"Is there any sign of Lust's familiars?" Jason asked the helmsman as they landed, just inside the bay which held Fort Sumter. He didn't see any mortals looking their way, so he assumed the Mist was doing its thing.

Leo gave a thumbs-up. "We're all clear here, chief!" he assured.

"I wouldn't count on that for long," Percy said, walking up to them. "If they attacked us specifically by tracking that god, then I'd bet that they're following us."

"Or planning to attack one of the camps," Leo suggested.

Both Percy and Jason turned to him at once. "They'll be fine," they said simultaneously, and after exchanging a brief glance, they returned to the topic at hand.

"So, what's the play, quest leader?" Percy questioned, looking to the son of Jupiter. He crossed his arms.

"Hm…if they're coming, then we probably don't have a whole lot of time…where's Annabeth?"

"Right here," the girl walked up, fishing out her coin. "Inside Fort Sumter, right?" she held it up to the cold sun and waited, hoping to see a red glow. It didn't appear. "Damn, must not be close enough."

"Do you know what you're doing?" the son of Jupiter inquired, sounding like he was really trying not to be disrespectful.

Annabeth nodded. "Tempus gave me some basic instructions to follow. Follow the red glow, bring earplugs, and don't look down."

"And you think the glow will appear inside the fort?"

"If it doesn't then I think we'll all be screwed," she said with a shrug. Jason frowned, not understanding how she can be so lax about all of this. "So, I'll go into the fort."

"I'll go with you," Percy offered.

"No, I'll go alone."

Eyes turned to the daughter of Athena. "That has got to be the stupidest idea I've ever heard," Leo claimed, and the others probably agreed.

"Annabeth, we don't know when Lust will catch up, and we don't know what's waiting for you in there," Jason pointed out.

"And I get that, but…this is something only I can do; this is what I was meant to do."

Jason looked to Percy for support, but he was busy giving her a hard stare. "…You're sure about this?"

"…No," she admitted. "But I feel like this is right. I need to do this."

Percy closed his eyes for a second, and took a deep breath. "Can I at least give you a lift?"

"That'd be mighty kind of you," she offered a smile, even if it wasn't very reassuring.

The two walked into a summoned wave and began moving. Both were quiet. "You gonna say something, or what?" Riptide wondered.

"What's there to say?"

"Maybe 'I really don't think going alone is a good idea'?"

"Agreed," Percy returned. "Annabeth, I…"

"You don't think I should go alone," she guess before he could voice the thought. He nodded. "…I get it, but this is my choice to make."

"…"

"You disagree?" she questioned. He didn't answer as they came up to the fort. He gestured her to step back onto solid land. She did so, and turned back to see him drifting away.

"If something goes wrong, go to the water; I'll come for you," he assured.

"Alright."

With that, Annabeth was left to her own devices. She managed to get in without a hitch, as the fort was, for some reason, closed for repairs. Only there weren't any repair guys there, or even construction workers or guys to renovate. It stunk of immortal puppeteering to Annabeth. Nevertheless, she reached into her pocket and took out the coin, seeing the etching of Athena's owl glowing red like fire. It wasn't dark enough to be blood.

The glow faded and strengthened depending on where she was within the fort, making Tempus' "hot-and-cold" analogy apt. Soon, she came to a somewhat secluded room where she didn't find a whole lot of people. The coin grew hot in her hand, and the etchings actually had small flames burning from them, even as Annabeth didn't recalled any substance on it before.

She looked around the room, figuring that this was where it wanted her to go. "Alright, if I were an ancient magical artifact…where would I be leading someone?" she muttered to herself, searching the room. It didn't take her long to notice a glow from the wall. As she drew closer, it got brighter, reacting to the coin. She had to wipe away a veil created by the Mist, revealing a glowing indentation in the wall, shaped exactly like her coin. After looking around one last time to make sure no one was watching, Annabeth placed the coin into the indentation.

Within a few seconds, the glow faded, and the wall beside the indentation receded into itself, before sliding into hidden compartments, revealing a secret passageway. It was dark within, with the light from outside only offering a few meters of sight. The shadows even seemed to creep out into the room.

Annabeth hesitated. "What are you waiting for?" she thought. "Go in. This is what you wanted."

But her feet wouldn't move. They didn't move because they knew that going down there would be the death of her. Her brain fought back, as she forced a step. There was something down there, something important for her to find that would lead her to what Tempus found.

A crash was heard, and the structure rumbled. Annabeth could guess what that was. "Lust already?" she guessed, tensing and turning around. "I need to go back, I need to-" she stopped. Another rumble was heard, but Annabeth didn't go toward it to help. Instead, she turned back to the darkness. "If you don't go down and finish this, then she'll have went for nothing," she told herself, and with that, her first step became a second, and then a third, until she was walking. "Hello darkness, my old friend…" she sang cautiously, trying to ease the wariness in her head. It didn't work.

Soon after she entered the corridor, Annabeth vision went completely black. Even the light from her dagger didn't help much, only providing about a stride's worth of light. The corridor sloped downwards pretty sharply, eventually opening up into a large room which was lit by many torches running in braziers along the walls. On the left were green flames, Greek fire, and on the right was blue, the Roman flower.

Annabeth was told not to look down, but she couldn't help but notice the mass of skeletons on the floor. At least three dozen lay scattered about, either sprawled out on the floor or leaning up against the wall. A few even hung from supports in the ceiling, and Annabeth could only guess how they got up there to die.

She tried to keep her mind away from the dead. "So they weren't a recent invention," Annabeth noted the blue, ember-less flames, grabbing a torch from its place to use as a light. After thinking about it for a moment, she put it back, and then grabbed a green torch instead. She figured that it was better to be safe, in case whatever test lay ahead needed green light from these Greek flames to open a door or something, to show that the visitors were Greek. It turned out to have no mattered, but she doesn't regret the decision to change either way.

She moved to the center of the room, noting an etching in the floor. It was off her mother's owl, its eyes staring straight up to the ceiling. It was absolutely beautiful, but what caught Annabeth was the writing scratched into it. It looked to be written by many different people. The different messages read: "thieves," and "don't listen to the other guy," and "this was never meant for you," and "the die is cast, and now you pay."

Annabeth found another message, partially written. The person who had been writing it, their skeleton lay in position to finish writing, a few inches away from the trail-off of the scratching; it was probably moved by Tempus' group, when they came through.

It was odd. As Annabeth read the partial message, she thought she could hear scratching coming from far away. At first, she dismissed it as her mind playing tricks on her. The message read: "Nero was ri-" before it cut off.

"Nero was what…? Right? About what? He was a terrible emperor, wasn't he?" she thought aloud. She looked at the coin, finding it unresponsive. Its glow was there to guide her, and the only visible way to leave the room was back the way she came. "Hmm…"

As Annabeth wandered the room, she heard the scratching again. She turned toward it, but saw nothing but a blank wall. Curious, the daughter of Athena tapped on the wall. The sound felt hollow and open. That meant that there wasn't anything on the other side. Just to double-check, she knocked on another random part of the wall, and the sound was flat and ended resoundingly.

She held up the coin to the hollow part of wall, figuring that it was a hidden door. She tried to find another indentation, but saw nothing. She continued searching for a way to open the door, figuring it wouldn't have been broken down easily. Then, after a certain point, writing appeared on the wall. It appeared the same way that Tempus' writing did, starting by glowing gold and then fading into regular writing. It read:

"The owl's eyes meet the stars. So must yours."

Annabeth turned back to the owl etching, along with the various skeletons. She moved to the stand on one of the eyes, and looked up. The ceiling was painted to look like the night sky, which various stars and the moon off to the side. Nothing happened. She moved to the other eye and looked up, and nothing happened, even as she felt the floor move like a pressure plate. Confused, she began stepping all over, feeling for another pressure plate. "Am I still missing a clue…?" she thought, before finding a second one, bigger than the one on the eye.

The two pressure plates were the only ones that Annabeth found, and they were spaced out to the point where it took the entire length of her torso to reach both. So her but could be used to weigh down bigger one, and her head could be used to weigh down the smaller one.

Annabeth hesitated, noting the bones that littered the floor, as if it were some kind of trap. "Is it testing my patience? Am I supposed to wait longer for another clue, or for the door to open?" she wondered, recalling her ADHD, making it difficult to wait at all, let alone for an extended period of time. She shook her head. "I don't have time to wait; they need me out there," she decided, taking her place on the pressure plates.

It took a moment for her weight to register, but when it did, a small crevice in the ceiling opened, revealing a bright silver light above. It shone straight down, meaning it was a focused pillar of light, right onto Annabeth's eye. She heard the scratching grow louder, before a rumble shook the room. It was different from the ones indicating the Argo II battling Lust's familiars. This one was close.

Annabeth looked, from her perspective, up, seeing that a small opening had appeared where the wall was hollow, like a garage door opening, from the bottom. The issue was that it wasn't even close to large enough. Not only that, but no sooner did Annabeth look and see the crack, than did it close back up. "So, I have to wait for it to fully open…" she figured. The scratching returned, much louder this time; much closer. Annabeth sat up and looked where it was coming from. She immediately leapt to her feet when she saw it. "S-s-spider!" she cried instinctually, as if there was someone else there who could kill it. There wasn't just one either, but rather a few dozen huge glassy bodies crawling on the floor, moving toward her. "Where did they…?"

It hit her. She looked back toward the closed door, where the scratching was loudest. The realization hit her like a truck, almost as hard as the disconnect in her brain as to why she was so freaked out by the spiders. Annabeth took a deep breath.

"Okay, no big deal. You've got this," she told herself, but even as she did, a feeling of dread came over her. Still, she lay back down. She wanted to close her eyes, but she didn't hear the door begin to open when she did so; it relied on her making eye contact with the silver light.

As soon as the rumbling of the door was heard, so too was the scratching. Within two or three seconds, the spiders made it to her. She nearly leapt out of her skin when she felt them crawling on her arms and neck, but she forced herself to stay still.

Her mind went blank as soon as they started crawling on her legs; her whole body was now tainted by them. She tried to keep her mouthed closed, but all she wanted to do was scream. Her body was disturbingly still; her fear overrode her brain's command to move and run from the spiders. Annabeth let out a scream when she felt one or two crawl up her shirt.

The scream attracted the rest. Soon, you'd be hard pressed to find an inch of skin visible for more than a millisecond at a time. Her screams continued, and they soon made their way into her mouth, crawling on her gums and cheeks and tongue. She didn't taste them. She never once closed her mouth after that, for fear of her chewing them and eating them. Her brain was so clogged with fear that she couldn't tell if they were crawling up her nose or crawling down her throat to block off her breath, or both. Either way, she soon started choking.

Annabeth couldn't cough; it always caught. She wanted to throw up an innumerable amount of times to get it all out of her system. She wanted to run away, but she couldn't. Her body stayed still, her brain shut off, and all she was left with was the fear, the agony, the sensation of a thousand tiny legs flitting across her skin, learning it, knowing it better than she did. She was so brain-dead that she couldn't even ask herself whether it might've been enough time for the door to open by now.

She just lay there. She just…lay there, screaming.

It was meant to be torture.

Annabeth wasn't sure if she blacked out or if it was all a hallucination. The only thing she knew was that, at some point, she was clean, free from arachnids. She lay staring straight up at the ceiling, on those same pressure plates. Her mouth was hanging open, her eyes glazed over like she was dead. The light had shut off, leaving her with the fake stars. She had no clue how long she'd been laying there, but she figured it must've been at least thirty years. At least, that's what it felt like.

Slowly, methodically, Annabeth rolled over and pushed up onto her hands and knees, and then to just her knees. She licked her lips, felt herself all over. She felt nothing and more surprisingly, tasted nothing. She expected spider blood, not believing she'd made it through without crushing some in her mouth. Instead, her mouth and lips tasted like they did in the morning after a long sleep; a bit gummy, kind of plain. She pushed herself to her feet. The ground was rough and cold on one of her feet, and Annabeth noted that she'd lost a shoe; she'd been kicking, thrashing, and she didn't ever notice. That was why she also found bruises on the backs of her arms and her heels and elbows; she'd bashed them on the ground over and over. The shoe was nowhere to be found, which meant it either was taken or devoured by the spiders.

Annabeth looked to her right, seeing the door now wide open, revealing another dark hallway. She might've found it funny. She might've, if her mind wasn't still blank from fear. One step at a time, she trudged through the empty hall, one foot bare. One of her arms hung limp at her side; it'd been bruised more, and the bone might've cracked from the pain she felt. The other hand was holding the arm, trying to offer something. She didn't try and feel her way through.

"If this place wants me dead, then so be it," she thought numbly, even as she told herself to start caring again. Somehow, she just couldn't find the will to do so. Then she saw another light, and then she came to a cliff.

It looked like a massive chasm, stretching thirty meters across. The daughter of Athena looked around, checking the wall on either side and finding nothing. She looked for an owl, but saw nothing. She looked for something, but was disappointed. She wondered if a bridge that led to the path on the other side, which she couldn't even see from the lighting, might've collapsed, perhaps just after Tempus' party had come.

Annabeth was considering just jumping off. What's the worst that could happen, that she could die? Yeah, and be sent to Elysium for the deeds she did back when she could remember her tenth birthday and wasn't a worthless piece of trash who probably killed all of her friends by laying around too long after the spiders.

It was meant to be torture.

Annabeth raised her barefoot forward, about to take the fatal plunge, when golden writing appeared on the wall. It read: "An owl cannot learn to fly without falling first. Face that, or face a worse death."

No sooner did the sound of magic writing fade than did the scratching of the spiders return. It came from where Annabeth came from, and it was getting very loud very fast. Instinct drove Annabeth's decision at that moment. She didn't wait to see the little bastards. She leapt as far out as she could, for fear of another round of spiders. Tears streamed from her face as she fell, only now remembering that she wasn't a real owl, and she couldn't fly across.

She fell, flailing for a moment. She plunged into the deepest darkness that she could fathom, and then it was all illuminated by a massive beam of light, a massive sun, right up against her. Her eyes took a moment to adjust, but when they did, she saw the ground. She was still falling, and was a ways away from the impact.

But she was falling out of the sky.

The sun glowed behind her, and she fell through misty clouds and through flocks of birds which she nearly collided with. She tumbled through the air, half-confused, half-scared out of her mind. Her mind jump-started for a few seconds as she had only about ten of them until impact. She wondered how many corpses she would see on the ground. That was her only thought as it quickly came into view. She saw six. She could name their names; Reyna, Luke, Leo, Piper, Jason…Percy.

She didn't even bother to brace herself for the impact, just let her body collide with the ground. Pain seared through every part of her body, but she didn't die nor even lose consciousness. Instead, she opened her eyes, and everything was dark again.

Her body, though physically uninjured from what was obviously a hallucination of falling, hadn't caught up with her brain, which was sending all kinds of distress signals through her nervous system. She curled up into a ball on the ground, almost going into shock from the mental jerk of her vision. Annabeth couldn't breathe until her brain caught up, which took far too long for her liking.

It took a few moments to recover, and when she did, she realized that she never wanted to feel that sense of helplessness ever again; to see her death before her was not on Annabeth's to-do list. She sat up, still nearly choking from the shock, and looked around. She was in a small, dark room, though not dark enough to where she couldn't see a bit; like a bedroom with a night-light. She drew her dagger, to serve as an even better night-light, though part of her also drew it as protection. Protection from what? She didn't have the faintest idea, except that she felt distinctly vulnerable where she was, in the fetal-position on the ground, limbs bruised and maybe cracked, senses still reeling from a hallucination, and with very little access to oxygen.

The light from her Celestial Bronze dagger was enough to reveal the bones, along with one still-decaying corpse, probably twenty years old, age of death…hard to tell, maybe fifteen at best. She gagged thinking of anyone else going through the two experiences that she just went through, numbly remembering that Tempus did so as well. It didn't register until now, that this was still the first trial. She didn't know how many more there were, hopefully just one more, but then, she'd also have to get there, which would be an ordeal in and of itself.

Once she felt somewhat able, Annabeth stood. Almost as soon as she did, more golden writing appeared. It read: "We always fall last. We force them all to jump first, seeing them fall, and then foolishly still believe we can fly. Thus is humanity. Thus are our brothers and sisters of wisdom."

Once the writing finished, a door opened to another small room. This one was lit like the spider room, half Greek fire, half Roman flower. There was a pedestal in the center with a piece of parchment. It read:

"You've done well, child of wisdom. Thus ends the first trial; you have but one more to retrieve the lost totem. You must proceed through the Ancient Lands; go to the seat of barbarism; Rome. There, you will continue to follow the Mark, until death or victory."

Annabeth barely registered the words. She didn't try to take the paper either; with her luck it would've resulted in some Indiana Jones-style trap escape sequence with a big rolling stone sphere. Another door opened after a moment, with a staircase leading up. She took them, with the journey feeling like it was taking an eternity. Finally, she saw daylight, real daylight she hoped, and she came back up into Fort Sumter. She saw it on fire.

xxxXXXxxx

The heat was almost a shock in and of itself, given the piercing cold she'd been used to for the past six months. Still, that wasn't to say it was a pleasant warmth, but instead a choking one, because Annabeth hadn't had enough of that today.

Almost as soon as she got out into open air did some of Lust's familiars zero in on her and charged. Annabeth didn't even run, still in the brain-dead mindset, not even having enough energy to get her bearings. She knew that she should run, that she should try to fight back, but a big part of her figured that whatever they could do to her wasn't as bad as what she'd just gone through.

It wasn't until they exploded into a pile of dust via a massive blast of water did she come to her senses. Percy landed in front of her, taking her hand. His eyes full of worry, his form tense. "Are you okay?" was his first question; gods bless him, he cared so much. He looked around and parried another couple of familiars' blows before kicking them away. He grabbed her hand. "We need to go."

The two started running. In the distance, at the edge of the fort's island, sat the Argo II, main engine roaring in anticipation. She saw dozens of familiars storming the place, maybe a hundred. Jason flew around the ship, slashing and blasting them away as best he could, though many still got through. Piper and Luke were going to town. Luke had far superior skill, and knew how to use Piper's own to the fullest effect, and the two had a kind of rhythm going to where Piper would kill an enemy, and Luke would throw an enemy into her next swing, as he wasn't using a weapon of his own. Leo was doing his best to stoke the fires on the airship, trying desperately to put them out; he was actually pretty successful, adding it to his own flames using them, and chucking fire bombs off the side at the approaching enemies.

Soon, Percy decided that they were moving too slowly, and they were, so he just up and hoisted Annabeth into his arms and ran, expertly weaving through any attacks that came their way.

Jason saw them coming. "Leo! Start it up!" he yelled over the chaos, and the smaller boy scrambled up to the controls. The engines roared to life, they'd been on standby before, as the airship started gently floating, ready to blast off. Percy jumped onto the wall of the fort, and then shot them up into the air using his water, aiming for the deck of the ship.

Unfortunately, something crashed into them. Percy was sent careening back into the fort, unharmed from his landing, but now surrounded on all sides by the enemy, including Lust, said object that crashed into him. Annabeth, meanwhile, was sent flying off into the ocean. She attempted to slow her fall, but it didn't help much. Luckily, Jason saw the crash and dove to catch her, getting to her right before she hit the water. Her heart nearly stopped from the reinvigorated shock of falling, and went quiet, clutching for dear life onto Jason, even after he set her down on the deck of the ship.

"P-Percy…" she stuttered, almost inaudibly over the chaos. Jason looked back to the fort, seeing him up against the entirety of Lust's army. A powerful feeling came over him, a dangerous feeling.

"I should just leave him to fight," Jason thought, for a terrifying moment. "It'd be just like a Greek to die because he ran off on his own."

"We need to get to him somehow," Luke said, in a strong, commanding voice. It shook Jason out of his thoughts and back to his senses.

"Hey, nu-uh, you can do that, but my baby isn't going anywhere near that death camp with the side exposed," Leo claimed, pointing out a few control cannon controls to Grover so he could do something now that the deck was clear. Piper had picked off the last straggler or two, kicking them over the edge.

"We'll be torn apart if we try and get close," Jason agreed. "Even with our artillery."

"Who said we need to shoot at them? Let's ram right through them and take off! Real hero-like!" Leo suggested as a massive Celestial Bronze ram began protruding from the bow, right below Festus' head. "Permission to charge?"

"Wait," Jason held up his hand, examining the faraway battle.

The Titan Slayer blasted a massive hole into the enemy line and charged, his blade arcing through anyone or anything unlucky enough to be caught in its path. Lust followed suit, leaping when Percy did to escape. The Giant caught him, and the two tumbled out of the sky.

They landed on the water, yes, on the water. Lust attempted a quick kill, but Percy wouldn't allow that. This Giant didn't seem to display the same overwhelming speed and strength that Wrath had, Jason bet. "Come on, you bastard!" Percy challenged. "Give me everything you've got!"

"Impudent…" Lust growled, charging forward.

"Now!" Jason yelled. Percy sensed the ship crash down to the waves. He smirked at the Giant and slipped under the water right as the Argo II barreled through, smashing the ram straight into Lust's face, sending him flying back into the fort.

Archers had mounted on the walls, and were quickly targeting the demigods and the main thrusters. Their view, however, was soon blocked, by a massive tidal wave which rose out of the ocean. Percy rose with it, his veins visible all over as he strained from the pressure. The wave reached about thirty meters in height before the son of Poseidon's control broke, and the wave was sent crashing into the fort, drowning all of Lust's familiars. Lust took the tsunami like it was nothing. He was actually laughing.

"Go ahead, Titan Slayer! Slay as many of my minions as you wish, but for every one you destroy, I'll make three more!" he roared, as another army materialized itself. Instead of fight them, however, Percy turned around and strained his powers again. He split the ocean to the east, creating a wide enough crevice for the Argo II to slip into. "Follow me!" he called, before diving beneath the waves. Leo punched it and shot into the crevice as archers shot their arrows. The water crashed back into place behind the airship, the water stopping the arrows in their tracks.

Lust's anger was extraordinary. If he had a Divine Form, he would've gone into it in rage, but he didn't. Instead, he tore that godforsaken fort to pieces before reporting back to Pride. He'd failed.

For now, the Argo II crew was safe, and they had a new destination to go to.

Author's Note:

Uh...yeah. That happened.

Sorry for the late upload; me and my friend were bingeing the first season of The Legend of Korra. I wanted him to watch it, and it was a blast, especially with his reactions as first time viewer lol

Oh, and I'm sorry for how I first uploaded this; so full of typos and mistakes. I'll try much harder not to repeat that embarrassment.

Anyway, thanks so much for reading. J, I'm sorry I'm costing you sleep when you have work tomorrow (not really sorry lol), and I'll see you all tomorrow!