Percy Jackson - The Record of The Journey of a Mortal Who Become a God

Ikki walked toward his destination.

With his supernatural senses picking up everything within the half-blood camp easily and even beyond, he had already realized the reason Chiron had called him; his best friend had woken up!

It was a happy occasion, and he should have rushed to greet him when he noticed, but he was hesitant. His mother's death was his fault; if he had been faster, he could have prevented it...

There was no point in blaming himself; he knew that, but it was easier said than done. Human emotions were beyond his complete control. Guilt would consume him if he hadn't been doing his best to distract himself over the last few days.

It was easier than facing it directly.

The question was how he would face his best friend?

Taking a deep breath to calm his slight nervousness, Ikki approached the Big House.

He activated his [Akashic Eyes] to take in the place in question.

At one end of the porch, two men were sitting across from each other at a card table. A familiar blonde girl was leaning against the porch railing next to them; it was Annabeth.

As for the two men, they were Chiron and Dionysus; Mr. D for short.

He also saw Percy and Grover standing on the porch. Both stood side by side...

"You drool while you sleep..." Annabeth's cruel words to her best friend entered his ears.

Then she ran off across the lawn in a different direction than he was heading, her blonde hair flowing behind her.

He watched his friend look confused before ignoring such an incident and focusing on something more important on his mind.

"So..." Percy seemed eager to change the subject, so he said:

"Do you, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"

"Mr. Brunner does not." Chiron said, correcting him in a teacherly manner: "I'm sorry, it was a pseudonym. You can call me Chiron."

"Got it." Percy said, completely confused, and looked at the pudgy man on the porch before asking: "And Mr. D... does that mean anything?"

Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at Percy as if he had just burped loudly.

"Kid, names are powerful things. You don't just throw them around without a reason."

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"I must say, Percy." Chiron interrupted him, speaking cheerfully: "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I did a home visit to potential campers like Ikki and you. I would hate to think I wasted my time."

"Home visit?"

Percy repeated, knowing his friend was alive from Grover's words. He was just waiting to find him to give him some punches for the biggest worry of his life a few days ago.

"The year I spent at Yancy Academy instructing you. We have satyrs on standby at most schools, of course. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you and Ikki. He felt that you were special, so I decided to go there.

I convinced the other Latin teacher to... ah, take a leave..."

"You went to Yancy just to teach me?" Percy asked, somewhat perplexed.

Chiron nodded.

"Honestly, at first I wasn't very sure about you. We contacted your mother, letting her know we were keeping an eye on you, in case you were ready for Camp Half-Blood. But you still had a lot to learn. Nevertheless, you made it here alive, and that is always the first test..."

"Grover. Are you going to play or not?" Mr. D said impatiently.

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he sat in the fourth chair, though Percy didn't understand why he should be so afraid of a plump little man in a Hawaiian shirt with a tiger print.

"Do you know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D asked, looking at Percy suspiciously.

"Unfortunately not."

"Unfortunately not, sir." He said with a frown of displeasure.

"Sir?" Percy repeated, hating the fat man in front of him. He sat in another chair when he saw Chiron's gesture for that.

"Well, this is, along with gladiatorial fights and Pac-Man, one of the best games ever invented by human beings. I figured all civilized youth knew the rules..." Mr. D explained, convinced that it was an irrefutable fact.

"I'm sure the boy can learn." Chiron said, nodding his head.

"Please." Percy interrupted with a trembling voice: "What is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun... Chiron, why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me? And where is Ikki? Grover said he was fine..."

The camp director huffed and dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one fell into his pile.

Chiron smiled at Percy in a reassuring way, as he used to in Latin class, as if to say that his grade didn't matter. He was his best student.

"One question at a time..."

"Starting with Ikki...

"When Annabeth saw that you had woken up, she explained to me, and Grover went to the infirmary to wait for you. I then sent a camper to call Ikki to come here; by now, he must be on his way. I imagine..."

Percy felt internally relieved and a bit anxious to reunite with his friend and see him fully okay with his own eyes.

"As for the rest, Percy..." Chiron paused before asking: "Did your mother tell you anything?"

"She said..." Percy spoke softly and with a heavy tone, recalling her sad eyes, looking out at the sea: "She told me she was afraid to send me here, although my dad wanted her to do it. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her..."

"Typical." Mr. D said indifferently, discussing human suffering: "That's how they usually get killed."

He insisted.

"Kid, are you going to make a play or not?"

"What?" Percy said one word as he tried to reason with the chubby man's response in light of his story.

Mr. D explained impatiently how to make a play in pinochle, and the son of Poseidon did.

"I'm sorry, but there's too much to tell." Chiron sighed, "I'm afraid our orientation video won't be enough."

"Orientation video?"

"No." Chiron concluded. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr, right? What you may not know is that great forces are at work in your life. The gods—the forces you call Greek gods—are very much alive..."

Percy expected someone at the table to shout in denial at such absurdity. But all he heard was Mr. D shouting: "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!"

He laughed as he counted the points.

"Mr. D..." Grover asked shyly: "If you're not going to eat it, can I keep your can of Diet Coke?"

"Huh? Oh, fine."

Grover bit a big chunk out of the empty aluminum can and chewed sadly.

Ignoring the absurdity he saw with his own eyes, his friend eating a can, he said to Chiron, completely disbelieving.

"Wait, are you telling me there's something like God?"

"Well, let's go." Chiron sighed and explained: "God—with a capital G, God. That's another topic. We won't deal with the metaphysical..."

"Metaphysical? But you were talking about..."

"Ah, gods, in the plural, great beings who control the forces of nature and human endeavors; the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a minor point."

"Minor..?"

"Yes, very. The gods we discussed in Latin class."

"Zeus, Hera, Apollo. You mean those." Percy repeated, thinking it was all a bad joke and that he had gone crazy enough to dream about the events of the last few days.

A distant thunder rumbled on a cloudless day.

"Kid." Mr. D gave him a friendly warning: "If I were you, I would be less careless about throwing those names around."

"But they're stories. They are... myths to explain lightning, the seasons, and everything else. That's what people believed before science came along."

Percy countered forcefully.

"Science!" Mr. D scoffed, speaking with ridicule in his voice: "And tell me, Perseus Jackson, what will people think of your 'Science' thousands of years from now? Hmm? They will call it primitive nonsense. That's what they will think. Ah, I love mortals... they have no sense of perspective. They think they have come so far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."

Percy shrank back and was startled to hear the chubby man in front of him saying his full name, something only his mother and Ikki knew!

"Percy." Chiron explained calmly: "You can choose to believe or not, but the fact is immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Existing, just as you are, for all eternity?"

Percy was about to respond, but Chiron's tone made him hesitate in his decision.

He took a deep breath and said: "You mean, you want people to either believe you or not."

"Exactly." Chiron agreed, nodding his head: "If you were a god, would you want to be called a myth, an old tale to explain lightning? And if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that one day people are going to call you a myth, created just to explain how little boys can survive the loss of their mothers?"

Percy felt his anger rise; he knew his former Latin teacher was trying to make him mad. So he didn't let him...

"I wouldn't like that. But that doesn't mean I believe in gods."

"Oh, it's better this way." Mr. D murmured, annoyed: "Before one of them incinerates him."

Grover said hurriedly:

"P-please, sir. He just lost his mother. He's in shock."

"That's a blessing, too." Mr. D grumbled, tossing a card: "What's truly miserable is being confined to this depressing job, with boys who don't even have faith!..."

He waved his hand, and a cup appeared on the table, as if the sunlight had momentarily bent and transformed the air into glass. The cup filled with red wine.

Percy was shocked, but Chiron barely glanced up and warned,

"Mr. D, your restrictions."

Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise: "Well, well..."

He looked up at the sky and shouted: "Old habits! Sorry!"

Some distant thunder rumbled again.

Mr. D waved once more, and the wine cup turned into a new can of Diet Coke. He sighed, unhappy, opened the can, and returned to his card game.

Chiron blinked and explained to Percy that he thought he was dreaming.

"Mr. D annoyed his father a long time ago, felt attracted to a woodland nymph who had been declared off-limits."

"A woodland nymph." Percy automatically repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke as if it had come from the cosmos.

"Yes." Mr. D confessed, extremely annoyed: "Dad loves to punish me. The first time, prohibition. Awful! Ten absolutely terrible years! The second time... well, she was really beautiful, I couldn't stay away... the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for kids like you."

"Be a better influence, he told me. Work with the youth instead of ruining them. Ah! What injustice."

The chubby man in front of him looked like a six-year-old throwing a tantrum.

Percy stammered:

"And... your father is...?"

"Di immortales, Chiron." Mr. D looked at the centaur with a scowl as he said: "I thought you taught the basics to this boy."

He turned his gaze back to Percy and stated the obvious: "My father is Zeus, of course..."

Percy ran through the names starting with D from Greek mythology in his mind. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs seemed to be working here. The way Grover shrank back in fear, as if Mr. D were his master.

Reaching a conclusion, he exclaimed: "You're Dionysus. The god of wine..."

Mr. D rolled his eyes and spoke.

"As the kids say these days, Grover? The kids say, 'seriously'?"

"Yeah. That's right, Mr. D..." said a voice as beautiful as an immortal wine that people couldn't help but crave its flavor.

His attention turned to the voice, and it was Ikki standing on the balcony railing. The two immortals on the balcony had already noticed his arrival so they weren't surprised, but that wasn't the case for Percy and Grover, who jumped in shock.

"Ikki?..." Percy asked, feeling immense relief at seeing his friend unharmed.

"What's up, seaweed brain? Surprised?" Ikki asked, resting his hand on his chin.

"Relieved is the best word..." Percy smiled faintly as he said that. At least his best friend was alright, unlike his mother; if he had lost both, he couldn't even imagine what his life would be like.

"I thought I was going to have some sort of touching reunion, you know? You running and hugging me..."

"Dream on. I'm straight, dude..."

Percy huffed before wearily saying:

"Besides, I'm way too tired of revelations around here..."

He glanced at Mr. D, who was watching the whole exchange attentively, and said.

"Are you really a god? That Dionysus?..."

"Seriously, what did you think; that I was Aphrodite?"

"A god. You..." Percy repeated, still not believing he was face to face with a god.

Mr. D turned to look directly at Percy, and a kind of purplish fire glimmered in his eyes, a hint that this whiny little fat man was only showing him a tiny portion of his true nature.

Percy, staring into Mr. D's eyes, had visions of vines strangling disbelief to death, insane drunken warriors with battle zeal, sailors screaming as their hands transformed into flippers, faces elongating into dolphin snouts.

At that moment, he knew that if he pressed him, Mr. D would show him worse things. He would plant a disease in his brain that would lead him to wear a straitjacket for the rest of his life.

"Would you like to test me, child?..." the deity said in a low voice.

"No. No, sir." Percy swallowed hard and replied quickly.

Ikki found this amusing, but looking at Mr. D, his eyes took on a cold gleam. If the god in front of him did anything to his friend, he was ready to use his best move to stop him...

The so-called deity, unaware of his imminent demise should he attempt anything, returned to his card game and exclaimed.

"I think I won."

"Not exactly, Mr. D..." Chiron smiled and lowered his hand, counted the points, and said: "The game is mine..."

Mr. D looked like he wanted to turn Chiron into dust in his wheelchair, but he simply sighed through his nose, as if accustomed to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He stood up and spoke indifferently.

"I'm tired. I think I'll take a nap before the singing tonight..."

He glanced at Percy with a sidelong look and said:

"Cabin 11, Percy Jackson. And watch your manners."

With those words, he walked away into the house.