Disclaimer: I don't own the characters or Camp Half-Blood or mythology. Rick does. Well, at least the characters and Camp Half-Blood.

Chapter 10

When Percy woke up, Rainbow the hippocampus was whinnying and swimming in circles, sniffing the water. He didn't look happy.

Percy looked up. In the distance, the sun was setting behind a city skyline. He could see a beachside highway lined with palm trees, store fronts glowing with red and blue neon, a harbour filled with sailboats and cruise ships. He was at 25 degrees, 49 minutes north, 80 degrees, and 0 minutes west. The best he could figure, it was Miami.

He looked back down at his hippocampus companion who was sneezing all over the place. He knew what the hippocampus was thinking.

"Too many humans and too much pollution, huh?" Percy patted the creature's mane.

The hippocampus whinnied in agreement.

Percy sighed and slid off. He looked back out to the Atlantic Ocean. "You know, Rainbow. If you ever go to Poseidon's palace, tell him… if you can, tell him I—I'm thankful." Percy struggled with the words. He'd alienated his dad for so long, especially after he found out who his dad was. But he couldn't help but feel grateful that Poseidon had helped him. "I'm grateful. I want him to know that if he's not watching right now. Can you try to do that?"

Rainbow lowed. Of course.

He ruffled Rainbow's mane. "Thanks."

Rainbow snuggled up to him a little before turning and swimming away. Once the hippocampus' white mane disappeared into the sea, Percy swam for shore. The waves pushed him forward, and in no time he was back in the mortal world. He wandered along the cruise line docks, pushing through crowds of people arriving for vacations. Porters bustled around with carts of luggage. Taxi drivers yelled at each other in Spanish and tried to cut in line for customers.

Percy kept walking until a young couple cut in front of him. The man had his wallet out, and the woman was pestering him about something.

"Honey!" the woman exclaimed. "Hurry or we're going to miss the cruise! Usually you're so swift-footed, but today you're so slow!"

The man turned to her. "I'm sorry! There's just a lot going on. Don't worry, my lady. We won't miss the ferry. And besides, who wouldn't be distracted by the most beautiful woman in the world."

She blushed and tugged the arm he was holding his wallet with. It fell to the ground, and the couple kissed. Clearly the man was lightheaded or distracted by his girlfriend or wife because he forgot his wallet when they walked away. Percy bent down and picked it up. Scanning through, he hoped to find an ID or something so he knew what to call the guy with. But there was nothing there, as if he had no identity.

Percy noticed about two hundred bucks sticking out of the wallet. Glancing at the couple, who were getting farther away, he knew he had to decide whether to take the money or to give it back to the couple.

He wasn't sure when he began to have two voices in his head, but one was like an angelic, goody two-shoes side of him, and one was like a devilish, evil side of him. His good side told him to give the money back. His bad side told him to take it and run. In a way, he knew it represented his allegiances. His allegiance to Kronos, the Titan lord, was like the bad side of him focusing on revenge and doing things that benefited him solely. His allegiance to Camp Half-Blood and the campers was like the good side of him that focused on forgiveness and being a good person. At least, it felt that way.

It wasn't until recently that he'd begun to think about changing sides. Although Percy had been working for Kronos for a long time, it wasn't until recently that the plans were beginning to fall into place. And the one thing Percy knew was inevitable—and something he dreaded—was that Camp Half-Blood had to be eliminated. He loved camp, and even though he'd wanted the end of the reign of the Olympians for a long time, he couldn't bear to watch his home suffer for it. He'd spent nearly half his life at camp.

Percy could almost hear Kronos' voice chastising him: No weaknesses, Perseus Jackson. You are dead if you show weakness.

Most of his weaknesses were in his head. He did his best not to show any weaknesses because he wanted to become this fearless warrior that everyone would bow down to. At the same time, he was going to die when he turned sixteen. Would he become a martyr for what he did? Kronos seemed to promise him anything.

Percy wanted to do the right thing, and Kronos' path just seemed like the best path to go down.

"Hey!" Percy called. "Hey!"

The couple turned around.

"Your wallet," Percy said. He jogged up to them.

The man looked surprised. "Oh, gods. Thank you so much, young man. I must've dropped when we…" He trailed off with a sneaky smile. A very familiar sneaky smile. "Thanks, sir." He took the wallet.

The lady looked at him with curious eyes. Percy noticed that her eyes seemed to change colours constantly. Her hair was blonde, but he got the feeling any hair colour would look good on her. She gave him a dazzling smile and kissed him on the cheek. She spoke with a bright smile: "Thank you, darling." She said darling in a posh accent. "Who knows what we could have lost?"

"Two hundred dollars," he said impulsively. "There's… there's two hundred dollars there."

"Yeah," the man said. "I was just about to say that. Nevertheless, thanks."

Percy looked away awkwardly. "No problem," he mumbled.

Then he turned around and began to walk away.

The man suddenly shouted out, "Wait!"

Percy turned around.

The man jogged up to him and held out the two hundred dollars. "Take it. You look like you need it."

"But—"

"Don't worry, I've got all the money I need," he said with a sly smile. "Take it, get some food, and just slowly make your way back home. I'm sure wherever that home is… they miss you. I'm sure there's a nice way for you to get home."

Percy eyed the money. "Are you sure? I mean, I could have taken the money and ran away. You know, without giving it back."

"Trust me. You earned it. Sometimes doing something that helps others instead of yourself will help you reap some benefits. That's something a lot of children nowadays need to learn. You're a good kid. I hope your fortunes bring you comfort and shelter."

Percy took the money gingerly and looked down at it. Ten 20 dollar bills. "Thanks."

He got no reply. When he looked up, the man wasn't there. Neither was the woman. It was almost as if they had disappeared. What the man said sure hadn't disappeared, though. He looked down at the money guiltily. Sometimes doing something that helps others instead of yourself will help you reap some benefits.

Percy went back down to the beach as the sun set in the west.

As he was musing about the conversation, the water suddenly shimmered in front of him. Slowly, the image of a sandy-haired boy appeared in front of him. He had a worried expression, as if something had gone seriously wrong. Camp Half-Blood gleamed in the sunset behind him peacefully. Percy wondered what was wrong.

"Luke!" Percy cried.

"Percy, thank the gods!" said the son of Hermes. "Where the hell have you been? It wasn't meant to take this long!"

"What are you talking about?" asked a puzzled Percy.

"You've been gone for over a month!" Luke said. Then he seemed to realize something and stomped around. "Gods, I forgot. Time travels differently in monstrous areas. How long have you been gone from camp?"

"The better part of one week," Percy guessed. "Wait, is it—?"

"It's August now. Hurricane season. Where are you?"

"Miami."

Luke bit his lip. "Hurry back. Grover's gone after Thalia, the daughter of Zeus. I have a feeling that without more help, she'll be dead. You wouldn't mind…"

Percy remembered Rose wanting him to save Thalia. "I was already going to go help."

Luke looked a little surprised but he said, "Good, good. But you have to hurry. The last Iris-message Chiron got from Grover was a bad one. They're going to be in New York sometime soon. You need to get there quickly."

Percy looked out across Biscayne Bay. A slow smile spread across his face as he saw a harbour full of racing boats. "I have a plan."

"As long as you can get back in time," Luke said. "Hurry!" Then the image dissolved.

Percy looked back at the speed boats across the bay. "I'll be fast. Don't worry."

Maybe buying two hundred dollars' worth of gas tanks was a little overkill, but he needed to travel all the way up to New York. And he didn't feel like pushing the boat the entire way. Or swim all the way.

He had a crazy encounter when he was stealing the boat. Let's just say it involved two fat old guys, a cigarette butt, an explosion, and a boy about his age in the water without shorts and underwear. But he rode the boat at over a hundred knots. The thing was fast; definitely faster than a cruising hippocampus.

The motorboat was a lot harder to control than the Queen Anne's Revenge, but he made it cruise to the northeast within sight of land as he lay down to sleep.

Weird, he thought. Sleep.

Truthfully, he thought he wouldn't get much sleep during this quest, but he'd gotten quite a bit of sleep. Aside from the first couple of days, he'd gotten a lot of rest. Ever since he got to Chesapeake in Virginia. Thinking back to that, he remembered the recording that Thalia and Annabeth had made in their little hut. And remembering Thalia reminded him of Luke's Iris-message earlier. It was only now that he realized Luke had said nothing about the Fleece, which was suspicious.

Now that he had lots of time think, it was a little peculiar. But he was fast asleep before he could ponder it.

There were a lot of nightmares that he'd had, but none were as scary as this one.

At camp he had read descriptions of the Underworld from poets and writers in the past. They had said it was divided into three main parts: the Fields of Asphodel, the Fields of Punishment, and Elysium. Elysium, which included the Isles of the Blessed, was supposed to be a fairly pleasant place to be. Elysium was where the heroes were sent. If they chose to be reborn and achieved Elysium three times, they would be able to live in the Isles of the Blessed. The Fields of Asphodel were less so. It was more like a miserable dream, full of shadows, without sunlight or hope. It was a joyless place where the dead slowly faded into nothingness. And the Fields of Punishment was supposed to be a place where, depending the crimes committed, souls were to be punished eternally.

Surrounding the Underworld were five rivers: Acheron, Cocytus, Phlegethon, Lethe and Styx. The Acheron is the river of pain and it is one of the two rivers that Charon rows his ferryboat over to get to the main area of the underworld. According to the giant book at camp, tortured souls were washed down that river screaming about pain. The Cocytus is the river of lamentation where the water makes you feel like everything is hopeless… pointless. The Phlegethon is the river of fire. It led down into Tartarus. The Lethe is the river of oblivion and anyone dunked in that river would lose their memory. The most famous river, the Styx, is the famous river that Achilles got dunked in when he was little. Apparently it circled the Underworld nine times.

But where he was in his dream… he could only see the Phlegethon. And the whole area looked even worse than the Fields of Punishment. Everything looked horrible. The ground was made of shards of glass, the air itself looked like poison. Even in his dream, he found himself struggling to breathe. But only slightly.

There were fiery explosions in the distance. Monsters roamed around everywhere like lost puppies in Times Square.

Downriver there was an opening to what seemed like a cave. Percy, for some reason, felt drawn to it. He took a step forward and the glass crunched underneath his ghostly foot. Then he heard the magic—the voice of Kronos.

"Hero." Kronos sounded even worse down wherever he was. The sound of knives being scraped against a rock seemed to be amplified by a thousand. Monsters scattered. The very voice was terrifying, even though he was split into a million billion pieces. But Percy swallowed his fear and took another step.

"You are a failure!" Kronos suddenly shouted.

Percy felt like cowering. He felt like rolling up in a ball and dying. Even though it looked like it was a thousand degrees in here, he felt colder than he'd been in a long time. Percy closed his eyes and kept walking forward.

"Be fortunate that it is only the Fleece," the Titan Lord continued. "We can get that again. But if you fail once more…" He left the threat hanging.

Then Percy found the strength to speak. "I'm just an eleven year old boy. If it wasn't for my rotten luck, I would've died."

"There are no excuses! If you are weak, you will die. Are you weak?"

Percy scowled. "No," he spat. "I'm not."

"Then you would have gotten the Fleece!"

"I couldn't! I would have died if I tried! I was fighting a Cyclops. Do you know what it feels like to be related to something like that? He could have killed me with one swipe. He could have, but he didn't. He put me in a fortunate position where I could escape. You can't expect me to fight a Cyclops on my own."

"In battle, you need a mixture of fortune, intelligence and emotion. Your fortune will save you from disaster and death. Your intelligence will aid your fighting style: defensive or offensive. And your emotion will help fuel the anger… the desire for revenge. Do you not want to tear Olympus down for everything they didn't do for you? For wanting you dead?"

Percy wanted to say no, but he couldn't bring himself to. He loved camp. But Olympus was Zeus' territory. Percy wouldn't mind seeing Zeus' city burn to the ground.

Razed, he thought. That's the word.

Images started flashing in front of him. A Cyclops appeared, raising a meaty fist to strike. His mother dying again. Nathan's dead body. The vision the Sirens had shown him after he had been miraculously saved. An image of Grover laughing heartily in the strawberry fields appeared, like it was taken straight out of his memory. The Cyclops reappeared, and this time he was an actual monster ready to kill him. Percy found himself bringing out Riptide.

"Polyphemus, a son of Poseidon," Kronos hissed. "He's been luring satyrs to his island for centuries—millennia. Your goat friend Grover will soon get his searcher's license. Will you let him be doomed to the same fate? You have the chance to crush him now!"

"Satyrs is good eating," the Cyclops said.

The image of Polyphemus eating a satyr flashed in front of him; he was eating Grover. Percy's face twisted into a snarl and he lunged at the Cyclops. He whacked, slashed, jabbed, rolled and did everything he could to kill the beast. He was sent flying across the glass field. If this was real life, he would've been bleeding heavily. But he just stood up.

Then he saw his mom offering him a cookie. "Chocolate chip," she said. "Just the way you like it."

He grabbed at the cookie. It was mist under his fingers, but his mom acted as if he'd taken it. "Good job, Percy. You're my little hero."

The image dissolved, and the Cyclops roared.

"I'm your hero," Percy repeated.

Then he charged with fury and a purpose. He whacked, slashed, jabbed, rolled and did everything he did before. This time, he didn't even realize he was attacking the ground until he heard the scratchy laugh of the Titan Lord from below him.

The laugh made the whole ground shake, as if causing an earthquake.

"You are powerful and dangerous." Kronos didn't sound like he was happy about that. "You will be a valuable asset. You will be and you have. But do not fail again; otherwise the punishment will be much, much more severe."

"What punishment?" Percy asked.

There was no reply.

"What punishment?!" Percy demanded.

Slowly, monsters began appearing again. Percy clutched his sword tightly as he heart beat faster and faster. Ghostly spirits began rising out of the ground. He saw many faces he didn't recognize, but he saw a couple that he did. After a minute, his mother appeared with an unnatural sneer on her face. She looked unhappy about something, and the cookie plate she was holding only made him feel more confused.

"You are a disappointment," his mom said angrily. "Look at you, a failure!"

Percy tried to force her out of his mind, just like he did with the Sirens. "You're not real! This is just a dream."

"I'm ashamed to have a son like you."

"You're not real!"

"You are pathetic."

"You're not real!" he screamed.

She continued to spit insults and call him a bad person for what seemed like forever. He did everything he could think of to stop thinking about it. He screamed, he covered his ears, he shut his eyes. He tried but his mom's ghost pestered him. The more she said things, the worse he felt. It was one thing to be told that you're a failure. But in the voice of a parent that cared for you growing up. It was a nightmare.

Finally, Kronos hissed, "Be grateful that I have not killed you yet, demigod."

And with a start, he woke up at 39 degrees, 14 minutes north, and 75 degrees, 20 minutes west.

Hello again! Lovely summer day in the northern hemisphere! How's winter going in the south? Aaaanyway, here's a new chapter for the story. I hope you enjoy it... Um, I'm not sure if there is anything I need to say but...

Oh yes! The couple. Yes, I meant to do those two. In reality, that woman sleeps with pretty much every male in the world except for Hephaestus... pretty much. So, I mean, it's not surprising that she'd help the man out with aiding Percy. BTW if you haven't figured out from Rose's late night shift, more than one god is helping Percy. Don't be alarmed, Aphrodite will go back to screwing Ares later.

Yeah...

If you have any questions, ask me. Read and review.

Thanks,

SharkAttack719