Acacia POV

Acacia was woken by Thalia shaking her shoulder. " Hmmm? Oh it's morning." She says covering her eyes with her hands to let them adjust. " Train stopped?"

Thalia nods taking a step back so she could get out of the car, Thalia herself had already exited and had been outside the car waking her through the open door. " Yeah how's your wound."

Acacia gets out of the car and stretches before grabbing her weapon and bag. " Good I heal pretty fast at night and the nectar had already done most of the work, not fully healed I don't think, but as long as I avoid getting injured there again I should be fine."

Thalia rolled her eyes ruffling Acacia's hair. "Try not getting injured at all, if not for your own health than at least Zoe's immortal or not I think if you get injured that bad again she's gonna have a heart attack, though now that I think about it she might just be put on edge more and end up snapping and killing Percy so maybe you shouldn't worry that much." She says in a jesting manner.

" Oh no what would we do then without our master strategist, a child of Athena could not come up with such masterful plans like fighting monsters with freeze dried ice." Acacia says not realizing that she let a bit of her English dialect slip.

Thalia just rolls her eyes at that before they all hopped off the train seeing that they were in a small ski town called Cloudcroft, New Mexico. Acacia felt like she'd frozen her tail off by the time they reached the main street, on the way there she overheard Percy and Grover talking, apparently he'd been told to go find Nereus in San Francisco by Apollo, who was actually the homeless guy from before. They then stopped and looked around at the various shops and stores.

Great," Thalia said, looking around. "No bus station. No taxis. No car rental. No way out."

"There's a coffee shop!" said Grover.

"Yes," Zoe said. "Coffee is good.

Acacia grinned " Ooh coffee yay."

Everyone who'd been with her in the van before turned to her at once and said at the same time "NO!" causing Acacia to pout.

" Huh I don't get it why can't she have coffee?" Percy asked confused.

" I'll tell you later kelp head." Thalia says sighing before turning to the others, " Ok you three" she says pointing to Bianca Zoe and Grover, "How about you get us some food, get decaf for Acacia or something just not regular coffee." eliciting nods of agreement from the three. " The rest of us will check out the grocery store maybe get something that travels well and get directions."

Acacia decided to look through the various aisles of the small store while Percy and Thalia talked to the cashier, she found a pretty big bag of beef jerky for herself and deciding that she could do with improving her relationship with Grover, at least to the point where he didn't act at least a little scared around her, she bought a big tin can of nuts, assuming he liked nuts and having seen him eat tin cans. She went to the Cashier, Percy and Thalia already done talking to him and payed using some of the cash she'd carried for ages in her pack from back when she lived in the wilderness, cash that she didn't get through exactly legal means, but the guys she'd taken them from were poachers so she felt no sympathy for them.

"Get any useful info?" she asks turning to Thalia who just shook her head with a sigh. She also saw that oddly enough Percy had a rubber rat, as they walked out to the porch meeting Bianca and Grover there, Zoe had stayed a bit longer at the coffee shop to use the bathroom. Bianca gave her and Thalia their drinks while Grover gave Percy his. She saw that her drink had been very clearly marked decaf and wondered what that meant, taking a sip of it she felt that while it did taste almost exactly like coffee it was missing something and wasn't as good, but worked well enough as a substitute. She gave Grover the can of nuts which he seemed surprised about but thanked her.

"Wonderful," Thalia grumped. "I'm going to walk down the street, see if anybody in the other shops has a suggestion Acacia you wanna come with."

Acacia nodded.

" But the clerk said -" Percy started before being cut off.

" I know, I'm checking anyways." And she and Thalia headed off down the street, she did feel a little bad about leaving Bianca there with the two of them.

Once they were decently far away Acacia turned to Thalia, " Ummm if you don't mind me asking, why do you have such a big problem with Zoe and the Hunters?"

Thalia let out a tired sigh, making Acacia worry that she shouldn't have asked, it must've been clear from her expression that she was worried because Thalia just shook her head "No it's fine just a bit of a long story." She went on to explain about her, Luke and Annabeth living as runaways, about how they'd met the hunters and she'd been offered a spot but not wanting to leave Luke. How Zoe had told her that one day he'd betray her.

" Luke that's the guy at the head of the Kronos faction right?"

" Yeah…"

Acacia lets out a sigh and sips her decaf before saying " I'm sorry to hear that."

Thalia honestly looked surprised " What no comment about how Zoe was right?"

She just shakes her head and with a voice heavy with sadness she responds. " He was family right, not just in the way that you're related by the gods but he was family wasn't he? I know what it's like when the ones who're supposed to be family turn on you."

After that they were both quiet other than when Thalia asked people about ways to get out of town. Suddenly Acacia stopped almost dropping her coffee she turns to Thalia " We have to get back to the others now!" And she grabs her hand running back to the others.

" What? Why?" Thalia asks confused running alongside her.

" I smell them the skeleton."

Thalia doesn't respond but just picks up the pace

As they approached they saw Grover collapsed next to his coffee, which steamed against the snow. The others gathered around him and trying to wake him up. He groaned, his eyes fluttering.

"Hey!" Thalia said, running up from the street. "I just… What's wrong with Grover?"

"I don't know," Percy said. "He collapsed."

"Uuuuuhhhh," Grover groaned.

"Well, get him up!" Thalia said. She had her spear in her hand. She looked behind her to see if the skeletons were already there. "We have to get out of here."

They'd made it to the edge of town when they met the skeletons, four of them surrounding them. Acacia had her Scythe out wary of the guns in their hands, she'd seen enough mortal hunters to know how much damage they could do.

Percy charged at one deflecting a bullet with his blade and cutting it down disarming the other next to it before it could fire but then he was suddenly shot in the back by the other two, falling into the snow however there was no blood, his lion coat was bullet proof.

After a bit of a melee where Percy, Thalia and Acacia kept cutting at the skeletons while Bianca and Zoe fired arrows, all of which did nothing as even if a skeleton was cut down it just reformed. It wasn't until one of the Skeletons went for Bianca that anything of interest happened. She stabbed it and it burst into flames turning to ashes and not reforming. She tried again to no avail but it gave Acacia and idea.

" Step back!" she shouted to Percy and Thalia and she twirled her scythe in a circle before shouting " ανάβω!" and slashing two of them with a wide sweep of her scythe, the black blade glowing slightly orange and trailing fire. This didn't quite have the same effect as the piles of bones were reforming but much more slowly. " Dammit can't make a fire hot enough." she growls out. But then there was a sudden gust and even years later she wouldn't forget the feeling. It was as if wildness incarnate had just blown past them, she arched her back, hair bristling and even shivering from the sensation letting out a throaty growl.

Suddenly a loud squeal rang out and a massive boar slammed into the one remaining skeleton and the half reformed piles of bones scattering them along the mountain. The group had breathed a sigh of relief before the huge boar started chasing them and they had to split up, Grover kept shouting about how it was a blessing of the wild, which Acacia could honestly agree with.

After a tiring and protracted chase scene the boar was stuck in a snow drift and they all gathered around it. Grover managed to convince them it was a blessing and would be their ride west as they were getting on Percy asked Zoe if she knew what he meant by blessing.

"Of course," Zoe said. "Did you not feel it in the wind? It was so strong… I never thought I would sense that presence again."

"The closest I've felt to that was in the wildest more remote places so far removed from humans, and even then it was a mere fraction of a fraction of this." Acacia says remembering the feeling.

What presence?"

She stared at him like he was an idiot (which Acacia was starting to consider as an idea that had some merit.) "The Lord of the Wild, of course. Just for a moment, in the arrival of the boar, I felt the presence of Pan."

They rode the boar into a desert until night fell and it stopped to drink some muddy water and eat some cactus, they got off as Grover instructed and the boar then ran off back the way it came.

" I think it likes the mountains more." Percy commented as the only sign of the boar became a dust cloud in the distance.

" I can't blame it." Thalia said, " Look."

Ahead of them was a two-lane road half covered with sand. On the other side of the road was a cluster of buildings too small to be a town: a boarded-up house, a taco shop that looked like it hadn't been open since before Zoe Nightshade was born, and a white stucco post office with a sign that said GILA CLAW, ARIZONA hanging crooked above the door. Beyond that was a range of hills. Then Acacia noticed they weren't hills, they were piled of scrap and junk, it was a massive junkyard.

"Something tells me we're not going to find a car rental here," Thalia said. She looked at Grover. "I don't suppose you got another wild boar up your sleeve?"

Grover was sniffing the wind, looking nervous. He fished out his acorns and threw them into the sand, then played his pipes. They rearranged themselves in a pattern that made no sense to me, but Grover looked concerned.

"That's us," he said. "Those six nuts right there."

"Which one is me?" I asked.

"The little deformed one," Zoe suggested.

"Oh, shut up."

"That cluster right there," Grover said, pointing to the left, "that's trouble."

"A monster?" Thalia asked.

Grover looked uneasy. "I don't smell anything, which doesn't make sense. But the acorns don't lie. Our next challenge…"

He pointed straight toward the junkyard. With the sunlight almost gone now, the hills of metal looked like something on an alien planet.

They decided to camp there for the night no one wanting to brave the junkyard in the dark. Zoe and Bianca got out six sleeping bags and foam mattresses from their bags, Acacia realized they must've used the same technique as their tents to stay so small. Speaking of tents she'd been sure she packed at least one but she couldn't find it. Grover and Percy collected some old wooden boards from the ruined house and Acacia used her fire spell to turn them into a nice campfire to warm them.

With nothing better to do the group of demigods, a demi monster, a satyr, and Zoe, who from her scent, although it was very very old, Acacia assumed was a nymph albeit not like the ones that made their home at the camp, ended up talking. This lead to a rather intriguing, if confusing for Acacia, conversation where they found out that Bianca, and by extension her brother Nico, were over 70 years old. Acacia didn't exactly get what was so strange about that considering Zoe was centuries old, and Thalia had been stuck as a tree and aged funny because of that, but before she could point any of those things out a deathly white limousine pulled up right next to them.

Before any of them could do anything the door opened and a sword was at Percy's throat. Acacia immediately felt angry and on guard instinctively transforming to hellhound form while others drew their weapons.

"Ares." Percy said.

" Jackson, I saw your fight with the Nemean Lion, letting tiny half monster girls do all the fighting for you?"

Acacia growled at him.

He just barely spares a glance at her direction and snaps his fingers " At ease, people." their weapons all drop and Acacia finds herself transformed back which she definitely didn't like.

"This is a friendly meeting." He dug the point of his blade a little farther under my chin. "Of course I'd like to take your head for a trophy, but someone wants to see you. And I never behead my enemies in front of a lady."

"What lady?" Thalia asked.

Ares looked over at her. "Well, well. I heard you were back." He lowered his sword and pushed me away. "Thalia, daughter of Zeus," Ares mused. "You're not hanging out with very good

company."

"What's your business, Ares?" she said. "Who's in the car?"

Ares smiled, enjoying the attention. "Oh, I doubt she wants to meet the rest of you. Particularly not them." He jutted his chin toward Zoe and Bianca. "Why don't you all go get some tacos while you wait? Only take Percy a few minutes."

"We will not leave him alone with thee, Lord Ares," Zoe said.

"Besides," Grover managed, "the taco place is closed."

Ares snapped his fingers again. The lights inside the taqueria suddenly blazed to life. The boards flew off the door and the CLOSED sign flipped to OPEN. "You were saying, goat boy?"

"Go on," Percy told them. "I'll handle this."

I tried to sound more confident than I felt. I don't think Ares was fooled.

"You heard the boy," Ares said. "He's big and strong. He's got things under control."

They all turned to leave but Ares pointed at Acacia " You stay, for whatever reason she wants to meet you too."

Zoe scowled at this. " I am not leaving her here with you males."

" Please Zoe it'll be ok." Acacia pleads not wanting her to piss off a god.

Thalia puts a hand on Zoe's shoulder " C'mon let's go." She then turned to Acacia." I'll get you something from the taco place."

Acacia nodded in thanks as they all left, reluctantly headed over to the taco restaurant. Ares regarded Percy with loathing, then opened the limousine door like a chauffeur.

"Get inside, punk," he said. "And mind your manners. She's not as forgiving of rudeness as I am."

Acacia saw Percy enter and was left there in awkward silence with Ares before she remembered her manners and bowed to him. " Lord Ares." she says in greeting.

Ares just scoffs. " Hah no need for that crap with me, though at least you know when you're dealing with your betters unlike the sea spawn in there." He says nodding to the car. " Anyways I'll even commend you on your fight against the Nemean Lion, you're starting to get noticed up on Olympus, threw everyone into a big tiff when they learned about you, first half monster, even stopped a war when you were barely a year old."

This confused Acacia " huh stopping a war? What do you mean?" She asks confused, Ares didn't respond just snorting at her.

A few minutes later Percy came out looking all sorts of weird and Acacia was sent inside.

Everyone was waiting outside the limo for Acacia, Are's having pissed off Percy or maybe the other way around and he'd disappeared. Acacia eventually came out of the limo, it disappearing immediately after. She had an adorable pout on her face and looked very confused, though her hair looked much nicer still being in the same wavy sorta curly on the wild side style it looked much shinier, healthier and knot free.

" What happened what did Aphrodite say to you." Percy asked wondering what the goddess of love would have to say to a Hunter of Artemis.

She just keeps pouting and goes all red faced before saying. " she just she…. She made some weird high pitched sounds, called me adorable, hugged me and then just spent minutes brushing my hair while cooing."

Everyone, even Zoe, collapsed on the ground laughing.