"SHIT!" Was all Percy could yell as he dived to the right hand side of the door and behind a small stone pillar as all hell literally erupted all around him.

The heavy, ancient, and well-made wooden door that had stood strong for decades previously, was torn to utter shreds in milliseconds as countless bullets ripped through the door, sending hundreds of splinters of wood flying everywhere as the strong wood gave way to mankind's destructive technology. The firing continued for some six or seven seconds after it had started, bullets continuing on their destructive path as they smashed through the thick glass cases covering the majority of the exhibits.

The once strong glass was turned into mere reflective shrapnel as it slowly began to tear itself through the surrounding exhibits. 'FUCK! HOW MANY OF THESE GUYS ARE THERE!' Percy screamed to himself in his mind as he continued to look around for some sort way out of his slowly diminishing cover. Fortunately, it came after several more seconds of merciless and unending gunfire. Unfortunately it was in the form of one very angry Titans voice.

"GET IN THERE AND MAKE SURE HE'S DEAD!" The General roared as the muffled sound of acknowledgements spread out amongst the men he had positioned on the other side of the door. Percy bit back a string of curse words as he took a peak out from his cover to the now practically shredded door. He could hear several heavy and ill intent filled steps making their way towards the door.

'Okay, they'll probably send out six or five guys to have a look around. If I'm fast enough I'll be able to cut the suckers down when they perform their main sweep of the room and buy myself the time I'll need to be able to get back to the others... From there on out someone else can handle the planning...' Percy paused his though train momentarily as he slowly pulled the slide black on his nightmare black machine gun before sighing slightly to himself, '...I'm getting too old for all of this.'

A loud crash resounded throughout the entire room as the destroyed doors flew inwards, smashing through several different exhibits before slowly grinding to an ear wrenching, screeching stop. After several seconds, a group of mortal soldiers flooded into the room, followed by the last thing Percy could've done with seeing.

A giant figure followed the soldier through the door, standing at an imposing seven foot and wearing a stupidly tight suit, a typical Cyclops lumbered through with each of his steps causing Percy to shake slightly as the behemoth of a monster kept on moving. 'Well that complicates things...' Percy mused to himself before he felt his mind slowly slip back into it's pure combat, serious mode.

'Spacing between the mortals is about three metres. Time to move point of fire between targets, 0.476 second. Total time to take all targets down... 5.3 seconds minimum. Only problem to take out is the Cyclops. Need to use celestial bronze or other metals to eliminate the lardass.' Percy steeled his nerves and tightened his grip around the weapon sat in his hands as the group of mortals slowly spread out and began to move forwards. Percy took a deep breath and tensed his entire body as he felt his nerves dissipate... flowing into the air as he allowed a near silent breath to escape him.

Before he opened fire.

Percy swung himself out of the cover and onto his feet, raising his rifle up to rest comfortably in his shoulder before he trained his sights on the nearest mortal, a short and stocky looking man wearing the same garb as the two guards Percy had killed...but there was one thing that was slunk underneath his weapon that made killing him all the more important.

A grenade launcher.

Upon spotting the prized piece of military hardware, Percy wasted no time in unleashing a small burst of controlled fire from his rifle; the loud crack, crack, crack boring into his ears like mad, just like the bullets bored into their target, ripping their way through soft flesh and organs, causing a spurt of blood like a park fountain to pour from the wounds as the rounds slammed home with brutal efficiency, each one sapping the poor man's life from his frail body until he finally began to crash to the floor.

Immediately, Percy dived forwards and, with the strength equal to many monsters, ripped the man's weapon from his chest like taking candy from a baby. Continuing his forward dive, Percy broke himself into a perfect forward role and as he rose out of the role he kept moving like he hadn't even broken a step. Levelling his weapon at three more mortals, Percy unleashed a storm of bullets towards the somewhat tightly packed mercenaries, tearing their bodies to shreds as the rounds ripped through them with a murderous intent. The only indication of the mortals passing was the slight jerking of their bodies and the dull, insignificant thuds of the broken bodies crashing to the ground.

'This is almost insulting, I know I'm fast but this is just frickin' insulting!' Percy growled to himself in the back of his mind as he looked towards his remaining targets with a merciless gaze. Raising his rifle, Percy didn't even give his enemies the time to register his presence as he unloaded what was left in his gun to their frail mortal frames, letting them crash to the floor like rag dolls as their life slowly left their limbs and their souls began the journey to his father's realm.

Percy paused for a second as he admired his own handiwork briefly, until he slipped his hand back to his ancient dagger as the sound of loud footsteps grew closer and closer. After a couple more tense moments, Percy launched arguably his favourite blade at the approaching Cyclops. Said monster only had a split second to widen it's one, ugly eye until it dissolved into nothing more than a fine golden dust as the blade ricocheted off of the monsters dense bones, sending it straight back into his waiting grip.

Percy let a small smile creep across his face as he slid the blade home...

"That was to ea..." However he was cut short by what he saw following behind his previous kills. Percy let a small bead of sweat roll down his forehead as one single thought raced through his mind as he quickly turned around and sprinted like a mad-man for the door.

'The others can NOT be having a crappier time than me!'

(Thalia's P.O.V, five minutes later)

'There is NO WAY that Perseus is having a crappier time than we are right now!' Thalia growled to herself as she slowly picked herself up from the cold marble floor of the aerospace museum, her body aching like hell and her legs feeling slightly weak as she managed to steady herself using her spear to support her body... which was to be expected given who the group was actually fighting against.

Stood in front of her was an absolutely massive monster, at least the size of an average garbage truck. It stood on all fours and was wrapped in a massive mound of golden fur that shimmered and glinted in the slowly fading lights of the museum. The monster slowly turned around to face Thalia head on, the lion's massive head surrounded by a massive mane made of long, flowing gold and brown hair. The beast roared, a loud baritone that forced Thalia to hold onto her teeth until it finally decided to stop roaring. Thalia grimaced slightly as the lion began stalking towards her and she slowly stumbled back on her slowly weakening legs.

"Of all the beast we had to run in to... it would HAVE to be the gods damned Neman lion!" Thalia growled to herself as she reflected on how the damned animal had managed to catch her...

The group had been standing around the Aerospace museum, with Annabeth going "full geek" around all of the technology on display; despite Athena's golden girl knowing everything and anything to do with the history of flight. Zoë and Diana were equally fascinated by the surrounding technology and had been mesmerized by the Apollo landers, no doubt looking to find out who built and manned the damned pod, just so they could cut them into tiny little pieces for daring to step foot on their ladyships sacred astral body. Thalia herself had been somewhat un-keen to look at anything in detail given her slight fear of heights. Fortunately their little outing had been interrupted by a little girl shouting to her parents "Look mummy, a kitty!"

Again, that had been the almost scripted interruption Thalia had been looking for. Unfortunately, that been the queue for the gods damned Neman lion to appear and cause their first bit of trouble for the quest.

From there on out the whole room had descended into utter panic. Tens of families were screeching and running for cover or the nearest possible exit with Thalia, Zoë and Diana marshaled people out of the way whilst Annabeth managed to somehow keep the lion off of their backs long enough to ensure that they had as open a space to work with. From there on out, it had been back and forth combat as the group of hunters and campers barely managed to keep the beast from killing any member of their group...but there was still no sign of Percy.

Eventually, Thalia managed to score a shot that was close to a vulnerable spot of the lion's body, causing it to get a little bit more than slightly aggravated. The lion then lashed out, and by a stroke of pure luck, had managed to catch her a few moments ago with a wild, massive paw to the torso...landing Thalia in the world of hurt she was in right now.

She tried to take another step backwards, but fell onto her back as a shooting pain passed through her right leg, causing her to let out a small yelp of pain as she crashed to the floor once again.

"THALIA!" Annabeth screamed as she tried to make her way over to her fallen friend, but both she and Thalia knew she wasn't going to be able to do anything in time to save her. The lion quickly began to close the distance between the pair as it broke into a light saunter. 'Great. I get out of a frickin' tree only to get eaten by the gods damned Neman lion a few months later...what kindda luck do I have?' Thalia pondered in her mind as the great beast came to a rest a few feet away from her.

'Damn it all! Annabeth...I'm so sorry...I just hope that you come to realise the issue with Alex soon...' Thalia prayed as she closed her eyes as the Neman lion roared once again, rearing up onto its hind legs, intending to stomp the daughter of Zeus out of existence.

The next thing Thalia felt was a massive force sending her spiralling backwards at such fast speeds Thalia almost felt like she was back in Apollo's bus whilst an ear shattering, earth wrenching BOOM screeched into her ears, leaving a humongous ringing and a tiny bit of blood slowly flowing from her right ear. The ringing and pain was almost unbearable as she continued to hold her body in a brace position for several more seconds until, finally, after what seemed like an age, Thalia opened her eyes.

At first she could see nothing due to the huge amount of dust swirling like a vortex around the room, with bits and pieces stinging her face as they slammed home. Thalia bit back several curses as she stumbled around in the dust storm. 'What the hell was that?' Thalia shouted in her mind over the painful ringing in her ears, which eventually, after what seemed like several minutes, the ringing subsided and Thalia could hear the cries of everyone else screaming her name. "I'M OVER HERE!" Thalia yelled through the dust cloud. After several moments, Thalia found herself in a bone crushing hug that made her body scream out in protest over the absolute pain she was in, but she let it slide given the relief that it was clearly shown in Annabeth's grime covered face.

"I thought you were dead Thals," Annabeth murmured to Thalia as tears slowly began to make their way down both their faces. Thalia let out a small, humourless laugh before she began speaking.

"So did I Annabeth...so did I..." Thalia mumbled as Zoë and Diana made their way through the dust and smoke to the pair.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?" Diana screamed as she neared the pair, a murderous look in her eyes. Thalia broke out of the hug as she sent the younger huntress a death glare.

"How the hell should I know?" Thalia snarled at the huntress, returning her glare with equal intensity in her own. After several tense, silent seconds, Zoë spoke up.

"I hate to interrupt, but we still have an..." But she never finished her statement as an all too familiar view came to light.

As the smoke finally dissipated, Percy stood with the Lions pelt wrapped around his waist and a vicious looking machine gun resting over his shoulders whilst an absolutely MASSIVE pile of golden dust rested at his feet. Everyone looked on at the sight with looks of utter disbelief, with Thalia being no exception at all to the rest of the group. 'What the? How the hell is that possible? Where the hell did he get...' But her train of thought was cut short as the son of Hades spoke up, "Honestly, I leave you lot alone for a fucking hour and what happens? You fucking run into the gods damned Neman- frickin'- lion and almost get Grace over there killed! What the hell?" Percy growled out as he made his way over to the group, a look in his eyes that was a mixture of anger, annoyance and...something else...something that Thalia could not quite pin-point. "It couldn't be...could it?" Thalia thought to herself...after all.

When did the son of Hades ever show concern?

(Zoë's P.O.V)

Perseus had just waltzed into the middle of the museum and killed the gods damned NEMAN LION for Hades sake! No one since HIM had been able to beat the creature. Zoe shook her head as a small smile threatened to make its way onto her lips at how easy he made it look... unfortunately, one daughter of Athena did not seem all that pleased to see him.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT YOU CRAZY BASTARD?" Annabeth screeched, almost causing Zoë to grip her ears to try and shield them from the very angry daughter of Athena.

Perseus seemed to get a little mirth in his eyes when he was asked this question, like you would expect to get when you meet a child of Hermes or even some children of Apollo. Even his voice seemed to contain the slightest hint of happiness as he spoke, "That would be the lovely grenade launcher I picked up from my mortal friends at the museum..." At those words Zoë felt her jaw subconsciously drop as it seemed to occur for everyone else. But when he spoke next, that momentary mirth and happiness left and a cold, calculating air took command once again. "But we need to leave now." With that Perseus turned on his heel and made his way towards the back exit of the room.

Zoë stared at the boy for a little while before she finally managed to regain enough control over her senses to be able to speak to Perseus, "What did you see at the museum?" Zoë shouted after Perseus as he made his way towards the emergency exit. Without even breaking his stride Perseus provided her with the last possible answer that she could have ever wanted to hear. "The General is here in D.C. along with gods know how many mortal soldiers. So I suggest we get the fuck out of dodge before we get torn to shreds." Percy growled as he kept on moving.

At his words, Zoe froze in her spot. 'He can't be here. HE CAN'T BE HERE!' Zoe screamed to herself in her head. It wasn't possible, after all, he was stuck at his father's home and that there is NO WAY he could have POSSIBLY escaped!

"You lie! The General cannot possibly be here!" Zoe yelled as she chased after him. At those words, Perseus turned around and bore into her own murderous gaze, making her feel very small indeed. He kept her gaze for several more seconds before speaking.

"I highly doubt that any sort of Iris message or other such things would CRACK a very strong marble floor or produce a bunch of Sparti!" Perseus growled out in response, causing Zoë to pale considerably. If the General was here and had raised a bunch of Sparti...

They had to get the hell out of dodge and get out now.

After several moments, Zoë finally nodded towards the door and her agreement with Perseus' earlier statement. Perseus nodded his head in thanks with Diana racing after the pair whilst Annabeth helped Thalia get moving. Percy quickly made his way up towards the door before stopping about five metres short. When Zoë went to ask why he had stopped, a massive rattle and crack resounded throughout the room as Percy unloaded his machine gun into the double metal doors like a mad man. When he had finished, Zoë raced up towards him with blood roaring into her ears as she looked to beat the Hades out of the crazy kid. But before she could ask any questions, Perseus smashed the door down to reveal a slightly sickening sight.

Four mortals, mercenaries, Zoë guessed, lay on the opposite side of the door. Each one was a bloody mess, riddled with bullets, and the red, precious liquid, flowing freely from their wounds. Perseus quickly changed the magazine in his weapon before unloading a further four bullets, one into each man's head. Turning back to a now shocked Zoë, Perseus spoke in a cold monotone, "Get back there and help the daughter of Zeus. We need to get to the train yards. It's the only place we can hope to lose these guys in for a little while." Zoë looked at him with slight fear and worry, wondering how he did what he just did with such damned ease. Perseus caught he gawping before motioning her to get a move on and for Diana to follow him

Said huntress looked to her commander with slight worry, but received only the "go-ahead" nod, much to her dismay whilst Zoë sprinted back to one struggling daughter of Zeus and a concerned daughter of Athena.

Annabeth had a shocked look on her face whilst Thalia just smiled weakly as Zoë quickly took Thalia's right arm over her own. Zoë smirked back to the younger girl before she spoke, "Don't worry, we may not be friends but I swear I will get you home back safely, so help me gods!" At her words Annabeth's eyes widened before her lips formed a small smile whilst Thalia let her own smile grow a little bit.

"Thank you Zoë..." She muttered weakly before letting unconsciousness claim her mind. Annabeth, naturally had a look of worry pass over her face that seemed like it was about to take full command of her mind, but Zoë did what she could to ease the young girls mind.

"Don't worry Annabeth. This is just her body's way of preserving its own strength. She'll be fine!" Zoë said in an effort to comfort the panicking daughter of Athena and thankfully, her words seemed to have done their job perfectly as the girl relaxed and just kept her mind focused on the gargantuan task of keeping up with one son of Hades...whilst only one thought stayed in Zoë's head the entire time.

'I hope you know what the hell you're doing Perseus...'

(Ten minutes later, Percy's P.O.V)

"MOVE IT SPAWN OF ATHENA!" Percy yelled as Annabeth raced between two of the countless train carts, all the time providing a withering volley of brass bullets towards the slowly advancing group of mercenaries.

The group had managed to lose the damned mercenaries for a few minutes in the damned train yard on the outskirts of town after stealing several cars in the attempts to lose the trail of the soldiers following them. The only trouble was that, despite their earlier failures, these guys were still pretty decent soldiers...and soldiers that were certainly not going to let a group of kids escape them a third time. 'Foolish mortals... if only they knew who they were really dealing with,' Percy growled to himself as he continued to pour fire down the narrow gap at a steady pace.

"We're going to get boxed in if we don't move soon!" Zoe yelled over the cacophony of gunfire to Percy who nodded his head glumly...that was until their one little ray of sunshine poured through the dark railway yard.

Around forty metres away to their right was a train with the words SUNWEST RAILS plastered all over the side of the vehicle. Percy smiled slightly as he saw their ticket to get the hell outta there, before they were dragged before one very angry Titan. A sight that Percy could do without seeing for at least another day or two. Letting out a heavy sigh, Percy quickly shouted out his plan of action to the other three standing members of the quest. "In ten seconds, Diana and Zoe will carry Thalia, whilst Annabeth scouts out ahead, and I provide you with covering fire, got it?" Percy barked as the other three members of the quest just nodded their heads. They knew that there was NO time for arguing at all.

Percy steadied his breathing as he began counting down out loud to the others, his hands slamming home his last magazine for his assault rifle...

"3, 2, 1," At the end of his countdown, Percy leapt from his rail cart cover and began sending rounds down range whilst the four girls began their sprint for the soon departing train.

Percy grit his teeth as he continued to lay down fire until the rattling of his gun gained his attention as the last bullet spluttered out and into another mercenaries chest. Percy bit back a torrent of cuss words as he quickly turned on his heels to see the four girls inside the carriage he had pointed to, ushering him on with their hands.

Percy took a deep breath before he set off at an almost impossibly fast sprint...but curiously time seemed to slow down.

Bullets travelled within inches of Percy, sometimes even millimetres. He could hear the almost muffled sounds of the mercenaries' ruthless gunfire as they attempted to gun him down as he barrelled towards the train as the vehicle slowly began to move. Percy grit his teeth and sent his body into overdrive as he increased his speed even further as he basically teleported over the remaining fifteen metres with bullets hot on his tail.

Percy tensed the muscles in his legs as he used his momentum to launch into a forwards leap into the rapidly closing door of the train cart.

Percy let himself slowly sink to the floor as his breath came in deep, ragged gasps as he lay his head against the tram door before letting a small laugh escape his lips before speaking...

"So...much...for an easy...first day."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Hello everybody,

Well I'm back and this time I'm not late! YAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYY! Oh I could cry about how happy I am right now. Feels great to bump out chapter number TEN! Yup it's the BIG TEN everybody! I cannot believe that we are actually here! I mean, the amount of support I have gotten from you guys in the past few weeks has been incredible. 347 follows, 297 favourites and 160 reviews.

Honestly people, this is incredible. I never thought I would get this kind of support for my first PJO story. But now that I see so many of you constantly coming back to read, review and follow and all of the other good stuff that you keep on doing, it has honestly humbled me and awed me completely at how much you guys seem to really like the story. Honestly I never thought I would get such wondrous support from all of you! Not only that but I feel great knowing that I'm probably making a lot of you a little bit happier or perhaps I'm just adding to your reading list for the night. But all I can truly say is I am glad to be able to write for you guys.

And that is why I would like to ask you all to keep on reviewing and keep on reading. Perhaps tell your fanfic buddies about the story and get them involved. I really would like to see the numbers to continue to grow and grow so I may keep on sharing my imagination with all of you and keep you sated with what will hopefully become my masterpiece to date in terms of writing.

I have never planned something so ambitiously long in all my life, and I can only hope that my skills are up to the challenge of brining my wild imagination to life. I have loved every minute of this so far, and like I said before you guys are the only reason I keep this damned story running so keep on doing what you're doing. So over the next few chapters I would love to see us hit over four hundred follows and three hundred likes damn it, as well as getting the story to two hundred reviews. So please, by all means, review not only this chapter but the story as a whole, what needs fixing, what's good, bad and ugly ect.

And if your new or old, I would like to ask that you,

Read, Review, Fave and Follow, and of course,

Keep it real like a Ninja,

CBF.

P.S: This is the first chapter I have had Beta-d so I hope that between my efforts to be more thorough in my spelling and Fic's work that this chapter was of a slightly better standard :)

Quick Note: I will NOT have Percy keep the gun. Mostly because no more Mercs are gonna show up. That and guns are a wee bit out of sorts in PJO in my opinion but then again, whatever floats your boat and what not :P

Hi peoples! I'm that Beta that was way to overloaded last chapter to - ahh - beta… yeah. Anyway, hope I did a good job, this being my first story betaing and all. Well, the best way to learn is by doing, isn't it? So bear with me, lovely sheeples (yes, it is a word – look it up) of the PJO fandom. And yes, I have wanted to say that for so long, and the opportunity presented itself, we've all had those moments. I should probably have a nice signature like CBF ( 'Keep it real like a Ninja' is freakin' awesome… ). So yeah, this probably wasn't read and just ignored… Sigh.

Wait I know!

See ya Sheeples! ^-^

That is my new sign off. HA!

iFicti0n