Hey guys! I hope you all enjoy this chapters so please do review, I love hearing what people think. Next chapter should be quite a fun one with a little twist I hope you guys like it. And please do tell me if you think I should split this one in two- I know the part where I would split it into two fics, I'm just worried it might be ridiculously long if I don't.

Percy felt her shoulders slumping at that realization- because she wasn't a bully. She was kind, she prided herself on that fact, and she dropped down on a tree stump. "Fine. Fine that's fine. Then can you at least help me figure out some way to fix things?"

"It no-" the Naiad blinked, a startled look on her face, "Wait- did you just-"

"I pride myself on being nothing like Hercules. I don't want to hurt you like he did." Percy huffed, shaking her head "It's your river- even if I could wrest
control from you I won't because that would be cruel."

"Oh." The Naiad looked stunned, and after a moment she sat down in front of Percy, "I- thank you." she tilted her head, staring at Percy for a long moment, "What happens to you and your friends if you don't clean the stables?"

"I have until sunset- if I haven't pulled it off by then... Geryon's going to sell us to the Titans." to Alabaster- the thought made Percy feel sick.

"Oh." the Naiad looked incredibly sorry at that, "I'm sorry."

"Can you help me figure something out. Please?"

The Naiad went silent, a thoughtful look on her face for several long moments before she slowly opened her mouth. "Well.. maybe. I'll tell you a secret
daughter of Poseidon. Scoop up some dirt?"

"Uh- okay." Percy bent down slowly and she scooped up a handful of the Texas dirt.

"Now look at it closely and tell me what you see."

And Percy did as she was told, examining the dirt carefully- it didn't look like anything special at first.

It was dry and black and spotted with tiny clumps of white rock. Except- Percy's brows furrowed as she lifted her hand to look closer, brushing her finger
through the dirt and nudging one of the little clumps of white rock.

But they weren't rocks. They were tiny little shells.

"They-"

"Those are shells." The Naiad smiled faintly when Percy lifted her gaze to look at her, "Petrified seashells. Millions of years ago, before even the time of the gods, when only Gaea and Ouranos reigned, this land was under the water. It was a part of the sea."

"That..." Percy blinked slowly, "I mean, that's really cool and all but... how does that help me now?"

"You're not so different from me, demigod. Even when I'm out of the water, the water is within me. It is my life source." She stepped back, put her feet in the river, and smiled. "I hope you find a way to rescue your friends."

And with that she turned to liquid and melted into the river.

Percy stared at the spot where the Naiad had been for a long moment before she let out a huff and shook her head. Well, that was probably only slightly less cryptic than Quintus and Hera's advice.

Well. There was only one thing to do now.

Percy got to her feet, staring at the river for a long moment before she shook her head and headed back up the hill to the stables.

By the time she made it up there the sun had gone down some- it was touching the hills. Percy grimaced, running her fingers through her hair before she dipped her hand into her pocket, pulling out an elastic and pulling it up into a messy high ponytail to keep it out of her face- she needed to be able to focus and not have it fall into her face right now.

Someone must have come by while she had been down by the river because the horses had been fed- they were tearing into huge animal carcasses.

What type of animal it had been was a mystery- and it wasn't one Percy planned on ever solving if she was honest. And she pulled a face, nose scrunching up slightly. She hadn't thought it was possible for the stables to get any worse but fifty horses tearing into raw meat definitely made it worse.

"Seafood!" One of the horses spotted her, "Come in, we're still hungry!"

"Uh huh." Percy rolled her eyes, "I'm sure you are. But I'm not horse food buddy."

Okay. So, she had to focus now, she was running out of time. She needed to clean the stables. She needed to figure something out.

The Naiad had said that the sea was a part of her. That the water was a part of her. But what was that supposed to mean? She huffed under her breath, looking at the little shell she was still holding, tossing it up and down as she thought, starting at the mountain of dung.

When she couldn't think of anything Percy shook her head, tossing the little shell into the pile of dung, more out of frustration than anything else and she closed her eyes, taking a deep breath- and then they shot opened again- there was a noise, it kind of reminded her of the sound of a tap, a trickle of water- her eyes automatically moved to the source- the spot where she'd tossed the shell.

A tiny spout of water was shooting out of the muck.

Percy's mouth dropped open in surprise and she swallowed hard. Okay. Okay that was something new, water out of nowhere. The shell, it was coming from the shell. She closed her eyes, focusing as she did- and there was a whoosh and a splashing sound as it got louder and when Percy opened her eyes Percy saw that the water had shot three feet into the air and it kept bubbling away.

Percy a tingle of hope as she stared at it for a long moment.

The sea was a part of her. If she had some anchor- something that had once been in the sea she could call on it's memory of the sea, use it as an anchor to summon up water-" she let out a gleeful noise. That was definitely not something she'd done before.

A couple of the horses came over to check the spout out, one put his mouth to the spring and recoiled.

"Yuck. Salty!"

And that just confirmed Percy's belief that it was from the sea. It sounded and felt insane but... but it was happening. She'd done it and if she'd done it once she could do it again.

She bent over quickly, scooping up more dirt into the palm of her hand, plucking the shells out of it and sprinting along the fence, tossing the shells in amongst the dung- each of them spouting streams of water as she frantically focused and summoned it up, springs of saltwater erupting wherever a shell had landed.

"Stop!" The horses cried. "Meat is good! Baths are bad!"

And Percy let out a giddy laugh- this was good, she was making process. She just needed to figure out how to get rid of the water and dung without poisoning the river.

Then she noticed that the water wasn't running out of the stables or flowing downhill like it normally would. It was just bubbling around each spring and sinking into the ground, taking the dung with it. The horse poop was dissolving in the saltwater leaving regular old dirt.

There was another laugh slipping past her lips as she focused harder, "MORE!" and she felt a tugging sensation in her gut- the waterspouts exploded, biger and stronger, twenty feet into the air as the horses went crazy, running back and forth as the geysers sprayed them from all directions. Mountains of poop began to melt away.

And Percy felt a flood of panic as soon as she felt the tugging sensation- she'd felt it before of course, but only ever when she'd lost control- the last time she'd felt it had been when she'd thought Nico had died- she remembered the amount of power she'd used- she'd made the earth shake in her grief- and worse, she'd used her powers and she'd hurt Bianca, Zoe and Thalia, she'd used a side of her powers that terrified her- she hadn't been able to do it since then, not even to Alabaster- and the similarity of the feeling had her losing focus- and the sprouts got even bigger in her lapse of control, the tugging becoming painful- Percy let out a panicked pained noise at the feeling, dropping to her knees as the water got higher- if it wasn't so terrifying it would be exhilarating.

She had no doubt that if she kept going she could flood the hillside- bring back the sea just as it had once been.

The water was sloshing everywhere as one of the horses cried "Stop, lady! Stop please!" And the horses were all drenched, panicking and slipping in the mud- and it was mud now. The poop was completely gone, dissolved and stolen away by the sea water. It wasn't all dissolving away now, there was too much and it was flooding the stables- the pain got worse and Percy clutched her stomach, heart pounding as she tried to focus "Stop-" her voice cracked, "Stop!" the pain made it hard to focus, the water was coming from her, it was a part of her.

If she didn't stop it soon then she'd be poisoning the river with the saltwater anyway.

She felt her desperation rising as she saw that it was starting to trickle out of the stable, forming streams that would head downhill towards the river and she let out a scream- and she was half convinced that the others would be able to hear it, "STOP!" and then, as suddenly as they'd started the geysers shut down, the water stopping- and Percy flopped forward, face first in the mud, panting and shivering, she felt cold, but she managed to push herself up onto her elbows, lifting her head to look at the stable in front of her.

It was clean now, a field of wet salty mud and fifty horses that had been cleaned so thoroughly that their coats were gleaming. Even the meat scraps between their teeth had been washed out.

"We won't eat you!" the horses wailed. "Please lady! No more salty baths!"

And Percy managed to push herself up so that she was on her knees, forcing herself not to sway- best if she put on a strong act or they might change their minds and eat her so that couldn't do it again.

"Okay." she managed to make her voice steady despite the fact that she felt about ready to keel over. "On one condition. "You only eat the food your handlers give you from now on. No people. Or I'll be back and the saltwater bath you'll get then will be a lot worse that it was this time."

The horses whinnied and made me a whole lot of promises that they would be good flesh-eating horses from now on, but Percy didn't stick around to listen to them beg her to never ever come back- because the sun was still climbing down the sky- and she knew Geryon's type. She might have cleaned the stable before sunset, but if she didn't make it back to the house to tell him before the sun had set he'd say she hadn't held up her part of the bargain and he'd sell them anyway.

Percy honestly wasn't sure how she did it, by the time she reached the house she was behind exhausted, though she pushed it down firmly, she had to look strong or Geryon would probably stab them in the back- and gods he'd do it anyway. She had to go in there ready for a fight.

So she approached, her back straight, expression grim, hand in her pocket, ready to flick the cap off Riptide the second she needed to.

When she reached the house she could smell barbecue- and she felt her stomach grumbling in complaint- gods but she was hungry, she'd spent most of the day moving and doing things- and she hadn't eaten since breakfast that morning.

When she reached the deck it was set up for a party. Streams and balloons decorated the railing.

Geryon was flipping burgers on a huge barbecue cooker made from an oil drum.

Eurytion was lounging at one of the picnic tables, picking his fingernails with a knife. The two headed dog was sniffing the ribs and burgers that were frying on the grill.

Percy's eyes shifted and she spotted the others, tied up like animals, wrists and ankles roped together with their mouths gagged, tossed in the corner like the trash- and Percy felt her blood boiling when she saw that there was blood on Leo's chin and his cheek looked like it was starting to bruise from a punch, though seeing that Nico had shifted so that he was slightly in front of Leo was kind of heartwarming- he'd clearly positioned himself so that he was almost a human shield.

Percy forced down her fury, storming up the steps as she called out, "It's done. I cleaned the stables Geryon. Now you let them go, we made a deal."

Geryon turned to look towards her- he wore an apron on each chest, with one word on each, so together they spelled out 'Kiss the chef'. "Did you now." he raised an eyebrow, "And how did you manage that?"

"I'm a daughter of Poseidon." Percy's voice was cool. "I summoned the sea and it took away the muck."

"Hm, smart. Very ingenious- and more than I expected. Of course it would have been better if you'd poisoned that pesky naiad but no matter."

"I held up my end of the bargain. Now you hold up yours. We had a deal. Let them go."

"Ah, well you see Princess I've been thinking about that." Geryon lowered his barbecue tongs and left the grill, moving towards her, "And my problem is, if I let them go, I don't get paid."

"What a shock." Percy's voice was suddenly like ice. "I could have never guessed that you'd double cross us." the sarcasm was very thick, and Geryon laughed.

"What can I say, I can't resist."