Welcome back people. So the rewrite is coming along nicely, please bear with me, I know the last two chapters have been a little slow going, but I promise I'll make it pick up soon.

Chapter 3: To the capital

Eli:

The next morning, when Ladon and I landed in the sword arena, there was already a crowd of people waiting for us.

I still had a tough time believing that I had actually managed to get Carter to join us on this whole fucked up crusade, and I half expected him to keep flying once we reached Camp Half-Blood, but he didn't. When I began my landing, he landed with me, never even faltering.

"Look who decided to join the party!" I heard a voice called out

I jumped down as my brother came strolling up, laughing. I laughed too, and the two of us greeted eachother with a quick hug before he turned to look at our crew assembled before us. Reyna, me, him, Antonio, Amber, Maya, Annabeth, Leo, Saide, Frank, and Carter.

"Everybody here?" I asked him

"Yes sir," He told me "Crew's assembled, Leo's gonna work out the bugs with his stuff on the way, but all the hardware is loaded up into the van. Leo got us a magic crate, completely bottomless, if any mortals look into it they'll just see a bunch of camping gear."

"Good deal," I nodded as we started walking "What're we working with right now?"

"Not much," He admitted "Annabeth found out they're doing work on the kitchen, which means there's an architect with blueprints to the place."

"So we get our hands on those blueprints," I nodded "Give us a layout."

"We'll all get together in a bit," He assured me as we approached our mother "Brief you guys on the whole situation."

My mother gave the two of us a hug and we began walking back to the main part of the camp. I had told Ladon to head back to Camp Jupiter and Carter had told Freak to head back to Brooklyn House, we wouldn't be taking them anyways. I was all for storming the place on top of a dragon, making the mortals think it'd been a terrorist attack, see Ladon as a helicopter or whatever, but everybody else wanted to try a more practical approach.

The Hunt was just packing up to leave, and my mother wanted a private word with the two of us before we left. She pulled us off to the side, away from the others, and I wondered, for just a split second, if she was going to try and talk us out of it, instead, she gave us a warning.

"Listen to me," She said quietly "There is a war brewing among the gods, Zeus wants that potion back, and he may try and take it."

"You can't be serious," Raven said, outraged "He actually thinks he can take it from us."

"No, he doesn't think he can take it from you," She said "That's why he's trying to turn the others against you, so he has support. He believes you're conspiring against us, believes that you plan to use it as blackmail."

"Hey," I laughed "That's a good idea, actually."

"The man gives us more ideas that we have," Raven laughed with me "You pass on a little message to Zeus, tell him-"

"No," She snapped at us "I'm not inciting this war any further, I just want you to be aware, and please, don't do anything to aggravate him, the rest of us do not want to deal with this right now."

"Fine," Raven groaned "We promise we won't upset the princess of the sky."

She shook her head, smiling slightly. After our display on Olympus during our last visit, and the power we'd be training with since, I figured Zeus would've had the brains to back off and let us do our thing, so we could save his ass like a billion Demigods before us, but no such luck.

"Good luck," She said, pulling us both into a hug "Despite what anybody else says, I am proud to call the two of you my sons, please don't get yourselves killed."

That, ladies and gentlemen, was the goddess of the Hunt's way of saying I love you, please don't get yourselves killed. If I had a dollar for everytime I'd heard that, I probably wouldn't have to hear it anymore. When she finally let us go, there was a sad look in her eyes, like she was looking at us for the last time, and I knew why, she feared the power her father held, especially in the unstable condition he was in.

Too bad that we didn't.

She said her goodbyes and the Hunt headed off into the woods, leaving us alone. Raven motioned me to follow him and we headed towards the Big House, where the rest of the team was waiting for us. I knew we were as ready for this as we could be, but I still couldn't shake the feeling something would go wrong, we just had way too many enemies looking out for us.

"So what's in the bag?" Raven asked me, eyeing the duffel bag in my hand "I'm assuming it's not your basic necessities."

"Nope, those are in my backpack," I told him "Just wait, I'll explain."

He shrugged and we stepped up onto the porch and inside, where the others were gathered around the ping pong table waiting for us. I wasn't sure where Chiron was, and I figured he would've been present, but I suppose that he figured we could handle something like this ourselves, and I wondered if he had ever had a Demigod plan something like this before. Raven had told me he was against it, but also respected the fact that, short of finding a Demigod old enough to run and pulling magical strings to ensure that he did, there wasn't going to be another way.

"Ahh, my little heist crew," Raven joked as we entered "Tonight, we will set out on the greatest journey of our lives, some shall perish, but those who don't, will find glory worthy of men far greater than us."

"Or a prison cell in Guantanamo Bay," Leo shrugged "But yeah, glory is another way to put it."

"Have a little faith, dog," I laughed, sitting down next to him "We'll be okay."

"Alright," Reyna said immediately "What's the plan?"

"Ahh, well you're gonna love this," Raven said, holding his hands up for effect "We ain't got one."

"What?" Carter asked in outrage "What have you been doing for these past few months?"

"Planning," Annabeth shrugged "All we've got is that there will be an architect with blueprints, we won't be able to formulate a solid plan until we have those blueprints."

"So we get there, find this guy, take the blueprints?" Frank asked

"Too risky to steal them," Antonio said "They'll jack up security, we just need to get some pictures of them."

"The hardware is all in the van," Leo told them "We've got some bean bag chairs in the back too so everybody has a place to sit, figure we can take driving in shifts."

"Okay, so what're we waiting for?" Sadie asked us "Let's get to it, then."

"One more thing." I said, tossing the bag on the table

I unzipped it and the eleven Demigods leaned in to see what was in it. Stacks and stacks of fifties, twenties, and hundreds stared back at them. It was almost a hundred grand, and their faces were in permanent shock. I had made a quick stop at a bank Santo and I had deposited our money in using fake ID's given to us by the Mafia when we had dealings with them. As far as the bank was concerned, the account was managed by Marvin Rivera, an investor who'd made all of his money from the stock market.

"Where did you get all of this?" Raven asked me

Kayla was the only one who didn't look surprised. I'd told Raven, Amber, Maya, and Annabeth the same story I'd told her, but they probably didn't realize exactly how much cash we'd stored up over the years. We'd had a combination of almost eight hundred grand until we found that three million in Frank's safe, we figured we were set, until they came after us, now, that money was just sitting, funding little projects like this.

"Hard to tell," I shrugged "Gunrunning, drug dealing, murder for hire, this is all dirty money, but it's money. It should fund anything we need on the fly, food, extra equipment, hotel rooms, whatever we need. By the way, if you ever find yourselves near a Chase bank in need of some funds for your quests or whatever, the account name is under Marvin Rivera, account number three four six five nine eight zero three eight."

"Gods," Reyna breathed "Eli, I knew you were a gang banger, but this...you don't get this kind of money from selling dope on the street corners."

"No, you don't," I agreed "You get it from Mafia contacts and a bet to rob every liquor store in the state in two months, don't ask anymore questions, like I said, it's dirty money, let's leave it at that."

"Wow," Annabeth breathed "Eli-"

"I said no more questions," I snapped "I'm not proud of it, Annabeth, people died for most of this cash, I know it, we all know it, let's leave it unsaid."

Nobody said another word and Leo zipped up the bag and headed out to throw it into the van. The rest of us took that as our cue to head out, and we grabbed our backpacks from the corner of the room and walked outside, heading towards the Camp Half-Blood van.

"A bet to rob every liquor store in the state in two months?" Raven finally asked me "I'd love to hear that story."

"Another time," I promised him "I think I've revisited my past a little too much for today."

He shrugged and let it go as we neared the vans, tossing our bags inside and preparing to leave. Raven, Antonio, and I checked our personal party inventory. Between the three of us, we had almost a half of a pound, plenty to get us through, but we were running dangerously low on liquor, something Raven promised to remedy once we got into the city.

"I should come with you guys," I heard Percy telling Annabeth as loaded up "This'll be really dangerous."

"We can handle it, Seaweed Brain," She assured him, giving him a kiss "Besides, they need you at the camp to help Chiron run things with me gone."

"Anything happens, call me," He told her "Blackjack and I will fly out there, it's only an hour or so away by pegasus."

"I will." She promised him

"Hey, lovebirds!" Leo called from the passenger seat "Hate to break up this touching goodbye, but this train is leaving the station."

"Pipe down, Leo," Percy laughed "Jealous Calypso isn't up here to see you off?"

"My old lady's down in the shop," He laughed "I already got my goodbye kiss this morning...twice."

We all laughed and loaded into the van. Annabeth took first shit on driving, and the rest of us loaded up into the back. As we took off down the dirt path leading away from Camp Half-Blood, I couldn't help but watch it vanish as we rounded the corner, wondering if I'd even live to see the place again.

Once we'd entered the city, Raven directed Annabeth to make a turn into Brooklyn, something about a guy who could get us a fake license plate. I noticed, slowly, as the neighborhood got a little more run down as we passed through until, finally, we passed a sign that said Flat Junction, with a small Crip tag spray painted below it.

"Might want to lose the hat and the bandanna," Raven told me as we pulled up next to an old garage "The boys around here aren't fond of red."

I rolled my eyes and removed my hat and bandanna. Even though I wasn't wearing colors, I found myself just a little nervous to be standing around, completely exposed, in the middle of a very clearly Crip neighborhood. Everywhere I looked, there were tags, gang members, and anything else you think you'd find in the ghetto.

And I thought Compton was bad, Brooklyn looked like one, giant drug den.

Raven, Reyna, Carter, and I all got out and headed towards the garage, passing several people under cars or polishing their tools. Raven strolled right past them, and headed back to what I assumed was the office, where a skinny, tall, Mexican guy was standing around in a shop uniform, looking through a stack of papers.

"Carlito!" Raven called to him "Viejo amigo!"

The guy looked up, his head moving back and forth for a moment, searching for whoever had called his name. When he finally spotted us, he broke into a huge grin, revealing two golden teeth in his front row, probably knocked out during a fight.

"Bromisa?" He laughed "Mucho tiempo sin verte, ese, qué te trae de vuelta aquí?"

"Necesita algunos de sus famosos trabajos complementarios, hermano" He responded

"You need a plate?" He asked him "Alright, not a problem, holmes. I'll need the cash up front though, you know the drill."

"I do," He nodded, handing him the money "Everything going alright."

"Romano! Regresa y prepara un plato para mí!" Carlito called to someone else before turning back to us "Business as usual, things ain't the same since you left, man. I've got Boss breathing down my fuckin' neck twenty four-seven, plates, cars, coke, guy's going nuts if you ask me."

"Nuts?" Raven asked him

"After they found Tony's body, he got really paranoid," He said, shaking his head "Tried to have a few of the guys knocked off last week when he spotted them coming out of the police station."

"That's normal for him," Raven shrugged "He's always hated rats, never had mercy for them."

"Oh yeah, I get that," Carlito nodded "But those dudes weren't rats, they had gotten arrested and just made bail. He didn't find that out until after he tossed a molotov through the window of one guy's house."

"He did it?" Raven asked him

"Yep," Carlito confirmed "He's getting his hands real dirty these days, won't trust a soul to do shit."

"Damn," Raven breathed "Shit's falling apart."

"The gang is fine, thriving actually," He assured him "Boss is just losing it, ain't gonna be long before he gets smoked or pinched. So, who're your friends?"

"Reyna and Carter," He said, indicating to the two of them "And this is my brother, Eli."

"Brother, eh?" He laughed, shaking my hand "Good to meet you, ese, didn't even know Joker had a brother."

"Neither did he." I responded

"Plate shouldn't take long," Carlito said "I'll go make sure Romano didn't fuck it up."

"One more thing," Raven said, stopping him before he walked away "Anybody around here twenty one?"

Antonio:

"Come on, Frank!" Raven goaded "Do it!"

"No," Frank said flatly, doing his best to keep the smile off of his face "It's just going to draw attention to us."

"Come on," Annabeth laughed "It'll be great."

"Do it!" We started chanting "Do it! Do it! Do it!"

"Just do it," Reyna told him, grinning "It'll shut the kids up and give us all a good laugh."

"Fine," He sighed "Here it goes. Reyna, take the pedal."

He slowed down, which tended to piss people off on an interstate, which is exactly what we wanted. The car behind us laid on their horn a few times before attempting to pass us, which is when Frank acted. Reyna reached down from the passenger seat and placed her hand on the gas pedal, maintaining our speed while Frank turned into a dog, keeping his paws on the steering wheel.

The other car, with two girls in it, maybe in their thirties, pulled up besides us and started to flip us off before they saw the dog in the driver seat.

Frank played the role, panting happily, sticking his head out the window and barking excitedly at them. The girls looked terrified, and the driver stomped on the gas as they left us in the dust.

We all roared with laughter as Frank turned back into a human, laughing right with us. I laughed for so long, my entire chest started to hurt, but everytime I started to calm down, I pictured their faces at the sight of the driving dog, which brought on a fresh wave of laughter.

Even Reyna, who, it seemed to me, always put on a serious and formal demeanor, was rolling in the passenger seat, clutching her sides. The rest of us were laid out in various positions, each of us shaking with fits of laughter. Frank even had to pull over on the side of the road so he didn't wreck while he laughed, which he couldn't seem to stop doing either.

"You're the man, Frank!" Leo called through his laughter

"I can't believe I let you guys talk me into that," He said, still grinning while shaking his head as we got back on the road "It'll be our luck to get pulled over."

"We're a group of friends taking a camping trip," Eli shrugged "Besides, we've gotta entertain ourselves."

"Sing a jolly song or something." Frank told us

"Yeah right," Raven laughed, rolling his eyes "You'll catch me singing jolly songs when pigs fly, Hell freezes over, the Cubs win the world series, and Zeus apologizes for being an asshole."

"I'll hold you to that. The Cubs already won a world series, one down, three to go," I told him, lying my cards on the floor "By the way, full house, that's your shot."

He groaned and grabbed the bottle of whiskey, taking his fourth shot. It always gave me a little satisfaction to watch Raven challenge people to drinking games and end up losing horrifically, it was much more fun for everybody to watch him make an idiot out of himself.

It really was an art for him.

"So how long do we have to go?" Kayla asked

"Probably another three or four hours," Annabeth shrugged "If traffic is willing."

"I'm just saying, if I go crazy and murder you all," Leo told us "It's just my ADHD."

"If you start fidgeting too much I'll just throw you out the back of the van." Amber warned him

"Don't do that," Eli laughed "He's the only one who knows how to work most of this tech."

"Annabeth can figured it out," Maya said "Besides that, we could do with one less body in here."

That, I agreed with. It wasn't as cramped as I thought it would be, but you couldn't exactly pile ten people in the back of a van on bean bags and expect to have much leg room. I was sure, if we got pulled over, there were several violations involved with this.

"If anything, we toss Frank out," Leo argued "He's the biggest, my scrawny butt doesn't take up that much room."

"No, but your attitude and your ego take up the entire van." Reyna said, not even looking up from the map

Again, we all erupted in laughter and Leo shrugged, nodding his head as he did so, unable to argue the point. I had to admit, as much as I had dreaded being a jammed into a van with a bunch of hyperactive, nervous, and jumpy Demigods on a two hundred plus mile road trip, this wasn't exactly a bad group of people to be stuffed in a van with.

Reyna looked like she was healing okay, obviously I didn't see her back and I wasn't going to ask if I could, but she wasn't grimacing at all when she leaned into the seat, which was a good sign, and the various cuts and scrapes that she'd been covered in last time I'd seen her had vanished.

I had been right, she really was a looker.

Unfortunately, for my hormones anyways, she was a very intimidating looker, and anytime I thought about hitting on her, the thought was immediately followed by the picture of her breaking several bones in my body, which I was willing to bet she could do with extreme ease.

Demigods girls are much harder to get with, as you may have guessed by this point.

We passed the time, playing cards, drinking a little, and telling jokes. After about a half hour, Frank and Reyna switched with Carter and Leo, much to Carter's dismay.

I don't think he was all that fond of Leo.

Sadie, however, thought he was a riot.

At one point, I learned something new about Raven and Eli when Leo was messing with the radio and happened to stumbled across a familiar tune I dimly recognized as Church Bells by Carrie Underwood, a singer that an ex girlfriend of my father's had been obsessed with. Naturally, because it was just our luck, we stumbled in right at the very beginning chords of the song and had to suffer through listening to Raven, Eli, Annabeth, Leo, Frank, Amber, Maya, Kayla, and Sadie all sing it as loudly as they could.

"Bloody Hell," Sadie laughed "I haven't heard this song in ages."

Neither had I, and I groaned as they all jumped in together.

"Jenny grew up wild like blackfoot daisy, out in the shack with the blue tick hound!" They all sang "Broke as hell, but blessed with beauty, the kind that a rich man can't turn down! She caught the eye of an oil man dancing, one summer night in a dime store dress! She had the looks, he had the mansion, and you can figure out the rest!"

For the next few minutes, I fought the urge to throw myself out the back door. I caught Reyna's eye and she just smiled and shook her head, obviously feeling the same way. It wasn't a bad song, but listening to nine people sing it, very off tune I might add, really made you hate life.

I don't think I'd ever been so happy to hear sirens in my entire life.