It didn't take long for the quest to go downhill.

After escaping the exploded bus and the three demon grandmothers, they walked aimlessly for what felt like forever in New Jersey until they saw the curios shop and smelled the food.

Of course, it turned out that Aunty M was Medusa, which reminded Percy that Pegasus was his uncle. What a strange world he lived in.

She thought his Dad was Poseidon. Clearly, she needed to update wherever she got her godly gossip from.

They somehow lucked out and managed to behead her like in the myths. It was really gross.

Percy had been halfway through writing a pleasant get well soon letter to the gods, since he was planning on sending the head to Olympus as a formal complaint against being forced on a quest. But Annabeth had rolled her eyes and filled out the slip to take the head to camp as their spoils of war and wrote a quick note in Greek to warn the campers and Chiron what it was.

Percy still finished his note and decided to just tear it into little pieces to get his anger at the gods out.

They unanimously decided they didn't want to stick around in the lair of the monster they just killed and after pocketing the address for the Underworld and emptying the cash register they walked as far away as they could until it was too dark, and they decided to just camp out in a clearing.

The clearing was a mess.

At a guess some of the local teens probably used the area for parties or something. There were all kinds of trash littering the area.

They argued about whether to start a fire or not, but ultimately decided against it. Which all lead to his shared odd thought of the day being whether burning the trash as a sacrifice to the gods would make it smell any better. Annabeth told him to shut up and go to sleep, but Grover cracked a smile.

After Annabeth rolled over to try and get some sleep, Grover told Percy about Pan and how nature was supposed to be. Percy thought it was admirable that the satyrs were still searching for Pan. He didn't really have any big plans or aspirations for the future. Knowing who his father was now, maybe he'd get a job at an aquarium or something.

Then again that was presuming they survived this quest.

By the time morning came around Percy wished he had taken the full night watch instead of his weird dreams.

The less said about Gladiola the pink poodle the better.

The important thing was that they had a ride west. It was even relatively peaceful for a while. Then they made the awful decision to visit the St Louis Arch.

Percy was beginning to suspect that Zeus didn't care whether or not Percy was trying to find his bolt to return it. First the lightning bolt striking the greyhound bus, now sending the mother of monsters and her son to kill him.

There had to be some kind of rule against actively trying to kill demigods on quests. How did Zeus expect him to get the master bolt back to him if he was dead?

Luckily, he managed to dodge both the fire breathing head and the poisonous snake tail. Unluckily, in doing so he fell out of the hole the Chimera had burned into the floor, right into the Mississippi river. He was surprised to have survived the fall. He was even more surprised to be able to breath underwater.

By the time, the ghost like nereid lady who reminded him of his mom showed up Percy was done with surprises for the day.

She told him that his father had wanted to come, but he was being watched too closely to directly intervene. She was one of his great-aunts, the daughters of Nereus. Before she had to leave, she told him to go to the Santa Monica pier.

Percy did his best to slip out of the river and into the crowd unnoticed and thought he succeeded for the most part. He managed to find Annabeth and Grover in the chaos, and they made their train just in time for departure.

(Godly interlude)

Triton was pissed.

He hadn't had very many demigod children, especially not on land, and he had grown fond of watching over his mortal son and all the trouble the child found himself in. But he had hoped that Percy could live a mostly normal life without ever needing to know about or interact with his side of the family. He would always be proud of Percy; he didn't need to become a hero.

Someone just had to stir up trouble. And Zeus, of course, placed the blame at his father's feet as though Poseidon would ever stoop so low as to stealing one of his brothers' symbols of power. The sea gods were perfectly happy with their domain and tridents, being in charge of all the other gods was hardly of any interest to them.

Triton had hoped that by claiming Percy he could stop the false accusations lobbed at his father about Percy's parentage. Poseidon had not broken the Oath and Percy had not even been aware of the existence of the gods when the Master Bolt was stolen. Zeus would not listen to reason.

And then there was his other uncle who had taken similar action toward his son. As a messenger god he was far more mobile and could afford to look in on his son more often than his other messenger cousins who had other roles and responsibilities that ate away all their time. He knew that Hades had sent the Fury that infiltrated Percy's school. The question was why.

Even after he had claimed Percy settling the argument over his parentage and lifting some of the accusations lobbed at his father, Hades had still sent all three Furies after his son at the start of his quest for no apparent reason and Triton was determined to discover the cause and resolve it before his son would be tricked to enter the Underworld in the guise of a quest.

But there were other reasons to visit his uncle as well. Namely the wrongful abduction of Sally Jackson.

He was pissed and he made sure Hades knew it. It was not the first time that a sea deity had threaten to flood the Underworld and it likely wouldn't be the last.

Hades seemed rather surprised by his rant, but Triton would count the whole episode as a win. After all, his uncle had promised in the end (on the river of oaths) that he would cease his attempts to harm or endanger Percy and his friends on their quest. He hadn't let him see Sally though.

Triton half hoped that his storming of the Underworld would get back to Olympus just so the others would think twice before going after his son.

Okay. But would sacrificing trash to the gods make it smell better?

You decide.