We shuffled down the stairs, quickly, in a filed order. My slightly shorter form followed past the slightly larger form of the girl. She led the way, holding the knife as if it were scissors and running, that is to say, backwards for safety. That had to go.

"Psst, Dove, flip the knife around. It's more effective if its pointed toward enemies, and not yourself." I say this while holding my own knife the same way, just more controlled. I watched her as she fumbled to flip the knife with one hand, as one of her hands was on the railing, for safety. She managed it. I noticed as she shifted the knife in her hand, trying to find the right position, I felt a flare of danger as she settled onto a loose but firm grip. She wasn't a danger to me. That was something I could feel to my core, but she was gonna be strong.

"Keep it life that. Now, which way." I was still on a rush. The longer we were here the bigger the chance that the quest could end, but I couldn't just leave Bianca and whoever she was with with a Empousa on the loose. Bianca nodded and started briskly walking into a seemingly random direction. I followed strait on her tail, waving away approaching employees. The longer I was in the lobby the more desensitized I felt. I couldn't find the Empousa, believe me, I tried, but everything is a little rough and I was only able to feel the little flare from Dove because she was so close.

Weaving through the crowd felt like it was harder than early, like significantly more people came in. If people came in at this pace, and it had been open for so long... This place needed to be destroyed. We were plenty busy, so we couldn't do that, but we should come back here and bust down the joint. Maybe dad can tell me to do it and it can be a whole thing. I shook my head.

"This place isn't even that big, where could a little monster even be?" I was sort of getting impatient, our quest was getting farther and farther along without us. I wasn't sure if there was a deadline or not but we definitely needed to hurry up.

"What kind of person calls a Empousa a "Little" monster?" She looked at me, and I looked at her. I tilted my head to the side.

"The kind of person who fought "Big" monsters. Now, where was the last place you saw her? The lobby? Just wandering around?" I moved on to a different subject cause I don't really feel like talking about some of the big monsters. Dove started at me for a bit after I said that, not answering. I saw her eyes go to my face and stick to my cheek. Of course. I twitched my eyebrow. Her eyes widened and she tried to say sorry but I stopped her before she barely even started. She just kinda stood there awkwardly before pointing up and into a raving crowd near a small stage.

"She's in the middle, on the stage." How did I never notice a entire stage. This place was reeking with issues, and distractions. I saw the lead woman in the center of it all limping around, sort of gracefully. She clearly had mismatched legs by the way she was walking. Her shoulders swing to keep herself balanced as she moves a leg forward, and another back, it was sort of impressive. I wonder if they automatically knew how to do that or they had to learn.

"I don't understand how I could have missed that." I stated my thoughts out loud to Dove. I tilted my head.

"I don't know either, I've been here for months and I'm still finding things." Months? That was going to be awful to figure out once I left. Then again… She couldn't be here on her own merits or desires. And if she was a demigod… Either way, this place was a maze.

"We aren't going to find her twice. Stay calm, and take my hand." I put my hand out for her to take, I couldn't lose her into the crowd. I pulled enough air into my lungs for a large scream, and let out a loud,

"BOMB, GO TO THE OTHERSIDE TO THE BUILDING." Now that was definitely a way to get people going. The hazy looks on peoples faces burned away into confusion and then fear. No one moved for a few seconds, before they all started screaming and running off into different directions. I felt a tug on my hand, I tightened it and walked forward toward the very confused Empousa. I pulled Dove up to walk up with me closer, with one arm reached out in front of her, like a mom holding a protective hand in front of her kid. I'm a mom now, cool.

"Only certain kinds of metal can hurt monsters, they're all supernatural besides silver. I have a silver knife, and the one I gave you is Celestial Bronze. Only use it if you have to. Now, let me go end this." With people still running away from the stage, I got into a basic stance, still holding onto Dove, and threw my knife straight into the skull of the Empousa, and she fell away into a puff of golden sand. It got up our noses.

"G,gl,achachACH CHew!" That was an interesting sneeze she just made.

"Oh yeah, they do that when they die." She glared at me with "you could have told me that before hand" eyes. I ignored it.

"I need to go soon, so listen closely. Be Careful in here, this is a supernatural place. You've never killed a monster before, and if you're lucky you won't have to. But, if you do make sure to do a little practicing with that bad boy." I gestured at the knife in her hand with hand I just used to hold onto her.

"Should.. I tell my little brother?" Brother? Oh.

"Not unless you need to." Then I felt it. All the sublte agression from the Hotel came to surface, and I felt my face go sort of itchy. The danger senses started building, but only lightly. I started feeling strange feeling, and all of a sudden, everything slowed to a stop. It was abrupted.

I felt my face starting to burn, as the rest of my body. But not a painful burn, but more of a pins and needles burn. I looked at Dove's frozen face, and realized, everything was just, super slow.

The passage time was now palpable all of a sudden. I could feel it moving how it was moving outside, and the perception of everything slowed, and distorted. It was a strange feeling. I've been excluded from the Lotus. They must be trying to force me out. I felt a force pushing me away from Dove. I fought against it.

"Be careful!" I call out to her one last time before getting pulled out of reach of Dove. I grit my teeth, and fought with all my will to stay within the building. I needed something to hold me onto this, I need to get Grover and Annabeth, and get them out before they were stuck. The Casino Hotel was strong, its force was stronger than anything I'd ever physically fought.. I was sliding along the floor, and it was hard to maintain balance.

The force on my body was slowly building against my chest. The pang of time pushing down on me. I closed my eyes only to see Lotus Employee's forms shifting from man to thing. It settled on man, only for the force to strengthen and the force of time pushing on my own body. I fought on.

I uncapped Riptide, and in a flash of golden light it appeared into my hand. It almost lessened the force upon me, or maybe I just fought harder. With as much force as I could muster I forced the magic sword of the Hesperides into the floor of the Casino, and held fast. I kept my eyes open, looking forward to the Stairs, and hoping for Annabeth, hoping for Grover. No one came. I finally closed my eyes again and saw nothing this time. They would make it without me. I slipped away from Riptide, finally letting go. I started going toward the doors, being forced away, not pulled away, forced out. My vision was speckled with dark spots, like pins and needles in my brain.

I felt myself lightly knock against the spinning doors of the Casino, and I just let the other end of the door spinning around and hitting me on the back, finally pushing me out, letting me free of the Casinos influence. The blood in my head was pumping and it was definitely not pleasant.

The burning in my body cooled eventually. By then, I was sort aware again, functional. I checked out how long we had been in there. Two days. My brain could barely process anything, but I knew that I spent the third day waiting on the steps, waiting on Annabeth and Grover. My mind wandered, going from Dove, to the men we were running from in the first place, to the feeling of moving through time but not. It was belittling, and intriguing. He thought that Kronos was the only being capable of controlling time, but apparently this was just a place of power. I wonder if there were other places like it. Primal forces, like time, that could be manipulated, but only by creatures of its domain, and yet there could be places they could be abused by others. Maybe I could pursue this idea.

I was fully aware, and very hungry, by the time Annabeth and Grover got out. I didn't really pay much attention to much, I was still thinking about everything. All thoughts of primal forces were seared away from my brain with a simple, but gentle,

"Hey." Annabeth sad down next to me, and Grover looked around before settling down on the steps on my other side. I blinked a few times before realizing they were out.

"Thank the gods! You guys were in there for quite a bit I left early due to the fact that I don't think that the Lotus likes me very much. Heh." I jitter out. They looked at me like I was crazy. But I wasn't crazy, just happy that they were back.

"How long have you been out and we have not?" Annabeth look into my eyes like something was seriously wrong with me. I wonder what was so weird that made her look at me like that.

"Uh, about twenty five hours and maybe thirtyish minutes." I only knew that cause there was a huge electric clock on a billboard. I had used to to find the date when I first came out. Grovers jaw dropped.

"Uh, dude, where have you been while we were in?" What kind of question was that.

"Right here? Why?" They were looking at me incredulously. What was their deal?

"What have you been doing?" Oh.

"Just sorta, sitting here." Their expressions was blank for a moment.

"Did you sleep?"

"No."

"Anything?"

"Thinking."

"About?"

"Life, Death, Fate, Primal Forces, Strategies, me, everything."

"Strategies?"

"Ya."

This entire conversation happened in the span of a minutes, without any expression changing, I remained unblinking. Something was wrong, they were wary of me, for some reason. Their expressions were annoying me, but I'd get over it, but the quest. We needed to get back to the quest.

"Grover, how close are we to the entrance?" Grover broke the blank expression spell and fumbled around for the map. He pulled it apart to read it once, unfolding it out to a comically large size. I saw some upside down Greek symbols and letters from my vantage point against the map.

"Uhh.." Grover mumbled something out that neither of us caught.

"What was that Goat Boy?" I asked him and he cleared his throat.

"'Bout five minutes." Oh. I said as such. I dusted my pants off, and stood up, wobbling a bit before leaning back and forth, stretching my unused muscles back and forth. My quest mates stood up and I leaned down to touch my toes. I could still do it, regardless if I was a little stiff. I uncurled and stood at my full height, and looked at Grover, gesturing for him to point the way for them.

"Uhh, that way." He pointed his finger to a direction adjacent to the road. He nodded to himself, like he was assuring himself that it was the right way. I looked behind me at… Annabeth. She looked a lot shorter than usual. I was looking down on her now, which I only barely pulled off back when we first met a week-ish ago. Weird. Grover spoke up.

"Um, by the way Peirce, why is your hair longer?"

The next chapter will be the biggest chapter yet, and then well get the final climax, and then well get the saga easing off of. Anyone like this ending to a chapter?

Sorry i haven't been updating much ive been brainstorming ideas for seperate stories and no lifeing overwatch on xbox. I hit level two hundred love me i am your god.

COMMENT

REVIEW

Tell me about how you thought i handled it, i sure know i could have done better but its three am and Ive been writing on and off all day.

Ships are sort of decided for now, so give me ideas and tell me your favorite parts and be HARSH with criticism and overdo the compliments at the same time please im an antention hoe

I don't care about spelling mistakes in my author notes. bye