As promised, this chapter will be longer than the previous one.

I know that some of you think Athena isn't acting the way you think she would so I suppose I could call her, what's the term, OOC? Or something like that. Personally, I don't really know, I kind of don't really like her, so this story will make her out to be a not so good goddess. If you have a problem with that, I'm sorry but I won't change that. At least not for this story.

Thank you to the people who reviewed and thanks to the people who are spending their time reading my story.

Disclaimer: I do not own PJO or the related works.

Percy POV

I waited by the tree for several minutes. Precisely at 10:00, a bright light appeared and then died down. I turned my head and saw Athena standing next to me.

She looked at me and said, "Good evening Perseus. I assume you would like to know your first challenge. Well, first, you must walk all the way to the Garden of the Hesperides. You may not use any form of transportation other than your own body. Once you get to the garden, I will give you your second task. Good luck." With that, she disappeared in another flash of light.

I sighed, this was going to be a long walk. Almost 3000 miles if what Annabeth taught me is correct, which I'm sure it was. If I walked 30 miles a day, it would take me a little over three months to get there. I wanted to go faster than that, so I decided I would try to go faster that that. I would walk from sunup till sundown. Maybe longer if I had the energy. The biggest problem was going to be the monsters, since I was a son of Poseidon, they would be attracted to me from miles away. I hoped I was strong enough to fend them all off.

After Athena left, I walked about a mile into the forest and set up camp for myself. I woke up to the sun shining down in my face. Sighing, I got up and packed everything up. I had a small breakfast and then headed out.

At first, I could barely manage to hike for ten hours a day, but after a week or so, I began hiking for more than twelve hours each day. Most days, monsters didn't find me, but occasionally they would. I fought off several hellhounds and dracaena, as well as various others on occasion. Nothing ever showed up that I couldn't handle.

By the end of two weeks, I was easily hiking for 14 hours a day. To get to my destination faster, I began running every other hour. Whenever I came across a town, I would stock up on freeze-dried food and energy bars. I lived on the stuff for my entire journey. It got pretty nasty, but it held the nutrients I needed and provided me with energy.

About a month and a half into my journey, I was running for over ten hours every day and gaining nearly 100 miles. I looked up and saw the ocean. I had made it to the west coast. I stepped into the ocean to get my bearings, and realized I needed to travel south a couple hundred miles to reach San Francisco. I turned south and continued running.

Several days later, I made it. I remembered that you could only enter the garden at sunset, so when I reached my destination a little after noon, I lay down and relaxed for the first time in a long time. I was in the best shape of my life, the trek had done wonders for my endurance and strength. Running 100 miles a day with 40 pounds on your back really helps to get you in shape. I had also gotten a lot better at monster fighting.

I never knew when they would attack me, so I was always on guard and was capable of fighting them when I was exhausted from a long days run, I could fight them when I was woken up at two in the morning, and I could fight them at any other time of the day. Since I had been moving so quickly, the monsters never got a chance to form large groups and attack me. Unfortunately, relaxing by the Garden of the Hesperides for several hours did give them a chance to gang up on me.

I looked up from where I was lying down and saw a horde of hellhounds, 20 of them at least, along with several laistygonians and maybe 15 dracaena. I figured every monster in San Fran had smelled me run through the town and they had all gathered here while I resting to ambush me. I gave a sigh of annoyance and stood up, uncapping Riptide while I did so.

I turned to face the monsters when I realized I was surrounded. I looked and saw a massive tree not far away, I figured if I could get to the tree and put my back to it, the monsters would have to attack me head on. I charged through the monsters, cutting down several of them, and reached the tree.

For the next twenty minutes, I stayed there, dodging monsters and swinging Riptide at them. By the time I finally dispatched the last one, I was exhausted. I didn't have the mark of Achilles anymore, so I had several guts and gashes on my arms, legs, and sides. I was breathing heavily, but all the monsters had been vaporized. I pulled out my ambrosia and realized it was almost all gone. I didn't want to be without any godly healing food, but I couldn't continue if I was as beat up as I was, so I ate the last of it and felt my wounds close up.

There was still about three hours until I could enter the garden, but I didn't want to relax and let my guard down again, so I spent the time walking around the general area, patrolling for monsters. No more showed up, but I never relaxed.

Finally, sunset came and I could enter the garden. I could feel the power of the mist around the garden and concentrated my hardest on entering, as I walked through, I caught site of the garden I had seen only once before. It was just as beautiful as the last time I had come, although I was a little lonelier this time since I had no friends with me.

As soon as I came into view of the tree, I heard a voice next to me speak, "You have nerve to come back here, after you imprisoned our father once again. This time, you won't get through so easily."

I turned my head and saw the four Hesperides. It had been several years since I had seen them, and it seemed they still didn't have any respect for me. Oh well, I just needed to wait for Athena to give me my next test.

As soon as I had thought that thought, I saw a flash of light and found Athena right in front of me. She looked at me and smiled, "Good job, Perseus, you have completed the first part of your test. The next part is even harder." She then grabbed my shoulder and teleported me in front of Atlas, who was holding the sky and began cursing at me as soon as he saw me.

I turned to Athena, "What is my next task, and why did you bring me up here?"

She looked at me and I saw a dangerous glint in her eye, I knew that I was in for some serious trouble. "Why, your next task is to hold up the sky again. For a month."

For several seconds I was too stunned to speak. My jaw was on the ground and I wasn't sure if I had heard her right, "Wait, you want me to hold up the sky. For a month. What about Atlas? And what if I fail and the sky touches the Earth and flattens half of California? Isn't this a little dangerous?"

Athena just smiled at me, "Well, if you want to avoid destroying California, I advise you not to fail. As for Atlas here, we will chain him before we free him, and then leave him chained to the ground right in front of you so he can taunt you and laugh at you the whole time. There will be no chance for him to escape as I have gathered the help of several other gods to help with the moving of him."

I gulped. This was going to be a difficult task to complete. "Okay, I suppose that works, but what about food and water to keep me alive?"

Athena looked at me funny, "You will need none of that. All the energy you will need to survive must come from inside of you. As long as you are holding the sky, you will not need any form of sustenance."

When she finished talking, Hephaestus and Apollo both appeared in the clearing. I watched as the three chained Atlas with special chains and prepared to move him. Athena looked at me, "Come here Perseus and take the sky. Once you have taken it, you must survive for an entire month before I will free you. Good luck."

I really didn't want to do this, but I knew if I was to get Athena to approve of me, I had no choice but to do this. With thoughts of my love for Annabeth on my mind, I knelt down under the sky and took the burden. Immediately, I felt the pain I knew I would feel. It burned and felt like I was being crushed. I could barely breathe under the pressure and I was finding it more and more difficult to remain kneeling. I felt like I wanted to be pushed into the ground, be crushed and destroyed by the massive weight on my shoulders.

I knew though, that I couldn't do that. If I gave into the weight of the sky and allowed it to control me, I would lose and terrible things would happen. I would end up dead and my friends and family would all be saddened. They would then feel pain because I had failed to complete my task. Annabeth would have it the worst. So I forced myself to stay strong and bear the burden.

After a while, I finally managed to regain enough composure to take in my surroundings. Atlas was chained to the ground, beaten and bloodied. He was facing me and smirking at me. "Good luck punk. There is no way you are going to be able to survive this for a month. You saw Artemis after she had held the sky for a week and she could barely lift it at that point. You are just a mortal, if you think you will make it a month, you are an idiot. However, I must thank you for giving me a break from my burden."

I looked around and saw that all the gods had gone back to Olympus or wherever else the gods go. I tried to take in my surroundings more, but it was incredibly hard to concentrate on anything except the massive pain I was feeling from the sky on my shoulders. It felt like my body was compressing, little by little, and before long, I would just be a flattened demigod with the sky above me. The pain was immense, and the more I tried to focus on my surroundings, the more I felt like I was dying.

I realized that I needed to focus on the sky and keeping it up, otherwise I would fall. In order to gather the strength to lift the sky, I needed to be motivated by something. What kept me motivated was the simple and true love that I felt for Annabeth and my need to make her happy. That was all that mattered to me, and it helped me to keep the sky lifted.

It was hard to tell the passage of time. I could never concentrate on the passing of days, I could tell if it was day or night, but not how many days it had been. I could also feel myself weakening. The sky was crushing more than just my physical body; it was crushing my resolve as well. As the time passed, my energy was slowly running out. No matter how hard I tried to keep the sky lifted, it was pushing against me even harder, forcing me to bow down. Eventually I realized that I was on my hands and knees, supporting the sky with my back. I could feel my stomach getting closer to the ground.

It didn't help having Atlas and the Hesperides laughing at me and mocking me the whole time. I tried not to pay attention to what they were saying, but their constant chatter was distracting me from my focus, making it harder to keep the sky aloft. I tried to ask them how long I had been holding the sky for, but I didn't think I could trust their answers. Sometimes they told me it had been months, or even years, while other times I was told it had only been a few days.

The pain was excruciating and tore through my whole body. Holding the sky for several minutes so that Artemis could trap Atlas had been almost impossibly and incredibly painful, but holding the sky for a seemingly endless amount of time was way harder. The constant pain only grew, never getting a chance to be relieved. By the end, I couldn't even think.

Finally, the day came where I knew I couldn't hold the sky for any longer. I was being pushed into the ground and in mere minutes, the sky would meet the Earth and a massive explosion would ensue. I tried my absolute hardest to lift the sky harder, but I could no longer withstand the pain in my body and the strain on my mental self. Right as the sky was going to touch the Earth though, I felt it lifted off of my back.

I had never felt such relief before. All my pain that I had endured for an endless time was slowly dissipating. I could feel the strain on all of my muscles as well as on my mind, but it was no longer growing, instead I could feel it slowly being relieved. At first, I couldn't move my body, I felt something drag me away from my previous position. I looked up and saw Athena looking down at me. I couldn't tell whether I had passed her test or if I had failed. She just looked at me with her calculating grey eyes.

After several minutes, I found myself able to move again. I looked around and saw that Atlas was once more under the sky and seemed to be glaring at empty space. I figured the gods who had put him back there had probably been there before taking their leave. He then looked over at me and said, "Congratulations Jackson. It seems you are stronger than I gave you credit for. I don't know why you were being forced to hold the sky, but you actually managed to do it successfully and gave me a longer break than expected. I still don't like you though, and if I ever get free, since you seem to be quite skilled at holding my burden, I might just give it to you."

Before Atlas could say anymore, she grabbed my arm and teleported us off of the mountain and back onto the road next to the garden. She looked at me and said, "Your final test is now. You have gained much strength from these last two tests, so now to truly test you, I have quadrupled your demigod scent. Any monster within 100 miles of you should be able to find you easily. You are to return to camp on foot. If you can make it to the base of Halfblood Hill, I will give you my blessing to date and court my daughter. If you fail, you die. Good luck." With that, she disappeared in a flash of golden light and left me alone on a road in California. Every monster within a hundred miles would be smelling me out and trying to make me its lunch. I groaned, this was going to be nearly impossible. I could travel maybe 100 miles a day if I ran, that meant that I wouldn't be able to outrun the monsters and they would be able to gang up on me and attack me in larger groups.

I groaned again, but this time I started running east. The faster I moved and the quicker I moved out, the safer I would be. The great think about being a son of Poseidon is that even though I was still exhausted from holding the sky, as soon as I walked through a river I could feel my energy return to me. It helped me to recover quicker and pick up my pace. I knew that as long as I was running, not many monsters would attack me. They would wait for me to stop and rest for a little but so they could sneak up and try to catch me by surprise.

For the most part, my assumptions about when I would be attacked held true. I soon found I would never be able to sleep through the night, so I changed my sleep schedule. I would rest for four hours at a time and then move for eight hours. I was almost always tired, but I found I could get a little more rest this way. My original trip west combined with holding the sky for such a long time had made me a lot stronger and faster. I was having almost no trouble destroying the monsters that attacked me. Every now and then I would get a cut or a scrape, but I managed to avoid getting any major injuries.

I was also a little angry with Athena. She had told me I was going to hold the sky for one month, but at the first store I stopped at for supplies, I found that I had held the sky for nearly two months. I made it a point to ask her about that the next time I saw her. I knew there was nothing I could do about it, but I wanted to know why she had lied to me. Also, it made me mad that she had kept me away from Annabeth for longer than I had wanted to be away. I made my way back to camp as quickly as I could, and about a month after I had been relieved of the sky, I reached New York. I was excited to be home and really wanted to check in with my family, but I knew I couldn't; not as long as I was attracting every monster within 100 miles anyways. Instead, I settled for making my way to camp. I was maybe a mile away from Halfblood Hill when the monsters came out.

The size of the group was huge; easily the largest group I had come across during my journey east. Leading the group was my old friend the Minotaur. He never seemed to stay dead very long. Behind him were about 100 hellhounds, ten laistrygonians, and 20 dracaena. I wondered why those seemed to be the only monsters that had been attacking me, but didn't dwell on it for too long figuring it was nothing special.

I could see that off in the distance Peleus was trying to raise some kind of alarm about the group of monsters that had appeared so close to camp. I knew that I couldn't let other campers interfere. I had brought these monsters here so it was my job to destroy them. If I put other people at risk, then I was failing them all. I knew it was pretty stupid, but I had to destroy the monsters, so I charged at the Minotaur.

He met my sword strike with his massive axe. He clearly recognized me because I could see hate burning in his eyes. He was dressed in his armor once again, and seemed to be slightly stronger than the last time. He grunted at me and pushed me away. He tried swinging his axe at me, but I just sidestepped the blow and sliced upwards at him. He managed to step back away from it, but I still cut off the tip of his right horn.

The Minotaur let out an angry moo and swung his axe at me parallel to the ground. I ducked the swing and moved towards him. Then, in a single motion, I cut his axe's handle and slashed my sword through his armor and deep into his left side. He bellowed in pain and rage, but dissolved into dust none-the-less.

After he had been destroyed, the other monsters decided to try and kill me. I hacked and slashed my way through hellhounds and dracaena, destroying each one I came across. The problem was that there were so many of them. I could feel myself tiring. It had been an insane journey that had taken everything out of me. I had gained a lot of strength, but now that I was finally at the end, all of my weariness seemed to be catching up to me. I could see that several campers had appeared on the hill, but before they could charge down to help me, a flash illuminated the hill and the campers were help back. I figured it was Athena telling them that this was my quest and my trial. I needed to complete it alone without help. I was thankful to her for not allowing others to get involved in my problem.

I refocused my attention on the battle. I could tell I was getting cut up. Both of my arms ere dripping blood and my right side was on fire. I had a small pain in my left thigh, but I did my best to ignore it. Eventually I made my way to the laistrygonians and managed to cut them down. They were powerful monsters, but they were not a threat to me because they were so slow. It took them forever to do anything and even though I was weakened and worn out, I was still faster than they were. Once I had destroyed them, I was surrounded by a circle of about 15 hellhounds and 5 dracaena. I was also utterly exhausted. I could barely hold my sword and moving was getting harder by the second. I was also starting to get a little light-headed from blood loss.

If I had been at full strength, these monsters would have been no problem for me, but as it was, they nearly killed me. One of the hellhounds managed to bit my right leg, effectively immobilizing me. Even after I killed it, I couldn't put any weight on my leg. Then, a dracaena managed to stab my left arm with a spear. I vaporized her, but I could no longer use the arm. As I slashed through the final hellhound, I could feel my body finally give in to all the weariness and pain I had suffered. All the stress of the journey caught up to me and I felt myself collapsing.

The last thing I saw before passing out was Athena catching me and telling me that I had succeeded. I smiled as I fell unconscious because I now had her approval to date Annabeth. It had been a hellish struggle, but I had succeeded.

Well, that was fun. Hopefully you liked it and I did a good job of writing it. At the very least I gave it my best shot.

The next chapter will conclude Percy's time at camp. Athena's plot will be revealed to you.

Thanks for all the reviews. I know that not everyone will like everything I do in this story and although I most likely won't change things because of one person, it is nice to hear what I could improve on so that in any other stories I write I can do a better job. It also nice when criticism is given in a polite manner.

If there is anything you want me to do differently or if you have suggestions for the future of the story or if you just want to tell me what you think, let me know in a review or PM. I do like hearing from you guys.

Anyways, thank you all for everything, enjoy yourselves and live happy lives.