, boy." Annabeth sighed whilst Grover rested his head back on the barricade. Pandora shuffled uncomfortably, playing with the charm bracelet on her wrist.

"I mean, we're like, friends now. That seems like a thing friends do. At least I think they do." Percy's voice trailed off. Pandora brought her hand to her lap, removing any possible way that they would interlink.

"I saw the Fates." Annabeth blurted out. "Back at the arch, I saw the Three Fates, and I saw Atropos cut a piece of thread."

"And that's bad or. . ." Percy looked to the other two on his other side.

"The Fates weave the life strand of every living thing. When you see a string cut—" Grover explains.

"It means one of us is going to die." Pandora's throat was dry from not talking in a while, making it raspy and hoarse. Everyone turned to look at her.

"We're all gonna die, eventually." Percy argued, moving his shoulders.

"Soon." Pandora clarified. "It's a warning. An omen."

Percy sighed as no one spoke up after a short moment. "Okay, guys, we need to do something about this whole fate thing. Three old ladies with a ball of yarn can't know what's going to happen. What I choose to do, changes what's going to happen, and I can choose to do anything I. . . want. " He trailed off, hearing the sound of the motorbike engine stop behind them.

"Need some help?" The biker called out to them.

"Beg pardon?" Grover questioned as they peered over the top of the barricade.

"I asked if you could use some help." The biker repeated, accentuating his words.

"Nope. No. We're— We're good." Grover smiled awkwardly. "Appreciate you asking, though. So long." They disappeared behind the barricade.

"You don't seem too good."

"We don't want anything from you." Annabeth told him.

"You sure? Because you guys are so behind schedule." The biker chuckled to himself. That sentence made them pop back up, this time rising to their feet entirely. "I mean, summer solstice is just a few days away. And as much as I'd love to see a good war pop off, as your big cousin, I feel like, maybe, I wanna give you a hand."

"Cousin?" Percy asked, staring at the man with blankness.

"Ares." Annabeth realised.

"You must be Athena's kid." Ares stared at the young girl. "Always gotta be the wisest one in the bunch."

"Why would you help us?" Annabeth retorted sassily, not buying his front for a minute. "How do you even know about what we're doing out here?"

"Because I'm doing exactly the same thing as you." Ares rolled his eyes. "Zeus sent all of his kids out looking for the master bolt, too. Listen, dummies. I'm hungry. There's a halfway decent diner up the road. If you want my help, you'll meet me there. But don't dawdle. Won't wait forever." And with that, he was gone, zooming down the highway with his sunglasses on, even though it was a very cloudy day.

"That's my cousin?" Percy asked sarcastically, watching judgementally as the god rode off. "What kind of family is this?"

Another thought crossed Pandora's mind: how could her mother possibly be in love with that?

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...        𝐈t had gotten even darker by the time they arrived at the diner, but the sun hadn't officially set yet, leaving an orange hue to cast over the land. Pandora would never have imagined sitting at a diner with her mom's boyfriend, watching him laugh at twitter fights, but here she was. He was receiving concerned and annoyed stares from those sitting on tables around, due to his loud, booming laugh.

The three of them slid into the seat opposite Ares, leaving Pandora with no choice but to seat herself next to him. She tensed up visibly (if she wasn't tense enough already) and kept her legs crossed, with her hands in her lap.

"So your quest. . ." Ares sighed, placing his elbows on the table and interlocking his fingers. "Is going to fail. Ask me how I know."

"It isn't gonna fail." Percy denied strongly.

"Sure it is." Ares scoffed, "For starters." He pulled out his phone, clicking on a news interview, showing a very ugly looking man, with a moustache, sitting slumped in an officer chair, in an even uglier suit and tie.

"Percy was always troubled, but I never thought he was capable of something like this."

"W— Who's that?" Grover asked.

"My step-dad." Percy answered, glancing briefly at his satyr friend. "What's he doing?"

"A kid that messed up? What wouldn't he do?"

Percy mumbled under his breath, glaring daggers into the face of his step-dad.

"Wild, right?" Ares grinned, enjoying all of this tension and anger. "The FBI is already spreading your picture around.

"It's a Camero. I really— We really loved that car. So much. Cut." Gabe fakely sobbed.

"I'm gonna kill him." Percy said through gritted teeth.

"I knew I was gonna like you." Ares nodded surely. "But safe to say the chances of you four idiots hitchhiking the rest of the way to LA without getting caught are slim to none."

"Why are you sitting here, then?" Annabeth questioned, looking at her uncle sceptically. "If you're supposed to be looking for the master bolt too, shouldn't you be out there looking for it?"

"Hm. There's no fear in you is there." Ares cocked his head to the side and observed the young girls sassy behaviour. "Doesn't matter, whether the bolt is retrieved or not, Zeus is going to war with Poseidon."

The four teenagers all shared confused looks. Percy argued back, "No, the Oracle said if we return the bolt, there wouldn't be a war."

"Is that what she said? Or is that what Chiron said she meant?" Ares turned it around, making them think about the Oracle's message. "Yeah, you're knew to the family, young one, so let me fill you in on how we work. See, years before I was born, my grandpa Kronos, ate my aunts and uncles. Yeah. Then my dad made him puke them back up, then chopped him into a million pieces and chucked 'em into a bottomless pit, so that kinda set the tone right out of the gate. Olympians fight. We betray. We backstab. We will push anyone down a flight of stairs to get ahead. And that's why I love my family so much! My dad knows he's not getting this bolt back with quests or goose chases. He knows there's a war coming. And in reality, I think he's okay with that. I think he feels it's time for a war, so we're gonna have a war."

Ares paused for a moment to inhale deeply and collect himself, the idea of this bloodshed and violence making his adrenaline rush. "Isn't that great?"

"We're completing this quest. We're stopping this war." Percy persisted sternly, still not giving up. "You said you can help. Can you?"

"Okay, so here it is. There's an amusement park up the road. I left my shield there. You get me my shield back, and I'll get you to the Underworld by lunch tomorrow with a plan to invade Hades' palace." Ares compromised.

"You left your shield? Like, forgot it on the merry-go-round?" Annabeth smirked, amused at what he was insinuating.

"Okay, the chirping was funny to me for a minute, but it is getting old." Ares said darkly, shifting forwards in his seat, glaring at the teenaged girl. "So, do we have a deal, or am I killing all four of you so I can eat in peace?! Don't take what isn't yours!" Pandora gasped sharply as the god grasped her wrist tightly and painfully.

She was reaching forward to take a fry out of the mound of them, but clearly she wasn't as sneaky as she thought. She winced at the harshness of his grip and tried to wriggle her wrist around, but he left no space for movement.

Percy stood up suddenly, planting his arms on the table and staring him down. "Let her go. Now. We'll go to the amusement park and get your stupid shield. But let her go." His jaw was clenched protectively and his words had no kindness behind them, whatsoever.

Ares smirked at the interaction and threw her arm to the side. Pandora rolled it around in her palm, breathing in sharply when it would hit the wrong position. "Great. One catch." Ares made another order. "I really do need that shield back, so I'm gonna keep the satyr and my niece here as collateral so you don't run off." He then turned to Pandora, swinging an arm around her shoulders. "Oh, you're gonna love the park!"

"What? No." Annabeth scoffed in annoyance.

"Okay." Grover accepted, nodding his head.

"No way." Percy disagreed, looking at his best friend. "We don't split up again."

"It's okay. If he wanted to kill us, we'd be dead by now." Grover stared at the god. "Plus, I've got Annabeth. She's tough as nails. Can we just walk them to the door?"

Ares grumbled before allowing them to.

"Okay, look. Don't engage with him. He'll probably want to get you riled up, get in your head, but you can't let him." Pandora reminded them. This was probably the most she'd said all day.

"It's okay. Really." Grover reassured her. "We know what we're doing. Go get the shield. We'll be here when you get back."

Pandora quickly flung her arms around the satyr in a brief hug before pulling away and walking out of the diner. She could feel eyes on her back as she left, and the knew they were from a certain daughter of Athena, but she ignored them. She smiled at Percy as he joined her side.

He smiled back, grabbing her hand hesitantly. Their fingers interlaced and they walked side-by-side, no talking. They didn't need to talk.

— 𝒋𝒂𝒔𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒆 𝒔𝒑𝒆𝒂𝒌𝒔

oh yes new chapterrr i'm so
excited for the next one you
guys are gonna tweak🤭🤭

opinions on pandora's behaviour
rn?? r we annoyed or supportive??

THERES ONLY TWO MORE
EPISODES OF PJO LEFT
AND THEN WERE DONE IDK
WHAT IM GOING TO DO
WITHOUT THE SHOW OMLL