Chapter 106: Chapter 103: Back into the action!
(Nyx POV)
"You solved it?" I asked skeptically, "You know how to fix his situation?"
Eris nodded and waved her hand, the bol appeared in her hand. The bol was now torn to pieces, but the remaining parts could still be somewhat recognized as the remains of a metal device.
"What am I supposed to see?"
Eris grinned, "Well, I went through Geras' personal stuff and found interesting things."
"Like what?" I asked, I hated asking for more informations. It was so humiliating, being the one who explained stuff was a lot better then being explained to.
"For starters," Eris said, and she pointed at the metal device, "Geras didn't make this."
I frowned, "What do you mean?"
Eris grinned even wider, "Well for starters Geras received a package a week before Christmas send by someone with Hermes express."
I frowned, "So you can just order those gas thingies on the internet?"
"That's the point. You can't. This thing was specially made for Geras."
"Son of a bitch," I cursed, "I knew I shouldn't have trusted him."
Eris raised her eyebrow, "Anyway. So I went digging in Geras personal messages, and it turns out-"
"He was gay?" I finished her sentence.
Eris blinked, "What? No! Stop getting me sidetracked."
"So what did you find?"
"Geras got paid before he received the metal orb."
I gasped, "He was paid to kill Percy!"
Eris grinned, she was officially loving the drama. She always had a thing for theatrics. "But there's a catch!" Eris said, "The poison liquid which turns into gas under pressure is not lethal."
"So it failed?"
"No," Eris said, "I send a small drop of the poison to Akhlys so she could examine it. Turns out, it's a fear inducing drug that traps the victim in a hallucination."
I stared at the drooling Aether. He was still strapped to the hospital bed, so he would not injure anybody. "So all the rambling about the burning sky…"
"He's in a hallucination." I deduced.
"Exactly dear Watson," Eris grinned, "The drug is not meant to kill, only to make the affected person go insane from fear."
That was not a lot better. "So someone paid Geras to drug Percy?"
"That's just the problem," Eris said, "I don't think Percy was the actual target."
"You mean this was a long set up to drug Aether?" It seemed ridiculous to me. Why would anyone ever hurt Aether?
"I don't think there was a target at all," Eris said, "I think it was an experiment."
"An experiment?"
"Yes, I mean Geras is not the kind of person you go to if you want to get someone killed right? I mean he's old."
"And dead." I added.
"And dead," Eris nodded, "I think that Geras was paid to drop this boll at the party. Not to assassinate someone."
"You lost me." I admitted.
Eris shook her head in disappointment. "Don't you get what I'm trying to say?"
"Nope."
Eris sighed, "We had a christmas party with three primordials present. A demigod and a few gods."
"Get to the point." I demanded.
"I think it was an experiment." Eris revealed with a grin, "An experiment to see if the gas would work on immortals."
A cold shiver ran up my spine, "Wait you're saying that-"
"Geras was paid to test the bol. Not to assassinate someone. Trying to kill Percy was his own plot."
My head was spinning, "Who?"
Eris grin disappeared, "I don't know who created the gas or the metal bol. The only thing I know for sure that someone was testing a weapon against immortals."
"And they succeeded."
...
(Magnus POV)
We killed the goats, they were asking for it. Literally.
Though Thor reassured us, they would be fine next morning I couldn't help but staring at Marvin's head that Thor had dumped on the scrap metal. I had the feeling he was glaring accusingly, but there was also I was imagining it.
True, I've been living on the streets for two years and learned that you could not always eat what you wanted and you should be happy with whatever you get your hands on but it still was disgusting to look at. Though Otis tasted great.
As we ate, Thor kept ranting about his favourite shows on midgard television he followed religiously. He also kept ranting about Giants, but there was an edge to it. Like he had a personal grudge.
"Giants," Thor groaned while swinging his Otis-Kebab, "Still trying to invade Midgard, after all those centuries. They're like Eobard thawne in the Flash! They just keep coming back! As if I would let anything happen to humans! You guys are my favourite species!"
He petted my cheeks. I love being someone's favourite species.
Sam stayed at the edge of the fire, as far from Thor as she could get. She said as little as possible and made no sudden movements, Blitzen and Hearthstone had made it clear they didn't want the attention of Thor by sitting as far away from me as possible.
which meant that most of Thor's attention was on me.
Hearth played the I am deaf card while Blitzen pretended to be really tired.
Everything the thunder god did, he did with gusto. He loved cooking his goats. He loved eating and drinking mead. He loved telling stories. And he loved farting. Boy, did he love farting. When he got excited, sparks of electricity flew from his hands, his ears and … well, I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
Thor regaled me with his theories about a hypothetical death match between, Sherlock and Madrox.
Back in the good old days of living on the streets I would've loved to have a conversation about those kinds of things but with a deadline above our heads I wanted to talk about something else.
"So who do you think is the best villain in an ongoing series?" Thor asked me,
"Mmm…" I said, "I don't know, what were you doing in the river?" I tried to make a logical leap between the subjects without Thor noticing.
Thor laughed loudly, "That Giantess tried to drown me, they always try."
"Yeah, I saw she tried to drown you," I said trying to keep my calm, "But why did she try to drown you?"
Thor groaned, like he didn't like talking about it. "She was one of Herod's daughters. He always sends his daughters to kill me. He's one of my old enemies."
He gestured towards the cliffs. "His fortress is up there." He pointed his finger up, "I was heading there to…"
He groaned, "Doesn't matter. What brought you mortals here?"
Sam straightened and said, "Lord Thor we actually came here looking for you. We need your help."
I thought this was a coward move, I mean, I had to endure all of Thor's ranting about his favourite shows and when the actual exciting stuff came up she was suddenly interested.
Nonetheless, I explained Thor all about my prophecy and how Fenrir would break free soon.
Thor became agitated. Sparks flew from his elbows. He rose and paced around the fire, occasionally punching nearby trees.
"You want me to tell you where the island is," he deduced.
"That would be great Thor." Sam said.
"But I can't," Thor muttered to himself. "I can't be sending random mortals on wolf watching tours. Too dangerous. But Ragnarok. Not ready. No. Not unless –"
He froze, then turned towards us with an eager gleam in his eyes. "Perhaps that's why you're here."
"What is it?" I wondered, hoping it would be something easy, like singing a funny song. Our filling in a poll about my favourite villian in an ongoing show.
"I might or might not lost my Hammer." Thor said a bit embarrassed.
Sam placed her axe at her side, as if she anticipated needing it soon. "Let me guess, Lord Thor: you've lost your hammer again."
"Now, I did not say that!" Thor wagged a finger at her. "You did not hear that from me. Because if that were true, hypothetically speaking, and if word got out, the giants would invade Midgard immediately! You mortals don't realize how often I keep you safe. My reputation alone makes most giants too afraid to attack your world."
"But you just took down a giant with your hammer right? You're the god of thunder right? Not the god of hammers." Sam said slowly, her fingers gripping her axe tighter.
Thor's face grew more red and it looked like he was about to show Sam why he was the god of thunder.
"That's why you were going to Geirrod." I said quickly,"You think that guy has your hammer."
Thor groaned again, "That's just a theory. If my hammer would be lost because I put it on the ground for a second -which I did not!- he might have it."
"I thought it was the heaviest weapon in the world."
Thor gritted his teeth, "I know. It is, nobody should be able to pick it up except me. But Giants are tricky."
"Yes. He's a likely suspect. Even if he doesn't have it, he might know who does. Besides, without my hammer, I can't watch my shows. I'm a season behind on Parks and Recreation and it's killing me! I was ready to go to Geirrod's fortress myself, but I'm very glad you volunteered to go for me!"
"Wait a minute," I said, "Why don't you go? Just do your lightning thingy?"
Thor sighed, "I would've but I used up all my power today. Need to recharge." Then his smile brightened. "But you guys can go for me, check if he has my hammer or not."
"Bu-" Sam tried to protest.
"If you succeed, you prove your worth and I'll give you the location of his island and you can stop Ragnarok. You help me, I help you."
It sounded to me more like You help me, then you help me even more. But we needed the location of the island.
Sam must have been thinking the same thing. Her face roughly turned the same shade of green as her hijab. "Lord Thor," she said, "invading a giant's fortress with only four people would be …"
"Difficult." I finished.
Just then, out of nowhere, the sky above us began to ripple. It was like I was looking at the surface of rippling water.
"What's that?" Blitzen said, forgetting he was tired,
Then Percy appeared in the middle of the air. He must have been at least 500 yards high up in the sky. He fell down, and it took a brief moment for me to calculate where he would land. Then I realized he would probably break all of his bones.
But as Percy stumbled through the sky the ground in front of my feet burst open and a thick green vine the size of a tree trunk shot upwards.
It reminded me of a picture I once saw in child book named: Jack and the Beanstalk.
The vine reached up in the sky, growing larger than a normal tree, and wrapped around the Percy. It caught Percy and wrapped around it, then it slowly lowered itself, the base of the trunk slowly descending deeper into the ground.
Finally Percy landed on the ground and the vine disappeared into the ground making it look like nothing had happened.
The moment Percy touched the ground he fell to his knees, and I noticed how bad he looked. His black messy hair had become greasy, and he had ash all over his body. His orange shirt had burn marks on them (Though it was mostly undamaged) his arms had small cuts all over them.
Sam and I got up and helped Percy back to his feet.
"Percy!" I yelled,"Say something."
Percy's eyes opened and he started to grimace, "Oh, that sucked."
I couldn't resist a chuckle as I helped Percy to his feet. Sam brushed of the ash off his arms. "You are still alive." Sam noticed as Percy coughed a few times.
"Kid," Blitzen said, "You fell from the sky."
"Is this a friend of yours?" Thor raised one ironclad fist. "Or should I –"
"No! I mean, yes, he's a friend. Percy, Thor, Thor Percy." I yelled.
"Wait he's the Greek?" Thor mused as he studied Percy. Percy noticed Thor and for a moment he froze and I had the idea Percy had met Thor before but he quickly recovered and said, "Wow, Thor!"
"The one and only!" Thor said proudly, "And now you got five people to storm the giant's citadel! Friend Greek, help yourself to my goat meat and my fire. As for me, after being stuck in that river so long, I'm going to turn in early. In the morning, you all can set off to find my hammer, which of course is not officially missing!"
Thor trampled over to his bed of furs, threw himself down and began snoring with as much gusto as he'd been farting.
Percy shot Sam and me a confused look, "Okay, what the Helheim did you guys got me into?"
"Wait," Sam said, "You're the one who dropped out of the sky, we could ask you the same question."
"Long story," Percy said,"Please tell me you have something to eat."
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