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ɪ ᴘʟᴀʏ ᴘɪɴᴏᴄʜʟᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴀ ʜᴏʀꜱᴇ (ᴘᴛ.2)

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*the screens turns to show Percy's embarrassed face*

"So," I said, anxious to change the subject. "You, uh, work here, Mr. Brunner?"

"Not Mr. Brunner," the ex—Mr. Brunner said. "I'm afraid that was a pseudonym. You may call me Chiron."

"Okay." Totally confused, I looked at the director. "And Mr. D ... does that stand for something?"

Mr. D stopped shuffling the cards. He looked at me like I'd just belched loudly. "Young man, names are powerful things. You don't just go around using them for no reason."

"Like You-Know-Who's name?" An innocent first year asked.

"Actually no. In our world speaking the names of powerful beings can have consequences. Like on the case of monsters it can draw their attention. But Voldemort's name is not used being people are just afraid." Astrea answered with a smile at the child. 

She loved kids. 

"Oh. Right. Sorry."

"I must say, Percy," Chiron-Brunner broke in, "I'm glad to see you alive. It's been a long time since I've made a house call to a potential camper. I'd hate to think I've wasted my time."

"House call?"

"My year at Yancy Academy, to instruct you. We have satyrs at most schools, of course, keeping a lookout. But Grover alerted me as soon as he met you. He sensed you were something special, so I decided to come upstate. I convinced the other Latin teacher to ... ah, take a leave of absence."

I tried to remember the beginning of the school year. It seemed like so long ago, but I did have a fuzzy memory of there being another Latin teacher my first week at Yancy. Then, without explanation, he had disappeared and Mr. Brunner had taken the class.

"You came to Yancy just to teach me?" I asked.

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

"And the worst test ever" Astrea whispered under her breath but is till heard her.

"Grover," Mr. D said impatiently, "are you playing or not?"

"Yes, sir!" Grover trembled as he took the fourth chair, though I didn't know why he should be so afraid of a pudgy little man in a tiger-print Hawaiian shirt.

"I know now..."

"You do know how to play pinochle?" Mr. D eyed me suspiciously.

"I'm afraid not," I said.

"I'm afraid not, sir," he said.

"Sir," I repeated. I was liking the camp director less and less.

The Hogwarts students couldn't help but to compare this Mr.D to Professor Snape. To them it seemed like both people were the same and disliked.

"Well," he told me, "it is, along with gladiator fighting and Pac-Man, one of the greatest games ever invented by humans. I would expect all civilised young men to know the rules."

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

"Please," I said, "what is this place? What am I doing here? Mr. Brun-Chiron-why would you go to Yancy Academy just to teach me?"

Mr. D snorted. "I asked the same question." The camp director dealt the cards. Grover flinched every time one landed in his pile.

"Mood" Nico stated as Astrea pulled him back into her arms

Chiron smiled at me sympathetically, the way he used to in Latin class, as if to let me know that no matter what my average was, I was his star student. He expected me to have the right answer.

"Percy," he said. "Did your mother tell you nothing?'

"She said ..." I remembered her sad eyes, looking out over the sea. "She told me she was afraid to send me here, even though my father had wanted her to. She said that once I was here, I probably couldn't leave. She wanted to keep me close to her."

"Typical," Mr. D said. "That's how they usually get killed. Young man, are you bidding or not?"

"What?" I asked. He explained, impatiently, how you bid in pinochle, and so I did.

"I'm afraid there's too much to tell," Chiron said. "I'm afraid our usual orientation film won't be sufficient."

"Chiron you have to show him the orientation film!" Astrea spoke out but was ignored.

"I still stick by that decision"

"Orientation film?" I asked.

"No," Chiron decided. "Well, Percy. You know your friend Grover is a satyr. You know"—he pointed to the horn in the shoe box—"that you have killed the Minotaur. No small feat, either, lad. What you may not know is that great powers are at work in your life. Gods—the forces you call the Greek gods—are very much alive."

The hall burst in chatter, chaos everywhere. 

"That's not possible!"

"How!?"

"Liars! Minister arrest these liars!"

"Shut up you stupid toad"

And the noise continued until Percy got fed up with everything and shouted into the mass of people, "BE QUIET AND LETS CONTINUE PLEASE!"

I stared at the others around the table.

I waited for somebody to yell, Not! But all I got was Mr. D yelling, "Oh, a royal marriage. Trick! Trick!" He cackled as he tallied up his points.

"Mr. D," Grover asked timidly, "if you're not going to eat it, could I have your Diet Coke can?"

"Eh? Oh, all right."

Grover bit a huge shard out of the empty aluminum can and chewed it mournfully.

"Wait," I told Chiron. "You're telling me there's such a thing as God."

"Well, now," Chiron said. "God—capital G , God. That's a different matter altogether. We shan't deal with the metaphysical."

"Ah yes. The metaphysical. Our gods can be real because we believe in them but the ones in other cultures can't? That's just rude atp."

"Atp? Like ATP the energy source of plants?"

"What? No! I meant At This Point."

"Metaphysical? But you were just talking about—"

"Ah, gods, plural, as in, great beings that control the forces of nature and human endeavours: the immortal gods of Olympus. That's a smaller matter."

"Smaller?"

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

"Hestia," I said. "Hades. Apollo. You mean them." And there it was again—distant thunder on a cloud-less day.

Hades was throwing a smug look at his brothers while Astrea was trying to calm a bigheaded Apollo.

"Young man," said Mr. D, "I would really be less casual about throwing those names around, if I were you."

"But they're stories," I said. "They're—myths, to explain lightning and the seasons and stuff. They're what people believed before there was science."

"Science!" Mr. D scoffed. "And tell me, Perseus Jackson"—I flinched when he said my real name, which I never told anybody—"what will people think of your 'science' two thousand years from now?" Mr. D continued. 

"Hmm? They will call it primitive mumbo jumbo. That's what. Oh, I love mortals—they have absolutely no sense of perspective. They think they've come so-o-o far. And have they, Chiron? Look at this boy and tell me."

I wasn't liking Mr. D much, but there was something about the way he called me mortal, as if... he wasn't. It was enough to put a lump in my throat, to suggest why Grover was dutifully minding his cards, chewing his soda can, and keeping his mouth shut.

"I am in fact not a mortal Peter Johnson, but that wouldn't register in your barnacle brain would it" drawled out a voice from behind the magazine.

 The half-bloods snickered, used to the god's inputs and outbursts, as the wixen looked in surprise at his attitude.

"You shouldn't act like that with children." Dumb-as-a-door spoke up and received glares from many. 

"Yes, you should just use them as pawns and keep them in the dark about their lives. Isn't that right professor?" Astrea piped up with a glaring spark in her eyes, staring straight at the old man who gulped in fear.

"Percy," Chiron said, "you may choose to believe or not, but the fact is that immortal means immortal. Can you imagine that for a moment, never dying? Never fading? Existing, just as you are, for all time?"

I was about to answer, off the top of my head, that it sounded like a pretty good deal, but the tone of Chiron's voice made me hesitate.

"You mean, whether people believed in you or not," I said.

"Exactly," Chiron agreed. "If you were a god, how would you like being called a myth, an old story to explain lightning? What if I told you, Perseus Jackson, that some-day people would call you a myth, just created to explain how little boys can get over losing their mothers?"

"Not cool Chiron."

"I apologise for my past actions. I believe i have gotten better at being sympathetic"

My heart pounded. He was trying to make me angry for some reason, but I wasn't going to let him. I said, "I wouldn't like it. But I don't believe in gods."

"Oh, you'd better," Mr. D murmured. "Before one of them incinerates you."

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

"A lucky thing, too," Mr. D grumbled, playing a card. "Bad enough I'm confined to this miserable job, working with boys who don't even believe.'"

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

My jaw dropped, but the others hardly looked up.

"Mr. D," Aster warned, "your restrictions."

Mr. D looked at the wine and feigned surprise. "Dear me." He looked at the sky and yelled, "Old habits! Sorry!"

"I really love this dude's character"

More thunder.

Mr. D waved his hand again, and the wineglass changed into a fresh can of Diet Coke. He sighed unhappily, popped the top of the soda, and went back to his card game.

Chiron winked at me. "Mr. D offended his father a while back, took a fancy to a wood nymph who had been declared off-limits."

"Which I still don't understand because why he would do that, when he has a loving wife at home. But then again, most of this world's problems are because Zeus is either acting like a child or can't keep it in his pants." Astrea ranted and got a great full smile from Hera and frown from Zeus.

"A wood nymph," I repeated, still staring at the Diet Coke can like it was from outer space.

"Yes," Mr. D confessed. "Father loves to punish me. The first time, Prohibition. Ghastly! Absolutely horrid ten years! The second time—well, she really was pretty, and I couldn't stay away—the second time, he sent me here. Half-Blood Hill. Summer camp for brats like you. 'Be a better influence,' he told me. 'Work with youths rather than tearing them down.' Ha! Absolutely unfair."

"Yes, because it's definitely not him and his rules, that's tearing us down and killing us off." spoke Percy- sorry - Persassy.

Mr. D sounded about six years old, like a pouting little kid.

"Zeus on a daily basis" said Percy, getting a high-five from Apollo and the Weasley twins in return.

"And ..." I stammered, "your father is ..."

"Di immortales, Chiron," Mr. D said. "I thought you taught this boy the basics. My father is Zeus, of course."

I ran through D names from Greek mythology. Wine. The skin of a tiger. The satyrs that all seemed to work here. The way Grover cringed, as if Mr. D were his master.

"You're Dionysus," I said. "The god of wine."

Mr. D rolled his eyes. "What do they say, these days, Astrea? Do the children say, 'Well, duh!'?"

"They're more likely to say, 'No shit dumbitch" but that too, yeah." Aster remarked

"Then, well, duh! Percy Jackson. Did you think I was Aphrodite, perhaps?"

"You're a god."

"Yes, child."

"A god. You."

"And one of the only sane ones, as ironic as it is." Nico said and the other campers spoke up in agreement.

He turned to look at me straight on, and I saw a kind of purplish fire in his eyes, a hint that this whiny, plump little man was only showing me the tiniest bit of his true nature. I saw visions of grape vines choking unbelievers to death, drunken warriors insane with battle lust, sailors screaming as their hands turned to flippers, their faces elongating into dolphin snouts. 

I knew that if I pushed him, Mr. D would show me worse things. He would plant a disease in my brain that would leave me wearing a strait-jacket in a rubber room for the rest of my life.

"Would you like to test me, child?" he said quietly.

"No. No, sir."

The fire died a little. He turned back to his card game. "I believe I win."

"Not quite, Mr. D," Chiron said. He set down a straight, tallied the points, and said, "The game goes to me."

I thought Mr. D was going to vaporise Chiron right out of his wheelchair, but he just sighed through his nose, as if he were used to being beaten by the Latin teacher. He got up, and Grover rose, too.

"I'm tired," Mr. D said. "I believe I'll take a nap before the sing-along tonight. But first, Grover, we need to talk, again, about your less-than-perfect performance on this assignment."

Grover's face beaded with sweat. "Y-yes, sir."

Mr. D turned to me. "Cabin eleven, Percy Jackson. And mind your manners."

He swept into the farmhouse, Grover following miserably.

"I'm going with them. I need to speak to Mr.D about school, it won't take long. I'll meet you at the cabin Chiron" Aster said before she rushed in after them.

"Will Grover be okay?" I asked Chiron.

Chiron nodded, though he looked a bit troubled. "Old Dionysus isn't really mad. He just hates his job. He's been ... ah, grounded, I guess you would say, and he can't stand waiting another century before he's allowed to go back to Olympus."

"Zeus is a bitch"

"Zeus is a dick"

"Zeus is an ass"

"Zeus is a jerk"

"Zeus is a whore"

"LAST COMMENT WINS!"

"Mount Olympus," I said. "You're telling me there really is a palace there?"

"Well now, there's Mount Olympus in Greece. And then there's the home of the gods, the convergence point of their powers, which did indeed used to be on Mount Olympus. It's still called Mount Olympus, out of respect to the old ways, but the palace moves, Percy, just as the gods do."

"You mean the Greek gods are here? Like... in America?"

"Well, certainly. The gods move with the heart of the West."

"The what?"

"Did you not listen in his Latin and Mythology classes?"

"I was busy gawking at the swords!"

"Come now, Percy. What you call 'Western civilization.' Do you think it's just an abstract concept? No, it's a living force. A collective consciousness that has burned bright for thousands of years. The gods are part of it. You might even say they are the source of it, or at least, they are tied so tightly to it that they couldn't possibly fade, not unless all of Western civilisation were obliterated. 

The fire started in Greece. Then, as you well know—or as I hope you know, since you passed my course—the heart of the fire moved to Rome, and so did the gods. Oh, different names, perhaps—Jupiter for Zeus, Venus for Aphrodite, and so on—but the same forces, the same gods."

"And then they died."

"Died? No. Did the West die? The gods simply moved, to Germany, to France, to Spain, for a while. Wherever the flame was brightest, the gods were there. They spent several centuries in England. All you need to do is look at the architecture. People do not forget the gods. Every place they've ruled, for the last three thousand years, you can see them in paintings, in statues, on the most important buildings.

"You people were here in England?" Asked Harry and received nods from the gods and goddesses.

 And yes, Percy, of course they are now in your United States. Look at your symbol, the eagle of Zeus. Look at the statue of Prometheus in Rockefeller Centre, the Greek facades of your government buildings in Washington. I defy you to find any American city where the Olympians are not prominently displayed in multiple places. Like it or not—and believe me, plenty of people weren't very fond of Rome, either—America is now the heart of the flame. It is the great power of the West. And so Olympus is here. And we are here."

It was all too much, especially the fact that I seemed to be included in Chiron's we, as if I were part of some club.

"It's our own personal cult!" All the demigods shouted together and then Will added, "where we sacrifice ourselves for our parents!"

"Children! What have i told you about trauma jokes?" Chiron scolded the campers 

"Don't joke with company. Especially not our parents." Chorused the half-bloods in a bored tone, as if they had repeated it too many times - which they had.

"Who are you, Chiron? Who-who am I?"

"Percy Jackson, one of the most powerful demigods, an illegal child,  Annabeth's future be boyfriend, Killer of like a million monsters, and your highest title, - Astrea's brother."

Chiron smiled. He shifted his weight as if he were going to get up out of his wheelchair, but I knew that was impossible. He was paralyzed from the waist down.

"Spoiler! No he's not!"

"Who are you?" he mused. "Well, that's the question we all want answered, isn't it? But for now, we should get you a bunk in cabin eleven. There will be new friends to meet. And plenty of time for lessons tomorrow. Besides, there will be s'mores at the campfire tonight, and I simply adore chocolate."

"So do I" Said Remus while eating a chocolate frog before offering one to the immortal trainer.

And then he did rise from his wheelchair. But there was something odd about the way he did it. His blanket fell away from his legs, but the legs didn't move. His waist kept getting longer, rising above his belt. At first, I thought he was wearing very long, white velvet underwear, but as he kept rising out of the chair, taller than any man, I realised that the velvet underwear wasn't underwear; it was the front of an animal, muscle and sinew under coarse white fur.

 And the wheelchair wasn't a chair. It was some kind of container, an enormous box on wheels, and it must've been magic, because there's no way it could've held all of him. A leg came out, long and knobby-kneed, with a huge polished hoof. Then another front leg, then hindquarters, and then the box was empty, nothing but a metal shell with a couple of fake human legs attached.

I stared at the horse who had just sprung from the wheelchair: a huge white stallion. But where its neck should be was the upper body of my Latin teacher, smoothly grafted to the horse's trunk.

"What a relief," the centaur said. "I'd been cooped up in there so long, my fetlocks had fallen asleep. Now, come, Percy Jackson. Let's meet the other campers."

And the screen faded out to a blank.

"THAT'S SO COOL!" 

"WOAH"

"YOU'RE A CENTAUR!"

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Sya Notes ! 

5.5 published and its long. Almost 3000 words. Why can't it be like this for assignments 😭

But i didn't write many reactions to the scenes in this chapter. Honestly felt to lazy and i'm sorry but i cba with that. 

Anyways, hope you guys enjoyed and keep reading!

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