Made in partnership with a friend, this person knows who they are, no names will be given out. Neither of us own Doctor Who nor Percy Jackson. Please support the official release!

THALIA POV

"And that is how Theodore Roosevelt brought down the beast of his final hunt, and I must say, even though I'm not a fan of guns, that man sure had a way with words."

The Doctor finished his eighty ninth lecture on the road trip to Washington (no joke; he's done that many in a few hours), and about half of us had fallen asleep, including Bianca and Grover. The other half of us... if we had to listen to one more lecture on physics, literature, history, or or some mobster family from a place along the lines of Raxacalaphalabatorious, or something like that, we were going to flip. Zoe's eyes were constantly twitching, her grip on the steering wheel tight as can be to concentrate on the road rather than try to go for her bow to shut him up. Percy was twitching all over with agitation, fingering the pen that was Riptide and holding onto some kind of stress ball to keep himself calm enough to not kill the madman, and I regret to admit that I was in no better shape.

"Anyways, did I ever tell you about the time that I-"

"SHUT UP!" Zoe finally shouted, waking Grover and Bianca both with a jolt. She turned in her seat as far as she could to face him, "IF I HAVE TO LISTEN THROUGH ONE MORE LECTURE, I AM GOING TO KICK THOU OUT ON THE SIDE OF THE ROAD!"

The Doctor blinked, then sat back in his chair, pulling out his fez and placing it over his eyes, his lips stuck in a smirk, "your loss."

"More like our gain," I muttered to Percy, who merely nodded, pressing his face up against the window like a pillow as he once again tried to lose himself in sleep.

I glanced out the window, and upon catching sight of our destination, gave Percy a hard shove. He glared at me, until he looked past me and crowed out in victory, "FINALLY! THE NIGHTMARE ENDS!"

Zoe merely glanced out, then turned the vehicle into the parking lot of the closed Smithsonian Museum of Washington. We all practically leaped out of the sweltering van, and the Doctor stuck his tongue out, tasting the air. Then he smirked, "I'd say the time is twelve past four in the morning."

"You can tell the time just by tasting the air?" Bianca asked, unlike Zoe having taken quite a liking to the Doctor.

"More or less," he shrugged, grinning as he stared at the museum, "last time I was here, there were Sontarans trying to figure out the military secrets of earth here. All they found was a bunch of figurines and stuffed animals."

I merely shook my head. I didn't know what half the things that came out of the man's mouth were.

As we walked towards the front entrance, a security guard walked into view. He snorted as he looked us over, "what are a bunch of brats like you doing out here in the middle of the night? Don't you know the museum's closed?"

"They are with me," the Doctor interjected, stepping forwards to get the guard's attention.

The guard glared at him, "and you are...?"

The Doctor beamed as he pulled out what looked like a wallet, and unfolded it, showing it to the guard, who immediately got on his knees, his hands folded, his face frantic, "oh, I'm so sorry sir! I didn't know it was you, sir!"

The Doctor's face was totally impassive, "oh, don't worry about it, I get it all the time. We're just here to inspect the exhibits and their historical accuracy."

The guard got to his feet, nodding with enough force to almost knock the hat off his head, "yes sir! Right away, sir!"

He then ran to the door and slammed his key into the lock, twisting it so hard he nearly snapped it off in the lock. With a final twist, the guard finally unlocked it and opened the door, beckoning us in.

After we walked in past the guard's hearing distance, Zoe blurted out, "just what kind of trickery in Tartarus was that?!"

The Doctor grinned as he handed the wallet to her, "psychic paper. It shows them whatever I want them to see."

Percy blinked as we all crowded around Zoe to get a look at the psychic paper, "where does this guy get all this stuff? Because I want some of it."

Zoe's eye twitched as she glanced back towards the Doctor, "the Prime Minister of Great Britain? Are thou serious?"

The Doctor tilted his head in confusion as he took the wallet back. Then he smirked again, "huh. That's a new one."

Then he stiffened, his face one of shock. He took out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the air with it, nodding grimly. He stated with sheer chilling certainty "we're being hunted."

Immediately, we were at our feet, weapons out and ready, Zoe stealing vengeful glances at Percy, or more accurately, Riptide as she asked "how many? And why did we not sense them before?"

"One," the Doctor muttered as he turned and ran down the hall, with us close in tow, "it isn't human, not an alien, either. It's something of earthly origin, but much larger than anything of nature I've ever seen. It's probably-"

An earth-shattering roar shook the building as the sound of heavy footsteps began, faintly at first, but growing with volume with every second that past as it approached. As soon as it came into sight, Zoe cursed, "the Nemean Lion."

Grover let out a bleat of utter fear as he laid his eyes on the legendary creature that entered the room. The beast before us was a thing of sheer beauty and power, thick muscles rippling under a hide of pure gold, a mane of cascading dark liquid gold hanging about its neck as nature's crown and jewels, its eyes a dark onyx in colour, its fangs and claws glinting like silver in the dim light. It was almost fifteen feet tall at its shoulder, and a good twenty feet in length, with small, bone-like ridges along its brow, spine, shoulders and elbows, jutting out for more than half an inch before ending in slightly serrated edges. Its jaws were open in a constant snarl as it let out another roar, and charged, four of us ready for the fight of our lives, Grover climbing a rocket to put as much distance between himself and the beast as possible, and the Doctor merely yelling, "whoa, whoa, whoa! Now what's this all about?"

The Lion came to an abrupt halt less than a foot away from the Doctor, standing over him with its jaws positioned right above his head, as though it were ready to bite it out. But what surprised me was when the Lion let out a complicated mix of growls, light yips, and even a couple of barks, as though trying to communicate with the man before it. The Doctor let out another set of similar sounds in response, and Percy, dumbfounded as the rest of us, spoke up, "um... what are you doing?"

"Oh, we're just having a cheery conversation," the Doctor stated before returning his attention to the Lion.

"Wait... you can speak to it?" Bianca asked, her mouth slightly open, partway in shock, partway in simple delight.

"Why, yes. I can. I can speak every language that exists, including Baby and Lion," he waved a dismissive hand as he turned back to us, "he says that he has to kill you as his job, which I don't find much sense in."

Zoe's eyes twitched uncontrollably for an instant before she shouted "what dost thou think thou art doing!? Get out of the way!"

The Doctor ignored Zoe's protests as the Lion let out another roar, and the Doctor nodded. He smiled brightly, "he says he has to hunt you because he has to feed his wife and three cubs, and the only place that takes things like him on for jobs is the Titan Army. Other than that, no places offer jobs for mythical citizens. He's commented multiple time on the amount of racism towards his kind there is right now. And he wants me to tell you that the term 'Nemean Lion' is derogatory, or in simple United Statian (Author's Note: this is JotN's term for residents of the United States of America) terms, racist, and wishes to be called 'Stormageddon, Dark Lord of All.'"

The Lion above him let out a grunt of agreement, and I swallowed "okay... tell him we'll take that into account."

The Doctor turned to the Lion again, and apparently relayed the message to the beast, as it let out another earth shaking roar of triumph as the Doctor finished, "how about this; if you stop hunting us, I'll give you and your family a one way ticket to the best reserve in all of Africa. How does that sound?"

The Lion tilted its head slightly, then seemed to nod slightly as it leaned down, and the Doctor began to rub its muzzle, saying "aw, you're just a big softy, aren't you?"

Bianca, who had obviously had enough of just watching, approached the Lion with caution until she finally got close enough to scratch the huge King of Nature behind the ear. As it let out a massive pur, the thunderstruck Zoe simply swayed from an instant in her overload of shock, and fell unconscious.

The Doctor then took out a ticket, and attached it carefully to the Lion's mane, then offered his hands as if for a handshake, "there you go, and I must congratulate you on your three cubs."

The Lion sat down, and placed its massive front paw in the Doctor's hand in a friendly shake before , reaching to the side, and biting into its mane. It grated its teeth in slight pain as it ripped out a bunch of fur and placed it in the Doctor's arms. The Doctor grinned sheepishly, not quite sure what to do with the bundle of fur, "oh, thank you. You're too kind, too kind," he tossed the fur to Percy, who let out a yelp as he caught it. Then the Lion stood, and ran the other direction, its bounding paw prints echoing in our ears until sheer silence ensued.

The Doctor smiled, "he seems nice," then his eyes widened as the piece of mane in Percy's hands began to glow, and ravel inwards on itself, winding inwards until it finally became a light golden leather duster, reaching like a trench coat down to the Son of Poseidon's ankles. The Doctor pointed at the duster (which had a golden fur lining on the inside) and asked "what happened to the mane?"

Percy shrugged as he threw the duster around himself, a smirk on his face as he looked at his reflection on the side of one of the rocket models, "spoil of war, dude. You really missed out on this, giving it to me. If this jacket is anything like the hide of the Lion from mythology, then this thing can block any form of weaponry with no problem."

At this, the look on the Doctor's face darkened, "not all forms of weaponry."

Percy gave him a confused look, then Grover decided to speak again from his perch on the rocket, "are you telling me that even after this thing has hunted us for years, all we needed to do was talk to it?"

"Yep," the Doctor stated, totally oblivious to the look of shock on the satyr's face. Grover then proceeded to climb down from the rocket, yank a piece of wood out from a nearby bench, and proceed to start beating himself in the head with it, not stopping even when Percy came to intervene, the wood splintering against the duster before Percy grabbed it out of Grover's grip.

"He's a madman," I groaned mentally as a shaking Zoe proceeded to get up, shivering with a mixture of shock and fear, "a madman..."

A single, loud voice broke into all our thoughts, making everything stop, "WHERE ARE THE DE-MI-GODS?!"

"I-I don't know!" the frantic voice of the guard echoed through the halls immediately afterwards, "I don't know what you're talking about!"

"WHERE ARE THEY?!" the voice called out again.

"I've already told you that I don't know!" the guard shouted.

"DA-LEK DRONE, THIS HU-MAN IS USE-LESS! HE WILL BE EX-TER-MIN-ATED!"

At this, multiple voices joined in, calling like some kind of dark war chant as the man began to scream, "EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE! EX-TER-MIN-ATE!"

There was a loud crash, and a bone chilling scream echoed through the halls as the voices continued to chant. Everyone except the Doctor was frozen.

The Doctor, however, was in a state of sheer terror.